> Prominent startup investor Ron Conway, who backed companies including Google, Airbnb and Stripe, resigned from the board of the Salesforce Foundation on Thursday. According to the New York Times, Conway told Benioff in an email that their "values were no longer aligned."
Money talks
> Opposition to Benioff’s initial suggestion also came from Garry Tan, CEO of startup incubator Y Combinator. He wrote on X that “We don’t need the National Guard,” but he used his post to go after liberal local officials and judges perceived as too lenient.
Guns, in one word. If you prefer longer answers, it's because police are not the rent-a-cop for private property.
There are definitely social situations where additional security is warranted, that should be clear to most Americans. That security has to come at the expense of those who finance contrived social situations on private property, though.
uh the police literally are the rent-a-cops - this entire thing was about him hiring off-duty cops to stand around, getting paid at cop overtime rates, with their guns, at his conference.
I guess that egg's a bear to scrape off, particularly if it gets into the hairs and bristles. The cocoon of these techbros must be pretty thick, or they pay for their money with sense?
The best I can gather quickly is that this guy was a Democrat donor in the 2010s, then turned into a Trumper more recently, and now he's walking back the Trumping due to backlash? Am I reading it correctly that he's just empty/beliefless and sucks up to whoever has more power at a given time?
Seems like the lack of values and "flexibility" is what's required to be a billionaire. Remember who was at the front row of Trump's Inauguration II? Musk, Bezos, Zuck...
He's never been a 'Trumper', at least not publicly. He got into a very public spat with the Harris campaign over failed attempts to set up an interview in his role as the owner of Time magazine, and seems to have soured on the Dem Party establishment since.
It was never needed. (The FBI and the US Marshalls, who are actually trained for law enforcement? OK, you could perhaps make a case. The National Guard? After an earthquake, sure, but not before then.)
Military Police especially, but many units get actual training and experience in dealing with scenarios. They train for riot control and facility protection. They do it in combat zones, and have been pretty much in a roll non-stop around the world since 2001. The idea of a National Guard that resembled the one of the 80s didn't exist after especially 2003. I know NG infantry units that went on more deployments over a 9 year span than Active Duty units because of training schedule issues.
---
Leaning on an LLM a bit for the next part, but check this out:
Horn of Africa:
Vermont National Guard deployed a unit to the region in January 2025.
In July 2025, an Indiana Guard unit began a rotation with Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.
Kuwait:
The Pennsylvania National Guard deployed soldiers to Kuwait in February 2025.
The New York Army National Guard also sent soldiers to Kuwait and Africa in September 2025.
Kosovo:
Idaho Army National Guard soldiers deployed to Kosovo in August 2024.
In April 2025, the Louisiana Guard's "Tiger Brigade" held a deployment ceremony for an overseas mission that could include time in Kosovo.
Poland:
Massachusetts Guard soldiers returned from a NATO support mission in Poland in September 2025.
Germany:
In April 2025, the Kentucky Guard MEDEVAC unit prepared for a deployment to Europe.
Vermont Air National Guard deployed F-35A aircraft and airmen to Kadena Air Base in Japan in January 2025.
The national guard does not have a policing mandate or mission, they do not deploy police forces, aren’t deploying military police, do not have criminal justice training and none of the list you responded with before addresses any of this.
Guardsmen guard. Why do you want military riot control again?
The original comment was like: if I were police I’d be pissed off that untrained and unaccountable non-police are trying to do my job (and I have to clean up their mess)
ROE for engagements for decades prevented US troops from firing at people even if they had weapons pointed at them. You could point a RPG at private snuffy and he couldn't even raise his rifle.
You point a cap gun at Officer Dipshit and 40 cops are going to unload on the holder of that cap gun and maybe 1 of them hits the target and the rest go into the crowd.
The legal situation has allowed police to be cowards and use disproportionate force. On the flip side, local NG troops should be FAR more disciplined as tensions rise, but ultimately their level of force they could bring to the table is far, far, far higher than local PD if it came down to it.
TLDR, private fatso should be far more restrained than local police, but poking that bear would not be advised. They should be holding up far better under pressure and riots than PD who are legally allowed to be cowards. Most police aren't used to dealing with the scale of riots many NG are, but that is unit dependent.
