Best Countries for Life - European Dominance

[Khain]

Bullshit. There's many aspect that are not taked in consideration.....for example the food, the lifestyle the ''scenario'' and a lot of more things that will let the Scandinavia countries drop a lot of position if taken in consideration. In fact someone have to tell me why the life expectancy is higher in Spain or Italy than Sweden, for example.

Probably because of the weather, Scandinavia is cold and dark for a good part of the year, the Sun brings happiness, life and joy. I know those cold places have high rates of suicide.

[Ghâzh]

The table has a lot of good objective index in it. But in my opinion, it forgets one of the most important "fun".

Fun is a lot less objective and harder to put a number on.

I for one would love to live in Iceland. What do you mean "cold and depressing" weather?

[Slant]

It's not that bad! It's... not...hold me ;-;

I moved from the North Sea to the Baltic Sea.

Uhhh, that's harsh. They're even colder in winter. I feel ya!

[Morgarw]

Probably because of the weather, Scandinavia is cold and dark for a good part of the year, the Sun brings happiness, life and joy. I know those cold places have high rates of suicide.

Yep, this might be a reason. That being said i really don't know why we are talking about those countrie as the ''best ones to live'' whe this is completly un-true and false. they are very, very good in many aspect (such as controlling the Corruption for example), but saying they the best quality of life its quite ridiculus.

[Slant]

Northern Europe is close to the US in general in terms of income and HDI. But Europe as a whole is not. Not even close.

By that logic, the southern states in the US are hardly close to northern Europe either... wanna call it even and say on average they're pretty close? Good, glad we agree then.

[Jaylock]

Can confirm, this is definitely from Finland.

I still don't get why sites publish these kinds of rankings because they don't serve any purpose in my opinion and their sources are highly questionable.

Why are they all spread apart like that? Im not familiar with Finland culture, can someone enlighten me?

[Morgarw]

Fun is a lot less objective and harder to put a number on.

I for one would love to live in Iceland. What do you mean "cold and depressing" weather?

Maybe he is trying to explain the reason why you're under Italy or Spain in life expentancy, the cold might be one of the problem, maybe not for you.

[Slant]

Look at immigration problem, look at terrorist attacks. Numbers of muslims gonna only increase and it means that our way of life, our values are in danger. Then there is the problem of things like Brexit, EU gonna collapse, slowly but collapse. And since EU will be gone, it's gonna be all for themselves amongst european countries. Perfect environment for culture clash.

Who would say 5-10 years ago that it would be a serious life threat travelling to Paris or Brussels. Times change.

Hum, either you have the attention span of a chipmunk (that is, roughly one year) or you're really, really, really fucking young. Immigration has always been a topic in Europe on and off, Europe has always sufferd some form of terrorism in the recent 70 years. This includes my personal top 3 of European terrorism: the IRA, ETA, RAF. Some of which have been around longer than the Taliban and some of which have cost more lives than IS in Europe.

But hey, let's just look at last year and FREAK THE FUCK OUT!, because we've never seen terror before.

[ashblond]

Fun is a lot less objective and harder to put a number on.

I for one would love to live in Iceland. What do you mean "cold and depressing" weather?

I mean Iceland is colder than most of countries in the world. It has long, cold and dark winter with storm and wind.

I am sure there are people who likes this kind of climate, but most people will find it depressing and prefer warm, sunny weather.

[Slant]

As someone who lives in 3rd world country and is considering migrating, the only place on Europe that I would love to go is Switzerland, I would rather go to USA or Canada instead of any other European country.

Haha, why's that? You do realise Switzerland is the most xenophobic of us all, don't you? I mean, shit.. they're so xenophobic, they don't even want to have anything to do with us, let alone third world countries. Good luck trying to immigrate there.

[Krille]

I mean Iceland is colder than most of countries in the world. It has long, cold and dark winter with storm and wind.

I am sure there are people who likes this kind of climate, but most people will find it depressing and prefer warm, sunny weather.

The trade-off is the summers when the sun goes down for 1 hour or less and then comes back up. "Winter is coming" though, really dark times in Scandinavia, at least in their northern parts. During deep winter i've got 4-5 hours of daylight each day and i live in the middle of Sweden. Can't imagine living in the far north.

[Slant]

Really? So you'd count the ancient Rome as a part of Europe just because it's on the same continent? It's shady enough that you count the current European Union as a one entity when it has such a variety and disparity between the different countries.

Like it or not, the EU is an entity legally recognised by virtually any other entity that needs to recognise entities. The UN acknowledges the EU, most countries of the world acknowledge its existance and if you want to trade with countries in the EU, you are going to follow EU rules. You can personally ignore the EU as much as you like, but that won't change the fact that half of the laws that you come in contact with on a daily basis (without knowing) are touched by the EU in one form or another.

(Btw, that "variety and disparity between the different countries [parties]" is called democracy. Your country has it too in its parliament, you wouldn't want us to stop recognising Finland as an entity, do you?

[Morgarw]

If i write my opinion on the Swiss i will get banned. What i can say is that their contribute to the european history is lesser than zero, but they still think they are cool just because of the money. Sad people.

[Macaquerie]

Haha, why's that? You do realise Switzerland is the most xenophobic of us all, don't you? I mean, shit.. they're so xenophobic, they don't even want to have anything to do with us, let alone third world countries. Good luck trying to immigrate there.

I guess it all depends on whether these quality of life lists are meant to be taken as a recommendation of the best places to move or not. Not to say that there isn't a xenophobic streak in American culture as well, but I feel like regardless of who you are or where you come from you'd find a warmer welcome there than in practically any European country, and that has to count for something, eh?

