dachworker

I'm not an expert on this topic. But I can conceive of a situation where the judiciary and the executive branches are butting head against each other and one finds it hard to figure out who to listen to. Didn't this exact situation arise in the US during the Trump administration?

Musk claimed on the All In podcast, that he was merely trying to abide by the law, and that the situation that arose was that the government was requesting action that went against the laws of the same country. I don't know how true that is, but it sounds plausible. He also made it clear that the policy was not "free speech by US standards" but rather allowing speech up till what is permitted by every respective country. That sounded way more reasonable to me than what I have heard before on the issue.

Their parents paid taxes like everyone else. If anything I would say it is unfair, that they are forced to move to the US, because the imbeciles in power mismanaged the economy so much that there are few adequate jobs for them, and the local Germany/Dutch economy is not competitive on the world stage.

University is too rushed. That's why you feel like the work is done on your own. Cause of course you have to acquaint yourself with the subject at your own pace. Once you become acquainted, that's when it becomes useful to have access to a leader in the field. But by that time you are writing your finals and preparing for the next semester.

Meanwhile, I know of German and Dutch peers of mine who upon completing their masters in Europe, enrolled in California to do a second Masters ( at the time I believe they paid in the range of $100k) for the VISA and internship opportunities. And IIRC, the bet paid off because they all found employment in California, with salaries 3x to 4x what they could get here.

Exactly what I was going to say. Obama is a centrist establishment politician, whereas MLK was an activist which, by definition, meant that he was operating at the then extremes of the political landscape. It would be insulting to many for Obama to compare himself to the great MLK. And from the other perspective, Obama is a POTUS first and a politician second and he clearly does not like his whole persona being "the black guy".

It's not safer in any way, at all. The prostitutes are not transitioning to OF. They are using it as a promotional mechanism. So you have not really eliminated the risk for them. In addition to that you have young people who would have never dared to do porn, and you lower the bar enough for them, so that they are now tempted to ruin their dignity.

And finally, the human traffickers like Andrew Tate now have a new platform that allows them to practice their human trafficking from the relative safety of countries like Romania or Ukraine, where the chance that they will be caught and prosecuted is quite low. There have already been cases where multiple OF creators were found to be human trafficking victims working for a pimp.

Don't believe the whole pinkwashing narrative. OF is twice the pimping, making is safer for human traffickers to enslave and profit off women than ever before.

Being a digital pimp is just as morally disgusting as being an irl pimp.

It's not just the language. It's also the culture. In fact I would say the culture is even more important.

Germans and Americans wouldn't understand each other, even if they spoke the same culture. Their understanding of how life works, their worldview, their expectation of others, ...etc all of these are quite different. For example, a project is ongoing, but in the course of completing the todo list, it is apparent that a certain issue is going to prop up. An American would immediately jump on it, try to fix it and then make sure to boast about it at the next meaning to take the credit. A German would either ignore it completely because it is not part of his responsibilities or bring it up at the next meeting, but not before finishing the todo list as planned even if the last points are rendered obsolete by the emergence of this issue. And when the American starts presenting his solution at the meeting, the German will feel slighted and held out of the loop, and all sorts of confused that this guy acted so independently and out of line, without following procedure. Just an example. There are whole courses about the different corporate cultures and how people find it hard to work in different cultural environments.

I am sure the Americans prefer to work with the Irish who although they don't have the same culture, I never heard of major issues in communication between the those two cultures.

The law forbids the rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges. The law in the EU is written the France and Germany.

I would rather we had the US situation where the market was dominated by new publicly traded companies, instead of companies, some of them not even publicly traded, all of which founded many decades, if not centuries ago. It is actually one of our biggest issues that not only is the population physically old, but everything we do is done in such an old fashioned way.

As bad as Google and Facebook may be, they are publicly traded, transparent, their existence gives the US a very good geopolitical asset, their creation lifted a lot of people into out of the middle class into the upper class.

We really cannot say the same about any EU corporation.

What a sick society! Over a month of nobody checking in on their elderly? I doubt all these people were all childless.

