> On 13-8-2011 7:59, Warp wrote:
>
>> Nowadays the trend has reversed itself, sometimes even to the point of
>> detriment. In many European countries the local culture is despised and
>> even considered "primitive and backwards", while cultures of distant
>> lands
>> are utopized (to the point of actually ignoring and refusing to
>> acknowledge
>> any negative sides of those cultures). The preservation of distant
>> cultures,
>> even when those people immigrate to Europe, is so idolized that it
>> actually
>> causes more problems than it's worth.
>
> Are you talking about the same Europe that I am living in?
>
> I am aware that some populist movements try to get this distorted view
> across. But things don't get true simply by repeating the same nonsense
> over and over again.
>
>

Not todays Europe, but Europe during the colonial era. You know, the 
Spaniards, New France, the Victorian British Empire,...

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andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Are you talking about the same Europe that I am living in?

  Maybe it's exclusive to Finland.

  The general attitude of left-wing newspaper columnists and commentators
(which forms the majority of the Finnish press) is that the average Finnish
man is extremely sexist, chauvinistic, nationalist, xenofobe, racist and
very propense to resorting to violence. "Wife-hitting" is considered an
unofficial national sport. (If you were to believe what these people write,
you would think that domestic violence would be a very widespread and common
problem in Finnish society. Actual statistics be damned.) Another very clear
aspect of this attitude is that the Finnish culture is very backwards, closed
and nationalistic.

  And you don't just have to take my word for it. You simply have to read
some Finnish newspapers.

  AFAIK Sweden has a similar phenomenon going on (possibly even worse).

> But things don't get true simply by repeating the same nonsense 
> over and over again.

  I wish those leftist columnists would understand that. The thing is,
repeating the same multiculturalist propaganda over and over *does* have
an effect on the population, which is why they do it.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 14-8-2011 20:39, Warp wrote:
> andrel<byt### [at] gmailcom>  wrote:
>> Are you talking about the same Europe that I am living in?
>
>    Maybe it's exclusive to Finland.

That would be strange.

>    The general attitude of left-wing newspaper columnists and commentators
> (which forms the majority of the Finnish press) is that the average Finnish
> man is extremely sexist, chauvinistic, nationalist, xenofobe, racist and
> very propense to resorting to violence. "Wife-hitting" is considered an
> unofficial national sport. (If you were to believe what these people write,
> you would think that domestic violence would be a very widespread and common
> problem in Finnish society. Actual statistics be damned.) Another very clear
> aspect of this attitude is that the Finnish culture is very backwards, closed
> and nationalistic.

The interesting thing is that this is sort of what, at least in the 
netherlands, populist (or conservative/right wing, whichever name you 
prefer, although all are wrong) say the left wing people are saying. 
Funny thing is that by and large this is not true. Sure, you can always 
find some columnist that says something in an exaggerated way and claim 
that is what everybody says, but actually there is no evidence of it to 
be true in general.

An example is that after the killings in Norway our main populist 
(wilders) started complaining that all these left wing people were 
attacking him because the guy referred a few times in his papers to him. 
His line of though was that because Breivik admired him, he now had to 
defend his rhetoric where he was asking for getting rid of the muslims 
and the multicultural maffia in the netherlands. Of course he said that 
in such a way that he never implied to take that so literal. Long story 
short, 'the left wing was taking advantage of the deaths in norway to 
attack him'. Back to my point: almost all reactions by the actual left 
were very moderate and the more direct demands for a reaction by wilders 
came from the right.

The short short version: never believe anyone who claims that some other 
group is manipulating the media. (or believe all sides do).

