5 ms·

Why so must fascination about a homogeneous society that has population of City of Houston? I will not take some of these articles of Scandinavian fetish any se

by sremani 10y ago

Why so must fascination about a homogeneous society that has population of City of Houston? I will not take some of these articles of Scandinavian fetish any seriously any more.

sotojuan 10y ago
I've always wondered how the people that live there feel about the constant "I wish we were like them!".
- madeaccountnow 10y ago
  Don't really know how to feel. It's kinda like it's disingenuous hype. Sure most of all these "omg look at Finland" facts are mostly true, but they come at a cost. It's a pain in the ass to have a business or a high salary here. Everything is expensive and you could end up paying 60% taxes of your salary, after the employer pays taxes on your salary. The bureaucracy can get ridiculous too, it's like they don't want to have businesses here. The system works with a small population but I don't think it could ever scale. Basically, if you're ok with being nothing more then middleclass, it's a great place to live, but the ambitious people who really bring in the money and pay the majority of taxes aren't living nearly as good as they could elsewhere. I keep looking at the salaries of US jobs with my title and I'd make so much more money there, and have more left after all the taxes. Then again I had a free education and the healthcare is pretty much free and decent. Maybe it's one of those "grass is greener etc." type deals.
- clarry 10y ago
  Well, as someone whose life in .fi hasn't been so terribly great so far, I find the hype a bit irritating. Everything is so amazing, except for those for whom it isn't. Opportunities certainly aren't equal. "The Nordic approach of basic universal social policies—that allow everyone to fulfill their potential, allow everyone to work, allow true equality of opportunity" is just bull. And just like a lot of other European countries now, we have a bad unemployment problem (and the statistics lie; they coerce people into various programmes that result in them not showing up as unemployed, even though they don't have an actual job). There are signs that suggest the social "safety web" won't hold up; government budget is really tight and cuts are made here and there. Benefits are not increased as cost of living gets higher. I don't know what the statistics say, but there are lots of alcoholics. And again not sure what the statistics say today, but afaik .fi has ranked pretty poorly with regard to cases of depression and suicide. Maybe all is not so well? And then there's this touchy wtf-worthy subject of the generation that boomed after war retiring. Supposedly there aren't enough of us to fill their positions so we need immigrants. Meanwhile, as I said, unemployment is pretty sickening.
  - emp_zealoth 10y ago
    Eh, today I learned that one finnish person that played with us on the internet might have commited suicide sometimes in the past year. The nordic countries are definitely less of a paradise the hypetrain makes them
- lastyearman 10y ago
  A software dev living in Finland. From what I gather (by reading HN) I could easily get 10 times bigger salary in the US, buy a bigger house and a nicer car for less than I can here. But personally I care about neither. What I care about is a stress free life. Since I have low living expenses, the safety net would easily cover all the costs of my current life style and that life is available for everyone (barring mental illness such as alcoholism which seems to be a problem). I live within a walking distance from the city centre, my work and groceries. Public transport is great, although I don't use it since I can just bike everywhere. Or if I need to use a car I can just rent a brand new merc for the weekend. And nothing of that would change even if I never worked a day in my life again. Also there's about zero chance of ever landing a jail sentence, or getting harassed by a cop. So I'm pretty proud of the society we have built.
adamnemecek 10y ago
Why do you think that the Nordic model can't scale?
- douche 10y ago
  Social issues are easy when you have a 99% ethnically homogeneous population without any serious religious divisions either.
  - Florin_Andrei 10y ago
    So, if this is true, that means countries have some scalability issues. Once it's big enough, it's not going to be 100% monochrome anymore.
  - dirtyaura 10y ago
    Really? And you say that about a country that has had a civil war between members of this ethnically homogenous population (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Civil_War). You are seriously mistaken that ethnic diversity is the only or even a major cause of social issues.
  - Nokinside 10y ago
    Nordic countries are not 99% ethnically homogeneous. Over 20% of Swedes have foreign background. Either immigrants or or their parents were immigrants. They come from Middle East, Former Yugoslavia, Somalia etc.
  - adamnemecek 10y ago
    Why?
  - DasIch 10y ago
    The problem isn't that the US is heterogenous, the problem is that the US has a massive problem with racism, freedom of and from religion. Maybe even worse than that though are people like you, who can't even openly admit that obvious problem and only mention it in some euphemistic indirect way.
nisse72 10y ago
Why do you think you have nothing to learn from any society that is smaller than yours?
cplanas 10y ago
> homogeneous society [...] Scandinavian fetish Foreign-born population of Sweden: 16% Foreign-born population of Norway: 13.9% Foreign-born population of USA: 13.1% https://data.oecd.org/migration/foreign-born-population.htm https://data.oecd.org/migration/foreign-born-population.htm
- sremani 10y ago
  how convenient, to pick and make it native vs foreign born? you know better than that! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_State...
  - bunnymancer 10y ago
    Convenient in the sense of that most countries don't collect race demographics and there isn't any other data, or convenient in the sense of you having little to offer as a retort?
    - sremani 10y ago
      Convenient in a sense you cherry pick and overfit data to prove Finland is more diverse than America.
  - cplanas 10y ago
    Diversity, as understood as a possible problem for social cohesion, is not about race: it's about culture. And the vast majority of Americans in the US have only one culture: the American one. The exception for this is first (and sometimes second) generation immigrants. That's why I use the native vs foreign born statistic.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > And the vast majority of Americans in the US have only one culture: the American one. I don't think there is one unifying American culture. There are some common cultural elements, but there are fairly distinct regional (as well as racial/ethnic) cultures in the US.
drabiega 10y ago
I don't want to leap to conclusions, but this argument always seems like a dog whistle to me. What is it about cultural heterogeneity that you think would make this sort of a model unsustainable?

