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Of the places I've lived (not necessarily in order): - Deep South (18 years - born + raised) - Boston MA (5 years @ college then job) - NYC (6+ years) - Los An

Of the places I've lived (not necessarily in order): - Deep South (18 years - born + raised) - Boston MA (5 years @ college then job) - NYC (6+ years) - Los Angeles (1yr @ startup) - San Diego (1yr @ startup) - Bay Area (6 years, including 4+ at household name tech company) I found the Bay Area (and SF in particular) to be the most intolerant, rigid and inflexible culture I've ever lived and worked in. I've never encountered such a self-righteous, smug and viscerally hostile attitude to other parts of the country, especially the South and Midwest (where I grew up). Someone literally told me once that "people from the South eat their children" in a half joking tone. I don't think you can call it "racism" per se, but definitely the most oppressive form of prejudice I've ever encountered, by far, was found among people I worked and came in contact with in the SF Bay Area. EDIT: Of course, I met (and stayed friends) with really amazing people in SF Bay Area. People with different viewpoints than mine that really expanded my horizons along a lot of different axes. And the raw intelligence of most people I interacted with - technical and otherwise - is off the charts. But the attitudes I mentioned above were expressed frequently enough to leave an impression on me.

guelo 9y ago
As if southerners aren't constantly cursing or making fun of "San Francisco values".
- throwaway34689 9y ago
  Honestly - in my experience, they are not. I didn't know anything about SF before I moved there. No one around me in the South ever talked about it. Now that I go back home and I mention I lived in SF I may hear people say something along the lines of "wow they are really liberal out there aren't they?". Nothing along the lines of the vitriol I hear in the Bay Area.
- SnacksOnAPlane 9y ago
  We're really not.
  - CalChris 9y ago
    Oh please. Y'all campaign against San Francisco values. Pelosi is basically a code word for it even though she's from a Baltimore political dynasty. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6443117 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=644311... San Francisco values gets repeated by Newt Gingrich, Bill O'Reilly, Hannity, Rush, ... at every opportunity. Sorry to link to Breitbart, but here's Roy Moore ranting on about San Francisco. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/03/hes-said-nothing-moore-jones-silence-sanctuary-cities/ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/03/hes-said-... Who exactly is he ranting to?
    - SnacksOnAPlane 9y ago
      Why are you associating those douchebags with the south? Newt I get, but aren't the rest of them in NYC? The real divide in this country is rural vs. urban. Cities in the south are plenty progressive, and rural areas in the rest of the country are plenty conservative. I've lived in Boston and Atlanta, and Atlanta is a much more tolerant, friendly place.
      - CalChris 9y ago
        Roy Moore and Newt Gingrich are about as South as South gets and they definitely campaigned against San Francisco values. Newt Gingrich essentially defined the modern Republican Party's approach to campaigning and governing.
        SnacksOnAPlane 9y ago
        First, Roy Moore lost. It wasn't a resounding loss, but he did lose. Second, acting like an entire region as a monoculture is stupid and unproductive. We're all very, very different, and while there are some trends that are more prevalent in a region, that doesn't mean that the people who believe those things are backwards. Perhaps it means that you just haven't tried to see things from their perspective. The lack of empathy and the unwillingness to consider that other people have different backgrounds and codes of ethics and a dogmatic insistence that "this way is the right way" is what's killing our cohesion as a country. And, as a whole, I've seen more of the "live and let live" philosophy in Atlanta than in a whole lot of supposedly liberal places.
- andrestan 9y ago
  Irrelevant to his original point. That Southerners do the same does not justify San Franciscans doing it as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
- angersock 9y ago
  What do you consider southerners? As recently as two nights ago I helped entertain some startup founders from SF who were genuinely suprised that Houston (the 4th largest, soon 3rd largest city in the US) wasn't just a few strip malls.
  - SwellJoe 9y ago
