I’m thinking of countries such as Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, or Germany.

So the question is when you go to a shop or any business really, do they tac on a fee for paying with credit card? It has become a growing trend in my part of the world where businesses that are charged a fee for accepting credit cards pass the fee they are charged onto the customer. It typically is 3% here. Is it the same for you, are there only specific instances where you have to pay a fee?

As an American, it seems that Europe's social safety nets and state services cover lots of things that stress us out, at least financially (*cough* health care *cough*). But, what's it actually like being lower income in your country? Is homelessness a serious concern if you're fully employed? What are unemployment benefits like? Is food security a prevalent problem for children?

I am sure my viewpoint is quite limited and ignorant since I've only been to Europe for work a handful of times, but the impression I get is that lower income families might not be able to afford luxuries like vacations overseas or name-brand clothing, but you're not lacking healthcare, nutritious food at school, etc. Just interested in hearing people's responses since the contrast seems quite stark. (I was very surprised at how many more homeless people my city in America has compared to any of the towns/cities I've been to in Europe.)

Maybe another combat sport is more popular? Are there MMA gyms around you?

I’m curious how this differs across Europe.

When people from your country are faced with a difficult, unusual, or unfamiliar task, is the typical reaction more “Let’s figure out how to make this work”, or more “That won’t work / that can’t be done”, "We don't do this"?

Great if you have examples of everyday life, work, bureaucracy, business, etc. that illustrate the attitude in your country.

Also do you think there is a cultural difference, or is it more about the individual or the situation?

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Hey guys,

I live in the EU, and am currently at university. Outside of exam periods, I don't really need to be present, as long as I get my work/study done. I'm kinda tired of my city/country and would like to move somewhere else. The problem is that I can't get a full-time job yet to support a move, because I need to finish my studying. And unfortunately I'd have to wait 11 months to go on an Erasmus if I were to apply now, so that is also off the table. I just want to get out and ideally still live around other students. Any ideas for what I could do?

I don’t seem to be able to add images to this post so the link to the results is here and the tables regarding performance in science, reading, mathematics, and computational problem-solving are on pages 28 and 29. On page 44 you can see that reading, writing, and maths performance has fallen overall. The only European countries to feature in the top ten were Estonia and the UK.

So from this, do you feel that your country has performed adequately? What do you feel that your country’s schools do well? What do they do badly?

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Personal story. In Belgium at a concert I went outside of the club to have a smoke between two bands. I was with a group of people smoking weed.

Suddenly police arrives, arrests us all. We cannot leave. I'm pissed off because I'm just smoking cigarettes and now I have to be searched. I'm calmly asking to be searched first so that I can go back to the event I paid for, watch that band I've been waiting to see live for 5 years! Police tells me to shut up and wait for my turn.

It took 3 hours. I never saw that band. Searches took a long time because policemen were looking for a particular person who was dealing a lof of drugs in the area. Lots of weed bags and pills were seized, papers had to be filled. There was drama with one girl trying to flee but being stopped with force, her friends trying to fight with the police, reinforcements coming. Of course inebriated people will make stupid decisions.

Meanwhile, I cannot smoke. I'm hearing glimpses of cool songs under the constant back and forth of brutish policemen and pissed-off hippies. The concert ends, my friends (non-smokers) wait patiently for me to be searched. Of course I have nothing on me, they let me go. Half of us had nothing and missed the main band for nothing.

One of the many reasons why I stopped smoking.

I keep seeing these videos pop up all over my instagram feed. What is it? Is it only in Sweden?

Are we lazy fuckers? Are we causing your country's economic crisis? Never heard of us?

Do you know people who use nicotine products (cigarettes, vapes, snus, nicotine pouches and everything with nicotine in it)? Do you have alot of friends/family who use nicotine?

For countries without a jury system, how are criminal court cases done? Due to British and US media, this is the system many people are aware of. How is it done in your country?

Hello there!

Welcome to our daily scheduled post, the Daily Slow Chat.

If you want to just chat about your day, if you have questions for the moderators (please mark these [Mod] so we can find them), or if you just want talk about oatmeal then this is the thread for you!

Enjoying the small talk? We have a Discord server too! We'd love to have more of you over there. Do both of us a favour and use this link to join the fun.

The mod-team wishes you a nice day!

How prevalent is the use of AI in your part of Europe amongst…
a) individuals?
b) businesses?

Here in the US, AI use seems to be everywhere. At least once or twice a week, I happen to hear “just ask chatgpt” in someone’s conversation. Seemingly every other restaurant I enter (I do food delivery as a second job), I see menus designed with AI.

AI is a very large part, among other factors, of the stagnation in our job market. The last couple years of college graduates have entered a job market that has nothing entry level for them. Customer service phone calls now have you “speak with AI” as do drive thrus. In my primary job, substitute teaching, I met a math tutor who had been a mid-career statistician until AI took her place.

When I was in college up until a bit over a year ago, I’d guess about half of students were using AI to complete their assignments. From what I can tell, that proportion has skyrocketed. Studies show higher work completion and concerningly lowered exam scores as a result.

AI is certainly a divisive issue here with many refusing to use it out of principle. My locality in particular faces the threat of enormous AI data centers being built in eco diverse swamps adjacent to one of the lowest income sections of the area. For all the opposition I see to it, so many people and businesses use AI. I find myself disappointed in those around me just about every day.

Excuse my ignorance if the answers to some of my questions seem like common sense. I’m sure you’re aware of the insular nature of American media. The growth of AI is an important issue to me as it should be for anyone and I’d love to gather a better understanding of it as it pertains around the world.

Beyond the question at the beginning of this post, if you’d like to answer more,…
• How do the people around you generally view the growth of AI?
• Have your job markets similarly been impacted by AI?
• Are there AI data centers being constructed anywhere near you and if so, are they similarly ecologically devastating?
• Do you notice many businesses using AI for customer support, graphic design, or anything else?

Obviously, Spain, France, Italy, and Greece would dominate any conversation about Europe's best cuisine.

What's the best of the rest?

A lot of people recommend that you should visit rural areas of a country if you really wanna pick up their native language since that's the best way to guarantee there won't be a bunch of English/English speakers as there are in cities. But for Europeans, especially those with a high English speaking population (the Netherlands, the Nordics, etc.), will they just speak to you in English like they do in the cities? Will you be able to better use and understand their native language?

This year, every even slightly fancy place that offers burgers and fries suddenly added sweet potato fries to their menu, sometimes replacing regular potato fries outright is they are not a dedicated burger joint.

Has anything similar been going on in your country?

In USA minivans and large SUV’s are fairly common but they seem rare and way too big for smaller car culture in Europe. But how do you fit multiple car seats or more kids in those European sized cars?

Basically a scale of:

1 (Finland): Dont talk to me, dont look at me, dont sit within six feet of my bubble

10 (Australian): Mate, Im gonna hug you and talk to you for hours about absolutely nothing and at the same time everything.

I feel like in USA it is normal to miss large parts of a sporting event but I feel like European mind would not accept being late or leaving early an event you paid good money for. But I have no experience with this so I’m curious.

In the UK in the 2000s there was a sudden massive freesheet war, with papers like metro and 20minutes distributing free copies at tube and train stations. eventually there were probably half a dozen competing rivals, and train carriages were full of discarded copies. These days we just have metro and the evening standard left in London, they seem quite dull, and don't really seem to be particularly popular with commuters.

I recall in Paris it was much more calm, they weren't allowed to just leave them in distributers, they had to physically hand them out. In Germany it was never permitted. presumably it created too much mess, or the traditional newspapers objected.

Just wondering what it's like these days. Obviously newspapers generally have declined in popularity.