https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ty/661199/
Thought this was a great read, albeit quite long, on the failures of progressives.
I grew up about a 45 minute drive from San Francisco and have fond memories, but all reports are that it is a shithole of a city nowadays.
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A choice passage:
One day, Berlinn...came across someone else’s son. “He was naked in front of Safeway … And he was saying he was God and he was eating a cardboard box.”
She called the police. Officers arrived but said there was nothing they could do; he said he didn’t want help, and he wasn’t hurting anyone.
What happened to the man at the Safeway — tis a parable of a sort of progressive-libertarian nihilism, of the belief that any intervention that has to be imposed on a vulnerable person is so fundamentally flawed and problematic that the best thing to do is nothing at all.
How SF Became a Failed City
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How SF Became a Failed City
"An adventurer comes back and tells you what they did, while an explorer comes back and tells you what they learned."
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Ronald RayGun
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How SF Became a Failed City
I bailed on Cali for Oregon 19 years ago this Halloween, but I grew up in Sac/The Bay. In the early/mid 90s, San Francisco was the absolute shit. Great food, music, shopping, and my favorite part, an official Namco arcade @ the Wharf. The tweakers & junkies ruined everything. Some people call them "homeless" as though them not having a home is the issue. It's sketchy as all hell even in Sac now. Glad I bought a house in the middle of nowhere so I could be the nobody I want to be completely unmolested.
"Sorry I didn't save the world, my friend. I was too busy building mine again" - Kendrick Lamar
How SF Became a Failed City
The destruction was in part due to a huge influx of high-salary tech employees which drove real estate/rent prices through the roof, eliminating many of the lower-income artist types that made the city so interesting.
Followed by a bunch of goofy, failed liberal policies spiking crime, drugs, and homelessness...as well as fucking up schools.
I'm happy as well living somewhere else.
Followed by a bunch of goofy, failed liberal policies spiking crime, drugs, and homelessness...as well as fucking up schools.
I'm happy as well living somewhere else.
"An adventurer comes back and tells you what they did, while an explorer comes back and tells you what they learned."
How SF Became a Failed City
I've always hated SF. I grew up in Pleasanton, about 50 minutes from SF, and my mom and aunts used to take us all the time. I hated it every time.
During and after college, I would spend a lot of time down there as most of my friends wanted to go or lived there in 4 bedroom apartments with like 6 or 7 guys sharing rooms, thinking they'd find a decent chick who was willing to fuck in what amounted to a dorm room and that was where my social circle wanted to go.
Even back then, it was an okay city that I didn't enjoy. I was there a couple of years ago and was stunned at how bad it had gotten. You'd always see some random weirdo roaming around, but outside of Hunter's Point, you didn't see what amounted to open-air drug markets.
Rich liberals tend to live in a fantasyland, and while we need compassion in society, they tend to go overboard, and then have the money to get their pipedream philosophy transformed into policy.
Jordan Peterson says it well when he says that you need conservatives because they tend to be best at organizing and making things more efficient, and you need liberals because they tend to be creative and compassionate. Society tends to suck when you don't have both.
Some of the insane responses in deep-red states to the draft leak on Roe v Wade is a good example of conservatism run amok, and NYC, LA, Portland, etc are good examples of left-liberalism gone wild. .
During and after college, I would spend a lot of time down there as most of my friends wanted to go or lived there in 4 bedroom apartments with like 6 or 7 guys sharing rooms, thinking they'd find a decent chick who was willing to fuck in what amounted to a dorm room and that was where my social circle wanted to go.
Even back then, it was an okay city that I didn't enjoy. I was there a couple of years ago and was stunned at how bad it had gotten. You'd always see some random weirdo roaming around, but outside of Hunter's Point, you didn't see what amounted to open-air drug markets.
Rich liberals tend to live in a fantasyland, and while we need compassion in society, they tend to go overboard, and then have the money to get their pipedream philosophy transformed into policy.
Jordan Peterson says it well when he says that you need conservatives because they tend to be best at organizing and making things more efficient, and you need liberals because they tend to be creative and compassionate. Society tends to suck when you don't have both.
Some of the insane responses in deep-red states to the draft leak on Roe v Wade is a good example of conservatism run amok, and NYC, LA, Portland, etc are good examples of left-liberalism gone wild. .
"Gentle in what you do, Firm in how you do it"
- Buck Brannaman
- Buck Brannaman
How SF Became a Failed City
Nice post, Baffled! I liked this part in particular:
"Jordan Peterson says it well when he says that you need conservatives because they tend to be best at organizing and making things more efficient, and you need liberals because they tend to be creative and compassionate. Society tends to suck when you don't have both."