I'm not "missing the point", I'm telling you to expect more humane treatment from an out of state NG unit than your local police. The training in riots and arms are FAR higher with than NG unit, and many have far more experience in actually dealing with rising tensions. They're not there to enforce laws, they are Force Protection. Again, I'm talking riot control and facility protection. NG are not civilian police, they're not training in that mission, but also they aren't being sent to perform it. Two different roles.
After reading that for the first time I created a greasemonkey script that replaces "Marc Benioff" with "man responsible for the largest phallic structure in western US" so that I don't have to read his name again.
Reminds me of the plugin I used to have that replaced every instance of “millennials” with “snake people” and every instance of “Great Recession” with “Time of Shedding and Cold Rocks.”
This is why it's so hard to speak your mind in Silicon Valley, if you say anything out of the norm, they will come after you. I think he really does believe the National Guard is needed in San Francisco, but that's not the regional sentiment, and it's only inciting violence against you when you come out with comments like that.
... One very odd conception of freedom of speech that some people have is that _they_ should be free to say whatever they want, but that _other people_ must then take their nonsense seriously and may not criticise it.
The story here is fairly simple; stupid guy says something stupid, is humiliated by the people pointing and laughing at the stupid thing he said, backs off.
In 2025, with a Trump presidency, and the majority of mainstream tech at least acquiescing to him, he would have faced massive difficulties expressing this point?
In all honesty, if he hadn’t backed down he would have faced zero important repercussions.
Something, finally, is shifting. It’ll be six months before any of the administration-aligned opportunistic techbro CEOs speak out, but they know where their employees will be tomorrow.
The trade war with China could be a turning point.
Right now the Chinese are still relying on US tech but what happens if they actually manage to become self sufficient? What if those data centres at the Tibetan Plateau no longer needs Nvidia?
It’s already happening. For most tech products, it’s not that replicating them is impossibly hard, it’s that there is no market to sell them to while everyone can still buy the existing market leader. Cut them off from Google Play or GPUs and suddenly you have a whole population with no choice but to buy and support the development of an alternative.
It will be a domestic event that does it. Perhaps the imprisoning on trumped-up charges of a CEO who refuses to hand over 10% of the business to Trump's fascism slush fund. Perhaps ICE disappearing a foreign-born exec.
And they will all try to ignore it for as long as possible.
The best way to fight the mean bullies is by using the military with like tanks and rifles. That'll keep us safe from blue haired queers with... ummm... Instagram?
I've seen people wearing MAGA hats in SF, and they're never assaulted. Their speech is not infringed or suppressed. At "worst" they are sometimes met with more free speech coming in the form of opinions about their choices. Is this what you're complaining about?
Honestly, I’ve never been brave enough to try it. My neighbor had a Tesla, and it got vandalized.
I do not know. I'm not MAGA while do have both progressive and conservative views (deepening on the subject) but the current environment is really really sad.
Free speech is overrated. We, the intellectuals, must make sure everyone is properly educated and understands that their thinking is dangerous to progress and humanity. /s
Try going to one of the many Rocky Horror showings this weekend dressed like the characters while in a red state this weekend. Fewer people will see you but your odds of getting physically assaulted are way higher. You defiantly won't be able to go out to eat before/after dressed that way.
Says a lot more about the “sad state of politics” than a MAGA hat (MAGA, the people whose official stance this week is 'political people being racist/saying they love hitler/rape in group chat at age 28 is totally ok') in San Francisco.
> try wearing a “Make America Great” hat in San Francisco.
I would imagine you might be met with scorn and ridicule but most people would just ignore you and walk past just like we do the crazies shouting about Jesus on a megaphone outside the Levi's on Market St.
It's the modern white hood, except they're not afraid to hide their faces anymore, because they got all the power they need to do the things they want to the people they don't like.
It boggles my Detroit-grown mind that so many people claim this about so many thriving cities.
I live in the PNW and regularly visit most of the major cities there and in NorCal. What exactly is more depressing there than any other city of any economic relevance in the nation?
> I care less about how they fix the problem and more about that the problem is fixed.
Just in general that kind of attitude is how you end up exchanging one problem for exciting new problems that might be even worse, assuming the poorly considered solution even fixes the original problem.
Any halfway thoughtful and intellectually honest solutions analysis needs to consider A) is this an effective way to solve my problem and B) does it create unintended negative consequences or tradeoffs. Rhetoric exclusively focusing on the severity of the problem is almost always intended to get you to disengage the part of your brain that considers those two questions in favor of supporting any approach that just promises to solve the problem, whether or not it does so or creates any new problems in the process.
