With all the dismal news about America lately, my home, I'm starting to seriously look at where else to move.
Putting aside for now the difficulty of actually immigrating to some countries, I'm curious on the opinions of others (especially people living outside the U.S) on this.
What I'm looking for in a country is, I imagine, similar to many people. I'm trying to find somewhere that will exhibit:
- Low racism
- Low sexism
- Low LGBTQ-phobia
- Strong laws around food quality and safety
- Strong laws about environmental protection
- Strong laws against unethical corporate practices (monopoly, corruption, lobbying, etc)
- Strong laws for privacy
- Good treatment of mentally ill, homeless, and impoverished people
Those are the real important things. Of course the nice-to-haves are almost too obvious to be worth listing, low cost of living, strong art and cultural scene, nice environment, and so on.
My actual constraints that might really matter are that I only speak English (and maybe like A1-2 level German). It seems incredibly intimidating to try to find employment somewhere when I can hardly speak the language.
I know nowhere on Earth is perfect, just curious what people may have to suggest. I hope this question isn't too selfish to ask here.
China's surveillance isn't out of the norm for western countries, and our smartphones already track and leak our every movement. Western media will exaggerate the extent of Chinese surveillance, and make it seem like it's unique to China rather than part of a general trend in general.
One thing that's important is recognizing how this could be corruption. The state is only the extension of a given ruling class, so that's either the working class or the capitalists, to oversimplify. If the state were cracking down on workers, rather than capitalists, and privatizing industry so that people made huge profits off of the surveillance program, then that could be a sign of corruption, but that doesn't appear to be the case.
It isn't my place to say what extent is "right" for China. The Chinese working class has a right to chart their own course, without a westerner like me chastising them for not conforming to my expectations. For now, it seems they believe the social cost is worth it.