California, Love It and Leave It • Hacker News Board

Re: California, Love It and Leave It

#21

Post by throwawayriver » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 6:04 AM UTC

throwawaysea wrote: post #15

dkdk8283 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just because one doesn't agree with another to the extent they do doesn't mean there isn't a middle ground. I found this culture sneaking into Silicon Valley companies, too. I recently left a SV company for one in the NE and the difference is astounding. I’m much happier and there is much less corporate activism.

I am not sure it is a culture “sneaking” anywhere as much as openly and aggressively taking over. This is very true at least in Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Netflix. The intolerant far-left employees openly discuss personal politics on employee mailing lists and forums, unprofessionally spending paid company time on activism, strategizing on how they can control the company and use it to further their political agen…

I'll add HashiCorp to that list. When we were small, we had #random and other general Slacks where being open and yourself was the norm.

Then we grew a little more, the left-wing activist employees started flooding in and things quickly got ugly. You highlighted and chronicled almost exactly what I've seen over the past four years I've been at HashiCorp. Vocal and ruthless is spot on.

Now they're ushering in the mandatory "equity training", and they removed the open channels.

I've been looking for a new job for the past two weeks, will probably leave at the end of the year.

Re: California, Love It and Leave It

#22

Post by 205guy » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 6:25 AM UTC

Lammy wrote: post #13

myrandomcomment wrote: post #11

My wife and a I have Austin on the list of places to exit to after the kids finish high school in 2022. 6th street is amazing if you like live music (which we do). Santa Fe, NM is also on the list. The fact that I live in what is the worlds 5th larger economy with a power grid that looks like a 3rd world nation is a huge part of the reason to leave. $2m home where I need to spend another $100k to sort for the fact th…

> provide power to everyone all the time I just wish it could be from a less environmentally-destructive source than natural gas. Sonoma County was actually going to be the site of the first commercially-viable nuclear generating station in the entire USA, at PG&E's Atomic Park on Bodega Head, but that never happened for now probably obvious environmental reasons. But now I have to pay an average of $0.262/kWh for na…

> Atomic Park on Bodega Head, but that never happened for now probably obvious environmental reasons.

I think you mean tectonic reasons. Bodega Head is on the San Andreas Fault, not far from the epicenter of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9. Wikipedia has a graphic of the San Andreas fault showing a %21 chance of rupture before 2032: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Andreas_Fault#/media/File:...

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodega_Head:

"During the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the promontory shifted approximately 15 ft (4.6 m)".

I'm surprised this was ever considered for a nuclear generation facility.

Re: California, Love It and Leave It

#23

Post by wbsun » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 6:34 AM UTC

swang720 wrote: post #6

"Politics in the state is in many ways closed off to different ideas. We grew weary of California’s intolerant far left, which would rather demonize opponents than discuss honest differences of opinion." I disagree with much in this article, but I do agree with this specific point. I've had many conversations in San Francisco that have turned me off from discussing politics. It's very difficult for some to accept tha…

As a Silicon Valley company employee, I don’t think talking about politics at work is professional. But whenever I hear an opinion that is different from far left, most of time it has discrimination. I guess as a SV immigrant SWE and father , I probably only care about a limited scope of political topics. But what can be the middle ground between discrimination and non-discrimination?

Re: California, Love It and Leave It

#24

Post by Lammy » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 6:37 AM UTC

205guy wrote: post #22

Lammy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> provide power to everyone all the time I just wish it could be from a less environmentally-destructive source than natural gas. Sonoma County was actually going to be the site of the first commercially-viable nuclear generating station in the entire USA, at PG&E's Atomic Park on Bodega Head, but that never happened for now probably obvious environmental reasons. But now I have to pay an average of $0.262/kWh for na…

> Atomic Park on Bodega Head, but that never happened for now probably obvious environmental reasons. I think you mean tectonic reasons. Bodega Head is on the San Andreas Fault, not far from the epicenter of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9. Wikipedia has a graphic of the San Andreas fault showing a %21 chance of rupture before 2032: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Andreas…

A tectonic reason that might have become an obvious environmental reason if that were to occur, yes, exactly.

Re: California, Love It and Leave It

#25

Post by rmk » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 6:58 AM UTC

myrandomcomment wrote: post #16

rmk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If CA couldn't manage a high-speed rail line between two major urban centres, what makes you think they can move electrical lines underground? The last major project the state undertook was the Hetch-Hetchy aqueduct, and that project was done in Jerry Brown's father's time. Pat Brown was governor of CA in the 60's. Let that sink in.

