big mountain ben @bigmountainben

reason, tolerance, free speech, color-blindness Joined March 2009

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big mountain ben @bigmountainben

4 years ago

@zachcoelius No one talks about the electorate. The only 'single high impact fix' is a smarter electorate, and that is simply not going to happen.

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big mountain ben @bigmountainben

4 years ago

@zachcoelius The US does not clearly have an unfair and broken justice system. The US as a whole has one of the best and fairest justice system in the world. SF's system is broken for sure, but it is not representative of the country.

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big mountain ben @bigmountainben

4 years ago

@bryanrbeal People age very differently, and have very different levels of cognitive decline - from none to total. It's obviously tempting to have a rule like that this time around but I wouldn't want this as a hard and fast rule.

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big mountain ben @bigmountainben

4 years ago

@chrislhayes I agree, but I didn't see you say the same about the Biden campaign asking 50 intelligence officials to lie to the public to bolster a political campaign.

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big mountain ben @bigmountainben

4 years ago

This is a very astute observation.

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big mountain ben @bigmountainben

4 years ago

@tunguz That will be the sign that we have reached AGI: it will rewrite itself in Kotlin.

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big mountain ben @bigmountainben

4 years ago

@tunguz This is why we are safe.

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big mountain ben @bigmountainben

4 years ago

@Scott_Wiener I remember a time when you tried to appear reasonable. Your most recent tweets - this one included - should mean you don’t get Pelosi’s seat, but unfortunately they won’t.

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big mountain ben @bigmountainben

4 years ago

@rbpasker @crazybob They didn't even *try*. They didn't repeal discretionary reviews. They didn't rezone for more height. They made market-rate housing ever more difficult and expensive to build. Good governance could have alleviated many of the ills. They made it (much) worse.

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big mountain ben @bigmountainben

4 years ago

@rbpasker @crazybob In other words - why didn't the bulk of San Franciscans, who are not in tech let alone corp tech, and *do* live in this milieu - why didn't they do something? Elect someone else? The answer is: because they don't understand causality.

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big mountain ben @bigmountainben

4 years ago

@rbpasker @crazybob Completely agreed. But their numbers were small, and they largely believed in the policies that were implemented anyway - tens of billions to the homeless industrial complex, no real help for the mentally ill, and measures that neutered the courts and the police.

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big mountain ben @bigmountainben

4 years ago

@rbpasker @crazybob To address your point specifically, I agree that a subset of corp tech did isolate their workers. I don't see the causal connection to open air drug markets, the normalization of crime, or the complete lack of care for the mentally ill.

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big mountain ben @bigmountainben

4 years ago

@rbpasker @crazybob We will see if voters change their views. The Boudin recall did provide a scintilla of hope, but that ideology is like a religious fervor, and religious fervor is usually impermeable reasons or facts.

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big mountain ben @bigmountainben

4 years ago

@rbpasker @crazybob In my view the decay of San Francisco has nothing to do with tech and is rooted in the ideology of its people and, as a consequence, of its politicians. If anything, tech slowed the deterioration down a little. The cycle of destruction would have happened with or without tech.

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big mountain ben @bigmountainben

4 years ago

@rbpasker @crazybob The cycle that ideology engendered would have emerged with tech or without tech. Tech money has enabled the politicians to buy off constituencies, and to look halfway competent. The fig leaf is gone.

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big mountain ben @bigmountainben

4 years ago

@rbpasker @crazybob It is an ideology that victimizes the very population it claims to want to help - the homeless and the poor. It is a complete lack of compassion that wraps itself in a veritable flag of compassion.

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big mountain ben @bigmountainben

4 years ago

@rbpasker @crazybob The ideology I am talking about is one that believes mentally ill people should not be committed against their will. That crime is mostly the result of poverty and that it should be remedied with gentle social measures rather than strongly combatted.

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big mountain ben @bigmountainben

4 years ago

@rbpasker @crazybob To accuse them even indirectly for SF's descent into a dystopian hell scape (let alone what happened to @crazybob) is profoundly unfair. The blame is laid squarely at the feet of politicians and their enablers, the voters.

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big mountain ben @bigmountainben

4 years ago

@rbpasker @crazybob The tech people I know who set down roots in SF cared deeply about the community, worked in SF, and were involved, beyond the monies they contributed to the tax base.