EPTEuropean Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 1284
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FatLadySings
2 Posts
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Thanks_Kwark
3 Posts
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HeWas123
2 Posts
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sharkie
Austria18313 Posts
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xM(Z
Romania5277 Posts
On July 22 2020 22:20 Dangermousecatdog wrote: oh right, 'cause i'm a right wing extremist.For humanity, you can read that as human origin but i guess you will call that cherry picked contexts as well. But hey, posting abstracts of papers don't work on people who can read them just because you yourself cannot understand them. The paper itself has nothing to do with whatever you are on about. gotcha. On July 22 2020 10:11 IgnE wrote: it's not so much about order but about adding context to senses: cultural, social, historical etc.what are the other extant sensory orders? Ex: ... words and constructions pertaining to sensory perceptions are used to express emotions, suggesting a very close coupling between perceptions and emotions. For instance, we often refer to people’s sensitivity as somebody being touchy, to people’s vulnerability as smelling their blood, or bad experiences as leaving a bad taste in our mouths, unpalatable or unsavoury, and pleasant experiences as music to our ears or a sight for sore eyes. sees the senses in the context of cognitive linguistics where expressions/phrases categorize and/or give value to senses(later works/articles/opinions on this, try to skew the argument more towards perception to the detriment of cognition).touch > taste > smell then sound and vision was the starting hierarchy on which most 'modern' research on senses was done. continuing or completing that idea, some separate the senses into higher and lower modalities based on the required contact with the perceiver(is what we had in the coronavirus thread: sight vs everything else because ... direct contact). then you have a reliability based justification for that hierarchy: the more objective a sense the more reliable. based on that, sight was considered a higher sense while the subjective senses(smell, taste, touch) were considered lower senses. thing is, with the evolution of makeup and surgery and photoshop, sight became less and less objective. ones basing their reality on a less and less objective sense, become disjointed/disconnected from the world they live in. in a the future, for the sake of continuation/persistence/lasting, is it will be required that sight be paired with other senses; interconnecting senses to improve the perception of reality. my point was that these fuckers won't be able/won't want to adapt to that so who can expedite the collapse of the visual, hits the jackpot. + Show Spoiler + Sensory orders are not static: they develop and change over time, just as cultures do. Some of the sensory expressions of a society, manifested in its language, rituals, and myths, may be relics or survivals from an earlier sensory order. This is particularly evident in societies `with history’ (i.e. where records of earlier ways of life are extant). For example, Mackenzie Brown (1986) gives a fascinating account of how visuality came to dominate aurality in the history of the Hindu tradition, based on a reading of India’s sacred texts.2 As another example, the Latin-based word `sagacious,’ which now means only `wise,’ originally, at a more olfactory-conscious period, meant ‘keen-scented’ as well. In societies `without history’ (i.e., those for which earlier records do not exist), this kind of sensory layering is more difficult to discern, but not impossible. In Do Kamo: Person and Myth in the Melanesian World, Maurice Leenhardt (1979) was able to trace the origin of certain olfactory and visual representations of the body to different stages of Melanesian civilization by relating the representations in question to evolving concepts of space (see further Howes 1988). In such cases, the contemporary relevance of a given sensory expression can only be determined by relating it to the total sensory dynamic of the culture. it's a good read.... Every culture strikes its own balance among the senses. While some cultures tend toward an equality of the senses, most cultures manifest some bias or other, either privileging a particular sense. or some cluster of senses. In order successfully to fathom the sensory biases of another culture, it is essential for the researcher to overcome, to the extent possible, his or her own sensory biases. The first and most crucial step in this process is to discover one’s personal sensory biases.3 The second step involves training oneself to be sensitive to a multiplicity of sensory expressions. This kind of awareness can be cultivated by taking some object in one’s environment and disengaging one’s attention from the object itself so as to focus on how each of its sensory properties would impinge on one’s consciousness were they not filtered in any way (see Merleau-Ponty 1962; Rawlinson 1981). The third step involves developing the capacity to be `of two sensoria’ about things (Howes 1990c), which means being able to operate with complete awareness in two perceptual systems or sensory orders simultaneously (the sensory