site banner
PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   2218 thread views

Transnational Thursday for January 11, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

European Union

From the golden age of decentralization of 1945, today we live in a times of local autonomy being on the decline. The latest example coming from the spat between Brussels and Budapest. Europeans may be familiar with various accusations the EU and western Europeans make against the present Hungarian government (corruption, lack of rule of law).

Such violations are used as the justification for removing franchise of the Hungarian representative in the EU Council(1). This move comes after Hungary vetoed the latest package of EU aid to Ukraine.

The exact paragraph Hungary is accused to be in breach of is Article 2 of Treaty on European Union. The article in question is vague and sufficiently motivated adversary could find a case against every EU member state, so the only conditions are political, which are specified in Article 7.

In more fun EU news, EU Commission member from Greece, has called upon the US singer Taylor Swift to promote voting in EU Parliament election among the subset of her fans which is allowed to vote in these election. That he called upon an American singer shows that Rammstein was right. For while there still exists Bulgarian, Finnish, and Portugese musicians, their reach is limited to their own countries, and even there US artists are more popular.

(1) The three major organs of EU are: EU Parliament (directly elected, comparable to the US House of Representatives, but with less populous states given slightly more seats per capita), EU Commission (comparable to the Government in a parliamentary system, with each country given a minister/secretary, but who doesn't represent and isn't supposed to act in the interest of the country which proposed her), and the EU Council (comparable to the US Senate before it's members were directly elected, the Council's members are heads of governments of EU member states).

For while there still exists Bulgarian, Finnish, and Portugese musicians, their reach is limited to their own countries, and even there US artists are more popular.

Nonsense, looking at quickly googled stats for Poland I see in top 10 mostly Polish artists and "artists". One list where foreign one was top 1 she was Canadian.

This user has blocked you. You are still welcome to reply but you will be held to a higher standard of civility than you would be otherwise

WTF? Why I am going to be held to a higher standard of civility just because @some mass blocks everyone?

At the old place abuse of the blocking feature was itself a moddable offense; I’ve never seen anyone actually get modded for responding to @some despite him blocking literally everyone for no apparent reason. Stands to reason that that form letter may not be 100% literal in this particular case.

I wonder what the site looks like to him, with so many comments gone. (I assume that's what it does, I've never blocked someone myself.)

Comments are hidden but it seems that trace of comment is still visible (I just decided to block @some in a matching response, especially as I remember repeated strong claims completely mismatching reality, likely they made more similar but not on topics I know well)

For while there still exists Bulgarian, Finnish, and Portugese musicians, their reach is limited to their own countries, and even there US artists are more popular.

No, not really. The top 5 singles and albums for the last week in records in Finland, at least, were entirely Finnish artists (I don't know most of them but then again I'm almost 40), and this list of best-selling music artists is also in great majority Finnish. Taylor Swift is actually pretty invisible here, it's only due to the massive media attention in America making her a thing in the US that I've recently seen some mentions of her by locals.

Same thing in Sweden. Only one artist in the top 10 was non-swedish in 2023.

Top 10 2023:

  1. Ikväll Igen – Bolaget
  2. Kan Inte Gå – Bolaget
  3. Tattoo – Loreen
  4. Flowers – Miley Cyrus
  5. Rid Mig Som En Dalahäst – Rasmus Gozzi, Fröken Snusk
  6. Har Dig – Yasin
  7. Can't Tame Her – Zara Larsson
  8. Banan Melon Kiwi & Citron – Hooja
  9. Josefin – Albin Lee Meldau
  10. Hälsa Gud – Miss Li

Wait, are both #1 and #2 songs about liquor stores?

That's the artist. Both the songs are about being extremely drunk though..

To be clear though, I've not listened to any of the songs of the list even once until now except for the Loreen song during Eurovision.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats