British Politics Guide

[Lērisama]

the "non-aggression pact" that Lērisama mentioned, since what's the point if all you're voting for is the colour of the rosette on the guy telling you to go fuck yourself?)

I'm pretty sure the Green/Lib Dem thing in my city is just a local thing. They are very careful to always stand a candidate in all the wards, so the national party doesn't suspect anything is ‘wrong’, but you can e.g. find a green campaign leaflet on their website only for the wards where the Lib Dems aren't traditionally strong, but I wouldn't be surprised if that kind of thing was common nationally¹ – they are the two left wing protest parties².

For context, this is partly out of frustration that I want to join one of them, but I tend to agree with the Lib Dems more in the few cases they disagree, but I'm on the Green side of the invisible line, so it feels a bit pointless.

¹ I think I remember the Greens fell out with their local branch in Godalming and Ash, because the local greens wanted to support the Lib Dems there in order to give Jeremy Hunt his own personal Portillo Moment, and forcibly parachuted a candidate in. Hunt won by less than the Green vote, because of course
² That's an oversimplification, but it's true that currently both are attacking labour from the left with a focus on local issues, social care (Lib Dem main focus) and the environment (both, but the Greens put more emphasis on it), and the Lib Dems have learnt their lesson from 2015 about now not to alienate ~¾ of your voters

[Raphael]

the "non-aggression pact" that Lērisama mentioned, since what's the point if all you're voting for is the colour of the rosette on the guy telling you to go fuck yourself?)

I'm pretty sure the Green/Lib Dem thing in my city is just a local thing.

I kind of suspect that Ketsuban might have misinterpreted your remark as being about a general non-aggression pact between the mainstream parties about matters of policy.

[Ares Land]

Spoken like a true neolib!

I suspect you're using 'neolib' as shorthand for 'people who disagreee with you.'

I'm pessimistic about more education, because more education alone can't fix the fact that increasingly getting an education doesn't pay off, either because the job market is so saturated with graduates that having a degree devalues the job, making it pay no better than a job that doesn't require a degree, or that it no longer guarantees that you'll even get a job in your field, because you no longer stick out, or that the cost of getting a degree (in both time and money) is so high that it negates whatever increase in pay that the job provides.
I realize that this probably won't convince you, because neolibs see ~*~ Education ~*~ as not just a way to learn how to do X, but as a way to ~*~ Become a Better Person ~*~, but this is a classist notion that must be defeated.

The cost of education is way too high and I won't disagree with that. That has been taken to an extreme in the US but it's not like other countries don't have a problem. (Particularly so in the UK, though I think it's less severe than the US.)
That's an argument for adressing the problem of education costs, not an argument against education itself.
You don't need insane tuition fees. Plenty of countries do without.

Ideally, yes, education should be about more than getting a job. The current focus on STEM and business degrees as the only acceptable form of higher education is worrying. STEM is important (not sure about business degrees ) but an education in STEM alone isn't a good defence against fascist ideas.

If your theory of education is correct, then why is society on the precipice of fascism when more people are more educated then ever before?

There is a correlation between a lower education level and the far-right vote. For Britain, it's visible in this poll: https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/ ... l-election. 23% Reform vote among people with a GCSE or lower; 8% among voters with a university degree.

On the other question, there are of course other factors, one of which the Overton window. The stupidity and racism were always there -- probably worse than now. But there used to be a general agreement that a certain degree of stupid and racist was allowed in politics, but that it had to stop short of actual fascism.
Why that agreement doesn't hold anymore is complex but a key factor might be that WWII is no longer within living memory.

There are about two options: option A is to let fascism run its course, option B is to have the voters figure out fascism isn't an acceptable answer.
Option B is difficult because there's a significant amount of stupid and racist people. How do you get people to be less stupid and racist if not through education (in a wider sense and in whatever form?)

[Raphael]

Spoken like a true neolib!

I suspect you're using 'neolib' as shorthand for 'people who disagreee with you.'

I'm pessimistic about more education, because more education alone can't fix the fact that increasingly getting an education doesn't pay off, either because the job market is so saturated with graduates that having a degree devalues the job, making it pay no better than a job that doesn't require a degree, or that it no longer guarantees that you'll even get a job in your field, because you no longer stick out, or that the cost of getting a degree (in both time and money) is so high that it negates whatever increase in pay that the job provides.
I realize that this probably won't convince you, because neolibs see ~*~ Education ~*~ as not just a way to learn how to do X, but as a way to ~*~ Become a Better Person ~*~, but this is a classist notion that must be defeated.

The cost of education is way too high and I won't disagree with that. That has been taken to an extreme in the US but it's not like other countries don't have a problem. (Particularly so in the UK, though I think it's less severe than the US.)
That's an argument for adressing the problem of education costs, not an argument against education itself.
You don't need insane tuition fees. Plenty of countries do without.

