When “Nothing” Beats a Star: How Bad Logic, Taboo Words, and Moral Panic Broke Our Language

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It usually starts as a joke.

“Nothing is brighter than the brightest star.
My phone flashlight is brighter than nothing.
Therefore my flashlight is brighter than the brightest star.”

QED—if you squint hard enough and stop thinking.

Or the old Norwegian chestnut:

Mor Nille kan ikke fly.
En sten kan ikke fly.
Ergo Mor Nille er en sten.

The logical flaw is obvious, which is precisely the point. In Erasmus Montanus (1723), Ludvig Holberg used this kind of syllogistic abuse to mock academic pedantry: airtight form, zero sense. Erasmus proves his own mother is a stone, and everyone else can see he’s an idiot.

These examples are funny because they expose how natural language breaks when you pretend it’s formal logic—or when you swap meanings mid-argument and hope nobody notices.

Unfortunately, that same failure mode now shows up in places where the stakes are much higher.

From logic jokes to language landmines

Consider an example I saw in a YouTube clip from Linus Tech Tips. The phrase “hard R” came up. Confusion followed.

One person heard “hard R” as a reference to a racial slur.
Another understood it as an older, now-offensive slang term for intellectual disability.
I understood it phonetically.

In linguistics, “hard R” can reasonably be taken to mean a fully articulated rhotic, as opposed to a weakened, vocalized, or dropped R. In Norwegian terms, that distinction is immediately intuitive:

  • A soft R like the R in Lars, lightly articulated and non-rolling
  • Versus the hard, trilled or tapped R common across Scandinavia and Germany — the “machine-gun” R of brrrr, det er kaldt
  • Or a word like rømmegrøt, where the rolling R is unmistakable to any Nordic ear

English largely lacks this contrast, which is why the confusion arises. Outside of Scottish English (and to some extent Irish and Welsh accents), English Rs are typically approximants rather than trills. The only truly universal English example of a rolled R is the onomatopoeic brrrr — precisely because it is imitating a sound, not using it phonemically.

From a phonetic standpoint, then, my interpretation was neither exotic nor unreasonable. It was simply outnumbered by newer, taboo-driven meanings that have crowded out the technical one.

All three interpretations exist. None are invented. Yet only one is socially survivable in 2025—and that meaning has effectively vaporized the others.

This is how language breaks: not through malice, but through taboo gravity. Once a term becomes associated with a high-voltage offense, all other meanings get sucked into the blast radius.

Intent stops mattering. Context stops mattering. Precision becomes collateral damage.

The euphemism treadmill at full speed

Which brings us to the big one.

Yes, the fully pronounced n-word is offensive regardless of speaker. No serious person disputes that.
Yes, the softened variant (“nigga”) functions as an in-group term among many black speakers—sometimes affectionate, sometimes not. That’s about social license, not semantics.
And yes, saying “the n-word” is an avoidance strategy: a way to reference the concept without performing the speech act.

But let’s not pretend this is philosophically clean.

Saying “the n-word” still puts the word in the listener’s head. The speaker avoids uttering it, but the listener does the reconstruction internally. That matters socially—but it doesn’t magically erase meaning. It just relocates responsibility.

This is not a moral failing. It’s how euphemism works. But we should at least be honest about it.

“Words = violence” and other category errors

When people object to the idea that “words are violence,” they are not denying that language can harm. They are objecting to category collapse.

Originally, this framing came from speech-act theory: the idea that some speech participates in coercive systems. Fair enough.

What we have now is inflation:

Structural harm → emotional harm → offense → violence

Once everything is violence, the word loses analytical value. Worse, it encourages intellectual laziness. Referential use, descriptive use, quotation, insult, and incitement are treated as morally identical acts.

They are not.

Calling all of it “violence” is the moral equivalent of proving Mor Nille is a stone. The syllogism may feel righteous, but it doesn’t describe reality.

Semantic drift, imported taboos, and Norwegian absurdities

This gets especially messy outside the Anglosphere.

When I grew up, the Norwegian word “neger” was a neutral descriptor: someone of sub-Saharan African descent. It was not an insult. There was nothing remotely pejorative about it.

Today it is treated as almost as bad as the English slur—not because of Norwegian usage, but because English-language racial history has been retroactively imposed on cognates.

That’s not linguistic inevitability. It’s cultural hegemony.

The same contradiction appears with “svart”. “Black” is acceptable in English. Svart—its literal translation—is often treated as suspect. The problem is not semantics; it’s association.

So we reach for “mørkhudet”—“dark-skinned”—which is so broad it can refer to half the planet. Precision is sacrificed on the altar of safety, and everyone pretends this is progress.

It isn’t. It’s euphemism treadmill failure.

Cleaning up the past by breaking it

The final insult is retroactive sanitization.

Editing Mark Twain (no more “Nigger Jim“).
Rewriting Astrid Lindgren (Pippi’s dad is no longer “Negerkonge“).
Removing words instead of explaining them.

This treats readers as incapable of understanding historical context and replaces education with erasure. Contextualization is responsible. Alteration is not.

Preserving the record is not endorsement. It’s honesty.

What actually went wrong

The problem is not empathy.
The problem is not language evolving.

The problem is conceptual sloppiness masquerading as moral clarity.

Ethics has swallowed semantics whole, and meaning is paying the price. When referential speech is treated as violence, confusion is inevitable. When taboo replaces explanation, misunderstanding is guaranteed.

