I am doing it… My local convenience store also sells tooth cleaners shaped like tiny brushes which I use. It does help a bit but not entirely

… This may sound a bit pessimistic, but I think the main thing to look for is whether there are viable ways for one to enter said new country in the first place

Using the Low Countries as an example… For non-EU (or a select few countries) citizens, these three only grant residency permits to people who have a really good reason to be there… I believe they allow things such as having a job, having family, going to university, and some other situations. NL has the DAFT visa, but that’s only for American citizens (I believe?) and is quite difficult to follow-through

Depending on how young… maybe uni would be a good bet? NL has some extremely strong universities. I’m not familiar with the system there though, from what I just looked up looks like they’re quite expensive for non-EU citizens

There are a ton of other things to consider too but at least for me the most difficult part is to get a job in the first place so… everything else (climate, culture, language, …) was an afterthought by that point

Wing it

I did worse than wing it actually… half of the groceries I got over the past few weeks were from Too Good To Go, so near-expired food that the grocery store winged-it for me💀

I’m usually a bit excessively modest, but if I’m reflecting on it… I left my precious job in the US & pulled off a successful cross-continental move with little to no outside help (even though there was a lot of stuff involved). Had a ton of fun traveling during the past year too as a result of that. I guess that would be the thing I’m most proud of

I remember every single place I’ve lived in (over a dozen) and remember the address of most of them; the ones I don’t I can look up quite easily

I do feel quite sentimental about two specific places (ironically the two “worst” places I’ve lived in), not much with most others; one I almost hate with a passion

Physically, I don’t think so; the main enzyme in saliva mainly digests starch, which humans are not made of

More likely, you’d drown eventually due to not being let out, which would be one of the crazier ways to die I guess, up their with that time when some nobles drowned in fecal matter

Quite a few!

• Spicy food: didn’t grow up in a spicy-loving part of the world but tried a lot of Indian food in college and decided to just upping the spice level. I can handle some pretty extreme stuff, which always comes as a surprise when I meet Southern Chinese ppl
• Coffee: turns out it was less of an issue with my tolerance and just that I needed a good setup and locally-roasted beans
• Beer: surprisingly easy to get into, similar to coffee I just needed high-quality beer. I prefer the fruity ones over blondes/browns/pils though
• K-pop: unwillingly, because I play a “K-pop” game… I think I’m starting to get the appeal now though

There are! Problem is that most of them seem to be either “jobs” that companies don’t want to pay a full-time employee for, or require lots of entrepreneurship skills that I don’t think fits most people… I don’t see how someone living in a developed country would benefit more from an online gig than getting a shitty minimum-wage job at the local grocery store, but there definitely are options

A few non-scummy ones (at least by my standard) I could think of:

• Most practical one I could think of is to teach English/foreign languages. The East Asian countries (especially China) have a huge demand for these types of roles, and I’d presume they have platforms where you can do it as a freelance tutor (at least that’s what my parents told me lol)
• If you have any in-demand skills, it is possible to become a self-proprietor to do contracts for businesses… ranging from the classic IT consultant to selling art commissions on Twitter/X
• If you are good at crafts, I believe it is possible to make a small but reasonable amount of money by selling crafts online on places like Etsy, some ppl are really into these and I think ppl generally have a very positive view of these type of careers. Bonus is you might even be able to do some in-person events at conventions/markets/etc
• If you have a fun personality (or if you are a complete train-wreck), content creation/streaming. Standard Twitch streaming, YouTube streaming, making edutainment like the funny bike guy, if you are willing to let go of some morals then Kick… Quite fun if you are into it, but competition is fierce and most people don’t make it; and a lot of people who “made-it” chose to relocate to low cost-of-living countries where they only need like $500 a month so…
• Extension of previous point, if you have any sex-appeal… lots of places to “sell your body” online and make decent profits. Not doable without good genetics though

A bit of a hot take… bigger communities tend to get harder to please, regardless of anything else

I saw a few gacha game communities (please don’t judge me lol) grow in real time, because gacha games need as large as a player base as possible for their business strategy (which is a separate topic)… Saw the level of toxicity rises in real time as my main game’s community get bigger. Like the community literally went from being okay with just about anything to arguing over the weirdest details on character designs and complaining about every live-service event. And then there’s all the rumor about communities of Hoyoverse games… including once when someone almost murdered the company CEO over a bunny girl event (I’m not making this up)

Among similar sized ones I’m not entirely sure

I assume you mean ppl who literally have “mathematician” as a job title? A few I could think of…

• I’d guess most likely as an academic researcher. There are academics in just about any field you could imagine, a lot of which are even more abstract/“useless” than advanced math. Not a traditional “job” in the sense that academics don’t directly add value to the economy… but are paid to do research that hopefully other people can add value based on. Downside is that these job openings are insanely competitive especially for the aforementioned “less useful” fields, because they are based on an organization having spare money to support research…
• As a cybersecurity researcher maybe? A lot of modern-day cybersecurity (the original “crypto”, before it became associated with bitcoin) are based on advanced math, so I’d imagine such expertise is still needed
• Somewhere in finance maybe? A lot of modern-day finance are built on data science/statistics, although I suppose this job fits statisticians better…

Disclaimer: level 1 ASD, low support needs

Was it ableist for my ex-friend to say “[all] autistic people make her uncomfortable “?

