I’m reminds of that tweet about how America will bomb a country and then go back in 20 years and make a movie about how sad doing it made the soldiers.
In October the finance ministry, in its annual report on the issue, estimated that in 2018 immigrants from non-Western countries and their descendants drained from public finances a net 31bn kroner ($4.9bn), some 1.4% of GDP. Immigrants from Western countries, by contrast, contributed a net 7bn kroner (see chart). Data on immigration’s fiscal effects were what “changed the Social Democrats’ point of view”, says Torben Tranaes of the Danish Centre for Social Science Research.
Muslims are at the core of the issue. This year was the first time the ministry reported separately on the contributions by people from 24 Muslim countries. They account for 50% of the non-Westerners, but 77% of the drain. Alongside that worry are fears that Muslims bring notions about democracy and the role of women that Danes find threatening. Muslims are welcome, says Mr Tesfaye, but, “We can’t meet in the middle. It’s not half sharia and half the Danish constitution.”
The ever-advancing big tech dystopia where individuals are pervasively tracked, quantified, and siloed. A destroyed economy squashing mobility, making the basic necessities uncertain, and future wealth questionable. Terrorist gangs abducting people in their homes based on what AI says, and executing people in the streets for protesting about it. All things that make for warm fuzzy feelings about bringing children into this world!
As a parent, I will say that the reelection of destructionists has basically guaranteed that my son's life will be markedly worse than my own. This was our chance to pull up out of the death spiral, but instead we chose full speed ahead, downward. The only sane way to analyze the fascist movement is as the death throes of our society, rather than latching on to any of their conflicting purportedly-constructive plans they chum out to fool the gullible.
The interesting thing is this is Spain's second wave of doing this, and the economic studies on the first wave of it showed visibly positive results. Spain's economy moved in growth, and with a size larger than many other European nations in similar background conditions of flat to negative population growth, but tighter immigration allowances.
Horrible fiscal ticking time bomb that ignores the fact that regularization means naturalization over the next 10-15 years and so access to EU healthcare system.
The biggest drag on government budgets in EU are socialized healthcare and retirement costs. At this point we know healthcare costs are severely backloaded, with most spending coming out of the last 10 years of someone's life. Regularizing now allows them to show a fiscal boost now and for next 4-5 years(edit: maybe even like 10-15 years) and accumulate a massive liability as they age.
Think about it this way: If you regularize a 30 year old illegal migrant right now with a path to citizenship over next 10-15 years, the government NPV is positive over a 15 year horizon(whilst he works) and then will go flat to negative as he starts using the healthcare system whilst retired.
They contribute to GDP spend, but from the fiscal point of view they are a drag. As for actual percentages per country, I think it heavily varies. In EU i think family spending is like 3% of GDP.
The hope is that this drag will either generate higher cash flows later (i.e money spent on education now will allow them to create value for economy later) or reduce outflows later (i.e a child that gets braces and dental health care now won't spend their whole adult life dealing with teeth issues on taxpayer's dime).
The latter half of careers, and certainly 30-55 is generally the period of highest productivity of working careers. Its even higher value for the economy when wages do a catch up slowly over their time. I think it is politiczed fear mongering to suggest that the economic balance is negative in that kind of exchange.
Legal immigrants if this change goes through - and if the minimum wage of these nations doesn't support any citizen living through their life perhaps the minimum wage should be increased and non performant businesses that can't support it will be shed
You're mentally stuck in 2009-2015. The world has moved on and Spain is now significantly outperforming Germany in growth (obviously not yet in wealth, which is the integral of growth over much longer time periods). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-YZeqk8NCQ&t=456s
I have no doubt that this has positive effects on the national economy as a whole (you get workers, on demand, without really paying for raising, educating, training them), but it is not really sustainable because population growth is low/negative pretty much everywhere, and it also leads to significant pushback from cultural friction and local workers (that dislike competition).
You could argue that the whole rise of somwhat radical rightwing parties all over Europe is mainly the result of policies like this during the last half century...
