Upvoted, I would like to see Berlin considered more strongly. Having lived there for two years, I think it’s hard to overestimate how high the quality of living in Berlin is, not just in the easily verifiable ways listed above, but also in more subtle ways. E.g., in addition to being much cheaper, restaurants/cuisine just generally seems higher quality compared to many other places. German housing is much better than UK/US housing in ways that seem hard to appreciate for people who haven’t lived in both locations, etc.
Edit: To clarify, I don’t want to suggest Berlin as the one single best rationalist hub, but as one of the global top 5.
To add some downsides:
The language barrier is still a bit of an issue if you care about making friends outside the rationalist community
The airports are among the worst in the world Not true anymore (finally)
One of the biggest downsides from my perspective of moving out of the U.S. and the Bay Area in particular is drastically lower salaries in many industries, in particular software engineering. My guess is most software engineers we know would literally be looking at 70% pay reductions (as in make 30% of what they previously made). I think this is a strong enough reason that I would be very hesitant to move to Berlin long-term, and I think would reduce surplus income of individuals by something like 50%, which I think is a really big deal.
I mean, most of the people I know live pretty frugally, which means that those differences don’t matter that much. Housing for people in group houses in Berkeley only costs about $12k a year, so you can’t save that much on that. In addition there are also much higher tax rates. Having done the calculations, I actually expect discretionary income to go down by more something like 75%, because you also pay a lot more in taxes.
The language barrier is still a bit of an issue if you care about making friends outside the rationalist community
I live in Berlin and do have nonrationalist friends with whom I mainly speak English. There are plenty of English-speaking events where people can find friends with whom to talk English.
I recently asked a person I meet about what issues she has with living in Berlin without knowing German and her main complaint was that it’s hard to interact with the government as that requires someone to translate for them.
Raising a family would likely also require learning some German.
I know of some EAs who lived in Berlin and found it very difficult to make friends due to the language barriers, and some EAs who had an experience more similar to yours.
Upvoted, I would like to see Berlin considered more strongly. Having lived there for two years, I think it’s hard to overestimate how high the quality of living in Berlin is, not just in the easily verifiable ways listed above, but also in more subtle ways. E.g., in addition to being much cheaper, restaurants/cuisine just generally seems higher quality compared to many other places. German housing is much better than UK/US housing in ways that seem hard to appreciate for people who haven’t lived in both locations, etc.
Edit: To clarify, I don’t want to suggest Berlin as the one single best rationalist hub, but as one of the global top 5.
To add some downsides:
The language barrier is still a bit of an issue if you care about making friends outside the rationalist community
The airports are among the worst in the worldNot true anymore (finally)One of the biggest downsides from my perspective of moving out of the U.S. and the Bay Area in particular is drastically lower salaries in many industries, in particular software engineering. My guess is most software engineers we know would literally be looking at 70% pay reductions (as in make 30% of what they previously made). I think this is a strong enough reason that I would be very hesitant to move to Berlin long-term, and I think would reduce surplus income of individuals by something like 50%, which I think is a really big deal.
Yeah. Adjusting for cost of living and purchasing power, it would be (much?) less, but still a good reason against moving.
I mean, most of the people I know live pretty frugally, which means that those differences don’t matter that much. Housing for people in group houses in Berkeley only costs about $12k a year, so you can’t save that much on that. In addition there are also much higher tax rates. Having done the calculations, I actually expect discretionary income to go down by more something like 75%, because you also pay a lot more in taxes.
Yeah, that seems very plausible for frugal people who don’t pay much rent, don’t eat out that often, etc. and updates me against Berlin
I live in Berlin and do have nonrationalist friends with whom I mainly speak English. There are plenty of English-speaking events where people can find friends with whom to talk English.
I recently asked a person I meet about what issues she has with living in Berlin without knowing German and her main complaint was that it’s hard to interact with the government as that requires someone to translate for them.
Raising a family would likely also require learning some German.
Our new one is finally ready :)
I know of some EAs who lived in Berlin and found it very difficult to make friends due to the language barriers, and some EAs who had an experience more similar to yours.