You’re not supposed to say that part out loud!
Stranger
England colonized the shit out of the USA too, so the CTSOOEng term cancels out in numerator and denominator (or either side of the = sign, depending on your preferred moral system), leaving the CTSOOUSA term standing alone in the calculus arithmetic of morality.
You know they don’t want most of us, right? Everyone who says “if you don’t love America, leave it!” and “if anything happens, I’m going to Canada” seem to be equally clueless that if you don’t have a high value job skill specifically in demand, Canada doesn’t want you. You don’t get to go anywhere in the world you want just because you’re an American.
Anyway, a relevant issue I didn’t see discussed: how is global warming projected to hit Hawaii? As the temperature is pretty completely controlled and moderated by the oceans, I would guess that they’d have a slow but steady increase in average temperature, but they aren’t prone to natural disasters like hurricanes, and they aren’t especially low lying, so rising sea levels aren’t an existential threat, but I’m not well versed specifically. Is global warming going to be particularly problematic for Hawaii?
If we’re talking about places to go post-implosion, it’s important to note whether we’re talking about just a political dissolution, or unenforceability of certain laws, or total economic collapse.
Like I could see, say, South Carolina saying they’re going to cherry-pick which parts of the Constitution they feel like following… perhaps gun restrictions and gay marriage are null and void… but they don’t feel like chucking the dollar as a currency. Back to something like the Articles of Confederation. No doubt there would be economic disruption, but people still have to trade to eat, so it wouldn’t automatically mean a complete economic collapse. If we lose Mississippi, without bloodshed, does it affect Hawaii all that much? Probably not.
That said, Hawaii is expensive as hell and I can’t imagine that political instability would help matters. I’d rather be in a state with a shot at food and energy independence. And that would have to be after the state itself is split, because I expect the coming political implosion won’t be a simple north/south affair like 1865. Likely the southern states would leave as-is, but a number of “blue states” would dissolve into separate governments for the urban vs. rural areas. Inland California is red as hell for example.
Point taken. I’m certain there are beautiful, uncrowded places in California. SLO is a great place, but housing pricing there are rapidly rising there just like everywhere else in California.
I went to college in Arcata on the beautiful north coast and while it was in no way perfect, there were small towns nearby, such as Ferndale, that I would be happy living in, except for the dreary weather, which like western Washington or western Oregon you just have to get used to.
And I’m sure it wasn’t all that great in the '60s and '50s, nostalgia is a funny thing. You tend to remember the good parts and forget the bad parts, but now with nearly 40 million people packed into the state, water resources at their limit, air pollution a constant danger, wildfires, earthquakes, etc., etc. I figured there must be better places still left somewhere.
Thats awesome!! Ive been caretaking a place in Santa Barbara (Montecito) since 1978, watching as the rents and general state of affairs sort of goes to hell. Traffic, the fires, insane rains then drought. My niece is at SLO currently and my folks retired in Cambria. Been up and down most of the state, altho not as much as would have liked. Really an amazing place.
The whole state currently is facing severe water issues again. Most of the rain water washes into the ocean, dirty and in need of cleaning and groundwater recharge basins are going to be a option if the will is there. (my idea is to ditch the bullet train, put all that time and effort into pipeline to the north, where the water is)
As far as Hawaii goes, I think staying in place and trying to sort out all the politics and whatnot locally are as good an idea as moving somewhere else. Every corner of the US is pretty much connected to every other one.
I go back and forth on this all the time, as retirement approaches. Eugene Ore or Montpellier VT…or stay in Santa Barbara…this place has spoiled me rotten!!
This is an astute comment from a jaundiced viewpoint. See the map of “Purple Counties:”
William Jennings Bryan was right. While there are enclaves of densely populated deep blue liberalism sprinkled throughout the length and breadth of this great land, in reality they’re pretty few and far between. They’d have difficulty seceding, much less being self-sufficient without dominating a lot of the bright red territories. And it must be said that several of the larger blue counties are not that densely populated nor resource rich to begin with.
Same with Samoa and PR, neither of which as food self-sufficient, but PR could be, they are working on it.
We never should have given it up.
Yes. exactly. Politicians always talk about cutting water for residential, but if Ag simply cut water by 10%, there would be no issues with residential usage.
Being as I am also a Canadian citizen, with relatives there, Canada certainly does want me. But not just any American.
Potable reuse (aka “toilet-to-tap”) with advanced recycling plants, usually a combination of microfiltration with reverse osmosis, is an even better way to go. Substantially cheaper and less energy hungry (the two are of course related), plus more environmentally friendly on average.
Don’t over-assume. We may not want you, but we’ll take you in. 
Getting back to the OP, my mother told me that when she was in the job force after WWII, one of her co-workers was an Englishwoman who had emigrated to Canada after the war.
Mom asked her why? She replied: “You just don’t understand how scary it is to be trapped on an island, even a big island like Britain, when a war is on, and you can’t leave.”
That’s what I thought of when I read the thread title.
Progress is being made in desalinization. There is new tech from MIT which uses less electricity.
Please don’t come here. Too many people as it is.
It is a bad idea.
4th stage water purification is much, much better.
…the smart thing to do would be to respect the Kānaka Maoli and give their land back.
They don’t need more colonization. Just stay home.
I noticed a surprisingly high density of churches in Maui when I visited recently, as well as a lot of hand-written signs with messages against various pandemic control measures. It occurred to me that Hawaii may not be as blue as I’d assumed.
I was appalled when we went to Hawaii in 2008 or so and I read the Honolulu newspaper and realized just how bad housing is there. Even if I had a million trillion dollars I could never move there. It isn’t fair to the Hawaiians.