The Brexit disaster

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5thhorseman
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Re: The Brexit disaster

Post by 5thhorseman »

Alright, alright! I'll leave you to wait until Per gets out of bed. He's probably one of those early risers, so you only have a couple of hours.

Leave it to the white males to have their oh so insightful discussions of racism, lol.

Kudos on the monkey gif lol didn't make sense tho till I saw all the edits. Good one.
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Re: The Brexit disaster

Post by Strangelove »

Thanks, the first two monkey edits were made while you were typing your responses.

(at that point we were posting in quick succession)

The third one you actually quoted, so.

Anyway, back on topic, I think most of this racism Per is seeing exists only in his imagination...
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Re: The Brexit disaster

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Haha so I did! It wasn't there when I hit reply. Mmmmm.
Last edited by 5thhorseman on Tue Oct 22, 2019 1:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Brexit disaster

Post by Per »

Strangelove wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 12:43 pm I don't think there are even a fraction of the number of extreme racists you seem to think there are Per.
Going to ignore the strawman thingy and just reply anyway.

I think extreme racists are very few. Perhaps around the same level as sociopaths? I donnu, some 2% maybe or something. Just spit balling here.

I do however think there is a lot of everyday racism, that often goes unnoticed by us crackers.

I recently saw a presentation at work about racial discrimination in the workplace, It is kind of hard to get statistics on that, as we don't register race or skin colour in Sweden, but we do keep records on place of birth, so the people behind this study had compared statistics for people born in Sweden by two Swedish born parents to that of people born in Sweden with at least one parent born in Africa. It is by no means perfect, because there could be the odd Swedish born parent that has dark skin, but those would be very few, and likewise, there are white people in Africa, albeit most Africans tend to be dark skinned. Nevertheless, this methodology should be able to find a group of mostly dark skinned people born and raised in Sweden, and thus not being immigrants, and then compare them to their lighter skinned counterparts. They also did not compare the groups as a whole, but grouped by level of education. What really stood out was that among those with at least three years of college, Swedes with Swedish born parents earn 150% of what those with at least one African parent do. That's a huge difference.
In comparisson the gender based income difference when other factors have been removed is just 11%.
And this in a country where hardly anyone self identifies as a racist*.

Now, there are biological reasons for racism. Up till around 10,000 years ago, all humans around the world lived as hunter gatherers, in smallish bands of perhaps 30 people, usually these bands were part of a bigger group of perhaps 120-150 individuals. These were the people you could trust. All other people were a threat. Among skeletons from the paleolithic era, roughly 10-15% died violent deaths at the hands of other humans. Kennewick man had a spearpoint embedded in his thighbone. Ötzi, the ice man from the Alps had an arrow puncturing his lung, and a skull fracture that could be from falling after being hit by the arrow, or possibly a blow to the head by whoever first shot him. And it didn't get much better when early civilisations started to arise. Read Exodus. Moses was basically worse than ISIS. Pretty much every town they reached, they killed all the men and enslaved all the women. Or killed the women too. Guess it differed on in which mood God was that particular day. But it's gruesome.

Either way, the point I'm trying to make is that for most of the time people have existed, other people have been a serious threat to their life. Thus whenever we see a person, our unconscious part of the brain, or more specifically, the amygdala (which has to do with fear and disgust), tries to determin whether this person is one of "us" or one of "them". In tests where people are presented with pictures of different faces while the brain of the test subject is monitored, the amygdala tends to light up when the face shown has racial features that differ from the test subject. Now, Dr Steven Pinker points out that originally many felt that damn, racism is hard wired into us, but he dismisses that notion. First of all, the amygdala is a tiny portion of our brain. Even though it flares up at the sight of different racial traits, that's a millisecond response. Then the frontal lobes take over and apply logic and experience to the situation, ofetn saying "damn it, Amygdala, we're better than that!". Also, the amygdala is easy to trick. It doesn't really concern itself with race, just with determining if this is one of "us" or one of "them". If you add baseball caps featuring sports team logos to all the faces in the test, the amygdala will immediately disregard race and instead react to how you feel about that particular team.

Anyway, in the absence of baseball caps, the gut reaction to many will still be that people who look different make them nervous and uncomfortable. What constitutes different will vary though. If you grew up in a multicultural area, skin colour may not bother you at all. Instead it could be preppy clothes that sends your amygdala into spin. Or a Calgary Flames jersey. Or a hijab or a kippah. Whatever.
But this ancient trait explains why there is still in this day and age a lot of unconscious or semi-conscious racial discrimination going on.

