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Comment by smnrchrds | Hacker News Reader

It is supposed to be an international forum, but in practice it is a local group for San Francisco Bay Area. Consider how often articles about housing issues in Bay Area make it to the front page, compared to Vancouver, London, and Tokyo. HN is international in the sense that anyone can access and participate in it. But in practice, mostly SF Bay Area residents do.

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I see participatants from all over the world here all the time. They usually qualify things with phrases like "where I'm from" or "in [insert country here].

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".

As an American expatriate I'm always shocked or bemused by the US-centric comments I get from family.

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.

When I first moved to China ~10 years ago, I mentioned to whomever I was on the phone with back home that I needed to go grab some cash and that I might lose the call when I got in the lift. They asked where I planned to get money in the middle of the night, and were surprised to learn that ATM technology had indeed made it to "the Orient."

These days most people just ask if I've eaten a dog.

Guess there's a time lag. I was in China 35 years ago when they didn't have ATMs or anything like that and the west did. Times change.

I obviously wasn't around back then, but even today the pace of modernization in China is astounding; I can only imagine what it must've been like in Deng Xiaoping's later years.

I usually cut them slack unless they're jerks about it. A lot haven't even got a passport. That's usually fine as well: The USA is a big place. Not even talking just actual size. There are a lot of people with diverse ways of living and circumstances. But the place is so physically huge you could spend your entire life exploring it and still not run out of places to find new things and people to see and meet.

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?

It really isn't so diverse though. Same language, same retail and restaurant chains, same cars, same TV channels, same currency, same political system, same sides in war back to 1800s (and even that is a large portion of remembered history).

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.

But still, I think it’s easy to cut murricans some slack. Their country IS one of the most interesting ones. If I weren’t living in my dream country I think I’d want to live in California.

For those downvoting this comment: this conclusion (that HN's reader base is predominantly based in the SF Bay Area) should be entirely unsurprising given that HN is itself the product of Y Combinator, an accelerator based in the SF Bay Area that (last I checked, and from what I recall back when I worked for a startup that applied) specifically requires its incubatees to relocate (if they're not already there) to the SF Bay Area during said incubation.

Yes, not all of us are in the SF Bay Area, but it's pretty reasonable to assume that most readers are.

> requires its incubatees to relocate (if they're not already there) to the SF Bay Area during said incubation.

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."

If the founder (implicitly the leader or one of the top leaders) has to relocate, even for three months, then I fail to see how "relocate" is anything but the best word, especially when a company is still in a stage that would benefit from incubation.

It's a fair assumption that a lot of people on HN have SF viewpoint or views at least that partially align with them. Even those of us on the other side of the planet.

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.

> It's a fair assumption that a lot of people on HN have SF viewpoint or views at least that partially align with them. Even those of us on the other side of the planet.

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.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxa

I kind of like the approach on lobste.rs but ironically I'm too lazy to switch. But that is slowly changing.

I'd switch to lobste.rs in a heartbeat if someone would invite me.

Not a downvoter, but I believe it is people taking exception to American exceptionism.

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