Jesus Christ... that would mean that over the course of a year, energy price caps will be a policy costing as much as 10% of the rest of the entire uk budget combined. Almost double the entire uk military budget. It would cost almost as much as the entire nhs.
And I can almost guarantee you there will be usage caps as a result.
And I can almost guarantee you there will be usage caps as a result.
I agree with the first half.
Governments are made up of people, and people can be better or worse. They can be more moral or less (and those morals can be different between people so two very moral people may act in opposite ways, or two immoral people may act in much different ways based on what they consider immoral), and they can be more competent or less competent, or more corrupt or less corrupt and self-serving.
A group of people can be either aligned with the people they rule over or they can be opposed to them. People with political power can be a smaller group or a larger group. The Greek democracy and Roman Republic of antiquity were built on the scarred backs of slaves, and ultimately the number of slaves was much larger than the number of citizens.
The benefit of democratic republics and constitutional monarchies over despotism or dictatorship or absolute monarchy is the peaceful transfer of power. When a government is particularly bad under dictatorial regimes, the nation must be bathed in blood, whereas under a republic the nation can be bathed in ballots. Constitutional monarchies can last quite long as well because the monarch is a figurehead compared to the legislative or executive bodies who can then be replaced if they are incompetent or hated.
The distinction between good and bad governance is important, and the fact that they can both exist is important. A badly run democracy is for a time much worse than a well run totalitarian dictatorship. That's one reason why the Roman empire rose out of the Roman Republic, but then the list of Roman emperors starts to look like a stock ticker for how often they were offing heads of state...
In a lot of ways, current western governments reflect our societies, and both are in a state of imbalance. Wise governance considers many factors, foolish government pretends only one thing matters at any given moment. That imbalance inevitably leads to poor governance and a pathological society.
Some of that is a total rejection of good ideas that need to exist because those same ideas can become tyrannical if taken to an extreme. It's not sustainable, and there needs to be some balance. Part of the problem is the decadence of the elite and semi-elite classes. Over time, they become disconnected from the reality of the world by a padded cell that is a comfortable and safe state. They don't realize that you can be hurt, you can die, you can starve, wars can start and things can happen in your homeland, and in that disconnection they make decisions that are objectively harmful which ultimately results in a new secular cycle...
Governments are made up of people, and people can be better or worse. They can be more moral or less (and those morals can be different between people so two very moral people may act in opposite ways, or two immoral people may act in much different ways based on what they consider immoral), and they can be more competent or less competent, or more corrupt or less corrupt and self-serving.
A group of people can be either aligned with the people they rule over or they can be opposed to them. People with political power can be a smaller group or a larger group. The Greek democracy and Roman Republic of antiquity were built on the scarred backs of slaves, and ultimately the number of slaves was much larger than the number of citizens.
The benefit of democratic republics and constitutional monarchies over despotism or dictatorship or absolute monarchy is the peaceful transfer of power. When a government is particularly bad under dictatorial regimes, the nation must be bathed in blood, whereas under a republic the nation can be bathed in ballots. Constitutional monarchies can last quite long as well because the monarch is a figurehead compared to the legislative or executive bodies who can then be replaced if they are incompetent or hated.
The distinction between good and bad governance is important, and the fact that they can both exist is important. A badly run democracy is for a time much worse than a well run totalitarian dictatorship. That's one reason why the Roman empire rose out of the Roman Republic, but then the list of Roman emperors starts to look like a stock ticker for how often they were offing heads of state...
In a lot of ways, current western governments reflect our societies, and both are in a state of imbalance. Wise governance considers many factors, foolish government pretends only one thing matters at any given moment. That imbalance inevitably leads to poor governance and a pathological society.
Some of that is a total rejection of good ideas that need to exist because those same ideas can become tyrannical if taken to an extreme. It's not sustainable, and there needs to be some balance. Part of the problem is the decadence of the elite and semi-elite classes. Over time, they become disconnected from the reality of the world by a padded cell that is a comfortable and safe state. They don't realize that you can be hurt, you can die, you can starve, wars can start and things can happen in your homeland, and in that disconnection they make decisions that are objectively harmful which ultimately results in a new secular cycle...
It wouldn't matter so much except that you have the largest, most powerful, most all encompassing, and most universal state ever throughout the world.
