No crocs in southwest Australia. There are many poisonous snakes but they're really not a worry - more scared of you than you are of them. Wear boots and long socks if you're concerned. A lot of poisonous spiders, too, but just shake your boots out before you put them on and you'll be right. The real danger is heat, lack of water and remoteness. Hiking in summer is extremely ill-advised.
This is a very sad perspective. You have thousands of years of art, history, media, culture to dive into. There are more hobbies out there than you could ever even attempt in your lifetime. There are more regions of the world than you could ever visit, more hikes than you could ever hike. Every day, artists all over the world make entirely new creations the world has never seen before - and there'll be even more tomorrow.
Having your life on autopilot is a choice you make.
It's better to think of Dwarf Fortress as a simulation project rather than a game. The developers have stated that improving the quality and depth of the simulation comes before making it playable or fun by games industry standards.
I was there a few weeks ago. The soldiers are still there, in patrols and along roads, but they don't bother tourists. Electricity is pretty solid, cuts are common but long outages are rare. Most accommodation has UPS systems fitted anyway. The petrol shortages are a thing of the past and there are paved roads in some areas now (main roadways and Thamel).
Kathmandu is a nice city. The traffic and the dust are awful but the city is filled with charm.
I'm in Melbourne right now but I'd love to move over the strait to Hobart. Do you have a remote job? The only thing stopping me is not being able to find work there - of the many things Hobart has, a thriving high tech industry is not one of them.
Your tax calculation is low I think - looks like $250k would put you in the 33% band, let alone any other regional tax calculations.
$60k/year spending for the rest of your life is very ambitious for a high CoL area. I don't think you're accounting for medical insurance, car ownership, home ownership fees, children, a spouse that earns less than you, etc etc. Costs go up as you get older.
I also don't think you've accounted for inflation.
Please also keep in mind that huge Google/Facebook/Bay Area salaries are a historical anomaly and will not persist throughout your entire career.
If you read the sentence just before it, 2% of GDP is the growth target: "[...] the Defence budget growing to two per cent of GDP by 2020–21". The $36b number is the target value in 2020-2021, not right now. The current US defence budget is 3.1% of GDP.
As a percentage of total government expenditure, Australia spends 6% on defence and the US spends 16%.
Most online discussion sites (reddit and HN, for example) focus overwhelmingly on US politics. This is significantly less relevant for the billion-odd people who use the English language internet but do not live in the USA.
The grouping of "leftists" as a singular group doesn't make sense. The economically left person might say that work visa programs are just ways for capital to cheapen labour by exploiting foreign workers who have less opportunity to not be exploited. The socially left person might say that work visa programs provide diversity and opportunity to people from less developed countries.
Similarly, an economically right person might say that work visas are necessary to make certain kinds of labour affordable for business owners. A socially right person might say that work visa programs are abhorrent because they bring foreigners into the country.
"Left" and "right" are broad tents - they're sure to contain conflicting or mutually exclusive viewpoints on some issues.
The big thru-hike track in SW Australia is the Bibbulmun Track: https://www.bibbulmuntrack.org.au/