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Zudgemud posted:Personally I'm all for developing nuclear, most of the nuclear plants in use today are really old and use tech that could be greatly improved upon if there was political support for doing so in the long term. There's another difference between back when nuke plants were made and now: back then, there was a certain idea of what a nation-state is, and that included having stuff like nationalized electric companies and long term planning. Now, everything has to be privatized, so that it can be made "competitive" by being for profit, so that we have one metric of what is competitive (makes a lot of profit) and what isn't (actually works as intended). Nuclear power today is a lot less reliable than in the 60s and 70s, because all the technological progress is undermined by a fanatical devotion to corner-cutting as an avatar of the ultimate good. That all this corner-cutting results in shoddy stuff that cannot be accepted as-is and will need to be scrapped and rebuilt from scratch if some oversight organism has a word to say, resulting in huge delays and massively increased spending, isn't a problem; what's important is saving $5000 in the immediate terms (so that you can embezzle them), even if it results in wasting $50 000 000 a couple years down the line. The EPR has been a mess everywhere because it's managed by people with MBAs instead of by engineers.
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Apr 22, 2016 15:19
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blowfish posted:but due to really basic things like construction crews used to constructing random buildings needing to adjust to actually building a high spec facility to house nuclear stuff. That's a big part of the many issues with the EPR. In France, for the Flamanville EPR, the official nuclear safety agency complained to the builder that the concrete pillars "looked like gruyere cheese" and were "full of rock nests" (that is to say, parts were there's gravel but no cement)... This was because, to proceed faster to try to compensate for the delays, they did stupid poo poo like laying too much concrete at once instead of proceeding layer by layer.
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Apr 23, 2016 20:31
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Not surprising; see also the recently voted trade secret directive; which officially is about preventing industrial spying but really is all about preventing more Luxleaks and Panama Papers from happening. Germany, for one, would never let anything happens that would really try to put a stop to industrial espionage, since they're all about helping the NSA spy on Airbus on behalf of Boeing.
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Apr 25, 2016 10:24
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Pluskut Tukker posted:You're saying that Luxemburg's prosecution of the whistleblowers is in line with the EU trade secrets directive, which has been passed to grant firms stronger protection against industrial espionage and has been criticised for failing to grant sufficient protection to whistleblowers, and which was broadly approved by the EU Council which includes Germany. Pluskut Tukker posted:But then again, Germany in turn doesn't really want to protect against espionage but helped pass the directive anyway to benefit Boeing, even though Germany effectively owns 11% of the shares in Airbus. I'm really confused now. You missed it?
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Apr 25, 2016 16:37
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Pluskut Tukker posted:Why not give it to Belgium? Because the next step is splitting Belgium into one half for France and the other for the Netherlands.
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Apr 25, 2016 18:38
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A Buttery Pastry posted:I think Merkel should offer the Scots her support in them simply getting the UK's spot in the EU, should the UK leave and they go independent. France and Spain would do everything they could to shut her up if she tried to propose that.
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Apr 27, 2016 23:04
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LemonDrizzle posted:Paul Mason wants Austria's EU membership suspended if the far-right candidate wins the presidency: http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...country-from-eu Wow, it's like when politicians decide to be Fascist-Lite, voters start going for Fascist-Original Recipe instead? Like if you turn the public discourse away from "fascism is bad" and decide to make it instead "fascism is good in moderation" then that will benefit the real fascists more than the "traditional" parties? When your policies are based on the axiom that immigrants are an existential threat to the country and they should be kept out, that's why you're building fences, then why the gently caress are you surprised that those people who say "immigrants are an existential threat to the country, that's why we're gonna boot them out of here" gain votes? By going fascist-lite, you're not appeasing the fascist itch of the electorate, you're justifying it and telling people that fascism is the answer, so of course they're gonna go for the real-deal instead of the diet version you're trying to sell them. Tesseraction posted:Eh, 2 in a century isn't that common. Britain has produced several more Hitlers per century, just our dumb electoral system has thankfully prevailed in keeping them out of power. You could probably find people in India who would count Churchill as one. Cat Mattress fucked around with this message at 14:28 on May 3, 2016 |
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May 3, 2016 14:25
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The whole point of hiring foreign workers is that they aren't actually aware of how much free time their job is supposed to give them.
