UKMT January and a bit of February 2016: Marxist Theory and Danczuk Memes

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > UKMT January and a bit of February 2016: Marxist Theory and Danczuk Memes

«‹›188 »

Pesky Splinter: Feb 16, 2011; A worried pug.

Phoon posted:

Only london gets nationalised transport, whilst everyone else has private. it's very blatant

Well of course, only the very best for London. If they extended that to the rest of the UK, think of all the trouble you would cause for the free market! :suicide:

[e]:

Pesky Splinter fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Jan 21, 2016

# ? Jan 21, 2016 13:39

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 5, 2024 03:25

Dabir: Nov 10, 2012

Guavanaut posted:

It was. That was a major reason why the farming collapse was so terrible and led to so much strife.

If they'd followed Iran's lead and put the brakes on in the 90s it might not have been half as bad.

(Another reason why it went as badly as it did might be the EU's protectionist agricultural policies.)

Non-zero y-axis, I literally have no idea how to read what this graph is trying to show.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 13:45

Jose: Jul 24, 2007; Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer

Lord of the Llamas posted:

Syria is over double the area and had lower population density than the Czeck Republic.

is a large part of the czech republic desert?

# ? Jan 21, 2016 13:45

baka kaba: Jul 19, 2003; PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Phoon posted:

Only london gets nationalised transport, whilst everyone else has private. it's very blatant

Yeah I suddenly remembered this coming up before. They're going through with it though, which I guess at least makes it easier to argue that nationalisation is good and 'puts passengers where they should be: at the heart of the network' etc

# ? Jan 21, 2016 13:45

Niric: Jul 23, 2008

dispatch_async posted:

Based on this interview: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/02/11/europe-verge-collapse-interview/

This is a really interesting interview, thanks for posting it.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 13:48

ronya: Nov 8, 2010; I'm the normal one.

You hate ridden fucks will regret your words when you eventually grow up.

Peace.

Foxtrot_13 posted:

Until the PLP can admit their direct actions or inaction made the entire crash much worse then the economy will always be a stick to beat the Labour party with. The light touch very loose regulation created a bubble that looked great at the time but when that bubble burst it made the subsequent crash much worse. But the loose light touch regulation was the baby of Blair and Brown so their allies can not seemingly admit this fact. The Blair/Brown years relied on the Finance sector far too much to create their economic "miracle" and were too arrogant to realise that they didn't eliminate boom and bust.

The entire crisis management was also not up to the task as RBSGroup was still allowed to take over ABN AMRO that sunk the bank. Without being part of that disastrous consortium RBSGroup would of needed much less of a bail out and would be in a better position today.

When the PLP as a whole can admit that the Blair/Brown policies were in hindsight wrong then they will still be seen as incompetent with the economy.

I think LemonDrizzle can comment in more detail, but AFAIK the Blair/Brown era tightened City regulation relative to the Major years, not loosened it

you can argue that they didn't tighten enough, or tightened the wrong things, certainly

let me suggest, atop that, that Labour as a party and New Labour as a faction are still quite enthusiastic about finance returning to an engine of UK growth

# ? Jan 21, 2016 13:49

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Lord of the Llamas posted:

Syria is over double the area and had lower population density than the Czeck Republic.

I'm not suggesting that Europe and the Levant couldn't cope with the entire of Syria's population if they had the will to, but Syria clearly couldn't cope with Syria's population.

If you're doubling in population every 20 years or less, something in your infrastructure is going to give, and you're going to get famine or civil strife or both.

This is not mean that we should be callous towards the victims of this tragedy, "I told you so" achieves nothing, but if we are to learn lessons from it then the risk of a population bomb on local or global scales must be part of them.

Dabir posted:

Non-zero y-axis, I literally have no idea how to read what this graph is trying to show.

That their population was doubling every 20 years and then accelerated from that.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 13:52

Tigey: Apr 6, 2015

I wonder whether this move is designed to neutralise Corbyn... In recent years the Tories have taken the wind out of Labour by stealing a number of their better/more popular policies.