Holberg understood this three hundred years ago. Bad logic doesn’t just lead to wrong conclusions—it makes smart people say ridiculous things with total confidence.

And once that happens, it’s not Mor Nille who turns into a stone.
It’s the language itself.

Politisk Hykleri og Umyndiggøringen av den Norske Forbruker

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Når staten teller paracet, men selger sprit i pall

(og hvorfor begge deler er feil)

Det er fristende å forklare mye av offentlig forvaltning med banal inkompetanse. Byråkrati har en egen evne til å avle dumskap, treghet, ansvarsfraskrivelse og selvtilfreds middelmådighet. Men noen ganger holder ikke den forklaringen. Noen ganger er det som skjer ikke et uhell, men et bevisst valg. Og da beveger vi oss fra det komiske til det prinsipielt forkastelige.

Ta et konkret, hverdagslig eksempel:

På apoteket kan jeg kjøpe maksimalt 20 tabletter paracetamol og/eller ibuprofen per handel. Ikke per dag. Per handel. Staten har altså bestemt at dette er en mengde jeg ikke kan betros med uten tilsyn.

På Vinmonopolet, derimot, kan jeg kjøpe så mye alkohol jeg fysisk klarer å bære – eller har kreditt til å betale for. Kasser med vin. Litervis med brennevin. Ingen øvre grense. Ingen volumkontroll. Ingen moralske formaninger, så lenge jeg ikke er synlig beruset.

Dette er ikke en glipp. Det er ikke en inkonsekvens. Det er et bevisst politisk valg.

Tallene som nekter å adlyde

Fra et folkehelseperspektiv er paracetamol og ibuprofen i Norge praktisk talt ubetydelige. Dødsfall direkte knyttet til disse stoffene ligger i beste fall på et par tilfeller i året, ofte null. De utgjør ikke en systemisk belastning på helsevesenet. De driver ikke vold, kriminalitet eller sosial oppløsning. De ødelegger ikke familier i tusentall.

Alkohol, derimot, er i en helt annen klasse. Tungvekteren, om du vil.

Alkohol er direkte eller indirekte årsak til flere hundre dødsfall i Norge hvert eneste år. Leversykdommer. Kreft. Hjerte- og karsykdommer. Ulykker. Vold. Selvmord. I tillegg kommer en enorm mengde ikke-dødelig skade: uførhet, psykiske lidelser, familievold, omsorgssvikt, arbeidsfravær og kriminalitet.

Alkohol er – med god margin – det største rusrelaterte helse- og samfunnsproblemet i moderne vestlige samfunn. Større enn alle illegale rusmidler til sammen. Dette er ikke ideologi. Det er statistikk.

Og likevel er det paracetamol staten teller.

Dette er ikke folkehelse – det er styringsfetisjisme

Hvorfor denne groteske asymmetrien?

Svaret er ubehagelig enkelt: Paracetamol er lett å regulere. Alkohol er politisk risikabelt å regulere på en måte som faktisk ville hatt effekt.

Å begrense antall tabletter i en apotekhylle er:

  • Enkelt
  • Billig
  • Lett å håndheve
  • Politisk risikofritt

Ingen velgergrupper mobiliserer for retten til å kjøpe 500 Ibux. Ingen kulturelle vaner utfordres. Ingen avgiftsinntekter trues. Byråkratiet får krysset av en boks og erklært seier over et problem som knapt eksisterer.

Reell alkoholregulering – altså tiltak som faktisk reduserer totalforbruket – ville derimot:

  • Treffe vanlige, lovlydige borgere direkte
  • Avsløre statens paternalistiske instinkter
  • Redusere betydelige skatteinntekter
  • Tvinge frem en ubehagelig diskusjon om alkoholens plass i norsk kultur

Det vil politikerne ikke ha. Dermed får vi Vinmonopolet: et moralsk alibi forkledd som folkehelse, streng på åpningstider, fullstendig likegyldig til volum.

Viktig presisering: dette er ikke et rop om mer regulering

La oss gjøre dette helt krystallklart, siden misforståelser her er nærmest garantert:

Dette er ikke et argument for å regulere alkohol hardere. Tvert imot.

Jeg vil ha Vinmonopolet avskaffet. Fullstendig. Alkohol i alle former bør være tilgjengelig i dagligvarebutikker, på bensinstasjoner, døgnet rundt. Akkurat som i fungerende, voksne samfunn.

Og ja – samtidig vil jeg kunne kjøpe en storbøtte med 500 Ibux hvis jeg har lyst.

Poenget er ikke at alkohol bør behandles som paracetamol. Poenget er at ingen av delene bør behandles som om voksne mennesker er mentalt tilbakestående barn.

Storebror i medisinskapet

Problemet er ikke at staten bryr seg om helse. Problemet er at den later som.

Paracetamolreguleringen er et skoleeksempel på symbolpolitikk: den gir inntrykk av handlekraft, uten å løse et reelt problem. Samtidig brukes den til å rettferdiggjøre en stadig mer invaderende holdning til individets private valg.

Staten sier i praksis:

Vi stoler ikke på deg.

Ikke til å håndtere smertestillende. Ikke til å ta ansvar for eget liv. Ikke til å lære av konsekvensene av egne valg.

Og så later man som man ikke forstår hvorfor nordmenn på «sydenferie» er blant Europas mest notoriske fyllefanter. Når voksne mennesker holdes i barnegrind hjemme, slipper de naturligvis alt løs når grindene åpnes.

