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Comment by EGreg

1 day ago

Can’t you say that about any part of LA? Once a fire gets going, it grows and can destroy any neighborhood.

Call me crazy but if I was the mayor of LA I’d make them invest heavily in PREVENTION. Cameras and drones all over the place in the forests, to nip fires in the bud (and carch arsonists). I would also make sure that the live video footage would be used only for that purpose. It would use AI at the edge to flag every fire immediately and alert nearest authorities, and otherwise delete footage. There may be other AI at the edge uses added later by the regulators but I’d work to put in place heavy bars to overcome (eg 70% in a public referendum) before they are added.

I would also invest heavily in mobile firefighting tools and materials. The firefighters using buckets is pitiful.

But then again, LA hasn’t invested in itself for decades. It’s like the opposite of NYC: rich people don’t want to live in Downtown LA, they live in the equivalent of our Brooklyn, say Manhattan Beach and Sheepshead Bay by the beach.

Because half of downtown looks increasingly more like skid row. Signage and streets are something out of the 70s literally. And there pretty much hasn’t been any new skyscrapers built since the 80s. The skyline is stuck in the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie era.

I stayed in Freehand hostel which is actually pretty nice, even though there’s abandoned buildings and homeless all around. I met a drunk Andy Dick there by the pool one evening LOL.

And you people from San Francisco — it ain’t much better over where you are. I visited Twitter HQ right when Elon took over. And let me tell you — there is a curious juxtaposition of City Hall, City Opera, The SF Philharmonic, and the fourth corner of that illustrious intersection is… a large abandoned alleyway with dumpsters. What? Imagine Lincoln Center in NYC having that.

On my show I did a lot of interviews — with regulators, technologists, sociopolitical commentators like Noam Chomsky. But one of my most down-to earth interviews was in SF of a homeless guy w his dog. See it for yourself what I’m talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqjFeaDLuYQ

PS: to the silent downvoters… normally I don’t mind but this time you’re just doing it out of spite. Watch the video or say something. I bet you live there and don’t want to have these things pointed out. SF and LA were so great… so many movements started there. Lately people are fleeing and the homelessness is out of control.

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EGreg

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rafram  1 day ago

> Call me crazy but if I was the mayor of LA I’d make them invest heavily in PREVENTION. Cameras and drones all over the place in the forests, to nip fires in the bud (and carch arsonists).

This is a terrible way to deal with fire. The issue isn’t preventing fires from starting at all, because small fires are all over the place. A dropped cigarette can light a city block on fire if the wind is just right. The issue is preventing spread, and taking precautions when conditions (like wind) are conducive to rapid spread.

  • EGreg  1 day ago

    And those precautions are… putting out the fire before it spreads, right?

    • rafram  15 hours ago

      No. Forest fires should be allowed to spread to prevent fuel buildup. It’s bad when they cross into developed areas, though, so you want to prevent that.

      If anyone ever implements your drone-based surveillance-state wildland fire suppression system, please let me know so I can avoid hiking in the area.

      2 replies →

    • dboreham  1 day ago

      That's not how these fires work. Wind and dry fuels mean they can't be put out by the time they've been identified and someone has verified they're not some dude burning trash. Drone armies can't carry enough water.

Atotalnoob  1 day ago

Alleyways are good. They help prevent trash and smell from being on the streets people use.

NYC doesn’t have them and the city smells terrible from all of the garbage

  • EGreg  1 day ago

    OK it’s not just an alleyway but an entire half of a city block trash heap with dumpsters make one think that they neglected to build anything nice in that fourth corner. Oh and two streets away are tribes of homeless people. Watch the first 5 seconds of my video.

    In fact my video literally shows trash on the street as well in SF, as well as homeless.

    Seriously, other cities have city hall. There are no dumpsters around it. We have courthouses and government buildings.

    Certainly none around Lincoln Center which has the Metropolitan Opera and NYC Ballet and Philharmonic. It doesn’t smell there. There are beautiful fountains etc.

    I took some photos of the homeless in SF juxtaposed in front of the skyline in the background. It is very pervasive there. LA and SF seem to be magnets for homeless.

    If I was mayor I’d give them all a $50 phone preloaded with gigs including ones from the city, like sweeping the streets and from businesses such as handing out flyers. Have the app unlock mini storage and showers, and help them have digital ID. This ain’t rocket science. Crowdfund the support for each homeless the way we support kids in Haiti. Give them opportunities. But instead the bureaucracy just kicks them around and denies them opportunities without an address.

    Anyway…