9 ms·

Yeah, the "few aspects" like the prison system, healthcare, inequality, corruption, homelessness rates, freedom of the press, air pollution, crime rates, discri

by seirl 7y ago

Yeah, the "few aspects" like the prison system, healthcare, inequality, corruption, homelessness rates, freedom of the press, air pollution, crime rates, discrimination, police violence, homicide rates, unemployment benefits, social nets...

jki275 7y ago
Seriously, if you all believe everywhere else in the world is so much better, why stay? For context, I'm married to a person from a real developing country, as it's actually defined. I'm sending multiple family members to school there so they can get out. Every single person in her family has done everything they can to get out. Every single person I know there has done everything they can to get out. Every single person they know has done everything they can to get out. Getting out is the primary motivator for people in developing countries. Whining about the country being unfair is something that perhaps privileged children who know nothing about "developing countries" do -- other people get out. The US is nothing like a developing country.
- paulmd 7y ago
  Largely because people have roots here and it's a pain to move. What, you're supposed to quit your job, leave your extended family, sell your house and possessions, find a new job and place to live overseas, and potentially even learn an entire new language? Just to be sure you won't be tortured? (assuming you can even find a place to take you - things are easier here for this crowd, tech skills are in-demand and usually open doors, but if you are highly skilled in working a register at K-Mart you're not going to find many countries open to you when you go to immigrate somewhere else.) For a lot of people it's just easier to take the chance that you won't be one of the people who falls into the gears of justice. I won't even say "don't commit a crime" because (a) committing a crime is not even necessarily a requirement to end up in prison given how bad our judicial system is particularly surrounding plea deals/etc. Lots of innocent people end up in jail. And (b) virtually everyone regularly does things that are, by a strict enforcement of the US legal code, punishable by prison sentences. "3 felonies a day" is perhaps an exaggeration, but 3 felonies a month or a year is still a lot of potential legal exposure. The system relies heavily on prosecutorial discretion, which falls apart when you have prosecutors who are elected on the basis of high conviction rates instead of doing what is just. To put it simply: 1% chance of being tortured, vs having to uproot your whole life. A lot of people will choose the 1% chance of being tortured.
  - jki275 7y ago
    It's not a 1% chance. Even if one accepts your definition of torture, people who aren't criminals are very rarely caught up in the system at all. So it's far less than 1% as long as you're simply not a criminal. If the US were really so bad, people would leave. The people who do leave typically leave for tax purposes opposite to your belief.
    - bdamm 7y ago
      Mobility is really restricted to the top half of people. Yeah, it's not so bad as to cause mass refugee exodus, but that's a very low bar to aim for. We can and should do better.
    - whycombinater 7y ago
      Seriously dude? "American Airlines overcharged you by $1 and you're complaining? WHY NOT JUST START AN AIRLINE YOURSELF?" If only we were all god, your comment would be helpful.
      - ameister14 7y ago
        More like you are outlining how much worse AA is than every other airline and a person says 'well, why don't you fly other airlines?'
        BubRoss 7y ago
        Choosing a country to be a citizen of is not a very liquid market.
        ameister14 7y ago
        Yep, and airlines are a terrible analogy.
    - Elzear 7y ago
      Around 5% of the US population go to jail at least once in their life. And 0.69% are currently jailed (0.075% in Germany). Since it is harder to _simply not be a criminal_ and prisons there are proven not to fulfill their role, maybe OP simply wishes that this aspect of the country would improve. I don't think he/she was whining, or even saying that everything in the country terrible.
- Quekid5 7y ago
  All of your family is there. All your friends are there. All that you own is there. All that you've ever known is there. You may not know any other language than your native one. You: "Why don't you just move?" This really sounds like saying "Cheer up!" to a person suffering from depression. EDIT: Spelling
  - jki275 7y ago
    No, it doesn't. I know people from developing countries. I'm married to one. Universally, every single one of them wants to get the fuck out, and they do everything in their power to get out. That's reality in a developing country. The US is not in any way like a developing country. Comparing it to one is an act of such entitled privileged whining it's absurd.
