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Helsing posted:In theory why couldn't we have a society where most people live in favelas, scraping whatever meagre income they can get from black / grey market activity, while an ultra wealthy few live in hyper automated gated communities? That kind of society could conceivably continue to progress economically and technologically while just sort of leaving a large portion of humanity in the dust. You've come quite close to describing the Victorian era, which we rapidly seem to be regressing to.
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Jan 29, 2016 21:25
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 11:44 |
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icantfindaname posted:Constitutionally speaking most of them actually aren't. The UK is probably as old or older depending on when exactly you consider its 'constitution' and the modern system of Westminster parliamentary government established, but not by very much. The institution of Prime Minister only existed since the mid 1700s, and the concepts of a an institutionalized system of government vs opposition in parliament, and the modern electoral system only since the 1830s. Firstly, I'm not sure why you think the Great Reform Act established a 'modern electoral system' and the one before it was somehow wildly different. It's not nearly as Great as you think. Secondly, this is a bit of a slippery slope. Does the US lose constitutional continuity every time it passes an Amendment? Immediately-post-establishment US had a pretty different electoral system to now (only rich white men get to vote, the Senate was not directly elected), but despite the system being different we don't claim it's a different government.
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Jan 31, 2016 17:51
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icantfindaname posted:If you take the establishment of the office of prime minister the UK is older, but only by a few decades. Every other major European country is younger Why would you go with the office of prime minister? That's a really, really weird thing to look at and say 'oh hey the UK is modern now', it wasn't even an official post for decades, and early on the King had way more input into his government's policy prime minister or not. The Glorious Revolution would be a much better point since it pinned down the whole 'constitutional monarchy' thing.
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Jan 31, 2016 20:03
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Probably. Real estate is a bubble again. Everybody wants the price of their land to go higher and higher all the time and people are opposing high-density development to drive their home values up. Trouble is, when the housing market does crash a lot of people will just deny reality and refuse to sell rather than allow their homes to ~drop in value~. It's not like most people (baby boomers/retirees especially) need to move house so they can just hang on indefinitely.
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Feb 11, 2016 11:40
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Then when pappap dies and the kids have to figure out what to do with the house...then what? Then it'll get interesting, but the boomers aren't yet at the stage where they're all rapidly dying off. Give it a decade or so and that could trigger a fall in house prices, though.
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Feb 11, 2016 15:54
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 11:44 |
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Cost of my wife's root canal in the US, if she'd gotten it taken care of while we were over there: $1000. Cost of my wife's root canal on the NHS in the UK, once we got back: about $40.
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Jan 13, 2017 21:24
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