Torching the Google car: Why the growing revolt against big tech just escalated

https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/torching-the-google-car-why-the-growing

by DanAtC • 2 years ago

28 57 2 years ago

bloodinthemachine.com

ironmagma• 2 years ago

“Maybe we should become a better moral actor” is a thought that will never be entertained in a corporate meeting room.

throwanem• 2 years ago

Not while there's any other option.

myself248• 2 years ago

"On second thought, having that motto hanging in the lobby is making the workers question the products they're building. Let's take that down."

Tommy4302• 2 years ago

I hope that more revolts happen. I'm sick of this "trends" BS that Big Tech pushes and makes others follow.

Unrelated but IMHO, web bloat will also kill the internet more than IE at this point.

bluGill• 2 years ago

I'm even more sick of losing friends to human driven cars. I've been to too funerals of children in my life. I see no hope of fixing human drivers while maybe they can make cars work.

Tommy4302• 2 years ago

I see no hope of fixing human drivers while maybe they can make cars work.

Sadly that won't be the case for some time to a while. Most people only care about the moment of the trend rather than what the future will look like.

CityOfThrowaway• 2 years ago

People are reading way too much into the Waymo incident.

It was Chinese new year. There was a bunch of drunk people in the street. Somebody messed with the car, and then somebody else did, and so on. Until somebody threw a firework in there out of memetic one upmanship and it caught the thing on fire.

You can see this in the videos. This was not ideological, it was just mob revelry gone awry.

cogman10• 2 years ago

Yup, similar things happen after major sporting events.

m463• 2 years ago

A lot of drinkers revolt against "big porcelain" and their control over the aesthetics of sinks and toilets.

angarg12• 2 years ago

This. Going from one act of vandalism to an escalating revolt against big tech sounds like quite a stretch.

armas• 2 years ago

I was there walking through a little over an hour before and didn't see anyone drinking. Police had shown up and tried stopping some of the fireworks in the middle of the intersection.

I think it's important to consider why of all the cars passing through and parked on the street it was the Waymo car that got vandalized.

nomel• 2 years ago

street it was the Waymo car that got vandalized.

An obvious possibility is: no immediate risk and no mechanism for empathy. If you vandalize a person's car, that person might come at you, out of the crowd, possibly with a weapon. And, some people might even feel bad, knowing that they're ruining someone's day.

It could have been fueled by Waymo hatred, but it also had the least risk.

mc32• 2 years ago

So much for caring about the environment…

Like how many of those revealers espouse clean energy and EVs and so on and then go and uselessly and wastefully light a car on fire?

It seems so counter message.

throwup238• 2 years ago

You can see this in the videos. This was not ideological, it was just mob revelry gone awry.

It's really obvious in the videos in my opinion. The kid smashing the windows with the skate board shortly before the car is lit on fire even has this ridiculous body language where he turns around after every strike waiting for encouragement from the crowd before doing it again. Vandalism in the age of Instagram influencers.

misiti3780• 2 years ago

The media sensationalizing a non-event ? you don't say!

fdr• 2 years ago

I think you're right. Back when there were tangible protests against technology workers moving in, there was more writing by the protest organizers themselves about it, as well as protest actions. Usually the ire was directed at shuttle busses that were at least a little anarchic in how they affected traffic, and a period of rapidly escalating rents after a long soft period after the great financial crisis.

Contemporary with that era, a Muni bus was burned in the aftermath of the Giants winning the world series. https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Knuckleheads-run-amok-a.... This was not interpreted as a stand against Muni.

Waymo cars are perhaps conveniently unoccupied and associated with an organization that can afford a loss. But I've seen very few 2012-like vibes about them (as a pedestrian and cyclist, and much more occasional customer, I basically like Waymo: its reaction speed to my presence is superhuman). They seem to keep their safety records open. I know about that recent unfortunate case involving a cyclist trying to ride tandem with a truck in an intersection, I suspect they'll be changing their programming.

I'm also a big fan of the collision avoidance on my normal Subaru. It's little doubt to me that computers are already mostly better than people at least collision avoidance, where alertness is often the element in shortest supply.

choppaface• 2 years ago

Or are people under-reacting? Remember that Google / Waymo instigated California's first major self-driving collision many years ago, did so as a direct result of unsafe / greedy testing, and they have benefitted immensely from the lack of reporting / regulation surrounding that event:

https://www.salon.com/2018/10/16/googles-self-driving-cars-i...

makeitdouble2• 2 years ago

You're missing the part where no one seriously wanted to stop it.

As you point out these kind of excess happen all the time at festive events, someone drunkyard will kick a car, steal a street plate or deface a poster. But it stops there, as a random mischief. People piling up on the same thing isn't random or just a natural behavior, and nobody telling them to just move on goes along that line.

scarmig4• 2 years ago

People burned up a Muni bus after the World Series, and no one stopped them. And it was certainly a collective thing, not a lone miscreant.

