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Population is 5 million...that seems to be the magic number. Finland is also more homogeneous and less diverse than the USA. I don’t think the comparisons are
by jelliclesfarm 7y ago
Population is 5 million...that seems to be the magic number.
Finland is also more homogeneous and less diverse than the USA.
I don’t think the comparisons are fair unless we divide USA into 80-100 Finland sized chunks and deposit 5 million people there.
And yet: When people want to migrate, no one has Finland on top of their wish list. It’s America. Always America. Why is this?
- 3461561 7y agoWhy does diversity matter? Capitalism is blind. It also scales just fine. Much larger countries also have such care systems. We need a healthy well-educated population to fuel growth. Anti-capitalists need to get out of the way of fixing our failed American health care system. We pay insanely high costs and get very little. We should provide basic care, like we do basic education, and let free competition for services happen. If we believe that the market can do better for lower costs, then there's nothing to fear from basic government care for everyone. The only people that defend the current system are those for, for some reason, have a vested interest in defending the current brokenness. (And the vested interests are often quite anti free market, as they wish to continue the opaque capture of capital the health care insures and providers currently get away with). Why is it always America? Well for a start it's not always America, unless you are talking about countries with a particular affinity to it for geographical or historical reasons. Same for other countries. America does get a bit more because we've built an insane propaganda system. Mostly aimed our own population, constantly selling the myth of our exceptionalism to protect various vested interests, with the side effect of that propaganda also spilling over to other countries. Historically, of course, the US was in a better position purely out of luck. For example, the geographic isolation during WW2 prevented mass destruction of people and infrastructure seen in other continents.
- jelliclesfarm 7y agoWhy America? America because that’s the crux of the article. It’s specifically comparing America to Finland. Diversity is expensive. Homogenous societies have less conflict and more cooperation than diverse one. This isn’t to say that diversity is a bad thing, but it can be an impediment to cooperation and create a lot of ‘noise’. Finland due to its geography, weather and possibly language is far less diverse..as is Denmark. NZ is also 5 million people and more diverse than DK or Finland, for example..but it’s far less successful than the more homogenous countries. OTOH, take Turkmenistan. 5 million..was part of red Soviet Union. Lots of oil. Borderline dictatorship. Or so they say..super isolated. Optimal and fair distribution of resources to citizens seems to be the key to prosperity and well being of nations. Equitable sharing of resources is easier in homogeneous nations. These are my observations. They are not suggestions. What are your thoughts on the above?
- charlesism 7y ago> And yet: When people want > to migrate, no one has Finland > on top of their wish list. > It’s America. Always America. > Why is this? Because Finland is cold.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago> It’s America. Always America. Why is this? Though it may not be Finland, the EU is an extremely popular migration destination, as is Australia. It's a very very long way from "always America", not least because America has some very visible and unique problems that put some off.