Rune @skalden@social.cleverlibre.org

@RustyBertrand On my hoodie right now.

@sz_duras Norway. I think you find it in the other Nordic countries, like Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, as well. I would agree that Britain probably has not had it since Thatcher.

@sz_duras Social democracy has been reasonably successful in addressing problems like extreme poverty. Capitalism has also been able to address issues of production and distribution of goods in a way that the centralized economy of Soviet communism did not. A problem today is that we choose instant gratification over what is good for us, and capitalism encourages the exploitation of this. This causes problems on many levels, from personal to an inability to face global challenges like climate change. Also, as you point out, the game tends to increase inequality. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. Wars are a separate issue. Apart from the conflicts of interest, men like Putin have convinced me that there really is evil in the world.

@sz_duras I live in a social democracy. It is not perfect, but I think it works reasonably well compared to the alternatives. Communism has faced some challenges. In Russia, they had trouble feeding the population, and in China, it has evolved into some sort of autocratic capitalism. I do agree that the current system, the capitalistic game if you like, is not rigged to solve the problems humanity is facing today. How do we fix it, though?

@sz_duras I will not make excuses for everything the west does. But I believe democracy is worth fighting for. I wish Russians were able to protest against the invasion of Ukraine the way we protest against the war crimes being committed in the Near East

@sz_duras Is it a shocking admission to say that it is in the interest of the west to support democracies against an autocratic predator?

@sezduck @tayfonay I was actually able to find and restore the page of young me from the waybackmachine: https://geocities.rmy.no/ 😂

@RustyBertrand The Victorian Death Chic is a good phrase. It is hard to fully suppress the instinctual aesthetic response to female beauty, though. I like the hourglass figure. Is it wrong?

@tayfonay I was so disappointed when I realized that my page there was not for eternity

It is the combination that horrifies me.

"In her despair she had resorted to desperate measures. She had read philosophy in the original German, and the more she read, the more she was disheartened that so much culture should lead to nothing⁠—nothing. After talking of Herbert Spencer for an entire evening with a very literary transcendental commission-merchant, she could not see that her time had been better employed than when in former days she had passed it in flirting with a very agreeable young stockbroker; indeed, there was an evident proof to the contrary, for the flirtation might lead to something⁠—had, in fact, led to marriage; while the philosophy could lead to nothing, unless it were perhaps to another evening of the same kind" -Henry Adams, *Xdemocracy*

@sz_duras I think this could happen here as well. It sounds to me like it is in a grey zone between what is illegal and what is ethical

@sz_duras By the way, there is another Norwegian TV series from a couple of years back called Exit based on interviews with rich people that looks at their tax evasion and decadent habits. It is well worth seeing if you can find it. It made a stir her. At the moment there is a series called Makta that looks at the power struggle of the Norwegian Labour party in the 70s and 80s. It is more about the dirty side of politics rather than corruption, though