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joined 2023 February 17 18:48:58 UTC

				

User ID: 2194

Being


				
				
				

				
1 follower   follows 0 users   joined 2023 February 17 18:48:58 UTC

					

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User ID: 2194

Are these constraints too strict or relaxed for you?

If I could live anywhere, it would be NYC... [you should live] in Eastern Europe

That was quite the twist haha. I'd love to know what context clues were used to make this determination. Has our measly 250k income condemned us to being Europoors forevermore? On a serious note, I will say that you did correctly deduce that NYC would not be our first pick for places to live. Is there a specific Eastern European nation you'd recommend? I hadn't considered these nations as I've never been there or known anyone contemplating emigrating there.

See my response to @Antitheticality who raised a similar point below.

relationships are more or less everything.

I agree with this and and everything you wrote about the value of family proximity, but I think geography is far from a red herring.

First off, this is a (hopefully) fun question and if you reduce the answer to "you should live wherever your parents live" then all the fun is gone.

Second, I think that you would agree that geography matters more than family's current location at least some of the time. Without needing to go to full Godwin, history has shown that those who were living in towns in severe decline benefited from leaving vs their more stationary peers. The question then becomes one of severity: at what point does the severity of decline tip the scales?

Third, the "type of people who you like being around" are not evenly represented across every geography. Someone looking to surround themselves with those who consider themselves urbane and cultured is probably going to struggle finding them if they live in rural Alaska. While living in any sufficiently large city should afford opportunities to find a fit for any taste, there are benefits to having more of your "chosen people" nearby. Having neighbors who share your values is immensely important - just speak to anybody who has lived in a neighborhood with those who did not. This goes in both directions: the quiet folks who have to put up with their neighbors partying wildly late into every night are not going to be happy. But neither will the free-spirited folks who are constantly harassed by their HoA demanding they take in their garbage bins or keep the grass at the length their bylaws require. With children in the picture, your ability to self sort decreases further. You will end up spending time with the parents in your children's classes. Being "compatible" with 1/10,000 citizens will no longer be sufficient, now you need to be compatible with at least 4/50 or risk your child's social opportunities or your own mental health pretending to get along with those you do not.

My framing about being freed of the typical ties that bind one to their geography was not just a hypothetical framing, but an accurate description of our current living condition. If it wasn't for this condition I wouldn't be considering such an open-ended destination search and would likely just move close to family. Our immediate family is spread out across 6 U.S. states (not including our own), the only way to be close to most of our family is to convince them to move. And, imo, the easiest way to convince them to move is for ourselves to move to a place worth moving to (and flexing our powers of persuasion). We are also blessed to have family that will likely move - many of them are not particularly tied to their current locales. Neither of our families live in the towns where we grew up; likewise all of our closest friends have also departed our hometown and are spread across the nation. While this is rare, it is not as rare as it once was. In our atomized society there are a decent number of youngish professionals who find themselves in similar shoes. I think we all know many who went away for college, moved to a new city for career opportunities after college, and don't want to return to their hometown for one reason or another.

This is exactly the sort of niche pick that I wouldn't think of myself that I was hoping my question would draw out so thanks!

I'll do some research into it (I may have a problem with finding myself deep in research rabbit hole. Last time I found myself reading individual teachers' classroom pages at a random school in a random town before I pulled myself out.)

But since I have you here... my very limited mental model of Couer D'Alene is from when I visited there as a childhood. In my head it's a lake town where people have second homes and not something I had considered as a primary residence locale. The area is definitely beautiful, but what makes you think it's worth being THE PLACE to commit to? Proximity to a moderate size city is definitely a strong plus (maybe even a requirement), but there are hundreds of cities just within the U.S. that meet this criteria.

No preference. I've lived in both and didn't find it to be a impact my life positively or negatively (pros&cons balanced perfectly). What did you find to be the big difference?

It’s like a vacation area for plumbers.

Haha, don't sell it too hard! What about Pensacola drives it the #1 spot on your list?

Which developing world city would make be at the top of your list? Mexico City? My hesitation (perhaps unfounded) around many developing countries is instability of the political/economic variety. The Americas, at least, tend to more extreme swings than the first world typically experiences. Instability isn't a big deal if you are buying a vacation/second home, but for someone like me I'd be hesitant investing the significant resources (primarily time) to assimilate in a place that has a high chance of becoming significantly less hospitable.