This is probably not the right place, but there is something related to 
Breivik that might be worth mentioning. I think I pointed to this TED 
talk before:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html
If you think about Breivik: he was part of a group of like minded people 
that constantly feeds one another's rage with stories how 
multiculturalism leeds to outrageous things. With facebook and google 
filtering your results on what they know 'interests' you, the likelihood 
of getting a different opinion diminishes. It will become more and more 
easy to believe that you are right and that another group, including the 
media, do not understand the real problem and are actively trying to 
suppress your point of view. Because: when *you* ask for information the 
result will always support your POV. From that to the idea that if the 
media are not listening to you, you (especially you, because nobody else 
seems to take action) need to do something drastic is a small step.
Disclaimer: I am not saying it worked this way for Breivik or for any 
muslim terrorist in particular. Yet, I have this feeling that these 
inbred subcultures that send one another real and faked youtube videos 
and reports of atrocities by a perceived enemy just to enrage the 
recipient, will produce more and more of these man made disasters.
(Ok, perhaps not very well worded, but I hope you get my point).

>    And you don't just have to take my word for it. You simply have to read
> some Finnish newspapers.

Unfortunately my Finnish is not what it used to be. ;)

>    AFAIK Sweden has a similar phenomenon going on (possibly even worse).
>
>> But things don't get true simply by repeating the same nonsense
>> over and over again.
>
>    I wish those leftist columnists would understand that. The thing is,
> repeating the same multiculturalist propaganda over and over *does* have
> an effect on the population, which is why they do it.

Here leftist columnists tend not to be so leftist when you actually read 
them, there is quite a range of opinions. Also: all sorts of ways to 
deal with immigrants have been discussed over the years, with some 
people advocating one way to solve associated problems and others other 
ways. In practice there are still problems and a certain group now 
claims to have the real solution and groups everything in the past 
(including all diametrically opposite ideas) as 'multiculturalism'. Come 
back in a few years and you will find that the problem is still not 
solved (basically because it is unsolvable), that there is still a group 
that claims it has the only solution (either the same as today or 
perhaps a fresh group), and that people simply seem to refuse to listen 
to them.

Short short version: you can not blame someone for not solving an 
unsolvable problem.

-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

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> "Wife-hitting" is considered an
> unofficial national sport. (If you were to believe what these people write,
> you would think that domestic violence would be a very widespread and common
> problem in Finnish society. Actual statistics be damned.)

Actually, if it is indeed considered normal to physically hit your wife, 
then it's very likely that it will go unreported and that statistics 
will underestimate the actual numbers.

For example, my Canadian province has a per capita rate of violence 
against women that's 10 times higher than the southern states of the 
USA.  Does this mean that Canadians beat women 10 x more? or that 
Canadian women are more likely to call the police when their husband 
gets violent?

On top of it, the actual statistic is different.  The very definition of 
what constitutes violence will be different because "come on... you 
can't put that in there! everyone does it!"
-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
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/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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Francois Labreque <fla### [at] videotronca> wrote:

> > "Wife-hitting" is considered an
> > unofficial national sport. (If you were to believe what these people write,
> > you would think that domestic violence would be a very widespread and common
> > problem in Finnish society. Actual statistics be damned.)

> Actually, if it is indeed considered normal to physically hit your wife, 
> then it's very likely that it will go unreported and that statistics 
> will underestimate the actual numbers.

  Wife beating is certainly not considered normal here. I don't know how
easily Finnish women report acts of domestic violence as I don't have
first-hand knowledge or experience, but AFAIK the threshold is relatively
low, mainly thanks to a relatively widespread feminism (the positive kind,
ie. the kind that teaches that a woman does not have to tolerate an abusive
husband/boyfriend).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> The interesting thing is that this is sort of what, at least in the 
> netherlands, populist (or conservative/right wing, whichever name you 
> prefer, although all are wrong) say the left wing people are saying. 
> Funny thing is that by and large this is not true. Sure, you can always 
> find some columnist that says something in an exaggerated way and claim 
> that is what everybody says, but actually there is no evidence of it to 
> be true in general.

  It's certainly possible that when one follows the heated debate between
devoted left-wing multiculturalists and right-wing opponents one easily
gets the idea that the multiculturalists do nothing more than preach all
day about the subject, always spouting the most ridiculous things, while
in reality it might be significantly less prominent.

  However, sometimes the multiculturalists go to egregious extremes to
paint the local culture as racist and propense to hate crimes.

