We don’t have a “firm boundary” on people being rich. We just don’t have multi-billionaires. Or if we do, they’re the silent type, not the Musk/Bezos type. And even those are pretty different.
But like, how many multi-billionaires do you know from like Minnesota, Louisiana, Oregon & Oklahoma?
The progressive taxation we have is for income, not capital gains. So essentially you can never get rich by working, but if you’re just profiting from having a lot of capital (renting properties etc, even airbnb, and tons of other ways for rich people to shift their income from “labour income” to capital gains), then you have a flat 30% tax rate. And if you’re actually a billionaire, you’d just shift it all to a tax haven to avoid even the 30%.
Sure, yeah, I agree there’s a certain type of bottom — insofar that we don’t allow people to die to starvation or the elements — but that’s a fucking low bar, don’t you think?
I bet you’re one of those people who actually believe Finland is the happiest country in the world. (It’s like North Koreans talking about freedom lol.)
Our ultra-wealthy pay literally nothing in taxes. They take out loans against their holdings, and when they do sell they use losses on paper to offset their gains, so they get away with paying nothing
And most of ours fly under the radar too. There’s around 300 resorts and compounds worldwide where the billionaires live their social lives away from cameras, not counting their more personal compounds
We do let people die of starvation and to the elements. In fact, we regularly have fights over if poor children deserve to be fed, and the results recently have been “no”
Lately, we’ve been criminalizing homelessness to put a capstone on decades of regularly tearing down whatever shelter they manage to cobble together.
Hell, a church got sued for letting homeless people shelter during a cold snap. People get arrested and charged for feeding the homeless in some places
And don’t get me started on medical care… It’s literally worse than you could imagine. You wouldn’t believe me even if I sugar coated it
I’m sure your life isn’t perfect, but have no idea how bad it’s gotten over here. I’d kill for a system as imperfect as the one you take for granted
You probably think I’m exaggerating about all this, but I’m really not. Luckily the administration is incompetent, because otherwise we’d be neck deep in a genocide right now. Instead, both of our political parties have settled on mass death, just so long as it’s indirect
Sheesh I hate it when Americans are like “you have no idea”.
Yes, we do. We have the internet here as well and you can’t really avoid hearing about American shit.
Why would you think I don’t know what a tax-haven when I specifically mentioned that any “proper” billionaires can get around paying even the 30%. And that’s private citizens. Google is equally a tax-avoiding scumbag company for us Nordics as it is for you. There’s just so many laws the extremely wealthy corps and individuals can use to avoid paying anything. Google’s tax rate is literally zero.
We do let people die of starvation and to the elements
Yes, we know. Hence me explicitly mentioning we don’t?
Lately, we’ve been criminalizing homelessness
And that’s clear here as well, despite there being very few homeless and practically none of them live on the street. For some 9 months at least it’s mostly too cold to sleep outside. Yet the silly hostile architecture for benches and whatnot has pervaded into the Nordics as well.
We don’t need it, but they’re still there. So there are people here working on getting rid of even the most basic securities that allow us to function like this. Also, I’m on the same latitude as Juneau, Alaska, about. And I’m in the very SW corner of Finland, on the level of Stockholm.
Does Alaska have a large homeless population? I doubt anything like in the States where the winters are milder?
People get arrested and charged for feeding the homeless in some places
I’ve seen the videos. You’re still pretending as if we don’t have selfish people here who would rather just kill all the poor. You at least have people who care and help others. Here in the Nordics, due to there being a system people can point to, personal responsibility for anyone doing badly is extremely small. People are apathetic and just default to “the system should be helping them.”
Hell, when I was properly suicidal, my mom literally just went “well what do you want me to do about it” and called the social workers with a care notice or something. The funny bit being that she is a social worker with higher education. What could she do? Idk, give me a ring sometime, or come to visit so I don’t feel as bad. But no. People just default to “the bureaucracy will help them, the bureaucracy is infallible”.
I’d kill for a system as imperfect as the one you take for granted
Except you’ve very clearly demonstrated that your assumed version of our system is pure fantasy.
There’s a reason we’re quite high in the suicide stats. Because we’re definitely not even close to being “the happiest country in the world”. I don’t ever remember my grandma laughing. She died cold and alone, hallucinating basically dream paralysis demons. With not even a nurse who would’ve know her, because the care home was being run down and there were just random nurses for a few shifts and then new ones again.
So I implore you, don’t put the Nordics on a fucking pedestal. Dismissing the problems we have, pretending this is some Lintukoto.
Would you rather be in prison with a dozen of your best mates, or literally forever alone without even the possibility of emotions and if you talk about them, you’ll be shunned?
You probably think I’m exaggerating about all this, but I’m really not
Again, just because you don’t know things about the Nordics nor see our news does not mean we don’t see yours.
What’s the point of competing who has it worse? That’s literally whataboutism that’s just dismissing Nordic problems. And you’re not even Nordic. Trying to have this discussion with fellow Nords is very hard, because lots and lots literally won’t allow themselves even an inch of wrong-think.
Our police seem very skilled, don’t they? I never had problems with them, always good interactions. Then I got arrested for weed. They put me in an isolation cell for 3 days while denying me my prescription medication, the lights were on constantly and there wasn’t even a mattress to sleep on or a blanket. Just the cold ground. Was the cell prolly cleaner than average jail cells in the US? Probably.
But would I be able to sue the shit ouf of them for literally torturing me, breaking Geneva conventions? At one point they turned of my water for hours. I have a congenital kidney malformation and due to that slight inefficiency in left kidney so I must keep good hydration.
I drew over 300 words in my own blood on the walls.
In the US there’d be a queue of lawyers on my door for all the violations, and I’d be looking at tens of thousands to millions in compensation.
Here in Finland, I can’t literally even get people to accept it happened. The only one who does is my therapist and he was born and raised in the UK only moved here later in life.
So we really don’t have to compete which sort of horror is the worst.
In the US, I’d probably be on the streets or in prison. But after years of literal solitude and nothing else, I’d actually welcome it. My own fucking mother went “weeeelll, you know, I can’t actually now what happened in the cell” when I phoned her to cry about my injuries and the injustice of it all. She implied it was my own fault that the police tortured me. And that’s the most anyone’s spoken to me about it. Finns always decline and refute it at first, then when I produce some photos (I only have those because they claimed I vandalised the cell. We then asked for the security cam footage as evidence of the crime. Weirdly it was suddenly completely lost and the charges dropped.
I would rather get beaten up and kicked than do that again. But again, both suck, they’re just different. So what’s the point in competing who has it worse and by how much?