I've never seriously considered island life. I tend to think of the islands as a pretty strict dichotomy between the working class locals (involved in service and tourism industries) and the wealthy who bring their money with them.

Neither of us has spent any non-vacation time in any island nation so we are coming at it blind. Is there a particular nation you'd recommend above the others? Also keep in mind the kids aspect: would you want to raise your children there?

Is there a specific country you would recommend if the visa wasn't an issue?

I don't want to trivialize the difficulty and I may just be naive, but I don't think that the visa question is actually that much of a determiner. Young, educated, financially successful professionals from the West are more able to obtain visas than others so YMMV. If it matters, we have EU and US citizenship currently.

Agreed. I think the best criteria for determining when a challenge will cause growth or trauma is the likelihood of success. If you force a child to repeatedly endure a ritual they have 0 chance of succeeding at, that is abuse.

Overcoming a challenge provides a sense of accomplishment that has no substitute - for children and adults alike. Kids (over the age of 10 at least) can assess difficulty well enough to know whether the challenge was real or not.

Of course in order for a challenge to be real enough to provide that positivity there has to be a real chance of failure too. But then, learning to deal with failure is it's own sort of reward. It's a tough calibration and has to be adapted to the individual child as well.

Consider it added to my list. I'll get back to you in 5 months with my post visit review.

Sorry I missed the cut, but I'd strongly encourage you to not do prompts.

The best posts on SSC, reddit motte, & here have always been the ones where somebody dives deep into their area of expertise and/or hobby horse.

Reading somebody's 500 words on a given topic can be worthwhile if the person is a skilled writer and spends a few hours on it.

Reading years of expertise and domain knowledge distilled down to a single essay is almost always a delight.

I worry that if everyone just sticks to the prompt two things will occur:

  1. People will be bored. And I'm not talking about just the eventual readers. The task will feel like a chore that people have to drag themselves over the finish line for.
  2. The final work will be bland. Think of the school essays. They almost always sucked. And not just because most students are poor writers. For any possible prompt chosen, the odds that the members of this writing circle are going to have the best takes on the internet are small. And if their takes aren't among the best, why should any of us read them?

Exception: anything personal. Examples of prompts that are worth doing are ones where the question is essentialy free form, but just focused. Stuff like:

  1. "Why do you post on the Motte?
  2. "Do you think the culture war should be waged? Is a détente possible? What do you think is the best possible path to a truce?"
  3. What is an issue that you feel strongly about that nobody else seems to? Do you think others should care more (read: rant away. Works best on a fairly lighthearted topic imo)
  4. On CW topics, Why do you believe what you believe? How do you evaluate incompatible worldviews when both are espoused by (seemingly) intelligent, rational actors supporting their positions with evidence?
  5. What are your core values? Do you have a guiding value or even just a heuristic that you find yourself circling back to?

Also: Throwing my hat in the ring as a backup if you need another. I asked about writing groups a few months ago: https://www.themotte.org/post/436/friday-fun-thread-for-april-7/84920, but didn't want to take on starting it myself ;)

13 cm is quite tiny. Just the bench portion (excluding any legs) would be pushing 10. If you go DIY route I think it would be easier to make a detachable bench rather than foldable.

Sometimes DIY is easier if you just breakdown an existing product to fit your needs. If you start with something like this Amazon Basics Bench (I've had mine for a few years and it's surprisingly sturdy), you'd just need to cut the legs off and devise a new attachment mechanism.

I think I'm going to spend a few weeks looking around and maybe trying out a group or two first. If I end up (20% chance) deciding to make my own I'll reach out!

What genre are you planning on writing?

First off, big thanks! Your advice is high-quality.

It's a lot like finding a good gaming group, but it's more personal because you're actually critiquing each other. In some ways, it's like dating.

Alas, my gaming groups have always been IRL friends so I've never had that experience. The dating analogy is a fun one. If there was a Hinge for writing groups I'd be all about it. Set some filters, screen out matches with some bants, and meet up - sounds like the dream.

I would personally recommend online groups focusing on your genre over a local group, unless you really find it valuable to have that face-to-face interaction.

I definitely agree that at least general genre matching seems like a must, but do you think it would be worth the effort to try local? I live in a major US city so, at least in theory, it should be possible to have both. I imagine that having face to face interactions could reduce a lot of the issues around dedication. Sanderson advocated pretty heavily for in person > online and while he's not my favorite author, the man gets shit done. As someone who has no experience with either medium (outside of a classroom setting) I don't have an informed preference.

