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Fen Canary

Racism Report

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35 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Our parents were better off than our grand parents, we are better off than our parents. We can't deny that we lived through those improvements and if it required any sort of revolution then it was so peaceful that we barely noticed. The truth is that events evolved in a way that Marx did not forsee.

The threat of Communism, the post war rebuilding, a social contract and the creation of millions of middle class jobs made this happen. It is a process that is largely now in reverse. It looks like our children are largely going to poorer than our generation.

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28 minutes ago, ricardo said:

I expect it was your Union work that negated the prediction that we would would all progressively become poorer as the bosses squeezed the life out of us.😉

I don't mean to be facetious KG but you know very well that even in our own industry events did not mimic Marx's predictions. Our parents were better off than our grand parents, we are better off than our parents. We can't deny that we lived through those improvements and if it required any sort of revolution then it was so peaceful that we barely noticed. The truth is that events evolved in a way that Marx did not forsee.

The trouble is Ricardo is that you cite as evidence against Marx, things that are nothing to do with his analysis. the fact that Mao and Stalin murdered millions of people is absolutely nothing to do with Marxism - a Communist society, if one ever emerges, would only come from a country that had gone through all stages of capitalism. Capitalism had barely started in China and Russia before their revolutions and they were essentially feudal societies. The deaths of the millions were concommient with these countries going through their capitalist phase.

Secondly, you seem to think that Marxism happens within states without recognition that a Communist State is an oxymoron: communism is society organised by communes rather than by states

Thirdly, you seem to assume that a revolution has to be a violent "event." But this is not the meaning at all.

  • What violent event defined the Industrial revolution?
  • If there is a scientific revolution does it mean that all the old scientists are put up against a wall and shot?
  • John Bond "revolutionised" the way Norwich played - yet he kept Kevin Keelan, Duncan Forbes etc
  • Antibiotics revolutionised medical treatment etc etc

You are arguing against what you have been told is the analysis rather than what it actually is.

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46 minutes ago, ricardo said:

We can't deny that we lived through those improvements and if it required any sort of revolution then it was so peaceful that we barely noticed. The truth is that events evolved in a way that Marx did not forsee.

So do you deny that that technological change has revolutionised the printing process? 

I could not argue with you about the printing industry, but would say that if labour has been replaced by capital and the surplus value has gone to the owners of the capital rather than displaced workers, that would be entirely consistent with a marxist analysis.

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1 hour ago, Mr.Carrow said:

Given that is exactly what you have done on multiple threads and have just done again, that takes the levels of hypocrisy into the stratosphere. The very definition of bad faith.

Neatly side-stepped the fact that you have directly contradicted yourself in successive posts. I directly quoted you, but rather than deal with it, you resort to personal abuse.

I think that I am more saddened than annoyed😩 It is only an internet chatroom, you don't have to turn everything into an argument that you have to win  you know - it is meant to be an exchange of ideas....

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I admire your persistence Badger. Revolution obviously has been a disappointment for Marxists so you seem now to pin your hope on evolution. The only problem is that Capitalism seems to have been evolving also else it would most likely have ended by now. Change is a certainty but there are many possible outcomes. The belief in the inevitable triumph of the Proletariat has always seemed akin to fundamentalist religiousity to me.

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1 hour ago, keelansgrandad said:

But the ones you mention are hardly Marxists. The three greatest mass murderers in history.

Its not that its never been tried properly, its that its never been tried.

It is not something that can be "tried." When society moved from feudalism to capitalism there was not a capitalist party trying to win power, by election or revolution. It was a progression over centuries by which power and wealth, over time, moved from primarily the great landowners  to the owners of capital. If Marx is correct a similar process will happen with capitalism and communism. Marx provides a compelling account of how society has organised itself since prehistory and a generally accurate account of some of the weaknesses ("contradictions") of capitalism. However, he has no evidence that capitalism will be replaced by communism - this is just wishful thinking on Marx's behalf. Nevertheless, it is naive to think that we have reached the "end of history" and that the world will forever be dominated by capitalism and its associate, the nation state. The world will change, and as Marx says, it will be economics that drives the change.

