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True. But note that the US also fingerprints people. This is not right of course, and perhaps it is good that americans will be treated the same way it treats its tourists and business travellers?
The best would of course be no passports and no border controls, coupled with _no_ welfare state.

2026-06-13 12:54:35 UTC

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This is the way. Don't feed the beast. I've pushed my tax levels down to 14%-15% while living in europe. If everyone did this, the beast would indeed be starved.

2026-06-12 16:58:22 UTC

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I disagree. Absent empirical proof, god does not exist as far as we humans are concerned.

2026-06-11 14:00:49 UTC

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Assuming an income of 100k USD per year, how many jews would I have to pay the IRS?

2026-06-06 09:53:37 UTC

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We can add Christian to the list as well. Also a group that the open source community loves to hate on.

2026-06-06 09:52:51 UTC

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Ahhh... are you conservative, nationalist or libertarian? Usually, if you're one of these three, you will be rejected by the majority of the open source community. Sorry to hear it!

2026-06-01 08:18:31 UTC

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Why don't you just block them or ignore them? Bots are everywhere.

2026-05-12 11:16:55 UTC

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This is actually incorrect, since it what the left talks about is stealing private property from people, and giving it to their supporters, and this theft, is backed, ultimately, by violence.
This contributes to polarization, and the productive part of the population slowly moving away.
The only ethical society possible, is built on voluntary, free exchange, markets and capitalism.
As long as the left does not realize this, we'll continue to have violence, hate,

2026-05-12 09:10:52 UTC

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Ahh... it stirs a vague memory of some silicon valley trend that was once en vogue!
Sideeffects aside, does it taste good?

2026-05-11 12:51:07 UTC

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Not true. I have close connections with many swedes who have older cars, and none need to install this.
In new cars, I would not be surprised if surveillance tech comes built in by default, but installing this in every old car is not politically possible, since it would lead to riots and lost elections.

2026-05-11 10:02:36 UTC

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Butter in coffee? Is this a new thing? Never heard of before.

2026-05-10 16:20:17 UTC

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Are you sure? Based on my own research, and you know I am an avid tax planner, the UK is pretty far from a tax haven.
Banking secrecy does not exist these days, and didn't you abolish the tax non-resident status or what ever it was called?
Doesn't income taxes hit, or go beyond 40%? And what about CIT? I pay either 7% or 17%, 7% is almost acceptable, 17%, is borderline criminal.
If gambling is legal, how come Malta and Cyprus attract so many gambling companies and not the UK?

2026-05-10 10:32:07 UTC

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This would actually be _very_ interesting to look into! In the news, non-voters are always dismissed, and never questioned.
I would be very interested in knowing _why_ people do not vote. In some EU countries, the nr of voters is down to 40%-50% of the population, at which point, I do not call it a democracy any longer.
Why is no one looking into this?

2026-05-10 10:29:53 UTC

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become an international tax haven, to implement freedom of surveillance, to become a data haven, legalizing gambling, prostitution, etc. I'm 100% convinced, that the UK would right now be booming.

2026-05-10 10:28:48 UTC

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This is true, _but_, we must not forget that this is the combination of brexit and socialist market policies. So a socialist country does better in the EU where it can claim tax money from other countries to paper over holes in its own budget.
A socialist country outside the EU, has to live with the results of its bad policy.
I propose to you, that had the UK turned itself into a capitalist paradise, post-brexit, with massive tax cuts, implementing massive bank secrecy laws, to

2026-05-10 10:24:35 UTC

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This is the truth! I do not vote, and many people seem to find that incredibly provocative. I tell them that the politicians we have today are the scum of the earth, so why would I want to participate in a system that makes them millionaires based on stolen money (taxes)? _That_, if anything, would be highly unethical!

2026-05-10 10:21:41 UTC

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I think medical tourism is the way of the future. I imagine that we'll go to asia for medical treatments that are 2x as modern, and half the price of the heavily regulated socialist medicine we can get in europe.

2026-05-10 10:18:29 UTC

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I think the young will learn once they start to work, that reform is the better option.
The greens have destroyed a lot of jobs in sweden.

