GardenGeek
@GardenGeek@europe.pub
- Comment on There should be smell museums 3 days ago:
Actually this makes things even more interesting imho as it allows or even demands a sophisticated museum and exhibition concept.
- Comment on Record number of people in UK live in ‘very deep poverty’, analysis shows 3 days ago:
I’m just in favour of decentralisation, every time power has been centralised in Europe it has ended badly.
I want to express my thoughts on this point. I believe that two things are true at the same time:
- Cooperation beats competition since competition wastes resources by hindering each other when those could have been better invested in reaching the shared goal.
- Representative systems get less efficient and more prone to corruption the bigger they get.
Concerning European this imho boils down to two contrary tendencies: The bigger the EU and its bureaucracy gets the less efficient it works while at the same time the efficiency of the EU economy is increasing through ever deeper cooperation and standardization.
Following this line of thought, the question of whether the EU benefits or harms its citizens is largely decided by the ratio of additional costs due to bureaucracy to benefits due to cooperation. Since the advantages of cooperation, especially within the single market, are immense (and are becoming increasingly important in a world where the European states are increasingly hostile to major powers), I tend to view the EU positively, even if centralized administration can create new problems. After all, what would be the alternative? European nation states have worked against each other and waged war for centuries. Now that the European colonial empires have collapsed and lost a great deal of influence, I find it highly questionable that this model would be promising in today’s world.
- Comment on Record number of people in UK live in ‘very deep poverty’, analysis shows 4 days ago:
Makes sense. If nothing else is available, we have to work with what we have.
And thank you for the clarification. To clarify my point: I am not saying that Brexit was an absolute economic disaster… but that some wealthy Brexit supporters benefited disproportionately compared to the average citizen and therefore pus
- Comment on Record number of people in UK live in ‘very deep poverty’, analysis shows 4 days ago:
Yes it’s normal and usually makes sense. In this particular case, however, it distorts the data basis, as the UK GDP is valued higher than the two eurozone countries due to the very high reference exchange rate.
And I said ‘you’ because you could have chosen other normalizations as well… yielding a different picture.
For example you could normalize by annual % growth of GDP.
data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?en…
(Side note: Thanks for the source, this database is amazing!)
- Comment on Record number of people in UK live in ‘very deep poverty’, analysis shows 4 days ago:
GDP per capita doesn’t contradict the statements of the sources I posted above since it’s a mean of economic activity and therefore, it does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about winners and losers among social groups after Brexit. Also interesting you chose ‘fixed 2015 US $’ when this was an all-time-high exchange rate (US $ - £) compared to the one in your selected time frame.
cer.eu/…/brexit-four-years-answers-two-trade-para…
federalreserve.gov/…/lessons-from-brexit-on-the-e…
- Comment on Record number of people in UK live in ‘very deep poverty’, analysis shows 4 days ago:
- Comment on we need more users 2 weeks ago:
Jep, I think the lack of specialized communities is definetly a problem. However I think this is, in the last resort, mostly up to us as users. If we don’t create content for topics we find interesting… who else could?
But I also get that possible reddit refugees who are used to lurk on content instead of creating it (I don’t exclude myself here) will find the plattform(s) to empty to be satisfied.
- Comment on we need more users 2 weeks ago:
I don’t quite get it:
Lemmy has started in 2019 with 0 users and 0 instances. In 2023 there were still less than 100 instances… now the platform has oviously jumped to a few thousand instances and about 100 k users. To me this is the opposite of a ghostland. If we consider that bigTech will mostly screw over their customers bowing to Trump I don’t really get all the negativity around here.
I’ve joined two days ago and you know what? I’m actually willing to contribute by posting instead of lurking at reddit because if I create content it’s not for somme multi million dollar corp to fill their pockets with revenue but for this community to thrive…
I my eyes this isn’t the right time for doomerism… on the contrary.
- Comment on We all took foreign languages in school and none of us can actually speak those languages 2 weeks ago:
But did you use AI for this post? … otherwise your English is pretty sound (to me as a non-native speaker) :D
- Comment on we need more users 2 weeks ago:
I guess the problem are the users (you and me) or better or use of plattforms itself.
On reddit I tended to be lurker. And if most of us are the few which actually POST content are the those with strong (mostly political) views who are willing to commit to their cause by flooding the zone with political fights.
Coclusion: If we want a cozy lemmy we need to join/start non-political, subject specific communities and actually CONTRIBUTE something instead of just consuming. Otherwise this cluster of plattforms will end up like all the other due to the same reasons.
- Comment on we need more users 2 weeks ago:
What you’re describing isn’t Lemmy specific I think, same happens of you browse the news feed of reddit (and most probably also other social media).
What helps me is subscribing to non-political topics and scrolling through your own feed of non-political stuff instead of the main site… gardening, hobbies, memes… that’s what these sites once ought to be made for. Not 24/7 political bombardment.
Sidenote: Digital detox also helps for sure '^^