James Cameron on Leaving America for New Zealand: "I'm Not There for Scenery, I'm There for the Sanity"

""Are you kidding me? Where would you rather live?" Cameron said. "A place that actually believes in science and is sane and where people can work together cohesively to a common goal, or a place where everybody's at each other's throats, extremely polarized, turning its back on science, and basically would be in utter disarray if another pandemic appears.""

""[New Zealand] had eliminated the virus completely," said Cameron. "They actually eliminated the virus twice. The third time when it showed up in a mutated form, it broke through. But fortunately, they already had a 98% vaccination rate. This is why I love New Zealand. People there are, for the most part, sane, as opposed to the United States where you had a 62% vaccination rate, and that's going down - going the wrong direction.""

"Speaking with BuzzFeed Canada, Cameron said he used to think "there was a lot of nobility" in that experiment, "But where the hell did that go? I'm over it. I think Canadians are way over it.""

James Cameron became a New Zealand citizen after living in Los Angeles for over 40 years. He cited sanity and belief in science as the decisive factors in choosing New Zealand over the United States. He contrasted New Zealand's pandemic response, which eliminated the virus twice and achieved a 98% vaccination rate, with the United States' poorer handling and a 62% vaccination rate. He emphasized social cohesion, trust in science, and readiness for future pandemics. He stated that scenery is secondary to societal sanity and expressed disillusionment with the American democratic experiment.

Read at Consequence