[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

[Blade]

Can someone give me an "explain to the ignorant American" rundown on why European countries so frequently have technocratic elites?

I'm not sure European countries really have technocratic elites anymore.

Technocracy appeared in Europe after WW1, as the political child of Postivism. Science was here to solve all our problems. Radium would cure us, chemicals meant no more hunger and our political trouble would also be solved by scientists and specialists.

This kind of thought was deeply ingrained in the mind of the elites of that time, and went into their schools (the most prestigious universities).

WW2 was the beginning of the end for the technocratic enthusiasm. The Nuclear bomb was a science thing, but it was scary. All the new scientific stuff that used to be making our life better were now making it more complex and sometimes more dangerous. And you couldn't trust the experts: they led us into the mess that was WW2, and they were taking the power away from the average guy.

So what was left of the technocracy were the people raised by the aforementioned schools, who became the new elite. In the 70s, they were the ones to understand the importance of building a European Union, so they were the ones to take care of it.
They built Europe in a very technocratic way, and also locked a lot of things into place to make sure nobody would attempt to subvert it. That was in the 70s/80s, which was a time when inflation was very high. Hence, all the system put into place to avoid inflation at all cost.


I don't know how they fared nationally, but in France, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was arguably the symbol of the end of technocracy. He was judged too distant from the people, too technical and not caring enough. This was the end of real technocrats in national politics. The new political beast was someone who acted out of his heart, not out of studies and research.

So nowadays, there aren't many technocratic elites. There are very opinionated people, I don't know if that's because that's what people want (world is too complex, we need someone who seems to know what to do) or if that's because they were taught by technocrats who got entrenched into their position, I guess it's a little bit of both.

Also, you have to consider the difference between the "techocratic elites" and the "elite caste". In France, we have an Elite cast. It's part old (nobles) dynasties, part new ones. They're in a very incestuous circle, they all went to the same schools, belong to the same societies. In the end, there are only a few people at the top of the government and major companies and associations, and they are all friends or relatives. So when they join together, they can have a very big weight. Some people are able to resist them and stand on their own, but they're few and rare. Most of those who rise enough will rather join the club and accept the rules. They're the elite, but they aren't technocratic anymore.

[Aharon]

Well, I changed my mind, thank you for providing this information. I seem to have fallen prey to confirmation/selection bias - as a German myself, I didn't like how my country is the bad guy here. The narrative that it stepped in as a savior felt a lot better

@Kaelik, Frank, DS:
Did you acquire your knowledge unstructured, for example as a sideproduct of discussions such as this one, or could you point out any good introductory sources?

[Kaelik]

@Kaelik, Frank, DS:
Did you acquire your knowledge unstructured, for example as a sideproduct of discussions such as this one, or could you point out any good introductory sources?

I have a degree in economics, so that is structured, but also not particularly helpful for teaching yourself.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I didn't know that Kaelik had a degree in economics. Nice work, dude.

Did you acquire your knowledge unstructured, for example as a sideproduct of discussions such as this one, or could you point out any good introductory sources?

Most people on these boards got what they learned from economics by debunking conservative myths and studying history and news. Because conservatism (both social and economic conservatism) is the most incompetent ideology imaginable, especially when fused, it's pretty instructive in a Goofus and Gallant kind of way.

If you want some links to economics blogs and websites I can hook you up. Everyone here pretty much reads Krugman and as a bonus he slams conservative ideology and culture that isn't directly related to economics.

If you want a primer on most of the terms generic to economics I suggest starting out with:
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/glossary.htm
Note that the above website is well over 15 years old in content, but it shouldn't be an issue in this case.

Then moving to:
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/mode ... rimer.html

The first link is New Keynesian and the second link is Post-Keynesian (or more specifically, MMT). They differ on some key details, details which are invisible to the layperson (most obviously, the role of deficit spending) but they start out in the same place.

[Nachtigallerator]

@Aharon: I've fallen behind on my reading and I don't think they have a primer for new readers, but www.nachdenkseiten.de is a good, up to date source for economic news outside the (german) mainstream media. This is about Spain.

I started delving into non-conservative economics with Wahnsinn mit Methode by Wagenknecht, but you don't have to be a leftist like me to see what's crazy about our current politics.

Concerning elites, I think I can give a bit of a primer on german history. Almost all european national states (and I think all of the "core" ones) are actually old monarchies. A prussian noble named Otto von Bismarck created the german national state as a major european power only a few decades before world war one, so the public had a (somewhat understandable) infatuation with monarchy, given that it finally got them a working national state that was a serious political force. Heck, even I think Bismarck was a magnificient bastard. Ever since, the overall political climate of Germany has been a conservative one.

Progressive, non-elitist parties in the german-speaking area had never been able to unite and form a national state, and when they won the majority in later elections, it didn't matter much because it was still a monarchy and the majority social progressive parties had been assimilated into the conservative mainstream. If you have to work with a monarch to get things done, your politics will end up looking pretty conservative even if you call yourself a socialist.

