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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1022 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 215 of 602 (638052)
10-19-2011 12:38 PM
Reply to: Message 176 by Dr Adequate
10-17-2011 5:22 PM


Millions and Billions and Trillions, oh my!
As you changed your post to say "trillion" instead of "billion", I shall withdraw mine. Which is a shame, 'cos I had some good sarcasm going there.
"Billion" of course, would actually have been the correct word, if only Americans would learn to understand how many noughts are in each "-illion".
I'll go back to quietly jeering from the sidelines now.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 176 by Dr Adequate, posted 10-17-2011 5:22 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 216 by crashfrog, posted 10-19-2011 12:53 PM caffeine has replied
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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1022 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 228 of 602 (638139)
10-20-2011 6:06 AM
Reply to: Message 216 by crashfrog
10-19-2011 12:53 PM


Re: Millions and Billions and Trillions, oh my!
crashfrog writes:
3, plus one comma. You Brit pussies are the ones who've got it wrong (ask a Greek.) You don't even know they're called "zeros", lol!
What do the Greeks have to do with it? Millions and billions were invented by the French. That the Greeks later went on to get it wrong as well is besides the point.
To avoid wasting two posts on a topic derail:
Dr. Adequate writes:
I'm British by birth, but I have never used the supposedly British system of -illions and nor has any British person I've ever discussed it with; nor do British scientists or British newspapers use that system. Billion, trillion, quadrillion and so forth involve multiplying by a thousand, by the common consent of the English-speaking peoples, and the sooner we all get over it the better.
I was born after the government switched to using the shorter system, and I was still brought up with the older way*. And David Attenbrough always uses the old system, which is a stamp of approval I'm happy with.
And it's all well and good going by the English-language consensus if you only speak to English people. It's confusing as all fuck if you live on the continent and have to switch back and forth.
*(ABE) Although, to be fair, I think this was only because it was drilled into me by my union-rep father on the erroneous belief that it was Maggie who made the switch in the first place.
Edited by caffeine, : No reason given.

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1022 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 364 of 602 (639108)
10-28-2011 5:15 AM
Reply to: Message 330 by jar
10-27-2011 2:20 PM


Re: income inequality
I think you have to be a little bit cautious about waving that graph around as some sort of gotcha. There's a whole heap of problems with it.
Firstly, the collection of measurements used to create the quality of life index are somewhat arbitrary. You have in there 'trust', which is a bit vague. Does this mean how people respond to a 'Do you trust the government' question? And, if so, is this really a significant measure of qualifty of life? There's no measure of morbidity or quality-adjusted years of life, which I think most people would consider a increibly significant indicator of quality of life. Teenage births are counted, which might not at all be any reflection of quality of life, depending on the social environment and resources provided to teenage mothers.
Aside from the arbitrary nature of categories, we don't have any idea from this graph how they were weighted. If the US is a big outlier in one category (as I believe it is for teenage births), then a significant change in the weighting of that one factor could dramatically effect the whole measurement, which makes this cobbled together collection of measurements even more arbitrary and much less informative.
Then there's the further question of whether all the statistics gathered are directly comparable from country to country. It's often pointed out that the US counts stillborns in their life expectancy statistics, whilst most European countries don't, which makes life expectancy and infant mortality figures for the US look worse than they really are. Comparing figures on mental illness is also very difficult, since this may be telling you far more about diagnosis practices and social awareness of mental issues than it is about the actual mental health of a population. The Japanese may have bette rmental health than Americans, or they may associate greater stigma with visiting a psychiatrist than an American and thus never be diagnosed with any problems.
Now, it may be that we could adjust the weightings to a figure I've agreed with, correct all the problems with inaccurate data comparisons through some godlike knowledge and include the measurements that I would consider most significant and see that the correlation holds exactly. But we can't know that from this graph. I don't think this graph contains enough information for us to consider that it tells us anything at all.

