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Australia's doing worse on a couple of metrics (gun control and free speech, although we're not at European levels of hate speech laws), but a lot better on a bunch of others. In addition to what @AshLael said (no cities degenerated into chaos!), our politics are also far more stable; another civil war is unthinkable here.
I'd put Australia first on that list of five countries in terms of my preference to live in; the USA would probably get second, because Canada and the UK have serious problems of their own and India of course is a third-world country, but seriously Australia's not that bad.
After Australia's reaction to covid, i would not put it behind British state control. You guys were chasing down teens and harrasing women stopping on park benches, and restricting freedom of movement and curfews and 'papers pleasing' all over the place. It was insane watching it from the states. How quickly we forget.
The usa is not "close to civil war" That is mostly a larp for the very far right and left to fantasize about in very online spaces. It has about as much chance as "The Purge" or "Running man" at becoming reality. The country is pretty well mixed in geographically despite the voting maps that show the final results.
I also ask, were you born in Australia or was it a choice to move there?
That's not the part that makes Australia leaps and bounds ahead of Britain, indeed. Britain seems to be having a bad time of the culture war recently, what with the rioting, and I hear there are also economic issues.
It would take a big spark, but there are a few plausible ones. A hard hit on the debt ceiling (literally) defunding the police for an extended period. Obvious election fixing. Maybe court-packing. At least one other. None of these things are assured, by any means, but none of them are that unlikely either.
Born here. Think I'm fourth-generation.
You position is that if we hit the debt ceiling, defund the police (which isn't actually a thing) or pack the court the usa will be in civil war? The population isn't even divided up geographically in a way that woild even make it possible, very very worst case it would be like the "troubles" in NI. Most people are way too lazy for that kind of thing.
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How would hitting the federal debt ceiling defund the police which is mostly funded from state and local sources?
A good point, and makes me less worried. Although, with that said, the FBI is IIRC the main org dealing with domestic terrorism and rebellion.
I feel like you think aus is better because you live there. Have you done a lot of travel?
Only been to Singapore (and NZ, but I was a baby so I don't remember).
Before I swung right I would have said NZ was better and it's still close; the USA was likely better in the 90s/00s before the culture war went white-hot and before you let mass looting/lawlessness happen in a bunch of your cities.
There isnt mass lawlessness unless you only watch fox news. Even "shitholes" like sf are safe and clean if you stay off one bad street.
We saw the largest single-year increase in violent crime ever recorded immediately following the Floyd riots. The violent crime rate has since declined somewhat, but is still massively elevated over the pre-Floyd baseline. There's good evidence that the elevated crime rate extends to other categories as well, given the effects on major business chains. That seems like good evidence for "mass lawlessness" from vectors other than Fox News.
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What does that have to do with the risk of civil war? The American Civil War was actually rather unusual, as civil wars go, in its clear geographic lines. Many civil wars don't involve secession attempts.
Compare, for example, the English Civil War(s). Yes, there were some geographic gradients — northwest vs. southeast, but even more city-vs-countryside — but only partially; and, AIUI, the two sides were still "plenty well mixed in," at least initially. Another, more recent civil war of "city-vs-rural" character was the Nepali Civil War. Or try looking at maps of the decades-long conflict in Colombia.
There is just no clear way to have a real war without battle lines. Otherwise it is just somthing more the the "troubles" in NI, or chaos.
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I would put Australia as a serious contender for #2 country to live in, but I'm curious what the rest of your list looks like?
Who's your #1?
NZ I'd probably put on par with Australia or maybe a hair below due to marginally-greater levels of SJ.
Outside the Anglosphere it gets more complicated (and where I'd personally prefer to live starts to diverge from where I think would be objectively good places to live, as I'm decent at French and have a foggy idea about other Romance languages/Mandarin/Japanese but am only fluent in English). I've also a less clear idea of what's going on there. But of the five main Anglosphere countries I'd say only the UK is having enough trouble to potentially lose top-5 status, because Western Continental Europe is clearly worse in terms of SJ/ethnic conflict issues than anywhere else in the Anglosphere, Free Asia aside from the rather-uptight Singapore is also known as "ground zero bait for WWIII", and basically everywhere else is notably poorer.
I haven't the foggiest idea which African/South American/non-East Asian countries are better/worse than their neighbours. Russia clearly beats China but I'd take the First World over either, and obviously North Korea is terrible.
USA is my #1. Australia rivals Costa Rica(where English speakers are almost automatically middle class or higher) and Japan(which is at least stable, cohesive, and very safe). I'd put France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland as my top three western European countries and Poland as my top Eastern European country. Russia and Iran both over China, but even the shitty parts of the first world over any of three. Botswana, Kenya, and South Africa as top African picks, but none of them near the top overall.
As for South America, Northern Mexico, Uruguay, Chile, Costa Rica, and Southern Brazil are developed countries with right-here-right-now decent economies, but very high crime for two of them and the levels of income inequality one comes to expect from Latin America. Still, the upper middle class in those places have good living standards. Argentina is a developed country that might be on the economic upswing; its welfare state is probably too expansive to achieve the labor force participation rate necessary to truly achieve an economic breakout. Paraguay and Panama are relatively safe and steadily improving, but they're still poor even for Latin America. Venezuela, Haiti, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Cuba are the real shitholes.
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