--- title: The reality of the Danish fairytale | daily.dev description: Denmark offers benefits such as free education and healthcare but there are compromises and obligations involved. Education is fiercely guarded by meritocratic... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-reality-of-the-danish-fairytale-4bmskkpih twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The reality of the Danish fairytale | daily.dev og:description: Denmark offers benefits such as free education and healthcare but there are compromises and obligations involved. Education is fiercely guarded by meritocratic... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-reality-of-the-danish-fairytale-4bmskkpih og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/4bMsKkPih.png og:image:alt: The reality of the Danish fairytale og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The reality of the Danish fairytale **[David Heinemeier Hansson](https://daily.dev/sources/dhh)** · 9 min read · 10 upvotes · 2 comments ## Summary Denmark offers benefits such as free education and healthcare but there are compromises and obligations involved. Education is fiercely guarded by meritocratic access, healthcare has financial constraints, and immigration policies are strict. High taxes and conforming to social norms are expected. Denmark values safety and strong norms but compromises on material wealth. It is a united society but requires homogeneity. Multiculturalism is an exceptional achievement in America. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@musicdev** · 0 upvotes > There are times when DHH is brutally honest in a way that can be rather counter productive. > > This is not one of those times. This isn't exactly developer news, but a great post regardless. It's all about tradeoffs, and these are tradeoffs many Americans (even liberals) would most likely not make after getting used to American society. **@randy** · 0 upvotes > I couldn't care less about the healthcare and education aspects, but seeing America bring the same "homogeneity of ethnicity, values, norms, and perhaps even religion," to our society would really correct our course in a noticeable way. > > As always, a great post. Many truths that most Americans can't swallow. --- Tags: [#healthcare](https://daily.dev/tags/healthcare) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-reality-of-the-danish-fairytale-4bmskkpih) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The reality of the Danish fairytale","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-reality-of-the-danish-fairytale-4bmskkpih","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-reality-of-the-danish-fairytale-4bmskkpih"},"datePublished":"2024-01-04T16:42:16.733Z","dateModified":"2024-01-04T16:42:16.120Z","description":"Denmark offers benefits such as free education and healthcare but there are compromises and obligations involved. 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This isn’t exactly developer news, but a great post regardless. It’s all about tradeoffs, and these are tradeoffs many Americans (even liberals) would most likely not make after getting used to American society.","datePublished":"2024-01-12T20:46:58.451Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/4bMsKkPih#c-mUE9SR04N","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"MusicDev","url":"https://daily.dev/musicdev","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/10124207?v=4"}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"I couldn’t care less about the healthcare and education aspects, but seeing America bring the same “homogeneity of ethnicity, values, norms, and perhaps even religion,” to our society would really correct our course in a noticeable way.\nAs always, a great post. Many truths that most Americans can’t swallow.","datePublished":"2024-01-05T14:01:14.786Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/4bMsKkPih#c-dq4pP0L9z","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Randy","url":"https://daily.dev/randy","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--UjV4-KkB--/f_auto/v1708097210/avatars/avatar_HXYbbGcBO38Rfv7RrCBdA"}}]} ```