UK Politics: Johnsons Hoaxy Yurt North of Hadrian's Wall

[ants]

On 9/13/2020 at 9:49 AM, The Anti-Targ said:

The problem is, I assume, that as important to the GFA is free movement of people, and right to work for Irelanders(?) either side of the line. That surely disappears with no deal, at least free movement, since then it becomes a backdoor to mainland UK for other EU citizens.

If no deal puts a trade border between NI and mainland UK, then doesn't that basically impose exactly what the internal markets bill intends to prevent?

On the first bit, I've got no idea how the movement of people will work.  Messily I suspect.

On the second, that would be why the internal markets bill is breaking the treaty ... and why Boris is saying enforcing the WA would be the EU trying to break up the union.  

[Heartofice]

8 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

Right, they decided to perform the songs without lyrics as there wouldn't really be people there. The audience usually sing along so it would be pretty hollow without that. Not an unreasonable decision.

But then a far-right dipshit picks up on this and starts complaining that the BBC is cancelling the Queen or whatever and the Farage gang end up goose-stepping around screeching for the BBC to be defunded, etc.

Well except they were still planning on singing some songs.. just not those ones with supposedly dodgy lyrics. It’s pretty clear what their reasoning was.

[Varysblackfyre321]

13 hours ago, mormont said:

In the abstract, Brexit supporters were willing to say these things were worth it, in opinion polls and so on. But opinion polling on questions like that is unreliable, in that once the price becomes a concrete thing, people can and do change their minds on whether it was worth it. Buyers' regret, and all that.

I think it's probable anything bad caused by Brexit, will be blamed by most of it's supporters on other things.

Whether it the evil EU, or the recent influx of immigrants from outside of Europe-which came as a direct consequence of Brexitx

[mormont]

10 hours ago, Chaircat Meow said:

You are not the one who gets to say what is offensive and what isn't to black and other non-whites students.

I don't get to tell black/nonwhite students whether they are or ought to be offended, but I do in fact get to have an opinion on whether something is offensive, as do you.

So yes, speaking for myself, I find racism offensive. I find the idea of asking black students to study in a building named after a man who considered them inherently inferior to whites offensive. And it would appear that many others, including Edinburgh University students and staff (and alumni, of which I am one) agree or see this as a reasonable view.

10 hours ago, Chaircat Meow said:

If they're philosophy students they may be pleased to study their subject in David Hume Tower. They have just as much right as you or I to admire the wonderful exploration of causation and knowledge in the Treatise. In all likelihood they will have to read Hume at some point on most general philosophy courses (or at least bits of him), so living or working in a tower named after him seems the least of their troubles.

Reading Hume isn't the same as studying in a place named in his honour, though, is it? And really, I find it a bit inconsistent to complain that I'm speaking on behalf of black and non-white students and then to produce your speculations on why they might not mind after all.

10 hours ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Ultimately though this will be like the last night of the proms episode. Some white woke warriors will have decided black and other non-white students ought to be offended by this, which does non-white philosophy students a disservice. 

This is not, in fact, what happened in that episode.

[Soylent Brown]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Well except they were still planning on singing some songs.. just not those ones with supposedly dodgy lyrics. It’s pretty clear what their reasoning was.

The other songs weren't singalong ones, so they weren't going to be affected by the lack of a live audience.

It had already been mentioned before all the fuss kicked off that they'd be going back to the normal versions next year.

[Heartofice]

15 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

The other songs weren't singalong ones, so they weren't going to be affected by the lack of a live audience.

It had already been mentioned before all the fuss kicked off that they'd be going back to the normal versions next year.

That’s a pretty weak excuse, and everyone knows it. 
 

Look I don’t even care about the proms, and absolutely it was blown up as a right wing talking point out of all proportion. Which isn’t good.

But it also isn’t a fabrication. It was a move that has been talked about for years, the conductor from Finland openly suggested it, there were suggestions to write new lyrics and open it up to the country to do it.

Like all the statue stuff it serves little purpose other than to antagonise people, and is a misplaced use of energy.

[Varysblackfyre321]

27 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Like all the statue stuff it serves little purpose other than to antagonise people, and is a misplaced use of energy.

Eh. It takes a lot of money to keep a lot of these statues up under scrutiny up, Like tens millions. 

It would kinda be less effort in the long run to take some of them down. 

It seems counterintuitive to try shut off any discussion on whether some of these statues *deserve* to have millions poured in keeping them up.

And their presence apparently already is antagonizing people who don't want them up.

 

[Soylent Brown]

36 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

That’s a pretty weak excuse, and everyone knows it. 
 

