That's because there is a default bad assumption that because they are so wealthy that no problems should exist, similar to how very rich people are seen. Looking at other wealthy petro-states (and people) around the world, that's clearly not true.

But relatively speaking I don't think there's a country that wouldn't trade most of their problems for Norway's, with the possible exception of their aging population.

Poorer health might be concerning, but is likely the result of the population growing older. More children would help make the numbers look better, I suppose, but, statistically, only poor people like having children.

For one thing it's clearly a problem if you include the environmental impact of constructing those bridges to nowhere.

That may be a reasonable take at the level of an individual. But it's nonsense at the level of a country.

Wealth is the ability to get other people to do things. But if everyone is becoming less capable, then that's not a problem that wealth can fix.

Outsourcing may be a temporary solution to his problem, but I don't see it working well long term.

What suggests that people are becoming less capable? More importantly, what suggests that people are becoming less capable in an irreversible way? If people are less capable, but it is reversible, then wealth can fix it. As you said, you can use wealth to get other people to become more capable.

From the root level comment in this thread:

> Student test scores have worsened more than in other Scandinavian countries, and critics of the government say there are too many boondoggle tunnels and bridges to nowhere.

-

> More importantly, what suggests that people are becoming less capable in an irreversible way? If people are less capable, but it is reversible, then wealth can fix it.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that this trend is irreversible.

But big trends like this can be difficult to turn around - if it were easy, the trend wouldn't have happened in the first place (or, at least, it wouldn't have been detectable).

> If people are less capable, but it is reversible, then wealth can fix it. As you said, you can use wealth to get other people to become more capable.

You can't just say "wealth will do x". That's really a semantic shortcut for saying "people will do x". But presumably people are already trying to improve the countries test scores. And people are already trying (at least to a certain extent) to spend government funds wisely. I'm not really sure how wealth will change what's currently occurring.

Oh, so you mean not that they are becoming less capable in general, but that they are becoming less capable at testing? I suppose that is a reasonable take in light of earlier comments – but, again, wealthy people don't see value in test results, so what difference does it make?

This is like noticing that people have become less likely to share "hand-me-downs". You'd no doubt see that as a travesty if you are struggling to buy cloths, but if you look at it from a place of wealth where you are buying clothes as if they are nothing, what does that mean to you? Not much.

> if it were easy, the trend wouldn't have happened in the first place

There is a logical leap in there that you haven't explained. In the same vein, it is easy to grow food in your garden, but it is abundantly clear that people no longer see the need, even where they once did. Just because something is easy does not mean that there is reason to do it. You are going to have to elaborate.

Bashing 'poor people' aside, it's safe to say that on a national level, declining test scores are a warning sign that merits investigation.

> When you are rich you can also do pointless things just for the fun of it like build bridges to nowhere

You can, but there's no small amount of broken window fallacy there.

> None of these are problems unless you try and look at it through a poor man's lens.

I might be too poor to see the joy of building of bridges to nowhere, but there are still 'problems' with declining test scores, government misuse of funds, and pointless infrastructure projects.

> statistically, only poor people like having children

Yeesh. There are at least three reasons why this is completely wrong, but what's more important is that you seem to have a weird bone to pick with "poor people". You really might want to sort that out for yourself.

'Bashing' is a human trait. Software on the internet carries no such emotion.

> declining test scores are a warning sign that merits investigation.

Just as increasing test scores is a warning sign that merits investigation. But that doesn't suggest a problem, only change. What good is wealth if it is not used to user in change?

> there's no small amount of broken window fallacy there.

Not really. The broken window fallacy is based on the idea of breaking windows for the good of the economy. There is nothing to suggest that bridges are being built to nowhere for the good of the economy. Maybe when you are poor the economy is front and centre in your thoughts, but not everything has to be about the economy.

> government misuse of funds, and pointless infrastructure projects.

This can be a problem if you aren't wealthy enough to support it, but, again, this cannot be observed through a poor lens. If the people of Norway (which is a democracy — the people direct the government) want to spend their extensive wealth in a way a poor person would consider foolish, they can. That is benefit of being wealthy.

> There are at least three reasons why this is completely wrong

Looks more like zero reasons. Assuming three wasn't a number randomly pulled out of hat, perhaps something got truncated during preparation of this message?

> but what's more important is that you seem to have a weird bone to pick with "poor people".

Again, software doesn't have this emotion you are trying to personify.

> software doesn't have this emotion you are trying to personify.

Your best defense against accusations of classism is that you're software??

... Hate to break it to you bud, but bots can have classism built in too. Also, I'm fairly sure bots are banned here. Feel free to see yourself out.

"Defending accusations" is a human trait. You again have mistaken the context in which you write.

> Also, I'm fairly sure bots are banned here.

Hacker News is not what is normally considered a bot, but it is decidedly software. What feature of text on orange and beige left you to recognize it as humanity instead of the software that it is?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42419831 (Dec 2024)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40868959 (July 2024)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35407476 (April 2023)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34854957 (Feb 2023)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30293928 (Feb 2022)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28699914 (Sept 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28654320 (Sept 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28650525 (Sept 2021)

The Nordic petro states were never really that impressive to me personally. I'm sure someone will come out of the woodwork to talk up their healthcare and social services, but again, if you were being fair we would compare them to a State like Massachusetts instead of Mississippi or Alabama and you would find our healthcare systems here are equally if not more accessible.

