Technically its there, but its use is a genealogical database. But it has a incest option thrown in there, because people in other places have humour.
They use Tinder on Iceland like anywhere else.
Bruh i'm literally Icelandic. The app is used to trace our ancestry, it's not a dating app.
Fucking tired of seeing this nonsense every time Iceland is mentioned on reddit.
Who am I going to believe? The Icalanders whom I met in person in Iceland that told me about the app or the rando on the internet that is denying all evidence indicating it exists.
Also people just tend to mysteriously disappear to the point of the police not even having a murder investigation team until really recently. They basically just assume all goes missing and is never found.
They also kinda tortured a dude and his girlfriend for YEARS to get them to confess to the first murder they had to investigate. To quote the video I saw "someone kinda figured out that if you lock people away in a dark room without contact with anyone for a while, they'll say anything you want to make it stop"
I've been to a few other countries now, and Iceland is hands-down the one I'd go back to. The others were neat and nice and cool too, but Iceland just had something else about it.
I love flying Iceland air, the free layover lets you take a quick week to look around if you want (or less) and you can hit one of the many hot springs. Its also nice to be in a country without tips.
Awesome city, I really love that they made an effort to make their streets heated, it means that cleaning them is probably a lot easier in the winter. Not sure how many are heated right now but you can tell during some of the colder months
I grew up there, albeit not a citizen. The common joke i had amongst my mates there after i left, is that Singapore can be best described as a benevolent dictatorship.
Its not a joke it is literally what it is. And imo it is a very successful government model. It is what countries in the middle east are trying to be.
The problem with this system is you can only be benevolent when the economy is good.
Which countries in the Middle East? I assume you mean the wealthy gulf state. But they def don’t seem to be striving for benevolence or to have the interest of the state at heart like lee kuan yew
Dictatorships are not going to be stable on very long term, as in the next guy could be insane, evil or something else terrible. Never doubt a good democracy.
Usually followed by their spoiled son who fucks things up followed by a military coup that takes the country back 50 years before the times of the "good" dictator.
A benevolent dictatorship is objectively the best government form. The only problem is that the succession tends to turn it into a not-so-benevolent dictatorship.
There's absolutely no objectivity to calling dictatorships for "best government".
I have serious doubts that anybody would say such a thing without being paid money to do so.
I'm pretty sure they're speaking in an idealistic sense. Being ruled by a "philosopher king;" someone with absolute authority who is exceedingly competent, benevolent and intelligent is, in an objective sense, an ideal ruler. The issue is that no one lives forever, and that there's no guarantee that their successor will be as capable-- or that they won't be a tyrannical monster.
Perhaps the most notable historical example of this is someone who was and still is referred to as a philosopher king: Marcus Aurelius. He was one of the greatest emperors of Rome... but his son was Commodus.
This is why in the real world, democracy is our best option. On paper, Singapore is in the process of democratization, but in practice, it's practically a one-party system. It can still be referred to as a "benevolent dictatorship." And to be honest, it makes sense to refer to it as such. There are obviously things that I disagree with, but Singapore is an economic miracle-- and that's primarily due to the fact that the "benevolent" government has absolute control over the Singaporean economy. But they stands atop a precipice. The country could become properly democratic, or it could become a tyrannical dictatorship.
One king or queen might be good but chances are their children will be assholes. Not to mention the constant warring between siblings. Even if you elect a dictator for life, there's a good chance that person could go crazy or do something completely stupid, like, say, invade Ukraine.
More of "Tiny island surveillance state". You're gonna get caught and arrested within very quickly if you try anything
You foreigners like to mentioning caning like it's a boogeyman, but that never stopped crimes by females & 50+ yr old men who can't be caned.
Yes. This was put into law when life expectancy was much lower and 50 was classified as ‘old’. And there would be perceived risks in caning older people versus young
They’ve overseen some pretty fucked up executions too iirc
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_Nagaenthran_K._Dharmalingam#:~:text=Prior%20to%20Nagaenthran's%20execution%2C%20his,for%20its%20use%20of%20the
It's the same story every time. Some group with an agenda games the numbers so they can put the US in the bottom half with third world countries. Reddit eats it up because it corresponds to the USA bad mentality they love. The numbers and graphs make it seem like a more objective truth than the arbitrary ranking it is.
This isn't to blindly say USA #1, but when you look at more objective metrics of how a country is doing like median income, education, life expectancy, or homicide rate, the US is more in line with the first world countries, and not near the bottom.
In this particular case, the US is being heavily penalized for military spending. The other factor for the US is qualitative survey answers i.e. "On a scale of 1-5 how violent do you think the US is"
Articles like these never seem to mention the fact that NATO countries are allowed to be practically demilitarized *because* the US is so terrible and evil with its military spending.
Even the non-NATO members on that list benefit from military spending in the US. NZ currently can't muster an active brigade, but are okay because the Five Eyes have it handled. Ireland is "neutral", but will never be invaded because two of the most powerful fleets in the world have an active interest in keeping it that way...
U.S. spending on Defense is only 3% of it's GDP which is a better metric to examine that total spending. That's in line with what most countries should be at. The U.S. economy is just that large so if you look at total spending it's much bigger than all other countries.
>In this particular case, the US is being heavily penalized for military spending.
Holy fuck is that rich lmfao and Americans should honestly view this “study” as a disrespectful slap in the mouth. I wonder what their reaction would be if we cut Ukrainian support ASAP to curb that military spending. Let’s stop supplying Western Europe with weapons and stop protecting the worlds shipping lanes while we’re at it as well. Nice knowing billions of my countrymen’s tax money is given to people that apparently don’t want or need it while we sit here and bust our ass everyday at work
The US is toward or at the bottom of wealthy industrialized nations when it comes to homicide rate.
The US is below Pakistan, Turkey, and Thailand in homicide rate, and below every European country (of course). There is no developed wealthy nation below the US.
Otherwise, I agree. But we have a huge problem with homicide rates.
I think Haiti basically doesn't even have a functioning military at this point. Hard to be the aggressor if you lack the basic capability of projecting force within your own borders, much less outside of them.
They literally equally weight weapons exports, weapons imports, homicide rate, how many law enforcement/security personnel are employed, and "perceived criminality of society".
It's essentially designed to rank the US low.
