Is your country shit??

[2NaFish]

Well, ofcourse it's shit but thanks to the internet you can see how relatively shit your country is. How do you compare with the heavyweights of bhutan, burkina faso and bolivia?


http://www.ifitweremyhome.com

[Rocket Queen]

http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/NO/FR

Born in France...moved to Norway... looks like both my countries are doing pretty swell.

On a side note, every country seems shite when compared to Norway... I checked 10 that told me I would make 98.9% less when compared to Norway...also class divide was remarkably higher most places, the U.S as well.

[BGFAN]

IMO some of the Scandinavian countries (Norway & Sweden in particular) have achieved the communimism (meaning that you have all the worldly goods you need) which some countries were aspiring to for years and failed to achieve.

I don't need this site to realize that my country is shity but some of the numbers were a bit startling. The only consolation is that I pay much less for health care than people in most developed countries but again it's shitty so that's not a big consolation after all 

[Rocket Queen]

It's not communism. It's a socialist democracy. Big difference.

It is insanely unfair to compare Norway (with it's 4.7 million citizens) to any other country in the world. We are one of a kind. We have oil money to drown our babies in, which makes our economy extremely stable.

The bare necessities (electricity, food, health care, education) is great in Norway, we go to Uni for free +++ I would never live there though. It is cold and miserable. People are cold as ice, we have no sun for several months every year, we can't even grow good fruits and it is just all over miserable. Of course I only say this because I've always had food, clothes, a school to go to, a warm home to come home to. If you ask my friends that eat roots for dinner, they probably will think that I am crazy and spoiled.

[BGFAN]

This about communism is an expression we use in BG a bit self mockingly meaning achievement of all worldly goods or as you put them bare necessities and doesn't include the ideology.

I guess there's no perfect happiness and very few people can have it all. I don't think you're spoilt or crazy because lack of sunshine is a big deprivation and high standard  cannot fully compensate for its absence. Our brains need certain amount of sunshine and when we don't get enough of it, we feel miserable & unhappy. I read somewhere that suicide rates are high in Norway due to this reason. Besides people in Norway probably don't get enough vitamin D which is important for bones.

I guess we have to accept what we have & be happy with it  but it's not always easy.

[Rocket Queen]

Yes, Norway has high suicide rates. I personally could never live there, and there is a reason I moved to an other country.

Place is dead 7 months a year.

[BGFAN]

It's good if you can chose where to live though there's no such thing as a perfect place.

[sunnyp]

A third of my wages goes on income tax, council tax, national insurance, student loans etc.

Half of what's left goes on rent, food and bills.

It's nice living in a country with a high quality of life, it just sucks that I've got to pay through the nose for the "privilege". Not for long, pay rise in June!!

[Rocket Queen]

I also got a raise.

25 cents an hour. Which means I can buy an extra gallon of gas a week. At least I like this job. When I go back to Europe for a few months over the summer, I will make ca, 2.5 times as much as I do here. Also I will pay about 2.5 times more for a six pack, for gas and food.

[polar]

i clicked the link and the first paragraph i encountered said this:

"The lottery of birth is responsible for much of who we are. If you were not born in the country you were, what would your life be like? Would you be the same person?"

my first instinct is to say that is as stupid as the kabalarian philosophy, which basically says WHEN you are born determines your life...

so if i think it through, basically that statement is trying to say, whether subconsciously or not, that the real lottery isn't where or when, but under what type of government rules the country of your birth.  hypothetically, there is no difference between russians and americans, south americans or south africans.  only xenophobes or racists think otherwise.  the only thing they have to worry about is whether their govt supports freedom or whether they are oppressed and strangled by govt policy

[2NaFish]

nicely wedged in.

[BGFAN]

i clicked the link and the first paragraph i encountered said this:

"The lottery of birth is responsible for much of who we are. If you were not born in the country you were, what would your life be like? Would you be the same person?"

my first instinct is to say that is as stupid as the kabalarian philosophy, which basically says WHEN you are born determines your life...

so if i think it through, basically that statement is trying to say, whether subconsciously or not, that the real lottery isn't where or when, but under what type of government rules the country of your birth.  hypothetically, there is no difference between russians and americans, south americans or south africans.  only xenophobes or racists think otherwise.  the only thing they have to worry about is whether their govt supports freedom or whether they are oppressed and strangled by govt policy

I don't agree. Not that goverment is not important but you forget geographical, historical, climatical & social factors which play much more important role & pre-determine to some extent the choice of goverment.

[polar]

hypothetically, there is no difference between russians and americans, south americans or south africans.  only xenophobes or racists think otherwise.

to be honest, upon further reflection, i take back the xenophobe/ racist part.  i believe in American exceptionalism.  i think all the smartest and hardest working people with the highest spirit of independence and strength all left their countries and moved here with no safety net, so maybe the #winners separated from the herd over the years to form america.  yeah, i change my statement

[2NaFish]

to be honest, upon further reflection, i take back the xenophobe/ racist part.  i believe in American exceptionalism.  i think all the smartest and hardest working people with the highest spirit of independence and strength all left their countries and moved here with no safety net, so maybe the #winners separated from the herd over the years to form america.  yeah, i change my statement

charlie sheen = american. When you're right, you're right.