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Poverty should be considered the natural state of humanity, not an anomaly that needs explanation.

This is the truth. But for clarification that's not to say that we shouldn't fight it.


There was a referendum and a parliamentary vote. What else would need to be done to not make it an aberration?


What part of the brexit process do you think is not best described as an aberration with respect to the normal democratic process of the U.K?

I'll give you one clue. It's extremely rare to hold a referendum of such huge consequence.

Heck, I'll give you a second clue. It's even more rare for politicians to then behave as if the result of a non-binding referendum is binding.

I could enumerate for you the remaining peculiarities, but if you're curious you'll find plenty for yourself.

I do understand that people often like to point to simple cases like this and say "That's Democracy!", inevitably those people don't have a great understanding of the meaning.


'The people have spoken - the bastards!'


Normally, in a parliamentary system, when the government loses a vote of confidence in parliament, the government resigns and a new election is held.

This referendum was more or less a confidence vote on the government. If British democracy were functioning properly, the government would have resigned, and the people would have had a chance to elect pro-brexit representatives.

But Britain adopted fixed election dates, copying the American electoral system. And referendums, for that matter, aren't very parliamentary.


Go with the outcome d_t_w preferred.


What outcome did I prefer?


It doesn't matter how many votes there are or how many times it's done, it's not democracy if it's not the outcome you like.


There's a saying (I paraphrase): 'A good compromise is one where everyone is equally unhappy'.

Guess you could flip around your comment and say it's not democracy if it's the outcome you like!


This could be interpreted as a snarky comment, but is actually on point. A good democracy should function is such a way to afford for an outcome that maximize the satisfaction of each individual.


I sure hope Intel is not up to the same antitrust-worthy shenanigans again.

This is what it smells like to me. I hope they've learned from this, though.


Everyone I know from #FrogTwitter got banned so the remaining few went back and deleted all their tweets.


I'm curious to whether the Democrats will ever come to terms with reality here, or will they just double down and continue the blame game?

I've been following. They're doubling down on the Russia conspiracy theories, identity politics, alluding to Trump being Hitler. The party is in shambles, philosophically speaking. It's a shame. It's also ironic that Trump has pictures of President Andrew Jackson(D) in his office.


The Democrat that was Andrew Jackson nothing like any Democrat today. The Republicans have their friend Nixon[0] to thank for that. The irony is lost if you know America's political history.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy


Trump alluded to himself being Hitler the other day with "enemy of the people," so that doesn't really seem all that problematic. I do agree that the Democrats desperately need to get their shit together overall.


It means what it says it means. He's in an echo chamber and well-grounded counterfactuals are no longer worth considering anymore.


Funny, nobody has yet suggested what these well grounded counterfactuals are. And I don't mean vague "freedom of speech on campus" discussions. I'd like to hear about some really well-grounded counterfactuals that are being shouted down.


Cheap labor. There's plenty out there. Google will tell them what the facts are and they'll promote/hide stories based on truthiness.


Google was good. Then Google was bad. Then the Democrats lost the election and Google was good again.


Even terrible people and organizations can be smeared. Whether Google is good or not is irrelevant to whether your particular accusation is baseless.

As I pointed above, it doesn't seem like Google is even marking stuff has "checked", but marking articles as being themselves "fact checks".


Whether Google is good or not is irrelevant to whether your particular accusation is baseless.

The perception of whether Google is good or not is all that matters. This is how media and mass psychology works. This isn't about fact-checking stories. It's about using Google's brand to deem specific stories to be real or fake.


But that's not what they're doing! Did you read my whole post? They are not marking articles as checked, they are just tagging them as being Fact Checking articles.


And what's the difference?


The difference is that it's not a evaluation about whether the content is correct, just about the type of content. It's akin to marking links as "PDF" or "Video".


He's right, though. Google itself cannot be trusted. The size of the organization itself along with how many state actors it's colluding with should set off alarms.


Rumours spread fast. Corrections to rumours don't fully negate the rumours.

Journalists are also held less accountable than even elected officials these days.


Wait, are you arguing for or against fact checking?


I'm for it.

I'm saying that it doesn't really solve the problem of lies in mass media and the impact of the lies. It's a mitigating factor at best, a polarizer at worst.


Sure, but the cost of free press is that basically anyone can publish whatever crap they want.

Fact checking is a good tool (critical thinking and self-verification would be better). What can save time over time is to know which publications continously publish the most verifiable truths. Albeit always reading with vigilance.

In what way would fact checking be polarizing?


Fact checking is a good tool (critical thinking and self-verification would be better).

Humans don't act this way and don't respond to it. The media isn't out to inform people through content, but to program people through delivery.

The only result of this will be to have people say "SEE! GOOGLE SAYS IT'S TRUE/FAKE!" And they'll share the headline on Facebook/Twitter and be done with it.

People don't act rationally anymore, especially when it comes to media.

Media outlets have agendas. The press hasn't been free in a long time. https://medium.com/@SarahRRunge/amazon-the-washington-post-a...


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