Pasha
Defend Kebab
No bio...
User ID: 481
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Do you have any sources for this? (I have no understanding of any of this but I know some people considering getting a heat pump)
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
I swear I get sick every time I go to a Mediterranean country in the winter. Usually when the day temps are like 15C. My body just cannot take the shock of insides of houses being colder than the outside.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
I regularly code PWM drivers to control LED brightness at work and have never ever heard of this before. Is there some proposed mechanism that this creates the headaches in some people?
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Yeah looks like now that I know the hiding element isn’t just the icon but a whole vertical line, I can reproduce the problem I was having easily
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
smart people are far more likely to care about money.
I don’t claim to be a people expert but this is very much contrary to my life experiences, unless you use circular logic to define being smart as being good at making money.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
If you are only interested in convincing people to your arguments, give them the image that you are a serious high status person who knows what he is talking about. Arguments and papers and principles don’t convince people, the image does.
On a side note, I am interested in knowing if there has ever been a recorded respiratory infection that turned more deadly and contagious at the same time via mutation and selection. I feel like the covid complex would definitely point to such an example endlessly so there probably isn’t one.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Italian political establishment is set up in a way that allows for enormous EU influence through various channels, such as the ECB, Italian senate, presidency, judiciary and media. Any Italian leader planning to take on the EU needs to have a massive and dedicated supporter base, extreme political cunning, a lot of luck and balls of steel. Otherwise it’s very easy for the EU to get them Berlusconied in a matter of months and install yet another technocratic government until the people decide to vote the right way the next time. As the EU keeps doing this for many decades at this point, the rebellion movements in Italy are subject to vicious natural selection. Gone are the futuristic optimistic appeal of the five star. Or even the bumbling Salvini. Melon Iooks like she is quite real in her determination to fight. If she fails, someone even more fiery will take her place.
Hungary (and somewhat Poland) is such a hate object because the EU doesn’t have almost any control over it’s political establishment apart from cutting fiscal transfers. And that’s a very blunt instrument which would spook a lot of people.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
The QE program has been keeping the politics of default-likely countries in a very uneasy suspense for 10 years at this point. Even the most radical anti establishment parties such as Syriza or five star had to quickly back down when faced with the consequences of rocking the boat on the QE ship.
I strongly feel we are heading for a catastrophic breaking point soon as the inflation and devaluation pressures on the ECB will finally break the ridiculously unsustainable QE arrangements and the populist politics won’t be constrained by that dam anymore.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
I don't think this is very relevant. The fiscal policy of the euro states is decided by the ECB's constraints. Whether a government has a populist stance or not usually changes absolutely nothing with regard to how much they spend. At most they can make a rhetorical show out of it.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
The context link doesn't work in ios/Mac safari browser. It just takes you to the general page of the post instead of the specific comment I wanted to access. It works on Chrome though. I did not manage to try if this might be due to my aggressive content blocking on safari, so if someone has access to an Apple device and can try this out it would be great.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Something that always bothered me about the Motte is that while massive cultural/political events are going on in Europe, one needs to dive deep into the roundup thread to find any discussion of it at all. Meanwhile the latest trans-people-in-school or outrageous-nytimes-oped controversy (which nobody will remember in a week) will have 500 comment threads dedicated to extreme nitpicking.
Anyway sorry for the rant. It looks like the far-right (of the quite openly far-right, even post-fascist variety) has just won the Italian elections and will very likely going to provide the prime minister to a cabinet that will include a 85 year old Berlusconi among others. Italy is the 3rd most populous and wealthy country in the EU. It also acts as a perennial threat to the stability of the Brussels-led order and the euro, since an Italian default or currency exit would almost definitely trigger the collapse of the euro with who knows what consequences. The EU looks determined to fight. Meloni herself does not sound like the type of politician who will accept to be crushed as easily as her predecessors. Here is a French interview with a 19 years old activist Meloni. She still sounds like a true believer to me. To get the gist of just how radical (from the EU-norm) she is willing to be with regard to cultural issues, I recommend this speech from 3 years ago (with English subs).
What are your expectations? Are we coming near a grand showdown? How is this going to interact with the looming threat of grid collapse in Europe? Russia sanctions and the European willingness to keep Ukrainian army in the field? NATO expansions? Is her family and God rhetoric just fluff or do you expect some real moves in this regard? When the ECB will have to start increasing interest rates substantially and Italy has to choose between bankruptcy or euro-exit, how will this go under this government?
P.S. Italy was one of the most anal countries with regard to vaccine oppression and corona measures in Europe. Does anyone know what the position of the Fratelli was back then? And how they talk about these things now?
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
I think most EU officials (the ones smarter than Von der Leyen) have been silent so far in order to not increase Meloni’s support even more. Random Eurocrats warning you against voting a certain way is usually a strong reason for voting that way.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Good question. Probably shouldn’t have used it myself without having a clear idea. What I tried to say is that Fratelli is clearly part of the Italian political tradition that derives from Mussolini’s fascist party. It’s also quite clear that they have some admiration for the guy and his political philosophy. On the other hand it’s not 1930 anymore and they deal with substantially different issues, organisational possibilities and societal dynamics. Hence the post part.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
True. But any other English language European focused forum I can find out there is pathologically pro-EU. I know some Brussels career bureaucracy types and even they are usually much more sensible about the limitations of the EU than your average pro-EU Redditor. It would be nice to cultivate some habit of broader discussion about these subjects here.
