constantius

I don't disagree with this: I'm saying that unless the power is of the Council and Commission is restrained, all the goodwill of the Parliament is an uphill battle and all people of the Member States are subjected to the corruption of unelected people like Ursula von der Leyden or of (temporarily?) problematic policies of some of the Member States' governments (like Denmark on Chat Control).

Plenty of people do want more surveillance, but that's not why EU politicians are doing this. Seeking to implement surveillance across an entire continent cannot be explained by "the will of the people". Danes might want surveillance for their children, but I can't imagine them lobbying their EU representatives to also protect the children in France as well.

The EU has a lot of upsides, and it's often been a reason to be optimistic about it as a project, but everyobe has a red line beyond which the upsides don't outweigh the downsides, where the slope becomes too slippery to ignore.

If Chat Control passes, I think lobbying for the exit of your country is going to become a very justifiable position.

Corbyn was famously a Leaver, for the reasons we're observing right now, before aligning his position with his base: a Labour Left UK without the antidemocratic corruption of the EU would arguably have been a better country to live in.

The issue is that the outcome is the same: whether the Parliament is made up of angels or not, the dealings of the Commission and Council affect the Member States anyway.

America does dominate social media in Europe.

Most Europeans probably know more American politicians than they do their own, and have opinions about every American event.

During US elections it's impossible to talk to anyone without their starting to opine about things they have no control over within a minute.

American culture wars are polarising societies that share nothing with the American one.

The last thing Europe needs is more Americanisation.

It's difficult to read this without thinking of Luigi. The corruption and oppression keeps growing and growing. I wonder what it'd take for this to stop: as much as I'd like to believe it, the solution is not hiding behind voting.

People do starve today, in every developed country. It's rare to die of starvation, but poverty still means skipping meals.

Housing supply is scarce because of regulatory capture: homeowners and real estate companies have the strongest incentives and massive resources to keep it that way.

Medical attention is scarce because of regulatory capture by those doing those jobs: the numerus clausus is still a thing, and not in any way defensible.

The parent is right: scarcity today, especially in developed countries, is completely artificial, because it serves those who benefit from it.

10 years of respite is nothing on the scale of countries.

History is littered with examples of states choosing to pay off their would-be attackers, and seeing it as success or failure depends on your priors.

Byzantium was especially adept at this, for centuries, and they did fine for a millenium, but more often than not it was seen as a temporary, last resort measure, with large downsides, and generally to avoid creating a new front while a more critical war was being waged elsewhere.

By paying off your enemies, you strengthen their armies, you give them an incentive to ask for more and more each year (because they know you wouldn't have paid if you weren't weak), as a rule they will regularly pillage your countryside to encourage you to pay, and they will mostly use the money you pay them as investment to launch attacks against you at the first opportunity.

For Byzantium, this was the case with Arabs, Bulgarians, Crusaders, etc., and over time it led to ruin. Though it also led to overall great outcomes with Armenians and Iberians, who became vassal states.

Thanks for providing further context: as I mentioned, I was going off of the available quotes.

Given the party's other points', I'd still say he's not talking about Swedes as an ethnicity but as a nationality, similar to how other non-far-right, conservative parties express their beliefs. I checked the page, and that quote is provided without the context, and since Sweden does not have birthright citizenship, I don't know if he's talking about non-naturalised kids or naturalised people.

Further complications come from the fact that stripping "bad" immigrants of nationality is now an acceptable talking point for liberal parties the world over, and that position is very popular with people of all origins, not just the ethnic Europeans. I'd even argue it's less popular among ethnic Europeans than those of other ethbic backgrounds.

But I'll acknowledge that defending that party's position requires giving tons of benefit of the doubt...

My friend.

If you ctrl f my username on this page, you'll find I'm arguing against racism and Islamophobia in another thread.

Let me make an assumption: you're an American liberal. Like many American liberals, you talk without knowing much about anything, with the purpose of feeling righteous, and appearing pure to others.

The world is more complex than what you read on the news.

I suggest you read "How immigration really works", by Hein De Haan, a book that explains why immigration is not a left or right issue. I also suggest you search definitions for these terms: nationality, ethnicity, naturalised immigrant.

> Why do apologia for racism anyways? Weird stuff dude.

Don't put words in my mouth.

> No, a Somali who immigrated to Sweden is nationality wise Swedish and ethnicity wise Somali

You seem to misunderstand the concepts of nationality and ethnicity, and how naturalisation operates.

Your observation about multi-ethnic societies is rather interesting (though I would add slme caveats), but then you unfortunately are blinded by your preconceptions. The parent comment is right about 99.9...% of Muslims not being in any way related to terrorism.

A large country with 10% of Muslims being a large minority in a small terrorist force is not surprising. I would bet that Americans and foreigners in general are a large minority in Canadian far-right groups, for example.

The drawings of Muhammad were objectively haram, as you say, but almost none of the people who'd agree to that would also agree that murder was the right answer.

You can be anti-immigration without descending into racism and Islamophobia, actually it would greatly reinforce your points.

I don't have a horse in this race, but all the quotes here were based on nationality, not on the characteristics listed in your quote: the party wants to deport illegal immigrants and immigrants who are not "economically integrated", because Swede is not an ethnicity.

Being left and anti-immigration is not an oxymoron.

Though I must say, based on some comments here, that people who are defending the party's ideology do seem to read it in terms of race...

Haha I was only thinking on the level of "the people who ended the empire", but agree that the analogy is not perfect.

Teutoburg wasn't a battle but an ambush, and Rome killed almost everyone involved in the next years. This didn't represent a retreat: Germans weren't conquered because they had nothing to conquer.

Rather, hopefully, Iran will be to the US what Turks were to Byzantium.

