Beyond The Bubble

Andras Baneth
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Conversations with expats and locals in Brussels on their stories and ideas about the world. We discuss politics, global issues, AI, business, technology, society, ethics, religion, communication, marketing, psychology, self-discovery and more, to understand the world beyond the EU and outside our current paradigm.

  1. 2d ago

    #51: Being a Socialist MEP; Working-Class Issues; Integration vs Assimilation; Rise of AfD; Social Democracy

    German Socialist MEP Sabrina, 27 and the European Parliament’s second-youngest member, describes coming from a worker’s family in northeastern Germany shaped by post-unification unemployment and poverty, which drove her early activism, joining the SPD youth wing at 14 and helping migrants during the 2015 refugee arrivals. She argues Europe needs younger and more diverse perspectives, links EU policymaking to daily life through regional development funding, the European Social Fund, and Erasmus+, and stresses politicians must communicate EU work locally.  Sabrina discusses East–West inequality in Germany and the EU, migration and the AfD’s rise as a failure of integration structures rather than migrants themselves, and the importance of integration without assimilation.  She critiques social democrats’ loss of trust due to inconsistent delivery, highlights Europe’s global dependencies, and calls for clearer values, consistency, and humility in politics. 01:49 Meet Sabrina 03:06 From Worker Roots 04:37 Youth Activism 08:42 Making EU Real 11:22 East West Divide 13:26 AfD And Migration 15:49 Integration Not Assimilation 19:19 Culture And Belonging 23:24 Structures And Segregation 27:36 Trust In Social Democrats 29:18 Global Pressures 33:18 Finding Her Place 37:19 Age And Respect 38:54 Germanys New Role 42:25 Make Social Democrats Clear 44:06 Career Advice And Goodbye

  2. Oct 15

    #50: The EU Bubble; Getting a Career; Work-Life Balance; Overcoming Temporariness; Becoming a Local

    In this episode of Beyond the Bubble, Andras speaks with Dutch EU civil servant Jeroen Reijnen about his book Big In Brussels: The Art of Working and Living in the EU Bubble, which blends career guidance with a personal and human look at life around the EU institutions.  Jeroen recounts his path from early internships to 17 years in a liberal political group in the European Parliament and then to the European Commission, and explains how interviews and lunches with people across the Brussels ecosystem shaped the book’s focus on both getting in and thriving.  They discuss the differences between careers inside and outside the institutions, personality fit across workplaces, and how Brussels has shifted from big-idea building to crisis management.  Jeroen emphasizes avoiding burnout and loneliness, building roots in Belgium, reaching out proactively to build opportunities, and balancing ambition with a good life and family. 02:03 Welcome and Guest Intro 02:45 Jeroen’s Brussels Journey 04:02 Why He Wrote the Book 06:04 Inside the Book Structure 09:14 Imposter Syndrome and Persistence 11:09 Career Lessons From Interviews 13:37 Institutions vs Bubble Careers 16:22 Personality Types and Fit 18:55 Risk Aversion and Crisis Mode 21:39 Why Brussels Still Attracts 25:54 Power Debate and Federalism 27:38 Escaping the Bubble 30:52 How Not to Go Nuts 32:51 Career Family Balance 34:03 Loneliness In The Bubble 35:51 Putting Down Roots 38:21 Expat Phases Mindset 41:25 Learning To Love Brussels 44:26 Advice For Newcomers 46:18 Why He Wrote The Book 48:19 Skills Networking Hustle 52:49 Stop Complaining Engage 54:04 Big Brussels Takeaways 56:26 Final Card Reflection

  3. Oct 8

    #49: Israel and Palestine in the Classroom; Fighting Extremism; Molenbeek; Critical Thinking

    Andras interviews Mohamad, a Lebanon-born Palestinian who moved to Belgium in 2000 and works with students on dialogue, extremism prevention and also serves in the Belgian army reserve, and Eric, a Brussels teacher and former school director raised in Molenbeek who studied religious sciences and researched radicalization among local youth. They discuss how “radicalization” can mean returning to roots, but becomes dangerous as extremism when ideas are imposed through verbal or physical violence, and they describe classroom red flags such as students withdrawing from discussion or trying to influence peers. Both emphasize critical thinking, contextual historical and anthropological readings of religious texts, and using questioning rather than preaching, including when discussing (2023) October 7 and Hamas’s instrumentalization of Islam. They describe a school dialogue project that displayed Israeli and Palestinian flags together as a peace symbol and presented at the European Parliament.02:10 -- Meet the Guests02:48 -- Mohammed's Journey03:38 -- Eric's Roots and Research06:22 -- Radicalization vs Extremism08:18 -- Spotting Red Flags11:30 -- Mohammed's Classroom Approach15:31 -- Teaching Religion Without Theology19:15 -- Islam and Peace Messaging25:32 -- Reading Texts in Context Today27:06 -- Reform and Modern Values Debate33:09 -- Politics Culture and Muslim Societies34:38 -- Islam vs Culture in Practice36:40 -- Text Over Tradition37:31 -- Challenged Palestinian Identity39:07 -- How Islam Gets Weaponized41:41 -- Ignorance And Manipulation43:16 -- Gaza Fear And Silence46:17 -- Two Flags In School53:33 -- Rules Over Indoctrination56:25 -- Beyond Binary Thinking59:26 -- Dialogue As The Only Way01:01:22 -- Closing Cards And Integrity

