Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Norway Model: How the Scandinavian country became a literary powerhouse

thedial.world

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 125 posts

Re: The Norway Model: How the Scandinavian country became a literary powerhouse

#41

Post by fxtentacle »

roschdal wrote: post #39
fxtentacle wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exercise is difficult, lack of sunlight increases depression, and very few bikini beach parties ;)

This! I need to escape. Where is the promised land of opportunities these days?

Maybe Singapore? There are lots of English-speaking employers, the weather is great, and the better apartments come with rooftop tennis, gym, and pool. MRT is amazing and allows you to quickly go to free parks like the botanical garden if you feel like walking around outside. That will surely help with the winter blues. Lots of university students, too. But alcohol and/or parties are extremely expensive and dorms are typically gender-separated with security guards.

Re: The Norway Model: How the Scandinavian country became a literary powerhouse

#42

Post by max_ »

hilux wrote: post #7

This feels like over-analysis. Norway, with 0.07% of the world's population, has the world's best chess player ever. Two of the top ten bridge players. One of the very best soccer players under 25. And so on. Basically, it's a very oil-rich country that uses its wealth to invest in its people . And we see the results in every field of endeavor. Many other "rich" countries, whatever the source of their wealth, do not…

What political/economic philosophers are the Nordic economic & political systems based on?

Or what interesting book may you recommend for one to read to learn more about thier social/political system.

Re: The Norway Model: How the Scandinavian country became a literary powerhouse

#43

Post by brigandish »

lnsru wrote: post #24
TulliusCicero wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like after the fact reasoning. In an alternate timeline where Norway has no oil and is poor, I can imagine someone saying, "How could you expect them to succeed? Poor farming conditions, terrible winters, hardly any natural resources beyond fish." After all, Russia also has some awful climates, and it doesn't seem to have resulted in strong social cooperation.

Because in russia one bad word in good environment with some kgb buddy might get you a trip to gulag. So everybody was very careful choosing conversation partners and topics. That’s not the way to build strong social cooperation.

It sounds like a form of strong social cooperation to me, just one that no one likes. And since strong social cooperation sounds so good to some people, they start to look to separate it from the strong social cooperation they like, either knowingly or unknowingly, and we end up with a similar situation to the stereotypical "ah, but that wasn't real socialism" socialist, where it just can't be admitted to be anything similar.

I'm a libertarian so I'm already suspicious of such things, makes it easy to spot.

Re: The Norway Model: How the Scandinavian country became a literary powerhouse

#44

Post by eu-tech-tak »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #31
hilux wrote: post #7

This feels like over-analysis. Norway, with 0.07% of the world's population, has the world's best chess player ever. Two of the top ten bridge players. One of the very best soccer players under 25. And so on. Basically, it's a very oil-rich country that uses its wealth to invest in its people . And we see the results in every field of endeavor. Many other "rich" countries, whatever the source of their wealth, do not…

The Logic of Political Survival predicts that any country with an already strong and healthy democracy which later discovers enormous natural resources will have a much better shot at overcoming the curse of resources than those where these trends are weaker. Selectorate theory is the real key here, and it's why Norway is probably going to knock it out of the park with its newly discovered phosphate deposits as well,…

>if anyone wants to help me land my first gig over in Oslo, I'm conviniently next-next door in Finland

I made a website to help non-norwegian speakers find a tech/it/software job in Norway. All the job posts should be in English and only a few jobs require some Norwegian knowledge.

If you know Java, .NET or JavaScript/Typescript there are a lot of well(-enough) paid jobs in Norway.

https://nordictechjobs.com/jobs

Re: The Norway Model: How the Scandinavian country became a literary powerhouse

#45

Post by Emma_Goldman »

karaterobot wrote: post #3

What does it even mean to be a literary powerhouse in 2023? Of the Norwegian authors they listed, the only name I recognized was Knausgård. His most famous books came out like 10 years ago, and while they were a sensation for a while, I believe they still sold best in Norway . And I think that even the most successful literary novelists of today are selling fewer copies than the moderately successful literary novelis…

I do think this is a crudely banausic perspective.

> Their novels are surely enjoyed by far fewer people than an only-relatively successful niche Youtube or TikTok content creator. Literary novels don't make money, and don't shape the culture, so what does it even mean to be a 'powerhouse'?

