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

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

#321

Post by ozborn » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 4:40 PM UTC

katpas wrote: post #66

One of the original suggested referendum questions was "Do you think that the United Kingdom should be a member of the European Union?" It was rejected in favour of "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of European Union" because "some participants in our research did not know that the United Kingdom is currently a member of the European Union."* If that wasn't evidence the referendum was a bad idea... * http://…

That's not evidence in my book.

If you check the history of the European Union (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_European_Union) it is history of various agreements between an ever-changing set of member states. Eventually (1992) there is the Maastricht Treaty that creates called the European Union, but that has been amended various times. To complicate things there is also the European Economic Community (renamed to European Community) and member states are in/out of various important provisions of European governance such as the Euro or the Schengen Agreement (like the UK and Ireland). The Schengen Agreement I believe includes even some non-EU members.

So people googling for "What is the EU" isn't proof of stupidity in my book. They may haven been familiar with critical elements of the EU (which were the deciding factors for their vote) but want to understand the full implications of this historic vote.

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

#322

Post by jstimpfle » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 4:40 PM UTC

aidos wrote: post #222

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…

So I was thinking today, we could weight the votes by life expectancy. The fewer years left in your life, the less your vote counts. In this case I wouldn't have to go home and explain to my children why it is that they probably won't be allowed to go and live in Europe for a bit when they hit their 20s anymore.

That would be a pretty one-sided weighting. And it penalizes not only age but education and "wisdom" (assuming these are correlated).

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

#323

Post by mladenkovacevic » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 4:40 PM UTC

In my jumbled mess of thoughts this is a rough list of priorities that should be addressed at before democracy can work in a "more perfect way" and can't be misused by the power-hungry elites or the disgruntled masses led by dangerous clowns:

1) Wealth Inequality brought on by unfair access to opportunity (This one item needs its own list of priorities in order to be figured out... Basic income? Better social support in the form of jobs, education, health? Fair legal treatment?.. too long to list here)

2) An uninformed populace (Removal of "personalities" from politics. Maybe even a shift from voting for people but rather for issues. Engage people in political life often, not just when elections roll around. A more responsible media landscape - Less Kardashians and much less opinion or propaganda journalism.)

3) Get money out of politics or at least enforce mandatory transparency of financial influence in politics

4) Ability to delegate your voting power to someone you trust (it could be a group or an individual). If you're on social assistance and your priority is to survive, you might not have time to be informed about every single issue. You could however empower an individual, association, union or another entity that you feel represents your interests to vote on your behalf).

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

#324

Post by Inthenameofmine » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 4:41 PM UTC

gshulegaard wrote: post #258

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…

As a Californian, I am genuinely curious what you think is the problem with California at the moment?

In Switzerland referenda are a very institutionalized and regular decision making tool. It is mostly used to get rid of political gridlock and making sure special interests don't filter out the will of the people (director proposal). That, combined with the fact that in Switzerland there is no real parliamentary "opposition" (everybody voted in forms the government) turns the whole game into a problem solving process rather than political one-up-man ship. You essentially don't need an opposition anymore to keep politicians in check, that's what the people are for.

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

#325

Post by Spooky23 » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 4:41 PM UTC

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…

I think it's too easy to get lost in the details.

Look at the map. London wanted in. Scotland wanted in. The rest of the country is dissatisfied with their state and want out. Look at the US map and you see similar things.

You can call the populace stupid and ignorant, but by doing so you're displaying your own form of ignorance. Lots of facts and figures and economic models can be used to say that everything is just peachy, but the ground truth tells a different story.

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

#326

Post by gh-lfneu28 » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 4:42 PM UTC

boundlessdreamz wrote: post #243

rayiner wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy is fine. The intellectual class just needs to learn to respect it. There is pretty much nothing that deserves to be decided by the will of the people--their values, their emotions, their world views--than the question of "what body politic do I want to belong to?" The deep irony of the anti-Brexit narrative is that the same people would froth at the mouth if you said "India would've been better off economic…

I know the point you are trying to make but India wouldn't have been better off economically under British Empire. British decimated the Indian economy http://www.thehindu.com/2005/07/10/stories/2005071002301000.... As the painstaking statistical work of the Cambridge historian Angus Maddison has shown, India's share of world income collapsed from 22.6 per cent in 1700, almost equal to Europe's share of 23.3 per cent…

Except that Angus Maddison's estimates are a wild speculation based on hand-waved assumptions and 'extrapolated' data.

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

#327

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 4:42 PM UTC

Chathamization wrote: post #317

boundlessdreamz wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the point you are trying to make but India wouldn't have been better off economically under British Empire. British decimated the Indian economy http://www.thehindu.com/2005/07/10/stories/2005071002301000.... As the painstaking statistical work of the Cambridge historian Angus Maddison has shown, India's share of world income collapsed from 22.6 per cent in 1700, almost equal to Europe's share of 23.3 per cent…

> India's share of world income collapsed from 22.6 per cent in 1700, almost equal to Europe's share of 23.3 per cent at that time, to as low as 3.8 per cent in 1952. Not sure how useful this statistic is - it's including the collapse of the Mughal Empire in the early 1700's. British company rule is usually dated around the mid-1700's, with the British Raj starting in the mid-1800's. We're also looking at percentage…

[deleted]

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

#328

Post by fnovd » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 4:42 PM UTC

lichform wrote: post #224

Dr_tldr wrote: post #162

As someone with no dog in this fight, I have to say that many of the pro-stay comments here are dismissive, arrogant, and the epitome of hand-waving "we know best and everyone who disagrees with us is stupid or evil." It's an ugly and insular attitude that is itself usually a sign of ignorance of the other side's arguments and motivations. As a dev, I find it hard to believe that someone who can be so easily blinkere…

The disdain and disgust impressed on the elderly in this issue in particular is distressing. Seeing people advocate for selective voting or implying that the younger persons' views are worth more because of their older countrymen's vicinity to expiration is personally upsetting as a self-loathing Millenial.

What if your government voted for a lifetime stipend of $10000/month for everyone over 65, to be paid for by higher taxes on renters, students, and earners?

I think there is a breaking point where it is unacceptable to support the wants of an aging population over the future of the young, even by majority vote. However, I don't think the Brexit falls into that category.

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

#329

Post by arcticbull » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 4:42 PM UTC

meric wrote: post #210

mikeash wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a big chunk of Americans almost want it to be a police state, so they have something to fight against. It makes me think of Sam Altman's recent article about Trump. He said he was taking some risk by writing that, and some commenters here praised his bravery in taking a public stand on this. It's ridiculous. Bravery would be a prominent techie taking a stand for Trump. He's not going to suffer any consequence…

I got some really bad looks in my office building when some people overheard me telling a colleague I rather Clinton lose than Trump lose, due to her preference for fighting wars. One person looked at me like if they could kill me, he would, like I was some enemy. A lot of anti-Trump people accuse Trump supporters of bigotry and exclusion, but I think that's projection on their part. No, I don't feel comfortable writ…

That depends which part, after all Trump would be fine detonating a nuclear warhead in Europe because 'it's a big place.' So probably not for Europe ;)

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

#330

Post by thomasahle » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 4:42 PM UTC

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.

We basically already have this. During the economic crisis, there wasn't a lot of voting on how to save the banks. It's interesting whether brexit and trump will really have that much of an effect, or if we are already mostly living in a technocracy.

England also has the house of lords.