berkeley, san francisco is like saying maitland, newcastle
re: #1: yeah I don’t feel unsafe outside after dark in the bay. If a homeless person walks by, I’ll just say hi and ask if they have any urgent unmet needs. even just acknowledging them as a person is a nice gesture, though. many will try to engage much more than you have time or interest for; it’s okay to just walk away from the convo.
had to look up what “getting rolled” is. yeah, it’s possible, but not that hard to avoid. if an area seems very poor, there will be more desperate people. but the highest risk of being robbed is probably opportunistically on the train. keep your eyes mobile; it’s probably a 1 in 300 to 1 in 3,000 train trips event, but it’s pretty annoying when it happens, to put it mildly.
I’m not aware of there being an intense presence of organized aggressive groups in oakland, but there’s certainly plenty of disorganized aggression, again mostly from desperate people. I got out of what was going to be a mugging once by offering to send them internet money (venmo) before they asked for anything, and they were so knocked off balance by this (I was saying “I don’t have cash but I can send it on an app”) that they almost bolted instead of accepting it. carry cash if you want to share it on purpose (people ask for money a lot and it feels nicer to say yes than no); don’t if you don’t. it’s not as bad as some places though, because the warmth means less desperation from homeless folks; homeless folks are usually pretty chill, if rather upset at the system. there is a specific ongoing aggressive presence: there are organized car-breakin and bike theft rings. but I don’t think it’s like gangs you may have heard about in the past in LA. the theft rings generally want to grab the thing and get the fuck away, not engage. if you hadn’t asked and nobody had told you, you probably wouldn’t even have noticed anything besides harmless homeless people mumbling something they think is interesting under their breath and not expecting to be understood because they get ignored by everyone.
yeah homeless people often have tents. it’s not where a civ would hope to be, but tents are just houses. treat it similarly.
is it a cult: you tell me whether it has the bad patterns that define cults. I’d personally say there have been cults spawned by it, but it’s more of a general community, with reasonably healthy community patterns. Don’t (ever) let your guard down about cults, though, in any context.
you should be worried someone convinces you to move to the bay. it’s not worth it. like, literally entirely for cost of housing reasons, no other reason, everything else is great, there’s a reason people are there anyway. but phew, the niceness comes with a honkin price tag. and no, living in a 10ft by 10ft room to get vaguely normal sounding rent is not a good idea, even though it’s possible.
average bay area people are definitely overachievers, see above about cost of housing. this is not true of america in general.
the most important california warnings are about weed: don’t buy weed. DON’T USE INHALED WEED. edibles can be a bad time if you take more than you think you’re taking, but won’t ruin your whole life as long as you go in with steadfast rules about when you have them, and rules like not buying them yourself. in fact, never use an inhaled or injected recreational drug, period—the fast uptake is extremely dangerous and will likely actually knock your motivation system off balance hard enough to probably ruin your life. you probably won’t be offered weed unless you ask for it, and even then most people won’t have any to share. If they do, it might be because they have a bad habit. It’s a fun drug when contained to a social setting, though. if someone has some I might suggest trying 2mg or less (ie, one fifth chunk of a normal 10mg edible), even if you’re used to weed it’s not the vibe I’d suggest for highly technical conversations.
you should be worried someone convinces you to move to the bay. it’s not worth it. like, literally entirely for cost of housing reasons, no other reason, everything else is great, there’s a reason people are there anyway. but phew, the niceness comes with a honkin price tag. and no, living in a 10ft by 10ft room to get vaguely normal sounding rent is not a good idea, even though it’s possible.
Why’s this not a good idea? 10ft by 10ft is a lot of room. More than I had in some flats when I went to university.
That’s fair, but it sounds like a personal preference. I asked because maybe you knew there was something unusually bad about small flats in the Bay Area that even folks like me would find annoying.
in fact, never use an inhaled or injected recreational drug, period—the fast uptake is extremely dangerous and will likely actually knock your motivation system off balance hard enough to probably ruin your life.
I don’t think this can be remotely justified by the evidence, formal or anecdotal. Inhaling weed isn’t dangerous, let alone extremely so, and will almost certainly not ruin anyone’s life, as the hundreds of millions of happy users can attest (get yours today!) Hell, shisha is an inhaled recreational drug!
I’m not sure it makes sense to generalise about an entire method of delivery, when all sorts of substances with very different effects can be consumed that way.
That first point made me laugh. It’s exactly the type of mistake I expected to make, and I still didn’t see it coming.
I appreciate all this safety advice and will update my decision making based on that.
Geez, the weed thing surprises me. I hadn’t planned to smoke any until after the event. But I think I’ll avoid that now. I’m already struggling with motivation from jet lag. I don’t want to increase that feeling.
The weed thing is not true. It can sap your motivation acutely, and perhaps even have a more sustained (if definitely temporary) effect. But it certainly doesn’t ruin your life by instantly “knocking your motivational system off balance”.
