Are there any (livable 🥺) countries that basically allow anyone to become a citizen? Specifically where an English speaker could get by.

Edit: by allowing anyone I mean poor people with no skills.

  • tal@lemmy.today
    9·
    10 months ago

    googles

    Apparently, they don’t let people be buried there anymore, because it’s all permafrost, so the bodies don’t decay. This says that they sometimes permit people to be cremated and have their ashes kept in the graveyard there.

    https://www.iflscience.com/it-is-against-the-law-to-die-in-this-town-for-very-good-reason-46724

    The notion it’s illegal to die in Longyearbyen may have first started when it was discovered that in 1950 bodies within the town’s cemetery were not decomposing due to the permafrost. As a result, it was believed deadly viruses within the bodies could be kept alive and possibly re-infect the living population as the permafrost thawed.

    It sounds like a nightmare scenario, but it’s one that has already played out elsewhere. In August 2016, there was an anthrax outbreak in northern Siberia, with one boy being killed and around 90 others hospitalized. Furthermore, 2,300 reindeer died from the disease.

    The most recent outbreak prior to this took place in 1941. The 2016 outbreak occurred during a heatwave in the region, leading officials to conclude that a reindeer killed by anthrax had thawed out, causing the virus to be released into the environment.

    In 1950, officials in Longyearbyen were worried that a similar thing could happen with bacteria and viruses hiding in the residents of their graveyard.

    Recently, samples of the Spanish Influenza were found in the lungs of victims of the disease that had been preserved in the permafrost of Alaska, stored there since 1918. Traces were also found in Longyearbyen itself, from a person who died during the 1917 outbreak.

    Though it’s unlikely that bodies in Longyearbyen thawing out would cause an outbreak of Spanish Flu, a team of scientists studying the virus in 1998 took extra precautions just in case. While extracting samples from the graves, they wore modified spacesuits and ensured that the tissue did not thaw out before it reached a specialized facility in the US.

    “Potential viruses from the bodies that died during the Spanish flu is not a worry in Longyearbyen,” Carlsen told IFLScience. The results of those scientific studies can be read about here.

    “It is not illegal to die on Svalbard, that happens from time to time, but as a main rule you cannot be buried here. However, in some special cases and for people who have a special connection or history to Longyearbyen, you can be buried in an urn at the cemetery.”

    • deafboy@lemmy.world
      6·
      10 months ago

      I plan to visit Svalbard. Avoiding the spanish flu was missing from my checklist, though. I guess no digging up unmarked graves for me… :D

      • tal@lemmy.today
        5·
        10 months ago

        They don’t say it, but reading further, apparently there are polar bears up there that have sporadically attacked humans. If you leave town, you apparently normally go armed:

        https://www.sysselmesteren.no/en/weapon/

        Firearms

        Due to the polar bear threat on Svalbard, anyone travelling outside the settlements must be equipped with suitable means of scaring off polar bears. The office of the Governor of Svalbard also recommends carrying firearms with you. The processing time for all types of firearms applications is up to 4 weeks.

        Given that, my guess is that another factor might be that Svalbard’s polar bears might be interested in digging up non-cremated human corpses.

        • imaqtpieA
          3·
          10 months ago

          Well, I now know more about Svalbard than I thought possible, just from reading this whole thread. Thank you for your service 😅

          • aturtlesdream@lemmy.world
            3·
            10 months ago

            If you are really interested, Cecelia Blomdhal (spelling may be slightly off) is a youtuber who lives there and shares all kinds of interesting stuff and gorgeous scenery. You can visit without having to brave the cold and polar bears that way

            • tal@lemmy.today
              2·
              10 months ago

              searches

              https://www.youtube.com/@CeciliaBlomdahl

              skims

              I’m not really into her style, but she does have a lot of footage of the landscapes and the kinds of buildings they have and stuff.

              I’m kind of surprised that her house has so much glass in it – I kind of expected houses in the Arctic to have a lot of thick wall – but I guess if you get fancy-enough windows, you can probably get decent insulation.

              googles

              https://glawindows.com/triple-pane-window-r-value/

              With double pane windows, you get an R-value of 2 – 4.1. Meanwhile, with triple pane windows, the R-value is from 3.2 and up to 5.5 with 1 Low-E pane. With 2 Low-E panes, it can improve up to an 8.7 with argon gas filled units and up to a 9.9 with Krypton filled ones.

              It looks like new exterior walls in the colder parts of the US use R10 insulation (in addition to the siding itself and drywall, which I’d guess doesn’t contribute much):

              https://www.energystar.gov/saveathome/seal_insulate/identify_problems_you_want_fix/diy_checks_inspections/insulation_r_values

              Insulated 2x4 wood-frame wall:

              For Zones 4–8: Add R10 insulative wall sheathing beneath the new siding.

              …so in theory, if you have really high-end triple-glazed, exotic-gas-filled windows, they can insulate about as well as a wall.