Escape from the US

Hi lain, I'm getting sick of the bull soykaf here in the US and I'm thinking of jumping ship to another country before the situation here devolves even further. I'm a fairly skilled programmer and I will be applying to grad school, so I think I could get a student visa most places. Unfortunately due to coronavirus restrictions I probably won't be able to visit anywhere before the visa is approved. So, I need tips. Some places I'm interested in: Germany, Poland, Ireland, Finland, China, Russia Anylain from these countries, or American expats, have any warnings or recommendations? Pic unrelated.

also any of the smaller countries in Eastern/Central Europe seem nice. I don't generally like the Western European mentality that I have seen.

>>19768 >Germany, Poland, Ireland, Finland, China, Russia That's an interesting combination of countries. If I may ask... Why did you pick these countries in particular? I hope that it's not because those are the only countries you know.

>>19772 Germany because they seem to have a stable government and many cheap universities, Poland because many of my favorite musicians are Polish, Ireland because my last name is Irish and it is a very rich country, Finland because they seem cool, China because might as well be on the winning side of the trade war(I really doubt I would want to move to China though), Russia because I greatly respect their academic tradition.

Finland and Poland are nice places with nice people. But keep in mind that moving to another country (and to a totally different country) can be extremely hard. Don't forget to visit the places before jumping into getting a visa and etc, don't act impulsively.

>>19776 I might not be able to depending on the length of the visa application and how long an American passport remains useless.

>>19775 Do you know any of the languages? It will be the largest barrier towards adapting to a new country. Off-topic: which Polish musicians do you like?

>>19780 no but I could spend a year learning. >Off-topic: which Polish musicians do you like? Weedpecker and Spaceslug are two really good ones

>>19783 Learning a language like finnish in a year is not going to happen. This language is pretty far up on the list of stupid languages. After many, _many_ years you will still sound foreign and not use the correct conjugation in a sentence. English will work fine here (especially in the metropolitan area, less so in northern areas), but unless you have an education it will be hard to get a job without knowing finnish well-enough. Also in the western parts (Turku), since Finland is a country with two official languages, knowing swedish will become more important (still, not _that_ important) when looking for a job.

>>19768 >Anylain from these countries I can answer some simple questions about Poland if you want, but I'm a lazy fuarrrk, so don't ask much about jobs, etc. >I'm a fairly skilled programmer Should be easy to get a job with good English, there are many international companies which hire foreigners and coworkers should know English. You can see many Indians around an office building with a huge "We're hiring JAVA programmers" banner. >I will be applying to grad school Don't expect extremely high quality of education here, the greatest advantage of studying in Poland is that universities are free for citizens and should be affordable for foreigners (there can me some small charges for foreigners). Depending on what you want to study, the best universities are in Warsaw and Cracow, and avoid private universities, because they're always utter soykaf.

>>19797 1) I hear Poland has a lot of fascists, is this true? 2) If my Polish is bad will people be mean?

>>19798 >1) I hear Poland has a lot of fascists, is this true? I don't have any statistics to back it up, but our fascists and nationalists are retards and no one takes them seriously here. Officially fascism is derezzed in Poland, but sometimes the ruling party does some shady soykaf to gain extra 1% or 0.5% of votes. Generally nationalists gain no more than 1% of all votes, where only 40-50% of all citizens vote. So nationalists make mostly up to 0.5% of the whole population, where not every nationalist is a fascist (I guess). >2) If my Polish is bad will people be mean? If you live in a big city, no one should give a fuarrrk and you should be able to talk only in English most of the time and people will be kind even if your Polish is bad. Idiots can be mean, but you should ignore them if they do that - they should be proud a foreigner is willing to learn their stupid language. If you find an idiot, just use English and they'll be scared, because they're uneducated pigs. The Land of the Onion Blossom has its weird rules, but I guess every country has. Our culture is a bit fuarrrked up by years of oppression, people often look dull and unfriendly, but it is real and honest. I prefer tired Polish faces over fake happiness. Anyway Poland seems to be more peaceful than the USA right now, I wouldn't switch with you. If our Russian friends won't do anything stupid, Poland should remain a peaceful place for some time. This doesn't seem to be a good advertisement :P

OP I'm in almost the exact same situation. I'm going to be applying to (math) PhD programs this year and I want to find one outside the US, particularly in Germany, the UK, or Canada, but the application process varies between countries, and in the former case English language instructions aren't always forthcoming. Do any German lainons know how feasible it would be to go to grad school with only extremely basic German language skills? I see a lot of DE universities teach classes in English and a lot of papers I've read are published in English, but needless to say I'm not going to be able to discuss advanced math in German so it doesn't seem like a good idea.

