Local rules instead of global censorship

Where do you get that definition from? I've never seen email or RSS feeds to be considered part of the fediverse. In fact I've only seen the term being used for ActivityPub and Diaspora.

All of those were done by representatives and not the electorate though?

> The elites of those countries benefit way more from the influx of euros, some breadcrumbs are given to the people and then everyone stays under the illusion they are better off. The central bank keeps pushing money, Brussels and Berlin get happy about it until some external crisis show that the periphery countries never actually changed their ways and now are even more fragile to external shocks and even more dependent on the EU.

Are you saying these countries would be better off outside of the EU? Like, say, Turkey? Not sure I get your point.

> Sorry for the stereotyping, but this is such a German comment and so short-sighted that if I get into a long response to it my blood will boil a little. Instead, let me refer you to https://nntaleb.medium.com/lebanon-from-ponzi-to-antifragili... who maybe can get the point across better than me.

Not sure if I am going to read a whole article about Lebanon from Taleb, but I take you'd prefer a Grexit early on instead of the drudgery that is occurring now?

You know, at the time this was often discussed. The honest truth is that no one really knows, but everyone is convinced they are right.

It's really where two understandings of reality met.

On the one hand, you had people who believe (like you I'd take it) that economic systems can use reform and a collapsing exchange rate / exports to improve their lot with separation from the Euro.

On the other hand, you had people saying that this would, at best, eliminate decades of economic growth, and at worst, lead to explicable suffering and a mass exodus. All the while cementing the country in a low-income periphery position by virtue of being dominated by the EU central bank actions.

People who actually remember the pre Euro times will remember this situation from countries dependent on the Deutsche Mark, and will also remember that the Euro was - for that reason - France's condition to allow German reunification.

I guess I never resolved in which camp I fall. On the one hand, no non-EU peripheral country really fills me with confidence that this is a good position. On the other hand, perhaps Brexit will eventually show that such a niche can be found.

Jinba Tenzin has been one of the more prominent critics of it. He makes the argument that it's more complicated than just "outsiders" and "china", but rather that there's a whole range of overlapping, marginalized identities and strategic use of power-relations to evolve things according to various positions. His objection is basically that zomia homogenizes marginalized identities and doesn't fully capture their relationships with each other or with the state. The convergence zone paper is probably the one to read for this.

Caroline Humphrey also gave a talk [1] that I've wanted to cite, but haven't found an excuse for. She's not against the idea, but she brings up a lot of issues with applying it to areas like like Tyva/Khövsgöl, as these were clearly state-spaces despite fitting all the other characteristics. She runs into basically the same criticism as Tenzin in that zomia doesn't encapsulate precisely what we intuitively understand as people about these marginal border spaces.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297392497_IS_ZOMIA_...

Including active refusal, yes. It's baseline.

The "catches" to everything being free: - Cannot save any money whatsoever. As with all government budgets, what you don't spend is deducted from the next check. - Can receive a maximum of around $50/month from anywhere else. Anything above that is deducted from the next check. - Cannot own much property. They want you to sell everything and live off that first. - Have to report all your assets and provide bank statements to all accounts. - Have to be prepared to fight the bureaucracy. They make mistakes, and usually against your interest (we won't pay because X). Complaining has always solved all issues for me, but it takes two weeks minimum to get an answer. If you didn't file everything correctly two weeks before you needed it, you might go half a month with no money until it resolves. Unless you show up at the office crying. Then they'll help you on the spot. Information doesn't flow between departments; You have to provide everything any department asks regardless if they have your info elsewhere in the system. Often they require you apply for a different benefit first, even if everybody knows you don't qualify; They require the rejection to proceed. Add another two weeks.

And the real bummer: - If you work, everything stops. So you can't work part-time. You have to earn at least as much as the welfare for working to make any economic sense. It's annoying. I'd like to work occasionally, but there's no point. The choice is between doing nothing and getting X, or spending all your time and energy working 8 hours a day, five days a week and getting X+1. Some people go crazy without jobs; I'm creative and self-driven so I make all kinds of stuff by myself. It's pretty neat.

And there's always cash. What they can't track they can't take away... Gifts best given in cash. Unused budget best withdrawn from an ATM and stashed in the matress. God UBI would do so much good here. People stuck in this "welfare trap" could actually work a little to improve their standing.