  For example some years ago a Finnish newspaper published an article
about how a "wave of racism" was sweeping over Tampere (a city here).
The relatively lengthy article cited exactly one alleged hate crime in
the city as an example of this. It alleged that recently (at the time of
the publication of the article) a Finnish man had stabbed an immigrant
with a knife in the city in question.

  The Finnish police had to publish an official rebuttal to the story,
as they had not heard of such a happenstance.

  The story was fabricated. A complete asspull. (I don't know if this
journalist was reprimended for fabricating a story, but at least I never
heard that this was the case. I wouldn't be surprised if it was just
ignored.)

  Or take another example: Last year there was a case of arson against
a restaurant owned by an immigrant. Three people who lived in the same
building (I think they were all Finnish) died because of the fire.

  When the news about this got out, a member of the Finnish parliament
rushed to make a strongly worded public statement strongly condemning
such a hate crime, and strongly demanded zero tolerance against racism
and for harsh measures to be taken to immediately stop such acts of
racist violence.

  She was later asked where did she get the information that it was, in
fact, a hate crime (because the police had yet not made any statement about
this). She didn't. She just assumed it was. Yet again a complete asspull.

  She wasn't the only one. The Finnish press went wild with the story,
writing in length about the widespread of racism and hate crime and whatnot.

  Later it turned out that the crime was committed by the two sons of the
owner of the restaurant, seemingly in an attempt of insurance fraud.

  (Curiously, although not surprisingly, the tone of subsequent newspaper
articles changed considerably, and basically a small-scale whitewashing
campaign was performed. Articles were published about how hard the life
of immigrant restaurant owners is, working long hours in harsh conditions
yet barely earning a living, and so on. It seems that everybody forgot about
the three Finnish victims as they were seldom mentioned after the culprits
were found.)

> An example is that after the killings in Norway our main populist 
> (wilders) started complaining that all these left wing people were 
> attacking him because the guy referred a few times in his papers to him. 

  I have to admit that the Finnish press acted surprisingly neutrally in
this case and didn't take it as an opportunity to launch a full force
attack against the "populists". (Or at least I haven't seen any such
thing.)

> Short short version: you can not blame someone for not solving an 
> unsolvable problem.

  Perhaps the problem is unsolvable, but I'm sure that it can be alleviated
somewhat. However, the way to alleviate is not to ignore the existence of
the problem.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 15-8-2011 17:53, Warp wrote:
> andrel<byt### [at] gmailcom>  wrote:
>> The interesting thing is that this is sort of what, at least in the
>> netherlands, populist (or conservative/right wing, whichever name you
>> prefer, although all are wrong) say the left wing people are saying.
>> Funny thing is that by and large this is not true. Sure, you can always
>> find some columnist that says something in an exaggerated way and claim
>> that is what everybody says, but actually there is no evidence of it to
>> be true in general.
>
>    It's certainly possible that when one follows the heated debate between
> devoted left-wing multiculturalists and right-wing opponents one easily
> gets the idea that the multiculturalists do nothing more than preach all
> day about the subject, always spouting the most ridiculous things, while
> in reality it might be significantly less prominent.
>
>    However, sometimes the multiculturalists go to egregious extremes to
> paint the local culture as racist and propense to hate crimes.
>

[snipped examples]

I don't doubt these examples exist, and indeed I know a couple myself. 
Yet there are also examples of fabricated stories and rushing to 
conclusions by right wing politicians and columnists. I don't deny your 
right to be angry about things, just pointing out that you have to be 
very careful to avoid selective anger. You are more likely to 
disseminate a story where left wing people (say) make mistakes to your 
friends then mistakes by the other side. They will be similarly biased 
in what the send you and when the group is large enough, for all of you 
the counter examples will be drowned out completely by those that are in 
favour of what you already think. It is a general group bonding thing 
that has always worked this way. The new element might be that google 
and facebook are actively promoting such bonding. That is not what it is 
meant to do, but it may be the effect.

