Sweden's Twitter Experiment: Good Idea or Recipe for Disaster?

There's always some person who has to ruin it for everyone. It was a good idea in principle--still is--but this wacko took advantage of it.

This so-called whacko was super naive about her European and cultural histories, not at all uncommon among young Europeans.

It's a good idea, but be careful who you hand it to.

I thought that the Swedes were the epitomy of educated people. Apparently someone deleted World History from the curicullum.

What it shows is the rest of the world is just as bad as they portray the US.

On a whole i think it was an interesting idea but their are always that one person who will ruin it for them all.

You summed it up very well.

why , thank you haha

Exactly how many Swedes do you actually know? Half of my family was from there. They are just like everybody else. Some good, some bad. Some smart and some incredibly ...well, I won't say it. Just because a few elite talk to the media and spread some rediculous fairy tale doesn't mean that we should believe it.

True, but which part gets the public eye does strongly reflect the sensibilities of which traits are valued as virtues, so even with the same distribution of virtue and vice across the population, the fact that noble and sensible people are more prone to garner the attention of the society speaks volumes about what the values of said society are.

And the fact that Americans have the highest rate of charity and sharing wealth and knowledge with the world at large is indicative of a eroded social standard?

Prove that we give the most charity. Even if we give the largest amounts, we have such a large portion of the worlds wealth, that it comes from giving among the smallest portions. Besides, what's indicative of an eroded social standard is who Americans choose to idealize. America doesn't make known a charitable nature. We make known an indulgent nature. We have people who are giving all they have and the people are idolizing the takers rather than the givers. Part of it is the media showing off what will sell rather than what reflects people's values, but even then we as a society tolerate entertainment and news which panders to the lowest common denominator. Then there's the matter that we, the American People as a whole have a far more direct influence on what moves across social media and video sharing sites. We create Youtube, and while good forces like the Vlogbrothers get millions of views, tens of millions of views go to keyboard cat and grossout videos.

Funny thing, I don't idolize anybody. That kind of thing is for teenyboppers and bored housewives. We do have an idiotic media that makes big claims of idol worship, but who in their right mind listens to them?

So you being personally superior to the rest of America to the extent your superior to the status-qua of Sweden makes America superior to Sweden? That's a long, tall leap there.

Is it not apparent to you that America is not in it's right mind? Obviously these shows would not be popular if nobody listened to them. And the media loves it that everyone is "smarter than they are" because that makes them even more susceptible to manipulation. And how do you know for sure you don't idolize or idealize anything or anyone? Everyone looks up to someone, lest they look down on everyone. Few indeed see all as equal, and they have a hard time for it indeed. And many see themselves as having "many equals at the top," which is a sort of elitism, for better or for worse.

Not at all. I just take a realistic approach to the world. You seem more interested in defending your position than in taking a look around at humanity in general. I don't worship at silly national alters. I don't buy into the one people is better than the other way of thinking. I bet I could go to any country on earth and find that most people are just doing their jobs and raising their family and are about as concerned about finding Utopia as I am. It's not on the map and it's not ever going to be.

Which is fine really. Societies are composed of the individuals within them. But things like group think and cultural identity distort that when creating the character of a society. As such just because a society has sounder sensibilities than another society does not mean it's constituent individuals do. Groups with the same prevalence of the same memes and moral sensibilities could end up touting vastly different moral systems. My main point here is, it's not just about who you are personally, it's just as much about who you support, and what you feel society should exalt. And if you answer nothing or nobody, then you have chosen still. I don't honestly feel the Swedes are a superior people to the Americans, but I do feel their society has done better in terms of not pandering mostly to the lowest common denominator. . . Even if it has had some frustrating results for them.

Finding Utopia is hardly my concern. My goal is not to change human nature, but to see society not pander primarily to human nature's baser elements without denying or hyperbolizing them in the process. I'd like the culture to more reflect it's individuals rather than the groupthink of the collective. Not a utopian desire, but I must admit it's a quixotic one.

What fairy tale was that, about the little boy with his finger n the dike?

Wasn't that story set in The Netherlands?

True, nice vehicle for the point, not knowing any Swedish equivelants.

That's Dutch.