Netherlands here. We’re dealing with a couple of difficult problems, each of which making each other worse:
Nitrogen oxide emissions crisis
Nitrogen oxide emissions are a serious problem for biodiversity, and as a consequence the EU has put limits on how much nitrogen emissions can be emitted close to Natura2000 areas (which are a form of official nature reserve).
However, the Netherlands is a very densely populated country, and also has a lot of these Natura2000 areas.
Now it turns out that basically all human activity emits nitrogen oxide in some form, and it’s completely paralyzing the ability for anything to get done.
This problem is core to a lot of the other problems my country is dealing with right now.
The government is trying to limit nitrogen emissions, for instance through means such as buying out animal farms, but this is not very popular.
Housing availability crisis
About a decade ago the government abolished the ministry of people’s housing, because it was believed at the time that such a ministry was no longer necessary to provide enough housing. This coincided with the after effects of the 2008 housing crisis.
As a result, every year since too few houses have been built to meet demand, and now we are dealing with a crippling shortage in the housing supply.
The government has since realized the problem and is attempting to tackle it, but the aforementioned nitrogen oxide crisis also makes it very difficult for new housing development to obtain the necessary permits.
So instead the government tries to push hot-fixes like rent-caps, which ultimately just reduce the supply of rental properties even further. This is because land-lords cannot make a profit renting out these properties with the proposed rent-caps, so they just sell the property instead.
High inflation / High cost-of-living / High interest rates
Last year, like much of Europe, we were dealing with pretty high cost-of-living and inflation rates.
This is a direct result of our prior dependence on Russian gas, and the war in Ukraine disrupting the supply of that gas.
I stand with Ukraine, and I think it is good we quit cold turkey on our addiction to cheap Russian gas, but it had a lot of serious knock on-effects on the cost of living and the inflation rate.
The ECB (European Central Bank) has tried to fight the inflation rate with interest rate hikes (and it would appear they are succesfull at doing that). But by raising inflation rates, they do slow down the ability to invest in the economy. This in turn affects things like the ability for property investors to build housing, which worsens the housing crisis again.
Full electricity net
On top of all this, we are also running out of capacity on the electricity net.
This is going on at the same time that we are trying to eliminate our natural gas consumption for environmental reasons, as well as the need to reduce our reliance on potentially hostile foreign powers (see Russia).
This is causing numerous issues with regards to businesses switching away from gas, new businesses opening, new housing construction, etc…
Severe employee shortages
Despite everything, the Dutch economy has been running pretty well, and as a result there has been very low rates of unemployment. It’s gotten to the point that there are significantly more jobs available in basically every field, than there are people to work those jobs. That is causing other serious problems in turn.
As an example, public transit cannot find the necessary workers to get all the trains to run reliably on time.
Another example is a shortage of workers in the construction industry, which worsens the aforementioned housing availability crisis, and the electricity net being at capacity.
Another example is a shortage of engineers able to plan out extensions for the electricity net
This shortage can pretty much be extended to every industry right now.
Asylum crisis
On top of the other stuff going on, we also have a large amount of asylum seekers trying to obtain refugee status in the Netherlands.
Under normal circumstances these asylum seekers would apply for asylum in Ter Apel, which is an asylum processing center. They would stay there until they obtain refugee status, after which they would find a regular place to live elsewhere in the country.
However, the severe housing shortage is making that last step impossible, which is causing refugees to stay in Ter Apel for far longer than they reasonably should be. This is clogging up the system with people to the point where Ter Apel has long since exceeded capacity.
This causes numerous problems, and politically it’s very difficult to get other parts of the country to carry their weight in dealing with this crisis.
The main concern is that refugees take away houses from the Dutch people who are also unable to find housing.
14 years of a mainly liberal-conservative government (VVD), and a future mainly populist government (PVV)
While I think the VVD (liberal conservatives) is not as bad as some people make the party out to be, they are liberals… And liberals seem to be allergic to interfering with market forces, even if those market forces are actively making things worse.
Because of this, government action on all of these crises over these past 14 years has largely been too little, too late.
The people are fed up with the inability of the government to solve these issues, and have voiced their displeasure in last year’s general election.
But instead of voting for a party which will tackle the fundamental issues mentioned above, they largely voted for the PVV (populists) who blames all problems on the refugees and migrants.
They propose to significantly reduce the number of people coming into the country.
However, they seem to ignore that our economy is highly dependent on skilled migrants coming in to work for companies such as ASML. They also seem to ignore that reducing the number of people coming into the country will worsen the general employee crisis we are already dealing with.
So while I hold out hope that they might be more effective than the VVD, I’m not holding out hope for any meaningful change in the next term.
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I probably forgot a few things, but these are the main issues my country is dealing with right now.
Sorry for the long post, but there is just a lot we are dealing with.
My take on it is that the Republicans will do their best to drag this out until the election. No compromising or middle ground. Just make it out to be the crazy Democrats fault. This stuff gets to be very predictable after all these years.
