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.
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Portugal, but they hate expats at this point because they got overrun by them in the last couple of years
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).
My kid would like to still have a dad. One who is, ideally, not in prison or dead.
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.
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.
Danish people rightly expect that immigrants should learn Danish within few years. Not like by law, but culturally.
I mean if you truly intend to stay in a country for many years, shouldn’t you learn the language? Also just for your own sake.
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.
Not the Spanish President, but the Spanish Prime Minister
Officially, the Spanish Prime Minister is called the President of the Government
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.
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.
As a Canadian I can tell you that politically everything wrong, or almost all wrong with the country is literally the Liberal Party’s fault. They have been in power for a decade, already.
All, or almost all of their policies have made the country worse. It is easy for idealogues out there to blame the conservatives but in reality the Libs pushed for all the things that broke the country.
From extreme immigration that increased crime, El Salvador is now safer than Toronto, to the price of housing, to making drugs more accessible via their Safe Supply program. That sounds good in make believe land but horrible in practice.
Which saved more “users’ lives” at the cost of increasing the number of overall drug addicts, everywhere. Same happened in Seattle and Cali, as well as in Portugal where this whole scheme was copied from.
You can tell by seeing the ratio increase of users and deaths in the provinces that pushed for this policy over the ones that didn’t.
Can’t even really blame the conservatives as the Libs and the NDP --which was Lefty but devolved to being Lib-Lite- created a collation as to bypass their vote in most cases. So they passed a lot of stuff easily and mostly on their own.
It is a mistake to not blame the Liberal party only because they have the word “Liberal” in their name. Trudeau alone was found guilty of 4 ethic violations, one including his family, so just straight up corruption. So, yes, we could blame the bad Covid handling and the NDP as well, if we want to nickpick. With the later now a shadow of its former self. The NDP leader sold out the party and the government, so he could be eligible for his fat government pension. He announced his retirement immediately after and lost his riding just after that. They got destroyed in the recent election, too.
Carney has already been got caught lying, a few times, saying one thing to English speakers and the 180° opposite to French speakers regarding infrastructure projects because he needed their votes and he just recycled a ton of the same people in government. There are other examples.
He ran as being an outsider when anyone with eyes knows that he is not. He is even the godfather of one of the kids of Freeland, the previous Finance Minister (who is now the Transportation Minister under him) who quit the job, the morning she was supposed to table their budget that was over $20 Billion over the number they had stated before because she is a coward and was looking after her career first, along with 0 sense of real accountability. She quitting put us in a constitutional crisis and we went through not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4 finance ministers in 24 hours, including her. Then she ran for the leader of the Liberal party before losing to Carney, but as stated she is in the new Cabinet anyway.
We literally applauded an ex-Nazi SS soldier in parliament because the Libs wanted PR points and come off as pro-Ukraine but did 0 vetting on the guy. This was supposed to be done by the office of the PM. They are that incompetent and threw another guy, the Speaker of the House under the bus and forced him to quit, as to save face. Fucking embarrassing.
Their biggest selling point was, “we are not Conservatives.” Which is funny as the Libs literally copied a bunch of Con campaign/platform promises, rebranded them, and sold them as theirs. I am not a conservative but holy shit the Libs are so incompetent. Not really positive about the new guy, either. Once you get past the new paint job, it is just more of the same. He became the Leader of the Libs by decree of the party and paid about $250,000 to run, as he was never elected by anyone in the public or held a riding. Which is a first in our system.
He just got inserted. That is not very Liberal nor democratic.
The loss of Liberties was all Liberal policy too. They fear monger people and then remove liberties for “our” protection, of course. It is sad to see the country go down this fast.
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?
afghanistan
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.
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!
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.
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.
In China it’s illegal to be private though. Skynet, the surveillance system is always watching you when your in public. You have to use phones thay are regulated by the government and you can’t have access to websites thay aren’t whitlisted by the government unless you use a vpn which as far as I know is illegal in China.
Western countries have similar levels of surveilance and regulation. The firewall and VPN bit is true, but that’s not for privacy so much as it is the desire to build up their own internet that can’t be dominated by the US. They are very wary of how western countries used propaganda to destabilize the USSR with outlets like Radio Free Europe.
I agree.
That’s most European countries. Pick one, learn its language and immigration laws, and off you go
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.
Reading the list, NZ does pretty well… Right to the end…
- good treatment of mentally ill, homeless and impoverished people…
We don’t do that here
This may be anecdotal but I visited Christchurch NZ last year and walked around the whole city. I don’t believe I saw a single person begging / sleeping on the street.
Compared to my small rust belt city in the US where there’s homeless at every busy intersection begging and pop-up tent settlements that will frequently be destroyed by cops. Bigger cities and/or the West Coast ones like Portland have way more of this type of thing.
- good treatment of mentally ill, homeless and impoverished people…
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.
- Strong laws against unethical corporate practices (monopoly, corruption, lobbying, etc)
- Good treatment of mentally ill, homeless, and impoverished people
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.
