Kinda, sorta. The public tax returns we have in Norway do not say:
- Where the income comes from (could be many sources)
- Whether or not there were any serious deductions
At the very best, you'll get a figure with lots of variance.
Say you sell a house / apartment, and made $xxk on that one. That one will get lumped in with your regular income. Same if you sell some stock / equity.
Most people don't go around perusing other people's tax returns even if they are public though. I'm not sure if most people even realise that they can just go and ask the tax authorities on what their boss makes.
Helps with salary gaps within those countries, but salaries are still laughable compared to US software engineering salaries. Does anyone know why that is?
Demand: US has much more investment in pure-tech. In EU a lot of SWE are working in IT offices of non-tech companies. So the job market in the US is more competitive.
Supply: In the EU university is easily accessible, meaning that there are thousands of universities pumping hundreds of thousands of graduates a year. Plus, now they even invented the Blue Card to make it easy for skilled second/third worlders to immigrate to the EU.
Listen to the MBAs and they'll tell you there's a shortage of developers everywhere. What they really mean is that there's a shortage of devs willing to work for what they're willing to pay.
Same in Finland, just not in the Internet (except for the highest earners' tax returns), you can call by phone or physically visit the tax office to get anyone's tax return
Sweden & Denmark favour high taxes and social responsibility; I'm sure you are aware but in socialist countries, healthcare, education and economic support are all provided free to every citizen, regardless of how much they earn.
Sweden & Denmark absolutely live that vision.
People get confused because they've conflated socialism and communism, where communism is a means of controlling and distributing the means of production across the people; an economic model that differs from socialism which puts the needs of the people in control of the state; but allows innovation outside of that.
Some people also get confused because they believe that anything involving a private market means Capitalism; that's not true, capitalism is a specific system where, by definition, the wealth has similar rights to the labour in how it gets paid. Some people think this is why capitalism is innovative, because it incentivises "old money" capital to invest, but it favours rewarding people who already have money, which is at odds with the Swedish model.
I think you're right that Denmark is not materially less socialist, in fact you could argue that Sweden is the less socialist one as they've been selling off their healthcare systems to private healthcare for a while now.. Which has resulted in a pretty bad healthcare system honestly.
Most countries in Europe provide that don’t they? Also, Sweden has the number 8 highest income tax in Europe and has in fact very low taxes on investments (the ISK accounts).
“Pretty bad healthcare system honestly”? That’s a big exaggeration… both public and private healthcare has worked great in my experience. Sounds like you have some kind of beef with Scandinavia.
1) Most countries in Europe provide [healthcare, education and economic support]
Varies state to state, in some countries there is "mandatory health insurance" which is subsidised, NHS is free at point of sale in the UK.
Education is also dubious, as in some of Europe there's subsidies for childcare under school age, but it's nearly universal to have free healthcare for standard ages (school years 0 - 11); and very few countries offer higher education (university) for free (and even fewer pay you) -- Sweden/Denmark do all of that.
When it comes to income support, if you lose your job then you're really taken care of, it's not really as binary as "do they offer support", in Sweden you can have 80% of your pay for the first year in most cases, only 20% of that is paid by your employer; which is a bit unprecedented in Europe.
2) Sweden has the number 8 highest income tax
Such things are not so easy to quantify, Sweden has 2 tax rates;
a) Municipal tax rate, (usually around 32%~)
b) Federal tax rate (20%)
Municipal tax applies to everything you earn, Federal tax only applies to everything after 45,000 SEK (4.500 EUR/mo); that's for income tax, there's also social contribution tax that your employer pays (19-30% depending on how they operate in the country) and the highest VAT in Europe.
You'd have to try to understand how that applies for you. My salary is higher than average but not absurdly high and I'd earn more money in my pocket in every single other country in Europe, I think that's because there's an "absurdly high earner" tax in most countries and a lot of those comparisons take "maximum effective tax" as their only reporting metric, UK has 4 tax bands for example, one of which only kicks in at 150.000gbp p/a; which is 4x the national average and the tax rate then is still lower than Swedens.
So it being "8th highest" is dubious. I'd be interested to see the citation; though I would agree that websites are not doing a real analysis about what they're saying and just stating an "effective top tax"
3) Private healthcare works for me
Private healthcare through my insurance is actually great, but nothing is better than a fully working properly socialised healthcare service; they have tremendous buying power, even operate their own supply chains and can provide services which don't just bring them profit.
