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As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

nytimes.com

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Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#211

Post by nostrademons »

Glyptodon wrote: post #124
mywittyname wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $50,000 in Fort Lauderdale is as good as $120,000 in the valley. No, it's really not -- it's actually more like $77,000[1]. With the bulk of the difference being driven by housing prices. And $77,000 is actually above the average salary for a SE in Ft. Lauderdale (according to Glassdoor: $73,000). [1] http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/moving-cost-of-l...

So I'm in essentially this situation and I concur that my salary does not completely adjust to an SV/Bay Area salary. But there are also 3 things that do not seem possible at once despite the extra money which keep me from pursuing opportunities in tech hubs: I'm ~5 minutes from biking/hiking/outdoors, ~10 minutes from work, and have a house with a shop/garage. So far as I can tell if I were to move to a tech hub I m…

You can get the ~5 minutes from biking/hiking/outdoors and ~10 minutes to work in Silicon Valley. I used to live in Mountain View and bike into my job at Google; it took 12 minutes. 5 minute walk and I was on the trail; 15 minute bike ride and I could be at the bayshore; 20 minute drive and I'd be in the mountains; hour drive and I'd be at the beach. I work from home now, but those numbers would be the same from my current place to any one of several hundred tech employers here.

Forget about having a house with a shop/garage unless you're willing to spend a million and a half, though.

Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#212

Post by vacri »

geebee wrote: post #195
vacri wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here's the thing. Would New Zealand stay that way if it pursued a policy of large scale immigration, they way the US has? Both NZ and Australia take in a far higher rate of immigrants than the US. You should change your question to "Imagine if the US took in as many immigrants as NZ". NZ has a serious problem in that because it's easier for an NZ citizen to become Australian, a lot of immigrants use NZ as a 'steppi…

As mentioned above, keep in mind the US has a higher total population precisely because it has had higher historical levels of immigration. Suppose the US had a total population of 500 million and NZ only 2 million. Would that mean NZ is looking even better? How about a billion? By your way of measuring, the more a country grows through immigration, the more immigrants it is required to take in to meet a per-capita m…

...? Per-capita measurements are the way you look at these things.

Putting 1M people per year into a country with the infrastructure and resources to handle 310M people is nothing. Putting 1M people per year into a country with the infrastructure and resources to handle 4M is crippling, to the point of destroying the country's social cohesion. Bridges, housing, agriculture, hospitals... none of these things are brought with immigrants when they move in. Or we can look at resources - the US has 10M square kilometers of land, 16% of which is arable (1.6M sq km), compared to NZ's 250k sq km, 2% of which is arable. (5k sq km).

The US is a ridiculously wealthy place and likes to emit lots of bluster about its 'melting pot', and yet it does not match up to its contemporaries when it comes to taking in immigrants. Many decades ago it did, but in recent times it's lost the right to brag about it. Arguing the absolute numbers totally free of any context is the wrong way to go about it.

Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#213

Post by gravypod »

lostlogin wrote: post #167
gravypod wrote: post #96

I don't think New Zealand's selling point will ever be isolation. To have isolation you need to have a place with very lax laws where people don't want to bother you. New Zealand is very beautiful and interesting but there are still many laws and many people who want to bother you. Maybe this is "isolation" in a previously unheard of, to me, sense where you just don't want to be a citizen of a major nation or somethi…

Keep in mind how low a 30% tax rate is. It's low relative to the OECD and, depending on your politics, needs to go up or have some higher brackets for the wealthier.

> Keep in mind how low a 30% tax rate is

Well if it's so low I wouldn't mind sending you my paypal. You can always send me some supplimental money if you don't think the government is taking enough from you. We can think of it as wealth redistribution to a poor college student.

> It's low relative to the OECD

If I'm focused on isolating myself from everyone why would I care about what other OECD members are doing?

> depending on your politics, needs to go up or have some higher brackets for the wealthier

I don't think someone, who is attempting to isolate themselves from other people, would want to deal with this sort of thinking. If this is how New Zealander's think then they're not going to see many hermits swimming their way over the pond and lining up for land.

These processes will undoutably create the need to interact with other people to prevent yourself from being arrested or fined heavily. This is the exact opposite of what someone who would like to isolate themselves from the rest of the world would want.

Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#214

Post by feelix »

lubujackson wrote: post #56

I know several kiwis and my wife has traveled there extensively. The biggest issues seem to stem from "island culture" which means: - Most things are expensive and lower quality than you are used to. Furniture, housing, food, etc. Simply because of isolation and logistics. - Poor job market, terribly poor for most people. - Which leads to rules making it much harder to move to NZ long term. Unless you meet some high…

> every plant and animal is not actively trying to kill you

It's the opposite here. There are no harmful animals anywhere. You can go walking through the wilderness bare foot (which I have done many times) without fear

Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#215

Post by albemuth »

self-diversity wrote: post #200
stevenwoo wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Staying off of Facebook doesn't insulate someone if they are not caucasian. http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/24/shooting-of-2-indians-... I don't know if you know this, but large swaths of America were so unsafe to travel for African Americans for a long time after slavery ended, that a guidebook was created specifically for the purpose of avoiding the most dangerous areas. http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/g…

I'm having a hard time drawing a connection between your opening sentence and literally anything else in your post. Did you forget to factor in the passage of decades?

