Nazis are leading in the polls in the UK, perhaps they figured West’s antisemitic comments would make for a good selling point.

Single-transferable vote with multi-member districts is not really a proportional system. Due to the necessarily small number of seats per district, it favours the larger parties, though not by as much as first-past-the-post or STV with single-member districts.

If you consider the political dynamics of systems with open-list PR, closed-list PR and MMR, the difference actually isn’t all that significant. The average person doesn’t have the time to investigate the merits of each candidate, so in these systems most people vote according to party preference, perhaps also considering the charisma of its leader. Of these systems, MMR is probably the least effective, since it requires an electoral threshold (5% is chosen in both Germany and New Zealand) to keep the system workable. This electoral threshold again favours the larger parties, and skews the system away from proportionality.

The top of the global quality-of-life rankings is dominated by countries using open and semi-closed PR.

Do you think this is helpful advice for someone who has already decided they want a photographer and have budgeted for it?

I think it’s good advice, which is unlikely to be followed in this case.

It’s cool that you didn’t feel the need for photos. I will point out that physical photos are one of the first items people try to grab when there’s a fire or other disaster that forces them from their homes.

All the more reason not to have them.

Different people will place different priorities on wedding events. It’s ok for OP to want to have photos of their wedding.

I think it’s OK for OP and anyone else to ignore my advice in this case.

Just don’t have one and save some money. My wife and I never miss having a wedding photo album. We also didn’t have a wedding, which helped mitigate the need for a photographer.

NFTs are not a good comparison, because NFTs were only ever a gambling instrument, lacking any practical application.

Instead, the dotcom bubble is a better comparison. E-commerce didn’t go away after the bubble burst. Likewise, AI will continue to have applications and be part of the economy - as it also was prior to the LLM-driven boom. It’s just that some of the more bullshitty aspects will disappear, and the remainder will have more sensible market valuations.

You can just hire a shipping container and send your stuff. Will cost you a couple grand.

I have lived in a couple of different countries and in total moved about 20 times or so. It’s really not that big a deal, but I do recommend throwing away most of your stuff. Most of what we have fits in a few boxes, aside from some cheap furniture.

Now is a good time to move away from the US because you are ahead of the large refugee waves that will come if and when things get really bad (but even if they don’t, it’s unlikely the US is going to catch up to Northern Europe economically any time soon). You do need to have a job lined up though, no Nordic country is going to give you a residence permit just because your grandparents were from there.