And from talking to people in my part of London renationalising the railways has been one of Corbyns most popular policies.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 13:54

Phoon: Apr 23, 2010

baka kaba posted:

Yeah I suddenly remembered this coming up before. They're going through with it though, which I guess at least makes it easier to argue that nationalisation is good and 'puts passengers where they should be: at the heart of the network' etc

It just makes it very obvious that the primary purpose of transport infrastructure outside London is to make money for private companies, rather than to get people places.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 13:54

ronya: Nov 8, 2010; I'm the normal one.

You hate ridden fucks will regret your words when you eventually grow up.

Peace.

the entire modus operandi of the Tory 2020 group is stealing Labour policies

it's not like gay marriage was a Tory touchstone, you know

# ? Jan 21, 2016 13:56

Lord of the Llamas: Jul 9, 2002; EULER'VE TO SEE IT VENN SOMEONE CALLS IT THE WRONG THING AND PROVOKES MY WRATH

Jose posted:

is a large part of the czech republic desert?

No but the idea that Syria is some uninhabitable hellhole incapable of sustaining a population of 20 million is absurd. Over 20% of the Czech population lives in or around Prague which is larger than any of the cities in Syria were.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 13:56

baka kaba: Jul 19, 2003; PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Tigey posted:

I wonder whether this move is designed to neutralise Corbyn... In recent years the Tories have taken the wind out of Labour by stealing a number of their better/more popular policies.

And from talking to people in my part of London renationalising the railways has been one of Corbyns most popular policies.

Seems a bit extreme to just undercut someone who's not polling well at the moment anyway (unless they do see him as a latent threat). It feels more likely that they just need transport to actually work, so they're suspending the ~free market efficiency~ pretence and just doing what needs to be done

# ? Jan 21, 2016 13:59

Jrbg: May 20, 2014

Here's a great article about the current Tory bloviation about Muslim mothers and assimilation/integration.

quote:

A much older cousin lived in London�s Turkish neighbourhood of Green Lanes for forty years, and never learnt to speak English. She earned money tailoring clothes from a sewing machine in her living room. She shopped in local stores owned and frequented by other Turks. She socialised with her family. There was �as she saw it� little urgency for another language. In fact, there was little time. Above all, she had raised two children to speak English perfectly, have English friends, and to contribute to British society with good jobs in IT and wins at martial-art championships.

Attributing blame to a woman who does not learn the language of a country, is as good as forgetting we are not the sum of every ambition life got in the way of. Being a working mother of two will almost certainly �get in the way�. Depression and social nervousness ever present will play their part.

...

So unresolved is the value of integration, that there has been no such thing as an agreed global technique, nor expectation of our response to a move. I repeat sentences in my accent to impressed Americans, explaining phrases and slang until they parrot them back to me. Grateful for new words and information �which shows do I watch? Can I recommend British music in turn? Assimilation here is two-sided.

The most powerful motif of integration always seem to belong to those communities who have replicated a home away from home; the Indians in Southall, the Caribbeans in Tottenham and Peckham, the Greeks in Edmonton, the Jews in Golders Green. This is not rigid self-governing, nor division, rather the fluidity of continuity. Likewise, they cannot exist without the understanding and reverence of the host nation, whose own culture widens and benefits simply by accommodating.

Simply put, the only rule is acceptance, which is a must from both communities who mix like a kind of venn diagram until there is something of its own in the middle. But a �20m fund so immigrant women may learn English bares none of this. A worthy idea placed in a box of razors. After two and half years, women on a spousal visa will be tested on language. On failing, she will be faced with deportation. Young Muslim men, David Cameron said, are susceptible to radicalisation because Muslim women cannot speak out against Imams. Muslim women, he believes, can learn English to help their sons from turning to extremism.

So strong is the control of fear that foresight and evidence are neither provided, nor requested anymore. The existence of Daesh has become enough in Britain to simply imagine outcomes and separate women from their children.

