Chile Forum

That's what I'm talkin' about! Totally agree, Otravers.

CNN's real allure for me is the Daily Show. Of course, you can get them online but I don't know hwat to do with the annoying buffering. The Blackwater hearings(on CNN) were mostly the anchors talking over the muted testimony as if I tuned in to hear them speak.

I've adjusted my life with the computer a lot but this is another step for me. I really apreciate the suggestions about which websites are best for what reasons so I can really start understanding.

otravers wrote:. . . . [T]he US Supreme Court rubber-stamped fascism through their Kelo v. City of New London eminent domain ruling. Well not quite rubber stamping since it was a 5-4 decision, but still, I thought if there was a country that took property rights to heart, it was the US of A . . . .

This was the final thrust to impel me to move away from the States. And to think that the case was based in the very state in which I live; what irony.

I'm carefully reading each post in this thread, though understanding none of the details. I do hope that the thread is still accessible in the Chilean autumn of '08, when (if I've gained any technical knowledge in the interim!) I'll try to put this information into effect for myself.

So, in short, I'm glad that AllChileans on the whole are so conversant with electronic matters.

yea, I am kind of impressed myself with the general tech knowledge and level of computer experience around this forum. It is by no means a prerequisite.

It is just that I have spent litterally thousands of hours on forums on the internet about computers, and often find a far larger number of average users and established members on those IT forums that are far less knowledgeable about IT issues than a lot of the members of this forum.

Perhaps this indicates some sort of general underlying endorsement of the need to escape other countries by IT savy people. Totally open to comments on this one. The general motives I think I understand well, but I would be interested in hearing some of the more particular cases of perhaps how technology did or did not motivate people to consider relocations to Chile.

For example, is it that communication simply makes it more realistic, convenient, and less scary to move to the other end of the earth? Is there something really nasty about "developed" countries and the state of technology as has been already touched on in the earlier posts?

Just a theory of why so many IT people (or even aspiring IT people), gravitate towards a forum geared towards helping people move to Chile. It is an interesting social / anthropological trend.

I would like to hear everyones take on it, if there is one, simply because it might lead to helping me better run and market the forum. At the least better understand the community I am trying to serve here (yea, I want to know what makes you guys tick).

admin wrote:. . . . Is there something really nasty about "developed" countries and the state of technology as has been already touched on in the earlier posts? . . . .

Wow, that's Calvinism-in-the-present-day for you! Not to say that there isn't a good deal of truth in it.

From what I observe, the oppressive nature of government does become more and more pronounced with greater density of population, more financial affluence, higher technological development; and society itself can be stifling in such places, too. So Chile appeals in part because it has, right now, a decent balance between development (more than most countries have) and oppression (less).

Interesting question, Charles. It's hard to know what comes first. IT in my case is an enabler to come to Chile. It's what makes it doable for me to run US operations from (far) abroad, learning about the country before coming, staying in touch with people abroad at reasonable cost... That of course, combined with people willing to help, starting with this forum. In other words maybe it's not that IT savvy people feel more the "need to escape to other countries" than other people, maybe it's because THEY CAN! Many people (even educated people) would stall just at the amount of googling we had to do to make this move. (That, and juggling between English and Spanish is beyond the reach of so many people because of lack of language skills.)

Moving to Portugal then Chile took a fair amount of guts or craziness from us (depending on how you look at it) but we had enabling tools to do it. For my "offline" friends it just looks too daunting to be even remotely doable. Give me broadband internet and the people who work with me don't know the difference, wherever I work. IT-related jobs (and IT-enabled jobs more broadly speaking) are among the best for geographic arbitrage. You can juggle bits from anywhere where the wire is good enough.

I'll go on a limb and add that if you're IT savvy, you may be more likely to be self-reliant and curious enough to move to the end of the world just because you can. Of course this may come off as extremely self-serving for us to say so.

Yeah I think we all have a meeting of minds here. Chile is one of the rare "just leave me the f*ck alone" countries that's not a Liberia-like jungle.

For me, it is not even the whole the NSA (hi guys!!) is watching me thing. It is more the shear intrusion of constantly being monitored thing. In the States I felt like I was constantly (and still am even though I left 12 years ago), being indexed, filmed, recorded, organized, sold and resold.

Not even talking about the general paranoia as much as receiving a pound of junk mail a day, telemarketer phone calls, tv advertising, and so on that is targeted directly at me based on my spending habits, health habits, tax habits, and so on that I neither own nor control.

My digital identity and citizenship was more real than my physical citizenship. It was the feeling that long after I die, the digital me will go on and on and on. It is a sort of digital existential crisis.

Computers are how I make my living in Chile, but it is not all of it. I feel like I can turn my computer off, and go enjoy a horse back ride through the country or go fishing in a place that has no electricity, cell phone signal, or other real form of 20th century technology. I feel less owned by it here. I feel like less of a means to a digital end, and more of the end in itself.

