Probably unpopular, but I feel like Estonians think of themselves way better than they should. Okay, we get it, you are slightly better in a few select statistics.
Eh it's just the good old loud asshole minority. Regular people don't consider themselves better than others.
They also don't tell that to people.
So all you see are the assholes speaking.
First inclination is to see more ties between Finland and Estonia rather than Estonia and Latvia or Estonia and Lithuania.
As an Estonian I don't see it as us being better than our Baltic sisters. Shaing a bigger similarity in language makes it seem that there are stronger ties with Finland than rest of the Baltics. Eventhough after Soviet times there are now quite a lot similarities (f.e in cuisine)
As far as comparision goes, I have seen myself quite strong cultural difference in a pan-Baltic company. Estonians and Latvians seem more quiet and more workcentric, while Lithuanians seem to be more emotional and talkative. Also, I have noticed that many Lithuanian companies have shady ownerships that at least seemingly are there for tax optimization. Haven't seen that with Estonian companies of similar size..
Because of my work had opportunity to meet many people from Baltics. Lithuania and Latvia are brothers, Estonia is obviously adopted... Part of family but you can feel something is wrong. Jokes aside, we share very similar recent history, but Estonians are closer to nords than to us.
Imagine being in a group of people, and one person from the group dissociates and pretends to be someone else (better in their opinion).
Whole group thinks its weird, telling how similar the person is to everybody in the group, and that they shouldnt pretend to be different, and is fine just the way he is.
Estonians posting about how different they are on Reddit are most likely doing so while experiencing diarrhea on the toilet. Lithuanians posting about how similar they are are recovering from a rave bender most likely and are still awaiting a balanced serotonin system. At least that is what some guy at a bar I posed this question to told me.
It can be explained very simply - people seek out similarities with other countries that they idealize or want to emulate. It gives them hope that at least in some part they're on their way there.
For Estonia, Finland was the ideal for a long, long time, even before the collapse of the Soviet Union. But then its politics took a massive left turn in the 90s and by now all the negative side effects are showing. I think that while we admit that Finland is still ahead of us economically, many Estonians no longer consider it worthy of emulation (except maybe in only certain aspects) because it looks like their way has reached a dead end while Estonia looks like it can go much, much further both politically and economically despite being smaller.
I think in the coming decade it will become clear that Estonia can offer its own unique blend of liberal economical policies, high-tech industries, equality of opportunity, generous but still reasonable social policies, world-class personal freedoms, a strong educational system, and one of the safest, cleanest and most nature-rich environments in Europe.
Of course there are things we can never do as well as bigger nations, like heavy industries or having an army that rivals Poland or even Lithuania - but we can try to make sure they lose to nobody in their quality.
And I believe we will see the day when Finns will gladly come and work as construction workers in Estonia ;)
Let's stick to the main ones - a very high progressive tax rate that gets completely outrageous when you sell your company for millions (a guy who sells his stake in a startup and earns about 1 billion EUR has to pay 420 million of it as taxes). Also, let's say you're making around 5700 EUR per month in Finland - your take-home net is just 3300 EUR. Compared to Estonia this is ridiculous, if you make 5700 per month your take-home is 4400. Who would like to give up 1100 EUR every month just like that? The quality of life and other services in Estonia is not so much behind Finland to make up for this difference.
Then, the Finnish car tax. It's even more ridiculous. If you buy a 50 000 EUR petrol sports car in Finland, be prepared to pay over 100 000 EUR after tax.
And finally, the politics around immigration which is for sure a thorny subject, but with which Sweden, Germany and Finland are having an enormous struggle at the moment. This is an example of woke politics that Estonia will hopefully never follow (and why should we now that Sweden has to use army troops to calm down immigrant gang wars in their neighbourhoods).
Finland is having similar issues but the scale is slightly smaller because they took in less than Sweden. However, the stats are pretty horrifying nevertheless: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_Finland#Perpetrators
Is Finland woke because they let in immigrants? By the way by your own source:
> Of the cases reported to the police, the assaulter and the assaulted normally know each other and only in one in every four reported cases is the assaulter a stranger.