>>19801 that's actually a very good advertisement, I'd rather live somewhere where the biggest threat to peace is Russia instead of the local government. >I prefer tired Polish faces over fake happiness. me too, one of the worst parts of living in the US is that there is an unspoken rule to never show your sadness or talk about it in polite company. I guess that's why there are so many schizos here. >>19802 well Canada and the UK are mostly the same as the US. I guess it would be less of a culture shock because same language, but also being very similar to the US they have very similar problems, which I would like to avoid. >but needless to say I'm not going to be able to discuss advanced math in German so it doesn't seem like a good idea. I have heard that practically everyone in Germany speaks fluent English and you could probably pick up the language slowly while living there.

>>19802 I'm also in the same situation as you and OP. However I currently have no skill set and I need to spend some time in the US making one before I move out. Oceania is where I plan to go to as the countries there mostly speak English and are isolated so if something happens in the US that causes refueges, they aren't getting over to a place like New Zealand easly.

>>19803 >I'd rather live somewhere where the biggest threat to peace is Russia instead of the local government. Well if you live in the central or eastern Europe, you never know if it's just your government or Russia and I can assure you, Russian intelligence works on controlling countries around it. There were a politician, who once translated some important documents into Russian for some reason. Fortunately western intelligence is also working on keeping Poland away from Russia so we're somehow safe as long as we're profitable. The EU pumps money into Poland to keep Russian borders away, so the country is rather developed. >me too, one of the worst parts of living in the US is that there is an unspoken rule to never show your sadness or talk about it in polite company. In Polish culture it is often good talk about bad things that happened recently, illnesses, accidents and misery, then comes grandma and feeds you to the point you can't eat anymore.

>>19803 >I have heard that practically everyone in Germany speaks fluent English and you could probably pick up the language slowly while living there. This is my understanding as well. I've been to Germany before and never had trouble getting around despite not knowing much German. I'm just worried that the time it would take me to learn would put me behind in my academic career. Like I couldn't take math courses in German or write/read German papers. I don't mind making it a bit hard for myself, since I really like Germany, but I don't want to totally fuarrrk myself over.

>>19801 >>19797 Is it difficult to get a non-programming job in Poland, or is it as saturated and cutthroat as everywhere else? How is it culturally? Does the healthcare work?

>>19805 >Well if you live in the central or eastern Europe, you never know if it's just your government or Russia and I can assure you, Russian intelligence works on controlling countries around it same story here ;) although at this point I don't think Russia needs to do anything, the US will simply explode all on its own.

>>19803 >>19805 im in germany. English is basic course of school but not everyone retains it after school. There are still people who can't speak english but the majority among youth lives on the internet and speaks it effortlessly. The major downside with germany is high taxation and laws are bad if you are into investing / running your own business. Got especially worse with corona as they started grabbing more money from people with new legislation. Overall literally bottom-tier in eu for these things. And it shows: They are as a population financially at the bottom and take second last place. Only the corps make the country a rich place. Education is good though so if you are still in that phase its not bad to get education in germany before moving on.

>>19809 I've talked to elderly Germans who spoke fluent English, I got the impression that everyone's very well educated. I've heard some reservations about unregulated immigration and a lot of political correctness, coming from people who weren't particularly right wing.

>>19807 >Is it difficult to get a non-programming job in Poland, or is it as saturated and cutthroat as everywhere else? If you know English, you could easily get a job as a speaker in language schools, but don't expect making a fortune. IT is probably the least saturated field right now, other than that I don't really know, because I'm mostly NEETing. There's also the problem of automation - cashiers are currently being replaced by machines and due to lack of previous >How is it culturally? Just like I described in my previous posts >>19805 >>19801 If you have more specific questions I can try to answer them. >Does the healthcare work? I'm mostly NEETing to be honest I'm often detached from reality and this is a bit complicated. Generally you get free medical care if you're an EU citizen and if you're working or have a worker visa. It seems students also have insurance, I know people who got free medical care from their university, which is also free. The greatest advantage of healthcare here is they won't leave you dying on a street, even if you don't have insurance. Just search "Medical care in Poland for foreigners" and you'll get the details.