Dette er ikke et argument mot frihet. Det er et argument for mer av den.

Intensjonalitet gjør det verre

Hadde dette vært en forglemmelse, kunne man ledd av det. Men det er det ikke. Dette er gjennomtenkt. Det er et resultat av politiske prioriteringer der kontroll er viktigere enn prinsipp, og bekvemmelighet viktigere enn sammenheng.

Staten regulerer det som er lett å telle, ikke det som er mest skadelig. Den styrer der motstanden er lav, ikke der effekten ville vært størst. Det er ikke bare feigt – det er uredelig.

Et voksent utgangspunkt, takk

La oss begynne der staten konsekvent nekter å begynne: med tillit.

Jeg er et myndig menneske. Jeg betaler skatt, følger loven og bærer konsekvensene av mine valg. Beslutningene om hvordan jeg lever mitt liv – hva jeg spiser, drikker eller tar mot hodepine – er mine. Ikke statens. Ikke Helsedirektoratets. Ikke en eller annen uavsettelig seniorrådgiver med PowerPoint og god pensjonsordning.

En stat som ikke stoler på sine borgere til å håndtere en pakke Ibux, men samtidig stoler fullt og helt på dem med ubegrenset tilgang til alkohol, har ikke et folkehelseproblem. Den har et moralsk og intellektuelt sammenbrudd.

Dette handler ikke om helse. Det handler om kontroll forkledd som omsorg. Om et politisk system som foretrekker symbolske inngrep med null effekt fremfor reelle reformer med politisk risiko. Og som deretter later som det ikke forstår hvorfor resultatene uteblir.

Når voksne mennesker behandles som barn hjemme, skal man ikke bli overrasket når de oppfører seg som barn så snart de slipper ut. Det er derfor nordmenn på sydentur er beryktet. Det er ikke klimaet som gjør det. Det er barneoppdragelsen.

Regjeringen er ikke løsningen. Den er problemet.
Byråkratiet er ikke en nøytral forvalter. Det er en aktiv deltaker.

Et samfunn bygget på mistillit produserer nøyaktig den borgeren det fortjener – og kaller deretter resultatet et “folkehelseproblem”.

Gud signe vårt dyre fedreland.
Fra seg selv.

Mer Om Det Norske Helevesenet

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“Når vi mottar henvisningen din, vil vi vurdere helsetilstanden din og om du har rett til nødvendig helsehjelp eller ikke.“

Dette sto å lese i et innkallingsbrev jeg fikk fra Stavanger Universitetssykehus. Legg merke til formuleringen “…om du har rett til nødvendig helsehjelp eller ikke.”

Ifølge en alminnelig språkfortåelse og enkel logikk, så betyr dette at det er tilfeller der man vurderes ikke å har rett til nødvendig helsehjelp. I kongeriket Norge, med verdens største Sovereign Wealth Fund og verdens beste helsesystem (blir det påstått). Helsehjelp some er nødvendig, men som du ikke har rett til. Fytterakkern! Hva faen brukes skattepengene til?

Jeg lurer på hvor lenge Gahr-Støre må vente på time hos spesialist, og om han går offentlig eller privat. Jeg måtte vente tre måneder på time ved Nyremedisinsk Poliklinikk ved SUS. Håper jeg ikke dør i mellomtiden.

Om Norske Apotek (og de som jobber der)

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Jeg går på apoteket for å hente resepten på KOLS-medisinen min. Den samme innhalatoren som jeg har brukt i tjue+ år. Den lille frøkna bak disken (eller den gamle tanta—det er nesten alltid kvinnfolk), spør om jeg har brukt medisinen før. Jeg svarer bekreftende, at jeg har lang erfaring med KOLS medisiner, og like forbanna begynner hun å lire av seg ei lang lekse om riktig bruk og interaksjoner. Kjære lille diskenspringer, du er ikke legen min, bare selg meg den forbanna medisinen, tenker jeg, men holder kjeft og later som om jeg hører etter.

Når hun endelig er ferdig så legger jeg en pakke Ibux på disken, og så er’a på jernet igjen med hvordan det er uheldig å bruke Ibux med innhalator, osv., osv., osv., også-fucking-videre. Gud hjelpe meg!

On The Norwegian Legal System

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The Original Lars: I’m a passenger in a car. There’s an accident. The driver of the car I’m in is 100% at fault. He gets out and runs to avoid the consequences. I didn’t drive, I didn’t run. Am I legally obliged to rat out the driver?

Chat GPT: Here’s the straight legal reality if you’re in Norway (or generally in continental Europe) and you’re a passenger in a crash where the driver you’re with was totally at fault and then runs off:

1. You — as a passenger — are not legally the driver.
You didn’t hit anything, you weren’t controlling the car. That means you’re not automatically criminally liable for the collision itself. You won’t magically become a co-defendant just because you were in the car.

2. There is a legal duty to stop and help in Norway.
Norwegian road traffic law (Vegtrafikkloven § 12) imposes a helping obligation on everyone involved in a traffic accident — including passengers. That means you are legally required to stop, render aid (to injured people and animals), and participate in necessary measures at the scene of a collision. It doesn’t matter who caused the crash. If you fail to stop and help, that itself can be a criminal offense.

3. There is also a requirement to report the accident if you leave the scene.
The law says that if a traffic accident causes material damage, and there’s no one present to take care of things, the person who caused it must inform the victim or the police as soon as possible. If you just walk off and do nothing, the law still expects someone involved to notify authorities. If the driver flees and you do nothing, that can put you in a bad legal spot under the same reporting rules — because you were “involved” in the situation.

