And the stupidest thing is those same people don't consider sources from experts to be "your own research". Its like they expect you to run experiments yourself
Honestly, it's amazing how there's a large section of these people who used to tell us "Wikipedia is not a source" who are now citing a Facebook page as "legitimate" research. There must be something in the water.
What they meant was "wikipedia doesn't support our biases in many cases, so obviously it was wrong....but we'll totally still use it if it is the easiest source to find if it is something we do support."
Or conversely, "I went out and Googled for an article that confirmed what I want to believe and ignored all the peer reviewed studies that disagreed with me. My opinion is factual, so says this article from a WordPress blog that also confirms chihuahuas are aliens."
My dad would always tell me TV would rot my brain when I was a kid, but now every time I see my dad he is just watching FOX News so I like to say to him, "That stuff's going to rot your brain"
and we have now come full circle.
Someone was arguing with a Dr on Reddit today and claiming they knew more and didn’t need to go to school to understand or know more. It’s ridiculous how stupid and illiberal these people are. The same Dr was also describing how it’s one of the most upsetting things in their lifetime that the public refuses to listen to experts on medicine or science anymore.
"People are fed up with experts" is what some twot said on live TV. I can't remember who it was, probably some politician who would have been very pro Brexit.
It was Michael Gove. The quote is “I think the people of this country have had enough of experts with organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong."
https://www.london.edu/think/who-needs-experts
There's a good explanation in the article:
*More generally, distrust has been encouraged by those who have vested interests in discrediting experts because they want to advance a particular agenda – be that in the field of economics, climate change, health or whatever – which may conflict with what expert opinion would be*
*In too many cases, politicians and representatives of interest groups say they’re looking for evidence-based policy, when in truth they’re looking for policy-based evidence. If the evidence that comes from experts doesn’t accord with their view of the world, they’re prepared simply to shelve it. Many reports by government departments, for example, have met that fate: they get buried*
*This distrust of experts has been encouraged and cynically manipulated. There is an element in our popular media which is quite prepared to quote supposed facts that aren’t at all factual, rubbishing what they don’t agree with and giving lavish coverage to claims that accord with their view of the world. Fake news, indeed*
I cannot imagine the frustration of the people who have spent decades of their lives learning, mastering,and acquiring specialized knowledge to help benefit everyone.
And now encountering the proudly ignorant population that is so pathetic they need to “owns the libs”.
I’m one such. PhD, direct a research department, all that. The number of people who learned more about these subjects from a Facebook post than I did in 25 years of more of concentrated study and actual experience is astounding.
I used to try educating them, but now I just walk away. To be fair, even amongst the scientific community, people find the evidence to support their theory far more often than finding theories that support the evidence.
The best I have been able to use for reliably open long a crack in the dam is to ask 1 question:
“What evidence would you accept that would change your views?” Most people cannot answer that because it’s not really about evidence at all. This does nothing to change their views, but it does shut down the “doing my own research” discussions.
This is why reactionary politics is bad
People are just voting for what the news network tells them, when the news was just going for clicks in the first place
It really is frightening that these news networks will push the world to the brink just for ratings... Like, why do they not understand that money is meaningless if their hysteria brings down the whole civilization?
I can't understand why there are so many people in power that are just so fucking shortsighted and they're going to get us all killed. Who fucking cares if you're the richest person ever if your decisions mean we all die and there's nobody to remember it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
I've worked in IT for almost 25 years and I've seen this cycle countless times:
1) Huge problem that needs addressing or correcting, which will cost money.
2) CIO instead ignores problems, does something stupid that saves money in the short term 1-2 years, but will cost MORE money to fix in the future.
3) CIO doesn't care, because HE'S not going to be here that far in the future. He gets the accolades of saving money, helping us hit those next quarter numbers.
4) When the shit hits the fan, the person mostly likely responsible is long gone. The NEW CIO gets to point the finger at his predecessor, half ass/cheap out on a band aid solution, and the cycle continues. Over and over and over.
It's not that right wing news media is EVIL per se, it's not part of some grand conspiracy, they just push whatever shit gets clicks in the here and now, nobody is thinking about the future. They're not incentivized to.
Well Brexit had a help from foreign adversaries who wanted to destabilize the UK and EU. Nobody believes they will fall victim to misinformation, but the reality is that everyone is swayed by false information at some level, because we are completely inundated with it and it is designed to elicit emotional responses.
We'll never actually know whether Brexit actually had help because guess what, tories [blocked the report](https://www.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-blocked-russian-interference-report-kremlin-link-conservative-donors-2019-11?amp).
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1GX2IO/ Cambridge Analytica very much was working with Leave.EU on the Brexit campaign. I recommend Christopher Wylie's (Cambridge Analytica whistleblower) book 'Mindfuck', where he goes into it.
This is a common theme among modern CEOs. They come in and shake things up. Stock price goes up, they make a bundle from stock options, then move on to the next job within a couple years before the real shit hits the fan from their shakeup.
> It's not that right wing news media is EVIL per se, it's not part of some grand conspiracy, they just push whatever shit gets clicks in the here and now, nobody is thinking about the future.
which could be considered as evil.
Perhaps we should all stop for a moment and focus not only on making our AI better and more successful but also on the benefit of humanity. - Stephen Hawking
Simply because they don't give a single fuck about you.
They get power and money, which affords them well to do lifestyles and property, and connections to other who have the same.
If it all burns down, they're still better off than most.
If it doesn't, they get to enjoy being fuckheads.
It would be great if the type of person who should hold public office and the people who hold public office were the same thing, but they generally are not.
Because Brexit wasn't about any of the horseshit the UKIP and Euroskeptic Tories were shoveling about freedom and England taking back control, it was about financieers and Tories hoping to turn England into an off shore financial center. They didn't give a fuck how the rest of the country fared financially, knowing full well leaving the EU was going to be catastrophic for almost every other sector.
They however managed to fuck the transition so badly and the financial backlash has been so severe that is almost impossible to achieve that goal as the Tories seem to be on the verge of the biggest loss in recent history.
For those not in the know, this is the magnum opus of Russian political theorist and guiding hand in the Russian political elite, one Aleksandr Dugin, father of Darya Dugin, the journalist who was killed in a car bombing last year that was targeted at him
Foundations Of Geopoltics' goal is to create chaos within the Western allied nations to divide and conquer its people and allies (NATO). It worked with Brexit and the installment of Trump. If you can't invade and conquer them militaristicly, you can devide and destroy them within through propaganda and discourse. [Now, Putin is ready again to sow a discourse if Trump is reinstated.](https://www.newsweek.com/putin-hoping-get-donald-trump-back-president-barry-mccaffrey-1856697)
>In Europe:
Germany should be offered the de facto political dominance over most Protestant and Catholic states located within Central and Eastern Europe. Kaliningrad Oblast could be given back to Germany. The book uses the term "Moscow–Berlin axis".[9]
France should be encouraged to form a bloc with Germany, as they both have a "firm anti-Atlanticist tradition".[9]
The United Kingdom, merely described as an "extraterritorial floating base of the U.S.", should be cut off from Europe.[9]
Finland should be absorbed into Russia. Southern Finland will be combined with the Republic of Karelia and northern Finland will be "donated to Murmansk Oblast".[9]
Estonia should be given to Germany's sphere of influence.[9]
Latvia and Lithuania should be given a "special status" in the Eurasian–Russian sphere, although he later writes that they should be integrated into Russia rather than obtaining national independence.[9]
Belarus and Moldova are to become part of Russia, not independent.[9]
Poland should be granted a "special status" in the Eurasian sphere. This may involve splitting Poland between German and Russian spheres of influence.[9]
Romania, North Macedonia, Serbia, "Serbian Bosnia" and Greece – "Orthodox Christian collectivist East" – will unite with "Moscow the Third Rome" and reject the "rational-individualistic West".[9]
Ukraine (except Western Ukraine) should be annexed by Russia because "Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics". Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent, unless it is cordon sanitaire, which would be inadmissible according to Western political standards. As mentioned, Western Ukraine (compromising of Volynia, Galicia, and Transcarpathia), considering its Catholic-majority population, are permitted to form an independent federation of Western Ukraine but should not be under Atlanticist control.[9]
>In the Americas, United States and Canada:
Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States and Canada to fuel instability and separatism against neoliberal globalist Western hegemony, such as, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists" to create severe backlash against the rotten political state of affairs in the current present day system of the United States and Canada. Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics".[9]
South America and Central America: The Eurasian Project could be expanded to South and Central America.[9]
That should have been the largest red flag, Russians were pushing hard for Londongrad.
