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It's really simple. You shouldn't feel particularly patriotic about the UK. It's done lots of bad poo poo, is not sorry and is currently doubling down on making everyone unhappy. But that doesn't mean you should go around calling for its destruction either. It's why I found Scottish nationalists so distasteful at the height of the independence vote. There were lots of people openly happy about the "destruction of the UK". But as with any destruction, it means people are going to get hosed over. Be careful what you wish for. The UK getting its "just desserts" will also mean more strife for the poorest in our society. Most likely more death as people fall down the cracks. Or to put it another way: Hating your own nation is basically making GBS threads where you sleep.
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 14:41 |
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# ? May 11, 2024 09:40 |
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Fangz posted:Fun fact: the word for 'Britain' and 'England' are the same in Chinese. Nahh that's the same thing, just a common expression for Britain and there's another formal one for the UK. It's like people from the US calling Britain England. e: dammit beaten. how many people here tried to learn mandarin chinese Private Speech fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Feb 16, 2017 |
# ? Feb 16, 2017 14:42 |
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It's not just a London thing. Most people across the country have never seen NI banknotes before and will stare wide eyed at them and won't believe they are real money.
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 14:42 |
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marktheando posted:It's not just a London thing. Most people across the country have never seen NI banknotes before and will stare wide eyed at them and won't believe they are real money. Scottish bank notes got me enough suspicious looks whenever I'd try to pay with them in Wales after returning from York. I had no idea NI bank notes were a thing. Baron Corbyn posted:英國 - the United Kingdom I just looked it up and it's 大英聯合王國 Which I suppose also has the character for England and sort of implies that Brittany is little England?
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 14:45 |
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marktheando posted:It's not just a London thing. Most people across the country have never seen NI banknotes before and will stare wide eyed at them and won't believe they are real money. Well, they aren't legal tender so the wide-eyed starers aren't completely wrong...
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 14:47 |
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Baron Corbyn posted:Scottish bank notes got me enough suspicious looks whenever I'd try to pay with them in Wales after returning from York. I had no idea NI bank notes were a thing. Danske bank bought out one of the regional banks not that long ago and now if I go to England and give someone danske bank branded sterling they thing I'm up to something This is why I horde English notes even if the cold dead eyes of queen haunt my dreams
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 14:49 |
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We did plastic fivers first! And they where see through!
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 14:50 |
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Baron Corbyn posted:Which I suppose also has the character for England and sort of implies that Brittany is little England? Places that were important in the 18th century were given their current chinese names first, so it went England -> the UK (basically 'the united kingdom of greater england'). e: Also there's another (phonetic) expression for Brittany/Britain/Great Britain which is: 大 不列颠 - Great Buliedian (GB) 不列颠 - Buliedian (Britain) 布列塔尼 - Bulietani (Brittany) Private Speech fucked around with this message at 15:14 on Feb 16, 2017 |
# ? Feb 16, 2017 14:50 |
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jBrereton posted:Maybe they're Jacobites, or the name is an obliquely egalitarian message about the Citizen as King. This reminded me of the actual, real-life, mordern-day Jacobite I met one time while I was out for a walk in Irvine. He was extremely angry about Douglases, let me tell you.
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 14:53 |
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Fangz posted:Fun fact: the word for 'Britain' and 'England' are the same in Chinese. Well yeah, they're smart enough to know that the provinces don't matter Now excuse me, this pig head won't gently caress itself
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 15:01 |
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big scary monsters posted:This reminded me of the actual, real-life, mordern-day Jacobite I met one time while I was out for a walk in Irvine. He was extremely angry about Douglases, let me tell you.
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 15:02 |
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Guavanaut posted:What were his thoughts on Franz of Bavaria? I'm not sure, he spent most of his time talking about Sherrifmuir. I assume he'd welcome seeing dachshunds replace the corgis at Balmoral though.
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 15:11 |
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I am convinced that to Americans, London = England. Unless you meet one of the ones who is like 'oh my grandfather was from Cornwall'.
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 15:15 |
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Here's a really nice summary of the attitudes the left has been taking over Brexit and we've been doing in the thread:quote:What strikes me about conversations on social media regarding brexit is that there are three diffrent categories of contribution- not strands of commentary, but comments- the Entrenched Lexiteer, the Moral Remainer and the Exhausted and Confused Naive Appeal to Unity. 3 different comments being repeated over and over again with almost no capacity for nuance or development and with almost no exceptions. I agree that unfortunately we haven't actually had a way of cutting across the divide, although I guess the theatre in the USA is providing some ground on that front (although as pointed out, already split due to the actions of some), but ultimately we're struggling to reach a resolution to anything as is.
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 15:29 |
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LemonDrizzle posted:Well, they aren't legal tender so the wide-eyed starers aren't completely wrong... Legal tender has nothing to do with on the spot payments anyway, only repayments of debt which means that stuff like restaurant bills (because you've already eaten before you pay) are the only time it would generally apply. Almost all the time it would be company policy to accept the money anyway so the staff usually don't have the right to refuse you. I got an apology from First Bus group after one of their drivers refused to let me on when I only had Scottish money on me for this very reason .