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May 17, 2016 22:23
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Hey, keep in mind that the 1 eurocent coin is worth like ten thousand Italian lira from before the monetary union. People used to have banknotes with lots of zeros for these values.
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May 18, 2016 12:29
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blowfish posted:It's so adorable that us Europeans think a single random shooting is a noteworthy event. Now in America... It just has to be a big enough shooting. (I don't know why this is on the Onion. As far as I know, the article is fully accurate and not satire.)
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May 22, 2016 10:13
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NikkolasKing posted:Yes, I have heard of nationalism. It rests comfortably in my ideological garbage bin along with Creationism. Do you agree, then, that for example India should have remained a British colony? Because it was very nationalist of the Indians to want to be their own independent and sovereign nation-state. Repeat that example for every other piece of colonial land. It's also very nationalist of the Taiwanese to not submit to China already. And these stubborn South Koreans, how nationalist of them not to reunite with their northern brethren under the wise guidance of Fat Leader? Nationalism is actually a good thing in moderation. Yes, its excesses have led to disasters, but the same can be said of any other ideology. Zudgemud posted:And to be honest nationalism/tribalism has historically been much better at organizing society than any type of all inclusive internationalism or humanitarianism. Let's just look at the massive success and all-around utopian paradise that was the internationalism of the Soviet Union... NikkolasKing posted:As for the current world, why would the EU exist if this nationalism over common sense was actually the popular idea in Europe? If you care so much about your country, why aren't you trying to attach it to a superstate that can make it stronger both economically and militarily? That's what I came in here to ask. If the EU does those things, I can see no reason to not want in on it. If it doesn't do those things, then I would like to know so I can revise my understanding of the situation. The reasons why the EU was created originally are massively different from the reason why the EU exists now. Before it was a dream of cooperation leading eventually to a federal superstate which would ensure European people would remain prosperous and united throughout whatever crises the future would throw at them. Nowadays, the European Union mostly exists as a competitive financial free-market with the aim of racing everything to the bottom, with the eventual result that things such as "laws" or "democracy" will be fully abolished and replaced by a return to the Ancient Regime of feudal lords (the 1%) and toiling serfs (the 99%). Cat Mattress fucked around with this message at 12:12 on May 22, 2016 |
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May 22, 2016 12:07
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NikkolasKing posted:It was not anything remotely resembling reall international cooperation with equal partnerships. Neither is the EU. A large problem begins by trying to define what the heck an equal partnership is, actually.
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May 22, 2016 12:27
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Nah, each European nation state has some armed forces, but the European Union itself doesn't have one.
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May 22, 2016 16:11
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Torrannor posted:Some claim that the EU is a neoliberal institution starting a race to the bottom. And there is some truth to this claim, but it can always be worse. Case in point, the UK Tories That's why a Brexit is important for Europe. Getting rid of Britain could allow to give a less neolib direction to the EU. It's a long shot (I think we should also kick Germany out to have a real chance) but it's definitely impossible as long as the UK has a word to say.
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May 23, 2016 14:42
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Tesseraction posted:I'm assuming this is based on the government's new labour regulation? What is the major point of contention, again, for those of us with oddly short memories? You can try a google translate of these articles: http://droit-finances.commentcamarche.net/faq/52536-loi-el-khomri-loi-travail-ce-qui-va-changer#entree-en-vigueur http://www.europe1.fr/economie/que-va-changer-le-projet-de-loi-el-khomri-dans-la-vie-des-salaries-2671489 Basically, though, the biggest points of contention are: * overtime will be paid a lot less * employers can use referenda to enact changes in working conditions even if the trade unions are opposed * indemnities for abusive firing are now given limits It's the same old "we'll solve the unemployment crisis by making sure enterprises can more easily let go of their employees and have less incentive to increase their workforce" policies that have been going on since the 1980s. OwlFancier posted:Why is that a thing? You can look at something like the government shutdown of the USA to see the kind of justification for this existing. But well, turns out solving that problem actually causes a bigger problem, so welp. Cat Mattress fucked around with this message at 22:07 on May 24, 2016 |
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May 24, 2016 22:03
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I don't get why the French people complain about their government, don't they know that Hollande has been named "statesman of the year" by a bunch of New Yorkers? That puts him hot on the heels of UK Prime Minister David Cameron (SOTY 2015) and Canadian PM Stephen Harper (SOTY 2012), as well as his predecessor Sarkozy (SOTY 2008).Kassad posted:This one is better: Not the right finger to be raising, IMO.
