DT Politics Thread

[Mason89]

I’ve never had a conversation with Darren Mackie either but I’d still be comfortable making a judgement call based on the evidence 

[tlg1903]

43 minutes ago, Mason89 said:

I’ve never had a conversation with Darren Mackie either but I’d still be comfortable making a judgement call based on the evidence 

and one out of two wouldn't be a terrible record 2bf.  Just because you don't like someones politics doesn't make them stupid though.  

[TheDonbytheDee]

A Reform candidate for Aberdeenshire. James Wyllie wants to see coal mining brought back. 

If he means the North East of Scotland, there could be the issue that we have never really mined up here.

There are also no coal fired power plants left in Scotland.

He also called people campaigning for Net Zero, communists.

Haven't heard that one for a while and I wonder if he is our very own Jupiter, who classes anyone not on the right as a 'commie'.

Going to be an interesting few weeks ahead.

[Mason89]

8 hours ago, tlg1903 said:

and one out of two wouldn't be a terrible record 2bf.  Just because you don't like someone’s politics doesn't make them stupid though.  

Since the parliament opened, the only ones I can think of off the top of my head that are thicker are Annie Wells & Paul Sweeney 

I may well be wrong but he’s got a long track record of standing up in that place and sounding like a turnip 

[RicoS321]

1 hour ago, Mason89 said:

Since the parliament opened, the only ones I can think of off the top of my head that are thicker are Annie Wells & Paul Sweeney 

I may well be wrong but he’s got a long track record of standing up in that place and sounding like a turnip 

I guess that stupidity is not really a good identifier. He's likely got a degree more than me, for instance. Intelligence, cleverness, or the ability to discuss the inanities of a ridiculous system aren't really the markers that should be merited. He strikes me as having little wisdom, which is of course entirely missing from UK parliaments, by design. It'd be unwise to think that there was a mechanism within those bodies that allowed for meaningful change, or even the slightest attempt to solve any of the crises that the system hurtles us towards. Look at @Ajja's list of "achievements" for labour for example (not criticising here). Have you ever seen such a bunch of lame, temporary, can kicking talking points?

What's that? The sixth mass extinction of all life on earth? Well, that maybe so, but have you seen that A&E waiting times are down to an average of 18 hours?

Representative democracy cannot deal with anything beyond the current. It's a terrible system. Someone suggested that social media etc meant that everyone wanted everything immediately and no attention span. That may be true, but it has nothing to do with the way the political system works. There has never been long term planning for any conceivably difficult obstruction, there has never been the chance to discuss what politics is for and what we want our communities or nations to be. You can discuss "the deficit", or "national debt", but never what money is and what it's for. You can talk endlessly about how we get economic growth, but never why. You absolutely don't get the opportunity to discuss civilisational collapse (and why ours should miraculously be different). Nor do you get the space to discuss all the issues and how they might interact with one another in a system - each issue is siloed off into its own discussion, so you can discuss climate change but not climate change with biodiversity or plastic pollution, and so you end up with the ridiculous solution of electric cars. Because you can't discuss cars, and you can't discuss what a city is and why. 

Fergus Ewing is probably stupid, or not, but it really doesn't matter. Because Fergus Ewing is stunted by a system that dictates that he can talk about the effects of particular abstractions, but not about the abstractions themselves. Any wisdom that he might have is neutered by the environment in which he stands. 

This applies to him, and the likes of Luxon or Ardern in New Zealand too, for the avoidance doubt. It's universal. 

Edit: and I expect everyone knows what I've written above is true. But you/we will all get drawn back into discussing the political minutae as if it's "the thing", rather than face having to face the enormity of the actual thing. Keir Starmer being a useless dick is not "the thing".

Edited yesterday at 07:34 by RicoS321

[Mason89]

Is there a chance your overthinking it here? 

[RicoS321]

26 minutes ago, Mason89 said:

Is there a chance your overthinking it here? 

More likely that you're under-thinking it.

[Mason89]

2 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

More likely that you're under-thinking it.

Touché 

I know you’ve been gagging for someone to ask, so I’ll wire in. 
 

How long are you giving us as a species? 

[RicoS321]

22 minutes ago, Mason89 said:

Touché 

I know you’ve been gagging for someone to ask, so I’ll wire in. 
 

How long are you giving us as a species? 

I've nae idea. Depends on what happens during the rotting of the global civilisational corpse. I think it should be mandatory discussion in schools though.... 