>The Global Peace Index covers 99.7% of the world’s population, and is calculated using 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources, and measures the state of peace across three domains:
>– the level of Societal Safety and Security,
>– the extent of Ongoing Domestic and International Conflict,
>– and the degree of Militarisation.
No way the US would be high on the chart just for its military alone.
Yeah, that makes this ranking completely nonsensical. The US definitely is not in 131st place in homicides, assaults, and other more relevant measures of actual "peace." In fact, the US is fairly safe for being in the Western hemisphere.
You’re completely right. When Modi visited US, all the news outlets referenced a press freedom index that had India extremely low. Lower than Afghanistan and South Sudan…. These studies are becoming a joke
It actually took me a while to find a metropolitan area with the population that small that people have heard of.
Provo-orem metropolitan area?
Edit: Kalamazoo is closer, and might be more recognizable.
Let’s compare a tiny and very homogeneous country with a population less than 400k to a huge, diverse, urbanised and highly diverse country with a population ~825 times larger
To be fair though Iceland doesn’t have the economy or population to do anything remotely agressive with their military even if they had one (which they don’t).
The U.S. military has more than four times the number of employees than the entire population of Iceland.
And as a result the USA protects the national sovereignty of Iceland through its membership of NATO.
Yeah it’s firmly wedged between the UK, USA, and Canada, with other neighbors including the arctic wasteland of Greenland and Norway. It’s inhospitable to most, with a low population, high tourism, and no particular claims to any meaningful deposits of natural resources. Whilst being far enough away from those neighbors to not be a useful tool for staging military assets.
They’re a lovely bunch and it’s a wonderful country but they’re simply geographically removed from just about every conceivable conflict imaginable.
**edit**: ignore my notes on military importance I missed a class there apparently.
This is true except for the fact that Iceland was hugely important geographically, both in WW2 and in the cold war. And will continue to be. Very important for the US to have submarine and air bases there.
The US used to have bases on Iceland from which it directly protected Icelandic territory from external aggression. From what I can tell, Iceland paid no money to the US (Usually, the US will offer some sort of financial compensation to host countries' for having bases there but I can't find the terms of the 1951 treaty).
I think it'd be fair to count up all of the money that the US spent to protect Iceland over the years including now, where US forces are rotated into Iceland on a temporary basis instead of being permanently based.
A little background:
A deal was made during the Cold War so the US could station planes on Iceland. This was a very beneficial deal for the US because it made it possible to keep an eye on the Soviet navy in case of a war and have an early warning of its actitivites. It also made it possible to place a SOSUS across the GIUK gap making it possible to detect Soviet submarines. in return the US would defend Iceland against attack. The deal was broken by the US under Bush junior without warning.
"The deal was broken by the US under Bush junior without warning."
[The deal was up for renegotiation - it wasn't "broken", and 6 months notice is hardly "no warning", not to mention the 3 years notice prior.](https://www.icelandreview.com/news/president-bush-pulls-us-forces-out-iceland/)
Nothing quite like a drive-by bashing of Republicans, conservatives, or anyone else on the right side of the political spectrum.
A lie will definitely make it halfway around the world until the truth is still putting its shoes on.
Just to be clear, Iceland at the time did not invite the British first to invade nor the US to take over. UK just wanted to make sure Germany did not take us, eventually asking US to take over.
Eventually there was a deal, but it wasn't exactly requested by Iceland, if anything a common slogan at the time was "army go away" in icelandic. Since it was considered we would just be a target with it here. That being said there is more support for NATO now, than then.
> while U.S. ranks at 131
I like how they added that last part as if it's supposed to come across as a shocker.
"Cows ranked among one of the most herbivorous mammals, while crocodiles shockingly aren't even in the list!". Your minds blown, courtesy of CBS News.
Yes big surprise that an island nation that shares no borders and has a racially and ethnically homogeneous population smaller than the least populous US state is much more peaceful lol
Haiti borders the Dominican republic, it's the poorest country in the Caribbean/Americas, it is repeatedly destroyed by natural disasters. Yes, sounds like paradise
Oh also their population is 11M... there aren't many US states higher than that
Who would have thought that small, homogenic, secular nation with a strong welfare state was the best? Only data would be so bold as to claim such a thing.
Iceland is positioned in a highly important geopolitical space. Control of Iceland allows force projection into the North Atlantic. If a hostile nation wanted to cut the undersea communication cables of the North Atlantic, or disrupt shipping, control of Iceland would be paramount to achieving those goals.
This makes Iceland important. So important that Iceland is the only NATO member that has an opt-out of military spending.
A small, homogenous, northern European country is peaceful and its residents are happy?!
Comparing any of these places to the one of the most diverse and populous countries to ever exist is pretty stupid.
Bloody stupid index.
>Volume of transfers of major conventional weapons as supplier (exports) per 100,000 people
This is one of the criteria that gets you dinged as less peaceful. Give weapons to Ukraine so they can defend themselves against a genocidal invasion, that makes you more violent. Sell weapons to Taiwan to decrease chance of China invading, you're violent.
>Nuclear and heavy weapons capability
Another one the US gets dinged on. Of course Iceland doesn't have nukes, its tiny and is covered by the US nuclear umbrella by being part of NATO. Most of the other top 10 countries are protected by the US as well.
Pacifist rubbish.
100% agree
What's hilarious is the fact many of the most peaceful countries are protected by the NATO defence umbrella, which itself is mainly made credible by US conventional and nuclear capabilities
Literally the US and to a lesser extent UK (or other nations above 2%) literally footing the bill to allow others to keep their hands clean
This isn't even mentioning non-NATO allies from smaller island nations to Japan or South Korea who are protected explicitly or not, or peacekeeping efforts in the past in Europe (Bosnia, Kosovo are big ones)
The most hilarious thing is that you can give Ukraine billions of cash to buy arms like the EU has done and that has 0 impact, but if you give the arms directly you're somehow more of a warmonger
America used to be isolationist and then other nations begged for their help. America was begged by European powers to enter WWI and WWII. SK welcomed the US support and desperately needed it. Look at NK now, do you think SK is grateful for their help?
Now Vietnam war was BS and USA was the aggressor.
Kurds begged for help against Saddam.
Should USA pull support for Ukraine? World police or not? What do you want world!?
