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International Thread 4


Tywin Manderly

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12 hours ago, Rippounet said:

 

It's not the first time Macron's government has tried to use American paradigms in France. Macron famously declared that "liberalism is on the left" although in France "libéralisme" refers to economic liberalism and to the neo-classical school of economics specifically.
In this case though, it's political genius of the darkest kind. There's no such thing as "islamo-leftism" in French academia, but the accusation is enough to hurt both the left and academia. Two dangerous birds with one stone

Not genius really from the position of Macron wanting to be re-elected.

Trump and republicans are able to readily condemn liberals and leftists together with no fear because of the two party system.

People don’t have as realistic option. But in France there are other candidates the left and moderates can  and will go to.

The far right which Macron is trying to titillate will most likely go with Le penn when the time comes.

12 hours ago, Rippounet said:

What the French clearly wanted was for the government to answer the demands of the yellow vests.
Which it did, to some extent, precisely because at least half of the population continued to support the movement.

It should be noted we’ve moved on from gratuitous murderers to justify the rollback of civil rights and democracy, to mere vandalism as just enough reason.

Which could practically be used to justify any and all social movements no matter how needed such a movement may be.

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On 11/26/2020 at 12:21 AM, DMC said:

Except for, ya know, the entire disciplines of public policy and public administration.  That entail researching the development and implementation of policy, respectively, by positing falsifiable expectations then testing such (in part) through examining real life policy outcomes.  Is such an endeavor able to anticipate all the effects of, say, globalization at the turn of the millennium?  No, of course not, social science can't predict the future.  Neither, by the way, can the hard sciences.  But it is invaluable to the building of knowledge in order to make the most informed policy decisions possible at the time.  Seems a much better method to policymaking than nihilistically shrugging your shoulders and saying since we can't know for sure the outcome of a particular policy we shouldn't even try to craft the best possible form of it by evaluating the heaps of information already available.

There is no doubt that it is a better method when done well, but because it's only partly a scientific endeavor, doing it well is hard and there is a lot of room for ideology to creep in. You can see the latter in the fact that no two countries do this in quite the same way; even the US and France are different and China is even more different from both than they are from each other.

On 11/26/2020 at 10:21 AM, Rippounet said:

On some level it isn't your fault. The Macron government is in fact using discourses and strategies borrowed from abroad.

Except of course, French academia is nothing like its US counterpart. By tradition, French academics are more critical of religion than any of their foreign colleagues. There isn't the equivalent of "racial studies" in France, where "race" is seen as a social construct (pretty much by law) ; the closest thing to that is "post-colonial studies" which cover many topics, most of them outside the borders of Metropolitan/European France.
The idea of French academics somehow condoning Islamism is bizarre, if not absurd. Most people I've discussed this with (both inside and outside academia) have chuckled at this idea of "islamo-leftism" because it makes no sense.
Before the government started using it, it was exclusively used by the far-right to attack left-wing intellectuals.

It's not the first time Macron's government has tried to use American paradigms in France. Macron famously declared that "liberalism is on the left" although in France "libéralisme" refers to economic liberalism and to the neo-classical school of economics specifically.
In this case though, it's political genius of the darkest kind. There's no such thing as "islamo-leftism" in French academia, but the accusation is enough to hurt both the left and academia. Two dangerous birds with one stone.

Alright, I will take your word for it. What the article said was that the French government was mostly upset at the worst aspects of American academia infecting its French counterpart and that's what I based my post on. However, if that is not the case, then I'm not sure what the French government is actually trying to censor.

On 11/26/2020 at 10:21 AM, Rippounet said:

1) France was better at all of these. Neo-liberal attacks on the French welfare state really took off under the Chirac presidency in 1995, 25 years ago. Now, our hospitals and schools are in ruins and everyone is fighting for funding scraps.

2) The bolded is flat out wrong. All studies have demonstrated the very opposite.
To be clear, sociological studies have demonstrated that radicalism thrives in situations i) of poverty with ii) little hope of socio-economic mobility and with iii) visible inequality or injustice.