There’s clearly problems in both places. I’m not critical of everything in the Nordics, but nor am I critical of everything America either, despite having been actively arguing against your foreign policies and criticising you in general for a few decades online.
And don’t get me started on medical care… It’s literally worse than you could imagine. You wouldn’t believe me even if I sugar coated it
Do you think the free healthcare here is some superior quality? No. The best in classes go to private clinics, the worst end up in the public system. And the wait times are ridiculous. Some of the doctors have confidently said things that are just plain untrue. I could genuinely list 30+ years of bad experiences in the public healthcare system. Sure it’s not bankrupting me, but it’s also not doing jack shit for anything and genuinely gets like 80% of their guesses wrong when it’s even the least bit subjective. You wouldn’t believe half the shit I’ve heard from supposed “professionals”.
So again, every different, but neither is good, is it? So don’t think you’d “kill” to switch places with me, when I’ve spent a good deal of the past few years considering just killing myself.
I get what you’re saying, and I’m not comparing personal experiences at all, that sounds horrible. If I thought the Nordic countries were some kind paradise, I’d be working my ass off to get there. I get that the entire world is being worn down by the billionaires
But you still don’t get it… If you lived here, your worst 3 days is something common for people who fall through the cracks. There are people kept in similar conditions for months or years at a time. Including for just having a small amount of weed
And it’s legal to do this in a lot of places. It isn’t something they have to cover up, they might not even need to justify it with a reason.
Hell, lots of people take pride in the cruelty to “criminals”.
And you don’t understand our medical system… Our outcomes are terrible. Your unhelpful free healthcare has better outcomes than what we go into lifelong debt for
And your meds… Depending on what you need, it could be hundreds of dollars a month, sometimes even with insurance. Without it, there’s no upper limit, many drugs are in the thousands… You’d have to jump through hoops with the drug companies and hope they give you enough of a discount
So yeah… You probably would be dead. And if you weren’t, you’d be just as alone, and more battered by your experiences
I get why you feel otherwise. Part of me craves disaster, because at least then it would justify my suffering. At least then my struggles would be less abstract. It’s very normal to feel that way when you don’t have hope in the future
But if we’re talking about economic and legal systems, you can’t throw your hands up and say “every system has problems”. Obviously they do. But if you want hope, and to build political momentum, you have to convince people something better is possible. And perfect or not, the Nordic model exists
On a personal level, the best advice I can give you is to fight. Find an organization pushing for people falling through the cracks, and get involved with them in whatever way you can. Whether that results in change or not, being around others who believe in the same things and doing something about it builds hope
I know, I’m a bit sensitive when it comes to people telling me essentially “you haven’t tried hard enough.”
Anyway, the one childhood friend who was a man-kebab, that dude didn’t invite me to his wedding with a bitch who was equally or more an abuser of alcohol and they didn’t because was vocally for the legalisation of weed.
If you lived here, your worst 3 days is something common for people
Homelessness is common sure. But staying awake for three days while sober, shitting the eherloving shit out of yourself while eating your fingers until they literally bleed and then proceed to paint with your own blood for 70+ hours is… common in the US? And you don’t think that could be a bit offensive to me, dismissing literal torture I went through? (Sleep deprivation is torture, not to mention anything about closing off the water and not giving me my prescription meds.)
But hey, you’re not victimblaming, just dismissing it. So it’s still not as bad as literally every Finnish person I know.
But staying awake for three days while sober, shitting the eherloving shit out of yourself while eating your fingers until they literally bleed and then proceed to paint with your own blood for 70+ hours is… common in the US? And you don’t think that could be a bit offensive to me, dismissing literal torture I went through? (Sleep deprivation is torture, not to mention anything about closing off the water and not giving me my prescription meds.)
Yes that’s literally just something that happens to people. Yes, it’s definitionally torture… But it’s normal here. Normally, people paint the walls in shit, but blood is far from unheard of
I feel like a good analogy for you diamissing me like that would be something like you dismissing Wolverine as “not understanding pain, because he has a healing factor”.
But to pretend it’s “common” is taking the piss. Either your being extremely offensive or very ignorant. I can’t decide which.
But it’s normal here.
No it fucking isn’t. Nothing about that is normal. Sure, you can find examples of nastier shit going on in county jails, but to pretend like it’s “common” shows that you have absolutely no connection to actual criminals. Unlike me. (I’m a professional one, in case that wasn’t clear.)
It’s not even something most people are capable of. I have had a high BP since I was a kid due to a congenital kidney thing. (I had extra organs and then had to go through several major surgeries.) My pediatrician told me at 18 that I’ve the BP of an “80-year old woman”.
Most people will just fall asleep automatically after aome ~26-30 hours. People have a hard time staying up 72 hours even when theyre doing pharmaceutical grade stimulants.
My body is essentially just overclocked. And that’s why it crashes as well. I can’t get to sleep for days then eventually I might find myself on the bathroom floor on top of broken glass, or in an ambulance or at the ER.
But you, just like Finns, just have to actively dismiss anything I say, even though you’re having to say ridiculous, untrue shit like that.
The average person during an average night in a jail definitely doesn’t stay up all night, let alone three nights, let alone literally eating themselves. Have you ever tried biting yourself hard enough to draw blood?
No OF COURSE you haven’t, because it’s NOT COMMON OR NORMAL IN THE SLIGHTEST.
Oh ran into char limit. And I’m writing on my phone.
So yeah tldr I’ve been part of several political parties and organisations. I have streamed politics and called members of parliament and even the head of the election law committee(or organisation whatever). Finns are just pathologically avoidant, which is slowly driving us to authoritarianism.
You don’t understand Finland because you’re ignorant of it but I’m not ignorant of the USA.
How do you know about the world. Through media. Most of your information is from media, not first hand experiences. Unfortunately for you, the media is full of stuff about the US and only occasionally maybe mentions Finland.
It’s the same sort of disparity as there is with language.
You might as well be saying “you haven’t lived in an English-speaking country so you can’t be fluent in English!”
I started reading English roughly 25-30 years ago. The point being that I was exposed to it ever since I was a kid. And I leaned into learning it. Most of the people in Finland do not have my language skills, albeit everyone has a basic level of English understanding. The same goes for the US.
Or how many States have you been in? All 50? Doubt it. A dozen? Or maybe just a handful of cities?
And you don’t understand our medical system…
I understand your lack of education. Otherwise you might understand, after several times of repeating it, that I actually do know how about your country and it’s systems.
Aside from being bombarded with American news day and night everywhere, I actually go out of my way to watch news shows like Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, but I can already hear you mocking about how “TV isn’t real life”, despite the fact that you get most of your news from it as well. Somehow it’s just iiiimpossible to understand shit like wounds getting treated with literally just sugar in federal prisons. Sure that was a random case but the episode about it gives context on why it’s a good example.
