Safe-haven countries in the future...

This was something that I often talk about with others... just want to see what are the thoughts for people that've been here for a while. When the West no longer can buy their friends out and the US dollar (maybe euro as well) is no longer world currency, where would people go to secure a safe and prosperous future? (ex. It'd be like moving from Britain to America in the early 19th century) I've personally bet Chinese mainland, but they'd have to go through crisis before reaching their greatness. Swizterland? Singapore? Sweden? It's really hard to say as many countries are now interconnected, but maybe people have other insights as well.

I don't mean colonization. What I meant was moving to a country that's foreign, but their economic and quality of life offers more incentive than our own. America was full of people before you moved in from Bulgaria, but you still moved there... for right reason. I feel that despite Communist Party's grip on the nation, it's still a good move in the long-term. Chinese economy is much more fundementally sound than US counterpart, and they have the resources and manpower to get to USA' former glory... even if it takes them a while.

Edited by Rossef - 03-Apr-2012 at 20:59

Originally posted by Rossef I don't mean colonization. What I meant was moving to a country that's foreign, but their economic and quality of life offers more incentive than our own. America was full of people before you moved in from Bulgaria, but you still moved there... for right reason. I feel that despite Communist Party's grip on the nation, it's still a good move in the long-term. Chinese economy is much more fundementally sound than US counterpart, and they have the resources and manpower to get to USA' former glory... even if it takes them a while.

Well, I moved here because of many interwoven personal reasons, but I didn't foresee the myriads of little and big problems that come with going to live in a different culture. If I didn't have those personal problems, and knew what I will have to face here, I doubt I'd ever move.

I don't know much about China now, to be honest, all I've read are books from like 20 years ago, so I'm not sure what the Chinese economy is like. My grandfather talks about China all the time, he is an old communist from the idealistic type, and he is like "We failed, but the Chinese...they'll going to biuld the proper communism!". There is much consumerism in the US, and adverstising stuff that is absolutely not needed, I don't like that. I also think that China most probably will be the next super-power, but I'm not sure if I want to live in a super-power.

Besides, how is one to learn Chinese? It's bad enough to go from one Indo-European language to another, and one tends to retain an accent that may well marginalize him/her /it definitely marginalizes me/, and to go from a Indo-European to Sinitic one ? And without a good language one is worth nothing - cannot get a job, cannot communicate...I could possibly be persuaded to go to a Latin American country, I can learn a little Spanish or Portuguese, when I get to retirement age - but not now, if I emigrate one more time I have to have some money coming, in a form of retirement. I already worked 15 years in Bulgaria for nothing, since no one will give me retirement for that, I'm not doing such a gamble one more time.

It's easier to move within a common culture - I suspect I would be doing far better in a random Balkan culture or in Russia, just because of the closeness of languages and cultures; I guess if one is from a culture that is close to the Chinese one /I have no idea which exactly/ it will be probably easier to be accepted.


Edited by Don Quixote - 03-Apr-2012 at 22:02

Definitely Australia. Unlike Britain and the US they have the sense not to interfere in other countries' affairs. They're also rich in resources, have a high standard of living, and have vast tracts of unoccupied land. One day i'm going to get out of the UK and settle down under

Nick, Australia is a continent with a population of 20 million and a defense budget to match. For that reason their military engagements outside of Australia are carefully selected and weighed. If they believe something to be in their national interest, they will act accordingly, as they did in Korea, Malaya, and Vietnam, and more recently in Afghanistan. What you fail to realize is that vast tracts of that unoccupied land is uninhabitable. So if you decide top emigrate to Aussie, drop the Pommy attitudes. You're there to learn and become an Aussie like Breaker Morant and hundreds of thousands of others from the UK (and Ireland). In that regard, it's no different than moving to China. Just a bit easier, and far more familiar. It'll be the best decision you're ever made, unless you're looking for a more 'Pommy" country, in which case I'd recommend New Zealand. Both are quite different, but both quite worthwhile. 

