Hi,

So, it is tempting to resurrect Technocrat.net now that Slashdot stinks worse than the last two times I shut down technocrat.net .

If you remember, we didn't get very many readers. We didn't get them because not enough people submitted usable articles.

As it happens, we don't just need a better Slashdot. We need a replacement for Groklaw. And I personally would be happier reading something with the absolute minimum of Javascript except perhaps in the submission editor. Maybe I'm old-fashioned.

I know that I can do it technically, and I have the server, and Cloudflare should be able to help me handle the load. But if it is like last time, and my wife observes that I'm talking to the same dozen guys all of the time, it's not going to work.

What do you think?

bloodninja: Baby, I been havin a tough night so treat me nice aight?
BritneySpears14: Aight.
bloodninja: Slip out of those pants baby, yeah.
BritneySpears14: I slip out of my pants, just for you, bloodninja.
bloodninja: Oh yeah, aight. Aight, I put on my robe and wizard hat.
BritneySpears14: Oh, I like to play dress up.
bloodninja: Me too baby.
BritneySpears14: I kiss you softly on your chest.
bloodninja: I cast Lvl. 3 Eroticism. You turn into a real beautiful woman.
BritneySpears14: Hey...
bloodninja: I meditate to regain my mana, before casting Lvl. 8 chicken of the Infinite.
BritneySpears14: Funny I still don't see it.
bloodninja: I spend my mana reserves to cast Mighty F*ck of the Beyondness.
BritneySpears14: You are the worst cyber partner ever. This is ridiculous.
bloodninja: Don't f*ck with me bitch, I'm the mightiest sorcerer of the lands.
bloodninja: I steal yo soul and cast Lightning Lvl. 1,000,000 Your body explodes into a fine bloody mist, because you are only a Lvl. 2 Druid.
BritneySpears14: Don't ever message me again you piece of ****.
bloodninja: Robots are trying to drill my brain but my lightning shield inflicts DOA attack, leaving the robots as flaming piles of metal.
bloodninja: King Arthur congratulates me for destroying Dr. Robotnik's evil army of Robot Socialist Republics. The cold war ends. Reagan steals my accomplishments and makes like it was cause of him.
bloodninja: You still there baby? I think it's getting hard now.
bloodninja: Baby?
--------------
BritneySpears14: Ok, are you ready?
eminemBNJA: Aight, yeah I'm ready.
BritneySpears14: I like your music Em... Tee hee.
eminemBNJA: huh huh, yeah, I make it for the ladies.
BritneySpears14: Mmm, we like it a lot. Let me show you.
BritneySpears14: I take off your pants, slowly, and massage your muscular physique.
eminemBNJA: Oh I like that Baby. I put on my robe and wizard hat.
BritneySpears14: What the f*ck, I told you not to message me again.
eminemBNJA: Oh ****
BritneySpears14: I swear if you do it one more time I'm gonna report your ISP and say you were sending me kiddie porn you f*ck up.
eminemBNJA: Oh ****
eminemBNJA: damn I gotta write down your names or something

Not everyone can afford to buy. That isn't a problem; it's an economic reality likely to persist as long as property exists as we know it. If a bunch of new people move into an area without construction to compensate (and the Bay area has been notorious for not allowing much of any new construction), classic supply and demand forces prices to rise. Those who cannot or choose not to buy rather than rent will inevitably feel the increase in prices. They can either fight to allow more construction (i.e. housing supply) to absorb the influx of people or they can wait until their rent becomes so high they can't afford to stay there any longer. Even if they do the former, the latter may come to be. There's nothing unjust about it as a rental agreement doesn't provide one rights beyond the end of the agreement's term. If you rent for 12 months, you don't get to stay there 13, 14, 16 months. If you've signed 20 one-year leases, that doesn't give you some special entitlement to stay there in year 21.

Anyone who's renting should recognize that rents can change with market conditions. If the place you're living in becomes the hot new place to be, your rent is going up. If you're renting in Detroit (aka Gentrification-free-ville), your rent is going down (or should be - talk with your landlord about that or just move to any one of a hundred places nearby). Those moving into the Bay area have exactly as much right to be there as anyone else. If they're paying their rent/mortgage, nobody has any right to be upset with them. They have done nothing wrong. And anyone who thinks they have should go where their imagined problem (gentrification) doesn't exist (Detroit).

Those are people not being caught. No doubt you do see some of them pulled over from time to time, just not all of them because there are so many. The difference is that a cop or a politician can do it while they're the only car on a road lined on both sides with cops running speed traps. I find that inherently wrong.

From the flyer:

"Fast forward to the present and Levandowski has bought
a house for his wife and children near College and Ashby. In
addition to this cozy two-story affair, Levandowski has also
purchased a property on the corner of Dwight and Fulton,
just one block from Shattuck Avenue."

