Do people have to sign waivers so phone checkers aren’t liable if and when robbers come and take the whole basket of phones ?

Having lived in many European countries, Netherlands was by far the most openly racist of them all. Especially during coronavirus.

Just browse a Facebook apartment rental group in Netherlands. Most would say “No internationals!”.

Imagine a society where such blatant discrimination exists, and you will see why such scandals targeting foreigners is no surprise.

Yes, the Dutch are incredibly racist (I’m Dutch, btw) but the “no internationals” isn’t because of the color of their skin but because they don’t stay around for long. With “internationals” (meaning expats and foreign students) you have to go through the hassle of putting up your rental on the market much more often than with non-“internationals”. “No internationals” basically just means “long term rentals only”.

Edit: but, in typical Dutch fashion, this essentially innocent statement is worded as rudely as possible.

As another anecdote. It is common for apartment ads in Netherlands to explicitly say “no foreigners!” in their ads. Which was a shock to me when first seeing them on Facebook by 18-22 year old Dutch university students offering rooms.

Extremely offensive if this ad would show up in usa or other new world countries.

I found Wikipedia most inconsistent when dealing with academics. Whether living academics are included or not has no relationship with whether they are prominent or influential. That is, May prominent academics do not have wiki pages, and many academics with wiki pages are not prominent.

Eg Donna Strickland did not have a wiki page until after it was announced that she won the Nobel prize. People who win Nobel prizes are not overnight successes and were prominent long before getting their prize.

My only objection is the food/fruit/vegetable argument. The best fruits and veggies come from gardens, most from Japan.

Random fruits and veggies from the wild mostly taste overly sour, bitter, or under or over ripe.

I never said from the wild.

I would not recommend eating things form the wild unless you really know what you are doing: it's a good way to get sick or die.

E.G: wild carrots and hemlock can look very similar.

I can’t feel sorry for people who take a line of credit and use it to put it in cryptocurrency.

Maybe its schadenfreude, but I feel they all got what they deserved. Trying to make 7 percent returns risk free is asking for hidden risks.

PhD in the UK is a different level of poverty compared with PhDs in any other “Western” country.

Can you imagine graduating at the top of your class and you living in London or near London on less than 20k pounds a year? You can double or triple that income in other phd programs.

The only advice if one really wants to do a PhD is to sample broadly across different countries and PhD programs and choose one that unlocks future options and also pays living wages.

> PhD in the UK is a different level of poverty compared with PhDs in any other “Western” country.

I disagree. I did my PhD in the UK, I did a post-doc in France and the PhD students there seem to have it just as bad, if not worse. From what I've heard from the US it's worse as well, you're expected to carry out teaching duties for pay, and your PI is more likely to string you along for 5+ years and stop you graduating since you're useful and cheap labour.

You’re right that France is also bad (also spain) but it’s better to sample around phd salaries in different countries. Roughly in euros per month:

Netherlands: 3000

Sweden: 3000

Switzerland: 4000

France: 1500

Italy: 1000-1500

Spain: 1000-1500

Germany: 2000-3000

USA: 2000-3000

Uk: 1300-1600

Note in many countries you get benefits like insurance, pension, unemployment insurance (basically free money after your PhD).

In summary, there are different tiers, and UK is at the bottom tier comparable to France, Spain, and Italy.

I lived in CA for two years starting a phd. Got 2k/mo, but fortunately on campus housing was only 500/mo. I actually saved 10k over those two years. Super lucky to have already owned a car and be on my parents car insurance tho. Would not recommend again.

AFAIK I've only heard of extra duties in the humanities rather than the sciences.

The thing that is so foreign to me in the UK is their academic culture.

There are people who literally think there are only two universities worth being at: Cambridge and Oxford. They are shocked when they find candidates from abroad turning down offers for permanent positions there or leaving their positions for somewhere else.

As a brit I get quite frustrated by this too. The obsession with Oxford and Cambridge is hugely frustrating. We have many really good universities, but somehow many people will just never be able to get over the obsession with oxbridge.

As a non Brit but had a permanent position in Oxbridge, my advice was to look beyond the UK.

Even within Europe, there are many institutes that are strictly better than oxbridge. If you’re a scientist, there is no point in being too narrow and confining yourself to UK.

I would agree though that at the undergraduate level oxbridge is excellent. Postgraduate what matters actually is the advisor and grant money.

Do everything yourself to show them how things should be done.