the first time i lived in sf, i didn’t know much about it other than that people kept telling me it was unsafe, so i read a bunch of quora answers on which parts of the city were the most dangerous.
Coincidentally before I read this blog post, I wrote in my personal journal today about living in potential despair due to expecting the worst outcomes all the time. It sounds so irrational writing the thought out, but it makes perfect sense in my mind all the little yet often times I do think of x scenario.
Of course this one bad thing will happen, and it will happen in the worst possible way it could. Everything is ruined. It might be the media I consume or the way people talk about hardships as if they’re the only things that exist in our dystopia.
This isn’t to say reality is perfect and wonderful; it’s just less than our worst fears, most of the time. We’re probably hurt more by our worst fears of reality than we are by reality itself. If anything, hopeful delusion makes a more palatable life than hopeless sobriety.
I remember one time I booked an airbnb in the mission and texted the address to my friend who lived in SF, and he was like "cancel it, don't go there, that's a sketchy area". the airbnb reviews seemed ok so I stuck with it and it was totally fine for a weeklong visit.
in fairness I don't live there (plus the other caveats you made in your post) but I do think people overstate the dangers sometimes
Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like hyperbolic narratives about how bad SF is (and some big cities in general) is the right-wing analogue to stuff like Black Lives Matter. In both cases, you have some narrative that spreads because of actual problematic events. Then, as more people spread these narratives, if someone were to agree with individual problems but also disagree with the magnitude of the problem/ the overall way it is framed (as you described with people talking about SF, or in the BLM case, if someone were to say that the overwhelming majority of white people do not have/act on subconscious racist biases or that systemic racism does not shape society in the US), people will then accuse such a person of being inconsiderate/unconcerned (like do you not care about crime in SF/ do you not care about police brutality…) .
And then, when it comes to solutions for such problems, they often are unhelpful both because of the way people exaggerate the problem and how the solution is in the form of a political platform that serves to show your “in-groupness” in a certain political camp: in the case of issues in SF, people might say that the criminal justice system is too lax. However, increased crackdown on crime (whether tougher police or heavier sentencing) is just going to change the nature of crime. In fact, it might create a scenario where the “softer” criminals are rooted out (like those who shoplift or make messes in streets) and the criminals who remain are much more violent and resilient (sure, the total number of criminals may decrease, but...) As for groups like BLM’s suggestions to change society, again, you just force a lot of people into guilt when they don’t think (consciously or subconsciously) in any bad way at all, and also peer-pressure people into voting a certain way.
Ultimately, while I don’t know how much actual harm these narratives could do, they are unhelpful. I myself would just feel embarrassed to be fearmongering about something I am not really familiar with (whether it be telling everyone how politicians messed up SF or how white people need to become more aware of ingrained biases in their life/ in our society), just to make it look like I’ve got a solution when those in charge keep things messed up. And, as you mentioned, it is also projecting problems within your own, smaller communities to some much larger, society-wide space. In a way, people start to frame narratives this way because connecting problems in their circle to a society-wide issue will allow more people to be sensitive (like connecting issues within Black communities to systemic racism makes much more people sensitive even though said issues are likely not due to racism, or, in the case of SF, tech people’s personal problems are most likely due to bad social environments within their own circles, not because of San Francisco as a whole, but by framing it as an issue of the entire city it makes it seem like politicians are responsible for their difficulties). (Most) people may not even make this connection consciously (again, because of peer-pressure and the fact they will get accused of being inconsiderate if they don’t support those narratives), so I wouldn’t accuse them of outright deception, but it still gets tiresome because they take real issues and frame them in a way that leads to meaningless/useless solutions.
Coincidentally before I read this blog post, I wrote in my personal journal today about living in potential despair due to expecting the worst outcomes all the time. It sounds so irrational writing the thought out, but it makes perfect sense in my mind all the little yet often times I do think of x scenario.
Of course this one bad thing will happen, and it will happen in the worst possible way it could. Everything is ruined. It might be the media I consume or the way people talk about hardships as if they’re the only things that exist in our dystopia.
This isn’t to say reality is perfect and wonderful; it’s just less than our worst fears, most of the time. We’re probably hurt more by our worst fears of reality than we are by reality itself. If anything, hopeful delusion makes a more palatable life than hopeless sobriety.
I remember one time I booked an airbnb in the mission and texted the address to my friend who lived in SF, and he was like "cancel it, don't go there, that's a sketchy area". the airbnb reviews seemed ok so I stuck with it and it was totally fine for a weeklong visit.
in fairness I don't live there (plus the other caveats you made in your post) but I do think people overstate the dangers sometimes
Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like hyperbolic narratives about how bad SF is (and some big cities in general) is the right-wing analogue to stuff like Black Lives Matter. In both cases, you have some narrative that spreads because of actual problematic events. Then, as more people spread these narratives, if someone were to agree with individual problems but also disagree with the magnitude of the problem/ the overall way it is framed (as you described with people talking about SF, or in the BLM case, if someone were to say that the overwhelming majority of white people do not have/act on subconscious racist biases or that systemic racism does not shape society in the US), people will then accuse such a person of being inconsiderate/unconcerned (like do you not care about crime in SF/ do you not care about police brutality…) .
And then, when it comes to solutions for such problems, they often are unhelpful both because of the way people exaggerate the problem and how the solution is in the form of a political platform that serves to show your “in-groupness” in a certain political camp: in the case of issues in SF, people might say that the criminal justice system is too lax. However, increased crackdown on crime (whether tougher police or heavier sentencing) is just going to change the nature of crime. In fact, it might create a scenario where the “softer” criminals are rooted out (like those who shoplift or make messes in streets) and the criminals who remain are much more violent and resilient (sure, the total number of criminals may decrease, but...) As for groups like BLM’s suggestions to change society, again, you just force a lot of people into guilt when they don’t think (consciously or subconsciously) in any bad way at all, and also peer-pressure people into voting a certain way.
Ultimately, while I don’t know how much actual harm these narratives could do, they are unhelpful. I myself would just feel embarrassed to be fearmongering about something I am not really familiar with (whether it be telling everyone how politicians messed up SF or how white people need to become more aware of ingrained biases in their life/ in our society), just to make it look like I’ve got a solution when those in charge keep things messed up. And, as you mentioned, it is also projecting problems within your own, smaller communities to some much larger, society-wide space. In a way, people start to frame narratives this way because connecting problems in their circle to a society-wide issue will allow more people to be sensitive (like connecting issues within Black communities to systemic racism makes much more people sensitive even though said issues are likely not due to racism, or, in the case of SF, tech people’s personal problems are most likely due to bad social environments within their own circles, not because of San Francisco as a whole, but by framing it as an issue of the entire city it makes it seem like politicians are responsible for their difficulties). (Most) people may not even make this connection consciously (again, because of peer-pressure and the fact they will get accused of being inconsiderate if they don’t support those narratives), so I wouldn’t accuse them of outright deception, but it still gets tiresome because they take real issues and frame them in a way that leads to meaningless/useless solutions.