261–270 of 557 posts
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Unsure why I'm being downvoted. Taiwan is ridiculously hard to get a visa for.
I didn't vote either way, but I suspect the answer is that people didn't realize you were speaking of the challenges involved in a visa.
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That depends on what you compare it to. Plenty of first world countries are ahead of the US in many important aspects. But if you're setting the bar on the level of Russia or some third world countries, then yeah, it's pretty great.
The US is ahead of plenty of first world countries in many important aspects. - Unemployment rate and job openings - Economic growth - Disposable income - Household income - Low middle class tax rates - GDP per capita - Economic productivity - Wealth creation opportunities - Access to capital and investment - Diversity (most competing first world nations are very homogeneous) - Scale and variety of industry, the US i…
This is doubly so if you don't associate with the stereotypical American lifestyle of working 50 hours a week, 10 days vacation per year, and sending out work emails while holding your newborn baby.
Listing specific things is pointless – all these ratings are online anyway, but just to name a few:
- fucked up health care system
- gun violence rate higher than in most third world countries
- homicide rate worse than any other developed country, and worse than countries like Niger, Laos, India, or Iran
- those best universities will put you in a $200K+ debt hole that you'll spend a lifetime getting out of, and the mediocre universities are not cheap either (compared to almost free education in many developed countries)
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but a crazy provincial government and high taxes.
crazy is relative ;)
(No personal experience, but this is what my French-speaking relatives in Quebec say, and the occasional news seem to match it.)
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Because of politics? Or other reasons?
I'm not 100% sure: here's a quote – 'I didn't "flee" America. What I fled are tribalistic homo-apes who have reverted back to simply responding to their instincts. Just a bunch of reactionary emotions without rational thought.'
People are not going to move. After every single election in France people say they will move to the US, or to germany, or to... I've never seen anyone moved anywhere. ps: parts of my family moved out of Hong Kong when it became Chinese again. But that was quite a different situation.
I think that's incredibly naive. For one thing, moving from France to Germany is a huge cultural and linguistic leap. Moving from the US to Canada is really not.
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For the price if a 1 bedroom apartment in San Francisco you could buy a 4 bedroom house in northern California. (3+ hr drive north of SF)
Who wants a 3 hour commute? If you worked at a startup in Waterloo you'd have a 5 minute commute from your 4 bedroom to the office. You could walk to work, just as people do from their really expensive apartments in SF.
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That is true. But there are also a number of perks such as universal health care. So maybe just a certain type of developer would move - one motivated by values rather than money. Perhaps similar to the draft dodgers who came up in the late 60s.
Not just health care, university tuition is way cheaper too. (And child care, in Québec.)
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If you didn't read the newspaper, how many of the negative things you mentioned would actually impact your life? Would you even know who was president for the last 4 (or the next 4) based on the impacts to your life? I'd guess not. Just live your life and be happy, vote when you can but don't let what you don't control make you sad.
I grew up and lived most of my life in America, then emigrated to a country with universal healthcare (the UK). When I developed a life-threatening condition which my US insurance would never have covered, the National Health Service saved my life. These things don't matter until they really, really, really do. Having seen the grass on both sides of the fence, I can attest that it really can be meaningfully greener.
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After two or three conservative justices are appointed the court your life will be mega affected. Are you gay? Kiss gay marriage goodbye. Right to privacy ? Gone. Wanna buy or own a sex toy? Those were illegal in many states until a progressive court put an end to it. A conservative court will absolutely reverse that. This is a huge deal.
Can you point to some supreme court cases? One that comes to mind is Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down the "sodomy law" by a largely republican court (I think only one or two justices were democratic at the time) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC - aka "Companies are people and money is free speech"