It's still better than most because the same process happened in many other Western nations too. And yes, poverty, low socio-economic mobility and obvious inequality and injustice cause problems, but you will not be able to address any of these at the necessary scales -- the money just isn't there. The reason they're giving money to police rather than to communities is that dramatically less money is required: the police are few while the poor are many.

On 11/26/2020 at 10:21 AM, Rippounet said:

DMC already addressed this, but I'll underline the fact that, like most of the time, you have no clue what you're talking about.

Shall we do the playground game where I say "No, you have no clue of what you're talking about?" Or, more specifically, you have a set of dogmas which you quote back to anyone you're talking to whether they have anything to do with the discussion or not and you are more or less incapable of seeing the limitations of these dogmas.

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23 minutes ago, Altherion said:

There is no doubt that it is a better method when done well, but because it's only partly a scientific endeavor, doing it well is hard and there is a lot of room for ideology to creep in.

Obviously ideology creeps in when politicians co-opt policy recommendations from academics.  That's called politics.  And, by the way, your thoroughly bullshit generalization that such disciplines don't formulate falsifiable research questions and hypotheses and then test them through rigorous research designs and methodologies is the absolute pinnacle of your own utterly misinformed, ass-backwards, anti-intellectual and societally-destructive ideology "creeping in."  

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8 hours ago, Altherion said:

Or, more specifically, you have a set of dogmas which you quote back to anyone you're talking to whether they have anything to do with the discussion or not and you are more or less incapable of seeing the limitations of these dogmas.

Dude.
Almost every time we have an exchange I mention the history, some articles, studies, or polls, something my ideas are based of. I substantiate.
You pretty much never do that. Most of the time, you state your opinions as fact and never bother to prove anything.

In this case, the irony is thick. I've lived most of my life (about 2/3rds) in French suburbs. To this day I live in a French suburb with a large Muslim population. I have worked in such a suburb with troubled youths (in a high school). Several of my friends are social workers (at least 3), and I also have a friend who is a primary sschool teacher in what is -on paper at least- one of the worst suburbs of the country.

So I have boots on the ground, I know the territory well, I have training as a scholar, and I'm familiar with the studies on the topic.
And you, who are living in the US, working in STEM (an engineer I guess), who's probably never even set foot in a French suburb (you lived in Switzerland IIRC), think I am the dogmatic one?

Methinks you just inadvertently revealed how your mind works. You have a few simple ideas about the world (academia is biased, leftists are globalists, unchecked immigration is bad... that kind of bull) and you think you can waltz in to offer your simplistic views in just every topic, as if your opinion is somehow just as valid as people who actually know what they're talking about.
Take a reality check. You're talking out of your ass. Again. It's good to challenge others a bit to get to the truth, but you need to know when to stop and shut up.

For instance:

Quote

The reason they're giving money to police rather than to communities is that dramatically less money is required: the police are few while the poor are many.

And what is this grand pronouncement based on?
How the fuck would you know?
And of course, you're wrong. But why would I even bother explaining why? You'd just ignore any invenient evidence, as you always do.
FYI, in real life I avoid such conversations, unless I want to make fun of the other person.
An American engineer trying to lecture me on what's going on in French suburbs for instance is truly priceles.

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21 hours ago, Altherion said:

It's still better than most because the same process happened in many other Western nations too. And yes, poverty, low socio-economic mobility and obvious inequality and injustice cause problems, but you will not be able to address any of these at the necessary scales -- the money just isn't there. The reason they're giving money to police rather than to communities is that dramatically less money is required: the police are few while the poor are many.

The process of neoliberals fucking stuff up has happened in a lot of countries. Agreed.

Your alternative to addressing political violence (even from acts of vandalism) seems to be a more nationalistic, authoritarian government.

And seem ready to use even just vandalism as reasonable enough cause to move in such a direction.

