Tuukka R

That is definitely how they perceive it, that is true, absolutely!

Yup. And it’s interesting how different this pushback is in Finland when compared to other countries where I’ve complained about corruption!

Or, ro be precise, I’ve been trying to say that even though the corruption here could be much worse, it is a problem thait exists and Finns feel so super uncomfortable when you bring up the subject that they get very defensive, which inhibits their ability to work against corruption in their country.

One way this can be commonly seen is that someone assumes I must be an idiot having such a view and assumes I then don’t understand basics such as “being among the beat doesn’t equal being perfect.” You’ve been assuming I’ve been fighting a windmill while there hasn’t been anyone near the windmill. You’ve heard my sounds, bur somehow mislocated me. And then you’ve spent some time trying to get me away from a windmill without noticing you’re at a wrong place.

Maybe now, knowing that I hadn’t had the misunderstanding you thought I had, go read my comments again and you’ll see a different message in them. Please?

I’m glad you understood that at last.

Also, regarding Finland it’s showing incorrect numbers because our corruption is structured in a a very peculiar manner.

Heh, you’re doing a good job emphasizing what I’m worried about in Finland. Almost anyone you talk to about us not doing enough about corruption, you get a very defensive response. And arguments that include “Finns love to say”, followed by a strawman argument such as your “that we are very corrupt”.

When not being corrupted becomes such an important part of a national identity that suggesting we might be creeping towards more corruption is seen as an act against national cohesion, we are taking a dive into dangerous waters. In some decades we’ll run head-first into a rock wall with this. Corruption exists everywhere and if you ever manage to remove the last bit of corruption, more will simply appear. Once you get complacent and (even just mostly) stop fighting it, it will devour you.

I really would not say we have less corruption here than in at least some other countries.

Practically all our grocery stores belong to only two companies, known as the S-Group and the K-Group(Now Lidl is growing big enough to kind of be a third player, but it doesn’t really have that much effect yet). Those two chains agree about the prices four times per year. That is legal in Finland, and therefore does not appear in statistics on illegal corruption. But it is corruption, even though it’s legal. And of course, continuing on the theme of those two chains: there’s the political system where one of the most efficient ways of getting into communal politics is to be voted into the chair of one regional subdivisions of the S-Group, which is a cooperative company and showing your skills there first. This means that in zoning, the S-Group largely tells the municipalities what to do because such a large share of politicians have connections to it, that a huge swath of people appointed to work in zoning are loyal to that company. That is legal in Finland, and therefore does not appear in statistics on illegal corruption. But it is corruption, even though it’s legal.

And then… Around year 2011 or so it was declared by the Ministry of domestic affairs that because our railway company is an Ltd., the old rule that policemen can use trains for free was considered bribery from that point on, and therefore illegal. I think it was a stupid decision, because policemen using the trains and the conductor knowing where they are is a useful safety feature that can save human lives. But, now that the decision had been made, and everybody working for the police knew it is bribery now, it really was a problem indeed. The policemen knew they are now getting the free rides only because the railway company believes it will gain something from it. And yes, there were investigations into really shady behaviour that never really lead anywhere. The police has been incredibly unable to find clues when it comes to anything the bosses of our railway company do, and nobody can understand why. I saw a few times between 2012 and 2015 how a passenger shows their badge, tells their destination, gets surprised when it turns out that they (gasp!) must buy a ticket! And then they look really embarrassed, because they absolutely knew they were taking a bribe there. And even a sitting place can cost over 100 €, so if you want to go for a holiday to Lapland and back, we’re not talking about pennies…

It was around year 2018 or 2021 or so (I don’t remember precisely if it was a bit before COVID-19 or a bit after it), when the Finnish railway company declared that “the free rides for policemen are no longer allowed”. During that time, about a decade, every single person working for the Finnish police knew about the bribery scheme between our railway company and the police. And nothing. No court process, no investigation. Maybe something happened back those five-ish years ago in the police that caused the railway company, VR, to end the bribery. I don’t know. But still, there were so many years where nothing, NOTHING happened about it. Every single policeman in this country devoid of any corruption whatsoever knew about a bribery scheme and using those free rides – taking a bribe to not see whatever illegal the company might do, or at least not see it very well – was commonplace. I’m not sure if even in Bulgaria or Romania there are bribery cases that everyone among their police forces know about and choose not to act on.

Argh, now the text is getting a bit long. Still, it is really difficult for me to believe that this is really the least corrupt country in the world. I’m quite sure that at least all other Nordic countries are doing better, probably also the Benelux countries and Germany.

