h a l f b a k e r yContrary to popular belief
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Ideologies often posit forces such as the market or class struggle to
explain political phenomena. In many cases, these forces are very likely
to be fictitious or exaggerated.
Centrifugal force is an example of a similarly fictitious entity in physics,
which has apparently been posited by James
Dyson. Apparently, the
fact that Britain is physically on the edge of Europe means we should
leave it.
Here, then, is a new political theory which explains processes in a
similar way. Geographically, each continent can be seen as a
centrifuge whizzing round at amazing speed and the peripheral bits
should leave, e.g. Ireland, Britain and Turkey, or Mexico and Alaska.
Similarly, the social system in each country is similarly turbinate and
the richest and poorest should also leave, leaving us with just the
middle class, and also middle management should be the only kind of
work available, a la Golgafrincham. Marginalised groups, being on the
edge, should also be excluded and so forth.
In fact, centrifugal social forces do not exist because they are forms of
inertia, in other words conservatism, acting at a tangent to the direction
of motion.
I personally see rotary motion as inferior ideologically to linear, which
is why I like hovercraft.
Incidentally I still don't know what I think about the EU.
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my head is spinning enough already (EU) without you adding to it! |
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// see rotary motion as inferior ideologically to linear, // |
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//which is why I like hovercraft // |
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At least that makes sense. |
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// Incidentally I still don't know what I think about the EU // |
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They're all a bunch of bloody foreigners. That's all you need to
know. |
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Nudge nudge wink wink, should apply to gender too... |
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The EU is like any other club that aims to share
resources - it works well for the poorer members,
and badly for the wealthier ones. |
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Given that many
of the 20 countries that have been admitted since
the original founding of the EU are very much
poorer
than the original members, it follows that the club
is
becoming less and less advantageous to its richer
members. Therefore, the only reasons for
remaining in are things like reducing the likelihood
of war, or the long-term wider benefit of making
the poorer members richer. |
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A chienne is only as strong as it weakest link... |
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// reducing the likelihood of war, // |
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Eh ? That will hurt the weapons export trade ... |
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// the long-term wider benefit of making the poorer members richer. // |
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But if that happens, where will be the motivation for citizens of those member countries to work long hours in menial jobs for starvation wages and no employment security or immigration rights ? Be realistic ... |
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//where will be the motivation for citizens of those
member countries to work long hours in menial jobs
for starvation wages and no employment security// |
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I don't know - what keeps you at it? |
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The unparalleled opportunities to help ourselves to the product. |
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How many McFlurries can a man take? |
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Billions and billions ... |
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But we weren't meaning that. We mean the drums of addictive mind-altering substances that are added to all the products. |
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Mind-altering, not waistline-altering ... |
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In some ways, not a bad idea, in other ways, a bad idea. |
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There's something to be said for centrist politics, as long as
the populace is educated, informed and not a bunch of
media-led x-phobic hate-mongers. I sort of see a centrifugal
party working a bit like this, with all the crazy David
Ike/Nigel Farage stuff getting ejected, while normal,
friendly pro-nice, pro-future, pro-kindness, pro-helping,
centrist politicians remaining at the centre. |
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Unfortunately, the world seems to be going in the opposite
direction where bat-shit-crazyness seems to attract various
sections of the population who are happy to be spoon-fed
towards some polarised fantasy-world where it's ok to hurt
other people in order to further the careers of a tiny elite,
on the hope and prayer that they'll be given special
treatment once their chosen whispering demagogues are
handed power. In other words, the fringes are given so
much more attention than they deserve, clouding out the
less exciting voices of the sensible middle. An anti-
centrifugal status quo where all the loons get preferential
treatment by the news networks who want to sell
excitement, danger and drama, to the detriment of facts,
kindness and helping. |
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// normal, friendly pro-nice, pro-future, pro-kindness, pro-helping, centrist politicians remaining at the centre.// |
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That would be really helpful - if they're all gathered together in one place, it's much easier to target the mortar barrage. |
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David Icke's on the edge in ways other than political, I think.
Unpopular opinions are not always wrong, and not always right either. |
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No but, like science, those unpopular opinions that are
backed by truth (though you could, if feeling cynical insert
the word expedient here) tend to be the ones that win
through e.g. banning slavery, fairness over sexism, racism,
liberal economics over nationalism etc - at least in the long
term. |
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Revolution and extremist ideas can have a strong short
term impact, and sometimes that might seem necessary,
but tend to generate ripples of difficulty and strife that
reverberate for many years after the event. |
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As stated previously, all this falls down if the populace are
happy to be fed a diet of misinformation and spin, so I
accept this is a simplification - but we do have well
practiced methods for dealing with bias in scientific
enquiry, it might be worth using them more widely. |
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more a comment on a comment; I hard about remittance people spreading out to the British colonies because they were kind of socially er, sometimes prohibited at Britain. |
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//In fact, centrifugal social forces do not exist because
they are forms of inertia, in other words conservatism,
acting at a tangent to the direction of motion.// |
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There's a general problem with identifying the supposed
"direction of motion" of a society, except with hindsight. |
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In fact there are several. Not the least of them is that it
tends towards a form of "might is right" reasoning,
whereby whichever side of a particular question is
winning at the moment is deemed to define and own the
future, so that opposition to it can be defined as
regressive. |
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There was a striking example of this in 1930s Europe,
when democracy was widely viewed as a thing of the
past, to be superseded either by Fascism or by
Communism. Spain's attempt to retain and revive
democracy was mocked by one Fascist commentator
(possibly Mussolini?) as being like going back to gas-light
in the age of electricity. |
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Another, more theoretical problem with it is that
arguments both ebb-and-flow and, simultaneously, morph
into slightly different arguments, so that, by careful
selection of reference points, you can usually make either
side of an argument look like the wave of the future. |
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//I personally see rotary motion as inferior ideologically
to linear// |
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Actually, that part makes sense to me. |
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//it's ok to hurt other people in order to further the careers
of a tiny elite// |
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There are significant elements of this within the status quo,
and if you make a general policy of excluding fringe
elements, you will also exclude any serious attempt to
change that. |
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I just want to say that I wish I'd said "ideologically inferior" instead of
"inferior ideologically". |
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It's funny how the policy makers in any given society are those best served by the status quo, and never seem to consult those who have been failed by society before creating its newest policies. |
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