RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive421

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, (new)(back)

Horrifying, tragic gun incident

A Florida toddler accidentially commited suicide while playing with a gun within reach. Andrew5 (talk) 00:24, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

This isn't news in the United States, it's just another statistic.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 18:24, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Sometimes I wonder if the state of gun laws isn't some smooth-brained attempt at eugenics to create a race of bullet-proof humans. CorruptUser 14:07, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Only 100

... articles to go to reach 7777.

And it appears that there are persons who have been on RW for 10+ years: perhaps there could be equivalents of the WP 10 year contributor badge on WP (there are also 15 and 20 year equivalents): not something I can do. Anna Livia (talk) 23:10, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

I already have my own home made banner on my page and it is superb. Aceⁱ⁹ 23:28, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

"Ack, ack, ack!" Bongolian (talk) 06:25, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

finding stuff on twitter

I hope I am allowed to ask this question on here. But I have been wanting to find an old retweet on the rationalwiki twitter from a couple of months back. It was contradicting Ron Reagan's Opinion that his father would have hated trump and saying that he almost certainly would have. I'm not sure who originally tweeted it and i have been unsuccesfull in finding the tweet. Could someone help me please. Sorry I hope this is allowed ^{— Unsigned, by: Yacob01 / talk / contribs}

What month do you estimate that retweet was made (April/June/July)? Rabbitseatcarrots (talk) 15:06, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Use the advanced search (https://twitter.com/search-advanced), making sure to fill in either the "From these accounts" field or the "To these accounts" field in addition to what you're looking for. I don't see it there, though. Bongolian (talk) 16:32, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice fellas. I didn't find much. Even though This repy by eoin higgeis I remember the quote being similar to that but It had 2 retweets and you weren't one of them. But I think the retweet was very like that. But it was several months ago and my memory isn't that good in those things. https://twitter.com/EoinHiggins_/status/1490078092873895938 ^{— Unsigned, by: Yacob01 / talk / contribs}

How to determine when an argument from authority becomes a fallacy?

So, I'm on reddit and someone posted something about Churchill and the Bengal Famine. Somebody linked a page on r/askHistorians defending Churchill while others referred to an article on New York Post written by a well-known historian. The first person has put forth the charge of an argument from authority(https://www.reddit.com/r/ABCDesis/comments/x0eaks/notorious_racist_winston_churchill_who_killed_4/im9hogz/?context=3). Is he correct? Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 09:12, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

The general consensus of reviews of "Churchill's Shadow" seem to indicate that is a thoroughly well researched book, but a quite biased, "accentuate the negative" one. Thus there is certainly justification to say that one should ideally research further on this topic and not rely on one book (the same would obviously apply if one had a biography that "accentuated the positive", a particular danger with politicians that have obtained a certain mythos, as Churchill had). As I understand Churchill's role in the Bengali famine is still a very controversial subject among historians, so obtaining multiple takes from multiple authors would be idea. So the "argument from authority" argument is not entirely wrong. That being said, the Reddit commentator seemed to be misusing the argument as a bludgeon, in that it seemed entirely dismissive of this critical Churchill book, while at the same time embracing a Ask Historians post (now deleted so I can't comment on the quality of that -- typically, Internet comments are going to be at best summary level compared to a reasonably researched book, though). It was not surprising that the same poster later resorted to ad hominems ("too lazy to deal with the issues raised by a logical argument", "You’re probably one of those people who thought it was cool to fail in highschool", etc.) That's social media for you, it is rare to find anything beyond barroom level debate quality. 35.140.177.2 (talk) 12:49, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Churchill's racial views seems to be all over the place. Sometimes, he supports Indians and sometimes he hates Indians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Winston_Churchill#India . On the Bengal famine, Wikipedia has referred to International Churchill Society. That's interesting. Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 13:46, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Dismissing comments based on the fact that it's and "argument from authority" needs do be done with great care. "Argument from false authority" is easy. (Famous scientist said X about Y in respect of a subject in which they are not, in fact, an authority. We can dismiss because they are not really an authority in that area.)

But "argument from authority" as a fallacy in general? You could hypothetically use it reject authorities on vaccines, global warming and the holocaust!Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:14, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, 'Churchill's Shadow' was right in pointing out he was 'a racist, a narcissist, an opportunist, an imperialist, a drunk, a terrible judge of character and, most of all, a masterful mythmaker.' These things are known and proven. 'A strategic bungler, a hypocrite and a dissembler' is up for debate while 'a tax dodger, a neglectful father and a credit-hogging author' are news to me - though I know with the first one that Churchill had spending habits which were rendolent of an ancien régime princeling trying to live on the capital base of a baron.

Like 35 points out, the general culpability of Churchill and the famine shall never be truly sorted either way. The traditional British hagiographies of Churchill will, naturally absolve him of blame (or perhaps simply not even mention it) and you'll be able to find plenty of fusty tweed jackets with Oxbridge ties to quote on that. 'Historical revisionism' is generally used as a snarl-word, normally uttered towards the peddlers of pseudohistory and outright denialism. But that line makes the assumption the current version is 'impartial and correct', which I think most professional British historians active now would suggest wasn't the case with Churchill.

In this case, I'd say that one side's authority becomes nullified by the other - as there's no general consensus on the topic. Now, you *might* be able to trump the authority if you could argue your side has better factual basis; for example, most WW2 books had to be re-written in the 1990s because historians finally got to see the tons of records which had been behind the Iron Curtain, and around this point the West (esp the British) started to speed up declassification and perhaps more importantly, better archiving of materiel. But then there's the counter-issue; a book on the subject in 1970 would still have been able to interview eyewitnesses from the 40s about the topic, which we clearly can't do now. The only was I *think* you could call it a fallacy is if you have a historian who says they are sure it was/wasn't Churchill's fault and only uses 'I am a historian' as their evidence. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:52, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

True, in a 2018 biography of Winston Churchill, British historian Andrew Roberts commented on the topic by stating that: "Almost all of the remarks Leo Amery ascribed to Churchill were paraphrases rather than direct quotations, and should be seen in light of what one of the Prime Minister’s private secretaries called his 'provocative humour'. These racially charged jokes, which would be regarded as totally unacceptable today, were then, as one historian puts it, 'part of the bedrock of contemporary British humour and were regular features of Punch during the inter-war years and after." Apparently, "beastly people with beastly religion" was a joke. Now, where have I heard that one before.Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 15:52, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Interestingly, George Orwell said around about that time that Punch hadn't been funny for at least 20 years...

Anyway, there is enough *public* evidence that Churchill was a racist even by the standards of the time. It is forgotten, for example that the main reason Churchill was 'in the wilderness' in the 30s was not because of his hostility to Hitler, but his equally hard hostility to decolonisation, specially towards any dismantling of the Raj. And because of this, some portion of the blame for the bloodbath which is known as 'independence' is his; for he wouldn't allow any deal to be cut with the Indian leaders 'on his watch' - resulting with it exploding in Attlee's face afterwards. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:36, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

This is problematic for the following reason. Churchill could well be described as racist. A number of historians do so. I'm not British, so excuse my don't-give-a-shit attitude. Was Churchill more or less racist than was typical in Britain during his lifetime? It seems to me that one must defend that POV if the claim is to have weight. Today, many historians believe that white people, at least in America, are still racist as they were long ago. That's the problem with claims of racism; they never go away. Hundreds of years from now, if WW2 is well-remembered, I think it is likely that Churchill will still be thought of as a racist by some, though next to Hitler, one of a benign stature . Churchill's dynamic role in war will be preserved. James Longstreet, Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, all undeniably racists. But today, they are discussed with respect to the quality of the practical, military work they did. One can remove the artifacts of racism, statues, monuments, battle flags and such, but history is a sticky business. If racism ever becomes a thing of the past, then so must concern about the end of its history. UncleKrampus (talk) 02:07, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

'Not giving a shit' means you're able to be more impartial, as you have no skin in the game either way...

With the point of 'many historians believe that white people, at least in America, are still racist as they were long ago'... well, leaving apart the fact I'd question that statement from at least two angles (but that's not the topic being discussed) part of the culprit may be the changing definition of 'racism'. I'm just old enough to remember a UK where older members probably thought they weren't racist because they had the 'they're an okay sort, for a [redacted]' mentality. Now we see a lot of older folks who say they aren't racist because they don't consciously act in a racist manner - I'll tell you all here now, BLM taught me a few things about what 'Whitey' (UK variant) thought of racism and I'll admit the 'I respect your right to exist but I'll kill you if you move in next door to me' mentality was more alive than I expected (or perhaps hoped).

On the Churchill issue, I personally think the problem is there's too much partisanship on both sides. His supporters either wish to deny or at least play down/excuse his many failings because it interferes with their worshipping of him, while his detractors wish to deny his achievements because it interferes with their sneering. What's more, it's become a modern partisan affair; generally speaking, the hagiography-readers are conservatives, while the eye-rollers are socialists (centrist liberals are more ambiguous). It's part of the 'appeal' of Boris Johnson to the current conservatives - the third-rate Churchill impression he does (to go with his shoddy brilliance of his Churchill book).

Naturally, Churchill would be grinning at this. His 'masterful mythmaking' about himself has worked, and even coming up to 60 years after his death said mythos in the British psyche is like a piano in the middle of a room - whether you play it, admire it or put a patterned throw over it, you can't deny it's there. KarmaPolice (talk) 04:44, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

I guess the same about Gandhi in India. He did change his views on race but he did some fucked up shit unapologetically. Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 05:11, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice Just one little piece of niggling/qualification as regards your otherwise sound comment of the 1990s vs. 1970s options for writing WWII history: Interviews with people thirty-odd years after the events is a problematic source. Indeed, what the 1990s histories did was to critically scrutinise the various self serving and other tendentious stories in the crafted by people who made it through WWII and had axes to grind or arses to protect.

For instance, Albert Speer’s depictions of events were shown to be highly problematic and the various “clean Wehrmacht” myths were extensively disproven. Similarly, while beginning in the 1980s, the 1990s and 2000s were a sort of golden age for works examining the “losers” (e.g. collaborators) and scrutinising comfortable “victors’ myths” (e.g. about the various resistance movements, their extent and activities).

It is probably no coincidence that this boom coincided with the end of the Cold War, which not only opened up the archives of the Eastern Bloc, but also reduced the pressures to paint nice, one-dimensional pictures of good and bad guys and to rehabilitate people who had been useful for their staunch, anti communist stance. ScepticWombat (talk) 05:25, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Arguments from authority are always technically fallacious on the simple basis that just because an authority states something doesn’t make it true. In philosophy we sort of respect that and try to formulate the basis for our beliefs in something one can reason to on their own. The fear of science denial in not accepting an argument in appealing to the testimony of authority I think is a bit unfounded. It is not that experts can never be accepted as epistemically reliable, it’s that appealing to the statement of an expert in concluding something as true is a weak argument in of itself. We shouldn't be accepting science on the basis of authority anyways, but on the basis of evidence and justifiable argumentation from rational principles which a authority can provide but the source of the information isn’t always relevant, - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 07:03, 31 August 2022 (UTC) ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Even the best of authorities have biases, so unless the presented evidence backs up the claim, the claim is not worth much. Bongolian (talk) 07:25, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

An argument from authority can be better than an argument lacking authority if you take into account evidence for the authority’s expertise in the subject area.

The problems we face today can be extremely complex, like the question “What’s the origin of climate change?” “Is it a good idea to kill off mosquitoes to eradicate malaria?” or “Is dark matter made of particles?” Most of us simply don’t have all the necessary evidence and knowledge to arrive at a conclusion. We also often don’t have the time to collect the necessary evidence and knowledge.

And when a primary evaluation isn’t possible, the smart thing to do is a secondary evaluation. For this, you don’t try to answer the question itself, but you try to answer the question “Where do I best get an answer to this question?” That is, you ask an authority. We do this all the time: You see a doctor to have him check out that strange rush. You ask your mother how to stuff the turkey. And when the repair man says your car needs a new crankshaft sensor, you don’t yell “argument from authority.” And you shouldn’t, because you’ve smartly exported your primary evaluation of evidence to a secondary system that, you are quite confident, will actually evaluate the evidence *better* than you yourself could do. But the secondary evidence you need is how knowledgeable the authority is on the topic of question. The more trustworthy the authority, the more reliable the information. This also means that if you reject an argument from authority you claim that the authority isn’t trustworthy. You can do that. But it’s here’s where things most often go wrong. The person who doesn’t want to accept the opinion of scientific experts implicitly claims that their own knowledge is more trustworthy. Without explicitly saying so, they claim that science doesn’t work, or that certain experts cannot be trusted – and that they themselves can do better. That is a claim which can be made. Questioning that it’s faulty therefore carries a heavy burden of proof. So, what should you do if someone dismisses scientific findings by claiming an argument from authority? Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 12:02, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

On a side notice, Churchill wasn't resonsible for the famine. I know some tankies, nazis and hindutvas claim it was a genocide, but I'm not aware of any academic source claiming such thing. Even the author that they use to claim it was a genocide does not use this word on her book (and she's not a historian or a demographer, so her research is pretty much irrelevant academic-wise). I can provide some sources on the subject if you want to. GeeJayK (talk) 12:16, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

As for your question, I don't have an answer. I always try to follow the academic consensus on every subhject so IMHO it's not a fallacy 90% of the time. When there's actual debate (does the minimum wage cause unemployment? Should the Central Bank aim for zero inflation?) using one respectful scholar is just not enough, but when the debate is pretty much over (like in the vaccines case) an argument from authority is a lot stronger. GeeJayK (talk) 12:23, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

I think the word 'technically' is the important bit here. When it comes down to it, most of us are unable to truly verify statements and often we're unable to grasp the advanced level of the argument anyway. Therefore, there's no real practical difference between Expert A saying B is believed true due to evidence X, Y & Z and them saying 'I'm an expert in this, trust me' in say, a public debate with a layperson audience. I mean, how can I question say, a medical doctor on a proposed course of treatment? By relying on the expertise of other doctors, that's what. But how can I tell whether my other doctors are good? Mainly, by looking for 'badges of authority'; awards, tenure at prestigious teaching hospitals, being vouched for by other doctors etc. Even if I wield some statistics (like patient outcomes), I'm relying on the 'authority' of the statistician who assembled them and well, how *do* I know the raw data is correct, eh?

My rule of thumb with the proposed issue is to look at the claimed authority vs the authority of the findings. It's quite possible the 'dismisser' is right and the 'findings' is wrong, or vice-versa. On occasion they may both be right, or both wrong. It all depends, frankly. Sagan standard applies here, along with looking for the hallmarks of the expert-for-hire, the ultracrepidarian and the retired authority who's now waay out of the loop.

With Wombat's point, well I kinda assumed that the limitations of personal recollections etc as a historical source was already known. Though I personally think we were due a reapprasial of WW2 by the 1990s anyway, mainly on the basis that most of the players were now dead, most of the population didn't remember the events personally and thus, there was a lot less 'emotion' in the topic which allowed more candor. If I recall, a couple of truths Britain revealed about this time was that the 'scrap iron collection' was mainly just propaganda and that one of the preparations for the defence of the country in 1940 would have been the use of mustard gas. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:29, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

It may be useful to keep in mind that we accept or reject experts with some disparity. Experts themselves are well-known to disagree on topics thought to be well-determined. What we wind up with is a kind of fuzzy logical structure, where there is only a probability that a statement is true. I like to reflect upon the fact that an argument may be presented incorporating a fallacy, yet still have a true conclusion, so that fallacies are only indications of incomplete verification of an argument. Therefore, how do you know when an argument is incomplete? Experience. OSD is right in pointing out that a claim without citation of proof must be viewed as an appeal to authority in any debate. The jury of the debate must decide who to believe.Ariel31459 (talk) 15:56, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Of course, because 'being factually correct' has little bearing on 'ability to succesfully debate'. qv: Duane Gish. KarmaPolice (talk) 05:33, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Sure, if the jury is selected arbitrarily from the general public. Scientific questions are often reviewed by academic juries.UncleKrampus (talk) 01:19, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Naturally. But that still leaves the issue of transmitting the conclusions of the latter to the former. It could be said the latter is partly the position where the 'authority' is awarded to be leaned on later.

When you look at it from this way, you can kinda (if you have a couple of drinks and then squint) see where the fundie claims that 'this is a religion called scientism' and similar come from. Both feature well-educated people standing up, using many polysyllabic words which could mean 'anything' in reality, quoting from dense tomes not understood by the layperson and basically saying 'I'm very smart, trust me'. Saying 'well you need more science lessons' etc can be smartly countered by 'you need to go to more bible study groups' and so on. KarmaPolice (talk) 02:04, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Twitter citations

For Twitter citations, it is becoming increasingly important to cite an archived copy rather than the original tweet. This is because Twitter seems to be preparing to rollout an edit function. Direct Twitter citations have never been reliable because they are so easy to delete. Look no further than Peter Sweden who attempted to memory hole his 2016 posts. Bongolian (talk) 17:56, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Is it possible to archive tweets that have videos? LongStylus (talk) 18:59, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

I attempted to archive a Tweet with a video from Meta, [1] looks like the Wayback Machine doesn't save videos. If it's really needed to archive videos, like it just must be saved you can use the god-send youtube-dl to download it, and submit it to archive.org. If the video is just an excerpt from a Youtube video I know that at least the guys at PussTheCat have a Peertube instance dedicated exclusively to archiving deleted Youtube videos, presumably you can just shoot them up an email and they will gladly upload the video to their servers. Rabbitseatcarrots (talk) 19:09, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

From what I read (which was not from Twitter) you will be able to drill down into the history of an edited tweet. And edited tweets will be clearly marked as edited.Antigem (talk) 22:37, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Hm. I've never tried archiving a Tweet. I use Twitter quite a bit, although I only have 3 followers. How does one get followers on Twitter? (It could be because none of my friends have Twitter, though.) Andrew5 (talk) 00:20, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

My experience with archived YouTube videos is that Internet Archive does indeed archive a playable video, but it does so inconsistently. Sometimes it's not playable. The other major archiving site, archive.today, does not archive playable videos at all from what I've seen.

As for getting Twitter followers: 1) pay for bots 2) follow anyone and everyone 3) post massively especially anything trending. Honestly though it's not worth it: Twitter is at best a time suck, at worst an open sewer. Bongolian (talk) 00:44, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Example of the open sewer on Twitter:[2] (Twitter search of people claiming that Pepsi contains aborted fetuses). Making a false claim like that is likely illegal in the US, i.e., making false statements about a business that defames it ("business disparagement"[3]). I conclude 1) Twitter does not care. and 2) Twitter doesn't have and probably can never obtain the staffing to care. The second conclusion derives from Twitter's own conclusion that they can't make money from porn because they cannot get the capacity to take out illegal porn.[4] Bongolian (talk) 03:51, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Twitter's only use for me is small updates on things and documenting some reprehensible views from people, some cute fanart and videos, and junk food comedy. Do not use it for news. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 04:28, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ What's the best site to use to archive Twitter? And is there anyone who is archiving tweets that can be used to recover a deleted one? Will archive.org have copies? --Annanoon (talk) 09:31, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Personally, I trust archive.org more than I trust sites like archive.is. Occasionally, deleted tweets have resurfaced posted by individuals in places like Github gists. The Wayback Machine occasionally saves pages automatically, however to make sure the tweet is archived, there's no better way to than triggering the archival process yourself. If you see a tweet that could possibly be deleted, copy and paste the url in archive.org to start the process. Rabbitseatcarrots (talk) 09:53, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Yet another site I've not seen mentioned on RationalWiki yet, though some on Wikipedia use it, is ghostarchive.org. It sometimes works for capturing video content that e.g. archive.is wouldn't catch, but I have no idea how suitable it is for Twitter. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 12:56, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Who is Andrew Tate and why does everyone hate him?

Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 11:33, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Read Draft:Andrew Tate, I think it may help you know more or less who he is. Rabbitseatcarrots (talk) 11:47, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

hes a misogynist prick who you should dislike because hes a misogynist prick. at the very the least. AMassiveGay (talk) 13:02, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Don't forget a 'hustle culture' scamster. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:56, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

His name should be Andrew Hate, considering that he's such a hateful person. LongStylus (talk) 16:27, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Third rate conman, online grifter. Hate filled bigot. Perpetual 'victim'. A vile piece of work. Cardinal Chang (talk) 22:57, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

I made a mistake by going down the rabbit hole. Apparently, he thinks depression doesn't exist. Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 06:03, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

He's a PUA that went more viral than other PUAs, pretty standard misogynist, knows and mingles with a few assholes on the far-right, brands himself as a genius (narcissist) in a vein similar to how trump was "a real good businessman" and could get you rich, grifted his base because he is in fact incompetent. He blew up when he went on big brother and a tape of him engaging in consensual BDSM (I believe it was consensual) got released. Here's the problem. He lives in the UK, and although his girlfriend has said it was consensual, that does not actually matter in UK law. Actual bodily harm covers acts that can be taken in BDSM, like face slapping, spanking, whips, anything that would leave a visible mark or recorded "assault" comes under ABH (actual bodily harm), GBH (grievous) is more severe. There is no legal way to consent to any form of ABH in the UK, he probably figured this out at some point and that lead to him fleeing the country to live in Romania. Thing is, he was also kind of sus before that and people were investigating him with suspicions he might be into human trafficking, that has also come to a close in Romania. Basically, he's a piece of animated shit. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 20:23, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Buffoon is both right and wrong here. English law grants the police/prosecutors 'public interest' discretionary powers, to allow legal flexibility in cases like this. That if there is 'actual evidence' of crime, but there appears to be no actual 'victim' chances are they'll simply let it go (or more correctly, the police shall inform the prosecutors it's not worth persuing and their view is nearly always accepted). If his girlfriend is willing to go on the (police) record and confirm that it was fully consentual and the police accept the statement is being done from her own violation, chances are that's where it will end and Tate shall be in no danger (and his would know this). The investigation is more than anything else to ensure no 'funny stuff' has gone on.

