jseban

This is 100% true. People like to pretend that the higher equality in sweden actually means that rich people share with poor people, but in reality it's the working middle class that pays the price for it.

And it leads to a more classist society with even higher wealth concentration, and real struggles with motivating people to actually perform, because of the lack of opportunity and glass ceiling.

Sweden probably has the poorest middle class of all of the western nations, and way poorer even than many asian and south american countries.

I really can't see how sweden could stay competitive, I think there will be some significant brain drain with the younger generations that can speak fluent english.

> this is totally subjective to one's level of discomfort and/or laziness.

Being forced to do activities that are uncomfortable and strenuous = bad. The whole point of our society is to transcend this. There are a million ways to do exercise and sports, and to spend your life and time and energy. Just because someone doesn't like cycling like you, doesn't make them lazy. That's an unbelievably self centered and arrogant viewpoint.

My logic is that cycling is bad because 1. it's not powerful and 2. it's sensitive to the weather, and 3. most people don't do it. Doesn't matter what you personally like.

It doesn't matter if you regularly do it, most people do not. We live in a democracy and we should not spend tax money and public space to accommodate for a small minority of enthusiasts who like to be inefficient, despite our whole society motivating us to do the opposite.

Bike lanes are like gym memberships, people like the idea and buy into it, but in reality they are too lazy, and don't have the time to actually do it. And it just ends up being a waste of money on duplicated infrastructure, because you still need to cover 100% of the capacity in public transport for the rainy days.

Most Amish people just ride a horse and it's just fine. Yeah so what, it's obviously impractical and we have better options.

The amount of adult dutch people who cycle to work in the rain is a small minority.

It is an issue to have your hands, feet, head and face soaked in freezing water for 45 minutes.

> experienced no issues having a change of socks + shoes

Oh so now you have to carry extra shoes and socks all the time, "no problem" lol. You can just go into the subway and all of these issues disappear, and you will get to your destination faster, so cycling is bad in comparison.

It doesn't matter if you can find some person who likes it, the vast majority of people will optimise for practicality and efficiency, because that's what our society revolves around.

Building bike lanes is the easy part, the hard part is coming up with the extra time and patience for people to put up with a longer and more uncomfortable commute.

> In NL you very frequently see teens riding with 3 people next to each other talking

That's illegal and dangerous.

> you can easily do hands-free phone calls if you wanted

No you can't because of the wind noise.

> it's doable with the right gear and clothing

It's doable, but it's also the most time consuming and impractical way of transportation, compared to the other options, so therefor it's bad.

Just because you can find a weird amish guys who insists that riding a horse is great, doesn't make that a good way of transportation, or something that we should start doing more.

Raincoats work when you are walking, and the rain comes from above, but not when you are cycling, because the rain comes from the sides, and below.

It's really complicated to cycle in the rain, especially in cold winter rain. You have to have specialised clothing that will both keep you warm, and be waterproof. Special gloves, insulated rubber boots? And you still get sweaty underneath at the same time.

How do you cover your helmet? Your face? Have fun taking a shower in freezing water three times a week for 6 months of the year, ice bucket challenge on the way to work. I hope you don't mind those extra sick days.

> but people still cycle as it is easy, fast and cheap

some people do cycle, but most people do not, because there are other options that are easier and faster.

> and people also cycle a lot in Finland despite the cold

Yeah and how much is this exactly? Even with perfect cycling infrastructure it's something like 12% of trips. Go to finland or sweden in the middle of the winter, observe the bike lanes and see for yourself how much they are used. Hint, they are largely empty, which comes as no surprise considering how obviously impractical and uncomfortable it is. And they cost a ton of money in maintenance.

> Too hot, or too cold, or too rainy.

Or too windy. And more importantly, it's too slow and have limited range. Bonus point for also being the most boring mode of transportation since you can't talk to your friends or use your phone.

You want to spend more time being stuck in traffic? Ok then cycling is a great choice.

> The Western European cities that are oftentimes given as positive examples (I’m thinking about Copenhagen and Amsterdam most)

Cycling in these cities are probably related to tourism more than anything else. When you have time and you are flexible, sure cycling works well. If you are pressed for time and you need to be places regardless of weather, not so great.

I'm from a northern european country, have cycled in all weathers, winter etc, and I think it's one of the most pointless wastes of tax money and inducing unnecessary hardships on people with problems that are already solved much better. All for virtue signalling.

There's a lot of flexibility in how much living space a person is using also, it's an order of magnitude difference depending on how much money they have.

People used to live a whole family in a one room apartment, and now we have single divorced boomers living in whole houses alone. I think people adjust a lot here depending on the economy

How? Because you are (forced) to take a second dose of a vaccine that's not needed, which makes you sick and gives you heart inflammation. That's how.

