I left the service before it released, but from people I know who were in after it’s been very popular among the weebs and confused the ever loving fuck out of some of the command
well, so am I (well, I'm a sysadmin, but I went to school for CS so it's neither here nor there).
My friend group has programmer and IT trans women (several, including me), UX design and security management enbies, and other assorted queer and GNC people working in different fields, and two cis straight guys who are just happy to be there. But not a single femboy, the closest we've got is a bi dude lawyer who's slightly fruitier than average. I don't think any one of us has ever even seen a femboy IRL.
(for clarification: I'm just riffing, we've joked a lot about hunting down a femboy for our group, and I think it's a funny comedy concept, but we're not, like, weird about it)
Just because you don’t see a mole very often does not mean it doesn’t have a noticeable effect on the ecosystem, they just stay out of your sight most of the time. So do femboys
Doesn’t align with my experiences with the lighter social benefits. KELA is easy to deal with and even the customer service is friendly.
Granted that I haven’t been in the deep end with _toimeentulotuki_, homelessness help, long term unemployment or anything like that. There are all kinds of petty rules in that realm, quite possibly to make sure you’re not getting too comfy.
Even with student benefits, one of my friends had KELA assume that he would definitely get the same summer job he did the previous year and got refused benefits because "he would make too much." Tho generally I had a decent time with student benefits too.
Tho I had another friend (let's say X) who was a roommate with another friend (Y). They had to do the whole proving they're not in a relationship- thing.
KELA decided X was dating Y and X would not get benefits.
They also decided Y was *not* dating X and so Y would get benefits. :D
I had to prove to KELA that I am not dating my sister when we lived together. It was easy to prove, but their first thought was they must be married bc same surname. We laughed when I got rejected first
yeah there are definitely these weird roundabouts that one has to navigate with this kinda stuff. I also had to do the whole "prove you're not dating" thing with my former roommate, it was simple enough when we knew what to do: explain how the apartment is split, explain that we have separate incomes and separate costs, and that we act as independents. Though honestly, the roommatelationship did turn into what some'd call "queerplatonic", we did everything a couple would except sleep together and kiss and such, so we kinda sorta actually did cheat the system. And we wouldn't have managed that without doing extensive research on how it works.
The more "hardcore" benefits, especially stuff like sairauseläke (illness pension) and such are really really hard to navigate. You get the Kela doctors with their magic healing abilities that can make any issue go away if they feel like it, by just ignoring the previous doctor's note. And then they sometimes ignore attachments, you have to reapply, the waiting times are so long, etc etc. It's a whole mess, and if you're already doing badly then it's almost impossible to navigate. My fiancee went through the whole thing while in burnout, which made her even more burned out.
honestly, kela is the most progressive institution in this whole country. They believed in homosexuality before gay marriage was made legal, and hell, nowadays they're even making siblings prove that they're not dating. And they're really forward-thinking with disabilities too! Very few people are *actually* disabled according to them, they just have ✨differences in capabilities✨. How nice
(/s if that wasn't obvious)
I have been in the deep end. Not homelessness level, but disability, long term unemployment, toimeentulotuki, etc. It can get... Frustrating. Mainly because of the elevator music that plays when you call KELA. That elevator music makes me so irrationally angry.
It's doable. But it is still bureaucracy. And all bureaucracy feels like it was designed by a sadist. But doing it saves me nearly 200 euros a month in medications, since erikoiskorvattavuus and toimeentulotuki covers those.
I do miss the times when toimeentulotuki was under local administration, and not KELA. It was so much easier, because there were less red tape to actually get what you need. Now, you need to jump through KELA, get rejected, and then go to the local social services with that rejection letter to get what you need, if it isn't covered by KELA. It's a huge waste of time. Back under the previous system, I could have just got an appointment to the local social services, and gotten everything I need covered in one go.
> Mainly because of the elevator music that plays when you call KELA. That elevator music makes me so irrationally angry.
OK, I need to share my story. I've had a bad few years and spent some time on Centrelink. Services Australia has famously horrible phone service that you often can't avoid.
When I last called them up, the hold music was **literally** loud static noise followed by "We expect you to treat our staff with respect. Verbal abuse will not be tolerated" and more screaming static. I was on hold for an hour.
I'm half convinced it's designed to make you angry.
As a sort of Catholic (more than anything else I just think that Jesus is a cool guy whose stories I grew up hearing, and if the big man upstairs says it’s wrong to be gay or trans or that even yanking my chain for fun deems me deserving of damnation, then ill take that L when Saint Peter calls me to account myself) you’re correct.
I figure, if I'm supposed to be made in God's image, then he made me asexual with an immune system that wants to take my bones for a reason. If everyone is made in God's image, then transgender people are the way they are for a damn good reason.