The idea that one day we are going to be feudal society and the next day/ week/ month be a capitalist one is a misreading of the theory - essentially encouraged by Lenin as an act of political pragmatism. Lenin was a Marxist, but he also wanted power so "adjusted the theory" rather more adeptness that Boris Johnson adapts the "truth."

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16 minutes ago, Badger said:

So do you deny that that technological change has revolutionised the printing process? 

I could not argue with you about the printing industry, but would say that if labour has been replaced by capital and the surplus value has gone to the owners of the capital rather than displaced workers, that would be entirely consistent with a marxist analysis.

Not at all Badger. Skills become redundant as technology advances but as it does so new skills are needed. 

We became redundant because the company could not generate sufficient profit. I guess you could say in Capitalistic terms that the risk no longer justified the return. In Marxist theory they could have cut our wages and extended our hours and carried on until we all died of exhaustion and starvation but of course that didn't happen

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28 minutes ago, Badger said:

Neatly side-stepped the fact that you have directly contradicted yourself in successive posts. I directly quoted you, but rather than deal with it, you resort to personal abuse.

I think that I am more saddened than annoyed😩 It is only an internet chatroom, you don't have to turn everything into an argument that you have to win  you know - it is meant to be an exchange of ideas....

I have argued in good faith throughout and I genuinely have no idea what point you are trying to make (and I don't think you do). If you want I can do what I had to do on other threads and provide direct quotes from my posts proving that you were lying. I have said time and again that racism still (pretty f*ckng obviously) exists. We have been disagreeing about the extent and the language used to describe it, and what the motivations are behind such language. 

Also a good faith "exchange of ideas" doesn't generally include accusing people of believing and posting stuff when they have actually posted the opposite and then gaslighting them when they point it out. So, provide a quote in which I denied that racism exists in individuals (I can provide plenty of quotes from me stating the opposite) or apologise and I will chalk it down as a mistake. Don't worry, I won't try and cancel you for it....

Edited by Mr.Carrow

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1 hour ago, Mr.Carrow said:

I have lived and worked in the working classes all my life, whereas you have admitted that you are middle class. You have no idea how badly identity politics goes down in the 57% of the UK who describe themselves as working class. Your rabid condescending lectures from the privileged leafy suburbs are irrelevant. You do not understand how the world works. Keep losing our side votes dude, Boris is applauding you all the way.

Yet again you sound off like a Daily Express journalist shouting out ad hominem accusations, generalised slurs, and refusing to address any of the specific issues raised. Every time you shout out "Woke" to anyone who has the audacity to mention anything to do with institutionalised racism, or says anything you happen to disagree with, makes the right-wing establishment in this country glow with pride. 

So I ask again, please explain how your pathetic right-wing rant constitutes even remotely a possible interpretation of what YF said. I'll even copy both quotes here to make things easy for you

Yellow Fever's post:

8 hours ago, Yellow Fever said:

In my earlier post I gave family examples of subtle racism exactly as alluded to above and what we should try to change and rise above.

Yet some then defend or excuse this as human nature to deflect from calling it out as what it is - racism.

Being wary of others that are unknown to you may well be a human indeed animal trait. Discrimination and making assumptions on the basis of race alone - often blind to the actual person - is something else. 

Your response

2 hours ago, Mr.Carrow said:

In that case my girlfriend and her family are vile n*zi racists. Ok, but I have a cunning plan. When I go back I'll start a political movement telling them such in no uncertain terms. I'll call them deplorables and state that flying their countries flag makes them irredeemable. I'll set up online mobs ever vigilant for the slightest anachronistic joke or ambiguous comment from 20 years ago and campaign to get those people sacked or worse (all from the comfort of my leafy suburbs, obviously...). Then I'll demand that those people vote for me and double down on just how evil they are when they don't want to. 

