
Demonstration at Home of Google Developer. Google Bus Blocked in Berkeley - matthewmacleod
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/01/21/18749504.php
======
andrewfong
This flyer is just plain nuts. Some choice quotes:

"The self-driven car has been another pet project of the DARPA for many years.
It sponsored a recurring Grand Challenge for people designing self-driving
vehicles, hoping someone would crack open the new technology. Anthony
Levandowski was one of the wonder kids who flocked to these competitions,
looking for a federal handout and fame. Now, with Google handing him more
money than he could ever dream of, Levandowski is working long hours bringing
this dream of the military into reality."

"Levandowski started a company that created computer tablets designed to
display blueprints at construction sites. The reasoning behind their venture
was that updating and then printing new blueprints took a few days and slowed
construction time. With this new product, construction companies could create
condominiums, malls, and subdivisions with the least possible delay and the
maximum profit. In praise of his prodigious business acumen, the
administration-run UC Berkeley News decided to run an article on him in 2003,
championing his ability to make money and enable the housing bubble that was
just starting to expand."

"The proposed project is a testament to the arrogance, disconnection, and
luxury of the ruling class. Growing their own vegetables in a rooftop garden
and selling them to other wealthy people allows them, somehow, to pretend that
the planet is not being ravaged by the same economy they depend on for their
wealth, comfort, and safety."

"Preparing for the action, we watched Levandowski step out of his front door.
He had Google Glasses over his eyes, carried his baby in his arm, and held a
tablet with his free hand. As he descended the stairs with the baby, his eyes
were on the tablet through the prism of his Google Glasses, not on the life
against his chest. He appeared in this moment like the robot he admits that he
is."

Seriously? That last one is particularly horrifying and almost sounds like an
implicit threat.

~~~
stdgy
We are writing to warn you that your neighbor is a talented and driven
individual. He should not be tru...

Wait, what?

------
keidian
Is this serious or supposed to be satire or something? Cause it reads like
something a deranged person would write to me... Making comments about how
Google employees automatically bring police, "All of Google's employees should
be prevented from getting to work", etc. Yeah they do bring police.. to deal
with nutjobs that decide to randomly show up at their houses and stop them
from working, stop a bus in the middle of the street and cause a disruption,
etc.

~~~
calibraxis
Just read the PDF, and it's an interesting and reasonable perspective on tech.
Probably sounds blasphemous to an audience excited about
investments/acquisitions of $15M, $30M and $1.54 billion (from HN's current
front page), but I think techies are due for a reasonable backlash for their
usual servility to power, by people concerned about their society.

~~~
matthewmacleod
With respect, you are wrong. It's neither interesting nor reasonable, and
indeed is barely coherent.

Gentrification is a real problem, with inequality at it's roots. I think most
people would agree with that. And I'd also agree that it's easy for some in
the tech community to lose touch with the relative privilege that they often
live in. But this is not a "reasonable backlash" – it's a bunch of incoherent
knee-jerk harassment by people who should really be doing something better
with their time.

The proper channel for dealing with housing issues is local government; for
NSA issues, national government; in neither is the correct channel the
harassment of individual employees of a company which may (or may not be) the
cause of those issues.

~~~
michaelt
A while ago I was talking to an extremely cynical person in line to inherit a
british aristocratic title.

He told me something his grandfather taught him: People who are protesting
against you will almost certainly disagree with you about what an "acceptable
backlash" is. Specifically you will prefer ineffective protests and those that
that don't inconvenience you, while they will prefer effective protests and
those that are spiteful.

------
DannoHung
Whoever wrote this is a fucking lunatic. I mean, common, "His house is a
pompous, minimally decorated two story palace with stone lions guarding the
door."

You lost me right there. And then the parts about Google X developing "war
robots" and Google threatening to release a "massive amount of carbon"?

Just... no. I thought the protestors had a reasonable argument about Google
hindering the development of better public transportation and displacing San
Francisco individuals by running private bus services that isolated Googlers
from the community, but this is sheer lunacy.

~~~
ForHackernews
Are housing prices in San Francisco really so insane that a two-story house is
"pompous" and a "palace"?

> developing "war robots"

Technically, since their acquisition Boston Dynamics, Google is indeed in the
business of war robots: [http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/google-buys-major-
military...](http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/google-buys-major-military-
robot-maker-why-does-search-giant-2D11744237)

Though they've said they're only going to fulfill their existing military
contracts, not seek out others. I guess we'll see what happens on that front.

~~~
DannoHung
Maybe if this was a protest of a Boston Dynamics employee in Massachusetts,
but this guy apparently works for Google X. So... self driving cars and
diabetes contact lenses?

~~~
diydsp
Cherry picking. The list of Google X projects is largely secret. There are
reportedly 98 more. [1]

[1][http://9to5google.com/2011/11/14/sergey-brin-is-working-
on-a...](http://9to5google.com/2011/11/14/sergey-brin-is-working-on-a-list-
of-100-secret-projects-at-clandestine-google-x/)

~~~
g333k
And we have no actual reason to believe Anthony is working on military robots.

------
Bahamut
This is shameful behavior - it is tantamount to mob rule & harassment, with
the effective statement that "We strongly dislike what you're doing, so we are
going to disturb your private residence and prevent you from going to work".

