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I think we might have a point of agreementOriginally Posted by Corky34
And rightly so IMO, as president of the commission he swore an oath to act in general interest of the Union, something it seems he didn't do when it came to brexit, or at any other time come to think of it.
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There are different standards of 'facts'.
Deductive, e.g. 1+1=2 >
Inductive, e.g. the sun will rise tomorrow >
Scientific, e.g. gravity, or, to a slightly lower standard of fact, evolution >
Economic e.g. the £ is worth more than the $ right now
Predictive e.g. the £ will likely be worth more than the $ tomorrow.
That the £ is likely to be worth more than the $ tomorrow is as hard a fact as we need for the sakes of discussion. It is not a fact that the £ will be worth more, but it is a fact that it is likely to be worth more. That it is quantifiably so does not make it more of a fact than a qualitative fact such as evolution.
Some serious abuse of the definition knowledge going on according to convenience, and the trust in 'experts', comparable to the use of 'eu elites', another phrase designed to get people feeling, not thinking. Experts do indeed think as a preference over feeling, that's part of what makes them experts. This distrust in experts because they have been wrong before is in the same vein as distrusting science because cancer hasn't been cured yet.
CAT-THE-FIFTH (04-07-2016),Phage (04-07-2016)
I would say we have empirical evidence that it's not undemocratic, now you can say that doesn't mean it's democratic but democracy isn't a binary, I'd also say it's not qualitative evidence, that it's not based on thought and opinion, it's not a hypotheses, and it's not looking at the reasons or motivations. It's also not really quantitative evidence as although we could use numerical data or data that can be transformed into useable statistics that wouldn't really allow us to formulate a fact or uncover a pattern.
It is (IMO) empirical evidence, it's based on verifiable observations and/or experience.
Yes i did, and my understanding is that a "scientific fact" is based on repeatable careful observation or measurement (by experimentation or other means), in other words anyone can if they wish observe and measure how democratic the EU is, now they may come to a different conclusion than me but that conclusion won't find the absence of democracy.
Whoa there.
I am a scientist and yes the misuse of phrases like "scientific fact" does irk me somewhat. Especially when "science" has nothing to do with the topic at hand. It was my intention to merely make that point. However, I accept on rereading my original post that I didn't make it clear. I have a devil of a time condensing what would ordinarily take me several thousand words into a couple of sentences. So if Corky has taken any personal offence from what I have written I apologise.
Personally I would argue that "scientific fact" aside the nature of fact and opinion has a very real bearing on the EU discussion. Perhaps not directly in terms of the semantics, but as soon as you make qualitative determinations about such things as "democratic" we need to very clear about what we mean. Every man and his dog has an opinion, which collectively can create a perception that X is a fact. It doesn't necessarily mean that it is. Personally, having read up on the EU I will admit that it is more democratic than I thought it was. There are still aspects which I would class as undemocratic, but I accept that this perception is based on my understanding of the word democratic. As that evolves so might my view of the EU change. This had no bearing on my vote so it is somewhat a moot point, but as my original perception had been challenged in part by arguments within the various hexus threads I thought it prudent to re-examine the topic.
The thing I definitely need to clarify is that I was not equating the same level of "truth" to all facts, in fact the opposite. Otherwise why would I be irked by the use of the phrase "scientific fact"? Now science may work by consensus as with economics and politics, but the level of actual confidence associated with them is markedly different. So is the definition of what constitutes "expert" and what that actually means. Consequently I will more readily accept the collective position of scientific experts than economic ones and in turn political. This is in part due to the small problem of human nature interfering with events when they have been predicted by the latter two disciplines.
Finally, when the type of system being discussed has humanity as the flaw, how would you suggest going about fixing that particular conundrum?
If Wisdom is the coordination of "knowledge and experience" and its deliberate use to improve well being then how come "Ignorance is bliss"
Put cats in charge. Then there will be trouble
You're amongst educated people here, you can be a bit more specific than 'scientist' otherwise I picture you with goggles and a lab coat and a pipette.
As it happens, almost every scientist who spoke about brexit said it would be really bad for science.
Where humanity is the flaw, it's up to social scientists, psychologists, economists, neuroscientists, statisticians, doctors, etc. Where someone has a doctorate in one of those subjects, where relevant, I would call him an expert, and weight his opinion much more than someone else. They do sometimes get it wrong, of course, because they're human.
As a scientist, you'll of course be aware of the importance of a control when doing a scientific experiment. We obviously can't have a control here, unless we can wind the clock back and change our decision and see what the other result would have been. All we can do is try to compare our decisions going forward on a like for like basis, taking the predictions of 'experts' to be more important than those politicians using emotive language to have you distrust those 'experts' who have spent a long, long time studying those things for us.
In those like-for-like decisions, we could boil it down.
Legal experts think:
If we stay in the eu, we will have laws passed down to us by a democratic european body that's probably unduly influenced by big business and is not transparent enough
If we leave the eu, we will have laws passed down to us by an undemocratic (by virtue of house of lords) uk government where laws are proposed by hereditary peers and we've had 30 years of neoliberal hypercapitalism.
Probably a toss-up; those pro-EU will probably say the UK system is worse (I happen to agree), those anti-EU will probably say the EU system is worse, note, in neither case is this anything to do with the 'facts', but rather our previously held opinion.
