Thinking about leaving the UK

[ebastler]

Hungarian doesn't even have genders for people.

It makes up for that by having 18 declination cases for nouns, right? 

[coppice]

In the UK we are, as Thatcher wished, returning to "good old Victorian values".
https://apnews.com/article/4cd3f752b4f747aaa21a14038b29302f
... and that could be construed as being back on the topic

Ricketts in the UK returned with immigration. A jump in ricketts cases in the 80s lead to a public health campaign to get dark skinned people, especially muslims who cover most of their skin, to take vitamin D supplements to overcome the lack of vitamin D they make in their skin in northern climates. Now people are so afraid to point out racial differences that the problem is being ignored. A lot of dark skinned people understand and take vitamin D. Many don't.

[coppice]

You should learn Japanese, where there are (among other things) entirely different verbs, nouns, etc. for expressing degrees of formality.

Japanese is a mess. Ask how to pronounce a Chinese character and you usually get one response. Occasionally there are two or three ways to say a character, because things have drifted over time. Try the same with the equivalent kanji, and most characters have multiple completely different pronunciations. Interestingly one of those pronunciations tends to sound like the Cantonese reading of the character. Cantonese speakers have only that one pronunciation.

[tszaboo]

 

How come all the Mericans are all not upset about that, one single "you" to describe one or multiple people, that are either your friends or a well respected customer of your company. How can you just call both of these "you"?

Well, where I live in the United States there are three forms of you:

you -singular
ya'll - plural
all ya'll - augmented plural

Hungarian doesn't even have genders for people. What it does have is 3-4 versions of "you" to express varying amount of formality.

You should learn Japanese, where there are (among other things) entirely different verbs, nouns, etc. for expressing degrees of formality.

Personally, I prefer a single word for "you" - it helps to avoid a lot of potentially awkward or even insulting situations.  It also doesn't require me to make all kinds of assumptions about someone's age, position, marital status*, etc. 

*Here in the South, even elderly married women are referred to as "Miss"

The sentences change with it as well. For example, You cannot instruct in  one type of formal you, it's an equivalent of "would"/"could". 
Inflection is different. It becomes complicated quite quickly to the point where you can tell how educated someone is by having a 30 second conversation with them. There is a reason, it's a 4.5 difficulty index language.

[Zero999]

Recently?!

The country has been going to the dogs for the last three decades and I'm very, very happy that I no longer live there.

Arguably, since WW2, with a brief respite due to Thatcher. (which of course ended a little over three decades ago)

"Milk snatcher" Thatcher's housing reforms set up the conditions which have lead to the recent riots here.

That isn't even true. Thatcher was against the abolition of free milk in school.

Thatcher the milk snatcher

The nickname was coined by Labour in opposition and the press after the government abolished free school milk for over-sevens in 1970 when Margaret Thatcher was education secretary.

But according to her memoirs and archives, Lady Thatcher herself had argued in cabinet against getting rid of free milk altogether. It was a policy driven by the Treasury, first under Iain Macleod, then Anthony Barber.

So in Barber’s first budget of October 1970, the policy was limited to children above the age of seven, and special schools and children with medical needs were excluded.

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-the-thatcher-myths

Nonetheless - as your reference and others state - she was the education secretary and she did remove free milk from schoolchildren.

Actions speak louder than words.

Blair policy of mass immigration, which the recent Tory government continued, is also responsible for the riots. It turns out that people are tribal and introducing people with vastly different cultural values, at a rate, faster than they can assimilate, creates social tensions.

That's merely another attempt to deflect attention from the points. That constitutes a strawman argument.

Why do you think it's a strawman?

We could talk about Thatcher, but not all of what she did was bad and she isn't the only person, who's responsible for the current state of affairs. It's simply false to blame all of this on one person.

[themadhippy]

but not all of what she did was bad

only decent thing she did was die

[Zero999]

but not all of what she did was bad

only decent thing she did was die

Not true.

I admit I've also been responsible to mentioning politics, but why escalate it?

Do you want this thread to get locked?

I'll step aside.

[tggzzz]

Recently?!

The country has been going to the dogs for the last three decades and I'm very, very happy that I no longer live there.

Arguably, since WW2, with a brief respite due to Thatcher. (which of course ended a little over three decades ago)

"Milk snatcher" Thatcher's housing reforms set up the conditions which have lead to the recent riots here.

