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Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

helsinkibusinesshub.fi

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Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#511

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

timsally wrote: post #210
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that you can choose to go live somewhere that is not the USA and you continue reap the benefits you describe, all the while paying a different countries taxes and personally benefitting much much more. If I was an American, I wouldn't want to be footing the bill for Global Security either.

> If I was an American, I wouldn't want to be footing the bill for Global Security either. There is a deep and nuanced conversation to be had here, though I will say fourstar already made one important point very succinctly. [1] I will point out that it has been the position of the American people since WWII that we are happy to foot the bill for global security. So while you might not feel that way, Americans feel d…

This is an interesting discussion but wholly irrelevant. Either I'm in the US paying these taxes or I'm not. As an individual I'd rather have my taxes benefit me as much as possible. The US military isn't going to directly help feed my newborn child, especially if I'm not an American.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#512

Post by Cloudef »

plq wrote: post #506
taejo wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A genetic relationship between Finno-Ugric and either the Japonic or Turkic language families, if it exists, is so weak that most scholars believe there is no evidence for it.

Turkish and Finnish do have the same word structure and very similar sentence characteristics. Both are agglutinative languages with vowel harmony and "floating" word order. Japanese is also agglutinative but lacks vowel harmony. I'd consider scholars who believe these languages are not similar to be quite wrong. It's true that there is practically no common vocabulary between the tree though. (Hungarian and Turkish…

The random sentence order might contribute how finns think its rude to interrupt other person talking. Listen first, then talk.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#513

Post by Jugurtha »

StavrosK wrote: post #510
Kliment wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About b) it's controversial because it's the standard model that is used by linguistics and is considered useful, and I think it's net-negative-value for education. That's why I want to make it abundantly clear that this is my opinion and it runs counter to the consensus in the linguistics world.

Yes but linguistics is about studying a language, not speaking it. As someone who has learnt a few languages non-natively, I never once spoke a sentence by thinking about the formal rule I'm supposed to use to produce it. As in machine learning, just throwing a bunch of training data at my brain (in the form of complete, native sentences) way outperforms building a rule-based system to the point where I just don't bo…

This is how I learned languages non-natively as well. But even learning a language natively is done that way: you don't give babies grammar books.

We do that as programmers as well: we get familiar with a syntax/grammar just enough so that we could get to reading source code, learning idioms to do things such as open a file, or make a request, or use a regex. The quick tutorial + cookbook works very well in programming.

This is one reason I lean towards Stephen Krashen's work on language acquisition, and his "input hypothesis"[0].

The way I learned every language was by consuming content that increased in complexity and variety. Patterns were acquired.

- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_hypothesis

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#514

Post by acd »

If you have kids relocating to Scandinavia is a great choice for good work life balance.

  * Great public schools especially in Finland which as good rankings in Pisa.
  * Five weeks of Paid vacation every year
  * Paid parental leave.
https://finland.fi/life-society/finland-remains-among-top-na...

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#515

Post by jusssi »

Devils-Avocado wrote: post #27
brryant wrote: post #2

This is honestly a great way for tech entrepreneurs to experience Nordic living. The fact is Finland has one of the most startup friendly environments around: — top schools (Aalto U. produces incredibly talented engineers) — startup friendly ecosystem (cheap rents, cheap internet) — Finnish work culture (direct, no nonsense, hard working but balanced) — fantastic food and beverage scene in downtown Helsinki My wife i…

Also: 24% VAT (sales tax) 18% employer payroll taxes 10% employee payroll taxes 20-30% typical income tax Take your American disposable income and cut it in half. Still worth it for 'free' education and 'free' healthcare? Also a lot of cold and darkness.

Your list has some inaccuracies and omissions.

There are also quite significant 14% (e.g. groceries, restaurants) and 10% (some specific services) VAT categories.

Most of employer payroll "tax" (~18%) and employee payroll "tax" (8.4%) is actually mandatory pension fund payments and counts toward your accumulated pension.

Many people choose to pay the 1% church tax, even though it is entirely optional (most of those people participate in any church stuff only for weddings and funerals).

We also pay ridiculously high taxes for cars and fuel, tobacco and alcohol.