    - seirl 7y ago
      I didn't say that it was a developing country, I listed, as the parent commenter said, "aspects in which the US is far closer to today's developing and third world countries than to the Western average".
    - Quekid5 7y ago
      > No, it doesn't. I know people from developing countries. I'm married to one. Universally, every single one of them wants to get the fuck out, and they do everything in their power to get out. > That's reality in a developing country. > The US is not in any way like a developing country. Comparing it to one is an act of such entitled privileged whining it's absurd. I think you just argued against your own point? 1) You're saying that people from developing countries are desperate to get out. (I have no issue with this claim.) 2) Then you say: the US is not like a developing country. The post of yours that I responded to effectively says to US citizens "why don't you just move?". I'll note that: Point 2 (as stated by you!) means that the entirety of point 1 is completely irrelevant if you want to argue against what I said.
      - jacquesm 7y ago
        ++ to use a chess reference.
- organsnyder 7y ago
  I'd rather work on making my home country better—especially since I have the means to not be personally affected by so many of the injustices that can make it shitty for others.
- seirl 7y ago
  I left.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  Some people believe in their country and would rather fix it than leave it. If your car gets a flat, do you change the tire or buy a new car?
  - magduf 7y ago
    If your car gets a flat every other day, the driver's seat is stuck in the reclined position, it's constantly trying to steer you off the road, and the heater doesn't work, then maybe it's time to give up on fixing it and buy a new car.
    - whatshisface 7y ago
      It's pushing the analogy, but there are a finite amount of car materials in the world, and at some point you will have to start to recycle even the rusted out junkers if you want to drive. People fixing their country is something that's going to have to start happening eventually.
      - magduf 7y ago
        That's pushing the analogy way too far. Cars are already made of recycled materials, especially steel and aluminum. But metals in old cars are melted down in foundries and reconstituted to the proper alloys before being used in new cars; they're just used-as is. To go back to this analogy, that's basically like completely eliminating the government and creating an all-new one from a blank slate. I don't think you were thinking of doing anything that extreme. And historically speaking, the only time this happens is usually after a major war when a country loses and becomes occupied by another power (Germany & Japan, WWII), or after a bloody revolution (Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, French Revolution in France). #1 is pretty much impossible here, and #2 is not something I want to be around to witness. The most likely outcome is something much more like #3: the fall of Rome, but on a much shorter timescale. That isn't something I want to witness either.
- csallen 7y ago
  I have never understood this viewpoint of, "If you find fault with country X, then leave!" Sometimes it's applied to companies, tools, etc., too: "If you find fault with Y, then stop using it!" Can you explain this to me? It seems like an extreme way to live that would preclude anyone from living anywhere that's not perfect or using anything that's not perfect. (And nothing is perfect.) Why not just address the criticisms individually, rather than arbitrarily bundling them into a person's decision on where to live and what to use?
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    As the saying goes, "patriotism is the last refugee of the scoundrel." "Then leave!" is the argument for those who have run out of arguments.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    It's a frequent refuge of those who don't wish to face, confront, address, or accept criticism. See: Exit, Voice, and Loyalty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty
- blattimwind 7y ago
  I never lived there. You can't just assume everyone is an American because you're on a ".com" website.
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  Because I’m able to survive just fine in America, and I was born here and I am committed to doing my best to help. American is a combination of a first world country and a third world country under one government. Which one you are born into is a roll of the dice. People travel between the two, but one of them is not shrinking as fast as it should. The fact that I can point at that doesn’t make me want to move to Sweden, it makes me want to work harder to take care of my neighbors and to change our political climate.
