For those of us who live in the US things are and have been scary and depressing for a while, this seems to also be true about quite a few more countries in the world.
If you are living in a country that you deem safe, well functioning and overall a good country to live in, how do you feel? Do you feel anxious about the current state of the world? Also, what country are you in? (Just in case 🫣)
I live in Germany and we have an election coming up where the far right might win. And the US have just handed command of the most powerful military of the world to a certified moron who works for their biggest adversary. That’s somewhat concerning, isn’t it?
Australian checking in.
Feeling as happy and as safe as ever. Granted, I don’t pay a lot of attention to our politics cos it’s just a bunch of little children fighting over who gets to play in the sandbox but it says something that I CAN be ignorant of our politics without being scared that something drastic is going to happen while I’m not looking.
My biggest concern is honestly that Australia has a habbit of following whatever inclinations big Daddy USA is following and for that reason the state of affairs over there is a little worring to me.
But yeah, overall can’t complain.
Sweden is a functional country for the most part, but we are small in a geopolitical context.
In daily life I feel mostly fine, I have a decent job (I am on the bus to work right now), I have a good apartment (if a bit small), just ordered a new desk for my home setup, in general you can feel society bracing against “Drumpf & Puttler’s Crazy Wild Ride: The Rise of Ketamine boy”.
Biggest news lately, the school shooting in Örebro, terrible shit, and the coward perpetrator didn’t have the decency to survive so we’ll probably never know his motives which would help us prevent this in the future.
Locally we have had some small scale scandals recently, politicians disliked by most citizens but with connections getting new jobs either barely following the process or outright ignoring it, nationalistic party have their scandal politicians, other politicians scamming money from the government.
We recently had a news story about an islamist being hired as a teacher and raping a student, that guy was rejected by the security service when applying to be a security guard before being a teacher.
Personally this is how I feel when reading the news lately:
As it stands now, I will just focus on myself and my family and friends, the current US regime is dancing to the tune of a dictatorship and I try to stay far away.
Mexico. We’re very happy here, honestly!
We got our first woman president who keeps wowing us with comprehensive initiatives and continuing the work of our last president who got us on the right track. Great reforms are happening after a long string of corrupt presidencies that were more interested in personal gain. We had actual government efficiency reviews that cut down on misappropriated funds that have now been reinvested. And we’re expanding our exports to things like chipset manufacturing and growing our infrastructure.
Our public spaces are prettier, cleaner, more accessible, and quite modern here in the large cities. I know that my city alone is not what it used to be 10 or even 5 years ago. I keep saying we’re not a third world country anymore. We’re on our up and up so long as the international powers that be allow it.
That’s amazing! So glad to hear it. Don’t let those assholes to the North talk down to you. Sounds like you have a functioning Democracy and you’ll be able to hold that over our heads for decades I’m sure.
This makes me happy. Thanks for sharing. :)
Honest question, how bad is the situation with both gangs and cartels there? And, what are the areas of Mexico to avoid?
I think it largely depends on where you are and who you associate with. I also think cartel violence isn’t what it used to be. I’m not aware of any reputable gangs here where I live, but we do hear news about the shit cartels pull occasionally, like for example the narcobloqueos where they hijack a truck, park it across on the highway and set it on fire to cause a diversion or things like that.
Overall it’s very rare to hear about them taking it out on the general population. There’s an unspoken rule not to mess with the innocent although there are dangerous states like Sinaloa or areas of Michoacán where it goes down when the military intervenes. That’s when the gloves come off and they fight back by all means necessary, including using terror tactics for the government to back off.
But besides the cartel violence, kidnappings are what scare me the most. There have been many, many cases of people being held & maimed for ransom or simply disappeared without a trace, although I’m not sure how much of that can be attributed to the cartels because they target journalists. It’s undeniably a serious problem for many folks who are at risk by association, proximity or happenstance. Thankfully anti-kidnapping legislation and its enforcement has been tightened up in recent years.
Despite all that, these things are largely in the periphery in our day to day meaning I don’t live in fear. I generally live carefree and comfortably without denying that I do know some folks who have had scary episodes with organized crime in the past. But it’s quite surprising how much more peaceful our everyday life is than what you’re told abroad, even if it’s something we struggle with in the grand scheme of things.
Still pretty bad according to my mexican friends, I wouldn’t go as a tourist personally, this is the only time ive seen the take that Mexico is safe and nice now. (the parts for rich ppl to vacation have never been an issue) Btw the first gen mexicans I know are prob the most against illegal immigration because of their experiences going back across the border. (for context, I am not on their side, mfs are just the lucky ones who were born here) They all have relatives in cartels/gangs but not out of choice, every story ive heard just sounds extremely sus, even when its fun, theyll be like yeah nah theyd rob you tho dont go there.
