[HN Gopher] The Albanian town that TikTok emptied
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The Albanian town that TikTok emptied
Author : hardmaru
Score : 62 points
Date : 2023-08-26 11:26 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.codastory.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.codastory.com)
| techwiz137 wrote:
| The curse of Eastern Europe, to die and empty out. It's the same
| in my country. Life in the UK and Germany > at home.
|
| And it's an exponential process, for every 1 person, 5 probably
| leave. My hometown was nearly 100k in the 80s, down to 50k if
| that by now. And it's mostly elderly, children, who grow up, go
| to the capital or just immigrate.
| epolanski wrote:
| I really would not say it applies to whole Eastern Europe.
|
| Baltics, Poland, Slovakia, Czechia, Romania and many other
| places are developing fine and less and less people are
| emigrating.
|
| And the picture definitely is nowhere near as depressing as
| Albania and this region in particular.
| betaby wrote:
| Baltics lost and continuing losing population for decades,
| however currently their population is propped by migration
| from Belarus (since August 2020 and then next waive after Feb
| 2022). Even with those trend Lithuania has lost 1/3 of its
| population in 30 years. Czechia and Poland has a influx of
| Ukrainians since Feb 2022. On other side Bulgaria is losing
| ~1% annually without signs of stopping. So yes, I would say
| the trend is very visible everywhere in Eastern Europe +
| Balkans.
| aa1234556 wrote:
| [dead]
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| These are the growing pangs of globalization.
|
| Abandoned cities will be everywhere over the next century.
| Especially after the population collapse in Asia.
| e-master wrote:
| My personal experience is quite the opposite - globalization
| allows capital to move to the lesser developed and cheaper
| places, bringing jobs and education, and over time an
| improved quality of life, so that people who were before
| desperate to leave no longer feel it's necessary. Sure, it's
| not as simple, but just wanted to mention it, since it's not
| as straightforward as it seems.
|
| On a slightly related note, I'd rather point the finger at
| urbanization - in my short lifetime I've witnessed multiple
| small villages (1.5 - 2k population) pretty much disappear as
| the younger generation moved out for multiple different
| reasons.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| The abandonment of rural areas and the mess that left
| behind were the seeds to populism growing in my part of the
| world (US). It was an unforeseen aspect of winner-take-all
| globalism-driven economic growth.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| Curious why you think that is. I understand that a higher
| standard of living can be had abroad, but there is there not
| investment interest in the country given its relatively well-
| educated but low wage workforce? The tug of wanting the
| familiar? Think it'll ever equilibrate and reverse?
| raincom wrote:
| Europe's Cocaine Tsunami[0], a documentary by VICE, is about
| Albanian Mafia and Columbian clan del gulfo. Here, you can hear
| about how Albanians in UK are 'enslaved' by Albanian mafia
| families, and how many young Albanians from Northern Albania
| leave to work in the cocaine field.
|
| [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTOwZxRT5Qc
| bluescrn wrote:
| Yet we're repeatedly told that every single migrant entering the
| UK illegally is a desparate refugee fleeing war or persecution?
| koheripbal wrote:
| Political talking heads spew hyperbole. Don't characterize any
| side of any issue with it.
| logifail wrote:
| > fleeing war or persecution
|
| Q: Is there much war or persecution in France at present?
| Glawen wrote:
| Did you mean Germany, Austria or Italy?
| logifail wrote:
| > Did you mean Germany, Austria or Italy?
|
| Talking about irregular migration, it's significantly
| harder to enter the UK directly from either Germany,
| Austria or Italy. Air carriers check passports and visas
| (indeed BA pulled a relative of mine this morning at a
| London airport for what the airline termed a "visa check"
| during an attempt to check in online).
|
| Paying a people smuggler to take you across the Channel
| from France to the UK would appear to be significantly
| simpler. The UK government publishes detailed statistics on
| irregular migration routes, and for the last few years
| small boats represent by far largest proportion of
| irregular migration arrivals, not air.[0]
|
| [0] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/irregular-
| migration...
| panick21_ wrote:
| If you are being told that you are following the wrong sources.
| laputan_machine wrote:
| > In 2022, around 16,000 Albanian citizens applied for asylum
| in the UK, making up 16% of all asylum applicants.
|
| https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries.
| ..
|
| What's that?
|
| Let's be real, there is no reason for any country to be
| granting Albanian citizens asylum. There isn't a genocide
| going on, it's a (relatively) free country:
|
| https://www.equaldex.com/region/albania
| logifail wrote:
| > there is no reason for any country to be granting
| Albanian citizens asylum
|
| ...and most European countries don't.
