Youtube comments of Luredreier (@Luredreier).
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@johnlenin830 Finland and Sweden isn't a primary target for Russia, but that doesn't mean that they can't be pulled into a conflict if Ukraine is attacked.
Both these nordic countries are aligned with the west and has had debates about joining NATO as a result of increased Russian agression.
Putin might consider the position of Kaliningrad under threat, and if that's the case he may start a conflict with these nordic countries in order to secure Kaliningrad.
Kaliningrad is also the key to take and hold the Baltic countries if that's desired.
In the case of a conflict with NATO any way to reduce the frontline would be desired.
Taking the Baltic countries and Finland would certainly shorten the border.
And there's certain Swedish territories that could also be used to enchance the defense of Russia in case of a war with the west.
I very much doubt that Russia would actually push all that far into Sweden as doing so just isn't worth it given that Russia will have other concerns in case of such a war.
But Finland and Sweden both have reasons to worry about Russias intentions.
Also, Russia might be hoping that NATO doesn't have the staying power to maintain a war long term with them and China, and that if they pull in the Chinese they might be able to divert American attention enough to make it possible to defeat the west in detail.
That is, while the west might have superior armies they can't be everywhere at once, and it's probably slightly easier for Russia and China to reinforce eachother then it is for the west to concentrate forces against either of them without leaving themselves vulnerable on the other side.
And with western forces split between two fronts it might be plausible for China and Russia to defeat us on one of the fronts.
I very much doubt they could win a long term war with us.
But if they can hold on long enough to sap our will to fight they could in theory gain ground in a negotiated peace.
Or at least that's what I think they're thinking.
Russia would love to get Finland and the Baltic countries and perhaps some of the Kuril islands.
China would love to get Taiwan and perhaps some other islands in the region.
And while I don't think either of them genuinly thinks that they can defeat the west in long lasting wars I imagine that they think it's possible to gain that territory.
There's no Americans living in either place.
And while the Finns and Estonians are European they don't have a indo-european language and are not a NATO member, so they might feel distant enough to voters in Washington, London, Paris, and Berlin to be something they're willing to give up in a negotiated peace.
Similar to how Crimea was.
For us here in the nordic region it won't feel that way though...
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22:37
The analysis here leaves quite a bit to be desired as far as its evaluation of the economy is concerned.
It's not the economic trade terms that's hurting the middle class in America, it's poor governance.
As for the trade imbalance...
In reality USA is just very successful in selling one of its most valuable products, the US dollar, a currency backed not just by purchasing power inside the US but also around the rest of the world.
There's huge amounts of it out there, so it losing value would be horrible for the rest of the world, ensuring that we have a wested interest in keeping you guys going.
As for your debt.
As long as your economic growth is higher then your increase in debt it's ok to take on more debt as a proportion of your total economy.
The trade imbalance is greatly favoring Americans as far as living standards is concerned.
Trump and Sanders becoming major players has more to do with the electoral system in the USA, it just isn't flexible enough to deal with nuances.
It discourages voting for other political parties leading to two parties that's both encouraged to go at each others throats and antagonize each other.
Instead of encouraging politicans that are open for compromises and that's constantly searching for allies among multiple different political parties all vying for power.
A multiparty system with more then one path to power (no major party being reasonably sure that they can come to power on their own but their potential allies also not being irreplaceable) is often too complicated to allow going out too hard against others and you keep getting nuanced views as minor parties either on the sides or in the middle always can play kingmakers if the major parties fail to play by ear with their populations enough to remain popular.
So you don't risk having the major parties essentially highjacked by one faction or another within the parties, and views that's at odds with both major parties can be expressed without dominating anything or being ignored.
The major parties plays a big part in shaping what people discuss and therefore how they think.
As for your idea about the US not needing the rest of the world...
Yeah, no...
The US economy isn't stable at all and relies entirely on the rest of the world to stay afloat...
It's just as brittle as you describe Russia or China being.
Just like any other country there's some things that USA just can't find within its borders (some are not even found in its sphere of influence).
Look how all of the US needs of the following minerals where covered in 2018:
Arsenic, asbestos, cesium, fluorspar, gallium, natural graphite, indium, manganese, natural sheet mica, nepheline syenite, niobium, rare earths, rubidium, scandium, strontium, tantalum, thorium, and vanadium.
Likewise there's technology that just doesn't exist within the US used to make products that American companies rely on in their own supply chains in order to produce their own products.
USA can't maintain anywhere close to its current economic output without the rest of the world.
Yes, the US could go isolationist if it wanted but that would be just as harmful for USA as it was for China or Japan when those countries did the same thing.
Also, the international world order doesn't entirely depend on the US either.
Yes, USA invented it and benefits greatly from it (we're already paying the tribute you mentioned in the form of the rest of us propping up your currency, without the US military and economic alliance the motivation to do so would go down), but we are able to maintain the international world order without the states, although I'll admit that it won't be easy...
The majority of nations in the world are democratic by now and we're linked by a number of intricate relationships of various kinds, diplomatic, economic etc.
And while losing American influence will upset a lot of those there's still too many incentives to keep it for most nations.
Or at least their elites.
There's only so much that China or Russia can do.
Yes, there might be some wars.
But overall we've all had a taste of a world where you don't have to pay for a huge navy on a nation by nation basis and where wars isn't the first choice of action in times of conflict.
War and large armies just aren't economically sound.
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@janl5879
Well, France and Germany combined have 177 of the total 720 seats in the EU parliament.
While definitely important nations they're not nearly strong enough to define EU politics alone anymore.
France and Germany combined have more seats then the smallest 16 countries combined out of 27 countries in the EU.
Given that the EU elections are proportional that means that those seats are never unified behind just one or two parties, but spread among multiple parties.
That in turn means that smaller nations easily can become king makers tripping the balance of power.
But other countries like Italy, Spain, Poland and the Netherlands all have enough seats to significantly influence too.
Italy, Spain and Poland combined have more seats then Germany and France does combined.
And the Nordic countries are far from the countries with the fewest seats, Sweden have 21, that's nothing to sneeze at, and more then enough to have a significant influence on the EU.
And the Nordics combined have 51 seats right now.
That's almost as much as Polands 53.
And remember, Italy, Spain and Poland combined have more seats then Germany and France.
Meaning that the Nordics + Italy and Spain would have more seats combined then Germany and France combined.
In politics you need to find allies and cooperate with others to get results.
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Dr. Drip Try to actually come here and see what it is instead of claiming that we're just all just one ethnic group.
Because trust me, we're not.
Urban Norway these days can compete with the US in diversity even if rural Norway can't compete with rural USA in that regard.
We offer free education also to non-citizens, meaning that there's a lot of people that come here to study from all over the world.
including the US (yes Americans can study here for free if they're able to learn the language and prove their competency, or if they're lucky to get into one of the few English language subjects, that does have included mandatory Norwegian classes).
As a result we get a lot of young intellectuals from all over the world here.
As for the idea that people aren't honorable, honestly that's caused by US policies, not the cultural diversity.
There was still black Americans held as slaves in America during WW2, with the race relation implications that entails.
And American society is still designed to quit frankly be unfair.
The laws and the societal designs might technically be "equal" but the outcomes are most definitely unequal.
With access to housing, jobs, transport, food, education, justice and healthcare all being limited for those that's "less fortunate", in other words, usually ethnic minorities, although some white people do get caught up in that too.
The whole system is designed to give the US upper classes (white rich and upper middle class Americans) a unfair advantage at every turn.
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@SchwarzeSonne130 "central witch just no longer exist"
That's just plain wrong, it's just ignorance on the TLDR teams side that leads to them using east and west for Europe without more nuance...
Scotland, the island of Man, all the Nordic countries and Estonia are neither Eastern nor Western but *Northern*.
Latvia and Lithuania could fall either into northern or eastern depending on how you look at them.
Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Austria etc are Central European and neither belongs in the east nor west, although Poland can be considered either Central European or Eastern European depending on how you look at it, same as Lithuania and Latvia can be seen as either Northern or Eastern.
Greece, Italy, the European parts of Turkey and the whole Iberian Peninsula is Southern European, not East or West.
Bulgaria, Serbia, Belarus, Romania etc are Eastern European.
There's more countries in Southern, Eastern and Central Europe then those that I just haven't labeled yet.
But you get the picture.
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Definitivly good.
But attempts at making the "United States of Europe" is harmfull in the views of many, including me.
If smaller countries like Norway wanted to be a big one we'd be one already.
But the bigger a country is the less effective it's democracy is.
Super-national organizations like the EU can help counteract many of the drawbacks of being a small nation but if you end up becomming a big one anyway you're effectivly ruining the whole point of a super-national organization in the first place...
Moves towards a completely unified legal system just doesn't work for a diverse continent with multiple ethnic groups in a diverse geographical region where many laws despite being the same ends up simply have different de facto effects depending on where you're located.
And like I mentioned earlier, democracy simply don't work large scale all that well.
It's better to use small scale nations when you're dealing with economy for instance because they can react to changing realities much faster.
It's easier to make compromises that works when the compromise in question applies to fewer and a more hetrogenous population.
And so one and so forth.
Also, when you have multiple smaller countries in a super-national organization in an area instead of a few big ones people can vote with their feet moving away from poorly run countries into better run ones.
So yeah, we voted against joining the EU, twice, here in Norway.
Main objections:
EU policies with regard to fishery is seriously messed up.
Most of the countries involved in making the rules in this area simply don't know how to manage fish without causing overfishing and other issues like that...
EUs agricultural policies isn't paricularly helpfull.
Local conditions in Norway makes agriculture here quite hard, and our cost of living is higher then in most of Europe.
As a result if we where to have the same subsidy levels as the EU with no tarrifs our farmers would simply not be competitive, and we're already producing way less food then we need in the domestic market.
By maintaining tarrifs on agricultural imports we can maintain some domestic agriculture.
We're not going to become a net exporter of agricultural products anyway anytime soon.
The EU is however, and the EU subsidy levels and tarrifs as well as insistence on making everyone else drop their tarrifs is harmfull because it makes countries that in the past where agricultural exporters become 100% reliant on EU and US imports to feed their population as the local agriculture simply can't compete on the domestic market vs heavily subsidised EU farmers (whose products are subsidised even when exceeding local needs far past the levels required to compensate for higher living expenses in Europe.
I don't know the exact solution to the issues at hand.
But my guess is that a combination of some form of flexible tarrifs with a goal of say 80% self-sufficiency in each countrys market as well as 80% self-sufficiency within the EU as a whole for required agricultural products combined with subsidies in part based on capacity rather then actual production might be worth looking into.
Perhaps a EU wide purchase and storage of a certain amount of food to ensure food is stored in case of bad harvests etc, and to help regulate prices by reselling products if they go too high and purchasing extra when going too low would help?
Encouraging mixed income farming too perhaps, with flexible non-farming related jobs supplementing farmers income ensuring that farmers can produce more if needed while still not relying 100% on their farms as their only income.
I don't know...
But the big factory farms mass producing heavily subsidised food isn't the answer.
Some countries like the Netherlands don't subsidise their food particularly much because they're already competitive without subsidies due to their advanced farming teckniques and research into agriculture being pretty much the best in the world.
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The electoral college isn't really the problem, nor is the concept of unequal value of votes.
Someone living by the coast in a country has different living conditions and priorities then someone living in a mountain range or someone living on a inland plane or someone in a desert or on a island.
Someone living in a rural area have different concerns then someone urban.
And so one and so forth.
The idea that all of these different groups should be well represented regardless of how big a proportion of the population they are is actually sensible if your goal is a society where people reach compromises and consensus.
The problem is that you only give political power to the biggest party in each region.
The Republicans doesn't benefit from the voters in blue states because they're the second biggest party there and all the states votes in the electoral college goes to the biggest party only.
That is inherently undemocratic.
Let Republicans benefit from Republican voters in blue states even if they don't win and they might be less keen on voter suppression.
And likewise let Democrats benefit from democratic voters in red states and don't waste third party votes.
Stop making it a binary choice where you either 100% win or 100% lose.
Instead make it a sliding scale using a electoral system based around proportional representation.
That way a state with 10 representatives to the electoral college where there's 40% votes for the Republicans, 30% for the Democrats and 20% for a third party you'd actually get 4 Republican, 3 Democrat and 2 independent representatives to the electoral college from that state instead of 10 Republicans like it is now.
Then they could all work it out during the actual election within the electoral college later.
People could have more political parties.
Sanders and the progressives could have their own party, the conservatives could have their own, the Christians their own, the libertarians their own, and so one and so forth.
People who just want more rural power and less federal power could have a party for that without going all "Build this wall" on everyone...
And the Republicans could still get elected after Texas switches to a blue majority of they get a conservative coalition behind them.
And so one and so forth.
Democrats from California would still be underrepresented in terms of total number of representatives from California, but it would be made up for by Democrats in small Red states like Idaho (I think Idaho went Red right?)
What I suggest is very similar to what we use here in Norway, and our democracy is rated the best in the world in most studies, so surely we're doing something right?
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+Larry Vasquez
Because sometimes the quality isn't the same, or those workers are better utilized producing something else that another country does not have access to or that the US is better at then another country.
Norway does have some tarrifs on food in order to ensure that the gap between what we produce ourselves and what we have to import isn't too big (so we can manage for longer in case of for instance a blockade, since the last one we experienced caused starvation...)
But we're still importing food, and should import food, spreading the wealth to countries that's better at food production then we are.
In the case of US steel, I don't know exactly why local steel is being defeated in the US market.
But there's a number of possible reasons.
It could be a matter of quality.
For instance during the napoleonic wars Denmark-Norway had a protectionistic trade policy leaving us only with access to the inferior locally produced steel instead of buying the higher quality steel produced in other countries.
That had many consequences for other parts of our economy and society.
Other companies that need that high quality steel in the US might be unable to produce their products if they're limited to a lower quality product, if that is the issue in the US.
Alternativly, and this might not apply so much to steel as to the iron used to make the steel, when you have a mine or drilling hole or some such that does have a product but where the economic viability of the resource is near the end of its lifetime then the effort needed to effectivly use that resource is higher then for competing mines or oil platform or whatever.
This is the case many places here in Norway, the oil is becomming more and more expensive to extract and as a result production is falling.
You can argue that since our oil production is more enviromentally friendly we should continue producing more at all cost, or because we are the ones earning the money on that extraction...
However quite frankly, given the amounts of energy and effort needed to extract those resources it's quite frankly better to leave them in the ground and use the minds and machinery more efficiently elsewhere.
We're still competitive in terms of highly educated population.
And even if the production happens elsewhere we'd still be competitive in producing supplies for the oil companies in other countries and in teaching them how to do so more enviromentally friendly, safer for the enviroment and the oil workers, more efficiently etc, etc, etc.
And those that can't work with that can quite frankly find other jobs.
Sure, it hurts a bit that we have fewer jobs these days then during the local peak oil, but right here and now we're not really all that competitive when extracting those harder to extract deposits.
Perhaps one day all the oil in the world elsewhere runs out and we need those resources, then they can be extracted, or perhaps there's a huge crisis of some kind, a war in a oil producing country, then we'd be able to start producing more ourselves as a response to the new prices.
Or perhaps oil is replaced, then that's good and the enviroment will be better off, and we'll have moved on to other ways of making a living here in Norway.
Getting stuck in old ways isn't how you make a efficient economy, instead you adapt.
Yes, I agree with you that there are issues that we need to address.
Norway is trying to address some by experimenting with electrically powered shipping, currently mostly short distance ones between fjords and within fjords.
But as the technology improves we'll be able to increase the range just like with cars, and we'll be able to do trade with mainland Europe using electric ships.
And eventually with the US across the Atlantic with a pitstop in Iceland and with Japan and China with another pitstop either in Canada and one in Alaska, or optionally in nothern Russia.
I don't expect electric ships to do circumnavigation of the globe anytime soon, but we can probably address our most important markets with them in comming years if we can get the infrastructure going.
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@polarbear5740 You're on the east coast, Atlantic Ocean.
These ships are transporting goods from Asia (Pacific Ocean, aka west coast).
The shortest route is to the west coast then over land, rerouting things to the east coast would be more expensive.
If you're buying a product from a store on the east coast then sure, it might be shipped in to the east coast, that's part of why you have a job.
But often if it arrives from Asia, it's shipped to the west coast, then by train to some centrally located warehouse.
Things are repackaged and redistributed all over the country, including to the east coast.
And it makes sense to keep a central storage area that can reach all of America, you don't have to pay for as storing things as many places that way but you can still ship everywhere.
The companies in question probably already have deals with freight lines and truckers to transport things between the west coast and those distribution hubs.
They'll have to pay for that regardless.
So shipping in from the east coast would cost them money both for a new contract from the east coast and in, but also continued expenses on the west coast.
As for the companies delivering products on the west coast, they're probably still payed the same amount on long term contracts, so they can't afford to give their employees a raise, yet due to the corona situation there's lots of other jobs with higher wages and the costs of everything has risen due to inflation.
So what you can buy for the wages you get from those companies is essentially falling.
So no one wants to take those jobs.
And things won't get shipped as they're supposed to.
And the companies in question are probably also running at a loss for the duration of those long term contracts and till they can renegotiate their deals...
The UK is having similar issues...
Since there's not enough truck drivers etc the containers fills up the yards on the west coast.
Since those yards are filling up there's no room to unload cargo into.
Since there's no room the ships ends up having to wait in queue before unloading.
And since they wait there the containers are not available in Asia for their products there.
And so one and so forth...
It's all connected...
As for the idea of the US producing things yourselves...
Most people in the US wouldn't be able to afford most of the products that would be produced in the US if they where produced there...
The reason why products are produced elsewhere is because there for some reason or other a competitive advantage there.
Sometimes it's cheaper highly educated population, for instance engineers are cheaper to employ in my own country then in the US.
In other cases it's cheaper laborers, or cheaper raw materials, or local suppliers with patents not available in the US enabling them to produce something required more efficiently and so one and so forth.
People in different places are good at different things.
For instance Americans work much longer hours then Europeans tend to and US companies tends to be more focused on grabbing new potential revenue sources by expanding into more products, but Germanic peoples tends to have more focus on just making a single product and specializing in making it the best one there is of that type or in finding some kind of niche, investing in the company for generations and just in general trying to excel in the manufacture of that product.
That's the advantage that Germany has over the US for instance.
While my own country, also Germanic, but not Germany has cheaper highly educated work force like I mentioned so we focus a bit more on the development of those advanced products.
The US has focused more on the services of actually managing all of these various supply chains across the world.
So a company might do the production all over the world developing the parts in my own country, for instance the designs of the microchips, then perhaps producing those microchips in Taiwan, then producing most of the mechanical parts in Germany perhaps, and perhaps doing the assembly in China or Vietnam, all lead by a US headquarters, funded by US investors and share holders.
Who of course will pay money to US companies to service their needs, trickling down money into the rest of the US economy.
Although not efficiently enough given the growing difference in wealth between the upper class and everyone else in the US...
But yeah, the US is best in the world at figuring out how to put together a international company that actually works well, chaining together suppliers from all across the world into a whole, a supply chain that meets the companys needs.
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@atm9862 pparently not, since they're not given citizenship without knowing the language.
And sure, learning the language is one thing.
You can enforce that by requiring companies to offer services in your language etc.
Giving people incentives to learn your language as it'll create job opportunities for them.
But banning people from education in their own native language or suppressing their culture just doesn't fly.
NATO is funded on a principle that their members are democratic.
If you don't give your minority rights, then that's essentially violating the terms under which we are required to offer you military aid in case of a attack on you.
Yes, Russia is our enemy, but Russians are not.
And I say that as someone from a country *bordering * them.
If this behavior continues I will call the representatives of the party I vote for and ask for them to request a Norwegian call for the expulsion of the Baltic countries from NATO.
I doubt that anything will come from it.
But still, that's my position.
I get that it's scary.
And you're well within your rights to require companies within your borders to know your language to operate.
If you want to offer scholarships abroad for Russian speakers and just in general encourage them to move to other European countries using the carrot that's definitely within your rights.
Indeed someone in my village of 1 200 people here in Norway are from Latvia I think, but from a Russian speaking family (one of her parents a ethnic Russian, the other a ethnic Ukrainian, both where invited to the country by the local government during the USSR because of their skills being useful to the local economy), she has now migrated here where she is *welcome*.
There are ways of encouraging changes that's kosher and that doesn't involve coercion.
Your current treatment of them is creating hostility and is actively discouraging integration in your society.
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@pulokdev1514
No, proportional representation.
When you vote for individual people the end result ends up being binary, either that person won, or they lost.
The views of everyone that doesn't support that person in any given constituency therefore ends up being essentially ignored.
In a electoral system with proportional representation you have multiple parties and if one party has say 12% of the votes in that constituency then they get roughly 12% of the seats etc.
If Bangladesh where to implement that system you'd either increase the number of seats so each constituency can have more (at least 4 is recommended) or you'd merge constituencies.
Norway has a population of about 5,4 million people, with 150 seats in the parliament distributed among 19 constituencies that's elected based on how popular a party is in that constituency as well as one extra seat per constituency that compensate for the difference between how many voters parties have at a national level and in the individual constituencies.
In the Netherlands they went with a single nation wide constituency and instead use a system of a upper and lower house of parliament to get that local representation.
But in either case you can have real power even if your party gets 1 less votes then the second biggest party in a constituency.
In Norway we have 10 political parties currently represented in our parliament.
We also have a parliamentarian system, meaning that our cabinet is essentially elected by our parliament, not by our people directly.
As a result even small changes in the number of voters a party gets increase or decrease their influence.
Our smallest party only had 4 908 votes, they where the third biggest party in their respective constituency and got elected with one representative in order to ensure access to a hospital in a area that's cut off from the other two hospitals in that constituency whenever the weather is bad.
People had a way to voice their displeasure with a hospital being closed down that didn't involve switching to a party with the opposite political views of their own or convincing more people to vote for their party then any others in a constituency.
Imagine what would happen in Bangladesh with 10 political parties.
If all had day 10% of the votes each but two had 1 more vote in most constituencies then those two parties would get 100% of the seats despite 80% of the voters voting for those other 8 parties.
Having just two parties makes them essentially sports teams, everyone identify with one side or the other without really trying to understand the other side.
With 10 parties people here don't have one party they necessarily always vote for.
I have 3 I align with myself, one left of our labour party, one right of them and willing to work with both coalitions, and one on the right of center aligned with the right wing coalition.
I'm currently voting for that centrist party and would prefer a right wing prime minister despite actually politically being far left, because the right wing prime minister candidate is doing a better job of making good compromises with her coalition partners, even if I disagree with pretty much everything she stands for.
But I have 3 different options for parties to vote on that all aee parties I more or less agree with.
Can you say the same for your country?
Likewise, I believe that presidental systems are harmful.
Voting for indiciduals as heads of state that can't be easily replaced by the legeslative body is asking for trouble.
As a single individual there's no way to elect him or her that's fair to all the constituents.
Does that make sense to you?
Ps.
In a system where no party can realistically expect to ever get a majority in the parliament and there's multiple paths towards that majority you'll find that it's often easier to actually get any politics done.
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A long term bad idea.
I have nothing against a confederated Europe.
But a federated Europe is an entierly different beast.
Merging Europe would ultimately come at the expense of peoples ability to influence their own lives.
Their freedom.
Their democracy.
And yes, their economy.
While small nations can be either well run or poorly run.
Big ones are as far as I know always poorly run (the US and the British Empire included here).
While small nations can be well run and take care of their citizens needs in a way that a big nation just can't do.
Sure, there are drawbacks with smaller nations too, but the creation of supernational political entities (NATO, EU, Council of Europe, UN, etc, etc) essentially removed all of those drawbacks.
The Rhin valley has a population of 10 million people.
The whole nation of Norway (where I live) has a population of 5 million.
The representative in the Norwegian parliament with the fewest votes for her party in this last election got into our parliament with 0,2% of the total national votes, or 4 908 total votes.
In Norway that makes sense, in a United States of Europe, it simply would *not*.
Why could she get elected given that representatives on average has 17 200 voters behind them in our parliament?
Because we give seats to regions not just based on their population, but also based on their land area.
Why?
Because in any given election term you're quite likely to have a representative from any given city represented in parliament.
But if you live in a small rural village chances are that there's many years between each time someone that knows how it is to live where you live actually are a part of the parliament.
So if we had a strictly proportional distribution of seats in Norway there wouldn't be any representatives in our parliament who knows how it is to live in a village or city with a hospital only reachable by crossing a mountain that's often impassable in winter.
Or in this case, since we do adjust for not just population but also land, and since said hospital hasn't been closed down just yet.
Knows how it feels to be afraid of losing the only maternity ward and the only ER unit that's reachable in winter at all (since you can neither fly nor drive to the second closest hospital in winter)
Only 3% of Norways land area is suitable for farming.
Only 1% is suitable for wheat farming.
And even the parts that's possible to farm can only be farmed when the weather is good enough...
As you've probably already realized, that's not always the case...
So it makes sense, and is fair for low populations areas to take part in ruling us.
Even our cities benefit from ensuring that the rural parts of the country has its needs meet, and that we have people from there that knows how it is to live there take part in ruling the country and giving their input in order to adapt our policies.
It helps us reduce our food dependence on other places (when we for whatever reason don't have access to the sea and trade we've usually experienced food shortages, or even outright starvation).
People in different areas, with different jobs, different backgrounds, different experiences can all help ensure that you get a nuanced goverment.
If everyone are the same things just works worse.
Also, quite frankly, a big part of why we even exist as a nation is that rural areas has this much influence.
While it might be fair for us, a people of just 5 millions to let one of our 169 seats be granted to someone representing just 4 908 votes, many of them from one of our ethnic minorities I might add, it would not make sense for 4 908 voters to decide the fate of the more then 400 million people living in the EU or the over 700 million in Europe...
If we where to join a union with a this much bigger population then we as a people would become less democratic...
And we would be worse off for it.
This kind of things might work for people living in fertile lowlands with a high population density.
But so many of the things that works and makes sense there just does not at the fringes of Europe.
It's not enough with a high degree of self determination, that is federalization.
You need power to fundamentally originate from the bottom and up.
That's a important principle.
That doesn't mean that I oppose closer integration as long as this principle remains though.
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+Timothy McLean
Here in Norway we have a population of about 5 million people and 9 political parties in parliament (out of a total of something like 130 different party lists in the election, some only eligible to run in some election circles)
I recently did the math and the two biggest parties in the country recieved 52% of the votes and recieved 55,6% of the seats in our 169 seat parliament.
We have 6 parties with less then 11% of the voters behind them, and those had 48 out of 169 seats or 28,4% of the seats with 894 256 votes combined out of a total of 2 945 352 votes cast in the last parliamentarian election in 2017.
Or in other words they got 28,4% of the seats with 30,3% of the voters behind them.
I also checked what the result would have been if we used the winner takes it all approach to the election like Americans did.
The Labour party here would have recieved 90 seats instead of the 49 seats they actually got, the conservatives would get 76 seats instead of the 45 they actually got and the center party would get 4 seats instead of the 19 they actually got.
Having this many political parties has a lot of positive effects on our political system.
The elections are usually more civil then in countries like for instance the US as attacking other parties leave you vulnerable to counter attacks from parties that can not be targeted by your attacks but that can use your behaviour against you.
The labour party is the biggest party in my country by far and actually increased the number of voters voting for them back when they lost for the first time against the current cabinet.
However they lost the election itself because they failed to compromise sufficiently with the smaller parties they where in a coalition with so voters for those parties like me switched to parties less locked into such a coalition, parties more likely to help the conservatives win or that could swing either way.
Also, the conservatives played their cards well and their leader came across as a mediator that tries to get everyone onboard and to cooperate with everyone instead of lashing out like some parties did.
Something they've done over several years and gained a lot of support for.
In essence when it is impossible to rule alone the type of politicans that ends up being encouraged are the ones that are willing to make compromises with others reducing the risk of gridlocks.
Also, in Norway we do not have re-elections mid-term.
Instead what happens is that if the parliament lose trust in the cabinet or the cabinet feel that they can't rule the country anymore with the power vested in them by the parliament they raise the a cabinet question.
And anyone able to come up with a better cabinet proposal can replace them at any time.
Of course changing allegiance makes you less attractve as a coalition partner so parties don't do so lightly.
And in any case if you can't get a majority for any proposal it's entierly pointless anyway and you only end up making a fool of yourself.
So cabinets are only really switched out when there's major issues happening.
Once it was due to a major mining accident for instance causing the cabinet to resign and be replaced.
In essence our parliament does the job of the electoral college in the US in the sense that they are the ones that actually elect the prime minister and the prime minister choose the other ministers after negotiating with potential partners about what seats those other parties should have or if they don't want to join what policies, laws or other conditions may apply to their support.
And when the prime minister gets the aproval of the parliament he or she takes the proposal to the king who have to approve of it before the new cabinet is valid.
Till that happens the old prime minister and cabinet stays in power.
So the various parties have a insentive to cooperate as they won't get any change otherwise.
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@gameofender4463 ctually this is a symptom of you guys not having enough coalition governments.
Parties are too uses to getti their way and not having to make compromises, and so are the electorate.
If you guys switch to a electoral system that is less likely to unfairly favour bigger parties and you get more political parties with real political power you'll see that it's actually healthy.
Here in the Nordic countries we all have coalition governments every single time.
And because we're used to it that works great.
Indeed here in Norway our 169 seat parliament has 10 political parties represented right now for our 5,4 million population.
While your parliament that currently has 736 seats only have 5 political parties represented for a population of freaking 83,2 million people.
Only a single one of our 10 parties are down to a single seat.
Two have 3 seats, two have 8 seats, one has 13 seats, one 21, one 28, one 36 and finally the biggest has 48 seats in this term.
The current goverment is a minority coalition, but they could have formed a majority if they wished with one of the other parties.
But said party refused to join as long as companies are given new areas to search for oil (drilling in existing areas where fine, and we're not talking a permanent ban, just no searching during the term).
Since that concession wasn't made they choose to support the formation of the current government coalition but not take part in it as a member, so they're not obligated to support them in everything.
Meaning that they'll have to get a shifting majority on a case by case basis in the parliament.
We're used to that, so it's not a big deal.
We've even had cases of governments having to run a budget created by the opposition in the parliament since that had a larger share of the votes.
They'd of course still decide the details themselves, but that way we avoid a lot of problems.
If a coalition can't work something out then just leave it to the parliament to come to a solution.
Or use the coalition agreement as a starting point.
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Nebojsa Galic Yeah, well...
There was more US soldiers on Iceland at times then adult Icelandic males...
That has done a lot for protecting the language in later times.
Earlier, isolation helped a lot...
Norwegians generally understands Danes and Swedes (and the Swedish speaking minority in Finland), people with some dialects can also sort of understand Icelandic.
Faeroese people tend to get Norwegians, Danes and Icelandic people (they have danish classes in school, and between Danish and Faeroese, Norwegian is fairly easy to understand, and Icelandic is closely enough related to be understandable to them).
Icelanders kind of understands Faeroese if they put their mind to it, kind of like the situation the rest of us have with Danish, they also learn one other Nordic language in school, it used to be Danish, but these days they can pick freely and Norwegian is also popular (and I guess some pick Swedish too).
Old Swedes tend to understand Norwegian well, young ones struggle more and tend to prefer talking in English when talking with Norwegians unless they have experience with Norwegians.
People in Southern Sweden find Danish fairly easy to understand, but the rest of them seem to struggle with Danish.
Danes...
A lot of them seem to struggle with the other nordic languages but they understand one of the two written forms of Norwegian (heavily based on danish) and with exposure to Norwegian they understand the spoken language too.
Some of them also kind of understand Faeroese it seems, but not Icelandic...
On a ship that used to travel between the countries (except Sweden) run by a Faeroese company the language people used to speak was kind of a mix of the languages.
The faeroese crew used something similar to Danish with a faeroese pronunciation landing them close to Norwegian, Norwegians tended to go with Norwegian with a focus towards conservative upper class words close to those used in Denmark.
Icelanders used a relaxed form of the eastern nordic language they learned in school, and all in all we all kind of understood eachother...
Too bad the ship is no longer visiting Norway, where I live right now...
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Not sure of the exact part of the video that you are commenting on.
However vulvanoes does have other tricks up their sleeves then the slow moving lavas of Hawaii.
Some places lava flows *fast*.
But the real killer is usually pyroclastic flows that can move as fast as 700 km/h and cross 50+ km of water floating on a cushion of steam from the water being boiled underneath the flow by the insanely hot dust particles making up the flow.
And even if you survive such flows a vulvano can still fill the air with ashes filled with tiny glass particles that once you breath them in will start to cut up your lungs just as badly as asbestose, potentially killing you before you get away, and even if you manage to get away potentially damaging you for life.
Vulvanoes can melt glaciers causing flash floods that can wash away entire villages, and these flash floods can contain ashes that then solidifies into essentially sement around anyone caught in the floods so you can't escape, or be dug out.
And if there's builders included any buildings involved can be crushed till there's nothing bigger then matches left.
Almost the least of your problems near a vulvano is that they can throw lava far, far up into the sky that can solidify into huge hot builders that can come raining down crushing you, usually they're not much bigger than your head though, so a solid house roof might deflect them.
Of course any vegetation can be set alight so you'll have to deal with wildfires.
The rapidly rising gasses filled with particles can create a lot of static electricity, potentially causing lightning strikes, I don't need to tell you that those can be deadly...
Tiny glass particles inside modern jet engines can of course cause a plane to lose engine power.
And the gasses released by the vulvano has different properties then the air that the plane was designed to fly through potentially causing a plane to drop literally like a rock instead of gliding, since there's no air to glide through.
That's... "fun"...
Lava or magma expanding and contracting the ground can cause earthquakes with all that entails...
Like seriously, it would probably be faster to list all the ways of killing you that a vulvano can't cause...
If you include indirect potential methods included I really can't think of any in a hurry...
I mean, the heat could even trigger stored ammunition potentially shooting people for goodness sake, not to mention being stabbed by a branche in a flood, so even death by piercing damage is within it's repertoire...
I mean, I guess I haven't heard of a vulvano ever killing anyone with radiation poisoning yet...
Although I can imagine situations where that could be achieved...
Yes, I've spent a lot of time thinking about possible ways to be killed by a vulvano...
(Icelandic citizen living abroad, but still with family in the country)
As for the dangers of lava itself, you are aware of how 7 million km in Russia in essence is all basalt rocks left after a single gigantic vulvanic eruption that almost killed all life on this planet?
That's 4 million km^3 of basalt left by a single vulvanic event.
In such a situation I really don't think that there would be anywhere left without lava for you to flee too...
(A similar but much smaller scale event on Iceland in 1784 caused the French revolution by causing a huge famine resulting in unrest, killing a estimated 1/4th of the population of Iceland, as well as a estimated 23 000 British people killed by poisoning and another 8 000 Brits by climatic effects, about 1/6th of the population of Egypt, a unknown but large number of deaths in the Sahel region of Africa, 920 000 people in Japan, large but unknown numbers elsewhere in Europe (the poisonous cloud drifted in over Denmark-Norway, Bohemia and a number of other countries).
If you include the indirect deaths caused by the political outfalls of the vulvano then you can include all of the French wars in that equation too...
So many millions there...
I short, vulvanoes are bloodying *terrifying*.
And I'm glad that I'm living a long, long distance away from the closest one, where I'll have a pretty good chance of surviving even some of the big ones if they where to occur...
Although like I said, vulvanoes has the potential of killing almost all the life of a planet, so nowhere is truly safe...
Of course, like I said, the vulvanoes on Hawaii is relatively safe by vulvanic standards, or have been, so far...
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@KrlKngMrtssn Speak for yourself.
I live in Norway and I find it offensive to be labeled as "western" rather then "northern".
The island of Man, Scotland, all the nordic countries and all the Baltic countries are not in either of the two categories of this video, but Northern Europe.
And Germany, Poland, Czechia, Switzerland and Austria and Lichtenstein doesn't belong in the two either, being Central European (there's more Central European countries, but those are the first that pops up in my mind when thinking of Central Europe).
Greece, Italy, the whole Iberian peninsula, Cyprus, Malta and the European part of Turkey isn't in either of the two categories but in Southern Europe.
The Balkans...
Is complicated...
Some of the countries there belongs in Central Europe, some in Southern Europe and some, like Serbia in Eastern Europe I feel.
I'd place Romania, Bulgaria, Belarus and Serbia in Eastern Europe myself.
That said I'm less familiar with the southeastern parts of the continent and might make different evaluations of countries there then someone local with more detailed knowlege about the regions in question.
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+batata
The spiral towards the bottom in terms of prices is not a good thing...
However for various reasons the productivity of different nations for different products differ.
If country 1 can produce product A in 2 hours and product B in 3 hours and country 2 can produce both in 2,5 hours then it makes sense for country A to buy product B from country 2 and for country 2 to buy product A from country 1 as both countries can make more of the product they're better at in the same amount of time leading to higher total production for the two combined.
And the resource being saved don't need to be time, it can be raw materials or anything else too.
Highly educated labour is cheaper in countries like Norway, my own country due to the free education we have, the universal healthcare etc, etc.
So a company can for instance design microchips in Norway (the Mali iGPU used on ARM CPUs is one such example) at a lower cost then in the US since they don't have to pay their employees enough to pay down a huge student loan, pay enough for them to have a health ensurance etc, etc, etc.
On the other hand, there's a lot of other things that's way, way, way cheaper to produce in the US then in Norway.
So yeah, we sell components to NASA and ESA, you guys sell us Teslas and Fords, among other things.
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@bernardmcavoy1864 "I have not got round to answering this person yet. But I shall.
No, I do not have an English degree, because I have no need for one. I am at least a native English-speaker."
A) That's a poor excuse.
There's plenty of non-native speakers that use "better" English then any native English speaker (better in this context being more "accurate" according to the standards used in England, but like you've probably noticed by now I reject the concept of there being any such thing as "better" English to begin with).
B) Non-British English speakers are more important in defining how English is spoken then UK nationals are, and they have been for a while.
You can even see traces of this in the English language within Britain right now, with many changes that you're most likely using yourself already being defined outside of Britain and now being considered correct within Britain.
C) If you had a English degree (or any other linguistic degree) you'd probably be aware that linguists have stepped away from the prescriptive approach to languages in favour of the descriptive approach.
In essence the English language just like all languages known to man is and has always been changing according to the way people choose to use them.
There's nothing about English in England in its current state that makes it empirically superior to English in the past or future.
And since language change is a exercise in direct democracy in action it's hard to determine what future changes will be made or who will make them.
D) English is not defined by the upper classes even if they may have some influence on the language.
If it was you'd all be speaking essentially French now instead of only a few French words within a vocabulary that mixes French, Anglo-Saxon, Latin, Greek, Old Norse, Breton and so one and so forth, including some words from essentially every language in the world.
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5:04
It's not just a matter of priority.
When you build denser you have lower infrastructure costs compared to income.
If you have many single family homes like you do in the US you'll need more roads, power lines, water lines, sewer lines etc to serve them without getting more tax income.
And water lines, power lines etc will lose some of what they're transporting on the way there...
Drinking water will seep out, power will be lost to resistance and turn into heat, etc.
Busses has to drive further to pick up passengers, with fewer passengers on each stop, and so one and so forth...
Companies don't need huge parking lots for cars if people can take the metro or bus or walk.
So you can fit more companies in a smaller area, leading to more taxes pr square mile of infrastructure.
That also means more money for other things like schools, while American municipalities have to waste that money on excessive infrastructure, on potholes, leaky pipelines, school busses covering way too big an area, additional fire departments, police offices, ambulances etc to cover the larger area and so one.
Even in rural areas we live denser then in the US, with farms placing their houses together at the edge of the land near their neighbors so multiple houses can use the same power line, water, sewer, road etc, and share farming equipment etc.
11:52
Pretty much.
Europeans tend to have less inequality within our country then you guys do.
Both in terms of the US as a whole and within individual US states.
That said, there's definitely European nations with more or less wealth...
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@inspectorvoid
Greenhouses still need light to make sense, light isn't available during the winter in Norway.
As for the soil, most of it has been scraped away by glaciers, leaving only areas that was underwater when the ice age glaciers melted actually with quality soil, that thankfully slowly became available for farming as the land rose, no longer compacted by the weight of all of the ice.
The cold is also a issue.
All of these things compounds to increase the cost of farming both inside lighthouses and outside them quite significantly, compared to just importing food.
Especially if you include the cost of Norwegian labour.
If we hadn't voted no to joining the EU allowing us to have tarrifs on agricultural products we probably wouldn't have had any competitive agricultural products produced in Norway.
As is we're specializing.
We have some fjords suitable for things like Norwegian apples etc.
Since our products grow slower they're often quite nutritious compared to areas where plants grow faster and also tastier.
Our crops can be finished in between the harvests in other countries where they might have two harvests pr season, we only get one, but it's with less competition and often of higher quality.
Likewise, we can't grow large areas of grasses like wheat, but our mountains and islands still support sheep and goats grazing there, even if they're rocky.
You can't do just anything here and make it work.
You need a viable market and a viable strategy that's competitive in said market.
Other producers in other countries will be cheaper.
So you need to find other ways to compete.
Greenhouses are absolutely a part of the mix here, but they can't do the bulk production, they can do niche products that's sold at a higher price due to being locally produced, but that's only viable for a certain amount of market share.
And Norwegian greenhouses had to cut production due to high energy prices when we where exporting power to Europe after the start of the war in Ukraine too, just like the continental ones did.
Greenhouses can't solve every problem.
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@Jonas_M_M In a proportional parliamentarian system large parties like that ends up split up, so people on the left in the far right block who would be able to work with the center right would probably be their own party, the center right would probably be multiple parties etc, etc.
And people would negotiate to find solutions.
Don't make calling a new election a easy way out where a party may hope to win because they hate the other guys more like in a first past the post system, instead other parties will gain on those new elections.
Allow laws to be passed and cabinets to come to power if there's no majority voting against them Instead of requiring a majority in favour, that way a party can still negotiate for favours in order to abstain from voting against a cabinet being formed but still flight them down the line on other issues allowing for lots of dynamic alliances where all political parties are potential allies etc.
After all, if the far right and far left wants the same thing for a change on something they don't have to vote for the others suggestions (something that voters might not like if they don't know the details) but they can refrain from voting against the other, likewise with the extremes vs the center etc.
It's a pretty decent system that we've used here in the nordic countries for a long time now.
About 2/3 of all cabinets in Norway since the war has involved the labour party, often because parties in the center has started out on the left then switched side, or at least refrained from voting against labour when the right didn't behave, in the middle of a term.
No new elections, just a change of prime minister midterm to that of the biggest political party, the labour party (they've been the biggest since the war) and no majority impact on your average citizen.
Honestly it's a good system giving all the parties power and a incentive towards cooperation as anyone may be a potential ally.
Even the extreme opposite side of the political spectrum could be a ally do you don't want to antagonize them too much.
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3:49
I fundamentally dissagree with the idea of not having veto power in the hands of member states.
I do believe that the ability to sanction nations that are promoting undemocratic policies within the nation shouldn't be possible to veto.
Backsliding is a real problem and undemocratic politicians can misuse the veto right in this backsliding process.
But having a veto right for national governments in what should be EU wide law is essential.
Because anything that doesn't work for all members shouldn't be EU law but laws that the individual legislatures of the individual countries should make law or not as they please.
Ideally the individual legeslatures should also decide exactly how to implement laws with the EU formulating the overall principles rather then laws.
4:22
Special rights are important.
It's not ideal with the whole ransom part, but nations need to be able to stop laws that's harmful to them.
And yes, force the EU to make adjustments to remove those harmful elements if needed if the overall proposal is to be made law.
The problem isn't vetoing itself, and qualified majority isn't enough here.
The EU is not a country, and laws should not be made at a EU level just because a majority of EU citizens wants a law.
A majority of EU citizens don't have the experience to know what is or isn't harmful to the minority and without a veto right you end up with a tyranny of the majority at the cost of smaller ethnic groups.
Although I'm a green voter and dissagree with the German decision to block the ban on cars that doesn't stop individual legeslatures from banning them, and instead of removing Germanys ability to block that proposed law the individual legeslatures should do that in my view.
As for Viktor Orbán etc...
As frustrating as that is the problem there is democratic backsliding in Poland, Hungary and Turkey, not that they have veto rights or say in EU and NATO respectively.
The EU should have the capability of enforcing democracy at some level even when democratic backsliding causes autocrats to get the power to use their nations veto rights to hold the EU hostage.
The reform needed isn't to take away Hungarys or Polands ability to veto in general, but to give the EU the capability to sanction or even expell member states that are backsliding.
Certain minimum shared values should be enforceable even despite veto powers.
If conservatives wants to ban abortions or gay marriages or whatever I may think that's wrong of them, but that should ultimately be decided at a national level, with the freedom of movement anyone affected by this at least has the option to vote with their feet and just leave.
But jailing gay people or banning abortions to save lives etc like what's happening in some countries should be a absolute minimum that the EU should not tolerate regardless of who's in power in a given member state.
Different nations find different solutions to how to implement democracy, sometimes these methods don't seem equally democratic.
The first past the post system in France and the UK for instance is something I've been extremely critical of in the past and should be reformed at some point.
But not by the EU.
The EU should enforce freedom of speech and democracy, but the details has to be picked locally.
Likewise with freedom of speech.
In some countries the choice has been to accept absolutely anything like in France with the Muhammad drawings.
In others freedom of speech is intended as a protection from the government and the majority population, not as a right for the majority to bully minorities etc so people are expected to keep a minimum of respect for others at least even if they may still express anything they wish.
So although anything may be expressed there may be consequences after the fact if said expression was meant to cause harm to others.
Both approaches are valid.
But the fundamental idea that you should have the ability to express yourself about any problems in your society without fear.
People shouldn't end up in jail for expressing themselves unless encouraging violence.
At most perhaps a fine or a need to pay reparations to someone harmed by your expression after the fact.
There's so many nuances involved in all of this and the nuances has to be dealt with locally even if the overall idea should be enforceable by the EU in my view.
Qualified majority just isn't enough.
Many ethnic groups are too small to stop laws harmful to them with qualified majority.
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If you think German elections are fragmented you've seen nothing yet.
Norway has 169 seats representing a population of about 5 million people, and we have 10 political parties represented in our parliament after this years election.
The smallest represented party had 0,2% of the total national vote supporting them, and is fighting for a hospital in a part of the country that has more representation relative to their population size then the rest of the country, similarly to how US states have political power not just based on population.
My own party has 3 seats, up from 1 last election with 3,9% of the votes, if we had 4% we would have had 7 seats, 3 from the individual electoral circles and 4 leveling seats on top of that.
The communists increased their number of seats from 1 to 8 in this years election and was one of the big winners of this election.
When you have multiple political parties you end up with multiple political axis, not just left-right.
If Germany had more political parties represented, like we do then there would have been more possible coalition options available and the parties could shop around more for a possible coalition.
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@calebemerson9317 As for comparing countries with 10 million people vs a country of 300 milions, that just doesn't hold water.
You have plenty of states that's comparable to us.
And Europe as continent is actually bigger in terms of both land and population then the US, yet we have better social mobility here.
There's 26 countries with higher social mobility then the US.
Most of them in Europe.
As does the continent as a whole, even with Russia etc dragging us down...
Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan are other countries ahead of the US in terms of social mobility...
You're not horrible though...
At least the US is ahead of Russia...
And regarding migration from South America, you have more social mobility then Brazil, Mexico, Venesuela etc.
Basically all of South America...
And to be fair, when it comes to social mobility it's actually a statistics where the US isn't dead last among western nations for a change, and you're beating some western nations like Spain and Italy according to some studies on social mobility...
(Although not by much)
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Ok, I'm an AMD fan, so I'm hoping Ryzen does amazing.
However people should know about Ryzens weaknesses too.
So I suggest you try to push the following things to look for weaknesses.
Try to push their data load and store units and see if you can create a bottleneck there, because according to the rumors that part of their CPU is weaker then Intels.
Try out AWX instructions as from what I've heard Ryzen is likely to take two clock cycles for every 1 of Intels for those instructions.
Try out workloads where the number of threads used varies wildly with some cores being turned on and off again and again and again on Intel CPUs and see how Ryzen handles that since that's something AMD traditionally has been bad at and given their cache design it's still something Intel is likely to lead on either in performance, power saving or both.
On the other hand also check out workloads with varying degrees of instruction level parallelism as that will showcase Ryzens advantages over Intel in power savings.
Try out workloads where Ryzens double L2 cache can stretch its legs (I seem to recall that they have the same amount of L1 and L3 as Intel, so it's the L2 that's making up the difference).
Try workloads where different threads are communicating with each-other as I've heard that is something that has improved drastically with Ryzen with a lot of overhead reduction in play.
Compare their SMT scaling (how much more performance/throughput they get with two threads on a core being utilized then when one thread on that core is utilized and compare that with Intel, as that's said to be a lot better then Intels hyperthreading.)
Also, try branch heavy code, float heavy code, integer heavy code and so one and so forth.
Anyway, I'm really, really really looking forward to seeing all these benches. =)
Oh, by the way, that reminds me, check memory latency.
From what I've heard AMD has parity in memory frequency with Intel, but the latency of their memory controller is said to be higher reducing performance for anything not found in cache (for instance due to not being preloaded by the supposedly rather smart frontend)
And checking memory and latency scaling would be nice too if you get the time. =)
(Not to mention both manual and automatic OC with the X chips and seeing how much extended frequency range really matters to someone like you, and possibly how well the non-x chips will OC in your hands)
There's of course a ton of other stuff you can check out as well, but I can't think of more right here and now...