- thraxil 7y ago
  As someone who did (US citizen now resident in the UK), it's a very difficult and expensive process. Most countries require you to have a visa sponsorship which basically means you are highly skilled enough that a company there is willing to pay a lot of fees and demonstrate to the government that they tried but couldn't find a local with your skillset. Once you've got that, it's also a lot of money on your part to get a visa, pay immigration lawyers, accountants, etc. You need money for that, a good chunk of cash up front for an apartment (first, last, security deposit, brokers fees, we had to add in a few months of rent up front because we didn't have a credit score in the UK), and a million other things. All made way more complicated because you probably don't have a bank account in the country, so everything is happening via international wire transfers. It also happens that I don't have children or family members that need me to care for them, etc. It would get significantly harder if I had to deal with that (though I did move a cat internationally, which was not trivial). The irony of course is that having the privilege for all that (cash reserves, highly employable skillset, etc) means that most of the problems in the US don't actually affect you as much as others. The people who are getting screwed the worst by the terrible systems in the US are in no position to extract themselves.
- pixelbash 7y ago
  I live in New Zealand with family in the UK. I have spent the last 10 years flying the other way around the planet instead of via LA because the airports are worse than places like Malaysia. I can't speak to living in the USA but I have lived in Milawe and Fiji, and honestly being poor is definitely bad but some of the stuff happening in the US is a whole other kind of dystopian terrifying.
  - chrisco255 7y ago
    Is LAX really that bad? I haven't been there in years, but this seems a bit egregious. What terrifies you? The long lines at the bathroom? The food court selection? The lack of charging ports?
    - indemnity 7y ago
      How about having to check out your luggage, go through security, and check it back in, even when you are just transiting on the way to Europe. Fly through a big Asian hub and you have none of that BS, modern clean efficient airports with working toilets that can actually flush and better food. Not a hard decision.
    - pixelbash 7y ago
      What really put us off was arriving after a long haul to a queue that filled the immigration hall, then proceeding to wait for two hours while the three desks (out of about 12) tried to process about three flights worth of people. That and the shoes thing, most other places don't have that. It all may have changed, but until I hear otherwise (or that the TSA have decided to calm down) I'm happy with my choice. Edit: As the other comment mentioned, this was also all just for a flight transfer.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - jacquesm 7y ago
        Somewhere around the twin cities a guy from the TSA is wearing my boots. Try buying shoes at 06:30 in the morning... Last time I ever flew to/through the USA.
- dv_dt 7y ago
  Because whatever other faults the US has, there is still a high degree of free speech protection here. And any citizen of America is still free to promote their thoughts of what would make our nation a better union. If they desire, through criticism of what makes us an imperfect union. Some people might even consider that act patriotic or a duty of a citizen to do so.
  - jki275 7y ago
    And you've hit on it. The US respects the rights people have, and the US gives tremendous opportunity. Is it perfect? Of course not. Are there issues that need to be addressed? Of course there are. But to compare the US to a developing country is simply profoundly ignorant and a display of such privilege that it shows one simply can't even fathom what a developing country actually is. I've been there. I've been all over the US, I've volunteered in homeless shelters in the US, I've travelled extensively in southeast Asia. The homeless in the US would be considered extravagantly wealthy in many places in southeast Asia. Southwest Asia too, I've been deployed there more than once. The US is not a developing country or anything near it. We're the premiere first world country, and we provide opportunity beyond the wildest dreams many people worldwide can ever imagine. That's why the people in real developing countries generally want to come here.
- tomc1985 7y ago
  > The US is nothing like a developing country. The US is a big place. Not all of it is paradise. I've heard foreign exchange students from countries like Russia, placed in rural communities like Wyoming or Nebraska, describe the conditions back home as better than where they are placed in the US. I've read books describing the Chicago projects at the height of their badness and then visiting some of the poorest cities in Latin America and seeing parallels. The US is rich, sure, but that wealth is very heavily concentrated along coastal and border states. Saying the US is "nothing" like a developing country would be a false statement as it doesn't take into account the sheer contrast of livelihoods that we have here.