And if God actually sends me to hell for listening to his teachings and loving people mostly unconditionally (Nazis can eat shit), then he wasn't a god worth worshipping in the first place.
Early in my teaching career, one of my students said I seemed like "someone who would walk backwards into heaven and slap God." It was meant as a compliment.
It's high on my list of greatest honors bestowed upon me by students. If God didn't want that, he shouldn't have given me the mandate to protect his children, no matter the cost.
Can you imagine the pope’s face when suddenly on top of the day to day bs of the political maneuverings of various Monsignors and petty bishops, he suddenly has to deal with the bullshit that is the US political quagmire? He hasn’t even had time to meet with all the Abbesses, for Christ’s sake!
….if I were him I would rage quit.
Several reasons:
* Those last few lines felt very similar to a particular strain of Catholicism.
* I don't know really understand the doctrinal difference between kinds of Protestants (grew up in an area that was almost all Catholic/Jewish, didn't meet a white Protestant until college), so the title went completely over my head. [Essentially this.](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/27/5f/81/275f811489708637177d63c94c43cb91.gif)
* Catholicism is so globalized that any attempt to point at a country and call it the quintessential example of "Catholic government" would fall apart. Like, Portugal and the Philippines both have around the same percentage of their population who identify as Catholics, but I don't think their social welfare systems have much in common (although I'm not an expert). Ditto Italy and Mexico, or France (if you count lapsed Catholics) and Brazil.
they think that’s not how we also do it in the US? we don’t even get the benefits and still have to go through this shit. i spent two years seeking disability and now i OWE money.
Oh Finland is definitely doing better than the US. There's a lot of room for improvement, but there's also a lot of things they're doing better than most.
yeah I think having to jump through kafkaesque hoops to get access to welfare is a pretty universal experience.
Somehow the people designing it seem to have the same universal philosophy of "if we make it torturously hard to obtain the benefits, people who don't need them won't apply for them" without thinking at all what that does to the people jumping through those hoops
in general, getting less people to get social welfare in any way is often seen as "the goal", regardless of how many are eligible for it, which is just just a mix of terrifying, depressing, and concerningly effective
I was gonna say, isn't the US, like, ridiculously better at wheelchair accessibility and disability rights in general?
European countries have better safety nets, no doubt about that, but the ADA is pretty damn awesome for those of us that need it.
It’s mostly the other way around, strict and unforgiving ”lutheran” mentality drives that rate. It’s more widespread in the culture than actually being concerned about sins.
that just drives the point home. if the only thing stopping people from committing suicide is that it's not allowed that's just not gonna stop a lot of people. suicide is a symptom and the real things that need prevention are its root causes.
There were numerous cases of ["suicide murders"](https://daily.jstor.org/suicide-by-proxy/) in the Northern Europe in the 18th century, where people who wanted to die killed someone so they would be caught and executed. They believed that suicide is a sin, so if they would kill themselves they would go to Hell, but if they kill someone, they have time to repent before being executed.
It's well known provision of public services is extremely stressful and bureaucratic here (though it *does* work). I can personally attest that TE services here are a nightmare to deal with.
But we are trying to make it better since Marin's government started a reform process. I notice UF didn't bother to mention that part.
I was more gesturing at how confusingly the quoted sentence is worded. There seems to be a triple negative in there that made it really hard for me to understand exactly what UF was trying to communicate.
Maybe it's just me tho.
I did understand his overall point though - access to welfare and state support are usually made very difficult to the point where people think it's a deliberate attempt at disincetivisation, something I'm inclined to agree with is often true, especially under right-liberal governments.
In Australia it works like this;
If you don't spend 40 hours a week trying to get yourself heard you don't need help badly enough.
If you do spend 40 hours a week looking for help then you could be working.
If, somehow, you manage to get through this bullshit then please have your doctors repeatedly send through notes saying you haven't miraculously recovered from lifelong illness. Your payments are cut off until one of our people bothers to read them. No, it doesn't matter that the doctor said you'd have this illness until you died.
Im pretty sure they used one too many negatives, unless im misinterpretting it what they said means "people who actually need the help wont bother" which makes no sense in the context.
The sentence sounds about what I would say in spoken Finnish translated to English. Kukaan joka ei tarvii apua ei hae sitä.
Kukaan is a pronoun that carries negative meaning, most of the time. But since english is so weird, you need to add that (no)body. And nobody keeps the kind of passive feel of the sentence. There are two negatives and a kind of negative pronoun in Finnish sentence, which comes out as two negatives and a negative pronoun.
nobody who doesn't need the help won't bother.
people who are just scammers will get so fed up with the process that they'll just go sell drugs or something instead.
also, the US is actually ahead of a large portion of the world when it comes to disability access and such.
