Netherlands too. They are also banned during breaks. Schools where the ban had been implemented reported more concentration of students in class and more social interaction between students. Various studies show that contacts between students are returning, now that they are no longer hunched over their phones. There is much more conversation and social contact.
Just be aware that if you accept that non-citizens have no right to due process, you are accepting that citizens have no right to due process. All the government has to do is claim that you are not a citizen; without due process you have no chance to prove the contrary. [1]
Quite a coincidence, I was reading this LRB essay [1] this morning by British political philosopher and historian Perry Anderson, analysing the last decade of political and economic (lack of) change in the West. He ended with this paragraph, I had to look up "import substitution" and then in this thread about the tariffs I see it mentioned again, there might be similarities with Trump and Getúlio Vargas. Any people more knowledgable in Brazilian economics want to chime in?
>Does that mean that until a coherent set of economic and political ideas, comparable to Keynesian or Hayekian paradigms of old, has taken shape as an alternative way of running contemporary societies, no serious change in the existing mode of production can be expected? Not necessarily. Outside the core zones of capitalism, at least two alterations of great moment occurred without any systematic doctrine imagining or proposing them in advance. One was the transformation of Brazil with the revolution that brought Getúlio Vargas to power in 1930, when the coffee exports on which its economy relied collapsed in the Slump and recovery was pragmatically stumbled on by import substitution, without the benefit of any advocacy in advance.
Honestly wouldn't compare Vargas with Trump here. Trump policies for me seems similar to what the military regime did (1964-1985)
Before Vargas rule (around the 30-40's), Brazil was an agrarian state, basically commanded by coffee barons and so on.
Brazil got the independence in 1822, and abolished the slavery in 1888. During this time, it was reigned by Dom Pedro I and Dom Pedro II. When the empire ended the slavery (one of the latest countries to end), the military and the agrarian folks, did a republic coup. In Brazil we call this republic "Coffee with Milk republic", because it was not a democracy yet (only 4% could vote), and the power was divided by São Paulo (Coffee state) and Minas Gerais (Milk state).
It's a long and complex story, but in short, in 1930, Vargas did what we call "1930 Revolution". It was a dictatorship, he persecuted the Brazilian integralists (fascists) and communists (and banned foreign languages aimed at banning italian/german/japanese speakers etc). The dictatorship ended, he got removed, and later he comes by election, in the first Brazilian proper democracy, with huge people support.
Anyway, besides all that, he basically industrialized the country. Moved the country from an agrarian state to modern industrialized state. But not only because of import substitution, he created like Ministry of Health, Education, all the modern BR state that we know. Penal code, and everything is still from 1940.The industrialization was mainly led by state-owned companies. He created a state owned oil company (Petrobras), created a state owned car company (FNM), steel company (CSN), mining company (Vale), etc.
The development during this time, was basically making the state to be the one that would industrialize the country.
The military dictatorship goal was different, after all, it was a coup against "the communists", with the U.S support at the time. So the industrialization was also led by the private sector, protected by the state with the huge tariffs, and some areas they just banned imports.
Instead of the FNM car company for example, we had then Gurgel, a private company making cars.
Of course, a lot of these companies died when Brazil opened the economy in the 1990s, exactly bcause they were not competitive and wasn't exporting anything anyway.
But one thing that people need to keep in mind always, it's how all of that makes the product expensive. A car in Brazil it's way more expensive than in the U.S and so on.
It's a bit blunt summary. I will write a loose explanation based on a Dutch history TV programme's blog post, this event is called the "Lieftinck Tenner". [1]
A few weeks after the new post-war government was installed, all hundred currency notes were declared invalid, out of the blue. All hundreds could be taken to the bank, where they were put on a blocked account for an indefinite period. Anyone who could not prove that they obtained the money in a honest way, their money would be taken and they would also be put on trial for black market trading. It was a rare case of the burden of proof being reversed in NL.
The confiscation of the hundreds was only just the beginning. The next step was that all Dutch paper money was invalidated in one swoop on 26 September 1945. At the same time, all bank accounts were frozen. Everyone was given a week to bring their money to the bank. Everything was registered, including foreign currency holdings, life insurance contracts and recently concluded mortgages. Only the coins remained outside this purification. Salaries were not paid that week as not to disrupt the system; the following week the pay packets were doubled.