You do understand such a standard could be bad right

It could haven justify southern states in the US banning any public calls to end segregation in its states right?

And I have to ask how likely do you think  is anything that Macron being criticized for to have stopped—and will stop—the grotesque murder that you seem to positing justify his illiberal actions and policies?

Like how is mandating police to have their faces blurred and banning student gathering going to do more than investing education and social programs?

 

21 hours ago, Altherion said:

Alright, I will take your word for it. What the article said was that the French government was mostly upset at the worst aspects of American academia infecting its French counterpart and that's what I based my post on. However, if that is not the case, then I'm not sure what the French government is actually trying to censor.

What the far-right in the US are trying to censor; anything that could people that critical of the identity politics of the far-right—nationalism(particularly  of a white variety), gender traditionalism etc etc.

 

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On 11/27/2020 at 10:57 PM, DMC said:

Obviously ideology creeps in when politicians co-opt policy recommendations from academics.  That's called politics.  And, by the way, your thoroughly bullshit generalization that such disciplines don't formulate falsifiable research questions and hypotheses and then test them through rigorous research designs and methodologies is the absolute pinnacle of your own utterly misinformed, ass-backwards, anti-intellectual and societally-destructive ideology "creeping in."  

Please stop putting words into my mouth. I never said that these don't formulate falsifiable research questions and hypotheses, I said that the ideas originating from these disciplines that guide policy are not falsifiable or testable. For the second time, the individual papers are scientific, but, because predicting the future outside of a few very well understood systems is hard, they are not directly applicable to the problems which the politicians who co-opt them use them for. There is no ideology here; it's a fairly obvious observation.

On 11/28/2020 at 6:56 AM, Rippounet said:

Almost every time we have an exchange I mention the history, some articles, studies, or polls, something my ideas are based of. I substantiate.
You pretty much never do that. Most of the time, you state your opinions as fact and never bother to prove anything.

Most of the discussion on these boards is opinions mixed with news of current events. When I'm stating something factual, I usually look it up and post a link. You do not actually prove anything either; at most, you will mention something that is tangentially related and sometimes it doesn't even back up your point (see the example with the Atlantic article above).

On 11/28/2020 at 6:56 AM, Rippounet said:

In this case, the irony is thick. I've lived most of my life (about 2/3rds) in French suburbs. To this day I live in a French suburb with a large Muslim population. I have worked in such a suburb with troubled youths (in a high school). Several of my friends are social workers (at least 3), and I also have a friend who is a primary sschool teacher in what is -on paper at least- one of the worst suburbs of the country.

So I have boots on the ground, I know the territory well, I have training as a scholar, and I'm familiar with the studies on the topic.
And you, who are living in the US, working in STEM (an engineer I guess), who's probably never even set foot in a French suburb (you lived in Switzerland IIRC), think I am the dogmatic one?

I never lived in Switzerland beyond a few weeks' worth of stays at a hostel. I lived for a total of about 8 years in three different French suburbs (albeit suburbs of a Swiss city) and the last of my landlords before I returned to the US was Muslim. That said, I don't think this gives me any of this gives me any special authority on the subject of French suburbs or France in general -- you will notice I did not quarrel with you regarding your statement contradicting the French minister. And yes, based on the things you've said, you are the dogmatic one.

On 11/28/2020 at 6:56 AM, Rippounet said:

Methinks you just inadvertently revealed how your mind works. You have a few simple ideas about the world (academia is biased, leftists are globalists, unchecked immigration is bad... that kind of bull) and you think you can waltz in to offer your simplistic views in just every topic, as if your opinion is somehow just as valid as people who actually know what they're talking about.

Telepathy is probably not your forte. :) The three examples you listed are far too simplistic -- the second is plainly too general a statement and the first and third are incomplete statements. And no, I don't waltz in to offer my views on every topic; if you look at, say, the Careerchat thread, I mostly read and only very rarely say something when I have personal experience relating to the matter which I think can be useful to others. The same is true of topics where there is discussion of medicine or law or various esoteric topics -- I don't comment except maybe to ask a question provoked by something I read elsewhere.

The part where we disagree (and I disagree quite strongly about this) is that political concerns are a topic where my thoughts are less valid than the thoughts of other people on these boards. There is a small number of people (e.g. C. Wright Mills) who have written books that I've read that lead me to believe they actually understand (or understood, since most are no longer with us) this aspect of the world better than I do... but none of them are on these boards.

I recognize that this is a bit strange because there are people whose profession is, to a lesser or greater extent, to study politics and they spend much more time on it than I do, but, bizarrely, this usually does not lead to anything particularly insightful. With the aforementioned exceptions, even the people who write books on it generally don't say much that is worth the time.

On 11/28/2020 at 6:56 AM, Rippounet said:

And what is this grand pronouncement based on?
How the fuck would you know?

It comes from your statement here

Quote

In fact, even this shit-government was forced to acknowledge the fact to and promised to give some of that funding back... except of course we already know that the promised 100 million euros will be given to "préfets," i.e. the officials in charge of... the police

combined with the most elementary arithmetic: 100 million euros split among the poor of even a single decent-sized urban area is not enough to make an impact.

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8 minutes ago, Altherion said:

There is no ideology here; it's a fairly obvious observation.

Fair enough, but you're the one who said "there is a lot of room for ideology to creep in," which is directly and exactly what I was responding to.  That's not putting words in your mouth, those are your words.

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5 hours ago, Altherion said:

combined with the most elementary arithmetic: 100 million euros split among the poor of even a single decent-sized urban area is not enough to make an impact.

I severely doubt there are not programs of community outreach, mental health institutions, and school districts who couldn’t use at least that much in at least a decent sized urban area. But sure it could—and should—be a lot more. Agreed,

You’ve scoffed at proposals for increased funding education, social programs, and healthcare as being too expensive to make a substantive difference.

But you haven’t given a specific for what think it’d have to be before it’s effective.

You’ve given no real case for why such measures aren’t effective. You’ve pointed to a gratuitous murder and some vandalism for why more authoritarian measures should be utilized, but have yet give a case for such measures being more effective than the ones you’re summarily dismissing.

How banning peaceful public gatherings on college campuses, and mandating cops have their faced blurred when they’re on video?

How exactly is academic censorship  going to help the people who are at most risk from being radicalized from being radicalized?

How exactly would these measures make French citizens safer to significant level? Much less justify the erosion of civil liberties such measures would entail?

 

Also would you see a ban on any public displaying of Muhammed as an acceptable way to see extrajudicial killings of people who’d draw the prophet.

I wouldn’t.

But it could decrease the amount of instances people being killed in public over it.

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On 11/25/2020 at 2:05 PM, Ser Reptitious said:

I’m starting to think that Heartofice and Altherion are the same poster. Their views certainly seem eerily similar.

If a left-leaning government were introducing these kind of laws, they’d be screaming bloody murder, bemoaning the obvious attack on freedom of speech (and for once they’d be right) and about “political correctness” gone mad. But hey, if a right-leaning government does it, then obviously it’s all cool (and in fact overdue!).

@Rippounet, now I kind of wish you had first posted about this (without a link) as if it had been a place like Sweden, Canada (under Trudeau), or (heaven forbid) Venezuela that introduced these laws. Then, after the predictable suspects (*cough*Altherion*cough*) had expressed how deeply worrying this is, you could have pulled the “kidding” card, by revealing the true culprit, along with the supporting link. Would have been fun to see the subsequent scrambling to backtrack! :lol:

 

Twitter banning people who spread hate speech and misinformation that’d get people killed is unacceptable in a free society—so long as it comports to people who are spewing immersed in far-right wing identity politics.
But government censoring more left-leaning dissidence is okayl

 

 

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3 hours ago, Altherion said:

I recognize that this is a bit strange because there are people whose profession is, to a lesser or greater extent, to study politics and they spend much more time on it than I do, but, bizarrely, this usually does not lead to anything particularly insightful. With the aforementioned exceptions, even the people who write books on it generally don't say much that is worth the time.

