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Comment by pyrrhotech | Hacker News Reader

Not sure why anyone would choose to live in SF except for geographic-specific opportunities. It's a dirty, overcrowded and high tax pit, and everyone living there that isn't in tech or finance hates you for your success.

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It's still got pockets of extreme beauty where you can for the most part ignore the problems, there's also a strong contingent of "lifers" who would go down with the ship if a small comet was headed to destroy the city.

Also a lot of people hanging on to their property values as their entire nest egg.

Oh yea, I agree the natural beauty is astounding. It's the extreme left wing, near Bolshevik culture and attitude that has destroyed it for me. I say this as a lifelong democrat.

I'd hazard a guess to say that actual Bolsheviks would be appalled by American liberals, many of whom engage in conspicuous consumption and are vastly more interested in the appearance of affecting change than in the actual work required to make it happen.

There is a vast difference between American liberals and left-wing politics.

The Bolsheviks still had the complete case of "missing the goddamned point" and beligerence such that they put totaltiarians in power. I am afraid that "more interested in the appearance of change" applied to them as well. Hell they fit the exact same framework of "fanatical hatred for those with more minute policy distinctions". Their most damning flaw was that they were in the end more interested in killing anyone better off as a scapegoat and dogma policing than them than doing anything to make life better.

They aren't the same (thank god - the original Bolsheviks were psychotics!) but plenty of resemblences. There is still the absurd supply-and-demand denialism common to both the area and the self-proclaimed left-wing. Then there is the whole "fight new higher density housing as gentrification" making everyone worse off as the supply doesn't rise but rents do anyway.

I agree, SF/Oakland/Berkeley do not resonate with me as a life-long democrat as well.

Extreme-left wingers in my view stand head to head with extreme-right wingers. These people are the cancer of the society IMO.

I think it's less extreme left wingers in the Anarchist / Communist / Marxist sense and more committed libertarians. Particularly the fintech libertarian segment who were attracted to the industry/area through the original interpreted idea that bitcoin was.

It's less that the extremes are on two opposite ends, but just two flavors of the right of the economic ideology spectrum who share a goal of not wanting to be taxed and don't wish to fund/provide public services.

One bit of broader context to keep in mind is that "extreme" left-wingers in the US are merely 'the left' by, say, European standards, where the US as a whole is seen as a right-leaning country.

I think that used to be more true 30 years ago or so, but isn't anymore. As a person from a liberal western country living in the US now, Americans (and specifically certain regions like the Bay Area) now hold all the most extreme positions on the spectrum.

"Extreme" left used to be about worker rights, universal health care, sheltering the poor, or reducing global strife (say the anti-war movements of the 60s/70s).

Bay Area left is now about grievance politics, defunding the police, being anti-tech (represented as being anti-gentrification, or anti-billionaire, but the deeper issue is usually anti-tech, which is seen as what made living in SF/Oakland unaffordable, as opposed to say, obstructionism), etc. It's gotten a lot more extreme in recent years, and I hesitate to even call it "left" because it's more like they've branch off along a new dimension on the axis. You get some of that in Europe too, but it's nowhere near as radicalized.

This is often repeated but, as an American who lived in Europe for some years, it doesn't appear to be true.

There are right wings in Europe that carry very strong albeit slightly different conservative beliefs.

In any society, there will be conservative views and liberal ones. It just seems like there is a difference in how those beliefs are exercised. Extremism in one side just brings extremism to the other side.

We have actual Maoists in the bay area - they're a tiny faction and utterly irrelevant, but they're very good at getting attention and they like to poison the atmosphere for everyone. There are no Maoist governing parties in Europe that I'm aware of, and hardly any Marxists either.

Communist parties in America are nothing but there are communist parties with seats in national legislatures throughout Europe. They’re not specifically Maoist because that doesn’t make any sense for developed countries.

> There are no Maoist governing parties in Europe that I'm aware of

There aren't any Maoist (or any of the other descendants of Leninism) governing parties in the Bay Area, either.

Now with remote work there's no need to be in such an environment!

My memories from each visit is the smell of urine and people who need help using bullhorns to scream their thoughts. I thought to myself this is the charm of San Francisco (circa 2008) I use to hear about in song?

For me, it is inertia mostly. That and the fact that the wife's work don't appear to embrace remote work long term.

If the above were to change, I would definitely move. Not sure where but my top considerations are: - great school district - lower taxes and cost of living - Great outdoors / scenery around

The city is going off right now, especially with summer here. Ocean beach, golden gate park, etc are all packed. Many streets have put in park let’s and embracing outdoor dining. If bars serve food, you can get drinks outside. I would agree soma/downtown is a ghost town, but it’s easy to visit other areas. Most high end restaurants are doing pickup and delivery via tock, giving you access to high end food without the 3 hour meal.

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