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.
Funny enough, you are looking at the countries with the most homogeneity and lesser levels of multiculturalism per capita. In this case the most white countries, like Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, Luxembourg, et al.
They all have what you are looking for. However, many of there are either fairly expensive, have less than optimal weather or have fairly strict laws, unless you are an EU member or want to ask for asylum, political or otherwise.
Like other have mentioned, at a recent WEF meeting, at DAVOS earlier in the year, the President of Spain stated that he wanted to ban encryption, or have access to encrypted services… Why? For your protection, obviously. Do a search on Youtube and you will find the video. Keep in mind the presentation is fairly long. You may be able to find a clip of it.
The UK and Germany have gone down the drain when it comes to privacy laws and they are heading straight into Big Brother or 1984 territory. No joke. So those should be avoided.
Like other have said, Uruguay and Argentina are pretty good options albeit both Argentina and Chile are not doing too well economically for now. But I do have a friend who is moving to Argentina, albeit he is fluent in Spanish so for him it won’t be hard.
Other possible options are Australia but if you think owning a home is hard in the USA, then you have seen nothing yet in Australia. New Zealand is also a good option, too although like some other countries at the top of the list, moving there can be a tad difficult Re: Red tape, albeit it is a bit easier if you are part of the Common Wealth, which I assume you are not.
Correction: Not the Spanish President, but the Spanish Prime Minister. as my links below. My bad.
Lol.
For real, where do you get that the President of Spain wants to ban encryption?! That debate has been held in Germany, France and UK but not precisely in Spain… like nothing at all. In that talk President Sanchez just talked about the massive and pernicious powers social media have in the society (true) and that he supports the EU Digital Services Act (DSA), at highly misguided and bad thing, but not spearheaded by Spain. None of that is wanting to ban encryption… letś no mention almost impossible to enforce properly too. If digital freedom is your aim, options like Australia is a bit off, you are good until you touch sensitive things for the US.
Where did I get it? I literally said where, there is a Davos presentation he did. Didn’t I say that? I did not say that it was debate, it was something that he was pushing for in his speech. Find the video.
With that said, it is not like this is new. You are just unaware. Example:
https://www.wired.com/story/europe-break-encryption-leaked-document-csa-law/
"The source of the document declined to comment and requested anonymity because they were not authorized to share it.
“It is shocking to me to see Spain state outright that there should be legislation prohibiting EU-based service providers from implementing end-to-end encryption,” says Riana Pfefferkorn, a research scholar at Stanford University’s Internet Observatory in California who reviewed the document at WIRED’s request. “This document has many of the hallmarks of the eternal debate over encryption.”__**"
Also you are right, he also want so remove anonymity… for your protection, of course.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/pedro-sanchez-calls-for-measures-against-social-media-threats-to-democracy-at-davos/
Thanks for that wired link. Was not aware of it. It is 2 years old but important still. Now, that is not from the president of Spain, but its minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, a extremist and, I would say, a compromised guy that works more for foreign entities than Spain’s interest and should have been fired long ago. For instance, last week he signed a contract with a Israelś company to purchase munition… the outrage in the coalition government was such that Sanchez had to step in and canceled the already signed contract.
On wanting to stop anonymity, 100% with you, but hard to find any leader is not on board with that.
Yeah, I find this drive towards a 1984 dystopia concerning. Given that it comes equally from both, Right-wing and Left-wing governments. The UK is going insane and they lean right, and so is Germany and they lean very Left. Spain leans very left and look at what they are doing. Also, I sit corrected and it is not the president of Spain but the Prime Minister of Spain --which is worse-- as per my Telesur link regarding the WEF, people can still find the clip of his speech if they are interested.
I will update my previous post and correct myself, either way, he is a literal Socialist and he is the one that wants to eliminate online anonymity… For your protection, of course. ;-) LOL
Up here in Canada, the Liberal government passed amendments to 2 Laws during the pandemic, when they pushed for bogus Emergency Powers, just for a couple of days in which they sneaked these changes, that allows them to freeze people’s banks accounts on almost a whim, some people got their bank accounts frozen because they donated to a group that the Liberals did not like, despite not doing anything illegal. It was due to just wrong think.
It is insane but still most Canadians are not aware of these changes because the news media barely covered it. I happen to follow politics closely and read Bills and law for fun, so I know about them but I have yet to meet an average Canadian who is aware of this, unless they are into politics or study political science or something akin to it.
I mean, I have lived in 3rd world countries with better legal protections than what Canada is turning into under the Liberal party. I say that as someone who leans Left.
Ad someone who goes to Canada every two months in the last 15yrs, I had witnessed the regression not only in the liberties, but also mood of the people. No one would have guessed a decade ago how a country with so much potential and human capital would had become in this state! I would not only blame the Liberal party though… it is something bigger than them, same in the US… and most of the West.