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.
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 do 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.