Of course, they will drag it out until the elections. It is only being done because of the elections. It is all a performance to rally their base and get them to vote. Too many Republicans are tired of, or at least too embarrassed by, Trump and the other crazy fuckers, like the Freedom Caucus. While nothing is great, nothing is also so bad that they can really shit on Biden, at least not enough to rally around. Even his support of Israel isn’t something they can use against him since they are 120% pro Israel too. They also seriously need a smoke screen for the shit show that is the impending government shut down.
It’s all for show, a way to get the very poor but very racist core to take time off of their jobs to go vote for a states right to murder brown children while at the same time diverting attention from the fact that the reason that those poor racists aren’t getting their social security and other government support is due to the Republicans massive incompetence.
Hey, OP. Check out the podcast Dissect. They did a season breaking down each track of “Inside”. It was really interesting and really gave me a deeper appreciation for the entire project.
Not that I’m stopping myself from going back to it too often but for being such a popular song, Feel Good Inc. by Gorillaz somehow has managed to not lose it’s magic on me. I never search for it but every organic encounter in the wild stops me on my tracks and sends chills down my spine. A true masterpiece.
…American neo-liberalism? No shot, in Norway we are seeing a return of poverty, and it’s mostly thanks to new public management and the two massive neo-liberal parties that front US ans UK economic policies.
Yes, it really is that bad. My job now is to remind everyone continually that poverty will grow, because as per usual, the politicians responsible will try to find a scapegoat.
It might be the socialist, might be brown and black people, might be the Jew, heck: it most likely will be the Polish who get blamed for the insane policies are being fronted.
So yeah, neo-liberalism, the political enabler of capitalism, is currently our biggest problem - but it shows, through deforestation, consolidation of ownership, the indirect banning of cooperatives, the milking of the European energy market at the expense of Norwegians, everything being centralised, ownership wise, and the propaganda and talking points remain the same.
Our politicians are gutless shills for yankie ambitions. Former prime minister and leader of the right wing party Erna Solberg has a large fucking painting of Ronald Reagen on her wall, and she was recently embroiled in a conflict of interests case, where her husband got favourable government contracts for his parking company.
Of course it had to be fucking parking.
Økokrim, the national economic crimes division, refused to actually investigate the situation, and all the neo-liberal fucks, including the other massive neo-liberal party (AP, or “the labour party”), who probably also are falling deeper into corruption, let it slide.
So yeah, poverty is on the rise, and crime will rise with it. When it reaches boiling point, you can bet I’ll have to verbally smack people in the face once the people in power have decided upon a scapegoat.
I’m betting Polish and Slavic people, or Africans. Anyone except the political and economic precedent set by the politicians in power.
They say never attribute to malice what could be explained by ignorance, but they really could have looked at how it’s been going in the UK for the last forty years and learnt the lesson vicariously.
I think it’s less being blinded he’s just a symptom and more hope that he’s a one of a kind cult of personality that no one can replicate to unite the crazies again.
Not one single solitary person who cares so desperately about trans people in women’s sport has ever given one single solitary shit about women’s sports themselves. It’s just an excuse to practice their hatred while pretending to be righteous and Only Wanting What’s Fair. But it’s all about ethics in video game journalism, uhuh, sure.
Trans women are women. Even if they had some statistical advantage, they aren’t taking away opportunities from women in sport, because they are women in sport. That’s like wanting to ban naturalised citizens from the workplace because they’re wrecking the economy by taking jobs away from [nationality] people.
Spend a couple of years on oestrogen, see how much upper body strength advantage you retain. It’ll be somewhere between fuck and all.
Jesus fucking christ do trans teenagers not have it hard enough without people wanting to make their lives more shit out of spite? Fuck I hate humans.
I would say the only way I would be ok with barring trans women from sports would be if they barred women with PCOS. Then it’s the same ruling for all women, no hormone issues.
Meditation (as in, observing your thoughts without judgement, allowing them space, cultivating awareness and compassion). You don’t have to sit and focus on a candle or image or get the right breathing techniques or follow any kind of religion. Pema Chodron’s books are a very accessible and easy to read, and you don’t need to be a Buddhist to follow her work.
Look for spiritual sustenance in nature and in compassionate people. I find a lot of reassuring and helpful approaches in Jiddu Krishnamurti’s works, particularly his understanding that cultivating awareness and honest, open observation will increase compassion in yourself and will spread compassion in the world. (It’s more nuanced than that, but that’s an element of his observations). People with something genuinely helpful to say are not selling you anything - neither an idea or a product.
The news is there to sell things - ideas and products. Most news sources are selling a political and/or religious idea and bias as well as literally advertising products. News media is a business, making money from advertising. They don’t make money from selling ideas that life can be satisfying or enjoyable without buying stuff or doing things that make politicians and religious leaders more rich or powerful. Always read the news with a critical eye and look at what isn’t being focused on, not what is. Search for interesting personal stories, not headlines to get a slightly better perspective on the world.
