13 ms·

Everything will be alright in Iceland

159 points by yakkomajuri 3y ago

JoeAltmaier 3y ago
I believe this completely. Folks who live under routine threat like volcanism can be the most calm and functional during crises. I remember an interview with a Dutch Engineer during a storm surge that threatened an important dike (aren't they all important?). They had been working all day and continuing into the night. "What will you do?" "Well, we'll work like hell and see what happens come morning!"
- ethbr1 3y ago
  > Folks who live under routine threat like volcanism can be the most calm and functional during crises. Mind the (tectonic) gap.
- crote 3y ago
  > aren't they all important? Not really. Some dikes protect millions, some protect a vilage, and some protect only a handful of people. The Netherlands is currently experiencing minor flooding, and a dike failure in Maastricht led to a dozen house boats needing to be evacuated. > see what happens come morning There really isn't anything else you can do. Natural disasters are unpredictable, and the situation can drastically change from hour to hour. When your country is prone to this kind of threat, it'll have dozens of scenarios worked out, planned, and practiced. It's mostly a matter of grabbing the right playbook, working like hell, and hoping it doesn't get worse. If it does get worse, you simply grab the next playbook and carry on.
PicassoCTs 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa There is a phenomena that if you life under a consistent, visible threat to your life, like for example a huge damn upriver, you suppress that fear and become instead a "believer". And why wouldn't you, after all, if it goes wrong no survivors, so that story makes total sense, until it doesn't and even then.
- Log_out_ 3y ago
  You meant dam..
jimmyed 3y ago
Reminds of Pakistan, specially when there was a lot of violence during 2008s. There would be _multiple_ bombs blasts on any given day and after a while, the news lost it's real world import for people. I was a tourist in Karachi then and recall appalling insensitivity when I heard of a blast on so and so road. The news just made me update the route I took that day.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- selimthegrim 3y ago
  You should’ve been there during the 90s
bbarn 3y ago
I lived in Iceland for several years recently. One thing you have to keep in mind, is this philosophy is pretty much born out of necessity. Until the US Military built a base in Keflavík (which later became an international airport), the country was quite behind the times. As one friend put it to me "When you were landing on the moon we were getting running water installed" Iceland was a very poor country for most people other than a few well off in the fishing industry. Today it's still relatively "medium" with few people very wealthy, but also almost no one in destitution. The attitude is that everyone should be able to live a good life, and while it's not truly socialist, it's pretty darn close. Þetta reddast is used somewhat interchangeably with "I don't feel like dealing with this" and "Some how things will work out even though it doesn't look like it now" and "fuck it". To most people it's kind of an in joke you say when something really sucks.
- yakkomajuri 3y ago
  Definitely, it's just about always used in a manner of like "Ah, don't worry about it", and while I tried to convey that as well in the post (like with the Snæfellsjökull story), I wanted to show that there might be more to the mentality behind the scenes.
- pavlov 3y ago
  > ‘As one friend put it to me "When you were landing on the moon we were getting running water installed"’ This also applied to large parts of the United States in 1969, and was part of the reason why many leftists and Black activists saw the Apollo program as a symbol of misplaced priorities at the time. Iceland wasn’t any poorer than Mississippi, for example. And at least Iceland had a program in place to build a Scandinavian-style welfare state so everyone really would get that running water pretty quickly, as well as healthcare and education and the rest. America is still struggling with that while again spending tens of billions on a microwaved-Apollo-cum-Artemis program that’s mostly pork distribution for senators.
  - ch4s3 3y ago
    > a symbol of misplaced priorities at the time This always feels terribly myopic to me. There's a lot of state capacity and doing a sing;e time bound endeavor did not prevent civil rights legislation from passing or economic development in Mississippi. The moonshot caused NASA's funding to peak at ~4% of the federal budget for a single year in 1966, returning to less than 1% by '73.
foobarbecue 3y ago
First two paragraphs resonated. I'm an American who grew up in Brazil, Japan, and Sweden. I'm tired of being asked "which was your favorite" because it's so reductive and ALWAYS what people ask me. Questions in this article are much better. On the other hand, the description of roping up without proper training... yeesh. Sounds like bunch of gumbies putting each other's lives in danger. Not ok.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- tome 3y ago