So no, he went to Romania for other reasons. KarmaPolice (talk) 00:38, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

About 40% of which was because he wouldn't be investigated as much for sexual assault apparently; "While he was gaining influence in far-right circles, Tate was also accused of violence against multiple women. In an episode of “The Pomp Podcast” released this month, he openly discussed hitting a woman and breaking her jaw during a bar fight. He said he “ended up in court” after he was charged with causing “bodily harm,” but “got away with it in the end.” He said he was found innocent. In a now-deleted YouTube video, Tate said that he’s “not a ... rapist,” but “probably 40% of the reason” he relocated to Romania is because police are less likely to investigate sexual assault cases. In another video, The Guardian reported, Tate said he was investigated and held in custody for two days for allegedly abusing a woman in the U.K. He denied allegations of abuse." https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/viral/internet-cant-stop-talking-andrew-tate-tiktok-rcna42744 BumblingBuffoon (talk) 02:09, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Your previous post made it read on the surface that he was a victim of an outdated, inflexible English legal system because it was incapble of accepting the concept of consentual BDSM between adults (and I wanted to show that our system has a kind of work-around solution for this kind of thing). That was literally my only complaint here; I'd heard about the broken jaw and at least one other 'incident' which I won't repeat due to it still being not much more than rumour. KarmaPolice (talk) 02:56, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Death

I died recently. Was dead for a few minutes. Just wanted you all to know it's pretty ok - nothing to fear. Aceⁱ⁹ 09:01, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Really glad you got back! No NDE story?Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 09:55, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Jesus Christ, welcome back! Bongolian (talk) 15:32, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

No NDE, no gods, no lights, no heaven, no hell. If I was a Christian before I wouldn't be one now that's for sure. Aceⁱ⁹ 18:59, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

I saw a documentary on this topic this weekend. NDEs are near-death experiences. Near-death is not death. If Ace had died, barring a miraculous resurrection, he would not be posting to this website. Death is permanent. Duonaut (talk) 03:24, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

fuck you. Aceⁱ⁹ 04:14, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Ace now more of a zombie than he already was. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 21:14, 29 August 2022 (UTC) 21:13, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

I am definitely feeling it today that's for sure. I'm getting too old for the madness now. I'm in the office staring blankly at my screens and debating whether or not to make up a meeting I need to go to and putting someone else in charge for the day. I have staff for a reason so might as well make use of them. Aceⁱ⁹ 21:50, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

I second this "fuck you".

Also, does your place not offer PTO or medical leave? Take it if you need it. CorruptUser 14:06, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

It was a couple weeks ago. I am now back to normal. Aceⁱ⁹ 17:14, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Ace's report of his death was greatly exaggerated. That's a brute fact firmly grounded in reality. He offered a laughable argument against the existence of God/heaven/hell. Duonaut (talk) 22:14, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Fuck you. Aceⁱ⁹ 23:05, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Some people get very angry when they lose an argument or debate badly. But unfortunately for them, anger doesn't win arguments or debates. Duonaut (talk) 23:15, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Who's angry? This is how I always talk. And what debate? Who's having a debate? Aceⁱ⁹ 01:40, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

I noticed that you are no longer claiming you died recently. And no longer indicating your recent experience argues against the existence of God, heaven and hell. Duonaut (talk) 02:17, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Oh it's you Ken - sorry took me awhile as I have been hell busy with work and the like. Take it up with the paramedics who revived me. Run along now. Aceⁱ⁹ 02:19, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

I want to know what the moments before clinical death was like - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 04:43, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

I don’t remember. Aceⁱ⁹ 05:37, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Was there good food? BumblingBuffoon (talk) 17:49, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

It appears the mass attacks are spreading north

Ten die in Saskatchwan stabbings.Andrew5 (talk) 23:57, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Wondermind

Founded by 3 people. One of them is Selena Gomez.

https://www.wondermind.com/

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/22/health/selena-gomez-wondermind-mental-health-wellness/index.html

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/395224

https://www.bustle.com/wellness/selena-gomez-wondermind-destigmatizes-mental-health

I didn't add this on the "To Do List" (which I planned to do at first), because I'm not 100% sure whether it's woo or not (wouldn't be the first celebrity to jump on top of the woo-woo train). That's why I posted these links from their site, aswell as the site itself to hear others opinions on whether it's woo or not. If they're just doing the same thing as Psychologists, then that's fine. But if it goes in the special cases directory (sections 2.2.2 & 2.2.3)... Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 08:20, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Really don't see how this even approaches woo. All it seems to me is education about mental health and destigmatizing it, which is perfectly fine - not seeing anything about perpetuating stereotypes or promoting pseudoscience from any of the articles or the main website. If something changes for the negative, sure go criticize it, but I think right now it's definitely jumping the gun to call the initiative "woo". --GVOLTT (talk) 12:02, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

The "wellness" industry is often associated with different kinds of woo, but from looking at the links given I can't see anything to criticize. Quite the opposite in fact.

Maybe a deeper dive would throw something up, but nothing jumps out.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 12:16, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Nothing jumps out because the main site is barely above a 'coming soon' hoarding...

Anyway, I've looked about a bit - so far, they've not said anything red-flaggable but there's almost zero intel to actually work off yet. The third-party links don't really tell much; I had hoped at least the Entrepreneur one would actually tell me that the hell their business model was.

Which is the key thing, in my opinion. Regular and quality content costs (in one way or another). And those costs will need to be met (and more) somehow. 'Infiltration of woo' could happen in several ways; the site uses content subsidised/given by the woo-makers, it takes cuts of referrals (thus has the incentive to big up woo), gets driven to get hits (which encourages woo-boosting BS which seems to always do well numbers-wise) and actually getting bona fide 'experts' (boo!) to write will cost ya.

I'm a bit more suspicious than the folks above because perhaps my background; I'm familiar enough with the 'authoritative woo' side; in which on first glance it passes the test, but not once you dig down. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:39, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Time for some alternative medicine debunking

I recently received an email promoting this product. Search engine results, including those at Yandex which caters to Russians and many of the SEO companies forget about, are flooded with SEO BS repeating the manufacturer's claims. I want to hear what the skeptics say. 71.208.x.x (talk) 13:24, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry I couldn't watch the promo to the end. I sat through "Look, the teeth from this dead guy haven't aged"; a series of promises which don't quite end with "Can let you leap tall buildings with a single bound!!" and the testimonials from "real people" who were certain that their (now) perfect teeth were down to the magical snake oil. But in the end my strength failed me and I dropped it. I may try again later.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 16:57, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

I couldn't watch the whole thing either. 71.208.x.x (talk) 19:37, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

I find that I shan't even bother watching it. Because I have no teeth-- full dentures, folks-- and so I don't feel I'm one to judge. Kencolt (talk) 20:45, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

It really depends what you mean by BS. Our article on Alcoholics anonymous, for example, strongly criticizes the 12 step program, step by step. Yet, the metaphysics of that program seems to be effective in dealing with alcoholism in individuals. A 2020 Stanford [5] review of the literature concludes "12 steps" works better than therapy. So, now it is a question of human values. Is it better to be a drunk than to at least try to believe in a god? I know at least one of our members would probably say yes. Any such conclusion must itself be based on a kind of factitious speculation. Ariel31459 (talk) 22:07, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

But it does look like BS.Ariel31459 (talk) 22:52, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

I wasn't calling the product BS, I was calling the multiple pages of search engine hits repeating the manufacturer's talking points BS. That type of marketing in itself makes me skeptical; I'm one who likes to hear the other side of the story (the criticism) and decided who to believe. In fact, everything about this product's marketing makes me skeptical, hence why I wanted to hear the opinion of some nerds who follow this kind of stuff. 71.208.x.x (talk) 03:32, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Since it is a probiotic supplement, the RW on these topics is a great starting point. From my perspective, if you want to explore "probiotics" (despite the limited mixed evidence so far for it), you're much better off consuming food that naturally contains this stuff. Stuff like yogurt, sauerkraut, or kimchi is way cheaper then a $69 supplement bottle that might not even contain the bacteria that is advertised (given the very lax regulation for supplements), is certainly tastier, and certainly has more benefits aside from the lactic acid bacteria in it. 35.140.177.2 (talk) 12:30, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Why doesn't the leader of Chechnya start another war of independence? It would be the perfect time to do so

Seriously. The Russian military is very distracted and there are plenty of people in Russia sick of Putin.

Why not take advantage of a conflict to achieve your goals. --Trans Zombie Queen (talk) 21:29, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

So you think Kadyrov isn't really retiring?Ariel31459 (talk) 22:22, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

It would be foolish for Kadyrov to break with the Kremlin: he gets paid with all the loot he can steal as it is, and has the backing of the Soviet military if his own level of oppression on the populace proves inadequate. Kadyrov stepping down means Russia no longer needs him; it would mean having to avoid buildings with more than two stories as well as avoiding all door handles. Bongolian (talk) 05:54, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

With Russia so fully committed in (one might even say bogged down) in Ukraine it would seem like an ideal time for any dissident country or group to take advantage of the distraction. I'm surprised that it hasn't happened somewhere.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 07:05, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Terry Pratchett already answered this; 'mice may play while the cat's away, but people know the cat will be back soon. And grumpy.'

Bongolian is mainly right (Soviet military?); Kadyrov is already almost de facto independent as it is. Trying to make it de jure is lots of risk and little reward - Russia may be bogged down in Ukraine, but that's partly because Czar Putin is trying to fight a 'limited' war (no mass mobilisations etc) - they'll still be able to make Grozny look like Maripol (again) with relative ease if he crosses the line. Speaking of which, it appears Putin is leaning increasingly heavily on his non-Russian vassals for manpower, and Kadyrov has not just emptied his prisons for fodder (which partly explains why there's an orgy of rape/murder/pillage), but has also been forced to give up a few drafts of non-scum Chechens too. You can bet that he's got a decent 'deal' for this, though is trying to balance on a wall; Kadyrov needs to show 'fealty' to the Czar, but give too much and he'll be overthrown.

But that is the nightmare scenario for the Russians... and the one I warned about at the start of the war. That if Russia loses so much strength fighting the Ukranians (even if they ultimately win) they may lose the ability to maintain their 'empire' - Belrus, Caucasus, Central Asia - and maintain large enough forces in the Far East to deter China. If she also had to garrison Ukraine *and* maintain large forces on the EU/NATO border too... it could actually break the Kremlin's back. Esp if the economic war continues. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:24, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Opinions about Tsuki Project?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmt4d0u7mBQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWkgvM-Qnhw ^{— Unsigned, by: Personperson / talk / contribs}

https://www.vice.com/en/article/ne3p9z/the-obscure-4chan-religion-that-promises-a-cyberpunk-afterlife

Let's be honest, this kind of thing came from 4chan, which is no stranger to making dangerous 'guides' that would get people killed if they tried them at home, mustard gas, anyone? The thing is, there are genuinely fucked up people on that site, remember it's not just a silly troll or a joke anymore on /pol/, you are, in fact, in the presence of literal active neo nazis. The site is under surveillance for paedophiles, people who post threats, etc. Now consider that the users on the site are aware of who vulnerable, suicidal individuals are, they go to /r9k/ a place renown for people who are severely unwell to post about this kind of TSUKI project, which is basically a promise to them that there is a better way out that involves them killing themselves, and you can see that it can easily have deliberate nefarious intent. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 03:19, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Sighting

Yes, people still leave these despicable little tracts in public places. I sighted this one at a gas station in Bergton, Virginia, and grabbed it for my collection. Sadly, it was left there by anonymous; sightings in the wild of these things is much more interesting if the originating kook org has left their contact information on the back page. "We want peace at any price! Even if it means going to war to get it!" Ponderous. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 23:26, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Nice. I only just found out recently that Jello Biafra was quoting Jack Chick in a certain notorious song (see Revelation). Bongolian (talk) 20:10, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

I thought it was Alice Donut (Alternative Tentacles bandmate of Jello) who used Jack Chick for inspiration, see Lisa's Father (be warned, it can be dark) Cardinal Chang (talk) 06:58, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Could be Donut too, but Jello definitely did it.[6][7][8] Bongolian (talk) 07:15, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

I spotted Sin City at a table next to my place of work, which I suspect my boss may have put there since she brings and hides Christian materials in her office. I've posted about it here before, but I'm too tired to dig thru the archives to find it. Rockford the Roe ^{boop my snoot}_{praise Oscar Wilde} 17:46, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

So this happened during a Pride March. Not everyone's happy, but...

...most seem to be pleased with the dancing police. Most. Kencolt (talk) 22:37, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Anything that annoys Peter Hitchens just plum tickles the heck outta me. UncleKrampus (talk) 21:35, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Bongolian (talk) 05:03, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

People who are upset about police "flouting" their responsibilities are upset for the wrong reasons. I would be more so critical of the police trying to present themselves warmly in a country that is actively hostile to queer people. The police were part of the reason why Alan Turing likely killed himself, and if 68 years or so is too long ago to count for anything well we know that trans people now aren't exactly having a legal free ride on TERF Island . They have to "build trust" in such a community because of the long history of doing fucked up shit to such a community, and I would suspect that the ultimate motivation is just to "police" queer people better. I am glad my city pushed to have uniformed police banned from pride. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 17:47, 3 September 2022 (UTC).

alan turing killed himself in 1956. its now 2022. much progress has been made in the intervening years. i have no problem with police at pride. AMassiveGay (talk) 18:18, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

also police do not make the laws they are bound to uphold. AMassiveGay (talk) 18:18, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

it is also useful for the police to be at such events to help in building trust AMassiveGay (talk) 18:25, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

A lot of ACABs seem to have this mentality: any action the police take is either bad or "copaganda", which is also bad. Also there were hundreds of peaceful BLM protests a while back where police participated. While I understand the idea of banning uniformed police from pride I don't think that's a great law either. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 18:47, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

I have a simpler argument. The police would be present at such things anyway (doing their 'protection of public order during mass gathering' thing) and so it wouldn't matter one jot whether they were dancing or simply standing there like a wet weekend. Also, you cannot 'ban' them from it either because you can't, oddly enough police a mass gathering if you're not present. It's nice to see the seniors respond to the complaints with a sharp, polite and little 'you're a small bunch of cranks, go away' reply.

I shall pinch a point from James O'Brian of LBC too; that these folks seem to bitch about 'politicisation' or so on seem to always aim it at things like XR, BLM and LGBT stuff etc but *not* things like say, protecting pro-hunt gatherings or religious events.

But this is just a shot in the general 'culture wars' BS the Tories are trying to get going, due the simple fact they've utterly fucked up the entire country. Already, they've had a right-wing 'thinktank' basically say part of the problem with policing isn't a collapse in capacity due to Tory greed/incompetence, but 'woke'. KarmaPolice (talk) 23:39, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

@AMassiveGaythe argument that police don’t make the laws they enforce is a pretty weak defence as to negate them any moral culpability. No one “accidentally” becomes a police officer and has zero means of opting out at any time.The criminalization of poverty, and the persecution of trans people still effects many queer youth; and many queer people of colour have traumatic experiences with police. That’s why where I live the BLM chapter pushed to have police banned from pride. When opposing such policies you are basically telling poor queer people and queer people of colour with such experiences that they aren’t entitled to pride; but the institutions that harass them are. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 03:41, 4 September 2022 (UTC).

thats complete dogshit. AMassiveGay (talk) 10:24, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Dumb does makes a point, but to be truthful Pride sold what soul it had long ago when it allowed itself to be co-opted by forces of capitalism. Every 'liberation' movement always has this fissure; between those who roughly 'desire to make the world anew' and the ones who are fine with the status quo once it's made houseroom for them personally - where their fight for justice ends once it's away from their front door.

In the actual case, I think a division needs to be made between police officers taking part and a police force doing so. The former is individual and informal, the latter collective and formal. I do think an organising group has the right (if it feels the need) to ask them to not formally participate but it kinda doesn't have the authority to stop the former. Though in this case, it wasn't much of a 'participation'.

But to do my usual thing of turning a conversation in a (hopefully) interesting direction; why zero questions regarding whether the police persons were LGBT themselves? Surely, this would have some bearing on their actions, no? And if they were all cis-straights, why no complaints about 'outsiders' crashing an event not meant for them? KarmaPolice (talk) 11:59, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

as to 'sold its soul' thing - why can it not be both a celebration and still have room to fight injustices? being lgbt is more than just a struggle AMassiveGay (talk) 12:18, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Well, it's not an either/or thing; I was more highlighting the two poles which always rear their heads in any 'X rights' movement. Another couple of points I'll make is that Pride does not equal the whole LGBT 'community' and there's decent reason to say such a thing may not even exist (it may be a tidy shorthand for discussions etc, but it's important to never mistake the map for the territory) or if it does exist, it does not include all LGBT folks, or even that the definition is so wide it's almost worthless.

Which leads to the question; what is Pride for, and what is it not for? If it does not stand in 'allyship' (eww...) with say, BLM does it mean it's racist? But what if it does, does that mean that the groups not mentioned they don't care about? Perhaps it's best to mention nobody? Or perhaps it's legitimate to mention certain groups when they are also top of the news bulletin (for example, who's gonna dump on the Ukranian LGBTs fighting for their right to simply exist?) Or maybe others should only be mentioned when there's actually concrete attempts to help, not simply near-meaningless symbolism? Or perhaps Pride is just symbolism, and why the hell don't we just go crazy with the glueing-on of all the other stickers too? KarmaPolice (talk) 13:16, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

I can respect Karma’s response at least as it exhibits some serious consideration in addition to push back, though I would argue that the mention of LGBT+ police serves a similar purpose as asking about black or indigenous police officers. It sort of runs with the associated rhetoric that they either can’t participate in their own oppression, or that they don’t receive privileges over those who share their identity who are not police and as such their perspective matters just as much (neither which are on the face of things unambiguously true). If neither thing is implied then why would it even matter to the topic at hand?

To what pride is for we can take a historical perspective and argue that pride was a product of the gay liberation movement shortly after the stonewall riots with the express aim of pushing against political persecution of gay people (which often was expressed in the form of anti-public sex laws, bathhouse and bar raids by the police, and the pathologization of homosexuality by the medical establishment).

Now initially inclusivity of identities other than gay people wasn’t really part of the motivation, but at the time other organizations organized around similar aims for who was dubbed at the time as “transvestites and transexuals” took part.

The problem with the above argument of course is that really seems more so a product of the time of pride’s formation and not something that stuck with it’s development which changes in response to the times. I am sure pride took on a very different character during the aids crisis, and it definitely did so during the fight for gay marriage in the 2000’s.

Many People who were alive then still take part in pride today and the traumas and struggles of the past still stick with them. The traumas and struggles people have to deal with today with the mainstreaming of old school homophobia and anti-trans legislation in both the US and UK is till relevant. As is the intersection of the struggles with racism with queer identity.

Pride has for the most part throughout it’s history has been a protest, and there is a lot of reason as to why it should remain one today. The intersectionality or lack there of is going to be reflected in who we decide to include and exclude from the events — something much like the debates regarding free speech/hate speech cannot be inclusive to everyone. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 21:42, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

@AMassiveGay “That’s complete dogshit” is not a real counter argument. It’s what queer PoC in BLM argue in my city, and I don’t particularly see the rationale to reject it besides denialism of the existence systematic racism within the criminal justice system, and denial of the criminalization of poverty as effecting LGBT+ folks. White gays always seem to retort that this only applies to the US but that isn’t particularly true. Racism in law enforcement is documented in countries like Canada and the UK, and the criminalization of poverty definitely isn’t a US only phenomenon.

Simply being bisexual raises the probability of myself ending up in poverty and I see the ways in which anti-panhandling laws, the dismantling of homeless encampments, anti-homeless architecture, etc would impact queer homeless youth (which are disproportionately non-white). When police partake in the events that are traumatizing to you on the side of instigating the event to begin with they can and often do become a trauma trigger for people who have been victimized in that way. To turn to them and say “nah” is sort of deeply privileged thing to do. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 21:42, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

And I don't think banning police from pride parades will do anything to address this problem. It's a token gesture that doesn't address anything systemic. Systemic problems, which aren't illustrated by one or so visible incidents but by trends and probabilities, require long-term and big-net sweeping changes, not just preventing people from being around other people who haven't even partook in any brutality. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 02:48, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Pride itself doesn’t do anything systematic against existing systematic queerphobia, so if “gestures” aren’t worth doing then neither is pride as a celebration. This also ignores that the major argument is about making certain victimized queer people especially victimized queer people of colour feel safe and included. Do you not think that is an admirable aim? Is pride supposed to be inclusive to persecuted queer people or to uniformed police officers who can participate out of uniform?. Also like you don’t seem to understand how trauma triggers generalize. If someone gets bit by a dog and develops a phobia of dogs, they don’t just simply become phobic to that one dog. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 10:31, 5 September 2022 (UTC).

I have my own trauma triggers. I know what I'm talking about. I've been bitten by the same dog twice, I keep my distance from dogs. The sound of slamming doors also gets my hair raising as I've been in abusive situations involving these doors. The issue is that anything can be a trauma trigger whenever it is a slammed door, swearing people, guns, a particular toy, baseball bats, car honking, dogs, and so on. People have traumatizing encounters with the police, disproportionately poc and people with mental health disabilities, but again, you're conflating general trends with individual people. The mere presence of police may send back bad memories but it's simply not enough to cause huge anxiety to most people. I do not agree that pride is a token gesture as it's part of a coalescence of identity that does offer needed support to people. It also encompasses many different things, not just parades. However, barring police in uniform from these parades is not the ideal move to address systemic problems with policing. I will point out again that there are thousands of peaceful BLM protests and I'm willing to bet police dispelled several instances of hostility that could've arisen during these protests but that doesn't exactly get reported in Twitter posts do they? --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 06:46, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

The point regarding 'LGBT police' was a much more simple one; that if they were the ones at the Pride in question and doing that dance, it could be argued they were performing it as LGBT individuals, not as 'a uniform'. Therefore, it adds another dimension to the argument, similar to say, minority officers taking the knee at a BLM protest. I merely found it interesting that in all the commentary regarding the issue itself nobody had even floated this as a We also need to remember that these were British police, not American. Now, they have many faults and weaknesses (including being the cohesive arm of an crumbling capitalist state) but it's simply not fair to paint them in the same colours (British police are better trained for starters). I'm not gonna say Gay and I are the final arbiters in this, but at very least our experiences of said police come from first-hand (you don't say where you're from, Dumb but your use of 'indigenous' kinda shows it's not the UK). Which tallies with another issue; in the UK race is less a problem, but class is much more of one. To the point it can be argued that quite a bit of what is seen as 'racism' in the UK is in fact class based, due to minorites being stuck at the bottom due to the legacy of racism (a subtle but important difference). In short; you cannot simply import American norms and assumptions to a British context and expect a perfect fit.

The questioning of the reasoning/worth of Pride is a relatively simple one; it can be argued that in the UK at least, generally speaking the 'first wave' (removal of legal disabilities) has almost completely succeeded and the 'second wave' (general public tolerance) is on the way (though not all development is even, naturally). This leads to the question - what is it *now*? What does it aim to achieve in 2022 UK? Could it be that it's increasing co-option by capitalism is a sign of it's success; that they're becoming increasing non-issues in British society.

With 'intersectionality'... well, I'm going to come down on the side of stating 'keep within your remit'. Lines have do be drawn *somewhere*, and I'm in favour of them to be rather narrow, as to not dissipate the focus/effort/resources on individual campaign issues. Are there societal issues regarding, say homelessness? Of course there is. But unless those LGBT persons are homeless because of being LGBT, I would argue their needs are better 'dealt with' from homelessness campaigners etc instead.

'To turn to them and say “nah” is sort of deeply privileged thing to do.'... well, yes it is. That is because LGBT organisations are as class-ridden as the capitalist societies they hail from. The leaderships are, in general drawn from the dominant class; in the British case, white and bourgeois. The community itself also has it's stratifications, it could be said it's traditional 'ruling class' has been gays and lesbians. The difference here is that I've made my peace with this. I see it as a 'united front'; I line up with the bourgeois 'queer' only where both our interests collide.