But, to finish this: We also know we have no corruption, which is nice because that means we don’t need the heavy anti-corruption structures we still had in the 1980’s. We simply don’t need to make such an effort looking for corruption, because our people doesn’t do it. And of course, since we’re not looking very much for corruption, we also don’t find very much of it. Which proves that there’s basically no corruption, which proves that we don’t really need to waste money trying to uncover it. You wouldn’t spend money for finding unicorns, so why spend money finding other things that also don’t exist? I do agree that many forms of corruption that are common elsewhere don’t exist here. And that’s a good thing. But also, at the same time we have forms of corruption that other countries don’t have. And in international statistics they don’t appear because they are internationally not a relevant phenomenon. What I really don’t like is that this nation thinks it’s free of corruption. Even though our corruption levels are lower than in many other places, corruption is a problem that exists here and our complacency regarding our corruption situation is very dangerous in the longer term. I’ve spend long times in countries with a lot more corruption than Finland, where people also know there is corruption. I find it better for there to be a lot of corruption and people knowing about it than there being relatively little corruption and people assuming it doesn’t exist at all. When people take the existence of corruption into account, the field is leveled to an extent.

(And of course, I have friends here and there who sometimes help me take some shortcuts in my everyday life. Other people have other friends who help them with other shortcuts. But meh, I’m not going to talk more about them, as they are not such a huge thing all in all. This country works so that even if we were to catch the small players, the big ones would be completely unaffected.)

Absolutely! And somehow it’s a part of the same modesty.

Things are what they are. They are not awesome, because there’s always place to make things better. So, if someone says that things are awesome, they are wrong. At the same time, people are constantly trying to make things better and better, and you trust that they are. (Or: at least you trust they are) So, if someone says things are bad, that’s unfair because things are as well as they can be. And yet, they are not awesome, because they can always be better.

(And then I’m trying to avoid not going for a tirade about the surprisingly high level corruption in Finland and how that’s fed by us being so proud of not having almost any corruption at all…)

“Älä valita!” and “Ei pidä turhasta valittaa!” are things you hear a lot more in Finland than in other European countries. In English those would be “Don’t complain” and “Don’t complain if there’s no good reason!”

At least when living in Germany, Ukraine, Spain and the Russia, I heard a lot less of that kind of stuff than what I had gotten used to in Finland. And people also seemed more happy in their everyday lives than what was familiar to me from Finland.

You’ve probably also seen the advertisements by the Helsinki public transportation authority, HSL, telling how we have the best-functioning public transportation in Europe, based on locals in Helsinki giving better ratings for their public transportation than locals in other European cities do. And yet, most of the HSL network is based on bus lines, with only 1½ metro lines and three metro-like local train lines. Anybody who’s been to other European capitals knows that our public transportation is indeed good, but other cities have it a lot better.

If you have 43 units of serotonin per 1 unit of volume in your blood, you’ll say you’re on rung 8 on the ladder of happiness if you’re a Finn, but with the same amount of serotonin in your blood you’ll say you’re on rung 6 or 7 of that same ladder if you’re, say, German. This causes us to score very well in any poll where they ask “how okay are you with how things are going around you?”

A depressed Finn would probably say that “this is the best possible life for me under these circumstances I live within.”

Or, I could phrase the thought this way: “Things are shit, but no can do, so this is the best possible situation currently available for me.”

Okay, thanks for the correction. Then it’s a bit funny the result has ended up the way it is.

Probably the reason is then that we are taught not to complain about what we get. If you are asked whether you are happy with how things are not, you are supposed to assume that things are already done as well as reasonably possible and, therefore, as well as they can reasonably be. Therefore, you are happy with things. Of course, you might be exceptionally depressed, but you will still be happy about your how your country is run, because you know it’s, by defintion, run as well as it can be.

But, maybe I’m still wrong. I now tried finding that one question in their report, but couldn’t find it in a reasonable time. What has the question been?

So, they could put a lollipop-shaped stick into a kinder-egg, to function as a handle? Then the toy could be inside the ball in the end of the handle, so that it wouldn’t actually be inside the food, but a part of the handle, which would be a functional part of the food?

Yeah, people like to mock us about it, but I think it’s a reasonable regulation.

It should apparently be amended, though. There is a known case that it accidentally forbids but should not forbid.

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They didn’t really ask us about our happiness, but rather just analyzed a bunch of facts. It looks like dor them “the ability leas a safe family life” is what is most important for happiness.

But if you.don’t have a family, this place is worse than, well, almost anything in Europe.

We’ll see. Bedouins might be able to survive, indeed.

Though, I’d wish for my children and grandchildren to be among the ones who will keep thriving. It’s not the easiest thing to organize.

I’d love to see us go the way of Neanderthals!

But I don’t think that will happen. I think we’ll go extinct instead.

We survived by reverting to areas that were not covered in ice. The areas under direct influence of the ice age did not remain inhabited. We didn’t really adapt. We just had another place to go. In this case, we don’t.

Depends on what you define as “lasts forever”. We are direct descendants of some kind of a rodent. Yeah, our species has changed “kind of much” since those days, but I wouldn’t worry about that kind of “expiration”. We are some rodents’ grand-grand-grand-…-grandchildren, and I think the rodent would be very much okay with us not looking very squirrellike, if they somehow was to find out they are our ancestor. They’d love us all the same :)

But of course, in our case, it won’t be that evolution changes us into something else. It’s rather, we will just vault 92’ify ourselves.

I know. That’s what I thought I was going to be shown :D

In that case you need a VERY long cable for the device, though, if you ever want to travel anywhere with it!