Sheesh I hate it when Americans are like âyou have no ideaâ.
Yes, we do. We have the internet here as well and you canât really avoid hearing about American shit.
Why would you think I donât know what a tax-haven when I specifically mentioned that any âproperâ billionaires can get around paying even the 30%. And thatâs private citizens. Google is equally a tax-avoiding scumbag company for us Nordics as it is for you. Thereâs just so many laws the extremely wealthy corps and individuals can use to avoid paying anything. Googleâs tax rate is literally zero.
We do let people die of starvation and to the elements
Yes, we know. Hence me explicitly mentioning we donât?
Lately, weâve been criminalizing homelessness
And thatâs 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 itâs mostly too cold to sleep outside. Yet the silly hostile architecture for benches and whatnot has pervaded into the Nordics as well.
We donât need it, but theyâre 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, Iâm on the same latitude as Juneau, Alaska, about. And Iâm 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
Iâve seen the videos. Youâre still pretending as if we donât 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 âthe system should be helping them.â
Hell, when I was properly suicidal, my mom literally just went âwell what do you want me to do about itâ 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 donât feel as bad. But no. People just default to âthe bureaucracy will help them, the bureaucracy is infallibleâ.
Iâd kill for a system as imperfect as the one you take for granted
Except youâve very clearly demonstrated that your assumed version of our system is pure fantasy.
Thereâs a reason weâre quite high in the suicide stats. Because weâre definitely not even close to being âthe happiest country in the worldâ. I donât ever remember my grandma laughing. She died cold and alone, hallucinating basically dream paralysis demons. With not even a nurse who wouldâve 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, donât 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, youâll be shunned?
You probably think Iâm exaggerating about all this, but Iâm really not
Again, just because you donât know things about the Nordics nor see our news does not mean we donât see yours.
Whatâs the point of competing who has it worse? Thatâs literally whataboutism thatâs just dismissing Nordic problems. And youâre not even Nordic. Trying to have this discussion with fellow Nords is very hard, because lots and lots literally wonât allow themselves even an inch of wrong-think.
Our police seem very skilled, donât 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 wasnât 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 thereâd be a queue of lawyers on my door for all the violations, and Iâd be looking at tens of thousands to millions in compensation.
Here in Finland, I canât 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 donât have to compete which sort of horror is the worst.
In the US, Iâd probably be on the streets or in prison. But after years of literal solitude and nothing else, Iâd actually welcome it. My own fucking mother went âweeeelll, you know, I canât actually now what happened in the cellâ 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 thatâs the most anyoneâs 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, theyâre just different. So whatâs the point in competing who has it worse and by how much?
Thereâs clearly problems in both places. Iâm 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 donât get me started on medical care⊠Itâs literally worse than you could imagine. You wouldnât 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 itâs not bankrupting me, but itâs also not doing jack shit for anything and genuinely gets like 80% of their guesses wrong when itâs even the least bit subjective. You wouldnât believe half the shit Iâve heard from supposed âprofessionalsâ.
So again, every different, but neither is good, is it? So donât think youâd âkillâ to switch places with me, when Iâve spent a good deal of the past few years considering just killing myself.
I get what youâre saying, and Iâm not comparing personal experiences at all, that sounds horrible. If I thought the Nordic countries were some kind paradise, Iâd be working my ass off to get there. I get that the entire world is being worn down by the billionaires
But you still donât 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 itâs legal to do this in a lot of places. It isnât 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 âcriminalsâ.
And you donât 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, thereâs no upper limit, many drugs are in the thousands⊠Youâd 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 werenât, youâd 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. Itâs very normal to feel that way when you donât have hope in the future
But if weâre talking about economic and legal systems, you canât throw your hands up and say âevery system has problemsâ. 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, Iâm a bit sensitive when it comes to people telling me essentially âyou havenât tried hard enough.â
Anyway, the one childhood friend who was a man-kebab, that dude didnât invite me to his wedding with a bitch who was equally or more an abuser of alcohol and they didnât 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 donât 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, youâre not victimblaming, just dismissing it. So itâs 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 donât 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 thatâs literally just something that happens to people. Yes, itâs definitionally torture⊠But itâs normal here. Normally, people paint the walls in shit, but blood is far from unheard of
But to pretend itâs âcommonâ is taking the piss. Either your being extremely offensive or very ignorant. I canât decide which.
But itâs normal here.
No it fucking isnât. Nothing about that is normal. Sure, you can find examples of nastier shit going on in county jails, but to pretend like itâs âcommonâ shows that you have absolutely no connection to actual criminals. Unlike me. (Iâm a professional one, in case that wasnât clear.)
Itâs 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 Iâve the BP of an â80-year old womanâ.
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 thatâs why it crashes as well. I canât 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 youâre having to say ridiculous, untrue shit like that.
The average person during an average night in a jail definitely doesnât 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 havenât, because itâs NOT COMMON OR NORMAL IN THE SLIGHTEST.
Are people locked in an isolated box without access to their medications? Yes.
We closed all the mental asylums and people who need help often end up in prison, and then they piss off guards and get locked in a solitary confinement
Itâs normal not to mean it happens to a lot of people, but itâs basically always happening to someone. Itâs normalized. The people donât care. Occasionally a journalist will report on it or a politician will mention fixing the death rate of a prison, but itâs all just posturing
I had no trouble believing you, because it lines up with everything I know about the psychology of prisons. Iâve seen pictures like yours before, usually in English obviously
Do you not understand the gap between âno one believes it happenedâ and âno one cares enough to do anything about itâ?
Jesus youâre stupid. I keep telling you youâre wrong, and why. Then you just pretend you didnât hear it, that none of the inane silly bullshit you said was as inane as it actually was.
You understand significantly less than you think you do, and I understand significantly more than youâre even capable of understanding. Youâve shown that again and again and again, also while literally pretending like the experience I went through is something normal in the US. And you donât base that off of ANYTHING other than your childish avoidance of admitting your ignorance.
Iâve seen this act literally thousands and thousands of time this will end with you spamming one liners and writing things like âoh you think Iâm gonna read all thatâ while still pretending you understand better than I do, when pinĂ€ et suhu sedes uomeakaan.
Where were you when the second plane hit? What were you doing and thinking?
Iâve also kept it from the conversation this far to make you seem more ridiculous. Have you ever been to Finland? Have you ever even been in Europe, or even just out of the country?
Do you have Finnish relatives youâve been mailing and seeing since you were a kid? No?
Have you ever been in prison?
Again no.
Time and time again you show your ignorance yet think itâs somehow better than my actual knowledge. This is why Trump won. Youâre so easily misled by utterly shit rhetoric because you literally donât even have literacy to understand the BS youâre spouting.