Alternatively I could encourage following the lead of western liberal democracies to gently educate, help where necessary and include, in order to gradually overcome our natural instincts without resorting to demonisation, hate and blame, which has led to the most inclusive, tolerant and open minded societies on the planet. Hmmm, which to choose...?

Truly ridiculous, but that's no surprise.

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18 minutes ago, ricardo said:

I admire your persistence Badger. Revolution obviously has been a disappointment for Marxists so you seem now to pin your hope on evolution. The only problem is that Capitalism seems to have been evolving also else it would most likely have ended by now. Change is a certainty but there are many possible outcomes. The belief in the inevitable triumph of the Proletariat has always seemed akin to fundamentalist religiousity to me.

Thanks Ricardo.😃

Revolution is a much misunderstood word as I think that I have demonstrated above (Industrial Revolution/ Scientific revolution/ Agricultural). There have been a few Marxist historians that have tried to argue that the English Revolution was a capitalist revolution, but they are a tiny minority: it is a nonsense to think that you bring about a permanent reorganisation to the whole of society with a single event. There may be people who want to overthrow society, but they are leaving out the basic driving force of Marx's analysis if they try to do it and pretend it's Marxism.

It always puzzles me when people say that Stalin was a Marxist - because he says he is, but then deny he was a democrat and a freedom lover - he said he was that as well! 

"The belief in the inevitable triumph of the Proletariat has always seemed akin to fundamentalist religiousity to me." I would agree with this - it is wishful thinking with no real evidence to support it. Nevertheless, I would accept marxian analysis that capitalism (economic organisation) and the nation state (political organisation) will be replaced: I can see ways it which it could be communism (I'm intrigued by the fact that many goods now have a marginal cost of zero, for example) but like everybody else don't have a clue if it will be.

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4 minutes ago, horsefly said:

Yet again you sound off like a Daily Express journalist shouting out ad hominem accusations, generalised slurs, and refusing to address any of the specific issues raised. Every time you shout out "Woke" to anyone who has the audacity to mention anything to do with institutionalised racism, or says anything you happen to disagree with, makes the right-wing establishment in this country glow with pride. 

So I ask again, please explain how your pathetic right-wing rant constitutes even remotely a possible interpretation of what YF said.

 

No surprise that Mr Carrow can only respond with a laughing emoji and no explanation for his utterly ridiculous and insulting attempt to twist YF's temperate and considered post into an unrecognisable rant. Pathetic!

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8 minutes ago, horsefly said:

Yet again you sound off like a Daily Express journalist shouting out ad hominem accusations, generalised slurs, and refusing to address any of the specific issues raised. Every time you shout out "Woke" to anyone who has the audacity to mention anything to do with institutionalised racism, or says anything you happen to disagree with, makes the right-wing establishment in this country glow with pride. 

So I ask again, please explain how your pathetic right-wing rant constitutes even remotely a possible interpretation of what YF said. I'll even copy both quotes here to make things easy for you

Yellow Fever's post:

Your response

Truly ridiculous, but that's no surprise.

By YF's own definition my girlfriend,her family and many of the people I have met traveling are racists. I have a more kind, charitable outlook in that I think their bias is natural (if unfortunate) and based on tribal reactions and ignorance.  You then have a choice as to whether to vilify and condemn (as Woke does to the "deplorable" working classes) or to gently educate and show there is a better way. I choose positive; I choose the latter. 

Edited by Mr.Carrow

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15 minutes ago, ricardo said:

In Marxist theory they could have cut our wages and extended our hours and carried on until we all died of exhaustion and starvation but of course that didn't happen

No, they just got rid of you (albeit with generous redundancy, I hope) and thereafter paid you nothing!

Capitalism in the UK is more advanced and therefore, according to the theory taking on some of the characteristics that will replace it. In this case, they have made a capital sum payment to you and have ensured that the rest of "the proletariat" provide a safety net for printers who do not find work if they need it, through the state.

