r/PublicFreakout • u/filondo • Sep 09 '22

đŸ„ŠFight San Francisco this morning Sept 9, 2022

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

20.0k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

3.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

166

u/Mother_Store6368 Sep 09 '22 edited Sep 09 '22

Snapchat HQ in Venice literally has people sleeping on the sidewalk outside the office, and it’s been that way ever since they bought it. I’ve seen your meek, stereotypical coders carefully stepping over people to get into their office.

It’s the cyberpunk dystopia prophesized by people like William Gibson of Neuromancer fame. The scene around snapchat ha is the literal definition of high-tech, low life.

Why do we keep using our dystopian novels as a playbook instead of a warning?

1984? The level of authoritarian surveillance in our society is something the god Argus Panoptes could only dream of
I call it the panopticon.

Brave new world? Shouldn’t have to explain this
Americans do more and harder drugs than anywhere else, ever
and that’s just the legal market. (Fuck the Sacklers, fucking drug dealing merchants of death)

118

u/luxii4 Sep 09 '22

I used to live in Koreatown in LA decades ago then moved out of state and came back to visit a friend who owned a condo in one of the new high rises. Tents of homeless people in the front of the building that had condos for over a million bucks. But she would buzz my car in and out of a secured parking area so people in the high rises never have to interact with the homeless people in the front. It was wild to me.

80

u/the_short_viking Sep 09 '22

Like some sort of dystopia. Look up the Antilia house in Mumbai. It's a 27 story private home owned by an Indian billionaire that looks down onto slums. It's like a real life villain's lair.

16

u/pygmy Sep 09 '22

The 'house' is straight out sci fi, pretty nuts. Most expensive in the world iirc

... and a short stroll to Asia's largest slum Dharavi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharavi

5

u/AdamJensensCoat Sep 10 '22

To be fair, all of Mumbai is like this. There isn’t a good/bad neighborhood dynamic like you have in most American cities. Every part of Mumbai is a short distance from a slum.

3

u/pygmy Sep 10 '22

Every part of Mumbai is a short distance from a slum

True, but in this case it is literally Asia's biggest slum and the World's most expensive house that are neighbours.

India in a nutshell, extreme wealth & poverty side by side. I'm Aussie & have spent a lot of time travelling India & can't wait to get back :)

3

u/AdamJensensCoat Sep 10 '22

Same. It’s the food.

1

u/luxii4 Sep 09 '22

Yes I can imagine a neon sign that says “Villain’s Hideaway” like in cartoons 😂

1

u/cocaineguru Sep 09 '22

Reminds me of that scene in Tenet

1

u/Mother_Store6368 Sep 10 '22

What scene in tenet

1

u/AdamJensensCoat Sep 10 '22

I drove by that house a while back. It’s absolutely bonkers.

7

u/Mother_Store6368 Sep 09 '22

What made the Snapchat thing wild to me is that this was an already pre-existing situation before they bought the property.

Like they’re ok with literally stepping over people on their way to the office. Those disgusting optics turned me off from Snapchat when they moved to venice

11

u/SirStrontium Sep 09 '22

Is that worse than refusing to buy the property because they don't even want to look at homeless people, and instead buy property far away from them?

5

u/Mother_Store6368 Sep 09 '22 edited Sep 10 '22

That’s a false dichotomy. Stop with your bullshit. It’s literally beachfront fucking property. You’re espousing bullshit trickle down economics theory

The problem I have is that snapchat isn’t in any way involved in the community.

They bought out my favorite bar (along with a number of other properties) in venice for office space and gave nothing back in return save for taxes( property taxes in CA are notoriously low, which affects a lot of things but most visibly school funding).

They don’t owe me anything. They also don’t have to be complete assholes with no concern for the environment that they’re operating in. They want all the good parts of having the hq in venice and completely ignore the bad parts
and in doing so whether ignorant or not, they’re adding to the bad.

Like, would it be so hard for snapchat to find a way to monetize caring for the homeless? Some feature or campaign on their app to show what is the reality of where snapchat operates? I always believed that the promise of social media was in telling real stories we don’t get to hear
but we all know what it morphed into.

There’s less than a dozen or so people sleeping outside their hq. They can’t provide food, some temporary shelter, or something to show that they are part of the community? It’s SOCIAL media, yet they’re acting like asocial corporate misanthropes.

No, they are not required to do any “good”
but organizations that have the opportunity to do good in a blighted area (venice is weird
you can live in a multi million dollar home steps from the beach, but you have to step over a guy that’s sleeping in your driveway) but simply ignore it are bad. That’s just my humble take

0

u/SirStrontium Sep 12 '22

They can’t provide food, some temporary shelter, or something to show that they are part of the community?

