Not only do they need to exist at the same time as us, they also need to be close enough to make it feasible to travel here and they need to pick us from the countless options that exist. With the vastness of space and the immense timescales, I wouldn’t be surprised if we never get in contact with any other intelligent life at all, even if there’s plenty of it in the universe.

Also, I don’t believe that politicians and civil servants can keep something of this magnitude secret for many decades.

But, hey, I can’t prove you wrong. Who knows.

It was 1 out of 5 people who voted, so 1 out of 2 in the US. I’m sorry, but just that’s just the way things are. Voting turnout matters, but it’s not like the people that didn’t vote would’ve all voted democrat.

I didn’t know about Eierkuchen. In the Netherlands eierkoeken (same word, but Dutch) are something else: https://www.recipesfromeurope.com/eierkoeken/.

For debit cards we’ve always used Maestro for as long as I can remember. Nowadays new debit cards are usually Mastercard or Visa due to Maestro being discontinued, like you mentioned. Back in the days we also had a system called Giro cards, but then I’m taking about the time when cheques were still a thing.

There’s also the option to use direct debits from your bank account, which we use for subscriptions and utilities. This can be approved using iDEAL, same as with one-time payments. This doesn’t involve Maestro, Mastercard, or any card whatsoever. Most Dutch people only use debit cards in a physical stores.

We use iDEAL to pay taxes, the invoice of your house renovation, your Spotify subscription, your utilities, you name it. Of course instant bank transfers are also an option, but that’s basically the same thing, but with more effort and room for error.

It’s based on iDEAL, which we use in the Netherlands since 2005. All the Dutch banks are connected to it and when you pay, you approve the payment in your banking app or website, after which it’s immediately deducted from your bank account and the webshop gets an instant payment confirmation. Variations of this are also used peer to peer, for example for splitting the bill or when buying second hand stuff. You send someone a payment request (url) or show a QR and payments arrive instantly on your bank account, without any fees.

So indeed, even though it’s immensely popular and widely used, it’s not a full replacement for physical debit cards and it doesn’t offer credit.