ITT: A lot of people doing the typical StackOverflow thing of asserting the question is bad and answering a different question instead.
No country's that great but Canada's doing aight.
Thanks for understanding, I do feel a bit hurt by some insinuations in some responses, but I understand why citizens of the world would feel unhappy with whiny Americans right now. I just hope it doesn't progress into a hatred. Many of my fellow Americans are very good people, but unfortunately we are so disenfranchised politically - I think it's hard to convey the extent of it. The state of things here isn't a result of laziness and unwillingness to participate. But in fairness, I didn't refine my original post deeply and it came off not quite right. I'm not looking to selfishly abandon ship or become a silent drain on another country. I would love to build community, but it's certainly easier in some places than others, for a wide variety of reasons.
I think this is a very valid question. Sometimes the grass really is greener on the other side.
I like it here in Germany. Laws and social safety are relatively strong. Oftentimes I see an article about some chemical common in food being a cancer risk, and then I research it and see that it is a US-centered article and that the EU already banned the chemical years ago.
Right wing populism is strongly on the rise here though. Racism and LGBTQ-phobia will strongly depend, with smaller villages and regions in East Germany being worse on average.
If you're a top earner, you most likely won't get the crazy high salaries here that you might expect from the US (even if accounted for cost of living, childcare etc).
Bureaucracy is annoying.
Rent can be very high depending on the region.
Job market strongly favors German speakers. I heard the Netherlands are more open in that regard. I think this will be your biggest hurdle.
Just noticed I used "strongly" three times in the post. Gonna need to find new adverbs.
What I learned about Germany most recently is that it's super-mega FOSS-prioritizing, which is awesome!
It's not Super-Mega FOSS-prioritizing, but there are some efforts into that direction.
also in my experience, while a lot of Germans are happy to chat with you in English in a social setting, business talk is usually expected to be held in German
My German teacher had a fairly profound impact on my life, I knew him for four years and he was absolutely enamored with everything about Germany. Like the German equivalent of a weeb. Some of that has transferred to me, I like basically every aspect of German culture I'm familiar with, especially the sense of humor. Since I already have some language familiarity, it's always been near the top of my list, until recently with the AfD stuff giving me a bit of a fright. Although I saw they were recently classified as extremists, which was reassuring (thanks Lemmy for being such a good news source!)
It's of course too bad to hear about the rural racism, especially since I'd prefer a rural place of living, but it seems those two things always go together to some extent.
I'm certainly going to enroll in classes for whatever language corresponds to my target country. I really want to be an exemplary citizen of anywhere I go. I feel it's an honor to be accepted for a visa somewhere so I don't want to take that lightly. My biggest concern is just that I won't be that great with the target language despite my best efforts.
Thank you very much for your insights and kind words!
US ex pat here:
I think you will find more success in this if you find a place or two you want to live in and run TO something instead of AWAY from something. It'll always be a bit of both, but this post reads more like (very understandably) "get me out of here" than "I want to be somewhere new".
Being an ex pat has plenty of hard aspects of course. I think some of them are made quite a bit easier when you passionately dive into the culture and life in a new place. At least to me it would be impossible if my head was still in the US.
Of course you're doing nothing wrong! Just some advice if it gets a bit more serious.
Like many in the thread: Canada, Australia/New Zealand, Scandinavia, Germany, UK (not that they're doing fantastic right now), Netherlands would be my top choices with your criteria. Most large companies will be more likely to have English speaking as the working language and you'll learn the local language (s) while living there. Best of luck!
Yeah, some of that is the impromptu nature of this post. I've thought about moving to other countries since high school. I'm very interested in a lot of cultural things that are just vastly more prevalent and thriving in Europe. Sometimes it feels like I was born in the wrong place. So there are definitely places I'd love to run to. I visited Switzerland and it felt like heaven on Earth compared to my state. I wanted to move there long before Trump's first election. But it seems that particular country is near impossible to move to, plus Swiss German seems particularly tough.
I really like learning about other cultures and such, I'm afraid I may have come off entirely wrong in the brevity and laser-focus of my original post.
Very interesting that you say the working language would be English. That's fantastic news. I definitely think I can get to a basic conversational level with languages pretty quickly, but reaching the technical professional level is my big fear. So that's very encouraging to hear that it may not be so dire as that at least in the Netherlands. Thank you for taking the time to respond!
