It was also great for me to pass by. I got attracted by the topic of this blog that I found interesting and deserving some discussion (I consider myself as a content consumer here, at my level of course as my time is quite limited).
Before going back to the topic, thank you for reading my texts. I am always pleased to learn that someone enjoys what I write about. Note that I would not consider scientific writing an easy task, at least if the goal is to share some current (and not necessarily click-bait) news with the general audience. The main difficulty in my case is to get the right level of complexity so that both readers can learn and understand something. I do my best, and sometimes I fail. Somehow I am here to learn as well. Interestingly enough, this helped me quite a bit to tune my speech when discussing with middle-school and high-school kids.
As a side (personal) note, I wanted to have a blog for a very long time. Having a family member well involved in Hive (actually Steem, since this was 5.5 years ago) convinced me to try this out. I hence discovered blogging and crypto all together. As you can see, I have never left (even if this family member did leave). I am currently quite excited by all new developments on chain and see this as a good investment for the future. At my level, I have my own little project (STEMsocial) that may become bigger one day if we manage to concretise all our ideas. In short, we would love to build on Hive a full science communication platform for scientists, so that we could get rid of the middlemen who mostly focus on click-bait and bizarre news and get a very nice platform were passionate could exchange with experts in a cool atmosphere.
Anyways. I will stop mumbling now. This different way of life that you mention is really interesting. I have visited many places because of my job (from the US to Asia) and the way people live is quite an interesting thing to compare. At home we often compare Europe and North America as my wife is from Quebec (which is somehow located between the US and Europe in terms of lifestyle).
Currently, Western Europe seems to move towards the American system whereas Asia (at least Japan, Korea and China that I know best) seem to follow a different and specific path. Let's focus on Europe and in particular on France (where I live for about 15 years). Here, the public system (principally education and healthcare) seems to collapse more and more, month after month, whereas the private options are getting more and more traction. On the contrary, the salaries often do not follow. This gives very weird situation that is not US-like but not Europe-like anymore.
Is it good or bad? I don't know. There are good things in the US system and good things in the European system. But there are also bad things in both (as usual there is no free lunch). What scares me is that only the worst parts seem to emerge... I see it in the context of the university, although we try to fix the issues as much as we could.
I suspect the aging demographics and lack of children in general will have an impact in the infrastructure of western Europe. It will be highly different among the 'new Europeans' who are immigrants.
That's tricky. Europe definitely needs immigration not only because its current demographics, but both to fill low-level jobs (which most locals refuse to take) and sometimes high-level jobs (it is nice to attract good people from abroad so that we could learn from them and improve). But for many, an immigrant is an immigrant and should leave. I have myself several times been considered as a good immigrant (even if I an European). That's a really uncomfortable situation.
PS : Let's hope traveling will become easier soon. I had to cancel a trip to Japan planned for next month, and I am supposed to go to the US in 2.5 months.
I know about STEMsocial. It is quiet out there which is a shame. If anything, during this mad time of pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories, we actually need to make sure that science to speak up. As scientists (I have two masters degress and a PhD, Geology), we are often not very vocal, and introverts (I am certainly not introvert). But statistics makes generalization. Our main problem is, we often can't bring the science down to the level of the common people, and we also tend to lose engagement when our ideas do not bounce off, or met with disagreement. We just tend to move on.
But these pseudoscience morons; they have nothing to do, so they keep at it for the longest times. In the present world, whoever is loud, is actually right. Can you believe, 'alternative fact' is now an acceptable word!! Shame on us as a society!
In fact, the situation was way worst in the early days (5.5 years ago). Flat Earth and other awkward stories were trending in #science. This is how STEMsocial was born, from the frustration of real scientists on chain and passionate STEM lovers. At present, the community is somewhat calmer, but we have at least constant and regular authors writing about legit stuff (about 15-20 regulars, plus a few newcomers who may or may not stay).
I hope to be able to contribute to a change in a mid-term future, but for that we need a working app in which we can really tune what we show (the trending category) from the chain content. As the two developers (@bambukah and myself) are overwhelmed with many other things, it moves very slowly. However, I won't complain as things move! When the app will be ready, it will be time to approach those who want to attract here.
This is very true. Many people have troubles today with logic and common sense. I also see that with my students (I teach basic physics every year to classes of 60 bachelors in science), and it is worse and worse with time. We (as lecturers) are aware of the situation, but the means we have to solve it are really limited (politics quickly kicks in, and we end being stuck). The society definitely evolves in a direction I am not happy with (and I thus fully agree with you) :(
Have a nice week-end! I will discuss the job of being a physicist (that goes beyond scientific research) with high-schoolers aiming to enter university next year (it is the Doors Open Day at Sorbonne today), so that it announced to be fun.
PS: I knew about the geology degree. By the way, we have a very nice collection of minerals on site (see here; the French description being however much more detailed). I have a friend who has a degree in geology and who knew about it, which is why I am sharing this information that may interest you.