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Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥

@brainburnnow.bsky.social

390 followers 87 following 2.5K posts

Pebble fan! Cat lover. Academic. Sufferer of insatiable curiosity. Were aspiring to become an immigrant, and have, since early 2024, succeeded.

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Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · Aug 31

Been back from vacation for, oh Gods, two weeks now.

The time just before start of semester (and academic year) usually tend to be busy, bordering on hectic, but this year it's been something else entirely.

It's even eaten up most of my BlueSky browsing time! How rude!

Hope it settles down soon.

Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 7h

You can still move. It's harder, yes, but still achievable. Your absolute worst case is having to rely on the common travel area and being limited to relocating to Ireland.

While I haven't personally spent much time in Ireland, I'd still say that as "worst cases" go, 99.9% of immigrants envy you.

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Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 2d

a man is talking to a woman and saying `` so you 're telling me there 's a chance .

ALT: a man is talking to a woman and saying `` so you 're telling me there 's a chance .

media.tenor.com

Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 2d

But unlike us in the UK, there's nothing EU citizens can do to achieve FOM with the UK. Nada, niente.

For us UKians, it's a choice we made, not to have FOM with the EU. One we could, if we wanted to, attempt to change by voting for a party that promises to apply to join the EU, or possibly the EEA.

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Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 2d

And we could offer automatic residency with a path to citizenship for refugees arriving by boat.

For some unfathomable reason, we opted not to do so, and instead just apply the standard rules. Similar to how EU opts to apply its standard 3rd country rules to visitors from the UK, now a 3rd country.

Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 2d

I don't think the people who voted for this and supports it are prepared for, or even understand, the consequences of the actions they've thrown their support behind.

In the end, they will have paid with their humanity for something that will cause great harm both to them and their families.

Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 8d

Because of this, now most people both inside the EU and outside have a rough understanding of what the basic benefits of being part of the EU/EEA are.

Or at least that there are benefits, and that they're usually valuable both personally, professionally, and nationally.

Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 8d

Honestly? Yes.

Brexit has done a lot of good for the EU and EU MS. It's usually very hard to explain to people the value of intangible benefits they've "grown into" when no concrete examples of the consequences of losing them exist.

We (UK) graciously volunteered to provide such an example to EU.

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Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 9d

Well, I suppose it should come as no surprise. As he's keen to point out, his dad was a toolmaker, so it's natural that he, as his son, is a huge tool.

Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 9d

It appear I was wrong about Ian. I thought he knew better than to think the UK would be in any position to demand things from the EU anytime in the next couple of decades and before some major commitments, never mind just b/c the UKG finally has wised up enough to start more serious talks w/ Bxl.

Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 11d

To be fair, that's true, albeit to a lesser extent, even if you're a UK citizen.

Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 12d

E.g., the UK doesn't provide a good way to verify the identity of residents, nor a secure way to find/verify their "official" home address.

Hence the horrible and obviously insane kludge of trusting utility bills to do the job.

It practically invites and encourages fraud and abuse.

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Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 12d

It's just like with US social security numbers, the dangers and problems don't typically come from their actual purpose and intended use, but rather from various (usually unrelated) entities trying to kludgily repurpose them for other tasks that they weren't intended for.

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Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 12d

Maybe in Spain, but in a number of nations, neither ID cards, nor drivers licenses have addresses on them.

Where you live is irrelevant to the question of if you're licensed to operate a car, and since you're not your home address, it's not needed to ascertain that you are who you claim to be.

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Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 12d

For sure, but I was more thinking along the lines that the consequences ("punishment") for taking such inhospitable views of immigration are both automatic, as well as the seeds of the exact kinds of situations that many harboring those views claim as their most feared outcome of immigration.

Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 12d

"Can you tell me more about this lucrative career in divisive entertainment, and where to apply to join it?"

--
Just a reflection on how you chose to formulate that blurb for your article / job ad... Cost of living is going up, so a lot of people are looking for ways to increase their earnings.

Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 12d

I.e., you'll be almost guaranteed that those who come will organize themselves into enclaves, separated from the rest of the population and culture.

With little interest in trying to integrate into, or invest in, a surrounding society that's fundamentally hostile to them and their presence.

Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 12d

But isn't that the beauty of it? It's self-regulating.

If you're being a miserable twit about immigrants coming to fill needed jobs, the only ones willing will be those without better options. Even then, they'll do so only grudgingly and without feeling any loyalty or obligation to the host nation.

Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 13d

"Treaties won't protect you."

Oh, I think they will.

Not, obviously, if you're foolish enough to live in a nation led by Farage, but treaties will protect 🇮🇪, other 🇪🇺, and 🇬🇧 citizens alike, as legal residents in an 🇪🇺 MS.

Remember: In a calamity, presence of mind is good, absence of body better.

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Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 14d

Since several of the Nordics support multiple mother tongues, does this mean that someone could rock up in Reykjavik or Odense, expecting to communicate in Saami with the local authorities?

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Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 14d

Am I uncharitable for assuming that this article, and similar one, originates from these "part time residents" having found some guy named "Spain", and either browbeat, or paid, him to make some specific statements about his personal preferences?

Mr Spain: "I'd love for Ms England to come back!"

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Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 18d

I spent all of 2023 researching options, talking to colleagues in EU, sending applications, and towards the end, applying for work visa and residence permit, vet schedule for bringing the cat, finding accommodation, etc.

I moved Feb 2024, and started the new job March first.

No ragrets.

a woman wearing a hat and a tank top has the word ragr on her chest

Alt: a man wearing a hat and a tank top has the words "no ragrets" on his chest

media.tenor.com

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Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 18d

I couldn't emigrate while I could still benefit from the WA, b/c of family. (I guess I also held out some small amount of hope in Labor and Starmer.)

Later, end of 2022, w/ the obligations keeping me in UK gone, and realizing Starmer & co were serious about "Make Brexit Work", I decided to leave.

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Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 19d

If you arrive for the purpose of seeking asylum, it doesn't matter if you did so by irregular means that would otherwise be "illegal".

That's what I'm talking about - the confusion, obviously shared by you, that arrival by small boat by refugees seeking asylum is illegal. It isn't, just irregular.

Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 21d

Those irregular means are not illegal to use for refugees looking to seek asylum, so your assertion is factually wrong.

E.g., taking small boats across the Channel is illegal for most purposes, but not for refugees intending to seek asylum in UK.

Nitpicky, perhaps, but an important distinction.

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Brain Burning 🔥🧠🔥 @brainburnnow.bsky.social · 23d

I bet it's deportations!