Western Europe is bankrupt: larger and larger deficits financing a lifestyle we can't afford any longer.
Politicians catering to voters used to getting benefits for free and refusing to adjust to common sense policies like increasing retirement age with life expectancy.
Years when essential defense investments were skipped in favor of populist handouts put us at risk from hungry, militaristic psychopaths.
Western Europe had the horrifying example of Eastern Europe who was cold and hungry until we switched to capitalism. Sadly, it looks like it learned nothing from us.
I dont know what western Europe you live in, but ours is a decadent one where not a single country is meaningfully growing, not a single one has recovered from 2008 in any meaningful way, everything gets more expensive, industry is destroyed and boomer NIMBY keep voting for policies that advantage them because of their demographic dividend vis-a-vis the younger generations.
In France pensioners earn more on average than a 25 yo, there is a crony capitalism based on hyper-regulation where the incumbents keep their place by bribing polticians into adopting policies that benefit large corporations.
Rent and house prices boom, all the while average natality is going lower and lower, and there is an increasing brain drain towards America.
Western Europe would have been collapsing right now if daddy cold capitalist didn't show up with gas and guns to drive away the Russian bear.
Western Europe has been on vacation for 30 years. There is no future where they can stay on the path they have been on. European leaders recognize this, but how the hell do you get a generation raised with an easy life to recognize this?
Germans work 400 hours a year less than Americans, and they celebrate that. Good luck.
This is what working in a toxic working culture does to a person. "Because I only have one week of PTO a year and have to be constantly add afraid of being fired, everyone should be!"
Europe has a borderline shrinking economy, and completely missed out on the tech wave of the last 25 years.
So you have all of Europe using American software, running on American or Chinese hardware, all imported rather than home built.
This "foreign dependent" theme repeats again and again as you go through why Europeans need to get off their asses and drop their perceptions towards industry.
And this doesn't even mention the population age crisis.
I have the savings where I could quit my job, work odd fun part-time seasonal jobs, go traveling, focus on hobbies, focus on friends and family, and live a low stress generally relaxed life. Still live in my house, still drive my car.
I could probably swing this for maybe 5 years.
But after that?
I'd be very low on cash, missing valuable workplace skills, selling my home to downsize, and scrounging for money anywhere I could. Bad financial shape, and forced to give up all those great comforts.
This is what Europe has been doing, on a ~50 yr timescale. They are about 35 years into it, and the writing is on the wall. Euro leaders see it. Unfortunately for Europe, there is now a whole generation that only knows that laid back easy life. Meanwhile Europe needs to double defense spending (cut services) while fostering domestic technology development (cut taxes), all while having a top heavy population (guaranteed generous benefits). All the things necessary to stand on their own, with a hostile next door neighbor who desperately wants the former soviet lands back. And all the things that say "You need to work more for less".
If Europe doesn't get it together in the next 5-10 years, the EU will fracture, and there likely will be another European ground war.
>There is no future where they can stay on the path they have been on. European leaders recognize this, but how the hell do you get a generation raised with an easy life to recognize this?
The call is inside the house. Puritan ethics will not stop China from overtaking the US.
>Germans work 400 hours a year less than Americans, and they celebrate that. Good luck.
You have a dedicated HN work account with 15337 karma.
"there". Where exactly? Norway's law about this was removed years ago, and for many years before that was a "sleeping" rule basically no one got convicted of.
UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy all have laws curtailing speech with egregious application.
- A 64-year-old pensioner man faced charges for antisemitic posts and for calling a politician a "professional idiot."
- Interior Minister Nancy Faeser reported multiple citizens to police for criticisms made on social media. In one case, a journalist published a satirical meme digitally altering a photograph of Faeser holding a sign reading "I hate freedom of speech" — and was prosecuted and given a seven-month suspended sentence.
- In 2017, 19-year-old Chelsea Russell quoted a line from Snap Dogg's song "I'm Trippin'" on Instagram: "Kill a snitch nigga, rob a rich nigga." She was charged with sending a "grossly offensive message." Despite being Black and posting in tribute to a deceased 13-year-old friend, she was convicted, fined £585, and subjected to a curfew and ankle monitoring.
- Lucy Connolly was convicted and sentenced to two years and seven months in prison for posting during anti-immigration riots that she hoped someone burned down a hotel containing asylum seekers. She later deleted the post.
- France has applied existing discrimination laws to criminalize BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) activists, treating anti-Israel speech as incitement to religious discrimination. The Court of Cassation ruled BDS boycott calls violated French law.
- Senator Miguel Castells wrote an article claiming the government was failing to investigate murders. He was convicted of insulting the government and sentenced to a year in prison. The European Court of Human Rights ruled his right to free speech had been violated, after which Spain's Constitutional Court developed case law providing greater protection to free speech.
- The satirical magazine El Jueves published a comic strip featuring images of the current King and Queen of Spain, which the public prosecutor's office held to be defamatory. A judge agreed to seizure of the publication.
All western countries btw, Norway falls in the North European country
The "where exactly" is the "western europe" from the comment I replied to. Sure, you can't be convicted of blasphemy everywhere there, but the fact that you can be charged with a crime that most sane people assumed hadn't been a thing since the Spanish Inquisition anywhere in Europe is pretty shocking.
