Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ad hominem does nothing to rebut these arguments. I also disagree, but would much rather see an actual refutation.
If you support Brexit you are either racist or make common cause with racists. drops mic
[deleted]
Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth
41–50 of 93 posts
Re: Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth
#42The problem with the EU is it has more regulations than there are atoms in the Milky Way.
You have so many regulations because modern economies are extremely complex - not the other way around.
Food for thought on economic complexity: https://medium.com/@kevin_ashton/what-coke-contains-221d4499...
Re: Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can't imagine why you were downvoted for this. You're spot on to read very old books; my godfather - a historian - insisted on reading books only written by dead people. He may have been a salty old man for the time that I knew him, but he was never unhappy. I have recently begun listening to a LOT of classical music. Every time I casually new-tab over to YouTube and load up a Tchaikovsky playlist, I think to myself:…
Probably because it came across as pretentious. Recommendations on good history books?
Herodotus's Histories is probably the best place to start. Maybe 50% of it is accurate, as it was common among historians of the day to create functional exchanges of historical figures to simulate the debate of ideas, such as the Persian Magi debating on the kind of government Persia ought to have, between aristocracy, democracy, and autocracy.
Also, and while it is very very modern, John Green's Crash Course World History (and US history) is a great place to start so you have context when you delve deeper.
Re: Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth
#44I actually don't understand why Brexit should necessary be bad for UK. Switzerland is doing very well outside of EU despite it's literally surrounded by EU members. Of course, there is a risk that UK won't do as good as Switzerland does but it's only risk, it's not established fact yet. Regarding article itself ... well, it's The Guardian so it's very predictable what they will write about wealth. Regarding author, i…
Switzerland does have access to the EU single market and implements many features of EU law, such as free movement of people. The UK might end up with a similar arrangement eventually, but if we adopt most of the EU principles but without any political influence I fail to see what the point was. Even if we manage to find a satisfactory solution, we will have to go through a lot of pain to get there, and we were alrea…
I understand this but there is a reason why Switzerland decided not to join EU in the first place. I don't know exact reason. I suggest they preferred to selectively accept some terms instead of taking all burden of membership in the EU.
I like open-economy and globalisation but I would prefer more decentralised system instead of concentrating all power in the single place and then impose regulations across the board. In short, I would not put all eggs to one basket.
Although, I understand that some people voted for Brexit just because of emotions.
Re: Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth
#45I don't understand the reaction to Brexit. It was democracy in action! These things happen, and it's alright when they do! There are so many countries that are not in the EU. Are they all doomed?
[NB: Not an opinion on Brexit] To say that Brexit is democracy in action, you're suggesting that that alone makes it a good thing. Democracy in action has gotten us many terrible things as well. Democracy, in this form, is mob rule. If the mob is well-informed, it can go well. When the mob is not, it can go very badly.
So anytime the mob goes against my wishes it was clearly uninformed :)
Re: Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth
#46I actually don't understand why Brexit should necessary be bad for UK. Switzerland is doing very well outside of EU despite it's literally surrounded by EU members. Of course, there is a risk that UK won't do as good as Switzerland does but it's only risk, it's not established fact yet. Regarding article itself ... well, it's The Guardian so it's very predictable what they will write about wealth. Regarding author, i…
Why would the UK do badly outside the EU?
Well because 45%+ of its exports go to the EU.
And the EU is not just a trade deal. It is a single market, like the US is a single market, with a great degree of regulatory uniformity. Which means accepting laws from a central source (in the US it is Washington, in the EU it is Brussels).
What you think would happen to Texas were to secede? With border controls? With its internal regulation for its market? Paying tariffs to access to the rest of the US? No free-movement of people? And all of this, and we have Florida, right next to Texas that just remains in the US; why invest in an independent Texas if you can invest in Florida?
(Of course the EU is not like the US. The EU is a very thin federal layer compared to the US federal government. e.g. EU states go to war on their own all the time.)
The UK might get a Switzerland like deal. But that is very close to being a full-fledged member. That is not a hard-Brexit.
Re: Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ad hominem does nothing to rebut these arguments. I also disagree, but would much rather see an actual refutation.
If you support Brexit you are either racist or make common cause with racists. drops mic
ostensibly everyone on the planet "makes common cause with racists", knowingly or unknowingly.
Re: Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth
#48For anyone from United Kingdom or curious I can recommend taking a look at the Positive money movement which is about monetary reform.
Posetive money http://positivemoney.org/
Re: Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
[NB: Not an opinion on Brexit] To say that Brexit is democracy in action, you're suggesting that that alone makes it a good thing. Democracy in action has gotten us many terrible things as well. Democracy, in this form, is mob rule. If the mob is well-informed, it can go well. When the mob is not, it can go very badly.
So anytime the mob goes against my wishes it was clearly uninformed :)
No. You and your sibling seem to be thinking along the same lines.
When the mob goes against your wishes you've been overruled. But when the mob (or any entity) makes a decision that results in harm to itself, that was a bad decision. Decision-by-mob is incredibly amenable to this consequence.
Mobs are too easily swayed by rhetoric, appeals to emotion (particularly fear and anger, see the practical lynch mob calling for Clinton's imprisonment at the RNC). We do not permit mob rule in the US for this reason. We created a democratic republic to provide the majority a voice, but to temper it in a way that it would (theoretically) be harder for it to trample on the minority.
EDIT:
Further. I didn't say that it going against my views made it good or bad. I just said when a mob makes a bad decision it tends to go very bad. We're human. We're irrational. It's very hard to set aside our egos. If we make a bad decision, we too often see it through to the bitter end rather than cut our losses. When that decision is made by 100 million people, what's the consequence when it turns out poorly? The vast majority of those people stick with the bad idea. They don't just stick with it, they fight for it. They won't say, "Oops, we goofed. This was a bad idea and we need to change course." They'll say, "Let's stick with it and see if it gets better next year." They may even outright deny the failure of the plan they've chosen.
By removing majority rule, but not to the extreme your sibling suggests I was arguing for with a dictatorship (similar issue, dictator makes a bad decision, we have to kill them to get rid of them). See my paragraph 3. It's not a solved problem. It's not the only solution. But it is a solution, and it works pretty well. We balance the mob against a strong minority voice.
Re: Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth
#50He really lost me with the first two paragraphs... Oh, and the title. The Brexit? Really? He's using the Brexit to launch into a soliloquy on the meaning of life? It's not clear to me that the Brexit had to do with wealth as much as it had to do with sovereignty. It's also not clear that the Brexit will have a negative long run impact on Britain's wealth. I know this sounds crazy to all the super smart international…
Some parts of the EU have had problems (the so called PIIGS) but the rest has been quite strong, overall the EU has started growing again.
The only way we would be isolated from a collapse in the Euro is if we didn't trade with Europe, I don't think that would makes us better off.