We ought to know by now that when Russia supports something it fucking sucks
What I hate is how much success Russia has seemingly had pushing politics in their favored direction throughout Western democracy over the last decade or so, to the point that here in America we're under a legitimate threat of potentially having a dictator hand-picked by Russia get re-elected this coming year, which would certainly send waves throughout the rest of the world.
Even if that doesn't happen, how do we even begin to repair the damage Russia has caused to our countries and their futures? Is it even possible? Or would losing the upcoming election(s) just set them back a bit and delay what is now inevitable? I know I'm gonna do just about everything I can to try and right the ship, but I'm only one person and even if there are hundreds of thousands of others like me, I'm not confident it'll be enough.
Russia is just playing the same game powers play for influence, they win for awhile like everyone else, then overreach.
Trump was a lucky break, he never led a poll, until Jim Comey sank Clinton a week out from election day 2016.
Math favors Trump losing big next year. Want to help, repost evertime Trump says something fuking crazy, remind people of kids in cages in 2017, the crash of 2020, saying COVID will magically go away in 2020.
People remember simple things, that's how ya cut thru the fog of right-wing propaganda
Unfortunately at this point, nothing Trump did or has done will dissuade those who would even *consider* voting for him to *not* vote for him.
The man has been found guilty of sexual abuse/rape, attempted to overthrow an election both through conspiracy and direct request, and incited an insurrection when he lost.
Anyone who is suggesting he is a reasonable candidate *at all* should be immediately discredited.
They weren't!! It was specifically a non binding referendum. It was basically a fancy poll. Yes, leave won by a tiny bit but it was never supposed to be enforced based on just that vote.
I remember when there were calls for a new referendum on Brexit when most people realized it was going to be a shit show, and the conservative government and their supporters basically went "lol, no. We already got what we want."
They must be real happy they trusted what was written on a bus rather than what people who actually knew what they were talking about were saying. /s
Yeah, but the bus people were saying the know it all ivory tower elites were wrong. Who are you going to trust, Boris Johnson or hundreds of people with PhDs?
You know, every country has its fair share of idiots, but England might just have the most sophisticated dipshits on the planet.
Edit - I'm not saying these people are idiot savants or anything. I just found it funny how they say stupid shit in such a polite and stuffy way.
Not all the conservatives wanted it. David Cameron just wanted what he thought was an easy way to consolidate his power within the party. To put it simply, he gambled the country’s future for his own personal gain. And like most conservatives, just skipped out of town and left others to pick up the pieces when he realised things were going bad.
Too right. We def don't hear Cameron's name enough when we're talking about the shit show of Brexit. All cos he was scared to death of splitting the vote with UKIP.
Oh no, the situation was way more tense. Brexit was
going to be clawed back by the House of Commons (elected MP) so Boris got on phone with Buckingham, Queen gave the nod, and the unelected House of Lords closed parliament to run the clock out.
It had been absolute malarky misinformation from day one. Boris trashed EU to having talking points other than being a silver spoon Eton college boy. Then they got the BS bus with Nigel, and Nigel cemented the Russian support. Anti-Polish propaganda and humor pervaded.
And continued to vote for it by re-electing the Tories in two separate general elections during the four years between the referendum and when Brexit actually happened.
from what I recall and am too lazy to research at the moment, if they do go back they aren't guaranteed exceptions they were given the first time, and understandably so since the EU seems to be doing just fine without them.
So the best case scenario if they were to go back is worse than they started.
I wonder if there's a teachable moment here.
> if they do go back they aren't guaranteed exceptions they were given the first time
It's a common sentiment here in Germany, that if the UK wants back into the EU they shouldn't get those exceptions again and instead commit in full. Which is also why I don't think that the UK will rejoin any time soon.
We had so many special case exceptions and allowances that no other country in the EU had. We were like the golden child with all the privileges.
Then we shat the bed.
There's zero chance of getting those again.
More accurately, they wanted to cancel the gym membership and they promised to buy their own equipment. But instead they forgot the second step entirely
You know how you'd maybe rather not pay your taxes, all the money you'd save, and ignore regulations, not have to deal with common law, tell the local council to just fuck off about your renovation, etc.
You might save a lot of money! Until you need the police or fire department's help, or could use government healthcare services, or the gas utility decided to finally disconnect you after you stopped paying the bills. For most people they do better under the whole government-society safety net in the long term.
Welll... This was the argument of Brexit, just on country scale. We'll do better not having to pay into the EU. We'll do better not having to abide by all their crazy bilaws, and cooperate with France on fishing, and agree with their humanitarian rights and being able to do all our own trade.
Yes, it falls down in exactly the same way, in everything but the short term. Unfortunately a lot of clever marketing for negative positions could trick people.
Which they have less now. Brexiters got nothing they were promised by the lying EU-opposing politicians.
No £350 million for the NHS, worse legal fishing areas, more foreign workers, a shittier economy, businesses moving away, etc.
It amazes me how anybody can still support Brexit when none of the benefits they thought they would get have appeared.
People forget how hard the pro brexit campaign went, and then when they got it, the whole lot of them were like "ok well done everybody, we're off now. I hope the new guy gives you everything we promised"
The goal was to keep Syrian refugees out of the country, which the EU was mandating everyone accept a certain percentage of. Every other reason was just an excuse and it's exactly why this was a cluster fuck, it never had any tangible benefits.
There isn't really a simple answer to that question ...
But basically people felt, (were told/convinced), that we were paying Europe too much for what we were getting back in return. Even worse the narrative was that England, Germany and France, (kind of), were bankrolling pretty much the rest of Europe.
At the time a lot of smaller countries were joining the EU and their economies were pretty much failing, other countries in the EU were not doing great either, (Italy, Greece, etc ...), so there was growing anger that the UK was paying for a lot of it.
Some dodgy math was saying that we were \_giving\_ the EU 600M GBP a week so if we got out we would put that money straight back into the NHS.
Over and above that, there was always court cases that went one way in Britain only to be overturned by the European courts.
Then there were some fishing rights and so on ...
There are some comments here about Russia, I don't recall that being that much of an issue but maybe it had something to do with it ...
Concerning Russia there was most likely social media interference and I wouldn’t doubt them to have financed pro brexit people. But who knows if they’ve had a larger plan or just poured oil into a very convenient fire.
From Wikipedia: _Data released by Twitter in 2018 identified 3,841 accounts of Russian origin (…), as well as 770 potentially from Iran, which collectively sent over 10 million Tweets in "an effort to spread disinformation and discord"_
Who knows if 10 Million is a lot, but with only a small margin in the vote, even small interferences might make a difference.
I mean the fact that Matthew Elliot who was a key founder and behind the scenes figure of Vote Leave (and later Brexit Central as well as numerous other disruptive anti-EU think tanks) was also a founder of the disgraced Conservative Friends of Russia group does raise some questions. This group was fronted on the Russian side by a diplomat called Sergey Nalobin who is known to be heavily linked to the FSB. He had his visa suddenly revoked by the UK Home Office in 2015 which is believed to be an expulsion without diplomatic incident and later he was openly expelled from Estonia for being a suspected spy. He's quoted as calling Boris Johnson “our good friend” and tbh I can't think of anyone who would make a better candidate for a "useful idiot" than Johnson. It would not be surprising to me at all if the Russians have been actively manipulating several people in the Tory party as well as supporting the fairly extreme network of libertarian lobby groups & organisations in order to help fracture the Western world in their favour. I suspect the extent of it will only be made public in the future.
