Half the time I have this argument IRL, they go mask-off and say it’s because of race.
Very telling of the truth.
It’s more like 30%, the rest of us would gladly take a standard of living boost. But FoX News, OANN and every other disinformation factory have brain washed a lot of people.
The far right thinks Norway is “communist”. The far left thinks Norway is “not capitalist”.
Both are wrong.
What? The far left knows that Norway is capitalist.
The far left thinks “capitalism” is a bad word the way the far right uses “communism”.
Democrats are having fights right now over whether they’re capitalists or socialists and it’s so fucking stupid. Pointless arguments that hand the country to the right.
Incredibly important midterms coming up and we seem more interested in attacking each other than defeating Republicans.
The far left doesn’t think capitalism is a bad word. They think it’s a failed system.
Democrats are currently demonstrating exactly what their role is in society - protect the fascist right from a left-wing challenge. Democrats are the moderate wing of fascism, just like they were in Germany a century ago
DSA are not anti capitalist. They are barely left leaning by the standards of the rest of the world.
The real fight being had are between corporatists and populists.
The DSA are anti-capitalist based on their own writings. Their electoral wing is clearly not anti-capitalist and there’s a huge pro-capitalist social democracy camp within DSA, but the organization is rhetorically anti-capitalist.
In the US, we are under a massive oligarch-owned far-right propaganda machine that dominates social media and television viewership.
It works so well that rich people in other countries are trying to adopt the same model as a means of popular control.
Oh shit. I don’t know why that hadn’t occurred to me before 😂
Our cultural imperialism is exporting rebellion and the destruction of civilization.
Damn, that whole great American satan thing hits different.
To admit that other countries do better would be to violate the dogma of American exceptionalism. It would be to offend the inflated ego of the most brainlessly egotistical among us. And I guess they think their feelings matter more than their own wellbeing.
That tattooed walrus moron has always repulsed me on a visceral level.
If socialism “never works” I’d say it’s in the same boat as democracy.
Social democracy managing capitalism is rather Nice. Freedom of making profits while providing a strong social net.
Or rather capitalism whithin a social democracy. Population shoulf dictate the rules
The US used to be much better than any European country when it comes to inequalities. Look at things now.
When politicians and capital-owners are able to collude, you end up with oligarchs. And so far every social democracy out there has some. It’s just a matter of time until we all get our Reagan/Thatcher
Recently my lead hypothesis is that many people would rather personally suffer and die if it means that black people have it worse. I read “dying of whiteness” recently, and it’s haunting. “It’s socialism” is just a coded way of expressing that.
Broadly, humans are happier when they have more than their neighbors. Having the biggest house in the neighborhood strongly correlates with increased happiness. Having a McMansion in a neighborhood full of other McMansions leaves people no happier, on average, than having an average mobilehome in a mobile home park. (Free public radio audio coverage, links to Washington Post text article: https://www.marketplace.org/story/2026/01/13/why-larger-homes-dont-lead-to-more-happiness)
In the US, having black people be “the ones with less” that makes people of other races get that “better than my neighbor” happiness boost is structurally convenient, but other groups fill that need in other cultures. Jews and communists are other common targets in Western cultures, all non-Japanese get the treatment in Japan, the Tutsis in Rwanda, the eastern ethnic groups in Russia, and on and on. This hugely common psychological tendency is damaging to creating broadly prosperous societies, but hopefully the learnings from the studies of it will help us create strategies to structurally counteract it.
TLDR: Whites in some parts of America drained public pools rather than integrate them. They should rather no one have a public pool than have to share it with black people.
I am sorry, but this is so strange to read and realize how different some people worldviews are…
Due to the job requirements, I travel a lot, and though I’ve been just for 2 months in USA accumulated, in Europe and Asia, I’ve met just two people with similar worldviews in around 14 years of travelling…
Everyone else I know, and I, would just not care about the color or race, or be fascinated how unique people are, and would never even be so awful towards these people to the point of being basic horrible, sorrowful racists… as you described… but just default to the understanding and believe that people were born around the world whenever they could, inheriting the local inheritance, traditions, culture, and family, and they are still people with infinitely magnificent Souls and equal rights to live and just be… human…
They would trust in people, and that it’s always possible to find compromise with each other, explaining issues and finding solutions.
