California For-Never ft. Shanti Singh
What happens when Venture Capitalists - a bunch of guys whose entire job is throwing money into companies they don't understand and expect to fail try and build a new city from scratch? What happens when those Venture Capitalists are building that city in order to win an online argument about zoning and land use? The answer (AI renderings, money spent, nothing built, no water issues planned for or considered) may not shock you! Bay Area tenant organiser Shanti Singh rejoins Riley, Hussein, and Alice, to explore what the hell is going on in Solano County.
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Comments (36)
I keep picturing the tech guy planing this town like he's playing age of empires 2 as a 14 yr old
re the Russell Brand section, I appreciate you all acknowledging that the ‘00s and earlier were an extremely normal time of 25+ year old bfs picking up their 16 year old gfs at their high school. I absolutely acknowledge my white privilege, but it’s jarring years later to be told (esp by white men) that I’ve never known anything but safety and agency as a white afab woman.
California for Ever puts me in mind of Dead Kennedy’s album California Über Alles.
We miss you (and your quality audio work), Nate!
I don't have any research to back this up, but I think that the draw or making a new city to house tech workers instead of just letting them work remotely is perhaps in due to pressure from the city to add to the tax base of the state. Without that tax money, which they might be dependent on now, there might be budget concerns for the state government. And for big companies, there are a lot of incentives they get for doing what the government wants (i.e. tax breaks etc).
I was born in Vallejo CA, heart of Solano County!
okay who lured Riley with a cask of amontillado?
For any tree nerds across the pond we have a native breed of cypress on the coast - per their wiki: Hesperocyparis macrocarpa also known as Cupressus macrocarpa, or the Monterey cypress is a coniferous tree, and is one of several species of cypress trees endemic to California. The Monterey cypress is found naturally only on the Central Coast of California.
weird timing as I only just this week decided to dig into Steve Jobs’ widow and decide she’s a bad actor for real (yea very behind on this one).
@51 min - When your architecture renderings are drawn by Hieronymus Bosch! :) There's a sweet irony how close the "end of human art" comes to resembling biblical hell pics with bizarro body horror.
i do slightly appreciate the ability of ai art to create impressionist comedy/horror. faves of mine are "muscleman competition at the jfk assassination" where a bunch of blurry himbos are rushing around the grassy knoll, and the biden shout
its the non sound-insulated one
With the not insubstantial caveat that nothing there is as ordered as a line, the U.S. already has NEOM. It's Las Vegas.
Plenty of lines get made in Las Vegas I reckon…
Oooh man. As a lifelong Solano resident I’ve been waiting for TF to pick this up. Looking forward to my life getting a lot weirder
Oh! You want to shut down this idiotic tryhard Neom competitor even faster? Point out to the investors that Travis AFB is the site of a military prison.
I'm one of those diseased Americans who has seen Russell Brand's stand up and I made the mistake of reading his autobiography so I was just like "Oh. Gee golly whiz. However could we have known, no question mark at the end of that sentence." I figured his, shall we say, unhealthy relationship with sex was a matter of public record. Like, being a sex pest if not a known offender was the thing people knew about him.
I can feel you man one of the first live show I've ever seen at a really young teen age is Diedonné the edgelord french comic who later became extremely antisemitic. some times you're just not sentient enough
"I was really good at broodwar in the 90s"
So Hussain thinks it's called "mind journey" huh?
“Splitting image” all over again
Wait how bad are the libel laws here if you can't even name the person who is publicly speaking out about their thoughts when trying to describe them publicly speaking out about their thoughts? I don't see where the libel is occurring in this chain of communication.
in Commonwealth countries, libel/slander/defamation is "reverse onus". in the US, for example, the burden of proof is on the plaintiff to prove that what the defendant said was both untrue and materially harmful. in the uk, however, once grounds for defamation is established, the burden of proof is on the defendant to prove their statement was either true or not materially harmful. as such, it's significantly difficult to win a defo case as a defendant. Given you need a significant amount of money to launch a defamation suit to begin with, it basically creates an asymmetry where rich people can silence critics at ease, but the gutter press are insulated from libelling common people who can't afford to mount a case.
I keep thinking Riley is going to say California raisins every time he says California forever
I’m from San Francisco. Interesting to hear a local story. I haven’t heard anything about this until now.
me too, hello!
Oh, it's Cypress Creek from The Simpsons!
Russel Brand was in St Trinian's with Tallulah Riley (Musk's double-ex-wife), perhaps they're friends and Tallulah asked Musk to come to his defence?
iirc she’s very pilled on some of the same “issues”
I can't believe you've banished the ghost child to the lagoon
He’s having a more equitable existence in Ravenna.
American Neom is Phoenix
i guess if you engage in enough realty arbitrage you start thinking land is fungible
Alternative ep title: “California Uber Alice”
The chad "old money" way : build a new city to escape living among the poors (Palo Alto). The soyjack "VC" way : not even building it, it's a bunch of 3d renders. Also who needs water and sewage issues lol
The right solution for our era