🎓 Dr. Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@social.cleverlibre.org

@icedquinn

yes but at least then you have an objective measure and know what your measuring against.. they would have created an objective compass of some traits, whatever those traits being they defined up front, and showed rigour and objectivity in how they got there.

Most importantly because their process is dont scientifically and outlines it lets you do exactly that, review the process and determine if you feel it is a valid one, and yes people may determine it is not. But that is a far sight better than just making a personal judgement call and leaving it at that.

@pants

@pants I wouldnt be opposed to that if i had the time for it.. I'm a professional scientist whose plate is already full on more rigorous stuff.

@icedquinn

Obviously he is not, not even by european standards.

@pants

@pants

Its not like that website has a reputation for objective accuracy... it was a test someone came up with using very little scientific scrutiny. The compass itself existed long before the website.

> It's not a different kind of left. The left always has been about economics

I never said it wasnt about economics.. when i said it was a different kind of left I meant that they have different priorities in economics than the european left but still strongly leftist in nature.

Take taxes as an example, generally the redistribution of wealth, and thus progressive taxes, are a strong indicator of left vs right. The USA has **significantly** more progressive tax than most of europe. That being that the ratio difference between the tax percentage for our highest tax bracket and our lowest tax bracket is **much** higher than in europe. So by that measure America is significantly **more** liberal than europe.

On the flip side however america spends less of its money on health care , which would be a leftist principle, and thus is less left in that regard.

so yea America is absolutely just as leftist as europe its just they are, as I said, a different sort of left, they take certain leftist policies to a greater extreme, and others to a lesser extreme.

@Faket

@pants It does?

Sounds to me like they read through policies and speaches and then just made their own personal judgement call... how does that in any way address their personal biases or allow for a objective measure? They would have to develop very specific criteria for how they tallied "points" to each person for it to be data driven, or at least some sort of objective system. None of what you pasted suggested they did anything of the sort.. it just basically says "We watched a bunch of videos of the guy and read up on their policies before we decided whatever our opinion was on where to place them"

@Faket

Except that is completely invalid and untrue.. while the american left is certainly a different sort of left than other areas, there are ways in which the american left is **more** left than the european left and in other ways it is less left.

this chart was clearly done by someone with a pretty strong opinion and what I feel is not a valid understanding of the compass.

@pants

@kravietz I've done a lot of research on the numbers around these energy sources and none of that is remotely true other than surface power density which is a rather useless measure for most situations

@pants That chart doesnt seem even remotely correct to me.. not even close. It seems to ignore the meaning of the zero line and just uses the old invalid trope suggesting the compass is relative with no 0 point, which makes no sense to me.

@kravietz So there are a few days a year it might get too cold and they freeze up, or certain arctic regions they dont work... ok... your point? They are still fairly effective means of generating green energy, but they arent the whole of the solution.

@pants

I never said I supported libertarianism in that sense. I did point out it solves the problem of people who vote for destructive policies because those communities fail and are isolated from the communities of people who vote for the more effective policies. So it is a solution for that problem. But it doesnt mean I support it as the ultimate solution or a system of government we should use. There are other problems (like the one you just pointed out of the suffering poor who created their own hell but are in hell all the same) that it doesnt really address very well.

As I said early on i dont support any extreme. I am libertarian leaning (in that i think governments should be a bit closer to the structure of power being focused more on the local level than federal), but i also believe in some level of federal intervention to make it all work as well.

@Faket

@Faket By the way educated is not the right term here.. perhaps scholarly or logical is more appropriate... basically i mean people who make the docisions and decide what ideas they support based on a conscious effort to counter their own biases and review evidence objectively... it is a trait that used to be more common but is fairly sparse these days.

@Faket No I never have. In fact I have noticed the exact opposite pattern in me. If i see something advertised I have such an aversion to advertisement I will refuse to buy something just because I saw an ad for it that intruded into my life at all.

@pants

When did I say anyone should be left to starve?

@Faket

@Faket The only people who vote for what they see and hear are the people i described earlier, people who are not well educated critical voters.. If you have people voting for shit just because they heard about it on TV then your problem is **not** the rich party buying ads, its your general population that are so conformist that they will support whatever they hear the most.. it means your problem is a social one and its the behaviors of your population that needs to change so they **dont** just vote for what they see and hear.

@Faket

Well no, not at all... For starters just because the government doesnt force a company to give leave in no way implies a company cant grant leave on their own. A company can (and often does in the USA) provide leave as an incentive for employees to work there, its a perk and people who intend to have kids will often pick a job that offers that perk.

With that said your assuming they have to have a kid at all.. if someone is struggling financially and cant afford to take 2 weeks off to take care of your kid, then you are in no position to have one in the first place and should not be producing babies until you get your finances in order.

Even then the world is far too overpopulated, even if you can afford to have a kid you probably shouldnt, and we certainly shouldnt be encouraging people to have kids by giving them incentives codified into law.

@pants

@pants

What i said wasnt intended to troll anyone.

When i say educated i dont mean schooling per say, I mean more abstractly that they have the intellectual ability to decide what is best for society, that requires a deep level of understanding and an ability to see past your biases that most people dont have and most dont have the technical skill to know how to run the numbers and see if their biases are helping or hurting either.

I do agree fear is the cornerstone of our current society, but it has nothing to do with capitalism, nor does capitalism have a "late-stage", its the default its been around since time began pretty much.. but the fear is a real issue even if it isnt really capitalism that is causing it.

@Faket

@Faket

I wouldnt support maternity or paternity leave, if i were the one deciding there would be neither enforced by law.

@pants

@Faket Thats not what I said... I did say however that the **people** voting for the richest party isnt a bad thing.. its the people deciding not the rich party.. and presuming its a good-rich party and not an evil-rich party presumably they know how to make the best decisions to help the country as a whole become more wealthy, thus a good thing... now if its an evil-rich party then yea, thats a problem

@Faket

That isnt something I would support, I would push for no paternity leave.

@pants

@Faket

IIRc you used anarchism to refer to libertarianism (power focused on local governments rather than federal governments)... presuming that is what you mean then I tend to agree that it tends to be more resilliant to people who make poor choices as voters... all the smart lucradive people will live in the same region and have the most wealth and advantage, all the people who make poor voting decisions will not be allowed into those communities and exiled to poorer communities of their own making.

So at least it lets people find the group of people that vote like them and live in a community that mirrors their decisions.

@pants