No person who isn't committing a serious crime deserves that whatever his/her
beliefs.

~~~
walshemj
If I where a Googler working in SF id have to start seriously thinking about
getting a PPW license.

PPW is short hand for the Uk licence to carry a gun for personal protection -
and yes there are tech companies that do have staff that do that.

~~~
hgsigala
Do you honestly think that carrying a weapon in the san francisco bay area is
a good idea?

~~~
BryanB55
Yes. But clearly you have an opposing view on the right to defend yourself
with a firearm. No need to make this into a gun debate.

~~~
ThomPete
And yet you do exactly that.

~~~
aaronem
As far as I can tell, it's a necessary consequence of any mention of firearms
on HN, in any context. There seems little point in blaming any one
participant, in any one instance, for the perennial argument over what is
perhaps the most immediately, or at least the most reliably, polarizing issue
ever raised on HN.

~~~
DanBC
Fireamrs is only one hot-button topic for HN.

Others include Isreal / Palestine; sexism; RMS; etc. it is trivially easy to
troll HN. HN does not do well at ignoring trolls or not responding to overly-
enthusiastic posters. (There are some exceptions to this where a person will
carefully talk through differences in opinion to try to understand or
communicate a point of view but these are exceptions).

------
rexreed
This is getting to be a bit absurd. I understand and can sympathize with the
plight of folks who feel that they are becoming economically marginalized in
the region, because in many ways it is really happening. But public badgering
of mid to low-level folks is not a way to gain a lot of support.

It's like damaging the lobby of a Bank of America or smashing the windows of a
McDonalds -- all it does is ruin the day for the poor middle to low income
folks who run the branch and does nothing to the folks who you aim to target.

~~~
droopybuns
I'd take a different angle:

This is the behavior of desperate people who have lost hope that our
government functions and are motivated to action.

This seems like the natural conclusion of our government's inattentiveness to
it's citizenry. Violence isn't far when folks have achieved this level of
frustration.

The last line of the link makes it clear that Google isn't going to be the
only target. "All of you other tech companies, all of you other developers and
everyone else building the new surveillance state--We're coming for you next."
Burn the witch!

I don't think people should be resorting to violence out of principle, but I
don't think it's reasonable to expect that "folks" who are economically
marginalized should put up with this because "manners."

~~~
aeorgnoieang
But targeting developers is exactly backwards! Or at least it would be if
development was, net, increasing the number of housing units. SF has some
insane zoning laws; why aren't they a target? Or is there an implication that
SF should only ever serve the interests of those that live there as-of some
unspecified date in the (recent?) past? Will the police enforce the borders of
the city to prevent anyone from entering or leaving? How exactly is this
worker paradise supposed to work?

~~~
droopybuns
I doubt the protesters are going to be logging into HN to answer your
reasonable questions.

If I lived in SF- i would be concerned that something major has changed. Your
response describes reasonable questions in a level playing field where people
have hope that the system works.

I don't think these people have hope in the system anymore. They're trying
fundamentally different approaches rather than just giving up.

If they are willing to go after specific employees like this in spite of
perception damages that come with the approach, they probably aren't averse to
the perception damages that violence cultivates either.

------
jasonkester
Absolutely horrifying.

More so because there are actually people here in this thread _defending_ the
crazy person who's trying to destroy somebody's life because they don't like
the company he works for.

~~~
tomp
The point of the protest isn't to destroy a person's life, the point of the
protest is to (1) make Google's employees reluctant to continue being Google's
employees and as a result (2) make Google rethink their official and
unofficial policies, in order to (3) make the world a better place.

AFAIK, they haven't really hurt anybody (this time). They are just pressing
the points that (they think will) hurt the most.

~~~
walls
You'd have to be completely insane to believe #3 is in any way related to #1
and #2. I personally feel the world is a much better place (certainly Oakland
is) with highly skilled employees flushing out the trash.

~~~
ForHackernews
> I personally feel the world is a much better place (certainly Oakland is)
> with highly skilled employees flushing out the trash.

To what or whom does "the trash" refer in your comment?

~~~
kenrikm
I think he's referring to the people who make Oakland one of the most
dangerous cities in country to live in.

~~~
moocowduckquack
Cops?

------
idm
I lived in Berkeley for 5 years, and I can totally imagine this happening.
While some parts of the condemnation are crazy (2 story palace!?) I
nevertheless see the kernel of truth that lies somewhere in the murky
rationale of that rant.

Now, it's certainly not fair or reasonable to target a private individual like
this, but I used to work in a DoD lab and I've considered many of the same
issues raised by the protestors.