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+Mohamed al Yahudi
You're referring to things like the oil.
Well, news flash.
That's not what most of us are living of.
The germanic strategy to competiveness is to have high taxes and high worker rights to ensure that the population is mostly economically equal and more or less everyone is a middle class providing a good market for local companies and to provide infrastructure and other conditions for companies to grow like a highly educated population for free.
As a matter of fact while we have a high salary on average in Norway our engineers, researchers, doctors etc are actually fairly cheap by international standards because we focus on having free education.
And no, when I'm talking about productivity I'm not talking about GDP/hour worked.
I'm talking about the actual amount produced pr worker be it research or pipe manufacturing or ship building or something else entierly.
Yes, the thing we earn more money on in terms of export is gas and oil.
But if you look at our economy most of us actually work with all sort of other things.
http://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/explore/?country=163
Biological products, food (like fish), wood, paper, etc.
Metals, aluminium, Nickel, Ferroalloys etc, etc.
Machine parts, gas turbines etc, etc.
Chemical products like fertilizers, medicines etc, etc.
Electronic components, electrical wires, electrical circuits, phones, transformers, Radios, TVs, integrated circuits, and so one and so forth.
For instance if you got a smart phone with a ARM chip then chances are pretty high that the iGPU of that ARM chip was designed in my home city here in Norway.
Ship building with cruise ships etc, parts for motors, parts for aircrafts, parts for space crafts (both NASA and ESA buy a lot of components and even full scale things like satelites from Norway because of the cheap engineering here)
There's even a few people working in textile production here.
And yes, those are the people who are producing things more efficently then in many other countries.
We use effective machinery and quite frankly since the Haugian movement we've had pretty decent work ethics, especially in some parts of the country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haugean_movement
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Adolph_Tidemand_Low_Church_Devotion_Google_Art_Project.jpg
We get more done pr manhour, not just more earned pr manhour.
In part because the trade unions are just as keen on reducing the time spend at work as they are at higher salaries and the companies have to be more productive as a result.
So yeah, I actually find your suggestion that we don't work for a living somewhat insulting.
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I agree, single representative constituencies are a horrible idea.
Be it for parties or candidates.
Imagine 10 political parties, 9 left leaning ones, and one right leaning one getting 11% of the votes.
Almost 90% of the voters voted left leaning, but their vote was split.
With a two round system you may then get the left leaning candidate (perhaos a far left extremist) with 1 more votes then the third most popular representative (8 of the candidates where moderate left, one far left and one far right), despite the third most popular one being overall closer to the majority of the electorate the electorate then ends up having to choose between the plague and cholera...
Similarly the candidates could be problematic due to national affiliation or any number of other issues.
And votes for individuals tends to devolve into talk about personalities instead of political substance.
No, instead I by far prefer parliamentarianism, in a proportional electoral system.
Any roles needed can then be created and distributed based on needs and qualifications and negotiations and compromises, leading to a generally well rounded outcome with people who's usually somewhat moderate, at least by the standards of their own parties, that has a influence on different areas of politics, and it's generally people that are able to work together.
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@mrmeldrew693
A party having the most voted ruling is not democratic.
Imagine a system where you have a first past the post system with 10 parties running, 8 left wing, a centrist and a right wing party, each party gets 10% of the votes, but the right wing party gets 2 more votes.
Yet 80% of the voters cited for the exact opposite political side, and 90% voted against that right wing party.
It is biggest (with two votes) but almost everyone in the constituency disagree with them.
How the heck can you possibly justify giving a party power just because they have more votes?
In this case the other parties combined have way more seats, so since all of them disagree with the far right it's automatically a loss for the far right to have less then half the seats.
If they where less extreme and possible to cooperate with for the center right or center then you could combine those seats with those of the far right to possibly make a coalition that wins.
But yeah, winning in a multi-party system doesn't mean having more seats then any other party.
The labour party in Norway has had more seats then any other party in every single election since WW2, but they've only had two third of the cabinets, meaning that they've lost plenty of times.
Because being biggest doesn't equate to winning.
Having a combination of parties that combined reaches more then half the seats, or at least has a possibility of reaching more then half on a case by case basis is winning.
Does that make sense to you?
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Сомневаюсь, что это кого-то убеждает...
Он определенно все еще представляет угрозу для общества.
И он останется за решеткой, пока это можно доказать.
Или, другими словами, вероятно, на всю оставшуюся жизнь.
Тем не менее, если он действительно изменится, у него все еще будут права в нашей системе, и он будет освобожден.
Кстати, если гугл переводчик ошибся, извините.
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Regarding the "lack of urgency" that's not entierly true.
A majority of Norwegians do want to end our dependency on oil.
Even our biggest party is split almost down the middle on the issue.
And enviromentalist parties are growing.
That said, we have 3 clearly enviromentalist parties, one left wing (SV), one right wing (V) and one centrist (MDG).
As well as a couple more parties that also cares a lot about the enviroment but that don't has the enviroment as one of their main topics, R and KrF.
Our influence on our society is growing.
And since we're found on both sides of the political spectrum our parties are going to end up being kingmakers in Norwegian elections.
Our oil exploitation is going to end.
The question is just when.
The current biggest party wanted to form a majority coalition, but that failed due to this very issue.
As it is they're trying to form a minority coalition cabinet with only one other party actually within their coalition, depending on support from other parties in the parliament on a case by case basis.
I very much doubt that they'll survive the next 4 years without making a concession on this very issue to one of the enviromentalist parties.
That concession is likely to come in the form of a ban on new exploration, but not extraction.
Any oil or gas already found will likely still mostly be extracted because the two biggest parties in Norway cares so much about predictability for the industries, the oil industry included.
And also, because Europe still need gas supplies to survive the winters, and a alternative source to Russia.
Once Europe is a bit less dependant on gas and we can end extraction without angering the Germans, Dutch, Brits etc, we'll probably ban extraction too.
The reason why our extraction rates are likely to go up is that the conservative cabinet issued a number of oil exploration permits just ahead of the election.
And while we (the enviromentalists) are likely to be able to end the issuing of new permits, we can't legally terminate the existing ones.
Again, predictability.
Yes, we're pissed at the conservatives for doing that.
No, there's nothing we can do about that.
The parties on the gray side of the gray-green scale are still in a majority in this country, although they're losing ground.
But enviromentalists are the ones tipping the scale in the elections.
So we have leverage.
We have a proportional electoral system, that means compromises, compromises and more compromises.
The direction is already pretty much defined, we will win this battle long term.
It's just a question of what exact election we'll end up truly with the upper hand.
In the meantime we're fighting for every inch in this tug of war with the gray parties.
Eventually external pressure from enviromentalist parties entering coalition negotiations and internal pressure from enviromentalists working from within the gray parties is going to tip the scales.
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@rabbit251 I'm not sure about what he's talking about.
But my own former city of Trondheim uses busses that's in between this thing in the video and regular busses.
Our city wants to build multiple light rail lines, but lacks the funding.
We use dedicated lanes for public transportation as is common in Europe, they are available for busses, taxies, emergency vehicles and electric vehicles (the later has increased the congestion on them, but they're still not bad and drivers usually respect the need for the lane to be relatively free so you don't get gridlock conditions on them).
Our busses are 24 meters long, has more seats then the busses in this video, use a human driver unlike the default in the video, does not have all the added comfort feature of the busses in this video, but does have improved roads and stops.
And the lines of regular busses are set up to connect to the lines we have.
There's a Norwegian and a Icelandic Wikipedia article about the lines, but sadly nothing in English.
However there's one English news article about them that I could try to dig up if desired, although it's challenging to convey those with the increased agressiveness of the spam filters on YouTube recently...
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@STEP107 How are high taxes that also applies to local companies that still manage to grow and thrive here hostile to foreign businesses?
Some US companies did indeed adapt.
McDonalds had ro be forced to do so in Denmark as they where hostile to unions.
So the unions of every company delivering anything to them or for them went on strike, making it impossible for them to operate till they played ball.
They learned their lesson and now they're really successful here.
Tesla, unlike Ford etc actually adapted to local needs.
We care about the environment.
So here in Norway we actually gave Tesla and other electric cars no taxes while fossil fuel cars essentially cost 2x normal price due to various taxes.
Meaning that Tesla had a huge advantage vs local brands that hadn't developed good enough electric cars yet.
Their market share is likely to fall however as they're still making way too big And American style expensive cars.
And our tax system has been modified to still give them and other electric cars regardless of price benefits, but electric cars now start including the same percentage tax as fossil fuel cars for any part of their cost that exceeds a certain price point.
Meaning that if Tesla wants to compete they need to develop lower cost cars.
This system still give them a advantage vs fossil fuel cars that pays 100% tax from the first dollar.
But now we got a similar effect to what fossil fuel cars has had to deal with forever where more expensive an did heavier and more polluting cars are taxed more as essentially a sin tax to discourage excessive spending on cars of all brands, polluting and taking up too much road space etc.
These rules applies to European and Asian brands too though.
We'll see if Tesla adapts.
I doubt that his moves vs Ukraine helped him with his market shares though...
Trying to force Ukraine to make concessions while his biggest market in Europe borders Russia...
But yeah, that's kind of my point.
It's not the European market that's hostile towards foreign businesses.
Tesla and McDonalds is proof of that.
It's that too few US companies genuinely adapt to our market.
And just expect it to behave roughly like your own...
Also, regarding highest taxes...
Noticed how we actually have more billionaires pr capita in the nordic countries then in the US?
And we're not talking old money here.
We're talking people getting rich here.
Not having to pay for health insurance to attract employees, employees that don't expect to pay huge student loans with their wages and because of the free education has a lot of competition for the jobs and therefore are willing to accept lower salaries, infrastructure that's*actually* well maintained, workers that doesn't show up to work sick infecting everyone else but actually get treated and return to work faster because of free health care, subsidized kindergartens and free elementary schools that's actually good that again increases the availability of labour.
And so one and so forth.
Our universities also pumps out lots of new technology that is often snapped up by US companies.
Same with our companies, our unicorns are often bought up by American ones.
And their new American owners move them across the pond...
But yeah, sometimes some of our companies move over because of the decisions of our owners too, but that still has nothing to do with how hostile or not Europe is towards foreign companies.
At most you can claim that we're less capitalistic, but even that is debatable...
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@rennor3498 These cities grew at the cost of the rest of us.
Hanseatic league merchants used their forces to force concessions from our monarchs.
Like preferential treatment over our own local traders.
With less toll on trade, putting anyone still under said toll and taxes at a distinct disadvantage.
Yes, they dominated trade, but only at the cost of others trade.
Bergen grew because international trade with anyone from the south was illegal north of Bergen, they could trade with what ended up becoming Russia, or they could trade with the Hanseatic league in Bergen, there where no real alternatives.
As for the democracy side of things.
Before the Hanseatic league beat our fleet the Norwegian leiðangr rather then a professional army where responsible for our defense.
As a result our kings couldn't treat us too badly.
After all, the majority of our army was common people mobilizing, not the levy of some noble or mercenaries, so what we where thinking mattered.
Not so much afterwards...
Countering the Hanseatic league was also the reason for the Kalmar union, the reason we spent more then 500 years under foreign rule.
So don't you dare pretend that this was a good thing for us
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10:48 Well, I have seen several reviewers that apparently get higher minimum fps or 99% then Intel on their Ryzen CPUs on average, so at least in that regard some motherboards and some UEFIs seem to be able to keep up with the 7700k.
For averages and max fps however I've yet to see Ryzen actually keep up with the 7700k in any reviews I've seen so far.
Your 1% and 0.1% are kind of unique though so can't get an exact comparison with that...
Would it be possible for you and digital foundry to do a coop video or some such testing different motherboards and UEFIs with Ryzen in various games to see how the frame times varies over time in gaming with the various CPUs?
Because honestly right now it seems like both your and their approach to benchmarking holds a lot of value.
And between your methodology and his presentation of the data and the various motherboards and UEFIs with wildly different performance numbers I'd love to see the end result of something like that.
Regarding gaming performance, I think you and I have different definitions of "competitive", but fair enough.
Regarding the use of a GPU, remember that AMD does produce GPUs and can optimize their own drivers for compute acceleration to run better on their own multi-threaded CPUs.
After all, you could argue that the 6900k isn't competitive with the 7700k in gaming either, and you'd be correct if gaming was all that matters.
But I'd say it's close enough to be viable for someone with a mixed workload.
The 8350 isn't really anymore due to its minimums at times being far behind.
Given that AMDs gaming performance could potentially improve quite a bit with gaming optimizations down the line they don't look that bad, at least not the lower end ones like the 1700.
Edit: Interestingly, I just saw a benchmark at 4k where Ryzen 1800x is beating both the 6 and 10 core Intel chips with about 10 fps for some reason in Watch Dogs.
Sure it's not Kaby Lake, but against Broadwell-e it's direct competitor it's actually beating it in some games.
Especially in minimum fps even if the average seems to be roughly equal most of the time.
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@aristoclesathenaioi4939 Seriously, can you try not to to let your prejudice cloud your judgement for a moment?
You keep making assumptions about people you don't know.
First of all, human caused climate change is non-controversial here.
That doesn't mean that there isn't a debate about its severity for *Norwegians*.
Yes, climate change will cause issues, more refugees, more damage to infrastructure, supply chain disruptions, loss of glaciers, changes in the living areas of animals and plants, including some animals going extinct etc, that said, all things considered Norways location means that we're getting of relatively speaking easy.
Especially because as a rich nation we're well placed to cope with the consequences.
However the practices that's causing the climate change current are a big part of why we're so rich, and even apart from that we rely on exports to the EU, including Germany who relies on our natural gas.
If they're pissed they might put pressure on us, perhaps even ending our trade agreement with the EU (we are not a EU member state).
Our deal with the EU also involves us paying huge amounts of money to the EU every year.
Basically we're kind of a tributary state of the union, paying money in return for freedom and independence.
Ending our oil and gas exports to the continent could endanger that.
Our wealth also enable us to pay for a expensive military, considering that we are bordering Russia that's seen as rather important as you might imagine...
So while environmentalists like you and me might want to take care of the climate because we think it's the right thing to do it's a more calculated move for a lot of other people.
With costs and benefits both with environmentalism and fossile fuel sales.
Including the potential end of our very nation.
There's multiple different estimates for the future trajectory of the climate given different behaviors.
Also with regards to at least gass sales, Germany has some of the worst and most polluting coal power plants in Europe, while gas power plants are problematic they're still seen as cleaner then those coal plants and less geopolitically problematic then the Russian gas.
So it's actually seen as environmentally friendly by many as well as important from a geopolitical safety point of view to ensure Norwegian gas to Germany, gas that is less polluting then the Russian gas.
This is the kind of evaluations going on here.
I don't agree with the idea that this gas should be extracted.
But there are good arguments for that course of action too.
And people are not just acting out of greed or ignorance.
And remember, a gas power plant can in theory burn hydrogen extracted from water and mostly just produce water steam (and a few other things due to the high temperature that the air is exposed to).
Meaning that getting gas power plants online could be good for the environment long term assuming that hydrogen production ends up coming online.
So yeah, this is a super complicated topic.
The political parties that wants to keep extracting oil and gas for the most part genuinely have credible environmental policies.
That's why the green movement here is so divided.
Environmentalists here have several different ideas about the best way forwards.
Not all of those includes a end to drilling, even if that's our vision in the green party.
And attitudes are shifting.
But there's a bit of lagg and momentum in politics, and it takes time for changes in popular opinion to be reflected in the parliament.
A poll recently actually indicated a slight majority for ending search for new oil and gas, up from a clear majority for continuing drilling just a few years ago.
The industry won't get shut down, that's just not politically realistic here.
But they probably won't get much new search permits anytime soon.
So our production will go down.
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@stephenrohaim382 Okey, so you're complaining about the unions supporting the left wing political parties.
But hey, it's not like anyone is holding a gun to your head forcing you to join said unions.
And there are right wing and center-right unions out there even if they're few, and don't exist in all sectors.
But seriously, there's nothing stopping you from making one yourself.
As it is, the left wing political parties was created by these unions and other workers organizations as a alternative to armed conflict (the original plan, the one used in many other countries, causing the Russian revolution among other things).
And it's not corruption, but simply the political parties in question being a part of a bigger overall left wing movement.
Yes, there's tax breaks for the labour unions, but that's because that money is meant to be used on the workers in question and their interests.
The same tax breaks would apply to a right wing labour union if you created one.
Also, what is NHOs tax rate?
And of course LO and other unions are elected, by its members.
When you refrain from joining one of these organizations you vote against them, if you join one you vote for it.
Got any particular example of NGOs and corruption?
Yeah, sorry, but I'm just not seeing any proof of actual corruption here.
At most incompetence and rare individual cases.
As for the whole media and academia thing...
The political left has always been more open to change and new ideas.
While the right has tended towards just holding one idea and sticking to it regardless of what evidence there is pointing in the opposite direction.
So it's not really that weird that both the media and academia is closer aligned with these movements, simply because these movements are more ready to actually accept information from both the media and academia and make informed decisions about things.
While the right has argued for autoritarian measures with arguments about national security or preserving national values and religion etc, etc.
Something that doesn't really jam well with the media.
And there's the whole alt-right movement that essentially lives of "fake news"...
Some poor Indian or something somewhere makes a youtube video or something somewhere making a controversial claim that he or she knows will generate a lot of views by either the left or right, truth be damned, and then it starts making the rounds in these alt-right communities...
As for the academia, the right keeps wanting to curtail the freedom of these organizations and focus them on just creating a economic output, the exact fully educated people needed for the jobs that various companies need, instead of being research institutions that tries to improve the country as a whole, giving people the tools to understand the world around them and do some critical thinking.
That said, there's plenty of people in both of these groups supporting the liberals (center-right) too.
So it's not like that left bias is as strong as you're claiming.
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@matthummel8306 Yet we have both lower recidivism rates and lower overall overall crime pr capita then most other countries out there.
Our crime rate is lower then all but 11 countries in the world.
There's hardly anywhere that's safer.
I mean, sure, perhaps Iceland...
If you don't mind living on top of a vulcanic hot spot...
And they have pretty much the same approach anyway...
And that's down from quite a high crime rate and recidivism in the eighties by the way...
Back when we did have the old school justice system of countries like the US or UK...
That said, our system isn't perfect.
There has been cases of people being released from either jail or psychiatric hospital who have then commited murder.
But at the same time, because we have our system that actually tries to help people the bar is also lower for seeking help, either for the person in question or for their next of kin.
In the US for instance, if you suspect that a relative might be mentally ill, on drugs or have commited a crime and you care about them, then the treshold for actually reporting that to the authorities is pretty high as the consequences for the individual in question is pretty high.
Here it's not nearly as severe to be reported to the authorities as they genuinely are trying to help.
And our prison system and psychiatric hospitals are essentially extensions of our welfare system, that is already using many of the same techniques, except in a jail people don't have the freedom to actually comit a crime, so they might as well make use of the services made available.
It's essentially a time out, a removal from society while people are getting ready to deal with society again.
That said, there are individuals who end up sitting in jail or mental hospital for the rest of their lives...
But by having laws that defaults to never giving up on people we avoid what we call "justismord" ("justice murder", I think it's something like "misscarriage of justice" in English).
We have more people who actually contribute to society.
We have more people consenting to getting help.
We have more people reported in by next of kin etc.
And we have less crimes overall.
Less victims.
And we're a better society because of it.
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@jawarakf The US advantage is simply the amount of resources, support for them and maintenance.
Yes, the rest of NATO would lose vs the US in a straight up fight if the US actually had a foothold in Europe not relying on European support, because the country is just more militarized, something that's actually the main reason why the US is slipping further and further behind the rest of the world in actual capability for a long term war.
The country is wasting resources better spent on education and infrastructure on it's military industrial complex, so much so that their long term capabilities is in question.
Europe is on the other end of the scale.
Only using what's needed on military research and relying more on civilian research that's we'll founded.
Yes, the US has better stealth materials, but that doesn't make their planes invisible, just makes their return signals smaller, and it does do so in different amounts from different angles.
The more radars you got in an area be they ground based or air based in different locations the lower the likelihood of stealth being maintained.
Also the wave length matters.
Ground based radars are able to use wavelengths that you just can't use with the small radars in fighters.
As a result they can defeat stealth and detect the presence of a enemy stealth fighter.
These wavelengths comes with a disadvantage in that it's harder to identify exactly what kind of plane you are facing and exactly where it is.
But with European efforts in coordinating data from multiple sources stealth can still be defeated.
And a landing on European soil D-Day style is impossible today without a several decade long war where radars are taken down and European fighters are taken down faster then they and their pilots can be replaced.
So yes, given 60+ years of fighting or the use of nukes the US can undoubtedly defeat Europe.
And in a 1 v 1 with no ground radars or other planes providing additional intelligence about the location of the US planes the US would undoubtedly have a significant advantage in the air vs European fighters.
But that's not how these planes have been designed to operate.
In a 20 vs 20 fight over European soil (and radars) the US fighters would most likely draw the short stick.
And 20 vs 20 on soil hostile to both parties the US would have an advantage but would most likely still have significant losses even if they'd probably win in the end.
That said, given the cost of the American fighters...
There's European fighters that would pose a threat to US fighters like the F35 when in equal numbers, that would be equivalent to the F35 when matched based on purchase price and that I'd probably superior when you factor in the average number likely to be in good enough condition to fight and and has enough fuel for a given amount of money.
So while a long lasting war would probably end with a US victory and with slightly more European pilots downed both sides would lose a increasing number of the expensive planes, the cheaper replacements in Europe would probably be better then the cheaper US alternatives from what I can tell.
(Although who knows what secret projects either side of the pond has behind closed doors that might tip the balance)
But yeah, it takes less effort to make a European planes capable of challenging the US ones in the air then the other way around.
But the US would probably still out produce Europe in the end despite inferior low cost mass production solutions and harder to produce high cost solutions that just isn't that much better.
That said, Europes capabilities would have issues with the alpha strike of the US because a lot of our militaries are quite frankly mothballed...
And only recently getting the maintenance and training required to be effective.
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7:01
No, most rational people wouldn't ban them, sorry.
Rational people tends to have a longer fuse then you.
And instead they'll look at the intention.
If it's a legitimate issue they'll accept it even if it's committed in this... "Language"...
That's why you see so many serious responses.
7:49
The Linux kernel can afford to ban people behaving this way because it's a huge project with a massive number of commits, not because it's "serious".
People in smaller projects need every response they can get and can't afford to be too picky about the language.
And while it may be s bit annoying for some, most would just find this a bit funny and appreciate the joke that is the language used while also appreciate the seriously positive intent.
Anyone who'd ban this person for writing this would be far less "rational" then they are.
And in my view even in a serious project like the Linux kernel the response that should be used is a thanks for the help, but also a warning not to not use that language again as it's not appropriate for a project with that many eyes on it, it including many who are not native speakers and who may have issues with the language used.
And a message saying that it therefore will unfortunately lead to him being banned from the project if repeated.
Essentially, banning anyone for this as a first offense is just downright wrong in my view as their heart is in the right place.
8:57
Okay, that is weird...
11:18
The actual code should be clean, at least of anything that would break the code if copy/past directly I to the source code.
UwU in the code comments etc shouldn't be a major issue in my view.
11:58
Exactly.
People care about substance, not form.
12:22
That single trolly one is the only one where I'd even consider banning him...
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+ @planets9102 Actually, the first of those is false and the second is a truth with modifications.
Look at the relative performance pr capita of countries around the world, all the highly performing ones are small nations.
And there's a reason for that.
A smaller nation is more effective because it's more flexible and able to fix issues that pop up way faster.
The only draw back of a smaller state is borders and tarrifs etc, but like I mentioned, that's why smaller nations benefit from super-national organizations since those negate those drawbacks.
As for the foreign policy...
It's sort of true in one on one negotiations.
But only when comparing a single small state vs a large one.
When you compare small states within a super-national organization that's still small states the situation becomes quite different.
Then small states gets pretty much the same negotiation power as said "superstate" would have had.
Also, since those smaller states retain their sovereignty they're more capable of look out for their own interests even within that super-national organization.
In a larger nation like the US the negotiations being carried out might have more diplomatic power, but the end result both in terms of laws and foreign relations might still be worse off for the individual state.
Just look at the US.
Lots of dependent territories are doing much worse then they could because they're forced to use US shipping instead of ships belonging to other nations this causes a lot of harm.
Ships that are sailing past areas under US controll on their way to other nations can't deliver goods to those US controlled areas.
The end result therefore is way higher prices for goods and services.
Then look at Louisiana.
The main income that local goverment has for things like funding education is things like tax on property.
Yet in that state the tax exemptions for companies are granted on a state level.
As a result the state as a whole has become one of the poorest in the nation, something that's also causing increased crime.
Yet the state is also among the ritches in the nation.
Watch this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWTic9btP38
A local goverment on the other hand is more aware of local issues holding back those areas and can compensate for those.
The same applies to foreign afairs.
Sure the overall trade deal between a small nation and a big one might be less favorable then between two big ones yet the smaller one can target its negotiations much more narrowly towards the interests of that particular region allowing for specialization benefiting both nations.
While the same small area within a larger nation would have much less influence on the trade deal being made even if the overall negotiation power of the nation as a whole would grow.
The end result of that is a much broader trade deal closer to the negotiation position of the larger nation, but it's also less targeted and therefore potentially a lot less benefitial to that particular area.
Essentially the extra negotiation power of a larger nation is largly dilluted by the conflict of interests within the nation as far as each individual region is concerned.
An example of this is all the US companies moving production out of the country due to increased material costs due to the trade war with China.
The trade war simply isn't in the interest of the wast majority of US states.
Also, a side effect of nations going together into "super nations" is that the people they negotiate with are more likely to do so as well because of the same flawed logic.
Heck, even a super-national organization that's not a "super-state" like the EU has caused every single continent on this planet to create several super-national organizations of their own to increase negotiation power of said states.
Yet at least with such super-national organizations the individual states have more of a say both on the final treaty and if it ultimately causes more problems then it solves then leaving the super-national organization is a possiblity even if it might be a costly one.
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@frozello14 No, if you had one party of Nazies that's the biggest party in a country and no one wants to cooperate with them because they're Nazies and the majority of people voted for other parties, then those other parties working together in a coalition is the winners even if they're not the biggest.
Indeed sometimes the two biggest parties may not even be a member of the governing coalition because while they have the most votes as single parties you'll find that coalitions including them essentially has less votes then the other side.
Yes, gaining more seats is a victory, you get more influence.
But the real victory is to win votes in the parliament, including, but not limited to the vote for who should be prime minister.
For the prime minister role if the 3 biggest parties fails to come up with anything else that's better and you end up with the previous 5 party government plus some other party leading to a majority then yes, those previous five parties should continue to rule if they manage to get enough other parties supporting them.
It involves negotiations.
The benefit of being the biggest party is that you get to try first.
As for the exact election results I keep seeing articles about parties winning or losing seats, but not being Finnish I've yet to see a up to date overview of the seat distribution.
But my point is that any combination of parties that gets more seats, however they manage to get it is equally valid in terms of honouring the election results as any other combination, regardless of the size of the parties involved.
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@LackofFaithify
It doesn't matter what Russia sees or not.
This is a matter of international law.
Right now NATO is fighting a proxy war with Russia, but Russia can't legally start a war with a NATO country without triggering article 5 of the NATO treaty, because Russia attacking a NATO country would leave Russia as the aggressor, and NATO isn't at war with Russias allies as we're not technically at war with Russia, just helping a nation that Russia is fighting, and that country is defending against Russia.
However if the US where to blockade Russia that would be a deceleration of war against Russia, leaving the US as the aggressor.
That means that article 5 in the NATO treaty is invalid as it's intended for mutual defense not attack.
It would also trigger the defense clauses of Russias defensive treaties.
Landing the US not just at war with Russia, but anyone who have ever signed a defensive treaty with Russia.
And technically Russia would be justified to nuke the US without anyone intervening, as again, the US would be the aggressor.
Or mine US harbours with sea mines.
So while the US might win a nuclear war with Russia (assuming that US nukes are still operational and not going to fail due to lack of proper maintenance) but French and UK nuked wouldn't necessarily be involved in any response to Russia.
India, China etc would all just sit back and watch without acting and so one, all because Russia would be defending against American aggression.
Sanctions however are legal and peaceful.
No one can force a NATO country to conduct business with Russia or any of their allies.
Essentially what matters here is jurisdiction and sovreinity.
The US and US allies can legally decide what happens on their territory and with their companies, citizens etc.
But the moment they start interacting with others directly rather then set restrictions on what your own can do, you start running up against international laws.
Because those ships don't belong to the US or NATO etc.
Don't carry a NATO cargo.
Are not moving between NATO ports, are not operating in NATO waters except in cases where international treaties says that they have a right to do so unmolested, are not insured by NATO firms etc...
We can only legally interfere where NATO nationals, companies, territory or assets are involved...
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@andreanastacio9548 The EEC basically is a agreement that members of the EEC can trade in the same market and they have a desk with the EU that we'll be treated as inside the EU as far as trade is concerned.
However we have to follow EU laws for the most part, we get a veto right to new laws passed by the EU, but politicians here have obviously been somewhat reluctant to test that right given the power difference involved.
We also have exceptions to specific EU laws regarding fishing (the EU used to have some truly awful fishing laws allowing fish caught to be thrown over board and not be counted against the quotas saying how much fish you're allowed to fish, leading to overfishing.
That has been changed now however, so that particular regulation isn't as big of a concern as it used to be, but it's still worrying that landlubbers are trying to make decisions about fishing in our waters that may cause the fish there to go extinct locally...
Being outside the EU we're allowed to negotiate that desperately with the EU, we're forced to let them fish in our waters, and in return we're allowed to sell our fish to them.
There's also a number of other areas that's relevant.
The EU actually have stricter laws on fish farming then us, so that also plays a role.
And so one and so forth.
And yeah, er have to help pay into the EU budget as if we where a EU member, but benefi at from a lot of those programs...
So yeah...
Complicated.
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@eaglevillage316 Too little both feminism and labour rights is more like it.
In my country she'd have paid parental leave for a year, including some time prior to giving birth, and so would the father.
And her kid would have the right to a kindergarten spot from the age of 1 till 6 when school starts.
She'd be able to get paid leave to look after sick children.
A better work-life balance with way more time off work to spend with the kids on actually raising them (and so would the father) and so one and so forth...
Us laws put employers first and families dead last.
And I can't believe that the people who has made those laws call themselves Christians.
We have 10 political parties represented in parliament in my country, only one of them specifically focuses on Christian issues, the Christian peoples party, but they actually put people first, instead of corporate greed or prejudice like American politicans and churches does.
Our Christian peoples party support taking care of those in need, both at home and abroad, taking care of Gods creation, including the environment, taking care of refugees, and prisoners.
They don't throw the first stone, they love their neighbour, and they're more true christians then any American bloody Republican party member ever can be.
If Jesus was American he'd prefer a third party, but given the messed up electoral system he'd probably vote for either the democrats or a independent depending on the state.
I'm sure of it.
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Dr. Drip Americans seem to think that there's a bigger difference between a Norwegian and someone from say Iran or India then there are between two white Europeans.
That really isn't the case.
You greatly underestimate the diversity in cultures, languages, ethnicities and even religion here.
An American has more in common with a Mexican then two white Europeans do with each other.
People in India speak local languages closer related to English then what Finnish, Sami or Basque is to Norwegian, as a example.
There's three countries within the borders of Europe with more than 90% Muslims, 4 (including the previously mentioned with over 70%, 6 with over 50%.
If you go down to just 10% or more Muslims you get up to 25, Norway included.
And that's just one of the minority religions here.
I mean, just look at all the religious wars we've had in Europe.
Americans might think that the Crusades, Reconquista and the Troubles are the only religious conflicts involving Europeans.
But pretty much every European country has had multiple religious wars through our history.
And some of those wars where recent.
Only a few of them where against Muslims.
But even just ignoring all of that.
You'll find a more international community in the big Norwegian cities then in most of the US.
About 1/8th of the population of the city I lived in last year was students.
And a significant percentage of those where African or Asian, simply because our universities are free of charge as long as you can pay for your living expenses and qualify for the study in question (they might require you to pass Norwegian language tests for some of them)
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The idea that bigger nations is better loses out on so many nuances.
For instance, one of the reasons why Europe is better socially then the US is that we are many separate nations and therefore can try to more forms of government and see them fail and then learn from them, while in a federation a central government will enforce what they think is right even if there's better solutions out there.
Also, a bigger population means either a bigger legeslature (making it less capable of actually getting anything done) or more people per representative, meaning that it's less likely that any problems with a proposed law will be detected as there's less likelihood of a representative for those that the law might negatively affect is actually present.
As a example, Norway has 169 seats in our parliament.
While the average number of seats needed for any one of those seats are usually lower our smallest party this term got Into our parliament with less then 5 000 seats.
Why?
Because we have a system that doesn't just distribute seats around the country based on population but also based on land.
Because a city getting 2 or 3 representatives still means that the city is well represented.
But 20 villages getting 1 or 2 seats makes a huge difference in how often one of those villages will actually have someone who knows how it is to live there is represented.
So when there was plans to close one of the hospitals in our northernmost region that has a low population they voted in a representative to speak up for it.
Because the reality is that if it's closed they'll have to cross a mountain to get to a hospital, a mountain that's closed in bad weather during the winter, both on land and quite frankly also for air transport, meaning that they're cut off from emergency healthcare.
Likewise in continental Europe private services like postal services or railway services works well, it's a different story up north.
There a high cost pr ticket or package simply means that the service won't be used enough to be funded.
While goverments have a different monetization model that's more conductive to a small customer base, since they can profit on the growth in the area through a increased tax base even if individual services are running at a loss.
Our farms can't run at a profit at all because w only have 4% of our land suitable for agriculture and a climate that's not exactly conducive for it.
In times of shortage we aren't even close to cover our own needs and during the Napoleonic war we where in a borderline starvation, only helped by Russian food, we had a smaller population back then.
Regardless of what benefits our farmers may get they can never compete with the continental farmers, yet they're a important part of the social fabric and the viability of many of the communities that are needed to keep this country running.
They need protection, but we're always going to be importing food from the continent.
But how is someone from the Rhine valley, a valley with a bigger population then our whole country supposed to understand all of that?
Likewise in the Netherlands they have the opposite problem.
There's so little nature and so many people that pretty much everywhere is close to the little nature that's left, meaning that a huge amount of their agricultural sector is affected by laws about the nitrogen being released.
So they need more time to adapt then other parts of Europe with a lower population density.
Every single part of Europe is unique.
And while I absolutely agree that tighter integration is needed as well as common European solutions to problems.
And I'd like things like a EU army, EU tax etc a federal model just can never be democratic for such a big entity.
Only a confederal model or a supernational one.
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I actually shared this as a reply to a comment earlier, but having written so much I figured I'd share this with all of you:
A long term bad idea.
I have nothing against a confederated Europe.
But a federated Europe is an entierly different beast.
Merging Europe would ultimately come at the expense of peoples ability to influence their own lives.
Their freedom.
Their democracy.
And yes, their economy.
While small nations can be either well run or poorly run.
Big ones are as far as I know always poorly run (the US and the British Empire included here).
While small nations can be well run and take care of their citizens needs in a way that a big nation just can't do.
Sure, there are drawbacks with smaller nations too, but the creation of supernational political entities (NATO, EU, Council of Europe, UN, etc, etc) essentially removed all of those drawbacks.
The Rhin valley has a population of 10 million people.
The whole nation of Norway (where I live) has a population of 5 million.
The representative in the Norwegian parliament with the fewest votes for her party in this last election got into our parliament with 0,2% of the total national votes, or 4 908 total votes.
In Norway that makes sense, in a United States of Europe, it simply would *not*.
Why could she get elected given that representatives on average has 17 200 voters behind them in our parliament?
Because we give seats to regions not just based on their population, but also based on their land area.
Why?
Because in any given election term you're quite likely to have a representative from any given city represented in parliament.
But if you live in a small rural village chances are that there's many years between each time someone that knows how it is to live where you live actually are a part of the parliament.
So if we had a strictly proportional distribution of seats in Norway there wouldn't be any representatives in our parliament who knows how it is to live in a village or city with a hospital only reachable by crossing a mountain that's often impassable in winter.
Or in this case, since we do adjust for not just population but also land, and since said hospital hasn't been closed down just yet.
Knows how it feels to be afraid of losing the only maternity ward and the only ER unit that's reachable in winter at all (since you can neither fly nor drive to the second closest hospital in winter)
Only 3% of Norways land area is suitable for farming.
Only 1% is suitable for wheat farming.
And even the parts that's possible to farm can only be farmed when the weather is good enough...
As you've probably already realized, that's not always the case...
So it makes sense, and is fair for low populations areas to take part in ruling us.
Even our cities benefit from ensuring that the rural parts of the country has its needs meet, and that we have people from there that knows how it is to live there take part in ruling the country and giving their input in order to adapt our policies.
It helps us reduce our food dependence on other places (when we for whatever reason don't have access to the sea and trade we've usually experienced food shortages, or even outright starvation).
People in different areas, with different jobs, different backgrounds, different experiences can all help ensure that you get a nuanced goverment.
If everyone are the same things just works worse.
Also, quite frankly, a big part of why we even exist as a nation is that rural areas has this much influence.
While it might be fair for us, a people of just 5 millions to let one of our 169 seats be granted to someone representing just 4 908 votes, many of them from one of our ethnic minorities I might add, it would not make sense for 4 908 voters to decide the fate of the more then 400 million people living in the EU or the over 700 million in Europe...
If we where to join a union with a this much bigger population then we as a people would become less democratic...
And we would be worse off for it.
This kind of things might work for people living in fertile lowlands with a high population density.
But so many of the things that works and makes sense there just does not at the fringes of Europe.
It's not enough with a high degree of self determination, that is federalization.
You need power to fundamentally originate from the bottom and up.
That's a important principle.
That doesn't mean that I oppose closer integration as long as this principle remains though.
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@asanulsterman1025 Comparing that conflict between Belgium and the Netherlands with Northern Ireland isn't exactly painting your history creditential in the best light either.
Belgium separated from the Netherlands on religious grounds.
After the Frankish empire split up the areas between what's today France and what's today Germany where split up between their respective ancestral states and have been subject to many conflicts as a result of being a border area for so long.
Neither the Netherlands nor Belgium was unified after Lotharingia was split up between the two, just like the Holy Roman Empire was later it was a patchwork of different states till the Burgundians United them all under a single state, a duchy within the HRE (for as long as they lasted).
That's where the twos history originates.
The reason they split up as identities is that when the last Burgundian duke died the parts of his territory that was a part of the HRE came under Habsburg control (while the parts that wasn't was inherited by the French king).
Anyway the Habsburgs wheren't exactly known for religious tolerance, being Catholics they persecuted protestants, leading to the Netherlands revolting, while catholic Belgium, Luxembourg etc stayed loyal to the Habsburgs in the Spanish Netherlands.
In other words, the Flemish in Belgium where a part of Belgium because they where Catholics.
Belgium has been under the French, Spanish and Netherlands multiple times, and was a part of the United Kingdoms of the Netherlands and the Grand Dutchy of Luxemburg before the current state was formed, both nations created in the wake of the Napoleonic wars.
Then the Belgians rebelled in the 1830.
Forming todays Belgium in 1831...
Belgium is split from the Netherlands along mainly religious lines.
Belgium is divided internally mainly along linguistic lines...
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Steve Edwards I don't, but you can't have good ideas without the bad ones.
They're like genes and are subject to evolution, with the ideas that's the best suited for survival surviving and the ones less adapted to a particular situation dying out.
And just like a population with a limited genetic variation tends to die out when subjected to environmental strain so does a population with a limited variety of ideas.
Every single invention around you, math, computers, even fire was made by someone thinking differently from those around them, generally ideas that's based on other ideas that's either merged together or modified.
Very few if any ideas at all are purely american or British, they all tend to build on other ideas by people in other nations if you follow the ideas history back far enough.
Therefore we need new ideas, ideas being mixed and so one.
The day we get uniformity of thoughts is the day we will die as a species...
Anyway, why do you fear the unknown so much?
Let me give you an example from the nordic languages of a word that you can't find an exact parallel to in English.
"Lagom"
That's the Swedish variant, we also got it in norwegian in the form of "luggum" for instance.
Anyway, there's just not one word that fit it perfectly.
I encourage you to go and google the word though. =)
That word is a huge part of why the nordic region is the way it is, for better and worse.
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@no_rubbernecking Okey, so the problem with the rest of the system you have in mind is this.
By having a automatic system for how the cabinet is put together you end up with parties that don't have a incentive to work together in said cabinet.
It's better to have a system where parties don't vote for who should be a member of a coalition.
Instead you simply do what we do here in Europe, start with whoever has the biggeset party, ask them to come up with a proposal for a coalition, present that to the parliament, if they get a majority supporting that proposal or at least no majority against it (depending on the exact system) then great, that proposal ends up ruling, if that proposal fails then the second biggest party gets an attempt, then the third biggest etc all through the whole list of parties.
Since each party of course wants to lead they'll negotiate with other parties for them to either take part in the cabinet so party 1 might bring party 3, 4 and 5 with them along in the cabinete to try to form a majority, and then they might offer concessions to party 6 7 and 8 in order for those parties not to vote against the coalition proposal.
And in that way they manage to get a majority for the cabinet to be formed, but they don't have enough power with the parties actually in the cabinet to force through new laws, so you'll get ad hoc majorities for various different legislative proposals making democracy work way better.
Since you don't just have 2 big parties a single party using the whip to block members from voting in support of a bill doesn't really matter much as other combinations of parties will form that will support it in many cases.
The voters will ensure it.
The big parties will simply split up since there's no real incentives to keep them merged into big parties anymore.
So the christian democrats can have their own party all about conservative and/or religious values.
The nationalists will get their own party.
The liberitarian right will get their party.
The pro-business conservatives will get their party etc.
The same of course applies to the left wing.
With the different factions within the Republican and Democratic party forming their own parties that will be free to enter into coalitions with eachother or not as they please.
But also be free to ally on single issues when they're not a coalition member but perhaps supporting a coalition in return for concessions.
So perhaps the biggest left wing party will seek a centrist coalition with the former far left factions of the democratic party not being included in the coalition but giving support in return for certan concessions, but then the far left might ally with certain right wing parties to get a certain law through the legislative body since they as a non-coalition member will be free to do their own thing in parliament.
Get what I mean?
I consider that a good thing.
Also, the parties that's actually in the coalition has already agreed on how they want to rule the country together working out the worst issues ahead of time and negotiating what camels each party has to swallow in order to get eachothers support for the cabinet.
What positions should be held by what party, what to do in certain situations etc, etc, etc.
With your suggestion there's no reason why the biggest party actually have to do what the smaller parties wants, after all if those smaller parties don't get their policies through then another small party can just take over their spot and the big party will still be just fine.
Since the logic of your system is still that the cabinet is won based on how much voters each party has itself more then anything else...
Our system instead is all built around the concept of consensus.
In 2001 a party with 12,4% of the voters won the election in Norway because they where the only ones able to get enough support for their proposal.
Despite there being 4 parties bigger then them.
The way I see it that a victory for our system.
Because it means that the parties willing to cooperate ends up being rewarded with power, and the ones that don't end up without power, so you end up with a functioning goverment.
And the voters knew what cabinet proposals that would be likely to win depending on what parties they voted on.
So they did win the election fair and square.
But they didn't win the prime minister job based on their own voters alone.
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@rupplopp My own preferred party (MDG) is the party that struggles the most with the system we have.
The party I mentioned got 1 representative into our parliament with a total of 4908 votes in total behind that representative.
My own party increased its number of seats from 1 to 3 representatives.
Being below 4% we ended up with non of the 19 leveling seats.
As a result our 110.973 votes only gave us 3 representatives or 36.991 votes pr representative.
On average you need about 17 200 votes to get a representative in Norway.
My party is among the ones that suffers the most from our system since they tend to attract urban voters.
And my vote is among the ones that counts less because of our system, since I live in the third/fourth biggest city in Norway, Trondheim (the position depends on how you define what is or isn't included in the city).
However thing of it this way.
A city or urban area has a lot more people who have similar living experiences.
In 2014 we had a population of 182 035 here in Trondheim.
That's means that it's very likely that at least someone who knows how it is to live in Trondheim is represented in our parliament in any given year.
But if every vote is of equal value you end up with a very, very long time between each time any given location in rural area is represented in parliament.
Between every time someone who knows how it is to live there, what problems they face etc is represented.
By giving rural voters more weight in our system we ensure that someone from those areas are represented anyway.
But the overal composition of our parliament is still adjusted for the overall popularity of a party by our leveling seats.
With 110 973 votes my party would have had about 6 seats if we had one seat for every 17 200 votes (the average number of votes pr seat in our parliament)
So once we get past 4% of the total votes we're going to get a lot of leveling seats.
We had 3.9%
It sucks.
But it also means that our voters have more influence.
Since each and every one of our votes matters more when we're in the area of that 4% treshold.
It's a bit like how voters in the US matters more in swing states then in red or blue states.
Except for us it's on a pr party level and it's the 4% threshold that matters.
Having that 4% threshold for our leveling seats means that parties that does make it above 4% are ensured to have a real say in our political climate since they get enough seats to be relevant in our politics.
But since you can get seats even below 4% we also have the possibility to be relevant due to the possibility of ending up with the balance of power between two parties vying prime minister position even with a single seat if the parliamentary math between the rest of the political parties adds up just right.
And even when it doesn' you might end up with balance of power in individual law proposals or even make law proposals of your own with a single representative.
So if you have a issue that matters you can push it with our system if you can mobilize enough voters.
And it's proportional at every level.
The 3 seats we did get where the 3 seats we had earned through our proportional voter share in the electoral circles where we did manage to get enough votes compared to other parties to get at least one seat.
All our 19 electoral circles are multi-member districts and proportional, with the two smallest electoral circles (in terms of seats) still having 4 seats each.
And we have 5 electoral circles that has a two digit number of seats each.
So it's not really unfair towards smaller parties in that sense.
And big parties with a broad appeal among multiple electoral circles will be well represented anyway in the various electoral circles.
So the 19 leveling seats mainly benefits smaller parties that has a broad appeal.
Small parties that's mainly popular in certain areas will get direct representation from their respective electoral circle.
Big parties will get a lot of seats *everywhere*.
And parties with less then 4% of the votes will get represented if they are popular enough in a electoral circle to make it, regardless of how small their total number of votes is.
And with the 4% threshold the parties that makes it past that point gets extra "omph" compared to other smaller parties meaning that you can get something done.
So there's a motivation to try to work issues out instead of just split up parties the moment there is a issue due to the 4% rule, and there is a motivation for people to go out and vote for parties near that limit, people who might otherwise stay at home, or vote for a bigger party, since every single vote might count a lot when you're close to that point, increasing participation.
It does lead to a little bit of tactical voting, since members of bigger parties might win more representation for their coalition pr vote by voting for a small party near that limit then for their preferred option, but since the outcome is always proportional I don't really see that as a problem, they're not forced to do this, it's a option that they have and can make a informed decision to do, and there's no real penalty for not doing so.
Most voters don't do this after all.
Yes, it does mean less power when we're below the 4% limit.
In this case my party.
But we'll get more power when we get above while we're still represented, getting our politics heard, our proposals voted on, and our votes counted.
And all the other parties know that it's just a matter of time before we will end up above the 4% limit and some other parties ends up below, so just ignoring us or pissing us off isn't a good play either.
Our system encourages a consensus, and addressing the issues of everyone.
The bigger parties doesn't have to do exactly what the smaller parties wants, but in order to push us under the 4% limit where we're relatively speaking harmless they have to adopt at least some of the policies of the factions within their own parties that's aligned with us.
So in the case of MDG, the green movement within the bigger parties like the labour party or even the conservatives (movements also represented in other parties like the liberals on the political right and the socialist left party on the left, while we are in the center.)
So yeah, I'm pretty happy with our system.
It's not perfect.
But it's pretty good.
And I think well suited for Sweden.
Perhaps it could allow the center party in Sweden to split up and focus more on farmers making them more compatible with the political left, while the capitalists in the party could merge with another right wing party or form their own themselves since they'd have a real shot for power without a lower limit for representation.
Or any number of other possible changes.
Basically I think it would make Swedish poliltics more balanced.
As for the Sweden Democrats, perhaps the extremists would leave the party and form their own smaller party where they don't have to deal with the moderating forces.
While the leadership could afford to alinate some far right voters in order to actually become a real coalition option.
And so one and so forth...
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@lobaxx Hum, factions within that party could probably get more done by splitting off from the Swedish center party and merging with factions within other parties splitting off from theirs.
Agrarianism, subsidies, protectionism, pragmatism, this is all things that works well enough with the left.
As for the whole immigration thing.
Our center is anti-immigration in general, but that doesn't mean that they're opposed to seasonal work immigration.
It's more about nationalism and protecting our culture etc.
Their immigration policy is fairly pragmatic, they don't want a full stop in immigration because Norway needs to replace people due to our birth rate.
And farms etc does need workers.
But they want limited immigration rates, and immigrants that benefits us if you get my meaning.
And of course working with parties that wants more immigration they're of course willing to conceede accepting people on humanitarian grounds, as long as this is kept within "reasonable" levels.
In essence, on paper they're a "left wing" party, palatable enough to left wing voters to be acceptable coalition partners for the real left wing parties.
