121–130 of 190 posts
When I was trainee in Stockholm in the 1980s most (if not all) escalators in the metro still run such that you had to take the left one.
Still on escalators everywhere, if you're standing, you stand on the right. If you're passing, you pass on the left.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mostly the same as today, if that was the only difference? Same language is a result of cultural similarity much more so than a cause for it. If there is no political or cultural pressure to speak the same language, they relatively quickly diverge.
What I was implying is, language barriers are a firewall against charismatic, manipulative psychopaths trying to brainwash you into doing unspeakable things. They do so by turning "he has a point" into "who is this funny little moustache guy and why does he sound so angry?"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you already drove cars where drivers sit left side as Wikipedia says, what exactly were those 85% thinking about? Clearly not road safety?
I think a large part were just ”no” to anything. Few I imagine were against right hand traffic but many simply resisted change. Only just half of voters voted, however.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like in France (excl. Alsace and Lyon metro). But which track trains use has extremely limited effects on the general public.
It's barely noticeable except when I come back from abroad and expect train doors to open on the wrong side, it happens maybe a couple of times until I get used to it again.
Maybe the world should standardize on: Driving on the right Speaking English The metric system The 2024-06-09 date format The Celsius scale The 24-hour clock
Not worth discussing until some serious improvements to the spelling system. Currently learning it requires learning two obnoxiously independent systems, the written and the spoken.
I know of this one single intersection in northern Stockholm that still enforces left-hand traffic: https://maps.app.goo.gl/uGWr28JUQnEh9cXc6
When you have two multi lane one way roads going opposite ways and want add a two-way connection between them then you often want to put lanes the opposite of normal way. Another example is all roads connecting Chiang Mai's old city outer and inner circle road. The country is left-handed but those connecting roads are right handed, the opposite of Stockholm intersection
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I was implying is, language barriers are a firewall against charismatic, manipulative psychopaths trying to brainwash you into doing unspeakable things. They do so by turning "he has a point" into "who is this funny little moustache guy and why does he sound so angry?"
I'd argue lacking a shared global language is more likely to isolate a population and ensure they can only hear the local mustache man's narrative.
To be clear, I'm not saying freedom of press between countries should be eliminated (quite the contrary!), only that diversity of languages should be preserved. In my opinion, this does two things:
1. Allows more diverse ideas to come into being, as language directly affects on one's way of thinking.
2. Slows the spread of dangerous ideas, due to some of their appeal (or the charisma of their advocates) being lost in translation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This almost sounds like a sketch since Sweden has “Norway jokes” where the punchline is consistently how dumb Norwegians are — a structure that I’m sure is mirrored in Norway and similarly in other countries (england/scotland, france/belgium maybe?)
I have no idea if the Scots think or joke that the English are stupid, but can say that the English have a joke pattern of "An Englishman, an Irishman, and a Scotsman…" and it's always and only the Irish who are picked on.
The Basque person in the joke is always called Patxi, a stereotypical Basque name (kind of like calling an Irish person "Paddy").
Having a non-binding referendum and moving against the 85% vote takes balls. And we're forever greatful that they did. Presumably people thought it would be inconvenient and voted no, while politicians realized the cost of doing it later would be much larger than just ripping the band aid off. At the time, the number of massive motorway crossings and similar was probably nearly zero. Today the cost would be unimagina…
My optimistic take on this is that the politicians of the time had the actual peoples' best interests at heart and realized that even though the change was unpopular, it was the right thing to do and that people would eventually realize that. I'm sure very few of those 83% held their opinion a few years after the change. Also 83% is really a lot... While seemingly obviously correct now, the vast majority didn't see i…
The problem isn't mass media, the problem is that they did use this card many times over the past decades to promote neoliberal policies, and in retrospect it's clear that nobody is thanking them.
The main lesson is that you can indeed force things on people, and when you do so for good reasons you'll be thanked later, but you must do it wisely and be sure that people will thank you, otherwise you're just destroying public's confidence in politicians (which doesn't matter to the neoliberals anyway, since they don't think State is a valuable institustion in the first place…)
One surprising (after we got a ticket..) thing about parking laws in Sweden is that you're also only allowed to park on the right side of the road / with the car in the direction of the traffic. This has the benefit of that when you're leaving the street parking, you are sitting close to the lane and can look behind you for coming cars and only cross one lane. Compared to parking on the "wrong" side, where you're sit…