@theshadow2001 That maybe correct and I'm not going to argue if it is or isn't as the simple fact is Apple received preferential treatment that smaller companies didn't putting them at a disadvantage and the only reason Apple could do that is because Ireland is comparatively smaller than the EU. For a system that apparently doesn't work it's been remarkably successful, no? I mean it's enabled us to settle and build cities, states and nations.
We can't ignore the influence that social media - Facebook especially - has on polemicising the debate(s) around politics. The systems and algorithms that social media networks are built on are designed to capture and track the things it thinks you are interested in, and then give you more of the same in return. It's the perfect recipe for an echo chamber: I see it in my own feed and I see it in the posts that it chooses to highlight for me. When it's feeding you exactly what you want to see/hear on a daily basis it only increases your confirmation bias - everything you see is telling you that what you think is right, so what incentive is there for you to seek out the information yourself? In theory we should have the most well-informed society that has ever existed: the sheer volume of information that can be accessed at our fingertips is unparalleled in human history. Never have we had such easy access to so much information. Instead we have Candy Crush, Likes, and a misogynistic white supremacist in charge of the most powerful nation on earth*. *The most powerful nation on earth at the moment...
Who there i never said it was great, i said it's been remarkably successful and when compared to what came before it has, that's unless you consider a few thousand archaic humans living solitary nomadic lives to be more successful than modern day humans. Like it or not the top-down hierarchy that you so despise has seen humans become the dominant species on the planet, granted its not all been a bed of roses but that's not a fault of the system it's a fault of the human within that system.
You seem to be ignoring or perhaps unaware that people inherently want more than their fellow humans, more resources, more power, more of everything and some don't care how they get more or who suffers, you appear to believe that everyone thinks and acts like you. It's not the system that's flawed it's the people operating within it that are and it's why we attempt to design those systems so the worst parts of the human psyche are lessened, unfortunately because humans are clever little souls and the system is constantly changing we have to constantly tweak things to prevent those worse excess, arguably we've not being doing a great job of that but that's not a fault of the system it's, again, a fault of the humans operating within that system. The worlds population wouldn't as a whole be much better off with a more regional and communal style of living as that would feed into the worst aspects of the human psyche of wanting more resources, more power, and more of everything because you make it easier for such people to play one group off another.
I disagree. Most people in the West now have a smartphone in their pocket, with access to Google search and a vast wealth of information on the internet. There are libraries full of books. It doesn't take whistleblowers or access to secret information to recognise that Trump is a dodgy businessman from a privileged background, of limited ability and emotional immaturity; that Boris Johnson is a sociopath, that Jacob Rees-Mogg lives in his own little bubble universe of rarified privilege, what the fundamental philosophy is of various political parties: by their actions shall they be known. It doesn't take access to the Bilderberg minutes or Wikileaks know that Brexit was a bunch of unicorn promises, that Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt are all on public record stating that the NHS should be abolished, or that the failings of UK politics and the economy has nothing to do with the EU. For instance. All that information is in the public domain. All you have to do is check politicians' voting record, observe their behaviour and draw some sensible conclusions. Same with big corporations, same with the tabloids, same with anything, really. And how is your solution any different? Any person who steps forward to be a political representative has a personal agenda. They want power, or they think they have a special insight into the human condition and How Things Ought To Be (a bit like you). Otherwise why would they volunteer? Which makes them almost per definition unsuitable for the job. Most schools have a board of governors involving parent governors (the Tories want to scrap this in the UK. This is public knowledge. Is there an outcry? Protest marches? A strong promise by all parents in the UK to not vote Conservative at the next election?). They have parent forums and parent volunteers. In my experience of schools on sink estates in the UK, the one's that performed well had a lot of parents closely involved. Parents can teach children the value of books, the value of learning, the value of curiosity; how to manage emotions and how to think critically. It doesn't all have to rely on schools. I disagree. We are in an age where it is easier than ever to access information and knowledge. I mean, most people now have, effectively, a library in their pocket. For the population to be responsible, it has to assume responsibility. The elite aren't going to do it for them. It may not all be the fault of the electorate, but it is their problem. The elite will love that: divide and rule! As soon as the population elects representatives, it is delegating power and responsibility. Unless it learns to select good representatives, not charismatic narcissists, and learns to not delegate too much power and responsibility and continuously hold representatives to account, nothing will change. As long as the population decides it is a helpless victim, it will be a helpless victim. And how are you going to make all that happen?
It's a valid question. As Brexit aptly demonstrates, without a practical plan for realising them, great ideas are just daydreams. I already put forward my idea: teach children to be smarter, wiser and compassionate adults who work together better and neither feel the need for, nor seek a narcissist big daddy to lead them to the promised lands of unicorns. Definitely more achievable, IMO.
Are you saying that parents are incapable of raising their children to be smart, wise and compassionate adults? It seems to me that you have a lot of excuses for why the electorate can't take political responsibility, but no actual plan for how to achieve the political ideal that you advocate. So who is going to do it? And how?