Vehicles that are owned by large apersonal organizations seem like a common target in this type of thing.

thrawy202402• 2 years ago

To be clear, if you look at the footage the mob was in fact not Chinese people from Chinatown. Just the usual human garbage vandals from all over the Bay Area. See for yourself : https://twitter.com/michael_vandi/status/1756550257851449372

Just don’t want anyone to get the wrong sinophobic impression

richrichie2• 2 years ago

This pretty standard in France after a soccer game. A single car destroyed is kinda lame.

lqet• 2 years ago

This reminds me of the best Croissant testing video ever posted on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp84sRpM1Js

richrichie2• 2 years ago

Hilarious!

knorker2• 2 years ago

We don’t yet know exactly why a group of people very publicly graffitied, smashed, and torched a Waymo car in San Francisco

Having been to San Francisco lately, I would not be surprised to see all cars and houses smashed and burned. The city is basically that CHAZ thing in Seattle.

refulgentis• 2 years ago

I, for one, would be surprised to arrive in SF and find all cars and houses smashed and burned.

PaulHoule• 2 years ago

It happens. One German burned 47 cars all by himself in Hollywood

https://laist.com/news/serial-hollywood-arsonist-convicted

iamdelirium• 2 years ago

No it isn't? I live in SF and it is not a war zone or anything resembling anarchy.

ajross2• 2 years ago

You're reciting a meme, informed by a moderate crime wave in and slightly after the pandemic, and amplified by partisan media and echo chambers like the one here on HN. In fact SF crime rates in virtually all categories are at 12+ year lows: https://sfgov.org/scorecards/public-safety/violent-crime-rat...

scarmig4• 2 years ago

Data point: after being physically attacked in the street by a (presumably) homeless man, the SF cops refused to take my report unless I went down to the station.

I'd regard these statistics as, very generously, aspirational.

mistrial92• 2 years ago

stepping over a middle aged woman in broad daylight with a needle and blood, blocking the sidewalk in the TenderKnob. Hostile and sketchy people in every direction.

yeah, thats not fake SF

knorker2• 2 years ago

As I said, I draw this impression from personal experience recently being in SF. Saying this is "reciting a meme" and "partisan media" is disingenuous.

SF is a hellhole. I've visited many times over the last decade, and it's getting worse and worse. And it wasn't good in 2010 either.

Wandering into stores I couldn't even buy stuff, without getting an employee to unlock just about any shelf.

As for crime being down: there are many people saying they've stopped reporting crimes. Hell, "shoplifting" is completely ignored.

I want SF to be good. I don't trust Fox&friends further than I can throw them. But I have eyes (and more importantly a nose), so don't you deny what's plainly visible.

sapphicsnail• 2 years ago

If you think SF is like the CHAZ I can't imagine what you would think Oakland is.

somewhereoutth3• 2 years ago

That is a such an emblematic, iconic, fantastic image - the carcass of the car and all it represents, surrounded by humans somewhat curious but also somewhat satisfied, much as the first woolly mammoth kill must have been.

mistrial92• 2 years ago

yes and .. add to that.. years ago there was a parade on a very hot day; many, many people .. perhaps South East Asia (?).. floats in the parade included cars or trucks with large gaudy (sometimes cheap) decoration.. Someone in one of the cars did not get enough fresh air, and succombed apparently, to carbon monoxide poisoning while crawling along at a fixed rate of about 5 mp/h. The auto had some kind of auto-drive activated.. the driver passed out, but no one noticed. The crowd is still chanting and the parade continuing, but the car slowly lost direction, and slowly, unstoppably inched into the crowd. people yelled, no change, too crowded.. people were pushed into each other but at 5 mp/h slow motion.

The entire scene was so vivid from an art point of view -- the mindless mob, the auto-power of gasoline, the heat, the useless reactions.. this was in the TV news long ago.

throwaway498492• 2 years ago

You're romanticizing violent antisocial behavior into some kind of art form. Maybe you should see this from the perspective of a young family trying to raise their children here.

somewhereoutth3• 2 years ago

I see it from the perspective of a great photograph.

g9yuayon• 2 years ago

The whole article reads like what I don't like is immoral and what is immoral justifies my action (to a certain degree, at least). So, I really don't understand: why do techies still even go to the city? Just leave it alone and come back to the south bay.

scarmig4• 2 years ago

A single block in SF has more charm than the whole of Sunnyvale. Despite some of the toxic people who live here, there's a reason many people want to.

geor9e2• 2 years ago

why do techies still even go to the city?

I guess it depends what you're into. I work in south bay, and go out there, and try to find fun stuff there, but in general I find it a boring place. I take a company bus back to SF where I live. I get a lot of work done on my laptop, at the big bus desks that I usually get all to myself. Something about being trapped in one place for an hour is essential to me being productive.