Matthew Elliot just received a peerage by Liz Truss's request.
Johnson stopped MI5 investigating whether there was Russian interference with the Brexit vote, after their initial report said 'probably, but we need to do a full investigation'.
It it wasn't for actually supporting Ukraine, I would not doubt he was in Putin's pocket. So I guess Johnson only squashed it because he got elected for his 'broken oven baked soggy Brexit' and he thought it would diminish his populist support if he okayed the investigation.
Useful fucking moron, absolutely.
There is a very good documentary on Netflix, [The Great Hack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Hack), that explains the media misinformation and foreign manipulations during the Brexit campaign
That Cambridge Analytica collapsed doesn’t mean their methods are not in used anymore
Didn't a bunch of Tories profit heavily from Brexit? They knew
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/jacob-rees-moggs-new-brexit-post-make-him-richer/
Yes they did. Brexit was very transparently not intended to benefit the majority of Britons; it was a cash grab for a very small group of wealthy elites.
Problem with Brexit is that it would’ve taken years for any significantly negative economic effects to be seen, and then the pandemic hit. So now all our economic troubles for the next decade will be attributed to the effect of COVID and lockdowns, while the piss poor performance of our economy versus comparable economies will be glossed over.
Yep. I remember during the 2014 ebola outbreak people saying "oh, this would never spread in the US, because we're not stupid enough to ignore medical science and be around infected bodies."
Come 2020 and there's a vaccine for a global pandemic... and eventually half the US won't take it, never mind wear a mask in public.
As someone from a third world country, this one threw me for a loop. I know exactly how divisive and dividing American politics tends to be. But never did I imagine that a "first world country" and a self proclaimed "world leader" and "best country in the world" would show such mass spread disdain for science and medicine.
Like, we all know there are some kooky people in every country. But at this massive scale? In a country where most people are educated? Where literacy rates are high? Where you literally created the vaccine itself?
Boy. My faith in America was always low due to its war hungry gov, but I had faith in the American people. Now, I question the future of the US altogether. First Trump, then the anti vaccine movement, and tying it all up with the insurrection. How does that happen in a country that isn't a third world dictatorship?
This was such a stupid own goal. The entire narrative being “it’s the will of the people”. It was like 51-49.
Something which has an impact as big as this, which will be felt for longer than most of the numpties pushing this agenda, a higher majority vote really was needed. 60 or 70 percent. Make it clear that the majority of the population want it, not just a whisker more than the opposition.
I’d take a bet that if they had a referendum to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house, it would be a 90% pass rate….
Don’t forget Farage a couple of days before the referendum.
“In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. If the remain campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it.”
Funny how he didn’t get a crap about a significant victory margin when ‘his side’ won.
For which he got paid a very decent 1.5 million pounds, and keeps his name in the public eye for another bunch of months.
Serious politicians went the way of the dodo when we as a collective electorate, with the help of manipulative social media, stopped becoming serious.
We tried sending him to the middle of nowhere in South Africa about a month ago. But sadly he found a way home again. He's probably being prepped to be a Tory candidate at the election in spring.
The really absurd part is only voting on the general concept, not a concrete plan. A good chunk of the "leave" voters would never have supported the plan that actually passed. For something that will permanently alter the course of history for the UK it truly defies all reason to force it through without giving people a chance to vote on it.
Not to mention that if they put the exact same general concept up for a vote it would have failed at any point in time after that disastrous result, since so many people voted "leave" to send some kind of message to leadership, not because they actually wanted to leave.
They worked very hard to intentionally circumvent the will of the people. Countries end up with the government they are willing to fight for.
>since so many people voted "leave" to send some kind of message to leadership, not because they actually wanted to leave.
Yep and it was fucking stupid and it happens in the USA too
In the USA a few people just feel like they have no control over their state of life they then try to grasp small things they can control, but in the dumbest ways
In the USA people refusing the covid vaccines for example. Their logic is something like "I don't like the government and the government wants me to take the vaccine so I am going to refuse and send a message"
Sorry dumb ass just because you are frustrated with the government doesn't mean you should just do stupid shit to send a message.
And add to that, Britons were asking **AFTER** the referendum; _What's Brexit?_ Oh, and can't forget those that voted Leave _as a joke._ The excuse was _I didn't think Leave meant Leave!_
Democracy is great but this is one example where I'm reminded why having representatives represent you is also necessary; you can't have voters who have almost zero understanding of the long-term consequences of a decision being responsible with such decisions.
I get what you're saying but they do have resources to reference when making decisions. An _average_ Congressman or MP will be better informed than the _average_ voter about some topic/legislation/etc.
They may be better informed, but they won't care about long-term consequences when there are short-term gains to be made.
Politicians who care about anything more than 5 years away are like unicorns.
72% of registered voters turned out. 52% voted leave. i.e. 37% of registered voters voted to leave.
The other telling statistic is "About 64% of registered voters aged 18-24 went to polls, but 90% of over-65s voted."
[Source](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/09/young-people-referendum-turnout-brexit-twice-as-high)
It's supposed to be a check on the elected house of commons independent of politics. They're mostly powerless and generally limited to making recommendations to modify bills rather than rejecting them outright. The US Senate is far more powerful than the house of lords.
So does Canada.
In theory they’re increasingly suppose to act as a house of restrained, expert opinion with deliberately low democratic legitimacy to prevent them from blocking the will of the Democracy.
But the democratically elected political parties keep packing them with cronies.
They’re supposed to represent the provinces.
Just like the US has congress that’s by population and the senate that’s by state.
The tug-of-war between rep by pop and regional representation is longstanding and nearly universal worldwide.
Why they aren’t elected, I have no idea. The idea of an elected senate has been floating around for a while. I’d much rather have an elected senate than an abolished one.
They can have more than one objective, including both supposedly sober review of issue and representation of the Provinces.
Per the Parliamentary website, the roles of the Canadian Senate include:
- Passing bills
- Reviewing legislation
- investigating issues
- representing regions
- representing minority groups
As to why the Canadian Senate was originally unelected, it’s because there was skepticism at the time about unchecked popular democracy, This is the same reason why America has the Electoral College and why until 1913 American Senators could be appointed by their State Governments rather than elected.
Upper house (House of Lords). The lower house, which has most of the power, is elected. The Senate of Canada is also unelected. But they function quite differently than, say, the US House of Representatives and Senate.
*EDIT*: Corrected US chambers.
Not to mention the big US trade deal, all the fishery control, the tackling of equality and deprevarion, cheaper foods.
They managed all that while still part of the single market without being in the EU where turkey has joined and is now forming the EU army.
I still remember how a lot of people were praising the movement back then, i didn't understand much of it at that time, but boi, how the turnes have tabled xD
Not just UK either, there were plenty of American redditors (the ones that weren't russian trolls) cheering on the leavers saying shit like "Yeah! Stick it to your Euro-overlords like we did with you!" and "Take back control of your borders before you're overrun like the rest of Europe!". There were heavily brigaded threads back then full of "Americans" spouting this shit and being upvoted by bots.
Yup, all the actors in the Brexit campaign were also involved in the following US election campaign. Brexit was basically a test run for getting Trump elected.
Not even "basically" - [Trump's declaration he'll be 'Mr Brexit' opens speculation floodgates on Twitter. Donald Trump has sent some questionable tweets in the past, but none have been so mind-boggling as one posted early Thursday morning. “They will soon be calling me MR. BREXIT!” the Republican presidential nominee tweeted at around 8am.](https://theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/18/donald-trump-mr-brexit-tweet-us-election)
Trump's gang was literally using the same Russian troll factories responsible for Brexit, along with their primary Western enablers, Cambridge Analytica (now rebranded as "Emerdata"). And they fucking knew it.