>> An example is that after the killings in Norway our main populist
>> (wilders) started complaining that all these left wing people were
>> attacking him because the guy referred a few times in his papers to him.
>
>    I have to admit that the Finnish press acted surprisingly neutrally in
> this case and didn't take it as an opportunity to launch a full force
> attack against the "populists". (Or at least I haven't seen any such
> thing.)

I don't think it is surprising. ;)

>> Short short version: you can not blame someone for not solving an
>> unsolvable problem.
>
>    Perhaps the problem is unsolvable, but I'm sure that it can be alleviated
> somewhat. However, the way to alleviate is not to ignore the existence of
> the problem.

That sort of presumes that in the past the problems were ignored. They 
weren't, people were just trying to solve them in another way than by 
publicity.

The reason why I think the problem is unsolvable is that the problems 
and the groups involved are so diverse that what works for one group 
will worsen behaviour in another group. What helps one group to 
assimilate into the society will alienate another.
We have had a couple of centuries of culture clashes now and we are in 
for a few more. You simply have to accept that, while still trying to do 
the best you can to dampen the excesses.

-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

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On 8/15/2011 10:29 AM, andrel wrote:
> I don't doubt these examples exist, and indeed I know a couple myself.
> Yet there are also examples of fabricated stories and rushing to
> conclusions by right wing politicians and columnists. I don't deny your
> right to be angry about things, just pointing out that you have to be
> very careful to avoid selective anger. You are more likely to
> disseminate a story where left wing people (say) make mistakes to your
> friends then mistakes by the other side. They will be similarly biased
> in what the send you and when the group is large enough, for all of you
> the counter examples will be drowned out completely by those that are in
> favour of what you already think. It is a general group bonding thing
> that has always worked this way. The new element might be that google
> and facebook are actively promoting such bonding. That is not what it is
> meant to do, but it may be the effect.
>
This is hardly a surprise, and only feeds into the existing, "I 
bookmarked all my favorite crazies, so I don't accidentally read 
something from someone else's site.", phenomena. Not that long back 
there was this crazy law in place called the "fairness doctrine". It 
meant that you had to at least make a vague, if possibly fake, attempt 
at representing both sides in the press. If it hadn't been overturned, 
primarily by radio hosts, who in the US are like 99% conservatives (at 
least on AM) now, it might have instead been extended to internet sites 
that deal with political positions. Instead it was done away with, then 
when brought up again later, not reinstated. Just one more chink in the 
armor of unity, in favor of false "freedom of speech", right up there 
with the success of putting enough conservative, pro-business, people in 
SCOTUS for them to come up with the insane idea that money = speech, 
companies = people, therefor unlimited spending of money by companies = 
free speech.

Then again, this is hardly surprising, given the moron I am discussing 
things with on a long thread recently about what needs to be done to fix 
some of the shit in the economy, who recently came up with two **huge** 
laughs -

a) Ones own "internal truth" trumps reality, other opinions, or the vast 
number of contradictions in the guys own religion, which he uses to 
defend some of his ideas. Yep, self centered, circular, references to 
your own inability to understand a problems is "so" much better than 
paying attention to what qualified people are trying to tell you...

b) Everything that isn't Biblical is "experimental", and all that 
experimental stuff, where you try to actually understand how the real 
world works, and real people think, is all useless and is going to 
destroy the world. Because, like.. claiming you have the one and only 
true religion, and arrogantly thinking that, if that where even true at 
all, your own personal choice on which one of the flavors of it is truer 
(never mind which way that group rewrites/reinterprets the contents of 
the Bible) is the "solution" to every problem.

Needless to say, the rest of his politics are much of the same. He 
"feels" that certain things will solve the problem, so those must be the 
right solution. The fact that all he seems to be doing is ignoring 
everyone else's opinions, to spout the talking points of various 
politicians, and thus can't even claim that his "internal truths" are 
his own, doesn't seem to get through his skull.

But, I am sure he has some place on Sunday to get the same BS, and web 
sites he goes to (he is a Wallbuilders fan, it seems), and politically 
bent TV shows, which only present one side of things, and, it wouldn't 
surprise me to find he had his own favorite right wing (there being 
almost no radio presence from the left, even in "liberal" states and 
cities, according to a study from a while back), to tell him he is right 
about all of it.