My childhood in the UK without the NHS would have been positively miserable, it's hard to imagine how it was because of what it has become now though.
"if you lose your job then you're really taken care of" only if you've paid into insurance: to get taken care of you need to pay into both an a-kassa and an inkomstförsäkring. Ie, two insurances. The money you get from the government is usually capped, and capped low (considering all salaries in Sweden).
Also, remember the ISK accounts. By paying 0.375% on your account assets annually, you don't pay any capital gains tax. This is imo a big enabler for the "common person" to build up capital.
Your source (tax foundation) is incorrect in the way I mentioned, it takes "top personal income tax" as its only metric without consideration about where that tax rate begins to be applied.
It's also completely wrong about Denmark, where the top tax rate is actually capped at 52.07%
> Altogether, the marginal tax rate cannot exceed 52.07%
> People get confused because they've conflated socialism and communism, where communism is a means of controlling and distributing the means of production across the people; an economic model that differs from socialism which puts the needs of the people in control of the state; but allows innovation outside of that.
This is incorrect. Socialism is workers owning the means of production. Communism is a post-capitalist classless stateless society. When people say socialist in terms of the Nordic countries, it is more about social democracy than workers owning the means of production.
The problem with our understanding of the term is that it's used by people who mean socialism to be communism, and have conflated them. (perhaps unintentionally).
Even in Marxist theory, which is the point of reference to communism, Karl Marx States: ‘socialism is the first stage of the worldwide transition to communism’
Ergo it is not communism in of itself.
I'll leave this little prose from the bottom of the dictionary definition for socialism:
> The term ‘socialism’ has been used to describe positions as far apart as anarchism, Soviet state Communism, and social democracy; however, it necessarily implies an opposition to the untrammelled workings of the economic market. The socialist parties that have arisen in most European countries from the late 19th century have generally tended towards social democracy
"True Communism" has always been the promise of heaven-on-earth without a God. It never happens, of course--any power vacuum is immediately filled by greedy people with no scruples. At least in a society with a God, there's something for the power-brokers to be afraid of.
Autocrats are pervasive and sometimes they feel inevitable, which is why it's nice when we are able to build social structures that are resistant to corruption.
Unfortunately even they are fallible.
But why did you say this in response to my comment?
Swedens and Norways top political parties have ‘social’ in their name. Also, I would say socialism is more of a sliding scale based on ‘how big’ the role of government is. It depends on what level of the ‘social programs’ fall under the perview of the government vs. private industry.
I would say Sweden and Denmark are more ‘socialist leaning’ compared to other democratic republics of the world.
Hmm.. that doesn't quite do what I'm after — make it the full size of the screen. It looks like it's similar to the old macOS behaviour that made the window 'as big as its contents'.
It is exactly that behavior, yes (and that historical oddity is almost certainly why). I wish this was configurable somewhere, and wish the behavior of the green button was also configurable so you could flip it to “maximize with no modifier key, full screen with”.
That is being said, she managed to buy one soon after, when cars were still an exotic luxury.
“I will confess here and now that of the two things that have excited me most in my life, the first was my car: my grey bottle-nosed Morris Cowley. The second was dining with the Queen at Buckingham Palace about forty years later.”
This pandemic is also significant a moment in history when antivacc views gained wide social acceptance. This will hinder future vaccination efforts. I agree with you otherwise.
1. "mRNA" is still new tech in the public eyes, so it'll take some time to familiarize people with it and not see it as "scary new tech".
2. Covid is (fortunately) less deadly than initially feared, which lead to people not being very worried about it at a personal risk level. If mRNA therapy start rolling out for cancer, you bet people will take it.
The non-mRNA alternatives are also pretty experimental, still take the new approach of having your own cells manufacture the protein for your immune system to train against, and have been subjected to numerous safety pauses. I'm staunchly opposed to taking either kind of vaccine but if I had a gun to my head (and hey, given the rate things are going maybe I soon will!) I would probably pick mRNA, and specifically Pfizer since its dose is less than half of Moderna's.
Why don't we have an inactivated virus or subunit (i.e. Novavax) vaccine as an option?
