Funny events in anti-woke world

TheMysteriousGX

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That's what was being claimed by Remoaners in the UK a few months ago. The shortages on shelves (store literally about to restock or once that had been closed for refurbishment) was all food shortages due to Boris Johnson and Brexit according to them
I mean, plenty of industry leaders saying the same things now, but okay.

Anyway, if you have a funny example of some loony libtard using pictures of a store remodel and claiming it was the Tories, feel free to post it in the Woke thread
 
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Silvanus

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So this has been bugging me for a while but I largely overlooked it for the sake of argument, is there a single country in the world that mandates how much insulin to buy? Last I checked the closest anyone approaches to that is letting their military buy drugs since they need to be able to run a field hospital everywhere in the world. Otherwise it's up to hospitals and pharmacies to buy drugs, and labs to produce them. So unless your vision of direct democracy requires nationalizing all drug production and distribution, then making every single decision a referendum with no delegation, it's stupid.
A country with a nationalised healthcare system, such as mine, will require the government to order (or produce) it's resources, yes.

Beyond that, your argument hinges on there being no communication between people at all and that people won't know the issues happening in their country, which is the exact opposite of what we see now, misinformation of the causes aside.
I'm sure people will communicate. But there is no formal structure in place, no greater authority for some than others. So say 20 people with expertise and relevant knowledge of the supply chain get together, draft a motion and submit it. So... what happens? Its one of 40 submitted that day, indistinguishable from the ones from people who don't have that knowledge or expertise. Most people don't know who they are. It might get a few thousand signatures in a country of millions, if its really lucky.


Well if they're delegated by a council comprised of everyone in the section of population they're apart of, by definition no.
So... elected by that section of the population.


And this is a response... how? You said these people were trained to be MPs, I pointed out they're not outside of understanding the rules of order. As to this distracting inane question, not inherently, no. I suppose there might be some national archive not available to public in at least some countries, but there's not going to be a book in there "How to govern effectively (the secret way)". Actually knowing how to be a politician and writing effective laws is not learned through the act of being elected.
"Suppose there might be some archive"... no, stop, there are factually a huge number of resources, research bodies and data, that governments have access to that are not generally accessible. And yes, representatives will be taught how to access that and how the procedure works. They'll then have legal advisors on how motions need to be drafted to make them watertight.

You're imagining government to be something massively informal, which strikes as a bit naive.

Funnily enough, there's a whole market built around angry Trumpers (I might remind you, number over 70 million people) selling them "Don't blame me, I voted for Trump" apparel unironically. I think your nightmare scenario is here.
70 million angry delusional knobheads, eh? ...I thought your line of argument was all about how the people are great and trustworthy and I should hand them the reigns of power? This isn't making that sound any more palatable.

Voters are always willing to pass the buck. That'll be the same in any form of democracy. I would at least like some structures in place to force a measure of accountability, which is possible with representatives but impossible with millions of equally-culpable buck-passers.

I find it ironic you call me overly optimistic about the nature of society and then turn around and say politicians of all people act in anyone else's self interest. If people are inherently selfish assholes to the point of not being able to function in society, how does society work at all period? How do unions work?
People aren't inherently selfish assholes. You've blown my position up into something really quite alien.


Literally the exact opposite of that.
You literally just finished explaining how a central government would wield broader political authority over the smaller devolved units. And you also don't want it's members elected.

Please explain how this works.

I thought this was about knowing what problems face the country day to day. Research bodies don't do that, they tell you how to fix those problems, and to my knowledge most experts for these committees exist outside of the government entirely. There are a few exceptions like the American CBO or NOAA (who do independent research without being told by anyone and present their findings publicly), but otherwise most of these programs amount to a group of politicians rounding up experts to ask them something. It's not that this isn't available to the public, it's that they're formed ad-hoc for some short term and specific goal.
They're almost always either funded or appointed to a specific official public role. And yes, research bodies do gather data.

I mean, what's to stop a lone congressman from drowning these groups in spurious requests now, and why does that go away in direct democracy?
Limits on the docket. They're a lot more functional in the UK than the US, where its someone's specific job.

It's debatable if delegation is hierarchy, and even then you can still delegate and appoint in direct democracy.
We seem to be getting close to talking about electing people. Just strenuously avoiding that word.
 

