Accelerating Future

Move to Beautiful San Francisco Tuesday, Aug 29 2006

random Michael Anissimov 4:10 pm

The San Francisco Bay Area is the best. There is no city or area as great as it is. If you have any doubt about where you are living, start looking on craigslist right away for an apartment or home in SF.

They say it’s expensive to live here. Well, yes, but the jobs are also great, and minimum wage is quite high - $8.82 an hour. If you’re a bit older and have some career experience in a technical profession, pulling in a six-figure income is definitely achievable. Some of the biggest gravy trains in the world are located right in our backyard. My father is currently making a killing as a consultant at Genentech. My sister just walked into some dental office and got hired immediately.

Have winter or any other form of unpleasant weather where you live? Not here. It is always temperate, thanks to the sublime maritime clime. Half of the City is covered in pleasant fog, the other half is frequently sunny. Around the Bay Area it is very warm and pleasant year-round.

SF is the leader of the world. We’re a capital of social equality, technical prowess, fun things to do, and general badassery. There aren’t many bad neighborhoods in the Bay Area. Half is yuppie and the other half is just normal. You won’t get jumped.

Yahoo, Google, Oracle, YouTube, AMD, Apple, Ebay, Hewlett-Packard, EA, National Semiconductor, Symantec, Sun, Intel, Palm, Paypal, and Logitech are here. Everyone I know who is working at these companies is making $80,000+ a year. The general atmosphere of prosperity bleeds into everything else.

San Francisco itself is like Disneyland. Nestled into the end of a little peninsula, the City itself only measures 7 by 7 miles, but is home to almost a million people. Downtown, Haight, Richmond, Pacific Heights, the Marina, Twin Peaks, SoMA, the Sunset… every neighborhood is different from the next and all are located right next to each other. The longest drive from point A to point B in this city is 25 minutes, with 15 minutes a more likely average.

There are beaches to visit, huge parks to run in, world-class restaurants for dining, the rest of the Bay to visit via auto or ferry, hundreds of excellent hills with awesome views, ocean on all sides, the Golden Gate bridge… what more do you want?

The epicentres of transhumanism are here. This is where the movement is gathering. The Singularity and Foresight Institutes are here, along with hundreds of hardcore transhumanists. Futurist-oriented meetings occur almost on a nightly basis. You will find many hundreds of thousands of transhumanist sympathizers among the alumni or students of Berkeley, Stanford, or dozens of other small colleges in the area.

Unless you are inextricably stapled down to where you are now, with no hope of escape, I suggest you pack your bags and head here as soon as possible. The wife (or husband) and kids will adapt. Move here, and within a couple weeks you’ll forget about wherever it is you came from. San Francisco is the best.

Sincerely,
Michael Anissimov (who was raised in Burlingame, CA)

15 Responses to “Move to Beautiful San Francisco”

Ryan Says:
August 29th, 2006 at 4:32 pm

sounds real swell… until the big one hits!
In all seriousness though, how much risk is there from earthquakes in the bay area?

Michael Anissimov Says:
August 29th, 2006 at 5:03 pm

In all seriousness though, how much risk is there from earthquakes in the bay area?

None, it’s just a crappy rumor that there is significant risk. I only remember two earthquakes in my life. In 1989 only a few people died, max. Negligible compared to the risk of asteroid impact, drunk driving, or, heaven forbid, unfriendly AI.

Brian Wang Says:
August 29th, 2006 at 5:57 pm

My perspective: I have lived in the SF bay area for the last eleven years. I used to live in Canada and lived in Asia for two years.

I experienced more earthquakes in two years in Asia than I have in eleven in San Francisco. (also, experienced two typhoons in Asia). Hong Kong and Taiwan both get fairly frequent smaller 5 or less quakes usually. A couple of the ones I felt in Asia were because I was working in a high rise and living in a high rise. You can feel smaller quakes because tall buildings move more at the top.

The greater wealth of the Bay Area lets them use building methods that are 20% more expensive but are more effective against quakes. Something that poorer places that get larger casualties rates have a problem with. Big death tolls in Asia, middle east from earth quakes because they cannot afford and do not have as many engineers and architects to build more disaster resistant buildings. This is similar to the problem in New Orleans where if they had better building code enforcement prior there would have been less problems. They are now doing things like using screws to hold roofs on instead of nails. California does have its own levy problems, but fewer people living below sea level.

The Bay Area has a small fraction of buildings over 5 stories tall.

I would say it is the risks that a place has not been planning decades for that will be a greater problem. Day to day it would be more likely that one would get killed in traffic than an earthquake.

There is significant crime in parts of Oakland and the city of Richmond, significant traffic deaths (running lights in San Francisco.)

Giu1i0 Pri5c0 Says:
August 29th, 2006 at 10:36 pm

I love SF but last time I was there I did not have the impression to be in a “capital of social equality”. Better than most other US cities in this respect, but I still see a wealth gap too high for a stable society.

jeriaska Says:
August 30th, 2006 at 1:50 pm

Alright, I will.

shegeek Says:
August 30th, 2006 at 2:38 pm

In about 3-5 mo I will be moving to San Jose. Not quite in the City, but fairly close. I am so stoked!

Martin Says:
August 30th, 2006 at 11:33 pm

I would love to be 18 years old in 1965 in SF. I would also love to be 18 years old in 2065 anywhere.

MCP2012 Says:
August 31st, 2006 at 3:32 pm

Tempting, Michael, very tempting…I’ve been to SF once, back several years ago, and was overwhelmed by the beauty and scenic grandeur. the view from the top of Mount Tamalpais (sp?)was magnificent. Both Berkeley & Stanford rock, of course. I’m sure I’ll make it back out there for a visit fairly soon, and just might relocate there…we’ll see…