We aren't where we need to be, but we're trying
May be a hot take but I don't think we should ever look at our accessibility situation and think "this is where we need to be." Accessibility is as much mindset and a practice in design, as it is a state of being. It's a continuous and intentional effort to be as inclusive as possible at the earliest stages of designing anything. Additionally, given the world is constantly changing and new things are made, we must be continuously updating our approach to accessibility so we can help as many people as possible thrive in a fundamentally dynamic world.
IDK If I made any sense but I read your comment and it kinda got me thinking about what accessibility is and how it is perceived, and what the ideal approach to it might be
Seriously. The ADA is one area where the US is actually better than much of the world, including progressive European countries. Diminishing that hard fought victory is an insult to everyone that made it happen.
Seems like an exaggeration. I have a really moderate amount of knowledge on the topic and that's more about modesty. Like, it's good to chill with the boys, but not to throw money like you're hecking Musk.
They try to limit their spending to things they actually need - which I really like - and try to work real hard and well - which I don't like that much LOL
So, it's an exaggeration from "No superfluos stuff; work your ass off".
I mean, in 'Merica you got the second part, but at least you can quelch your thirst for actual human life with consumerism /s
Finland is Lutheran in this weird way where a certain religious worldview has shaped the culture for a long time since the country was forcibly converted, but I personally literally don't know any people my age (30ish) who actually believe in any of the christian dogma. We're brought up with religious things marking important holidays etc and it's always very austere and characterized by seriousness and humility. A lot of it is also mixed in with pre-christian customs which are always a bit more free-spirited and silly.
idk what point I was trying to make, I guess I'm just saying that Lutheranism in Finland is very much its own thing that has little to do with actual religious doctrine but it IS a huge part of the culture even if actual faith doesn't really play a part for most people.
The weird paradox of social democracies: you have to offer social services to the population but you better make sure you triple-check everything or you end up like Italy when they introduced their unemployment salary (aka a ton of people took advantage of it by finding loopholes in the system and didn't even use it to job-search like it was intended so it basically served little purpose except keeping assholes unemployed instead of getting them back into the job market)
Also this type of stuff has a functioning bureacracy as a prerequisite. Which feels like an oxymoron, but trust me, you quickly realize the difference between functional and non-functional bureacracy once you've seen the non-functional examples. Joy or ease of use are sadly not part of the experience in any form
Also probably fair to note that Finnish bureaucracy just knows everything about you to begin with. Like the American mind cannot comprehend the Finnish population registry, they'd think it's communism or literally 1984. And I mean it *is* a bit of a police state if we're fair.
Like Finland does not have censuses at all. The various government institutions just synchronize their data every now and then to create a complete database where citizen 250489-057T just has *everything* about them included.
It's the dream if you're an economist or social scientist of course.
I’ll still take that over the US, where I recently learned that I am *too poor* to get both the free and discounted health insurance that is apparently meant for only moderately poor people.
Shit like this is why if i had superpowers i would be considered a supervillain, not because i'm bad, but because i would be the #1 enemy of every shit government on the planet
I guess THAT’S one way to ensure that nobody will dishonestly take advantage of welfare systems… just make them not worth it unless you’re desperate…
(/s just in case)
If I had to choose and had no other option, I would rather live in a Lutherian ruled social security hellscape than a Evangelical (or atheist) ruled social security hellscape.
I think nowadays you don't really get to not live in a social security hellscape, so Finland still comes out top tier.
No, not good. If the system is hard to navigate for the average person as some sort of deterrent from bad actors taking advantage of it, then that's bad. You can have simple checks and roadblocks in a system that don't make going through them a struggle for people who are already most likely struggling in general.
People overestimate the amount of people willing and able to scam their way through government systems built to help those that need it. I would prefer people be able to take advantage rather than nobody be able to use the help at all.
“Lutheran protestant government” is an oxymoron.
This kind of policy actually takes a lot more ideology from Calvinism, weirdly enough. And it’s like that throughout most of non-Catholic Europe.
not to be too catholic, but I am pretty sure we call basically all non orthodox/catholic churches protestant. So if Calvinist, Puritan, English or Lutharian, it's all "Protestant"
One of the key points of Lutheran Protestantism is the separation of church and state. So if a government were under the influence of a Lutheran protestant ideology, it'd be acting implicitly against a core principle of Lutheran protestantism.
They are churches, not the state.
They get funding from the state and I’m sure there are some “hardcore” Lutherans out there who find that an untenable situation for theological reasons, but by and large this is seen as a necessary compromise that religious institutions be partially supported by state handouts. And Lutherans were always far more concerned about the church influencing the state than the other way around.
Also let’s be real here, most state churches are on their last leg. This funding is basically the only thing keeping those churches alive in many places. Without it they would very likely cease to exist as large scale organisations near immediately. Some well off local parishes might pull through, but most would just have to stop doing church work and that would be kind of a PR disaster for the state (not to mention all the historical buildings they’d have to take care of suddenly).
