the social democracy is nice and all here, but the tl;dr seems to be innovation. (and having companies owned by non-profits helps with reinvestment)
E.g. watching Germany argue over heat pumps is funny from northern countries that have no gas network but a loooot of heat pumps. Oil furnaces in existing homes were banned back in 2020 here in Norway—and Germany can’t even ban fossil fuel heating in new homes.
We have a mostly electric car market now, after having taxed cars heavily forever and then not taxing EVs as heavily, so they became more competitive at the time of purchase. Then they go on about charging networks, but I’m not so sure there’s actually a higher density of EV per km² here, given how small our population is. It smells like an excuse.
And then paper: The postal service in Norway is on the verge of being functionally ended, and all letters might get treated as parcels that you pick up at a hub in the near future. There’s just practically no paper being circulated any more, except for books and newspapers in a mix of habit and intentional non-screen time. Ten years ago there was barely any paper in offices, and since covid it’s practically zero.
So hearing about how things are in Germany feels like we’re living in some impossible sci-fi future here in the Nordics—and I’m pretty sure the Germans could catch up to us real quick if they just decided to. But instead they seem to be held back by the kind of conservative who believes technological progress is impossible and that the status quo is all they can aspire to.
But instead they seem to be held back by the kind of conservative who believes technological progress is impossible and that the status quo is all they can aspire to.
Thank you for putting it that way.
I’ve read a lot of definitions of what “conservative” actually means, and mostly i don’t understand these definitions.
In physics, a “conservative field” is one who has a potential and is the gradient field of that potential. In the real world, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Conservatives have no potential, and aren’t any gradient either. They’re just a bunch of dumbasses who refuse to look at things the way they are. Really. Makes me angry.
Sorry that i lashed out like this, i just felt like saying it.
But instead they seem to be held back by the kind of conservative who believes technological progress is impossible
Well - rather by a LOT of people that for some reason feel personally attacked by change and cling to whatever the old thing was like a kid that won’t have their plushie be put in the washer.
How do you combat against misinformation / yellow press? I feel like that’s the main problem in Germany. Whenever someone starts a sensible campaign to move things forward, it seems that the BILD launches a month long smear campaign; just to avoid any progress whatsoever.
Though I’m sure Russian meme networks are doing their part too.
Currently the party doing best in polls is the populist right. They were in government a few years back too, but the conservative/liberal/right populist coalition got replaced with a labour/agrarian populist coalition after the last election. Next election in September 2025.
I think we’re just kinda lucky we don’t have Springerpresse or Murdoch etc running publications here. And something like 25-33% of the population seems to be pretty solidly populist, only switching between the various populist parties. Our Labour and Conservatives don’t seem willing to go for a GroKo to keep the populists out either.
I’m curious how y’all are so inoculated against “brown immigrants bad” compared to say Germany. It definitely seems to still be a thought, but y’all have like 3-4x the migrant population per capita and are doing better than they are.
I’m not so certain we are all that inoculated. Most of our migrants are swedes and other Europeans, too. I’m not versed in specific differences of migration policy though, so I’m not going to start speculating about financing immigration classes or whatever.
The postal service in Norway is on the verge of being functionally ended, and all letters might get treated as parcels that you pick up at a hub in the near future.
You don’t have parcels delivered to your doorstep???
You can get the home delivery, but the common thing is to get it delivered to the post office, which is usually in the grocery store closest to you. (The dedicated post offices died a few decades back afaik.)
So I get a notification in the post app, or by mail or sms, depending, and then I just pick it up wherever I’m getting groceries. Same thing happens if someone tries to mail me something that doesn’t fit in the mail box.
I can confirm that my brother that lives in Norway does not. All his mail is at the post in the gas station on the mainland. There is no mail service, or literally any commercial services, on his island; he has to take the ferry to get anywhere or anything.
(and having companies owned by non-profits helps with reinvestment)
Bosch, Zeiss, Possehl, that’s off the top of my head. Not to be confused with family foundations like Aldi though TBH regarding reinvestments it’s probably cheaper to pay out stipends to the founder’s offspring than it is to do charity work.
watching Germany argue over heat pumps is funny from northern countries that have no gas network but a loooot of heat pumps.
Blame the Greens and their general bourgeoisness. Somehow they needed a reminder that not everyone has just money lying around to switch over. They should have factored in financing from day zero (e.g. cheap KfW credits that can be paid back with half of what you’re saving in running costs), and simultaneously set up a district heating programme because in many places that’s the overall cheaper option.
