IOPList.Org

Brexit is a mess, the US admin is a worldwide joke, I really hope France sees that Le Pen is a disaster waiting to happen. I literally fear for our world right now.

(04-24-2017, 03:47 AM)reilli Wrote: [ -> ]Brexit is a mess, the US admin is a worldwide joke, I really hope France sees that Le Pen is a disaster waiting to happen. I literally fear for our world right now.

i second this notion. i wish more scientists were in office making policies, but they are too smart for that. they would rather be on the actual threshold of human innovation which government is no longer and perhaps never was. take for instance the free markets swift punishment of united airlines. no bureaucratically delayed reactions and rules, just people saying load and clear this will not be tolerated and watch that 180 spin. greed is rampant and all many people understand is their revenue streams depleting. once upon a time our countries founding men were scientists, inventors, innovators, of course still mostly bound by the thinking of their era so they weren't saints, if you plucked them out of their time into an anachronistic situation they probably would seem pretty backwards and racist but they displayed talent in the sciences and great intelligence for their time and our politicians today are actors, public speakers, persuaders, charlatans, degrading further, into white collar crooks, liars, deniers of science devolving further into... reality tv stars, peddlers of 'alternate facts', dredgers of racism and prejudice, proponents of torture.

i know we have an idealistic view of the founding fathers. a lot of them were huge dicks, no question about it. but i guess what i am saying is ben franklin was a syphilis ridden man-whore... but he also invented the bifocals. we've got people who can convince themselves the world is flat, or 6000 years old, or isn't fucking roiling to a boil from climate change because they are completely disconnected to scientific and rational thought. this is more dangerous than any ideology and could honestly be a panacea for many of them that are just plain crazy.

that's what i think anyway.


- S.

[quote pid='69169' dateline='1492724414']

(04-19-2017, 09:51 AM)barq- Wrote: [ -> ]I find Le Pen a scary figure. My house decorator, who is French, thinks it could happen.

I think she could drag France out of the European Union. Whatever failings the EU might have (e.g. being bureaucratic), it has kept the peace in Europe. You don't need to know much history to be aware Europe spent the previous 1000 years having almost constant wars. France is an important counter-balance to Germany in the EU and Le Pen would destabilise that.

Obviously the UK is not exactly helping matters with it's Brexit, but it is run by a right-wing government rather than actual fascists like Le Pen. (It is right wing by UK standards, but that's different to the USA version of right wing. The UK version is  more socially liberal, but financially very conservative - so gay marriage is fine, but God help you if you are poor.)

Unfortunately the path to isolationism and the rise of nationalism was set in the 2008 financial crisis. To be honest I'm surprised it has taken this long to happen.

i am sincerely hoping she gets knocked out in the first round, and frankly it's a scary deja vu scenario when i see french political pundits saying "we will not have another trump situation here" i'm just like... agh don't be so foolhardy to be that confident that the bad thing just cannot and will not happen.

- S.
[/quote]

Quote:also the aftermath of brexit is a disgrace. all of the proponents are backpedalling on their platforms and promises. especially that man, i forget his name, but he was in that video where he just absolutely roasted that UN member in parliament which was in such poor taste even the british accent didn't subconsciously soften my opinion about his rudeness.

Sadly she's through to the 2nd round. However, since Macron is a centrist I would expect him to pick up a lot of votes from the other candidates. After recent political shocks, I'm not going to make predictions beyond pointing out the numbers are on his side. Let's hope the French people do the right thing!

I agree about the aftermath of Brexit being a disgrace. If politicians are going to back-pedal to that extent, then I think you should have to re-run the whole thing for it to be democratically legitimate. (Not that there is much enthusiasm for another vote in the UK.) When the referendum results were announced I had to explain to friends from around the world WTF had just happened. The general reaction was "You did what!?!".

The rude man you mentioned might be Nigel Farage. He was the one who told all the European politicians that none of them had ever done a proper job in their lives. It was a) untrue, and b) a bit much coming from a former investment banker like him. It is just stupid to insult the people you need to negotiate with. Frankly I think the man is an embarrassment to the UK. By the end of this it won't even be the UK any more, Scotland will leave, possibly N Ireland too. You can't be the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (that's the full title) once bits of it go missing!

You made a point somewhere else about more scientists in politics... In Germany, Angela Merkle is a scientist by background (chemist, I think). Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown had a PhD in economics and there was a brief moment where he seemed to be the only person who knew what to do when the banking crisis hit in 2008. His doctoral thesis was about the Great Depression. But in general politicians are put in charge of things they know nothing about.

