HaroldWilson
9mo ago
The root cause of the problem was inventing gender and the best solution IMO is abolishing gender.
Just because you don't put a name to it that wouldn't 'abolish gender'. Whether or not it was conceived of as such, gender roles as separate from sex clearly existed prior to the semi-recent past - without the existence of gender, what would it even mean to behave as 'more masculine' or 'more feminine'? If anything, putting a name to the notion of gender surely helps to abstract behaviours away from sex rather than strengthening, as without it the only language with which to describe gendered behaviour is sex-based.
HaroldWilson
11mo ago
When you are on your third PM since the last election there is a real question of democratic legitimacy for their current administration.
How so? He has the support of the MPs we all elected on the understanding that they could if they wished replace the PM with another.
HaroldWilson
11mo ago
you don't really get to "call dibs" on a bike you are not currently renting
Don't you? I don't live in New York, but if someone was doing this I would think extremely bad form to try and take one they were obviously just about to take out, especially if you've already asked and they've said no. Indeed, the very fact that she asked surely implies she recognises they do have some sort of 'dibs' on it.
HaroldWilson
11mo ago
This is a very easy comment to make from, one imagines, the comfort of the West.
HaroldWilson
11mo ago
leaders regretfully apologising for their crimes against human rights just before they go on to commit them, they just go unacknowledged or denied
Certainly not 'apologise for their crimes' because obviously an apology for a 'crime' would imply they are wrong anyway, but politicians absolutely constantly stressed that these decisions were not being taken lightly and were only demanded by truly extraordinary circumstances.
Perhaps the most important thing though is that they subjected themselves to the same measures (partygate etc. notwithstanding) - how many high-ranking Nazis subjected themselves to the concentration camps?
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
The people are never intentionally consulted about important issues, and when they are and vote against the wishes of the elite, their will is ignored in practice or slow walked to oblivion.
Perhaps not intentionally, but elections are a de facto consultation on the biggest issues anyway. The latter part of the statement just isn't so universally, or even generally, true as you suggest. Take immigration. Every election in a European nation was a consultation around the time of the refugee crisis; Germans could have voted for AfD if they felt that strongly, but they mostly didn't so more Merkel it was.
Concerning EU integration I assume you are referring to the Denmark Maastricht referendum, but I don't think it proves your point. As a result of the referendum they negotiated several crucial opt-outs including on defence and currency, then they put that changed agreement to another referendum and won fairly comfortably. So score one for liberal democracy, if anything.
Also; Obama did end the Iraq war? So not sure what the 'foreign entanglements' bit is about. If it's referring to Trump, them that isn't evidence of deep state interference, just of the fact that Trump is a moron who had no idea how to work the levers of power.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
So what would you estimate the 'social cost' of those 15 or so million people who use firearms without harming anyone being unable to hunt is?
Hard to say of course, but bear in mind none of the potential restrictions mooted by any mainstream figures in the U.S. would seriously damage hunting or shooting for sport in the U.S. After all we still have both of those in Britain.
This seems obviously confounded by factors that contribute to suicide and accidents independently of gun ownership.
So I find it doubtful that for the median gun owner it turns into a net negative, even if we see on the lower end of the bell curve that accidents and suicide are an actual risk.
In the same way that owning a pool makes it WAY more likely you or a loved one will die of drowning, and yet there are fairly easy precautions one can take to mitigate those chances (learn to swim, learn CPR, fence in the pool, provide life vests) to almost zero.
We make policy for aggregates, not individuals. Whether for some people owning a gun might be a net positive is irrelevant, society-wide they seem to do more harm than good which is the relevant point.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
My assumption as with every one of these controversies is that it will peter out within weeks. I mean, is there anyone still not buying Gillette razors or Nike trainers on the grounds of their respective controversial advertising campaigns? Corporate top brass are not morons, nor I suspect do they care much about any social causes, except for perhaps keeping their own taxes low and regulations light.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
While that may be some kind of motive for some activists in that specific area, in any broad sense I don't think it's really important considering the aforementioned point that there is a positive (though not necessarily huge) correlation between obesity and voting Republican. I mean, here are the ten most obese metropolitan areas in the US.
McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas: 38.8 percent
Binghamton, N.Y.: 37.6
Huntington-Ashland, W. Va., Ky., Ohio: 36.0
Rockford, Ill.: 35.5
Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas: 33.8
Charleston, W. Va.: 33.8
Lakeland-Winter Haven, Fla.: 33.5
Topeka, Kans.: 33.3
Kennewick-Pasco-Richland, Wash.: 33.2
Reading, Penn.: 32.7
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
Ok but clearly that's a non-answer because the problems still exist. If you want to say 'I think the problems continuing is better than any potential remedy' that's a fine argument to make, but individuals cannot be called upon to solve existing systemic problems. Poverty exists, so clearly letting individuals 'solve' it themselves has not worked.
HaroldWilson
4mo ago
"if you don't like it, start your own website"
They could and they did! Patriots.win is still up and running. Where do you think you are now?
HaroldWilson
6mo ago
Why would we want to adjust for that with ECI? Is workers retraining into better roles not part of an improving economy?
HaroldWilson
11mo ago
Maybe for certain workers whose jobs rely on coal, oil etc., but really those jobs' days are numbered anyway and the left and centre-left are the ones who want there to be a safety net/reasonable transition for coal miners when the last of the jobs move to China or just get replaced by renewables or gas. For the average working class person though doesn't seem profoundly important, certainly nowhere near as important as healthcare, public services etc.
After all, working class people also benefit disproportionately from many environmental policies, living as they do in the most polluted areas of towns and cities etc.
HaroldWilson
11mo ago
I don't think voting against the people who want to systematically discriminate you in education and hiring is voting against your economic interests
Do you seriously think that affirmative action poses any genuine threat to the material condition of the average working class person? Maybe there are some outliers at the margins, but there are tens or even hundreds of more compelling issues at the moment.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
So long as we are an empire, an emperor is inevitable.
On what time scale? For all the talk of the disenfranchised working classes, materially they have never had it so good. Liberal democracy brings home the bacon at the moment, why wouldn't it 100 years from now?
Also, if this is meant as a general statement then I don't think there's much evidence for it. Where was Britain's emperor? Of course the British empire did wither away but even as the empire grew in the 19th and early 20th centuries that was, if anything, accompanied by greater democratic participation, more process and bureaucracy and no consistent or continuous increase in public unrest and instability.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
which were an item the ATF sought to ban, shortly after the event.
How does this suggest anything conspiratorial? High-profile mass shooting uses X implement, government responds with ban. Just seems like they were impelled to action by the shooting.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
Canada in particular is very "iron fist in velvet glove" about it.
And then they do shit like shut off your bank account if you protest.
You're theory being that if the truckers were armed the Canadian government would have been... less harsh? If anything that would surely make them come down like a ton of bricks.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
When every single thing on the radio is, "but what about the women," or, "but what about the gays," or, "but what about the negros," or, "but what about the trannys," then yes, I'm going to consider it an axe to grind, and I can't unsee it anymore.
I just don't think this is fair representation of mainstream media. If we take the BBC, as just one example, surely the most mainstream of all mainstream media, and looks at the current headlines that just isn't true.
The current top stories on the UK home page are in order Sunak's fine, the nurse strikes, Zahawi's tax affairs, the new NZ PM, the compensation being set for a patient whose limbs were wrongly amputated, a feel-good puff piece about a man donating to his local pharmacy and Germany's tanks to Ukraine, or lack thereof. If you won't any article with a culture war article, there's only two out of the dozens on the front page, one of which is just a report about the Archbishop of Canterbury's commeaents on the recent gay marriage debate in the C of E, which is completely neutral and probably a worthy topic for coverage, and one about Andrew Tate. In the World section there are no pieces with a culture war angle, expect the Andrew Tate article which reappears here but not very prominently.
But fair enough, that's not American. NYT? The top article is about layoffs in tech, 2nd on military support to Ukraine (tanks), then others on Haiti, NZ, AI, David Crosby and George Santos. The only one of the main page that could be considered to have a culture war angle is the one on March for Life, but I don't think that's unreasonable.
