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Astral Codex Ten ·For the curious

Royce on San Francisco

by Scott Alexander

Published 2026-09-10 11:10:18+00:00

Does a city ever outgrow the exact kind of madness it was founded on?

0:00 / 15:30 · Narrator Gacrux

Context

This 10 September 2026 post from Astral Codex Ten reads like a familiar scroll of modern complaints about San Francisco. The quotes describe absurd rent prices and an exhausting boom-and-bust economy. They detail a culture of overworked young men and rampant street crime. It sounds exactly like a critique of the current tech industry. But the text is actually pulled straight from an 1886 history book about the Gold Rush. The collection forces a strange question. What if the madness of the city is simply a permanent feature of its pioneer roots?

Show notes

A selection of lightly edited excerpts from Josiah Royce’s 1886 history of California, describing the daily life and economy of early San Francisco. The passages cover the city's extreme housing costs, crime rates, boom-and-bust cycles, and public tolerance for vice during the 1850s. The text is arranged under modern headings like NIMBYism and fraud, with specific dates removed.

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