Comment by deanmoriarty | Hacker News Reader

Comment by deanmoriarty | Hacker News Reader

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I am curious, how would you have acted in my shoes? A few alternative options I can think of:

1) Not even try to move to the US to pursue the dream of a world-class tech career (dream I had since I was 12), stay in my own EU country with a mind-numbing consultancy job (which again, it's the only kind of employment available since the country is mostly rural with a limited software industry) to be fully consistent with morals. This also means I won't be able to financially help my parents as a sign of gratitude for all they've done for me, since my salary will be barely enough to keep me afloat.

2) Move to the US and completely renounce to my EU citizenship, so I won't ever have a way to go back and "take advantage" of my EU country (meaning I wouldn't even be able to see parents and family without an immigration visa).

3) Move to the US, keep the EU citizenship, but completely deny to myself the option of eventually moving back if needed. So, if I get a massive debilitating cancer that will force me to quit my job and lose my health insurance in the US, I'll die without treatment and all alone (loving family is all in EU) but with morals.

4) Move to the US, keep the EU citizenship, keep the possibility of eventually moving to EU, but to be consistent with morals find a way to donate to my EU government a few hundreds/thousands a month to keep contributing to the social safety net even if I'm not a resident there (I don't believe that's even physically possible?). But certainly that wouldn't be enough to cover the expenses my government paid for my education, so I should also find a way to refund that?

5) Move to the US, keep the EU citizenship, and start a countdown mandating that in exactly N years (where N cannot be certainly changed!) I will move back to EU regardless of where I am in my career or health status, so I won't be able to just move to the EU at the most convenient time.

I'm asking because it's easy to talk about problems at a philosophical level, but please try to step down from your judging pedestal and come back to the real world with real problems, thinking what YOU would have done in practice.

I have empathy for your situation if your dream was from the age of 12 to be in the tech career and only obtainable in USA. I had a dream that wasn't work-related and I wasn't able to obtain it. Yes, dreams are worth a lot and makes me find your situation exceptional compared to someone just in it for the money. Myself, I chose to move away from the USA because being a software engineer could be done in Canada and it had nothing to do for my dream. Heck, even if money would have financed my dream, I wouldn't have wanted to work in the US for financing my dream because I've seen too much dread before graduating that was rooted by how US culture only cares about themselves. Anyway I guess you're okay morally if your dream has good merits as well. Like whatever you're making isn't just some mindless product for socially conditioning certain demographics and into buying a product that has no real extension to life in a positive way.

> 1) Not move to the US to pursue a world-class tech career, stay in EU with a mind-numbing consultancy job to be fully consistent with morals.

I know plenty of people in the EU that work in IT, get paid very well (compared to their peers) and do not work in a consulting company. Especially for very talented people, I haven't heard of any stories about not finding interesting, fulfilling work.

> 3) Move to the US, keep the EU citizenship, but completely deny to myself the option of eventually moving back, so if I get a massive debilitating cancer that will force me to quit my job and lose my insurance in the US, I'll die with morals.

Since you renounce your duties to the society that gave you your free education and upbringing, renouncing the benefits sounds fair, yes. Living and dying by your personal convictions is what I respect in people. Living by them only while it's convenient and stopping to do so when they get tested just means that you don't actually have any.

> 4) Move to the US, keep the EU citizenship, keep the possibility of eventually moving to EU, but to be consistent with my morals find a way to donate to my EU government a few hundreds/thousands a month to keep contributing to the social safety net (I don't believe that's even possible for non-residents).

That's another option, I'm sure you can find a way if you want to.

I don't mind the emigration part at all, it's the reasoning I dislike. Saying "I don't like the bureaucracy" or "I don't like the population density" or "I don't like the language/food/culture/tv program" etc, that's perfectly fine in my book. But saying "I've taken all I can, it's time to move on, otherwise I'd have to give back. Oh well, I might come back if I ever get needy again and there's more to take" is not in my book. Living in a society that finances your education and catches you if you fall comes at a cost. Ducking out when the bill comes isn't what I'd do.

>Since you renounce your duties to the society that gave you your free education and upbringing, renouncing the benefits sounds fair, yes. Living and dying by your personal convictions is what I respect in people. Living by them only while it's convenient and stopping to do so when they get tested just means that you don't actually have any.

Why not formalize it by saying one should lose citizenship automatically under these circumstances? If you don't agree with that, then realize you are drawing a line somewhere, and deanmoriarty is merely drawing the line in a different place. Both of you are the same, and are merely quibbling with the degree by which you are the same.

> Why not formalize it by saying one should lose citizenship automatically under these circumstances?

For practical reasons. It's hard to formalize and having people be stripped of any citizenship is shit. I don't mind the idea of losing your previous citizenship once you acquire a new one, that's fine.

I'd much prefer a system where education etc is fundamentally free but is converted into a loan if you emigrate. Society X invests into you, you want to jump ship to Y so you pay back what X invested into you, possibly in multiple installments or an additional income tax.

Thanks for your reply.

One more question for you, to understand the scope of your philosophy: I don't plan on having kids ever, and to be honest my reasoning is partially driven by the fact that I see them as an unnecessary financial and time burden on me and my partner (she agrees).

Does that mean that in your world view we don't deserve a place in society at all, because if everyone was like us we wouldn't have a society at all in a few decades, so once again I am living by exploiting all the financial and time commitments spent by other people in raising other humans for my benefit?

No.

I'm also not against suicide, even though society would end if everybody did it. It's about your interaction with others where your morality matters. Whether you have children or not is your personal decision and is up to you, similarly to burning your possessions. It's when you're contemplating to burn other people's possessions that the do/don't questions arise.

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