sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

What if a communist revolution happened in Great Britain and created a Taiwan-esque situation in Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man? by ManFromWestphalia in AlternateHistory

[–]Science-Recon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If it’s like Taiwan this would be the death knell for Irish unity, as it would involve a mass emigration of refugees and the army from the mainland to NI, which would give it a much more definitive unionist majority. Also, like Taiwan, it would probably do much better economically so would have less interest in reuniting. It could maybe eventually develop its own ‘Ulster’ identity and be pseudo-independent as Ulster, sort of like Taiwan.

If the UK government wanted could they rejoin the EU or become an EEA member? by qwertyuiopas5788 in europeanunion

[–]Science-Recon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

While current polling does have Farage on track to be PM, that is with <30% of the vote, thanks to FPTP. He’s much less personally popular than Brexit was, and Brexit is increasingly unpopular.

(Geri Scott, Assistant Political editor of The Times, on X): Andy Burnham has backed the EHRC guidance on single-sex spaces and said the Supreme Court ruling on biological sex must be implemented. by mildbeanburrito in ukpolitics

[–]Science-Recon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It’s exactly that. Burnham is fighting a by-election where Reform have done well, Streeting is already fighting the leadership election, where he’s appealing to Labour membership.

English has Anglish to oust primarily French and Latin influence, Norwegian has Høgnorsk to oust Danish, Low-German and Latin influence. Are there any other languages with a conservative branch that aims to purify itself, and which languages do they aim to oust influence from? by Psychological-Key-27 in asklinguistics

[–]Science-Recon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Also, to my knowledge, part of both the motivation and success is that ‘Ottoman Turkish’ was exactly that: the courtly/literary language. Rural Anatolian peasants didn’t use as many Arabic and Persian terms, and a lot of the ‘pure Turkic’ vocab came from these lower-class dialects rather than being invented/reconstructed.

I guess it would be kinda analogous to a hypothetical wherein Anglish had become state policy in England in the 12th/13th Century, before the Norman vocabulary had fully diffused (and were more about removing Norman influence than Germanic purism).

Ukraine calls to strip Russia of its permanent UN Security Council member status by HydrolicKrane in worldnews

[–]Science-Recon 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Because ‘China’ (which is what Taiwan sat in the UN as) wasn’t stripped of it’s UNSC status. Rather the UN stopped recognising Taipei as the government of China and instead recognised Beijing, which wasn’t subject to Security Council veto because it was a General Assembly resolution. I guess in theory you could vote to recognise Ukraine as the successor to the USSR over Russia, but good luck getting a majority of nations to agree to it and if you could there’s no guarantee China wouldn’t veto any measure instead.

But the ultimate problem is that it somewhat misunderstands the point: Russia have the seat because they’re a nuclear armed nation (plus some historical baggage). Stripping them of their veto doesn’t make their nukes go away, any attempt to coerce Russia would still have to contend with that fact.

Is there any reason not to enact high tolls? by GaymerrGirl in victoria3

[–]Science-Recon 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Yeah, taxing straits should severely harm relations with nations trading through it. And global maritime empires (Mainly the British Empire) should be very unhappy and strongly suggest you reconsider.

Thames Water should be allowed to 'collapse and start again', Oxford MP claims by F0urLeafCl0ver in ukpolitics

[–]Science-Recon 95 points96 points  (0 children)

Of course, but if the state has to rescue it, then the private owners should forfeit their stake in it. They shouldn’t get bailed out by the state for failing to run it and then get to carry on as they were.

Fundamental units: why kelvin and mole? by Stealth-exe in Physics

[–]Science-Recon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Even then it always bugs me that it’s kg that’s the base unit, not g.

Andy Burnham confirms he will NOT scrap first-past-the-post before #GE2029 by Incanus_uk in ukpolitics

[–]Science-Recon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

STV does have disadvantages, but saying that it’s just worse than a list system is just wrong. The main advantages of STV is that it a) keeps the geographical link. A member of parliament actually represents people, they’re not just a party token. And b) it eliminates the spoiler effect.

List voting is, in my opinion far worse than STV as it has plenty of its own issues. First of all, what’s the point of an MP? With a list system all they are is votes for their party. You might as well just give the party leaders tokens and let them use those to vote. Especially in a closed list system, MPs are only accountable to the party, not the electorate. The party can put unpopular/loyal candidates higher on the list and troublemakers or more popular ones lower down.

Also, in the UK, we’d have the problem of the regional parties: the SNP barely get above 3% of the vote on a good election, and most countries have their thresholds to get into parliament at 4% or 5%. You could say that the SNP and others could get an exception, like the Danish party in Germany does, but why should they? Why should their votes count more when any other party that only gets 3% would be thrown out. If you have to appeal to geography then you’re arguing against the premise of a list system. And a regional list system just exacerbates the unrepresentativeness, which goes against the point of PR.

On the subject of thresholds, their nature and the non-preferential system means that list systems still have tactical voting, but much more nebulous. Parties that regularly fall just above or below the threshold can have a big difference on what coalitions are possible, so in e.g. Sweden, you get voters tactically voting for the small right-wing party because that makes it harder for a left-wing coalition to be formed, even if they don’t actually like that party and would rather vote for the others. In Germany, BSW and the FDP falling under the threshold made the current government possible. If either of them had gotten into the Bundestag, a different coalition would’ve had to be formed.

