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The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

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Re: The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

#261

Post by jessaustin »

lawpoop wrote: post #213
jneal wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with democracy is the people are easily influenced by false truths. I'm all for democracy, but I also realize that a well informed vote and an uninformed vote are equal and therein lies the problem. It's not really something that can be fixed within a true democracy.

Isn't that a problem with all forms of government? That the people in charge can be influenced by false truths?

When there are "people in charge", them being misinformed is the least of one's worries. The bigger problem is that they are very well informed about how their actions affect their own interests.

Re: The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

#262

Post by ojbyrne »

turar wrote: post #76
mc32 wrote: post #9

Isn't that expected? People who voted for the establishment status quo want to know what might happen in the years to come now that the vote has gone against them. Voting to stay meant no change, therefore they knew more or less the outcome, but now that the outcome is opposite their votes, they want to look into the repercussions --this informs that it's likely they stay vote didn't investigate the alternative befor…

This doesn't explain "What is the EU?" being the second ranked search query.

Easy explanation: all the other search queries for that phrase were spread over 2-3 months leading up to the vote.

Re: The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

#263

Post by davidf18 »

The BrExit vote was caused by the same problem that enables Trump (and Sanders) to win so many votes. The British Elites, like the Republic Elites are ignoring the pain caused to the working class through trade agreements and (in the case of BrExit) immigration from poorer parts of Europe. In different ways the EU integration put an additional burden on the already struggling British working class.

As a specific example, the immigrants, who came to the UK for jobs drove down wages for the working class with additional competition while at the same time putting a lot of pressure on budgets for the National Health System and social services.

The British Elites ignored the complaints of the working class while not even increasing the budgets for social services and the National Health Service proportionate to the additional demand caused by immigration.

It is this total lack of sensitivity of the British Elite to their fellow citizens that caused the BrExit.

Similarly, the "rise of Trump" is because Paul Ryan, the billionaire Wall Street hedge fund owners, and other Republic Elites have totally ignored the feeling of the working class. They have created trade policies which have "exported" American factory jobs while at the same time wanting to cut the social services that workers need precisely because of policies of elites (Republic and Democratic) to export their working class jobs.

For example, when Carrier air conditioners closed their Indiana factory and exported the jobs to Mexico, it was only Trump that complained repeatedly. Not Paul Ryan, Not billionaire Paul Singer, not Cruz, not Jeb Bush, not Rubio. The total cluelessness of the Republic Elite is why Trump won the nomination.

The rise of Sanders is because the Democratic elite refused to listen to among others, the young, for whom the cost of education has increased significantly and who are unable to buy homes, etc, because of rising student debt.

In the cases of the British Elites, the Republic and Democratic Elites, they all appear to care more for "The City" and Wall Street Bankers than they do working class citizens and the young who are attempting to start their lives as their parents had.

Re: The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

#264

Post by dv_dt »

netcan wrote: post #82

I'm strangely moved by this whole thing. It's a pretty decent status check on where we are with democracy ATM. I'm not against democracy, but I do think we need to pay attention to what it can & can't do. On one hand, this has been a model of democracy. A primary election agenda and referendum. The phrasing of the question was simple, clear and unbiased. The "will of the people" won over the will of the ruling struct…

It's pie in the sky, but I'm interested in the idea of "immediate delegation representative voting" (that's a phrase I just made up because I don't know if it has a formal name). How it would work would be that you still have your default elected representative for most issues, but on a per-vote basis, a citizen could override the default and designate an alternate representative for that vote, including themselves.

So if a citizen felt that a particular person was a better expert on an issue then their representative - they could designate that person to study the bill/policy in depth and cast their vote.

One effect here is that if multiple citizens delegate the same people, then those delegates could spend more time studying the issue than an individual voter. Another effect is that we might get representatives for issues (other than our normal political reps) who would collect voting blocks which could bypass the normal political lobby money path.

As with many human endeavours, it might turn out to be an even bigger circus, but being able to selectively bypass one default representative has the nice potential of short circuiting the pattern of currying favors with entrenched politicians. The approach is sort of a hybrid of direct representation while still allowing 'expertise' to come into the system.