Remember that Iâm choosing this language because *YOU" donât speak any others. Hell, youâre probably not even functionally literate in English either, seems like.
Holy fuck youâre pretentious. And no, English is not my only language, Iâm well traveled and Iâve lived abroad.
You. Donât. Understand. America.
You know things lots of things about it. That isnât the same thing. Youâre not even very informed about life here, youâve latched onto strange details from media and totally missed the kind of sociological analysis youâd need to begin to compare it to life in Finland
America is an escapist fantasy for you, itâs a place where you lived a different life, where you were recognized as extra special and your childhood wasnât painful
Itâs not a real place to you. Itâs an emotion
Youâre just like those weeaboos who move to Japan thinking it would be like an anime
I havenât claimed that you donât speak but a single language. I implied as much, and you got all bent out of shape that you know more languages. Again comparing, when the comparison is not even remotely close.
I imagine, (and again, imagining something doesnât mean asserting it) that your second language skills are comparable to my Swedish or German. That is I can do customer service in Swedish but not hold a long conversation, and could perhaps order for myself in German, but not actually work with the language.
But I speak English fluently. Hell, arguably better than my native language. I for sure have a wider vocabulary in English, as thatâs just the nature of the language, as English has more than a million words but Finnish some 100 000 and my English vocabulary exceeds 100k as per the test I previously mentioned.
You keep saying I donât understand, but not accepting or admitting what you fail to understand.
Youâre not even very informed about life here
Again, pulling shit out of your arse, just because.
Just because you donât like admitting that you might have a poorer understanding than someone else. I may be wrong, but i would bet my left testicle that we could get tested by clinical psychologists and linguists and I have a wider understanding of US and English (+my native language and knowledge) than you do of the US and English against any given other country.
Where have you lived for, how long, what language do you speak as fluently as English? (Although your reading comprehension in English could use a bit of improving.)
So, based on *what" exactly do you think Iâm not very informed? Specifically, that is?
onto strange details
See this is what I meant with your literacy. I speak your naive language better than you, lol, and you canât accept I can understand the basics of the secret society that is 'Murica.
detail
/ËdiËteÉȘl/
noun
1.
an individual fact or item.
Iâve literally prattled on a list about the general and largest problems in the US. Literally the opposite of âdetailsâ.
America is an escapist fantasy for you,
I wouldnât fucking set foot in the US even if you paid me ten thousand dollars. Literally. I would not. I wouldnât risk it. A million or a couple and weâre talking.
Just because I understand things which are better in the US doesnât mean I think the US is better to live in. Iâve kept this the whole time, yet you keep insisting âyou donât understandâ, when you canât point to anything in detail which I donât understand and whilst constantly telling you Iâve been extremely critical of the US for the past 25 years.
Speaking of⊠you still havenât answered where you were on 9/11? Iâd argue if you canât even remember that, you canât understand America. /s
I donât actually argue that. But I definitely could if I were to argue as badly as you. Because betting that youâre under, idk, 30 isnât really a huge bet. I accept I can be completely wrong and youâve just ignored on accident, but itâs also likely youâre in your twenties and literally weâre a baby/didnât exist when 9/11 happened. But I wonât. Since itâd be silly of me to assert what you know or donât.
Youâll notice I still havenât even asserted you donât understand Finland properly. Iâve said I imagine you donât, and that you clearly donât understand that you donât understand that I do understand. You canât possibly understand what I understand or not. Just like I canât understand what you understand completely either, as reading minds isnât a thing. You can assume thoughts though. You havenât. You just keep screeching âyou donât understandâ without being able to point to the âdetailsâ you pretend I âlatch ontoâ.
Your image of Finland is much more of a fantasy than my idea of the US, thats clear enough.
Itâs getting to the bit where youâre gonna get so mad that deluding yourself wonât work anymore.
I feel like a good analogy for you diamissing me like that would be something like you dismissing Wolverine as ânot understanding pain, because he has a healing factorâ.
No, Iâm dismissing wolverineâs pain because it doesnât make his position on politics better.
Iâm genuinely sorry you went through shit. It sounded terrible, I imagined myself in your situation and itâs an actual fear of mine
But I donât know what to do with that. Thatâs not a political argument. I think we both firmly agree that it should not be done to people
Which is why Iâm struggling to understand why you think media has given you an accurate picture of America, and why in the world you think your life would have gone better here
You gave me an anecdote about your country, and said I didnât understand what itâs like there. I agree. I donât understand what itâs like, I never have
Then you insist you understand my country from media. Itâs media⊠Theyâre stories. Even the news is cropped to tell stories. You do have to actually live here to understand what itâs like, no amount of media exposure can communicate what itâs like to live somewhere.
I look at your country analytically, and I see social programs and some meaningful effort to fight inequality. I see better health outcomes, and an attitude that itâs not okay to let people just die on the streets. I want that for us, and more.
I also see problems. But theyâre the problems I see everywhere - itâs like you have stage one cancer and we have stage 4, Iâm interested in looking at what weâre doing differently to see if we have less cancer over here. I also think you should do something about your cancer, Iâm anti-cancer
Iâm not having escapist fantasies about your country, Iâm pointing at some of your laws and saying âsee? It can obviously be done, and it works out betterâ
because it doesnât make his position on politics better.
No, youâre not disagreeing with anything. Youâre plain saying he doesnât feel pain because he regenerates, so he canât understand it. You literally keep writing âyou donât understandâ. Not âI disagree with your positionâ
Your literacy could use some improvement.
I see social programs
You think you do. Based on like 5 articles with variations of âFinland is the happiest country in the worldâ in the title.
You donât even know what Finnish sounds like. Finnish isnât a PIE-language, and I simply can not communicate all the understanding you lack. You seem to refuse to accept there are things you donât know you donât know.
Like how much language affects psychology, and how different it is in Finland from up top in the government and the bureaucracy all the way down to casual interactions of people in their daily lives.
You canât accept that thereâs a massive disparity between the subjects. Knowing and understanding Finland and Finnish just is much much harder than understanding the US. Iâve written this a dozen times, but again, most of our experiences from non-local things come from the media. And we have access to the same media. The difference is that the algorithm that pushes American news to you instead of Finnish ones does so to me as well. Thereâs no Finnish YouTube thatâs separate from the actual one. You refuse to accept that I can actually understand American culture and society, because of how common it is, but that the same doesnât apply towards your knowledge of Finland because of how small and insignificant we are as a country.
I could easily pass a US citizenship test (Iâd prolly recount some of the dates beforehand but Iâm fairly sure I could pass one without preparation.)