2026-05-10 10:17:04 UTC

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I love private medicine! It is quick and efficient and I get help when I need it.
My mother trusted public medicine and she died due to the tight deadlines and incompetence.
Never again public medicine for me.

2026-05-09 09:56:02 UTC

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My guess is that the women at prestigious universities are better at lawfare and more "cut throat" when it comes to getting ahead on competitive markets than at others.
For instance, I know male partners at law firms who no longer have meetings with women alone. They always make sure to have an observer or record the meeting to avoid lawfare and extortion.
They also refrain from promoting women to partners, since fake harassment allegation is too great a risk.

2026-05-09 09:51:45 UTC

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This is a golden opportunity for mainstream parties! Will they be aggressive and shrewd enough to show that they are different? Or will they just collapse back into status quo?

2026-05-09 09:49:26 UTC

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Why no longer your own instance?

2026-05-07 11:06:28 UTC

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Yes, I'm also sure of it.

2026-05-07 09:44:31 UTC

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after that, the journey to the mainstream started, and the journey to the founders wealth also started.
Today they are somewhat anti-immigration, and very happy to participate in the EU.
This led to a spinn-off party, true to their roots, that hovers at around 0.1 to 0.3% while the rest marched on to wealth and becoming more mainstream.
I think this happens in every party that wants to grow. The ideological and "true" parties remain forever small.

2026-05-07 09:42:16 UTC

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This sounds like it surely is some kind of discovered political law. if you want your party to grow, broaden it, leave the grass roots, alienate the original founders. If you want your party to fight for the original ideals, it will remain small.
A beautiful example of this can be seen in the swedish nationalist party. In the beginning they were fiercly anti-immigration, and anti-EU. It took them at least a decade, or maybe it was 2, to reach about 4% and enter the parliament.

2026-05-07 08:47:11 UTC

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downward spiral.
If I were to guess, I imagine that the new greens are way closer to "the people".

2026-05-07 08:46:44 UTC

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You are a wise man! It would be interesting to have a top class scientist look into this. How come our current generation of political leaders, regardless of color, are so incompetent, so bad, and so distanced from the population?
I don't know anyone who dreams of becoming friends with politicians, or is naming their children after them.
Naturally this leads to politicians then closing themselves off from the public, and the echo chambers is then complete, which furthers the

2026-05-04 10:39:18 UTC

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Ahh, but here we must make an important distinction... the laws, which have been abused, are the laws of the government, so ultimately the government bears the responsibility here. Absent those, it is what's in the contract between lender and borrower that governs what happens.
Besides... there are credit rating companies which help with this, but, note that no matter the credit rating or the law, if the government just refuses to pay, that's it. Not much can be done about it.

2026-05-04 09:37:58 UTC

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That's a shame. The idea, in principle, is good. It's a decentralized way of educating yourself, that sits to the side of the formal educational system. I like it! Sad that, as always, good ideas are so easily exploited by criminals.

2026-05-04 09:31:37 UTC

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Well, I have to agree. I'd rather not lend out money to socialists and communists because there would be a high risk of never seeing the money again.
Lending out money to capitalists and people on the financial right is associated with less risk, because they depend on their financial reputation for their credibility.
Communists just shrug and blame the "capitalist pigs" when not returning borrowed money.

2026-05-04 09:29:29 UTC

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Regulation? If anything, the politicians globally, are racing to regulate obligatory surveillance into being, everywhere and at all times. They are actually helping Palantir and american IT giants to earn more money off the european tax payer.

2026-05-04 09:22:57 UTC

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I see. Well, maybe the time for them is past. In sweden, they have been abused recently by crime gangs and extremist moslems to extract money from the government under hte disguise of learning.

2026-05-04 09:20:02 UTC

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Do you have the concept of study circles in the UK to increase the general level of education among the population?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Study_circle

2026-05-03 19:05:59 UTC

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What is Gramsci?

2026-05-03 19:05:13 UTC

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It is very interesting to ponder why we threw the humanistic and enlightenment ideals away. Would it be too powerful an ideal that would seriously threaten the balance of power? Do the political leaders, regardless of color, want to keep the masses ignorant?
I try to sneak philosophy in by the back door when I teach technology. Ethical issues around surveillance and control easily are weaved into the course material!

