2026-08-19

Finally resuming my daily logs

The Law of Jante

The Law of Jante by Michael Booth

I seem to keep coming across articles about Janteloven randomly. Have logged other articles about it twice already, I think.

Sandemose’s works are little read these days, except, that is, for a small fragment of one novel, A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks, published in 1933. The book is a thinly veiled roman à clef about the people of Nykøbing, which in the book is renamed “Jante.” It caused a storm of controversy, satirizing life in small-town Denmark as being ruled by pettiness, envy, backbiting, gossip, inverted snobbery, and small-mindedness. Naturally, the book generated some especially indignant spluttering in Nykøbing, exposing as it did the mean-spirited behavior of its residents, many of whom were easily identifiable.

The fragment of A Fugitive that has come both to define and to torment the Danes is a list of rules by which the residents of the fictional town of Jante were said to abide. These rules set out the Law of Jante (Janteloven), a kind of Danish Ten Commandments, the influence and infamy of which have spread beyond their home country throughout the Nordic region.

2026-08-21

Neo-etiquette

Neo-Etiquette Basics: The New Rules of Being Human #culture

1. Write to the people you love in your own voice, not OpenAI’s.
2. Remove your headphones when another person enters the interaction.
3. Don’t make your convenience somebody else’s administration.
4. Keep your private soundtrack private.
5. Ask before adding someone to a group chat.
6. A read receipt isn’t a subpoena.
7. When you’re with someone, stay with them.
8. If people can’t see the camera, don’t use it.
9. Other people’s children aren’t your content.
10. Don’t screenshot the group chat.
11. Don’t film strangers at their worst.
12. On the subject of disclosure by the way…make it your guiding light for AI, too.
13. Aim your surveillance at your own property.
14. Don’t let a screen remove your body from the world.
15. Don’t join in a punishment because it has attracted a crowd.
16. Give credit as a matter of honesty.
17. Do the small work of civilization.
18. Don’t announce a life that isn’t yours.
19. Answer human effort with human effort.
20. Allow people to leave their former selves behind.
21. Never forget the nervous system.