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Yep. I'm one of them. The biggest surprise for me about living abroad is how much better life can be under a military dictatorship; it's actually kind of weird.
by geomark 6y ago
Yep. I'm one of them. The biggest surprise for me about living abroad is how much better life can be under a military dictatorship; it's actually kind of weird. There are some downsides when it comes to free speech. But as a non-citizen I can't vote anyway so I don't have much of an itch to criticize the government. On the plus side, the police rarely beat up and kill people, which is nice.
- aww_dang 6y agoLess developed countries where most things will pass are highly underrated. People have incentives to work it out for themselves. Although the bureaucratic state might be enormous on paper, in practice freedom fills the void where there is no enforcement. Of course there are downsides as well, but you learn how to work it. Then there is also the cost of living.
- geomark 6y agoIn practice, a lot of working things out involves petty graft. That's another thing that has surprised me, how efficient that is. They have lots of regulations on paper, but everybody knows how inefficient it is when simple things get over regulated. So the nice officials often offer you both options, the by-the-book way (slow and expensive) or off-the-books way (fast and cheap).
- 082349872349872 6y agoMaybe there ought to be a Wikipedia page listing the "graft level" of a country (in nominal and PPP amounts, of course). In more corrupt countries, a large fraction of the population gets to use petty graft. In less corrupt countries, a small fraction of the population gets to use grand graft.