5 ms·

I see an overall trend of of authoritarianism and nationalism as a response to immigration and an increasingly changing world. There's also a pretty heavy strea

I see an overall trend of of authoritarianism and nationalism as a response to immigration and an increasingly changing world. There's also a pretty heavy streak of anti-intellectualism as voters were encouraged to fundamentally reject experts that gave (IMHO well-founded) warnings about the ill-effects of Brexit and Trump. In short: Nationalism in, Globalism out.

matt_wulfeck 10y ago
Even the idea of experts is being rightly criticized. Look at the flip-flopping recommendations of the US health dietary guidelines. What's true to the experts this year will be rejected some point later. Not only that, but when you have centralized power it becomes much easier to corrupt and politicize. There's wisdom to decentralization.
- ComradeTaco 10y ago
  I agree that sometimes experts can make massive erroneous assumptions. Nutrition is a field that has suffered greatly from this. However, many of the predictions like currency devaluation and market loss, that were dismissed as expert scaremongering tactics, did occur. 1. The pound dropped 22% in value after the referendum [1] 2. A 13% drop in the FTSE from referendnum to present [2] [1]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-15/pound-drops-to-3-month-low-as-may-reported-to-seek- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-15/pound-dro... hard-brexit [2]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-13/what-can-the-u-k-stock-market-tell-you-about-brexit https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-13/what-can-...
- judahmeek 10y ago
  No, it's not right to declare expert opinion to be the same as simple opinion, fad, or partisan propaganda. It is right to expect experts to change their guidance as they gain greater understanding of the objective truth of their fields. Nor is it right to equivalate different fields of study, such as nutrition and economics. Some fields of study are much more stable than others due to the ease of proper sampling, hypothesis testing, and experiment replication. If you want to try to discredit economic experts, then focus on their failures, not the failures of other fields. Last but not least, your claim that it is easier to corrupt and politicize centralized power is meaningless. Power only exists when it is centralized. Decentralization simply means creating multiple smaller groups of centralized power. I think that the benefits of centralization, such as standardization of norms and forced unity, have proven far more beneficial to society as a whole than any increased chance of corruption.
- BerislavLopac 10y ago
  Actually, the US dietary guidelines had very little to do with the "experts" and had everything to do with the government structures who based their recommendations on an incomplete set of research. [0] [0] From http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-...: "In the intervening years, the N.I.H. spent several hundred million dollars trying to demonstrate a connection between eating fat and getting heart disease and, despite what we might think, it failed. Five major studies revealed no such link. A sixth, however, costing well over $100 million alone, concluded that reducing cholesterol by drug therapy could prevent heart disease. The N.I.H. administrators then made a leap of faith. Basil Rifkind, who oversaw the relevant trials for the N.I.H., described their logic this way: they had failed to demonstrate at great expense that eating less fat had any health benefits. But if a cholesterol-lowering drug could prevent heart attacks, then a low-fat, cholesterol-lowering diet should do the same."
vivekd 10y ago
My own country, Canada, seems to be doing a good job, and I'm not sure but I think we have even higher immigration rates than Europe or the United States and we're still a fairly liberal, progressive and integrated society. I think our secret is selective immigration, we are much more selective than Europe in regards to who we let into the country and we don't have the illegal immigration issue on the scale that America does. I think the trick to dealing with immigration is controlling for "which immigrants" which might be easier said than done if you are place like America or Europe with a bunch of people stampeding at your boarders wanting in.
- drawnwren 10y ago
  I would be very surprised if total (legal and illegal) Canadian immigration is anywhere close to US or Europe. Do you have any numbers to back this claim?
  - vivekd 10y ago
    immigration "rates"
    - drawnwren 10y ago
      In mathematics, a rate is the ratio between two related quantities.[1] If the denominator of the ratio is expressed as a single unit of one of these quantities, and if it is assumed that this quantity can be changed systematically (i.e., is an independent variable), then the numerator of the ratio expresses the corresponding rate of change in the other (dependent) variable. People/year? People/country? Per capita? Just putting quotes around a word doesn't clear anything up.
- muninn_ 10y ago
  Controlling for immigrants, hmm. Doesn't sound like a popular idea in europe or in the US in democratic circles.
- akjainaj 10y ago
  Of course if you cherry pick your immigrants, you can claim immigrants are not problematic. If all your immigrants turned into Muslim refugees overnight, what would happen? I'm sure you guess it.

matt_wulfeck 10y ago

Even the idea of experts is being rightly criticized. Look at the flip-flopping recommendations of the US health dietary guidelines. What's true to the experts this year will be rejected some point later. Not only that, but when you have centralized power it becomes much easier to corrupt and politicize. There's wisdom to decentralization.