I know several people who have been hospitalized immediately after getting the Pfizer shot. I know one woman, whose daughter is a nurse, who died immediately after getting the shot. This daughter told me that in the hospital she works, all doctors publicly recommend the shot, and most doctors are privately pro the shot, but by no means all.
She said that the doctors discuss this among themselves professionally, and there are legit doubts and fears.
Despite having waded through many technical articles and endless discussion threads on mRNA, autoimmune responses to mRNA, yadda yadda, I consider myself not knowledgeable enough to have a "legitimate" opinion. Even so, I would think anyone above 50 should get the shot, and anyone who is young and healthy should talk with their doctor.
But plenty of responsible people are learned enough to be anti, and even more have seen the vaccine send themselves or their neighbors to the hospital. They are not "emotional people who will parrot whatever piece of misinformation supports their worldview"
> I know several people who have been hospitalized immediately after getting the Pfizer shot.
The first or second shot? Can you elaborate on what the complication was? Did you know them directly or know of them (like via someone else telling you about them)
1. My next door neighbor, a healthy 80 year old and good friend, took the first shot as soon as he was able to. Within hours he had to be rushed to the hospital where he was in ER for five days.
He returned home and called it a fluke. A month later he got the second shot, but stayed at the medical center for watching. Good thing too, since he soon passed out and was in the hospital for a week (though not ER).
He has decided to skip the third shot. He never had Corona.
2. Four buildings away, a story with a thirty-something year old man. Someone I have met but do not know him well.
Took the first shot and was immediately hospitalized.
3. The father of a friend who lives on the other side of town. Never met the father, but am friends with his son and believe he did not make up the story.
4. The aforementioned nurse's mother - I know her family very well, and have met the mother at least once a few years ago.
Real people. I know that I am just a person on the internet and there is no way I can prove it without giving actual names (and even that might not help). But try looking for a community that has close connections with their parents (NY or Miami) and I am sure you will find plenty of similar cases.
I have extended family, my girlfriend has extended family (we would have to make 250 person wedding to invite them all, but my mother has contacts with even more people) and no one we know had any complications apart from a mild two-day fever. Some of them had covid and some were hospitalized, but no one after vaccine. Also we don't know of anyone who had any covid symptoms after vaccine.
That's just anecdotal. (My grand-parents, parents, friends took Pfizer/Moderna and there was nothing beyond the regular symptoms; and my grand-parents are in a bad shape).
There are stats about the side-effects of the vaccine, I think we better stick to those.
In Germany the PEI reported ~two cases where they consider it likely or very likely that Comirnaty caused death (out of ~100 million doses). Obviously, this is extremely rare (~10 ppb), but saying that the notion is "ridiculous" is... ridiculous. Overall these are very safe as far as we can tell, but as with everything in life, this does not mean zero risk (the obverse risk of not being vaccinated is how many orders of magnitude higher? Five. Five orders of magnitude.)
> Im Rahmen einer Obduktion wurden ein Fall eines akuten Rechtsherzversagens bei fulminanter Thrombosierung der Lungenarterie nach Comirnaty sowie drei Fälle eines akuten Linksherzversagens mit myokardialen, lymphozytären Infiltrationen im Sinne einer möglichen Myokarditis nach Comirnaty (n=1), Spikevax (n=1), Vaxzevria (n=1) als wahrscheinlich oder gesichert im Zusammenhang mit der Impfung beschrieben.
I too don't consider myself knowledgeable enough, even though I've tried to learn as much about how both covid and the vaccines work as possible. And I was wiped out for a full 36 hours (all the nasty flu symptoms except respiratory: cytokine storm!) and the worst reaction I know of first-degree was someone with the same who had to take a full week off.
But ultimately it all boils down to trading-off risks.
So many of the anti-vaccine arguments only look at absolute risk, instead of the risk compared to getting covid itself, or even just everyday risks that we shrug off. (At one point in the AZ discussion, I worked out that the risk of a blood clot was around the same as getting killed on your commute... every week).
I'm sure this is what the doctors do as well. Unless they're immunologists etc, it's quite easy as a layman (at least if you're on HN) to bring yourself up to the level of understanding of your average general practitioner, so there's probably the exact same conversations happening. I browse the published medical studies, same as they do.
