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Like Peter Thiel, Tech Workers Feel Alienated by Silicon Valley ‘Echo Chamber’

(www.wsj.com)
370 points sillypuddy | 7 comments | 18 Feb 18 16:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.203s | source | bottom
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andrewjl ◴[18 Feb 18 19:29 UTC] No.16407751[source]▶
I find the recent uptick in progressivism in SV refreshing, and sorely needed. Then again, I've lived my entire life in liberal enclaves and do not personally identify with conservative / "family values" viewpoints.
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freyir ◴[18 Feb 18 19:49 UTC] No.16407919[source]▶
San Francisco’s “progressivism” is undermined by how terribly the city operates. Dirty streets, aging infrastructure, crime, homelessness, laissez faire law enforcement, conservative housing policies, and extreme wealth inequality everywhere. If the progressives can’t get their own house in order, good luck selling their vision to the rest of the country.
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heurist ◴[18 Feb 18 20:37 UTC] No.16408382[source]▶
The entire country has awful city planning, SF just happens to be a highly visible example with some unique problems.

Conservatives have plenty of issues as well - look at Kansas or Alabama. Don't see those being discussed at a national level, though the politics that drove them into the ground as now steering the federal government.

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JumpCrisscross ◴[18 Feb 18 20:56 UTC] No.16408555[source]▶
> SF just happens to be a highly visible example with some unique problems

Coming in from New York, San Francisco’s lack of attention to its homeless population is self inflicted. It’s also a problem that nobody in the city seems very much to care about.

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1. heurist ◴[18 Feb 18 21:07 UTC] No.16408655[source]▶
I haven't been to San Francisco in 10ish years or NYC in 5 so I can't compare directly, but Austin, Dallas, San Antonio and Houston all have tons of homeless people as well and they seem to get very little attention.
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2. adventured ◴[18 Feb 18 21:34 UTC] No.16408855[source]▶
The point is that supposedly San Francisco's ideology would be extremely favorable to taking superior care of the homeless vs more conservative cities. The actual results, are that SF does an extraordinarily mediocre job at it.

SF is an affluent city, with a homeless problem consisting of 5,000 people, and they're unwilling to fix it financially. They can afford to, and they refuse to. It's disgusting.

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3. freyir ◴[18 Feb 18 21:37 UTC] No.16408864[source]▶
> Austin, Dallas, San Antonio and Houston all have tons of homeless people as well

I'm sure, but the situation in California is objectively worse. 34 in 10,000 Californias are homeless, compared to 8 in 10,000 Texans. The California homeless population increased by 13.7% last year alone (+16,136 people), compared to a 1.8% increase in Texas (+426 people).

San Francisco does a particularly bad job at sheltering its homeless population though. Maybe its mild climate allows this, compared to cities like NYC or Boston or DC with harsher winters.

https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2017-AHAR-P...

4. lifeformed ◴[18 Feb 18 22:15 UTC] No.16409104[source]▶
Homelessness isn't just a city-wide problem, but a national one. National policies regarding drugs, housing, economics, play a huge role in how homelessness in a city turns out. There are also homeless populations that move around to different cities. A city can do a lot to change their own situation, but it feels like there's only so much that can be done on a local level when there are huge higher-level pressures.
5. refurb ◴[19 Feb 18 01:03 UTC] No.16410006[source]▶
That's what gets me. In SF you have a huge liberal majority and is a wealthy city. This is in a state with a liberal majority.

Yet the social problems in SF are probably some of the worst in the US.

It's pretty shocking.

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6. masterleep ◴[19 Feb 18 02:11 UTC] No.16410268{3}[source]▶
Your observation is consistent with the belief that progressive policies are not the answer.
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7. heurist ◴[19 Feb 18 06:07 UTC] No.16411062{4}[source]▶
If politicians only pay lip service to the ideology when their major supporters are NIMBY property owners, is it really an application of progressive policies?