… maybe? It is true that the majority of Autistic people (including those with subtle symptoms, maybe especially those since uncanny valley and everything) tend to make NT people uncomfortable whether we like it or not, so just having that thought alone might not say much. I would assume most reasonable people would prefer to keep thoughts like that behind closed curtains even if they have those

As for your ex-friend’s specific case… I think the bigger issue is that your ex-friend was an asshole more than anything else. My understanding is that talking behind someone’s back is a big no for most people. There are… some parts of Asian culture where this type of behavior is more accepted, but if your ex-friend is American then I’m not entirely sure what’s wrong with them

I have a pet rat that seems to be sick. My local vet has a long waitlist: do you have any suggestions on home remedies that can help them feel better in the meantime?

Speaking as an immigrant wannabe who personally investigated a lot on this… not ones that I’m aware of. At least I don’t know any countries that are both 1) what I’d imagine most Americans are willing to relocate to, and 2) have preferential or at least very “easy” paths for immigration for Americans. Maybe there are some for those with a “lucky” ancestry, but from my understanding that’s it

Netherlands technically “appreciates” American immigrants because of the DAFT, but that doesn’t really answer the question… NL isn’t that easy to move to, and from what I’ve heard a lot of people don’t end up making it on DAFT. Their job market is a bit screwed-up at the moment and they have a very significant housing shortage as well

Still, I think there are lots of countries that welcome aspiring immigrants who have in-demand skills (and some, with significant wealth), as long as one is willing to adapt to that particular new country/culture. If one is competent in a language that is not English that list grows even longer

I think there are lots of posts on this on r/AmerExit and r/IWantOut… lots of delusional posts, but a good bit of not-so-delusional ones too

Obligatory not an economist, only know some basics about investing (and quite lazy about it)

I always thought that gold is just a rather unique commodity that people can also have the option of holding physically (not that it’s advised to do so). Professional investors invest in just about anything as long as there is a potential return on investment, like typical stocks and bonds, gold and silver, housing/land, art, literal truckloads of food… frankly gold isn’t even remotely the weirdest or “scammiest” on this list

As for more regular people, I do have a suspicion a lot of con-artists and/or people with suspicious intents heavily promote gold investing though. Also some libertarian types have a weird… fantasy? of total societal collapse with them rising to the top post-collapse, which I do not quite understand. But I’d presume gold would be attractive to those types since gold has been used as a means of transaction for a long time in human history

Yes. I’m impressed at how well it works

I’ve been enjoying the payment app and personal information verification app in the country I moved to quite a bit. The only previous exposure I had to a centralized app-based payment and/or verification system was China’s WeChat, so I had quite a bit of negative stereotypes with them… but I’m liking these a lot

For additional information: the two are separate apps. Both are private companies (I think?) heavily regulated by and strongly promoted by the EU I believe, and the latter is the de-factor verification system that is used for governmental stuff as well

My personal upvote border:

• This is the best thing I’ve seen today
• Someone made a post/comment made in good faith that adds value to the community
• Someone replied to me in good faith, as far as I can tell

Neutral (no up/down-vote) border:

• Someone made a post/comment that I didn’t think much about
• Someone replied to me, but was not in good faith and/or seem factually dubious

Downvote border (I rarely do that):

• Someone made a post/comment that is factually wrong
• Someone seems to be trolling, making an agenda, or doing something else nefarious

I think maybe because of the lack of a meaningful “karma” system, people on the fediverse seem to be much more upvote-happy… less so than the beans era, but still a lot more upvote-happy than just about any Reddit community I still follow

From personal experience. I am willing to assign a higher value to products made by local and/or small businesses, even if it doesn’t otherwise make any practical sense. But it is a very conscientious moral judgement on my end, so I don’t expect most people to behave this way… and I have a limit too, +100% is probably too much.

Although I guess the benefit of being a “small” business is that you also don’t need as many customers… There are also some types of small businesses that are competitive: I suppose most ethnic food stores or your local market stall won’t struggle with competing on price.

how is it that there are any little shops left at all?

Maybe this depends on the area? I don’t know if it is just me, but it seems to me that these days small businesses do better in larger cities… maybe larger cities have more “ethical shoppers”

Random ham sandwich offered via a seminar at work, no idea of the exact ingredients… served with Coke-zero on the side. This happened yesterday

Nothing, I don’t exactly need anything at the moment. In fact I almost forgot Black Friday existed…