Sort-of-a-unique thing in Bulgaria (compared to rest of EU) is not only close ties with Russia in economics but actual nostalgia of the "old-times". While Polish or Hungarian people would never want to return to comunistic times, we sometimes do. I'm not sure I can exactly pin it down why, maybe it's the close language, culture and shared alphabet or it could be that we are particularly nostalgic nation. In any case it creates a constant feeling of being the "Trojan horse" of Russia, being used by their economical and political interests with a nation that swigns back and forth electing the old-comunist party (that not changed at all other than their name s/comunist/socialist/) and the "Right/central-right" pro-EU (on paper at least).
For many in my generation (90s), the dream of leaving the country has been propagandized by parents who were never able to leave themselves due to the Iron Curtain. Many would attest getting the Serbian radio close to the border in a desperate attempt to hear something "western". As much as the nation longs for the old-times, it longs for the West. And the split is maybe about 50/50. However few would leave for the East and many, many would flood the gates once we entered EU 12 years ago.
12 years ago is when late 80s and 90s children were graduating. We didn't have much idea exactly what is bad with the country, as no teenager knows too much. But we all saw the opportunity and we've all heard the stories of the successful uncle who managed to "fix their life" abroad. So we flocked. Cheap flights accelerated the process, free education in some countries like Scotland and the Netherlands. So the "brain-drain" was accelerated. If people could leave before with hard-obtained visas or illegaly, now it was easy and free for all.
Yet, 12 years later we are still the poorest country in EU with the poorest overall north-western region which was once one of the most prosperous regions back when aggriculture was the main sector. Turism and services instead is now the main sector and sure, there are some companies that are succesful, the low salaries compared to what you can make abroad is worth a bit of home-sickness endurance. It's hard to get out of it with the open borders - it's a feedback loop as more "brain drain" happens, less innovation and money can come towards the country and corruption proliferates.
Think what problem you are facing with the web right now and how you would solve it. Don't solve a problem for a thousand or a million people because all of them will have different problems. Start with you. Do you not like the interface? Do some css play, mockups on gimp or pen and paper.
What are your queries usually? Take a look at your own Google history, find and try to group what you are looking for and what would you ideally find that Google/other search engines don't satisfy.
I understand your desire to do something "revolutionary". But most things are incremental.
The current search engine has very limited context (your profile and the sites you visited and the searches you have done).
What if the next incremental improvement is asking you questions about the search to get better context before actually doing the search and giving you a smaller set of usable results?
This is shifting the problem - there is no meaning so whatever you say to yourself will be your meaning. It's the same as deciding to be happy - the moment you decide to be happy, you are happy. Done.
Anytime someone tells me to do less flying, driving or eating fcking meat, I link to [1] and say: STOP FCKING - or at least stop having children.
The most actionable item (that is of course MUCH harder than not eating meat) is doing something to to convince the nations with most children per woman [2] to have less. But this is not easy - joining organizations that would educate women and doing volunteering or even dangerous work is insanely hard. Not buying meat, recycling and not riding your car seems hard for western people and so you FEEL like you are doing something, but you are not.
I will not have children but do 50 transatlantic flights this year, eat all the meat, hell, I'll even teach myself to drive a car just to show off how useless these individual actions are. You can't convince the world, stop CHANGING the world and change yourself, seek data and find the most actionable item. Jeez!
You don't convince nations. Educating women, female employment and reduced child mortality make the fertility rate drop precipitously as a result. It's still an ongoing process but peak population growth rate was over 50 years ago.
But I want to feel like I am a good person. That's the reason I don't shop lift or beat up strangers in the street. It won't have any effect on national crime rates, but that is not the point. My individual actions matter to me. I am just a tiny cog in a vast machine.
I think you are just signalling a different kind of virtue. You are scientific, sceptical and ever so smart. But you are not saving the world either.
I agree on uselessness of individual actions but barring a couple of countries that don't follow the trend of declining number of children as they get richer, it wouldn't work. An entire family from Chad has less carbon footprint than one american teenager
Watch a live stream with a Googler trying to answer the old interview question of what happens when you type google.com into a webbrowser and press enter [1]
Using the right-hand rule: knowing the direction of spinning, if you point your thumb up and wrap the other four fingers in the direction of rotation, the thumb will be pointing North. Oposite of that is South. East can then be defined along the direction of spinning (eastward or counterclockwise looked from North, the way Earth is spinning) and West - opposite to that, clockwise looked from North, opposite the direction of rotation.
Now kindly collect your mind and think. Is it possible that men under-report because it's ridiculous for society to accept that a man can be sexually harassed by a woman?
Let's say it happens, hypothetically - maybe it never happens, maybe happens all the time. But let's say it has happened to a certain male. Now, what is this male to do?
If he stays quiet it is the same as females who don't report. That encourages the harasser to keep doing what she is doing and we already know that.
If he reports - nobody believes him, because women don't harass. Moreover, he becomes a point of ridicule because our society expects men to be strong and unharassable by women. They are physically stronger and they can always escape or fight. It's insane to think about that - like how? How can that happen?
Actually, can a man fight with a woman? No - it's also ridiculous - because if he wins, well obviously he won, he is a man, he is stronger. And he will get sued because he will get accused of harassment. If he loses - he loses from a woman. "Got beat by a girl" - have you heard that phrase? Do you have any idea how impossible it would be for a male to live in a world ridiculed in this kind of way?
So how can a study establish that at all - if men won't even admit due to pride even at study time? But just in case - do you happen to have any of this "plethora" of studies? Are you sure? People have been sure about many things that are right and then their minds are blown by scientific discoveries.
So please, think, provide evidence and please, consider men as human beings as well - we are not so different from women after all.
[1] https://gitlab.com/pisquared/scrape_google_mobility