Dave Id

And then there's another 20-30% who prefer that US fascism and white supremacy simply be more polite, who would barely say peep if chattel slavery re-emerged. They are the white moderates MLK spoke of, who prefer order over justice, who say wait until another season.

A few were somewhat sensible, but since they were swarming, they got blocked, too. Most were inane, more or less "I Know you are but what am I" or just simple ad hominems based on nothing I actually said, calling me dumb or whatever. A few made no sense at all, just wanting to be part of the action.

Had to beat back the YIMBY hoard with a few dozen blocks. Max Dubler from California YIMBY apparently was irked by my posts and replied and quote-posted me multiple times, and his flock took the cue that it was time to swarm. I guess that's how his days go, directing swarms toward non-believers.

A quick fact check and I'm out. We could house everyone in SF and Oakland, today, if there was a will to do so. Somehow, though, according to YIMBY nonsense, everyone won't be housed until a vacancy rate of 15% or whatever magical number occurs, which it never will.

bsky.app/profile/dave...

Best of luck with your one pure truth. Nothing I say can convince you otherwise. You're in deep and only you can set yourself free.

Price discovery? As if prices flow naturally with no other factors involved, even profit or greed? Egads. Look up FMMO or "price fixing housing." Companies like Blackstone gobble up properties. Real estate/construction lobbyists spend big on politicians. And they stop building when profits drop.

A rocket ship like the Heaven's Gate UFO. Soon you'll be riding the comet to glory. Thanks for the cult-like metaphor.

Keep on fighting straw men. You seem to think it's working for you.

Btw, market fundamentalism has been around for at least a half century and it just increases inequality.

Yes, you got me. I believe all of those things.

YIMBYs sure do love to fight straw men. Again, making my point for me.

Try harder, cultist.

There you go. Make my point for me.

Keep the faith. There is only one pure truth, supply and demand, and wealth trickles down.

Their reality distortion field isn't nearly as impermeable as they seem to think it is.

And yet their faith is unshakable, all evidence to the contrary be damned.

Like all well-trained cultists, YIMBYs think they have an answer for everything.

But, like all brainwashed cultists too high on their own supply, their arguments are pretty easy to refute.

Screenshot of California YIMBY home page. It laughably says, "Let's make California for everyone."

Fine, but just admit it and be up front about it. Own that the wealthy real estate and tech interests who fund you are in it for themselves, too. And stop pretending you're out to save the world with deregulation (or, ahem, "legalizing" housing). You're not a benevolent society.

Huh. The only mention of social housing in that piece is a sneering jab about the "old-school, anti-­capitalist left" being afraid of "greedy developers from The Goonies," dumb asses, because all the cool kids today know developers have society's best interests in mind (e.g., racism & homelessness).

As for market fundamentalism, compare these two screenshotted passages, and see if you detect any overlap. It's almost funny how oblivious YIMBYs are about their own economic theory, as they continually evangelize the "magic of the markets" to solve nearly every social ill.

bsky.app/profile/dave...

YIMBYs love high vacancy rates, which somehow will trickle down to marginalized folks, on future day, once they themselves get their cheaper rents, because "the market" is benevolent and fair in its distribution of resources. Homelessness is really an afterthought for YIMBYs, not an urgent matter.

Have to jump in and address the hyperbole, the type YIMBYs toss around thoughtlessly, and self-righteously. People are not "dying in the street" because there's not enough housing. There are currently ~10k vacant units in Oakland, ~24k in SF. That's roughly twice what's needed to house everyone.

Twitter tweet from Clara Jeffery in 2016: "Powell BART smells like fried piss and looks like a train station in Calcutta. IF SF has a homeless plan beside rousting tents be good to know."

I could go on and on, but just remember this whenever you see @clarajeffery.bsky.social express enthusiasm for YIMBYism. It's about gentrification, not altruism. And the real Mother Jones would not be proud.

Colorful illustration with a yellow sky, featuring a giant Scott Wiener, taller than the Transamerica Pyramid building in the background, holding what appears to be a Victorian "painted lady" house, with a tall construction crane in front of him in Alamo Square park.

And what's up with the main image for the article? It doesn't make sense. YIMBYs constantly rail against single-family homes, yet, it looks like a giant Wiener is bringing a single-family home to... where I can't tell. Or is he removing it? And is that construction crane in Alamo Square park?

Similarly, the small smattering of critiques of YIMBYism are breezed over, and buried quite deep, several thousand words down: "unregulated construction of luxury condos that displace working-class and nonwhite people." Still, the author's faith is not shaken. Scott Wiener remains a towering hero.

Serious issues over whose interests are truly being served by YIMBYs are breezed over: "Big donations from real estate and tech folks, capitalists whom progressives typically regard with suspicion, began flowing his way." Are the uber-rich donating because they care so much about racism? Get real.

You'll see ludicrous claims, thoughtlessly pronounced, such as YIMBYism "helps fight racism." And yet, you'll rarely, if ever, find any YIMBYs working with anti-racism activists or those who organize on behalf of low-income people of color. They just want to bulldoze, literally and metaphorically.

More wikipedia text from link in previous post: According to economist John Quiggin, the standard features of economic fundamentalist rhetoric are dogmatic assertions combined with the claim that anyone who holds contrary views is not a real economist.[7]

YIMBYs grossly oversimplify economics, as if supply and demand were the only factors, just as they do the nature of their crusade itself. It's them versus the NIMBYs, in a strictly bipolar world of good and abundance and prosperity versus evil. Such rhetorical framing suits their evangelism.

Wikipedia text: Market fundamentalism, also known as free-market fundamentalism, is an ideology[1] and a term applied to a strong belief in the ability of unregulated laissez-faire or free-market capitalist policies to solve most economic and social problems.[2] It is often used as pejorative by critics of said beliefs.[3]

Mother Jones article text: The theory is that more housing brings down costs—but it’s more totalizing than that. Denser housing helps fight climate change and racism, enlarges tax rolls, helps fund public transit, reduces traffic congestion, and adds voters who’ll give Democrats more power in Congress.

YIMBYs are oblivious, willfully or otherwise, to the simple fact that they relentlessly parrot the same Reaganomics/supply-side economics that exponentially accelerated income inequality over the last 50 years. Sorry, JFK, but a rising tide does not lift all boats.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_...

YIMBYs fool themselves into thinking they're intellectual pioneers, even saving the world, when they're really just self-interested middle-class to upper-middle-class mostly-white people who want cheaper rent for themselves, their ideological project funded by upper class real estate and tech bros.

The real Mother Jones, a founder of the IWW, would roll in her grave if she saw her name on a piece promoting market fundamentalism, aka trickle-down economics, or "abundance" in modern liberal geek-speak. This 5,000-word hagiography of Scott Weiner by @jetjocko.bsky.social is just more YIMBY tripe.

There's no honest argument any Trump supporter can make that a president doesn't have the unilateral right to do such a thing.

If Trump's reign of terror isn't a thousand year reich, whoever comes into office next should make it one of their first orders of business to tear down Trump's gaudy White House ballroom.

Now, Trump could literally topple the Washington monument, pave over the reflecting pools, or put a giant statue of himself in the Lincoln memorial and Republicans in Congress and SCOTUS wouldn't say shit.

Imagine if Obama decided he wanted to destroy a third of the White House, and then just went ahead and did it, so he could build a palace for himself where zillionaire sycophants would bring him offerings.

Remember when the US Supreme Court said Biden didn't have the authority to forgive student debt?

Those were simpler times.