|
| Q: Why does the UK?
| throwaway751 wrote:
| [dead]
| TheGigaChad wrote:
| [dead]
| illwrks wrote:
| As sad as it is, it's no different from any country at any other
| point in time. In the past it was letters, postcards, phone
| calls, now it's just tictok AND youtube, facebook etc.
|
| Even in the UK the young move from less prosperous areas to more
| prosperous ones.
|
| Globally, people need to be educated on the reality of what's
| behind the camera not the illusion portrayed in front of it.
| WeylandYutani wrote:
| I saw a program once about Dutch people emigrating to Australia
| in the 1950s. They made a good life for themselves but they
| weren't welcomed with champagne and caviar when they came off
| the boat.
| paxys wrote:
| Social media's sheer reach and algorithmic targeting makes it
| way more lethal than postcards.
| illwrks wrote:
| 100%. It's pure exploitation/manipulation of the gullible,
| ill-informed and uneducated.
| [deleted]
| jmrm wrote:
| Totally true. In Spain happened the same in the from the 50s to
| the 70s with thousands of people emigrating to France, Germany,
| and other European countries, talking about how well they could
| live and how they can eat every day, but excluding how they
| live in mass in barracks away from local people, and how most
| of local people made an effort to avoid them to integrate (like
| making them go out of bars and buses).
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Mere mortals have no chance against the AI algorithms optimized
| for engagement.
| assbuttbuttass wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| " _Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents._ "
|
| " _Please don 't use Hacker News for political or ideological
| battle. It tramples curiosity._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| [deleted]
| aa1234556 wrote:
| [dead]
| noah_buddy wrote:
| The fall of communism was one of the largest drops in quality
| of life and lifespan ever recorded, IIRC.
| resolutebat wrote:
| Only temporarily. Every Eastern European country, including
| Albania, now has much higher life expectancy than it did
| during the communist era.
|
| https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/ALB/albania/life-
| expec...
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I'm not sure I'd trust that site. Its information on the
| United States is in direct contrast to the CDC's own
| numbers.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022
| /...
|
| It also doesn't reflect changes in life expectancy during
| COVID, showing a consistent 0.08% increase every year.
| Seems less statistics and more projections.
| bequanna wrote:
| I think you mean: the collapse of a superpower nation caused
| a temporary drop, the sharp rise in quality of life.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| To add a bit of context for those not too well versed in
| Eastern European history (from someone with a Croatian
| background): Back in the real-sozialist/communist era, the
| people didn't have much rights (especially not those that
| were against the dictators), but in exchange at least the
| government took somewhat of a care of providing everyone with
| a life worth living (notable exception: the remote areas of
| Russia that have historically served only as a supply for
| young men to grind in Russian wars) - it's not unlike the
| societal reality currently in China. The nation blocks,
| either the Soviet Union or the "non aligned movement",
| supported each other and distributed workload to make sure
| everyone (both in terms of nations as well as people) could
| make a living - even if that was often far less efficient
| than Western countries, because the Communist nations
| prioritized jobs for their people over having machines do
| these jobs.
|
| Then, Communism fell... corrupt entities took over many of
| the countries, only looking to enrich themselves, and as the
| international solidarity system failed against "cheaper"
| products there was no hope to keep the often horribly
| outdated factories alive, and at the same time Western
| societies hungry for more labor force (and way more
| attractive currencies) began to "brain drain" the former
| Communist countries.
|
| Today, the people may have rights on paper, but in practice
| they're worthless (either due to corruption or because the
| state is too poor), and society is crumbling apart from
| decades of looting and corrupt elites on one side and young
| generations moving abroad because they can't see any way that
| their country escapes the death spiral. Many people struggle
| with survival every day. So yes, in conclusion it's warranted
| to say that the fall of Communism led to a massive drop in
| quality of life.
|
| TikTok and the "gangsta" life style are just the cherries on
| the cake.
| soared wrote:
| > society is crumbling ... many people struggle with
| survival every day
|
| What locations are you talking about? Even from the article
| above in a remote poor town in Albania that sounds pretty
| bad, their society is definitely not crumbling and while
| poor, not struggling to survive every day.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Even from the article above in a remote poor town in
| Albania that sounds pretty bad, their society is
| definitely not crumbling and while poor, not struggling
| to survive every day.
|
| Albania's average wage is about 600-700 USD per month
| depending on whom you ask. Croatia's is a bit higher,
| around 1100... but the prices even for everyday staple
| foods are higher than in Germany. It's all shiny and nice
| in the tourism areas, but outside of them life can suck
| pretty hard.