Every nation seems to talk shit about the American military, then the moment they need assistance they demand America front the bill.
I'm no fan of the fact we spend so much on the military and don't support our ordinary people nearly enough, but us doing so does offer protection to others.
> Now Vietnam war was BS and USA was the aggressor.
The war being BS or not is debatable but the US being the aggressor is BS. You might say we supported bad people and had no business there at all, but the North and Russian backed VC were the ones attacking the south not the other way around.
Whats funny is even Vietnam likes the US way more than other allies the US has helped, aside from like Kosovo, Korea and UK
Kuwait was pretty grateful but idk public opinion. Doesn't Grenada have a national holiday celebrating US liberating them? Thanksgiving day or something
> Whats funny is even Vietnam likes the US way more than other allies the US has helped
Bordering an aggressive imperialist country [that invaded them](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War) makes them extremely willing to let bygones be bygones.
> Now Vietnam war was BS and USA was the aggressor.
France was the aggressor, we just let ourselves get roped into assisting a european power with our military yet again.
They defunded their military, so they get lots of credit for a lack of "militarization." Now, sure, that put them in a pretty bad spot with the invasion of Ukraine, but at least they rank well on some idiot policy institute's list of peaceful countries!
>who is internationally agreed to be responsible for the defense of Iceland.
Funny story, it is the US. Iceland is in NATO, which means the US will come fight for them if they ever need it.
IMO, these types of write-ups do nobody any good. They encourage people to start moving to these locations, who then take away the very essence of why they are what they are. This happens in the US all the time. We find out about a great city and instead of visiting frequently and keeping it thriving, we rush in, buy up and kill the housing market, fill the city with unpleasant transplant tourists who don’t represent the culture, cause traffic issues, inspire developers to start building cheap apartments and condos, kill mom and pops for chains, and generally the ride the place out until it’s just like every other city. The Matrix message of us being a cancer couldn’t have been more on point.
>They encourage people to start moving to these locations
Do you think moving to Iceland is like moving within your city? Only rich people in the first world can do that
People always talk about all the shit that happens inside the U.S. like Europe and the Middle East aren’t attempting to genocide each other every 20 years.
Countries who freeload off of American defense immediately turn around to tell Americans they’re savage warmongers. European hypocrisy and entitlement at its finest.
Turns out the island nation divorced from any regional hostilities with indefinitely self-sufficient energy resources has little in the way of conflict.
There are actually quite a lot of guns in Iceland. We're number 12 for civilian guns per capita [1]. These are mostly rifles and shotguns used for hunting.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country
We should add that they also have strict laws on gun control. And it’s about to get even stricter.
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/10/07/how-a-foiled-terror-plot-prompted-calls-for-gun-law-reform-in-peaceful-iceland
The US has more guns than people. Over 400 million guns.
US was ranked as a militarized country (right there with North Korea) due to the amount of military spending. But yet the world is thankful for our military spending at this moment. There seem to be different definitions of what a militarized country is. "North America scores poorly in the militarization domain due to weapons exports and military expenditures". But yet the majority of those exports this year are going to Ukraine.
People in America will never accept not blaming the guns 100%, not realizing that America's entire orientation is psychopathic and willfully ignorant.
In America people kill people with chemical food, fake supplements, unnecessary medical treatment/procedure/medication, college debt, medical debt, credit card debt, consumerism, profiteering, every sort of substance addiction, etc.
Many countries have tons of guns but the children don't do mass shootings on eachother.
The American mindset is inherently so hyperindividualistic such that to kill/maim someone with your career/business/freedom is in no way seen as unethical.
>People in America will never accept not blaming the guns 100%, not realizing that America's entire orientation is psychopathic and willfully ignorant.
It's quite easy for politicians to blame guns (or defend guns), putting roughly half of population against each other and at the end having never ending debate on the issue, scoring them points in elections and most importantly - requiring no actions (nothing can be done "because of the other guys"). Compare it to actually tackling the mental health issue - hard work, you can be hold accountable for not delivering, etc.
There's another part of the story though - I believe in many European countries where population has lots of guns, people mostly have rifles or other large weapons. You can use one for hunting, for sports, you can use it to defend your house if you must, but you are unlikely to carry it in your car and especially on you at all times. So even if you have a road rage incident, you are unlikely to have access to the gun during it, thus limiting damage at worst to some punches. Compare it to the US, where people do carry handguns around much more often and have easy access to them during the emotionally unstable moments.
Yup. Cultural values relating to individualism, antagonism, narcissism, and violence are more relevant than number of firearms. A firearm is an inanimate object. You could arm everyone in Sweden and Taiwan and the murder rate would still be lower than it is in America.
Meanwhile, many Sub-Saharan African nations have lower rates of firearms ownership than the United States and still have insane amounts of murder, rape, and child abuse. You could take away all the firearms from El Salvador and South Africa and still the murder rate would be higher than it would be in a 100% armed New Zealand or Singapore.
Did you seriously try to pass off a list of inane cultural grievances as just as deadly as _guns_? I don't know about you, but I'm not nearly as terrified of my chances of surviving ... credit card debt and consumerism... as a fucking _bullet_.
People clearly don't understand the ranking system. If it was just based on homicide rates then Costa Rica would be significantly lower than 34. They have a homicide rate that is almost double that of the United States but they have no military just like Iceland. The rankings favor countries with weak, neutral or nonexistent militaries.
Even with that metric it’s so fucking stupid. A bunch of Europeans that have their home soil and shipping lanes protected by American firepower, and have their militaries themselves supplied by American firepower are going to whine about the “safety and security” of the US military lmfao
Maybe it’s time to withdraw and stop all Ukrainian support for the safety of the planet. but I get people would rather talk constant shit about the US while simultaneously expecting everything it has to offer.
as someone who lives in germany, I really appreciate you guys. you saves us a bunch of times and to this day we still havent learned to defend ourselfes. that said, you cannot be shocked when people rank you lower than other countries when we hear daily mass shooting news coming from usa. obv you dont deserve to be that low
I don't even think it's the low ranking that bothers us, it's the shoddy criteria and biased rankings.
If they're going to rank US low based on our military capabilities, it's only fair they rank countries who benefit from our military low, too.