The end justifies the means, right? Maybe SF should go all Singapore and execute people for pooping on the sidewalk, problem of sidewalk-pooping will soon be solved!
I went to a rave in SF in 90s. Outside a dude stabbed another dude, then told my group of friends to circle around him and walk him down the street. SF has been... intense... my whole life.
Janis Joplin was a hooker in SF.
What world are you talking about? You talking about the very small window of GAP commercial San Fran? Shoe store Haight Asberry versus 'doses, doses' Haight?
Walking where, exactly? Do you just tire yourself out doing laps in the Tenderloin? I suppose the Giants season was fairly depressing, so I'll give you that - walking around Oracle Park probably was pretty gloomy this year.
FWIW: people like you have to realize that the Guard is not and has never been a law enforcement apparatus. The policy goal of "sending in the troops" to US cities is not and has never been crime (the metrics for which are getting better and not worse, yes even in SF).
The goal of putting military force in charge of directing civilians on city streets is and has always been giving the President, who commands that military, direct control over city streets. Right now if the white house doesn't like a protest or doesn't want it to happen, there's nothing they can do bureaucratically using their executive power to prevent it. It's a local thing. If the guard is already there waiting for orders, they can.
It sounds like hyperbole, but it's really not: the transparent purpose to this big National Guard kerfuffle is the military suppression of dissent at the direction of the President.
The governor of New York state has the legal ability to do that. The president of the United States does not (currently). My point is that you need to ask *why* the White House suddenly wants this power that heretofore we've been happy leaving with local governments.
Seriously? It was widely reported that he attempted exactly that during the Floyd protests in 2020 (first link I got, but Esper's testimony was reported everywhere, pick your preferred media, or just find and watch the committee hearing):
That time it failed because the pentagon leadership and generals stood in unison against it and he backed down. The guardrails have been rejiggered this time and it's only the courts that protect us now.
You are being downvoted, but your post is obviously truthful.
I’ve gone to SF several times over the years for tech conferences. It started out as standard tourist excellence. Then it started rotting. The last year I went to Moscone Center, the afternoon walk back to the nearby hotel was horrific. Druggies lounging around, poop on the sidewalk, conference attendees speed marching through the maze, trying not to make eye contact.
Once back at the hotel, it was nonstop sirens after dark.
Compared to a decade back, it was a nightmare.
Update: Just saw this article, SEMICON West skipped SF and went to Phoenix this year. It was a success.
I dunno, man. The first time I visited SF was in 2001. I was stunned back then by the homelessness problem. I vividly remember walking down the sidewalk near the Transamerica building during the morning commute and seeing folks in business attire casually stepping OVER a person sprawled out in the middle of the sidewalk. Nobody cared, even then, because it was normal. On subsequent visits, I’ve seen plenty more homelessness, had a bike seat stolen, etc. If you had a good experience a decade ago, awesome, but you also sort of got lucky if you didn’t see any of the other problems. Maybe it’s worse now, but from the standpoint of someone who grew up near Boston (which also has plenty of homeless folks and addicts), it never seemed “tourist excellent” to me. It’s a real American city with all the standard problems.
Yeah I'm similarly confused by the idea that it was great a decade ago. SoMa, which more or less includes Moscone, has been gritty for at least 20 years and probably much longer than that.
Similar for a lot of other parts. Market anywhere between 6th and City Hall has been grimy for a long time. The Tenderloin, I'm assuming, has been the way it is for a century (since it derives its name from police getting higher pay for patrolling it). That stuff is all stumbling distance to the downtown core, tourists and business visitors.
I used to visit SF a bunch back in the 2008-2013 period, and it was the same as you describe it now. Coming from Europe I was shocked seeing things like people in broad daylight defecating on the street, smashing a car window, stealing a purse by pushing someone over so they hit their head unconscious and bleeding, it seemed like a madhouse.
In what way does someone thinks this should be downvoted? One source is an academic paper, and another is journalism. Are you perhaps just allergic to reality?
Probably because the paper you link doesn’t mention SF or illegal immigration and attributes much of the rise to housing asylum seekers in emergency shelters in New York, Denver, Chicago and Massachusetts.
If you’re going to talk about reality you probably should read the sources you cite.
Asylum seekers usually start out as illegal immigrants. You’re either innocent or ignorant (which is worse?), but asylum fraud occurs at a non-trivial rate as well.
