Bay 12 Games Forum

I could see trump unironically naming this hypothetical construct just that.

The UK relies (or relied, anyway) on a great deal of trade they (or at least its politicians) functionally told to bugger off, too, though. I'm not sure I'd be so confident that germany (or whoever) won't decide to take an economic hit for non-economic reasons. Or a short term one for long term gains sans the UK (or with less of em, I guess). Not sure I'd even call it a particularly bad idea, at this point. An unstable economic partner is sometimes worse than not having that partner at all.

And the UK is trying to sign itself up for a decade or three of trade renegotiations...

Because the UK isn't as bad off as Scotland will be if it leaves the Union. Scotland will lose some combination of it's free healthcare, free welfare or free tertiary education. Nevermind the fact they'll have to start paying for their own armed services (which will cost them a small fortune).

... and? Pretty sure the scots side of thing is that they're willing to take an economic hit if it means getting the rest of UK's grip off their short hairs. More willing after the UK referendum, anyway. Maybe they've got more to lose economically, but they've got more to gain in regards to sovereignty and self-determination and whatnot, too. I'd personally say the economic argument is a strong one, sure, but, well. As mentioned, UK folk apparently don't consider that as important as you'd think, so it'd be hard to blame scotland for doing the same. Well, any more than you already blame the UK, ha.

Don't think scotland's or sturgeon's after money, basically. Devolution or independence is more likely. Economic arguments may be there but after the UK referendum it seems pretty likely they're going to hold a lot less weight than they did before. Maybe the relative hit would be harder, but again, the UK's been shafting scotland harder than the EU did the UK. Scots've got stronger (grounds for, at least) motivation to take the hit.

... even if that is a problem, it's not nearly (and won't be for a long bloody time) a large enough one to worry about much. We've got a lot of areas that fit that criteria. Bonus points, if desertification and whatnot continues in areas it's becoming a problem, we'll have even more :V

You're not wrong, but you're also damning with faint praise -- I've seen my cats cough up things we'd be better off with than trump. Not right to be putting dio on the same level as housecat expulsion, y'know?

It always gets me wondering: what will it take?

Do we need to have a dramatic change to lobbying and challenge what many consider to be a form of free speech? Does the process of extracting fossil fuel need to be ass-maddeningly difficult (but by then we're too far, aren't we)?

Well, it takes people caring about it, and enough it starts impacting their voting (/political influence and whatnot, in areas that aren't democratic) and consuming patterns. Then the politicians and businesses (well, the ones that aren't/weren't aware and concerned enough to be changing behaviors already) will start reacting, and the path gets walked.

Which, uh. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but the last 20-30 years, that's been happening, and at increasing speed. It's been shockingly obvious if you've lived through it -- early 90s, this sort of conversation wouldn't have been happening to any meaningful extent outside of fairly limited corners of academia. Whether it's fast enough is questionable as all hell but that there's been a serious shift in public opinion and awareness, and by extension government and economic attention, over the last generation or two is just ridiculously blatantly evident.

Pretty sure americans have been complaining about electricity prices for at least a decade or two, now, though. Probably longer. Not very loudly, but folks I've been around have been occasionally grumbling about higher prices since at least the 90s. Usually well overshadowed by kvetching about gas prices but *shrugs*

Mind you, yeah, sooner or later the prices are going to catch up and complaining about what we get now will be like grumbling about quarter sodas.

... how do you get eight out of that registration date?