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Comment by askonomm | Hacker News Reader

This hits home for me a lot. I've lived in Spain, Argentina and Finland, all in hoping to fill whatever gap I thought it would, whether that would be life quality, weather, culture or whatever. But after the honeymoon period, the cracks started to show at every place. I'm now back in my home country, Estonia, which I (now) think is the best for me - but that creeping feeling of something better being somewhere out there is hard to shake, and still with me, even as I try to not think about that.

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Thank you for sharing your experience. I'm Indian and I'm on my third country I've lived in now. I'm beginning to think I should learn to be optimistic and appreciative about wherever I live than trying to find that perfect country to settle down :)

There is no place, and no time, where people are better than what you see before you right now.

Sometimes, the political system is better.

People? There is nothing new under the sun.

This a a strange postmodern take. All places and cultures are really equal?

Maybe Im missing your point, but to take a hyperbolic example, surely you wouldn't live in north Korea and say "There is no place, and no time, where people are better than what you see before you right now."

I'm afraid your example is not at all hyperbolic -- instead, such places and worse, are and have been common throughout the ages ...

(Agreeing with you btw)

I have no reason to think people in North Korea aren't just as nice and just as terrible as people in Seattle or anywhere else, really. The political system in North Korea is atrocious, but the point was that people are people.

My counterpoint is that while "people are people", they are impacted and influenced by their material, cultural, and political circumstances.

People can become hardened, callous, mean, and damaged to a greater or lesser degree in durable ways that outlast political circumstance.

If you beat and abuse a child, and that child will be more likely to beat and abuse others. This is called the cycle of violence. You can absolutely have times and places where this is more or less prevalent.

"people are people" on a slave plantation as well, but their behavior is not the same as those living in Seattle. If you flipped a switch on the political system overnight, the people would not flip with it. You might expect to see trauma and damage to impact behavior for generations to come, even if you magically teleported them to Seattle.

I know families that fled the cultural revolution in China, and it still has behavioral impacts on people 60 years later, including children who have never even been to China. Many viewed their neighbors as threats, thieves, and informants and are less "nice" to strangers as a result. It changed who they are as people in durable ways that outlasted the causal circumstance, and informed how they teach their children to treat strangers living in Seattle 60 years later.

Surely you can imagine a place where conditions are not conducive to "being nice" and as a result, people are less nice overall. You might see the same absolute range, with examples of extreme kindness or terrible behavior, but the mean and typical behavior can be shifted.

I understand and agree with what you said. But I'd say what you're describing is how people are affected in a superficial level. In the façade they present to strangers. However, I interpreted the original post to mean that, in an intimate level (within a group of friends who trust each other), it won't be that different. But yes, it may be that you are in a place where for whatever reason you can't form meaningful relationships with others. Usually that happens to people who leave their countries, rather than the ones who stay. But sometimes, it can be the other way around.

Anyway, I think the original point is that you really live in the small group of friends and your interactions with strangers, while also part of life, it's less meaningful. So, you can find a culture that matches you more closely, but unless the culture you are in is completely disgusting to you, you're probably optimising the wrong thing.

Yeah I think you get my point. I was mostly objecting to the strict equivalence they were claiming. Across cultures you will find some relative constants in human behavior. For example, Most people love their children no matter where you go, but even that can mean different things depending on the norms and that culture.

I would push back a little bit on the idea that these differences are purely superficial. Humans can have real cultural differences regarding where they find meaning in life, how they relate to others in society, and if they ever find satisfaction, happiness, and fulfillment in their own lives.

Just because such differences can not be summed and weighed against each other to determine which culture is "better", does not mean they are the same.

This is the post-modern sentiment that I reject. E.G the differences can not be compared so therefore they are the same.

I don't agree. Yes in one sense people are all the same. But differences in each country really do matter. As do cultural differences.

I grew up in the US but I've lived in South Africa for nearly 10 years. I've also lived in Switzerland and Mexico.

So I've seen enough of a range of how people live to know there are better and worse conditions. Maybe there is no true perfect country or culture, but there are definitely tradeoffs.

You might love the culture and hate the government, or love the government but hate the culture.

Like I love how friendly South Africans are, but my God the government is so corrupt. I love how the Swiss government works, but Swiss people aren't known for being easy to make friends with. God forbid you flush the toilet after 10pm.

So depending on what you are optimizing for, some places really are better than others.

Different conditions make otherwise equivalent people act different and pursue different goals.

That's very interesting, what made you leave those countries? Argentina likely has money issues, but the other two come very "highly recommended" (high quality of life, law & order, etc), especially Finland.

Argentina has big economical issues indeed, and the resulting inconveniences were what drove me away eventually, and yet out of everywhere I've been, Argentina has had by far the friendliest people I've ever met, and the easiest people to make friends with.

Spain (the government and regulations around renting places) was unfriendly to newcomers as its a very socialist country and not very welcoming to digital nomads. Everything there is built in a way to expect a local bank account, local job, etc. From the moment of trying to get a local ID card it was clear that you were not really wanted there. Processes made purposely difficult and requirements differ from police station to police station. Beautiful country, but given that I do not intend to stop working remotely as a contractor it made basic things there very difficult. Spain is quite corrupt however so if you have money you _can_ get around these issues via some lawyer agencies who get you through the door in a matter of days of what otherwise can be a half-year wait in queue, but I just found the system fighting me too much.

Finland is great though, everything runs efficiently, most of everything can be done online, just like in Estonia, but much like Estonia, very difficult to make friends and the culture in general is quite closed and people keep to themselves a lot. Most people I know here have had the same friends since highschool. So when it came down to Finland or Estonia, I just chose the one I already had friends at.

I’m moving to Estonia - I’d love to meet a fellow HN user. Email is in my contact.

Interesting. Estonia was my top pick in the EU.

In retrospect, were you searching or escaping?

Probably both. Escaping the routine, boring familiarity and searching for that one place where I'd be perfectly content with existence, but that in itself I have come to find is probably not possible to achieve because of the very nature of being human. Being self-aware is such a curse sometimes.

I think everyone is trying to fill that void whether they realize it or not.

Hope you find your happy place. Good luck :)

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