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The gathering crisis in the UK

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Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#51

Post by stickfigure »

Victerius wrote: post #14
reb wrote: post #4

It’s eerie how similar the issues facing western nations are and how intractable the disagreements over solutions have become. Desperate balkanization coming for many, I think.

Or an opportunity for a powerful figure to take power by force and rule over all. I'm not for dictatorships, but we already have too many countries in the world. And provinces and states within these countries. Too many little fiefdoms. Too many wannabe lords. Too many presidents, premiers, prime ministers, governors, chancellors, kings, emperors. Too many parliaments, congresses, too many senators, deputies, represe…

Was this translated from original Russian? Honestly, it really does sound like you're for dictatorships.

I think all that diversity - sure, even competing bases on the Moon - is the sign of a healthy society. Monoculture is much more perilous. Centralization gives you NASA, market chaos gives you SpaceX.

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#52

Post by willyt »

seibelj wrote: post #7

Green energy (except nuclear) is inefficient, expensive, irregular, and the money for it goes straight to China and developing nations who mine the rare earth elements. Even Germany finally backed off from de-commissioning their last nuclear plants as the Greens realized it was illogical. Need to remove red tape, stop controlling prices, de-regulate business, establish free trade agreements, and do all manner of thin…

What is 'red tape' though? No-one ever defines what red tape they would remove.

Also, surely the problem at the moment is that energy prices are controlled by series of regional monopoly energy providers, the only thing stopping them from putting bills up astronomically is price controls. If you removed the regulation stopping them from raising prices energy bills will be so high that you will have rioting in central London that would make the poll tax riots look like a church fete. I think that would be a rash move.

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#53

Post by javajosh »

abeppu wrote: post #16

> This is the sort of crisis that brings down nations. What does "bring down nations" mean though? Replacing a government? Violent overthrow and then writing an actual constitution? Because a bunch of the challenges being faced would still be issues under any regime right? A different government isn't going to magically get more potatoes this year, or significantly more energy from strained European countries this wi…

A nation is, technically speaking, it's rulers and the rules they impose (on others and themselves). So bringing down a nation would imply a sea-change in rulers & rules. Considering that authoritarianism is humanities Default form of Government, it stands to reason that "bringing down" a democracy means reverting to that default. This will happen with the alternative is worse. (The situation in Somalia is arguably worse than authoritarianism, for example). Authoritarianism might also serve, at least in theory, as a kind of "boot loader" for something better - although the transition always seems to require a great deal of blood.

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#55

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

klelatti wrote: post #45

I think Brexit has allowed a sort of nihilism to creep into U.K. politics. If you can live with a policy that has such a demonstrable adverse effect on the economy and so many other things then why worry about the impact of other policies. The standard approach for the government now seems to be to look for short term wins in the tabloids and ignore the long term. And this is on top of the huge distraction that Brexi…

> The standard approach for the government now seems to be to look for short term wins in the tabloids and ignore the long term.

Was this ever not the case?

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#56

Post by dane-pgp »

swader999 wrote: post #35
abeppu wrote: post #16

> This is the sort of crisis that brings down nations. What does "bring down nations" mean though? Replacing a government? Violent overthrow and then writing an actual constitution? Because a bunch of the challenges being faced would still be issues under any regime right? A different government isn't going to magically get more potatoes this year, or significantly more energy from strained European countries this wi…

Create a crisis, provide a solution. Install bought/captured politicians, perhaps a dash of tyranny, CBDC and social credit for all. Total surveillance and enslavement. It doesn't require violence, people will demand these 'solutions' when they are stressed enough. Every tyrannical regime in the past had a constitution. Rendered mute by a uni-party system, captured media and judiciary. Now you can add big tech collus…

> Create a crisis, provide a solution.

The problem with that simplistic analysis is that it relies on the unspoken assumption that if it weren't for those sneaky, all-powerful, conniving [members of whichever out-group is being blamed] then the whole world would be peaceful and prosperous and free.

Having said that, I absolutely agree with the rest of your comment about what's ahead of us.

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#57

Post by prof-dr-ir »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #5

"Brexit has delivered some deregulation, though: notably, the Conservative government ditched EU standards on effluent discharges, resulting in the (private) water companies discharging raw sewage into almost every river, and the seas around the UK coastline. So it is no longer safe to swim in UK waters." Holy crap! "the Bank of England are forecasting 13% inflation towards the end of the year." And we thought things…

To answer such questions I always imagine transplanting a random citizen of country 1 to country 2 and vice versa. In other words, I guess you should ask the expats.

Having lived in both the UK and the US, I would say that anyone not rich is still much better off in the former because of the free healthcare, better infrastructure, cheaper education, etc.

However, in my experience the UK living standards (again, for a non-rich person) are significantly worse than the rest of Northwestern Europe. And the UK's trajectory is not looking good.

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#58

Post by ceeplusplus »

mikeiz404 wrote: post #50
ceeplusplus wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And we thought things were bad in the US. That inflation is mostly driven by energy costs, which are a direct result of European policy failures on nuclear and fossil fuels. The US is mostly a net neutral producer/consumer of fossil fuels and energy, which is why it's insulated from the impacts of Russia cutting off gas.

From an energy security standpoint being net neutral or better is good but is the US insulated from fossil fuel prices? From a market perspective I would have thought a decrease in supply (say sanctions on Russian oil) would up the price of oil. This would effect domestic oil prices as well since either the domestic producers also participate globally or other sources of oil available domestically are also available…

> is the US insulated from fossil fuel prices?

To a large degree, yes [1]. The US is affected by oil prices globally, but if OPEC decides to cut off the US it wouldn't have the same effect that Russia is having on the EU right now.

> also participate globally

In crises, the US has the option to restrict exports. The EU does not have that option because it is not a net producer of fossil fuels.

[1] https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/natural-gas-p...

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#60

Post by skrtskrt »

puchatek wrote: post #11
UncleOxidant wrote: post #5

"Brexit has delivered some deregulation, though: notably, the Conservative government ditched EU standards on effluent discharges, resulting in the (private) water companies discharging raw sewage into almost every river, and the seas around the UK coastline. So it is no longer safe to swim in UK waters." Holy crap! "the Bank of England are forecasting 13% inflation towards the end of the year." And we thought things…

That cannot possibly be the only thing it delivered. The likes of Farage have been working on this thing for decades. They must be getting a lot more it of it

As much as I want socialized medicine in the US, I worry when look at Britain and see how a wave of regressive politicians can damage carefully built government institutions so quickly
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