Re: The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

#266

Post by UK-AL »

ohitsdom wrote: post #238
TearsInTheRain wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely dishonest and dismissive to say that xenophobia is the main reason they want to leave, and that attitude is what pushed people to vote leave

> that attitude is what pushed people to vote leave People thinking that the Leave camp was xenophobic pushed Britains to vote Leave?

Establishment people assuming this was the reason.

Re: The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

#267

Post by semi-extrinsic »

chirau wrote: post #187
cjjuice wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plato was always cautious of Democracy. If you are interested I would recommend give his "Republic" a read.

In it is suggested a form of government called epistocracy. It has a lot of merit in my opinion. The basic principle is 'rule of the knowers'. We elect knowledgeable people into power and let them make decisions. We don't vote on what medication a sick child should get, why should we vote on what remedy a sick economy needs? Let the knowledgeable that we have chosen make the prescription.

You also have Heinlein's concept from Starship Troopers: only those who have committed a year of their life to serving the common good for no pay (food and accomodation covered) earn the right to vote. If that "public service" was of non military nature (unlike in Starship Troopers), I think it would be an interesting system.

On the opposite end of the scale is the concept of Demarchy, found in several SciFis, where there are no elected politicians, and technology enables everyone to vote on everything constantly.

Re: The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

#268

Post by partiallypro »

dharma1 wrote: post #204
Inthenameofmine wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We haven't figured this shit out yet. Kings anyone? How about the best wrestler gets to be in charge? ideas? As a Swiss citizen, I think the swiss system is very close to perfect in this regard. Sure, emotional and stupid arguments sometimes prevail, but most of the time the people make the perfect decision. Public discourse is most often also very rational, more so than most world parliaments. Irrational arguments…

The UK is a much more divided society than Switzerland, in terms of the base level of income and education. The median income in Switzerland is double that of the UK. Education is harder to compare, but you can't really expect the same level of discourse

It's also very hard for a poorer or even middle class immigrant to move to a place like Switzerland because the cost of living is so high. This creates an environment of unanimity you wouldn't see in more diverse cultures like the U.S. or the U.K. I think that's largely why Switzerland and the Scandinavian states get accolades from U.S. politicians (not as much division.) But they don't seem to get that the cultures are no where near as diverse and thus the politics are not anywhere near as divisive.

That's not a criticism of diverse cultures, more of states living in relative unanimity being in a bubble.

Re: The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

#269

Post by znpy »

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #205
netcan wrote: post #82

I'm strangely moved by this whole thing. It's a pretty decent status check on where we are with democracy ATM. I'm not against democracy, but I do think we need to pay attention to what it can & can't do. On one hand, this has been a model of democracy. A primary election agenda and referendum. The phrasing of the question was simple, clear and unbiased. The "will of the people" won over the will of the ruling struct…

My favored election procedure works like this: Every citizen takes a standardized test when they reach the age of majority, preferably Raven's matrices. This test would be used for scholastic and career purposes, aside from government. A representative body of 150 people is randomly selected from those in the top 0.1 percent every N years. The IQ test filters for intelligence, obviously. Random sampling serves as an…

This is so wrong on so many levels.

1. IQ test has been shown not to represent actual "intelligence"

2. Intelligence does not mean justice, fairness or anything else.

3. Conflict of interest. What if the so called "most intelligent" people have some interest in the voting?

4. Trainning. I'm pretty sure anyone could end up in resulting a genius by trainning on problem sets for IQ tests.

5. Being smart doesn't automatically make you a good people. Smart and asshole are not mutually exclusive.

Re: The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

#270

Post by MrZongle2 »

Odd, how in some close elections if the result is aligned what the media and the establishment want, "the people have spoken" and grandiose words are spoken about the power of democracy.

And yet when the election is close but the result runs counter to what those in power want....suddenly we have hand-wringing over misleading campaigns, "uninformed voters", the perils of democracy, etc. etc.

Like clockwork.

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