order of one’s own culture and that of the culture studied), and constantly comparing notes. The procedure sketched above may be illustrated by taking the example of blood. Blood has a variety of sensory properties: it is warm, viscous, red, salty and odorous. The salience of these properties, however, depends on the sensory order within which they are perceived. Thus, North Americans tend to think of blood in terms of its visual appearance, its redness. In South India, practitioners of Siddha medicine give priority to the tactile dimension of blood; the pulse it produces within the body (Daniel, ch. 7 VSE). This holds true in Guatemala as well, although there the pulse is said to be the `voice’ of blood, suggesting an audio-tactile perceptual framework (Tedlock 1982: 53, 134). Among the Ainu of Japan, it is the odour of blood that is most salient, as the smell of blood is thought to repel spirits (Ohnuki-Tierney 1981: 97). In the myth of the Wauwalak sisters as told in northern Australia, there is reference to both the smell of blood and to ‘blood containing sound’ (Berndt 1951: 44), which implies an audio-olfactory bias. | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
On July 24 2020 03:50 xM(Z wrote: I never said anything of the sort. I don't know what you are, except incomprehensible. But I suppose that's your style of argumentation.oh right, 'cause i'm a right wing extremist. gotcha. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland11933 Posts
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/vote-results--september-27--2020/46031964 The important one was of course that we rejected the immigration initiative pretty thoroughly; the polls predicted this but it's still good to have it set in stone. I don't know if it absolves us from the 2014 vote, but it's certainly a decent course correction. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-set-to-rebuff-right-wing-attack-on-eu-immigration/46040240 Overall it's a pretty good day, in the wake of the other thread talking about how populism is shit for the 100th time, I thought I'd just voice some satisfaction at our populist system. In more local news that's of concern to me, we recently voted on how to bring back legal poker outside of casinos. There was some pressure to force professional dealers in those tournaments, under stupid pretenses (supposedly they would be able to spot people who are playing while addicted; that's silly). So some of my organizer friends went to the cantonal authorities and made their case that it would kill low budget tournaments, that it had no advantages, and that the main push behind this idea of having obligatory dealers came from a dude that had a dealer school (no kidding). They listened to us and, well, turns out Fribourg isn't going to require professional dealers at their poker tournaments. So yeah, the system works. This idea of listening to the people is legit good, guys, you ought to try it sometimes. | ||
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Silvanel
Poland4692 Posts
The link is about hosttilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan in disputed region (again). | ||
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KlaCkoN
Sweden1661 Posts
On September 28 2020 00:39 Nebuchad wrote: Today we had some major votations in Switzerland. We did pretty good, we almost even rejected the new fighter jets, I thought this one was going to get like 60% so I'm pleasantly surprised https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/vote-results--september-27--2020/46031964 The important one was of course that we rejected the immigration initiative pretty thoroughly; the polls predicted this but it's still good to have it set in stone. I don't know if it absolves us from the 2014 vote, but it's certainly a decent course correction. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-set-to-rebuff-right-wing-attack-on-eu-immigration/46040240 Overall it's a pretty good day, in the wake of the other thread talking about how populism is shit for the 100th time, I thought I'd just voice some satisfaction at our populist system. In more local news that's of concern to me, we recently voted on how to bring back legal poker outside of casinos. There was some pressure to force professional dealers in those tournaments, under stupid pretenses (supposedly they would be able to spot people who are playing while addicted; that's silly). So some of my organizer friends went to the cantonal authorities and made their case that it would kill low budget tournaments, that it had no advantages, and that the main push behind this idea of having obligatory dealers came from a dude that had a dealer school (no kidding). They listened to us and, well, turns out Fribourg isn't going to require professional dealers at their poker tournaments. So yeah, the system works. This idea of listening to the people is legit good, guys, you ought to try it sometimes. Congratulations, I was very happy when I read that. I was also annoyed by the framing of this referendum in English speaking media; BBC wrote things like 'The Swiss have to chose whether to accept freedom of movement in order to keep their trading relations with their largest neighbor". At least for me freedom of movement isn't something to 'accept' it's the single best thing about the EU/EFTA/EEA. I think the EU