So no, putting the frenzy over this administration aside, and recognizing that the US has more history and more of a future than the rule of one man, what I said holds.

the US suffers from systemic historic racism that they are struggling to get rid of, but they have always been a mix of cultures where some aspects of foreign cultures are assimilated and accepted some aspects disappear as the immigrants adapt.

europe suffers from xenophobia and difficulty to integrate foreign cultures. being traditionally a single culture there is very little assimilation of foreign cultures (mostly some food items) and immigrants are expected to adapt fully to the local culture, without any allowance to keep aspects of their own culture with few exceptions.

in my opinion this leads to immigrants in europe holding on to their own culture more than they would in the US making integration even more difficult.

Wait, what specifically does? Why do you think gypsies have not integrated yet in any countries they are in? Be it Canada, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Germany, etc.

the expectation to assimilate our culture and fully give up theirs.

Why do you think gypsies have not integrated

i'd believe this is mainly because they are nomadic, which is something that we seem to have a hard time accepting, or even tolerating. for me this is one aspect of their culture that we should celebrate and support. but we don't.

an important question is what does integration actually mean. my main argument here is that they mean different things in germany and in the US. (two of the countries that i can talk about from experience).

i talked to some friends in germany and they confirmed that the general expectation is that integration has to be 100%, and while we all agreed that this is actually not desirable, it explains that integration is hard, because, once integrated that way, you become completely invisible. which in turn leads to the reality that only those who are not fully integrated are being noticed leading to the impression that they are still not integrated and hence that gypsies are still nomadic, even though the reality is that it's only about 5% of them. but those 5% are the most visible in germany. when gypsies were in the news, it was the nomadic ones about problems perceived by the local population. i did hear about gypsy villages in romania, which i suppose is another way to stand out despite being not nomadic.

at this point i think it is also important to mention that they were/are not nomadic by choice, but because they needed to be, for economic reasons and also because they were not wanted due to prejudices that have lingered and been stoked for centuries. this may be the kind of racism that is like the general racism in the US. these prejudices push the impression that for those people integration is not even wanted. the jewish population is an obvious example. they were most certainly integrated at least to the degree we expect integration to happen in the US, while still keeping some unique characteristics, and yet their integration was denied.

a different but related example is american soldiers stationed in germany. there is little prejudice against them, but they too are not considered integrated until they speak german and become indistinguishable from locals. and even then, even as a german, if you live in a small town, and you are not born there, you are considered an outsider. happened to a friend of mine.

another comparison, in china, integration is considered impossible. foreigners will always be outsiders. even my children, with a chinese mother, are considered outsiders in school.

so a better answer to the question of why gypsies are not integrated is, because we don't let them. those that are actually integrated are invisible, and our negativity focuses on the remaining ones. i don't know any gypsies in person (my mother does though), so i can't say for sure, but i would guess that even those who are integrated feel the negativity towards their less integrated "relatives", making them too feel not actually integrated.

but to be sure that there is no misunderstanding, i can't stress this enough, this kind of integration to invisibility is not the kind of integration i want. on the contrary. i want integration through tolerance and acceptance. clearly, we have a lot of work to do to achieve that.

There are a lot of gypsy villages in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and I am sure many other countries have those as well. By gypsy villages I mean that the majority of the population is gypsies.

As for the rest, we do have many gypsies who have integrated, but they did so by getting away from their family. The gypsies who have integrated here have some hatred towards the ones who didn't. Mainly because the ones who haven't integrated are still begging, being thieves (robbing people), and are responsible for a lot of violent crimes. They make up the majority of our prisons, too, and not because of racism, but because they did actually commit crimes. FWIW, there are very rich gypsies and very poor ones, and they also hate each other, yet both of them engage in illegal activities.

Isn't that what is expected? I'm not there, but the way the story is making it to us outside of the US is that Trump has directed immigration authorities to turn their attention away from real problem cases to go on a witch hunt instead. If true, of course deportations are going to go down. But right now nobody wants to expose themselves to getting wrapped up in the hunt.

It's obviously not a valid comparison to a US migrant detention center, even if you feel that that detaining migrants is immoral. You don't strengthen your argument with that kind of hyperbole, instead my reaction is an unavoidable sense of disgust and a worry that people who do this are playing into the watering-down of history in the name of getting a short-term emotional reaction.

You can easily argue against the way the US handles immigration, especially under Trump, without falling into the trap of extreme hyperbole.

Wow.

I live in a wealthier US state and the folks in my city's subreddit whine - and they whine a lot.

> They're worth paying attention to

Who's going to tend to the ski lifts and the golf courses? Who's going to take care of their polo horses? Who's going to clean the streets and work at the police stations? Who's going to keep the grid running? Who's going to work the ports to import everything? Who's going to drive the delivery trucks and put everything in it's place upon arrival?

It's blatantly obvious that you can't have a society where everyone is "rich", unless you have a second class of citizens to wait on them.

Robots aren't advanced enough yet.

While in some ways Norway is laughably far from this scenario, in other ways, their sovereign wealth fund is less about a decade away from everyone being a millionaire - which, theoretically, should allow everyone to not work and have a decent life - but obviously will not (unless they import second class citizens, that aren't ever allowed access to the wealth fund, and have to do all the work).

By this second definition, a country can definitely be rich across the board without having a “poor” second class. Just make sure people earn a decent living wage, and then some. There will be low crime (no need for gated communities!), high trust (no need for a lawyer on retainer!), and good education and health care (no need for private schools or hospitals!)

You have a very zero-sum view of wealth, the idea that to be wealthy means it’s gotta be to the detriment of others. I’m not saying Norway’s got it all figured out, but they’re definitely gunning for something closer to what I describe than what you do.