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Comment by solarengineer | Hacker News Reader

I’ve worked in and traveled around the US for a few years ( Nashville, San Antonio, Palo Alto, SF, Portland, Houston, Atlanta). I left the US in 2014 and haven’t returned since then. I can share that the horror stories I read about the current US politics, climate change denial, police excesses, homelessness and the related squalor have reduced my interest in considering the US as a long term home :( I’d rather innovate in other countries that are friendly and safer ( I’m in Singapore now).

I work with a PhD in mechanical engineering, who shares my views about the US not being a Long term place to stay at ( at least based on current status).

The rest of the world used to see the US as a leader, as a peace keeper. Now, not at all. :(

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> I’m in Singapore now

https://immiguides.com/immigration-guides/singapore/

- Singaporean citizens of Chinese heritage tend to enjoy preferred treatment over their Malay and Indian counterparts. Examples of overt discrimination include employment ads specifying that someone must be of Chinese origin to apply.

- the Singaporean government censors sexual, political, religious, and racially sensitive material. Lawsuits are often used to quiet dissidents. Journalists often self-censor, to limit their legal liability. This also limits the development and prevalence of non-commercial art

- members of the LGBT community face discrimination in Singapore. Male on male sex is illegal. It is difficult for members of the LGBT community to find housing (landlord discrimination).

- punishments commonly involve caning and long prison sentences.

Isn't it sad that, in spite of what you described, the US is perceived as substantially worse than Singapore by people around the world? Via https://www.reputationinstitute.com/country-reptrak - Singapore is 20, US is 34.

That's simply because the press and academia in the USA are extremely biased towards one political side.

Most of the people who think the current political or social state of the USA is horrible have never opened a single book about asian, african or eastern europe policies.

While everyone is formatted to be shocked by what is going on in the USA, they refuse to even see that torture (including citizens) and hardcorde censorship is routine and legal in a lot of asian countries.

Most Americans have had an expectation of American Exceptionalism.

To quote John F Kennedy:

“I have been guided by the standard John Winthrop set before his shipmates on the flagship Arabella (sic) three hundred and thirty-one years ago, as they, too, faced the task of building a new government on a perilous frontier. "We must always consider", he said, "that we shall be as a city upon a hill—the eyes of all people are upon us". Today the eyes of all people are truly upon us—and our governments, in every branch, at every level, national, state and local, must be as a city upon a hill—constructed and inhabited by men aware of their great trust and their great responsibilities.”

Just goes to show the negative PR campaign is working.

Obviously the U.S. has problems, but on the whole it is pretty great. I’ve traveled quite a bit and lived in other countries, and some are better in some respects, worse in others by a large margin.

People complain about police at schools in the U.S. (and it’s fair) but I don’t feel comfortable in Paris walking by a Jewish school that has soldiers with rifles standing outside either. YMMV. ️

The sad part (speaking as a non-American who has lived in the US) is that the negative PR campaign doesn’t even come from America’s enemies, it comes from within. And it’s not driven by ill will, as far as I can figure out, but petty tribalism.

At some point in the past few decades it became de rigeur among a certain fraction (eg those in this thread) of the US population to shit on their own country at every opportunity, to distinguish themselves from those flag-waving yahoos in the other tribe. Patriotism became heavily tribalised, and saying good things about America in certain parts of the country gets you ostracised as one of those uneducated Republican types who is too stupid to see that absolutely everything is so much better in every other country and if it isn’t then it doesn’t count.

Combine this with the US saturation of global media, and you can turn on the TV in every country and see Americans shitting on America. Eventually the message starts to sink in.

People in America need to get more perspective, and quit letting every single thing that comes out of their mouth be determined by some boring red vs blue conflict.

You're being downvoted, but having grown up between conservative enclaves (overseas military base, Texas A&M) and ultra progressive domains (years in NYC and Seattle), I've seen firsthand, without choosing a side, that patriotism and apologism has very much become an American Right wing position, while those on the left are increasingly ashamed of the American flag. Particularly since the election of Trump.

