Uniquely, the Norwegian special territory of Svalbard is an entirely visa-free zone. No person requires a visa or residence permit and anyone may live and work in Svalbard indefinitely, regardless of citizenship. The Svalbard Treaty grants treaty nationals equal right of abode as Norwegian nationals. So far, non-treaty nationals have been admitted visa-free as well. “Regulations concerning rejection and expulsion from Svalbard” are in force on a non-discriminatory basis. Grounds for exclusion include lack of means of support, and violation of laws or regulations.[52][53][54] Same-day visa-free transit at Oslo Airport is possible when travelling on non-stop flights to Svalbard.
That’s not citizenship, but it’s living and working there without restriction, which is probably about as good as someone’s going to get in the present day. But it’s probably colder than most people would like.
Approximately 60% of the archipelago is covered with glaciers, and the islands feature many mountains and fjords. The archipelago has an Arctic climate, although with significantly higher temperatures than other areas at the same latitude. The flora has adapted to take advantage of the long period of midnight sun to compensate for the polar night. Many seabirds use Svalbard as a breeding ground, and it is home to polar bears, reindeer, the Arctic fox, and certain marine mammals. Seven national parks and 23 nature-reserves cover two-thirds of the archipelago, protecting the largely untouched fragile environment.
EDIT: And income looks pretty solid, even by Western standards:
In 2006, the average income for economically active people was 494,700 kroner, 23% higher than on the mainland.
Converting to 2006 USD and then rolling forward inflation to December 2023, that’d be ~$110,463.54/year.
But part of the reason that they’re gonna be paying that is because the people living there are gonna have to be living in polar twilight for a hefty chunk of the year.
Mmm…it depends. So, one particular example I recall calling for UBI without giving any details and urging people on /r/Europe to sign up for it was at an international level in Europe, and I don’t know what, exactly, the implications of that petition were.
But there are definitely systems of government where petitions do make a difference. The popular initiative exists, and there it’s explicitly part of the process.
I’m not really a huge fan of the popular initiative and referendum – I live in California, which uses both, and I think that some of the policy that I think is most ill-considered in California has gone through via that process. However, it certainly can – and has, on a number of occasions, has – had dramatic impact on the state’s policy, as with California’s unusual property tax situation.
Initiative Statute: Petitions proposing initiative statutes must be signed by registered voters. The number of signatures must be equal to at least 5% of the total votes cast for the office of Governor at the last gubernatorial election. (Cal. Const., art. II, § 8(b); Elec. Code, § 9035.)
The total number of signatures required for initiative statutes is 546,651.
Initiative Constitutional Amendment: Petitions proposing initiative constitutional amendments must be signed by registered voters. The number of signatures must be equal to at least 8% of the total votes cast for the office of Governor at the last gubernatorial election. (Cal. Const., art. II, § 8(b); Elec. Code, § 9035.)
The total number of signatures required for such petitions is 874,641.
Depends on the implementation, and I think that that’s something of an issue in discussion about it – because its effects depend a great deal on the specifics.
There is a portion of the small government conservative crowd that sees it as a replacement for welfare programs where the government mandates policy. Like, instead of getting, oh, food stamps or such, where the government precisely spells out policy in each area (“this is what you are permitted to buy with this”), people who are poorer than a certain amount would simply get a flat cash payment and choose how to use it. In that sense, it’d reduce the degree of control that government has, which is a goal that they’d like to see.
There’s also a portion of the redistribute-more-wealth crowd on the left that sees it as existing alongside existing welfare programs, rather than as a replacement. For them, if the government has progressive taxation policy (like, income tax brackets or the like), a flat benefit to everyone will tend to redistribute more, which is a goal that they’d like to see.
Both implementations would qualify as UBI – they both provide an unconditional basic income. But the actual effects depend on the implementation.
So when someone says something like “sign this petition for UBI”, I think that a really good question is “tell me what sort of UBI you are aiming to have implemented”, because the details have a very considerable impact on what it is that you’re signing up to support.
If one wants an occasional old gizmo that’s no longer made, eBay can be helpful.
Specifically for cables – which aren’t that pricy relative to other items people buy, and are often marked up a lot by retailers – I’ve gone to Monoprice for quite some years. Useful if getting a bunch of cables.
My understanding – and I’m not a New Yorker – was that he has been often credited with reducing crime in NYC. Part of that was, as I recall, by cracking down on minor crimes, things like aggressive panhandling, with the idea that that was kind of a gateway drug to more-severe crime.
I don’t know whether that approach or him in particular was responsible for it, or whether it was other phenomena at the time – my gut is that changes like that usually aren’t just driven by one person – but my understanding was that crime did considerably fall off around the time, and crime was something that a lot of New Yorkers had been really upset about.
Ironically, I just noticed this morning that the pizzaria on the corner (here, in the US) can take orders via fax (as well as in person, via phone, and on the Web).
I don’t know about today, but back around 2000, stuff on the Japanese market was quite a bit ahead of the US in small, portable, personal electronic devices, like palmtop computers and such. I remember being pretty impressed with it. But then I also remembered being surprised a few years later when I learned that personal computer ownership was significantly lower than in the US. I think that part of it is that people in Japan spend a fair bit of time on mass transit, so you wanted to have small, portable devices tailored to that, and that same demand doesn’t really exist in the US.
Then everyone jumped on smartphones at some point after that, and I think things homogenized a bit.
At my mom’s place — air-source heat pump, double-paned windows — I can’t hear the thing at all from inside the house, and can only hear it if I go on the side of the house where it’s operating, which doesn’t get a lot of foot traffic. You can hear the fan there.
Generally, I haven’t heard people complaining about it in the US. I have seen some people talk about it recently in the UK, which is in the middle of a push to transition to them, and I’m wondering if that’s because townhouses are more-common there, with houses packed closely together.
I understand that you can get noise-reducing enclosures:
There are also water-source heat pumps. I don’t know how the noise differs, but I’d bet that it’s quieter, because you’re moving water through a pipe rather than a lot of air. However, their installation cost is considerably higher (though their energy efficiency is also higher).
If OP is in the US – which I assume he is, from the inch measurement – I’d bet that he can probably rent one at a large hardware store, like Home Depot, if he doesn’t have any use for one outside of this.