EPTIf it ever came to it (which it won't, but it makes an easily understandable shortcut), I'd rather had my country taken over the Germans than the Russians.
European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 869
| Forum Index > General Forum |
Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action. | ||
|
opisska
Poland8852 Posts
If it ever came to it (which it won't, but it makes an easily understandable shortcut), I'd rather had my country taken over the Germans than the Russians. | ||
|
Sent.
Poland9204 Posts
On May 23 2017 03:09 warding wrote: A German armed forced that integrates smaller countries' armed forces doesn't necessarily make Germany more of a threat. If anything, they now have to take other nations' interests into account for any joint military related action rather than being able to act on their own. Yeah they'll have to take those interests into account but it will still be them who make the final decisions. Eventually we'll have to integrate our armies but the idea of integrating smaller armies into German one now is questionable. I would be more comfortable with creating military groups in regions of smaller countries e.g. Army "Baltic" group consisting of Scandinavians, Baltics and Finland, Army "Benelux" or Army "Balkans" (or "Balkans East" and "Balkans West"). I don't think it's going to cause serious problems but it could fuel the euroscepticism as a "proof" of German power creep. | ||
|
Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
Giving Germany more responsibility in European security might actually have a sobering effect for the German population and its role in Europe and reduce the impulse to constantly see the EU institutions purely from a national economic perspective. | ||
|
mahrgell
Germany3943 Posts
On May 23 2017 02:26 Nyxisto wrote: I am cautiously optimistic that the French election ended the right-wing populism in Europe or at least will lead to its splintering and decline. If our government is smart enough to make meaningful concessions to the French and other governments in exchange for deeper EU integration (and Merkel isn't stupid she knows that something needs to change during the next five years), then I think that things might be looking upward. Also, all your base are belong to us It is amusing to see that the article fails to mention that the integration of the Dutch brigades into the Bundeswehr wasn't a one way deal. In return the entire Seebattalion (an 800 men naval battalion) was integrated fully into the Dutch navy. So the Germans lead the tanks, the Dutchies lead the naval troops. Sounds like a reasonable sharing of responsibilities. | ||
|
kwizach
3658 Posts
On May 23 2017 00:05 bardtown wrote: You're jousting at windmills because you're not even referring to the right study, and you've missed the point for the third time in a row. Their career choices change across cultures, their preferences do not change. You can conclude from this one of two things, either a) gender preferences have a biological foundation, or b) every existent concoction of cultural factors gives rise to the exact same gender preferences. I am for the former, you are for the latter, because it is your contention that culture has a significant impact on the career preferences of different genders. You're essentially a gender flat earther. Maybe it's all a giant conspiracy theory where the governments of every country in the world fine tune their parameters so that women exhibit the exact same preferences - but maybe, just maybe, males and females are actually different. You know, like in every other species. It's pretty remarkable that you're the one who linked to the documentary, yet you seem unaware of what's actually in it. Go to 5:33 in the video: "Camilla Schreiner has done an inquiry in 20 countries. Girls in less egalitarian countries are more interested in technical subjects than Norwegian girls. Narrator: I thought if the society was equal, the genders got the same interests. Schreiner: In this part of the inquiry, there are 108 questions. None of them show the pattern you describe. None show that the more modern a country is, the more similar the genders' interests are. Narrator: The more modern a country is, the less girls are into technical stuff." The research conducted by Schreiner and others that is referenced here indeed shows varying preferences among male and female responders in the countries under study. The gap between the responses of the two groups changes depending on the country. You can see on her computer screen in the video one of the graphs made from the data she studied, such as these ones: + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/b3wLuRu.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/q6S9kvH.jpg) So, like I said, these variations can be explained through cultural factors and don't require biological explanations. To quote myself: The idea pushed by the author of the documentary is that this is explained by innate biological preferences, which can reveal themselves the most in countries where people are as free to choose their own paths as possible. The problem is that this assertion is not supported by any evidence, and that cultural factors that can hardly be controlled for and that are not analyzed in the study (because it's not its point) can entirely explain the findings. I already mentioned that gender stereotypes and gender norms are prevalent in all of the countries surveyed, and while you could expect that the countries where some progress has been made against gender stereotypes would lead men and women to have closer interests and career paths all other things