from the maybe-someone-doesn't-like-the-color dept.
5 shuttle buses chartered by Google, Apple apparently vandalized on I-280, possibly with pellet gun
Shuttle buses carrying Apple and Google employees were apparently vandalized Tuesday while traveling to and from the South Bay, officials said. No injuries were reported.
Five buses driving in the northbound and southbound directions of Interstate 280 between Highway 84 and Highway 85 were damaged during the Tuesday morning and evening commute, said California Highway Patrol Officer Art Montiel. Four buses were chartered by Apple and one by Google, the officer said. The Apple campus is located off I-280 in Cupertino. Google headquarters is in Mountain View off Highway 101.
According to Montiel, several bus windows were damaged and cracked, possibly by pellet guns, BB guns or rocks.
According to an article on TechCrunch
In response, we've learned that Apple has rerouted the bus routes for employees living in San Francisco, adding 30-45 minutes of commute time each way, as the company works with authorities to see what exactly is going on.
Also at The Guardian.
Related Stories
Google announces $1B, 10-year plan to add thousands of homes to Bay Area
The housing crisis in the Bay Area, particularly in San Francisco, is a complex and controversial topic with no one-size-fits-all solution — but a check for a billion dollars is about as close as you're going to get, and Google has just announced it's writing one. In a blog post, CEO Sundar Pichai explained that in order to "build a more helpful Google," the company would be making this major investment in what it believes is the most important social issue in the area: housing.
San Francisco is famously among the most expensive places in the world to live now, and many residents of the city, or perhaps I should say former residents, have expressed a deep and bitter hatred for the tech industry they believe converted the area to a playground for the rich while leaving the poor and disadvantaged to fend for themselves.
Google itself has been the subject of many a protest, and no doubt it is aware that its reputation as a friendly and progressive company is in danger from this and numerous other issues, from AI ethics to advertising policies. To remedy this, and perhaps even partly as an act of conscience, Google has embarked on a billion-dollar charm offensive that will add thousands of new homes to the Bay Area over the next ten years.
$750 million of that comes in the form of repurposing its own commercial real estate for residential purposes. This will allow for 15,000 new homes "at all income levels," and while Pichai said that they hope this will help address the "chronic shortage of affordable housing options," the blog post did not specify how many of these new homes would actually be affordable, and where they might be.
Another $250 million will be invested to "provide incentives to enable developers to build at least 5,000 affordable housing units across the market".
They should build an arcology or giant pod hotel.
Also at NPR.
Previously: "It's a Perfect Storm": Homeless Spike in Rural California Linked to Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley Charter Buses Vandalized by Pellet/BB Guns or Rocks
Related: Soaring Rents in Portland, Oregon Cause Homelessness Crisis
City of San Francisco Says It's Illegal to Live in a Box
San Francisco Restaurants Can't Afford Waiters, so they Put Diners to Work
In San Francisco, Making a Living from Your Billionaire Neighbor's Trash
A Rogue Coder Turned a Parking Spot Into a Coworking Space
Apple wants affordable housing in California—but laws stand in the way
Apple has pledged $2.5 billion to help address California's affordable-housing crisis, the company announced on Monday. In recent years, the San Francisco Bay Area has become the most expensive housing market in America. Los Angeles also suffers from housing costs far above the national average.
Apple's $2.5 billion package includes several different initiatives. Apple will offer a $1 billion line of credit to organizations building housing for low-income people.
[...] Apple's commitment follows on the heels of similar announcements by other technology giants:
- In January, Microsoft said it would provide $500 million in grants and loans to promote affordable housing in the Seattle area and aid the homeless.
- In June, Google announced a $1 billion initiative, including $750 million worth of Google-owned land, to support the development of at least 20,000 new housing units "at all income levels" in the San Francisco Bay Area.
- In October, Facebook unveiled its own initiative to offer $1 billion in grants and loans to support the construction of 20,000 housing units in the region.
Apple's initiative is larger than the other programs and appears to be more focused on low-income housing.
But there are some problems that can't be immediately solved with money:
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @05:41PM (40 children)
Hey billionaire scum, since you outright refuse to pay your taxes and you outright refuse to create jobs, how about you pay for a basic income. The alternative is we will murder you all. Your choice.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @05:58PM (19 children)
Yes, we will kill you because you have a job that we can't do. Everyone who does jobs that I can't do needs to move out. Whoever is left will have to hire me because I am entitled to that job.
The "have-nots" are quite the entitled set, now aren't they? "I'm not moving to where the jobs are, I DEMAND you bring me jobs that I can do HERE!!!"
