Immigration-specific groups. Not in a major way like completely shutting down immigration or install a per-country cap or something. Since Australia does skill-based immigration, my understanding is that they are limiting the types of ppl they allow in. I’d love to be proven wrong though, if I’m not right plz correct me

Maybe try looking up info from governmental websites first? A lot of countries (not US, cough cough) seem to have fairly straightforward immigration guidelines, so they’d probably write up what types of person they are looking for & the standard procedures

Old Reddit posts could be second

And… depending on the country, for some places it may be better to just DIY, some places having a lawyer might be extra helpful

I’m sorry OP I couldn’t answer your questions directly since I am in a same boat, so I can only share my experience trying to get there… Maybe some of this would be useful

Where did you decide to move to, and what were the things you looked at when deciding to move there?

So the only immigration-friendly countries I can find are Canada, Australia, and Germany. Not a big list to begin with, but for US citizens there might be more options with other EU countries. Canada has… issues, someone else in the thread mentioned about their experiences. Australia apparently is closing its doors. Sweden used to be fine but I heard things went really South for them a few months ago.

And if you’re a lurker on Reddit you probably know r/IWantOut? Country-specific wise I know r/Germany has a phenomenal wiki for their stuff, and Canada has r/immigrationcanada. Unfortunately a lot of good information is still on Reddit so yeah

Other countries… I don’t think Asian countries do much immigration at all, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. Maybe some EU countries are fine depending on heritage and/or where you are from. I have no idea what’s going on in Africa, if anyone knows something plz let me know.

Where can I start? How can I realistically make it happen?

For your privacy plz don’t answer in this thread, but 1) how old are you, 2) what type of education do you have, and 3) what type of work do you do? Having a college education and an in-demand career goes a long way, although this is also country-dependent. And yeah under many circumstances your employer could help you with the process. Certain parts of Canada and Germany obviously have language requirements, but a lot of other countries accept English. I heard some places allow investment-based immigration, but 1) it’s expensive AF and 2) not sure if countries that allow this plan are remotely desirable for US citizens…

Also side note: please DO NOT give up US citizenship unless you have a really good reason to / already have something in your bag. I’m not a citizen here, and most US citizens have no idea how excruciating it is to immigrate to this country

Interesting question…

As an overall answer: humans are incredibly adaptable, so as a person living in the US, it almost never subjectively feels bad. For goodness’ sake, I knew people who lived in Chicago’s Hyde Park (one of the most dangerous neighborhoods) and happily biked to work. I personally lived in what people would describe as a “hood” and a “third-world country” for a good year and a half, and honestly felt really safe over there. Because of this, I honestly don’t think anyone can give an objective answer solely from their living experiences.

Objectively, the US is a developed country and is not terrible, but regarding your specific points:

1. Yes, the government passed shitty laws, and chose to not pass a lot of not-shitty laws.
2. Yes, there are more mass shootings than the country should have. I’m not going to say why.
3. Insured healthcare isn’t expensive (correction: some stuff are still too expensive even after insurance). However, uninsured healthcare is incredibly expensive, and unfortunately people without employment/self-employed have to purchase their own insurance… which is also stupidly expensive. Also, a lot of things that should be insured aren’t.
4. The different states are certainly different. US politics is very polarized, so heavy-blue and heavy-red states are quite different in their approaches to… many things in life. Whether they are good or bad is up to you.

I mean, people living in Switzerland complain about their countries all the time, even though almost everyone else in the world envy the way they live… so it is possible that some might be a bit overblown.

ELI5 about the Chinese real estate market in general? This is how they got to where they are today:

• Investing in China sucks. The stock market is extremely volatile and there seem to be a lot of shady activities, banks get bank runs so you couldn’t even put too much money in banks, etc
• In contrast, real estate is heavily subsidized by China’s state capitalistic approach, so it became a really “stable” investment… because government subsidized it
• Because of this, everyone buys or want to buy real estate in China. In fact, people are willing to buy places that would almost never be lived in, because of possibility of appreciation… so we’re approaching NFT-level bullshit here
• Additional point: because of the above point, Chinese investors would buy real estate even when abroad & the RE market is not nearly as favorable. Obviously this causes some frictions… like a good chunk of Canadian citizen blaming Chinese ppl on raising home prices
• Chinese economy is now facing hardship, so the real estate bubble is finally showing signs of leakage in the past few years

I am not an economist and cannot offer insight as to whether this would turn into an 2008 moment… Nevertheless, I am aware that Soho is an extremely well-known developer, and that the Chinese economy is to a large extent built on top of real estate. And despite how much I dislike China, it is one of the world’s largest economies, and large economies don’t just go belly-up without inflicting heavy damage on the whole world… So this is not good news by any means.

Hey OP, I am similar to you in most aspects but I’m a lot younger, so please take it with a grain of salt…

I also live in Texas, and honestly I thought a lot of less privileged folks or ppl with family ties would love to be in your situation and just leave? It’s not just about politics. Even if tomorrow Texas becomes a liberal stronghold, it will still take possibly at least a decade to fix ERCOT, the climate issue, and flooding issues (if you live in Houston)… This clusterfrick alone was enough to prompt me to never live in Texas again once I’m done with grad school

Besides, my understanding is that there are a few left-leaning metro areas which have suburbs (or live in the city!) that don’t cost that much more to live in compared to mid-/upper-mid-class TX suburbs, so there’s probably no financial disincentive to move either

I daily-drive Organic Maps, works very well, uses pre-downloaded maps, & allows OSM contribution. Ofc it’s reliant on OSM so may not work perfectly depending on the location

mailbox.org and skiff are „too expensive“ with 3€/month.

Ah… I do use mailbox.org and I’ve self-hosted with docker-mailserver before.

I agree, selfhosting mail is a really big pain, and at least where I live most ISPs don’t open the ports necessary for mailservers, so I had to spin up my own server & it was more expensive than just using a mail provider. Could potentially be the cheapest option if I could host it from home & just use a RasPi or something

I’m happy with mailbox.org; the Standard Tier price is 2.50 Euro/mo if paid in full if that helps. Probably not the cheapest option especially since it’s not unlimited, but they do allow domain matches at Standard tier or above, and there are other goodies like calendar/video conferencing/cloud storage & stuff.