I was born in a country that doesn't give out citizenship (A middle eastern nation). My father, too, was born there. In fact, I need a visa to go visit my own birth country (where my parents still live).
I inherited Indian citizenship through my father and his family (I've never lived there), and potentially British citizenship through my mother (she was born in England but British nationality laws are very complicated). I travel on an Indian passport although I can not vote in India as I am a Non-Resident Indian (That might change for the 2014 elections).
My permanent residency, interestingly, is in Canada; and I live and work in the US.
Edit: I just know there is a business in here somewhere.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperation_Council_for_the_Ara...
I went NZ -> New York, NY -> Scotland and if I'm say on holiday somewhere, doesn't really matter whether it's in the UK, Europe, US, and someone asks "Where are you from?" then I have to think.
Depending on my mood I might answer New Zealand because that's the accent they hear and they really mean "What country were you born in?". Or I might answer Edinburgh or Scotland because that's where I live and consider my home, in which case the response is often "... but you don't have a Scottish accent", and I then explain and they get the answer they were looking for or expecting. Or I might answer "Where does the wind come from?" and disappear down the rabbit hole.
My children have triple citizenship and will no doubt have their own difficulties with "Where are you from?" in later life.
But, I've lived most of my life just outside Washington DC, USA.
(I live in Croatia that was part of ex Yugoslavia, which fell apart in the 90es)
The people who attacked you are morons, and unfortunately we have a share of those too. :(
Nation states are arbitrary boundaries maintained by violent gangs called governments denying individuals freedom of association/movement.
P.S. I do occupy the land where I was born, and the same government considers me tax cattle liable for debts incurred by irresponsible baby boomers before I was born. God bless <nation N>. They hate me - or else they wouldn't threaten me with violence - but I do love them, because I was instructed to do so.
On topic: I was born in India. Currently live in the UK. Have lived in US too, and will go back there in less than 12 months.
uk -> au -> uk -> nl
I think I achieved escape velocity...
nl -> uk -> nl -> us -> nl myself. I guess nl is a pretty good place then :)
For a city to appear on the list, I should have lived in the city for at least 6 months. If a city does not have an airport then the nearest one is used. Lastly, I have been in HEL for the last 7 years..
My personal impression is that within the UK these are not seen so much as different countries but more as different administrative areas within the one country, and from without the UK you'd generally be lucky to find someone who is aware that Wales is a country and the UK is not.
Technically I should vote 'yes' but that doesn't feel right.
Although we're 'appy to 'av ya.
:)
I say technically as by definition they are but in the way they are treated I'd say they're not.
I'd say the difference between Wales and England as a whole is no different in spirit to the difference between Yorkshire and Essex or Cornwall and East Anglia.
As anywhere else, different areas have different levels of cultural self-identity - in that sense I can understand a comparison between Wales (country) and Cornwall (county) although not to Yorkshire, etc.
Technically, you should vote both 'yes' and 'no'.
Technically the UK is a sovereign state composed of four countries and not a country itself.
Maybe it is better to say "I was born in Wales (GB-WLS) and live currently in England (GB-ENG). There are two different ISO 3166-2 subdivisions of the four that form the ISO 3166-1 entity GB."
A third of venture-backed IPOs between 2006 and 2012 had an immigrant founder
Let's see what percentage this is going to be
I do like English culture, but I'll probably move to the US at some point to start my own thing (Australians get magical US visas because our government helped invade Iraq).
I have a feeling that the yes's will greatly outnumber the no's a little later when the U.S. logs in.
Depending on what the point of this exercise is.
Of course this is more likely to happen in Europe where countries are smaller and borders, well aren't borders anymore.
The United States is a huge country and the job opportunities and lifestyle in Mexico may not seem beneficial to most citizens.
(the last point is probably more of a reason then the first)
edit: apparently in the comments users mention several other versions of map showing the same thing, I'm not sure which is the most accurate map.
Related and interesting is this map of which countries give automatic citizenship to children born there: http://i.imgur.com/iBveG7Z.jpg
Via reddit /r/mapporn and user kencrema http://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1it8pv/map_of_what_...
I do not currently plan to ever move back to the US. I moved here for other reasons, but I no longer feel free when back in my country of birth.
