
Iron Curtains Considered Harmful - haywirez
https://haywirez.com/iron-curtains-considered-harmful/
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haywirez
I wrote this upon realizing that two more or less random historical events
ended up determining the entirety of my life’s course so far — the fall of the
Iron Curtain and the rise of the Internet. These two have their hand in
everything that’s dear to me, from the music I love, the relationships I have
and the things that enabled me to do what I do. It all makes sense, but I’m
still puzzled and in awe.

~~~
solvitor
Fascinating read. I lived in Bratislava in 1993-94 but I didn't have the sense
of it being all that crime ridden - perhaps there was more organized crime and
less street crime? I can say that after first visiting in 1990, the relatively
recent change to a completely open border was striking. We drove from VIE, got
to the border, and nothing but a sign - welcome to Slovakia.

~~~
rini17
Sure, one could avoid getting pickpocketed or mugged if lucky or took care.

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rini17
I am living in Bratislava, did not emigrate. It feels like living in story,
where despite most of the best and brightest people saying "fuck this imma out
of here", the potential is still there and nothing is firmly decided even
after 30 years.

~~~
peterburkimsher
Do you get the feeling like those who stay behind have reasons other than
money to live there?

I lived in Kaohsiung for 4 years, and many young people had chosen to move to
Taipei because of higher salaries. I imagine that the same would be true of
Bratislava to Vienna (or further). In Taiwan, it had a positive effect on the
city's culture: those who weren't interested in materialism stayed, and
pursued their artistic interests, family life, political activism, and more.

~~~
rini17
It's not about materialism, in the western europe there's better quality of
life, less stress in many areas. Such as cultural and law support for LGBT+
people.

I haven't left personally because IT salary meets all my needs already, I can
be close to family and because of my hearing disability, spoken foreign
languages are more difficult to understand.

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fphhotchips
I was very confused for longer than I'd like to admit because what felt like
it was supposed to be an article was actually a full screen spinning 3D model
of a castle that hijacked my scroll wheel to zoom in and out.

If you also have this issue, you need to grab the scroll bar and drag down to
keep reading.

~~~
haywirez
Sorry about that, I will get around fixing it.

(It’s quite an UX headache. Maybe only the middle 2/3s should hijack or the
embed needs a bit of extra padding?)

Edit: for now, it only zooms with shift pressed

~~~
fphhotchips
My personal suggestion would be to make it _much_ smaller (say, the width of
the text), but with a full screen button.

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3fe9a03ccd14ca5
> _It 's important to understand that these barriers were built to keep people
> from leaving._

This is the thing that scares me most about (real) socialist and communist
ideologies. People inevitably try and leave, either to protect their personal
property or belief values. And for those systems to work you need buy in from
_everyone_.

The result is always some inevitable flavor of political slavery, in stark
contrast to a government deriving it’s powers from the consent of the
governed.