ComradeTaco 10y ago
I agree that sometimes experts can make massive erroneous assumptions. Nutrition is a field that has suffered greatly from this. However, many of the predictions like currency devaluation and market loss, that were dismissed as expert scaremongering tactics, did occur. 1. The pound dropped 22% in value after the referendum [1] 2. A 13% drop in the FTSE from referendnum to present [2] [1]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-15/pound-drops-to-3-month-low-as-may-reported-to-seek- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-15/pound-dro... hard-brexit [2]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-13/what-can-the-u-k-stock-market-tell-you-about-brexit https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-13/what-can-...
judahmeek 10y ago
No, it's not right to declare expert opinion to be the same as simple opinion, fad, or partisan propaganda. It is right to expect experts to change their guidance as they gain greater understanding of the objective truth of their fields. Nor is it right to equivalate different fields of study, such as nutrition and economics. Some fields of study are much more stable than others due to the ease of proper sampling, hypothesis testing, and experiment replication. If you want to try to discredit economic experts, then focus on their failures, not the failures of other fields. Last but not least, your claim that it is easier to corrupt and politicize centralized power is meaningless. Power only exists when it is centralized. Decentralization simply means creating multiple smaller groups of centralized power. I think that the benefits of centralization, such as standardization of norms and forced unity, have proven far more beneficial to society as a whole than any increased chance of corruption.
BerislavLopac 10y ago
Actually, the US dietary guidelines had very little to do with the "experts" and had everything to do with the government structures who based their recommendations on an incomplete set of research. [0] [0] From http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-...: "In the intervening years, the N.I.H. spent several hundred million dollars trying to demonstrate a connection between eating fat and getting heart disease and, despite what we might think, it failed. Five major studies revealed no such link. A sixth, however, costing well over $100 million alone, concluded that reducing cholesterol by drug therapy could prevent heart disease. The N.I.H. administrators then made a leap of faith. Basil Rifkind, who oversaw the relevant trials for the N.I.H., described their logic this way: they had failed to demonstrate at great expense that eating less fat had any health benefits. But if a cholesterol-lowering drug could prevent heart attacks, then a low-fat, cholesterol-lowering diet should do the same."

vivekd 10y ago

My own country, Canada, seems to be doing a good job, and I'm not sure but I think we have even higher immigration rates than Europe or the United States and we're still a fairly liberal, progressive and integrated society. I think our secret is selective immigration, we are much more selective than Europe in regards to who we let into the country and we don't have the illegal immigration issue on the scale that America does. I think the trick to dealing with immigration is controlling for "which immigrants" which might be easier said than done if you are place like America or Europe with a bunch of people stampeding at your boarders wanting in.

drawnwren 10y ago
I would be very surprised if total (legal and illegal) Canadian immigration is anywhere close to US or Europe. Do you have any numbers to back this claim?
- vivekd 10y ago
  immigration "rates"
  - drawnwren 10y ago
    In mathematics, a rate is the ratio between two related quantities.[1] If the denominator of the ratio is expressed as a single unit of one of these quantities, and if it is assumed that this quantity can be changed systematically (i.e., is an independent variable), then the numerator of the ratio expresses the corresponding rate of change in the other (dependent) variable. People/year? People/country? Per capita? Just putting quotes around a word doesn't clear anything up.
muninn_ 10y ago
Controlling for immigrants, hmm. Doesn't sound like a popular idea in europe or in the US in democratic circles.
akjainaj 10y ago
Of course if you cherry pick your immigrants, you can claim immigrants are not problematic. If all your immigrants turned into Muslim refugees overnight, what would happen? I'm sure you guess it.