The WHO and it's director has an enormous amount of centralised global power on this matter, which anyone would argue is ridiculously dangerous and disproportionate, especially considering how many scandals and investigations the WHO have already had due to funding from private corporations and pharma companies.

And the fact that they simply changed the definition of what a pandemic is, seemingly on a whim, to no longer include death rates, with no scientific intervention, is that something we should accept as some kind of perfect and neutral decision making that's obviously in the interest of.. whom exactly?

Well it's questionable when that personal freedom is part of the same society's constitutional law.

In that case, there would be no limits at all to what a society can and can't do, just declare martial law at any time for any reason. That's the same thing as living in a totalitarian dictatorship.

Can society actually become the opposite of itself over night, and this should not be questioned?

One of the core basic principles of society is this freedom, and suddenly it's obvious that society can take away freedom whenever it wants? Does not even need to be debated and people who have show any form of surprise or need to talk about this, should be ridiculed?

That's not really how debates work.

> It was like any other shot, why risk covid if you can get the vaccine?

Because the (second) shot makes you really sick, and in many cases with lingering heart inflammation. Why do that to yourself, when you have a really good chance of not even getting infected (recovered/already vaccinated)?

Yep, it's just inflicting suffering also to the healthy in a misguided and desperate attempt to improve a situation by making it more "fair". When in reality the total amount of suffering is just increasing many times, which just makes it much worse. But this is a typical communist/religious idea that you should "share" suffering by punishing yourself.

> Is the amount of spike protein in the body during an actual infection larger? I.e. is it not still better to get vaccinatet rather than infected?

The question is rather: Is it a good idea to get a second vaccine dose although you have already been both infected and vaccinated?

> To me, one of the basic rules of social etiquette is never talk about religion or politics

Yeah I agree, I'm also surprised, never talk about religion/politics, health or money, those are private matters shared with people you can choose freely, and not with colleagues or other random people you can't choose, but need to get along with.

> What "special status"? It simply is how the world is, as we've seen over all of history.

And we are trying to move into the future, not the past.

Are nuclear families really so important and successful that we need more of it? Is this really an undebatable absolute truth that should be forced on people? Let people decide on their own if they want to spend their new found free time on families or something else.

Edit: the "special status" is loyalty, and loyalty is bad if we are trying to live in a meritocracy.

Haha ok so church has no power. And people can never be free, they must be institutionalised, and we should use shortening of working hours to just move them to a different institution that is even more old fashioned and increasingly failing, than then ones we are freeing them from.

Well I guess we can say that we have a fundamentally different view on what constitutes development and improvement of life and society.

No, but I'm arguing that it's very unreliable, often fully backfires and becomes actually destructive, and that in our modern society there are other factors that are much more relevant to people's success in life, and blood relations I would say is fully arbitrary.

It's also just as natural for people to branch out and leave their families, as it is to stay close to their families.

And I think it's irrelevant to the discussion of shortening working hours, and a bad example because it's another oppressive construct.

It's like arguing for shortening working hours so that people can go to church more, and church is healthy. Really? That's highly debatable, and obviously another power structure which is also old fashioned and has seen decreasing success.

How about just shortening the working hours so that people can be more, free? And do what they want?

What if a person not related by blood will give your kids better chances?

What says that the parent will necessarily be the "best" person for their child through their whole life, and not someone else? That's arbitrary.

You see no issues with swearing life long loyalty to blood relations? That's just going to be the optimal solution in every case? That's making it a little bit too easy don't you think?

You assign an enormous amount of special status to certain people who you happen to be related to by blood, and that's arbitrary. It works when it works, and it doesn't work when it doesn't.

What natural law says it's better to spend time with/live only with people who are related to by blood? The only necessity for reproduction is sexual intercourse. A family is susceptible to the same abuse and corruption as any other arbitrary power structure.

The arguments against it are the divorce rates, and they are not abstract or ungrounded.

I agree about the criticism against long working hours, but it's unfortunate I think to use the nuclear family as an example of another superior example here, to shove people further into another old fashioned failing arbitrary power structure comes a bit short as a vision of a better alternative.

Well you have the burden of proof for these extraordinary claims, in what way is this different from the pitch of a cult?

Yeah this annoys me to no end how tech people pretend that they have casually invented peace on earth, and act like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Of course large groups of people simply just get along perfectly and efficiently without any coordination" Yeah right.

It's the people who are dysfunctional who thrive in these environments because they don't have to be accountable, so their issues just disappear, and people who actually function and take their job seriously will burn out and go insane in the chaos.

You might be correct in that you more accurately describe reality, but it still doesn't make any sense, and you have to do some serious gymnastics with both definitions and language, which just further illustrate what a big problem this is.

Yeah I agree, and the most ridiculous part is that they still have architects, team leads, product managers etc who now really do nothing other than riding the gullible software developer