Was it the vaccine or just two independent events close in time. Because when you give anything, even water to 160M people and then record adverse events afterwards you're going to get a lot of them and some will die. The question is are they happening at a higher rate than normal and could they be attributed to the vaccine (is there a pattern.)
There are some patterns. Blood clots for one. Inflammation of the heart.
But both of those are also caused by covid at several orders of magnitude higher rates. Not a good reason to avoid the vaccines. Covid is here to stay, most of us will get it. The only question is do you want to be vaccinated when it happens? Any logical person who honestly did the research should answer this with a clear yes by now. We have so much data. Yes we don't know what we don't know, but that's also true for Covid.
Yeah exactly. I think the risk/reward ratio for many people is still not skewed enough in vaccine's favor compared to COVID. If COVID had been as bad as originally feared, I don't think we'd see as much hesitancy. But if somebody told an anti-vax person "you'll be dead in 3 months if you don't take this mRNA treatment", they'll take it for sure.
Taking one person's opinion and projecting it to millions is not part of the scientific method. It is like being angry to one jew and killing 6 million (see Hitler's life).
Yes, but my post an example of possible arguments. Conspiracy theorists are not a part of scientific method too. They don't care about live-streaming and they will spread another nonsense. We should take care of underlying problem of anti-vaxxers (pro-pandemics) doing anti-health propaganda, but I don't know how.
That would be a good idea, it's hard to get a proper breakdown of the demographics involved because of the way it's reported. Why make people bury their head in stats when they can get an idea of their personal risk with a quick scan of a few ICUs?
Right. I think the concerns actually played out exactly as feared. Hospitals filled up with people sick with Covid, health care system got overwhelmed, everyone is at heightened risk due to the difficulty in getting treated for anything.
The point of getting vaccinated is not to protect yourself, as much as to protect your community. I view people who won't take the vaccine because they perceive their personal risk as low to be selfish. Additionally, anyone who won't get vaccinated because they don't want anyone else to tell them what to do is childish.
> The point of getting vaccinated is not to protect yourself, as much as to protect your community.
The point is first and foremost, and by a long way, to protect yourself. Herd immunity is a by-product of mass immunisation programmes, not the main goal.
> I view people who won't take the vaccine because they perceive their personal risk as low to be selfish
If their personal risk is low (as opposed to perceived low), which it is for the vast majority, then they're not having a selfish effect on others as they won't be taking up medical resources they shouldn't. If there's any "selfish" people - according to this strange standard you've built - it's those with high risk due to comorbidities they could've done something about, like their weight, and I wouldn't for one second paint them as some kind of moral deviants, they're people who need help in the short term and long.
> Additionally, anyone who won't get vaccinated because they don't want anyone else to tell them what to do is childish.
To make your own decisions and take your own risks is the mark of an adult because adulthood is about taking responsibility on, not abrogating it. Whether they are good decisions is a different discussion.
Honestly, if the decision to not get a vaccine because you are young and healthy only affected you then your argument would make sense. Why are there laws against drunk driving? It isn't to solely protect the driver from injuring themselves correct?
Edit: BTW I do not support mandated COVID vaccination. I just wish more people would think of the societal good instead of "muh freedoms" when making choices. Especially when certain side effects of vaccines actually happen at a higher incidence rate from getting COVID then from the vaccine (I.E. myocarditis).
Freedom is harder to find than health, and the lack of it and the fight for it has certainly cost far more lives than this pandemic could, even without a vaccine. Additionally, places with greater freedom correspond to places with greater wealth and hence, greater health. There is more societal good in freedom than a vaccine. It’s possible to stand up for the good of both without denigrating one or the other, because they’re not really relevant to each other... until mandates and vaccine passports come in.
However, I agree that many people refusing the vaccine aren’t doing it based on sound reasoning (beyond the freedom argument) or are well informed on the matter. Again, however, the government and media have the lion’s share of responsibility here, they haven’t been honest nor transparent, and they’ve politicised things that should never be political - just think “Trump”, “hydroxychloroquine”, and “the Lancet” and you’ll get an immediate insight into where the lack of trust comes from, and those no shortage of examples (this week’s is “Joe Rogan” and “ivermectin”, can we just wait for a larger scale study to come in before rubbishing this stuff?)