- romwell 7y ago
  >Seriously, if you all believe everywhere else in the world is so much better, why stay? Right, because should an American decide that they like country X more, they can just move to country X, which is waiting for them with open arms. Like, anyone could be Swedish, right? Immigration is an easy-peasy thing; who can possibly find it difficult to get a job overseas, learn a language, leave family and friends behind, get an entire new social and support network, lose a ton of money and/or most of your possessions in an overseas move (re-purchasing is often cheaper, but costs a ton either way), jump through a thousand bureaucratic hoops, all with no guarantee of actually having long-term prospects in the country paper-wise. That's, of course, assuming that no American has crippling debt that would effectively prevent them from going somewhere where people can comfortably live on a smaller salary (since their education and healthcare are free). No sirree, not a problem at all. Love it or leave it, and when you do, don't come back, just get another citizenship somewhere. Somehow. Should be easy, right? Also, nobody in their right mind would think to criticize some aspects of a country (healthcare, justice system, etc), while enjoying some others (opportunities as a software developer) that make it worth it to be here. Not even immigrants. Tell you what, even in 90-s Ukraine, one wouldn't think much about calling an ambulance if someone was real sick. And I wasn't afraid of the cops there. They were corrupt, but predictable; worst case, you have to bribe them. Police shooting unarmed civilians was unheard of. I don't think I've even seen a gun before I moved to the US. The US has some catching-up to do.
  - jki275 7y ago
    People from actual developing countries leave all the time. They put in the effort to learn the language, they do what they have to do. They don't have any significant amount of possessions -- that's one of the hallmarks of a real developing country. You're speaking from a position of such great privilege that you don't even have a frame of reference to accurately talk about a developing country. They're leaving because they would rather make 500 dollars a month working 20 hours a day at three jobs in Dubai than make 2-5 dollars a month working 20 hours a day at subsistence farming or worse, and they're often doing it so they can support those back home who don't have the skills to find sponsorship to work abroad. They learn a skill that will let them leave, or they find an agency that is hiring people to work abroad. I know plenty of people who have left their country to find jobs elsewhere -- many of them in the US, many in Japan. Any good nurse from southeast Asia who wants a job can usually get sponsored to come to the US -- there are other professions as well, some in the US and some elsewhere.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

by seirl 7y ago

jki275 7y ago

Seriously, if you all believe everywhere else in the world is so much better, why stay? For context, I'm married to a person from a real developing country, as it's actually defined. I'm sending multiple family members to school there so they can get out. Every single person in her family has done everything they can to get out. Every single person I know there has done everything they can to get out. Every single person they know has done everything they can to get out. Getting out is the primary motivator for people in developing countries. Whining about the country being unfair is something that perhaps privileged children who know nothing about "developing countries" do -- other people get out. The US is nothing like a developing country.

paulmd 7y ago
Largely because people have roots here and it's a pain to move. What, you're supposed to quit your job, leave your extended family, sell your house and possessions, find a new job and place to live overseas, and potentially even learn an entire new language? Just to be sure you won't be tortured? (assuming you can even find a place to take you - things are easier here for this crowd, tech skills are in-demand and usually open doors, but if you are highly skilled in working a register at K-Mart you're not going to find many countries open to you when you go to immigrate somewhere else.) For a lot of people it's just easier to take the chance that you won't be one of the people who falls into the gears of justice. I won't even say "don't commit a crime" because (a) committing a crime is not even necessarily a requirement to end up in prison given how bad our judicial system is particularly surrounding plea deals/etc. Lots of innocent people end up in jail. And (b) virtually everyone regularly does things that are, by a strict enforcement of the US legal code, punishable by prison sentences. "3 felonies a day" is perhaps an exaggeration, but 3 felonies a month or a year is still a lot of potential legal exposure. The system relies heavily on prosecutorial discretion, which falls apart when you have prosecutors who are elected on the basis of high conviction rates instead of doing what is just. To put it simply: 1% chance of being tortured, vs having to uproot your whole life. A lot of people will choose the 1% chance of being tortured.
