Jokes on you my country of citizenship is already a third world country
this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2025
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They're sending you to Ohio.
Kill myself
Just look for a job and make sure you've got a visa. Third world countries have a lot more "informal economy" that isn't taxed or handled with paperwork so it's possible sometimes to just find a job without paperwork or anything, but that won't help you get a permanent visa.
Ideally, you get a visa that allows work, show you're working, and then the visa gets upgraded to a permanent resident visa. This varies a lot from country to country. If you've got a job, some countries are pretty happy to have you adding to their local economy and will extend you a visa. If you've got a remote job that might go even faster.
Alternatively if you're not skilled in any way, you apply to a super cheap college and apply for a student visa, that'll buy you a few years while you're getting skilled in something that country needs. Studying to become a doctor, lawyer, or STEM goes a long way. One of these probably is in demand there, figure out which one and take a crack at it. Hard, for sure, but a pretty solid way to build something long term. Of course if you don't know the language that will be harder, but colleges generally have language classes too, so that could be the first classes you take.
There's also teaching English, it's generally not too hard to find work as a tutor or English teacher, I saw the other day like there's only one English teacher for every 500 open positions. So that's a possibility too.
Just generally try to participate in their economy. Try to make local friends and assimilate. Think about what first generation immigrants do: find a steady job or bust ass studying tech or medicine.
Pray that you didn’t end up in CECOT
Learn to speak Canadian.
Take off, hoser.
That means "I love you" in Canuckistanian.
Whale oil beef-hooked!
(A newfie taught me that one eons ago)
I very likely don't
Piggybacking off this, what is the legality of revoking a person's sole citizenship?
I'd say it depends on that particular country having signed the Convention on the reduction of statelessness.
Luckily, my country can't do that. I can relinquish citizenship, but the government can't remove it.
USSR?
Nope. Germany.
I have two citizenships and permanent residency in a third country, so that seems unlikely. In the spirit of the question, though, immediately start drilling language and learning customs. If they have IT jobs, particularly in English, I'm already ready to work. I also have my own small farm so experience there as well. I've worked in many industries in my life, so I can jump into many things.
The kicker is probably the legal side and then finding housing which just requires doing whatever is needed. I assume I have whatever assets I had, my phone, etc.
I teach English and Math and do manual labor on the side.
Seduce a man I guess.
I don't intend to be taken alive.
Joke's on you... I was already barely surviving.
comfortably.
i just spent a month and a half in El Salvador and it was lovely
I mean it depends on the country. Are Vietnam, Cambodia or Thailand third world? Central Asia? I'm surviving better here than I ever did in America. South America or mexico would be fine too.
IDK if I could handle India or Africa or central America or Afghanistan or Pakistan.
I work in healthcare and husband works in engineering. Hopefully we could live cheaply enough to survive on the $ we have and possibly be viewed as helpful enough to the community to gain some level of security.
You would very likely lose all access to any and all resources and bank accounts you had in the event something like this happened. It's pretty much guaranteed that if it ain't in your pocket you won't have access to it.
be viewed as helpful enough to the community to gain some level of security
My useless depressed ass is definitely getting gunned down on sight
I'd just be a burden to everyone
😭
You're fluent in chinese and english, you can help any community connect to the 2 largest markets on the planet. As a foreigner, the novelty makes it a lot easier to endear yourself to locals in places that don't get a lot of foreigners.
"Fluent"
😅
(2nd grade level fluent)
I mean, I guess I'll find the nearest Chinese Diaspora community and hope for the best. I almost forgot about the diaspora communities lol.
It really depends on which one. For many it's just over. Others I look for community and attempt to ply my skilled and educated labor.
So, do I have a right to reside in that country?
I assume I'd need to get an alien passport first?
What would be needed as soon as possible is a roof over my head, a source of income and starting to learn the local language.
And then I'd have to figure how to get my children where I am.
I would survive essentially the same way I am surviving now. There is no huge different between how life is in difference countries. I've started my life largely anew some five times now, in various countries. All in all, it's the same experience anywhere.