Eh, we’ll just see a split in the population between the vaccinated and disease riddled. The Amish similarly split in the industrial revolution and they’re, for the most part, doing fine and not ruining it for the rest of us.
Given the current research paths and traction, that future list of preventable diseases looks likely to include most STIs. That will motivate young people such that it cleaves off the current voluntarily unvaccinated generation.
Long story short, this is likely to be a temporary phenomenon. That, or a hard split for a self-selecting minority. (We’re already seeing economic effects in skilled labor hiring.)
I disagree, it's all a perception issue.
The authoritarian part of population (including the government, obviously, and mainstream media) conflate people who don't want to take vaccines for various reasons with people who believe conspiracy theories about vaccines. I talked at length with these people and it's almost comical how wrong and ignorant they are. They are also very few an apart, some were homeless, other were xanax and wine soccer moms.
The rest of people who don't want to take the vaccine recognise the goods the vaccine can do but:
- They don't care about avoiding mild covid effects if they think they're healthy enough
- They don't know which long term effects mRNA vaccines will have, if any (10+ years)
- They oppose compulsory or practically compulsory (if I can't travel or visit a bar, it's practically compulsory) vaccines for a disease with a sub 1% mortality rate, which keeps having different variants which drop vaccine efficacy, which still requires you to wear a mask not to transmit it.
As it is right now, the only reason to take the vaccine is not to feel covid symptoms / reduce the damage to your organs by covid, which is a decent reason.
I got covid towards the beginning of the "two weeks lockdown to flatten the curve turned in 1.5 years", I felt flu-like bad but barely had any issues. Yet last summer I was forced to vaccinate because proof of recovery older than 6 months is worthless to travel and to spend hundreds in useless covid tests. I also had zero symptoms after both vaccinations, probably because my body already knew how to fight it.
Sure, the government really makes it harder and harder to believe in anything they say, but the number of conspiracy nuts remained constant. It's just that society started calling people who care about individual freedom, conspiracy nuts (on top of nazi and white supremacists).
> As it is right now, the only reason to take the vaccine is not to feel covid symptoms / reduce the damage to your organs by covid, which is a decent reason.
This is obviously false antivax nonsense. The COVID vaccine, by and large, prevents you from dying or ending up in the ICU.
> It's just that society started calling people who care about individual freedom, conspiracy nuts (on top of nazi and white supremacists).
Or we're just tired of people buying into antivax propaganda and dying and wasting hospital resources?
Well then let’s bring out the big guns. HIV/AIDS patients. How do we keep those people from transmitting their disease? Should we force them to isolate and potentially even form their own cities?
Again, it's not THAT contagious. Aids doesn't spread through air or simple touch. And those with aids still can use condoms (for sex) or handlers can use gloves (when hiv patient has wounds).
The main problem with covid is the tempo it spreads. Covid symptoms are not that bad, most of victims survive, but because it spreads so fast, that ~5 percent of hard cases can overwhelm a country. THAT is the problem, but almost no one adresses it in comments on forums, instead they give comparisons to other diseases which have completely other problems.
It's very contagious if you come in contact with certain bodily fluids. ORs, and traditional rooms in hospitals are sterilized with bleach after a stay from an HIV positive patient. There's even plenty of stories of Dr's and surgeons contracting it when they've slipped with a scalpel or needle.
Further are you 100% confident people are not bleeding on shared surfaces and that other people do not come in contact with this? In SF I once saw a woman slip in a homeless person's urine, with her hitting the sidewalk and breaking skin with her arm in the urine. Wanna play guess the disease there?
> The main problem with covid is the tempo it spreads.
Great so self isolate since you're scared. In fact I see most of the problem being with the vaccinated thinking they're totally safe, and not using a mask. They still get the virus, still spread it, and yet they think they're not the problem.
> It's very contagious if you come in contact with certain bodily fluids
Yeah, IF you come in contact with certain bodily fluids. We don't do that everyday, but we do it everyday with airborne diseases when breathing. So, it's not THAT contagious. I've heard stories of doctors being infected when trying to help some junkie who started being aggressive.
> Further are you 100% confident people are not bleeding on shared surfaces and that other people do not come in contact with this?
I've seen such occurence maybe once every several years where I live. Typically it's because of some acident and it's cleaned in reasonable time.
