←back to thread

Kids who ran away to 1960s San Francisco

(www.fieldnotes.nautilus.quest)
156 points zackoverflow | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0.827s | source
Show context
benbreen ◴[] No.46176873[source]
I read Ulysses Grant's memoirs awhile back, and loved his description of being in San Francisco in the 1850s. (Another tidbit I loved is that he imagined an alternate path for his life where he would have settled down in the Bay Area and become a math teacher):

"The immigrant, on arriving, found himself a stranger, in a strange land, far from friends. Time pressed, for the little means that could be realized from the sale of what was left of the outfit would not support a man long at California prices. Many became discouraged. Others would take off their coats and look for a job, no matter what it might be. These succeeded as a rule. There were many young men who had studied professions before they went to California, and who had never done a day's manual labor in their lives, who took in the situation at once and went to work to make a start at anything they could get to do. Some supplied carpenters and masons with material—carrying plank, brick, or mortar, as the case might be; others drove stages, drays, or baggage wagons, until they could do better. More became discouraged early and spent their time looking up people who would 'treat,' or lounging about restaurants and gambling houses where free lunches were furnished daily."

replies(2): >>46177108 #>>46177127 #
renewiltord[dead post] ◴[] No.46177127[source]
[flagged]
1. troad ◴[] No.46177261[source]
Terrible, no good, upsetting, false class consciousness-derived take.

The point of the left is to bring prosperity into reach for everyone, not to stroke the hair of able young men in poker dens who refuse to work, and whisper "You're valid."

That's what capital wants the left to degrade into.

replies(1): >>46177637 #
2. Schiendelman ◴[] No.46177637[source]
Capital doesn't want anything left or right. Capital also relies on accessible prosperity.
replies(1): >>46177650 #
3. dragonwriter ◴[] No.46177650[source]
Capital relies on the absence of accessible prosperity (though it benefits, for control, on the illusion of it.)
replies(1): >>46178029 #
4. Schiendelman ◴[] No.46178029{3}[source]
How?