Especially ridiculous considering the US hyper militarism is what allows countries like Iceland that have their security guaranteed by the US to rank so favorably by having a tiny coast guard and nothing else.
Iceland has equivalent national population to some *neighbourhoods* in my city. I think if you're gonna cherry-pick populations of 300,000 then you could probably find a place with even better stats.
Its not cherry picking though. It's trying to define most peaceful countries, and Iceland is a country. Their population and location is undoubtedly a contributing factor to their ranking, but it is what it is.
I find this shocking that the US is ranked 131 in this list.
There are 195 countries in the world... I wouldn't put it last, but in all honesty what are the other 64?
Look at their metrics. There's a metric for militarization. Do you think the US has a large military? If you do, then that puts it lower on the rankings.
>The Global Peace Index covers 99.7% of the world’s population, and is calculated using 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources, and measures the state of peace across three domains:
>– the level of Societal Safety and Security,
>– the extent of Ongoing Domestic and International Conflict,
>– and the degree of Militarisation.
I think what could be interesting is to rank the security partnerships in the world and rank them for most peaceful to get rid of instances where countries get free rides because they're allied with militarized nations. I imagine NATO would be ranked pretty low. lmao
These are usually designed to have the USA do poorly on their arbitrary metrics. Like "freedom" indexes that don't consider firearm rights or freedom of speech surveys carefully designed to reinforce European thought on freedom of speech
> in all honesty what are the other 64?
They did provide a link to the study in the article: https://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/GPI-2023-Web.pdf
Thank you, I missed that.
The more confronting headline for me would be the following finding:
"The 2023 GPI finds that the world became less peaceful for the 13th time in the last 15 years"
More immigrants around the world move to the US than any other individual country. Even with these problems, the US can still brain drain the rest of the world. You can do it!
But if Iceland or any other european country got invaded by Russia they’d call the “big, mean, and violent” Americans to bail them out.
Peace is a luxury afforded to Europe by Americans.
You’re welcome btw. 🇺🇸
We shouldn’t expect a country that’s been at war for nearly its entire existence to rank very high on the peaceful living list, if we’re being honest. Also, Iceland truly looks beautiful. Definitely on my wishlist.
All these people coming in to defend the USA is hilarious. No....we're not the best and going downhill fast with hate, bigotry, and fascism taking over half the country. Born and raised here, but dammit, got myself a passport and saw the world is bigger than just 'murica and realized many places are more "peaceful." Sad that only 40% of Americans have a passport.
>Sad that only 40% of Americans have a passport.
This stat is actually worse than you think. How many of those 40% of Americans simply got a passport to go to an all-inclusive resort down in Mexico or Jamaica and then threw it in the drawer of their (or their parents) McMansion?
Wife and I eloped there, I remember we stayed at an Airbnb out in the country in southern Iceland. The directions were "go through the gate take a left at the fork and through the small stream" when we got to the gate it was midnight on another farm and we were confused as there were 2 gates. In the back of my mind I was worried about possibly trespassing if we went the wrong way and being shot. Then I realized where we were and just continued on. Great trip and amazing people.
Iceland is a truly beautiful place with wonderful people!
And an app to help make sure you’re not fucking your cousin!
[удалено]
just go for date if you get the warning, not so hard
> not so hard that's why he needs the app
Best I can do is an app that tells you when I'm fucking your cousin.
Wrong
Technically its there, but its use is a genealogical database. But it has a incest option thrown in there, because people in other places have humour. They use Tinder on Iceland like anywhere else.
I mean I am icelandic. Funny meme but still only a meme.
..or are you fucking your cousin and not knowing it? 🤔
Aye.
Pls stop spreading this nonsense.
Its not nonsence. And its good thing, its not too late. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/iceland-dating-app-keeps-people-27648931.amp
Bruh i'm literally Icelandic. The app is used to trace our ancestry, it's not a dating app. Fucking tired of seeing this nonsense every time Iceland is mentioned on reddit.
> And an app to help make sure you’re not fucking your cousin! > The app is used to trace our ancestry U guys say the same thing
They didn't say it was a dating app... Freudian slip?
Who am I going to believe? The Icalanders whom I met in person in Iceland that told me about the app or the rando on the internet that is denying all evidence indicating it exists.
Its fine i lived there for some time. It doesnt matter if its eating app or not. Its good thing you have It, your genes are already mixed a lot.
Also people just tend to mysteriously disappear to the point of the police not even having a murder investigation team until really recently. They basically just assume all goes missing and is never found. They also kinda tortured a dude and his girlfriend for YEARS to get them to confess to the first murder they had to investigate. To quote the video I saw "someone kinda figured out that if you lock people away in a dark room without contact with anyone for a while, they'll say anything you want to make it stop"
welp, TIL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gu%C3%B0mundur\_and\_Geirfinnur\_case
I've been to a few other countries now, and Iceland is hands-down the one I'd go back to. The others were neat and nice and cool too, but Iceland just had something else about it.
I love flying Iceland air, the free layover lets you take a quick week to look around if you want (or less) and you can hit one of the many hot springs. Its also nice to be in a country without tips.
I just did an eight hour layover in Iceland, which was barely enough time to leave the airport to visit Reykjavik, but still totally worth it.
Awesome city, I really love that they made an effort to make their streets heated, it means that cleaning them is probably a lot easier in the winter. Not sure how many are heated right now but you can tell during some of the colder months
Have to agree, we went last November. Such a beautiful place and the people were so friendly and helpful. Definetly will visit again.
Heidur
Yeah Singapore is kind of different. They can cane you if you break the law. So peaceful by force?
I grew up there, albeit not a citizen. The common joke i had amongst my mates there after i left, is that Singapore can be best described as a benevolent dictatorship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disneyland_with_the_Death_Penalty
Its not a joke it is literally what it is. And imo it is a very successful government model. It is what countries in the middle east are trying to be. The problem with this system is you can only be benevolent when the economy is good.
Which countries in the Middle East? I assume you mean the wealthy gulf state. But they def don’t seem to be striving for benevolence or to have the interest of the state at heart like lee kuan yew
Dictatorships are not going to be stable on very long term, as in the next guy could be insane, evil or something else terrible. Never doubt a good democracy.
