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I simply moved out of America. If you want to live a real car-free life safely in a place where you can have a real job, a normal life, and not just live on so

I simply moved out of America. If you want to live a real car-free life safely in a place where you can have a real job, a normal life, and not just live on some weird little tourist island, that's the only way to make it happen. As a bonus, you avoid many other problems that America has: a spiraling crime wave, housing crisis (depending on where you go), school shootings, mass shootings, more guns than people, religious restrictions and laws pushed by religious groups, I could go on and on.

presentation 4y ago
Same here, I only have one life and given that I have the means to, I might as well live it somewhere whose values align with mine. No regrets! (Based on your username I'm guessing you're also in Japan?)
- midoridensha 4y ago
  >Same here, I only have one life and given that I have the means to, I might as well live it somewhere whose values align with mine. Yep, this was exactly my thought process too! >(Based on your username I'm guessing you're also in Japan?) Good catch! Yes, that's correct. Biking isn't perfect here, but it's not bad, and I'm not afraid for my life.
  - cscurmudgeon 4y ago
    How’s the diversity and acceptance of foreigners? Will non-white immigrants be treated fairly? During a conference there, I (a brown person) didn’t feel as welcome as in the US. Same holds for Europe. The US despite its flaws is orders of magnitude more diverse and welcoming than the alternatives here. I am okay sacrificing walkability for being treated as an equal.
    - sofixa 4y ago
      > I (a brown person) didn’t feel as welcome as in the US. Same holds for Europe Europe is vast. You might get funny looks in a country that doesn't have lots of non-their own colour palette, especially in smaller places. E.g. in a smaller village in Romania, "brown" people are rare, so funny looks or the occasional ignorant comment are.. expected. However if you go to a more mixed country, like France, Spain, Germany, Italy, there will be the occasional hardcore racist (as everywhere, stupid is not nationality/ethnicity specific) but those are rare, mostly old, and shunned by society. And extremely rare in big cities. (As an example, a few years ago in Paris an old lady sad "of course it's a black person" about a woman talking loudly in an African sounding language on a bus, and multiple people reprimanded her).
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      Exactly how did you not "feel as welcome"? I see brown people here all the time; I even work with some. Have you tried visiting northern Idaho BTW? Good luck feeling welcome and treated as an equal there.
      - MonaroVXR 4y ago
        As a brown person, I don't even feel welcome in the Netherlands and I'm a native Dutch perron. Health care is non-existent for me. I'm happy to explain it later on, since I'm sleepy. Education is way more difficult with autism, nobody will help you, but someone else non-brown will make things easier. I have to prove every ducking thing.
      - cscurmudgeon 4y ago
        During the conference, I was networking and inquiring about tenure track positions. I got the vibe that my application wouldn’t be successful. And the data bears this out. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Japan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Japan Tell me can a brown person aspire to the highest post in Japan? I did my PhD in a very conservative area in the US. I have travelled a lot. There is this weird fetishization of Japan, an ethnostate, by white folks who don’t consider other experiences even exist.
        midoridensha 4y ago
        You "got a vibe" about some tenure-track position and somehow this makes the place "unwelcoming"? Wow. Obviously you've made up your mind despite having no actual experience living here. >Tell me can a brown person aspire to the highest post in Japan? You mean the PM? No, of course a non-Japanese person is not going to be the head of government. How about in America? Can an immigrant be the President? Definitely not, it's unconstitutional. >There is this weird fetishization of Japan, an ethnostate, by white folks who don’t consider other experiences even exist. Only Americans say I have a "fetish" for wanting to live in a place that's walkable, peaceful, and doesn't have school shootings. Every time I have a discussion about Japan with them, I get utterly bizarre accusations like this and I'm so glad I got out of that insane country.
    - presentation 4y ago
      Where I grew up in the flyover parts of the USA as a mixed race kid, my school had around 5 people in my year who weren't either white or black, and experienced some instances of hillbillies and old people complaining about me being there because I didn't blend in. Can't say that the community really made me feel integrated despite being born and raised there. Interestingly my close American friends generally tend to have a similar background. In Japan if you're hoping to blend in as a Japanese person, that's a pipedream - you're not Japanese, you don't speak, look, act, or think like a Japanese person, and you probably never will. It's not the same as America where anyone can legitimately call themselves American. And that's fine if you ask me, Japanese people have every right to preserve and be proud of their unique heritage. But people will treat you "as an equal" in day-to-day life so long as you at least try to assimilate (speak some Japanese, be generally polite). So long as you don't hold onto the belief that one day you will be Japanese, then you won't be bothered by the fact that you're different. I lived in China for some time as well, and that was similar; my friends who have lived in India