Hell, it’s completely possible that (aside from taxes paid) I’ve done more for the US than any random American I meet online. Just out of my age, so I’ve have been online for quite a while, and the amount of activism I do online. I used to be 9001 times more militant about American global policies and the drug war, but also against Trump ever since he first stood for president. And while you can dismiss online activity as “just [whateverlameexcuse]”, that’s how things progress. By people complaining.
And your meds… Depending on what you need, it could be hundreds of dollars a month, sometimes even with insurance. Without it, there’s no upper limit, many drugs are in the thousands… You’d have to jump through hoops with the drug companies and hope they give you enough of a discount
Do you genuinely think that this is the first I’m hearing of drugs (and healthcare in general) being insanely expensive in the US? You genuinely think I wouldn’t understand a meme about Americans avoiding taking an ambulance even when they’re very much in need? You think I’d just go… “I don’t get the joke o.o”?
And if you weren’t, you’d be just as alone
You don’t know me at all. I make friends extremely easily, alway have. The thing here is "you have NO IDEA* about Finnish culture, because the only time you’ve been exposed to it is some random henchman in a movie where an action hero is going/coming from Russia. And they never even bother to get anyone who actually speaks Finnish, it’s always gibberish or extremely poorly pronounced. (Imagine a deep southern accent someone trying to read Chinese without understanding the tones at all and you’ll get close to what it sounds like to us).
You don’t understand that I’ve chosen to avoid the people who won’t stand up to injustice. And that’s about the only criteria I have in adulthood. But for instance an American does not understand what it means to smoke weed in Finland.
It’s essentially similar to being gay in an extremely conservative and religious small town. You’ll get treated as the worst cock-sucking crack whore just for saying “I don’t think weed should be illegal.” And that is not an exaggeration I’m pulling out of my arse. If you understood Finnish I could share phonecalls with medical professionals who basically say that smoking weed on the weekends is literally as bad as shooting up heroine. One refused to give me meds, saying “you’ll just sell these for drug money”. One of the friends whom I grew up with, whom I have carried out of several parties, from one in a rolled up mat with him in the center, with his vomit all over. Like some sort of disgusting man-kebab.
Also, if I had lived in the US, I would’ve actually had the chance to do school at my speed. Which was way faster than the other kids. And you don’t understand it coming from a culture which so values individuality and individual achievement, but in Finland you’re not allowed to be better than others at basic education. I was literally held back because the others weren’t as fast. I taught myself how to read (no joke) at the age of five. So at the age of 7 in first year the teacher put me in an empty classroom by myself, saying “sit here and read” while others learned their letters.
Most Finns actively avoid people as sociable as me, but in the US I’d probably be on the introverted side of the spectrum.
I say I would be dead or in prison, but I also could just be making it big, as I would’ve definitely got a scholarship to a good school. I had a 9.3/10 (scale 4-10 4 is F 10 is A+) GPA when leaving basic education. What you’d call a straight A student. And I didn’t even apply myself, because I didn’t have to. I kept learning next year’s shit from my older brothers books.
I could be in jail for weed. I could be in a state where it’s legal. Could be that I would’ve been bakruptred, or could be I’d be an ace surgeon. (I’m not that interested in surgery tbh, but I was good at dissecting animals, our biology teacher said I was the first student in 20 years to extract a perch’s swimbladder without puncturing it and literally said “you’d make a great surgeon”. Couldn’t chase that either as mom forced us to love move that year and had to remake all friends and none of the teachers knew me and it was a way shittier school.)
Anyway, you’re making assumptions which even I can’t say about myself. The reason I say dead or in prison is because I wouldn’t put up with the bullshit politics and wouldve either been tossed to jail for weed or activism or some such. But in the US , I wouldn’t be alone with my sentiment. That’s why you so enshrine your rights. You actually have a sense of justice. Finns don’t. Finns merely follow rules instead of ever considering how moral or necessary the rules even are.
You can go to a city in Finland during the night when no-one is around for miles, and people will stop at a pedestrian red light, even for intersections that are clearly clear for hundreds of feet.
And I say feet, because I understand feet as well, but I don’t think you have as good a grasp on metric as I do for imperial units. Might be I’m wrong. But seeing how little empathy you show, I’m pretty sure I’m not.
The why I do it is kinda simple. The idea of America, the American dream, or whatever, is — however subjectively — kind of a cool idea. It’s a continuation of what the French started a few centuries ago, and it was going relatively well until somewhat recently. (Like, say, post 9-11.) And would you believe it I can remember where I was and what I was doing on 9/11. I don’t think you can say the same thing for anything that has ever happened to a Finnish person or relating to Finland.
But if you want hope, and to build political momentum, you have to convince people something better is possible. And perfect or not, the Nordic model exists
Yes, and the Nordic model isn’t the fantasy you have in your head anymore than a Whopper actually looks like the ad pictures for it.
I’m telling you you don’t have an idea of the pathological avoidance pretty much built into Finnish society. Hell, it’s in the very language. We don’t have gendered words or even gender-specific pronouns. And while we have a gender-neutral pronoun, we still often default to referring to people as “se”, which translates as “it”. Only really pets and formal situations does one use the proper third person pronoun “hän”.
On a personal level, the best advice I can give you is to fight
Oh wow. What a revelation my man. Wow. Crazy that it never occurred to my. Wow. All I needed to do is “fight” yeah, that’ll change the entire social fabric of Finland. Just like if you want, you can just get everyone to admit that the 2A is a garbage law only there to perpetuate the American military-industrial complex instead of having anything to do with actually having “a well regulated militia” in order to oppose tyranny. You’re living under tyranny right now and aside from Luigi, I ain’t seen no-one doing jack shit about it.
See how the language there sounded a little different? That’s because I actually know that despite learning in school that double negatives shouldn’t be used, if one is emulating colloquial speech, one would or at least could employ double negatives as emphasis for a positive. Because again, I don’t need to have lived in the US for that. Idk where you live or how much you travel, but you can probably do at least NY, Cali and deep south accents on a very stereotypical level. So can I. It’s not exactly rocket science. And whilst you live closer to those places, unless you’ve lived several years in each, you’re also mostly drawing on the media.
So I don’t know why you keep pretending like your systems are some grand secret. Feels a bit like Americans who yell loudly (in English) abroad to make themselves “easily understood” when literally everyone can speak English. (Yes, I did just use “literally” as emphasis instead of it’s literal sense.)