  How about in future, when someone asks you "which was your favorite" you instead answer one of the questions in the article? It's highly unlikely people literally want to know which was your favourite. More likely they're open to hearing anything interesting about your experience you could share.
  - foobarbecue 3y ago
    Yeah, totally-- I roll with it tactfully IRL, I'm usually like well Sweden had the most effective government, Brazil had unbelievable natural beauty, etc. I'm just using this opportunity to whine about a pet peeve :-)
- moffkalast 3y ago
  So... which one was your favorite? :P
  - RobRivera 3y ago
    Oh youuuuuu
- switchbak 3y ago
  "Sounds like bunch of gumbies putting each other's lives in danger" - that seemed pretty obvious from his story. I have a couple good friends that work on the search and rescue team, and the increasing number of stories about people putting themselves in serious danger with no self awareness is really concerning. I've unwittingly been pulled into these situations myself with said gumbies, and I'm now at the stage where I have no tolerance of it. It's really not cool to put a bunch of other folks in danger because you did something stupid, completely ignorant of any potential danger. It's totally ok to take measured risks, with proper training/knowledge and at least some kind of preparation for handling unexpected situations. And sometimes it's me being the gumby, which probably still happens in small doses :)
hprotagonist 3y ago
Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea. Quick now, here, now, always-- A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flames are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one. -- ts eliot, following julian of norwich
avgcorrection 3y ago
Yeah okay. I hadn’t ever thought that they wouldn’t be.
s_dev 3y ago
>There's a saying in Icelandic - þetta reddast - that means "everything will be alright", and, while many languages have a similar expression, this one is really embedded in Icelandic culture. Ireland has a "It'll be Grand" culture as well for comparison. It's a trade off with pros and cons and works for some situations and inhibits progress in other situations, things often don't get acted on or resolved quickly but at the same time there is a huge reservoir of tolerance to draw on when things do get shit. I would consider this the other end of the spectrum to countries like Japan or Germany in the way they respond to certain things. Lots of generalisations of course but that's often the impressions you get from travelling. It's very hard to be precise about big groups of people.
- notnaut 3y ago
  >It's very hard to be precise about big groups of people. Literally impossible, by the nature of it.
  - bbor 3y ago
    100% of German citizens have a brain, emotions, and an enduring ineffable soul. That’s a precise AND accurate statement ;)
    - mckirk 3y ago
      That's a bold statement to make. German souls need to be re-issued regularly by the BIE (Bundesamt für Immaterielle Essenzen), and it's quite easy to fall behind with how much paperwork this is every year.
      - nicbou 3y ago
        It wouldn't be so bad if they didn't take 4+ weeks to do anything. My friend had a child and he got a soul a year later. It's even worse in Berlin.
    - notnaut 3y ago
      People are people! Precision at its best!
baz00 3y ago
According to OECD Health at a Glance 2023, Iceland is the highest per-capita consumer of tranquilizers. YMMV. I did go there last year and I'm not sure I'd want to live there. Nice place to visit though and mostly nice people (apart from the large Ford truck driving psychopaths)
- euroderf 3y ago
  IIRC they are also the ONLY country that actually dealt with the clowns that caused their financial crash. In comparison, the USA ? Don't make me laugh.
AlbertCory 3y ago
> I managed to stop myself with an ice axe self-arrest, saved by having used my free time in the past to watch alpinism videos with self-arrest tutorials. Wow. I took Sierra Club Basic Mountaineering class, and we learned self-arrest three ways: head down facing down, facing up, and head up facing up. The class was cancelled later when someone stuck the ice ax into their stomach and sued, and insurance rates skyrocketed. And this guy learned it by watching a video.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- yakkomajuri 3y ago