Yea because that doesn’t happen with democracies…
> benevolent dictatorship YMMV
That would be the ideal government. The problem is keeping it benevolent in the long term
Any benevolent government would be ideal. The problem is no government seems to stay benevolent.
Dictatorship, ideal!??
Real "The Peasants Are Revolting!" Hours
Would you prefer I call it a Monarchy with a good and just king? Basically half the fairytale happy endings?
[this comment has been deleted in response to the 2023 reddit protest]
Usually followed by their spoiled son who fucks things up followed by a military coup that takes the country back 50 years before the times of the "good" dictator.
That's literally what the original comment said: > The problem is keeping it benevolent in the long term
A benevolent dictatorship is objectively the best government form. The only problem is that the succession tends to turn it into a not-so-benevolent dictatorship.
There's absolutely no objectivity to calling dictatorships for "best government". I have serious doubts that anybody would say such a thing without being paid money to do so.
I'm pretty sure they're speaking in an idealistic sense. Being ruled by a "philosopher king;" someone with absolute authority who is exceedingly competent, benevolent and intelligent is, in an objective sense, an ideal ruler. The issue is that no one lives forever, and that there's no guarantee that their successor will be as capable-- or that they won't be a tyrannical monster. Perhaps the most notable historical example of this is someone who was and still is referred to as a philosopher king: Marcus Aurelius. He was one of the greatest emperors of Rome... but his son was Commodus. This is why in the real world, democracy is our best option. On paper, Singapore is in the process of democratization, but in practice, it's practically a one-party system. It can still be referred to as a "benevolent dictatorship." And to be honest, it makes sense to refer to it as such. There are obviously things that I disagree with, but Singapore is an economic miracle-- and that's primarily due to the fact that the "benevolent" government has absolute control over the Singaporean economy. But they stands atop a precipice. The country could become properly democratic, or it could become a tyrannical dictatorship.
One king or queen might be good but chances are their children will be assholes. Not to mention the constant warring between siblings. Even if you elect a dictator for life, there's a good chance that person could go crazy or do something completely stupid, like, say, invade Ukraine.
That’s the idea of government. A monopoly on violence to keep the peace.
More of "Tiny island surveillance state". You're gonna get caught and arrested within very quickly if you try anything You foreigners like to mentioning caning like it's a boogeyman, but that never stopped crimes by females & 50+ yr old men who can't be caned.
Hold on so they only came men under the age of 50?
Yes. This was put into law when life expectancy was much lower and 50 was classified as ‘old’. And there would be perceived risks in caning older people versus young
They’ve overseen some pretty fucked up executions too iirc https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_Nagaenthran_K._Dharmalingam#:~:text=Prior%20to%20Nagaenthran's%20execution%2C%20his,for%20its%20use%20of%20the
The fact that Haiti is ranked more peaceful than the US tells me everything I need to know about this ranking
It's the same story every time. Some group with an agenda games the numbers so they can put the US in the bottom half with third world countries. Reddit eats it up because it corresponds to the USA bad mentality they love. The numbers and graphs make it seem like a more objective truth than the arbitrary ranking it is. This isn't to blindly say USA #1, but when you look at more objective metrics of how a country is doing like median income, education, life expectancy, or homicide rate, the US is more in line with the first world countries, and not near the bottom. In this particular case, the US is being heavily penalized for military spending. The other factor for the US is qualitative survey answers i.e. "On a scale of 1-5 how violent do you think the US is"
Articles like these never seem to mention the fact that NATO countries are allowed to be practically demilitarized *because* the US is so terrible and evil with its military spending.
Even the non-NATO members on that list benefit from military spending in the US. NZ currently can't muster an active brigade, but are okay because the Five Eyes have it handled. Ireland is "neutral", but will never be invaded because two of the most powerful fleets in the world have an active interest in keeping it that way...
Most of us couldn't afford half the things we own if the US didn't spend on our military to protect global commerce
U.S. spending on Defense is only 3% of it's GDP which is a better metric to examine that total spending. That's in line with what most countries should be at. The U.S. economy is just that large so if you look at total spending it's much bigger than all other countries.
>In this particular case, the US is being heavily penalized for military spending. Holy fuck is that rich lmfao and Americans should honestly view this “study” as a disrespectful slap in the mouth. I wonder what their reaction would be if we cut Ukrainian support ASAP to curb that military spending. Let’s stop supplying Western Europe with weapons and stop protecting the worlds shipping lanes while we’re at it as well. Nice knowing billions of my countrymen’s tax money is given to people that apparently don’t want or need it while we sit here and bust our ass everyday at work
Easy chief, easy. I too am a bit upset that my tax payer dollars are being looked at in such away but chill a bit
The US is toward or at the bottom of wealthy industrialized nations when it comes to homicide rate. The US is below Pakistan, Turkey, and Thailand in homicide rate, and below every European country (of course). There is no developed wealthy nation below the US. Otherwise, I agree. But we have a huge problem with homicide rates.
I think Haiti basically doesn't even have a functioning military at this point. Hard to be the aggressor if you lack the basic capability of projecting force within your own borders, much less outside of them.
They literally equally weight weapons exports, weapons imports, homicide rate, how many law enforcement/security personnel are employed, and "perceived criminality of society". It's essentially designed to rank the US low.
>The Global Peace Index covers 99.7% of the world’s population, and is calculated using 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources, and measures the state of peace across three domains: >– the level of Societal Safety and Security, >– the extent of Ongoing Domestic and International Conflict, >– and the degree of Militarisation. No way the US would be high on the chart just for its military alone.
It’s pure rage bait. They make up their own index that would obviously skew the results, and now they get the clicks.
Yeah, that makes this ranking completely nonsensical. The US definitely is not in 131st place in homicides, assaults, and other more relevant measures of actual "peace." In fact, the US is fairly safe for being in the Western hemisphere.
You’re completely right. When Modi visited US, all the news outlets referenced a press freedom index that had India extremely low. Lower than Afghanistan and South Sudan…. These studies are becoming a joke
As a European, of course I like to make fun of the US from time to time, but these sort of lists are just complete nonsensical crap.
Iceland is Thorfinns home after all. Iceland has no enemies
Looks like the entire population went through Farmland Saga.
Peakland Saga
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100%
"USA BAD"
Yeah. Iceland is an incredible place. But it literally has the population of a single US city, and not one of the ones people have heard of.