The Finnish Supreme Court ruled that I was in the right and that the police limited my freedom of speech illegally when stopping me from filming them when they illegally entered my apartment. In the US, I’d have made millions off that. Here I didn’t even get a letter saying I won. Read it off the news.
Also, if I had lived in the US, I would’ve actually had the chance to do school at my speed. Which was way faster than the other kid
Are you born rich? Because otherwise that’s a fantasy. We are not a meritocracy, no matter how hard we pretend. It doesn’t work that way
And I don’t even know where to start with the rest of this… I’m on my phone and can’t clip you point by point
But you think you’d make it big? Of course you fucking wouldn’t. No one does. That’s literally impossible. Even last one of our movie and music stars come from money. Every last one of them
Have you ever spoken to homeless people? I have. I make a point of doing it. I’ve slept alongside them, I’ve shared meals. Not through media, but through human connection. And they’ve both been insanely generous and tried to steal from me
Holy projection Batman, you haven’t seen what I’ve seen, not through media, but first-hand.
My job used to be driving them around and my mom’s a social worker, so yeah. I have. Believe it or not, there are homeless people in Finland despite us having less of them and us not letting them starve en-masse on the streets, but don’t shit yourself that Finns think like that. We got libertarians as well, thanks to all the libertarian BS Murica has pushed. I’ve got into a fight with a guy because he literally honestly genuinely meant that homelessness is a choice.
You prolly know how untrue that is?
Of course you fucking wouldn’t. No one does. That’s literally impossible.
Ah I see you’ve gone with the same “using ‘literally’ for emphasis instead of literally literally” tactic.
So there’s no rich people in the US? Approximately 7-8.5% of Americans are literally literally millionaires, but “no-one makes it big”.
And you stand by that statement, instead of admitting it’s grotesque exaggeration?
Is it easier to win big if you get a “small loan of a million dollars”? Ofc it fucking is. Same shit works here. The dipshits who didn’t understand jack shit in school but were born with gold spoons up their arses exist here just like in America.
There’s much more a roof against becoming rich through labour. That was my original point. Same shit work’s with schools. The reason I wasn’t allowed to skip a class is because I’m not allowed to make the rich kids parents feel bad for having a kid who isn’t as cognitively gifted. Can’t be that poor people succeed!
But yeah, I was actually born into the upper-middle class. We’re one of the more known families from my town. Very central during early and mid 1900’s but then my grandpa died in the 90’s and dad drank everything then died himself.
Mom and dad broke up because of it. I ended up having to change schools several times as mom moved around. You know how it’s a meme parents want their kids to go to a good school? Well I was literally in one of the best schools in Finland and one of the best students there. Mom didn’t give a second thought. Also I’m one of four siblings, so that divided her attention.
I moved away from my mom’s at 15. Wbu?
Most of your experiences are still through media, even when your most impactful ones were in-person. I don’t think I ever even implied otherwise. Reading comprehension my man. I know US has low literacy but still.
Just like we’re mine. And if you think Finland doesn’t have depraved drug abusers, I could write another 3 full comments showing how you’re wrong, but prolly easier for you to watch this trailer of a documentary Reindeerspotting — Pako Joulumaasta (Escape from Santaland) . And those kids are still very healthy when they’re filming. I’ve known people like that after they’ve come out of prison. One of my neighbours was a murderer. Then someone stole a half a k of meth from the basement cellar storage I also had a key to. And he knew it. And was methed up.
But even he isn’t the most depraved by miles.
Just because our druggies to hang out in the streets, you keep on insisting we don’t have any.
You’re literally just comparing and comparing, when I keep telling you you can’t, because don’t know anything about Finland. But I can compare them, because I know about Finland for living here, and I hear about the US because western media. You don’t hear about Finland. That’s just what the facts are.
Who the fuck has said anything about the US being a meritocracy? I haven’t said Finland is authoritarian either. I’ve said it’s more authoritarian than it has been. Comparatively.
Just like in comparison to Finland, US is more meritocratic than Finland, despite not being a meritocracy per se.
The requirements are academic preparation (testing ahead in all subjects), emotional maturity and motivation. I got 3/3. When other kids were learning their ABC’s, I was browsing thick tomes of dictionaries, giggling at the funny (and magical seeming) Latin names for things. I didn’t like being put into daycare even before going to school, and I was mature enough, so my mom (a trained social worker) left me alone in the house and came to check on me during lunch. I just sat and read. (Mostly comics, not always something to learn but for fun).
And for motivation? Well I had taught myself how to read. Answer I gave an independence day speech that was meant to be read by a sixth grader (the oldest class in lower basic education).
We don’t have skipping grades. If we did, I definitely would’ve been allowed to.
This is what I mean by you not understanding. You think you do, you want us to be on an equal footing. But we’re not.
Mä voin vaihtaa kieltä ja sun pitää ottaa AI käyttöö et pystyt edes ymmärtämää mua. Mut silti luulet jotenkin et mä ymmärrän yhtä vähän sun yhteiskunnasta kun sä mun.
Just not true. The US is in the spotlight, has been since WWII at least, and unfortunately while the audience can see the person in the spotlight, the person in the spotlight can’t see the dark audience from the bright lights. This is much like that. You think we’re just like a slightly different America. We’re not. There are things you don’t understand that you don’t understand, and I don’t know how to make you understand that.
So now you’re just pretending you weren’t wrong at all.
You have skipping grades as a concept and practice with rules and laws.
We don’t.
In the nicest way possible, I think you might have brain damage.
I do understand. Again, I’m very well versed in what it’s like in America. You’re still pretending as if most of your experiences aren’t relayed by types of media. And that I somehow don’t have access to this arcane knowledge about the US.
You could just as well be arguing that I just don’t speak English because it’s not the language I first learned. I haven’t lived in an English speaking country or ever even been in one for weeks, let alone years. Yet I’m completely fluent. Hell, the last time I checked, some 10-15 years ago, I had a larger vocabulary than 52% of native speakers.
Yet you childishly keep insisting there’s something I don’t understand.
“No no, you don’t get it. America has expensive drugs, you haven’t ever heard of how much we spend on drugs.”
“We have homeless people!”
Yes, you also have a military-industrial complex, you’re fucking over your veterans, your cops are murderers, there’s still tons of institutional racism, sexism, ableism, your leader is an ever-lying failure of a businessman who’s going senile and is owned by Putler, two thirds of your population are obese, literacy is like 79%, you have the largest prison population in the world despite not being even close to having the most people, roughly 1% of your adult population is in prison, which too often are for-profit prisons which are the only way America is clinging to any sort of cheap labour blabalablablabla blabla bla i could go on for days. What exactly don’t I understand? Your lack of empathy?