    Houston is always surprising to people who've never been there (and was surprising to me when I first moved there as a 19-year-old kid). It's among the friendliest places I've ever lived. And, for all its horrible traffic, the drivers are among the most polite I've seen, as well (though they drive terrifyingly fast on average). It's one of the biggest/best cities that nobody's ever heard of or thought about. Great music, arts, and food, on par with the best cities in the US, as well. As an aside, there was a study many years ago about the friendliest cities, and New York and Houston were at the top of the list; both were considered surprising by the authors, I guess based on reputation. While the deep south was way down the list well into the "unfriendly" category, which also seemed surprising to the authors given the reputation for "southern hospitality", but I'm from the deep south and I wasn't surprised, at all. The deep south is, by and large, insular and mistrustful of outsiders, except in a few larger cities. Poverty makes for higher crime, as well (one of the tests of "friendliness" included leaving a wallet in public places and seeing whether it made it back to its owner with cash intact...in NYC and Houston it almost always did, in some other places, not so much), and the south is pretty poor on average. But, Houston is not a "southern" city. It is an international city with a huge amount of people who've moved there from other states and countries. It doesn't feel southern, though it does feel like other big Texas cities to some degree. I don't really consider Texas the south, though small-town Texas kinda looks like small-town Georgia or whatever. But, also, small-town California is kinda like small-town Texas...lots of cow towns, oil towns, and farm towns, just like Texas. And, tends to be Republican-leaning, just like small-town Texas.
    - angersock 9y ago
      One follow-on to your final paragraph: the thing is that small-town Texas (depending on the area) does look a lot different from Georgia. It's probably got a good deal more Latinos (Angleton, or any town as you head west), it's probably got more Vietnamese and folks of Vietnamese descent (coastal towns, Port Arthur), it's probably got a more functioning economy (notable exceptions like Rockport). In some ways (if you look up the statistics above) rural Texas most resembles rural California.
- creaghpatr 9y ago
  People in the south don't think about San Francisco at all. Only the Fox News anchors based in New York but charged with representing the politics of the south care about San Francisco.
  - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
    This is not true. I live in the South (Nashville) and I've heard (and overheard) multiple disparaging comments about people from the coasts. It's not like they're obsessed, but they talk about NY and CA as much as NY and CA talked about the South when I lived in both places.
  - throwaway34689 9y ago
    Couldn't agree more. They are too busy having a great life down there. I definitely miss a lot of aspects of that culture.
  - zarkov99 9y ago
    Precisely.
  - guelo 9y ago
    People in SF don't think about the south either besides in political discussions.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - jonny_eh 9y ago
      Or when it's time for BBQ.
clairity 9y ago
as a counterpoint, i have a similar geographical history and felt and saw more raciscm in the south than elsewhere (although to be fair, it wasn't vastly more so). what you're feeling in that smugness is an exercise of social power on you. my guess is that you're white, which is why you didn't feel racism in the south but did feel the smugness of the "coastal elite" (and why you tie those two things together in your mind).
- chickenfries 9y ago
  Yeah, I also want to bet that they're straight.
ixtli 9y ago
> self-righteous, smug and viscerally hostile attitude to other parts of the country I'm not sure what this has to do with "political correctness." People being jerks isn't the same as demarcating hate speech and saying that it has no place in public discourse. I think what happens is that someone will propose something that another constituency worries will have violent outcomes for them, and they push back saying "that's unacceptable." Then the first party gets defensive and says that they're being tone policed instead of engaging with the substance of the complaint. For people like me (white men) this can sometimes be the first time when our presuppositions are challenged, or that we're told that we might not be totally objective, rational observers in a chaotic universe and its very very easy to get defensive. Further, it's important to understand that people who worry about "PC" as a threat to the free exchange of ideas are actively having their rhetoric coopted by others on the far right who are actively trying to move the overton window into a place where they are able to espouse things like racism in public without backlash.
Cshelton 9y ago
To add to that as someone who grew up in Dallas, Texas, has lived in what many consider the most "liberal" parts of the U.S., and now back in Dallas (Texas forever); The thing I hear the most from people who have moved to Dallas recently or visiting is "Everyone here is so nice". I hear it all the time. Even work colleges who are in town for business. I heard one say a few weeks ago how nice people are here after somebody waited a little longer holding a door open than what is considered normal. I guess I've lived here most of my life and it's normal to me. You can literally strike up a conversation without almost anyone random and you won't get a disdained look back. I think, in Texas at least, don't know about other areas of the south, many people will be surprised from how open people are in the cities. Now, in rural areas... yeah, no promise there. Rural people will love you at first site, but if you mention anything anything that contradicts their bible or the right to have a gun, most likely not. The cities surprise people who visit here though. They were not expecting the acceptance of things they thought everyone in the south was against.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  I think, in Texas at least, don't know about other areas of the south, many people will be surprised from how open people are in the cities. Now, in rural areas... yeah, no promise there. Rural people will love you at first site, but if you mention anything anything that contradicts their bible or the right to have a gun, most likely not. The cities surprise people who visit here though. They were not expecting the acceptance of things they thought everyone in the south was against. Is the contradiction here intentional self parody?