One reason for the lack of scientists might be that once they have tenure (which takes years, even decades to achieve), there isn't much incentive to risk your career by going into politics. Also the scientific method is about doubt. Any good hypothesis must be falsifiable. Scientists work by trying to disprove their hypotheses, and then arriving at some tentative conclusion that is probabilistic, rather than absolute (e.g. "the probability of this effect being a fluke, rather than real is less than 0.05, therefore we are more than 95% confident the experiment supports our hypothesis"). I'm not sure how a system based on uncertainty and people being self-critical would work politically. I'd like to see more scientists in politics because actually having some evidence on which to base decisions might be a good thing! We waste ridiculous amounts of money on projects that are never going to work. However, I suspect that the voting public have a preference for simple answers. Anyone standing for office who started talking about statistical probability would be dead in the water. It looks weak, compared to someone who just comes in with a simple answer (even if the answer is wrong).

(04-24-2017, 11:11 AM)barq- Wrote: [ -> ][quote pid='69169' dateline='1492724414']

(04-19-2017, 09:51 AM)barq- Wrote: [ -> ]I find Le Pen a scary figure. My house decorator, who is French, thinks it could happen.

I think she could drag France out of the European Union. Whatever failings the EU might have (e.g. being bureaucratic), it has kept the peace in Europe. You don't need to know much history to be aware Europe spent the previous 1000 years having almost constant wars. France is an important counter-balance to Germany in the EU and Le Pen would destabilise that.

Obviously the UK is not exactly helping matters with it's Brexit, but it is run by a right-wing government rather than actual fascists like Le Pen. (It is right wing by UK standards, but that's different to the USA version of right wing. The UK version is  more socially liberal, but financially very conservative - so gay marriage is fine, but God help you if you are poor.)

Unfortunately the path to isolationism and the rise of nationalism was set in the 2008 financial crisis. To be honest I'm surprised it has taken this long to happen.

i am sincerely hoping she gets knocked out in the first round, and frankly it's a scary deja vu scenario when i see french political pundits saying "we will not have another trump situation here" i'm just like... agh don't be so foolhardy to be that confident that the bad thing just cannot and will not happen.

- S.

Quote:also the aftermath of brexit is a disgrace. all of the proponents are backpedalling on their platforms and promises. especially that man, i forget his name, but he was in that video where he just absolutely roasted that UN member in parliament which was in such poor taste even the british accent didn't subconsciously soften my opinion about his rudeness.

Sadly she's through to the 2nd round. However, since Macron is a centrist I would expect him to pick up a lot of votes from the other candidates. After recent political shocks, I'm not going to make predictions beyond pointing out the numbers are on his side. Let's hope the French people do the right thing!

I agree about the aftermath of Brexit being a disgrace. If politicians are going to back-pedal to that extent, then I think you should have to re-run the whole thing for it to be democratically legitimate. (Not that there is much enthusiasm for another vote in the UK.) When the referendum results were announced I had to explain to friends from around the world WTF had just happened. The general reaction was "You did what!?!".

The rude man you mentioned might be Nigel Farage. He was the one who told all the European politicians that none of them had ever done a proper job in their lives. It was a) untrue, and b) a bit much coming from a former investment banker like him. It is just stupid to insult the people you need to negotiate with. Frankly I think the man is an embarrassment to the UK. By the end of this it won't even be the UK any more, Scotland will leave, possibly N Ireland too. You can't be the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (that's the full title) once bits of it go missing!

You made a point somewhere else about more scientists in politics... In Germany, Angela Merkle is a scientist by background (chemist, I think). Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown had a PhD in economics and there was a brief moment where he seemed to be the only person who knew what to do when the banking crisis hit in 2008. His doctoral thesis was about the Great Depression. But in general politicians are put in charge of things they know nothing about.

One reason for the lack of scientists might be that once they have tenure (which takes years, even decades to achieve), there isn't much incentive to risk your career by going into politics. Also the scientific method is about doubt. Any good hypothesis must be falsifiable. Scientists work by trying to disprove their hypotheses, and then arriving at some tentative conclusion that is probabilistic, rather than absolute (e.g. "the probability of this effect being a fluke, rather than real is less than 0.05, therefore we are more than 95% confident the experiment supports our hypothesis"). I'm not sure how a system based on uncertainty and people being self-critical would work politically. I'd like to see more scientists in politics because actually having some evidence on which to base decisions might be a good thing! We waste ridiculous amounts of money on projects that are never going to work. However, I suspect that the voting public have a preference for simple answers. Anyone standing for office who started talking about statistical probability would be dead in the water. It looks weak, compared to someone who just comes in with a simple answer (even if the answer is wrong).
[/quote]

“There is a tragic flaw in our precious constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.” kurt vonnegut once said and i believe that statement carries a tragic amount of weight today. even in the literary world, the mind of an engineer like vonnegut was dismissed as cranking out science fiction instead of what i would prefer to call fantastical prose. you're right about Nigel, i just couldn't remember his name or be bothered to look it up because he doesn't deserve it, but if you want to see something tragically funny watch the brexit proponents (nigel included) quote the rousing final line of the speech given to pilots about to try to blow up a massive alie ship by bill pullman's president thomas j. whitmore from the 1996 movie independence day. hooooooly dumb.