I think the bizarre nature of this protest reflects a widespread confusion
over the best way to surface the issue of government/commercial collaboration
on the topic of surveillance. On the collaboration point, the protestors are
right on. Like so many Berkeley events, lucidity comes with a parade attached
to it.

~~~
RodericDay
why is it not reasonable to target individuals?

when you target corporations, people point out that they are complex
structures and that the decisions made by them do not represent every single
employee

when you target specific employees with decision-making power, people point
out that the corporations are the problem and they are beholden by law and so
on and so on

when you discuss that maybe the blame is on capitalism for institutionalizing
antisocial behavior, you're called naive and showered with examples of the
good things it's produced

there's some cognitive dissonance from detractors/businesspeople not primarily
concerned with social welfare in taking one of these positions at a time and
not realizing that everyone else sees them take the three in conjunction

------
mdip
When you attack an individual because of the place s/he chooses to work you
take the "Let's all protest the activities of Big X" down to a personal level.
I'd be horrified if I woke up and found a large group of people protesting in
front of my house because of who I work for. Reading this message, I instantly
put myself in that employee's shoes and instantly became hostile toward the
organization arranging this. I made a second near-instantaneous cognitive
jump, and this is the most important part, to completely disregarding whatever
legitimate (or otherwise) complaints this group had and to assume that I
should give Google the benefit of the doubt. This may be just me, since I
avoid politics at nearly all costs, but despite the fact that I'd probably
agree with this particular groups gripes, I can't make my mind see them as
anything other than a waste of perfectly good oxygen.

Did they change my political opinion? Probably not, but they were more likely
to make me against their particular cause than for it by this action.

Can anyone see anything of value that they might have gained in the process?
I'm finding it difficult to come up with anything...

~~~
scarmig
Question: people will often protest at the houses of CEOs, who consider
themselves just employees doing their jobs. E.g. after the Bhopal disaster,
people protested at the home of the Union Carbide CEO as he was trying to
evade responsibility and minimize payouts to the victims. Is this
inappropriate?

I agree with you that the protestors didn't gain anything from this particular
protest and did harm to their cause, if anything.

~~~
aaronem
It's still inappropriate, but considerably less so, both because a C-level
officer of such a large company is likely to have security arrangements of
some sort, and because a C-level officer has at least some influence over the
policies of the company in question -- the CEO, of course, most of all.

That said, there is a qualitative difference between showing up at the guarded
front gate of a CEO's mansion, and showing up on the ordinary front doorstep
of a rank-and-file employee's two-story house. The former can at least be said
to "go with the territory". The latter verges very closely on an imminent
threat of bodily harm; the whole _point_ of such action is to demonstrate to
its victim that he and his family are not safe anywhere, not even in their
home.

------
acslater00
Welcome to Berkeley, I guess.

Honestly, it was only a matter of time before the dissident left decided that
the software community was just another monied enemy for them to hate.

The good news is that nobody really takes them seriously, so if you can
tolerate the occasional impotent protest and the (very) occasional WTO-style
near riot, you can proceed with your life and ignore them.

~~~
SyneRyder
For someone completely outside the Bay Area, it can be hard to judge whether
this is a big deal or not. The frequency of the news reports makes it seem
like all the Google Buses are being blocked / attacked each morning, and now
that employees are being targeted individually at their homes. I know it's
turned me off accepting jobs in the Bay Area - it isn't the only reason, but
it has been part of it. It would be reassuring to know if these are just
isolated incidents being magnified by the media lens.

------
paulgb
> Our problem is with Google, [...], and the gentrification its employees are
> causing in every city they inhabit

Never thought I'd see someone on the left shaming a company for paying their
employees _well_.

------
JeremyMorgan
I would like to know what this "privilege" is all about. I'm a tech worker who
makes a very good salary. Am I privileged?

I couldn't afford a fancy high end college, so I chose a cheaper one and got a
loan from the Government, which I paid back in full.

I studied hard in a public school and those achievements helped me get a grant
to offset some cost as well.

I got a job in tech support, worked my way up through the ranks by pushing
myself and going above and beyond every day.

I continually educate myself with classes and books that I pay for out of my
own pocket, and invest my own time to keep my skills sharp and advance myself.

I am a "tech worker" and I have a job that pays well above average, so am I
privileged? I would like to know what was handed to me that couldn't have been
given to anyone else who worked hard. I'm not a rarity: tens of thousands of
people in the tech industry are exactly like me. They saw a target and they
hit it.

That's why I don't support these idiots. It's an idea full of fallacies.
They're just trying to ruin the lives of hard working mid level people based
on perceived wrongs by their bosses by people with nothing better to do.

~~~
kasey_junk
A few questions: Are you white? Are you male? Were you born in a country that
had clean running water? What about public education system, or a country that
had education loans easily available for you? Did you grow up around people
that had jobs? Were literate? Had gone to college? Did you know your parents?
How often did you suffer from hunger growing up?

All of these are forms of privilege. Some of them may apply to you, some of
them may not, but if you are posting on this board there is a very good chance
that you were privileged. One of the insidious problems of privilege is those
with it think it is the norm.

When we talk about privilege we are not trying to take away from the very real
benefit of drive/ambition/hard work. I'm sure you deserve the good life you've
built for yourself. But a little empathy/understanding that you did have some
very clear advantages just as a product of your lucky birth, goes a long way.

~~~
JeremyMorgan
I am not trying to discount any of those things but I'm sure the protesters
had most, if not all of those privileges as well.

As far as being white and male, that's a fallacy as well. Do you work in tech?
Take a look around and you'll see some of the most diversity of any industry.
I worked for a fortune 100 for a large part of my career and most teams had
more "minorities" on them than whites. Most of them born in India in horrible
conditions. Color blindness is one of the reasons I'm proud to be in tech.

