California, Love It and Leave It | Hacker News Reader

California, Love It and Leave It

wsj.com

30 pointsfgimenez34 comments

"Politics in the state is in many ways closed off to different ideas. We grew weary of California’s intolerant far left, which would rather demonize opponents than discuss honest differences of opinion."

I disagree with much in this article, but I do agree with this specific point. I've had many conversations in San Francisco that have turned me off from discussing politics.

It's very difficult for some to accept that others can have more moderate viewpoints on certain issues. Just because one doesn't agree with another to the extent they do doesn't mean there isn't a middle ground.

> Just because one doesn't agree with another to the extent they do doesn't mean there isn't a middle ground.

I found this culture sneaking into Silicon Valley companies, too. I recently left a SV company for one in the NE and the difference is astounding.

I’m much happier and there is much less corporate activism.

I am not sure it is a culture “sneaking” anywhere as much as openly and aggressively taking over. This is very true at least in Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Netflix. The intolerant far-left employees openly discuss personal politics on employee mailing lists and forums, unprofessionally spending paid company time on activism, strategizing on how they can control the company and use it to further their political agendas. They achieve their political ends by pressuring executives, pressuring HR, altering the company’s products, pushing policies (both internal and external) that support their views, etc. It is very hard to escape - you see it in mandatory “equity training”, in work conferences that invite far left speakers, and even in trivial things like where to get food for a team lunch (a vocal employee might demand that no money be spent on businesses whose owners don’t pass their purity test). Given how vocal and ruthless activist employees can be (due to the psychological safety of echo chambers), there is no room for any other view whatsoever. It is exhausting, unprofessional, and a big reason why claims of bias from big tech companies are real, not imagined.

I'll add HashiCorp to that list. When we were small, we had #random and other general Slacks where being open and yourself was the norm.

Then we grew a little more, the left-wing activist employees started flooding in and things quickly got ugly. You highlighted and chronicled almost exactly what I've seen over the past four years I've been at HashiCorp. Vocal and ruthless is spot on.

Now they're ushering in the mandatory "equity training", and they removed the open channels.

I've been looking for a new job for the past two weeks, will probably leave at the end of the year.

As a Silicon Valley company employee, I don’t think talking about politics at work is professional. But whenever I hear an opinion that is different from far left, most of time it has discrimination. I guess as a SV immigrant SWE and father , I probably only care about a limited scope of political topics. But what can be the middle ground between discrimination and non-discrimination?

I don't know about your views or any of the opinions you are referring to obviously, so take this as benignly as possible. Have you questioned that what you perceive as discriminatory may have a far left bias?

> Bad policy has made the state unlivable, so I moved my family and my venture-capital firm to Texas.

If I may read between the lines of this very particularly-chosen wording, it sounds like this Palantir co-founder will probably still be here constantly for work or what have you. Some move, huh?

Suppose he's just spending time where he can take advantage of the labor force to make him rich(er).

Palantir moves its HQ from Palo Alto to Denver...

https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/20/palantir-denver-hq-ipo-dir...

My wife and a I have Austin on the list of places to exit to after the kids finish high school in 2022. 6th street is amazing if you like live music (which we do). Santa Fe, NM is also on the list. The fact that I live in what is the worlds 5th larger economy with a power grid that looks like a 3rd world nation is a huge part of the reason to leave. $2m home where I need to spend another $100k to sort for the fact that PG&E mismanaged everything for the last 20 years, yet I have a $400 a month power bill... all LED lights, all low power everything..

State should just take control and setup CA wide power company who is managed to provide power to everyone all the time and focused on moving all line underground to prevent the fires.. but Newsom is more focused on seeing if he can power the state on the amount of human excrement now found on the streets of SF due to the housing issue for the homeless. We have such a rich state, but the common worker is just screwed by the house laws that keep us from building affordable housing. We that are the lucky valley elite drink our $5 coffees and fail to realize that the person serving us drives 3 hours a day to get to work because they cannot afford to live anywhere near by. I count myself very lucky for the success I have had but I sickened by the cost.

> provide power to everyone all the time

I just wish it could be from a less environmentally-destructive source than natural gas. Sonoma County was actually going to be the site of the first commercially-viable nuclear generating station in the entire USA, at PG&E's Atomic Park on Bodega Head, but that never happened for now probably obvious environmental reasons.