In more primitive forms of capitalism that existed in the UK in the nineteenth century and still do in other parts of the world, wage cuts might well have been a tactic.

In both scenarios the needs of capital have been served, which is exactly what Marx would have predicted.

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26 minutes ago, Mr.Carrow said:

I have said time and again that racism still (pretty f*ckng obviously) exists.

Good - and do you also accept that it exists in our society and institutions?

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Thanks for a civil discussion Badger, I guess we both accept the inevitability of change its just that I don't  see any particular outcome as inevitable. Marx may well have come to a different conclusion had he known that there would be a Welfare State with unemployment benefits, redundancy pay offs etc etc.

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7 minutes ago, Badger said:

No, they just got rid of you (albeit with generous redundancy, I hope) and thereafter paid you nothing!

They also got rid of themselves because they went bust😉

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2 minutes ago, Mr.Carrow said:

By YF's own definition my girlfriend,her family and many of the people I have met traveling are racists. I have a more kind, charitable outlook in that I think their bias is natural (if unfortunate) and based on tribal reactions and ignorance.  You then have a choice as to whether to vilify and condemn (as Woke does to the "deplorable" working classes) or to gently educate and show there is a better way. I choose positive; I choose the latter. 

Oh dear! Do you really think that this pathetic response excuses you from claiming that YF's comments about "subtle forms of racism" amounts to calling people "vile Na*zi racists" (your very words). The rest of your post is simply risible given what you previously posted. Hence I can't be bothered attempting to respond to you anymore as you don't even have the guts or minimal integrity to face up to what you wrote and either explain or apologise for your gross misrepresentation. So I will leave it up to others to read those two posts again and consider who here is in the wrong:

Yellow Fever said:

In my earlier post I gave family examples of subtle racism exactly as alluded to above and what we should try to change and rise above. Yet some then defend or excuse this as human nature to deflect from calling it out as what it is - racism. Being wary of others that are unknown to you may well be a human indeed animal trait. Discrimination and making assumptions on the basis of race alone - often blind to the actual person - is something else. 

Mr Carrow said:

In that case my girlfriend and her family are vile n*zi racists. Ok, but I have a cunning plan. When I go back I'll start a political movement telling them such in no uncertain terms. I'll call them deplorables and state that flying their countries flag makes them irredeemable. I'll set up online mobs ever vigilant for the slightest anachronistic joke or ambiguous comment from 20 years ago and campaign to get those people sacked or worse (all from the comfort of my leafy suburbs, obviously...). Then I'll demand that those people vote for me and double down on just how evil they are when they don't want to. 

Alternatively I could encourage following the lead of western liberal democracies to gently educate, help where necessary and include, in order to gradually overcome our natural instincts without resorting to demonisation, hate and blame, which has led to the most inclusive, tolerant and open minded societies on the planet. Hmmm, which to choose...?

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8 minutes ago, Badger said:

Good - and do you also accept that it exists in our society and institutions?

I do and have written as such. I just don't accept the totalising framing and language employed by the Woke left nor do I like and trust the movement and philosophy behind it (applied post modern critical theory). Given that I've posted loads of links,none of which you've engaged with, I think it's clear you simply don't want to actually understand what I'm getting at and would rather constantly throw out falsehoods.

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2 hours ago, ricardo said:

I expect it was your Union work that negated the prediction that we would would all progressively become poorer as the bosses squeezed the life out of us.😉

I don't mean to be facetious KG but you know very well that even in our own industry events did not mimic Marx's predictions. Our parents were better off than our grand parents, we are better off than our parents. We can't deny that we lived through those improvements and if it required any sort of revolution then it was so peaceful that we barely noticed. The truth is that events evolved in a way that Marx did not forsee.

I have never extolled the virtues of revolution. Evolution is the only way.

But as an example I will take you back to my Union days.

In the Commercial printing division in NZ, the employers were refusing to acknowledge what the introduction of technology was meaning. We knew it couldn't be halted, why should we stop it? We just wanted that some of the money saved was awarded to the employees left.