Because the rest of the time, they are my adversary. And I never forget this. KarmaPolice (talk) 05:17, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

I think it's even more simple than that honestly, pride is a rebellion against systemic prejudices, it shows that a portion of the public wants their rights to be acknowledged and that they're willing to come together to work towards that goal. That means there is a real political demand and it's being shown in those crowds, politicians won't act on things where there is no public demand, by showing people that there is, then they will try to change things for your support. This is pretty standard stuff, I see no reason that pride marches from a political standpoint are different from advocacy for any other political position, in terms of advertising for the cause and gaining more followers, why should nationalists get to go around getting more political clout if gays and bisexuals or trans people cannot? Why should any of these people feel afraid to speak out for themselves and others, in a free system that presupposes it is fair and good? BumblingBuffoon (talk) 17:48, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

The UK does have “race issues” however with it’s Jamaican immigrant population, various refugee groups, the Irish, etc. Some of whom will openly cite incidences and experiences with police harassment within the UK. I live in Canada and a common criticism some scholars on race mention is how often Canadians ignores our own history and current issues with systematic racism because we view and compare ourselves against the backdrop of US politics and conclude things are simply not as bad as the US. I do not doubt that the UK is not that different in that regard. It is in some sense a way our countries propagandize in support of our own status quo. I am very doubtful that the colonized populations in the Uk subject to the diaspora Britain created for their people as to end up in the country to begin with do not experience racism in the UK today, or lack any systematic disadvantages based in who they descend from. We know too that harassment against transgender people is very much present as well, and with various proposed anti-trans legislation that is going to increase the negative interactions with police if the British TERF’s have their way. Downplaying these issues I think only does more to serve the capitalist status quo. Queerness, race and class are all intimately linked. The existence of bourgeois gays and lesbians is a very very recent phenomena, and we should not mistake rainbow capitalism for queer liberation. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 10:55, 5 September 2022 (UTC).

I didn't say the UK didn't have any race issues, just that the UK is having to work with the legacies of racism, which is where the vast majority are held back by a class system which rewards those who's ancestors held capital in 1900 (which *was* strongly defined by racism). In fact, sometimes this can lead into a circle which looks very like racism; the black person is stopped in the nice car not because the police are racist, but because they hold black people are poor (which is much more statistically true) and therefore that nice car must be 'ill-gotten gains' or similar.

The 'TERF issue' is a particulary British one, yes; but is mainly relevant in this conversation due to the strength of old second-wave feminist thought (esp RadFems) within lesbian society, esp older members (who to be honest, were never thrilled with G or B parts of the acronym either). I'd argue that in this case part of the issue is that 'LGBT' is a creation due to the vagries of history than anything else; if such a system was being coined now I don't think many would stand up and say 'yes, gender identity and sexual orentation *should* be put in the same box!'

This leads back to one of my major charges from above; many with 'the community' are radical *right* up to the point their own needs are met - I remember finding a YouGov poll from a couple of years back which showed that LGB identification didn't hugely skew political party choice, but T *did*. The answer is simple; L/Gs the war is good as won and a lot of Bs particular needs are not biggie issues. It's only T's who really still care, because their war is still ongoing. It's also why finding gay/lesbian conservatives isn't as much a unicorn than it is in say, the USA.

One bit I utterly disagree with you is the argument that 'The existence of bourgeois gays and lesbians is a very very recent phenomena'. No, they've always been there - and normally, they've been in charge (in fact, they started much of the movement in the UK simply because they were *unused* to being treated like crap and felt they could change it). The British class system is such that a person of bourgeois extraction or simply appearance (speech etc) is almost immediately seen as 'leadership material' - the 'posh but dim leader' has been a trope in British fiction at least since Woodhouse and it remains in use because it is true - the hate/mockery for Rayner and hailing of Rees-Mogg for his 'brilliance' prime examples of this. And why the hell would the UK LGBT community be immune to this same shitty vice that riddles the rest of our society, eh? I've seen this issue in other locations, such as environmental groups. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:38, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

its frustrating that this tedious debate happens every year, people complaining its no longer political enough. it cannot be overtly political like back in the day. it just cant. lgbt is too broad a church. each letter includes people from all races, all works of life, class, politics. beyond the most basic 'right too exist' there is no political either relevant to all groups or that can be viewed through the same lens. and pride is too large, too all encompassing, too inclusive for pride to even be an effective medium for protest/activision. it can be political or it can be inclusive. it cannot be both.

there is still room for politics, still room to march with ones group blowing whistles and carrying placards with slogans pushing your cause, but will your message be heard amidst the crowds or quickly forgotten as a float filled with brazillians dressed in nowt but feathers sambas past? rallys and demonstrations in the street is no longer where activism lives, for better or for worse. its online by and large, and when it isnt it has a united front thats on message. that isnt pride today.

large parts of the l are at war with the t for one. and issues surrounding race are more complex than the facile arguments presented here, going beyond simply experiences with police, more than white vs black, and experiences are not uniform across ethnic groups. there is racism within the lgbt community. there is virulent homophobia with some ethnic communities making things difficult for lgbt from them. pride is at its best when it is inclusive of all. that includes police, whose lgbt members would rather not be pushed back in the closet. it is at its best when we can all mingle together, be exposed to people whose life experiences differ to our own in many ways but are able to see experiences that we share.

pride today is a carnival. it is a party. it is a coming together of all lgbt folk, without fear or shame - too often the only time some of us can be without fear or shame - and just be happy and to just be. it is a celebration. it is an affirmation. that is enough. fuck off with the shaming of people for not being overtly political. let people be happy to just be lgbt, for at least one day of the year and not have to think of the struggle they face the rest the time if they want. there is room enough for all. AMassiveGay (talk) 11:57, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Pretty much everything AMG said. None of the above should be controversial. It just all makes a shit ton of sense. I love going to pride and go totally over the top being who I am as loud as possibly for a day and enjoying the night time party. And I literally shed a tear every year during the parade for my friends I made when I spent six months in Iran. Because, there isn't a chance in hell they'll be able to express who they are, let alone enjoy a PRIDE any time soon (if ever). And for those still relentlessly bullied in school, for the not one single premiership gay footballer out of the closet, for those who are spat on, ridiculed, beaten, demeaned and live in fear. Pride for me, is not just celebrating, normalising and never stopping until it is no longer needed...for me it is also showing a small level of gratitude I could do any of this at all, and that I can hold my boyfriends hand openly, play on a gay sports team and talk about my dates with colleagues in a way that's unthinkable in the majority of the world. Gratitude, joy, a dash of sorrow for those who cant and a long long look up the ladder we have to climb before true equality and acceptance happens (we are barely on the first rung). It saddens me it isn't inclusive enough (that means being more thoughtful of those in marginalised communities as well as the absurdity of expelling lgtbq+ first responders in uniforms from parades). ShabiDOO 22:03, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

@AMassiveGay

I think this is just placating the corporate appropriation and lack of intersectionality to dodge the actual realities that queer liberation is still an active struggle (one that intersects with other struggles). I would be put to death in many parts of the world for what I do with my boyfriend. Queer identities are inherently political as they subvert the cis-heteronormative status quo, and are often subject to disproportionate violence at the hands of the state. If pride is supposed to be an affirmation of queer identities then it MUST be political. You can’t introduce politics to something that is already political. Even to stress that pride is a party and apolitical is an active political stance with real political consequences.

Your flag and parades don’t stop trans-people from being murdered by insecure straight men, from being dead-named by police. It doesn’t house the young gay couples I see sleeping the streets. It wont lower the high rates of poverty and sexual victimization experienced by folks who are bisexual, it doesn’t address the people of colour who experience all that at much worse rates then their white comrades — and to celebrate the fact it doesn’t have to isn’t this inspiring and wise acceptance; it’s just gross. Pride is more then just a fancy parade. It can be a space to vocalize and organize change and that’s not incompatible with the stated aims of a “fun party”. If we want pride to be inclusive, we should prioritize the most marginalized among us — and it cannot by the nature of what it is be inclusive to everyone. We need to draw the line somewhere, and I think we need to draw the line at the groups and institutions that hurt us queer people the most especially the most disenfranchised among us. It’s their party too. You wouldn’t state that neo-nazi’s and the westboro baptist church should feel included at pride do you? - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 06:39, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Meanwhile, on Russian TV...

...Philip Schofield does 'Wheel of Fortune' including 'energy bills' as a prize. Kremlin then re-shows clip to prove how fucked the UK is.

I cannot help but think of a) Black Mirror and b) Mitchell and Webb 'The Quiz Broadcast'. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:33, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Don't forget the music they used as they spun the wheel. Christ, I'm sure they meant well when they came up with the suggestion. And such a prize has been used before, but.... Cardinal Chang (talk) 11:56, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

I've been thinking of a few other things to win. 'Dentist Appointment', 'School Uniform', 'Pallet of Tinned Food', 'A Year's worth of HRT medicines' and 'Return Ticket from Rwanda'. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:01, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Competitions have been offering things like "get your mortgage paid for a year" for a while, so it's nice they're including people in rented accommodation. In 1993 Channel 4 did a fake game show, Come on Down and Out, where actors playing homeless people competed to win a house; this was widely condemned until people realised it was a spoof.[9][10] Having said that, it's certainly not a good reflection on British society. --Annanoon (talk) 13:12, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm more disgusted at the thought of people ringing premium-rate phone lines in the hope of winning 'domestic heating'. At least most shows at have the pretense that the prizes are somehow 'luxuries'. How about we have a 'Deal or No Deal' featuring people fighting off debt-collectors, or a talent contest for pensioners to win a hip replacement? KarmaPolice (talk) 13:31, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

US cable already had a short lived repo-man based game show about 10 years ago. However, as the low-rent side of US cable television has been 99% exploitative scummy-feeling trash TV (where who knows how much is staged or not) for quite some time, it passed by without too much notice or shock. 35.140.177.2 (talk) 14:36, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

As a child, I always loved strategy board games like chess, Stratego and Risk. In strategy games, you always have to anticipate the opponent's countermoves. It seems so obvious that if hardcore sanctions were placed upon Russians, tough-minded Russians would strike back by withholding energy supplies to Europe in the winter. But the Europeans seem to be caught by surprise and ill-prepared. It's kind of puzzling to me that they didn't anticipate Russia's countermoves. Van Nostrand (talk) 19:11, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

It has not been unanticipated in Europe that Russia might deploy its energy exports as a weapon. However, we have to remember how recent the current war in Ukraine is and how quickly and badly the relations between the EU, various (other) European states degraded. There simply isn’t any easy alternatives to Russian gas for a lot of European countries.

Now, this dependency on Russian gas is something that was warned against as being a strategic vulnerability well before (note the long debate on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline), but basically until the Russian invasion of Ukraine this spring, the assumption among the leading powers and politicians has been that some form of accommodation or agreement with Russia could and would be reached.

This energy embargo also hurts Russia badly due to its heavy reliance on energy exports, which is probably also an explanation for why Russia has, until very recently, been fairly hesitant about using the full potential of its embargo options.

Just like other big energy exporters (such as the Gulf states), the Russian leadership knows that a too harsh constriction of their energy exports would also risk pushing their wealthiest and most geo strategically important customers (Western Europe and/or the US) to speed up their transition away from fossil fuels and to become more energy efficient, thus hollowing out both the most lucrative markets and the future leverage of energy exporters. ScepticWombat (talk) 21:57, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

The USA is the most influential member of NATO. It lead the charge of stringent sanctions against NATO. But the USA is far less vulnerable to energy embargos by Russia. I remember Donald Trump warning the Germans about depending too much on Russian gas/oil during a United Nations meeting and the German delegation appeared to quietly laugh at him about this matter. Van Nostrand (talk) 22:24, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

'How did we (Europe) get to this position?' is a complicated one, and each nation's path is different. But there's generally three strands.

1/ Political Policies. The Germans were the leaders in feeling that a lasting peace in Europe was to be had by tying Russian raw materials (not just oil/gas, but coal, nickel, aluminium etc) to European consumers. Russia would 'need' Europe for her export-driven market, as well as European high-tech manufactures, high-end consumables and 'invisibles' like banking, insurance etc. The problem was that China can now partly replace Europe as a dancing-partner, but mainly because the 'plan' was shit. The Germans assumed that the Russians would think like themselves - aka they wouldn't cause themselves massive economic harm (esp to their own people) and would generally 'play by the rules' (however, they weren't the only ones deluded; Russia felt Europe was cowardly because they kept on trying to 'talk' and soft because our governments did care about domestic SoL etc).

2/ Capitalist Economics. Modern economic-corp thinking is very short-term, very laissez-faire. If you can't get X from Y, simply move on. The market shall provide etc. I explicitly remember a lecturer of mine poo-pooing my question of 'supply security' around '08 by blithely stating such things weren't needed. It has to be said; bankers, businesspeople and managers are not economic historians and rarely bother listening to them either - and at the time of my question, the 'institutional memory' of say, the 1970s was almost faded, and by 2022 completely gone. Worse, some countries (like the UK) let the market run riot; either thinking 'the market' was either infallible or thinking an energy crisis was impossible to reoccur. Ironically, the nations best-placed to weather this were the ones which had placed strategic concerns over purely economic ones.

3/ Domestic Policies. How and why did Europe fall in love with gas? That answer is simple; the 1960s and the environment. Before this, Europe powered herself with coal. Electricity generation, heating, cooking etc. But coal consumption was terrible for the environment - switching heating/cooking to gas was the simplist method of cleaning up the air. This was helped from the fact several European nations used 'coal-gas' and the appliances were convertable. The 'second wave' came about 1995; Europe found the easiest way to reduce her carbon emissions was the rapid phase-out of coal electricity generation - and gas was a fuel which had low set-up costs. Unable to use coal, oil being uneconomic and nuclear impossible due to public opposition - gas was the only 'shovel ready' plan on offer.

Then... Europe got stuck. We 'knew' that we needed to move to low/zero carbon generation sources, but renewables were viewed as 'unreliable' and hydro/nuclear 'very iffy' for political reasons. And all were much more expensive per MW when compared to gas. Similar for heating; as late as 2019 the UK government refused to plan to sunset domestic gas installations mainly on economic grounds. If generous, you could say Europe was mainly hoping to do this change-over incrementally, spreading the costs over say forty years. If cynical, we were naively hoping 'something would turn up'... like the private companies would deal with it off their own bat.

And before anyone lauds Trump for 'being right'... let me point out that part of the reason Putin invaded was that he felt America's right-wing was 'on his side' and would hamstring the USA's response. And as he believes that NATO is basically 'America's Empire' he was caught totally off-guard by 'tail wags dog' situation in the weeks before the invasion where the likes of Warsaw and London were leading the 'resist Putin' camp (and almost dragging Washington in their wake). KarmaPolice (talk) 07:01, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Not developing nuclear energy for political reasons is foolish. Politics is often irrational. France did not make that needless mistake as badly as other European countries. And manufacturers have safer nuclear reactors now. IvanK (talk) 08:58, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

It's rejection was also rational - nuclear energy is 'uneconomic' when simply viewed by current monetary cost (even now). It could actually be argued that the French reasoning for throwing herself into the nuclear age was *irrational* - a desire for 'energy independence/security' and so on. It was a gamble on a 'different path' (in typical French fashion) which looked like a complete white elephant in the 1990s, but only started to look a wiser choice when electric vehicles came onto the scene (and even then, the French didn't seem overly enamoured with keeping it up).

It could be said that we in Europe are re-learning the old lessons of the 40s-70s that yes, there is such a thing as 'strategic sectors of the economy' and yes, it is part of the government's remit to keep them functional so the rest of our economy continues to tick over unimpeded and no, private enterprise cannot be trusted to do this work. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:33, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Given the energy problems the British/Germans are expected to have, the French are looking pretty smart in comparison (They are going to restart some of their nuclear reactors so perhaps they did not act perfectly).

But a lot of the problems could have been avoided if European politicians didn't give outsized influence to the Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg. Meteorologists' forecasts aren't that accurate beyond two weeks out. I doubt that climate scientists have much accuracy decades out. IvanK (talk) 22:10, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

LOLWUT? A single activist who has only been in the public spotlight for 3-4 years doesn't mean much. Takes longer then that to actually build a nuclear power plant.

Generally speaking, the earliest IPCC predictions (in 1990, I believe) have been found to be reasonably accurate so far. You'll always find Chicken Littles and denialists who can be safely ignored, of course, but the answer is, yes, climate scientists have so far done pretty good decades out.

In other corners of the 'Net, I remember seeing a few nuclear-head types having a "lightbulb moment" when Russia started shelling a Ukraine nuclear power plant early in the war. There are, y'know, security concerns for Big Nuclear. Who would have guessed? Certainly in my opinion, nuclear power should absolutely be a part of the zero-carbon energy equation in the future (sorry Germany energy policy), but there are some negatives beyond cost that nuclear evangelists seem to overlook. Nuclear for instance has "extra security concerns" and "worst case scenarios" that other energy sources don't really have (though it is not like other energy sources aren't similar; dams also make for tempting terrorist targets and have bad worst case scenarios.)

At any rate, for politics, the anti-nuclear movement in Germany has a long history. Try less looking at Greta Thunberg and more at movements extending back into the 1970s at least, helped out by the Three Mile Island accident, and especially by Chernobyl (which did directly affect Germany, and thus from what I can tell is probably the event that most affected German anti-nuclear politics. Germany's nuclear phase out actually is a pretty old plan, dating to 2000 and Gerhard Schröder).

The thing is, Vladimir Putin's Russia isn't like the post-USSR Russia, or even quite like the Cold War era Russia, where the energy business was run by technocrats and not the KGB. Occasionally the United States would tut-tut Europe's dependency on Russian gas, but by and large Russian gas was not tied as much to geopolitics. No one really anticipated Putin's nationalist / fascist turn back then. The first rumblings of "oh-oh" I see in news articles regarding the Russian gas dependency date to around 2006, right after the 2005–2006 Russia–Ukraine gas dispute. Of course, this means that Europe has had 16 years to reckon with the notion that maybe Putin would use Russian gas as a political weapon... you would think that would have been enough time to come up with a plan... but perhaps people were too complacent. Oops. 35.140.177.2 (talk) 00:11, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

"Meteorologists' forecasts aren't that accurate beyond two weeks out. I doubt that climate scientists have much accuracy decades out."

Spouting that old chestnut denialist bullshit eh? I always thought your account was sus from the beginning. Try staying in a parked car during summer and predict me again how the temperature trends are going. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 00:21, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Even in ten days a forecast can change. Where I live, August 27, 2021 was searingly hot: 93F (34C), and a week before was forecast to be 82F (28C). Sometimes even same day forecasts are off: August 16 this year was planned to have a high of 76F (24C), but was actually 83F (28C). Andrew5 (talk) 00:30, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

The American Meteorological Society does not recommend forecasting general weather forecasts higher than 8 days (as of 2020). However, issuing forecasts on larger scale atmospheric phenomenon over much longer time periods is quite possible, as they note. "Greenhouse gases" certainly would be a "large scale atmosphere phenomenon"; climate change models are not predicting what temperature city XYZ will be at on day N of 2100, but instead are predicting what the global average temperature would be if the atmosphere had X PPM of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (based on studies of CO2 IR absorption dated to at least the 1950s), with the IPCC reports laying out multiple scenarios and probable temperature ranges. So the comparison our troll(?) here is making is honestly rather silly. 35.140.177.2 (talk) 01:06, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

ec. i am under the impression climate and weather are not the same thing - its like the thing we have to constantly remind denialists about all the fucking time.

if we had given 'outsized influence' to the likes of greta thunberg, we would not be in the situation we face now. we should have been paying attention to the thunbergs of the world long before she came on the scene and we wouldnt still be so dependant on fossil fuels and we wouldnt have be pally with so many human rights abusing authoritarian regimes. we'd probably wouldnt even sell such regimes as much arms either, considering they would have lost their main revenue stream. i wonder what the world would look like today if we hadnt funded/supplied some of the wars currently raging? i reckon things would be lot more chill generally and not just the climate

anyhow, i thought the fukishima thing was what done it for germany's nuclear energy capability. AMassiveGay (talk) 01:13, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Fukishima definitely spooked Angela Merkel, who if I recall was pretty pro-nuclear before that. So that's definitely another inflection point in Germany's anti-nuclear politics. 35.140.177.2 (talk) 01:32, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Now, I'm not a pro nuclear energy guy, but that seems strange in retrospect given that the disaster was caused by an earthquake and tsunami which killed 18,000. Some reports have it that the radiation killed one person (cancer). And Germany don't get many tsunamis...Ariel31459 (talk) 02:33, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Europe 'without Thurnberg' (which as pointed out is granting her waaay to much weight here) wouldn't have given alt-2022 Europe more nuclear energy, it would have given her more gas energy and less renewables. And chances are, it wouldn't grant the continent much more gas production either, mainly due to the fact the only major conventional source (North Sea) was running at basically 'full economic capacity' as of 2019. The only possible positive change here may have been a longer retention of some coal capacity, like the old British Drax. But we forget; Russian was the primary exporter of coal to Europe in 2022 too. It would have also have given less resistance in France to phase-out their nuclear fleet too.

For 'Blame Thurnberg' glosses over the fact one of the main (perhaps decisive) factor for Europe saying No was down to pure economics. A nuclear plant is really expensive and takes over a decade to construct. This meant that the price per MW was far *above* what was market rates were for over thirty years. And that's not even factoring in the decomissioning or waste disposal either. You cannot blame private enterprise in not choosing this option. When you look at it from this angle, 'more Russian gas' was the laziest, cheapest option and well, we took it.

One last thing we forget is that gas generation is frankly, fucking amazing in the minds of the folks who run electrial grids. Modern generators are pretty efficient and the capital plant is affordable too. Unlike renewables, it's not subject to the vageries of the elements. Unlike coal, it's not dependent in the never-ending input of hard-to-transport energy source. And unlike nuclear, it has a very quick start-up/shut-down cycle (meaning that extra demand can be satisfied almost immediately). This is the true problem facing advanced nations; that the less gas in our mix means our networks become less flexible - either we'll have to get used to choking demand at peaks and/or being okay with energy wastage in troughs.

