I considered moving there in the 90s. I worked at bell labs at the time, partially in Europe, partially in the US (Massachusets).
It looked attractive back then, but already "risky", (I had a wife and 2 very small kids, and heard of issues with health insurance from colleagues).

Then we considered Canada, which shared some of the risk, but less of the benefits (low taxes, high standard of living). I visited it looking for work and finding out how live there would be, and I found it totally dissapointing.

Instead we remained in Europe, and I am so happy about that now.
I would never set a foot in the USA as long as it remains so aggressive and hostile to anyone who does not "share the values" i.e. who does not become a fascistoid capitalist. The arrogance and loudness have become unbearable.

Government colluding with profit oriented firms is one of the defining characteristics of fascism.
From the article on the topic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...:

Fascism had a complex relationship with capitalism, both supporting and opposing different aspects of it at different times and in different countries. In general, fascists held an instrumental view of capitalism, regarding it as a tool that may be useful or not, depending on circumstances.[311][312] Fascist governments typically established close connections between big business and the state, and business was expected to serve the interests of the government.[311][312] Economic self-sufficiency, known as autarky, was a major goal of most fascist governments.[313]

That is not true.

Quality home batteries that can be bought now, e.g. from "Sonnen" (https://sonnen.de/stromspeicher/), are guaranteed for 10 years and should have 10000 cycles, i.e. that is 30 years long a daily full cycle.

I don't know why so many people keep painting such a bad picture of various alternative energy aspects, and alsmost seem to wish that no realistic alternatives for the current energy system can exist. Vested interests? Childish longing for fast and loud cars? Fatatism?

In most European countries you pay a tax on some products to pay for their (free) recycling,
because otherwise it would not happen.
The vendor needs to collect that tax and then is forced to take back products and recycle them.
In Switzerland it is called the "vorgezogene recycling gebühr".

This seems quite similar and not unreasable at all, and one of the few solutions to the problem of the commons.
I cannot think of a more ethical system that actually works.

Real communism doesn't seem to work due to human nature. Therefore all attempts have degenerated into dictatorships. Regardless of the origin and ideological justification, most dictatorships are effectively the same evil. The USA, if the slow motion coup d'etat of the republicans succeeds, will be just as bad as China already is.

I just came home from a road trip, 2000km, through north-western europe with a new tesla model 3.
I left 95% charged from home. The std. wall charger delivers up to 11kW (from solar panels).
22kW is usually not possible here, because of the electricity company restrictions, except at very high costs.

I only used tesla superchargers during the trip.
I forgot my type-2 cable, but there would not have been much reason for other networks in this case:
All superchargers were almost empty or at most half full, and available at convenient spots during the trip.
They have been open to other brands here since a few months, but I have seen only one other car at a tesla supercharger.

Mostly we had a meal or a snack/coffee during the charging, with a bit of planning (if there are no queues, hope it remains like that) you don't loose much time, maybe a bit less than when filling up gas.
One negative point: a few superchargers were up to 5km detour (we avoided those with longer detours and overrode tesla's route planning in one case).

There are no superchargers directly along the autobahn yet. I think that being exclusive to a brand would not be allowed if you want to get a spot along the autobahn. I assume it works the same way with filling/charging stations along the highway in the USA. I think that might be part of the reason that Tesla is opening up their charging network (apart from profit, hope they dont get too greedy).

In parking lots I have seen other brands being charged at 11kW with a type 2 cable. I think the rates are mostly higher than those of tesla.
I did not observe any Tesla being charged at a 3rd party charger.
But as backup during the next trip, I have now registered an app from a germanhy energy comnpany, for 3rd party networks that should work throughout europe. In rare cases it might come in handy to add a few extra kWh to avoid an extra supercharger stop later.

at every job I have had as a programmer since 1990.
Part of this is to avoid complexity like the plague.
I don't want to get support phone calls when on holiday.

And to make yourself employable by creating a dependency on yourself: it is unethical, it requires lying which is a drain on your mental resources and will make you unhappy. If you have happy bosses, new work will usually come.

If not, others will be waiting for your skills to make robust and simple solutions that keep working.

After their 100 year history of propaganda and hardship through totalitarism they should already have known better.
I fear there is something in the russian mentality, that made them bullying their neigbours for the last 400 years.
I hope this country collapses so hard that it will vanish as a nation.

In Switzerland we just had the warmest new year, 17 degrees Celcius yesterday. The 0-degree height was 3700 meters at midnight, never happend.

Climat change puts more energy in the athmosphere, the extremes get bigger, and the average keeps climbing bit by bit.

You can still run your own rss reader, e.g. https://tt-rss.org/
Google news still sends rss updates. I read google news, amongst others through my own tt-rss instance.
It has a web ui and there are ios and androis apps.

Switzerland has a thriving sector of R&D companies, in various fields including biomedical (working in such a company myself, moved from an EU country), and various other fields of engineering. It is the backbone of the economy, much more today than e.g. 20 years ago when the financial sector was much more dominant than today.

While I agree that brexit probably was a bad idea, and I would have hoped the UK to use its weight inside the EU to improve it, instead of leave it causing damage to everyone, I am not so sure about Switzerland and how wise it would be to join.

The EU does have some serious problems that should be fixed first.
Also it cannot happen, since at least 80% are against EU membership, and Switzerland is a real democracy with binding referenda at national level.

They are against (left to right, not only the right), because there is much to lose.
The economy is still doing much better than e.g. over the border in southern Germany.

The minimum wage is high. The EU demands (even now, just for the trade agreement) free access and movement of workers, with lax controls against wage dumping. This is one of the main reasons that the left are also against joining the EU.
It would lead to poverty amongst less educated parts of the population, and to social unrest.
This is an egalitarian and informal society, typical for a small country with high degree of autonomy, joining the EU would destroy that.

MSM is mainstream, the main stream of thought, i.e. most normal and intelligent people. They contain many different opinions, only from the extreme viewpoint, the "mainstream" seem all the same. Anyone using this acronym in that sense, cannot be taken seriously.

Apart from that, I agree that many newpapers and newschannels distort the facts. In the rare occasion that I really know something about a topic, usually I find grave errors in the reporting.

But the non-MSM, i.e. extremists, usually are even further off of the truth and facts.

Policy change is better. Many people will think, should I limit what I can do, so others can continue, and billionairs continue flying around the world in private jets?
Everyone has to do his piece, and this has to be enforced.
Worse, if large groups hold back, others might think it is ok to even increase what they do.
It is a game theoretical issue.

Personally, I try to be at the low end w.r.t. carbon footprint compared to people like me, living in the same country. I have changed my lifestyle somewhat, but expect steps from those that have a much much larger footprint.

The whole economy needs a "controlled decline", otherwise we will get an uncontrolled decline (collapse).

Still a step back.
I speculate, the reason might be to distract from real problems, as it will cater to some peoples nationalistic feelings.

Jealousy is good when justified.
Extremely big differences in wealth are unjust, therefore jealousy is good.

But of course, religion (10 commandmens) is once more being used as opium for the people.
Many have started to believe they should accept their fate and not be jealous, when a happy few are using up much much more then their fair share of the earths remaining resources and budget.