Honestly, depending on how old you are, I’ve could have been exposed to American news more than you, despite living in another country. That is if you’re like in your early twenties.
Do you remember where you were during 9/11? You never answered.
But you have no idea
It’s you who keeps having no idea, despite constantly been proved wrong.
Sounds like you don’t actually live here.
We don’t have a “firm boundary” on people being rich. We just don’t have multi-billionaires. Or if we do, they’re the silent type, not the Musk/Bezos type. And even those are pretty different.
But like, how many multi-billionaires do you know from like Minnesota, Louisiana, Oregon & Oklahoma?
The progressive taxation we have is for income, not capital gains. So essentially you can never get rich by working, but if you’re just profiting from having a lot of capital (renting properties etc, even airbnb, and tons of other ways for rich people to shift their income from “labour income” to capital gains), then you have a flat 30% tax rate. And if you’re actually a billionaire, you’d just shift it all to a tax haven to avoid even the 30%.
Sure, yeah, I agree there’s a certain type of bottom — insofar that we don’t allow people to die to starvation or the elements — but that’s a fucking low bar, don’t you think?
I bet you’re one of those people who actually believe Finland is the happiest country in the world. (It’s like North Koreans talking about freedom lol.)
Jesus Christ, you have no idea…
Our ultra-wealthy pay literally nothing in taxes. They take out loans against their holdings, and when they do sell they use losses on paper to offset their gains, so they get away with paying nothing
And most of ours fly under the radar too. There’s around 300 resorts and compounds worldwide where the billionaires live their social lives away from cameras, not counting their more personal compounds
We do let people die of starvation and to the elements. In fact, we regularly have fights over if poor children deserve to be fed, and the results recently have been “no”
Lately, we’ve been criminalizing homelessness to put a capstone on decades of regularly tearing down whatever shelter they manage to cobble together.
Hell, a church got sued for letting homeless people shelter during a cold snap. People get arrested and charged for feeding the homeless in some places
And don’t get me started on medical care… It’s literally worse than you could imagine. You wouldn’t believe me even if I sugar coated it
I’m sure your life isn’t perfect, but have no idea how bad it’s gotten over here. I’d kill for a system as imperfect as the one you take for granted
You probably think I’m exaggerating about all this, but I’m really not. Luckily the administration is incompetent, because otherwise we’d be neck deep in a genocide right now. Instead, both of our political parties have settled on mass death, just so long as it’s indirect
Sheesh I hate it when Americans are like “you have no idea”.
Yes, we do. We have the internet here as well and you can’t really avoid hearing about American shit.
Why would you think I don’t know what a tax-haven when I specifically mentioned that any “proper” billionaires can get around paying even the 30%. And that’s private citizens. Google is equally a tax-avoiding scumbag company for us Nordics as it is for you. There’s just so many laws the extremely wealthy corps and individuals can use to avoid paying anything. Google’s tax rate is literally zero.
Yes, we know. Hence me explicitly mentioning we don’t?
And that’s clear here as well, despite there being very few homeless and practically none of them live on the street. For some 9 months at least it’s mostly too cold to sleep outside. Yet the silly hostile architecture for benches and whatnot has pervaded into the Nordics as well.
We don’t need it, but they’re still there. So there are people here working on getting rid of even the most basic securities that allow us to function like this. Also, I’m on the same latitude as Juneau, Alaska, about. And I’m in the very SW corner of Finland, on the level of Stockholm.
Does Alaska have a large homeless population? I doubt anything like in the States where the winters are milder?
I’ve seen the videos. You’re still pretending as if we don’t have selfish people here who would rather just kill all the poor. You at least have people who care and help others. Here in the Nordics, due to there being a system people can point to, personal responsibility for anyone doing badly is extremely small. People are apathetic and just default to “the system should be helping them.”
Hell, when I was properly suicidal, my mom literally just went “well what do you want me to do about it” and called the social workers with a care notice or something. The funny bit being that she is a social worker with higher education. What could she do? Idk, give me a ring sometime, or come to visit so I don’t feel as bad. But no. People just default to “the bureaucracy will help them, the bureaucracy is infallible”.
Except you’ve very clearly demonstrated that your assumed version of our system is pure fantasy.
There’s a reason we’re quite high in the suicide stats. Because we’re definitely not even close to being “the happiest country in the world”. I don’t ever remember my grandma laughing. She died cold and alone, hallucinating basically dream paralysis demons. With not even a nurse who would’ve know her, because the care home was being run down and there were just random nurses for a few shifts and then new ones again.
So I implore you, don’t put the Nordics on a fucking pedestal. Dismissing the problems we have, pretending this is some Lintukoto.
Would you rather be in prison with a dozen of your best mates, or literally forever alone without even the possibility of emotions and if you talk about them, you’ll be shunned?
Again, just because you don’t know things about the Nordics nor see our news does not mean we don’t see yours.
What’s the point of competing who has it worse? That’s literally whataboutism that’s just dismissing Nordic problems. And you’re not even Nordic. Trying to have this discussion with fellow Nords is very hard, because lots and lots literally won’t allow themselves even an inch of wrong-think.
Our police seem very skilled, don’t they? I never had problems with them, always good interactions. Then I got arrested for weed. They put me in an isolation cell for 3 days while denying me my prescription medication, the lights were on constantly and there wasn’t even a mattress to sleep on or a blanket. Just the cold ground. Was the cell prolly cleaner than average jail cells in the US? Probably.
But would I be able to sue the shit ouf of them for literally torturing me, breaking Geneva conventions? At one point they turned of my water for hours. I have a congenital kidney malformation and due to that slight inefficiency in left kidney so I must keep good hydration.
I drew over 300 words in my own blood on the walls.
In the US there’d be a queue of lawyers on my door for all the violations, and I’d be looking at tens of thousands to millions in compensation.
Here in Finland, I can’t literally even get people to accept it happened. The only one who does is my therapist and he was born and raised in the UK only moved here later in life.
So we really don’t have to compete which sort of horror is the worst.
In the US, I’d probably be on the streets or in prison. But after years of literal solitude and nothing else, I’d actually welcome it. My own fucking mother went “weeeelll, you know, I can’t actually now what happened in the cell” when I phoned her to cry about my injuries and the injustice of it all. She implied it was my own fault that the police tortured me. And that’s the most anyone’s spoken to me about it. Finns always decline and refute it at first, then when I produce some photos (I only have those because they claimed I vandalised the cell. We then asked for the security cam footage as evidence of the crime. Weirdly it was suddenly completely lost and the charges dropped.
I would rather get beaten up and kicked than do that again. But again, both suck, they’re just different. So what’s the point in competing who has it worse and by how much?