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @06:16PM (3 children)
You imply the have-nots can't do tech jobs, and you have no idea what you are talking about. The billionaire tech giants refuse to hire locals who do have the tech skills and can do the tech jobs. H1Bs are just cheaper to hire and cheaper to bus in.
There isn't any place where US citizens can move to in search of jobs when employers refuse to employ US citizens.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Thursday January 18 2018, @06:38PM (1 child)
Don't assume that the people being bussed in are H1B's. Most local papers say that they are causing the rents to raise and gentrifying neighborhoods that poorer people have been living in. But, yes, there is a *lot* of local resentment.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @06:56PM
Let's bus the poor people to the coal mines. Problem solved.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday January 18 2018, @06:53PM
These buses are bringing people from San Francisco. San Francisco is one of the most expensive cities in the USA.
Those low wage H1-Bs can't afford to live in SF.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @06:16PM (2 children)
Your thinking is entirely constrained by the capitalist mode of production.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @06:20PM (1 child)
I will gladly pay you never for a burrito now.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @06:35PM
Stand and deliver! Your lunch money or your lunch!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday January 18 2018, @07:27PM (11 children)
You must be under the mistaken impression that (A) these folks can easily move to another area, and (B) they have the skillset that the jobs that exist in these other places are looking for. For instance, unemployment in North Dakota is quite low due to the oil business, but that doesn't mean that somebody has the ability to sell all their belongings and/or rent a moving truck and somehow get to Bismarck and immediately get a job as a roughneck and move into a nice apartment. And remember, they very likely don't have easy Internet access either, or the skills they'd need to quickly organize all that online before the public library tells them to go away.
The "have-nots" think they ought to have some sort of viable way to keep a roof over their head and food on their plate. I don't consider that unreasonable. If I were in charge of things, what I'd do is suggest to the companies in North Dakota that are having a hard time finding people to be actively recruiting and training people from Detroit, San Francisco, and other places with lots of people desperate for work, complete with relocation packages and such. That's not happening, because companies don't like investing in their employees anymore.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @09:06PM (8 children)
People more and more will not move to where the jobs are (it is easy to Google and find that same article written almost yearly for decades now). Mobility for employment has been in steady decline over the last several decades. They're facing that in the Rust Belt now. A good chunk of people are not going through retraining education that is offered to them because they don't want to move to get a job. Moving is greatly unsettling to a family to be sure, but if your manufacturing job is gone, don't expect much sympathy if your unemployment plan is to sit around watching Fox News and bitching about why can't someone bring back your 1950's-era job (not to mention complaining about all those "welfare queens" in the big Liberal Cities who spend all day sitting around collecting their money for not working; the irony is very strong here).
In the 70's the inner city poor started moving out towards the suburbs around many major cities. People in the suburbs didn't want them moving in because the property values were falling (but if you opposed them, you were a racist). Twenty to thirty years later people are moving back and "gentrifying" the inner cities (but opposing that doesn't make you a racist). San Fran is going through their own version of this, but instead of there being a race angle to it, there is a class angle because now even the whites are being pushed out by other whites. Too many people out there think "remember that one year with Haight-Ashbury? That was SO cool. I'm angry that it can't stay like that forever." Populations ebb and flow with the time and economy.
I agree that companies, and governments, could and should do more to get people to move (tax write offs for selling your house at a loss, etc.), but it is quite arrogant to not only expect, but demand, that the rest of society bends to your will and wishes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @09:13PM
After I submitted the above post, I saw this one [soylentnews.org] which essentially sums up that attitude better than I could explain it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday January 19 2018, @12:56AM (6 children)
That's a not-very-accurate over-simplification of what happened, and is still happening. But the main driving force of all of it is the desire of white people to be far away from black people.
In the early 20th century, a lot of black people moved from the south (where many black families had been since slavery) up to cities in the north, because there was better work than sharecropping available to them. Thanks to rental discrimination and later Federal Housing Authority policies, they were forced to live only in particular areas of town, like Harlem, and as they moved in the white people moved away. By the 1950's, cities were divided up into white areas and black areas via redlining. Suburbs were built specifically to be whites-only areas away from all the black people, enforced by the developers and housing covenants, and the FHA backed bank loans to white people who wanted to move there. In the late 1970's, the Community Reinvestment Act was passed in an attempt to undo redlining and give black people a chance of buying homes, but that law wasn't really enforced until the late 1990's (I worked with somebody who's job was to catch banks not following the law, but that person didn't work for the government, they worked for a non-profit). What changed in the late 1990's is that instead of refusing loans outright, they could now push black families into predatory subprime loans, which they did. Black families, though, were willing to take up the chance to become homeowners for the first time, and did.
As far as why black people moved towards the suburbs, it was largely for the same reasons white people usually cite for preferring the suburbs: Lower crime rates, better schools, nicer stores, etc.