Is it so hard to admit that most of these protesters are lazy misguided kids
with nothing better to do?

~~~
kasey_junk
I don't have any characterizations of these kids. I don't live in SF and don't
understand the problems at all. They definitely seem misguided from an
outsider.

It's not at all a fallacy that being white & male in the US provides
privilege. If nothing else the incarceration rate among African-American males
in this country means that if you are born African-American there is a
significantly higher chance that your father is incarcerated during your
childhood than if you are born white. As the child being born white you have
the privilege of a higher chance of an non-incarcerated parent. It is just
luck of the draw.

Diversity & privilege are not the same things. They are orthogonal issues. A
Japanese-American has a certain set of privileges as do European-Americans &
African Americans & Africans for that matter. Just because a place hires a lot
of Indians does nothing to mitigate the lack of privilege for African American
boy children.

Finally, your experience may be completely different than mine, but the Indian
colleague's I've had did not come from horrible conditions. Quite the contrary
they were among the elite in their country, born with dramatic privileges.

------
zoidb
I know it must be worth a lot for the area he lives in but it's still amusing
they call his two story plain looking house a "palace."

~~~
bovermyer
And "pompous," don't forget pompous. My house in Minneapolis is easily twice
the size of that. I wonder what they'd think of me?

~~~
walshemj
mm last year I almost brought a listed building and it's mentioned in pevenser
(the definitive guide to uk architecture) - obviously the SF mob would have me
guillotined.

~~~
madaxe_again
I work in eCommerce, and I live in/own a Grade I listed house that has several
pages in Pevsner. I am, clearly, satan incarnate.

------
leothekim
The article has a deeply discrimatory ring to it. It's essentialist to single
out Google as the sole source of whatever problems San Francisco has. It also
has the ring of "these immigrants are destroying the character of our
community and taking our jobs, and not giving back. Let's send these
immigrants a message." Disturbing, terrifying, and misguided.

~~~
walshemj
Interesting that the employee targeted appears to be an immigrant and not a
WASP.

------
moocowduckquack
_All of you other tech companies, all of you other developers and everyone
else building the new surveillance state--We 're coming for you next._

Given that this seems to cover almost anyone involved in telecoms, if they are
successful how will they know?

------
pnathan
Well, if this isn't an incentive for Google devs to get together and make a
gated community together completely cut off from other people, I don't know
what is.

Not only that, it certainly won't endear this group's ideals to Googlers,
while in fact they may have value.

------
scarmig
I'm of two thoughts on this. Obviously, sucks a lot to be dude, but no one is
being violent (though some of the rhetoric veers toward threats, which is
absolutely inappropriate), and this strategy puts immense pressure on Google.
Additionally he's well-chosen as a target: quite wealthy, working on a product
that's closely linked to military applications, and unluckily enough (for him)
someone involved in the changing urban landscape of Berkeley, which helps
protestors tap into a channel of great resentment. It's a tactic that's
typically been used against CEOs in the past (e.g. after the Bhopal disaster):
using it against someone lower on the totem poll makes me a bit uncomfortable,
but it seems like a natural extension.

The real WTF is this: what the hell are they hoping to accomplish? Everything
in their manifesto is scattershot, and comes off as just a spray of
resentment. I could maybe imagine a demand for Google to cease all contracts
with the US military, but (1) they failed to make that demand the explicit
focus and (2) they've not laid the groundwork for that demand. You don't jump
into harsh escalations until you've built a community organized around the
demand, but few people have heard of the Google car-military connection. The
goal seems more just to express inchoate anger at Google and gentrification
without having some specific outcome in mind.

So, on strategy I give them an F. Tactics a B, mostly because the execution is
flawed because of an absent strategy, leading to their manifesto reading as
frothing rage than an intelligent indictment of him and Google. All the
neighbors who receive this flier to are going to walk away sympathetic with
the guy and respecting him more.

------
smtddr
I feel for the plight[1] these people are facing, I really do and I want to
help. __BUT__ if you started showing up at my home protesting and making my
family uncomfortable, that creates a different problem entirely. Anyways I'm
assuming this site is fake because I can't find this being reported anywhere
else... and I assume the protesters know better than to pull a stunt like
this.

1\. Let's be clear though, this is a first-world problem.

~~~
chroem
What they're doing is trying to make it socially unacceptable to assist the
NSA/ DoD, and quite frankly it's overdue. I get the feeling that most of the
criticism here against the protesters is because HN identifies with the Google
employee(s), not because the protesters are wrong. It's a purely emotional
reaction.

~~~
aniket_ray
These protesters are skirting the real issue which is that they cannot afford
prime SF real estate anymore. When these protesters, themselves, were
uprooting the original inhabitants they did not really care but now that they
are being uprooted, they suddenly are crying foul.

The criticism here against the protesters is because they are asking for free
handouts rather than them actually working to earn them. Yes I understand it
is not easy to be retrained and I don't have a good solution for people being
uprooted.

Yet, most commenters here on HN identify with startups/capitalism and believe
that creating something that the market wants is ultimately the only way to
earn a living. Certainly not protesting for free handouts.

The strange thing is that the protesters would have found lots of support
among Google and other Tech industry employees if they had not targeted them
in the first place.

PS: Google does not assist the NSA. Google has made it categorically clear.
Guardian too had to backtrack on it's claims about that.

~~~
FireBeyond
"These protesters are skirting the real issue which is that they cannot afford
prime SF real estate anymore. When these protesters, themselves, were
uprooting the original inhabitants they did not really care but now that they
are being uprooted, they suddenly are crying foul."