The denial of humanness is to see a woman who speaks only her mother-tongue and blame it on her religion. It is to forget that she too experiences the very same every-day chores, stresses, and distractions that have limited us all in some way. She is given one narrative �a procedure of white supremacy� in which black boys who wear hoods cannot be cold, nor fashionable, they are �thugs�; where Jewish business owners are not hard-working, contributors of economy, but greedy and miserly; where Muslim women who do not speak English are complicit in acts of terrorism, not people who are busy, or mentally ill-prepared to retain a new language.

No matter. There is nothing new in throwing accusations of terrorism at Islam and hoping something sticks. On explaining why Muslim women were singled out in a plan considered for all non-English speaking women, a government source said, �David knows that the traditional submissiveness of Muslim women is a sensitive issue [�] At the moment, too many Muslim women are treated like second-class citizens who may speak only basic English at best, and have no jobs or independent financial standing.�

Credible reasoning cannot be found in a statement that relies so heavily on �they all look the same�. The way of life for a Muslim woman in Saudi Arabia will differ from that of a woman in Turkey, who in turn will differ from that of a woman in Eritrea, and so on. That is to say, there is nothing theocratically traditional about submission, rather it is a varying product of nationality. In fact, when it comes to gender, it is worth remembering that �women as second-class citizens� is maintained worldwide.

But the portrait of Muslim men as patriarchal appeals in a way that white men controlling a woman�s modesty, �(we have all known the man who has met his partner�s outfit on a girls night out, with rage. We are heavily aware of a jurisdiction that believes the length of a woman�s skirt may contribute to her rape)� or her financial stability (the pay-gap) does not.

The one who cares about the well-being of women will not do so only within the parameters of criticising Islam. Domestic violence refuges have closed at such a rate under Cameron�s government that vulnerable women and children have been put back 40 years. A woman is killed by a man every two days in Britain, a statistic that is not likely to reduce any time soon. Every year 85,000 women are raped in England and Wales, where 97 per cent of these see no justice. Submission is submission, no matter the language �or two� a woman speaks.

Now consider this: Since the Paris attacks, violence against Muslims has increased 300 per cent where the vast majority of its victims are women. Muslim women have spoken for some years of being spat at, hit, or having their veils pulled from their bodies by white men in public spaces. If we had reached the denouement of integration and its value, we would know that in order for it to work it must be reciprocal. Offering English to non-speakers would then share a platform, say, with a project to unteach white men of bigotry that manifests in violence.

Only understanding the use of Muslim women as props can explain how there may be concern for a woman�s wellbeing around brown men, but not white. Why this plan does not target all failing participants of a harmonised society has yet to be asked.

There is, unfortunately, real fear of extreme behaviour from a man who grows loathsome of a country that defamed his mother, then separated her from him as a child. Never because of the language she loved him in.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 14:00

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Lord of the Llamas posted:

No but the idea that Syria is some uninhabitable hellhole incapable of sustaining a population of 20 million is absurd. Over 20% of the Czech population lives in or around Prague which is larger than any of the cities in Syria were.

The Czech Republic isn't mostly comprised of this.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 14:02

Lord of the Llamas: Jul 9, 2002; EULER'VE TO SEE IT VENN SOMEONE CALLS IT THE WRONG THING AND PROVOKES MY WRATH

Darth Walrus posted:

The Czech Republic isn't mostly comprised of this.

So why aren't the Czechs spread out like butter over their green and fertile land?

This just isn't how human settlement works guys.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 14:07

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Lord of the Llamas posted:

No but the idea that Syria is some uninhabitable hellhole incapable of sustaining a population of 20 million is absurd.

Pre or post drought?

# ? Jan 21, 2016 14:14

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Lord of the Llamas posted:

So why aren't the Czechs spread out like butter over their green and fertile land?

This just isn't how human settlement works guys.

Compared to Syria, they are.

Human population gravitates around cities, but the Czech Republic has way more places that can accommodate large cities than Syria does, and their demographic maps reflect that.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 14:14

JFairfax: Oct 23, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

ShaneMacGowansTeeth posted:

sorry, forgot that weed was the only drug

My point is that even "war on drugs" America is rethinking and changing some key aspects of their drugs policy at the moment

# ? Jan 21, 2016 14:14

Lord of the Llamas: Jul 9, 2002; EULER'VE TO SEE IT VENN SOMEONE CALLS IT THE WRONG THING AND PROVOKES MY WRATH

Guavanaut posted:

Pre or post drought?

