As usual, I will allow Han Solo to critique your argument.

> There’s not enough life on this ice cube to fill a space cruiser.

That’s why it works I get it and most people wouldn’t want to live in an icy hellscape but if you like spending all your time indoors it’s not so bad.

Contrary to the name, Iceland isn’t an icy hellscape at all. Haven’t you heard the quip about Iceland being green and Greenland being ice? Icelanders like spending time outside, and Reykjavik and most cities and towns are on the coast so they’re not all that cold. https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/iceland/reykjavik/climat...

I think by most people's standards that's pretty cold. Summer high in the mid 50s. 8 Months of the year with near freezing nightly temps.

What inhabited place would you be comparing it to to get "not all that cold"?

It’s not very icy, with an average high above freezing year round. That’s warmer winter conditions than a lot of the US. Greenland, Alaska, Canada, Siberia, Finland, Mongolia, Svalbard, Norway… there’s a pretty long list of inhabited places that are colder than Iceland.

an average low of 0 celsius in the winter is a LOT warmer than Canada, except maybe on the west coast. It's probably warmer than the Nordics too, and maybe Russia.

You’re just naming other icy hellscapes.

You mean actual icy hellscapes? Correct! ;)

Ones that are all colder than Iceland

Ah, well, I think I have to stick with my original assessment, maybe less cold than Russia still sounds very cold.

I would love a way to easily run the numbers but ball park I think 98-99% of World population lives in a warmer climate.

Even Ottawa and Moscow get summertime average highs around 80 vs 57 in Reykjavík... Burr...

I think what you're saying is that you find those temperatures very cold. You asked what "inhabited places" are colder than that; I gave you a list of countries totalling around 200 million people who would not find Icelandic winters cold. I'm not sure they'd be too happy with a high of 11 in the summer though.

Hehe did the context somehow get completely lost somewhere? We were talking about whether Iceland is an “icy hellscape”. The summer temps and the number of people in warmer places is irrelevant. Nobody argued Iceland isn’t cool or cold relatively speaking. The only question is whether it’s below freezing, otherwise it can’t be icy, right? Reykjavik is not icy most of the time, even in winter. Reykjavik is also warmer in the winter than much of the inland US, and many many other inhabited places that freeze regularly. I was just trying to correct a common misunderstanding about Iceland. Sometimes people make incorrect assumptions based on the name.

I live in the states and forecasted low temps this week are lower than Reykjavik’s average low by more than 10 degrees, and lower than Reykjavik’s actual forecasted temps by 25 degrees (F)...

It would indeed be interesting to run the numbers. I’m guessing the number of people who live in below freezing temps in the middle of winter, places colder than Reykjavik for the coldest month or two of each respective locale, would probably exceed a billion.

Do you have a source for Iceland having a universal basic income like that? How much is it? I’m not finding anything about it with Google searches, and it seems kind of hard to believe.

It’s not universal. It’s basically indefinite unemployment payments.

Australia has that too. $1500/mo for a single person.

This still seemed implausible to me, so I looked it up. The Icelandic government has all the details on the web in English!

It looks like it’s for up to 30 months, and you need to be employed for 24. months to ‘reset’ it: https://vinnumalastofnun.is/en/jobseeker/entitlement-to-unem...

You’re required to confirm every month that you’re seeking employment: https://vinnumalastofnun.is/en/jobseeker/rights-and-obligati...

The amount seems to be ISK 349,852 per month: https://vinnumalastofnun.is/en/jobseeker/amounts-and-payment...

So that’s about USD 2500 - though there are lower amounts depending on your ‘entitlement’ band - I’m not sure how that’s calculated. Even at the 100% band, that’s $30,000/year - which is (for example) half of California minimum wage.