"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."

"As long as capitalism functions, everything it is connected to
will be poisoned with its sickness. People like Levandowski
are gentrifying neighborhoods, fl ooding the market with
noxious commodities, and creating the infrastructure for an
unimaginable totalitarianism. This is the evil that we stake
our lives against."

"Defend the land.
Use your position in society—whether as a felon, a barista,
an immigrant or whatever your experience—as your starting
point for your revolt against it. Have courage. Find others
who feel the same way and block a tech bus. Steal from the
techies you babysit for. Take down surveillance cameras. Go
hard: The time is now."

They're stalking this man and his family, tracking his movements and his financial workings. They're calling him evil - the kind of evil they "stake [their] lives against". They're already advocating theft and violence against property. They're borderline advocating violence against this engineer. That's just from their flyer. Here's some more details from new stories:

"At around 7:00 a.m. a group of activists say they went to the street where Google employee Anthony Levandowski lives in Berkeley to stage a demonstration outside his home. According to the activists, they rang Levandowski’s doorbell, then stood outside the house for about 45 minutes holding a banner that read “Google’s Future Stops Here.” They then watched Levandowski leave his home.

The anonymous protesters then placed flyers under the windshields of cars in the neighborhood. The fliers include a photo of Levandowski’s home and a lengthy statement that describes the Google staffer as bringing evil into the world. The headline reads: “Anthony Levandowski is building an unconscionable world of surveillance, control and automation. He is also your neighbor.”"

From a later statement from the group, "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." Other news articles describe these protestors blocking the man's driveway for 45 minutes, effectively trapping him in his own home.

Now put yourself in his shoes. You wouldn't feel threatened at all? I think most people would; especially with a family. They targeted him specifically, tracked down his home address, printed up flyers with his name and a bunch of other information about him, showed up at his house, rang his doorbell, blocked his driveway, and stated that he's the type of evil they'll stake their lives against. This isn't why we have a first amendment. This isn't stating an unpopular opinion or speaking truth to power. This is about terrorizing a family. They're hoping to terrorize him and other tech workers into quitting their jobs and staying home, hiding from the mobs of angry people threatening them and their families. This is sick, and these people should be stopped.

Nobody? Come now... I'm sure exceptions can be made if you're say... a cop or a politician?

Dear God! What will San Francisco's good and decent law-abiding citizens do without crackhouses, whores, and the homeless?! Oh the humanity!

Wonder how you'd feel about that if it were your home being picketed and you and your family being stalked and terrorized by a group of extremists accusing you of being a robot that's part of a massive conspiracy to enslave humans around the world.

People have the right to assemble peacefully, to voice political opinions - peacefully - and to petition their government for change. What they do not have the right to do is stalk and terrorize people; especially those who are doing a perfectly lawful job at a lawful company.

Toward getting better skills, better jobs, or finding more affordable places to live if the first two don't work out?

Talk about fault, what fault is there with Google or its employees? The process you describe will happen regardless of where Google goes (since it can only go where supporting infrastructure exists). So Google and other high paying companies are terrible, evil companies regardless of where they go? How about their employees? Are they only allowed to live in their own offices at work? Since apparently they aren't allowed to choose where to live based on the location, rents, etc.

Sorry, but paying rent today (or for however long) does not entitle one to continue paying that same rent tomorrow and forever into the future. What you're entitled to is what's in your lease. If your lease says you can pay rent for the next 12 months at $1,000, there's absolutely nothing there saying you can pay that (or anything near that) 13 months from now. If you want the security of staying where you are, BUY; renting doesn't give you that and it shouldn't. This whole concept of some people being somehow entitled to continue residing in the same place simply because they've been there for a given period is patently absurd.

Gentrification is a net positive for an area. It makes the area nicer, increases the tax base without altering the individual tax burden, reduces crime for that area, and helps stamp out poverty. It won't be a net positive for every resident and that's fine. No change ever makes everyone happy all the time and it doesn't have to to be a net positive. How many crime-ridden ghettos of NYC have been completely turned around by gentrification?

Want to see a place without gentrification? Look at Detroit.

Texas is open for business. I'm not a resident there, but I'd love to see a mass exodus from California and watch their liberal paradise sink into third-world status overnight.

And arm myself with some pretty hefty firepower. Oh wait, in California, one isn't allowed to protect themselves legally. One may, however, die legally at the hands of an angry, irrational mob who thinks robots are taking over the world.

They're upset that employers who pay living wages are moving into their area? Oh wait, that's right, $15 is a "living wage" and these companies are paying more than that. So tech workers are being paid too much, fast food workers are being paid too little, and what we really need is everyone making the same money regardless of what they do?

Why don't these hippies go join a little commune where they can all be equal* together?

*with some Type A people being more equal than others