EPTDon't worry, Big J, I got your back. We'll show them liberal lefties what's what!
European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 1027
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Acrofales
Spain18434 Posts
Don't worry, Big J, I got your back. We'll show them liberal lefties what's what! | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5299 Posts
On January 07 2018 08:17 Nyxisto wrote: that is not really a reply to what i said but whatever, other people touched on my points.@xM(Z if you think that you could shitpost in ancient Rome or China to your heart's content I have bad news for you. I didn't invent the concept of civil discourse and limitation on expression. I don't know if that makes me a discourse imperialist or not, but spaces are moderated for good reasons, because most people don't want their entire society to turn into the youtube comment section. Given that we live in an age were over-saturation of news and media is a real problem, and a lot of people feel overwhelmed by the content they consume, the need for ways to filter out the nonsense from insight and fact from fiction is bigger than ever. For this, moderation needs to happen. There is such a thing as truth or untruth. Not every expression of hierarchy is simply display of power or cenorship, as is the case with British racism in your example. Nobody is automatically validated because they are excluded from a civic platform, they can be marginalized for good reasons. Today, trolls and extremists are deliberately using freedom of speech and permissive liberal platforms to spread their crap. If you want those platforms to continue to exist you need to draw a line. That's just self-preservation. going with what you wrote there: the /b part is imperialistic discourse; at this point i don't think you can help doing it/using it/making it. what in it is bad: - a lot of people feel overwhelmed by the content they consume = you defined the controlled and gave them 'legitimate' inferiority. - the need for ways to filter out the nonsense from insight and fact from fiction is bigger than ever = you established the presence of confidence in those controlling(they know what to do: filter out) and the absence of confidence in those controlled(they're clueless: implied); also, you emphasized the proper subservience of the ruled in need of that certain benevolence and 'legitimate' superiority from the rulers. - for this, moderation needs to happen = you asserted your rule(the need for you to rule) based on the above. now, how a normal dude should do it: - realize that the ones who know how to filter out the nonsense and the ones who don't know are both ... people; groups of people(i'd ask you here to try and point out some of the reasons for why does that happen but i'm pretty sure you'll just assert again and again that sheep exist and they need protecting so i won't do that). - know that a healthy society would be able do defend itself from outside threats(by virtue of healthiness - the state of being vigorous and free from bodily or mental disease). - figure out(try to) where, why, how the society is sick and cure it(try to). what you though your discourse are doing is isolating/quarantining the sick chronicizing the disease, to justify the need for a medic. so i'll ask again: why, do some people, believe in the stupid(a.k.a. fake news)?+ Show Spoiler + and no, it's not because they're inferior or lack confidence; just fuck off with that men | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18434 Posts
On January 09 2018 18:16 xM(Z wrote: that is not really a reply to what i said but whatever, other people touched on my points. going with what you wrote there: the /b part is imperialistic discourse; at this point i don't think you can help doing it/using it/making it. what in it is bad: - a lot of people feel overwhelmed by the content they consume = you defined the controlled and gave them 'legitimate' inferiority. - the need for ways to filter out the nonsense from insight and fact from fiction is bigger than ever = you established the presence of confidence in those controlling(they know what to do: filter out) and the absence of confidence in those controlled(they're clueless: implied); also, you emphasized the proper subservience of the ruled in need of that certain benevolence and 'legitimate' superiority from the rulers. - for this, moderation needs to happen = you asserted your rule(the need for you to rule) based on the above. now, how a normal dude should do it: - realize that the ones who know how to filter out the nonsense and the ones who don't know are both ... people; groups of people(i'd ask you here to try and point out some of the reasons for why does that happen but i'm pretty sure you'll just assert again and again that sheep exist and they need protecting so i won't do that). - know that a healthy society would be able do defend itself from outside threats(by virtue of healthiness - the state of being vigorous and free from bodily or mental disease). - figure out(try to) where, why, how the society is sick and cure it(try to). what you though your discourse are doing is isolating/quarantining the sick chronicizing the disease, to justify the need for a medic. so i'll ask again: why, do some people, believe in the stupid(a.k.a. fake news)?