ipatec

is their business showing porn to minors? that's their market?

Microsoft Office suite

people can talk to chatGPT

I think the Youtube comparison is a good one up to a point. It's a niche product. Everyone wants to be part of it, competing for a very very limited resource which is our attention. While with technologies like GPT or whatever comes next we empower anyone to excel in any area and create whatever (for now non-material things).

Most of our ancestors actually had less stressful jobs and worked less than we do today. The average agricultural worker 100 years ago was not even doing a part-time in terms of time spent doing actual work. More like 2h/day on average.

is not accounting differences at all: - Europeans (and I am one) live in tiny housing even compared to people in NYC. - we have less cars (you can claim it's due to public transport but if public transport is not available most people would not afford cars regardless. - overall less leisure expenditures and less disposable income.

That 10k doctor is a myth and certainly not something the 100k developer will have to pay. That's covered by his company. Healthcare is an issue in US when you're at the bottom of the food chain.

really? where were you during covid?

last time I checked countries like Romania (E Europe) had the smallest pay gap in Europe. the issue is usually in countries like Germany, Switzerland or Netherlands.

then take care of your diet, do some sports, make sure you have a strong immune system. the vaccine is just a weak patch to a bad health.

not if you're below 30

depending on your age

why pay more taxes when there's no accountability and responsibility regarding spending? spending needs to get under control before raising taxes is even a thing.

Not really. Even an unorganized small group of armed people can create enough damage to the Police/Government forces that it's not worth the fight.

where are the profits going? if a German company opens a factory in Hungary where it produces let's sau Automotive parts of course Hungary develops a trade surplus. they sell automotive parts to Germany. however the profits of the German HU subsidiary will all go back to Germany. that trade surplus means nothing.

Of course. Check the largest exporters... yea... mainly German companies. That surplus ain't staying in Hungary

>Western companies come to Hungary because its cheap force, despite being generally lower quality than west

I doubt the average Hungarian is of "lower quality" than the average Belgian (I live in Belgium and I lived in Romania and UK as well) - when it comes to people doing manufacturing jobs you refer to I'd say that E Europe has a more solid and reliable human capital.

>in the east, there aren't enough big domestic companies that would be successful and employ people

Before the collapse of communism E Europe was perfectly capable to keep all their population in employment. Sure those companies were not prepared to compete in an open market and were decimated by their Western counter-parts. Today E Europe cannot strong competitors (although that is changing in sectors like IT) primarily due to the open market (impossible to compete with somebody that has 10x your capital; even when some promising E European actor appears, gets acquired by some W European company before it manages to pass a certain size)

But besides the point, check the unemployment rate in any E European country and most fair way better than their Wester coutner-parts.

> Eastern Europe, like many other poor places in the world, is depleted of human capital because its simply such a crappy place to live.

Quite a broad unsubstantiated statement. What is crappy? The fact that most people are able to own a house while in countries like Belgium is getting impossible to buy anything for young people? The nature? The job opportunities that are plenty due to continuous and fast growth? I don't recall last time a new large corporation entered Brussels in the past 10 years.

The main issue is that there is a salary gap. A middle class salary in Hungary gives you a similar standard of living and lifestyle as a middle class salary in Belgium. But working in Belgium temporarily and planning a return to let's say Hungary... gives you an even better potential lifestyle. That is the issue. The gaps were too big to have an open market and there's little focus on closing the gaps.

Those 3b are such a simplistic narrative. How much money do Western companies make in Hungary due to EU? The reality is that EU is mostly a neo-colonial project where the East Europe is depleted of resources (especially human capital) and treated as nothing more than a marketplace for W European products.

Between the power/control being taken over by someone elected and supported by most of his country or being taken over by some bigger organization like EU with very twisted interests... well.. I thing the first is preferred.

I agree the burden of switching countries is too big. But as a share of that burden the beaurocracy of getting a new residence would be somewhere at the bottom. The biggest burden of switching to a new country within the EU would be language, culture (there's a lot of things in common but as many differences too) and family/friends. I did change country 2x and my biggest worry has always been first securing a new job. I never cared about the beaurocracy because I knew it will be sorted out sooner or later once I move.

do people want that? whenever there was a referendum on an EU constitution or anything of that sort, it got rejected.

It will be super easy to fake regardless. Based on how I've seen their system just a scan from the screen of another friend will do the job. There is no biometric crosscheck and I think we should never get to that. We don't need such complicated solutions with massive privacy risks for relatively small problems.

only 17/448 (~4%) million EU citizens work in other country than their birth one. expatriating is not as common as you'd think living in a major EU city.

We're far from that. The gap between countries is big. Just to mention Belgium's example despite having an eID, you can't even change your address online in most communes and you need to physically present yourself and demand the address to be changed. About half of the EU countries don't have eIDs. Also we're talking of less than 5% of EU population (some figures I've seen are close to 3%) working in a different EU country than their own. do we really need to implement such a system that comes with major risks? given that it benefits such a small percentage of people?

Why would you need an unified solution? Why not leave it to the national governments and Youtube or whomever can personalise their checks based on your location.

I think this is the biggest worry. With the vaccine passport system soon to be revealed and now an universal SSO tracking a variety of EU wide actions... I feel the risk of getting to a social credit score system as China is high.

that's why I said "okish". I think "itsme" works fine for most people. But yes, the system is far from perfect. However, do you have trust that the EU Commission will design something better?

I live in Belgium where we already have eID and SSO apps that work okish. But I fail to see the need for an EU wide ID. I don't think most EU citizens use services from other EU countries than the one they live in. Not services where they need to ID themselves. How much of the population would be in the category needing something like this?

I'd say this should be left to the national Governments.

I don't believe Japan is a good example. Having worked for a Japanese company for about 4.5 years I was really wondering how they handle the WFH. Japanese companies are very hierarchical and permanent reviews and monitoring are required in order to reach a decision. I can see WFH not being as efficient as office presence.