http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2014
So, today the elections for the European parliament are held in most of the EU. (Some countries cheated and started early, but they don't count their votes until today.) The polls close and vote count starts 20:00 in Sweden (GMT+1), and a preliminary result is expected at 21:00. I'm guessing it's more or less the same in other countries.
Since there are quite a few Europeans here from different countries, I thought it would be interesting to hear your perspectives.
What does the debate look like where you live?
What are the major topics and issues?
Which parties are expected to gain seats?
What is the opinion about the EU and the Euro in general?
Your own views are welcome too of course, if you with to share them.
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4090
Location: The Netherlands
Aqfaq wrote:
I gave my vote to the Pirate Party.
Same.
Looks like it probably wasn't enough for the Dutch Pirate Party to get a seat but oh well. At least they are slowly rising in popularity.
Truncated wrote:
Since there are quite a few Europeans here from different countries, I thought it would be interesting to hear your perspectives.
What does the debate look like where you live?
What are the major topics and issues?
Which parties are expected to gain seats?
What is the opinion about the EU and the Euro in general?
Your own views are welcome too of course, if you with to share them.
Here, most of the debate is basically pro-EU vs. anti-EU, and what effect the EU's presence has on the Dutch economy. According to preliminary, unofficial results (we voted Thursday 22nd) the pro-EU side in the Netherlands is winning from the anti-EU side (with respective Dutch political parties D66 and PVV on the winning and losing end respectively).
There is some scepticism about the viability of the Euro, and the growing presence/dominance of the EU, but with what we know of the votes so far, it's not as big as was thought at first. Looks like people generally are in favor of the EU in the Netherlands.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
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<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Are the Finnish pirates expected to win a seat?
In Sweden they gained 2 seats last time with 7.1% of the votes. The polls so far have shown them far below gaining any seats at all. This goes in the Swedish tradition of sending one new party every year which is then never heard from again.
Previous election it was the June List which suddenly got 14% and were then never heard from again. This year it's expected to be Feminist Initiative which assumes that role. They had 2% last election and have gotten a lot of media attention lately, polling at over 4% which would enough for a seat.
I can't vote here because Switzerland thinks it's not part of Europe ^^
But anyway, I really think that the parliament doesn't have enough power compared to the commission, even though it's a bit better than before. Whoever wins this election, I don't think we will see too much changes in European politics.
Current project: Gex 3 any%
Paused: Gex 64 any%
There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
Why? They aren't looking for your best, they are just a short-sighted party with a gimmick.
I will never vote for that party because they want to make me unemployed, and they don't give a s**t. And this is not a prejudiced impression I've got; this is based on a direct conversation with representatives of said party (yes, their response was pretty much "too bad" when I expressed my concerns that if they had their way, I would lose my job.)
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
I voted. Tough choice though, no party was that appealing to vote for. But I think I made the right call in the end.
It's surprising how few parties want to get more out of the EU membership here, considering that we're getting very little back (that is useful for the average citizen) for paying such a high membership fee.
I am quite alarmed over the rise of Feimistiskt Iniativ, while I support about half of what they stand for, they are in my opinion completely insane and can potentially do a lot of damage.
andypanther: I kinda envy you Swiss, you get to actually voice your opinions with votes regarding certain things. Here we just switch (often backstabbing) tyrant every 4 years.
andypanther: I kinda envy you Swiss, you get to actually voice your opinions with votes regarding certain things. Here we just switch (often backstabbing) tyrant every 4 years.
I too think the Swiss have a very good political system. The people have a lot more power because not only can they start popular initiatives, but there are also many things (like changes to the constitution), where the government is required to hold a voting (mandatory referendum). Of course this makes everything quite a bit slower.
At the same time, I don't want Switzerland to be isolated. We are part of Europe, in fact, we are right in the middle of it! The right-wing populists with their isolationist initiatives know this very well, as they are the same ones profiting from cheap foreign workers. They know that the government won't just close the borders, it's just propaganda for the next election.
Current project: Gex 3 any%
Paused: Gex 64 any%
There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
Warp wrote:
Why?
I used some voting advice application and voted according to the result. The top results were from The Pirate Party and The Greens. It was not an easy decision to make. I have voted The Greens before and may vote them again in the future. I guess I am a somewhat chaotic swing voter.