being equal, the problem is precisely that "all other things" are not equal, that is to say other independent variables change as well in addition to the "prevalence of gender norms" variable. For example, the need to escape poverty (and sometimes, for women, submission to men) in less developed countries can lead both genders to gravitate towards interests linked to higher-paying jobs, for example in technology. In developed countries, this pressure is reduced due to the development of the welfare state, and interests and career paths can therefore comparatively be much more impacted by gender norms, even if the latter are less marked than in other countries, because competing influences (needing to escape poverty) on choices are much less prevalent. This is only one example -- the study doesn't seek to explain the factors explaining the differences that are observed (others have pointed precisely to the cultural factors I just mentioned, as I evoked in a previous post), and certainly does not make any claim pertaining to the role of "biology". There is another related study mentioned in the documentary, one done by Richard Lippa. In this case, Lippa argues that the data on preferences showed relatively stable respective preferences for men and women across the countries under study. Yet again, the study doesn't actually establish a link between this data and biological factors -- he argues that gender inequality does not account for the lack of variation, which leads him to consider that turning to biological factors might have more explanatory value -- a supposition from his part, not something his research establishes. In fact, when you look at the data he used and his methodology, it is unsurprising that his analysis does not reveal a significant influence of gender inequality. The data comes from a BBC Internet survey in which participants were notably asked about how interested they were in ten jobs: costume designer, builder, car mechanic, dance teacher, carpenter, school teacher, electrical engineer, florist, inventor, and social worker. The indicators he used to verify the existence of possible correlations were the UN Gender Development and UN Gender Empowerment indexes. Does it really need to be pointed out that this is a wholly inadequate way of assessing both the continued prevalence of gender norms and the degree of influence they have on individuals, especially given the impact that other cultural/political/economic variables can have on their preferences, as I highlighted for the first study, as well as given the jobs the respondents were asked about? This is indeed recognized by other specialists in Lippa's field -- including those who do take into account biology in relation to cultural factors, like Wendy Wood and Alice Eagly who argue (talking specifically about the studies by Lippa and others) that such differences are "not surprising, and we do not expect these differences to disappear in the near future", because of how far off nations in general are to achieving gender equality, in particular when it comes to the relevant gender stereotypes (see Wendy Wood and Alice H. Eagly, "Biosocial Construction of Sex Differences and Similarities in Behavior", in James Olson and Mark Zanna (eds.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 46, 2012, p. 100). The stable differences observed by Lippa do not require biological factors to play a role any more than the variations observed by Schreiner, but the pseudo-documentary's author makes sure to present the Norwegian social scientists as the sole defenders of this perspective, instead of the specialists working in the very same fields as Lippa and Baron-Cohen, among others. The studies that do show convergences on personality traits and preferences between men and women as gender equality increases across nations are also, obviously, not mentioned at all. On May 23 2017 00:05 bardtown wrote: The reason this comes up in the European politics thread is because misinformed people (and ideologically driven people who like to misinform) are pushing illiberal political agendas. Generally speaking you get the claim that women are disadvantaged because, for example, they do not make up 50% of computer scientists; therefore we have an obligation to discriminate in their favour. If, however, it is the case that there is no systematic disadvantaging of women and this is simply down to preference, then the result is that you end up discriminating against men and bribing women into professions they don't particularly want to be in. If there was no political agenda behind this then it wouldn't be interesting at all. By and large I think most people are quite happy that their preferences are their own. I've shown at length in this exchange how you're the one whose ideological stance leads him to discard scientific evidence contradicting his views, and how the pseudo-documentary actually actively misinforms on the state of the scientific research on the topic instead of presenting an honest overview. It is not particularly surprising, though, since the link between such beliefs and resistance to social change and gender equality has been studied in-depth. To quote Wood and Eagly again (p. 74): + Show Spoiler + "People also can reason about sex differences using essentialist beliefs that invoke nature and thereby view these differences as inherent in the biology of men and women. In particular, men invoke such beliefs when faced with the threat of social change. Thus, men (but not women) were especially likely to endorse biological explanations of sex differences under conditions in which women were presented as gaining