Look I don’t even care about the proms, and absolutely it was blown up as a right wing talking point out of all proportion. Which isn’t good.

But it also isn’t a fabrication. It was a move that has been talked about for years, the conductor from Finland openly suggested it, there were suggestions to write new lyrics and open it up to the country to do it.

Like all the statue stuff it serves little purpose other than to antagonise people, and is a misplaced use of energy.

They took news of a small temporary change and tried to turn it into the songs being removed entirely - that's not fabrication? It's certainly not the truth.

There may well be people looking to change the songs in whatever way, but that's not what this was.

[Chaircat Meow]

On 9/14/2020 at 8:45 AM, mormont said:

I don't get to tell black/nonwhite students whether they are or ought to be offended, but I do in fact get to have an opinion on whether something is offensive, as do you.

I agree. 

On 9/14/2020 at 8:45 AM, mormont said:

So yes, speaking for myself, I find racism offensive. I find the idea of asking black students to study in a building named after a man who considered them inherently inferior to whites offensive. And it would appear that many others, including Edinburgh University students and staff (and alumni, of which I am one) agree or see this as a reasonable view.

I like to consider historical figures in the round. Hume's comments were disappointing but aren't central to his philosophical work which was outstanding and so worthy of honour in my view. And many people feel the same way as I do.

And I would be very interested to know how many students were genuinely upset by this and to what extent university staff 'anticipated' concerns that were held by relatively few people. 

On 9/14/2020 at 8:45 AM, mormont said:

Reading Hume isn't the same as studying in a place named in his honour, though, is it?

Is it different in the way that matters. You're asking students to take Hume's views seriously and answer questions on them, maybe in an exam when Hume thought the said student was inferior and incapable of reason. Offensive by your logic, perhaps.

On 9/14/2020 at 8:45 AM, mormont said:

And really, I find it a bit inconsistent to complain that I'm speaking on behalf of black and non-white students and then to produce your speculations on why they might not mind after all.

You said 'it is offensive' to black and non-white students. I was, as you say, speculating and used the word 'may.'

On 9/14/2020 at 8:45 AM, mormont said:

This is not, in fact, what happened in that episode.

There was some polling done there that showed how few BAME people cared about the lyrics or thought they were offensive. Whether or not the BBC's decision was motivated by concerns about BLM originally some people did defend/support the decision after it was made public on the basis the lyrics were offensive, which we know was not a position that had much BAME support.  

[Heartofice]

1 hour ago, Soylent Brown said:

They took news of a small temporary change and tried to turn it into the songs being removed entirely - that's not fabrication? It's certainly not the truth.

There may well be people looking to change the songs in whatever way, but that's not what this was.

They reacted to the lyrics being removed. Whether the change was going to be for one year or forever is largely irrelevant ( though in fact I was guess that the plan would be to remove them forever in reality)

As I said, it was an over blown controversy but it wasn’t fabricated in the sense that it was completely made up because the BBC were in reality looking to make that change. Pretending it was purely on the basis of a lack of audience is entirely inconsistent with comments made by those involved in the past so forgive me if I don’t buy it.

And while I didn’t really feel engaged in any of the fist waving about it all, as part of a general trend I get why it would upset people. And it was a decision that most people in the country disagreed with as well.

[Soylent Brown]

I'm not sure your little Parler bubble is 'most people in the country'. Most people couldn't care less about this.

[Heartofice]

7 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

I'm not sure your little Parler bubble is 'most people in the country'. Most people couldn't care less about this.

You gov polls you mean?

[Varysblackfyre321]

35 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

And while I didn’t really feel engaged in any of the fist waving about it all, as part of a general trend I get why it would upset people. And it was a decision that most people in the country disagreed with as well.

Eh. As a general trend it kinda seems like one of many instances where people needlessly got offended because of their right-wing, or more conservative sensibilities.

Like at the inference that there should not be discussion about any the statues that cost millions to keep up.

41 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

I'm not sure your little Parler bubble is 'most people in the country'. Most people couldn't care less about this.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/poll-says-bbc-wrong-on-last-night-of-the-proms-fxqtrfdpq

[mormont]

54 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

I like to consider historical figures in the round. Hume's comments were disappointing but aren't central to his philosophical work which was outstanding and so worthy of honour in my view. And many people feel the same way as me.

I'm sure some do. But many feel differently. You're certainly entitled to say you feel that the conclusion the University has reached (a temporary one) is wrong, but I would hope you would acknowledge that many people quite reasonably and strongly believe that this was correct, instead of dismissing their views as 'very silly'.

