Dolores Park
October 2019
Saturday afternoon.
It’s a doozy, one of the crystal-clear September days that are this foggy city’s reward for a summer of grey. There are probably six thousand people here, littered across the sharply sloping grass of this 16-acre park. You wend your way through the knots of people and dogs, the city’s skyline providing a majestic backdrop.
The Sierra Nevada is flowing, as are the Grapefruit Sculpins and Hell & High Watermelon IPAs. The wine is flowing too, in bottles and bags and cans (though asking you to identify what kind would be like asking a blind man to describe the color orange). The air is rife with the pungent smell of weed.
The cacophony of a hundred speakers provides a drumbeat to your footfalls, and you’re greeted with a Doppler effect of tunes as you wade through the mire of people.
You find your friends at the center of the park, just in front of the curving sidewalk where an old Latino man leans on his ice cream cart and wipes his brow. Grabbing a Sculpin from the blue cooler, you join one of the circles, fist-bumping James as you tune in to the conversation.
A lanky white dude and an Indian kid are embroiled in a fierce debate:
“But what’re we going to do with all of the drivers? That’s a million angry unemployed people suddenly hitting the job market! That’s a recipe for social chaos!”
“Dude—you’re overthinking this,” Neeraj retorts, “Firstly, they’ll find other jobs. What happened to all the typists when the computer came out? You don’t see many of them unemployed today, do you?”
Paul shakes his head vigorously, ready to retort, before Neeraj silences him with an outthrust palm,
“Let me finish. Secondly, think of the bright side! No traffic, ever. Drunk driving deaths? Forget about it. Watching TV while you go to work! Efficient routing…once you centralize the vehicle base you could even electrify and bam—no more global warming!”
“You’re oversimplifying, man!” Paul jumps in. “Typists is not a relevant example in today’s world, where you have automation killing every working-class job prospect…”
An Asian girl jumps in brightly, “But people don’t need to do jobs like that anymore. Universal Basic Income will fix that!”
You leap into the fray, “Bro, that shit’s like fifty years away from social acceptance. And between now and then, you’re going to have to find a way to deal with an entire class of people who have no job opportunities, no way to climb the social ladder, no nothing. That’s a recipe for pitchforks – you think Trump and Brexit are bad, just wait for that…” Paul nods his agreement.
“Dude, we fucking solved world hunger, serious infectious disease, we went to the moon…,” Neeraj waves dismissively, “In a hundred years we went from average people dying of diarrhea to me watching Netflix while I shit. We’ll figure this out, just like we figured that out.”
“I just wish somebody would figure out a way to get rid of Trump,” rumbles a stocky Korean dude, unleashing a wave of wry laughter.
Welcome to San Francisco.