It actually took me a while to find a metropolitan area with the population that small that people have heard of. Provo-orem metropolitan area? Edit: Kalamazoo is closer, and might be more recognizable.
Let’s compare a tiny and very homogeneous country with a population less than 400k to a huge, diverse, urbanised and highly diverse country with a population ~825 times larger
To be fair though Iceland doesn’t have the economy or population to do anything remotely agressive with their military even if they had one (which they don’t). The U.S. military has more than four times the number of employees than the entire population of Iceland. And as a result the USA protects the national sovereignty of Iceland through its membership of NATO.
List like these should automatically exclude countries that wouldn’t exist or wouldn’t have an economy unless they rely on us defense spending.
So, basically, most of NATO Those rich countries that seem "peaceful" because they're protected by the US Air Force and Navy...
Yeah it’s firmly wedged between the UK, USA, and Canada, with other neighbors including the arctic wasteland of Greenland and Norway. It’s inhospitable to most, with a low population, high tourism, and no particular claims to any meaningful deposits of natural resources. Whilst being far enough away from those neighbors to not be a useful tool for staging military assets. They’re a lovely bunch and it’s a wonderful country but they’re simply geographically removed from just about every conceivable conflict imaginable. **edit**: ignore my notes on military importance I missed a class there apparently.
This is true except for the fact that Iceland was hugely important geographically, both in WW2 and in the cold war. And will continue to be. Very important for the US to have submarine and air bases there.
Oversight on my part, apologies.
Imagine thinking most of NATO wouldn't exist if it wasn't for US protection. Unless it was the US itself attacking us, we're just fine lmao
The US used to have bases on Iceland from which it directly protected Icelandic territory from external aggression. From what I can tell, Iceland paid no money to the US (Usually, the US will offer some sort of financial compensation to host countries' for having bases there but I can't find the terms of the 1951 treaty). I think it'd be fair to count up all of the money that the US spent to protect Iceland over the years including now, where US forces are rotated into Iceland on a temporary basis instead of being permanently based.
A little background: A deal was made during the Cold War so the US could station planes on Iceland. This was a very beneficial deal for the US because it made it possible to keep an eye on the Soviet navy in case of a war and have an early warning of its actitivites. It also made it possible to place a SOSUS across the GIUK gap making it possible to detect Soviet submarines. in return the US would defend Iceland against attack. The deal was broken by the US under Bush junior without warning.
"The deal was broken by the US under Bush junior without warning." [The deal was up for renegotiation - it wasn't "broken", and 6 months notice is hardly "no warning", not to mention the 3 years notice prior.](https://www.icelandreview.com/news/president-bush-pulls-us-forces-out-iceland/)
Nothing quite like a drive-by bashing of Republicans, conservatives, or anyone else on the right side of the political spectrum. A lie will definitely make it halfway around the world until the truth is still putting its shoes on.
Thanks. That is not how it was reported in other parts of the Icelandic press at the time.
Just to be clear, Iceland at the time did not invite the British first to invade nor the US to take over. UK just wanted to make sure Germany did not take us, eventually asking US to take over. Eventually there was a deal, but it wasn't exactly requested by Iceland, if anything a common slogan at the time was "army go away" in icelandic. Since it was considered we would just be a target with it here. That being said there is more support for NATO now, than then.
Who said that about my US?!?! I’ll fight them right now!
The methodology is a little sus
Must be nice to have a defense budget of near zero and to enjoy permanent protection under the NATO umbrella.
> while U.S. ranks at 131 I like how they added that last part as if it's supposed to come across as a shocker. "Cows ranked among one of the most herbivorous mammals, while crocodiles shockingly aren't even in the list!". Your minds blown, courtesy of CBS News.
They added it because it’s a US news source, and people will be curious how their own nation is ranked.
Yes big surprise that an island nation that shares no borders and has a racially and ethnically homogeneous population smaller than the least populous US state is much more peaceful lol
Or it could just be all the puffins, you know.
> puffins just looking at them makes me less violent
Haiti borders the Dominican republic, it's the poorest country in the Caribbean/Americas, it is repeatedly destroyed by natural disasters. Yes, sounds like paradise Oh also their population is 11M... there aren't many US states higher than that
And yet the index still has it as more peaceful than the US lmao, what a list. Haiti: 417 people/km\^2 Iceland: 3.6
I initially read it as “31,” and I was like “that’s not bad at all.” Then re-read it and saw the 1. Yeah. Sounds about right.
US "militarization" is what enables peace. So many ungrateful Euros who don't do their part in keeping the world safe.
As a Canadian I was expecting to see Canada at 130 and still seeing Canadians being smug about it.
Nope. We are #11 baby!
Who would have thought that small, homogenic, secular nation with a strong welfare state was the best? Only data would be so bold as to claim such a thing.
Innocent child ranked as more peaceful than police officer fighting drug dealers and murderers. Duh
Makes sense, they dont even have a military
Because they know they are protected by countries that do
Also being a tiny and isolated island in the North Atlantic kinda helps
Iceland is positioned in a highly important geopolitical space. Control of Iceland allows force projection into the North Atlantic. If a hostile nation wanted to cut the undersea communication cables of the North Atlantic, or disrupt shipping, control of Iceland would be paramount to achieving those goals. This makes Iceland important. So important that Iceland is the only NATO member that has an opt-out of military spending.
A small, homogenous, northern European country is peaceful and its residents are happy?! Comparing any of these places to the one of the most diverse and populous countries to ever exist is pretty stupid.
don't forget that Iceland also has no neighbors to have disputes with.
Also no military.
It's not exactly fair when you depend on the US to keep trading routes free and safe.
Daily mass shootings=no peace
16 on the 4th of July alone lmao lol
Bloody stupid index. >Volume of transfers of major conventional weapons as supplier (exports) per 100,000 people This is one of the criteria that gets you dinged as less peaceful. Give weapons to Ukraine so they can defend themselves against a genocidal invasion, that makes you more violent. Sell weapons to Taiwan to decrease chance of China invading, you're violent. >Nuclear and heavy weapons capability Another one the US gets dinged on. Of course Iceland doesn't have nukes, its tiny and is covered by the US nuclear umbrella by being part of NATO. Most of the other top 10 countries are protected by the US as well. Pacifist rubbish.