There’s clearly problems in both places. I’m not critical of everything in the Nordics, but nor am I critical of everything America either, despite having been actively arguing against your foreign policies and criticising you in general for a few decades online.
Do you think the free healthcare here is some superior quality? No. The best in classes go to private clinics, the worst end up in the public system. And the wait times are ridiculous. Some of the doctors have confidently said things that are just plain untrue. I could genuinely list 30+ years of bad experiences in the public healthcare system. Sure it’s not bankrupting me, but it’s also not doing jack shit for anything and genuinely gets like 80% of their guesses wrong when it’s even the least bit subjective. You wouldn’t believe half the shit I’ve heard from supposed “professionals”.
So again, every different, but neither is good, is it? So don’t think you’d “kill” to switch places with me, when I’ve spent a good deal of the past few years considering just killing myself.
I get what you’re saying, and I’m not comparing personal experiences at all, that sounds horrible. If I thought the Nordic countries were some kind paradise, I’d be working my ass off to get there. I get that the entire world is being worn down by the billionaires
But you still don’t get it… If you lived here, your worst 3 days is something common for people who fall through the cracks. There are people kept in similar conditions for months or years at a time. Including for just having a small amount of weed
And it’s legal to do this in a lot of places. It isn’t something they have to cover up, they might not even need to justify it with a reason.
Hell, lots of people take pride in the cruelty to “criminals”.
And you don’t understand our medical system… Our outcomes are terrible. Your unhelpful free healthcare has better outcomes than what we go into lifelong debt for
And your meds… Depending on what you need, it could be hundreds of dollars a month, sometimes even with insurance. Without it, there’s no upper limit, many drugs are in the thousands… You’d have to jump through hoops with the drug companies and hope they give you enough of a discount
So yeah… You probably would be dead. And if you weren’t, you’d be just as alone, and more battered by your experiences
I get why you feel otherwise. Part of me craves disaster, because at least then it would justify my suffering. At least then my struggles would be less abstract. It’s very normal to feel that way when you don’t have hope in the future
But if we’re talking about economic and legal systems, you can’t throw your hands up and say “every system has problems”. Obviously they do. But if you want hope, and to build political momentum, you have to convince people something better is possible. And perfect or not, the Nordic model exists
On a personal level, the best advice I can give you is to fight. Find an organization pushing for people falling through the cracks, and get involved with them in whatever way you can. Whether that results in change or not, being around others who believe in the same things and doing something about it builds hope
Oh wow quite a few broken thoughts there.
I know, I’m a bit sensitive when it comes to people telling me essentially “you haven’t tried hard enough.”
Anyway, the one childhood friend who was a man-kebab, that dude didn’t invite me to his wedding with a bitch who was equally or more an abuser of alcohol and they didn’t because was vocally for the legalisation of weed.
Homelessness is common sure. But staying awake for three days while sober, shitting the eherloving shit out of yourself while eating your fingers until they literally bleed and then proceed to paint with your own blood for 70+ hours is… common in the US? And you don’t think that could be a bit offensive to me, dismissing literal torture I went through? (Sleep deprivation is torture, not to mention anything about closing off the water and not giving me my prescription meds.)
But hey, you’re not victimblaming, just dismissing it. So it’s still not as bad as literally every Finnish person I know.
Yes that’s literally just something that happens to people. Yes, it’s definitionally torture… But it’s normal here. Normally, people paint the walls in shit, but blood is far from unheard of
I feel like a good analogy for you diamissing me like that would be something like you dismissing Wolverine as “not understanding pain, because he has a healing factor”.
I can see the logic in that, but I just don’t agree with the sentiment
Yeah in a country of hundreds of millions.
But to pretend it’s “common” is taking the piss. Either your being extremely offensive or very ignorant. I can’t decide which.
No it fucking isn’t. Nothing about that is normal. Sure, you can find examples of nastier shit going on in county jails, but to pretend like it’s “common” shows that you have absolutely no connection to actual criminals. Unlike me. (I’m a professional one, in case that wasn’t clear.)
It’s not even something most people are capable of. I have had a high BP since I was a kid due to a congenital kidney thing. (I had extra organs and then had to go through several major surgeries.) My pediatrician told me at 18 that I’ve the BP of an “80-year old woman”.
Most people will just fall asleep automatically after aome ~26-30 hours. People have a hard time staying up 72 hours even when theyre doing pharmaceutical grade stimulants.
My body is essentially just overclocked. And that’s why it crashes as well. I can’t get to sleep for days then eventually I might find myself on the bathroom floor on top of broken glass, or in an ambulance or at the ER.
But you, just like Finns, just have to actively dismiss anything I say, even though you’re having to say ridiculous, untrue shit like that.
The average person during an average night in a jail definitely doesn’t stay up all night, let alone three nights, let alone literally eating themselves. Have you ever tried biting yourself hard enough to draw blood?
No OF COURSE you haven’t, because it’s NOT COMMON OR NORMAL IN THE SLIGHTEST.
Oh ran into char limit. And I’m writing on my phone.
So yeah tldr I’ve been part of several political parties and organisations. I have streamed politics and called members of parliament and even the head of the election law committee(or organisation whatever). Finns are just pathologically avoidant, which is slowly driving us to authoritarianism.
You don’t understand Finland because you’re ignorant of it but I’m not ignorant of the USA.
Yes. I very much do.
How do you know about the world. Through media. Most of your information is from media, not first hand experiences. Unfortunately for you, the media is full of stuff about the US and only occasionally maybe mentions Finland.
It’s the same sort of disparity as there is with language.
You might as well be saying “you haven’t lived in an English-speaking country so you can’t be fluent in English!”
I started reading English roughly 25-30 years ago. The point being that I was exposed to it ever since I was a kid. And I leaned into learning it. Most of the people in Finland do not have my language skills, albeit everyone has a basic level of English understanding. The same goes for the US.
Or how many States have you been in? All 50? Doubt it. A dozen? Or maybe just a handful of cities?
I understand your lack of education. Otherwise you might understand, after several times of repeating it, that I actually do know how about your country and it’s systems.
Aside from being bombarded with American news day and night everywhere, I actually go out of my way to watch news shows like Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, but I can already hear you mocking about how “TV isn’t real life”, despite the fact that you get most of your news from it as well. Somehow it’s just iiiimpossible to understand shit like wounds getting treated with literally just sugar in federal prisons. Sure that was a random case but the episode about it gives context on why it’s a good example.
