8 ms·

I recently moved (fled) from downtown San Francisco to Nashville TN and couldn't be happier. I lived in SF for over 5 years, and there is absolutely a mass exod

I recently moved (fled) from downtown San Francisco to Nashville TN and couldn't be happier. I lived in SF for over 5 years, and there is absolutely a mass exodus of people and engineers leaving the bay area because of extreme ideology, hypocrisy, constant outrage, and the echo chamber that engulfs everything. Downtown San Francisco is a great place to visit for a few days but no place to start and raise a family.

exogeny 9y ago
So, because you and a couple of people who share similar viewpoints left, that constitutes a "exodius" (sic)? I'd like for you to read up on confirmation biases, and then post again.
- nodesocket 9y ago
  A couple people. :-) Go do a quick Google search. https://townhall.com/columnists/rachelalexander/2018/02/12/mass-exodus-from-blue-states-to-red-states-n2447683 https://townhall.com/columnists/rachelalexander/2018/02/12/m...
  - dastbe 9y ago
    Do you not think that linked article has even a bit of a bias and agenda? Even then, the link to atlas van lines they use conflicts with several of the claims they made about largest outbound and largest inbound. So maybe check your article's sources first :-).
- dang 9y ago
  Please don't do internet flame tropes on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
davidf18 9y ago
SV is very liberal, yet typically engineers (eg. EE, Mechanical, Civil, Aero, Industrial, Chemical, ...) are conservative. I wonder how many people with real engineering degrees (disclosure my BS is EE with CS minor from top school) are SV liberal.
- davidf18 9y ago
  Unable to edit my comment so adding this: http://www.machinedesign.com/news/politics-engineers http://www.machinedesign.com/news/politics-engineers "Engineers tend to view themselves as much less liberal and slightly more conservative than the general public, according to a recent survey of over 1,200 readers of MACHINE DESIGN and Electronic Design magazines. The same survey also found that engineers say they are more likely to be Republican (42.1%) or Independent (33.7%) voters, as opposed to Democrats (14.5%)."
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jakecopp 9y ago
    I imagine this correlation could be explained by engineers having a high average salary, and I think high salaries (on average) correlate with being conservative. I don't have references though.
- api 9y ago
  SV liberalism is kind of hypocritical and surface. Here we have an apparently super-liberal place whose main industry is mass surveillance and that does everything in its power via local zoning policy to price out the poor and minorities. The local echo chamber is all about 'diversity' yet the local tech industry is among the least diverse industries in the world. A lot of the echo chambering is in the "methinks you doth protest too much" category IMHO.
  - FeepingCreature 9y ago
    > among the least diverse industries in the world. If you count asians as white... Also gonna want a cite on that. afaik sv hiring is about equal with labor market.
    - api 9y ago
      I was thinking more of gender diversity than racial diversity, though the racial diversity of SV is not great. There are loads of female mathematicians, doctors, civil engineers, writers, journalists, etc. so obviously language and math is not beyond women. Programming is just language and math.
ryanwaggoner 9y ago
See, and I left NYC for Nashville in 2015, and I’m moving back to NYC next week. Nashville itself is pretty purple, but the ideology of the south is just as homogeneous as SF, and I find it much, much more offensive (Roy Moore). There is not a (net) mass exodus from the Bay Area, hence the ridiculous prices. I moved to SF in 2006 and there were always people claiming it was on the verge of collapse because everyone was fed up with the high prices and crowding and was fleeing. Funny to see that nothing has changed. “No one goes to that bar anymore, it’s too crowded!”
- Barrin92 9y ago
  >but the ideology of the south is just as homogeneous as SF this is an interesting asymmetry I've noticed too. There are countless of places where salt of the earth Americana is the de facto monoculture. If I'd go there and try to create a liberal-hippie space for myself they'd probably flip me the finger and tell me that's not the local way of life, and somehow everybody seems to agree that this is perfectly fine. Yet when people in the valley or in a big city share a common culture they somehow have to defend themselves and painstakingly carve out a space for Peter Thiel et al. Why is that? If he doesn't like California's culture Thiel can move, end of story. Why do we have to treat him like a wounded deer?
  - muninn_ 9y ago
    Well, because they want to have their cake and eat it too. "Everybody has a voice, we're accepting of all cultures, everybody is welcome" etc.. until they aren't. And believe it or not, people in the south have to (from their point of view) put up with "the liberals" too - similar to people in SF or wherever. Frankly, what is interesting here is that instead of the United States becoming more culturally similar with the advent of planes, mobile phones, and what have you it would appear, at least on the surface, that we're becoming more different. I live in the Midwest and when I hear somebody from Vancouver saying that explaining something to someone automatically is "mansplaining" and "placing an emotional burden" on that person I find that just as idiotic and incompatible with my way of life as some bible-thumping anti-climate change person from Mississippi. Now, both of these are of course generalizations, but the most pervasive noise, if you will, is this instead of the most likely interaction I would have with most people which is just a hey how are you, thanks, yes I like XYZ as well. What we need to do is police the most radical people if we want the United States to be a united country. If we'd rather break it up or something then that's a different story.
huffpopo 9y ago
I left SF before the election, I could tell early on that Trump was going to win and figured free speech clampdowns in SV would follow and I knew my work was going to be affected. I worked in search and I remember the scandal within the industry when Yahoo accepted money from the Chinese government to censor pages on the 2008 tainted milk scandal. They charged $10K per link. At the time Google was seen as a beacon of free speech and 'do no evil' which was a nice contrast to Yahoo which is apparently OK with killing babies for a small buck. Now Google, Twitter, Facebook etc. are all finding excuses to allow various meddling of the search results. There is too much money in it, it is inevitable. Free speech is important to me because without it we quite literally end up killing babies for very small amounts of money.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- stevebmark 9y ago
  I'm saddened every time I hear the perceived narrative of the "attack on free speech", the false cry of persecution from those who aren't persecuted. Some rally around this belief, even want to believe, their rights are being threatened or taken away from them. Free speech is not under attack. There is no "clampdown." Echo chamber? Sure, probably. Preference for liberal over conservative views? Of course. Some sort of systemic "attack" on "free speech?" Unrealistic at best.
stevebmark 9y ago
Ok...but you didn't leave because of ideology, you left because you wanted to start a family and housing here is unaffordable, right? Which is also why people leave, not because of beliefs.
viburnum 9y ago
It's true, SF is terrible and everyone is leaving. That's what it's so cheap to live there.

