I don’t remember the comedian, but her bit about Minnesota:
Minnesota was settled by Scandinavians, who left their countries looking for a new home, a better home. And they traveled far and wide and didn’t stop until they found a place as cold and miserable as the one they just left.
It could also be that a lack of getting and smiling at light-hearted jokes is catching up with them.
There was a NYTimes article a couple years ago about really foul licorice, and in particular, how well its consumption correlated with country happiness. “Correlation does not mean causation, but come on, this is totally causation, right?” It was a very silly article, and here it is:
Came to say essentially the same. Canada is a much happier place (though probably not as happy as Finland) for similar reasons- because people still believe in good governance, and the government provides services that help people be happy. You are happier if you don’t have to pay for school. You’re happier if you don’t have to worry about medical bills. It’s not magic.
These things make you more free also. Americans talk a big game about freedom, but they define freedom weirdly. They define it as “the fewest people telling me what to do” rather than “the fewest things impeding your goals” as the rest of the world defines it. I was able to pursue my dream of being a YouTuber because I got a free computer science education and don’t have to find private health insurance. I could not have done the same in the US.
This sounds like a more upbeat version of the Jante Law.
The ten rules state:
You’re not to think you are anything special.
You’re not to think you are as good as we are.
You’re not to think you are smarter than we are.
You’re not to imagine yourself better than we are.
You’re not to think you know more than we do.
You’re not to think you are more important than we are.
You’re not to think you are good at anything.
You’re not to laugh at us.
You’re not to think anyone cares about you.
You’re not to think you can teach us anything.
I waste so much time and energy every year going over medical and dental bills, making sure we aren’t being overcharged, double-billed, and calling the provider and insurance co to argue with them about it. My daughter had someone else call an ambulance for her that she did not ask for. The EMTs checked her vitals (without her consent, BTW) and left. She got a bill ten months later and a nasty message that it was overdue and going to collections for nonpayment and this is the first she’d heard of it.. They attempted to bill our insurance, but they didn’t have all her information right, so insurance denied the claim.
I’m going to cut the loooong story off there, but suffice it to say we paid what insurance allowed and we’re still getting bills from the ambulance company. That’s one of several unnecessary dramas in the last couple of years, and that’s in a normal, healthy family.
It’s the unaccounted-for time and stress in a stupid system that robs Americans of their health and happiness.
Except to Sweden in every way every day…
“If you have joy hide it.” or something like that.
Found a translation:
Song of happiness
The happy man, let him hide all his pleasure,
the rich one, let him cover all his treasure!
Is happy and rich? Then all the bad is gone
and let him enjoy everything alone.Happiness doesn’t like the wicked eye.
Who happy is may he learn to be shy,
and all his life may live in humbleness
and silently enjoy his happiness.
BTW in Finnish that poem is genre neutral as Finnish tends to be.
Yeah, I was going to say - one is a lot happier if one isn’t worrying about being a couple paychecks away from homelessness, worrying about being one serious illness away from bankruptcy… or, hell, worrying that even a minor change of fortunes could leave one unable to live one’s life (for example, being left unable to drive in a country that requires private automobiles to do… anything). Americans often can’t imagine it, so they don’t even think to consider what kind of mental toll living in this system has on their mental energy and health (and it’s demonstrably a significant toll, too).
Our national anthem is Maamme not Finlandia. It’s a old German drinking song.
Oh Our Land Finland Fatherland
Echo Loudly Golden Word
No Valley No Hill
No Water Shore More Dear
Than This Northern Homeland
This Precious Land Of Our Fathers
No Valley No Hill
No Water Shore More Dear
Than This Northern Homeland
This Precious Land Of Our Fathers
One Day From Your Bud
You Will Bloom
From Our Love Shall Rise
Your Hope Glorious Joy
And Once Your Song Fatherland
Higher Still Will Ring
From Our Love Shall Rise
Your Hope Glorious Joy
And Once Your Song Fatherland
Higher Still Will Ring
Well to start, their flag is a big plus. 
Actually…
The US city I live in has at least an order of magnitude more homeless people than the entire country of Finland. In comparison, yeah, they’ve got no homeless population to speak of…
650 humans (I am guessing there are more) is fucking 650 humans. And even down here in the far south of Helsinki it still get’s cold sometimes.
Of course drug deaths are fixing that problem.
And the next cabinet will be a real horror show.
I have a healthy loathing or shame some times hatred towards Finland. But AFAIK communal self-loathing or shame is a very Finnish thing.
Most Americans love our health care system until they have an actual medical problem and have to use it - then the reality sinks in.
Finland’s goverment is doing all it can to bring our health care to the US stadard.
I can feel the neoliberalist slime dripping on my neck.
A late friend was of Swedish Minnesotan stock. When researching her family tree she found an old letter from her ancestors who had just arrived in Minnesota telling the family back home in Skane about the country.
It read simply ‘no stones’.
Their ancestral farm was on glacial outwash and the number of rocks and boulders made ploughing near impossible. In Minnesota, the soil was deep and easy to cultivate.
But after a few generations in Minnesota they had softened enough that they decamped to Southern California.
Land of Fairy Tales that’s about death you know.