That is, to be humans, and trust in human, as an ineffably magnificent opportunity to be alive… and explore the infinite world…Sorry. No… Yours is absolutely not, even remotely not the way to see and live the world… I believe, and never will. Your worldviews are utterly… sorrowful, unfair, hateful, dark, and simply, sorry, disgusting…
It’s darkening to know that you live with these believes out there… and I would recommend you travelling… Please do consider discovering the world out there… to live…
Are you trying to say acclaimed book “Dying of Whiteness” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness ) is invalid because of your personal experiences?
I’m sorry but there’s a large body of evidence that many people in the US are deeply racist. Not always in a “wear a hooded costume” overt way, but in more polite and dressed up to look inoffensive ways as well.
You can also read the new Jim Crow and “the color of law”.
I appreciate the effort you invested into point out the references, but I am sorry, I’ll pass, because I do not want to participate in this sorrow in any way, including additional knowledge of human humiliation based on the way they were born.
Simply put, I consider it stupid, inhuman, and not worthy my life time. What I would like to invest time instead is to read and know about the way people find compromises, mutual respect, and solution solving in long term.
You’ll participate whether or not you desire to. Knowledge will better equip you to engage with the world, good and bad, as it is. But it’s your choice. I’m not your professor.
Thank you! I wish you safety, stability, and peace!
Do you know the history of black people in America? You know about chattel slavery? That wasn’t really that long ago.
Yes, the USA’s filmography is very known around the world, with many ineffably sorrowful issues depicted, yet I have no idea why modern people do still continue behave the same, or even worse way.
And I do not want to even know more about this indescribably sorrowful, stupid, and simply inhuman attitude towards people being born in different way they likely didn’t even chose how, where, and when, yet now are being humiliated for what? For being born? Get yourself together already, humans, if you still are… humans…Film isn’t an accurate portrayal of history. The history of racism in America is much worse than films would ever indicate.
You are extremely naive to the nature of racism in the US.
Most people don’t care about skin color.
Most people say they don’t … and then go on to say things like “but I wouldn’t want to live somewhere that my neighbors were black” or “ICE is fine, they’re only going after the illegal ones.”
While true… a more than fairly large amount of people do care about skin color. For example, 77 million (some 30-40% of voting age) people in US care more about what color someone else’s skin is, then their own well being. In my country, Sweden, that percent is about 20. So no, I’d say a great deal of people do care about such idiotic things as skin color.
Yes and very extremely much no. People are afraid of change, no matter who they are. By selling you that your way of life is defined by the fact that you’re surrounded by whiteness means that the powers that be can villianize marginalized communities because “they’re going to destroy our way of life”. That xenophobia was then weaponized to take out social programs by burdening them with largely useless administrative overhead like work requirements. Seemingly “sensible” add-ons whose only purpose was to strip as many people as possible of benefits. While also making benefits a trap of poverty (since poverty is the most profitable category for the ultra wealthy. They spend the most of their income out of all the classes and can’t demand more wages lest they lose their benefits)
My (millionaire boomer) Uncle from Mexico recently shared this (sorry for quick translation using gemini). There are brainwashed people everywhere
They are so terrible at anything artistic… I mean just look at that shit. Just awful, from a purely artistic point of view.
Gotta love that Axolotl.
I see small kids with plushie axolotls these days. For some reason this animal has entered the headcanon of preschoolers around the world.
This unfortunately, some people are too far gone
They are also absolutely floating in oil wealth.
Norway is a stupid example. Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland easily have the same level of welfare or arguably better than Norway in many regards. The key is to make public investments into the country’s resources (be it farmland, forestry, mines, electricity) and build infrastructure and institutions that benefit the people.