That doesn't answer the part where jcb says "because more education alone can't fix the fact that increasingly getting an education doesn't pay off, either because the job market is so saturated with graduates that having a degree devalues the job, making it pay no better than a job that doesn't require a degree, or that it no longer guarantees that you'll even get a job in your field, because you no longer stick out,"

[Ares Land]

That doesn't answer the part where jcb says "because more education alone can't fix the fact that increasingly getting an education doesn't pay off, either because the job market is so saturated with graduates that having a degree devalues the job, making it pay no better than a job that doesn't require a degree, or that it no longer guarantees that you'll even get a job in your field, because you no longer stick out,"

The job market sucks, no disagreement here, but I don't think that's because of a more educated workforce.
There is an issue with access to higher education, which is inegalitarian even in social-democratic European countries, prohibitive in the issue. The US are shooting themselves in the foot with their tuition fees.

People not getting a college education when they could have is a rational choice in the short run; it's a net loss for everyone in the long run.

I'm really not sure about well-paid jobs that don't require a degree. I'm not sure those really exist. I do know construction workers and craftsmen that make more money than I do; but I think it's worth keeping in mind the hours are just terrible, and they won't make it to retirement without some sort of work-related injury.

[hwhatting]

On the education thing, this guy raises some issues that I think are worth considering. If you don't want to read his entire analysis of Trump's election, scroll down to "🙧 3", where he talks about education.
My main takeaways:
- There are lots of people, especially in the lower income groups, coming out of the school system disdaining it, seeing a big discrepancy between the things they've been taught and how it actually plays out in real life.
- Educators are generally more on the progressive side than the average public with their views (zompist mentioned 55% having progessive views somewhere in the US politics thread?, but it also fits with my memories from school), and as school is one of the earliest and for many people also the main conscious point of contact with government institutions (from my consumption of American pop culture, I guess the next important ones are the DMV and the IRS, which probably doesn't help make government institutions more popular), this contributes to the lack of trust in government and to the impression that government is dominated by progressive elites.

I don't have any good solutions for that, but I think most here on the board are people who were interested enough in learning that they stayed on and continued to college or university. But there are lots of people who aren't and would like to get out as soon as possible, and telling them "no, you have to stay on if you want to achieve anything" comes over as coercion and condescension.

[Ares Land]

On the education thing, this guy raises some issues that I think are worth considering. If you don't want to read his entire analysis of Trump's election, scroll down to "🙧 3", where he talks about education.
My main takeaways:

The article had a nice turn of phrase, talking about the uninformed and disinformed. I'd add that the level of anti-intellectualism described is pretty scary!

I don't have any good solutions for that, but I think most here on the board are people who were interested enough in learning that they stayed on and continued to college or university. But there are lots of people who aren't and would like to get out as soon as possible, and telling them "no, you have to stay on if you want to achieve anything" comes over as coercion and condescension.

Honestly, a college education shouldn't be necessary. With a high school level, you should have the critical thinking skills required to see through Trump, Meloni, Le Pen or Farage. (Most of the time primary school should be enough.)
So I guess part of the answer is that schools are doing a terrible job (worldwide: it's not just Trump.)

[Raphael]

On the education thing, this guy raises some issues that I think are worth considering. If you don't want to read his entire analysis of Trump's election, scroll down to "🙧 3", where he talks about education.
My main takeaways:

That is an excellent, excellent post. I read all of it, despite the length. Mostly it taught me things I already knew, but it's nice to see them summed up in one place like that. One thing it didn't mention, but might have, is that, except for the elder Bush and Biden, every single US President since at least Jimmy Carter initially got elected on a platform of shaking things up. But this is getting specifically into US politics, which is off topic for this thread.

Honestly, a college education shouldn't be necessary. With a high school level, you should have the critical thinking skills required to see through Trump, Meloni, Le Pen or Farage. (Most of the time primary school should be enough.)
So I guess part of the answer is that schools are doing a terrible job (worldwide: it's not just Trump.)

Well, as zompist put it in his old page on learning languages (https://zompist.com/whylang.html),

The basic fallacy here is to take learning as an irreversible process. Because someone learned something in school, whether it's Latin or trigonometry or the exports of Venezuela, it doesn't mean that they still know it.

Honestly, how many bits of knowledge can you think of where all of the following are true:

1) You learned them in elementary or secondary school;

2) You still know them; and

3) You didn't learn them again later, during college/university, or as a part of job or additional training, or on your own, because you find the topic in question interesting?

Basically, I can think of the three Rs and the English language, and that's pretty much it.

[Lērisama]

the "non-aggression pact" that Lērisama mentioned, since what's the point if all you're voting for is the colour of the rosette on the guy telling you to go fuck yourself?)

I'm pretty sure the Green/Lib Dem thing in my city is just a local thing.

I kind of suspect that Ketsuban might have misinterpreted your remark as being about a general non-aggression pact between the mainstream parties about matters of policy.

That's why I brought it up. I probably sgould have been clearer

[Ketsuban]

I kind of suspect that Ketsuban might have misinterpreted your remark as being about a general non-aggression pact between the mainstream parties about matters of policy.

Yes, I did. I'm thinking in particular of things like how no UK politicians to my knowledge* have responded to the Supreme Court ruling on gender recognition certificates with "that's clearly hurtful nonsense, what the fuck, how many ways are there that can we go about fixing this miscarriage of justice because I want to press all the buttons at once", whereas I have heard of both Conservative and Labour politicians going "glad we've got that sorted out, carry on".

*Looking it up, there was a statement condemning the ruling from… the Scottish Greens. Sure to send ripples around the globe, that one.