| supazek wrote:
| You really skipped over that "didn't have rights" part. How
| many people were in Gulag? And you think there was no
| corruption in the ruling communist class? Corruption is a
| feature of any political organization and should be
| stopped, but money was just as much a motivator for the
| communists as it is for the capitalists. The only
| difference is that it wasn't available to the working class
| so they weren't incentivized to produce or invent.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > And you think there was no corruption in the ruling
| communist class?
|
| Real-socialism/communism failed for good reasons and
| deservedly. I shed no tears for that period.
|
| My point is that what came after tended to be _even
| worse_ - the post-downfall period, the breakdown of
| intra- and inter-block trade, the looting by criminals
| and corrupt (former) elites and other destruction and the
| resulting brain drain had consequences that have held or
| taken the affected countries back in development for
| _decades_.
|
| Of course the elites were corrupt. But there was a marked
| difference in corruption when there still was some sort
| of government that held them a bit accountable, or when
| the government essentially vanished and the criminals
| _became_ the government. Russia is the easiest example
| (because it 's best documented, information on the
| Balkans is pretty scarce): Your average Russian "elite"
| back in the USSR era, he maybe had a couple villas and
| Western cars, that's it. Your average Russian "oligarch"
| (or to put it better, kleptocrat) today? Buys a soccer
| club for billions of euros, has multiple luxury yachts
| and stashed away many billions of dollars more. Hell, the
| billionaire Russian oligarchs alone have a net worth of
| over 500 billion dollars [1] _despite_ the war, and that
| doesn 't include the millionaire mini-oligarchs. Imagine
| where Russia would be, had that wealth remained in the
| hands of the nation, and its leaders invested it into
| education, social cohesion and modern industry?!
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/russian-
| billionaires-...
| wddkcs wrote:
| People love to pretend that it wasn't the Soviets
| themselves that ended the USSR.
| marcusverus wrote:
| This is hilarious. The reality is that the fall of communism
| led to a total crash... in the proportion of humanity living
| in absolute poverty. With the vast majority of the gains
| coming from formerly communist countries.
| 542458 wrote:
| I'd like to see a source for that. I don't really see how it
| could compare to WW2 or the Three Kingdoms War or Taiping
| Rebellion or Great Chinese Famine or Black Death or either
| the Justinian or Antoine plagues.
| goodbyesf wrote:
| In comparison to ww2, the fall of the soviet union was
| worse than ww2.
|
| https://www.rferl.org/a/life-expectancy-cis-
| report/24946030....
|
| To put it into perspective, after ww2, the russian
| population recovered in a few years. The russian population
| today is still below their 1990 levels. In terms of
| population, life expectancy, quality of life, etc, ww2 (as
| horrible as it was ) was an insignificant blip. The fall of
| the soviet union has been a generational catastrophe for
| russia. A funk they seem unable to get out of
| demographically, economically, politically, etc.
|
| https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/population
|
| In the US, our population has grown 50% since 1990 ( almost
| 150 more people ). The russian population has dropped 5%
| since 1990. After ww2, russia had major population growth
| like the US. After germany and japan lost ww2, their
| population, economy, etc improved drastically. For some
| reason, losing a hot war ( japan, germany ) turned out to
| be much better than losing a cold war ( russia ).
|
| Think about it, we are nearly 2 generations into the post-
| soviet world and russia still hasn't recovered their
| population. After ww2, russia almost doubled their
| population in 2 generations. Losing the cold war appears to
| have demoralized the russian elite and people far more than
| losing ww2 did to germany and japan. Why? Who knows.
| 542458 wrote:
| I disagree on how you scoped the discussion on the fall
| of communism. Why are we scoping down to just Russia? If
| you scoped broader to include the other post-Soviet
| counties you'd include all the countries where life
| expectancy has significantly increased since then.
|
| There's also the matter of scoping WW2: I would argue
| that WW2's direct effects on thousands of millions of
| people deserve more weight than the fall of communism,
| which affected hundreds of millions. If we don't take
| this type of scoping into effect I could claim that one
| person's cancer diagnosis was a worse quality of life
| drop than WW2, and the discussion gets a little absurd.
| wddkcs wrote:
| Worse than the fall of the Roman empire, the decades of black
| plague, and ancient cataclysms that wiped out entire nations?
| Wow
| wiseowise wrote:
| > one of the
| wddkcs wrote:
| It was lost in the sarcasm, but I was trying to emphasize
| the disparity. The fall of communism wasn't close in loss
| of life or resulting affects to any of those of hundreds
| of other events.
