Comment Re: Eh, well, why not? (Score 1) 192
That's sex, not gender. And sex is not so simple either.
That's sex, not gender. And sex is not so simple either.
You studied language in biology? Perhaps the biology of ships and what makes them "she"
And yet now and again, stars do come close enough to be measured in AU's instead of light years. Couldn't find the last article I read, though this talks about it and kinda disproves one pass, https://www.sciencealert.com/d... and here's a more general article, https://www.astronomy.com/scie...
With stars, a close miss can still be bad and quite possibly when the solar system was young and still in its star forming nebula, close passes were common.
Monarchy vs Republic just describes the head of government, not the system. Shit, here we could get rid of the King, replace the Governor General with a President with exactly the same powers and bang, we've changed from monarchy to republic with almost no change in how government works, namely Parliament actually governs and consists of representatives of the people who voted them in.
Kim Jong Un is a weird case, officially a President of a republic but the Presidency is turning into a Monarchy. The worst type of Monarchy where the monarch exercises all power rather then being a figurehead.
It's what I was taught in school. Either Monarchy or Republic can be
e.g., dictatorship, tribalism, democracy, oligarchy, theocracy.
Some can check multiple of the above like Saudi Arabia. There are grey areas like N. Korea where the presidency functions more like a monarchy.
Monarchy or Republic just describes the head of government, not the type.
Not in Canada, where it is part of sentencing. Often see stories where someone is put on the list for X years. In this case, if he got put on the list, he'll be taken off.
Sadly, hope is the right word.
anyway, i don't find that binary distinction really useful, it is very simplistic and lends itself to
Of course it is not useful. It all depends on who has the power. I have a King, Charles the III, King of Canada. In practice he has close to no power, simply the power to advise, warn, and counsel. Also kind of a referee. So yes there is a tendency to think republic bad, monarchy good, but that is a simplification. Trade our Governor General for a President with exactly the same powers and no difference besides now we're a republic instead of a monarchy.
governance has actually many forms and power even more so, being fluid even inside concrete forms of governments. in the end the whole world is governed by various power groups and the institutions in which they operate are just the framework. different frameworks, different tools, different external outlook, same objectives and internal forces.
True.
incidentally, as an european (at some point supportive of the eu, not anymore) i have never heard the eu referred to as a republic, and it doesn't really make sense. the eu isn't even a state, it's an ad-hoc agglomerate with very different interests and a comparatively very short history. if you ask me it is evolving towards totalitarianism.
I've never thought of it as a republic until your comment, but as I was taught in school long ago, it is a binary, Monarchy or Republic, and the EU has a President, not a Monarch.
All governments have a tendency towards evolving towards totalitarianism, the trick is to control that tendency. In theory a democracy with involved voters can do that. The problem is the involved and knowledgeable voters, which there seems to be a shortage of.
What a democracy can do is change governments before they go to far towards totalitarianism. As the saying says, governments are like babies, they need their diapers changed otherwise they get too full of shit.
Yea, but the courts move slowly.
Yea. The problems are that total crash will pull in their neighbours and partners. And when countries with huge military crash, they use that military.
How? They have two choices, the extreme and the less extreme. Tariffs aren't going away, they need the money and even the less extreme party is pretty right wing and depend on the oligarchs money to get elected.
As Biden showed, he kept many of Trump's policies and fixing the things he did try to fix takes longer then 4 years when the voters want instant fixes.
As others pointed out, the voters just want cheap gas and cheap eggs and actually believe people like Trump when that is promised.
While you are mostly right, there are problems such as economic gravity. Here in Canada, our trade has been sucked into America and it is hard to replace that trade with trade further away. One of the things currently happening is businesses deciding survival takes moving production south to America. What do you do about that, businesses want to survive and depend on selling to the States and even if TACO happens, the uncertainty is hard on the smaller businesses.
We're dealing with someone so out of touch with reality that it is hard to figure out how to respond. Diversifying trade is a goal but that economic gravity has a lot of pull.
Well, it is a binary choice, republic or monarchy. If not a republic with something like a president as head of state, then it is a monarchy with a monarch as head of state. Seems to me that the EU has a President.
Here's a definition from the American Heritage Dictionary,
A political order whose head of state is not a monarch and in modern times is usually a president.
Yes, but there a variety of unions of Sovereign countries depending on how much sovereignty is given up by the individual entities. The EU is different from most unions in that not much sovereignty is given up in favour of the central government.
Are you saying it is a monarchy?
I bet the human brain is a kludge. -- Marvin Minsky