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I looked it up, and the only legal AR-15s in the UK are chambered in .22lr, a glorified airgun. To reuse the previous framing, it's like offering the same car nut something that looks like a Lambo and has the engine of a 1993 Camry in it.
I mean, better than nothing, sure, but doesn't scratch the same itch.
(Bolt-actions fall into the same category as shotguns IMO, largely obsolete, I like the kind of guns you see after the 2000s, with all the drip, but that's just me, I'm sure there are people who treat them with more reverence)
Honestly I didn't dislike the place. I have a distant aunt and uncle who live in London, and by God they made it sound like you couldn't leave the house after nightfall. It seemed like a sleepy neighborhood to me, with plenty of expensive cars and no obvious security measures. The closest thing to being unsafe was when I was the tall dark dude in a hoodie walking home and mildly scared a young white couple entering their home.
I wouldn't be opposed to living there, but UK houses (that I can afford) are still tiny for my taste.
Barking was a little more exciting, I kept an eye out for the apparent plague of phone snatchers, but no luck. Other than a lot of places selling jerk chicken, it was largely inoffensive to me.
All of those represent additional work on top of the ~48h work week. I just applied for an ER job in India for a few months, because I know that ER locums are quite lucrative and I want to go prepared, even if I hate it. Even then, locums are drying up as more people bow out of training and perma-locum. Add in London rate caps that are a blatantly cartel-like action by a monopsony employer. Not all doctors locum, and if I have a reasonable assessment of the circles you run in, you're likely meeting the more driven/successful lot.
I intend to use my ADHD as a convenient excuse to work LTFT and then locum on top, but that has a mild risk of pissing off the ARCP examiners. I don't think simply locum-maxxing is an option, because my Skilled Workers visa needs a sponsor.
By all means I'm not saying that it's the worst possible life, it clearly beats India, but I need to make money, fast. That, or citizenship in a First World country, and while the UK is straight forward in that you just need to stick around for 6 years (5+1 for the whole rigmarole), that's about past my median timeline for AGI. In an ideal world I would qualify for an investor visa somewhere that can take care of its citizens after they're economically obsolete.
I am deeply lazy, and if you want me to work more than I absolutely have to, you'd best offer me a motivating salary. Can't complain if the free market doesn't share the same high assessment of my worth, but the NHS is the very opposite.
GPT-4 is a better doctor than I am. The UK government knows that's true for most doctors, and is already using it as a cudgel to scare them. The fact that they're not terrified and rioting is a sign of their ignorance, not the government's. Shame this had to be the one place where the government was remotely farsighted. It'll happen everywhere of course, but later in the US where doctors have more leverage to raise hell.
You then have the potential for robotics to improve (and it has), or simply the trained monkeys like ACPs who can do procedures at the behest of Dr. House LLM.
Even if not literally all doctors are useless, a mere 90% of them being superannuated and then fighting for the remaining positions will make life hard if nothing else.
To end up in that position would take 7 years minimum, same issue. I can still be hopeful, but betting my future on it? Not the same IMO. In fact I expect opportunities like that to be entirely gone before I get a good thing going.
At least in ML I get in on the thing that's going to eat the world, assuming I can cut it.
So, in order of preference:
I fix the ECFMG issue and go to the US, or at least Australia, New Zealand or Canada. Subjectively 80% chance of me being happy.
Upskill myself into a related but different line of work. 60%?
Stay in the UK and make the most of it. Like 40 at best.
Return to India, where at least my dad owns a hospital. It's a small hospital, but it's still something. Just highly at risk from the rest of the country catching fire. Man the odds are bad.
Can you disagree on timelines and implications? Certainly, I'm no expert, just a very scared person trying to sell beachfront properly as the tides get higher. I consider myself lucky to at least know it's coming, and make the trivial preparations I can.
Hmm, that's a cause for hope!
TL,DR: UK not great not terrible.
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