Off Topic Thread 4.0

pickarooney

awec wrote: »

Congrats!

I have an hysterical daughter on me right now. 60 minutes of solid crying, won’t take a bottle. She has finally nodded off and I’m petrified to move an inch!

It’s great fun, I promise.

60 minutes of crying, no bottle... are you babysitting Neymar?

Dubinusa

Right wing? You lefties must hate the wealthy? The assassination of who in Venezuela.
The assassination of who in Cuba.
It's strange that France or the Nordic nations are brought up. No one I know wants to live in France. You must realize that these idyllic nations are democracies.
Britain has tilted right, Italy is going that way too. Austria , Hungary and Poland. Nationalism is on the rise, who's to blame?
Utopia is a long way off. It will have its wealthy and its poor just like France and everywhere else.
I sense a lot of anti U.S sentiment amongst some of you. But, why?
Admittedly a lot of people over here are extreme.
Admittedly the politicians over here are jackasses. But, it's the same everywhere.

awec

Dubinusa wrote: »

Right wing? You lefties must hate the wealthy? The assassination of who in Venezuela.
The assassination of who in Cuba.
It's strange that France or the Nordic nations are brought up. No one I know wants to live in France. You must realize that these idyllic nations are democracies.
Britain has tilted right, Italy is going that way too. Austria , Hungary and Poland. Nationalism is on the rise, who's to blame?
Utopia is a long way off. It will have its wealthy and its poor just like France and everywhere else.
I sense a lot of anti U.S sentiment amongst some of you. But, why?
Admittedly a lot of people over here are extreme.
Admittedly the politicians over here are jackasses. But, it's the same everywhere.

What?

stephen_n

molloyjh wrote: »

Capitalism is a flawed system, but it's flawed in the same way that people are. Hence it's probably the least worst model to follow. So long as, like anything else, it is properly overseen. Capitalism is an economic model, not a social one. And it has to fit within a social set-up. That social set-up needs to be able to curb the excesses of capitalism for the whole thing to work. Unfortunately, the soclal set-up we have cedes a lot of power to the wealthy. Particularly in the US. IMO the problem isn't capitalism at all. It's how we manage capitalism. After all, no citizen is perfect. And using laws etc we try to curb what we deem to be anti-social behaviour. The same principle should apply to capitalism.

It's about finding the right balance between regulation and freedom to trade etc. If a country can find, or get close to, that sweet spot then it can function very well. But that takes a lot of effort, not just from those at the top, but from everyone in society. The people are the checks and balances of the people managing the checks and balances. If we slack off, the whole thing goes to pot. And we've been slacking off in that regard for a long time.

But we don’t actually live in a capitalist system anymore and I’m not too sure you can say capitalism isn’t a social system either. If you look at the effects of consumerism on society and how intertwined possessions and wealth are with social status. In effect we have socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor and middle classes. Look at the bail outs given to cover dangerous gambling by the banks. Or the likes of Trump going bankrupt 4 times and having his debts written off. That happens at the cost of the people at the bottom. Those bailouts though signaled the end of any notion of a free market economy. In effect capitalism died the day the banks were saved. We now just have a form of imperialism without royalty, where the needs of the many are subservient to needs of the few.

stephen_n

stephen_n wrote: »

But we don’t actually live in a capitalist system anymore and I’m not too sure you can say capitalism isn’t a social system either. If you look at the effects of consumerism on society and how intertwined possessions and wealth are with social status. In effect we have socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor and middle classes. Look at the bail outs given to cover dangerous gambling by the banks. Or the likes of Trump going bankrupt 4 times and having his debts written off. That happens at the cost of the people at the bottom. Those bailouts though signaled the end of any notion of a free market economy. In effect capitalism died the day the banks were saved. We now just have a form of imperialism without royalty, where the needs of the many are subservient to needs of the few.

TLDR; privatise the profits socialise the losses

stephen_n

Dubinusa wrote: »

Right wing? You lefties must hate the wealthy? The assassination of who in Venezuela.
The assassination of who in Cuba.
It's strange that France or the Nordic nations are brought up. No one I know wants to live in France. You must realize that these idyllic nations are democracies.
Britain has tilted right, Italy is going that way too. Austria , Hungary and Poland. Nationalism is on the rise, who's to blame?
Utopia is a long way off. It will have its wealthy and its poor just like France and everywhere else.
I sense a lot of anti U.S sentiment amongst some of you. But, why?
Admittedly a lot of people over here are extreme.
Admittedly the politicians over here are jackasses. But, it's the same everywhere.

