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Building a Functional One-Party Democracy (2019)

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Re: Building a Functional One-Party Democracy (2019)

#41

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

johnnycerberus wrote: post #30
atoav wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a european perspective I find the current state the US is in vastly more dystopian than Japan. As of now I'd rather live in Japan than the US.

Why would you give up on freedom and live in a society as rigid (not in a derogatory sense) as Japan's? I'm also European, but I would rather live in US than in Japan. I believe opinions on US differ in Europe, you should have said that it's your personal opinion, if you dislike US that doesn't mean that it has any correlation with the fact thay you are European.

> Why would you give up on freedom

Not OP, but I would guess the simplest formula is to total up (Heath care - gun violence). i.e. the more likely you are to have health care for whatever happens to you, and the less likely you are to get shot, the better.

I agree with William Gibson: "People who feel safer with a gun than with guaranteed medical insurance don't yet have a fully adult concept of scary." - https://twitter.com/greatdismal/status/385249887891111936

It's a case of what exactly you view as "Freedom". Are medical bankruptcies freedom?

YMMV, you are welcome to choose otherwise. But I put it to you that this costs vs. benefits is a valid, consistent and informed point of view. If you're asking "Why would you?", then that's why.

Re: Building a Functional One-Party Democracy (2019)

#42

Post by barry-cotter »

rualca wrote: post #19
barry-cotter wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please expand. Japan is much, much poorer. The work environment is awful in at least two different ways, dualisation and insane levels of presenteeism. It’s quite sexist by European or US standards. What makes Japan look good?

The US's appalling lack of basic social safety nets, specially regarding healthcare, coupled with its poverty rate (over twice of Brazil's) and violence epidemic don't make it a shining beacon of a functioning society. Just because STEM graduates in the US can aspire to live in a comfort bubble due to their access to a cushy job, that does not make it an example of a well-functioning society by no means. It makes abs…

> It makes absolutely no sense to claim that a country has a well-functioning society if it happens to have a hand full of ultra-rich billionaires while the whole population suffers to barely make ends meet, let alone have a shot at a decent life.

The US is much, much richer than any remotely comparable entity. Americans do not live the lives of grinding poverty you imagine. The only country or region that consumes more per household is Hong Kong[1]. A comfortable life in the US is available to much, much more of the population than STEM graduates as well.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_household...

Re: Building a Functional One-Party Democracy (2019)

#44

Post by zhdc1 »

School-Cotton wrote: post #38
luckylion wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The percentage of people who're not in a political party in Japan is 94.4%, with the closest European countries being Denmark (94.7%) and Germany (93.5%). The US is the country with the lowest percentage of non-party members at 49.9%. I think it's pretty clear who's the odd one out here. It feels like they're comparing different things though. In the US, they use voter registration / party identification as "member…

The US is the only country I know of where you’re asked if you want to register as a member of whatever party you like, for free, when registering to vote. Indeed, it’s meaningless to compare party “membership” in the US to being a real, card-carrying, dues-paying member of an organization in another country.

Voting patterns in the states are very polarised by party membership, so I don't know if the comparison is completely ill warranted.

European parties can probably count on a higher level of active participation, but when it comes time to vote or donate, party membership definitely matters.

Re: Building a Functional One-Party Democracy (2019)

#45

Post by zhdc1 »

atoav wrote: post #7
keenreed wrote: post #2

I read statistics where 40% of young people do not start family, do not date, and basically withdraw from society. In interviews they blame it on long working hours and rigid rules in society in general. So maybe there is no conflict, but it is hardly functional.

From a european perspective I find the current state the US is in vastly more dystopian than Japan. As of now I'd rather live in Japan than the US.

These sort of comparisons should always be crouched in specifics. The US is a country, while Europe is either a continent or an intranational union, depending on what you're talking about.

Would the average person rather live in, say, Belarus or Nebraska?

