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Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

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Re: Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

#151

Post by jdp23 »

tptacek wrote: post #136
Luc wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Band together (e.g. private mailing list) with like-minded people and upvote each other's submissions until the culture has changed. EDIT: Hey, that's the only reasonable answer to the parent's question so far, as far as I can see. I don't like the idea either, but it's a reasonable idea, downvotes be damned!

Why don't we just band together in a private mailing list and leave it at that? I'm pretty sure we'll lose the arms race on organized voting.

That's how it seems to me too. This was a very popular post, so most people here don't seem to share your views on this issue. Rather than blustering about how the site has gone to hell because so many people see travel as a legitimate part of startup life, and getting more hacks in the software to penalize the topics you don't want to hear about, maybe it's time to accept it.

Re: Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

#152

Post by jdp23 »

ErrantX wrote: post #105
tallanvor wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it makes you feel any better, I get more questions from US border control than any other country I've visited, and I'm an American, so it's not just foreigners they treat like crap.

Make the mistake of entering Israel with a passport stamped for an Arab country and you will probably put the US second :) Perfectly civil.. but a LOT of questions, over and over and over.

Back in 1990 I lost my passport in Turkey, got a temporary one at the US Consulate there, and then got it extended in Munich (where I was living at the time). As part of this they crossed out the 90-day expiration date, and wrote in "see page 16" by hand, where the consular stamp etc. appeared. A month later I had a business trip to Israel for a business trip and decided to continue on to Cairo for vacation. They questioned me for about an hour at Ben Gurion as I left the country ... and who could blame them?

Re: Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

#153

Post by ErrantX »

jdp23 wrote: post #152
ErrantX wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make the mistake of entering Israel with a passport stamped for an Arab country and you will probably put the US second :) Perfectly civil.. but a LOT of questions, over and over and over.

Back in 1990 I lost my passport in Turkey, got a temporary one at the US Consulate there, and then got it extended in Munich (where I was living at the time). As part of this they crossed out the 90-day expiration date, and wrote in "see page 16" by hand, where the consular stamp etc. appeared. A month later I had a business trip to Israel for a business trip and decided to continue on to Cairo for vacation. They que…

Heh indeed!

We landed in Israel and I realised I had handed over the wrong passport (as we work in the region a lot we all have a 2nd passport for Israel, it is just sensible), cue face to palm moment.

They "detained" me for about 45 minutes, but I have heard of people taking longer (and, in fairness, shorter).

Re: Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

#154

Post by newguy889 »

tallanvor wrote: post #85
patio11 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes one phone call to speak to someone at your Congresscritter's office about this. They really do listen and, occasionally, even act on things which generate heat from constituents (ask any Republican who flipped on immigration circa 2007-2008). If you feel strongly about it, make the freaking call. (Or, better, write an honest-to-God on-dead-tree letter.)

I actually HAVE written to my senators about this issue, unfortunately I didn't even get the courtesy of a form letter in response - and they're both Democrats. I didn't bother writing to my rep since he's a Republican.

Not speaking is a great way to not change anybody's mind. Also, your representative probably gets far less mail than your senators.

Re: Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

#155

Post by hippich »

kingsley_20 wrote: post #30
paraschopra wrote: post #14

I will tell another personal experience. I am based out of India and have been invited to speak at a conference in San Francisco. I applied for a business visa and was denied that visa because apparently I am young (23) and they have not heard about my startup (it is of course not an IT service giant like Infosys, TCS or Wipro) or conference (it's about A/B testing). Mind you: my startup is doing quite well financial…

You're just too much of a flight risk - they see you as having too little at stake in India. I've had some friends have similar issues ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=851287 ). I myself returned to India after 8 years in the states partly because it was practically impossible to start my own business without a green card, aka 4 years of indentured servitude. For future reference: Try to show assets you own (rea…

I am from Belarus. When I tried to apply for business visa to visit company doing me an offer, i was also denied. I had bunch of documents with me with assests, etc, but officer just took a look at application and refused issue of visa. So probably, from countries like mine if you are young and do not have kids, it's quite hard to get visa.

