• 1 Post
  • 94 Comments
Joined 11 months ago
Cake day: August 19th, 2023
  • olafurp@lemmy.worldtoShowerthoughts@lemmy.world•Why don't low birth-rate countries make immigration to their country easier?
    0·
    2 hours ago

    A lot of Europe did so and for this exact purpose. Immigrants are net contributors of tax money and help a lot with demographics. Now however European countries have a sizable portion of their countries as immigrants and it turns out a lot of people feel like their culture is getting lost.

    Add that up with corruption is more out in the open, austerity after the 2008 financial crisis generally failed as a policy and people are very prone to believe “Immigrants are to blame” and vote for right wing parties since they run on an anti-establishment platform.

    The left generally believes that we need more immigrants and more social programs and so on but there has been a massive crusade on tax rates which hinders the governments ability to pay for them.

    This is all coming together now and the far right narrative is being given a chance in Europe with their anti-immigration stance.

    In my opinion this is basically the centre-right trying to get votes by cutting taxes, end up taking on massive debt or gutting quality of life social programs so the only way forward is to fuck over minorities and making the most vulnerable people suffer for the greater good. But tax the well-off, rich, wealth, land, capital gains, profits? Nooooo, can’t do that because they fund the political parties. 🙃

  • olafurp@lemmy.worldtoNo Stupid Questions@lemmy.world•is this the right way to establish boundaries with my nosy coworkers at the hospital?
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    1 day ago

    Having a good relationship with coworkers is in general great in my opinion and talking about personal life, politics and religion can be avoided with for example:

    • “I’m not that into politics”
    • “sorry, I don’t like talking about religion”
    • “Sorry, that’s a part I like to keep private” Also always steer conversations towards work topics and problems.

    Then there are ways to differently stop conversations like

    • “Sorry, I’m feeling tired today” < all nurses should relate
    • “Sorry, I’m not in the mood for talking right now”

    Then there’s the general fact that often you don’t really don’t have to say anything as long as you listen and ask exploratory questions. I’m autistic and can barely keep a conversation going but this goes pretty well for me without a lot of effort. Just say stuff like:

    • “So you’re saying that [literally rephrasing their point]”
    • “So does that mean that…”
    • “That must have been tricky”
    • “That sounds hard/tricky/difficult”
    • “Did you manage?”
    • “So what did you do/end up doing?”
    • “That sucks”

    And if they somehow end up being sad and almost crying which happens more often than I’d like to admit you can just say “That sucks” put a hand on their shoulder and wait.

    Another option would be to invite them to silence like:

    • “I’m spent, do you want to sit over there, relax and eat in silence?”

    People are sometimes uncomfortable with silence but not as much when it’s on purpose.

    It’s just conversation lubricant. If you feel like the conversation is interesting then “Have you thought about doing X?”.

    I can’t stress enough how much people will like you by just actively listening.

    But always, be like the British monarchy, never take sides. Instead propose neutral hypotheticals like “Maybe they were having a bad day”. I’ve been in my fair share of gossip but acting as Switzerland manages to just avoid most of it. When people say “Why are you hanging out with X” then responding with “They never did anything to me”.