seem to feel the same way, and I suspect this is the case in any country with a dominant ethnicity or sufficiently distinct culture. That said I do hear it's harder to climb corporate hierarchy as a foreigner, but it's not something I worry about since I just work for global/foreign companies rather than for Japanese ones. A legitimate concern for others who want to join the rat race, though (still amazed @patio11 subjected himself to that). Guess it's a difference of values; I for one would easily take walkability over blending in with the crowd, but maybe that's because I never have experienced that even in the USA (and I lived in SF and spent time in NYC, and honestly I have had as much culture shock in those places as I did in Tokyo). I've come to see "equality" as a different thing than how Americans typically view it, and my particular circumstances allow me to navigate around the parts where I would hit a glass ceiling while enjoying the parts where I wouldn't.
asoneth 4y ago
For now we're in an old New England town with good bones and good pedestrian infrastructure. Not much in the way of crime waves or shootings and the only religious laws are blue laws which I can live with. But the cars are enormous and just keep getting bigger, and housing is expensive. Moving to a safer country run by grown-ups is something we considered and it's not off the table if things get worse. My wife and I both worked in Sweden years ago, but besides that I have only been a tourist in Europe, and have never traveled outside of that. I'm curious what countries you have in mind?
- danw1979 4y ago
  Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark (esp Copenhagen) - all modern, safe places to live and cycle. Just not the UK. We don’t meet your test of “run by grown-ups” …
  - TrueGeek 4y ago
    The UK is on my list. It’s not run by grown ups now, but neither are we. It’s an infinite step up, walkability-wise, and I think things will improve politically over time. Surely you guys are learning some lessons now, right?!
    - FormFollowsFunc 4y ago
      You could get away without a car in London because the public transport is good. Outside of London it isn’t great, depends on where you are - you will probably need a car. London is not a great place for cycling. It’s very congested. I got knocked off my bike every year there. Maybe not as bad as the US but the UK is still a very car centric country.
      - martopix 4y ago
        You should get away without a car in London. :)
      - thorin 4y ago
PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
> I simply moved out of America. There's nothing simple about getting permanent residency in a country of which you are not a citizen. How did you do it?
- midoridensha 4y ago
  Pretty simple: I just got a job here. A job comes with a work visa. There's lots of places where you can get jobs with local companies that will sponsor a visa for you. Then usually, after living in the new country for a while, you're able to apply for permanent residency. Given that this is HN and many people here work in tech, the tech industry in many countries is just as desperate for competent workers as in the US.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  It heavily depends on your abilities to get a decent paying job. If you can convince the review process that out of the gate you'll have stable income (won't be a burden to their society - better yet if you already have the job at entry), is well behaved with potentially high education, the door with easily open. I think a lot of people here would fit the criteria. Now it becomes exponentially harder the farther you're off that golden path.
- sneak 4y ago
  Just like learning the local language, it is indeed simple, it just takes a lot of time. (I did it too.)
- Gravityloss 4y ago
  I have recruited a lot of people from all around the world, including from USA, to Helsinki. From USA, it's easy for employer and employee. Simplified, one can start working right away and the permanent permits come through before the temporary ones run out. (My info is a couple of years old.)
sneak 4y ago
Most of America has much less crime than most places to which Americans consider moving, objectively.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  Which places are you talking about? According to https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/crime-rate-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/crime-rat... the US has amongst the highest crime rate of "1st world" (I know loaded) countries, I can only see France and Sweden at slightly higher.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    He's probably talking about places where there's no people. The western states have many places like this. And what is going on in France? Their crime rate is much higher than all their neighbors, and in the range of countries like Mexico, Ecuador, Paraguay, etc. Sweden is a surprise too; again, their neighbors score much better.
    - sneak 4y ago
      Most places in the USA have low crime. Almost all of the USA’s crime is concentrated in the bad parts of a few cities.
      - eesmith 4y ago
        That's ... not true. Wage theft is one of the most common forms of crime in the US, and it's widespread, including wage theft from farm workers. (Indeed, farm employers may be violating a lot of laws - https://www.epi.org/publication/federal-labor-standards-enforcement-in-agriculture-data-reveal-the-biggest-violators-and-raise-new-questions-about-how-to-improve-and-target-efforts-to-protect-farmworkers/ https://www.epi.org/publication/federal-labor-standards-enfo... .)
        sneak 4y ago

presentation 4y ago

Same here, I only have one life and given that I have the means to, I might as well live it somewhere whose values align with mine. No regrets! (Based on your username I'm guessing you're also in Japan?)

