Is it time for digital nomads like me to leave Lisbon, Portugal? | Hacker News Reader

Is it time for digital nomads like me to leave Lisbon, Portugal?

theguardian.com

6 pointsthrowaway20376 comments

Finally, a self aware gentrifier.

4x4 Bentleys (the Bentayga) is a famous failure of a luxury car, they lose their values almost instantly once bought and people who buy them are not oligarchs but those who try to look rich on a budget. You can easily buy an almost new one for under 100k. It's a shame it sometimes still works.

What's the problem with racism? Guys you are all white. Sure Chega is a racist party but it's directed against very different people than tax-dodging Western nomads.

Yeah, like that Jubilee "I'm a fascist" dude, surely the dictator you elect will not kill Catholics, persecuting people for their religion never happened.

What could be the threat of any sort of nationalism or racism within the EU where there are no borders and governments are strictly limited in what they can do? We clearly see it on the example of Hungary: not much.

That argument means ethnic cleansing is justified, if the people are not killed.

The governments are strictly limited in closing borders, not all the rest: closing universities, buying up all the media, choosing patsies as judges. Funny how the EU can void a referendum in Greece, but is "powerless" against backsliding democracy, one of the requirements for new countries to join in.

There's also the language barrier: if an Hungarian wants to abandon his home and start their life elsewhere, they better speak German, Polish, whatever.

Of course, if you don't speak English, you are pretty much at the mercy of whatever your government throws at you. It's not the government's fault.

See, it's pretty natural for any government to desire to enslave, brainwash, and rob it's people. It is the nature of the government itself, the nature of power. Most governments in democratic countries can't get too far in this direction not because they are nice, but because the structure of their population is such that it prevents them from it, in one way or the other. The more intrinsic freedom of choice people have, the less the government can do.

And yes, big reason of what's happening in Hungary now is that their language is so unlike (almost) any other: it puts a natural barrier to learning foreign languages - whatever language they start learning, it sounds like incomprehensible bullshit just like Hungarian does to anyone else. Which binds them to their government a lot more than it does Poles or Slovaks, let's say. They are simply out of luck here.

My theory of why Hungary was so different 70 years ago when they openly revolted against Commies when everyone else was scared into obedience was that back then, all older people still spoke fluent German because of Habsburg empire: everyone over 50 studied in Austro-Hungarian school and had to learn German as a language of their colonial masters (/s, i know Hungary wasn't a colony). So they knew what was going on being able to listen to Austrian radio, and knew that once they kill Commie guards and escape there, they won't be left helpless, so they took a risk (and won - everyone who wanted, ran away to Austria in 1956). Today, they are in a very different position.

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