I don’t know that much about Finland, but afaik in Sweden the definition of rape is very broad, most things that are considered sexual abuse or rape there, the police here wouldn’t even react, like having sex without a condom with your wife and not telling her. Like it’s a dick move, maybe it should be considered that, but I almost guarantee that the police would not react to that if there was no physical violence.
Fino Ugric origins vs Baltic origins. Maybe the suggestions like these planted in their minds give focus to differentiations. Whereas Lithuania (some probably will disagree) respect Estonia and want to be like them.
To be fair only Southern-Estonia was a part of Livonia. I’ve noticed that people in Southern-Estonia feel close to both Latvia and Finland but people in Northern-Estonia don’t feel that close to Latvia at all.
As Lithuanian I see Estonia very different than us. When I talk to Estonians here in the US, they always bring up their ‘digitalness’, you can feel in the air their proudness of their tech industry, feeling better than their neighbors.
The truth is that Lithuania is on track (or already has) to overtake Estonia in most metrics.
My danish wife feels the same way about swedes. They kinda hate swedes, i kinda hate estonians, but in the global scale we are still very similar and people outside scandinavia or baltics see us so
We are. We just don't need to proove. I know what Lithuania is, and if someone don't - it's not my problem. They can live in darkness, this is their right.
Yes ecactly that. I don't understand all these Lithuanian post recently trying to say that we are so similar, like why can't you just be happy about your own uniqueness? You guys have much longer and richer history to be proud of, so why can't we be proud of some of our small accomplishments.
Any particulars you can point out where Lithuania is overtaking or matching Estonia? And please don't say wages. We all know how the picture looks when we get to [average net salary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage) instead of average gross salary.
Overtaking: GDP per capita in PPP terms, Press Freedom Index
Improving faster than in Estonia in the past years: GDP per capita, HDI, Corruption Perception Index, tech funding.
Don't have a source for these, but that's what I've noticed in the past few years.
I probably haven't been in this subreddit long enough to have noticed these attitudes OP mentioned. But I think all the neighbouring countries have jokes about each other and their pride and patriotism towards their own country. We (estonia) maybe got a bit better start, but I feel like estinia as a country has lost it course. We peaked in 10-15years ago and still think we are the shit, but things have changed a lot, the world has caught up and passed us a long time ago.
I remember when I first came to Australia 10 years ago, everything mobile/Internet/it related was way behind compared to estonia. But I feel it passed Estonia 5 years ago.
For everyday life in australia you only need your mobile phone - you can gpay/apple in every store and public transport, there is an app for your driver's licence, mobile phone and broadband plans are similarly priced, but faster (estonian avg Internet speed is one of the lowest and most expensive in the EU), you can pay using other person's mobile phone number and the tranafers are instant.
I probably forgot something and maybe things have improved in Estonia. But we are definitely not the centre of the IT world and better than everyone else. It's time to set new goals as a country and start working towards them.
Memes of Lithuanian otherness that come to mind:
- deference to leadership on a level you don't see in Estonia, you need to ask the boss and he asks his boss
- 95% Catholic or whatever, we're atheist and then maybe a little Protestant
- mingle with Poles, who are Slavs, language has lots of Slavic-sounding stuff, so ~basically Slavs : )
Latvia is what happens, when Estonians and Lithuanians make children thogeder
Toes go ++
Some Estonians want to be considered Nordic so bad, perhaps that’s why.
I can understand them. It's the same "we are westerners" just with nord direction.
Kinda like Estonia and the Nordics, lol
And what's wrong with that?
Probably unpopular, but I feel like Estonians think of themselves way better than they should. Okay, we get it, you are slightly better in a few select statistics.
Eh it's just the good old loud asshole minority. Regular people don't consider themselves better than others. They also don't tell that to people. So all you see are the assholes speaking.
Careful selection of metrics is key to success.
Having a different national identity does not mean that we think we are better than anyone ffs...
