If you think that's bad, I've seen presentations to angel investors where the CEO repeats things like "we do big data analysis to help our customers synergise and analyze..."
Q: OK, that's nice, what do you do? What value do you offer the customer
A: Big data analysis! Synergise!
<sigh>
Bad emails are one thing. Bad presentations to investors just reeks of incompetence.
Even when I was in 25 years ago, universities were replacing full-time professors with sessional lecturers. And bloating the administration budget.
It's only gotten worse since then.
If universities are institutions of higher learning, then the people doing the teaching should have a larger say. Right now (as with many companies), the accountants are in charge.
IIRC, that was the complaint at Digital. The company was doing well when run by engineers. And then the MBAs took over... soon the good engineers left, and the company started building crap.
In Spain they collaborated in the kidnapping of dozens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of children from their mothers: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15335899
Residential schools basically still exist in America. They're more about making money now but still have very similar problems with developing an identity and abuse.
And now we are basically told that these actual sufferers described in the article are "colonial oppressors" and sometimes "bigots", equally responsible for whatever is pegged on them.
Somebody have found an excellent way to distribute their responsibility on the whole population when amassing even more wealth for themself.
Not true. People came to the polls wearing Spanish flags. No violence. The Catalan process has thankfully been extremely peaceful.
People did not vote in the referendum because it was not officially recognized as such. Because the Spanish government refused to agree on the terms.
The referendum was a sad exercise of democracy, in which the voice of lots of Catalans was not heard. But it was the only one that could be organized due to the ferocious opposition of the Central Government.
I would prefer the Referendum to be repeated, in better conditions and properly organized, with all parties exposing their arguments, and all citizens interested enough to vote having their voices heard.
I guess the point is that given that the spanish government considered the referendum illegal, people not in favor of independence would probably not have wanted to caution it by participating. Clearly in these conditions the results can't be trusted.
It's more like "90% of the people who thought the referendum was legitimate are in favor of independence". There's obviously a big selection bias.
As for the question of whether the referendum was legitimate or not, the problem in my opinion is how can you consider a referendum democratic if only a tiny portion of the country's population gets to take the decision? Catalunia becoming independent would have consequences throughout the country, shouldn't everybody get to vote?
And if not, where do you draw the line? Paris and its region generate about 1/6th of the total GDP of France, what if Parisians decided to declare independence? What about the Lega Nord in Italy? And let's not even talk about the historical economic divide between eastern/western Germany or the variations of GDP between states in the USA.
What if all the rich people in Japan decided to all move to an inhabited island and declare independence with 100% of the vote? Would that be legitimate?
Brexit was made possible by article 50 of the treaty on european union[1]. This article was introduced by the treaty of Lisbon[2] which was approved by the european parliament and ratified by all EU members.
So while only UK citizens got to vote on brexit the legal possibility to exit the union was actually approved by all the EU members. If there was an article in the spanish constitution that allowed for a region to secede under certain conditions we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Furthermore the UK always remained a sovereign state, with its own currency, army etc... It's hardly comparable to Catalunya. The scottish referendum would be a better comparison.
I'm not sure I understand your point. Do you think the majority of spaniards would support amending the constitution to allow for a region to declare independence? Seems really dubious to me. And if not, then why blame the constitution?
I mean a Constitution is not, and must not be, respected if it goes against the will of a big part of the population.
A state constitution must offer a framework which is interesting for all of its peoples and territories: if big groups of people do not see the point of it, it looses its validity.
No dude, authority emanates from armies, which are never irrelevant. And the writing is on the wall.
I hope the Catalans that voted to leave have really good reasons to do it, because if the situation isn't defused somehow, there are some tough times ahead.
The people of Catalonia vote on whether they are willing to fight for their independence. The people in the rest of Spain can vote on whether they are willing to force that fight to take place.
An EU vote on Brexit would make no sense, as one or more of the countries would have to withdraw from NATO in order for a war to occur. The unlikelihood of war among NATO members is probably one of the reasons why exit procedures exist in the first place--the other notable reason being that some countries never would have joined in the first place, if they thought they would have to fight their way out.
Spain, on the other hand, has apparently never been shy about fighting Spaniards. It might be appropriate for Spain to hold a vote, but only to show Catalonia what it may be up against, and a "no" vote gives the national government a mandate to be brutal. They can, of course, be just as brutal after a "yes" vote, but the propaganda budget would be higher.
> An EU vote on Brexit would make no sense, as one or more of the countries would have to withdraw from NATO in order for a war to occur.