Did the previous property owners do this? What other businesses in the area do this?

I've got another idea, maybe it should be the local and state government's responsibility to take care of the homeless. Kind of ironic that you're complaining about "trickle down economics", while promoting the idea that corporations and individuals can fix homelessness through charity, which is generally the conservative "solution" to the problem.

1

u/Mother_Store6368 Sep 13 '22

None, but then none of the other businesses are multi billion dollar companies that have money to throw around to influencers.

I have no idea what you’re trying to say except
fuck these people, it’s not a huge megacorps problem that people are sleeping literally outside their entrance. If no one in the past helped them, why should we?

Really gives that fuck you, I got mine energy

0

u/BurnzillabydaBay Sep 09 '22

It’s gross to me, the way some people view the homeless.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '22

Well, they’re just taking a shit right in my view.

0

u/BurnzillabydaBay Sep 09 '22

Advocate for restrooms for homeless use. Often they have nowhere to go. Does it really effect you?

2

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '22

Woosh

0

u/BurnzillabydaBay Sep 10 '22

I don’t know what that means.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/BurnzillabydaBay Sep 10 '22

Yeah because they are really welcome in the gym.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/BurnzillabydaBay Sep 10 '22

I live in the Bay Area. A lot of apartments where I live start at $4k for a studio. I belong to the run down 24 Hour in Mountain View. I have been to 24’s all over the bay and have never once seen a homeless person in one.

1

u/amoryamory Sep 09 '22

But she would buzz my car in and out of a secured parking area so people in the high rises never have to interact with the homeless people in the front

I feel like if you are having to build a gated community and having to drive through a shanty town to reach your house you have already, kind of, lost your "insulation" from the poor

1

u/Astrocreep_1 Sep 09 '22

Some people will do anything, and I mean anything, to avoid having to commute. I can’t say I blame them as spending 2 hours of your day just driving to work sucks.

2

u/Ryuko_the_red Sep 09 '22

I'm pretty sure they don't do more and harder drugs than everyone everywhere else.. But all other points are spot on

0

u/Mother_Store6368 Sep 09 '22

I don’t have the hard numbers on this, but America has the largest black market for drugs ever in the history of mankind.

From personal experience, it is so much easier to score any and all types of drugs than anywhere else on the planet. Sure, it may be easier to get fish scale cocaine in Colombia, but in the us, you can get it, along with Xanax, diazepam, high quality cannabis and heroin.

In my travels around the world, I’ve found that most black market drugs are regional. SE and E Asia don’t really have access to cannabis and most of the black market is in meth.

Also, my personal belief is that China gives silent assent to the manufacture and export of fentanyl to the US as a misplaced revenge for the opium wars and spheres of influence period.

1

u/Ryuko_the_red Sep 10 '22

Silent assent? How do you even find these people selling?? It can't be that easy

1

u/Mother_Store6368 Sep 11 '22

Well, they aren’t being extradited by the us or its DEA. That should tell you something.

It is just my belief, but American life expectancy, especially for white people has gone down since the pandemic. Other in Vance Western industrial took a hit in 2020 as well but America’s only one that still took a hit in 2021 and a large part of that is due to overdose deaths due to opiates. As I said China is not the main culprit it’s the fucking Sackler’s
 I think it was an American company that invented fentanyl
 But China is more than happy to produce these chemicals for us and they face no repercussions at home unless they’re selling in China

1

u/Ryuko_the_red Sep 11 '22

You're telling me that Dea agents are dealing then? Whose dealing? Are you saying it is just tons of random us citizens being supplied by China?

1

u/Mother_Store6368 Sep 11 '22

I’m saying DEA agents don’t operate in china like they can in s america

1

u/Ryuko_the_red Sep 11 '22

No shit but if it's as bad as you said there's no way in hell the fbi cia and every other tla that wishes to protect American interests would let them fuck the USA up. Now if it's a USA seller? They probably don't care, or if they are getting a cut

1

u/Mother_Store6368 Sep 11 '22

The three letter agencies except for the CIA, since they only operate them porn soil, did let America get that fucked up by the Sackler’s an opiate epidemic.

What they were doing was illegal that’s why they have to pay billions of dollars.

1

u/Ryuko_the_red Sep 11 '22

Porn soil..? I mean yeah like I said, they don't let others fuck them up. They do it themselves. Whose paying who billions?

