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Comment by nwiswell | Hacker News Reader

> Nasty politics, homelessness, crime, public defacation, a general "fuck the poor" culture (on both sides of the political isle), gun violence

Not to be an apologist for any of this, but I find it hard to believe any of these were more important deterrents to the emigration of your peers than our capricious, byzantine, and dehumanizing immigration system.

People seem to have the bizarre attitude that San Francisco and its suburbs (which make up the great majority of the population of the SFBA) are some post-apocalyptic hellscape, which is mostly a narrative promulgated by the right-wing media, and with the exception of cost of living and homelessness/housing issues (which are hardly unique among major metros, including Melbourne) it's pretty far from the objective truth. Try visiting sometime.

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> but I find it hard to believe any of these were more important deterrents to the emigration of your peers than our capricious, byzantine, and dehumanizing immigration system.

On average, it is easier for Australians to immigrate to the US than for people of most other countries, largely due to the special E-3 visa which the US has for Australians only.

I know several Australians who have moved to the US, mostly on E-3s and L-1s, and for university-educated professionals, the immigration process itself usually isn't a big issue. The question of whether you want to do it, whether it is the right thing for you and your family, generally looms much larger than visas.

No doubt US immigration can sometimes subject the unlucky to bureaucratic stuff-ups, the capricious application of arcane, unfair and incomprehensible rules – but on average Australians are less on the receiving end of that than most other nationalities – and Australia's immigration department is just as capable of that as the US is. An ex-colleague of mine has a Master's degree in IT, many years experience working in New York's financial sector, fluent in both English and Spanish (he's Puerto Rican), came to Australia on a temporary work visa, wanted to stay here for good, tried to switch to a permanent resident visa – he eventually succeeded, but Australian immigration put him on a very stressful "how can I find enough points?" run-around - when I'm thinking "why are we making someone like this jump through all these hoops? isn't he the kind of high value immigrant a country should be laying out the welcome mat for?"

Honestly, the idea that SFBA is post-apo?

I finally acquired it by visiting in 2015. Landed at SFO, went through pretty mediocre airport, then visited SF... and went "hey, this looks more like middle east war torn country than what I expected" - and my expectations were already dashed by things such as crowdsourced maps of tenderloin based on quantity of human feces on sidewalk.

Thing is, my mental model assumes that other places in USA are probably worse, if not in the same ways.

But the immigration system is biggest stopper, even for visiting, indeed.

The immigration system is probably relatively european/australian friendly. It's not rare to see people come and go to the US. It's also a constrained problem that you don't have to think about for a few years once it's cleared.

In that regard the other more day to day aspects would be more impacting.

On San Francisco+suburbs, I think it can't be that bad, but if I'm going to move somewhere, being able to freely explore the other cities/states is nice.

Also only judging from the net, I find it harder and harder to understand what to expect for a person of color for example. It seems to vary a lot depending on the city, or even the neighborhood, and there's enough cultural difference that just looking at people's twitter doesn't help much. The picture is either super bleak, or super bleached, with little nuance in many discussions.

I think most of us from elsewhere in the English-speaking tech world know very much what the Bay Area is like. I can't speak for Australians, but most Canadian tech workers have been there many times. But only some of us choose to move there even tho NAFTA makes it fairly trivial to do so. And many just end up coming back.

I don't think the SF Bay Area is a post-apocalyptic hellscape. Most of urban California is... fine.

It's just that when one immigrates to go take a job there, one isn't just immigrating to the Bay Area. One is immigrating to the United States of America. And ... that's a much bigger kettle of fish.

I think people here got the idea that SF is post-apocalyptic by visiting it for conferences, since the area around Moscone is especially bad, you only have to go on a short wander for lunch before you end up in the Tenderloin, etc.

The last time I visited SF (for WWDC), I witnessed more crime first-hand in one week than I had in my entire life before (and since). I also witnessed more homelessness than I've seen in any single city.

Those issues are 100% the reason I would never move the US. Immigration system complexity doesn’t even factor into it!

I earn probably half what I would in the US (and pay far more tax on what I do earn)

Hopefully the visit will not coincide with an epic fire, in which case it will indeed feel like a hellscape.

While wildfires are certainly a growing issue in much of the Western Unites States the area around San Fransisco is a relatively low risk area.

I realize you are just being snarky but Australians are no strangers to hellscape wildfires. Australia suffered a 60+ million acre wildfire in 2020, way larger than all California wildfires in that year combined.

I live in the SF Bay Area as well. He's right. We had multiple days where the smoke was so thick that the sun was blood red.

Here's a couple of news clippings from different days in 2020

https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/one-year-ago-san-francis...

https://www.abc7news.com/amp/red-sunrise-bay-area-smoke-in-s...

Yep. The air quality issue does create anxiety for several relatives who live or visit Silicon Valley. There can be a few days a year that are intolerable for those with particular sensitivity and they must cancel their engagements and head out of town, or hole up in room with a quality purifier.

Can't really say that is a problem where I live, although recreational fires in fire pits are increasingly annoying as people increase outdoor gatherings in covid times.

Mostly just being sparky as far as hellscape but the air quality can be nasty in Palo Alto several days a year. Some people are indeed forced to take time off work and head out of town.

> Try visiting sometime.

While being rich enough

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