5 ms·

My friends certainly saw an OUT person. Despite my efforts, no-one debated any issues, no-one tried to convert me. This is a bit "iamveryclever" but my belief

My friends certainly saw an OUT person. Despite my efforts, no-one debated any issues, no-one tried to convert me. This is a bit "iamveryclever" but my belief is that they were unable to debate me because I was aware and confident of the issues of the economy, the social space and business world - rightly or wrongly - I feel confident and can speak at length on such subjects. No-one put forward any real arguments except "but Boris is a bufoon" and "no to xenophobes and racists". I wanted someone to debate with, I got very little. Now the voting is over there are suddenly an endless stream of economists and social scientists posting exchange rates and share indexes and bad news.

alexwoodcreates 10y ago
Hi SixSigma, I wish I had seen more OUT people. We all need to take stock and look at how solid facts on the economy and society are shared properly. Hopefully we can move on from this.
- lmm 10y ago
  The tone of a lot of Facebook conversation was such that it would have been very intimidating to admit to being out, at least in my circles.
sjclemmy 10y ago
To be fair, there was a consistent universal message saying it would be bad for business.
- ZeroGravitas 10y ago
  And yet, the post you replied to was confident this wasn't a problem. Nobel prize winning economists didn't sway him, why did he expect his facebook friends to do so?
  - mistermann 10y ago
    FWIW, for some people maximizing economic return isn't the only issue in life.
    - TillE 10y ago
      "Not maximizing economic return" is quite a euphemism for plunging the country into a likely recession, with effects that will be felt basically forever. We're talking about large parts of the economy that will be destroyed.
      - SixSigma 10y ago
        Recessions come and go. Destruction is a positive force. "Let banks fail, says Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz". 2009
      - pessimizer 10y ago
        The UK is long overdue for a recession due to continued austerity (which has only made it's deficits rise faster), and has only been preserved through fluffing up house prices with direct subsidy, and escalating money laundering through property rising from sanctions on Russia justified by the conflict in Ukraine and the latest corruption crackdown in China. Without direct access to the EU market and the exceptions that the EU allowed the UK to keep them in, the UK may become a less attractive place to launder money or tax shelter in general, which may actually do real damage to the economy. I've even heard a bit of fear from Irish commentators that their profits from allowing companies to avoid tax all over the world may be affected, because it partially depended on a special relationship with the UK, which had a special relationship with the EU. I find it hard to see this as a bad thing for the world. Thus far, all permanent damage is very hypothetical, except that hysterical Remainers seem determined to bash the majority who voted Leave enough to guarantee Britain the most right-wing government in its history. Their first reaction seems to have been to take the farthest-left prominent person who had the ability to relate to Leavers out as leader of Labour, and try to replace him with one of the army of Blairs that have been openly attacking him ever since he was fairly elected. The UK will be lucky if it only ends up with Boris; if the Guardian and the PLP scream enough, they may end up with Farage in opposition...
arethuza 10y ago
There seemed to be a lot of reports in the media from businesses and economists that Brexit would impact the economy. The reply that the Leave camp came up with seemed to be "you can't make economic predictions", while I see their point, that one cuts both ways.
- sjclemmy 10y ago
  Gove's response was even better than that; “I think people in this country have had enough of experts."
  - elthran 10y ago
    I think this was my favorite quote of the entire campaign - definitely the one that made me despair for both the political and common classes
    - mike_hearn 10y ago
      Yes that's interesting isn't it. I wrote an analysis of what's going on with that: https://medium.com/@octskyward/how-is-the-remain-campaign-losing-e0784209fe65#.6ew94nlgt https://medium.com/@octskyward/how-is-the-remain-campaign-lo...
      - jerf 10y ago
        Nice article. I know a lot of people are despairing at the commoners ignoring "expert advice". Personally, I'm despairing at so many of the "educateds" ignoring the fact that the track record for "expert advice" has been awful, and failing to take the appropriate actions based on that. You don't hear much about the hazards of education, but in my opinion, education can implicitly teach the primacy of words over facts. Education teaches some things that are unintuitive and superficially contradict observed reality, yet are true. For instance, chemistry is based on atoms, or Newtonian physics. These concepts took centuries because they are not intuitive, but they are true. But trusting words over reality can easily go too far. As you say in that article, you can see "experts" who utterly shocked by what should have been predictable. I've been reading "Debunking Economics", (by an econ professor, not just "a guy"), and he shows (mathematically!) the dominant economic model does not include the Great Recession in its possible state space. The mathematically inclined should be gasping in horror. But that's not even the real problem; the real problem is that the "experts" cling to it even so. Because they like the words. The "common man" is much better at sniffing these mismatches out than the "educated man". Whether this is an intrinsic hazard of education, or a defect in our system, I'm not sure. Observed reality can still mislead them, it is absolutely true. (I can argue either way.) But unfortunately, the educated masses are not generally justified in their belief of superiority. It is at best a very situational superiority, and one that carries its own unique hazards, not a universal superiority. (And I do truly mean that "unfortunately". It should not be. We are leaving so much "on the table" because our educated class is not all that "educated". But it is what it is.)
tluyben2 10y ago
Shame we didn't meet then as all Leavers I know are mumbling things like 'coz we look like Islamabad these days here', 'EU takes just our money and gives nothing' and ofcourse the classic 'they took our jubbsss!'. I only heard good arguments (that is, not underbelly, racist, nationalist or just misinformed) on Remain, non on Leave. Edit: (not from the UK but I do a lot of business there and most my income is GBP so I am very interested)
khattam 10y ago
>an endless stream of economists and social scientists posting exchange rates and share indexes and bad news Except they are not representative of the truth. The elites are on damage control when they found out that their brainwashing didn't work. Share indexes are going up and will continue to rise for the UK and continue to fall for the rest of Europe. You did well. Don't let them tell you otherwise.

alexwoodcreates 10y ago

Hi SixSigma, I wish I had seen more OUT people. We all need to take stock and look at how solid facts on the economy and society are shared properly. Hopefully we can move on from this.

lmm 10y ago
The tone of a lot of Facebook conversation was such that it would have been very intimidating to admit to being out, at least in my circles.

sjclemmy 10y ago

To be fair, there was a consistent universal message saying it would be bad for business.