>>19811 >and due to lack of previous I don't know what I was going to say there.

>Unfortunately due to coronavirus restrictions I probably won't be able to visit anywhere before the visa is approved. So, I need tips. I just checked for a few different countries, apparently you can usually get long-term visas either approved or rejected within 90 days, so that should be no problem

>>19810 You just talked with someone well educated. You can go on german websites and find people complaining about something posted in english not translated because they don't understand english. There are plenty dumb fuarrrks arround. The school system is also tiered, you can check stats on hauptschule (lowest tier), realschule (blue collar mostly, some do university) , gymnasium (white collar with standard path to university for degree). I know also some people who lost their english skills cause of lack of use. On the other side the people who speak perfect english are often well traveled, working in academia where everything is english or straight up expats. As for the pc its bad but didn't affect me personally too much so i didn't mention it. They are fuarrrking racist with the pc soykaf too. They will mask nationality of turks&africans but not mask nationality with crimes when its from the east block. The other thing it's same soykaf as british cops where police won't dare to fuarrrk with immigrants so the power vacuum is partly filled by gangs working for protection money to do the job of the cops. Sounds crazy but it's true and the funny thing is they have documentaries complaining about this state of things from a decade ago on youtube (originally on tv) but nothing changed. But again: this won't affect you. It's same as the terrorism cases, yes it happens but youre more likely to rip in a car crash. That's why i didn't consider it worthy to mention in first place.

>>19811 By culturally I meant the cultural scene, are there good filmmakers, are people well educated, can you find people who read, or is it all mindless phone addicts? >They will mask nationality of turks&africans but not mask nationality with crimes when its from the east block >police won't dare to fuarrrk with immigrants so the power vacuum is partly filled by gangs working for protection money to do the job of the cops These are among the things I've been told.

>>19815 not them, but >are there good filmmakers don't know about film but Poland appears to be an international center for science fiction. >are people well educated, can you find people who read, or is it all mindless phone addicts? I'm pretty sure everywhere is mostly the same in that regard. Most people are going to be uneducated mindless phone addicts, even in places with relatively good education.

>>19815 >I meant the cultural scene Isn't that bad I guess, but I don't follow it closely. We have some good rappers, musicians, writers, etc. >are there good filmmakers There are some Polish classics like "Kiler", "Day of the Wacko" ("Dzień Świra"), some movies by Andrzej Wajda, etc. Polish cinematography is pretty good to be honest, but it is tightly coupled with Polish culture, so I don't know if they're valuable for foreigners. On the other hand Polish animation is mostly dead, that's why I watch anime and american cartoons. >are people well educated The society is polarized as always, you'll find both educated and uneducated people, but partitions, occupation and communism mostly purged Polish aristocracy, so the society is probably less polarized than American or British. In Poland, educated people live in the same block with uneducated people and everything is fine. >can you find people who read There are people who like reading, but I'm not one of them. I'm mostly limited to scientific books and software manuals at this point. But I know many people who actually enjoy reading and it is quite common. >or is it all mindless phone addicts? There also phone addicts like everywhere, but that's common today generally. >They will mask nationality of turks&africans but not mask nationality with crimes when its from the east block >police won't dare to fuarrrk with immigrants so the power vacuum is partly filled by gangs working for protection money to do the job of the cops >These are among the things I've been told. Not sure what's this about? We don't have many immigrants from Africa or Middle East, only Ukrainians. People coming from Africa to Poland are usually from rich families or are businessmen, they wear expensive clothes and behave civilized. I've never seen someone black behaving badly, at least in my city. From poor Africans I've only seen one black dude delivering pizza, probably a student, he couldn't speak Polish very well, but still behaved civilized. There are some muslims also, but the same applies here, but they're often less rich than Africans, mostly students. Ukrainians are students or do some simple jobs like car repair, working in shop, etc. They often evade taxes, but everyone does that in Poland, lol.

>>19817 I'm sorry, the second part of the post was addressed to >>19814 and it was about Germany.

