Recent posts

#1

Off the Record / Re: Israel-Hamas War 2023

Last post by Threviel - Today at 06:21:48 AM

"That's offensive to black people"
"No, it isn't"
"Why don't we let black people decide what is offensive to them"
"Okay, that makes sense"


 "That's offensive to LGBTQ people"
"No, it isn't"
"Why don't we let LGBTQ people decide what is offensive to them"
"Okay, that makes sense"

 "That's offensive to Jewish people"
"No, it isn't"
"Why don't we let Jewish people decide what is offensive to them"
"Fuck you, Jew"

And many Jewish people have said speaking against Israeli behaviour is not anti-semitic no matter how some might try to twist that definition.

But that holds true for all those examples, that not all the supposedly offensed feel offensed and that counter-examples are easy to find.

[Governments do not procure much together – collaborative procurement accounts for less than 20% of spending – and they do not focus enough on our own market: almost 80% of procurement over the last two years has been from outside the EU.]

#2

Off the Record / Re: The EU thread

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 06:19:03 AM

I think Draghi's specific points are really worthwhile ideas too - it is obviously part of his pitch to replace Michel as EUCo President (and he would absolutely be a heavyweight in that role). I have a lot of admiration for Draghi generally - and I think he could go in even harder on the last 15 years. It's not just the catastrophe of the European response to the crash, but the failure to see the world changing and adapt (I think it's not accidental that the bits of the EU still most wedded to the 90s "international rules based order" are the bits that are not elected/not exposed to popular politics):

Each sector requires specific reforms and tools. Yet in our analysis there are three emerging common threads for policy interventions.

The first common thread is enabling scale. Our major competitors are taking advantage of the fact that they are continental-sized economies to generate scale, increase investment and capture market share for the industries where it matters most. We have the same natural size advantage in Europe, but fragmentation is holding us back.

In the defence industry, for example, lack of scale is hampering the development of European industrial capacity, which is a problem acknowledged in the recent European Defence Industrial Strategy. The top five players in the US represent 80% of its larger market, while in Europe they constitute 45%.

This difference arises in large part because EU defence spending is fragmented.

Governments do not procure much together – collaborative procurement accounts for less than 20% of spending – and they do not focus enough on our own market: almost 80% of procurement over the last two years has been from outside the EU.

To meet new defence and security needs, we need to step up our joint procurement, increase the coordination of our spending and the interoperability of our equipment, and substantially reduce our international dependencies.

[...]

And scale is also crucial, in a different way, for young companies that generate the most innovative ideas. Their business model depends on being able to grow fast and commercialise their ideas, which in turn requires a large domestic market.

And scale is also essential for developing new, innovative medicines, through the standardisation of the EU patients' data, and the use of artificial intelligence, which needs all this wealth of data we have – if only they could be standardised.

In Europe we are traditionally very strong in research, but we are failing to bring innovation to market and upscale it. We could address this barrier by, among other things, reviewing current prudential regulation in bank lending and setting up a new common regulatory regime for start-ups in tech.

The second thread is providing public goods. Where there are investments from which we all benefit, but no country can carry out alone, there is a powerful case for us to act together – otherwise we will underdeliver relative to our needs: we will underdeliver in climate, in defence for example, and in other sectors as well.

There are several chokepoints in the European economy where lack of coordination means that investment is inefficiently low. Energy grids, and in particular interconnections, are one such example.

They are a clear public good, as an integrated energy market would lower energy costs for our firms and make us more resilient in the face of future crises – a goal that the Commission is pursuing in the context of REPowerEU.

But interconnections require decisions on planning, financing, procurement of materials and governance that are difficult to coordinate – and so we will not be able to build a true Energy Union unless we agree on a common approach.

Another example is our super computing infrastructure. The EU has a public network of high-performance computers (HPCs) which is world-class, but the spillovers to the private sector are currently very, very limited.

This network could be used by the private sector – for instance AI startups and SMEs – and in return, the financial benefits received could be reinvested to upgrade HPCs and support an EU cloud expansion.