You've summed it up well, Charles. I dare say that you've spoken for the majority of AllChileans: even if our words might have been different, the sentiments are not.

I am certainly not an IT person but computers have enabled me to feel connected. I, like others, left family behind and am still able to speak on the phone through my computer or use IMs or emails to keep in touch with others. I like to be able to get the news from anywhere I like through the internet-really prefer it to the newspaper. And really, everything is somewhere on the internet. I have many family photos on the computer and also use online albums. The point is that even low techies like me are changed by the internet and computer technology.

This is such a great group of people, I continue to be impressed. We come from many backgrounds and no doubt political viewpoints yet we all seem to find some common ground. I always feel like I can get interesting viewpoints or help with whatever I need. It's such a real community here. And Charles, the Benevolent Dictator.

>Benevolent Dictator

I still have not been able to figure out if I like that title, and that is why I am likely stuck with it now because it has been used for so long. It has such an ambivalent mix of good and evil connotations, that I don't know what to make of it.

I do appreciate the sentiment however.

Well, sorry to disappoint but my story lacks any more profound dependencies on technology or "escapism". I just happened to meet a beautiful girl in Sweden, she was chilean and she is now my wife. This fact combined with the circumstance that I have a job that I can reasonably well execute "via wire", with some more or less frequent visits to the the homeland, made the move to Chile logical as well as a great opportunity to experience another culture and language. So, the dependency on tech in my case is just that the pc is my main worktool and internet has enabled almost free communication, connects my pc to the company network, keeps me informed about what I need to know about business at home, etc. Pretty cool I must say. It is an amazing contrast to what was possible only a decade or so ago. I remember when I lived in California some years ago it was a major problem just to get basic news from home and freakingly expensive to make a phone call. Now, as we know, there is no limit ... radio, tv, and newspapers from north to south.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a guy that was about 85 years old in the mountains. Him and his wife had lived in the campo for 45+ some years, and where getting ready to sell their property and move to a city to be closer to medical services. Most of their life they had no electricity, let alone a phone or other sorts of communication. They only recently got cell phone coverage in the last few years.

The old guy was telling me how his son had sent a letter to his daughter, using this new system of communication / mail / what ever. He really did not understand it, and could not even remember the word for it.

I almost did not want to fill in the word that he was so desperately trying to remember "internet", other than to be polite and helpful. I was looking at him and thinking , "you still live in the garden of eden".

I mean Benevolent Dictator in the best sense of the term and think it's not possible in most situations but somehow works here.

"The benevolent dictator is a more modern version of the classical "enlightened despot", being an undemocratic or authoritarian leader who exercises his or her political power for the benefit of the people rather than exclusively for his or her own self-interest or benefit, or for the benefit of only a small portion of the people. A benevolent dictator, for example, may focus government priorities on matters of public importance, such as healthcare, education, or general city infrastructure. They may be committed to peaceful relations, rather than wars or invasions of other states. He may even allow for some democratic decision-making to exist."

(Wikipedia)

You put out the flames as necessary but also allow us to flame a little, wander a little and be in general, fairly free. But we also know when someone gets out of line with spam or whatever, you quickly step in.

You see, it fits.

For persons in the personal sovereignty via digital technology movement during the 90s and early 2000s, I believe it was a combo of influences.

One was the book "The Sovereign Individual" (1997) by Lord Rees Mogg and James Davidson. Look it up at Amazon and on Google for critiques.

The other was

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace by John Perry Barlow (1996)
http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html

I believe these two works influenced many within the industry and these persons thus influenced also left their mark on the rest in the industry that knew nothing of those works.

There was also a crazy experiment in "digital capitalism" based in Costa Rica called Laissez Faire City
http://scamdog.com/freedom_projects/?vi ... faire_city

I admit I feel scammed as one of the grantor "Founders" of this experiment. But it was real in many respects as I visited the facilities and eventually saw the products such as "ALTA" and "LESE" come online and function for a couple of years with serious real money and (www).mailvault.com and the people running (www).metropipe.net still exist today.

Look up (Dr.) J. Orlin Grabbe in Google as he was the mastermind of the dmt-alta-lese-mailvault experiment.

Anyways, this is where IMO, the current era "digital" "Permanent Tourist", "Perpetual Traveler", etc. paradigm originated and inspired those in and out of the tech industry to personally implement it and run with it to make it a personal reality in their lives.

There was already the banking-KYC regs and the War on Drugs/Money Laundering during that time, but then 9 1 1 "happened" and everything really did change.

Salud

For those still in the Homieland ... "Get out while you still "

Actually admin Charles,

I'm impressed that we haven't been overrun with "alleged" "retired" CIA, Special Forces, former Military types that so many expat orgs seem to be infested with.

That fact alone places you head and shoulders above the rest of the Ibero-American expat communities.

Salud