My liberal friends want to point the finger at right-wing extremists, while pretending left-wing extremists aren't a problem too. And vice versa with my conservative friends.
Crazy times.
"Jordan Peterson says it well when he says that you need conservatives because they tend to be best at organizing and making things more efficient, and you need liberals because they tend to be creative and compassionate. Society tends to suck when you don't have both."
My liberal friends want to point the finger at right-wing extremists, while pretending left-wing extremists aren't a problem too. And vice versa with my conservative friends.
Crazy times.
"An adventurer comes back and tells you what they did, while an explorer comes back and tells you what they learned."
How SF Became a Failed City
A SW engineer named Jennifer Wong created a poop map of San Fransisco. Any 311 calls were added to the map. A few people shit in the streets in San Fransisco.
http://mochimachine.org/wasteland/
Retail theft caused Walgreens to cut back on San Fransisco.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ime-debate
People get the government they elect. If they neglect the homeless while letting them shit on the street or shoplift, that's what happens.
Locals got tired of San Fransisco DA Chesa Boudin slapping people on the wrist. They tossed him out. I think the War on Drugs drives some of the "lock 'em up" bullshit. We need to reevaluate the War on Drugs, not this racial crap about bail. Marijuana laws started as racist shit. Start there.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chesa-boud ... -recalled/
https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... on-results
http://mochimachine.org/wasteland/
Retail theft caused Walgreens to cut back on San Fransisco.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ime-debate
People get the government they elect. If they neglect the homeless while letting them shit on the street or shoplift, that's what happens.
Locals got tired of San Fransisco DA Chesa Boudin slapping people on the wrist. They tossed him out. I think the War on Drugs drives some of the "lock 'em up" bullshit. We need to reevaluate the War on Drugs, not this racial crap about bail. Marijuana laws started as racist shit. Start there.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chesa-boud ... -recalled/
https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... on-results
Don't like yourself too much.
How SF Became a Failed City
Hopefully the failed policies in cities like San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland will prevent them from spreading further.
My buddy is very liberal and lives in Portland. He says the running trails are riddled with homeless and drug needles. His 5-year old daughter asks him, "Daddy, are all these people camping?" He teaches history in the public schools and last year a fellow teacher condemned him in an e-mail for being white and therefore unqualified to teach history to non-whites. Normal liberals, like my friend, are fed up with the bullshit. I hope the same for normal conservatives at shit like the looney tunes who stormed the Capitol.
My buddy is very liberal and lives in Portland. He says the running trails are riddled with homeless and drug needles. His 5-year old daughter asks him, "Daddy, are all these people camping?" He teaches history in the public schools and last year a fellow teacher condemned him in an e-mail for being white and therefore unqualified to teach history to non-whites. Normal liberals, like my friend, are fed up with the bullshit. I hope the same for normal conservatives at shit like the looney tunes who stormed the Capitol.
"An adventurer comes back and tells you what they did, while an explorer comes back and tells you what they learned."
How SF Became a Failed City
I'm an optimist, but optimism doesn't mean things will be better soon, like next month, or later this year.
When you go down a dumb enough path for a while, it takes a while to deal with the consequences. SF recalled at least one person from their school board, recalled Chesa Boudin (the son of actual domestic terrorists), and seem like they are ready to move from the left of Che Guevara towards the right of him, but the left of everyone else.
Maybe it'll get a lot better, or maybe they'll need to continue a rightward shift until they're at least left of center. That area will likely never be what you'd consider "conservative," and I don't think it would work very well for anyone right of center to be in charge. The Bay Area is pretty Bohemian at heart, even with the demographic and economic changes brought about by Big Tech.
When you go down a dumb enough path for a while, it takes a while to deal with the consequences. SF recalled at least one person from their school board, recalled Chesa Boudin (the son of actual domestic terrorists), and seem like they are ready to move from the left of Che Guevara towards the right of him, but the left of everyone else.
Maybe it'll get a lot better, or maybe they'll need to continue a rightward shift until they're at least left of center. That area will likely never be what you'd consider "conservative," and I don't think it would work very well for anyone right of center to be in charge. The Bay Area is pretty Bohemian at heart, even with the demographic and economic changes brought about by Big Tech.
"Gentle in what you do, Firm in how you do it"
- Buck Brannaman
- Buck Brannaman