But they tend to be the party that holds back a lot of left wing values in the coalition negotiations in favour of their own interests.
Hence why our socialist left party actually decided to pull out of the coalition negotiations after our latest election, since the center party just drove too hard a bargain and wasn't willing to give in enough on enviromental issues...
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@gavinlaird85 "The Irish kingdoms were tied together true common culture language
heritage etc. They were always 1 nation with its own disputed high
kingship at a time when nation states like we know today hardly existed
anywhere. If you believe that because we were a colony of the UK then
it's proper for unionists to get there way that's one thing but
democracy has nothing to do with that situation like originally stated
in the video.
I agree completely with your last point."
No, it wasn't really.
For instance there where significant minorities there of Viking decent.
Dublin was founded by Vikings.
They did NOT have the same culture and heritage as the rest of you.
And even if you look at the rest of the kingdoms I doubt that most people back then felt Irish.
They most likely felt like Leinsters or Munsters etc, etc, etc.
The situation isn't that different from the germanic tribes.
Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, significant areas within countries like Russia etc all had a common west germanic heritage.
But that doesn't mean that they all actually felt "German" even if many saw them as the same people from the outside.
Hence why the English word for people from the Netherlands is "Dutch" the word that was traditionally used for all west Germanic people in English, including for instance people speaking Pennsylvania Dutch (it's German with no Dutch influence at all, but the language got its name back before Germany was a nation when the word was used for the whole "ethnic group" and all its nations).
Also, in this case the minority in question isn't of that ethnic, cultural and religious group at all, but where in fact settlers from Scotland etc who had lived there for generations by now.
Your talk about Scotland being a nation before joining the UK etc as a excuse for why they should have self determination but the people of North Ireland shouldn't is just selecting opinions to suit your interests instead of on any kind of actual principles at all, and you know it.
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25:59
Actually, a ICE car also loses efficiency in low temperatures (although they'll eventually heat up enough for this to not really matter) or more so at high altitudes.
A EV actually isn't affected by altitude at all, but is affected by temperature.
However the temperature disadvantage actually kind of is made up by the effect of heating it up again.
The cold doesn't actually remove charge from the battery, instead it reduces the amount of power the battery can deliver at any one time, a value that goes down as it's discharged.
But when the climate changes and it gets hotter you actually regain the range you lost due to the cooling of the battery.
However EVs also tend to use electricity for heating the cabin and heating the battery in order to get more power from it in a short amount of time, and that heating costs energy.
That said, you don't really drive that long without stopping anyway.
You'll stop to eat, go to the toilet etc.
And each time you have the option to just charge a bit, it's not like you have to fully charge each time.
If you stop 3 times on your way somewhere, each time charging 10-15% you'll have 130-160% of the original range for that trip, all while you're barely actually noticing that your car is charging, taking breaks that you'd probably take anyway.
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@brianlong2334 I don't think that the US is a trendsetter here.
The US is and Europe is struggling for different reasons.
Both has issues with the use of artificial intelligence and modern technology leading to people ending up in echo chambers causing increased political polarization.
But while that's legitimately threatening the US democracy it doesn't seem to do so in most of Europe.
Yes, it has caused fringe groups like the ones trying to start coup recently, but those have no real political power base and remain a minority with a low amount of relevance.
No, in Europe it seems like it's our demographics, our relationship with Russia and to a lesser degree China, our raw materials situation and our bureaucracy that's posing challenges.
Our laws and lack of unity is making it hard to be competitive in several fields like technology, and like the US we depend on microprocessors from Taiwan, combine that with a low amount of natural resources remaining due to our long history of exploitation and that poses challenges for our competitiveness.
This isn't insurmountable, but it's something we'll have to deal with.
Demographically we have a aging population leading to a reduction in working age people pr pensioner.
That's posing challenges that we're partially countering with increased immigration, something that while I think that is a positive has caused some tensions due to the changes being a bit too rapid for our more conservative citizens, a portion of our population that's growing as our population is aging...
Although that trend of people getting more conservative with age seems to be slowing down somewhat in Europe with people staying left wing for longer.
Militarily we can't rely on the US anymore and while Russia is weaker then the US they're still potentially a serious threat to most of Europe.
Indeed we where lucky that they attacked Ukraine as they where among the nations in Europe most capable of repelling them.
If Russia where fighting another European nation and we didn't have the backing of the US then we'd probably struggle...
And since we've depended on Russian gas and Chinese goods and markets for our economies it's going to take time for us to adapt.
India is a potential new market that we're trying to explore but the Indian goverment is highly nationalistic and they've historically had a lot of red tape and restrictions holding back our companies there.
Africa is overtaking us all, but that's taking time, and once they do we'll stop getting new people to replace those we lose from our low population growth...
The US is increasingly growing hostile, so that's a market we can't rely on.
South America is a mess of left wing populists and centrist populists that just makes any kind of economic activity on the continent challenging...
Asia is promising, but there we'll have to deal with China and Russia, and to a lesser degree India and Turkey as local powers that don't necessarily want our presence to grow...
It's just in general a challenging geopolitical climate.
Thankfully this proxy war with Russia lowers the risk of a conflict in the Arctic as Russia is being drained of resources in Ukraine...
And maybe it'll open up a path to the Stans so we can start acting there.
The economic woes of Turkey may change the political climate there, if it does we'll be able to act more in the Middle East and grow the economies in the southeast.
Especially since Serbia seems to be warming up slightly towards the west perhaps opening up the Danube.
All countries near the Danube could benefit from increased trade along that river.
And so would several nations near Europe.
I don't know...
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@lindaeasley5606 The thing about Europe isn't that it's better in everything, it really isn't.
It's that we've tried more things then you.
The US states all model themselves on the federal level, and your culture while it might seem radially different from place to place in the US is relatively uniform by European standards.
With some Europeans being as different from each other as Americans and the Chinese are.
That means that we have had more chances at making mistakes then you have, and (usually) learning from them.
We're aware of not being better then everyone else.
There's things that we can learn from the Americas, Asia, Oceania, and even to some degree from Africa.
A big part of our criticism is that big countries like the US, China, India and to some degree Russia tends to be blind to the world outside their own borders and the ways the world*within* those borders is flawed.
The US is not the best place in the world to live, by objective measures the country hasn't been for a few decades at least.
Part of the reason for that is a unwillingness to learn from others.
Europeans and Americans can both come across as arrogant to others.
For different reasons.
But yeah, I suggest looking into the things that the rest of the world genuinely is doing better then the US.
Because the US does have the resources to become the best country in the world to live in.
And may indeed have that capability.
We've used up a lot of our resources a long time ago and have challenges that we face.
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@lindaeasley5606 Because your city planning choices is a part of the cause of the recent draught here in Europe.
We all share this planet, and your choices have consequences for the rest of us too.
And the difference isn't just walking distance but walkability.
It does vary from state to state and it's not that bad in some of the older settlements, especially on the east coast.
But in the US it's often illegal with things like stores mixed in with homes.
Small thin streets that's safer for pedestrians.
Building without parking spaces or with less parking spaces, meaning that pedestrians have to cross said parking spaces.
The US uses more land on parking spaces then housing.
To make your residential areas safer from drivers you make cul-de-sacs increasing driving times for everyone else increasing traffic, especially because you often can't walk safety to places that's even relatively close by.
The pedestrian area of the road isn't treated well, often ends abruptly, has excessive number of road crossings with high speed cars etc...
The lower density of passengers makes public transportation less viable economically.
And us public transportation is often designed to take people from the suburbs to the city center.
Since the suburbs don't have as many jobs space is wasted as each seat is unlikely to be used more than once pr trip unlike our busses.
And suburb to suburb journeys (the majority made by Americans) is made complicated by the lack of connecting routes.
And so one and so forth.
And because cars are so vital to Americans the politicians ends up with a uphill battle when trying to make the roads safer with more driving class requirements or car safety steps making American drivers far more dangerous then European ones.
I have a ex that's American.
Your laws might cause her to die in a traffic accident, devastating me.
Your laws about health care means that she may not afford health care, food and housing despite having two jobs, meaning that she has to choose, and that healthcare probably has to go.
Your laws means that minorities are unfairly targeted by the police, and because you allow so many people to have guns and have far lower educational requirements for police officers, often favoring former soldiers you end up with jumpy officers that may kill her for being black simply because they're nervous, and possibly have PTSD...
And low income housing is discouraged by your laws, it's even illegal for the US government to build more then a certain number of condos...
So she has to spend way too much on both housing and a car, keeping her fairly poor still through no fault of hers.
And she has to waste away precious moments in traffic.
And because of your excessive and avoidable CO2 release we don't have snow staying here at the coast where I live.
I get that lowering emissions is difficult, but there's so many low hanging fruits in the US, while we've made use of most of them...
Your first past the post electoral system discourages anything but the two biggest political parties increasing conflict levels in the US.
Removing the nuances that usually would fix a lot of these issues...
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@sammysalter Not necessarily due to PR itself.
PR can be implemented in more then one way.
As a example some countries have a single nationwide electoral circle with all the representatives being elected proportionally within it, others split up the representatives between different electoral circles that each have proportionality within them.
(Norways 169 seat parliament have 19 electoral circles and 150 of the 169 seats are distributed between them, partly based on population and partly based on land and are elected based on their internal proportionality, while the remaining 19 seats are distributed afterwards based on national proportionality taking into account the existing seat distribution from the 19 electoral circles)
Some PR electoral systems tends to favour larger parties like the d'Hondt method (used in Israel) while others flavours smaller parties like the Sainte-Laguë method.
d'Hondt punishes parties less for already having seats during the distribution process then Sainte-Laguë, but both are proportional.
Here in Norway we use a modified Sainte-Laguë method, ours makes it harder to get the first seat then with the standard Sainte-Laguë method, but for the rest of the seats we're using the regular Sainte-Laguë method.
Some countries use a electoral threshold for eligibility for their legislature.
In Norway we have choosen not to have any for 150 of the 169 seats.
But the 19 leveling seats have a electoral threshold of 4% of the total electorate.
What all of this means for us is that in our system mid sized parties are encouraged as smaller parties are encouraged to merge to get over the 4% threshold to get more power if they have politics in common, if there's genuine major differences parties remain viable while small, especially if they have a concentrated voter base.
While larger parties easily can split without major political penalties.
Also, our system increases the representation from rural areas, especially in the case of smaller parties since they get more seats pr voter, but proportionality based on the national vote is still ensured.
That solves many of our problems.
I'm not sure about the best approach for Israel...
Perhaps enforce religious diversity on the party lists?
Like the first candidate is only viable if they're of Jewish faith, second as a secular, third as a muslim and fourth as a Christian or some such?
If someone only try to appeal to the nationalists they'll only get that first seat as they'll be ineligible for further seats.
Parties would need broader political basis to get support that way and it would limit the religious and ethnic tension that would be possible.
Alternatively give parties the option between Jewish first, then secular then Muslims then christian and muslim first etc then secular etc.
You'd have more power for ethnic based parties, but you'd still enforce a more balanced voter base since parties would need members and voters from more communities...
I don't know...
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@leapdrive "My Malaysia"?
I'm European mate.
If they lost in a human rights court it sounds like they need to do some soul searching.
But that doesn't mean that you should hate them.
This is so long ago now that most of them by now are people that wasn't born yet back then, and definitely wheren't old enough to make decisions or influence this.
And even if they where old enough you have to remember that a majority of people have limited influence.
There's few countries in the world that's not flawed democracies or not democratic at all.
You definitely shouldn't forget what happened.
But finding the truth and everyone acknowledging the truth is the best you can realistically hope for.
As for transfer of land...
People have grown up there with the identity they have.
Let them vote.
Just transferring land without a say from the inhabitants would be wrong.
And yeah, I know that's frustrating sometimes.
I'm Nordic.
The Soviets took land from Finland during the winter war and the continuation war, but those landss being returned now would be problematic as today the majority population there is Russian, people who have grown up there.
Likewise there's Schleswig-Holstein, that used to be Danish with a mixed German and Danish population.
All of Holstein and a majority of Schleswig is now In German hands and majority German population.
Schleswig or "Slesvig" was divided between Denmark and Germany after a referendum, after the area had been spending enough time under the Germans that most of them where feeling German by then.
Land is lost.
You may be annoyed.
But in the end the status quo, whatever that may be tends to be better for long term peace.
I'm not happy about such large parts of the Nordic region being absorbed by other parts of Europe.
But I accept that neither are ever going to be returned, nor should they because most people living there would not wish it.
And those who where displaced and live in Finland has new homes and new lives now.
It might hurt to not be able to return to the old home villages and see where their ancestors came from, but it is what it is.
Non of those lands where transferred in "just" wars.
The Soviet Union used the pretext of "security" to attack Finland.
Apparently the Finish border was too close to St Petersburg...
And Stalin didn't want enemy troops near core Russian territory...
As if Finland where a threat...
And Society behavior pretty much guaranteed that Finland would allow German troops on their territory and would fight alongside them.
Although they never joined the Axis or WW2 pr say.
As for Slesvig-Holstein...
That story is a bit more nuanced...
Denmark was in the process of becoming more democratic and where making a new constitution including those areas within Denmark as well as giving them voting rights...
Prussia and Austria where not pleased by that Unification, as both areas had a mixed population, with both Germans and Danes, making up different social layers...
Nobility, urban population, farmers etc...
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@MrBearyMcBearface All political systems have issues, and the anglophone world isn't worst by any means, but look up the democracy index and you'll see that certain nations are doing better then others.
And yes, I live in one of the countries that's not listed as a flawed democracy there.
It might seem like arrogance, but that's really not what it's all about.
There's traits of my own countrys democracy that I'm fully aware wouldn't work in a lot of other countries and that might even be considered as being problematic.
But for better and worse the description that Jan Bruun Andersen used to describe democracy just doesn't apply here for a number of reasons.
Among other things we vary between having two and three power blocks vying for power here, so if nothing else we got at least 3 wolves.
But what's more is that our politicians genuinely are trying to do their best for the nation (not just my view but the overall view in my country), so they're more sheepherd dogs then wolves really...
And they're willing to put down their weapons and come together across the politician spectrum in order to deal with issues if needed, they offer multiple different nuanced options to the voters to pick between with a compromise based on the relative power of the parties usually being the end result etc.
Our system don't have gerrymandering or filibustering or wasted votes in some regions due to them not being in "swing states" or for one of the two biggest parties.
It does have other issues like being overly complicated though and can be tough to understand for the individual voters with representatives sometimes being voted in from locations other then where their voters are and it being somewhat unpredictable exactly what representatives ends up in our parliament since our system is based more around parties then individual representatives.
And like the US we also have different weighting of the voting power of the individual voter based on location although through different mechanisms.
But it does all make sense if you take your time to understand it.
And both parties with strong support in individual locations that's unpopular elsewhere in the country and parties that have a broader appeal without any single stronghold can get representation and both small and big parties can get into the parliament.
Meaning that many different points of views are represented there and in the public debate.
Our system is also based around the idea of negotiations being the main source of power for the politicians so sometimes the big parties make deals that's at odds with the values of their own coalition partners because they think that's in the nations best interest (even if I as a voter for one of those smaller parties might disagree) and other times us voters for said smaller parties can switch to a different small party with similar values to our original party in order to punish their coalition partners, similar to how voters in the middle usually play a big role in tipping the scale in for instance US elections in said swing states without us having to completely switch to a party we disagree with.
In short, our representatives are held responsible for their actions as parties instead of individuals.
Parties negotiate for power based on their values on an individual case by case basis meaning that a party program actually matters with some parties overlapping with some other parties in certain areas but in other areas they may have more in common with parties in a different power block entirely, and due to the negotiations they can actually get results if there's a majority in the parliament for those values (for instance a minority supporting that stance within a big party + enough smaller parties supporting the idea or a opposition party supporting it etc).
Yes, there are issues like horse trading happening, where a party might agree to do something they kind of disagree with in order to get political support for something they care more about etc.
But on the whole I feel like the system works fairly well with very little corruption or other failures of the democratic process.
While it does happen that big parties might force through policies that the majority of the population disagree it's a rare occurence and one that we as a people have ample opportunity to respond to in an orderly fashion.
That said, no system is perfect, and I'm sure there's elements of other systems, including the US one that we can learn from.
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@jesseberg3271 That's kind of the point though.
A lot of people (potentially most people) in Europe want a close relationship with each other without being a federation.
In a confederation power comes from below, the participating components give power up but still have the final say, while in a federal entity power comes from above.
A federal approach helps reduce the risk of war as the members are in a close coalition that benefit from working together and the members while still feeling like they belong to their own component entity first still feel like they belong to the same bigger entity.
They can use that bigger entity when dealing with others around the world being close allies in trade negotiations and other forms of diplomacy and quite frankly also in war.
People living in different climates, terrains etc have different living conditions.
Germany and the Netherlands have a lot of urban areas well suited for privatized services like private trains and postal services for instance as the population density makes it easy to make those services profitable directly.
While countries like Norway is rural with lower economic potential for these services, as an example, meaning that these are things that we've traditionally handled as a society at large rather than individuals or corporations.
Our agriculture is less competitive with all our mountains, forests and just in general lack of suitable agricultural land, as well as our reduced growing season.
Meaning that we can't compete in volume with traditional farming, yet most of our "nature" is actually a cultural landscape shaped by agriculture, it has been a vital part of shaping our society where every fjord has its own culture and heritage.
Our farming has always been small scale and for the most part supplementary in nature with many farmers being both farmers and a secondary job like a fisherman.
Historically we have never truly been self sufficient with carbohydrates importing grain from other countries to supplement our own production in exchange for our own products of fish, wood, and various types of meat (both domesticated animals like goat, sheep, cow, reindeer etc) and wild animals.
And of course in later years other products like petroleum based ones.
So for instance when Denmark-Norway was attacked by the UK during the Napoleonic wars while we where still neutral and we ended up with our fleet captured or sunk in the great fleet robbery of Copenhagen (the Brits stole half our fleet) we ended up starving during the blockade of our coast, surviving on food smuggled in or taken by privateers attacking trade between the UK and countries around the Baltic sea.
Obviously we don't want to find ourselves starving again.
But if for whatever reason we can't import food anymore it helps to have some production ourselves.
So tariffs on those products helps in that regard, since we're still importing those products anyway.
That of course doesn't jam well with people living on the fertile plains of Europe.
All the lands between the Netherlands and some distance into Russia are well suited for agriculture, of course it's in their best interest to have good market conditions where they can compete on equal terms with others as they can be competitive, especially the Netherlands and Ukraine (I think?) produce quite a bit of food and are competitive exporting their food all over the world.
We of course welcome their food, but we'd like to keep some farmers ourselves, ideally without resorting to the factory farms found in more intensely farmed places.
Likewise we'd like to keep our fisheries going, and avoid the overfishing that the EU is doing and dealing with certain... Flaws... In the EU fishery policies.
This is of course important topics.
Still being a part of a larger entity can cancel out a lot of the drawbacks of being a small country.
And we benefit greatly from being a part of many of the multilateral agreements that are a part of the EU framework even as we remain outside the actual union itself.
All while also benefitting from advantages of being a small nation like a higher quality democracy (it's harder to make that work large scale), and greater agility in dealing with changes in external conditions.
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5:56
False, it has happend in America, multiple times.
Both communists and anarchists have experienced persecution in the US multiple times, heck, a few years ago a coffee, cookies and crocket party with a group of elderly unarmed anarchists debating politics where raided for no good reason, at least non that I'm aware of.
For the record, anarchist in this context does not mean violent or no rule (something that the upper classes managed to make a synonym with the word in the english language), but rather the anarchist ideology where "anarchist" means no king/ruler and is all about moving societys power over to those being ruled instead of to a small elite class of rulers.
Democracy itself was the first form of anarchy and every step towards liberalization and making society more free for the individual to govern themselves more and be less governed by others is a continuation of this ideology and trend.
As for the communists...
McCarthyism is a clear case of this.
Believing in communist ideology, values etc where persecuted regardless of how much or little someone had to do with the country that supposedly where benefitting from the "treason" they where accused of.
5:38
Heh, while the intention might be to protect the minority the US election systems ruleset does anything but...
If you genuinly want the minority to be protected you kind of need a proportional system where no one party is able to become the majority on its own in my view.
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@MrTaxiRob Why?
NATO is a defense treaty, it isn't one country.
Countries are free to join NATO if they get the consent of all the existing members, and members are free to leave whenever they like.
However if a member is attack and invokes article 5 then it's a breach of the agreement, and to my understanding international law for a country that's a member at the time of that invocation to not respond as if they had been attacked themselves, and aid the attacked country, taking part in the collective defense.
No federation needed.
Likewise some European nations have formed joint military units without being unified, the individual nation states remain in control with the ultimate power to withdraw from the international treaties in question or amend them through renegotiations if desired.
Nations with first past the post might have wild swings in foreign policy from one term to another, in nations with more proportional electoral system and parliamentarianism this just isn't the same kind of problem.
The relative power of parties might change, but politics remains compromises that leads to a majority in a parliament, but often also compromises that works for the opposition, since they're not enemies in all cases and having a good working relationship with the opposition might give a political party options when their regular friends in other political parties within the government are not playing ball.
This leads to a tendency towards smaller course corrections rather than complete course changes.
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@louisgiokas2206
You're under the mistaken assumption that the US can manage without the rest of the world.
But the US is not capable of conquering and occupying the rest of the world.
And therefore depends on support from other nations in order to get access to the worlds resources, technology, production, security etc (yes, without the rest of the world the US would eventually be conquered, both due to lack of military as support from the rest of the world, but also because quite frankly, the US is unable to build everything the country needs to defend itself without help from the rest of us)
A big part of why the invasion of Ukraine was such a big deal was that Russia broke treaties they signed themselves.
Losing what little trust they still had in Europe.
They can't be trusted, unlike the Soviet Union.
Russia has always been imperialistic.
But they at least held their word in the past.
No empire can survive without support from their subject nations.
In Americas case we're enabling your military and economy and world reach because the global stability and rule of law is worth it.
Without our support you lose out on the ideas and technological progress of 95% of the worlds population, not to mention their labour etc.
Without our support you'll lose access to the resources of over 98% of the worlds surface.
You lose access to 74,78% of the worlds economy.
More really, because a lot of US companies only exists because of investments made by foreigners into the US economy.
The US needs the rest of the world far more then the rest of the world needs the US, even if a sudden loss of the US from global affair would be disruptive we'd eventually recover.
The US wouldn't.
It would be devastating for the US.
The US is just a small part of the world, despite its size.
And without the rest of the world the US would become essentially Russia.
A relatively large nation but backwards, with a poor economy.
And in order to get access to the rest of the world the country needs international laws...
Any international law broken by the US carries consequences down the road.
Often severe ones.
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@gokulpayyanur1839 Ah, right...
You're Indian, right?
You guys have first past the post, just with so many electoral circles and so much ethnic diversity that you still end up with with some coalitions just like the UK...
What Europe does is having proportionality instead in the election, so instead of having a single representative pr electoral circle with whoever gets 1 vote more then anyone else ending up as the representative from that electoral seat and going to parliament we instead have electoral circles with multiple representativese and those being distributed proportionally, so instead of having 100 electoral circles with 1 representative each and the biggest party in each of those getting 100% of the representation we might have 10 electoral circles with 10 seats each, and a party that has 40% of the votes in one of those seats will get 40% of the seats (4 seats in that electoral circle)
And a party with 20% of the votes gets 20% of the seats.
So if you imagine that one of those 10 seats would have been 8 seats with victory for party 1 and 2 seats with victory for party 2 despite party 1 having 40% of the votes and party 2 having 20% of the votes overall in that area instead in the proportional system party 1 gets 4 seats, party 2 gets 2 seats, and party 3, 4, 5 etc gets the seats they deserve.
And that happens everywhere.
Leading to coalitions where people actually hold power based on how popular they are instead of how hated the opposition is.
It leads to less conflict since elections isn't a binary result anymore with you either winning or losing a electoral circle but instead it's about you increasing or decreasing your relative power in that electoral circle.
And having many other parties to deal with who all may both be an enemy and an ally depending on the situation.
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@RoninTF2011 It has nothing to do with laziness or their arrogance.
You don't learn a language if it's not useful to you.
By excluding Russian speakers you created that bubble.
Look at any country in the world with a ghetto.
And compare it to countries without ghettos.
You'll see that the difference is that the minority in question is subject to discrimination of some kind and does not feel respected by the majority population.
It leads to crime and alienation.
The ghettos in question often have their own dialects at a minimum if not full blown separate languages.
And it's a result of faulty goverment policies, not the minority population itself, be that former slaves, immigrants, or indigenous populations.
Anyone that's being excluded by society.
And it's not just laws, it's peoples behavior too.
Hostile language in the public debate, exclusionary behavior etc.
We've all made similar mistakes at some point or other.
And we're still paying for our actions.
Because repairing this kind of damage takes time.
As for throwing anyone out, trust me, if you do that you'll lose support in the west in moments.
We might still be legally required to answer in case you get invaded, but I'm fairly sure that we're not actually technically required to have troops stationed in your country.
If you want other countries to go past the bare minimum required like we have with Ukraine you need to actually stay sympathetic.
And trust me, this is not a good look to those of us outside your country...
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14:07
Remember, Ukraine is expecting a invasion from Russia.
And they're not a NATO country.
Their very independence is at stake.
Being reminded that joining the army might end your life might be a good point to make for some people, but for others it'll discourage them.
However that shovel...
By pointing to that it makes people think, even as they're doing everyday tasks.
Should I join the army and help defend us from Russia?
I might not be much good at actually killing someone.
But I can dig a hole, that's what I'm doing right now with this shovel.
Perhaps I should join. (etc).
So yeah, I totally get that one.
If our situation here in Norway was more desperate then that might have worked here too.
As for it being a bit too "extreme".
In a way that's good too.
It reminds people that they do not want their loved ones to experience this.
Also, remember that while you as a marine do have to defend yourself at times.
You're ultimately a offensive unit, a offensive weapon.
The regular infantery man however, specializes in defense above everything else.
They dig in, hold, then move and dig in again.
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@hokton8555 H and FrP where in a coalition from 2013 to 2020.
V was a part of the coalition from 2018.
KrF from 2019, and FrP left the coalition last year.
The two centrist parties doesn't want to be in a coalition with FrP at all, H want all four of them.
FrP wants just H.
On the left wing side SP doesn't want R, SV or MDG, just Ap.
Ap wants SV and SP but not R or MDG.
SV wants AP, R and MDG but not SP.
MDG definitely does not want FrP, but the younger members also managed to push through a preference for the left wing in the party congress, so they want the same SV, R, Ap and MDG option that SV does.
V and KrF wants a H, V, KrF cabinet, but I think they're open for including MDG, not that it matters much.
SV, SP and AP looks like they're going to have enough seats themselves to get the cabinet.
But SV still would like to get MDG and R included to weaken the bargaining power of SP.
And both SV and SP knows that they'll need each other if they want a left wing cabinet.
Theoretically AP or SP could of course enter a coalition with H.
But a large part of the reason why SP has been growing is the centralization policies carried out by H.
So I doubt that SP would go that way, their voters wouldn't like that this election.
And AP would like to have the prime minister and to have the most power in a coalition as the biggest party in the country, and they're used to opposing H, so I doubt that they would accept a coalition with H.
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@wasimshaikh1665 Hum...
My idea towards this would be a proportional system (multiple seats pr electoral circle), but one where instead of distributing seats among electoral circles based population alone you'd do so on a pr group basis to ensure that all of them gets represented.
Allow these seats from different groups to overlap and don't make them based on ethnicity or religion during the actual election, it should be a advantage for a political party to appeal to many different groups.
But having members from certain groups present in a community would give said community added political power.
Just like with your current first past the post system you could ensure that minorities are represented well, in Norway it's land that gives these seats but then there leveling seats that helps correct for too big distortions in this system.
Another alternative is to go with a MMP approach like in New Zealand or Germany.
Voters gets the option to vote for one political party and one candidate.
The candidate is voted for using a first past the post system, but then the remaining seats are distributed among parties proportionally, but already existing seats earned by the FPP system is included in the tally when distributing the seats, ensuring that the relative power of parties is proportional but that different communities are all represented with individual representatives.
Honestly given your current first past the post system a MMP system might be the best approach as it's a smaller change.
Add the Germanic use of leveling seats too and you'll have a really good proportional system I'd say.
In Indias case you'd then ensure that minority groups have their FFP seats representing them but include those areas in bigger areas where votes are tallied proportionally.
If they vote for someone who wouldn't get a vote under the proportional system you could still give that individual a seat on top of the normal proportional votes using the implementation of MMP used in New Zealand (Germany doesn't do this).
You could also give the bigger proportional electoral circles that includes such minorities a slight advantage in number of seats like I described in my proportional approach at the beginning.
Although the advantage could be less with this approach since the FFP seats would already ensure at least some representation from the minority, but adding more would help with proportionality within that circle and help offset extremism a bit.
So something like a certain number of seats distributed among the proportional electoral circles, each circle needs to be big enough to have many seats, then smaller electoral circles within the bigger one voting for one representative each, perhaps these smaller seats could represent 1/10th of the total seats that would be elected proportionally, ensure that small ethnic groups gets at least one of these FFP seats to themselves.
Then give say 10 seats pr ethnic or religious group distributing them amoung the proportional electoral circles based on the proportion of said group in each proportional electoral circle, majority groups are probably represented in many electoral circles and these seats would therefore be spread out a lot, while minority groups would get these 10 seats concentrated more giving them more relative power in those electoral circles since there's more of a chance that one of the proportional seats there goes to said minority group when there's more seats to fight over there.
And then for each proportional electoral circle also add one seat that's not elected By voters within that circle but based on the proportiality at a national level.
So if a party gets way less representation at a national level then they should in the local electoral circles compared to the proportion of the national votes that they get they could get these leveling seats.
Yes, this system increase the likelihood of a fragmented parliament with many small parties and no clear winners.
But election results are less binary.
Instead of either getting the most votes or not in a electoral circle you get a situation where being second best or third best is perfectly fine.
So the amount of aggression is lowered a bit.
And voting for smaller parties becomes genuinely viable.
Instead of just getting coalitions with the biggest party in another area you get much more of a mix.
With multiple plausible ways to get a majority for a resolution or government.
Also, given how fragmented India is it might be a good idea to permit just a majority not voting against something like a cabinet proposal or a budget proposal or a new law.
That way parties can permit things to happen without losing as much face as if they actually had to vote in support of something that they disagree with.
Also allow minority governments to rule seeking support from different parties on a case by case basis (just a majority not voting against something).
Honestly India is too big to ever fully function as a democracy.
But I'm hoping that something like what I suggest would still end up with a more nuanced and less aggressive political climate since more people then just the biggest parties would have a voice.
Parties in between the big ones who could be allies with multiple big parties on a case by case basis and won't always be seen as enemies by said big parties.
And since there's less risk of the current landslide first past the post election results the smaller parties would actually have other options then the biggest parties as coalition partners so you could see two or three blocks, major coalitions each trying to win the election after the , election results are in through negotiations.
It might seem like voters gets less power since they don't vote for the winner directly so to speak.
But they actually end up with more influence over the results.
If you want a overall left wing (or if you prefer a right wing) government but the representative of the biggest left wing (or right wing) party from your current first past the post electoral circle is corrupt, you can't really get rid of him easily without voting against your conviction.
If it's a proportional system however you will have similar parties (that currently might even be factions within the bigger parties) that you can vote for that can still get representation and represent you in a coalition with the party you'd otherwise vote for.
And since having multiple candidates for a party in the FFP part of the election won't change the overall proportional power of a political party they'll be more willing to give you multiple choices to pick between at that level, even if they don't win the FFP part of the election you can therefore signal your preferences by picking between candidates from a given party there.
Or vote for a single independent candidate like before.
I'm probably approaching the limit of the comments size now, so I'll stop rambling here, but I hope that you like my thoughts here in the middle of the night, my stream of consciousness. Even if it might be a little bit chaotic...
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Right Wing Actually I think it might be important.
And some European nations *do*.
Look at Belgium, and indeed Switzerland.
There's other ways of ensuring such seats though then making it entierly race based if different ethnic groups tend to live in different areas you can use that to ensure that everyone is represented.
The thing about democracy is that an exact 1 to 1 seats to votes ratio isn't always desirable.
That's one of the few things the Americans actually got right.
I live in Norway.
Here the electoral circles gets representation not just based on population but also based on land area.
The effect of that is that urban areas, especially the capital gets less representation while rural areas, especially far north gets more representation.
That was a conscious choice made by our politicans when creating our electoral circle.
Yes, that means that my vote as a urban citizen is less valuable vote for vote then someone living further north.
But the thing is, us urban voters are going to dominate the parliament either way.
But it's there to represent all of us, and the more different views are represented and have real power to back up those views the better.
We in the cities don't know how it is to work as a farmer or fisherman in rural parts of Norway.
We don't know what it takes to make these rural industries work.
By giving them more of a voice we ensure that they can't just be ignored by the larger parties as they could if the system was fully representative.
In NZ the same is true for the Maori.
The Non-Maori population is going to dominate the parliament either way, but by ensuring a certain amount of representation for the Maori you ensure that their issues are given a fair shake.
That their traditions are valued and protected.
That their culture won't just die away.
Doesn't mean that they're suddenly going to run the country themselves.
They'll still need support from non-Maori representatives in order to form a goverment.
And their votes are outnumbered by the non-Maori population so in the end it's the non-Maori population that's going to end up deciding the balance of power anyway.
It's not in the majoritis best interest to always get a 1 - 1 ratio of seats to votes either.
So for instance back to Norways example.
We in the cities still need the rural areas resources in order to survive.
We need the grain, milk, meat, fish, wood etc, all of those rural resources.
If no one lives out there and makes use of the resources our country simply can't effectively make use of one of our advantages, the large amount of land and sea that we have compared to our population size.
So giving up some power to them is in our own best interest.
The same applies to supernational organizations like the EU.
People make such choices for a reason, giving up power in order to reach goals that are deemed desirable.
In Norways case that's keeping our rural areas alive ensuring better use of our resources by giving up some of our political power to those areas.
In New Zealand giving up power to a minority in order to keep them a proud culture that keeps existing into the future, and therefore can help for instance promote tourism through ensuring that New Zealand still have that side of itself remain unique in the world.
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0:52
The southern border in Trøndelag is somewhat disputed in this regard.
There's no doubt that they've lived in partd of Trøndelag since before us Norwegians did.
But first of all, there where s previous people here before either of us.
And secondly we and they picked different areas to settle from the start, both due to having different preferences and due to the Norse having a military and population advantage due to our farming and metal works and of course warrior culture.
1:07
Not the north kingdoms.
The Norse kingdoms.
Norse and north are two very different things.
1:24
That's news to me.
Although it's possible that this is something people associate with the word further north...
But "Lapp" is definitely a exonym instead of a endonym, and should be avoided for that reason as well.
1:41
While your previous map included tók much in the south this one includes too little.
The Sami people populated the inland areas before we did.
Our ancestors where a seafaring people of farmers, displacing the previous hunter gatherers of the region along the coast, but the Sami where better hunters and later raindeer herders so they settled lands further away from the coast long before we or anyone else did.
The parts of the coast that wasn't suitable for agriculture could be settled by either of us first as both cultures practiced fishery.
Our ship building technology gave us a edge though early on, although the two groups merged along the coast into essentially modern Norwegians for the most part, although some still identify as sea Sami people.
2:36
Fell?
Do you mean fjell?
Fjell is the Norwegian word for mountain.
5:32
I think you're mixing up Sweden and Norway here.
Sweden got the mining, Norway the windmills, remember we're in the windy side of the Norwegian mountains, exposed to the winds from the sea.
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@haldy-p Imagine 10 political parties, one far left, one far right, and the rest are center left (or if you prefer right).
Anyway the one party that's on the far extreme of whatever side you are not on yourself gets 11% of the votes.
The party with the second most votes has 1 more vote then the third most popular party and is on the far extreme on the other side, despite 80% of the voters voting for various parties in the center on the side of the second biggest party.
In a single round election 100% of the power goes to the candidate that's the furthest away from 90% of the electorate.
If there's a two round system you end up with the voters forced to pick between plague and cholera, as neither party firs their more centrist views (center left or right depending on what you'd prefer).
As a result a direct election for a single guy ends up being undemocratic.
Instead by making it indirect through a parliamentarian system you can have parties negotiate.
If an outright jerk is the top candidate from a party they can punish said party by not voting for him or her, and perhaps request someone they can work with.
Or if you end up with the biggest party being on the opposite side of the majority of the voters perhaps the second or third biggest party will get a majority for their candidate.
Either way, you get a compromise that's something most of the electorate and politicians can live with.
If a party or a politician is corrupt then other politicians and the electorate both can punish them in a proportional system.
Non-corrupt politicians can refuse to work with the most corrupt politicians.
And voters can can vote for other parties.
The corrupt politicians will still be a part of the political climate as they'll always have core voters keeping them in the legeslative body, but as their reputation gets tarnished they'll lose power and influence through a reduction in seats and coalition partners both.
A parliamentarian system therefore keeps the leaders in question more accountable then a directly elected candidate can be.
In part because politicians who after all works full time with politics and therefore are more likely to be aware of corruption can hold fellow politicans accountable, even if voters keep voting them in, by simply not joining them in coalitions.
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23:22
Hum, it would depend a bit on the oars I think.
I honestly haven't thought much about this before...
But you have different oars for different jobs.
Long distance rowing would involve ores that acts like springs, so they'll keep pushing the water after you stop moving, giving you a moment of rest while the tension is released against the water.
On the other hand if you want to row fast with a lot of force in bad weather you'll want more solid oars that don't give way, and in the case of the Faero islands, perhaps you even go with smaller blades, so you can pull the oars up of the water, turn them around easily so the wind won't catch them so easily, move them forwards and down into the water again.
And while this is something that did change quite a bit over the years, I don't think holes where used for the oars...
There's a few different approaches I know of for ships in my region at later dates.
But think two round pieces of wood stuck into the wood below and a flat piece of wood underneath the oar is one way to do it, and that way the wear and tear from the oars won't translate to wear and tear on the ship that can't be easily replacable.
So while you can't really move the end in the water fast enough to avoid a incomming ship you could lift your own end up out of where they're lying (not sure about the english word for this), change the angle so it can move faster through the water and simply let the enemy ship push the oar backwards/forwards along the ship side while doing your best not to lose the oar overboard.
At least that's how I imagine you'd do it...
Of course that might be a bit tough to do while there's a angry guy with a sword standing there right next to you in the neighbouring ship that might cut you down while you're trying to keep that oar in your hands...
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+Samip Adhikari
I've never heard about "Olga vegetarians".
The ones I'm aware of is lacto-vegetarians (vegan diet + milk products, cheese is often an issue due to animal rennet, but cheese made with microbial or plant based "rennet" would be ok), ovo-vegetarians (vegan diet + eggs), lacto-ovo-vegetarians (vegan + both milk and eggs)
Vegans (no animal proteins at all), RAW Vegans (no animal proteins at all + no boiling or frying food, just fresh, dried and frozen food), Fruitarians (no eating of any parts of plants that the plant didn't intend to be eaten, so berries, fruits etc is ok, roots etc isn't).
Also, there's some categories that's not strictly speaking considered vegetarian like pescatarians who eat vegetarian or vegan diet + fish.
And there's also some people that for some weird reason consider themselves vegetarians while they still eat chicken for some weird reason, I have no idea why they'd think they where vegetarians with that diet...
Still, that would be good for the enviroment.
Basically cows are the worst for the enviroment of the animals we hold while birds are the worst when it comes to animal welfare so chicken and eggs are pretty high on the list of things to quit for animal welfare and animal rights activists.
As for what's worst from a feeding the poor point of view it's pigs as a majority of everything that pigs eat can be eaten by humans too.
As for fish, eating fish that's low in the food chain like herring is actually not all that bad from an enviromental perspective as long as we don't overdo it, in other words make sure that it's fished from a sea where the fish in question isn't close to being endangered due to overfishing.
However species like salmon and cod are often breed these days in fish pens and feed food made from other fish that's fished all over the globe, some of that fish is endangered and while fish isn't nearly as wastefull as say a cow (only about 2/3rd of the food you put into a salmon ends up wasted and 1/3rd ends up on your dinnerplate) it's still... problematic...
Especially as there's no way for you to know where the fish feed to the salmon on your plate came from...
On the whole though I don't really want everyone go go 100% vegan.
I'd like people in general to be more consious about their food choices.
If everyone cut down meat, egg and fish consumption to 1/10th their current levels that would be a huge improvement for our planet.
And then we'd perhaps be more willing to actually pay for the few animals we'd still kill to live good lives in farms that's not factory farms but where they'd actually live relatively free and happy lives, unlike what we have now...
I don't even have words for what we currently have in this world...
Small amounts of meat as a dietary supplement is actually healthy for our body, the "normal" meat consumption in all western nations however is anything but...
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@Mippy_Pancakes ™ Americans don't know what Communism is anymore and use the word in ways it never was intended for.
Here in Europe we do have communists.
Here in Norway 8 of the 169 seats of our parliament is held by the communists.
(Well, technically by a alliance of the communists and a few other far left parties that merged in order to become viable in the elections).
Most of what Bernie is arguing for is actually the policies of our labour party here in Norway, our biggest party with 48 out of 169 seats (there's 10 parties in our parliament this term)
But honestly, some of what Bernie wants is even conservative policy here, although he's definitely left of our conservatives, unlike the democratic party in the US.
The Democrats in the us is a so called "big tent party".
It's left wing is is roughly on par with the right wing within the labour party of Norway, and definitely left of center even by Norwegian standards, while its right wing is firmly within our conservative party in some cases, and in our christian peoples party in others.
Their bulk seems to be slightly right of our center though, perhaps around where our liberal party is.
As for the US Republican party...
They feel like our "Progress party", mixed with the christian peoples party and our liberal party, with a little bit of the far right of our conservative party mixed in.
There's also a hint of politics even further right then anything we got in our parliament, perhaps like our democrats (far right political party in Norway, right wing even by US standards).
It feels like the bulk of the US Republican party is somewhere in the Progress party, although probably in the more reasonable part of the party, with people like trump representing the out there far right nut jobs of our progress party, with a touch of that far right out of our scale that I mentioned.
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Yep, sort of, when studying the DNA of indo-europeans (Germans, Russians, Brits, French, Irish people, Spaniards, Italians, Greeks etc, etc, etc it turns out that the male DNA is mostly indo-european while the female dna is actually more local.
And on Iceland, the male DNA is mostly norse but the female DNA is mostly celtic in origin.
So yeah, there's a strong indication that there's been some conquering and enslaving going on here...
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@ericfarina3935 Having different amount of representation for different groups isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Big groups of people don't always know what problems smaller ones are dealing with.
Take minorities for instance.
Be they religious or ethnic or others.
The right wing of the democratic party may tow the party line that climate change is important.
But they're ultimately capitalists that doesn't know how it is to be a native live of hunting in northern Alaska and experiencing that the permafrost is melting away below your feet, that your houses are sinking into the ground as it melts, that methane trapped in the soil is being released into the atmosphere and that the ice is vanishing.
Having that voice represented us important even if that minority is too small to get a seat through regular distribution of seats based on population.
Likewise farmers face issues that urban people don't know.
The problem isn't that different voters have different representation pr say, but that the election results are binary in nature, with either a total victory or a total defeat in each state due to the first past the post electoral system.
You can have a fair distribution of seats between political parties and increased representation for some constituencies compared to what their total voter share is if you want.
We have both here in Norway.
With one party getting in with 0,4% of the votes when a rural constituency where about to close down one of its 3 hospitals leaving almost half the population without a hospital when the weather is bad and the mountain roads are closed down.
No emergency air ambulances due to bad weather, no ride access, due to closed mountain passes and pregnant women and people having a heart attack ends up having to wait for better weather.
So a new part got its first seat as a reaction to that.
They where the second biggest party in that constituency that year, but just 0,4% of the total national electorate.
But thanks to our system they became politically relevant and able to argue their case to a national audience.
And indeed they took a seat away from the previous coalition helping the current one win in that way, although they didn't take part in the government.
Yet if you look at the proportionality of the seats in our parliament and compare it with the vote it's pretty close to the correct proportionality, because we have a 20th constituency overlapping the other 19 where the national proportionality decides the distribution of seats between the parties, but those last 19 seats at a national level are still given to representatives of those parties all over the country, since there is a levelig seat pr constituency.
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+MC_Master
"+Luredreier But my point is that the two "factions" have equivalent power. therefore, everything that gets suggested turns into endless bickering instead of actually legislating anything. while the US actually has a system where one party can actually make a decision either through the president supporting that party or holding the majority in congress or both for that matter"
This description fits the US system, not ours.
You're assuming that the same parties will always work together on the same things, but aligances shift for different suggested laws and with multiple parties there's no loyalty to a single faction like that.
For instance here in Norway, when the center party suggested immigration reforms during "the immigration crises" the labour party, progress party and conservatives all cooperated with them in making a deal limiting immigration to Norway making compromises with the more immigration friendly parties like the christian democrats and liberals.
The Green party and the socialist left party did not take part in that deal, despite the socialist left party actually being a part of the cabinet at the time.
Also, when the labour party failed to make sufficient compromises with its coalition partners the voters for those parties simply switched to other parties that where not as wedded to cooperating with them but that still wheren't on the right wing, losing them the election in 2013 leading to the current conservative-progress party cabinet winning with support from two parties in the political center, they've won two times in a row now, but if they fail to keep the support of the parliament they do risk to be replaced midterm, no election required, just the parliament voting to replace them.
A law is passed if a majority of the representatives in the parliament votes in support of a motion.
Sometimes a majority is reached with the three biggest parties going together about something, in other cases the smaller parties cooperate with one or more of the big parties to get something done.
The socialist left party (far left) and the progress party (far right) have actually made political deals about individual laws getting them through the parliament together with individual members of other parties who voted according to their own beliefs and not according to the party whip.
Some political parties care about urbanization, others about decentralisation.
Some about increasing public spending (including some on the right as far as taxation goes) some want to reduce public spendings.
Some care about the elderly, some about the young, some about parents, some about the schools, some about the enviroment, some about deregulation and so one and so forth.
Each of those different axis got people with different opinions.
And because there's not two party whips but several what suggestions get a majority shifts in each of these fields.
Sometimes the labour party gets a bill about workers rights or pensions for the elderly through, sometimes the conservatives get a pension reform through, both during the same term.
Changes are made as compromises first and formost, pretty much no law survives without modifications, but they all keep nudging our society in various directions depending on what people vote.
I can't remember last time we had a gridlock of any kind...
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17:03
I'd say they deserve 2 points on the popularity of the royal family.
Both Märtha Louise and Mette-Marit are well liked.
Yes, there has been criticism, but nothing even approaching anyone actually disliking them.
As for the cost to tax payers, you have to remember to correct for local price levels, yes, they're expensive in total dollar amounts compared to other countries.
But honestly the whole country is expensive.
When you correct for that difference in cost between say us and the Swedes and Danes I think you'll find that they're not nearly as expensive as they might seem.
And while they still have some additional costs it's still money well spent on a high rate of diplomatic activity (we'd essentially be paying for that anyway if we had a elected head of state) and on maintaining buildings of historical significance (again a expense we'd probably still have).
The costs that remains after those two factors and when correcting for costs of just living in this country is actually fairly low.
I agree that they don't qualify for 2 points there, but I'd honestly give them 1 there.
Anyway, our royal family is a big part of why we even exist as a independent nation after WW2.
During the war they gathered us against the occupying Germans and played a crucial role in our dipolmatic efforts towards the UK and US, our first king was married to a British princess so we had ties there, and with regards to the US, our royal family had just had a state visit to the US prior to the war and had started friendships with the president getting him on our side in a lot of the diplomacy during WW2, without them our merchant navy would probably have ended up being just taken by the Brits, our goverment in exile wouldn't have had the funds it ended up having, the income needed to fight the Germans both at home and abroad.
And after the war the Soviets had already occupied a big part of northern Norway, but the Allies negotiated with the Soviets, conceding eastern Europe in return for us getting back our lands.
We're definitly less likely to replace our monarchy then the Swedes are.
The Danes...
Living in Norway I'd like to think that we're less likely to replace our monarchy then they, but honestly, it's probably about equal.
But yeah...
But back to the Swedes.
If they had another monarch like their current king their monarchy would be falling soon.
Thankfully their crown-princess is as down to Earth as our own royal family, and the Swedish monarchy will survive her.
Oh, and on the whole political roadblocks thing in Norway...
We have a system of proportional representation.
So it's not enough for one political party against the monarchy to become the biggest in the country.
You need enough support to have a whole coalition against the monarchy in order to abolish it.
Since there's both monarchist and republican parties on both sides of the political spectrum that's just not going to happen anytime soon.
Oh, and also, our king doesn't have de jure veto power he does have de facto veto power since no law are valid without his signature.
He has only used this once in 2008.
A law had been proposed where the requirement of our king to be a lutheran was suggested removed.
He stopped that law.
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@Amadis777 Well, Islam isn't a ethnicity but a religion.
And "La Convivencia" is rather disputed.
There's clear evidence of rebellions being put down among christians in Spain during the Muslim rule.
So presumably there's a cause for rebellion?
We know about jizya tax at the very least being used in the Muslim world.
So why is it that hard to believe that there's a large number of Muslims of local origin in Spain at the time?
Also remember, Spain was multicultural already before the Muslim invasion with the visigoths upper class as well as many other ethnic groups, both local and others that found themselves there for various reasons due to the Roman empire.
