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Disclaimer: I am Turkish and I live in Istanbul. Well, you could say that the United States is run by a similar person. That does mean all of the U.S. is like

Disclaimer: I am Turkish and I live in Istanbul. Well, you could say that the United States is run by a similar person. That does mean all of the U.S. is like that? Istanbul does have a good intellectual atmosphere. Izmir too. I'm not going to say it's all fine over here, but it's perfect for a digital nomad. Istanbul, especially places like Besiktas and Kadikoy are perfect.

ciguy 8y ago
I lived for a few months in Istanbul and can confirm this. I was surprised by the quality of engineering talent in Istanbul though they are getting hit by brain drain hard these days.
- rolleiflex 8y ago
  Brain drain is real. I left almost a decade ago, and in the intervening decade most my friends also left - Turkish people of this sort generally do very well in Silicon Valley, New York, London, Berlin, and in others. Not that this is a bad thing. I don't see any reason for the great design & engineering talent in Istanbul to stay there, while the ruling government treats anybody who's not a part of their clientele (conservative, xenophobic, nationalist, authoritarian) like cockroaches. Considering they're only getting 51% even with the massive, massive practical broadcast power the ruling governments get, that's a lot of people. So we vote. In the best way. With our feet. Funnily enough, even Erdogan is realising that Turkey is losing a massive amount of talent on a month-to-month basis, in that it's been in a few of his speeches imploring people to come back lately. Apparently he realised when we're all gone, and when the construction / inflated real estate boom stops (which it did a few months ago, and the economy is in free fall right now), the only people who actually produce value are the people he did his best to alienate and scare out of the country. I believe his literal words in a national speech were: "Like, or leave" ("Ya sev, ya terket"). So we did, and I'm now paying my tax bill to the Internal Revenue Service of the United States, instead of Vergi Idaresi, and you know what? USA treats me with a lot more dignity and respect than Turkey ever did. Turkey is going to starve (hopefully only figuratively) before it gets better, and I don't have a big problem with that. There's no teacher for authoritarians like it.
fsloth 8y ago
"Well, you could say that the United States is run by a similar person." No, you really couldn't. While the US democratic system is augmented by a very strong executive position, he still is only the executive of the system with fairly robust checks and balances in place (which seems to be working despite intense tire kicking). US is not run by the president. This quora answer seems a pretty good 101 on the issue: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-US-not-a-parliamentary-system https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-US-not-a-parliamentary-syst... Just because a person tweets like an ex-wrestler turned autocrat does not make him so.
- chobeat 8y ago
  I would say that from an European POV, USA's democracy has been compromised way earlier than Turkey's. While Erdogan is somehow a new element in Turkey's democracy, systemic corruption in the USA has been prevalent for almost a century, while Turkey had a somehow solid democracy in place. Trump is just an error in the system, a person that is incapable of following the rituals and gain advantage of a low-profile attitude.
  - fsloth 8y ago
    "Turkey had a somehow solid democracy in place." The civic quality of the Turkish system has quite a troubled history. Turkey's government has been held at a gunpoint by it's military for decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat "systemic corruption in the USA has been prevalent for almost a century" I think that needs a quotation. US history is filled with genocide, empire building and after the 1970's, funnelling the profits from the economy from the employees to the capital owners. That, however, is not the same thing as corruption. We're not discussing who is 'good' or 'bad', but comparing the quality and nature of institutions on the national level.
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      AIUI the Turkish military acts as a safety valve when the government gets more Authoritarian/Islamic; the military step in and a democratic, secular status quo is returned. Is that not the case? Certainly the couple of military coups there I know of seemed to rapidly result in establishing a strongly democratic constitution and a group of representatives to whom the assumed power could be handed over to.

ciguy 8y ago

I lived for a few months in Istanbul and can confirm this. I was surprised by the quality of engineering talent in Istanbul though they are getting hit by brain drain hard these days.

rolleiflex 8y ago
Brain drain is real. I left almost a decade ago, and in the intervening decade most my friends also left - Turkish people of this sort generally do very well in Silicon Valley, New York, London, Berlin, and in others. Not that this is a bad thing. I don't see any reason for the great design & engineering talent in Istanbul to stay there, while the ruling government treats anybody who's not a part of their clientele (conservative, xenophobic, nationalist, authoritarian) like cockroaches. Considering they're only getting 51% even with the massive, massive practical broadcast power the ruling governments get, that's a lot of people. So we vote. In the best way. With our feet. Funnily enough, even Erdogan is realising that Turkey is losing a massive amount of talent on a month-to-month basis, in that it's been in a few of his speeches imploring people to come back lately. Apparently he realised when we're all gone, and when the construction / inflated real estate boom stops (which it did a few months ago, and the economy is in free fall right now), the only people who actually produce value are the people he did his best to alienate and scare out of the country. I believe his literal words in a national speech were: "Like, or leave" ("Ya sev, ya terket"). So we did, and I'm now paying my tax bill to the Internal Revenue Service of the United States, instead of Vergi Idaresi, and you know what? USA treats me with a lot more dignity and respect than Turkey ever did. Turkey is going to starve (hopefully only figuratively) before it gets better, and I don't have a big problem with that. There's no teacher for authoritarians like it.

fsloth 8y ago

"Well, you could say that the United States is run by a similar person." No, you really couldn't. While the US democratic system is augmented by a very strong executive position, he still is only the executive of the system with fairly robust checks and balances in place (which seems to be working despite intense tire kicking). US is not run by the president. This quora answer seems a pretty good 101 on the issue: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-US-not-a-parliamentary-system https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-US-not-a-parliamentary-syst... Just because a person tweets like an ex-wrestler turned autocrat does not make him so.

chobeat 8y ago
I would say that from an European POV, USA's democracy has been compromised way earlier than Turkey's. While Erdogan is somehow a new element in Turkey's democracy, systemic corruption in the USA has been prevalent for almost a century, while Turkey had a somehow solid democracy in place. Trump is just an error in the system, a person that is incapable of following the rituals and gain advantage of a low-profile attitude.
- fsloth 8y ago
  "Turkey had a somehow solid democracy in place." The civic quality of the Turkish system has quite a troubled history. Turkey's government has been held at a gunpoint by it's military for decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat "systemic corruption in the USA has been prevalent for almost a century" I think that needs a quotation. US history is filled with genocide, empire building and after the 1970's, funnelling the profits from the economy from the employees to the capital owners. That, however, is not the same thing as corruption. We're not discussing who is 'good' or 'bad', but comparing the quality and nature of institutions on the national level.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    AIUI the Turkish military acts as a safety valve when the government gets more Authoritarian/Islamic; the military step in and a democratic, secular status quo is returned. Is that not the case? Certainly the couple of military coups there I know of seemed to rapidly result in establishing a strongly democratic constitution and a group of representatives to whom the assumed power could be handed over to.