Yeah, certainly depends exactly where you go. A capital city and a rural town will feel extremely different on English speaking (and cultural/political views at that).
I think it's quite possible to do though. Happy to chat or answer any specific questions you have, especially if they're Scandinavia based.
It's a tough choice to do something like you're talking about but extremely fulfilling. I wouldn't trade the decision for the world at this point. I wish you the best of luck!
Come to Canada, the weed is legal
Canada is certainly tempting if only on the basis that I would be closer to my family, and my family closer to me. And the recent election results were very relieving. Weed is legal here too though, haha.
the election results are much closer than you'd think. Popular vote had only a couple % lead. Everyone had to abandon voting for their preferred small party (e.g. greens, BQ, or NDP) to get liberals enough seats to beat the conservatives.
These exist almost nowhere in the world
Well, in France you have 4 free consultation to psy therapy per year, and government recently stop a project of drilling oil in Acquitaine because it was in a natural preservation area.
Far from being perfect but its something.
Yes indeed :( it's a wishlist for sure, not feasible in it's purest form.
You should instead put energy into your environment and community to make positive changes in your area.
Yes, I've thought about this a lot and do make efforts to improve my environment. But it's disheartening, the vast majority of people in my community are extreme Trump supporters. I know people who threw parties to celebrate the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. It's hard to know how to improve my community in light of that, and in fact it's hard to even want to.
But I am open to suggestions, what do you think are some of the best things I could do to improve my area?
The Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia have all those things and people tend to speak English really well.
As for the 'No racism' part, skip the Netherlands. One of the current governing parties is openly racist and can even be considered fascist. Also, we have a huge housing crisis, so finding a place to live may be challenging.
European racism is casual compared to even everyday American racism, even considering the likes of AfD
I wouldn't rely on Germany to remain stable and democratic these days. The fascists are the strongest party and the new chancellor is an oligarchy stooge of the worst kind.
Things aren't much better in The Netherlands. The PVV is part of the government now. The good news is that having to form a coalition with other parties, seems to have reigned in some of their worst tendencies. Also, their minister of immigration is a total nitwit that can't get any sort of actual policy implemented. If they keep failing to make any kind of progress on this issue, hopefully they won't do as well in the next election.
That's most European countries. Pick one, learn its language and immigration laws, and off you go
After been in 5 continents in 30+ countries and living in 6... the best for your requirements is Spain. Spain, even the opposing parties are unlikely to touch most of those protections since it has wide support among the population. Now, Spain is not panacea, it still has stigma against Gypsies, older people face job discrimination, etc.
Regarding privacy is OK, more due to inaction than protection but far better than most neighbors in the north.
On corruption... the 'perception' is that there is plenty but no more than I witnessed in countries like Germany, UK or USA... the difference is that corruption in Spain is highly exposed by rival parties/media while in the other countries it is no so sensationalized, that is why of the increase 'perception'. By the way, Scandinavia, that I used to admire, above local governments, I don´t see it much better on corruption levels, specially since late 2000s.
Regarding foreigners, Spain has many offers in certain jobs, where English is a requirement, but not easy at all for more common jobs where the local language is what is mostly used, even if you dominate it well. Now, you will be surprised how many companies are moving jobs to Spain since it is easier to attract talent to Barcelona or Malaga than to Berlin or Grenoble... and they save in salaries.
Now, if you put less emphasis in sexism and LGBTQ, certain countries in Latin America like Mexico or Uruguay, or across the ocean others like Malaysia may be more appealing, it is not that they are expressively against those groups, it is just they demand a more quiet sexual expression from you.
Lastly, countries like Australia, New Zealand and the like have become so corrupt at high level and against privacy and freedom of expression in certain topics, should be disregarded if you emphasis on that. Ireland, is the only exception in the Anglo world, now, like Switzerland and Norway, they are floating in money o every one is okay while economies are good... the test comes, as always, come in challenging times. Till, then, consider those three too.
Spain is one of the main supporters of the infamous chatcontrol and wants to ban encryption. So, please tell me more about Spain and its stance on privacy …
Denmark seems to fit fairly well and there are some English-only jobs in Copenhagen. I have a lot of colleagues that don't speak Danish.