I agree with this. What was certain and predictable was that Harris was a war candidate (the Democrats presided over the first year of genocide and were intending to continue).

MAGA was going to be bad in some way, but the Democrats were very bad in very known ways, so voting for whoever was at least saying they were against war was the rational decision for anyone who cared about not having genociders at the helm of the state.

Life expectancy didn't change that much, what changed is infant mortality.

And for cognitive ability: plenty of firsthand accounts from Enlightenment thinkers about thesuperior reasoning abilities of average members of hunter-gatherer/American Indian tribes compared to the typical European at the time, and they arguably already had better access to nutrition/education/healthcare.

Cognitive ability is for sure related to some extent to these factors, but actual practice of reasoning (through public debates, leisure time, storytelling) seems to have been much more influential on the actual realisation of cognitive potential, and I'm not sure there'd be a stark difference between a typical human today, or even a typical Westerner, vs a typical Roman citizen.

The only reason you see differences of motivation and intention is because you're in one of the groups.

My take is leftist (and I don't mean American liberal), anti-authoritarian, anti-imperialist, anti-genocide, and I don't think there's any difference of motivation and intention in the US. The "bad" group voters (D or R) feel they're protecting the poor, the kids, the families, etc., while the other was attempting to undermine democracy.

To talk only of speech, the Democrats were in charge when the demonisation and criminalisation of anti-genocide protests started in earnest, they were in charge when TikTok was banned for Israel, they were enthusiastically in charge when cancelling/censoring/fining for "hate-speech" (== whatever the gov wants it to be) became a legal gray area (and was then adopted by liberals the world over, see UK). Every other problem the Rs are criticised for (war, corruption, poverty, genocide!!!) was started/facilitated/ignored by the Ds, but people forget it instantly. Except, of course, paying lip service to identity politics.

I have no reason to believe the world would have been much different today had Democrats stayed in power. Look at how the "leftest" Dems vote. Actually, criticising the US as a leftist would have been harder: you'd be instantly viewed as a Nazi.

Both groups are sides of the same coin when it comes to keeping power and subjugating others to it, more or less violently.

Edit: to avoid posting empty criticism, what I mean is that to find a left party, or a party actually attempting to make life better for the poor and disenfranchised and not wanting to kill those who happen to be located near oil and Israel, you have to look away from the Rs and the Ds.

I can describe myself in the same way as you, and yet, if I lived in a country where ownership is allowed, I'd always vote to keep it so, even without having the intention of owning a weapon myself, because otherwise the balance of power shifts too much in the favour of the State/ruling class.

I disagree with the sibling comments about defending the country against an invader (if your country is facing invasion, weapons will be readily available) and defending yourself against crime (it's a non-issue in any non-failed state, and in a failed state weapons are readily available anyway and rarely make any difference).

But in a world where wealth inequality is increasing, where surveillance is ever more present, the tiny probability of the population being able to resist when it finally rises up justifies the very tangible downsides of an armed population.

I am aware that there are many arguments against this view, but I think the downsides of an authoritarian state with a monopoly on violence are too dire to be brushed aside.

I was surprised by the level of replies here and didn't have the energy to answer: thanks for the support, comforting to see after a long day.

In a discussion about increasing fish population "after decades of effort", it's surreal to see a suggestion to kill them, or at the very least rip a hole in their mouths.

I'm always surprised at how people can be so unaware, suggesting killing as a meditative and beautiful activity...

So your post got flagged, and I wonder what was controversial about it.

Wouldn't you agree that this zero-sum quality ultimately stems from increasing wealth inequality?

While scarcity is a reality indeed, more egalitarian societies, where life can be satisfactory whether you've studied with billionaire kids or in your town's vocational college, the issue is much lesser.

I'd argue measures that reduce wealth inequality would be the solution.

Insightful.

I wonder if there will come a time where being conservative is seen as being on the side of the working class, the poor, and the disadvantaged, because inequality is so far gone that any change to the system is too likely to be exploited by the ruling class/the rich and make things worse.

Arguably, some must already feel this way.

If you mean that the Church has incorporated ethical systems into its teachings, then I'd agree, but it would also be true of any other religion.

But if you mean that ethics came from orthodox Christianity, or is predicated on the existence of Christ, I'd have to ask to elaborate, though I'm sure I misunderstand.

Virtue ethics were developed by Plato, arguably Kantian and utilitarian systems attenpt to come to ethics through reason and don't mention religion.

The world would be better long-term if we chise tonfund open models instead however.

If you think short-term and only about yourself, paying for SOTA regardless of how many military contracts the lab has is the best thing, but paying for open models is both better ethically, and for a future where AI belongs to everyone and not just to Altman et al.

Your understanding of history, here and downthread, is fascinatingly selective, and, as far as the historical consensus goes, very mistaken.

The Dark Ages refer specifically to Western/Central Europe, so without Byzantium. Byzantium and the Islamic kingdoms were very much thriving, intellectually and culturally, in that period.

Equally, "parts of Europe" weren't dark because of "Vikings and Muslims": the reasons were multiple, from the fall of the Western Roman Empire, to infighting, to poverty, and to religion.

From your comments elsewhere however I understand you simply have a very caricatural view of Muslims and use them as a historical scapegoat.

Indeed, interesting idea, but better seen as a far fetched thought experiment. It seems to capture the attention of hackers however, gets posted here every so often.

It's quite sad that you're feeling pride largely for your ability to write a prompt, and it's sadder that you're being snarky with someone who expects more from HN users.

Your behaviour is not affecting the HN community in a positive way.

Didn't know I enjoyed this kind of metal, but itls great. You got some more, friend?

The path to moral corruption is paved with politically feasible decisions.