- jki275 7y ago
  It's not a 1% chance. Even if one accepts your definition of torture, people who aren't criminals are very rarely caught up in the system at all. So it's far less than 1% as long as you're simply not a criminal. If the US were really so bad, people would leave. The people who do leave typically leave for tax purposes opposite to your belief.
  - bdamm 7y ago
    Mobility is really restricted to the top half of people. Yeah, it's not so bad as to cause mass refugee exodus, but that's a very low bar to aim for. We can and should do better.
  - whycombinater 7y ago
    Seriously dude? "American Airlines overcharged you by $1 and you're complaining? WHY NOT JUST START AN AIRLINE YOURSELF?" If only we were all god, your comment would be helpful.
    - ameister14 7y ago
      More like you are outlining how much worse AA is than every other airline and a person says 'well, why don't you fly other airlines?'
      - BubRoss 7y ago
        Choosing a country to be a citizen of is not a very liquid market.
        ameister14 7y ago
        Yep, and airlines are a terrible analogy.
  - Elzear 7y ago
    Around 5% of the US population go to jail at least once in their life. And 0.69% are currently jailed (0.075% in Germany). Since it is harder to _simply not be a criminal_ and prisons there are proven not to fulfill their role, maybe OP simply wishes that this aspect of the country would improve. I don't think he/she was whining, or even saying that everything in the country terrible.
Quekid5 7y ago
All of your family is there. All your friends are there. All that you own is there. All that you've ever known is there. You may not know any other language than your native one. You: "Why don't you just move?" This really sounds like saying "Cheer up!" to a person suffering from depression. EDIT: Spelling
- jki275 7y ago
  No, it doesn't. I know people from developing countries. I'm married to one. Universally, every single one of them wants to get the fuck out, and they do everything in their power to get out. That's reality in a developing country. The US is not in any way like a developing country. Comparing it to one is an act of such entitled privileged whining it's absurd.
  - seirl 7y ago
    I didn't say that it was a developing country, I listed, as the parent commenter said, "aspects in which the US is far closer to today's developing and third world countries than to the Western average".
  - Quekid5 7y ago
    > No, it doesn't. I know people from developing countries. I'm married to one. Universally, every single one of them wants to get the fuck out, and they do everything in their power to get out. > That's reality in a developing country. > The US is not in any way like a developing country. Comparing it to one is an act of such entitled privileged whining it's absurd. I think you just argued against your own point? 1) You're saying that people from developing countries are desperate to get out. (I have no issue with this claim.) 2) Then you say: the US is not like a developing country. The post of yours that I responded to effectively says to US citizens "why don't you just move?". I'll note that: Point 2 (as stated by you!) means that the entirety of point 1 is completely irrelevant if you want to argue against what I said.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      ++ to use a chess reference.
organsnyder 7y ago
I'd rather work on making my home country better—especially since I have the means to not be personally affected by so many of the injustices that can make it shitty for others.
seirl 7y ago
I left.
whatshisface 7y ago
Some people believe in their country and would rather fix it than leave it. If your car gets a flat, do you change the tire or buy a new car?
- magduf 7y ago
  If your car gets a flat every other day, the driver's seat is stuck in the reclined position, it's constantly trying to steer you off the road, and the heater doesn't work, then maybe it's time to give up on fixing it and buy a new car.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    It's pushing the analogy, but there are a finite amount of car materials in the world, and at some point you will have to start to recycle even the rusted out junkers if you want to drive. People fixing their country is something that's going to have to start happening eventually.
