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To people who are considering moving abroad you should do it. Don't let nationalism stop you. You were randomly born in your country. Choose your country. Don
by hshshshshsh 2y ago
To people who are considering moving abroad you should do it.
Don't let nationalism stop you. You were randomly born in your country.
Choose your country. Don't let randomness and some emotional baggage control where you want to live.
You have a finite live. Make most of it.
- Parae 2y agoLet me guess, you're from EU or USA ? Nationalism is not what's stopping most africans to move abroad. I'm lucky I was born in France so I don't have to bother with visa refusal like all my cousins in Algeria.
- hshshshshsh 2y agoI am from India.
- dyauspitr 2y agoIndia is orders of magnitude better than most African countries. At the very least it’s safe and you can make a living. Indians actually move back to India after living in the west which doesn’t happen with Africans all that often.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- logicchains 2y agoThe average GDP per capita in Africa as of 2024 is around $2400 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1300864/gdp-value-per-capita-in-africa/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1300864/gdp-value-per-ca...), in India it's around $2700 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/263776/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-india/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/263776/gross-domestic-pr... ). A difference but certainly not orders of magnitude. Africa has some really dirt-poor places but so does India. The homocide rate in Africa is higher, around 13/100k vs 3/100k in India, but that's still less than the homocide rate in most south American countries, such as Brazil with 22/100k.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Parae 2y agoLet's not forget here that Africa is 10 times bigger than India, 5 times bigger than Bresil and twice as big as Russia. It's a very disparate continent. Algeria and DRC, the two biggest countries in Africa, have very little in common.
- dzonga 2y agoAfrica is too big to describe at once. Though in the context of africa, you can paint trends. e.g in Nigeria most professionals hardly earn $500. Now compare to zimbabwe - the same professional earns 2x-4x the nigerian wage. Yet Nigeria has higher gdp per capita. so yeah gdp per capita or gdp per capita ppp - might really reflect the african dynamic.
- dyauspitr 2y agoYou’ve got to look at PPP because India is dirt cheap to live in. For instance India has a PPP GDP per capita of around $12,000 whereas Nigeria is around $4500 or Uganda is at $2500.
- n_ary 2y agoAlso, from watching a diverse group of colleagues and hearing migration process details, I have come to believe that, India has better diplomatic connections with most of the West compared to other APAC nations and the network of existing nationals are actually very helpful and large in most of the West, so they have much easier time moving, having initial support(very crucial when you just arrived and getting used to), information access and professional network. Or to give a rather poor analogy for lack of better one, India has premium-business-class experience migrating to West, compared to other APAC, which are put through economy-saver class experience.
- Parae 2y agoSince 2021 [1] it's easier to come to France as an Indian, that it is as an Algerian, or even worse, as a Nigerian or Palestinian. [1] https://www.immigration.interieur.gouv.fr/Europe-et-International/Les-accords-bilateraux/Les-accords-bilateraux-relatifs-a-la-mobilite-professionnelle https://www.immigration.interieur.gouv.fr/Europe-et-Internat...
- Xenoamorphous 2y agoI don't think nationalism is what's most people considering moving abroad are thinking about. People who move abroad usually leave everything behind: family, friends, etc. Yes you can come visit regularly, but what was previously a daily or weekly thing now becomes yearly or bi-yearly in many cases. Second it's the language barrier: moving to a country where you don't fully master the language (sometimes far from it) is really hard, too.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago> People who move abroad usually leave everything behind: family, friends, etc. In the US, most people I have met who immigrated came via chain migration, with family members sponsoring other family members’ visas. And things also supplemented by family members in those families immigrating via student/work/spousal visas.
- vegabook 2y agoYou were anything but “randomly born in your country”. You are most likely the latest branch in a sedentary tree rooted both geographically and culturally for centuries, and without that tree you certainly wouldn’t exist. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t travel, perhaps plant a new tree, but the idea that you were born randomly is obviously false.
- hshshshshsh 2y agoFrom your point of view you were born randomly in a universe in a random country to random parents. Yes. There is a story once you were born. But as far you are concerned you could have been born as anything in any Universe. There would always be a story backing it up.
- amiga386 2y agoBut you are not a tabula rasa. You are made of a genetic code inherited from your parents, which strongly determines how you look and your body can do. You were clothed, fed, raised, cultured, taught by your family and others in their geographic area. The self has a heritage even if the self refuses to accept it. You are your parents' child and not someone else, for the same reason you are also a human, a hominid, a mammal, not a fish or a tree.
