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Comment by ben_w | Hacker News Reader

Moving, especially internationally, is disruptive. Even in bad times, you need to look to where things are going, not where they are in the moment. The USA is dropping on various freedom indices; if you move for this reason, you must ask if will it drop further, will it stabilise, or will it recover? And the same for the destinations you consider.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-rights-index-vdem?t...

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Great chart! Thanks. I used it to compare a couple of other places too.

Yeah I don't see the gap between the US and Singapore closing in the next 5, 10, or 50 years. The current drop in the US is temporary. The lower score for Singapore is structural.

EDIT: but these are "just" stats, and do not speak to any person's personal position, like Meng's.

It's still to be determined if the drop is temporary. From the outside (EU) I see a downward uninterrupted trend since 9/11 and the Patriot Act.

> It's still to be determined if the drop is temporary.

It better be! I think it is wrong to root for “downfall”, even if it makes sense to diversify your risk.

Of course. I'm not rooting for the US' downfall. It is a loss of western values. It saddens me, but it is a fact they're veering away from the French Revolution principles.

They are veering away from the American revolution principles... (Which preceded and directly inspired the french revolution principles)

> EDIT: but these are "just" stats, and do not speak to any person's personal position, like Meng's.

Oh indeed. There's unbounded ways to weight the different aspects of freedom that get combined into indices like this.

As for the current drop in the US being temporary… well, we can all hope.

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