4 ms·

> Sweden has a national database and a national ID card system, and it makes my life in Sweden a lot better. Can you be a bit more specific about how?

by michaelt 11mo ago

dijit 11mo ago
The amount of paperwork in my life is effectively zero. Even filing taxes can be sending an SMS saying I agree to what they’ve said. Signing up for a new bank? No problem, the same ID is used for both banks so my authentication of one is good enough to action the transfer. Benefits (Rot/Rut- for home improvements) are handled without me doing anything. All my receipts/payslips etc; go to a digital mailbox and I can download them and print them no problem. Its a lot like how the NHS works w.r.t. prescriptions: except for quite literally everything.
- hexbin010 11mo ago
  Of all the issues in my life, paperwork has never been one of them. Yes, at certain times – couple hours a year (0.02% of a year) – it's a bit of a faff dealing with paperwork. House prices, cost of living, lack of healthcare, my family, my health, the economy, transport, the job market etc consume 99.9% of my day-to-day general concerns. Did people prior to the 2000s have mental breakdowns over paperwork?? How many times do you open a bank account a year??
  - dijit 11mo ago
    1) Your argument is: "improving anything that doesn't effect me very much is not worth it." I mean, there are larger things to fix, but this one is probably larger than you think, even if it's not helping you very much, it'll help crack down on illegal workers (hey, we don't like that, right?) and it'll make the social systems have much less friction. 2) Notice that outside of Stockholm, Swedish house prices are not pegged to infinite like the UK is? I'm not saying that it's because of a central ID system, but you seem to imply that it precludes reasonable house prices... which is weird. 3) The economy is better when it's more efficient. Plenty of people argue inefficiency for the sake of jobs (people pushing paperwork have jobs! cushy government jobs! without them having jobs there'll be more unemployed people! -- I see this a lot more with Americans, and I find it to be an uncompelling argument usually). -- That is to say, I'm actually on your side, I don't trust the UK government, I'm merely offering a contra-point because in other EU countries these things are actually great and simplify a lot of things that you only really notice when you live with it - thus a lot of the hypotheticals fall on deaf ears to me. It's like watching people argue that having legs won't improve your life because someone can take away your shoes.
    - michaelt 11mo ago
      > it'll help crack down on illegal workers Will it, though? Businesses already have to get a photocopy of your passport when they hire you, and check your right to work in the country. If they're not performing the checks, what's the point of a second document they also won't check? Surely the solution is firmer enforcement of the existing law?
      - dijit 11mo ago
        Thats not true, I didn’t even have a passport (and I still don’t have a drivers license) for many of the jobs I had in the UK. UK society does not demand that you have a passport per-se, but there’s very few functional photo ID documents available outside of a drivers license or passport- and getting by without those is annoying but totally possible. I used to “prove” myself with bills addressed to me, and having a bank account- since, again, neither passport nor drivers license. Now, getting the bank account was difficult, required a guarantor. But jobs themselves had no requirement, and I could give them someone else’s bank account details I guess. Same is true of the national security number, which is probably what you meant that the employer must get; that “string” informs the government when you pay tax and therefore you need to be able to work to have one- except there’s no way of proving you’ve supplied the right one: the NI card even says on it that the card itself is not proof of ID.