There’s no way to fix San Francisco right now. If anyone disagrees with a proposed change, they just call it a “Trump policy.”
The sad part is that Trump talked so much nonsense and sh*t that you can find a quote to match almost any idea or policy, so any policy can be branded as his.
I was in SF in the 90s this kind of talk is nonsense. Crime was far higher in SF back then, area near the stadium was a no-go area, there were open gang wars in SF on TV. Hell, go watch the Michael Douglas TV show “The Streets of SF” from the 70s80s
Crime is down, mic of the city is gentrified and the total number of homeless in CA and SF is roughly in the same range it’s been since Reagan was governor.
A lot of this BS about CA and how bad things are seems to be from people who haven’t been here long or people overdosing on right wing media which has
Non-stop been attacking CA for 30 years nightly, all the while it has continued to become more and more dominant economically.
As someone who's fairly new to this city, this is enlightening to read, as I always thought the homelessness was only a recent product of displacement due to increased cost-of-living
I’ve been in San Francisco since 1992, and this is the worst it’s ever been.
The current attitude seems to be that everything is fine and nothing needs fixing. Then people are shocked when Trump wins (and let’s be honest, Trump is not exactly a great person).
Getting downvoted. I’m not thrilled by the idea of deploying the national guard, but folks have had a long time to fix the mess in SF and have failed, badly. It’s not crazy to try something new.
To those saying we never use the military for public security that’s simply false. NYC has had heavily armed national guard deployed as added security at transit hubs since 9/11 and they’re there to this day.
If leaders of cities don’t want others to step in, don’t give people a reason to step in.
Since we’re on a roll, we might as well deploy the military everywhere else we’ve tried things that don’t work. Clearly we can’t stop school shootings. Let’s put the military in schools. We can’t stop people without insurance from using the ER instead of regular doctor’s visits. Military! Prices are too high at the grocery store. Armed guards now!
The military cannot solve any of the domestic problems they’re being deployed to solve.
> Prominent startup investor Ron Conway, who backed companies including Google, Airbnb and Stripe, resigned from the board of the Salesforce Foundation on Thursday. According to the New York Times, Conway told Benioff in an email that their "values were no longer aligned."
Money talks
> Opposition to Benioff’s initial suggestion also came from Garry Tan, CEO of startup incubator Y Combinator. He wrote on X that “We don’t need the National Guard,” but he used his post to go after liberal local officials and judges perceived as too lenient.
That was fast! I guess that wasn’t the most profitable position to hold. Fail fast!
He seemed to want free security for his event (he talked about all the extra security he was hiring). I suspect he learned he'd get free protests too.
The San Francisco reddit discussion of this included such lines as "Welp, picking up my frog costume from Temu asap.", and "San Francisco must out gay them": https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1o7mexv/trump...
> free security
Why would you need security in any civilised place tho. That’s insane.
Host an event in Texas, and you'll find venues requiring you to hire armed security if alcohol is served. Even weddings.
> you'll find venues requiring you to hire armed security if alcohol is served. Even weddings.
... Wait, wtf? Is this real? What's the concern? Like, this sounds like a joke about America, rather than a real thing that happens in America.
Key word in parent post was "civilized".
Disclaimer: I live in Texas.
Why would you need security at a place like a marathon (say, in Boston). Its just people running and cheering, right?
Guns, in one word. If you prefer longer answers, it's because police are not the rent-a-cop for private property.
There are definitely social situations where additional security is warranted, that should be clear to most Americans. That security has to come at the expense of those who finance contrived social situations on private property, though.
uh the police literally are the rent-a-cops - this entire thing was about him hiring off-duty cops to stand around, getting paid at cop overtime rates, with their guns, at his conference.
Truly generous of Benioff to nuke downtown SF with Prop C, and then propose sending in the military to fix the problem he created.
I guess that egg's a bear to scrape off, particularly if it gets into the hairs and bristles. The cocoon of these techbros must be pretty thick, or they pay for their money with sense?
The best I can gather quickly is that this guy was a Democrat donor in the 2010s, then turned into a Trumper more recently, and now he's walking back the Trumping due to backlash? Am I reading it correctly that he's just empty/beliefless and sucks up to whoever has more power at a given time?
Do you remember his Dalai Lama billboard?
I'm certain it was sincere reverence.
