California

woops

is not like other people
Corpsey said:
Because deep down I know I'm a worthless pathetic wank addict with no redeeming qualities etc etc

Why the angry face @Corpsey i thought this was the image you were keen to promote on here
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
look i'm not saying i'm into them or anything but one of the first pieces of social science conceptualising i ever thought about was the idea of 'californication', it's still a useful concept regardless of who came up with it

i've been to california. and its kind of lovely but there's a bit of dystopia mixed in there as well. it is still a bit surprising to me to see people smoking crack at bus stops. there's very few places on this planet where people with severe drug dependencies are so openly on display. in both LA and san francisco there are some bits of town which are.....i don't know. it's hard to describe.

have a theory that the us/canadien west coast is a special and unique place. remember standing looking out at the pacific thinking: this really is the end of the earth. it really is. out there by itself in the middle of nowhere, totally disconnected from the rest of humanity by virtue of geographical location.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I have never seen such open, daylight hard drug abuse as I saw in parts of San Francisco, particularly the Tenderloin District. It was like 'Destructive Generation' turned into a town.
 

sus

Well-known member
Yeah, San Francisco is bad, but you'll 100% see equal squalor in Philadelphia, Chicago, a couple parts of NYC. Not a California problem so much as an American urban problem, which is somewhat exacerbated by the fact that Cali has mild winters (and hence desirable outdoor living).
 

sus

Well-known member
Indeed, the Philadelphia opioid epidemic was recently talked about on this board, was it not? Kensington Ave vids?
 

sus

Well-known member
It's been interesting how much political mileage conservative and trad folk get out of these catastrophes. It's pretty easy to push a "social fabric in decay" narrative above a shot of Kensington Ave.
 

sus

Well-known member
Or e.g. you have Moldbug going on podcasts, saying "how the fuck is it acceptable that people in this city just walk past/step over dying people on a daily basis" people whose legs are rotting from gangrene, people who are passed out on a sidewalk ODing, people who are gonna freeze to death in winter. Pretty easy dunk on liberalism, progressive concerns.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
Yeah, San Francisco is bad, but you'll 100% see equal squalor in Philadelphia, Chicago, a couple parts of NYC. Not a California problem so much as an American urban problem, which is somewhat exacerbated by the fact that Cali has mild winters (and hence desirable outdoor living).
i'd tentatively disagree, insofar as someone who's not from there can say anything about this sort of thing. haven't seen anything like it in other bits of the us except of LA. it probably is like you say just that people do it outside rather than in houses. but it is quite striking to see. i don't know if the visibility of it says anything at all about respective severity of drug problems in different cities or countries. it's just that the experience of being around it all is really remarkable, without many equivalents.
 
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