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Saudi Arabia Agrees to Let Women Drive

nytimes.com

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Re: Saudi Arabia Agrees to Let Women Drive

#181

Post by whatshisface »

derefr wrote: post #151
mikestew wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it creates more problems than it solves It also strikes at the heart of what "citizen" means. See, here I thought just being a "citizen" was good enough to have the privilege to vote. But now I have to know how to read. Or name a policy. Or come up with the money to pay the poll tax. Or be a man. Or agree with you . No, the only requirement (in the U. S.) is to be a citizen and to be registered on the list of…

Why can't we just... force everyone to attain this "privilege", then? Like, you've already got a requirement in the US that everyone attend (public or private or home) school until they're ~16, right? So, what's wrong with requiring a civics curriculum as part of that, and then tying voting rights to a test of that civics curriculum? If people aren't passing, then they'd be temporarily disenfranchised, yes, but that'…

Wait a minute, if there's a segment of people that can't vote, then the politicians that win won't care about them and won't be very popular with them. Why would those politicians then turn right around and help the rouge votes enter the next election? They'd be motivated to keep them out.

Re: Saudi Arabia Agrees to Let Women Drive

#182

Post by Mz »

lucb1e wrote: post #85

Just today I had someone casually mention that he thought women should not be allowed to vote. This is the Netherlands, the person is Dutch, not muslim or some other culture that I might not be used to, we're master's students... nothing out of the ordinary. And the third person in the conversation apparently agreed, calling it bad to prohibit it in principle but "seeing the effects of allowing women to vote" he agre…

I just don't have words for this, it's so alien.

I think a lot of historical precedent for keeping women out of certain things is rooted in the reality that women are the weakest link: If you go to war and lose too many women, you cannot recover. It takes nine months to gestate a baby, no matter how many men she sleeps with. But, one man can potentially impregnate multiple women and your people are not doomed to extinction.

Those biological limitations drive a lot of social norms. But, many people don't really understand that. Instead, they kind of have certain instincts or habits or thought patterns, but they are divorced from the reasons the human race developed certain social norms.

We forget that women are the weakest biological link and conclude they are the weaker sex. And it goes bad places.

Sort of like a programming bug. You inject instructions without context into an environment they were not intended for and things go sideways.

That is probably not true in all cases. But, it is a framing that I find useful.

Re: Saudi Arabia Agrees to Let Women Drive

#183

Post by geofft »

averagewall wrote: post #127
Gormisdomai wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good joke, but please don't believe it's actually true. In application it's based on the false assumption that there are an equal amount of partisans on both sides.

Considering that neither major party consistently dominates in the US, I have a feeling they do cancel out. That, or the deciding-each-election voters apply pressure against any long-lasting incumbent.

They cancel out because the parties move towards the political positions that cause them to approach 50%.

I had this realization after meeting a political strategist through a mutual friend and having a conversation with him about what he does, and then I felt stupid for not having realized it before. His job is, at a high level, to find areas where polling indicates that his party's support in a particular election is a little under 50%, and then find ways to get a few more people to vote. If they reach 50% + epsilon, he's succeeded. If they reach significantly over 50%, that effort is wasted; you win an election equally well with 51% or 90% of the vote, so as long as you have 50% + a comfortable margin of error, you might as well spend your time trying to win other districts. And then, of course, the other party is trying to do same thing.

So a roughly 50/50 split in votes in a district, or in senators in Congress, or whatever, isn't indicative of an equal number of the voters being partisans of each party. You might have 10% partisans of one and 40% partisans of the other, which would cause the first party to run a centrist campaign/candidate to attract a lot of undecided voters and the second party to be willing to run a much less centrist/candidate.

Essentially, as long as you have two political parties, you're basically never going to lose the partisans (they certainly won't vote for the other party, and an extremist third party will always sound like a spoiler), so once you've settled on two major parties, they'll end up getting about 50% of the vote, even as their actual political positions move.

One way to avoid this problem would be to move to a non-first-past-the-post voting system, so a centrist third party (or one with orthogonal ideas) can successfully beat them both by attracting the non-partisans. Or, at the congressional level, move to a parliamentary system that requires forming coalition governments, which would enable something similar. But the US has neither of these.

Re: Saudi Arabia Agrees to Let Women Drive

#184

Post by jessaustin »

imron wrote: post #178
Khaine wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the Shah of Iran pushed a massive modernisation program [aka liberal agenda] to westernise Iran. The pushback from conservative elements was one of the driving forces of the revolution. The interference from western powers to prop up the Shah did not help matters. At least this was the impression I got from my time in Iran and visiting the tourist sites.

> The pushback from conservative elements was one of the driving forces of the revolution. The other driving force being the CIA.

