Disconnected of not, the wealthy snobs aren’t doing violent crime. The criminals are mostly from outside the city. The criminals commute to their crime targets because the risk reward balance is on their side.

Violent crime is lower than 10 years ago, and much lower than 30 years ago.

"Domestic Violence is lower than X years ago", [let's not worry about it].

Eh, so you name drop a nasty topic and I'll look bad defending it. Cheap trick.

Do you think that people in healthy relationships should fear that outcome? Do you think people should become celibate because some percentages of relationships end up that way? The point is you are encouraging living in fear of low likelihood events.

The world is not perfect, crime and poverty exist, as do disease, many types of suffering, it's bad, but we don't need to be afraid and motivated by irrational fear.

No, you're proposing that if things are statistically demonstrably better and also low probability events, then we can look elsewhere for problems and de-emphasize resources to fight these things not warranting attention.

There are lots of things that were statistically demonstrably worse in the past and also statistically miniscule in occurrence, but I think you would get righteously clobbered if you proposed defending their current rate of occurrence as acceptable. Lots of things.

I agree with your first paragraph unironically. If we don't measure it as an important problem, it probably does not deserve disproportionate resources.

There are outliers to that. I think medical research for something like a rare disease is a good one. High cost, and by some metrics, low payout, but worthy. I don't think this recent right wing paranoia about crime is a good example. Especially since the "tough on crime" policies that people want to enact in reaction to it do not work and have a tendency to incarcerate innocent and undeserving people as collateral damage.

It's not paranoia in SF. It's gotten worse. It's affected poor and middle class working people's quality of life. It's not a clinical, detached exercise. It affects people's ability to pay their bills afford rent, mental health, etc. There is a Reason more a moderate like J Engardio won this time round. People are getting fed up.

I've spent the last 11 years in SF. It's largely paranoia. It is a funny sight, I do see people who got here more recently than I have are describing things as new, but they are old problems, I've heard the same complaints the whole time.

One small anecdote, the first year or two I got here, I felt I was being sized up for muggings a couple times. Has not happened in a long time.

What you want to be looking at is murder rates, as they are always counted the same way.

By that measure the us seems to be the most violent it’s been in 25 years, roughly equivalent to 1997.

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murd...

Since you made duplicate claims, I'll refer to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33830274

“Measured” violent crime is lower.

Conspiracy theory. I feel unsafe, therefore all the crime stats are wrong!

Let's say x% of crimes are reported. This would mean the stats are not an accurate count. But a huge enough spike in crime, like the phantom ones I see claimed in fear mongering internet threads, would not evade some number of them being reported.

For those of us (myself included) that have had their vehicles broken into and been personally told by police "there's no point in filing a report", it sure seems like more than a conspiracy theory. It seems like a new standard for how crime is defined.

I got my home office broken into and filed a police report. Big fucking deal.

The cops will absolutely NOT say that to you in SF. They know the report is necessary for your insurance claim. They will do it for you. They will recommend it.

Your situations were not the same. One is a car where the criminals may not have taken anything of significant value (and this the police suggested futility) and presumably when they broke into your home, they took something of value where a report would be necessary to make insurance claims.

No, I do not keep lightweight valuables in my home so nothing major was stolen and the glass bill was the only thing worth putting on the insurance claim.

I would suggest to you that you don't simply guess what happens in the world due to preconceived notions and instead listen to people and ask questions.

To be fair, the rich wealthy snobs are doing plenty of criming as well. It’s unfair to label only those who commit crimes against the wealthy snobs as “criminals”. We should at least realize that the wealthy snobs are criminals as well in their own right.

Unfortunately, wealthy snobs can sustain crime --they can buy bigger houses with guards, cameras, fences and beckon the DA when needed.

It's your poor and middle class who do not have the means to deal with the crime who suffer the crime brought on by opportunistic criminals. Mundane examples are people have had their third and fourth catalytic converters stolen. It may not be a lot of money to you, but for your average worker, it's a day or two of inconvenience and a few hundred each time --money that now has to be reallocated.

I've been victim to two home burglaries when my wife and I were starting out and living in Prince George's county, Maryland. At the time I was working at DIA as a measly GS-9, which means that I was basically 2 or 3 paychecks away from being completely broke.

The few possesions we had were taken. The most unfortunate was my wife's grandmather's wedding band. It probably wouldn't have fetched more than 20 or 30 bucks, but given that it was a family heirloom from WWII-wrought Finland, the sentimental value was high.