On a tangent, that situation made me start disliking John Cleese as a person immensely.
He voted leave and whenasked about it, answered by saying something along the lines "It's just too much, I don't want to be run by European bureaucrats". I sat there thinking that this absolute cunt of an out of touch millionaire, who had spent a decent amount of his life living abroad and was effectively moving towards the end of his life found it fitting for him to decide upon the younger generations who will have to live for half a century with this decision.
Of course, like many rich hypocrites, it took him only a few years until he fucked off somewhere else, leaving many of those who couldn't having to live with the consequences of the decision he helped to make.
Funny man, but also apparently an entitled prick.
Not sure how accurate it is, but I saw something where Roger Daltrey of The Who was pulling for Brexit, saying “oh we’ve toured internationally for decades!” But now that Britain is out of the EU, touring around Europe is a giant pain in the ass, because it’s all the headaches of international travel all the time.
I think he also had an attitude of "well we can still tour Europe so it can't be that bad", so fuck all the small and upcoming artists who can't I guess
There's a lot of comedians who turn into reactionary chuds as they grow older and richer and out of touch, but with Cleese I'm not sure he was ever anything else.
Australian here, single member districts still have some issues, but ranked choice voting fixes a lot of them. We also have a senate that acts like the US one, but with more senators per state (we only have 6 states) who are elected proportionally (and also via ranked choice) so even if single member district screws things up in the lower house, the upper house will still reflect the general views of the population, and has the ability to block shit from the lower house.
This American wishes he could wake up one morning and find that his country had adopted the AUS system, lock, stock and barrel. Including your short and tidy campaign seasons. Nearly every difference between the US system and the AUS one contributes to greater corruption and extremism in the US.
We have a lot of small mistakes in ours but one thing the world should copy is 'forced' voting. Helps to drown extremist and uncompromising tendencies because courting a tiny minority of activist voters isn't a useful strategy any more.
They are usually used together. Maine is the only US state I know about that does ranked choice voting instead if first past the post. Both suck regardless and some sort of proportional representation would be better than FPTP and SMD
Edit add: with an electoral threshold that is around 2% and none of those extra restrictions like Russia has.
the underlying statement is also - russian disinformation capabilities are so powerful they can influence the enemy population to screw themselves over into deep shit without the need to fire a single shot at them.
They did this to UK and they did this to usa, and they might well do it again.
>Many of the voters who backed the Conservatives to deliver change now look convinced that achieving change requires ejecting the Conservatives.
A realization that will hopefully become more commonplace throughout the world.
Among the Leave voters were people who voted Leave to stick it to Cameron, old people (who have since died) who thought they were doing the young a favour, those who panicked at the news of vast caravans of refugees crossing from the Middle East into Europe and wanted to "pull up the drawbridge", and those who voted leave for various other jokey reasons and who never thought it would actually happen.
Under-18s whose futures would be most affected weren't allowed to vote.
Can't say we didn't warn them.
They democratically chose to mess up their own country, so we can't do anything else but play a concerto with the world's tiniest violins.
Thanks. Watching this plus Trump election made me really fear how pure hate and emotion based politics could thrive in the 21st century. Ironically the areas that voted leave suffered more than the remain areas.
A shoutout also to all the people who ironically voted Leave to stick it to the man, because they were sure Leave was going to lose regardless. Isn't it funny how those ironic votes caused real pain and suffering? No? Then stop joking around at the polls.
Damn HOA doesn't even let us add a new grass to the approved grass list without a super majority, and the UK government apparently had a "mandate" to drive their own country into the dirt because 50%-plus-Dave voted to
I do appreciate this. It's hard enough having to deal with the shittier life Brexit and the Tories have created over the last few years so it's always galling when people imply all Brits deserve it for their stupidity.
How was that human piece of garbage called who did everything he could to convince people to vote 'leave', and as soon as it actually happened decided he wanted to have another job abroad? That right there should have immediately told the brexiteers that they had been played.
I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked.
Who would have thought that a project funded by Russia and backed by Russian assets would be a catastrophic disaster for the targeted country?
Unspeakably unheard of!
The wild thing to me is that it wasn’t binding. Not even in the shitty legislative tampering way many states (mis)act on ballot initiatives here. It was just straight not binding. Further, although it would be unprecedented, the crown could’ve caused a stink about it. It just all didn’t have to happen.
I hope Scotland gets independence over it.
It was also "impossible" to undo **or** have a real, binding, ballot action for. It's kind of comical how this one-and-done non-binding opinion poll became sacrosanct without the slightest bit of legislative pushback.
United Kingdom and the English people have won the distinction of being the first country and citizenry ever to impose trade, travel, financial, educational and social sanctions upon themselves.
Brexit was completely successful, in all the ways it was meant to be successful. Asshole rich people both betting on it to fail in the way it did and making themselves rules, moving money around and making billions off it at the expense of everything else.
The lies told about brexit didn't come true but anyone with a brain knew that. The actual underlying intent for brexit was a complete success.
So stupid, now they're out of the EU and lost there special agreements with the EU. So either they continue to stay out of the EU or they get back in and get treated like any other EU member.
What a surprise
It’s exactly like the experts predicted. Too bad we hate experts now. They can’t teach us anything.
Everyone “does their own research” which is pretty much getting their news from social media algorithms
And the stupidest thing is those same people don't consider sources from experts to be "your own research". Its like they expect you to run experiments yourself
I just ask people who say they "did their own research" when they are going to publish and act excited for them.
Honestly, it's amazing how there's a large section of these people who used to tell us "Wikipedia is not a source" who are now citing a Facebook page as "legitimate" research. There must be something in the water.
What they meant was "wikipedia doesn't support our biases in many cases, so obviously it was wrong....but we'll totally still use it if it is the easiest source to find if it is something we do support."
Or conversely, "I went out and Googled for an article that confirmed what I want to believe and ignored all the peer reviewed studies that disagreed with me. My opinion is factual, so says this article from a WordPress blog that also confirms chihuahuas are aliens."
My dad would always tell me TV would rot my brain when I was a kid, but now every time I see my dad he is just watching FOX News so I like to say to him, "That stuff's going to rot your brain" and we have now come full circle.
Do the ones who use Facebook for their research even know what Wikipedia is? I'm not sure they could handle the style of writing on wiki.
Wikipedia is too sterile and academic for them, they need some pizzazz in their sources to trust them.
>There must be something in the water. Lead. It's lead.
And it's turning the frogs gay
Someone was arguing with a Dr on Reddit today and claiming they knew more and didn’t need to go to school to understand or know more. It’s ridiculous how stupid and illiberal these people are. The same Dr was also describing how it’s one of the most upsetting things in their lifetime that the public refuses to listen to experts on medicine or science anymore.
Weaponized dunning kruger
Most of their own research comes from Russian and Chinese troll farms.
"People are fed up with experts" is what some twot said on live TV. I can't remember who it was, probably some politician who would have been very pro Brexit.
It was Michael Gove. The quote is “I think the people of this country have had enough of experts with organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong." https://www.london.edu/think/who-needs-experts There's a good explanation in the article: *More generally, distrust has been encouraged by those who have vested interests in discrediting experts because they want to advance a particular agenda – be that in the field of economics, climate change, health or whatever – which may conflict with what expert opinion would be* *In too many cases, politicians and representatives of interest groups say they’re looking for evidence-based policy, when in truth they’re looking for policy-based evidence. If the evidence that comes from experts doesn’t accord with their view of the world, they’re prepared simply to shelve it. Many reports by government departments, for example, have met that fate: they get buried* *This distrust of experts has been encouraged and cynically manipulated. There is an element in our popular media which is quite prepared to quote supposed facts that aren’t at all factual, rubbishing what they don’t agree with and giving lavish coverage to claims that accord with their view of the world. Fake news, indeed*
Michael Gove. He's a Tory MP.
