Your Controversial Opinion

recedite wrote: »

The kind of person who goes to a TD's "clinic" to get a medical card application form filled out, or a grant application, probably should not be voting. They are not voting for the right reasons.

That's the thing though, they're voting for what THEY believe are the right reasons, which is why, much as I loathe the idea, you get politicians like the Healy-Raes, Mick Wallace and Luke Flanagan. Much as I may object to them, there's little I can do about it because they're not in my constituency.

I haven't been so adversely affected yet that I have any interest in entering the field of politics, but if I were pressed to take a test to exercise my democratic right to vote as a citizen of this country, I'd sooner tell them where they could shove their vote, and I imagine such a system would lead to increased voter apathy, leaving you with no different a system than the one currently in place already.

"You don't get to vote because you're not voting for the right reasons"...

I can see that going down well... instead of the people that really care about these issues informing other people and gaining support that way, taking responsibility for informing people rather than expect people will bother to inform themselves. Why should they?

- Academic, public and government knowledge/understanding of economics, is littered with myths and falsehoods, and is a subject with a very poor record of matching theory to facts (instead of the other way around).
- Most people and economists don't understand how the monetary system and money creation works.
- Most banks create money from nothing when they give out loans - they do not give out loans from savings.

- If they have control over their own currency, it's possible for governments to spend using money creation, without excessive inflation (just like it's possible for banks to create money, without excessive inflation).
- Due to this, there is actually no logical reason at all, for there to be any public debt.
- Using public-debt/government-bonds, is actually more inflationary than money creation, because the bonds themselves are almost as good for trading as the money given to buy them; both end up in the economy/markets.

- Our economic problems today, are really a result of political problems, not of any fundamental/unsolvable economic problem.
- It's my opinion, that this is the most important political topic there is, because of the far-reaching implications of all the above (and more) being true, and that depressingly few people are interested or aware of it.

I could go on, with a lot more - these ideas are so controversial and far outside the overton window, that you will be lucky to ever see a discussion on it, avoid becoming uncivil.

Most of the above, you can gradually learn by studying Post-Keynesian economics (Steve Keen in particular) - which by the way, has little to do with 'Keynesian' economics, bar similarity in name.

magicbastarder wrote: »

basically what that attitude boils down to is 'i don't like how or why that person is voting, so i would gladly remove their right to vote'.

Its not removing their right to vote, its just making them work a bit harder before getting to exercise it.
Someone who understands the system intimately can still vote for the "parish pump" type politician. The type of person with big business interests who stands to benefit big time. But its the people who get the crumbs (like help with filling out a form, a free taxi ride to the polling station, or a pothole filled outside their house) that deliver the critical number of votes to get the crooks elected.

Well, I don't always vote, but I might vote more often if I thought there were some extra restrictions. Yes, I know its a bit of a paradox!
Sometimes it seems pointless. Knowing that the other votes were likely to be based on some valid reasoning would add a sense of "value" to the process.
In some countries there is a legal requirement to vote. So if someone is out of touch or just completely uninterested, they are still supposed to go down to the polling station and make a random choice.
So in that sense, we already allow some "voluntary disenfranchisement" which is possibly a reasonable "middle ground" position to take.

There was a proposal a while back to require immigrants wanting Irish "naturalisation" citizenship to pass a civics and language test. Again, a similar idea. Its purpose would not be to exclude people, more to make sure that they were more capable and aware of their rights and responsibilities as a citizen. I don't think it ever happened though.

Turtwig wrote: »

That the mod team of A & A might be the smartest, sexiest and superior group of Mods ever!

Not having ever seen a single one of ye, I'll happily concur.

That lots of fields of academia are littered with rubbish that shouldn't even be approved for publication, particularly post modernist stuff.

Especially since tenure has been based on a) how often you get stuff published (and they don't care if its in journals which are so desperate that they'd publish the ramblings of a toddler), and b) how much funding you get. Note that there is no longer any mention of quality of research or usefulness of findings.

Michael bay films are generally enjoyable.

Only if you take enough bleach to cause permanent brain damage, but not enough to cause death.

Project maths is actually a step in the right direction.

Never heard of it.

The benefits of exercise and certain food stuff are grossly overstated. In fact, health advice in general is of a ridiculously poor standard. Some GP's are totally clueless on what research shows and what one individual popularised study shows.

