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> Good observations! You forgot one major thing. This goes for all of Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The winter is horribly dark and boring. (Unless you'
by CM30 8y ago
> Good observations! You forgot one major thing. This goes for all of Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The winter is horribly dark and boring. (Unless you're super rich). Therefore most turn inwards, staying indoors, thinking deeply at problems, spending endless afternoons and nights on things. Be it software development, game development, car tuning, car engine work, engineering, knitting or just reading loads of books.
Wonder if that's also a factor in the prevalence of tech/programmers/hackers in Russia. Don't think there's a startup scene there, but there definitely seems to be more technology experts coming from the area in general.
- philwelch 8y agoOne of the vanishingly few things the Soviets did right was to emphasize STEM education. This seems to have stuck in Russia. And I’ve heard the same was true across the eastern bloc.
- Bekwnn 8y agoAs an anecdote, a lot of programmers and heavy gamers I knew in high school lived on remote islands and took a water taxi over to ours for school. They couldn't do after school activities without sleeping over at someone's place. Their islands had even less to do on them than ours. Soft forms of isolation certainly seem to lead to solitary activities.