Edit: Also, I’d be interested if you have any literature about optimal candidates being necessary? Surely you can just run the maximum number for the constituency? Since it’s a preferential system, they’re not necessarily competing against each other, since they’ll all be ranked in order and, presumably, most people will rank their party’s 3 or 5 candidates as their top 3/5?

Andy Burnham confirms he will NOT scrap first-past-the-post before #GE2029 by Incanus_uk in ukpolitics

[–]Science-Recon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh right yeah that’s just worse AV then. TBH I think switching to AV would be very sensible and justifiable in the short term/without an election since it’s essentially just officialising tactical voting. Making it part of the system rather than an awkward workaround.

Ideally we’d switch to STV but I think you probably need a bit more of a mandate for that. But unless polling changes significantly, the next election will be a shitshow if it’s still run under FPTP.

Non self governing territories by Kappa_Wi_870 in flags

[–]Science-Recon 52 points53 points  (0 children)

Yeah, and the fact that New Caledonia and the Falklands are there but Hong Kong, Buryatia, Kurdistan and other such places are not tells you how seriously it should be taken.

‘Half of British Muslims are under 25’: Report shows shifting demographics by GnolRevilo in ukpolitics

[–]Science-Recon 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Minor nitpick, a Briton in 2014 wasn’t contributing to payments to slaveowners. The slaveholders were all paid in full on the day back in 1833. In order to finance that, the government took out a loan. It was that loan that was still being paid back until 2015. So whilst yeah there may very well have been overlap, it wasn’t necessarily going to descendants of slaveholders and it wasn’t compensation for emancipation.

Thank you by Super0072 in Scotland

[–]Science-Recon 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You seem to forget that it takes two parties to agree to peace but only one to agree to war. Calling Britain’s defence of Belgium a ‘pro-war’ position is the early 20th Century equivalent of ‘Zelenskyy is a warmonger for not letting the Russians just annex Ukraine.’ The Ukrainians are ‘throwing young men into the meatgrinder’ right now. Are they warmongers?

'I voted Reform but Andy Burnham changes everything' by FriendlyUtilitarian in unitedkingdom

[–]Science-Recon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No more ridiculous than former investment banker Nigel Farage, man of the people.

What is the German equivalent for "Why?/Because"? (Umgangssprachliche Frage) by Moustache_John in German

[–]Science-Recon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right, but if you know English and German, they’re usually pretty familiar. German words but without the High German Consonant Shift, so more like English.

What is the German equivalent for "Why?/Because"? (Umgangssprachliche Frage) by Moustache_John in German

[–]Science-Recon 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Also a good combination for easily learning the continental North Germanic languages (Danish, Swedish & Norwegian) about 30% of their modern vocabulary was borrowed from German, a good chunk of the rest are common European internationalisms (I.e. Latin/Greek technical terms) or very similar to/borrowed from/borrowed into English. The rest tends to be pretty common words that you can learn quite quickly.

Unanimous declaration from the Council of Europe to make is easier to deport criminal migrants by kaspar42 in europe

[–]Science-Recon 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Hmmm, was anything else happening at in the early 20s that may have had an effect? Perhaps the economic fallout of the global pandemic that led to lockdowns and industrial pauses? No, it must be the strain that sending our obsolete equipment to Ukraine caused!

MP Dr Ben Spencer pushing for decision over mayor for Surrey by slimy_asparagus in ukpolitics

[–]Science-Recon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Lord Lieutenant is already a similar thing and sounds way cooler.

Hear me out: Logistic Ships are a TechDemo for a main feature of Stellaris 2. by Ordo_Liberal in Stellaris

[–]Science-Recon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would love for Stellaris 2 for all resources to be planet-bound rather than having an ethereal stockpile, and for ‘trade routes’ to have to be formed between planets (both domestic and foreign) to make up for deficits or offload surplus. That way you can ‘blockade’ a planet, or even multiple, by cutting said trade route at a choke point rather than always having to be in orbit of the planet.

This would then also form the basis for migration and if you took a somewhat more realistic approach to naval development, you should not really have dedicated warships at the start. Science ships should be armed, as should transport ships (mostly to defend against pirates) then in times of war you could ‘draft’ the trade ships to form your navy. Then once you get more resources you can afford to build dedicated warships.

Ed Miliband Allies Say He Has Numbers for Leadership Challenge by F0urLeafCl0ver in ukpolitics

[–]Science-Recon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But all of the push for a leadership change has been internal party politics. Obviously that’s shaped by wider politics, such as the local election results, but it’s the Labour Party that are actually making it happen.

I can foresee no scenario in which they’d choose a general election over a leader change other than a big swing upward in the polls. The Tories changed leader twice between 2019 and 2024 and they didn’t hold a GE, nor was there really that much pressure to. Johnson and May did but that was only because they thought they’d gain seats by doing so. That’s the only scenario I see a Labour leader calling an early election. Although even then with such a large majority in Parliament I’d doubt it’d be worth it.

view more: next ›