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Comment by capableweb | Hacker News Reader

I know Americans on the internet usually view their country with rose-shaded glasses but this comment has to take the price. I don't know the number, don't think anyone does, but off the people I know, 100% would never want to move to any state in the US. Probably the real number of people wanting to immigrate to the US is closer to 0% than 100%.

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It doesn't really make sense to try to pinpoint an exact number, but I think you are right in answering to another subtly different question: the real people that would move, given just the opportunity, and nothing more. E.g. my grandmother would not move, most non-white people would face racial difficulties there that might not be present in their home country and would not consider moving, a lawyer might not be able to maintain a bar status there, etc.

But if you read your parent post caritatively, and the context to which it is responding, they are discussing just location - so the implicit question is more of "would a random world citizen complain about moving to Georgia, in the conditions that a US citizen would move (belonging to society, job prospects, no issues with recognition of citizenship, education, job experience, no language issues, etc. etc.)". He is just answering to the dismissal of the Georgia standard of living.

So yeah, answering to that second question, and speaking as a western european, I do think that most (more than 50%) of my acquaintances would take the chance (I think this because most barriers would be being far from friends and family and language issues, but following the spirit of the initial complaint, we are talking about an american who already lives probably far away from friends and family, in LA or NY). Obviously this is also just opinion and I did not run a poll, but I thought the rose-shaded glasses thing was a red herring.

The people you know are almost certainly not representative of the world at large. Maybe 80% is a bit high, but the number is certainly over 50%. The median global person earns less than $3000/year.

It's not very usefull to make a point of: "unlike you, some people have to live under tyrany or war"

My bet is that of people living in functioning democracies, the percentage will be in like 20-25%.

Perhaps, but that's not really relevant since the vast majority of people do not live in well functioning democracies.

Your post sounds like an assumption like "the people who live in war are a small minority so their position is an exception compared to humanity in general" when actually it's the opposite, the people who live in the well functioning first world democracies are a small minority so their position is an exception compared to humanity in general.

In that case leaders of USSR could use the same line to boast about their country.

In the 60s-70s life in USSR was better than in China, India, virtuall all of Africa and Latin America.

Yes, the leaders of USSR could do that and did just that, but I don't understand what this has got to do with any challenges to the original assertion that large quantities of people worldwide would be "very grateful to relocate to Georgia" - they would be. At the moment despite all the immigration restrictions that USA has implemented, the Green Card queue indicates a mass willingness to become residents of USA.

It's not about boasting, it's about whether USA can rely on people wanting to immigrate to ensure that places like Georgia stay sufficiently populated even if population naturally declines - and IMHO they can.

Depending on who you ask, percentage of people living in functioning democracies would be 0-10%.

Probably much higher for those living in the UK with its insane housing prices (10x the hours worked per square meter of Chicago!)

> The people you know are almost certainly not representative of the world at large

Yeah, most certainly.

> The median global person earns less than $3000/year

What does that have to do with anything? In plenty of places you can easily survive and have a good time with $3000/year, so not sure where or how this is relevant.

And how you get the "certainly over 50%" number from? You happen to be American too?

That figure is adjusted for cost of living.

15% of the world wants to move to another country. Of those, 20% want to move to the United States, the most desired location. The second most desired destination is Canada with 6%. More stats here: https://news.gallup.com/poll/245255/750-million-worldwide-mi...

One wonders who is wearing the reality-distorting glasses on HN. ;)

Thank you for proving my point, indeed HN (and the internet) is filled with the reality-distorted glasses :)

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