  - Cshelton 9y ago
    No, I'm saying there is a difference between Dallas, Austin, Houston, San Antonio and the rest of Texas, like rural east and west Texas. I think you have to compare apples to apples here. San Fran to Dallas/Houston/etc. You can't compare rural west Texas to San Fran or the rural wine country around SF to Dallas.
    - maxerickson 9y ago
mintplant 9y ago
Okay. I grew up in small town Louisiana, across the street from a swamp, where a baby alligator once crawled up into our ditch. Coming to California, and then to San Francisco, felt like shrugging off a weight I'd never realized I'd been carrying. I think what you're experiencing is value mismatch. When the culture won't bend the way you're used to, it can seem as though it's resistant to bending at all. But you yourself admit that the Bay Area accommodates "people different viewpoints than mine that really expanded my horizons along a lot of different axes". Not that I wouldn't say the same about my birthplace: it's just biased at a different point in the multidimensional space of personality.
- seizethecheese 9y ago
  > I think what you're experiencing is value mismatch. When the culture won't bend the way you're used to, it can seem as though it's resistant to bending at all. If I need to match a culture's values in order to have an open discussion, that culture is intolerant.
  - sgift 9y ago
    No one is absolutely tolerant of every other position. The question is to what degree one is willing to tolerate (or more important: accept) other points of view.
    - prepend 9y ago
      While this is a good point, it’s exactly the statement Altman is making. The complaint is that the degree to tolerate is too low and that is harmful to society. No one is calling for absolute tolerance where Nazi pedophiles and sexually harass people. But perhaps firing the CTO of Mozilla because be donated to Prop 8 is too strict a level of intolerance.
Diederich 9y ago
> Deep South (18 years - born + raised) If I may ask, where, more specifically? I grew up in southern California, and my wife grew up in Columbus, Georgia. We met in the midwest and lived there 15 or so years, and so visited Columbus frequently. For the last 4 months of her dad's life, we lived in Columbus. We've lived in the SF Bay Area for the past 8 years. > [SF Bay Area ...] most intolerant, rigid and inflexible culture I think I know what you're getting at, and I don't necessarily disagree out of hand. I will say that there is an enormous difference in day to day racial tension in west Georgia compared to the SF Bay Area. In Columbus, from McDonalds to hospitals, there was barely submerged but obvious tension between blacks and whites. I don't mean this to be a counter to what you're saying, I think it's a different thing.
- creaghpatr 9y ago
  >I will say that there is an enormous difference in day to day racial tension in west Georgia compared to the SF Bay Area. In Columbus, from McDonalds to hospitals, there was barely submerged but obvious tension between blacks and whites. Probably because Columbus GA is 45% black and San Francisco is only 6.4% black. Hard to have black/white tension when one of those groups comprises such a small percent of total population.
  - kbenson 9y ago
    But San Francisco is also 33.3% Asian and over 15% Hispanic. The white to non-white percentages are very close between both locations. And while the story of Asian Americans in SF is not the same as Black Americans in the South, it was hardly a picnic for them (for one example, Angel island).
- alehul 9y ago
  That's an interesting point. As someone who grew up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood of Boston, I'm also familiar with tension, and I remember it being far more racially-defined within the poor communities than elsewhere. Upon moving to nicer areas, however, the tension felt more like rich vs poor, with race (very sadly) often signaling to someone's level of wealth. They also seemed less tension-prone overall, in comparison to the poorer communities. What I mean to say is that: 1. Tension between races seemed to primarily exist at the poorer levels, and that at the wealthier levels, the tension between classes very much overrode any tension between races. 2. Wealthy communities just seem to be more educated and accepting, as they see the better [1] individuals of all races of people. I haven't spent too much time in the Bay Area, but would you possibly say that: 1. The wealth inequality in the Bay Area creates enough of a class divide to where the racial divide isn't noticeable? 2. Alternatively, does the racial diversity in the wealthy of the Bay Area remove stigmas that result in racism altogether? I'd be interested in your thoughts! I'm not aiming to counter either, but just curious. [1] By 'better,' I don't mean to pass judgment on any people; just that people in worse conditions in life will often be forced or incentivized into worse actions. For example, a child's friend is far less likely to steal their toy or game in a wealthier community than poorer. It's not evil, it's just worse conditions resulting in worse actions.