However you might not even seen words such as âperustuslakiâ, âVĂ€inĂ€möinenâ, âKalevalaâ, âKoskenkorvaâ etc. You probably just know âsaunaâ and if youâve been interested, then perhaps âvittuâ and âperkeleâ.
But yet you refuse to accept thereâs an asynchronicity to our knowledge about each others societies. Because of some ego thing. Itâs kinda boring tbh, nothing I havenât seen a million times online.
Youâre right. I donât understand Finnish at all.
Iâve never once thought I did, or really ever wanted to.
You think you could pass the citizenship test? Youâre delusional.
If you understood the USA, youâd realize youâd be deported before you got to take the test. There is currently no path to citizenship, unless you come from South Africa and/or have money
You think you could pass the citizenship test? Youâre delusional.
No, you are. Just like you could be arguing that I simply canât be fluent in English, despite me having literally better English than most Americans, youâre arguing that I canât possibly pass a test about basic American facts, despite showing you detailed (remember what the word means) knowledge that far surpasses anything asked in the citizenship test.
edit 2 oh yeah i realise people wonât necessarily know the domain si.edu so
Ooh nooo, theese are sooooooo haard. Sure, I guessed that the Constitution wasnât written in the same year as the declaration of independence was, so that was slightly a guess (I just assumed it wouldnât be in the same year and whilst a decade or more seemed a tad long, seemed the most reasonable). I also guessed how many senators there are, but two to a state seemed reasonable. Over four would just mean so much squabbling and one per wouldnât be enough.
And thatâs without me preparing. If I actually prepared even for an afternoon, I would easily pass the US citizenship test. Will you admit that though? No fucking way. Because this isnât about facts or understanding or anything. This is about your ego getting hurt, and because Iâm not sorry about your ego getting hurt, you just keep doing your tantrum and wonât just stop replying (like you probably should for your mental health.) Like Iâve said, Iâve seen this thousands of times over the years, and like I said, this will probably devolve into you spitting one-word replies like âkâ or âlolâ or mockingly saying something like âyou think Iâm gonna read thatâ. Thatâs the way it usually goes. Iâm gonna guess youâre gonna start by denouncing that taking the official US goverment test for if youâre ready to take your citizenship test (that online test) âdoesnât mean anythingâ and you still wonât accept the asynchronicity in our understandings, despite you not even being able to navigate the Finnish equivalent of a test like that, let alone knowing any of the answers. (To be fair, Iâm not as confident I would ace the Finnish citizenship as I am that Iâd ace the American one)
edit 3:
If you understood the USA, youâd realize youâd be deported before you got to take the test
holy illiteracy batman. Iâve said several times I wouldnât want to step foot in your shithole. This doesnât mean I canât favour some of the things there, does it? Also saying that I have the required knowledge to pass the citizenship test doesnât mean that Iâm even attempting to get to take one, does it?
Oh ran into char limit. And Iâm writing on my phone.
So yeah tldr Iâve 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 donât understand Finland because youâre ignorant of it but Iâm 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.
Itâs the same sort of disparity as there is with language.
You might as well be saying âyou havenât lived in an English-speaking country so you canât be fluent in English!â
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 donât understand our medical systemâŠ
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 itâs 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 âTV isnât real lifeâ, despite the fact that you get most of your news from it as well. Somehow itâs 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 itâs a good example.
Hell, itâs completely possible that (aside from taxes paid) Iâve done more for the US than any random American I meet online. Just out of my age, so Iâve 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 âjust [whateverlameexcuse]â, thatâs 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, thereâs no upper limit, many drugs are in the thousands⊠Youâd 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 Iâm hearing of drugs (and healthcare in general) being insanely expensive in the US? You genuinely think I wouldnât understand a meme about Americans avoiding taking an ambulance even when theyâre very much in need? You think Iâd just go⊠âI donât get the joke o.oâ?
And if you werenât, youâd be just as alone
You donât 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 youâve 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, itâs always gibberish or extremely poorly pronounced. (Imagine a deep southern accent someone trying to read Chinese without understanding the tones at all and youâll get close to what it sounds like to us).
You donât understand that Iâve chosen to avoid the people who wonât stand up to injustice. And thatâs about the only criteria I have in adulthood. But for instance an American does not understand what it means to smoke weed in Finland.
Itâs essentially similar to being gay in an extremely conservative and religious small town. Youâll get treated as the worst cock-sucking crack whore just for saying âI donât think weed should be illegal.â And that is not an exaggeration Iâm 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 âyouâll just sell these for drug moneyâ. 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 wouldâve actually had the chance to do school at my speed. Which was way faster than the other kids. And you donât understand it coming from a culture which so values individuality and individual achievement, but in Finland youâre not allowed to be better than others at basic education. I was literally held back because the others werenât 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 âsit here and readâ while others learned their letters.
Most Finns actively avoid people as sociable as me, but in the US Iâd 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 wouldâve 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 youâd call a straight A student. And I didnât even apply myself, because I didnât have to. I kept learning next yearâs shit from my older brothers books.
I could be in jail for weed. I could be in a state where itâs legal. Could be that I wouldâve been bakruptred, or could be Iâd be an ace surgeon. (Iâm 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 perchâs swimbladder without puncturing it and literally said âyouâd make a great surgeonâ. Couldnât 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, youâre making assumptions which even I canât say about myself. The reason I say dead or in prison is because I wouldnât 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 wouldnât be alone with my sentiment. Thatâs why you so enshrine your rights. You actually have a sense of justice. Finns donât. 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 donât think you have as good a grasp on metric as I do for imperial units. Might be Iâm wrong. But seeing how little empathy you show, Iâm pretty sure Iâm not.
The why I do it is kinda simple. The idea of America, the American dream, or whatever, is â however subjectively â kind of a cool idea. Itâs 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 donât 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 isnât the fantasy you have in your head anymore than a Whopper actually looks like the ad pictures for it.
Iâm telling you you donât have an idea of the pathological avoidance pretty much built into Finnish society. Hell, itâs in the very language. We donât 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 âseâ, which translates as âitâ. Only really pets and formal situations does one use the proper third person pronoun âhĂ€nâ.
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 âfightâ yeah, thatâll 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 âa well regulated militiaâ in order to oppose tyranny. Youâre living under tyranny right now and aside from Luigi, I ainât seen no-one doing jack shit about it.
See how the language there sounded a little different? Thatâs because I actually know that despite learning in school that double negatives shouldnât 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 donât 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. Itâs not exactly rocket science. And whilst you live closer to those places, unless youâve lived several years in each, youâre also mostly drawing on the media.