Re: Building a Functional One-Party Democracy (2019)

#46

Post by mbg721 »

zhdc1 wrote: post #44
School-Cotton wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is the only country I know of where you’re asked if you want to register as a member of whatever party you like, for free, when registering to vote. Indeed, it’s meaningless to compare party “membership” in the US to being a real, card-carrying, dues-paying member of an organization in another country.

Voting patterns in the states are very polarised by party membership, so I don't know if the comparison is completely ill warranted. European parties can probably count on a higher level of active participation, but when it comes time to vote or donate, party membership definitely matters.

They are, but party membership in the US is mostly a proxy for taking a side in an already-hyper-polarized culture war. You could ask a couple of leading questions and figure out how somebody is going to vote, even without party affiliation.

Re: Building a Functional One-Party Democracy (2019)

#47

Post by omegabravo »

Iv wrote: post #39
donw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, absolutely. It does prompt the question: what education systems do you favor?

I have been disappointed by both the French and Japanese education. I'd love to give Montessori and Freinet style of education a try. But I find it weird that education can't reinvent itself radically. The system we have was based around a scarcity of books and a need for the production of standardized workers. I suspect the education system's main constraint is not the needs of kids but the possibility/will of the c…

The education system is a complex organisation. Having the will to change means little if everyone wants to change differently.

Education reinventing itself radically needs a goal. The current (public) system has evolved to be frugal, which is a real consideration.

Re: Building a Functional One-Party Democracy (2019)

#48

Post by notahacker »

bildung wrote: post #37
yorwba wrote: post #28

> Japanese politics is different from US politics. And not in the quirky, hand-wagging way that European politics is different. Japanese politics is not US politics expressed using a different idiom, but rather a world of its own. I'm surprised by the implication that the authors think European politics is US politics expressed using a different idiom. There's not even such a thing as a single "European politics". Ju…

> I'm surprised by the implication that the authors think European politics is US politics expressed using a different idiom. I think they meant another dimension than you. I've looked into the underlying value systems in the US and Germany as part of my phd, and the underlying moral frameworks are essentially identical: there are two basic ideas of how a society should look like (the progressive and the conservative…

There are plenty of exceptions to that dualism in Europe though (coexistence of social conservatism with strong ideological commitments to extending social protections and state involvement in industry in many significant European political parties and arguably even more widespread in public sentiment in many European countries) which are relatively rare in US politics.

Re: Building a Functional One-Party Democracy (2019)

#49

Post by mbg721 »

bildung wrote: post #37
yorwba wrote: post #28

> Japanese politics is different from US politics. And not in the quirky, hand-wagging way that European politics is different. Japanese politics is not US politics expressed using a different idiom, but rather a world of its own. I'm surprised by the implication that the authors think European politics is US politics expressed using a different idiom. There's not even such a thing as a single "European politics". Ju…

> I'm surprised by the implication that the authors think European politics is US politics expressed using a different idiom. I think they meant another dimension than you. I've looked into the underlying value systems in the US and Germany as part of my phd, and the underlying moral frameworks are essentially identical: there are two basic ideas of how a society should look like (the progressive and the conservative…

But US politicians are perfectly willing to discard big chunks of those frameworks, and their voters are happy to look the other way. Which party's ticket was the author of the Crime Bill and a prosecuting attorney??

Re: Building a Functional One-Party Democracy (2019)

#50

Post by bildung »

mbg721 wrote: post #49
bildung wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm surprised by the implication that the authors think European politics is US politics expressed using a different idiom. I think they meant another dimension than you. I've looked into the underlying value systems in the US and Germany as part of my phd, and the underlying moral frameworks are essentially identical: there are two basic ideas of how a society should look like (the progressive and the conservative…

But US politicians are perfectly willing to discard big chunks of those frameworks, and their voters are happy to look the other way. Which party's ticket was the author of the Crime Bill and a prosecuting attorney??

Indeed (and quite similar in Germany). They are the moral basis from which this very fact gets criticized, though.
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