Additional things we get for our taxes:

* 'free' defense against our eastern neighbor (we only have to pay with our blood, if they ever decide to try again)

* 'free' mental health care and basic necessities for the crazies in the subway, so I don't have to be their therapist and they're slightly less likely to murder me for my pants

* 'free' police force who are respected by the society, rarely need to resort to lethal force, and don't get to keep the money from traffic tickets and impounded property

* 'free' elections, with no armed mobs demanding the vote to be changed to their desires

* 'free' air conditioning, just open a window (also there's no need to pay for sunblock, you won't need it)

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#516

Post by Cloudef »

jaggederest wrote: post #438
plq wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the foundation you got with Finnish should be useful if ever you need to learn Turkish, Hungarian or Japanese. Natural languages are like programming languages in a sense -- Haskell doesn't get as much use as C++ but learning Haskell will make you better at C++.

Can confirm, I have a few years of high school level education in Japanese and Finnish sounds right to my ears, until I pay attention and realize I don't understand it.

I'm finn living in japan right. Japanese was really easy to pick up. The locals think i've lived here forever whenever i speak with them.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#517

Post by WilTimSon »

deanc wrote: post #190

Overall my experience in Helsinki has been hugely positive. I’ve been here now over a decade and have settled with work and family life. Work life balance is great, there’s a beautiful outdoors to enjoy all year, and the people are warm and kind, if not difficult to start with. All that said, there’s a lot of bullshit and hot air here in this thread: - public healthcare is great until you have something difficult to…

> the main problem is finding time to learn it

Some friends of mine who moved for work to different European countries told me their companies would just provide language courses if the number of 'imported' workers were high enough. Is that not a thing in Finland? Seems like it'd be prudent for them, after spending money to get you to come over, to also give you a reason to stay with some anchoring language learning.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#518

Post by throwawayzRUU6f »

rebuilder wrote: post #246
deanc wrote: post #190

Overall my experience in Helsinki has been hugely positive. I’ve been here now over a decade and have settled with work and family life. Work life balance is great, there’s a beautiful outdoors to enjoy all year, and the people are warm and kind, if not difficult to start with. All that said, there’s a lot of bullshit and hot air here in this thread: - public healthcare is great until you have something difficult to…

As far as language goes, my advice for learning a new one would be the exact opposite of what you say. Force yourself to use the language all the time, everywhere. Otherwise people will just default to English with you, and you'll have a hard time learning the local language. It'll be very stressful for a few months, but, in my experience, will get you conversing in about half a year.

You do not have to force yourself to use the language. It's a stressful, uncomfortable and not particularly efficient way of studying a language, especially for introverts. Some polyglots study this way, some do not - it's absolutely not a necessity. Some polyglots go by the motto: "if you can understand the spoken language, and you're able to write in it, then you're able to speak in it, too".

There is no shortcut to learning a new language - even if you're fluent in 9 languages, the 10th will still take 1000+ hours. The most efficient way appears to be a loop of listening and drilling vocabulary, particularly listening to excerpts that come with text transcription.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#520

Post by jnurmine »

refurb wrote: post #498
jnurmine wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finland was really between a rock and a hard place, as the international community was basically a lame duck after the Soviets attacked Finland in 1939 by staging a false flag in the small village of Mainila. Although some in Finland tend to forget it, Sweden provided substantial amounts of men and material which helped a lot, but it wasn't quite enough. The only other player with enough muscle was Germany, to which…

I get that Finland was in a crappy position during WW2. Aligning with the Nazi's was a matter of realpolitik. And I agree that their involvement in the Siege of Leningrad amounted to a blocking force, but mother of god, that blocking force contributed to an absolutely horrific existence for the civilians inside the city. One could maybe argue that if the Finns didn't help the Nazi's the Nazi's would have been enable…

I agree that the Leningrad siege was a terrible suffering for everyone inside the city, no question about it.

I'm not sure though what Finland could have done otherwise; if they had not been where they were, Leningrad would have received shelling from all sides, and like you say, the city would have been under siege anyway - possibly with worse consequences, since the Lake Ladoga route would've likely been cut then as well.

Actively resisting the Germans in their aspirations was not feasible, as Finland needed the German military muscle to repel Soviets then and in the years to come.

So, Finland could not not be there, and if Finland had not been passive, then the only option available would have been to actively contribute to the siege and fire at an innocent civilian population. I'm not saying the decision to avoid this was because of moral or ethical concerns; the reason was probably more mundanely a lack of material. Artillery shells and bullets were best reserved for soldiers and not starving civilians in a strategically uninteresting city.

A side note about the "Nazi alignment": if that taints Finns, then it should, strangely enough, taint Russians as well; even the Soviets aligned with Nazi Germany. The secret clause of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact divided Europe to Soviet and German spheres of influence. Then, soon after the pact was signed, Poland took the first hit in 1939 with attacks by both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. And weirdly enough there was even a joint Nazi-Soviet military parade in Brest-Litovsk.

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