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Comment by kristopolous | Hacker News Reader

Many tech people such as me strongly prefer Los Angeles over the bay.

The bay "way of doing business" really irks and alienates me - polite people who couldn't care less about you baldly lying with a smile; constantly appeasing you as if you're a docile imbecile.

It's deeply insulting and incredibly disrespectful. No sincerity, humanity or compassion - void of substantive human interaction. It's a process, not a person.

For example, at events there I'm a networking point in a social elbow running contest. I've had people turn away from me pretending I don't exist if I'm not connected with who they want. it means that the pleasantries of the social interaction was a total farce - the "personal connection"? 100% grade A bullshit. The acrimony and inhumanity of it disgusts me.

Makes me ill just thinking of it. What a dreadful place. Terrible 8 years of my life.

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> if I'm not connected with who they want. it means that the pleasantries of the social interaction was a total farce - the "personal connection"? 100% grade A bullshit. The acrimony and inhumanity of it disgusts me.

This made me laugh. I'm not sure about the tech scene specifically, but LA in general has this reputation for the entire city & cited as the main motivation by everyone I know that has moved away from it.

>polite people who couldn't care less about you baldly lying with a smile; constantly appeasing you as if you're a docile imbecile

Same here. Was attempting to figure out if this was sarcasm or not. This is how I'd describe LA, with one small difference. In LA you're treated as if you're super cool, rather than a docile imbecile. Had to laugh.

It does have that reputation. Presuming that being considered insincere is undesirable, I think people are keen to counter that urban mythos.

There's a combative culture here against the busybody with the bluetooth and latte discounting the people around them as an aberrant narrative.

LA has a culture of listening and compassionate attention if you reach for it. I was reaching for it for years in the bay but mostly found people pigeonholing me, not as an engaging human being but as a self-entitled bottomfeeder.

When you picture the smiley glad-hands, admit it--you're picturing a movie producer. The further outside the entertainment industry, the more normal LA gets.

i prefer LA (specifically the west side) over SF for many reasons but i think you're going to find plenty of fake and/or disingenuous assholes in any major city, generally among newcomers and people "trying to make it". this is especially true of the conference/mixer crowd. it's full of dipshits and wannabes and hangers-on.

i've spent time in la, sf, new york and seattle and the demographic archetypes are largely the same all over the socioeconomic spectrum. there may be relatively more or less of each, but they're there.

the trick is finding and cultivating relationships with the good people, wherever you are. anyone can point out the assholes and complain about the 'people' in a city.

Good thing you're not in Hollywood! :)

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