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Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

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Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#241

Post by thebokehwokeh2 »

moultano wrote: post #222
lkrubner wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admire your willingness to be open minded and ask the question, but I've asked the question in the past, and I've never gotten a straight answer. Instead I get some pat pre-package talking points, and if I dig deeper I get a confusion of ideas. And that's because the people opposed to immigration tend to be motivated by racism, but they don't want to say that, so they every other imaginable thing. It's simply impos…

Isn't self-interest enough of an explanation? Mass-immigration is unlikely to be a short term benefit to the host country, particularly to low skill workers in that country. Why should they oppose their own self interest? (I'm personally a very pro-immigration American, so I'm talking about this to understand the debate not to advance any particular objective.)

Self-interest is a valid explanation. And the question you pose is a very valid statement. I am sure that immigration poses problems when it is at the scale of modern society. Not everyone shares the same values and beliefs but the optimist in me is the of the thinking that humanity is no longer the tribal, "us vs them", neanderthal who only sticks to persons who visually look like them. The United States of America was built on this idea and it thrives today.

What I've noticed is that this issue of different-ness, seems only to surface when money or resources are scarce. The global rich are getting richer and richer, but counter-intuitively, this resource hoarding is not visible to the masses, who see a huge influx of new "different" people. These people will "potentially" take their jobs and their benefits, and then they "potentially" will bomb their buildings and rape their daughters and wives, because they are the boogeyman.

What they don't see is that they are competing with those people not because those people are different, but because the people on top have figured out how to take everything and not share.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#242

Post by guard-of-terra »

xapata wrote: post #235
guard-of-terra wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now to the specific. The country in question is Russia and mass immigrants mostly come from Ukraine, Caucasus and Central Asia. People from Ukraine, and fellow Russians coming home, I have no reservations against. They're as good cultural fit as anybody already in the country. I'll make the process smoother if I could. People from Caucasus, they're often poor cultural fit. They're first to bend laws, they're sometime…

Rather than talking about "culture fit" it's more helpful to be specific about what behaviors are causing problems. The complaints you made sound like a good reason to improve enforcement of various laws and tax collection. If a person commits a crime, the criminal should be punished; the criminal's neighbor need not be exiled.

Regarding culture fit: They group on ethnic and clan basis.

Makes easy for them to have unofficial unemployment and avoid paying taxes; makes easy for them to avoid speaking Russian, avoid blending in country's culture, even avoiding punishment for crimes. They "boil in their own pot" - as if they're still a solid fragment of country they're from. In any conflict their back their own on clan basis, you can see how this skewed against native Russians who don't have crowd to back them up.

It's not in Russian culture already. Russians are pretty atomized, families and official organization units (bureaucracy) is our thing.

Unfortunately, we have this flawed law enforcement system and are stuck with it.

It can more or less deal with Russian criminals (atomized and marginal) but immigrants' diasporas poke holes in it.

I'm afraid it's easier to fix immigration than law enforcement. Unfortunately, I have zero effect on either.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#243

Post by chongli »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #152
p4wnc6 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's unlikely for EU nations to significantly damage trading relationships with the UK. Germany, for example, exports a huge volume of cars to the UK and it comprises a significant portion of German GDP. Yes, there's volatility around exactly how such a trade deal will get worked out, but it's unrealistic to lump "access to European markets" into one big ball and assume that Brexit means that whole topic will be…

Real numbers here. http://openeurope.org.uk/today/blog/how-would-key-export-sec... Some key UK export sectors - especially finance - have a very low probability of being able to carry on as normal. The German car industry accounts for around 3% of GDP. Sales to the UK are less than 1% of German GDP. The UK financial industry accounts for around 10% of GDP. Sales to the EU are around 4% of UK GDP. As a rough guess est…

Yeah, it looks like the potential political consequences to the EU are far more important than the trade ones. The possibility of more countries exiting just got a lot more realistic now.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#244

Post by thevardanian »

Daishiman wrote: post #240
thevardanian wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm not mistaken UK is one of the larger economies, and therefore should have more influence over the negotiations than there smaller, and less significant countries. As for free movement of things, I believe it is in the best interest of the EU to allow lenient trade with UK, insofar as it doesn't damage its reputation as a legitimate institution. However if reputation does take precedence over economic sense, th…

It was one of the larger economies; as it will now be an isolated island with no automatic access to the European market, it's value will be lost to a lot of businesses.