Mere numerical impressions is a poor standard of influence or staying power. Very many great works of culture, philosophy and history are little read by the standards of social media. I have no idea why you think that means they 'don't shape the culture'. I doubt that, each year, Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations is read even one hundredth the number of times that Mr Beast's videos are watched. I very much doubt that the future historian will take the Philosophical Investigations - by consensus the most influential work of philosophy in the twentieth century, whose effects on our intellectual culture are deep and pervasive - to be an incidental footnote when compared to Mr Beast.

But cultural value isn't just a function of influence, clearly. Knausgaard's books are to many people, myself included, simply great works of art, and should be celebrated for that fact. They show a level of cultural excellence, ingenuity and craft that the average trending YouTube video doesn't, whatever merit it might have besides.

Re: The Norway Model: How the Scandinavian country became a literary powerhouse

#46

Post by ffgjgf1 »

greenhexagon wrote: post #18
hilux wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment points out that Norway has done something amazing that other countries have not come close to doing. Look at what the US (I am American) has done with our wealth: highest healthcare expenditure per capita (50% more than #2), 47th in life expectancy, fifth-highest incarceration rate. What is served by reflexively trying to diminish Norway's accomplishments with a "BUT Singapore is more impressive"? Why not…

Norway is projected to produce $122,421,000,000 worth of oil next year, against a population of only 5 million people. That's about $24,400 in annual oil revenue per citizen. Their sovereign wealth fund (profits from oil re-invested into the global stock market and real estate) is about $270,000 per citizen. Take the risk-free rate of putting that in US Treasuries and it's an additional $13,500 per citizen per year.…

> Norway was a lower income country

Lower than now? Sure. However it still was one of the richest countries in Europe going back at least to ~1900 (just the gap wasn’t that big as now)

Re: The Norway Model: How the Scandinavian country became a literary powerhouse

#47

Post by ffgjgf1 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #17
tazu wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This feels like after the fact reasoning. In an alternate timeline where Norway has no oil and is poor, I can imagine someone saying, "How could you expect them to succeed? Poor farming conditions, terrible winters, hardly any natural resources beyond fish." After all, Russia also has some awful climates, and it doesn't seem to have resulted in strong social cooperation.

> In an alternate timeline where Norway has no oil

Norway was already the richest European country back in 1938, decades before oil was even discovered in the North Sea.

Re: The Norway Model: How the Scandinavian country became a literary powerhouse

#48

Post by dontlaugh »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #17
tazu wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This feels like after the fact reasoning. In an alternate timeline where Norway has no oil and is poor, I can imagine someone saying, "How could you expect them to succeed? Poor farming conditions, terrible winters, hardly any natural resources beyond fish." After all, Russia also has some awful climates, and it doesn't seem to have resulted in strong social cooperation.

It resulted in such strong social cooperation that the majority of the population (the workers) succeeded in a revolution in 1917 and then for decades drastically improved their material conditions.

There are of course other factors than climate.

Re: The Norway Model: How the Scandinavian country became a literary powerhouse

#49

Post by ffgjgf1 »

Goodroo wrote: post #36
mongol wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia had serfdom and dictatorship for most of its history.

Isn't that much of Europe?

Serfdom disappeared almost 500 years or so earlier in Western Europe that it did in Russia (or most of Germany for that matter..)

Re: The Norway Model: How the Scandinavian country became a literary powerhouse

#50

Post by stareatgoats »

max_ wrote: post #42
hilux wrote: post #7

This feels like over-analysis. Norway, with 0.07% of the world's population, has the world's best chess player ever. Two of the top ten bridge players. One of the very best soccer players under 25. And so on. Basically, it's a very oil-rich country that uses its wealth to invest in its people . And we see the results in every field of endeavor. Many other "rich" countries, whatever the source of their wealth, do not…

What political/economic philosophers are the Nordic economic & political systems based on? Or what interesting book may you recommend for one to read to learn more about thier social/political system.

Not OP but the Nordic model is social democratic: inherited from the social democrats that fenced off the communists around the turn of the last century with the promise of delivering socialism through reforms, not through revolution. Early adoption of this model from the capitalists kept class warfare in Scandinavian countries at a minimum, and a prevailing sense of the state as "for the people" has taken root. Which means that the state in Norway was expected to invest the oil revenue to benefit the people, not for the benefit of foreign oil interest in an alliance with a wealthy few as is often the case.

This backdrop explains for example why Musk may find that Tesla needs to withdraw from Sweden unless they sign the deal with the trade unions. Or, as some will have it: Musk and some others will succeed in delivering a coup de grâce to the Nordic model, it has admittedly been withering for some time.

Post reply on HN