Iceland

We had to deal with Iceland during the discovery of kidibot.ro and, after raising the signal, it turned out that Iceland's advanced society is not so advanced such that Iceland is a country of hate and forever banned from our systems.

Interestingly enough for such a dull country, Iceland is an interesting country to write about because the propaganda is diametrically opposed to the realities that you would experience if you were to travel or work in Iceland.

• Iceland has some religious laws that apparently made their way from religion into the law, for instance, gambling or drinking on Easter being forbidden, which is strange given that state religions are typically Orthodox, not protestant or Catholic,
• even though Iceland seems on the opposite end of Europe, Iceland has seen a lot of immigration and if you are trying to get away from the East European block, you're out of luck because the streets are lined with Romanians boasting about how much they stole a day before (overhead conversations), Poles, Latvians, etc, along with a dash of the Middle East and Africa,
• Iceland likes to let people know that they somehow had only one single case of gun violence, about a decade ago and that generally speaking Iceland is not violent but during a short stay, there were about three different attacks on separate days involving violence, and one case clearly gun violence that simply went unreported the next day (that is, speaking to neighbors and coworkers confirmed, but nothing appeared in the press),
• another myth is the myth of "electric cars" that is also (as usual) sold as some sort of "progressive environmentalism" - then again, just like most West-European countries, Iceland does have garbage triage yet the garbage is barely picked up with the bins overflowing and people often mixing the contents because there is no choice; as for "electric cars", they are really bought and driven for the sake of virtue signalling, such as vanity Tesla cars, but ultimately the economy runs on petrol and you can hear the steamy diesel and petrol cars very well all day with just a few being electric,
• lots of ghetto-riches, with disproportionate distribution of priorities; ie: driving a monster truck but sleeping in a small decrepit shack that stands to fall over,
• even though you would think it to be impossible, there are lots of homeless and/or working class people in Iceland that seem very far away from the "economical paradise" that Icelanders like to consider themselves part of, lot of smoking, for example, which is impressive compared to other countries in the current year, small gang formations with ethnic tint, etc,
• shops close at 8pm, and the main supermarket chain Bonus already has a monopoly, being one of the most wide-spread (along with one or two more expensive ones) such that they set policy and, if you ever find yourself in need for something, you can't get anything after 8pm and are completely dead in the water,
• dealing with staff is similar to dealing with East-European service with a bunch of cynical elderly women or younger lethargic tarts that simply cannot care less about "the business"; asking technical questions (ie: say, about the Internet) is a no-go, not only because they do not care, but because they simply do not know; of course, asking one too many questions makes you seem impolite, so you better take the product and sod off,
• very young children tending the till at businesses - initially, you'd think, that is cute and great, and they're making an extra buck! but in reality, it is a scheme to not pay tax to the government, which is a lot of money; that said, you should be weary about "working in Iceland", the people that know the system will exploit you relentlessly if you do not know the system yourself, will dock large percentages of your pay if you work illegally, and/or try to swindle you senselessly,
• Reykjavik looks mostly like a third-world ghetto, the "main street" is everyone's litter box and the day-before-parties along with slow garbage pickup make the streets dirty most of the time; the stores are mostly cornerstore boutiques with plastic souvenirs like a Viking helmet and other silly stuff you usually buy your kid in the airport so they shut up; the place reeks of alcohol all the time - and more than likely with connection to the homelessness,
• interestingly, Iceland is more or less in conflict with European Community laws on free travel, freedom of information and labor and the trick goes like this: Iceland has some computerized identity system called the kennitala, that acts as some centralized registration and ID card system, with everything from medical care to (even) purchases being tied to your kennitala; now in case you arrive from the EU to Iceland, people will simply not serve you and stores, agents, etc, will require a kennitala or else they will either swindle you or they will outright turn you down; intuitively, this is done by rigging the kennitala into the tax system, such that all transactions MUST take place through the system, or else they are pure and simply illegal, which essentially defeats the European Community's legislation on matters of free travel, freedom of information and labor given that you are allowed to do all that due to Iceland being part of the European Economic Area
• there is massive tax evasion going on, as mentioned earlier with the "child labor force", something that you'd think would be isolated to Southpark for Europe, but also other sectors such as landlords absolutely love dodging tax and, given the kennitala system, know how to play and convince you to make underhand payments - look on the bright side, no contract, no obligations :)
• Iceland NATs through a series of public IP addresses that are all festered and banned in various ways; the Internet is pretty bad, also very expensive compared to mainland Europe and with a lot of gimmick stuff being sold such as 4G, 5G, and not really the kind of speed you'd like to have if you're a business owner; quite frankly, bring your own Starlink; you might get a wild thought of wardriving, but in reality, all the Wifi networks have like "password" for their password, such that it's pointless and worms, virii and others are already more than likely doing battle themselves over the routers,
