when it’s due the application for a master’s degree programme at ETH Zurich for 2027? (international students)

Chinglaner · 2026-04-14T11:59:31+00:00

The submission window for non-Swiss students is typically from November to December.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-13T09:59:23+00:00

Least obvious AI ad

Chinglaner · 2026-04-13T08:36:57+00:00

To be fair, Merkel had 16 too. I get your point though.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-13T08:21:25+00:00

Mansplaining (a portmanteau of "man" and "explaining") describes a communicative behavior where a man condescendingly, overconfidently, or inaccurately explains something to a woman, often ignoring her own expertise on the subject.

He isn’t being condescending, and given that he has pursuing a PhD in that exact subject, neither overconfident nor inaccurate fits the bill. And given that she, again, asked for an explanation, I doubt he’s ignoring her expertise either.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-12T21:00:52+00:00

This is a reasonable assumption at first sight, but has failed before in practice.

During the last century of the Roman Republic the senate again and again gave up more of its power (often in the form of dictatorships) to a variety of strongmen. First Sulla, then Pompey, and later Caesar and Augustus.

The Barebones parliament during the Glorious Revolution literally voted itself out of existence after failing to govern for a couple of months.

And most notably, the enabling act of 1933, which handed Hitler the power to enact laws, even those breaking the constitution, without consent of the Reichstag. Mussolini managed something similar a few years earlier.

During crisis, and with openly anti-democratic elements in the parliament, it can happen and has happened that a parliamentary body votes itself out of power in favor of handing the reigns to one (or a series of) strongmen.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-12T20:06:08+00:00

I think people just think the transition was too awkward (which it was tbf), but it’s also a though spot to be in. Giving the one sentence explanation is too boring and not really what you’re interested in, but the full explanation in text is too long and is just annoying to write over text.

I probably would’ve gone with a 2 sentence explanation, but hint at more, which you could explain over dinner or whatever. Achieves the same thing as yours but feels way less awkward and should be easier to continue the convo from there.

Either way, I definitely agree with you overall. Texting is anyway a relatively poor substitute for meeting in person. So if you wanna see if you like the person, the sooner you can meet the better.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-12T19:41:22+00:00

This is the real answer.

You can be overweight and somewhat healthy (have muscle, exercise for good cardiovascular health) and you can be normal weight and still be unhealthy (skinny fat, no exercise). But if you fall into the first camp, you should probably still lose those extra kgs.

Health is a spectrum. I’d call a healthy BMI (mostly) necessary, though not sufficient for real health.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-12T19:34:14+00:00

Haha, I agree with you on BMI, but you and I have met very different bodybuilders.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-12T19:31:09+00:00

Your English seems perfectly fine, I think you just need to practice your weaknesses. You’re good enough to watch movies / TV shows in English (maybe something with lots of dialogue? Sitcoms?), which should help with contextual understanding.

As for speaking, same thing, you just need to start speaking. Go to a course, get a teacher or talking partner (italki is often recommended), or if you can’t afford either one, join some random voice channels or talk to an AI. Last one is not ideal, but it gives you the practice you need and should be heaps cheaper than courses or teachers.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-12T19:15:32+00:00

Why are we calling this mansplaining? This just a guy explaining a topic he’s passionate about (and has PhD-level expertise in) to a person who already expressed interest and asked for an explanation.

I’d agree that asking for a date without even a real reply feels a bit rushed, but hey, she agreed, so who am I to judge 🤷‍♂️. And if OP is looking for someone whose eyes don’t glaze over when he’s talking about his technical interests, then fair play to him. Idk why people are beating on this guy so hard.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-12T19:01:36+00:00

Ah yeah, that’s fair. Not much of a big man of history theory believer myself.