dmode 9y ago
Considering that 50% of the people in the Bay Area are foreign born, and have no experience of the South, I find your comment "a self-righteous, smug and viscerally hostile attitude to other parts of the country" to be hyperbolic. May be you are projecting based upon a few interactions ?
- kelukelugames 9y ago
  Have you seen this clip? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFYRkzznsc0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFYRkzznsc0 The man is an elected official in Alabama. Also an idiot and a bigot who think only Christians can be elected to Congress. It's okay to look down on him for being ignorant, but a lot of the comments attack his regional accent. That's not okay.
  - dmode 9y ago
    Exactly right
- tlb 9y ago
  People don't need to have experienced something firsthand in order to have a "self-righteous, smug and viscerally hostile attitude" towards it. In fact, they are more likely to be hostile to things they haven't experienced. This seems to be genetically programmed, as it transcends cultures and history.
hsod 9y ago
I think the use of the word "tolerance" here muddies things. To the extent that tolerance is a virtue, it refers to tolerating other people for what they are, not what they do. There are gray areas here of course, but there are plenty of places where that distinction is clear. I don't think political tolerance is inherently virtuous. If a coworker tells me they don't think women are suited for technical work then I don't feel any moral obligation to be "tolerant" of that viewpoint.
- slg 9y ago
  I am reminded of an old quote from George Washington: "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support." [1] "Tolerance" has a clear power dynamic. One group allows another group to exist. It is therefore shouldn't be looked at as the ultimate goal of a just society. Instead we should simply ask that people are "good citizens." Whether your coworker believes women don't make good tech workers should be irrelevant to you. What should matter is whether they are a good employee and whether their views manifest themselves in anyway that hurts anyone else (e.g. they should not be in a position to supervise other employees if they can't prevent their beliefs from harming those employees) [1] - https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-06-02-0135 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-06-02-...
- kbenson 9y ago
  > To the extent that tolerance is a virtue, it refers to tolerating other people for what they are, not what they do. There are gray areas here of course The gray areas are miles wide in many cases. Tolerance of what people are is fairly easy for most people to agree on, but in some cases what people do and what people are is disagreed upon. That is, to some degree, the crux of the debate about homosexuality still. People disagree on whether it's something people do, or are. At the same time, an older debate under similar grounds (but, ironically with less evidence for it being towards the are end of the spectrum) is religion. Are you a Christian, Jew or Muslim, or do you just practice those religions? I don't think boiling it down to are and do particularly helps for a lot of the really controversial topics we are currently dealing with.
vonnik 9y ago
Outrage culture in the Bay is strong, and it makes many conversations here impossible or uninteresting. However, I think Sam occupies a rare position that he may be blind to: He is famous and the media is paying attention to what he says. That makes saying interesting things, which require taking risks, more dangerous, because more strangers are listening to him, his comments are more likely to be removed from their context, and reporters seeking clicks will deliberately misconstrue him. So while I don't think he's wrong, I think his perception of this environment of outrage and right-thinking is exaggerated by his own celebrity. Famous people are forced to be more careful in what they say. That is less true for the rest of us.
justifier 9y ago
I want to respond with a bender quote, "this is the worst kind of oppression, the kind against me" But honestly your comment is so vague I'm unsure exactly what you want to be heard from your words Can you clarify what kinds of oppression you noticed in SF and the kinds you noticed in other places When you speak so indistinctly everyone is forced to fill the holes themselves Those that agree that SF is oppressive will fill those holes with their own aggravating experiences and those that see SF as progressive will read your comment as "I just want to tell my coworkers that their lifestyle is offensive to god but SF is too intolerant of me and my wants"

