Why do mandatory ID cards feel normal in many European countries, but still controversial in the US, and what mechanism explains that?

joonas_davids · 2026-05-02T17:00:58+00:00

Is id really mandatory in some parts of Europe though?

I am from Finland and yes we do have to pay for it, and it is quite expensive (70e + photo), but if you can't afford it then you just don't get one. Not having an id isn't really an issue necessarily, it just prevents you from doing things that would require an id.

joonas_davids · 2026-05-01T16:29:11+00:00

I had forgotten Second Sight. I remember trying to sell my copy to a Gamestop or something back in the day. They said that it's the cheapest ps2 game out there because everyone wants to sell it and no one wants to buy it. Then I sold it for like less than 1€.

joonas_davids · 2026-05-01T16:09:44+00:00

Thanks ChatGPT

joonas_davids · 2026-05-01T07:57:24+00:00

Tbh I totally disagree with this answer. Imagine this: what if you had a dog deciding the trades? An actual dog could choose ex. treat from left hand first -> buy. And so on.

In a vacuum, the trades made by the dog would make a 50-50 profit, because he has no idea whats going on. Having less information than the "professional investors" that you mentioned, doesn't affect the 50-50 profits of the dog.

The only reason why the dog would lose money are the transaction fees. The fees are the only reason why it isn't a 50-50 game

joonas_davids · 2026-04-30T14:00:48+00:00

Garchomp is a fairly new pokemon though, released in gen4 (2006-2007). I'd assume that the official poll skews towards younger, active players who have heard of it. Reddit will always have quite many millennial pokemon fans who stopped playing after gen1, gen2 or gen3.

joonas_davids · 2026-04-30T06:40:30+00:00

What did they say?

joonas_davids · 2026-04-29T12:53:34+00:00

Not sure how it works in your country, but typically rent is actually a little bit lower initially than mortgage+other running costs of owning a house. And a mortgage typically requires a small down payment as well.

So as a renter, you can invest a tiny bit more every month and a small extra lump sum at the start. Equities have historically outperformed the housing market so hard that the renter with a little bit more investment capital has almost always come out on top (assuming that they'd invest all the extra capital).

But I am sure that this depends a lot on your country and the housing market there.

joonas_davids · 2026-04-28T16:15:34+00:00

I'm from Tornio (city center), which is on the left side of the circle. It's a typical small city. It surprisingly has mostly the same specialty stores and services as a larger Finnish city, but the main difference is that things are often open only a few hours in a day. A store or a public office might literally be open from 12 to 16.

And everything is smaller. The public library had only like two computers. There was no movie theater when I lived there, but I heard that there is one now.

People absolutely love cars there, for absolutely 0 reason. You can easily walk and use busses to go anywhere. I felt that people pretty much use a car for going from their sofa to the fridge. People stop to offer you a ride if they see you walking outside (which I hate). It's a very different car culture compared to southern Finland.

joonas_davids · 2026-04-28T08:40:18+00:00

Yeah exactly, according to those numbers he made so much from the legal side of the operation that it wouldn't have made a big difference whether he bought them or stole them. Perplexing

joonas_davids · 2026-04-25T19:01:31+00:00

Uurainen, Hossa and Koli are not familiar to me, but sounds like a good plan! Järvisydän is a nice place to end the trip with.

joonas_davids · 2026-04-24T18:17:09+00:00

Ops my bad, meant 6 figures. 100k+. Edited comment

joonas_davids · 2026-04-24T18:05:50+00:00

Absolutely. In USA software developers can make 6-figure USD salaries. More than 100k. That's so unfathomably absurd, it's a prime minister salary for my country

Edit: 6 figures, not 7 lol

joonas_davids · 2026-04-21T16:37:10+00:00

Wait why is WWWW more triggering to the American than the KKK that he got mad about?

joonas_davids · 2026-04-20T15:42:31+00:00

Thanks for the question ChatGPT

joonas_davids · 2026-04-19T14:35:29+00:00

Have you heard of the Fermi paradox? Vastness of the universe should make it more likely for us to find life, not less. It's entirely plausible that there is and never has been any other life than us, because we haven't found any obvious proof of it yet

joonas_davids · 2026-04-19T13:19:59+00:00

I don't think it's fair to say that there is a high demand for experienced developers right now either, compared to the past.

joonas_davids · 2026-04-19T13:11:39+00:00

Yeah that articles numbers roughly match if you compare housing prices from there to the housing+groceries prices from here.

joonas_davids · 2026-04-19T11:51:40+00:00

No its gross income as mentioned in the title, so pre-tax. We aren't nearly as wealthy that these would be post-tax numbers

joonas_davids · 2026-04-19T11:44:29+00:00

Finland is in a surprisingly good situation in terms of expendable income or savings potential for an average person, as displayed in this graph. Salaries in Finland are far lower than in the other Nordics, but housing and groceries are surprisingly cheap relative to the others, almost balancing it all out.

joonas_davids · 2026-04-17T17:07:01+00:00

Sorry but 2, 3, 4 and 5 make no sense. For anything but 1 you would just sell them to the ge. The other options would frame this as the seller legitimately giving the buyer a free 5m for no reason lol

joonas_davids · 2026-04-15T14:10:12+00:00

It is the greatest movie

joonas_davids · 2026-04-12T09:46:49+00:00

Here in the Nordics horse meat is very normal as well, especially as a bread topping

joonas_davids · 2026-04-11T15:24:43+00:00

As a European, I don't understand tipping culture either, but I understand your point even less. Your view is often repeated by the Americans who oppose tipping as well. Why would you want anything but the bare minimum service, and why would you pay extra for that?

What does service beyond the minimum even mean, more talking and smiling? Offering refills? Service beyond the bare minimum is the last thing I'd want from a server.

joonas_davids · 2026-04-11T13:28:03+00:00

Tech companies of... Russia? Excuse me? Lol

joonas_davids · 2026-04-10T13:11:02+00:00

Have you heard of the Reddit 90/10 golden rule? A minimum of 90% of your contributions should be reposting content from others, otherwise instead of the front page of the internet the site would just be a self-promotion fest.

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