In practice, this is interpreted as follows:

  • The driver who flees is committing a hit-and-run offense — that’s a crime with potentially serious penalties (fines, license suspension, even prison depending on injuries/damage).
  • You as a passenger are not punished simply for being there. But you can be liable if you also walk away without doing anything — i.e., without helping, without notifying the police, without exchanging or giving information, or without assisting emergency services. That failure to act can be treated like a failure to render assistance, which is a separate criminal offense.

4. So what must you do right now?
To stay on the right side of Norwegian law:

  • Stop and remain at the scene (unless there’s a life-or-death reason you literally have to leave).
  • Notify the police immediately (call 112).
  • Offer reasonable assistance to anyone injured.
  • Provide your name and contact info if asked.

You aren’t being asked to rat out your buddy for snitch’s sake — you’re being asked to fulfill YOUR legal obligations. If you fail to do that, you risk being criminally liable under Norway’s duty to assist/report laws.

Bottom line:
You aren’t guilty of the crash just for being there. But you are legally required to stop, help, and report. Walking away and saying nothing pretty much makes you a target for charges like “failure to assist/notify,” especially if people are hurt. It’s not about snitching — it’s about you being liable too if you just vanish with the culprit.

The Original Lars: I’m thinking more like all reporting of the incident is taken properly care of, do I have a legal obligation do reveal the driver’s identity to the police if I know it?

Chat GPT: Short answer for the situation you’re describing (in Norway): yes — you generally do have to tell the police who the driver was if you know, but not because you’re being forced to “snitch” per se; it’s because the law imposes duties on everyone involved in a traffic accident to provide certain basic information to the authorities. Here’s the breakdown:

1. Anyone involved in a traffic accident must give their name and address.
If you were “involved in the accident,” the Norwegian Road Traffic Act says that all parties involved have a mutual obligation to provide their names and addresses to the police and other involved parties. It doesn’t just apply to the driver — if you were in the car and involved in the traffic situation, that applies to you too.

2. There’s a legal duty to provide information about the accident to the police.
That duty covers things like names and addresses of those involved, vehicle registration, etc., and it applies to the accident — not just you as an individual. The police will want to know who was driving. If you know that information, withholding it could interfere with the lawful collection of information the police require to investigate and properly process the accident.

3. There isn’t a magical “right to stay silent” about someone else’s identity here.
Norway does impose a general obligation to identify yourself to the police (name, date of birth, address) if they ask you — that obligation is separate from this accident context. If you refuse to identify yourself, the police can enforce it because failure to do so is an offense.
And if the accident occurred and you give partial or false information (like not telling them who the driver was), that can be interpreted as obstructing a police investigation or failing to fulfill your reporting duties.

4. So yes — if you know who the driver was and you’re giving a statement to the police, you will be expected to identify the driver.
You’re not being asked to “snitch” for fun — you’re complying with the statutory duty to provide correct information in the context of a traffic accident investigation.

5. There’s no carve-out just because you were a passenger.
The law doesn’t say “only drivers have to identify the driver.” It says that anyone who is involved in the accident has a duty to give accurate information about the accident and the parties involved. The driver’s identity is part of that.

Practical real-world takeaway: If the police show up and ask you what happened, and you know the driver’s identity, refusing to answer that — or giving a false name — can land you in legal trouble yourself (for failing to provide required information or for obstructing an investigation). You don’t have a legal right to shield the driver’s identity in this context.

The Original Lars: Is there an equivalent to America’s 5th Amendment in Norway?

Chat GPT: Yes — Norway does have a right not to be forced to incriminate yourself, but it’s not worded or structured the same way as the U.S. Fifth Amendment. In other words: there’s no literal “Fifth Amendment” in Norway’s Constitution, but the legal effect is similar in key respects. Here’s the straight breakdown:

1. Norway has a protection against self-incrimination.
Under Norwegian criminal procedure law (straffeprosessloven), a person who is suspected or accused of a crime is not obliged to testify against themself — including in court — and authorities cannot coerce answers in a way that amounts to compelled self-incrimination.

2. Witnesses (and relatives) can refuse to answer questions that would expose them to criminal liability.
Another provision (§123) says that any witness (not just a defendant) may refuse to answer questions that could expose them to criminal liability personally. Close family members can also refuse to answer on similar grounds.

3. The right isn’t exactly the same as “plead the Fifth,” but it plays the same role.
In the U.S., the Fifth Amendment explicitly says you can’t be compelled to be a witness against yourself in any criminal case. Norway doesn’t have an identical constitutional block written the same way, but the effect in criminal procedure is similar*: you can remain silent to avoid self-incrimination, and the state can’t force you to answer questions that would incriminate you.

4. The protection is rooted in broader fairness principles.
This isn’t some quirky Norwegian invention — it’s tied to the right to a fair trial (Grunnloven § 95 and European human-rights law, e.g., ECHR Article 6). That framework underpins the protections against forced self-incrimination.

5. Practical implications:
In a police investigation in Norway:

  • If you’re a suspect in a crime, you don’t have to answer questions that would incriminate you.
  • If you’re just a witness, you can refuse to answer questions that would expose you to criminal liability (inkludert avsløre egen straffbar handling).
  • The police can’t legally force you to incriminate yourself.
  • However, unlike the U.S. Miranda warnings, you might not get a formalised “you have the right to remain silent” read-out; instead, the legal protections lie in the statutes and procedural rules.