That isn't even true. Thatcher was against the abolition of free milk in school.

Thatcher the milk snatcher

The nickname was coined by Labour in opposition and the press after the government abolished free school milk for over-sevens in 1970 when Margaret Thatcher was education secretary.

But according to her memoirs and archives, Lady Thatcher herself had argued in cabinet against getting rid of free milk altogether. It was a policy driven by the Treasury, first under Iain Macleod, then Anthony Barber.

So in Barber’s first budget of October 1970, the policy was limited to children above the age of seven, and special schools and children with medical needs were excluded.

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-the-thatcher-myths

Nonetheless - as your reference and others state - she was the education secretary and she did remove free milk from schoolchildren.

Actions speak louder than words.

Blair policy of mass immigration, which the recent Tory government continued, is also responsible for the riots. It turns out that people are tribal and introducing people with vastly different cultural values, at a rate, faster than they can assimilate, creates social tensions.

That's merely another attempt to deflect attention from the points. That constitutes a strawman argument.

Why do you think it's a strawman?

Sigh. See emphasised quote

We could talk about Thatcher, but not all of what she did was bad and she isn't the only person, who's responsible for the current state of affairs. It's simply false to blame all of this on one person.

Sigh.

Please point to where I said everything she did was bad.
Please point to where I said nobody else did anything bad.

Since you can't, those are more strawman arguments.

[Zero999]

Recently?!

The country has been going to the dogs for the last three decades and I'm very, very happy that I no longer live there.

Arguably, since WW2, with a brief respite due to Thatcher. (which of course ended a little over three decades ago)

"Milk snatcher" Thatcher's housing reforms set up the conditions which have lead to the recent riots here.

That isn't even true. Thatcher was against the abolition of free milk in school.

Thatcher the milk snatcher

The nickname was coined by Labour in opposition and the press after the government abolished free school milk for over-sevens in 1970 when Margaret Thatcher was education secretary.

But according to her memoirs and archives, Lady Thatcher herself had argued in cabinet against getting rid of free milk altogether. It was a policy driven by the Treasury, first under Iain Macleod, then Anthony Barber.

So in Barber’s first budget of October 1970, the policy was limited to children above the age of seven, and special schools and children with medical needs were excluded.

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-the-thatcher-myths

Nonetheless - as your reference and others state - she was the education secretary and she did remove free milk from schoolchildren.

Actions speak louder than words.

Blair policy of mass immigration, which the recent Tory government continued, is also responsible for the riots. It turns out that people are tribal and introducing people with vastly different cultural values, at a rate, faster than they can assimilate, creates social tensions.

That's merely another attempt to deflect attention from the points. That constitutes a strawman argument.

Why do you think it's a strawman?

Sigh. See emphasised quote

We could talk about Thatcher, but not all of what she did was bad and she isn't the only person, who's responsible for the current state of affairs. It's simply false to blame all of this on one person.

Sigh.

Please point to where I said everything she did was bad.
Please point to where I said nobody else did anything bad.

Since you can't, those are more strawman arguments.

I didn't say that you said she everything she did was bad, nor that no one else did anything bad. I admit, I wasn't direct enough. What I should have said was, you're mistaken that her housing reforms were the primary cause of the current housing shortage. They might not have helped, but the main cause of the current housing shortage is huge increase in demand, thanks to the population rise due to mass migration, which was ramped up during the Blair era. The current civil unrest is also triggered by people fearing for their children's safety, rather than housing.

[tggzzz]

Recently?!

The country has been going to the dogs for the last three decades and I'm very, very happy that I no longer live there.

Arguably, since WW2, with a brief respite due to Thatcher. (which of course ended a little over three decades ago)

"Milk snatcher" Thatcher's housing reforms set up the conditions which have lead to the recent riots here.

That isn't even true. Thatcher was against the abolition of free milk in school.

Thatcher the milk snatcher

The nickname was coined by Labour in opposition and the press after the government abolished free school milk for over-sevens in 1970 when Margaret Thatcher was education secretary.

But according to her memoirs and archives, Lady Thatcher herself had argued in cabinet against getting rid of free milk altogether. It was a policy driven by the Treasury, first under Iain Macleod, then Anthony Barber.