One last bit to deal with; is nuclear energy dangerous? Sure. But we forget; so are fossil fuels. I speak from personal experience here; I lost my home due to a oil storage explosion 15 years back. Even if we exclude the 'death by inches' from pollution etc, there's also coal mine collapses, oil rig fires, slag-heap liquifications and gas terminal expolosions. In fact, it would appear that in the whole nuclear power is safer than all forms of fossil fuel. I think what we have here is an issue of percieved vs real risks; the world remembers Chernobyl, not Piper Alpha, Aberfan, Freeport, Exxon Valdez or Courrieres. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:23, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Our article nuclear power explores some of the issues. It's almost impossible to calculate what is the safest or most dangerous form of energy. If you include Chinese hydro dam collapses, you'd assume hydro-electric power was the worst. And some sources say solar power is very dangerous because lots of people fall off their roofs installing solar panels, or get electrocuted connecting them to electricity grids - this is because small-scale solar is a lot more common than small-scale nuclear. Deaths from Chernobyl are still contested, and typically involve measures like "N people died of cancers aged 75 instead of 80" rather than miners buried alive in pit disasters (although plenty of coal miners die prematurely from lung disease etc). The best option is probably just to pick something sustainable and practical, and do it as safely as possible. --Annanoon (talk) 10:13, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

True. Though actually working out how 'sustainable' things are is very difficult. For example, I've never been able to find *any* 'Total Carbon Costs of Ownership' for say, electric cars or consumer items. If I don't know the 'carbon production cost' of say a solar panel I cannot ultimately reach a conclusion of it's total carbon cost, can I? KarmaPolice (talk) 11:41, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

The Financial Times has an excellent video on how short-sighted European leaders were as far as their energy policies: How Putin held Europe hostage over energy. Now Germany and other European countries are going to have to rely on coal which increases air pollution. And the honeymoon that Ukraine’s leaders have enjoyed with the West will not last amidst rising energy costs, a European recession and costly military/humanitarian aid to Ukraine. GrindtXX (talk) 16:16, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Only by people who are also stupidly short-sighted.

'Going back to coal' is not going to help Europe this year, next year or even the year after that. We can delay the closedown of a few remaining plants and a bit of fuel substitution, but not much more than that. Europe is not going to build new coal capacity, because you build a power station for 30-50 years and well, coal doesn't have 50 years. Europe doesn't even have enough coal mines to be self-sufficient either - and traditionally at least, imported coal from... Russia.

No; the medium-term plan is to build more gas storage capacity, rapidly expand LNG terminals at ports so we can take more shipments from N America and Mid-East and look to ways to be more efficient with what supplies we already have. Long-term (I suspect) will be a strong plunge into nuclear.

Abandoning Ukraine is equally bone-headed. If Ukraine falls because Europe pulls the rug, Putin has won, is emboldened, hates Europe and has little to lose. We're not getting any gas or oil out of Russia under any circamstances and he shall simply move onto another target, even closer to our homes. And the Euro Big Public gets this. KarmaPolice (talk) 20:42, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Europeans shouldn't count on an anti-fossil fuel Biden administration to ramp up natural gas output to help Europe. Europe has taken a swan dive off the energy crisis cliff and it's just a matter of time before it slams into the consequences of its bad decisions. Ukraine and Russia are both very corrupt. European antipathy towards Russia will grow and European empathy for Ukrainians will wane. GrindtXX (talk) 20:59, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Wrong! https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=53719 . Also, the main cramp is not the inability to buy or even ship LNG, but to unload it into the European gas network - we've not needed that capability before. Basically, Europe needs to completely change her energy mix (both production and consumption) in a manner 30 years change is pressed into 5. It's going to hurt and it's gonna cost but well, there is no alternative. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:15, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Erin Moriarty

https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/the-boys-erin-moriarty-fan-hate-starlight-1235362487/ I just watched the boys. Apparently, people don't like Starlight. But why though? She didn't stab anyone in the back and doesn't seem too annoying to me. Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 14:27, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

It seems like any show vaguely involving science fiction or fantasy and related genres has to these days attract a bunch of unemployed-Mom's-basement-dweller types who go above and beyond confirming the Comic Book Guy stereotype of the Simpsons and brigade online to post dumb shit en masse, constantly. In this case, from Googling it seems like most of the idiot mob (eg the ones hating on Starlight for non-show-writing reasons) were focusing on some stupid speculations based on Erin Moriarty's appearance. Generally speaking, my viewpoint is that a lot of the type of people who go on about this sort of shallow appearance-based shit way too often would fail any sort of shallow appearance-based test themselves, so ideally they should be ignored. Alas, social media is really good at making loser mobs quite visible. 35.140.177.2 (talk) 14:55, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I found a video that has criticized Starlight. The title seems a bit harsh. What do you think? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_JCQij83oI Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 16:19, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Will have to agree with Highboi here. Just seems like reactionary ramblings from the proverbial peanut gallery that unfortunately is given too much of a platform and attention these days on social media.SensaurC-137 (talk) 16:53, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

A Sidenote

There is one point they made with which I agree. Soldier boy should have Lazer-Beamed Homelander and Ryan. It didn't kill Kimiko. Then they could have easily used the neurotoxin on Solider boy as the Lazer beam makes him weaker. Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 17:23, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Kim wants to make North Korea into a fairyland.

Officially. Kencolt (talk) 12:51, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

North Korea could use some landscaping to spruce things up. "We want a shubbery!" - North Korean leader and former knight of the knights who say nee Kim Jong Un. GrindtXX (talk) 16:08, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Such nonsense. The "source" you linked was based off nothing but made-up claims, at best, by "defectors" who were paid by the South Korean government hundreds of thousands of dollars to spread propaganda and misinformation. Perhaps you should consider finding something other than Capitalist-Imperialist propaganda again People's Korea? Wisconcom (talk) 16:44, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Nah, my tankie troll, it's actually what is in their English press release that this article is based on. It perhaps is a weird translation error (Google translate the paragraph of the Korean article as "beautiful and civilized socialist landscape"), but on the other hand, a 2015 Guardian article reported that "socialist fairlyland" was as an official slogan even in 2015. Who knows... either way it's of course referring to North Korea's kinda creepy super-planned community development projects (which, honestly, really could use less of the uniform kindergarten pastels and a lot more nice shrubberies). 35.140.177.2 (talk) 02:41, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

This is extremely ugly: floods in Pakistan

Figure this event is even worse than the floods in Kentucky, as these things, the heaviest rainfall in that region in living memory killed more than 1160 people[11] at least 380 children and created a giant lake.[12] Earlier, May saw a sweltering heat wave of 50 degrees (in MAY!)[13]

In the meantime, reread this article from our WIGO:Blogs and weep and curse the rich. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 01:26, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

In South Asia, you either have a severe drought or a flood. Climate change is just going to make it worse. Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 04:20, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

The Pakistan flooding is sadly usual, mainly because the area is in poverty. The MS floods that shut down water haven't killed anyone yet, with 1 in Dallas, 2 in St Louis and 39 in KY. Andrew5 (talk) 00:29, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Flooding happens in Pakistan, but they're getting way more intense, and climate disasters are happening worldwide with shocking frequency. "Sadly usual"? This flooding was described as "the heaviest rainfall in that region in living memory". --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 20:13, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Scope of this is hard to grasp. Literally over one 3rd of the country is underneath water. To put it into perspective, one third of approx 800,000km² is the entirety of the UK sunk. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 04:25, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Which is hardly "sadly usual". FFS! --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 06:01, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

The 'one third' claim is debunked on BBC Radio 4's More or LEss of 7 September at 9 am (if someone can provide a suitable means of access, inside and outside the UK). Anna Livia (talk) 12:38, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Liz Truss

Is the new PM.

Maggie she is not. Anna Livia (talk) 13:06, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Not many here will have a problem with that last. Kencolt (talk) 14:51, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

The general British public seem to be outstandingly unimpressed. Those are some pretty low scores.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 15:10, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

That can be simply explained. She's posing as the 'continuity candidate' at a time 'the guy before me' (Bozo) is not popular with most of the UK electorate and the Tory electorate has gotten high on their own supply re continuation of hardcore Thatcherism.

There was an element of snark in the comment. Anna Livia (talk) 12:35, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Labour is riding 4-10 points ahead and has done since Dec last year. Everything is fucking up, and the cords of said fuck-up all lead back to previous Tory policies. Unlike Brexit or even Covid, people are going to notice a disconnect between a cold/dark house surrounded by companies dying off like moth and govt statements that 'they're doing well'. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:32, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Liz may have won the leadership contest but the public still lose. Cardinal Chang (talk) 17:32, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Also, have any of the UK members seen the tabloids this morning complaining about Joe Lycett on "Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg". The man's a comedian, he made a joke and the right wing hacks are off on one. It seems to be a worrying trend. (For those unaware, he jokingly said after Liz Truss was interviewed, "As a right wing supporter of the Tory Party I believe in everything Liz Truss has said, and have full faith in her ability as PM." or words to that effect. Yes, he was being sarcastic, in fact he was merely mirroring the Daily Mail's repeated stance, and the Daily Mail doesn't like it. Christ. Where's Chris Morris these days.!!)Cardinal Chang (talk) 17:37, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

I think that she's going to have problems keeping things together in the party and the nation. The MP's would have preferred Sunak. The Conservative Party members in the country didn't give her a resounding victory, and many of them (perhaps the majority) would have preferred Johnson to her anyway. Meanwhile she is really quite unpopular amongst the general UK public. That's a pretty weak mandate for someone who has to face problems on multiple fronts which will inevitably involve some hard decisions.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 19:16, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Just the next head on the chopping block so far. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 04:18, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Doing my best to be objective about this, I simply don't see how Truss can get out of this. Not only is there an incompatability betwenen 'levelling up' and 'Thatcherism', but there's also an incompatability between 'anti-Woke' and being able to hold on to the socially liberal 'Cameronian' suburb/exurbs (Tory electoral backbone) and an incompatability between 'pro (big) business' policies and 'populism'. Worst of all, the fiscal situation isn't looking great and simply spending a ton of cash to square circles isn't really an option here.

Removing my objective hat for a moment, I confess I have a quote from Callahan going around my head; 'Sometimes when I go to bed at night, I think that if I were a young man I would emigrate.'

Well, I'm young-ish. Perhaps it's time I dug out my father's birth certificate and got that Irish passport... KarmaPolice (talk) 08:41, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Don't be so quick, while things are not as bad here as they are in the UK, they are heading towards one depressingly similar scenario. And we got the FF/FG nightmare of neo-tory shite raining down every day. Inflation hasn't reach the UK levels yet, thankfully. But, you'll have to gt used to listening to Leo Varadkar (Ireland's first openly smug head of state, now former head of state, but not quite as he's the Co-Tais) and Micheál Martin, (the current Taoiseach, but seems to defer to Leo.) a power sharing arrangement to basically keep jobs for the boys. Cardinal Chang (talk) 11:53, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Just imagine if 'the other Liz' had died while the two PM's planes had been flying to Balmoral. Anna Livia (talk) 12:35, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Was anti communism a fig leaf for anti Slavic sentiment?

Karl Marx himself was German. The Nazi to the best of my knowledge didn't construct caricatures of Marx or burn down all of his books in Germany. So, was anti-communism primarily motivated by Hilter's Slavophobia or did he hate Communism as an ideology? Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 17:01, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I mean, Hitler's hatreds were mostly incoherent. I've never really seen Anti-Communism = Anti-Slavic. It was mostly a cover for Anti-Semitism (because ya know, Jews were both Capitalists and Communists. Hence the incoherence)Revolverman (talk) 17:46, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

According to a German-language citation in Wikipedia the first books burned in Nazi Germany were those of Karl Marx and Karl Kautsky (a Marxist theorist). (Nazi book burnings). Highboi/Leibniz, perhaps you are confusing Monty Python's dictator ("Hilter's Slavophobia") with the real one.[14] Bongolian (talk) 17:59, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Hitler hated egalitarianism, that's why he hated Communism. While it's true, as Richard J. Evans put on his trilogy, that he controlled the German economy on the same way Stalin controlled the Soviet economy, he didn't really have an economic ideology. Economics was one of the few subjects that Hitler was pragmatic.

Besides Kleptocracy. Revolverman (talk) 19:29, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Hitler was a socialist who enlisted the help of Stalin and the (communist) USSR to start world war 2. If he hated communism, he hid it well.70.175.138.12 (talk) 05:18, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes and No. Yes, as it's noted he could mask his feelings well when needed. No, as he wasn't a socialist and had explicitly written down why he hated communism.

However, it's got to be noted that the German economy became less efficient as the Reich rolled towards war and part of the reason was the lack of control or freedom - Hitler didn't really care/understand about economics past it's ability to fill his political goals and played a 'divide and rule' with his subordinates (by 1938 Germany was almost out of hard cash, for example). Thus the increasingly chaotic-functioning, fractious-relationship and warped-goals nature of the empire's economy. It's quite possible that even if they'd won, the 'Third Reich' still would have been economically unstainable. KarmaPolice (talk) 07:36, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Possible? I was under the impression that was the dominant historical theory...to the extent such counterfactuals inspire historical theory of course. The Third Reich wouldn't have even lasted as long as the Soviet Union.-Flandres (talk) 18:00, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Well, there's so many 'ifs' on the whole thing. Though oddly enough, as far as I can tell the only power who worked out Germany's ultimate problem at the time was the Japanese (they calcualted that the Germans would be unable to extract more resources out of the USSR than they already were by trade). The 'odd' bit not being that they worked it out, but the fact they didn't apply the same logic to themselves re: China. KarmaPolice (talk) 01:43, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

London Bridge Has Fallen...

Elizabeth II (1926 - 2022)

The final cord to Britain's imperial past, perhaps the last Briton with true 'world standing'. Gone.

While I'm a republican, I salute the old girl - for holding on just long enough to ensure that shitlord Johnson would not be delivering the official eulogy.

KarmaPolice (talk) 17:48, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I heard. Very sad day in the UK. (I am not from the UK.) Andrew5 (talk) 18:13, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I don’t have much confidence that that other Liz will do a better job than BoJo, either in government or delivering the eulogy. Where BoJo does at least have some rhetorical skill, I have yet to see anything even resembling that from Truss. ScepticWombat (talk) 18:15, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

BYE BYE COLONIZER Rockford the Roe ^{boop my snoot}_{praise Oscar Wilde} 18:17, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

The DE-colonization occurred under her watch dude - try not to be so obviously ignorant Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 22:19, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

What a disgusting comment. —RWRW (talk) 18:25, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I have no respect for the queen, she did nothing to ensure that we were formally made a republic and lived a life of pure privilege in a country of braindead sycophants who cheered on her totalitarian ambitions. The fact that the monarchy even exists today is a testament to how little she has done to correct one of the world's greatest wrongs. I'm with Roe, fuck her, I'd rather celebrate the lives and mourn the deaths of all the people who have provided us cheap metals and died in offshore mines everyday, who could barely reach 30, let alone over 90. How anyone can support one of the only systems on the world that exceeds fascism in its evil is fucking beyond me. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 22:46, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

And disrespectful Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 18:38, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Even though I'm kind of antipathic towards British history, I think that your comment was made in poor taste. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_II#Acceleration_of_decolonisation. Her reign oversaw a rapid decolonization. Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 18:50, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Act like a grown up, prick. GeeJayK (talk) 18:54, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

You guys going to say that to everyone in Scotland and Ireland? Revolverman (talk) 19:18, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Very sad to hear this. Rest in Peace, Your Majesty. —RWRW (talk) 18:25, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Only one year after Philip. I guess losing her husband after so long with him had a huge impact on her health (which makes me worry about my grandparents since they're almost the same age as Elizabeth and Philip). Very sad news indeed. GeeJayK (talk) 18:37, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Still a nice age. Not many become 96 years old. Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 18:42, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

So, Charles become the next king. Wasn't William supposed to take that seat? Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 18:42, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

After Charles is dead or abdicates. The Line of Succession can't be changed without an Act of Parliament, and well ER had always made it clear she wanted him to get it next. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:09, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

What's the next step? Zadok the Priest? GeeJayK (talk) 19:08, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I woke up this morning, sleep in my eyes, empty bottle of wine by the bedside, lit a cigarette, checked the news and I can't be the only one who had Ding Dong, the witch is dead running through their heads almost immediately. Not that I had any antipathy towards the Queen, I quite liked her but nonetheless I giggled at the tune and arrived in my office this morning whistling the tune. Any way, where was I? Right. Aceⁱ⁹ 20:14, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Even Gorb died a few days back Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 18:56, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

He was already struggling with his health aswell, from what I've heard a few years ago. Still 91 years old. Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 19:05, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm shocked that he lasted as long as he did, he was decidedly not a picture of physical health. Complicated legacy. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:39, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

My favorite part was when he said "it’s Gorbin' time" and Gorbed all over the bad guys. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 03:22, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I like how it's not just about 'gorbi-me' or 'gorbi-you', it's about 'gorbi-us'. A rare footage of Gorbi before he died Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 17:37, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

One of the things that I hate of growing is to see how people you've grown with even if you've never meet them in person dies. RIP. 77.209.176.5 (talk) 20:36, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

People had very strong feelings about both Elizabeth II and Gorbachev. They were each larger than life figures, with complicated legacies. Each legacy will likely change as we learn more about them and memories fade. I hope that those who are mourning find peace, and people who are celebrating recognize others may not feel the same. Personally, the only thing that matters is that Elizabeth II was the last international leader who was actually involved in WWII.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 21:58, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

And Soong May-ling was the last person who actually had a leadership role in WWII, she died in 2003 (she lived her last years across the sound from me, out on Long Island, haven't found any definite proof they met but she certainly knew Churchill and Atlee). Both were real ends of eras. It's truly something to see living memory gradually disappear. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 15:43, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

The comment about decolonization deserves push-back. Although it is it true that many countries achieved independence from Britain with her assistance under her reign there was still colonial abuses happening under the name of the crown during that same time. The residential schools in Canada were officially under the name of the crown even though they were enacted by the Canadian government. The schools existed under her reign until the 1990’s and there are many indigenous people who are conflicted about her because of this. Her statue was torn down last year in some places when unmarked graves were discovered . I’d imagine similar sentiment exists in Australia, and we know as a fact that the Irish aren’t going to miss her. Some acts of decolonization in some nations doesn’t undo to the various colonial abuses that the crown was involved with in others. The British Monarch can never not be a symbol for colonialism. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 18:26, 10 September 2022 (UTC).

Second Sidenote

How does one rename a RW article? https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Prince_Charles needs to be 'Charles III'. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:09, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Open Inspect. Hover on the heading and change the name to Prince Charles III.Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 19:13, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Okay, that doesn't help. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:26, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Whoever did the rename, thanks. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:30, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Got you covered. Patty Pat 19:31, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Your welcome Patty Pat 19:31, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

And I gave the article a little tidy-up. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:43, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I must say that I'm not particularly looking forward to King Charles.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 19:49, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm with you on that @Bob M. I've always thought he was a bit of a douche. Aceⁱ⁹ 20:41, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Fucks sake, just realised our bank notes have the Queen on them. Now I am going to have to look at that nitwits face every time I go to the liquor store. Aceⁱ⁹ 20:55, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Well, if you're in a country with polymer notes, that could be some time. Or use a card. Or become a republic. Admittedly, the last one is a bit excessive response for the problem... KarmaPolice (talk) 21:38, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I could just quit drinking but then what would I do? Actually I'll just start stealing instead of using so called "money". Aceⁱ⁹ 21:45, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Or buy it online? Go to a bar? No need to go to jail over booze. Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 23:08, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Wait! You don't need to pay for drinks in bars? I demand to have 30 years' worth of money I didn't have to spend refunded. Spud (talk) 03:22, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

While adding some more of the dubious-ness of CR to his RW page, I have to agree. Welcome to the 'Third Caroline Era'... KarmaPolice (talk) 19:59, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I think that republicanism will have a resurgence under Chazza. Scream!! (talk) 20:52, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes. We were holding our fire. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:04, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

It looks like support for the monarchy is falling Young Britons are turning their backs on the monarchy. (from 2021) Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 07:57, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I never liked monarchs either, but I usually do not support their death (rare exceptions exist.) Andrew5 (talk) 00:23, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

The Palace is pretty worried that a lot of 'royalism' in the UK in fact turns out to be 'Queenism'. They're also going to be concerned that a lot of 'Queenism' is in fact more the tacit acceptance of a status quo which 'seemed to work' and had built up legitimacy by being around so damn long they've become part of the furniture (this also happened with Victoria and George III) than anything else.

But I think it's a done deal; Charles III shall be the last monarch of Canada, Australia, NZ and anywhere else not the UK. Within these isles, I think he shall survive as long as he doesn't fuck up or fall off the political tightrope (the bigger threat being, I think a PM who bends the constitution so far he feels he 'must' act). KarmaPolice (talk) 09:57, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Charles is definitely going to be king in a different way, which will be "interesting". In the past he's suggested breaking links with the Church of England and no longer being "defender of the faith" which would be nice being as the C of E still refuses basic rights for LGBT people and has barely recovered from giving women equality. I don't believe he can be as impartial as the Queen; he won't get directly involved in politics but may well speak in a more direct way on topics like environmentalism. Hopefully he'll have fewer animals killed than the Queen, although I think he still enjoys some traditional country pursuits. And I can't see him reducing protocol and fancy living given his fondness for servants, but maybe he'll be less indulgent to the pedo prince. --Annanoon (talk) 10:32, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Was ER 'impartial'? We don't know, and perhaps never will. That was the beauty of the parasocial relationship her subjects had with her; she fastidiously maintained such a 'blank slate' opinions-wise that people could read into the vaguest of hints that perhaps she 'agreed with us' (or was at least not against us) on things important to us. The only things we ever heard her utter were either the most trite of points ('people died, that's sad' a la Xmas Broadcasts) or we knew were not actually her words (like Queens Speeches). She didn't bitch off the record either (or at least, it never leaked). It is perhaps the most skillful example of celeb 'brand management' ever seen in human history to date. Which is perhaps the more important point; while we can doubt whether she had been impartial, we can for certain say she knew what her 'role' was and performed it to a high level of skill.

Which is I suspect is actually the bigger threat. ER's time on stage was assisted by her co-actors who didn't really drop her in it - most obviously, Prime Ministers. Generally speaking, they did work to shield her from having to be seen 'taking a side', or having to openly intervene. And nor did they push something so far that she felt she had to. And the UK currently is going through... 'interesting times'.

At his age, it's going to be difficult to tell how much of the changes are 'his', or 'Williams'. There has been foreshadowing in the last ~10 years that there are well-developed plans to effectively trim down the 'working Royals' to 6/7 adults (the three couples and perhaps Anne), though this is now down to 4/5 due to Harry jumping/being pushed. Andrew the paedo's friend was going to be out on his ear even before he told us about Pizza Express; all the reports are the two brothers never got on and all the signs are that the other 'kids' have been told long ago the deal; tasty private stipend etc, just keep out of the limelight and don't fuck up in a manner which brings 'The Firm' into disrepute. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:45, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Right Wing Transphobic double standards on social media

It amuses me how right wing transphobes scream "free speech" but are happy to ban opposing views and threaten LGBTQ people and their supporters with borderline terrorist threats.

Double standards at it's finest. --Trans Zombie Queen (talk) 16:56, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

It's almost, as if, now bear with me here. It's almost as if these "free speech absolutists" are either hypocrites or have absolutely no understanding of what "Free Speech" is. Either as a US constitutional protection, or as a supposed "universal" right. (Right wing blow hard says something dumb, idiotic, halfwitted or all of the above. Gets criticised. "I'm being cancelled!!. My freedom of speech is being undermined!" Cardinal Chang (talk) 23:33, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

We have more free speech and freedom of expression than we did just a few decades ago. You can speak in favor of LGBTQ+ rights, same-sex couples can hold hands and kiss in public, etc. more freely in some countries. That seems to fly over the heads of freeze peach supporters. LongStylus (talk) 23:40, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

You could say that what I put was a lamentation of hypocrisy of the far right. --Trans Zombie Queen (talk) 23:55, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

The trolls that engage in criminal activity that many try to pass off as "free speech" (harassing, stalking, doxing) are actually suppressing true free speech when they do these things, by using violence to try and intimidate someone (for instance, with a different gender identity) from speaking at all. As Alex Jones found out, trying to pass off illegal activity (not intimidation in his case but libelous lies) as a protected 1st Amendment right usually doesn't fly at all with judges.