I cannot up vote or emphasize this enough. They do not want the Meatpacking
District of the early 20th Century. They want the bohemian eclecticism that
-they- created in the 80s and 90s when they evicted -those- families.

And now it's happening to them, and it's the most evil thing that needs to be
stopped by any means necessary.

------
jijji
If this guy and all of his friends would actually get off their lazy butts and
get a job, they might understand the need for other people to work. We all
need to make money to live, have a roof over our heads, and feed our family.
Just because you don't have a job or an income doesn't mean other people
shouldn't either.

~~~
shadowmint
That's not really a fair comment and it trivializes the issues these guys are
trying to raise.

Getting a job isn't the issue; it's a complex mix of the privileged position
and hard work that led to them _being able_ to get _that job_ , which these
people _cant do_ and the extremely obvious difference in economic status
having that job grants, which includes people being evicted from their homes
so that higher paying individuals can move in.

You can see how people can get upset about it.

You can't just tell them to go get jobs; that won't solve anything. All it
does is make _you_ feel better, _for now_.

If you want to solve the problems like this you have to actually engage with
the community which is feeling disenfranchised. No one wants to, but problems
like this don't just 'magically' go away.

(To be clear, I don't like what's happening here at all, but comments like
yours are inflammatory and _make things worse_ for the people on both sides)

~~~
cpncrunch
The person organizing the bus protests (Erin McElroy) has two degrees...that
seems pretty privileged to me.

I don't live in SF, but it looks to me like the problem is simply lack of new
housing.

------
csbrooks
I wonder what the person did? If it were me, I'd be tempted to just pop out
the back way, and take the train to work or something. I'm sure the protesters
are hoping for a big confrontation.

OK, actually, if it was me I'd stay home and peek through my windows, take a
bunch of pictures, and write up a blog post about it. I kinda want a group of
crazies to protest outside my house, it sounds sort of exciting.

~~~
keithpeter
I've had to cross picket lines (not outside my house). Not fun.

~~~
scotth
What happened?

~~~
keithpeter
Nothing dramatic, I was working at a different company within the compound and
not involved at all with the dispute. Just... nerve wracking a bit (confined
road in, rows of people abiding by the law but just looking you straight in
the eye)

------
Xdes
This is a good example of what the liberal democratic movement should be
about: policing corporations. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and the rest of them
will never end their reprehensible behavior from lawsuits or other slaps on
the wrists. Until there is a boot-on-ground movement to obstruct these
corporations and their employees they will continue to act without consequence
using their hoards of capital.

~~~
judah
Agreed. It's time to obstruct these money-making corporations. We can slap
their hands with lawsuits brought against them for making money, or we can
shut down their greedy, wealth-building schemes. These money-loving fat cats
have it coming to them and we need to stand up against them, especially since
we have nothing better to do after quitting our mindless jobs at our former
corporate greed houses.

Anyone who wants money should be obstructed and shut down!

Anyone who starts a new company should be seen as a money-loving greed-
inducing pawn in the corporate cog, renewing their vicious cycles of greed!

Anyone who takes part in a money-making company is no better than taking part
in Nazi Germany!

Who's with me? Who's with me??!!11oneoneone

~~~
Xdes
The issue isn't about capitalism. The issue is about the responsibility that
these corporations are willfully ignoring once they have acquired copious
amounts of capital. There seems to be this tendency with especially big
corporations and individuals to suddenly throw their users and customers under
the bus in favor of working with the government. Now the government shouldn't
be engaging in this kind of solicitation to begin with, but that doesn't mean
these corporations should be absolved of all guilt.

Any corporation that would rather derive its value as a government datafarm
than from wealth creation has betrayed its user, customers, and capitalism.

------
riddlemethat
I hope that Google is working to protect the people who work for them. It's
scary that nutjobs like this are publishing personally identifiable
information and all but directly encouraging mob action.

------
mgunes
Excellent. If engineers and technologists refuse to take personal political
and ethical responsibility for the future they help build, they need to be
reminded to do so.

We need more of this.

~~~
hadem
I've never felt the need for a down vote button for a comment on Hacker News
until now.

Yes, we should be ethically aware of the tools and products we build, but this
is not the way to go about this! Harassing a man at his home like this is
unnecessary and aggressive.

Please stop the promotion of individual harassment.

~~~
mgunes
When people block Google busses, and break one window of _one bus_ , it's
inappropriate violence on par with barbarism [1].

When people peacefully protest a Google employee and try to raise awareness in
his neighborhood of his activities that they disagree with, it's individual
harassment.

Isn't that just lovely? Hacker News: privileged technologists setting the
standards for techno-skeptical protest. Tell us what the proper way to go
about it (outside the established means of the sham that is representative
parliamentary democracy, of course) is, then.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6951468](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6951468)

~~~
FireBeyond
"We intend to prevent you and your family from leaving your home" \- by what
means do these protestors feel acceptable? Verbal? Staring intimidatingly?
Pushing his wife back as she crosses the property line? Punching his child?
Drawing guns?

When you explicitly state, and act, with the intention to prevent people from
leaving their own home, effectively placing them in a state of house arrest,
then sorry, your protest is no longer any more peaceful than the force implied
by that house arrest.