None of which explains the following: Why is it that when black people move into a suburb, when nothing else has changed, it's now seen as a "bad area" and property values drop? There are 3 answers, basically:
1. A lot of white people don't want their kids going to school with black kids.
2. A lot of white people think black people necessarily bring crime.
3. Enough people think 1 & 2 that the property-value drop becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as people sell their homes trying to get out before its value drops.
You'll notice the first two answers are indeed racist.
That's still going on, too - I, a white guy, was living in a suburb just a year ago that's about 50-50 black-white, and when I mentioned that a lot of well-meaning white people were saying things like "But isn't it unsafe?" and "I thought that was a bad neighborhood". The thing is, it was and still is a pleasant place to live, and the rate of violent crime is lower than many of the other areas nearby. I routinely walked around my neighborhood without anybody giving me the slightest bit of trouble. The black folks around were engaged in such dangerous activities as mowing the lawn, throwing around a football, going to work or school, buying groceries, taking part in church socials, and sometimes going to get ice cream in the summer. But because they were black, a lot of white people were afraid of the area.
The inner cities also aren't quite as dangerous as myth would have it, and the crime rates now are about what they were in the 1950's. The narratives a lot of folks are telling themselves about what inner cities are like have more to do with the crack wars of the late 1980's than what's actually going on now.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 19 2018, @01:54AM (1 child)
It's less about race than it is about class/wealth. Not even poor people want to live next to poor people (and with good reason). Blacks tend to be poorer than whites, so you can make it a racial thing if you want, but that tends to not be the real issue.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Saturday January 20 2018, @02:41PM
Race is TOTALLY the issue. I grew up in an area that started experiencing rapid growth in the last ~15-20 years. It WAS rural and 100% white, but now it's very diverse. I often get asked "weren't you scared? I heard that's a bad area" by crackerjack whites. No, it's not a bad area, it's relatively well-to-do and has almost no crime. I'm incredibly glad I went to school there and was exposed to blacks, arabs, asians, etc etc because so many people are scared of the world for ignorance.
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Friday January 19 2018, @03:40AM (1 child)
Correction on this part, the black migration out of the south occurred from the about 1915 through the 70s and also included the west (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American) [wikipedia.org]. An engaging book on this topic is "The Warmth of Other Suns" [powells.com] by Isbael Wilkerson. Also it included more than sharecroppers.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday January 19 2018, @05:47PM
I was focused more on the 1916-1930 period, when what became the black neighborhoods of cities like New York, Cleveland, and Chicago were first established in a major way. You're right that there were waves after that.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 19 2018, @05:05AM (1 child)
Thanks to rental discrimination and later Federal Housing Authority policies, they were forced to live only in particular areas of town
Pacifica Radio presenter Mitch Jeserich has a quasi-daily program that is often very good on History topics.
Coincidently, he had a show on this topic today.
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America -- Richard Rothstein [kpfa.org]
22MB MP3, available indefinitely [kpfa.org]
These guys have the same thing for about half the bandwidth/storage space, but it's only available until mid-March.
KPFK's MP3 [kpfk.org]
Content starts at ~7:00, after an intro and a newsbreak.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 19 2018, @05:12AM
I had already updated my bookmark and posted a link to next Monday's show by mistake.
Correct link: KPFK's MP3 [kpfk.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday January 18 2018, @11:50PM (1 child)
The only skillset I could deduce from TFS is hitting a bus the size of a barn with BB/pellets.
Wondering now where such a skill pays a living wage?
(Grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Funny) by Thexalon on Friday January 19 2018, @05:48PM
Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by IndigoFreak on Thursday January 18 2018, @06:04PM (7 children)
Makes sense. Billionaires always ride in buses. No way this is targeting rank and file employees. Yep, definitely targeting the decision making people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @06:18PM (1 child)
Blow up the buses, kill the employees, and then who will want to work for the billionaires?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 19 2018, @02:40AM
Or you can just look in the mirror and realize you're a useless nobody. Maybe you can still change, it's not too late. It's either that or the cops eventually find you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @06:19PM (3 children)
The billionaires are hidden behind high walls.
For now.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NewNic on Thursday January 18 2018, @06:21PM (2 children)
Those walls are only going to get higher while people keep voting R.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Thursday January 18 2018, @07:00PM
San Gimignano della Torre. What an "interesting" society to live in.
https://www.tripsavvy.com/medieval-towers-in-italy-1508474 [tripsavvy.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @08:41PM
orly? last i looked the masturbaters of the universe were all liberals.
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Friday January 19 2018, @10:15PM
You're assuming that these actions are... rational isn't the right word here. But if you're a person who's been "fucked by the man", then you're going to target whoever you can get access to. Can't reach the billionaires? Go after the billionaire's cronies because they're still "part of the problem".