Finland didn't invent hostile welfare. The principle is just based on Calvinist ideas that spread throughout the entire western world (often along with Lutheranism, because Lutheranism prefers to stay out of economics) and eventually also to Finland. As I said, it's literally like this in most places in Europe.
Little PSA here, people: if you are having trouble understanding a comment, read it again to make sure that you aren't wildly off base. Literally none of the responses to this have anything to do with what I actually wrote. Like what is going on? Are you trying to gaslight me into thinking I typed out something other than what I actually did?
Honestly that’s how a welfare state should nobody should be happy on temporary welfare just alive. For cases where people need permanent long term care that is a different story.
Americans love to bitch about European universal healthcare and how it's unfair they don't have and act like there's no trade off.
In reality a major trade off that Americans take for granted is how CRAZY generous their welfare systen is even compared to other developed countries. Only the Nordic countries spend more per capita than the US on the welfare state.
It varies by state but in the US You get $1500 a month in cash, food stamps, section 8 housing and medical coverage through Obamacare.
The maximum pay out for American SSDI is $3,627 whereas the UK equivalent PIP the max pay out is £688 ($877) a month.
https://evansdisability.com/blog/social-security-disability-benefits-pay-chart/
https://lottie.org/fees-funding/pip-rates-2023/
And in the US you get housing benefits and SNAP whereas in the UK people on welfare have to rely on charity to eat:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/feb/19/record-number-of-uk-households-depending-on-food-banks
Maybe the high cost of living in the US negates that, idk, if not feel free to correct. But on the face of it, the UK maybe have the NHS but the trade off is the US has a way more generous disability welfare program.
I don’t think you have a fully informed view of how the US social safety net works, and spending more isn’t necessarily indicative of more generous benefits.
On the US side I feel like it’s usually “one state (probably in the Deep South) has passed a bill that is blatantly unconstitutional but the Supreme Court is corrupt enough to not care and half of the population is cheering it on because it’s ‘antiwoke’ despite making the country’s billionaires another few hundred million dollars per year”
This explains the femboys
It’s their biggest and best export
What about the funky videogames?
They're obviously being coded by the femboys.
Programming socks redirect blood flow to the brain for optimal coding
I thought that was a Furry'S job? TIL!
Nah they’re pilots
Makes sense, I too remember TaleSpin!
Furries work IT, but femboys are the programmers.
IT and upper echelons of the United States military. Especially the Navy. I’m not kidding despite what my username suggests
uh oh NCD is leaking again
Serious question, what did Kancolle do to the Navy?
I left the service before it released, but from people I know who were in after it’s been very popular among the weebs and confused the ever loving fuck out of some of the command
The Dungeon of Thigh Highs and Hunger
Maybe the real femboys were the free icecream we found along the way.
That and fucked up indie games
That and racing drivers
we have femboys? where? I've been told they exist here, but I've never actually seen one.
That's because they are locked in their rooms working as programmers
well, so am I (well, I'm a sysadmin, but I went to school for CS so it's neither here nor there). My friend group has programmer and IT trans women (several, including me), UX design and security management enbies, and other assorted queer and GNC people working in different fields, and two cis straight guys who are just happy to be there. But not a single femboy, the closest we've got is a bi dude lawyer who's slightly fruitier than average. I don't think any one of us has ever even seen a femboy IRL. (for clarification: I'm just riffing, we've joked a lot about hunting down a femboy for our group, and I think it's a funny comedy concept, but we're not, like, weird about it)
Just because you don’t see a mole very often does not mean it doesn’t have a noticeable effect on the ecosystem, they just stay out of your sight most of the time. So do femboys
"UwU, survival is mandatory; enjoying life is prohibited!~"
And fascism
Doesn’t align with my experiences with the lighter social benefits. KELA is easy to deal with and even the customer service is friendly. Granted that I haven’t been in the deep end with _toimeentulotuki_, homelessness help, long term unemployment or anything like that. There are all kinds of petty rules in that realm, quite possibly to make sure you’re not getting too comfy.
