Poll of the Day > Name 3 States you would NEVER move to

(+) Yeah! (+)

Florida
Alaska
Mississippi

Black_Crusher posted...

Florida
Alabama
Mississippi

But really you could lump and Deep South state in there while were at it.

Yeah this. Bonus choice is New Jersey though just because I've dealt with miserable people every time I've been there

Most of them. I'd only move to 2 states. Picking the top 3 most undesirable is ridiculous

Yellow posted...

Our country is treated like an economic powerhouse with a job to do over an ideal place to live.

At least, that's how they constantly justify privatizing almost everything and putting corporations on a pedestal. Anything that threatens the income of a corporation is treated as a national threat. It's a pattern that repeats itself everywhere, even our streets were lobbied by automobile manufacturers so that public transportation just doesn't make sense. What you call corruption these people call a positive thing. They say we can't fall behind China, or fall behind on the world stage.

It's probably the reason why, even though we are culturally basically the same as Canada or England, they have much more solid welfare safety nets, because they don't worry about being the most powerful country on Earth. Or at least use that as an excuse to let CEOs walk all over them.

I just prefer a society where government works for all its people, where common sense and the common good prevails over individual greed and selfishness, and where life, in general, is made as comfortable as possibly in terms of services.

I think modern countries in Asia offer that, while Western countries have mostly dropped the ball, with governments abandoning (selling off) their responsibilities to private/corporate greed, and as a result, we see many institutions like healthcare, postal services, etc, now failing in numerous Western countries. Theyve been completely hollowed out and made far more expensive for the people.

When Im in Japan, or Taiwan, or whatever, it just makes sense. Public transportation is good, affordable, dependable, etc. The streets are clean. Going out is safe and affordable. It all just seems to work as it should work. It seems like the system is fair to the vast majority of the people. That not to say its 100%, of course there will be flaws and bad exceptions, but in general, it seems theyve got their priorities straight on how to be a modern functioning society.

Heh four of the states I spent most of most of my life in (NJ, AL, FL, NYC) got too many mentions here...no wonder I'm probably not successful in life like I wanna be

But strange no one mentioned Penn (Philly) Georgia (AtL) Oregon (Portland) Tennessee (Memphis) Michigan (Detroit) Washington (Seattle) The Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland (Baltimore) etc

I guess those States are always in the News for whatever reason that irks ppl

But if you're really rich, I think living in those States are Great

California, Hawaii, and New York

Hawaii, Texas, New York

Yi_Long posted...

I think modern countries in Asia offer that, while Western countries have mostly dropped the ball, with governments abandoning (selling off) their responsibilities to private/corporate greed, and as a result, we see many institutions like healthcare, postal services, etc, now failing in numerous Western countries. Theyve been completely hollowed out and made far more expensive for the people.

Don't South Korea and Japan have pretty severe social expectations of working yourself to death? Like having never lived there it's hard to know what's bullshit and what's real, but Japan especially seems like a nightmare place to try to make a living because of that.

California. New York and probably new jersey. Texas and Florida are really close though. Maybe one could beat out jersey as I'm mainly basing it off stereotypes and the one person I met from there.

California never heard anything good about from people aside from online I know that's been there. New York ibreally only know about the city areas but that aside it's too far north I don't like the cold.

Did meet a cool new Yorker in rehab though. She was a dead head and liked playing up the stereotype to a small degree. Like she got asked where she was from and she responded "coffee" cause the unmistakable way they say it. And she'd say things like "I'm walking here " but sometimes replace walking with whatever she was actually doing.

Florida
Texas
It's hard to pick a third. There could be so many that could be third.

jiffdiff posted...

Don't South Korea and Japan have pretty severe social expectations of working yourself to death? Like having never lived there it's hard to know what's bullshit and what's real, but Japan especially seems like a nightmare place to try to make a living because of that.

Pretty sure both those countries, in general, have much better working conditions, expectations, hours, workers protections, livable wages, etc, than the USA has.

I think the stereotype of the overworked salary-man in Japan comes from the 80s or something, but has changed/improved significantly since, while in the USA we see a whole lot of folks having to work multiple jobs simply to survive.

Florida, Alaska, Hawaii

Wow bunch of Trumpists up in here.

Yi_Long posted...

I think the stereotype of the overworked salary-man in Japan comes from the 80s or something, but has changed/improved significantly since, while in the USA we see a whole lot of folks having to work multiple jobs simply to survive.

Japan does still have a particularly concerning suicide rate that has been linked to the work culture. Though that could also be a symptom of something different, I remember NHK reporting on this within the last five years.

Yeah, the work culture over here has a lot wrong with it. No idea whether things have improved since the 80s, though. I guess there might be slightly less sexual harassment going on.

BlackJackCat posted...

Japan does still have a particularly concerning suicide rate that has been linked to the work culture. Though that could also be a symptom of something different, I remember NHK reporting on this within the last five years.

I think that has more to do with some kind of honor code where you dont want to be a nuisance or failure to those around you, so when you feel you cant succeed and meet expectations at work and in life, and see no more positive outcome, then yeah, in the West we might have more of a safety net and we reach out, while they will want to deal with it by themselves instead of worrying/bothering their loved ones, or society. Basically, they feel strong about not being a burden on anyone.

In Japan, suicides are high among men who recently divorced, or lost their job. Bit ironic, btw, because the narrative is so often that suicides in Japan are high because of work-related pressure/stress, but being WITHOUT a job and thus losing that stability and status is a big cause of ending your life.

In South-Korea, its mentioned one of the reasons its suicide rates are so high, are because some older folks will choose suicide over becoming a burden on family.

Belgium has a higher suicide-rate than Japan, although that could be linked to euthanasia being legalized there.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/suicide-rate-by-country

I think in the West most of us were kinda brought up with the idea it will get better. After rain comes sunshine, and all that. Maybe those in certain Asian societies feel that the stain of temporary failure (a divorce, losing a job), will forever stick to them, and they cant/wont live with that image.

Yi_Long posted...

I think that has more to do with some kind of honor code where you dont want to be a nuisance or failure to those around you

I think there's something important here. The question is whether the citizens of a country feel it has a purpose to exist and whether those who live there are proud to be a part of it. Asian counties, so far as I can tell from outside, appear to have more of this. They are proud of their countries (and - yes - ethnicities, given high degrees of homogeneity) and feel shame if they don't live up to their perceived responsibilities. There are downsides to this (suicides) but great upsides (sense of purpose and togetherness) as well.

The US used to have much more of this back when we were proud to be the free world, the melting pot (of Europeans, anyway), the arsenal of democracy, the savior (WWI-II era) of Europe, the world's lone superpower, and - yes - a country with more ethnic homogeneity. THIS is why Trump was succeeding with "Make America Great Again", even if neither he nor his followers really understood exactly why that sounded appealing to them. THIS is why the left is not succeeding very well with their messages that effectively shame the US for past actions or focus on the rights of individuals (even if morally correct) over societal accomplishments. If the point is to let everyone do what they want that basically means they have no obligations to the country, and if nobody has any obligations to the country then the country is unlikely to be effective (or have a purpose in the first place). The left is usually morally correct and I vote for them (the 'purpose' that the right would add to US society appears as if it would be terrible) but left does not appear to recognize this problem at all. They have an existential problem.