    - magduf 7y ago
      That's pushing the analogy way too far. Cars are already made of recycled materials, especially steel and aluminum. But metals in old cars are melted down in foundries and reconstituted to the proper alloys before being used in new cars; they're just used-as is. To go back to this analogy, that's basically like completely eliminating the government and creating an all-new one from a blank slate. I don't think you were thinking of doing anything that extreme. And historically speaking, the only time this happens is usually after a major war when a country loses and becomes occupied by another power (Germany & Japan, WWII), or after a bloody revolution (Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, French Revolution in France). #1 is pretty much impossible here, and #2 is not something I want to be around to witness. The most likely outcome is something much more like #3: the fall of Rome, but on a much shorter timescale. That isn't something I want to witness either.
csallen 7y ago
I have never understood this viewpoint of, "If you find fault with country X, then leave!" Sometimes it's applied to companies, tools, etc., too: "If you find fault with Y, then stop using it!" Can you explain this to me? It seems like an extreme way to live that would preclude anyone from living anywhere that's not perfect or using anything that's not perfect. (And nothing is perfect.) Why not just address the criticisms individually, rather than arbitrarily bundling them into a person's decision on where to live and what to use?
- lonelappde 7y ago
  As the saying goes, "patriotism is the last refugee of the scoundrel." "Then leave!" is the argument for those who have run out of arguments.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  It's a frequent refuge of those who don't wish to face, confront, address, or accept criticism. See: Exit, Voice, and Loyalty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty
blattimwind 7y ago
I never lived there. You can't just assume everyone is an American because you're on a ".com" website.
erikpukinskis 7y ago
Because I’m able to survive just fine in America, and I was born here and I am committed to doing my best to help. American is a combination of a first world country and a third world country under one government. Which one you are born into is a roll of the dice. People travel between the two, but one of them is not shrinking as fast as it should. The fact that I can point at that doesn’t make me want to move to Sweden, it makes me want to work harder to take care of my neighbors and to change our political climate.
thraxil 7y ago
As someone who did (US citizen now resident in the UK), it's a very difficult and expensive process. Most countries require you to have a visa sponsorship which basically means you are highly skilled enough that a company there is willing to pay a lot of fees and demonstrate to the government that they tried but couldn't find a local with your skillset. Once you've got that, it's also a lot of money on your part to get a visa, pay immigration lawyers, accountants, etc. You need money for that, a good chunk of cash up front for an apartment (first, last, security deposit, brokers fees, we had to add in a few months of rent up front because we didn't have a credit score in the UK), and a million other things. All made way more complicated because you probably don't have a bank account in the country, so everything is happening via international wire transfers. It also happens that I don't have children or family members that need me to care for them, etc. It would get significantly harder if I had to deal with that (though I did move a cat internationally, which was not trivial). The irony of course is that having the privilege for all that (cash reserves, highly employable skillset, etc) means that most of the problems in the US don't actually affect you as much as others. The people who are getting screwed the worst by the terrible systems in the US are in no position to extract themselves.
pixelbash 7y ago
I live in New Zealand with family in the UK. I have spent the last 10 years flying the other way around the planet instead of via LA because the airports are worse than places like Malaysia. I can't speak to living in the USA but I have lived in Milawe and Fiji, and honestly being poor is definitely bad but some of the stuff happening in the US is a whole other kind of dystopian terrifying.
- chrisco255 7y ago
  Is LAX really that bad? I haven't been there in years, but this seems a bit egregious. What terrifies you? The long lines at the bathroom? The food court selection? The lack of charging ports?
  - indemnity 7y ago
    How about having to check out your luggage, go through security, and check it back in, even when you are just transiting on the way to Europe. Fly through a big Asian hub and you have none of that BS, modern clean efficient airports with working toilets that can actually flush and better food. Not a hard decision.
  - pixelbash 7y ago
    What really put us off was arriving after a long haul to a queue that filled the immigration hall, then proceeding to wait for two hours while the three desks (out of about 12) tried to process about three flights worth of people. That and the shoes thing, most other places don't have that. It all may have changed, but until I hear otherwise (or that the TSA have decided to calm down) I'm happy with my choice. Edit: As the other comment mentioned, this was also all just for a flight transfer.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      Somewhere around the twin cities a guy from the TSA is wearing my boots. Try buying shoes at 06:30 in the morning... Last time I ever flew to/through the USA.
dv_dt 7y ago
Because whatever other faults the US has, there is still a high degree of free speech protection here. And any citizen of America is still free to promote their thoughts of what would make our nation a better union. If they desire, through criticism of what makes us an imperfect union. Some people might even consider that act patriotic or a duty of a citizen to do so.
