In the Mojave? Mountain lions, coyotes, maybe a dog, and snakes (though that is more a matter of “avoid” than “defend”).

I’m not sure of your country, but are you tied to it? (For example, do you have family, or are trying to attain citizenship?)

Opening up your search might be helpful. Look at a variety of universities in many countries to see what options there are.

Yes and no. I would say for the field OP is in, a lot of jobs will have B.S. or M.S. as the “required” education, and then M.S. or Ph.D. as “preferred”. The U.S. just dumped $280B into the CHIPS act, so now is a pretty good time to be in semiconductor R&D. The folks I work with seems to have little trouble popping back and forth between industry, academia, and government.

Not in Windows 10/11. You can still “eject” if it makes you feel better, but it’s basically redundant. They reworked the support for removable media so they are always ready to remove except during active read/write operations.

Not just East Germany. If you dig enough, you will find mental health abuse in every country on earth, whether historical or ongoing. Of course in the USSR as you mentioned, also in China, the USA, and elsewhere.

“Abusive” in this case can mean abusive treatments, or treatments against things that are not diseases, such as homosexuality, promiscuity, or unfavorable political ideas.

In the US, read about the published papers of the mkultra project, and look as well into the ongoing existence of centers such as Elan school (now closed) and the Judge Rottenberg center (still in practice).

In my experience, having friends go through mental crises, the modern US system is hard enough to navigate even when one desperately needs and wants care. Try finding yourself a therapist when in such a depression that you can hardly get out of bed, much less search out who takes your insurance, has openings in their availability, and is a good match for your personality. Meanwhile true inpatient care seems reserved for either the fully disabled, or those who have already attempted suicide. Can you imagine if a profession like dentistry made care this difficult to access?

But for people who are either marginalized or truly mentally disabled, this is a harsh system that can make one suspicious, especially when the history of lobotomies, electroshocks, hydrotherapy, and other abuses are within living memory.