Copyright isn't necessarily the only way to solve the problem of how to encourage people to create. The EU recently held a consultation about the state of copyright, and the need for reform. This was open to all stakeholders, and I was among those answering. Aside from telling them that copyright currently lasts far too long, there was also a question about alternatives to copyright. Here is what I answered:
As an author one has two interests: That one's works should be widely enjoyed (i.e. the wish to leave a mark on the world, and be popular), and the wish to earn money. In the current system the latter is solved via copyright: Each author has a monopoly on distributing his works for a (very, very long time), letting him sell copies of his work with little worry of competition. This mechanism works, but it is not optimal because it conflicts with the other goal of authors, which is that one's works should be widely enjoyed. Under copyright, income depends on strict control of copying, and unauthorized copying potentially represents lost sales. The author therefore finds himself trying to stop others from spreading his work, and to limit those who enjoy it to those who bought a copy. His first and second goals are working against each other.
In a perfect system, authors would not have such a conflict of interest with themselves. Several alternatives to copyright exist which solve this problem, but introduce others.
Upfront payment (Kickstarter): The author asks for the full payment for his work before he performs it, rather than extracting it gradually over years afterwards. This could be organized in the same manner as the highly successfull Kickstarter: The author creates a Kickstarter page detailing his plan for, say, a new book, with some information about what it would be about, and states a price he wants for writing it (say 50,000€), possibly with some stretch goals (bonus chapter after 100,000€, for example). Potential readers then choose how much money they want to commit. Once enough money to reach the author's price has been reached, he gets the money, and starts working. If too much time passes (time-limit is commonly 90 days with Kickstarter) without the goal being reached, then the potential readers get their money back, and the author must try some other approach.
The advantage of this approach is that since the author has already been paid before he does the work, he does not need to control copying: copies are free, and can be shared freely. The more copies are shared, and the more people who enjoy his work, the easier it will be for him to gather money for his work. What is today called piracy woudl now just be free advertisement.
The disadvantage of this system is that it will be hard for unknown authors to find people willing to fund them. Probably, their first book would need to be written for free in order to get enough interested readers for this approach to work. On the other hand, in practice, authors already write their first book for free under the current system (they need something to show the editor in order to be funded), so this is not a serious disadvantage.
Projects of more than $1,000,000 are regularly funded through Kickstarter, and more than 50,000 projects have been funded during the 4 years since its founding. So a Kickstarter-inspired model of up-front payment really looks like it could work.
Usage-based payment: In stead of the author selling copies, the state could measure how much his works are used and compensate him accordingly. That would solve his conflict of interest with himself - now it would be in his economic interest to see people share his work with each other. Something similar to this has been in use for some artists in Norway since 1886, though in a much less expansive fashion. An advantage of this approach is that it allows one to make the economic reward non-proportional to the popularity. For example, one could reduce the money per fan per work for the most popular works in order to encourage diversity and avoid super-star effects where a few authors become billionaires while others get nothing (like the current system). A disadvantage of this is that it would require a significant bureaucracy, and there could be difficulties in getting unbiased measurements of popularity of individual works.
Donation-based payment: Fans of works could voluntarily donate money to authors. This would make the author's income grow as the number of fans grow, and it would be in authors' interest to let as many people enjoy their work as possible. However, the author's income would be unpredictable, and more so the less popular he is. Still, Wikipedia has proven that even a large project with significant hardware expenses can survive exclusively on donations.
These three suggestions are listed in the order of my preference, but they all have in common that they would make copyright unnecessary, and hence free up our culture, allowing anybody to distribute and modify what movies, book and songs they want, and saving society from the significant economic and social cost of enforcing copyright.
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4090
Location: The Netherlands
Warp wrote:
Mothrayas wrote:
Aqfaq wrote:
I gave my vote to the Pirate Party.
Same.
Why? They aren't looking for your best, they are just a short-sighted party with a gimmick.
I will never vote for that party because they want to make me unemployed, and they don't give a s**t. And this is not a prejudiced impression I've got; this is based on a direct conversation with representatives of said party (yes, their response was pretty much "too bad" when I expressed my concerns that if they had their way, I would lose my job.)
