In my admittedly anecdotal experience, long-term San Franciscans can't stand startup employees -- the dot-com crowd is blamed for gentrification and high rents. Getting involved in local politics would be like hanging a 'vilify me, I'm an oppressor' sign on your back.

Indeed. The local SF Bay Guardian – mouthpiece of the local progressive left – ran this hit-piece against Ron Conway, for his growing involvement, recently:

http://www.sfbg.com/print/2012/11/27/plutocrat

Its ham-handed propagandizing is kind of funny. Look at the rapacious black eyes on the Conway cartoon monster we've drawn! Despite being born and raised in SF, he's a rootless carpetbagger! He's involved in "a long list of other shadowy [investment] businesses, all incorporated in Delaware for its lax tax and regulatory policies"! He supported measure E's tax breaks for tech companies! (Unmentioned: SFBG itself endorsed that same measure.)

In my admittedly anecdotal experience, long-terms San Franciscans can't stand anyone outside SF period. SF does everything it can to make the experience of visiting and doing business in that city as miserable as possible.

1. Affordable short-term housing or hotels? Yeah, you're going to be staying across the bay. 2. Parking is miserable and parking enforcement are total fascists. You can't even refill a meter. 3. Pandhandlers everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I'm not talking about just homeless, I'm talking about scientologists, 9/11 truthers, people raising money for Africa or the cat shelter or whatever. I've never been as harassed on the streets as I've been in SF. Just because I stopped for 3 seconds does not mean I want a pamphlet, dude.

SF loves being a self-imposed alternaculture concentration camp which is fine with me when I don't have to go there on business.

Totally agree on housing and hotels, but not on parking. Do you go to NYC on business and complain about the parking there? No, probably not because it's simply unnecessary. There is no reason that SF can't develop in that same direction.

The dot-com crowd is not the only people to blame. They just provide demand. If the long-term San Franciscans don't allow an increase in supply of housing (something which is totally possible in SF), then they are equally at fault.

I think it is a step in the right direction that the "tech transients", long deplored by the high priests of SF, are starting to talk about this unwarranted animosity toward them.

For too long, tech players - in denial - have swept this under the rug.

I have questions on how this would even work. Engineers played a large role in spreading the word and getting people out to vote via technological innovations.

But how would we apply technology to government? What would we do, technologically, to curb the massive addiction and homelessness problem in the city, and how would you use technology to bust unions down to size?

There are a lot of places technology fits in the world, but this particular one is purely political.

Actually, technology is being used to bust unions down to size. One specific technology is streaming web video, to make underhanded and reprehensible union tactics more visible.

http://www.phillymag.com/articles/busting-philly-unions-pest...