(Score: 5, Funny) by nobu_the_bard on Thursday January 18 2018, @06:14PM (10 children)
Throwing rocks at the employee transport buses for specific companies is entirely too small scale to accomplish anything constructive, whatever your stance is. Well unless maybe you're selling bus windows.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday January 18 2018, @06:21PM (8 children)
I'm sure they'll escalate to IED:s some days, for some reason. Wasn't Apples new round office complex finished recently? Seem to recall it in one of the papers I read during my trainride to work today.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 18 2018, @06:31PM (4 children)
Apple employees could take refuge in their walled gardens. Secure enclaves.
Build a wall around the walled garden. With rounded corners. And make the people outside the wall pay for it.
I can understand why people might throw rocks at Apple buses, with rounded corners. Even FaceTwit. But Google? Google only brings wonderful goodness to our lives. And Google can do no evil. Their motto says so. And it must be the truth, because if it weren't that would be evil.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday January 18 2018, @09:36PM (2 children)
Build a wall around the walled garden. With rounded corners. And make the people outside the wall pay for it.
The people outside the wall are *happily* paying for it, by buying overpriced Apple iDevices in droves.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 18 2018, @10:04PM
That sounds like people *inside* the wall(ed garden) who buy Apple products.
The people outside the walled garden are buying the non-apple products. Also, in droves.
But Apple would like everyone outside their wall (ecosystem) to also pay Apple because Apple doesn't make enough money from its overpriced boutique devices.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday January 18 2018, @10:06PM
Apple is also repatriating money at a temporarily lower tax rate, and has announced that it will build a new headquarters somewhere (like Amazon). The location they choose will surely give them tax breaks and other incentives.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @10:45PM
Bucky Fuller pointed out many years ago that it's crazy to commute to work -- perfectly good living space is left vacant all night in typical office buildings. While I understand the desire for a private residence for a family, all the singles that work for Apple (et al) could easily live in their office buildings, with just some minor adaptations.
There is plenty of history for this, early industrial revolution factory owners built residential housing for their workers on site (since there were no established commuting vehicles). I believe this is still common in lower wage countries.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @08:56PM (1 child)
Fuck an IED, bring out the IEEMP's. That's how you really fuck up their day.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday January 18 2018, @11:55PM
Just make sure to use some helium balloons, to deliver the charges up in the clouds their computers reside
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 19 2018, @05:26AM
That thing reminds of the Farpoint Station in the pilot episode of ST:TNG. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @01:11AM
It's in the news. And we are talking about it. It is having the desired effect.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday January 18 2018, @08:40PM
In cold blood. In your luxury buses, where you buspool to your daily billionaire grind. (?)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @06:41PM (32 children)
As someone who has been living in San Francisco since the early 1970s, I can comment authoritatively upon the changes in the city (and region) over the past ten-twenty years.
I remember, in 2000, in San Francisco - which has rent control - watching a neighbor's house get emptied of its contents while the owner of the house - the son of the family that had purchased it - strode back and forth, excited about finally being able to evict an old woman and her son. The contents went directly into a dumpster - the man's mother had died, and the man, unable to pay his rent, with nowhere to move, had killed himself.
I remember people selling their stuff in 2000 and 2001, desperate to stay in the Bay Area after losing their jobs, living three people in a studio apartment.
I remember meeting four US Navy officers living in a one-bedroom apartment with a tiny kitchen and a tiny living room; they were going to UC Berkeley, getting their EE degrees, and they had two bunkbeds in that tiny room. I was there to buy the bunkbeds. I have never seen so many pubic hairs in one place at one time in my life. I'm amazed those four officers did not kill one another.
That was fifteen years ago. Since then it has just gotten worse.
There is no parking left. The idiots governing the region all have their fingers in the real estate pie, and see no incentive to plan communities - you know, parking, traffic studies, stuff like that - and so the entire Bay Area is turning into a ghetto.
Garages have been converted into apartments. Back yards have been converted into houses. I've heard that in Redwood City, people use traffic cones to protect their parking, in front of their house, while they are gone.
There is no need for all these people to be here, in the Bay Area.
They could all be working from home, wherever the hell they came from.
We all could. I'm a !@#$ UNIX systems administrator and I've been working on continent-spanning network and cluster problems, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from home, for over two decades. But, no, I'm too old, now, and so I sit at home, unemployed, listening to old Grateful Dead recordings from before I was born.
These giant corporations are our enemies, not our friends.
If they really want to do something to improve the quality of Bay Area life, they will consciously hire older employees and allow people to work from home.
Anything less is an act of war against the population of the Bay Area.
