Scandinavia SUCKS

[Farm Boy]

I was more thinking the specific phraseology.

 

[Leonel]

The Thai ones, believe it or not, are even more graphic

Hah I can imagine it now. "Yeah I'd like the one's with the mouth cancer and, oh why not, let's get the pack with the gangrene foot. You wouldn't have any of the minty ones with the picture of a black lung on it?"

 

[luiz]

I do usually seldom agree with luiz, as he seems to be too "market" guy ;-), but I find the way some are "attacking" him a little bit patronizing and self rightous.

The USA as he says do indeed look to be a better (in terms of finance) place for "single, young, >100k$/year" people. I think it's true as well. I lived in the US, and indeed, on average for people in that situation, you pay less taxes, things are cheaper and you make more money, and you are inded statistically less likely to go deep in the "" to the point of needing "public assistance". So if you want to think in terms of "balance sheet", at this age, it's definetly a better place to be.

Now I myself, did go back to France from NYC even though I knew my salary was being to be divided by 2 because I like to live in a more "egalitarian" society among other reasons (cheeze and wine ;-) ), but that's just me.
Now that being said he is right in saying that we are all selfish, he's not the only one, the Pope among other people did indeed criticize "Egalitarian " Europe for letting people die when the money we spend on bottled water could save thousands of lifes !!

And it's not just for people living on other side of the mideterranean, even within the same nation, we do have people starving and or homeless when we can (each of us) use the money we spend in ski resorts to rent a room for a homeless. do we do it? no. Why? because we're all selfish at some degree. that's life

Now this is a reasonable post! And of course everything you say is true. And there are many reasons to prefer a country over another that go well beyond the purely material. I was focusing on material well-being here, but in many other aspects I think several European countries (the Mediterranean ones mostly) are way ahead of the US. France, Italy, Spain, the societies in all those countries have a "savoir-vivre", they just know how to make the most of life. Northern Europeans are even worse than Americans, though.

The U.S. has set up a society in which it's very very nice if you're well off and kinda crappy if you're not.

Scandinavian countries have set up a society in which it's very nice for everyone.

Which way is better? Depends on who you are like you say - but overall the Scandinavian model does a much better job of including everyone, instead of just giving the finger to 90% of the population and benefiting a select few. And in my opinion that makes it a much better system as a result no matter what Bob Dole's or yours or whover's life story might be.

And that's a valid and totally understandable opinion. Though I think it's quite unfair to say the US system gives the middle finger to 90% of the population.

 

[aelf]

Where did I say "screw you, I've got mine"? I was arguing about what country offers better conditions for people in my situation. Is it a moral failure to even make this consideration? Should this consideration never be made? Am I forced to consider Scandinavia as better for everybody, including myself? I am puzzled by just how authoritarian and intolerant of dissent you folks can be. Thought-police indeed.

I wasn't talking only about you. Quit the extreme defensiveness and the "thought-police" paranoia. It makes you look even more comical.

Not if everyone is extremely selfish. When people aren't willing to give up wasting money on frivolous luxuries to save starving kids they don't get to pontificate to others about how unselfish and generous they are.

So in your world, there's only extremely selfish and extremely selfish? Got it.

Indeed. And it also sounds like you.

I don't know how you know anything about me. I'm not the one who is constantly talking about being able to pay my own bills and afford everything.

 

[luiz]

I wasn't talking only about you. Quit the extreme defensiveness and the "thought-police" paranoia. It makes you look even more comical.

Well you were quoting me, so it's not exactly a leap of logic to assume you were referring to me. And then you say you're not talking "only of me", so you're still talking of me. Of course I'll get defensive, you're attributing stuff to me I never said.

So in your world, there's only extremely selfish and extremely selfish? Got it.

No, there are some genuinely unselfish people out there. They're a tiny minority in every society, though. By and large we're very selfish. This is a demonstrable fact.

I don't know how you know anything about me. I'm not the one who is constantly talking about being able to pay my own bills and afford everything.