exogeny 9y ago

So, because you and a couple of people who share similar viewpoints left, that constitutes a "exodius" (sic)? I'd like for you to read up on confirmation biases, and then post again.

nodesocket 9y ago
A couple people. :-) Go do a quick Google search. https://townhall.com/columnists/rachelalexander/2018/02/12/mass-exodus-from-blue-states-to-red-states-n2447683 https://townhall.com/columnists/rachelalexander/2018/02/12/m...
- dastbe 9y ago
  Do you not think that linked article has even a bit of a bias and agenda? Even then, the link to atlas van lines they use conflicts with several of the claims they made about largest outbound and largest inbound. So maybe check your article's sources first :-).
dang 9y ago
Please don't do internet flame tropes on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

davidf18 9y ago

SV is very liberal, yet typically engineers (eg. EE, Mechanical, Civil, Aero, Industrial, Chemical, ...) are conservative. I wonder how many people with real engineering degrees (disclosure my BS is EE with CS minor from top school) are SV liberal.

davidf18 9y ago
Unable to edit my comment so adding this: http://www.machinedesign.com/news/politics-engineers http://www.machinedesign.com/news/politics-engineers "Engineers tend to view themselves as much less liberal and slightly more conservative than the general public, according to a recent survey of over 1,200 readers of MACHINE DESIGN and Electronic Design magazines. The same survey also found that engineers say they are more likely to be Republican (42.1%) or Independent (33.7%) voters, as opposed to Democrats (14.5%)."
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jakecopp 9y ago
  I imagine this correlation could be explained by engineers having a high average salary, and I think high salaries (on average) correlate with being conservative. I don't have references though.
api 9y ago
SV liberalism is kind of hypocritical and surface. Here we have an apparently super-liberal place whose main industry is mass surveillance and that does everything in its power via local zoning policy to price out the poor and minorities. The local echo chamber is all about 'diversity' yet the local tech industry is among the least diverse industries in the world. A lot of the echo chambering is in the "methinks you doth protest too much" category IMHO.
- FeepingCreature 9y ago
  > among the least diverse industries in the world. If you count asians as white... Also gonna want a cite on that. afaik sv hiring is about equal with labor market.
  - api 9y ago
    I was thinking more of gender diversity than racial diversity, though the racial diversity of SV is not great. There are loads of female mathematicians, doctors, civil engineers, writers, journalists, etc. so obviously language and math is not beyond women. Programming is just language and math.