The members involved held a stoppage meeting in Wellington, at the Opera House. Some members came up to us before the meeting and said they didn't want to be there. They said their employer paid them a bit more than the award (the award was the legal amount rate payable, the basic rate).

I had to point out that it was the Union that had negotiated the award. Without that award, they would receiving less than they were.

In everything, if there was not the realisation that there is a limit to what people, people who have been educated, people who work for a living, will accept, then we end up like Stalin's Russia and Mao's China.

Marx envisaged a society without classes. He didn't for one moment extol the trash that Trump and co believe. He realised that a system had been in place for so long but it could be changed. For a wealthy man, how much money is enough? For the powerful, how much power is enough?

He would advocate a system where society would decide what was enough, not just individuals.

So we need to reflect on whether what he advocated could ever succeed rather than dismiss it as loony lefty, commy, pinko. Society may well decide no, but its about time that society at least understood what he was saying rather than just believing the rhetoric and lies.

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I feel a bit sorry for big fish.  He raises some really important questions about what will happen when technology makes vast swathes of the population essentially redundant and whether it is moral that a tiny number of people earn billions upon billions...

But then the conversation is dominated by long posts about whether Le Duan was really a communist or just a right wing anti capitalist who believed in state property and the elimination of bourgeois elements. Or something..

Edited by Barbe bleu
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15 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

I feel a bit sorry for big fish.  He raises some really important questions about what will happen when technology makes vast swathes of the population essentially redundant and whether it is moral that a tiny number of people earn billions upon billions...

But then the conversation is dominated by long posts about whether Le Duan was really a communist or just a right wing anti capitalist who believed in state property and the elimination of bourgeois elements. Or something..

The growth of automation is clearly the next big challenge looming on the horizon. Ideas like UBI are getting trialled and seem the logical step for me but if that's the way things go it's going to be painful and require a huge mindset change for most Western capitalist societies. We're conditioned from early in life to see work as a good in and of itself. To work is to be productive, to not work is either a moral failing or a decadence. But how can we criticise those who don't work if automation swallows up the jobs these people would usually do? 

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22 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

I feel a bit sorry for big fish.  He raises some really important questions about what will happen when technology makes vast swathes of the population essentially redundant and whether it is moral that a tiny number of people earn billions upon billions...

But then the conversation is dominated by long posts about whether Le Duan was really a communist or just a right wing anti capitalist who believed in state property and the elimination of bourgeois elements. Or something..

We can't spend all day on serious stuff, like laughing at the plight of the Binners.

Look upon it as a bit of light relief😉

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On 14/04/2021 at 05:53, Yellow Fever said:

We are off topic but capitalism / communism is all a bit too simple. It's all about different overlapping models most of which don't fit easily into any simplistic 'basket' i.e. the Nordic countries or China. Totalitarianism of both the left or right is the problem of which there are many examples.

China, the elephant in this room,  is supposedly communist but at a local level is pretty much market lead, 99% of the people it seems are outright capitalists and happy with their lot (I will put to one side Tibet and Uighurs for now). It's always seems to me that people really want is to be left alone, make money by hard work, entrepreneurship but at the same time some benign overarching leadership and a known stable set of rules. Pure unfettered capitalism etc. would make each of us pay for our own Covid vaccines if we could afford it !

Anyway - back to 'race'. I got fed up with people arguing definitions so I thought I'd give with care a few examples from my own family of what I would call subtle insidious societal 'racism'. All of the people quoted would of never thought they were racist!

First my apologies to all my African friends as to the language. I use it only to emphasize and elucidate the the problems.

My father, indeed my grandparents (I can hear them now) would often say such as 'The doctor/nurse was a 'darkie' but they are very nice". A variant would be be the doctor is as dark as coal - but ever so helpful. Similar for a new neighbor.