So I donât 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 âeasily understoodâ when literally everyone can speak English. (Yes, I did just use âliterallyâ as emphasis instead of itâs 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, Iâd have made millions off that. Here I didnât even get a letter saying I won. Read it off the news.
Also, if I had lived in the US, I wouldâve actually had the chance to do school at my speed. Which was way faster than the other kid
Are you born rich? Because otherwise thatâs a fantasy. We are not a meritocracy, no matter how hard we pretend. It doesnât work that way
And I donât even know where to start with the rest of this⊠Iâm on my phone and canât clip you point by point
But you think youâd make it big? Of course you fucking wouldnât. No one does. Thatâs 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. Iâve slept alongside them, Iâve shared meals. Not through media, but through human connection. And theyâve both been insanely generous and tried to steal from me
Holy projection Batman, you havenât seen what Iâve seen, not through media, but first-hand.
Who the fuck has said anything about the US being a meritocracy? I havenât said Finland is authoritarian either. Iâve said itâs 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 ABCâs, I was browsing thick tomes of dictionaries, giggling at the funny (and magical seeming) Latin names for things. I didnât 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 donât have skipping grades. If we did, I definitely wouldâve 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 weâre not.
MÀ voin vaihtaa kieltÀ ja sun pitÀÀ ottaa AI kÀyttöö et pystyt edes ymmÀrtÀmÀÀ mua. Mut silti luulet jotenkin et mÀ ymmÀrrÀn yhtÀ vÀhÀn sun yhteiskunnasta kun sÀ 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 canât see the dark audience from the bright lights. This is much like that. You think weâre just like a slightly different America. Weâre not. There are things you donât understand that you donât understand, and I donât know how to make you understand that.
So now youâre just pretending you werenât wrong at all.
You have skipping grades as a concept and practice with rules and laws.
We donât.
In the nicest way possible, I think you might have brain damage.
I do understand. Again, Iâm very well versed in what itâs like in America. Youâre still pretending as if most of your experiences arenât relayed by types of media. And that I somehow donât have access to this arcane knowledge about the US.
You could just as well be arguing that I just donât speak English because itâs not the language I first learned. I havenât lived in an English speaking country or ever even been in one for weeks, let alone years. Yet Iâm 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 thereâs something I donât understand.
âNo no, you donât get it. America has expensive drugs, you havenât ever heard of how much we spend on drugs.â
âWe have homeless people!â
Yes, you also have a military-industrial complex, youâre fucking over your veterans, your cops are murderers, thereâs still tons of institutional racism, sexism, ableism, your leader is an ever-lying failure of a businessman whoâs 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 donât I understand? Your lack of empathy?
Honestly, depending on how old you are, Iâve could have been exposed to American news more than you, despite living in another country. That is if youâre like in your early twenties.
Do you remember where you were during 9/11? You never answered.
But you have no idea
Itâs you who keeps having no idea, despite constantly been proved wrong.
What is âwhole grade accelerationâ and why do you pretend the US doesnât have it?
My job used to be driving them around and my momâs 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 donât shit yourself that Finns think like that. We got libertarians as well, thanks to all the libertarian BS Murica has pushed. Iâve 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 wouldnât. No one does. Thatâs literally impossible.
Ah I see youâve gone with the same âusing âliterallyâ for emphasis instead of literally literallyâ tactic.
So thereâs no rich people in the US? Approximately 7-8.5% of Americans are literally literally millionaires, but âno-one makes it bigâ.
And you stand by that statement, instead of admitting itâs grotesque exaggeration?
Is it easier to win big if you get a âsmall loan of a million dollarsâ? Ofc it fucking is. Same shit works here. The dipshits who didnât understand jack shit in school but were born with gold spoons up their arses exist here just like in America.
Thereâs much more a roof against becoming rich through labour. That was my original point. Same shit workâs with schools. The reason I wasnât allowed to skip a class is because Iâm not allowed to make the rich kids parents feel bad for having a kid who isnât as cognitively gifted. Canât be that poor people succeed!
But yeah, I was actually born into the upper-middle class. Weâre one of the more known families from my town. Very central during early and mid 1900âs but then my grandpa died in the 90âs 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 itâs 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 didnât give a second thought. Also Iâm one of four siblings, so that divided her attention.
I moved away from my momâs at 15. Wbu?
Most of your experiences are still through media, even when your most impactful ones were in-person. I donât think I ever even implied otherwise. Reading comprehension my man. I know US has low literacy but still.
Just like weâre mine. And if you think Finland doesnât have depraved drug abusers, I could write another 3 full comments showing how youâre wrong, but prolly easier for you to watch this trailer of a documentary Reindeerspotting â Pako Joulumaasta (Escape from Santaland) . And those kids are still very healthy when theyâre filming. Iâve known people like that after theyâve 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 isnât the most depraved by miles.
Just because our druggies to hang out in the streets, you keep on insisting we donât have any.
Youâre literally just comparing and comparing, when I keep telling you you canât, because donât 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 donât hear about Finland. Thatâs just what the facts are.
What the fuck do you mean you got a job driving homeless people around???
You donât understand how alien a concept that is for us. Do you put them on buses and ship them to other cities? We have a program like that
Do you take them shopping? To some sort of social service? To medical appointments?
And youâre like âoh, actually we have some homeless people too, just not as manyâ
Thatâs the whole damn point! I want us to have less homeless people, so Iâm looking at countries that have less homelessness! I didnât even consider a program to give them rides, but I can instantly see how that would be a good thing to have
You donât understand how alien a concept that is for us.
Youâre a textbook case of why people laugh at American stupidity.
You literally donât understand empathy and no matter what ridiculous, factually wrong bullshit you say, you just⊠pretend you didnât. You say things, I prove theyâre wrong, I show you how much better I understand than you.
How many books do you read a year? Have you ever read a singles Chomsky? Zizek?
Iâm guessing not.
SinÀ olet se jolta yyttyy pummareusta, jiksi soudut Google temÀn tÀkstin ja topaeivöissÀ tietit mietenkin jiksi siinÀ nei ÀytÀ jÀlevÀn orkea.
I took them drinking. Because theyâre homeless drunks. You simply donât understand a single thing about Finland, yet I have a much better grasp of the US than the average citizen. Hell, Iâm certain Iâd get more US States right on a map than an average American.
You know, since youâre brain damaged with lead almost to the point that the intellecttual divide between us is almost shorter than the divide between you and monkeys.
I didnât even consider
No, you didnât, because youâre an average American, and youâre actually 10 times dumber than you thinkâŠ
I also notice you didnât answer where you were at 911. Prolly because you werenât born. I have more experience of the US than you, lol.
And you keep proving that sentiment right, again and again and again and again.