They are weaselly/spineless at heart, but more worryingly, I believe they all just see Trump as a vessel for their own rise to power.
Seems like the lack of values and "flexibility" is what's required to be a billionaire. Remember who was at the front row of Trump's Inauguration II? Musk, Bezos, Zuck...
He's never been a 'Trumper', at least not publicly. He got into a very public spat with the Harris campaign over failed attempts to set up an interview in his role as the owner of Time magazine, and seems to have soured on the Dem Party establishment since.
> Benioff said he “avidly supported President Trump”
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/124475145.cms
Wow I guess David is no longer the worst Benioff, for fucking up Game of Thrones.
So another oligarch who got his ego hurt and lashed out and started associating with the far-right, just like the rest of them.
It was never needed. (The FBI and the US Marshalls, who are actually trained for law enforcement? OK, you could perhaps make a case. The National Guard? After an earthquake, sure, but not before then.)
If I was a police detective in the US I would be pretty angry at the notion of a bunch of rural weekend warriors taking over my job.
I mean if it was this easy why was the police created at all? We've always had soldiers.
Police detectives aren't running riot patrols.
Military Police especially, but many units get actual training and experience in dealing with scenarios. They train for riot control and facility protection. They do it in combat zones, and have been pretty much in a roll non-stop around the world since 2001. The idea of a National Guard that resembled the one of the 80s didn't exist after especially 2003. I know NG infantry units that went on more deployments over a 9 year span than Active Duty units because of training schedule issues.
--- Leaning on an LLM a bit for the next part, but check this out:
Horn of Africa:
Vermont National Guard deployed a unit to the region in January 2025.
In July 2025, an Indiana Guard unit began a rotation with Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.
Kuwait:
The Pennsylvania National Guard deployed soldiers to Kuwait in February 2025.
The New York Army National Guard also sent soldiers to Kuwait and Africa in September 2025.
Kosovo:
Idaho Army National Guard soldiers deployed to Kosovo in August 2024.
In April 2025, the Louisiana Guard's "Tiger Brigade" held a deployment ceremony for an overseas mission that could include time in Kosovo.
Poland:
Massachusetts Guard soldiers returned from a NATO support mission in Poland in September 2025.
Germany:
In April 2025, the Kentucky Guard MEDEVAC unit prepared for a deployment to Europe.
Vermont Air National Guard deployed F-35A aircraft and airmen to Kadena Air Base in Japan in January 2025.
Yeah but they didn’t deploy the Military Police, they sent Meal Team Six.
The next Texas NG unit might be "less enjoyable". And ultimately, fatso can still pull a trigger.
You’re missing the point made again.
The national guard does not have a policing mandate or mission, they do not deploy police forces, aren’t deploying military police, do not have criminal justice training and none of the list you responded with before addresses any of this.
Guardsmen guard. Why do you want military riot control again?
The original comment was like: if I were police I’d be pissed off that untrained and unaccountable non-police are trying to do my job (and I have to clean up their mess)
ROE for engagements for decades prevented US troops from firing at people even if they had weapons pointed at them. You could point a RPG at private snuffy and he couldn't even raise his rifle.
You point a cap gun at Officer Dipshit and 40 cops are going to unload on the holder of that cap gun and maybe 1 of them hits the target and the rest go into the crowd.
The legal situation has allowed police to be cowards and use disproportionate force. On the flip side, local NG troops should be FAR more disciplined as tensions rise, but ultimately their level of force they could bring to the table is far, far, far higher than local PD if it came down to it.
TLDR, private fatso should be far more restrained than local police, but poking that bear would not be advised. They should be holding up far better under pressure and riots than PD who are legally allowed to be cowards. Most police aren't used to dealing with the scale of riots many NG are, but that is unit dependent.
I'm not "missing the point", I'm telling you to expect more humane treatment from an out of state NG unit than your local police. The training in riots and arms are FAR higher with than NG unit, and many have far more experience in actually dealing with rising tensions. They're not there to enforce laws, they are Force Protection. Again, I'm talking riot control and facility protection. NG are not civilian police, they're not training in that mission, but also they aren't being sent to perform it. Two different roles.
This is incorrect.
My DD214 says otherwise.
After reading that for the first time I created a greasemonkey script that replaces "Marc Benioff" with "man responsible for the largest phallic structure in western US" so that I don't have to read his name again.
Reminds me of the plugin I used to have that replaced every instance of “millennials” with “snake people” and every instance of “Great Recession” with “Time of Shedding and Cold Rocks.”