By investing directly, you are doing the thinking instead of deferring judgement to bankers and the “invisible hand” that’s really just a bunch of rich dudes with their own incentives that don’t align with yours. You cut out billionaire middlemen and money doesn’t have to “trickle down”, and you can steer the behavior of your industries and universities toward causes that take your country’s needs over time into account.
That’s how good investors think about their business empires - why should countries choose to not strategize at all and just let nature do its thing?
The World Bank had a 1993 report that basically concluded government industrial policy was to be avoided if the goal was to grow wealth broadly. This guided (or was representative of the views of people in power) decisions on international aid and other conditional support to developing countries for decades.
Leaving development of industry and technology deployment entirely to the private market economy didn’t work. Countries with the highest average standards of living, or the most improvements in standard of living, have had significant government guidance of the major industries in their economy. Only this year has the World Bank issued a new report acknowledging this: https://www.bu.edu/gdp/2026/04/24/from-paradigm-maintenance-to-paradigm-shift-a-mood-change-on-industrial-policy/
Finland
We’re currently suffering from the nazis-in-government disease. Of course social services are still better than in, say, the US, but we had a decisive downwards trend in the past 2 years. Plus scandals. TBH I don’t think they’ll get re-elected.
And I’m sure many Swedes and Danes would have something similar to say about their own government. Maybe even Norwegians? Idk. My point, “socialist” Nordic countries are not immune from the scurge.
…fascist propaganda, governance, and nationalistic zero-sum resource hoarding are trending globally; i fear it’s only a matter of time until regional conflicts escalate into global warfare…
Absolutely. I can only speak for Sweden but we have massive problems.
All the other scandinavian countries that don’t swim in fossil fuel wealth are still doing pretty well, though. Also, lots of countries that are rich in natural resources don’t actually let the majority of their population participate in that wealth.
Oh yeah, good on them for managing their oil wealth in a way that benefits their society.
They could also have been like the UAE. Or the US.
So is the US
The US citizens are definitely not oil wealthy.
That’s my point. America actually has roughly 10 times as much oil as Norway, but in Norway everyone benefits from the oil rather than just a handful of mega-rich oil barons.
Won’t someone think of the
billionairestrillionaires!USA also has about 60 times as many people as Norway. The USA certainly has an above-average amount of natural resources per capita, but it’s not quite “swimming in oil”-level.
That definitely ain’t right.
Oh wow, I knew Venezuela was rich in oil, but damn!
IIRC Venezuela’s oil is both a bit shit, and hard to get at but they have huge amounts. That’s why they’re not as rich as UAE
Honestly, it’s incredible that it took the US so long to invade them.
True, and worth a reminder. But they choose to do, well, social things with it*. In addition to more “normal” social welfare stuff they give money to people who live in the very North, just for living in the North.
They also have so many waterfalls that all their electricity is hydro, and they have too much of it.
They tried to sell it cheaply to the EU some decades ago but of course our energy lobby blocked it.
* also cultural etc. etc. Like another commenter said: they choose to let their people participate in it
This is so true not just for Americans. Norway is such an amazing country.
Its not the welfare policies its the tentacles in the global south and the violence that keeps that in place
I think kind people should push for regional economic independance or at least verification of its viability and acknowledgement that they are working their fair share.
Then one can be sure that at least from your point of view, the exploited worldwide are free to choose their own fate, and you are not a leech.
Economic independence is a useful tool, in that when one is economically independant, it can also be determined for certain that any external law or force is unjust and not a component of livelyhood.
Aren’t they both dead now?
No, Norway and America still exist
Senior now runs a restaurant + chopper museum. The guy wanted to run it like a proper business, but without the specials it wasn’t running that well. Junior now has his own design studio.
This meme is old enough to drive now.
Looks like they’ve been immortalised.
They’re either both alive, or nobody cares enough to update their pages.
Norway has oil. It’s horrible example because other states don’t have resources to build massive national wealth fund to finance all the welfare
Tons of countries do, they just hoard it at the top