The white buses are large, obvious, expensive targets for the frustration that is reaching epic proportions.
If these huge corporations don't want the Bay Area to turn into a war zone, they should stop making war against the original population of the Bay Area and quit trying to drive them out, like a bunch of greedy Israelis stealing land from the Palestinians.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @07:47PM (10 children)
And start doing something about it.
Whether that is getting the neighborhoods to band together and revolt against your current politcal leaders, or moving to a different region, or founding a new nation for all the people like you.
Technology is to the point where the right set of skilled individuals could not just automate enough agriculture to feed themselves, but also automate every other facet needed to manufacture low and high technology. Once you can do that, you're independent from the companies and nations of the world, barring raw resources, and if you can your own people into space to handle mining endeavors, even that restriction goes away, leading to the opportunity for all of you to work, recreate, or create new investions, arts, etc that others will never have time or opportunity to dream of.
The only thing stopping this is each person who says 'pity me, against this society what can I do.' Stop being one of those and conscript yourself into the army for tomorrow. Because if you don't you'll just be part of the huddled massed of yesterday with neither a present nor a future to look forward to. And even if you die in the trenches of that war for a present, or tomorrow, at least you won't have been languishing in your own self-pity in the meantime.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @08:10PM (7 children)
Automation won't lead to a non-scarcity based economy for the masses because the automation won't be controlled by the masses. I called it many years ago: technology will make poor people obsolete.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Thursday January 18 2018, @08:49PM (5 children)
It hasn't happened as you predict yet, and you aren't the first to predict it. But if we take your prediction as a given, what exactly do you think the reaction to the obsolete poor will be? Given their extreme numbers advantage, I don't like any of the answers I get. Everyone wins if we can find a solution that doesn't require obsoleting the poor.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @09:04PM (2 children)
The poor can be obsoleted without removing the people, but by removing the money. Get rid of government backed currency, give people the basics and let the free market handle everything else.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Thursday January 18 2018, @09:27PM (1 child)
I don't see how you are going to remove currency if you are going to go with UBI+capitalism as you seem to be suggesting. Having a medium of exchange isn't the core issue here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @02:54PM
Currencies would still be around, just not government backed currencies. Set the robots to distribute food, water, housing, clothing, and let capitalism take care of their other wants. You want a new PlayStation? Go to work and get some bitcoins or something.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday January 18 2018, @10:10PM (1 child)
Make revolution obsolete with armed security droids!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Friday January 19 2018, @12:31AM
Can you imaging the fun doing pen testing on those will be?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 19 2018, @01:58AM
if people would stop funding the slave traders and start financially supporting Free Software and Open Hardware initiatives, automation could be run by the people.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Thursday January 18 2018, @09:00PM
On to your second half, these is absolutely no reason changes require bloodshed. Any person encouraging that is at best a git. Try using the system we have in place, get fucking political. If you have the numbers you would need for war, you have the numbers you would need to do this the right way. Sorry it isn't heroic to you without an "army", but if you approached this from a less dipshit direction you might just have my vote, as is you are a problem not a solution.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Thursday January 18 2018, @09:40PM
Whether that is getting the neighborhoods to band together and revolt against your current politcal leaders, or moving to a different region, or founding a new nation for all the people like you.
The people in SanFran who don't like the housing situation there have no right to complain about their political leaders. They elected these leaders, and with all the stories about people being packed into housing, that means there really should be far more cramped, unhappy people than rich people hogging housing, so they should easily be able to outvote the rich landowners in the city council elections.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @08:29PM
So, you've discovered the new bus route to strike again tomorrow...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @08:54PM (13 children)
This sounds emotive and bad, but there are two sides to the story. In a very real way, the son who couldn't pay rent was stealing from the landlord (i.e. depriving him of the use of his property with no compensation in return). It's easy to sympathize with the person who steals the loaf of bread, but remember that the baker was just stolen from as well.
I don't have any clean answers, but just remember that that son is human too.
Put another way, if you personally could earn $400k a year by evicting somebody, would you? (If you say "no," then why are you not donating $400k to somebody right now so they can rent a home?)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by insanumingenium on Thursday January 18 2018, @09:22PM (12 children)
You injected the 400K number, which isn't likely the correct value on a rent controlled property anywhere short of the moon. I saw you palm that card.
The renter was human too, lost his mother and couldn't support himself. His situation was bad enough that he committed suicide. The situation was tragic all around, but I don't see how I am supposed to feel as bad for the baker who loses one loaf more than the man who derives life itself from that one loaf. Taking joy from his tragedy on the other hand as the landlord in this story did seems incredibly shitty.