Thanks for reminding me I programmatically no longer _have_ to see the same orange face daily when reading news. Totally forgot about greasemonkey!
This is why it's so hard to speak your mind in Silicon Valley, if you say anything out of the norm, they will come after you. I think he really does believe the National Guard is needed in San Francisco, but that's not the regional sentiment, and it's only inciting violence against you when you come out with comments like that.
Nobody came after him. He spoke his mind and then others spoke their mind. That is what everyone is allowed.
... One very odd conception of freedom of speech that some people have is that _they_ should be free to say whatever they want, but that _other people_ must then take their nonsense seriously and may not criticise it.
The story here is fairly simple; stupid guy says something stupid, is humiliated by the people pointing and laughing at the stupid thing he said, backs off.
In 2025, with a Trump presidency, and the majority of mainstream tech at least acquiescing to him, he would have faced massive difficulties expressing this point?
In all honesty, if he hadn’t backed down he would have faced zero important repercussions.
Something, finally, is shifting. It’ll be six months before any of the administration-aligned opportunistic techbro CEOs speak out, but they know where their employees will be tomorrow.
The trade war with China could be a turning point.
Right now the Chinese are still relying on US tech but what happens if they actually manage to become self sufficient? What if those data centres at the Tibetan Plateau no longer needs Nvidia?
It’s already happening. For most tech products, it’s not that replicating them is impossibly hard, it’s that there is no market to sell them to while everyone can still buy the existing market leader. Cut them off from Google Play or GPUs and suddenly you have a whole population with no choice but to buy and support the development of an alternative.
It will be a domestic event that does it. Perhaps the imprisoning on trumped-up charges of a CEO who refuses to hand over 10% of the business to Trump's fascism slush fund. Perhaps ICE disappearing a foreign-born exec.
And they will all try to ignore it for as long as possible.
[flagged]
The best way to fight the mean bullies is by using the military with like tanks and rifles. That'll keep us safe from blue haired queers with... ummm... Instagram?
> When I say things people don't like it's free speech. When people express their anger at my free speech it's harassment.
Modern American "conservatism", distilled.
[dead]
Of course.
For anyone who thinks this is just “money talk,” try wearing a “Make America Great” hat in San Francisco.
That’s all I need to say about the sad state of politics here.
Wearing a MAGA hat in this specific political moment is a statement of callousness and overt approval of military and masked goons in our streets.
>> Wearing a MAGA hat in this specific political moment is a a statement of callousness and overt approval of military and masked goons in our streets
In other words, it is free speech.
Should free speech be met with violence?
I've seen people wearing MAGA hats in SF, and they're never assaulted. Their speech is not infringed or suppressed. At "worst" they are sometimes met with more free speech coming in the form of opinions about their choices. Is this what you're complaining about?
Honestly, I’ve never been brave enough to try it. My neighbor had a Tesla, and it got vandalized.
I do not know. I'm not MAGA while do have both progressive and conservative views (deepening on the subject) but the current environment is really really sad.
[flagged]
> The obvious implication, obvious even to people such as yourself who are...limited?
Instead of the ad hominem attack, why not try a real argument? In your words, “no one is being fooled here.”
As I responded earlier, I've seen it plenty of times in SF. Yet I've never witnessed anything remotely close to violence as a response.
> Should free speech be met with violence?
Free speech is overrated. We, the intellectuals, must make sure everyone is properly educated and understands that their thinking is dangerous to progress and humanity. /s
That's a shiny echo chamber you have going there.
Try going to one of the many Rocky Horror showings this weekend dressed like the characters while in a red state this weekend. Fewer people will see you but your odds of getting physically assaulted are way higher. You defiantly won't be able to go out to eat before/after dressed that way.
Says a lot more about the “sad state of politics” than a MAGA hat (MAGA, the people whose official stance this week is 'political people being racist/saying they love hitler/rape in group chat at age 28 is totally ok') in San Francisco.
> try wearing a “Make America Great” hat in San Francisco.
I would imagine you might be met with scorn and ridicule but most people would just ignore you and walk past just like we do the crazies shouting about Jesus on a megaphone outside the Levi's on Market St.
It's the modern white hood, except they're not afraid to hide their faces anymore, because they got all the power they need to do the things they want to the people they don't like.
I care less about how they fix the problem and more about that the problem is fixed.
