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Lol! Of course I wouldn't *expect* it, but it would be great to hear conversations that went based around what sort of Left people are defending themselves from being accused of being.
Replying to @Triquetrea
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I've long since lost hope for that. We have those sorts of discussions in Norway. I have never, ever, seen them carried out abroad.
And the political climate in Norway is also deteriorating.
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Replying to @Triquetrea
Really? That's a shame. It seems to be one of those places seen as a beacon of hope for people who know literally nothing about the political situation there.
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Yeah, well, it's still probably a better and safer place to live than almost any other place on the planet for the not-disgustingly-rich, assuming you don't mind the cold and you don't live in Oslo.
That's not the same as saying it's anywhere close to utopia.
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Replying to @Triquetrea
In spite of everything, I think Britain isn't a terrible place from that point of view, either, for all but a (growing) minority… it could be pretty lovely for everyone, but a lot of people don't want it to be (and I don't just mean that they're not willing to pay the price).
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I speculate that the sheer spitefulness of Anglo culture is an atavism from your imperial days. Confer American attitudes towards the wider world and the resemblance is uncanny.
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Living under a system which crushes and abuses the Other for profit does something to the collective mores. I'm almost 100% sure of that.
It makes people very unseemly, at the individual level.
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I see the same creeping narcissism and apathy in the younger generations in Norway.
It's real moral decay. It's a delicious irony that the conservatives take ownership of the term, when they are its worst purveyors.
Well, it makes perfect sense actually, but y'know what I mean.
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(And no, in fact, me and the wife have occasionally considered moving to the UK. We've got plenty of exit routes if something wouldn't click with the finances.
But she's Polish, so I prevaricate. The racism seems... pretty bad.)
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Replying to @Triquetrea
That's an interesting point to consider… I actually don't know how bad the racism really is… I don't think that there are that many truly hateful racists, but a lot of people are disturbingly desperate to be allowed to be.
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There is also the (really primary) concern that the child education & care options seem both A) byzantine and incomprehensible and B) ludicrously expensive.
Here it's quite laissez faire, whatever the ridiculously conservative dominant public mores might have you think.
And since I earn as much as a Polish programmer working half time from home, it seems less than productive to go to the UK and have a suddenly-about-median income.
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Replying to @Triquetrea
Yeah, housing costs are what makes this place pretty crazy, tbh. I don't think any other single thing marks it out as a poor choice of place to live, especially if you're not intending to ever buy property.
Replying to @Triquetrea
We've been broken down very hardly into family units here. Problems like the cost of childcare could be solved quite easily with a bit of collectivism, but it almost never happens. The education should be a lot better than it is, but it gets more bad press than it deserves.
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*harshly
(This was an active process from Thatcher onwards… I have this whimsical idea that a Corbyn government might reverse the change).
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