kaboomman · HackerTrans

5 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

Yes, I personally think so. It's a difficult comparison because the effects of Facebook are not obvious physically, like e.g. tobacco is. That makes it even more dangerous because it seems safe. But the negative effects of mental health and misinformation (politics, health, etc) also indirectly kill people or make them miserable, it's just not a direct association that's easy to measure. These effects probably have a larger negative impact on the world overall than something simple with obvious effects like tobacco.

kaboomman

5 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

I will never work for Facebook. I think it's the most evil product and company that exists and that it has hurt humanity significantly more than it has helped.

That doesn't mean each individual part of FB is evil. I'm sure there are some good-willing people and a great projects going on inside. But I could never live with myself supporting a product like this, even just by association.

kaboomman

5 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

As someone living in Japan, none of this has been true for for me. Except for the driving license part, I can't comment on that since I never tried to get one. Perhaps it was like this 10 years ago or may be the case in rural areas, but life in Tokyo is pretty hassle and paperwork free.

I also had never had problems with soundproofing. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised how super soundproof everything was compared to the places I lived in in the U.S. But I've only ever lived in newer apartment buildings, not the old ones.

kaboomman

5 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

Maybe unpopular opinion: Either do the same or leave if you cannot handle it.

What you're running into is mismatched incentives. Why would they even care about making the code nicer? It has mostly downsides. So the company can move faster? They don't care because they still get paid the same. It's not their company. Refactoring takes time and doesn't show up on most performance reviews. It's the gmail affect - you get promoted when you ship new features and make a "new version of something" - not by fixing old code. Cleaning up code also has the downside that the original authors are now replaceable because more people can understand it.

By trying to change this you are probably just hurting yourself. You are making enemies and annoying people and are not benefitting anyone.

This is pretty common in FAANG, but it's not like this in all teams. It depends on the team more than the company. There are some teams that are more "startup-like" where incentives are a bit more aligned. Maybe you can transfer.

kaboomman

5 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

I recommend Thailand. I don't live there anymore but I used to. It's very doable to live on $1000/mo if you don't live in the center of Bangkok (try Chiang Mai) and eat local food. You have the added bonus of a huge expat and digital nomad community, including many game developers, and no problems doing everything in English. Most things are no-hassle, no big deposits, etc, you just pay, and that's it.

And nice beaches aren't far away.

kaboomman

5 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

This. Living (even partially) overseas as someone who was born in the U.S. has so many disadvantages. The U.S. is the only country in the world that imposes global tax. Not only that, taxes are really complex and cost a fortune to file if you have overseas assets. Now, add to that that I cannot sign up for many bank accounts or other financial institutions because they don't accept U.S. customers - they don't want to deal with IRS filings either. It's not about tax evasion. It's just a huge pain being an American that owns property and spends a lot of time overseas.

At some point, depending on how much time you spent overseas and how many assets you own, the benefits of giving up US citizenship start to outweigh the cons. And it's better to do this soon than later because exit tax is a thing.

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