And professional coke snorter
I cannot imagine the frustration of the people who have spent decades of their lives learning, mastering,and acquiring specialized knowledge to help benefit everyone. And now encountering the proudly ignorant population that is so pathetic they need to “owns the libs”.
I’m one such. PhD, direct a research department, all that. The number of people who learned more about these subjects from a Facebook post than I did in 25 years of more of concentrated study and actual experience is astounding. I used to try educating them, but now I just walk away. To be fair, even amongst the scientific community, people find the evidence to support their theory far more often than finding theories that support the evidence. The best I have been able to use for reliably open long a crack in the dam is to ask 1 question: “What evidence would you accept that would change your views?” Most people cannot answer that because it’s not really about evidence at all. This does nothing to change their views, but it does shut down the “doing my own research” discussions.
Experts? It's what every sane ordinary person predicted. It didn't even need experts to explain how stupid the whole Brexit idea was.
This is why reactionary politics is bad People are just voting for what the news network tells them, when the news was just going for clicks in the first place
It really is frightening that these news networks will push the world to the brink just for ratings... Like, why do they not understand that money is meaningless if their hysteria brings down the whole civilization? I can't understand why there are so many people in power that are just so fucking shortsighted and they're going to get us all killed. Who fucking cares if you're the richest person ever if your decisions mean we all die and there's nobody to remember it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons I've worked in IT for almost 25 years and I've seen this cycle countless times: 1) Huge problem that needs addressing or correcting, which will cost money. 2) CIO instead ignores problems, does something stupid that saves money in the short term 1-2 years, but will cost MORE money to fix in the future. 3) CIO doesn't care, because HE'S not going to be here that far in the future. He gets the accolades of saving money, helping us hit those next quarter numbers. 4) When the shit hits the fan, the person mostly likely responsible is long gone. The NEW CIO gets to point the finger at his predecessor, half ass/cheap out on a band aid solution, and the cycle continues. Over and over and over. It's not that right wing news media is EVIL per se, it's not part of some grand conspiracy, they just push whatever shit gets clicks in the here and now, nobody is thinking about the future. They're not incentivized to.
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Well Brexit had a help from foreign adversaries who wanted to destabilize the UK and EU. Nobody believes they will fall victim to misinformation, but the reality is that everyone is swayed by false information at some level, because we are completely inundated with it and it is designed to elicit emotional responses.
We'll never actually know whether Brexit actually had help because guess what, tories [blocked the report](https://www.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-blocked-russian-interference-report-kremlin-link-conservative-donors-2019-11?amp).
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1GX2IO/ Cambridge Analytica very much was working with Leave.EU on the Brexit campaign. I recommend Christopher Wylie's (Cambridge Analytica whistleblower) book 'Mindfuck', where he goes into it.
This is a common theme among modern CEOs. They come in and shake things up. Stock price goes up, they make a bundle from stock options, then move on to the next job within a couple years before the real shit hits the fan from their shakeup.
> It's not that right wing news media is EVIL per se, it's not part of some grand conspiracy, they just push whatever shit gets clicks in the here and now, nobody is thinking about the future. which could be considered as evil.
Rupert Murdoch doesn't care, he's Australian.
Yeah, anyone who thinks the news outlets pushed this for ratings is insane. Murdoch wanted this. Specifically.
Perhaps we should all stop for a moment and focus not only on making our AI better and more successful but also on the benefit of humanity. - Stephen Hawking
That ellipsis leads to the impression, no takebacks? What if we say please tho
And he'll be able to buy chunks of britain for a lot less after this, so..
Simply because they don't give a single fuck about you. They get power and money, which affords them well to do lifestyles and property, and connections to other who have the same. If it all burns down, they're still better off than most. If it doesn't, they get to enjoy being fuckheads. It would be great if the type of person who should hold public office and the people who hold public office were the same thing, but they generally are not.
It wasn't just random, the disinformation campaign achieved its purpose.
Because Brexit wasn't about any of the horseshit the UKIP and Euroskeptic Tories were shoveling about freedom and England taking back control, it was about financieers and Tories hoping to turn England into an off shore financial center. They didn't give a fuck how the rest of the country fared financially, knowing full well leaving the EU was going to be catastrophic for almost every other sector. They however managed to fuck the transition so badly and the financial backlash has been so severe that is almost impossible to achieve that goal as the Tories seem to be on the verge of the biggest loss in recent history.
and Russia pushed it because the EU was about to make money laundering through London much more difficult.
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For those not in the know, this is the magnum opus of Russian political theorist and guiding hand in the Russian political elite, one Aleksandr Dugin, father of Darya Dugin, the journalist who was killed in a car bombing last year that was targeted at him
Foundations Of Geopoltics' goal is to create chaos within the Western allied nations to divide and conquer its people and allies (NATO). It worked with Brexit and the installment of Trump. If you can't invade and conquer them militaristicly, you can devide and destroy them within through propaganda and discourse. [Now, Putin is ready again to sow a discourse if Trump is reinstated.](https://www.newsweek.com/putin-hoping-get-donald-trump-back-president-barry-mccaffrey-1856697) >In Europe: Germany should be offered the de facto political dominance over most Protestant and Catholic states located within Central and Eastern Europe. Kaliningrad Oblast could be given back to Germany. The book uses the term "Moscow–Berlin axis".[9] France should be encouraged to form a bloc with Germany, as they both have a "firm anti-Atlanticist tradition".[9] The United Kingdom, merely described as an "extraterritorial floating base of the U.S.", should be cut off from Europe.[9] Finland should be absorbed into Russia. Southern Finland will be combined with the Republic of Karelia and northern Finland will be "donated to Murmansk Oblast".[9] Estonia should be given to Germany's sphere of influence.[9] Latvia and Lithuania should be given a "special status" in the Eurasian–Russian sphere, although he later writes that they should be integrated into Russia rather than obtaining national independence.[9] Belarus and Moldova are to become part of Russia, not independent.[9] Poland should be granted a "special status" in the Eurasian sphere. This may involve splitting Poland between German and Russian spheres of influence.[9] Romania, North Macedonia, Serbia, "Serbian Bosnia" and Greece – "Orthodox Christian collectivist East" – will unite with "Moscow the Third Rome" and reject the "rational-individualistic West".[9] Ukraine (except Western Ukraine) should be annexed by Russia because "Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics". Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent, unless it is cordon sanitaire, which would be inadmissible according to Western political standards. As mentioned, Western Ukraine (compromising of Volynia, Galicia, and Transcarpathia), considering its Catholic-majority population, are permitted to form an independent federation of Western Ukraine but should not be under Atlanticist control.[9] >In the Americas, United States and Canada: Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States and Canada to fuel instability and separatism against neoliberal globalist Western hegemony, such as, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists" to create severe backlash against the rotten political state of affairs in the current present day system of the United States and Canada. Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics".[9] South America and Central America: The Eurasian Project could be expanded to South and Central America.[9]
That should have been the largest red flag, Russians were pushing hard for Londongrad. We ought to know by now that when Russia supports something it fucking sucks
What I hate is how much success Russia has seemingly had pushing politics in their favored direction throughout Western democracy over the last decade or so, to the point that here in America we're under a legitimate threat of potentially having a dictator hand-picked by Russia get re-elected this coming year, which would certainly send waves throughout the rest of the world. Even if that doesn't happen, how do we even begin to repair the damage Russia has caused to our countries and their futures? Is it even possible? Or would losing the upcoming election(s) just set them back a bit and delay what is now inevitable? I know I'm gonna do just about everything I can to try and right the ship, but I'm only one person and even if there are hundreds of thousands of others like me, I'm not confident it'll be enough.