by sremani 10y ago

Why so must fascination about a homogeneous society that has population of City of Houston? I will not take some of these articles of Scandinavian fetish any seriously any more.

sotojuan 10y ago

I've always wondered how the people that live there feel about the constant "I wish we were like them!".

madeaccountnow 10y ago
Don't really know how to feel. It's kinda like it's disingenuous hype. Sure most of all these "omg look at Finland" facts are mostly true, but they come at a cost. It's a pain in the ass to have a business or a high salary here. Everything is expensive and you could end up paying 60% taxes of your salary, after the employer pays taxes on your salary. The bureaucracy can get ridiculous too, it's like they don't want to have businesses here. The system works with a small population but I don't think it could ever scale. Basically, if you're ok with being nothing more then middleclass, it's a great place to live, but the ambitious people who really bring in the money and pay the majority of taxes aren't living nearly as good as they could elsewhere. I keep looking at the salaries of US jobs with my title and I'd make so much more money there, and have more left after all the taxes. Then again I had a free education and the healthcare is pretty much free and decent. Maybe it's one of those "grass is greener etc." type deals.
clarry 10y ago
Well, as someone whose life in .fi hasn't been so terribly great so far, I find the hype a bit irritating. Everything is so amazing, except for those for whom it isn't. Opportunities certainly aren't equal. "The Nordic approach of basic universal social policies—that allow everyone to fulfill their potential, allow everyone to work, allow true equality of opportunity" is just bull. And just like a lot of other European countries now, we have a bad unemployment problem (and the statistics lie; they coerce people into various programmes that result in them not showing up as unemployed, even though they don't have an actual job). There are signs that suggest the social "safety web" won't hold up; government budget is really tight and cuts are made here and there. Benefits are not increased as cost of living gets higher. I don't know what the statistics say, but there are lots of alcoholics. And again not sure what the statistics say today, but afaik .fi has ranked pretty poorly with regard to cases of depression and suicide. Maybe all is not so well? And then there's this touchy wtf-worthy subject of the generation that boomed after war retiring. Supposedly there aren't enough of us to fill their positions so we need immigrants. Meanwhile, as I said, unemployment is pretty sickening.
- emp_zealoth 10y ago
  Eh, today I learned that one finnish person that played with us on the internet might have commited suicide sometimes in the past year. The nordic countries are definitely less of a paradise the hypetrain makes them
lastyearman 10y ago
A software dev living in Finland. From what I gather (by reading HN) I could easily get 10 times bigger salary in the US, buy a bigger house and a nicer car for less than I can here. But personally I care about neither. What I care about is a stress free life. Since I have low living expenses, the safety net would easily cover all the costs of my current life style and that life is available for everyone (barring mental illness such as alcoholism which seems to be a problem). I live within a walking distance from the city centre, my work and groceries. Public transport is great, although I don't use it since I can just bike everywhere. Or if I need to use a car I can just rent a brand new merc for the weekend. And nothing of that would change even if I never worked a day in my life again. Also there's about zero chance of ever landing a jail sentence, or getting harassed by a cop. So I'm pretty proud of the society we have built.

adamnemecek 10y ago

Why do you think that the Nordic model can't scale?

douche 10y ago
Social issues are easy when you have a 99% ethnically homogeneous population without any serious religious divisions either.
- Florin_Andrei 10y ago
  So, if this is true, that means countries have some scalability issues. Once it's big enough, it's not going to be 100% monochrome anymore.
- dirtyaura 10y ago
  Really? And you say that about a country that has had a civil war between members of this ethnically homogenous population (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Civil_War). You are seriously mistaken that ethnic diversity is the only or even a major cause of social issues.
- Nokinside 10y ago
  Nordic countries are not 99% ethnically homogeneous. Over 20% of Swedes have foreign background. Either immigrants or or their parents were immigrants. They come from Middle East, Former Yugoslavia, Somalia etc.
- adamnemecek 10y ago
  Why?
- DasIch 10y ago
  The problem isn't that the US is heterogenous, the problem is that the US has a massive problem with racism, freedom of and from religion. Maybe even worse than that though are people like you, who can't even openly admit that obvious problem and only mention it in some euphemistic indirect way.

nisse72 10y ago

Why do you think you have nothing to learn from any society that is smaller than yours?

cplanas 10y ago

> homogeneous society [...] Scandinavian fetish Foreign-born population of Sweden: 16% Foreign-born population of Norway: 13.9% Foreign-born population of USA: 13.1% https://data.oecd.org/migration/foreign-born-population.htm https://data.oecd.org/migration/foreign-born-population.htm

sremani 10y ago
how convenient, to pick and make it native vs foreign born? you know better than that! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_State...
- bunnymancer 10y ago
  Convenient in the sense of that most countries don't collect race demographics and there isn't any other data, or convenient in the sense of you having little to offer as a retort?
  - sremani 10y ago
    Convenient in a sense you cherry pick and overfit data to prove Finland is more diverse than America.
- cplanas 10y ago
  Diversity, as understood as a possible problem for social cohesion, is not about race: it's about culture. And the vast majority of Americans in the US have only one culture: the American one. The exception for this is first (and sometimes second) generation immigrants. That's why I use the native vs foreign born statistic.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > And the vast majority of Americans in the US have only one culture: the American one. I don't think there is one unifying American culture. There are some common cultural elements, but there are fairly distinct regional (as well as racial/ethnic) cultures in the US.

drabiega 10y ago

I don't want to leap to conclusions, but this argument always seems like a dog whistle to me. What is it about cultural heterogeneity that you think would make this sort of a model unsustainable?