|
| What's more, how many people did Soviet 'communism'
| itself crush? What was the life span of a Ukrainian
| farmer in Soviet Russia? Did that go up after the fall of
| communism? I can't see any decrease in quality that can
| be directly and singularly tied to the fall of the USSR,
| except for perhaps the dictators at the top of the heap.
| Arguably, those same class of dictators are responsible
| for repressing quality of life even after the
| dissolution.
| wiseowise wrote:
| USSR collapse was disastrous whether you agree with it or
| not.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-Soviet_conflicts
|
| And on top of that go over what every post soviet
| republic went through after USSR collapsed. Those
| countries were under dysfunctional system for 70 years
| and suddenly they're being thrown in a 180 turn economy
| without any institutions. Also keep in mind that majority
| of republics were left on their own and had to become
| satellites of Russia if they wanted to survive.
| wddkcs wrote:
| How do all of those conflicts compare to the 61 million
| people killed during the halycion days of the USSR?
|
| https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/USSR.CHAP.1.HTM#:~:text
| =In....
| FredPret wrote:
| So your plan is to force people to stay in places like Kukes
| for some stupid reason, when clearly they'd like to leave at
| the first opportunity?
| lr4444lr wrote:
| So it was the fault of free markets giving these men what they
| wanted, and not the prior mode of government's and ossified
| tradition's inability to deliver that way of life?
| panick21_ wrote:
| Its almost as if complex social and economic systems aren't
| magic and you can't just yell 'capitalism' and turn into the
| Belgium. Its almost as if just talking about complex social and
| economic system as a binary isn't a smart thing to do.
| JBiserkov wrote:
| Yeah, to turn it into Belgium, first you have to enslave and
| genocide people in Africa.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_S.
| ..
| user3939382 wrote:
| Only mainstream whitewashed political opinions are welcome
| on HN, anything too gritty and your text slowly vanishes
| from the page. Please refer to CNN and the US State Dept
| for acceptable political takes.
| supazek wrote:
| HN is exceptionally left-leaning. The only reason posts
| like that get downvoted is because it signals some kind
| of moral posturing that is completely irrelevant/unearned
| and exceptionally negative. It also comes across as lazy
| when people try to discuss some nuanced topic and a
| poster just blankets the conversation with the same old
| cliched anti-imperialist anti-"West" rhetoric while
| adding nothing of substance other than a wiki link. It's
| senseless. Go drill some wells in Africa if you want to
| help, your lazy "advocacy" is just annoying when spouted
| at people who don't hold any responsibility for those
| events and frankly don't care.
| user3939382 wrote:
| OPs point was completely valid.
|
| > same old cliched anti-imperialist anti-"West" rhetoric
| while adding nothing of substance > lazy advocacy
|
| This characterization you're making is what's wrong. It's
| definitely arguable that Belgium enjoys the prosperity it
| does today because of centuries of economic exploitation
| of other countries.
|
| You may disagree, but the behavior of HN both in its
| programming and users to erase valid opinions like this
| is ridiculous.
|
| > HN is exceptionally left-leaning
|
| You're criticizing GP as making blanket statements (his
| statement was accurate) while making a blanket statement
| that's inaccurate. There are political trends on HN but
| they don't necessarily fit neatly into left/right,
| especially given that defining those terms is extremely
| problematic in the first place.
| tristor wrote:
| > There are political trends on HN but they don't
| necessarily fit neatly into left/right, especially given
| that defining those terms is extremely problematic in the
| first place.
|
| That's because politics has two axises. HN is definitely
| left-leaning, but in support of social democracy. Hacker
| News is first and foremost populated by /hackers/ and we
| don't go for authoritarianism. We know that as left-
| leaning as we are, the only good tankie is a dead tankie.
|
| Some ideas are well worth discussing but never
| implementing, authleft schools of thought definitely fall
| in that bucket.
| user3939382 wrote:
| > HN is definitely left-leaning
|
| As I was saying, defining "left" is problematic,
| different people mean different things by that term. To
| me, left means anti-establishment, anti-censorship, pro
| free speech, anti war. I see tons of people on here
| defending censorship of social media ("they're private
| corporations"), pro Ukraine war. I see much less defense
| of the women's rights movement on HN than I traditionally
| associate with the left. I mean the comment I just
| responded to is a perfect example -- the guy is tearing
| someone down for pointing out imperialism from the
| Belgian government. "HN leans left" isn't something you
| can substantiate in my view.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| You're replying to a user named "assbuttbuttass."
| koheripbal wrote:
| Agreed. The account should be banned
| e4e5 wrote:
| You propose returning to communism because they had less
| freedom of movement and didn't have any choice tommovd
| somewhere in search of a better life?