As for genetic tests etc, there so many potentials for misunderstanding the data due to various migrations around the Mediterranean sea.
With the Phoenicians/Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals and later empires all taking part in extensive trade.
Indeed trade in the region probably predates the Phoenicians and Greeks and goes back to the Bronze age at least.
There's Spanish mines from that time for instance.
So I don't put much stock in genetic evidence given the huge amount of mixing involved in the region.
As for literary sources, you get both sources in favour of the view that the abrahamic religions coexisted in peace and of the opposite.
Since we're dealing with humans I feel that the best application of Occam's razor in this case is to believe that both are true at once.
Perhaps to different degrees in different places.
But clearly there's a reason for people to convert.
And if we look at what happened after the reconquista we clearly see that many where forced to convert to Christianity there.
This seems to be a pattern.
You see the same in the areas where the Romans and Sassanid Empire fell likewise experienced massive conversation even though people often where allowed to follow their own religion after the Muslim invasion they where still treated differently from the Muslim upper class and converting held benefits.
So most people there where not from the Arabian peninsula but locals who converted.
So why not in Spain?
The official number of troops and others Muslims that came there that we can trace isn't exactly that big.
Spain was after all taken due to Visigoth weakness, not Muslim strength.
So you're a small group of invaders, you need collaboration from the locals if you're to rule.
And with conversions, you get it.
And the more that convert, the more incentive there is for the rest to do so as well.
Sometimes it might be dangerous not to do so.
Sometimes doing so might help you etc.
Then after generations of this the christians starts invading back, spring no one.
People are forced to convert to Christianity against their will, eat pork etc.
Then even people who converted to Christianity, some genuinely so are exciled.
Lives ruined.
So much pain.
And Muslims who probably where already raiding as a form of warfare (privateering) got even more of a reason to hate the christians, as well as many new recruits who wanted revenge.
I mean, just think of how the Pols, Norwegians, French etc faught alongside the Brits during WW2 after losing their homelands.
Both in the air and on the seas units made up of exciled peoples from occupied countries distinguished themselves in fighting, being rather reckless.
Or look at the hate building up in Ukraine against the Russians right *now*.
But also further into the past in the Balkans.
Different peoples will have different narratives about what really happened.
But enough people suffered on all sides that it could be used as a causus belli for anything from war to atrocities...
That's just human nature.
I mean, look at what the Americans did after 9/11...
Guantanamo was filled with innocent farmers etc who ended up tortured in there because some neighbors wanted the money offered as a bounty on anyone who might be a "terrorist" or because someone being tortured where forced into giving up others...
And that place still exists.
Doesn't make Americans evil.
But some people will always twist their own ideas of right and wrong into something that "justifies" actions that hurts others.
Especially if prior suffering has taken place.
Emptying the coast of Christian lands could both be seen as a revenge for what they did, but also as a defense, a way to stop them from growing strong enough to push further.
I mean, just look at the crusades, when Jerusalem was no longer a viable option they tried taking Egypt, the plan being to trade it for the "holy land".
Suffering of the locals be damned...
And for the record, I'm actually a Icelandic citizen.
I could be wrong here.
But it makes sense that this was revenge and defense.
Just like some of the first raids of the viking era was attempts by the Danes to counter Christian Franks from expanding into the recently conquered lands of the Frisian peoples, who where fellow Germanic heathens.
The Franks where seen as a threat.
Yes, I know that I'm going a bit all over the place.
But I'm trying to draw some parallels here to show that there's some patterns that repeat themselves a lot.
And sure, there's no evidence that I can find of the 99% claim he has made, but that many if not most where locals seems to be accurate.
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@User-hx2jg Okey.
So let's say that Norway for whatever reason turned into a authoritarian state.
Heck, for examples sake, lets say that all of Europe fell into chaos and authoritarianism.
With the current demographics that's not a completely inconcievable idea.
And lets say that Africa actually overcame its issues and became as democratic as we currently are.
Lets say that say Nigeria (except a perfectly democratic version of Nigeria with no corruption) lead a African Union mission with some other nations into Norway to reinstate democracy here.
I'm not going to lie.
It would hurt losing friends, perhaps even family.
It would be painful to experience all that hardship.
And I most likely would have mixed feelings about those soldiers fighting here without knowing the local culture.
But I still think it would fundamentally be the right thing to do if democracy actually had fallen here.
I'd still expect anyone responsible for avoidable civilian deaths to be held accountable though.
There needs to be proper rules of engagement.
I'm not going to downplay what's going on in any of the nations you're mentioning.
People are being hurt and scared for life.
And the west is absolutely not doing enough to actually help people and ensure that people get a better life instead of harming them.
And yes, there's people in the west making some truly unbelivably stupid choices.
And who are quite frankly cowardly, choosing to use indirect forms of combat instead of endangering western lives despite the risk of that leading to increased civilian casualities.
There's no excuse for that.
And the way the west pulled out of Afganistan leaving the local population high and dry?
It's inexcusable.
We had and still have a responsibility there.
And the US worrying about China and wanting to redeploy troops eastwards in Asia does not justify just packing up and leaving like they just did.
As for the terrorist attacks in the west.
Honestly while I think the choice of targets is fucked up we've kind of brought it on ourselves in some cases.
And things like Al Qaidas attack on Pentagon, that was actually a justified target in my book.
If they had dropped off the civilians on the plane in some way, say with parachutes then I don't really see that much that's ethically worse then US actions there as such.
The US goverment had done things that caused a lot of harm for Afgan civilians in the past, helping the Pakistani intelligence organizations with training and equipping various factions in Afganistan in order to fight the USSR, without taking responsibility for the civil war in the aftermath.
Intentionally targetting civilians, is unacceptable.
Even if you're feeling hurt.
No matter how much pain they may have caused that pain isn't lessened by intentionally trying to hurt them back that much.
Besides it doesn't work.
Germany and Britain tried to target civilians with their bombing raids on eachothers cities.
And all it caused was renewed resolve in the war.
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Okey, so the thing about nordic armies.
First of all, we don't really have gung ho action crazed people here.
So instead of focusing on what the armed forces can offer you or what type of roles you have our ads tends to focus on what the armed forces are defending, the peace that we love so much, our freedom etc.
And yes, it's more generalized ads, because honestly we have conscriptions, so we just need people to be motivated to do their part for the army, show up in good shape and willing, and then you can be assigned to a speciality later, rather then signing up for anything in particular up front like in the US.
If you want to go to the army, navy, air force, special forces etc, it's all the same entity that you'd go to in order to get recruited.
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@Remus-z6y You're welcome. ^^
I'm basically just giving you a severely simplified example of some of the concepts of the electoral system in the country I live in.
(There's a lot more to it, for instance we have leveling seats, one pr electoral circle, that are based on the proportions at a national level rather than within the electoral circle, meaning that parties that's small and don't have enough concentrated voters in any one location to get representation there can still get representation based on their national popularity.)
And yes, I agree.
Having more parties with real political power is a significant advantage.
And it seems to lead to more cooperation between the parties here since the incentives favor cooperation.
(You need support from other parties from various different parts of the political spectrum in order to get anything done and any party that doesn't behave and cooperate don't get political power without a significant amount of voters backing them (something that's rare).
In the end we've ended up with a system where even the far left and far right will cooperate on individual policies and where the relative power of different points of view actually matters for policies.
So how the biggest partys in the country feels about say permitting oil extraction somewhere, or spending oil money, or urbanization and concentration of power vs local self rule and supporting rural communities or even abortion isn't what matters.
What matters here is the total number of parties supporting one political point of view vs another one, something that changes not just based on a left-right political axis.
We genuinely have a political system where you can choose what party to vote on based on multiple political axis.
So for instance I used to vote for the socialist left party (left of the labor party but right of "Red", an alliance of several former far left parties including the communists).
Thee socialist left party is socialist of course, but also focused a lot on the environment and they where in a coalition with the labor party and the center party (center party is basically all about local self rule and maintaining and supporting rural communities and farmers)
I didn't feel like the socialist left party got enough green policies through in that coalition and the socialists didn't feel like they got enough red policies through.
So me and many other voters changed party, not because they did anything wrong, but because their coalition partners didn't give enough concessions.
I switched to the green party, a party in the political center willing to enter coalitions with both the left and right.
Other people in the party either switched to Red, the Labor party or the liberals.
The end result?
The labor party grew in power themselves, but the coalition lost power and the election.
Being punished for their behavior with the socialist left party shrinking significantly.We ended up with a right wing coalition in power with support from the liberals (also a environmental party but mainly based on libertarian values)
While the conservatives are actually worse then the labor party when it comes to the environment they made bigger condescensions for the environment then labor did.
There's a lot of things that I don't like about what they did while ruling, but at least as far as the environment is concerned we did pretty well for a while.
This second term is a bit of a different story though and it might be time for a left wing coalition now.
Anyway, former socialists actually was able to get support for green policies by switching political parties without having our votes wasted.
On the whole I'd rather have a conservative prime minister despite being socialist then the labor party, I just don't want their actual policies.
The reason why?
The current conservative prime minister is much better at pragmatic compromises then the labor party leaders.
My main issue with the right wing coalition is rather their coalition partners to the right of the conservatives and the relative power of the parties in the right wing coalition leaning too far right.
A center-right coalition with a strong center would actually be great.
But yeah, there you can see the considerations made by one voter here.
In contrast the conservatives and the labor party actually has come together to block policies from parties on the other end of other political axis other than that left-right economic one that divides them, against the parties I support.
So yeah, majority for any given policy goes both ways.
Also like I mentioned earlier different regions have a different amount of relative power of vote so there's a lot of seats in the parliament blocking concentration of power ensuring a decent amount of local self rule, rural development etc.
And that applies to voters across the political spectrum (seen on the left-right economic axis).
It feels like all of our parties genuinely are trying to make the country a better place even if I deeply disagree with how some of them set about achieving that goal.
For instance even the far right "Progress Party" deserves credit for advocating teaching immigrants and refugees arriving in the country the language, culture and life skills needed to function here.
Their general stance on immigration might be messed up, but their policies for immigrants that actually are accepted into the country is actually aimed at making life better for both the immigrant or refugee and for the society at large as far as I can tell.
And there's some members of the party that I can actually respect despite being fairly far to the left on the political spectrum.
Of course that doesn't mean that there isn't a number of racist bigots in the party too that they honestly need to deal with.
But still, better that they're there as a faction in a political party that you occasionally can deal with them out there bombing people, attacking immigrants or fighting a guerilla war or something like that...
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The problem isn't really what kind of energy it is, but their location.
They where built on the last remaining winter grazing grounds used by the Sami raindeer herders on the Fosen peninsula in the region where I live.
While the language of the northern Sami lives on in the inland of northern Norway where they still practice raindeer herding it has mostly died out among the sea Sami.
And the language and culture of the south Sami is critically endangered.
In the past the Norwegian government has actively tried to exterminate their culture, and the last discriminatory laws wheren't removed from the books till the eighties.
So there's still many alive who has lived through that discrimination...
It's therefore a extremely sensitive topic...
There's several windfarms built in the area, some of the first ones that's now contested where actually built with the consent of the local Sami, but as more and more windmills where permitted by the state despite Sami protests their feelings towards them changed.
I mean, just imagine if another ethnic group ruled Australia and your parents grew up having their knuckles and bottom hit each time they said "mate" or or anything else Australian, or even English, instead you guys had to learn French or German or something and only talk Australian English at home.
Then you're given permission to form a advisory parliament to give advice to the foreigners.
And they make laws about considering the needs of Australians before taking water away from your ranches and bulldozing the Sidney Opera House and anything else you hold dare.
They still can do all of those things but at least you can protest it to the courts while they continue to do it...
While your herds are thirsting to death and you're being left eating brussel sprouts or something instead of burgers etc.
That's kind of the problem here.
Our government genuinely are trying to take care of the Sami, but they didn't actually ask them about their needs before making decisions.
The raindeers are afraid of the windmills and the new roads and won't go anywhere near either.
They're animals that instinctually use the same paths foe literally ten thousand years, since the last ice age...
They're extremely sensitive to change.
And they need food during the winter...
This was the last winter grazing ground on that peninsula...
But the bureaucrat permitting those windmills only saw that there's many grazing areas for raindeers in the area, without recognizing the difference between the summer grazing grounds and winter ones.
Or how raindeers are a bit more sensitive to change then sheep and cattle...
So the windmills where permitted.
And now they're making about 2% of all of our electricity on top of what used to be the last winter grazing grounds of a semi-nomadic indigenous people whose language and culture is dying.
Who still have living people who have experienced discriminatory laws.
And who have had a strained relationship with the Norwegian ethnicity for about 2 000 years, since the nordic bronze age, when we had metal tools and a warrior culture and they didn't...
Independence for the Sami doesn't really work since there's basically just two villages in their homeland where they make up the majority of the population.
Everywhere else they share the land with the Kven people, Norwegians and what's technically from a generic point of view Sami people but who have been assimilated into Norwegian culture and language.
Or basically the same thing but in Sweden, Finland and Russia with the ethnic groups *there*.
Essentially wherever our ancestors made it we took over the coastline and the little available agricultural land, assimilating their costal villages, while their culture really only survived in the mountains and highlands where we couldn't make a living.
Anyway, the Scandinavian environmental movement are allies with the Sami as both have a interest in preserving their homelands in their natural state.
Greta would of course like more windmills.
But as a environmentalist she wants a long term view to be taken when decisions are being made, including the long term consequences of building those windmills on Sami lands...
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First of all, the only oil money that the goverment is currently using is 4% of the wealth fund (a wealth fund that for the most part has a interest of about 5%) and we've reduced the amount of money from the wealth fund that we're using in our economy because 4% is starting to become too much for our economy to safely handle so we're approaching 3%.
Of course the oil industry still plays a important role through indirect industries, the ones that's supplying the oil industry.
There's a lot of jobs there.
But with that said, we still have both several other industries already existing and also the potential for several other ones.
While labour in Norway is generally expensive our highly skilled labour is not, in part due to our free education.
So while a Norwegian carpenter or McDonalds employee is paid significantly more then their counterparts in other countries, our engineers and doctors are actually paid less.
As a result we're actually a cheap place to do things like develop new processor designs, and my own city in Norway is the location where ARM develop their iGPU design for their phone processors.
We also produce expensive components for the space industry, including NASA.
We provide a lot of services, like communication with satelites in orbit near the poles.
We do research and development with regards to ship hull designs.
And so one and so forth.
We're above the European average when it comes to research spendings when you combine public and private investments in research.
Like Germany we also tend to have companies that specialize in certain products, attemting to become the best companies within their respective fields with few or no equivalent competitors rather then trying to branch out and seeking new opporturnites all the time like American companies usually do.
Basically we don't compete on price but in quality or in niches.
Also having large land areas with a low population means that we're still able to provide a decent amount of resources for both our domestic market and abroad.
These can compete on things like enviromentalism, causing less damage to the enviroment during extraction then competing products or in other ways being preferable, higher quality products, lower transportation distance and costs, etc...
On top of that of course we still have a certain amount of agriculture, while this mostly covers the domestic market it still exports some high value products to other markets too, think refined food, expensive and healthy, luxurious etc...
Then there's our water and air.
Both on land and sea.
We still have the hydropower that we've always had, this allows us to still keep industry that requires high amounts of power going.
We also sell electricity to the continent to among other nations Germany.
Our water also means that we can trade fish.
We have a sizable fishing industry.
But more important for our economy then that is our aquafarming.
We export more salmon then any other nation in the world by a long shot from our fish farms.
We also have a lot of wind that's still largly untapped potential for wind power.
That's believed to be likely to change in the comming years.
More energy would mean that we could for instance start exporting hydrogen to Germany where this could be used to produce electricity both in power plants as well as in cars, as well as be used for heating food and houses like natural gas used to be used.
Our fjords could also potentially be used to produce electricity from ocean currents since the water flows into the fjords during high tide and out during low tides.
And of course we still have a sizable merchant fleet even though there's a relatively low number of Norwegians actually working in said merchant fleet.
Usually we have a Norwegian captain and engineer while the rest of the crew is dominated by a usually mostly Filipino crew.
Still owned and operated by Norwegians.
And then there's the sovereign wealth fund itself.
We as a nation currently own about 1% of all stocks in the world through that fund.
And our economy is unable to absorb all of the money it generates in interests...
Meaning that it's likely to keep growing and growing and growing even without despotiging a single more dollar in income from anything, oil or otherwise.
Unless that changes it'll eventually grow to a size big enough to essentially make it possible to fund the whole nation 100% on that money, at that point the rest of our industry is technically not needed anymore, although I doubt that we'd ever want that.
If anything I suspect that we'd just make a deal with neighbouring nations like Sweden and Denmark to help keep the fund under controll by extracting money from it while we continue to try to diversify our economy.
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@tanderson6442 Yes, you are.
Non-citizens can vote here in Norway in local and regional elections.
Indeed I'm making use of that very law myself as a non-citizen (Born and raised here, just never had a need to apply for citizenship).
Granted, I'm from a fellow nordic nation, but the law applies just fine to you Americans too.
You need to be a registered resident with a residence permit and live here for 3 years.
Quite a few people actually end up voting in my home city after being a exchange student here since we until recently had free (token fee of like 30 dollars pr year) university education for non-citizens, including Americans.
(Books, excursion expenses, materials, living expenses etc was not included or covered and you had to prove the ability to finance that in some way, like a grant, scholarship etc before getting resident permit here).
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Hum, perhaps a tiny bit off topic but I agree that pretty much all theories used by theoretical scientists have some flaws...
But honestly that's mostly due to the fact that it's pretty close to impossible to prove anything beyond doubt forcing us to make at least some assumptions that is treated as axioms, some that might not necessarily be true.
That said, the theories currently in use seems to work fairly well as tools to make predictions about the world, even if we can't know for sure that they actually reflect the reality of the world outside us.
(For the record, I'm talking about epistomology here, where things like causality to be quite frank have yet to be proven beyond doubt as far as I'm aware, that said, assuming that these things are true is a pretty damned good approximation. And yes, it's a field of philosophy that can easily make a physicist start shaking their head, and I kind of can see why...)
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+Fernando Salazar You can make it faster in terms of bandwidth.
But you can't change physics.
The further away from the CPU that the memory is the longer the signal has to travel, and even at light speed that distance will take time.
Enough time for the CPU to finish its task, stop, and wait on the data needed to continue.
And on top of the distance to the PCI-e lanes you also get issues with overhead with translating the signals from raw data into something that is actually compatible with the PCI-e protocols.
Trust me, PCI-e isn't the right solution for actual memory, use it for the much slower NVMe storage solutions like say Optane from Intel, it might be lightning fast compared to regular NVMe SSDs but it's still way slower then memory and will always be.
Anyway, if you really need that much memory you're better off waiting for Naples, there you can get about 2 TB of memory in a single system if you really need that much...
But it's still 2x8 channel DDR4 @2400 MHz max.
Anyway, the only way to make PCI-e faster then memory would be if they found some way to change the laws of physics, it simply won't happen in our universe.
As for lower powered CPUs...
Seriously, even a 500 MHz CPU would benefit from proper memory instead of the overhead of going through PCI-e.
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Henrik Österberg Yeah, tell me all about it... -_-
I wish I could get t hem upgraded myself, but unfortunately most of the grid is inside concrete and furthermore I'm in a 6 floor building where I don't actually own anything outside my apartment meaning that I can't make changes there without permission from the governing board.
I'm willing to save for a UPS.
Also, trust me, I'm not going to touch anything myself there...
Like I said, I'm not allowed to do anything since the fusees themselves are located outside my property.
Anyway, I live in a former hotel that has been converted into apartments.
So the system isn't half bad actually and it can deliver fairly high peak power as long as the others are keeping their own spending low.
The issue is just when they're peaking their own usage too...
We use electric cooking stoves here in Norway.
Add the washing machine, fridge, oven, boiler, hot water tank for the shower, vacuum cleaner, computer, lights, a TV (something they have but I don't), various other audio-visual equipment like loudspeakers...
And then add all the small gadgets like cellphones and laptops left to charge...
It all adds up...
So if one of us leaves things on using quite a bit of power and then say go to work, then if another one of us peak our usage at the same time as the third one does...
We got an issue...
So it's not a set power limit pr say, but we try to keep within a range each of us with our whole apartment to reduce the likelihood of issues and make agreements about when we can go over that limit.
One thing that's kind of neat is that my PSU is high end enough that it's way more efficient when I'm using about as much power as I can with my system then when it's using little power, heck it's overkill.
1200 W platinum.
Oh, I forgot, we use electric heating too...
I actually use my computer to help heat my apartment since I got a window with a draft... -_-
Anyway, I'm planing to upgrade from my current FX 8350 to Zen next year (moving me from up to about 200 W when the 8350 is OCed to 95 W stock on the eight core Zen according to the rumors)
If the water cooling setup also saves a bit of power and if I also cut power usage in other parts of my apartment I might get away with another GPU I think...
But I can probably just forget about OCing...
Anyway, thanks for your advices. =)
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*****
Also, the iGPU can be used to render individual objects on the screen du to DX12s support for asymmetric rendering.
And, no why the heck do you think it'll cause flickering?
Only a poor implementation would do that.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9307/the-kaveri-refresh-godavari-review-testing-amds-a10-7870k
"The example we were given (which I have seen in the flesh) is with the Oxide Games/Stardock upcoming title Ashes of the Singularity. I spoke extensively to Dan Baker of Oxide Games and he states that the concept is relatively simple making it easier for programmers to dive in, and implementing it into their engine for the game took some time but they found a substantial benefit. Ashes of the Singularity is designed to be a more classical type of RTS based in the future, with plenty of units on hand as well as scenery and effects needing to be rendered. In the screenshot above, the red and blue colored items represent the different items that are rendered and the color shows which graphics in the system supplied the processing power. In this case the APU took care of the red units, while the discrete GPU did the scenery and a good portion of the effects. In the demo I was at, enabling the APU in this circumstance gave a 10% performance increase in a heavy 30 FPS scene to 33 FPS. It doesn’t sound like much, but any opportunity to use more of the system that the user has paid for is always a bonus. I asked regarding multiple discrete cards, such as dual R9 290Xs, and he said it wasn’t a problem by the way they had built their engine." -- quoted from Anantech
And the same applies to Vulkan titles by the way.
So, sure another dGPU might help performance, but that extra dGPU and the iGPU combined will give even more.
And yes, you're right you have to code for it, so we're not going to get the benefits in all games coming out in the next couple of years, but some will.
Ashes being one of them.
With time game engines will start to include added support for the feature and some games made with those engines will get this feature enabled.
The frequency of games where it's a useful feature will probably gradually increase over the next few years.
Now, another benefit of the AMD iGPU is that from carrizo and onwards it can actually be used to take over some CPU tasks if you've compiled the code in a HSA compatible compiler.
Anyway, I need to get some sleep.
So, we'll talk later. =)
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1:37
A AMD Ryzen video with a Intel motherboard ad in the middle...
Don't get me wrong, I know you're not colored by that.
But still, that add made me cringe given the current situation... -_-
Alright, just watched the whole video.
Yeah, great video, hopefully more people keep calm and think clearly like that.
As for the smoothness vs fps thing.
Yeah, that's kind of Ryzens strength and weakness all in one.
Ryzen struggles with the really high frame rates regardless of game, but it tends to be amazingly smooth with way higher mins, 1% lows, 0.1% lows and so one then Intel in a ton of games although it is very sensitive to what workload you're running right now.
I do argue that 1440p tests in more CPU demanding games should be done though because even though that does cause situations where the CPUs end up waiting on the GPU (making it a GPU bottleneck) that's not the case 100% of the time in those games (if they're CPU demanding enough) so it allows Ryzen to showcase its smoothness and total throughput capabilities better (even though the total CPU workload might be lower at higher resolutions the workload pr frame for the CPU is often actually higher so Ryzen can stretch its legs a bit more in that regard)
It just can't finish the individual tasks quite as fast as Intels 7700k, but it doesn't need to in order to give a good gaming experience, in fact at 1440p and up I think it'll give you a better gaming experience then the 7700k even if the max and average fps might at times be a bit lower because of that smoothness you noted.
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+Viidakonyka98
That's debatable...
There's a reason why it fell in the first place.
Ok, granted the following is a simplification and there's a ton more stuff involved, but still.
For a start Sweden was and is more focused towards mainland Europe, they've always been more continental then the rest of us, that's part of why they ended up in the EU while Norway didn't.
Norway on the other hand has always been both more insular and more focused towards the sea, the later of those two things where also true for Denmark.
A result of that is that we've always been striving towards maintaining good relations with whoever is the dominant power at sea, back then the UK, now the US (and that's a big part of why we're in NATO while Sweden isn't, and it's also why Denmark is a part of NATO, that and Denmark and Sweden could never agree on the terms for a Nordic defensive alliance back in the day)
Furthermore how the different countries are put together also impacts how they work.
Norway and Iceland are low population density coastal nations with unique challenges that more urbanized nations like Sweden and Denmark do not face.
In short, while I do believe that we could benefit from some form of union, it would have to be a much looser union then the Kalmar union to remain stable, based on mutual cooperation of independent nations rather then a unified government.
Basically a strengthened version of the Nordic Council.
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Ace Of Blazes Right, Sweden is the "rape capital of the world"...
"In 2014, there were 6,700 rapes reported to the Swedish police — or 69 cases per 100,000 population — according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå), which is an 11 percent increase from the previous year. The number of convictions have remained relatively unchanged since 2005, with approximately 190 convictions on average each year.
There have been several international comparisons made, placing Sweden at the top end of the number of reported rapes. However, police procedures and legal definitions vary widely across countries, which makes it difficult to compare rape statistics. For example, Sweden reformed its sex crime legislation and made the legal definition of rape much wider in 2005, which largely explains a significant increase in the number of reported rapes in the ten-year period of 2004-2013. The Swedish police also record each instance of sexual violence in every case separately, leading to an inflated number of cases compared to other countries. Additionally, the Swedish police have improved the handling of rape cases, in an effort to increase the number of crimes reported.
Raised awareness and a shifting attitude of crimes against women in Sweden, which has been ranked as the number one country ingender equality may also explain the relatively high rates of reported rape."
Or in other words, you get the exact same rapes in the US, Canada, or any other western nation they just don't show in the statistics...
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philster611
I do live in Norway and despite that I hope he does get rehabilitated and perhaps even let out one day (although I fully understand if he isn't).
And yes, the bit about paedophiles is just my point.
We do not punish "thought crimes" for a reason.
Every single one of us have had one at least once in our lifetime. (The desire to do something that's wrong, kill someone, rape someone, steal, something or something else) If you believe that you haven't it's just because you either don't remember it or haven't had it yet (but you will some day).
There's actually plenty of people out there that are paedophile but still ends up never committing a crime throughout their entire lifetime.
Being a paedophile in it self (that is having the attraction to minors) isn't a crime, it's acting on those urges that's illegal.
(And I'd encourage any paedophiles reading this to please find other outlets like say role-playing with an adult instead)
So all things considered, yes I do feel bad about what happened and that he was Norwegian, but at least he was Norwegian so we escaped the witch hunt on people that's different that other nations at times have suffered from in the case of terrorist attacks, this attack actually brought us together and lead to something positive despite all the misery.
It helped us stand together around the values we really care about, and do some relatively speaking constructive reforms in areas like dealing with mental health and emergency response.
Things could have been so much worse for us as a society even if it of course can't possibly be worse for any of the victims.
So all things considered, when you consider that every society on earth will have it's own share of both social and natural disasters I'm glad that the one we did after all didn't do any more permanent harm and even did a tiny bit of good despite Breviks intentions.
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The Crusader
"Well that's exactly the problem, Norwegians don't believe in violence, but parts of the immigrants who get in here do - and this is already one of the very basic cultural differences between the Western world and the one in the middle east. There are too many cultural clashes that simply do not work."
Part of the immigrants do, but so does part of the native Norwegians.The difference in ration between those who believe in violence among immigrants and refugees and those that's local isn't all that great. And in the end we ended up being attacked by a local and not a immigrant, that should speak volumes.
Also, the increased tendency of violence and criminality in immigrant populations around the world compared to the native population has historically been directly proportionate with their equality or lack there of with the locals. Not with their religion or (in any significant way) their culture. The onus is on us not them to ensure peaceful relations.
Has you ever tried imagining how you'd feel if you where from another country then the one you lived in and suddenly had to deal with a new culture, new values, racism, trying to start a new life with no local connections, no friends to speak of, no familiarity with the social codes, people who often are reluctant to give you a job, language problems that makes everything way harder to do including studying and so one and so forth.
Despite that you'll often see that cities with a high immigrant population are quite successful in many ways, often boasting a heightened level of innovation compared to the population overall for instance. (measured in the rate of new patents pr 100 000 people I believe it was)
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Excuse me but +VintageLJ, +You'reInMySpot and +Certified Fresh Memes but what are you guys smoking?
Of course most of those fleeing are refugees.
Regarding economic migrants it's a case of being left to starve to death or being raped in countries around the war zone that "accept the refugees in" or continuing fleeing to Europe and the US.
And regarding number 3 you really think that the problem is the refugees and not the nation they're entering when they're not being integrated?
As for Americans being well educated?
Jeez...
I'd hire an average Syrian over an average American any day.
The Syrians where well educated before the war while the American education system has been decaying for years with only the upper class private schools still holding decent standards.
Also, don't fool yourself, a whole continent fleeing, Europe would shut our borders, simply because we wouldn't be able to cope with that kind of numbers, just look at what happened with Syria, and that's just a single fairly small country with a well educated and generally fairly moderate population.
As for the current situation with ISIS over there, that was honestly caused by us in the west, and not by Syria somehow being all that religious to begin with...
And Certified Fresh Memes, seriously, look at the states...
You think they don't have plenty of local terrorists?
Mindsets that puts ISIS to shame is already well represented there, the only thing keeping the US from blowing up like a barrel of gunpowder is that their economic and political stability hasn't gone down enough to trigger a civil war yet leaving just individuals who ain't cooperating too much doing relatively minor things like school shootings...
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You claim that this is not a political channel, well, you made political statements in this video even if you might not have tried to do so.
The idea that the American gun culture is "healthy" is political.
(Heck, even talking about being "pleasantly surprised" by the ease that you could acquire the weapons and ammunition would probably ruffle some feathers, mine included)
As for your personal experiences in this case...
Let's just say that your comments in this video alone has already shown that you and others, myself included would probably evaluate many of those experiences very differently...
Anyway, enough about that, politics aside I'm glad that the two of you had a good experience in general with those weapons.
And yes, like others, I'm impressed by how well she handled the recoil, not to mention her aim.
Hitting spot on with the first shot was amazing.
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2:56
That's false.
First of all, baseload powerplants are extremely problematic for modern power grids where renewable energy is available both to the grid directly and to consumers, where consumers have access to batteries and where advanced power monitoring and price monitoring allows them to adjust their usage patterns on the fly.
Basically both the consumption and production is no longer predictable enough for the power paradigm that the idea of base loads was created for.
Instead gas powerplants where intended to be used to smooth out the curves because unlike nuclear power plants or coal ones etc a gas powerplant can spin up and down again pretty fast.
Among renewables the only power source with that flexibility is hydropower.
The idea was that natural gas could be used for now then later excessive power could be turned into hydrogen and burned in the gas plants allowing for some reuse of them, as well as energy independence, since they still could use natural gas if hydrogen is too expensive, but you could also switch whenever, for instance when Russia shits of the pipes.
Giving countries like Germany options.
The exact energy mix could therefore be regulated with say taxation, increasing or decreasing taxes on CO2 emissions for the power generation while also adding subsidies for hydrogen if needed to keep them in the market.
If electricity prices are low hydrogen can be made, if they're medium it can be stored, and if high it can be sold and burned.
That's the basic idea.
Nuclear just isn't that flexible, and would discourage building of renewables, because it just can't be turned off if the prices are low, instead both the nuclear power plant and the renewables ends up running at a loss.
Indeed these days power prices can occasionally dip into the negatives, power providers will literally pay other companies or consumers for using power to offload some from the grid to help stabilizing it.
It's a rare occurrence and hasn't happened on all grids.
But it does happen on some occasionally.
And there's companies specializing on just burning excess power like that by running it through resistors etc.
(Although the plan long term is for hydrogen production to take over that role)
Also, extending the networks and improving its capacity also helps it stabilizing.
For instance power production in continental Europe, Scandinavia and North Africa will be high at different times, and trade between them can smoothen out the prices significantly if the grid is built out to make use of those resources.
Here in Norway the energy prices in the north has been low lately while they where high in the south, why?
Because the south was connected to the European grid and sold power there, while our grid isn't built out enough to smooth that out with northern power.
Indeed we where selling power to the swedes in northern Norway cheaply only to buy more expensive power back in the south, because their grid was better at transporting power in a north-south direction, allowing them to make a killing at selling our own power back to us.
If we build out our grids more we'd easily be able to provide our own needs with excess to sell to the continent (some of the excess was sold to Sweden and used by them, and some sold on southwards to the rest of the EU, or rather, our power on the Swedish grid kept Swedish power cheaper then continental power allowing sale of power there, so technically it wasn't our power directly going to the continent but rather Swedish produced power being sold because their own needs could be covered by our Norwegian power from the north).
Similar situations are found in the south.
Morocco has an excess of energy, but not enough markets, neither for their current production nor to justify more utilization of their renewable energy potential.
More cables everywhere would allow a much smoother renewable power price and availability curve, reducing the need for gas/hydrogen.
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@demoniack81 You're making several assumptions there that's just wrong.
The process of getting a nuclear power plant up and running involves a lot more than just building the plant itself.
You need a mine that's mining the fuel itself (unlike nuclear power plants these can't be made safe for the surrounding environment and the people there, so they've been closed down rapidly with the fall in demand and increasing hostility towards them, so supply isn't what it was in the eighties.
Even if you get a mine willing to sell to you there's the issue of transporting fuel into and waste out from the plant from the mine and to the disposal site.
That's a logistical nightmare that takes years to set up in a democracy because people there have a right to be involved in the process of what happens near them.
Then there's the complete lack of people willing to invest in or insure nuclear power plants.
As it turns out that when you factor in the costs of dealing with the waste products and decommissioning a nuclear power plant isn't profitable anymore as these easily outstrip the income generated in its lifetime, because nuclear waste while technically does become safe one day in practical terms never does so and remains a permanent cost from the day of their creation, long after the plant has shut down and no longer generate power.
In the eighties it was possible to get fuel and store waste and get financing where these concerns didn't need to be factored in as costs, in today's world companies and goverments are held responsible and that kind of behavior is no longer possible.
Getting past all of that and setting it all up as well as just training the engineers needed and qualified to run a power plant safely takes time.
The ones that used to run them have retired.
And while the fifties where seen as the age of nuclear power when a lot of people studied the field there's a shortage of qualified engineers now.
Training people in the field takes time.
Time we don't have.
Technically we're already too late to avoid irreparably damaging our planet and causing huge amounts of suffering.
It takes time for the damage we've already caused to move through the system of our Earth climate and even if we produced 0 new CO2 and even started removing was one from the atmosphere the effects of climate change would continue to get worse for many years to come, especially when you factor in feedback loops and Earth running out of one of the major stabilizing factors that held climate change from impacting us much in the nineties (the sea floor used to be full of alkaline substances that helped neutralize some of the acidity then, that's practically all gone now).
So, no, we don't have time for this.
Also the very concept of a base load that traditional power grids built on is a problem for renewables.
And sure, you can disconnect a powerplant from the grid, but all that does is making them even more uneconomical.
And they still need power for the cooling etc.
And nuclear fuel being radioactive can't just sit there unused without degrading in quality.
So nuclear power ends up always being a base power that other sources has to come on top off.
Works great with coal, gas etc that can be turned on and off as needed.
Works poorly with renewables that needs a system where power is distributed over much larger areas from much larger areas, where customers themselves will produce power at times completely and utterly outside the control of the electricity companies destroying the very concept of base load, where power production will exceed what's needed but actually be stored for sale when prices are higher (something that requires them to sometimes *get higher) again a base load is problematic.
And if you have the energy production of a powerplant it ensures a constant amount of power in the market that discourages investment in other power generation at a industrial scale (customers will still do it) meaning that power prices will be too low for building of large scale renewable power, and continued CO2 production from nuclear fuel mines, fuel and waste transportation etc.
All of this ignores nuclear accidents, terrorism, wars faught on ground powered by nuclear power like Ukraine right now.
Russian forces only recently retreated from around Chernobyl, and when they took the Chernobyland other nuclear sites they where shelling them.
You can't build a nuclear power plant immune to the ingenuity of humans that wants to cause damage.
They can be as smart or smarter then the engineers and others that got the powerplant and the surrounding systems (fuel mining and refining, waste management, transportation, security etc) up and running to begin with.
And there's always people who don't care about the suffering of others.
Putin being a example here...
Basically, we don't live in the eighties anymore.
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@jaicotterill5226 Genetics isn't a tree going from a root to a branch, it's way more complicated then that.
Modern humans and several other species left a mark in the genetic makeup of neanderthals and several of the other species, and they left a mark in our genes several times over.
Modern Europeans are made up of multiple different migration waves too.
We have mixed every single year since before humans even arrived in Europe till today.
There hasn't been a single year since then that we didn't mix.
And that's a good thing, and a part of the reason why when the Americas was discovered we survived the American diseases, they often didn't survive ours.
Covid-19 is just another example of why it's vital to keep mixing and introducing mee genetic material to the mix.
Evolution mainly operate on gene segments, not whole individuals.
The exact combination of genes that makes up me will never happen again, and that's a good thing.
But the parts of me that's good will eventually spread, just like the good parts of you, and my Asian and African and American exes etc.
And sure, 90% of what made me, me might be gone, but the parts actually worth keeping will stay, and they will fo so because of the help they'll get from other genes and ideas from around the world.
Otherwise my legacy will die out.
The whole idea about people being "pure blood" or some such nonsense only leads to inbreeding.
My mum and dad are already related at least twice.
Mixing is a good thing.
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There's a lot of mistakes in this video.
For instance Finland does not have a northern coast and Russia actually borders Norway there, their coastline therefore doesn't reach the border of Finland.
"Swiss"isn't a nation but something coming from the nation of Switzerland.
It's similar to how India isn't named Indian but its people and objects originating there are Indian, and the country of China isn't named Chinese, its people is.
Iceland actually has one island north of the Arctic circle (although the circle is moving away from Iceland so that won't last long)
There's also a few other factors to consider, you don't have to go east from Asia to Europe, west is also a option, through American, Canadian and Danish waters.
Russia just has more infrastructure along their coast.
Another consideration is that the climate is changing fast in the area.
So faster and more direct routes that isn't hugging the coast of either side is slowly becoming available.
Sure, ice breakers are useful, but the first passing of ships through the northwest passage without ice breakers by ships not especially reinforced to handle sea ice has already occurred.
They heavily depends on weather and sea conditions though.
They're definitely leading when it comes to carbohydrates though...
Those are mostly in their territorial waters...
17:44
Ugh no, Finland is not a NATO member, Russia always rattle their sabers whenever a border country or sphere country suggest joining some kind of alliances with USA or Europe.
Finland like Sweden remains unaligned at least officially.
Obviously their interests align more with the west so there is military and security cooperation...
24:00
Not exactly...
We don't really blame Russia for climate change...
Spilling nuclear pollution into the Arctic sea, and being the most local source of pollution including heavy metals and acidic rain over nordic territories is a different matter.
And while Russia is a member of the París agreement it's not like their efforts so far has been spectacular...
China at least is making an effort producing more solar cells then any other country in the world.
Likewise while the US at a federal level under Trump has been quite horrible with regards to the environment the individual states there has made quite big changes.
And we're trying to make an impact that matters, for instance pointing out to a certain orange that his country is having a trade surplus with Norway in the sale of electric cars and that things like that actually is a benefit when it comes to issues like talking about the environment...
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Why would anyone want to live somewhere with a low cost of living?
A low cost of living usually indicates underlying issues like low wages, poverty, crime, lack of public oversight (lack of food inspection, control of buildings being constructed, etc), or other hidden expenses like high vat in places with low income tax...
On the whole low cost of living is just a bad sign.
And why would people care about the job they're doing if they're not being paid fairly for their services?
No, I prefer living in a high cost of living country...
My GF is american, and I'm kind of shocked to hear about the work ethics there, going to work sick, infecting co-workers and customers both, people being exhausted at work doing a poor job, jobs designed around excessive customer service from the point of view of the company only leading to stressed workers unable to offer good customer service and entitled customers giving the workers a bad time while they're also being underpaid leading to everyone having a bad experience.
Kids having a poor upbringing because their parents have to work way too much to stay afloat to truly be there for their children and being in a unhealthy mental state themselves because they're being overworked, something that's not exactly helped matters for their children...
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@seemymobot4987 Democracy means accepting it when people you dissagree with are in power when they win, and then try to win again the next time.
My political party didn't get their first seat in the parliament till the parliamentary election before the last time.
They got one seat then.
Now we got three seats.
Next time we should get 5, although anything between 2 and 9 is possible depending on how much of the target demographics choose to vite for the party. (There's other political parties with credibility on individual political topics we fight for like the environment, so if we want more voters we'll have to get them from other parties.
If we get all the interested voters to vote for our party that's 9 out of the 169 seats going to us. But 5 is more realistic, most of those voters are open to vote for us, but are still more loyal to other parties.
Anyway, most of the smaller parties genuinely do want to help poorer nations, they just dissagree on exactly how.
From developmental aid on one side to reduced tarrifs, taxes and regulation on other sides to cracking down on exploitation in other ends again etc, etc...
In my case it's about the environment so less world trade in general is desired with a more circular economy relying less on import from and export to other countries far away from us, but also a desire to help those countries doing well themselves without us etc...
I live in a oil producing country, so more money invested into building up renewable energy production in third world nations is desired by my party as a example.
Yes, like I said, lower GDP isn't desired for the benefit of third world countries pr say, it's more that from my partys point of view western GDP has to go down somewhat while third world countries still has potential for growth that isn't harmful to the planet.
As for giving a damn...
Depends.
There's people who do and some that don't.
And some in between that cares a bit but not enough to make major changes.
And people care about different aspects too for instance.
In my case I buy fair trade vegan food etc, but I'm not going to go down there with a gun in hand or revolt in my own country in order to make any changes...
And I still spend far more time trying to put food on my own table then I do at making changes for others...
Also, changes and changes are two different things.
In my partys case it'll oppose a third world country trying to build a coal power plant or cutting down trees etc, regardless of if that has a positive or negative impact in their citizens or not in the end, because that's our values.
But they'll help in environmentally sound ways.
Also, given that we border Russia we're not going to piss off the Americans in order to change the world order...
We still need them...
And fighting imperialism at all cost isn't the partys goal, just making gradual changes within the limitations they have to work with in the right direction.
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Hum...
How I'd reform it would be to not ban such ships.
But rather do something like if a mode of transportation to, from or between American locations isn't crewed by no less then 75% American or American allied citizens, of which at least 50% must be American citizens you have to pay 5% extra tax on the transportation cost.
If the ship (or other mode of transportation) isn't 75% owned by Americans or American allied citizens, of which at least 50% has to be American citizens you have to pay 5% extra tax (so 10% extra so far), if the construction cost isn't made up of at least 75% cost going to American or American allied companies, at least 50% going to American companies there's another 5% (so 15% total so far), and if the transportation method isn't in the 25% lowest emitting category of all methods available for a route, including the emissions from construction divided up over the expected lifetime of a mode of transportation) there's another 5%, for a total of 20% tax.
So if you drive a Mexican built truck owned by a Canadian and driven by a Mexican and it's pouring out CO2 you'll pay 20% tax, if you drive a Tesla truck with a American driver and owned by a company with two American, one Canadian and one Russian owner you get 0% tax, likewise if the company owns 4 Teslas and have one Chinese, two American and one European driver.
As a example.
Or equally with planes, ships etc.
Of course you'd probably have to negotiate a lot with other countries to find something everyone are okay with.
But that would be the starting point for me at least.
It would encourage a demand for American jobs and companies, it would encourage greener transportation methods and it would encourage American ownership of the businesses in question (the company producing the vehicle would have to have at least 50% American workers and owners etc to qualify with no more then 25% being from countries not America or allied to America)
This kind of protectionist law would provide a strong incentive, but would still have safety valves for the economy to handle a demand that can't be meet internally for whatever reason.
If no ships, crews or owners from America is available and all you have I'd a polluting Russian or Chinese or whatever cargo ship is all you have available, you can use it, you'll just have to pay the extra taxes.
And each potential tax can be avoided separately without interfering with the others.
So you could have American crew on a Korean ship, saving you the 5% of the crew part, or a Philippino crew on a American built ship etc.
It offers flexibility for different companies to find different strategies.
And since you don't demand 100% American crew or ship etc you can be competitive with a mixed crew.
So say bridge crew and engineers being American while others are not etc.
Leading to more ships using a partially American crew to begin with.
Individual taxes can be raised or lowered and the amount needed adjusted to make the relative competitiveness better.
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@changedmynamebcyallwouldnt.. What exactly do you mean?
As for party affiliation...
I actually want a conservative prime minister here in Norway.
But you're right about me landing in the liberitarian left part of the political compass.
No, working for a job isn't slavery.
But my US GF has to work way more hours then me for way less money in a McDonalds...
And is treated like dirt.
And is barely able to pay her bills...
And considering that she's among the lucky ones on a global scale...
There's a balance that needs to be struck.
People with wealth and companies need reliability and consistency.
And the right is correct about the need to simplify laws and regulations.
But you also need workers rights, and a government that truly oversee the economy.
My currently preferred party is open to work with both sides of the political spectrum, and while my values are on the left end side of said party I actually argue for the right end pragmatic position within said party and oppose those within it that wants to align with the left only.
Both for tactical reasons, but also because our main goal is on a different axis then the two of the compass. (I vote for the Norwegian Green Party, it's not anywhere near what say the British one is, and I'd say I belong to the "realos" faction of our party, if I'm to borrow a term for the German green party factions that is, German green party factions don't correspond exactly 1:1 with ours).
And honestly, like I said, there are right wing solutions to problems that also works.
And left wing ones that doesn't.
So yes, while you're right about my ideals being left leaning I'd like to consider myself a pragmatist.
And I can find common grounds with every single party in our parliament.
Unlike most green party members that even include our "progress party".
So in that regard I'm a centrist.
Of course living in Norway and having our values means that my values and ideal world of course align more with Bernie Sanders or Jill Steins then either of the two major parties in the US...
But honestly in the US I'd probably vote for the biggest third party candidate or independent representative that supports electoral reform regardless of party affiliation otherwise.
As I see the first past the post electoral system as the biggest hurdle for the anglophone world.
So much so that I'd otherwise would vote against my ideals in that regard.
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I'm really looking forward to the next generation of LG 3440x1440p monitors.
My wish list is AdobeRGB support (in other words more then the colours of 100% sRGB support, not just 100% or 99% sRGB or some such but something like 99% AdobeRGB ideally, the reviewed monitor up there isn't really cutting it for me in that regard), Freesync with low framerate compensation support (I'm ok with a low refresh rate, I'd prefer 70 or 80 frames pr second on as a max with freesync enabled but I'd be ok with less as long as it got a low enough min fps to allow the drivers to use low frame rate compensation), for latency I'd probably be happy with the above monitor.
HDR10 support (so yeah, a 10 bit monitor would be great, although I'm not completely set against FRC).
3440 x 1440 resolution since that's the best mix of screen space and actually achievable graphics performance (that said, I might delay upgrading to 3440x1440p till the graphics card prices drop a bit as I'd need a high end AMD card to drive such a monitor).
LGs amazing calibration...
Vesa support...
Ideally a stand that allow me to still use some of my computer desk space and don't push the screen up into my face too much...
Good audio quality on the speakers would be a pluss, but isn't required.
A USB hub would also be nice.
And split monitor would be too, as I'd probably run it with both a Linux system and a Windows one.
All of that ideally in the 10 000 NOK price range (unfortunatly 10 000 NOK isn't what it used to be back when oil was expensive and we where exporting it at a premium, but that's essentially the amount of money I'm able to justify in my daily life)
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30:10
Not just France.
Europe in general is annoyed, not because Australia walked out of the deal, but because of how it was done. We wheren't even involved in the conversation.
The way it was done was election interference in France, it's harmful to Europes interests in the area when Australia and the US makes plans without including us as if we're a enemy just like China.
No one expects Europe to always get our way, but we do expect to be treated with respect, be kept in the loop and at least have our concerns heard out instead of literally being informed by the news about these huge geostrategic changes right before an election and literally on the same day as EUs plans for the region was announced.
Australia and the US intentionally humiliated the whole continent, not just France.
I'm not even in the EU, living in Norway, and even here we're annoyed with that.
Especially with the US because it is a part of a pattern of US behavior treating Europe increasingly as just any country out there instead of as the close ally we've been for ages.
And that particular deal undermined NATO.
The Ukraine war has partially patched up that particular side of that deal, but it's still going to be remember for a generation or two here in Europe.
30:22
Sure, that's great.
But it doesn't change that you potentially endangered our continent in the here and now with that deal by excluding Europe entirely.
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@unofficial4650 It's not really that bad in general.
But there's definitively geographic differences in that regard.
To evaluate how suitable a location is for immigrants look at their local election results.
In municipalities where FRP is strong you're absolutely right, racism is a big problem there.
(Doesn't mean that every FRP member is racist, but that's the party mainly prefered by racists).