guelo 9y ago

As if southerners aren't constantly cursing or making fun of "San Francisco values".

throwaway34689 9y ago
Honestly - in my experience, they are not. I didn't know anything about SF before I moved there. No one around me in the South ever talked about it. Now that I go back home and I mention I lived in SF I may hear people say something along the lines of "wow they are really liberal out there aren't they?". Nothing along the lines of the vitriol I hear in the Bay Area.
SnacksOnAPlane 9y ago
We're really not.
- CalChris 9y ago
  Oh please. Y'all campaign against San Francisco values. Pelosi is basically a code word for it even though she's from a Baltimore political dynasty. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6443117 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=644311... San Francisco values gets repeated by Newt Gingrich, Bill O'Reilly, Hannity, Rush, ... at every opportunity. Sorry to link to Breitbart, but here's Roy Moore ranting on about San Francisco. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/03/hes-said-nothing-moore-jones-silence-sanctuary-cities/ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/03/hes-said-... Who exactly is he ranting to?
  - SnacksOnAPlane 9y ago
    Why are you associating those douchebags with the south? Newt I get, but aren't the rest of them in NYC? The real divide in this country is rural vs. urban. Cities in the south are plenty progressive, and rural areas in the rest of the country are plenty conservative. I've lived in Boston and Atlanta, and Atlanta is a much more tolerant, friendly place.
    - CalChris 9y ago
      Roy Moore and Newt Gingrich are about as South as South gets and they definitely campaigned against San Francisco values. Newt Gingrich essentially defined the modern Republican Party's approach to campaigning and governing.
      - SnacksOnAPlane 9y ago
        First, Roy Moore lost. It wasn't a resounding loss, but he did lose. Second, acting like an entire region as a monoculture is stupid and unproductive. We're all very, very different, and while there are some trends that are more prevalent in a region, that doesn't mean that the people who believe those things are backwards. Perhaps it means that you just haven't tried to see things from their perspective. The lack of empathy and the unwillingness to consider that other people have different backgrounds and codes of ethics and a dogmatic insistence that "this way is the right way" is what's killing our cohesion as a country. And, as a whole, I've seen more of the "live and let live" philosophy in Atlanta than in a whole lot of supposedly liberal places.
andrestan 9y ago
Irrelevant to his original point. That Southerners do the same does not justify San Franciscans doing it as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
angersock 9y ago
What do you consider southerners? As recently as two nights ago I helped entertain some startup founders from SF who were genuinely suprised that Houston (the 4th largest, soon 3rd largest city in the US) wasn't just a few strip malls.
- SwellJoe 9y ago
  Houston is always surprising to people who've never been there (and was surprising to me when I first moved there as a 19-year-old kid). It's among the friendliest places I've ever lived. And, for all its horrible traffic, the drivers are among the most polite I've seen, as well (though they drive terrifyingly fast on average). It's one of the biggest/best cities that nobody's ever heard of or thought about. Great music, arts, and food, on par with the best cities in the US, as well. As an aside, there was a study many years ago about the friendliest cities, and New York and Houston were at the top of the list; both were considered surprising by the authors, I guess based on reputation. While the deep south was way down the list well into the "unfriendly" category, which also seemed surprising to the authors given the reputation for "southern hospitality", but I'm from the deep south and I wasn't surprised, at all. The deep south is, by and large, insular and mistrustful of outsiders, except in a few larger cities. Poverty makes for higher crime, as well (one of the tests of "friendliness" included leaving a wallet in public places and seeing whether it made it back to its owner with cash intact...in NYC and Houston it almost always did, in some other places, not so much), and the south is pretty poor on average. But, Houston is not a "southern" city. It is an international city with a huge amount of people who've moved there from other states and countries. It doesn't feel southern, though it does feel like other big Texas cities to some degree. I don't really consider Texas the south, though small-town Texas kinda looks like small-town Georgia or whatever. But, also, small-town California is kinda like small-town Texas...lots of cow towns, oil towns, and farm towns, just like Texas. And, tends to be Republican-leaning, just like small-town Texas.
  - angersock 9y ago
    One follow-on to your final paragraph: the thing is that small-town Texas (depending on the area) does look a lot different from Georgia. It's probably got a good deal more Latinos (Angleton, or any town as you head west), it's probably got more Vietnamese and folks of Vietnamese descent (coastal towns, Port Arthur), it's probably got a more functioning economy (notable exceptions like Rockport). In some ways (if you look up the statistics above) rural Texas most resembles rural California.
creaghpatr 9y ago
People in the south don't think about San Francisco at all. Only the Fox News anchors based in New York but charged with representing the politics of the south care about San Francisco.
- ryanwaggoner 9y ago
  This is not true. I live in the South (Nashville) and I've heard (and overheard) multiple disparaging comments about people from the coasts. It's not like they're obsessed, but they talk about NY and CA as much as NY and CA talked about the South when I lived in both places.
- throwaway34689 9y ago
  Couldn't agree more. They are too busy having a great life down there. I definitely miss a lot of aspects of that culture.
- zarkov99 9y ago
  Precisely.
- guelo 9y ago
  People in SF don't think about the south either besides in political discussions.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jonny_eh 9y ago
    Or when it's time for BBQ.

