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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

#511

Post by asdadsdad »

2143 wrote: post #492
asdadsdad wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that can be true, but from knowing many people that did take that route, I don't think that's a stable kind of immigration though. i.e. people who do that would rather be in the US but couldn't and are often just waiting around for the right opportunity to go back. Some stay forever, sure, but I think the two countries offer entirely different lives, specially for career-driven people.

> two countries offer entirely different lives Curious about this. Could you please elaborate? Like, the differences in lives of a software developer in, say Toronto and San Francisco (other than salary)? Just curious.

There was an interesting reading a while ago, trying to find. It basically boiled down to "The Canadian dream is move to America". Canada is a middle-class, "middle-all", in fact, country with, in my opinion little excitement. But then again, that's just my personal opinion. Factually, yeah, the US offers more purchase power, better salaries and better mobility.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#512

Post by ripe »

sealeck wrote: post #116
prof-dr-ir wrote: post #35

As a former inhabitant of England, I always thought that those in charge suffered from a uniquely wide 'competence gap' which I would like to define as the difference between someone's self-perceived competence and someone's actual competence. (The term is probably useful more broadly...) Maybe it is the historically class-based society alluded to in the article, but it always stunned me how those at the top, and in…

I personally think that the problem is that our political class consists almost entirely of humanities-educated politicians. People (who presumably have humanities degrees) will say things like "politicians don't need to be experts" and the even more facile (well, I am really paraphrasing here) "why do you need an understanding of the subject matter to decide what actions to take". If you look at COVID-19 and climate…

Reminds me of CP Snow: [1]

"A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare's? I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question – such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, Can you read? – not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had."

[1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#513

Post by pwillia7 »

Ever since I heard this podcast[1], I've thought the best way to think of what's happening is at a macro level -- Our institutions were mostly created when liberalism first came to be and kings and queens went out of fashion. Those royal institutions no longer served the world, as it had changed so much, and so some tumult and chaos ensued and liberalism's institutions came to bear.

Now those institutions no longer serve the world we find ourselves in. This feels like the same thing, and we are just in that tumultuous time in-between the next set of institutions.

[1]:https://www.dancarlin.com/product/common-sense-312-re-connec...

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#514

Post by reducesuffering »

refurb wrote: post #438
reducesuffering wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but since the US is a more right-wing country than the rest of the developed world (healthcare, death penalty, taxes...), that would mean the Democrats are "centrist" and Republicans "right." Characterizing based on relativity to the developed world seems much more fitting, since we're discussing it between people mostly from other developed countries and in a thread about Britain.

Right wing on what measure? With abortion restrictions in Europe, Europe looks further right than the US or Canada on that issue.

By all three measures I mentioned above?

When it comes to abortion, it's more of a wash. By one measure, US is now more decentralized, less federal gov., thus more right wing. 13 US states have complete elective abortion bans at all times, thus much more right wing. Most other US states have somewhat more lenient abortion laws, roughly ~6 weeks longer in general, thus more left wing.

If that's your best and only example, it only substantiates my case.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#515

Post by jrochkind1 »

solatic wrote: post #416
jrochkind1 wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the radical differences between Likud and Yesh Atid? (In fact, they did form a government coalition in 2013, which lasted about two years. And then there was the 2020, where the two biggest parties in that election, Likud and Blue and White (of which Yesh Atid was a major constituent), formed a government. So it happens. I'm not sure the current two biggest parties, Likud and Yesh Atid, have a radical differ…

You're making the common mistake that these parties are about their platforms, not their leaders. It's not so much a difference between Likud and Yesh Atid so much as a difference between Netanyahu and Lapid, with Netanyahu's struggles to avoid a corruption verdict and Lapid's insistence that elected politicians must not continue to serve after indictment. Lapid and other center-opposition leaders have all indicated…

I was replying to the comment, "you aren't going to form a coalition with parties radically different than yours."

But yes, it seems politics world-wide, the US certainly included, is increasingly more about personality, affect and identity/community -- and sheer competition for power between different players -- than it is about policy platform, agreed. Sometimes between parties which are actually not that different from each other. I think we may be agreeing with each other.

