5 ms·

> Many people in my social circle want to leave the country And go where?

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
France? Belgium? US? UK? Ireland? Austria? Switzerland? Poland? Czechia? Luxembourg? Netherlands? Norway? Sweden? Denmark? There's no perfect country, just one where you have the least amount of compromises. Or where your family unit is.
- tejinderss 3y ago
  > Ireland Good luck with finding housing here.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    You can say the same thing about Berlin. Every livable tech hub is full.
- jabradoodle 3y ago
  I wouldn't suggest putting the UK in that list, absolutely crumbling and showing no signs of stopping.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    If you work in tech you'll be fine there.
    - alphager 3y ago
      And you'd be fine in Germany. HN paints an overly gloomy picture of Germany. All points mentioned contain a kernel of truth but also a pessimistic linear regression concerning the outlook of the future. We've got a very minor recession going on, that's all. The economy will turn around next year. The energy crisis is of the higher price than usual variety (and is already way past its peak; look at the 5y chart: https://ycharts.com/indicators/germany_natural_gas_border_price https://ycharts.com/indicators/germany_natural_gas_border_pr...). The greenefication of our electrical grid is ongoing and will cost us a ton of money over the next 5-10 years, but will pay off after that (yes, it would have been better to keep the atomic power plants running until then; that's one of the few irrational decision done by the previous conservative government and confirmed by the current government). We had a large immigration spike in 2015 and another one in 2022 (Syria and Ukraine), overfilling the immigration centers. Aging population is a thing, as in any other western country. Turns out that immigration is one of the things that counteracts it! And we're currently (and for the next decade) in serious need of unskilled labor, so even the 40% of syrian refugees that haven't gotten work yet (many of those because of the slow bureaucracy...) will be needed. It's certainly not all sunshine and rainbows, but it's also certainly not a crumbling country without a future.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        >Turns out that immigration is one of the things that counteracts it! But where will they live? Germany has a housing shortage it refuses to fix, but is constantly importing more economic cannon fodder.
        Xylakant 3y ago
        „Germany“ doesn‘t have a housing shortage. German cities do, and it‘s a huge problem. But on the other hand, Germany also has a huge infrastructure deficit in more rural areas - I live in Berlin and would happily vacate my flat to move to a 2nd or 3rd tier small town, but that means giving up on solid public transport, connectivity, supermarket next door, walkability and fast internet in many many places. Work wouldn’t be an issue, our company is remote anyways, but all of these things are a huge problem. Fixing those issues would mean less people want to move to the city, less pressure on the housing market etc.
        FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        >„Germany“ doesn‘t have a housing shortage. German cities do Yes, and everyone coming to Germany will also want to live only in the big cities, not in some desolate village full of empty homes and super conservative boomers. How is this sustainable?
        Xylakant 3y ago
        Yep, true. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Other states have plenty of beautiful, livable, attractive mid-size towns because they have in fact managed to avoid these issues. Have good internet, have solid connectivity to places people want to go. The „village“ I grew up in has about 8000 inhabitants, it‘s 5 kilometers from a train station with trains every 15 minutes. About 70 000 people live in a circle of about 10-15 kilometers around that town. The next major town is about 20 kilometers away, or 15 minutes by train from that station. Yet, there‘s not a single bus to the train station. There’s no proper bike parking at that station. There‘s a bus every 30 minutes that takes an hour to reach the city center. Internet is capped at about 16MBit/sec. This is a densely populated area by most standards. Still, every bit of infrastructure sucks - except for cars. There‘s two different highways right around the village.