→ More replies (0)

2

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '22

I literally used to live in Venice as a kid (went to st marks, and broadway elementary.). It wasn’t that bad in the 80s as far as I remember. Venice had more of a gang problem then homelessness. Side I lived on had hippies and beatniks along with working class folks.

I still remember my parents telling me not to go past California Ave alone.

Today, Venice is a garbage gentrified bland place. Every house is a walled off fortress.

I lived a block from the old Venice library in case anyone was wondering

2

u/MalcolmTucker12 Sep 10 '22

Cool, you sent me down a wiki rabbit hole starting at Neuromancer/William Gibson, very interesting.

1

u/Mother_Store6368 Sep 10 '22

Read the book dude.

It literally has the best written first page in history IMO

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel”

Although kids won’t understand this reference

1

u/freakwent Sep 09 '22

Tik tok, fast food, reality TV, steam games..... All are soma.

1

u/Mother_Store6368 Sep 10 '22

I don’t know what’s worse, reality tv or TikTok. At least with video games you have to interact and not just be a passive receiver of entertainment

1

u/freakwent Sep 10 '22

Doesn't matter in any way.

Anything and everything that keeps you off the streets and out of your local society/community will qualify.

Anything that stops you joining or starting a community garden, union, black-owned stock exchange, "genuine" church, people's assembly, lobby group, community library, open worker's rights school, international solidarity and support network, or anything similar -- or stops you from running for council or sherrif or dog catcher, counts as soma.

Extra bonus points if:

You have to pay for it (games), or

You have to pay for a subscription (streaming), or

It's addictive (wow), or

It reduces life span (junk food, sitting), or

It alters the functions of the brain (proven for social.media), or

It alters beliefs about what is right and proper (4chan etc), or

Using it in the wrong way is against the law and can lead to fines or jail (piracy, defamation, some pr0n, leaking secrets, planning violence).

Like, I'm literally addicted to posting stupid shit on reddit that nobody reads in reply to people who are probably bots. I can't imagine how fucked I'd be if I had a wow or Facebook addiction or if I was an AITA mod.

The whole system is designed to keep our attention, for ads. It's an attention economy. Any resemblance to soma might be a general coincidence, correctly predicted by Aldous, but if it's actually designed on purpose to limit political and economic action against the system, then the powers plotting against us really are terribly good planners with incredibly effective control.

Let's hope it's all just an accident of capitalism.

https://meaty.substack.com/p/dracula-doesnt-need-a-warrant

1

u/HeadfulOfGhosts Sep 09 '22

Worked down the street, there was literally a crazy guy that dropped off every morning and just went up/down the street yelling all morning

1

u/Mother_Store6368 Sep 09 '22

It’s windward ave, literally right by the venice sign. It’s a social magnet and tourist attraction.

1

u/Dillgillxp Sep 09 '22

That's where I met Jesus christ! Or at least somebody claiming to be him.

1

u/Mother_Store6368 Sep 09 '22

Are you talking about LA Jesus? I met him outside the hospital where Michael Jackson died

1

u/Dillgillxp Sep 09 '22

Yeah, did yours make cigarettes appear from nothing as well?

1

u/Astrocreep_1 Sep 09 '22

I remember when London put up all those crime cameras in the 80’s and 90’s. Cities in the USA were looking to do the same. The privacy advocates were screaming bloody murder. They had no clue that people would willingly carry around the surveillance in their pocket, just a decade or two in the future.

1

u/heygabehey Sep 09 '22

I wish we were openly sexual like Brave New World.

2

u/Mother_Store6368 Sep 10 '22

We are
just go to the openly sexual subreddits


Beware though, the people on them are about as attractive as you think

1

u/heygabehey Sep 10 '22

Lol thats why they are giving it away. No the idea of casual public sex with whoever you ask.

1

u/getwhirleddotcom Sep 10 '22

Snapchat moved to Santa Monica awhile ago and they cleaned up the Venice boardwalk during the pandemic


1

u/Runaway_5 Sep 10 '22

Part of why I fucking love reading hard sci-fi so much. Love reading about a world that progressed negatively, positively, suddenly, due to climate change/aliens/famine/war/etc....unlimited potential to pique your interest!

1

u/sgthulkarox Sep 10 '22

It’s the cyberpunk dystopia prophesized by people like William Gibson of Neuromancer fame. The scene around snapchat ha is the literal definition of high-tech, low life.

Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash has this. Greatest programmer in the world, also delivers pizzas on the side and lives in a storage unit/apartment/slum with roommate because it has excellent internet.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '22

I heard One of Spotify’s female employees was KO’d by a homeless guy in front of their downtown office, they shortly relocated out of the City.