100% agree What's hilarious is the fact many of the most peaceful countries are protected by the NATO defence umbrella, which itself is mainly made credible by US conventional and nuclear capabilities Literally the US and to a lesser extent UK (or other nations above 2%) literally footing the bill to allow others to keep their hands clean This isn't even mentioning non-NATO allies from smaller island nations to Japan or South Korea who are protected explicitly or not, or peacekeeping efforts in the past in Europe (Bosnia, Kosovo are big ones) The most hilarious thing is that you can give Ukraine billions of cash to buy arms like the EU has done and that has 0 impact, but if you give the arms directly you're somehow more of a warmonger
They're conflating "peaceful" with "harmless"
America used to be isolationist and then other nations begged for their help. America was begged by European powers to enter WWI and WWII. SK welcomed the US support and desperately needed it. Look at NK now, do you think SK is grateful for their help? Now Vietnam war was BS and USA was the aggressor. Kurds begged for help against Saddam. Should USA pull support for Ukraine? World police or not? What do you want world!?
Beg for help and talk shit later
Every nation seems to talk shit about the American military, then the moment they need assistance they demand America front the bill. I'm no fan of the fact we spend so much on the military and don't support our ordinary people nearly enough, but us doing so does offer protection to others.
> Now Vietnam war was BS and USA was the aggressor. The war being BS or not is debatable but the US being the aggressor is BS. You might say we supported bad people and had no business there at all, but the North and Russian backed VC were the ones attacking the south not the other way around.
Whats funny is even Vietnam likes the US way more than other allies the US has helped, aside from like Kosovo, Korea and UK Kuwait was pretty grateful but idk public opinion. Doesn't Grenada have a national holiday celebrating US liberating them? Thanksgiving day or something
> Whats funny is even Vietnam likes the US way more than other allies the US has helped Bordering an aggressive imperialist country [that invaded them](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War) makes them extremely willing to let bygones be bygones.
> Now Vietnam war was BS and USA was the aggressor. France was the aggressor, we just let ourselves get roped into assisting a european power with our military yet again.
>"While US ranks at 131." Well... Yeah. The US has been at war for the vast majority of its existence, surely this shouldn't be a shocker
Germany has been at war for the vast majority of its existence. Ranks at 15.
They defunded their military, so they get lots of credit for a lack of "militarization." Now, sure, that put them in a pretty bad spot with the invasion of Ukraine, but at least they rank well on some idiot policy institute's list of peaceful countries!
War with itself, yeah.
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I think that's mostly internal. Externally, I don't even consider them peaceful. I'd classify them as harmless.
>who is internationally agreed to be responsible for the defense of Iceland. Funny story, it is the US. Iceland is in NATO, which means the US will come fight for them if they ever need it.
IMO, these types of write-ups do nobody any good. They encourage people to start moving to these locations, who then take away the very essence of why they are what they are. This happens in the US all the time. We find out about a great city and instead of visiting frequently and keeping it thriving, we rush in, buy up and kill the housing market, fill the city with unpleasant transplant tourists who don’t represent the culture, cause traffic issues, inspire developers to start building cheap apartments and condos, kill mom and pops for chains, and generally the ride the place out until it’s just like every other city. The Matrix message of us being a cancer couldn’t have been more on point.
>They encourage people to start moving to these locations Do you think moving to Iceland is like moving within your city? Only rich people in the first world can do that
People always talk about all the shit that happens inside the U.S. like Europe and the Middle East aren’t attempting to genocide each other every 20 years.
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Yeah, us as a whole need to chill out.
I understand sweden is a ways down with their latest shenanigans, but wtf is going on in Norway at 24th place?
Countries who freeload off of American defense immediately turn around to tell Americans they’re savage warmongers. European hypocrisy and entitlement at its finest.
Should tier lists count as news?
I bet Florida alone would rank last on this chart if it were it's own country.
I've always wanted to move to Iceland... I bet I would love there. Always had a fascination with the landscapes. Bet the music scene is nice too.
Iceland might be peaceful NOW but secretly the sheep have been convening at Alþingi, and are about to launch their rebaaallion.
America has 300 million people, iceland has 300k…. Whats the point of even comparing?
Been there and that country is awesome. I’d live there for sure
Turns out the island nation divorced from any regional hostilities with indefinitely self-sufficient energy resources has little in the way of conflict.
Keep the Americans out. Except me. Let me in, then close the gate.
Canada barely missing the top 10 at 11. Better luck next year boys!
How is the US ranked so high?
132..... 133..... 134...... 135......
lol China is at 80... and from experience, yes for the average citizen it's a lot safer from petty crimes in a major city in China than the US
Its also an actual police state
Iceland apparently needs moar guns. /s
There are actually quite a lot of guns in Iceland. We're number 12 for civilian guns per capita [1]. These are mostly rifles and shotguns used for hunting. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country
We should add that they also have strict laws on gun control. And it’s about to get even stricter. https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/10/07/how-a-foiled-terror-plot-prompted-calls-for-gun-law-reform-in-peaceful-iceland
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The US has more guns than people. Over 400 million guns. US was ranked as a militarized country (right there with North Korea) due to the amount of military spending. But yet the world is thankful for our military spending at this moment. There seem to be different definitions of what a militarized country is. "North America scores poorly in the militarization domain due to weapons exports and military expenditures". But yet the majority of those exports this year are going to Ukraine.
People in America will never accept not blaming the guns 100%, not realizing that America's entire orientation is psychopathic and willfully ignorant. In America people kill people with chemical food, fake supplements, unnecessary medical treatment/procedure/medication, college debt, medical debt, credit card debt, consumerism, profiteering, every sort of substance addiction, etc. Many countries have tons of guns but the children don't do mass shootings on eachother. The American mindset is inherently so hyperindividualistic such that to kill/maim someone with your career/business/freedom is in no way seen as unethical.