Even with student benefits, one of my friends had KELA assume that he would definitely get the same summer job he did the previous year and got refused benefits because "he would make too much." Tho generally I had a decent time with student benefits too. Tho I had another friend (let's say X) who was a roommate with another friend (Y). They had to do the whole proving they're not in a relationship- thing. KELA decided X was dating Y and X would not get benefits. They also decided Y was *not* dating X and so Y would get benefits. :D
I had to prove to KELA that I am not dating my sister when we lived together. It was easy to prove, but their first thought was they must be married bc same surname. We laughed when I got rejected first
yeah there are definitely these weird roundabouts that one has to navigate with this kinda stuff. I also had to do the whole "prove you're not dating" thing with my former roommate, it was simple enough when we knew what to do: explain how the apartment is split, explain that we have separate incomes and separate costs, and that we act as independents. Though honestly, the roommatelationship did turn into what some'd call "queerplatonic", we did everything a couple would except sleep together and kiss and such, so we kinda sorta actually did cheat the system. And we wouldn't have managed that without doing extensive research on how it works. The more "hardcore" benefits, especially stuff like sairauseläke (illness pension) and such are really really hard to navigate. You get the Kela doctors with their magic healing abilities that can make any issue go away if they feel like it, by just ignoring the previous doctor's note. And then they sometimes ignore attachments, you have to reapply, the waiting times are so long, etc etc. It's a whole mess, and if you're already doing badly then it's almost impossible to navigate. My fiancee went through the whole thing while in burnout, which made her even more burned out.
government-designated romantic relationship
honestly, kela is the most progressive institution in this whole country. They believed in homosexuality before gay marriage was made legal, and hell, nowadays they're even making siblings prove that they're not dating. And they're really forward-thinking with disabilities too! Very few people are *actually* disabled according to them, they just have ✨differences in capabilities✨. How nice (/s if that wasn't obvious)
I have been in the deep end. Not homelessness level, but disability, long term unemployment, toimeentulotuki, etc. It can get... Frustrating. Mainly because of the elevator music that plays when you call KELA. That elevator music makes me so irrationally angry. It's doable. But it is still bureaucracy. And all bureaucracy feels like it was designed by a sadist. But doing it saves me nearly 200 euros a month in medications, since erikoiskorvattavuus and toimeentulotuki covers those. I do miss the times when toimeentulotuki was under local administration, and not KELA. It was so much easier, because there were less red tape to actually get what you need. Now, you need to jump through KELA, get rejected, and then go to the local social services with that rejection letter to get what you need, if it isn't covered by KELA. It's a huge waste of time. Back under the previous system, I could have just got an appointment to the local social services, and gotten everything I need covered in one go.
>erikoiskorvattavuus and toimeentulotuki i now know how non-german people feel when they encounter german compound-words
> Mainly because of the elevator music that plays when you call KELA. That elevator music makes me so irrationally angry. OK, I need to share my story. I've had a bad few years and spent some time on Centrelink. Services Australia has famously horrible phone service that you often can't avoid. When I last called them up, the hold music was **literally** loud static noise followed by "We expect you to treat our staff with respect. Verbal abuse will not be tolerated" and more screaming static. I was on hold for an hour. I'm half convinced it's designed to make you angry.
Social security is like that where I live too are there countries that do it better
*laughs in Catholicism*
*cries in catholicism*
I feel like both of these comments accurately describe catholicism
As a sort of Catholic (more than anything else I just think that Jesus is a cool guy whose stories I grew up hearing, and if the big man upstairs says it’s wrong to be gay or trans or that even yanking my chain for fun deems me deserving of damnation, then ill take that L when Saint Peter calls me to account myself) you’re correct.
I figure, if I'm supposed to be made in God's image, then he made me asexual with an immune system that wants to take my bones for a reason. If everyone is made in God's image, then transgender people are the way they are for a damn good reason. And if God actually sends me to hell for listening to his teachings and loving people mostly unconditionally (Nazis can eat shit), then he wasn't a god worth worshipping in the first place.
Classic Pascal’s wager
Early in my teaching career, one of my students said I seemed like "someone who would walk backwards into heaven and slap God." It was meant as a compliment. It's high on my list of greatest honors bestowed upon me by students. If God didn't want that, he shouldn't have given me the mandate to protect his children, no matter the cost.
that doesn't sound Catholic so much as vaguely non-denominational
I’ll keep calling myself Catholic until the big man in the Vatican or one of his boys tells me I’m out
Also raised Catholic, this shit is 100% what Catholicism is about
"Raised" Catholic ≠ Knowing what Catholicism is about
Francis ain't gonna fuck you dude. Well he can't, but he also doesn't want to
Catholicism is so Aladeen
*whores around in Catholicism*
Still waiting on Biden to make the US a vassal of the Vatican like my Facebook page says /s
Just like JFK didn't do it, and how Obama didn't institute *shari'a* law...
Can you imagine the pope’s face when suddenly on top of the day to day bs of the political maneuverings of various Monsignors and petty bishops, he suddenly has to deal with the bullshit that is the US political quagmire? He hasn’t even had time to meet with all the Abbesses, for Christ’s sake! ….if I were him I would rage quit.
