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Comment by reacharavindh | Hacker News Reader

Imagine, if Russia had gone the "Norway model" and used all the oil money to good use.... A soverign fund that improves teh lives of the citizens of the country, and invests in research that benefits the greater good, or even nationalistically, serving national interests in technical prowess. Instead they have oligarchs and war. We humans can't have nice things.

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Arguably Russia has followed the Norway model, with the state acquiring, for the benefit of the Russian people, full or majority ownership of most of the largest oil and gas production companies since the mid-2000s or so.

It's just that in Russia, the oil money tends to flow to some citizens more than others.

State control is very reliant on the state being competent and trustworthy. Feels like that's the exception rather than the rule, but it's great Norway's done it.

Russia has free healthcare and university and has invested in research prior to the war and had a burgeoning tech industry (e.g., yandex). The problem in Russia is not Russia it is Putin. And how do you convert a country that has never had freedom and democracy to a free and democratic place?

> And how do you convert a country that has never had freedom and democracy to a free and democratic place?

The ex-Soviet Baltic EU states are largely doing okay. Ukraine's making surprisingly rapid progress on its EU accession checklist. Elsewhere, other good models would be Spain, Portugal, Taiwan (none really had any serious history of democracy before the late 20th century). It is absolutely possible for a country which has basically always been totalitarian to become a functioning democracy, though it tends to go faster with outside help.

The EU accession model (essentially "we'll give you stuff if you reduce the corruption to a dull roar") seems to be pretty effective, though it's not foolproof (in particular, there's not _that_ much stopping a member state turning around and going "haha, only joking" once it's in; see Hungary).

> "Ukraine's making surprisingly rapid progress on its EU accession checklist."

I think people have forgetten just how corrupt Ukraine is. It has regularly been ranked the most corrupt nation in Europe (yes, worse than Russia and Hungary!).

Perhaps the war has suppressed it somewhat due to increased patriotism, increased scrutiny, etc, but corruption is so ingrained the culture that it's very difficult to imagine it disappearing just because they want to join the EU.

>in particular, there's not _that_ much stopping a member state turning around and going "haha, only joking" once it's in; see Hungary

The EU really needs a strong mechanism to kick member states out when this happens.

I actually think the Russian people are too nice and tolerant. Too many Russians choose to ignore what's happening, they are too nice to their leaders.

It's not because they are nice and tolerant.

People are threatened, brainwashed and provided with semblance of comfortable life in equal measures. Like that boiled frog, little by little they lost all their basic fundamental rights and freedoms to the point where a large part of the populace doesn't even question what's happening and those who do can't do anything about it. It is a profoundly disheartening to see what happened to the country and how very few cared.

This could be referring to any one of a number of nations, I'm afraid.

Nicely summarized.

Wait. Is Norway a distopian nightmare like Russia? Did that happen yesterday and I like missed it or something?

Yeah I think a lot of people in the West don't understand that 80% of the Russian people support what Putin is doing in Ukraine and to his own people.

This is what Western people don't understand about ALL dictatorships. They think that some jerk somehow got a few henchmen with guns and took over the whole country, and now millions of people are all too scared to do anything about it. That's simply not the case; dictators exist because they have popular support, and plenty of it. Dictators are human too, and can easily be murdered in their bathtubs. When they live a long time as dictator, it's because most of their people support them.

We as unfortunate owners of Russian passports as society do have responsibility for letting some criminal scum to get in power and stay in power, no doubt about it. But the guilt for what's happening now is also lay on western countries as well for happily financially sustain Putin's regime by buying resources from them and not giving enough of military aid to Ukraine when it's needed.

And what should we do now anyway? It's not like any western countries making it easy for immigrants from Russia to acquire working visas and residency permits. A lot more of taxpayers would flee from Russia if US or EU would help them, but they dont care about it.

PS: I pesonally left Russia on February 25th 2022 and haven't been there since, paid 0 taxes there, etc. But it's not like everyone had this option.

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