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 Message 330 by jar, posted 10-27-2011 2:20 PM jar has replied

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1022 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 366 of 602 (639117)
10-28-2011 6:41 AM
Reply to: Message 365 by frako
10-28-2011 6:19 AM


Re: vacation and time off
Thanks for the picture frako, but all it tells us about the Slovenian prison system is that prisons are buildings. I'm not sure how it's supposed to make the case that things are too soft.
And removal of freedom is a punishment. You lose years of your life, during which you can't associate with who you like, can't go where you like, you lose any job you had, you can't make more income, and you are watched all the time, you have to live every night in a room that can be as small as 9 meters-squared and which, at least in some Slovenian prisons, is open bars so the guards can keep their eye on you.
Maybe if you're homeless and destitute you might be happy to sacrifice freedom, privacy and independence for square meals and a roof a over your head, but for anyone else I don't see how you cannot consider prison punishment.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 365 by frako, posted 10-28-2011 6:19 AM frako has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 367 by frako, posted 10-28-2011 6:53 AM caffeine has replied

  
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1022 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 368 of 602 (639122)
10-28-2011 7:14 AM
Reply to: Message 367 by frako
10-28-2011 6:53 AM


Re: vacation and time off
Well Firstly u can only loose 40 years of your life used to be 30 the max punishment the law would allow, even though i usually laugh when i hear an US criminal got 5 consecutive life sentences but i kinda agree with that system.
40 years is not a trifling time period. If you're any older than mid-twenties when you went in, you be at retirement age when you came out if you served your full sentence. 40 years is more than half of the life-expectancy at birth in Slovenia.
Secondly for good behavior you can get the weekend off and go home lol crazy but true.
It's not strange - most countries in Europe have some kind of day release system. And this depends on your sentence. If you're serving in a closed prison then no, you can't, and this is where the more serious and violent offenders would be.
thirdly you actually get an income from the state around 100 EUR per month
This I didn't know, and it seems somewhat unnessecary, since your basic needs are catered for. Is the cost of food and the like deducted from this 100 Euros?
To me it looks like a free hotel, sure you cant go out when you like but you got allot of indoor activities like fitness, tv, computers ....
Hotels don't have the little windows on the doors, and they let you come and go as you please.
Also, from your picture we have no way of knowing what level of security this ward is. Are these holding cells for remand prisoners (ie. people who still haven't been convicted of any crime)? Is it an open prison, where people serving short sentences for minor crimes would be held? Is it really necessary to hold such people in a dank, rat-infested pit?

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 Message 367 by frako, posted 10-28-2011 6:53 AM frako has replied

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1022 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 369 of 602 (639125)
10-28-2011 7:33 AM
Reply to: Message 367 by frako
10-28-2011 6:53 AM


Re: vacation and time off
My previous post was sent before you added all the pictures of the women's prison. It seems unfair to only show the pictures you find of the lowest security prisons for the least violent offenders, so I'm trying to balance it with some photos of Dob prison. They're hard to find, though, since 'dob' is such a stupid word.
They have a basketball court too - the horror!
Sadly, this is the best picture I can find of the inside of a cell:

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 Message 367 by frako, posted 10-28-2011 6:53 AM frako has replied

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1022 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 376 of 602 (639143)
10-28-2011 10:26 AM
Reply to: Message 374 by jar
10-28-2011 10:02 AM


Re: income inequality
Which is why I also provided a link to the talk itself.
Sorry, it wasn't in the post I was responding to, so I didn't see it.
But I would definitely say trust is a quality of life issue and that it is really horrible in the US.
We cannot trust news, we cannot trust politicians, we cannot trust clergy, we cannot trust teachers, we cannot trust doctors, we cannot trust law enforcement, we cannot trust the governments.
Hah - nor can anyone else. That's not US-specific. In the most up-to-date 'would you generally trust x to tell the truth' MORI poll I found for the UK, 17% trust journalists, 18% politicians generally, 19% government ministers specifically etc. etc. According to Eurobarometer's polls, only 29% of Europeans tend to trust their governments.
That's not really important, though, since this isn't what's being measured in the data you posted. It was based on a poll asking people how much they generally trusted other people, rather than institutional actors.
If that is not a quality of life issue then what is?
Healthcare provision, education, air quality, standards of accommodation......

