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Now do Texas. Once Texas legalizes Marijuana, there will be no reason for tech people to not move to Austin.

by websap 5y ago

imglorp 5y ago
The state government is an impediment to many considering it.
TulliusCicero 5y ago
No, there’ll still be plenty of reasons, even if they have medical marijuana.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  Still, it's an island of sanity in the middle of Texas.
  - beepbooptheory 5y ago
    It absolutely is not. It used to be, I guess. Yes, people there, generally, are less overtly racist and bigoted, and there is some cool infrastructure, but it trades in rural isolationist prejudice for tech-tainted delusional world building, at the cost of its once beautiful community and culture. Austin is scary, I have never lived in a city that so clearly feels like it has a mind of its own, that changes so much and so explicitly that when you go back to visit your old home, it is literally unrecognizable, everything it once was just poofs away in a year. After living in a number of cities since, I understand just how weird Austin is, but not in the way it was "weird", wants to be weird. Its now like if a Stepford wife was a city: some totally flawless shell wrapped around a void. Its like if a Tesla car was city, which is perhaps a more apt similie, where it rides off its popular sentiment alone while the internals are shoestring, or at least questionable. It trades in explicit Texas politics for extreme and swift gentrification, and a, at this point, willful neglect of social services for the communities they've, in part, helped displace. There is little love in Austin now, no matter how many granola eating hippies can still afford the rent. Most of that place is gone, or quickly dissapearing. Give me Houston, which has comparable politics in the inner city, and the best museums and food in the state. Give me San Antonio, even, which is a more humble, but at least human place, and that does have better breakfast tacos than Austin. But Austin is gone. I dont think the enthusiasm and attention it gets is going away anytime soon, and people will continue to move in, and it will get "cooler" in the eyes of every google employee that resides there. And property investment will continue to churn, like crude oil in a Kitchenaide. But it has gone crazy, and I see no hope in it going back, its too big to fail, and that is maybe the whole problem.
    - zozbot234 5y ago
      Say anything about "extreme and swift gentrification", but that's a side-effect of success. At least Texas does not have the restrictive zoning and NIMBY politics that make gentrification so much more of an issue in Blue states.
      - beepbooptheory 5y ago
        Unfortunately, Austin is utterly rife with nimbyism, and even worse, whatever the inverse of it is: new people moving into fancy apartments downtown, and then being angry that they hear the loud music so late at night, from the venues that were there way before them! Retroactive nimby? The venues that have survived are still good, but so so many were lost to residential development. Don't even get me started! It was a few years ago, but even the nationally recognized, Beard-award winning bbq darling Franklin BBQ was going to be affected by smoke ordinances, because the new development that cropped up around it, and the existence of lots of bbq smoke. Not sure what came of it, but people were quite vocal.
kadoban 5y ago
There'll still be one big reason: it's Texas.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
“Tech” women interested in retaining their ability to get medical services they might need would still have a reason to not move to Austin.
- refurb 5y ago
  Tech women can fly for their abortions.
  - rosndo 5y ago
    Tech women would also be unlikely to need abortions in the first place, unintended pregnancies are very uncommon among high-income folks. E: Huh? What could possibly be controversial about this? Obviously an abortion ban affects low income folks far more than rich tech workers. For rich people this is a vague political issue, not a practical one.
    - kingsloi 5y ago
      Not all abortions are "unintended pregnancies" https://www.facebook.com/106201495/posts/953287657793/ https://www.facebook.com/106201495/posts/953287657793/
  - mindslight 5y ago
    That only works for the simplistic image of abortion (elective, easy, painless, risk free) that the evangelical death cult has been pushing. It doesn't work for the actual medical reality. The disconnect between the two is staggering, and if you don't know what I'm talking about you owe it to yourself to look into the details of the actual medical procedure. It is not elective, easy, painless, or risk free. And while I support encouraging people to travel to route around their oppressive backwater hellholes, the ability to do so doesn't mean we should support places regressing towards being oppressive hellholes.