What comes through loud and clear is their surprise that somebody with a very different ethnic background to themselves is indeed such a nice person and so well qualified. But if they hadn't met them in person their assumption seems to be to the negative simply because of their race, name and colour. Racism writ large. A 'white' person would of been accepted with no surprise at all!

This is exactly the problem with many in society - it is their subconscious expectations of others, whereas one on one they quickly make 'new' friends. However, in many situations - the police being the most obvious, but also with employment these subconscious biases (negative expectations) can shine through. The cure is greater exposure to people of all 'races' where one will quickly discover that all can be good and bad as individuals.

Lastly race is far from a white only issue - I have heard and seen the most terrible racism between other tribes too.

Now I must admit  to my own shortcomings about anybody from Swindon.

 

 

Ignoring for a second the use of clumsy wording, which is more of a generational thing, I think that says more about your attitudes than your families. You seem determined to see racism at every opportunity, even when none was intended or implied.

You say that they mention their skin colour and describe them as nice, and that you assume that means they’re surprised by the fact somebody different from themselves can be pleasant and qualified, which to me seems quite a leap. I believe most people who don’t indulge in CRT, which would be a healthy majority, would simply take the statement at face value, that your family have described the new doctor physically and they they find him/her pleasant.

Tell me, if the doctor was white and they had said the following

“The new doctor is a woman, quite nice actually!”

”The new doctor is Scottish, quite nice actually!”

The new doctor is ginger, quite nice actually!”

The new doctor is chubby, quite nice actually!”

Would you, in one of those hypothetical situations, jump to the same conclusions as you have done for the black doctor, that your family were surprised to find that somebody with those characteristics can be pleasant or sufficiently trained and they’ve revealed hidden biases against those people? If you’d take the latter examples at face value, that they’re merely describing the doctor and his/her attitude, yet heavily read between lines in the example you’ve provided, I’d say that’s more down to your obsession with race than theirs, and that you’d treat and talk about some people different than others based on the colour of their skin. To me that’s closer to the definition of racism than anything else, despite how well intentioned I don’t doubt you are 

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14 minutes ago, king canary said:

The growth of automation is clearly the next big challenge looming on the horizon. Ideas like UBI are getting trialled and seem the logical step for me but if that's the way things go it's going to be painful and require a huge mindset change for most Western capitalist societies. We're conditioned from early in life to see work as a good in and of itself. To work is to be productive, to not work is either a moral failing or a decadence. But how can we criticise those who don't work if automation swallows up the jobs these people would usually do? 

I’m sceptical to how much will actually change with automation. Every time a major disruption occurs that’s supposed to put large swathes out of work (industrial revolution, computers, internet) they always seem to spurn entire new industries that replace the jobs that have been lost in other sectors of the economy. I think we’ll see a more leftward attitude in regards to taxation and public services in the near future, due to the current model of crony capitalism moving us back towards the class system with large swathes of working poor requiring benefit top ups just to live, but to suggest this is the start of anything resembling communism I think is quite a leap 

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21 minutes ago, Fen Canary said:

I’m sceptical to how much will actually change with automation. Every time a major disruption occurs that’s supposed to put large swathes out of work (industrial revolution, computers, internet) they always seem to spurn entire new industries that replace the jobs that have been lost in other sectors of the economy. I think we’ll see a more leftward attitude in regards to taxation and public services in the near future, due to the current model of crony capitalism moving us back towards the class system with large swathes of working poor requiring benefit top ups just to live, but to suggest this is the start of anything resembling communism I think is quite a leap 

But Thatcher told us that technology would create wealth which would be redistributed to the millions of us who would have nothing to do.

She was right about the wealth creation but the rest must be in the post.

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1 hour ago, Fen Canary said:

I’m sceptical to how much will actually change with automation. Every time a major disruption occurs that’s supposed to put large swathes out of work (industrial revolution, computers, internet) they always seem to spurn entire new industries that replace the jobs that have been lost in other sectors of the economy. I think we’ll see a more leftward attitude in regards to taxation and public services in the near future, due to the current model of crony capitalism moving us back towards the class system with large swathes of working poor requiring benefit top ups just to live, but to suggest this is the start of anything resembling communism I think is quite a leap 

In the past the pie has always grown and so there has always been am alternate piece for those displaced by automation. 