As I see it, the root of unhappiness in voters is nonperformant housing markets and unaddressed growth of inequality where wages are not sharing in growth of profits. This creates a raft of difficult issues. And the rightwing indeed has an effective playbook to exploit these unaddressed shortfalls while blaming immigration. And the center left parties seem unwilling or unable to address the root problems.
"Fahrenheit is a bit more convenient for describing the weather" - you might need to show us an example here that is not biased. Because to me, Celsius is a bit more convenient for describing the weather.
On the Fahrenheit scale, the majority of daily temperatures in the vast majority of the US fall between 0 and 100, which is -17 and 37 Celsius, and it’s more granular without introducing a decimal point.
I enjoyed reading this exchange, it's really a matter of perspective.
For someone like me living in a country with the metric system there's no issues with negative values for the temperature. It just mean it's below freezing, which is cold, the more below freezing it is, the colder it is. And inversely the more above freezing it is, the hotter it is. For me 20C feels good, 30C is too hot, 40C is at the point where I can't work anymore, and anything above that doesn't exist around here. 100C is where water is boiling at sea level. Easy.
Another thing that's interesting to me is that going from 300m to 0.3km is automatic, it maps to exactly the same concept to me in my mind, I don't feel like I'm doing any conversion at all and one is not harder to use than the other.
In metric world nobody cares about decimal points in temperature outside. Measuring precision is not that good because of wind, humidity, exposure to sun etc. We just don’t need that granularity, so it is really hard to understand why would you need that. Is there really any difference between 56°F and 57°F that you can feel and want to measure?
And choice of 0/100 for weather is absolutely baseless. You do have below-zero days and in some places it can be over 100. With Celsius you know when it’s going to be ice on the roads and when rain becomes snow.
below zero days are really really crazy cold and above 100 days are really really crazy hot. I don't think the fact that things occasionally exceed the 100 point "normal" range makes it less useful, if anything the out of bounds numbers emphasize the severity of the temperature. it's common where I grew up in the midwest US to hear "wow its going to be BELOW ZERO" as a way to express extreme cold
For me personally “really really cold” starts below -30°C and crazy hot is above +30°C. It’s very subjective and outside of US many areas have climate where Fahrenheit doesn’t make sense at all.
maybe that's why its popular in the US? for most of this country the 0-100 range works quite well to describe the normal range of outdoor temperature. we seem to like 0-100 ranges, for instance speed in MPH works out nicely.. "over 100 MPH!" is a common expression for extreme speed drivers. school grades are often a value out of 100, etc. which makes you wonder why we don't prefer metric lol
0 degrees F is a cold winter day, 100 degrees F is a hot summer day
0 degrees C is a cold winter day, 100 degrees C means you're dead
I think he's suggesting that a 0-100 scale for temperature/"relative warmth outside" is more intuitive than a 0-37 scale. It's easier to to place 73 degrees on a 0-100 relative warmth scale than it is to place 18 degrees on a 0-37 scale (unless of course you grew up calibrated to the 0-37 scale and know that 18degrees means you maybe need a light jacket or whatever).
I think it's funny that one of the main benefits of metric is its base-10-ness where things scale so nicely from 1-10-100-1000 etc. but then for temperature we're supposed to be fine with a 0-37? Fahrenheit is basically the 1-100 version of temperature (when it comes to weather).
It is what you are used to for both of you. you could make your own measurement system and it would work fine once you get used to it - until you need to communicate with someone else who isn't used to it.
A big part of it is certainly what you're used to.
The other part, which I'm sympathetic to, is that for human scale everyday things, Fahrenheit 0 degrees lines up with really darned cold, 100 degrees with really hot outside of an oven, and the degree size is about twice as granular as Celsius.
And while Celsius degree size is indeed widely used in engineering calculations, you're often using Kelvin as the absolute temperature scale. (Which does use Celsius degree increments of course.)
> and the degree size is about twice as granular as Celsius.
And then they'll argue that the inch is more convenient than the centimeter because it's twice as large.
That's backwards. Fractions of an inch are in far more common usage than fractions of a centigrade. Ideal might be both a smaller inch and a smaller centigrade, but between the two a smaller inch is more helpful than a smaller centigrade.