• even though Iceland likes to show off with its "pirate party", be well-aware that software piracy is not only not tolerated, but you will end up getting love letters (legal threats) - this speaks miles to Icelandic double-think and double-talk where they try to have it both ways: both a rebel and a law-aider; unfortunately this is very much a trap and you should always use a VPN in Iceland - "pirate" in Iceland is like, Bud light or just plain water, when compared to Brits transmitting off oil rights while dodging helicopters from their intelligence services, which is like Vodka by contrast; Iceland's pirate-party is lined with privileged youth, loud-mouths and know-it-alls that make every single interaction extremely toxic and unbearably stale; unfortunately, as per the Internet, the actual goals of a "pirate party" are barely met, with most things "rebel" or "pirate" being still illegal, whilst the pirate party members prance around and show off,
• taxation is through the roof as well, and, in particular imports that seem the most expensive; to each their own on how to lead their countries, but if you're, let's say, a student in Chemistry, you'll have to pay double the price on each item you import because that's how much the tax adds up to; also, for some reason that might even seem deliberate, the internal market does not contain anything even remotely useful in terms of technology or science (just the rubber helmet cornerstores),
• interestingly, contrary to propaganda, feminism is not quite what Iceland tries to boast about, with loads of strife even detectable just by looking or conversing and there is always the birdcage problem where you essentially end up stuck in a rock that looks more like a retirement home while in the body of a photomodel…
• if you think that drivers in Iceland are similar to some British or German drivers, then you are gravely mistaken, with Icelandic drivers being seemingly on par with Russian road-rage; drive to the speed limit and you'll have cars swerving around you, very annoyed, even if they have ample space around you, wear a licenseplate from somewhere else and have fun getting headlights shun into yours eyes - it's so excessive, it's hilarious,
• contrary to the above, there are lots of "parades" in Iceland that, having the setting in mind, one might think they are even deliberately organized in order to throw off attention and act as some sort of prop for misdirection; it's not clear what one would be misdirected about, but there are great signs of money laundry, for one, otherwise it's up to everyone's best guess; you will have, for example, a parade cheering for "the elimination of poverty", but they would walk though various street bums on the street,
• you will, of course, just have to be met with the "I only speak Icelandinc" textbook annoyance - they change the tone sometimes if you respond in your native language in case it is not English,
• lots of peppered glory, such as having to endure long discussion on how "once" the United Kingdom declared Iceland a terrorist country due to not wanting to pay some debt back to the United Kingdom; as one of the founders of N.A.T.O., lots of surprising hate about the U.S.A. which seems more than usual by comparison to mainland Europe; obviously, Iceland is just much more advanced,
• the worker unions and the unions are primarily a scam; just like the story about the United Kingdom declaring them terrorists, you will be subjected to lots of propaganda on how good their unions are, which, aside from (maybe) seeing the benefits via the integrated system (such as pension bonuses, etc), are completely useless when you factor in the entire black market and money laundry that is going on; besides, there is already an on-going case of Six Degrees of Bacon, such that you'll end up telling someone's cousin that their other cousin is a jerk, with you being from the outgroup - obviously, weak chances of success, unless you talk shop, but then you wouldn't be looking into "seeking help" from the unions; maybe, or rather, probably another decoy, and it is well-known historically that unions flirt with the patronage, such that you should not fall into that trap,
• as it is understood, a lot of the funding can be traced to Russia, where apparently a lot of Icelanders got their wealth, or did some business that made them rich,
• the environment attracts more of the same, so to say, so you will have second-hand, bad educators, lots of morally-flexible people that are just messing around for the cash-pouch but too afraid to speak up on important matters, lots of plagiarism (but the dumb way where you receive photocopied hand-ins without even the origin URL address removed) but also with moral-flexibility so you can get away with it; lots of emphasis on making "manager students", or perhaps they know that handing out "real exercises" would tank the grades because nobody would be able to solve them, but also with students being annoyed with high-level talk and hoping to understand more of the nitty-gritty; the University is disunited in terms of policy such that matters like plagiarism end up totally confusing the entire department with "lenient-" vs. "strict" war camps being formed and with hard feelings kept thereafter; employees having to pay for their own Internet connection or be stuck with Wifi that works on and off (this event occurring multiple times where the staff just didn't want to admit it's not working out of sheer pride but then started asking as well because their own Internet stopped working too),
• the basics are so ridiculously expensive that it is difficult to contain your laughter; knowing that the prices are, in fact, inflated artificially out of the pen and not for any market reason, makes it even funnier,
• chassis looks great, engine has over 300 000 km,
• education is pretty lax, with the staff being very morally flexible, especially in what regards plagiarism, but also driven as a "family business" where adhering to standards is not necessarily a priority if you are "the right person" - at one point, one political figure was called in to sit through the viva of a master's thesis in spite of complaints made by some of the marginalized staff that the person that was about to be part of the board did not even have the necessary degree to be a judge