> In SF I once saw a woman slip in a homeless person's urine
We don't shit on sidewalks, homeless here are a very rare sight, I don't remember seeing one since at least a month.
> Great so self isolate since you're scared.
I'm not scared, I'm vaccinated and still use mask. I'm currently self-isolating because I've got some mild cough and don't want to spread whatever I have, I've cancelled todays dinner with remote (other country) coworker who I would see live first time since a year, but that could mean spreading some flu to him and others in restaurant.
> In fact I see most of the problem being with the vaccinated thinking they're totally safe, and not using a mask.
I'm 100% with you about this. They should isolate more. Now, what was your argument again?
> Yeah, IF you come in contact with certain bodily fluids. We don't do that everyday
Did I not just give an example of this? Maybe not for you, but for some people it is very much possible to come into contact with these body fluids on a daily basis, if not multiple times a day.
> I've seen such occurence maybe once every several years where I live.
You can see droplets of blood? What's your vision like? Are you also aware blood can be in coughs?
> We don't shit on sidewalks, homeless here are a very rare sight, I don't remember seeing one since at least a month.
Again, just your location.
> I'm not scared
If you're not scared you wouldn't be here arguing anything about COVID atm.
> How do we keep those people from transmitting their disease?
PrEP exists. But it’s costly and tedious. When we have an HIV vaccine that’s free and two shots, yes, it would make sense to restrict those who choose to be infected.
> Using this logic, why did we isolate prior to having a vaccine?
To prevent hospitals overrun by sick people.
If more people get vaccine, I'm for ending with isolation or other pandemic safety measures. Those who didn't want to vaccinate can die if they want to. The problem AT THIS MOMENT is that there is too many unvaccinated people, so when covid spreads, hospitals will be overflowed and other people will die from other preventable diseases from lack of care.
> As it is right now, the only reason to take the vaccine is not to feel covid symptoms / reduce the damage to your organs by covid, which is a decent reason.
Well, no
It reduces severity and incidence of disease. Yes, you can still get covid if you encounter SARS-Cov-2. But you are less likely to. And if you are less likely to get the disease, you reduce the risk of infection to others.
They had wide social acceptance each time there was a new vaccine, going back to the first vaccines (which, btw had not-insignificant mortality rate). In five years when there are no long-term side-effects the antivaxxers will die down again.
> In five years when there are no long-term side-effects the antivaxxers will die down again.
You seem very certain. I'm not convinced. Some of them are simply making things up. I had one of my coaches try to show me a video of a guy sticking spoons to his body trying to tell me it was the vaccine making him magnetic.
How do you reconcile "hey, once we can show that long term side effects are non-existent" with "because there aren't enough side effects right now, they're just inventing completely crazy nonsense that defies all logic"?
The person in question isn't even a fringe conspiracy theorist, she just browsed Facebook a little too much, this is just mainstream stuff...
Most anti-vaxxers are not that crazy though. Most will be convinced by a few years of nothing bad happening. It's an easy mistake to make to focus on the most extreme people when they just aren't representative.
I would argue that a critical view of vaccinations has always been widely present. We see this now as gaining traction only because they speak up as mandatory vaccines are becoming a real possibility. (otherwise: lose job, can't travel, etc) Maybe it's time to actually have a conversation with them, instead of labelling them and regard them as idiots.
You should go try to have a conversation with those people and you will understand why we stopped. My wife had this conversation with her grandfather and just got disowned.
Maybe 50% of the people I know haven’t gotten the vaccine. They are generally reasonable, and I’ve had healthy back and forth with many of them. Many of them are highly educated.
None has disowned me.
My point is, it’s not fair to lump them into one big Idiocracy category.
>mandatory vaccines are becoming a real possibility
Becoming? Becoming!?
Vaccines for many infectious diseases are mandatory (with some exceptions) to enter for public schools in all 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico. They are also mandatory to immigrant to the United States. The supreme court first upheld mandatory vaccinations as constitutional in 1905, more than a century ago (Jacobson v. Massachusetts).
Mandatory vaccinations have been a thing since we've had vaccinations.
What's your point? I wasn't claiming that the supreme court is infallible, or even giving any opinion about mandatory vaccinations, just pointing out the concept is not new.
But this is pretty clearly not the same thing as is currently being talked about. No one expects to have a right to travel to another country, it's well understood they can create whatever rules they want.