Perhaps, but useless for most purposes. You need to know how think of a coat to wear and you need a mental map from some number to some coat. It doesn't matter what the scale is, just that you have that map.
I agree its having the mental map that matters but my intention was to disagree with the parent comment's claim that Fahrenheit is more appropriate to the "human scale of things".
its a small advantage, but I think zero indicating when things might freeze is a more useful than "0 degrees lines up with really darned cold"
To me, below zero Centigrade lines up with "really darned cold". It's all subjective.
> zero indicating when things might freeze is useful
Of course it is, parent is being silly.
Picking some other non-zero random number for freezing just seems absurd to me. But that's because Centigrade is what I am familiar with.
Say pick freezing = 12, or 47?. If those numbers for freezing seem absurd to you, then consider that the only advantage that "32" has for you is that you're familiar with it. People will find reasons to defend whichever one they grew up with.
The argument is that a scale that generally falls between 0-100 is inherently slightly more convenient than that that generally falls between -17 and 37.
Obviously both can be adapted to.
But if you took a group of aliens and asked them to come up with a temperature scale that was only used to convey how cold or warm the temperature felt to humans, they would almost certainly use human body temperature in their design process not the freezing and boiling points of water.
This isn’t to say that Celsius isn’t perfectly fine and superior in most ways. I’m not insulting anyone or attempting to participate in some kind of culture war.
Celsius is obviously a better scale for determining when water freezes. But I’ve never found myself paying attention to that. Mostly because any problems that I’d worry about related to the water freezing happen well below freezing.
But if you find yourself unable to agree that one system has some inherent advantages over another, even if they don’t outweigh the disadvantages, you should step back and think a little more objectively.
> if you took a group of aliens and asked them to come up with a temperature scale that was only used to convey how cold or warm the temperature felt to humans, they would almost certainly use human body temperature in their design process not the freezing and boiling points of water.
This is completely nonsensical. I draw the exact opposite conclusion regarding what some "logical" aliens from planet Vulcan would choose.
> generally falls between -17 and 37.
What are you even talking about? -17 is a complete irrelevance to me, it does not happen, and I often deal with water or objects over 37c. Those are parochial numbers.
Your conclusion is predicated on finding reasons to defend what you're familiar with. There is no objectivity to it. Nor can there be.
When defining a scale from scratch only for the purpose of defining how the temperature feels it a human, you don’t think human body temperature would factor in?
> What are you even talking about? -17 is a complete irrelevance to me, it does not happen,
It lines up with 0F, which in most of the US is about as cold as it gets. You could be more specific and lick the weight 95% percentile coldest yearly low and get -19 or -16 or something. The specific number is irrelevant. The point is that a scale where the daily values generally fall between 0 and 100 is something that most people would admit is a point in that scale’s favor.
That doesn’t mean that Fahrenheit is better than Celsius. It does mean that there are objective advantages to it for some purposes.
If you can’t sit down and analyze Fahrenheit, Celsius, and Kelvin and make a list of pros and cons for each, you’re just being stubborn.
> It lines up with 0F, which in most of the US is about as cold as it gets.
"most of the US" . And yet you think that a group of aliens looking at planet Earth would anchor on that region. This makes no sense. It is what I meant by "parochial".
> The specific number is irrelevant.
Lets set the zero point to an irrelevant number, it's be great!
> does mean that there are objective advantages to it for some purposes.
Sure, I agree. In some places.
> If you can’t sit down and analyze
I can. But if you don't know better than to avoid focussing on that, you're missing the mere familiarity that was emphasised repeatedly.
"most of the US" . And yet you think that a group of aliens looking at planet Earth would anchor on that region. This makes no sense. It is what I meant by "parochial".
Then imagine a group of Aliens is building a scale for the United States of America, which in context is the only relevant country since this entire discussion is about the US switching to Celsius. It doesn’t actually have to be aliens. Just a neutral party with no bias towards an existing scale.
> I can. But if you don't know better than to avoid focussing on that, you're missing the mere familiarity that was emphasised repeatedly.
Familiarity is obviously the reason that the US is a metric holdout. No one has ever argued otherwise.
