Yeah really he should be fired because some d*bag thinks the right way to fight “gentrification” (another word for “I don’t like these new people coming to live here because they are not like me!one!!11”) is to harass some guy who’s using mass transit offered by his company. Yeah. It might be a fake, but it’s entirely aligned with reality.
@Rob does the fact that you voluntarily and excitedly picked up this fake story tell you anything about the possibility that your confirmation bias might have run a little bit amok?
Typical SF street-hassle…it’s enough to make a tech worker want to re-locate to the suburbs, which just happens to be closer to his precious Place of Employment, anyways…
I remember loma prieta and northridge and as a native californian who remembers all the dead people that is one of the stupidest things i have ever read on this site to date .
But that’s the point of a public protest… to disrupt everyday life in order to make that point. That’s exactly what they are doing here. It’s classic civil disobedience, which has been one of the most effective strategies in modern times for bringing about change.
It is pretty funny that the guy the protestors staged to look like an elitist asshole seems to have been perceived as fairly reasonable (by many folks, at least). I’d offer that’s a telltale sign that you may want to reconsider your protest strategy…
Hm. That’s an interesting strategy, using a plant. It gets the point across, I guess, but sure does make them look like they are being duplicitous, doesn’t it? I’m not sure how I feel about that.
[quote=“phk12, post:21, topic:16003”]@Rob does the fact that you voluntarily and excitedly picked up this fake story tell you anything about the possibility that your confirmation bias might have run[/quote]What does the widespread support for this guy and his statement by tech folks earlier today say?
My guess is that they want to make the story national rather than local, the presumption being that their hoax will be forgotten quickly, but the bus problem will become an easier and more symbolic gentrification story to cover.
True. It could also be an indication that such behavior is all too believable…which tells us something about a certain type of 21st century character that is all too common. I’ve met people like this.
I suspect the complaint would be from people who had lived there for a long time and seen their rents go through the roof because of tech companies throwing around large amounts of cash.
Google’s “progressive” bus system encourages it’s workers to drive up rents 40 miles away from where they actually work. How many Googlers would opt to live in SF, if they didn’t get that free transport subsidy from the company? Think they would they take Cal-train, instead?
People like what? People who are irritable in the mornings, particularly when misguided strangers on some ill-defined mission are fucking with their ability to get to work?
For the most part it’s not the new arrivals who are complaining. It’s people who have lived in a neighborhood for years, maybe generations, and who now find themselves being priced out of their homes by well-paid techies who have little concern for the people who already lived there.
I think it can also seriously backfire on them, maybe it already has. The media has a pretty long history of ignoring the issues and focusing on the outrageous de jure of leftist/progressive protests. Like the Seattle protests–everyone focused on the black block and broken windows, and ignored the (many/various) issues that the protesters were trying to highlight. You can see this going way back into the 60s–why focus on the plight of black communities in the inner cities when you can focus on the Black Panthers robbing banks and looking aggressive and scary on TV.Why focus on the anti-war protests, when you can show how violent the protesters are outside of the 68 DNC convention.
I’m referring people who get irritable when anything or anyone happens to get in the way of their day or might complicate their lives a little. The world’s a sloppy place sometimes. The guy is a good actor; I fell for it.