And yes, the rest of it typically is just dumb butthurt whining about moderation they don't like, which is funny because many American "conservative" political places are pretty ban-happy. If I went on, say, r/Conservative (let alone certain other extremist sites I won't mention here) I'd probably be BANHAMMERED just for, say posting a link to NASA's climate change page, or quoting Ronald Reagan's views on illegal immigrant amnesty. Doesn't take much with some of this lot... 35.140.177.2 (talk) 00:23, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

It reminds of a study released a few years ago that found that college students and graduates were on average more supportive of defending the right of offensive speech to be expressed than Americans more broadly. Everyone has their limits too in regards to what sort of speech they will tolerate. I remember reading from a similar study that liberals and lefties were less likely to support providing a platform to open homophobes and racists, while for conservatives and righties the same was true for them regarding speech in defence of Isis, or open anti-American sentiment. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 01:35, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

You ever read the page we have here on authoritarianism? It explains this behaviour well. This line in the opener has always explained the double-standards of the right. "It is this honoring of power over reason that makes an authoritarian. The authoritarian loves rules and loves to apply them. However, for a true authoritarian, power is more important than rules: the rules themselves aren't the source of power and they don't apply to the powerful. Oceania had no laws—it didn't need them. Crime was simply whatever the authorities said it was." BumblingBuffoon (talk) 02:01, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Progressive 'cancelling' is real, though is a) done by a small, loud minority, b) doesn't just happen to right-wingers (I've been 'cancelled' personally, on occasion merely being a devil's advocate) and c) doesn't actually happen a quarter the time it's made out to be – I personally suspect the very people who constantly whine about being cancelled have rarely actually encountered this. It's become a right-wing talking-point about 'how they're under attack!' culture wars shite. It becomes 'true' not because it's happening everywhere, but media reports that it is.

One thing I do perhaps slightly disagree with the consensus on is the 'right to reply'. That if a person directly attacks a named figure in 'public', it should be a house rule that either the person named or a supporter should be permitted a retort to it in equal prominence. But this belief has taught me something else; right-wingers rarely actually desire a discussion. The amount of times I've tried (mainly online) to draw Faragists or MAGAs into actually 'debating' an issue only to find they promptly bail is even now quite astounding. KarmaPolice (talk) 07:51, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

"Cancel culture" used to be called "political correctness". In the end, it's just a whine used by certain types (typically insecure white men in America, though "your mileage may vary") that are shocked, SHOCKED! that their offensive and bigoted speech actually offends people who don't care for bigotry.

Now, obviously censorship / bans / boycotts / etc. have happened on many sides of the coin, left politics, right politics, and even not-political-stuff. It ranges from the Dixie Chicks (y'can't badmouth a US Republican prez in Nashville, m'kay?) to Sinéad O'Connor (who ended up being quite correct) and everything in between. And I consider the online world even less relevant. Banhammer happy mods is just Internet, it isn't always political, it can of course be ridiculous at times, but at other times the mods aren't wrong...

There is no catch phrase for most of these events, because there exists perfectly good English words to describe the events, so why bother with the added "flair"? But the insecure white male audience is a Thing, big enough to the point where there has long been a market for pandering to them. So you get the marketable "catch phrases" that can be parroted to those woe is me types, that will change every several years or so like a fashion trend. (In fact, it's already changing, I think "woke" is becoming the favored Snarl Word Of The Day for this sort of crapola.)

There's a clip floating around about George Carlin talking about Andrew Dice Clay with Larry King. Despite the historical warning about how disposable this sort of "entertainment" is (Mr. Clay hasn't been relevant at all since the mid 1990s, and his short career is pretty typical of one-note entertainers who make a living as underdog bashers), and Carlin's warning about the dangers of being an "underdog" group who makes a living bashing "underdogs", you can still still find plenty of "anti-woke" entertainers for which Carlin's sayings perfectly applies today. 35.140.177.2 (talk) 17:19, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

I have a sceptic's dictionary defnition of 'cancelled' on the boil; 'when a white older male is forced to shut up for a moment and listen to an opinion which isn't his for a moment'.

Most the kinds of folks I personally see/hear who'd complain about it are basically, white straight men over ~45. As far as I can tell, the Public Enemy #1 is Greta Thunberg. That woman needs some kind of trigger warning... *smirks*

Anywhos... what did O'Connor do or not do which pissed people off? I simply cannot be arsed to find it out... KarmaPolice (talk) 18:11, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

She ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II when she performed on Saturday Night Live in October 1992. This would have been controversial in any circumstance, of course, but more so since the Catholic sex abuse scandals she was protesting really wasn't well known at the time in the States. (By the mid to late 1990s, the abuse started becoming much more widely reported in the US, and of course no one could have anticipated just how limply the Roman Catholic church would respond to the scandal over the next couple decades...) 35.140.177.2 (talk) 18:58, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

If you think about it, saying I'm not racist because I have diverse friends is like saying I'm not sexist because I have a wife or a mother

Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 17:24, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

If they cite 'mother', I'd retort that you don't have to like your mother. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:22, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

I can't be racist, my wife's eye is black. CorruptUser 20:04, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

I disagree with the mother one. People do not consent to having a mother, they simply do by biological processes that occurred before they were born. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 10:09, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Time to end the monarchy

Or at the very least abolish all titles other than Kings/Queens and heirs. The only reason to hold onto it, now that Lizzie is gone, is because it is an enormous economic generator. Luckily, Scottish notes don't put the monarch on the Bills, but interesting Scottish historical figures. Will still have to see Charles's silly face on coins, but, do you really want to see Williams? Or George's in a couple generations? Let these royal families die away in peace. Replace the monarch with a Governor General of some sort as exists in commonwealth countries. Appropriate their royal lands and help cover the cost of soaring energy prices. ShabiDOO 10:38, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

According to the surveys, the majority want to keep the monarchy. Monet ^Ye 10:53, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

It depends on the demographic. In the poll I posted earlier, 18 to 24 years olds would prefer to have an elected head of state and other demographics in general are moving in the same direction.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 11:40, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

There is also the 'better the monarch than President Blair/Trump/(insert name of choice)' viewpoint. Anna Livia (talk) 12:32, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I live in one of those commonwealth countries with a Governor General of some sort. We still put the monarch on our money (well, on some of it, anyway). Officially, the Governor General in this country is the monarch's representative. You might need to go a step further to avoid Charles III's mug on your money.AcidTrial (talk) 14:47, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

There's always a very small chance that I'll be able to marry into the royal family and become super rich. So no! /s LongStylus (talk) 16:11, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I know Starmer has endorsed Republicanism in the past but has he said anything about it recently?-Flandres (talk) 18:14, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

About the money thing, anyone remember Shaun's video addressing CGP Grey and how it's not the monarchy but the land that generates revenue? Oh, and for the fact you are a royal, you get a bunch of privileges that others don't. It's not fair. If people are worried about having no stopper for Blair or Bush likes, why not just append the government with a different mechanism which isn't based on dictatorships from the dark ages, that's democratically elected, and which doesn't get privileges in the law and massive subsidies from us for no reason. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 19:27, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

the other big reason to hold on to the monarchy is it will be a massive ball ache to get rid of. id personally hold off abolishing the monarchy till we have some idea of what we would like to replace it with. despite the dreadful privilege of the thing, i think their is something to said for having an impartial, apolitical head of state such as we currently have. politicising the role through making it one that requires elections or appointments would in my mind be just awful and add little of value.

there is no pressing need and right now there are bigger issues to deal. best park it until after the inevitable break up of the uk. AMassiveGay (talk) 20:40, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Exactly. The problem of what to replace the monarchy with is the main, and possibly only, reason for keeping it. It's actually not too expensive. First kill the House of Lords with its cronyism and religious members and replace it with elected members. Scream!! (talk) 22:44, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

That’s exactly freaking right. As an outside observer, the radical Republican position seems to come down to a resentment of the monarchical privilege (what other parts of Republican government do you suppose you’re denied?!? You ejected yourselves from the EU by popular referendum because the Legislature feared you!), and I believe that whomever or whatever replaced the British monarchy would ape that privilege and style, people would fight over it. At the very least it’s a placeholder raison d’etre for the English state. At times, I myself would reform American society thus, and I think the only qualification for "American thought" is "God damn the King!" Artificius (talk) 22:53, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

"Radical republican position", wow, being equal under the eyes of the law without birthright privileges is fucking radical, mate. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 06:17, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Yup, absolutely radical. Your relatively clean heirloom garment involves 99.99999991% of stitches being officially equal under the iron hand of the law, yet because of the ostentation folded into a wrinkle no one knows how to get rid of you’ll burn the whole thing to a crisp. The royals are not equal under the law, but they also can’t exactly ignore it either can they? I think the departed queen explicitly disavowed a son who’d been implicated in something awful and American, and the same probably would have happened on British soil. Sovereign immunity only applies to basically one freaking person in your whole country – someone who must also comport themselves according to a myriad of absolutely hideous conventions and thus won’t squander legitimacy unless it’s absolutely necessary – and because of that gilded wrinkle you want to replace the whole thing with… what exactly?

Because if it’s my country’s model, we’re presently discovering that the power creep we’ve permitted the executive branch has terrible consequences in your wrinkle’s analogue. Our wrinkle is basically directly elected (and I'm even presently involved in a my state is presently involved in a scheme to make their election even more direct), has massive and waxing de facto power (especially against a deeply unpopular legislature), and like yours is immune to prosecution while in office, likely forever immune to prosecution for things done in office (see directly elected), as 45 seems inclined to test. Would-be wrinkles are taking note. Artificius (talk) 14:17, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

It’s weird seeing folks rationalize an institution that most developed nations do not have, it feels like a nationalized fetish. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:10, 10 September 2022 (UTC).

In my case it’s merely foreboding. A democratic republic is like a higher energy state in politics (the highest would be Autarky, eh Wobblie! :3 ), and men desire to be ruled, I think they can collapse into autocracy for like no reason, so I’m curious what forms are more durable, what sorts of royal bullshit people are willing to put up with... I have heard “…Y’know, I think I’d be okay with a King” spoken from a US servicemember like he was Plato, afterwards his eyes always seemed pretty close together to me and I started bookmarking people with authoritarian tendencies. We could be seeing Pergamon in its last days, soon to be willed to a triumphant and eternal republic with its noble and “independent” allies straddling the Mare. A century is not a long time for monarchy to be dead, or relegated to the backwards weirdos beyond the limes (looking at you, Saudia!). Artificius (talk) 01:05, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

That reminds me of a pondering by Orwell c1940; where he wondered whether the British had stumbled on a system of defence against totalitarianism by dividing the 'status' and 'power' bits; yhe former being almost a pantomime waxwork and the latter being rather bland-looking men in suits...

Anyway, it's an 'institution' *every* country has, Dumb – that of 'Head of State'. If nothing else, there does need to be someone to sign those laws, gladhand other leaders, do all the 'pomp and circumstance' with state openings and so on. I would vaguely guestimate perhaps between a quarter to a third of the nations on this planet have a 'weak HoS' model and of those, around a third utilise a hereditary monarchy. Yes, nobody would choose now to introduce a *new* monarchy now, but hell – if you have some 'well-bred' bloke/lady who has a name the population know, has been in training for the job since birth and knows their way around a state dinner... well, might as well utilise them.

Which leads to the real issue, which everyone else has apparently missed.

The truth is that the 'British Establishment' (both of the right and left) is vaguely pro-Royal because they don't like the other options. As in; an elected HoS. For such a person – however weak their powers and however affable an old duffer you can put in the post – they shall be elected (in some way). They shall draw legitimacy from this, which gives them teeth to resist the 'Head of Government'. They shall have a 'pre-Presidential life' which means we'll be very familiar with their views etc. Even if they can only rubber-stamp stuff, they'd at least have the ability to publicly rebuke the Head of Government. A monarch does not have this legitimacy; at best, only some 'moral authority'; which has to be very gingerly used.

Thus, the Monarchy survives for similar reasons the House of Lords does; it fills some needed roles without actually threatening to clip the overweening powers of the elective dictatorship which is also known as the House of Commons, of which the Prime Minister substitutes themselves as 'the will of the House', which then considers itself the one and only 'will of the People'. KarmaPolice (talk) 01:17, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

(EC) While I believe that a parliamentary republic is better than a constitutional monarchy, on the top 20 countries by HDI we have 12 monarchies and 8 republics so it's not true that most developed nations do not have it. That being said, I firmily believed that constitutional monarchies are still better than presidentialist republics such as US and France, as presidentialism fucking sucks. GeeJayK (talk) 01:23, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

But is a bit redundant isn’t it? Like the queen was the head of state of my country but that job for the most part just mostly ended up being in name only as most of the responsibilities are delegated to the governor general. The queen could sign off on laws, but fuck, imagine having proposed laws going through a parliament, then a senate, then having to he signed off by a monarch that doesn’t even live on the land —- it’s all kinds of bullshit. The role maybe more pronounced and involved within GB itself but for all the other countries that the queen was head of state within the role didn’t really provide anything of value. It seems like a regressive colonial relic that people value solely because it’s the status quo, and change requires actual work. What does the monarch even actually provide to the political process that is to benefit normal working people? - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 07:27, 10 September 2022 (UTC).

@GeeJayK I think that would depend on which kind of constitutional monarchy you have. The main issue is how many and how serious are the parliamentary checks on executive power. This seems to be rather weak in most cases in the UK, depending on the party discipline of the ruling party. In other constitutional monarchies like, say, Denmark, the checks are in theory very limited, but in practice often quite severe, given the tendency for rule by minority cabinet. ScepticWombat (talk) 07:32, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Eh, let's keep it. While not a hot-button issue for me, I find it cute and aesthetically nice that we have a monarchy, and can enjoy the spectacle. It's harmless too, and probably better than some "president", given what we're seeing on the other side of the pond.

And oh, the most important reason - France is a republic, so we shouldn't till either hell freezes over or they become a monarchy again😜 Meow^Purr 07:54, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Eugh, and if I was a stereotypical British person, I'd drink tea and talk about Kenyan skull shapes and other eugenics. France being a Republic is in a literal sense a good for them moment, at least their positions of power are decided by the will of the people and not nepotism. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 08:38, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

I certainly dislike the idea of the monarchy on principle. (And I dislike Charles in particular). The problem is in finding some system obviously better to replace it.

It would necessary to decide exactly what problem would be fixed by removing the sovereign as head of state. And then find a solution which not only fixed that problem but was demonstrably better then the existing system. Elected heads of states bring their own problems. Combined heads of state and chief executive bring their own problems.

A solution which was so obviously better than the existing system and which thus justified the cost and disruption of changing it would be really hard to find. But if such a thing could be found I'd be all for it.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 08:22, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Alright, do you think the UK government system is better than the US? Not that the US even has to be the replacement, because in making a new rule for a government and appending it to that republic is possible here, we don't have to have a prime minister be the head of state, if we wanted, we could have separate elections for it. That's already plainly superior to birth right nepotism, there's a reason we got rid of that for republics to begin with. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 09:28, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

They both have problems. The electoral college system seems pretty indefensible to me. So does the system of supreme court system. And Trump showed that the vaunted system of checks and balances is nowhere near as effective as it's supposed to be. But I'm honestly not sure which one is worse.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:36, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Nobody ever wants to fix something until it breaks, and then they wonder why people didn't do it in the first place. See the holes in the US system that allowed for supreme court justices for life with no way of removing them afterwards. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 10:06, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

A major drive would be 'It works well enough and isn't broke enough/annoying enough to make people want to change it (and sometimes changing the system before it properly ceases to work causes more disruption). Anna Livia (talk) 10:45, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

What disruption would it cause? It'd have to pass through parliament and be ironed out a few times before the new government reform was made, but that's literally the job of politicians, not disruption. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 11:18, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

In point of fact getting it through parliament would be the easy bit - if the government had sufficient majority. The difficult bit would be getting a national consensus. Because such a change would need at least one special referendum. I can imagine that such a thing would leave the country at least as divided as it was both before and after Brexit. So that's quite a bit of disruption.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:50, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Overturning an entire governmental branch requires them to legislate on that and not other things assuming they weren't just twidling their thumbs before. It causes a massive increase in workload. Further, there is a massive incentive to try and corrupt the new system with one that gives personal power to a politician or party, so it necessarily has to have vastly increased scrutiny; again disruption. I have the goofy proposal of just not having a head of state at all. The "head hand-shaker" has absolutely no power and is just a mouth piece that can only relay the decisions of a committee. They are randomly selected for every appearance and no single person holds it as a permanent office. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 12:14, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

In the British case, that would strengthen the power of the Prime Minister - which many feel is perhaps too large already.

Anyway, Dumb - you're partly right; but you've merely pointed out that the legal fiction of a 'Monarch of Canada' is so thin you're actually working with a substitute which is de facto a pick of the Prime Minister. Plus, you've utterly ignored my point that an elected President of Canada shall change the power dynamics of the Canadian system - for it will (most likely, a weakening of the Prime Minister). Which leads to the 'if it ain't broke' situation - the status quo has a strength all of it's own.

Now, there's lots of different options on offer - it's not say, 'Charles III' or a 'strong' Presidency as seen in France or the more mixed system in the USA (when it comes down to it, the UK PM has *more* executive powers than the American President does). You've got the situation in Germany, where their President is such an nonentity I challenge someone to name them without resorting to an internet search. You could make the President directly elective, but for life. Or make it indrectly elected (by say, Parliament or some electoral college). We could even modify the Monarchy itself; I've been wondering whether putting in term limits and even allowing the 'ruling house' to select it's own successor somewhat may help get the 'best' candidate.

Which is something I've increasingly considered of late; that in regards of the Windsors, I think most of them secretly 'want out' - at least some of the time. Being a British Royal is, when you consider it, a rather shit job. You're constantly being watched, you've got 'the Boss' (now Charles) breathing down your neck (including I bet, spies), your 'freedom of action' is limited - what you can say, what you can do, what you can buy, who you can fuck etc. Your whole life (and role) has already been pre-defined, and for some of the more minor ones it's basically 'don't fuck up in a manner it hurts Brand Windsor'. It's interesting to note, that for that family the last three generations has produced a 'fuck-up' (from The Firm's POV), and they've *all* been ones who have been the traditional 'spares' (Margaret, Andrew & Harry). And that's just the ones we know of. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:51, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I think Bob, Scream and the others have a point. Replacing a Monarchy is no easy task. Many countries that abolished their monarchy ended up with ultra-nationalistic, military dictatorships in the short term (Germany, Austria, Portugal, Spain, Russia, Brazil, China just name a few). I don't think the UK will ever be a dictatorship again, but destroying institutions that quickly is still risky. I think Samoa might be a good example for UK to follow: their 1962 Constitution predits that they would become a republic when the king dies (what effectively happened in 2007). They had decades to transition, and no one expected another king. Maybe the UK should do the same: when Charles dies (or his heir, since he's already quite old), the country will turn into a republic. GeeJayK (talk) 15:05, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Actually, that might be a good way to go about it.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 17:34, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

If the UK did that, it would *literally* cease being 'the UK'... Plus, the question 'what do we replace with' returns. There is also the issue of the various *other* titles/positions etc which is tied up with the Monarchy, including the other nations with them as HoS and the relationships of the 'Crown Dependencies' with UKGov. It isn't just 'our choice'.

Pro-Union types will also baulk a bit because the Monarchy also provides a cord between England and the other bits of the Union, which would almost certantly be severed if they went it alone. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:03, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice I don’t even understand what relevancy a “Canadian presidency” has here. Why are we confined to a dichotomy of either a monarchy or a president? It strikes me as a false dilemma. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 01:13, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

We could start writing a new society from the ground up - we probably will at some point, and it might be a fun project/LARP - but the dichotomy isn’t president or monarch exactly, it’s strong or weak executive/head of state. At present, “parliamentary” systems often have weak heads of state based in an ancient regime, the monarchy. That HoS can also be called the President, as in the Italian and German models.

Meanwhile, “Presidential” systems such as the American and French are strong HoSs with a direct election of the executive. As many have noted, this strength can actually be pretty fucking bad (it comes at the expense of the Legislature or the Judicial branch), and I’m of the probably increasingly in vogue opinion that as they mature they’re gateways to novel monarchy. If not watched closely, the presidents are a bit like Katamaris, they’ll just start balling up power and keeping it by precedent since each holder is necessarily above the law so long as the Legislature hasn’t got the balls to use what powers of rebuke they’ve written into the constitution, the fact that the President is probably going to be pretty popular means that that rebuke probably won’t be invoked (and a law without enforcement is a suggestion, may even breed contempt for the law).

It’s worth noting that those Parliamentary systems with elected heads of state I’m just now reading about tend to elect them by an electoral college and a secret ballot, the power necessarily remains with the legislature. I think that’s a fair way to do it if you’re hell bent on burning the royal portraits. Don’t support whatever faction argues for direct election. It sounds democratic until it ain’t (anyone think they can get any closer to Godwinning?), probably until the money and empire start rolling in (or a war starts, HoS are also usually a sort of war leader). That's around the time you can credit one guy with your success or failure. Artificius (talk) 03:03, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Dumb – my point was that you were highlighting that ultimately, almost anyone (well not literally, but you get my point) could really do a weak HoS role. And you can hardly accuse me of presenting a 'false dilemma' when in the very next paragraph I literally say 'there's lots of options on offer'. You also completely ignore my point that any change from a G-G would change the power dynamics within Canada even if the successor had exactly the same powers as the previous.

Part of the issue is that with human beings, we have a marked tendency to make do with poorly-functioning systems (perhaps for eons), only getting around to 'deal with it properly' when they've completely failed. Part of the issue with the British situation is that we've been so adept at patches, work-arounds and the occasional cheat we've managed to avoid any proper overhauling since... I'd guess the Victorian era. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:05, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

The governor general isn’t actually the head of state though, and if the governor general was to stay as is without being appointed by the head of state I don’t see how that would have much if any appreciable difference in my life as a Canadian citizen.

I also don’t see how in your “lots of options on offer” don’t just amount to slight variations of the same thing either in the form of a presidential systems or a parliamentary system (or a mix of both) with some explicit or implied head of state — it all seems “any colour you like... they are all black” it doesn’t speak to much of a political imagination (and it doesn’t speak much in defence of the necessity of a monarch). What changes do these actually amount to in regards to the power dynamics experienced by everyday people? I am genuinely confused here. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 01:19, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

'I don’t see how that would have much if any appreciable difference in my life as a Canadian citizen' shows you're *completely* missing the point, Dumb. If the UK became a republic tonight I don't think it would 'have any appreciable difference in my life' either. The point – I repeat – is that to change the system *also* changes the power dynamics within the country concerned.