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May 27, 2016 10:30
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Violence should be directed against the 1% IMO.
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May 27, 2016 15:02
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So the big takeaway here is that fascists are bad, we should round all them up and exterminate them. Also exterminate this topic.
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May 28, 2016 00:48
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Brainiac Five posted:Why exactly does your postcount in this thread give you the ability to dictate the course of it? Or is it some other factor that makes "Also exterminate this topic." anything more than puling and whining? The other factor is that this tangent is boring.
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May 28, 2016 01:03
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John Stalvern waited. The streetlights above him blinked and sparked out of the air. There were fascists in the city. He didn't see them, but had expected them now for years. His warnings to Cernel Joson were not listenend to and now it was too late. Far too late for now, anyway. John was an antifash for fourteen years. When he was young he watched the riots and he said to dad "I want to be on the riots daddy." Dad said "No! You will BE KILL BY THE MAN" There was a time when he believed him. Then as he got oldered he stopped. But now in the alleyway streets of the city he knew there were fascists. "This is Joson" the radio crackered. "You must fight the fascists!" So John gotted his motolov cocktail and blew up the wall. "HE GOING TO KILL US" said the fascists "I will shoot at him" said the gang leader and he fired the tacticlol guns. John molotoved at him and tried to blew him up. But then the ceiling fell and they were trapped and not able to kill. "No! I must kill the fascists" he shouted The radio said "No, John. You are the fascists" And then John was a nazi.
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May 31, 2016 00:41
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"We need to be more competitive! Workers have to agree to have their wages and benefits slashed, there is no other way." Meanwhile, in another country: "Look at this country over there! They're slashing their wages! We have to be competitive and slash ours too!" Back to the first country: "They're slashing their wages even more than we slashed ours! How can we stay competitive? We've got to slash even more now! Slash slash slash slash slash slash slash!" Back to the other country: "Okay, just screw it, let's officially reestablish serfdom and slavery. It's the only way to stay competitive." gently caress competitiveness. The whole competitive buzzword is just a way to organize a social and environmental race to the bottom, as politicians will dutifully unravel all the progress that has been made since the 19th century so as to sink the entire continent to the level of a hellhole like China. Meanwhile, 0.000001% of the population possesses half the world's wealth, but, you know, it's the bottom 90% who have to agree to becoming poorer in order to make sure that the top 1% can keep getting richer. Nevermind that by slashing the income of the people who actually loving need an income will result in greatly decreasing demand, which will cause the whole economy to go tits up, but hey, you know, what's good is being competitive by making sure poor people get poorer and rich people get richer and gently caress it when do we kill and eat all the rich yet Competitiveness is the exact inverse of what should be done. What should be done is increasing minimum wage drastically and putting huge fuckoff import tariffs against all countries with a lesser minimum wage to force them to race up, instead of letting them force us to race down.
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Jun 4, 2016 00:30
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YF-23 posted:I'm torn between wanting the UK to stay because it would be a shitshow if they didn't, and wanting them to leave so I can see the shitshow it would be. For maximum schadenfreude, I'm hoping for a Brexit followed by a Scoxit.
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Jun 7, 2016 19:35
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waitwhatno posted:I admit that I don't know that much about France and NATO, but I was under the impression that the decision to leave only came about after De Gaulle's return and that it was a massive change of course for the country. Do you have some source on that subject? First, France did not leave NATO altogether, they only withdrew from the integrated command. Secondly, the main reason for leaving integrated command was sovereignty and independence: it coincided with the development of French nuclear deterrence, and this deterrent had to remain 100% under French control. A Buttery Pastry posted:That's hardly conquest. It's called "forced vassalization" in Europa Universalis, and "puppet city" in Civilization. In both cases you can just annex it afterwards if you feel like it.