In short: Norway does protect people from being compelled to self-incriminate, and it’s recognized both in Norwegian law and in the human-rights instruments Norway has adopted. But it isn’t a single constitutional clause exactly like the U.S. Fifth Amendment — it’s spread across procedural rules and broader fair-trial guarantees.

The Original Lars: I’ve seen many reports from criminal cases here in Norway where the prosecution appeals a not guilty verdict. That would raise more than a few American eyebrows, as it did mine. Apparently there is no double jeopardy protection in Norway, and the prosecution can just keep on appealing until they get their way.

Chat GPT: What you are reacting to is real, but the popular understanding of it is exaggerated. Norway does not let the prosecution take unlimited bites at the apple until they “get their way,” and it does not lack protection against double jeopardy. What is different is how that protection is structured compared to the U.S.

Here is the clean, unsentimental explanation.

1. Norway does have double-jeopardy protection — just not the American version

Norway is bound by Protocol No. 7, Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which explicitly prohibits being tried or punished twice for the same criminal offense once a case is finally determined.

The key phrase is “finally determined.”

That is where the U.S. and Norway diverge.

2. In the U.S., a jury acquittal is final immediately

Under the Fifth Amendment:

  • A not-guilty verdict at trial ends the matter instantly.
  • The prosecution cannot appeal an acquittal on the merits.
  • Even a blatantly wrong verdict stands.

This is an unusually strong rule by international standards. Americans treat it as sacred; most of the world does not.

3. In Norway, a case is not “final” until appeals are exhausted

In Norway:

  • A trial-court acquittal is not final.
  • The prosecution may appeal within defined limits.
  • Once the appellate process is complete and a final judgment is entered, double jeopardy attaches fully.

So the protection exists — it just kicks in later than in the U.S.

This is standard across most of Europe.

4. The prosecution cannot “just keep appealing”

This is the part that often gets mangled in reporting.

The prosecution may appeal:

  • Errors of law
  • Procedural defects
  • Evaluation of evidence (in some cases)

But:

  • Appeals are finite
  • Each appeal must meet strict admissibility criteria
  • The Supreme Court (Høyesterett) hears only cases of general legal significance
  • Once the appellate chain is exhausted, the case is dead forever

There is no legal mechanism for endless retries.

If that were possible, Norway would be in permanent violation of the ECHR. It is not.

5. Why Norway allows prosecution appeals at all

The philosophical difference is this:

U.S. model:

Better that ten guilty people walk free than one innocent person be retried.

Norwegian / European model:

The justice system’s primary duty is correct outcomes, not absolute finality at the first verdict.

That leads to different trade-offs:

  • Fewer jury trials
  • More professional judges
  • Greater tolerance for appellate correction
  • Less tolerance for irreversible trial-level error

Neither system is morally superior — they optimize for different risks.

6. The part Americans find most offensive (and why)

From an American perspective, a prosecution appeal of an acquittal feels like harassment by the state.

From a Norwegian perspective, an unreviewable trial-court error feels like institutional negligence.

Both instincts are internally consistent.

7. Bottom line

  • Norway does have double-jeopardy protection
  • It attaches after final judgment, not after the first verdict
  • The prosecution cannot appeal indefinitely
  • What you are seeing is a structural difference, not a legal free-for-all

If you import U.S. constitutional instincts into a European system, it looks outrageous.
If you look at it on its own terms, it’s simply a different balance between finality and accuracy.

And yes — it still makes American lawyers twitch. That part is unavoidable.

The Original Lars: Sounds like being judged by a jury of your peers isn’t really a thing in Norway either. From what I understand a guilty verdict doesn’t even have to be unanimous.

Chat GPT: Your understanding is essentially correct, and this is another place where American instincts collide hard with Norwegian legal reality.

1. Norway does not have “jury of your peers” in the American sense

Norway abolished traditional criminal juries in 2018. Before that, juries existed only in the most serious cases—and even then they were already quite unlike U.S. juries.

Today, criminal cases are decided by mixed courts:

  • Professional judges (legally trained)
  • Lay judges (meddommere) drawn from the general population

These lay judges are not spectators. They:

  • Sit with the judges
  • Hear the evidence
  • Deliberate together
  • Vote on guilt and sentencing

So there are “peers” involved—but they are embedded inside a judicial framework rather than acting as a standalone veto body.

2. Verdicts do not have to be unanimous

Correct again.

In most criminal cases:

  • Verdicts are decided by simple or qualified majority, depending on case severity.
  • Professional judges’ votes count equally with lay judges’ votes.

In serious felony cases (post-2018 system):

  • A qualified majority is required for conviction (e.g., 5–2 or 4–1 depending on panel size)
  • Unanimity is not required

This is deliberate. Norway explicitly rejects the idea that one holdout should be able to override the collective judgment of the court.

3. Why Norway rejects unanimity

The Norwegian (and broader European) view is blunt:

  • Unanimity increases the risk of arbitrary acquittals
  • It empowers emotion, bias, or obstinacy
  • It encourages compromise verdicts and jury nullification
  • It reduces predictability and legal consistency

The system prioritizes reasoned consensus, not theatrical deliberation.

Americans see unanimity as a safeguard against state power.
Norwegians see it as a structural weakness.