Sheesh I hate it when Americans are like âyou have no ideaâ.
Yes, we do. We have the internet here as well and you canât really avoid hearing about American shit.
Why would you think I donât know what a tax-haven when I specifically mentioned that any âproperâ billionaires can get around paying even the 30%. And thatâs private citizens. Google is equally a tax-avoiding scumbag company for us Nordics as it is for you. Thereâs just so many laws the extremely wealthy corps and individuals can use to avoid paying anything. Googleâs tax rate is literally zero.
Yes, we know. Hence me explicitly mentioning we donât?
And thatâs 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 itâs mostly too cold to sleep outside. Yet the silly hostile architecture for benches and whatnot has pervaded into the Nordics as well.
We donât need it, but theyâre 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, Iâm on the same latitude as Juneau, Alaska, about. And Iâm 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?
Iâve seen the videos. Youâre still pretending as if we donât 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 âthe system should be helping them.â
Hell, when I was properly suicidal, my mom literally just went âwell what do you want me to do about itâ 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 donât feel as bad. But no. People just default to âthe bureaucracy will help them, the bureaucracy is infallibleâ.
Except youâve very clearly demonstrated that your assumed version of our system is pure fantasy.
Thereâs a reason weâre quite high in the suicide stats. Because weâre definitely not even close to being âthe happiest country in the worldâ. I donât ever remember my grandma laughing. She died cold and alone, hallucinating basically dream paralysis demons. With not even a nurse who wouldâve 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, donât 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, youâll be shunned?
Again, just because you donât know things about the Nordics nor see our news does not mean we donât see yours.
Whatâs the point of competing who has it worse? Thatâs literally whataboutism thatâs just dismissing Nordic problems. And youâre not even Nordic. Trying to have this discussion with fellow Nords is very hard, because lots and lots literally wonât allow themselves even an inch of wrong-think.
Our police seem very skilled, donât 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 wasnât 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 thereâd be a queue of lawyers on my door for all the violations, and Iâd be looking at tens of thousands to millions in compensation.
Here in Finland, I canât 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 donât have to compete which sort of horror is the worst.
In the US, Iâd probably be on the streets or in prison. But after years of literal solitude and nothing else, Iâd actually welcome it. My own fucking mother went âweeeelll, you know, I canât actually now what happened in the cellâ 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 thatâs the most anyoneâs 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, theyâre just different. So whatâs the point in competing who has it worse and by how much?
Thereâs clearly problems in both places. Iâm 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 itâs not bankrupting me, but itâs also not doing jack shit for anything and genuinely gets like 80% of their guesses wrong when itâs even the least bit subjective. You wouldnât believe half the shit Iâve heard from supposed âprofessionalsâ.
So again, every different, but neither is good, is it? So donât think youâd âkillâ to switch places with me, when Iâve spent a good deal of the past few years considering just killing myself.
I get what youâre saying, and Iâm not comparing personal experiences at all, that sounds horrible. If I thought the Nordic countries were some kind paradise, Iâd be working my ass off to get there. I get that the entire world is being worn down by the billionaires
But you still donât 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 itâs legal to do this in a lot of places. It isnât 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 âcriminalsâ.
And you donât 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, thereâs no upper limit, many drugs are in the thousands⊠Youâd 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 werenât, youâd 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. Itâs very normal to feel that way when you donât have hope in the future
But if weâre talking about economic and legal systems, you canât throw your hands up and say âevery system has problemsâ. 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, Iâm a bit sensitive when it comes to people telling me essentially âyou havenât tried hard enough.â
Anyway, the one childhood friend who was a man-kebab, that dude didnât invite me to his wedding with a bitch who was equally or more an abuser of alcohol and they didnât 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 donât 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, youâre not victimblaming, just dismissing it. So itâs still not as bad as literally every Finnish person I know.
Yes thatâs literally just something that happens to people. Yes, itâs definitionally torture⊠But itâs normal here. Normally, people paint the walls in shit, but blood is far from unheard of
Yeah in a country of hundreds of millions.
But to pretend itâs âcommonâ is taking the piss. Either your being extremely offensive or very ignorant. I canât decide which.
No it fucking isnât. Nothing about that is normal. Sure, you can find examples of nastier shit going on in county jails, but to pretend like itâs âcommonâ shows that you have absolutely no connection to actual criminals. Unlike me. (Iâm a professional one, in case that wasnât clear.)
Itâs 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 Iâve the BP of an â80-year old womanâ.
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 thatâs why it crashes as well. I canât 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 youâre having to say ridiculous, untrue shit like that.
The average person during an average night in a jail definitely doesnât 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 havenât, because itâs NOT COMMON OR NORMAL IN THE SLIGHTEST.
Are people locked in an isolated box without access to their medications? Yes.
We closed all the mental asylums and people who need help often end up in prison, and then they piss off guards and get locked in a solitary confinement
Itâs normal not to mean it happens to a lot of people, but itâs basically always happening to someone. Itâs normalized. The people donât care. Occasionally a journalist will report on it or a politician will mention fixing the death rate of a prison, but itâs all just posturing
I had no trouble believing you, because it lines up with everything I know about the psychology of prisons. Iâve seen pictures like yours before, usually in English obviously
Do you not understand the gap between âno one believes it happenedâ and âno one cares enough to do anything about itâ?
Jesus youâre stupid. I keep telling you youâre wrong, and why. Then you just pretend you didnât hear it, that none of the inane silly bullshit you said was as inane as it actually was.
You understand significantly less than you think you do, and I understand significantly more than youâre even capable of understanding. Youâve shown that again and again and again, also while literally pretending like the experience I went through is something normal in the US. And you donât base that off of ANYTHING other than your childish avoidance of admitting your ignorance.
Iâve seen this act literally thousands and thousands of time this will end with you spamming one liners and writing things like âoh you think Iâm gonna read all thatâ while still pretending you understand better than I do, when pinĂ€ et suhu sedes uomeakaan.
Where were you when the second plane hit? What were you doing and thinking?
Iâve also kept it from the conversation this far to make you seem more ridiculous. Have you ever been to Finland? Have you ever even been in Europe, or even just out of the country?
Do you have Finnish relatives youâve been mailing and seeing since you were a kid? No?
Have you ever been in prison?
Again no.
Time and time again you show your ignorance yet think itâs somehow better than my actual knowledge. This is why Trump won. Youâre so easily misled by utterly shit rhetoric because you literally donât even have literacy to understand the BS youâre spouting.
Remember that Iâm choosing this language because *YOU" donât speak any others. Hell, youâre probably not even functionally literate in English either, seems like.
Holy fuck youâre pretentious. And no, English is not my only language, Iâm well traveled and Iâve lived abroad.