The point of all this is if all you are hearing is about 'marginalised' groups that is probably what you're listening for.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
teaching young women how to pick mates in teen years, teaching women to be homemakers which reduces total societal stress, banning degenerative media,
Can you show me a single instance of such reforms leading to a decrease in single motherhood? Aside from the merits of these goals, you are swimming against an irrepressible social and economic tide here.
publicly executing drug dealers
Well now you're just being silly. The overall body of research on capital punishment, though inconclusive, tends to lean in the direction that there is no deterrent effect. Moreover, considering how many drug dealers there are, the number of innocent people who would die under such as system would be rather large.
If the rate of anti-gay believers who become violent against gays is 1 in 60 million per year, or 1 in 6 million, I do not feel comfortable calling this anything but statistical noise. I do not believe his anti-gay beliefs (if they exist) are causal whatsoever.
Under this argument, you can't ascribe ideological influences to any terrorist act ever. Most fundamentalist Muslim aren't terrorists, so religious motives could not have been causal in Islamic terrorism? What a ridiculous argument.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
Untold amounts of suffering
Obviously worrying but doesn't actually prove anything until you can parse out what the effects would have been if strict measures weren't introduced, which is to say what part is actually attributable to Covid measures and what to just Covid itself.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
I think there's also, as usual, a case of diminishing returns here. If you're inactive, and you start exercising regularly and eating healthily, I don't doubt that's good for mental health (as well as physical health obviously). But once you pass the point of 'reasonably fit and healthy' I find it hard to believe gym-going is does anything more for you mentally than any other hobby.
HaroldWilson
1mo ago
Hell yes
Why not?
in direct opposition to the citizens, and their elected representatives
It is not the Supreme Court's job to reflect the will of the 'citizens and their elected representatives'.
read into the law what had not been written.
This is the more relevant criticism, however I don't think it's fair at all. That segregated education denied African-Americans the 'equal protection of the laws' would seem to me pretty obvious. After all, if there really was no difference in the education being received, then why was segregation necessary? Even the lower court whose decision Brown overturned conceded that segregation ipso facto entailed an unequal education.
Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system
Simply following the text of a law through to its logical conclusion and then applying it is not 'reading into the law what was never written' - or rather, it might be, but one must also read into a law what is logically implied by it.
Lies and propaganda, mostly. They said it wouldn't change the character of the nation, and on that basis, it was unopposed
If this is true, then why, when immigration did increase substantially in the following decades, was the backlash, all things considered, rather muted?
HaroldWilson
6mo ago
ridiculous excuse
How is this a 'ridiculous' excuse? The road network as it is today only exists thanks to the government, why should it then not be able to regulate who can drive, and how they can do it, on the roads they are largely responsible for? I for one am glad to be free (or freer than I otherwise would be) from a drunkard killing me in his car, all so that a few cranks can delude themselves about how much liberty they have.
HaroldWilson
6mo ago
What are family formation rates looking like? Education costs and student debt? Property/housing costs? Food quality/price shifts?
Why would we use other statistics which are not the thing we are trying to measure to get an approximation of something we can, in fact, measure? To paraphrase Sir Humphrey, why are your family formation statistics facts but my real wage facts merely statistics?
energy usage per capita
Source?
Would you be willing to stand behind the claim that official measures of inflation, cost-of-living etc accurately reflect what's happening in the economy as opposed to being massaged and shaped for political messaging purposes?
Yes. Or rather, I have not yet seen any evidence of the latter, so I have no reason to believe it.
In Britain there's a popular-ish show called 'Eat Well for Less', with Greg Wallace, in which for a week a family who thinks they need to reduce their food bill has all their groceries replaced with new ones with all the branding removed so they don't know what they're getting. Invariably none of them can tell the difference when their branded products are replaced with the cheapo own-brand 'value' range, despite them all usually insisting beforehand that they'll be able to tell. Most amusing though is when they insist they don't like the replacement, only to find out they've been double bluffed and it was in fact the same brand as they have always been eating/drinking, and they look like morons. The vast majority of people who genuinely think they can tell a difference have definitely just been sucked in by marketing, which I suspect applies to most of the people in this thread insisting 'no, Heinz ketchup really is different to all the others!'.
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