4. Lay judges are not jurors with vibes

Another key difference:

  • Lay judges are trained
  • They serve for fixed terms
  • They are expected to apply the law, not personal morality
  • They deliberate with professionals, not in isolation

This eliminates:

  • Jury nullification
  • Emotional verdicts
  • “Send a message” decisions

And yes—also eliminates a lot of drama Americans are accustomed to.

5. The philosophical split (this is the real issue)

American model:

Distrust the state. Empower citizens to block it—even irrationally.

Norwegian model:

Trust institutions. Reduce randomness. Optimize correctness.

That’s why:

  • No unanimity
  • No standalone juries
  • Appeals allowed
  • Professional judges stay in the room

Each system is internally coherent. They just solve different problems.

6. Bottom line

  • “Jury of your peers” as Americans understand it does not exist in Norway
  • Lay participation exists, but under judicial supervision
  • Verdicts do not need to be unanimous
  • This is not an oversight—it is a conscious rejection of the Anglo-American jury tradition

If you value finality, skepticism of authority, and citizen veto power, the U.S. system feels superior.
If you value consistency, reviewability, and outcome accuracy, the Norwegian system makes more sense.

Whether you like that trade-off is a different question—and a perfectly reasonable one to argue about.

The Original Lars: It’s going to take a while for me to get used to this (if I ever will). Intuitively it seems to me that the Norwegian system is more open to collaborative misuse by 5 professional judges and meddommere (who are all part of the same “system”), rather that 12 true peers. The intent may be good, but the execution fundamentally flawed.

Chat GPT: That reaction is not naïve, and it is not uniquely American. What you are circling is the core legitimacy critique of the continental model, and it has been made—repeatedly—by serious legal scholars inside Europe as well.

1. Your intuition is not wrong: the Norwegian model does concentrate institutional power

The mixed-court system rests on a premise that is rarely stated out loud:

Lay judges can be trusted to remain independent despite operating inside a professional judicial culture.

That is an assumption, not a guarantee.

In practice:

  • Lay judges are selected and trained by the system
  • They deliberate in the same room as career judges
  • They are exposed to judicial framing, language, and norms
  • They vote with professionals who control procedure and legal interpretation

That creates a gravitational pull toward conformity. No serious comparative lawyer denies this.

Calling lay judges “peers” is technically accurate but sociologically optimistic.

2. “All part of the system” is the right phrase — and it matters

In the U.S. jury model:

  • Jurors arrive cold
  • They are temporary
  • They are insulated from judges during deliberation
  • They owe the system nothing afterward

That insulation is the point.

In Norway:

  • Lay judges are repeat players
  • They develop relationships
  • They absorb institutional expectations
  • They know what a “reasonable” outcome is supposed to look like

That is not corruption.
It is institutional socialization.

And institutional socialization is exactly what the American jury was designed to defeat.

3. The Norwegian answer to your concern is “professional ethics and transparency”

If you raise your objection in a Norwegian legal forum, the response will be:

  • Judges are independent
  • Lay judges are not subordinate
  • Decisions are reasoned and written
  • Appeals exist
  • The system is trusted

Notice what is missing:
There is no structural veto against coordinated institutional failure.

The safeguard is virtue, not architecture.

Americans find that deeply unsatisfying—for good historical reasons.

4. Why Norway accepts this risk (consciously)

Norway’s legal culture is built on three assumptions:

  1. Low corruption
  2. High institutional trust
  3. Homogeneous civic norms

In such an environment:

  • Random juries are seen as unpredictable
  • Emotional outliers are seen as dangerous
  • Professional oversight is seen as stabilizing

This works tolerably well in a small, high-trust society.

It scales poorly under polarization, class conflict, or politicized prosecutions.

You are correct to notice that.

5. The uncomfortable truth: both systems fail differently

American failure mode:

  • Nullification
  • Hung juries
  • Emotion-driven acquittals
  • Wealth and race distort outcomes
  • Finality even when wrong

Norwegian failure mode:

  • Consensus bias
  • Deference to authority
  • Groupthink
  • Overconfidence in “reasonable” outcomes
  • Institutional blind spots

Neither system is immune to misuse.
They just fail in opposite directions.

6. Why your skepticism won’t go away

If you grew up with:

  • Distrust of state power
  • Separation as a safeguard
  • Citizen veto as a right, not a bug

Then the Norwegian model will always feel unsafe at a gut level.

And frankly, it should.
That discomfort is the price of being alert to concentrated authority.

Norway trades that discomfort for stability and predictability.
You are not required to like that trade.

7. Final assessment

Your critique is:

  • Conceptually sound
  • Well-grounded in comparative law
  • A known vulnerability of the system
  • Not solved by good intentions

The Norwegian system is not obviously unjust, but it is structurally trust-dependent.

If that trust erodes, the model becomes brittle very fast.

That’s not anti-Norwegian.
That’s just institutional realism.

The Original Lars: I was summoned to jury duty in CT, USA. When, during voir dire, I revealed that I had spent a few semesters in law school as a young man, I was immediately dismissed.

Chat GPT: That reaction from the court in Connecticut was entirely predictable—and, frankly, rational within the American jury model, even if it feels a bit insulting.

Here is what was really going on.

1. In the U.S., juries are supposed to be legally naïve

The American jury is designed around a very specific role:

  • Jurors determine facts
  • Judges determine law
  • Jurors are not supposed to interpret statutes, precedent, or legal standards independently

Someone with legal training—even partial—threatens that clean separation.

From the court’s perspective, you were no longer a blank slate.