Hiding behind "raising awareness in the neighborhood" is a disingenuous sham
that exposes a duplicity. What relevance has "representative parliamentary
democracy" to your argument other than to make you feel martyred?

Remember, you are actively threatening a family that you will not let them
leave their home, there is a distinct, and real, fear of how far you will go
to do so. For all your "blocking busses, and breaking one window" (carefully
emphasized to minimize), there's the Seattle WTO protests and everything in
between, and a distinct set of people who -will- resort to violence that
constitutes a non-zero threat to this man and his family's well being that you
wave away as nothing.

At least have the courage of your convictions and stop pretending it's just
some people "raising awareness".

------
bovermyer
Meanwhile, Kiev is under siege by a REAL threat, and children in Africa are
starving.

Every single one of these "demonstrators" seeking to prevent people from
working, harassing them, and destroying their personal property needs to
seriously rethink their priorities in life.

~~~
beering
By your logic, you should be in Africa RIGHT NOW distributing food to children
instead of whining on HN. So, why are you waiting to book your tickets? Aren't
you thinking about your priorities in life?

That something bad is happening somewhere else in the world doesn't mean you
can't spend effort on something close to you.

~~~
leothekim
It's more about perspective, not priorities. For example. I think the citizens
of Detroit would probably kill to have the sort of problems that San Francisco
currently has. Low unemployment, high rents/real estate prices (yes, these
suck, but so does miles of blighted and unmaintained housing and a bankrupt
city government) and a youthful and thriving industry would make San Francisco
the envy of a lot of cities.

------
yalogin
Is this an Onion style web site or is it real? If real its utterly incoherent
thinking and illogical behavior on part of the people involved. I still cannot
accept its real.

~~~
equalarrow
It's real.

Looking at their other stories/posts, I find it - I dunno what I find it,
actually. It does strike me as a fight and struggle with everything. A war on
life.

Personally, I'm not into the military at all, never have been. I do find that
Google's connection with the military (more than just Boston Dynamics)
unfortunate. I'm sure they have a reason why they are doing what they do with
them, as do all the companies that work with that part of the government. It
would be nice (a pipe dream I suppose) if tech companies shunned the military.
Singling out this this guy - I'm not sure what good it will do.

Which ultimately leads me to think about you have to be the change you want to
see. Harassing people like this is probably not going to get them to change
their mind. At all. Reminds me of some documentary I watched (The Corporation
maybe?) where some protestors were at an ex-Shell Oil ceo's house, doing their
thing. The guy came out, offered them team and biscuits and engaged in a sit
down discussion with them on his lawn. Granted, no one changed anyone's minds,
but the fact they could engage in a civil conversation - both sides! - was a
good thing.

As someone who's lived in SF since the early 90's and seen it go thru good and
bad and ho hum times, I think all this tech worker/bus hype is misplaced. I've
also lived in NYC and dated someone who completed their masters at Columbia in
urban planning. While I'm not claiming to be an expert, I know a thing or two
about the real reasons for skyrocketing rents and 'gentrification'. For anyone
looking for a great history of NYC, check out Ken Burns 'New York'. Awesome in
it's scope and presentation. It get's really interesting and relevant to today
when it hits the 20th century and Robert Moses appears. (SF's version of Moses
is Justin Herman)

So would I prefer the manhattanization of SF over the detroitization of SF?
Absolutely. Is it that simple? Probably not. But for anyone that's been around
for more than few years, you remember what the corner of 10th & Market was
like before it went thru it's Twitter and redevelopment phase? This is one
example and I do feel like it was a dick move on Twitter's part to cry about
the tax break. But, if it means the area is cleaning up, then I figure that's
better than the way it was.

Anyway, I don't feel like any of these tech protests are worth much or will
amount to anything. I feel like the protesters are targeting the wrong thing
and need to refocus their efforts on their local government.

------
doctorwho
Where were these uber-concerned citizens while George Bush was raping the US
and Iraq? Why are they not protesting at the White House or stopping NSA
employees from getting to work? But yeah, trample the rights of individual
people, that will help. It's easy (and a lot less dangerous) to hate and
pester a guy who makes more money than you. Forget about who's ruining the
country and focus on the guy you think is responsible for you losing your rent
controlled apartment. A few disingenuous trouble makers (organizers) stirring
up the poor and the stupid for a cause that isn't a cause, just the
distracting, headline grabbing, crusade du jour.

~~~
watwut
Maybe they through Iraq war is a good idea and support surveillance state?

I do not understand what SF issue is really about, but it seems to be local
problem unrelated to international or security politic.

~~~
icebraining
The text is TFA is strongly anti-surveillance state.

~~~
watwut
In all honesty, I found TFA extremely hard to read. It is almost as if the
text would be random generated. Something about that style made my brain pick
up parts, maybe because parts make sense while whole paragraphs make much less
sense.

So, I missed the anti-surveillance state aspect. My bad.

------
bitskits
The more reasonable direct action would be to simply not use a smartphone, not
use the internet (or Google Maps), and not host a website. Opt out of the
whole thing. I'm not clear on how these people can justify blocking the buses
and showing up at people's houses, but then organize using Google's products.

~~~
diydsp
No way. The benefits of technology (and the natural resources it consumes such
as airwaves and exotic materials) should not be reserved for those who kowtow
to commercial interests.

A more reasonable direct action is to develop and socialize technological
practices which uphold community values: DuckDuckGo, Open Street Maps,
Firefox, Cyanogen, encryption, CB radio, amateur radio, GNU/Linux.