  Hey! Author here. Felt this one in particular needed a reply. I've since actually gotten a bit into alpinism and done a proper course. My instructor (a super experienced British guy in the Alps) refused to teach self-arrests to beginners because he said the risks were greater than the potential benefits. He said a lot of people get hurt practicing it (as you've noted) and so he preferred to really drill down on precautions and crevasse rescue techniques etc. As for the story, I need to note the slope wasn't too steep, but being unable to brake would maybe have sent me down the crevasse (unclear how wide it was, we stepped over it on the way there and it seemed it may have been narrow). I also doubt my technique was perfect, but I just remembered to not just try to have the axe over my head somewhere but rather push my body/shoulder into it with the axe placed more diagonally. I'm certain it was not beautiful nor perfect but at least enough in that situation.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    In our case, it was in the San Gabriel mountains near LA. The snow was so wet we had to wear rain suits to be slippery enough to slide down. Was it safe? Obviously not. But 1000's of people did it before anyone got badly hurt.
- yolo3000 3y ago
  My story, I was descending a mountain in early spring with 2 friends. I had an ice axe in my hand for balance, although I had never learned self arrest. As we're descending, my friends took the 'winter route', which was a rocky ridge going down. I took the summer route which was 100m away, just because it was smoother. It was wet grass and some patches of snow. I slipped, fell on my back and started sliding, had trouble turning because of my backpack. You really catch speed, I couldn't stop, I was approaching rocks. Somehow I turn on my belly, and instinctively I stick the axe in the ground. You're supposed to hold the top of the axe with one hand close to your chest, but I kept both hands on the handle, and I stoped, I was lucky
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
klik99 3y ago
This resonates with me on many levels. I worked at an Icelandic company for many years and some of my coworkers are like family - I never quite put my finger on why I got so well with Icelandic people, but maybe it's because of this "þetta reddast" attitude - I also have this attitude, though it was something I got in my mid-20s - I used to always think the sky was falling and at some point I realized that it consistently stayed up.
- 0xEF 3y ago
  > it was something I got in my mid-20s I'm past my prime, but would love to know your secret. I remember not wanting to return from Iceland, dreading the inevitable Anxiety Circus™ that was my life in the US. While in Iceland, I felt good about being alive. The way the people just get to the point and aren't afraid to say what they mean instead of this weird communication dance most Americans seem to do. The fact that yeah, danger looms in a variety of ways and the environment can be a bit hostile, but that's fine because we can deal with it together. It is difficult for me to call my experience there anything but refreshing...and yet I was not able to hang on to that. A fault of my own, to be sure, but seeing as you adopted it in your early years, was there anything in particular that you did to make that happen?
  - klik99 3y ago
    Since you asked, but I dunno if this is applicable... I had a lot of anxiety growing up - from "If I fail this test then everything is downhill" in school to "If I miss this payment then everything is downhill" in the scare quotes "real world". I remember listing out on paper every time I could remember that I thought there would be dire consequences if I failed and there wasn't actually dire consequences. Maybe it was a kind of retrospective cognitive behavioural therapy? I noticed a pattern (though I didn't have the understanding to call it a pattern back then). But that was the moment that something switched and I had the confidence that even if shit hit the fan I would make it through. Probably it was the culmination of other realizations and not just this act by itself, but that was def the crystallization. And not that I'm always this way, but it's rare for me to fall back into the anxiety circus. It still takes some practice to maintain it in particularly tough situations. Maybe you associate that state of mind with a place because you felt it most strongly there? But I think a state of mind is part of you and you can cultivate that anywhere.
WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
In my head this becomes Risk perception in the US is severely broken. which it is. We US-ians compulsively fear negligible risks (stranger kidnapping, terror attacks) while being unable to sense harm in play (elimination of child growth environments due to false risk perception and systemic destruction of free range area).
- jon_richards 3y ago
  People don’t realize just how stark it is. https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/v870vf/map_comparing_four_generations_of_kids_how_far/ https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/v870vf/m...
  - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
    That is a truly brilliant illustration, btw. I appreciate the clue-in.
RHSman2 3y ago
The happiest people I have ever met are filipinos. And they do not have so much going well at most times.

