

Silicon Valley Assholes - otto_sf
https://medium.com/pop-of-culture/6566abbf7101

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clinton_sf
I posit that it isn't class tension, rather cultural tension. I moved to San
Francisco in 2000 (during the dot com boom and subsequent bust) when the first
wave of anti-tech worker sentiment start to brew.

Since then it's completely normal and reasonable to tote around a Macbook Pro
with you around town; people who understand and use tech aren't the problem.

JWZ alluded to this cultural tension in his 1996 "San Jose is hell on earth"
rant.

What people don't want is dilution of San Francisco culture; I personally love
how there are so many neat, quirky people in San Francisco. In my time here,
I've run into and had interesting conversations with artists, musicians,
teachers, coffee roasters, hipsters, students, bicyclists, ... yes, even
homeless people. But I cringe when I'm sitting down at Tartine and overhear
some tech worker talking about Quartz Compositing, unrolling a loop and adding
SIMD, or Javascript -- I'm a tech guy, but come on, that's really boring to
discuss in public. I look around and think, "no, wait, we're not all that
boring and narrow!"

It's one thing to have an employer in Silicon Valley, but it's another thing
when your employer drives a bunch of shuttle busses to San Francisco that wait
at and hog up Muni bus stops. Every time I ride the Muni and a Google shuttle
is blocking the stop, forcing Muni riders to get off the bus further down the
street (sometimes in unsafe conditions), I can't help but understand why some
people want those Google/Apple/Facebook people to "give back to their
community" and view them as outsiders, as if they were rude tourists. As for
my (tech) employer, they give us nearly unlimited Clipper eCash to use on any
and all transit systems -- pumping money into the transit system to make
improvements instead of privatizing transit as we know it.

No, you don't need to give lots of money to the homeless or get involved in
local politics, but if you're going to live in San Francisco, it helps to have
skin in the game, instead of being a permanent tourist. For example, I ride my
bicycle around San Francisco as my primary means of transportation; I donate
to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition because their interests align with
mine. I volunteer time at GLIDE, because it's important to me to do something
like that.

If you're going to live in San Francisco, then try to enjoy living there for
what it is. You could always move to San Jose if you want the big city + tech
worker thing, or Mountain View if you just want the tech thing.

If you dislike San Francisco but choose to live there anyways, consider this
quote from Lao Tzu: "Fail to honor people, they fail to honor you."