    - rqtwteye 3y ago
      Or if you work for a car manufacturer around Stuttgart. They keep building pretty nice houses.
    - jabradoodle 3y ago
      I do work in tech, doesn't mean the country isn't a failing mess that is becoming worse to live in by the year. If you have a high demand job, that gives you leverage to move to a country that isn't shooting itself in the foot consistently and in a downward spiral toward authoritarianism.
- Gud 3y ago
  I live in Switzerland since a few years back. I love Switzerland, it is the best country in the world I've ever been, by far. Unless you want to live in a mega city or on the coast. The only drawback is you must speak either French, Italian or learn Swiss-Deutch, a very difficult German dialect to learn. I'd scratch France, Belgium, Sweden and the UK off that list. I've worked 6+ months in all those countries and well, they're not great. What's worse is they're going in the wrong direction. I'm from Sweden and it is rapidly deteriorating. It saddens me greatly to say this, but I don't think my home country has a very bright future. When you hear the politicians talk it seems they finally realize that they have fucked up the country. But not to what extent, and their solutions are a joke. It will only get worse, and it will never be the same. Before you consider Belgium, I suggest you spend some time in Brussels. You will know what I mean. Maybe Flanders... I really like Antwerp, actually it's one of my favorite cities. If you like beer, you will love Antwerp. I was working in Antwerp for a long time. But why bother with Belgium when Netherlands is right there? The UK is dirty and the cities are full of homeless and it has a byzantine bureaucracy on top of everything. I'm currently working in Liverpool(not by choice, posted by my company) but I have been pretty much all over the U.K. Some places are better than others, the country side is all right, but still. Don't go there. The U.K. truly is a dying empire.
  - TMWNN 3y ago
    >I'm from Sweden and it is rapidly deteriorating. It saddens me greatly to say this, but I don't think my home country has a very bright future. When you hear the politicians talk it seems they finally realize that they have fucked up the country. But not to what extent, and their solutions are a joke. It will only get worse, and it will never be the same. Context for others: Sweden has no language, income, employment, or skills requirement <https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-individuals/Becoming-a-Swedish-citizen/Apply-for-citizenship/Citizenship-for-adults.html https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-individuals/...> for obtaining citizenship. In completely unrelated news, Arabic is now the second most spoken language in Sweden <https://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/tribune/article_popover.aspx?guid=7047637a-c5f5-4297-9afa-a273dd443a9a https://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/tribune/article_po...>.
peer2pay 3y ago
I think that’s a fair question. The grass is always greener but most are thinking about Scandinavian countries or the Netherlands. For me, climate change should also factor into this. While Germany will probably be fine temperature wise, I’m not sure if I’d considered moving to Southern Europe anymore.
- angra_mainyu 3y ago
  Really? Having been in those places that's like going from bad to worse.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Where is it going from bad to worse?
usrusr 3y ago
One person I know went to the United States. Ten to Switzerland. Zero anywhere else on the planet. Not sure the US guy counts though, quite possible that it's only a temporary assignment from his home employer. If you wonder what the Swiss do, when all those Germans take their jobs: my observation, utterly anecdotal of course, is that they commute to Liechtenstein.
- dgellow 3y ago
  Seeing that we are at the level of anecdotes, as a Swiss I went to Germany and don’t plan to ever go back. Other friends went to the UK, Japan, the US, Canada. So there is that. And not because foreigners take our jobs, that’s an utterly absurd concept, Switzerland wouldn’t be the country it is without cross border workers and people immigrating. Our dumb isolationist and social conservative politics are costing the country and community a lot.
mharig 3y ago
I would say 'South America'. But I do not want more Germans (or other decadent Konsumvieh from industrialised nation states) here.