+ Show Spoiler + and no, it's not because they're inferior or lack confidence; just fuck off with that men Long term solution: improve education so people are better equipped to understand an argument, analyse the steps and identify faults. Interestingly, our education was probably better at that in the 19th century than it is today, but that was before mass education. I'm sure Eton still forces people to read Seneca. Given that in the 19th century most people couldn't read it wasn't really a problem that they couldn't analyze a bullshit text and point to where the argument falls apart. A further problem is that gullible fools are just something we have to live with. It'd be best if we didn't, but just as our eyes evolved inside out and we have appendices and tonsils, society isn't perfect either, and it's just something we have to deal with.. That makes the short term solution of moderating the discussion something that will probably be permanent. Demagoguery has been around since as long as we have recorded history and it's naive to think we can stop it with education. And to keep with your analogy of a sick organism: short term we need to keep the symptoms under control (painkillers for a human, moderation or even censoring for societal information flow). Long term we can try to solve the problem (e.g. surgery for a human, or improving our education system). But perhaps it simply cannot be cured and having contracted the nasty condition of fake news the best we can do is manage its symptoms while continuing to search for a cure. How bout that for following you down the rabbit hole of a bizarre analogy? :D | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
I'm not saying that it is some individuals fault alone, that there is nothing to be done about it, that is is unchangeable or whatever, but in the current state some kind of laissez-faire "the masses know best" stuff is just mad. Hierarchies serve a function in every society. A university is a better place than a bootcamp for learning for a reason. Journalists have editors for the same purpose and we don't let everybody vote with a strawpoll. There is no justification why this shouldn't apply to how we consume media. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
what you consider - bullshit is the same. Representative democracies make sense because governing is a job and noone has time to govern besides everything they do. That doesn't mean that the population shouldn't have a legal way to interfere with anything they believe their representatives are getting wrong. Besides, you are acting on the premise that everyone is dumb and believes they are not. In reality I have met very few people that I believe are outright dumb. I fear the people that believe they have understood how others act and how they can be controlled to their own good much more. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
On January 10 2018 05:07 Big J wrote: There is no decision system that can prevent what you are fearing. Whether you let your whole population vote on everything, or whether you democratically pick a sample to govern from those people is irrelevant. The chance to get - what you consider - bullshit is the same. Institutions and procedures are irrelevant now? You can't be serious at all. Of course the form of organisation of a democracy alters the decisions that are produced in that democracy. The more distance there is between representatives and voters, the more moderation and personal judgement takes place, and the less influential is the public will. Many democracies are deliberately designed that way. Besides, you are acting on the premise that everyone is dumb and believes they are not. In reality I have met very few people that I believe are outright dumb. Of course I can and people even spend a lot of time studying this stuff. In this specific case Bartels et al showed that voters do not vote rationally at all, even intelligent voters. People will frequently vote on an emotional basis, contradict themselves, or change their own beliefs rather than their party affiliation. And worse, they found that more involved voters often got the facts more wrong, because they exposed themselves to even more biased material than casual observers. Voting and political decision making is highly irrational, even among intelligent individuals. | ||
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
The vote is two-round, (this weekend and then in 2 weeks) and a first-round win is unlikely. The favourite is the current president Milos Zeman, a 73-year ex-politician (former prime minister, but like 10-15 years ago) - rude, uncultured, frequently drunk and with failing health, but also very popular by the commoners for "telling it how it is" and protecting our nation from the assault by the non-existent hordes of muslim immigrants (who avoid our country like plague). Zeman recently found an unexpected ally in Andrej Babis, multi-billionaire, entrepreneur and head of ANO, the victor of parliamentary elections, whom he named prime minister despite Babis's lack of majority support in the parliament and an ongoing EU investigation into a funding fraud in one of his projects. Zeman is also known for his orientation to the