3825

Not as problematic as not having a plan though.

3826

You know who else didn’t have a plan? The cylons.

3827

Image result for russians don't take a dump

3828

And you would need to be granted asylum in the first place, which is currently only the case for 37% of applicants. That number was much higher in 2015 at 49% due to the large number of Syrian refugees in that year.

Absolutely. Think of Merkel’s decision what you will, but her opening of the borders took huge pressure of other EU countries, as tons of refugees were already stranded in EU countries not exactly eager to take them in. Her pleas for a EU wide solution to distributing refugees are not about those people Germany let in in 2015/2016, but the constant stream of refugees that has existed well before the Syrian crisis and which countries like Greece and Italy were left to deal with on their own for far too long.

3829

Yeah I understand that much.

I was under the impression that pensions etc, welfarfe, originally came about because Bismarck was trying to get that vote.

He set the age to receive a pension very high, an age that some 1% of the population would reach.

Age 60!

Fast forward some hundred years and 60 is no longer old, or notable really.

So shouldn’t the age of receiving a government pension, or retiring, not be something like 80?

And do we really need to maintain the standards that previous generations received? Which generations, how many?

And can’t we boost the birth rate?

3830

Well, that’s all well and good, but whenever you try to do that you make a lot of old people angry, and old people vote a lot more than young people.

And people in rich countries have fewer and fewer kids, partly because a kid is very expensive.

3831

If it is the result, then what was the cause?

As in the cause behind the cause.

What caused a resurgence in the hard right, in anti immigrant sentiment etc?

I mean, I worked with a chef in 2004-2005 who was very pro British anti immigrant and didn’t like me when we first met. You could see it in his eyes.

Fast forward 4 months later when I was leaving and he was really really friendly to me, bought me a full set of chef’s whites etc.

Turns out he had bought heavily into the “immigrants come, take jobs and/or scrounge benefits” line.

This was very interesting to me because I was/am an immigrant and I’ve never claimed a benefit in welfare (does reduced council tax rates for living alone count?)

That was back in 2005, when the economy was boooooooooming! It was also just before I went to France for my Erasmus, which was the year all the Poles came to England. So his attitude predates the mass immigration and the austerity, but I doubt either of those made him feel any better (the place we were working was closed in 2007)

So I wonder where the idea originally came from?

I understand that, and thanks for informing me, yet that is the narrative that is peddled constantly.

And the voices to counter that are few and far between.

So it is a very easy story to tell to say one or more of the following:

  • we’re suffering
  • how can we help others while we are suffering
  • Germany, and therefore the EU, are bringing in extra people
  • We didn’t ask for this
  • They are all ISIS agents

and for sure that, logically, must have played a big part in the Brexit thinking.

3832

Which is certainly interesting considering Italy’s current stance.

3833

Good lord, that is the capitalist dream: Make sure the masses work until they’re dead.

More than half of the increase in life expectancy was achieved by reducing infant mortality. Yes, people live a bit longer than they used to, but far fewer of them die at birth or in their cribs, and that accounts for the lions share of the statistical change.

And though it is true that people who survive to adulthood also live a big longer now, that improvement isn’t evenly distributed. Rich people live longer than poor ones, and white people live longer than minorities, and raising the age of retirement disproportionately harms poor people and minorities. It also depresses wages. All of that probably explains why the powers that be are so keen to do it,

3834

Well I was thinking more along the lines of having them support themselves (or be supported by the super rich), rather than rely on a dwindling support base…

3835

yeah tax the rich more, all problems solved.

That wasn’t sarcasm either.

3836

By the ethno-nationalists, that’s the problem. There are many studies, publications and institutions thinking about immigration in realistic, not alarming terms (because immigration is mostly positive, spceially in Europe in recent years).

The narrative you speak of is peddled by populists who do not fear allying with ethno-nationalist sentiment. It’s not the only narrative, just the loudest, thanks in part to social media an in part to mass media penchant for the dramatic and not the measured. You said it, it existed before when things were looking much better economic wise. This is not a new development nor is it explained by economic issues (because people could focus their anger at other targets).

But if that’s to change we have first to accept there are other narratives out there that a lot of people are ignoring, probably because we are not shouting loud enough.

3837

Here’s how life expectancy for sixty-five-year-olds has changed over time in the UK. The improvement is much smaller than the change in life expectancy at birth.

image
42EE742C-0B7E-4E42-9A17-68D7DC1D905E.png2048×1536 191 KB

(People are actually living 6-8 years longer than they did a hundred years ago.)

3838

but there are many many more of them reaching that age, if I understand it right…?

3839

Yeah I get that, mate. But maybe if people took a minute to look up the facts (a quick google search will give you the info about Syrian asylum seekers in Germany) instead of just repeating ‘what they’ve heard’ then things might just get a little bit saner. A big ask for people in general, I know, but still.

3840

And I agree.

ANd I am guilty of not doing all the fact checking I should.

But yeah, extrapolate that idea, that people would do their own research instead of accepting what is spoonfed to them, to the population at large, and we seem to have some…practical issues there, don’t we?

3841

Yes, but to reach it, they have to live and work and pay into the system their entire lives. Reducing infant mortality increases the number of retirees but also increases the number of workers.

3842

Follow up to my earlier post RE: Remain march over the weekend:

EDIT: Still a shit load of people though :)

3843

Oh, and even if the deal/no deal Brexit gets done…

and this from the comments is priceless:

Somebody told me it’s going to simpler if Ireland invade the UK.

3844

The default setting of many, probably most humans is to fear the other, it shouldn’t take much work to stoke that kind of feelings. Being exposed to the other and realizing they’re just people, and actually, they’re not so much other as you first thought and you actually belong to some of the same groups, that takes some of that fear away, but scientists have done the tests, and humans by default are usually pretty, let’s say picky, about the people they want to live close to.