We're clearly on, or about to be on, a downward slope in terms of energy and resources. Civilisation as it stands is about to hit several bumps in the road, unlikely to be existential individually, but over time it'll die off. Maybe a couple of hundred years for civilisation, assuming the AMOC doesn't do anything drastic? I think it's important to accept that our entire global illusion is built on a one off bonanza of fossil fuels that took hundreds of millions of years to form and will never be available again. This is it for technological humanity. The first step in any addiction is admitting that there's a problem, and it's clear that collectively we're not there yet, although the cracks are certainly beginning to show. Hopefully we'll find a way to "hospice modernity" (not read the book, but a good title) in a compassionate manner. Environmentalists talking about green growth, electric cars, fifteen minute cities and so on are in a form of denial worse than climate denial (as are socialists for different reasons!). They're not admitting the problem. 

 

[Ajja]

Wow. If I’d known we were going to lunge into existential metaphysics I would have brushed up on my reading. Excellent post Rico, I’ll gloss over the ‘not criticism’ part and acknowledge agreement with everything you’re saying about the political system and how it serves societal need. 

[TheDonbytheDee]

The important thing for any politician, of any persuasion, is how they deal with their constituent work. That should be their bread and butter stuff and what they are judged on. I'd imagine it would be a tough gig. 

I think the over exposure of politicians doesn't help matters much either. Politicians have become a strand of celebrity and possibly why it attracts such nefarious characters.   

I'm quite sure if any of us took the chance to become a politician, we'd come across equally as stupid.

I've only known the MSP, Douglas Lumsden, through work. He is certainly a nefarious character, who I wouldn't trust, but I didn't mind the guy and he was pleasant enough, but he has some dodgy thoughts on certain subjects and surprised he has never jumped ship to Reform, as his politics would have aligned. 

 

 

 

[TheDonbytheDee]

The Pentagon is reviewing the UKs claim to the Falklands.

I remember reading in a recent Private Eye, that Argentina have a Trump fan boy in charge, so that's what this will be about. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cde51y0zgjyo

 

 

[Mason89]

Yeah, he’s the screwball with the chainsaw who collapsed the economy and got bailed out by the US to the tune of 40b dollars (America First!) 

We’ve got no business being in the Falklands but then neither does Argentina and the US can go take a flying fuck to themselves. Send Harry Hill down and let them fight 

[InversneckieDob]

10 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

I've nae idea. Depends on what happens during the rotting of the global civilisational corpse. I think it should be mandatory discussion in schools though.... 

We're clearly on, or about to be on, a downward slope in terms of energy and resources. Civilisation as it stands is about to hit several bumps in the road, unlikely to be existential individually, but over time it'll die off. Maybe a couple of hundred years for civilisation, assuming the AMOC doesn't do anything drastic? I think it's important to accept that our entire global illusion is built on a one off bonanza of fossil fuels that took hundreds of millions of years to form and will never be available again. This is it for technological humanity. The first step in any addiction is admitting that there's a problem, and it's clear that collectively we're not there yet, although the cracks are certainly beginning to show. Hopefully we'll find a way to "hospice modernity" (not read the book, but a good title) in a compassionate manner. Environmentalists talking about green growth, electric cars, fifteen minute cities and so on are in a form of denial worse than climate denial (as are socialists for different reasons!). They're not admitting the problem. 

 

I've said for a while that there's people born at the moment who will see the end of the world.

Nothing's going on that leads me to change that viewpoint.

Edited 17 hours ago by InversneckieDob

[Ajja]

13 hours ago, TheDonbytheDee said:

The important thing for any politician, of any persuasion, is how they deal with their constituent work. That should be their bread and butter stuff and what they are judged on. I'd imagine it would be a tough gig. 

I think the over exposure of politicians doesn't help matters much either. Politicians have become a strand of celebrity and possibly why it attracts such nefarious characters.   

I'm quite sure if any of us took the chance to become a politician, we'd come across equally as stupid.

I've only known the MSP, Douglas Lumsden, through work. He is certainly a nefarious character, who I wouldn't trust, but I didn't mind the guy and he was pleasant enough, but he has some dodgy thoughts on certain subjects and surprised he has never jumped ship to Reform, as his politics would have aligned. 

 

 

 

The emergence of the ‘career politician’ has been pretty disastrous for the caring side of politics. The days when people got into it because they were passionate and genuinely believed in certain values seem to be evaporating. The brazen shape shifting you see nowadays is sometimes hard to fathom. Morons like Suella Braverman who were genuinely quite progressive, altruistic in their younger days but then just jump on whatever wagon will take their career forward. Liz Truss and her speech at LibDem conf in the 80s is unrecognisable to the Trump leaning psychopath we see today.  Even BJ and his anti-Brexit position just 3-4 years earlier. All pursuing long term careers so ghosting their previous selfs to gain a foothold. I miss the Tony Benns, the John Smiths, where are these people? I’m fortunate to be friends with Ian Blackford and although we argue regularly about the nature of nationalism as he’s always tried to covert me to his side, he’s one of those politicians that I like to listen to because he cares deeply.  Sad to see them lost. 