- jki275 7y ago
  And you've hit on it. The US respects the rights people have, and the US gives tremendous opportunity. Is it perfect? Of course not. Are there issues that need to be addressed? Of course there are. But to compare the US to a developing country is simply profoundly ignorant and a display of such privilege that it shows one simply can't even fathom what a developing country actually is. I've been there. I've been all over the US, I've volunteered in homeless shelters in the US, I've travelled extensively in southeast Asia. The homeless in the US would be considered extravagantly wealthy in many places in southeast Asia. Southwest Asia too, I've been deployed there more than once. The US is not a developing country or anything near it. We're the premiere first world country, and we provide opportunity beyond the wildest dreams many people worldwide can ever imagine. That's why the people in real developing countries generally want to come here.
tomc1985 7y ago
> The US is nothing like a developing country. The US is a big place. Not all of it is paradise. I've heard foreign exchange students from countries like Russia, placed in rural communities like Wyoming or Nebraska, describe the conditions back home as better than where they are placed in the US. I've read books describing the Chicago projects at the height of their badness and then visiting some of the poorest cities in Latin America and seeing parallels. The US is rich, sure, but that wealth is very heavily concentrated along coastal and border states. Saying the US is "nothing" like a developing country would be a false statement as it doesn't take into account the sheer contrast of livelihoods that we have here.
romwell 7y ago
>Seriously, if you all believe everywhere else in the world is so much better, why stay? Right, because should an American decide that they like country X more, they can just move to country X, which is waiting for them with open arms. Like, anyone could be Swedish, right? Immigration is an easy-peasy thing; who can possibly find it difficult to get a job overseas, learn a language, leave family and friends behind, get an entire new social and support network, lose a ton of money and/or most of your possessions in an overseas move (re-purchasing is often cheaper, but costs a ton either way), jump through a thousand bureaucratic hoops, all with no guarantee of actually having long-term prospects in the country paper-wise. That's, of course, assuming that no American has crippling debt that would effectively prevent them from going somewhere where people can comfortably live on a smaller salary (since their education and healthcare are free). No sirree, not a problem at all. Love it or leave it, and when you do, don't come back, just get another citizenship somewhere. Somehow. Should be easy, right? Also, nobody in their right mind would think to criticize some aspects of a country (healthcare, justice system, etc), while enjoying some others (opportunities as a software developer) that make it worth it to be here. Not even immigrants. Tell you what, even in 90-s Ukraine, one wouldn't think much about calling an ambulance if someone was real sick. And I wasn't afraid of the cops there. They were corrupt, but predictable; worst case, you have to bribe them. Police shooting unarmed civilians was unheard of. I don't think I've even seen a gun before I moved to the US. The US has some catching-up to do.
- jki275 7y ago
  People from actual developing countries leave all the time. They put in the effort to learn the language, they do what they have to do. They don't have any significant amount of possessions -- that's one of the hallmarks of a real developing country. You're speaking from a position of such great privilege that you don't even have a frame of reference to accurately talk about a developing country. They're leaving because they would rather make 500 dollars a month working 20 hours a day at three jobs in Dubai than make 2-5 dollars a month working 20 hours a day at subsistence farming or worse, and they're often doing it so they can support those back home who don't have the skills to find sponsorship to work abroad. They learn a skill that will let them leave, or they find an agency that is hiring people to work abroad. I know plenty of people who have left their country to find jobs elsewhere -- many of them in the US, many in Japan. Any good nurse from southeast Asia who wants a job can usually get sponsored to come to the US -- there are other professions as well, some in the US and some elsewhere.

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