SF has gone dramatically downhill. I remember what it used to be like, a lovely city. Walking around SF now is depressing.
It boggles my Detroit-grown mind that so many people claim this about so many thriving cities.
I live in the PNW and regularly visit most of the major cities there and in NorCal. What exactly is more depressing there than any other city of any economic relevance in the nation?
> I care less about how they fix the problem and more about that the problem is fixed.
Just in general that kind of attitude is how you end up exchanging one problem for exciting new problems that might be even worse, assuming the poorly considered solution even fixes the original problem.
Any halfway thoughtful and intellectually honest solutions analysis needs to consider A) is this an effective way to solve my problem and B) does it create unintended negative consequences or tradeoffs. Rhetoric exclusively focusing on the severity of the problem is almost always intended to get you to disengage the part of your brain that considers those two questions in favor of supporting any approach that just promises to solve the problem, whether or not it does so or creates any new problems in the process.
The end justifies the means, right? Maybe SF should go all Singapore and execute people for pooping on the sidewalk, problem of sidewalk-pooping will soon be solved!
A Fox News talking head literally said this recently, but had to apologize for saying the quiet part out loud...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fox-news-brian-kilmeade-apologi...
Funny, that's how I feel about the USA as a whole. Used to be a nice country.
I might care a little more about how they fix the problem, but only barely. Somebody had better fix the country soon.
I went to a rave in SF in 90s. Outside a dude stabbed another dude, then told my group of friends to circle around him and walk him down the street. SF has been... intense... my whole life.
Janis Joplin was a hooker in SF.
What world are you talking about? You talking about the very small window of GAP commercial San Fran? Shoe store Haight Asberry versus 'doses, doses' Haight?
Trump specifically mentioned it was better 15 years ago, which was some accidental praise for his political opposition: https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/trump-says-sf-was-gr...
> Walking around SF now is depressing.
Walking where, exactly? Do you just tire yourself out doing laps in the Tenderloin? I suppose the Giants season was fairly depressing, so I'll give you that - walking around Oracle Park probably was pretty gloomy this year.
> I care less about how they fix the problem
That's the logic that got Benioff in trouble.
FWIW: people like you have to realize that the Guard is not and has never been a law enforcement apparatus. The policy goal of "sending in the troops" to US cities is not and has never been crime (the metrics for which are getting better and not worse, yes even in SF).
The goal of putting military force in charge of directing civilians on city streets is and has always been giving the President, who commands that military, direct control over city streets. Right now if the white house doesn't like a protest or doesn't want it to happen, there's nothing they can do bureaucratically using their executive power to prevent it. It's a local thing. If the guard is already there waiting for orders, they can.
It sounds like hyperbole, but it's really not: the transparent purpose to this big National Guard kerfuffle is the military suppression of dissent at the direction of the President.
Gov. Hochul deployed the National Guard to New York subways last year.
The governor of New York state has the legal ability to do that. The president of the United States does not (currently). My point is that you need to ask *why* the White House suddenly wants this power that heretofore we've been happy leaving with local governments.
And the answer, very transparently, isn't crime.
I think it's for many more things than suppression of protests
Please provide a source that suggests Trump has suppressed a protest or something similar.
Seriously? It was widely reported that he attempted exactly that during the Floyd protests in 2020 (first link I got, but Esper's testimony was reported everywhere, pick your preferred media, or just find and watch the committee hearing):
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/09/1097517470/trump-esper-book-d...
That time it failed because the pentagon leadership and generals stood in unison against it and he backed down. The guardrails have been rejiggered this time and it's only the courts that protect us now.
The problem is massive inequality putting people on the streets, driven by people like Mr. Benioff.
You are being downvoted, but your post is obviously truthful.
I’ve gone to SF several times over the years for tech conferences. It started out as standard tourist excellence. Then it started rotting. The last year I went to Moscone Center, the afternoon walk back to the nearby hotel was horrific. Druggies lounging around, poop on the sidewalk, conference attendees speed marching through the maze, trying not to make eye contact.
Once back at the hotel, it was nonstop sirens after dark.
Compared to a decade back, it was a nightmare.
Update: Just saw this article, SEMICON West skipped SF and went to Phoenix this year. It was a success.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/17/tech-conference-tha...
SF deserves better, much better.