My best experience was joining a larger online group, paying attention to who was actually a decent writer and gave decent critiques, and then contacting them to form a small private group of our own.

This seems like a winning move. Almost the only move upon reflection. I'd imagine the typical gatekeeping dynamic is in play: any group that is open to outsiders is likely going to suffer the weaknesses of that openness. I imagine that joining a group with the intent to defect is probably a point in favor of online groups? Would be much trickier and ruder to splinter an in person group without hard feelings.

I've gotta say I was not expecting that content from a sub named "rational."

Most posts seem to be everyone shilling their own fanfic quality writings. I'm sure there's some good stuff there, but I'm not sure how much of the "devolved" content I'd be willing to wade through.

Unrelated to this thread, but I'm a usual lurker who very much enjoys your slice of life reflections of living in Japan. Your writing style is a pleasure to read and you're one of the few posters who I would gladly read a full length novel from. Your relaxed, reflective tone depicting a rather mundane (meant as a compliment) life as an outsider is one I have rarely come across. Everywhere else I see people either playing up the differences to exoticize the destination (as in a travelogue) or minimizing the differences and focusing on the global, homogenous culture that exists everywhere in the 21st century.

Please write the book,

A fan.

Language barriers

A language barrier is insanely difficult to overcome. I didn't want to spend too much on this one in my opening post and hoped that my caveat was sufficient. But let's do it now.

For context, we have each attempted to learn several languages. My partner is a heritage speaker of another language and significantly beyond fluent. She is also fluent (depending on definition) in another language. I had the typical American school experience of attending years of classes only to be barely conversational in the language and am currently in the process of learning a separate new language .

My belief is that it is possible for a sufficiently smart person to get fluent within a few years IF they are willing to put in the time. Immersion is one hack to force you to put in the effort. I do not believe most people will ever reach a native speaker level of proficiency even after living in a country for decades. I do not expect us to be the exception. Therefore, living in a non-English speaking location means accepting that you will always be an outsider to some degree - full assimilation is not possible. This is not a dealbreaker for us, however, and we are at least be open to living in a foreign country knowing that our children will be able to assimilate in a way we never could.


@AhhhTheFrench, I have to say that your thinking aligns alarmingly close to my own on just about everything.

Regarding the "already discovered" aspect. While I know that this is almost exclusively thought of as a negative in popular attitudes, I think it may actually be more of a positive. (To the people living in an area who like the culture/vibe it had: you have my condolences. Your beloved town will never be the same). A discovered city means that the population is selected for a few aspects that I think are very positive:

  1. The population is largely comprised of people who CHOSE to be there. It's hard to quantify this, but the "vibes" between a town like this and a town that is filled with only the people who never left (think West Virginia as an extreme) are impossible to ignore if you've spent time in both.
  2. The population has more people who share several positive (to me) values:
    • Long term mindset - willingness to sacrifice in the short term for expected future returns. This is the grown-up version of the marshmallow test and I believe this trait to be central to many optimal societal outcomes.
    • Entrepreneurial Spirit / Internal Locus of Control - People who move great distance have taken a massive step to shape the direction of their own life and control their destiny.
    • Hardworking & financially self sufficient

For the sake of completeness I'll include one big negative: people who were willing to uproot their lives to move to a new location are also much more likely to do the same thing again and leave. Obviously some of the recent additions to the city are going to be trend chasers who plan on regular relocation. If my goal was property value growth this would concern me a lot. To assess the likelihood of someone leaving I think it's important to distinguish the recent immigrants into two classes: those who moved to the town because it was "hot" and those who moved to the town because the town itself had some core aspect that they felt aligned with (apart from being trending). Of the three cities I listed, I think Austin has more of the former. I believe this also explains why Austin has had more of a recent collapse than the others.

re: Colorado (Denver in particular). I could not agree more. It really is amazing that the entire town just spends every weekend sitting in traffic in the passes. There are some political currents in Colorado that also concern me. I would love to live in the Colorado of the 90s. But if I ask myself honestly, "Would you like to live in the Colorado of 2045?" I think the answer is no.

While I lived in Boston for a few years and have spent at least a few days in each of the NE states, I have never really considered living there. Do you have a particular spot you think would be worth us checking out?