2026-05-03 10:40:51 UTC

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But is that something we should be teaching our young in schools? Positive psychology and how to lie a balanced and fulfilling life?
Or would that be detrimental to todays ruling class who is dependent on being financed by workers working until they are 59-72 (depending on where in europe you live)?
It seems to me that the government benefits from indoctrinating the population in the wonders of working hard for life, only to then die.

2026-05-03 10:38:41 UTC

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re for life, since no one wants their services at the price point they are offered.

2026-05-03 10:38:24 UTC

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Interesting. But if that is true, then surely we'd see a rapid growth of the left, just like socialism sprang out of industrialization of the 18th and 19th century?
If that does not happen, then perhaps, the gig economy actually brings more benfits to people than we think?
After all, it's an excellent way for people to make extra money, and a great entry point for the least educated on the job market. Remove those possibilities, and the lowest educated will be sentenced to welfa

2026-05-03 09:32:56 UTC

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all their lives, only to die on the day of retirement, is an enormously profitable business for hte government.

2026-05-03 09:32:27 UTC

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This is a good point, and partly what I meant. I also thought of working part time, and not going from 100% to 0% at work, but easing into retirement, based on enregy levels and interest, over several years, or decades even.
But this is not my view of what retirement is like for some (many?). Many people identify with their jobs, and when going from 100% to 0% they lose their identity. Some even die. It could be argued that this is by design, because people working and being taxed

2026-05-03 09:30:05 UTC

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In which ways? When I hear the words "working class" I get Dickens-vibes. Since the UK has belonged to the EU, and have been forced to adopt certain EU values and regulations over the years, I would imagine that the Dickens version does not exist in the UK, just like it does not exist in sweden.

2026-05-02 21:26:05 UTC

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we can afford it. It would also create a strong incentive to plan ones life and to become more long term in ones thinking. All of society would benefit from this.
The retirement dream, infatilizes people, and keeps them from taking control of their own lives.

2026-05-02 21:25:18 UTC

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I think the mistake here is the concept of "retirement". The idea that anyone should be able to live and do nothing of value, financed by other peoples money, is incredibly destructive.
I would instead argue, that what it does, is that it enables more people to retire early, and ethically, since they would pay for themselves.
I also think that if this system was followed, the concept of retirement would disappear, and instead we would think about doing what we want to do, when

2026-05-02 21:23:28 UTC

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In my experience, the children of the ruling class are sent to boarding schools, in sweden or abroad, and are more shielded from this, since they already have full access to their parents networks which gives them good salaries and positions of power and prestige early in life.

2026-05-02 21:22:39 UTC

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working class professions that make more money if you count untaxed money, than the middle class.
In general, as an individualist, I think the class concept causes more problems that it fixes, but I think for the sake of discussion a distinction can be made between the ruling class (politicians, (some) nobility and captains of industry) and the rest of the population.

2026-05-02 21:21:24 UTC

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Hmm. After thinking about it, I think I agree that the children of the elite are excluded, but besides that, I see a lot of young experiencing this, regardless of if they are working class or middle class.
In fact, I would argue that the distinction working class and middle class has lost all meaning in modern sweden (which is where I made this observation). The mobility between them is to easy, and there are no barriers, also, the taxes are so high, that it is rather the

2026-05-02 10:05:18 UTC

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Add to that, that the person can contribute by saving in excess of that pushing the total even higher.
This wold solve 99% of all pension problems, and the best is probably to start phasing it in as we speak.

2026-05-02 10:05:11 UTC

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The answer is very easy and has been staring us in the face for a long time. It is libertarianism. Everyone pays for his own retirement and retires when he wants and can afford it. It really is as simple as that.
To prove it, just take the payroll taxes paid, and apply that to an index fund from when the person starts to work, assume 7% growth over 40 years, and you will be surprised at how much money has accumulated.

2026-05-02 10:04:54 UTC

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Retirement, as perceived in western europe, is a classic, socialist welfare construction, and as such, one that will (is, rather) fail. It is a pyramid scheme, where the problems are pushed on to the next generation, and it is paid for by other peoples money. It is based on the assumptions of an ever growing population, of cultural and ethnic homogeneity and shared values.
All of the foundations no longer hold.