No, it might be that, if a war occurred either NATO would cease to exist as a credible alliance or one or more countries would be expelled from it and find themselves at war with it, but certainly withdrawal from NATO isn't a necessary precondition for war.
Self determination would be meaningless if entire country or entity needs to vote to allow its parts to become independent.
There are many examples of self determination in 20th and 21st century, and normally only region/area that wants to become independent votes. Most recent example is independence referendum in Scotland. Entire UK did not vote, only Scotland voted.
The next Catalan elections will be a referendum by another name, no? Obviously without legal force, but if the parties for independence win big, it'll be hard to claim it's for any other reason - and the same for the parties against it.
Mmmm, that would degenerate rapidly into civil disobedience. It is hard to see how the central Spanish government can change the opinions of a big part of Catalan society by playing hard ball. I would say that the harder they go, the most people they antagonize.
And therein lies the problem: 15 years ago the amount of pro-independence was relatively low, but the Central government has refused to take the demands of the Catalan government seriously.
The current political class ruling in Spain is completely overwhelmed on how to deal with a changing society, and the structure of the Spanish State is inflexible, to the point of having to argue that in order for a region to push for the changes they feel they are entitled to, first they need to reform the Constitution, something that is impossible to achieve since the reforms they want to implement are blocked by exactly the same people that would block a reform of the Constitution. Go figure.
True, and this already happened in the last elections to the Catalan Parliament (Generalitat). But it's sad to fake referendums by hijacking elections, which exist for completely different reasons. This just mixes and confounds lots of different issues, and makes parliamentary elections meaningless.
The question of independence is complex enough that warrants a dedicated vote.
I don't have a strong position one way or the other, but it seems to me that the Spanish government completely botched their response to the referendum by trying to get by with a raw power play which basically guaranteed that the referendum would pass (which by no means was guaranteed had the referendum but allowed to proceed without interference), leaving Spain with no choice but to use force. Now Catalonia has called their bluff.
Spain is going to be left with the choice between letting Catalonia go or attempting to use force to keep them in the state. I don't think Spain is prepared to fight a civil war over this, personally, nor should it. Let them go, keep them in the EU, keep the borders open.
With the EU there, it seems like breakups like this don't need to go any worse than splitting up North and South Carolina, for example.
They won't be automatically in the EU, and actually, this is going to be a serious political problem - the EU will have (rightfully) troubles accepting a country with strong separatist sentiments.
On top of this, it will have very serious financial problems - Catalonia economy may look good in a Spanish context, but compared to the European countries in the mid/upper "class", it's very poor, and will be worse once it will have to pay the administrative bills for setting itself up as a country.
> With the EU there, it seems like breakups like this don't need to go any worse than splitting up North and South Carolina, for example.
This isn't really a great example, as North and South Carolina weren't really ever a single entity (even when there was a Province of Carolina, North and South Carolina were separate within it). They were both original US states.
That's the funny thing with the situation. Both sides screw up so bad there is literally no-one to support here. Whatever comment you make in favor for one will be immediately counter by comments that are equally reasonable for the other one.
Well, if you were the Catalonian government and you wanted to push for independence, what would you do instead? Or are you saying that pushing for independence itself is a screw up?
As usual people are missing part of the story. Both side screw up. BOTH.
E.G: there is a strong racism culture among Catalonia independentists, even against other Spaniards. They even invented part of their cultural heritage to sound more credible (look up their "ancestral cultural dance" origin, it is kinda funny). If you want your independence, not alianating the rest of your neighbors for decades can be a good start.
Those events are never unfolding in an instant, but are the consequences of years of complex shenanigans.
I'm not saying it's a good thing, but is there any reason at all to believe that the rest of Spain would have allowed the referendum if only Catalonia had been very nice to everyone else? Seems like an excuse to me.
The real catch is more "In a referendum where people who wanted to vote "no" didn't show up, because they didn't want to legitimize a referendum they considered illegal".
Funny that I got downvoted for saying that, I will say it again, it was not legal, and therefore because the lack of participation is not representing the opinion of the Catalans.
Obviously there is no legitimacy on declaring the independence in an unilateral way considering that the referendum was illegal. What is happening is pure "picaresca española" ;)
> Due to the many irregularities and to the actions taken by the national police and civil guard, the international observers, invited by the Generalitat, declared that the referendum results could not be considered valid as the process failed to meet the minimum international standards for elections.