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 15:39 |
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namesake posted:Here's a really nice summary of the attitudes the left has been taking over Brexit and we've been doing in the thread: Nifty. Where's this from?
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 16:14 |
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Tesseraction posted:Nifty. Where's this from? Just someone I know on Facebook, not a famous lefty or anything.
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 16:17 |
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namesake posted:Just someone I know on Facebook, not a famous lefty or anything. Well, it's a good piece. Out of interest is the author an Entrenched Lex or a Moral Remainer?
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 16:28 |
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Fangz posted:I think "People who think about ethics and morality" have pretty much abandoned the concept that there's a single universally held moral system that is demonstrably the best. Not everyone is a strict utilitarian - in fact very few people are. No one ever thought there was a "universally held" moral system. Consequentialism is still a major school in ethics, though, and it does rule out saving your family first just because they are your family.
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 16:30 |
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Kaiser Soze didn't put his family first
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 16:33 |
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Oh dear me posted:No one ever thought there was a "universally held" moral system. Consequentialism is still a major school in ethics, though, and it does rule out saving your family first just because they are your family. One of the big three, and even in the other 2 you'd have to do some arguing to get to the fact that 'family comes first' is a proper way to behave morally.
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 16:35 |
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Tesseraction posted:Well, it's a good piece. Out of interest is the author an Entrenched Lex or a Moral Remainer? .... Trying not to be any of them?
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 16:37 |
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Oh dear me posted:No one ever thought there was a "universally held" moral system. Consequentialism is still a major school in ethics, though, and it does rule out saving your family first just because they are your family. How? Just to be clear, we are positing the situation where you can choose to save individual A or B and A is your family, B is not, and all else is equal. Surely advocating for 'flipping a coin' in such situations is far more of a Deontological position than a consequential one. From a consequential one it genuinely doesn't matter which you save aside from any extra value added to individual A from them being their family. Assuming being your family doesn't add negative value, you should definitely always save A. (If it does add negative value, then you should save B always. There's no position, it seems to me, where you want to be willfully blind.) Fangz fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Feb 16, 2017 |
# ? Feb 16, 2017 16:38 |
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big scary monsters posted:This reminded me of the actual, real-life, mordern-day Jacobite I met one time while I was out for a walk in Irvine. He was extremely angry about Douglases, let me tell you. Do they still send those mad letters to the guy in Bavaria that's James' last descendant offering to start the war any time he wants?
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 16:50 |
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namesake posted:.... I was just wondering if they were being self-critical is all. They seemed pretty down on Moral Remainers.
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 16:53 |
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Fangz posted:Surely advocating for 'flipping a coin' in such situations is far more of a Deontological position than a consequential one. From a consequential one it genuinely doesn't matter which you save Consequentialists don't advocate tossing a coin, but looking at the results of what you do. I am really not sure how you get to the second statement. From a consequentialist view I should save that life which will have the best effects, and considerations might be: how long they might be expected to live, how many people would be bereaved if they died, do they have dependants in particular need of them, are they medical geniuses likely to save others and so on.
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 16:56 |
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goddamnedtwisto posted:Do they still send those mad letters to the guy in Bavaria that's James' last descendant offering to start the war any time he wants? ~It's happening.~
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 16:57 |
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Oh dear me posted:Consequentialists don't advocate tossing a coin, but looking at the results of what you do. I am really not sure how you get to the second statement. From a consequentialist view I should save that life which will have the best effects, and considerations might be: how long they might be expected to live, how many people would be bereaved if they died, do they have dependants in particular need of them, are they medical geniuses likely to save others and so on. Right, so in the case of all else being equal? (EDIT: As in e.g. a situation where you know literally nothing else except that one of the two is your family member, so none of those other considerations can be made?) The friend/family member is a known quantity who will make the person deciding (and his own friends) unhappy, the stranger is a stranger (and so potentially has *no family or friends*, something ruled out for person A), so the family member gets saved. I'm not advocating for a position where bonds of family or friendship overwhelm all other considerations. Fangz fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Feb 16, 2017 |
# ? Feb 16, 2017 17:00 |
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Fangz posted:The friend/family member is a known quantity who will make the person deciding (and his own friends) unhappy, the stranger is a stranger (and so potentially has *no family or friends*, something ruled out for person A), so the family member gets saved. No, that's wrong: the stranger also potentially has hundreds of family and friends and is a young medical genius to boot. Just mentioning a possibility isn't good enough, you have to go by probability. I am in my fifties, childless, chronically ill, and most of my family are dead already. Someone who knew me would also know that they would probably do more good by saving the other person. (Assuming the other person was not 90 years old or wearing a UKIP badge.)
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 17:10 |
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Oh dear me posted:No, that's wrong: the stranger also potentially has hundreds of family and friends and is a young medical genius to boot. Just mentioning a possibility isn't good enough, you have to go by probability. Then you've constructed a situation where it's not 'all else being equal'. Fangz fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Feb 16, 2017 |
# ? Feb 16, 2017 17:12 |
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So, if countries are shared beliefs, why do so many people who share the beliefs of the UK want to expel so many other people who also fully share the beliefs of the UK from the territory of the UK, based solely on an administrative property of these people? Not even birthplace, just citizenship seems to be enough to cause this response. Why? They are their countrymen, aren't they?
