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The World’s Most Innovative Economies

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Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies

#101

Post by cjblomqvist »

fsloth wrote: post #77
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except Sweden is in the top 5 in anti-depressant use. I think the problem here is that we can dismiss religion wholesome, perhaps even all spirituality, but there's nothing to cushion the fall. Perhaps its a little arrogant to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think its clear that reality is far from explained and selling people on the idea of a nihilistic existence that is meaningless may not be good for huma…

"Except Sweden is in the top 5 in anti-depressant use. I think the problem here is that we can dismiss religion wholesome, perhaps even all spirituality, but there's nothing to cushion the fall." Correlation does not mean causality. Saying atheism leads to anti-depressant use is like saying eating ice cream makes people drown. (Yes, I borrowed that from the wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_doe…

And to add to this, Swedish people score among the highest for happiness. I'd like to see the other commenter explain that...

Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies

#103

Post by cmdrfred »

Symmetry wrote: post #96
cmdrfred wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then the question is are our elected officials corrupt or incompetent?

The biggest problem is that the electorate doesn't trust the elected officials in this matter. To bring down healthcare costs you need to be able to reject treatments that are much more expensive but only provide slight benefits. Organizations like the NHS in Britain are very good at this. But whenever someone gestures in that direction in the US you have people up in arms about "death panels" and the idea is quickly…

I don't even think you are talking about more net deaths. Every percentage point you raise taxes or healthcare costs pushes a group of people underwater. A certain percent of people who have bankruptcies will commit suicide/beat their wife to death/yell at their children until they develop mental issues etc. Economic policies have consciences that are diffcult to measure.

Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies

#104

Post by Urbanxassassin »

brotherjerky wrote: post #53
kartan wrote: post #11

> Fresh ideas tend to pay off big in Sweden, even as the current government is less business-friendly and has imposed labor taxes that could crimp business investment Maybe it is that high taxes and citizen friendly social system the responsible for the success of the country. I moved to Sweden to work in the tech sector because I like how socially advanced is the country. Taxes are used to invest in society, and tha…

I think Americans tend to over-estimate the tax rate in Europe. California's top marginal rate (including state and payroll taxes) comes out to about 47%. It looks like Sweden tops out at 56%. But for that extra 9%, you get lots of services (health care, education, etc). I'd guess most Americans would take the tax hike to not worry about insurance, school loans, etc.

Well that's why we look at effective tax. Which is significantly lower.

Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies

#105

Post by nitrogen »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #66
fsloth wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Swedes have much weaker bonds ... to their religious institutions" Most nordic people would call this progress.

Except Sweden is in the top 5 in anti-depressant use. I think the problem here is that we can dismiss religion wholesome, perhaps even all spirituality, but there's nothing to cushion the fall. Perhaps its a little arrogant to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think its clear that reality is far from explained and selling people on the idea of a nihilistic existence that is meaningless may not be good for huma…

Except Sweden is in the top 5 in anti-depressant use

Anti-depressant use is also very high in Utah, a very religious US state. So religion or a lack thereof is not an obvious solution.

Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies

#106

Post by cylinder »

dv_dt wrote: post #95
cylinder wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As always rapidly increasing population decreases quality of life for all except those already established at the top of the pyramid.

That's feels like an odd statement considering many mature first-world economies actually seem to be dealing with the economic effects of transitioning to a flat to slightly negative population growth rate.

Sweden has very high population growth.

Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies

#107

Post by fsloth »

mikeash wrote: post #99
fsloth wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spirituality and myths are different things. Spirituality is about psychological states, thus has a basis in the physical reality.

Spirituality seems to have many different meanings. The one you propose may be valid but it's one that's entirely compatible with atheism and materialism, so I don't think that's what the other commenter was thinking of.

Well, meditation was one of the spiritual traditions raised there and an offshoot of its zen buddhist form is used as a therapy form as mindfullness - this originated at MIT. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Kabat-Zinn

Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies

#108

Post by fsloth »

mikeash wrote: post #93
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should we ever be afraid of admitting that science has a limited scope and things like spirituality could be outside its scope? That seems to be an acceptable fear right now.

Spirituality does indeed seem to be outside the scope of science, because it's not real. If it were real, it ought to be amenable to scientific investigation. The notion that it's real but can't be scientifically investigated makes no sense to me.

Spirituality is not outside of science. We can study humans in the psychological states raised by practices in the spiritual traditions http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/07/dalai-lama....

The challenge from scientific point of view with human traditions is that they are a mishmash of established techniques affecting measurable outcomes and superstition, and sometimes it's quite hard to tell from the point of view of an outsider which is which.

Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies

#109

Post by kxyvr »

cesarbs wrote: post #84
kxyvr wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American who lived in Scandinavia for a few years and spent a fair amount of time in Sweden, I will say that Jantelagen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante takes some getting used to and has an affect on the business environment. At this point, I do believe that someone can be just as effective in business in Scandinavia as other places like the U.S., but my first two years were difficult until I unders…

Can you elaborate on the getting used to Jantelagen?

There's a lot that goes into it and I can't claim that everything I believe can be strictly related to Jantelagen. That said, I believe that it takes longer to introduce and have accepted new ideas in a Scandinavian workplace. Further, I believe that how new ideas are introduced tends to be more indirect than in an American workplace. This runs ostensibly contrary to the idea that Sweden is innovative. From my American point of view, if they're so innovative, then why won't they listen to a good idea?

Now, the reality is much more subtle. It's absolutely possible to introduce new ideas in these workplaces and have them valued, but I do find the process takes longer. Certain activities like eating together for lunch, having afternoon coffee together, or small talk before a meeting tend to go a long way in helping this, much farther than in an American workplace. I also find that there's a difference in directness that's hard to explain. When I say that the process for introducing ideas is more indirect, I don't mean that everyone there wants flowery language. However, I do end up speaking differently with my Scandinavian clients.

Anyway, these are just my opinions, so I don't want to make this appear as absolute. For me, it took about two years of living there before I felt comfortable navigating the environment and, certainly, I'm still not perfect.

Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies

#110

Post by kalleboo »

big_youth wrote: post #81
kalleboo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is relative. How many other countries had systems like BankID, Swish, doing their taxes online as well as with Skatteverket, etc etc when those came out? how many of those countries have populations smaller than Sweden? How much innovation comes out of Ohio which has a larger population?

It was not recent but a century ago Ohio came up with chewing gum, light bulbs, the first gas powered auto, flight, the, the first vacuum, and founded the first coed and interracial college. A little more innovate than online banking stuff. https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/technological-innovation...

I didn't mean to start some kind of innovational penis-waving contest. Just trying to show that it's easy to be blind to local innovation when it's around you. I'm not saying that no innovation is coming out of Ohio. I'm saying that the parent poster "as a Swede" probably doesn't see any innovation that comes out of Ohio. Just like an American doesn't see any innovation coming out of Sweden. Hence the "everyday" kind of examples.
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