is great for a lot of reasons, and annoying for a lot of different reasons, but freedom of movement is definitely and unequivocally on the positives side. I went to uni in the UK, and while there I flew and visited high school friends who had decided to study in France and Poland. That's amazing to me and I find the opportunity and freedom the EU offers to every person living in any of the participating countries invaluable. I certainly agree with you that democratic self rule has intrinsic value, but I am pretty ambivalent about direct democracy. I went to grad school in California, and their system is superficially quite similar to the Swiss system. (Representative democracy, with very easy to initiate binding referendums.) Every election in Cali features dozens and dozens of 'propositions' ranging from regulating condoms in the porn industry to soda taxes. It seemed obnoxious to me, and none of my friends who could actually vote liked it very much. Properly researching the likely consequences of any one of these propositions simply takes a lot of time. And personally I think I'd rather pay someone (via tax dollars) to do that research professionally as an elected politician. Then again sometimes I get the feeling that politicians spend more of their time trying to get elected than doing that research so yea, I guess I'm ambivalent. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland11933 Posts
On September 28 2020 09:49 KlaCkoN wrote: I certainly agree with you that democratic self rule has intrinsic value, but I am pretty ambivalent about direct democracy. I went to grad school in California, and their system is superficially quite similar to the Swiss system. (Representative democracy, with very easy to initiate binding referendums.) Every election in Cali features dozens and dozens of 'propositions' ranging from regulating condoms in the porn industry to soda taxes. It seemed obnoxious to me, and none of my friends who could actually vote liked it very much. Properly researching the likely consequences of any one of these propositions simply takes a lot of time. And personally I think I'd rather pay someone (via tax dollars) to do that research professionally as an elected politician. Then again sometimes I get the feeling that politicians spend more of their time trying to get elected than doing that research so yea, I guess I'm ambivalent. After a while you lose the notion that it's very important that you make the correct decision all the time. The vote material comes with a little book that presents the positions of different parties, or the position of the state vs the position of the referendum. It's not very hard to get informed, provided nobody is lying (which is not always the case, for sure). I personally didn't care very much about the hunting law, so I checked what was the position of the socialist party, I read some argument that it could lead to beavers and other species being targeted down the line which looks like a slippery slope argument and could definitely be fallacious, then I shrugged and I voted no. Was this the best decision that I could have made, I don't know, at least in terms of my process it wasn't; but that's fine. What makes the system good is not really that you have the responsibility to make the correct decision all the time, it's that the decisional power can be in your hands if you choose. Another very good thing about this system is that we get a clearer picture of how people's beliefs are mapped out. I like to see that our Alabama, who voted in favor of the anti-immigration initiative, also rejected tax breaks for the richest families that the liberal right were offering at over 70% (!!) People in Switzerland are not that different from anywhere else, if you must "appeal to the center", you'll reach way more people with leftist economics and less social liberalism, rather than with social liberalism and less leftist economics. You also eliminate single-issue voters, people who would definitely vote for the left but feel abortion is murder and that's a very important fact in their political world view, for example. But that's probably an issue with two party systems more than it's an issue with representative democracy in itself. At the end of november, we're going to have a vote on whether swiss multinationals should be forced to respect human rights and the environment abroad ("Responsible business initiative"). It still blows my mind that we get to say fuck you to multinationals like that - at least I assume we will, I can't really imagine that we would vote against respecting human rights of foreigners and it had something like 80% support in May. | ||
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KlaCkoN
Sweden1661 Posts