Hell, it’s completely possible that (aside from taxes paid) I’ve done more for the US than any random American I meet online. Just out of my age, so I’ve have been online for quite a while, and the amount of activism I do online. I used to be 9001 times more militant about American global policies and the drug war, but also against Trump ever since he first stood for president. And while you can dismiss online activity as “just [whateverlameexcuse]”, that’s how things progress. By people complaining.
Do you genuinely think that this is the first I’m hearing of drugs (and healthcare in general) being insanely expensive in the US? You genuinely think I wouldn’t understand a meme about Americans avoiding taking an ambulance even when they’re very much in need? You think I’d just go… “I don’t get the joke o.o”?
You don’t know me at all. I make friends extremely easily, alway have. The thing here is "you have NO IDEA* about Finnish culture, because the only time you’ve been exposed to it is some random henchman in a movie where an action hero is going/coming from Russia. And they never even bother to get anyone who actually speaks Finnish, it’s always gibberish or extremely poorly pronounced. (Imagine a deep southern accent someone trying to read Chinese without understanding the tones at all and you’ll get close to what it sounds like to us).
You don’t understand that I’ve chosen to avoid the people who won’t stand up to injustice. And that’s about the only criteria I have in adulthood. But for instance an American does not understand what it means to smoke weed in Finland.
It’s essentially similar to being gay in an extremely conservative and religious small town. You’ll get treated as the worst cock-sucking crack whore just for saying “I don’t think weed should be illegal.” And that is not an exaggeration I’m pulling out of my arse. If you understood Finnish I could share phonecalls with medical professionals who basically say that smoking weed on the weekends is literally as bad as shooting up heroine. One refused to give me meds, saying “you’ll just sell these for drug money”. One of the friends whom I grew up with, whom I have carried out of several parties, from one in a rolled up mat with him in the center, with his vomit all over. Like some sort of disgusting man-kebab.
Also, if I had lived in the US, I would’ve actually had the chance to do school at my speed. Which was way faster than the other kids. And you don’t understand it coming from a culture which so values individuality and individual achievement, but in Finland you’re not allowed to be better than others at basic education. I was literally held back because the others weren’t as fast. I taught myself how to read (no joke) at the age of five. So at the age of 7 in first year the teacher put me in an empty classroom by myself, saying “sit here and read” while others learned their letters.
Most Finns actively avoid people as sociable as me, but in the US I’d probably be on the introverted side of the spectrum.
I say I would be dead or in prison, but I also could just be making it big, as I would’ve definitely got a scholarship to a good school. I had a 9.3/10 (scale 4-10 4 is F 10 is A+) GPA when leaving basic education. What you’d call a straight A student. And I didn’t even apply myself, because I didn’t have to. I kept learning next year’s shit from my older brothers books.
I could be in jail for weed. I could be in a state where it’s legal. Could be that I would’ve been bakruptred, or could be I’d be an ace surgeon. (I’m not that interested in surgery tbh, but I was good at dissecting animals, our biology teacher said I was the first student in 20 years to extract a perch’s swimbladder without puncturing it and literally said “you’d make a great surgeon”. Couldn’t chase that either as mom forced us to love move that year and had to remake all friends and none of the teachers knew me and it was a way shittier school.)
Anyway, you’re making assumptions which even I can’t say about myself. The reason I say dead or in prison is because I wouldn’t put up with the bullshit politics and wouldve either been tossed to jail for weed or activism or some such. But in the US , I wouldn’t be alone with my sentiment. That’s why you so enshrine your rights. You actually have a sense of justice. Finns don’t. Finns merely follow rules instead of ever considering how moral or necessary the rules even are.
You can go to a city in Finland during the night when no-one is around for miles, and people will stop at a pedestrian red light, even for intersections that are clearly clear for hundreds of feet.
And I say feet, because I understand feet as well, but I don’t think you have as good a grasp on metric as I do for imperial units. Might be I’m wrong. But seeing how little empathy you show, I’m pretty sure I’m not.
The why I do it is kinda simple. The idea of America, the American dream, or whatever, is — however subjectively — kind of a cool idea. It’s a continuation of what the French started a few centuries ago, and it was going relatively well until somewhat recently. (Like, say, post 9-11.) And would you believe it I can remember where I was and what I was doing on 9/11. I don’t think you can say the same thing for anything that has ever happened to a Finnish person or relating to Finland.
Yes, and the Nordic model isn’t the fantasy you have in your head anymore than a Whopper actually looks like the ad pictures for it.
I’m telling you you don’t have an idea of the pathological avoidance pretty much built into Finnish society. Hell, it’s in the very language. We don’t have gendered words or even gender-specific pronouns. And while we have a gender-neutral pronoun, we still often default to referring to people as “se”, which translates as “it”. Only really pets and formal situations does one use the proper third person pronoun “hän”.
Oh wow. What a revelation my man. Wow. Crazy that it never occurred to my. Wow. All I needed to do is “fight” yeah, that’ll change the entire social fabric of Finland. Just like if you want, you can just get everyone to admit that the 2A is a garbage law only there to perpetuate the American military-industrial complex instead of having anything to do with actually having “a well regulated militia” in order to oppose tyranny. You’re living under tyranny right now and aside from Luigi, I ain’t seen no-one doing jack shit about it.
See how the language there sounded a little different? That’s because I actually know that despite learning in school that double negatives shouldn’t be used, if one is emulating colloquial speech, one would or at least could employ double negatives as emphasis for a positive. Because again, I don’t need to have lived in the US for that. Idk where you live or how much you travel, but you can probably do at least NY, Cali and deep south accents on a very stereotypical level. So can I. It’s not exactly rocket science. And whilst you live closer to those places, unless you’ve lived several years in each, you’re also mostly drawing on the media.
So I don’t know why you keep pretending like your systems are some grand secret. Feels a bit like Americans who yell loudly (in English) abroad to make themselves “easily understood” when literally everyone can speak English. (Yes, I did just use “literally” as emphasis instead of it’s literal sense.)
https://www.hs.fi/suomi/art-2000009654524.html
The Finnish Supreme Court ruled that I was in the right and that the police limited my freedom of speech illegally when stopping me from filming them when they illegally entered my apartment. In the US, I’d have made millions off that. Here I didn’t even get a letter saying I won. Read it off the news.
Are you born rich? Because otherwise that’s a fantasy. We are not a meritocracy, no matter how hard we pretend. It doesn’t work that way
And I don’t even know where to start with the rest of this… I’m on my phone and can’t clip you point by point
But you think you’d make it big? Of course you fucking wouldn’t. No one does. That’s literally impossible. Even last one of our movie and music stars come from money. Every last one of them
Have you ever spoken to homeless people? I have. I make a point of doing it. I’ve slept alongside them, I’ve shared meals. Not through media, but through human connection. And they’ve both been insanely generous and tried to steal from me
Holy projection Batman, you haven’t seen what I’ve seen, not through media, but first-hand.