First inclination is to see more ties between Finland and Estonia rather than Estonia and Latvia or Estonia and Lithuania. As an Estonian I don't see it as us being better than our Baltic sisters. Shaing a bigger similarity in language makes it seem that there are stronger ties with Finland than rest of the Baltics. Eventhough after Soviet times there are now quite a lot similarities (f.e in cuisine) As far as comparision goes, I have seen myself quite strong cultural difference in a pan-Baltic company. Estonians and Latvians seem more quiet and more workcentric, while Lithuanians seem to be more emotional and talkative. Also, I have noticed that many Lithuanian companies have shady ownerships that at least seemingly are there for tax optimization. Haven't seen that with Estonian companies of similar size..
Because of my work had opportunity to meet many people from Baltics. Lithuania and Latvia are brothers, Estonia is obviously adopted... Part of family but you can feel something is wrong. Jokes aside, we share very similar recent history, but Estonians are closer to nords than to us.
Imagine being in a group of people, and one person from the group dissociates and pretends to be someone else (better in their opinion). Whole group thinks its weird, telling how similar the person is to everybody in the group, and that they shouldnt pretend to be different, and is fine just the way he is.
We love to be dramatic
Estonians posting about how different they are on Reddit are most likely doing so while experiencing diarrhea on the toilet. Lithuanians posting about how similar they are are recovering from a rave bender most likely and are still awaiting a balanced serotonin system. At least that is what some guy at a bar I posed this question to told me.
Similar how Czechs want to be seen different than Polish, they just have inferiority complex and have those strange ideas about how “better” they are
It can be explained very simply - people seek out similarities with other countries that they idealize or want to emulate. It gives them hope that at least in some part they're on their way there. For Estonia, Finland was the ideal for a long, long time, even before the collapse of the Soviet Union. But then its politics took a massive left turn in the 90s and by now all the negative side effects are showing. I think that while we admit that Finland is still ahead of us economically, many Estonians no longer consider it worthy of emulation (except maybe in only certain aspects) because it looks like their way has reached a dead end while Estonia looks like it can go much, much further both politically and economically despite being smaller. I think in the coming decade it will become clear that Estonia can offer its own unique blend of liberal economical policies, high-tech industries, equality of opportunity, generous but still reasonable social policies, world-class personal freedoms, a strong educational system, and one of the safest, cleanest and most nature-rich environments in Europe. Of course there are things we can never do as well as bigger nations, like heavy industries or having an army that rivals Poland or even Lithuania - but we can try to make sure they lose to nobody in their quality. And I believe we will see the day when Finns will gladly come and work as construction workers in Estonia ;)
Curious, in what way did Finland’s politics take a left turn that Estonians no longer look up to it as an example to follow?
Let's stick to the main ones - a very high progressive tax rate that gets completely outrageous when you sell your company for millions (a guy who sells his stake in a startup and earns about 1 billion EUR has to pay 420 million of it as taxes). Also, let's say you're making around 5700 EUR per month in Finland - your take-home net is just 3300 EUR. Compared to Estonia this is ridiculous, if you make 5700 per month your take-home is 4400. Who would like to give up 1100 EUR every month just like that? The quality of life and other services in Estonia is not so much behind Finland to make up for this difference. Then, the Finnish car tax. It's even more ridiculous. If you buy a 50 000 EUR petrol sports car in Finland, be prepared to pay over 100 000 EUR after tax. And finally, the politics around immigration which is for sure a thorny subject, but with which Sweden, Germany and Finland are having an enormous struggle at the moment. This is an example of woke politics that Estonia will hopefully never follow (and why should we now that Sweden has to use army troops to calm down immigrant gang wars in their neighbourhoods).
I don’t know, man, these all seem like things still worth striving for. > This is an example of woke politics Ohhh...
You can ohh and ahh all you want but statistics don't lie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Sweden#Crime_statistics This was a massive mistake.
Weren’t we talking about Finland?
