Bay 12 Games Forum

The national languages of Estonia are Swedish and Estonian though, which to my knowledge are both pretty horrific (Estonian is closely linked to Finnish, which is the absolute last language you'd want it to be closely linked to).

A very large number of Estonians speak English, though. Russian will also probably get you through (though you'll have to suffer dirty looks aplenty)

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-> Canada

Well, this is a topic I'm quite knowledgeable about since I am Canadian! Anyhoo:

+ People are somewhat more polite than in the US (in small towns, though; people in the cities are often extremely rude and unpleasant in my experience)
+ Cold weather (if you're into that sort of thing, which I am)
+ No PATRIOT Act, NDAA, TSA, etc
+ No internet censorship (yet; with Harper in power, I'm not sure how long that will last)
+ Beautiful landscapes (especially northern Ontario, BC and Alberta, though for the love of god don't move to Saskatchewan if this is your thing)
+ Not much danger of being drafted compared to the US
+ We speak English
+ High quality maple syrup (not that stuff you get from Vermont)

- Stephen Harper's a crazed pro-American goon on all the wrong issues (read: foreign policy, deporting people)
- Canadian politics is composed of three major parties, none of which are any good:
* A sleazy party that will say or do anything to get elected and damn the national consequences (Liberals)
* A sleazy party that will say or do anything to get elected and has a tendency towards wars, prisons, tax cuts and sucking up to Americans (Conservatives)
* A not especially sleazy party (with sleazy members, such as Svend Robinson) that makes outlandish promises, follows through on some of them, and utterly screws things up by being generally incompetent (NDP)
-Bagged milk is NOT, as some would claim, the only kind of milk in Canada. In fact, it only really exists in Ontario so far as I know. However, it must be getting a subsidy in Ontario or something because cartons are almost twice the price for half the volume of milk which is nonsense because bags of milk are unwieldy and unfun
-Some really obnoxious people that tend to breed in big cities (those environmentalists who scream about "MANS RAPE OF THE ENVIRONMENT" or those rich smug people bragging about their "SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY", especially in Vancouver and Toronto)
-Don't go to Quebec, speaking English (or speaking French with an English accent) outside of Montreal will get you spat on and laughed at
-/+ Healthcare is a bit of a mixed bag compared to the US, as how sick you are will determine which system works better for you. If you aren't sick at all, the American system is probably preferable as you'll be paying for everyone else's medication in Canada. If you're a bit sick or you break some bones or need stitches or what have you then the Canadian system is generally preferable since lazy surgeons often prioritize simple things to fill up their work quota, meaning you won't have to wait too long for treatment and won't have to pay either, the same applying to basic medication (exception: some places, like Nova Scotia, are lacking doctors and actually have major shortages so avoid them at all costs). If you're have an emergency situation but it isn't something unusual and is just basic surgery, Canadian is PROBABLY better since the costs in the US might be extortionate, but there is the odd chance you'll actually not be admitted and have to be put on a waiting list. If you have an exotic condition, a tricky problem, or a condition requiring more expensive surgery (especially heart surgery), American is better since in Canada you either will have to wait months or won't get it at all (though it may be very expensive in the US). Similarly, if it needs equipment like CT scanners, American is preferable since Canada rations those out most of the time.

Also, if you want to leave the US without leaving the attitudes, etc behind, go to Alberta. The Albertans are a weird bunch and are very American in nature, so you might like them if that's your thing.

3. In healthcare, limited or total government involvement is more efficent than just private providers. The system Singapore has setup is much more efficent than the one in the US (and anywhere else), and it includes a larger role for the government

To call the American healthcare system "private" is like calling the New Economic Plan "Unrestrained Laissez Faire". Quite frankly, its a convoluted mess and has been such for a very long time.

Singaporean healthcare is nominally more government controlled than American healthcare, true, but it also happens to be far more streamlined and is less subject to the jungle of regulations and laws that characterize the American system. In the US:

-90%ish of the actual hospitals are owned by the US government (or state governments or what have you) despite nominally being "private"

-The AMA restricts the number of doctors certified each year artificially for the purpose of ensuring that those doctors who do get certified can get paid extortionate amounts of money without the threat of competition (IIRC the AMA has licensed almost the exact same number of doctors every year since 1920 or so though I may be wrong on that point)

-The FDA, completely in the pocket of massive pharmaceutical corporations, arbitrarily decides what is "safe" and what is "unsafe" without much regard for actual health risks or benefits. I recall an instance where the FDA rejected a cosmetic by a sizable vote, and later approved the EXACT SAME cosmetic from a different corporation by the opposite margin in favour. The cost of "testing" is around 250 million, and the FDA doesn't actually do the testing itself, meaning that competition in the industry is nearly nonexistent

-Medicare and Medicaid both massively push up costs due to hugely increasing demand for (generally unneeded) healthcare without increasing supply in a similar fashion (there was a cool chart showing international healthcare costs from the 1950s/60s onwards that showed basically all nations having similar rates of increase with the US near the bottom that then showed the US skyrocketing shortly after the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid, if anyone could find the chart I'm thinking of it would be much appreciated)

-Various incentives in the 1950s made American companies pay for their workers' healthcare via insurance, while healthcare insurance companies were simultaneously forced to cover routine checkups and other non-emergency treatment that it was previously intended for. This created a wall between doctors and patients in terms of costs, and patients no longer searched for better costs on healthcare as it was paid for by insurance. In turn, doctors began to jack up costs, as patients didn't care what they had to pay for superfluous treatments.

None of these are problems with the American "free market system", they're problems with the government, insurance companies, and various freeloading parties leeching off the corpse of the American "free market system". The sad thing is that with all this garbage heaped on it, it still functions better than the Canadian system 

Wow, the base is colossal

Is there even anything that needs to be done? Stuff to be dug, resources to be exploited, etc?

Successfully joined the server

Hope to join the faction at some point in the near future

Sent an application, wondering how this is gonna work out.

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Quote from: Hubris Incalculable on June 24, 2012, 06:08:46 pm

I have to poop.

OBJECTION!

YOU ARE GIVING PURPOSE TO A CHAOS THREAD!

BRING ME MY CROWBAR, THERE ARE RAILS TO DESTROY!

NO. YOU ARE THE HERETIC! CREATING A PURPOSE FOR THE CHAOS THREAD IS UNEXPECTED AND HENCE IN OF ITSELF MORE CHAOTIC THAN NOT HAVING A PURPOSE! I CHALLENGE YOU TO A DUEL MOST NOBLE