[jasonwatkinspdx]

No, this place is a fake think tank that pretends to be neutral but is in fact an arm of ALEC and largely funded by the Koch's: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/California_Policy_Cent...

Don't fall for easy bullshit and let it lead you to making "dunk" comments that don't actually engage the problems and instead act as thought ending cliches. That's their entire goal.

[proc0]

Sounds like conspiracy theories. No dunking, just saying. SF is far left just like Oakland and they both seem to have unique problems other cities aren't experiencing. I could be wrong, but so far I've predicted the downturn and I think it won't get any better unless people start holding the decision-makers accountable (which sounds like it's not going to happen).

[pstuart]

So the problem is that SF is liberal? That caused the homeless to be sent from around the country?

It's expensive there because a lot of people want to live there (ye olde supply demand thang, ya know?), and the more affluent squeeze out the poor folk. A lot of that affluence seems to be all of us lucky tech people, so in a sense we're part of the problem (not blaming, just noting).

There is corruption and incompetence too but that seems to exist lots of other places too.

[proc0]

Isn't it beyond liberal? I would almost say it's so left it's not even liberal anymore, but that's a different matter. i think for sure it is a factor because the people who make decisions in the city, who are elected to manage the city, are probably not afraid of losing their jobs or the consequences of the decisions they make. There is so little pushback they can just run experiment after experiment with zero repercussions. I don't know what the solution is but I sure know that I don't hire the same company over and over if they keep failing at solving a problem I'm paying them for.

Granted, corruption is a big part of it (i.e. public services wasting tax payer money instead of solving the problem), and dealing with that would be a step in the right direction.

[pstuart]

Are you familiar with the Overton Window? It's shifted hard to the right.

So if you want to say: is San Francisco tolerant of the LGBQT+ community? Absolutely, with flying rainbow flag colors.

But that's the key driver in the culture wars, and it has nothing to do with the business of running a government (other than minimizing government persecution of that community.

All of these issues could and should be dissected, analyzed, and addressed. But blaming it on the boogeyman of "DemonRats are destroying everything" is tiresome.

You state "experiment after experiment" but don't give any examples. I'd be happy to discuss them individually if you'd like.

p.s.: My mother was one of those awful homeless people littering the streets of SF in her final years. She migrated from the burbs so she wasn't the city's fault. How she got there is the complicated issue of many of them and never gets properly discussed or addressed. That's my skin in the game of this story.

[kortilla]

> Are you familiar with the Overton Window? It's shifted hard to the right.

This is incorrect. It may have widened in both directions, but it absolutely did not shift to the right.

Transgender support from mainstream corporations (Target, Budweiser, etc) would have been completely unthinkable 10 years ago.

That’s just one example of many. What has happened is that the Overton window is broken because people don’t even engage with “the other side” anymore. So we just end up with both sides discussing things with impunity that were previously off-topic and still are for the other side.

[amanaplanacanal]

I think this is a perfect example of why the left-right axis doesn't capture the issues here. Support for gay or trans rights seems to have little or nothing to do with the problems described.

[proc0]

Overton window has mostly moved left, but it has also expanded because we are more polarized than ever. The mainstream culture is definitely on the left, and I think that people on the left don't like that because you need to be constantly fighting the "oppressors", so it works against the left narrative to be dominant culture. However you can see this in movies, games, fashion, the mainstream media, the most used apps... of which Twitter is a good example and also an exception because it took one of the richest people to lose money on buying it in order to show how biased it was. That said, we could be seeing a slow return to the center which only recently started, although I can't say just yet.

I'm a centrist and try to stay in the middle because usually that's where solutions are. Whenever political extremes get their way, it tends to go wrong. Case in point is SF. It's not just gender identity politics or allowing people to live outside on the streets, it's also the attitude towards crime, the prioritization of climate change over everything else (while rejecting nuclear energy), and the tendency to control businesses which was evident throughout the pandemic as many small businesses struggled.

Sorry to hear about your mother. I do wonder why you would let her even experience that for a day. Maybe you didn't know, and you don't need to explain, but the left's position here is to think housing is the solution, when I think there is a big factor of families failing to take care of their loved ones and then demanding government pick up the pieces.

[jasonwatkinspdx]

They're most severe in SF but all major west coast cities are experiencing the same issues. Saying it's a result of "liberalism" is simply empty reflexive rhetoric. What's happening is a complex set of intersecting problems. If you'd like to talk about those I'm interested. If you just want to punch at what you see as "far left" I am not inclined to waste my time.

[nonethewiser]

San Francisco? Neutral? Right?

[HyperSane]

Only one Koch left.

[jasonwatkinspdx]

Yeah, I keep forgetting that, somewhat hilariously as I'm at radius 2 to the family. My dad's best friend worked for Koch industries and described his job as "keeping the brothers from killing each other." They are extremely unpleasant people based on all the stories I heard growing up.

[HyperSane]

You would have to be utter bastards to dedicate your life to the evil shit the Koch's did.