You want a clean answer, take care of our poor, take your metaphorical loaf from each of the bakers, no one needs to starve, no one needs to be homeless. You can call it welfare, or UBI, or charity, I don't care what, but having a disposable portion of the population isn't going to work forever.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday January 18 2018, @09:46PM (7 children)
To play devil's advocate, what do you do when you attempt to take care of the poor, and they refuse your help? They attempted to offer free job training to people in Coal Country, and they mostly refused, because they want their coal mining jobs back. There's only so much you can do for people who refuse to take the help that's offered. You mention welfare: there's tons of poor (frequently rural) white people starving to death, committing suicide, etc., because their situations are bad, yet they absolutely *refuse* to apply for welfare and other government assistance. Others who aren't quite so bad off, but are still suffering, absolutely *refuse* to move to larger towns or cities where the jobs are, and sit around and whine about how their jobs disappeared, and then vote for some retard who promises to bring them back even though that's economically impossible.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Friday January 19 2018, @12:38AM (6 children)
However that changes nothing about the fact that I would rather help those who will take the help, the existence of people who won't take the help is hardly an argument against it.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday January 19 2018, @03:31PM (5 children)
I guess I was a little unclear, so I apologize, but I'm not trying to argue against giving help to those in need. I'm just questioning what you do about people who stupidly refuse help, and to what lengths we should go to for such people. For the people who are in need and happy to accept assistance, I have no problem giving it to them.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Friday January 19 2018, @04:43PM (4 children)
I understood you, but given you were advocating for the devil, I responded to your point as if it was the most severe version thereof. I can't force people to take help. I am all about personal liberty, I just have the seemingly contradictory point of view that everyones liberties are potentially at stake if we have a population without support. Not taking the support offered is their right, but I won't lose sleep over them either. Though I think UBI is a better way of distributing that help, not only is it less likely to be denied by individuals, but it requires less bureaucracy when you don't have to figure out who the needy are.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday January 19 2018, @06:24PM (3 children)
I am all about personal liberty, I just have the seemingly contradictory point of view that everyones liberties are potentially at stake if we have a population without support.
That's not really contradictory. Lots of stupid American liberatarians of the Randian persuasion think it is of course, but there's a good number of libertarians who are actually big supporters of the UBI for pretty much the same reasoning you have: that people don't really have true liberty if they're "enslaved" by their financial conditions, so keeping people from being in such dire straits is necessary for maximizing liberty overall even if that comes at a small cost to richer people.
Not taking the support offered is their right, but I won't lose sleep over them either.
Well that's what I was getting at: other people *will* lose sleep over them, and want to come up with ways of fixing the problem. That's the point I'm bringing up: should that problem be fixed? And how much effort should there be to fix these people who are too proud or too stupid to take help? Is the help offered even sufficient, or is it just a joke? Accepting (or not) free health insurance is one thing, but accepting (or not) free job training is another. There's no real downside with the first, just sign up for it and now you have insurance at no cost. The other costs a lot of your time, and may not actually be useful. Is training for computer programming useful for a 50yo coal miner? I'm guessing they won't see it that way, even if they were really to pack up and GTFO of coal country. If someone offered me free (but time-consuming) job training to be a politician but absolutely no guarantee of a job or of being elected, that wouldn't be too useful to me; it's unlikely I'd ever get elected with my personality; I'm just not very outgoing or gregarious, though people do seem to like me IRL, but that doesn't equate to wanting to vote for me for anything besides maybe school board (probably wouldn't get that either, I don't have kids). I went into engineering and computers for a reason.
UBI is something we could have a big discussion on, it's not a simple topic. It does promise to render a lot of bureaucracy unnecessary, but not all; it won't solve problems with child abuse, or of people (esp. parents) misusing their UBI and blowing it on booze instead of rent and food. IMO it'd be a lot better, and the problem cases could be dealt with using the remaining social services like CPS that will surely still be needed, but there's other arguments. The main problem, as I see it, is getting society to accept it in the first place; it's just like an alternative voting system like Condorcet. Basically, unless you can force it on everyone for a while until they get used to it, people are just too stupid to understand why it's better. Talk to the average American voter about first-past-the-post and what's mathematically wrong with it and how it prevents 3rd parties from succeeding, and they just won't get it. It's the same with UBI: they'll either complain about "giving money to lazy people" (while not understanding the current welfare system and how much it costs to administer) or they'll complain about millionaires getting a paycheck (while not understanding that over a certain income threshold, the income tax will be raised so that it'll be a wash at least, so the rich people will be paying their UBI right back in the form of income taxes, and then some probably).