The events on the first link happened this year. Also, BLM.

Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#216

Post by RantyDave »

humanrebar wrote: post #3

> For all sorts of reasons, New Zealand suddenly makes sense. The cost of living is less than in San Francisco. Commuting is less wearying. And American politics, “Brexit” and the Islamic State are on the other side of the world. For the most part, this is all true in, say, Tulsa. Especially if you stay off Facebook. You especially don't have to go to New Zealand to find a cheaper, commuter-friendly place to work. No…

Houses in New Zealand are mad expensive. Auckland (for instance) now has an average house price over $1M, about $700k US. It is, I believe, the fourth least affordable housing market in the world after Hong Kong, Sydney and Vancouver.

Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#217

Post by jimmywanger »

wcummings wrote: post #205
mahyarm wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they want a family they don't live right beside work in the middle of a busy and dirty city. They move out to the suburban south bay (which has more tech jobs) or east bay, have 30m-1hr commutes and are dual income families. TBH the harder part of the bay area and kids is actually finding an affordable place to live that have good schools.

>TBH the harder part of the bay area and kids is actually finding an affordable place to live that have good schools. Translation: it's expensive to live where rich people live. "Good schools" is a flimsy proxy for wealthy, exclusive suburbs. Where I'm from, "good schools" is a nice way of saying "it's a white neighborhood". I would not feel good about letting "good schools" influence where I live, or buy a home.

> Where I'm from, "good schools" is a nice way of saying "it's a white neighborhood"

There is no need to inject race. Plus, in the bay area, many good schools are comprised of mostly minorities.

Good schools in the bay area just mean good schools, as based on standardized testing methodology, class sizes, dollars per student, extracurricular activities available, and acceptance rates to selective colleges.

You can definitely pay a lot of money to send your child to good private schools.

Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#218

Post by EdwardDiego »

ryandrake wrote: post #5
humanrebar wrote: post #3

> For all sorts of reasons, New Zealand suddenly makes sense. The cost of living is less than in San Francisco. Commuting is less wearying. And American politics, “Brexit” and the Islamic State are on the other side of the world. For the most part, this is all true in, say, Tulsa. Especially if you stay off Facebook. You especially don't have to go to New Zealand to find a cheaper, commuter-friendly place to work. No…

But, like Tulsa, I'd be worried about what happens when that tech company, which I moved myself and my family halfway around the world for, goes under and I'm out of work. I'm sure there is more than one tech company in Auckland, but how many? And how many of those will want to hire me? And out of those how many will I want to work for? And out of those, how many will pay enough where it makes sense for me to stay? T…

There's plenty in Auckland, Wellington, a lesser amount but still a healthy amount in Christchurch, and a few in Dunedin.

http://seek.co.nz to get an idea.

The developer of DayZ has set up a gaming studio in Dunedin, but it's still pretty sparse down there.

Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#219

Post by EdwardDiego »

Apocryphon wrote: post #175
humanrebar wrote: post #3

> For all sorts of reasons, New Zealand suddenly makes sense. The cost of living is less than in San Francisco. Commuting is less wearying. And American politics, “Brexit” and the Islamic State are on the other side of the world. For the most part, this is all true in, say, Tulsa. Especially if you stay off Facebook. You especially don't have to go to New Zealand to find a cheaper, commuter-friendly place to work. No…

When I think of NZ, I imagine South Pacific beaches, lush forests of emu and kiwi and other exotic animals, and the landscape of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. What natural beauty does Tulsa have?

Looks like our tourism marketing campaigns are paying off, although emus are Australian, we had moa, but they're extinct now.

Not pictured in the tourism campaigns - our vast reliance on agriculture.

Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#220

Post by RantyDave »

will_brown wrote: post #188
sidlls wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $50,000 in Fort Lauderdale is as good as $120,000 in the valley. Not really. The quality of life on just about any axis, from parks and recreation to culture to education in Ft. Lauderdale is just inferior. Also, $50k doesn't go as far as you think there. There are a number of day-to-day and intangible costs (e.g. commute) that are actually less expensive in the valley.

"Quality of life" is inferior on any axis? Fort Lauderdale is the Yatch Capital of the World, the intercostal are a billionaire playground. Name any activity on the water from recreation, fishing, diving, to bio research...SV isn't on the map. On the other extreme - absolutely free - I would take Fort Lauderdale Beach and the weather over anything SV has to offer. After all there was a move to totally relocate Hollyw…

Ft Lauderdale is absolutely not the Yacht capital of the world. Sydney? Auckland? Southampton? Garda? Croatia's rocketing up the charts too. Or maybe you mean things with engines in which case St Tropez, Monaco, some place called the Caribbean seems quite popular too.
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