What should Syria's population have been to cope with drought?

Darth Walrus posted:

Compared to Syria, they are.

Human population gravitates around cities, but the Czech Republic has way more places that can accommodate large cities than Syria does, and their demographic maps reflect that.

So the dots are more evenly spaced out. People are still living in towns. And they still have a much larger concentration in their capital despite the geographic advantage.

Do you guys really think that Syria's problem was ~population size~ and not the political and economic issues?

# ? Jan 21, 2016 14:36

Pesmerga: Aug 1, 2005; So nice to eat you

Lord of the Llamas posted:

What should Syria's population have been to cope with drought?

So the dots are more evenly spaced out. People are still living in towns. And they still have a much larger concentration in their capital despite the geographic advantage.

Do you guys really think that Syria's problem was ~population size~ and not the political and economic issues?

I don't think you can separate political and economic issues from population size, they'll likely effect each other.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 14:42

Crashbee: May 15, 2007; Stupid people are great at winning arguments, because they're too stupid to realize they've lost.

Lord of the Llamas posted:

What should Syria's population have been to cope with drought?

So the dots are more evenly spaced out. People are still living in towns. And they still have a much larger concentration in their capital despite the geographic advantage.

Do you guys really think that Syria's problem was ~population size~ and not the political and economic issues?

Why can't all three have been factors? The booming ~population size~ certainly didn't help ease the political and economic issues.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 14:44

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Let's not forget environmental too.

Part of the initial conditions were widespread droughts causing farmers to move to the cities.

I don't know whether the droughts were part of the wider issue of ~anthropogenic climate change~ or if they were just part of the random environmental poo poo that has ended empires in the past, but it certainly belongs up there with booming population and political and economic issues.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 14:52

Phoon: Apr 23, 2010

the birmingham mail has started its own anti austerity campaign in birmingham perhaps corbyn's local press lunch is starting to pay off

# ? Jan 21, 2016 15:33

big scary monsters: Sep 2, 2011; -~Ｓｋｕｌｌｗａｖｅ~-

Darth Walrus posted:

The Czech Republic isn't mostly comprised of this.

Lord of the Llamas posted:

So why aren't the Czechs spread out like butter over their green and fertile land?

This just isn't how human settlement works guys.

Darth Walrus posted:

Compared to Syria, they are.

Human population gravitates around cities, but the Czech Republic has way more places that can accommodate large cities than Syria does, and their demographic maps reflect that.

I didn't choose the Czech Republic because I was making a clever point, I just looked at Google Maps on my phone and picked an EU country that looked about the same size as Syria as a means of comparison. I was commenting on the ridiculous language used about how Europe is flooded with Syrian refugees and bursting at its seams as a result. There are certainly a lot of people fleeing here and doubtless accommodating so many people in such a relatively short period is difficult, but it's really only a crisis mostly because we choose to make it so. If the will to do so were there we could certainly manage.

It's especially ridiculous when you consider that of the 6 million or so Syrians who have fled the country, EU members have only taken in maybe 3-400,000, the vast majority by Germany and Sweden. I imagine that Lebanon, a tiny developing country which has received about 1.2 million refugees, is in crisis. Perhaps the same for Jordan, better off but with as many as 1.4 million. Maybe even Turkey, large and fairly wealthy, but with about 2.5 million refugees. For the UK, the world's fourth or fifth richest country, which has to date received a little over 5,000 Syrian refugees, this is probably not a crisis.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 15:58

big scary monsters: Sep 2, 2011; -~Ｓｋｕｌｌｗａｖｅ~-

I mean, it's a crisis for the refugees too. But that is not how I generally see it framed.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 16:04

Pork Pie Hat: Apr 27, 2011

big scary monsters posted:

I mean, it's a crisis for the refugees too. But that is not how I generally see it framed.

