Pasha
Defend Kebab
No bio...
User ID: 481
Pasha
Defend Kebab
5d ago
Any tips for Singapore? First time in Asia. Here for some weeks but mostly busy with work
Pasha
Defend Kebab
5mo ago
Housing market predictions anyone?
As a couple we are at a point where we would be given a mortgage of a small size house in the city or a somewhat larger one in a suburb (this is a very expensive Western European capital and collectively we earn upper middle class salary). But the prices are so crazy that whatever we buy would definitely not be enough to raise a decent size family as long as we stay in range for our jobs.
The obvious plan would be to get a mid sized place now and then sell and upgrade to a larger house in 5-10 years.
I am very paranoid that the current prices are a massive bubble and if we get a loan today we will be left holding a massive bag when the prices crash and we won’t be able to meaningfully upgrade to a larger house. But on the other hand throwing a large fraction of our income down the toilet with the rent feels ridiculous when we can afford not to.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
I don't think the minority politics of Turks in Europe fit in with the model of American blacks at all to be honest. I am Turk in Europe myself so I will share how I see this phenomenon citing myself as the source.
By and large there are 2 types of Turkish politicians in Western Europe.
The first kind is Dilan Yesilgoz (Minister of Interior from center-right Dutch government party) or Cem Ozdemir (Minister of Agriculture from German Greens). These are people who are nominally Turkish, but very well integrated such that they carry this identity typically as a burden and would probably be happier if they didn't have such funny foreign names. It is generally considered a tad bit racist to remember that they are Turks when discussing their performance as politicians, even though it is obviously in everyone's minds for better or worse. Usually they can't actually attract a sizable Turkish community to vote for their parties, or if they do, it is because of idiosyncratic internal diasphora reasons opaque to the broader population.
The second, and more controversial kind is most clearly exemplified by DENK in the Netherlands, but also most Turkish politicians in social democratic parties used to fit this type. These are mostly recruited and promoted internally in these parties because of their "minority advocate" status, practically subject to different standards than native members. They bring in a substantial amount of Turkish voters with them, and are typically rather conservative Muslims who know how to talk around the European taboos and avoid getting into trouble for their actual views. Their campaigning usually happens in mosques or cultural centers funded by the Turkish government*, in Turkish. The existence of such people make Europeans quite uncomfortable, and they often really want to confirm you aren't one of them when you enter a conversation before going further in more or less polite ways depending on their education level.
The business model of the second kind I have described has collapsed around the time when a lot of European countries were passing Armenian genocide recognition bills through their parliaments. When pressed to make a clear display of their loyalty, they either chose voting no and losing access to the social Democratic Party networks, or they vote yes and lost their constituents, effectively making them useless. Up until this point they pattern-matched much more successfully to the American-black model of minority organizations (i.e. mostly subservient voting crowds for the left in exchange for some gibs). Since then, there is total chaos as to what to do with these people. They are being forced to choose a clear side before being given national prominence. Many of the formerly exemplary "Euroturks" like Mesut Ozil got cancelled when they refused to do so.
Meanwhile you don't see such problems with Jamaicans in Germany for example. They might not be a net benefit to the society, but politically it is basically given that when they are given grants, positions and organizations, they will become adjunct to the prevailing progressive narrative.
- This is a very important detail to understand Turkish minorities in Europe. Almost all their mosques and related social/cultural institutions are funded and manned by Turkish ministry of religious affairs. Imams are sent directly from Turkey and often there is a tremendous effort to maintain close ties between expatriates and Turkey.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
I think this is a bit dishonest. I read through all the discussion yesterday and it is quite clear that the revisionist poster is arguing their case much more successfully, while the other side is acting very offended, signaling disbelief and eventually flaming out. If this discussion was about any other topic, the balance of upvotes would be much much more skewed.
If where did all the Jews go is such a good refutation of their argument, you should go ahead and ask it, and then pursue them until either you get a straight answer or their evasion becomes obvious. Holocaust denial is clearly not a position held by vast majority of the users here so you would surely manage to change the voting balance in no time.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
2mo ago
Very open ended question: What do you think is going to happen with pension systems in the next 50 years? Where I live, investing the maximum tax deductible amount into pension contributions is a no brainer if the government won’t change the rules of the game down the road. But I have a hard time believing this.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
3mo ago
I have always been taught that this is not an actually effective method. Was this wrong?
