I can buy most of these points, but it seems to ignore that people have subjective preferences for some cultural environments over others, so the Q/A answer citing Australia's education and secularity doesn't necessarily answer that question. Presumably not every intelligent person will subjectively find Australia's culture versus the US's culture either a win for Australia or a tossup; some may prefer American culture. Some people may also place utility on things like "living in my home country, where I don't feel like a foreigner"; though of course other people may consider living in another country to be an inherently positive experience.
I'm currently an American living in Denmark, so clearly I don't think it's impossible for the utility functions to work out that way. =] But it's not just a matter of weighing the income, the expenses, the commute times, etc.; living in Copenhagen is subjectively fairly different from living in, say, Boston or Los Angeles, and I could imagine some people putting very large positive or negative utility scores on that difference.
"Presumably not every intelligent person will subjectively find Australia's culture versus the US's culture either a win for Australia or a tossup; some may prefer American culture. Some people may also place utility on things like "living in my home country, where I don't feel like a foreigner"; though of course other people may consider living in another country to be an inherently positive experience."
Fair point. I'd like to add, though, that even within the United States, there's a lot of cultural variation, adn even among larger trends there are quite a few smaller pockets. I find, for example, that I'm happiest in big-ish cities in the Midwest, but only when I can engage with the arts scene and a little bit with the tech scene.
What I mean to say is that I think you're right in that the author does not offer any qualification for those points, but will also say that living in Perth or Darwin is likely to be very different from living in Melbourne, if for no other reason than location, demographic, and the purposes that people have in being there.
I'm currently an American living in Denmark, so clearly I don't think it's impossible for the utility functions to work out that way. =] But it's not just a matter of weighing the income, the expenses, the commute times, etc.; living in Copenhagen is subjectively fairly different from living in, say, Boston or Los Angeles, and I could imagine some people putting very large positive or negative utility scores on that difference.