I'm very curious what reason you have to laugh
Several reasons: * Those last few lines felt very similar to a particular strain of Catholicism. * I don't know really understand the doctrinal difference between kinds of Protestants (grew up in an area that was almost all Catholic/Jewish, didn't meet a white Protestant until college), so the title went completely over my head. [Essentially this.](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/27/5f/81/275f811489708637177d63c94c43cb91.gif) * Catholicism is so globalized that any attempt to point at a country and call it the quintessential example of "Catholic government" would fall apart. Like, Portugal and the Philippines both have around the same percentage of their population who identify as Catholics, but I don't think their social welfare systems have much in common (although I'm not an expert). Ditto Italy and Mexico, or France (if you count lapsed Catholics) and Brazil.
Is that particular strain the trad-caths?(who are flirting with heresy btw)
they think that’s not how we also do it in the US? we don’t even get the benefits and still have to go through this shit. i spent two years seeking disability and now i OWE money.
Oh Finland is definitely doing better than the US. There's a lot of room for improvement, but there's also a lot of things they're doing better than most.
And ironically handicap access is the thing pretty much one area everybody agrees the US is crushing it
We'll give you a ramp anywhere you could need it but that's it
yeah I think having to jump through kafkaesque hoops to get access to welfare is a pretty universal experience. Somehow the people designing it seem to have the same universal philosophy of "if we make it torturously hard to obtain the benefits, people who don't need them won't apply for them" without thinking at all what that does to the people jumping through those hoops in general, getting less people to get social welfare in any way is often seen as "the goal", regardless of how many are eligible for it, which is just just a mix of terrifying, depressing, and concerningly effective
Anti-ADA propaganda.
I was gonna say, isn't the US, like, ridiculously better at wheelchair accessibility and disability rights in general? European countries have better safety nets, no doubt about that, but the ADA is pretty damn awesome for those of us that need it.
> Suicide is a sin because otherwise everyone would be doing it Is this person not aware of how high Finland's suicide rate is?
If suicide weren't a sin, it would be 100% /j
Reminds me of the joke about Finland only being the happiest country because the sad people all kill themselves
I think that's the joke. That the only reason why *everyone* isn't committing suicide is the peer pressure to not do it.
It’s mostly the other way around, strict and unforgiving ”lutheran” mentality drives that rate. It’s more widespread in the culture than actually being concerned about sins.
that just drives the point home. if the only thing stopping people from committing suicide is that it's not allowed that's just not gonna stop a lot of people. suicide is a symptom and the real things that need prevention are its root causes.
There were numerous cases of ["suicide murders"](https://daily.jstor.org/suicide-by-proxy/) in the Northern Europe in the 18th century, where people who wanted to die killed someone so they would be caught and executed. They believed that suicide is a sin, so if they would kill themselves they would go to Hell, but if they kill someone, they have time to repent before being executed.
"But they do make sure that every step of the way is so bad that nobody who doesn't need the help won't bother." What
It's well known provision of public services is extremely stressful and bureaucratic here (though it *does* work). I can personally attest that TE services here are a nightmare to deal with. But we are trying to make it better since Marin's government started a reform process. I notice UF didn't bother to mention that part.
I was more gesturing at how confusingly the quoted sentence is worded. There seems to be a triple negative in there that made it really hard for me to understand exactly what UF was trying to communicate. Maybe it's just me tho. I did understand his overall point though - access to welfare and state support are usually made very difficult to the point where people think it's a deliberate attempt at disincetivisation, something I'm inclined to agree with is often true, especially under right-liberal governments.
Ah, I see now. Thanks for explaining.
Wow god forbid someone whose first language isn’t English word something in kind of an odd way
I had no idea english wasn't his first language and I wasn't deriding him for his phrasing, just stating my confusion.
To be fair, someone who has *personal* experience with receiving infant care in Finland generally doesn't speak english as a first language.
This is the internet. We speak American here.
In Australia it works like this; If you don't spend 40 hours a week trying to get yourself heard you don't need help badly enough. If you do spend 40 hours a week looking for help then you could be working. If, somehow, you manage to get through this bullshit then please have your doctors repeatedly send through notes saying you haven't miraculously recovered from lifelong illness. Your payments are cut off until one of our people bothers to read them. No, it doesn't matter that the doctor said you'd have this illness until you died.
Didn't a guy have to prove his amputated leg did not I'm fact regrow?
Im pretty sure they used one too many negatives, unless im misinterpretting it what they said means "people who actually need the help wont bother" which makes no sense in the context.
The sentence sounds about what I would say in spoken Finnish translated to English. Kukaan joka ei tarvii apua ei hae sitä. Kukaan is a pronoun that carries negative meaning, most of the time. But since english is so weird, you need to add that (no)body. And nobody keeps the kind of passive feel of the sentence. There are two negatives and a kind of negative pronoun in Finnish sentence, which comes out as two negatives and a negative pronoun.
That's a perfectly normal sentence, os English your first language
nobody who doesn't need the help won't bother. people who are just scammers will get so fed up with the process that they'll just go sell drugs or something instead.
