Well Twitter did get a large tax subsidy as a trade-off for keeping their office in downtown San Francisco. Those are tax dollars that could've added more beds to shelters or case workers to help out our troubled punching guy.

Now one could argue it's Twitter's "job" to try and extract as many tax breaks as possible and the blame really lies on the Mayor and other city officials for making that deal. Or really blame REALLY lies on voters for electing those people in the first place or not prioritizing higher taxes or higher social service funding.

But I think the point the article is making is that technology companies, like Twitter/Google et al, don't present themselves as monolithic profit machines of the same breed as Exxon Mobile. They're changing the world, right?

Huh? Twitter got a tax break to keep their office in downtown San Francisco. You're implying that they wouldn't have kept their office there without the tax break. Are you saying they would have moved their office somewhere else in San Francisco, but not downtown? If not, how would San Francisco have been able to tax any money from Twitter? [Presumably they're taxing something related to Twitter maintaining an office in San Francisco. If that's not the case, eh.]

Twitter did get a tax break to keep their office in SF. [See here](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/04/twitter-g...)

>> The payroll-tax break could lead to Twitter saving about $22 million in taxes over six years, the Chronicle said.

I think the gamble was the city would make this back thanks to revitalization or new workers moving into the city. In the near term, there's certainly going to be a reduction in the city coffers for taking care of punchy-guys.

I think you're missing his point. With Twitter's tax break, they're paying less taxes to the city, and without Twitter's tax break, they'd likely be paying NO taxes to the city (because they were planning to move out of the city). In the near-term, there's no reduction in the city coffers.

>> "Why look at homeless people and say Twitter/Google/Apple etc. should fix this instead of the government should fix this or maybe I should fix this?"

When you vote in government that don't support a strong social/welfare system companies and citizens have a social responsibility. I don't think Twitter should be housing the homeless but doing things like building services inside the business so employees never have to venture out hurts local businesses and the local economy. All businesses should be supporting their local communities, not just tech businesses.

Is it really social responsibility when they say someone else should do something?

They vote in a government to do it because that would increase taxes. They wont do it themselves because that will cost them time and money. Saying Google/Twitter/Company X should doesn't cost them anything but a wave of the finger.

I'm not seeing a lot of responsibility here.

"When you vote in government that don't support a strong social/welfare system companies and citizens have a social responsibility."

Isn't San Francisco pretty "socially aware" already?

I'm not sure but from what I've read about the numbers of homeless people and those with mental health issues left on the streets I wouldn't say it's that socially aware.

You've got this almost completely ass-backwards. It's a far more complicated issue than that.

Paradoxically, places with more homeless-friendly policies attract far more homeless people (for obvious reasons). As a famous example, Santa Monica has a history of hassling homeless people and effectively criminalizing homelessness, which has the effect of forcing the homeless population elsewhere.

Also, relative to a lot of other places in the US, SF's far-more temperate weather increases the appeal for those living outside. On top of all that, you get asshole states like Nevada bussing homeless people to places like San Francisco[1] (SF is actually suing the state of Nevada for this).

Now granted, the way _anywhere_ in the US treats their homeless and mentally ill is not particularly "socially aware", but looking at SF's relatively large homeless population and assuming that it comes from a relative lack of social awareness is a completely wrong-headed approach.

[1] http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/11/2602391/san-franc...

I agree with you. Does it help if the question is reframed?

This city has some severe problems. It also has an unusual concentration of very smart people and big computing power. Why can't we work towards solving these problems using science and evidence and smart people and big computers?

Are you claiming that smart people aren't already working on solving these problems? Or that they're using something other than "science and evidence and smart people and big computers"?

Do you not think you might be an asshole for implying that, because these problems aren't already solved, no one is working on them? Or that anyone working on them isn't smart?

Maybe these problems are HARD! [They, in fact, are. Witness all of human history.]

Show me the microsoft or google or apple research into these kinds of problems.

Google scholar counts, I guess.

You're assuming that research is fungible. That, say, if someone is really good at developing novel, efficient data structures, they'll be just as good at finding ways to help homeless people. Why do you think that's the case? Nothing in the real world suggests it works like that.

I don't think this is about, or should be about twitter/google/apple fixing social problems directly but about wondering if they're getting relatively free ride taxation wise. My sense is that they are.