midoridensha 4y ago
>Same here, I only have one life and given that I have the means to, I might as well live it somewhere whose values align with mine. Yep, this was exactly my thought process too! >(Based on your username I'm guessing you're also in Japan?) Good catch! Yes, that's correct. Biking isn't perfect here, but it's not bad, and I'm not afraid for my life.
- cscurmudgeon 4y ago
  How’s the diversity and acceptance of foreigners? Will non-white immigrants be treated fairly? During a conference there, I (a brown person) didn’t feel as welcome as in the US. Same holds for Europe. The US despite its flaws is orders of magnitude more diverse and welcoming than the alternatives here. I am okay sacrificing walkability for being treated as an equal.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    > I (a brown person) didn’t feel as welcome as in the US. Same holds for Europe Europe is vast. You might get funny looks in a country that doesn't have lots of non-their own colour palette, especially in smaller places. E.g. in a smaller village in Romania, "brown" people are rare, so funny looks or the occasional ignorant comment are.. expected. However if you go to a more mixed country, like France, Spain, Germany, Italy, there will be the occasional hardcore racist (as everywhere, stupid is not nationality/ethnicity specific) but those are rare, mostly old, and shunned by society. And extremely rare in big cities. (As an example, a few years ago in Paris an old lady sad "of course it's a black person" about a woman talking loudly in an African sounding language on a bus, and multiple people reprimanded her).
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    Exactly how did you not "feel as welcome"? I see brown people here all the time; I even work with some. Have you tried visiting northern Idaho BTW? Good luck feeling welcome and treated as an equal there.
    - MonaroVXR 4y ago
      As a brown person, I don't even feel welcome in the Netherlands and I'm a native Dutch perron. Health care is non-existent for me. I'm happy to explain it later on, since I'm sleepy. Education is way more difficult with autism, nobody will help you, but someone else non-brown will make things easier. I have to prove every ducking thing.
    - cscurmudgeon 4y ago
      During the conference, I was networking and inquiring about tenure track positions. I got the vibe that my application wouldn’t be successful. And the data bears this out. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Japan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Japan Tell me can a brown person aspire to the highest post in Japan? I did my PhD in a very conservative area in the US. I have travelled a lot. There is this weird fetishization of Japan, an ethnostate, by white folks who don’t consider other experiences even exist.
      - midoridensha 4y ago
        You "got a vibe" about some tenure-track position and somehow this makes the place "unwelcoming"? Wow. Obviously you've made up your mind despite having no actual experience living here. >Tell me can a brown person aspire to the highest post in Japan? You mean the PM? No, of course a non-Japanese person is not going to be the head of government. How about in America? Can an immigrant be the President? Definitely not, it's unconstitutional. >There is this weird fetishization of Japan, an ethnostate, by white folks who don’t consider other experiences even exist. Only Americans say I have a "fetish" for wanting to live in a place that's walkable, peaceful, and doesn't have school shootings. Every time I have a discussion about Japan with them, I get utterly bizarre accusations like this and I'm so glad I got out of that insane country.
  - presentation 4y ago
    Where I grew up in the flyover parts of the USA as a mixed race kid, my school had around 5 people in my year who weren't either white or black, and experienced some instances of hillbillies and old people complaining about me being there because I didn't blend in. Can't say that the community really made me feel integrated despite being born and raised there. Interestingly my close American friends generally tend to have a similar background. In Japan if you're hoping to blend in as a Japanese person, that's a pipedream - you're not Japanese, you don't speak, look, act, or think like a Japanese person, and you probably never will. It's not the same as America where anyone can legitimately call themselves American. And that's fine if you ask me, Japanese people have every right to preserve and be proud of their unique heritage. But people will treat you "as an equal" in day-to-day life so long as you at least try to assimilate (speak some Japanese, be generally polite). So long as you don't hold onto the belief that one day you will be Japanese, then you won't be bothered by the fact that you're different. I lived in China for some time as well, and that was similar; my friends who have lived in India seem to feel the same way, and I suspect this is the case in any country with a dominant ethnicity or sufficiently distinct culture. That said I do hear it's harder to climb corporate hierarchy as a foreigner, but it's not something I worry about since I just work for global/foreign companies rather than for Japanese ones. A legitimate concern for others who want to join the rat race, though (still amazed @patio11 subjected himself to that). Guess it's a difference of values; I for one would easily take walkability over blending in with the crowd, but maybe that's because I never have experienced that even in the USA (and I lived in SF and spent time in NYC, and honestly I have had as much culture shock in those places as I did in Tokyo). I've come to see "equality" as a different thing than how Americans typically view it, and my particular circumstances allow me to navigate around the parts where I would hit a glass ceiling while enjoying the parts where I wouldn't.