Re: Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

#156

Post by ErrantX »

schwabacher wrote: post #145
ErrantX wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

British, White. I'm not sure it is really related to that, my colleagues (a mix of Asian, Arab & British looking people) all have the same sort of experience. I think it is a product of being a) foreign (in general) and b) young.

Well I am not surprised that you are not treated well but I am surprised it's not racial. I am American and I apologize for what it is worth.. I think there is still quite a bit of lingering overreaction to 9/11.

No need to apologise, at all. It's not you that is making the situation and I honestly wouldn't bother apologising for those that are.

Problem is; it is only a minority (IMO anyway) and a fairly small one. But they tend to be vocal/obvious, and it is one of those things that doesn't take much to make you feel uncomfortable.

I don't think there is anywhere much that I like better than Manhattan! :)

Re: Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

#157

Post by davidw »

cema wrote: post #144
davidw wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for not only flagging it, but saying something. Supposedly that's against the guidelines, but if a community doesn't communicate in cases like these, how can the newcomers learn that articles like these are not hacker news. One of my own guidelines for "not hacker news" is if it's an article that's designed to "raise hackles" in the sense of offending one's sense of justice or "how things ought to be". This…

that sort of subject matter might at least be interesting in the sense of telling me something I didn't know, rather than discussing current US politics I am of two minds about it. Learning is important and essential to our profession. But does all kind of knowledge belong in HN? I would not say so. Where the borderline is I am not yet sure. (Regarding politics, I would say whatever affects the professional life, sci…

> But does all kind of knowledge belong in HN? I would not say so.

I agree, but a scholarly article about an obscure, uncontroversial and off-topic subject is just not likely to cause much 'damage'.

The problem with "affects professional life" in terms of politics is that pretty much everything does, somehow: taxes, health care, bureaucracy, and so on. You could talk all day long about that stuff without getting anywhere.

Re: Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

#158

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #111
edw519 wrote: post #80

everyone is utterly paranoid Everyone? I have bit my tongue for a long time about this great community's slipping quality, but honestly, how does shit like this make it to the top of Hacker News. Flagged. Any suggestions for how to get back to having hacker news on Hacker News? (And please spare us the lame "situational logic" response of how is hacker news.)

It's not just the off-topic stuff. It's groupthink. The needle on that has been buried for months now. I'll give you a telling example: the insane series of threads where, in essence, an angry mob chased a comp-sci grad student around for nominating Wikipedia articles for deletion. "Here's the main offender!" "You're a drain on Wikipedia, a negative source of knowledge!" "You're an idiot!". An Internet-famous guy chi…

[deleted]

Re: Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

#159

Post by iterationx »

edw519 wrote: post #80

everyone is utterly paranoid Everyone? I have bit my tongue for a long time about this great community's slipping quality, but honestly, how does shit like this make it to the top of Hacker News. Flagged. Any suggestions for how to get back to having hacker news on Hacker News? (And please spare us the lame "situational logic" response of how is hacker news.)

Turn off rep score, then people won't post crap just to get upvoted.

Re: Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

#160

Post by tptacek »

jdp23 wrote: post #151
tptacek wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't we just band together in a private mailing list and leave it at that? I'm pretty sure we'll lose the arms race on organized voting.

That's how it seems to me too. This was a very popular post, so most people here don't seem to share your views on this issue. Rather than blustering about how the site has gone to hell because so many people see travel as a legitimate part of startup life, and getting more hacks in the software to penalize the topics you don't want to hear about, maybe it's time to accept it.

The second-most popular story on Reddit right now appears to involve Paris Hilton. Good plan.

And surely this must all be a part of my evil plan to eradicate "travel" from the topics on HN. I. hate. travel. sooooooo. much.

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