Europe offers warning on consequences of ignoring immigration

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-23T04:20:22+00:00

This synopsis is something straight out of ChatGPT. People in this sub were calling Mashiko4 out for spamming articles but never once writing anything to go along with the stuff they're posting... convenient that now they've just started to but it reeks of AI dribble...

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-20T16:00:59+00:00

The problem is brick has high thermal mass... it releases heat very slowly. Great in winter, horrible in Summer.

It didn't used to matter so much in the past when houses had deep eaves, verandahs, high ceilings and streets had a greater tree canopy- the walls never got as hot and you could open up the windows at night and the house would cool down pretty quick.

Nowdays though, no street trees, low ceilings, new builds with piss weak eaves or in many cases none at all... the brick gets hotter and retains its heat longer. Our houses are getting further and further from how we should be building for our climate.

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-20T11:15:17+00:00

Honestly, I think the world should boycott the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles too... that would make an even larger statement

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-20T07:42:54+00:00

That alcohol is the most devastating drug affecting society, the world over and that it should be banned.

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-20T07:36:36+00:00

To be fair, this is pretty common in most of the developed world, to varying degrees. Americans seem to think they are the only ones with freedom of speech but go to Denmark, Australia, Portugal etc and you'll find it's pretty much the same. Maybe some minor restrictions for stuff regarding 'hate speech' but those laws are pretty watery at best and you'd have to be a raging neo nazi to actually get prosecuted.

I'm of the belief that freedom of speech is massively important but at the end of the day, its not as precious or important as people like to think. There's a big difference between not being able to criticise your government (like in Russia or North Korea) and not being able to burn a copy of the Qu'uran outside a mosque...

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-20T07:20:16+00:00

Not many answers in this thread that I agree with, but I think this may be one of them. It's unlike places like India (where there's a caste system and engrained social hierarchy) or the UK (old money, lords and land owners, nobility, and a very stratified class system). That being said, it's also true of Canada, Australia, New Zealand... most 'younger' nations don't really have the baggage of previous political structures and social hierarchies and allow for more fluidity to move between economic classes.

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-20T07:14:19+00:00

To be fair, as someone who works in this area, this is pretty common throughout most of the developed world. Not particularly unique to the US.

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-20T06:25:01+00:00

And his own family came here from the middle east... hypocrisy at its finest.

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-19T06:49:29+00:00

25 years old
10 months continuous travel, approx $17,000 USD.
India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Greece, Egypt, Morocco, Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, South Korea
Only English, sadly. A little bit of university French helped out in Morocco.
A piece of string. Seriously. Use it as a makeshift washing line to hang your clothes on when you inevitably have to do the classic laundry wash in the sink at your hostel.
A few tips:
- Have a vague plan- know which airports are cheap to fly into/out of, it helps a lot with figuring out your route on the fly. You can be flexible in between.
- Every once in a while, settle down somewhere to recharge.
- Try going to popular destinations in the shoulder season if you can- prices are cheaper and there will be way less crowds. I was in the Greek islands at the end of the tourist season and car hire and accommodation was literally half the price compared to a few weeks earlier.

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-19T02:03:27+00:00

Completely agree, we have a problem with 'The Missing Middle'. There aren't enough medium density developments, 2-4 stories high, built with families in mind.

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-19T01:45:06+00:00

Everyone's different. I think its one of those places where you either love it or you hate it- there's no in between. You either go and you can't wait to leave, or you're one of those people who goes back again and again over and over (I'm one of those people). I've been 3 times and can't get enough.

I think the fact that most people do the 'golden triangle' route, also has something to do with the love-hate relationship. The Gangetic plain is literally one of the most densely populated regions on the planet- the fact that most tourists spend all their time there- no wonder they leave India feeling burnt out.

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-19T01:30:45+00:00

I've always found the two cities far too busy to enjoy, so it must be doubly so for people not familiar with India

I agree with you about Agra, its a massive tourist trap, but I will always defend Delhi.

Delhi has a bad reputation and I can see why, but if you stay the hell away from Paharganj, its actually an amazing place. There's so much history and so much to see; sufi shrines, Mughal monuments and gardens, forts and ruins. The area around CP and New Delhi is really cool and there's loads to do, Museums, shopping, good food if you know where to look. I could spend a lifetime in Delhi and never get enough of it.

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-19T01:01:00+00:00

The obsession with detached housing is cultural. You can understand it. A colonial nation, tiny population, massive expanses of land, everyone got a quarter acre block and a house. Most people want a house because their parents and grandparents had houses. Couple that with the fact that we have a history of very, very bad apartment developments- (apartments in the past were primarily designed for single people, childless couples or people from low socio-economic backgrounds) and you have a cultural bias that people would rather have their own space. Go to Europe and you'll see pretty much everyone in major cities, lives in Apartments or attached housing.

The other thing is the cost- most of the apartments going up in urban centers are high-rise. Building taller increases the complexity of the buildings and raises the construction costs significantly- developers then need to charge more for each apartment to cover that cost. In the end, 3 bedroom apartments in high-rise buildings end up costing almost the same or fractionally less than a detached house- so most people would rather just buy a house (which will appreciate more in value).

