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The strange case of Britain’s demise

economist.com

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Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#401

Post by roenxi »

nonethewiser wrote: post #392
fader wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, yes -- I have significantly smaller gas and electric bills despite being in a larger house in a colder climate as a result of better construction and insulation and more energy-efficient appliances. I also moved to a city where I can walk or bike for daily tasks so I fill up my (more fuel-efficient) car's gas tank about a quarter as often. I'm not claiming this is the case generally across the UK -- I'm i…

> . I also moved to a city where I can walk or bike for daily tasks so I fill up my (more fuel-efficient) car's gas tank about a quarter as often. That's not an efficiency gain though, which is to his point.

I want to say - I did consider that as a counterargument but it is too weak. Moving closer to where your daily tasks take place is a reasonable way to make a lifestyle more energy efficient. It isn't necessarily a step down (why should we want to spend time in cars anyway?). It is potentially scaleable too, there are lots of examples of cities where people get packed in very tightly.

The issue is more that, while fader has demonstrated that they use less energy for heating and transport, they haven't actually demonstrated that they use less energy - what happened to the energy not going to those highlighted examples?

The key observation behind Jevons' paradox is that there is no reason for the aggregate energy production to go down just because some way of using energy gets more efficient. Since the payoff for the same amount of energy is higher, there is no economic incentive to produce less. Quite the opposite. Nothing in this example sits in contradiction to that, so there isn't a need to try and poke holes in a reasonable example of someone making their personal life more energy efficient to make the basic argument work. Plus there is the obvious practical evidence that economies only use less energy when there is an energy shortage, it is nigh impossible to find counterexamples that end well. The UK polity isn't acting like they have abundant free energy to play with.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#402

Post by stubish »

roenxi wrote: post #373
fader wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in 1965 the UK was roughly 200% the European average for per capita energy consumption. Now it is ~75% of the same. It has dropped in absolute terms too (dropped to ~75% of the 1965 figure)... > It looks a lot like an energy poor country. I'm not sure that follows. Couldn't you also say "it looks a lot like an energy efficient country"? The Core i7 in my laptop uses a fraction of the energy of the Pentium III in a…

Do you reckon you have reduced your energy substantially since the 2000s? With no lifestyle compromises? A 25% drop is a lot more than a Pentium. They're poor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox#History covers most of the actual argument (and evidence) on why energy efficiency doesn't work that way. In an energy-rich environment the efficiency gains would go in to charging phones and tablets, or running ext…

Double or triple glazing, insulation, mandatory energy efficient building codes, fuel efficiency standards, energy efficient light bulbs.... 25% reduction is certainly plausible. I'm surprised it isn't more, but I guess some industries remain high consumers. The lifestyle compromise is more expensive buildings, which hurts at least in the short term.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#403

Post by kristianc »

dignick wrote: post #145

Like in the US, democracy in the United Kingdom is faltering. Our first past the post electoral system means the Tories can retain power with a third of the (active) electorate voting for them. Labour believes first past the post serves them well, but it doesn’t, because they would have been leading a coalition government in the last several elections under Proportional Representation. Instead it requires Labour to b…

How would Starmer needing to accommodate for instance, the Lib Dems on every position, be an improvement on this? Take the issue of housing policy for instance. Britain urgently needs more houses, but the Lib Dems turn up at every local election and by-election on a NIMBY platform.

The same for building new energy infrastructure- the Lib Dems famously blocked the building of new nuclear plants ‘because they wouldn’t be online until 2021/22’. The evidence of the Coalitions we’ve had is that they overall lead to pretty terrible decision making, and indecisive government on the whole.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#404

Post by Animats »

Adverblessly wrote: post #260
dignick wrote: post #145

Like in the US, democracy in the United Kingdom is faltering. Our first past the post electoral system means the Tories can retain power with a third of the (active) electorate voting for them. Labour believes first past the post serves them well, but it doesn’t, because they would have been leading a coalition government in the last several elections under Proportional Representation. Instead it requires Labour to b…

Here in Israel with proportional representation, every small party has outsized power since every one of them has enough power to vote down the current government by joining hands with the opposition. As a result, decisions that are undesirable by the majority are consistently made. We are currently after an election but before forming a new government and as part of the coalition negotiations the upcoming government…

> Here in Israel with proportional representation, every small party has outsized power since every one of them has enough power to vote down the current government by joining hands with the opposition.

