Jamal

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/wake_up_sheeple.png

I had no choice in the matter Q. I can't say any more.

Nothing screwy; I deleted it.

That's irony. Sarcasm is the use of irony for mockery, to hurt, to show contempt, or to be charmingly mischievous like your good self.

Probably not your intention, but that sounds more than a bit sinister. :D

Marx did not advocate the setting of all wages by a fairness committee, and he did not advocate for "to each according to his need" as a practical pol...

It's ok cos we'd have artisans' guild functions and summer fetes.

What if everyone worked for themselves?

(Y) :B (Y)

Some general criticisms of economic forecasting and econometrics, from both the Right and Left: https://mises.org/library/truth-about-economic-forecas...

Nope.

Which economic authorities have anything close to a good record of prediction? I think "long term effects" is to frame the economic future in the wron...

You're not addicted. You're just always surprised that you don't stop having new things to say. 8-)

Yes, but all the same, radical Islam is a genuinely reactionary theory of history and politics, and interpretation of Islam, that has been developed o...

Let's assume for the sake of argument that the Allied Powers were primarily responsible for the conditions in Germany that led to the rise of the Nazi...

Left bicycle pedals are reverse threaded, to prevent unscrewing by precession. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Animation_of_mechan...

With a few exceptions, the Guardian is a fairly establishment publication, supporting the liberal managerial left that changed the political scene fro...

Cool truck. Ever since I went to Canada I've wanted one of those things. As it turns out, I have a 1994 Renault Laguna. An indestructible classic, but...

Indeed. And I don't think the post-vote bitterness about Britain as a "rainy fascist island" is doing anything to help immigrants. On the contrary, it...

Talking of agendas, there's this in Foreign Policy: It's Time for the Elites to Rise Up Against the Ignorant Masses The headline is in earnest.

:D Just what I was thinking.

What?

This is a laughable fantasy.

Good article: https://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2016/06/21/beyond-the-brexit-debate/

I guess this is the argument for a written constitution--putting human rights beyond debate and alteration--that can't be democratically over-ruled, i...

I don't like stepping on toes, but I couldn't help myself.

It's not about what you ought to want or not want. The question is if you're willing to accept a democratic decision you don't like and go on to suppo...

It shows that experts are often wrong--that there are more important things at stake.

You might want to check out the contemporary expert consensus regarding the economic consequences of the abolition of slavery.

Indeed. The accusation of fascism is rhetorically useful for emphasizing just how bad such an anti-democratic position is. It's definitely hyperbole t...

Wow, I hadn't even noticed that. Not reading closely enough. Surely it couldn't just be a mistake could it? Or just a wee trick to emphasize how big t...

:D I don't think this is an improvement.

I was a bit suspicious of great harbor of New York/Hudson/that deep yielding estuary, which I thought was elegant variation at first, but I think it a...

Your post presumes that for Europeans to be united is for them to remain in the EU, that to leave the EU is to "get away from Europe". This is a misun...

I'd be up for a reading group too, but like csalisbury I'm not so sure about going back to Kant, just yet. But if you started one I could probably be ...

You remind me of Banno sometimes.

Sorry, it wasn't meant to be a thorough engagement with your whole post. Just a spanner in the works to see what sparks fly.

A typically Western response, of course. The moment people, wherever they are, get a chance to get out of subsistence farming and get washing machines...

This makes me think of one of Hans Rosling's TED talks from a few years ago, in which he says: Source I think we also need to consider the huge differ...

Welcome who, good to have you here.

It occasionally has some good stuff, but much of the time I find it embarrassingly bad or downright ugly, in both style and politics. It can be unwitt...

What happens when you go to http://thephilosophyforum.com/user/upgrade ?

As you're appealing to anecdotal evidence I thought I'd butt in to say that several of my friends and family in the UK have been seriously ill, includ...

Is a good king better than a bad Parliament? See Tony Benn on democracy and the EU.

It's the concerns of the people who engineered the European Union that I was referring to, not capital in the abstract. My point was that they wanted ...

But the EU is a capitalist club (originally designed to allow the expansion of member states' capitalist operations without the tedious inconvenience ...

First, it doesn't seem obvious to people like the SWP and other far left groups, who often talk as if the revolution is around the corner and as if th...

But that's obvious, and it wasn't my point, which was that there is, currently, no realistic alternative to capitalism--which in this context means th...

Well that's what it means to say that "there is, currently, no alternative to capitalism".

You've interpreted me in an oddly literal fashion. I mean there is no realistic prospect of replacing capitalism and there is no good plan for how to ...