But now I have to pay an average of $0.262/kWh for natural-gas-driven PG&E electricity, and the Sierra Club who stopped Bodega Head have taken funding from the gas companies[0], so I'm left rather unsure what to think and what to advocate for :/

https://science.time.com/2012/02/02/exclusive-how-the-sierra...

> Atomic Park on Bodega Head, but that never happened for now probably obvious environmental reasons.

I think you mean tectonic reasons. Bodega Head is on the San Andreas Fault, not far from the epicenter of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9. Wikipedia has a graphic of the San Andreas fault showing a %21 chance of rupture before 2032: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Andreas_Fault#/media/File:...

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodega_Head:

"During the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the promontory shifted approximately 15 ft (4.6 m)".

I'm surprised this was ever considered for a nuclear generation facility.

A tectonic reason that might have become an obvious environmental reason if that were to occur, yes, exactly.

If CA couldn't manage a high-speed rail line between two major urban centres, what makes you think they can move electrical lines underground?

The last major project the state undertook was the Hetch-Hetchy aqueduct, and that project was done in Jerry Brown's father's time. Pat Brown was governor of CA in the 60's.

Let that sink in.

We put a man on the moon. At the hight of WW2 we built a liberty ship everyday. We have to have the will to do what is required. Not sure we have that anymore. In general Americans have lost the will to do the hard task that take time. We have lost faith in the power of our science and engineering. We want everything in 30 seconds sound bites. The lack of long term planning for the future of our children will be our down fall. Contrast our handling of Covid vs the Chinese, South Korean or NZ.

Bread and circus, the fall of Rome.

I don’t think the handling of Covid is really indicative of government incompetence (except perhaps a complete lack of coordination nationwide on Covid efforts). Our federal structure was a compromise to keep the U in the USA. So it is expected that each state will do things as it sees fit. China is an authoritarian state that needs tight control in order to maintain the status quo, so of course it was able to quell the pandemic. South Korea and NZ are both small and relatively centrally governed. The UK, Canada, and Australia all have public healthcare or public options. None of it is true in the USA. We have chosen not to have a public option in healthcare for the working age population, so we shouldn’t expect to be able to put down pandemics easily or even with difficulty.

The President was quite with in his legal emergency powers rights to issue a national mask required mandate. He was also allowed to order production of test and require mass testing. This could have all been done legally.

I very much doubt if these things were possible. I have a strong feeling I will be proven right: Joe Biden will also not impose a mask mandate, rightly realising that he lacks the authority to do so.

It was definitely a huge mistake to appoint a person who has published dodgy research to head the CDC (it is my understanding that this guy was the preferred candidate of the Evangelicals.) The CDC has been conspicuously absent throughout this pandemic, and I think it's because of their spectacular ineptitude. How much of it is attributable to its politically appointed masters, I do not know, but it's a shame nevertheless.

This is what I've been telling people as well. We're not the country that can deal with adversity anymore.

During WW2, people sacrificed steel so that industry could produce the weapons we needed. Now, there's a rush on toilet paper, for little discernable rational reason.

Distrust of science is increasing, and rationality decreasing. Soon, we'll have anti vaxxers marching against any covid vaccine, crippling our pathway out of the current mess. Memes and sound bites dictate public discourse, no one is reading anything.

The most concerning trend is the de-emphasizing of the importance of college for today's youth. Yes college is not for everyone, but to actively campaign against it is going to be a destabilizing force against the US' technical and engineering prowess in very short order.

The trends seem more and more clear by the year, and I don't see it slowing.

People in Washington State and Oregon have been complaining about Californians for the dawn of time.

One aspect of California migration largely ignored, is that the wealthy and educated are moving in and the low and middle class are moving out.

https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/01/not-the-gol...

I just assume that's the point of the rising economic inequality, rising prices for everything, and near total lack of new housing construction, all since right around the time of the USA's civil rights acts and the supposed "end" of segregation. People will ask "WTF Happened In 1971?"[0] for days but somehow never ask "WTF happened in 1968?"

[0] https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

e: unfortunately downvoting the bad news does not make the Bay Area any less-segregated http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?bayarea

One thing that jumps out is that the whole Palantir triumvirate has decided to bail out of CA at the same time. I've seen this type of thing happen very often: company makes it big, there's a huge pot of money, founder has made plans about a year in advance and has already established domicile in a tax-free or low-tax jurisdiction, such as FL (very popular because of the lifestyle that is possible there) and TX. In this case, Joe Lonsdale is in TX, whereas his cofounders are also out of SV, with one in New Hampshire (Alex Karp) and another in LA (Peter Thiel, who also has citizenship in NZ). I wonder if the other founders of this company have also bailed.