Take, for example the 2019 proroguing of the UK Parliament by Johnson. At the time it was judged to be very controversial circumstances (which I won't get into here), and from some quarters there was complaint that it was putting ER in a spot. Now, I actually think that Victorian cosplayer Rees-Mogg *was* telling the truth in saying it was a quick formality, and that ER didn't even question it.

Yet she could have questioned it, and/or even denied the request. She could have consulted members of the Privy Council for their input on the decision. All of these were within her theoretical powers. But she didn't, for she obeyed the conventions that have built up, which ultimately boils down to 'remember they have a democratic mandate, and you do not'.

Now replace ER in that position with an elected HoS. They now have 'a mandate', however weak. Imagine if the position had been filled by a known opponent of Johnson, who disapproved in his plans. Chances are, they would have been more willing to flex those 'reserve powers' to at least not give the PM as an easy ride ER gave. Their personal views may have leaked too. Result; clear and obvious political friction between HoS and HoG. From there, the whole position may have snowballed into a huge standoff.

So basically, it makes no 'appreciable difference in your life' and so on... right up to the point it does. Though if we're going on the 'well it don't *really* effect my life, does it?' mentality, why the hell are you complaining about the status quo in the first place?

Complaining that that all the options aren't actually options is frankly, well dumb because there's only so many options you can really have in regards to a HoS – even Mirror's 'lets not have a HoS' is in fact more a 'rotating ad-hoc HoS' position. Even if you decide 'we won't have one at all, then' is in fact a decision to merge the HoS and HoG positions. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:40, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

The Power dynamics only so much change tautologically because the system itself is a system of power dynamics — but you are still talking of a system whether a constitutional monarchy or a republic still exists into a confines of what is broadly referred to as a liberal representative democracy. Whatever changes that may be for better or worse they are simply not radical. The dominant political organization of the state and the dominant mode of production in relation to working people would for the most part largely stay the same. The degree of this change of power dynamics is in my opinion being grossly overstated — and your example assumes that given the same power the elected head of state would act differently; which is just as presuppositionally counter-factual as someone describing a scenario to which the queen did act differently. It has the same evidential basis — it’s speculating. Really also has nothing to do per se with the powers and abilities inherent to the monarch themselves as to differentiate the role so much from an elected HoS - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 23:23, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

As far as I could understand through your academic waffle; 'well, duh'. You can't have power without power dynamics. You're living in a delusion land if you think that examples which aren't 'liberal representative democrac[ies]' shall not have this. Even in say, syndicalist state there will be dynamics between the various trade unions and co-ops which between them comprise the organs of the 'nation'. There's power dynamics going on right now in Russia, China, Iran etc and none of these count as that either.

I don't assume that in my example my elected HoS *would* act differently, only that they *might* - and even if they enjoyed identical powers to their crowned predecessor they would have a stronger mandate to actually flex those muscles. Which means there's a higher risk they would.

You cannot say how much a 'change in dynamics' it would be for firstly, the alternative is not proposed and secondly, that's 'speculation' which you imply to be a Bad Thing. If you make political changes which in fact, do not change the power dynamic in any way they are frankly not worth making. KarmaPolice (talk) 01:17, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

My speech problems

I think I have a speech disorder of sorts. When I begin to speak all the contents of my brain just disappear. My mind becomes completely blank. This angst compels me to provide a monosyllabic reply or a poorly phrased sentence. I thought I just suck at English; so I decided to take an English test. Turns out that I have a C1 level English proficiency. So now I'm confused. I can't even talk for more than 5 minutes. Moreover, I sound like a robot when I speak. Does anyone over here relate to this? Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 18:14, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Is English your native language? The CEFR is intended for people studying a foreign language, not for testing speech impediments. It's best to consult a doctor about this. LongStylus (talk) 23:26, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, it is my first language.Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 04:05, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

The C1 level isn't really applicable then. The CEFR was designed to measure the ability of non-native speakers. If you were non-native, I would've recommended a language partner or italki. Maybe try making friends, make small talks here and there when talking to strangers, etc. LongStylus (talk) 05:29, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

If you've ruled out a speech impediment, which should be treated with speech therapy, you could then try looking for a local chapter of the non-profit Toastmasters International to join. Their purpose is "promoting communication, public speaking and leadership." Bongolian (talk) 07:13, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Machina topic

Isn't positive/negative just subjective value judgments about things? I find it iffy when there are suggested studies about positive and negative thinking because it almost always involves self reporting and it doesn't really verify whether these people are thinking as such or actually feel that way. Aren't thoughts and feelings neutral? So then how can there be such a thing as positive or negative thinking, who decides what is positive or negative?Machina (talk) 13:21, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

As far as I know these studies also have a biological background. We know that endorphin, serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin make our mind happier, for instance. Psychology also uses quantitative methods and mathematical modeling, just like every other social science (except for maybe Anthropology). You can't say what is a positive/negative emotion for one person. But you can say what is positive/negative for people on average using econometric models, just like you can say the average height of a group, but not the height of an individual of the same group. So, no, it's possible to measure what makes us feel good or bad to some extent. Of course there is some subjectivity and some limitations, but I believe the result is not innacurate. GeeJayK (talk) 14:12, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

I just fine it odd when they type stuff like "positive thinking led to X" when it's like...how do you measure positive thinking? They don't get that far. It's not like we can read minds either.Machina (talk) 16:54, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Ah, you meant self-help books? Not a big fan of them either... GeeJayK (talk) 16:55, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, I would suspect 'the power of positive thinking' could, *possibly* help if it gives the person the motivation/energy to actually do stuff which might help in concrete terms, instead of wallowing in fatalism (and the problems). Might also encourage them to take risks - though more a reporting bias here, few are going to say the X was something bad (like say, a business failure which meant you went broke). I also remember somewhere of a decent-looking study which showed people who were optimistic regarding their medical outcomes had better ones than the pessimistic ones. Lastly the good 'ol placebo effect.

So the makers of Mage the Ascension were right - just a little bit - that when it comes human beings, 'belief' does in fact play a part in outcomes. Even in science.

Anyway, things 'can' be measured, somewhat. For example, people can be interviewed regarding their feelings/confidence in their chances before an operation. I think the problem is of 'overfitting' aka granting too much weight to a known phenomenon. It can also be a combination of minimising, insulting and/or dangerous too; it's part of the 'just try harder!' BS propaganda which fills our capitalist societies. You can no more make a person of cancer go into remission through the power of your mind than willpower can make a gawky kid with poor joints and balance become a sports star. But by chalking failures to this (rather than anything else) makes it almost a 'personal failing' and thus, everyone else off the hook. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:50, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

But when it comes to positive or negative thinking though there isn't an objective measure you can use for that, let alone even measure someone is actually thinking such thoughts. Even then who is to judge it as positive or negative. You see where it gets odd? I just wonder how such studies can be taken seriously let alone as a measure of a phenomenon. I'm of the view that mindset doesn't affect the outcome of events, you can try, sure. But in the end how you feel about it doesn't change anything. It's like saying the people at the Olympics failed because they didn't try hard enough. I'm pretty sure they all had more or less similar mindsets. I can even speak to that as my mindset had zero impact on the outcome of events or actions, they either worked or didn't. How you feel about it is irrelevant.Machina (talk) 20:11, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

You are mistaken in saying how one feels about a physical accomplishment is irrelevant. One cannot succeed at a physical event without much practice and mental attention. Believing one has no chance to succeed is a honking big obstacle to success. Think again. Positive thought, that is adopting the determination to continue trying to succeed at some activity, is often an advantage. Use it. It might not help you win a game, but without it you will expect to fail and will fail. UncleKrampus (talk) 21:04, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Exactly. It took me the best part of two years to get my 3k run down to a level which wasn't utterly pathetic - I needed the 'positive thinking' in the respect to motivate me to go through all that nipple chafing, shin splints, stitches and beetroot face to get to that point. I wouldn't have prised my arse out of the warm bed to run on a 5am January morn if I'd not believed that it *was* possible to change the definition and size of said arse. And even further back, if I'd not believed any change was possible, I'd not have even bought any running trainers in the first place which meant no running would have happened at all.

Ergo; my mindset *did* have an impact on the result. I needed the 'I want to do this, it can be done!' fire to power me through the all slog/no reward phase of the work. No fire, no result. QED.

You say that 'my mindset had zero impact on the outcome of events or actions, they either worked or didn't'. Firstly, you cannot say that for sure as there was no ability to test your theory (even less measurable than testing say 'optimism and surgery recovery'). What's more, are you genuinely saying that even when you believe you will fail something hugely, you would still put in every ounce of effort to try to succeed? I honestly doubt it.

Olympic athletes are really not a good example, because basically, their sport is their obsession/calling/life, even worse than say musicians and writers. They have thrown everything - cash, life choices, body, friends, child/teenage years, fun - all to the wayside for 'it'. What's more, they're the true cream and they know it. They've spent years rising through ranks, watching the others fall away. They know their PB, their usual 'bands' - and compare it to the Olympic records of their sport. They don't need 'positive thinking', they have actual achievement, monomania and perhaps sponsorship cash to do that. KarmaPolice (talk) 23:57, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

You say that 'my mindset had zero impact on the outcome of events or actions, they either worked or didn't'. Firstly, you cannot say that for sure as there was no ability to test your theory (even less measurable than testing say 'optimism and surgery recovery'). What's more, are you genuinely saying that even when you believe you will fail something hugely, you would still put in every ounce of effort to try to succeed? I honestly doubt it.

That is exactly what I am saying. I have lost count of the times in my mind I thought I would blow it or lose only for the opposite to happen. I still put try to win though even though I'm certain I will lose and it works. I don't give up I just play it out, not because I think I will win but because...well what else is there? Might as well try if nothing else. That's why I say mindset is utterly irrelevant. How often do you think people fail even with the right mindset? I'm guessing way more than the success stories, because there is this narrative at play in all our media where if "you just believe in yourself and put your mind to it you'll succeed", so I wouldn't be surprised if there really isn't an incentive to stray from that. Studies on positive thinking and mindset are notoriously prone to bias.Machina (talk) 01:16, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

See, that's where you are wrong. The fact that you still succeeded because you refused to give up, that is positive thinking my good person. Just because you decided that you were unlikely to succeed, that doesn't mean you were thinking negatively. It probably meant that your best guess was that it would be difficult to win. Trying as hard as you can despite the likelihood of failure is the most positive kind of thinking I can imagine. There is quite a bit of human thought that is unrelated to actual achievement. For all that it hardly matters one way or the other. Face it, you have learned something here. It is something to be proud of my friend.UncleKrampus (talk) 01:35, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

No that's not positive thinking, that's just "might as well". I still maintained that we were gonna lose the game but I still try because that's just being in good faith. It wasn't "unlikely" it was certain, same with other games I've played. What you're doing is literally twisting my words to suit your narrative. If you read what I said I said I was certain we would lose, there was nothing positive about it. I just gave it a shot anyway because that's what you do, if you just leave the team it ruins the game for everyone. Stop putting words in my mouth and twisting things. I haven't learned anything at all, you just got it wrong. Please address the point as it is written instead of bending it and reading what you want rather than what is.Machina (talk) 23:52, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Which is the point - 'positive thinking' alone doesn't make success, it can only stiffen some people's resolve to stick at something which could generate success through increased effort in some situations. All your evidence really proves is that you're too pessimistic in your predictions of success, and that result naturally, can't be extrapolated. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:26, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, what's the point of our lives if not to maximize the happiness we have? Most people want to live long, happy lives, where they tend to want to extend it if their life is worth living, and would feel it would be missing out not to get another few decades. People who want to live more are probably happy people. At the end of the day, all we do is usually for some form of material gain, which we use to excite the senses, good food, good sex, good relationships, good memories, life is all about that isn't it? Isn't that all a good life is? I can't think of any way to spend resources more efficiently than to maximize joy and reduce suffering, and bodies like the EU tend to agree with me on that at least. We could also ask ourselves what is the utility of using science and resources to maximize pain and suffering, why is this not more common? Because it's just not what people want at the end of the day. "Aren't things like that subjective?" Not entirely no, when one person experiences pleasure it is similar enough in the brain to how another person experiences pleasure that singular drugs can emulate 'pleasurable' experiences in large samples of the population. So from that you can kinda guess that joy and pleasure are pretty universal to human beings, giving room for genetic drift and experiences differing, you know. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 17:41, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

To reiterate @UncleKrampus you are utterly wrong about me. As I said there was no positive thinking in my games, so whether I won or lost had nothing to do with mindset, it was just what happened next. I tried because that's just what you do, play the game and not ruin it by quitting. ZERO, I repeat, ZERO positive thinking involved. Sorry you don't get that.Machina (talk) 00:20, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

You seem to be overlooking the fact that much of our thinking is done unconsciously. It's not like I expected you were following Dale Carnegie. You have a penchant to not want to be proven incorrect. I suppose I am wrong all the time, and just go on about my life in the hope that I may be mistaken about that.UncleKrampus (talk) 21:01, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

RIP Jean-Luc Godard

While I've never managed to enjoy his movies very much, he was truly an icon and it's always sad to lose icons. GeeJayK (talk) 12:19, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

A thought on Messianic "Judaism"

Why don't they just call it Hebrew Christianity? That was a name used for what they call Messianic Judaism.

While Christianity started out in Judaism, it became it's own distinct religion. They should stop being dishonest about their denomination. Hell, the Jewish sects wouldn't be so annoyed with them. --Trans Zombie Queen (talk) 00:41, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Are Jewish sects in general annoyed with Messianic Judaism? And, if so, do Messianic Jews care?Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 16:44, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm just a single Jewish ewok and nobody speaks for all Jews of course—but Jewish people in general are annoyed at "Messianic Judaism." The reason it has that name is to disguise its identity. To call it "Hebrew Christianity" would be to give the game away. "Messianic Judaism" is really a set of techniques for proselytizing Christianity to Jews. Sometimes the adherents are non-Jews who affect a Jewish-flavored aesthetic for their Christianity—for example there are a bunch of evangelical preachers now who wear tallitot (Jewish prayer shawls). The arguments for getting Jews to convert to Christianity are usually pretty weak sauce and fail to contemplate, oh, I don't know, the last 2,000 years of Jewish theology. ewok (talk) 20:22, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

They are a generally annoying lot, just look at the street hectoring of Jews for Jesus, likely ascribable to the zeal of the convert. Those who don't street hector tend to gravitate towards the seedier sides of conservative Christianity (notably Jay Sekulow for tRump, and Martin Wishnatsky for Roy Moore). So, if they draw any attention at all among religious Jews, it would likely be that of annoyance. Bongolian (talk) 17:16, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

There's also the cultural appropriation, at least for me, of Evangelical Christians wearing Jewish symbols as the Star of David, the seven-armed chandelier, etc, which I doubt they'll know the meaning they have in Judaism. I know of one large Pentecostal (of course) church that uses as symbol a mix of the fish, the dove, the chandelier, and the Star of David. Panzerfaust (talk) 21:56, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

FWIW, the seven-candle candelabra is called a menorah (the thing with nine candles, associated with Hanukkah, is called a hanukkiah).ewok (talk) 15:14, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

On the Swedish elections

On the 11th, it will be voting day in the Swedish general elections. I feel pretty lukewarm at best about the options I have to vote for. The Social Democrats and its coalition, having drifted rightwards for more than a decade while preserving and growing old bureaucratic structures and their dysfunction, continue to in some ways stand for stagnation and seeming to cling to power for its own sake, being known for compromising away most of what they used to stand for.

Comparing Sweden to Norway, for some time I've been hoping that likewise, if the center-right party coalition wins, then some years later it may lead to a fresher, renewed left coming back. I think such a renewal for the left, coming up with something other than trying to preserve the status quo, would be needed to make the left worthwhile again, but it simply won't happen unless the left is forced to go that way over a period of years in order to counter the right.

But the right is now very heavily dependent on the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats (who have slid further towards centre populism in some ways). Said party currently seems set to become the second largest party, instead of the third largest as earlier. But it's still an open question whether that'll last when the election is over. The two expected coalitions are currently quite even. If the Sweden Democrats end up gaining great power, there's the vague risk that developments could go in some awful direction over time, a little like Hungary. The rest of the right-leaning coalition wants the Moderates to lead; there's a chance they may become too torn about SD's more-leading-than-expected role, possibly leading to something else (a big centre coalition?).

A new prominent feature of the left-right coalition division is that the whole left continues to oppose nuclear power, while the whole right now wants more of it. The right points to how Sweden was a success in environmentally friendly power generation some decades ago until the left got rid of half of the nuclear power, and warns about going further in a direction like Germany's. The left claims that going forward from here is best done by building more of everything other than nuclear, more nuclear taking too long to build anyway. (Southern Sweden has increasing issues with sometimes insufficient power, and oil is among the stopgap solutions.)

Currently, I think that I may be able to vote for the centre-right Liberals without holding my nose. For lack of a left I can currently support. Those little Liberals have traditionally seemed to many who are not too far from the political center as the second best option in many areas. This time they bother to focus on some less-debated yet important things, including in education and mental health, outside of the great boring competition in which all parties debate just a few things and often try to trump each other by making similar promises. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 16:35, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

About L:

"In an interview with Dagens Nyheter in February 2022, Sabuni stated that the Sweden Democrats will "play an important role in an eventual right-wing government" and that she would not be hesitant to work and collaborate with them, stating that there is a possibility of L supporting an M-KD-SD government even if the liberals are not included in the government. Since the decision to collaborate with the Sweden Democrats, the party has adopted more right-wing populist policy, such as a more restrictive migration policy, easier withdrawal of citizenship for immigrants, and strong criticism of Muslim schools."

Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 07:40, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Almost all parties have swung in that direction, including the Social Democrats closer in time (who, like they did in Denmark, have begun to compete with the right-wing in that and in the "tough on crime" area). An example of fresh populist rhetoric from the Social Democrats is the controversial "Somalitown" comment.[15] I think the difference between the two blocs in that regard will only be a difference of degree (in considering that those on the left of the Social Democrats will have limited influence). In the right-wing bloc, L is still rather moderate compared to the Sweden Democrats. (As for the Moderates, I think they do poorly because they try too hard to copy the Sweden Democrats at the level of sounding tough, but the copy is a paler imitation and those it's meant to appeal to prefer the original.)

One way or the other (whichever bloc wins), Sweden will, like Norway and Finland earlier, swing to the right in that area, but probably not end up with something very extreme in practice, unless Sweden Democrats take a stronger grip than their counterparts in those countries. In a great populist competition, most parties will take to some excesses in ugly and xenophobic talk to gain votes without the full corresponding walk. And zooming out, the middle ground of the old positions, before the swing to the right, was closer in policies to nearby and most other EU countries in what's done.

I hope that after the great popular thirst for that kind of politics is quenched (whoever ends up delivering that), it will stop displacing all else, and the left as such could then hopefully recover and progressive ideas become a political force again. Somewhat like in Norway and Finland. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 09:09, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Wow, I thought Andersson would've learned her lesson after her 2017 farce, but nope, still going full Third Way like most SocDems nowadays that prefer to be Labour Right over Labour Left. This explains why S has been scoring better in the polls after Löfven's resignation: they're aiming for SD voters, by giving in on SD's demands like most Centre-Left, Liberals, Centre-Right & Centrist parties in the EU have been doing for over a decade. Instead of aiming for new voters by telling them in a rational way why racism, fascism & ableism are wrong, they want their old voters back... Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 18:38, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

It’s interesting that there is de facto campaigning going on simultaneously in Denmark, although the election has not been formally called, yet. The Social Liberals supporting the Social Democrats’ minority cabinet have threatened a vote of no confidence if an election is not called when the Danish Parliament (Folketing) starts its new session on the 1^st Tuesday in October, ending the summer recess. Basically, the only question is whether the Social Democrats call the election or force the Social Liberals to make good on their threat of a vote of no confidence (which will definitely pass with the Social Liberals joining the opposition).

The interesting bit is mainly what’s happening on the right, which in turmoil.

• The ultra liberal/libertarian party (Liberal Alliance) seems to be holding onto its small, core constituency (about 3-4%, i.e. just above the Danish 2% threshold), but
• The Danish People's Party is basically in full meltdown, currently polling just above the 2% threshold and with a host of its members and MPs joining the Denmark Democrats, which is
• A brand new “provincialist populist” (think Trump/GOP’ish “anti big city elites”) party headed by a former Agrarian Liberal cabinet minister convicted of abusing her office (in the Danish version of impeachment) and set to gain around 10% of the vote, thus spoiling the obvious strategy of the Social Democrats of cornering this particular voter segment (the Soc.Dem.s had been counting on their losses in the big cities going mainly to their supporting parties), and
• The “presentable fascists” in the New Right (Nye Borgerlige, basically Generation Identity with extra tax cuts), which narrowly made it past the threshold in the previous election (unlike the alt-right trolls in Stram Kurs) is set for a small gain (polling at around 4%), but
• There is also a new centrist/centre-right party (The Moderates) headed by the former Agrarian Liberal PM (currently polling around 3%), which seems to play on being able to support either a centre-left or a centre-right cabinet; and though the latter option seems more likely, there is really bad blood between the leader of The Moderates and both his successor as leader of the Agrarian Liberals and the leader of the Denmark Democrats. And this former PM is campaigning on keeping both the most leftist and rightist parties from gaining influence, all while
• The Conservatives have just announced their leader as a candidate for PM in competition with the PM candidate from Agrarian Liberals, with the Conservatives are polling better than the latter (thus reversing the trend of the last 30 years and approaching the pattern of the 1980s).
• To which we can add the likelihood of vote wasting among the 3 green parties, which all poll well below 2%, and the political suicide of the Christian Democrats (which seemed on the verge of a possible comeback, before the anti abortion fundamentalist reasserted their control, resulting in their leader and most prominent candidate leaving and the party now polling around 1%)

All in all Danish politics are quite, eh, interesting right now… Oh, and the Social Democratic PM also has a shitstorm about her being too full of herself and power mad, with the main issue being a governmental order to cull all minks (as in the furry creatures whose pelts are used for fur coats) in Denmark during COVID-19, although this was illegal (which her government was warned about). ScepticWombat (talk) 18:11, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

I had heard about parts of that, but not all, and not kept track of the larger number of names and actors in the Danish drama. In Sweden, meanwhile, the same 8 long-term parties (SD the newest) seem to remain (while proportions change). The fringe on the right of SD won't get near passing the 4% threshold, and "Other" parties together poll below 2%. (Rasmus Paludan may have further fanned the flames of SD support by provoking those riots, but his Stram Kurs Sweden is ignored by almost all and extremists prefer the still-too-small Alternative for Sweden.)

Earlier, for a time it seemed like Sweden's Green Party (MP) and/or Liberals (L) may fail to reach 4%. But L recovered after a change of party leader, after a time of being criticized as a "pointless" party under Sabuni, and formulating a clearer new-old message. The Greens recovered after a campaign with the message that they are necessary for the left bloc to win. (Each of these two parties, if only one remained, would have been a tie-breaker for a bloc. Now it all remains very even.)