My dog is racist. He hates German shepherds, but is very partial to poodles and bichons.
(note lefties see an extreme racist behind every bush)
Well as I have never been a leftie, I wouldn't know. And Sweden is very sparsely populated, so I don't even expect to find people behind every bush. Yet, I'd like to point out that from what I understand neither of the Bush presidents were racist. They certainly had other flaws, but afaik, racism wasn't one of them.
I challenged you on your statement:

"Sure, off the record some of (leaders of the Leave campaign) admit they couldn’t have pulled it off if it weren’t for the racist vote"

You have yet to prove that statement is true...
I think I did.... As I said, this was only admitted off the record, so you will not find any signed affidavits. I thought the article and the Cummings quote were clear enough. But maybe you didn't hear the dog whistles? Coming to think of it though, I guess that's the whole point with them.... :look:

Anyway, here's another quote from that same article, showing that they knew very well what they were doing, and that they attempted to get the racist vote out:
Leave.EU advertisements were ‘deliberately sent to supporters of the British National Party and Britain First’,
(same article as before)

*albeit nearly 20% vote for the Sweden Democrats, which imesho is an intrinsicly racist party, originally founded by nazis
Last edited by Per on Tue Oct 22, 2019 6:21 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: The Brexit disaster

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Strangelove wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 2:30 pm

"Sure, off the record some of (leaders of the Leave campaign) admit they couldn’t have pulled it off if it weren’t for the racist vote"

I doubt it, but I'm genuinely curious...
https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-06-24/ ... are-voters
One government minister in support of Britain's exit, or Brexit, told the BBC: “'Vote Leave' does not want to major on immigration, but the problem is that on the economy we are playing defense.”
Not a smoking gun, in that you could cry 'fake news' at the unnamed source...
A campaign low arrived in the form of a poster showing thousands of refugees crossing the Croatia-Slovenia border last year. The words "BREAKING POINT" were emblazoned across the picture, above a line that read: "We must break free of the EU and take back control of our borders."
... but where there's smoke there's fire.
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Re: The Brexit disaster

Post by Per »

Nazi propaganda:
ImageImageImage



Brexit campaign:
Image



Can you see the difference? :|
Last edited by Per on Tue Oct 22, 2019 6:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Brexit disaster

Post by Per »

Just had to post this as well... :lol:

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Re: The Brexit disaster

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Listening to the debate in Westminster.

Scottish MP pointing out that every single district in Scotland and 62% of the Scottish voters voted to remain, and that under the Scotland act, Scotland should have a say in this matter. But that the British government has been ignoring the rights of Scotland as a country and the right of the Scottish constituents as citizens of the European Union. It seems the British PM does not hold a lot of respect for promises, for parliament or for the rule of law.
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Re: The Brexit disaster

Post by Topper »

Over the Internet, you can pretend to be anyone or anything.

I'm amazed that so many people choose to be complete twats.
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Re: The Brexit disaster

Post by Per »

Topper wrote: Tue Oct 22, 2019 8:06 am [youtube]Youtube clip[/youtube]
A brief visit to the real world will show you actual national debt to GDP ratios for 2019:

National Debt to GDP Ratio 
1 Japan 234.18%
2 Greece 181.78%
6 Italy 127.51%
10 Portugal 117.54%
12 United States 109.45%
17 Belgium 99.08%
18 France 96.20%
22 Spain 95.12%
27 Cyprus 89.52%
30 United Kingdom 85.92%
31 Canada 83.81%
40 Croatia 72.58%
42 Austria 71.97%
45 Slovenia 69.80%
56 Hungary 65.87%
58 Ireland 64.86%
63 Finland 59.56%
79 Germany 55.75%
85 China 54.44%
95 Netherlands 50.91%
99 Poland 49.80%
108 Slovakia 46.56%
110 Malta 45.94%
129 Romania 38.96%
141 Denmark 35.06%
145 Sweden 34.45%
152 Latvia 31.92%
155 Lithuania 31.41%
156 Czech Republic 31.29%
171 Bulgaria 22.86%
181 Estonia 8.12%

http://worldpopulationreview.com/countr ... onal-debt/

Just showing the EU plus the USA, Canada, Japan and China, with the number to the left showing their global rank, with first place of course being the worst.

Turns out that only three EU countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal) are in a worse situation than the USA, and only seven are worse off than the UK, who in turn are roughly on par with Canada.

So while the Brits in that clip laugh at Ireland et al, their own economy is not necessarily in better shape. At least not when it comes to debt ratio.

Sweden has as a rule of thumb to try to stay below a debt rate of 50% of GDP, and as you can see we accomplish that with a great deal of margin at the moment, despite Russian trolls and their right wing echo chambers trying to describe us as bankrupt... :lol:

The Baltic Republics and the Czechs are - if I'm not mistaken - adhering to the Austrian school of thought in economics, and thus extremely restrictive in accruing government debt. Far more so than Austria, that doesn't seem to pay much heed to their own economic philosophers.