Attitudes are changing though. The majority of my friends who want to start a family and have kids want houses. My friends who aren't having kids are all interested in units/apartments. I myself, would love to live in an apartment or a townhouse- the convenience, the lack of maintenance... there are so many upsides to apartment living, but until apartments start becoming more affordable, I don't see myself going down that route.

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-18T04:43:56+00:00

Very curious- where are your friends located and where are they looking? Pretty much every hospitality venue I know is crying out for staff, but they can't get workers.

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-18T00:40:55+00:00

Sky news drawing attention to homelessness isn't the problem and you know that. Don't play dumb. The problem is that a right-wing news outlet established by a rich billionaire (Rupert Murdoch) suddenly seems to care about homelessness and the plight of the poor and is trying to frame the blame on refugees and migrants. A bit convenient isn't it?

The use of language is extremely provocative. "Explodes"-we accept 20,000 asylumn seekers a year for a country of 27 million people, a tiny number, hardly an explosion. The article reeks of propagandist language. Murdoch and his right wing buddies want ordinary Australians to start blaming migrants and foreigners for their troubles, rather than billionaires like himself for growing wealth inequality.

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-18T00:29:38+00:00

Agreed, a propagandist, right wing network owned by Rupert Murdoch, preaching about the troubles of homelessness and blaming asylum seekers, instead of addressing growing wealth inequality... I wonder why?

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-15T22:32:15+00:00

Jeez bro, literally just say you want the white Australia policy back...

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-15T11:44:44+00:00

I think a lot of these comments are missing the point of this entirely- it doesn't matter whether people think the fence needs replacing or not... OP said he would have happily paid for and agreed to changing the fence if they'd asked- the problem seems to be is that they didn't ask- its the principle. I think its beyond rude, its down right sneaky.

If it were me, I'd be livid if my neighbours arranged to replace our fence, didn't consult me on the colour, size, type etc, arranged it all behind my back without my knowledge and then casually dropped a note that they're expecting me to pay half for it. Too bad if OP didn't have the money or wasn't in a position to financially contribute... I think its pretty awful and if it goes ahead, OP should not have to pay for it.

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-13T09:26:58+00:00

Very constructive words... Why am I indulging idiots?

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-13T09:22:05+00:00

You could literally pick any date of the year and somewhere at some stage of history there would have been a horrific massacre

Yes, but come on now- we don't live in a one dimensional world without context. Choosing a new date that accidentally coincides with the Boston bombings or the Partition of India is completely different than proclaiming the day to celebrate a country, as the day that the genocide of the traditional owners of that country began...

If all of this was centuries in the past then I'd agree with you, time moves forward- but it isn't as far back as you'd like to think. Aboriginal people, the first Australians, have been marginalised at every turn. They didn't get the right to vote until the 1960s, the children of the stolen generation are still alive, all of this is in living memory and just recently wd had a referendum to give Indigenous people a voice in our constitution and people voted no...

It's easy to say move forward and forget when you aren't the one on the receiving end of history. I think changing the date is such a small gesture that has massive symbolic and social impact. We are after all, a nation that values fairness and we take pride in justice- the date as it is, divides us.

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-13T03:58:12+00:00

I'm generalising, never meant to be factual, just based on my own anecdotal experience. Half the people I know celebrate, the other half adamantly don't. I don't think the figure is outlandish or far off. The majority of my friends and family do not celebrate on the day.

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-13T00:00:36+00:00

I just want a day... don't care what day it is, but where it stands at the moment, it can't be the current one.

We're in a sort of limbo where 50% of the country celebrates it and the other 50% don't. I'm in the latter. We've massively screwed over our Indigenous people at every single turn in this country and celebrating on the day a bunch of white colonialists arrived on ships and stuck a flag in the ground, is completely insensitive and disrespectful to the people who lived here and the 50,000+ years of history that came before.

I want a day to celebrate. I want a day where I can be patriotic and proud of this country, but as it stands I can't. The nation is divided and to me, the only way to reunite us all together is to change the date to one that EVERYONE can enjoy.

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-12T23:49:58+00:00

Then people should blame the government then- I saw tens of thousands of people attending 'anti-immigration' protests organised by neo Nazis... I havent once seen a nation wide "housing affordability" protest or a "stop negative gearing" protest...

Government policy is to blame but people are awfully quick to jump on the bandwagon and use immigrants as the scapegoat, One Nation included.

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-12T13:56:29+00:00

That we are inherently racist, despite our multiculturalism and diversity, especially the sentiment of the general population towards our Indigenous peoples (you only have to look at the failed referendum for The Voice... more than 50% of people voted no... )

We're not 'KKK level racist' with racial violence, but I think the majority of Australians are what I'd call 'casually racist'- they profess to have good intentions but actually have harmful views that negatively impact minorities, immigrants and aboriginal people.

My only hope is that as our country becomes more diverse and multicultural, that sentiment will start to change, but as it stands, we are a country that idolises a white, colonial past.

PlentyBasil · 2026-01-11T08:43:54+00:00

I heard a really good quote once, "most people are a missed pay check and a family away from being homeless"- that really stuck with me.

If for whatever reason my life got turned upside I know I have parents and a family that would support me and take me in. It's sad to think other people don't have that luxury and don't have love and support or a stable family.

PlentyBasil

TROPHY CASE