91–100 of 142 posts
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I never understood why it's a dream, but you're right that for many people that I've met living in London is like the goal of their life. I moved here for the money, but the quality of life is terrible.
What makes quality of life terrible in London? Which part of London do you live in?
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I'm guessing not many of them tried to live in London? It's a dream until reality smashes your head open :D
I never understood why it's a dream, but you're right that for many people that I've met living in London is like the goal of their life. I moved here for the money, but the quality of life is terrible.
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Europe is a big place and covers at least 6 different kinds of lifestyle and 3 kinds of weather. That's a few shades of grass to try before you give up entirely?
We're on HN. The startup industry in most of Europe is non-existent. Very few options. As a founder, much of Europe looks pretty much the same. Want to actually assimilate - good luck given the prevalent ethnocentrism. It's nothing like moving from one US state to another.
The ethnocentrism is prevalent in US startup culture as well, it is overwhelmingly white and Asian with Hispanics and African-Americans being left out. Underprivileged minorities face steep challenges in the tech industry, almost regardless of geographical location.
[1]https://www.recode.net/2017/6/1/15725826/steve-case-revoluti...
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That's a good point, ethnicity likely is a huge factor in making decisions such as these. That said, racism is alive and well in Europe.
It's certainly less likely to be a cause of death for your child or person, given officers in general are less armed. And in the UK's case, they ban some of the worst offenders from entering.
What we do have is corruption, and lots of it in some places, again, less so in others. The various countries in the Union are at least as different from each other as the American states.
I move from Australia to Iceland. Icelanders always go "what the hell man? why would you do that?" when they find out. It's complicated. Broadly speaking, it's an even split between: 1. Icelands software industry being considerably more vibrant than Australias, which is really sad for Aus. 2. Australias government increasingly intervening directly in it's citizens lives whether they like it or not. The Icelandic gove…
> Australias government increasingly intervening directly in it's citizens lives whether they like it or not What exactly do you mean? And is it Australian government or individual state ones?
A few years ago, the federal government dissolved the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, which checked peoples passports and asked them stern questions about the suspicious grass dolls they bought in Vietnam. If you did something really stupid, a customs officer might point a pistol at you.
They replaced it with the Australian Border Force, who despite formally not being a military force (how-dare-you-suggest-it-you-unaustralian-piece-of-shit-do-we-need-to-check-your-passport) are armed with the same Steyr AUG assault rifles that are used by the Australian Army and very much like to show them off at all public appearances.
Within literally less than a month of it's formation the government attempted to deploy this new department, which is under unusually direct control of parliament for an armed force in Australia, to spot check for expired visas on the streets of Melbourne. Fortunately, we never got to find out how the Aussie Stazi were going to tell the difference between visitors and normal Australians. Australians are not required to carry ID and due to our wonderful melting pot of cultures cannot always be distinguished by accent. As it happened, Melbourne did us proud and brought the city to a halt in protest:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-28/border-force-to-check-...
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/aug/28/prote...
Meanwhile, in my home state, a new government has just been elected on the back of an unironic campaign promise to deploy sniffer dogs in schools to ensure children don't have drugs:
https://strongplan.com.au/first-100-days/ (ctrl-f "sniffer dogs")
One of the reasons I left Australia is that I am expecting them to close the borders and start granting exit visas within the next 5-10 years. They've already successfully used "won't someone think of the children" to establish precedent for denying people freedom to exit the country: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/13/world/australia/pedophile...
The next step will be expanding it to preventing people with "dangerous ideas" from "embarrassing Australia and endangering our neighbors". I expect to see vocal anti-vaxxer proponents denied permission to travel within about 3 years. It'll creep from there.
Basically what's happening is that Australia is sick to death of its two identical political parties, and they're both losing support rapidly in both state and federal governments. Understandably, neither one is willing to accept that it might just not be wanted by the new generation, so both are grasping for provable victories they can display like trophies at elections. This has resulted in huge tax increases on booze and cigarettes, burdensome increases in the difficulty of teenagers getting drivers licenses and reductions in the utility of those licenses, sweeping surveillance and data retention laws, attempts to criminalize the teaching of encryption algorithms, big increases in security theater at airports and a litany of other annoyances.
Mostly I want the government to just fuck off and leave me alone, but it won't play ball. So I fucked off instead.
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Are they actually better doctors or just doctors that make more money?
Quality migrates towards compensation. It’s like how the best programmers are in the US.
The only problem with the US is that you have to report to IRS even if you live and work in some other place...
The good news here, is that many countries have double taxation treaties. So that you don't get taxed by 2 countries for the same income. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_treaty
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Would love to find out how you got a job programming in Iceland. What were the requirements for language, Visa, how did you find the role etc?
Australians don't need visas to visit or stay temporarily in Iceland, but to work you need a residence permit and work permit. Residence permits won't get processed while you're in the country as a tourist, so you apply from outside the country and wait. There are no language requirements as long as someone is willing to hire you. To get a residence permit you need to meet the quality of "support"[1], which broadly m…
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What makes quality of life terrible in London? Which part of London do you live in?
It's too crowded, the rent is obscene and it has nothing to offer besides higher paid work, which is a necessity. Manchester is a way better choice.
I moved from London to Lisbon and then to Brazil. I get the same kinda "wtf" reaction from Brazilians. The bottom line is, with all that's wrong in Brazil and given my circumstances and my remote well paid job, I'm a lot happier living here than anywhere else in the world. I truly love this place. I don't think one needs to try to make a place work for them. Sure you can try and adapt. But ultimately most people read…
I'm thinking of moving from Brazil to Portugal. Is there anything special you didn't like in Lisbon? Was is too similar to London and you were looking for something different? Thanks