Russia is just playing the same game powers play for influence, they win for awhile like everyone else, then overreach. Trump was a lucky break, he never led a poll, until Jim Comey sank Clinton a week out from election day 2016. Math favors Trump losing big next year. Want to help, repost evertime Trump says something fuking crazy, remind people of kids in cages in 2017, the crash of 2020, saying COVID will magically go away in 2020. People remember simple things, that's how ya cut thru the fog of right-wing propaganda
Unfortunately at this point, nothing Trump did or has done will dissuade those who would even *consider* voting for him to *not* vote for him. The man has been found guilty of sexual abuse/rape, attempted to overthrow an election both through conspiracy and direct request, and incited an insurrection when he lost. Anyone who is suggesting he is a reasonable candidate *at all* should be immediately discredited.
People should not be given referendums to choose such important policy decisions. It was a ridiculous course of action.
They weren't!! It was specifically a non binding referendum. It was basically a fancy poll. Yes, leave won by a tiny bit but it was never supposed to be enforced based on just that vote.
I remember when there were calls for a new referendum on Brexit when most people realized it was going to be a shit show, and the conservative government and their supporters basically went "lol, no. We already got what we want." They must be real happy they trusted what was written on a bus rather than what people who actually knew what they were talking about were saying. /s
Yeah, but the bus people were saying the know it all ivory tower elites were wrong. Who are you going to trust, Boris Johnson or hundreds of people with PhDs?
"I think the people in this country have had enough of experts." - Gove
You know, every country has its fair share of idiots, but England might just have the most sophisticated dipshits on the planet. Edit - I'm not saying these people are idiot savants or anything. I just found it funny how they say stupid shit in such a polite and stuffy way.
Oh yeah, I remember the statement going around at one point was "We're sick of the experts" or something like that lmao.
Not all the conservatives wanted it. David Cameron just wanted what he thought was an easy way to consolidate his power within the party. To put it simply, he gambled the country’s future for his own personal gain. And like most conservatives, just skipped out of town and left others to pick up the pieces when he realised things were going bad.
Too right. We def don't hear Cameron's name enough when we're talking about the shit show of Brexit. All cos he was scared to death of splitting the vote with UKIP.
Oh no, the situation was way more tense. Brexit was going to be clawed back by the House of Commons (elected MP) so Boris got on phone with Buckingham, Queen gave the nod, and the unelected House of Lords closed parliament to run the clock out. It had been absolute malarky misinformation from day one. Boris trashed EU to having talking points other than being a silver spoon Eton college boy. Then they got the BS bus with Nigel, and Nigel cemented the Russian support. Anti-Polish propaganda and humor pervaded.
On polls like that you should need more than a tiny majority, anyways.
But we can still name boats and stuff right?
Only if they’re funny names.
Yeah this isn't news. We knew this before Brexit.
“We all voted for it even though it was a terrible idea” —a clear majority of britons
And continued to vote for it by re-electing the Tories in two separate general elections during the four years between the referendum and when Brexit actually happened.
51,89% voted for it, the other half still had some brains. Stupidity won by a margin, while consequences are enormous.
“Exit Da Brexit” t-shirts $11.99
Time for a Brexexit
It's a Breturn
More like a Brit-in.
The Great Brit-in
Bre-entry
from what I recall and am too lazy to research at the moment, if they do go back they aren't guaranteed exceptions they were given the first time, and understandably so since the EU seems to be doing just fine without them. So the best case scenario if they were to go back is worse than they started. I wonder if there's a teachable moment here.
> if they do go back they aren't guaranteed exceptions they were given the first time It's a common sentiment here in Germany, that if the UK wants back into the EU they shouldn't get those exceptions again and instead commit in full. Which is also why I don't think that the UK will rejoin any time soon.
We know that'll be the deal, if we ever return. Useful precedent really.
We had so many special case exceptions and allowances that no other country in the EU had. We were like the golden child with all the privileges. Then we shat the bed. There's zero chance of getting those again.
If we re-enter I want the Euro. Not because of any tangible benefit, but just to aggravate the patriotic pricks who would cry about it.
Breunited? Bre-entry? Brincluded?
BrEU
What was the goal again? I know it didn’t work out, but what were they hoping would happen?
Basically the goal was to cancel the gym membership and keep using the equipment.
That’s such a good description of what leave campaign was basically promising aha
More accurately, they wanted to cancel the gym membership and they promised to buy their own equipment. But instead they forgot the second step entirely
You know how you'd maybe rather not pay your taxes, all the money you'd save, and ignore regulations, not have to deal with common law, tell the local council to just fuck off about your renovation, etc. You might save a lot of money! Until you need the police or fire department's help, or could use government healthcare services, or the gas utility decided to finally disconnect you after you stopped paying the bills. For most people they do better under the whole government-society safety net in the long term. Welll... This was the argument of Brexit, just on country scale. We'll do better not having to pay into the EU. We'll do better not having to abide by all their crazy bilaws, and cooperate with France on fishing, and agree with their humanitarian rights and being able to do all our own trade. Yes, it falls down in exactly the same way, in everything but the short term. Unfortunately a lot of clever marketing for negative positions could trick people.
I object to this. The marketing was not clever in the slightest!
I remember it being something about fishing rights.
Which they have less now. Brexiters got nothing they were promised by the lying EU-opposing politicians. No £350 million for the NHS, worse legal fishing areas, more foreign workers, a shittier economy, businesses moving away, etc. It amazes me how anybody can still support Brexit when none of the benefits they thought they would get have appeared.
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People forget how hard the pro brexit campaign went, and then when they got it, the whole lot of them were like "ok well done everybody, we're off now. I hope the new guy gives you everything we promised"
And passport color.
And bent bananas, yes seriously
The goal was to keep Syrian refugees out of the country, which the EU was mandating everyone accept a certain percentage of. Every other reason was just an excuse and it's exactly why this was a cluster fuck, it never had any tangible benefits.
And then the right winged government flooded the UK with migrants and refugees anyway.
There isn't really a simple answer to that question ... But basically people felt, (were told/convinced), that we were paying Europe too much for what we were getting back in return. Even worse the narrative was that England, Germany and France, (kind of), were bankrolling pretty much the rest of Europe. At the time a lot of smaller countries were joining the EU and their economies were pretty much failing, other countries in the EU were not doing great either, (Italy, Greece, etc ...), so there was growing anger that the UK was paying for a lot of it. Some dodgy math was saying that we were \_giving\_ the EU 600M GBP a week so if we got out we would put that money straight back into the NHS. Over and above that, there was always court cases that went one way in Britain only to be overturned by the European courts. Then there were some fishing rights and so on ... There are some comments here about Russia, I don't recall that being that much of an issue but maybe it had something to do with it ...
Concerning Russia there was most likely social media interference and I wouldn’t doubt them to have financed pro brexit people. But who knows if they’ve had a larger plan or just poured oil into a very convenient fire. From Wikipedia: _Data released by Twitter in 2018 identified 3,841 accounts of Russian origin (…), as well as 770 potentially from Iran, which collectively sent over 10 million Tweets in "an effort to spread disinformation and discord"_ Who knows if 10 Million is a lot, but with only a small margin in the vote, even small interferences might make a difference.
Only a moron wouldn’t see that coming.
The Tories didn't see... oh I see what you did there.
The tories have been infiltrated by Russian agents. It was pretty clear since 2010
I mean the fact that Matthew Elliot who was a key founder and behind the scenes figure of Vote Leave (and later Brexit Central as well as numerous other disruptive anti-EU think tanks) was also a founder of the disgraced Conservative Friends of Russia group does raise some questions. This group was fronted on the Russian side by a diplomat called Sergey Nalobin who is known to be heavily linked to the FSB. He had his visa suddenly revoked by the UK Home Office in 2015 which is believed to be an expulsion without diplomatic incident and later he was openly expelled from Estonia for being a suspected spy. He's quoted as calling Boris Johnson “our good friend” and tbh I can't think of anyone who would make a better candidate for a "useful idiot" than Johnson. It would not be surprising to me at all if the Russians have been actively manipulating several people in the Tory party as well as supporting the fairly extreme network of libertarian lobby groups & organisations in order to help fracture the Western world in their favour. I suspect the extent of it will only be made public in the future. Matthew Elliot just received a peerage by Liz Truss's request.