If the state can basically leave people alone, then it doesn't matter if people agree on most things. Bob can stay in Bob's yard, and George can stay in George's yard. As the size of the state increases, it could still not matter as long as Bob and George are treated the same and the state isn't sticking its fingers into arguments between the two. Eventually, the state starts sticking its fingers into arguments between the two, but for the most part it doesn't have the capacity to do much about it. As the postmodern age arrives, the state suddenly is fully capable of micromanaging their lives, but maybe Bob can move away and George likes what the local state is doing. Then George forms a world government, and Bob and George are inseparable, and their arguments must play out on the global stage and it suddenly matters very much that they both agree exactly the same things because the all encompassing state will directly enforce one person's view or the other.
The state that requires every man, woman, and child to believe the same thing mandated by the state by democratic vote and be subservient to a centralised leadership of mega-elites is not a liberal one, no matter how big the plastic smile on the plastic mask it wears is.
If the state can basically leave people alone, then it doesn't matter if people agree on most things. Bob can stay in Bob's yard, and George can stay in George's yard. As the size of the state increases, it could still not matter as long as Bob and George are treated the same and the state isn't sticking its fingers into arguments between the two. Eventually, the state starts sticking its fingers into arguments between the two, but for the most part it doesn't have the capacity to do much about it. As the postmodern age arrives, the state suddenly is fully capable of micromanaging their lives, but maybe Bob can move away and George likes what the local state is doing. Then George forms a world government, and Bob and George are inseparable, and their arguments must play out on the global stage and it suddenly matters very much that they both agree exactly the same things because the all encompassing state will directly enforce one person's view or the other.
The state that requires every man, woman, and child to believe the same thing mandated by the state by democratic vote and be subservient to a centralised leadership of mega-elites is not a liberal one, no matter how big the plastic smile on the plastic mask it wears is.
Drawing an X on the circle next to the name of the person you want to vote for seems to result in elections where the results are known basically immediately (usually the night of the election), whereas any sort of machine seems to end up with questions.
Solving a problem that doesn't really need to be solved, and introducing a lot of problems in the process.
Solving a problem that doesn't really need to be solved, and introducing a lot of problems in the process.
"New Zealand has officially elected Boaty McBoatface to a majority of seats in the parliament, so it's official that Boaty McBoatface is now the Prime Minister!"
Trudeau will fix healthcare right after he's fixed the drinking water on all those reserves.
Any day now.
Any day now.
Environmentalists: CO2 will literally end all life on earth!
Also environmentalists: here's a bacteria to convert dormant plastic around the world to CO2!
Also environmentalists: here's a bacteria to convert dormant plastic around the world to CO2!
The big problem is the focus on safety. As the society more focused on safety than any other society in history, it's going to be more difficult to do great things, because you can only do great things that either are inherently safe to do, or to do 10 times the work to make sure nobody gets hurt.
It isn't sustainable. You can't be perfectly safe. Just the act of insisting on not taking any chances can result in dangers in the long term.
It isn't sustainable. You can't be perfectly safe. Just the act of insisting on not taking any chances can result in dangers in the long term.
I actually really enjoy using my snowblower on freshly fallen snow. Especially when it's still soft enough that you can get right down to bare pavement and everything else is a winter wonderland.
(Then the plow comes by and god damnit......)
(Then the plow comes by and god damnit......)
Any sustainable overarching philosophy requires balancing many opposing but necessary factors. Fairness is opposed to merit because merit isn't fair but both are practically speaking mandatory. Individualism and collectivism. Law and Liberty. Teleological and deontological ethics. Flexibility and toughness. Purity and diversity.
Paradoxically, while fairness and merit are in opposition, they (like some of the things I listed above) aren't necessarily entirely opposite. Merit is often considered more fair a measure than something more arbitrary like purity or authority not derived from merit.
The interesting thing is that the fact that any of these factors being absolute would result in atrocity is an easy path to discredit any of them, but that's a mistake. The fact that a value being held absolutely would lead to atrocity doesn't mean that it is a discredited value. It only means that it can't stand alone.
Paradoxically, while fairness and merit are in opposition, they (like some of the things I listed above) aren't necessarily entirely opposite. Merit is often considered more fair a measure than something more arbitrary like purity or authority not derived from merit.
The interesting thing is that the fact that any of these factors being absolute would result in atrocity is an easy path to discredit any of them, but that's a mistake. The fact that a value being held absolutely would lead to atrocity doesn't mean that it is a discredited value. It only means that it can't stand alone.
I disabled new logins for a while on fbxl video because peertube has incompatibilities with openssl3, but before I did I noticed that tons of accounts were obviously fake and going to become a spam problem. I turned on email verification and it seemed to help a lot since they use fake email addresses most of the time.