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E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

Discussion in 'Serious' started by TheBlackSwordsMan, 22 Feb 2016.

  1. Archtronics

    Archtronics Minimodder

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  2. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Strange, 'cos this looks a lot like a debate to me. Bit difficult when the facts are stacked so far up against you that you can't see the top, though, innit?
     
  3. adidan

    adidan Guesswork is still work

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    We must go to very different football matches, I've not seen anybody killed after them.

    I do give to the Foodbank collectors every time I go though, you know seeing as people literally don't have enough food.
     
  4. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    Depends how much money you have really, when supply is limited prices tend to increase and that means what supply there is will go to those who can afford it.
     
  5. Archtronics

    Archtronics Minimodder

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    The over arching q's was could it be considered a Mass riot and is Britain likley to riot.

    I say no given the number involved where small compared historically with previous British riots and even smaller by similar western democracies. eg.France

    The football match example (perhaps a poor one although there have been several cases of deaths during football match fights) I used simply to illustrate that taken in isolation riots in other parts of the country wouldn't be considered Mass rioting but normal opportunistic crime on a different day.

    I would pose the question are number of death's including accidental which the birmingham ones where indicative of Mass riots or the numbers involved in the riot?
     
  6. stuartpb

    stuartpb Modder

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    Whether or not food shortages are going to be a real problem or not I don't know. What worries me more is the total disconnect some people feel they have with our political system. The feeling that no matter who we vote for or what we vote for, things aren't going to get any better for us. That in itself has been the catalyst for many a revolution or civil disobedience/ unrest. Our politicians/ government need to be working on that and trying to resolve those issues as a matter of urgency. The same feelings can be abused and taken advantage of by the far right/ far left/ nutters in the middle (delete as appropriate) as history has demonstrated time after time! You'd think people would try and use history to not make the same mistakes over and over again........guess not in the real world :-/
     
  7. Archtronics

    Archtronics Minimodder

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    Indeed but it depends what we are talking about, people actually starving to death or people suffering a few years of limited access to certain food stuffs.

    The first seems highly sensationalist to me.
     
  8. Byron C

    Byron C Multimodder

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    Hang on, we're splitting hairs here...

    Regardless of the number of people involved, there were riots in mutliple towns/cities and they were all started because of the same incident. That's about as factual a statement as it gets. Granted it wasn't quite the same numbers as historic riots like the Poll Tax riots might have been, but it certainly wasn't mostly restricted to London. It might have started in London but it spread - even the police here in Cardiff were even on high alert for riots (nothing happened here though). Also, the three deaths in Birmingham that Gareth referred to were not accidental:

    (src is the link that Gareth posted earlier). Opening fire on a police helicopter was also not accidental (same link):
    We're splitting hairs in trying to define what a "mass" riot could be defined as, and that's not really the issue here. It's a fair statement to say that it is not inconceivable that there could be riots across the country as a result of food shortages, irrespective of whether we want to call them "mass" riots or not.

    Plus Gareth's point still stands: millions of people in this country already cannot afford to feed themselves or their families. Even if Brexit only means an increase in prices instead of widespread food shortages, even if it's only for a short time, it still means that even more people are going to have to go without food or rely on food banks. Food banks are also likely have a harder time getting donations of food if food prices go up across the board.

    My partner and I would be OK. We'd have to cut back on how much and what type of food we buy (we're doing that anyway because stuff is so much more expensive than it was 5-10 years ago) but we'd be fine, we wouldn't need any kind of assistance or handouts. However that's for a household comprised of two working adults with a combined annual income of very nearly £60k. We are extremely privileged and every time I read the news I am very much aware of that. Generally speaking, this country can't even look after people before Brexit, so it's hard to be optimistic about the prospect of reduced or more expensive food imports once this sh!t-shower finally happens.
     
  9. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    True. I'd be more concerned with medical supplies myself.
     
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  10. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Accidental? They were mown down in a hit and run while trying to defend neighborhood businesses from looters.

    Let's do numbers, then: of the estimated £200 million in damages, £100 million occured outside London.

    Now, about those starving people...
    You did read my link that warns of the potential for thousands of CVD deaths owing to lower consumption of fruit in the event of price rises following no-deal Brexit, right? So, there you go.
     
  11. Archtronics

    Archtronics Minimodder

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    Judges comments on the deaths.
    "The judge said: "On any view this has been a terrible case – a tragic and pointless loss of three young lives.
    "However, by their verdicts the jury have decided that this was not a deliberate killing, that there was no plan to kill these three young men.
    "The jury have decided that this was a terrible accident."