I have no idea what exactly your job is, or how exactly the Pirate Party having their way would affect your job or cause you to lose your job. So I can't really comment there.
Other than that, what can I say other than that I have had different experiences with my local Pirate Party than you had with your Pirate Party representatives? The Pirate Party Netherlands representatives I've known were actually fairly nice people, and I can generally stand by their ideals.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
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<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Regarding the Pirate Party:
First of all, they seem way too liberal ("liberal" in the European way that is, meaning "less state, more market") to me. At least that's what I'm thinking of the Swiss version of them, they're not very successful here anyway.
But when I found out what kind of people the party attracted, I knew that I could never vote for them: In Germany, there were former members of the NPD joining them (the NPD is the closest to an openly Nazi party you can get in Germany).
Current project: Gex 3 any%
Paused: Gex 64 any%
There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
My opinion is that the EU was founded on a lie. It was pitched as a common market where we'd all have common trade laws and freedom of movement, but it's real intention was to have a United States of Europe. It's undemocratic and the average citizen has no say in what it does. MEP's don't even have the power to initiate their own legislation. It's done by unelected commissioners. The Lisbon treaty was bad enough, but the TPP was the straw that broke the camels back for me. It's clear they work for globalists and to hell with anyone else. Cathy Ashton is EU foreign minister despite never being elected to anything in her life. Yet she is responsible for the disastrous foreign policies towards Ukraine.
I have no idea what exactly your job is, or how exactly the Pirate Party having their way would affect your job or cause you to lose your job. So I can't really comment there.
Game programming.
Their goal? Everybody must have the right to use any works of art (music, movies, software) freely, and producers shall not be able to restrict it. (Their reasoning? "People are doing that anyway." Yes, that's literally the main reasoning they gave me.) If eg. a software company goes bankrupt because of this, so be it; sucks being them. They should find other ways to make money (their exact words, translated.) When I said that I could lose my job if this happened, I got no sympathy.
I will never vote for a party whose policies would have me become unemployed, and who wouldn't give a flying f about it.
(Sure, I am of the opinion that current copyright laws should be made more sensible and rational, and punishment for copyright infringement made more humane. But that's not the only thing the Pirate Party is rallying for. At least not here.)
I don't believe much in politics, the way it is today, but I also voted for the Pirate Party. It didn't go too well for them though.
I think society and the world should be governed using the scientific method, instead of people's opinions and money (see The Zeitgeist Movement or Venus Project for more information about that). Nature is our dictator, which decides how we can behave on the planet, and what is the most efficient way of taking care of the entire humanity and the environment.
Technology and science is what solves most problems, not politics, which is mostly just about distributing money and creating laws (which are not long term solutions that solve the root cause of crime). Money is an ancient form of technology, which in the modern world slows down the evolution of civilization. So-called piracy is one form of technology, which is restricted by money/capitalism. When the world is governed by money, then money is the focus, while people's well-being and the environment are often secondary. For example electric cars are not widely used because of monetary reasons, even though they would be more environmental-friendly. There are many other examples of restricting technology and the environment and human well-being being destroyed for the sake of money.
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Politics consists of left and right, which seem to correspond to the emotions love and fear. Love manifest as long-term goals and solutions like world unification, multiculturalism, equality and communism, while fear manifests as fast 'solutions' like conservatism, nationalism and nazism, depending on how much love or fear there is.
The futuristic left side, which is love, is where humanity is going towards all the time, but so that we don't get destroyed, the unification is sometimes slowed down by the conservative fear-force of right wing politics, as seems to be the case today in Europe, when people seem to be getting temporarily tired of too much love, so that they start to fear (but in the US, the opposite is the case today).
Love is a unification force, so it can destroy things like countries, nationalism, culture and racism, so that unification becomes possible. But it can only happen slowly, with love and people's free will, and without violence, because otherwise it's not love anymore.
EU is a manifestation of love, which has the purpose to unite Europe. Beyond EU is is UN, which tries to unite the entire world and create world peace.
...
I think society and the world should be governed using the scientific method, instead of people's opinions and money (see The Zeitgeist Movement or Venus Project for more information about that). Nature is our dictator, which decides how we can behave on the planet, and what is the most efficient way of taking care of the entire humanity and the environment.