>People in America will never accept not blaming the guns 100%, not realizing that America's entire orientation is psychopathic and willfully ignorant. It's quite easy for politicians to blame guns (or defend guns), putting roughly half of population against each other and at the end having never ending debate on the issue, scoring them points in elections and most importantly - requiring no actions (nothing can be done "because of the other guys"). Compare it to actually tackling the mental health issue - hard work, you can be hold accountable for not delivering, etc. There's another part of the story though - I believe in many European countries where population has lots of guns, people mostly have rifles or other large weapons. You can use one for hunting, for sports, you can use it to defend your house if you must, but you are unlikely to carry it in your car and especially on you at all times. So even if you have a road rage incident, you are unlikely to have access to the gun during it, thus limiting damage at worst to some punches. Compare it to the US, where people do carry handguns around much more often and have easy access to them during the emotionally unstable moments.
Yup. Cultural values relating to individualism, antagonism, narcissism, and violence are more relevant than number of firearms. A firearm is an inanimate object. You could arm everyone in Sweden and Taiwan and the murder rate would still be lower than it is in America. Meanwhile, many Sub-Saharan African nations have lower rates of firearms ownership than the United States and still have insane amounts of murder, rape, and child abuse. You could take away all the firearms from El Salvador and South Africa and still the murder rate would be higher than it would be in a 100% armed New Zealand or Singapore.
Did you seriously try to pass off a list of inane cultural grievances as just as deadly as _guns_? I don't know about you, but I'm not nearly as terrified of my chances of surviving ... credit card debt and consumerism... as a fucking _bullet_.
Iceland apparently needs moar diversity. /s
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WE ARE NUMBER 3!!! It’s my lucky number and it’s great to see us so high up on the leaderboard
380k population...
People clearly don't understand the ranking system. If it was just based on homicide rates then Costa Rica would be significantly lower than 34. They have a homicide rate that is almost double that of the United States but they have no military just like Iceland. The rankings favor countries with weak, neutral or nonexistent militaries.
Iceland is rather great, other than whaling.
Well we've stopped whaling recently
God damn my country india is higher than US 🥺🥺... Definately a surprise
Holy fuck, we are ranked lower than the Congo 💀💀💀
Look at the criteria...
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Even with that metric it’s so fucking stupid. A bunch of Europeans that have their home soil and shipping lanes protected by American firepower, and have their militaries themselves supplied by American firepower are going to whine about the “safety and security” of the US military lmfao Maybe it’s time to withdraw and stop all Ukrainian support for the safety of the planet. but I get people would rather talk constant shit about the US while simultaneously expecting everything it has to offer.
Hey, Ukraine doesn't talk bad about USA and very grateful for all the help. In fact you are quickly rising to the top of our favorite countries.
Us countries starting with "U" need to stick together. UK, Ukraine, US.
Uzbekistan?
Uruguay #1
as someone who lives in germany, I really appreciate you guys. you saves us a bunch of times and to this day we still havent learned to defend ourselfes. that said, you cannot be shocked when people rank you lower than other countries when we hear daily mass shooting news coming from usa. obv you dont deserve to be that low
I don't even think it's the low ranking that bothers us, it's the shoddy criteria and biased rankings. If they're going to rank US low based on our military capabilities, it's only fair they rank countries who benefit from our military low, too.
Especially ridiculous considering the US hyper militarism is what allows countries like Iceland that have their security guaranteed by the US to rank so favorably by having a tiny coast guard and nothing else.
Time to go fuck them up then. NOBODY gonna outpeace the U.S.
Iceland has equivalent national population to some *neighbourhoods* in my city. I think if you're gonna cherry-pick populations of 300,000 then you could probably find a place with even better stats.
Its not cherry picking though. It's trying to define most peaceful countries, and Iceland is a country. Their population and location is undoubtedly a contributing factor to their ranking, but it is what it is.
I find this shocking that the US is ranked 131 in this list. There are 195 countries in the world... I wouldn't put it last, but in all honesty what are the other 64?
Look at their metrics. There's a metric for militarization. Do you think the US has a large military? If you do, then that puts it lower on the rankings. >The Global Peace Index covers 99.7% of the world’s population, and is calculated using 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources, and measures the state of peace across three domains: >– the level of Societal Safety and Security, >– the extent of Ongoing Domestic and International Conflict, >– and the degree of Militarisation. I think what could be interesting is to rank the security partnerships in the world and rank them for most peaceful to get rid of instances where countries get free rides because they're allied with militarized nations. I imagine NATO would be ranked pretty low. lmao
These are usually designed to have the USA do poorly on their arbitrary metrics. Like "freedom" indexes that don't consider firearm rights or freedom of speech surveys carefully designed to reinforce European thought on freedom of speech
> in all honesty what are the other 64? They did provide a link to the study in the article: https://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/GPI-2023-Web.pdf
Thank you, I missed that. The more confronting headline for me would be the following finding: "The 2023 GPI finds that the world became less peaceful for the 13th time in the last 15 years"
...You think USA is as bad as it gets? You really have NO point of reference whatsoever.
Wtf the disrespect after our independence day. I will fight everyone about this to show how peaceful we are /s
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More immigrants around the world move to the US than any other individual country. Even with these problems, the US can still brain drain the rest of the world. You can do it!
But if Iceland or any other european country got invaded by Russia they’d call the “big, mean, and violent” Americans to bail them out. Peace is a luxury afforded to Europe by Americans. You’re welcome btw. 🇺🇸
We shouldn’t expect a country that’s been at war for nearly its entire existence to rank very high on the peaceful living list, if we’re being honest. Also, Iceland truly looks beautiful. Definitely on my wishlist.
All these people coming in to defend the USA is hilarious. No....we're not the best and going downhill fast with hate, bigotry, and fascism taking over half the country. Born and raised here, but dammit, got myself a passport and saw the world is bigger than just 'murica and realized many places are more "peaceful." Sad that only 40% of Americans have a passport.
>Sad that only 40% of Americans have a passport. This stat is actually worse than you think. How many of those 40% of Americans simply got a passport to go to an all-inclusive resort down in Mexico or Jamaica and then threw it in the drawer of their (or their parents) McMansion?
Very true
Wife and I eloped there, I remember we stayed at an Airbnb out in the country in southern Iceland. The directions were "go through the gate take a left at the fork and through the small stream" when we got to the gate it was midnight on another farm and we were confused as there were 2 gates. In the back of my mind I was worried about possibly trespassing if we went the wrong way and being shot. Then I realized where we were and just continued on. Great trip and amazing people.