vallinder comments on How to choose a country/city? - Less Wrong

11 Post author: joaolkf 02 November 2013 01:48AM

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Comment author: joaolkf 02 November 2013 03:48:40AM 0 points [-]

I know at least 10 Swedes, all of them attest to this. If you go through their departments, it becomes obvious also. It seems to be part of their culture by now. It is a technological oriented country. The downside is that universities there aren't so good as in UK. Merely the fact I know 10 Swedes, all transhumanists, while living in Brazil, being antisocial, and never being there, it is an evidence.

Comment author: vallinder 06 November 2013 11:19:45AM 1 point [-]

I don't think Sweden is significantly more transhumanist than several other western European countries. The fact that two influential transhumanists (Bostrom and Sandberg) are Swedish could be due to chance. Once they became known, they may have attracted a disproportionate number of Swedes to adopt similar views, but that number is still trivial compared to the population as a whole. In fact, it could be that the general egalitarian sentiment makes Swedes less likely to accept certain transhumanist positions (even though that sentiment is arguably weaker today than it was a few decades ago).

Comment author: joaolkf 10 November 2013 05:42:32PM *  0 points [-]

I would have thought the there were a Bostrom-Sandberg effect, specially since Sweden doesn't have such a big population. However, by looking at the WVS graphic it's hard to say rational self-expressing values wouldn't be expected to correlate with transhuman values. But, yes, probably the egalitarian sentiment would be a factor against transhumanism, I've heard transhumanists there complaining about that.

Thank you for your input, you were the first to present a counterevidence to my assumption. Those things might be more valuable than you think in this case.