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 17:13 |
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Pochoclo posted:So, if countries are shared beliefs, why do so many people who share the beliefs of the UK want to expel so many other people who also fully share the beliefs of the UK from the territory of the UK, based solely on an administrative property of these people? Not even birthplace, just citizenship seems to be enough to cause this response. Why? They are their countrymen, aren't they? Because they are douchebags.
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 17:16 |
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Cerv posted:frankly i'm disgusted that you'd have that bust in the first place. I've never been prouder to be regarded as having an immoral stance on something tbh. And yeah, I've never really felt myself as British except once every 4 years as a kid when the Olympics would come around. I've always self-identified as Scottish. Which, rather than being a political statement is probably based in sport again, specifically international football. I've little doubt that if there was a United Kingdom international football team instead of the 4 home nations, and a unified UK football league instead of different national leagues 25 years ago then I'd have grown up with a much less strong Scottish identity. Though it's already deeply embedded now so if you changed all that I'd just stop watching international football (it's shite anyway).
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 17:21 |
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Fangz posted:Then you've constructed a situation where it's not 'all else being equal'. I took the situation described. Since the rescuer is supposed to know one of the victims, they should know roughly whether there's reason to suppose they are likely to live longer and do more good than the other victim (in the unlikely event that the other victim's appearance and age give no clues about this at all). It's very unlikely that they are exactly average. But if there were really no reason to think one life would either be longer or do more good than the other, the decision would of course be morally neutral from a consequentialist point of view.
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 17:23 |
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Fangz posted:Because they are douchebags. Sure, but what I mean is that for many many people currently in the UK, the "I just prefer that the country's resources are spent with preference towards my own countrymen" argument they're using is actually, deep down, "I just prefer that the country's resources are spent with preference towards my own countrymen... as long as they belong to my favourite arbitrarily defined (mostly ethnic) group"
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 17:24 |
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Pochoclo posted:Sure, but what I mean is that for many many people currently in the UK, the "I just prefer that the country's resources are spent with preference towards my own countrymen" argument they're using is actually, deep down, "I just prefer that the country's resources are spent with preference towards my own countrymen... as long as they belong to my favourite ethnic group" Well yes. Casual xenophobia is a core part of the shared nationality identity.
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 17:24 |
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Oh dear me posted:I took the situation described. Since the rescuer is supposed to know one of the victims, they should know roughly whether there's reason to suppose they are likely to live longer and do more good than the other victim (in the unlikely event that the other victim's appearance and age give no clues about this at all). It's very unlikely that they are exactly average. But if there were really no reason to think one life would either be longer or do more good than the other, the decision would of course be morally neutral from a consequentialist point of view. I think you're morphing the situation away from what the original debate was about. The debate was originally about friends or loved ones, and the idea that your friendship or love of one of the individual creates a "conflict of interest" and so either an 'impartial' judge should be brought in or the decision should be done randomly. I think there's a lot of assumptions being put in here, but from the consequentialist's viewpoint it's fundamentally about the admissibility of evidence, whether a person's personal knowledge and familiarity is admissable or not. Again, I'm not arguing that such feelings trump all others. I am however arguing that there's no obvious consequentialist argument that your personal feelings should be totally ignored as a rule. It is obviously difficult to construct plausible 'all else is equal' dilemmas.
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 17:27 |
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Pochoclo posted:Sure, but what I mean is that for many many people currently in the UK, the "I just prefer that the country's resources are spent with preference towards my own countrymen" argument they're using is actually, deep down, "I just prefer that the country's resources are spent with preference towards my own countrymen... as long as they belong to my favourite arbitrarily defined (mostly ethnic) group" Surely it is really "I just prefer that the country's resources are spent with preference on me and my family. Restricting the range to my ethnic group slightly increases my share or chance, and then we could sanction a whole load more as scroungers, stick a load in prison as criminals, etc"
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 17:28 |
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Oh dear me posted:But if there were really no reason to think one life would either be longer or do more good than the other, the decision would of course be morally neutral from a consequentialist point of view. In one case, sufficient people choosing to spare the family member may create a society with closer family bonds, more close knit communities, more stable relationships, but also more nepotism, less tolerance of outsiders, less diversity of thought. In the other it might be the inverse, greater likelihood to help someone we haven't met, greater diversity, but less closeness, warmth, or community. Which of those you think is better depends in turn to who was at the lever when it was your turn on the tracks.
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 17:31 |
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# ? May 11, 2024 09:40 |
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Pochoclo posted:Sure, but what I mean is that for many many people currently in the UK, the "I just prefer that the country's resources are spent with preference towards my own countrymen" argument they're using is actually, deep down, "I just prefer that the country's resources are spent with preference towards my own countrymen... as long as they belong to my favourite arbitrarily defined (mostly ethnic) group" People have varying and complicated views of what their nation means to them at the end of the day. Welcome to the fun world of belief systems.
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# ? Feb 16, 2017 17:35 |