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Comment by losvedir | Hacker News Reader

Or, people do understand and yet still don't like it. I've lived in New York City and also had those superficial interactions with people different from me. But like the person you're responding to, I much prefer my current life of remote work from a rural town in the South, for all the reasons in the original comment.

It just felt like your comment, despite reiterating the parent's "to each their own" caveat, was either a total non sequitur or pushing the perspective that if you don't like city life you must just not understand it.

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I've elicited some strong reactions here. The commenter I responded to said this:

> When I read the stories of big city lifestyles I'm amazed so many people opt-in to it. Traffic, noise, concrete everywhere. Yuck - but to each their own.

I was simply explaining some of _my_ reasons for opting in to it. It's a tangent from the original post, I realize. I could easily come up with reasons a person might enjoy a rural or small town lifestyle, but here I simply gave my reasons for enjoying the urban life I currently live, even though I too have the option of going the remote work route.

No offense intended.

Sorry, I missed that part of the comment you responded to, and how it implies knowledge of big cities only via what they read and not personal experience. In that light your comment wasn't a non sequitur and was a fair response.

>had those superficial interactions with people different from me

sorry why do you presume they're superficial? or i should sat why do you exalt your small town interactions over someone else's big-town interactions? i've lived in both a smalltown (currently) and brooklyn ny (previously) and the depth of the interactions is absolutely about the same.

btw we can all play presumptuous and haughty: in your "tight-knit" community no one will help you/acknowledge you as soon as you diverge from highly constrained cultural norms even a small iota - where as in my diverse working class neighborhood in brooklyn that wouldn't be the case. what do you say? not true? color me just as suspicious as you color yourself if i claim to you that i actually had deep and genuine conversations with my neighbors, grocers, and occasionally fellow subway riders.

> sorry why do you presume they're superficial?

I think you might be unduly defensive. I interpreted the "superficial" to mean "without the intimacy of an established relationship", which isn't particularly controversial afaict.

Yeah, I agree with you that the depth of interactions are the same.

It was just an unkind jab at the fact that the examples given of exposure to different people and cultures were helping someone cross the road and giving up a seat on the subway. That jibed with my experience living in NYC - it's not particularly conducive to expanding your horizons; the diversity is there if you really want to go out and meet people, but mostly it will be courteous distance on the street and most of your deep interactions will be within your filter bubble, same as anywhere.

Unlike my current town, NYC has mosques, but I didn't actually learn anything about Islam or Muslims living there, compared to when I actually lived in the Middle East and made friends for life there. I ate at Chinese restaurants and shopped in Chinatown but wouldn't say I gained any cultural insights. But living in Singapore for a year and making friends with Singaporeans, Indonesians, and Chinese people - there I learned a lot.

You would have learned the same if you had lived in those neighborhoods instead of simply swinging by. Of course, most people choose to segregate, but you always have the option in NYC.

Sure, there are superficial interactions with strangers in dense, global communities. There’s also an increased likelihood of meeting someone who may significantly expand your network and change your life at any moment.

Humility is an aspect that’s often missing from these urban vs. suburban/rural discussions. Living in an suburban community and working in tech, it’s very easy to have a high opinion of yourself. Moving to SF quickly humbles you as you are suddenly surrounded by people much smarter than yourself. You feel a need to focus on what you’re uniquely good at and work on continuing to improve your skills in that niche. That was my experience anyway.

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