[Khain]

Yep, this might be a reason. That being said i really don't know why we are talking about those countrie as the ''best ones to live'' whe this is completly un-true and false. they are very, very good in many aspect (such as controlling the Corruption for example), but saying they the best quality of life its quite ridiculus.

Yes, they compare America 300m people with Denmark 5m and average things, of course they'll come up with a better "quality of life" standards in like education and health, but you forget that they pay stupidly high taxes for those benefits.

[Deleted]

I'd take China over Albania any day. The only advantage Albania has over China is that it's not a polluted wasteland, but even putting that in the equation, I imagine the quality of life in China trumps Albania. Same case with plenty of other european countries, Ukraine, Turkey, Serbia, Romania, possibly the baltic states as well. Let's be honest, an educated foreigner can make a much better life in China than in any of these poor european countries.

I should probably clarify that by China I mean chinese medium+ sized cities, since the countryside in China is known to be third world - as it always was and likely always will be, since it's a mentality issue.

I am laughing.

- - - Updated - - -

cowardly are not the right word. naive...idiotic...are a better fits. attitudes are changing though.. atleast in Norway and denmark

Refusing to say things as they are (hint: being politically correct) makes you a coward. Idiotic and naive are true, too.

[Slant]

Well it's not a huge problem but I have two reasons why it bothers me. 1.) There was a distinct space between the Roman Empire, it's fall and the reforming and growth of the modern day Europe. 2.) No one called the ancient Greek's or Roman's as "Europeans". The term is relatively modern as it's used today.

Edit: One more point. We have to draw the line somewhere. Would you be open to calling the northern America European civilization as well? The Greek's weren't originally from Greece (Europe) either, they have roots that go further back as well.

Edit 2: One more thing.. Whilst you can see the similarities between the culture in the ancient Rome, there's also a huge differences. And that kind of leads to the bigger elephant in the room, what is modern European culture? There's such a variety between northern and southern, eastern and western parts that you can hardly even put them under one label.

8th century and beyond, whenever the Christian part of Europe fought against Muslim invasions. So "modern" is relative. Greeks first mentioned Europa, Romans spread it around after their Occident-Orient distinction of the two empires fell apart with the empire. It's not a modern invention, the term has been thrown around for a long, long time.

The northern America was based of Europen civilisation, nobody, not even the Americans themselves will deny that. They've since split and done their own kind of thing, so they're hardly "European" at this stage. I think 1776 is a pretty good date where you can make the cut and say before that they've been basically British, afterwards they were pretty much American.

And if you don't know what modern European culture is... I suggest you open your eyes. Listen to some french rap, go to Italy for some pasta, watch a classical concert at the Salzburg classical festival, go watch a football game in Manchester, meet some hookers in the Netherlands and finally get fucking wasted on beer in Bavaria... If you can't see modern European culture, it's because you don't want to see it, because that would fuck your argument.

[Krille]

8th century and beyond, whenever the Christian part of Europe fought against Muslim invasions. So "modern" is relative. Greeks first mentioned Europa, Romans spread it around after their Occident-Orient distinction of the two empires fell apart with the empire. It's not a modern invention, the term has been thrown around for a long, long time.

The northern America was based of Europen civilisation, nobody, not even the Americans themselves will deny that. They've since split and done their own kind of thing, so they're hardly "European" at this stage. I think 1776 is a pretty good date where you can make the cut and say before that they've been basically British, afterwards they were pretty much American.

And if you don't know what modern European culture is... I suggest you open your eyes. Listen to some french rap, go to Italy for some pasta, watch a classical concert at the Salzburg classical festival, go watch a football game in Manchester, meet some hookers in the Netherlands and finally get fucking wasted on beer in Bavaria... If you can't see modern European culture, it's because you don't want to see it, because that would fuck your argument.

You forgot engaging in a political discussion in Sweden....

[Deleted]

I mean Iceland is colder than most of countries in the world. It has long, cold and dark winter with storm and wind.

I am sure there are people who likes this kind of climate, but most people will find it depressing and prefer warm, sunny weather.

If you are a native in those lands, you are unlikely to find them depressing. For instance, in Denmark there is this concept called "hygge", best translated as "coziness" in English. Usually, "hygge" is best when there's a cold, dark atmosphere, such as during Christmas, and people are happily inside where there's warmth, candles, and just a lovely, cozy environment where they can be in company together.

http://cphblonde.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/6.jpg

So, they enjoy summer, but also know how to enjoy the dark winter that comes. That's wonderful. I personally also love grey weather. All things equal, I prefer to live in Denmark over my homeland Bosnia because Denmark has milder spring and summer.

[Slant]

No I still disagree with your classification of ancient Rome as European culture.

Uh-huh... that's a tough argument to make once you realise that there are modern European countries basing some entire fields of law on ancient roman legal principles. Not to mention architecture, arts, language...

- - - Updated - - -

From my point of view: Sweden, Germany and UK.

Wrong. I won't even bother to make an argument here, since if you believe that bullshit, any argument is wasted on you.

- - - Updated - - -

Scotland police threatened citizens with "visits" if they "offend" people online. There's an easy example from recent news.

So you mean when you violate laws about insulting other people, you get into trouble with authorities? How's that violating free speech? Wait, do you actually think free speech should include EVERYTHING?

Want me to test that concept for you? Throw me a PM and I'll show you free speech of the kind you'd like to see free.