The problem with California is that it's in the USA. A country with many problems. Compared to other developed countries, anywhere inside the USA is bad.
this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
293 points (100.0% liked)
Asklemmy
1459 readers
75 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Taxes are super high. I'd be big mad if I was Californian, they get very little investment back from federal taxes (they are effectively subsidizing the poorly run states) and have to make up the shortfall at the state level.
load more comments
(2 replies)
I love California but I dislike LA.
California is disliked by other US states for the same reason other countries might not like the US. It gets a disproportionate level of exposure and then you go there and it becomes a "don't meet your heroes" type of situation.
Someone who lives in California not originally from here chiming in. For me personally, I hate it because of the weather. I live in SoCal, which people claim to have good weather, but to me it’s hell. It never rains, the sun is always shining, and it’s always hot while most apartments don’t have AC. This may sound lovely to you, in which case more power to you. I’m the kind of person where the sun saps all energy out of my body and I prefer being cold to warm, so this sucks. Other main downside is housing cost. My 650 square foot one bed apartment in suburban LA costs over $2000 a month and it’s cheap for the size and area. Maybe Northern California is nicer, but SoCal ain’t it
Funny, I have an ex who lived in San Diego for a while, and for her the weather was one of the best parts of living there.
I loved California. I just couldn't afford it anymore.
Also, their power grid has to be the only one worse than Texas. My power was ALWAYS going out there. Last time I visited my parents there, their power was out for 3 of the 7 days I was there.
Which provider did you have? I lose power way way less often than I did on the East Coast. I think a lot of it is specific to the power company.
I had PG&E. They were the only power company when I lived there. Not sure if things changed, but we didn't have a choice. PG&E was sued a few years earlier from a fire that was started due to high winds knocking down power lines, so as a "fuck you" they decided to shut down power any time the wind was blowing, which was all the damn time.
load more comments
(1 replies)
It sort of depends on where you are, but in San Francisco and Los Angeles, the homeless problem is noticeably worse than almost anywhere else in America. It’s bad.
An ex of mine lives in a pretty posh part of LA (Crestview). She works constantly and really hard to afford to live there. Now there are people literally shooting heroin on the street outside her home and to take her toddler to play at the park, they’re basically walking around the bodies of people high/sleeping.
I mean, I’m as anti-drug war as they come, but that’s no way to live and the police really should clear it out. Even in the poorer parts of most other cities, that’s not something you see.
What part of CA did you move to? I moved here a few years ago and love it. The weather is great (depending on where you live of course - coast is always temperate) and I've traveled to most of the regions in the state and they all have something unique and amazing to offer.
The fact that I don't fear my personal rights getting stripped T the federal level as much is because California does so much in the way of protecting and bettering our lives here.
I lived there and made $90k a year. Lived like 50 minutes from work, still paid $2.5k per month for a 500sqft studio and qualified as low income for the area. If people making that much are considered low income, something has failed.
Was it an occupation that would have made half that amount elsewhere in the country? Cost of living and salaries typically go hand in hand. Issues of essential workers having to live far outside of where they work notwithstanding.
People who live in a much lower cost of living society could say the same thing about Americans making $30k. "If people making that much are considered low income, something is wrong" it's all relative.
If California were a country by itself it would have the 5th highest GDP in the world, literally more than the UK or India, but 40 million people instead of 1.4 billion. It's not that crazy.
load more comments
(1 replies)
California is a garden of Eden
A paradise to live in or see
But believe it or not, you won't find it so hot
If you ain't got the do re mi
Woody Guthrie, “Do Re Mi”
I think one reason is the news portrayal like others mentioned—though this often goes two-ways—ask a native Californian what they think the South or Midwest are like and you’ll often get some crazy off base responses.
I think another big piece is that CA policies have a disproportionately large impact on everyone else’s policies (they share this characteristic with NY to some extent). CA has the 3rd largest economy in the world and therefore companies often have to adhere to CA policies in order to keep from losing an extremely significant market share. For example, CA committing to no more gas cars by X date immediately made gas vehicles an obsolete product for the manufacturers’ bottom line.
That sort of self-gratifying nonsense only works if the target is more successful than you.
Using it against a target that is less successful than you would be picking on people who can't defend themselves.
I also like the "you get what you vote for" comments about CA. WE voted for the best candidate out there at the time for Gov., we've had both parties in the past and they were a mixed lot...the guy who lost during the last recall election was dragging around a live bear to do press events and didnt have much of a position on anything relevant and he lost...
Politicals, wokeness, crime, shit on the roads, heat, shoplifting, crazy people, etc.