We moved to Turkey from San Francisco to continue working on our startup • Hacker News Board

Re: We moved to Turkey from San Francisco to continue working on our startup

#111

Post by inferiorhuman » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 5:04 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #75

shuckles wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a stretch. I saw my fair share of empty subway cars which contained within them an unpleasant surprise when I was there last month. Not conclusive, but “at all” is a very strong standard.

I'm not saying there's no homeless people, there are. But the SFO phenomenon of open drug use, screaming disruptive people, and street level encampments isn't something you see really anywhere in the five boroughs, excepting maybe a few errant overpasses or very industrial areas of Hunts Point or similar.

There's a much more tolerant attitude towards drug use, we've got a milder climate, San Francisco specifically doesn't prosecute quality of life crimes, and it's significantly harder to commit someone against their will or mandate that they continue to use psychiatric medication.

Notice the comment on this thread about how in the poor areas it was unpleasant to get lunch? That attitude carries over. Starting with the fucking super bowl there was a very dramatic effort to shoo away the homeless people from where 'super bowl city' was. The net effect was a dispersal of homeless encampments the likes of which I've never seen. Combine that with stagnating wages at the low end and rising cost of living and you have a lot more people on the streets. Make no mistake, the homeless population in the whole of the Bay Area is growing dramatically.

Meanwhile in some "street photography" (but really mostly creep shots) group a couple people have been posting pictures of indigent folks from the 90s. The difference is pretty dramatic. From a friend who works for the city -- both meth and heroin have hit San Francisco very hard. The type of people that you see on the streets these days has changed.

San Francisco is also paralyzed by extremely aggressive NIMBYs. Shelters are at capacity, but the city's efforts to build more shelters (e.g. Embarcadero) are being battled by carpetbaggers. A while back the idea of "wet houses" was floated to get addicts off the streets (where folks will call 911 and tie up a large chunk of SFFD/paramedic resources). Of course that didn't go over well with the punishment first crowd.

New York is also facing record homelessness and is actually buying property to house homeless folks — San Francisco is…

Re: We moved to Turkey from San Francisco to continue working on our startup

#112

Post by Jun8 » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 5:04 PM UTC

Note that although OP's parents are Turkish they say they have never lived in Turkey before, so there may have been a certain level of underestimation about various factors of living in Istanbul (which is one of the most beautiful and vibrant cities in the world IMHO.

* Traffic: For those of you who complain about SF traffic, Istanbul traffic jams has to be experienced to be believed. In addition, people drive, how to put this mildly, out of the norm. After living in the US for 20+ years, it takes me 1-2 days to get accustomed to driving there (I go back twice a year and learned to drive in Turkey)

* Salaries: Although I only have anecdata, I think the engineering salaries are not very low, e.g. compared to Europe. In the US and esp. in the SV it's relatively easy to find people who'll work for chicken feed for a while at a startup to gamble at a chance to be millionaires later. IN Turkey such exits are exceedingly rare so many young people want to play it safer (the talent is absolutely top notch, however).

* Food: This is very cheap and great. 'Nuff said.

* Rent: Rent in Istanbul, depending on the neighborhood, can be stratospheric. This plays into the traffic problem: In order to avoid traffic you want to live closer to your office (at least on the same continent!) but this can be costly.

* Other: I left off the political situation from the discussion. Depending on your leanings, this may or may not be a problem.

Re: We moved to Turkey from San Francisco to continue working on our startup

#113

Post by CPLX » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 5:05 PM UTC

arkades wrote: post #99

CPLX wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno. As someone who lives in NYC where we really just don't have the same problem at all it's pretty clear there are some policy reasons involved too.

(A) It's cold (B) Our cops are super aggressive with the homeless. I mean, technically that can be described as "policy", but probably not the way you meant it I used to volunteer for an annual winter round-up, where a bunch of volunteers would get vans and go looking for homeless and try to get them into shelters. We did this on one of the coldest nights of the year, trying to prevent people from dying in the chill.…

(C) NYC has a right to shelter law.