IMO the Catalan government just lost any legitimacy they might have hoped to have by declaring independence prematurely.
Videos are taken mostly by those out in the streets, so there are obviously biased towards one side. Is it so hard to believe that both sides exert some kind of violence? Do you really believe that one side is entirely pacifist and the other is aggressive? That kind of narrative should be hard to believe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_g4-4fMoMshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ak9224HG_E
True enough. Although this is a problem of Madrid's own making. By suppressing the referendum, they virtually guaranteed these results. It seems to me the political situation there is worse than if there has been a peaceful referendum, under protest by Madrid, and Catalans had narrowly voted for independence. They could probably have defused that with some sort of marginal concession to increase the region's autonomy (as they have in the past). But the problem they have now may not be solved so easily.
Are you saying it's fine if the vote doesn't represent the democratic will of the people as a whole because the government was using violent means to ensure the rule of law? So a minority group should be able to unilaterally dismantle a country contrary to the democratic wishes of the occupants?
As presented you appear to stand firmly against democracy, is that so?
If the vote has been carried out properly then there would be a leg to stand on.
The rule of law would have been letting people put pieces of paper in boxes, then laughing when they vote no anyway. From what I've seen, they would probably have voted against independence if Spain hadn't tried to stop the referendum.
Had they voted for independence anyway, the Spanish government could then refuse to recognize it because it was unconstitutional.
I think it's actually a tougher call than you suggest, allowing the referendum to resolve could easily foment more unrest and a greater more violent outcome.
> I think it's actually a tougher call than you suggest
No. "Police should only beat people as a last resort to keep them from causing direct, immediate bodily harm to others" is not a tough call at all.
Even if having police present was a good idea (it wasn't), they should have had the strictest orders to, you know, not hit people with sticks.
> allowing the referendum to resolve could easily foment more unrest and a greater more violent outcome
You are arguing for punishing people, by causing them physical harm, without court orders, for things others might possibly do in the future. You are arguing for the exact opposite of the rule of law.
OK, AIUI the law in Spain means that only central gov can order a referendum. The vote was declared illegal and those party to it were thus breaking the law, conspiring to harm the constitutional standing of the country.
If you were voting, supporting voters, etc., you were breaking the law, refusal to stop is contravening the law and the police should then act accordingly, using force if people refuse to stop supporting the vote.
Imagine it was an illegal march of white supremacists in USA, or National Front in UK.
It devolves into violence when people choose to ignored the rule of law and give no other option to maintain the law than to apply violence.
Unless the separatists want to negotiate then violence is literally the only recourse that Spain has to defend its constitution. Perhaps it shouldn't, but anything else is just letting an undemocratic action force an unwanted change.
> OK, AIUI the law in Spain means that only central gov can order a referendum. The vote was declared illegal and those party to it were thus breaking the law, conspiring to harm the constitutional standing of the country.
My understanding is the same. Which is why I wrote above that they should have gone out and actually arrested the separatist leaders who organized all this. This could have played out in the courts (up to the Court of Justice of the European Union, I would guess).
But sending a few thousand (or tens of thousands?) police against millions of voters was not about this. Whatever they thought they were trying to do, it was not possible with these numbers. And as far as I can tell, they did not try to arrest people. They did not try to get people's personal data to get them before of a court at some other point. They did not show up in time to simply barricade the doors of polling stations. In short, they were not enforcing or upholding the law in any meaningful sense.
No, he's just saying that parent's excuse that "no" voters didn't show up because of fear of violence is invalid, because the only perpetrators of violence were Spanish police (i.e. the pro-"no" force), so if anything "yes" voters were discouraged.
The people who thought the referendum was illegal and didn't matter, didn't show up. In part because of fears of violence from police (shall we say) "enthusiastically" enforcing the law.
The people who wanted the referendum to go through were motivated to show up despite the violence. Because they believed in their cause.
So no, the "yes" voters were likely not discouraged from showing up. Or, the "soft" yes votes were discouraged.
Cornerstone? Isn't recognition of nation states the cornerstone?
Art 1.2 talks of maintaining peace amongst the nation's through respect for "equal rights and self-determination of peoples". To me that puts self-determination below democratic process, reversing them would not respect equal rights.
Why not? If the majority doesn't want to make their opinion known, that's fine, but I don't see how they can blame others for continuing on despite their silence.