Basically look up best vacation spot, highest income area in mexico and youll be fine.
Your president is currently my favorite world leader
I really hope Mexico continues to improve. Im hoping to renationalize.
I’m so happy for you! I would have loved it if USA voters would have chosen a woman socialist/Communist president. I hope the current turn of events gets neighbors talking and planning enough to get us there!
I’d like to meet your dealer because you seem to be living in the most parallel of the realities ever imagined… Or you live in a bubble.
Guess it must be easier being a propaganda account on lemmy since there’s practically no mexicans here so you can lie and nobody can question it.
Vato, si no quieres creer, me vale tres hectáreas, sí? Ábrete alv a mí qué me importa lo que pienses. xP
As a Canadian who generally fits this category, i am fairly privileged, have all my basic needs met and some security for the future under status quo conditions. I have my struggles, but they have not so much to with marginalization or oppression. But it depends on who you are. Indigenous women are still going missing, racists are still gonna racist, billionaires are still exploiting people struggling with food and housing security, etc. same goes for the USA. For millions of Americans who are upper-middle/upper class, heteronormative, and white, life is continuing on just fine, feeling safe and experiencing a government that functions as well as it ever has from their perspective. They’re too busy living their lives to get caught up in the “noise of angry squabbling of childish politicians”. Maybe expenses have gone up, but they can still sustain all their expectations out of life. He’ll you can imagine there are a not insignificant proportion of the Russian population are like this.
All the fucking right wing wankers are feeling empowered and crawling from under the rocks thanks to the blond Cheeto you guys idiotically voted as president. Economy is going to shit. This is a nice peaceful sunny European country and we’re suffering with your idiocy. So not very happy. At all.
Germany. While I do feel like my country is overall still safe and a good place to live, it feels to me like we’re on the brink. The US may well drag us down with them and even if they don’t, our own politicians might just do that on their own. So yeah, quite anxious and not overly optimistic right now. The next few years will be critical and it could go either way really.
Left Germany for Switzerland and while I never really felt unsafe in Germany, it’s so much more relaxed here. And I start to really appreciate direct democracy.
I can imagine. Switzerland is in many ways in quite a unique, privileged position in Europe. I’ve gotten job offers in Switzerland but personally, I don’t really mesh with its culture. If I ever move away, I think it’ll either be somewhere like The Netherlands, or even a lot further away, like New Zealand or Japan.
Straya representing. Our brothers and sisters across the ditch in New Zealand have a beautiful country with rich culture and great people. They just keep claiming our pavlova recipe was theirs. mic drop
Also you’re always welcome here, it’s got large part thats dry and barren in the middle but the tropics and coasts are spectacular like one of the wonders of the world the great barrier reef.
I’ve never heard the ditch before. I love it.
I go back and forth between lamenting that corporate propaganda created this state of things, and lamenting that so many people are dumb enough to fall for it. Calling voters dumbasses doesn’t solve anything, but I’m definitely thinking it a lot lately.
Sweden. I’m happy. But I have a hard time watching the rise of a fascist dictator and the collapse of the dollar reserves as the planet still gets eviscerated by mega corpos entities several orders of magnitude more powerful than any government. What I wish most is that the humans that do the biddings of the megacorps realised that they are just temporarily allowed to be their “ceo” or “cfo” and that in reality they are being used but the allure of money as a means of success, while mindlessly ignored goes the fact that joy and success is found in people that avoid money as much as possible. The demons can and should be revoked the status of being “legal humans” and correctly categorised as entities that exist to serve and protect humans. How can so many people be revoked the status of human and even killed while the destructive hateful entities that ruin our souls and habitat are continually worshipped by its zealots when they provide net negative happiness and health is so tragic.
Isle of Man. We have farmers that run the government. They are terrible at it, and its stupid, but we dont have power to rename a sea, so they mostly just argue amongst themselves and the rest of us get on with it. Postage takes longer and is more expensive. We cant get a lot of the services the UK gets. We still dont have 5g. That being said its one of the safest places to live in the British isles. So I dont know, swings and roundabouts.
Safest place for non motorcyclists you mean.
The biggest problems are with 50 year old men in a bit of a mid life crisis buying a big, expensive bike, and then getting on a road with no speed limit. They lose control and kill themselves, and if they are unlucky, take someone else with them.
I dont count the racers, its like punching yourself in the balls and wondering why you are walking funny.
I wonder what the accident statistics are outside of the T.T.
Fairly low to be fair, its too wet and miserable to ride a bike 11 months of the year.
UK. It’s actually alright here despite our culture of complaining about everything.
Weather is predictably dull and boring, but in a world of climate change that’s not such a bad thing anymore.