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Jun 8, 2016 18:33
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waitwhatno posted:And there is a general trend of hyping China and talking about its rapid economic growth, compared to the small, stagnant and unimportant EU. This is really funny, because yeah, when you've got a pre-industrial country and you're industrializing it, of course you're gonna have colossal levels until you catch up with the rest of the world; and China's economy is starting to run out of breath already anyway. If you really want to imitate China's growth, it's really easy: first, you've got to dismantle all your industries and infrastructures to set your GDP back to as close to 0 as possible, and then you can get an astounding growth rate as you rebuild!
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Jun 11, 2016 10:46
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I'm pretty sure that "regulate business" is also on the Leave campaign lists of things the EU is doing.
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Jun 11, 2016 11:24
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Schaüble is very big on punishing disobedient countries. He's pretty much a real-life James Bond villain.
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Jun 11, 2016 17:13
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Now we see the virtue in following Brüning's ordoliberal ideas: by turning Greece into a shithole, the brown horde of mosselmans is effortlessly pushed back!GaussianCopula posted:No. I believe Greece is responsible for the refugees and should take care of them. It would even be a Keynesian stimulus if you cut the wages of public employees to give the money to refugees. Yes, great idea! What Greece desperately need right now is for all officials to get paid so little that they have no choice but to rely on bribes as their primary source of income! More corruption is always great! Very nice of you to redefine austerity as Keynesianism, though. You've managed to claim that cutting wages was a stimulus, which is a really impressive level of dishonesty.
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Jun 14, 2016 12:32
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That would only be true if you didn't redistribute the wealth from people who are already spending all they've got.
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Jun 14, 2016 13:14
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You don't need to be in a big city to have a lot of Muslims around. I live in a small city (only ~5000 people in the city proper) and there is a whole Moroccan district in the center. (Oddly enough, we also have a bunch of Japanese.)
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Jun 15, 2016 15:37
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Libluini posted:To be fair, I have no idea. This is why I go to elections to elect people I hope know more about this. Representative Democracy! The UK has always pushed for (what became) the European Union to be a common market/neoliberal free trade zone and nothing else. They've pushed pretty hard for fast-paced enlargement and consistently opposed attempts at further integration. So they're really at odds with the original idea that was to become, eventually, a federal union of European nations. Lagotto posted:After Germany, the UK is the biggest net contributer to the EU budget. The above is dumb propaganda. According to that thing, if you look at "operating budgetary balance", it's France which is in second place after Germany. UK is third, followed closely by the Netherlands and Italy. For "revenue", if you look at "total national contribution", then it's Germany, France, Italy, UK, Spain, Netherlands. Cat Mattress fucked around with this message at 13:47 on Jun 16, 2016 |
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Jun 16, 2016 13:36
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WMain00 posted:I imagine the future will be the UK eventually consuming itself in its own hubris and corruption, until eventually what remains is just a shattered 2nd world country I don't think they're gonna join the Soviet Block?
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Jun 16, 2016 13:48
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Arglebargle III posted:I don't understand why the German chancellor could tell the French President what to do with his budget. Is that really what happened? Germany's got more money than any other country in Europe. Therefore they are the emperor and everyone else is their vassals. It's simple, really.
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Jun 19, 2016 06:12
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Why a German? You've breached the rules several times. No, the only countries responsible enough to manage the EU are Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, and Sweden. I strongly object to the presence of Jean-Fraude "LuxLeaks" Juncker's homeland on the list of responsible countries.
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Jun 19, 2016 10:25
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Either way, I don't see reform of the EU possible without a Brexit. For at least two reasons: 1. The UK, ever since Thatcher, has been largely responsible (along with the Germans) for the EU being what it is now. 2. The EU is so sure of itself and so convinced that its policies are God's Unquestionable Truth that it just isn't possible at all for it to change without a seriously traumatic event to shake it up. Losing one of the Big Three countries could be that traumatic event that would lead to reexamining the validity of certain dogma that they adhere to despite reality getting consistently in the way.
