Hacker News Reader

HNHacker News

Top New Best Ask Show Jobs

Comment by cscurmudgeon | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

cscurmudgeon·

I never understood comparing Finland and other small countries with the US.

Finland's population is less than that of NYC.

View on HN

That's why you compare per capita.

That's where you learn some systems are just not scalable.

There is a reason why we use complexity measures in computer science.

Why do we assume a-priori all social systems are scalable by 10 to 20 times?

That seems unscientific.

Why do you need to compare the entire US? Only 20 states have more people than Finland does. Also, if Japan with its 125 MILLION people can have 0.3 homeless per 100k (about half of what we have in Finland) why can't California with 40M people pull it off. The GDP in California is 70k per capita, In Japan its 40,2k.

Meanwhile, if I suggested doing housing for all, healthcare for all, etc on an island with only 2000 people, you’d tell me that was too few people and you can’t do it that way. So it seems that the only case where it will work is for a country with the exact number of people in the exact latitude as the countries that are already doing it, which are coincidentally the only places where it has been tried?

Or maybe, you’re just coming up with excuses.

> Or maybe, you’re just coming up with excuses.

Where did I say that? Look up logical fallacies.

Why do you assume social systems are easily scalable? That seems like an a priori belief without any scientific support.

You really think that economies of scale are some kind of myth?

>Meanwhile, if I suggested doing housing for all, healthcare for all, etc on an island with only 2000 people, you’d tell me that was too few people and you can’t do it that way.

No?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com