Terminal Blue

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That's what was being claimed by Remoaners in the UK a few months ago. The shortages on shelves (store literally about to restock or once that had been closed for refurbishment) was all food shortages due to Boris Johnson and Brexit according to them
The thing is, there are massive nationwide supply chain problems in the UK right now, many of which can be (partly) attributed to the effects of Brexit. Denying that is just dumb.

Like, Brexit was always a bad idea, economically speaking. The form of Brexit we got, with stringent immigration restrictions and no EU market access, was the worst form of that bad idea in terms of economic stability. It was obvious to everyone who gave it any serious thought.

Frankly, leavers should be giving thanks to whatever puffy-faced angry god they believe in that the pandemic hit when it did and gave them something to blame for their own bad decisions.
 

Baffle

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Frankly, leavers should be giving thanks to whatever puffy-faced angry god they believe in that the pandemic hit when it did and gave them something to blame for their own bad decisions.
Yep, apparently 100,000 HGV drivers secretly died of COVID and no one mentioned it until the last few months. And all our butchers and farm workers.
 

Agema

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Frankly, leavers should be giving thanks to whatever puffy-faced angry god they believe in that the pandemic hit when it did and gave them something to blame for their own bad decisions.
Even if we take the notion that Brexit is bad, these issues are "teething problems" that will be sorted in a year or two.

The real pain of Brexit will be a slow and gradual decline in economic performance relative to the continent. Likely under 0.5% GDP a year, small enough to be barely noticeable - for a while. But one day, probably post 2030, the British will suddenly realise that compared to other Western European neighbours they are not doing very well, and there will be unhappiness and reappraisal. By that time, many Brexiters will be dead of old age and the rest can fudge away their misjudgement from 10+ years previously.

The question is more perhaps whether the political class will learn something from the debacle. Such as that the country needs better guidance, and they need to clamp down on ambitious twats who sell the country down the river with bad policy they don't even believe in just so they can claw their way to the top. Of course, they probably won't learn either: because they'll do exactly the same again the minute it'll make a difference to win the next general election.
 

Terminal Blue

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Even if we take the notion that Brexit is bad, these issues are "teething problems" that will be sorted in a year or two.
True. It's just kind of funny, because it's exactly the kind of thing that the leave campaign dismissed as scaremongering.

The real pain of Brexit will be a slow and gradual decline in economic performance relative to the continent. Likely under 0.5% GDP a year, small enough to be barely noticeable - for a while. But one day, probably post 2030, the British will suddenly realise that compared to other Western European neighbours they are not doing very well, and there will be unhappiness and reappraisal. By that time, many Brexiters will be dead of old age and the rest can fudge away their misjudgement from 10+ years previously.
I mean, at that point the United(ish) Kingdom of Pisslantis should be well on its way to sinking into the sea where it belongs, while the rest of the world watches on and applauds.
 

Agema

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I mean, at that point the United(ish) Kingdom of Pisslantis should be well on its way to sinking into the sea where it belongs, while the rest of the world watches on and applauds.
I am deeply unsure that there will be a United Kingdom in 2030.

Although one of the potential "upsides" of Brexit for unionists is that if the Scots have to contemplate customs and duties on the English-Scottish border, given how interlinked their economies are, that might well be too painful for the Scots to accept. Although then again, if the EU decides to help Scotland out through the pain of transition...
 

crimson5pheonix

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A country with a nationalised healthcare system, such as mine, will require the government to order (or produce) it's resources, yes.
Well then surely you can show me the bill the UK passed with the precise number of doses of insulin they bought.

I'm sure people will communicate. But there is no formal structure in place, no greater authority for some than others. So say 20 people with expertise and relevant knowledge of the supply chain get together, draft a motion and submit it. So... what happens? Its one of 40 submitted that day, indistinguishable from the ones from people who don't have that knowledge or expertise. Most people don't know who they are. It might get a few thousand signatures in a country of millions, if its really lucky.
Or it might get millions of signatures and pass, because it's a persuasive topic and the writers spread the word of it through various media. Since we're in the realm of hypotheticals now.

So... elected by that section of the population.
It might be an election, it might be some other method.