The Greens absolutely suck at selling their good ideas. They’re like those kinds of vegans (they’re not all vegan) who think that “but you’ll feel good about yourself” is an argument that makes people drop everything and get on board. The Church is saying the same and they’re not exactly gaining members.
We have a mostly electric car market now
Financed with oil sales and you know it. Join the EU, pay your dues, and you get to say such shit but not before. You don’t even have 8m measuring tapes.
The postal service in Norway is on the verge of being functionally ended, and all letters might get treated as parcels that you pick up at a hub in the near future.
Yeah, no. The reason is that when a letter arrives in your post box it’s legally assumed that you read it and administration relies on that. If you get rid of the postal office the work would shift over to bailiffs which is overall less efficient.
Financed with oil sales and you know it. Join the EU, pay your dues, and you get to say such shit but not before.
Increase your car taxes to our levels and then you get to say shit like that. :)
The postal service in Norway is on the verge of being functionally ended, and all letters might get treated as parcels that you pick up at a hub in the near future.
Yeah, no. The reason is that when a letter arrives in your post box it’s legally assumed that you read it and administration relies on that. If you get rid of the postal office the work would shift over to bailiffs which is overall less efficient.
There are no letters any more. The important stuff that the government sends us we only get electronically at altinn.no (some stuff at skatteetaten.no), and reception is acknowledged that way too.
We currently have mail service every other weekday (so mon-wed-fri, tue-thu, repeat) and there’s nothing really to deliver except physical spam. At this point the people who relied on paper out of habit are mostly dead of old age, and there’s not a lot of public sentiment for subsidizing a handful of anti-computer cranks.
Blame the Greens and their general bourgeoisness.
Of course it’s DIE GRÜÜÜÜNEN, not, you know, the conservatives that ran the country for ages under Merkel, and the people who want to be “technologieoffen” just in case the country’s horse-and-buggy industry can actually compete against a modern auto industry.
That sounds sensible. From 2025 on the postal service is free to take up to three days to deliver 95% of letters, currently it’s 80% overnight, 95% the day after. Volume halved since 2000, currently about half a person receives a letter a day. Statistically speaking that is in reality it’s probably less than one a month for an ordinary citizen. Like your health insurer sending you a letter making apologies for increased rates while blaming the government, that was the last one.
Of course it’s DIE GRÜÜÜÜNEN, not, you know, the conservatives that ran the country for ages
I don’t expect any different from conservatives. From the Greens, I expect better. They can do better. They could even have won the last elections if they didn’t have their head stuck up their arse. That would’ve been better: Actually winning elections instead of complaining about the evil conservatives. Yes, they’re evil, but they’re not winning because they’re strong, they’re winning because the Greens are being stupid.
the social democracy is nice and all here, but the tl;dr seems to be innovation. (and having companies owned by non-profits helps with reinvestment)
E.g. watching Germany argue over heat pumps is funny from northern countries that have no gas network but a loooot of heat pumps. Oil furnaces in existing homes were banned back in 2020 here in Norway—and Germany can’t even ban fossil fuel heating in new homes.
We have a mostly electric car market now, after having taxed cars heavily forever and then not taxing EVs as heavily, so they became more competitive at the time of purchase. Then they go on about charging networks, but I’m not so sure there’s actually a higher density of EV per km² here, given how small our population is. It smells like an excuse.
And then paper: The postal service in Norway is on the verge of being functionally ended, and all letters might get treated as parcels that you pick up at a hub in the near future. There’s just practically no paper being circulated any more, except for books and newspapers in a mix of habit and intentional non-screen time. Ten years ago there was barely any paper in offices, and since covid it’s practically zero.
So hearing about how things are in Germany feels like we’re living in some impossible sci-fi future here in the Nordics—and I’m pretty sure the Germans could catch up to us real quick if they just decided to. But instead they seem to be held back by the kind of conservative who believes technological progress is impossible and that the status quo is all they can aspire to.
Thank you for putting it that way.
I’ve read a lot of definitions of what “conservative” actually means, and mostly i don’t understand these definitions.
In physics, a “conservative field” is one who has a potential and is the gradient field of that potential. In the real world, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Conservatives have no potential, and aren’t any gradient either. They’re just a bunch of dumbasses who refuse to look at things the way they are. Really. Makes me angry.
Sorry that i lashed out like this, i just felt like saying it.
Well - rather by a LOT of people that for some reason feel personally attacked by change and cling to whatever the old thing was like a kid that won’t have their plushie be put in the washer.