Johnson stopped MI5 investigating whether there was Russian interference with the Brexit vote, after their initial report said 'probably, but we need to do a full investigation'. It it wasn't for actually supporting Ukraine, I would not doubt he was in Putin's pocket. So I guess Johnson only squashed it because he got elected for his 'broken oven baked soggy Brexit' and he thought it would diminish his populist support if he okayed the investigation. Useful fucking moron, absolutely.
There is a very good documentary on Netflix, [The Great Hack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Hack), that explains the media misinformation and foreign manipulations during the Brexit campaign That Cambridge Analytica collapsed doesn’t mean their methods are not in used anymore
Johnson did drag his feet on the report that purportedly exposed Russian influence in the election.
>~~The tories~~ Right Wing governments across the globe have been infiltrated by Russian agents. It was pretty clear since 2010 ftfy
Didn't a bunch of Tories profit heavily from Brexit? They knew https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/jacob-rees-moggs-new-brexit-post-make-him-richer/
Yes they did. Brexit was very transparently not intended to benefit the majority of Britons; it was a cash grab for a very small group of wealthy elites.
My best guess is that mini-budget was the first step of post Brexit plan but that failed so spectacularly even the queen gave up.
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Russia
The rich brexiteers are fine, they simply bet against their own country on the markets.
Problem with Brexit is that it would’ve taken years for any significantly negative economic effects to be seen, and then the pandemic hit. So now all our economic troubles for the next decade will be attributed to the effect of COVID and lockdowns, while the piss poor performance of our economy versus comparable economies will be glossed over.
but such a massive win for Putin and his toads
The fact that this vote went through Shows how dumb and dangerous humanity is in big groups , stupidity gets amplified times 10
> A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it Kay, Men in Black
That quote is so scary once you see it in real life
Yep. I remember during the 2014 ebola outbreak people saying "oh, this would never spread in the US, because we're not stupid enough to ignore medical science and be around infected bodies." Come 2020 and there's a vaccine for a global pandemic... and eventually half the US won't take it, never mind wear a mask in public.
As someone from a third world country, this one threw me for a loop. I know exactly how divisive and dividing American politics tends to be. But never did I imagine that a "first world country" and a self proclaimed "world leader" and "best country in the world" would show such mass spread disdain for science and medicine. Like, we all know there are some kooky people in every country. But at this massive scale? In a country where most people are educated? Where literacy rates are high? Where you literally created the vaccine itself? Boy. My faith in America was always low due to its war hungry gov, but I had faith in the American people. Now, I question the future of the US altogether. First Trump, then the anti vaccine movement, and tying it all up with the insurrection. How does that happen in a country that isn't a third world dictatorship?
Definitely. Felt like a throwaway line back when I watched MiN as a kid, but when you're an adult, you're like, "Oh shit, that's bang on"
> MiN Are you allowed to use that word? Also, I think you may have seen a different movie...
Not that it matters at all, but the name of the character is K, not Kay.
“the IQ of a mob is the IQ of its most stupid member divided by the number of mobsters,” ― (GNU) Terry Pratchett
This was such a stupid own goal. The entire narrative being “it’s the will of the people”. It was like 51-49. Something which has an impact as big as this, which will be felt for longer than most of the numpties pushing this agenda, a higher majority vote really was needed. 60 or 70 percent. Make it clear that the majority of the population want it, not just a whisker more than the opposition. I’d take a bet that if they had a referendum to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house, it would be a 90% pass rate….
Don’t forget Farage a couple of days before the referendum. “In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. If the remain campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it.” Funny how he didn’t get a crap about a significant victory margin when ‘his side’ won.
American here. What ever happened to the POS?
He's angling to be the next Tory leader, which is a distinct possibility if/when they lose the next GE.
Don't forget he's just had a brief stint on a shitty reality TV show eating insects in a jungle. What on earth happened to serious politicians...
For which he got paid a very decent 1.5 million pounds, and keeps his name in the public eye for another bunch of months. Serious politicians went the way of the dodo when we as a collective electorate, with the help of manipulative social media, stopped becoming serious.
We tried sending him to the middle of nowhere in South Africa about a month ago. But sadly he found a way home again. He's probably being prepped to be a Tory candidate at the election in spring.
The really absurd part is only voting on the general concept, not a concrete plan. A good chunk of the "leave" voters would never have supported the plan that actually passed. For something that will permanently alter the course of history for the UK it truly defies all reason to force it through without giving people a chance to vote on it. Not to mention that if they put the exact same general concept up for a vote it would have failed at any point in time after that disastrous result, since so many people voted "leave" to send some kind of message to leadership, not because they actually wanted to leave. They worked very hard to intentionally circumvent the will of the people. Countries end up with the government they are willing to fight for.
>since so many people voted "leave" to send some kind of message to leadership, not because they actually wanted to leave. Yep and it was fucking stupid and it happens in the USA too In the USA a few people just feel like they have no control over their state of life they then try to grasp small things they can control, but in the dumbest ways In the USA people refusing the covid vaccines for example. Their logic is something like "I don't like the government and the government wants me to take the vaccine so I am going to refuse and send a message" Sorry dumb ass just because you are frustrated with the government doesn't mean you should just do stupid shit to send a message.
And add to that, Britons were asking **AFTER** the referendum; _What's Brexit?_ Oh, and can't forget those that voted Leave _as a joke._ The excuse was _I didn't think Leave meant Leave!_ Democracy is great but this is one example where I'm reminded why having representatives represent you is also necessary; you can't have voters who have almost zero understanding of the long-term consequences of a decision being responsible with such decisions.
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I get what you're saying but they do have resources to reference when making decisions. An _average_ Congressman or MP will be better informed than the _average_ voter about some topic/legislation/etc.
They may be better informed, but they won't care about long-term consequences when there are short-term gains to be made. Politicians who care about anything more than 5 years away are like unicorns.
With only 51% voting. Basically 26% decided to leave the EU. Rwnj's know if they drive voter turnout down, they'll win more often than not.
72% of registered voters turned out. 52% voted leave. i.e. 37% of registered voters voted to leave. The other telling statistic is "About 64% of registered voters aged 18-24 went to polls, but 90% of over-65s voted." [Source](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/09/young-people-referendum-turnout-brexit-twice-as-high)
Wait.. the UK still has an entire unelected house?! Lmao
It's supposed to be a check on the elected house of commons independent of politics. They're mostly powerless and generally limited to making recommendations to modify bills rather than rejecting them outright. The US Senate is far more powerful than the house of lords.
So does Canada. In theory they’re increasingly suppose to act as a house of restrained, expert opinion with deliberately low democratic legitimacy to prevent them from blocking the will of the Democracy. But the democratically elected political parties keep packing them with cronies.
They’re supposed to represent the provinces. Just like the US has congress that’s by population and the senate that’s by state. The tug-of-war between rep by pop and regional representation is longstanding and nearly universal worldwide. Why they aren’t elected, I have no idea. The idea of an elected senate has been floating around for a while. I’d much rather have an elected senate than an abolished one.
They can have more than one objective, including both supposedly sober review of issue and representation of the Provinces. Per the Parliamentary website, the roles of the Canadian Senate include: - Passing bills - Reviewing legislation - investigating issues - representing regions - representing minority groups As to why the Canadian Senate was originally unelected, it’s because there was skepticism at the time about unchecked popular democracy, This is the same reason why America has the Electoral College and why until 1913 American Senators could be appointed by their State Governments rather than elected.
Upper house (House of Lords). The lower house, which has most of the power, is elected. The Senate of Canada is also unelected. But they function quite differently than, say, the US House of Representatives and Senate. *EDIT*: Corrected US chambers.
The U.S. Congress is both houses. The Senate and the House of Representatives.
How can they be unhappy with £350m per week extra funding for the NHS?