Probably because the US is the greatest threat to world peace on the planet and is basically Britain for the 21st century I’d guess. You seem to like the right and are happy for countries to tilt right. Remember the last world war and how it came about?

awec

Dubinusa wrote: »

Right wing? You lefties must hate the wealthy? The assassination of who in Venezuela.
The assassination of who in Cuba.
It's strange that France or the Nordic nations are brought up. No one I know wants to live in France. You must realize that these idyllic nations are democracies.
Britain has tilted right, Italy is going that way too. Austria , Hungary and Poland. Nationalism is on the rise, who's to blame?
Utopia is a long way off. It will have its wealthy and its poor just like France and everywhere else.
I sense a lot of anti U.S sentiment amongst some of you. But, why?
Admittedly a lot of people over here are extreme.
Admittedly the politicians over here are jackasses. But, it's the same everywhere.

It's a cesspit.

I don't hate the wealthy. I hate cnuts. Trump is a cnut. Ryan is a spineless cnut. Bannon is a cnut. Miller is a cnut. Sessions is a racist cnut.

It is unsurprising that the US has lurched to the right. In times of economic hard ship certain types of individuals like to blame immigrants, poor people, sick people etc and there are a certain type of individual who lap this stuff up because it legitimises whatever prejudices they've quietly held for some time.

stephen_n

Deleted User wrote: »

How about every second previous to the one you're reading this in having a worse expected quality of life for the average human?

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If by average human you mean those lucky enough to be born in Western Europe or the United States then maybe you have a point. But for the rest of the works I don’t believe so. Probably why we have an immigration problem in Europe, it’s sure as hell not because their quality of life gets better every second.

Dubinusa

Capitalism is a system. Most people vote for their best interest. Me, whoever taxes me the least.
People who get stuff for nothing, will vote for whoever gives the freebies.
The political system of 2 parties is a joke. Both of the parties here suck. I dislike both equally.
The money in politics is destroying it. Politicians over here spend careers in office.
But it's everywhere. There is no perfect system.
I read the Irish newspapers everyday and the politicians in Ireland are similar to here.
We have elections in Nov. But it's the same buffoons all the time. I'd love to see all incumbents lose! It won't happen though, it's likely that some new bucks will get elected and having spent a few months in D.C, they'll be just like the rest of them.

Dubinusa

Cesspit? And what's Europe? The U.S is less of a threat to peace than Pakistan, Muslim fundamentalists, India or Russia? Iran? North Korea China.
Britains a cesspit, hence Brexit. Who's next?

irishbucsfan

stephen_n wrote: »

If by average human you mean those lucky enough to be born in Western Europe or the United States then maybe you have a point. But for the rest of the works I don’t believe so. Probably why we have an immigration problem in Europe, it’s sure as hell not because their quality of life gets better every second.

Actually in recent times, working class and middle class people of Western Europe and United States have had the least increase in quality of life, by quite a distance.

When viewing it purely as income growth, economists refer to it as the "Elephant Chart"



(important to point out that QoL != income growth, but its an interesting graph)

irishbucsfan

Dubinusa wrote: »

The U.S is less of a threat to peace than Pakistan, Muslim fundamentalists, India or Russia? Iran? North Korea China.

The only people who believe this, anywhere on the planet, are the people watching Fox News.

awec

Dubinusa wrote: »

Cesspit? And what's Europe? The U.S is less of a threat to peace than Pakistan, Muslim fundamentalists, India or Russia? Iran? North Korea China.
Britains a cesspit, hence Brexit. Who's next?

Is it?

The main reason these nations are deemed a "threat to peace" is they are the nations that pose a threat to US global dominance.

A nuclear Iran is described as a threat to world peace. Why? Because the US and it's Israeli mates won't be able to brow beat it any more?

awec

irishbucsfan wrote: »

The only people who believe this, anywhere on the planet, are the people watching Fox News.

