Portuguese government fell this week, new elections in may. The PM failed to disclose some dealings he had with private companies. I'm glad I live in such a boring country.
EU discussion / and other European countries
- Thread starter Amar__
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Not strictly EU related but there are currently massive anti-government protests in Belgrade, Serbia. I can’t imagine its gonna be easy to reconcile with the prevailing two takes (these two tweets are actually next to each other on my feed):
It's against their president Kim Jong Vucic and his corrupted goverment and their North Korea like regime. Journalist from different countries are mostly banned from entering the country at the moment.
Yeah, it’s just rather amusing seeing one camp claiming these protests are organized by west and Soros, and the other side arguing that they’re trying to get rid of their Soros funded government.
What? Vucic is a clueless softy. He is trying to do some sort of a dance between EU integration and staying close to Russians and Chinese (if not staying close, then for sure not to upset them). Neither side likes him. Domestically, he is trying to handle these protests without a lot of police involvement. Good luck to him. Protests are getting bigger and more violent as well. Was in Serbia in October, was going to go again in June. Might have to cancel the trip.
The goal of the protest is clearly to overthrow Vucic, but what then?
Serbian politics is confusing and not at the same time. In America it is very easy - you know clearly where each side stands on most issues. In Serbia, it is all about who rules and has the power. Policies and level of corruption at the end is always the same.
So since you did not provide a counter argument, your opinion is likely that:
- Vucic is a cruel dictator
- He is trying to use police force and government apparatus to suppress the protests
- Protests are getting bigger but no violence is caused by protestors
1 and 3 are clearly false. Second can be debated. Police will always overstep and use violence (not justifying that, it always happens). Since you disagree with me, I am happy to read some of your sources. My sources are mostly from people that live in Serbia/Belgrade. Friends/famly mostly, but other people as well. I could be misinformed.
Just to be clear - I am not a fan of Vucic at all and his government, however since the fall of Milosevic - Serbia prospered the most in the last decade. Could be circumstantial and Vucic has nothing to with that. I am curious if Vucic steps down, who is the next president. Would not want to be him.
These protests are about a power struggle. It always is that in Serbia. As far as ideology and corruption goes - they are all very similar.
Damn, 50 dead in nightclub fire.
How easy it to immigrate to Portugal? Let's say for non millionaires from say the US, Honduras and the Phillipines.
We could start with this from today. Let's see where the investigation goes.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...opean-court-of-human-rights-rts-b2716175.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/woahdude/s/DxFjuknUKA
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From Honduras and Phillipines, you go to spain, stay there legally for 2 years and you get granted spanish citizenship. Studying for example. In needs to be just being there uninterrupted for 2 years. Once you get the citizenship, Then you can move anywhere in the EU
2 years to qualify for citizenship? That’s crazy low.
That is a very serious incident. Off course the government is denying it, but that video doesn't look good. People I know tell me that was clearly some sort of a weapon and entire incident was far scarier than video can depict. Allegedly a man died of a heart attack caused by the incident. We shall see where this goes, but Vicic should not survive this.
It always amazes me the narcissism of that guy. If I had 1/4 of those people protesting against me, I'd immediately step down.
I am curious to know what the f was that thing. It separated crowd as if a crater opened up in the middle. Googled the crap out of sound cannons and that thing appeared to be something more powerful than for example something like this:
So since you did not provide a counter argument, your opinion is likely that:
- Vucic is a cruel dictator
- He is trying to use police force and government apparatus to suppress the protests
- Protests are getting bigger but no violence is caused by protestors
1 and 3 are clearly false. Second can be debated. Police will always overstep and use violence (not justifying that, it always happens). Since you disagree with me, I am happy to read some of your sources. My sources are mostly from people that live in Serbia/Belgrade. Friends/famly mostly, but other people as well. I could be misinformed.
Just to be clear - I am not a fan of Vucic at all and his government, however since the fall of Milosevic - Serbia prospered the most in the last decade. Could be circumstantial and Vucic has nothing to with that. I am curious if Vucic steps down, who is the next president. Would not want to be him.
These protests are about a power struggle. It always is that in Serbia. As far as ideology and corruption goes - they are all very similar.
I am really sorry, but I am living in a neighborhood, I don't feel the need to provide you any arguments because you are clearly misinformed. There's literally tons, millions examples. He is the closest to dictator you'll see in Europe. He is also a war criminal.
