Comment by anon4242 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by anon4242 | Hacker News Reader

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> One thing I care about as a Swedish engineer is interesting work on the forefront of technology. Sadly that’s also been sacrificed in the Nordic model.

I am also a Swedish engineer and find that there are plenty of interesting and innovative companies to work for. As a software engineer it has typically been easy to find jobs that offer better compensation packages than what the union requires but I still see a union agreement as a positive thing if the company has it. To me it signals that they care about their employees. I also believe that the strong unions in Sweden have given us the (at least) five weeks of vacation, compared to the two in (the weakly unionized USA) and other quality of life and safety improvements.

> I see the holding back of ambitious, entrepreneurial people in order to preserve “social stability” as increasingly unethical.

This is quite an ignorant view. Social stability is the foundation for society, and society is the foundation for innovation. Who will build what you innovate? Who will buy it? Who will service it? Who will innovate based on your innovation? If you did an honest comparison of the innovative output of socially stable countries with those that are not socially stable you would change your mind.

I think we have different opinions, but also that you are misinterpreting on purpose. The reason I put social stability in quotes is that it’s not the perfect words for what I mean, but it’s meaning should be clear from the context.

What I was referring to was the Nordic cultural focus on a certain kind of “equality”, often referred to as the law of Jante, which is very focused on holding capable independent-minded people back.

> Who will innovate based on your innovation?

This is an excellent question, but I would like to turn it around: Who’s innovation do you innovate on top of? The answer in my case is “Anglo-Saxons”. There is pretty much nothing in my tech stack from the EU. It’s just a black hole. Does that not concern you at all?

"From the EU" is hard to discriminate in our industry these days I think, things are developed all around the world these days.

Then again maybe we have different tech stacks but mine typically includes: Linux (originally from Finland), ARM (from previously EU member UK), C++ (designed by a Dane) and Python (designed by a Dutch). That's the basis at least then there are other stuff as the need comes by.

As for social stability, I didn't intentionally misinterpret you. The kind of monetary equality that we traditionally have had in Sweden is good for social stability (the one without quotes I was talking about). That has changed during the last couple of decades and with increasing differences in income comes the increasing social problems we see.

OTOH I do agree that Jante can definitely be a negative factor when it comes to innovation.

As long my country can continue with its standard of living, I'm not so sure why I should worry why the tech stack is not from my country. It's a global economy and many things are global: the engineers working on said stack are not from the same country, also China, USA or Taiwan wouldn't be there if we wouldn't buy from them. Even Tesla wanted to come to build its factories here, and once the bullish attitude will give way (because it will) I'll have my local stack humming under my rear - built by unions just fine.

You don't use open source?

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