So, the answer to the question is: Relatively easily.
Relatively easily?
Lolol
Took me 4 years to fully master English as a very young child, you'd probably struggle with trying to learn a language as an adult lol.
Edit: I mean I knew a few words within weeks, and the very very basics in 1 year, but takes 4 years to be like: "Oh I guess I'm a native now", is what I'm saying
I can have a 2-hour-long conversation in Finnish, German, English, Ukrainian, Latvian, Estonian, Polish, Swedish, Spanish, Russian, Dutch and Lithuanian.
I do not think you're right in your claim that I'd struggle learning one more language as an adult.
It's also a myth that children learn languages faster. It takes them about 5 or 6 years to learn their native language at a level we adults would call "fluent". An adult can do the same in some two years if they have an active approach to the learning.
There is a technique about learning languages. Learn that and learning languages becomes quick.
Find an official and see if I can get sent north to Canada.
Spend my dollars on an apartment and a house cleaner, start networking with other folks, get a job. It's not hard.
It's cute you think you'd still have access to dollars in this scenario
It's cute that you assume I wouldn't. OP never said anything about that.
You had a bit of access issue tho.
Like... do you have it as cash on you at all times?
Your, now-former, country's border agents could just seize it as you're exiting.
If its in a bank, they have an even easier time seizing it.
You should have said that. If I can't access banks, it's a way different picture.
This reminds me of when I was a kid growing up (in developing nations), and people would show up from the US demanding all the same services that they had back home.
Depending on where they are and how much they want to pay, they can get it.
(Also US banks are about 15 years behind the rest of the world. I was in Korea 20 years ago and the farm stands in the countryside took electronic payments and I could spend dollars.)
lel OK ya got me. Hey, you should post on !chadmctruthstruth@lemmy.world I kinda miss that place.
e.g. check this out for comparison: https://lemmy.world/post/35529168
I wonder what people in this thread think the third world is, and what they imagine living there is like.
It's not like there's a clear answer. I guess technically Sweden is a third world county, while North Korea and Slovenia are both second world. America is as first world as it gets, and it's a fucking mess.
If I could choose my own third world country I'd be quite alright. If they sent me to the worst first world country they could find, well, Alabama.
The phrase has been corrupted from its cold war origins to mean (putting it politely) the "developing world". Whereas I've moved countries seven times, I've seen a lot of places, and I can say from experience that outside of specific prejudicial circumstances (being a woman in Iran, Uyghur Muslim in China, being anyone in North Korea, for example) there are paths to success everywhere.
Yeah, in general if you have a good starting point anywhare not affected by tyranny, war, or genocide you'll be alright. Behind a veil of ignorance there's a whole lot of developing countries I'd go to before I'd risk being poor in the United States.
Compounding that is the notion of privilege, which exists. I'm a cisgendered white male with a university degree and I speak English natively, I don't have a persistent mental illness or a chronic disease, and I don't have a physical handicap. The deck is stacked in my favor no matter where I am in the world. Taking away enforced regulations on housing, employment, and banking makes things easier for me, not harder. It's way, way, way different if you belong to a group with less social power.
I guess this is where the insight that you should judge a society by how it treats its weakest comes from. That's a problem with OP's scenario, as you'd be thrown into a completely foreign context without access to the more family and community-based security nets that are essential in poorer parts of the world.
I have travelled to some not very wealthy regions to small communities that can only be accessed by a 4x4, horse, or motorcycle (or by foot, as I prefer), and seen severely handicapped people in such places live what at least appears from the outside to be highly dignified and decent lives as the community works together to take care of them. It's not at all obvious that they would be happier in a western city. Once anyone needs professional medical care or expensive treatments it of course becomes more clear-cut, and if you're an outsider (or just unlucky) you're of course out of luck.
Taking away enforced regulations on housing, employment, and banking makes things easier for me, not harder
In the short run, maybe, but sawing off the branch one is sitting on is dangerous business. :)