We put a man on the moon. At the hight of WW2 we built a liberty ship everyday. We have to have the will to do what is required. Not sure we have that anymore. In general Americans have lost the will to do the hard task that take time. We have lost faith in the power of our science and engineering. We want everything in 30 seconds sound bites. The lack of long term planning for the future of our children will be our…

I don’t think the handling of Covid is really indicative of government incompetence (except perhaps a complete lack of coordination nationwide on Covid efforts). Our federal structure was a compromise to keep the U in the USA. So it is expected that each state will do things as it sees fit. China is an authoritarian state that needs tight control in order to maintain the status quo, so of course it was able to quell the pandemic. South Korea and NZ are both small and relatively centrally governed. The UK, Canada, and Australia all have public healthcare or public options. None of it is true in the USA. We have chosen not to have a public option in healthcare for the working age population, so we shouldn’t expect to be able to put down pandemics easily or even with difficulty.

Re: California, Love It and Leave It

#26

Post by dimator » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 8:28 AM UTC

myrandomcomment wrote: post #16

rmk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If CA couldn't manage a high-speed rail line between two major urban centres, what makes you think they can move electrical lines underground? The last major project the state undertook was the Hetch-Hetchy aqueduct, and that project was done in Jerry Brown's father's time. Pat Brown was governor of CA in the 60's. Let that sink in.

We put a man on the moon. At the hight of WW2 we built a liberty ship everyday. We have to have the will to do what is required. Not sure we have that anymore. In general Americans have lost the will to do the hard task that take time. We have lost faith in the power of our science and engineering. We want everything in 30 seconds sound bites. The lack of long term planning for the future of our children will be our…

This is what I've been telling people as well. We're not the country that can deal with adversity anymore.

During WW2, people sacrificed steel so that industry could produce the weapons we needed. Now, there's a rush on toilet paper, for little discernable rational reason.

Distrust of science is increasing, and rationality decreasing. Soon, we'll have anti vaxxers marching against any covid vaccine, crippling our pathway out of the current mess. Memes and sound bites dictate public discourse, no one is reading anything.

The most concerning trend is the de-emphasizing of the importance of college for today's youth. Yes college is not for everyone, but to actively campaign against it is going to be a destabilizing force against the US' technical and engineering prowess in very short order.

The trends seem more and more clear by the year, and I don't see it slowing.

Re: California, Love It and Leave It

#27

Post by mikhailfranco » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 8:51 AM UTC

Lammy wrote: post #2

> Bad policy has made the state unlivable, so I moved my family and my venture-capital firm to Texas. If I may read between the lines of this very particularly-chosen wording, it sounds like this Palantir co-founder will probably still be here constantly for work or what have you. Some move, huh?

Palantir moves its HQ from Palo Alto to Denver...

https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/20/palantir-denver-hq-ipo-dir...

Re: California, Love It and Leave It

#28

Post by mikhailfranco » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 9:02 AM UTC

voisin wrote: post #20

At the federal level, the US taxes based on US birthplace or acquired US citizenship regardless of where a person later chooses to locate. Why not do that at the state level?

And indeed, why not at the city level too :)

I cannot figure out why global taxation and the ensuing coercion (IRS,FBAR,FATCA,citizenship exit penalties) doesn't fall foul of some part of the US constitution, such as cruel and unusual punishment for not committing any crime other than earning some money some place else. FATCA also demands extra-territorial jurisdiction over foreign banks, which is outrageous.

I am sure when the time comes, the IRS will try to enforce pan-galactic taxation...

Elon will have to renounce before blast off to Mars.

Re: California, Love It and Leave It

#29

Post by adingus » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 1:25 PM UTC

wbsun wrote: post #23

swang720 wrote: post #6

"Politics in the state is in many ways closed off to different ideas. We grew weary of California’s intolerant far left, which would rather demonize opponents than discuss honest differences of opinion." I disagree with much in this article, but I do agree with this specific point. I've had many conversations in San Francisco that have turned me off from discussing politics. It's very difficult for some to accept tha…

As a Silicon Valley company employee, I don’t think talking about politics at work is professional. But whenever I hear an opinion that is different from far left, most of time it has discrimination. I guess as a SV immigrant SWE and father , I probably only care about a limited scope of political topics. But what can be the middle ground between discrimination and non-discrimination?

I don't know about your views or any of the opinions you are referring to obviously, so take this as benignly as possible. Have you questioned that what you perceive as discriminatory may have a far left bias?

Re: California, Love It and Leave It

#30

Post by myrandomcomment » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 4:40 PM UTC

rmk wrote: post #25

myrandomcomment wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We put a man on the moon. At the hight of WW2 we built a liberty ship everyday. We have to have the will to do what is required. Not sure we have that anymore. In general Americans have lost the will to do the hard task that take time. We have lost faith in the power of our science and engineering. We want everything in 30 seconds sound bites. The lack of long term planning for the future of our children will be our…

I don’t think the handling of Covid is really indicative of government incompetence (except perhaps a complete lack of coordination nationwide on Covid efforts). Our federal structure was a compromise to keep the U in the USA. So it is expected that each state will do things as it sees fit. China is an authoritarian state that needs tight control in order to maintain the status quo, so of course it was able to quell…

The President was quite with in his legal emergency powers rights to issue a national mask required mandate. He was also allowed to order production of test and require mass testing. This could have all been done legally.