* if you have the money and the people prepared for 3)
Not the law, not what is right or who has been virtuous. Just money. Or more specifically: who has the money.
If you are poor and you sue someone who is rich, they control that outcome. If you are rich and you sue someone who is poor, they (by default) control that outcome; there's nothing there. If you are both poor, a judge will often decide based who looks and sounds the less poor. If you are both rich, then (the equivalent of) actuaries decide the outcome.
Criminal lawsuits are similar. I do not care how much you fuck up in this country; The amount of time you spend in jail will be inversely proportional to the amount of money you can spend to fight it.
It's only the Americans that think they're the center of the world.
I used to watch this Japanese show "Why did you come to Japan?" where a camera crew hangs out at Narita Airport and ambushes unsuspecting foreigners with that question and try to tag along on the journey of people they think are there for an interesting reason. When everyone introduces themselves they say the country they are from, except Americans who always say which state they are from and never the country. I found that particularly interesting. So, I just assume it's a deeply ingrained cultural thing to treat "America as default".
I live in East Asia, which is by no measure a cultural or technological backwater, and was surprised to hear my mother say, two days ago, "you must get YouTube over there...".
For some more perspective, I'm the most successful member of my family (from a financial pov) and from the condo I live in to the car I drive, I have nicer things than my parents ever did. I'm the first in the family -- and this is something I only considered just now -- to sends his kids to a good / expensive private school.
Though I don't lord it over them, my life is way more advanced / cushy than theirs. But from their point of view I'm not in the US and therefore don't have access to what they consider the gold standard of civilization.
And this point of view has not changed even though my parents have experienced my life in Asia first hand. Truly bizarre blind spot.
These days most people just ask if I've eaten a dog.
If it helps, think of every US state as if it was a european country. You might lazily think they are all the same but scratch the surface and there's a lot of difference.
So yeah, its fine for someone to say they're from California. You already know they're from the land of High Fructose Corn Syrup so why be nasty about it?
Compare it to Europe, where a 3 hour drive gives you different food, language, holidays, religion, festivals, type of beer, different political system, different history going back 1000+ years... and another 3 hour drive does it all over again.
Yes, not all of us are in the SF Bay Area, but it's pretty reasonable to assume that most readers are.
Not sure "relocate" is the best word. I've been freelancer for 8 years and one of my client is a YC startup that is and has always been in Paris, France.
See https://www.ycombinator.com/atyc/ "We ask the founders of each startup we fund to move to the Bay Area for the duration of their cycle" and https://www.ycombinator.com/faq/#p3 "Of course, after the 3 month program, you can go wherever you want."
As for your downvoters: plenty of people believe they should downvote when they simply disagree. Others believe that downvoting without a comment is fine. These two groups make HN less interesting.
I actually want to know the reason why. Too many people hide behind a downvote and contribute nothing. Meanwhile they are making interesting posts disappear for no good reason. And other comments that are blatantly rubbish are not touched at all.
Totally agree with you ! But maybe some people misunderstood what you wrote.
I'd rather say that the crowd here is technically fit and policed enough to try to understand elaborate and forward-looking viewpoints, sometimes contrary to the doxa [0]. That makes comment so enjoyable to read. And it's also reassuring, that we can agree on some things on both sides of the planet .
edit : and some people who like to think of themselves as independent thinkers and live in SF by design or accident, will not like to see their opinions qualified as "SF" opinions. Works equally well for any part of the world.
> As for your downvoters
+1. This mechanism is a rather raw moderation system, people will abuse it to disqualify competing stances. There are options to refine it.
But how does a modern, complex and non-homogeneous society aribiter cases without turning "poisonous" or odious to some members?
To my knowledge much of Europe, M.E., Asia and even S. America are composed of largely homogeneous populaces with a smattering of outsiders at best.
There is no perfect society in this regard. Just because it's hard doesn't mean that such societies shouldn't strive to reduce the odiousness, and maximize the fairness in the administration of justice, regardless of the subgroup that the contending parties may belong to. Fair and equal treatment under the eyes of the law is a cornerstone of human rights.
> To my knowledge much of Europe, M.E., Asia and even S. America are composed of largely homogeneous populaces with a smattering of outsiders at best.
You've listed regions that contain some of the most heterogenous countries on earth in ethnicity, language, and culture, like the UK, France, China, India, Iraq, Lebanon, Indonesia, Brazil.
Some of these countries have multiple, sometimes contradictory legal systems, some sanctioned by the state, others by religious power structures.
The country that is often referred to as among the most homogeneous societies in the world, Japan, has a pretty well acknowledged dual justice system for citizens versus visitors. All societies fail at this, but if anything, the very homogeneous societies fail the most at offering equal justice.
Countries with a steady inflow of new migrants of all networths.
Countries that make real attempts to be fair to native born people and outsiders alike.
A country could speak 2 or 3 different languages and still a very largely monocultural way of doing things. Not to cherry pick but do you really think the Yighurs in China get a fair shake in a court? I really want to hear if you've read differently.
A country could have on paper very impressive law frameworks and yet in action be essentially meaningless since most of the population doesnt have access to fair representation.
Not mere grandiose legal frameworks with not an ounce of real world enforcement to back it up or go after bad actors in a legitimate way, without extra legal acts of justice or worse mob justice.
Pretty much any and every country you mentioned fails to meet atleast one or - in most cases - all of the criteria.
Definitely not. Multiethnicity is necessary, but insufficient condition
> Pretty much any and every country you mentioned fails to meet atleast one or - in most cases - all of the criteria.
That's obvious. I didn't say they were perfect, just far from homogeneous. And there's not much to learn from very homogeneous societies in this regard.
The question for the complex heterogeneous societies isn't whether they fail, but rather what direction they are moving in. Arguably both China and the US have moved backwards of late.
I'm sure I can point at legal systems across the globe that have examples of completely terrible injustice.
Which legal system are you referring to that is significantly not "poisonous"? And why?
Most legal systems are broken in some way to some extent. Unfair cases exist because people aren't perfect, make mistakes and/or have agendas.
I'm saying they are not actively poisonous, such as in US. I think it's related to how weaponized the legal system in US is compared anywhere else