Combine that with your B and you can start to see the outlines of an actual policy decision.

Re: We moved to Turkey from San Francisco to continue working on our startup

#114

Post by geebee » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 5:05 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #75

shuckles wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a stretch. I saw my fair share of empty subway cars which contained within them an unpleasant surprise when I was there last month. Not conclusive, but “at all” is a very strong standard.

I'm not saying there's no homeless people, there are. But the SFO phenomenon of open drug use, screaming disruptive people, and street level encampments isn't something you see really anywhere in the five boroughs, excepting maybe a few errant overpasses or very industrial areas of Hunts Point or similar.

It was the same for me. I was in Manhattan two years ago, and I was amazed with how much worse the problem is in SF.

This was a sharp contrast to the mid 1990s, when I lived in New York. I found aggressive panhandling to be more prevalent in NY than SF then, with panhandlers following me for blocks, approaching me at the counter of coffee shops (once crowding me as I attempted to get my change from the cashier, quickly picking up it up when I dropped it, and then asking me for it while holding it away from me).

I'm always a little skeptical about anecdotes, though, as the "homeless" population, ranging from non-addicted or mentally ill people who are temporarily without housing to severely addicted and mentally ill people engaging in criminal level harassment of people, often clusters in a few neighborhoods in a city, sometimes at the outskirts.

I met a man from Paris who refused to agree that San Francisco has a worse problem than Paris. He said that he believes that in Paris, the severe poverty is pushed out to the edges of the city. I don't know if this is true, or if he didn't want to criticize too much, but it is an interesting observation, at any rate.

Re: We moved to Turkey from San Francisco to continue working on our startup

#115

Post by atourgates » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 5:05 PM UTC

shafyy wrote: post #25

superpermutat0r wrote: post #4

I can't even work in SF. The time wasted to drive to work kills me, I can't get desensitized to all the homeless shitting on streets, stabbing themselves with needles, talking schizophrenically in a dead language, every time I go grab a coffee or lunch in a cheaper area, it's like watching animal slaughter every day. Quality of life definitely much better in Mediterranean city I live today.

Oversimplifying here, but the homeless probem arises due to high housing cost and poor health care system. In addition to fighting the symptoms (which is already being done ok-ish), we need to fight the mentioned root causes. Unfortunately, the health care problem goes back to CA or even on a national level. Often times, mentally ill or people that lost their jobs for another reason become homeless, and from there th…

Listened to a Gavin Newsom interview a while back, where he had some pretty decent insight.

The interviewer challenged him on the homeless problem in SF. His answer was basically, "Yes, there are homeless people in SF now. The challenge is that during my tenure as mayor, we got people off the streets, but X x 2 homeless people came to SF from other places."

Newsom was far from blameless, but his point that homelessness in SF can't be solved on a SF level, or a bay-area level or possibly even a state-wide level, but needs a more global solution rings true to me.

Re: We moved to Turkey from San Francisco to continue working on our startup

#116

Post by thorwasdfasdf » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 5:05 PM UTC

dmortin wrote: post #13

superpermutat0r wrote: post #4

I can't even work in SF. The time wasted to drive to work kills me, I can't get desensitized to all the homeless shitting on streets, stabbing themselves with needles, talking schizophrenically in a dead language, every time I go grab a coffee or lunch in a cheaper area, it's like watching animal slaughter every day. Quality of life definitely much better in Mediterranean city I live today.

It's strange that a rich area can't take care of this problem. E.g. supporting the homeless some way, cleaning them up and helping them to find some job and housing.