Municipalities with strong supporty for FRP is likely to have more people that just don't want immigrants or refugees into the country at all, even if they're are a net positive for society.
Other immigration sceptic parties includes H and SP, but their anti-imigration policies is a much smaller part of their political platform so their popularity says way less about how people feel in the individual municipalities about immigration.
In municipalities where they dominate you'll find that people don't mind immigrants if they're a net positive impact on our society, but they want immigrants to integrate.
In the case of SP they see too much immigration as a threat to Norwegian values and would prefer immigrants and refugees to be as similar to other Norwegians as possible rather then maintaining their own cultural heritage.
In the case of H I'm not really qualified to say exactly what their immigration policy is and why, but as a left wing voter myself it seems to me that they're mainly going more immigration sceptic politically to not lose voters to mainly FRP although also SP, they don't seem like true believers in anti-immigration ideology as such, and mainly just wants immigrants to become (cheap) workers in Norwegian companies.
AP has also turned more immigration sceptic in recent years, but since they're further politically from FRP they're not really as threathened by the party, so they can afford to take a more pro-immigration stance then H does.
But they do want to keep immigration low enough to not threaten Norwegian wages and for the system to favour norwegian workers (think education in Norway or other nordic countries being the only valid and recognized education you can use without at least some local reeducation locally, your foreign education does matter, but you'll often have to add to it to qualify for Norwegian jobs)
SV, V, MDG, R and KrF are all pro-immigration, supporting both refugees and migrants.
Basically a good municipality to migrate into will most likely have a lot of AP voters (because they're just the biggest left wing political party in Norway and any municipality with a lot of SV, R or MDG voters is likely to also have a lot of AP voters) but more importantly for migrants, also a lot of V, SV and/or KrF voters.
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Sorry, but the US isn't the only significant actor here.
Europe might not have as much equipment stockpiled, but our military production capacity is slowly going up.
And if Trump decides to pull out Ukraine will suffer, but they won't be forced to any negotiation table by that, especially as European production slowly picks up what's missing.
Furthermore, from Europes point of view this is a existential threat, because Trump isn't seen as a reliable partner, and if he pulls out of Ukraine it'll weaken the faith in the NATO security guarantee.
And quite frankly, we don't want Putin to believe that getting a nut job elected in the US is all that's needed to get a carte blanche to invade Europe.
Russia might need some time to rebuild after this war, but the reality is that they could still overwhelm many NATO countries, and NATO actually acting isn't a certainty anymore...
So the US pulling out or not, Europe certainly won't.
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5:10
The main point with the F16 is not its air to air capabilities, although the added radar range definitely helps.
The main benefit of the F16 is that it's capable of carrying and shooting the long range missiles being donated to Ukraine.
They already have a few Soviet planes capable of firing them, but their number is extremely limited, and they're not getting any spare parts, and they're getting a lot of flight hours on those hulls...
So they're going to fail soon, and once they do...
Well, Ukraine will need a replacement.
And for the time being, that's the F16.
5:48
They're getting the best missiles that certain European countries are allowed to give away.
Unfortunately there's restrictions on sales/donations due to the agreements made upon purchase...
So a lot of stuff can't be given away even if a country has these things and wants to give it away...
7:12
Well, yes and no...
Europe is slowly getting into a better position to donate more, but the US political climate means that US aid is unreliable in the long run.
8:08
The long term objective is to outlast the Russian political endurance.
While the costs of maintaining the war is high it's more so for Russia and if this keeps going they're going to run out of Soviet stockpiles, they're going to run out of the goodwill of the population with increased discontent being shown, possibly leading to a untenable situation for Putin long term.
He's going to be forced to sue for peace eventually.
And it would be a nice feather in the cap for the US and NATO to show that it can indeed outlast a opponent in terms of political will if something matters enough for us.
Pulling out from Afganistan, Iraq, Víetnam and so one and so forth, staying power is clearly a achilles heel for the US and the west.
But Ukraine is a relatively speaking cheap way to draw a line in the sand and show long term commitment to a cause in order to actually win not just on shock and awe, but endurance too.
If we can outlast Russia, even if it does end up with a diplomatic compromise it would still strengthen the credibility of NATO and US allies around the world, potentially discouraging China from behaviour that might lead to a war with the US.
And a war with China is definitely more expensive then a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
11:11
Hopefully Sweden will be able to provide a few Gripen now that they're joining NATO.
They're designed to do that too, and might be able to operate from forward positions where they hopefully can cut off some attacks against the F16s bases.
But yeah this is definitely going to be a issue...
13:23
Yep, pretty much...
But there's always going to be a quantity problem with the Gripen...
Still, a few in forward positions flown by elite pilots could take some of the heat away from the F16s operating as far away from the Russian border as possible.
And honestly if the war drags on I suspect that Gripen hulls will survive longer in Ukraine then F16s providing support for longer.
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Oh my goodness, no.
Single seat constituencies of any kind is harmful.
And so is presidencies.
Basically when you have a single candidate or party in charge with just 1 more vote then the second highest party or candidate you end up with a tyranny of the majority, a alternative that may be the worst candidate or party for the majority of the electorate, yet end up with 100% of the power or influence.
It's just bad due to things like the spoiler effect etc.
No, instead of a "Spitzenkandidat"a parliamentarian approach is far preferable.
Don't pick a candidate picked by the party with the most votes or a candidate with the most votes from the electorate, but instead one that gets a majority of the votes from the legeslative branch, as the politicans from smaller parties there can then negotiate concessions or choose a less controversial leader.
So if the biggest partys doesn't get a majority in the legeslature the second biggest party might get that, but perhaps their candidate is a jerk, but they have another politican that most of the other parties can live with, a moderate, good at making compromises, that person may then be head of state or goverment or both, depending on the needs of the EU.
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@Bln-f9u The German electoral system is unfair towards smaller political parties.
Is there any parties that campaign for a electoral reform?
Here in Norway the smallest party represented in our 169 seat parliament had 0,2% of the national vote.
All of our seats are proportional.
We have 19 regional electoral seats and 150 of our 169 seats are distributed among these 19 seats based on both population and land area.
There's no lower limit to how many votes you need to get one of these seats, hence a seat with just 0,2% of the votes.
The remaining 19 seats are given based on how many seats a party should have gotten at a national level, including the ones they got from the regions, but has a threshold of 4%
My own party MDG in Norway ended up with 3 seats because we got 3,9% of the votes, if we had 4% exactly we would have had 7 seats, 3 from individual electoral circles, and 4 leveling seats.
The communists (Rødt) got 8 seats, up from just 1 last election.
We have 10 political parties represented in our parliament despite having fewer seats in our parliament then Germany does and despite having a far smaller population.
3 left wing, 4 centrist and 2 right wing parties + a new party that I'm honestly not sure about (that 0,2% party).
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@JaIch9999 Perhaps the wrong conclusions where drawn?
The ideal is to maximize the number of real options that people have.
Back then you had few big parties because the electorate was too fractured among many tiny parties.
Now there's few big parties because the electoral system unfairly favors the biggest ones.
In both cases you end up with the same exact issue, too few real options.
Back then people had no idea about what exact small party to vote for to have a real shot at making any change if they didn't favor one of the big parties.
And there was no incentive towards merging parties or strategically voting for a party that's not a exact fit with your own beliefs if non of the big parties where appealing, otherwise all the incentive ended up being towards the big ones that had a real shot at power.
Now you're locking people into few big parties again but with different mechanisms.
The country I live in, Norway also have incentives towards merging parties like Germany does.
But it's still proportional at every level.
And there's no lower limit to how many voters a party needs to get represented.
The way that's achieved is that instead of the German single representative first past the post electoral circles we have 19 proportional electoral circles, 150 of our 169 seats are distributed among these circles, then people are appointed to them proportionally based on the popularity of the various party lists, people can be in more then one list, and lists can be modified, reordering people.
But there are limitations on both of these things.
The remaining 19 seats are then distributed at a national level in the same way that the German proportional seats are distributed, after accounting for the first past the post seats.
There's no lower limit for the number of votes needed to get a seat in the individual electoral circle.
But to qualify for the remaining 19 seats elected at a national level your party needs at least 4% of the national vote.
So the difference between 3,9% of the vote and 4% of the vote can be 2-3 seats for the lower percentage and 7-8 seats for the higher percentage.
So two parties with 1% or 2% of the vote has a incentive to merge if their values are similar enough, but they don't have to in order to get represented in our parliament.
In this last election a party made it into our parliament with just 0,2% of the national votes from the electoral circle with the most seats pr voter in the country, on a platform of fighting for a local hospital.
So we get that local representation just like Germany does with the first past the post system.
Yet, every single representative in our parliament was voted in proportionally and the seat allocation within the electoral circles was as close to the real proportions as possible, not favoring the bigger parties at all.
Those 19 seats only corrects the difference between the individual electoral circles and the national vote, so that's also 100% proportional.
So our only arguably non-proportional rule is that 4% rule, but it actually serves to empower our smaller parties, motivating people to vote for them.
And the bigger parties to work with them.
As a result we have 10 political parties in our parliament this election (that 0,2% party got representation at a national level for the first time ever this year).
Our electoral system isn't perfect.
But it encourages cooperation.
It gives each political party more room for maneuvering with regards to each other, more so then in the German system where the parties are essentially both locked into having to cooperate with parties that does not share their values when running the country.
Our system does encourage the formation of minority governments.
I actually consider that a strength, since it leads to a more dynamic legislative branch where the opinions of the voters are more closely reflected in the laws since parties will cooperate on a case by case basis when forming laws all the time, meaning that it's the majority for the individual proposed law that matters rather then what combinations of of parties makes up a majority at a single point.
Yes, it does mean that we often change cabinets a bit more then once pr election.
But I don't think of that as a weakness.
We don't do snap elections.
If a cabinet falls it can only do so if another alternative is ready to be presented.
As for predictability, you know the election result in terms of relative power of the parties, and you can make predictions based on that, just like the various flags discussed in this latest German election.
There's always certain combinations that's likely or required in order to make a change between elections.
And with the proportionality you can also predict the outcome better using polls prior to the election too giving companies and society at large a better idea about what to prepare for either way.
The biggest drawback however is likely that it's hard to predict what exact representatives ends up with those 19 leveling seats.
Both what parties ends up qualifying for the 4% threshold and what representative on the 19 different party lists that ends up with those seats when they qualify.
The math is complicated.
And while a party can ensure that certain seats goes to certain important party members in electoral circles where they know they're going to get at least x number of seats by placing their most important representatives first in the list in those electoral circles.
They still have no way of knowing what electoral circle they end up getting a leveling seat from, if they get one.
So people that's not first on the lists are dealing with a lot of unpredictability.
And so are voters who care about individual person rather then the party.
Our system is extremely focused on political parties at the cost of having little power of what exact individuals ends up in control.
You can gather signatures and present a new list with representatives you want elected (possibly also members in other parties, if you can get their consent), and if your list gets enough votes you may get them represented that way.
But that requires the list you presented to get enough voters itself to get at least one representative on its own, on part with a real political party (what happened with that 0,2% party).
Or you can vote for a party and reorder the representatives in favor of your preferred candidate, but the change isn't even going to be counted unless a significant percentage of the voters for that party has made a change too.
Not necessarily the same change, just a change.
But still.
In either case you need a significant amount of support in order to get people into the parliament who are not at the top of the party lists for a party that's able to get representation, and unless that party can reliably get representation you can't really make predictions about who exactly ends up in the parliament.
Also, even if you're on a list and don't get elected, you could suddenly end up in parliament just because someone died, got sick or took parental leave.
And yes, perhaps our system does favor the smaller parties a little too much in the relative power play at times.
My own party had 3,9% of the votes this election, going up from 1 to 3 representatives, if we had just a few hundred more votes we'd probably have 7 seats.
Out of a total of 169 seats.
With that 4% rule the winner of an election can end up being decided by just a few hundred votes like that, since those small parties often end up with the balance of power.
So if one party has 3,9% and another has 4% that might lead to a significantly different outcome then if those two parties switched places.
This election was one of those elections where what parties would get more then 4% became extremely exciting, with a whopping 4 parties close to that line.
My own included.
My own party didn't make it this time.
But that's okey.
We still increased our representation, and we'll make it next time.
Since the system is proportional at every level we don't feel unfairly underrepresented.
Our core areas requires more voters pr seat then that 0,2% party, but that's okey, there's a reason why this country decided to distribute the seats between the electoral circles the way it did.
(It's all about ensuring that every region is well represented, regardless of total population, and to ensure that high population density areas don't dominate too much, after all, if you have two places, one with 10 x the population of the other all living in the same city, the people in that 10x population area probably have similar experiences with regard to that area so having 1 or 10 people from there won't make much difference in ensuring that the 10x place gets its concerns heard, but the 1x place have fewer people, and people in that 1x area might not interact with the 10x area often enough for the ones in the 10x area to ever really know and understand what concerns the people in the 1x area has, so their representation is more important, even if it comes at the cost of the relative power of the 10x area, so we grant representation based on both population and land area, so a big land area with few people will still get a decent amount of representation, in this election enough to give a party representing them a seat in our parliament despite only having 0,2% of the total national votes supporting them)
Democracy are not about getting the best people in charge.
Or to rule by a majority.
It's about ensuring that everyone feels that they have a influence on their everyday life.
And to find a consensus that everyone can live with.
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Anti-semitism?
Yeah right.
Seriously it's amazing just how well that the Israel has managed to manage anglophone medias, spreading their own propaganda while suppressing the truth about what's actually happening there.
And yes, that does include attacks on civilian jews, but there's so much more done by both the Israeli state, Israeli settlers and pro-Israeli organizations that every single terrorist attack done by Hamas while still wrong drowns in comparison to the injustices done by the state of Israel.
And the worst part is, Israel is trying to equate critique of the Israeli state and government and its activities with antisemittism.
Of course harassing or doing worse against someone because of their religion or ethnicity is wrong, be they a Jew or a Muslim.
And of course we should critique a government that's actively pursuing a policy of genocide, like Israel, China and arguably India is doing.
There's a gray zone in between where people who are of a certain ethnic or religious group choose to condone actions of entities accosiated with the religion or ethnic group that's political in nature and actually harming other people, like jews choosing to support Bibis policies against Palestine, Russian supporting Russias actions, Mormons supporting polygamic child abuse etc...
But then it's not really the whole ethnic group or religion that's at fault, but individuals.
And yes, in Israel people on the left that genuinely wants a negotiated settlement are suffering because of Bibis actions as well, because rockets from hamas and boycotts etc can't really target the religious extremists that's slowly gaining power in Israeli.
Still, at least they tend to not live among the settlers or in Jerusalem, but in Tel Aviv etc...
Honestly, look up a documentary named "Praying for Armageddon"
2:34
Also, are you aware of the violence against protestors and the active smear campaigns being carried out against protestors and anyone opposing the Israeli state?
Israeli citizens outspoken against Israel have lost the right to return to their own nation because of telling the truth about how Israel is a apartheid state every bit as bad as South Africa if not worse...
Israel are being lead by people that genuinely believe that God thinks it is okey to tjeow people out of their homes, shoot civilian kids going to school, burn down peoples houses and things like cars, deny a people food, water and health care, and bomb innocent civilians.
Hamas wouldn't be anywhere close to as big of a organization as it is if it wasn't for Israels extreme actions.
Yes, they'd probably exist, but their numbers are a result of Israeli extremism and quite frankly terrorism.
Essentially, the Israeli political right with Bibi in charge has created the modern Hamas.
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There's a couple of other details worth noting.
First of all, Denmark signed a international Treaty making Iceland a nonmilitarized zone before Iceland gained independence, while never signed by Iceland they've continued to honour it.
Another thing is.
Iceland was technically part of Norway for most of the time Denmark ruled on Iceland, basically in Norway we had our own laws, administration, succession laws etc, we just happened to end up with the same kings as Denmark for many, many years, leading to us being a junior partner in the union.
Iceland as a result had essentially been ruled by Norway for most of that period when Danish kings ruled.
Eventually Norway was legally integrated, but it took a long time to fully implement that with shared administration, laws etc.
When Norway was ceded to Sweden in 1814 Iceland really got integrated into Denmark.
Although as you mentioned, some self rule was given back again some years later...
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@jeromeh7985
The EU is literally in the process of removing that veto right just right now..
And you don't seem to get that a union is a problem for both the people living in it and outside it.
In both a union and a federation the ultimate power goes from the top down.
That's a democratic problem because democracy scales poorly with size.
Europe has a population of about 746 millions and a land area of about 10,5 millions.
So how many people per representative should there be?
How many km between the home of each representative?
How do you guarantee that the representatives actually have lived a life where they know how those they represent actually live?
If you end up with a political class that grow up and live as politicians from birth without ever living as farmers or bus drivers or social benefits recievers or single mums, how do you expect them to be able to represent anyone at all?
Being voted in means jack squat if they don't know what problems those they represent actually have.
On the other hand if you actually have enough representatives to represent all of that for a whole continent then the 3 000 large parliament of China will be dwarfed...
Especially because equal number of voters per representative under such a system would leave huge areas of land unrepresented.
In Norway we have 19 constituencies to our parliament, one of them have 5 seats and just 39 299 voters that voted in our last parliamentarian election.
Their third biggest party had 4 908 voters in total throughout the country, but got a seat in our parliament.
Why?
Because that constituency is huge, our biggest, and it had 3 hospitals, serving people separated into three groups divided by mountains, one of those hospitals where closed, leaving the people between them, including the biggest city in that whole constituency without a hospital whenever the weather is to bad for mountain crossing or air ambulances to pass.
Meaning that pregnant women and people with a heart attack literally can't get to a hospital if the weather is bad.
How can people in our capital, let alone down in the Hague possibly know how it is to live somewhere where a equal distribution of hospitals in distance per square km and between people means people will go without due to terrain and climate?
People can only know that if they're from that area.
A area that's really that hostile to human life, where there's no sun for literally months each winter, where you get storms down from the literal north pole hitting our coasts.
Yet if we had 3 000 representatives like China does the whole constituency wouldn't have a single seat, let alone the 5 we have given them.
A constituency that's already so big that there's two parties other then the one created as a protest against closing that hospital to come first, because people the hospital side of those mountains are unaffected, and some people think other issues are more important, like jobs, or lack of infrastructure or local democracy.
So with 3 000 seats and a population of 745 millions on the continent you'd have 248 000 people per representative, and that would be far from enough, especially for the low population density areas of the continent.
Then imagine just how hard it would be to get 3 000 people to agree on *anything*.
The more people who have to agree, the harder it is to get anything done.
No, the only way to have a democracy where everyone has a say in their own day to day life is if you have more sovereign entities representing a smaller subsection of the population.
Norway with our 5 million people is already on the bigger side of ideal here.
By having these smaller entities having the final say about every topic within their own territory or whatever you di ide them by people can actually get things done and also be fairly representative.
But I'm a green voter in my country.
And pollution doesn't end at the borders.
So I do naturally recognize that there's many problems that can't be solved by individual states alone.
It requires cooperation.
But I believe that it's wrong to try to achieve that cooperation by taking power away from those affected.
Instead it should be achieved through sovereign states cooperating, perhaps through a larger body, but one empowered from the bottom up, not granting power from the top down.
So a confederacy instead of a federacy.
Like what Switzerland had between 1291 and 1798 as a example.
Multiple countries being sovereign does not mean that they can't work together.
There's whole people who make up less then those 248 000 people per representative I mentioned.
The Sami people is a minority in Norway.
They have their own language and culture that's not even Indo-European.
And their population in Norway is less then sixty thousand people.
Europe has 11 countries with a population under 400 000.
And even with that we have many ethnic groups not even represented with their own countries.
A Europe wide democracy would therefore leave many whole ethnic groups, many lifestyles, many cultures, many languages, and many unique situations completely and utterly unrepresented.
And the will of the majority would therefore be a tyranny of the majority.
And any majority decisions on a continent wide level will therefore always be undemocratic the way I see it.
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@valcarlin2537 Fighting alongside the Nazies in WW2 doesn't necessarily mean that you are one.
Just look at Finland for instance.
The USSR always tried to paint the opposition as being foreign influences or attached to their foreign enemies.
It gave them a pretext for persecution.
With such a hostile force as the Soviets and now Russia to deal with the enemy of my enemy ends up being my friend.
Finland faught to regain territory lost in the winter war as a co-belligerent but not a axis member (never signed the treaty).
And likewise when trying to achieve Ukrainian independence after having their language and culture suppressed as has happened many times since the Russians started treating "Rus" as being a single ethnicity instead of a collective term for all Slavic people as it used to be used as at the time of the principality of Moscow if I don't remember wrong, and started acting as if they where the rightful rulers of all Slavs.
Refusing to acknowledge that the Kievian Rus where not a single ethnic group but rather a state with many ethnicities, made up of many tribes that had faught each other in the past.
(Edit, okey, sorry about the long sentence, just too tired to fix it right now)
Yet now Moscow was supposed to rule over all the other Slavic peoples and only the culture of Moscow where to live on...
Obviously this didn't go down too well with peoples who didn't belong to their culture...
Who had their languages and cultures suppressed in attempts at Russification...
Crimea and much of eastern Ukraine used to be Ukrainian speaking, but isn't anymore.
Between settlement of Russians there and suppression of Ukrainian culture...
And indeed the intentional death of many Ukrainians...
Still every part of Ukraine, even Crimea voted to leave the USSR and had a majority in favour of independence, although it was awfully close in Crimea (54,19% in favour of independence in Crimea vs 90,13% in Kherson, 83,90% in Donetsk, 83,86% in Lugansk etc)
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@Inderpal Singh
Let's agree to disagree on that one...
Eastern Europes way of looking at the continent at times leaves something to be desired...
They worry about Russia, fair enough.
I live in Norway, we share a border with Russia too.
But that does not in any way, shape or form mean that federalization would benefit us at all.
Quite the countrary.
And this video is clearly both partial and quite flawed...
The facebook page of the channel is in Polish apparently.
So that might explain why they're so keen on European unity.
It would solve many of the issues that the citizens of Poland has had for a long, long time.
Living on the European plains they've always been exposed to invasions from both east and west, so European unity would provide improved security and safety for the poles.
The democracy of Poland leaves a bit to be desired, with rule of law taking a back seat in later years.
Something that I imagine a progressive and pro-union individual in Poland would probably consider a problem.
If the European Union became federalized it would drive the quality of the democracy of this continent more towards the middle.
Great for nations whose democracy leaves something to be desired, like Poland.
Not so much for nations whose democracy is ahead of the EU average or the EU organs themselves.
Poland being located on the European plains also means that the agricultural conditions and population density gives the country quite a lot of potential on the European stage even if its population of course is far below that of Germany.
This would not be true for everyone though.
Poland has a population of about 37 millions.
Germany about 83.
The EU about 300 millions.
Europe as a whole about 700 millions.
The Ruhr valley alone has a population of about 5 millions.
Roughly the same as my own country, Norway.
A single valley with the same population as a country that's almost as long as the width of the US or Australia...
Here in Norway we had someone elected in this last election from a party with just
4 908 votes, or 0,2% of the total number of people voting in that election.
And she got one of the 169 seats in our parliament.
And we don't have a first past the post system like India does either.
No, she was voted in through a proportional system.
In the electoral circle she represents there's 5 seats, and she got one of them.
And in the process she probably stopped a hospital from being closed that was the only hospital for a big part of that electoral circle that's reachable all year long (the replacement hospital would be unavailable during bad weather in winter, since it would require either crossing a mountain that's impassable in winter, or flying, not a option in bad weather)
Our electoral system ensures that small places like that has a say in how their lives are ruled.
And it makes sense for us, just 5 million people to let someone represent a few thousands of us and still have a voice.
But you're not going to be representing less then 5 000 people in a nation of bout 300 millions (EU) or if the Union ends up spreading throughout Europe a total of over 700 millions...
People have different living conditions.
In Norway only 3% of our land area is suitable for farming, 1% for wheat.
And large parts of the year isn't suitable for agriculture at all...
That involves different considerations then someone from the lowlands in Germany, France, Poland etc...
The thing is I actually want more European solutions, but they need to be confederal in nature.
With the power comming from the bottom up.
People from the big nations, fails to see that way too often.
And are blinded by their historic empires and dreams of grandure.
Poland is the 8th most populous nation in Europe, and has the history of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth to look back upon.
Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Spain all have a history of being major nations, empires even.
But Europe is made up of more then Empires.
It's made up of more then just the peoples of the lowlands with easy farming and a dense population.
Europe has issues to deal with that people in these countries just does not face.
Nor does the urbanists of some of the smaller nations.
In the UK London has left the north of the country behind economically in stagnation.
The urban west of Germany is doing great while the east is suffering.
France...
France is just a mess right now and suffers from the same kind of elitism...
And so one and so forth...
We need common European solutions to a lot of our problems.
We need European solidarity.
But if we tried to unify this continent into one country it would devestate the majority of it...
And federalization isn't a silver bullet for that...
A confederate approach is the only real option.
Only if we can opt out will people here be willing to opt *in*.
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@saus9870
If it wasn't for Netanyahu and his activities, letting illegal settlers get away with breaking international law, kicking Palestineans out of their homes, killing them etc Hamas and other Palestinan organisations fighting Israel wouldn't have this many members, and they wouldn't have as much support as they have from outside of Palestina, from Iran and other Muslim and non-Muslim countries alike.
Netanyahu has done more to endanger civilians in Israel then Hamas ever has, and he is in the process of endangering the very existence of the country Israel with his actions as quite frankly a lot of countries are starting to question the wisdom of letting the nation exist in the first place, even within the borders of the original UN resolution...
Let alone all of its expansions...
If you really care about Israel then you really shouldn't support Netanyahu...
Don't get me wrong, there would have been conflicts even without Netanyahu, but the scale would have been smaller.
And that attack that happened would almost certainly not have happened.
More Palestineans would have been friendly to Israel and willing to provide intelligence, increasing the probability of the attack being averted.
Less incompetent leaders would have been in charge of Israels defenses.
Less resources would have been wasted in pointless wars, freeing them up for both defense and strengthening the Israeli economy that's in shambles under Netanyahu.
Israels reputation abroad would have been better, with more nations actually sympathetic towards Israel.
After the attack a lot of countries where actually sympathetic towards Israel, but the country has done far worse then that terrorist attack and all the ones preceding it this decade by now and has lost all international sympathy outside of the doomsday cults in the US...
Even the US went along with the recent UN resolution.
The US of all countries.
You really think that would have happened under anyone else but Netanyahu?
He's a incompetent and corrupt autocrat, and a fraud that belongs in jail, not in charge of a country.
And furthermore there's some indications that he was also involved in the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin...
No, Netanyahu was sent to Earth by the adversary, and is a enemy of God if ever there was one.
And I can't believe that you think he can be defended in any way, shape or form.
So yes, in my view the blood of those terrorist victims where very much on his hands, more so then even the leaders of Hamas and the gunmen shooting them.
They might have pulled the trigger, but he put the guns in their hands to begin with.
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@PHlophe If there's a quota then companies will be funding more students and measures encouraging females to join said studies and so one and so forth.
This stuff has worked just fine here in the nordic countries.
And it's not like they're requiring half of them to be female or one third, just *one*.
And this is in a country where you are already required by law to have reprentatives from the workers in the board.
So adding a woman is hardly that much of a stretch.
Part of the point is actually to get more than one point of view representated there.
The best individual for a task might not be the best team member for a task.
Just look at football players doing it all solo leading to the team losing vs teams where every player individually is inferior to every member of the opposite team but where the team as a whole is superior.
Any team where even a tiny bit of creativity is required benefits from getting more perspectives, be that from someone from a different place (say both a republican and a democrat in the US as well as people preferring third parties, men, women, natives, immigrants, people from rural areas and urban areas, cities and the countryside etc. It just means that you don't get stuck in a situation where no one has an idea that isn't different from everyone else because everyone got the same background, and because people are also different they're also more on their toes when communicating, being more careful and quite frankly better team players)
Exposure to different ideas has been proven to on average increase productivity and innovation in pretty much every single contexts where it's been tried out.
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@haidouk872 The problem with democracy is that once you try to govern too many people et once using the system you loose the benefit of most peoples experiences being somewhat represented by the political elite, of the country being governed by people who knows how it is to live the various lives that the citizens live.
I do not believe that a system where a majority makes decisions is a good democratic system et all.
You end up with cities holding all the power.
Yet it's also wrong to have low population areas making decisions that affects city dwellers too much without their say etc, so a senate like system or a veto based system is also flawed.
The only way to maintain a well functioning democracy (and I do not consider the US, UK, France, Australia, Russia, India or any other large "democracy" a "well functioning" democracy.
Indeed Canada is deeply flawed too, and only New Zealand is a anglophone country with a decent electoral system and a low enough population to have a more or less well functioning democracy.
The EU is far to big to ever have a well functioning democracy and should remain a supernational organization only without the power to enforce laws on member states without their consent or ability to modify.
As a result I believe that legally binding EU regulations should be abolished and replaced with directives only, and that if EU regulations is to be kept then member states should have the right to veto, remove or modify them at will.
Power should ultimately come from the bottom up, not the top down.
Because only at the bottom layer is real democracy even possible.
And once the population reaches 5 million people you're already approaching (if not exceeding) the limit of what can be a well functioning democracy.
Expecting someone from the Ruhr valley and voted in by their voters to know anything about the life in a small Norwegian fishing village or a Swiss mountain village unreasonable, and if they're given power over said areas they will make decisions harmful to those communities.
Likewise it's unreasonable for tiny villages of less then 1 000 people to make decisions about a valley with a population larger then the whole country of Norway, where business needs and lifestyles differ greatly from ours.
In both cases the best solution is independent decision making where anything affecting both communities should be mutually agreed upon.
And it should probably be a compromise solution neither side entirely likes but both can live with.
I do think that the EU has had a positive effect on Europe, helping us avoid any major wars since its formation.
But it shouldn't have legeslative powers that member states can't overrule, except possibly when it comes to enforcing a minimum level of democracy and rule of law in member states if democratic backsliding goes to far like in Poland and Hungary.
I might not like the homophobic laws of Poland, but it's not our place to force our laws and values on them.
So unless they start jailing or executing people for who they are (as opposed to their behaviour) we should not interfere.
The same applies to abortion, and anything else.
Especially if we keep the passport union.
As it would allow anyone who can't live with the current living conditions (most likely including me if I had to live in a Poland with such a conservative government) to leave the country with relative ease.
They have to work out the right course of action themselves instead of having it forced upon them externally.
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@tanderson6442 A number of things.
US citizenship comes with some pretty big downsides.
In the case of some countries it involves losing your own citizenship due to not allowing double citizenship, that could be a problem if you have a better passport in your home country or if you indeed may lose the right to permanent residency in your own country by losing said citizenship.
You may lose privileges from your old country like social security, healthcare etc rights when at home visiting family that you have as a citizen in some countries.
American citizens also have to pay taxes abroad on top of the local taxes, meaning that if they ever come back they'll have a significant financial burden there...
And there might be other restrictions that I'm not aware of for some countries.
Since this is Washington DC a lot of these people may work for the embassies, so they may lose their job as a non-citizen of their respective countries.
There's a number of reasons why people do not desire to become a citizen.
I was born and raised here in Norway, I've yet to apply for citizenship, because until recently that would have required me to give up my Icelandic citizenship.
A citizenship that would be difficult for me to regain later since I've never lived in Iceland.
Not had my mother applied for a Norwegian citizenship, despite living here for close to 50 years.
Your assumption that people who have lived in the US for 30+ years will apply for citizenship is wrong.
People who are legal residents, who are paying taxes will live their whole lives in the US without a citizenship.
My sister has moved to the US with her husband who is Asian.
While Norway is more convenient for her it's not for her family.
So they moved to the US after living in Germany for a while.
Now they're talking about moving back to Europe, but that's difficult due to their sons having grown up in the US.
Keeping their current citizenships keeps their options open.
Getting a US citizenship would burn bridges for them and their family.
And we're talking highly educated people, he's a economy professor doing lectures internationally.
And she's highly educated as well, doing work that it's rare for Americans to know how to do.
They are currently unable to vote for school boards of the school their kids attended as non-citizens.
Unable to vote for who is to decide how much local taxes they pay, how the city is planned etc.
Her oldest son was born when they moved to the US, her youngest son was born in the US.
Their sons where both top 10 in their university classes from what I understand.
Both have grown up, gotten jobs and works in international jobs.
One of them has a European girlfriend, the other a African one.
That family will leave the US if they don't end up feeling welcome.
So will many others.
The US is not the best place in the world to live, even if it's definitely not a bad one.
My sisters husband has also helped a friend of his start up a company in the US creating US jobs and they're partners in that company.
After Trump came into office they've been considering leaving the country as they're no longer feeling welcome.
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14:47
Be proud of letting it out, it's a good thing.
And regarding your feelings...
Think of it like the polar night.
When it's at its darkest it's easy to forget that the sun will ever return, but it *will*.
Do not give up.
Survive, one day at a time.
Try to enjoy the small moments of light that you do find.
And you'll get through it.
It's not easy, but it will be worth it.
And on the other end you'll get the midnight sun.
And I'm not going to lie, past that there's probably more winters.
But fight through them, and you'll get more summers, and they're wonderful.
And I'm not just talking about sunlight and grass, but feelings here.
So you know, hold on, and seek comfort in others.
If you support each other you'll get through this.
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@fruhlingsrolle7303 I don't think that the problem back then was having too many political parties.
Rather I suspect it was that the big ones where too big and the small ones too small, if it makes sense?
So there wheren't enough possible ways to combine the parties to form a government coalition.
In our system in Norway 150 of the 169 seats have zero electoral threshold.
Only 19 seats are actually subject to a 4% threshold giving smaller parties a incentive to merge, as being in the region of 4% can be a force multiplier for smaller political parties in our country while your vote isn't wasted if you have less then 4%.
Does that make sense?
So in Norway in our last parliamentarian election we had 10 political parties making it into our parliament.
Red had 4,7% of the national votes and got 8 seats, the liberals had 4,6% and also 8 seats.
8 our of the 169 seats is about 4,7% of the seats.
My own preferred party the greens had 3,9% of the votes but got 3 seats, or about 1,7% of the seats, yet our smallest party had 0,2% of the national votes (41,6% of the votes in their home region where they're fighting for a hospital accessible even in bad weather, and 12,7% in their home constituency as a whole) and also got 1 seat, or 1,69% of the seats with 0,2% of the national votes.
So while parties above 4% is pretty damned close to the correct proportionality of seats given their percentage of the votes things gets weird below that since smaller parties rely on concentrated regional support to get seats, meaning that they can potentially get seats with very few voters if said voters are located in certain constituencies.
Or if their voters are very spread out like the greens are you might struggle if you fail to make the 4% threshold.
We'd probably have 6 seats if we had 0,1% more votes.
Or twice as much as we have now.
Something that mobilize our voters.
But falling below 4% hasn't penalized us to the point where we don't have representation, we just didn't end up with enough to be relevant for coalition discussions this time around.
Does that make sense?
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@fruhlingsrolle7303 Our system is one with 150 seats distributed among 19 constituencies based not just on population but also other factors like land area, ensuring representation from rural areas.
Like the first past the post part of your system is intended to do.
And seats are distributed based on the proportion of the votes in each constituency that said party gets.
Then there's one extra seat pr constituency (the last 19 making our parliament 169 seats) that's reserved for parties with more then 4% of the votes and that's distributed based on the proportion of the votes the parties get at the national level, taking i to account what they already have from each of the 19 constituencies already, so if you have way less seats then you should based on your percentage of the votes you'll get some of these seats, if you have slightly more or exactly what you are meant to have you'll get non.
And since there's a 4% threshold those 19 seats are enough to ensure a high degree of proportionality.
Does all of that make sense to you?
In a system with no thresholds at all you end up with votes being spoiled at parties too small to get even a single seat, what happened in the Weimar republic.
If you have a threshold for all the seats you end up with just big parties and any party just below the threshold has their votes essentially spoiled making it really hard to get in for new parties.
Our system makes it easy to get into our parliament and get some representation, and potentially the option of becoming a king maker if your seat is the one splitting the difference between two coalitions.
But parties above the 4% threshold for the last 19 seats has a advantage and are more likely to be relevant in coalition negotiations while the margins have to be narrow indeed for smaller parties to end up in that situation, still it can happen.
So a party with just 1 seat is still relevant, even if that's one seat represents 0,2% of the population.
Indeed that party of 0,2% of the population actually managed to make the difference giving the parliament enough votes for a new tax on salmon farming recently that they wouldn't have without said party.
The party that helped our government to get into power (it's a minority goverment) is more left wing and wanted far higher taxes (45%) on salmon, something that the industry though would be crippling, the other side wanted no taxes, but with just the right combination they managed a moderate tax (25%) that the industry says they can live with even if they're not happy with a new tax.
(We have a tradition of taxing use of any natural resources within our territory, but salmon farmers where previously exempted for some reason, now they're not anymore, but they're also getting a compromise solution instead of a far left high tax similar to what the oil industry had to deal with, a tax that the fish farmers unlike the oil industry couldn't have dealt with as it would have lead to investments moving to other countries)
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@soul-heart No.
Yes, the US and UK has a lot of influence due to the English language.
But that's not what we're talking about.
We're talking about the world following in the negative fotsteps of the US, and we're just not.
Regarding birthrate, the US had a high enough birth rate to keep the population stable without migration as late as 2009, and you're still more then high enough to easily replace the losses with migration.
Malta had 1,13 births pe.woman in 2020, in the same year the US was at 1,64.
And enough women still remember families with multiple siblings for a fertility increase to still be achievable with measures like subsidized daycare centers, increased unionization to give US workers negotiation power in order to raise wages etc...
This can be turned around for the US.
As for the illegal immigration, it's mainly there because passing the border legally both for migration and to commute to work has become harder.
But migration has been falling recently.
Mexico has more jobs then in the past, and crossing into the US just isn't worth all of the racism and discrimination anymore.
That migration wasn't undercutting the US, it was enabling economic growth.
Wages where low not because of migration but because of anti-union laws from Regan and onwards.
As for the bureaucracy, it's not a issue of it being "slothful" but underfunded, and working with poorly designed laws due to the US electoral system and outdated constitution...
The dependence on eastern Asia isn't really a problem in my view, the dependence on China might be however because of the course they've decided to take...
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@night6724 Anyway, Norway has 19 electoral circles, corresponding to "fylker" (counties) we used to have.
Each gets a number of seats in our parliament, like your states gets seats in your congress, not just based on their population, but actually favouring lower population electoral circles a bit (or in your case states).
As a result the smallest political party in our parliament actually got into our parliament with 0,3% of the votes, or 4 908 votes, taking a seat from the second biggest party in one of our lowest population electoral circles, and a new party formed as a reaction to plans to close a hospital (they're all public).
Since that would leave half the electoral circle in question cut of from any hospital at all when the weather is too bad to cross the mountain between that half and the closest hospital on the other side this party was formed and won a seat on their first try, costing the former second place party their seat.
At the same time my own political party recieved 3 seats with 3,9% of the votes, on of the highest ratios of voters pr representative of any political parties.
Our biggest party had a bit over twentysix percent of the votes and about twenty eight percent of the seats.
There's no lower limit to how many votes you need to get i to our parliament, although 19 of the 169 seats are reserved to political parties with more than 4% of the total votes at a national level.
I can go into more details if you're interested.
But the main point is, we're a democracy.
Yes, we're a constitutional monarchy, but we elect people in a way that ensures that all viewpoints are represented fairly.
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@night6724 As for a prime minister being elected by parliament and not directly by the people, that's actually give the people more representation and power then voting for him directly.
The reason is that you essentially get a similar effect to swing states but with far more tipping points where just a few votes makes a difference.
It's far easier to punish a prime minister doia bad job in a election where you vote for those that elect him then if you vote for him directly.
Because our elections are not binary, you don't 100% win or 100% lose, you get degrees of power for your political party depending on how much voters you have.
In the US if you get 12% of the votes there and all other parties get 11% or less of the votes you'll get 100% of the representatives from that state to the congress or electoral college etc.
So as long as you aren't that one voters that's the tipping point between having more or less votes then another party you have no agency.
In our system we have a tipping point for every single representative for every single political party.
And winning or losing depends on the overall combination of parties that gets a majority of the seats or not.
Every single one of those parties can punish a prime minister that doesn't behave.
Also, prime ministers don't rule alone.
They run cabinets with representatives from multiple political parties in a coalition, each one of them usually voting on what to do rather than the prime minister having power of his own.
And our parliament can cast a vote of no confidence at any time removing the prime minister from power replacing him with someone else in the process.
So instead of situations like in the US where the congress makes it impossible for a president to get a budget through and then punishes him and complains about him as if that's his fault (regardless of party affiliation) we just leave that to the parliament.
Indeed we've had situations where our prime ministers has had to work with the budgets proposed by other parties.
There's no gridlock, no blaming our prime minister.
If we don't like his budget proposal and another party propose another budget with more support in the parliament then that ends up winning and is what the prime minister has to work with.
Done and dusted.
And it's parliaments job to balance those budgets.
(A few years ago the conservatives had the prime minister, labour won their budget proposal, so we ran with a labour budget, then the conservatives and their coalition cabinet members had to work out the details of how to use that.
So a liberal minister of something (say education as a example) would have x amount of money budgeted by the parliament, but would then make a education budget of their own with no interference from the parliament.
That amount of money for education might be more or less then the prime minister planned in her budget.
There's no we don't like your budget come up with another one.
Just okay, that budget is good, but this one is better, use it, done and dusted.
And like I said, our biggest political party had 28 out of 169 seats in the last election, so no one party can get a budget through that no other party likes.
And even a budget proposal from a tiny party like mine (3,9% in the last election) can win if they get more votes then any other proportional.
Parliament can give the prime minister instructions.
Failing to carry them out can lead to being replaced.
Essentially our prime minister and his or her cabinet works on behalf of our parliament to run the country.
Our system leads to everything being compromises between different people with different ideas about the best solutions to a problem.
With different alliances on a case by case basis.
For instance take the Christian peoples party.
They're socially conservative, so not all that keen on gay marriages, abortion, genetic manipulation etc...
But they also believe in helping your neighbour, taking care of Gods creation etc.
So while they'll vote with the conservatives on some matters they'll often vote with labour and the socialists on issues like helping the poor both at home and abroad, taking good care of refugees etc since it's in their view a god given duty to do so.
And they also vote in favour of taking care of the environment, since in their view we're gods stewards of creation.
Unlike labour however they want private schools.
Labour wants the egalitarian equality of public schools, the conservatives believe in privatization being more effective both economically but also in terms of quality.
And the Christian peoples party wants that freedom of private schools to have a separate christian curriculum on top of the enforced government ones to instill Christian values, the liberals also wants private schools.
So the compromise is that private schools are allowed but making a profit on them keeps being banned then mafe legal again then banned etc depending on who's currently holding the upper hand in our parliament.
And yes, the government pays for private education.
All of this ensures that we have educational freedom without being exploited by anyone trying to make a profit on us, and we have equal opportunities for education of equal roughly quality.
About the same amount of money is used on everyone, but private schools have the freedom to use it differently.
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@night6724 Again, a parliamentarian system is far more democratic.
The reason why there's such conflict between different candidates within the US political parties is because you only have two with realistic chances of representation.
By contrast under our system Hilary and Sanders would be in two completely different political parties to begin with.
And people would vote for them *directly*.
Any political party here can propose a prime minister candidate.
It's then their job to get enough voters and coalition partners (and votes for said coalition partners) to get a majority in the parliament for their proposal for a new cabinet.
You don't have to be one of the biggest parties to become prime minister, just have the most support in parliament.
And that support is created by our votes.
We use a party list proportional system where you can rearrange the order of representatives in the party list.
Even adding people from other parties onto your list if you wish, removing people that's there etc.
And seats in each electoral circle is given to each list proportionally to the number of votes they got in that electoral circle.
And remember, we have 19 of them with between 3 and 21 seats.
In every single one of those electoral circles a few votes can make the difference between a seat going to one list or another.
And if enough people change their list then depending on those changes the representative sent in may change, and indeed like I mentioned at least in theory even be from a different political party.
Or a candidate may in some cases be listed on two lists, potentially splitting the votes for them between those two lists, but also giving them two possible avenues to be elected as either list may win seats.
And such alternative lists often win in local and regional elections, although that one party with 0,3% of the votes is the first time in many years that it happened at a national level (a labour party representative was also listed in another list called patient focus, all about that hospital they where about to lose, forming that list essentially created a new political party that won what had been a conservative seat in their electoral circle, the labour party kept the same number of seats as normal there, if that party had been the swing vote in our parliament between two possible cabinets she would have had the ability to fight for her hospital by trading that hospital for cabinet support for instance, being a king maker)
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@night6724 As a example of that agency we have I used to vote for the socialist left party in Norway, they never join into coalitions with the conservatives, only labour or they fight as a opposition party in the parliament.
Last time they where in a cabinet with the labour party the labour party didn't make much concessions to their coalition partners, behaving like bullies.
So I switched to voting for the green party.
A lot of people voted for other parties then the socialist left party in the next election.
The greens where willing to cooperate with the conservatives.
And other voters switched to red, who campaigned on being in opposition and not selling out to the labour party.
In essence we indirectly gave power to the conservatives, without voting in conservative representatives.
Labour actually grew as a party with more representatives in parliament due to getting more voters.
After all, they achieved their politics.
But their coalition partners didn't, so they lost the election.
Green political parties where strong in the parliament and the conservative relied on three other political parties, the liberals and christian peoples party both green parties that wants us to take good care of the environment, and the "process party" that's as gray as they get. so we (the environmental movement) got more work done under the conservatives then under labour despite the conservative party itself being pretty gray.
They're just better at making compromises.
So despite being left leaning politically I'm very much in favour of a conservative prime minister, as long as they do not enter a coalition with the progress party and enter coalitions with plenty of greener parties.
The end result might not always be my preferred one, but the overall direction is likely to be better from my point of view.
Other parties on other political spectrums will have similar trade offs when picking a party to vote for.
But yeah, we very much vote for prime ministers, even if we don't do so directly.
For you guys it would mean that you could vote for someone other than Hilary or Trump.
And someone who genuinely has support in the population would win.
My guess would be a moderate right leaning person back then given the political climate in the US instead of Trump.
Since the person in question would have support from both the left and right, given that Hilary wasn't popular enough.
Trump and John McCain would probably be in different political parties.
And my guess is that McCain would have won that election with some support from the left, assuming that both Hilary and Sanders would probably fail to get enough support for their own candidacies in that election.
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+MrCastodian
"First of all, Melilla are defended by several units.
1 Armoured group.
1 Spanish Legion Regiment.
1 Infantry Regiment.
1 Artillery group
1 Air defence group.
1 Engineer battalion.
1 logistic group."
Where is your source of that?
Because all I've see documentation for as permanent garrisons there is 9 -15 000 mainly infantery.
I'm sure that air forces and tanks are frequently based there to support operations in North Africa, but I haven't seen any documentation of them actually being permanently based there.
"This forces have heavier equipment and they are more numerical then all the forces U.K. can land in Melilla.
U.K. do not have the landing capability to send more then 3-4000 troops, and to send them to Melilla would take a LONG time, all the way around Africa in to suez. It’s not like U.K. have a landing force near by."
Also remember that if Spain is at war those troops might be needed on the mainland.
And yes, you're right, the UK troops would have to be moved around Suez, that is my assumtion too.
"You say that UK would block the path, but how? U.K. do not have a fleet in the Mediterranean sea, you have 1 ship, an that stop the Spanish Navy from sending reinforcement ? Obviously not."
They don't need all that many troops nearby.
The UK often have flees in the Mediterranenan sea and it varies how many they deploy there.
In case of a war with Spain they'd have to send more via Suez but that shouldn't be a problem.
They have bases further east in the Mediterranean sea that they can use for their ships as a base of operation.
It's too far away for their air force to support from there but they can use their aircraft carrier with Harriers (and potentially buy and use F-35s on it if needed)
They certainly have plenty of anti-air capability on their navy, while they won't be able to hold the Spanish airforce at bay long term they can do short term support of a surprise landing force and pose a significant risk to the fighters that Spain can scramble there at short notice.
Remember, the UK don't need permanent air superiority, just local air superiority to support troops there while landing.
If they're to capture the place they can then dig in and the anti-air capabilities of their ships becomes a more viable defense against the Spanish airforce and navy in the sense that the goal don't need to be to keep fighters and ground attackers at bay as much as just keeping paratroopers and other transport planes and ships at bay so Spain can't retake the those areas.
"So, they can reinforce Melilla from mainland Spain, the closest base are 170 km distance, and that is the Spanish Legion Armoured Brigade and they can be transported by ferry faster then U.K. can send forces to cut the way to Melilla, and they are in no way any pushovers."
Yes, if Spain is aware of the UK plan to take those areas they'd be able to send forces over faster then the UK would be able to react.
But that is a big if.
The UK does have other bases in the Mediterranian so deployment of UK troops through the Suez canal can't really be easily interprented.
It could be intended as a invasion of the Spanish mainland in the northeast for instance in support of a landing in the northwest to cut off Spanish forces defending the coast.
It could be a diversion to pull forces away from the northwestern coast before a operation there etc...
Yes, I know just as much as you do that the UK wouldn't be able to take and hold a bridgehead on the Spanish mainland at all.
But that doesn't mean that Spain can afford to not react to the *possibility*.
Because the only thing that does make it impossible is said reactions.
The UK would be able to bide their time.
They have more spy satelittes, and probably more actual spies in both Spain, Gibraltar and possibly also Melilla etc too.