You don't know anything about me either. Maybe I like to keep most of my hard earned money so I can donate to my charities of choice. Maybe I spend all my free time building homes for homeless. You don't know different.

So true enough, I don't know anything about you. But I'll make a wild guess that you're pretty selfish too.

 

[Traitorfish]

Luiz isn't a vegan, so he has no right to tell me not to murder all these orphans.

 

[luiz]

Luiz isn't a vegan, so he has no right to tell me not to murder all these orphans.

So in your opinion, foreigners are to citizens of your own country as cows are to human orphans?

I'm not sure I follow. I do eat meat, so I certainly don't have the right to criticize anyone for eating meat. I don't kill humans, orphans or otherwise, so I can indeed criticize those that do without being a giant hypocritical douche.

 

[Angst]

What data?

Well, there's plenty of stuff scattered throughout the thread. From the top of my head... You ignore the adjusted HDI because of premises you don't agree with, but it's still data, it is demonstrated that we have fewer work hours, arguably the average purchasing power is probably a little off because you have lesser purchasing power if you work less, and you can easily work more if you want to, there's benefits like better parental leave, albeit I understand that's less of an issue to single people, you have been corrected on your assumptions about how crappy Stavanger housing is because it's simply more nuanced than you made it out to be, you have been told you're supported if you lose your job herem and that yes this safety net matters because sometimes things happen beyond your control, and when faced with that you said that your family went through a lot of crap, and that's really more of an argument in favor of Scandinavia, as that happens much less here, there was data demonstrating that social mobility is much much higher in Scandinavia (this also means that your skills are the primary factor of success rather than luck, really), we have UHC which will always cover you, we have less crime, less violent police, and great public transportation. Unmeasurable things mentioned are stuff like the drinking culture (which you may like or not, the unmeasurability has to do with how enjoyable it is, we are very social alcoholics if that makes sense) and the slightly different gender roles we have here (which you may like or not as well, I very much like the powerful individualistic girls of Scandinavia) which both have a lot to do with your single life.

Oh, and the food's more healthy in general. But hey, you are free to fix that in your own home in the US (if you can afford it, and you can) and you probably do so good for you.

I'm not sure how being told these things amounts to your "welfare-state thought-police" nonsense, but hey you demonstrate you have good purchasing power personally and dislike cold. I'm completely fine with you personally thinking you're better off in the US because of these two things. But I think there's more nuance to the discussion than "I buy a lot of stuff", there's more factors than ppp. And personally I will always sacrifice 20% of my income adjusted purchasing power to enjoy this huge comfortable wonderpillow of the Danish state. I simply cannot imagine living anywhere else feeling this safe while being so well off. And you're free to argue I'm disillusioned or brainwashed, it's just a load of crap, showcasing you know absolutely nothing about the Danish political climate.

EDIT: Also, I can't for the life of me figure out what's wrong with this data. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator...api_data_value+wbapi_data_value-last&sort=asc I can't find an "income-adjusted" dataset that doesn't put Norway in front of the US. I think you provided data earlier that purchasing power was less in Norway than the US? I've googled "purchasing power", "income adjusted purchasing power" and a few other variations and can't find anything that puts the US ahead. You provided data earlier to the contrary, didn't you? Care to share? I'll look through the thread for the data until then...

EDITEDIT: It seems like you have only demonstrated cost disparity? Oh well.

 

[luiz]

Well, there's plenty of stuff scattered throughout the thread. From the top of my head... You ignore the adjusted HDI because of premises you don't agree with, but it's still data, it is demonstrated that we have fewer work hours, arguably the average purchasing power is probably a little off because you have lesser purchasing power if you work less, and you can easily work more if you want to, there's benefits like better parental leave, albeit I understand that's less of an issue to single people, you have been corrected on your assumptions about how crappy Stavanger housing is because it's simply more nuanced than you made it out to be, you have been told you're supported if you lose your job herem and that yes this safety net matters because sometimes things happen beyond your control, and when faced with that you said that your family went through a lot of crap, and that's really more of an argument in favor of Scandinavia, as that happens much less here, there was data demonstrating that social mobility is much much higher in Scandinavia (this also means that your skills are the primary factor of success rather than luck, really), we have UHC which will always cover you, we have less crime, less violent police, and great public transportation. Unmeasurable things mentioned are stuff like the drinking culture (which you may like or not, the unmeasurability has to do with how enjoyable it is, we are very social alcoholics if that makes sense) and the slightly different gender roles we have here (which you may like or not as well, I very much like the powerful individualistic girls of Scandinavia) which both have a lot to do with your single life.

