One thing I will never understand about people who pretty much hate where they live for one reason or another: Why don't they leave?
Seriously. I am not taking sides here. I have visited the UK as a tourist and on business a zillion times over the last four decades. And yet, I am not qualified to voice opinion as to the realities of living there. From the outside, as someone visiting from the US, for lack of a better term, it feels like home. Comfortable. Orderly. A place where anyone can live and, should they be inclined to, excel.
I don't understand people who live in the US, hate the US and don't move elsewhere. It isn't like the world is closed to relocation. It happens all the time. My own family emigrated to the US when I was almost a baby precisely for this reason. My grandparents fled from genocide, that's more of a forced migration.
The point is: If it is so bad. If it is revolting. Find your paradise, sell your possessions, book a flight and leave.
The alternative is to seek to change it by engaging in politics (which is a revolting thought pretty much anywhere in the world) or violence (which some seem to think is a way to make things better, which is as weird as can be).
I am not saying this in a spirit of confrontation or even criticism at all. As the son of immigrants who decided "enough is enough", I am grateful for the very hard decision my parents made.
It is because I understand this that I am perplexed by people who hate where they live and choose to stick around living in misery. Relinquishing your life to a sunk costs fallacy scenario isn't a formula for success. Go find your paradise. The world is a very large blue marble with lots of wonderful places you can call home and be happy.
One thing I will never understand about people who argue with others preferences on the internet: Why don’t they just not post? I don’t understand people who read and reply to posts they hate.
Maybe it’s because the OP overall likes the country but wants it to be better? Not everyone even has the option of voting with their feet, and for many others though they could, it means leaving behind a lifetime of friends and family for a less familiar setting. By your logic why do we even vote or have opinions on things when we could physically remove ourselves from them?
Another thing I don't understand. This time online:
People who read comments and make-up shit the post didn't actually say. At all.
I was expressing a general idea; one that was not at all addressed at the OP. Just a thought, inspired by reading a comment. I even went out of my way to clarify this much with:
"I am not saying this in a spirit of confrontation or even criticism at all."
> If the point of your comment wasn't about people who criticize their own country, then what was it about?
It was about that and a lot more if anyone bothered to engage with me rather than the opposite. There's much depth in the concept. I'll discuss this at the end of this comment.
To address @opportune's post specifically:
> people who argue with others preferences on the internet
I was not arguing with anyone. That was made abundantly clear.
It was not an attack aimed at the OP.
It was not critical of the OP.
In fact, the example I give is:
"I don't understand people who live in the US, hate the US and don't move elsewhere."
The OP is in the UK. I don't even suggest the OP should move out of the UK, at all. Why this need to fabricate a story where one does not exist?
> I don’t understand people who read and reply to posts they hate.
Show me where I said I hated any post on this entire thread.
You can't. Because that's a fantasy.
> By your logic why do we even vote or have opinions on things when we could physically remove ourselves from them?
Another fantasy.
In fact, I very much said that: "The alternative is to seek to change it by engaging in politics".
The fact that politics is revolting (is anyone going to argue with that?) does not mean one cannot seek change through voting, at all.
> By your logic why do we even vote or have opinions on things when we could physically remove ourselves from them?
These things are completely unrelated.
I'll show you just how unrelated they are: A good friend of mine is a UK citizen who lived in the US for many decades, became a US citizen, didn't like the direction the country was on and moved his entire family to New Zealand.
He votes on every single US election, because he is a US citizen.
You can move elsewhere and still engage in voting to affect change. You can do that while enjoying a different environment.
Over the decades I have met lots of people who, for a variety of reasons, are miserable where they live. Not just in the US. Without fail, those who go-on to have a happy life are those who make the decision to change their circumstances.
For example, the aforementioned UK citizen ending-up in New Zealand after decades of living in the US. I know US citizens who did the same and moved to Costa Rica. Another family left Australia for Singapore. Ecuador for Los Angeles. Argentina for Spain. Peru for Miami. Various spots in the Middle East for the US, Europe and Latin America. I know loads of people who left California for Arizona (sometimes you don't have to go another country). Etc.