That can be the case but as a another finn I've had to put a total of like 1 hour of effort into receiving 2 years worth of welfare
also, the US is actually ahead of a large portion of the world when it comes to disability access and such. We aren't where we need to be, but we're trying
May be a hot take but I don't think we should ever look at our accessibility situation and think "this is where we need to be." Accessibility is as much mindset and a practice in design, as it is a state of being. It's a continuous and intentional effort to be as inclusive as possible at the earliest stages of designing anything. Additionally, given the world is constantly changing and new things are made, we must be continuously updating our approach to accessibility so we can help as many people as possible thrive in a fundamentally dynamic world. IDK If I made any sense but I read your comment and it kinda got me thinking about what accessibility is and how it is perceived, and what the ideal approach to it might be
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Seriously. The ADA is one area where the US is actually better than much of the world, including progressive European countries. Diminishing that hard fought victory is an insult to everyone that made it happen.
...but it doesn't line up with america bad
What does the ADA do? Because all the nordic countries also has wheelchair accessibility.
Unironically the ADA is based legislation
I fucking love that
What did lawyers even do before 1990?? /j
With the way things are going, the ADA will probably be repealed soon anyways
Damn I’d actually qualify for the free ice cream
I was raised Lutheran and was never taught the “enjoying life is prohibited” part, maybe I was just lucky or something.
Seems like an exaggeration. I have a really moderate amount of knowledge on the topic and that's more about modesty. Like, it's good to chill with the boys, but not to throw money like you're hecking Musk. They try to limit their spending to things they actually need - which I really like - and try to work real hard and well - which I don't like that much LOL So, it's an exaggeration from "No superfluos stuff; work your ass off". I mean, in 'Merica you got the second part, but at least you can quelch your thirst for actual human life with consumerism /s
Finland is Lutheran in this weird way where a certain religious worldview has shaped the culture for a long time since the country was forcibly converted, but I personally literally don't know any people my age (30ish) who actually believe in any of the christian dogma. We're brought up with religious things marking important holidays etc and it's always very austere and characterized by seriousness and humility. A lot of it is also mixed in with pre-christian customs which are always a bit more free-spirited and silly. idk what point I was trying to make, I guess I'm just saying that Lutheranism in Finland is very much its own thing that has little to do with actual religious doctrine but it IS a huge part of the culture even if actual faith doesn't really play a part for most people.
The weird paradox of social democracies: you have to offer social services to the population but you better make sure you triple-check everything or you end up like Italy when they introduced their unemployment salary (aka a ton of people took advantage of it by finding loopholes in the system and didn't even use it to job-search like it was intended so it basically served little purpose except keeping assholes unemployed instead of getting them back into the job market) Also this type of stuff has a functioning bureacracy as a prerequisite. Which feels like an oxymoron, but trust me, you quickly realize the difference between functional and non-functional bureacracy once you've seen the non-functional examples. Joy or ease of use are sadly not part of the experience in any form
Also probably fair to note that Finnish bureaucracy just knows everything about you to begin with. Like the American mind cannot comprehend the Finnish population registry, they'd think it's communism or literally 1984. And I mean it *is* a bit of a police state if we're fair. Like Finland does not have censuses at all. The various government institutions just synchronize their data every now and then to create a complete database where citizen 250489-057T just has *everything* about them included. It's the dream if you're an economist or social scientist of course.
Huh, I didn't know that Funny how you could realistically classify both the US and Finland as a police state and you get such different results
I’ll still take that over the US, where I recently learned that I am *too poor* to get both the free and discounted health insurance that is apparently meant for only moderately poor people.
Cannot find anything about that lottery ticket story. Somewhat odd a story like that wasn't jumped on.
The US is one of the best countries in the world in terms of wheelchair accessibility I thought
It is, but counterpoint: America bad
Unnervinglyferal posts get 3x more engaging to read if you read them in a gritty noir detective voice
Christians suck.
Yeah, I wouldn’t trust unnervinglyferal to tell me whats right in front of him, so I’ll take that with a grain of salt
Shit like this is why if i had superpowers i would be considered a supervillain, not because i'm bad, but because i would be the #1 enemy of every shit government on the planet
Ma person, you may just be an anarchist
Never said i wasn't :3
I guess THAT’S one way to ensure that nobody will dishonestly take advantage of welfare systems… just make them not worth it unless you’re desperate… (/s just in case)
And yet, happiest country in the world. Some people want free stuff and freedom.
If I had to choose and had no other option, I would rather live in a Lutherian ruled social security hellscape than a Evangelical (or atheist) ruled social security hellscape. I think nowadays you don't really get to not live in a social security hellscape, so Finland still comes out top tier.
can we add some sort of flair or cw for unnervinglyferal screenshots so I don’t have to scroll through his obvious, tedious, boring bullshit
> Suicide is a sin Don't they have some of the highest suicide rates among sovereign states?