Oh, and the food's more healthy in general. But hey, you are free to fix that in your own home in the US (if you can afford it, and you can) and you probably do so good for you.

I'm not sure how being told these things amounts to your "welfare-state thought-police" nonsense, but hey you demonstrate you have good purchasing power personally and dislike cold. I'm completely fine with you personally thinking you're better off in the US because of these two things. But I think there's more nuance to the discussion than "I buy a lot of stuff", there's more factors than ppp. And personally I will always sacrifice 20% of my income adjusted purchasing power to enjoy this huge comfortable wonderpillow of the Danish state. I simply cannot imagine living anywhere else feeling this safe while being so well off. And you're free to argue I'm disillusioned or brainwashed, it's just a load of crap, showcasing you know absolutely nothing about the Danish political climate.

EDIT: Also, I can't for the life of me figure out what's wrong with this data. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator...api_data_value+wbapi_data_value-last&sort=asc I can't find an "income-adjusted" dataset that doesn't put Norway in front of the US. I think you provided data earlier that purchasing power was less in Norway than the US? I've googled "purchasing power", "income adjusted purchasing power" and a few other variations and can't find anything that puts the US ahead. You provided data earlier to the contrary, didn't you? Care to share? I'll look through the thread for the data until then...

I mean data that contradicts my statement that people on my situation are better-off in the US. HDI has nothing to do with that (and much less that bizarre inequality-adjusted HDI), nor a whole bunch of the stuff you listed. Housing in Stavanger and Oslo is crazy expensive, that wasn't disputed. Some people may prefer to pay a million bucks for a fine small apartment in Oslo over a McMansion in the States - and that's a preference I can sympathize with - but you still get a lot more stuff in the US for the same money.
I explained why personally I'm not particularly concerned with unemployment benefits or the likes. I didn't judge a society's choice to implement them (before Akka and co. come back here wishing death upon me), I merely stated that for me those things carry no weight when deciding which place is best to live.

I didn't get into the "unmeasurables" because they're entirely subjective. A lot of the stuff you mentioned about Scandinavia actually appeals to me quite a bit. I was brought up mostly as an European after all. But you might as well mention the American great outdoors, the scenery ranging from Alaska to the Florida Keys, the uniqueness of cities like New York or San Francisco that really have not even a distant match in Scandinavia. You could mention the American optimism, the can-do attitude, the friendliness of interpersonal relations (specially in the South). I didn't mention those things earlier because nobody is forced to like or particularly value those things, just like your drinking culture or "independent women".

As for purchasing power, I mentioned my purchasing power, not average. But Americans do have a bigger disposable income than anyone else:

http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/income/

And considering everything is so much cheaper in the US (see the PPP adjustment numbers I quoted earlier), that disposable income goes much further in the US.

 

[Akka]

And of course it would be pointless to say you misread what I've been saying in the thread and assigned me positions I never made...

I don't think I misread the tone of your first post saying that you prefer a "billion times" the USA system than the one of Sweden - that's pretty much a personal opinion right here.

You backpedal now and pretend you were just making neutral and factual comparisons, but that's clearly not how you started.

So in your opinion, foreigners are to citizens of your own country as cows are to human orphans?

I'm not sure I follow. I do eat meat, so I certainly don't have the right to criticize anyone for eating meat. I don't kill humans, orphans or otherwise, so I can indeed criticize those that do without being a giant hypocritical douche.