Pasha
Defend Kebab
6mo ago
As you suggest, this has been tried in the past. It led to incredible amounts of chaos in Jordan and Lebanon. In the Lebanese case Israel then had to try to go and invade the country they chased the Palestinians to and get bogged down in a massive fiasco. Jordan came very close to turning into a radical Arab republic due to the Palestinian groups, similar to Syria/Iraq/Egypt at the time and this would be a catastrophe for Israeli security.
All of these expulsions you mention were carried out by absolute victorious states of massive bloody wars which had almost omnipotent control over the expulsed populations. This is not the case here and likely never will. Arab states played a very bloody and cynical gambit after 1948 by not allowing Palestinian populations to be resettled in a proper manner inside their countries. But in the long term it has paid off and Israel now has to deal with an insurmountable problem that constantly threatens to break the country. Why would Egypt/Jordan/Syria/Lebanon now give up and just accept a population of infinitely more radicalized Palestinians?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_insurgency_in_South_Lebanon
Pasha
Defend Kebab
8mo ago
How do you discover new music when not surrounded by people who are into discovering new music?
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Scottish or Welsh, is almost entirely oppositional in nature, and therefore unravels easily
I don't know about the Welsh, but why do you think the Scottish nationalism today is stronger? To me it looks like it is today indistinguishable from some blend of pro-EU and anti-Tory sentiment. It doesn't have anything particularly Scottish about it at all.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
23d ago
I feel like I have to join any online discussion about bikes and helmets. But I live in the Netherlands and see about a million kids a day on bikes themselves or towed by their parents. Helmet ratio is probably a couple percentage points tops. And it’s almost always neurotic American expats. Is it really worth ruining the whole experience and habit of biking over a minuscule safety improvement? (Assuming you aren’t cycling through infrastructure unsafe for biking)
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Until 2010s Erdogan was the sweetheart of many euro politicians and it was imagined that he would usher in an era of Islamic democracy similar to Christian democratic parties, rapidly integrating Turkey to Europe economically politically and socially. Then the euro crisis happened, destroying any pull power European economic model had on a country like Turkey. In aggregate, the EU has seen almost nil economic growth for a decade now and their insane fiscal policies are clearly hurting peripheral countries. So EU has become a very tough sell in Turkish politics. More importantly the Arab spring has turned into a total massive disaster and this unleashed geopolitical chaos where Turkey found itself often competing against European countries in core interest areas.
This bit is my opinion but I think at this point the European countries made a massive strategic mistake, attributed Turkey's hostile turn to Erdogan himself, and burned through their political capital in Turkey (media and academia contacts, NGO networks, more covert agents etc) trying to get rid of him in favor of a more "moderate" leader. What they couldn't identify well is that these new hostile policies had a large support base among the traditional Turkish state, foreign policy and army establishment. So he could survive the attempts on his power through making deals with the establishment and drawing from his massive personal charisma and support base.
Ever since, there is a Cold War between the EU and Turkey and therefore the first type of euroturk politicians had to come out directly against their homeland and alienate themselves, while the second type became vulnerable to attacks of ideological non-conformity. It is considered racist to purge someone because he is Turkish, but totally acceptable to do so if this compels him to violate some newfound taboos about Armenian genocide remembrance or LGBTQ or Erdogan.
I believe at the root of all of this lies the fact that American style minority identity doesn't cover minorities like euroturks very well. Turks themselves can't really identify with it, and the German primal brain doesn't pattern match these people to the blacks/jews minority victim matrix. But the European countries are largely unable to imagine other ways of maintaining minority population relations (like the Russian or Iranian models, who also have lots of Turkic minorities but Turkey has very little pull on those people) and they are stuck to the American progressive liberal democracy model. This creates a wide opening for the Turkish state to maintain a connection with the Diaspora.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
None of those countries (especially Japan) are playing catch up or copying stuff for decades at this point. They all lead in some pretty advanced tech fields.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
the majority of Europeans in most countries is both against taking in more refugees and against corona restrictions)
What makes you think they were against those restrictions? That doesn't sound true to me at all.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
6mo ago
I have also come across a bit of speculation that IDF leadership knows that this will turn into a massive bloodbath and fiasco and they are delaying against the wishes of the politicians and trying to work out alternatives to an invasion. Sounds like a sensible scenario to me.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
6mo ago
I am tagged so I feel like adding something. I think most Western-oriented people (including me) has had the experience of an incredibly visceral reaction yesterday to the images of gunned men of another culture violating the family homes, taking away women and leaving death and destruction behind them. We all felt this because they could be our houses and they could be our women. Israeli politicians are talking about basically genocide and the Air Force has been dropping a bomb per minute ever since. This is how the Palestinians have felt at least once a month for 4 generations at this point. Their entire culture is a coping mechanism to deal with this extreme constant humiliation. I can't begin to fathom how childish someone has to be to suggest that THIS MAN just surrender to the killers of his child in exchange for becoming their low-wage servant.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Work pays for gym membership. There is a crossfit gym right nearby and most of the office seems to go there. I am fairly athletic and have been lifting for years at this point. Never tried crossfit, looks a bit cultish but I like that they do Olympic lifts. Yay or nay?