So in Barber’s first budget of October 1970, the policy was limited to children above the age of seven, and special schools and children with medical needs were excluded.

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-the-thatcher-myths

Nonetheless - as your reference and others state - she was the education secretary and she did remove free milk from schoolchildren.

Actions speak louder than words.

Blair policy of mass immigration, which the recent Tory government continued, is also responsible for the riots. It turns out that people are tribal and introducing people with vastly different cultural values, at a rate, faster than they can assimilate, creates social tensions.

That's merely another attempt to deflect attention from the points. That constitutes a strawman argument.

Why do you think it's a strawman?

Sigh. See emphasised quote

We could talk about Thatcher, but not all of what she did was bad and she isn't the only person, who's responsible for the current state of affairs. It's simply false to blame all of this on one person.

Sigh.

Please point to where I said everything she did was bad.
Please point to where I said nobody else did anything bad.

Since you can't, those are more strawman arguments.

I didn't say that you said she everything she did was bad, nor that no one else did anything bad. I admit, I wasn't direct enough. What I should have said was, you're mistaken that her housing reforms were the primary cause of the current housing shortage. They might not have helped, but the main cause of the current housing shortage is huge increase in demand, thanks to the population rise due to mass migration, which was ramped up during the Blair era. The current civil unrest is also triggered by people fearing for their children's safety, rather than housing.

Not according to the UK courts.

There are many causes for the current dysfunctional housing market. I have yet to see a numerical estimate of the numbers attributable to each cause. For example, my daughter was a severley affected by one cause, as were half a dozen of her friends. (No, not migration related).

To concentrate all attention on any single cause is stupid, even though it is politically expedient.

[IanB]

I didn't say that you said she everything she did was bad, nor that no one else did anything bad. I admit, I wasn't direct enough. What I should have said was, you're mistaken that her housing reforms were the primary cause of the current housing shortage. They might not have helped, but the main cause of the current housing shortage is huge increase in demand, thanks to the population rise due to mass migration, which was ramped up during the Blair era. The current civil unrest is also triggered by people fearing for their children's safety, rather than housing.

You have a situation that the UK birthrate has been declining for decades, but economic growth is not possible without an increasing workforce, so migration is necessary to make up for the lack of organic population growth. If the population remained flat, the demographics would change to more old people and fewer young people, there would be a labour shortage, a lack of tax revenue, collapse of services like the NHS, and an overall decline in the quality of life.

So there is no rosy garden on the other side of the fence. There are social issues to be dealt with under any possible scenario.

That said, I will agree that prevailing policies and ideologies by governments of any flavour do not appear to improve the situation.

This situation is going to be repeated in any western country, not just the UK. It doesn't get better if you move anywhere else.

[tggzzz]

I didn't say that you said she everything she did was bad, nor that no one else did anything bad. I admit, I wasn't direct enough. What I should have said was, you're mistaken that her housing reforms were the primary cause of the current housing shortage. They might not have helped, but the main cause of the current housing shortage is huge increase in demand, thanks to the population rise due to mass migration, which was ramped up during the Blair era. The current civil unrest is also triggered by people fearing for their children's safety, rather than housing.

You have a situation that the UK birthrate has been declining for decades, but economic growth is not possible without an increasing workforce, so migration is necessary to make up for the lack of organic population growth. If the population remained flat, the demographics would change to more old people and fewer young people, there would be a labour shortage, a lack of tax revenue, collapse of services like the NHS, and an overall decline in the quality of life.

So there is no rosy garden on the other side of the fence. There are social issues to be dealt with under any possible scenario.

That said, I will agree that prevailing policies and ideologies by governments of any flavour do not appear to improve the situation.

This situation is going to be repeated in any western country, not just the UK. It doesn't get better if you move anywhere else.

That's pretty much the case: most developed countries have similar problems, albeit in differing proportions.

There's no requirement that economic growth depends on population growth. Once upon a time economic output depended on muscle power, but not during our lifetimes and longer.

[SiliconWizard]

Funnily enough, infinite economic growth is just not possible physically and we're barely starting to understand it, although many are still in denial. That doesn't make any sense.

Playing with demographics like this doesn't work. Even just population stability is a very subtle equilibrium that is easy to break once we start messing with it.