He's mocking your attempt to throw a binary reasoning "either you're totally 100 % unselfish or you're just as selfish as everyone else". The fact you consider his answer ridiculous kind of prove your own reasoning about selfishness was ridiculous too to begin with.

 

[luiz]

I don't think I misread the tone of your first post saying that you prefer a "billion times" the USA system than the one of Sweden - that's pretty much a personal opinion right here.

You backpedal now and pretend you were just making neutral and factual comparisons, but that's clearly not how you started.

Well yes it's obviously a personal opinion. Different people value different things. And living in Sweden seems horrible to me, for many reasons.

He's mocking your attempt to throw a binary reasoning "either you're totally 100 % unselfish or you're just as selfish as everyone else". The fact you consider his answer ridiculous kind of prove your own reasoning about selfishness was ridiculous too to begin with.

I didn't say that, and his attempt is pretty lame. I was comparing helping people with, uh, helping people. He's comparing eating meat with killing orphans. But maybe he's saying that poor people / foreigners are to proper citizens as animals are to humans?

The majority of us are indeed very selfish, and we shouldn't preach about selfishness in others. As HannibalBarka pointed out, if Europe gave up some fairly innocuous luxuries we could literally save hundreds of thousands of lives. How to preach about unselfishness?

It's not a case where one person is extremely selfish and the other is just a bit selfish. It's a case where extreme selfishness is clear on both cases, and yet one still wants to be revered for his generosity.

 

[Farm Boy]

He did, at a minimum, refrain from expressing amusement at the prospect of Angst developing liver disease or an STD as a result of his chosen environment.

 

[Arwon]

Muh entrepreneurial spirits

 

[Angst]

I didn't get into the "unmeasurables" because they're entirely subjective. A lot of the stuff you mentioned about Scandinavia actually appeals to me quite a bit. I was brought up mostly as an European after all. But you might as well mention the American great outdoors, the scenery ranging from Alaska to the Florida Keys, the uniqueness of cities like New York or San Francisco that really have not even a distant match in Scandinavia. You could mention the American optimism, the can-do attitude, the friendliness of interpersonal relations (specially in the South). I didn't mention those things earlier because nobody is forced to like or particularly value those things, just like your drinking culture or "independent women".

Fwiw I think all these things are very important to consider when judging whether you'd like to live one place or another. This is not an objective list. I think the world is too complex for one to be able to be objective anyways. And that's kind of the deal, I do think there are good points in living in Scandinavia as an upper middle class citizen (which you seem to be), after all, that's kind of where a lot of my family is coming from.

Thanks for the disposable income stat.

EDIT:

He did, at a minimum, refrain from expressing amusement at the prospect of Angst developing liver disease or an STD as a result of his chosen environment.

Just wanted to acknowledge this post, made me smile

 

[Tee Kay]

Things I learnt in this thread:
- Taxing scientifically-proven harmful substances apparently makes me a religious fanatic
- You can troll all you want as long as you say it's your "personal opinion" and you can scream thought police at any criticism

 

[jackelgull]

Yeah, nobody really looks good in this thread, which is why I'm subbing it. Looking forward to some entertainment.

 

[cybrxkhan]

This thread reminds me about how I learned yesterday that - so tvtropes says - there's apparently a genre called Scandinavian/Nordic Noir, which basically does the same thing as film noir did for America, except with Scandinavia.

 

[bhsup]

- Taxing scientifically-proven harmful substances apparently makes me a religious fanatic

If it is so bad that it deserves a sin tax slapped on it, just ban it outright. Either tax it like everything else or ban it. It's that simple. But it's really not that simple because the government knows a cash cow when it sees it. See, they don't really want everyone to quit. They want to push down the usage, but keep a core group puffing away that are willing to pay the ridiculous taxes. God Bless Missouri and its citizens that have repeatedly shot down attempts to raise the cigarette sin tax. I love you guys!

 

[jackelgull]

They don't ban it because banning stuff doesn't work. Everyone remember the Prohibition?

 

[bhsup]

I stand by my position. I don't care what issues the govt has if they ban it. Build more prisons for the criminals that smuggle.