ryanwaggoner 9y ago

See, and I left NYC for Nashville in 2015, and I’m moving back to NYC next week. Nashville itself is pretty purple, but the ideology of the south is just as homogeneous as SF, and I find it much, much more offensive (Roy Moore). There is not a (net) mass exodus from the Bay Area, hence the ridiculous prices. I moved to SF in 2006 and there were always people claiming it was on the verge of collapse because everyone was fed up with the high prices and crowding and was fleeing. Funny to see that nothing has changed. “No one goes to that bar anymore, it’s too crowded!”

Barrin92 9y ago
>but the ideology of the south is just as homogeneous as SF this is an interesting asymmetry I've noticed too. There are countless of places where salt of the earth Americana is the de facto monoculture. If I'd go there and try to create a liberal-hippie space for myself they'd probably flip me the finger and tell me that's not the local way of life, and somehow everybody seems to agree that this is perfectly fine. Yet when people in the valley or in a big city share a common culture they somehow have to defend themselves and painstakingly carve out a space for Peter Thiel et al. Why is that? If he doesn't like California's culture Thiel can move, end of story. Why do we have to treat him like a wounded deer?
- muninn_ 9y ago
  Well, because they want to have their cake and eat it too. "Everybody has a voice, we're accepting of all cultures, everybody is welcome" etc.. until they aren't. And believe it or not, people in the south have to (from their point of view) put up with "the liberals" too - similar to people in SF or wherever. Frankly, what is interesting here is that instead of the United States becoming more culturally similar with the advent of planes, mobile phones, and what have you it would appear, at least on the surface, that we're becoming more different. I live in the Midwest and when I hear somebody from Vancouver saying that explaining something to someone automatically is "mansplaining" and "placing an emotional burden" on that person I find that just as idiotic and incompatible with my way of life as some bible-thumping anti-climate change person from Mississippi. Now, both of these are of course generalizations, but the most pervasive noise, if you will, is this instead of the most likely interaction I would have with most people which is just a hey how are you, thanks, yes I like XYZ as well. What we need to do is police the most radical people if we want the United States to be a united country. If we'd rather break it up or something then that's a different story.

huffpopo 9y ago

I left SF before the election, I could tell early on that Trump was going to win and figured free speech clampdowns in SV would follow and I knew my work was going to be affected. I worked in search and I remember the scandal within the industry when Yahoo accepted money from the Chinese government to censor pages on the 2008 tainted milk scandal. They charged $10K per link. At the time Google was seen as a beacon of free speech and 'do no evil' which was a nice contrast to Yahoo which is apparently OK with killing babies for a small buck. Now Google, Twitter, Facebook etc. are all finding excuses to allow various meddling of the search results. There is too much money in it, it is inevitable. Free speech is important to me because without it we quite literally end up killing babies for very small amounts of money.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
stevebmark 9y ago
I'm saddened every time I hear the perceived narrative of the "attack on free speech", the false cry of persecution from those who aren't persecuted. Some rally around this belief, even want to believe, their rights are being threatened or taken away from them. Free speech is not under attack. There is no "clampdown." Echo chamber? Sure, probably. Preference for liberal over conservative views? Of course. Some sort of systemic "attack" on "free speech?" Unrealistic at best.

stevebmark 9y ago

Ok...but you didn't leave because of ideology, you left because you wanted to start a family and housing here is unaffordable, right? Which is also why people leave, not because of beliefs.

viburnum 9y ago

It's true, SF is terrible and everyone is leaving. That's what it's so cheap to live there.