"Suppose there might be some archive"... no, stop, there are factually a huge number of resources, research bodies and data, that governments have access to that are not generally accessible.
Not really no, in any good democracy the only data not available to the public are supposed to be state secrets.

And yes, representatives will be taught how to access that and how the procedure works. They'll then have legal advisors on how motions need to be drafted to make them watertight.
Procedure is a big word here, because it's the word I've been using. Knowing procedure is not at all related to what you've been arguing, but what I've been saying they'd be taught. You've been saying that being elected makes them inherently effective at knowing how to govern. If you're going to turn around and say it's because they can ask people for data and the nitty-gritty of legal writing, then you're going to have to admit I've been right since the start in saying there's nothing special about them and their work can be accomplished by any rational persons.

You're imagining government to be something massively informal, which strikes as a bit naive.
It actually kinda is. It's amazing how it's maintained a mystique of being the halls of power when any unvarnished look into it's working is people yelling at each other with twitter graphs. The only truly formal aspects of government work is record keeping, the rules of order, and the legalese used to write the laws.

70 million angry delusional knobheads, eh? ...I thought your line of argument was all about how the people are great and trustworthy and I should hand them the reigns of power? This isn't making that sound any more palatable.
They're also outnumbered by the opposition, largely agree with the opposition on many issues (if you had them vote on issues instead of personalities), and because of representative democracy were a hairsbreadth away from ruling largely unopposed and also because of representative democracy, the group that did win isn't ruling at all. No, I feel secure in my position.

Voters are always willing to pass the buck. That'll be the same in any form of democracy. I would at least like some structures in place to force a measure of accountability, which is possible with representatives but impossible with millions of equally-culpable buck-passers.
There's no accountability now and I fail to see how they can pass the buck if they directly voted for or against something.

People aren't inherently selfish assholes. You've blown my position up into something really quite alien.
You're the one who says they're scared of the average person making decisions because they're selfish assholes. Don't try and pretend that's changed now.

You literally just finished explaining how a central government would wield broader political authority over the smaller devolved units. And you also don't want it's members elected.

Please explain how this works.
Some decisions simply affect a larger group than the one raising the issue in the first place, thus they cannot be decided by that group. So you pick someone (possibly through election, though you could just as easily ask someone if there are no objections) to take your idea/demands to a broader group, and from there things are decided in how it's handled.

They're almost always either funded or appointed to a specific official public role. And yes, research bodies do gather data.
Literally the word for most of these organizations that are referenced for their data or viewpoints are called Non-Governmental Organizations.

Limits on the docket. They're a lot more functional in the UK than the US, where its someone's specific job.
And what's to stop a group of politicians from drowning others in requests?

We seem to be getting close to talking about electing people. Just strenuously avoiding that word.
Because elections are fairly narrow in definition and not necessarily required to be democratic.
 
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Gergar12

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He sure looks rosier when you consider the next but one president.
He killed more people than Trump by implicit means and explicit means, and I would argue in the future he will continue killing Americans due to just his reckless climate policy. But he killed fewer Americans than Trump, and yes he would have handled covid better. I will admit that. But he has done more long-term damage to the world, and to America than Trump ever did.
 

Dwarvenhobble

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The thing is, there are massive nationwide supply chain problems in the UK right now, many of which can be (partly) attributed to the effects of Brexit. Denying that is just dumb.

Like, Brexit was always a bad idea, economically speaking. The form of Brexit we got, with stringent immigration restrictions and no EU market access, was the worst form of that bad idea in terms of economic stability. It was obvious to everyone who gave it any serious thought.

Frankly, leavers should be giving thanks to whatever puffy-faced angry god they believe in that the pandemic hit when it did and gave them something to blame for their own bad decisions.
Partyly yes I'll give you that but people were and have been warning about how vulnerable supply chains are way before now due to the "Just in time" approach to stuff which even before brexit meant I sometimes couldn't get stuff due to delays in the supply chain etc.

Also again to be clear I voted remain but I realised both ways had issue to them and while I disagree with the direction I'm not going to try and keep some fight going out of some insane belief that somehow this direction can be stopped and there will be no consequences or impact from it.
 

Gergar12

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