~~~
bitskits
I'm saying it is MORE reasonable than showing up at someones house, not
necessarily the best course of action. I agree there are other reasonable
courses of action as well, as you outlined.

------
k-mcgrady
I thought protesting the buses was reasonable and justified. Picking on a
single employee of a company, especially someone who probably doesn't have any
control of the company (i.e. not the CEO, President etc.) and distributing
leaflets about him is despicable.

However is there any link between this protest and the bus protests? The bus
protests were for economic reasons mainly. This is about surveillance so I'd
guess this protest didn't include many people from the bus protests.

------
cromwellian
The real problems in San Francisco and elsewhere, the problems that are
hurting and displacing people, aren't caused by self-driving cars or software
to make construction more efficient, and the people experiencing pain will not
be made better by casting out all of the professionals, many of whom
politically side with progressive causes. (And isn't doing home composting and
growing your own garden what Berkeley protesters would demand people do?) The
local governments need to figure out ways to encourage affordable housing.

Yes, DARPA funds long range research which can be used for military purposes.
That includes the Internet, which was DARPA funded. But all technological
research has dual use. The Internet could have been used as a command-and-
control network for the military during war, but it is also used to distribute
political dissent.

The same research into chemicals and biology that allow life saving medicines
to be created to save children around the world can also be used to make
chemical and biological weapons. Fertilizer grows food, it also makes bombs.

Google X's Car project doesn't seem to have anything to do with making weapons
for the DoD. This is pure guilt-by-tenuous-association. Many college campuses
also enter these DARPA challenges, where's the protests?

The purpose of the car is to solve a very real social problem: hundreds of
thousands of people are killed in auto accidents around the world every year
and millions more are seriously injured needing to go to the emergency room.
This is an enormous social cost which could be used to fund better housing, or
education, but instead is going to treat injuries and repair and replace
damaged vehicles. There is no evidence of a Google contract with DoD for
Google Car technology for weapons.

What I find really disturbing is the level dehumanization. The protest is
peaceful now, but the first step to encouraging violence against someone is to
describe them in dehumanizing terms (a robot). When gun-advocates like Sarah
Palin start using rhetorical devices that dehumanizes opponents and paints
literal gun targets on them, we are not surprised turning up the rhetorical
temperature leads to violent confrontation, the behavior shouldn't be
tolerated or defended on the other side.

~~~
diydsp
> to describe them in dehumanizing terms (a robot).

Anthony Levandrowski has self-described himself as a robot:

"Although Levandowski spent most of his childhood in Brussels, his English has
no accent aside from a certain absence of inflection—the bright, electric
chatter of a processor in overdrive. “My fiancée is a dancer in her soul,” he
told me. “I’m a robot.” "[1]

[1]
[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/11/25/131125fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/11/25/131125fa_fact_bilger)

~~~
mc32
I think that's purposefully way too literal an interpretation. It's clear to
me that that's not to be taken as a literal statement but rather figurative
contrasting himself with his fiancee who is more lithe, in spirit, if not
physically.

------
no_wave
It's so upsetting that they're protesting the single most life-saving
technology that's likely to be developed in our lifetime (self-driving cars).
Life-saving for everyone, too - poor and rich.

------
jskonhovd
I don't know how I would respond to this. If I had a family, I would be
completely terrified for the safety of my kids. I guess when it comes to
family its hard to not be irrational. Anyway, I guess I would stay calm and
call the cops, and unfortunately think about moving.

------
wf
Can someone help me understand what effect would be had if Google did exactly
what these people wanted and uprooted to elsewhere? I feel like that would
cause a way bigger problem than it would solve, but my intuition doesn't have
a solid basis.

~~~
throwaway_yy2Di
_" Can someone help me understand what effect would be had if Google did
exactly what these people wanted and uprooted to elsewhere?_"

Together with the rest of Bay Area tech? Perhaps like the collapse of the auto
monopoly in Detroit, but with an even larger industry and a worse-run city
(SF).

------
ojbyrne
There are actual defense research establishments in the Bay Area. If these
people were actually concerned with "collaboration with the military" perhaps
they should be protesting in front of Lawrence Livermore Labs.

Its absurd.

------
pettys
I read the article and the flier; I felt like I was approaching it open-
minded. I conclude it's propaganda because it paints common circumstances with
unfairly pejorative language, and by that undermines the few valid points it
brings up. The brochure closes with: "Steal from the techies you babysit for."
If that's your message, you and I are not on the same side.

------
jpadkins
Ironically, these anti-Google bay area protesters are starting to sound a lot
like conservative anti-immigration talking points.

* We don't want your kind in our neighborhood. * We don't want our culture changed. * Your mere presence is ruining our life. * You are different than us, therefor unwelcome here.

I thought Berkeley was the peaceful co-existence crowd?

~~~
dubfan
The political spectrum wraps around and converges at the extremes. I'm
reminded of the controversy in Portland around water fluoridation. Many of the
ostensibly left-wing opponents of fluoridation, when presented with the
argument that poor people without access to dental services would suffer
without water fluoridation, rebutted this by essentially saying that poor
people don't deserve to have healthy teeth anyway.