 Does this mean that the pie will always grow?  Possibly but not definitely,   and how far are we from robots and ai just being better than us at everything and so more than capable of taking the new bits of the pie as well as the old?

All hail the robot overlords

Edited by Barbe bleu

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1 hour ago, keelansgrandad said:

But Thatcher told us that technology would create wealth which would be redistributed to the millions of us who would have nothing to do.

She was right about the wealth creation but the rest must be in the post.

As I say, I believe the inequality will push people and governments leftwards economically, and if Labour wasn’t as useless as they are currently they could stand to do well out of it.

The trickle down effect favoured by Thatcher turned out to be like communism, could work in theory but never in practice. As you say, the money simply looked at the top never making its way down the food chain

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3 hours ago, Fen Canary said:

Ignoring for a second the use of clumsy wording, which is more of a generational thing, I think that says more about your attitudes than your families. You seem determined to see racism at every opportunity, even when none was intended or implied.

You say that they mention their skin colour and describe them as nice, and that you assume that means they’re surprised by the fact somebody different from themselves can be pleasant and qualified, which to me seems quite a leap. I believe most people who don’t indulge in CRT, which would be a healthy majority, would simply take the statement at face value, that your family have described the new doctor physically and they they find him/her pleasant.

Tell me, if the doctor was white and they had said the following

“The new doctor is a woman, quite nice actually!”

”The new doctor is Scottish, quite nice actually!”

The new doctor is ginger, quite nice actually!”

The new doctor is chubby, quite nice actually!”

Would you, in one of those hypothetical situations, jump to the same conclusions as you have done for the black doctor, that your family were surprised to find that somebody with those characteristics can be pleasant or sufficiently trained and they’ve revealed hidden biases against those people? If you’d take the latter examples at face value, that they’re merely describing the doctor and his/her attitude, yet heavily read between lines in the example you’ve provided, I’d say that’s more down to your obsession with race than theirs, and that you’d treat and talk about some people different than others based on the colour of their skin. To me that’s closer to the definition of racism than anything else, despite how well intentioned I don’t doubt you are 

Thankyou for you defensive post. It's dribble. I'm simply holding a mirror up to ourselves and pointing out the issue.

I actually didn't think there was anything particularly contentious in my observations. I gave them simply as examples to cut through the misunderstood pseudo-intellectual claptrap arguments about definitions on here as to the very subtle (as opposed to overt) preconceptions of others based on name, colour, race, religion or sex that most people (including myself) have and the hasty conclusions we jump to in ignorance. None of my family members quoted would be overtly racist or think of themselves as such - but their comments simply expressed their surprise (and hence their inner bias) when their first hand knowledge conflicted with their preconceptions. However, it is these very preconceptions that can hold people back from jobs and opportunities to better themselves - in this case about race.

As noted we all have these biases but some of us at least acknowledge it and try to see past it. Obscure names on CVs etc. And no I'm not hung about race but simply believe in calling a spade a spade.

Arguments as to any of the so called 'Critical Race Theories' are best left in the true academic field where nuance and honest critical discussion can take place as to the human condition as opposed to tabloids, dubious politicians and amateur sociologists.

Edited by Yellow Fever
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56737929

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3 hours ago, horsefly said:

Oh dear! Do you really think that this pathetic response excuses you from claiming that YF's comments about "subtle forms of racism" amounts to calling people "vile Na*zi racists" (your very words). The rest of your post is simply risible given what you previously posted. Hence I can't be bothered attempting to respond to you anymore as you don't even have the guts or minimal integrity to face up to what you wrote and either explain or apologise for your gross misrepresentation. So I will leave it up to others to read those two posts again and consider who here is in the wrong:

Yellow Fever said:

In my earlier post I gave family examples of subtle racism exactly as alluded to above and what we should try to change and rise above. Yet some then defend or excuse this as human nature to deflect from calling it out as what it is - racism. Being wary of others that are unknown to you may well be a human indeed animal trait. Discrimination and making assumptions on the basis of race alone - often blind to the actual person - is something else. 