I wonder how many others feel this way, and I wonder if it's possible to quantify the economic impact of the 'brain drain' the US's unconstitutional laws and policies (and other fruits of our generally-fucked political system) precipitate.
I was born and raised in the Netherlands. My girlfriend was born in California and lived in 6 different states before she moved to the Netherlands when she was 18.
When we discuss having kids, the question 'Where?' always pops in. My girlfriends idea on this, is that we should move to the states have kids there. And then by the time they go to primary school, move back to the Netherlands. She considers the Netherlands to have a more healthy environment for raising kids, but also would want to expose them to her home country and culture.
Just curious to your thoughts on this.
I'm still surprised how much happier I am in Paraguay, even though I'm a programmer who loves efficient systems, rules, and well-defined processes - and none of those describe my new home country.
I could understand if it was to a country on the same continent but there are a lot of US > UK; UK > US. From what I've read it isn't as easy as saying: "Well, guess I'll go live there now."
I think for Americans many perceive it to be too difficult. I think we put our own biases onto other countries. For example: It's hard to get a visa here in America, so it must be hard to do it in other countries as well. It is expensive to vacation any farther than Mexico/Canada so it must be expensive to get a job that far away as well.
An example of if there is a will there is a way, Svalbard (part of Norway) doesn't require work visa's for many passport holders including USA. http://www.emb-norway.or.th/Embassy/Visa-and-other-permits/S...
Occasionally I feel a twinge of regret that I'm missing out on all the "cool tech"/risk taking/fast moving SV atmosphere. But in the end, you gotta live where your heart is.
Been living in different countries and even on another side of the globe, but keep coming back.
I really want to leave, but I cannot yet.
Some countries have more freedoms.
Some countries have more resources and that translates into more money, more technology and a better quality of life.
.
Pick one, or all three.
p.s.: serious question, and it's a lot tougher when you are from a third world country.
Most countries won't accept Brazillians wanting to go there legally permanently (probably because the havock that illegal brazillians spread around the world :/) with few exceptions (ie: have specific degrees in case of Canada, or be married to a local, that sort of stuff).
Also, although some of our cities (like Recife) kill people faster than some war zones (Recife body count for example rises faster than Iraq body count), noone will grant refugee status to a brazillian (specially, because it would cause a political fallout of some government admiting that Brazil has civil war, and the government here is trying hard to avoid that status, despite having the Army and Navy being in active duty in Rio de Janeiro and fighting people that are armed with military grade weapons, like bazookas and anti-air cannons)
And my assets are negative, this is a big no-no for many countries (like US, that don't allow entry of people with negative assets even as tourists, because negative assets means they having nothing to lose, and much to gain by overstaying their visas).
I have some crazy student debts here, and moving money in or out of here is not much simple, also it has some other implications... I am basically forced to stay until I pay those debts, unless someone offer me some REALLY good job elsewhere (REALLY good in the sense, that wage - cost of living is significant... although I currently earn 15k usd, a 80k usd job in SV is not much profitable for example...)
Extremely violence ridden, I had guns pointed at me in more than once instance, and I witnessed firefights from my bedroom more than once too, in different cities (one firefight was even in a expensive "safe" neighbourhood, what happened is that a dumb guy tried to steal the car of a celebrity private security)
Also, really bad environment to do business, we frequently get scored very low on "ease to do business" index, there is excessive bureaucracy, rules that change randomly (on average the country enacts 18 new laws per day, most of them related to taxes, subsidies, and so on...), excessive corruption...
Also the average brazillian is usually very, very treacherous, people are always warm up front, but quick to stab you in the back, this particular reason is one that I want to change my citizenship (I don't think the average brazillian deserves my life to defend them in case a war happen)
And there are also a mass of other problems summed (for example, trying to homeschool your children here is a felony, jail and all included, also the Gini coefficient is severely absurd, the top 0.1% get more money than their peers in many other developed countries, while the top 5% get less than US minimum wage, probably thanks to banks charging 70%/yr of interest, and credit card companies charging 250%/yr, making finance be wildly profitable, and anything else not so much)
Moved here because my wife is a Vermonter. I've lived in Vermont for almost two decades now and unless I really start disliking snow I'll probably stay here for the rest of my life. Not exactly a hotbed of technology though.
Who knows where to next.
No plans to come back soon...