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I'll just butt in here to add a huge caveat that almost never gets brought up in these sorts of articles: Denmark is small, really small. It has a population o

I'll just butt in here to add a huge caveat that almost never gets brought up in these sorts of articles: Denmark is small, really small. It has a population of only 5.7 million, if it were part of the US it would fit in between the 11th and 12th largest cities (Atlanta and Detroit). So imagine, for example, reading an article about the state of things in Detroit, Atlanta, or Houston, and imagine the author attempting to make big, sweeping conclusions based on that data. I suspect you'd likely take any such conclusions with a grain of salt much more than you would when you hear about what's going on in Denmark, because we all know Denmark is a huge and important country. Denmark is neat and all, with plenty of reasons to justify people who don't live there finding it interesting, but it isn't necessarily a land that one can directly map onto the entire nation of America (across a gulf of about two orders of magnitude in population alone) and expect them to be comparable.

maxxxxx 10y ago
That's the old excuse: "America is so big, diverse or small (compared to China) so nothing from anywhere else can work here and nothing can be learned ". I hear that all the time and this attitude will kill the country in the long run. It's the excuse for having a dysfunctional health system , bad infrastructure, gun violence and lots of other problems.
drabiega 10y ago
I've heard this argument quite a bit but never quite understood what the problem was supposed to be. Could you articulate why you think the comparison is troublesome?
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  Culture, shared history. In a country of 5.7 million people where the capital has a metro population of around 2 million people I imagine it's a lot easier for people to want to care for each other. I imagine that the Danish fit the notion of 'nation'[1] much more closely than people from the US. Or at least, I think that's how the argument is supposed to go. Like another comment said, perhaps it's just an excuse. A case could be made that went something like "Look, if the Danish can do it so can we", or "Let's look at what the best in the world are doing then model and copy their behaviour where it makes senses for us to do so." 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation

maxxxxx 10y ago

That's the old excuse: "America is so big, diverse or small (compared to China) so nothing from anywhere else can work here and nothing can be learned ". I hear that all the time and this attitude will kill the country in the long run. It's the excuse for having a dysfunctional health system , bad infrastructure, gun violence and lots of other problems.

drabiega 10y ago

I've heard this argument quite a bit but never quite understood what the problem was supposed to be. Could you articulate why you think the comparison is troublesome?

TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
Culture, shared history. In a country of 5.7 million people where the capital has a metro population of around 2 million people I imagine it's a lot easier for people to want to care for each other. I imagine that the Danish fit the notion of 'nation'[1] much more closely than people from the US. Or at least, I think that's how the argument is supposed to go. Like another comment said, perhaps it's just an excuse. A case could be made that went something like "Look, if the Danish can do it so can we", or "Let's look at what the best in the world are doing then model and copy their behaviour where it makes senses for us to do so." 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation