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Szewek

@ Szewek @sopuli.xyz

Posts
25
Comments
170
Joined
8 mo. ago

I am still in it for a wonderful green future. Nature and wildlife, but also useful, accessible tech, art, and urban planning. Polish, living in Sweden. I love living in the EU and the values it represents. Fascinated by and open to the rest of the world.

Picture: "Blue Coat", Paul Klee

  • I Watched Yesterday’s Segment about a Ex-USA Man Living in EU Shocked, thus Wrote A Book- USA Everything Playing to Heavy Role In EU Countries, Thus…

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  • I Watched Yesterday’s Segment about a Ex-USA Man Living in EU Shocked, thus Wrote A Book- USA Everything Playing to Heavy Role In EU Countries, Thus…

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  • I live in Sweden, and I come from Poland. I would say, yes, of course, people in Europe watch a lot of American TV and Movies - maybe even more so in Scandinavia. I think the Nordics feel part of the global "Western" culture. They are like: "We are small, and we have our small part in it, with Abba, LEGO, IKEA, Ibsen, the Nobel Prize, Avicii, Sara Larsson, Joachim Trier, Lars von Trier, Björk, Volvo, Bluetooth, the zip locker, etc." I mean, check who made the "Barbie Girl" song.

    I once listened (in person) to a Danish man responding to comment "But you all speak English so well". His answet was: We know we are small, we need to learn whatever the international language(s) are.

    The deeper answer is about European identity, and what it means to people. I'm very much social-democratic, but until lately, I still viewed the US as a wicked part of the "free world". Like, of course, they have issues, we would joke about the American crime, injustice, inequality, obesity, ignorance etc. with contempt. I would probably say they are not socialist but at least they are democratic. And Russia has long been neither democratic nor socialist, and meddling in the region.

    The relationship felt comfortable. We could reduce our military spending, which helps grow more democratic, participatory societies. We had a common and external language and culture with other Europeans, and with people from around the world. The Americans were largely absent, a reference point we could scorn and yet still look at. We were also very much present in the American stories (imagine a Polish person watching The Pianist being and international hit - the whole world watching with awe and terror story of your country, that you've heard repeated so many times by the traumatized elders of your country). I don't say it was good - but it was easy.

    Also, the most vocal alternative was to revert to our own, national cultures. This was the looming past. The benefit of the Scandinavian perspective is that the local cultures are too small to fool yourself that this is a viable alternative.

    One more point: If you go into modern European history, there was always somehow imbalanced international culture. Like, Newton, Copernicus, and Linnaeus wrote in Latin. Many early 20th-century scientists wrote in German. War and Peace is almost half written in French. Etc., etc... We were often looking at American, British, French, German, Spanish, etc. culture, not fully awere that Americans were looking just at American culture, ignoring the rest.

    I am glad this is changing. I am thrilled. I do not agree with most points given above - but they should give you a vibe. Personally, I've been dreaming of an alter-globalist culture, and of a stronger European integration, long before Trump. I might have betrayed my personal opinions to portray the societal vibe, though still leaning into my bubble.

    Nevertheless, it takes time. Cultural shifts like that take a lot of time.

  • Capitán Denim — Jeans designed and produced in Spain

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  • Short answer: Yes, it is.

    Long answer: 59% of their shares are in free-float, and 43% of the free-float shares are owned by some institutions from North America (The non-free-float shares are owned by European organizations). The rest of free-float is European. Assuming all the North American shareholders are from the USA (which is likely not true), 75% of shares are owned by European institutions:

    https://group.hugoboss.com/en/investors/share/shareholder-structure

  • Capitán Denim — Jeans designed and produced in Spain

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  • Hungary loses right to EU aid worth more than €1 billion

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  • Hungary loses right to EU aid worth more than €1 billion

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  • Maybe has the flu

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  • Mr Crabs is definitely not acting as if he was a CEO of a million $ company.

  • ‘Digital sovereignty’: why the EU may be shifting from internet regulation to building homegrown tech -- [Opinion]

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  • It's not either or!

  • Why is there no European Big Tech? - www.eurotechguide.com - your guide to european digital consumer services

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  • I agree with all of you, but...

    We need institutions that can both challenge and rival Big Tech. EU has been doing okay, great in comparison, regulating Big Tech. Small to medium companies have big part of the market, but are constantly eaten up big bigger ones, and have hard time combating many mono/duopolies (like mail or social media, which technically are easy to keep diversified).

    I don't know what is the answer. Federation that do not collaborate with Big Tech - thank you, Fedi - are a great way forward. Consumer movements (e.g., Buy European) and smaller companies getting their niches working with Big Tech and only slowly diverging from it (see, e.g., Ecosia) can also have an impact.

    The article poses a wrong question. But a related question is interesting: How do we challenge Big Tech at scale? In this sense, Europe not having any tech giants might be lucky for the world at large, as we still have enough power, talent, and influence to pose the challenge. How do we do that?

  • How good are Amazon online shopping alternatives in your part of Europe? Have they improved since the beginning of the year?

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  • I've lived in Poland and Sweden.

    In Poland, Allegro dominates, it's much more convenient than Amazon.

    In Sweden, I used Amazon once. There is no other general website like that I know of for first-hand stuff, buy you can get half-price new stuff from sites like Tradera or Blocket, or Vinted (very European), or Sellpy. I would try to pass by a charity store first, but for example for shoes it is very hard to find what I am looking for and in size 47 there.

    For first-hand stuff, in Sweden, I just search (or know websites for the kind of product I am looking for), and rarely would Amazon be even competitive. For example, to buy books I often use Adlibris, and while it is not as nice as the local bookstore, they do sometimes have things I would have trouble finding otherwise (including a broad selection of books in English).

  • Uh... oh...

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  • That moment when you criticize China on a community hosted at lemmy.ml

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    Permanently Deleted

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  • Pregante?

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  • How is this anti-trans?

  • Dont let lw libs find this

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  • Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for. Understanding how memes are used for, sniff, ideological reasons, is what I'm interested here. I appreciate the antimeme nevertheless.

  • Dont let lw libs find this

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  • What was the original?

  • Why Aldi Is America’s Fastest Growing Grocery Store

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  • Lol, this is the dumbest thing I've heard in the long time (The story about sitting making the workers lazy, your comment explains it great, thanks!).

  • Why Aldi Is America’s Fastest Growing Grocery Store

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  • Wait, what? Do cashier's stands in other shops in US?

  • Trump won't be meeting Putin in 'immediate future', US official says

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  • That's a very interesting take! Rather psychological, but individual psychology of those with excess power unfortunately plays a huge role. I didn't know about Vlad Vexler, great link!

  • The coal industry is collapsing

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  • The linked Wiki page starts:

    Use of coal is expected to peak in 2025.[1]

    I guess the details are more complex. And I have seen the Ember report that showed that now USA out of fuck knows what reason increases coal even at the cost of gas.