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 Message 374 by jar, posted 10-28-2011 10:02 AM jar has replied

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1022 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 417 of 602 (639387)
10-31-2011 7:32 AM
Reply to: Message 411 by jar
10-30-2011 10:33 PM


Re: Parlimentary system
Perhaps it makes no sense to you but it makes sense to those who live in the less populated areas.
The goal of an effective plan of government is to make sure that government, when it comes to passing laws and assessments, is inefficient and can only move slowly.
Slow and difficult govenment doesn't require a disproportionate Senate, though. You can acheive the same thing by replacing your 19th century election system with a proportional parliamentary system. Single party government is often difficult under such a system, totally impossible in many countries, and a system of compromises and fragile coalitions that collapse over controversial issues becomes standard.
Parliamentary systems only tend to produce strong governments who can do whatever they want when it's coupled with a backwards electoral system, like in the UK; or at times of overwhelming consensus, like during Sweden's long period of majority Socialist government or the current disastrous backlash against the Socialists in Hungary.

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1022 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


(1)
Message 489 of 602 (639616)
11-02-2011 11:58 AM
Reply to: Message 484 by crashfrog
11-02-2011 10:29 AM


Re: voting systems
Would it? You may get a three-party system, but it's worth pointing out that what always happens in stable multiple-party equilibria is that the parties align into two major coalitions; usually liberal vs conservative.
Any evidence for this? I haven't studied it deeply or anything, so can't offer you any numerical data, but this doesn't match a lot of the practical examples I can think of.
Since the sixties, Germany alternated between governments of the major left and right wing parties both in coalition with the same centrist party, not two opposing coalitions that switched party. This system was broken with the rise of the Green party, which gave the Social Democrats an alternative choice for coalition partner, and then that government was followed by a grand coalition between the two major parties without the involvement of smaller parties.
The Dutch government in my lifetime has gone from a coalition between CHristian Democrats and liberals, to a grand coalition between Christian Democrats and the centre left, to a left-liberal coalition, to another centre-right alliance of Christian Democrats and liberals together with the nationalists, then without the nationalists, then another Christian-socialist coalition and now once more a Christian-liberal coalition with the support of the nationalists.
Here in the Czech Republic governments alternated between the centre-right and centre-left parties; both usually supported by the Christian Democrats; until this was replaced with a caretaker government involving the cooperation of everyone but the Communists, and now a new, fragile centre-right coalition after the collapse of the Christian party.
I'm not going to go on and list every European government, but, at least in the ones I know about, stable coalitions between parties of the centre-left and parties of the centre-right don't seem all that common. Not every country is Italy.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 484 by crashfrog, posted 11-02-2011 10:29 AM crashfrog has replied

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1022 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 520 of 602 (639711)
11-03-2011 6:22 AM
Reply to: Message 497 by crashfrog
11-02-2011 1:19 PM


Re: voting systems
You don't have an example, for instance, of a center-left-plus-center-right coalition defending itself against a major rightwing coalition plus a major leftwing coalition (that aren't themselves allied.) The coalitions seem to be right vs left, and the winner is whoever grabs the centrists.
In many countries, you don't have coalitions going against coalitions at all, this is where I think you're looking at it wrong. Looking at the Dutch example, you have Christians, liberals, socialists and nationalists all going against each other, then after the election you have a complicated period of negotiations that could produce a Christian-liberal government, a Christan-socialist government, a liberal-socialist government, a Christian-nationalist government or some other combination including smaller minor parties to make up the numbers.
And the parties on the extreme make a difference too. Here we have the Communist party, who no-one can enter into coalition with without losing a significant amount of support. They're never going to be in government, but if they increase their support they take away enough of the seats to make a majority government almost impossible, allowing them to obstruct easier or demand a couple of favours in exchange for not blocking legislation. The Dutch far-right are currently in the situation of propping up the government in exchange for favours, without actually being in it.

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1022 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 521 of 602 (639712)
11-03-2011 6:40 AM
Reply to: Message 518 by jar
11-02-2011 3:52 PM


Re: voting systems
Absolute consensus among a large electorate isn't just difficult, it's utterly impossible. No amount of education is going to change that.
I used to be involved in a bunch of lefty organisations and protest groups, and some would try for consensus decision making. Bear in mind that these would be small groups of people, politically aligned to at least some degree since we were all in the same organisation, and trying to decide on how to accomplish a pre-arranged goal, since that's why we were there in the first place. Demanding consensus often lead to paralysis. On anything controversial, consensus could only be reached because the dissenter felt too intimidated to argue, was pressured into agreeing, or just grew weary with the debate and bowed to the majority. I don't see how such a system improves on majority voting, it just takes a lot longer.
Even in these small groups, if the minority opinion holder was strong-willed enough, consensus could not be achieved. And remember again that we're a small group of like-minded people discussing face-to-face with the ability to bring social pressure. If, instead, we were a consituency of 420,000 people, most of whom are never going to speak to each other and holding a diversity of political and cultural outlooks, the idea that you could get every, single last one of them to consent, without one exception, is absurd.