I suggest developing a plan that is not just about building a better lifenfor yourself, but for others and community. For example, China ticks all of your boxes (yes, even privacy in comparison to the US), but it is also important to consider how you would personally make China better in the process, as you are, by moving, saying that your current conditions are pushing you to want to leave. So what about your current place of living was driven to that and how can this be made the case the world over?
Ultimately, capitalism is the underlying force of reaction, conservatism, and deprivation. It sets the guard rails of social policy, funds and purges the thought-moving forces of society. It creates homelessness. It destroys countries and societies, forcing them to adopy defensive and antagonistic positions to be viable and not only dominated. So I would recommend also thinking of this question in terms of how you might build your life as well as do well in fighting capitalism. As, ultimately, if this force is not recognized, you might find a place that ticka your boxes but is ultimately a forcr for capitalist expansion, e.g. most OECD countries. This wouldn't make you a bad person but it is a major wrinkle in the idea of building a good life by finding a place based on these (all very reasonable) boxes to tick off.
China is very much not low racism. You will encounter quite a lot of racism especially if you are black. Everyone is different but the racists are far more public about being racist.
If you are white you get stares and reverse racism until you mess up then real racism. If you’re black you just get racism.
I deeply agree with the community aspect. I can see how my original post came off as self-centered, but it's always been my vision to be an active contributor to the local and larger communities of wherever I live. I am generally a pro-social person and do my best to help my local community. I definitely agree that building a strong community is vital to the criteria I'm looking for. It's just that my current community feels largely like a lost cause. We certainly have a subculture that is what I'm looking for, but it's just that - a subculture. And while that may be comforting and nice, it's not enough to get politicians to listen.
I try to stave off the harms of capitalism as best I can while also balancing my own happiness for my limited time on Earth. But that's a topic I'm sure we could both write essays about, so maybe best to save that for another time.
Reading the list, NZ does pretty well... Right to the end...
It's important to consider trends and trajectories, while countries like Ireland and whatnot may appear to satisfy a lot of these, they are also struggling with the same decaying Capitalist system and are being dragged down by US decay as well. Countries like China that are improving rapidly might be more worth considering.
I agree.
i''m tired of people complaining about bigoted america and "how i want to move to liberal europe". move that lazy ass and topple that idiot in the white house and the system that makes him possible (yes, that means ditching the democrat party too).
This would be great, but the hard truth is this will get you executed in the street, and this country is no longer worth dying for.
It may reach a boiling point eventually, but for now, given the choice, I think I'd prefer to move house than be murdered by my own military.
My kid would like to still have a dad. One who is, ideally, not in prison or dead.
You called America your home. There is something to be said for home improvement. I'm fortunate to be dual citizen, so I could leave whenever I want. I choose not to because it is where my parents, my sister and her kids are. I'll stay here and make whatever improvements, however small they are, as long as my folks still live here.
Yes, I wouldn't be renouncing U.S citizenship unless I really had to. I've stayed this long precisely because I don't want to leave the "problem spot" and cause it to only have extremists left over living here. I do try to support events and businesses that support causes I agree with, but that's about all there is to do as far as I can see. As I said in other comments, I would truly prefer to fix things here, as I like many things about my life here. But it's starting to feel like I'm complicit in something wrong by remaining a resident and I'm not sure what to do about it.
Ireland ticks most of your boxes. If any of your grandparents are Irish you can get dual citizenship. English speaking and lots of cultural crossover etc.
Closer for trips back too. Think it's only a 5 hour flight to New York for example.
Privacy, food safety and environmental regulation basically mean Europe, but then Europe has crazy anti-migrant sentiment at this point. So, maybe one of the Scandinavian countries that's still relatively welcoming? Portugal might also track, if you don't mind a country that's economically moribund.
I'm in a similar boat and was considering moving to Ireland or Chile. In the end, I couldn't overcome the immigration requirements, so I decided to just move to a better state within the US. Not sure if it's the best option, but maybe that could also improve things for you.
Consider your education and professional background and how well you'll integrate in the workforce of whatever countries you're looking at. Look into general unemployment rates as well as for your specific area of expertise. Can you work remotely?
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