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Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

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Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

#101

Post by HalfwayToDice »

ejlo wrote: post #38
HalfwayToDice wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iceland did not "jail their bankers", where do you get your news from?

Hmm, did you try searching for it before posting? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932011_Icelandic_fi...

I don't understand. There were 15 people jailed who took part in illegal activities. But the vast majority of Icelandic bankers did not take part in illegal activities. They just did a really really bad job. Therefore they weren't jailed.

Unless you think that Iceland only had 15 bankers?

Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

#102

Post by mikeash »

mseebach wrote: post #49
aedron wrote: post #25

This kind of change could only happen in Europe, due to the multi-party system. In America, as has so often been proven, the system is rigged to prevent alternatives to the established parties. I honestly believe this proves the superiority of this system, over the American one. The great advantage of democracy is that it provides an avenue for peaceful change, or, if you are more cynical, the appearance of such. Thi…

> In America, as has so often been proven, the system is rigged to prevent alternatives to the established parties. But the difference is that the parties in the US and the UK aren't very powerful in their own regard. Trump wasn't even a member of the republican party until very recently, and he won the nomination -- and Sanders forced Clinton very far to the left before dropping out. On the other hand, the leaders o…

> through "party discipline", another throughly undemocratic concept, all but unheard of in UK/US parties

Is that really true? Wikipedia's article on the subject says:

"Party discipline tends to be extremely strong in Westminster systems such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India...."

In the American Congress, votes are now almost entirely along party lines, which seems like more or less the same thing:

http://www.realclearscience.com/journal_club/2015/04/24/poli...

Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

#103

Post by hfsktr »

poshli wrote: post #12
ajmurmann wrote: post #2

It has offered Edward Snowden a new place to call home. I love Iceland. I truly do. My wife and I visited twice last year. I think it would be a wonderful place to live. Given a choice between Russia and Iceland I would pick Iceland without hesitation (although I have to admit that I have never been to Russia). However, I do not believe that they would be able to protect Snowden from the CIA. I hope Snowden sees this…

The PP is a fringe radical party that if they somehow become the majority party in Iceland, they're not going to retain it for very long. I would not recommend that famous dissidents like Snowden move there immediately. I like visiting Iceland too, the few Icelanders I know can't wait to move though. The winter weather and high price of everything is a bit of a drag. I am not an expert on Iceland but I have read that…

Since you said flights were so cheap I got a bit curious and did a search for a 7 day trip (admittedly from the airport near, which is small). I was not expecting the drastic difference in prices there though.

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/ To: KEF, RKV March 1 2017, 7 days Unlimited stops/airport changes.

http://imgur.com/a/X3KYr

Some of those flights are ridiculously cheap though so you were right.

Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

#104

Post by mattferderer »

nomercy400 wrote: post #71

"They know what they’re against. But it’s difficult to find out what they’re really for." Well, reading what the Pirate Party wants to be, it makes sense they don't have things to be 'for'. They want to give the people more room to decide. The pirates just want to give the people that space. They don't care about all the topics traditional politics discuss and promote. They just want the people have have more of a sa…

The more I've tried to learn about issues, the more I've learned that they are often very complicated & require a lot of research. I feel this is to hard & time consuming for the average citizen. Electing people to represent your interests makes more & more sense to me every day.

I do wish they were more open & transparent though in an easy to understand & honest method. Unfortunately it seems that is very difficult for them to do.

Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

#105

Post by kasey_junk »

dagw wrote: post #79
tptacek wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So really you mean the Netherlands are ahead of the US in LGBT rights. I'm curious about what else the US should be doing. How is the Netherlands better?

How is the Netherlands better? From a purely legal perspective not in any significant ways. However from a public opinion perspective the difference is more significant. Same sex marriage has ~90% approval rating in the Netherlands compare ~55% in US. I cannot imagine that those sorts of differences don't greatly affect the day-to-day reality living as a same sex couple.

Comparing the Netherlands to the entirety of the USA is just weird. What are the approval ratings in New York state for instance? That is closer in population to the Netherlands (and potentially more rural & thus more conservative but still likely closer).

On most day-to-day reality issues (for same sex couples or anyone else) local norms are probably much more important and I can assure you there are lots of parts the United States that have 90% approval rates for same sex marriage.

So if we are discounting the legal perspective (which just as a personal opinion, I wish the US federal law was more progressive), cherry-picking public opinion to match the more progressive parts of the sample seems like the US comes out about the same.

Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

#106

Post by gpvos »

xenobioticants wrote: post #30
grosun wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely agreed re. the inflexibility of the US system, but "Europe" contains a multiplicity of different parliamentary systems. The UK for instance is sadly almost as stuck in a bipartisan world as the US, which makes change a slow and painful process (or quick and painful wrt this year's referendum!)

Yes, but most of the mainland countries have multi-party systems. Hell, the parliament of the Netherlands at one point consisted of 16(!) parties.

17; that was in 1918. They quickly increased the electoral threshold to 75% of a seat then. Then, in 1933 when there were 14 parties in parliament again, they increased it to 100%. After that, it has always hovered around 10 parties, and it's still one of the lowest electoral thresholds in the world; most countries have it at 5%-10% of the total vote.

Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

#107

Post by gpvos »

tremon wrote: post #52
xenobioticants wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but most of the mainland countries have multi-party systems. Hell, the parliament of the Netherlands at one point consisted of 16(!) parties.

To put that in context: that is one party per million residents.

When that happened, there were fewer residents, so it was more like one party per half million.

Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

#108

Post by mratzloff »

aedron wrote: post #25

This kind of change could only happen in Europe, due to the multi-party system. In America, as has so often been proven, the system is rigged to prevent alternatives to the established parties. I honestly believe this proves the superiority of this system, over the American one. The great advantage of democracy is that it provides an avenue for peaceful change, or, if you are more cynical, the appearance of such. Thi…

This could easily happen in the US if a preferential ballot were adopted. (Rank candidates in order of preference.)

The Republican Party would immediately split into at least three parties and the Democratic Party would probably follow by splitting in two not long afterward.

Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

#109

Post by nols »

creepy_driver wrote: post #94
nols wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin can't handle the number of transactions required. It's simply not technically possible for the blockchain to be used as a country's (or medium sized city's) primary currency.

Really? I always thought it was very powerful. Any place to read up more about this?

You can read up on bitcoin scalability here:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability

Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

#110

Post by RandomName2020 »

mseebach wrote: post #49
aedron wrote: post #25

This kind of change could only happen in Europe, due to the multi-party system. In America, as has so often been proven, the system is rigged to prevent alternatives to the established parties. I honestly believe this proves the superiority of this system, over the American one. The great advantage of democracy is that it provides an avenue for peaceful change, or, if you are more cynical, the appearance of such. Thi…

> In America, as has so often been proven, the system is rigged to prevent alternatives to the established parties. But the difference is that the parties in the US and the UK aren't very powerful in their own regard. Trump wasn't even a member of the republican party until very recently, and he won the nomination -- and Sanders forced Clinton very far to the left before dropping out. On the other hand, the leaders o…

> Sanders forced Clinton very far to the left

Not sure about it. Words are cheap.

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