Especially considering that most GPs aren't looking at the research but what the drug sales reps, who are more likely to be cheerleaders than science graduates, are giving them.

Calories and counting them are a terrible idea.

Some people get fun out of counting things.

Ireland is one of the greatest places in the world. But it's golden days are probably over. Depending on the decisions taken in the next decade or so it could even end up being a failed state of sorts. Such a decline would be sad to see.

Given that we've basically a choice of a right wing party which was against the treaty backed by a bunch of spineless soi disant socialists or a right wing party which was for the treaty backed by a bunch of spineless soi disant socialists, we're basicly skewered with a whitewash brush.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is extremely good but is also overrated. Many forms of mental illness will benefit from medication.

Not an expert.

Cars 2 is an enjoyable flick.

Last film I saw new was Abrams' raping of Star Trek in 2009. I am still a traumatised panda after that one.

Islam is often a very toxic and eroding ideology.

Of course. Like all religions it is about controlling the population so a small minority can get away with murder.

Despite having some crackpot republicans espouse some viewpoints. Libertarianism has some merits and provides a lot if utility to examining society.

I find nothing redeeming in libertarianism. But then again I find the idea of a small minority having total control over the majority abhorrent.

Socialism, although given a bad name by Stalin, is probably the my favorite political ideology. My previous name Jernal derived from a great Irish scientist who most people never heard of. Cynically because he was a socialist and had a love for Russia. Although he hated Stalin, who killed most of his colleagues and poisoned what was socialism to him.

I hate it when people demonise socialism because of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot et al. because if you truly look at them, you would realise that they were all far-right idealogues, having much more in common with Mussolini and Hitler than any true socialist.

Wealth should be shared between everyone in society. The problem is working out how exactly it should be shared.

Of course. Naturally nearly every political system in history has been designed to further the concentration of wealth in the hands of a small number of people.

Nobody in the world gives a sht about what happens in Ireland. We barely make a ripple in international media.

Anybody who thinks otherwise is very insecure about their place in the world.

Armageddon, while being ridiculously scientifically inaccurate, did more to promote an interest in science than most films have done.

Unfortunately.

Boards will eventually abandon the current thread format was more filter bubble based discussions.

Big NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Filter bubbles badly needs regulation or oversight or something! It's not good for society.

Big YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!

Socialising on boards is better for empathy and awareness towards the human condition than actually meeting people in a pub. Where politics, religion ethics etc will almost never be discussed by people. Or if they are people will be gauging what they say.

Depends on who you are talking to.

Incest is mostly ok as long it's between two mutually consenting adults.

Who have no chance of conceiving. Look up the Spanish Hapsburgs some time.

Irish third level institutions are a bit of farce when it comes to producing graduates who actually have the skills they were supposedly taught. The current culture is completely wrong and they're mostly nothing more than qualification for industry factories with a high proportion of defective products. (Advertised though as being in perfect working condition)

Yes tailor anything with a public good nature to the needs of private "enterprise" and it invariably doesn't work. As a business graduate, the only learning I received in ethics (surely something necessary in business you'd think) was because a lecturer managed to shoe-horn it into his course on regulation, without any official backing.

There is no Eurovision conspiracy. Although bloc voting exists the cream still rise to the top. We just enter songs that have no interest in Europe or are in fact shtye.

That's the conspiracy. The one between RTE, the government and Louis Walsh (although he's more of a cat's paw) to ensure we never win the damned thing again.

We should abandon manned missions in space and focus massively on robotic rover route m type one. At least for the next half century or so

On the other hand, if we want to increase the chances of our species surviving longer we need extra-terrestrial colonies.

The James Webb telescope killed far too many viable astronomy projects. Lisa being a huge loss.

How?

People who proclaim their sport the best in the world, especially during television commentary, should be shot!

Ok that last one isn't serious.

But true.


__________________

DazMarz wrote: »

My controversial opinions:

-There is no better fúcking drummer than Neil Peart

-Megadeth are better than Metallica

Don't know, don't care.

-Ronaldo is better than Messi

<sarcasm>She's a witch! Burn her!</sarcasm> As long as nobody tries to convince me that Rooney's anything other than a lazy lard arse who wasted his potential I stay out of this generation's game of "my player is better than your player". Roy Keane would take on the whole lot of them with his shoelaces tied together and win.

