120 - Permanent Residence

Some concepts are barbaric in obvious ways, but even the obvious can still be obfuscated if enough lobbyists and influencers are deployed to muddy the waters. In the past week, everyone had something to say about the first part of the EU AI Act passing, with every advocate and bad actor stirring the pot.

Since it wouldn't be productive to weigh in on muddy waters, I'll focus on a topic that still has pretty clear waters to peer through. For example, take the concept of "Permanent Residence":

• Loads of paperwork (Sludge) that has nothing to do with the ability to live in a place, and has no inherent connection to citizenship.

• Artificially makes it 3-10 times more difficult and expensive to move to another country.

• Inserts moderate to high uncertainty to an already extremely stressful process.

• Adds neither security nor revenue to the country demanding it.

Now, consider an alternative, one where we streamline the process, removing all of the added expense, uncertainty, and utterly pointless paperwork. Instead, the government simply notes someone's information and offers potential new residents a central place where they go to find trusted local services that can help with the moving process. As an effective UX overhaul, this predictably could:

• Encourage more people from wealthier countries to take up residence in areas with a lower cost of living, bringing more revenue into the country.

• Bring in an entirely new demographic of travelers than many countries encounter, the people who aren't inclined to take major risks, like those offered by systems today.

• Increase taxable revenue, and allow government administrative staff to focus on better serving their citizens, rather than making life more difficult for travelers and residents.

The concepts of "Visas" and "Permanent Residence" are entirely barbaric artifacts of humanity's "Medieval Institutions". There may still be merit to holding the concept of "citizenship" to a higher bar, but where people live is a matter better handled by the collective intelligence of markets than by governments as they exist today.

I could have easily afforded to live in any of the countries that I've traveled to over more than the past year, from Europe to Southeast Asia. Short-term rentals like Airbnb come at a considerable markup in price, meaning that I'd have had an even easier time affording a long-term stay than a short-term one.

I stayed in none of these places because you find this same kind of barbarism everywhere, the default that assumes that Passports, Visas, and Permanent Residence aren't just the fever dream of the incompetent.

Take a long look at the processes and requirements that you take for granted, and ask what the world would look like without them. Some of the answers might surprise you.