From how everybody is immediatly running and nobody is clutching their ears, my guess is that it is a microwave weapon like this ADS:
It's supposedly affecting you just below your skin and makes it feel like there's suddenly a very hot oven opened right next to you, or an oldschool lightbulb pressed against your skin.
Both latinamericans and filipinos are spanish excolonies. Same with equatorial guinea. Portuguese and andorrans can too
Those nightclub fires are truly horrific and terrifying, given most of us have probably ended up in ropey as hell nightclubs in random places at various times. The panic and confusion must've been appalling.
It really is the lowest threshold by far I know of for any EU country. But they need the workforce to sustain their welfare state. Birth rates are very low while the average life expectancy is one of the top 10 in the world.
It'll be interesting to see how they deal with the massive changes this will produce in their society.
That’s going to be real difficult. American universities have some crazy budgets and endowments. But if censorship starts being the name of the game in the US system, then things could of course change.
UK / European universities stand up to comparison though so there won't be too much pressure needed. 3 of the top 5 in the QS ratings for 2024 were UK based for example with 2 being in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QS_World_University_Rankings
The academia salaries in Europe are quite a bit lower than in the US. Which makes things quite hard.
Something which Trump will no doubt use to bolster his stupid assertion that the EU was set up to screw the US.
So far true. Will it stay this way after Trump's mindless budget cuts?
Pursuing an academic career is rarely done for financial reasons in the first place, at least in my experience. You earn much more outside of academia
The corollary to that is that a lot of scientists don't have the skill- and mindset to pursue a business career, but nonetheless you are right.
Various leading US universities are currently facing a choice between toeing Trump's line or facing funding losses, and funding agencies are seeing all kinds of restrictions in what's in scope for them. For example, the NIH is reconsidering all funding for mRNA-related research. So I think there may well be a lot of scientists that would consider moving to a less restrictive and suffocating environment. I agree that many of them might not actually do it (due to factors like the trouble of moving, uprooting your family, restarting your lab, possibly lower salaries) - but I think that would probably still leave quite a lot of scientists that are really open to a move, especially among postdocs and early-career researchers that aren't from the US originally.
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Good points. MAGA’s thinkers should probably take a look at what happened to German universities in the 1930’s as a warning.
Warning? They’d consider it a blueprint.
Europe wouldn't be competiting with well-employed and job-secure science postings. They're aiming for scientist who have lost their jobs or are in acute danger of losing it due to budget cuts, political pressure, their ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc. It doesn't matter if their wages would be better in the USA if they can't get a job in their field there.
And then suddenly the competition becomes anything but hard when the choice is between a less well-paying job (but often in countries with lower costs of living, too) or no job in your field at all.
Unpopular take: Did it hurt Germany so much what happened at the universities in the 30s? Overall for sure but look at specific scientific areas and the picture becomes less clear.
Just look at the history of spaceflight (which is an area at least Musk is clearly interested in considering he owns SpaceX).
Every US spaceflight program up until the 70s was managed in key positions by German engineers and scientists who didn't migrate from Germany in the 30s but as part of Operation Paperclip when the war was lost 1945.
The US space race until the moon landing happened on the foundation of Nazi projects. Looking at it purely technical that's not a bad outcome for a fascist system.
Germany had almost a monopoly on physics before the Second World War. Almost every top physicist was in Germany.
And yet, the US, not Germany made the nuclear weapon. Lead by one of the very few American physicists specialized in quantum mechanics, who obviously studied in Germany.
Since Second World War, there haven’t been many German top physicists, and the US, basically made a monopoly on fundamental physics.
You can say the same for (space) rockets. They were leading the field. Then Hitler fecked up their system. And then, the US lead the field.
So yes, fecking up the science system will have long term consequences.
You missed my point. Hitler didn’t feck up the system, Germany lost the war. The US lead the field due to Operation Paperclip. The system worked in Germany until the end of the war in that area.
And when you focus on that (instead of on the broad picture which you correctly painted) than it is easy to believe that it worked great for Germany.
How true is that statement? Is that quantified?
Just an anecdote, but I know a woman who works for an LA university in medicine research, she's on the top of her field, and later this year she's moving to europe. She's not considering wages or cuts or anything like that, she just doesn't want to live in the US anymore as she sees things around her, especially women's rights, go to shit.
MAGA loves it, no doubt.
The damage being done is impossible to gage, but it is pretty fecking bad.
It is fairly accurate for quantum and nuclear physics. Most of the founding fathers of that particular science were German, Austrian or Danish