Wages are outpacing the cost of living once again so that’s nice.
Politics is just the usual arguing/ bitching about the economy. Everyone blaming each other blah blah blah. Storm in a teacup really.
US news is getting a bit scary, seeing the president cosying up with the enemy and appearing to want to let them take Ukraine in exchange for half of their minerals means that I don’t think we’ll be considering them a close ally in the near future. At least not a reliable one.
Glad you’re alright, MY_ANUS_IS_BLEEDING 🙏
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY, please don’t follow our right wing trajectory into chaos. Tell fElon to Fuck Off, as only the Brits can!
Germany - Overall I feel ok. Nothing beyond the ordinary Weltschmerz. But that kinda creeped into normalcy, so yeah. Here we are.
Things might turn to shit tho. We have an election this weekend. So ask me again in a couple of days.
Good luck from Italy. I hope you don’t end up with a nazi party… again.
I’m pretty happy
Guatemala.
Good food, good people, good mountains, laid-back fun culture.
incidentally, I am from the states but have chosen not to live in the US for the past decade for reasons that have now become obvious to everyone.
I’m not too worried if the US collapses, there are 200 other countries to live in.
it doesn’t seem like it will collapse entirely, maybe, since that wouldn’t benefit the rich people in charge of it? good luck.
Guatemala is considered more functional and safe than the US these days? Seems a stretch. For what it’s worth I have spent time in both countries.
Is guatemal more functional than the US’ recent attempted violent coup and literal ongoing executive coup of the government?
Yes. Guatemala is more functional than the US government run by a felon rapist who is literally violating the US Constitution, has frozen or defunded critical government operations and is actively erasing the function of its legislative and judicial branches via executive orders.
safe?
last time I was in the states, somebody shot someone else in the head over a parking spot outside the burger place I was eating lunch at.
This is hyperbole compounded by anecdote. The dysfunction in US politics mainly concerns Washington. The USA is a federal state and state-level politics is mostly unaffected. Security is everywhere guaranteed by police, not gangs. And the statistics that I cited remain.
you didn’t cite any statistics to me, but I can drop some knowledge on you.
State level politics has been affected nationwide, civil rights have been affected nationwide down to the personal level.
The executive branch eliminating the other two branches of government is in no way hyperbole.
Trump just signed an executive order declaring that he has the final say on legal matters, overriding any judicial power.
he has also claimed the right to unilaterally disperse or withhold funds, overriding any legislative power.
One branch of the US government (The executive) has taken over the other two branches(The judicial and legislative).
Trump is a convicted felon and a rapist.
none of this is hyperbole.
security is guaranteed by the police? not in the US.
US police rape and murder civilians and children in the US regularly.
US Police can legally abuse, lie to and manipulate civilians without consequence, and enjoy judicial legal immunity for their actions(known as qualified immunity).
The US has a mass shooting every 16 hours.
women in the US literally don’t have control over their own bodies and are denied access to hospitals and healthcare.
The US has by far the highest prison population in the world, run by for-profit corporations who benefit from imprisoning you and your neighbors.
these are not localized problems in DC, the entire US is unstable, exploitative and abusive towards its citizens.
Not really happy, because the downfall of the US has massive consequences worldwide.
I live in the Netherlands. Happy? Sure. Could always be better.
For how it is in the Netherlands politics wise, it’s quite a mess. The biggest party is led by a rightwing nutjob who supports Israel and doesn’t give a shit about Ukraine. And main focus is Immigrants bad blablabla. That party isn’t in complete control though since they have to work with 3 other parties to get a majority so that is at least something.
We had 2000 explosions at peoples houses last year. Which is insane. Guns aren’t legal so people import heavy fireworks from italy (which are basically grenades) and blow it up in front of their house, or burn down their cars, to threaten them I guess… They pay teenagers to do it for them. So the real culprits never get caught. I saw 3 cars burn down in my neighbourhood in the last few years.
Housing prices are insane. Probably in most well running countries atm. I don’t have high hopes of getting a house anytime soon. And my rent just keeps going up.
Are they using explosives and car fires to threaten immigrants specifically or just people in general?
Oh no not immigrants. Seems to be mafia practices of scaring away competition. apparently lots of plumbing and roofing companies are just controlled by organized crime. It’s weird. Also just personal feuds.
I see, wow. That is weird. I have family that lives there in NL and am wondering now if they ever see this. Thanks for clarifying.
Flanders, Belgium. Things are… okay-ish, but I feel like we’re balancing on an edge, and any little push will topple the current regime and bring power to the far-right parties who continue to gain ground every election. At this point in time, our little country has one of the least unequal societies in the world in terms of income. Something tells me that in say 10 years we’ll look back to today and reminisce about the “good old days”…