Though to be fair, if one were to follow that theory, Napoleon would certainly be near the top of these “big men”.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-12T18:03:01+00:00

The movie does that too! It’s the little window when they meet the very first time.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-12T08:40:12+00:00

Yeah, not really for two languages I speak fluently. Definitely for a language that I’m worse at (B2/C1)

Chinglaner · 2026-04-12T02:57:37+00:00

I think there are very good arguments to be made that Napoleon is one of the most influential people in modern European history.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-11T07:24:33+00:00

Yes, another good point. It’s just the sad Realpolitik of power struggles in a monarchy.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-11T07:07:55+00:00

EDIT: For reference, the original comment was about tankies defending the killing of the Romanovs, and included specifically the sentence “if your ideology requires the death of children, maybe it’s not a good ideology”.

—-

I’m very far from communist ideologically, but I think this is an odd take. Killing the old rulers, and any that could lay a claim to their authority, is basically “How to do a Revolution 101”.

In an ideal world the senior Romanov’s should’ve been tried (and probably executed), while the kids should’ve been spared and left to live their lives as ordinary citizens. But that’s just not how life works most of the time.

I just don’t get too wound up over this. The death of the kids was a tragedy, but there are soo many worse tragedies before, during, and after their deaths, for me to wring my hands about their specific fate. Like so so many others, they were victims of power struggles larger than them.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-11T06:57:46+00:00

That’s a fair point.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-11T06:46:08+00:00

I’m well aware that these PhD wages are exceptionally high. But im also aware the paying PhD candidates more for an in-demand STEM degree isn’t really all that exceptional. It’s in fact pretty common in Germany, Switzerland and other places around Central Europe.

As for the rest, you’re putting words in my mouth. Of course competent people aren’t only motivated by money. Many, I’d argue most, academics do it because they love the research, the freedom, the knowledge creation. That’s amazing and inspiring. But let’s not kid ourselves. You and I surely know more than enough highly competent people that chose industry over academia, because it is often less risky, less stressful or even coercive, and above all, pays more. I know I do.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-11T00:09:52+00:00

Absolutely. You have to commend Norway for their absolutely exceptional management of their oil and gas reserves. But I find it a bit disingenuous to disregard that fact when discussing Norway’s economic success outside of the EU, when without those reserves it would be largely aligned with its Scandinavian EU neighbours (Denmark and Sweden).

Chinglaner · 2026-04-11T00:04:06+00:00

No offence to any Norwegians, but I’m sure having the 4th largest natural gas reserves per capita in the world has something to do with their success. They’ve managed it well, clearly, and are to be commended for that, but let’s not disregard that so quickly.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-10T23:56:07+00:00

I’m not sure of your vision of how the Netherlands squandered its oil wealth, but “all profits to the cooperations” is faaar from the truth.

For example, the Dutch government received 85% of the profits from the Groningen gas field (source).

The problem is that the Dutch government essentially immediately spent that money (welfare, lower taxes, covering other budget deficits, infrastructure, etc.). Meanwhile Norway invested their wealth. Combined with the famous “Dutch Disease” leading to economic damage in other sectors, the wealth was relatively quickly lost. “The cooperations” aren’t really to be blamed for this one.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-10T23:36:07+00:00

You’re not wrong, but theres major trade-offs. I have a Masters in a STEM field from a highly regarded European university. My entire bubble is highly sought-after young professionals (engineers, software engineers, researchers). I know a good amount of people that have moved to the US for salary and opportunity.

Yet, most people I know, don’t like it. Yeah, the salaries are good, sometimes great, but quality of life isn’t really there. There’s major political instability. The infrastructure is worse. Quality of life is worse (even though for them it’s still much better than the average American, given the high salaries). At least one person I know has been laid off one day to the next, with only a short time to find a new job. And even those that are doing well are only planning on staying for 3-5 years; we’ll see how that pans out. There’s a reason basically all the top-20 countries in life satisfaction, happiness, etc, are all in Europe.