So german social democrats literally agreed to fund WW I because they were afraid that not doing it would make them unpopular with the people. And when the war began to turn out badly, german supreme military command (all old aristocrats) thanked them in their own unique way and spread the rumor that "the german soldiers have not been defeated in battle, the socialists put a knife in their back" so they wouldn't have to take the blame for the war. This is a thing that happened.

As you might recall, Germany lost the first world war and fell into political disarray. When the first new gouvernment was drafted, they decided to leave out the monarch, but created a new figure called the imperial president who had similarly far-reaching powers. The first president was a social democrat named Ebert who soon after his election recieved a call from the strong man in supreme military command, Groener. The situation was still unstable and numerous leftist groups wanted to continue the revolution and create a socialist gouvernment. Of course, neither the military elite nor the newly elected president wanted that, so they forged an agreement. The military would basically stay as it was - controlled by old aristocrats and monarchists - and in turn help Ebert put a stop to the revolution. And that is exactly what happened. Can you see the problem with this agreement?
The military was never really in support of the Weimar democracy, and it showed. Many other old elites were not hurt in a meaningful way, either. When Hitler tried to overthrow the bavarian state gouvernment and failed, the sentence he recieved was laughable - perhaps even more than the fact that the judge let him off easy because his motives were so noble.

You're probably not surprised if I tell you that the next president after Ebert was Paul von Hindenburg, a WW I general. As he aged, he relied more and more on the advice of a select group of industrials, media tycoons, aristocrats and high-ranking officers, whom we seriously call "the Camarilla" (apparently they were all daywalkers). As Hitler got back on the political stage, They and Hindenburg decided he should become the next chancellor. Hitler was never made chancellor by the will of the people, because elections were anything but fair and only the president could decide on the person of the cancellor.

Hindenburg died in 1933. The next president was named Hitler. When western germany became a democracy again, our first chancellor - while not personally connected to the national socialists - quite openly picked one of the authors of the nazi race laws as his chief of staff, pressured the federal constitutional court to ban the communist party, and quietly swept the crimes and misbehaviour of the german elite under Hitler under the rug. He was also voted greatest german of all times.

Long story short: Germany has always been influenced by a conservative elite that, historically, was not shy of backhanded deals and capital crimes to preserve it's power. There has at no point in our history been a serious change in the structure and composition of that elite, and it's the elite that our political leaders are by and large recruited from. The most important newspaper publishers are openly conservative in their politics. The country is structurally conservative and that is very unlikely to change.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Long story short: Germany has always been influenced by a conservative elite that, historically, was not shy of backhanded deals and capital crimes to preserve it's power. There has at no point in our history been a serious change in the structure and composition of that elite, and it's the elite that our political leaders are by and large recruited from. The most important newspaper publishers are openly conservative in their politics. The country is structurally conservative and that is very unlikely to change.

I know that this seems random and ranty (big surprise) but one of my biggest Internet pet peeves holy shit is when liberal concern trolls claim that contemporary conservatives aren't 'conservatives' but they're actually radicals or reactionaries or whatever. Because modern conservatism as practiced has nothing to do with 'conserving' society. Which is like five different blends of ungulate shit.

[Aharon]

@Kaelik
While it's a very interesting and important topic, I indeed don't want to spend another 3-5 years on university

@Lago
I started reading the glossary, and it contains many terms I wasn't familiar with, thank you.

@Nachtigallerator
I'll add this to my newsfeed, thank you.

[Koumei]

This is incredible

Technically, two individual politicians are named and shamed, but I don't think that makes it political - it's about magic potions dietary supplements magic potions.

Edit: and I totally meant to put this in Non-Political, not Non-US Political.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So. How's the situation in Ukraine going? I heard that the seeds of anti-Ukrainian Russian ethnic strife have been (re)sown moreso than before the crisis, but that the far right is on a course of swift destruction.

[Koumei]

So. How's the situation in the Ukraine going? I heard that the seeds of anti-the-Ukrainian Russian ethnic strife have been (re)sown moreso than before the crisis, but that the far right is on a course of swift destruction.

Fixed it for you :3c

In other news, there's a Firefox extension that detects whether a photo contains Tony Abbott (presumably just by looking at the image name or any text immediately before or after it), and replaces it with pictures of kittens. The news has become a lot nicer now.

That said, if it does actually scan images, trying to detect and recognise his face, then we have abused AI in terrible ways by subjecting it to that.

[Lago PARANOIA]

That's probably going to be the casus belli of our next robot war. That said, even if it results in me getting pureed and fed to Matrix babies I regret nothing.

[Koumei]

Well Russia developed robots that are taught to punch people in the face, so if we combine it with "recognise this specific face of Tony Abbott", we're onto a winner.

[tussock]

#Ukraine, totally dropped out of local news because it's well past three days and also there's a new country in the middle east that no one wants to exist, except Saudi Arabia who are funding it's annexation of parts of Iraq and Syria.