There was a study done a few years ago that found that 60% of social media accounts were fake. That number is probably higher now, and there is more AI, too. The news and media and even federated systems are all manipulated in various ways. Huge congregations of right wing end-times Christians work like bot farms to spread fear and misinformation across all platforms: their goal is to speed up destruction because they believe in an afterlife that is only possible if the unbelievers are destroyed. They spread so much fear around feminism, LGBTQ+ issues, trans debates, flat earth nonsense, climate change denial, pro and anti vaccine arguments, etc. They just use whatever works to stir people up; they will take either side of an argument. The Taliban and Al-Queada worked in the same way, to similar ends. Israel and Russia and China all use these manipulation tactics too, to slightly different ends. The UK and Europe have other methods and goals (destroy threats to capitalism and neo colonialism, be seen as good guys). There are bot farms, hackers and paid accounts for every type of greedy power addict. But they all want destruction of perceived rivals, and they want one group of people to be afraid of another. It’s all lies and manipulation - some of it works, in a way, but a lot of it doesn’t. The fact they are all using these tactics show how desperate and afraid they are. We need to remember just how manipulated news stories and media are, and how the governments and organisations of the world are all trying to fool each other’s populations. Before the internet, you only saw your own country’s propaganda - now you see it all, and the system is falling apart in front of our eyes.
The news is not the sum total of things that are happening; it’s what is making someone more money or more power. The news doesn’t report all the people who had a pleasant day, or did a little bit better than yesterday - but how can it? Remember that for every horror story in the news, a thousand times more people were doing OK or better.
Do something that brings you actual joy every day. If you are honest with yourself, you find that actual joy is always the simple things - a favourite food, bouncing a ball, sitting under a tree, reading a good story, caring for a pet, holding hands quietly with a loved one, watching the clouds, riding a bike in nature, making music and art, reading a comic… Whatever small joys you can find, do them every day if you can, even if you’re living in a war zone. The small joys are reality, and sometimes you’ll experience big joys, although you don’t need them so often. News and depressive thoughts are not reality, only skewed and biased ways of looking at parts of reality. Moments of small joy are often all of reality that really matters.
Meditation (in whatever form works for you) can help you to experience the sensation that you are not your thoughts. “You” are something that exists with or without thoughts. It is not enough to consider this idea, it is something you need to actually experience, as often as possible. By extension, the world is not the collective thoughts and opinions of people: there is a reality of existence beyond all the nonsense we project on top of it.
Look for humour and go back to things that help you remember that there is always a lot to laugh about in world. Try to avoid cruel, mocking humour and yet be open to finding life-affirming humour even amongst the worst tragedies.
Cultivate compassion for yourself and the world around you. Ultimately aim to do everything out of compassion - not obsession or selfishness, fear or greed. If you need to be alone, be compassionate for yourself and others that need to be alone; if you need to be with other people, be compassionate for them. Don’t look for things in return: it is not a transaction. Compassionate action will not only bring you joy and peace, they will spread it. Practice compassion for everything - plants, animals, yourself, and other people. True compassion is not draining or tiring; it is a letting go of things like prejudice and judgement. It is not easy to do, it is something to work at.
Have positive, achievable goals and work on them whenever you can. You will get setbacks; it’s OK. Life shouldn’t be lived on a flat surface, there should ups and downs. It’s a journey, and a true journey should be interesting, across a changing landscape. When you have downs, recognise that there will necessarily be an up before long. The same us true for people around you, and the world.
Work on things you can change for the better, don’t focus on what you can’t. But actually work on the things you can change. It doesn’t matter how small they are; in many ways, the universe is not interested in big or small; and small things can make big changes anyway, like atoms or bacteria or blood cells (which can all do equally good or bad things, from our human perspective).
There are injustices and tragedies and traumas happening around the world; there are as many beautiful, loving kind things happening at the same time, probably more. The internet, the TV, the newspapers, magazines, books and media are just very small windows for an infinitely large world. We often think we’re seeing everything, but we are seeing very little. Our only reality is when we are not looking at life through these small windows - but we spend so much time looking through them that we forget reality. Do things that take you back to reality. If that reality is painful, approach it with compassion and it will gradually get less painful.
Work in reducing suffering in all forms for yourself and everything around you. Don’t contribute to suffering and don’t dwell on guilt and fear. Acknowledge those experiences, but let them pass. Don’t push bad things away, but don’t give them energy - just observe them, and return to things that create joy and peace, no matter how small. You don’t have to fix things or cure things that are bad, just work on making them a little bit better.
Remember that a lot of bad news is only a matter of perspective. So much of what we hear about - wars, corruption, illness, oppression, greed - are clear signs that the perpetrators of those things are desperate. Desperate people feel as though they are losing; they are doing everything they can to hold on to power, and they are lashing out. But they are losing the fight (most of which is with themselves or each other). Yes, we are the victims of their lashing out, but their viciousness and fear-mongering is because they are losing. They are losing because they have lost compassion and kindness and love. If we don’t cultivate those things, we will join them in desperation and fear; if we do continue to cultivate those things, they can never defeat us, because we are not even trying to win or to fight. We are surviving and growing and living. They can hurt us, but they can’t defeat us, and when they hurt us, they hurt themselves. But when we try to hurt them, we hurt ourselves, too. We end the fight by inviting them (the desperate, the rich, the powerful) to join us in compassion and kindness, by turning away from suffering and from causing suffering. There is no action too small to help make the world a better place.
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