Well yes, and no. It now depends all on how the trade deals are negotiated.

What I'm arguing is that the UK has plenty of bargaining chips, and can trade elsewhere if it doesn't feel like it's getting a fair deal in the EU.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#245

Post by chongli »

danudey wrote: post #175
volatilitish wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. We will now be free to negotiate trade deals with countries outside the EU (Which we currently are not able to do. The EU has been absolutely awful at trying to negotiate trade deals with other countries). We will negotiate a trade deal with the EU as a whole. Everyone in the UK knows those facts.

But on the other hand, as a Canadian whose government was in the process of negotiating a trade agreement with the EU, now we'll have to draw up two separate trade agreements, neither of which is as unbalanced in their favour as the original would have been. That is to say, the EU without the UK has less leverage than before, and the UK without the EU has less leverage than before, so now neither the EU nor the UK ha…

Which is great for us in Canada! Another benefit is that negotiating with the UK individually rather than the EU as a whole should make it easier to get a deal done quickly.

Negotiating with the EU is a disaster. Too many special interests to deal with all at once! As the old saying goes: too many chefs spoil the broth.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#246

Post by guard-of-terra »

spriggan3 wrote: post #217
guard-of-terra wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now to the specific. The country in question is Russia and mass immigrants mostly come from Ukraine, Caucasus and Central Asia. People from Ukraine, and fellow Russians coming home, I have no reservations against. They're as good cultural fit as anybody already in the country. I'll make the process smoother if I could. People from Caucasus, they're often poor cultural fit. They're first to bend laws, they're sometime…

Are you Russian ? Russia already has Muslim republics, like Bashkortostan.

Yes I am Russian.

First of all, they're (Bashkirs, Tatars) mostly "culturally muslim" - as in, while having preference for mosques and green color, they, en masse, drink wine; have no objections against drawings; equal rights, education and employment for women. Not trying to stone people dead. Good culture fit. People from Central Asia - another kind of muslim. Much less desired if you ask me.

Second, if we have something, doesn't imply we want more of it. I'm quite content with muslim staying minority.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#247

Post by groby_b »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #28
vonnik wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Independence is a mirage, as is control. No individual nor country in the world is independent. We are all interdependent on one another, and ever more so as the movement of data, goods and people accelerates. The EU is a framework is facilitate that interdependence, and while it has many faults, it was created to prevent another world war and in that it has succeeded. Great Britain's future is very dependent on the…

The EU will make the UK pay a price for Brexit, and rightly so, otherwise all member states would leave and still enjoy the free movement of goods and people. You make the EU sound like an abusive spouse. "Don't leave me or I'll hurt you!" Do you believe that if the UK leaves the EU, France and Germany will go to war? If not, I don't see how "created to prevent another world war" is relevant.

> Do you believe that if the UK leaves the EU, France and Germany will go to war? If not, I don't see how "created to prevent another world war" is relevant.

Directly? No. Trade war between EU and Britain? Might happen.

And if the EU doesn't take fairly drastic action to, it will fray further, essentially destabilizing Europe. No war will come from that, either. Not yet. But if the EU were to crumble, it's a good bet there'll be a division between haves and have-nots. We're still not at war - but the have-nots have crumbling economies now, creating unrest. Meanwhile, the few haves that are left over are likely to envy each other what little they still gain from such a union. Sooner or later, we'll go back to individual states. A few strong European powers, not bound by the EU any more, and many crumbling economies around it.

