[jonahhorowitz]

The laundromat saga happened largely because the owner of the laundromat was a jerk. You may think politics shouldn't work like that, that they rules should be based on the law and not who you are, but in San Francisco, that isn't how it works. I'm not defending it, but the laundromat was very much an example of a guy from Marin being a total jerk and then throwing a tantrum when he didn't get what he wanted.

[Kalium]

> The laundromat saga happened largely because the owner of the laundromat was a jerk.

What should he have done differently that would have made the process work? Is it perhaps possible that his plans might have worked had he presented them with kindness, centered his words in compassion, and experienced a genuine blooming of human empathy? Greeted Calle 14 and Arguello with sympathy and real emotional engagement, acknowledging the legitimacy and validity of their concerns and pain, before refusing to donate?

Or was he a jerk because he didn't want to play ball with an unwritten shadow system that exists to make arbitrary and extrajudicial demands, and no amount of framing or emotional performance was going to make him into less of one? Can you help me understand?

[yonran]

I read the articles about Robert Tillman (e.g. https://missionlocal.org/2019/04/historic-mission-district-l...), and apparently the only thing he did that made him a “total jerk” was making a proposal to produce a necessity of life in a city with a desperate shortage, following all the zoning procedures to the tee, and refusing to concede to extortionary demands from politicians and other self-appointed gatekeepers.

By the way I never saw a “tantrum” from him; he followed the law methodically and for that he was ridiculed by the press as a deviant (“kamikaze” according to Joe Eskanazi https://missionlocal.org/2018/06/the-strange-and-terrible-sa...). He publicly shared his research (e.g. https://groups.google.com/g/sfbarentersfed/c/mHT2l4zDyKg/m/X...) and I think would have wanted his project to be an example to others of how to make the rule of law the norm in San Francisco, but that was not the agenda of the politicians and the press.

I get that people (such as Supervisor Hillary Ronen, gatekeeper Erick Arguello, and so-called “Progressive” journalist Tim Redmond) are upset about people profiting off the housing shortage. But if they are upset about a landowner making ~$130k per unit for investing in alleviating the shortage, they should be livid over every single homeowner in the neighborhood who sells a house for $2 million and makes more profit per unit without increasing the housing supply at all. That they asymmetrically target housing producers while remaining silent to idle speculators gives a perverse disincentive against creating housing and reveals a NIMBY preference by these so-called “Progressives”. In the end I think their advocacy does more harm than good in San Francisco even when it is in the name of capturing some value for the poor.

[renewiltord]

If he had not been a jerk, his project would simply have quietly failed. As it so happens, people reward non-jerk failure with a “that sucks, man” and a jerk failure with “haha!”. And that’s fine but both of those are both failures.

But the jerks succeed some of the time.