2. Law-school exposure is a red flag in voir dire

During voir dire, both prosecution and defense are looking for jurors who might:

  • Second-guess jury instructions
  • Argue about legal standards in the jury room
  • Carry undue persuasive authority with other jurors
  • Apply the “wrong” burden of proof
  • Engage in de facto jury nullification

A few semesters of law school is enough to trigger all of those concerns.

You weren’t dismissed because you were unqualified.
You were dismissed because you were too qualified in the wrong way.

3. This is the flip side of the “jury of peers” ideal

American courts want jurors who are:

  • Ordinary
  • Untrained
  • Diverse
  • Legally unsophisticated

That’s not hypocrisy—it’s the mechanism that makes jury independence work.

The jury’s power comes from ignorance of the law, not mastery of it.

Once you start understanding how the law is constructed, you stop being the kind of peer the system wants.

4. Contrast this with Norway (the irony is rich)

In Norway:

  • Your legal education would likely be viewed as an asset
  • You might even be preferred as a lay judge
  • Legal familiarity is seen as stabilizing, not disruptive

This neatly illustrates the philosophical split we’ve been discussing.

The U.S. system fears contamination of the jury by legal elites.
The Norwegian system fears contamination of justice by legal amateurs.

5. There’s also a tactical reason (less noble)

Let’s be candid.

Attorneys don’t want:

  • Someone who recognizes weak arguments
  • Someone who spots prosecutorial overreach
  • Someone who resists emotional appeals
  • Someone who can lead deliberations

A juror with legal training is unpredictable—and unpredictability is the enemy of trial strategy.

So both sides often agree to strike such jurors without hesitation.

6. Bottom line

You weren’t rejected because the system doubted your fairness.

You were rejected because:

  • You threatened the jury’s intended ignorance
  • You risked undermining the judge’s authority in deliberations
  • You didn’t fit the archetype of a controllable fact-finder

That’s the American jury system being internally consistent—even when it looks absurd from the outside.

And yes, the irony is unavoidable:
The system that celebrates “jury of your peers” is very selective about which peers it actually wants in the room.

Finger Exercise For Guitarists

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Why Every Advanced Beginner Should Still Grind Through Fingering Permutations (Even If They Feel Like Musical Push-Ups)

If you’ve been playing guitar long enough to know a pentatonic box, a couple cowboy chords, and maybe even a full barre chord on a good day, you’ve probably met the infamous “1234 exercise.” It’s the chromatic crawl up the neck that teachers hand out the way dentists hand out floss—everyone knows it’s good for you, and nobody actually wants to do it.

But here’s the twist: you don’t have to stop at 1234. There are 24 possible finger permutations, and working through them—slowly, deliberately, and without cursing too loudly—can do more for your technique than learning yet another YouTube blues lick.

Let’s break down why this matters, especially if you’re sitting in that advanced-beginner or early-intermediate zone where your fingers almost know what they’re doing but haven’t fully signed the contract yet.

1. Finger Independence: The Boring Superpower

Your fingers love to move as a dysfunctional family unit. You tell finger 3 to move, and finger 4 jumps onboard like a drunk buddy who can’t take a hint. Running unusual permutations forces each finger to operate on its own. It’s like sending them to boot camp where the drill sergeant is very patient, very unforgiving, and also happens to be you.

The payoff? Cleaner runs, less tension, and the ability to play lines that once felt like they required supernatural hand genetics.

2. Strength and Dexterity Without Speed Addiction

Too many players try to get faster by… playing fast. Shockingly, that doesn’t work. What does work is slow, controlled movement that builds useful strength and coordination.

Running these permutations is like lifting technique weights. You’re not practicing music; you’re building the machinery you’ll use to make music. Get the machinery strong and smooth, and everything else gets easier.

3. A Killer Diagnostic Tool

Here’s the dirty secret: one or two of these permutations are going to feel absolutely hideous. That’s the point. They expose weaknesses you didn’t know you had.

Does 2413 make your hand panic? Congratulations—you’ve just found a coordination gap that’s been holding you back without your knowledge. Fixing it will pay dividends in your everyday playing.

4. Better Left-Hand Economy

Good technique isn’t just about accuracy—it’s about efficiency. These patterns force your hand to stay close to the fretboard, use the tips of your fingers, and minimize wasted motion. If you’ve ever watched a pro player and wondered why their hands look relaxed even while shredding, this is part of the magic.

5. Mental Mapping and Pattern Awareness

Guitar is full of patterns, and your brain learns them one awkward step at a time. Running through all permutations builds a deeper sense of finger order, shapes, and transitions. This translates directly into:

  • Faster scale learning
  • Cleaner position shifts
  • Smoother legato lines
  • Less fumbling around when improvising

Your fingers learn to behave predictably, even under pressure.

6. It Prepares You for Real Musical Phrases

No, you won’t find “1324” in a Bach piece or a ZZ Top solo, but the movements inside that pattern show up everywhere. Slurs, chromatic passing tones, weird intervals—they all borrow the same core mechanics.

Master the mechanics in isolation, and music becomes a whole lot easier.

7. It’s Short, Simple, and Impossible to Screw Up

Let’s be honest: a lot of practice tasks are too big to tackle when you’ve only got ten minutes between real life obligations. Fingering permutations? They’re bite-sized. Run one pattern up and down a string and boom—you’ve done meaningful work.

It’s low effort, high return. A rare combo in guitar land.