Technology and science is what solves most problems, not politics, which is mostly just about distributing money and creating laws (which are not long-term solutions that solve the root-cause of crime). Money is an ancient form of technology, which in the modern world slows down the evolution of civilization.
...
Signed. We find ourselves in a vicious circle consisting of the need to grow economically to maintain our infrastructure, constantly rationalizing away what sustains this unstable system (workforce (no work->no income->no consumption->no growth->boom)) and yet not seeing this as an opportunity to give people more free time for urgently needed social services, higher education or simply hobbies. I'm all for automation, but not because this gives a few even more wealth than they already have, but because this can be an opportunity where we free people up from tasks that are no longer necessary to put manual work in. There's just so much more meaningful to do than just working in a lower-wage job to sustain yourself only because either no machine or program exists yet that could replace you or because that's not cost-efficient enough. Needless to say that this system, as unstable as it may be, is self-sustaining, esp. when capitalism and politics mix and politicians "can't" differentiate between the good for the people/the world and their own.
P.S.: I think it's quite hard to establish such an "utopian country" from the ground up that is able to supply its own resources, population, etc to survive in the long term on the foundation of how the current world works. There's definitely are large hurdle to overcome initially.
Warp wrote:
When I said that I could lose my job if this happened, I got no sympathy.
Your point is a symptom of the above. Imagine you had everything you needed for a living, worked 20h per week helping that it stays that way for everyone and you could do game programming because it's fun or whatever. Right now, where software programming is as valid as a profession that's needed for the individual to sustain itself, it's only logical that one would oppose any such suggestion that would get rid of one's own means to continue doing that (and that's no praise for the Pirate Party).
All syllogisms have three parts, therefore this is not a syllogism.
I think society and the world should be governed using the scientific method, instead of people's opinions and money
That sentiment feels completely hollow knowing that you don't really care about science at all. You are a believer-in-everything (there's probably not a single conspiracy theory or hoax that you won't believe). Just to accentuate the contradiction between what you said there and what you really believe, you didn't leave anything up to doubt:
(see The Zeitgeist Movement or Venus Project for more information about that).
Friendly advise: If you want to be taken seriously, don't refer to a lunatic conspiracy theory movement.
Joined: 3/18/2006
Posts: 971
Location: Great Britain
nfq wrote:
Love is a unification force, so it can destroy things like countries, nationalism, culture and racism, so that unification becomes possible. But it can only happen slowly, with love and people's free will, and without violence, because otherwise it's not love anymore.
What do you mean by people's free will?
nfq wrote:
I think society and the world should be governed using the scientific method, instead of people's opinions and money
How do you decide which issues are important without people's opinions?
(see The Zeitgeist Movement or Venus Project for more information about that).
Friendly advise: If you want to be taken seriously, don't refer to a lunatic conspiracy theory movement.
What are some of the conspiracy theories they believe in? Reading the The Zeitgeist Movement's mission page seems like they are not that narrow-minded at all (BTW: I find conspiracy theories really enjoyable from a comedic standpoint).
See e.g.: http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/faq#faq1 (esp. "General Observations"). I don't think that this is delusional at all.
antd wrote:
nfq wrote:
I think society and the world should be governed using the scientific method, instead of people's opinions and money
How do you decide which issues are important without people's opinions?
I read that as "either unqualified or not well-founded opinions" (not no opinions at all).
All syllogisms have three parts, therefore this is not a syllogism.
The Movement is not about Comparative Religion, False-Flag Terrorism, Economic Hit-men, Fractional Reserve Banking or the Federal Reserve. The films are unrelated to The Movement in detail and are personal expressions of Peter Joseph. There is often some confusion in this regard and in the most extreme cases some people have the knee-jerk reaction that TZM support's forbidden "Conspiracy Theories" or is "Anti-Religious" or the like. This type of rhetoric tends to be of a pejorative/insulting nature, used in the context of dismissal of The Movement by an erroneous and "taboo" external association. The fact is, there is no direct association whatsoever.
All syllogisms have three parts, therefore this is not a syllogism.
I thought Zeitgeist was a belief system; not a conspiracy theory. I understand why people would want to go for a resource based economy under our current economic situation, but it is not a viable solution. I've already submitted an essay to proponents of it saying why it won't work.
...
I've already submitted an essay to proponents of it saying why it won't work.