clairity 9y ago

as a counterpoint, i have a similar geographical history and felt and saw more raciscm in the south than elsewhere (although to be fair, it wasn't vastly more so). what you're feeling in that smugness is an exercise of social power on you. my guess is that you're white, which is why you didn't feel racism in the south but did feel the smugness of the "coastal elite" (and why you tie those two things together in your mind).

chickenfries 9y ago
Yeah, I also want to bet that they're straight.

ixtli 9y ago

> self-righteous, smug and viscerally hostile attitude to other parts of the country I'm not sure what this has to do with "political correctness." People being jerks isn't the same as demarcating hate speech and saying that it has no place in public discourse. I think what happens is that someone will propose something that another constituency worries will have violent outcomes for them, and they push back saying "that's unacceptable." Then the first party gets defensive and says that they're being tone policed instead of engaging with the substance of the complaint. For people like me (white men) this can sometimes be the first time when our presuppositions are challenged, or that we're told that we might not be totally objective, rational observers in a chaotic universe and its very very easy to get defensive. Further, it's important to understand that people who worry about "PC" as a threat to the free exchange of ideas are actively having their rhetoric coopted by others on the far right who are actively trying to move the overton window into a place where they are able to espouse things like racism in public without backlash.

Cshelton 9y ago

To add to that as someone who grew up in Dallas, Texas, has lived in what many consider the most "liberal" parts of the U.S., and now back in Dallas (Texas forever); The thing I hear the most from people who have moved to Dallas recently or visiting is "Everyone here is so nice". I hear it all the time. Even work colleges who are in town for business. I heard one say a few weeks ago how nice people are here after somebody waited a little longer holding a door open than what is considered normal. I guess I've lived here most of my life and it's normal to me. You can literally strike up a conversation without almost anyone random and you won't get a disdained look back. I think, in Texas at least, don't know about other areas of the south, many people will be surprised from how open people are in the cities. Now, in rural areas... yeah, no promise there. Rural people will love you at first site, but if you mention anything anything that contradicts their bible or the right to have a gun, most likely not. The cities surprise people who visit here though. They were not expecting the acceptance of things they thought everyone in the south was against.

