Asklemmy

You won't find any Aussies remotely worried about the Gun laws by the way

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.

I think California is an okay place, but there are several things that annoy me about it, and here are some:

The houseless problem seems extremely poorly managed. I lived in NYC for six years and have visited California a few times. From my experiences, both SF and LA appear to have much larger populations living outdoors (I checked and this is true, 75% of LA’s population vs 6% in NYC, and the cities are comparable in both population and houseless population). Additionally, I’ve had more issues interacting with houseless people in CA than in NYC despite having lived in Manhattan many times longer than I’ve spent in CA. My guess is this is due to worse services/mental health services in CA. I would frequently buy food or coffee for houseless individuals in NYC and never had an issue. I once gave a couple of dollars to someone CA for bus money. They yelled at me because they needed a couple more for the bus. Another time I was followed for several blocks.

California as a state and population seems to be at least as much bluster as action. I don’t want to detract from some real actions, like car electrification requirements, but for example, prop 65, the “known to the state of California to cause cancer” labels. A) California seems to “know” many things that science does not. B) no one pays any attention to these labels, but they sure cost a lot to produce C) if anything, this will cause people to ignore future warnings for real things or even current ones like on cigarettes.

As a longtime resident of Hawaii, this one just annoys me. California claimed it was the first state to plastic bags. This is false; As of May 11, 2014, they were banned across Hawaii. https://www.surfrider.org/news/hawaii-becomes-the-first-state-in-the-u.s.-to-ban-plastic-bags. This did not stop California from claiming the victory when a law was signed later that year that didn’t go into effect until July 2015. https://www.ca.gov/archive/gov39/2014/09/30/news18742/index.html. California doesn’t just not know what causes cancer, they don’t know how to use google despite it being from their state. I suppose you could argue semantically that Hawaii’s ban was not statewide, as it was technically four bans, one in each of the counties, but that’s splitting hairs.

I can’t speak for the entire state, but I’ve visited San Francisco many times (never lived there). It was one of the dirtiest, most disgusting cities I’ve ever visited, and I’ve visited Mumbai. I would leave conferences after speaking to people worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to be greeted by a sea of homeless people shooting up drugs, vomiting, and shitting in the streets. I’ve witnessed multiple crimes in the short trips I’ve taken, including mugging, theft, and assault. I’ve no doubt the city once held cultural cache and beauty, but it’s hard to find now. It’s hidden under a layer of crime, trash, boarded up stores, and graffiti.

Sadly my trips to Los Angeles were not much better. I am told other Californian cities are much nicer. It’s just such a shame to see what they have allowed to happen to such once beautiful cities.

Instead of helping Britney Spears, guardianships increased without a fiduciary duty lawyer for "gravely disabled" or predicted to get worse. Homeless people need shelter, not chemical restraint.

Describe these "people asked me", OP.

It is too hot.