54 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

And I would be very interested to know how many students were genuinely upset by this and to what extent university staff 'anticipated' concerns that were held by relatively few people. 

Well, check out the petition, then. But how many students need to be upset for this to be valid? 10? 100? 10,000? This idea that concerns are only valid if a certain threshold is reached is fraught with difficulties, IMO. If the concern is valid, then it's valid.

54 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Is it different in the way that matters. You're asking students to take Hume's views seriously and answer questions on them, maybe in an exam when Hume thought the said student was inferior and incapable of reason. Offensive by your logic, perhaps.

The exploration of philosophy does require us to examine views that some may find challenging, or the writings of those who held racist, sexist or otherwise offensive opinions. There are ways to approach that problem, and the philosophy department at Edinburgh is skilled enough to do that. But there's a difference between that and celebrating someone who held such views. If you don't see that difference, well, many do.

54 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

There was some polling done there that showed how few BAME people cared about the lyrics or thought they were offensive. Whether or not the BBC's decision was motivated by concerns about BLM originally some people did defend/support the decision after it was made public on the basis the lyrics were offensive, which we know was not a position that had much BAME support.  

So it doesn't matter what the actual reason was? Or that this reason was misrepresented, cynically, by those who wanted to create a straw man to beat up in public (including the Prime Minister, who enthusiastically joined in the attack despite the fact that he knew perfectly well he was spreading a lie?)

[Soylent Brown]

25 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/poll-says-bbc-wrong-on-last-night-of-the-proms-fxqtrfdpq

That people answered the question doesn't mean that they care about the issue especially.

[Heartofice]

51 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

That people answered the question doesn't mean that they care about the issue especially.

I doubt many people give two hoots about the proms generally, it is a pretty niche event. Until you start to mess with it of course. 
 

 

[Clueless Northman]

9 hours ago, mormont said:

I be upset for this to be valid? 10? 100? 10,000? This idea that concerns are only valid if a certain threshold is reached is fraught with difficulties, IMO. If the concern is valid, then it's valid.

To be blunt, as far as I'm concerned, their opinion should be taken into consideration when their intellectual output and influence will have reached Hume's level. Heck, and I'm not even much of a fan of him, but still, we're talking about one of the top-3 philosophers of the 18th century with Kant and Rousseau (Hegel was too young, and Voltaire was rather an "intellectual", a bit like recent French "philosophers"); that's not something you can dismiss easily as unworthy of any kind of honour.

That said, it's highly ironical that this happens to him - considering how he was theorizing that people acted upon feelings, and reason was secondary.

[mormont]

17 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

To be blunt, as far as I'm concerned, their opinion should be taken into consideration when their intellectual output and influence will have reached Hume's level.

I'm not even sure what this is supposed to mean. Racism is OK if you're a brilliant philosopher? You can't criticise people who are your intellectual superiors, even if - in addition and despite that brilliance - they held views that were demonstrably stupid, factually wrong and morally corrupt?

Quick note - Aristotle believed that women have fewer teeth than men. Are we allowed to say that was stupid and wrong, or not? I mean, I'm not on Aristotle's level of intellectual output, so... I'm not qualified to say he was wrong, I guess? Neither is any given dentist I can name, so there's that.

[The Anti-Targ]

I'm wondering. If Johnson is saying the law-breaking legislation is necessary because the EU is trying to break up the union, and it is generally agreed that the legislation is breaking international law in order to stop this EU aggression, since this affront to UK integrity is only international law because the UK parliament voted in favour of it and Boris Johnson signed the agreement, does not that really mean the UK parliament and Boris Johnson are those who should be looked at as the instigators of the potential fracturing of the union? All the EU is saying is that the UK must keep its end of the bargain, and if it doesn't there will be consequences.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

I'm not even sure what this is supposed to mean. Racism is OK if you're a brilliant philosopher? You can't criticise people who are your intellectual superiors, even if - in addition and despite that brilliance - they held views that were demonstrably stupid, factually wrong and morally corrupt?

Quick note - Aristotle believed that women have fewer teeth than men. Are we allowed to say that was stupid and wrong, or not? I mean, I'm not on Aristotle's level of intellectual output, so... I'm not qualified to say he was wrong, I guess? Neither is any given dentist I can name, so there's that.

It appears to be an argument in favour of limiting democracy to only allow the vote to those with a university education who have actually done something important with their lives. I mean if you can't have a legitimate socio-economic opinion unless you are a person of Hume's stature, then surely you should not be entrusted with the responsibility of voting for who will make our laws and choose when to go to war. And of course you can't be elected unless you qualify to vote, so it will also keep the riff-raff out of govt.