east and enthusiasm for relations with Russia and China. He "does not conduct a campaign" for reelection, but his billboards are everywhere and he toured the county (as a president, on taxpayer money). The challengers are a weird assortment of mostly non-politicains, as the general atmosphere is very negative towards political figures at the moment and a political-party-backed candidate would have little chances to gain majority. Those most likely to reach the second round include Jiri Drahos, former head of Academy of Sciences, Mirek Topolanek, a surprising late entrant and also a former prime minister (inactive in politics for a decade), Pavel Fischer, a former diplomat, Marek Hilser, a physician and self-proclaimed citizen activist and Michal Horacek, a songwriter and gambling entrepreneur. The real question of these elections is the second round, where Zeman will go head to head against someone and we will see if supporters of other candidates can rally together against Zeman or not - because, to be fair, a lot of the other candidates are pretty similar in opinions or at least in that they offer "not being a total asshole" as the main thing that separates them from Zeman. | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
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Archeon
3272 Posts
On January 09 2018 07:54 Big J wrote: As has been pointed out, I didn't post the article, so it's not necessarily the telegraph. Debt is as real as any contract. There are many ways people look at it. The correct one is that debt is a contract. It has a value when it is traded (as all things only have value at the moment of interaction, apart from that we can only speculate on the price they could potentially have). That value is usually a positive one, as you get money for giving away a debt contract. That's how money is created, by trading something against a promise. If you are out of things you want to trade but want money, you start trading debt contracts (i.e. you get the promise that is money itself, its value guaranteed for by the institutions emitting it, for the promise to give the other side money later on). A popular but technically wrong conception of debt is to sum up the overall projected payments written in the contract and call that debt. And since it is a contract, you can always see it from both sides. When you take that already technically wrong notion and say "the world owes X", you may as well say "the world has a credit of X". Hurray, we are so rich and gonna get so much money!  Which is why I call it fake news. It is an agenda. There is as much global debt as there is global credit (=negative debt). Could you explain to me why it's wrong? I get that it's technically imprecise, as sometimes payment gets delayed which increases interests and inflation acts as an often ignored counterweight, but the difference is mostly so minimal that it's a very good approximation. I guess you mean that the definition of debt only takes the debt-contract from one side into account? | ||
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
On January 10 2018 21:03 TheDwf wrote: So Babis is the head of a minority government, like in Spain? That is a good question to which the answer is not known. The government represents only ANO, which does not have majority, but so far it has been only appointed by the president and it still has to be approved by the parliament. There we will see how much support the government actually has and whether a stable government-supporting fraction emerges in the parliament. | ||
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warding
Portugal2397 Posts
I'd say that talking about global volumes of debt might be important it if we're trying to look at risk - the more leveraged economies are, the greater the potential systemic problems if at some point we find out that some asset-class is overvalued (ie. houses, dotcoms or tulips). | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On January 10 2018 22:41 opisska wrote: That is a good question to which the answer is not known. The government represents only ANO, which does not have majority, but so far it has been only appointed by the president and it still has to be approved by the parliament. There we will see how much support the government actually has and whether a stable government-supporting fraction emerges in the parliament. Ah OK, the "majority vote" didn't happen yet. Do you think it will pass? | ||
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
On January 10 2018 22:43 TheDwf wrote: Ah OK, the "majority vote" didn't happen yet. Do you think it will pass? I honestly don't know. The Communists seemed to be willing to support it but Babis was not willing to show publicly dealing with them, they are still stigmatized. Okamura's party may also provide support, but there was friction as well. We already had a government not pass and then rule for half a year "in demission", also the president may nominate the same government for the second time and the third attempt belongs to the head of parliament, who is from ANO.... | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
