Maybe because what you call "Fascism" isn´t Fascism and, as far as i know, nobody wants to gut our (varied) social programs, but we are just conscious that in some cases, said programs are failing, unsustainable due to resources misallocation and/or grossly mismanaged.
Having a slightly more dynamic entrepreneurial scene, where one is allowed to fail for instance, would be nice.
In my view, the way forward and the example to follow is Switzerland, not the US.
Same perception here, none of what is said by GP should be downvoted. Almost 25 years after its implementation, it's high time the overall impact of the Euro was assessed objectively.
You simply do not know if he is objectively wrong. On the basis of 25 years of Euro, what we have observed is that in the eurozone, capital follows productivity, and countries tend to specialise in line with what their factor endowment and national inclination will let them.
The Euro is usually "sold" as a miracle solution when it has only really been successful for countries that had a very export oriented string industrial sector, and even then, with mixed results (see Italy).
Bulgaria can hope for capital inflows and increase in productivity but should also bear in mind that these factors are highly independent on economies of scale and overall sheer size of of the existing industrial base. Capital outflows and alignment with standard european prices may well be in order. This taking the average population age may be a killer.
We'll see.
I think you may be forgetting the big picture, which is to never have Europe spawning a World War again. In that regard, the fears (rational and irrational) of those with tendencies for isolationism are simply not relevant.
what are those odds looking like in the mid future? How many european governments are currently considered on the "extreme" spectrum?
And what makes you think the Euro implemented in 2002 is the reason for the non-reoccurence of a war ended in 1945?
Studying the root causes of the two world war would certainly enlighten
While it is most likely a very fanciful pet project borne out of post-apo fantasy doomporn, there is one fatal fly in the ointment: In a post apocalyptic situation, who will have THE TIME (nevermind the resources) to dedicate to "operating" one such OS? Apocalypse is generally synonymous with population collapse. Many less humans to interact with means a greatly diminished division of labour and rebuilding civilisation will require first and foremost food production, 14 hours of daily work in the fields, scavenging, hunting, etc....
Taking one worker away from these (tedious) activities would likely be considered an investment that requires significant returns, results, be it only to justify this to other workers who would also like to be sat in front of a computer. Hard to justify having swapped a hard days work for some code on a computer screen.
For that kind of scenario, a lightweight Android rom with some ham-radio driver would probably be more appropriate.
ps: just want to point out that i'm not being snarky, just asking a question in good faith.
I heard more than once on TV (incidentally by critics of the catholic church), that Copernicus or Galileo had been burnt at the stake for proving that "the earth wasn't flat".
Knowing that TV and social media do play as large a role as history books or formal education in knowledge acquisition these days, is it really wrong to question whether "the average person" is a valid point of reference when discussing inter-civilisational exchanges of discoveries.
It's odd how far people have run with simplified versions of Galileo's story. The version I've seen everywhere is "The dastardly anti-science Church hated heliocentrism so much that it persecuted Galileo for it." The Church's support of geocentrism did play a role, but if you look at the details, it seems far closer to "The Roman Church of Galileo's day was filled with scheming politicians, and he (perhaps unwittingly) offended people who he couldn't afford to, so his enemies latched onto his support for heliocentrism as an excuse to get rid of him."
These days, I've come to treat every clean-cut historical anecdote as suspect; there's too much of a game of telephone between people who want history to prove their point.
I can't speak to any very recent changes (I'm doubtful anything's changed massively, I could be wrong), but I was educated in the US and went to highly selective schools--and it was only in an obscure, elective history of science class fairly late in my college career that I learned about al-Haytham (who was called Alhazen in the class). Meanwhile, I (and many of my HS classmates) could have told you that Copernicus pioneered a heliocentric model of the solar system, or about Newton's laws of motion, etc., when we were 15.
The Renaissance really was taught as "Europeans rediscovered the great classical thinkers", and it was only through my own curiosity that I learned that Islamic science played a key role.
Here in France, we were taught from fairly early on about Averroes and Avicenne (Ibn Sinna) for instance. There may geographical and societal reasons for these differences, but all in all that's besides the point i was trying to make, which is :
The average person may have heard of Newton, Darwin and others, but how many could really explain the theory of gravity or that of evolution without getting at least some of it wrong?
("Gravity... ha yes, the guy with the apple","evolution... sure, we all are descended from apes, right?")
...Therefore, relying on what the average person may know to discuss whether something is publicly acknowledged and understood is perhaps the wrong way to go about this.
You're missing the point. There's value in even simply knowing the names. I may not know the details of a given historical scientist's accomplishments, but if their name floats around the cultural ether, I can pluck it from the air and type it into Wikipedia. Most Americans - likely most Westerners - cannot do that with even a dozen or so non-European historical scientists, because we don't even know their names.
This massive gap in the common understanding of the way the modern world came to be is concerning; undermines most people's model of the development of civilization is, for example, one of the things that makes it easy to drop bombs on historical sites (and the descendants of those who built them), or to ignore when other parties do the same. "Ignore what the peasants think, only elite thought matters," has never preceded an era of sustainable peace and prosperity.
I don't remember the exact book name, but it is not the argument, it is an example. The argument is multiple instances of pop culture statements and opinions where people believe that the world was on a pause between 476 and 1452 and even if someone else has created something, it was given meaning only when the europeans discovered and improved it. Don't feel obliged to believe me, I know what I've witnessed and shared a data point.
I wonder if GP is trying to be witty or simply has an axe to grind.
The transmission of knowledge between civilizational blocks is fairly well documented (I recently read Jacques Le Goff on this particular topic), and what is owed to the Islamic civilization is no secret.
For those interested in comparable technical developments in Europe around the same time, for the middle ages were not as dark as usually portrayed, I recommend reading Jean Gimpel's The Medieval Machine (whom Ken Follett relied on extensively for "The Pillars of the Earth") and David Landes' A Revolution in Time.
I was thinking yesterday whether it would have a potential application in the field of low resources communication : you produce a QR code containing your info that you transmit over SSTV so the other party can get the message. Supposedly much more efficient than FT8 or JS8Call.
Or much more malevolent as well. Just because something novel and fun/entertaining can be done does not mean assholes will not use the same techniques for their gain.
PoCs like this are neat and definitely shows some skillz by the author, but now I'm hoping security types take a look at this to see how vulnerable this could be from asshats.
It's already a good practice not to go around scanning random QR codes. Nobody has to go through the trouble of compressing a bunch of code to run in your browser when you can just make a QR code point to any malicious domain on the internet and infect devices all day long.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDUzqoRC1eZ/?igsh=aWpwbGJ1Znd...