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Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

theregister.com

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Re: Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

#221

Post by iso1631 »

tuco86 wrote: post #136
kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, completely giving up is definitely the better option. /s

I mean, i go through the motions of voting. but i'm voting against an overwhelming amount of feelings-voters that are easily manipulated. i don't think it makes much difference anymore. If i wasn't busy, local politics is where one could make a difference. Nation politics seems completely captured by now.

Local politics is broadly objecting to planning permission and decide what potholes to spend the tiny amount of discretionary budget on, as the vast majority of council tax goes to paying for care for elderly home owners

Re: Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

#223

Post by RobotToaster »

_puk wrote: post #74
IndySun wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was virtually 50/50 and should not have proceeded. The bar to leave was set too low. 2/3rd better, and larger turnout should have been mandated. 16 year olds should have voted. The campaign to stay too weak. Mass confusion. Some particularly pernicious lies on the leave side too convincing. Brexit wasn't 100% going to happen, it was more like... Leave 17,410,742 51.89% Remain 16,141,241 48.11%

The failing was the one and done nature of it all. The vote should have been, should we entertain this idea? If yes, a second referendum on what Leave actually means when it comes to the final decision point. Y'know the same way that any remotely functioning democracy would approach something this large and nebulous. Iceland being just the most recent example. Instead the vote was "life carries on as is" vs "somethin…

My understanding is they considered a vote on the type of brexit, but were pretty convinced the public would vote for a hard brexit that no one in the regime wanted.

Re: Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

#224

Post by arjie »

tim333 wrote: post #134
lazide wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, the ‘beauty’ of democracy is it is allowed to screw itself as hard as it wants.

But usually change it's mind later. One vote for life is more 1933 Germany.

Britons may choose to change their minds but this is not a single party decision. The EU will likely not readmit them on the same terms and the UK is not nearly as powerful or relevant to European interests as it once was.

As a safe far away island, the UK has much more use in a captive alliance to defend a threatened continent than it is as a participant in Europe that gets special exemptions. And Europe already has them for that.

Re: Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

#225

Post by RobotToaster »

armchairhacker wrote: post #59
HPsquared wrote: post #15

Generally speaking the more important an issue is, the less it is allowed to be affected by democratic processes. That's why Brexit was such a big upset, it bucked the trend (the management miscalculated, nobody expected the result and would not have put it to referendum otherwise).

"Democracy is the worst form of government except for all others that have been tried". If the people aren't capable of handling an issue, who is? Bureaucrats who are...elected democratically? Brexit's issue is that it can't be easily reversed, I don't understand why they don't just hold another referendum and undo everything.

> I don't understand why they don't just hold another referendum and undo everything.

If it came back with a similar slim majority to rejoin, would the EU even want us given the very high chance of us leaving again?

Re: Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

#226

Post by DrBazza »

basisword wrote: post #215
DrBazza wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you're dismissive of an entire generation by calling them 'old farts', I'm not sure I can take you 'better informed 16 years old' argument seriously.

Re-read the sentence. It wasn't referring to an entire generation.

That’s doesn’t make it better. You’re still rude and dismissive of part of an age group simply because their views and opinions differ to yours.

Re: Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

#227

Post by arjie »

teamonkey wrote: post #131
IndySun wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was virtually 50/50 and should not have proceeded. The bar to leave was set too low. 2/3rd better, and larger turnout should have been mandated. 16 year olds should have voted. The campaign to stay too weak. Mass confusion. Some particularly pernicious lies on the leave side too convincing. Brexit wasn't 100% going to happen, it was more like... Leave 17,410,742 51.89% Remain 16,141,241 48.11%

Turnout was about 72%, so really it was (approx) Leave 37%, Remain 35%, Don’t Know/Care 28%. Also worth pointing out that the hard Brexit we got, where we left Schengen and abandoned much of our cross-European programmes, was almost unthinkable, and not seriously considered by the media. Whenever it was brought up, it was decried as “project fear” by those who pushed for it.

I don’t think the UK was ever in Schengen (at least as far as my visa was concerned). That is one bright spot here. Traveling to the UK is much easier than travel to Europe for much of the world. The UK allows for paying for QoS so you can pay a large fee and get a visa soon or a much smaller fee and get one in two weeks. By comparison, Schengen visas from all participants are granted equitably by fee and the wait time is months.

Re: Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

#228

Post by arjie »

semiquaver wrote: post #170

If this is true and it doesn’t lead to legal changes eventually, then in what sense is Britain a democracy?

In the sense that direction and magnitude are two things of separate importance to most, and any system must account for both. An opinion you express only when asked is far less important than an opinion you express unasked. It’s the latter that dominates interpersonal coordination.

Re: Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

#229

Post by DrBazza »

gjm11 wrote: post #209
DrBazza wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there is symmetry. Based on the original comment of wanting a clear majority to 'leave', knowing the result now and the polling at the time, that would have ensured the status quo would continue, and I'm guessing there, that the parent commenter voted remain. A leave voter would argue for exactly the same thing - a clear majority need to vote to remain. If a majority vote isn't a majority vote, what's the point…

> A leave voter would argue for exactly the same thing - a clear majority need to vote to remain. But that's exactly what I'm saying is importantly not symmetrical. Making major changes has extra costs beyond the advantages and disadvantages of being in one state or another. There is a symmetry here, one you remarked on earlier, but it maps the Brexit referendum not to itself with roles reversed but to earlier EU-rel…

The definition of major is completely subjective. Adopting the Euro if the UK remained is major. What was a ‘major’ change when leaving? Everything has been mitigated by slow change. Euro migration was overnight in 1999 (I worked on it) that was major. And if that went to a referendum should be 60-40? What happens if it were 59.9-40.1 ?

Re: Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

#230

Post by mdp2021 »

Inconsistent with the implicit acceptance of age verification laws (forbidding YouTube to minors, may Diderot and D'Alembert and all the democratizers of knowledge raise from their graves and sneer and taunt). Or was there a large turomoil against keir starmer that did not properly reach the news?
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