Fantasy time; Stay or go, and why?

[Huntn]

I’m too old to flee. Plan on going down with the ship if it comes to that. That said places we’ve been to and fantasized about moving to: UK (if it was not falling apart), S.Ireland, Spain, Italy, Sicily, Mallorca.

 

[ArgoDuck]

I heard that ArgoDuck has a spare room. I would just go to Kiwiland, if I had a sailboat to get me there.

I’m sure you’d be welcome!

Might find our country a bit boring (low population density except for Auckland; tendency to argue about things that don’t matter).

But boring might be tolerable. We’re open-minded enough. I think we’re a fairly robust democracy, more so than I thought two years ago. Social media and its persuasion tactics are powerful, but our relative remoteness perhaps makes us less involved in global issues, and a little less responsive to having our buttons pushed. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Warning! I understand some of your very wealthy citizens have already built retreats in our South Island…

I'd love to be able to do some astrophotography from there. Haven't seen any of the southern sky yet.

Our less populated south island has great dark skies, which i really must get down to myself sometime

 

[Yoused]

Might find our country a bit boring (low population density except for Auckland; tendency to argue about things that don’t matter).

Sounds just right for me – I am told that I do not know how to "have fun" or that I do fun wrong. I would probably try to get onto a kakapo conservation team or something like that.

 

[Nycturne]

Our less populated south island has great dark skies, which i really must get down to myself sometime

The catch is that further away from the equator you go, the less of the galactic core you get, which has a number of interesting nebulae. But looking at the light pollution maps for New Zealand, there’s still quite a bit of dark sky on the northern island. Even so, you’ll still get a better view of Sagittarius than I’ve ever got from places like Nelson Lakes.

 

[Yoused]

further away from the equator you go, the less of the galactic core you get

The southern end of the big island is about the same latitude as Lewiston ID. The northern end of the big island is close to Redding CA. The northern end of the north island is about in the hills above Santa Barbara. Or, we would be stopping in Fiji because it is more or less on the way, we can just leave you there.

 

[leman]

After 45 y in the US, we are moving back to Switzerland.
I am also telling my (dual nat) son it's time to marry his GF of many years so she can follow him if he wants to do the same...

Are we crazy for still considering moving to USA? It has been very difficult to plan lately…

 

[Renzatic]

You know who else was from Austria.

...Steve Bob?

 

[Nycturne]

The southern end of the big island is about the same latitude as Lewiston ID. The northern end of the big island is close to Redding CA. The northern end of the north island is about in the hills above Santa Barbara. Or, we would be stopping in Fiji because it is more or less on the way, we can just leave you there.

Well aware (I say as much in my post). More pointing out that the north island has some benefits for astronomy work (and equally dark skies). And the trip isn't quite as long.

Honestly, either island is going to be nice and dark compared to North America or Europe once you get far enough out from the cities.

 

[cbum]

Are we crazy for still considering moving to USA?

That's an extremely individual decision, depending a lot on what you want to do and who/what you might depend on.

For university-based research, I have no interest in trying to survive the incoming dark age.

 

[leman]

That's an extremely individual decision, depending a lot on what you want to do and who/what you might depend on.

For university-based research, I have no interest in trying to survive the incoming dark age.

Well, my wife has a tenure track offer in the US. Here in Europe it’s just a chain of poorly paid temporary postdoc contracts. It’s a tough call.

 

[Yoused]

Well, my wife has a tenure track offer in the US. Here in Europe it’s just a chain of poorly paid temporary postdoc contracts. It’s a tough call.

ISTR you saying California. That is probably a safe-ish bet, though, once the intra-national war starts, California may become a dangerous place, being territory hostile to the orange guy.

 

[leman]

ISTR you saying California. That is probably a safe-ish bet, though, once the intra-national war starts, California may become a dangerous place, being territory hostile to the orange guy.

Do you think this is the inevitable outcome? Is the society really that divided?

 

[rdrr]

Do you think this is the inevitable outcome? Is the society really that divided?

I feel it is coin toss. We have never been more divided than we are now, our population is a reverse bell curve. More and more people are entrenched on the right or left, very few are in the middle. Also what makes it bad is there is a lot of apathy from the younger generations who don't vote because they "don't see anything changing". This is not a new development with the younger generation, but it is more highlighted because the rest of us are moving from the middle to our perspective side.

 

[Nycturne]

Do you think this is the inevitable outcome? Is the society really that divided?

I agree it is a coin toss. But you’ve got an admin that seemingly is starting to target federal funding aimed at states and areas that lean Democratic. We’ve already got the makings of internal economic warfare at the government level. States suing trying to enforce their local laws on entities that are out of state because someone might have traveled to receive care that was banned in their own state (arguments over state sovereignty). There’s things here that really feel like the opening salvos prior to the prior civil war. I just don’t think you can point to a specific "Dredd Scott" decision of the era with certainty (yet). So it’s not clear if we are dead set on that path or one of competitive authoritarianism. Again, hard to see the forest for the trees when trying to predict this, IMO.

We lost my sister a few months back, but a couple things that my dad said in the hospital that night stuck with me. One was that he said that if he wasn’t as old as he was, he’d be getting the hell out of the US. He was in the Air Force as an engineer, worked on a couple important Cold War projects, was stationed outside the US in multiple locations (my parents met in France I think), and was career military. Said joining up was the best choice he made in that stage of his life. Take the anecdote for what you will.

