@arcana @anemone @allison @waifu @mischievoustomato @meso go ahead and speak for the global south all you like as a literal NEET in the UK but the reason why most of those people manage to survive on so little is because they are forced to rely on each other and function in more collective cultures/communities, which is something that the US is by-design (as per the original point of the thread about car-dependent infrastructure) meant to erode -- which, as I've said elsewhere, also describes the conditions that I live in here to some extent.

and yes, the US is complicit in a genocide, it is founded on the stolen land of millions of genocided indigenous peoples, it is systemically designed to incarcerate or extrajudicially murder Black folks and has the most well-funded police and military in the world and has throughout its entire history of not being isolationist worked to depose governments around the world that conflicted with its goals. it is actually exiting fascism, but nevertheless, I'm stuck here with all the other people I care about and leaving isn't realistic unless I suddenly get a bunch of money and have somewhere else to go that would be compellingly better (which there really isn't imo).

also, you're describing literal refugees. there's no country in the world that would take me as a refugee, rightfully so, because the US is not collapsing (yet) or has gone mask off in being a genocidal police state (yet). if that were to happen then I'd have to reconsider my options, but that's not where things are at yet. so at the moment my only options are to go through the usual means to immigrate somewhere, something which takes a lot of money that I don't have when I'm also not living rent-free at home like you lol