The Importance of Being Idle

> it did not internationalise that the West was no longer dominant

Given "the West" means so many different things (sometimes including Australia), I'm not sure what you're aiming for here? Rise of China? Certainly this has been recognised. If you mean all of Asia, in the same way that the UK is in Europe but not part of the EU, then I agree: I don't think many have fully internalised how important India, let alone Pakistan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, have become.

> It has also not understood its diminishing importance to the US in the world in which its economy is proportionately so much smaller, and the rival superpower is in Asia, not Europe.

The phrase "when America sneezes, the world catches a cold" comes to mind. I'm told that dates to 1929. More recently, my understanding of the Suez crisis was that the US convinced the UK to back down just by threatening to flex one economic muscle; by some measures, that point represents the end of British dominance on the world stage.

But I would say that here, it is America rather than Europe which does not understand its ranking in the world: two of the common ways of measuring economies are nominal-GDP and PPP-GDP, by the former the EU is comparable to China with the US way ahead, by the latter the EU is comparable to the USA with China way ahead. In both cases, the EU knows it's not #1.

That said, during Brexit, there did seem to be a lot of unrealistic exuberance from Leave voters, so perhaps the lack of awareness runs deeper than I perceive…

Some smaller doses of friction include not putting icons of entertaining apps on home screen or removing such apps entirely and e.g. using a browser if you need a particular service. Making sure unlock requires entering a (long) code. Making the colour scheme dull, maybe B&W mode. Removing notification permissions as much as possible. Turning off notifications on lock screen.

If you read the whole fable, the hare lost because he stopped to lie in the grass.

If he had just kept going, he would have won easily. It would have been embarrassing for the tortoise.

I don't mean it in a clock more hours in at the factory way. Some people can direct themselves. But you've got to do something, even if only for the personal outcomes, i.e. comparing retirees who keep busy to those who do not, you'll find a significant effect on health, satisfaction with life. And of course there's a ripple effect on others, I am one who gets many presents cooked up in that workshop, and am hardly alone.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to engage in tropes, I'll be more specific.

Emmanuel Macron is so unpopular that he has to forestall elections until 2029 to remain in power. In the meantime, his unpopularity means France cannot form a government or pass a budget, while the political center erodes under his leadership, giving way to the far left and far right.

Angela Merkel presided over a disastrous energy policy (outsource the coal mines to Poland, close all nuclear reactors, rely on cheap energy from Russia) which made German industry, and Europe by extension, precariously dependent on outside partners which are proving to be very unreliable. This has resulted in reduced economic performance, increased consumer costs, leading to popular discontent. This coupled with a poorly thought out immigration policy are hallmarks of her time in power, the fallout of which Germany is still dealing with today.

Ursula von Der Leyen is a direct descendant of Merkel, but with much less to show. She was complicit in all of Merkel's poor policies, and has not been able to address any of their negative consequences effectively. She has failed to rearm Europe, she has failed to revive economic growth (indeed, just the opposite, embracing at times a de-growth agenda which might on paper be noble, it incompatible with our current economic systems), she has done nothing to reassert Europe's sovereignty in matters of defense and energy, she has presided over the worst excesses of the European Council, which counter-productively rob individual countries of their sovereignty through a combination of bad lawmaking and policy (see the Draghi report), and poor executive decisions (see EU forcing Poland and Romania to buy $2 billion of vaccines they don't need and didn't ask for last week).

I won't even get into Donald Tusk, Viktor Orban, Karol Nawrocki, Hollande, Sarkozy, and all the pre-2020 Italian prime ministers (special shout out to Berlusconi lol).

Finally, I respect that it might be bad to engage in tropes, but I think it's also frame any criticism as playing to the far-right. Indeed a big problem in Europe is centrist politicians have suffocated any criticism by labeling it as "far-right". Over time, as their incompetence leads to more criticism, they label more people as far-right. This has had the reactionary effect of pushing otherwise normal centrist people into the far-right camp, which explains the rise of Le Penn and AfD, to the point that about 25% of voters in France/Germany are unfortunately voting for these far-right options.

Any healthy society must allow for debate and criticism, without labeling everyone who disagrees as extremists.