Being white and working for the government in a predominantly minority area, I'm sure I was stereotyped as being able to handle some abuse (in fact my neighboor informed me so). Fortunately we didn't own anything of serious financial value, but having your personal space violated by petty theives is not a pleasant experience.

Totally. I remember working with friends of thieves during HS who'd say, yeah, "my friends hit the rich areas because rich people call their insurance instead of coming at you with a baseball bat".

> who’s to blame for that?

Illegal drug suppliers, as they keep the vulnerable population (born poor and/or not educated) within the vicious circle of being too high on drugs to perform any decent type of work. This in turn reduces their income and increases their social risk at the same time. The root causes to this problem are far from the reach of local government, and this explains why the problem looks/feels unsolvable.

Then legalize drugs, voila.

Well, once the problem identified, the local government would be in the right position to enact policies and implement programs to educate and help those in need. But that would be called "socialism" thus a big no-no.

There are lots of factors. But at this point liberal policies are buttressing the problem.

Agreed. Progressives identified a problem and tried to fix it. Their choice of DA was recalled by others (including liberals) and was replaced with a “tough on crime” DA who they promised would fix the problem. So far, this DA hasn’t made a dent, things have gotten worse, and all we hear is “it takes time to fix things! Give them a chance!” Yeah no shit, but that courtesy that was not extended to the progressive DA before the recall campaign started.

I know this one.

Republicans. San Francisco just needs more liberal representation.

There are many factors. The biggest is the failed drug war. Conservatives thought that by getting tough on crime and drugs that those problems could be eliminated. The result was the most full prisons on the planet. The prisons are so full that even the huge California GDP can barely pay for them. So something had to ease up. Now there is a breakdown in the justice system regarding what crimes are worth convicting and incarcerating people for and it is not unusual for even violent criminals to be quickly released.

But the conservative tough on crime folks are completely unable to come to terms with the consequences of their actions on society. So we end up with a stalemate where liberals are trying to trim down the prison population and focus on violent crime while most conservatives still want to fix the problem by getting tough and imprisoning more people for longer.

For some context: California imprisons about 550 people per 100k. Florida imprisons about 750 per 100k.

Interestingly, Florida refuses [1] to even allow a vote on whether you can force prisoners to work (unlike 20 other states [2]):

"Died in Criminal Justice & Public Safety Subcommittee"

1. https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/39

2. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/sta...

This is so hilariously backwards.

The conservative tough on crime policies may have been inhumane or even immoral, but they did reduce crime.

The soft on crime policies have allowed increased crime. Here are US murder rates:

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murd...

That chart doesn't support your conclusion. It's not detailed enough to conclude anything except that crime and policing policy is not driving that number at all.

Should we see a mass pardon now that drugs are becoming more and more legal in the US?

That’s exactly what’s happening. Governors around the country and even the President have been issuing pardons for weed “crimes”.

The failed drug war has historically been a bi-partisan mess. Here is one example: https://www.salon.com/2013/08/12/where_mandatory_minimums_ca...

You can find similar stories for every congressional term and presidential administration going back decades.

> And who’s to blame

Left-wing policies enacted by left-wing city governments.

Not sure if I'd call a government that isn't expanding housing in a very constrained housing market a left-wing government. It might have traces of progressivism in some social areas, even to a fault as I'm reading from these SF's reports on crime, but calling a government that sides with the current rich/millionaire houseowners left-wing is quite disingenuous.

Maybe that's my foreign view as I don't see any political stance in the USA as left-leaning, some Democrats are, at most, left-adjacent in some social policies.

Yes. Communism works perfectly well "in theory". It just has yet to work in all the thousands of experiments in which it has been tried.

This is the second time this week that a comment I made regarding anything to do with a passing mention of left-wing politics gets a reply like this.

I didn't state at any point anything about communism, I didn't say anywhere I'm a supporter of "Communism™".

Stop chasing ghosts and stop being a fucking bore, you are shoving your words in my mouth and I thoroughly dislike that, it's intellectually disrespectful. This is a fucking dumb comment with no substance and not addressing anything of what I mentioned in my comment.

It's so fucking dumb and tiring to get your kind of knee-jerk red-scare reaction from people like you.

To be extremely clear: I don't support Communism, please point exactly where you believe your comment has anything to do with what I've written there or just shut up, what a fucking bore to keep getting to read this bullshit.

> Stop chasing ghosts and stop being a fucking bore,

Take a break from HN, man. This kind of meltdown isn't a good look for anyone, even if you're right.