maxerickson 9y ago
I think, in Texas at least, don't know about other areas of the south, many people will be surprised from how open people are in the cities. Now, in rural areas... yeah, no promise there. Rural people will love you at first site, but if you mention anything anything that contradicts their bible or the right to have a gun, most likely not. The cities surprise people who visit here though. They were not expecting the acceptance of things they thought everyone in the south was against. Is the contradiction here intentional self parody?
- Cshelton 9y ago
  No, I'm saying there is a difference between Dallas, Austin, Houston, San Antonio and the rest of Texas, like rural east and west Texas. I think you have to compare apples to apples here. San Fran to Dallas/Houston/etc. You can't compare rural west Texas to San Fran or the rural wine country around SF to Dallas.
  - maxerickson 9y ago

mintplant 9y ago

Okay. I grew up in small town Louisiana, across the street from a swamp, where a baby alligator once crawled up into our ditch. Coming to California, and then to San Francisco, felt like shrugging off a weight I'd never realized I'd been carrying. I think what you're experiencing is value mismatch. When the culture won't bend the way you're used to, it can seem as though it's resistant to bending at all. But you yourself admit that the Bay Area accommodates "people different viewpoints than mine that really expanded my horizons along a lot of different axes". Not that I wouldn't say the same about my birthplace: it's just biased at a different point in the multidimensional space of personality.

seizethecheese 9y ago
> I think what you're experiencing is value mismatch. When the culture won't bend the way you're used to, it can seem as though it's resistant to bending at all. If I need to match a culture's values in order to have an open discussion, that culture is intolerant.
- sgift 9y ago
  No one is absolutely tolerant of every other position. The question is to what degree one is willing to tolerate (or more important: accept) other points of view.
  - prepend 9y ago
    While this is a good point, it’s exactly the statement Altman is making. The complaint is that the degree to tolerate is too low and that is harmful to society. No one is calling for absolute tolerance where Nazi pedophiles and sexually harass people. But perhaps firing the CTO of Mozilla because be donated to Prop 8 is too strict a level of intolerance.

Diederich 9y ago

> Deep South (18 years - born + raised) If I may ask, where, more specifically? I grew up in southern California, and my wife grew up in Columbus, Georgia. We met in the midwest and lived there 15 or so years, and so visited Columbus frequently. For the last 4 months of her dad's life, we lived in Columbus. We've lived in the SF Bay Area for the past 8 years. > [SF Bay Area ...] most intolerant, rigid and inflexible culture I think I know what you're getting at, and I don't necessarily disagree out of hand. I will say that there is an enormous difference in day to day racial tension in west Georgia compared to the SF Bay Area. In Columbus, from McDonalds to hospitals, there was barely submerged but obvious tension between blacks and whites. I don't mean this to be a counter to what you're saying, I think it's a different thing.

creaghpatr 9y ago
>I will say that there is an enormous difference in day to day racial tension in west Georgia compared to the SF Bay Area. In Columbus, from McDonalds to hospitals, there was barely submerged but obvious tension between blacks and whites. Probably because Columbus GA is 45% black and San Francisco is only 6.4% black. Hard to have black/white tension when one of those groups comprises such a small percent of total population.
- kbenson 9y ago
  But San Francisco is also 33.3% Asian and over 15% Hispanic. The white to non-white percentages are very close between both locations. And while the story of Asian Americans in SF is not the same as Black Americans in the South, it was hardly a picnic for them (for one example, Angel island).
alehul 9y ago
That's an interesting point. As someone who grew up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood of Boston, I'm also familiar with tension, and I remember it being far more racially-defined within the poor communities than elsewhere. Upon moving to nicer areas, however, the tension felt more like rich vs poor, with race (very sadly) often signaling to someone's level of wealth. They also seemed less tension-prone overall, in comparison to the poorer communities. What I mean to say is that: 1. Tension between races seemed to primarily exist at the poorer levels, and that at the wealthier levels, the tension between classes very much overrode any tension between races. 2. Wealthy communities just seem to be more educated and accepting, as they see the better [1] individuals of all races of people. I haven't spent too much time in the Bay Area, but would you possibly say that: 1. The wealth inequality in the Bay Area creates enough of a class divide to where the racial divide isn't noticeable? 2. Alternatively, does the racial diversity in the wealthy of the Bay Area remove stigmas that result in racism altogether? I'd be interested in your thoughts! I'm not aiming to counter either, but just curious. [1] By 'better,' I don't mean to pass judgment on any people; just that people in worse conditions in life will often be forced or incentivized into worse actions. For example, a child's friend is far less likely to steal their toy or game in a wealthier community than poorer. It's not evil, it's just worse conditions resulting in worse actions.