Consider what does it mean to be rich? Rich is when you can afford the necessities of life: Shelter, food, water, transportation, medical insurance. Rich does not mean having lots of Money (just look at venezuella where they were handing out trillion dollar bills but everyone was extremely poor). SF has a lot of money and dollars but it is NOT Rich. Yes, if some of the residents left SF they'd be rich, but not while they remain there and certainly not the average person in SF. We have a serious lack of wealth problem here in SF and it's all directly or indirectly caused by the housing crisis. Throwing more money at it won't solve the issue, you need more actual "wealth". Wealth is not dollar bills. Wealth is houses, apartments, etc, that's what we need so desperately and it's not being allowed. SF really needs to take a good long hard look at why building costs so much in this city. Why do developers need to spend 1000$/sq ft just to break even? SF needs to start learning from other cities that have done it right, like Houston (building here costs less than 1/10th as much), Dallas, Chicago, etc. And, no it's not just because SF is landlocked - we have the same self imposed problem over here in the east bay where there's miles and miles of empty space right off the 7 lane highways.

Re: We moved to Turkey from San Francisco to continue working on our startup

#117

Post by seanmcdirmid » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #66

shafyy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oversimplifying here, but the homeless probem arises due to high housing cost and poor health care system. In addition to fighting the symptoms (which is already being done ok-ish), we need to fight the mentioned root causes. Unfortunately, the health care problem goes back to CA or even on a national level. Often times, mentally ill or people that lost their jobs for another reason become homeless, and from there th…

I dunno. As someone who lives in NYC where we really just don't have the same problem at all it's pretty clear there are some policy reasons involved too.

NYC gets cold in the winter, which helps to manage the problem somewhat as a forced migration occurs. The west coast doesn’t get very cold in the winter, meaning Seattle, Portland, Sam Francisco, LA, and San Diego are all nice places climate wise for homeless year round.

Re: We moved to Turkey from San Francisco to continue working on our startup

#118

Post by FabHK » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #54

dmortin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's strange that a rich area can't take care of this problem. E.g. supporting the homeless some way, cleaning them up and helping them to find some job and housing.

SF already spends an exorbitant amount on housing the homeless ($241M in 2016). Its poverty rate is also not particularly high by American city standards (9.6%, vs 11.3% for the surrounding Bay Area, 19.6% for LA, 19.0% for NYC, 34.5% for Detroit). The main reasons there's such a visible homeless problem are: 1.) Housing crisis in general. A lot of that $241M goes to lower-income residents who are at risk of homeless…

> 2.) A general laissez-faire attitude toward the homeless. [...] There's widespread opposition to criminalizing homelessness and say arresting or tazing homeless people.

I want to point out that it is a departure from laissez-faire to criminalise, arrest, and taze the homeless, but another conceivable departure from laissez-faire is to house them.

EDIT to clarify.

Re: We moved to Turkey from San Francisco to continue working on our startup

#119

Post by ghaff » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

kevinflo wrote: post #110

ghaff wrote: post #2

>Obviously, VR will transform the nature of remote work. The rest of the post makes perfect sense given their situation. This, however, is pretty silly. I do firmly believe that there is a need for better remote collaboration tools. I see pretty much zero evidence that VR is an essential part (or even an optional part) of that.

I 100% agree with the author on this. VR in its current iteration is clearly not suitable for this in any way, but down the line the fundamentals of VR align perfectly with some of the pain points of remote collaboration. With all current collaboration tools the parties are still bridging the gap of working in different places. In VR, everyone is inhabiting the same virtual space. It's just completely different. Prac…

Maybe. But once you posit "long, long, long time" and the current iteration clearly not being suitable... Sure, some far future xR technology will almost certainly improve remote interactions and collaboration. But it almost certainly doesn't look like what we call VR today.

Re: We moved to Turkey from San Francisco to continue working on our startup

#120

Post by Zarath » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

toasterlovin wrote: post #44

analogmemory wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. Good to see the privileged viewpoint of white folks still exists. I'd imagine it's much easier to judge others over the internet that to actually find ways to help them. And yes I'm being purposely judgemental of you. Have you taken the time to understand why these states happen for transient folks? Our mental health system is broken and the federal government refuses to grand basic health care for all its citi…

How do you know the person you're responding to is white?

Cause they're a meanie!