I dunno, man. The first time I visited SF was in 2001. I was stunned back then by the homelessness problem. I vividly remember walking down the sidewalk near the Transamerica building during the morning commute and seeing folks in business attire casually stepping OVER a person sprawled out in the middle of the sidewalk. Nobody cared, even then, because it was normal. On subsequent visits, I’ve seen plenty more homelessness, had a bike seat stolen, etc. If you had a good experience a decade ago, awesome, but you also sort of got lucky if you didn’t see any of the other problems. Maybe it’s worse now, but from the standpoint of someone who grew up near Boston (which also has plenty of homeless folks and addicts), it never seemed “tourist excellent” to me. It’s a real American city with all the standard problems.
Yeah I'm similarly confused by the idea that it was great a decade ago. SoMa, which more or less includes Moscone, has been gritty for at least 20 years and probably much longer than that.
Similar for a lot of other parts. Market anywhere between 6th and City Hall has been grimy for a long time. The Tenderloin, I'm assuming, has been the way it is for a century (since it derives its name from police getting higher pay for patrolling it). That stuff is all stumbling distance to the downtown core, tourists and business visitors.
> Compared to a decade back, it was a nightmare
I used to visit SF a bunch back in the 2008-2013 period, and it was the same as you describe it now. Coming from Europe I was shocked seeing things like people in broad daylight defecating on the street, smashing a car window, stealing a purse by pushing someone over so they hit their head unconscious and bleeding, it seemed like a madhouse.
I don't think people are downvoting them for their views about the state of SF (I've never been there so i can't comment on its state.).
People took issue with them saying they don't care how it's fixed.
I don’t know about SF, but increased homelessness is related to illegal immigration
https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/BFI_WP_2...
May be partly related in CA as well
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-27/failure-...
In what way does someone thinks this should be downvoted? One source is an academic paper, and another is journalism. Are you perhaps just allergic to reality?
Probably because the paper you link doesn’t mention SF or illegal immigration and attributes much of the rise to housing asylum seekers in emergency shelters in New York, Denver, Chicago and Massachusetts.
If you’re going to talk about reality you probably should read the sources you cite.
Asylum seekers usually start out as illegal immigrants. You’re either innocent or ignorant (which is worse?), but asylum fraud occurs at a non-trivial rate as well.
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/24/nyregion/doubts-cast-on-i...
Other cases mentioned here https://whyy.org/articles/illegal-immigrants-lie-to-get-asyl...
Regarding the sentence which introduces the newspaper, if your reading comprehension is failing you, that’s not my problem.
There’s no way to fix San Francisco right now. If anyone disagrees with a proposed change, they just call it a “Trump policy.”
The sad part is that Trump talked so much nonsense and sh*t that you can find a quote to match almost any idea or policy, so any policy can be branded as his.
I was in SF in the 90s this kind of talk is nonsense. Crime was far higher in SF back then, area near the stadium was a no-go area, there were open gang wars in SF on TV. Hell, go watch the Michael Douglas TV show “The Streets of SF” from the 70s80s
Crime is down, mic of the city is gentrified and the total number of homeless in CA and SF is roughly in the same range it’s been since Reagan was governor.
A lot of this BS about CA and how bad things are seems to be from people who haven’t been here long or people overdosing on right wing media which has Non-stop been attacking CA for 30 years nightly, all the while it has continued to become more and more dominant economically.
As someone who's fairly new to this city, this is enlightening to read, as I always thought the homelessness was only a recent product of displacement due to increased cost-of-living
I’ve been in San Francisco since 1992, and this is the worst it’s ever been.
The current attitude seems to be that everything is fine and nothing needs fixing. Then people are shocked when Trump wins (and let’s be honest, Trump is not exactly a great person).
Getting downvoted. I’m not thrilled by the idea of deploying the national guard, but folks have had a long time to fix the mess in SF and have failed, badly. It’s not crazy to try something new.
To those saying we never use the military for public security that’s simply false. NYC has had heavily armed national guard deployed as added security at transit hubs since 9/11 and they’re there to this day.
If leaders of cities don’t want others to step in, don’t give people a reason to step in.
Since we’re on a roll, we might as well deploy the military everywhere else we’ve tried things that don’t work. Clearly we can’t stop school shootings. Let’s put the military in schools. We can’t stop people without insurance from using the ER instead of regular doctor’s visits. Military! Prices are too high at the grocery store. Armed guards now!
The military cannot solve any of the domestic problems they’re being deployed to solve.