Got a link?
This is the original video, where the deadline is the end of July.
This was my critique of it, as I stated at the end of the essay a thousand words isn't enough to be able to successfully challenge such an idea.
-----------------------------------
Proponents of Zeitgeist do not understand what money or capitalism really is. People who don't understand the root of our current economic problems, but lash out at the symptoms of our problem tend to think the solution is some kind of radical collectivist system. Collectivist systems have and will always fail. because it makes everyone equally poor and does not incentivize people to build great nations or communities . This is an undeniable fact, and something collectivists will always try to deny or runaway from. When people no longer believe they're getting anything out of the system. Buy in will collapse, and when buy in collapses. People will try to get as much out of the system as they can. While putting in the least amount possible.
Zeitgeist will also make it very difficult for people to climb the social ladder. Due to the awkwardness of facilitating trade. It's very difficult for two people to meet up and have the exact thing each other wants. This will become especially difficult when it comes to dealing with large and high value goods like cows, cars and combine harvesters. The people who make it to the top of the social ladder in a RBE will most likely be the people who are best at practicing theft and violence. Thousands of years ago when there wasn't much in the way of money to facilitate trade. Becoming a Robin Hood figure was the only realistic way of bettering yourself.
The main criticisms labelled at capitalism is the injustice and inequality it causes. Firstly, the inequality in our current system is guaranteed to happen by design. This happens because of what is known as the DEBT MONEY SYSTEM. This is not to be confused with capitalism itself. Most critics believe our currencies aren't backed by anything, but there is in fact two things which back them up. Firstly, they are backed up by force. Government demands you must use them in order to pay taxes, and if you're a shop keeper, you cannot refuse to accept it either. Governments inherently hate competition and will use it's monopoly of violence to ensure no citizen can issue their own home grown currency. Of course crypto currencies have challenged this in recent times, due to being structured in a mass decentralized way.
The second thing that backs currency is debt. That note, that coin and credit on your card is owed by someone to the bank. When you or the government goes to the bank to borrow money. You are not borrowing it against someone else's savings. Instead the bank creates new money by typing numbers into a computer and you'll be expected to pay this back with interest. How do you repay it with interest? This is where the paradox lies. The interest never exists. The only way you as an individual can repay is by taking money from someone else who is in debt, or have someone who is already in debt go deeper into debt. Governments cannot do this, and must go into ever increasing levels of debt. Just to keep the system going. One day in the near future it will collapse. Currency is like gravity, and will always end up back at the banks. When banks receive your money they destroy it. What causes the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer is a phenomena known as COMPOUND INTEREST. The bottom 90% of society who are largely in debt pay compound interest on their debts. While the top 10% of society who generally aren't in debt receive compound interest on their assets.
As for the injustice of capitalism. This does not happen because we live in a capitalist society. This happens because we live in a CRONY CAPITALIST system. Real capitalists make their money in open competitive markets, are entitled to their vast wealth. They do this by providing goods and services we want. By working out correctly what assets will be in most demand or by investing capital in successful projects. All these activities boost economic growth, increase employment, help develop poor economies and most crucially lift living standards. By increasing your average citizens purchasing power.
However, crony capitalists, rely on government support, don’t deserve their ill gotten gains. The way crony capitalists make money is by getting the government to rig markets in their favor. By raising barriers to entry to restrict competition. By providing them with cheap credit or by allowing them to use their political connections to grab contracts and other privileges. None of these activities add any value to the economy. Instead of growing the economy, they redistribute wealth to themselves.
The real solution would be to take away the banks power to create money, and instead give that to the government. Governments can create the money and spend it into the economy. While I expect the "dangerously inflationary" argument to be thrown at me. Historically, their has been no evidence of governments printing too much money under this system. Other than during times of war or political instability. The other solution which I think everyone will agree with. Is to roll back the state. Get rid of all the unnecessary government bureaucracies, programs and cut back significantly on military spending. No subsides to anyone, no bailouts and no direct form of taxation i.e. income,corporation, land and property taxes. The only taxes that should exist are taxes on goods and services. As they can be used for political purposes. Such as discouraging people from eating junk food, using fuel, smoking or consuming alcohol. I wish I could go on, but I'm limited to a thousand words.
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