[TheDonbytheDee]

9 hours ago, Ajja said:

The emergence of the ‘career politician’ has been pretty disastrous for the caring side of politics. The days when people got into it because they were passionate and genuinely believed in certain values seem to be evaporating. The brazen shape shifting you see nowadays is sometimes hard to fathom. Morons like Suella Braverman who were genuinely quite progressive, altruistic in their younger days but then just jump on whatever wagon will take their career forward. Liz Truss and her speech at LibDem conf in the 80s is unrecognisable to the Trump leaning psychopath we see today.  Even BJ and his anti-Brexit position just 3-4 years earlier. All pursuing long term careers so ghosting their previous selfs to gain a foothold. I miss the Tony Benns, the John Smiths, where are these people? I’m fortunate to be friends with Ian Blackford and although we argue regularly about the nature of nationalism as he’s always tried to covert me to his side, he’s one of those politicians that I like to listen to because he cares deeply.  Sad to see them lost. 

You just need to see the career opportunities for an ex politician, to see why they play the game. 

Even your pal Ian Blackford, must have done well out of it, through contacts and inside info.

It's like being given the keys to a magical kingdom, if you're willing to play the game.

I still hold on to the view that a lot still give a hoot, about the main reason they are voted, which is to serve their electorate, but fanciful on my part to still believe that.

 

 

[RicoS321]

12 hours ago, InversneckieDob said:

I've said for a while that there's people born at the moment who will see the end of the world.

Nothing's going on that leads me to change that viewpoint.

Well they won't see the end of the world. They may see the end of civilisation, but I doubt that too, because it's a global monster. They will almost certainly see the beginning of the collapse (which history might tell has already begun), but they might not recognise it. They may even be forced to migrate and be subject to the realities that the small boaters face, which would be ironic. Europe is badly positioned materially and will almost certainly see a massive reduction in wealth in the coming decades. With its total fertility rate plummeting, I'd expect it to be an entirely different demographic too, and it remains to be seen whether Europe can offer the kind of lifestyle that will attract migrants in the volume required to maintain an ageing population - I expect not. I would think its population to be a third of current by the end of the century, with the world perhaps at 5 billion (despite the strange methods of the UN's supposed 10 billion peak). Unless something happens with the AMOC, I doubt Europe will face the giant famines that could hit India, Africa etc, but perhaps might stretch to parts of Spain and France even. In terms of our infrastructure, everything will have to change completely. Entire cities could be written off, roads and bridges will be unrepairable and we'll certainly see an end to air travel (military aside). Our entire system is built on and for fossil fuels, without which it doesn't function. If you imagine life prior to fossil fuels, then you probably get a good idea of what to expect technologically. 

Yet, compare this description to what we are allowed to discuss in the political system today? Arguments over whether we should phase out diesel cars; whether hydrogen can replace gas; whether solar panels can be allowed in fields or not; whether to give planning permission for the next suburb designed entirely around the car; whether or not the government has met its growth targets. Turn on question time in Aberdeen and watch them talk about drilling (or not) in the North sea. I mean, what a heap of delusional shite! Where are the actual discussions about the material reality of our situation now, and in the coming decades? Where are the slightest hints that there may be an issue? Where are the forums to openly and honestly discuss the future, and plans to prepare for it? 

It simply isn't allowed in representative democracy. Of course, I may be wildly off with my predictions, but they are - with certainty - based on looking at the evidence. Based on looking at the resources and minerals out system runs on, and the ever increasing energy required to get those things. Not based on future tech that doesn't exist and may never have the resources to exist. Yet we continue to discuss whether Keir Starmer is a dick or not (he is to dickishness what chipper is to fash and chip sales establishment). 

[Ajja]

Out of interest Rico, what line of work are you in? Apologies for the personal intrusion. 

[RicoS321]

54 minutes ago, Ajja said:

Out of interest Rico, what line of work are you in? Apologies for the personal intrusion. 

I currently look after a child full-time. I'm possibly about to resurrect my business/systems consultancy business though, I'm procrastinating at present. The current is far more rewarding certainly, and equally as relevant to the future! Although if you want some work done, I'll give you DonsTalk discount.