-Pep Guardiola is not a good manager

He's good, but he's not yet great.

-Fine Gael are actually doing a good job, considering the fúcking mess they had to clean up

Considering that they reneged on their promise to burn the bondholders (mostly foreign vultures happy to take the high interest and eventually guaranteed capital) this is patently not true.

-Sinn Féin are well on their way to becoming Fianna Fáil Mk II

Given that every party in the history of the state are essentially clones, mark two is too low.

-There are no proper left leaning political parties left in Ireland. You have either champagne socialists, Republican whackjobs or commie loo-la's. A liberal party that is left leaning but grounded in reality is badly needed.

Liberal parties tend to be left in social mores, and hard right in economic policies. The former are good, but the latter are universally disasterous (capitalism as an economic policy is a self destructive system with a half-life of thirty years).

-GTA: Vice City is the best video game ever. Ever.

Civ 4 followed by the Football Manager series followed by Fallout 2 (the mod with all the cut content re-added)


OK for my controversial opinion:

As a species we're screwed. I fully expect to see the end of human civilisation, if not the species.

I think it was that time we captured and colonised Scotland, just after the Romans packed up and went home.

PopePalpatine wrote: »

...
There's also the matter of ecological sustainability. In this hypothetical world where governments' only role is to protect the basic rights to life and property of their citizens, who would take a chance by funding research into nuclear fusion rather than just burning more oil?

Ya that reminds me of another controversial opinion:
- Continued economic growth is impossible and unsustainable environmentally, due to the second law of thermodynamics, and todays economic/monetary system inherently depends on permanent economic growth - it is physically impossible for it to last.

robindch wrote: »

It came up here a few years back and so far as I recall, turns out to be controversial after all.

I'd always assumed it true, but it seems to be one of those Hofstadteresque statements which is provable in the context of a counter-example.

I believe we are straying very close to Godelian (or should that be Godelisch?) incompleteness here.

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

Pretty sickening, sounds like mathematics as propaganda.

I don't understand what you mean?

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

How could I provide a geometry example paralleling the thermodynamic example in the article unless I'd read it? Why did I specifically mention "surface area" for example, if you understood the article you'd see the crux of it is the surface area thermodynamic calculation, which is why I chose the geometry example to show what a farce it is.

Your analogy doesn't fit at all - nobody says the human population is linearly going to increase forever.

The way economies and the monetary system are run today however, does require GDP growth to keep on advancing, forever - to prevent collapse of the economic system.

The article links that GDP growth, to growing energy use, and then links that growing energy use to the second law of thermodynamics (that you can't 100% efficiently convert energy, some of it will leak out as heat) - so if we keep an economic/monetary system that requires economic growth forever (there are other 'steady-state' economic systems that don't require this), it's going to run up against the environmental limits of what Earth can sustain.

At what point do you have a disagreement here:
1: Current economic system requires GDP growth to avoid collapse?
2: Economic growth requires at least some increase in energy use (even if you make power generation ultra-efficient)?
3: Increased power generation leaks (by the second law of thermodynamics) some amount of heat into the atmosphere?
4: Eventually, if this would be allowed to continue forever, this heat would run up against Earth's environmental constraints?

Remember: I'm not saying it's possible for the above to happen, I'm saying it's absurd that this is what the current economic/monetary system requires, in order to keep on functioning - and that it's collapse is inevitable.

Why are you skipping over the point, that the current economic/monetary system, requires the absurdity of endless growth to be true, in order to avoid collapse?

That makes this completely incomparable to population control - who says that the population must increase forever? Nobody. Our current economic/monetary system does require that growth occurs forever, unless a steady-state system is adopted.

Can you address this please, and show me where you start to disagree:

KahBoom wrote: »

At what point do you have a disagreement here:
1: Current economic system requires GDP growth to avoid collapse?
2: Economic growth requires at least some increase in energy use (even if you make power generation ultra-efficient)?
3: Increased power generation leaks (by the second law of thermodynamics) some amount of heat into the atmosphere?
4: Eventually, if this would be allowed to continue forever, this heat would run up against Earth's environmental constraints?

Remember: I'm not saying it's possible for the above to happen, I'm saying it's absurd that this is what the current economic/monetary system requires, in order to keep on functioning - and that it's collapse is inevitable.