Sometimes I wonder what bizarro world other people are living in. Every city in America has public spaces which can be reserved - playing fields, gazebos, park areas, picnic spaces, museums, art spaces. Only because it was tech workers in SF does anyone suddenly pretend like first-come first-served laissez faire is the only acceptable use of shared resources.
The cluelessness is in the aggressive assertion of their "rights" and their complete failure to listen to what the local kids were saying. Hell, they couldn't even be bothered to play a pickup game with them.
The frightened / annoyed looks of the two Dropboxers when they realized they were on video adds to the hilarity. I was pretty sure they wanted to be cops asserting some bogus right not to be filmed in a public space at that moment.
That would've been the emotionally intelligent thing to do.
You can’t fault the Dropbox people there for making a reservation and expecting that it would be valid. They’re a bit clueless in how they respond, though, not realizing that those rules are clashing with the unofficial social dynamics happening there.
(Semi-related : That’s why we might feel that banks are assholes for foreclosing houses that belong to deployed soldiers. Legally they can do it, but it sounds like it’s the shittiest application of the law.)
If our neighborhood court suddenly had to be reserved, it would be a major disruption to norms established for generations. Neighborhood kids, who knew nothing about local government and how to work with it, would have suddenly felt pushed out. Worse, assuming they observed the reservation made by the “outsiders”, they would have been left with nothing to do except wander the streets. That’s often the scenario courts were built to prevent.
I understand that leagues need to schedule ahead. I also understand that local governments need supplemental income to maintain neighborhood facilities like basketball courts and soccer pitches. But, neighborhood kids need open time during after-school hours and weekends to meet with other kids and play without the formality of a reservation process. The Dropboxers in the video would have been a lot smarter if they explained to the locals about the reservation and offered to have a big game “subbing in” as needed.
What would be truly interesting is how the Dropboxers handled the situation afterward. Did they get local authorities involved? Did they come back the next week, without a permit, and blend in the way the guy from the locals suggested? The answer would be a good measure of their Social IQ and value systems.
"As a kid, the neighborhood basketball court had norms for use that developed over generations. If you wanted to play and a game was in progress, you’d call out, “Got next!” (If someone else on the sidelines had already called it, they’d let you know and you’d wait your turn.) When your turn came, the winning team stayed on the court and you went onto it with your team, picking up players from the sideline as needed. In this way, people from the outside still had their chance to play, but they integrated into the system. (They were probably made better players as well since they had to play against a wide-array of competition.) The system was true of any urban court I visited around the US."
describes the situation on the field when the Dropboxers arrived.
"If our neighborhood court suddenly had to be reserved, it would be a major disruption to norms established for generations. Neighborhood kids, who knew nothing about local government and how to work with it, would have suddenly felt pushed out. Worse, assuming they observed the reservation made by the “outsiders”, they would have been left with nothing to do except wander the streets. That’s often the scenario courts were built to prevent."
And that was the community's reported response.
Even if they had the permit, maybe they should just play pickup with the neighbourhood kids.
Sounds like a lot more fun than arguing for ten minutes and it would allow them to form bonds with the local community.
That they overlooked this obvious solution is an example of exactly the kind of cluelessness that silicon valley tech workers are bing criticized for.
As tech workers, we are good at creating little sandboxes for others to play in and we really like our rules. Tech workers are actually very conservative in a way despite the proclamations of liberating the masses.
A good opportunity was lost to make friends with he local kids. Sport is a great way of bringing people together.
Description below the video:
UPDATE: After public uproar, SF Rec & Park removed the policy that allowed this encounter to happen. The City - without posting the availability of the park rental on their public website - had been marketing the Tuesday and Thursday slots initially only through an app so that the demographic portrayed in the video - a tech league - was taking the space from neighborhood kids twice a week.
Using money to push others out is poor behavior, but so is using the tired 'how long you've lived in SF' (like one of the people mentioned in that video). Once again 'techie' hate is misguided and most of the scorn should be focused on city hall for poor policy.
IMHO $27 gives the the tech workers a lot less claim to that field than the entire lives that the kids have lived there, regardless of the piece of paper.
If they didn't want to play pickup, then the right thing to do is to go and play on the dropbox campus. It's not fair or logical, but it's the right to do.
I'm sure with the billions of dollars the company has it can build it's workers their own football pitch.
If they didn't want to play pickup, then the right
thing to do is to go and play on the dropbox campus.
I agree, so it seems to bring things back full circle: just play pickup with the local kids, have a good time and make friends.
It's not fair, but it's right?
At this stage, what do those words even mean? It very much seems you have your desired outcome firmly in your mind, and are merely playing verbal gymnastics.
Why are we advocating for something that we are agreeing is unfair?
Just imagine the phrase being used for all manner of unfair acts that society at the time deemed to be "right".
It's unfair for the dropbox guys to lose $27 on the permit.
But it's also unfair to have your neighbourhood change too quickly for you to be able to adapt and continue living there.
What I'm saying is that there are moral categories to strive for beyond fairness.
IMHO, humans are too caught up on fairness. In a way nothing is 'fair'. Morality has to be situational, and trying to impose a top down moral framework is only a necessary evil.
We should strive to do the right thing in the moment.
If you want moral certainty, then you'll never get it. No one can give you that.
That's both a circular statement, and an ambiguous one. Both sides were doing the right thing at the moment.
The only party that was clearly in the wrong were the people who were renting out the space. The reason this whole thread exists is that there is not a consensus on what the "right" behavior should have been. Pretending there was one right way to go is adding to the disconnect and gap between the two parties.
Perhaps you're hung up on my using the 'right thing' in my earlier post. Hey, I'm speaking colloquially here as most of us are. I could have rewritten that using formal logic symbols perhaps, but the no one would read it.
The crux of my argument is that there was an opportunity to look beyond who had the 'right' to play on that field at that time.
And it's funny, I really was waiting for the cops to show up because one of the Dropboxers had called them. Their desire to avoid having any real interaction with these kids is so painfully obvious that it makes me embarrassed for them.
As far as your hypothetical, it's just that: hypothetical, as is your perception of my hypothetical biases. It's actually hilarious, because in the hypothetical my mind conjures up, I'm sure if we met in some real-life context you would end up calling me a nazi.
FWIW, when I was younger, I knew and hung around with people who are just like the Dropboxers, and was probably like them in many ways. I've gotten to know and work with a lot of different kinds of people since then, so now I would intuitively know a better way to handle this situation than these guys did. Step 1 is to recognize that they are valuable human beings and neighbors. That's where this exchange broke down, so no need to go on to subsequent steps till we get that part right.
They grew there, we flew there.
Localism isn't good either, but a bit of respect and give and take for people who, let's face it, will soon be pushed out of their neibourhoods to make way for tech workers, would be nice.
If that happened in a less high profile city the other party would be the one who was assigned blame. There are only so many soccer fields here if people started to ignore the permit system it would make it more unfair to the more disadvanged groups.