I think the reason that a "national unity" coalition government in Israel seems so unlikely currently may not in fact be that the major parties "are radically different from each other". (The coalitions formed may be, because of the outsized influence of minority parties on the flanks necessary to build the coalition, which is the whole topic of this thread -- why don't the major parties form a coalition to avoid that? I suggest the reason they don't is not that they are radically different from each other, disagreeing with the comment I was replying to)

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#516

Post by theGnuMe »

lgkghfjhgjhfg wrote: post #434
theGnuMe wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

08 financial crises the uk went full austerity and basically missed out on the economic boom.

US went on austerity too but it didn't stop them their economic boom.

Not true. The uk did, USA did not.

https://carnegieendowment.org/2011/03/24/tale-of-two-politie...

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#517

Post by hermitcrab »

Jochim wrote: post #505
hermitcrab wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The left of the Labour party seem to hate the centrists in the Labour party far more than they hate the Conservatives.

The centrists of the Labour party conducted literal purges after intentionally smearing their own party with fabricated allegations of homophobia and anti-semitism which they spread through the media[0]. Not to mention sabotaging campaign activities by directing resources away from swing seats. There is certainly animosity from the left but largely due to the ironically Stalin-esque tactics employed by Labour centris…

That link is not happy reading. I guess it is not surprising that the centrists hate the left back. However saying someone is “truly repulsive” or “literally makes me sick” is not necessarily racist, just because they are from an ethnic minority (note: I don't know the full context).

I have wondered how real the accusations of anti-semitism in the Labour party were. Is it a deliberate conflation of anti-Israel with anti-semitism by political opponents (who I assumed were Conservatives, rather than Labour)?

If we had PR it would probably be better for the Labour party to split into 2 parties. I don't see that happening under FPTP though.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#518

Post by hermitcrab »

motohagiography wrote: post #214
hermitcrab wrote: post #82

>Some at the top still benefit from unearned deference. Indeed. Quote a bit of Latin in a posh accent at most British people and they seem to completely take leave of their senses. A bit like the tonic immobility you can induce in some animal by turning them over and stroking them. This is why we have had ridiculous figures like Johnson and Rees Mogg in positions of power.

How is deference earned, one wonders.

I am happy to defer to an expert in their area of expertise.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#519

Post by mannykannot »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #115
mannykannot wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. In a pattern that seems to be repeated globally and frequently, dissatisfaction drives polarization, which in turn pumps up the dissatisfaction, and also encourages actions which are ideological rather than pragmatic and at least as rash as they are bold - and when they go wrong, it gives objective reasons to be even more dissatisfied.

Two party polarized systems, aside from the murky money enabling shadow control of both parties, enables centralized control of policy because rather than on a per-issue consensus decision, it enforcesstrictly "party line" votes. ... the "party line" being decided by the small cabal in charge of making the "party line", usually the ones with the most access to monetary funds. But the inability to see even 10% of part…

Maybe I am reading something into your comment that isn't there, but I don't think this is particular to two-party systems. Israel is explicitly not a two-party system (it uses proportional representation), yet it seems to becoming increasingly and strongly polarized.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#520

Post by marcusverus »

mtklein wrote: post #282
marcusverus wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our legacy governments make this very difficult. Sadly, while many of our governments readily adopted the concept of representative democracy, they retained other oppressive aspects of the ancient systems which they replaced. The old monarchies claimed a right to rule their subject peoples in perpetuity, deriving their power directly from God. Our modern governments claim the same thing! Instead of that divine right…

Not saying it's worked out perfectly, but the US Declaration of Independence must count among those crusty old documents, and its preamble explicitly declares that throwing off such a government is the right and duty of the governed (admittedly preceded with some couching from "Prudence, indeed...").

True, true! I didn't mean to imply anything negative about old, crusty documents in general! Especially the ones, like The Declaration, that serve to clarify and bolster our common understanding of our natural human rights.
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