I prefer co-op games like the James Webb telescope. Thanks ESA for a perfect launch.
It is amazing what humans can do when we all work together for something that’s good. I think it’s really when people start trying to take advantage of each other when it all goes downhill…
There’s no Americans bragging about that. Corporations and the government, sure. The rest of us are to busy living in pain
Most Americans have no clue what the rest of the world is like.
Most Americans don’t even understand the progressive income tax system we have, they will go so far as to decline raises because it’ll put them in a higher bracket and they think that will mean less take home pay. It doesn’t! You should always take a raise!
I believe I’ll someday move to a country that has good policies for everything from healthcare, to work life balance, and social safety nets, and I’ll never have to deal with the American nightmare again.
To be fair, the rest of the world isn’t easily accessible for most Americans
Education is broken because on purpose
It’s literally one Google search away. And if they want to travel, you’ll be able to speak English to basically everyone (under 40)
Right? I was like, “Who the fuck in the US is saying ANY of that?”
The media trying to manufacture consent.
Actually the media in Germany is starting to push that narrative, maybe to get us to focus more on work and less on enjoying our lifes
I love how in every topic about WFH there’s some dudebro going on about the economy suffering due to supposed lessened productivity and I’m like… Why should I care?
Don’t you even think about the billionaires, bro?
Oh no! We got so wrapped up thinking about general human well-being, we forgot about productivity!
But for real, if the economy isn’t for people then wtf is it for?
Oh, it is for people. Just not for people like us.
Don’t want to brag, but I took my compulsory 2-week vacation in July. I’m having another week of vacation in the middle of August and I’m taking a whole month off in the middle of October when my second child is born (dad-vacation, in addition to the 18 months that the mom has as paid maternity leave). Oh and all of this is fully paid.
*Fully paid by your higher taxes.
Having lived and worked in both the UK and US, yes I pay roughly 4% less “tax” in the US.
but, as I didn’t have to pay for Healthcare, and my student loans payments were a percentage of my earnings — vs the amount I’ve had to pay for Healthcare, copay, scripts, etc here. If we actually compare like for like and assume that Healthcare payments are only not called a tax out of a semantic convention for political reasons despite being practically a tax by nearly any definition - I’ve pay way more in “”““tax””“” in the US.
Assuming the average person earns roughly $65k, would you pay an extra $200 for 100% fully covered, fully comprehensive, $0 co-pay, you walk in (to your nearest hospital, no need to check if they’re in network) get an x-ray, a blood test, your appendix removed, stay over night, go back the next day for kidney dialysis or chemotherapy and pay nothing more than that monthly extra $200/rate in perpetuity? Especially as the average cost is $456 (+ co pay) for Healthcare and that usually isn’t a “good” let alone the “best” package.
God I wish I lived in a country with that kind of medical system.
I’m sick of being afraid of getting hurt (enough to need to visit a doctor at a hospital) not because of the injury to my body but the unknowable-ahead-of-time-and-might-also-bankrupt-you bill.
Fuck the selfish people in this country who are ruining it for everyone because they don’t want “undeserving” people getting free healthcare! Drives me bonkers!!!
Germany is currently in the process of changing the healthcare system because it can’t be paid anymore. People paying no tax but going to the hospital and to the doctors for every little issue actually did destroy the system. Similar is happening with other “benefits”. People do not understand that these things aren’t actually free.
Instead of being smug Europeans could try to help foster solidarity amongst the workers of the world and help Americans fight for their labor rights
OP being smug also increases the reach of the post by a lot compared to a dry post about solidarity.
God please let me move to Europe I don’t even care what language I have to learn I just wanna be able to live without worrying about affording a doctor appointment.
just wanna be able to live without worrying about affording a doctor appointment.
If you avoid the flatlander areas, Canada may be for you. We also speak English; just, without the accent. :-P
(unless you live on the island that’s an hour’s ferry from France)
Speaking a language without an accent is like wearing clothes without a material
Idk I’m from the central US and I had a German foreign exchange student tell me we didn’t have a mimicable accent. I know it’s not true but it was interesting to hear that from someone who’s familiar with everyone around her speaking in a completely different way, even when using English.
That’s common if you don’t know a language too well. There is the variant that you learned, and since you don’t know more, you think that this variant has no accent and all the other variants (that you didn’t learn and thus are hard to understand) you think have accents.
Only once you spent significant time with multiple accents will you be able to pick up the differences.
If you work in academia, you don’t need to learn a new language. English is the working language. Also the 5 weeks of holiday is nice, but what really helps is the working day.
I started as a bioinformatician a month ago. I come in to the office at 0830 have coffee from 09:00 til 09:45 with my boss and colleagues, work a bit, have lunch from 12:00 untill 13:15, work a bit, go home at 15:30. That’s my day.
Maybe you don’t need the language for work. But you will need te learn the language eventually for other day to day interactions.
Or the paper works outside of the labs.
Don’t know about other countries, but in Norway you always have the option of getting websites and government information in English. Everyone speaks it including cashier’s, cleaners etc.
The same thing is not true in Germany and Spain.
I would most certainly disagree that every person speaks English. Especially older people don’t, but in general many people here do not speak a good english
Oh, I see that I totally forgot to mention I’m from Germany
Sprich Deutsch du Hurensohn.
That’s ich_iel spirit.
Yeah, someone has to pay for saving their asses in both world wars, they’re obviously not going to do it.
You’re the kid that bragged your dad could easily beat up the other pre-schooler’s dad.
lower unemployment
Doesn’t matter, I can only have two, maybe three jobs at once so any more than that is irrelevant to me
higher growth
I get the same $8/hr whether the GDP goes up, stays the same or goes down. You can’t leave workers out of the distribution of wealth and then pretend that more wealth is good for workers
But your billionaires get richer more quickly than ours! Isn’t that something to be proud of?
I usually just take a week over summer then the other 6 weeks at other times of the year. Hotels, fights and stuff pretty much double their prices over the summer.
I can do you a half price fight. Just come over and tell me my mom can’t cook.
It took me way too long to realize chasing a high pay, high stress career wasn’t worth it. I envied my friends and family for being able to enjoy weekends, evenings, and holidays when I couldn’t. I missed my best friends bachelor party, I missed Christmas and New Years parties. If i didnt miss them entirely i would show up late or leave early from every occasion. I realized I was going to reach the end of life never having lived it.
Yup, I gave up my 70 hour work weeks. My 50 hour weeks grew my salary and position, then my 60 hour weeks put me in charge of massive projects, which drove me to 70 hours during a couple ERP implementations. I took a paycut overall, but now I work 40 hours.
By law in Germany you cannot work more than 40 hours per week. There are some exceptions but usually it’s downright illegal for employers to request it.
Well, 60h is the limit. 6 days at 10h each max. The 40h figure is the long term limit.
I demand we lower it to 20 and let AI do the rest of the work.
Which side means I get to have rights and keep them?
For this question it’s important to understand that there are positive and negative rights, a positive right might give you the ability to do something like shoot a gun, a negative right might be a right that forbids killing you, both are very important and are often in conflict with one another.
Knowing this a 40h work week and paid vacation of 5 weeks is a negative right forbidding your employer from exploiting you for more than that time. On the other hand social security and similar things are positive rights allowing you access to resources where otherwise you wouldn’t have any/enough.
Keeping this in mind and assuming that economic rights are generally the most important for freedom under a capitalist system, because fundamentally almost every positive right you want to use also requires you to have money. And assuming freedom is greater if more people are reasonably free than if few people are completely free.
Europe I’d say.
.png){kind=link}