On how things got this way, with S and SD trying to mirror each other by adding some right- and left- populist stances, respectively, to gain the voters of the other, etc., there's a long history of immaturity. Before SD grew so big, they were pariahs who had crossed the 4% threshold, arguing in a calm way for more "law and order" and anti-immigration, with a mixture of pointing out problems and offering simple (often populist simplistic) solutions, and other parties meeting them with ad-hom attacks continuously, all arguments, both good and bad, being dismissed with a "you are fascist", "you are racist", etc. This greatly fueled support for SD, because SD seemed to many to be treated unfairly, the other parties kept shooting themselves in the feet year after year by looking unreasonable and unwilling to recognize and seriously debate the growth of a slowly glowing crisis of organized crime and more. Then some years later, when the crisis came into focus, they suddenly began to flip and imitate SD instead.

Few politicians have been so constructive as to adopt a stance of realism instead of denialism in that area, and combine that with anti-racism instead of racist leanings. Currently, I think the democratic socialist Left Party (V) has such a stance – but they are also set to become a supporting party for the Social Democrats, as usual, compromising away most of what they promise (I voted for them last time). The Green Party, meanwhile, more firmly opposes the new S stance, but lean towards the old bad counterpoint of still being denialist about crime, segregation, and failed immigration at the same time. They also expect to be part of a S coalition. Meanwhile, the Center Party (C) on the right of S demands a lack of influence from those on the left of S in the same coalition, but they are mostly concerned with economics (and presenting V and SD as almost equally bad).

Sweden tends to have less big or drawn-out dramas and upheavals in parliament than Denmark, but it got unusually dysfunctional after the 2018 election. At first it looked uncertain for a record-long time whether a government could be put together and stay together. Something similar could happen now if the left coalition wins. Drama could also result if the right coalition wins, in part given that L is inwardly torn about actively working with SD in any way, but going too far in compromising with SD is also controversial more broadly. Maybe the Christian Democrats (KD) are the most comfortable with that. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 15:28, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

I await the upcoming results from Sweden with huge interest, as the polling seems to suggest a very tight race, not to mention the excellent points made by ApooftGnegiol about what the results might actually entail in terms of cabinet building and policy. It does seem, however, that there will not be a replay of 2018, as the centre-right bloc seems to have somewhat accepted that they have to rely on some form of support from the Sweden Democrats if they want to form a government — even if some parties will be holding their noses while doing so.

As for the “bothside’ism” of dismissing both the most left and right wing parties, that has been going on in Denmark to, albeit with limited success. The biggest thing was some years ago, when national attention was drawn to some clauses in the Unity List aka Red-Green Alliance (a merger of various communist, other left wing and green parties, formed in 1989 to allow them to (re)enter parliament instead of falling below the electoral threshold). These clauses stipulated a revolution and the replacement of the police and military with “people’s militias” (yeah, quite old school “left wing’ism”), but then the party simply changed the clauses. It seems much harder to go down this road in Scandinavia than the “AOC = Trump” nonsense in the US.

Anyway, I would like to emphasise that the current Danish situation is pretty unusual. There will be 15 political parties running just in Denmark (plus those contesting the two seats on the Faroe Islands and the two seats in Greenland), while the more usual number of Danish political parties running is around 10, give or take. As already mentioned, it is extremely unlikely that 4 of these will gain any seats (passing the 2% threshold and/or winning a district seat outright): The Christian Democrats, Vegan Party, The Alternative and Independent Greens all poll well below 2% (The Alternative was the biggest around 1.1% in the latest poll) and it is even more unlikely that they will win a district seat (this almost never happens for a party below the 2% threshold).

What is more shocking is that the Danish People’s Party’s polling numbers are now dropping to the vicinity of the 2% threshold (2.2% in the latest poll). Now, I still expect the DPP to make it past the threshold, as I think these very low numbers reflect dissatisfaction with the splintering, factionalism and inability of the new leader to remedy this. Hence, I’d expect them to do a bit better in an actual election (probably 3% or so). But this is the party that became the second largest in 2015 with 21.08% of the vote before it collapsed to a still respectable (in Danish terms, as it was the third largest) 8.74% in 2019.

Instead, DPP’s place has been taken mainly by the new Denmark Democrats (currently polling around 11.8%) and to a lesser extent the New Right (polling around around 4%). The New Right has a very different economic policy or both the DPP and the DD (as far as we know anything about the latter’s), being focused on tax and public sector cuts, Hence, current polls suggest that the right wing parties combined attract around 18% of potential voters in Denmark, which is substantial (even if below the DPP high water mark from 2015). I’ve excluded the libertarians from the Liberal Alliance from this count, since they seem to have (re)focused on a more systematic, libertarian approach, eschewing the “law and order” and anti-immigration politics of the DPP, DD and NR. ScepticWombat (talk) 06:48, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Yikes! Not only are the results literally too close to finally call before the expat votes are counted, but the Sweden Democrats seem certain to become the largest party in the “right bloc”. Now, it will be interesting to watch whether they will collapse in a manner similar to the Danish People’s Party after 2015. However, I think things are a bit different for the Sweden Democrats: Unlike with the DPP, the other big parties that deliver PMs have not, in general, adopted the policies of the Sweden Democrats, and are clearly showing some reluctance and antipathy towards the party. Hence, the Sweden Democrats are and can still play the “outsider card”, not least due to its relatively short time in the Swedish parliament, whereas the DPP had been centrally placed as a key, influential parliamentary backer of the (centre-)right cabinets of the 2000s and 2010s. ScepticWombat (talk) 05:09, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Maybe SD will collapse eventually, but if so probably only further into the future. If the left bloc wins, S are just getting started imitating their Danish counterparts in earnest, with the other parties having different messages, the result remaining to be seen. If the right bloc wins, the other parties in it (especially L) want SD as "only" a supporting party, M+KD being the long-proposed government formers. In return for accepting that, SD are expected to drive a hard bargain, and having now grown bigger than M, they are in a more powerful position. This is a likely source of drama, especially if L can't stomach some concessions made. According to analysis on SVT TV1 last evening, for SD such a compromise would be safe in the end, and lessens the risk of loss of support to the time of the next election, compared to if they are directly in the government and seen as more directly responsible for possible perceived shortcomings. We'll see what the result on which bloc wins ends up... -ApooftGnegiol (talk) 09:59, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, coalition building in Sweden currently seems even more difficult than in Denmark (where it can be hard enough) due to an even stronger antipathy between each extreme of the two coalitions (“centre” vs. “wings”), not to mention tensions between the views of the largest parties in each bloc and the supporting parties on various issues. ScepticWombat (talk) 14:27, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

The result is now clear enough and announcements made. The right bloc won, their tiny lead increased another step. This was also likely, as expat votes tend to lean right and favor M the most. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 19:40, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

hide bad IP revision

https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Plutocow&oldid=2484056 hide this revision its an offensive content 3.10.214.214 (talk) 06:15, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

It was done. Bongolian (talk) 07:05, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Please don't request it on a highly visible page. See Streisand effect for information on why it's bad. Andrew5 (talk) 12:05, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Please don't backseat moderate. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 17:28, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Please don't encourage links containing offensive information to be shared in public. Andrew5 (talk) 19:32, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Get a room, nerds. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 00:43, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

How to deal with a family member going off the deep end?

I would say that I'm in political opposition to a lot of people on here due to my ideology (I get called a conservative by liberals and a liberal by conservatives) but one thing I consistently I agree on with this wiki is opposition to conspiracy theories, which brings me to my next point:

I have a family member (who will not be named) who has gone completely off the fucking deep end with her conspiracy theories. She believes that the WEF is out to get everyone vaccinated to follow the Georgia Guidestones and that monkeypox is a plot to cause gay people to become immune to smallpox so then they can release smallpox on the population to kill all the straight people and that Russia is invading Ukraine because Ukraine is a New World Order money laundering center and that any munitions that kill Ukrainian civilians are launched from Moldova by NATO and that despite saying that we should destroy China and North Korea simultaneously supports them over the west because she makes death threats against Joe Biden with creative violent fantasies and that the planes destroyed the WTC but the hijackers were groomed and trained by the CIA unknowingly.

Any attempt to dispute this will be met with the "I have a right to my own opinions" and running immediately away even though she doesn't seem to believe that when throwing the insane bullshit up whenever I say anything. She also says that any Ukrainian advances are fake and the only reason why Russia says that they advanced is so they can get more troops and that they would overrun the "woke soy boy" western troops. The only way I could describe her political views is a mix between Augusto Pinochet and a authleft tankie. How the fuck am I supposed to respond to this shit? Swamp Fox (talk) 15:30, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

To add to the lunacy, she says some comically racist shit but is absolutely not racist considering that when I was a child we lived in a majority black neighborhood and she was incredibly friendly to everyone and practically raised a black baby from our black neighbors yet calls people the you-know-what word very often. Also constantly insults the Irish despite being half Irish-American/Canadian (long story). Her views read like a parody of Infowars. Swamp Fox (talk) 15:36, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Just because someone wasn't racist in the past doesn't mean they remain so today. Racism is a stance, a set of opinions, beliefs, and attitudes. Beliefs and opinions can change. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 16:47, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

She may have a right to her opinions, but you have a right not to listen to them. There was a toxic family member in my life. When I finally cut him off, it felt quite liberating; I never regretted it, only wished that I was able to do it sooner. You may not be in a position to do so, but it's something to consider if you are. Bongolian (talk) 17:11, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

I'd question the 'totally not racist' bit. Whatever-ist people can quite often have a kind of 'exception clause' which allows certain 'worthy individuals' to be omitted from their hated group. This was seen in the UK during the Brexit clusterfuck, where the dogmatic Leave 'get rid of immigrants' type would then say 'oh, I didn't mean *you*' to particular qualifying individuals. And if you both spent much time in a majority-black area, I don't think ignorance can be pleaded here.

I shall also point out the concept of 'paternalistic racism'. You can be polite, affable and yes, even helpful to a point yet still be almost as dogmatically racist as a member of the Aryan Nations. You can very easily be 'caring' for another but still think they're your inferior (example; pets). Even your 'justification' for why they're not racist could be interpreted as racism; they 'practically raised a black baby' because they felt the 'White Savour' complex kick in and took pity on the poor little baby. Not their fault their parents are [redacted] and so bad parents by default, is it?

Speaking as a person who's personally been on the receiving end of such a mentality, I'd say – if you can, search out this (I assume) now-adult and ask their opinions on the whole affair. If you do, and you can get them to honestly answer... I suspect you might be rather surprised by what you hear. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:36, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

That's a seriously fascinating new collection of conspiracy theories. I would say that you have almost no hope of even starting a conversation. You would really need to start from basic "How do we know things in general are "true"" or "How do we know what we know?". Because simply picking up one of those conspiracy theories and trying to work on it won't get you anywhere if you don't have some basic ground-rules But, from what you have said, I'm guessing that she won't be up for that initial debate either. Which leaves you with nowhere to go. Sorry.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 19:10, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

During times of crisis and social upheaval, conspiracy theories increase. And social media usage increases a person's susceptibility to hearing conspiracy theories. Short of getting your relative to read a book on critical thinking and logic, the best alternative is to just accept that she has different policial views than you and to politely indicate to her that you don't want to discuss politics with her. GreenFourSided (talk) 21:13, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Don't let them waste your time. Getting family members out of a conspiracy is something that would be good if it happened, but with how modern conspiracies are structured, they're essentially in a cult. Don't engage for the sake of your own sanity, it's not worth it. --Ozzyboo (talk) 21:26, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Conspiracy theories are more common among people who are on the losing side of political conflicts. Like its not her fault that her political tribe lost or that she is unsuccessful in life, it's the evil conspirators fault. There were Germans who believed that Germany was winning WWI, but evil German government workers stabbed them in the back and surrendered. Hillary Clinton, who was a real bad candidate, blamed her loss on Russian collusion. If your relative's political tribe wins in 2024 and/or beyond, she will have less conspiratorial thinking.

Besides getting her to read material on logic and critical thinking, you could help her to be more successful in life or get her to take more responsibility for her failures. Responsible people don't go out of their way to blame others. GreenFourSided (talk) 21:45, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Bah. This isn't a 'we can agree to disagree' situation here. In fact, doing that method gives that confusing grab-bag of crankery legitimacy by treating it as something worth 'respecting'. There comes a point where you cannot simply humour people... which is how I would treat this situation. Mockery. Every time they introduce some of their crankery, out-crank them. Counter-claim that the Georgia Guidestones had a secret code within to give you directions to Hollow Earth, that the 'smallpox plan' was predicted by Nostradamus, Zelensky is actually a lizard-man and the 'war' is in fact a trick by the 'Secret Masters' to steal the Earth's resources for the building of a cyborg army to conquer us all - the stupider, the better. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:51, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Conspiratorial thinking is self-defense mechanism to explain a person's tribal/personal defeat and/or the result of narcissism because they have "secret knowledge". Mocking a person who fails to take personal responsibility or has self-esteem issues or is a narcissist doesn't address their core issues. It will drive them into more conspiratorial thinking and/or get them angry.

Her right-wing conspiratorial thinking will lesson soon because the GOP is favored to win the midterms. And Black men and Latinos are leaving the Democratic Party. And then you will see your left leaning friends engage in more conspiratorial thinking. The best solution is to your dilemna is to be around more clear thinking friends. You can choose your friends, but you can't choose who your family is. GreenFourSided (talk) 22:15, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Oh why I am getting déjà vu from you, mysterious red account? Would it be the same tired talking-points delivered in the same tired style? KarmaPolice (talk) 22:22, 14 September 2022 (UTC) (No matter, you're gone now).

Sadly it would seem Ken has very little attention in his life so he needs to troll RW. Quite sad. Perhaps he needs to reengage with Project 200 and the Question Evolution! fans. Aceⁱ⁹ 22:27, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Or the sweet creationist lady with long hair that he danced with once. Aceⁱ⁹ 22:28, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Genuine question from the ignorant here, who the fuck is Ken? --Ozzyboo (talk) 22:30, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

@Ozzyboo - here you go. Aceⁱ⁹ 22:35, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

What is 'Project 200'? KarmaPolice (talk) 22:57, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

@Ace McWicked It's actually fascinating how internet drama from when I was literally a toddler still manages to follow this wiki in the present day. Nothing gets lost on this series of tubes, I swear. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 15:48, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Yes, Ken ramblings should be safely ignored. Susceptibility to conspiracy theories tend to tie back to certain personality traits such as fear of the world, a low sense of personal control, schizotypy, and (yes this is an actual term in a well-cited paper) people with high bullshit receptivity, e.g. the tendency to perceive profundity in nonsensical but superficially meaningful ideas. So while the goings-ons of politics may be a nudging factor in someone's embrace of conspiracy theory, it is by far not the only one.

I Googled articles on deprogramming those who believe in conspiracy theories and a few like this article popped up. There's probably more if one searches the topic. Essentially, you don't want to argue forcefully. The tactic the people in the NPR article seem to recommend is gentle questioning, finding as much common ground as possible, and perhaps (in the guise of conspiracy theory styles) leaving some "breadcrumbs" of reality, and making sure that the person does not feel shamed or stupid in the process of rediscovering the real world. It doesn't sound like an easy, quick process unfortunately. 35.140.177.2 (talk) 23:04, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice Project 200 was one of Ken’s many “projects” to destroy atheism and evolution on the internet. It failed spectacularly off course and he deleted all mention of it. Aceⁱ⁹ 23:13, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

@Ace McWicked, Conservapedia used the tactic of troll marketing to help drive traffic to their website. I wouldn't be surprised if Project 200 was a part of some troll marketing tactic. Moondragon22 (talk) 23:52, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Probably the same with the much hyped, much promised but never delivered (as Ken never delivers fucking anything) Question Evolution! handbook for students or whatever it was. Aceⁱ⁹ 01:18, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

@Ace McWicked How do you know the book wasn't published? There are over 1,500,000 books published a year in the USA alone. The burden of proof is upon the claimant and I don't see you offering any proof that the book wasn't published. Moondragon22 (talk) 01:36, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

So you hyped it for years then published it secretly and it cannot be found referenced online as everyone else is keeping it secret? Extraordinary! Aceⁱ⁹ 01:48, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Also, you flailing idiot, I'm making a negative claim - the book was never published, so no burden of proof lays on me. My claim it wasn't published relies on the fact it has never been referenced anywhere, by anyone, except you and you would never have been able to keep it secret had it been launched. That's evidence enough. Idiot. Aceⁱ⁹ 01:51, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Tame Interviewer: 'So, Ken. After many a hour slaving away, you've finally finished producing your "Question Evolution!" book, which shall clearly help making sure our wholesome children have the ability to successfully question this stupid and unproven "Evolution" idea being pushed in schools. So, how will we be able to get this text?'

Ken: 'I will not approach any publishers to launch it, I will not use a print-on-demand service, I will not release it as a .pdf and above anything else, I will not mention it on any media whatsover so if anyone tries to search for it on that engine starting with G, all they shall find some CP talk pages from years ago. After much prayer, I've decided to not to self-publish it in the old-school method of desktop printing and a photocopy machine either.'

KarmaPolice (talk) 12:17, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

in other news Christians in the US could be a minority group by 2070, study finds - looks like the us needs the question evolution pamphlet more than ever. why the delay ken? AMassiveGay (talk) 16:16, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Interesting study. Though I always wonder why the US is so far behind so many other western societies on this. But yes, Ken needs to get his skates on!Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 12:19, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

My personal suspicion is that in the USA, declaring yourself 'Christian' is much more a political/cultural definition rather than religious. As one who partly grew up in a evangelical cult (UK edition), I find the idea that you can be 'born again Christian' even if you rarely darken the doors of church inexplicable. With my politico-sociological hat, I can get it more; to 'out' yourself as a non-believer in the USA still can have social repercussions in 'normal life' which I don't think most would get in Europe (I mean, how many elected officials are willing to self-ID as say, agnostic?). KarmaPolice (talk) 07:10, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

If China invades Taiwan, will Taiwan survive?

I keep wondering how a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would play out. --Trans Zombie Queen (talk) 15:48, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

The Pacific is probably going to be a nightmare. It kind of depends on how America or other countries act. If Taiwan is alone, China likely takes over in a heartbeat. If other countries intervene, it's probably going to go nuclear. My thoughts are too amateurish to say the least. I don't know if this is going to be another Ukraine-like event, but economically, it's probably going to be catastrophic.

It is safe to say that this is already World War 3 in the making. No point in being in denial. I pride myself as a realist. --Trans Zombie Queen (talk) 16:01, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Respectfully, no. I don't believe anything happening right now is "WW3 in the making". The players involved are authoritarians desperate to cling onto power. WW3 is nuclear war. Nuclear war means no power, not for them, not for anyone. The situation with Taiwan is tense but I don't think so tense that it will literally spark WW3. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 16:13, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

What’s everyone’s obession with WW3 these days? Wasn’t this a topic when the war in Ukraine broke out? It seems like any conflict between nations is catalyst for WW3. SensaurC-137 (talk) 16:54, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

People are paranoid and anxious about the state of the world. I can't blame most of them. We live in scary times. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 17:00, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Every war involving a nuclear power and an autocrat at the helm is a cause for worry. We might have nuked Vietnam during Nixon's imperial presidency, "I still think we ought to take the North Vietnamese dikes out now. Will that drown people? … No, no, no, I'd rather use the nuclear bomb. Have you got that, Henry? … The nuclear bomb, does that bother you? I just want you to think big, Henry, for Christsakes. The only place where you and I disagree is with regard to the bombing. You're so goddamned concerned about civilians, and I don't give a drat. I don't care." Bongolian (talk) 18:00, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

The way nuclear weapons are used in modern day has shifted from back when Nixon was president. Nukes are much less of a genuine option and more of a somewhat plausible threat. The threat of nukes should not be discounted, but it shouldn't shift into paranoia. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 18:32, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

I think it stopped being a genuine option after the Soviets got the bomb. If Nixon had nuked North Vietnam and radiation had drifted over the Chinese border, China would likely have viewed that as a direct act of aggression. Nixon was a lot more dangerous than many people thought back then. Bongolian (talk) 00:14, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

The expert consensus is that China could successfully invade Taiwan, but it shall be a very bloody victory. That's the thing; Taipei knows it would never 'win' such a conflict alone, it's whole plan is that of the hedgehog; aka to be so 'difficult' to eat Beijing always chooses not to in the end. However, this assessment is being revised in light of the experiences of the Ukrainian War, and it's being revised in Taiwan's favour.

The answer for this is simple; the Chinese military has many of the weaknesses as the Russian one; from weaponry to tactical training. Case in point; Chinese troops 'Russian-trained', Taiwanese 'Western-trained'. And we all know how that's been playing out in places like Kharkiv. Taiwan is very good for defensive warfare; many mountains and big urban areas. Planned well, they can truly make their home a meat-grinder.

One major thing missed back in January by foreign sources was the Ukrainian people's willingness to fight Russia. I remember discussions here at the time, and I distinctly remember I was the most optimistic... believing that conventionally the Ukrainians will be beat back hard, but may have enough forces to survive as a rump and may ultimately win via partisan warfare. At least I felt they had the will to fight (just lacked the means); eveyone else didn't really think they had even that. Including the Russians.

Which raises the question; do the Taiwanese people have the will to resist a Chinese invasion? The Chinese have been running a psych-ops plan on them for decades; that 'we are all Chinese really' and 'resistance is pointless'. And boy, the second one has worked quite well. Until this year, that is. Ukraine has shown them how successful resistance can be done – from using drones to counteract enemy armour to smart anti-ship missiles taking out capital ships. Like with a projected 'Operation Sealion' in 1940, all the Taiwanese need to do to 'win' is to grind up enough Chinese forces to make them withdraw, while the Chinese will need to get all Taiwanese forces to be destroyed or surrender.

However, all the above does rest on one issue; Taiwan will need the direct support from 'the American bloc' to survive. And she shall get it, make no mistake of that. The answer is simple; semiconductors.

Some 90% of the world's advanced chips are made in Taiwan. In some cases, they're the only place which has the particular fabrication machines. And we're talking about the types of chips in modern guided rockets, tanks, fighter planes, advanced computers and so on – the shit which makes the kit we're giving the Ukrainians so much better than the Soviet-vintage stuff the Russians are using.

