Senate What makes a good, or even 'the best', country?

That Norwegian paperclip design is totally impractical.

 

Why would you link to an article debunking that a Norwegian had invented the paper clip when citing the invention of the paper clip as proof of their greatness?

 

Living standards, happiness, social care, education, civil and social rights, etc.

 

Steel guitar by Paul Franklin and lyrics by Waylon, Willie and the boys….

 

Hence the quote marks around the word 'inventing', mmmkay genius? That goes for you too, jp-30.

 

Except it is running counter to your point. Putting quotation marks around something doesn't magically convey your intent.

 

Right. Because I was seriously without a hint of irony suggesting that the invention of the paperclip was a watershed moment for civilisation, the magnitude of which single-handedly grants Norway the status of greatest country in the world and indeed history up to the present day. Are we seriously having this conversation?

 

Listen, what you write is what people read. Don't blame others for your lack of communication skills. If your "satire" was not well-received, it is no one's fault but your own.

 

Next time you read someone praising the paper clip as the single most important invention in human history, and you for some reason take their statement literally, do not erroneously place the blame on said person's communication skills. Instead, correctly get your head examined.

 

WTH is a Norwegian paper clip? Is it just the paperclip we all know and loathe?

 

A Norwegian paper clip is a paper clip that doesn't work. The paper clip that we all know was not invented by a Norwegian, and was, if I remember correctly, never patented by anyone. But Norwegians have a misplaced sense of pride for having invented it, due to the mistaken prevailing belief that the patent that Johan Vaaler (the Norwegian dude) filed was for the one that everyone uses today, while it was in fact for a different impractical design that doesn't work, and that nobody ever used. It's kind of endearingly funny that they would take pride in an invention so minuscule - the paperclip. But funnier still that said pride is mistakenly held for something that was never a Norwegian invention to begin with.

That's the joke. It was explained in the Wiki I linked to.

 

Well they can take pride that most of the people that live there seem to love living there and are "happy".

 

They certainly have a lot to be proud of, just not the paper clip. Its a quirk of theirs that they like to point out to foreigners their hand in "inventing" it, and it's a quirk that I find amusing.

 

They really do this? What about furniture? At least that's something more artistic and less utilitarian.

 

Well I had to respond to the great paperclip swindle.

 

They don't do it much anymore. It might be a generational thing. The older generations were more easily impressed perhaps, and so thought that others would be too.

Zapdos can elaborate on this.

 

dont drag me into this

 

Oh, in that case then, they'd be governed by your Congress?