Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

press.uchicago.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–536 of 536 posts

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#531

Post by rsynnott »

graemep wrote: post #422
rsynnott wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, to confuse the issue, the country is officially called Ireland (it's in the constitution!), and that is the name normally used in Ireland and in Europe. The UK government officially referred to Ireland as the Republic of Ireland until 1998 (it now calls it Ireland) and as a result people in the UK often call it the Republic of Ireland. People calling it the Irish Republic usually have an agenda in doing so, yeah.…

What agenda? I do not know enough about the history to understand the implications How does one unambiguously refer to the country rather than the island without saying “republic”?

> What agenda? I do not know enough about the history to understand the implications

Traditionally, you mostly see weird names for Ireland in British media with an anti-Irish viewpoint (you saw a lot of this from the right-wing tabloids during Brexit, in particular). In particular ‘Eire’ and ‘the Irish Republic’ are red flags; ‘Eire’ has never been correct to use in English, and ‘the Irish Republic’ was never _really_ the name of the country at all. At best it comes across as ignorant (a bit like Americans calling the UK ‘England’) but in practice it tends to only be used by a certain type of publication.

(In particularly extreme cases you sometimes see ‘the Irish Free State’, presumably from journalists who are over a century old.)

> How does one unambiguously refer to the country rather than the island without saying “republic”?

Ah, well, that’s the trouble, isn’t it? In cases where it could be ambiguous, Irish media tends to say ‘the state’, but that doesn’t really work elsewhere. In practice where disambiguation is required “the Republic of Ireland” is a reasonable neutral term.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#532

Post by handoflixue »

lmm wrote: post #527
handoflixue wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really fair to call it a surprise when prediction markets had 80% odds on her since the day Biden dropped out? ( https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/7057/Who-will-win-t... ) Or did you mean Biden dropping out itself? I don't see how anyone could have reasonably offered more notice that he was dropping out - presumably there was a fairly rapid decline in health for him to make that decision after the primar…

> presumably there was a fairly rapid decline in health for him to make that decision after the primary. That's a generous assumption that doesn't really fit with how he seemed in public appearances before and after. The alternative possibility is that the narrative where he drops out of the primary and so the D candidate "has to" be appointed at a time when it's "too late" for the public to be involved was a deliber…

At this point we're at "the democrats might have planned for a single surprise, under circumstances that would be both difficult and suspicious to repeat".

It feels... exceedingly charitable to say that is "habituating people to surprise" in any real sense. If anything, I'd argue it has had the opposite effect: if the Democrats pull a second surprise like this time any time in the next couple of decades, quite a lot of people are going to be outraged.

I'm not really sure why they'd want to skip the Primary anyway? If she failed to pass as a candidate there, it would be pretty clear evidence that she wasn't going to beat Trump. If she passed the Primary, she's got more support behind her. It's a lose/lose to do what you suggested

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#533

Post by rsynnott »

graemep wrote: post #413
krisoft wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> DO people identify as British or European? And that framing is where the trick is hidden. People are perfectly capable of accepting and having multiple identities. They can be a mom of their kids, a receptionist of company X, a neighbour of street Y, a citizen of city Z, a member of the flower gardening society, a supporter of football club Q, citizens of the UK and Europeans too. In fact you don't have to choose b…

They can have multiple identities, but may not want to be British and European.any more than a Scottish nationalist wants to be Scottish and British. This is a very common conflict for many communities around the world and rarely is “just be both” a satisfactory solution: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separatism

I’m not sure this is correct; in general many people would think of themselves as X and European, where X is the country of origin or citizenship. The EU is not a country.

For that matter, the UK, despite being a country, has some aspects of this; while Northern Ireland in particular is complicated for historical reasons, plenty of English and Scottish and Welsh people would think of themselves as English or Scottish or Welsh AND British.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#536

Post by DoctorOetker »

throw0101b wrote: post #317
__egb__ wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a huge fan of Asimov. Years ago I bought a back issue of the Newsweek that this was originally published in, framed it, and still have it hanging in my office: https://aphelis.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ASIMOV_1980_C...

> There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge”. See also book by Tom Nichols (a now-retired professor from U.S. Naval War College): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

> “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge”

I think a more apt description is the misconception that democracy supposedly means everybody gets their "equal proper timeshare of being considered correct".

Post reply on HN