    Given I was taken to task for saying Mass riots are unlikely I think it is very important to define what we are talking about otherwise it leads to misunderstanding.
    As Brexit has demonstrated numourous times it is important to be precise in your language and therefore thinking.

    If millions can't feed themselves why aren't they rioting? and what changes in the event of more people going hungry that will cause mass riots?
     
  12. Archtronics

    Archtronics Minimodder

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    Toilet paper is my worry... then again it would create a use for the daily mail.
     
  13. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    That's easy: more people going hungry, *and* having something to blame. Perfect conditions for riots, that.
     
  14. adidan

    adidan Guesswork is still work

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    Sure there have been bigger, longer riots. Some wars are bigger and longer than others. To me it matters not how 'large' or 'small' they are.
     
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  15. stuartpb

    stuartpb Modder

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    This I'd agree with. Any riot is going to result in fear, hurt, damage to property, risk of death or injury and cause much anguish and pain. There is no scale for that, neither should there be. It's the people who get caught up in it through no fault of their own that are the ones who feel the pain.

    More importantly, as with the 2011 riots, one riot can lead to more riots.
     
  16. adidan

    adidan Guesswork is still work

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    * quickly stocks up on triple quilted super duper uber pampered backside paper *

    The DM ain't even getting anywhere near my derrière.
     
  17. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    I agree. What is important here is not the size of the 2011 riots, but the dynamics behind them.

    They started, in London, as a very local reaction to a specific incident. Then they spread, and before you knew it people were rioting just for the hell of it: herd behaviour. Then other cities joined in, again for no other reason than that it was happening elsewhere. Ensuing court cases revealed participants to be not just the aimless, ASBO thugs you'd expect, but also ordinary parents and promising students who objectively had no reason to riot. People just joined in, for often very personal reasons or no reason at all. Afterwards they could often not explain it themselves.

    The reasons for rioting can be quite local and specific; i.e. quite remote and trivial to the lives of the population at large. Once they kick off however, they have a way of acquiring their own momentum. What 2011 taught us that it doesn't actually take a big reason (for the population at large) for riots to occur, and there is not much that the police can do but wait for them to burn out.

    Indeed. Which raises the question:
    Because of shame. At the moment, those who can't feed themselves are still internalising the reasons for their poverty: they couldn't get a (better paying) job, they failed somehow, they are lesser beings in society*. The overriding experience of people working at food banks is that those who visit them feel embarrassed and ashamed. Poverty is still a stigma.

    Food shortages due to Brexit however, are a different matter. People will feel (rightly or wrongly) that going hungry and being unable to feed the kids will not be their fault; they will feel it is the government's fault. The government failed to plan and prepare; the government failed to negotiate a successful Brexit, the government reneged on all its cakey promises... All that pent-up austerity rage will suddenly find a focus, much like with the EU Referendum. The vote to Leave has, generally speaking, a sense of victimhood about it. And that is the perspective from which these food shortages will be experienced. As Gareth says:
    And they don't even have to go very hungry. Food shortages just have to be noticeable. They just have to feel the pinch a bit more. It will freak people out because they are simply not used anymore to a real scarcity of basic resources. I am not talking about just not being able to afford them; but the experience of them simply not being there at all. And remember that hunger makes you more irritable and less rational...

    * It's also why they keep voting Tory despite everything. It's an admission of shame, a twisted act of repentance, a way of proving that they are not feckless scroungers expecting handouts. "I'm not with them, see? I'm with you guys!"
     
    Last edited: 20 Feb 2019
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  18. Byron C

    Byron C Multimodder

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    That is exactly the point I was going to make (once I'd got back from - ironically enough - grocery shopping)
     
  19. Broadwater06

    Broadwater06 Minimodder

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    I was right in the middle of it when it happened. I live on the same estate hence my username and some of the places they torched on the High Road were government buildings like the Tottenham job centre as well as shops and abodes. The family's wake was at the community centre next to my flat and I never seen so many cars in my life. The police were very conscious about the funeral and several roads were closed off for the funeral and wake.
     
  20. Risky

    Risky Modder

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    Your point was that Honda will manufacture in Japan as they can export to the EU without tariff, but the EU-Japan deal somehow doesn't allow other Japanese car firms to do the same? Or what is it?

    What are Honda saying it's not about Brexit, when other companies don't have an issue with using that as justification for their actions at the moment?

    Brexit will have some unfortunate consequences. That does not make everything unfortunate a consequence of Brexit.
     

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