159 points by yakkomajuri 3y ago

I believe this completely. Folks who live under routine threat like volcanism can be the most calm and functional during crises. I remember an interview with a Dutch Engineer during a storm surge that threatened an important dike (aren't they all important?). They had been working all day and continuing into the night. "What will you do?" "Well, we'll work like hell and see what happens come morning!"

ethbr1 3y ago
> Folks who live under routine threat like volcanism can be the most calm and functional during crises. Mind the (tectonic) gap.
crote 3y ago
> aren't they all important? Not really. Some dikes protect millions, some protect a vilage, and some protect only a handful of people. The Netherlands is currently experiencing minor flooding, and a dike failure in Maastricht led to a dozen house boats needing to be evacuated. > see what happens come morning There really isn't anything else you can do. Natural disasters are unpredictable, and the situation can drastically change from hour to hour. When your country is prone to this kind of threat, it'll have dozens of scenarios worked out, planned, and practiced. It's mostly a matter of grabbing the right playbook, working like hell, and hoping it doesn't get worse. If it does get worse, you simply grab the next playbook and carry on.

PicassoCTs 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa There is a phenomena that if you life under a consistent, visible threat to your life, like for example a huge damn upriver, you suppress that fear and become instead a "believer". And why wouldn't you, after all, if it goes wrong no survivors, so that story makes total sense, until it doesn't and even then.

Log_out_ 3y ago
You meant dam..

jimmyed 3y ago

Reminds of Pakistan, specially when there was a lot of violence during 2008s. There would be _multiple_ bombs blasts on any given day and after a while, the news lost it's real world import for people. I was a tourist in Karachi then and recall appalling insensitivity when I heard of a blast on so and so road. The news just made me update the route I took that day.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
selimthegrim 3y ago
You should’ve been there during the 90s

bbarn 3y ago

I lived in Iceland for several years recently. One thing you have to keep in mind, is this philosophy is pretty much born out of necessity. Until the US Military built a base in Keflavík (which later became an international airport), the country was quite behind the times. As one friend put it to me "When you were landing on the moon we were getting running water installed" Iceland was a very poor country for most people other than a few well off in the fishing industry. Today it's still relatively "medium" with few people very wealthy, but also almost no one in destitution. The attitude is that everyone should be able to live a good life, and while it's not truly socialist, it's pretty darn close. Þetta reddast is used somewhat interchangeably with "I don't feel like dealing with this" and "Some how things will work out even though it doesn't look like it now" and "fuck it". To most people it's kind of an in joke you say when something really sucks.

yakkomajuri 3y ago
Definitely, it's just about always used in a manner of like "Ah, don't worry about it", and while I tried to convey that as well in the post (like with the Snæfellsjökull story), I wanted to show that there might be more to the mentality behind the scenes.
pavlov 3y ago
> ‘As one friend put it to me "When you were landing on the moon we were getting running water installed"’ This also applied to large parts of the United States in 1969, and was part of the reason why many leftists and Black activists saw the Apollo program as a symbol of misplaced priorities at the time. Iceland wasn’t any poorer than Mississippi, for example. And at least Iceland had a program in place to build a Scandinavian-style welfare state so everyone really would get that running water pretty quickly, as well as healthcare and education and the rest. America is still struggling with that while again spending tens of billions on a microwaved-Apollo-cum-Artemis program that’s mostly pork distribution for senators.
- ch4s3 3y ago
  > a symbol of misplaced priorities at the time This always feels terribly myopic to me. There's a lot of state capacity and doing a sing;e time bound endeavor did not prevent civil rights legislation from passing or economic development in Mississippi. The moonshot caused NASA's funding to peak at ~4% of the federal budget for a single year in 1966, returning to less than 1% by '73.