Because then every minority can vote whatever they want. A few of your neighbours can vote to kick your family out of your house. A few rival supporters can vote to kick your team out of your favourite league. Some students can vote to kick your kids out of college because they do not like them. If we let anyone to invent polls and votes that affect the majority of people then nonsense happens.
> Because then every minority can vote whatever they want.
I don't see why that would be a problem. In fact, we already do that all the time. Look at the voting turnout for a large number of elections. Are you seriously suggesting that >50% of voters have to vote on something (that they may or may not be properly informed about) to make it legitimate?
I generally don't vote on my local school and education laws, because I don't have kids, and don't follow that system enough to be properly informed. My city has a low percentage of parents, so I'm assuming that a lot of other people don't either. If the choice is between everyone voting on stuff that they don't understand, or only those who care enough vote, I'll take the later every time.
The side supporting "yes" perpetrates equal amounts of violence. Is just the propaganda machine is much more developed on that side (with the money from all Spaniards...)
The side supporting "yes" perpetrates equal amounts of violence.
Really? I didn't see the footage of the Mossos throwing people who weren't in favour of independence down stairs or dragging them around by their hair. Where do I find it?
This breaks the HN guidelines. Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.
I apologize for my interpretation and response. It wouldn't be the first time that I read or hear comments of Catalans being superior to the rest of the Spanish.
Interesting that this page title is "Videos of the Repression lived in Catalonia by the Spanish Police" while the video shows in most cases professional work of the force, especially considering the behavior of crowd. I don't want to take any sides, but know this - crowd plus emotions might turn into something dangerous. We should put emotions aside and then consider the situation. I am not telling that what happened was good, but sometimes you must choose the lesser eveil.
As I said, the propaganda machine is more developed in one side. The story is related by those who have a stronger interest. I've indeed seen videos of violence against those who don't think like the independentist. And I've lived in the region for 6 years, there are many other forms of violence as well. But you can look it up on the internet. You won't find a web index with hundreds of videos though, that doesn't surprise me.
You can keep downvoting me for thinking differently from what is seen is media. No, I admit it, there was shameful violence that day. But there is also daily violence against those who think differently and don't support the nationalist and xenophobic ideas behind the independentist movements. Of course, that's not admitted openly.
Donald Trump was elected with a smaller mandate then 38% of the voting population. Brexit was done with a smaller mandate then 38% of the voting population.
A referendum conventionally happens country wide, surveying a % of the whole population. Not in a self-selected population subset.
Otherwise there's this icky question of what subset, what "social unit", is allowed to claim independence? Spain? Catalunya only? Barcelona only? La Rambla? Jose down the street, as an individual, in his own referendum-of-one?
This ad-absurdum may sound extreme, but there's really no fundamental difference there. The government astutely identified this as a "slippery slope", with brute power as the primary differentiator in practice.
I know and agree! But that's completely orthogonal to my point.
The new Catalan government (or any other government) may find itself presented with the same question, in the future. The writing is on the wall, in this all-or-nothing, binary age (cf. libertarians).
In my opinion the referendum was not lawful because:
1- Was not legal, so the participation was low.
2- There were serious irregularities in the voting system.
I'm against the violence and I think that the independence of a region is something morally right, but I don't consider that the referendum 1-O legitimizes that the Govern of Catalunya declares the independence of Catalunya in an unilateral manner. I think the Catalan Govern is cheating in its own benefit.
True, Catalans factual issues are understandable, but this was an improper way to change things. It's nicer than fixed elections with fake votes, but it's almost as biased.
I spent ~10 years living in Europe. While there was still a lot of traffic, huge numbers of people took rail. To me, the cities were much more livable than the average NA city.
Because in nature, organisms don't grow to the limits of their environment, right? They willingly limit their growth so that all enlightened organisms can share equally in a workers paradise, amidst songs of empowerment and fraternity, while marching collectively towards a bold new future!
Yeah... no.
Evolution shows us that organisms do grow to the limits of their environment. A "capitalist" system is no different. Making thinly-veiled religious statements about the evils of capitalism means rhetoric is more important to you than understanding.
Edit: for the nay-sayers, who seem to have missed my point: These behaviors aren't a result of capitalism. Blaming capitalism, or using ideological rehetoric, is wrong. These behaviors are a result of reality. Of evolution. Of the Dariwnian struggle for existence.
Blaming capitalism for these behaviors makes no more sense than blaming capitalism for a disease like malaria. Malaria was around long before capitalism, or even people, existed.
You could replace capitalism with Nazism in a world ruled by it and you'd have the same "point". What you call understanding is obedience and sophistry, merely trying to get your subjective self out of the picture and trying to call the remaining mess objective.