It is false to say people can't move due to financial or family links. Sure, it's hard, yet the history of immigrants tells a very different story. My parents left everything behind --parents, siblings, friends, profession, etc.-- to move to the US. They came with nothing and barely spoke the language. And yet, they managed, lived a happy life and made something of themselves. Yes, it's hard. No, it is not impossible.
Philosophically speaking, this is about an expression of freedom like not other.
This applies to jobs as well. How many people do you know who are miserable at work and never do a thing about it? I have known more than a few over the decades. They have nothing good to say about their company, and yet, endure misery for years.
Denying your contribution to a society or business is probably the most powerful expression of freedom one can possibly exercise.
If a society or company isn't serving you, why continue to contribute in any way? Go become a part of one whos values you share. The first entity loses one of the most valuable assets anyone can have; people interested in being a part of it in various ways.
My post was about freedom and the most powerful way to express it.
Not to go too far, just a couple of weeks ago I fired one of our clients. This account was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to us. And yet, I had to vote with my feet. This client was miserable to work with. Nobody at the office enjoyed working with them. So, we walked. Was it hard? Of course. Impossible? Nope. Done deal. We feel 100% better about our work and will soon have a better client who will likely appreciate our contribution to their mission. And, in turn, we are going to feel great about working with them.
You (plural, not addressing anyone in particular) might want to consider the idea that a better life could exist elsewhere. There is no need to suffer through decades of grief. You are free. And, yes, this means you are free to vote with your feet. Their loss, not yours.
Don't put-up with shit you don't want to live with, at work or where you happen to live.
I suspect every right and freedom each of us enjoy in our respective countries is the result of people unhappy with their country seeking to better it. In the UK we even had a civil war over the monarchy centuries ago! Why didn't Cromwell just leave??
Also it completely ignores that people have family, dependents, friends, history that they may not wish to abandon.
For some additional context, in the UK, "why don't you leave" is a particularly toxic argument often directed exclusively at ethnic minorities - including those who were born here, or are eg third generation Brits. You'll typically find it paired with calls to "go back where you came from".
You have a overly-romanticised vision of the UK based on a few visits, which I'm afraid doesn't quite match the reality.
> You have a overly-romanticised vision of the UK based on a few visits, which I'm afraid doesn't quite match the reality.
Of course. I say this much. Over a dozen visits, yet mostly as a tourist and one business (which means you don't get to see anything because you are in meetings and conferences all the time).
That's the nature of tourism, right? It's the fantasy of where we visit vs. the reality of it.
As I mentioned elsewhere, the philosophical core of my comment is more about freedom than anything else. It isn't aimed at the UK at all. In fact, the example I gave is about the US.
We can apply this to working a job or company one dislikes. The highest expression of freedom is to leave and find a job one might enjoy and a company that appreciates what one might contribute.
It's about freedom. One can choose to stay and endure, hoping things change. That, too, is freedom.
> Why didn't Cromwell just leave??
Matters of history at that level are far more complex than the idea of mere peasants like us seeking a better life and better outcomes by choosing the playing field --whether that means career, employer or where we live.
As I mentioned in another comment, as you get older you tend to move away from complexity and stress in your life. When one it in their 20's it is easy to think about being a revolutionary. Later in life those ideas tend to lose their shine very quickly. The only people who live in that kind of mayhem are, for the most part, the politicians who get to directly benefit from driving masses of young people into resonance with ideology and movements that benefit them --often at the expense of everyone else.
BTW, thanks for the insight into "why don't you leave" in the UK. I think that is somewhat universal. I know there are idiots in the US who use that kind of language. I hope it is obvious that isn't what I was saying or implying at all.
I am talking about exercising the freedom to choose who will benefit from your contributions to society or your work. This isn't about nations. There are places in the US I would not live in because I know I would be miserable. A simple example, I am an atheist. I don't think I would be happy in some of the more intensely religious areas of this country. I don't have a problem with those who are religious, just not my thing and I prefer not to have it in my face all day, every day.
> One thing I will never understand about people who pretty much hate where they live for one reason or another: Why don't they leave?
Hate is a very strong word. What about people who love the place they live in, but have a few things which they would like to chane?