Thanks, should have read the article. I stand corrected.

I never lived in a country where the delivery guy just leaves your shit out in the open. Why is this common in the US, when in most "safe" EU countries, people would never trust such a practice? Seems like an anti-consumer practice enforced by industry on the consumer.

No, packages should not be stolen from people's porch. But realistically, it's very hard to stop this crime of opportunity.

So basically, if you're an individual, or a contractor who reinvests their earnings into the housing market, you face two challenges: getting competitive financing, and finding a plot of land to build on.

Question: is finance screwing up capitalism? Real estate is supposed to be one of the most competitive and dynamic markets. If you can turn even this very simple and basic market into a quasi-monopoly, then there is something fundamentally wrong with the whole economy. And it seems all fingers point to Wall Street.

Don't take this as a pro-Musk or anti-Musk comment. I just want to paraphrase his reasoning:

In a recent interview on Lex Fridman, he envisioned a future where humans augmented AI, through a brain to computer device like Neuralink would be able to keep up with pure AI.

Now one can immediately notice a hole in this reasoning: namely what guarantees that the AI that is use to augment humans is going to be benevolent and won't go rogue?

It's populism.

Germany is a country littered with voodoo "medicine" clinics, to the point that they have even been integrated in the statutory healthcare system. You take those hippie "nature above science" people and tell them about the invisible danger rays and they will found the Green party, and the rest is history.

He seems to only be talking about tech jobs, which is actually on the sunnier side of the STEM job situation. I thought he was going to talk about how, most non-IT/CS STEM degree graduates won't find an industry position that makes use of their skills at all, beyond some very vacuous notion of being good at problem solving or technical writing. I think that's the real waste. When somebody spends their entirely early adulthood studying and practicing a scientific discipline, only to end up programming SAP applications afterwards.

I agreed with most of what you posted, but you have a misconception about these "welfare states". The immigrants end up on welfare because they are not allowed to participate in the economy. Why? Partly because of bureaucracy, and partly, one might say also because of other reasons: protectionism, discrimination, ...etc.

You cannot use Europe as an example, because, it might surprise you, but European cultures are vastly different from American culture. A lot of the marginalized groups in Europe, have no problem integrating in the US.

And to put the blame of lack of integration purely on the immigrant group is very disingenuous when you have all these far-right political parties openly showing their colours and saying matter of fact that they do not want any foreigners, including legal ones, including educated ones.

And finally, what's the link between integration and crime? I don't see the connection. If anything, the people who are least integrated are the ones who are the most law abiding. The lead a pious life according to their faith. They aren't the ones going around dealing drugs in night clubs. Those drug dealers are much more integrated in the host culture. After all drug consumption is very European.

This is one of my biggest frustrations with living in Germany. And btw, so much for "walkable cities". Especially for the elderly who get the need more frequently, but even I ended up in situations where I am an hour away from home and needed to pee badly. Pretty much every mildly secluded corner in the city smells like piss as a result of this ... You know for a country who thinks of itself as more socially minded, and not as hardcore capitalist, they do nickle-dime you for everything.

Public latrines are the most basic of public goods.

The real story is that all the big economies of Europe are stagnant.

Birth rates correlate inversely with security/safety. War torn countries and poor countries have high birth rates. Safe and secure countries have low birth rates.

Facebook/Instagram/Tinder already do that.

No, I don't think so. It probably hurts the overall economy to squeeze every last bit of juice out of the consumer base like this, leaving them with no money to spend in other ways.

Here in Germany she is considered an antisemite now. All the Green party allies have publicly distanced themselves from her.

Just FYI, Greta Thunberg is considered persona non grata now.

Meanwhile, I meet lots of women at my place of work who come from Indian, Iranian, Turkish, Arab, Hindu and Muslim backgrounds, which are all cultures that are constantly accused of being sexist in the western media. And yet these women seem to have no issues living alone abroad and pursuing a STEM career.

The cynical part of me says they are just complaining that they are not being offered juicy enough bribes compared to their American counterparts.

What about all the people saying that the longevity of these batteries is too short?