Ask HN: Time to Leave the US? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Time to Leave the US?

18 pointsevo_923 comments

It feels like the US has passed a tipping point of sorts and is rapidly moving the wrong way on a lot of important issues.

Biggest / most glaring being the out-of-control gun violence, esp. in our schools. That's simply unacceptable to me as a parent of two toddlers under the age of 2.

Medical / Cost of a significant illness is really Fd up in this country. I had a kidney stone last year, and it cost me over 5k. Most of my friends / family would not have been able to absorb that surprise expense and would have had to use credit cards. That's not even much cash compared to what medical bills in the US can easily cost you. Families are being financially ruined by this shit.

Lastly would be random, non-school violence. My wife is Asian and the increase in random asshats assaulting smaller, weaker people – esp Asian women – is just the latest WTF is going on in this country.

When I step back, it seems inevitable that someone close to me will suffer from one of the 3, or possible more than 1 of the 3 problems above.

I wonder if I would be better off just getting the hell out of the US before it gets worse. Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic here, but I don't see a clear path forward to correct any of the above issues, except possible for #3 where stiffer crime sentences wouldn't be completely unheard of. The other two, yeah those are never going to improve, and if anything they're more likely to get worse. After the latest shooting in Nashville, of course the response is to FN loosen gun laws. Insanity.

Talk me off the ledge, or if you have already reached the same conclusion and moved to let's say Canada, I would love to connect and learn how that went. I honestly don't know where to begin.

If you think Canada is the answer then let me stop you right there. Canada's problems are only increasing and while there are no school shootings there are stabbings and homeless problems are increasing everyday along with not a lot of competition so high prices for everything, rising house prices, rising grocery prices and lastly, healthcare is completely falling apart with no access to healthcare for months or years unless it is a complete emergency.

I grew up in a town near Toronto and when I visit my parents I am shocked that I hear the N-word used in public...too many Americans think Canada is Berkeley but nation-sized

and as you mention...Americans seem to have no conception that Canada's healthcare system is presently a shambles and anyone with decent insurance in the US is much much better off

Yes, 100 agree:

- Cannot get a family Dr [1]

- Mini crime wave due to catch and release [2]

- 53%+ combined income tax [3]

[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/angus-reid-i...

[2] https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/vancouver-toronto-stabb...

[3] https://www.legalline.ca/legal-answers/tax-rates-much-pay/

Same on east coast sadly.

Hey! You know what they say, the grass always seems greener on the other side.

It sounds like you've got a lot on your plate right now, and I'm really sorry to hear that you're going through a tough time. It's natural to feel overwhelmed and anxious in such situations.

Have you thought about talking to a professional about your concerns? You can easily access online consultations with psychologists through platforms like BetterHelp, or even visit one in person.

It's true that the world is a bit crazy these days, and it's not just the U.S. While it's normal to feel like hitting the panic button, remember that every place has its own set of challenges.

We could chat about moving countries, like taxes, immigration, logistics, and job markets, but that won't address your immediate concerns. Realistically, it's unlikely you can just move to another country permanently.

This seems more like a life challenge than just a relocating issue. Having a professional listen to you and provide feedback could be really helpful, as they're equipped to handle these kinds of situations, unlike the HN crowd including me.

Thinking about this as well, especially as a parent. Dropping off my kids at school each day has become a major source of anxiety.

I don't have any advice, but you could checkout /r/amerexit [1] on reddit. Lots of info, resources, and people willing to help there.

Best of luck to you, and hope to hear what decision you land on.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AmerExit/

"Talk me off the ledge"

I don't get this. Do what you think is best for yourself and your family. What difference does it make what strangers on the internet think?

He’s trying to ascertain what’s best for himself and his family by asking a community he trusts.

I'm absolutely not saying the US health care is good, but assuming you're a tech worker on a good salary the US health system is probably the best in the world.

For comparison I live in the UK where we have universal health care. If you're on a good salary, you'll probably be paying about $7,000 - $10,000 a year in tax for health care. Around $3,000 - $6,000 in income tax, then maybe another $4,000 from various other taxes such as the living in a house tax, the driving a car tax, the watching a TV tax, and the buying stuff at the supermarket tax.

For your $7,000 - $10,000 you'll basically get the worst health care imaginable for a developed country, but it's "free" at the point of service so we still get to act smug when talking to Americans.

I've used the NHS twice in the last decade. One time I was in agony from an ear infection and was told I'd have wait three months to see an ENT. Thankfully I was only in agony for another month before the infection clear up on its own.

The other time I had fatty liver disease, although this wasn't diagnosed by the NHS because despite visiting them in pain three times over the course of a year they refused to run any tests because in their opinion I was probably fine, and on the third time the doctor outright accused me of wasting his time. Given that abdominal pain obviously isn't normal I got private testing done and found out I had fairly advanced fatty liver disease due to being homozygous for the PNPLA3 I148M variant.

On top of this I know two people who died of cancer in the last three years. One was just 29 years old. She went to the doctor for about a year complaining of pains and vaginal bleeding. They kept turning her away and saying she was fine. When they finally ran tests they diagnosed her with stage 3 cervical cancer and she died a few weeks later. In my opinion had she had lived in the US it's very likely she would still be alive.

You need to do what makes sense to you, but you might want to play devil's advocate first and look at the downside of living elsewhere plus the upside to living here.

I was a military wife for a couple of decades. I used to look up natural disasters for different places, trying to find someplace to move that had none. Turns out it's a case of pick your poison. You can't escape natural disasters, but you can decide whether you prefer hurricanes or tornados or earthquakes as your primary risk.

You could mitigate some of the risks you know of here in the US, such as homeschooling your kids to avoid school violence.