  4. Oct 1

    #48: Memory & Forgetting; How We Remember; Inception; Neuro-Inspired AI; Consciousness

    In this episode, Andras speaks with Tomás Ryan,neuroscience researcher about what neuroscience is as an integrative field and how he moved from genetics into studying memory. They discuss cognition, thought, and consciousness, why brain-as-computer analogies can mislead, and what we actually know about how information is stored in neural circuits. The conversation focuses on “memory engrams” - physical traces that enable recall - how optogenetics and activity-based tagging made engrams experimentally accessible, and landmark mouse studies that reactivated or even implantedmemories. The guest explains findings that many forms of forgetting and amnesia reflect retrieval failure rather than erased memories, and explores adaptive forgetting, emotion, PTSD as a disorder of remembering, and the possibility that memory evolved to predict and regulate bodily physiology (temperature,infection, metabolism). They close on neuroscience tools, AI limits and neuro-inspired AI, transgenerational effects, and the realities of running a lab and advocating for science.   02:45 What Neuroscience Means 04:09 From Genetics to Memory 06:12 Life as a Scientist 09:23 Defining Cognition 12:57 Brain vs Computer Analogies 18:26 Where Memory Lives 19:47 Engrams Explained 22:42 Optogenetics Breakthrough 26:10 Activating False Memories 28:41 Forgetting and Retrieval 33:45 Latent Memories Worldwide 35:02 Attention Makes Memories 36:23 Stable Yet Plastic 37:28 Adaptive Forgetting Logic 43:28 Episodic Memory Assembly 44:57 Forgetting Spectrum Extremes 46:50 Neuroscience Tech and AI 50:11 Prediction and Consciousness 52:22 Embodied Memory and Health 57:25 Epigenetic Memory Debate 01:00:24 Science Advocacy and Lab Life

  5. Sep 20

    #47: China's Innovation Playbook; Bottom-Up Tech; Directed Autonomy; Going Global

    In this conversation, sinologist and keynote speaker PascalCoppens discusses his book China’sNext Miracle and argues that most Western coveragefocuses too much on top-down politics while missing bottom-up forcesshaping China’s innovation. Pascal gives a detailed explanation ofhow China is engineering its way out of problems like the real-estatebubble, why technology is viewed as a positive societal upgrade, andhow “digitally enhanced directed autonomy” enables decentralizedexperimentation in government and companies. In the conversation, Andras asks abouthow Western idea-first innovation contrasts with China’smarket-first, fast-iteration model, using BYD and Xiaomi as examples,and describes China’s “new quality productive forces” agenda toshift from construction-led growth to knowledge, automation, and highproductivity, supported by millions of STEM graduates. The conversation includes privacyperceptions, globalization, advice for foreign firms to treat Chinaas a “gym,” and China’s growing role in the Global South. 02:47 – Welcome and New Book 03:20 – Becoming a Sinologist 04:32 – Explaining China to Business 06:29 – Bias and Media Narratives 08:06 – The Real Estate Bubble Explained 14:30 – From Cement to Tech: Technology as aSocial Upgrade 20:50 – Privacy, Distrust & DigitallyEnhanced Directed Autonomy 31:28 – The Fosbury Flop: China’s IterationPlaybook 37:30 – Feedback as Product: Apple vs. Xiaomi 40:12 – New Quality Productive Forces & DarkFactories 44:07 – STEM Talent & Demographics 49:59 – Going Global: Why China is Your Business"Gym" 58:50 – DeepSeek & China’s Role in theGlobal South

  6. Sep 10

    #46: “South Woman” in North Korea: being undocumented US childhood to North Korea work.