When you get the same kind of stupid reply on HN as you see in stupider places of the internet, a place where you come for almost a decade to have some in-depth discussion, it grates on you. Everywhere else on the internet is like this shit, it starting to be more prevalent here is definitely affecting me as I'll have to stick to my own in-person social circle to have some kind of discussion that doesn't devolve into this bullshit. And then I lose access to a plethora of other points of view where those try to at least have some reasonable argumentation.

It's exhausting if you cherished a place for good discussions, yeah, I'm just tired but not really a meltdown, just tired of trying to be somewhat reasonable replying to this bullshit, it's a dumbification of discourse that is hard to stand.

As an example:

> They understand it, but they actively work to undermine it by engineering the human race.

This is just fucking dumb to read.

Edit: but I believe you're right, time to take a long break from HN.

Someone actually wrote "communism works ... in theory" without a hint of irony.

I don't think it was a meltdown but one might be justified.

Failing to understand Supply and Demand law of basic economics is a defining characteristics for left-wing politicians.

Protecting their turfs and their own is quite common across both sides of the spectrum.

They understand it, but they actively work to undermine it by engineering the human race.

They may understand it. It's just inconvenient so its downplayed.

Whether or not you agree with their classification, I'd posit nearly any seated SF politician self-categorizes as "left-leaning." Pretending this isn't the case is what's disingenuous, most Americans I've met don't really care how their politicians compare to ones across the pond, and why should they?. Saying they're not left-wing enough when compared to foreign politicians doesn't really add anything to the discussion.

the same left wing government that allows police to use lethal robots? That's doing little to nothing to address homelessness, income discrepancy & the housing crisis? The one that is beholden to big tech? That one?

'left wing policies' are typically social safety nets (healthcare, housing etc). You're describing failed government, left or right.

San Francisco had sunk huge piles of money in "solving" the housing crisis. Without allowing people to actually build, of course.

It also has driven out big tech with with idiotic policies and taxes. Remember the anti-Uber law? The Twitter tax?

I agree that San Francisco has idiotic zoning and an overactive planning department that caters to the whims of NIMBYs.

And there's plenty of big tech still here, more than enough, really. Idiotic policies, sure, sometimes, however, the taxes are probably still too low.

But no, actually, I don't remember the anti-Uber law. nor the Twitter tax. It's amusing that you'd cite two made up things to support your case.

Are you referring to the Prop 22 that Uber, Lyft, Door Dash, and Instacart spent $224 million to enshrine their mistreatment of workers into the California Constitution? (kinda crazy that they couldn't just use that money to pay the workers better, huh?) But I'm not sure if a law could really be anti-Uber as their whole strategy was just to flout the law, screw regulations, and blast through billions while playing a game of chicken with Lyft.

And maybe you weren't here at the time, but it was the Twitter Tax Break. That's what started the whole mess anyway, puppet Mayor Ed Lee wanting to kiss Ron Conway's ass.

Oh no, I was referring to AB5, the law a politician (Lorena Gonzalez) owned by a huge multinational syndicate (Teamsters) pushed through so that even gig workers could be pressured to join the union and pay the fees.

A law so incredibly inept that had to be amended to exclude any other part-time employees, from musicians and designers to writers and journalists, remaining in the end what was clearly from the beginning: an anti-high-tech law.

A law so evil no actual gig worker supported because it obviously gave them less options and money and more paperwork. But a huge cash grab for the state and the unions who could tax and control yet another avenue left us to make some money. Because nothing annoys leftists more than independent people, people who just want to be left alone to work and live and don't need them and their f-ing "favors".

And finally, I was in SF before Twitter even existed. But I left, a long time ago, seeing clearly where thing were heading. And it looks I was quite right... what a mess.

> the same left wing government that allows police to use lethal robots?

Yes.

it's almost like extreme inequality is bad or something

The people who commit crime and the people who make excuses for criminals are to blame. No one else.

There are plenty of places all over the earth full of wealthy entitled people who do not have such violence problems. Eg Geneva is approximately as boring as SF, but certainly doesn't have the crime.

You forgot the authorities which are elected/nominated there exactly for this aim: to make the place a good place to live. And they so obviously fail at their job.

How about blaming the criminals? The inadequate policing and utter lack of investigative follow-through? The half-asses leadership?

The people attacked in these reports are photographers helping people at their weddings. Are those people disconnected, entitled people who need to be violently robbed to teach them a lesson or something?

How about blaming the people who do wrong? That’s a novel thought. Or maybe even stretch and blame the people whose entire job is catching and punishing the small number of people who are ruining things for normal people.