| koheripbal wrote:
| You are confusing cause and effect. They left because Communism
| ruined the economy and collapsed.
|
| Capitalism is what is starting to drive some people back into
| eastern Europe now.
| epolanski wrote:
| I'm pretty sure these people had it better under communism as
| the article points out the place was much more liveable.
| wiseowise wrote:
| Ah yeah, famous "it was better under communism" until the
| unsustainable system collapsed.
| joshe wrote:
| Nice that social media is providing a clear pathway out of towns
| like this. Sad for the people left behind but the answer is for
| them to leave, not for everyone to be trapped there. And note the
| Eastern Europe is doing great at the country level.
|
| In general people should engage in more geographic mobility.
| epolanski wrote:
| Did you even read the article?
|
| It points at how miserable virtually all Albanians that get
| baited into traveling to UK have it
| joshe wrote:
| I did read it, this was a counterpoint. The article is lying.
| A small minority had a bad time, they did nothing like a
| comprehensive counting of everyone who left.
|
| Remember that a greater number of people who stayed would
| have died as miserable alcoholics. Women are still beaten by
| their husbands in small towns. Boredom leads to drugs.
|
| Even in the US suicides are 50% higher per capita in rural vs
| urban areas.
|
| If someone is happy in a rural area they should stay. But if
| they aren't and they get up the gumption to leave who are you
| to sit in judgement of how stupid they are?
|
| It is better to move out of towns like this. Better !=
| perfect.
| secondcoming wrote:
| Right, but did you miss the part where these young men are
| being forced to work for criminal gangs and the girls are most
| likely in the sex trade?
|
| They're also abusing the asylum process to get to stay in the
| UK. It's a massive problem.
| koheripbal wrote:
| There are always some people who stay, and always some of the
| children of the people who left will return to revitalize the
| area.
|
| It takes one or two generations for that secondary effect of
| revitalization but it happens as children and grandchildren of
| those who emigrated want to return to their culture and find
| land prices very low.
|
| I've seen it in rural China, India, and Italy before that. Even
| Russia had a large number of emigrant's (or their children)
| return during the economic book in the 2000's. Potion ruined
| that, and many have since left again, but it demonstrates the
| effect.
|
| Eastern Europe will be the same.
| paxys wrote:
| Get misled by a TikTok "influencer" and go join a street gang
| or be forced into prostitution in other parts of Europe? I
| wouldn't call that "escaping" anything.
| paxys wrote:
| I was just reading an article about an agency that rents out
| fancy penthouse suites, supercars and private jets _by the hour_
| to social media "influencers" who want to promote their baller
| lifestyles and amass a following. I see posts of this kind in my
| feed every day even though I have no interest in such content or
| the people behind it. It is a wild industry. 100% smoke and
| mirrors, yet teenagers and young men and women around the world
| are hooked by it.
|
| People going to college and getting jobs nowadays are "NPCs", and
| the only true way to live is to go on luxury vacations and drive
| fancy cars full time. How do you afford it? By becoming an
| influencer yourself, of course.
|
| The "hustle culture" pyramid scheme is going to collapse soon,
| and lots of young people are going to have a rough life because
| of it.
| latchkey wrote:
| Wait a second, are you saying that "accidentally" torching
| Ferrari F8's, is a culture that won't last?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXi-CV--Wq0
| woleium wrote:
| Sadly it's all getting rather Douglas Adams.
|
| Maybe Elon can send them all to Mars, along with the telephone
| sanitation technicians.
| soared wrote:
| I would like to read another article on this with perspectives
| from Albanian. I don't doubt that gangs/etc are taking advantage
| of immigrants, but the language used to describe innocuous things
| (rather than "growing cannabis" it's "adding chemicals" etc)
| feels like they've exaggerated on points.
|
| Additionally, though clearly unfair - 1-2 years of labor with pay
| seems like a reasonable trade off for the rest of your life to be
| significantly improved? Making immigration legal or at least
| legitizming parts of it even if the immigration remains illegal
| seems like it'd be a huge step.
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| People will read this article and draw possibly misleading
| conclusions about the entire country. Emigration is certainly a
| problem everywhere in Albania, but northeastern Albania where the
| town in question is located, is a special case. It has always
| been, for centuries, the poorest, most backward part of the
| country, unable to benefit from trade and intellectual exchange
| with more prosperous neighbors like other regions of Albania
| could. Even within the country people were moving en masse from
| there to Shkoder near the coast, or Tirana.
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(page generated 2023-08-26 23:01 UTC)