    Sun shares how she was born in the US andkept moving frequently as the child of undocumented parents. Once she was detained in Maryland, separated from her parents and placed with a foster family, then deported to Seoul at age eight. She describes adapting to Korea’s communalculture, the intense education-and-work ethos of the 1980s -90s, and later returning to the US for Rutgers and graduate school before working as a translator/interpreter and adjunct professor. A 2011–12 Associated Press assignment interpreting North Korean dialect introduced her to North Koreans and led tomultiple trips to North Korea, where she observed controlled tours, everyday professional life, and pervasive ideology alongside ordinary work routines and the lives of everyday citizens. She explains the Korean War armistice, the DMZ, and complexities of peace.   She then discusses her work co-directingthe documentary “Namnam Pungnyeo”, about North Korean women in South Korea, the matchmakers that help them connect  with South Korean men, and diverse refugee stories. The conversation ends with how she moved to Brussels with her partner and her current EU-oriented linguistic and related work.   03:03 Deportation and Language 04:53 Back to Seoul Life 08:02 Korean War and DMZ 11:04 Work Culture Pressure 17:32 Return to America Path 21:57 North Korea Interpreter Breakthrough 26:32 Touring North Korea Reality 31:44 Ideology and Collectivism 37:23 Documentary Origins 38:50 Film Title Meaning 43:08 Memorial That Grounded Film 45:11 Defection Numbers Routes 50:25 Why Matchmaking Works 51:13 Gender Gap Escape Reasons 54:41 South Korea Dating Crisis 58:55 Mutual Fantasies Collide 01:00:58 Safety After Defection 01:02:43 Visiting North Korea Safely 01:06:26 Homesickness And Regret 01:08:48 How She Sees The North 01:11:03 Love Brought Brussels 01:13:07 Card Question

  7. Aug 31

    #45: Political Persuasion; Social Change; Cognitive Dissonance; Changing Minds

    Don’t Talk About Politics (Just Yet): Building Real Political Agency In this episode of Beyond the Bubble, Andras Baneth speaks with author and public intellectual Sarah Stein Lubrano (https://www.sarahsteinlubrano.com/) about her book Don’t Talk About Politics and why political opinions rarely change through words, debates, or exposure to ideas alone.   Drawing on her background in Washington, DC, her work at The School of Life, and a PhD on cognitive dissonance, she argues politics is rooted in identity, meaning, relationships, experiences, and power rather than rational “marketplace of ideas” reasoning. They discuss the limits of empathy as a political organizing principle, how left and right relate differently to hierarchy and responsibility, and why solidarity and social infrastructure matter in crisis. Sarah outlines “gateway actions,” third spaces, and collective agency as practical alternatives to debate culture, and reflects on manipulation, legitimacy, and her own failures through a School of Life prompt.   01:45 Introduction, Meet Sarah and Her Work 07:32 Why Words Don't Persuade and Empathy Limits in Politics 15:59 Politics Power, Values and Power Dynamics 22:51 Capitalism Human Nature Unknowns 26:08 Human Flourishing and Meaning 28:55 Competition, Social Motivation, Power and Gender Myths 42:46 Why Words Rarely Change Politics 45:12 Relationships That Shift Beliefs 48:31 Experience and System Justification 54:46 Transparency Gateway Actions Options 01:02:28 Social Atrophy Explained 01:09:53 What Makes An Activist 01:13:33 Collective Agency In Practice 01:15:40 Bad Faith And Power

  8. Aug 18

    #44: Acting; Authenticity; Storytelling; Psychology; The Human Connection

    In this episode of Beyond the Bubble, Andras welcomes Edward McMillan, founder of the Brussels Shakespeare Society, actor, director, and theatre producer, for a conversation about storytelling, performance, psychology, and the role theatre plays in helping us better understand ourselves and one another. Edward begins by sharing the journey of building an English-language theatre community in Brussels from the ground up,reflecting on the challenges of creating a cultural institution, attracting audiences, and bringing together people from diverse backgrounds through a shared love of performance. Andras and Edward discuss what makes great acting, why authenticity matters more than perfection, and how actorslearn to balance technique with emotional truth. They explore improvisation, rehearsal, stage presence, and why audiences instinctively recognise genuine human connection. The conversation then turns to storytelling itself, examining why theatre continues to matter in a digital world, how stories shape the way we see ourselves, and the unique experience of live performance compared with film and television. Edward explains how theatre creates a shared emotional space where performers and audiences influence oneanother in real time. Later, they explore the relationship between drama and psychology, discussing empathy, vulnerability, identity, andthe ways performance can help people step outside themselves, become more emotionally aware, and better understand the perspectives of others. The episode is a thoughtful conversation about creativity, human connection, storytelling, and why theatre remains oneof the most powerful ways of exploring what it means to be human.

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About

Conversations with expats and locals in Brussels on their stories and ideas about the world. We discuss politics, global issues, AI, business, technology, society, ethics, religion, communication, marketing, psychology, self-discovery and more, to understand the world beyond the EU and outside our current paradigm.

Information

  • Creator
    Andras Baneth
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    50
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Andras Baneth
  • Show Website
    Beyond The Bubble

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