Frequent raids against the Spanish mainland doing damage but always pulling back before the attacking troops get too harmed could help pull troops away from Mellila as Spain would need as many troops as possible on the mainland.
Sooner or later a situation would form where those islands are weak, and if not then the Spanish mainland will probably have plenty of temporary weaknesses.
"And you say they need forces all over to protect the shores, but they do not, if it was USA they would, but not U.K., you have 5 landing ships, max capacity is about 3-4000 troops, so really no fear of an invasion, that amount of troops without air support wouldn’t stand a chance invading my Spain."
"3-4 000" to begin with, if there's not troops all over then those could then create a bridge head where regular transport ships (that all costal countries have thousands of) can operate and transport in essentially the whole UK army.
Yes, Spain can easily crush those 3-4 000 troops, but that's not the point, Spain has to be ready to crush those 3-4 000 troops everywhere at all times fast enough to stop the UK from moving in more troops with regular shipping.
And the UK could use a hit and run approach with those 3-4 000 landing ships too and build more landing ships while doing so.
Frequently attacking random parts of the Spanish coastline, doing as much damage as they can then withdrawing before Spain can deploy enough troops to crush them.
Sending in special operation forces at night to sneak past Spanish defenses and move into the mainland to prepare an attack from behind on a new location etc.
Won't be easy at all, but it can be done.
"And no, you would not have air support, you have a carrier, not fighters to deploy on them, even Spain have more carrier fighters then U.K.."
Yes and no.
They got Harriers and they could buy a few vtol capable F-35s midwar for anti-air duty to protect the harriers and helicopters, it would take the Spanish airforce a little bit of time to get there and the British navy could intercept quite a bit of their fighters with anti-air missiles.
And while the harrier is inferior to the fighters that Spain can field between local superiority of harriers, helicopters and ship based anti-air missiles they could take and hold local air superiority for a little while as Spain would have to scramble and group up a large enough fighter force to take them down even after losses from the ship based anti-air missiles before they can move in to attack.
Don't get me wrong, once they do it'll be a massacre in the air.
But for a short while they could hold local air supperiority and support the troops on the ground.
"And the “local volunteers” in Melilla, are no militia...They are highly trained forces, exactly as the rest of the Spanish army, same training, same equipment and they are just like the rest of Spanish army professional soldiers, they are local by the name, just like U.K. regiment have names from different areas, like the scotch guards."
"Scots Guards" as they're from Scotland and not just a group of raving alcoholics ("Scotch" is a drink).
But fair enough, if you say so.
Do you have any documentation on what kind of equipment they have?
"Most people here missing that U.K. do not have an significant landing capability, 5 ships, that’s all, and the Royal Marines are light infantry, grate soldiers, but they can’t land in a territory controlled by an superior enemy force without a massive air superiority, it’s not militarily possible to do."
True, but they can get air support for a short while, and if they can take the harbor then regular transport ships can be used to deliver the rest.
Also, while the landing crafts probably do most of the job don't forget that those are not the only ships that can be used to land some forces.
For instance we here in Norway practice deploying troops from submarines underwater.
Yes, fine, I admit that the number of troops that's trained well enough to do so is small, but it can be done, and the UK certainly have plenty of submarines that can do just that and probably a fair share of troops trained to do that kind of things compared to us here to the north, especially if they draft people who might otherwise have retired.
Also even regular ships can land a small number of forces with things like Inflatable boats.
The UK would easily be able to use that kind of impromptu approach to significantly boost their landing capabilities if needed for an attack like that.
It wouldn't be ideal, but it would work.
They can use the remaining L9A1 51 mm light mortars and the new M6 mortars with their infantery.
And the AT4 and MBT LAW can be used vs the tanks.
And there's plenty of other anti-tank weapons on the market that can be purchased fairly quickly and cheaply at a relativly low cost.
For instance the Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle would probably be quite usefull for such a landing as it can be used against both tanks, armored vehicles and personell, is reusable and if needed can be used as a rocket launcher with the rocket boosted projectiles for a effective range of up to 1 km against stationary targets (although 3-500 m is optimal vs tanks etc).
Granted, the very newest tanks out there probably can't be taken out with the Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle, but if you take out the infantery supporting those tanks you can get close enough to finish them off with other weapons.
Training to use such a rifle wouldn't take all that long time, and could easily be done within the scope of such a war.
Listen, I'm really not saying that something like this would be easy to pull off, or that it can be done without significant casualities.
But I do believe that it is possible to pull off.
Extremely difficult, yes.
But possible.
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Oljefondet har allerede så stor avkastning at vi som nasjon ikke er i stand til å bruke det opp uten å skade økonomien vår.
Dette betyr at selv uten en eneste olje krone så vil fondet øke i størrelse i praksis til det uendelige med mindre vi velger å innføre politikk som vi vet vil skade vår økonomi.
Utenom fondet så stemmer det at det vil ha konsekvenser om oljeindustrien forsvinner.
Men konsekvensene på økonomien vår om industrien ikke gjør det er anntatt å være langt større.
Selv om vi i Norge er heldige nok til å ha råd til å kompansere for disse utgiftene så vil de sannsyneligvis gjøre oss mindre konkurransedyktige.
Vi kommer til å bli utsatt for langt flere stormer og flommer og andre uønskede klimaeffekter.
Vi kan regne med flere kvikkleireskred, flere steinskred, mere flommer, mere skade pga vind, skade på infrastruktur, forsinkelser i transport, økte priser etc...
Klimaendringene vill også føre til problemer internasjonalt, flere flykninger.
Uro i mange land som forsyner vår industri med råvarer.
Økonomiske nedgangstider og så videre...
Klimaendringene er uungåelige på dette tidspunktet, men om vi gjør vårt beste så kan vi kanskje redusere omfanget litt å spare oss noen hundre miliarder i utgifter på det.
De som jobber i oljeindustrien eller relaterte industrier kan jo alltids omskoleres.
Og vi har nok høyt utdanned arbeidskraft i landet her til at vi kan tilpasse oss den nye virkeligheten.
En der Tyskland har stort behov for hydrogen pga manglende vilje til utbygging av vindmøller der.
Vi har store havområder der vi kan bygge ut vindmøller.
Vi har fjorder der vi kan utnytte tidevanns energi.
Med ny teknologi så kan vindmøller på land og i havet bli mindre skadelig for dyrelivet ved å ganske enkelt stoppe når sensorer oppfatter en fugl eller annet dyreliv.
Med andre ord kan vi ha et forsatt energioverskudd og forsatt drive salg av energi til kontinentet, både direkte igjennom strømledninger og indirekte som hydrogen gass.
Dette vil skje, spørsmålet er kun hvor fort, hvilken økonomiske konsekvenser det har kortsiktig og hvilken økonomiske konsekvenser vi kan eller ikke kan unngå langsiktig ved de valgene vi tar.
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@geroldfirl Actually, 100% renewable isn't that hard for Europe.
Part of the plan is for Norways hydropower plants to function as energy storage, by pumping water from lower reservoirs to higher ones using excess energy when there's a lot of wind and sunlight.
We're also planning on producing hydrogen that can be burned in hydrogen/natural gas hybrid power plants.
A lot of energy is wasted but this approach allows the utilization of existing infrastructure during the transition period.
89% of Norways electricity comes from hydropower.
And we also got produce quite a bit of wind energy and even a little bit of solar etc.
In total 98% of our power is renewable right now (varies from year to year depending on precipitation, wind, sun, etc, some years we import a lot of coal, gas and nuclear power from abroad)
In a dry year we'll still need other sources of energy, and I'm sure that part of the reason why Germany wants to burn hydrogen in gas power plants despite the wasted energy is to allow them to switch to natural gas again in bad years, or mix it together with the hydrogen.
Just in case.
As for the cars...
80% of the cars sold in Norway are EVs, not plug in hybrids etc, just pure EVs.
With other electrified vehicles making up a significant part of the rest.
And EVs makes up a third of all existing cars in Oslo, our capital now from what I understand.
Germanys problem is underinvestment in EVs and too much focus on diesel cars for too long.
And the country now has to catch up.
Anyway, all Europe needs to manage with renewable energy is to build out our grid from northern Norway to Morroco and from Ireland to Ukraine, and Finland.
And to build energy storage, like pumping stations in Norway.
Er already have the reservoirs available that can be used for the energy storage.
We're also building windmills, battery banks and hydrogen production facilities in Norway.
We fully intend to keep exporting energy to the continent after the transition as well as function as a battery for Europe.
The transition in question is already underway.
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Hum...
I'd say that Norway and Sweden have roughly equal relationship with the Russians.
Norway is the only nation bordering Russia that has never been at war with them.
We've managed to come to compromises with them onnsea borders.
And on the whole while we're not fans of them we probably have better relationship with them then most NATO members.
Sweden has had their fair share of issues with Russia, including a whole host of issues with Russian subs and Russian invasion exercises etc...
On the whole Russia is flexing their muscles in the North due to global warming and the geopolitics of the Arctic ocean.
And non of the nordic countries feel safe from Russia right now, with the possible exception of Iceland...
But we still have a relatively good relationship with them...
Although the replacement of Putin can't come soon enough...
1:50
Sorry, what?
You're placing Norway and Germany as more hostile towards Russia then France and Sweden? Oo
France, Sweden and Finland are all more sceptical towards Russia then this map suggest from my understanding.
May I ask what your source data is for this map?
Germany relies on Russian natural gas and are willing to trade with the country making pipelines that's sidelining transit countries between Germany and Russia, something that these are... Concerned about...
Finland has a history of being occupied by Russia, but has also earned the Russians respect and have a relatively good relationship these days, all things considered.
Something that Helsinki has made a ton of effort to ensure.
Finland is essentially a buffer state these days between. NATO and Russia, and they know it.
As such they're constantly balancing the two sides.
Sweden plays a similar role.
Both are too exposed to potential Russian aggression to risk joining NATO or antagonize Russia.
Norway has a similar role, but with smaller border and a large coastline and lots of mountains that NATO troops can land in and assist in defending the country has chosen to join NATO, but that doesn't mean that it's free to antagonize Russia.
The region hasn't had active conflicts with Russia since the winter war and continuation war, and unlike other areas has aimed at having relatively good relationships with Russia whenever possible.
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3:42
Actually it's kind of the opposite.
In Europe we have proportional representation, so we have multiple people fighting it out, changing sides etc.
But once faught over it's decided.
America however is like a back alley fight, where when one side is beaten they refuse to stay down and they'll get back up to fight another round, then another, then another over the same issue again and again.
7:02
Sometimes it's good with some discretion for social security too in order to ensure that people don't fall between the cracks of the rules.
In Norway the welfare system in addition to the rules also have a certain amount of money dedicated to discretional spending on borderline qualifying people, allowing the rules to be slightly fuzzy, filling out more of the cracks.
There's still rules, but the bureaucrats are allowed to use common sense.
The majority of the budget is still definitely rules based, but having that slight flexibility is useful.
16:08
Government spending on the health care isn't the problem.
The bureaucracy is.
Not just state bureaucracy, but the bureaucracy created by hospitals dealing with so many different insurance companies.
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@adelahogarth2761 "Since when is France owed defence secrets between Australia, the UK and U.S.?"
If you where in a family in a country without public health insurance, think the US or some such.
You didn't have a insurance, and your wife needed a surgery.
It's important but doesn't necessarily have to happen right away.
So you decide to sell your house to pay for it.
Someeone comes and signs the contract for the house.
And some days before taking over you decide to go ahead and get her onto the operating table, after all, you're going to be paid tomorrow.
Then just after she goes under your neighbour calls happily telling you that the person you thought you where selling a house to not only didn't buy you house (so you're now in a massive debt), but bought the neighbours house, plans to demolish it and build a ten floor building there right in front of the windows of your house, ruining the view and lowering its value, you didn't get a curtesy call beforehand.
Or a warning that your buyer where planning to look for alternatives so you could rearrange your finances and perhaps delay the surgery till you actually could finance it.
And it turns out, your neighbour had talked with your buyer for months without even mentioning anything to you...
That's kind of the situation, except it's actually worse.
Neither Australia nor the US warned France or the EU prior to the news going public into the media.
Meaning that it wasn't possible for either to adjust.
If France had been consulted then sure they didn't need to know the details involved.
But perhaps a deal could be made to delay the announcement till after the French election.
Or some kind of other trade deal could be made prior to the election so the interference would be reduced.
Also, France has a sea border with Australia and is a major player in the region.
Wouldn't it be more polite of the US to notify France before doing anything that changes the security situation in the French sphere of influence and over parts of the country of France?
Or Australia to notify their neighbours before making major changes to the military situation in the region?
This also happened just moments before the EU published their own plans for the region.
"We're basically talking about the largest wholesale transfer of bleeding edge tech since WW2. So no, Australia was not at liberty to discuss such things, because of course you don't discuss such things with outsiders. Frankly, as per the contract, all Australia owed was an exit fee at the particular gate control mechanism and took it. "
Sure, Australia has every right to cancel the order, that's not the problem, like I said.
But springing that kind of news to the public right before a election is a insult.
How would Australia feel if something like that happened just before a Australian election?
The consequences of this is the potential election of a far right extremist who wants to take France out of the EU.
Imagine if something happened just before a election and upset the political landscape of Australia so much that New South Wales or Victoria decided to leave Australia and declear independence?
If that's the stakes, wouldn't you have found it kind of insulting to learn about something potentially significantly messing up that election happening in the news instead of being warned beforehand a little bit or the news being delayed till after the election?
See how that might be just a tiny bit upsetting?
"AUKUS is way more than subs. It's missile tech, A.I., vectronics ... Quite literally everything a country needs to defend its sovereignty against a possibly hostile superpower that outmans you 50 to 1. There is literally no counter-offer France could offer in exchange, and in no way, shape or form could French politicians be trusted with the high levels talks and their various facets."
Sure, fine, you had no obligations to tell France about the *details*.
But *nothing*?
You'd be a bit upset if New Zealand suddenly decided to make a deal with China to build a Chinese naval base in the middle of New Zealand without even talking with you beforehand.
Sure, you wouldn't have a right to know what exactly China and New Zealand intended to station there.
But New Zealand making such a choice without prior warning would be hostile towards Australia.
And Australia and the US just did that to France and the EU.
"France isn't owed shit ... In the same way Australia doesn't demand access to high level EU security talks."
So you don't owe your neighbours anything, huh?
Australia BORDERS France and the EU.
And quite frankly, we're *allies*.
The way the US keeps moving away from treating Europe as a friend and ally to just some average third country in a trade deal opens questions about American commitment to help defend Europe.
If this keeps going it would be in Europes interest to realign with China.
Perhaps get a Chinese naval base in New Caledonia, Réunion and in the French Southern and Antarctic Lands and in French Polynesia and a military alliance between Europe and China.
It would suit us well to have the option of threathening Russia with a two front war in the case of a conflict.
And China would jump on the opporturnity to counter American dominance over the seas.
Europe isn't as strong as the US or China on the seas alone.
But we sure as heck can swing the balance of power between the two.
And like I mentioned, Europe is *everywhere*.
Europe borders Canada.
Large parts of the Caribbean and South America is still a part of Europe with European citizens as surely as Tasmanians are Australian ones.
https://i.redd.it/d7zceju6uvz31.jpg
And even in cases where we don't have direct power, we have indirect power.
Eastern Africa might mostly be within the Chinese sphere of influence.
Western Africa is within the European sphere of influence, especially France.
And so is several of your neighbours too.
And sure, France might not have any military equipment that you *want*.
But given the Chinese embargo on Australian coal wouldn't it be nice to at least temporarily sell coal to Germany for instance to make up for the lost revenue?
Their local coal is among the most polluting coals there is out there, and not very energy dense.
While coal definitively doesn't feature in Europes long term plans, Australian coal might be a short term option, something that could benefit both continents.
"People shouldn't be surprised AUKUS was conducted in extreme secrecy before a deal could be hammered out. The French contract was dead in the water regardless of government in Canberra, because no one wanted to keep funding such a gigantic boondoggle and the naked exploitation of French firms."
I'm not French.
I'm not even a EU citizen.
But I am European.
Sure, I have nothing against you canceling the deal with France, or making a new one.
But the way you did it messes up the security and regional power dynamics of all of Europe.
My country, Norway, borders Russia.
And while I don't mind having the option to learn to speak and use Russian, something a lot of people indeed do here, I very much object to the risk of no longer have a choice in the matter, and risking seeing cyrillic on every street corner.
If you get cold feet before a wedding and want to call it off that's fine.
If you don't want to marry her anymore and instead have fallen in love with one of the bridesmaids, that's fine.
But you don't go and marry the one of the bridesmaids the day before the wedding leaving one of the other brides maids to announce the news to the bride without even having the balls to tell her yourself.
At least not if you expect her to not hate your guts.
And that's exactly what Australia just did.
And in this case the US is essentially taking the role of the best man who runs of with the bride the day before the wedding with neither the bride nor the best man saying a word to the groom up front.
Understand why the groom might no longer trust that best man to be a particularly good *friend*?
Or trustworthy in other matters?
It might make it a bit difficult to share apartments for instance...
Or loan him money etc...
The US economy is in many ways subsidized by Europe.
Proping up their economy in return for them providing a large army that's still not held by a rivaling country nearby seemed like a good deal back in the day.
Now we might have to reevaluate that idea...
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@Neion8 And my point is that you can have a large land area with a small population and be well run (look at the nordic countries), but a country with a large population almost exclusively are poorly run.
And no, your argument about Canada doesn't hold water.
There being few people in those rural northern territories doesn't mean that there's no difference in culture there.
Nor that that difference doesn't matter.
Low population areas should not be ignored.
Indeed that's part of why republicans in the US are so against a "fair fight" electorally.
They feel that they represent a part of the country that while small has concerns that the population in bigger urban centers simply doesn't understand.
Those differences between rural central areas in the US and the urban coastline is actually a good thing in my view as it could provide more perspectives if the US used a proportional representation system with relative proportionality with its current seat allocation calculation system so more voices could be heard from all parts of the country.
Not just two parties and the polarization of politics that always leads to...
However I do feel that the US would have been better off as a confederation of multiple fundamentally free nations that worked together rather than as a federal nation.
And instead of forcing other members of the confederation to follow all the same exact laws as you'd like you could simply use the same mechanics used in international diplomacy.
If one state wants to practice slavery, then fine, don't trade with them, don't cooperate with them, exclude them till they're willing to behave again and vote themselves to abolish the practice.
Instead of forcing the matter at gunpoint.
This has worked at s international level in many, many countries that used to practice slavery.
It simply wasn't worth it long term.
And you avoid the bloody martyrs created in such a war and the misgivings people have with being controlled by people they feel are outside their influence.
Sure, some of those states would be poorly run.
But by being truly separate entities these states would have a chance at truly succeeding.
And yes, they could cooperate through a confederation.
That is, the power ultimately comes from the bottom up.
But larger goals can still be achieved.
Think a ESA style NASA.
France, Italy, Germany and the UK still make up some of the top 10 spending space nations, but multiple European nations benefits from ESAs work.
Despite the other smaller nations only contributing about a third of the budget if I don't remember wrong.
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@DeadlySIlence92 Self sufficiency isn't really a good idea, it's really, really inefficient.
That said, having some supplies of your own as well as a good strategic storage of certain vital resources can be a good idea.
Like having some food production and stored food.
Having some energy production and store enough energy.
It gives you the time needed to find international solutions when issues crop up, and the option to scrape by if your access ends up being blocked.
That's why Norway, the country I live in don't join the EU and keep tarrifs on good imports.
We're never going to be self sufficient for food, and we shouldn't try.
But ensuring that we have a little food production left surviving despite not being competitive helps.
Likewise Germany should ensure that there's some domestic production of energy.
But Germany just isn't the right place to produce the majority of the energy needed for Germany.
Norway has more wind blowing and rain falling, so hydropower and wind farms is better to build here.
Iceland and Italy have more vulcanic heat in the ground for thermal power plants.
Northern Africa has more sunlight etc.
Doesn't mean that Germany can't produce all of those things locally, you'll just never be as efficient at it as the better suited locations.
Germany was well suited for coal power, but that's not a option anymore, so...
You get the picture.
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Regarding surviving the cold of water.
Wear *wool*.
Not cotton.
Wool keeps having insulating properties even when wet.
So wool on the inside with something outside that's thin and water proof might be a good idea.
(And while wearing heavy stuff might be a bad idea further south, up north around here in Norway, you're way more likely to freeze to death first then to sink first due to heavy clothing)
Also, for the record, freezing cold water is most unpleasant...
I was in a Norwegian "folkhighschool" (search for "Folk high school" on wikipedia, they're a thing in the nordic countries and Germany at least, possibly elsewhere too) that had a sailing line.
Right before the christmass vaccation we had a course where we had to take our traditional wooden sailing vessel, turn it upside down in the water (our teacher was complaining about the water not being cold enough, there was a little bit of sea ice on the shore by the way, the sea being saltier then fresh water, meaning that to freeze you need lower temperature, as you can imagine it wasn't pleasant, and of course there was snow on land) anyway, we had to turn the boat upside down and jump into the water (not sure if the turning or the jumping happened first, its a few years ago), then we had to turn it back the right way around from in the water (thankfully wood floats in water, even if the boat is full of water).
Get into the boat ourselves from the outside.
Bail the boat empty of water.
Oh, right, yes, then we had to jump out of the boat and swim ashore, when it was my turn the tide had turned and it was flowing a bit outwards...
I was wearing a lot of wool with rain coats, rain boots etc outside.
Yeah, I was definitively heavy, but honestly that wasn't my main problem...
At least the cloths kept me warm.
Unfortunatly as I was swimming one of my two boots came off, as well as the sock on that foot.
That foot ended up icy cold.
Once I got ashore and started heating up the other foot, the clothed one was okey.
The exposed one slowly headed up in my sleeping bag too, but I could feel how the bones in that foot was way colder then the blood in the foot around it.
And I've never been that cold before or since.
Swimming ashore that day was the coldest thing I've ever experienced, and pretty scary to be honest, despite the teacher etc being close by to help if need be.
I'm not a good swimmer, and I was struggling with staying above the surface.
But I did get ashore.
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@night6724 Right.
Norway uses a modified Sainte-Laguë method.
We used to have 19 "fylker" (regions), many of these have been merged recently, but the 19 electoral circles remains.
The first step is that each eligible voter and each square km of land in each electoral circle "votes" for that electoral circle using that method. (This is behind the scenes, we voters don't have to deal with this).
And the electoral circle with the most "votes" gets a seat, then in the next round they have to divide with a bigger number using the method described, so eventually seats starts being distributed to other electoral circles.
The circles with the fewest seats only have 4 seats each, the ones with the most has double digit number of seats out of the 150 available for this step.
I don't remember how much weight land has compared to people, but the idea is that any given rural town in a low population density area far away from the capital is less likely to be represented in our parliament any given year then a city with far more people is, so by distributing seats based on both land and people those low population density areas still has a reasonably high likelyhood of being represented any given year, meaning that there's someone in the parliament who knows how it is to live there and what problems they face, even if that means that areas with more people ends up with less representatives from their own area.
Once seats are distributed among the electoral circles the actual election can take place.
People vote for party lists.
Lists can overlap so someone can be in two lists at the same time.
And people can reorder people on the lists or add names from other lists.
But changes from the original list will only be counted if a significant number of them are changed.
Seats are distributed proportionally, again using the modified Sainte-Laguë method within these 19 electoral seats.
So if you get 25% of the votes in a 4 seat electoral circle you'll get 25% of the seats, aka 1.
If you have 10% of the votes there you'll get no seats, but in a circle with more seats you might get more representation.
Since seats are distributed according to both land and population the circles with a lot of land but few people will have more valuable votes in the sense that that you'll need fewer votes there then elsewhere to get a seat for any given party.
The smallest party represented in parliament this year had 0,2% of the total votes at a national level and still got a seat.
They where created to ensure that eastern Finnmark keeps a ER unit and a maternity ward, do people inna emergency or giving birth don't have to cross a mountain that often is unpassable in winter in order to get to a hospital with these facilities.
They managed to get enough local support to get 1 of the 5 seats in this electoral circle.
The conservatives lost theirs.
Of course this means that at this stage low population areas have more of a say in what parties are represented at this stage then higher population areas.
So each electoral circle also has a leveling seat.
But the leveling seats are not given bsed on the proportionality within each circle, but at a national level.
Since the parties already have seats awarded at the previous stage any party with more seats then they should have given their national popularity won't get leveling seats.
But parties who have fewer seats then they should given their number of voters st a national level will gain seats.
This is usually smaller parties that got close to getting a seat in the individual electoral circles, but didn't quite make it.
Although sometimes larger parties get some too.
Unlike the direct seats from the individual electoral circles these 19 leveling seats do have a electoral threshold of 4% of the total electorate voting for a party in order for it to be eligible for these 19 leveling seats.
Giving parties and their voters a incentive to reach that level.
This means that big parties can split if there's disagreements.
While smaller parties have a incentive to stay united.
And voters have a reason to make an effort to vote for the small parties even if they just have a few percent of the votes.
The communists had 1 seat last election, but got 5 this election, because they're above the 4% threshold.
My own party had 1 last year and got 3 this year with about 3,9% of the votes.
If we had over 4% we'd have at least one leveling seat awarded to us, possibly two.
My party had the fewest seats pr vote of any party represented in our parliament this year.
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@thomasmerlin4990 No, I'm against a federal model and in favour of a confederal model.
The difference is that in a federal model the states have some legeslative power unlike in a unitary government, however the federal level supercedes the state level.
Essentially in a federal model the power goes from the top down.
In a confederal model that power goes from the bottom up.
The UN uses a confederal model, and Switzerland used to use a confederal model and used it for centuries before switching to the federal model instead.
The EU is currently using the federal model because compencies where EU law supercedes state laws exists, although it's as close to a confederation as a federation can be, but it is a federation never the less because states cedes power upon joining instead of granting power.
Essentially in a confederation a higher body may be granted power, but it's essentially borrowed by the lower levels and the lower bodies still retains said power and the ability to discard decisions made higher up.
I'm ideologically against any democracy containing too many people that's not using a confederal model, as any federal or unitary state with more then single digit millions of people will run into issues where you can't have someone in the political leadership from every category of people that is being ruled.
Where you don't have politicans that knows how it is to live in a location or in a profession etc.
And therefore decisions are made that's outright harmful to parts of the electorate who due to the size of the electorate can't be properly represented.
Even we here in Norway are having some issues with that despite intentionally skewing our system to favour rural communities and using a proportional system so we unlike the catastrophy that is first past the post doesn't drown out issues.
I believe Norway is a touch too big as a country and would prefer us to split up into smaller units working together using a confederal model, although a federal one might be acceptable for us.
In our last national election we after all did ensure that a issue where about a third of one of our constituencies doesn't have access to a hospital when the weather is bad lead to a representative making it to our parliament, as the third largest party in their constituency, with 4 908 votes (that community had mountains between themselves and both the two hospitals in the constituency that is blocked during winter storms that also makes air ambulances a non-option, meaning that people there doesn't have access to help in case of a heart attack or if they start giving birth early/unexpected if the weather is bad as it often is in that region.
But our electoral system with just 169 seats representing about 5 million people despite being proportional and having good proportionality at a national level among the parties still managed to ensure that this small community could have their issues represented in our parliament.
We're very lucky to have that system even if it meant that my party that's more city based had 110 973 votes for our 3 seats, or 36 991 votes pr seat on average.
(Our national level proportionality doesn't kick in before you get 4% of the total votes in the country as a whole, before that you only get seats proportional to the votes in the individual constituencies)
We can represent 4 908 voters who don't have access to hospital (and unlike some other voters in said constituency considered that issue important enough to change party alignment in our system to a new political party instead of staying with another party making empty promises)
But it's impossible for something like a whole continent to do that.
Either you'd need so many representatives that you wouldn't get anything done and the individual representative wouldn't have any real power anyway, or you would give small communities too much power to the point where larger ones would be underrepresented, or you would have smaller communities underrepresented.
Europe has a population of about 7,4*10^8, the EU current has 705 seats, but let's be generous and say that with more countries joining we'll increase the number of seats to 1 000, assuming a equal distribution of seats between the voters that would leave 7,4*10^6 voters pr seat.
As opposed to the 4,9*10^3 voters behind that representative in my country.
And any way to modify the electoral system to favour rural communities in such a system would mean taking too much power away from other voters.
Even just limiting the numbers to just the current population of the EU instead of the whole of Europe you'd honestly run into the same problem...
You simply can not have a fair democracy with more then single digit number of millions of voters.
A equal distribution of seats between the voters is not fair, and the more voters you have the less fair it is to start favouring sub groups thats small enough to not get their own set if the seats are equally distributed yet different enough that they can't be said to reasonably be represented by any seat that's equally distributed.
Germany is trying with their MMP system, but honestly they're failing.
and Germany is just too large.
And the EU is even worse.
And no, I'm not a EU sceptic that want everything to be done at a national level.
I'm in favour of some shared taxation, a EU army, shared immigration policy, shared markets with shared regulations etc, freedom of movement for Europeans and so one and so forth.
And I recognize the value of the EU in preventing wars in Europe.
But while I don't mind other countries having a influence over each state in Europe I believe as s a principle that the last say should be made at as local a level as possible.
And it's better with individual states that choose to work together in a confederation then with states being forced to work together in a *federation*.
Do you understand what I mean?
Does all of that make sense to you?
And yes, I have very strong opinions about this and strong feelings about it.
I live in Norway, and we've already had laws forced on us due to being part of the EEA that while they might work in high population areas like the Ruhr valley (that I'd a single valley with a larger population then our own country) they simply does not in a low population density area like ours.
And part of why we never joined the EU was that the fishery laws the last two times we voted on the issue was decided by large nations that while having a lot of fishermen also had so many voters pr seat that the people making the decisions didn't realize that they where encouraging fishermen to throw overboard fish that was already caught and dead instead of bringing it ashore, causing overfishing...
As it is fisherman where fishing in Norwegian waters then sailing out to EU waters to throw overboard fish there to avoid issues with the quota then returning to fish more...
While EU waters where being severely overfished, we managed to keep ours somewhat healthy.
In part because we actually had fishermen from small communities in our parliament able to explain what consequences each law would have as well as fishermen who has fished from larger boats able to process the fish on the spot.
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@paul1979uk2000 The difference is that in Norway and Switzerland those EU directives are implement by our own laws and legal agreements and we have the right to end change or refrain from adopt them at will.
Yes, there would be consequences.
But the important thing to note here is that when it comes to the desire for freedom Norwegians and Switz people have more in common with the Afghans then the Germans despite being similar to Germans and Dutch people culturally.
Afganistan has been under many empires through the ages and would presumably have had a chance to get more infrastructure in those times, but self determination was more important.
The same is true for us.
We would prefer poverty to being ruled by outsiders.
We're also pragmatic and both can and will work with and cooperate with them, but only as independent entities.
I'm saying 200 years because that's 3-4 generations, and that should presumably be enough to change our culture.
But as long as our young people has a memory of our current culture, even if that's just as stories from grandparents, a federal or unitary union just won't work.
A confederal one would.
Our cooperation with the EU right now works well in part because it's relatively confederate at the moment, for instance with a lot of laws being goals that needs to be achieved with the local governments deciding on the details.
But a federal model is a stated goal for the union, and that's a big part of why we voted against joining *twice*.
We don't mind open borders, free trade, free movement of people, shared financial responsibility or any number of other values that the union wants us to adopt, most of these are shared values with us.
After all, Germanic speaking people with similar values are a big block within the union.
The problem is more one of principle of where the power originates.
And of how there's details about life in regions that central governments just never gets right.
Central governments are dominated by people from population centers, people from good farmlands, big cities, areas that's flat and "cultured".
These areas simple has a different history from us and different living conditions.
Privatized mail services or public transportation works well in areas with high population density allowing lowlanders to play with fancy theories about market economics and the principles of free markeds.
It's a bit harder to make that work in areas that has too low a population to make those things economically viable based on the realistic price of sale of these services.
There's no incentives left for quality of service, only for cost cuts at the expense of quality and finding loopholes in the various government schemes to finance the whole thing.
Fewer trains post delivered on fewer days etc.
But for the nation as a whole these services while not used enough to justify their cost as companies does make sense for a nation as a whole due to enabling extraction of resources that would otherwise be unavailable, and also services that would otherwise be unavailable.
Nordic countries work under the assumption that everyone should have certain services and quality of life that would not be see as making sense commercially.
Just look at what kind of service that's available in Nuuk, Tórshavn, Kautokeino/Guovdageaidnu and so one and so forth.
We value our rural areas, and we will intentionally run at a loss at times that wouldn't make sense in a EU context.
These things are a big part of why we despite our intense individualism and regionalism still have functional nations of the sizes that you see.
Norway, Sweden, Denmark and so one, even Iceland would otherwise have been split up into many different nations a long time ago.
Switzerland has similar issues but solve those in part through their Canton system.
In these regions the natural country size is basically equal to a Swizz Canton.
Or in Norways case one or a few valleys joining together into a nation, or possibly a fjord.
And the long fjords might even be split up since people at the coast near the mouth of the fjord probably live very different lives from those further inland and have different needs.
The oil money helps, but honestly that plays a minor role in everything.
It all only works because we have electoral systems where people in rural areas are about as common as people from more urban areas in our government and legislative body.
We're more likely to have a civil war over the topic then to join the EU.
We've already had several governments that has fallen because of the union.
And our elite has learned that you don't try to join the EU if you want to stay in power.
The EEA is a compromise solution that works for us
No one is happy with it of course like with all good compromises.
But it's preferable to total chaos.
Honestly we'd probably be better "EU citizens" outside the union then we'd ever be within.
Many of us want a shared army with the union (in addition to the separate ones), to counter threats like the Russians.
Many of us want free movement of goods, services, money and people, but it needs to be on our terms, with the local possible compromises.
Giving our urban population the goods and services while the rural people gets the protectionism needed for our farms that can't compete with the lowlands due to a shorter season and worse farmlands, our fishermen wants to sell to the union and are more open to it then our farmers but it's still easier to get a sustainable compromise within the country or in bilateral deals with the union then when it's done at a union wide basis where countries far away that wouldn't be severely affected by overfishing and where people are more desperate for a income are the voter wants higher quotas then the fish actually can sustain.
And where the laws only relatively recently closed loopholes that lead to the dumping of tons of fish into the sea with no consequences to the quota despite huge numbers of fish dying.
We still have lands radiated after Chernobyl.
Temperatures that doesn't exist in the mainland continent.
And mountains and fjords that makes infrastructure difficult and cultures distinct.
We'll join the EU in many projects out of our own free will, from outside the union.
But the only way we'll actually join the union itself permanently is either if the union changes and either become more confereralized or tiered with optional tiers of involvement for members.
Or if there's a huge shift in our culture, a type of cultural shift that just takes generations to happen.
If we somehow by a miracle managed to join the EU right now it would be a disaster making Brexit seem like peanuts.
Long term, as in 7-8 generations down the line I can absolutely see us as a EU member.
But not now...
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@paul1979uk2000 The cost is high, no doubt.
But lower then it would have been as an actual EU member, as scrapping them as a member would entail leaving the whole of the EU just like the UK just did, while scrapping laws currently can be done without breaking any agreements with Europe and has even been conceded as permittable by the EU.
The EU might not like it but they're required to accept our veto by the terms of the agreement.
And yes, there's a implied and unofficial agreement about us not using it.
But even the fact that it is our choice not to scrap said EU laws is more important then any involvement in making said laws ever can be.
It's all about self determination.
And yes, if we ever gets to a point where we scrap so many laws that the EU find themselves wanting to end the EEA agreements or if they want to punish us for our actions that's of course within their rights and would be a problem for us.
But still, us having that fundamental power to veto them and making our own laws is important to us.
More important then forming those EU laws in the first place.
And furthermore the EU laws we follow are still formally made legally valid through the power of our parliament not by the EU.
So a bottom up power structure.
We need to be a separate legal entity.
That's not going to change in many generations.
The actual laws we follow is less important then who sign them into law.
Yes, we're currently following EU law practically to the letter, but it is we who are choosing to do so, not Brussel, and that matters to us.
As long as the EU laws in question are not unreasonable that's a arrangement we can live with.
But there's a growing number of EU laws that has worked poorly for us and that is causing frustration here.
At some point things will have to change.
And that change will most likely come in the form of some new renegotiated deal with the EU where we'll give up something else and get something in return.
That's also going to be a compromise of some kind.
The Brexiters are unrealistic.
There is an unequal power balance at play.
And even if there wasn't there's always some given and take in interantional agreements, compromises.
Where neither side are entierly happy.
The same applies to us.
We're not going to get our freedom for free.
We'll have to make some sacrifices or other in order to get them.
But we also have some cards up our sleeves too that the EU wants.
So it won't be entierly one way either.
Like I said, it'll be some give and take.
And honestly I have faith in Norwegian negotiators.
We're not in a rush with changing the EEA.
I think we probably should start negotiations with the EU about a future deal to replace it together with Iceland, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and the UK, although I don't know if including the EU in the final deal is a good idea or not as they want different things then us.
We'll have plenty of time.
We've had negotiations that took 50+ years with the Russians.
Negotiating with the EU for 50-60 years is perfectly fine, and we'll be happy with having the EEA agreements in the meantime.
And we'll integrate further with the EU too in other areas.
Our voluntary integration with the EU in a number of other areas is helping foster good will, that might help during those negotiations.
As for the current EEA agreement.
While we don't have voting rights in the EU we do have a right to be consulted with regards to EU laws that impact us if I don't remember wrong.
So it's not like we have zero impact on the laws.
The EU can of course still pass said laws after we express that a law is undesired by us, but at least the EU lawmakers have to be aware of our point of view when making said laws.
That's more then a lot of areas in Europe that's within the EU can say.
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@bobsmith5441 No, the middle of Europe is further north then you seem to think.
In my view the border of "north" goes between the Shetland and Orkneys that's within Northern Europe and Mainland Scotland, Southern Denmark, etc that's all in west or central Europe.
The traditional area of Slesvig might qualify as northern Europe.
Arguably parts or the whole of southern Slesvig could be considered either central or north European depending on how you look at it.
Frisians, Scots speakers, low German speakers are all speakers of a east Germanic language, and also have a different cultural and historical background then northern Europe.
They're all also geographically south of all of us.
Lithuania, Latvia, the Netherlands, mainland Scotland, Ireland, England, Wales and Germany all belong outside northern Europe.
Estonia is northern European, but isn't really considered nordic by most.
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8:05
So, the Netherlands was occupied during WW2.
That's why the ministry of defense is just 75 years old.
WW2 ended ago today, when I write this comment.As for freedom...The Netherlands has struggled a lot with that.Their lands where a battleground between Romans and Germanic tribes.Then the Franks who took over after the vaccum left by the Romans in France and later also Germany and even Italy.The Franks where christians who defeated the people of what's today the Netherlands and forced their christianity onto them.Then after being defeated by the Franks the Netherlands ended up as a battlezone between the Danes and the Franks during the beginning of the viking age.The empire of the franks where splilt into three parts, a western part (the origine of what's today France), a eastern part (the origin of what's today Germany) and a central part (containing areas like the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium and so one and so forth...)Of course the eastern and western part ended up defeating and eating up the central part pretty fast...
The Netherlands ended up under the Hasburg dynasty, a family that ruled Spain and Austria among other things.When the Netherlands turned protestant they had to fight for freedom against the catholic Hasburgs...
And there's been so much conflict over that area and the rights of the people living there...
Religions wars and civil wars...
Dutch people have had to fight for their freedom for so, so long.
It's no wonder that talking about freedom is the main thing they're going for here.
Just like we in Norway have a army that argues that it's there to protect our peace.
Our army is there to avoid fighting by being a deterance.
Theirs is there to fight for freedom and international law.
They've been refugees.
They've been bullied by bigger nations.
We've been lucky to stay out of most wars, and we value just nature and serenity, but understand that we do have dangerous neighbours and we did get occupied during WW2 just like they where.
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@kyartan My family was Fishermen and Farmers in eastern Iceland.
And yes, I'm aware that there was fishing of Icelands coast by other nationalities.
My familys home village celebrates the "French days" once a year because of many international, especially French, fishermen fishing of the coast there, and some of them helping the village, helping fund a the building of a hospital, among other things.
Yes, Europeans did come there to some degree.
But not really from the Muslim world.
Apart from everything else there was a whole host of hostile waters between there and Iceland, not in terms of weather and nations.
A English, French, Dutch, Norwegian, Irish or even German sailor might find himself on Iceland, but much further away them that seems unlikely.
There's other fishing grounds them just Iceland after all.
Not all of them that far away from their own shores.
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@Muck006 Some of us actually have a decent amount of renewable energy in our energy grid, but even in a 100% coal powered place a EV is still more enviromentally friendly then a gasoline car.
As for the whole why not using technology thing...
Because technology is a important part of modern life?
The impact of using a computer or a EV is relatively low compared to using a ICE car etc.
There's diminishing returns for these things.
Someone doing a lot of harm arguing that those who do the least amount of harm should stop doing any harm when they complain about those doing the most harm doing a lot of harm is kind of a strawman argument to be honest I feel...
I've changed several of my own life choices to reduce my own emissions.
Public transport, vegetarian diet, locally sourced products etc...
And in my own country our electricity mix is mostly hydropower, so almost entierly renewable assuming that the weather paterns don't change too much and we keep getting water into the reservoars we use to produce our electricity...
Could I do better?
Probably, personally I can't afford to build a new house that's passivly heated though, so I do the next best thing, and live in a appartment complex with multiple homes, so the heat in each apartment is shared to some degree with the rest...
And yes, I afford myself the luxury of using our mostly renewable electricity and using technology that granted does produce emissions on the point of production but is relatively enviromentally friendly when kept, especially since said computer is my main source of heat in my appartment...
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@Kyr93 "Unlimited troops"
Yeah, sure...
As for using the nukes...
Let's just say that Russia would come out worse after using them.
But there would be no winners in a nuclear war.
So yeah, nukes are hardly relevant to the war effort, other than ensuring that it'll stay a proxy war rather than a direct one for the time being.
Those missile manufacturers are unable to produce enough to win a war.
And the quality of their products is... Debatable...
Russian artillery genuinely is good, but again, ammunition production capability is limited, and Russia can't rely on buying ammunition from the whole world like NATO can.
We're buying a lot of ammunition from South Korea and Australia for instance.
As well as ramping up our own production in places like Spain and Scandinavia I believe it was?
Anyway, while Russia is capable of dragging out this conflict, Russia most definitely is not capable of winning this war.
And given the invasion of Crimea, support for rebel organizations in Georgia and Ukraine as well as Russian insistence on Ukraine not having a right to independence since the days of the durchy of Muscowy...
Yeah, sorry but staying neutral really wasn't a option for Ukraine...
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@louisgiokas2206
You assume that military might is everything.
The reality is that the US is unable to conquer and occupy the whole world.
Yet the US depends on resources, both in the form of raw materials, skilled labour, intellectual property, education, finished products and support from allies to ensure American security and way of life.
Meaning that if the US loses its reputation the country will lose its superpower status fast, its economy will collapse, its security will fail, its military and technology will fall behind.
American weapons will no longer sell abroad, losing that subsidy to their development.
The US dollar will lose its international demand.
The US will be excluded from international trade with US factories going without raw materials, technology, machinery and so one...
Essentially, the US would lose its ability to get anything from any other nations if they can't be trusted to follow the treaties they sign themselves.
Part of the reason why Ukraine us such a big deal is that Russia showcased that they can no longer be trusted, like the Soviet Union could be.
Russia has always been imperialistic, but in the past they usually held their word.
Todays Russia under Putin doesn't.
If the US behaves the same then the US network of international treaties and alliances will fall apart.
That's the enforcement of international law.
No empire has ever survived without the support of those they rule over.
The current world order designed to benefit the US is acceptable to most of the worlds nations, mainly because they rule themselves yet still have a international legal framework, if the US doesn't respect that the country will be replaced.
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+aprisia
And?
I'm talking to this thread as a whole, not just your own comment.
And I was justifying why I was referring to consoles as included.
I don't give a toss about your data.
Especially when you provide no links to those sources at all.
Your sources are not the only ones out there, nor necessarily the most reliable ones out there either.
There's lies, damned lies and statistics after all.
Depending on what sources you look at and what numbers from those sources you you use you can give the impression of AMD being anything from non-existing in the market to being market leaders.
I was referring to the "46%" number further up in the thread while replying to someone other then you about how I think it's quite plausible that AMD have 46% market share when consoles are included even if LTTs affiliate link isn't a credible source alone I think it's probably close to the real numbers on a global scale (with consoles included).
Then you critizised my statement that I think 46% is a plausible market share because you don't want to include consoles.
You don't need to be interested in those yourself.
But they are still sales.
And as my own comment further up stated a lot of Intel sales are also things other then desktop CPUs.
Sure, the numbers you used might not include those other things, but then there's other issues with them.
You don't need to be interested in the numbers including consoles if you don't want.
But your claim that they don't matter when it comes to market dominance in current sales is false.
And I was talking with Oliver duCille and not you about those numbers.
And whatever you care about or not really doesn't matter as those numbers including consoles are of interest to plenty of the rest of us.
Sure, you're right that the total number of CPUs in users hands right now is dominated by Intel, but that's due to the huge number of existing processors that has yet to be replaced by new sales.
And even though you're right that LTTs affiliate link is a insignificant sample size I very much doubt that those other sources you mentioned are any significantly more representative on a global scale accross all central processing units (in this context any general purpose processor focusing on code not suitable for things like graphics processors, like branchy code and latency sensitive code but not processors that's application specific like hardware video encoders or decoders like the ones used in the above video)
Consoles do have processors of that kind, you can run Linux on any of the current gen consoles if you want.
And I seem to recall that PS4 Pro is using a variant of BSD internally.
AMD also have sales to things like gambling machines, medical machinery etc, etc that is all CPU of some kind, either an APU with a iGPU integrated or a pure CPU.
A NIC on the other hand seems more application specific to me although I haven't looked too closely on exactly how a NIC works so I can't say for sure.
With that in mind, yes, I do think that it's quite plausible that AMD has a close to 50% market share in new sales (in other words something like 46%).
Can I document any such ratios?
No.
But nor are any of the numbers flung around in this thread used as arguments to the countrary any evidence either as far as I'm concerned..
Ryzen is outperforming Intel in multi-threaded IPC right now (when two of the threads in a core is being used) and customers following the tech news seem to be recognizing that.
They're gaining ground in servers for viritual machines with epyc, they're gaining ground with Ryzen 3-7, they're gaining ground with their APUs.
And yes, you're right, their market share in terms of volum sales for enterprice computers is still low, after all their pro series of APUs only launched recently.
And there's a number of other market segments where they do not have a suitable product out yet (for instance HPC workloads where cross core communication is high or where non-local memory accesses are frequent)
But in almost every market segment where they do have a suitable products they're either pretty much even with or beating Intel.
If you still want to argue the matter you'll have to wait till tomorrow.
Because quite frankly you're pissing me off too much right now, with references to things that, as far as I can tell, was 100% irrelevant to any and all previous comments I've made, for me to be any good in a discussion.
Have a nice day.
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+Helmholtz the Mule Watson
No, Agnar is the guy that I'm trusting and that the majority of people into CPU arcitectures also trust.
You know David Kanter the guy behind the Real World Tech website and forum that Gamers Nexus has included in some videos as an expert about microarcitectures?
David Kanter, Linus Torvalds etc are all people who use Agner as one of their sources for information about CPU arcitectures and optimizations.
The source is http://www.agner.org/optimize/
Now granted, I used that other guy as a source because he sorted through many pages of information that's probably way above the head of the average youtube comment section to get the essence of Ryzens strengths and posted that in a concise manner.
But I knew about most of those facts pretty much right after Ryzen launched, some of it prior to launch even due to Real World Techs forum and Agners mailing list while I only learned about that particular page on pcpartpicker a few days ago.
But it's bloody usefull.
So yes, I did link to it.
I suggest that you follow the source to agner.org and actually look up the test they did to learn these things.
The source code for the tests are available there so you can do the same tests yourself and draw your own conclusions.
The documentation from agner shows the latency for each and every instruction in the x86-64 instruction set as well as all the extensions provided in the modern AMD and Intel processors for each arcitecture he looks at, including in this case Ryzen 1.
He's probably not going to do so for Ryzen 2 since it's not technically a new arcitecture, but I expect him to do one for Ryzen 3 (Zen 2 when it comes out).
He got similar tests for Haswell, Skylake and pretty much all the other modern CPU arcitectures from Intel, AMD, VIA, IBM and ARM as well as a number of others I don't even remember the name of...
His tests involves running the individual x86 instructions and other instructions valid for the modern processors (including a bunch that's not documented in the ISA but that's either op-codes or just reserved instructions for future use etc), not just running applications coded using higher level languages like what Gamers Nexus or Hardware Unboxed is using...
As a result his tests show the actual properties of the hardware.
It's then up to the software to make use of those properties or not, and since most software out there has been written in a period where Intel essentially had a monopoly it's more often then not rather poor utilization of AMDs hardware...
That stuff is well worth a read.
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+Helmholtz the Mule Watson
In terms of iGPU performance AMD has always been ahead of Intel except for two intel processors, those two still had less computing power then AMDs iGPUs but they had enough level 4 cache to compensate for the bandwidth issues they and AMD both where encountering.