It’s a relatively chemically safe drug, but is easily habit forming and knocks you out of a productive space if used more than once every 3 to 6 months, imo. your reasoning seems reasonable. have fun with the trip!
Have fun! I won’t be going. Some random notes:
berkeley, san francisco is like saying maitland, newcastle
re: #1: yeah I don’t feel unsafe outside after dark in the bay. If a homeless person walks by, I’ll just say hi and ask if they have any urgent unmet needs. even just acknowledging them as a person is a nice gesture, though. many will try to engage much more than you have time or interest for; it’s okay to just walk away from the convo.
had to look up what “getting rolled” is. yeah, it’s possible, but not that hard to avoid. if an area seems very poor, there will be more desperate people. but the highest risk of being robbed is probably opportunistically on the train. keep your eyes mobile; it’s probably a 1 in 300 to 1 in 3,000 train trips event, but it’s pretty annoying when it happens, to put it mildly.
I’m not aware of there being an intense presence of organized aggressive groups in oakland, but there’s certainly plenty of disorganized aggression, again mostly from desperate people. I got out of what was going to be a mugging once by offering to send them internet money (venmo) before they asked for anything, and they were so knocked off balance by this (I was saying “I don’t have cash but I can send it on an app”) that they almost bolted instead of accepting it. carry cash if you want to share it on purpose (people ask for money a lot and it feels nicer to say yes than no); don’t if you don’t. it’s not as bad as some places though, because the warmth means less desperation from homeless folks; homeless folks are usually pretty chill, if rather upset at the system. there is a specific ongoing aggressive presence: there are organized car-breakin and bike theft rings. but I don’t think it’s like gangs you may have heard about in the past in LA. the theft rings generally want to grab the thing and get the fuck away, not engage. if you hadn’t asked and nobody had told you, you probably wouldn’t even have noticed anything besides harmless homeless people mumbling something they think is interesting under their breath and not expecting to be understood because they get ignored by everyone.
yeah homeless people often have tents. it’s not where a civ would hope to be, but tents are just houses. treat it similarly.
is it a cult: you tell me whether it has the bad patterns that define cults. I’d personally say there have been cults spawned by it, but it’s more of a general community, with reasonably healthy community patterns. Don’t (ever) let your guard down about cults, though, in any context.
you should be worried someone convinces you to move to the bay. it’s not worth it. like, literally entirely for cost of housing reasons, no other reason, everything else is great, there’s a reason people are there anyway. but phew, the niceness comes with a honkin price tag. and no, living in a 10ft by 10ft room to get vaguely normal sounding rent is not a good idea, even though it’s possible.
average bay area people are definitely overachievers, see above about cost of housing. this is not true of america in general.
the most important california warnings are about weed: don’t buy weed. DON’T USE INHALED WEED. edibles can be a bad time if you take more than you think you’re taking, but won’t ruin your whole life as long as you go in with steadfast rules about when you have them, and rules like not buying them yourself. in fact, never use an inhaled or injected recreational drug, period—the fast uptake is extremely dangerous and will likely actually knock your motivation system off balance hard enough to probably ruin your life. you probably won’t be offered weed unless you ask for it, and even then most people won’t have any to share. If they do, it might be because they have a bad habit. It’s a fun drug when contained to a social setting, though. if someone has some I might suggest trying 2mg or less (ie, one fifth chunk of a normal 10mg edible), even if you’re used to weed it’s not the vibe I’d suggest for highly technical conversations.
Why’s this not a good idea? 10ft by 10ft is a lot of room. More than I had in some flats when I went to university.
I went pretty stir crazy without enough room to move around.
That’s fair, but it sounds like a personal preference. I asked because maybe you knew there was something unusually bad about small flats in the Bay Area that even folks like me would find annoying.
I don’t think this can be remotely justified by the evidence, formal or anecdotal. Inhaling weed isn’t dangerous, let alone extremely so, and will almost certainly not ruin anyone’s life, as the hundreds of millions of happy users can attest (get yours today!) Hell, shisha is an inhaled recreational drug!
I’m not sure it makes sense to generalise about an entire method of delivery, when all sorts of substances with very different effects can be consumed that way.
That first point made me laugh. It’s exactly the type of mistake I expected to make, and I still didn’t see it coming.
I appreciate all this safety advice and will update my decision making based on that.
Geez, the weed thing surprises me. I hadn’t planned to smoke any until after the event. But I think I’ll avoid that now. I’m already struggling with motivation from jet lag. I don’t want to increase that feeling.
The weed thing is not true. It can sap your motivation acutely, and perhaps even have a more sustained (if definitely temporary) effect. But it certainly doesn’t ruin your life by instantly “knocking your motivational system off balance”.
It’s a relatively chemically safe drug, but is easily habit forming and knocks you out of a productive space if used more than once every 3 to 6 months, imo. your reasoning seems reasonable. have fun with the trip!