Once we identify these public goods, we also need to give ourselves the means to finance them. The public sector has an important role to play, and I have spoken before about how we can better use the joint borrowing capacity of the EU, especially in areas – like defence – where fragmented spending reduces our overall effectiveness.

[...]

The third thread is securing the supply of essential resources and inputs.

If we are to carry out our climate ambitions without increasing our dependence on countries on whom we can no longer rely, we need a comprehensive strategy covering all stages of the critical mineral supply chain.

We are currently largely leaving this space to private actors, while other governments are directly leading or strongly coordinating the whole chain. We need a foreign economic policy that delivers the same for our economy.

[...]

These three threads require us to think deeply about how we organise ourselves, what we want to do together and what we want to keep at the national level. But given the urgency of the challenge we face, we do not have the luxury of delaying the answers to all these important questions until a next Treaty change.

To ensure coherence between different policy tools, we should be able to develop now a new strategic tool for the coordination of economic policies.

And if we are to find that this is not feasible, in specific cases, we should be ready to consider going forward with a subset of Member States. For example, enhanced cooperation in the form of a 28th regime could be a way forward for the CMU to mobilise investments. But as a rule, I believe that the political cohesion of our Union demands that we act together – possibly always. And we have to be aware that the same political cohesion is now being threatened by the changes in the rest of the world.

I think the point that defence manufacturing in Europe is primarily an export industry helps explains the point those companies have made about needing contracts to ramp up manufacturing for Ukraine.

Two slightly random thoughts on that. One is whether going for that role undermines his ambition? In the last 30 years the nexus of decision making and power and influence in Brussels has pretty decisively moved from the Commission to the Council. That may reflect the EU expanding its competencies into more areas which are more politically sensitive and require more involvement from democratically accountable leaders in member states, but is the intergovernmental/member state bit of the EU really able to drive a more unified EU level response?

The other very random thought is that Draghi is 76 so five years younger than Biden. I know lots of people just hate on boomers but there is something striking about the fact that with Biden and with Draghi (and perhaps others) that the political figures who speak with a sort of ambition are from that generation - they came of age in the trentes glorieuses and from an EU perspective in the heroic age of European integration. I feel like there's something in that that ties to Macron's point about post-modernism and our inability, incapacity to believe in grand narratives. Can we have progress or agency if we've lost the ability to believe in progress or agency - or do we need to keep reaching back for that generation who actually experienced it?

#3

Off the Record / Re: [Canada] Canadian Politics...

Last post by Josephus - Today at 05:51:24 AM

If my government-run pension plan goes tits-up I'd be completely screwed.

but you know, or at least can be pretty comfortable in knowing, that it won't.

And I imagine you and your wife have, or will have, enough assets by the time you retire, that you won't be completley screwed.

For instance....you can likely downsize your home and move into a one bedroom apartment.

#4

Off the Record / Re: Israel-Hamas War 2023

Last post by Josquius - Today at 05:36:46 AM

"That's offensive to black people"
"No, it isn't"
"Why don't we let black people decide what is offensive to them"
"Okay, that makes sense"


 "That's offensive to LGBTQ people"
"No, it isn't"
"Why don't we let LGBTQ people decide what is offensive to them"
"Okay, that makes sense"

 "That's offensive to Jewish people"
"No, it isn't"
"Why don't we let Jewish people decide what is offensive to them"
"Fuck you, Jew"

And many Jewish people have said speaking against Israeli behaviour is not anti-semitic no matter how some might try to twist that definition.

I'm not particularly impressed when the far right makes those statements, no.  And let's be honest, you aren't either.  The two cases we were discussing were about defending Hamas.  The difference between not wanting black people in the park and not wanting Jewish people in the Middle East is because one is left and one is right.

The two people in the article were defending Hamas.  One was tearing down posters because they said that Hamas were terrorists which she felt was just propaganda, and the other one said we need to "stop apologizing for Hamas"

I would apply the same reasoning for racism, transphobia, or whatever it might be.
No matter what the far right themselves might want everyone to think, its not a case of use the wrong word once and you're forever damned- though there definitely are those out there who practice this behaviour.