There is nothing to be optimistic about over there .
Unfortunately looks like that. Perhaps I should slowly start checking my options for Atlantic migration as well.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Lol seriously. It made me wonder whether we think Hitler was so high energy simply because he was copying Mussolini who was just being a regular Italian dude.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
I am really curious about what sort of person still votes for Berlusconi. What does a 85yo Berlusconi still contribute to the Italian politics that other right wing or centrist leaders don't?
I am not aware of what Meloni thinks or says about the Russia sanctions, but it looks like Salving and Berlusconi both would at least privately really appreciate if trade with Russia just continues as usual and don't give two damns about the Ukrainian cause. If/when the sanctions lead to a deep depression and blackouts this winter, I expect Italy to be one of the weakest links in the Atlanticist "front".
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Brexit was not that much of a change only if your expectations of change were formed by feverish media coverage of implied mass deportations and economic collapse. But that is not the topic here.
My primary expectation with regard to political consequences of this even isn't some sort of battle over gays or abortion but about the future of the Euro. I firmly believe that the Euro has been disastrous for plenty of countries but primarily Italy. The Italian political elite (mainly the PD adjacent people) had been taking decisions to the active detriment of their own country to sustain the Euro project. Roughly since Berlusconi was ousted. We are approaching a serious economic crisis and the end of the QE project which has kept the Euro on life support in the last 10 years. Certain decisions taken or not taken by the Italian government in the next year when the push comes to shove might very well cause the collapse of the EU project in unpredictable ways.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
And that also means over 90% of people in the last thousand years have been fascist.
I do unironically agree with this. I believe humans have a natural tendency to organize around political forms similar to feudalism, whose combination with industrial society is more or less what most people call fascism. It is certainly what Mussolini seemed to understand when he was referring to his party's ideology. I also think the unique weirdness of the term fascism (it is really difficult to define in a way most people agree) has a lot to do with this underlying nature. Intellectuals of progressive/enlightenment bent keep recognizing signs of fascism everywhere because human societies keep reproducing elements of it adapted to the changing societal conditions.
You are right at recognizing the political terms of right and left can refer to very different positions on issues at different times. But I believe that is because the specific issues are not that relevant when coming up with these labels. What matters chiefly is the direction and speed of political change (or lack thereof) you want. Today's far right might look more leftist than yesterday's conservatism (case in point, Meloni is an unmarried mother of 1 hardly a Catholic motherhood icon) but it is still far right because it advocates for a fast reversal of the enlightenment project while yesterday's conservatism just wanted to conserve the society as it is.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Almost everyone in almost every human society in the past remained exactly where they are in the economical/political order their entire life. Almost every traditional religion that I can think of is based on the idea that human hierarchies are ordained in some way and should be maintained. When peasants rebelled, it was typically not against their place in the traditional order but against an overlord who is not keeping with their responsibilities in the traditional order.
That was, until the Western discoveries of the rest of the world and industrial revolution suddenly made it possible to have societies where everyone is constantly striving up and a lot of them are indeed succeeding. This created new radical possibilities in societal thinking (commonly expressed with the umbrella term enlightenment) and today we are so used to it that we cannot even imagine people were serious in their traditional beliefs of hierarchy. Surely the peasants always hated their lord and envied him? Maybe some of them did, but this is the typical mind fallacy in my opinion.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Perhaps (even probably) you are right. But we really do not know much about what she and her party really thinks about any of these "more important" issues. Were they recently just hiding their power level to not spook away the elderly vote? Or were they actually being radicals in the past as a decoy? And more importantly which direction they might pivot since with Draghi or a good-old PD technocrat this was always obvious from the beginning. Nobody seems to know or at least openly speculate yet.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
They didn't even use their independence from the UK to pursue a different COVID policy.
I think you are mostly right except this bit. For much of last year the UK had radically different covid policies than the EU (often absolutely no policy at all). I believe it was partly the embarrassment and disturbing questions caused by the fact that England was doing just fine with no rules compared to places with vax and mask obsession, that brought about the end of European corona regime. I can only talk for Dutch language media but mainstream people were definitely questioning heavily why we had to scan vax QR codes everywhere and keep a lockdown while while the Brits were business as usual, with similar corona outcomes.
I'm just hesitant to assume this particular election changes anything
I expect a big change in some way we totally did not predict. After seeing how the neoliberal masters of the world almost crashed the continent in 2008 and got rewarded by gaining almost complete bankers hegemony, who the hell can even claim to foresee anything.
My expectation is that if there will be protests, they won't be about "gas is expensive" but about "we are now unemployed because our industries relied on cheap consistent natural gas input". This is already coming pretty clearly: https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/german-producer-prices-post-record-jump-august-2022-09-20/
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