        hexbin010 11mo ago
        I note you declined to answer "Will it, though?" and just explained that a passport isn't a hard requirement for Right to Work checks.
        dijit 11mo ago
        I thought it was obvious that it does. As mentioned, my experience across multiple societies has proven as such. Unless you live somewhere with a centralised ID system that somehow makes it harder? I doubt it somehow.
    - 11mo ago
  - AlotOfReading 11mo ago
    Did people prior to the 2000s have mental breakdowns over paperwork?? You might have heard of Franz Kafka?
    - hexbin010 11mo ago
      Hah that made me chuckle!
- Avicebron 11mo ago
  What would you say Sweden is doing differently than other places in terms of garnering trust with the population? You must have insights if you trust one government and not another
  - dijit 11mo ago
    I think it's a bit more democratic, though many in Sweden would prefer it to be more-so. (the major parties used to just sort of agree on 95%+ of issues, leading to some disenfranchisement across the population). I think though it's a lot about the fact that the UK is sort-of an "adversarial" kind of democracy, and Sweden is more like a "consensus" driven democracy.. The UK is also pretty often plagued by sleaze scandals for officials in public office, by contrast Swedish politicians can be incompetent or fuck-up, but there's much more public access to what they're doing. I think it's also true that people feel that public services are pretty good, even if the healthcare system is overburdened, and that there could be more police officers: taxes are high but most people definitely think that it's worth it. The way COVID was handled and the ongoing freedom of speech issues in the UK are also something that make me not trust the government, they'll violate my rights on a whim. Compared to Sweden where even during COVID they didn't lock down (even if it was arguably the right thing to do and would have saved a lot of lives) because it would have violated peoples rights. I'm not going to sit here and claim that Sweden is a paragon of virtue, they get a lot wrong and there are plenty of inefficiencies, but compared to the UK it's pretty stark. It's like comparing trust in government between the UK and Russia. (I think that's actually a pretty fair comparison, USA and UK have comparatively similar trust in government compared to Sweden vs UK).
    - belorn 11mo ago
      The wast majority of deaths during covid in Sweden occurred not because of lock down differences to other countries, but because of how elder care system. I recall some doctor even described themselves as bringers of death because of how much the system did not work. The post analysis of covid also brings this up as the reason why the numbers didn't end up as good as they had hoped, and when the lock down of elder care facilities did arrive it was both too late and too draconian, including news articles of elders "escaping" through windows. It was found that having a new person almost every day spending about 15 minutes at some elderly person home before going to the next person, without enough time to even wash their hands, had bad results during an pandemic. They also found out that having a very small number of doctors going from elder care facility to the next in order to sign off on all medicine was also a bad idea.