You. Donât. Understand. America.
You know things lots of things about it. That isnât the same thing. Youâre not even very informed about life here, youâve latched onto strange details from media and totally missed the kind of sociological analysis youâd need to begin to compare it to life in Finland
America is an escapist fantasy for you, itâs a place where you lived a different life, where you were recognized as extra special and your childhood wasnât painful
Itâs not a real place to you. Itâs an emotion
Youâre just like those weeaboos who move to Japan thinking it would be like an anime
I havenât claimed that you donât speak but a single language. I implied as much, and you got all bent out of shape that you know more languages. Again comparing, when the comparison is not even remotely close.
I imagine, (and again, imagining something doesnât mean asserting it) that your second language skills are comparable to my Swedish or German. That is I can do customer service in Swedish but not hold a long conversation, and could perhaps order for myself in German, but not actually work with the language.
But I speak English fluently. Hell, arguably better than my native language. I for sure have a wider vocabulary in English, as thatâs just the nature of the language, as English has more than a million words but Finnish some 100 000 and my English vocabulary exceeds 100k as per the test I previously mentioned.
You keep saying I donât understand, but not accepting or admitting what you fail to understand.
Again, pulling shit out of your arse, just because.
Just because you donât like admitting that you might have a poorer understanding than someone else. I may be wrong, but i would bet my left testicle that we could get tested by clinical psychologists and linguists and I have a wider understanding of US and English (+my native language and knowledge) than you do of the US and English against any given other country.
Where have you lived for, how long, what language do you speak as fluently as English? (Although your reading comprehension in English could use a bit of improving.)
So, based on *what" exactly do you think Iâm not very informed? Specifically, that is?
See this is what I meant with your literacy. I speak your naive language better than you, lol, and you canât accept I can understand the basics of the secret society that is 'Murica.
detail /ËdiËteÉȘl/ noun
Iâve literally prattled on a list about the general and largest problems in the US. Literally the opposite of âdetailsâ.
I wouldnât fucking set foot in the US even if you paid me ten thousand dollars. Literally. I would not. I wouldnât risk it. A million or a couple and weâre talking.
Just because I understand things which are better in the US doesnât mean I think the US is better to live in. Iâve kept this the whole time, yet you keep insisting âyou donât understandâ, when you canât point to anything in detail which I donât understand and whilst constantly telling you Iâve been extremely critical of the US for the past 25 years.
Speaking of⊠you still havenât answered where you were on 9/11? Iâd argue if you canât even remember that, you canât understand America. /s
I donât actually argue that. But I definitely could if I were to argue as badly as you. Because betting that youâre under, idk, 30 isnât really a huge bet. I accept I can be completely wrong and youâve just ignored on accident, but itâs also likely youâre in your twenties and literally weâre a baby/didnât exist when 9/11 happened. But I wonât. Since itâd be silly of me to assert what you know or donât.
Youâll notice I still havenât even asserted you donât understand Finland properly. Iâve said I imagine you donât, and that you clearly donât understand that you donât understand that I do understand. You canât possibly understand what I understand or not. Just like I canât understand what you understand completely either, as reading minds isnât a thing. You can assume thoughts though. You havenât. You just keep screeching âyou donât understandâ without being able to point to the âdetailsâ you pretend I âlatch ontoâ.
Your image of Finland is much more of a fantasy than my idea of the US, thats clear enough.
Itâs getting to the bit where youâre gonna get so mad that deluding yourself wonât work anymore.
I feel like a good analogy for you diamissing me like that would be something like you dismissing Wolverine as ânot understanding pain, because he has a healing factorâ.
I can see the logic in that, but I just donât agree with the sentiment
No, Iâm dismissing wolverineâs pain because it doesnât make his position on politics better.
Iâm genuinely sorry you went through shit. It sounded terrible, I imagined myself in your situation and itâs an actual fear of mine
But I donât know what to do with that. Thatâs not a political argument. I think we both firmly agree that it should not be done to people
Which is why Iâm struggling to understand why you think media has given you an accurate picture of America, and why in the world you think your life would have gone better here
You gave me an anecdote about your country, and said I didnât understand what itâs like there. I agree. I donât understand what itâs like, I never have
Then you insist you understand my country from media. Itâs media⊠Theyâre stories. Even the news is cropped to tell stories. You do have to actually live here to understand what itâs like, no amount of media exposure can communicate what itâs like to live somewhere.
I look at your country analytically, and I see social programs and some meaningful effort to fight inequality. I see better health outcomes, and an attitude that itâs not okay to let people just die on the streets. I want that for us, and more.
I also see problems. But theyâre the problems I see everywhere - itâs like you have stage one cancer and we have stage 4, Iâm interested in looking at what weâre doing differently to see if we have less cancer over here. I also think you should do something about your cancer, Iâm anti-cancer
Iâm not having escapist fantasies about your country, Iâm pointing at some of your laws and saying âsee? It can obviously be done, and it works out betterâ
No, youâre not disagreeing with anything. Youâre plain saying he doesnât feel pain because he regenerates, so he canât understand it. You literally keep writing âyou donât understandâ. Not âI disagree with your positionâ
Your literacy could use some improvement.
You think you do. Based on like 5 articles with variations of âFinland is the happiest country in the worldâ in the title.
You donât even know what Finnish sounds like. Finnish isnât a PIE-language, and I simply can not communicate all the understanding you lack. You seem to refuse to accept there are things you donât know you donât know.
Like how much language affects psychology, and how different it is in Finland from up top in the government and the bureaucracy all the way down to casual interactions of people in their daily lives.
You canât accept that thereâs a massive disparity between the subjects. Knowing and understanding Finland and Finnish just is much much harder than understanding the US. Iâve written this a dozen times, but again, most of our experiences from non-local things come from the media. And we have access to the same media. The difference is that the algorithm that pushes American news to you instead of Finnish ones does so to me as well. Thereâs no Finnish YouTube thatâs separate from the actual one. You refuse to accept that I can actually understand American culture and society, because of how common it is, but that the same doesnât apply towards your knowledge of Finland because of how small and insignificant we are as a country.
I could easily pass a US citizenship test (Iâd prolly recount some of the dates beforehand but Iâm fairly sure I could pass one without preparation.)
However you might not even seen words such as âperustuslakiâ, âVĂ€inĂ€möinenâ, âKalevalaâ, âKoskenkorvaâ etc. You probably just know âsaunaâ and if youâve been interested, then perhaps âvittuâ and âperkeleâ.
But yet you refuse to accept thereâs an asynchronicity to our knowledge about each others societies. Because of some ego thing. Itâs kinda boring tbh, nothing I havenât seen a million times online.