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Friday January 19 2018, @07:21PM (2 children)
Forcing services will always be a worse choice as far as I can see. Medical care is an easy example, If we force them to take medical care, do we force them to follow doctors orders? Do we open back up all the asylums we closed in the last 50 years, and fill them full of people who didn't get the advantage of a fair trial before we remove their liberties for something we can't even necessarily prove? I would be much happier letting the proverbial Christian Scientist die of appendicitis than round up all the Mennonites and force them to get a physical.
You have a lot of focus on moving people and job training, while education and training are great, I can't see any example of forcing that on somebody that doesn't resemble the worst aspects of communism. Forcing people to move directly is a clear constitutional issue. If they would rather live on the bare minimum and spend your days bitching about all the coal mines closing, I can't see taking that away from them being ethical. They won't get ahead that way though, and hopefully their kids will see sense and chose some of the things you propose.
You are 100% correct, UBI is a bigger conversation than this venue makes tenable, and there are more devils in the details of its implementation than I would care to imagine. That said, the addict that blows his load on booze or other drugs is an adult, entitled to fuck up his own life, he had his opportunity, he flubbed it of his own free will. If he has kids, then you are correct, this would be that case where I agree with CPS being the best available solution.
I agree first past the post is a huge problem, but similar to my concerns with forcing services above, I don't accept that the only way it can change is by forcing people to accept a change because we say so. Turn the tables on that and it isn't pretty. We have to educate the public, and it will be exactly those disenfranchised masses, be they black, white, blue or red, who we can't afford to write off as stupid, but must try and bring them around to our point of view.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday January 19 2018, @07:37PM (1 child)
Medical care is an easy example, If we force them to take medical care, do we force them to follow doctors orders? Do we open back up all the asylums we closed in the last 50 years, and fill them full of people who didn't get the advantage of a fair trial before we remove their liberties for something we can't even necessarily prove? I would be much happier letting the proverbial Christian Scientist die of appendicitis than round up all the Mennonites and force them to get a physical.
The huge number of homeless people seems to suggest that maybe we should bring back asylums. As for the Christian Scientists, what about their children? Do they have the right to force their kids to die of treatable illnesses, which amounts to negligent homicide?
You have a lot of focus on moving people and job training, while education and training are great, I can't see any example of forcing that on somebody that doesn't resemble the worst aspects of communism. Forcing people to move directly is a clear constitutional issue. If they would rather live on the bare minimum and spend your days bitching about all the coal mines closing, I can't see taking that away from them being ethical.
If they refuse to move to where work is, even when relocation assistance is offered, then what? What other assistance should be offered since they just want to sit and complain? And what about other voters who think that's not enough, that we need to bring the jobs back to them? A bunch of those voters just gave us the current President.
We have to educate the public, and it will be exactly those disenfranchised masses, be they black, white, blue or red, who we can't afford to write off as stupid, but must try and bring them around to our point of view.
What if we can't? I guess it just proves that we have the government we deserve.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Friday January 19 2018, @10:24PM
I think religious preferences vs medical care of children is an issue that is already an acknowledged problem, making that care available to all doesn't change the ethics of it. I am inclined to side with parental rights as a default, but I don't deny that there are situations where that is a bad call. The have been some highly publicized instances that would make great examples here.
I think I already made it clear that if they want to languish on the minimal existence that UBI could provide, I am happy to let them. The idea that there will be a percentage of real or perceived bad actors I am willing to accept, because I don't want to throw the good out with the bad. I can't see any other solution that doesn't amount to what I would consider a horror story, like the government forcing you to move or deciding what you will do for a living. That said, if there really is such a popular demand for those services, perhaps those will be viable jobs again. Brewing was a dead profession 100 years ago, it has been booming for decades now. Perhaps some lateral transition that they will accept will arise, but that is a private concern. Frankly I do not understand how you haven't quibbled over other perceived bad actors but are really stuck on this example. My straight answer in case it isn't clear is no other assistance is necessary, give them survival and the opportunity to create more for themselves and their children if they desire. That is a fairer shake than we have ever seen on a wide scale, and I would be beyond proud to see it in my lifetime.
If you think you can identify any single group of voters as having given us Trump, you are mistaken. The whole damn country participates in this farce, not just coal country or the rust belt.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @11:58PM (3 children)
I did invent that number because I didn't think it was relevant. Pick whatever number you want.
Okay, that sounds good. Now that you have made your position clear, I expect you to go out and donate $50k (or $100k, or whatever number you want) to a random homeless stranger on the street because he doesn't have a home. I mean you aren't just being generous with somebody else's money that you have no stake in, right? You are willing to put your money where your mouth is and give up half your loaf of bread, right?
