If I never had to work again and I was single, I would gladly live out in the middle of nowhere like a hermit. I hate almost everything about city life.

Yeah I figured things would be changing soon.

As others in this thread have said, buying a property in Japan doesn’t extend your Visa or grant you residence in the country. This would be a waste of time if you didn’t already have that lined up. However, there are countries that do. Some have what’s called the Golden Visa program, or Investor/Real Estate Visa program (there are other names, but if you’re doing a search, this should turn up decent results). Here’s a list of some countries that do this, and the minimum amount you need to spend.

Portugal - Golden Visa Investment - €500,000 ($540k USD) or €350,000 ($380k USD) for lower population areas, or properties that need to be renovated Residency benefits - Residency permit for 5 years, with the opportunity to apply for permanent residency after that

Spain - Golden Visa Investment - €500,000 ($540k USD) Residency benefits - Residency permit for 1 year, renewable as long as you own the property, and you can apply for permanent residency after 5 years

Greece - Golden Visa Investment - €250,000 ($270k USD) Residency benefits - Residency permit for 5 years, renewable as long as you own the property, and you can apply for permanent residency after 7 years

Thailand - Thailand Elite Visa Investment - THB 1,000,000 (about $30k USD) for a 5 year Visa Residency benefits - Renewable every 5 years with no residency requirement

Ecuador - Investor Visa Investment - $42,500 in real estate Residency benefits - Grants you permanent residency

Malaysia - Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) Investment - RM 1 million (about $240k USD) in real estate Residency benefits - Grants you a 10 year renewable Visa

Philippines - Special Resident Retiree Visa Investment - $50k in real estate Residency benefits - Grants you permanent residency

When I was looking into bailing on the US, I made a Libre Office spreadsheet with like 70 countries and all this info plus a bunch of other personal requirements for what I was looking for, so some of it may be outdated. Hell, some of it may be straight up incorrect, so feel free to double check it.

Tons of places like that in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsyltucky, and all over the Midwest US. My girlfriend was scrolling through them talking about selling her house and buying one of those places on a big plot of land and thank fucking Jeebus I talked her out of it. I was like “babe, have you never seen the cinematic masterpiece ‘The Money Pit’ with Tom Hanks?”

Not sure if they’re still doing it, but a few years back (holy shit maybe a decade), Italy was even offering to pay people to move there. But there were massive conditions. Like, you had to buy a historical property, maintain it to their standards, and open a business to boost tourism, or something along those lines. I looked into it and was kind of intrigued, but it seemed pretty obvious it was designed to draw rich expats, not average losers like me.

I watched a video from an American guy who did this. But he already had residence, and made it very clear that if you don’t have residence, doing something like this would be a waste of time and money. He bought a massive junker of a house and it took him like 2 years and a bunch of help to make it livable. Still a good video, and still a cool idea, assuming you have certain ducks already lined up. Definitely not something to do on a whim.

I looked at doing something like this in quite a few countries, and skipped on Japan pretty quickly. Happy with my decision though.

I’m not on the jury.

Luigi Mangione was trying his best to close that gap.

Science journalism in a nutshell.

Credit to Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

I know people need to eat

The rich?

The techbros all support Fascism, and any kind of free expression is a roadblock for them to make it happen.

It’s illegal for normal citizens in the US to have any TV-like screen (including laptops) in their field of view (basically in the front portion of the car). I think that’s the case in every state, but someone can correct me if I’m wrong. Cops get a pass because they use laptops for work.

At the very least, the laptops in police cruisers should be locked out of any kind of social media, entertainment sites, etc. I mean Hell, my brother is a mechanic, and the laptops they use at work aren’t allowed to have any of that stuff on them. Just parts portals, diagnostic tools,etc.

What is with their new obsession of telling people to say “thank you”? These motherfuckers have never thanked anyone in their lives.

Serendipity in my feed.

It breaks my heart. I have a few Ukrainian coworkers (working remotely), and when we jump in Slack and I chat with them now compared to when we first started working together, all I hear is the weariness, the sadness, the loss. This woman designed all of our proprietary software, and she was always such an upbeat, motivated badass. That cliche of a person “lighting up the room” when they walk in? That’s her. Now though? She’s had to move three times to avoid bombs, and even though she’s safe now, she’s lost something that I don’t know if she will ever get back.

What I see in this picture of Zelenskyy is what I hear in her voice every time I talk with her. And it makes me fucking furious.