The backwater/castle living idea I think is one of those romantic ideas that I love to love. The idea of spending my days laboring to restore some 500 year old piece of history to it's former glory really pulls at the heartstrings. If I'm being honest I think it's also better as a dream - I'll continue to tell myself I don't want to sully it by burdening it with the shackles of reality.

I think almost everyone (or at least anyone I'd consider listening to) would agree that children "ought to be arguably a main factor contributing to your other life choices."

In my experience, most people want to transmit their values and lifestyle onto their children and see themselves reflected in their children - hopefully as a better version of themselves. In practice, I've found that this means that everyone rationalizes their own preferences so that "My preferred lifestyle" just so happens to always to be "What is best for children." If a person has that "Black lives matter. Women’s rights are human rights. No human is illegal. Science is real. Love is love Kindness is everything" slogan plastered on their car and foyer I think we can also predict quite a bit about what they would value for their children as well.

There are many theories on the best way to raise a child. These theories differ significantly. I'm not so cocky as to believe that only I know the Truth and everyone else is wrong. My summary of the messy evidence we have would simply be: "There are multiple approaches that work. How you parent is more important than which framework you adhere to."

I think anyone's answer to my question already has what they think is the best place to raise children baked in.

If people think that a farming lifestyle getting exposed to the harsh realities of death from an early age is the optimal route, I want to hear it! If people think that a Huck Finn (free range, largely self directed outdoor exploration) approach is the optimal route, I want to hear it! If people think that an urban lifestyle holding your child's hand as you tour art museums, I want to hear that too! If people think that living in an third world slum exposing your children to the lowest depravities of man, I will probably discount their opinions, but I still very much want to hear it!

I'll go first.

Personal Preferences :

  1. (Strong) Owning a property
    • Rules out VHCOL area (e.g. NYC,SF) at income level (#4 above)
  2. (Strong) Stick to same location
    • We will live in or around this home city for the next 25+ years
  3. (Weak) Western U.S.A.
    • Family is clustered in this area, but this is not a super strong preference.
    • We are fine not living near to family and both our families are also open to relocating

My fun picks:

  1. Beautiful remote living in the Spanish (pre)Pyrenees. Sample homes:
  2. Castle in the Italian countryside. Sample 15th century home: https://www.engelvoelkers.com/en/exposes/403ce1ae-62cc-5773-a893-1a76e7fa8e7c
  3. If French castles are more to your taste, here's another option: https://www.jamesedition.com/real_estate/chatellerault-france/vienne-department-15th-18th-and-19th-century-listed-chateau-to-be-renovated-9-8-acres-of-land-11091591

As an American, the availability and affordability (let's just ignore the repair and maintenance for now....) of these castles is something I would never have guessed at.

Some boring (“realistic”) cities that are currently on my list that I plan to explore:

  1. Boise
  2. Salt Lake City
  3. Austin

These areas provide affordable homes near to a reasonably large city combined with proximity to numerous outdoor recreation options.

I'd probably do exactly this if we were aiming for the DINK lifestyle, but with children it's disruptive to pull them away from their friends and classmates for significant portions of every year.

Never would've guessed monarchy as anyone's selection criteria. Even though this community (and precursors) provides way more exposure than typical to neoreactionary thinking, I guess I never internalized someone would deliberately select for it.

The culture, economic prospects, geography, genetics, laws, etc vary so widely among those countries that it makes me wonder why you think that the style of government matters so much more than the governing (what laws exist and are enforced)?

Tough break on the hand you were dealt, not sure I see a great way to achieve your goal of living your monarchistic dreams. There's always being successful enough it doesn't matter, I suppose.

Great comment. I never considered Pittsburgh as a place people choose to move to - I'm obviously ignorant but the impression among myself and peers is that it's a steel city that is dying as US manufacturing has declined (like Detroit or Cleveland).

I'll spend some time doing some research to fill in what is clearly a gap in my knowledge, thanks for the rec!

Good spot/guess. I would have never considered that as a factor since it's such a bizarre metric to optimize around. Also, if he's going with city state , I'd expect to see Singapore on the list.

Wow, this list is fantastic! Way more than I could've hoped for. I've read like half them already which means that there is more than enough here for me to waste an embarrassing amount of time on.

Let me know if you'd ever like some recs and I'll return the favor.

Thanks for hosting this!

For those of you who weren't able to stop by:

  1. Shame on you ;)
  2. I'd summarize @lagrangian 's advice as the classic advice remains the best route: Grind Leetcode then mass apply to the major companies.