I don’t think they are socialist democracy but social democracy. There is a distinction. I don’t think any country is a socialist country in morden history. There where some movement that were trying to be socialist but it either fell into dictatorship (USSR, North Korea, etc)or it was squashed by USA(Chile, and other central/ south american countries). The most successful one was that of Chile, until US backed coup overthrew the democratically elected government in favour of dictatorship.
If you want that sweet dopamine hit of solving problem with out the overhead of doing a project just try leet code. Like that Chinese ping pong player. Nothing wrong with that if you are not gonna pursue it as a job. Ps. You can use different language then you are familiar with like Haskell or ocamel. It can really help you think differently and look problems in new light.