Carles Puigdemont aims to return to office as president of Catalonia — despite the fact it's unlikely he'll actually return there in person. He's currently living in Belgium, facing immediate arrest if he goes back home. The leading separatist parties in Spain's northeast region announced Wednesday they plan to support Puigdemont's re-election. If carried through, the move would reinstall a leader who was ousted from power, along with the rest of the region's leaders, by Spain's central government for unilaterally declaring the region's independence last fall. The parties' announcement Wednesday raises the specter of a renewed push for independence — and also raises difficult questions about how, exactly, Puigdemont might go about governing. After getting sacked by Madrid, the former regional president fled to Brussels with several other Catalan ministers to escape charges of rebellion. Those leaders remain out of the country, and Puigdemont has said if he's re-elected, he would discharge his duties remotely, via a video linkup such as Skype. "It is not possible to return to Catalonia," the ousted leader acknowledged Tuesday, according to Politico. Spain has jailed other pro-separatist leaders involved in the independence push. "He would be arrested if he sets foot back in Spain," Lauren Frayer notes for NPR's Newscast unit. "So he proposes ruling from afar, by video conference — possibly with a stand-in reading his speeches in parliament." Representatives for the Catalan parties cast the decision as the will of the people voiced in last month's snap election. That vote, which had been called by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy after Catalan leaders were dismissed in October, handed pro-independence lawmakers a slim majority of parliamentary seats in the regional government. "The Dec. 21 result gave us the mandate to reflect the majority," Jordi Xucla, a representative for Puigdemont's Together for Catalonia party, told Spanish national radio Wednesday, according to Reuters. "The presidential candidate will evidently be Puigdemont." Opposition parties — not to mention the Spanish courts — are likely to contest the legality of the deal, which would become official next week when the new regional parliament convenes. "It's evident that for governing Catalonia you have to be in Catalonia, you can't do that via WhatsApp or as a hologram," said Ines Arrimadas, the leader of the anti-independence Ciutadans party, as reported by The Associated Press. "A person who is fleeing justice can't be the president." Nevertheless, Puigdemont and his allies plan to push forward, as Puigdemont made clear in an op-ed published in Politico on Wednesday: "Madrid must be made to understand that what is needed is dialogue, negotiation and agreement on the future relationship we Catalans want to have with Spain — one based on respect, recognition, cooperation and equality." Source | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18434 Posts
I love it. I'm going to use tha analogy of a schoolyard, because that's essentially the level of politics here. It's like one kid punching the other in the face saying "talk to me". Instead he gets punched back... and they are both indignant that the other side keeps throwing punches instead of choosing a "rational" approach. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
"Democracy" article in German: https://diepresse.com/home/innenpolitik/5351546/Regierung-erhoeht-Zuwandererquote | ||
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warding
Portugal2397 Posts
On January 11 2018 18:15 Big J wrote: Step One after two far-right parties win an election based on anti-migration agenda: Higher quotas for non-EU migration. "Democracy" article in German: https://diepresse.com/home/innenpolitik/5351546/Regierung-erhoeht-Zuwandererquote 6120 places for 2018, a staggering 5.5% increase from last year. Anyway, what leads a far right party to make such a reckless move? | ||
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On January 11 2018 18:15 Big J wrote: Step One after two far-right parties win an election based on anti-migration agenda: Higher quotas for non-EU migration. "Democracy" article in German: https://diepresse.com/home/innenpolitik/5351546/Regierung-erhoeht-Zuwandererquote What had they promised? No immigration at all from non-EU countries? | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On January 11 2018 21:08 TheDwf wrote: What had they promised? No immigration at all from non-EU countries? "Remigration". Zero migration plus remigration of anyone who migrated illegally. It may not be much of an increase. It's still the total opposite of what they promised. Just like the 12-14 billion euros per year they (both parties) wanted to save have become 2.5 billion over the next years and 4% (FPÖ)/10% (ÖVP) of the voting base being able to initiate a referendum have become ~14% on not-CETA, not-ÖXIT, not-budget and only from 2022. Also, expectetly "no Hartz 4" in Austria has survived the elections by only a few months. My most favorite comment so far must be interior minister Kickl's: "Our security system is doing great work, our job is to close the gap between the reality and how people feel." Well... Who was the propaganda man in charge of FPÖ for the past 15 years telling everyone that we are all about to die any second now? | ||
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