What the vaccine passport debate centers around is whether it is fair to require vaccines for entry into events and businesses.
The hassle / reward for most people is much higher for those many other infectious diseases than covid.
By all means, now that the government paid for it with our tax money I'll take it and skip the mild covid side effects for my age range.
If I had to pay, unless I was 40+, I wouldn't have bothered for something with such a low mortality rate.
I thought you were going to mention the ridiculous state powers raised against individuals in otherwise relatively free countries for an illness that mostly affects people with multiple comorbidities. Thats a lot more scary than a few antivaxers.
Yes. By that age people getting tired of "being managed".
Large companies have more management positions though. What should someone 40+ do at a small firm? Start again at BIG Co as developer and wait 5-10 years to become manager or tech lead? Is that the only option? Can we say 40+ developers at small companies are mostly buried without carrier path? (I think it can be the case for many.)
The US and California in particular lost it's appeal. 20 years ago it was the dream destination for many. Now, even some Indians steer away. I don't know a single European who would want to live in the US. Not even from Eastern Europe. The go-to place is London, Berlin, Stockholm, Amsterdam, etc.
FAANGS were started 1-2 decades ago. In past 5 years the trend changed. Ask PG. He will never move back to the US.
And no, Texas will never be the next big innovation hub.
Living in the US is dull and uninspiring if you lived away for long. Also the missing social net makes the situation worse and worse every year.
Instead I would argue that if the Americans opened their borders, a huge fraction of European tech workers/professionals will relocate there. I'd say that, as middle-class persons, they wouldn't subject themselves to the torture of getting a visa, which may also partially explain the rise of Berlin as a tech hub after Brexit.
Nonsense. You do realize that people don’t just relocate to another country let alone to another continent, especially when the benefits are questionable at best. Somewhat more pay, but for more expenses due to a ridiculous health-care, depending on location, it may very well be less safe, etc.
You may disagree, but “nonsense” sounds a bit excessive. An Italian or Spanish software developer earning 30K euros per annum would likely go to the US if they were offered an American salary. Many of those who went to the UK or to Germany (me included) would have crossed the Atlantic for the right offer.
I agree with you that inexperienced (lower paid) or young developers might find the US attractive if there weren't visa issues. The older better paid ones, maybe with families even, would probably still choose the social safety of Europe, the mix of people and ideas, the density of interesting places, cultural events, etc.
I mainly reflected on the current trend I observered. Did not consider a sudden change in the US visa policy.
A half decent flat in London costs in excess of 2000£ per month. Where “decent” means you don’t deal with pests, walls are not made of paper and your neighbour going to the toilet doesn’t cause the whole building to shake.
Universal healthcare varies a lot in Europe, for instance in the UK it is rather limited compared to continental Europe, even compared to Southern Europe. In the UK you would need a health insurance costing ~200-300£pm to enjoy the same quality of care of places like Italy or Germany.
On the other hand a good developer in the US may earn enough to retire in 5 years, 500K$ per annum are not totally unheard of. In Europe if you are very very good, you may get slightly above 100K£, but it’s still extremely rare and you will end up paying half of that in taxes.
Depending on what we mean by en mass, because Europe is not the third world. But I think it would have an impact on the European market(s) for software developers (as in increased scarcity, higher salaries, ecc…)
To give an example: I was among the first airbnb users when it started. In the past few years I used booking.com more because I liked both their website and booking experience better. And yes, they offer private accomodation. Booking.com improved a lot while airbnb stagnated. I admit that I am not the target audiance for the airbnb "experiences" feature though.
If you invest time learning Erlang everything around Elixir will make sense and it will be a pleasant experience not only to "write" but to test, debug and maintain as well. I would go through this slightly dated but gentle introduction before learning Elixir: https://learnyousomeerlang.com/content
Thinking in processes and knowing/using the GenServer abstraction is the core of Elixir programming.
So, one negative is that difficult to use without Erlang knowledge. Also some good libraries are Erlang only for compatibility/historical reasons.
this. I had piloted a project in Elixir a few years ago. It wasn't until I really learned Erlang that it became a pleasant experience. In the end it was replaced by another team in another language.
The 20mph speed limit certainly helped to achive this. (Too slow to move around with a car.)