And this is someone who is just unwilling to listen to other opinions 
(even if he pretends to, by showing up places where his are not shared, 
to tell everyone they are wrong), not someone filled with hate, anger, 
and a sense of unrequited justice over total bullshit, like the sort of 
people you are talking about.

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On 16-8-2011 0:04, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 8/15/2011 10:29 AM, andrel wrote:
>> I don't doubt these examples exist, and indeed I know a couple myself.
>> Yet there are also examples of fabricated stories and rushing to
>> conclusions by right wing politicians and columnists. I don't deny your
>> right to be angry about things, just pointing out that you have to be
>> very careful to avoid selective anger. You are more likely to
>> disseminate a story where left wing people (say) make mistakes to your
>> friends then mistakes by the other side. They will be similarly biased
>> in what the send you and when the group is large enough, for all of you
>> the counter examples will be drowned out completely by those that are in
>> favour of what you already think. It is a general group bonding thing
>> that has always worked this way. The new element might be that google
>> and facebook are actively promoting such bonding. That is not what it is
>> meant to do, but it may be the effect.

I do appreciate your contribution, but the situation in Europe and the 
US are rather different. In a weirdness competition the US will probably 
win hands down. OTOH we have discussed that extensively in the past. I 
think that every now and then there should also be a place to discuss 
the myriad subtleties of European politics and practices without having 
to take sides in intra-US discussions. Just a though.

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On 8/16/2011 10:16 AM, andrel wrote:
> On 16-8-2011 0:04, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> On 8/15/2011 10:29 AM, andrel wrote:
>>> I don't doubt these examples exist, and indeed I know a couple myself.
>>> Yet there are also examples of fabricated stories and rushing to
>>> conclusions by right wing politicians and columnists. I don't deny your
>>> right to be angry about things, just pointing out that you have to be
>>> very careful to avoid selective anger. You are more likely to
>>> disseminate a story where left wing people (say) make mistakes to your
>>> friends then mistakes by the other side. They will be similarly biased
>>> in what the send you and when the group is large enough, for all of you
>>> the counter examples will be drowned out completely by those that are in
>>> favour of what you already think. It is a general group bonding thing
>>> that has always worked this way. The new element might be that google
>>> and facebook are actively promoting such bonding. That is not what it is
>>> meant to do, but it may be the effect.
>
> I do appreciate your contribution, but the situation in Europe and the
> US are rather different. In a weirdness competition the US will probably
> win hands down. OTOH we have discussed that extensively in the past. I
> think that every now and then there should also be a place to discuss
> the myriad subtleties of European politics and practices without having
> to take sides in intra-US discussions. Just a though.

Sorry, didn't notice this being a Euro-centric discussion. But the same 
rules apply. We tend to either see things as everyone being inclusive, 
and misjudging how much they disagree with us, which is a better path, 
even if it ends up causing surprises, or we assume that our "in group" 
has all the right answers, and everyone else is wrong, and get *really* 
shocked, to the point of anger and hate, when they don't conform. Which 
is not terribly healthy. Yeah, there is a lot of weirdness in the US, 
but its panic weirdness. The crazies are finally realizing that they 
either need to be running the asylum, or be rendered into the same sort 
of kooks you have, instead of being elevated, by people looking for 
money and ratings, more often than not, into celebrity status. Its the 
reason why a few years back a study showed that 99% of AM radio had been 
taken over purely by right wing radio. Their ranting brought in money 
that AM was losing to every other form of media, and the centrists/left 
where not crazy enough.

Unfortunately, we have started importing some of this crazy into Europe 
too, and they function the same way, "If we don't start running the 
clinic, they will keep treating us like mental patients!" No shit. Maybe 
that should tell you something... lol

So, yeah, I may be referencing just the nuts here, as examples, but its 
hardly a non-universal phenomena. The same circular feed back exists in 
both cases, and the more circular it gets... :( I mean, you seriously 
think these kooks are not listening to some of the stuff over here and 
agreeing with them too?

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