People move to where they can make a living. Globalization has largely killed farming as a viable livelihood (in most of the EU at least), it's simply not profitable enough unless you have a massive amount of land/cattle or have invested heavily in automation (usually both). Without that important sector, it's doubtful the trend will reverse unless cities become literally unlivable or there's some kind of miracle in transport technology.
For Finland it seems that it is not the farming automation that kills these places. It is the deindustrialisation. Places die as the jobs die. And jobs are killed by big factories being closed leading to all other services starving. Globalisation is the killer, but via factories not farms.
The trend will reverse once we have enough people in positions of power both able to recognise and willing to admit that remote work is, for at least 75% of office jobs, at least as good as onsite work. (Not "without tradeoffs", just "at least as good, overall".)
Sadly, this is going to have to be at least a generational change, as the current people in power are deeply entrenched in the mindset that "managing people" means "ensuring butts are in seats", and that they are neofeudal lords overseeing their techno-serfs, which they can only feel good about if they can go aggravate them in person.
Even with opportunities for remote work, after having spent ages 8 though 19 rurally and in suburbia, you'd have to pay me enough so I'd be able to comfortably retire to a proper city after about 3 to 5 years. I've gotten to know myself, I'm deeply not into nature or generic sports, and only digitally socialising with people you share interests with (i.e. not parents and siblings) makes existence suck immeasurably (sure modern multiplayer games are a bit better than what you got over dialup, but still).
I'd love to have statistics on how many people can not work remotely because their partner can't work remotely. Maybe starting with how many jobs are office jobs that don't require f2f would be a good sample, but I've never seen such numbers.
> Globalization has largely killed farming as a viable livelihood (in most of the EU at least)
Honestly that was really primarily mechanisation and industrialisation. The number of people required to farm a given area of land has _plummeted_; in Europe it is still artificially inflated with subsidies.
I suppose organizers choose the easiest way to contact people rather than relying on one of the least-used messaging apps that people won't install just to attend a meetup.
Be humble (even more so as a junior) and accept OP's suggestion. You literally state "no tracking" in the footer (and maybe elsewhere) which means every techie will understand that there's no tracking at all (certainly not by Google or any other external entity). Either remove the tracking or remove the notice, otherwise you're being dishonest.
EDIT: I see you're also handwaving very decent legal advice here. I'd highly encourage to revisit your attitudes if you plan to learn and grow.
How do you think Google is able to track users? It's in part because of fools like you who puts their tracking script into the website. You're actively aiding this.
You're not required to do so, not for indexing in search engines and not for having visitor statistics (you can install some open source software instead).
I've spent years lurking on HN and I finally made an account just to tell you that you're the most arrogant person I've ever seen in here, and that's saying a lot given the user base. This thread is full of thoughtful, valuable AND respectful advice, yet you're taking out your frustrations on everyone.
If you react this poorly to all criticism, it's going to make life much harder for you in general and not only in tech. I hope you find peace in life.
>I have actually heard otherwise intelligent people say things just like that, including site operators who run nontrivial websites
This is an illusion we really need to remove from our collective consciousness. Running a popular website while being an ops genius, being a neurosurgeon who saves lives every day or being the world's best architect doesn't mean someone has sound opinions on topics right outside their area of expertise.
In fact, nowadays it seems to be all about appeals to authority which IMHO makes us more ignorant because many people seem to not think critically anymore. Instead, it's just "an expert said so" - then you look into the "expert" and in many cases they either aren't actually an expert or they're a paid shill. But that's a topic for some other day.
Google has routinely removed respectful, factual, but low-rated reviews I've left for restaurants and other places just because someone complained. They have also cleaned up or disabled reviews for many public institutions in some (or all?) countries. Then there are cases like Germany, where even a 3-star review may be automatically removed because it's considered potentially defamatory.
I understand that ICE is a very contentious topic but this seems to happen quite often in other situations as well. It's made me value Google Maps reviews much less.
I left a [positive/glowing] google maps review for my child's preschool, only to discover later the review was never made publicly visible. I have no idea why, and there's of course no appeal process. The experience leaves a very bitter taste.
Same - I had an extremely horrid experience at a local dealership's service department, and that one only appears when I'm signed in and looking at it, but doesn't appear at all signed out, yet the rest of my reviews are A-OK.
I think we've seen time and time again that self-regulation of the industry doesn't work and that businesses will gladly fuck over society if they can get away with it and make more money. Usually that behavior is even defended with saying "Well, it's not their responsibility to solve society's issues. They are there to make money."
Barring nationalization of an industry, heavy regulation and/or taxation/subsidizing are the only ways to reliably protect the interests of society. If some businesses get killed in the process, so be it.
»If some businesses get killed in the process, so be it.«
The problem with this attitude is that the rest of the world often doesn’t have these strict regulations and as result, businesses aren’t killed but just leaving the country.
If a business can't be profitable while treating employees, customers, and the environment well, then it going out of business or leaving is not a loss.
Option 1: “we won’t trade humans as slaves at all costs, even if it makes us less competitive in the global market - and we don’t hold that conviction about other things”
Option 2: “We won’t trade slaves - and if we find you trading slaves we will kill you. So we don’t have to worry about competing against slaves in the global marketplace.”
Option 3: “slavery is less efficient than having the same people as market participants - so I don’t consider giving up slaves to be less competitive”
Many more options, and mixtures of any or all of them.
It just shows that the whole point of "regulation is bad" blanket statement is an intellectually dishonest argument, as what most people actually mean is "regulations that I don't like are bad". In fact, the whole market vs state thing is very confused, markets are created by the state, something most serious economists specially economic historians will admit. It's no surprise that market driven capitalism has devoleped with the expansion of the reach and capacity of the state, and that weak states devolve into things more similar to feudalism than market utopia.
This sounds like you’re arguing against an invented boogyman.
For me and my experience, it’s reversed. Someone says some measured statement against a piece of regulation and someone shakes out of the woodwork mumbling something about some horrific thing like slavery.
Arguments of the structure:
“Aha, so you do like regulation, therefore you must like ALL regulation”
Or
“Oh, you oppose this piece of regulation, therefore you must want lord of the flies”
Or
“You only like regulation you like” (which is effectively a tautology)
People can oppose the burden of a body of regulation without opposing a government enforcing contract law.
And when someone says “regulation is bad” - a good faith interpretation of their statement is that they mean we have a large body of bad regulation, not that we should abolish the state and devolve into trading Monero for slaves.
... Wait, are you suggesting that no-one will want to sell clothes in Europe? Like, this regulation pretty much entirely impacts companies who sell clothes to consumers.
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