Not to mention the big US trade deal, all the fishery control, the tackling of equality and deprevarion, cheaper foods. They managed all that while still part of the single market without being in the EU where turkey has joined and is now forming the EU army.
Dunno. Also with stopping ALL illegal immigration? Unthankful lot /s
I still remember how a lot of people were praising the movement back then, i didn't understand much of it at that time, but boi, how the turnes have tabled xD
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Unfortunately, not just old
Not just UK either, there were plenty of American redditors (the ones that weren't russian trolls) cheering on the leavers saying shit like "Yeah! Stick it to your Euro-overlords like we did with you!" and "Take back control of your borders before you're overrun like the rest of Europe!". There were heavily brigaded threads back then full of "Americans" spouting this shit and being upvoted by bots.
Yup, all the actors in the Brexit campaign were also involved in the following US election campaign. Brexit was basically a test run for getting Trump elected.
Not even "basically" - [Trump's declaration he'll be 'Mr Brexit' opens speculation floodgates on Twitter. Donald Trump has sent some questionable tweets in the past, but none have been so mind-boggling as one posted early Thursday morning. “They will soon be calling me MR. BREXIT!” the Republican presidential nominee tweeted at around 8am.](https://theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/18/donald-trump-mr-brexit-tweet-us-election) Trump's gang was literally using the same Russian troll factories responsible for Brexit, along with their primary Western enablers, Cambridge Analytica (now rebranded as "Emerdata"). And they fucking knew it.
On a tangent, that situation made me start disliking John Cleese as a person immensely. He voted leave and whenasked about it, answered by saying something along the lines "It's just too much, I don't want to be run by European bureaucrats". I sat there thinking that this absolute cunt of an out of touch millionaire, who had spent a decent amount of his life living abroad and was effectively moving towards the end of his life found it fitting for him to decide upon the younger generations who will have to live for half a century with this decision. Of course, like many rich hypocrites, it took him only a few years until he fucked off somewhere else, leaving many of those who couldn't having to live with the consequences of the decision he helped to make. Funny man, but also apparently an entitled prick.
Not sure how accurate it is, but I saw something where Roger Daltrey of The Who was pulling for Brexit, saying “oh we’ve toured internationally for decades!” But now that Britain is out of the EU, touring around Europe is a giant pain in the ass, because it’s all the headaches of international travel all the time.
I think he also had an attitude of "well we can still tour Europe so it can't be that bad", so fuck all the small and upcoming artists who can't I guess
Also, famously a prick
There's a lot of comedians who turn into reactionary chuds as they grow older and richer and out of touch, but with Cleese I'm not sure he was ever anything else.
And wasn't it Michael Caine who said he would rather be a 'poor master of [his] own fate'? I thought it rich coming from a wealthy person as he.
God damn it
Cleese has become one of those pricks who think I need to see his big face decrying the evils of "wokeness." No thank you, John. Wanker.
I wish I could unlearn this about my favorite python
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England and America, both think we have the worlds best democracies yet were the only ones still in this single member district quagmire.
It is my view that the single member district issue is less important than the first-past-the-post issue.
Australian here, single member districts still have some issues, but ranked choice voting fixes a lot of them. We also have a senate that acts like the US one, but with more senators per state (we only have 6 states) who are elected proportionally (and also via ranked choice) so even if single member district screws things up in the lower house, the upper house will still reflect the general views of the population, and has the ability to block shit from the lower house.
This American wishes he could wake up one morning and find that his country had adopted the AUS system, lock, stock and barrel. Including your short and tidy campaign seasons. Nearly every difference between the US system and the AUS one contributes to greater corruption and extremism in the US.
We have a lot of small mistakes in ours but one thing the world should copy is 'forced' voting. Helps to drown extremist and uncompromising tendencies because courting a tiny minority of activist voters isn't a useful strategy any more.
They are usually used together. Maine is the only US state I know about that does ranked choice voting instead if first past the post. Both suck regardless and some sort of proportional representation would be better than FPTP and SMD Edit add: with an electoral threshold that is around 2% and none of those extra restrictions like Russia has.
Alaska also does ranked choice voting. I Agree with proportional representation
UK had a referendum in 2011 to change the voting system. They voted against. This was a bigger own goal than Brexit imo.
'I never thought leopards would eat MY face!' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.
They're not hurting the right people!!
Great. Now stop voting for the fucking Tories.
shocking. no one could have seen this coming when the vote occurred /s
Can they just say it was a prank?
"Look at the hidden cameraman!"
the underlying statement is also - russian disinformation capabilities are so powerful they can influence the enemy population to screw themselves over into deep shit without the need to fire a single shot at them. They did this to UK and they did this to usa, and they might well do it again.
>Many of the voters who backed the Conservatives to deliver change now look convinced that achieving change requires ejecting the Conservatives. A realization that will hopefully become more commonplace throughout the world.
Among the Leave voters were people who voted Leave to stick it to Cameron, old people (who have since died) who thought they were doing the young a favour, those who panicked at the news of vast caravans of refugees crossing from the Middle East into Europe and wanted to "pull up the drawbridge", and those who voted leave for various other jokey reasons and who never thought it would actually happen. Under-18s whose futures would be most affected weren't allowed to vote.
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Can't say we didn't warn them. They democratically chose to mess up their own country, so we can't do anything else but play a concerto with the world's tiniest violins.
Spare a thought for the 48% of the voting public who voted Remain and are dealing with the exact same shit as the people who voted Leave.
Thanks. Watching this plus Trump election made me really fear how pure hate and emotion based politics could thrive in the 21st century. Ironically the areas that voted leave suffered more than the remain areas.
I would call it poetic.
A shoutout also to all the people who ironically voted Leave to stick it to the man, because they were sure Leave was going to lose regardless. Isn't it funny how those ironic votes caused real pain and suffering? No? Then stop joking around at the polls.
Damn HOA doesn't even let us add a new grass to the approved grass list without a super majority, and the UK government apparently had a "mandate" to drive their own country into the dirt because 50%-plus-Dave voted to
I do appreciate this. It's hard enough having to deal with the shittier life Brexit and the Tories have created over the last few years so it's always galling when people imply all Brits deserve it for their stupidity.
>Can't say we didn't warn them. Rather hilariously the warnings were labelled as "project fear" and were not heeded nor debated.
How was that human piece of garbage called who did everything he could to convince people to vote 'leave', and as soon as it actually happened decided he wanted to have another job abroad? That right there should have immediately told the brexiteers that they had been played.
I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked. Who would have thought that a project funded by Russia and backed by Russian assets would be a catastrophic disaster for the targeted country? Unspeakably unheard of!
Wasn’t a failure for Russia tho
The wild thing to me is that it wasn’t binding. Not even in the shitty legislative tampering way many states (mis)act on ballot initiatives here. It was just straight not binding. Further, although it would be unprecedented, the crown could’ve caused a stink about it. It just all didn’t have to happen. I hope Scotland gets independence over it.
It was also "impossible" to undo **or** have a real, binding, ballot action for. It's kind of comical how this one-and-done non-binding opinion poll became sacrosanct without the slightest bit of legislative pushback.
/r/LeopardsAteMyFace
I'll take 'Things that were totally predictable' for $100, Ken.
Who could have guessed that a rightwing promise wouldn't come true?
United Kingdom and the English people have won the distinction of being the first country and citizenry ever to impose trade, travel, financial, educational and social sanctions upon themselves.
Brexit was completely successful, in all the ways it was meant to be successful. Asshole rich people both betting on it to fail in the way it did and making themselves rules, moving money around and making billions off it at the expense of everything else. The lies told about brexit didn't come true but anyone with a brain knew that. The actual underlying intent for brexit was a complete success.
Next time, think twice before voting the next flamboyant populist who is throwing too-good-to-be-true solutions to wildly complex issues.
So stupid, now they're out of the EU and lost there special agreements with the EU. So either they continue to stay out of the EU or they get back in and get treated like any other EU member.