dmode 9y ago

Considering that 50% of the people in the Bay Area are foreign born, and have no experience of the South, I find your comment "a self-righteous, smug and viscerally hostile attitude to other parts of the country" to be hyperbolic. May be you are projecting based upon a few interactions ?

kelukelugames 9y ago
Have you seen this clip? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFYRkzznsc0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFYRkzznsc0 The man is an elected official in Alabama. Also an idiot and a bigot who think only Christians can be elected to Congress. It's okay to look down on him for being ignorant, but a lot of the comments attack his regional accent. That's not okay.
- dmode 9y ago
  Exactly right
tlb 9y ago
People don't need to have experienced something firsthand in order to have a "self-righteous, smug and viscerally hostile attitude" towards it. In fact, they are more likely to be hostile to things they haven't experienced. This seems to be genetically programmed, as it transcends cultures and history.

hsod 9y ago

I think the use of the word "tolerance" here muddies things. To the extent that tolerance is a virtue, it refers to tolerating other people for what they are, not what they do. There are gray areas here of course, but there are plenty of places where that distinction is clear. I don't think political tolerance is inherently virtuous. If a coworker tells me they don't think women are suited for technical work then I don't feel any moral obligation to be "tolerant" of that viewpoint.

slg 9y ago
I am reminded of an old quote from George Washington: "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support." [1] "Tolerance" has a clear power dynamic. One group allows another group to exist. It is therefore shouldn't be looked at as the ultimate goal of a just society. Instead we should simply ask that people are "good citizens." Whether your coworker believes women don't make good tech workers should be irrelevant to you. What should matter is whether they are a good employee and whether their views manifest themselves in anyway that hurts anyone else (e.g. they should not be in a position to supervise other employees if they can't prevent their beliefs from harming those employees) [1] - https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-06-02-0135 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-06-02-...
kbenson 9y ago
> To the extent that tolerance is a virtue, it refers to tolerating other people for what they are, not what they do. There are gray areas here of course The gray areas are miles wide in many cases. Tolerance of what people are is fairly easy for most people to agree on, but in some cases what people do and what people are is disagreed upon. That is, to some degree, the crux of the debate about homosexuality still. People disagree on whether it's something people do, or are. At the same time, an older debate under similar grounds (but, ironically with less evidence for it being towards the are end of the spectrum) is religion. Are you a Christian, Jew or Muslim, or do you just practice those religions? I don't think boiling it down to are and do particularly helps for a lot of the really controversial topics we are currently dealing with.

vonnik 9y ago

Outrage culture in the Bay is strong, and it makes many conversations here impossible or uninteresting. However, I think Sam occupies a rare position that he may be blind to: He is famous and the media is paying attention to what he says. That makes saying interesting things, which require taking risks, more dangerous, because more strangers are listening to him, his comments are more likely to be removed from their context, and reporters seeking clicks will deliberately misconstrue him. So while I don't think he's wrong, I think his perception of this environment of outrage and right-thinking is exaggerated by his own celebrity. Famous people are forced to be more careful in what they say. That is less true for the rest of us.

justifier 9y ago

I want to respond with a bender quote, "this is the worst kind of oppression, the kind against me" But honestly your comment is so vague I'm unsure exactly what you want to be heard from your words Can you clarify what kinds of oppression you noticed in SF and the kinds you noticed in other places When you speak so indistinctly everyone is forced to fill the holes themselves Those that agree that SF is oppressive will fill those holes with their own aggravating experiences and those that see SF as progressive will read your comment as "I just want to tell my coworkers that their lifestyle is offensive to god but SF is too intolerant of me and my wants"