World News

Well this has economic and soft power benefits. Standing up against genocide apparently was t beneficial enough.

You're not the first person asking that question.

For your profession, there should be plenty of companies where English is spoken, irregardless of the country. In my previous company, we had engineers from all over and while English was everyones second language, it was the only common one we had so that was spoken. I'd first try to choose a country you like or where immigration is easy and focus on finding employment there.

Germany always needs engineers, and a lot of companies use English as a main language. So far it's very easy for an American to get a visa, as long as have a job, and the jov market is very active

I would say try finding a job that sponsors a visa.

It's quite hard to move between EU countries nowadays even if you are a citizen, there is a lot of nationalistic sentiment going on and if you only speak English, companies in a bunch of countries will straight out say no, even if they would sponsor you.

Things are bad here too. As a US citizen you will be paying tax twice if you work here, you'll never quite fully feel at home for about 8 years, and (most importantly) you'll miss the cultural banter you grew up with.

US isn't a country, it's practically a continent. There are plenty of places to knuckle through the next few years, but I'm telling you now - Europe isn't the safe haven you think it is.

Do you think N Ireland could split away from the UK because of this?

Englishman here. I can only apologise for the sheer stupidity of my fellow countrymen. Brexit was such an own fucking goal and the morons will never admit it. If Cameron really had to put it to a vote he could have required a super-majority on account of how economically devastating leaving would be. But no, a slim majority is good enough to fuck over us all for generations to come.

And Trump. Good god. The country that sells itself as a beacon of democracy has happily voted in a crook. Someone who fomented an insurrection attempt, hid top secret documents in his shower while foreign agents roamed freely around and lied about it! Like, actual treason. But I'm not sure what's worse, the orange shit head or the people and system that not only have allowed him to get away with it all but have actually fucking promoted it. Fucking depressing.

Its infuriating to see the UK falling apart when every country except England voted against Brexit

Wales also voted in favour of Brexit.

but somehow their vote counts double or something.

Englands population is significantly higher than the rest combined, so it's hardly surprising. I think Yorkshire alone has more than double the population of Northern Ireland.

Agree with everything else you said though. Hopefully we get to see the day when we get to re-join again!

Also adding my English condolences, can't agree with you strongly enough. UK is fucked, need to emigrate

We have options. They aren't all pleasant options, nor am I advocating them. But we have options.

I wish about half of us weren’t smoothbrain fuckwits.

Africa has a number of factors in its favor that make it a potential economic powerhouse. It has some of the largest natural resource reserves in the world, it has a huge population, it's conveniently located on or near several important trade routes.

It's also cursed with some pretty bad natural infrastructure. The rivers in Africa don't provide good access between the center of the continent and the coasts.

China had about the same GDP a Sub-Saharan Africa in the early 1990's https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?end=1996&locations=CN-ZG&most_recent_value_desc=true&start=1960 It's taken China 35 years to get from there to it's current spot as 2nd largest economy in the world. And that was for an economy that was growing at nearly 2x the rate of the rest of the world for most of that period. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locations=CN-1W

That's not to say that Africa can't become an economic powerhouse but it will take a lot of work and time. It would take sustained investment and reinvestment in Africa over several decades.

Africa could easily replace China as a manufacturing powerhouse.

If we could somehow shake off the colonial baggage

They're the same thing.

In principle, I agree. However, in detail there are the same issues and more as when everything was outsourced to China:

• While there are stable and democratic states in Africa, a lot of the resources for manufacturing ~~might~~ will come from not so stable parts. I am looking at Congo as an example in particular.
• If you think about it, it is Colonialism 2.0: Cheap labourers turning basic resources into goods that are too expensive for them to buy themselves, which in return are sold for cheap in relation to local production costs in other countries.
• Exporting the environmentally harmful jobs elsewhere makes us look good on paper, but has drastic consequences for locals.

While China has until recently and to a significant extent been able to turn the second point around, the environment is where this whole plan might come apart before it even can be put into practice: The African continent is possibly most directly impacted by climate change. In the past, present and future. Don't get me wrong: We are all going to suffer. But the African combination of geolocation and political and social stability is a powder keg.

Don't get me wrong, I do not want to leave Africa and its people in the dust. If we can build a relationship on a basis of mutual trust and long-term benefit, let's go for it. However, I am highly sceptical that in our current political climate the EU and its countries or, let alone companies, would be going to invest more than the absolute minimum to get any form of production going. And investing the absolute minimum to extract the most benefit equals colonialism 2.0.

That is a huge market with huge possibilities. Africa could easily replace China as a manufacturing powerhouse.

And China knows it, which is why "belt and road" is a thing.

Yeah, but you have to consider that the alternative was a woman of colour. They had no other choice, really, they had to vote for a fascist.

Also violating their own anti genocide agreements by supporting Israeli proven genocide by several third parties at this point. I guess it's rules based approach when it's convenient and when it's not, we'll just ignore those rules.

You will notice that only countries which have to suck up to the USA (for reasons) did the Bibi thing.