Swedish aid money to Tor, online activism
translate.google.com
translate.google.com
* A flourishing market economy that has created everything from IKEA and H&M to Spotify and Skype.
* Free health-care
* Free college education
* Low corruption
* A well functioning justice system (practically no patent trolls!)
It certainly has it's problems but compared to other countries it is truly amazing how it has managed to balance social well-fare and capitalism.
Disclosure: I am Swedish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA_law
which lets it legally do what it wants to prevent other governments from doing. Because they are, you know, not the Swedish government.
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocrisy
A whole lot of other governments have the same stuff, I would hazard to guess that they all do (Eschelon for example) and Sweden has actually been open about the fact that it has it, and has shown how the oversight is being done, whereas with other governments this is all a secret. Not justifying it, but just saying that because Sweden has said it does this, doesn't mean it is the worst or the only government spying on Internet traffic.
Indeed: I am a Swede.
...and its agressive tax planning.
* Everything is expensive.
* Taxes are high.
* Housing (more or less) can't be rented, buying is expensive.
* Weather is cold and/or dark most of the year.
* Culture life is relatively mediocre.
* Foreigners generally perceive Swedes as guarded.
* Racism is on the rise.
Tackiest comment I've read this week...
Is it plain non-availability? If so, then why? If not, then why? (I'm genuinely interested)
Regulatory capture in Sweden is still not counted as corruption, for some strange reason...
Lots of people want to move to Stockholm, Malmö and Göteborg (Gothenburg), so demand is rising faster than supply.
But also, the laws that ensure that lower class people are to afford to live in nice places also makes it a bad investment to build new houses. It's great because the classes are more integrated, leading to more sense of community, less crime and less 'ghettos' riddled with crime and drugs. But on the other hand, since the government keeps prices reasonable, low prices makes it a less good investment. Sadly we can't have the best of two worlds, but I think a golden middle path ("lagom") is the way to go. Not regulated enough that no one will invest in houses, not free enough that the lower classes will (even more than it's now) have to move to ghettos.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-of-life_Index
Cultural life in Stockholm is rather quite good for a town of its size, and you have plenty of nature around you to compensate for not having quite as many bars as London.
Racism is sadly on the rise, but not as bad as in many other societies. Anecdotally I have immigrant friends and visitor friends, from backgrounds that would invite racism, who say that they feel less discriminated in Sweden than in other Euopean countries. No place is perfect though, you just have to select the drawbacks you want to put up with.
More importantly for Hacker News readers I consider that the startup and investment community to be fairly insular and limited in scope in Stockholm compared to other places I have worked, particular London, West/East coast US. But no surprises there, it is a lot smaller after all.
Indeed: I am a Swede.
I do think the "IT-community" (and most people) are awesome. While somewhat underappreciated it's lot more enthusiast/hacker than academic/corporate, compared to other countries. People also generally don't care about hierarchies and titles in the workplaces. I mean getting to work is often more "troublesome" than getting things done at work. YMMV of course.
But how about the regulatory environment?
Maybe it might make a good base from which to launch a startup focused on reclaiming some standard expectations privacy for internet users, by using original internet peer-to-peer design instead of the prevalent "calf-cow" (client-server) model. Many, like the 60-something Harvard blogger who recently wrote about Facebook's flaws, are calling for an end to this design.
Consider the Skype example mentioned as one of Sweden's startup success stories. (And I believe he did eventually go to London for better access to capital.)
If you can rephrase it, maybe I can give you an answer.
I may have been sloppy in my usage of the term "regulatory environment". Is that want you mean?
* The Swedish summer more than makes up for the dark winter. Not that much colder than Chicago either.
* Taxes are high, but the benefits you get from the taxes are astounding, especially from an American perspective. Great roads, clean cities, amazing public transit, free healthcare, etc.
* Six weeks of vacation, over a year of maternity leave, etc. Enough said.
* Yes, the rental market in Stockholm sucks.
Honestly, Sweden is truly a democratic model that other countries should try following. I'm very happy with my decision to move here and wish I had discovered it sooner.
I would agree with all the positives posted here. The only notable negatives I've noticed (in order of annoyance) are:
* The intrusive personnummer.
* The rental market (and the bloody laundry madness...) in Stockholm.
* Something similar to but not quite as overt as Racism.
The rental market situation is a nightmare. Even worse than Sydney.
If you look like a non native Scandinavian this can lead to significant non-confrontational discrimination in some "exclusive" sub-cultures.
Does that include healthcare and education?
There is Håkan Lans, probably the patent troll with the best PR in the world.
People are more trusting of those who are racially or ethnically similar to them.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/03/20/148946156/how-do-...
The sorts of things you list are not easily attainable in America because of our multiculturalism. When I pay taxes, I don't know how that money will be used by people who probably do not share the same value or aspirations as I do. Different racial and ethnic groups in aggregate put different values on different things.
Because of that, it's more dog-eat-dog here. People are less trusting of the government to promote the values they wish to see in their society. That's why Americans are wary of socialist programs.
But it's not all bad. It's that culture of independence and competition which breeds innovation. It's the melting pot, the mixing and meshing and synthesizing of view points which breeds progress. It's the reason America is a technological and economic superpower.
My point is: you have your thing, we have our thing. It's a trade off.
Multi-culti has been part of Sweden for a Long Time. Immigrants one of the big reasons why Sweden prospered in the 1900's. Turks, Italians and Finns are some of the places where large amounts of immigrants have come, and they've been employed by Swedish companies exporting everything from building material, textile, mining, cars. The list is long.
Do you know how many people who aren't immigrants (or 2nd or 3rd generation)? ~7 million. That is less than NYC, in a whole country. We need all extra labour we can get.
But theese things arent the least important. They really doesnt matter at all. There are two big reasons why people immigrate (here, at least): shelter from violence or opression and the hope of affording a decent life.
To reject anyone coming from war who wants to live in peace would be the most inhumane thing to do. Ever. In war-ridden countries, you always live with the risk of you and your family being killed.
And to reject someone who wants to earn enough to live a decent life? And who has the balls to move to a new country to make that dream come true?
Immigration and multi-culturalism has brought so many great things to Sweden, and I am proud that my country let's many into it's borders.
We then proceed to accept new laws regulating net neutrality, but all major ISPs by next tuesday have to block the Pirate Bay. Something seems wrong...
While the world's biggest "democracy" (India) censors the web, Swedish government sponsors means of dissidence.
I don't agree with that, but what can you say other than "it's open source so many eyeballs are auditing it"?
Any backdoor in TOR that could remain hidden for so long would have to be a protocol flaw. Implementation changes too much to rely on an obfuscated 'bug' and anything as straightforward as your suggestion would simply be found and removed immediately.
Protocol flaws can of course be found and used by anyone.
Except for very few states, turn up for elections seldom crosses 50%. If the number of people participating is the measure for biggest, I would think there are other places with bigger participation in the electoral process.
>huge problems.. social inequality.. turn up for elections seldom crosses 50%