The same people also believe that the reason the US is so poorly regarded (being kind) in the middle east is because muslims hate the "freedoms" that US citizens enjoy.

US foreign policy is just an exercise in brazen hypocrisy.

stephen_n

stephen_n wrote: »

If by average human you mean those lucky enough to be born in Western Europe or the United States then maybe you have a point. But for the rest of the works I don’t believe so. Probably why we have an immigration problem in Europe, it’s sure as hell not because their quality of life gets better every second.

I mean average human.

I strongly suggest reading Factfulness, or consulting Gapminder.org or OurWorldInData.org or Dollar Street.

You are not alone in completely underestimating the pace of global progress. Global.

stephen_n

stephen_n wrote: »

If by average human you mean those lucky enough to be born in Western Europe or the United States then maybe you have a point. But for the rest of the works I don’t believe so. Probably why we have an immigration problem in Europe, it’s sure as hell not because their quality of life gets better every second.

We don't have an immigration problem. We have a perceived immigration problem, two very different things.

Either way the issue on the Mediterranean was caused by a civil war in a previously developing country and we've the UK (irony of ironies) and the US to thank for that by destabilising their neighbour.

Buer

Dubinusa wrote: »

The U.S is less of a threat to peace than Pakistan, Muslim fundamentalists, India or Russia? Iran? North Korea China.

Peace to whom? I would wager that the US have implemented military action in more countries over the past 50 years than all those above combined.

irishbucsfan

I suppose Russia have actually annexed part of another nation. That's probably the most blatantly aggressive thing any of them have done this decade. And murdered journalists. And shot down a passenger jet.

But they're best mates with the White House now. So they must be alright.

Buer

irishbucsfan wrote: »

I suppose Russia have actually annexed part of another nation. That's probably the most blatantly aggressive thing any of them have done this decade. And murdered journalists. And shot down a passenger jet.

But they're best mates with the White House now. So they must be alright.

Ah sure America were shooting down passenger jets before it was cool.

Dubinusa

If the U.S had not involved itself in both of Europes great wars, then what. Good chance we'd be goosestepping to Horst Wessel. Funny how that worked.
The irony.....
Muslims are a peaceful people... right. Yea the Saudi's are letting women drive now!!! Pakistan is a fireball. Lebanon controlled by Hezbollah and Syria is a mess. But it's who's fault. Muslims have been killing each other since forever.
It's also strange that during the cold war, that the only real deterrent to the Soviets was the U.S.
How soon you forget that your continent is free is due to the U.S.

dregin

irishbucsfan wrote: »

This is hilarious propaganda.

No one is arguing for autocracy. But the American right wing elite have managed to convince the electorate that the only alternative to their current system is Venezuela.

Meanwhile Northern Europe trot along happily as the obvious blatant example of why this is total scutter.

It’s a wonderful thing to be able to convince people if you are already rich and you want to stay that way though. An incredible job being done by the American establishment to convince people to vote against their own interests.

Careful now. That's borderline intolerant lefty-ism, that is!

Squidgy Black

Dubinusa wrote: »

If the U.S had not involved itself in both of Europes great wars, then what. Good chance we'd be goosestepping to Horst Wessel. Funny how that worked.
The irony.....
Muslims are a peaceful people... right. Yea the Saudi's are letting women drive now!!! Pakistan is a fireball. Lebanon controlled by Hezbollah and Syria is a mess. But it's who's fault. Muslims have been killing each other since forever.
It's also strange that during the cold war, that the only real deterrent to the Soviets was the U.S.
How soon you forget that your continent is free is due to the U.S.

Please don't generalise an entire religion like that. That's extremely close minded and frankly racist. There's around 1.6 billion people who fall under the umbrella of Islam.

This is the exact kind of absolute bollox that Trump is spewing into the American population and people are coming out with absolute sh1te like this.