Mr Carrow said:

In that case my girlfriend and her family are vile n*zi racists. Ok, but I have a cunning plan. When I go back I'll start a political movement telling them such in no uncertain terms. I'll call them deplorables and state that flying their countries flag makes them irredeemable. I'll set up online mobs ever vigilant for the slightest anachronistic joke or ambiguous comment from 20 years ago and campaign to get those people sacked or worse (all from the comfort of my leafy suburbs, obviously...). Then I'll demand that those people vote for me and double down on just how evil they are when they don't want to. 

Alternatively I could encourage following the lead of western liberal democracies to gently educate, help where necessary and include, in order to gradually overcome our natural instincts without resorting to demonisation, hate and blame, which has led to the most inclusive, tolerant and open minded societies on the planet. Hmmm, which to choose...?

Thanks for the defense HF - I actually didn't think these simple observations here where that contentious or threatening to some.

As to Carrow's leap into the abyss - frankly don't know what he's on about but it looks dark down there.

However, amused me slightly as a serious girlfriend I had long ago was German (Black Forest area), her father injured and limped (bullet in leg) from WW2. He'd been 'conscripted' into' Hitler Youth (and no he really didn't have a serious choice!). 

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2 hours ago, Yellow Fever said:

Thankyou for you defensive post. It's dribble. I'm simply holding a mirror up to ourselves and pointing out the issue.

I actually didn't think there was anything particularly contentious in my observations. I gave them simply as examples to cut through the misunderstood pseudo-intellectual claptrap arguments about definitions on here as to the very subtle (as opposed to overt) preconceptions of others based on name, colour, race, religion or sex that most people (including myself) have and the hasty conclusions we jump to in ignorance. None of my family members quoted would be overtly racist or think of themselves as such - but their comments simply expressed their surprise (and hence their inner bias) when their first hand knowledge conflicted with their preconceptions. However, it is these very preconceptions that can hold people back from jobs and opportunities to better themselves - in this case about race.

As noted we all have these biases but some of us at least acknowledge it and try to see past it. Obscure names on CVs etc. And no I'm not hung about race but simply believe in calling a spade a spade.

Arguments as to any of the so called 'Critical Race Theories' are best left in the true academic field where nuance and honest critical discussion can take place as to the human condition as opposed to tabloids, dubious politicians and amateur sociologists.

I disagree I’m afraid, reading your post gives the impression that you read between the lines when others comment on race on the hunt for hidden biases, which may or may not exist.

Comments that when taken at face value are not racist, such as describing a black doctor as nice, are somehow showing inner prejudices that it’s a surprise to find a nice black man. To me that’s quite a leap, which is why I questioned if you’d do the same when other physical characteristics are used to describe people such as in the examples I mentioned, or if it only applies when people’s skin colour is used? Would me describing somebody as “ginger and quite nice actually” mean I have a hidden prejudice against redheads, expecting them all to be horrible people?

Its all well and good saying CRT should be left in academia, which I agree if it had stayed as a theory in universities we wouldn’t be having this discussion. However it has started seeping out into the real world, with companies spending millions on unconscious bias training and other initiatives that have no proven positive effect. These possibly actually make matters worse due to people actively looking for offence in comments like the one you described, whereby no racism is mentioned or intended but they attempt to read between the lines and put their own meaning on a comment that was actually a compliment.

This constant policing of words and taking offence when none was intended simply leads to people self censoring, especially around those of a different race. This segregation of cultures (cultural appropriation is another example) sets race relations backwards in my opinion, whereby I’m expected to see somebody as a black man rather than simply a man, and judge him and act according to his skin colour first and foremost rather than his personality. 

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