Defense experts think:
If we stay in the EU, we will be better faced to fend off economic and military attacks from Russia, and maintain stability in the region in the face of growing threats from ISIS and the threat to stability in the form of Trump, whereas
If we leave the EU, we risk having the whole thing slowly break up, leaving us more prone to destabilisation tactics from Russia (which led to the attack on the Crimea) and potential wars between EU countries.
Economic experts think:
If we leave the EU, we will be worse off.
We have access to some 'facts', but the bigger picture is way too complicated to boil down to anything concrete, and all we can really do, other than argue until the cows come home, is defer to those who know more than us. If you really think the EU is this big bad wannabe federal military superstate and that leaving will prevent that from happening further, then you still have to weigh that up against the highly likely economic effects and say 'well I don't really mind if other people go through 10 years of uncertainty and financial loss and we have to hire thousands of foreign negotiators because we haven't done any of our own trade negotiations for decades which I don't find ironic in the slightest actually, because democracy!'
Ok, I can't be the only one thinking of this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEolSjlcqng
Computers/robots, but not ones built by humans as they will be flawed!
Now that is an assumption I'd like to discuss, because while we are flawed I don't think we are necessarily to blame for the way in which we use the constructs we have created...
What I mean by that is that sometimes something that is fit for purpose today is not for tomorrow, hence we can continue using an axe for as long as we like but eventually we will have to concede that a chainsaw is better. The same goes for everything, including systems we build around us to help improve equality and provide ourselves with a sense of fairness, in other words governments.
No matter how much we complain about this system or another, we can all agree that there is a divide between those that govern us and ourselves. Sometimes that divide is helpful because emotionally driven decisions can be really bad, but other times it makes it very easy for someone to do something they know is unpopular or bad because they don't have to deal with the consequences, not directly because Gordon Brown was the highest earning politician after his "interesting" leadership. This is where I think the major question resides, how do we strike the balance?
Switzerland do it by referendum, often. Basically direct democracy which I am not all that sure about. I don't trust that people have enough time to do the research required to enable them to make informed decisions, it is also more unstable. I like the idea of representatives but do we really need over 600? First Past The Post is also a complete and utter farce for elections so that is an unacceptable way to provide people with a "vote".
We have a system at the moment which is quite stable, in that it hasn't changed much for a long time. I think we are starting to see the cracks in it though. The UK can't continue to pretend it is a democracy because it is the socially acceptable thing to pretend to be, like a teenager with five colours in her hair... At least China and Russia are honest about their dislike for the unstable west, prefer more authoritarian (and quite frightening) but stable systems.
We had the chance to avoid this mess during the coalition government, but of course the compromise was not even going to be close to proportional representation so those in favour of change (including myself) stayed at home while the result was predictably the same, a vote designed to shut people up. I can't see a recovery from this political mess we've brought upon ourselves though, the gamble didn't pay off for Cameron and now the amorphous goop needs to find some sort of walking stick.
I can see Europe becoming stronger, if for no other reason but to stick two fingers up to both the UK and Russia simultaneously. I struggle to see the possitives for the UK though, we have nationalistic ideals we can now hold up high like our pride in the magna carta... pride cometh before the fall though, which seems alarmingly apt right now.
Quiet the opposite, I found our discussion one of the most polite and enjoyable exchanges I've had on the internet, if anything it should be me apologising for stretching the term "scientific fact" a little to far.
Replace us with robots?
I'd say "blame" is probably to strong a word, humans are complex creatures and make mistakes but that doesn't mean we're to blame (IMO), it just means we should be aware of those mistakes and hopefully learn from them, and possibly put systems in place that either prevent or mitigate those mistakes in the future.
Last edited by Corky34; 05-07-2016 at 07:38 AM.
Just to add:- using the word "Democracy" it would depend on what part of the world it is to be used as it doesn't seem to be working in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan.
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"Democracy" has begun, failed and started agian multiple times... My biggest fear for this referendum was that we could be heading towards a less beneficial system as a result of too much unrest. This referendum has stirred up historic divisions in Europe and the UK and that could end up making things a lot worse no matter what the result was.
Greece is currently not a democracy having voted to leave the EU and then their government effectively enslaving them to their creditors... Not the first time Athens has made a mess of their democratic experiment.
A benign dictatorship, with TP's Patrician at the helm.
Well I think any referendum in any country would agree as a basis would want free trade, going on from there next would be to cut red tape, then open up Europe to some world markets (to our advantage), stop the silly idea of trying to unite 27 nations with different languages and customs into one melting pot, some control of immigrants as when you think about it, if the UK (inside the EU) is a great economic success and the rest of the EU countries go down the pan then in theory millions would want to come to the UK for work and could bring all their non working families in as well.
Seems all simple to me but of course it's not
Last edited by excalibur2; 05-07-2016 at 11:44 AM.
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If it were that simple, more than 52% of the country would have voted against it and we wouldn't have people the world over raving about how stupid it was.
They are, they didn't vote to leave the EU they voted whether to accept the bailout conditions or not, something that wasn't a decision they could make, the only way not to be bound by the rules of a club is to leave the club and that's not what they voted for.
It's like refusing to accept that your bank just charged you £25 for that unauthorised overdraft, sure you can do that but ultimately you agreed to those terms when you opened the account and the only way out is to close the account, unfortunately you're still going to be paying that £25 charge.
If the EU was as I suggested then I would wager 75% would vote to remain.
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