Friday 19 November 1999

Pic of the day: Doc Savage. In Danish.

Today I finally got around to reading most of this old Danish paperback. Well, actually it is American and translated into Danish. I find it just slightly harder to read Danish than English or Norwegian, but it did not hamper my enjoyment in the least. The book is printed in Denmark in 1974, but surely the original (The mystery on the snow) must be much, much older. The fascination with technology as well as with realizing the human potential physically and mentally would place it somewhere before the war, I guess.

Intriguingly, I got some of the same feeling from watching the Civ2 Hoover Dam movie fullscreen. The pride in technology and the pride in human accomplishment, which are both somewhat subdued now as the century ends. A century that has brought a lot of technological progress, but much doubt about human nature.

I read a sort of funny report in my favorite newspaper, "Dagens Næringsliv". It looked at the attitudes of the unemployed in the Nordic countries of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. For those readers not in Northern Europe, it might be interesting to compare to your native country or state.

The Swedes are most concerned about their unemployment. Jobless Swedes were afraid of being regarded as social outcasts, and were willing to take any job, even if it meant moving. (Sweden is these days bouncing back from a bad economic downturn that gave them high unemployment for the first time since the war. Many Swedes even came to Norway to work, but there is now more employment available at home.)

The Norwegians are active on the job market. They aggressively pursue a career, and do not accept a job that would mean a setback. (Norway has low unemployment, and a very high part of the population is in paid work, both men and women. Both the State and private bureaus keep databases of open jobs on the Internet, and you can also submit your resume/CV and see who bites.)

The Finns come across as the most timid. They reacted to unemployment with some degree of apathy, not responding to advertisements and not accepting work that was far away. (Finland has been restructuring after its decades of living in the shadow of Russia. As a member of the EU, Finland has re-oriented its export industry successfully, but during the transition phase had a very high level of unemployment.)

The Danes were the least concerned about unemployment. They did not feel that it was a problem, neither socially nor financially. Basically they went on with their lives until a new job possibly came by. (Denmark has had a constant fairly high rate of unemployment for a long time before the other Nordic countries. It also has by far the most generous monetary compensation for the unemployed. The Danish economy is strong enough to pay for them all, after a great increase in productivity during the latest decade.)

The Nordic countries are fairly sparsely populated, none of them have more people than one of the world's larger cities. We're all fairly rich even by European standards, though not as much as we like to believe. The average BNP per head is about the same in Norway as in the USA, and slightly less in the other countries. (The little edge is due to the oil extraction in the North Sea. Until then, Norway was the little brother, though not dramatically poorer.) However, the use of average income is more representative in the Nordic countries than most elsewhere in the world. All Nordic countries are very homogenous, both financially and culturally. There are small class differences, and no hereditary underclass. (Though some third world immigrants seem to be on the verge of becoming one.)

The Nordic countries also are among the world leaders in all kinds of telecommunication, particularly wireless. People here also own more personal computers and have more Internet access than other European countries, except Switzerland, which is around the same level. However, the national markets are too small to encourage a strong online trade (e-trade). E-trade across the borders is hampered by bureaucracy connected to the sales tax: In Nordic countries, you pay sales tax according to the country you live in, not the one you buy from, when you order goods from abroad. Currently there is an administrative fee here in Norway of kr 80 (ca $10) for every parcel imported, so it's not a great idea to buy a couple of CDs from a neighboring country even if they should be a little bit cheaper there.

All Nordic countries consider themselves the moral guiding star of the world, and superior in most other respects too. And of course we consider our neighboring countries somewhat inferior, and ethnic jokes abound. The same jokes are generally recycled on the other side of the border, only with the other nation's name instead. But it's mostly a friendly banter; the Norwegian in particular are friendly with most, while there is some more scepticism between Swedes and Danes. It is, however, hard to imagine that only a few generations ago we were embroiled in bitter and bloody wars among each other.

Hopefully this peaceful coexistence will be shared by the rest of the world in a future where we all know each other too well to believe the lies and prejudices that make war possible. After all, we are all closely related. When we take our helmets off, we recognize ourselves in every face. I hope that my little diary on the Web can be a small contribution in this direction. (That way at least I have a worthy excuse for my blabbing! :)

Nova Notes is back. One day's absence was enough for me to start praying for poor Al's soul, but not enough to swipe his graphics. The episode has had me thinking, though. I know that if I suddenly stopped updating (with no prior mention), I'd probably be dead or in hospital. However, there is also the possibility that my ISP failed to take uploads. This happened once in the past for a whole weekend. I felt pretty bad about it. If it happens again, I shall try to upload to the other web host. This is currently crosswinds.net, where my archive is. There will be a link from the start page of my archive where the latest entry should be found if I cannot upload to my usual host. If anyone has a better idea, feel free to tell me.

Right now I feel fine except a "lump" in my throat, which I've been swallowing on for the last couple of days. It's not hindering my breath, it's just lying there and feeling strange. If not that, I'd probably find something else, don't you think? I see that I now have a reputation to uphold for medical whining ... duh. I guess we could all have tombstones engraved with "I told you!" if we really wanted to...