Estonia... Who knew? And why not?

[ramus]

https://thecenternews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/MW-EM081_estoni_20160505102604_ZH-810x456.jpg

---- IS THIS HOW YOU RUN A COUNTRY? ----

http://marketwatch.com/story/this-tiny-country-is-the-most-technologically-advanced-in-the-world-2016-05-05 (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-tiny-country-is-the-most-technologically-advanced-in-the-world-2016-05-05)
By Jurica Dujmovic

Have you ever been to Estonia? Could you find it on a map?

The Baltic nation of only 1.3 million citizens stands out from its Eastern European neighbors in that it has an advanced economy and a high standard of living. And it’s a technology paradise. You may know it as the home of Skype. But there’s a lot more to the tiny country than that.

In Estonia, voting, signing documents and filling out tax returns is done online, thanks to X-Road (https://e-estonia.com/component/x-road/), an online tool that coordinates multiple online data repositories and document registries. X-Road provides all Estonians — ordinary citizens, enterprises and government officials — with unparalleled access to the data they need to do business, get licenses, permits and other documents that would take days, weeks or even months in other countries.

http://ei.marketwatch.com//Multimedia/2016/05/05/Photos/ZH/MW-EM063_govt_d_20160505091353_ZH.jpg?uuid=3714930e-12c3-11e6-8668-0015c588dfa6

X-Road is built with scalability in mind, so that the growing number of services and repositories can easily be attached to the system. Although this digital backbone alone is rather impressive, it’s just one of many products in tech-forward Estonia. (http://www.businessinsider.com/estonias-tech-success-comes-down-to-2-factors-2013-9)

Instead of being held back by its past and falling victim to ailments that plague many post-communist countries, such as corruption, a bloated government and an obsolete education system, Estonia has decided to start with a clean slate and invest in its future. To transform its society into a community of tech-savvy individuals, children as young as 7 (http://www.newmusicco.com/kids-as-young-as-7-learning-computer-coding/) are taught the principles and basics of coding. (In comparison, only one in four schools in the U.S. teaches computer programming. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gySkItxiJn_vwb8HIIKNXqen184mRtzDX12cux0ZgZk/pub))

Such strong foundations have yielded impressive results: Estonians are driven, forward-thinking and entrepreneurial, and the same goes for the government. It takes only five minutes to register a company there and, according to The Economist, the country in 2013 held the world record for the number of startups per person (http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/07/estonias-technology-cluster). And it’s not quantity over quality: Many Estonian startups are now successful companies that you may recognize, such as Skype, Transferwise, Pipedrive, Cloutex, Click & Grow, GrabCAD, Erply, Fortumo, Lingvist and others. By the way, Estonia uses the euro.

If all this sounds enticing and you wish to become an entrepreneur there, you’re in luck; starting a business in Estonia is easy, and you can do it without packing your bags, thanks to its e-residency service, a transnational digital identity available to anyone. An e-resident can not only establish a company in Estonia through the Internet, but they can also have access to other online services that have been available to Estonians for over a decade. This includes e-banking and remote money transfers, declaring Estonian taxes online, digitally signing and verifying contracts and documents, and much more (https://e-estonia.com/components/).

http://ei.marketwatch.com//Multimedia/2016/05/05/Photos/ZH/MW-EM062_digita_20160505091124_ZH.jpg?uuid=de5d6a38-12c2-11e6-8870-0015c588dfa6

E-residents are issued a smart ID card, a legal equivalent to handwritten signatures and face-to-face identification in Estonia and worldwide. The cards themselves are protected by 2048-bit encryption, and the signature/ID functionality is provided by two security certificates stored on the card’s microchip.

But great innovations don’t stop there. Blockchain (https://www.blockchain.com/), the principle behind bitcoin that also secures the integrity of e-residency data, will be used to provide unparalleled safety to 1 million Estonian health records (http://www.coindesk.com/blockchain-startup-aims-to-secure-1-million-estonian-health-records/). The blockchain will be used to register any and all changes, illicit or otherwise, done to the health records, protecting their authenticity and effectively eliminating any abuse of the data therein.

