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Comment by Crito | Hacker News Reader

People have been hating yuppies since as long as the concept has existed. This is nothing new at all; it is standard distrust, fear, or dislike of people who are perceived as different.

There exists a certain segment of the population that will always consider newcomers (less charitably called 'outsiders') as an intrinsically bad thing. These people should be ignored; they cannot be satisfied by doing anything but giving in to them.

(I don't live in SF, but I hear the same complaints about "techies" in my city, particularly in my neighborhood.)

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This is true, and many of the problems I see in SF had like-for-like counterparts when I was living in London (replace 'tech' with 'finance', etc).

That said, I think SF has some unique circumstances that make gentrification challenging. These cause genuine problems that aren't related to simple fear of change. A few of those circumstances:

* SF has a very poor public transport system that severely limits where people can choose to live in relation to their workplace

* SF has problems with homelessness and poverty that are more visible and proportionally higher than its peers (SF has one of the highest rates of homeless people who actively refuse shelter)

* Tech workers often flee the city to have families, meaning they aren't as engaged with the community as others (this exodus also has detrimental effects on the school system in SF)

It's sad though, to think that tech could ever be considered the new finance. We're supposed to the LSD experimenting, sandal wearing, authority deriding rebels. That's why we're rooted in San Francisco to begin with.

We're threatening our own existence.

> We're supposed to the LSD experimenting, sandal wearing, authority deriding rebels.

> We're threatening our own existence.

Erm...no. You are choosing to define tech as either " LSD experimenting, sandal wearing, authority deriding rebels." or in another post as "autistic male industry.". This is a definition that works for you. I choose not to be associated with any of these definitions. I have no interest in either craft beer or comicon or any of those typical American nerd past times. Hell, I studied high school in a sub culture where girls were automatically supposed to be good at Math or CS.

My point is that it ultimately is just a job. Go do the job. There will be people who will stereotype you and make you part of some club whether you choose to be part of that club or not. Ignore them, help the world if you choose to.

I couldn't agree with you more. We need to step up and change the averages of this industry.

There will be many benefits if we do, for our society, for our industry, and for us too. In the meantime, you and I will be in the minority.

I was speaking a bit tongue in cheek about the lsd and sandals, but nevertheless believe we need to work hard to encourage a quilt of diversity: in style and scenes, approaches to the world and epistemology of learning, academic pursuit, politics, local business etc. I aimed to identify the low hanging fruit, where we're most of out to lunch. And the lack of women in our midst is certainly #1 on the list, imo.

I don't think so. I think the reality is that the "yuppy" stereotype is much more malleable than people think. It only conjures up the image of a young guy with slicked back hair in an expensive suit talking about models and bottles because that was the most apt caricature of the investment bankers in, e.g., Manhattan. In SF, though, it's going to start conjuring up images of the coder typing on a Macbook in a coffee shop while casually dressed, talking about his startup ideas.

This is why I disagree with Crito and think the fundamental issue here is economic, not bigotry. The bigotry is just a concentration of vitriol against the offending party, and it morphs to reflect whatever that offending party might look like. There's a lot of emotional pain in being displaced. It's going to create resentment against those who are perceived as doing the displacing.

It only conjures up the image of a young guy with slicked back hair in an expensive suit talking about models and bottles because that was the most apt caricature of the investment bankers in, e.g., Manhattan. In SF, though, it's going to start conjuring up images of the coder typing on a Macbook in a coffee shop while casually dressed, talking about his startup ideas.

Those are superficial differences. You know what actually matters? Whether he will defend the reputation of a whistleblower in the face of power. Whether he will fight when he finds out that women are getting paid 15% less in his company. Whether he'll push hard for an environment that prevents managerial abuses. That's the shit that matters, not whether he wears a hoodie vs. a suit.

On the serious moral stuff, the modern incarnation of Silicon Valley is just so fucking conventional and submissive to authority that, as far as I'm concerned, it has forfeit its right to live.

Most of the "techies" aren't sandal wearing hippy programmers.

They're carpet-baggers, here for the perceived easy money, because Wall Street gorged itself to bail-out destruction.

That is just you having an unreasonable expectation of others. Techies do not have to conform to your notion of what they should be.

I should add that your attitude towards what financial workers are or should be is pretty close minded as well...

How can you say any of that with a straight face?

We program the machines that affect society in ways that go completely against the ideals of counter-culture.

We are right-hand enablers of the man. Until we aren't needed, that is.

Aye, those things are certainly problematic. I think that people disturbed by those things need to consider directing their outrage and effort at the causes of those problems, and solutions.

Tech people who can afford commutes are not the cause of poor public transit, they just serve to highlight it. Upper-middle class tech workers are not the reason that there are so many homeless in SF, they just provide start contrast that makes the homeless problem highly visible.

Getting rid of tech people so that these problems are not as apparent is not a well considered solution.

I think it has more to do with being displaced and less with disliking people with Macbooks at coffee houses. This is gentrification, but it's the middle class being pushed out this time, not the lower class. Nobody wants to leave their favorite spot because they can no longer afford the rent.

You're right, though, that it's not new at all. This happens in most major urban cities.

The trick is that the newcomers are always blamed for rising housing costs, nobody considers that their own community may be to blame for the housing shortage.

It is unreasonable to expect your community to never grow in population or wealth.

Also, I think you are underplaying the degree to which "disliking people with Macbooks at coffee houses" plays into it. There is a lot of wordage in that article dedicated to describing things other than rising rent that is bothering the "natives".

One example:

""Your whole social world is tech," Garcia, 37, said as he finished a bagel sandwich at the Creamery, a cafe at Fourth and Townsend that's a hotbed of tech deal making.

"The reality is that there are real people in San Francisco, but they're usually in neighborhoods like the Richmond or Sunset," he continued. "The wall between them and us, so to speak - not to get too postcolonial about it here - is pretty high.""

Here the "native" has decided that "tech people" are somehow less "real" because they are unlike him. People like Garcia might try to dress up their issue with "tech people" as merely a matter of rent and economics, but what it really boils down to is bigotry.

Yes, exactly. A lot of the folks in this scene are just unlikable people. I'm "part of the problem", and even I don't like a lot of the startup people who I encounter on a daily basis in SOMA or the Mission.

If I have to put it into words, there's been a tangible shift from "let's do something interesting together with this cool new thing" to "how can I get rich with this thing?", and that transition makes everyone else feel like a tool for your personal advancement.

If I have to put it into words, there's been a tangible shift from "let's do something interesting together with this cool new thing" to "how can I get rich with this thing?", and that transition makes everyone else feel like a tool for your personal advancement.

Yes, exactly. You're hitting it right on the head in this thread.

Every group has their fair share of unlikeable individual. It is the act of a bigot to confuse those unlikeable individuals as representatives of their group.

Like it or not, everyone is a representative for whatever scene they're in. We're all ambassadors, and in this case, we're ambassadors for an industry that is easy to characterize as heartless and imperious.

Are you comfortable expanding that concept to concepts other than "profession"?

You read that backwards: Garcia is a tech person, and is being self-deprecating when he refers to them as less real people. Whether it's ironic self-deprecation, or sincere sadness and disappointment at the situation, I can't tell.

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