status in society (Morton, Postmes, Haslam, & Hornsey, 2009). Furthermore, when biological differences were presented as scientific fact, men supported more discriminatory practices against women (e.g., promoting men over women) and also increased in self-esteem (Morton et al., 2009). Also, greater explanation of group differences by genetic causes is linked to greater sexism (Keller, 2005), and greater belief in men’s “natural” dominance is linked with belief in the stability of the existing gender hierarchy (Glick & Whitehead, 2010). In these ways, biological essentialist beliefs give people an especially strong foundation for endorsing their current societal division of labor and promote the maintenance of current social divisions (Haslam, 2011). Such beliefs seem to be activated strategically to bolster gender inequalities and resist social change." On May 23 2017 06:06 bardtown wrote: You're right, man. If you dismiss all the evidence that says it's not about culture it becomes clear that it is about culture. I haven't dismissed any evidence. I addressed your arguments, and I presented you with the state of the scientific research on the topic. You're the one dismissing it. On May 23 2017 06:39 Silvanel wrote: It pains me to say that but bardtown is actually right. The only thing shown here is possible corelation between perceived gender equality of countries and degree type preference. No causation is established either way. Saying that "something isnt required" isn't proof of anything. No, he's not right. You seem to be misunderstanding the claims being made. The study doesn't provide evidence for the argument that biology explains the data -- it argues that cultural factors seem unable to explain it, yet poorly takes into account the way cultural factors would have an impact on the data. | ||
|
bardtown
England2313 Posts
| ||
|
Silvanel
Poland4731 Posts
| ||
|
Karis Vas Ryaar
United States4396 Posts
also older study showing girl's stereotypes of gender and intelligence are formed by age 6 https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/01/six-year-old-girls-already-have-gendered-beliefs-about-intelligence/514340/ | ||
|
SoSexy
Italy3725 Posts
 | ||
|
mahrgell
Germany3943 Posts
here is a ticker on it. | ||
|
Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9666 Posts
| ||
|
Reaps
United Kingdom1280 Posts
| ||
|
Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On May 23 2017 01:06 Liquid`Drone wrote: That said, I kinda feel like you're also jousting at windmills a bit. There really aren't all that many people who want equality in every way across the board. What most people want is equal opportunity in every way across the board. And then we think that if only 5% of car mechanics are women, then that's the type of gender imbalance hinders women who actually really would like to be car mechanics. It can make it hard for them to be open about their desire to be car mechanics (this is probably just as bad for guys in masculine societies who want 'feminine' jobs though), etc. The goal of equal representation has been considered a necessity for the goal of equal opportunity, even if that might seem a little backwards You're adept at arguing against yourself. If the true 'want' was equal opportunity, we'd hear more about denied opportunity. The main thrust at examining what proportion of sexes end up in each industry and position is easily understood as a focus on equality of result. It doesn't matter what cultural and lifestyle choices go into the decision; we just aren't seeing close enough to 50% results. Therefore there's a problem with results. No amount of deflecting blame with passive voice "has been considered" will change that fact. | ||
|
SoSexy
Italy3725 Posts
| ||
|
bardtown
England2313 Posts
| ||
|
Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9666 Posts
| ||
|
m4ini
4215 Posts
The explosion wasn't in the venue either, it was outside when people were leaving. One more thing: check what happened on 22 of may 2013.. | ||
|
SoSexy
Italy3725 Posts
On May 23 2017 09:17 m4ini wrote: I usually go with "lets wait and see confirmed stuff", but yeah. There won't be a "confirmed otherwise", lets not kid ourselves. The explosion wasn't in the venue either, it was outside when people were leaving. One more thing: check what happened on 22 of may 2013.. can you expand? wiki just reports the death of a russian historian.. nvm just saw it: Man killed in deadly terror attack in London street CBS News confirms a large group of young girls are among the 19 dead following alleged terror attack at Ariana Grande concert in England holy s*** this is terrible... | ||
|
Reaps
United Kingdom1280 Posts
On May 23 2017 09:22 SoSexy wrote: can you expand? wiki just reports the death of a russian historian.. nvm just saw it: Man killed in deadly terror attack in London street Lee Rigby attack | ||
|
m4ini
4215 Posts
Going after kids. What kind of sick fuck do you have to be. Every single time in the last couple of years, when there was a terror attack, i tried to be objective, arguing against "jumping to conclusions". That's pretty well documented on TL as well, if you look through older threads. Immediately stating "islamic terror!" actually is more often than not the correct answer. I still think Trump and his rhetoric are retarded, but at some point a line is crossed. Every politician who says "these are isolated incidents" should be forced at gunpoint to tell that to the parents of the kids who got blown up today by a device designed to kill, maim and injure as many people as possible. I'm so, so sick of it. edit: and by the looks, we actually got lucky. | ||
| ||