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Jun 20, 2016 14:23
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effectual posted:Does england just need 51% of citizens to vote to leave? I would've made it take 60, 67, or 75% when making the EU. It's 51% of voters. There's no quorum. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32810887
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Jun 21, 2016 19:31
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Pluskut Tukker posted:The only report I can remember saying leave could be good for Britain economically is this one from OpenEurope, but then the conditions for Brexit to be beneficial require that it pursues 'ambitious deregulation' and 'liberal immigration policies'. But then, OpenEurope's supporters list appears to be a Who's Who of British business. Ha, good old "abrogate all laws and import slaves". Who could have predicted that the most influential anarchist movement would be the one started by capitalists?
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Jun 22, 2016 09:56
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Greece needs to undergo some courageous reforms to bring it into the modernity of the 21st century. For a start, they need to abolish pensions, abolish wages, abolish public services, and tax everyone under the poverty line for 1500% of their belonging, every month. Also, they need to deregulate massively to allow the private sector to thrive -- we're talking the complete abolition of any law designed to protect customers, workers, the environment, or pretty much anything else really. In fact, Greece needs to abolish everything except the police and military force, which will be merged together and renamed as poor people oppression troops. Once all these reforms are done, Greece should become a flourishing and dynamic country, prosperous and fair. But the lazy corrupt plebes over there disagree, because they're dumb. They really need to understand that true modernity is a return to the 17th century, back when commoners were serfs and the ruling caste of
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Jun 22, 2016 12:50
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Ligur posted:Also you guys harping on GC because you think he wants to starve poor Greek people to death or something, what is your "cure" for Greece then? Just pumping untold billions of European taxpayers money year after year to Greece until the end of time? Something else, what? Slaughter the rich so that the Greek people have something to eat. That's my solution, anyway.
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Jun 22, 2016 15:30
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ReagaNOMNOMicks posted:Nation-state never meant "functioning state" or "modern state" or "the ideas that come to my head haphazardly about what a ntion-sate is". Yes indeed. So, let's refine some notions a bit. There are three different elements:
All three elements cover a different dimension:
What is a nation? It's a bunch of people who, in their majority, believe they belong together. It's not necessarily defined by language or by culture, a nation can be multilingual and multicultural, or it may be monolingual and monocultural, doesn't matter. What matters is the feeling that the people have that they belong together. This is called a national identity. What is a state? It's an organization that administers both people (its citizens, or subjects, depending on the kind of state) and territory. What is a country? It's territory controlled by a state. There's a cultural element here in that the boundaries for a country are largely caused by historical circumstances, especially when there are no "natural borders" such as a mountain range or a shoreline. What is a nation-state then? It's when you have a state, and the inhabitants of this state form a nation, and the territory of this state form a country. National identity is not an exclusive thing. It's perfectly possible for someone to feel that they are Scottish and British and European. This person has three national identities, and will vote YES on keeping Scotland in the United Kingdom and YES on keeping the United Kingdom in the European Union. On the other hand, it's possible to feel Scottish but not British. Then this person voted NO on keeping Scotland in the UK. When a state does not have a nation, it tends to be dysfunctional. People will not feel that the state represents them, because they don't feel that they belong with the other citizens or subjects of the state. This leads to a whole bunch of problems and the solutions are either to build a national identity in which they will recognize themselves, or partitioning the country into different states. The state needs legitimacy, and in a nation-state, legitimacy is the consent of the governed. You may, if you prefer, have an autocratic state where legitimacy is through strength, the ability of the government to crush any form of dissidence; it's probably preferable since nation-states are so awful. Now what is a FYGM? It's when people don't feel that they have any reason to show solidarity to their brethren, because they don't even see them as their brethren. And a shared national identity is something that helps mitigate (even if not, unfortunately, abrogate) FYGM. Example: West German people accepted to spend untold gazillions of Deutschemark into bringing East Germany out of Soviet-induced poverty, because they felt the Ossies belonged with the Wessies. But then German people wanted the Greek to starve more because FYGM, they really don't think the Greeks belong with them. That's why you're not going to be able to build a nation-state of United Germany and Greece. FYGM is the biggest obstacle to welfare. Nation-states are necessary for building a welfare state because if you don't have a shared national identity, you're never going to be able to overcome mankind's deep entranched FYGM instincts.
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Jun 23, 2016 07:23
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I think the EU is terribly flawed even if there's the kernel of a good idea buried under tons of crap, and that the UK should get out.
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Jun 23, 2016 11:42
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