asoneth 4y ago

For now we're in an old New England town with good bones and good pedestrian infrastructure. Not much in the way of crime waves or shootings and the only religious laws are blue laws which I can live with. But the cars are enormous and just keep getting bigger, and housing is expensive. Moving to a safer country run by grown-ups is something we considered and it's not off the table if things get worse. My wife and I both worked in Sweden years ago, but besides that I have only been a tourist in Europe, and have never traveled outside of that. I'm curious what countries you have in mind?

danw1979 4y ago
Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark (esp Copenhagen) - all modern, safe places to live and cycle. Just not the UK. We don’t meet your test of “run by grown-ups” …
- TrueGeek 4y ago
  The UK is on my list. It’s not run by grown ups now, but neither are we. It’s an infinite step up, walkability-wise, and I think things will improve politically over time. Surely you guys are learning some lessons now, right?!
  - FormFollowsFunc 4y ago
    You could get away without a car in London because the public transport is good. Outside of London it isn’t great, depends on where you are - you will probably need a car. London is not a great place for cycling. It’s very congested. I got knocked off my bike every year there. Maybe not as bad as the US but the UK is still a very car centric country.
    - martopix 4y ago
      You should get away without a car in London. :)
    - thorin 4y ago

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago

> I simply moved out of America. There's nothing simple about getting permanent residency in a country of which you are not a citizen. How did you do it?

midoridensha 4y ago
Pretty simple: I just got a job here. A job comes with a work visa. There's lots of places where you can get jobs with local companies that will sponsor a visa for you. Then usually, after living in the new country for a while, you're able to apply for permanent residency. Given that this is HN and many people here work in tech, the tech industry in many countries is just as desperate for competent workers as in the US.
makeitdouble 4y ago
It heavily depends on your abilities to get a decent paying job. If you can convince the review process that out of the gate you'll have stable income (won't be a burden to their society - better yet if you already have the job at entry), is well behaved with potentially high education, the door with easily open. I think a lot of people here would fit the criteria. Now it becomes exponentially harder the farther you're off that golden path.
sneak 4y ago
Just like learning the local language, it is indeed simple, it just takes a lot of time. (I did it too.)
Gravityloss 4y ago
I have recruited a lot of people from all around the world, including from USA, to Helsinki. From USA, it's easy for employer and employee. Simplified, one can start working right away and the permanent permits come through before the temporary ones run out. (My info is a couple of years old.)

sneak 4y ago

Most of America has much less crime than most places to which Americans consider moving, objectively.

cycomanic 4y ago
Which places are you talking about? According to https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/crime-rate-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/crime-rat... the US has amongst the highest crime rate of "1st world" (I know loaded) countries, I can only see France and Sweden at slightly higher.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  He's probably talking about places where there's no people. The western states have many places like this. And what is going on in France? Their crime rate is much higher than all their neighbors, and in the range of countries like Mexico, Ecuador, Paraguay, etc. Sweden is a surprise too; again, their neighbors score much better.
  - sneak 4y ago
    Most places in the USA have low crime. Almost all of the USA’s crime is concentrated in the bad parts of a few cities.
    - eesmith 4y ago
      That's ... not true. Wage theft is one of the most common forms of crime in the US, and it's widespread, including wage theft from farm workers. (Indeed, farm employers may be violating a lot of laws - https://www.epi.org/publication/federal-labor-standards-enforcement-in-agriculture-data-reveal-the-biggest-violators-and-raise-new-questions-about-how-to-improve-and-target-efforts-to-protect-farmworkers/ https://www.epi.org/publication/federal-labor-standards-enfo... .)
      - sneak 4y ago