Youâre right. I donât understand Finnish at all.
Iâve never once thought I did, or really ever wanted to.
You think you could pass the citizenship test? Youâre delusional.
If you understood the USA, youâd realize youâd be deported before you got to take the test. There is currently no path to citizenship, unless you come from South Africa and/or have money
No, you are. Just like you could be arguing that I simply canât be fluent in English, despite me having literally better English than most Americans, youâre arguing that I canât possibly pass a test about basic American facts, despite showing you detailed (remember what the word means) knowledge that far surpasses anything asked in the citizenship test.
edit oh yeah from https://americanhistory.si.edu/citizenship/test/results
edit 2 oh yeah i realise people wonât necessarily know the domain si.edu so
Ooh nooo, theese are sooooooo haard. Sure, I guessed that the Constitution wasnât written in the same year as the declaration of independence was, so that was slightly a guess (I just assumed it wouldnât be in the same year and whilst a decade or more seemed a tad long, seemed the most reasonable). I also guessed how many senators there are, but two to a state seemed reasonable. Over four would just mean so much squabbling and one per wouldnât be enough.
And thatâs without me preparing. If I actually prepared even for an afternoon, I would easily pass the US citizenship test. Will you admit that though? No fucking way. Because this isnât about facts or understanding or anything. This is about your ego getting hurt, and because Iâm not sorry about your ego getting hurt, you just keep doing your tantrum and wonât just stop replying (like you probably should for your mental health.) Like Iâve said, Iâve seen this thousands of times over the years, and like I said, this will probably devolve into you spitting one-word replies like âkâ or âlolâ or mockingly saying something like âyou think Iâm gonna read thatâ. Thatâs the way it usually goes. Iâm gonna guess youâre gonna start by denouncing that taking the official US goverment test for if youâre ready to take your citizenship test (that online test) âdoesnât mean anythingâ and you still wonât accept the asynchronicity in our understandings, despite you not even being able to navigate the Finnish equivalent of a test like that, let alone knowing any of the answers. (To be fair, Iâm not as confident I would ace the Finnish citizenship as I am that Iâd ace the American one)
edit 3:
holy illiteracy batman. Iâve said several times I wouldnât want to step foot in your shithole. This doesnât mean I canât favour some of the things there, does it? Also saying that I have the required knowledge to pass the citizenship test doesnât mean that Iâm even attempting to get to take one, does it?
Oh ran into char limit. And Iâm writing on my phone.
So yeah tldr Iâve 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 donât understand Finland because youâre ignorant of it but Iâm 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.
Itâs the same sort of disparity as there is with language.
You might as well be saying âyou havenât lived in an English-speaking country so you canât be fluent in English!â
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 itâs 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 âTV isnât real lifeâ, despite the fact that you get most of your news from it as well. Somehow itâs 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 itâs a good example.
Hell, itâs completely possible that (aside from taxes paid) Iâve done more for the US than any random American I meet online. Just out of my age, so Iâve 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 âjust [whateverlameexcuse]â, thatâs how things progress. By people complaining.
Do you genuinely think that this is the first Iâm hearing of drugs (and healthcare in general) being insanely expensive in the US? You genuinely think I wouldnât understand a meme about Americans avoiding taking an ambulance even when theyâre very much in need? You think Iâd just go⊠âI donât get the joke o.oâ?
You donât 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 youâve 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, itâs always gibberish or extremely poorly pronounced. (Imagine a deep southern accent someone trying to read Chinese without understanding the tones at all and youâll get close to what it sounds like to us).
You donât understand that Iâve chosen to avoid the people who wonât stand up to injustice. And thatâs about the only criteria I have in adulthood. But for instance an American does not understand what it means to smoke weed in Finland.
Itâs essentially similar to being gay in an extremely conservative and religious small town. Youâll get treated as the worst cock-sucking crack whore just for saying âI donât think weed should be illegal.â And that is not an exaggeration Iâm 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 âyouâll just sell these for drug moneyâ. 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 wouldâve actually had the chance to do school at my speed. Which was way faster than the other kids. And you donât understand it coming from a culture which so values individuality and individual achievement, but in Finland youâre not allowed to be better than others at basic education. I was literally held back because the others werenât 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 âsit here and readâ while others learned their letters.
Most Finns actively avoid people as sociable as me, but in the US Iâd 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 wouldâve 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 youâd call a straight A student. And I didnât even apply myself, because I didnât have to. I kept learning next yearâs shit from my older brothers books.
I could be in jail for weed. I could be in a state where itâs legal. Could be that I wouldâve been bakruptred, or could be Iâd be an ace surgeon. (Iâm 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 perchâs swimbladder without puncturing it and literally said âyouâd make a great surgeonâ. Couldnât 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, youâre making assumptions which even I canât say about myself. The reason I say dead or in prison is because I wouldnât 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 wouldnât be alone with my sentiment. Thatâs why you so enshrine your rights. You actually have a sense of justice. Finns donât. 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 donât think you have as good a grasp on metric as I do for imperial units. Might be Iâm wrong. But seeing how little empathy you show, Iâm pretty sure Iâm not.
The why I do it is kinda simple. The idea of America, the American dream, or whatever, is â however subjectively â kind of a cool idea. Itâs 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 donât 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 isnât the fantasy you have in your head anymore than a Whopper actually looks like the ad pictures for it.
Iâm telling you you donât have an idea of the pathological avoidance pretty much built into Finnish society. Hell, itâs in the very language. We donât 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 âseâ, which translates as âitâ. Only really pets and formal situations does one use the proper third person pronoun âhĂ€nâ.
Oh wow. What a revelation my man. Wow. Crazy that it never occurred to my. Wow. All I needed to do is âfightâ yeah, thatâll 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 âa well regulated militiaâ in order to oppose tyranny. Youâre living under tyranny right now and aside from Luigi, I ainât seen no-one doing jack shit about it.
See how the language there sounded a little different? Thatâs because I actually know that despite learning in school that double negatives shouldnât 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 donât 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. Itâs not exactly rocket science. And whilst you live closer to those places, unless youâve lived several years in each, youâre also mostly drawing on the media.
So I donât 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 âeasily understoodâ when literally everyone can speak English. (Yes, I did just use âliterallyâ as emphasis instead of itâs 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, Iâd have made millions off that. Here I didnât even get a letter saying I won. Read it off the news.