Conclusion: Washington shall defend Taiwan, to the hilt if needed. She cannot afford to not to. It's like asking whether the British would bother defending the Mid-East oil fields in WW2. And because the Chinese aren't stupid, they shall know this too. So the true question is; does the Chinese want a war with the American bloc? KarmaPolice (talk) 12:17, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

when russia invaded ukraine they invisioned a quick eay and relatively bloodless victory (didnt pan out that way, but thats what they planned for). china can have and will have no such delusions over taiwan. AMassiveGay (talk) 14:34, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

A decent read on the subject: https://thediplomat.com/2021/05/why-a-taiwan-invasion-would-look-nothing-like-d-day/ KarmaPolice (talk) 17:48, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

For all these reasons, I think rather than an invasion of mainland Taiwan, there's more likely to be PRC seizures of outlying islands, and possibly attempts to provoke exchanges of fire and small skirmishes. The PRC's only realistic strategy is to encourage fear and instability in Taiwan, while dominating as much of the South China Sea/East China Sea/Sea of Japan as it can. If it can force Taiwan to be less willing to challenge China, that's about all it can hope for. --Annanoon (talk) 19:17, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

honestly, the biggest threat is the us provoking china. AMassiveGay (talk) 20:49, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

@AMassiveGay That makes the most sense. The United States is the biggest consumer of Chinese goods. Why start a war with it's main buyer of goods? --Trans Zombie Queen (talk) 00:47, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

I disagree. I think the biggest risk is that the USA and China, due to fundamental misunderstandings of each other's intentions, needs and communications ends up stumbling into a war 'unawares'; mainly by accidentally putting the other party into a position it simply cannot back down from and/or a situation where it's hand is forced. I say this because in a direct clash, both powers shall lose; at best the 'winner' will win the kind of victory the UK got after the Second World War. And why I cite Taiwan's semiconductors; it's as important (perhaps even more so) to the American bloc in 2022 which the continued control of the Saudi oil fields were in 1972.

The other risk is that one or both powers end up in domestic positions where an 'external adventure' seems preferable to internal collapse. And you'll notice I say *both* powers; it is possible that the USA ends up becoming incredibly unstable due to a widening democratic deficit, societal instabilities and/or the risks of neo-feudalism. A China visibly failing internally, yes may become a lot more reckless with what power it does have, hoping to use it to secure a reasonable future for itself... somehow. But we're nowhere near this stage for either power. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:55, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Caught when the big

For those of you that have 0 interest in twitch lore

How far can someone deceive for "help" before people start to notice some BS patterns? I am working in a game dev team with someone providing us some funds, but the owner keeps using small bits of it to buy the mega millions lotto daily. i am not sure how significant can it get before I can contact him again.

Then I noticed slickasser scamming multiple people to a relatively mafia level descent. 18.117.137.117 (talk) 21:19, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Attempts to add the QAnon page to the New Age

For quite some time now, there are constant attempts to add the QAnon page to the New Age category by recently created accounts, that I suspect are all created by the same person. I've semi-protected the page, but if anyone sees such attempts, revert at will! Rabbitseatcarrots (talk) 18:04, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

I dunno, they both kinda have the whole "bubbling, steaming piles of horseshit" thing in common, so I can see where someone might think to reclassify it... Kencolt (talk) 18:07, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm sure many QAnon believers are New Age believers too, but I think it takes more than just both being nonsensical bullshit to be added to the New Age category. Rabbitseatcarrots (talk) 18:17, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

The overlap between QAnon and New Age is mentioned in part of the article, and it's an example of "conspirituality". Maybe there should be a Category:Conspirituality for things that are both conspiracist and "spiritual"/New Agey; but then a whole lot of crank teachings and teachers combining the two would fit in that category, there would be lots to add to it. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 19:00, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

The core ideas for QAnon and New Age are quite different, but it doesn't stop the occasional kook from getting sucked into QAnon (e.g. Jake Angeli) due to the extremely strong crank magnetosphere. Bongolian (talk) 02:10, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

I personally believe Q to be a disinformation campaign by the pedophiles who run the world. Like, they know that they can't keep their pedophilia under wraps forever, but if they get some whackjobs to start spreading some conspiracy that there isn't a bunch of pedos running things but satanic, cannabilistic pedos, and that somehow the only one who can stop them is the guy who bought a beauty pageant specifically so he could watch a bunch of naked teenagers as well as be close buddies with Jeffrey Epstein... CorruptUser 04:32, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Cory, if you talk like that they'll call you a CIA asset. Only conspiracy theories of the kinds approved for promulgation among the masses are legit, remember? The great theme of QAnon is supposed to be how all the things otherwise feared about governments, all manner of nasty things they may possibly do (including spying on, snatching, torturing, and killing people), are totally fine when done by "your" side as part of a claimed positive conspiracy. I.e., there is only a "prison planet" problem if you're on the wrong side of the power structure, imagining what those in power will do as if they are like yourself, instead of you being in power and doing that to everyone else.

Anyway, I've been wondering why QAnon had such an influence on the worlds of New Age and alternative health, a subculture largely changing over the course of a few years. Vaguely hippie-like super-syncretic believers who accepted everything and the kitchen sink as real (as long as it wasn't too mainstream) and tried to "be positive" suddenly flipped, and began to imitate Christian fundies, preoccupying themselves with a new satanic panic and the threat of a global holocaust in which all but a few micro-chipped servants of "the elites" would be the target, unless the tables were turned so that only the spiritually proper make it. Maybe a great many "progressive" New Agey believers secretly didn't have any real convictions of their own, even the well-known authors among them, and that's why so many changed track so readily... --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 11:44, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

New Age frankly is pretty much "dead" these days. The movement peaked in the 1980s and really wasn't relevant by the time the 21st century rolled around. From my informal perspective, the end result of the movement was a bit of a split. A lot of the more relatively benign aspects of the 1980s phenomenon (stuff like yoga / meditation, natural food fads, and various positivity-focused self-help) sort of folded into the mainstream. A lot of the more really far out-there woo (crystals, pyramid power, channeling, etc.) faded somewhat. The parts of New Age woo that focused on alternative medicine woo, however, hung on pretty well and were integrated to some degree as mainstream, albeit in a different way. This is sort of a "post-New Age" deal, a way to sell lifestyle oriented products and experiences, including but not exclusively altmed woo. The esotericism of the old New Age movement is pretty much gone, but the conspiracy-oriented mindset which some had in the old days too remains. Goop is an excellent example of that phenomenon.

The altmed industry these days is really broad. Infowars, Jim Bakker, and Mehmet Oz all dabble or have dabbled in it, just like Goop. In a clear demonstration of the integration of these crowds, Bakker had a guest specializing in "holistic health" in 2020. That's, er, as New Age of a term as I can think of. (So much for the fundie New Age haters of the 1980s...). It just shows that there's a wee bit of crossover in these crowd these days, and the wellness industry is probably a little more broader than the peace-love-hippie stereotype you found in the past. I'd guess this, and not hippies all of a sudden becoming fundies, is more the bigger driving force here. 35.140.177.2 (talk) 21:04, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

There's also quite a good deal of New Agey esoteric stuff in Neopaganism (crystals, runes, even astral journeys, etc), so it's not as dead as it seems even if some of the woo (medicine) fortunately seems little extended there. Panzerfaust (talk) 22:43, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

I actually asked a full-blown older (approx 50?) New Ager this yesterday (work colleague and was teamed with them). Their reply was interesting.

Their 'argument' (I condense for readability) was that the 'crytals-dowsing-witchcrap' end is actually bigger than ever - it's just relatively dropped off the radar of the Big Public. That the filtering the online world does ensures non-believers like us never see such stuff now, and 'the movement' has gotten too large to tag along with wider 'alternative lifestyle' expos etc (this I can personally confirm; went to a vegan expo in the summer and there was only two stalls (out of ~70) offering this stuff). In a way, they seem to prefer this; they can be easily 'found' if wanted, but folks who might object won't see it.

The other strand was that which could be termed 'cultural appropiation'. That capitalism has basically, taken the most 'mainstream' elements, sanded off anything 'iffy' for the purpose to make it sellable on QVC and Tescos by the million (the 'post New-Age deal' mentioned by 35.1 above). It could be said much of it has to pass the 'Walmart test' (a term for old music/films; you aimed to be 'family friendly' enough to get stocked in Walmarts across the USA, including the Bible Belt). So spirit channeling and grimoires are clearly 'out', but yoga and meditation can pass if suitably sanatised of non-Christian elements.

Anyhows, I'd argue that QAnon isn't really that related to New Age - that instead, they share overlaps because they both ultimately stem from the same source; 'disbelief in general reality', that 'there are people behind the curtain' secretly steering (or at least nudging) the world. A belief in They, to make Them organised and then give Them 'ulterior motives'... it's an old suspicion and conspiracy theory. The biggest mental 'hump' is to accept the possibility of They; once you've crossed it you've become much more vunerable to other crankery. That when it comes down to it, there's only so many ways you can 'build a functional conspiracy' and like with fictional plotlines, nearly all of them have already been done.

Which is QAnon's ultimate strength. It's a true buffet-style grand conspiracy; you can select the bits which cater to your pre-existing beliefs and run the story you'd like. Fundie Christian? Weave it into a narrative which fits your odd reading of Scripture. Suspicious of modernity? Take the 'technocratic new world order' variant which reads like it's cribbed off Deus Ex and Mage the Ascension. Not a complete loon? - trim off the satanic sacrifices etc and simply make it a old-school 'rich men in smoke-filled rooms' plot. I've even seen the 'wheels within wheels' variant; that 'the conspiracy' is real, but QAnon is a distractor and Trump is actually part of it. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:06, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Here's Johnny

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11224475/Axe-wielding-man-31-goes-rampage-NYC-McDonalds-REJECTED-young-woman.html How not to handle a rejection. Leibniz Enter into the rabbit hole 15:13, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Apparently charged with fourth-degree criminal mischief (destroying property worth over $250) and possession of a weapon, not with trying to injure anybody. I would have thought that waving an ax in a crowded room could be kind of dangerous, but I'm not a NYC cop/prosecutor. --Annanoon (talk) 12:21, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Anytime I hear someone say "gender studies" when talking about college and university

I can interpret it as supporting anti-intullectualism.

Then again, knowing that gender studies is mentioned in the alt right dictionary page, anti-intullectualism is common among the far right.

Education is the worst enemy of political extremism; far right and far left.

I am not hating on those who didn't go to college or go to trade schools. College is not for everyone and that is fine. Don't hate on college educated people. --Trans Zombie Queen (talk) 00:19, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Gender studies has given the world some true batshit craziness, the world would have been much better off without the moralizing of Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon and it's frankly depressing how many people uncritically swallow the bilge they spawned. The reaction to Avital Ronnell a couple years ago told me about all I needed to know about intellectually serious they are, and the "genderless Joan of Arc" actually being unironic was just a bit more confirmation. It's too bad the bug-nutty-crazy-world types in the fever swamps on the right get so hung up on these things that genuine criticism gets drowned out. I say that because all fields have their own issues and should be subject to serious scrutiny, in that regard gender studies isn't unique; it's how politicized the scrutiny is that irretrievably muddies the waters. I don't see a good way out of it, which is unfortunate since the field has some genuine value too. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:29, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't think "gender studies" is a terribly respected degree TBH on its own except for a few narrow fields. (But neither is a theology degree from a fundie school.)

Very few people in the US get ethnic / gender / cultural degrees. Sure, there's certainly some wackiness that comes from some of these departments... but judging the entirety of the college experience by these types is nutpicking.

"Gender studies" tends to be the boogeymen of authoritarian-wannabe types who promote "traditional values" (eg Jair Bolsonaro, Viktor Orban) and the online subcultures that tend to blame feminism and trans for every ill on the planet. To me, in that context, it's a dogwhistle.

To me, there's a wee bit of danger in this line of thinking precisely because, as mentioned, it's anti-intellectual. We've seen the results of "authoritarian + anti-intellectual" before, on both the fascist and communist side. Ain't pretty... 35.140.177.2 (talk) 01:29, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Dworkin and Mackinnon never got a single mention when I took gender studies in college. They are not exactly relevant figures in the age of intersectional feminism - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 01:50, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

I also feel the “crazies” in gender studies get alot more attention then the literal neo-nazi’s in other fields and I think that is telling - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 01:51, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Their outsized influence over activists like Know Your IX (as detailed by a defense attorney who knows what he's talking about) is an aggressive malignancy on society, it's the "tough-on-crime" corpse with a different head. And to the extent they get more attention, I think pretty much everyone in the chattering class assumes that neo-Nazis are crazies and not worth the ink spilled to refute them. The craziness coming from inside the house, by contrast, is actually controversial among that cohort so it garners a substantial debate. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:04, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

That reminds me; anyone want to write the article on Helmut Kentler? Long story short, Germany's top Sexology professor convinced the West Berlin government to assist him in rehabilitating pedophiles by having them adopt orphans. Most of those pedophiles were in fact friends of his, as well as himself. So yeah. But it's become a bit of a right-wing talking point because a lot of the more influential sexologists and gender studies folks have done so many awful things that even by the standards of their day they should've had their licenses revoked. CorruptUser 07:00, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Unless we get a fluent German-speaker, think Kentler shall remain undone. However, he might deserve a smaller mention if put in a wider 'sexual liberation' RW page (with him in a starring role as 'paedophile apologia' section, alongside PIE).

As with the 'gender studies'... think it's often used as shorthand for the 'useless degree' trope more than anything else. There's always a % of people who hold 'education should be practical!' (ie directly relevant to getting a job) and anything more is at best, 'fluff' (which you should do in your spare time and not a penny of 'my taxes' should pay for; the latter was a great line used in justifying the repeated hiking of student fees etc for universities). This was also a major part of the reasoning for the reorientation of UK education towards STEM in the '10s – 'teaching kids useful stuff for a change!' etc. This works particularly well if you hail from a class which has almost nil academic education (or it's associated trappings, like say books).

I'd argue that 'gender studies' is a prime target because the layperson has almost nil understanding on what it entails. This means it not only looks like 'fluff', but both useless and thin fluff too; they may not think much of the worth of literature, classics, fine art, psychology etc but they at least they grasp it's a subject large enough to take several years of study ('study' being much easier in the minds of people who generally speaking, never really have). Thus, gender studies also plays into the 'lazy student' trope; that such a degree is three years of sleeping until noon, smoking weed and these days 'trying to cancel everything' and glueing yourself to roads. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:27, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

The wikipedia article on the english version does have an English source. Maybe that could be helpfull for a draft (or just use GT to translate the articles from Der Spiegel)? Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 11:49, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Speaking purely personally, wouldn't feel that secure doing a biog with such a thin source material and I don't trust GT that much for a task of this importance. Plus, also feel that it would be best to start off with a general 'sexual liberation' page and then, and then only then do a biog of Kentler. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:56, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

I was under the impression that we had such a page, but it turns out that it's just a sub category of the Sexuality page. Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 14:53, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

The more I read up on Alfred Kinsey, the more I'm convinced he was a more sexual Dr Harlow or Ivan Pavlov; his work was important, but holy fuck I don't want him living in my neighborhood. CorruptUser 16:23, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

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Gender studies gets a bad name for no reason. Gender and how it plays into human social dynamics and society is a genuinely interesting and developing field. To discount an entire legitimate field of sociology and human development because some of the people that studied it ended up being insane is to discount higher education as a whole. I see plenty of shitty quack doctors with medical licenses but I'm not daft enough to discount medicine as a whole. The whole "USEFUL DEGREE/JUST GET A TRADE" argument is faux-populist, anti-intellectual bile, it holds no water. We need academics too. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 16:37, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

For many, 'worth' is defined by 'money'. How much does a gender studies grad earn these days? In fact, is there any actual jobs for a gender studies grad which is not teaching gender studies? When you have generally reduced the value of education to be weighed out in coins of the realm, you can be forgiven for folks being a tad suspicious, esp if they are of a class which 'further education' has been touted as the ticket to a better life for their kids. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:54, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

I mean, to me, that's part of my broader opposition to how we treat higher education as a whole. I also doubt most liberal arts graduates gain much money but I would be a fool if I said liberal arts or arts as a whole wasn't important. To the mind of a faux-populist, your value is only decided by your economic or "cultural" contributions. The reason conservatives or fascists also hate liberal arts students is beyond the fact that they don't make money, they see liberal arts as degenerate. Same goes for gender studies. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 17:00, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Which is why liberal arts and to a lesser extent humanities have become preserves for the middle class (and increasingly, upper-middle class). They're the only ones who can afford to spend the deposit on a house on something which shall not actually pay for itself in the long run. Similar could be said regarding the long unpaid internships seen in journalism and the media. It's also a hallmark of the member of the 'salitariat'; the managers, social workers, teachers, govt officials etc which are the prime nemisis of the blue-collar personage.

And I generally think conservatives/reactionaries don't like them simply because such grads are overwhelmingly not of their political ideology. Even social sciences has this cramp somewhat. From what I've seen, they're perfectly okay with 'deviancy' as long as you toe the line on everything else. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:26, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Don't forget politicians. Sure, NY state reps get a salary of $110k/yr, but it's $7200 in Texas. You try quitting a working class job for $7200 per year. CorruptUser 18:12, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

So, Ted Cruz gets $7200 a year for ranting insane BS? Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 14:39, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

No, he's a US representative. It's the state legislatures that get paid $7200. CorruptUser 15:15, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

I would be more sympathetic to that if it wasn't for, in addition to the Avital Ronnell fiasco, them being at the forefront of arguing that basic due process of law doesn't apply to their hated victims; they just put a veneer of respectability on it. The whole A Rape on Campus idiocy was only such a big story because the major "intellectuals" in the field actively chose to do nothing while their own students faced death threats in response to a transparently bullshit allegation (she copied dialogue from Dawson's Creek, it's not like she even tried that hard; you'd think a bunch of professors could've detected plagiarism). A bit of self-reflection would do the field some good, and said self-reflection hasn't been forthcoming. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:54, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

This really isn't adding too much in terms of content, however: most of the issues people attribute to 'Gender Studies', boils down to challenging the norms that have dominated the West specifically for centuries. It is an uncomfortable subject for those who have to reckon with their privilege being challenged. And the feminist movement has gone though radically different phrases throughout Western history, so it really isn't helpful to pick one specific feminist thing that is bat-shit. In general, these sort of discussions have created a more fair and just society. The only ones who disagree with that sentiment, see equality as oppression. Just my perspective.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 16:43, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

ive no doubt. you tell us nothing though of where that hard work should be focused, on what skills for what end beyond a vague 'living standards'. what is the criteria for what goals? what is 'doing well financially'? what is 'doing well financially' when wealth is not the primary motivation? you tell us nothing except that we watch too many cat videos or perhaps even dicking around with pamphlets disputing evolution. im not even talking about the plight of then under privileged vs the privileged, that we are not all starting from the same position with the same opportunities and abilities to spot and make the most of them for whatever goals they have or even able to have certain goals, allowed to even, but there is all that and 'They just choose to overcome their internal/external struggles' is all kinds of dogshit and you are not a human being if you believe that after looking looking around you at the world we live in. it certainly aint true if you hail from the us and most definitely not true in so so many parts of the world, but you know, im all right jackAMassiveGay (talk) 17:37, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

(sniffs the room) I can smell Horatio Alger's BS... 'just work harder' ... 'need more graft!' and all that. Did you know, a drowning man can drink his way to safety and the woman who can't walk is all due to 'not trying hard enough' and nothing to do with the fact she has no legs?

Anyway, the critical thing is that the general 'world of work' has changed drastically in the advanced world since even the 1990s. Most people under ~35 can easily expect to work well into their 70s, have at least two drastic career changes and one prolonged break/downshift. The workers who can successfully sail through these things in the future are going to be the ones which can be 'flexible', such as being able to maintain and extend a wide skills base.

In such things, the relatively 'worthless' arts/humanities degrees actually do provide advantages. They teach people how to think, how to learn, how to write and how to study. Even more bluntly, it often offers the place where people who aren't white and well-heeled can learn the culture and norms of their dominant class so we can later 'blend in better' at work. It's also a general benchmark of 'quality'; you look at a CV and see (say) the person's got a 2nd from Lincoln it shows that a) they had sufficient academic brains to get through it all and b) have sufficient gumption to ensure they graduated. In my experience, a lot of jobs which are 'degree level' actually don't *need* the degree (ie to do their stated roles) - the employer just likes to know they've hired someone of decent brainpower (for the unforseen etc). Therefore, as long as 'gender studies' is seen as being 'academically rigerous' as others from that uni, it doesn't hugely matter *what* the subject is in. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:32, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

what the degree is in is mostly irrelevant to a lot of employers making degree level qualifications a requirement to be considered. its an easy way of binning a pile of CVs so they can sift through a more managable pile to see who gets asked for interview. might be the decider at interview if two candidates with same experience would otherwise comes to a coin toss. its a good thing that so many more people degrees than not so long ago but its a pisser when you havent a degree and you can no longer apply for positions that a few years ago did not need them. its even worse when you are temping and doing the a job and doing it well but know if you had to apply for it like any other you would not even been considered. even worse though is not having a degree and going to interview to be told they think you are too qualified. one could be bitter about my poor life choices and the squandering of opportunities and i have plenty of trauma i can lay the blame if i so desire. i know what i did and didnt do, and i know what needs to be done to course correct but i am a feckless waster and i do far far better than i deserve. losing a job because i failed a criminal record check without having a criminal record was an injustice and really not my fault. that one stung. AMassiveGay (talk) 20:45, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, 'qualification inflation' is a problem, esp in the UK; many jobs have gone from demanding A-Levels in c1990 to degrees by c2015. Now sometimes there's justification for this (nursing, for example has changed in role significantly since say the 1980s and I suspect *does* warrant a higher academic bar) but a lot don't (bank staff, for example). Part of the reason for this is supply/demand; the UK produced more uni graduates (in numbers) in 2018 than it did with people with 5 GCSE's in 1988 - the 'graduate premium' increasingly worked by simply lowering the boom on non-grads on more and more jobs. ('Tis the failure of Nu Labour; they thought widening 'academic education' would make us a meritocratic society on the cheap, while totally missing the part where we needed to develop an economy which actually put them to good use).

As for 'you are overqualified'... I think that's a BS standard excuse for 'why we didn't pick you'. I know places who wanted their front-desk secretary to be a grad, as well as grads being offered minimum-wage work (once saw a sci master's being offered 'data entry' for £9.50/h and were *visibly surprised* when the prospect said no). Similar can be said for that other old chestnut, 'not enough experience' - that is also equally woolly line which can mean something, anything, nothing. But I put this down not so much the problem of the prospective employees, but the fucked-up thinking of British employers (but to be honest, British management is generally shit anyway).

One possible 'solution' was one proposed by JS Mill in On Liberty; he proposed a system of public-access examinations to grade skills etc. To be honest, if we set up a national 'intelligence test' people could take for say, £200 at the local college or even a 'Year 14' general-skills prepper I suspect some employers would be happy to accept that in lieu of a full-blown degree. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:42, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

i seem to have an idea there was once a 'civil service' examine. i would def do that if it were still a thing. i have enjoyed my time in governmental/regulatory departments. i have had a much better time in public sector than the private. money is not really the motivating factor for me in employment, and its nice to be able to feel you are working for the betterment of all, even if only a small cog in the overall machine. i really should start looking at volunteering again. AMassiveGay (talk) 22:09, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, I took a peek at this. It seems yes, the CS exam still exists, and it's academic minimum (generally) is GCSE. However, it's got a de facto grad demand, for if you're not a grad they demand tangable 'experience' in the private sector... in roles which demands being a grad. KarmaPolice (talk) 23:41, 22 September 2022 (UTC)