The current system allows the public to vote three times every five years: in local elections, MEP elections and general elections. That is at less than two years' interval. Meanwhile it has access to a range of social media to organise itself into effective pressure groups, all of which can access their local MP surgery. In the UK, the end result of exactly such grass-roots politics was the EU referendum, first campaigned for by a political nobody leading a small fringe party until a mainstream party felt compelled to indulge them. And lo, the electorate went out and voted, and the UK is now leaving the EU, as per the wishes of 51.9% of the population. Tell me that is not political power. Of course the population were dimwits voting for narcissists promising unicorns, and it would take a special kind of moron not to have expected the results which are already becoming manifest. More austerity, more poverty, further losses of human and employee rights. Certainly no more money for the NHS. But let nobody say this isn't the Will of the People, happening right here. Paranoid fantasy. The 'nuclear family' is a romantic Victorian myth. Most families have always been extended and co-operative families (for a reason), until the Victorian age. Then, where fathers did not die early in the factories, on fishing boats or on the battlefield, or simply abandoned the family, they spent time mostly working long shifts in said workplaces or away at sea for weeks on end, and then in the pub. Child rearing was very much left to the mother. In fact, with the improvement of worker's rights and conditions, shorter shifts, holidays and better wages over the last century, conditions generally have never been better for fathers to be involved with the children. But if they can't, I see a way out of this: if you can't afford to raise them, don't have kids. Birth control has never been so accessible either. So who is going to change the current system, and how?
That makes no sense. First of all, if there really was some cabal of elites trying to make as many families fatherless as possible, then how do you explain that the very same elites allow the cost of housing to go up to the point where many parents are actually forced to stay together because they can't afford to break up? Surely if they wanted to promote single parenthood they would address the lack of properties affordable on a single income. Second, why put the whole conspiracy spin on it by attributing it to malice?
The electorate wants to fight this conspiracy? Simple: fathers, don't abandon your children. So who is going to change the current system, and how?
OK now you're really going to have to start citing evidence if you want to have any credibility. Otherwise it really does read as a conspiracy.
@Nexxo The nuclear family isn't a myth and has been the basic social family structure for a long time, it's still in full swing albeit slowly diminishing just as marriage are. I grew up in one myself and I started one. It is a way for the state to assert control over the children and what they are taught, it works rather well because both parents most often have to work to make ends meet, which means mothers are out of the equation early on, these days often as early as when they babies are less then a year old. The earlier the system can get their hands on them the better, from its point of view, there are historical examples such as Communism and National Socialism. There are only 24 hours a day. 8-12 hours work (offspring get a similar work day) 6-7 hours sleep, it all adds up, at the end of the day there's not much time left over for many parents to actually raise and educate their children, because they don't get to spend enough time with them to do so properly. This is the reality for most parents these days, now if the system, for lack of a better word, designed it this way or not is open to discussion imo. That said, I wouldn't write someone off as paranoid if he suggested it was, we can clearly see that it benefits the system more than the families serving it at this point in time.
Here's an idea: if you can't afford to be there to raise your children, don't have them. IIRC you have children, and I suspect that even before you fathered them you've been making damn sure that you, as a father, can afford to be, and are there, to raise them into well-adjusted, intelligent, self-sufficient adults. If you can do it, so can everyone else.
You did and I do and I can, though I don't get to spend as much time with them as my wife does, she's a stay at home mom so she gets most of the credit. In a perfect world that would be the situation Nexxo, but you know as well as I do that we're also part of an unbroken ~3,5 billion years long line of evolution and that's not going away.
No, I'm saying that having children is not just a right, it's also a responsibility (there's that word again). In psychotherapy there's a saying: "It's not your fault, but it is your problem". There may be many things wrong with the world and with your life that aren't your fault, but if they are a problem to you, then you may have to be the one to do something about it. The world won't --it was here long before you. Other people won't --they have their own problems (and the 'elite'? They like things just as they are). If that seems unfair, well, the world is an unfair place sometimes. Another concept in psychotherapy is that many psychological problems are the consequence of 3.5 billion years of evolution. Again, not our fault, but definitely our problem. We can choose to surrender ourselves to our evolutionary wiring, or we can take ownership and try to be wiser human beings.
No, same principle applies: having children is not just a right; it's a responsibility. The child doesn't ask to be dropped in a deprived household on a sink estate; it doesn't ask to be born in Third World poverty. If parents decide to drop a little human being in that situation, they better damn well make sure they can look after it. It may not be prospective parents' fault that they can't afford to have children, but it is their problem. If they don't accept that, they just end up making it the child's problem. And children have no power to change their situation, wouldn't you agree?
I don't think it should be a right to have children anymore its not like our species is on the decline.
OK, let's explore that a bit. You disagree that parents have ultimate responsibility towards their children, i.e. those whose very existence they have power over. At the same time you are saying that it's not OK for the 'elite' to act in their own interest, regardless of the consequences for those they happen to have power over --even though those people are adults, not powerless children. Your positions are inconsistent.
I don't think dying out is an immediate problem. The problem often attributed to low birth rate is not having enough young to support and look after the elderly. However we are now just beginning to move towards a future where machines do a lot of the work, govt would be far better spending there time on that than trying to increase birth rates or immigration.