2026-05-02 09:51:45 UTC

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It is very worrying that the western world completely ignores young men. They can be just as ill treated, often worse, as women online.
But as always in the west, the hate is strong against young white men. Often are they told since birth, they have no value, and that only women have a right to work. Not strange at all, that most of the shootings are done by men who lost all hope.

2026-04-30 09:02:14 UTC

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I wasn't talking to you (knight), moron! Sorry to say, but you are the homo in this conversation!

2026-04-30 08:48:29 UTC

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If not the US, where would you live? Maybe it is time to vote with your feet and move to another country?

2026-04-29 09:31:51 UTC

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Yes, democracy, like most, if not all, other forms of government, ultimately rests on violence.
That is why it is not possible for libertarians to vote. It goes against the non-aggression principle. Christians too, should, if they are not hyppocrites, not vote.

2026-04-28 08:41:47 UTC

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Some are, some are asians. That's what mongolians do to you if they invade.

2026-04-28 08:39:07 UTC

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Of course. I avoid all "eco" and "organic" food. You pay 2x for the same quality and nutrional value, and sometimes the eco stuff, such as wines, can contain more chemicals than the regular stuff.

2026-04-27 08:55:08 UTC

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politicians. And in many cases, the profession is a family profession. Most likely you'll find a father, uncle, or aunt, who also was a politician and helped them to power.
This is pretty much the same as being ruled by a new nobility.

2026-04-27 08:54:20 UTC

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Do you have the name of the book in the upper right corner?
I'd add to that, that democracy only works in city-states. Once you start to extend it, it becomes too big, it becomes uncontrollable and ungovernable by the people.
That means a political nobility will form, they will not be controlled, and together with aristotles observation, people stop caring. That in turn, slowly leads to authoritarianism.
Note how many politicians in the west, have been trained since youth to be

2026-04-26 10:42:09 UTC

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You are a wise man. Corona was the straw that broke the camels back. Since then, I no longer vote, and this class system, where we have a political nobility above the law, and the rest, only strengthens my resolve to not vote.
I cannot understand that so many people still believe in the "theater" of democracy in the west. What we have clearly bears no semblance to democracy. It is just a new nobility that has established itself.

2026-04-25 22:57:16 UTC

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Why did you eat fingernails?

2026-04-24 11:30:15 UTC

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This is the truth! The only anti-dote I have ever discovered, is confederations of smaller companies, and within companies, heavy decentralization, where the decision power is moved as close to the worker as possible.
That is how I run my own company, and it is an incredibly flexible and cost effective way to run a company.
I am surprised that not more companies choose this organizational model.
I call it the peer2peer organizational model.

2026-04-24 08:47:48 UTC

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We must keep in mind that, as an organization grows, the more political it becomes, and the more you can compare a manager with a politician.
That means, when you look at the industry giants, that you'll find plenty of inefficiency and things you thought only politicians would do.

2026-04-24 08:46:07 UTC

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Who is the bear and the frog? I missed some nick names.

2026-04-24 08:39:15 UTC

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freedom in the west, but, we have to admit that the politicians of the west have been highly skilled at selling the idea of freedom in the west.

2026-04-24 08:38:51 UTC

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It is very fashionable in the west right now. Sweden has increased the nr of cases where it can do so enormously. Lately they have taken luxury cars ,jewelry, houses and money from druglords. From time to time, in their zeal, cars and stuff belonging to regular people gets sucked in as well.
Not mine, but an acquaintance boat was seized because I by mistake fished in an illegal section in a lake. After harassing the courts, the boat was returned.
There is no

2026-04-23 20:24:56 UTC

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Have you been naughty?

2026-04-23 16:00:43 UTC

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True. It is very concerning that the technical skill among the politicians is so low.
At the same time, it is also logical. The salaries paid, compared with the salaries the tech elite are getting, are so low, that the best talent does not flock to the public sector.

2026-04-23 11:56:35 UTC

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Also keep in mind, that currently AI is limited in scope to LLM:s. AI is much, much more than that. OCR, voice recognition, self-driving cars, machine learning, automated cancer diagnostics etc. etc.
The thing is that those areas are clearly defined, and proven to work excellently and better than humans, so it is boring to write about.
Those things have just melted into the background and become something we interact with or use every day without thinking much about it.

