Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/02/09/weed-vs-tech.html
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Do the pot businesses have more ownership from Oakland locals than the tech startups?
If so - I’m OK with that.
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Shouldn’t it be mentioned that the cannabis grows are by law, some percentage existing residents who have been victimized by the war on drugs? Is that still gentrification?
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Is it bad that as a tech worker in a lesser city, I kind of hope that creates opportunity for people like me who don’t ever want to move there? Yes, I’ll work for your abysmal startup so long as I get paid in real money. No, I will not live in my car or under a desk in your office because to work for you I have to live in a city you can’t pay me enough to live in.
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Oakland if they could find me easy housing I would be okay with.
All these place in the midwest or small towns in the east. Oh hells no. You could pay me 5x what I get in Seattle and I would still be NO.
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I’d love to live in Seatle but my options aren’t ideal for a cross-country move and I can live a lot cheaper and hopefully actually retire if I live out here. Not proud, not much ego about my talents, just want to pay for my medical care, home, and to continue to write soundtracks for indie games but since that is not very profitable I have to have some way of saving enough money to be able to do something I like for a while before I have to die. I imagine there has to be a labor pool like that in many cities, so I see no harm in bringing some more employment options out there.
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You keep using that word, ‘gentrification’; it is really that?
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If you listen closely you can hear the NIMBY’s heads exploding.
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Is this a fluke? Longer-term I’d expect the economy of scale from pot farms would win out. It’s kinda like having the story “artisan avocado beds price-out warehouse lofts.”
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If the mrs and I had not bought the house 20+ years ago now we probably wouldn’t be able to live here anymore either.
But I spent the first 25 years of my life in the midwest so I have done my time.
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I’ve been saying this for a while. The Cannabis boom will be bigger than the tech boom. It may not last as long, or have as many cultural implications, but the impact is going to be huge. An entire industry is springing from nothing and maturing in front of our eyes, and it has opportunities for every level of experience from entry level to executive. This is just the beginning.
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Boo f’n hoo. Who did the gentrifying tech start-ups displace?
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One of the arguments I heard for legalization of pot was that the product could be grown outside, on farms, which supposedly is more ecologically friendly and energy efficient than indoor hydroponic operations. Are they sticking with hydroponics for security? To have the supply closer to the demand?
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Indoor hydroponics is more controllable. You can extreme fine-tune the conditions, and additionally you can have a 24 hour growth cycle and not have to deal with night time darkness.
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You are correct that indoors is more controllable. This makes for a higher quality product that sells for a higher price than outdoor-grown cannabis. In Oregon this summer, the outdoor weed was selling for about 25% of the price of high-quality indoor.
For normal photoperiod plants, though, you still need 12 hours of darkness for flowering. The advantage is that indoors you can switch the light cycle whenever you want. There are also autoflower plants (crossbred from cannabis ruderalis) that will flower under 24 hour light, but they are not as widely grown and are just now getting good enough to grow on a large scale.
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The Arc of history is long and bends towards staying home and getting high…
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…listening to history podcasts.
Because all things are cyclical
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