However those CPUs where so extremely overpriced compared to anything AMD offered or for that matter a CPU + dGPU combo that there was just no point at all in buying them, except for Apple who don't mind overpaying to meet their goals anyway.
AMDs issues as far as the APUs where concerned was always two things, CPU performance and bandwidth.
With the R3 2200G and R5 2400G and all the other Zen based APUs they've essentially fixed the CPU side of the equation, and their iGPU has been upgraded again.
The only thing holding them back still is the bandwith.
a L4 cache would help.
I think their future plan is to include some form of HBM in their APUs, but that won't happen till memory prices comes down.
Once they do AMD can potentially make APUs roughly on par with a R9 290 or a RX 470 provided that the thermals and power needs are dealt with.
Right now however, the R5 2400G is the best APU out there (those two new Intel things where they've essentially bolted on a dGPU on the same package isn't really a APU at all, but it's a neat concept)
As for optimizing for the R5 2400G, well that APUs iGPU got the same hardware encoder/decoder/transcoder as the Vega GPUs do, and Vega has been around for a while, and the arcitecture is expected to become a part of the mainstream GPU offerings from AMD too soon, so time and money spent on optimizing for that is likely going to be well spent in terms of the number of people who'll benefit from those optimizations.
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@castor3020 It's not unstable at all.
Sure, they can agree that they don't want the current goverment in power.
But force them to come up with a viable alternative before the old goverment is ousted (no new elections).
And also to avoid having a majority against you you'll need a supporting party that may not be a part of your goverment.
They'll vote alongside your goverment on some legislature, and keeps you in power in return for your support on some of their most important issues, but since they're not a part of your goverment they're also free to critizise you and vote against you in parliament on a individual case by case basis.
Let's say that you have 9 parties in goverment, 4 on one side, 4 on the other and 1 in the middle supporting one of the two sides after negotiations.
As long as you don't behave too badly and that party in the middle is getting more out of supporting you then deposing you then you'll stay in power.
And the only way you'll get ousted is by someone presenting a viable alternative that can take over right away anyway, something that requires negotiations.
Also, parties that keeps backstabbing eachother will find it harder to get support from other parties in parliament, so too much backstabbing is discouraged since you end up with less overall political power that way.
You also keep the same election results all the time, and have a smooth transition of power without much costs etc.
As for the elections themselves, since people are used to just changing goverment on the fly it's smooth, and the old goverement stays in power till a viable alternative can be made during the election too, so no instability during the negotiations either.
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@ollonet9965 You do know that American right wing media and youtube personalities are lying about Sweden feeding you half truths and full lies, taking information out of context to try to present a narrative that runs counter to the actual data in many cases, right?
Besides Americans have a tendency to think that things are black and white when they're usually way more nuanced...
Also, all of the nordic countries are provably better places to live then the US.
Both in the past and present.
We have more millionairs and billionairs pr capita then the US, more people achieve the "american dream" of improving their lives here then in the US, we live longer, are generally better educated, after health care expenses we pay about the same or less then them in total expenses etc, etc, etc...
(Not to mention what people who have lived in both regions says about their experiences there, just look them up, they're all over youtube)
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@williamhuang8309 In my city we had cramped busses, they where replaced by "superbuses" similar to the ones in that video, and they indeed have a higher capacity.
Is it equal to real light rail?
No, but it was also an awful lot cheaper, and it paved the way towards light rail in the future.
The alternative isn't light rail, the alternative is continuing the old busses.
Would light rail be preferable?
Of course it would.
But the whole point here is that this is a cheaper stepping stone that will actually happen, while light rail ends up in political limbo for 40-50 years because of course everyone wants it, but police, health care, fire departments, sewage, clean water, etc, etc, etc is all more important and costs money too.
Or would you really prefer that all of those services are kicked to the curve in favour of building light rail?
In a ideal world busses wouldn't even exist and we'd use light rail everywhere but we don't.
So we make compromises.
This is one of them.
The preparations for such a line makes building light rail on those routes down the line cheaper.
You start with upgrading the stops and the busses to longer ones with more capacity and the roads for a smoother ride, and perhaps make some lanes exclusive.
Then next replacement you do electricity and do a trolly bus approach with super busses.
Then when you get the money you may build the rail lines, and with the markings on the ground and you'll already have separate lanes, prepared stops and overhead wires with electricity and you'll only have to pay for ripping up the tarmac, laying down the rails, and laying new tarmack...
Instead of doing all of that and also doing the overhead wires, stops, signs, stop signals, driver awareness etc, etc, etc all at once...
It's perhaps more expensive in the long run, but it's more achievable because each up front cost is lower.
And you may still save on interest rates if the alternative is taking up a loan.
As well as having the option of taking loans in the future in case of a real emergency like the water purification plant failing and needing repairs ASAP.
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@F Youtube If you have a particular video you wish me to have a look at I'll do so.
But seriously, I'm not going to be following that youtube channel.
The wast majority of republican "influencers", youtube and otherwise video channels, twitter feeds +++ just keeps repeating eachothers arguments and using eachother as sources eventually going back to sources that was missunderstood by the original user of said sources...
It's just a few nuggets of truths mixed in with a ton of half truths and outright lies.
American deserves a real right wing instead of just... that...
I can respect not wanting immigration or lower taxes, or less centralized goverment, or less goverment in general, or more military spending or any number of Republican policies, but not the consistent use of lies, twisting of facts and history to try to argue for those points of view.
There's some real arguments for many of those poltical views and both the left and other right wing people would be more willing to actually listen to republicans if there was a bit more truth going around...
But with all the logical fallacies, assumtions, circle arguments, confirmation bias etc, etc, etc, it just doesn't work...
And since I only have a single life (no "afterlife" for me), I don't want to use that to listen to a channel I have no reason to trust due to generally bad experiences with sources of that nature in the past.
But if you can find a single video rather then a whole channel that you wish for me to have a look at then I will.
Oh, and regarding Americans...
My girlfriend is American and my sister and her husband live in America.
I'm just hoping to get my gf out of the country as soon as possible.
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@derdude6214 Well, to put it this way, Norway has a population of 5,5 million, a parliament of 169 members and 10 political parties are currently represented.
There's no minimum requirement for percentage of the votes etc for 150 of the 169 seats.
And those 150 seats are distributed between the 19 fylker we used to have prior to a recent reform merged several of them, we're still using the old subdivision for the elections though.
The seats are distributed both based on population and land to ensure that rural people and minorities are well represented.
If you have 30% of the votes in one of those 19 "fylker" but say 3% nationally you get 30% of the seats from that "fylke".
And then you win seats in various other fylker based on how many votes you get there.
Then we have 19 leveling seats that's kind of like the proportional seats in Germany in that there is a 4% limit to be eligible for those 19 seats and they're won based on all the votes and makes the number of seats pr party more proportional.
But since there's 1 leveling seat pr fylke you still get more regional representatives even if the voters actually getting a party said leveling seat is located somewhere else in the country.
As a result our election results are more proportional then the German MMP system and far more proportional then the British or American first past the post electoral system.
However we're intentionally less proportional then the Dutch system for instance.
The reason for that is that if you take two regions, one with say a city of 100 000 people and a few villages all around that city and compare it to a region with perhaps 80 000 people spread out over 80 different villages the likelihood of that city with 100 000 people having someone representing them in any given election outcome is pretty high, but the likelihood of any of those villages having a representative is low even if those 80 000 voters ends up being worth more then the 100 000 in the city.
And quite frankly if you have 2-3 representatives from that city already and the city took part in choosing some of the representatives that represents those villages anyway you still end up with most political views and experiences and of that city represented fairly often.
You'll have someone who knows how it's like living there.
It doesn't make a huge difference if there's 5-6 representatives from that city.
How it is to live there is still taken into consideration when making policies.
While for those villages even with added power given to their region they'll not be represented most years.
That's the logic behind why you guys use first past the post for some of your seats and proportionality for other seats.
But the difference is that our system doesn't distort the proportionality nearly as much and is better at representing smaller political parties.
Unusually this year a new party won a seat with just 4 908 votes, won because a hospital was going to be closed and that would result in half the population of the region with our Sami minority and the lowest population per square km being on the wrong side of a mountain from the closest hospital afterwards.
A mountain that's impassable in bad winter weather by both car and air ambulance.
Something they obviously where somewhat upset about.
Having our system allows us to have a seat winnable with less then 5 000 votes despite the average number of votes pr representative in Norway being 17 200 and my party having 36 700 votes pr our seats.
This kind of distortions only exists for smaller parties (under 4% of the votes) once you get past that our system is really, really proportional.
And it's proportional between the parties even when rural areas gets more seats.
Basically, the idea that all votes should be equal is inherently undemocratic in my view and inherently favours high population density areas.
Take the Rhine valley for instance.
It has over twice the population of my whole country.
Yet non of them know how it is to live somewhere where private public transportation, private health care, private education, private post services etc simply isn't viable due to low population.
Non of them know how it is to live in a country where only 3% of the land is suitable for agriculture, 1% suitable for grain and neither works most of the year due to the climate...
A country where our last conflict with a naval power literally lead to food shortages and borderline starvation as the Brits where blockading our coast during the Napolionic wars...
And we're even more vulnerable now then then with the increased population...
It would be unfair for those 5 000 or so voters in Norway to actually decide what laws people in the Rhine valley has to live by.
Urban areas should have more power then rural people, simply because we're more people.
But we already do because of our population.
But laws that affect others shouldn't be made by people who don't know the conditions of those who have to live under those rules.
And no representatives from the Rhine valley as a example could ever do so with regards to rural areas in Norway or Switzerland etc.
With veto power you're still able to enforce all of those laws as individual countries, but you're not forcing laws that's not viable onto others.
And for the record, a federated Europe would be inherently undemocratic for the simple reason that it's impossible to make a a large democracy function well.
And a confederate model is the only method that's fair towards everyone.
Federal being a too down model where the highest level grants power down, a confederal model is a bottom up system where the lower levels have all the power and willingly gives some away in specific situationa, but still ultimately has the final say themselves.
We've spent about 500 years in various unions, they didn't work out all that well for us...
No federation or other union is going to be a good option for us for many centuries I think...
But the basic principles still applies.
And I'm not just saying that to benefit us...
Norway is currently in a similar dilemma of our own.
We've (happily) signed treaties and laws that gives our ethnic minorities, the Sami, the Kven, the Forest Finns, the Romani and the Roma certain rights.
That's intended to protect their culture.
In the case of the Sami the ones along the coast and lived of fishing and farming has mostly been assimilated into the Norwegian culture, so what remains is mainly the semi-nomadic raindeer herders living in areas we haven't really been able to utilize much, our highlands etc.
And that raindeer herding is a important part of their culture, and it contributes to keeping their language alive.
The Sami have multiple languages as they're technically not one people but several closely related ones.
The northern Sami culture is thriving.
But the south Sami culture is endangered.
So our government is obligated to take them into consideration when making decisions.
One such decision was granting building permit to build some windfarms on a Norwegian peninsula.
The first ones where built with the consent of the local Sami raindeer herders (but reduced the available winter grazing grounds a bit from what I understand)
Then another permit was given...
This time against the will of the local Sami who took this to court.
The authorities hasn't taken into consideration that unlike our animal husbandry they're not using the same grazing grounds all year round...
And that the raindeers are animals that don't change easily...
They literally walk the same paths for 10 000 years, and the Sami just followed them...
But they're also skittish and often won't cross human roads or walk close to our windmills...
So when our bureaucrats looked at the available grazing grounds and though that's more then enough and gave a building permit when all of those grazing grounds are summer ones except the one being destroyed by the windmills...
Yeah, that didn't fly in our supreme court...
So now our government has ro work out what to do with windmills producing 3% of all our power worth billions of NOK while also following up on the decision by the supreme court that we're violating the human rights of our Sami raindeer herders by destroying those winter grazing areas...
(The original windmills that they consented to is also included as building them meant that the raindeer herders didn't have any winter grazing areas to fall back on, and also because this whole issue caused ethnic tension since there's still people alive who remember the time when the Norwegian government suppressed the Sami culture...)
Anyway, the needs of the many sometimes needs to make way for the needs of the few.
And if you want universal solutions you need the input of *everyone*.
That's why a veto is important...
The only reason why I'm begrudgingly accepting that a alternative is needed is because that veto is being abused by authoritarian leaders who really are not representing their whole people.
If Poland doesn't want to permit gay marriages etc I'll deeply dissagree with the, but ultimately that should be their choice.
Areas where I don't feel like Europe should go along with them though is on basic democratic principles...
They should be allowed to be undemocratic if they want, but not while being members of the EU.
Rule of law, freedom of the press and freedom of speech etc should be nonnegotiable among members...
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@derdude6214 No, local figures is one of my objections to the German system.
Focusing on individuals ends up distracting from the politics.
You get more of a popularity contest instead of voting so much on the direction you want your country to go in.
Our system is 100% party list based.
However candidates can be listed on multiple lists (if said lists permit it), and voters can change the lists in the boot, changing the order, adding people from other parties or removing people, although such changes are only taken into consideration if enough voters for a particular list actually make a change.
But especially in local elections it's common for lists to run on individual policies with members of multiple different parties included while they also run on their regular party list if they wish.
Some autonomy can never be enough.
Especially because it makes the federation vulnerable against a federal level that gets frustrated with local authorities and increase their own power at the cost of the local ones.
Especially dangerous in the case of authoritarian leaders.
No, it has to be the other way around.
Also, a federal level politician can never know what is or isn't important for local governments to decide.
In our case capitalism itself works worse because there isn't a viable market for many services that we still need due to lack of population density.
And that has been a problem in recent years since the EU has been lead by right wing politicians for a long time now, and we've been forced to implement capitalist policies that works fine in the high population density areas of the EU, but just doesn't out here in rural Norway.
Our postal services for instance is significantly worse after the EU decided that privatization of postal services was required...
Likewise train services on some routes have become significantly worse.
That said, there are others that's actually doing fairly well (we're not entirely without urban areas).
In Norway it's not the government but individual parliamentarians that propose laws, the ministers in the government just being some of them, but laws are proposed and enforced by the opposition as often as by the government as there's different majorities on a case by case basis.
There's even been cases of the far right and far left proposing and voting on laws together that they've managed to get passed.
If a party supported the governing coalition without being members of said coalition they're free to vote however they like on all the proposals (usually the agreement includes a promise to support the first budget after the election though).
If a party is a member of a coalition themselves they'll negotiate a platform with their partners making deals about supporting each other in certain legeslations etc, however anything not included in those coalition negotiations they're free to vote however they like, although the prime minister may talk to the leaders in the member parties on a case by case basis and they in turn may enforce certain voting or behavior in public in order to make life easier for the coalition, the cost of not following such rules is potentially losing your membership in a party, but you'll still be a representative in parliament till the end of the term even if you leave or change party, as long as you don't break the law.
And that's another objection, no one party should have enough power to dominate any region.
Our biggest political party had 26,3% of the national votes, and 48 out of 169 seats for instance in our last national election.
CDU being biggest in 50% of the regions shouldn't mean that they automatically get 50% of the votes there.
Nor should 50% of the regions consenting be enough, as 50% still means that you may ignore huge differences and such a majority may be able to enforce laws that's seriously harmful.
Norway is unitary, with our parliament having the last say rather than local governments.
But our system means that it's relatively easy for rural communities to change the makeup of said parliament.
You don't need to get a majority in any of those locations, even being top 5 political parties there will often get you a seat.
I agree that it's a bad decision on Germanys part, especially because Germany is more then capable of competing when it comes to EVs
Tesla is making a profit with their EV sales, non of the big traditional car companies are doing so yet, but all the ones that's close to do so are German.
If this had passed Germany would have a huge advantage, especially on the European market.
And I think that in the long run you'd probably our scale even the Chinese and Tesla.
But even so, in this case, we're still able to enforce these laws on a country by country basis.
Here in Norway we're already in the high 80s when it comes to EVs market share in percentage...
And that's excluding plug in hybrids and hybrids, just pure EVs.
I'm glad that it's just a hypothetical.
Honestly in a ideal world I'd prefer every country in the world being small countries with a population of roughly Iceland but cooperating in supernatural confederations.
Yes, it would probably cause all sort of headaches, but it would be worth it I feel.
Yes, that would involve Norway being split up too.
Definitely not going to happen, but yeah...
As for the weather.
Nah, it's nice right now.
But my gosh didn't snow a lot the last two days.
My region received the most snow in a night that we've had in 60 years. (We've had more snow accumulate before over longer time, and we have had more snow in a night over 60 years ago, so it's not a record.
But I definitely haven't seen this much falling this fast... Barely managed to get out due to the snow blocking the door, and broke my shovel trying to get rid of the damned snow, thankfully my neighbor helped me out, so we managed to get to the store before running out of food...)
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@derdude6214 Alright, sorry about writing his name wrong. -_-
There's some differences between the various Nordic countries.
But the basic idea is that there's electoral circles with a single seat.
Like Germany we have electoral circles overlapping other ones.
The two option thing you mentioned.
You have the country divided up into single seat constituencies with basically the same first past the post system as in the UK applying there.
So if you have 10 political parties each getting 10% of the votes but one party has a single more vote then the others that one seat goes ro that party (100% of that single seat constituency) even if 8 of the 10 political parties are fundamentally against the values of that one party.
So for instance if AfD gets 10% of the votes + 1 they'll get that seat even if all the other parties with 10% where to be left leaning.
The difference between the German system and the British system is that those single seat constituencies also overlap multi member constituencies.
So if you have 10 single seat constituencies and 10 seats shared in the multi member constituency overlapping them then the parties will get those 10 multi-member seats proportionally based on the percentage of votes they got but taking into account the number of seats they already got in the single seat constituencies.
That means that in the above example of AfD getting 10% of the votes they'd get 10 seats because they had 10% + 1 vote while the other parties would get 1 seat each.
Despite AfD literally only having 10 more votes in total they get half the seats in this theoretical example.
The idea with the single seat constituencies is that with fewer seats you can allow smaller constituencies in theory giving people more local agency.
But in practice such single seat constituencies tends to favour larger parties as they're more likely to tip that threshold of getting that + 1 vote, potentially leading to some voter apathy, although it's not as extreme as in the anglophone world with their first past the post systems.
5% is also a really difficult threshold to pass making it harder for smaller parties to break though and get recognition, meaning that you're more likely to just get regional or ethnic parties.
I'm guessing that you have parties for Danes, Frisians and that Slavic minority you guys have that I don't remember the name of right now?
They have a chance of building up enough local support to break though and get a seat, but are unlikely to get wider support.
Discouraging smaller parties from forming is a way for the big two to hold onto power by making it difficult to really challenge them or the status quo.
The difference between the German system and the Nordic ones is that instead of single member constituencies being overlapped by a larger multi-member constituency we have multi-member constituencies at all levels.
So instead of a green party candidate in your example for that local level and a SPD candidate at a higher level we just use a party list and vote for one list.
That list then wins seats in the more local smaller constituencies and then you also win seats in the bigger constituency as well taking into account the seats won locally.
But since the local seats already ate more proportional we need fewer seats at a higher level to correct the difference in proportionality at a higher level from at the lower level.
That bigger electoral circle in our case is our countries, but it could be a state too.
In theory you could have multiple stacking electoral circles.
So a German state could have several constituencies with a few members each, then there might be those leveling seats, the higher level multi-member constituency for the German state then above that you could have leveling seats for all of Germany.
And since each level is proportional you'd need few leveling seats at each level to correct the proportionality, while still ensuring local representation.
To achieve this just merge a few of your single seat constituencies.
Now the part about not having any lower limit for a seat is a Norwegian unique feature.
Having a limit of some kind is useful to avoid the fracturing of politics that Germany experienced between the world wars where you essentially ended up with many votes being wasted by going to parties so small that they had no real influence and no way of countering bigger parties like the fascists who where less fractured.
Having some incentive towards working together instead of endlessly splitting over minor Issues is a advantage over the system in the Weimar republic.
While we still allow parties that split or new parties that start from scratch to have a real chance of getting representation by not having a formal limit, meaning that real issues can be dealt with.
The number of seats that a electoral circle/constituency have of course matters in this regard as you'll need enough votes to beat a party for one of those seats.
So in my earlier example where one party got a seat with about 5 k voters they represented Finnmark.
Finnmark had 5 seats in that election and 39 299 people voted there that year (as you can probably tell they have a low population, part of why they have so many seats is that they have a lot of land and that also gives seats in our system)
4 of those 5 seats where given based on how people in Finnmark voted.
We use a modified Sainte-Laguë method for distributing seats.
So with the biggest party in Finnmark being labour with 31,4% of the votes in Finnmark (26,1% nationally).
And given that 39 299 voters voted they presumably got about 12 000 votes, give or take.
The regular Sainte-Laguë method would be to take those votes and divide it by 2x the number of seats they already have in that electoral circle + 1
(The+1 thing is to avoid ending up in a situation where you're dividing with zero if no seats have been distributed yet, so about 12 000 votes dividend on two times zero seats + 1 is 12 000 / 1 = 12 000 = bigger then any other party, so they get the first seat.
Next time this is calculated they'd have 12 000 divided by two times 1 is 2 plus 1 is 3, while another party would have a bigger number after that calculation..
The Sainte-Laguë method tends to favour smaller parties rather than larger ones giving smaller parties slightly more representation then exact proportionality.)
Because we use a modified version instead of dividing on 1 -> 3 -> 5 -> 7 -> 9 etc we use 1,4 as the first number instead of 1, so 12 000 / 1,4
Using 1,4 instead of 1 makes it slightly harder to get that first seat for smaller parties once the bigger parties get their seats, since the difference between 1,4 and 3 is smaller, so it's easier to get a second seat vs another party on the verge of getting their first then if we used just 1.
As a result we actually have pretty good proportionality in our system as our modification kind of removes some the bias towards smaller parties in the Sainte-Laguë method (voters divided on two x number of seats + 1) without giving the bias towards bigger parties in the d'Hondt method (voters divided on number of seats + 1)
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(Solution to the Belgian problem follows after this preview, click the "..." to read more)
Regarding a video about proportional representation, yes please!
Also, let me know if you guys want a hand in researching the details of how that works in the nordic countries.
(I can help you with Iceland, the Faero islands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Åland.
As for how to fix the situation in Belgium...
Simplest solution:
Make it official that no cabinet can be replaced till an alternative is presented and that the parliament can present a alternative at any time.
That encourages cooperation.
Anyone who isn't cooperating ends up losing power to parties that do, and if no-one can then whoever could do so last time ends up in power.
Also, given the regional splits I suggest that any party that makes it into the federal parliament in the previous year should automatically be available on the ballots everywhere in the country, regardless with what culture and language they represents.
That gives the voters more choices and should with time discourage political splits between cultures in favor of actual policies.
How many seats each region is given can be balanced based on political, cultural and linguistic considerations (for instance a 50-50 split between the Flemish and Walloon areas and extra seats for areas like the German regions and possibly more or less for the Capital region depending on what's perceived as more fair.
Then just add leveling seats to each region that's not given based on the proportional popularity of a party in that region but in the nation as a whole but where the representatives are still from said region.
All of this would encourage fighting for seats everywhere instead of just in the areas dominated by your own culture and language.
If your region has a higher population then another region but less representatives then you can use that higher number of voters to get leveling seats either as a small or big party but you'd need your representatives to be local in those regions meaning that people from that area would be important to your party and its values, it's political appeal and the amount of power you'd get.
So say a Flemish based party would have Wallonian representatives to negotiate with their counterparts in the party with its power base in Wallonia, and as a result you wouldn't have to deal with those pesky a-holes of x or y ethnic group but instead would have someone with a shared cultural background but with differing political ideals actually discussing things together and relating to each-other.
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@jjj8317 It's not really US factories that's keeping Ukraine going, it's the stockpiles, same as with the Russian ones.
And no, the US isn't really contributing more in terms of monetary value.
Europe has poured just as much resources into Ukraine as the US.
The difference is that more of Europes help is things like clothing, trucks, first aid kits, helmets, uniforms, military rations, ambulances, firetrucks, actual money that can be used to rebuild factories building or repairing weapons, materials, or indeed to buy weapons on the open market, keeping the troops feed, clothed, and the staff paid, feed and so one.
Basically we've contributed the same sums as the US, except that it's current spending for us, intended specifically for Ukraine, while on Americans case it's stores equipment that would be decommissioned anyway soon for the most part.
The sums where intended mainly for Americas own capabilities.
In terms of spending of current money actually going to Ukraine the US is actually spending less then us.
Some weapons are bought new etc.
But mostly it's spending on Americas own capabilities again.
So yeah...
And a tank is useless without fuel, fuel we pay for, not you...
It's useless without mechanics, who get their training at our cost for the most part etc.
This is really a chance for the US to achieve its geopolitical goals at a bargain.
And if this proxy war is won then Europe is likely to help the US in the Pacific as our main concern, Russia is less of a threat.
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@polarbear5740 Thank you with regards to the work hours etc.
As for the vaccines.
They work.
We're using the same vaccines in Europe as you guys are.
And the results in terms of number of new infections are clear.
You're right that the vaccines are no gurantee of not getting sick.
They're protecting you from between 2/3 and 4/5 of all potential covid infections.
Less for newer strains that has evolved in a world where vaccines exist, more for older strains that the vaccines where actually designed for.
Yes, these new vaccines do have side effects, like most drugs.
And my country has stopped using the jonson vaccine for most people.
And we've increased the restrictions on who should get Modena.
If you're worried about your health then Pfizer has the least risk of side effects, but it's also the least effective vs Covid.
Modena has more risk of side effects, but is more effective against Covid.
Jonson is even more effective but has a even higher risk of side effects...
Basically the vaccines are a fake attack on the body forcing your body into "plasting up wanted posters" all over your body identifying the virus, preparing it to fight the actual vaccine.
The more the vaccine "scares" the body the more agressive the body will fight back against any sign of the virus.
But rilling up the immune system also means that the immune system might have "friendly fire", attacking your own body.
Including your heart, lungs, brain etc...
(Because this virus attacks all of those areas, so the vaccine makes the body think those areas are attacked too)
Yes, I know, this is super simplified, and not necessarily 100% accurate, but it's close enough to give you a rough idea about what this is all about.
As a parallel imagine that the US was attacked by a terror attack, and the army implemented a curfew, keeping everyone indoor for most of the day.
One day or two of that might be okey.
But long term that would cause huge damage to the economy, making supply chains break down, people not getting their needs meet etc...
But there won't be any terrorist attacks.
Or you can do nothing and they'll have free reign.
You don't want either.
But it's hard to get a vaccine to get the exact right middleground, especially since everyones immune system is unique.
For instance people decending from the vikings often have issues with autoimmune diseases, with immune systems prone to attacking our own bodies.
So everything from allergies to rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, Inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis and a whole host of other autoimmune diseases.
But on the other hand we hardly have sickle cell disease like my black american girlfriends family has to struggle with and that black americans and africans have to struggle a lot with.
In both cases the diseases where responses to other attacks on our body where people evolved to have these features because those reduced the risk of people dying from something worse.
Sickle cell disease protects you from HIV/AIDS, Malaria and it's believed it probably protected against the black death.
But of course you can die from having sickle cell disease...
So it's only a evolutionary advantage if you're more likely to die from other diseases before you can get children.
Likewise with the autoimmune diseases of the nordic region...
People adapted to their enviroment.
In the nordic case one possible reason for our autoimmune diseases where the frequency of parasites who discreted substances to calm our immune system.
If that's true then perhaps our immune systems evolved to fight diseases and parasites despite the methods that the parasites evolved to hinder our immune systems...
By simply being overly agressive.
Combined with the immunesupressing effect of the parasites our immune system would then work normally, but now that we've gotten rid of the parasites we're suffering from auto-immune diseases.
With these differences between people it's hard to get a vaccine that works perfectly on *everyone*.
Since you need enough stuff in it to "antagonize" the immune system so it'll react to the vaccine, yet you also need to keep the immune system from overreacting so much that people get sick or die.
The vaccines has pretty much nailed it.
But there's slight nuances there.
Just like there's nuances between different ethic groups in how their immune systems works.
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Norway has a 100% state run health care insurance and all hospitals are 100% state owned.
There are however private medical clinics as well as most general practictioners being private.
There's a roof on how much people can pay in medical expenses pr year (much lower then the ones you mentioned for Germany and the US, but still high enough to make people think twice about needlessly seeking medical attention).
The costs of medications are highly regulated.
And they're a part of the same cap as for both physical and mental health care.
However dental care is not covered by our system for adults, and has to be covered 100% out of pocket except for in certain cases when people are on certain social aid programs, changing this has been one of the many election topics in the recent election in Norway, although it wasn't the main topic.
Our system is of course covered by our tax system, a progressive one.
So with a lower income you'd pay a smaller percentage of your income in tax.
With a higher income you'd pay a greater percentage.
In terms of post-tax costs, I've had doctors appointments with a cost of perhaps 30 dollars, and some at perhaps 80 dollars, give or take.
And that would in essence be all you'd pay if you don't need any further medical treatment.
Births are free in hospitals and birth clinics, but isn't covered for home births, where you have to seek out private solutions and pay for it in full (this is to discourage this kind of births, due to the obvious risks involved, if something goes wrong there that would incur higher costs for the state, and in the case of death, a loss of taxable income...)
As for the cost cap for health care in Norway, I think it's something like 250 dollars give or take?
That cost cap may also apply to health care in other countries like the US if you can prove that you can't get the same health care within Norway up front, it's a bit complicated...
Seeking healthcare abroad for things that is available in Norway however would generally not be covered, although I blieve there are some exceptions.
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@GTA5Player1 Quite the country.
Any time someone does not feel represented by the political system they start looking for alternative paths towards relevance.
And I'm sure that Germany has experienced enough terrorism in the seventies to know that disgruntled citizens can be quite problematic...
The fall of the Soviet Union might have helped, but the presence of Die Linke in your parliament is probably just as important in avoiding a modern "Rote Armee Fraktion" as the political changes further east.
If you allowed more smaller parties then perhaps some of your current parties could split up into their current factions giving people more real options instead of forcing everyone into a few big parties.
Germany is bigger than Norway, has way more seats in your parliament, and more diversity, yet you have less parties represented.
The best way you can possibly reduce your conflict levels is by ensuring that more people are represented and by splitting up the political identities into smaller ones that are easier to deal with.
Some of the values of AfD could perhaps be meet without turning to racism if they could be represented in another party.
There's certainly room for a party between communists and labour in a country.
Conservativism can take more than one form, CDU/CSU isn't the only possible answer for that.
The 3 direct seat exception to the 5% rule helps, but is still problematic in my view.
5% is just way, way too high, and the exception relies on a fundamentally unfair first past the post system.
I see what they tried to achieve with that system, and I agree with many of the fundamental ideas, but there's other ways to implement those ideas that avoids some of its pitfalls.
Like the focus on person over politics caused by a system where you are voting for people rather than parties.
You can ensure local representation without turning to the first past the post system.
The German system is only fair when it comes to the relationship between the bigger parties, not to the smaller ones the way I see it.
However it's your country, not mine.
I'm just glad that we don't have to deal with it.
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@mpalmer7800 No, that's where Norway differs from say the US.
In Norway you don't lose any rights regardless of what you have or have not done.
You are not your actions.
Someone cheating on their husband.
Tough luck, it sucks, but that doesn't make them "evil".
Someone robs a store?
Awfull life choice, but doesn't make someone evil.
Sold drugs? Ditto...
We don't know what's going on inside another persons mind.
And it's not our place to judge.
Brevik made some truly awfull life choices that hurt a lot of people, including friends of mine.
And quite frankly he's insane.
As long as he genuinely poses a danger to society he will remain behind the bars.
But the moment he actually is reformed he will be released.
I don't belive in the concept of evil at all.
Nor will I ever do so.
He needs help to see the errors of his ways.
Also, I assume you're American?
Or at the very least that you're religious?
That seems to be true in most other countries...
Well, if you're christian, isn't it gods job to judge people, not *ours*?
Jesus said that the first stone should be thrown be he who is without sin.
And I don't know about you.
But I've yet to meet anyone who hasn't sinned in some way, screwed up royaly.
No, removing his rights isn't for us to do.
He's simply being held till we can be sure that releasing him is genuinely safe.
At the momen that's clearly not the case.
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2:36
There's a lot more then 195 countries.
They're just not all equally recognized.
14:25
It's not the country merger that's beneficial here, but the merger of individual factors like labour pools etc.
Having specialized laws suitable to local conditions is still extremely beneficial in many cases because we do not all have the same conditions to deal with.
Climate, geography, soil quality, linguistics, culture, religion, raw materials, traditions, historic specializations etc, etc all matters in terms of what works well where.
You can remove barriers to movement etc without removing borders.
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@SeattlePioneer Actually if you can produce enough renewable when it's available you can use power storage for the rest of the time.
Norway alone has enough reservoirs to provide all of Europe with power for 12 days if my calculations aren't too far off if they're all converted to pumped hydro storage instead of used for electricity production only...
The main problem is a lack of power transmission infrastructure and that they're generally without any pumps to pump up the water to begin with...
Add the Alps and the various other mountain chains of Europe and add other forms of energy storage...
Also, here in Norway we actually have negative electricity prices when there's a lot of rain and wind meaning that anyone producing say hydrogen would actually be paid for pulling power out of the system during our peak production when water has to be released for safety reasons to avoid a reservoir collapsing etc...
Hydrogen made from water that can be used in natural gas power plants if they're designed to handle the intense heat.
It's not as efficient as a hydrogen fuel cell, but given that it can use both hydrogen and natural gas it provides the flexibility and reliability that fuel cells can't just yet.
As for nuclear power plants it takes too long to build new ones that's safe and they're too expensive when you factor in safety, certification, and managing the waste and also just the decommissioning afterwards, and the reliability of that power is a problem in itself for the transition to renewables.
You need the peaks to have a high enough power price to justify the power storage, and that allows storage companies to pay enough during the peak renewable production to make those viable in the capacities we actually need.
If nuclear power covers that power it's the renewable power that's removed from the grid when there's a excess power, not the nuclear power as they need to have deals with the government or the power companies with guaranteed purchases to be viable and they can't easily be shut off and on again like natural gas or hydropower can.
And the nuclear power creates the excess renewable power during peak production, because it's there even while the renewable power is also there, making it less economically viable...
Also, nuclear power is only "green" when you look at systems that has existed for a long time.
Creating new ones creates a lot of pollution...
Also, while the current girl might last a long time with current production, if we where to ramp up production the currently usually used fuels wouldn't last long at all.
There's alternative fuels and nuclear technologies, but those require more research.
Nuclear power is not an area where you should experiment in the field given the high risks involved...
Anyway, investments are needed regardless of of what we choose to do.
In the case of Norwegian pumped hydro we don't have enough power transmission capacity to deal with transmission even within Norway, let alone to Germany and the continent.
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@Zdamaneta We have our own travelers, two groups of them with two different languages (they arrived at different times).
And it's not a matter of culture.
The travelers have been discriminated in Romania for a long time.
Indeed they used to be slaves there.
This isn't about ethnic groups, it's about citizens of Romania functioning worse here then other ethnic groups because of structural issues within Romania.
Don't get me wrong, I totally get that overcoming such issues isn't easy.
Minorities who have faced discrimination are less likely to trust a government that has been used by the majority population for said discrimination then the majority population is.
You see that all over the world.
My black american ex girlfriend didn't exactly have much faith in the US government, education system or health care system, all of them historically used to discriminate minorities.
Here in Norway the Sami people still distrust the government and the majority population despite our attempts to make amends, rectify previous harm etc.
It's just going to take generations.
For Romania that discriminated minority is the travelers.
But travelers wish to see their children having a future just as much as the majority population does.
Not at the cost of their values and cultural distinctiveness, but never the less.
I've had travelers as neighbours before.
And they're overrepresented in our music industry, just like the black population in America is.
There's two traveler populations native to Norway, one that arrived much earlier and that's more integrated into Norwegian society, and one that arrived centuries later.
They have different languages, both recognized by the Norwegian government.
Romani and Romanes.(Yes, those two words are used interchangeably for the language of the travelers in some countries, but since we have two populations and one uses one name and the others the other name for the language that just works best for us, names for the ethnic groups themselves us a bit more complicated as there's no consensus about what's the best name, although most of the older group seems to prefer travelers, and most of the later group "Sigøyner".
There's also a third traveling people here not considered a part of either ethnic group.
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@samsabruskongen I presented two scenarios, only one of them involved the fields already explored continuing as normal.
The other involved speeding up the shut down of those fields leaving a significant portion of their resources in the ground.
The EU still needs some gas at least short term so we can't stop production overnight even from a environmental point of view as it's going to take time to replace the continental fossile power sources with green ones and the alternative sadly is coal.
But increasing the cost to favour green power sources is definitely a option.
The EU would still have the option of paying extra for the gas when the situation is dire enough, like right now.
But during a normal situation our gas industry will be less competitive even in existing fields and naturally slow down production faster than just with a stop in exploration.
That's basically the scenario that seems the most realistic to the environmentalists in the parliament.
And like the SSB mentioned, that's something that we as a economy can handle just fine.
However if you don't trust the SSB then we don't really have much to talk about.
Especially since the report I'm referring to was created in 2020, during a conservative lead cabinet coalition.
So, your arguments about a left wing goverment somehow making the SSB create a bogus report just doesn't hold water.
And there's plenty of independent research backing SSB up, no left or right side affiliation involved.
Yes, closing down the oil industry would have consequences.
Especially in some areas like Stavanger.
And the national economy would be 2% weaker then it would have been with the oil.
But we as a country would be fine.
It's just not the doomsday scenario that people seem to imagine.
We really can't use much more than 3-4% of the wealth fund regardless of the oil and pensioners.
Simply because our economy wouldn't be able to handle it.
The money being used would lose all value and the wealth would be eaten by the financial system, not help the country as such.
Spain had similar problems during their colonial era due to gold from the Americas and the Netherlands had it when they discovered oil.
You just don't want too much value added to the economy from any one source.
Hence why the oil money is being funneled out where it can be saved for long term use.
With the wave of pensioners and the loss of oil income we'll probably dip a little bit into the funds actual money instead of just relying on the dividend despite that being inefficient and bad for the economy.
But honestly it's likely that we'll keep that limited.
And if anything we'll cut spending elsewhere as needed.
We've done that before.
You might not remember it but we had a financial crisis just before the oil started making us a profit.
Back in the late eighties and early nineties was when we had that crisis.
And we had to tighten our government budgets 3 years in a row during the nineties.
It was tough but we did it.
We got through that just fine.
And we'll get through the post oil era just fine too.
As for the idea that the green shift can't produce amprofit for us...
Yeah, you're just wrong there.
Europe is the strongest market for environmentally friendly products.
And we're selling to them.
Without a artificially high value of the NoK caused by the oil we'd be able to export way more than we currently do, and we're already exporting a lot of things and making a profit.
Europe is energy starved.
Norway is among the countries in Europe with the most energy potential.
We can sell not just electricity, but also hydrogen (since Germany has decided to go with gas power plants capable of burning hydrogen as their compromise solution)
We'll already have gas pipes to the continent, so we can presumably just shift to use those for hydrogen instead as the gas's production falls.
We can produce the hydrogen when we have excess power during wet years.
Another option is to build energy storage.
For instance starting to pump water up feom lower reservoirs to higher ones using cheap wind energy from the continent and the Norwegian coast when it's windy and discharge that as the energy is needed here or on the continent etc.
We're good at energy.
With so much energy potential and with rising energy prices on the continent our power demanding industry will end up being more competitive.
Dutch greenhouses are closing down due to energy costs, metal forges all over Europe is reducing their activities etc.
Opportunities always present themselves.
And we have the money to invest.
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@리주민 What I describe has a completely different goal from what you're talking about.
The increased power to rural areas I'm talking about is there to ensure that if farmers make up 8% of the population they will have more then 8% of the seats in the parliament, not to compensate for some lower likelyhood of a farmer to get into parliament then their percentage of the population would indicate.
The idea here being that if one profession makes up 30% of the population they're already represented so you don't need more of them but can have less of them then what their percentage of the population actually is and still have their point of view being represented while also get more diversity.
For reference farmers and woodsmen (woodcutters etc) combined make up 2,7% of the population in Norway.
And in 2019 there was 11 048 fishermen in Norway out of a population of 5 million, these 11 k people as well as some fish farmers together bring in 21,6 billion NOK or about 2,4 billion USD pr year in revenue.
As you can imagine that's a profession well worth maintaining as far as our economy and food security is concerned.
Fishermen would according to these numbers make up about 0,2% of our population.
In the period 2013-2017 8 parliamentarians 5,4% of the parlimentarians in Norway where from a primary industry of some kind, so farming, fishing, cutting wood, mining etc, that is extracting resources and not refining them etc.
Looking at the numbers it looks like about 3% of the population is from primary industries (all of the ones I mentioned) in 2020 (a lot of people in the oil industry lost their jobs due to the fall in oil prices during the corona virus) I don't have any numbers from 2013-2017 for that.
But as you can see they are intentionally slightly overrepresentated.
The effect you're looking for of people from different professions having a chance to become parliamentarians that's equal to their professions share of the population comes naturally if you have a sufficiently egalitarian society.
But that's not our goal here.
Instead we're trying to increase the share of power of professions that are vital to the nation.
After all, 5,4% of parliamentarians in that period was still just 8 of them so it's not like there was one represented every single year.
Most professions won't be represented all years.
But these are important enough for us that we want them included in our political debate every year even if their share of the population on its own doesn't justify that.
You could theoretically do something like setting of a seat that will always go to a farmer for instance and get a similar result I guess...
But again that's not really the goal here.
The goal is for people who are too far away from the population centers to really interact with the part of the population that makes up the majority of it to get indirect power to have more of a say.
It wouldn't help much with a farmer who works right next to a major city to get in that way.
Those live under completely different terms and might be favored in local politics but not at a national level.
At a national level we're after the people further afield, both farmers and others.
Including for instance people employed by the state in rural areas and dealing with the logistical problems of rural areas for instance.
And so one and so forth.
A doctor in a rural hospital, a ferryman or farmer or fisherman or local route pilot of a small plane etc.
All of them.
Because living in a rural area is different from living somewhere urban.
So it's not about trying to correct flaws of the electoral system, it's intentionally ceding power to a different region in order to ensure that more different views are represented.
The only profession based thing that is similar that I can think about is when some countries require military officers to be a part of the goverment or parliament.
Something that might be "justified" due to a dangerous military status with a lot of enemies surrounding a country.
If farmers shrink in numbers in Norway they will lose relative power in our parliament, but it doesn't change that rural areas are overrepresented in our parliament.
One compensating feature we have for this kind of thing is leveling seats.
Where one representative from each electoral circle is distributed based on the overall popularity of the parties in the country so if one party should have gotten 30 seats based on their national population but only get 28 from the different electoral circles they might get 2 leveling seats or if they had 0 seats locally because they're just not poplare enough in any one place but are really populare overall just spread out they might get 2-3 leveling seats etc (although I can't really remember any leveling seats being allocated without a party having 3-4 seats already, in part due to the requirement of having 4% of the popular vote to qualify for leveling seats)
This effect means that the opinion of urban voters are not underrepresented, proportionally in the makeup of the parliament but more of the actual representatives are from rural areas.
So you might be from a rural area and join a political party and get elected into the parliament by voters in a urban area due to your party allegiance.
Although you're more likely to be put in there by rural voters if you're from a rural area.
Our electoral system does have some weird artifacts sometimes.
But on the whole it works well.
Now, in a different system where you are less likely to get political power if you're from a profession then what its share of the population would suggest for whatever reason then yes, I guess your system might make sense.
It's just that, honestly there's better ways of achieving that...
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A goverment offering health care doesn't mean that you can't get health care from abroad or from private actors.
You can't really turn to private actors for the access of information if they've been banned...
And the US already uses over twice the money pr citizen on healthcare that other western countries does despite having worse outcomes.
The important principle is that everyone should have access to healthcare without going bankrupt or risk denial of service.
Markets and demand and supply doesn't really work if you are passed out and unable to negotiate prices, or have no choice but to purchase something because you'll die without it.
Demand is therefore infinite regardless of the amount of supply, so it pays to limit supply to where people are willing to pay more.
Have you noticed how ambulance are practically never "in network"?
It's because people don't really have a choice about network or services when they need it so those companies earn more by not having a deal with the insurance companies and simply demanding payment anyway.
Yet their employees often can't afford a insurance themselves, so during the pandemic lots of ambulance workers where bringing people in to get health care they themselves could not afford to receive and didn't have access to.
You don't need to have a government run health care system if you don't want to.
But having a government negotiating prices is essentially the same as every cizen of a country going together in a union or something to negotiate health care services together.
It gives citizens negotiation powers.
Don't pick individual medications or government owned health care, just set price caps for each category of medication and services.
That solves a lot of problems.
Another issue is all of the bureaucracy.
Americans use more money on hospitall bureaucracy then on actual diagnostics every year, despite US diagnostics being the most overpriced form of healthcare in the whole world...
If you simplified it to have a single payment system of some kind you'd avoid that problem.
Imagine every citizen being registered in a government system with a account for health care services pr citizen for instance, anything paid in there would be available to the hospital, and in case of emergency treatment or anything chronic it can automatically be overcharged covered by the government, then instead of each and every hospital having to deal with every single insurance company the government could simply send a demand to you that can be fulfilled by the insurance company or yourself or whatever system is picked.
Either way a ton of hospital bureaucracy would be saved reducing costs.
This kind of inefficiencies are rampant in the US health care system.
But quite frankly if you nationalized everything and just let the government own al the healthcare you would basically half the health care costs simply due to getting rid of so much bureaucracy...
You'd have the same health care cost as you're already paying through your taxes today (that only currently covers some American citizens but still charges every single US citizen as much in health care costs as we do in European countries where 100% of health care costs for every citizen is covered by the state).
Or you could continue with the whole privat insurance system thing but just regulate it and streamline the process of registering patients and dealing with coverage by the insurance companies etc...
Like seriously, it doesn't really matter that much I'd it's public or private, the outrageous part is that you guys in your country think that it's acceptable that people are either denied health care, is bankrupted by health care costs or is afraid of seeking health care because of the costs, as even with a insurance most people still ends up paying so much themselves that they end up indebted...
As a European I actually find it more upsetting how much suffering exists within your own country that's somehow accepted by your society and the fact that so many of you essentially ends up relying on donations from others including us Europeans on crowd founding sites...
Like seriously, how is it okay that 27% of GoFundMe is to cover health care of mainly Americans?!?
Europeans have already spent billions on paying for US healthcare that quite frankly those recieving that treatment already have paid for over the tax system in terms of the percentage of their taxes going to health care.
But because of how inefficient your system is your goverment can only afford to cover veterans etc...
It the system was made universal and nationalized you'd be able to cover everyone while barely changing the government health care cost to begin with...
And like I said, once you factor in the savings in private insurances you'd end up saving about half the money...
You could still have private hospitals and extra services for rich people to use in order to save goverment expenses if desired...
Like just, do *something*...
Because the current system is messed up...
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@Likr666 The idea that you have to charge a PHEV often just isn't true.
But the maintainance cost thing, definitively is.
My sister has a hybrid car, and it's has broken down for the second time this year in a short amount of time, and she can't afford to repair it right now, since she's still paying down the loan she took to repair it last time...
On the other hand, like a EV you'll have little wear and tear when you're driving in electric one pedal mode and drive efficiently.
Anyway, regarding refueling.
She only fuels her care once a week at most...
She often go longer without needing to fill it.
And a hybrid car can charge when you're breaking or even just by running the gasoline engine if needed, although that's definitively not ideal.
Don't think of the battery as something you have to charge, but something that you have the option to charge whenever you're stopping anyway for a snack or something with a PHEV.
But yes, they do tend to charge slower.
But yeah, it depends on the car.
You can get cars that's mainly driven by a electric engine but that has the option of generating electricity using a ICE engine that is then feed to the electric engines, that is range extenders...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_extender
Or you can get hybrids where both the ICE engine and the Electric engine drives the drivechain directly.
And those two approaches to hybrid cars are very different and leads to cars that have different abilities and behaviors.
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The way we deal with this issue here in Norway is quite simple.
Multiple parties in a parliament that can replace a cabinet at will in case of issues.
By having more then just two political parties a single party never is able to get their politics through on their own.
So you end up with people having to be nice to eachother in order to get their policies through, if they don't, or if they cheat and get caught doing something that harms other political parties then those parties simply won't support you anymore costing you your power.
On the flip side, if people do behave well then they're rewarded with additional power.
The conservatives in Norway has spent several years cleaning up their reputation from a time when they used to be thought of as all about the wealthy few and caring little for others to now being a mainstream center-right wing political party that is willing to cooperate most of the other political parties to get through their policies because they genuinly believe that said policies are good for the country (even if I as a left wing guy don't always agree with those policies they've at least proven that they truly do care about them) and as a party that is willing to make compromises with other political parties to get things done and as a result they've gained political power because more political parties are willing to cooperate with them and more people are voting for them and the parties willing to support them.
On the flip side the labour party has been neglecting their coalition partners forcing through their own policies at the cost of their partners.
And sure, they've proven that they believe their own policies are the best for the country too (and I believe in many of them) but their reduced will to make compromises that also favour the smaller parties has cost them the power in this country as even people on the left like me turn towards parties in the political center in order to get those concerns across.
And appart from the election a coalition partner of the conservatives the progress party has ministers who have made unacceptable statements or have been outright lying, the parliament as a result forced the cabinet to either replace that minister or leave, the cabinet was ready to go to protect this minister, but the minister in question decided to leave in order to protect the cabinet.