2026-04-23 09:49:06 UTC

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I do fear that, since we have our smartphones use in fresh memory, there will be an overreaction.
AI does have its uses, and it is a beneficial technology in some places. I hope that we won't limit those cases when we react against the cases where AI has no place.

2026-04-23 08:32:21 UTC

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foolish, and they could not take critique.
Sigh... such is the way of the honest libertarian who uses markets as tools, and not as a god. Such is the way of the long-term profit maximizer.

2026-04-23 08:31:35 UTC

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we're currently in the stage when we idolize our new toy, without realizing the dangers.
After a couple of million (or billion) dollar mistakes, people might become interested in actually thinking through what they are doing.
Other hits of these managers, is blatant breaches of GDPR by recording all interactions with customers, without any warning at all.
Needless to say, this company is no longer a customer of mine, because I told them this was

2026-04-23 08:29:52 UTC

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Based on what I've seen in a US company, AI has completely destroyed any capacity for critical thought, and also any capacity for reading and writing emails.
I see senior managers burping up AI slogans, when asked for their strategy, they take the question, asks an AI an burp up the answer, almost unfiltered.
Should an email with a longer text arrive, it is either ignored, or one is asked to use an AI to cut it down to a few paragraphs.
But I think, just like with smartphones,

2026-04-22 08:33:05 UTC

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Personally I'd recommend delta chat or irc. Horses for courses.

2026-04-21 22:28:06 UTC

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Tolls are a non-starter. That would mean, that every single country on the planet, who controls a stretch of sea, would have to impose tolls to counter the iran/oman tolls.
That would be economic suicide.

2026-04-21 22:26:53 UTC

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Who carries his passport around with him unless it is necessary? I don't know anyone who does.

2026-04-20 16:59:34 UTC

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Where is your man? My wife would never in a 1000 years do anything about that, but happily delegate it to me, regardless of if I want to or not. ;)

2026-04-20 13:33:38 UTC

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Good or bad? That is a subjective value question.
What I'm pondering is that given the multi-polar governance order, how can you govern and influence your life, by shifting your allegiance between these power centers?

2026-04-20 13:31:23 UTC

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individual blogs.
I think that this is possibly a global trend. A fracturing of the news landscape.
50 years ago, more people would "trust" the public news, and thus a bigger part of society had a shared narrative and a shared understanding of the world.
Today, with independent freelance journalists, we see multiple view of the world, and reduced communication between media islands, and polarization (I think) is the result of this.

2026-04-20 13:31:13 UTC

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What is interesting here is the stark contrast with sweden. With this media landscape, the UK currently has a "labour" government, while sweden has a center/nationalist one.
What is also interesting, if I may speculate, is how this is reshaping the media consumption habits of voters.
I know many swedes who no longer watch or read news from the public TV. They think it is way too biased to be taken seriously, and instead flock to alternative news and freelance journalists

2026-04-20 11:57:46 UTC

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game for public servants, while judges, companies, ngo:s, foundations, grow more bold.
We'll have a web of parallell governance structures, and just like we see today, with the new multi-polar world order, we'll also see the same within regions, and even within countries.

2026-04-20 11:57:02 UTC

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In theory they should align with the government. In reality, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
Companies are a combination of meritocratic/libertarian/monarchic depending on if it is a highly centralized family company, with a strong leader, or a company that has managed to establish sound processes for rotating CEO:s, leaders, based on merit.
In the future, I see that democracy loses more power, and becomes more a gentlemans

2026-04-20 11:56:44 UTC

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Yes, I agree. Historically, monarchy (authoritarianism?) has been the most stable form of government.
I wonder if the future might not be pluralist? The is, layers of overlapping systems of governance, depending on the sector.
For instance, courts are monarchic, or at least aristocratic. In many countries, judges are elected for life.

2026-04-20 11:52:27 UTC

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Has there ever been a study of the political opinions of journalists in the UK?
In sweden, one or two studies have been made, and they showed that around 80% of the journalists in sweden hold center-left opinions.

