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Silicon Valley elites revealed as buyers of $800m of land to build utopian city
(www.theguardian.com)
They could just pay their fucking taxes so we can have trains
this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
414 points (97.5% liked)
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But think of all the jobs they'll "create"!
(/s so hard)
That's not even limited by taxes, it's limited by 4 fucking companies owning most of the tracks, and them being given free reign to run freight as shittily as possible, not maintain the tracks unless actively forced to, and giving precisely 0 fucks about passenger service.
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Lol again with this? Wealthy fucks have been trying this since the 1700s. It never works.
CA is already only for wealthy people.
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I fucking hate that they used the term "empty" land. The poll question posed to residents asked them if they would be more in favor if they knew it was "bad soil" that only contributed to 5% of CA agriculture, as though making money is all that land is good for.
Yes, Fairfield, CA is kind of a shit hole. But NorCal open land is absolutely beautiful, like all of California. Every single fucking time I go there, which is pretty frequently, there are new mcmansion housing developments and business parks and data centers that are starting to be built or have just finished. There are protected wetlands between Sacramento and the east bay (far east) where migratory birds come back every year. Just because they don't build on the fucking wetlands doesn't mean this constant building isn't going to affect what little nature is left. I'm so fucking sick of seeing my home paved over for profit and I feel so powerless to do anything. Because I am powerless.
As if that weren't enough, we all know this is going to be some walled-off rich-people city where they can escape from us proles, right? Sick shit.
They're building more data centres and California has a water shortage?
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The American Dream was get married and have a job, buy a house, have a family, and retire.
Now it is to be so rich and wealthy that you don't have to care about anyone else.
And if you aren’t getting rich, just don’t care about anyone else. You’re half way there. /s
Now it is to be so rich and wealthy that you don't have to care about anyone else.
That has always been part of the dream. It's just you can only get there if you were born on third base now.
Told you it's rich doom preppers who will build a literal walled garden.
Yep, it's a return to feudalism and vassalage. A fortress for themselves and their servants (billionaires don't do their own cooking and cleaning, they are important people afterall).
They know they need reasons for people to pledge fealty and they think public transport, apartments and clean energy is enough of a drawcard for their workers. The sad part is that they have eroded workers rights so far that they may well be right. Many other places in the world, these perks are much more normal.
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There has to be more to this story...
If the distinguishing features are public transportation and clean energy, they’re probably not building it to live in themselves. And while there’s a big demand for more housing in the Bay Area generally, Solono County is a bit of a commute for current workers.
It feels like they’re building this as a company town for some yet-to-be-announced new business project that they want to be isolated from existing urban areas.
(edit) I guess I don’t mean "urban areas" so much as areas where employees would have contact with other Silicon Valley firms and culture.
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In my day they were called New Towns.
They're all shit holes now.
as Adam Something on YouTube puts it, ultra rich people + construction equals dumb shit.
it's going to end up soulless and miserable, no doubt
just a series of mansions connected by roads, completely forgetting any sort of amenities or ability to produce things locally, because rich people think "mom and pop store" is when get your parents to bring things along on their private jet.
- City built by tech bros
- Utopian
Pick one.
They misspelt distopian.
Why improve current cities where people want to live when you can build the cyberpunk future distopian citry right here in your desert backyard.
Encircles an air force base. Why would anyone want to live encircling an air force base?
I bet they'll act like people who move next to a farm and complain about the smell.
"Hiiii, we're your neighbors down the road. Do you think you could not fly your little airplanes around? They're awfully loud. Thanks bunches!"
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Just a bunch of rich fucks trying to con other rich fucks and hope to leave whoever is holding their junk bonds in the lurch.
Can't wait to owe my soul to the company store
This is end game capitalism. They have their own cities with their own laws. You are essentially forced to live and work at the same place and buy your groceries and other essentials from your employees. You’re basically an indentured servant at that moment.
Actually, this is early stage capitalism. Company towns were a thing in the late 19th and early 20th century. Government eventually stepped in, broke up the trusts and made that kind of thing a relic of a worse time.
People have forgotten their past and they're now repeating it. We've been in the second Gilded age for what - 30 years now?
Child labor was just legalized in Kansas I think and it looks like some other Republican states are trying to do the same.
This is what happens when you let the foxes run the hen house.
That was end stage capitalism.
Unions mostly defeated it after that, but then everyone forgot how bad it was and elected Thatcher and Reagan
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Exactly why Amazon been taking about building such towns for its workers. I swear if the conservatives get their way and the way things are going I see them trying to find a way legalize slavery again.
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Might as well call it Night City from Cyberpunk 2077.
Why do I have the feeling this is going to turn into some sort of cyberpunk distopia quickly?
because this kind of plan went wrong multiple times before
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Utopian city for themselves and the select few
Probably more like a company town type of deal. Musk is building something similar in Texas. The capitalists want to bring the 19th century back.
Can't wait to rent a studio apartment in Bezosville, I hear if you save up your Bezos Bucks you can afford an Amazon Chocolate Snack once a month
Oof I didn't know about this having happened before. I was just looking at Disney building housing and I was a little annoyed they couldn't just pay their associates enough to live on, rather than this method. I hadn't considered how bad this could get.
Even if these companies don't make their own cities and impose stupid regulations against competition within their fake city, I'm really not looking forward to relying on my job for both healthcare AND housing.
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So working public transportation = utopia ?
How can one country be so disconnected from reality?
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how about we build a guillotine on the land instead
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