Meanwhile, the pressure on the smaller states from migrants and refugees increases. (If you think we're done with middle East and African troubles, I suggest you take a look at climate projections). They will start to let them pass through and/or ignore them, because they have to, to survive at all. There's not much political clout left to move the agenda on a global scale any more, so that option is out.

As a result, the stronger countries militarize their borders. Sooner or later, somebody will mount a preemptive mission into some of the smaller countries, simply because it "makes sense" to stop the flood of migrants earlier.

Play the scenario from there.

Sure, nothing guarantees it will happen that way, but there's a good chance something like that will happen. The point of the EU was to prevent that - to make the common bond so valuable that nobody would want to risk it.

Britain's voting public decided that the value was low enough. If the EU wants to have any relevance in the long run, they will need to make it clear to Britain that yes, that bond is pretty valuable, and tough luck for Britain.

That is how it's relevant - in the very long term, as a stabilizing force.

And no, it's not "Don't leave me or I'll hurt you". It's "we had a contract, you broke it, that means I don't need to uphold my end of it either". That's generally how this whole treaty business works.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#248

Post by zmmmmm »

p4wnc6 wrote: post #92
mjevans wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take your word on those numbers as they sound reasonable. However I do believe you've neglected the other points of the post which were about the value of access to the European market place and that 10% say in how said market is run. Those are costs / benefits which are not so easily counted before the painful divorce is complete.

But it's unlikely for EU nations to significantly damage trading relationships with the UK. Germany, for example, exports a huge volume of cars to the UK and it comprises a significant portion of German GDP. Yes, there's volatility around exactly how such a trade deal will get worked out, but it's unrealistic to lump "access to European markets" into one big ball and assume that Brexit means that whole topic will be…

> Germany, for example, exports a huge volume of cars to the UK and it comprises a significant portion of German GDP ... In reality, most significant European trading partners with UK just want to keep on trading with them mostly as they have been

Even if one accepts that existing trade will be accommodated through direct agreements, that only protects existing industries. What does it mean for future industries and how existing industries grow and change? When a new industry develops and wants to export, they are going to find they face trade barriers until such time as the EU and UK get around to negotiating a new (or modified) trade agreement. That's a huge disadvantage and will see a lot of investment, especially in tech companies go to the EU where previously it might have gone to the UK.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#249

Post by erispoe »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #180
twblalock wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Long term, we now have control of our future. Not really. Your future is just as bound up with the future of Europe as it was before. The only real difference is that instead of negotiating with the EU as a member, you will have to negotiate as an outsider who has considerably less leverage, and who has recently pissed everyone off. And when you negotiate with non-EU countries, it will be even worse for you. As a m…

Regaining control was always about more than economic control. If you're in the EU, I hope you realise that you're currently being ruled by people you didn't elect, people in the pocket of big business, who have set out to concentrate power in the hands of a small selected group. I've heard some EU apologists claim that they don't believe in democracy, but some of us still do.

People elect the European Parliament, who vote a motion of confidence to the European Commission. It's standard parliamentary democracy, no different than the Commons voting the confidence. The current head of the Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, was the head candidate of the party who gained the most seats in Parliament.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#250

Post by phamilton »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #96
evgen wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have fundementally mixed things up here. The UK is (was) the second-largest economy in the EU. If you want to talk about percentage contribution to the EU budget the UK was a net contributor of 8.5 billion pounds (after "rebate") more than it received from that same EU budget that totals around 125 billion pounds. So they put in about 7% of the budget and get about 10% of the votes. Definitely a deal that…

> let's please stick to reality and facts here. Why say you're sticking to the facts and then repeat pretty much the facts I stated with a different perspective? 8.5b (I think I had it at 7b, it depends on various valuations but ultimately it doesn't matter much as it's roughly the same) on the British economy (roughly 1.9 trillion pounds) is a fraction of a percent, I stated about 0.3%, you're stating around 0.45%,…

I was confused by your numbers as well. This post clarifies it.
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