France? Belgium? US? UK? Ireland? Austria? Switzerland? Poland? Czechia? Luxembourg? Netherlands? Norway? Sweden? Denmark? There's no perfect country, just one where you have the least amount of compromises. Or where your family unit is.

tejinderss 3y ago
> Ireland Good luck with finding housing here.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  You can say the same thing about Berlin. Every livable tech hub is full.
jabradoodle 3y ago
I wouldn't suggest putting the UK in that list, absolutely crumbling and showing no signs of stopping.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  If you work in tech you'll be fine there.
  - alphager 3y ago
    And you'd be fine in Germany. HN paints an overly gloomy picture of Germany. All points mentioned contain a kernel of truth but also a pessimistic linear regression concerning the outlook of the future. We've got a very minor recession going on, that's all. The economy will turn around next year. The energy crisis is of the higher price than usual variety (and is already way past its peak; look at the 5y chart: https://ycharts.com/indicators/germany_natural_gas_border_price https://ycharts.com/indicators/germany_natural_gas_border_pr...). The greenefication of our electrical grid is ongoing and will cost us a ton of money over the next 5-10 years, but will pay off after that (yes, it would have been better to keep the atomic power plants running until then; that's one of the few irrational decision done by the previous conservative government and confirmed by the current government). We had a large immigration spike in 2015 and another one in 2022 (Syria and Ukraine), overfilling the immigration centers. Aging population is a thing, as in any other western country. Turns out that immigration is one of the things that counteracts it! And we're currently (and for the next decade) in serious need of unskilled labor, so even the 40% of syrian refugees that haven't gotten work yet (many of those because of the slow bureaucracy...) will be needed. It's certainly not all sunshine and rainbows, but it's also certainly not a crumbling country without a future.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      >Turns out that immigration is one of the things that counteracts it! But where will they live? Germany has a housing shortage it refuses to fix, but is constantly importing more economic cannon fodder.
      - Xylakant 3y ago
        „Germany“ doesn‘t have a housing shortage. German cities do, and it‘s a huge problem. But on the other hand, Germany also has a huge infrastructure deficit in more rural areas - I live in Berlin and would happily vacate my flat to move to a 2nd or 3rd tier small town, but that means giving up on solid public transport, connectivity, supermarket next door, walkability and fast internet in many many places. Work wouldn’t be an issue, our company is remote anyways, but all of these things are a huge problem. Fixing those issues would mean less people want to move to the city, less pressure on the housing market etc.
        FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        >„Germany“ doesn‘t have a housing shortage. German cities do Yes, and everyone coming to Germany will also want to live only in the big cities, not in some desolate village full of empty homes and super conservative boomers. How is this sustainable?
        Xylakant 3y ago
        Yep, true. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Other states have plenty of beautiful, livable, attractive mid-size towns because they have in fact managed to avoid these issues. Have good internet, have solid connectivity to places people want to go. The „village“ I grew up in has about 8000 inhabitants, it‘s 5 kilometers from a train station with trains every 15 minutes. About 70 000 people live in a circle of about 10-15 kilometers around that town. The next major town is about 20 kilometers away, or 15 minutes by train from that station. Yet, there‘s not a single bus to the train station. There’s no proper bike parking at that station. There‘s a bus every 30 minutes that takes an hour to reach the city center. Internet is capped at about 16MBit/sec. This is a densely populated area by most standards. Still, every bit of infrastructure sucks - except for cars. There‘s two different highways right around the village.
  - rqtwteye 3y ago
    Or if you work for a car manufacturer around Stuttgart. They keep building pretty nice houses.
  - jabradoodle 3y ago
    I do work in tech, doesn't mean the country isn't a failing mess that is becoming worse to live in by the year. If you have a high demand job, that gives you leverage to move to a country that isn't shooting itself in the foot consistently and in a downward spiral toward authoritarianism.
Gud 3y ago
I live in Switzerland since a few years back. I love Switzerland, it is the best country in the world I've ever been, by far. Unless you want to live in a mega city or on the coast. The only drawback is you must speak either French, Italian or learn Swiss-Deutch, a very difficult German dialect to learn. I'd scratch France, Belgium, Sweden and the UK off that list. I've worked 6+ months in all those countries and well, they're not great. What's worse is they're going in the wrong direction. I'm from Sweden and it is rapidly deteriorating. It saddens me greatly to say this, but I don't think my home country has a very bright future. When you hear the politicians talk it seems they finally realize that they have fucked up the country. But not to what extent, and their solutions are a joke. It will only get worse, and it will never be the same. Before you consider Belgium, I suggest you spend some time in Brussels. You will know what I mean. Maybe Flanders... I really like Antwerp, actually it's one of my favorite cities. If you like beer, you will love Antwerp. I was working in Antwerp for a long time. But why bother with Belgium when Netherlands is right there? The UK is dirty and the cities are full of homeless and it has a byzantine bureaucracy on top of everything. I'm currently working in Liverpool(not by choice, posted by my company) but I have been pretty much all over the U.K. Some places are better than others, the country side is all right, but still. Don't go there. The U.K. truly is a dying empire.
- TMWNN 3y ago
  >I'm from Sweden and it is rapidly deteriorating. It saddens me greatly to say this, but I don't think my home country has a very bright future. When you hear the politicians talk it seems they finally realize that they have fucked up the country. But not to what extent, and their solutions are a joke. It will only get worse, and it will never be the same. Context for others: Sweden has no language, income, employment, or skills requirement <https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-individuals/Becoming-a-Swedish-citizen/Apply-for-citizenship/Citizenship-for-adults.html https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-individuals/...> for obtaining citizenship. In completely unrelated news, Arabic is now the second most spoken language in Sweden <https://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/tribune/article_popover.aspx?guid=7047637a-c5f5-4297-9afa-a273dd443a9a https://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/tribune/article_po...>.

peer2pay 3y ago

I think that’s a fair question. The grass is always greener but most are thinking about Scandinavian countries or the Netherlands. For me, climate change should also factor into this. While Germany will probably be fine temperature wise, I’m not sure if I’d considered moving to Southern Europe anymore.

angra_mainyu 3y ago
Really? Having been in those places that's like going from bad to worse.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Where is it going from bad to worse?

usrusr 3y ago

One person I know went to the United States. Ten to Switzerland. Zero anywhere else on the planet. Not sure the US guy counts though, quite possible that it's only a temporary assignment from his home employer. If you wonder what the Swiss do, when all those Germans take their jobs: my observation, utterly anecdotal of course, is that they commute to Liechtenstein.

dgellow 3y ago
Seeing that we are at the level of anecdotes, as a Swiss I went to Germany and don’t plan to ever go back. Other friends went to the UK, Japan, the US, Canada. So there is that. And not because foreigners take our jobs, that’s an utterly absurd concept, Switzerland wouldn’t be the country it is without cross border workers and people immigrating. Our dumb isolationist and social conservative politics are costing the country and community a lot.

mharig 3y ago

I would say 'South America'. But I do not want more Germans (or other decadent Konsumvieh from industrialised nation states) here.