foobarbecue 3y ago

First two paragraphs resonated. I'm an American who grew up in Brazil, Japan, and Sweden. I'm tired of being asked "which was your favorite" because it's so reductive and ALWAYS what people ask me. Questions in this article are much better. On the other hand, the description of roping up without proper training... yeesh. Sounds like bunch of gumbies putting each other's lives in danger. Not ok.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tome 3y ago
How about in future, when someone asks you "which was your favorite" you instead answer one of the questions in the article? It's highly unlikely people literally want to know which was your favourite. More likely they're open to hearing anything interesting about your experience you could share.
- foobarbecue 3y ago
  Yeah, totally-- I roll with it tactfully IRL, I'm usually like well Sweden had the most effective government, Brazil had unbelievable natural beauty, etc. I'm just using this opportunity to whine about a pet peeve :-)
moffkalast 3y ago
So... which one was your favorite? :P
- RobRivera 3y ago
  Oh youuuuuu
switchbak 3y ago
"Sounds like bunch of gumbies putting each other's lives in danger" - that seemed pretty obvious from his story. I have a couple good friends that work on the search and rescue team, and the increasing number of stories about people putting themselves in serious danger with no self awareness is really concerning. I've unwittingly been pulled into these situations myself with said gumbies, and I'm now at the stage where I have no tolerance of it. It's really not cool to put a bunch of other folks in danger because you did something stupid, completely ignorant of any potential danger. It's totally ok to take measured risks, with proper training/knowledge and at least some kind of preparation for handling unexpected situations. And sometimes it's me being the gumby, which probably still happens in small doses :)

hprotagonist 3y ago

Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea. Quick now, here, now, always-- A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flames are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one. -- ts eliot, following julian of norwich

avgcorrection 3y ago

Yeah okay. I hadn’t ever thought that they wouldn’t be.

s_dev 3y ago

>There's a saying in Icelandic - þetta reddast - that means "everything will be alright", and, while many languages have a similar expression, this one is really embedded in Icelandic culture. Ireland has a "It'll be Grand" culture as well for comparison. It's a trade off with pros and cons and works for some situations and inhibits progress in other situations, things often don't get acted on or resolved quickly but at the same time there is a huge reservoir of tolerance to draw on when things do get shit. I would consider this the other end of the spectrum to countries like Japan or Germany in the way they respond to certain things. Lots of generalisations of course but that's often the impressions you get from travelling. It's very hard to be precise about big groups of people.

notnaut 3y ago
>It's very hard to be precise about big groups of people. Literally impossible, by the nature of it.
- bbor 3y ago
  100% of German citizens have a brain, emotions, and an enduring ineffable soul. That’s a precise AND accurate statement ;)
  - mckirk 3y ago
    That's a bold statement to make. German souls need to be re-issued regularly by the BIE (Bundesamt für Immaterielle Essenzen), and it's quite easy to fall behind with how much paperwork this is every year.
    - nicbou 3y ago
      It wouldn't be so bad if they didn't take 4+ weeks to do anything. My friend had a child and he got a soul a year later. It's even worse in Berlin.
  - notnaut 3y ago
    People are people! Precision at its best!

baz00 3y ago

According to OECD Health at a Glance 2023, Iceland is the highest per-capita consumer of tranquilizers. YMMV. I did go there last year and I'm not sure I'd want to live there. Nice place to visit though and mostly nice people (apart from the large Ford truck driving psychopaths)

euroderf 3y ago
IIRC they are also the ONLY country that actually dealt with the clowns that caused their financial crash. In comparison, the USA ? Don't make me laugh.