She gained browny points for thinking of the cabinet first, the cabinet members got to show loyalty to its members, the parliament got rid of a minister causing trouble and everyone was reminded that you get more done by playing nice.
So everyone wins.
(Regarding small political parties, there's no lower limit to number of voters needed to get a representative in the parliament, as long as you're big enough in a election circle to get some proportional representation there, but all political parties with 4% of the voters or more get a significant amount of power as 19 of the 169 seats in our parliament are only given to political parties with more then 4% of the voters behind them that have less proportional representation then their popularity at a national level would suggest, so parties that are too small in the individual election circles to get enough seats there to be fairly represented because their voter base is spread out a lot for instance, the remaining 150 seats are given to parties proportionally based on their popularity in the individual election circles)
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@groupb9420 No.
First of all, the winter war predates the second world war.
Secondly, the continuation war and the second world war is technically two separate wars involving the parties of WW2.
Finland was a co-belligerent in the war against the Soviet Union during the continuation war.
But they didn't actually join the axis or sign any alliance with Germany, instead they simply cooperated with each other in their separate wars till the Finnish objectives where achieved.
The Finns then left the Germans to fight on separately as they had no desire to actually destroy the Soviet Union.
Simply to free the homeland of their peoples (Finns, Sami, Swedes and Karelians, their main ethnic groups)
Their end goal was a negotiated peace of some kind, not a Soviet destruction.
Also, the winter war was faught without any German involvement, be that weapons or men.
Nordic countries, western allies and interestingly Hungary and Italy helped Finland a tiny bit.
But for the most part they essentially won (maintained sovereignty) that war on their own.
The continuation war was a attempt to regain lost territory using world events (after all, the country was still full of refugees who had been driven from their homes by the Soviet invasion)
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@_TeaMaster No, Singapore uses some variation of first past the post I assume?
My point though wasn't about Singapore, it was that he showed factually wrong information in the video when he used Norway as a example.
The Labor party of Norway in the election year he picked losing the election with the most votes and as the biggest party in parliament with the most representatives because they couldn't come up with a viable combination of parties willing to support a cabinet where they took part.
My comment did not in any way, shape or form even refer to the mess that is Singapores political system...
The point with democracy is not to get the most qualified, or best or whatever people into power.
It's to ensure that the people who are have a consensus backing them and have legitimacy.
Basically its goal is to ensure that everyone feel that while they might not agree with everything being done that at least they have influence on their own lives and that they do not feel like they need to turn to violence to be heard.
In Singapore there's no way of knowing how many people are seriously upset about the state of affairs, living in fear, have serious issues that needs to be resolved, or solutions to major problems that Singapore as a nation has.
Because it's not a real democracy.
Singapore is well run in many ways, but the way it achieved that state is still fucked up beyond belief.
That's my honest opinion.
But I decided not to share it in a separate comment earlier to try to be polite, instead just commenting on the poor choice of example used in the video to contrast against Singapore. But you decided to make that completely off topic comment of yours, so you're welcome.
He could have used our 2001 election instead where the prime minister was from a party with 12,4% of the voters behind them and 22 seats in our 165 seat parliament at the time. Or even the election he did choose but picking the party of our prime minister instead of just the biggest party.
Now, if you're not interested in politics in Norway no one is forcing your hand to read any of this.
No one was forcing you to read my original post either.
But you made the choice to do so, and you made a comment that was 100% irrelevant to the topic of my comment.
Completely missing what I was trying to say.
So you're welcome.
Enjoy reading all of this.
All you achieved was pissing me off by being super rude.
So now I feel no obligation to have any respect for you at all any more.
Hence the above post.
If I had to choose between a well run authoritarian goverment like Sinagpore or arguably China or a poorly run Democracy like the US, Argentina etc I'd personally pick the later, despite how much harder my life would be.
No one is expecting perfection, Taiwan is the only half way decent democracy in the whole region, so I'm not expecting the ruling party in Singapore to play entierly fair.
If Americans can gerrymander then so can they.
But they're not even holding up the pretense and they're using violence and essentially forcing the voters hands instead of pulling the strings in the background like a normal flawed democracy.
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@Bell_plejdo568p
You can tell where I'm from if you actually read stuff here.
And I don't think that you've actually watched the video...
As for what is or isn't true...
What is it that you claim is false?
Israel has done a pretty good job of spreading propaganda in its own language and in the anglophone world.
But thankfully my own country has had close relations with both sides, since we both have been the only country that st Times has had more people going to Israel then the US has due to religion and being pro-Israel back in the day, but we're also a left leaning country that has always had a sweet spot for the underdog, and we're one of the biggest economic supporters of Palestina here in the west (it's a lot of our money that you're burning right now in this war by destroying Palestine).
Personally what I don't get is why Israelies keep blaming Hamas for the attack when it's Bibi that's the real cause, long before the war even started.
Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if he's behind the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
And the activities of right wing political parties in Israel are directly to blame for the majority of deaths in the conflict after 1995 in my view, not Hamas, even if they might have pulled the trigger they simply wouldn't have had the foundation of hate to recruit from if it wasn't for the extreme racism and constant humiliation and suffering caused by the Israeli right.
Israel caused that attack itself as a nation, and the anger should be aimed at Bibi, not Hamas.
If the Israeli courts where actually respected from the start instead of being constantly undermined, if Israel genuinely had been dealing with the Palestineans in good faith instead of what they did...
Well, there would probably still have been some deaths, but the hate would have slowly been reducing over the generations, leading to a gradual peace after a few generations.
As is Israel is on the path towards complete destruction as Israel might be able to kill all Palestinans currently in Palestine, but the country is creating a people in excil that hates Israel in countries all over the world, who will be able to do exactly what the Zionists did with time.
The US won't always be in a position to protect Israel.
And this war is putting a end to the sympathy for Israel in Europe and the rest of the world.
Just look at how many countries are voting against Israel right now, including in the west.
Right now Israel is seen as the Germany of the 1930s of the middle east.
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+Bad_Bass _Trout Actually while we humans evolved from insect eaters who turned into fruit eaters our ancestors then evolved into omnivores who mostly was eating meat left over from the predators (rather then hunting ourselves).
So like hyenas we're actually relatively good at surviving bad meat compared to most animals out there.
Doesn't mean that we can't get severely sick from it, but as long as we're smart about it we can eat animals who have died of natural causes relatively safely.
That said, except for relatively recently meat was always a nutritional supplement for human kind more then a stable of our diet (except during the ice age when we started hunting the mega fauna for a living and a diet completely dominated by meat became the new norm in temperate climate zones for humans, interestingly we've actually evolved to some degree to cope with those changes in diet in certain parts of the world, Europeans are much more capable of utilizing dairy products then most parts of the world, and Inuits are much better at dealing with large quantities of meat and the fats involved, while the people of the US and western Europe has actually slowly started to evolve the ability to manage more fat in the diet without gaining weight as fast, we're still getting overweight by our diet though, it's just not as bad as when say an Asian comes here and try to live of our diet... Oh, and then there's the whole issue of portion sizes, todays single individual portions for a single meal is what was expected for four or five people less then fifty years ago)
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Hum...
Okay, so what about raising the houses above the possible maximum level of the lava over the next 30-40 years of eruption?
Start by melting holes into the lava, then drive a pile foundation into the melted rock deep enough that new lava on the surface simple can't melt it's way down there and then some.
You could use a material with a higher melting point then what the lava has ever shown before for the piles, and then a core that's highly heat transfering to transfer heat away from the piles on the surface down deep into the ground, perhaps some kind of ceramics on the outside then metal load bearing high melting point metal inside, transfering the weight down below the lava levels, also place metal tubes that can handle some heat and also safely transport water through them, both to cool the piles and to bring water to the house from outside pipes below the ground, deep below lava levels, they better be solid because they'll be covered with a layer of solidified lava above the earth and it'll be expensive to do maintenance on them, do overdimention them and make sure there's a high flow rate so there won't be any clogging.
You can also drill down to get underground heat energy for electric powering of the buildings too.
On top you could make a raised platform to support multiple buildings and a helicopter pad for evacuation etc.
The platform would need to be attached to the piles with shock absorbers able to deal with movement in all possible directions and movement of the piles relative to each other in case the ground supporting the buildings ends up being compressed, stretched or otherwise deformed.
This is to deal with earthquakes, also, who knows, you might end up with a lava tunnel forming underneath the supports of the buildings, the pressure inside the tunnel might cause deformation of the surrounding rocks...
The weight better be well spread out, and there needs to be redundancy in the load bearing.
The roofs and walls of the buildings needs to be solid enough to handle the weight of lava bombs...
The buildings will require good air filtration as well as the ability to seal off and temporarily rely on stored oxygen only.
I'm starting to think that it would be best with a single big building rather than multiple smaller ones.
Of course the buildings also needs to be earthquake resistant, just like the platform they're on...
You could use compressed gasses to aid in cooling down the buildings when surrounded by lava.
Use heat pumps around these stored gasses to help cooling down the living areas and factories.
Plausible industries, geothermal powerplants, tourism, universities...
Hydrogen plants perhaps, using sea water and geothermal energy.
It would be all about heat management.
I'm guessing that you could probably also do this a bit off shore for things like a harbor for small scale fishing and trade...
Perhaps some kind of mining of the vulvanic rock would be viable?
I don't know...
You could also dig out earth from underneath the solidified lava rocks and make raised platforms based ona similar idea adapted to farming...
Space on such platforms would probably be extremely expensive though...
But with the profit potential I think that this is doable.
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@@esotericschizochad3664 lot of that technology we have developed in Europe was developed due to us having large population centers.
Something that's not as feasible in most of Africa.
You have a lot of areas where you're more likely to get diseases there then here, so people would die if too tightly packed...
People did in Rome too, but a lot of people there didn't end up there out of free will...
In drier areas water is less reliable then here so you can't easily farm and use irrigation like you could with areas with reliable rainfall and rivers etc.
In the middle east you needed the support of the centralized authorities to farm, they controlled the water supply and had the available labour to build out advanced irrigation systems.
And therefore also the power to form large armies to control the surrounding lands...
Europe had all of our sea trade making cities useful since you could have people specialize and sell their specialized goods long distance so even if the local farmers didn't need their goods a given day distant ones might, so you could have a broader customer base supporting each artisan so they didn't necessarily have to produce good themselves too.
And that's made it more sensible for farmers to want to bring goods to market where they could get products from artisans in many different cities all at once.
In Africa large areas where landlocked with difficult terrain.
If you where to tap into such long distance trade networks, why not just use the camel?
Roads just didn't make sense back then, because there just wasn't enough large population centers to justify them.
And without the need for harbours you could have more and smaller scale trading locations, so again, no need for the wheel.
At least that's my take on it...
And like seriously, you're saying that those roads where made by Europeans.
But look back at Europe during Roman times.
It's not like we all had roads back then.
Here in Norway we preferred skiing and transportation by ship, and the first road intended for wheeled transportation wasn't made till 1625 by the order of our king at the time.
If our farmers had their way, it would never had been built because it just wasn't useful enough for the effort any single one of us would have to put in.
And Germanic tribes during the Roman times didn't have miles of roads either.
Nor the Brits etc...
The Romans made theirs to speed up their armies in order to conquer more land and get more slaves etc...
That's just not a need most of the world have.
Yet by saying that those first roads in Africa where made by European you're implying some kind of superiority of us as a people and that's just bs.
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@minitrow46 No, voter apathy isn't the problem.
It's the symptom of the real problem.
Neither the democrats nor the republicans represents the views of the average American.
On average in most other countries about 1/3rd of the population votes for other parties then the big two, give or take quite a bit.
In Norway we have 10 political parties in our parliament right now, the biggest one of those only has 26,3% of the votes.
And the two biggest combined has 46,7% of the votes here, the remaining half voting for other parties.
So quite a bit more then 1/3rd of the voters don't vote for the big two.
In the US it also fluctuates a lot.
But because of the first past the post system essentially giving two parties a monopoly on ruling for so, so long, you've ended up with a situation where people are fed up.
Even republican voters and democratic voters that do vote for the two parties often believe in something completely different.
And at times the US peaks at as high as 2/3rd of the population wanting to vote for completely different parties then the big two.
But as you mentioned, 2/3rd of the American people still voted, most of them for the big two.
Meaning that half of all the people voting for either of the two big parties only did so because they essentially where forced to to avoid what they percieved as a even worse outcome.
In other words, they didn't vote for either party, but against the other.
It's a wonder that you guys still manage to reach 2/3rd voter participation...
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@bolekpieczonka5822 That's more true in a proportional system.
Yes, the parties have a platform.
But the de facto political platform varies greatly depending on what candidate is running.
My country uses a party list proportional system.
Here people who genuinly dissagree are in different parties and it's the voters who choose witch one of the parties that has their vision represented.
Those primaries being all about person is a huge issue in my view.
Same with a real choice between just two parties.
Neither of them representing most Americans.
I mean, sure, for the house of representatives you might technically have a "independent" or a "third party" candidate in the race in some states occationally.
But in reality they're a non-choice.
And for the two options that you are given.
Voting for them isn't even voting for the party program to begin with, be it a vote for the house of representatives, for the sentate, for the electoral college or for the state legislature...
At all levels you'll have candidates deviating significantly from the party program.
And I have no problem at all with their views being represented, but it shouldn't be in the same bloody political party as that party program.
Yet, if they where to be thrown out the two parties would end up suffering from the spoiler effect when these candidates runs against the big parties, leading to the big parties in question losing voters to the local candidate that's the closest to them in political alignment since the vote is split.
So the opposite side would win.
Hence these candidates are taken in by the two big political parties, despite not representing their views at all.
Then they start changing the overton window within these parties.
This all leads to US and UK politics just being way more unstable and less nuanced then politics in other countries with actually functioning electoral systems.
The thing is, if you guys had a proper proportional electoral system with many different political parties both to the left of, right of and in between the two big parties you'd make better laws, you'd have more reliable and engaged voters, you'd avoid most of the attempts at tampering with the election through measures like gerrymandering etc, you'd avoid the stale mate situation you keep finding yourself into.
And honestly, being a left wing European, I can tell you, if the republican party was split into multiple political parties I can easily see myself finding common grounds with many of them and actually get work done.
Even with the extremists within the republican party you can find common grounds if you work hard enough.
My ex-gf used to be a American republican.
And my sister and her family who lives in the states supports the democrats (although they of course don't have voting rights yet)
The thing is, Europeans often understand the American political system better then American politicans do themselves...
You got your incentives all messed up.
And you look at all the wrong thing when you try to fix your systems.
Your think that voter supression, gerry mandering, corruption, or right wing extremism is the problem in America.
But it is all a symptom caused by your first past the post electoral system.
In a proportional system republicans would benefit from right wing voters in more popolous left leaning states even if they do not get a majority there.
And there would be other right wing parties that could compete with the left for marginal groups like the latin american population for instance, so there would be less incentive towards supressing these voters.
With alternative right wing parties that is not seen as racist extremists that the republicans could enter into coalition with minorities would be seen as a opporturnity instead of a group that should be supressed at all cost.
Speaking of "all cost".
That's part of it.
Because first past the post ends up being a binary result, you either "win" or you "lose" with no in between state of gaining or losing influence without outright winning or losing you end up with politicans that will do anything to win, because no matter the cost, winning is all in such a political climate.
However in a proportional system the incentives are changed dramatically compared to that.
Here gaining voters as a party isn't even a gurantee of winning a election, because if you do so at the cost of a coalition partner you might end up losing the overall election.
Or you might win a election while losing voters yourself, because your coalition as a whole gain power.
And who are the best at negotiating new deals and getting results ends up winning most of the time.
But if voters don't like those results they'll change who they'll vote for, and they'll have plenty of options, including alternatives they actually like who might work with the opposing coalition alternatives.
In essence it leads to people taking a more chill approach to the whole "winning" or "losing" side of things and focusing on what they genuinly believe in and trying to find solutions to problems within the constrains available.
Extremists will of course still exist in the political landscape, but their relative power will be decided by the voters, instead automatically ending up as candidates to avoid splitting the vote.
As a result, the extremists can easily be outmaneuver politically by cooperating with alternatives till they're willing to make concessions of their own becomming viable coalition partners.
As for the voters and how likely they are of voting extremists...
Sure, some will always do that.
But by having more political parties on all sides of the political spectrum the debate becomes more nuanced and people will get more realistic political points of view, simply because they see more aspects of the topic at hand from other politicans that they respect even if they don't always agree.
So for instance a semi-extreme "republican" could dissagree with a truly extreme "republican" and present what they genuinly believe in since they'd be in different political parties, instead of just agreeing on everything to avoid losing the shared voter base of the republican party, required to defeat the shared democratic voter base in a first past the post electoral system.
Gerry mandering essentially wouldn't be a issue since regardless of how you draw the borders there's going to be some voters of all types there and they'll all count.
Sure, you could go for relative proportionality, so some areas having more value pr vote then others (something I honestly think would be a good idea in the US to ensure that all points of view are well represented, from the republican point of view this would mean more weight to rural communities, for democrats this would entail more weight for minorities), but even then the impact of how the borders are drawed would be fairly limited, and leveling seats could be employed to ensure that the overall balance of power between the political parties wouldn't change too much from a proportional system based on the total vote at a national level.
Corruption also would make less sense if you have more political parties.
You'd have people to call you out on your own side politically, people who would have credibillity and legitimacy within your own voter base yet still not have any party allegiances to you.
In essence having more political parties would reduce corruption.
Not eliminate it, just reduce it.
Besides, both companies and individuals would have more options for who to donate money to, so things wouldn't be as clear cut with everything ending up in the hands of two political parties.
And if a company actually bribes a party of its members there would always be other parties you could vote for.
Or indeed since the barrier of entry is lower for smaller parties in a proportional system you could create new parties and they'd actually have a shot at being elected replacing anyone that's truly corrupt.
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Hum, looked into how your diet can impact a tumor?
Mum switching diet helped her a great deal during her cancer.
The Russians have also had positive results with controlled and monitored periods of starvation (injections of vitamins and minerals, but no actual eating, sugar, fat etc, all while blood sugar levels and vitals etc are closely monitored, of course it has to last long enough for fat to start burning instead of just sugar etc)
Of course the brain is mainly fat, so that might be a bit difficult in that regard...
Another option, injection of the chemotherapy directly into the tumor?
Some types of tumor responds really well to that.
I don't think that any of these will save you, but they might all help slow things down.
Cancer cells grow faster then regular cells, so anything that targets that will make life more difficult for them then the rest of your body.
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+Sharann
That 51% rule is one of the few things I think is wrong with the german election system.
Here in Norway the result of the 97 election was that Kjell Magne Bondevik, the leader of the Christian Democrats won the election, but he and his two coalition partners together only had 26,1% of the voters behind them directly with the rest of the voters voting for political parties that either only accepted that cabinet or failed to come up with a viable alternative.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_parliamentary_election,_1997
If the cabinet had lost the support of the parliament and the parliament where able to offer another alternative with more representatives behind it then a new cabinet would take power without any election needing to take place.
Basically our political parties know that they have to work with the election results at hand.
And parties don't have to keep supporting a cabinet all the way through a term.
Of course if something makes them change their mind but the cabinet get the support of another party instead they stay in power.
Also, political parties won't dethrone a cabinet just for minor issues, they have to lose the trust of the majority of the parliament to lose power and a viable alternative has to be presented at the same time.
If you don't like what the cabinet is doing but can't make a deal with other parties to create a different cabinet, then tough luck, they're staying in power, but you don't need to support them in every single case.
You can vote for a different budget proposal then the one presented from the cabinet, you can vote for different laws etc...
That leads to a very dynamic parliament and cabinets that know how to cooperate with the different political parties in the parliament.
The "Jamaika Coalition" mentioned above could for instance exist without Die Grüne" actually taking part in the cabinet, but just accepting a minority cabinet in return for political favours and then they could work together with CDU, FDP or SPD + other parties on a case by case basis if you guys had our system.
Or perhaps FDP could be left out.
Heck, if CDU where to do a good enough job of horse trading they could perhaps even lead alone.
The labour party has done so plenty of times with roughly that amount of voters behind them.
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@Centurion97 It's not trolling, it's the genuine view of the center right and the far left in Norway, specifically R, SV, MDG, V and KrF.
Ap, Sp, H and FRP are the anti-immigration parties in this country.
Noticed that all the pro-immigration parties except KrF gained seats in the parliament?
While all the anti-immigration parties except for SP lost seats?
Yes, SP gained a lot and will offset some of the gains of the other parties in question, but not that much.
In case you're wondering, AP is split on immigration.
Remember that the left wing view has always been that the proletariat of all countries are equal and that the real enemy is the upper class.
With nationalism and religion being attempts by the upper class to distract the population from the real issues of the world.
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0:23 "Largely german speaking dutchy", true for Hostein, but not Schleswig, an area that at the time was largely Danish speaking at least as far as the population was concerned, the nobility...
Eh...
Also, 0:55, that part isn't the whole story either...
The problem was that Schleswig and Hostein where two dutchies that through treaties could not be divided and where to always belong to the same country despite the difference in culture in the two dutchies.
And the nobility there...
Well, they where an issue to put it that way...
Denmark had not that long before this actually started to become somewhat democratic for a change, Schleswig and Holstein, not so much...
Danes in Denmark proper wanted the new more democratic constitution of 1849 to apply to all Danes including the largely Danish lower classes of Scheswig (yes, there where Friiseans and Germans there too, and german influences where moving northwards there and held more status due to the german nobility there)
I'm not saying that Denmark couldn't perhaps have handled the situation differently.
But the way that the above video puts the blame squarely on Denmark for a war that quite frankly is still somewhat of a sore point in the nordic region...
Eh...
I think you guys could have done better...
The second Schleswig War and the Winter War in Finland are both wars where the nordic region lost territory due to the machinations of greater powers at the cost of ruining the lives of many of the people who actually lived there.
At least the issue of Schleswig was finally resolved after the second world war with an election, after ages where german influences had changed the cultural identity of even more of the local population...
That issue has been laid to rest even if we might be less then happy with the above mentioned war and its outcome...
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@ComradeAart I'm a soft EU sceptic in the sense that I believe that the final decisions should always be at as local a level as possible.
That's said the EU is not going anywhere and we need the EU in the future too.
Most of our problems in the world are supernational in nature and we need more international cooperation to solve them.
The EU and UN need reform, not disbanding.
They need support and activism to change them towards a more confederal model where local communities are more empowered and where large population centers and more powerful nations can't run the show solo anymore.
The EU has played a major role in preventing major wars on the European continent for many many years, and have improved peoples economic prospects, personal freedom, legal rights etc.
The issue is that it's failing to adapt to differences in local needs and is too focused on unifying laws across the continent.
Edit:
Remember that pollution and many other issues in Europe crosses country borders.
Closing a border does not stop pollution from another country from reaching you, it doesn't stop acid rain, it doesn't stop climate changes and all the damages that causes us with more severe storms etc, it doesn't solve climate refugees within our own borders when insurance premiums goes up due to increased damages, or rising costs due to supply chain issues.
It doesn't stop diseases from crossing borders through the animals that does, like birds etc.
It doesn't stop military threats from increasing.
It doesn't stop shortages of resources and innovation within individual countries.
No country in Europe can manage on its own without cooperation with other European countries.
We're the old world, we've already used up most of our resources, many of them found outside the continent.
Our demographics means that we can't possibly keep up with other continents with a larger and younger population in innovation, and we're facing democratic backsliding in many nations.
No, the EU is needed.
But it's in dire need of reform.
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@chickenfishhybrid44 I don't know anyone who haven't ever been outside the continent above the age of 18 personally.
Don't get me wrong.
Usually when traveling we'll go to other European countries.
Leaving the continent is expensive and often a rare treat.
But myself I've been to New Jersey, New York and Florida.
And I plan on visiting Pennsylvania, Arizona and Colorado
I've also been to Egypt (together with my most of my school class), both Cairo and further east in Sinai (the rest mostly traveled to China)
As for driving distances.
It depends on the country.
The country I live in, Norway is both further west then Luxemburg and about as far east as Istanbul.
And driving the whole length of the country would actually take about as long time as driving across the US or Australia from east to west.
A big part of that is of course that the country literally is a mountain chain, so progress is naturally going to be slower then say when flying.
But even so if you where to overlay Norway over the US and tilt it we'd still cover the whole US-Mexican border.
And sure, there's countries in Europe you can literally stroll across on an afternoon without a problem at all the continent is actually bigger then the US.
Yet the average European hasn't just traveled more within the continent then Americans have, we've traveled more outside it too.
Europeans also tends to know as much or more about the US as Americans do about their own country (you'll of course find individuals in both continents that knows more or less, with Americans intimately familiar with Europe, Asia, South America etc, and Europeans that doesn't have a clue, but on average you'll find that what I've said is true, although there's definitely differences between countries in this regard)
So I do believe that it's accurate to say that Europeans are indeed more cosmopolitan them Americans and more aware of the world around them.
Mind you, we have gaps in our knowledge too.
Usually they're regarding the African or South American continents in my experience.
We tend to lump them together as a single entity in our minds a bit although we're of course aware that it's not really true...
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@DemiLad
India is a extremely poor democracy.
Same with the US.
The EU and Germany are bad, but they're at least better then those two...
No country with first past the post have a well functioning democracy.
MMP like in Germany, New Zealand, Scotland and Wales is a touch better, but still flawed.
These systems all end up way too focused on individuals with less focus on actual policies.
And too many seats are awarded to the major parties as it inherently disfavour smaller ones making the balance of power a lot less nuanced leaving many aspects of the country, many voters essentially unrepresented.
The EU got party list proportional right at least.
And having multiple multi-member constituencies is also good.
But although there's more seats pr voter in some countries with a low population then in others with a high one it's still a far cry from being even close to capable of representing all the people and all the issues that a smaller national government is capable off.
That's called degressive proportionality by the way...
The issue is that you have whole languages and whole people who are too small to be represented in the EU at all.
Whole segments of society with issues that a EU parliament will never hear about.
There's a upper limit to how many representatives you can have in a parliament before it stops functioning due to there simply being too many people...
The EU with between seven and eight hundred seats is pretty close to that limit, and already far past the efficient levels that national governments operate under.
Degressive proportionality helps reduce the risk of such groups being totally ignored, but the reality is that they *are*.
Laws are being made by lawmakers completely oblivious to the harm said laws is doing.
While in a national parliament since you don't need seats for people in other nations it's possible to cover more of your own population.
Although when you get populations of more then a million people you're still running into issues...
I live in Norway.
We have 10 political parties currently represented in our parliament.
Our smallest party had 4 908 total votes and got one seat in our parliament.
Because we also have a form of degressive proportionality.
That was enough to make said party the third biggest in the constituency they where elected in, a constituency with 5 seats.
And one with several ethnic groups, including one of our ethnic minorities the Sami people.
The constituency is also divided up by mountains.
So there's a hospital essentially on either end of it, but the middle, including the biggest settlement doesn't have access to a hospital when the weather is too bad to cross the mountains as that's also too bad weather for air ambulances...
Meaning that people with heart attack or giving birth or stroke have to stay stuck in a area with no hospital and just hope for the best till the weather clears.
As you can imagine that caused frustration.
And the creation of a new political party.
We could represent less then 5 k people in our parliament, because it's small.
By comparison my own political party had 110 973 voters, and got 3 seats.
Why?
Because we're a more urban political party with mainly urban voters.
And because the proportionality of the Norwegian electoral system is somewhat low for parties with less then 4% of the total voters.
So dividing our voters by the number of seats we got we had
36 991 voters pr seat.
Most political parties in Norway has about half that number of voters pr seat they get.
About 16 000 to 17 000 voters usually being needed to get a seat.
Depending slightly on where in the country you are.
(Seats are distributed among the constituencies based on both population and land area).
By comparison, Germany with a population of 84 358 845 currently have 96 seats in the EU parliament, with 878 738 voters pr seat.
Finland has a population of 5 563 970, the closest to our own here in Norway, 14 seats and 397 426 voters pr seat.
The whole Sami population in Norway is estimated at about 40 000 people...
They can be represented in a parliament where their main constituency requires less then 5 000 votes to get a representative.
You can even ensure that different viewpoints among them is represented, with some proportionality.
With over ten times their total population needed for a single seat in the EU parliament they'll have no voice.
The EU is dominated by people living in the parts of the EU where it's easy to live, on the European plains.
Basically areas with fertile soil where you can feed a lot of people and keep them alive.
By contrast, only 3% of Norway is suitable for agriculture, less then 1% suitable to grow grain, and about 2% actually used at all.
And large parts of the year zero percent of the country is suitable for agriculture, simply because of the climate.
Iceland (technically 6% suitable, but less then 1% actually utilized, in part due to climate issues) face similar issues, so does Sweden and Finland.
And honestly, so do a number of EU members, either in parts or all of their territory.
Parts of Switzerland also has that issue, with only really one area with any significant amount of farming land, while the rest of the country is mountains.
About a third of Switzerland is technically suitable for agriculture, after all, livestock can make use of even mountainous areas, but only about a tenths is actually used for agriculture for various reasons, including climate...
Austria, Italy, Slovakia...
And while Hungary does have a lot of agricultural land in use they also have a lot of mountainous areas, and they're one of only a few people with a non-Indo-European national language, and therefore a very different culture.
Due to various former treaties their ethnic group is a minority in many neighbouring countries.
All countries where they're too small a ethnic group to really have the voice that their total European population perhaps should suggest.
And I doubt that there's many in the EU parliament that knows how it is to live as a Hungarian minority in Ukraine or Romania or any of the many other countries in the areas in question.
And what about travelers?
No, if you try to make decisions at a EU level without giving nations a chance to opt out when a law doesn't work, you end up with a lot of victims.
Most countries in Europe are already way too big at a national level, making it hard to represent everyone fairly there.
A continent wide parliament with federal or unitary powers is literally a nightmare for democracy...
Only a confederate EU would actually be democratic in my view.
That said, I absolutely agree that we need closer cooperation.
Supernational organizations like the UN and the EU and NATO can cover that need, but only as long as they remain supernational, and members remain sovereign.
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@bababababababa6124 transportation network is better in urban areas.
The more rural an area is the more cars starts to matter even here in Europe unfortunately.
Here in Norway we're genuinely trying.
Railways, busses, light rail, short haul airline traffic, ferries, etc, etc, etc...
But at the end of the day we're a bloody mountain chain that's sparsely populated.
So we need electric cars to bring our emissions down.
And we're doing it.
84% of all new cars sold are EVs (or where by May, it might be higher now)
Not plug in hybrids etc, but battery only EVs.
And they're about 23% of our total fleet of cars on the road, a number that's going to grow as existing cars break down and needs replacement...
And now that legacy car manufacturers are catching up the likes of VW are slowly overtaking Tesla.
Tesla has a 12,2% market share in Norway.
VW just clawed itself back to 11,6%.
In a market dominated by EV sales VWis doing almost as good here as Tesla is.
And that's why this video is so interesting.
Because we're not going to stop buying cars or build roads, tunnels and bridges.
But our goal is zero ICE cars sold in 2025.
and like I said we're at 84%...
By the way when it comes to individual models the ranking is Model Y in first place followed by ID 4 and then Enyaq in that order here in Norway...
There's been some changes in our car taxes though so I expect major changes in what models sell well or poorly from now on.
Since EVs are established by now we've implemented taxation in EVs too, although they're still getting huge benefits compared to ICE cars (where you're essentially paying 2x what the car is sold for abroad due to half the price being taxes, now the first part of the cost is excepted for EVs but any part of the price exceeding a sum set by the government will now be taxed like a normal car, so our incentives hugely favours cheaper EVs now.
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@ericktellez7632 Yeah, I guessed as much, but it was rude of me to use Norwegian in a forum where many readers probably don't understand the language.
And that was a terrible mistake on my part.
And I really, really sorry. :-/
Also, come to think of it, I shouldn't have assumed that the original poster understands Norwegian either.
As for the translation:
"Yes...
The Vikings where quite cosmopolitan in the sense that they where trading with people as far away as Syria and Afghanistan, serving under Byzantium and went on raids as far away as north Africa and Italy.
They settled on Greenland, visited north America, settled in Russia and more.
There was many cities around the world where people had mixed blood to put it that way.
Dublin was funded by Vikings, but the population there was a mix of Norsemen, Celts and the odd Anglo-Saxon, without this seemingly being much of a hindrance for anyone."
I hope that my translation held water.
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@thezu9250 It's not about colour.
I don't believe in evil, regardless of colour.
Every single person out there that has done something categorized as "evil" by others that I've heard about have something or other that explains their behaviour.
Usually some kind of trauma.
That's part of why I consider the US prison system inhumane.
There's so many people killed, locked up and just in general mistreated because of a society that failed them.
A system with insufficient mental health treatment, health care, journalism, political nuance (the two party system in your country is leaving you all blind to each other), too little interaction with people who are different (because of multiple mechanisms in your society reducing mixing, including a lack of mixed use zoning and previous outright racist zoning laws).
Rich and poor people live segregated, poverty and zoning laws has concentrated the discriminated minorities in the cities isolating rural populations.
A first past the post electoral system has lead to just two political parties dominating your politics.
Yet because your system provides more seats pr citizen to rural areas it's viable for parties to play to the urban rural divide and the other correlating differences, including race in their rhetorics in order to get elected, allowing both sides to distract voters from their antidemocratic tendencies.
And it leads to this kind of mindsets, especially because media on both sides has become quite partisan.
The right wing ones more so then the left, but still.
The less partisan local news organizations are being shut down left, right and center, third parties and independent candidates are ignored...
And people are being kept in the dark on both sides...
I just feel sorry for you Americans...
You are being told that you live in the best country in the world, yet it's honestly among the worst in the western world.
Yes, you earn more money, but when you factor in everything from work hours to labour laws to prices, food quality, social cohesion/racism, social mobility etc, etc, etc it's just...
Not that great.
Don't get me wrong, you're far from a third world country as a country.
But a significant number of you genuinely live worse lives then people who are in third world countries due to the huge unequalities...
And it's such a shame given all of your potential.
All the black people who don't get a good education because the schools are funded by local taxes only and locals are poor leaving the education unfunded, no matter the intelligence of the students.
At the same time their parents don't have time for a good upbringing as they're struggling as it is due to low wages and long hours at work.
Sometimes working two jobs, something that's basically unheard of here.
And people in Christian communities being denied fundamental knowledge due to extremists being allowed to ban schools and libraries from spreading knowledge.
Leaving people unaware of fundamental principles of science and critical thinking.
And even biology.
Like, seriously, one girl I've talked with literally has experienced a guy she gave a bj freaking out after finishing up in her front because he thought she might end up pregnant.
By comparison 8 year olds in my country can explain to an American in English the basics of how human genitals work, what puberty is, what birth control is and how they work and what consent is and how to recognize abuse and who to contact.
Just...
I don't feel anyone in the US can be blamed for their missguided views.
Be that some black Americans who believe that the vaccines against covid (including the ones made here in Europe) somehow is a US conspiracy to eliminate all black people in the country... (I've talked with some holding such views) to white nutcases subscribing to the displacement theories etc...
Your TV networks have been caught red-handed in lying to you for profit...
Fox News is more blatant about it, but CNN etc does it too.
And the Ecco chambers on social networks are even worse.
Using and reusing "facts" dropped by Russians, Chinese and Indians...
Sometimes state agents, sometimes just poor people trying to make advertising money by playing on peoples partisanship...
In such a environment of misinformation and suffering how can anyone be expected to remain sane?
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@Showwieh No.
Not northwest, or northeast or anything, just *north*.
Countries like Scotland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Estonia shouldn't be grouped together with the likes of Germany or Spain.
Our climate is different, our culture is different and our history is different.
And as a result so is our values.
Don't get me wrong, we have a lot in common with Germany in the those of the nordic countries that has germanic languages.
But ultimately we've been both blessed and cursed with having a totally different geo-political climate to operate in.
Different challenges to face.
And while technically we do end up landing in the "west" when forced into a system that only divides into those two, east and west.
It's outright offensive to be labeled in the same group as the continentals.
The continentals can rely on food security due to the agriculture on the European plains and overland trade with nations on those planes.
Because of that food they have a history of empires with high enough populations to be capable of defending themselves in a way that north european nations could only dream of.
And a cultural unity that just doesn't exist here.
They had resources we couldn't muster.
Large cities.
Feudalism.
Professional armies.
All of those things.
It didn't really work the same way up here.
I mean, sure, Denmark and Sweden each tried to make empires at various times.
But neither ever had the populations to trully back up those attempts.
And we always where the underdogs vs our much larger neighbours.
Russia, England, the HRE and France.
Scotland, Norway and Sweden had rugged terrain that we used to our advantage in wars.
Norway, Sweden and Denmark all relied on our navies to try to hold our own.
In Denmarks case to land troops behind invading armies once those push too far north, cutting off supplies.
And all of us have tons and tons of islands to defend.
Parts of Scotland together with Iceland, the Faero islands, Finland and Estonia where essentially colonies of the nordic region for a long, long time and spent so much time under our rule that we left our mark there.
There's just so much...
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Proportional representation would help with this issue.
My suggestion is this.
Make the island ruled by a parliament elected through multiple multi member constituencies.
Distribute seats between the constituencies based on how many of each ethnic groups is there.
So donone round of granting seats based on the French population, one round for the Asian and Oceanian immigrant population and one round for the Native population.
Give the natives more seats to distribute this way, but don't make any of these seats exclusive to any ethnic group.
This way more people from areas with a large native population will be represented regardless of how many immigrants or French people might move in, and everyone of each group has a vote even if they might have less influence depending on where they live, if they live in a area with a native majority their vote is just as important as that of the natives.
Then add leveling seats for each constituency.
These helps correct the difference between how many seats a party gets from the various constituencies, how many votes a political party gets at a national level and how many sests rhey would have gotten at a national level.
Again this benefits the native population in the sense that they get more seats populated with their ethnic group, but it also makes the votes of the overall population matter more im terms of the balance between the political parties.
Remove the electoral threshold for the individual constituencies, but keep it for the leveling seats.
With multimember constituencies and proportional representation you also split up the voter blocks, making it less ethnicly focused.
As people voting for smaller parties either reprinting a ethnicity or just the population at large will get more representation, leaving the big ethnicity focused parties weaker, and giving more room for coalition negotiations across ethnic lines...
It gives both ethnic groups more room to get someone from the other ethnic groups over on their side in the parliament.
Pick a representative to the French parliament by making the local parliament elect them, meaning that even parties not big enough to get into the French parliament will be involved in picking who is sent.
And kick the can down the street when it comes to independence 40 years.
Add a renegotiation about the number of seats between the ethnic groups 20 years down the line within the Parliament, meaning that natives in theory can get more say in how they're distributed then.
And give everyone who has lived on the island for 10 years or more voting rights on the island, if they apply for it (think citizenship).
Then automatically from then on.
Gives more immigrants a say in matters too.
People will be able to move around to influence what constituency has the most seats and the ethnic makeup of the area.
And political parties can appeal to a certain ethnic group or to multiple ethnic groups or the whole population depending on what they wish to do.
But with the coalitions and cooperation of a parliamentarian system it should hopefully make peoples identity leas connected to voting patterns.
Oh, and in independence referendums and other referendums every vote is equal.
Make constitutional changes require a referendum.
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@hansheinrich958 A break up of the union into smaller pieces is perfectly fine.
As a liberitarian I don't believe that the end goal should be a fixed political status but rather a dynamic everchanging status with different paterns emerging as the needs of the region changes.
Yes, I want nations in the region in general to move in a more liberitarian direction on the whole with more freedom for the individuals and the societies.
But enforcing that would be wrong and counter to such liberitarian values.
If you truly believe in freedom and peoples right to self determination you need to value the freedom and right to self determination of those who don't like or want it too unfortunatly...
Be that economic freedom of social freedom.
The political freedom one is a bit tougher since removing it removes the dynamism and ability to increase freedom that we value...
But Eastern Europe must want said freedom themselves, we can't force it on them.
Get my meaning?
So back to the union.
If the eastern nation want trade without other aspects of the union we should respect that.
The region has been subject to a lot of warfare through the ages, and there's been a need for a centralized political structure to ensure that nations in the area wasn't swallowed by nearby powers.
While we in the west for the most part had at least some natural barriers defending us.
Germany was a bit of an exception, but having the Holy Roman Empire protecting the member states the smaller member nations ended up having quite a bit of freedom that nations further east just didn't have the luxury of.
Likewise mountain nations had to deal with hard conditions with little interaction with the outside world, be that outside rulers or trade or anything else, encouraging self reliance and people helping eachother by sharing resources and treating eachothers as equals, because quite frankly any of us could end up subject to a avalanch or rock slide or flood or storm at sea or whatever and might need shelter and food and help from eachother...
The whole strong leader thing just didn't hold water in such conditions.
The viking era kings didn't even have a single capital in Norway, they literally had to travel along the coast from royal farm to royal farm to hear cases because expecting people to travel to some kind of capital was just downright insane and you needed to be local in some way to have any kind of power locally.
The Swiz and us both followed the old germanic traditions of having local councils where people could bring up issues, create laws etc.
And even when we here in Norway had kings those where elected in such councils on a region by region basis and said councils remained important even under the kings, retaining a lot of power.
Kings where developed from kind of "chiefs" I guess...
Kind of hard to explain this in English...
The Norwegian word is "høvding".
But basically the germanic tradition was someone being first among equals.
The warriors choosing one among them to lead the tribe who wasn't some "God anointed supreme being" but rather just a regular warrior that just happened to be respected enough to be in charge for the time being for whatever task was at hand.
If they no longer did a good job someone else would be choosen.
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@hansheinrich958 My point is, we can only grow together if we allow people to choose not to do so.
With a really, really decentralized approach like a confederate structure we here in Norway may one day join the EU, but we'll never feel comfortable with staying and it's always going to be a lot of backwards and forwards on that topic.
The only way we'll ever be able to join is if A the power comes from the bottom up meaning from the states rather then from a central entity, said central entity can be given power from a local level but said power needs to be revokable and the powers needs to be opt-in.
And B we need a way out, or we'll never want to join to begin with.
We are not the same peoples as the Germans, related language or not.
You guys are used to completely different conditions, you're used to having to band together against external enemies due to living on the flatlands and living conditions where relatively speaking easier in Germany then in mountain nations like Norway or Switzerland since you actually have proper farmlands in most of your territory.
Your main enemies where other people.
Ours where nature itself and the changing conditions that kept popping up.
We barely consider people in a different valley the same people as ourselves and certainly are not going to let those outsiders of the different valleys dictate how we live our lives, so how on earth would we ever be able to settle down and let people who don't even live in mountains rule over us?
Germans have also been exposed to centralized goverment since the time of the Romans since you bordered them, you had the Frankish empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire...
For you the idea of somehow having the same goverment as someone who you can't go and face on a daily basis doesn't seem as batshit crazy as it does to us.
And similar cultural differences exists all over the continent.
Trying to shoehorn everyone into the same exact goverment just does not work.
And trying will not lead to peace.
The main reason that the EU has managed to promote peace so far is exactly because it isn't unified in that way, because it is fairly bottom up in its power structure still.
Although I would argue that it isn't bottom up enough and is becomming more and more top heavy...
There's a lot of people who want more cooperation, including me.
But more cooperation will only happen in a framework where people make the choice to take part in said cooperation at a local level.
And have the option to opt in and out at *will*.
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@PrexXyx If the majority of the population of those 2-3 countries genuinly is against something then that really does need to be changed, not passed.
If just the goverment in said countries is against something however and they where elected in a election system etc that favoured certain parties over others then that's of course a different matter.
As a example of why I think that's important I'd llike to showcase something in my own country from our last election.
In Norway the number of representatives to our parliament isn't distributed among the counties just based on population but also based on land area.
This is intended to ensure a increased representation for the low population areas of Norway, specifically in the north where several of our traditional minority populations live, like the Sami people and the Kven people as well as native Norwegians that just have a harder life in general with less infrastructure and services then in the south.
Anyway, in our last election the two largest parties both planned to shut down a hospital in the eastern part of our northernmost county of Finnmark.
The typical arguments, saving money, more efficent running, bigger professional teams able to handle more complicated cases etc.
You get the idea.
The counter argument is that this part of eastern Finnmark is east of some mountains from where the closest hospital would be if this one is closed down, meaning that it's literally impossible to get there if the road over the mountain is closed down in case of bad weather, and even in good weather the time to get there might be long, potentially hours.
So as you might imagine the locals where not amused.
So some local labour party representatives (and perhaps some other people in other parties?) split off and made a new list (we have a party list proportional electoral system, so you don't necessarily need a party to get voted in, just to be on a list getting enough votes, and a representative can potentially be on multiple lists in a election).
Anyway, they managed to get into our parliament with one representative with just 4 908 votes as a result, meaning that they'll have a vote in our parliament when this kind of decisions is going to be made, not enough to outright veto the closing down of that hospital, but enough that they could potentially trade their vote for support in something else to perhaps change that decision.
We have 169 seats, 150 of those are elected proportionally within those 19 counties that we used to have (some has been merged, but we're still using the legacy counties for national election purposes as it takes time to change those election laws)
The remaining 19 seats are correcting the difference between the national votes and the local ones, so the power between political parties isn't too skewed by the local elections (and those 19 seats also represents each county with one person each although the actual choice of who that person in those counties is is based on the national vote).
We have no lower limit for the number of votes needed to get a seat in our parliament for the 150 normal seats, just for those 19 leveling seats, so there's a incentive to get above that threshold of 4% for those leveling seats, but you can be represented just fine with fewer seats.
Anyway, as a result that new party opposing the closing of that hospital got into our parliament with 4 908 votes like I mentioned.
My own preferred party is on the opposite end of the scale, we had 110 973 votes, but being below that 4% limit means that we only got the seats elected directly within each of those 19 electoral circle, those counties.
That means that we had 36 991 seats pr representative we had vs the 4 908 of that party opposing the closing of that hospital.
Most of our parties have between 15 and 16 k voters behind each of their seats.
After all, we have a population of 5 million.
Anyway, our system allowed people in that area agency to ensure that it's livable up there.
That kind of agency is important everywhere in Europe.
Still, our system also ensures that larger parties does have more power, and that there's incentives to find compromises and shared solutions.
Merging two smaller parties below the 4% limit to get above 4% can significantly increase their representation and power and may be well worth doing, and splitting off from the larger parties over minor dissagreements isn't really worth the gamble as it's hard to get enough support in key areas to get representation like that particular party got.
Still, if you have a important enough issue you can get direct local representation to deal with local issues in our system.
And parties with a broader base that doesn't necessarily have enough concentration of our electorate in any one given area like mine can compensate for that through our leveling seats.
And while yes, the threashold for our leveling seats means that we got less representation then we'd have without such a limit it also motivates people to vote as even a few votes can make up the difference between getting over that limit or not giving a bit of that "swing state" effect in the US.
Both in that more people want to vote if their vote matters, but also in that rural areas actually have a say so all parties want some rural voters while we're still proportional so nowhere near as unfair as the US elections.
On the whole I like our system even if it's a bit painful to be as dissadvantaged as we where in this election, hopefully we'll make it over 4% next election. ;-)
(The divide between parties under 4% and over 4% also means that those of us over 4% get more representation pr voters then those under 4% since those seats are freed up to be fought over by us, so small parties over 4% gets some real power, yet you don't get politically irrelevant under 4% as you can see above)
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@alexshevchenko2494 India, the US and Russia are all cases of poorly run countries that absolutely should be reduced in size to function better as democracies.
And the federal model is exactly why those countries works poorly and their citizens are suffering.
If you think that a confederation can't hold together, just look at Switzerland from 1291 till 1848.
The country was a confederation for all of that time.
So a confederation can absolutely last a long time.
Likewise the UN has had most of the worlds countries as members practically since the war, and that has worked just fine.
I don't mind countries sharing laws, I'd like tighter integration in the form of a UN army, shared taxes etc.
But the fundamental principle of power going from the bottom up and not the other way is essential to a majority of Europeans.
Yes, a majority of people support the UN but most people want it as a supernational entity, like the UN, not as a new "United States of Europe"
When we're talking about multi-tier Europe it's not because anyone wants more integration into such a USEU but because the EU even in its current form doesn't fit for many nations, both inside and outside the union, and said nations would like something with another form then the current EU that gives us more national sovereignty without being entirely excluded.
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Don't worry.
Labour can't come to power alone.
In order for Labour to come to power they need support from SP (the center party, or formerly peasant/farmers party) as well as from either SV (the socialist left party) or R (Red, aka communists) and MDG (Greens)s.
SV and MDG both want to put an end to the oil industry asap.
Alternatively on the right hand side you'd need all the right wing coalition members and SP to form a coalition there, including V (the liberals) who also want to put an end to the oil industry as well as KRF (the christian democrats) who thing that we have a god given duty to take care of gods creation, aka the enviroment.
Trust me, the math for continued oil exploration and exploitation just doesn't add up.
However the relative power of the political parties on the gray side of the political spectrum means that some kind of compromise will be reached.
My guess is a significant reduction in the number of new areas explored, perhaps non for the duration of the term without an outright ban being placed, and a continued exploitation with demand for reduced climate impact for now.
Or something to that effect.
The oil industry was permitted to explore some areas just before the election, I believe these areas will be permitted as a concession to the gray parties, but that no new explorations will be permitted as a concession to the green ones, existing exploitation will be permitted as a concession to the gray parties, while demands for less impact will be demanded and higher taxes imposed will be the concession to the green ones.
Or something of that nature...
You get the picture...
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