While there are many lessons that the U.S. and the rest of the world can learn from Estonia, these are especially important: A country must be willing to adapt and change the infrastructure of both the government and the economy if needed, and to continually optimize them. A nation needs to understand that a change of mindset should be thorough and start with the young. An education system should be designed in a way that doesn’t cripple young minds, or overburden them with too much irrelevant information. And, finally, if you want entrepreneurship to thrive, it is necessary to remove bureaucratic and technical obstacles at all levels.

[Carmody]

Can't let any functional examples exist, of what happens when humans are left to their own devices and given a chance within that envelope: Look for elitist powers to soon tear this country to shreds.

I do not type a joke post or a negative post, I type a prediction ---- based on known history.

Elitist power, parasitical power.... is based on an unrealized (by the masses) subjugation of the masses and the maintenance of the masses..as masses. so they never realize or understand that a better life is less than a generation away, IF...they rid themselves of elite parasites. (this has to be done in permanence, ie, eradication of the genetics that can carry sociopathy)

we know that genetics can change in a single generation ---and even in the one lifespan. People can rise very fast.

This means that the door is open, today, right now, for a quick turnaround.

To get there... does mean full on actual confrontation and eradication of sociopathy which hides in systems of government and power. It does not need to be angry.... but it does need to be done.

[ramus]

Bill, once again thank you for look'in out ...don't know how to do that , but will ,thanks.

[rgray222]

A quick look at Estonia, a fascinating country that is a bit of an enigma in today's world

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/B463/production/_87997164_estonia_pm.jpg
Taavi Rõivas was thirty four when he was put into office in 2014.

The people of Estonia understand that success/enlightenment/advancement rests in their hands and not the hands of the government. This is a country willing to accept change and willing to limit government.

It experienced its first period of independence in 1918, following the collapse of the first WW and the first collapse of the Russian Empire.


Estonia was the first country in the world to use online political voting.

Estonia has a world-class education system
All Estonian schools are connected to the Internet.
Out of the nearly 200 countries in the world, Estonia ranks number two in adult literacy with its rate of 99.8 percent.
Estonia is the homeland of Skype, Hotmail and KaZaA.
Estonia has the highest number of meteorite craters per land area in the world.
Almost 50% of Estonia is covered by forest.
Chess Grandmaster Paul Keres was born in Estonia. When he died in 1975, over 100,000 people attended his funeral (10% of the country’s entire population).
Estonia is considered the most libertarian country in the world.
Estonia is the least religious country in the world – only 14% of inhabitants claim any religious beliefs. At the same time the people of Estonia are very spiritual
And, in case you are thinking of relocating, Estonia doesn’t accept dual citizenship.

[boja]

It sounds impressive,
but it will also be interesting to see how Estonia is doing in 20-30 years time
(another generation further).
Unfortunately, I won't be around to see that.(Unless I live to over 100).

[kirolak]

Actually, I did know a bit about Estonia, because of the pianist Ivari Ilja, whom I admire. . . :) another interesting state is Kalmikiya (sp?), the only officially Buddhist country in the "west"

[Bill Ryan]

another interesting state is Kalmikiya (sp?), the only officially Buddhist country in the "west"

Yes! :star:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalmykia

http://www.kalmykia.eu/images/kalmykia-map5.gif

[shaberon]

Kalmyks are a recent (1600s) migration of Mongols. Madame Blavatsky's family was fairly strongly tied to them, which is what inspired her towards Buddhism. Mongolians largely don't even live in Mongolia, being also in Siberia and China and the Altai region, closely related to Tibetans and Mons who emigrated towards Burma. This central Asian bloc is crucial in the Great Game between Russia and Britain, which is not just Eurasian history, but is still the modern stage.

The Baltic states are almost negligible in terms of global influence, but they are all probably pretty good places to live. Hopefully some day they will tell NATO to take a hike; not sure if Estonia is enmeshed, but Lithuania for example is a significant staging ground. Those places were both clever enough to largely dismiss mainstream religion, and once you do that, exploitation and war should go next.

Good deal for Estonia.