[BjoernKW]

"Anthony Levandowski is building an unconscionable world of surveillance, control and automation," they wrote on flyers left near his house. "He is also your neighbour."

What were those people thinking? They're subtly but very clearly trying to intimidate that guy. This is like saying "We don't want the likes of you around here."

If those protesters really wanted to do something against surveillance and control they should hold those accountable who are responsible for the NSA disaster and things like Guantanamo. Instead, they chose to pick on an individual who isn't any more responsible for those issues than a factory worker producing weapons is for the war crimes committed with these weapons.

If they want to start a revolution they should be heading to Washington, D.C. instead of starting a petty revolt by bullying some guy who's neither responsible for the issues at hand nor for their own failures in life.

If gentrification helps driving people out of town who display such obnoxious behaviour then we can't have enough of it.

[raverbashing]

"If gentrification helps driving people out of town who display such obnoxious behaviour then we can't have enough of it."

Yes, let's remove every current resident of SF by charging outrageous rent rates and only have rich Google engineers there. Because, that's why. There's no other place they can live, of course, right?

But don't complain then when they don't have anywhere to go for laundry, or the only coffee place is an overpriced Starbucks, or groceries are double what you pay somewhere else.

[JoeAltmaier]

Its supposed to be a free country. Sad when your rent goes up, but a free market allows that. I'm a little offended each time the self-styled old-guard want to 'protect the neighborhood' by which they mean 'keep my cheap rent'. How about you live where you can afford, like everybody else?

[raverbashing]

" want to 'protect the neighborhood' by which they mean 'keep my cheap rent'. How about you live where you can afford, like everybody else?"

So, there are no rent-controlled places in the USA? How about NYC?

Sure, let's raise your rent disproportionately and drive you to a bigger commute, how about that. What if everything near - let's say a 1h30 commute - is expensive?

Of course there are two sides to raising rents, but usually what happens is that it drives away the people that made the place in high demand in the first place.

There's no lack of space in the USA, or even in SF, but apparently people decide to go for the already dense areas.

Google could build their Google Dorm in a cheaper area and have buses come and go from there, how about it?

Not everybody is a high-payed SW engineer, so sure, their rent can be raised and people that can't afford it move away, causing more traffic (either the Google people moving there - MV is far from SF) and the people that moves out and now have to commute), more social issues, etc

[nirnira]

You're a free economic actor and you get to decide for what price you want to offer your goods and services. So are the people who own the particular good in question - property. And so are the people who are also free to desire this good. So far so good. So you have no right, though you might question the wisdom, to demand that the rights of any of these free actors be curtailed just because, for instance, a seller might wish to ask for a price higher than you can afford, or that many other buyers in the market might be willing to pay it.

Well, you can ask for their rights to be restricted, but then they'll ask for yours to be as well - maybe they don't think it's fair that you sell a great software service, with no real competitors, so you can sell it for a $100 a month, and people will buy it - even though they wish they could pay you $5, or nothing.

There's a whole literature of the toxic effects of imposing price restrictions in any of these instances. If you want to educate yourself, just pick up any basic economics textbook and follow the breadcrumbs.

In the meantime, if you're really so angry about this, why not turn your focus to the real roots of the issue? Why not work for better virtualisation technologies to help erode the tyranny of distance? Why not push for more optimal land-use policy to help ease supply restrictions in the property market? (though please try not to complain when your neighbours turn their bungalow into a high-yielding apartment block)

There are many good, valuable ways to approach the putative "issues" generated by an uneven topography of housing demand. Arguing for price restrictions is easily the worst.

[raverbashing]

Thanks for your post, it's informative

What I find it funny is how people complain a lot about Net Neutrality but then on the housing issue it's "free market for all and let's bulldoze SF and build high rise buildings everywhere".

They are similar issues. There's no "perfect competition" (though it can be argued that there's no perfect competition anywhere, they're examples of restrictive competitions)

[JoeAltmaier]

Confused: free market and net neutrality are coherent ideas. Both are a free market for the participants (not the government/lobbyists hoping to profit by price-fixing or supply-fixing).

Or should we conflate those with govt-supported monopoly (local cable companies) wanting to skim money for no work, with private citizens wanting to trade their personal property WITHOUT govt interference?

[brudgers]

The wheels under the Levandovski story is Google agitprop. The protest was in fucking Berkeley. It was over condominiums proposed to be built in fucking Berkeley. And the warmongering angle was just fucking Berkeley's historical anti-warmongering manifesting itself.

The only nexus between the story and Google's buses is Google. And if any one in the world is in a better position to spin a story, it wouor constitute an improbable event.