NGL, this is probably going to be a relatively low quality post. May not even finish it. Just something to tide you over during exams. I've had two exams, both were okay I guess.
I'm very sleepy. I just went to an 'EU debate' or something. The description on the Facebook event read as follows:
"We have invited three great speakers to come discuss the EU Referendum from their particular perspectives."
Turns out the event was hosted by 'Sheffield Students Stronger In', and the 'particular perspectives' of the guest speakers were somewhat uncannily alligned with one another. So obviously biased, but nonetheless thought provoking. Here's what I learnt:
Now that I've written down all the EU facts, I can remember them good. I'm not sure why I thought this should be a blog post.
My life is pretty boring at present. Today Dave and I spent about an hour playing Forza (race car game) as a special treat, which was lovely.
When I go home I will cuddle my cat. I think of this regularly.
I spend the other 50% of my time thinking about all the fun things I will do after my exams. I'm going to throw another falafel party, and then try to play Diplomacy (eight / nine hour board game, really fun) in the park with my friends / anyone willing to endure nine hours of strenuous negotiation.
That's basically all I've got. Maybe one day my life will be hip and happening again, and my blog posts will be meaningful, and everyone enjoy them and affirm me and I won't be forced to consider the perils of measuring my self worth by my ability to entertain. Who knows. Okay I'm done.
Oh hey I'm not done, I read a really good book called 'The Road'. It's brilliantly written and I should have been revising and it's a stark reminder that we think of universal entropy as an abstract idea to help us come to terms with it, but it's actually really horrible and depressing and it should unsettle us greatly. Maybe I'll write a review.
Okay done.
I'm very sleepy. I just went to an 'EU debate' or something. The description on the Facebook event read as follows:
"We have invited three great speakers to come discuss the EU Referendum from their particular perspectives."
Turns out the event was hosted by 'Sheffield Students Stronger In', and the 'particular perspectives' of the guest speakers were somewhat uncannily alligned with one another. So obviously biased, but nonetheless thought provoking. Here's what I learnt:
- Subsidiarity is a central principle of the European Union. It's the idea that all decisions should be made at the most local level possible. Things like trade law and workers rights get decided quite high up, because otherwise you get things like states trying to increase relative productivity by denying rights to their workers.
- Statistics about laws decided within the EU are pretty inflated, the government library (or something) estimates that like 13% of our laws come from Europe. Additionaly, the importance of law isn't really proportional to the quantity of laws. The EU might make a lot of nonsense laws about what bananas should look like, but they don't really have any say over our policies on crime and punishment, tax, defense and other stuff.
- It's possible that leaving the EU would be good for the UK economically, but it's not a sure thang. Many economist are pretty sure (source) that things will get worse before they get better, if they get better at all. They say that God made economists to make weather forecasters look good, but that only goes to show (as far as a joke that I read on a poster in Y12 RE can show anything) how unpredictable economics is. Better a bird in the hand than two in the bush.
- We get back about half of what we spend on the EU, and that's without taking agricultural subsidistaion into account, along with a load of other things that lower the cost of living.
- Some of the money that goes to other countries is basically a small bribe to distract them from the evils of communism.
- I met a man who worked in the civil service and basically just got paid to make new laws. He told me the good old days are over, and that the civil service is boring now. It made me want to watch 'Yes Minister'. I think he said, in passing, that he was a nuclear engineer before he was a civil servant. He's a university vice chancellor now, which is confusing because he didn't seem to be evil or anything.
- If you raise income tax, you get less money from income tax because people stop paying it.
- The UK is in a lot of debt, austerity is fantastic and there should be more of it.
- (We started to part from EU stuff at this point in the evening, and move on to things I didn't understand.
- Loads of immigrants keep a country economically vibrant, and stop the population from ageing.
- That was basically it. I got really sleepy after that.
Now that I've written down all the EU facts, I can remember them good. I'm not sure why I thought this should be a blog post.
My life is pretty boring at present. Today Dave and I spent about an hour playing Forza (race car game) as a special treat, which was lovely.
When I go home I will cuddle my cat. I think of this regularly.
I spend the other 50% of my time thinking about all the fun things I will do after my exams. I'm going to throw another falafel party, and then try to play Diplomacy (eight / nine hour board game, really fun) in the park with my friends / anyone willing to endure nine hours of strenuous negotiation.
That's basically all I've got. Maybe one day my life will be hip and happening again, and my blog posts will be meaningful, and everyone enjoy them and affirm me and I won't be forced to consider the perils of measuring my self worth by my ability to entertain. Who knows. Okay I'm done.
Oh hey I'm not done, I read a really good book called 'The Road'. It's brilliantly written and I should have been revising and it's a stark reminder that we think of universal entropy as an abstract idea to help us come to terms with it, but it's actually really horrible and depressing and it should unsettle us greatly. Maybe I'll write a review.
Okay done.