 

[leman]

I agree it is a coin toss. But you’ve got an admin that seemingly is starting to target federal funding aimed at states and areas that lean Democratic. We’ve already got the makings of internal economic warfare at the government level. States suing trying to enforce their local laws on entities that are out of state because someone might have traveled to receive care that was banned in their own state (arguments over state sovereignty). There’s things here that really feel like the opening salvos prior to the prior civil war. I just don’t think you can point to a specific "Dredd Scott" decision of the era with certainty (yet). So it’s not clear if we are dead set on that path or one of competitive authoritarianism. Again, hard to see the forest for the trees when trying to predict this, IMO.

We lost my sister a few months back, but a couple things that my dad said in the hospital that night stuck with me. One was that he said that if he wasn’t as old as he was, he’d be getting the hell out of the US. He was in the Air Force as an engineer, worked on a couple important Cold War projects, was stationed outside the US in multiple locations (my parents met in France I think), and was career military. Said joining up was the best choice he made in that stage of his life. Take the anecdote for what you will.

Very sorry for your loss, and many thanks for the insights. These are troubling times indeed.

 

[Nycturne]

Very sorry for your loss, and many thanks for the insights. These are troubling times indeed.

She was born with missing & damaged chromosomes. So the doctors kept saying she’d not even make it to 20, yet she made it to 52. So the bright spot is that she outlived all the estimates. We had actually spent a couple years setting up a trust and paperwork to ensure continual guardianship when my parents went, which we no longer need. That’s the hard part. I honestly expected the order of things would be our cat (2 years into a 2+ year cancer prognosis), then one or both parents, then my sister. It’s looking more likely that I got everything 100% backwards.

 

[Yoused]

Is the society really that divided?

Here is an example. The President signed an order limiting the abilities of law firm Perkins Coie to function. They were associated with his political opponents.

“This (order) is an absolute honor to sign,” (Individual-ONE) stated at the White House. “What they’ve done is just terrible. It’s weaponization, you could say weaponization against a political opponent, and it should never be allowed to happen again.”​

"Weaponization". What total disconnect. Yet, his supporters will cheer this and say it was a good thing. I cannot even fathom their mindset. To me and most of my friends, it is alien. To them, we are stupid. The tension in this country is disturbingly high: you should spend a month here before deciding to relocate here.

 

[DT]

She was born with missing & damaged chromosomes. So the doctors kept saying she’d not even make it to 20, yet she made it to 52. So the bright spot is that she outlived all the estimates. We had actually spent a couple years setting up a trust and paperwork to ensure continual guardianship when my parents went, which we no longer need. That’s the hard part. I honestly expected the order of things would be our cat (2 years into a 2+ year cancer prognosis), then one or both parents, then my sister. It’s looking more likely that I got everything 100% backwards.

Sounds like you gave your sister a pretty wonderful life.

The universe definitely throws come curve balls, the wife and I both laugh about it - her Dad was the last of our 4 parents to pass, and he was terribly unhealthy, he had diabetes, cancer(s), overweight, but he was always happy and just slow and steady - maybe that factored in, his various diseases were like, "Well, this guy is in no rush, so I guess neither are we ..."

 

[DT]

So on the topic:

We are prepared to leave if necessary. We really have no issue bailing, we have the necessary "resources", the 3 of us are close, don't have a lot of outside connections, a few very close family friends, but they could come visit.

A friend moved to Portugal, his partner is a few generations removed, so it made some things a bit easier, he's provided a lot of feedback, and Portugal is certainly a consideration. Sweden and the Netherlands are often on Top N lists for Americans wishing to move and live abroad, and interestingly, we saw a recent post from a family who are friends of ours, they left St. Aug back around 2019, moved elsewhere, and most recently have been living in Delft, that's a city in the Netherlands. They packed up, GTFO, didn't look back.

In past (even pre-trump chaos) we knocked around the idea of Canada, but honestly, some of the bad energy from the US has been getting into Canada (though there are areas where it's still the Canada we love).

 

[tomO2013]

I agree it is a coin toss. But you’ve got an admin that seemingly is starting to target federal funding aimed at states and areas that lean Democratic. We’ve already got the makings of internal economic warfare at the government level. States suing trying to enforce their local laws on entities that are out of state because someone might have traveled to receive care that was banned in their own state (arguments over state sovereignty). There’s things here that really feel like the opening salvos prior to the prior civil war. I just don’t think you can point to a specific "Dredd Scott" decision of the era with certainty (yet). So it’s not clear if we are dead set on that path or one of competitive authoritarianism. Again, hard to see the forest for the trees when trying to predict this, IMO.

We lost my sister a few months back, but a couple things that my dad said in the hospital that night stuck with me. One was that he said that if he wasn’t as old as he was, he’d be getting the hell out of the US. He was in the Air Force as an engineer, worked on a couple important Cold War projects, was stationed outside the US in multiple locations (my parents met in France I think), and was career military. Said joining up was the best choice he made in that stage of his life. Take the anecdote for what you will.

I just wanted to offer my sincere and heart felt condolences on your loss.