That's precisely, and for a large part fast economic growth that we have experienced for the past 2 centuries, in particular in the West, that has led to birthrate decline. All "rich" countries have experienced it. Basically "importing" people from "poor" countries *to make up for it* is fundamentally absurd, and socially very problematic.

[coppice]

You have a situation that the UK birthrate has been declining for decades, but economic growth is not possible without an increasing workforce, so migration is necessary to make up for the lack of organic population growth.

This is nonsense. By this measure I can double the population, have most of them be 75% as productive as people today, and I have achieved economic growth. This is an idiotic measure. True growth is a growth in per person productivity. Britain is failing badly at this. I see so much work that we were pioneers in automating, being turned back to manual work because people are cheaper than the investment needed for machines.

[IanB]

Funnily enough, infinite economic growth is just not possible physically and we're barely starting to understand it, although many are still in denial. That doesn't make any sense.

Not even infinite. Just having 15% growth year on year for 50 years would be consuming 1000x more resources in year 50 compared to year 1. It wouldn't take long to completely drain the Earth of energy and raw materials. (Which is partly why climate change is such an issue. The future outlook is much worse than past history.)

Fortunately, sustainability has become a major business priority for industry, and so the future might not be quite so bleak.

Playing with demographics like this doesn't work. Even just population stability is a very subtle equilibrium that is easy to break once we start messing with it.

That's precisely, and for a large part fast economic growth that we have experienced for the past 2 centuries, in particular in the West, that has led to birthrate decline. All "rich" countries have experienced it. Basically "importing" people from "poor" countries *to make up for it* is fundamentally absurd, and socially very problematic.

It might well be argued that corporate greed and wage stagnation has made jobs unappealing to the local workforce, and a migrant workforce has been taking up the slack. On the other hand, what has the local workforce been doing instead of taking up those jobs? Presumably they are working somewhere? And if you took them away from those other jobs, what gap would it leave?

Speaking practically, anyone who has had dealings with the National Health Service in the UK recently will realize that if you took away all the migrant workers it couldn't function at any reasonable level.

[IanB]

You have a situation that the UK birthrate has been declining for decades, but economic growth is not possible without an increasing workforce, so migration is necessary to make up for the lack of organic population growth.

This is nonsense. By this measure I can double the population, have most of them be 75% as productive as people today, and I have achieved economic growth. This is an idiotic measure. True growth is a growth in per person productivity. Britain is failing badly at this. I see so much work that we were pioneers in automating, being turned back to manual work because people are cheaper than the investment needed for machines.

Not nonsense at all, and your argument is a logical fallacy. "A implies B" does not mean "B implies A".

In the domain of intellectual work, where employees use their minds and not their hands, companies have growth targets. To achieve those targets they have to hire people, to add more minds to the workforce. Nobody yet has come close to automating human intellectual curiosity, creativity and inventiveness.

[tggzzz]

Funnily enough, infinite economic growth is just not possible physically and we're barely starting to understand it, although many are still in denial. That doesn't make any sense.

Agreed.

Economists are in denial, certainly. They are outside their comfort zone, because their standard theories don't work without growth.
Physicists, OTOH, understand quickly.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/ is a good exposition. I used to like that blog, but he's become too "single-minded" for me recently.

"Free green" energy, e.g. fusion, is problematic for that reason. Any such energy has to go somewhere, and the earth is a (large) black body radiator.

[coppice]

You have a situation that the UK birthrate has been declining for decades, but economic growth is not possible without an increasing workforce, so migration is necessary to make up for the lack of organic population growth.

This is nonsense. By this measure I can double the population, have most of them be 75% as productive as people today, and I have achieved economic growth. This is an idiotic measure. True growth is a growth in per person productivity. Britain is failing badly at this. I see so much work that we were pioneers in automating, being turned back to manual work because people are cheaper than the investment needed for machines.

Not nonsense at all, and your argument is a logical fallacy. "A implies B" does not mean "B implies A".

No, you are the one using a logical fallacy. More people does not mean growth. It just means more GDP. More productive people means growth, and the UK if failing badly there.

