Exactly this: I remember meeting some Russians that had moved to Belgium a few years ago, and we got to talking about this topic. These were well educated young people, yet they told me the thing that surprised them the most when moving to Belgium was that people actually cared about elections, and that elections actually mattered. They had been completely convinced that elections in the west were just like the “elections” they were used to from Russia.

I don’t see Russia, or other authoritarian countries mentioned in the thread I’m responding to. This is about conscription in a democratic country where only adults are conscripted.

The step from “Denmark” to “Corrupted rulers” went a bit fast there.

You are aware that Denmark allows political parties and movements to oppose conscription, and that anyone strongly opposed can emigrate and denounce their Danish citizenship? Nobody is preventing anyone from doing those things. If you don’t do them, you are implicitly accepting the social contract in the country.

Ever heard of “solidarity”? You can’t just live safe while your countrymen risk their lives to defend you. If you don’t like it, you have plenty of time to emigrate in peacetime.

If shit hits the fan, it’s too late. YOU made the choice to stay in a country where you were obligated to defend you neighbour if called upon. You can’t reap the benefits of collective protection and responsibility and then run off when it’s time to step up and do the dirty work.

I strongly disagree. This isn’t about “depriving people of their freedom” this is about the fact that everyone who lives in a free country, which will support them and give them benefits for life, has a responsibility and a duty to answer when called upon.

Nobody can expect others to defend them if they won’t do the same. An integral part of the social contract in countries with conscription is that everyone accepts that duty to answer when called upon, and to defend their countrymen when necessary.

Anyone who doesn’t like it is free to start a political movement to abolish it. I have yet to see such a movement in any of the Nordic countries.

It’s been a discussion in Norway for a long time. Particularly interesting to me is the fact that high-school students in Norway typically appear to be equal to or above their peers, while the top university students seem to be world class, so somehow they seem to catch up in later studies.

I see your point, but how about a counter-point: Tesla didn’t originally choose the Swedish plant out of the goodness of their heart. They chose it because it made the most economic sense. If they choose a manufacturer somewhere else, they’re going to have to eat the long term costs associated with logistics, tolls, etc. that come along with importing those profiles from the US, China, or somewhere else. That makes them less competitive.

At the same time, the Swedish plant has available capacity, that they are burning to use for something, and which Teslas competitors may be happy to pick up. Choosing away the best economic option out of principle (which it looks like Tesla will be doing) is rarely a good business decision.

The thing is this:

1. The unions see a healthy environment and healthy cooperation with businesses as far more valuable than a few individual jobs at an individual plant. If your strike burns the factory to the ground, you lose jobs, the point is that not all conditions are worth working under.

2. maybe even more importantly: Tesla will need to get their aluminium profiles from somewhere, so while that specific plant may lose a contract, some other plant will pick it up, and the jobs will be there instead. Companies lose contracts all the time, for all kinds of reasons, losing one over workers rights sounds like one of the better options.

Of course, it’s sad for the individuals that see consequences, but sad in the sense that this should never have happened, and would never had happened if Tesla wasn’t so dense.

I’m not getting over how beautiful it is to see how powerful unions can be when they really need to. I’ve read articles with union leaders explicitly saying that they can and will tighten the screw on Tesla until they fold. I believe a major aluminium extrusion plant recently decided to stop production of profiles for Tesla.

Recently in Norway, one of the major unions were asked if they were going to stop unloading teslas at Norwegian harbours, and simply said “we’re talking to our Swedish counterparts, they’ll let us know if they need us. If Tesla tries to import vehicles to Sweden via Norwegian harbours, which they are not currently, we won’t touch the cars.”

I can imagine this spreading if Tesla doesn’t fold, and it would be a sight to see a bunch of international Scandinavian / European Union organisations collectively decide to fuck up Tesla.

I just love the feeling of union collectives banding together. Reminds me of a situation in Norway a couple years back where doctors wanted to strike: Now they’re essential workers, and can legally be prevented from striking by the government, so the union collective said “lol get fucked” and put a shitload of engineers from the offshore industry on strike instead. The doctors pretty quickly got what they wanted, and everybody got to see why we have to work together across sectors.

You act like there would be less of a reaction if people ripped up, walked on, or in other ways desecrated the Quran. This isn’t about book burning, this is about a group of people not tolerating that on of their symbols is desecrated.

Imagine if we prosecuted people for burning flags or signs with slogans… but maybe you think that should be illegal as well?

This gives me a bit more faith in the Norwegian government, I knew we were sending a bit, but we’re almost best in class by gdp :D

Incitement is illegal, yes, because it indirectly infringes on others safety and freedom. By encouraging violence against a group of people, that group is put in danger.

Luckily, there is a justice system that can apply nuance to each case, so that people can be convicted of inciting violence even though the do not explicitly threaten anyone. A “thinly veiled threat” or implications can be enough.

My opinion is that we have robust laws in place to prevent threats, incitement of violence, etc. adding blasphemy laws restricts freedom of expression without adding any protection of value.

The significant difference is that public nakedness (which isn’t specifically illegal in most European countries) and shitting on the curb have concrete consequences for others. The laws are there to protect others from unwanted sexual attention (exhibitionism) and literal disease (shit on the street).

The limit for the freedoms of one person should be the safety and freedom of others. Burning books does not infringe on other’s safety or freedom.

Finally: it’s stupidly easy to circumvent this. The same provocative assholes that are burning Qurans now, will just shift to other forms of desecration or other ways of offending Muslims. If the goal is to prevent protests that provoke authoritarian or extremistic regimes, you’re just going to have to make that the law, because laws like this will just make people protest in another, equally provoking way.

Thats a very thin defence. The point is that private citizens should be allowed to burn their own belongings as a form of protest/expression. That’s effectively been banned now.

The only thing that bothered me is that there is still a net increase in electricity produced using gas :/

I think a central point you’re overlooking is that we have to be able to assess people along the way. Once you get to a certain point in your education you should be able to solve problems that an AI can’t. However, before you get there, we need some way to assess you in solving problems that an AI currently can. That doesn’t mean that what you are assessed on is obsolete. We are testing to see if you have acquired the prerequisites for learning to do the things an AI can’t do.

Norway has been pushing digital exams for quite a few years, to the point where high school exams went to shit for lots of people this year because the system went down and they had no backup (who woulda thought?). In at least some universities most of or all exams have been digital for a couple years.

I think this is largely a bad idea, especially on engineering exams, or any exam where you need to draw/sketch or write equations. For purely textual exams, it’s fine. This has also lead to much more multiple-choice or otherwise automatically corrected questions, which the universities explicitly state is a way of cutting costs. I think that’s terrible, nothing at university level should be reduced to a multiple choice question. They should be forbidden.

A couple issues have been mentioned, but what hasn’t been mentioned is that hydrogen is difficult to store, because the molecules are small enough do migrate through most containers and escape. If your container is made of metal, you also get something called hydrogen embrittlement which breaks your container over time.

The thing with trains is twofold: First of all, it’s relatively easy to ensure that a train is more or less always hooked up to the grid (lines over the tracks). That means it can charge almost constantly, and doesn’t need a large battery.

The second thing is that the energy required to run a train scales very slowly with mass, because there is almost no rolling resistance (steel wheels on steel tracks have that advantage). That means you can increase the base weight of the train a bit without worrying about increased energy consumption.

Hydrogen can compete in applications where you need large amounts of energy, that needs to be transported, and where you don’t have regular access to the grid. Prime examples could be long-distance shipping, flight, and long-distance trucking through areas with little or no electric infrastructure (e.g. rural Australia).