Have you ever spoken to homeless people?
My job used to be driving them around and my mom’s a social worker, so yeah. I have. Believe it or not, there are homeless people in Finland despite us having less of them and us not letting them starve en-masse on the streets, but don’t shit yourself that Finns think like that. We got libertarians as well, thanks to all the libertarian BS Murica has pushed. I’ve got into a fight with a guy because he literally honestly genuinely meant that homelessness is a choice.
You prolly know how untrue that is?
Ah I see you’ve gone with the same “using ‘literally’ for emphasis instead of literally literally” tactic.
So there’s no rich people in the US? Approximately 7-8.5% of Americans are literally literally millionaires, but “no-one makes it big”.
And you stand by that statement, instead of admitting it’s grotesque exaggeration?
Is it easier to win big if you get a “small loan of a million dollars”? Ofc it fucking is. Same shit works here. The dipshits who didn’t understand jack shit in school but were born with gold spoons up their arses exist here just like in America.
There’s much more a roof against becoming rich through labour. That was my original point. Same shit work’s with schools. The reason I wasn’t allowed to skip a class is because I’m not allowed to make the rich kids parents feel bad for having a kid who isn’t as cognitively gifted. Can’t be that poor people succeed!
But yeah, I was actually born into the upper-middle class. We’re one of the more known families from my town. Very central during early and mid 1900’s but then my grandpa died in the 90’s and dad drank everything then died himself.
Mom and dad broke up because of it. I ended up having to change schools several times as mom moved around. You know how it’s a meme parents want their kids to go to a good school? Well I was literally in one of the best schools in Finland and one of the best students there. Mom didn’t give a second thought. Also I’m one of four siblings, so that divided her attention.
I moved away from my mom’s at 15. Wbu?
Most of your experiences are still through media, even when your most impactful ones were in-person. I don’t think I ever even implied otherwise. Reading comprehension my man. I know US has low literacy but still.
Just like we’re mine. And if you think Finland doesn’t have depraved drug abusers, I could write another 3 full comments showing how you’re wrong, but prolly easier for you to watch this trailer of a documentary Reindeerspotting — Pako Joulumaasta (Escape from Santaland) . And those kids are still very healthy when they’re filming. I’ve known people like that after they’ve come out of prison. One of my neighbours was a murderer. Then someone stole a half a k of meth from the basement cellar storage I also had a key to. And he knew it. And was methed up.
But even he isn’t the most depraved by miles.
Just because our druggies to hang out in the streets, you keep on insisting we don’t have any.
You’re literally just comparing and comparing, when I keep telling you you can’t, because don’t know anything about Finland. But I can compare them, because I know about Finland for living here, and I hear about the US because western media. You don’t hear about Finland. That’s just what the facts are.
Who the fuck has said anything about the US being a meritocracy? I haven’t said Finland is authoritarian either. I’ve said it’s more authoritarian than it has been. Comparatively.
Just like in comparison to Finland, US is more meritocratic than Finland, despite not being a meritocracy per se.
You have a thing called whole grade acceleration or in plain English; “skipping a grade.”
The requirements are academic preparation (testing ahead in all subjects), emotional maturity and motivation. I got 3/3. When other kids were learning their ABC’s, I was browsing thick tomes of dictionaries, giggling at the funny (and magical seeming) Latin names for things. I didn’t like being put into daycare even before going to school, and I was mature enough, so my mom (a trained social worker) left me alone in the house and came to check on me during lunch. I just sat and read. (Mostly comics, not always something to learn but for fun).
And for motivation? Well I had taught myself how to read. Answer I gave an independence day speech that was meant to be read by a sixth grader (the oldest class in lower basic education).
We don’t have skipping grades. If we did, I definitely would’ve been allowed to.
This is what I mean by you not understanding. You think you do, you want us to be on an equal footing. But we’re not.
Mä voin vaihtaa kieltä ja sun pitää ottaa AI käyttöö et pystyt edes ymmärtämää mua. Mut silti luulet jotenkin et mä ymmärrän yhtä vähän sun yhteiskunnasta kun sä mun.
Just not true. The US is in the spotlight, has been since WWII at least, and unfortunately while the audience can see the person in the spotlight, the person in the spotlight can’t see the dark audience from the bright lights. This is much like that. You think we’re just like a slightly different America. We’re not. There are things you don’t understand that you don’t understand, and I don’t know how to make you understand that.
Perhaps Rumsfeld will have better luck;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_unknown_unknowns
I don’t know how to say this in a nicer way… You don’t understand the society you’ve never lived under, no one truly does
As far as outcomes and metrics, you live in a world I wished I lived in. I don’t think it’s perfect, I agree it’s full of problems
But you really don’t understand. Tens of millions are going to die over the next decade if we don’t have radical change.
I’m sorry you fell through the cracks. I really am. It’s not right. But you have no idea how much worse it could be
So now you’re just pretending you weren’t wrong at all.
You have skipping grades as a concept and practice with rules and laws.
We don’t.
In the nicest way possible, I think you might have brain damage.
I do understand. Again, I’m very well versed in what it’s like in America. You’re still pretending as if most of your experiences aren’t relayed by types of media. And that I somehow don’t have access to this arcane knowledge about the US.
You could just as well be arguing that I just don’t speak English because it’s not the language I first learned. I haven’t lived in an English speaking country or ever even been in one for weeks, let alone years. Yet I’m completely fluent. Hell, the last time I checked, some 10-15 years ago, I had a larger vocabulary than 52% of native speakers.
Yet you childishly keep insisting there’s something I don’t understand.
“No no, you don’t get it. America has expensive drugs, you haven’t ever heard of how much we spend on drugs.”
“We have homeless people!”
Yes, you also have a military-industrial complex, you’re fucking over your veterans, your cops are murderers, there’s still tons of institutional racism, sexism, ableism, your leader is an ever-lying failure of a businessman who’s going senile and is owned by Putler, two thirds of your population are obese, literacy is like 79%, you have the largest prison population in the world despite not being even close to having the most people, roughly 1% of your adult population is in prison, which too often are for-profit prisons which are the only way America is clinging to any sort of cheap labour blabalablablabla blabla bla i could go on for days. What exactly don’t I understand? Your lack of empathy?
Honestly, depending on how old you are, I’ve could have been exposed to American news more than you, despite living in another country. That is if you’re like in your early twenties.
Do you remember where you were during 9/11? You never answered.
It’s you who keeps having no idea, despite constantly been proved wrong.