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Comments
I would like stats on this.
Not particularly. hatter saying ultra conservative things and getting every single left winger here riled up i nothing new and surprising.
With that said, he definetly could've been less obnoxious.
>debate which is heated, but shows no signs of personal attacks, deliberate sabotage or useless circles yet
>reactions of oh-noes-this-is-gonna-devolve-into-shitstorm
I'm okay with that sort of stuff if it's cliché rethread that has gone bad before, but here it sort of stiffles the discussion.
Also, I do not identify with left-wing. I'm centrist.
^^^^ I don't have any on hand. But consider this.
Say you go somewhere like Wal-Mart or K-Mart or any of those places that sell a variety of different things. Clothes, music, appliances, all that. If you were to go to the appliance section, you'd find that there are various different models and brands of the same appliance. Let's use toasters as an example.
There are a lot of toasters, and at least a few different types. Most will never get bought, but that's part of the economic ploy. The company that puts out Toaster A doesn't mean for everyone to buy Toaster A and forget about Toaster B. What they rely on is the fact that one Toaster A sale means one less sale for Toaster B. They don't seek an outlet that will allow Toaster A to sell better, but one where it will compete more effectively against another company. In the grand scheme of things, outselling another brand is better than simply selling well, so many appliances are produced without the intention that a particularly large amount will be bought. Instead, they exist solely to cause competition.
Now consider that appliances are produced in the thousands or even millions. Think of the steel expended on appliances that do not see use, and are designed to go faulty after X amount of time, thereby forcing more consumer expendature. If those toasters were produced simply for use rather than to compete, imagine the amount of resources that would be saved. Ridiculous amounts of stainless steel, plastic, wiring and more would still be stored, or even never produced in the first place due to the lack of consumptive need.
Now consider that this doesn't just apply to toasters, but to all common appliances and various other pieces of technology. This is an absolutely massive, pointless and miserable waste of resources that would be better spent on
a) Producing technology for human use, and technology that doesn't break at that
and
b) Allocating the saved resources to places where they're needed for legitimate development
In any case, the food surplus is a well-known thing. Most developed nations keep emergency stores of basic foods, and the amount of food thrown away from supermarkets and the like before ever leaving the shelves is staggering. Things simply go off before they can be bought, much of the time.
The fact of the matter is that industrial production currently far exceeds actual consumption in all manner of resources, and the planet is suffering for it to boot. Capitalism is fucking with lives and the environment, and is altogether a wretched system.
@InsanityAddict: I wouldn't say you were "riled up"
That's... THOSE TWO THINGS AREN'T EVEN COMPATIBLE.
I have to say I particularly dislike the idea of pride in cases like this.
Especially when it comes with the attachment of 'You make your own money, or it is stolen from others.'
>Enters thread
>Typical new-age feel-good self-reliance cliche bullshit from someone who's never actually been hungry or had to be made aware of all the hand-outs he's had over life.
This is like a Fox infographic explaining why their demographic are idiots.
e: oh god this thread is horrible, yes, we can wish bigotry away with our 401k's, yes hrm that will work ~splendidly~
There's a blog post floating around explaining methodological errors in this study, I'll see if I can dig it up
here
^ That doesn't surprise me.
This research is at the science-y end of social science, where people love massive surveys and structured questionnaires because they produce lots of data that you can crunch and turn into statistics and "useful" policy advice. It's a school of thought called positivism. Statistics look objective, they impress the people who hand out research grants, and if you're using mathematical data you must be a real scientist, right?
However, it's open to question how far you can capture complex and subjective social realities by getting people to fill in questionnaires. The other main approach to research is phenomenology, which involves trying to get at the subjective element more by using methods like unstructured interviews or "participant observation" (basically, hanging around with the people being studied). Of course, you can't do that with huge samples of people and you can't get easily quantifiable results.
tl;dr - These guys are a bit like the Deboss of sociology. They're very hung-up on being "scientific" without realising that "science" is not a value-free quest for pure truth.
I have to say I prefer the qualitative research methods better, but as Captainbrass says sample sizes are smaller and it's harder to quantify.
Also I did expect the survey to be shaky at best, after all it was reported in the Daily Mail.
> paying attention to politics threads on IJBM
Please don't. You will be better off for it.
I think we should also see if Daily Mail editors are thick as well because I want to punch Peter Hitchens over and over again because he is a stupid wanker
Oooh, let's talk about inflicting heavy violence against people we dislike!
Dislike doesn't really cover my feelings toward that man
So obviously, the answer is to resort to violence. Man, have I been doing it wrong.
Yes yes you have been doing it wrong.
Further, please don't call me "man"
I did not call you man. It is an oath, one that is used a fair amount in Australia at least.
This thread seems doomed to provoke stupid arguments over nothing. Perhaps if there's nothing more to say on the article, everyone should just stop posting.