On September 28 2020 11:07 Nebuchad wrote: After a while you lose the notion that it's very important that you make the correct decision all the time. The vote material comes with a little book that presents the positions of different parties, or the position of the state vs the position of the referendum. It's not very hard to get informed, provided nobody is lying (which is not always the case, for sure). I personally didn't care very much about the hunting law, so I checked what was the position of the socialist party, I read some argument that it could lead to beavers and other species being targeted down the line which looks like a slippery slope argument and could definitely be fallacious, then I shrugged and I voted no. Was this the best decision that I could have made, I don't know, at least in terms of my process it wasn't; but that's fine. What makes the system good is not really that you have the responsibility to make the correct decision all the time, it's that the decisional power can be in your hands if you choose. I think what I like most about the idea of constant referendums is that it seems to me like it could make "politics" more about what you want your country to look like and less about sports-like competition. Is that true in you experience? To what extent do people vote in these referendums for what their 'team' says relative to what they want? Another very good thing about this system is that we get a clearer picture of how people's beliefs are mapped out. I like to see that our Alabama, who voted in favor of the anti-immigration initiative, also rejected tax breaks for the richest families that the liberal right were offering at over 70% (!!) People in Switzerland are not that different from anywhere else, if you must "appeal to the center", you'll reach way more people with leftist economics and less social liberalism, rather than with social liberalism and less leftist economics. You also eliminate single-issue voters, people who would definitely vote for the left but feel abortion is murder and that's a very important fact in their political world view, for example. But that's probably an issue with two party systems more than it's an issue with representative democracy in itself. I feel like a multiparty system does this as well though right? At the end of november, we're going to have a vote on whether swiss multinationals should be forced to respect human rights and the environment abroad ("Responsible business initiative"). It still blows my mind that we get to say fuck you to multinationals like that - at least I assume we will, I can't really imagine that we would vote against respecting human rights of foreigners and it had something like 80% support in May. So if you guys tell Nestle that they aren't allowed to steal poor peoples water, package it in plastic, and then sell it back to them anymore, whats preventing Nestle from simply opening an 'office' in Dublin or Amsterdam like everyone else and then proceed as before? In general I have no trouble at all imagining people voting to fuck foreigners if it would make themselves richer. Good on you guys if you don't. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland11933 Posts
On September 28 2020 11:49 KlaCkoN wrote: I think what I like most about the idea of constant referendums is that it seems to me like it could make "politics" more about what you want your country to look like and less about sports-like competition. Is that true in you experience? To what extent do people vote in these referendums for what their 'team' says relative to what they want? I think that's a thing, yeah. Some positions are consistent with some ideologies and some aren't, so you're probably going to vote with your team most of the time still. But people are not entirely consistent, especially if they aren't extremely into politics, which, most people aren't. The objects of votations create mini debate topics, you'll discuss them once or twice with the people you meet socially, you won't always be against the same people, and then we move on. I feel like a multiparty system does this as well though right? Sure, to an extent. It's not as precise because if you like an obscure candidate, you probably ought to choose the more prominent member of your ideological group in case they don't make the runoff. But precision might not matter that much in this case. So if you guys tell Nestle that they aren't allowed to steal poor peoples water, package it in plastic, and then sell it back to them anymore, whats preventing Nestle from simply opening an 'office' in Dublin or Amsterdam like everyone else and then proceed as before? In general I have no trouble at all imagining people voting to fuck foreigners if it would make themselves richer. Good on you guys if you don't. I don't think they'll move, it's easier to just do the human right violations covertly and more carefully. Also saves the bad PR of "respecting human rights was so bothersome that I had to move to a country where I don't have to do that"  To really address the argument, I think this is an incomplete position. Companies can choose to leave whenever they want, and if they're going to hold us hostage with that threat and we grant them that privilege, then under this rationale they could logically force us to do anything. So really it's a balancing act, we're missing the second part of the argument which is something like "we don't care enough about them respecting human rights abroad to risk them going to Ireland". I think we should, and I hope all humanists think the same. The problem in this situation would be Ireland letting them do their shit, rather than us acknowledging that they shouldn't. It's also a very white conversation, no offense. We know they won't be targeting the human rights of the Swedish, or the British. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