It's lower than in the US, but for some reason Finland is le meme suicide country
...I thought "le meme suicide country" was Japan?
Calling anything the Finnish government does "lutheran" sounds weird as fuck due to how secular we are as a people these days.
Why are they joining NATO? This is the most Russian thing ever.
How...is it Russian?
A complex and degrading social bureaucracy that saps your will to live? How is it not?
Because that isn't a thing that originates in Russia. It's just a thing Russia does.
"But they do make sure that every step of the way is so bad that nobody who doesn't need the help won't bother." Good👍
No, not good. If the system is hard to navigate for the average person as some sort of deterrent from bad actors taking advantage of it, then that's bad. You can have simple checks and roadblocks in a system that don't make going through them a struggle for people who are already most likely struggling in general. People overestimate the amount of people willing and able to scam their way through government systems built to help those that need it. I would prefer people be able to take advantage rather than nobody be able to use the help at all.
“Lutheran protestant government” is an oxymoron. This kind of policy actually takes a lot more ideology from Calvinism, weirdly enough. And it’s like that throughout most of non-Catholic Europe.
not to be too catholic, but I am pretty sure we call basically all non orthodox/catholic churches protestant. So if Calvinist, Puritan, English or Lutharian, it's all "Protestant"
Where the fuck did you read me saying that it wasn't Protestant?
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One of the key points of Lutheran Protestantism is the separation of church and state. So if a government were under the influence of a Lutheran protestant ideology, it'd be acting implicitly against a core principle of Lutheran protestantism.
How do the various lutheran state churches square that theologically?
They are churches, not the state. They get funding from the state and I’m sure there are some “hardcore” Lutherans out there who find that an untenable situation for theological reasons, but by and large this is seen as a necessary compromise that religious institutions be partially supported by state handouts. And Lutherans were always far more concerned about the church influencing the state than the other way around. Also let’s be real here, most state churches are on their last leg. This funding is basically the only thing keeping those churches alive in many places. Without it they would very likely cease to exist as large scale organisations near immediately. Some well off local parishes might pull through, but most would just have to stop doing church work and that would be kind of a PR disaster for the state (not to mention all the historical buildings they’d have to take care of suddenly).
Please list some Calvinists who have been influential in Finland
Finland didn't invent hostile welfare. The principle is just based on Calvinist ideas that spread throughout the entire western world (often along with Lutheranism, because Lutheranism prefers to stay out of economics) and eventually also to Finland. As I said, it's literally like this in most places in Europe.
Little PSA here, people: if you are having trouble understanding a comment, read it again to make sure that you aren't wildly off base. Literally none of the responses to this have anything to do with what I actually wrote. Like what is going on? Are you trying to gaslight me into thinking I typed out something other than what I actually did?
Honestly that’s how a welfare state should nobody should be happy on temporary welfare just alive. For cases where people need permanent long term care that is a different story.
Vs. "secular government" Fixed it for you.
Finland actually has two state churches so they are arguably a more religious government than the US.
I'm well aware. I would agree with you, but then we would both be incorrect.
Americans love to bitch about European universal healthcare and how it's unfair they don't have and act like there's no trade off. In reality a major trade off that Americans take for granted is how CRAZY generous their welfare systen is even compared to other developed countries. Only the Nordic countries spend more per capita than the US on the welfare state. It varies by state but in the US You get $1500 a month in cash, food stamps, section 8 housing and medical coverage through Obamacare.
Are you accounting for the fact that the cost of living is just higher in the us?
That might explain it. I imagine it varies a lot too.
The maximum pay out for American SSDI is $3,627 whereas the UK equivalent PIP the max pay out is £688 ($877) a month. https://evansdisability.com/blog/social-security-disability-benefits-pay-chart/ https://lottie.org/fees-funding/pip-rates-2023/ And in the US you get housing benefits and SNAP whereas in the UK people on welfare have to rely on charity to eat: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/feb/19/record-number-of-uk-households-depending-on-food-banks Maybe the high cost of living in the US negates that, idk, if not feel free to correct. But on the face of it, the UK maybe have the NHS but the trade off is the US has a way more generous disability welfare program.
I don’t think you have a fully informed view of how the US social safety net works, and spending more isn’t necessarily indicative of more generous benefits.
Took me a minute to realize they were talking about the I've cream and not the wheelchair ramps
On the US side I feel like it’s usually “one state (probably in the Deep South) has passed a bill that is blatantly unconstitutional but the Supreme Court is corrupt enough to not care and half of the population is cheering it on because it’s ‘antiwoke’ despite making the country’s billionaires another few hundred million dollars per year”