We no longer live in an agrarian society and this is the reason. Farm life is incredibly demanding and thoroughly incompatible with modern society. We fragmented the communities that made it possible. I think there are a couple of things that could be done to re-enable this at least at some level, but it’s getting harder and harder every year.

There are lots of unused cars here, even I have one too many. I know of few companies looking for marketing/social people, but most companies here (or at least those that are worth it) don’t do full remote. Prague is much worse than ten fifteen years before, but many for foreigners even more appealing.

For example car is easy. From the top of my head I can think of two maybe three projects I could introduce you to, something is always going on. Housing as well, there are lots of possibilities. Of course, my area of knowledge is CZ, but I strongly suspect similar opportunities around the EU. And Prague is extremely welcoming to foreigners.

If you ever come back to Europe, some of those can be done quite easily, but it’s hard to do over the pond.

The whole universe is based on inefficiency. It allows ecosystems to thrive and it builds resilience. Start optimising and past some point (actually quite early in the process) you are sacrificing resilience. Pushing for extremely efficient systems is wrong architecture move. Resiliency of the ecosystem is much more important than efficiency of any part of the system.

It translates to digital world as well. Have you noticed how many non-essential services are integrated to operating systems? It is definitely more efficient to have a fitness app included in the os, but over time you lose the whole ecosystem of third party fitness apps.

It’s the same as the state. Every service provided by the state (in the name of efficiency) become monopoly over time. And when it stops providing services (and it sure will), it leaves void and barren land. There is nothing to step up.

It is good to identify waste, but even lean meat needs fat to be fully digestible.

Here.

Okay, that makes sense. Here, in CZ village it’s similar, there are no really remote places. It does not take much effort to live almost anywhere here. I guess in larger countries it would be very different.

But isn’t it true that cost of living is much higher there? My friend who lived there for many years used to refer to the US as the richest third-world country, mainly because even though he made about much more on the same position than home (and here it is quite lucrative position), he constantly struggled to make ends meet. Back here, he lives very comfortable life on about a third of his US salary.

It is obvious on subscription prices, you can pile multiple $6/month in the US without problems, but here it gets prohibitive very fast.

I see your wifey training goes well…