Mencius Moldbugman

This cultural attitude is called Jante's Law and is endemic in Scandinavia. @rooshv once wrote extensively about it. Here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante … Here are some examples of how that plays out:

1. Nearly every request made to someone in customer service is met with "do it yourself". In my Stockholm hotel this reached ridiculous levels.

They messed up our booking and had us in for 3 extra nights than we were actually there. Rather than actually address it themselves, they told us to our face to go onto their website and change the booking ourselves manually.

They refused to do it even though they were sat on the reception desk 2 inches from my face with the booking system open right in front of them. When we asked if we could use their PC to change the booking, they said no and highlighted that wifi cost $4 a day.

2. In the same hotel, I left something in the bar. I went to reception to ask if the cleaner had picked it up or if anybody had handed it in; the receptionist told me "You can go back to the bar and look yourself. Or you can call the cleaner and ask her if she has it!”

3. I know people will question this but it is true. In some hotels in Sweden, the hotel tells you to put the bedsheets over your bed/duvet/pillows yourself each day. They don’t do it for you. Interesting fact: all bedsheets in Sweden are white with zero exception.

4. At check-in at Stockholm Airport, the check-in woman had a rant at me for having the audacity to ask for help checking in - and by "help" I simply mean "doing her job and checking us in".

She kept saying that I should pay to go online, check in manually, weigh the bags myself, print out the tags and then deposit them at a drop off. Now, she had the ability to check me in, she just didn't want to do it. She actually said "Why should I do something that you can do?”

Coming from Asia (though I admit it isn’t much different in the rest of Europe) there is absolutely NOTHING to do after 5pm which is when EVERYTHING closes. These lazy socialist opening hours permanate all of Sweden.

The only thing open late are bars: that’s if you don’t mind spending the price of a New York condo on a pint of beer. Even in the fucking airport there is nothing open in the evening. Odin help you if you are flying a red-eye flight.

Ok - that’s the basic stuff about Sweden out of the way. However, this all pales into insignificance when you stay there for an extended period and are eventually forced to deal with the absolute worst and vile feature that embodies everything that is wrong with Sweden...

... I’m talking about washing machines. That’s right. Washing machines.

It’s not well known outside of Sweden but their washing machine culture epitomises everything wrong with that society. A worthier writer than me - perhaps a Scandinavian Houellebecq - needs to write a drama based around Swedish washing machine practice.

It’s called the Tvättstuga (“Laundry Room”). In Socialist Scandinavia, it is unseemly to have something as bourgeoise as your own personal washing machine. Stated simply, it’s communal laundry facilities in apartment blocks.

Most Swedes live in Soviet style concrete blocks and the individual apartments are not even set up to allow the installation of individual washing machines. Instead, each complex has a designated washing room which has washing machines and drying facilities.

To use the washing machine, you have to sign up for a 1 to 2 hour slot which typically involves a 1/2 week waiting time. So you can only do your washing during these pre-arranged appointments. Obviously competition for the top washing spots at the weekend is fierce.

People often have to take days off work in order to do their washing because they have not been able to do their washing in the evening or at weekends for months - months! - on end. Some people resort to booking slots at 3am and setting their alarms to wake up on week nights.

You have to PHYSICALLY be in the room to do your wash otherwise the sensor turns everything off. People have huge arguments when others are late for their slot/do too much washing/don't clean the washing machine afterwards (you’re obliged to clean the machine fully after use).

The constant battle for slots actually dictates peoples lives and schedules. Can you imagine living under such a regime? You'd be considered a dangerous free-thinking maverick if you bought your own machine or attempted hand-washing. You would probably be shot.

With all the - ahem - recent added diversity into Sweden, you can just imagine the fun this creates when you have such a system and one adds some free-thinking immigrants to the usual mix of Swedish NPC clothes-washing automatons.

When I’ve told people about the Stalinist clothes washing machine that exists in Sweden, I’m normally met with disbelief. Let me share the statements of others as accompanying proof: http://welcometosweden.blogspot.com/2014/10/moving-to-sweden-laundry-room.html?m=1 …

"I jumped out of bed ready to tackle the day. And by tackle the day, I mean do my laundry. I had scheduled a laundry time for 7am. That’s a silly time to do laundry, I know, but I had zero clean pairs of underwear and zero clean pairs of socks. Don’t judge me."

My favourite: an entire website devoted to passive-aggressive angry notes left in Swedish laundry rooms: http://www.argalappen.se/tvattstugelappar/ …

After all that hell involved in washing your clothes, you probably wish to go out, but some alcohol, and have a nice drink to relieve the stress, right? Easy, right? No. Fuck you. This is Sweden.

Alcohol in Sweden is purchased at a brutalist dystopian store that seems like it was taken from Yevgeny Zamyatin’s “We”. It’s a government monopoly called “System Bolaget” or "The System" for short. A name straight from a Soviet dystopian novel for sure.

Sweden’s nanny state doesn't think that it’s population can handle the normal sale of alcohol. Presumably because due to the darkness and everything closing at 5pm the Swedes would just spend their evenings drinking themselves to death with lack of anything else to do.

The government strictly regulates the sale of alcohol. All alcohol, with the exception of light beers with an alcohol content of less than 3.5%, can only be sold in one of the state sponsored off licenses delightfully known as The System.

The System is the alcohol store equivalent of America’s DMV. These shops make it as difficult as possible to purchase alcohol - a deliberate government policy (you can look all this up). Opening hours are 11am till 4pm and they don't even open on a Sunday.