> The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it I'd be ashamed of myself.
-- Noam Chomsky
> Alas! There comes the time of the most despicable man, who can no longer despise himself.
Provided resources are finite and the sun's output is constant, gradually limiting growth would indeed be wise unless we want to fall off a cliff at some point.
————
Edit: in response to your edit:
Healthy ecosystems strive at equilibrium. If a species consumes more energy than its environment can supply or produces more entropy than its environment can dissipate, things go bad for the environment and for the species unless it can move to greener pastures.
What is true for species is also true for non-biological dissipative processes. Capitalism and the growth-fueled financial system are not perennial. In this context, humanity is part of the environment, and greener pastures is the automation epidemics, where capital is becoming self-sufficient.
Systems do NOT "strive for equilibrium". The only reason we see multiple systems at (roughly) equilibrium is that the ones not at equilibrium destroy themselves and their environment.
I'm not denying that negative feedback exists. I'm saying that without such feedback, systems always run out of control, because that's the biological imperative.
And no, growing systems are not cancer. That's just a ridiculous statement to make. Don't straw-man me FFS.
> The only reason we see multiple systems at (roughly) equilibrium is that the ones not at equilibrium destroy themselves and their environment.
Survival of the fittest. The fittest ecosystems are those who strive at equilibrium. Unchecked growth leads to boom bust cycles that are very destructive.
It may be an early propagation strategy (especially for autotrophs), but it is, in the long run, overcome by checks and balances. AFAIK short of catastrophic changes, ecosystems tend to reach equilibrium, because boom/bust is not competitive.
This is also true of diseases. New, aggressive strains that kill their host quickly usually evolve into milder versions of themselves that get better chances to spread (because the host survives longer).
Most animals have builtin growth limits that matches what they can reasonably extract from their environment. Within the boundaries of an individual, uncheck growth is literally cancer. BTW, you should have that growth on your nose checked (yeah, lame pun sorry ;-).
Humanity and its economy has a cancerous behavior right now. Even if the population stabilizes, economic growth requires a proportional growth in the consumption of resources (energy/matter) and thereby a proportional increase in entropy (heat/pollution/destruction/death).
At some point the rest of the earth won't be hospitable to us as a species, and that point may be precipitated by autonomous capital.
Farming and mining are being automated away. Transport is being automated. Manufacture has been for a long while.
Why would an automated market feed billions of idle meat bags? I don't know either.
Why do I care? I have kids, and I feel responsible for the mess I put them in.
For all my dislike of capitalism, there aren't many better systems. Perhaps capitalism leavened with some socialism (public roads, police, health care, etc.)
The last hundred years a number of political systems has been tested.
Compared to how almost every single communist experiment has ended, - and also nazism (far fewer examples but for some reason I really don’t want that either :-/) I far prefer what select lucky European countries and USA as well has done. Specifically I really think the European democracies has almost nailed it with reasonably good public health care, reasonable taxes all while still allowing and encouraging competition between for-profit companies.
"The advantage of communism is that everyone is equally poor. The disadvantage of capitalism is that some people are richer than others." - something I heard as a kid
"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…"
Having written multiple RFCs, violating the RFC is not always a bad thing. Some of the MUSTs are a result of the committee process, and follow the lowest common denominator.
If the recommendations don't make sense, don't follow them.
> If the recommendations don't make sense, don't follow them.
In general, I would tend to agree -- so long as you aren't "hurting" (affecting) anyone else.
OTOH:
$ tail -n 4 ~/.signature
"The total budget at all receivers for solving senders' problems is
$0. If you want them to accept your mail and manage it the way you
want, send it the way the spec says to." --John Levine
I'm responsible for a bunch of mail servers and occasionally get reports that messages from some random sender to a mailbox on one of these servers is not being accepted. More often than not, it's because RFCs aren't being followed (WRT SMTP, I'm not very liberal in what I accept). Of course, they will demand that I "fix" my "broken" servers that are refusing to accept their messages. Sometimes the non-compliance is intentional but usually it is simply out of ignorance (especially true when the remote host runs Microsoft Exchange); I try to point them at the RFCs, explain why their mail is being refused, and what they can change so that the mail will be accepted.
Q: OK, that's nice, what do you do? What value do you offer the customer
A: Big data analysis! Synergise!
<sigh>
Bad emails are one thing. Bad presentations to investors just reeks of incompetence.