In the domain of intellectual work, where employees use their minds and not their hands, companies have growth targets. To achieve those targets they have to hire people, to add more minds to the workforce. Nobody yet has come close to automating human intellectual curiosity, creativity and inventiveness.

intellectual work, done efficiently (rather than running around in circles, which is all too common), expands productivity per person and leads to true growth. Why to you conflate this with quantity? The UK has a falling output per person. Its heading for the third world.

[tggzzz]

In the domain of intellectual work, where employees use their minds and not their hands, companies have growth targets. To achieve those targets they have to hire people, to add more minds to the workforce. Nobody yet has come close to automating human intellectual curiosity, creativity and inventiveness.

Many successful companies repeatedly "right-size" (ugh!) their employees, and continue to grow economically.

Automation continues to redefine what is "intellectual work".

At the second company I worked in (a well-respected very high-tech consultancy), the project bookkeeping was done by a team of four people. They didn't bat an eyelid when someone booked 25hours to a project for one days work: "I arrived Saturday 9am and left Sunday 10am; that's 25 hours". After a couple of years a computer arrived, but nobody lost their job.

[IanB]

No, you are the one using a logical fallacy. More people does not mean growth.

I have never said that more people means growth. I have not edited any of my posts above. Please find and quote where I said what you think I said, and then let other people tell you that you are mistaken.

[tggzzz]

You have a situation that the UK birthrate has been declining for decades, but economic growth is not possible without an increasing workforce, so migration is necessary to make up for the lack of organic population growth.

This is nonsense. By this measure I can double the population, have most of them be 75% as productive as people today, and I have achieved economic growth. This is an idiotic measure. True growth is a growth in per person productivity. Britain is failing badly at this. I see so much work that we were pioneers in automating, being turned back to manual work because people are cheaper than the investment needed for machines.

Not nonsense at all, and your argument is a logical fallacy. "A implies B" does not mean "B implies A".

No, you are the one using a logical fallacy. More people does not mean growth. It just means more GDP. More productive people means growth, and the UK if failing badly there.

In the domain of intellectual work, where employees use their minds and not their hands, companies have growth targets. To achieve those targets they have to hire people, to add more minds to the workforce. Nobody yet has come close to automating human intellectual curiosity, creativity and inventiveness.

intellectual work, done efficiently (rather than running around in circles, which is all too common), expands productivity per person and leads to true growth. Why to you conflate this with quantity? The UK has a falling output per person. Its heading for the third world.

There is more than one definition of growth; no single measure is adequate. Concentrating on any single measure is not only unwise but also misleading.

Statistics should not be use in the same way as a drunkard uses a lamppost (for support); instead statistics should be used to cast light on a subject.

Statistically, landing in an airliner is becoming more dangerous.
Statistically, landing in an airliner is becoming less dangerous.
Both statements are simultaneously true.

[IanB]

Many successful companies repeatedly "right-size" (ugh!) their employees, and continue to grow economically.

Yes, this is a sad thing, but such "growth" is an illusion. The only time where it seems to work, for a time, is when a company is sweating its assets, and does not need to add new innovations. But it is not sustainable, and eventually the strategy will fail.

[coppice]

Many successful companies repeatedly "right-size" (ugh!) their employees, and continue to grow economically.

Yes, this is a sad thing, but such "growth" is an illusion. The only time where it seems to work, for a time, is when a company is sweating its assets, and does not need to add new innovations. But it is not sustainable, and eventually the strategy will fail.

Its much worse than that. For decades people studying downsizing have concluded that in most case many of the people with get up and go actually go in the run up to the downsizing, when they see the writing on the wall. The talented who stay, and have been effective, will have created enemies. Those enemies now put a knife in the backs of the talented, and the whole enterprise is drained of talent.

[coppice]

No, you are the one using a logical fallacy. More people does not mean growth.

I have never said that more people means growth. I have not edited any of my posts above. Please find and quote where I said what you think I said, and then let other people tell you that you are mistaken.

Then how am I expected to read:

You have a situation that the UK birthrate has been declining for decades, but economic growth is not possible without an increasing workforce, so migration is necessary to make up for the lack of organic population growth.

You don't say it will lead to growth, but you appear to identify it as a pre-requisite.

[IanB]

You don't say it will lead to growth, but you appear to identify it as a pre-requisite.

Exactly.

"If I want to increase muscle mass, I will need to eat more protein"  => True statement

"If I eat more protein, I will increase muscle mass" => False statement