Are you born rich? Because otherwise thatâs a fantasy. We are not a meritocracy, no matter how hard we pretend. It doesnât work that way
And I donât even know where to start with the rest of this⊠Iâm on my phone and canât clip you point by point
But you think youâd make it big? Of course you fucking wouldnât. No one does. Thatâs 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. Iâve slept alongside them, Iâve shared meals. Not through media, but through human connection. And theyâve both been insanely generous and tried to steal from me
Holy projection Batman, you havenât seen what Iâve seen, not through media, but first-hand.
Who the fuck has said anything about the US being a meritocracy? I havenât said Finland is authoritarian either. Iâve said itâs 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; âskipping a grade.â
The requirements are academic preparation (testing ahead in all subjects), emotional maturity and motivation. I got 3/3. When other kids were learning their ABCâs, I was browsing thick tomes of dictionaries, giggling at the funny (and magical seeming) Latin names for things. I didnât 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 donât have skipping grades. If we did, I definitely wouldâve 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 weâre not.
MÀ voin vaihtaa kieltÀ ja sun pitÀÀ ottaa AI kÀyttöö et pystyt edes ymmÀrtÀmÀÀ mua. Mut silti luulet jotenkin et mÀ ymmÀrrÀn yhtÀ vÀhÀn sun yhteiskunnasta kun sÀ 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 canât see the dark audience from the bright lights. This is much like that. You think weâre just like a slightly different America. Weâre not. There are things you donât understand that you donât understand, and I donât know how to make you understand that.
Perhaps Rumsfeld will have better luck;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_unknown_unknowns
I donât know how to say this in a nicer way⊠You donât understand the society youâve never lived under, no one truly does
As far as outcomes and metrics, you live in a world I wished I lived in. I donât think itâs perfect, I agree itâs full of problems
But you really donât understand. Tens of millions are going to die over the next decade if we donât have radical change.
Iâm sorry you fell through the cracks. I really am. Itâs not right. But you have no idea how much worse it could be
So now youâre just pretending you werenât wrong at all.
You have skipping grades as a concept and practice with rules and laws.
We donât.
In the nicest way possible, I think you might have brain damage.
I do understand. Again, Iâm very well versed in what itâs like in America. Youâre still pretending as if most of your experiences arenât relayed by types of media. And that I somehow donât have access to this arcane knowledge about the US.
You could just as well be arguing that I just donât speak English because itâs not the language I first learned. I havenât lived in an English speaking country or ever even been in one for weeks, let alone years. Yet Iâm 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 thereâs something I donât understand.
âNo no, you donât get it. America has expensive drugs, you havenât ever heard of how much we spend on drugs.â
âWe have homeless people!â
Yes, you also have a military-industrial complex, youâre fucking over your veterans, your cops are murderers, thereâs still tons of institutional racism, sexism, ableism, your leader is an ever-lying failure of a businessman whoâs 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 donât I understand? Your lack of empathy?
Honestly, depending on how old you are, Iâve could have been exposed to American news more than you, despite living in another country. That is if youâre like in your early twenties.
Do you remember where you were during 9/11? You never answered.
Itâs you who keeps having no idea, despite constantly been proved wrong.
What is âwhole grade accelerationâ and why do you pretend the US doesnât have it?
Have you ever spoken to homeless people?
My job used to be driving them around and my momâs 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 donât shit yourself that Finns think like that. We got libertarians as well, thanks to all the libertarian BS Murica has pushed. Iâve 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 youâve gone with the same âusing âliterallyâ for emphasis instead of literally literallyâ tactic.
So thereâs no rich people in the US? Approximately 7-8.5% of Americans are literally literally millionaires, but âno-one makes it bigâ.
And you stand by that statement, instead of admitting itâs grotesque exaggeration?
Is it easier to win big if you get a âsmall loan of a million dollarsâ? Ofc it fucking is. Same shit works here. The dipshits who didnât understand jack shit in school but were born with gold spoons up their arses exist here just like in America.
Thereâs much more a roof against becoming rich through labour. That was my original point. Same shit workâs with schools. The reason I wasnât allowed to skip a class is because Iâm not allowed to make the rich kids parents feel bad for having a kid who isnât as cognitively gifted. Canât be that poor people succeed!
But yeah, I was actually born into the upper-middle class. Weâre one of the more known families from my town. Very central during early and mid 1900âs but then my grandpa died in the 90âs 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 itâs 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 didnât give a second thought. Also Iâm one of four siblings, so that divided her attention.
I moved away from my momâs at 15. Wbu?
Most of your experiences are still through media, even when your most impactful ones were in-person. I donât think I ever even implied otherwise. Reading comprehension my man. I know US has low literacy but still.
Just like weâre mine. And if you think Finland doesnât have depraved drug abusers, I could write another 3 full comments showing how youâre wrong, but prolly easier for you to watch this trailer of a documentary Reindeerspotting â Pako Joulumaasta (Escape from Santaland) . And those kids are still very healthy when theyâre filming. Iâve known people like that after theyâve 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 isnât the most depraved by miles.
Just because our druggies to hang out in the streets, you keep on insisting we donât have any.
Youâre literally just comparing and comparing, when I keep telling you you canât, because donât 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 donât hear about Finland. Thatâs just what the facts are.
This is why I keep saying you donât understand.
What the fuck do you mean you got a job driving homeless people around???
You donât understand how alien a concept that is for us. Do you put them on buses and ship them to other cities? We have a program like that
Do you take them shopping? To some sort of social service? To medical appointments?
And youâre like âoh, actually we have some homeless people too, just not as manyâ
Thatâs the whole damn point! I want us to have less homeless people, so Iâm looking at countries that have less homelessness! I didnât even consider a program to give them rides, but I can instantly see how that would be a good thing to have
Youâre a textbook case of why people laugh at American stupidity.
You literally donât understand empathy and no matter what ridiculous, factually wrong bullshit you say, you just⊠pretend you didnât. You say things, I prove theyâre wrong, I show you how much better I understand than you.
How many books do you read a year? Have you ever read a singles Chomsky? Zizek?
Iâm guessing not.
SinÀ olet se jolta yyttyy pummareusta, jiksi soudut Google temÀn tÀkstin ja topaeivöissÀ tietit mietenkin jiksi siinÀ nei ÀytÀ jÀlevÀn orkea.
I took them drinking. Because theyâre homeless drunks. You simply donât understand a single thing about Finland, yet I have a much better grasp of the US than the average citizen. Hell, Iâm certain Iâd get more US States right on a map than an average American.
You know, since youâre brain damaged with lead almost to the point that the intellecttual divide between us is almost shorter than the divide between you and monkeys.
No, you didnât, because youâre an average American, and youâre actually 10 times dumber than you thinkâŠ
I also notice you didnât answer where you were at 911. Prolly because you werenât born. I have more experience of the US than you, lol.
And you keep proving that sentiment right, again and again and again and again.