Quote (Black XistenZ @ Oct 19 2019 10:56am)

Aaaaand the parliament voted to delay/postpone once again, surprise surprise.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Oct 19 2019 02:32am)

I think most countries that you mentioned are getting consumed by ever-increasing polarization. It's tearing societies apart, and it's happening in the United States, in France, in Germany, in Italy, in Spain, in Poland, Turkey, Canada, the Uk obviously, but also in Australia, India and many muslim countries.

The deeper underlying force I see at work here is a crisis of the "liberal, capitalist order", which is caused by globalization. Globalization is dividing the population of most Western countries into winners and losers, it is accelerating the accumulation of capital, it is causing a feel of loss of control over one's own fate (which is a driver of nativist and nationalist sentiment all over the world).



If you go even deeper than that, I think it is caused by overpopulation, by the world getting too crowded to sustain the promise of "wealth for all". The pace at which the "economic pie" is growing cant keep up anymore with the pace with which new "eaters" are joining the party, both through birthrates and the ascent of middle classes in emerging nations. Combine this with climate change which makes "wealth on western levels for the whole world" impossible, and you see why the world is headed towards gigantic, brutal distributional battles.

Battles over trade, intellectual property, climate change, immigration and all of that fundamentally come down to one question: are we, the people of the industrialized world, willing to give up wealth, safety and privileges in order to uphold our morals, human rights and the spirit of international cooperation? Overpopulation and strained environmental resources mean that some parts of humanity will get fucked over hard in the coming decades. As I see it, nationalists in the mold of Trump want to use the head start we, the western/industrialized world, have to win out in the distributional battle, to shift the bulk of the burden to the population of the poor countries/the global south. "Globalists", on the other hand, advocate for policies which at the end of the day come down to us voluntarily giving up the advantages and leverage we would have; to us bearing at least a proportional, perhaps even a disproportional share of the burden.

Quote (Ghot @ 19 Oct 2019 18:06)

When the only person on PaRD trying to avoid Brexit is Saucy, then it seems obvious that the UK SHOULD brexit, ASAP. :D

Quote (dro94 @ Oct 19 2019 01:24am)

The withdrawal agreement outlines the 'divorce' settlement we owe the EU, customs arrangements on the border, commitments to EU laws like labour rights and environmental regulation, tax legislation and text on the likely future relationship between the UK and the EU.

Everything agreed in the withdrawal agreement would have been followed in negotiations in the transition period. There is a lot of lawyer-speak on the future relationship which gives us room to pick and choose in some areas, but the divorce bill, customs arrangements etc are watertight.

Did you think this deal was the complete deal the UK negotiated with the EU for leaving? Oh, my dear boy, it's just started!