On September 28 2020 00:39 Nebuchad wrote: So yeah, the system works. This idea of listening to the people is legit good, guys, you ought to try it sometimes. The system works fine in Switzerland but Switzerland has a few advantages, like the fact that it has the population size of a European metropolitan area and is largely withdrawn from international politics, so there is no need for a steady executive. You can introduce direct voting in localities of larger European nations which already exists to a degree, but the system is too volatile for a nation that is too large. In Switzerland, everyone's decision affects everyone, so everyone has skin in the game. In large nations a few states can easily start to erode the rights of people they don't give a crap about at the other end, and it deteriorates into mob rule. In particular tying national security and direct voting together is quite unworkable. Imagine if major nations like France or the UK who have commitments around the world suddenly decided to go home because someone's convinced the voters that some issue or the other matters more. Or even worse the other way around, imagine if two countries in bloody ethnic conflict suddenly decided to go to war at the ballot box. | ||
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
On September 28 2020 00:39 Nebuchad wrote: Today we had some major votations in Switzerland. We did pretty good, we almost even rejected the new fighter jets, I thought this one was going to get like 60% so I'm pleasantly surprised https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/vote-results--september-27--2020/46031964 The important one was of course that we rejected the immigration initiative pretty thoroughly; the polls predicted this but it's still good to have it set in stone. I don't know if it absolves us from the 2014 vote, but it's certainly a decent course correction. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-set-to-rebuff-right-wing-attack-on-eu-immigration/46040240 Overall it's a pretty good day, in the wake of the other thread talking about how populism is shit for the 100th time, I thought I'd just voice some satisfaction at our populist system. In more local news that's of concern to me, we recently voted on how to bring back legal poker outside of casinos. There was some pressure to force professional dealers in those tournaments, under stupid pretenses (supposedly they would be able to spot people who are playing while addicted; that's silly). So some of my organizer friends went to the cantonal authorities and made their case that it would kill low budget tournaments, that it had no advantages, and that the main push behind this idea of having obligatory dealers came from a dude that had a dealer school (no kidding). They listened to us and, well, turns out Fribourg isn't going to require professional dealers at their poker tournaments. So yeah, the system works. This idea of listening to the people is legit good, guys, you ought to try it sometimes. Is there anything deeply meaningful about the results of this vote, or anything unusual whatsoever? Neither of these seem very surprising: 1. Switzerland is just about the last nation I'd expect to catch onto the populist anti-immigration train, so that's no surprise. 2. You can call it "reluctant support" but evidently the country nonetheless signed onto a large new fighter jet expense - what does that really prove? It seems no more noteworthy than any other kind of voting, really, and there's plenty of opportunity to vote on local-but-consequential stuff like whether or not to fund the newest public transport initiative or something. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain17852 Posts
On September 29 2020 04:33 LegalLord wrote: Is there anything deeply meaningful about the results of this vote, or anything unusual whatsoever? Neither of these seem very surprising: 1. Switzerland is just about the last nation I'd expect to catch onto the populist anti-immigration train, so that's no surprise. 2. You can call it "reluctant support" but evidently the country nonetheless signed onto a large new fighter jet expense - what does that really prove? It seems no more noteworthy than any other kind of voting, really, and there's plenty of opportunity to vote on local-but-consequential stuff like whether or not to fund the newest public transport initiative or something. Re #1: your knowledge of Switzerland seems rather off. They are quite famously xenophobic (although not in larger internationally oriented cities like Zurich or Geneva). | ||
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
On September 29 2020 04:39 Acrofales wrote: Re #1: your knowledge of Switzerland seems rather off. They are quite famously xenophobic (although not in larger internationally oriented cities like Zurich or Geneva). To your point, looking into it a little more I do see items like the 2014 referendum that Neb was talking about, but I nevertheless am not surprised they would vote to reject by a large margin a proposal to do away with free movement in its entirety. There are a lot of "famously xenophobic" nations that have less of a dependency on foreigners than Switzerland has. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland11933 Posts