How do you combat against misinformation / yellow press? I feel like that’s the main problem in Germany. Whenever someone starts a sensible campaign to move things forward, it seems that the BILD launches a month long smear campaign; just to avoid any progress whatsoever.
Though I’m sure Russian meme networks are doing their part too.
Not a problem in Norway?
Currently the party doing best in polls is the populist right. They were in government a few years back too, but the conservative/liberal/right populist coalition got replaced with a labour/agrarian populist coalition after the last election. Next election in September 2025.
I think we’re just kinda lucky we don’t have Springerpresse or Murdoch etc running publications here. And something like 25-33% of the population seems to be pretty solidly populist, only switching between the various populist parties. Our Labour and Conservatives don’t seem willing to go for a GroKo to keep the populists out either.
I’m curious how y’all are so inoculated against “brown immigrants bad” compared to say Germany. It definitely seems to still be a thought, but y’all have like 3-4x the migrant population per capita and are doing better than they are.
I’m not so certain we are all that inoculated. Most of our migrants are swedes and other Europeans, too. I’m not versed in specific differences of migration policy though, so I’m not going to start speculating about financing immigration classes or whatever.
You don’t have parcels delivered to your doorstep???
You can get the home delivery, but the common thing is to get it delivered to the post office, which is usually in the grocery store closest to you. (The dedicated post offices died a few decades back afaik.)
So I get a notification in the post app, or by mail or sms, depending, and then I just pick it up wherever I’m getting groceries. Same thing happens if someone tries to mail me something that doesn’t fit in the mail box.
I can confirm that my brother that lives in Norway does not. All his mail is at the post in the gas station on the mainland. There is no mail service, or literally any commercial services, on his island; he has to take the ferry to get anywhere or anything.
That may be because he is living on an island rather than Norway thing in general, no?
It’s a bit of both, I think. I believe that’s common in a lot of less-accessible rural areas, not just islands.
Bosch, Zeiss, Possehl, that’s off the top of my head. Not to be confused with family foundations like Aldi though TBH regarding reinvestments it’s probably cheaper to pay out stipends to the founder’s offspring than it is to do charity work.
Blame the Greens and their general bourgeoisness. Somehow they needed a reminder that not everyone has just money lying around to switch over. They should have factored in financing from day zero (e.g. cheap KfW credits that can be paid back with half of what you’re saving in running costs), and simultaneously set up a district heating programme because in many places that’s the overall cheaper option.
The Greens absolutely suck at selling their good ideas. They’re like those kinds of vegans (they’re not all vegan) who think that “but you’ll feel good about yourself” is an argument that makes people drop everything and get on board. The Church is saying the same and they’re not exactly gaining members.
Financed with oil sales and you know it. Join the EU, pay your dues, and you get to say such shit but not before. You don’t even have 8m measuring tapes.
Yeah, no. The reason is that when a letter arrives in your post box it’s legally assumed that you read it and administration relies on that. If you get rid of the postal office the work would shift over to bailiffs which is overall less efficient.
Increase your car taxes to our levels and then you get to say shit like that. :)
There are no letters any more. The important stuff that the government sends us we only get electronically at altinn.no (some stuff at skatteetaten.no), and reception is acknowledged that way too.
We currently have mail service every other weekday (so mon-wed-fri, tue-thu, repeat) and there’s nothing really to deliver except physical spam. At this point the people who relied on paper out of habit are mostly dead of old age, and there’s not a lot of public sentiment for subsidizing a handful of anti-computer cranks.
Of course it’s DIE GRÜÜÜÜNEN, not, you know, the conservatives that ran the country for ages under Merkel, and the people who want to be “technologieoffen” just in case the country’s horse-and-buggy industry can actually compete against a modern auto industry.
Great then I can just ignore them.
That sounds sensible. From 2025 on the postal service is free to take up to three days to deliver 95% of letters, currently it’s 80% overnight, 95% the day after. Volume halved since 2000, currently about half a person receives a letter a day. Statistically speaking that is in reality it’s probably less than one a month for an ordinary citizen. Like your health insurer sending you a letter making apologies for increased rates while blaming the government, that was the last one.
I don’t expect any different from conservatives. From the Greens, I expect better. They can do better. They could even have won the last elections if they didn’t have their head stuck up their arse. That would’ve been better: Actually winning elections instead of complaining about the evil conservatives. Yes, they’re evil, but they’re not winning because they’re strong, they’re winning because the Greens are being stupid.