Anyone reporting it as anything but a crisis for the refugees needs to take a loving long hard look at themselves.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 16:58

Ms Adequate: Oct 30, 2011; Baby even when I'm dead and gone
You will always be my only one, my only one
When the night is calling
No matter who I become
You will always be my only one, my only one, my only one
When the night is calling

Pork Pie Hat posted:

Anyone reporting it as anything but a crisis for the refugees needs to take a loving long hard look at themselves.

Don't worry, they'll have time to reflect as they await the wall.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 17:47

Extreme0: Feb 28, 2013; I dance to the sweet tune of your failure so I'm never gonna stop fucking with you.

Continue to get confused and frustrated with me as I dance to your anger.

As I expect nothing more from ya you stupid runt!

Pissflaps posted:

The polling is a lot closer than I'd like but I'm confident of a remain result.

You were confident of labour winning the general election last time.

If we get kicked out of the EU. I'm putting the blame on you for jinxing it.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 18:21

Pissflaps: Oct 20, 2002; by VideoGames

Extreme0 posted:

You were confident of labour winning the general election last time.

If we get kicked out of the EU. I'm putting the blame on you for jinxing it.

No I was confident of the Scottish referendum returning a no result.

I was hoping for a labour victory.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 18:22

JFairfax: Oct 23, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

and liverpool won't finish above fifth with brendan rodgers in charge

# ? Jan 21, 2016 18:25

Pissflaps: Oct 20, 2002; by VideoGames

JFairfax posted:

and liverpool won't finish above fifth with brenadan rodgers in charge

Where's Brendan now?

# ? Jan 21, 2016 18:25

JFairfax: Oct 23, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

I don't know, I don't follow his twitter

# ? Jan 21, 2016 18:27

serious gaylord: Sep 16, 2007; what.

JFairfax posted:

and liverpool won't finish above fifth with brendan rodgers in charge

One could argue given his performance after Suarez left that he wasn't really in charge.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 18:30

Renaissance Robot: Oct 10, 2010; Bite my furry metal ass

Pork Pie Hat posted:

Enough about the loving Falklands already, here's some space news about Planet 9 (no, it's not Pluto, deal with it).

I find it really fascinating how consistently people refer to Pluto's reclassification as a "demotion".

# ? Jan 21, 2016 20:08

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Renaissance Robot posted:

I find it really fascinating how consistently people refer to Pluto's reclassification as a "demotion".

Earth should be reclassified as a 'giant plutoid'.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 20:09

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

Renaissance Robot posted:

I find it really fascinating how consistently people refer to Pluto's reclassification as a "demotion".

It's very impolite to suggest that a planet is anything but thoroughly rocky, iron-cored, turgidly, throbbingly potent.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 20:19

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

There are eight planets and probably billions of TNOs. The planet club is much more "exclusive", so it doesn't seem all that odd as a jaunty way of describing the operation of of astronomical bureaucracy.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 20:23

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

To be a planet, a body has to meet three critera:

1. is in orbit around the Sun,
2. has sufficient mass to assume hydrostatic equilibrium (a nearly round shape), and
3. has "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit.

Objects that do not meet all three get demoted to a more loosely defined category.

However because Earth is orbited by a plutoid the size of Mercury with a barycenter so close to its surface that it could hardly be said to have cleared its orbit, Earth doesn't either. No real planet has moons like that. Therefore Earth should be demoted too.

Historically Earth was never called a planet, the planets were the non fixed 'stars' that appeared to exhibit retrograde motion, and Earth obviously didn't appear like that to observers, so the demotion is consistent.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 20:25

communism bitch: Apr 24, 2009

"Anything fairly big that orbits a star so that when you look at it you think 'that's a planet'"

No need to thank me, astronomers.

# ? Jan 21, 2016 20:37

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 5, 2024 03:25

JFairfax: Oct 23, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

are we not a double planet system then?

# ? Jan 21, 2016 20:37

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > UKMT January and a bit of February 2016: Marxist Theory and Danczuk Memes

«‹›188 »