Now do Texas. Once Texas legalizes Marijuana, there will be no reason for tech people to not move to Austin.

by websap 5y ago

Now do Texas. Once Texas legalizes Marijuana, there will be no reason for tech people to not move to Austin.

imglorp 5y ago

The state government is an impediment to many considering it.

TulliusCicero 5y ago

No, there’ll still be plenty of reasons, even if they have medical marijuana.

rbanffy 5y ago
Still, it's an island of sanity in the middle of Texas.
- beepbooptheory 5y ago
  It absolutely is not. It used to be, I guess. Yes, people there, generally, are less overtly racist and bigoted, and there is some cool infrastructure, but it trades in rural isolationist prejudice for tech-tainted delusional world building, at the cost of its once beautiful community and culture. Austin is scary, I have never lived in a city that so clearly feels like it has a mind of its own, that changes so much and so explicitly that when you go back to visit your old home, it is literally unrecognizable, everything it once was just poofs away in a year. After living in a number of cities since, I understand just how weird Austin is, but not in the way it was "weird", wants to be weird. Its now like if a Stepford wife was a city: some totally flawless shell wrapped around a void. Its like if a Tesla car was city, which is perhaps a more apt similie, where it rides off its popular sentiment alone while the internals are shoestring, or at least questionable. It trades in explicit Texas politics for extreme and swift gentrification, and a, at this point, willful neglect of social services for the communities they've, in part, helped displace. There is little love in Austin now, no matter how many granola eating hippies can still afford the rent. Most of that place is gone, or quickly dissapearing. Give me Houston, which has comparable politics in the inner city, and the best museums and food in the state. Give me San Antonio, even, which is a more humble, but at least human place, and that does have better breakfast tacos than Austin. But Austin is gone. I dont think the enthusiasm and attention it gets is going away anytime soon, and people will continue to move in, and it will get "cooler" in the eyes of every google employee that resides there. And property investment will continue to churn, like crude oil in a Kitchenaide. But it has gone crazy, and I see no hope in it going back, its too big to fail, and that is maybe the whole problem.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    Say anything about "extreme and swift gentrification", but that's a side-effect of success. At least Texas does not have the restrictive zoning and NIMBY politics that make gentrification so much more of an issue in Blue states.
    - beepbooptheory 5y ago
      Unfortunately, Austin is utterly rife with nimbyism, and even worse, whatever the inverse of it is: new people moving into fancy apartments downtown, and then being angry that they hear the loud music so late at night, from the venues that were there way before them! Retroactive nimby? The venues that have survived are still good, but so so many were lost to residential development. Don't even get me started! It was a few years ago, but even the nationally recognized, Beard-award winning bbq darling Franklin BBQ was going to be affected by smoke ordinances, because the new development that cropped up around it, and the existence of lots of bbq smoke. Not sure what came of it, but people were quite vocal.

kadoban 5y ago

There'll still be one big reason: it's Texas.

lotsofpulp 5y ago

“Tech” women interested in retaining their ability to get medical services they might need would still have a reason to not move to Austin.

refurb 5y ago
Tech women can fly for their abortions.
- rosndo 5y ago
  Tech women would also be unlikely to need abortions in the first place, unintended pregnancies are very uncommon among high-income folks. E: Huh? What could possibly be controversial about this? Obviously an abortion ban affects low income folks far more than rich tech workers. For rich people this is a vague political issue, not a practical one.
  - kingsloi 5y ago
    Not all abortions are "unintended pregnancies" https://www.facebook.com/106201495/posts/953287657793/ https://www.facebook.com/106201495/posts/953287657793/
- mindslight 5y ago
  That only works for the simplistic image of abortion (elective, easy, painless, risk free) that the evangelical death cult has been pushing. It doesn't work for the actual medical reality. The disconnect between the two is staggering, and if you don't know what I'm talking about you owe it to yourself to look into the details of the actual medical procedure. It is not elective, easy, painless, or risk free. And while I support encouraging people to travel to route around their oppressive backwater hellholes, the ability to do so doesn't mean we should support places regressing towards being oppressive hellholes.