The Off Topic Topic

[Razgovory]

It's a bubble!

One thing that's odd is that the flower market in the US is a low margin industry we outsource to countries like Colombia.

Though that could be the difference between cut flowers and potted.

Surely farm equipment is not included in the total mentioned by the Economist, is it?

I think it has to do with climate.  You can produce flowers all year round in Colombia.

[mongers]

I'm back, didn't die, and got to the top. Battered a bit though. Especially my feet.

That's a pretty damn awesome thing to achieve.

AR hope you get to dine out on that a few times, re-post your exploit in the fitness or out and about thread and then we might as well lock them. 

[Admiral Yi]

Yeah Fredo, that's really awesome.

[Eddie Teach]

I'm back, didn't die, and got to the top. Battered a bit though. Especially my feet.

That's a pretty damn awesome thing to achieve.

AR hope you get to dine out on that a few times, re-post your exploit in the fitness or out and about thread and then we might as well lock them. 

If you feel that way, why do you keep bumping them?

[Josquius]

How the UK would look politically if only 18-24 year olds could vote:



I approve of our new post-millennial overlords.

[Admiral Yi]

Folks always trend right as they age Squeeze.

[Josquius]

Folks always trend right as they age Squeeze.

A myth.
Its politics that trends left.

[Eddie Teach]

And yet Russia is now fascist.

[grumbler]

A myth.
Its politics that trends left.

So the observed evidence is a myth, and Trump tends to be more leftist than Obama, Thatcher more leftist than Callahan?

Okay... what's the weather like in the world you live in?

[garbon]

Folks always trend right as they age Squeeze.

A myth.
Its politics that trends left.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/03/do-we-become-more-conservative-with-age-young-old-politics

[Josquius]

And Camerons Conservatives were the ones who legalised gay marriage. Quite a leftwards lurch from thatchers time and section 28 never mind what came before.

A myth.
Its politics that trends left.

So the observed evidence is a myth, and Trump tends to be more leftist than Obama, Thatcher more leftist than Callahan?

Okay... what's the weather like in the world you live in?

Come on Grumbler. Surely you are familiar with the concepts of overall trends, outliers and all that sort of thing.
Even you can't believe that politics trends left means every successive leader is more left wing than the last.

Trump in particular is a reactionary recoil to the march of progress.

[Tamas]

Of course everyone becomes more conservative. We are selfish creatures. Both our ability to deal with a changing environment, and our remaining time (to benefit from changes) diminishes as we grow older. So we stop wanting radical change to the status quo.

[Malthus]

Folks always trend right as they age Squeeze.

A myth.
Its politics that trends left.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/03/do-we-become-more-conservative-with-age-young-old-politics

This means that the Conservatives probably shouldn't be too worried about their support base thinning out and being replaced by younger, less conservative generations. If history repeats itself, then as people get older they will turn to the Conservatives. Our evidence suggests that this is probably not due to "social ageing" (getting married, having children or an increasing income), but rather to the direct psychological processes of ageing that tend to make people more resistant to change. This, in turn, makes people gravitate towards parties that defend the status quo.

This may well be true - but what the "status quo" is, may net be automatically correlated to self-defined conservative parties.

For example: in Canada, the Liberals are as much closely identified with the status quo as the Conservatives. In the US, the Republicans are expressly and explicitly reactionary: the Trumpites at least (and many others) want to tear down the "status quo". According to this theory, the older one gets, the less attractive that ought to become. 

[Malthus]

Of course everyone becomes more conservative. We are selfish creatures. Both our ability to deal with a changing environment, and our remaining time (to benefit from changes) diminishes as we grow older. So we stop wanting radical change to the status quo.

There is also the notion of learning from experience, experience being one thing older people tend to have more of than younger people. The main lesson being that change can have unanticipated consequences, some of which are bad, leading to a more careful weighing of the consequences of change before undertaking it (this being the positive aspect of small-c 'conservatism').

[Valmy]

I was about to say. The meaning of the term 'Conservative' does not really apply to people calling for radical changes like many right wing parties are these days. It is often the left wing parties that are defenders of the current order.