I thought CIA installed the Shah? They didn't also depose him, did they? I mean I know they have always been really short-sighted about this sort of thing, but that would take the cake...

Re: Saudi Arabia Agrees to Let Women Drive

#185

Post by crispinb »

quattrofan wrote: post #42

I had to just check, yep it is the 21st century.

Saudi's polity is as modern (as '21st century' if you like) as that of the US. Wahhabism and the 'Western Enlightenment' were each 18C movements, distinctly 'modern'.

The notion that history is a linear, unidirectional & inevitable march of progress is highly contestable (to say the least).

Re: Saudi Arabia Agrees to Let Women Drive

#186

Post by wils1245 »

tynpeddler wrote: post #157
noobermin wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already had these, known as poll literacy tests. They were intended to weed out undesirable votes known to vote emotionally and irrationally. I hope the dark sarcasm isn't lost on readers of my comments.

Literacy tests are not what the person above you is talking about. Historically, literacy tests had nothing to do with literacy, they were exclusively for racist purposes, and to subjugate 'undesireables'. They were handed out at the (almost certainly racist) poller's discretion, and the tests themselves were worded so poorly that most of the questions had no single, correct answer. They were not real tests. Comparin…

"Any adult can vote" is the best rule. Any restriction, no matter how innocuous it sounds, can and will be abused to disenfranchise voting blocs those in power don't like.

Re: Saudi Arabia Agrees to Let Women Drive

#187

Post by InitialLastName »

derefr wrote: post #151
mikestew wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it creates more problems than it solves It also strikes at the heart of what "citizen" means. See, here I thought just being a "citizen" was good enough to have the privilege to vote. But now I have to know how to read. Or name a policy. Or come up with the money to pay the poll tax. Or be a man. Or agree with you . No, the only requirement (in the U. S.) is to be a citizen and to be registered on the list of…

Why can't we just... force everyone to attain this "privilege", then? Like, you've already got a requirement in the US that everyone attend (public or private or home) school until they're ~16, right? So, what's wrong with requiring a civics curriculum as part of that, and then tying voting rights to a test of that civics curriculum? If people aren't passing, then they'd be temporarily disenfranchised, yes, but that'…

The difference is that driving on public roads isn't a right, it's a privilege the state gives you when you've established N level of responsibility and competency (can afford insurance, has a working car, passes a driver's license test), so if you show yourself to fail that standard, it can be taken away.

On the other hand, we as a society have decided that citizens have a right to participate in our government through this selection mechanism. It thus needs to have a lower barrier of entry (over N age) and a higher barrier of exclusion (committed a felony).

Re: Saudi Arabia Agrees to Let Women Drive

#188

Post by in_cahoots »

geofft wrote: post #183
averagewall wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that neither major party consistently dominates in the US, I have a feeling they do cancel out. That, or the deciding-each-election voters apply pressure against any long-lasting incumbent.

They cancel out because the parties move towards the political positions that cause them to approach 50%. I had this realization after meeting a political strategist through a mutual friend and having a conversation with him about what he does, and then I felt stupid for not having realized it before. His job is, at a high level, to find areas where polling indicates that his party's support in a particular election…

Not sure if you’re familiar with Hotelling’s law, but you’ve basically described it here. I always like the beach shop analogy: if two vendors are selling beach chairs along a strip of sand, the optimum location is right next to each other in the middle of the strip. That way each vendor gets 50% of the customers.

Re: Saudi Arabia Agrees to Let Women Drive

#189

Post by mikeash »

dep_b wrote: post #159
mikeash wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not whataboutism, it's bringing up a similar sentiment in a different context and despairing about the attitude. A critical component of whataboutism is the part where you say "you are not in a position to criticize," which this person did not do.

> bringing up a similar sentiment Killing women by throwing rocks at them because they dishonored the family is totally in the same direction of thoughts as accusing women of voting with their hearts over rationalism. Please. I don't like conservatives either but it's an entirely different category of messed up we're talking about.

The subject here is women not being allowed to drive, which I submit is quite similar to women not being allowed to vote.

Re: Saudi Arabia Agrees to Let Women Drive

#190

Post by scott_karana »

lucaspiller wrote: post #70
ericfrenkiel wrote: post #43

::slow clap:: It is absolutely appalling that this type of backwardness is still a reality in the 21st century. The faster we can transition to clean, renewable energy, the better for everyone in the world.

Just wait until the 22nd century. People will wonder how crazy we were to allow humans full control of a two tonne chunk of steel, where a lapse of concentration for a few seconds could easily kill themselves and others. And let’s not even begin to think about it being propelled by controlled ignition of highly flammable fluids...

We don't look back harshly at steam trains. They did the best they could with what they had. (If anything, there's strong nostalgia!)

Why do you think petrol will be different? Electric is only marginally viable now, more than a century after internal combustion's invention.

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