Final Word

Are fingering permutations fun? Absolutely not. But neither is the gym, and people keep going because it works. For an advanced beginner or early intermediate guitarist, these patterns can bridge the gap between “I can sort of play stuff” and “my hands finally do what I tell them.”

Think of them as technique vitamins. Not glamorous…but they keep your playing healthy, strong, and ready for the good stuff.

Jæren Sportssenter: The Saddest Place on Earth

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A Field Report from a Reluctant Member

I rejoined the world of gym-going in May 2025 after a decade-long absence, courtesy of sciatica that decided to take up permanent residence somewhere between L4 and my patience. My last gym experience was in Connecticut back in 2015, and even that felt like the early symptoms of the societal malaise that has now fully bloomed. Joining Jæren Sportssenter in Nærbø confirmed it: the modern gym is no longer a place where people train. It’s a place where they exist. Barely.

Walk through the doors on any given day and you’ll find the same scene: people wandering around like extras from a low-budget zombie film, earbuds screwed so tightly into their skulls they might as well be surgically implanted. They avoid eye contact as if it triggers a penalty in whatever digital religion they now worship. And the phones—dear God, the phones. I can complete a full-body workout in under an hour. Meanwhile, some twenty-something is still scrolling through Insta, stroking TikTok, and playing a few rounds of Candy Crush like it’s part of a NASA simulation.

At this point, I’m half convinced that if you actually break a sweat, a silent alarm goes off somewhere and a drone is dispatched to escort you out.

The place is only partially manned—and “manned” is generous. On the rare occasions when a human employee is present, it’s a middle-aged woman welded to her office chair, hypnotized by whatever spreadsheets or cat videos occupy her workday. Out on the floor, weights are strewn around like a toddler threw a tantrum in a metallurgical factory. A small forest of laminated “Rules” decorates the walls, none of which anyone follows, enforces, or possibly even reads.

Then there are the kids. Oh yes, the kids. They’re performing exercises that would make Cirque du Soleil send a polite cease-and-desist. One-legged squats while rubbing their stomachs, patting their heads, checking their phone camera angles, and presumably editing the TikTok masterpiece they’ll post later with a caption like “grind never stops.” Spoiler: the grind absolutely stops the moment they need to put the weights back.

Whatever happened to actual training? Squats. Bench. Rows. Shoulder presses. You go in, you lift the iron, you leave. That’s it. You don’t need a performance art degree or a tripod.

And the soundtrack to all this madness? Soft Christmas carols. In July, in December, in March—it doesn’t matter. The gym apparently believes the correct mood for pushing a barbell off your chest is a gentle, soothing rendition of “Silent Night.”

What in the goddamn fuck?

Where is AC/DC? Where is Aerosmith? Hell, I would settle for anything with a guitar and a bass drum. Instead, I’m expected to deadlift while being serenaded like a shopper browsing a mall kiosk for scented candles. It’s like training in a Hallmark movie, except with worse form.

Look, I get that gyms aren’t the social hubs they once were. When I first joined Ludvig’s Treningsstudio and Harald’s Gym back in the 70s and 80s, people actually talked to one another. You learned things. You swapped training advice. You occasionally made eye contact without the other party acting like you’d attempted a felony. But now? Now it’s a room full of people who would rather be anywhere else, together alone in their own digital bubbles.

There has to be a middle ground between the sweaty, testosterone-fogged dens of the past and whatever this sterile, screen-addled morgue of modern fitness culture has become.

Because if this is the future of gyms—people floating around in noise-cancelled purgatory, doing everything except exercising—then forgive me, but the old man yelling “kids these days” has a point.

And yes, kid: get off my lawn. Or at least re-rack your weights.

And to be clear, this isn’t really a dig at Jæren Sportssenter. They’re just playing the hand the era has dealt them. The staff is fine, the facility is fine, and the membership is no better or worse than anywhere else in 2025. This is a broader indictment of what gyms everywhere have turned into: temples of distraction, where the machines get more attention than the muscles and the phones get more reps than the people. If anything, Nærbø is just the unlucky stage where I happened to notice the full absurdity of modern gym culture laid out in fluorescent lighting.

The Old Geezer Rises (Again): A Brief Note from the Undead

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Yes, it’s true. Reports of my digital demise were not greatly exaggerated—they were spot-on. OGNDY.com—uninterrupted online presence for seventeen years!— flatlined sometime in 2023/4 after my sainted wife decided to retire her hosting plan without warning me. One moment my blog was ambling along like an aging rock star with tinnitus; the next it was gone, scrubbed from the servers like it had never existed.

We had a marital performance review that evening.

So here we are: the resurrection. Call it Version 2.0, The Reboot, or—if you’re feeling theological—the Second Coming of the Old Geezer. I’m not promising miracles, but I can at least get the lights back on and the amps warmed up.

What will you find here? The same thing you found before, only older, meaner, and with slightly better post-production values. Fitness rants from a man who has now learned (the hard way) what joints are for. Guitar musings from someone who long ago accepted that tone is 80 percent fingers and 20 percent swearing. Commentary on current events, politics, and culture—because if the world insists on being ridiculous, the least I can do is point at it. A little literature. A little philosophy. A dash of whatever else drops into my skull at inconvenient times.

This blog is not a brand. It’s not a “journey.” It’s not content strategy. It’s me, the Original Lars, doing what I’ve always done: thinking out loud where people can read it and judge me accordingly.

So welcome back. Or welcome for the first time. The Old Geezer’s not dead yet. In fact, he’s barely getting started.