Although we’ve been focusing heavily on the US in our search, we’re also still interested in country suggestions
One thing I as a non-US citizen am interested in is whether alternate countries are easier to immigrate into. Some light research just now seems to show that Canada has a more liberal immigration policy. I tried finding a list of countries by ease of immigration, but couldn’t immediately find anything like that.
I’ll see whether I can make a more concrete alternative suggestion, but I just wanted to mention the question of immigration in case you’ve already thought about it.
Personally, I have been thinking about moving to the bay area for a while (and I visited once), but things like the housing market (and the hassle of immigration) kept me from following through. The two cities you presented here sound absolutely lovely though, so I would quite like to join you there (or in a similar place).
I feel like you’re leaving out some arguments against the Ptolemaic model. As I understand it, Galileo wrote his dialogue at the suggestion of the pope who wanted to have a nice pro and cons list. The fact that the pope was even considering heliocentrism tells me that there must have been big problems with the geocentric view. Why would the head of a very conservative organisation (even if he was more on the open-minded end of the spectrum) entertain a new theory if the old theory is perfectly fine? And indeed Wikipedia tells me that the Ptolemaic model could not explain the observed phases of Venus and the motion of sunspots.
The motion of sunspots brings me to another topic. I think this paragraph is a bit misleading:
The sunspots were at least known since 300 BC. And I can’t imagine how you can mistake Saturn’s rings for Jupiter’s moons. I think what your source is saying is that he mistook Saturn’s rings for moons of Saturn which is an entirely understandable mistake.
So, the Ptolemaic model definitely had problems and if I learned anything about humans it’s that those problems were probably being ignored for too long. Wikipedia also tells me that at the time of Galileo the Tychonic model was actually quite popular because it solved so many problems of the Ptolemaic model. So, the question is, was it irrational of Galileo to prefer the Copernican model over the Tychonic model (given the data that he had)?
I wouldn’t say so. Galileo rightly saw the Tychonic model as a weak compromise that didn’t dare to go all the way. Sure, the parallalax was a problem but you can Defy the Data if you have a strong prior. If we steelman Galileo just a bit then his accomplishment was realizing that it’s quite possible that the Earth is moving (you ordinarily woulnd’t notice the difference) and thus, you should prefer a simple theory with a moving Earth over a more complicated theory with a stationary Earth.
A modern day example of sticking to the prior in the face of contrary evidence is this article by Bryan Caplan.