ZeroGravitas 10y ago
And yet, the post you replied to was confident this wasn't a problem. Nobel prize winning economists didn't sway him, why did he expect his facebook friends to do so?
- mistermann 10y ago
  FWIW, for some people maximizing economic return isn't the only issue in life.
  - TillE 10y ago
    "Not maximizing economic return" is quite a euphemism for plunging the country into a likely recession, with effects that will be felt basically forever. We're talking about large parts of the economy that will be destroyed.
    - SixSigma 10y ago
      Recessions come and go. Destruction is a positive force. "Let banks fail, says Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz". 2009
    - pessimizer 10y ago
      The UK is long overdue for a recession due to continued austerity (which has only made it's deficits rise faster), and has only been preserved through fluffing up house prices with direct subsidy, and escalating money laundering through property rising from sanctions on Russia justified by the conflict in Ukraine and the latest corruption crackdown in China. Without direct access to the EU market and the exceptions that the EU allowed the UK to keep them in, the UK may become a less attractive place to launder money or tax shelter in general, which may actually do real damage to the economy. I've even heard a bit of fear from Irish commentators that their profits from allowing companies to avoid tax all over the world may be affected, because it partially depended on a special relationship with the UK, which had a special relationship with the EU. I find it hard to see this as a bad thing for the world. Thus far, all permanent damage is very hypothetical, except that hysterical Remainers seem determined to bash the majority who voted Leave enough to guarantee Britain the most right-wing government in its history. Their first reaction seems to have been to take the farthest-left prominent person who had the ability to relate to Leavers out as leader of Labour, and try to replace him with one of the army of Blairs that have been openly attacking him ever since he was fairly elected. The UK will be lucky if it only ends up with Boris; if the Guardian and the PLP scream enough, they may end up with Farage in opposition...

arethuza 10y ago

There seemed to be a lot of reports in the media from businesses and economists that Brexit would impact the economy. The reply that the Leave camp came up with seemed to be "you can't make economic predictions", while I see their point, that one cuts both ways.

sjclemmy 10y ago
Gove's response was even better than that; “I think people in this country have had enough of experts."
- elthran 10y ago
  I think this was my favorite quote of the entire campaign - definitely the one that made me despair for both the political and common classes
  - mike_hearn 10y ago
    Yes that's interesting isn't it. I wrote an analysis of what's going on with that: https://medium.com/@octskyward/how-is-the-remain-campaign-losing-e0784209fe65#.6ew94nlgt https://medium.com/@octskyward/how-is-the-remain-campaign-lo...
    - jerf 10y ago
      Nice article. I know a lot of people are despairing at the commoners ignoring "expert advice". Personally, I'm despairing at so many of the "educateds" ignoring the fact that the track record for "expert advice" has been awful, and failing to take the appropriate actions based on that. You don't hear much about the hazards of education, but in my opinion, education can implicitly teach the primacy of words over facts. Education teaches some things that are unintuitive and superficially contradict observed reality, yet are true. For instance, chemistry is based on atoms, or Newtonian physics. These concepts took centuries because they are not intuitive, but they are true. But trusting words over reality can easily go too far. As you say in that article, you can see "experts" who utterly shocked by what should have been predictable. I've been reading "Debunking Economics", (by an econ professor, not just "a guy"), and he shows (mathematically!) the dominant economic model does not include the Great Recession in its possible state space. The mathematically inclined should be gasping in horror. But that's not even the real problem; the real problem is that the "experts" cling to it even so. Because they like the words. The "common man" is much better at sniffing these mismatches out than the "educated man". Whether this is an intrinsic hazard of education, or a defect in our system, I'm not sure. Observed reality can still mislead them, it is absolutely true. (I can argue either way.) But unfortunately, the educated masses are not generally justified in their belief of superiority. It is at best a very situational superiority, and one that carries its own unique hazards, not a universal superiority. (And I do truly mean that "unfortunately". It should not be. We are leaving so much "on the table" because our educated class is not all that "educated". But it is what it is.)

tluyben2 10y ago

Shame we didn't meet then as all Leavers I know are mumbling things like 'coz we look like Islamabad these days here', 'EU takes just our money and gives nothing' and ofcourse the classic 'they took our jubbsss!'. I only heard good arguments (that is, not underbelly, racist, nationalist or just misinformed) on Remain, non on Leave. Edit: (not from the UK but I do a lot of business there and most my income is GBP so I am very interested)

khattam 10y ago

>an endless stream of economists and social scientists posting exchange rates and share indexes and bad news Except they are not representative of the truth. The elites are on damage control when they found out that their brainwashing didn't work. Share indexes are going up and will continue to rise for the UK and continue to fall for the rest of Europe. You did well. Don't let them tell you otherwise.