2026-04-20 08:41:16 UTC

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Well, note that one reason for that is also lack of resources in schools. I test with exams, and ideally, in some courses, with projects. But the school constantly reduces the budget, my available hours, and that leads to more exams (which can be corrected automatically) and less projects.

2026-04-20 08:39:45 UTC

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This is very interesting. I guess we'll see the ferraris and yachts start to appear, once they have left office.
In sweden, due to the enormous amount of gang violence, there is a new law where the police can simply just take your property if you cannot prove where you got the money from to buy it.
They've seized houses, jewelry and luxury cars from a lot of drug lords so far.
This sounds like an excellent law to use against corrupt politicians, but I think we will never see that.

2026-04-20 08:35:52 UTC

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the communist and green parties who are pretty extremist, and sit comfortably at 6-7 % each. They exist to cover the extreme left flank, so that the socialists in sweden can move in towards the middle.

2026-04-20 08:35:11 UTC

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I think that this is perhaps telling us that socialism, in its current form in europe, is kind of a spent force? From my point they are of course leftists, _but_, looking at the swedish version, they have moved right. Gone are the days of trying to implement 100% tax on the rich.
On the other hand, there are the norwegian ones, who managed to increase the wealth tax leading to a record exodus of billionaires from norway, so maybe it isn't a trend?
In sweden, there's always

2026-04-20 08:32:39 UTC

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Interesting. Another bug in democracy. I wonder if democracy, the modern version, is inherently unstable, so that it will turn into authoritarianism (overt or covert) within a few 100 years?

2026-04-19 21:43:56 UTC

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Well, I hope that the UK will now graduate to a 4 party system. It would be much better for democracy than the old 2 party system.
I'm also waiting for a green party that focuses on Björn Lomborgs win/win green, and which does not only talk about one-sided sacrifice.
I think there are a few % of right leaning voters that might be tempted to vote for a right leaning win/win green party. I do not think any such party exists. Usually to me, the greens seem to be on the left.

2026-04-19 21:39:56 UTC

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successfully limited and/or reduced the power of politicians in recent times?
I'm not talking about going from authoritarianism to democracy, but more, if any western democracy ever managed to limit the power of politicians?

2026-04-19 21:39:19 UTC

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I call this the conservative paradox. No matter the party, left or right, once they win, their only aim is to preserve their status. That can mean some small shifts in how you count votes, or new directives to the public tv (see poland and hungary for this) but overall, the system is maintained, since you benefit greatly by it as long as you stay on top.
So once you win, there's generally no enormous reason to change anything.
Is there any country in the world that has

2026-04-19 18:55:36 UTC

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But this is dangerous! Because the ones who use this argument to the fullest tend to be leftist extremists or nationalist extremists. At the core, it is nothing strange, the ones we chose to govern should do so out of care and not out of greed, and therefore their salaries and conditions should be the same as for the ones they govern.
But the fact that it is not so today, opens the door to demagogues, and not to true democratic forces.

2026-04-19 18:53:58 UTC

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point in my life, when my father is dead, and when I'm somewhat retired, I will be forced to seek out some kind of community. But time will tell!

2026-04-19 18:53:20 UTC

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Ahh... but I think that you are naturally a social and likeable person! I'm somewhat of a misanthrope, or rather, I have become, so I have a very small core that I see, and probably not more often than once every 2 months or so. The people I see often is my father and my wife. That's almost enough.
But I do worry that when I retire, it won't be enough, and science teaches us that being involved in some kind of community is beneficial for mental health. So I suspect that at some

2026-04-19 18:50:40 UTC

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Let me add another theory. Since the uk railway does not have the best reputation, this also affects recruitment. But assume it achieves the swiss or japanese reputation, then all of a sudden, it would become a sought after, high prestige job, and this would further increase reliability and service mindedness.

2026-04-19 10:46:37 UTC

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Also note culture. Japans railsystem has become a source of natural pride and identity. That means that anything and everything goes, when it comes to preserving this reputation and institution.
I am convinced that if the UK rail system should achieve the same status, it would start to work better. Sadly, artificially implementing that status does not work.

2026-04-19 10:36:29 UTC

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Realizing this, together with the corona debacle, is what made me stop voting. I reduce my tax bill with lawyers instead, and generally try to avoid people. It has made me much happier!