- hshshshshsh 2y agoIf I am made of genetic code, why do they say I die and no longer exists even though the body remains?
- amiga386 2y agoYour genetic code shapes who you are and how you appear to others when you're alive. If you're alluding to the existence of some transcendental self, can you at least accept it is inseparable from your corporeal self?
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- foo_foo_can_do 2y agoI think this is a very popular view, which inspires a lot of people to go abroad or try out something like digital nomadism. Ultimately most return home after the experiment. People are deeply rooted in culture, in communities, and don't even realize it until they have gotten over the novelty of a new context and are faced with the true depth of difference, and difficulty of becoming rooted once again. The only transplants I've seen really succeed are the ones who had a shit time in their own culture or family, and can genuinely leave it all behind and take in the new culture eagerly.
- felixarba 2y agoNationalism is not the thing stopping most people. It's your friends, family and the feeling of belonging. This is culture, not nationalism. I lived in Canada for 10 years before moving back home. I had a great life in Canada, fulfilled things I quite literally never dreamed possible, but I didn't belong. I lived my life between vacations, just waiting for the time that I can go back home and spend time with family. I realized this is no way to live life.
- david-gpu 2y agoYeah, people who have only spent a year or two abroad so not understand the consequences of staying there permanently. Estranged friends and family. Aging and dying parents. Feeling like a foreigner in your country of origin (reverse culture shock). Your own children, at the end of the day, belong to a foreign culture rather than your own. Etc.
- bartvk 2y agoThis. Big chance you'll lose all of your friends, and family ties will suffer greatly. One of my friends moved from Europe to Australia. I think I'm the only one that visited him.
- Aeolun 2y agoI mean, you should kind of expect that if you move to the other end of the world?
- david-gpu 2y agoIt is one of those things that sounds "obvious" when somebody points it out to you, but I can tell you from personal experience and from several other people that when you are in the midst of moving abroad you have lots of other things in your mind and, frankly, rose colored glasses on. What you find online tends to be the many people who spent a year or two abroad talking about what a cool experience it was, not long-term immigrants publicly admitting the downsides of their past choices. It is a very common feeling that is rarely spoken about outside of immigrant communities. If you pay attention to the comments, you will find that the people who only talk about the positives of moving abroad either haven't done it, or did it but they went back to their country of origin. Where are the long-term immigrants --typically with spouses and children-- talking only about the positives? And for the many who return... if living abroad was so great, why did you move back? Why don't you tell people about that as well?
- eesmith 2y agoDo you really consider family connections and decades-long friendships to be "some emotional baggage"? This essay was on someone who had the opportunity to live abroad (US, Japan, Sweden) and decided to live in India. The essay answers the question of why he, personally, has decided to not move abroad again. The reason? "I think people should live where they are the happiest", which for him is family and friendship - or what you might describe as "emotional baggage."
- gsich 2y ago>Don't let nationalism stop you. You were randomly born in your country. No I was not.
- gwd 2y agoLoving the place and culture where you grew up because it's yours is no different than loving your own family because they're yours, or loving yourself because you're you. Far from being problematic, being connected to a sense of identity is as human as being connected to your family. Loving your country doesn't prevent you from loving other countries, nor does it even mean thinking your own country is the best. That said, spending some time abroad (as OP has done) is a real benefit. I never realized how very American I was until I lived abroad. It gives you a different perspective on your own culture -- you can love your own culture more accurately, seeing both its strengths and its weaknesses in a different light. Nothing wrong with moving back home afterwards though.
- apexalpha 2y agoWell for what it's worth I am actually pretty fond of my ' emotional bagage', usually refer to them as Family though.
- weatherlite 2y ago> To people who are considering moving abroad you should do it. Or not. What kind of general advice is this. It depends on so many factors - your age, marital status, how close you are to your family and culture. For many people, I think for the majority even, unless they live in a war torn area then staying put makes a lot of sense. > Don't let randomness and some emotional baggage control where you want to live Yes family and culture is an emotional baggage and we are emotional beings, we are not robots. Most people care to a certain degree about those things.
- hshshshshsh 2y agoIf staying makes sense then stay. If you want to move then move. My argument is don't let random beliefs and emotions stand in between.
- weatherlite 2y agoYeah family and culture are not random beliefs and emotions for most people as many commenters here said. I think you have a very rare outlook on this that isn't right for most people.
- jollyllama 2y agoThis is the path to atomization.