Oh, btw, what a spectacularly pathetic and laughably arrogant assholic statement.  Remind me to belittle your profession the next time you bring up.

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Second round of voting in Brazilian elections happened yesterday, continuing the trend of moving away from the extremist candidates and delivering major defeats to both Bolsonaro and Lula's candidates.

Among all that, the most Brazilian thing ever happened in the elections of Goiânia, Brazil's 10th largest city- there the main favorite was a senator who was elected comfortably last election  (for an American, a senator running for mayor is unthinkable, but that's common in Brazil, with most senators running for the Executive branch, usually as governors, at some point in their terms) facing a guy that was in hospital for COVID for most of the race and spent the last 20 days in a coma.

There was just a problem- as I said earlier in this thread, there was a senator in Brazil arrested hiding money in his butt. And this guy decided not only to defend the money in his butt man, saying he's a nice guy, never did anything wrong and he should not be removed from the Senate, but thought it was a good idea to do so in an audio that he sent to a Whatsapp group of senators.

Predictably, the audio leaked, the senator spent the rest of his campaign trying to censor it, his opponent's campaign used it in their ads, and coma guy won, without even knowing he made to the 2nd round, let alone winning.

So, there you have it, boys: if you want to be a winner in politics, never defend the money in his butt guy. It will make you look dirty (pun intended).

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Our govt just announced that all govt departments and agencies must immediately move to purchasing electric vehicles when current vehicles in the fleet end their leases, and all govt buildings must meet "green standards" the intention is for the govt to be carbon neutral within 5 years. 3 of those 5 years are all but guaranteed to be under the current govt, which hopefully means there will be too much momentum and investment in achieving that goal for a different govt to reverse course. Theoretically every political party in parliament at present is committed to mitigating climate change, the only debate is how best to do it. So I don't see a future govt reversing any policies are well advanced in their implementation.

This decision should help to accelerate the putting in place of EV infrastructure, and in a few years there should be a surge in ex lease used EV supply that will help to bring down the price of used EVs and potentially even start bringing down the price of new EVs.

I suspect this decision was not made sooner because it would have been blocked by a party that is no longer in parliament that was part of the 2017-2020 coalition govt.

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17 hours ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

Ah, to have a decent and rational government. We that live in Brazil, or US, or UK, or Mexico, or France, or really pretty much anywhere in the world, with very few exceptions, can't help but feel a little jealous.

Add India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, China and Nepal to the top 10 irrational, indecent stuff 

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On 12/2/2020 at 9:39 AM, Winterfell is Burning said:

Ah, to have a decent and rational government. We that live in Brazil, or US, or UK, or Mexico, or France, or really pretty much anywhere in the world, with very few exceptions, can't help but feel a little jealous.

Don't give the Kiwis too much credit

(Jilted Aussie here haha).

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3 hours ago, Paxter said:

Don't give the Kiwis too much credit

(Jilted Aussie here haha).

I voted no. I support decriminilisation not legalisation, and I think if the referendum had been on decriminilisation vs status quo the yes vote would have won. But the weed zealots would not countenance anything but full legalisation for the referendum. And then they played sour grapes when a small majority of NZ told them to piss off.

Anyway, can't crow too much on climate change either. Since the Paris accords NZ has performed poorly in GHG reduction targets, in fact we have negatively achieved progress on those targets. But this is the first time since the Paris accords that we have a govt entirely made up of parties really committed to dealing with climate change. So we'll see how things go from here.

The 2019 mosque shooting inquiry report has been published. The guy who carried out the massacre shot himself in the leg a few months before the attack, but we have no mandatory reporting of GSWs to the police, so the doctors treating him never informed the police. A GSW is prima facie evidence of a crime, even if someone claims they shot themselves by accident it really should be reported and ruled out as a criminal shooting.

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