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
The nationalist Ukrainian state, if it ever stops being such a poor corrupt shithole and enters the EU, will have to cope with millions of African/South Asian/Middle Eastern immigrants
Are you taking my sentence out of context on purpose?
This is entirely a choice of national governments, not the EU.
No it’s the migrants’ choice. Entire Eastern Europe gives massive youth emigration to the west because wages are low and living standards are low. That’s also why foreigners don’t go there. It’s naive to think this won’t change fast if they manage to catch up economically.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Am I missing some level of irony or does this comment claim that there aren’t asset bubbles in the EU?
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
And that also means over 90% of people in the last thousand years have been fascist.
I do unironically agree with this. I believe humans have a natural tendency to organize around political forms similar to feudalism, whose combination with industrial society is more or less what most people call fascism. It is certainly what Mussolini seemed to understand when he was referring to his party's ideology. I also think the unique weirdness of the term fascism (it is really difficult to define in a way most people agree) has a lot to do with this underlying nature. Intellectuals of progressive/enlightenment bent keep recognizing signs of fascism everywhere because human societies keep reproducing elements of it adapted to the changing societal conditions.
You are right at recognizing the political terms of right and left can refer to very different positions on issues at different times. But I believe that is because the specific issues are not that relevant when coming up with these labels. What matters chiefly is the direction and speed of political change (or lack thereof) you want. Today's far right might look more leftist than yesterday's conservatism (case in point, Meloni is an unmarried mother of 1 hardly a Catholic motherhood icon) but it is still far right because it advocates for a fast reversal of the enlightenment project while yesterday's conservatism just wanted to conserve the society as it is.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
13d ago
Just finished Feynman’s autobiography. What a guy! You know a guy is being honest in his autobiography when half the book is filled with memories of blond babes and tits, and the other half is about him solving this or that very difficult physics problem.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
13d ago
Universities should be vastly reduced in size and should mainly consist of men. Any loan system should be abolished but the tuitions should be at a level regular middle class family can pay for their children, or, without family support, one should be able to afford with some part-time plus summer-full-time job. Bureaucracy for choosing research subjects and getting funding should almost entirely be abolished.
Until these things happen universities anywhere will simply be nothing more than rent seekers on a piece of paper that promises but rarely delivers upper-middle-class status, adult daycare, enforcers of bureaucratic power on the elite-minds, and speed bumps on actual science and technology development.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
18d ago
The moment Israel got into any danger, Ukraine basically lost this war. Big bad brainwashed trump republicans holding off the aid is just a cope narrative to avoid discussing the real intended beneficiary of the air defense systems. Those systems will never go to Ukraine as they are needed to protect Israel.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
10mo ago
They benefit by deflecting from their social, economic, foreign policy, and military failures.
I really don't get this vein of takes. It just proves too much. Any government committing any military act is going to get some temporary nationalism boost. It doesn't mean that this is why they are doing it.
Was Putin about to lose an election to a popular opposition candidate? No. Was Russian domestic politics or economy undergoing a significant crisis before the war? No. Even in Belarus the color revolution attempt died down with zero consequences.
If anything, the only significant near-term threat to the legitimacy of the Putin regime was a situation where Ukraine would become openly belligerent and turn into a competently armed anti-Russia and get NATO protection.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
10mo ago
when its northern border with Russia is reinforced on both sides and makes raids impossible
Were those raids ever anything other than PR for Western media and Ukrainian domestic jingoism? They generate lots of media attention and allows headlines in Europe to the tune of "partisans advancing into Moscow" which are always useful as average normie has lost all interest in the war other than seeing the occasional headline.
Going for a tour of Greece this month. Any recommendations? Route is Corfu-Zagori-Athens. Trying to avoid tourist crowds as much as possible
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