It is perfectly conceivable that someone would love their life in the UK yet thinks that there should be no exceptions written into the law about the business of a particular family.
> Hate is a very strong word. What about people who love the place they live in, but have a few things which they would like to chane?
Then they don't hate where they live. Right?
You are right, it is a matter of degrees. That's why I chose a strong word. If someone has reached that level, they can exist in anguish or choose to go elsewhere.
As I mentioned in other comments, this applies to a job one might hate just as well.
I don't hate where I live (far from that) but I can understand this lack of eagerness to migrate, even when you hate it.
You're still emotionally attached to a few people around you, who might not be so eager to migrate. Migration is often messy, and incurs on financial, temporal, and emotional costs. Adaptation itself also incurs on the same costs, as you learn that your native land's "common sense" is "crazy talk" in your new land and vice versa. There's a real risk that the locals of your new place actually hate you.
And nothing prevents you from hating that new place too, and if you hate it as much as your older place you spent a lot of your money, time, and emotions on nothing. You know that you have incomplete information about the new place. No paradise survives experience.
Furthermore: people are fairly verbose on what they hate, and often their complains about a specific aspect of that place might give you an impression that they hate everything there, or at least hate it enough to be better off elsewhere.
A couple of counterpoints. I think you underestimate how difficult it can be to emigrate to another country without plenty of money (although it is relatively for EU citizens, rights the British have recently given up). Secondly, why should they leave rather than fight hard for change? The love it or leave it argument is so lazy.
> I think you underestimate how difficult it can be to emigrate to another country without plenty of money
I don't. My parent did it with nearly nothing. So did my grandparents before them. It isn't easy. Yet it is not impossible.
> why should they leave rather than fight hard for change?
It's a matter of degrees, right? I know people who hate the US to the bone and yet, they still live here. That's the kind of thing I don't understand. And, in the case of the couple of people I have in mind, money isn't problem at all.
Also, if you notice, I did mention the option to stay and fight for change is still there.
The question is one of what someone might want to have their life focus be about. I have to tell you that as you get older you tend to appreciate the idea of moving towards less drama and complexity in life. Why live life in a fever of anguish and dissatisfaction when other options might exist.
Also note that, philosophically speaking, my comment extends to situations related to working at a job or for a company one might not enjoy. One can stay and fight for change or just go. It's one of the most powerful expressions of freedom I can think of. They lose. You win. And someone (a nation or company) who might appreciate what you have to offer benefits from your decision.
Uprooting your life to move to another country is a big decision, and while your country might not be perfect, there may not be a country that treats immigrants as well as your original country does native citizens, or if there is, it might not be easy to get in to.
Exactly how feasible do you think that suggestion is? What’s your guess on the budget you’d need for legal fees alone? (Using EU freedom of movement laws is cheating.)
> Exactly how feasible do you think that suggestion is?
My grandparents emigrated with absolutely nothing to their names. My parents emigrated US with very little. It isn't easy. At all. It also isn't impossible.
Seriously. I am not taking sides here. I have visited the UK as a tourist and on business a zillion times over the last four decades. And yet, I am not qualified to voice opinion as to the realities of living there. From the outside, as someone visiting from the US, for lack of a better term, it feels like home. Comfortable. Orderly. A place where anyone can live and, should they be inclined to, excel.
I don't understand people who live in the US, hate the US and don't move elsewhere. It isn't like the world is closed to relocation. It happens all the time. My own family emigrated to the US when I was almost a baby precisely for this reason. My grandparents fled from genocide, that's more of a forced migration.
The point is: If it is so bad. If it is revolting. Find your paradise, sell your possessions, book a flight and leave.
The alternative is to seek to change it by engaging in politics (which is a revolting thought pretty much anywhere in the world) or violence (which some seem to think is a way to make things better, which is as weird as can be).
I am not saying this in a spirit of confrontation or even criticism at all. As the son of immigrants who decided "enough is enough", I am grateful for the very hard decision my parents made.
It is because I understand this that I am perplexed by people who hate where they live and choose to stick around living in misery. Relinquishing your life to a sunk costs fallacy scenario isn't a formula for success. Go find your paradise. The world is a very large blue marble with lots of wonderful places you can call home and be happy.