What I really would like to do is to work overseas, in different countries, for like a school year or two, then somewhere else  - I would go anywhere just to see and live in a different country. There are 2 ways to try this - or through the US military, applying for schools on Us military bases, or through an international job search for teaching jobs. I've been wanting to do this for a long time, but I'm postponing it for family reasons; hopefully one day I would be able to live a little bit as I want, not as my responsibilities make me to, and other people want me to, and try that.

DQ, actually, you merely noted that they "had been using them very well". Did I read more into that than you intended? If so, my apologies.

Originally posted by Vladd Well maybe stealing the land from them, breaking every treaty made with them and then trying to destroy their native culture could give rise to the need for an apology or two don't you think?

Originally posted by Vladd Well maybe stealing the land from them, breaking every treaty made with them and then trying to destroy their native culture could give rise to the need for an apology or two don't you think?

Then such apologies have to start with the Homo Sapiens apologizing to the Neandertals, Germanic tribes to Celtic ones, Romans to everyone,  Normans to Saxons,  French to Brits and vice versa, Brits to Indians, Africans, Australian Aborigines, Canadian tribes, etc, and then we have to go aling the globe and the timeline and spend the rest of human life personally apologizing to each other. Life is not a fairy tale embroidered with justice and morality, on the opposite, it's blood and guts and saliva all ever everyone, in the eternal fight for resources. Don't look for morality and justice in life, because if one gets to really implement them, one is cooked and eaten and done very fast, and the  instinct for survival presses us to want to live a little longer.

Besides the Native Americans were people like everyone else, not some ideal creatures - they were fighting and killing and torturing and raping each other as entusiastically as everyone else on the planet. As for the treaties, this is one of the classic examples of cultural misunderstanding - the social organization of the natives precluded them of grasping what really stood behind the treaties, and the whites didn't as a rule have degrees in Anthropology, so they were talking in different social languages. Anyway breaking of treaties is such a common occurrence, the European military history is full of it, starting from Ancient Greece -  one example only - "...In the 360s Athens was allied to Alexander, the tyrant of Pherae in south-eastern Thessaly, while Thebes supported the Thessalian koinon, i.e. the league of Thessalians opposed to Alexander. However, at the end of the 360s Alexander was defeated by Thebes, and, restricted on the mainland, turned to naval action against Athens. In 361/0 Athens reacted by making an alliance for all time with the koinon, and we have the text that was inscribed on stone in Athens...."http://ebooks.cambridge.org/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9780511496301&cid=CBO9780511496301A010. So, in some way treaties are made only to be broken. If we react in such way to the broken treaties with the Native Americans, it's because we forgot the realities of life and war, or prefer to see only those examples that don't affect us.

In any case the Native Americans were destined to lose, like were the Australian Aborigines - the technologically more developed culture always wins. Great Britain colonized bunch of cultures based on that technological superiority - that's life.



Edited by Don Quixote - 15-Apr-2012 at 14:42

I agree with you, it was unfair, but fairness was never a part of any kind of politics, geo-politics, or internal politics in any country. Besides, this happened almost 2 centuries ago, and then morality was seen differently. After all, the muliculturalism, and considering the value of other cultures is a very new way of thinking, in the last 10-15 years or so. The 20th century was the chock-full with genocides that make the Indian Removal acts seem like nothing, and this after supposedly the morality changed for the better. Humanity is just what it is - and life is many things, but not fair.

Of course, it would be far better if humans never fought for resources, and lived next to each other in full content and mutual understanding, restricting themselves so the other may have the same resources too - but where and when was in done in human history? Nor religions, not secular morality was ever able to make or convince the human being to do on the others as upon oneself - because in reality those moralities contradict the command of self-preservation instinct - life itself is based on rapaciousness, not on fairness, most lamentably.


Edited by Don Quixote - 16-Apr-2012 at 17:10