Now Benjamin Netanyahu is soon to be back in power. He's generally acknowledged to be a crook, but nobody else seems to be able to assemble a governing coalition. He's already been Prime Minister for 15 years.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#405

Post by ruggeri »

csomar wrote: post #400
dignick wrote: post #145

Like in the US, democracy in the United Kingdom is faltering. Our first past the post electoral system means the Tories can retain power with a third of the (active) electorate voting for them. Labour believes first past the post serves them well, but it doesn’t, because they would have been leading a coalition government in the last several elections under Proportional Representation. Instead it requires Labour to b…

This was Germany's case for Tunisia's democracy. Tunisia ended up implementing a Proportional Representation system and I believe it's a good and well balanced system. On Paper. Well, democracy in Tunisia imploded and exploded. So, yeah, be careful of things that look good on paper.

Honest question: did Germany have any say in Tunisia's voting system? Wasn't Tunisia a French protectorate? Do you mean more recently than 1956?

In any case, Tunisia is not the only country with PR. It's used a lot of places, including Germany (well, MMP, but pretty similar). Like any system it has advantages and disadvantages, but democracy in the Nordics hasn't imploded nor exploded...

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#406

Post by rconti »

mjfl wrote: post #224
webmobdev wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like in the US, democracy in the United Kingdom is faltering. This is unfortunately not unique. India too has seen the rise of the right, and its democracy threatened and at a perilous stage. Many other countries have seen the rise of the right too. However, I feel this is a political pattern that can be observed historically and generationally, where the political spectrum switch between extremes of left and right…

"democracy is under threat when people I don't like are democratically elected." Is it invisible to you how such statements are, themselves, bad for democracy?

"democracy is under threat when people ~I don't like~ who advocate the overturn of democracy are elected"

FTFY.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#407

Post by raincom »

monero-xmr wrote: post #387
TapWaterBandit wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ireland's prosperity is built on a house of cards to do with low corporation taxes. I wouldn't be surprised if Ireland faces serious economic challenges and maybe even decline in coming years as governments are getting increasingly serious about not allowing corporations to only register profits in overseas jurisdictions with low tax rates.

Why is low corporate taxes a bad thing? I want countries to compete on efficient government and low taxes. Otherwise it’s an endless cycle of stealing from private enterprise until there is nothing left.

Low corporate taxes on profits made NOT in Ireland--a special name for it: The double Irish Dutch sandwich

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#408

Post by rayiner »

chimeracoder wrote: post #316
VK538FY wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your point. 'First past the post' may not be ideal for your country. For other countries, it is appreciated despite its inconveniences. Example: Québec. We inherited 'first past the post' from England. The results are obvious: small parties with significant numbers of voters in many ridings don't end up in parliament. But Québec is a rural province with only one city worthy of the name, Montréal, almost…

> But Québec is a rural province with only one city worthy of the name, Montréal, almost half the population of the province. That city has a demography very different to the rest of the province. In a proportional system, the will of the big city would simply sweep away the rural regions that don't have the same weight. People have learnt to accept 'first past the post' and any change would upset the balance that ex…

“Democracy” isn’t a unidimensional system. It’s a balance of many competing concerns. In particular, a key variable is not merely who wins the majority, but who votes. It wouldn’t placate Ukranians to say that if they became part of Russia, their vote would count just as much as a Russian’s. Simply winning 50%+1 isn’t sufficient. People must be willing to be bound into a body politic with other people to begin with.

Different voting mechanisms, along with federal systems, are a way of balancing those competing concerns. They allow you to form a larger body politic that would not necessarily be willing to be bound together in a simple “majority rules” system.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#409

Post by csomar »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #335
sega_sai wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but I call BS on this. You claimed a specific figure 3x. I'm not claiming things are particularly great in Edinburgh, but people on the council's waiting list are not necessarily homeless.

Okay, good. Call BS on your own inability to find answers for yourself. Congrats, you have won. I did not say everyone on the council waiting list was homeless. I have no idea why you think this because it isn't anything that I said.

You literally said it's x3 the homelessness. Also, there is a world of difference between being a real SF homeless in the streets; and being B&Bed temporarily by the government in Edinburgh.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#410

Post by aswanson »

Animats wrote: post #404
Adverblessly wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Israel with proportional representation, every small party has outsized power since every one of them has enough power to vote down the current government by joining hands with the opposition. As a result, decisions that are undesirable by the majority are consistently made. We are currently after an election but before forming a new government and as part of the coalition negotiations the upcoming government…

> Here in Israel with proportional representation, every small party has outsized power since every one of them has enough power to vote down the current government by joining hands with the opposition. Now Benjamin Netanyahu is soon to be back in power. He's generally acknowledged to be a crook, but nobody else seems to be able to assemble a governing coalition. He's already been Prime Minister for 15 years.

Yeah, that guy has been around since forever. The only one I can think of that's been in power longer is putin.
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