>>19818 Ah, yes. Immigrants in Germany are a real problem. I was there once and there are poor immigrants everywhere.

>>19817 didn't mean black by africans. The syrians were like you say - well educated and low crime. Some of the other nationalities coming from the african continent hopping on the gravy train had however 30% crime rate officially listed by the police department which is crazy high. The poor fuarrrker who published the data and brought it to attention was fired right after. Personally i've seen barely any black dudes here. Might be my location however.

>>19768 I'm from germany. It's very comfy here, pretty good healthcare, strong industry. Overall I'd describe it as "stable" here. But you should also know the price you pay for that: A bit under 40% of your income goes to the government. And while that's probably not a dealbreaker since income is pretty good if you have basic education, it's still a lot. Big government with lots of laws, making buisness and finances harder since you need to take care of all that. >>19802 I'm going to uni right now. English in higher education ranges from okay to excellent, I doubt that language will be a major barrier. The schools do a suprisingly good job at teaching basic english to everyone. German is hard to speak correctly, but learning enough german to get your point across should be easy. The language is related to english after all.

sage because of what follows, I read, " escape from the UB " damn zed

I don't live in the US, but I suggest Canada. It's close at hand, speaks mainly english, and openly accepts americans. The politics is kind of weird, but overall comfy.

>>19823 OP will have to wait until the pandemic is under control for Canada (and most other destinations) as Americans are explicitly derezzed from travel in a lot of them.

>>19821 it's 42% this year and you're only counting income tax. 19% sales tax is more than double of us states. If you put your money into stocks or whatever you get taxed even more compared to other places.The effective total is easy over 60%. Mandatory health care payment is financially also just another tax. Whoever says health care is good had no contact with it. I get it you're in uni so no personal need but you got to look at elderly treatment around you. They take money eagerly but they pay out bare minimum. It's more or less a scam you're forced to play. Their management raised their salaries significantly 2018 while reporting profits as a sign of success and the money needs to come from somewhere. So they minimize costs as much as possible which means strangling the health care system while raising mandatory payments. They used corona to raise it again just recently.

>>19825 Canadian here. Can confirm. The majority sentiment is that we need to keep the US border on hard lockdown until they get COVID completely under control. Possibly until a safe and effective vaccine is widely available, even knowing full well that could take years. But it should also be said that the Canadian immigration process is pretty rigorous even in the best of times. In many ways it's even tougher than immigrating into the US. Anyone looking to go through this process really does need to do their homework and not think that they can wing it. >>19823 >The politics is kind of weird, but overall comfy. Hah, yeah. It's always fun to try to explain Canadian politics to Americans.

>>19836 >In many ways it's even tougher than immigrating into the US I'd believe it. I had a friend in Michigan who married a Canadian girl and moved to Canada. It took him years of bureaucratic hell to get Canadian citizenship.

Can you even count to five in any of local languages of countries mentioned in OP, excluding Ireland, have you visited in any of those for prolonged time, longer than few weeks? You don't even seem to have an degree or an stable job so getting an permanent residence will be hard for you. There is no shortage of people without degrees in countries mentioned in OP.

>>19841 I do have a degree... you can't go to grad school without a degree...

>>19830 Call me a commie but I would have no issue giving 42% of my income to the government if the government were actually using it to work in the citizens' interest. Bless public healthcare, I'd be dead without.

>>19768 I'm from Finland. Unfortunately I have never visited the US, so I can only really compare based on what I've read on the internet. I mostly like it here. I like our culture, language and the nature here. Also, some people will yell commie because of this, but I unironically think that the fairly high taxation isn't too much of a problem. I'm not really sure what to tell you. If you want to know something then maybe you can reply to me. If you are a good programmer like you say, you will probably be able to get a job here, there's a decent amount of tech jobs in the bigger citites such as Helsinki, Tampere and Oulu, and they predict the tech sector will only grow in the future. But the language is something that will probably be hard to learn for you, because it's not related in any way to english.

>>19846 yes I have heard that Finnish is one of the hardest languages to learn and even Swedish is pretty hard for anglos. So a big important thing would be how well I could get by speaking it very poorly. Is Finland one of those countries where they dislike foreigners? E.G. here in the US if you don't speak English people will give you dirty looks. WRT picture: I am perfectly fine with that kind of bleakness, I've lived with good weather all my life and it turns out that the people are still assholes. I spend most of my time on the computer or reading anyways.