For a week, from 26 September to 2 October, everyone had to survive on exactly the same amount: the famous "Lieftinck Tenner". For a short while, there is total economic equality in the Netherlands. It was not a tenner by the way, it was five notes of one guilder (1) and two of one rijksdaalder (2,50). It was a conscious decision not to pay out the money in one banknote, but in different denominations because no one else would have change.
Lieftinck, the economic minister at the time, explained: “Money purification is not only necessary to track down black market profits and to hit those who have made black market profits, but also because, after five years of German extortion, we are as destitute as no one could imagine. Limiting the circulation of money must prevent disloyal elements from stealing all the available goods from the market due to their excess of money, whereby people with small fixed incomes will be duped.”
From 3 October 1945, the money that has been frozen was gradually unblocked and replaced by freshly printed banknotes. There are only a few hundred million guilders of new money available, barely enough to pay wages. Lieftinck wants to hold on to the surrendered money for as long as possible, to prevent inflation and to detect the illegal war profits. As long as the monetary balance has not been restored, everyone gets enough money to live on, but it is not much. In retrospect, it is unbelievable how the whole of the Netherlands obediently accepts that Lieftinck keeps the piggy bank locked up indefinitely. The realisation "that it is simply necessary" was so widespread in the country that there was no notable protest against the blockade.
(Also, in order to complete the monetary purification, Lieftinck introduced two drastic wealth taxes: a one-off wealth tax, and a special levy on capital obtained during the war. The latter levy in particular could be quite high: anyone who could not prove how they earned their money during the war was assessed 90% and thus lost almost everything.)
The monetary purification was not completed until 1952, when the last amounts were unblocked. In seven years, Lieftinck had thoroughly reorganised the economy. The monetary balance has been restored and, moreover, the banking system has been unintentionally stimulated enormously. Thanks to the purification measures, for the first time in Dutch history almost everyone has a bank account, which means a huge boost for the Dutch banks.
It is not sure if this move was also succesful in actually punishing the people that made cash profits during the war - there was a huge flight in capital goods of gold, jewelry, land, houses. Another example is a farmer laundering his money by buying a bull for hundred times the real price. Some researchers claim the government might have emphasized dealing with the war profiteers because such a radical national economic effort would not have received as much support otherwise.
If you work at a 'real' paper pusher office they have a three month calendars with week numbers hanging at every office wall, gifted from the wholesale and office center!
(You can activate week numbers in Office Outlook as well. Or go to ukenummer.no for simple display)
I know you can get to them - but people just don't have them at hand most of the time, in most places :) (My Android phone doesn't display them by default but I've not looked around)
Then you are not aware of all printed papers. As someone outside the USA, my local university library already stocks two - Harper's Magazine and The New York Review of Books (not related to the NYT book section at all). They both have an independent editorial board and decades of dedication to journalism.
See also social acceleration [1], from German sociologist and political scientist Hartmut Rosa. Rosa argues that this current culture leads to a crisis in democratic self-determination, as the current quick demands of modern society often conflict with the slower, more reflective processes that democracy requires. The pressure to respond quickly can make democratic governance appear dysfunctional, as governments find it increasingly difficult to react to the complex issues of today within tight time constraints.
Gen Z affect? This Substack post has all the staples of a Millenial tumblr blog post, not only the lack of uppercase but also the whimsical drawings of cherished children books to emphasise the “vibe”, and the whole thesis of the post is basically promoting the hipster “”“authenticity “”” (using hipster runoff inspired use of quotes on purpose here)
Man I do the quote thing and couldn't tell remember where I'd picked up that particular affect. HRO is a pretty good guess. Maybe Carles is in web heaven with MySpace Tom.
Rest of World had an informative article about Xiaohongshu few months ago, it seems indeed to be a combination of Instagram and Tripadvisor. Chinese people that are able to travel are using it to find the "authentic" places.
It's also TIGHTLY controlled, with people complaining on Twitter and elsewhere that their posts are under 48 hour review before posting. The rules are also quite strict around LGBT issues etc, and not in favor.
Most of all though it's just a very silly protest, given that the "tiktok ban bill" is really a "hostile foreign-power controlled platform divestment bill" so Xiaohongshu will just be next on the block in the unlikely event that it becomes popular.
Dutch Government research: https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/rapporten/2024/07/12...