And again lack of context is showing on those quotes.
Saying you shouldn't apologise for Hamas is not at all the same thing as saying Hamas are great.
I've seen this kind of phrase quite a lot over the years actually, though not about Hamas- more typical would be "Muslims shouldn't apologise for Al Quaida"- this doesn't necessarily mean they think Al Quaida (/Hamas) are fine. It means they find issue with the idea that Al Quaida somehow represent muslims and that muslims should therefore always be on the defence and having to apologise for them.

I've ran into this shit on this very thread. I think the Palestinians deserve freedom and basic human rights- ergo I'm an anti-semitic Hamas lover. No. I will not defend Hamas. That's irrelevant to what I stand for.

As to tearing down posters- I haven't seen these posters. Its pretty standard for quite despicable groups to use on the surface perfectly innocent and acceptable messaging. Look for instance to the far right's anti-paedophilia messaging. Who could possibly disagree with that?....except when its all a load of conspiracy fuelled dog whistles.
In this particular case further context is provided with this being the same person spreading the conspiracy theories; which again helps to build up a overall picture.
But then her explanation that banging on about Hamas is a tactic to minimise Palestinian rights also adds context the other way.

As said I do think the difference is between is it the person themselves being a problem or is it people who have decided they're a problem.
You have a worker who has a habit of shouting the n word at people- yeah...better fire him. Thats just good business practice.
You could say its a no brainer and there's no real choice there, but it is still your free will in firing him.

On the other hand you've somebody who seems fine but who a group on the internet have decided they really don't like and claim is an anti-semite with minimal out of context proof...then its their push which is far more behind this than any potential risk of the worker mistreating Jewish customers.
Its still down to you to pull the trigger. But the consequences of not doing so are completely out of your control. You can't just sit down with the worker and get them to apologise and promise not to say any offensive words going forward as you might have had a chance with the first guy. The wheels are in motion with the pressure group.

As you say free will is a continuum and not a black and white thing. But I'd say the more abstracted something gets from the reality on the ground the more free will is removed .

Okey dokey.  So your principle is: if it's a habit, fire him or her.  If it's not a habit, then they seem  fine and one video is minimal out of context proof and they should not be fired.

So for example these guys seem fine and there is minimal out of context proof and they should not be fired.

Correct?

I'd put one out of context video beneath a continuous display of behaviour in the ranking of bad shit, but still ahead of one random out of context tweet.
In a video of someone being a dick for several minutes you've a lot more contextual clarity. Also the factor of this behaviour being displayed in public boosts how concerning it is over random internet posts.

#5

Off the Record / Re: Youtube Recommendations

Last post by Josquius - Today at 04:42:52 AM

The only Tim hortons I know is pretty remote. None nearer to civilization round here :p

#6

Off the Record / Re: Youtube Recommendations

Last post by HVC - Today at 04:39:27 AM

(but seriously if you're curious - look up Thompson Manitoba - then look up Island Lake, Manitoba where I did my field work - way the fuck in the middle of nowhere)

It has a Tim Hortons, how remote can it be? 

You underestimate Tim Hortons ubiquitousness

#7

Gaming HQ / Re: Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Last post by jimmy olsen - Today at 04:32:23 AM

Seems like Kunta Hora, the mining town is going to be the main area to be explored in the 2nd game. That's awesome, I visited there once and it was amazing.

https://www.ign.com/articles/kingdom-come-deliverance-2-xbox-ps5-pc-warhorse-studios

#8

Off the Record / Re: Youtube Recommendations

Last post by Maladict - Today at 04:28:52 AM

Doesn't The Hip have a song about Thompson?

#9

Off the Record / Re: Quo Vadis GOP?

Last post by Syt - Today at 02:40:11 AM

I mean ...



2005.

Though that's almost 20 years ago.

What, that can't be right. 20 years? Didn't we just get past Y2K???

#10

Off the Record / Re: Israel-Hamas War 2023

Last post by Tamas - Today at 02:31:47 AM

It's still a few hours before I can go to the petrol station, would appreciate a bit of a delay to Armageddon, thanks.