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Well how would you explain any of the Nordic countries if you thought there was a connection between GDP and Unionization? Norway has 70% of their workers cover
by bbddg 6y ago
Well how would you explain any of the Nordic countries if you thought there was a connection between GDP and Unionization? Norway has 70% of their workers covered by a Union contract and has a higher GDP per capita than the US. Along with some of the lowest levels of inequality of any nation.
- AlexTWithBeard 6y agoWho knows. May be that's because Norway has a higher average IQ [1]. May be that's because Norway has a lower cultural diversity index [2]. May be cold climate is the factor: those who didn't work froze to death way before industrial era. [1] https://www.worlddata.info/iq-by-country.php https://www.worlddata.info/iq-by-country.php [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_ethnic_and_cultural_diversity_level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_et...
- bbddg 6y agoOkay so now it doesn't have to do with unions but with IQ and "cultural diversity"? Why is the US so rich if it has so much cultural diversity unlike Norway then?
- AlexTWithBeard 6y agoWell... Another possible reason is that there are unions and then there are unions. The same way as bringing democracy to Libya does not magically make it prosperous [1]. https://www.statista.com/statistics/455600/gross-domestic-product-gdp-in-libya/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/455600/gross-domestic-pr...
- bbddg 6y agoSo to bring this back to the topic at hand you think that the Amazon workers Union drive is on the "military intervention in Libya" end of the spectrum... For some reason?
- kar5pt 6y agoOr the connection between the US having low unionization rates and a high gdp per capita could be a coincidence? You can't only associate correlation and causation when it's convenient.
- spaetzleesser 6y agoYou are basically hinting that low unionization made the US rich but Norway got rich despite high unionization because they have higher IQ or it’s cold there. I would call that cherry picking.
- nerbert 6y agoMaybe there's a positive correlation between high IQ and unionization though ;)
- AlexTWithBeard 6y agoI'm saying that may be without unions Norway would be even richer? It's kinda similar to "my grandpa was smoking two packs a day and lived till 102".
- spaetzleesser 6y agoMaybe with more unions the US would be richer? Maybe it's not the cold weather that makes Norway rich...
- random314 6y agoWow, so many racist tropes in one sentences. For those who didn't bother to click on his references. Norway IQ - 99. US IQ - 98. Also, nice dog whistle with the "lower cultural diversity index".
- bananabiscuit 6y agoIs it really impossible to believe that a homogeneous culture might have some benefits to a smoothly functioning and cohesive society?
- random314 6y agoIs it really impossible to believe that a dog whistle culture might pose some danger to a smoothly functioning and cohesive society?
- bananabiscuit 6y agoI’m no dog whistler. I am very clearly and unabashedly making the assertion that there probably are benefits to having homogeneous culture. If you have any arguments against that statement itself, please make them instead of attacking my character. It’s pretty anti-intellectual to shut down some hypothesis just because you don’t want it to be true. Please also note two things that I am NOT saying: I am not stating that there are no benefits to a heterogenous culture, and I am also not saying that one type of culture is necessarily better than the other in all respects.
- random314 6y agoEasy man. I just proposed a hypothesis just like you did. Why are you fuming? If you have any arguments against that statement itself, please make them instead of attacking my character. It’s pretty anti-intellectual to shut down some hypothesis just because you don’t want it to be true.
- bananabiscuit 6y ago
- eli_gottlieb 6y agoNo, racist pseudoscience is not an important cause of Norway's GDP/capita numbers. Flagged.
- AlexTWithBeard 6y agoWhere in my post did I mention race? Or "racist pseudoscience" is a newspeak for "I don't like what you're saying, but I cannot think of any reasonable objection"?
- eli_gottlieb 6y ago>May be that's because Norway has a higher average IQ [1]. May be that's because Norway has a lower cultural diversity index [2]. May be cold climate is the factor: those who didn't work froze to death way before industrial era. Here, the bit where you said that cold climate resulted in Norwegians have genetically higher intelligence than other countries.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoNorway is running on a natural resources boom. They're basically Saudi Arabia but with lighter skin and more human rights (and arguably are more homogeneous culture, no 1000yo religious disagreements or 100yo arbitrarily drawn map lines to create issues like the middle east oil states have). They openly admit they're boned if the wells run dry or oil goes out of fashion so they hedge by investing in everything else with the game of making enough money in a short enough time (off oil) that they can fund themselves with the appreciation on the nest egg after oil is no longer a money printer. (Saudi Arabia and other wealthy oil funded states are doing similar things to diversify/hedge against future income reduction)
- bbddg 6y agoThe US is famously a country with no natural resources.
- AlexTWithBeard 6y agoUS oil production is 1/20th of that of Norway (per capita) https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Energy/Oil/Production/Per-capita https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Energy/Oil/P...