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What English speaking country would you most like to live in?
In short, all other things being equal, what country would you like to live in? Forget family ties, job security and all that jazz.
Personally, I'd probably either pick Canada or Australia. Australia is beautiful, and I really like the culture from what I've seen, but I don't do well with heat. Canada would fix that problem. Besides that, I've heard it has a pretty good Internet infrastructure, especially compared to Australia. On top of that, I'd be relatively close to the US, so visits and/or contraband are more feasible.
Personally, I'd probably either pick Canada or Australia. Australia is beautiful, and I really like the culture from what I've seen, but I don't do well with heat. Canada would fix that problem. Besides that, I've heard it has a pretty good Internet infrastructure, especially compared to Australia. On top of that, I'd be relatively close to the US, so visits and/or contraband are more feasible.
Comments
For the record, I considering moving to another country, and that includes Norway, but I was most curious what the views of the forum was on English speaking countries specifically.
PS I love you =3
As for internet infrastructure, we're working on it. We have a national fibre optic network rolling out - but it might take a while to get wherever you're aiming at living.
Canada is lovely, and the things you list as positives are all correct. Personally, I'd pick somewhere warmer if I could, I'm not built to deal with that much cold.
Language aside, probably still Australia, then the Netherlands, then Spain.
The UK Tiered Immigration System is a bureaucratic nightmare right out of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. Since they couldn't rightly go, "No immigrants allowed," they just made it as obfuscated, difficult, and soul-crushing to get any visa imaginable. To wit: I had to submit the dates of any trip I'd taken in the last ten years and on my last three passports, and provide any remaining copies of voided passports that hadn't been destroyed (I had three of them), and then prove that my family had over $25000 in assets somewhere to cover the duration of my stay.
Yup, still Norway. I mean, it's got problems, but fuck it.
Nerds on your forum want to pay money to watch reality TV. That means it's gotta be a gold mine.
Correction: Some ISPs refused.
Outside of the English world, I've narrowed it down to Sweden, Finland, or Denmark. Forum, do you have any reasons I shouldn't move to any one of these?
I like the US okay. There are many things that are nice about living in such a big and diverse country. I like that I can go to the desert or the redwood forest, into the subtropics and up in the mountains without needing a passport. I am proud that Americans made NASA, and proud of our free speech. There are many things that make me very happy at my country, but I am often ashamed at the anti-intellectualism and racism that you encounter sprinkled throughout the culture. Canada has a problem with such groups too, but I think in general they are less aggressive.
Nothing against Australia, but I would have a hard time living there merely because rabbit ownership is difficult and outright illegal in some places. Also, I don't want my darling boys to get the Myxi, or Rabbit Hemorrhagic Fever.
Man, I want to go back in time and punch the git who let those first rabbits loose. Punch him right in the face. And then explain how he made life suck for the farmers, the other animals, and rabbits as a species.
UK is good. I like the UK, but I have never been there, thus Canada appeals to me because I know it is fairly awesome. I would like to visit the British Isles sometime.
EDIT: I'm just curious, out of the people who are reading this thread, how many are actively considering leaving the United States?
It's become so common, though, that even when I managed to take a rabbit over in England to eat, I checked it over for Myxi and RHD, even though you don't get the former in England, and the latter is rather more rare than it is here.
Yeah, the farmer who bought over rabbits was an idiot. Bought them over - much like our fox population - because he thought they'd be good to hunt, and ended up screwing with the ecosystem terribly, not to mention destroying billions of dollars of agriculture, and ruining the ability of people to have pet rabbits in many places, along with many people's pet rabbits being condemned to die because the government bans the vaccine that could help with myxi, just because they're afraid it will spread - despite that the rabbits are building up a natural immunity anyway.
You should look into Right of Return citizenship if any of your grandparents were EU nationals, especially if they were from Ireland, Spain, Italy, Greece, or most of the Central/Eastern EU nations. Expect difficulty in Germany and Austria, as well as most Western European nations; ease of RoR is seemingly inversely proportional to the economic status of the nation at present. Most are still pretty lenient, but Germany is buttoning up to try and avoid a refugee crisis if the Euro collapses (luckily, it appears to have moved away from total dissolution).
On a different note, I have said in other threads the countries I would consider moving to. We shall see.
Other than that I suppose you could prioritize based on how much snow you want. You're going to get more snow in Sweden and Finland than in Denmark, because of how much coastline each of them have.
Australia has a six month working holiday visa that allows you to live there and hold a job for the duration. It's pretty easy to get; it used to be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, but now your employer can write you a recommendation for future renewal so you can get one again in the future.
1) People have protected civil liberties like free speech.
2) Good education, health care, etc.
3) Nice weather.
4) Internet is fast and free.
5) Easy access to goods and services from around the world. (for example Australia lacks video games at reasonable prices).
6) There are geeks there.
7) There is a city with jobs that is bicycle friendly.
The US has plenty of big fucking problems, but when you really get down to it, it's about the same as everywhere else. Every country has some big problems. If there were a perfect country, all the nerds would already be moving there in massive numbers, and it would become nerdtopia.