------
loudin
Why all the rage directed at Google and not, say, the government that
institutes these policies? Something just feels 100% misguided about these
attacks.

------
mc32
This is coming awfully close to bullying, if not terrorizing an individual
because of a difference of opinion on what they do or whom they work for.

This is awful. I might not agree with some things Google does or any
corporation does; however, this approach will only serve to alienate
dissidence since most people will not want to be associated with this kind of
awful tactic. Just because people (public) is not taking your side should not
signal you the protester to go gonzo, off the reservation, as it were.

This is not the way to dissent. It's a desperate and counterproductive
approach which _might_ get sympathy form the choir. In that sense, it's a very
selfish (self-pleasing) act.

------
lolwutf
And this is why you should have a gun in your home, folks!

~~~
buckbova
There's no better deterrent than racking a shell into your shot gun.

------
mindcrime
Man, everytime I read more about this, I lose a little more of my sympathy for
these protesters. They sound more and more like a bunch of whack nut-jobs in
every article.

I don't disagree that they have some valid concerns, but they aren't doing
themselves any favors with this over-the-top stuff. In fact, I suspect they
are unintentionally setting themselves up as "the bad guys" in this story.

I can't help but think the protesters should take a long, hard look at who
their leadership is, and find somebody new.

------
seniorsassycat
I think Google's threats of releasing "massive amounts of carbon" refers to
the emissions of their employees commuting individually instead of by busses.

------
ubercore
I agree with everyone that's calling this mob behavior and harassment. In no
way is this "OK". But...

I'm actually glad this discussion is happening. I think it's a really
interesting problem that faces a lot of cities, ones even less prosperous than
SF. Hopefully the opposition can follow up this overwrought and misguided
protest with an actual dialog with companies like Google and the city.

I also hope they stop singling out employees.

------
jastevenson
"Gentrification" became a bad word at some point.

I don't see it that way.

I hope that the tech industry gentrifies the hell out of SF to get rid of
nutcases such as these people.

------
doctorwho
Google employees will now organize to lobby to bring a "stand your ground" law
in California. When that happens we'll see how many hipsters feel like
threatening someone who can afford a semi-automatic weapon and has the skills
to rig it up to a quad-copter, or their home security system.

------
bananacurve
They probably used Google Maps and Streetview to get there.

~~~
uname1
The picture of his house on the flier was from Streetview...

------
uname1
Why aren't they at the doors of the government officials in charge of the
surveillance state? It seems like a demonstration about inequality and
gentrification wrapped in the hot topic of the day. (surveillance)

------
brudgers
If the headline were _Demonstration at the Home of Developer_ and this was
only over luxury condominiums, would the response of HN be more neutral or
favorable?

I suspect it would be, and that raises an interesting question in regard to
why I am conditioned to give more weight to etiquette when the issues are more
weighty -. this event touches on corporatism, militarism, economic
disparities, and the illegal use of public infrastructure for private profit
all in addition to basic neighborhood activism.

When did citizenship come to be considered poor form?

------
kyleblarson
I am seriously dumbfounded by this for so many reasons. Why pick on GOOG in
particular? Isn't Palantir "more evil" by their screwed up logic?

------
shoeless
How is protesting in a residential neighborhood allowed? Did this group have a
permit? Is the SF Bay area different in this regard - no permit allowed?

~~~
anExcitedBeast
"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the
press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble...."

~~~
FireBeyond
If you tell someone and their family that you are going to stop them from
leaving their home, and there is a not unreasonable expectation of assault and
or battery in that, you are going beyond the right of peaceable assembly and
into the realm of false imprisonment, or kidnap.

------
n1ghtmare_
What the frack is this nonsense ? Whoever wrote this should seek professional
help. Sometimes it's scary to know how many nutjobs are out there.

------
djim
am i the only one happy that folks like this left jobs working for the
government and their contractors to work for a company like google?

------
rjf90
I'm seeing a strong parallel with occupy wall street. Clearly there are
differences - these people seem more militant for one - but this is clearly a
movement born out of an emotional response, if not shear jealousy. These
protesters are uninformed at best, and their tactics will not yield any
results.

------
stygiansonic
By their messed-up logic (I can't tell whether this is parody or not), their
use of jQuery on their website would put them among the military-industrial-
surveillance supporters since they are lending their implicit backing to a
project/library that the NSA uses on their website.

~~~
moocowduckquack
I think the dependency irony starts hitting much further up the stack than the
jquery library on the website, given the nature of a website on the public
internet.

------
jsonmez
I hate this because I am in support of freedom. I love this because I am in
support of freedom.

------
cpncrunch
Here is the person who is organizing the bus protests. I'm not sure if she was
involved in this particular demonstration:

[http://www.erinmcelroy.net/resume.html](http://www.erinmcelroy.net/resume.html)

~~~
nostrademons
That's just as bad as the protesters who show on the doorstep of a Google
engineer. Attack the action and not the person. In this case you don't even
know if that person is the one involved in this action.

~~~
cpncrunch
No, it wasn't an attack. I was simply curious about who was organizing these
protests, as I'm sure a lot of people are.

------
pdknsk
I am fascinated and bewildered. I had not known fliering is a word.