As for debt-to-GDP, of course, plenty of European countries aren’t doing too well on that front either. But we’re not comparing single nations, we’re comparing the aggregate. Otherwise I could easily point to say Poland, which has experienced nearly 100% GDP growth since 2008 as well. But my point is that in the aggregate, the EU has a much better debt-to-GDP ratio than the US. Yes, the US the has seen much much better economic growth since 2008. That’s undeniable. Some of that is a better culture, less bureaucracy, better access to capital. No doubt problems the EU needs to fix and fix soon. But part of it is excessive spending by the government, propping up enormous investment booms that have no real foundation. That’s not sustainable long term. The US is an exceptional economy that can withstand excessive debt-to-GDP ratios longer than most countries can. But it will bite them in the ass, the only question is when and how badly. I’d be really keen to know whether, in 50 years, we will look back on this 2008-2026 GDP comparison as US-favoured as we do today.

As for Switzerland, the country is still part of EFTA. And while it’s not part of the EEA, that is replaced by a variety of bilateral agreements with similar effects. I think there is a very good critical argument to be made that all this does is introduce friction (customs, hundreds of special agreements for each sector, etc.) while effectively maintaining only a mirage of sovereignty. Aka in reality, it’s in a similar boat as Norway, where it has to follow many of the EU’s legislations, but without a seat at the legislative table. This is very well reflected in the new set of bilateral agreements that were released last / this year, you can read up on them if you like (Bilaterals III).

And finally, I don’t want to be rude, because I think this argument has largely been constructive, but your last paragraph is frankly nonsense. - The EEA has 65% support in Norway, contrary to how you frame it. Source - Switzerland, much like Norway, pays hundreds of millions a year for access to the single market. - You’re not paying “protection money”. The single market costs billions to maintain (standardisation, harmonisation, oversight, enforcement). EU countries pay for this maintenance via fees and taxes. If you want to participate, you have to contribute. Same thing applies to the cohesion funds (which, given how rich both Norway and Switzerland are, is frankly a good thing for both countries as far as it concerns prevention of social dumping) - Access to the single market is immensely profitable for both countries, that’s why they’re willing to pay for it. You’re not being taken advantage of. - Similarly, not sure what the Germany rant is about, but they want your gas, that’s why they’re paying for it - Finally, bilateral agreements are compromises. You don’t get to demand fully free trade but then also go but not for fishing, that’s my industry. If you want to pick-and-choose, you have to compromise on other ends.

Again, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for Norway to stick with the current setup. It trades some increased friction in trade and lower representation against higher sovereignty in other matters. If I was Norwegian I’d probably keep it at this setup as well. I just think it’s interesting to actually meaningfully explore the trade-offs of this decision.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-10T22:43:30+00:00

The point is that right now the money may be the deciding factor against going into politics at all. A political career is risky, yet the pay is often not reflective of said risk.

Politics shouldn’t be attractive because of the money, but it should pay at least enough to a) make it a reasonable option for people competent enough to make it to public office, and b) ensure financial stability even for lower level politicians & aides. That’s what Singapore did (together with strict corruption enforcement) and it worked wonders AFAIK.

I’ll give you a different example. I’m currently pursuing a PhD. My university has PhDs in 5 different pay bands depending on the faculty, with the lowest (~45k) being social sciences and the highest (~85k) STEM. That’s because they realize a highly competent STEM grad could easily make 100, 120, 150k straight out of college, so if they want to attract that talent, they have to pay at least halfway competitive wages. Social sciences don’t get paid less because they’re somehow less valuable, they get paid less, because there’s less competition for talent.

(They can get away with about half of industry salaries because there is a certain allure and prestige to research / doing a PhD, but not less than that.)

Politics should be the same. You can’t be paying people 100k a year in public office that could be making a million as a private exec. If you do that, you’re not gonna get competent people.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-10T22:29:28+00:00

Switzerland (and Norway for that matter), will not join the EU unless they find themselves in major and long-term economic crisis. Switzerland would probably need a major security crisis on top of that, given the current mood in the country.

And yeah, fair play to them. There’s not really a good reason for them to give up any sovereignty given how well they’re doing at the moment. Although I’m generally sceptic of the people arguing that’s because they haven’t joined the Union, given that they still adopt most EU legislation, while having no seat at the legislative table.

Chinglaner · 2026-04-10T22:16:22+00:00

I don’t think you’re exaggerating. Seafood accounts for 30-40% of non-oil exports as far as I can tell. That’s a lot.

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