AlbertCory 3y ago

> I managed to stop myself with an ice axe self-arrest, saved by having used my free time in the past to watch alpinism videos with self-arrest tutorials. Wow. I took Sierra Club Basic Mountaineering class, and we learned self-arrest three ways: head down facing down, facing up, and head up facing up. The class was cancelled later when someone stuck the ice ax into their stomach and sued, and insurance rates skyrocketed. And this guy learned it by watching a video.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
yakkomajuri 3y ago
Hey! Author here. Felt this one in particular needed a reply. I've since actually gotten a bit into alpinism and done a proper course. My instructor (a super experienced British guy in the Alps) refused to teach self-arrests to beginners because he said the risks were greater than the potential benefits. He said a lot of people get hurt practicing it (as you've noted) and so he preferred to really drill down on precautions and crevasse rescue techniques etc. As for the story, I need to note the slope wasn't too steep, but being unable to brake would maybe have sent me down the crevasse (unclear how wide it was, we stepped over it on the way there and it seemed it may have been narrow). I also doubt my technique was perfect, but I just remembered to not just try to have the axe over my head somewhere but rather push my body/shoulder into it with the axe placed more diagonally. I'm certain it was not beautiful nor perfect but at least enough in that situation.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  In our case, it was in the San Gabriel mountains near LA. The snow was so wet we had to wear rain suits to be slippery enough to slide down. Was it safe? Obviously not. But 1000's of people did it before anyone got badly hurt.
yolo3000 3y ago
My story, I was descending a mountain in early spring with 2 friends. I had an ice axe in my hand for balance, although I had never learned self arrest. As we're descending, my friends took the 'winter route', which was a rocky ridge going down. I took the summer route which was 100m away, just because it was smoother. It was wet grass and some patches of snow. I slipped, fell on my back and started sliding, had trouble turning because of my backpack. You really catch speed, I couldn't stop, I was approaching rocks. Somehow I turn on my belly, and instinctively I stick the axe in the ground. You're supposed to hold the top of the axe with one hand close to your chest, but I kept both hands on the handle, and I stoped, I was lucky

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

klik99 3y ago

This resonates with me on many levels. I worked at an Icelandic company for many years and some of my coworkers are like family - I never quite put my finger on why I got so well with Icelandic people, but maybe it's because of this "þetta reddast" attitude - I also have this attitude, though it was something I got in my mid-20s - I used to always think the sky was falling and at some point I realized that it consistently stayed up.

0xEF 3y ago
> it was something I got in my mid-20s I'm past my prime, but would love to know your secret. I remember not wanting to return from Iceland, dreading the inevitable Anxiety Circus™ that was my life in the US. While in Iceland, I felt good about being alive. The way the people just get to the point and aren't afraid to say what they mean instead of this weird communication dance most Americans seem to do. The fact that yeah, danger looms in a variety of ways and the environment can be a bit hostile, but that's fine because we can deal with it together. It is difficult for me to call my experience there anything but refreshing...and yet I was not able to hang on to that. A fault of my own, to be sure, but seeing as you adopted it in your early years, was there anything in particular that you did to make that happen?
- klik99 3y ago
  Since you asked, but I dunno if this is applicable... I had a lot of anxiety growing up - from "If I fail this test then everything is downhill" in school to "If I miss this payment then everything is downhill" in the scare quotes "real world". I remember listing out on paper every time I could remember that I thought there would be dire consequences if I failed and there wasn't actually dire consequences. Maybe it was a kind of retrospective cognitive behavioural therapy? I noticed a pattern (though I didn't have the understanding to call it a pattern back then). But that was the moment that something switched and I had the confidence that even if shit hit the fan I would make it through. Probably it was the culmination of other realizations and not just this act by itself, but that was def the crystallization. And not that I'm always this way, but it's rare for me to fall back into the anxiety circus. It still takes some practice to maintain it in particularly tough situations. Maybe you associate that state of mind with a place because you felt it most strongly there? But I think a state of mind is part of you and you can cultivate that anywhere.

WarOnPrivacy 3y ago

In my head this becomes Risk perception in the US is severely broken. which it is. We US-ians compulsively fear negligible risks (stranger kidnapping, terror attacks) while being unable to sense harm in play (elimination of child growth environments due to false risk perception and systemic destruction of free range area).

jon_richards 3y ago
People don’t realize just how stark it is. https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/v870vf/map_comparing_four_generations_of_kids_how_far/ https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/v870vf/m...
- WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
  That is a truly brilliant illustration, btw. I appreciate the clue-in.

RHSman2 3y ago

The happiest people I have ever met are filipinos. And they do not have so much going well at most times.