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Friday January 19 2018, @12:44AM (2 children)
Your rhetoric is awful, I pay for and support social programs already. I actively advocate for their expanse. That is putting my money where my mouth is. I would ask the same of you, but you haven't advocated any position at all other than shitting on everyone else. You wanted a clean solution, I gave you one. Feel free to come up with others, but making unfounded and ridiculous demands of strangers on the internet is perhaps the stupidest solution I have heard yet.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 19 2018, @02:10AM (1 child)
you're a fucking thief but too chicken shit to take it from people's faces yourself so you hire weasels who hire pigs to do it.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Saturday January 20 2018, @12:17AM
No more than you are a murderer who personally kills people starving in the streets. But you bring us to an important point, at what point will the underclass literally take what they need, likely en masse. Right or wrong. Will they stop at what they need, or once that line is crossed will they take what they want as well. Who wins then?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Dr Spin on Thursday January 18 2018, @08:55PM
Sorry, but if the Grateful Dead were recording before you were born, you are not old!
Maybe decrepit, but not actually old.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday January 19 2018, @12:03AM (3 children)
Really? How ineffective. Nothing short of retractable bollards suffice.
Of course, paid for by Apple/Google, connected to the IoT and comming with an app.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 19 2018, @04:35PM (2 children)
That traffic cone business made my BS-meter spike. It's easy-peasy to get out of the car, pick up 2, 6, or 20 traffic cones, and sling them out of the way. Not to mention the silly ass who put them there probably stole them from construction sites - that's another discussion entirely.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday January 19 2018, @06:31PM (1 child)
That traffic cone business made my BS-meter spike. It's easy-peasy to get out of the car, pick up 2, 6, or 20 traffic cones, and sling them out of the way.
Yes, but the idea probably isn't to prevent access to the space, it's to scare off most people. Most (or at least many) people are likely to think that those cones are there for an official reason and not park there.
If I put a sign on one of the stalls at your company bathroom saying "out of order", would you question it, or would you just skip that stall and find another, or wait for another? Most likely, the latter, unless that sign stayed there a week or more.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 19 2018, @07:04PM
LOL, you really don't know me very well. I'd probably steal the sign, and tape it to my boss's backside. At the least, I'd open the door to see what was so very out of order. Hell, someone may have hidden a dead body there. I've just about run out of places to hide my own dead bodies! If there weren't any dead bodies propped up behind the door, I' probably draw a dead body on the sign. Us troublemakers are always looking for new ways to cause trouble.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 19 2018, @03:17AM
http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/chap18p1.html [steshaw.org]
Rent control in the end is usually a regulatory capture device. Which then turns on the very people it was meant to serve. Unfortunatly most social programs suffer from the same issues.
You can see the effects. As the people in the city who do own the buildings do not build there. But I would bet large sums of my own cash they build like mad in other parts of the country/world.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @07:25PM (4 children)
I wish there was a SoylentNews Bus so I could slash the tires and break the windows.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 18 2018, @08:01PM (3 children)
Sorry there isn't a Soylent News bus you can attack.
But there are Windows you can break.
Don't throw stones.
Throw a few USB sticks in the parking lot or restroom. Almost guaranteed people will pick them up, and plug them in to their PC because they are just too curious for their pwn good.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @09:01PM (2 children)
Has anyone adapted this to phones and started dropping sd cards yet?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday January 18 2018, @10:13PM (1 child)
With many phones removing card readers, the next evolution will be USB Type-C memory sticks and whatever connector Apple is using these days.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday January 19 2018, @06:29PM
Even with the phones that do have SDcard slots, they're not exactly easy to access. They frequently require taking your case off your phone (which so many people use for drop protection), taking the back off, taking the battery out, and maybe also taking the SIM card out. The SDcard slot is very nice for having the possibility of memory expansion at market prices for flash memory (instead of jacked-up prices for some proprietary bullshit, or just being forced to buy your phone with all the storage you think you'll need at the onset), but it's really not meant for quick, hotplug access. I think there's (or were) some phones that have the SD slot on the side so you can access it by just taking off a little cover, but those are a tiny minority I think.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday January 18 2018, @07:31PM (2 children)
The solution, when someone violently doesn't want you around, is to keep adding more armor plating to your vehicles, and ram anyone who gets in your way.
Proven to convince people to Love you!
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Thursday January 18 2018, @08:30PM
Winning the hearts and minds. Are we tired of winning yet?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday January 18 2018, @10:35PM
The Killdozer guy got killed, though.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @07:41PM (3 children)
So, Tuscan Raiders, or Sand people? Doesn't seem like a Jawa MO.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Thursday January 18 2018, @08:30PM
Sand People are easily frightened. But they'll soon be back. And in greater numbers.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @08:38PM
Check whether the tracks are single-file to hide their numbers.
(Score: 3, Funny) by tibman on Thursday January 18 2018, @09:15PM
These blast points... too accurate for sand people.
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