<story><title>Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45971538</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>SideburnsOfDoom</author><text>&amp;gt; help diversify the tech ecosystem in Berlin and give them access to facilities and other resources.&lt;p&gt;Another way of looking at that, is &amp;quot;gentrify the vibrant neighbourhood by trucking in techbros to displace the artists&amp;quot;. It&amp;#x27;s not new (1)&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t necessarily agree with that framing, but it is understandable and coherent, not a misunderstanding&lt;p&gt;1) &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=18282143&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=18282143&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>jschuur</author><text>If I read the article correctly, this wasn&amp;#x27;t about building a new &amp;#x27;Google campus&amp;#x27; (i.e. a huge building to house a large number of Google employees as their main regional HQ). This was about building Campus Berlin, an incubator for startups like they pioneered first in London and then brought to other cities.&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.campus.co&amp;#x2F;berlin&amp;#x2F;de&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.campus.co&amp;#x2F;berlin&amp;#x2F;de&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.campus.co&amp;#x2F;london&amp;#x2F;en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.campus.co&amp;#x2F;london&amp;#x2F;en&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s easy to misunderstand this because of what the term &amp;#x27;campus&amp;#x27; is typically associated with. I live in London, and when I say &amp;#x27;I&amp;#x27;m going to Google&amp;#x27;s Campus&amp;#x27;, I often need to qualify that I&amp;#x27;m not going to their main office complex at King&amp;#x27;s Cross.&lt;p&gt;There may still be very valid reasons to protest Google in Berlin, but I wonder if the people objecting understood the distinction: that this wasn&amp;#x27;t a hub for all of Google&amp;#x27;s employees, but rather a place that would help diversify the tech ecosystem in Berlin and give them access to facilities and other resources.&lt;p&gt;The kind of smaller startups that would be home at a Campus style incubator would not be fueling high paid Google salaries and would be a lot less likely to drive up rents e.g..</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pteredactyl</author><text>The mutual exclusivity is naive at best.&lt;p&gt;To me, it shows haters&amp;#x27; level of intellect. And perhaps explains why they feel left out. They&amp;#x27;re attached to an ideal of what &amp;#x27;art&amp;#x27; (additionally, activism[1]) should be. An outdated, 20th century one.&lt;p&gt;I personally don&amp;#x27;t like Google. And I understand your framing is hypothetical.&lt;p&gt;But why is tech framed the opposite of art?&lt;p&gt;Why is tech equal to techbro?&lt;p&gt;Yea there are always bad apples. But I wonder what Da Vinci would think about holding art in the opposite category as tech?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d argue they&amp;#x27;re more synonymous than opposite. To me, there&amp;#x27;s creativity. Both art and tech are creative. Applied creativity pertains to both code or a paint canvas.&lt;p&gt;Either way, the best, most valuable work to society is often never been done before.&lt;p&gt;Can anyone name an art piece (or if I&amp;#x27;m being generous, an art movement) in the last 15 years that&amp;#x27;s made the level of impact as Google? Or cryptocurrency?&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, to me, the &amp;#x27;artists&amp;#x27; need to up their game. Big time.&lt;p&gt;[1] Protest city hall if you feel gentrified. Especially in SF where it&amp;#x27;s largely illegal to build housing. Also, regarding gentrification, you don&amp;#x27;t hear the positive stories of immigrant families whose businesses flourish because of increased capital in an area, or those who feel safer, or even those who cashed out and sold their 50k house for 1.2 million. Again you hear a largely misdirected, dated and one-sided argument.</text></comment>
<story><title>Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45971538</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>SideburnsOfDoom</author><text>&amp;gt; help diversify the tech ecosystem in Berlin and give them access to facilities and other resources.&lt;p&gt;Another way of looking at that, is &amp;quot;gentrify the vibrant neighbourhood by trucking in techbros to displace the artists&amp;quot;. It&amp;#x27;s not new (1)&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t necessarily agree with that framing, but it is understandable and coherent, not a misunderstanding&lt;p&gt;1) &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=18282143&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=18282143&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>jschuur</author><text>If I read the article correctly, this wasn&amp;#x27;t about building a new &amp;#x27;Google campus&amp;#x27; (i.e. a huge building to house a large number of Google employees as their main regional HQ). This was about building Campus Berlin, an incubator for startups like they pioneered first in London and then brought to other cities.&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.campus.co&amp;#x2F;berlin&amp;#x2F;de&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.campus.co&amp;#x2F;berlin&amp;#x2F;de&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.campus.co&amp;#x2F;london&amp;#x2F;en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.campus.co&amp;#x2F;london&amp;#x2F;en&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s easy to misunderstand this because of what the term &amp;#x27;campus&amp;#x27; is typically associated with. I live in London, and when I say &amp;#x27;I&amp;#x27;m going to Google&amp;#x27;s Campus&amp;#x27;, I often need to qualify that I&amp;#x27;m not going to their main office complex at King&amp;#x27;s Cross.&lt;p&gt;There may still be very valid reasons to protest Google in Berlin, but I wonder if the people objecting understood the distinction: that this wasn&amp;#x27;t a hub for all of Google&amp;#x27;s employees, but rather a place that would help diversify the tech ecosystem in Berlin and give them access to facilities and other resources.&lt;p&gt;The kind of smaller startups that would be home at a Campus style incubator would not be fueling high paid Google salaries and would be a lot less likely to drive up rents e.g..</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Xylakant</author><text>The building was originally renovated by ID Media, one of the largest digital media&amp;#x2F;web development companies in Berlin at the end of the nineties. It’s been filled with IT companies ever since they went bankrupt and currently has an incubator as one of the renters. It’s never been full of artists for the last 20 years.&lt;p&gt;So while I’m not surprised (and very much not sad) that the plans didn’t work out for a host of reasons I really don’t think that the campus would have led to substantial gentrification in that region.&lt;p&gt;Disclosure: we (still) have our office in the complex.</text></comment>