This sort of thing is unique to the United States as far as the developed world is concerned.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/12/17/us/north-carolina-student...

Agreed that it would be better if it did not take soldiers standing outside of schools to protect the Jewish community but at the same time doing nothing wasn't an option and there has - as far as I know - so far not been any harm to bystanders on their behalf.

Sorry, I don’t really understand the point of your post in relation to what I said. Could you elaborate?

>Singaporean citizens of Chinese heritage tend to enjoy preferred treatment over their Malay and Indian counterparts. Examples of overt discrimination include employment ads specifying that someone must be of Chinese origin to apply.

Not to defend this, but I expect to see this among smaller employers in US tech hubs in the future.

Anecdotally, I know two PRC nationals who spent two years in Singapore working for employers that discriminated. They had nothing but bad things to say about their workplaces when it came to code quality, leadership, and how women were treated (both of them are female).

I know it's a sample size of two, but it makes me think that you wouldn't want to work for an employer that favors Chinese applicants as anything but a last resort.

Keep in mind that these companies are often fulfilling three things simultaneously: allowing a PRC national to gain citizenship in another country through an avenue that involves significant financial investment, laundering/protecting RMB (often the same thing in China), and, finally, functioning as what most of us consider a viable business (turning money into more money). These are listed in order of prioritization.

It's ok if the business fails completely and never turns a profit, as long as the first priority is accomplished. Accomplishing the first and second is ideal. Ending up with a viable business and a financial return on your initial investment is just a nice-to-have.

Every country has its own issue but for most people those issue above would not affect their life. I'm neither LGBT nor interested in politics so these are not that relevant so I would rank living in Singapore highly above USA. Perfect blend of eastern and western culture/life.

Don't forget that there's only one political party.

I guess I could see Singapore for the quality of life if I was non LGBT or not of a race that might face issues but as other people mentioned below there are a few issues about Singapore that would also make me not rank it highly. That said, I'm an American who left the US some years ago and lived in Berlin/Tallinn and worked remote around a lot of Europe. For sure quality of life is generally better in Europe in my opinion and I can understand why lots of people are choosing say Paris or London (Brexit aside) rather than SF. Except for people in Eastern Europe almost all Europeans also wonder why people want to live in the U.S. - my common response is that I would go to the U.S. if I wanted to compete to be in the .01% elite and be able to reap the unrestricted gains of such. If I didn't have a burning desire to try to become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, go to Harvard, start the next Google and instead just wanted to live a "normal" life with work/life balance then I would prefer to live in Europe

Former European here. I came to the US for grad school, then went back home to Europe and I could not wait to return to the US. I still love Europe for the culture, history and food but the US has nature, limitless opportunity, optimism, dynamism and in general a sense of abundance, self-reliance freedom and space that I do not feel in Europe.

I'm an immigrant to the USA from a different western country and I think the US media is just further along in creating clickbait than most other western countries. Part of that is likely because unlike many western countries the USA does not have a major government-funded media outlet.

The stories in the media are always tilted towards outrage, fear, or hate because those base emotions are what drive clicks. The reality on the ground is much different. I often travel for work so I spend time in lots of different major US cities, they are clean, have low crime, and American's are generally very friendly.

Granted I don't travel to the worst parts of major US cities, but I've travelled enough places in the world to know that in some cities all the parts are dangerous, and we're a long way from that.

It's very difficult to stay a benevolent superpower forever. Very few countries have done it for long. Most superpowers end up being ruled by corrupt totalitarian regimes if you look at historical examples.

Not sure what made USA change for the worse or if it has just been a slow decline.

People are so in love with the idea of America failing that they can't see the reality of how the world has becoming progressively more depended upon it.

I'm not entirely sure why the US was seen as a "peace keeper". It was at war pretty much non-stop since WW2, wasting trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of civilian lives in the process, and now that Trump is shutting this shit down people are coming out of the woodwork and say we should be the "peace keeper" and continue bombing other people forever. Oh, and we better do it on our own dime, too.

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