Probably worth noting that the Chicago has nothing in common with the Chicago school of economics either, when you think about it.... :lol:

But I digress.

The case of Bulgaria is more peculiar. They probably just cannot find anyone willing to lend them money. :look:
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Re: The Brexit disaster

Post by Per »

Same set of countries, listed by real GDP groth in 2018. This time being at the top of the list is good.

Real GDP growth rate (%)
13  Ireland + 6.8
17  China + 6.5
20  Malta + 6.3
38  Poland + 5.0
40  Hungary + 4.9
44  Latvia + 4.7
51  Slovenia + 4.4
56  Romania + 4.1
61  Slovakia + 4.1
70  Estonia + 3.8
71  Cyprus + 3.8
78  Lithuania + 3.4
86  Bulgaria + 3.2
102  Czech Republic + 2.9
104  Luxembourg + 2.9
107  United States + 2.8
108  Austria + 2.7
109  Croatia + 2.7
117  Spain + 2.5
118  Netherlands + 2.5
121  Finland + 2.4
125  Sweden + 2.3
133  Portugal + 2.0
138  Greece + 2.0
144  Canada + 1.8
148  France + 1.5
149  Germany + 1.4
150  Belgium + 1.4
154  United Kingdom + 1.3
158  Denmark + 1.2
165  Italy + 0.8

Britain not so hot. Probably in part because companies are unwilling to invest due to the uncertainties surrounding the whole Brexit thingy.
Still doing better than Italy though..... :roll:

Oh, and footnote, in a sense it is a bit unfair to compare developed and developing countries, as it is easier for the developing countries to grow their GDP. A bit like comparing an 18-yo with a 30-yo in regard to how much they can improve their personal best in the 100 meter dash....
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Re: The Brexit disaster

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Per wrote: Tue Oct 22, 2019 2:49 am
Strangelove wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 12:43 pm I don't think there are even a fraction of the number of extreme racists you seem to think there are Per.
Going to ignore the strawman thingy and just reply anyway.
HA!

You know very well there was no "strawman thingy", you should be ashamed of yourself.

BTW I always get a kick about how you flood the board with words/pics/graphs/charts

... when you're cornered and feel a need to obfuscate. :wink:

Per wrote: Tue Oct 22, 2019 2:49 am
Strangelove wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 12:43 pm (note lefties see an extreme racist behind every bush)
Well as I have never been a leftie, I wouldn't know.
If you say so. :D

At the very least you're in league with those lefties and you DO "see an extreme racist behind every bush"

... if I may coin that phrase.

(and if I may use MY definition of "extreme racist") :sly:

Per wrote: Tue Oct 22, 2019 2:49 am
Strangelove wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 12:43 pm I challenged you on your statement:

"Sure, off the record some of (leaders of the Leave campaign) admit they couldn’t have pulled it off if it weren’t for the racist vote"

You have yet to prove that statement is true...
I think I did.... As I said, this was only admitted off the record, so you will not find any signed affidavits.
So you did and you didn't.

You're going to have to do better than that my friend

... or stop making such outlandish statements.

Good day sir. :scowl:
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Re: The Brexit disaster

Post by Strangelove »

5thhorseman wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 9:24 pm Haha so I did! It wasn't there when I hit reply.
YES, it was. :scowl:

I was watching very closely...
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Re: The Brexit disaster

Post by Strangelove »

BingoTough wrote: Tue Oct 22, 2019 3:18 am
Strangelove wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 2:30 pm

"Sure, off the record some of (leaders of the Leave campaign) admit they couldn’t have pulled it off if it weren’t for the racist vote"

I doubt it, but I'm genuinely curious...
https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-06-24/ ... are-voters
One government minister in support of Britain's exit, or Brexit, told the BBC: “'Vote Leave' does not want to major on immigration, but the problem is that on the economy we are playing defense.”
Not a smoking gun, in that you could cry 'fake news' at the unnamed source...
A campaign low arrived in the form of a poster showing thousands of refugees crossing the Croatia-Slovenia border last year. The words "BREAKING POINT" were emblazoned across the picture, above a line that read: "We must break free of the EU and take back control of our borders."
... but where there's smoke there's fire.
You missed the point and are doing the very thing I claimed Per was doing:

Confusing issues with immigration and racism.
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Re: The Brexit disaster

Post by 5thhorseman »

Strangelove wrote: Tue Oct 22, 2019 1:11 pm
5thhorseman wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 9:24 pm Haha so I did! It wasn't there when I hit reply.
YES, it was. :scowl:

I was watching very closely...
I'm afraid you are mistaken sir. When <Reply>ing, the forum software takes the quote from the database, not from the replier's current page. I've verified this just now.

Therefore you have no way of knowing what was on my screen when I hit <Reply>. That is, unless ....
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