"Christians have been slaughtering and persecuting others for years and are embroiled in some of the biggest child abuse scandals in history".

prawnsambo

Dubinusa wrote: »

If the U.S had not involved itself in both of Europes great wars, then what. Good chance we'd be goosestepping to Horst Wessel. Funny how that worked.
The irony.....
Muslims are a peaceful people... right. Yea the Saudi's are letting women drive now!!! Pakistan is a fireball. Lebanon controlled by Hezbollah and Syria is a mess. But it's who's fault. Muslims have been killing each other since forever.
It's also strange that during the cold war, that the only real deterrent to the Soviets was the U.S.
How soon you forget that your continent is free is due to the U.S.

How long will it take before that old chestnut stops beng dragged up?

For your iinformation, the USA stayed out of the second world war until they were attacked by Japan. At a little place called Pearl Harbour. Remember that one? Sh1t suddenly got real when they realised that actually it wasn't that hard to get bombers to US soil. :rolleyes:

Buer

Dubinusa wrote: »

If the U.S had not involved itself in both of Europes great wars, then what. Good chance we'd be goosestepping to Horst Wessel. Funny how that worked.
The irony.....
Muslims are a peaceful people... right. Yea the Saudi's are letting women drive now!!! Pakistan is a fireball. Lebanon controlled by Hezbollah and Syria is a mess. But it's who's fault. Muslims have been killing each other since forever.
It's also strange that during the cold war, that the only real deterrent to the Soviets was the U.S.
How soon you forget that your continent is free is due to the U.S.

Jesus. I consider myself fairly centrist and roll my eyes at a lot of the fashionable criticism of American politics and the snide condescension towards it but you could have had Fox News write your above post. There are gaping holes in this version of history.

pickarooney

Dubinusa wrote: »

Capitalism is a system. Most people vote for their best interest. Me, whoever taxes me the least.
People who get stuff for nothing, will vote for whoever gives the freebies.
The political system of 2 parties is a joke. Both of the parties here suck. I dislike both equally.
The money in politics is destroying it. Politicians over here spend careers in office.
But it's everywhere. There is no perfect system.
I read the Irish newspapers everyday and the politicians in Ireland are similar to here.
We have elections in Nov. But it's the same buffoons all the time. I'd love to see all incumbents lose! It won't happen though, it's likely that some new bucks will get elected and having spent a few months in D.C, they'll be just like the rest of them.

That's what happened in France last time. The establishment parties all got complacent and a new buck got elected. You seem to dislike France for some reason but you can surely see it has aot going for it?

irishbucsfan

To be fair America was a great ally when they did eventually turn up to both wars.

But that was before right wing interests bought up their air waves and transformed the Nation. And before Citizen's United.

Current American White House has very little in common with the Democratic White Houses of both World Wars. Much more like the America envisaged by Fritz Kuhn



That's 22,000 American fascists in Madison Square Garden in 1939. The rhetoric they were using is chillingly similar to the sort of stuff you'd hear on Fox News or read in Breitbart today.

Dubinusa

But, without US involvement we'd be goose stepping. You can't change history. The U.S also contributed to the rebuilding of Europe and Japan.
I didn't say all muslims are terrorists. But, most of terrorism is at the hands of muslims.
There is no gaps in history. The U.S stormed the beaches of Normandy. That's a fact. The Brits and the French were getting clobbered. France was under German control. France Is free today.
Why is that?
Britain was not invaded! Why was that? The Soviets didn't steamroll western Europe! Why was that? The Garda Siochana? The French military might?
Vietnam was a French problem that Kennedy got the U.S involved in. The U.S should not have got involved imo. The U.S should not have occupied Iraq! The world is complex. Foreign policy is complex.
But it's no doubt that the CCCP did not expand only because the U.S supported western Europe.
NATO was formed as a U.S Europe alliance. There is no threat to Europe now. Maybe they should toss it into the history books.

connemara man

Mod Note

And thats enough of that. The charter is clear on no politics cards will be handed out if this continues

No exceptions

Dubinusa

I've been to France several times. I prefer Spain myself.i luv Spain. France is ok. I've been all over Britain, it's grand.

Buer

Dubinusa wrote: »

There is no gaps in history. The U.S stormed the beaches of Normandy. That's a fact. The Brits and the French were getting clobbered. France was under German control. France Is free today.
Why is that?
Britain was not invaded! Why was that? The Soviets didn't steamroll western Europe! Why was that?

There are no gaps in history. There are vast chasms in what you omit in your version of it.