Are you proud to be British?

Roar87 said:
Well the Magna Carta was the basis for modern Democracy, we didn't invent it as a concept. America and the UK have certainly done the most to preserve freedom in the past 100 years, from defeating the Axis to stemming Communism post WW2.
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I would have attributed democracy to the Athenians but whatever. As far as freedom goes, it depends on where you are, as America and UK fought much of the cold war by sponsoring and supporting military coups in developing countries so that we would end up with a dictator that plays ball. We had freedom, as did the US and much of Europe but the cold war period saw many authoritarian regimes in both the east and west supported by the US and UK, on the condition that socialist rebels were handled. There were a number of where the US and UK overlooked or defended regimes which committed atrocities for the sake of the politics game.

Not having a pop at the UK and US but jut playing devils advocate to the freedom point, as you dressed the west as pretty paladin like.
 
Avenged7Fold said:
I would have attributed democracy to the Athenians but whatever. As far as freedom goes, it depends on where you are, as America and UK fought much of the cold war by sponsoring and supporting military coups in developing countries so that we would end up with a dictator that plays ball. We had freedom, as did the US and much of Europe but the cold war period saw many authoritarian regimes in both the east and west supported by the US and UK, on the condition that socialist rebels were handled. There were a number of where the US and UK overlooked or defended regimes which committed atrocities for the sake of the politics game.

Not having a pop at the UK and US but jut playing devils advocate to the freedom point, as you dressed the west as pretty paladin like.
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Yeah that definitely did happen, the West considered Communism to be such a huge threat to capitalism based on free markets and democracy that we did a lot of things that were necessary for the greater good. This was the right thing to do in my view when you look at the levels of corruption and oppression that communism caused in the USSR and China (people are still benefiting from the corruption to this day, and it's still fairly prevalent).
 
I don't think you can ever know how it would play out had things gone differently, as it depends on who would end up in and that is never certain 15/20 years down the line. South America is still suffering from corruption and a lot of countries seem to be trapped in poor political-economic cycles since they were originally destabilized during the cold war. Chile recovered massively thanks to Pinochet bringing in the experts to draw up some needed yet unpopular economic reforms but they didn't call it the miracle of Chile for nothing! Ironically these free markets that set the political climate changing so the regime would be replaced by democracy.
 
Trusty said:
What if the two people with £10 make 10 beers? Price of beer will be cheaper than £1. It seems a little bit pointless condensing such complex problems to an inane simple equation.
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I'm getting a little tired of this. It's not inane, it's simple. Saying "what if" and "that's not like reality" is inane. It's really ****ing inane.

Of course it's not real, nor is it an attempt to describe real. It's an abstract designed to show the relationship between two abstracted things in an abstract way so that we don't have to think about "what if" etc. We assume all the other things remain equal. That's the point. It's a model.

The model shows that if EVERYTHING IS THE SAME IN BOTH SCENARIOS EXCEPT WEALTH DISTRIBUTION, the poor are better off when it's equal. That's it. If you want to argue with that, argue with the maths.

Much like if I say "If I flick the light switch, the light turns on". It describes a relationship between two things. I don't have to caveat it or complicate it with a list of "only if there's a light bulb in", or "if you've paid the lekky bill". We assume these things don't we? We can ignore "real" whilst we describe the abstract concept of the switch turning on the imaginary light.

Except when people don't like the idea that the switch turns on the light on, that's exactly the kind of nonsense they'll come up with. Or "I prefer my switch cos it turns my bog light on and I don't give a **** about your light" or "the switch next door doesn't work so you're wrong". etc etc.
 
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inogen said:
I'm getting a little tired of this. It's not inane, it's simple. Saying "what if" and "that's not like reality" is inane. It's really ****ing inane.

Of course it's not real, nor is it an attempt to describe real. It's an abstract designed to show the relationship between two abstracted things in an abstract way so that we don't have to think about "what if" etc. We assume all the other things remain equal. That's the point. It's a model.

The model shows that if EVERYTHING IS THE SAME IN BOTH SCENARIOS EXCEPT WEALTH DISTRIBUTION, the poor are better off when it's equal. That's it. If you want to argue with that, argue with the maths.

Much like if I say "If I flick the light switch, the light turns on". It describes a relationship between two things. I don't have to caveat it or complicate it with a list of "only if there's a light bulb in", or "if you've paid the lekky bill". We assume these things don't we?

Except when people don't like the idea that the switch turns on the light on, that's exactly the kind of nonsense they'll come up with. Or "I prefer my switch cos it turns my bog light on and I don't give a **** about your light" or "the switch next door doesn't work so you're wrong". etc etc.
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I do actually get the model, but surely the context that it was used in was not correct? As you were essential arguing if you are poor it's better to live in a society where everyone is poor, which we know to be false, no?
 