There's some truth to the idea of "better the devil you know." Other places will also have problems and you may be caught flat footed because you simply don't know what they are nor how to best mitigate them.

Warning, there are many issues in other countries as well. Cost of living for example in major Canadian cities, others are limited job opportunities, lower pay for same work when compared to the US. What I recommend are two things: 1. definitely travel more, and actual live in a place instead of only visiting, you'll get a feel of what people's mental states are. Also how you feel about the new place. 2. Condense every factor into an economic value system so you can compare apple to apples. For example, chances of accidental death by gun will probably have infinite high weights, vs. interest rates, house prices to income ratio etc. (I believe even if you live in an US city you can still convert the solution to some issues to moentory value, such as hiring security guards 24/7 etc.)

I left several decades ago. It took me ~2 years to learn a new language, and ~5 years to feel at home in a new culture. The upside is I got far more political change (esp wrt violence and health care) than I expect will ever happen back in the US during my actuarial lifetime.

Grass is always greener.

Every single country has their issues. EVERY SINGLE ONE.

Personally, despite our issues (which are quite serious, as you've outlined), we are still the richest, free-est and most intelligent country in the world with unrivaled soft and hard global hegemony. Everyone everywhere tries to claw their way in because the American Dream™ of going from nothing to an excellent, comfortable quality of life is still very much achievable, perhaps even more so with the Internet being how it is.

I'd recommend living in other countries and forming your own opinion though.

The US is full of safe, pleasant communities, excellent for raising families, though not necessarily near tech work places. Look outside the coastal bubbles and explore a bit. I'm very happy living in a place shunned by erstwhile colleagues in the ivory heights.

I've also lived decades in East Asia, and there are cases to be made for life in provincial South Korea, Japan, and Thailand -- among other places -- but practical considerations of work and visa status play a role in such decisions.

> The US is full of safe, pleasant communities, excellent for raising families, though not necessarily near tech work places. Look outside the coastal bubbles and explore a bit.

Where, specifically, and by what measures, and pleasant for whom? E.g., would they be pleasant for raising non-White, non-evangelical Christian families with one or more trans children and one or more LGBTQ adults?

It is interesting that all of the places that check your boxes tend to be the most violent.

> It is interesting that all of the places that check your boxes tend to be the most violent.

The particular suburb I live in, is dead average for the country in violent crime. Ironically, I could do a lot better in that regard if I was working private sector tech and commuting from the peripheries of the Bay Area, scary “coastal bubble” that it is, but “dead average” isn’t anywhere close to “the most violent”.

Houstonian here. non-White, non-evangelical Christian families seem to have no trouble here. The area I live in is near 50/50 white/Hispanic. I myself grew up in a non-religious family here and no one ever gave us grief for it, then or now. I know many LGBTQ adults here who also have no trouble.

I don't know about trans kids as I don't have any direct experience with that but I can't imagine it being an issue any more than any other city.

I'm often disheartened hearing tired tropes about Texas just being rednecks, klansmen, and bible thumpers. Yes, they do exist, as they do in California or Oregon or New York. But they are not anything like common. I can't even remember the last time I saw a confederate flag outside a historical reenactment context.

> I don’t know about trans kids as I don’t have any direct experience with that but I can’t imagine it being an issue any more than any other city.

Well, its Texas, so the AG’s opinion on gender affirming care as child abuse and Governor’s order to the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate families for such care [0] have effect (while it has been challenged and enjoined in some specific cases, the Texas Supreme Court struck down the statewide injunction against investigations based on the rationale in the AG opinion and Governor’s orders, so only those families currently in litigation are protected from further CPS action while it proceeds without new litigation.

And then there are the enormous pile of anti-trans bills filed by the majority party in the Texas Legislature this session and currently pending. Not all of them will pass, but some of them seem pretty likely to.

> I’m often disheartened hearing tired tropes about Texas just being rednecks, klansmen, and bible thumpers. Yes, they do exist, as they do in California or Oregon or New York. But they are not anything like common.

And yet, your state government – legislative and executive branches, with the judiciary a little more mixed – is consistently, on multiple different issues, at the tip of the spear on right-wing culture war issues nationally for many years. Which suggests that those types of people you don’t want to be associated with are more common – or disproportionally politically influential – in your state. That is very much not the case in California or Oregon or New York, as much as you would like to pretend that there is no difference.

[0] https://texaslawhelp.org/article/transgender-youth-cps

People in general are more accepting than you might suppose. If the criteria that matter most to you involve your identity as a member of a putatively rare and privileged group based on gender identity and religion -- as opposed, say, to being open-minded, curious, friendly, and neighborly -- then you will likely already know where you should live, around others who share precisely those values. Otherwise, many adventures await.

Personally, having lived in a rural setting in the peace corps for three years, where everyone around me thought, dressed, ate, and behaved in ways surprisingly different, transformed how I see others. It's the quality of a person's "soul" (define it as you will), that matters, not tribal allegiance.

I don't live in the US, but this op-ed is also interesting: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/04/next-us-civil-...

If you want to leave, and you have the money and privilege to be able to afford the risk, go for it. More power to you.

well the first obvious issue is...you need to be able to obtain some kind of immigration status wherever you want to move, so you can't just pick a fantasy destination and hop on a plane

you could also just relocate in the US...figure out what is important to you and do some analysis on how different places stack up

finally, be careful about letting daily events direct your life strategy too much

also be realistic about life in other countries...I grew up near Toronto and can say with certainty it is no longer the zero-crime/very-clean stereotype many Americans believe...you just don't hear much about Canadian cities on US news but they also have serious crime now

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