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I'll certainly give you that. We have a (reasonably!) healthy democracy in Blighty, despite our grumblings. Though it's fair to say that had the referendum bee

by GJim 9mo ago

I'll certainly give you that. We have a (reasonably!) healthy democracy in Blighty, despite our grumblings. Though it's fair to say that had the referendum been held more recently, Russian interference would have been orders of magnitude more severe. I'm not sure what the solution is to protect against such interference. (That is, interference in the worlds democracies, not just ours).

mschuster91 9mo ago
> I'm not sure what the solution is to protect against such interference. (That is, interference in the worlds democracies, not just ours). Do to them what they do to us. Make "FAFO" a thing again. We once upon a time stopped supporting the Russian opposition and it cost us dearly. As for "what can we do now" - for every attributed or even suspected action of interference by Russia, Ukraine gets handed another few billion dollars worth of ammunition. When something gets attributed to Iran, give some nice toy to Israel. When something gets attributed to China, how about some missiles for Taiwan. We don't need to engage in wars ourselves, but we can put serious impedances against their plans. The only ones I can't think of a solution are the North Koreans because they're so isolated and have the unique advantage that for anything we do they can shoot ballistics onto South Korea.
HPsquared 9mo ago
Politics is a bit like the roads in that it depends on manners, trust, mutual respect and a sense of fair play.
- arethuza 9mo ago
  That has been called the "Good Chap" theory of government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Good_chap%22_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Good_chap%22_theory
  - HPsquared 9mo ago
    I do believe that if people have good "unofficial" unwritten/unspoken manners and customs, pretty much any official "system" can work. Conversely, if the unofficial stuff is not on point, you'll have all sorts of trouble even with a theoretically good system. It's like "Thinking Fast and Slow". Fast, unofficial, unconscious part of decisions and actions versus the slow, official, conscious part. The unconscious is more important in many cases.

by GJim 9mo ago

mschuster91 9mo ago

> I'm not sure what the solution is to protect against such interference. (That is, interference in the worlds democracies, not just ours). Do to them what they do to us. Make "FAFO" a thing again. We once upon a time stopped supporting the Russian opposition and it cost us dearly. As for "what can we do now" - for every attributed or even suspected action of interference by Russia, Ukraine gets handed another few billion dollars worth of ammunition. When something gets attributed to Iran, give some nice toy to Israel. When something gets attributed to China, how about some missiles for Taiwan. We don't need to engage in wars ourselves, but we can put serious impedances against their plans. The only ones I can't think of a solution are the North Koreans because they're so isolated and have the unique advantage that for anything we do they can shoot ballistics onto South Korea.

HPsquared 9mo ago

Politics is a bit like the roads in that it depends on manners, trust, mutual respect and a sense of fair play.

arethuza 9mo ago
That has been called the "Good Chap" theory of government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Good_chap%22_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Good_chap%22_theory
- HPsquared 9mo ago
  I do believe that if people have good "unofficial" unwritten/unspoken manners and customs, pretty much any official "system" can work. Conversely, if the unofficial stuff is not on point, you'll have all sorts of trouble even with a theoretically good system. It's like "Thinking Fast and Slow". Fast, unofficial, unconscious part of decisions and actions versus the slow, official, conscious part. The unconscious is more important in many cases.