On Saturday, I started getting phone notifications from friends who heard the booms in Chinatown and wandered over. We all have ~40+ mile range ebikes/scooters/electric unicycles that go 40+ mph, so the city is our playground. Citizen app sent me an alert as well. Tons of illegal fireworks were going off, massive mortar style ones in Portsmouth square, loud M80 style ones on Grant street. It took me ~10 minutes to cross the city on Van Ness's bus lane and thru the broadway tunnel on an electric unicycle. It was basically the 4th of July down there. The Waymo was sitting there trapped for a long time, as was every driver who turned onto the wrong street from Stockton. Two drunk guys, who has already been yelled at by the crowd for throwing firecrackers into crowds of people, smashed it up with skateboards after noticing it was totall unoccupied, a mortar was thrown in, and the rest is history. Obviously they face arrest and are jackasses for it. But it certainly didn't make me say "I hate the city, I wish I lived in south bay". I had fun, my friends had fun, and there's often fun to be had on any given day. It's not like housing is any cheaper in south bay. My friends live in every part of the bay, and SF is always the epicenter everyone travels to to hang out. The media camps in the tenderloin's hellholes, but if you know someone who lives in SF please have them show you a good time, the city is gorgeous if you're with the right people.

c_o_n_v_e_x• 2 years ago

We don’t yet know exactly why a group of people very publicly graffitied, smashed, and torched a Waymo car in San Francisco.

Viewed through the lens of Broken Window Theory, perhaps people are more brazen given the current state of SF.

JKCalhoun• 2 years ago

Yeah, when I saw this the other day I figured most people are simply going to dismiss it — anarchists, ne'er-do-wells.

But it struck a kind chord with me that there is more to it then cowardly vandalism. I don't think all of the vented angst is toward Big Tech specifically but I think that is part of it. I think big tech have come to represent wealthy corporations that serve only themselves and their uber-rich patrons.

Society is in an upheaval, and in no small part due to changes brought on by the internet and now mobile (and soon AI). But in all the other ways the world is also changing for the worse I think people will quickly turn to scapegoating and rich tech is an easy target.

Animats• 2 years ago

Maybe Google will identify the people and delete their Google accounts for a TOS violation.

geor9e2• 2 years ago

Google will delete your account for a bad joke (actually happened to me - they wiped my entire decade-old account, including my GMail/GDrive/etc for a "This comment only viewable with Youtube Gold, comment your credit card number to access" comment back in 2010 which got reported as "phishing". I get it, but wow, I mirror all my clouds to a NAS now.

joegibbs• 2 years ago

"We know enough to understand that this is an explosive milestone in the growing, if scattershot, revolt against big tech."

Do we really know this? Drunken mobs often smash up regular cars and break into shopfronts, but they're not doing that to protest a car-based society or speak out against capitalism, they're just smashing something because they're drunk.

somewhereoutth3• 2 years ago

A car driven by a human is an extension of that human (for better or for worse) - and we can relate to that, no matter how much steel, glass and rubber there is.

A car that drives itself is something alien, an abomination, a threat, a dangerous animal, small wonder we want to kill it - that is our most primal instinct.

paulpauper• 2 years ago

nah, it was because there were no people in it and it is assumed as not belonging to anyone.

thrill• 2 years ago

Because the consequences are so minimal.

thiago_fm• 2 years ago

I bet people are frustrated with the fact that those self-driving cars can drive around, smash into cars and kill pedestrians. Despite data showing that it does drive worse than a human.

In any civilized country, either the local or federal government wouldn't allow such thing.

But as it's America, its leaders believe it needs to be the forefront of everything in the world, so some sacrifices are allowed to be made in the name of the "greater good"(aka, corporate profits without regards into societal impact).

I bet those companies could be driving cars inside a closed space and still teach the car to drive in about the same timeframe, it's just because it's cheaper to do it in the streets while it hits humans and disrupt ambulances and the overall traffic. Those things can only happen in America.

Technocracy at its finest.

hnav• 2 years ago

what data shows that? Waymo IME is easily in the 90th percentile of drivers in SF.

satisfice• 2 years ago

I can imagine myself participating in this form of civil disobedience. Self-driving cars are not okay.

The streets are for people, not for escaped algorithms.

I am saying this because a lot of commenters appear to dismiss people who feel this way. Just wanted to raise my hand and be counted among the resistance.

phmqk76• 2 years ago

The “tech revolt” angle is silly. It’s about a casual disregard for the law. With all those cameras all around the car, in an area that cops should be patrolling after years of increased petty crime, nobody has been arrested? The commonplace nature of crime in California in particular is a real problem that needs a muscular response.

bediger4000• 2 years ago

Apparently these are big tech companies: Waymo, Google/Alphabet, Uber, Amazon, Facebook, TikTok, "Silicon Valley", Bird (scooters).

Mentioned: Instagram, Hewlett Packard

Notably not mentioned: Apple, Microsoft.

If Apple had been listed as "big tech", I'd write this article off as yet another Microsoft submarine PR hit. As it stands, I'm not sure.

kkfx• 2 years ago

The real revolt should be against the end of private property 2030's Agenda goal, well pushed by big tech with the cloud+mobile model. But people do smell rodents, but fails to see them and cyclically fight for their own enemies marching at their own head.

Torching the Google car: Why the growing revolt against big tech just escalated

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