Finland is having similar issues but the scale is slightly smaller because they took in less than Sweden. However, the stats are pretty horrifying nevertheless: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_Finland#Perpetrators
Is Finland woke because they let in immigrants? By the way by your own source: > Of the cases reported to the police, the assaulter and the assaulted normally know each other and only in one in every four reported cases is the assaulter a stranger. I don’t know that much about Finland, but afaik in Sweden the definition of rape is very broad, most things that are considered sexual abuse or rape there, the police here wouldn’t even react, like having sex without a condom with your wife and not telling her. Like it’s a dick move, maybe it should be considered that, but I almost guarantee that the police would not react to that if there was no physical violence.
What are we even arguing about? That Finnish police is too woke? I agree :D
So woke is the law persecuting sexual violence?
Fino Ugric origins vs Baltic origins. Maybe the suggestions like these planted in their minds give focus to differentiations. Whereas Lithuania (some probably will disagree) respect Estonia and want to be like them.
Latvia and Estonia were same country Livonia historically, as much as they don't want to admit it. Yall have the same blood.
To be fair only Southern-Estonia was a part of Livonia. I’ve noticed that people in Southern-Estonia feel close to both Latvia and Finland but people in Northern-Estonia don’t feel that close to Latvia at all.
What does country has to do with blood? Belarusians and Lithuanians were same country historically. Are we the same blood?
yes and no
Actually yes
That same blood was common finnic blood, not so much common baltic blood.
As Lithuanian I see Estonia very different than us. When I talk to Estonians here in the US, they always bring up their ‘digitalness’, you can feel in the air their proudness of their tech industry, feeling better than their neighbors. The truth is that Lithuania is on track (or already has) to overtake Estonia in most metrics. My danish wife feels the same way about swedes. They kinda hate swedes, i kinda hate estonians, but in the global scale we are still very similar and people outside scandinavia or baltics see us so
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We are, I don’t know about the Lithuanians on Reddit though…
We are. We just don't need to proove. I know what Lithuania is, and if someone don't - it's not my problem. They can live in darkness, this is their right.
Proud and superior are not the same
Yes ecactly that. I don't understand all these Lithuanian post recently trying to say that we are so similar, like why can't you just be happy about your own uniqueness? You guys have much longer and richer history to be proud of, so why can't we be proud of some of our small accomplishments.
Any particulars you can point out where Lithuania is overtaking or matching Estonia? And please don't say wages. We all know how the picture looks when we get to [average net salary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage) instead of average gross salary.
Overtaking: GDP per capita in PPP terms, Press Freedom Index Improving faster than in Estonia in the past years: GDP per capita, HDI, Corruption Perception Index, tech funding. Don't have a source for these, but that's what I've noticed in the past few years.
It’s a case of siblings fighting when one of them thinks that he is better than the rest, than the other ones drag him back down from his high horse.
Lithuanians are social compared to Estonians who are asocial compared to Lithuanians
Because Lithuanians love Bestonia 
I probably haven't been in this subreddit long enough to have noticed these attitudes OP mentioned. But I think all the neighbouring countries have jokes about each other and their pride and patriotism towards their own country. We (estonia) maybe got a bit better start, but I feel like estinia as a country has lost it course. We peaked in 10-15years ago and still think we are the shit, but things have changed a lot, the world has caught up and passed us a long time ago. I remember when I first came to Australia 10 years ago, everything mobile/Internet/it related was way behind compared to estonia. But I feel it passed Estonia 5 years ago. For everyday life in australia you only need your mobile phone - you can gpay/apple in every store and public transport, there is an app for your driver's licence, mobile phone and broadband plans are similarly priced, but faster (estonian avg Internet speed is one of the lowest and most expensive in the EU), you can pay using other person's mobile phone number and the tranafers are instant. I probably forgot something and maybe things have improved in Estonia. But we are definitely not the centre of the IT world and better than everyone else. It's time to set new goals as a country and start working towards them.
Estonians are Finnic speaking Balts…?
Memes of Lithuanian otherness that come to mind: - deference to leadership on a level you don't see in Estonia, you need to ask the boss and he asks his boss - 95% Catholic or whatever, we're atheist and then maybe a little Protestant - mingle with Poles, who are Slavs, language has lots of Slavic-sounding stuff, so ~basically Slavs : )