>>19847 >So a big important thing would be how well I could get by speaking it very poorly. Is Finland one of those countries where they dislike foreigners? E.G. here in the US if you don't speak English people will give you dirty looks. Most people here speak english fairly well, especially younger people, so you will most likely get by even with just speaking english. I think that finnish people are actually pretty good at english on average, considering that it's not our native language. But if you want to get to know people better and fit in with the culture, it's probably good to try to learn as much as you can. I don't think most people here hate foreigners. People mostly hate the illegal immigrants and refugees coming from the middle east at least based on my experience. >I am perfectly fine with that kind of bleakness, I've lived with good weather all my life and it turns out that the people are still assholes. I spend most of my time on the computer or reading anyways. I put the picture there mostly as a meme, because finns are stereotypically heavy drinkers. Some people bitch about the winters but I don't see a problem. What is kind of soykafty is that the winters are becoming so warm that especially in the coastal regions of the country there might not be much snow even in the middle of the wintern. I actually like the cold and snowy winters in the northern and eastern parts of the country, much better than rain in my opinion.

>>19845 I think it's pretty clear my stance is they don't do that. It's overpriced garbage and other countries accomplish the same with way less.

>>19850 like Cuba?

The political situation in Russia is shat worse than in America. There's a joke that we're technically a decade behind America, but politically a decade ahead. On the plus, except for direct contact with government it's pretty good anarchy. >greatly respect their academic tradition Can't argue there. Our geniouses are more genious than your geniouses. Sadly, our idiots are more idiot than your idiots. >you can't go to grad school without a degree. You can't go to grad school without the prerequisite knowledge. >it is tightly coupled with Polish culture, so I don't know if they're valuable for foreigners That's precisely why it's valuable for foreigners: to see the culture. >Poland appears to be an international center for science fiction. Blame Stanisław Lem. >They often evade taxes, but everyone does that in Poland. Of course this should be sufficient reason. >Generally nationalists gain no more than 1% of all votes, where only 40-50% of all citizens vote. So nationalists make mostly up to 0.5% of the whole population How many polish nonvoters are nationalist? If 1/100 of polish voters are nationalist and 2/5--1/2 of polish persons are voters, then at least 1/250--1/200 of polish voters are nationalist.

Do not move to Russia. We do not want americans.

>>19852 >How many polish nonvoters are nationalist? Probably every nationalist votes. Extremists always vote, because unlike people who don't, they have strong political views and always fight to get to the parliament. >then at least 1/250--1/200 of polish voters are nationalist. As I said before, not every nationalist is a nazi. Real nationalist hate nazis, because Poland was harmed badly by nazi germany. >Of course this should be sufficient reason. Should be, but Ukrainians are often hard working and ambitious, so whatever. Also everyone evades taxes in this country plus politicians steal public money. This is complicated... Quote users next time, you mixed many posts into one response.

>>19768 > China, Russia Don't, please.

China is a soykafty choice if you're a lainchan user...

>>19852 >Sadly, our idiots are more idiot than your idiots. >As an American, I am deeply offended by this remark. We take great pride in having the finest crop of pure idiots to be found anywhere in the world. We have even elected one as our President. I demand an apology.

>>19852 >Sadly, our idiots are more idiot than your idiots. We have Florida https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBqY-4oDWAQ

>>19880 >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBqY-4oDWAQ What the fuarrrk did I just watch?

The Eternal Anglo ruins yet another place and seeks new host to colonize.

>>19887 colonialism is the best thing that happened to the world. look at rodesia and south africa before control was "returned".

>>19887 part of the reason I hate this place is because my ancestors and contemporaries are fuarrrking morons who ruined everything and I don't want to be associated with them in any way. I want to leave behind my old nationality. Probably revoke it. >>19889 haha good one mate

>>19891 *neationality, culture, etc.

>>19887 Blaming anglos is a very effective way to pretend that only England and the US have problems while ignoring that much of the world has done the exact same thing. There is no inherent propensity of any race over another towards bad actions. Especially not one that is incredibly intermixed with various European neighbours.