D.P. said:
It has nothing to do with semantics. This is the core f the debate. Why do you feel proud of something you had no control over and did nothing about?
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Pride is an emotional state, you don't need to justify it and you can't tell someone what they can and cannot feel proud about.
inogen said:
I'm getting a little tired of this. It's not inane, it's simple. Saying "what if" and "that's not like reality" is inane. It's really ****ing inane.

Of course it's not real, nor is it an attempt to describe real. It's an abstract designed to show the relationship between two abstracted things in an abstract way so that we don't have to think about "what if" etc. We assume all the other things remain equal. That's the point. It's a model.

The model shows that if EVERYTHING IS THE SAME IN BOTH SCENARIOS EXCEPT WEALTH DISTRIBUTION, the poor are better off when it's equal. That's it. If you want to argue with that, argue with the maths.

Much like if I say "If I flick the light switch, the light turns on". It describes a relationship between two things. I don't have to caveat it or complicate it with a list of "only if there's a light bulb in", or "if you've paid the lekky bill". We assume these things don't we? We can ignore "real" whilst we describe the abstract concept of the switch turning on the imaginary light.

Except when people don't like the idea that the switch turns on the light on, that's exactly the kind of nonsense they'll come up with. Or "I prefer my switch cos it turns my bog light on and I don't give a **** about your light" or "the switch next door doesn't work so you're wrong". etc etc.
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In your original example you completely ignored supply and demand which is what drives prices, you decided to set a price of £1.80 based on how much money was in the market which is not how pricing actually works. In your Scenario B the 2 people with £5 would've bought 2 beers each, leaving 6 beers which would've been discounted to £1 to make them affordable. The beer company would then make £13.20 in sales, which would make you wonder how they're affording to pay their staff more than their gross revenue. Essentially your example has absolutely nothing in common with how actual markets work.
 
This thread was obviously going to break down into cool kid Leftists trying to out self-loath each other, & normal people with normal feelings of solidarity for their nation.
 
Skunkworks said:
This thread was obviously going to break down into cool kid Leftists trying to out self-loath each other, & normal people with normal feelings of solidarity for their nation.
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The posts about pride amused me. Pride is an emotion, you can't tell people they "aren't allowed to feel pride because....", in the same way you can't tell people what they're allowed to be sad or happy about.
 
Trusty said:
I do actually get the model, but surely the context that it was used in was not correct? As you were essential arguing if you are poor it's better to live in a society where everyone is poor, which we know to be false, no?
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No, the model and the maths thereof shows that if you're poor, then you're relatively more wealthy when wealth distribution is equal than when it's not.

You can't argue that it's false. It's a mathematical certainty. In any given economic situation wealth inequality means, by definition that some (usually most) people have less.

Saying that when wealth inequality exists the pie and therefore the smaller slices are somehow inevitably bigger than when it doesn't is a(n idea)logical fallacy. It's affirming the consequent and misses the point.
 
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Roar87 said:
In your original example you completely ignored supply and demand which is what drives prices, you decided to set a price of £1.80 based on how much money was in the market which is not how pricing actually works. In your Scenario B the 2 people with £5 would've bought 2 beers each, leaving 6 beers which would've been discounted to £1 to make them affordable. The beer company would then make £13.20 in sales, which would make you wonder how they're affording to pay their staff more than their gross revenue. Essentially your example has absolutely nothing in common with how actual markets work.
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It's not a supposed to be a model of how markets work.

I'm sorry I confused you. I'm easily confused by beer also.
 
Roar87 said:
The posts about pride amused me. Pride is an emotion, you can't tell people they "aren't allowed to feel pride because....”
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I don’t think anyone in this thread has told other people that they can’t feel pride. Maybe I haven’t been reading closely enough though. :)
 
inogen said:
No, the model and the maths thereof shows that if you're poor, then you're relatively more wealthy when wealth distribution is equal than when it's not.

You can't argue that it's false. It's a mathematical certainty. In any given economic situation wealth inequality means, by definition that some (usually most) people have less.

Saying that when wealth inequality exists the pie and therefore the smaller slices are somehow inevitably bigger than when it doesn't is a(n idea)logical fallacy. It's affirming the consequent and misses the point.
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Yeah I get that, I still think the context that it was used in didn't seem correct, as they were arguing from a perspective of reality with millions of variables rather than a condensed simplified model.

Vonhelmet said:
When I'm activated by Fiona Bruce I'll tear this whole country to pieces in a fury of limp wristed left wing LGBT remaining feminism.
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That would be some interesting viewing. :p
 
Trusty said:
Yeah I get that, I still think the context that it was used in didn't seem correct, as they were arguing from a perspective of reality with millions of variables rather than a condensed simplified model.
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It was in reply to an assertion that wealth inequality in itself is a good thing for everyone and even makes the poor richer. Which is sheer bunk no matter how many variables you care to toss in.
 
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