The only point I am making in this entire forsaken thread is that for the very specific purpose of air temperature in the United States, F has a nice advantage to C in that the numbers normally line up 0 to 100 and that all other things being equal humans find scales from 0-100 pleasant.
Multiple People in this thread who have no familiarity with Fahrenheit have agreed with this.
Because it is slightly nicer scale in this specific place for this specific purpose, no one is going to voluntarily switch the way that some people voluntarily switch to grams when baking or mm when working with small objects.
> 0 lines up with freezing point is useless for most purposes
Rubbish. Absolute nonsense. It's very useful.
But, each system has points where you can say that it is more convenient . You could defend Fahrenheit all day. I could counter with Celsius usefulness. "below zero" being a synonym for "below freezing" is one of those.
But you miss the context - you will defend whichever one you grew up with. You look for reasons to defend what you know. It is mere familiarity, nothing more.
>But, each system has points where you can say that it is more convenient . You could defend Fahrenheit all day. I could counter with Celsius usefulness. "below zero" being a synonym for "below freezing" is one of those.
Of course it does. That’s my entire point. For the intended purpose of measuring air temperature there are some advantages to Fahrenheit. Celsius is not self evidently superior in that regard. Therefore no one using Fahrenheit is going to change unless forced.
The freezing point of water is useful for some things, but I’ve never paid particular attention to 32F because almost all of the bad things I need to worry about related to freezing water happen much lower than that.
So making 32F the 0 point of the scale has few objective benefits to me.
> all of the bad things I need to worry about related to freezing water happen much lower than that.
Well, that's you, it's not me. 0F is a completely useless benchmark where I am, it never happens. And someone north of you will want a lower point. This is all parochial.
But you miss the context - you will defend whichever one you grew up with. You look for reasons to defend what you know. It is mere familiarity, nothing more.
I’m not defending anything. I admit that Celsius is superior to Fahrenheit overall if we are going to adopt one temperature scale for all temperatures.
What I’m saying is that a scale where most most values on most days fall between 0-100 is objectively better than a scale where they fall between -17 and 37.
There are only 2 states in the country where the average winter lows are below 0 and they have tiny populations. So 0 isn’t set at a perfect temperature for the purpose of air temperature in the US, but it’s not too far off from it.
> But you miss the context - you will defend whichever one you grew up with. You look for reasons to defend what you know. It is mere familiarity, nothing more.
I didn’t grow up using metric, but I use grams for baking and generally use mm for designing things. Despite the difficulties (most recipes in the US aren’t metric).
And there are several people in this thread who report that they grew up with Celsius and have never used Fahrenheit, but they agree that for air temperature it’s a nice scale.
Not as laughable as "metric is more convenient for human scale things". "Human scale things" includes fractions of an inch and fractions of a mile, which are horrible in customary units, and includes both the foot and yard which are used confusingly interchangeably. Metric is far superior for human scale measurements.
And that's only length. It gets worse outside of length. Like WTF is an ounce?
And using different ounces for metals, fluids, drugs, and, er, everything else - how does that not send people screaming into the arms of the metric system?!
And then there's the hundredweight, where "hundred" actually means "eight"...
So here is finally the data that I needed for my idea: walk directions from A to B while never leaving the shadows, suggesting bars and pubs where to wait while the shadows catch up and let you cross “safely” where before was sunny.
Useful for scorching weather places like south of Spain.
So running directions from B to A while never touching any shade, suggesting churches and rehab centers to ignore while the shadows stay perfectly still?
Currently building something like this for my city. One major challenge I've come across so far is that most APIs will give you coordinates for an address of a place within a building but none of the free, paid or crowdsourced options have reliable information on outside seating polygons. Of course, you could always display the places around you with live shadow data on a map, leaving it up to the user to zoom in and decide based on the satellite image whether the restaurant or café offers outside seating. But to plot the route and then suggest nearby sun/shadow seating options to the user, you would need this information.
You'd need stereo fotos from a low flying plane for this. Several cities are doing this for decades already. I've built such a 3D map for my city like 25 years ago.
Are you referring to the outside seating polygons? Wouldn’t these stereo images still have a lot of noise (trees, cars, trucks, smaller non-building structures) obstructing the target areas?
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