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.
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 …
Chat control, ban encryption? Where do you get that? I follow occasionally Spanish politics and never came across that. It may have been raised by some lone politician but highly unlikely to happen, unless other countries like France or Germany does it first, nor the people will follow with any mandate. The problem is if the main opposition party gets in power... they are more inclined to do that but even there I don´t see it spearheading any of that by themselves.
The Spanish government has a very strong opinion on this:
https://www.techradar.com/news/spain-seeks-to-ban-encryption-leaked-document-reveals
Spain's vision appeared to be the most extreme, with the nation's leaders apparently seeing the access to citizens' data as "imperative" to allow authorities catching criminals in the virtual world.
Spain wasn't just the strongest fan of the bill, but it also argued how EU-based providers should be ideally prevented from implementing E2E in the first place. Of a similar stance was Poland, suggesting that parents should have the power to decrypt children's chats. Among other supporters for the Chat Control proposalare Cyprus, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia and Romania.
There are many more news articles about this.
Again, that seems to be a personal vendetta of the minister Grande-Marlaska that keeps going secretly against the government policy (like the recently Israeli munition purchase that wast promptly canceled). No parliament debate on encryption or even public debate has been brought up at all. If it does, the minute it comes up, it would be turned down swiftly by the current coalition government. The President has no made any statement on banning encryption either, nor I think he would either. However, he did talk on identification on social media, but he will not spearhead that, nor it is doable to implement for now.
This is the official position of the Spanish government in the European Council. And it is unchanged for the last years. This is no "personal vendetta" or some secret agenda. Spain is again and again voting against encryption.
Maybe you should google that stuff.
That's most European countries. Pick one, learn its language and immigration laws, and off you go
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.
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?
These exist almost nowhere in the world
Denmark is close I would like to say.
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.
afghanistan
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.
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.
China would get a -100/10 for privacy though.
About the same score as any Western country. Privacy isn't really respected anywhere unless you force it yourself, too much money in big data.
I agree.
Reading the list, NZ does pretty well... Right to the end...
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!
"At least to me it would be impossible if my head was still in the US". I completely understand it... contributing with taxes to these policies from Washington DC may feel appalling... Now, the US has plenty of small and diverse type of communities some would find remarkable, like bubbles within the Empire... some can easily find peace there. Emigrating to another country is not recommended, nor feasible to everyone, but just moving within the US can be day and night different. Moving just a few miles away and and your lifestyle and friends can potentially change almost as much as moving abroad, and still close to your family/job.
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.
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.
The Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia have all those things and people tend to speak English really well.
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.
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
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?
Toronto and Vancouver are expensive but you definitely get what you pay for
Honestly I don't get what the hype with Toronto is. It costs like Vancouver but with Calgary's weather and general vibes.
Toronto is amazing. It's a lot like NYC but clean, better run, and less densely populated. My friend describes it as NYC run by the Swiss, and I've loved all the time I've spent there
The weather can be hit or miss, but it didn't bother me, even with the endless snow. I'm moving there soon and I'm super excited for it.
Good transit, good jobs, lots of cultural stuff, amazing food. The weather definitely isn't great but it's still consistently a few degrees warmer than Calgary in the winter. Vancouver obviously crushes both of them in this category.
Yeah, similar weather relatively speaking.
I've never been to Toronto, so I can't talk too much trash, but I have been to Vancouver many times and experienced how awesome it is. And, they both cost a similar amount!
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.
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.
Just maybe don't practice your Cockney accent while there.... The locals seem to hate that accent, for some reason.
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