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 Message 518 by jar, posted 11-02-2011 3:52 PM jar has replied

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1022 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 523 of 602 (639733)
11-03-2011 11:04 AM
Reply to: Message 522 by jar
11-03-2011 10:05 AM


Re: voting systems
Re: voting systems
Which is fine.
No decision is a decision.
The result is that nothing happens.
Ever, to the end of eternity.
The whole point of this protest business is that people are not satisfied with the status quo. Implementing a system which made any change at all impossible forever more because nobody could ever be elected to a legislative role is not a solution. It simply ossifies the law as it stands the day you introduce this idea.

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1022 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 576 of 602 (640396)
11-09-2011 6:54 AM
Reply to: Message 574 by Dogmafood
11-08-2011 10:30 PM


Re: Democracy
Or Switzerland?
I am conflicted on the idea of direct democracy. In principle, I agree that it makes sense, but then when you hear the popular clamour in the UK for things like the abolition of the Human Rights Act it makes you deeply depressed about what the general populace actually would implement. But then, what is my essential argument against it - "My views are better than other peoples"? Maybe the system could work with some kind of strict protection of civil rights needing an overwhelming majority to amend, but then the experience of California raises questions about the populace's fiscal management abilities.
Either way, for our edification, here's the initiatives that were successfully passed through Switzerland's direct democracy in the past two years, so we can see the sort of things at least one populace votes for. These are only the successful ones, it's less than half the total number of initiatives that went to referendum:
28.11.2010 - Deport foreign criminals.
26.9.2010 - Slightly increase the contribution to unemployment insurance and cut the length of time you can claim unemployment benefit for.
7.3.2010 - Something to do with research on human subjects, but I'm unclear exactly what.
29.11.2010 - Ban the construction of minarets
29.11.2010 - Two-thirds of government income from airfuel tax must be spent on aviation safety and environmental concerns.
Failed referendums included an ban on the export of military equipment, prohibiting people from having guns at home and higher property taxes.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 574 by Dogmafood, posted 11-08-2011 10:30 PM Dogmafood has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 585 by Dogmafood, posted 11-10-2011 8:32 AM caffeine has replied

  
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1022 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 593 of 602 (640626)
11-11-2011 4:11 AM
Reply to: Message 585 by Dogmafood
11-10-2011 8:32 AM


Re: Democracy
I thought that it was democracy that has improved the standard of living throughout history. Is it coincidental that the top 40 or so countries in the Human Development Index are nearly all democracies? Those that are not are oil rich.
I don't think you can necessarily draw that link quite so simply. As you point out, the top 40 does include Qatar, Brunei, and the UAE, which are not democratic, but simply oil-rich. Most of the rest are European, which share a lot more economic and cultural history than simply the fact that they're currently democratic states - it's assuming something to ascribe their wealth only to one factor.
Looking at the few non-European countries in the top 40, they include Hong Kong, which wasn't particularly democratic as a colony and isn't particularly democratic now; and South Korea which, though now a democracy, achieved the great economic growth which brought it into the leading industrialised nations whilst a military dictatorship.
Looking outside the top 40, I'm not sure a correlation between democracy and ranking holds, which further supports the idea that the link could be something else to do with being a European country. If you look to Africa, only one of the four countries which ranks in 'High Human Development' is a democracy (at least until this Arab Spring business), which a country like Malawi still languishes as one as the least developed counties in the world, despite its democratic government.
The argument in favour of democracy, I think, should be based around the fact that people have the right to a say in their lives, not whether this will necessarily lead to better outcomes.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 585 by Dogmafood, posted 11-10-2011 8:32 AM Dogmafood has replied

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