But, The Ukraine has seen some tank battles which I don't recall getting anywhere, and Russia is not instantly a perfect place to succeed to when The Ukraine can still randomly dick around with the supply of vital resources to you because LOL: fuck you guys.

Also, still Nazis on "our" side, but that potential for genocide slightly less newsworthy than the actual genocide going on in that new country which probably won't last long given they don't have anti-air capacity and two countries are bombing them now.

[name_here]

The ISIS leader has declared himself Caliph

Well, this won't end well for people in the Middle East. On the plus side for us, he's probably going to be bogged down in infighting basically forever.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So what's the long-term demographic plan for Japan?

North America and the EU and other OECD nations have a pretty good backup plan for countering the aging of their original populations -- immigration -- but I don't see even a hint of liberalizing immigration policy there. My Japanese language textbook had a couple of Reading Comprehension essays about the greying of the population and the challenges that it wrought... in 2002.

[name_here]

They don't have one.

It's really a problem. Apparently they set up some sort of pilot loosening of foreign investment rules program, but it met pretty heavy resistance in Greater Tokyo.

At present, their plan seriously appears to actually be robots.

[darkmaster]

Will there be protoman?

[Corsair114]

So, according to this article, Russia seems to be taking a stance regarding the Ukraine attempting reacquisition of the Crimea that could be best summed up as "Get lost or get glassed."

[darkmaster]

To which the rest of the world adds the addendum, and then everyone else will turn all of Russian civilization into a pile of molten slag. Here's how nuclear war works, you show that you will launch nuclear strikes on someone, and then everyone else turns on you because you are a clear and present threat to their safety because you are clearly fucking insane.

But you know what the best part is? Ukraine doesn't need to use force, it just has to turn off the power and water to the citizens of a foreign country that are not paying taxes for the continued upkeep of their access to Ukraine's natural resources. See how long until the citizens want to stay part of Russia when they're living in the third world.

[tussock]

“If it comes to aggression against Russian territory, which Crimea and Sevastopol are parts of, I would not advise anyone to do this.” He then added, “We have the doctrine of national security, and it very clearly regulates the actions, which will be taken in this case.”

So what he's saying is that Crimea is Russia now, and the defence of Crimea works the same way, which is tens of thousands of tanks, millions of missiles, millions of men, not one inch of ground given, and if that doesn't work then Nuclear Fucking Armageddon because NEVER AGAIN.

If you don't believe the man, just go read some WWII history. The Eastern front was a war where the Germans literally planned to commit genocide against the entire Russian civilian population, and the Fascists in the Ukraine that are backed up by Germany and talking about invading Russia "because it's full of Russians" are within living memory of a few people whose immediate families died when Germany advanced through The Ukraine on a mission of just killing everyone for the lulz. A lot of people in Russia, that happened to their grandparents, it's not history yet.


They are not kidding, and it is super unfunny that the head of The Ukraine army doesn't publicly understand that.

[name_here]

The Cold War and Nagasaki and Hiroshima aren't history to those people either. They wouldn't dare.

[Kaelik]

I'm sorry, are you people idiots?

Russia has used threatening to drop nuclear bombs to discourage invasion for for 40 consecutive years in their past.

Them making a threat does not mean they are going to follow through, but it also means that no one is going to fucking invade them to check to see if they will follow through. Because that would be dumb. Of course they aren't going to drop a bomb, because no one will invade Crimea under the threat.

[Laertes]

Russia can win a conventional war against Ukraine and both sides knownit. A conventional war between superpowers is too costly for either side to consider, so while Russia isn't going to invade Europe or China, nobody is going to send tanks to Ukraine to help defend them if the Russians cross the border.

From what I've read, Putin is a political lame duck now. This means he's more likely to take insane risks posturing to the domestic audience. I can't see this ending well.

[Kaelik]

From what I've read, Putin is a political lame duck now. This means he's more likely to take insane risks posturing to the domestic audience. I can't see this ending well.

Uh what? He was a political lame duck before, and he responded by temporarily switching offices. Is there any reason he can't just do that again? Isn't he just going to re become President/Prime Minister and make that the real power office again?

[Laertes]

According to Kremlin-watchers like Professor Mark Galeotti, the siloviks and oligarchs are already beginning to gather in dark rooms to discuss "Putinism without Putin." His regime depends utterly on the support of those very few, very powerful elites; and he only gets their support as long as they're allowed to loot the country at will and then maintain easy access to foreign luxuries and financial safe havens abroad. When the second stops being true - as it very much has since the whole Ukraine thing blew up - then Putin's hypernationalism stops being acceptable to them and he becomes a liability. The sudden refrosting of East-West relationships has made life harder for the billionaires in a way that makes very little news presence but is very painful to them and so is not going to be tolerated.

There's no clear alternative to Putin yet, of course. But he has ended up locking himself onto an ideological path that, Tea Party-like, has alienated the moneyed elites on whom he depends. Putin has built a state that depends on the oligarchs, and now that he's stopped being an asset to them and has become a liability, it remains only to see on what terms he leaves office.