Even if most of what's written in the article is true, I feel that the motivations of this set are pretty clear: save tax money on what is clearly a huge payday.

At the federal level, the US taxes based on US birthplace or acquired US citizenship regardless of where a person later chooses to locate. Why not do that at the state level?

And indeed, why not at the city level too :)

I cannot figure out why global taxation and the ensuing coercion (IRS,FBAR,FATCA,citizenship exit penalties) doesn't fall foul of some part of the US constitution, such as cruel and unusual punishment for not committing any crime other than earning some money some place else. FATCA also demands extra-territorial jurisdiction over foreign banks, which is outrageous.

I am sure when the time comes, the IRS will try to enforce pan-galactic taxation...

Elon will have to renounce before blast off to Mars.

Don't go to Texas and vote for the same type of garbage policy makers and expect it to stay nice.

People will vote how they want to.

I just left CA after 42 years. Austin, apart from panhandling and corporate retail dominating commercial real estate, is awesome. Free tattoos line around the block for Friday the 13th on 6th st. was hilarious. People are much nicer and more social. Groceries are cheaper (HEB rocks). Traffic sorta sucks but it's nothing like LA or Bay Area commute. The weather is baller as long as it's not summer, in which case, vaca in Canada or Santa Cruz. Land outside of city limits is dirt cheap for whatever purpose, homestead or commercial. Property taxes are nearly 2%/yr in most of TX so there's a disincentive to owning expensive homes for most people.

People in CA aren't dating or having kids like TX, middle states, and UT. The coasts are graveyards for all but the rich, retirees, and high-income visiting employees; everyone else is like a SF "gold rush miner" trying to hang-on to a delusion, spending most of their income on rent. Screw that; build a life somewhere sustainable such as on the outskirts of a burgeoning city.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

Have you been to Buccees and Whataburger yet? Try both if you haven’t. Welcome!

Thanks, I already did 20 years ago but I'm vegetarian. My mom's family is from north TX and my folks met in San Anton. Earth Burger in San Marcos is crazy good but 2-3x more expensive than regular fast food.

Sustainable?

https://www.zillow.com/travis-county-tx/home-values/

Enjoy that gold rush.

What a horrible, drive-by comment. Why barf on someone else's birthday cake adapting to economic conditions? I suggest you try living in the Bay Area or LA, work an average job, and then talk about sustainability. There are plenty of satellite areas to live around Austin where houses are in the 300-400k range.

Nah man it isn’t life unless it’s summer in Austin. Back in my youth I would still bike everywhere, I would just plan my bike route to hit every public pool possible, like the main character in John Cheever’s ‘The Swimmer.’ And then I would eat some amazing Tex mex on a patio and then hit the springs for a night swim. Of course, nobody is doing that kind of thing these days anyways. I miss Austin. I miss my youth.

Ah, the good ol' days.

Pools. Heh. Had an in-ground one growing up and almost never used it. I had to do the chemicals, skim leaves, roll the solar cover, and change the diatomaceous earth. Everyone on the block had one too, and they were rarely used either.

Humidity kills me. For example, I had a Colombian gf but the weather in Barranquilla is mass murder.

Around the south Bay Area, I biked around the hills of the Almaden Valley and Mt. Umunhum incessantly, and skateboarded around the neighborhood until my knees had divots and layers of scars. Went to UC Davis where biking was de rigueur. Did some biking in Netherlands and Belgium, the former being a biking paradise.

The cis females in Austin are just my speed. Sadly, they don't have a chance. And, being a big city, the open-minded types I prefer are more abundant. One area I miss is SF's Castro where mixed gender bars facilitate hooking-up with cis females, but I'll be back. I don't miss SF's parking situation and am looking for cheaper ways to park near downtown Austin.

Folks seem friendlier in Austin than CA where almost everyone has a chip on their shoulder, is seething with dissatisfaction, and doesn't want to be sociable. Heck, I don't even mind chatting with the saner homeless people that aren't panhandling me. I met some very cool homeless people with interesting lives in Palo Alto, CA when Happy Donuts was the hangout.

I hope that Texans find some way to deal with the growing Californian infestation sooner rather than later.

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