> Sweden has a national database and a national ID card system, and it makes my life in Sweden a lot better. Can you be a bit more specific about how?

dijit 11mo ago

The amount of paperwork in my life is effectively zero. Even filing taxes can be sending an SMS saying I agree to what they’ve said. Signing up for a new bank? No problem, the same ID is used for both banks so my authentication of one is good enough to action the transfer. Benefits (Rot/Rut- for home improvements) are handled without me doing anything. All my receipts/payslips etc; go to a digital mailbox and I can download them and print them no problem. Its a lot like how the NHS works w.r.t. prescriptions: except for quite literally everything.

hexbin010 11mo ago
Of all the issues in my life, paperwork has never been one of them. Yes, at certain times – couple hours a year (0.02% of a year) – it's a bit of a faff dealing with paperwork. House prices, cost of living, lack of healthcare, my family, my health, the economy, transport, the job market etc consume 99.9% of my day-to-day general concerns. Did people prior to the 2000s have mental breakdowns over paperwork?? How many times do you open a bank account a year??
- dijit 11mo ago
  1) Your argument is: "improving anything that doesn't effect me very much is not worth it." I mean, there are larger things to fix, but this one is probably larger than you think, even if it's not helping you very much, it'll help crack down on illegal workers (hey, we don't like that, right?) and it'll make the social systems have much less friction. 2) Notice that outside of Stockholm, Swedish house prices are not pegged to infinite like the UK is? I'm not saying that it's because of a central ID system, but you seem to imply that it precludes reasonable house prices... which is weird. 3) The economy is better when it's more efficient. Plenty of people argue inefficiency for the sake of jobs (people pushing paperwork have jobs! cushy government jobs! without them having jobs there'll be more unemployed people! -- I see this a lot more with Americans, and I find it to be an uncompelling argument usually). -- That is to say, I'm actually on your side, I don't trust the UK government, I'm merely offering a contra-point because in other EU countries these things are actually great and simplify a lot of things that you only really notice when you live with it - thus a lot of the hypotheticals fall on deaf ears to me. It's like watching people argue that having legs won't improve your life because someone can take away your shoes.
  - michaelt 11mo ago
    > it'll help crack down on illegal workers Will it, though? Businesses already have to get a photocopy of your passport when they hire you, and check your right to work in the country. If they're not performing the checks, what's the point of a second document they also won't check? Surely the solution is firmer enforcement of the existing law?
    - dijit 11mo ago
      Thats not true, I didn’t even have a passport (and I still don’t have a drivers license) for many of the jobs I had in the UK. UK society does not demand that you have a passport per-se, but there’s very few functional photo ID documents available outside of a drivers license or passport- and getting by without those is annoying but totally possible. I used to “prove” myself with bills addressed to me, and having a bank account- since, again, neither passport nor drivers license. Now, getting the bank account was difficult, required a guarantor. But jobs themselves had no requirement, and I could give them someone else’s bank account details I guess. Same is true of the national security number, which is probably what you meant that the employer must get; that “string” informs the government when you pay tax and therefore you need to be able to work to have one- except there’s no way of proving you’ve supplied the right one: the NI card even says on it that the card itself is not proof of ID.
      - hexbin010 11mo ago
        I note you declined to answer "Will it, though?" and just explained that a passport isn't a hard requirement for Right to Work checks.
        dijit 11mo ago
        I thought it was obvious that it does. As mentioned, my experience across multiple societies has proven as such. Unless you live somewhere with a centralised ID system that somehow makes it harder? I doubt it somehow.
  - 11mo ago
- AlotOfReading 11mo ago
  Did people prior to the 2000s have mental breakdowns over paperwork?? You might have heard of Franz Kafka?
  - hexbin010 11mo ago
    Hah that made me chuckle!
Avicebron 11mo ago
What would you say Sweden is doing differently than other places in terms of garnering trust with the population? You must have insights if you trust one government and not another
- dijit 11mo ago
  I think it's a bit more democratic, though many in Sweden would prefer it to be more-so. (the major parties used to just sort of agree on 95%+ of issues, leading to some disenfranchisement across the population). I think though it's a lot about the fact that the UK is sort-of an "adversarial" kind of democracy, and Sweden is more like a "consensus" driven democracy.. The UK is also pretty often plagued by sleaze scandals for officials in public office, by contrast Swedish politicians can be incompetent or fuck-up, but there's much more public access to what they're doing. I think it's also true that people feel that public services are pretty good, even if the healthcare system is overburdened, and that there could be more police officers: taxes are high but most people definitely think that it's worth it. The way COVID was handled and the ongoing freedom of speech issues in the UK are also something that make me not trust the government, they'll violate my rights on a whim. Compared to Sweden where even during COVID they didn't lock down (even if it was arguably the right thing to do and would have saved a lot of lives) because it would have violated peoples rights. I'm not going to sit here and claim that Sweden is a paragon of virtue, they get a lot wrong and there are plenty of inefficiencies, but compared to the UK it's pretty stark. It's like comparing trust in government between the UK and Russia. (I think that's actually a pretty fair comparison, USA and UK have comparatively similar trust in government compared to Sweden vs UK).
  - belorn 11mo ago
    The wast majority of deaths during covid in Sweden occurred not because of lock down differences to other countries, but because of how elder care system. I recall some doctor even described themselves as bringers of death because of how much the system did not work. The post analysis of covid also brings this up as the reason why the numbers didn't end up as good as they had hoped, and when the lock down of elder care facilities did arrive it was both too late and too draconian, including news articles of elders "escaping" through windows. It was found that having a new person almost every day spending about 15 minutes at some elderly person home before going to the next person, without enough time to even wash their hands, had bad results during an pandemic. They also found out that having a very small number of doctors going from elder care facility to the next in order to sign off on all medicine was also a bad idea.