On September 29 2020 04:19 Nyxisto wrote: In Switzerland, everyone's decision affects everyone, so everyone has skin in the game. In large nations a few states can easily start to erode the rights of people they don't give a crap about at the other end, and it deteriorates into mob rule. This is nonsense, really. It's just as easy to find a decision that doesn't affect a group in Switzerland as it would be in France or anywhere else (people from rural areas get to vote on stuff that affects mostly cities, for example, and the reverse is also true). It's probably easier, even, as we have four distinct linguistic groups, some of which are often in conflict in terms of our voting habits. If they wanted, the swiss-german majority could very easily fuck us over; but overall they don't, because that's actually not what people do when you give them power. A good system also has some protections in place to prevent that from happening, btw, but I'd like to insist that these protections are rarely needed, because that's just not how people tend to use their power. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland11933 Posts
On September 29 2020 05:04 LegalLord wrote: To your point, looking into it a little more I do see items like the 2014 referendum that Neb was talking about, but I nevertheless am not surprised they would vote to reject by a large margin a proposal to do away with free movement in its entirety. There are a lot of "famously xenophobic" nations that have less of a dependency on foreigners than Switzerland has. The vote is meaningful in that it has been difficult/impossible to fully implement the demands of the 2014 vote because the deals that we have with Europe would get in the way. So in a lot of ways it was easy to see this vote as the way to implement the previous one, we take back the sovereignty over our immigration and we finally get to do what the people wanted in 2014. In refusing this, we are also undermining the legitimacy of the mandate of the 2014 vote, and with that the strength of our far right party. Coupled with the strong performance from our green party at the last election, I can't really remember a time where it was weaker than it is today (it's still the largest party in Switzerland so getting it to weaken is worth a lot). | ||
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Velr
Switzerland10605 Posts
On September 29 2020 04:19 Nyxisto wrote: The system works fine in Switzerland but Switzerland has a few advantages, like the fact that it has the population size of a European metropolitan area and is largely withdrawn from international politics, so there is no need for a steady executive. You can introduce direct voting in localities of larger European nations which already exists to a degree, but the system is too volatile for a nation that is too large. In Switzerland, everyone's decision affects everyone, so everyone has skin in the game. In large nations a few states can easily start to erode the rights of people they don't give a crap about at the other end, and it deteriorates into mob rule. In particular tying national security and direct voting together is quite unworkable. Imagine if major nations like France or the UK who have commitments around the world suddenly decided to go home because someone's convinced the voters that some issue or the other matters more. Or even worse the other way around, imagine if two countries in bloody ethnic conflict suddenly decided to go to war at the ballot box. This is such pure BS and shows a severe lack of understanding of the swiss system. The thing that keeps swiss "direct" deomcracy alive is that the winning side doesn't run it's win into the ground just because they won, it's that you implement the spirit of the vote but keep in mind the amount of people that were against it and make policy according to it. Thats why it works, not because of some miracolous direct democracy or whatever bs. A vote like Brexit would look quite diffrent in switzerland, we most likely would have 2-3 other votes for "details" in the meantime instead of voting for several new goverments on promises they will break anyway. I'm very, very, very happy with the result of that vote. I'm actually staggered that only 50.3% of the people were for new flying toys... Too bad its not 49.9% but, we'll see what the army does next, because this bodes really terrible for the future of the swiss armed forced (which is good). | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
On September 29 2020 07:16 Velr wrote: it's that you implement the spirit of the vote but keep in mind the amount of people that were against it and make policy according to it. Thats why it works, not because of some miracolous direct democracy or whatever bs. And why do you think it is that people implement the spirit rather than the letter of the law and don't run their victory into the ground? That is precisely a shared common culture of understanding, because nothing actually would stop a majority in Switzerland from doing just that. If you're in a culturally divided country, and I mean actually divided, you think that'd happen? If there was an anti-abortion popular majority in the US, and they could go to the ballot box tomorrow, you think they'd stop to keep the spirit of the opposition in mind? Switzerland is a small, coherent, high trust society. That's why you can trust people to respect electoral minorities. This is a very unique situation. | ||
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