‘The Americans Are Coming’

Apparently New Zealand is the new "it" country for Americans. Who knew?! I actually pretty much agree with what the presenter says about New Zealand in the video above. Its fairly light-hearted approach tries to explain why so many Americans want to move to New Zealand. It does a good job.

This piece has a very specific person—explaining why New Zealand is an appealing place to move to from the perspective of recently arrived American expats, or those who hope to become one. As such, it’s enlightening. The fact that it doesn’t really talk about problems facing New Zealand isn’t important, in my opinion, since that wasn’t the purpose of the piece: It merely tried to explain why New Zealand is popular with some American émigrés, and not whether it’s a good choice or not.

One thing I do want to push back on, though, is the idea that New Zealand is some sort of “apocalypse insurance”. If the USA starts a nuclear war, we’re all dead. It may take a bit longer for the Southern Hemisphere to be wiped out, but that’s nevertheless inevitable.

However, for other forms of catastrophe, it could be another story. If the USA becomes a fascist dictatorship, or climate change causes famine in the USA, or in the case of any number of other non-world ending scenarios, there may be safety for American expats, at least for a time, in countries like New Zealand. Whether that would be the case or not is purely hypothetical, since there’s no way to test the theory without an actual catastrophe. I think we all agree that we hope there’s no chance to ever test the theory.

So, the video is accurate, more or less, and does a good job of its single purpose: Explaining why so many Americans want to move to New Zealand. In this case, that’s enough.

Tip o’ the Hat to Roger Green, who shared the link to this video in a comment on a post yesterday.