I used to do that until I moved to US. Now the stress of working long hours, constant anxiety of layoffs, working on next cutting edge tech, raising a kid without any family or community help, constant fear of losing healthcare insurance leaves me exhausted. I don’t have time to cook, exercise or sleep well. I guess that is the American dream.
The Dark Forest is a great book and the first one is alright. The fascination mainly stems from having a non-western sci-fi point of view since most other sci-fi books always were written from a Western protagonist standpoint. Also the backdrop is the cultural revolution which riles up a lot of people.
A friend of mine is a CS professor at a top university. He was born in Germany to Turkish foreign workers and could never get German citizenship despite being born and growing up in Germany . Was so disgusted that he came to the US for Phd and found a job and US citizenship and never went back to Germany again .
Germany is fantastic if you are white American or first world Westerner wanting to live in a place with good public transportation, good healthcare , good work practices and less hustle culture and good beer .
For others especially brown folks I think the experience is a little more complex. You will never feel completely integrated or accepted even though it will never be all our hostility.It is becoming more multicultural but I suspect there is starting to be a backlash against Angela Merkel’s open immigration policies and I fear Germany may flip in their next elections.I have friends who are 2nd generation Turkish or Greek who still don’t fit in and want to move to the US at the first chance .
The closest example I can find is living in Portland, Oregon. Great culture , good beer , sort of a socialist culture with good walkability and public transportation. But very homogenous and that fantastic living experience vastly changes with your ethnic and racial background . The intent is good and everything is good until it isn’t .
Have you been to India? There is high income inequality and poverty and labor is cheap. People are willing to do anything to have a better life and they don’t care if it affects other people . With 1.3 billion people competition for survival is fierce and empathy for others may lead to your downfall as only the fittest survive . The education is geared towards STEM to be highly employable and make money to get out of poverty . Amazon and big tech love India for smart , dedicated and hardworking workers who do not question broader societal questions and serve the company.
PS - Sorry I am stereotyping to an extent and do not mean to come across as hateful. Just answering why tech people want to work in such situations.
India.
Controversial answer but bear with me. If you are SE Asian or white India is the best place to be right now for tech. Companies and salaries are booming , bar. to entry to get into newer tech stack and management is lower. With the recession as companies look to cut costs they will move more jobs to India. White folks get treated as expat managerial Gods . Basically you can learn new technologies without prior experience that US companies always want , become a manager and climb the ladder and have opportunities that take way longer and a lot of luck in the US. You can then come back to the US after that and use that experience.
If you can stand the infrastructure and other social problems .
The world’s ten richest men more than doubled their fortunes from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion —at a rate of $15,000 per second or $1.3 billion a day— during the first two years of a pandemic that has seen the incomes of 99 percent of humanity fall and over 160 million more people forced into poverty.
While inflation hurts we need some of these crazy money and valuations to come down to realistic levels . I don’t want Elon Musk to become the next Rupert Murdoch.
A lack of safety net and hustle culture means people are busy leetcoding than tinkering or pursuing hobbies. Its hard to pursue hobbies when one can barely afford to buy a house while my buddy leetcoded to a 300k job and bought a house next to my favorite brewery. Also I am spending more time watching youtube and tiktok videos of my hobbies than actively pursuing them.
This is two pronged 1. the attention economy with the internet 2. reflective of a lack of social and economic safety net.
The Western world had a strong safety net which allowed for the pursuing of hobbies and the time to do so. Now I see the US especially becoming like my youth in India (and China) where hobbies are fleeting and you need to grind and make it monetarily and career wise. So working a high pressure job like a FAANG rarely leaves time to pursue a hobby. Without a strong safety net and a feeling of security people do not feel like they have the time and resources to devote to a hobby. Also does not help that our free time has been hijacked by the internet and social media so we are almost lobotomized.
The person is most likely going to quit the moment they vest from the way it sounds. They are probably miserable and just biding their time to vest themselves. So it’s up to you whether you want to fire him/her first or just let them quit once they vest.
OP here . Thank you . I feel stuck here in the US too since my family lives in a different country but I cannot move back because spouse and her family live here and the US has better prospects for kids . But I feel stuck in my career since I have become pigeonholed into support engineering roles , no strong friend group having grown up abroad and nothing to do apart from look at stuff on my phone and feeling left behind in pay and career.
You know what would make me more productive ? If I didn’t live in anxiety and felt a sense of security. I would then want to feel productive and contribute . However my time is instead spent haggling and spending hours talking to health insurance and every other form of insurance . I don’t know if I will have enough saved for a house and a good education for my kids . Public education is getting worse and college is becoming more expensive. No one wants to teach. I am also trying to save money and no option works because this country is like a casino with only 401k and stocks as saving options. And I am male so I don’t have to think about abortion but maybe guns.
Ultimately Ronald Reagan’s policies from the 1980’s is coming home to roost . We live in a corporatocracy and no one wants to fix the community. You still want me to be productive working 60 hours a week ?
I started my career in 2005 working for an Indian outsourcing company one of whose biggest clients was Lehmann Brothers . I was in a small internal development team of 6 folks while the rest of the entire floor was a 60-70 member team servicing Lehmann who got huge bonuses , partied and were busy.
On a morning of fall 2008 I walked into work and saw the whole floor was empty apart from our 6 member team. The entire 70 member team was gone and the floor was a ghost town.
I will never forget that day ever in my professional life .
Totally agree. Which countries are dominating STEM education? Israel, Russia, China , India and a few others which have strict schedules, competition and discipline. Looking at the failing US model I am starting to believe that finding your path and self motivation may work for 5% while leading the other 95% to slacking , cheap entertainment and failure.
I sincerely hope you or someone in your family does not develop some serious illness or pre-existing conditions or some major medical condition. That fancy lifestyle will come apart pretty soon when someone gets laid off has a major health issue and has to get a surgery or treatment .
HN is the last bastion of good reading on the internet not populated by ads . Please never ever have ads. I wish for a world where technology and the internet has not been taken over by ads. Thank you for all the great work you guys do.
You do have similar folks in rural Oregon or rural Idaho too . Have you been to Klamath Falls, OR ? If you do have to compare you would probably make a direct comparison to say Athens, GA or Research Triangle, NC . IMO this country already has a huge divide between rural and urban populations no matter which state you are in. Educated college towns are the hidden gems for anyone looking to escape 1m dollar Bay Area houses.
Where does it stop? At least in India it is first getting into IIT , then it’s getting into a FAANG, move to the Bay Area, buy a 4000 sq ft house , then it’s about this prestige and that prestige. Expect the same in China , US and some other places.
Just go live your own life , solve interesting problems and be happy . You wanna get young teens to engage more with your app as a sign of your success in life ?
I have no idea about the IONIQ 5 in terms of performance.I cannot afford it but boy is it a cool futuristic looking car. Love the design and the looks .