#no party will represent our political stances perfectly etc.

[lifeascaty]

So, it’s voting season in the UK which means everyone on tumblr is posting ‘Vote Labour’ but no one’s really engaging with Labour’s blatant anti-semitism. 

& I don’t really want to get into a political argument on here so I was staying quiet but then I realised what a fucking dick move that was.  

Labour is anti-semitic. Full fucking stop. 

I’m not saying every single Labour MP is anti-semitic, obviously. But it’s a huge fucking problem. And it’s been pretty disgusting to see fellow lefties kind of shrug and see anti-semitism as an acceptable price to pay to get the tories out. And then, bafflingly, some who have been very ‘????’ when I mention it, because they don’t follow the news. 

A quote from The Jewish News (a site I don’t follow and was linked to by this NBC article but is apparently the biggest Jewish newspaper in the UK): 

“Shockingly, nearly half (47 percent) said they would “seriously consider” emigrating if Corbyn won. When it comes to perceptions about party leaders, 87 percent deemed the Labour leader to be antisemitic, 32 percent believe Nigel Farage to be antisemitic, with five percent saying the same of both Boris Johnson and Jo Swinson.”

This from The Guardian (a left-leaning newspaper - trying to just quote left publications because right publications would be against Labour anyway):

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) launched an official inquiry into antisemitism in the Labour party in May and is due to report next year. The final submissions on behalf of the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) to the inquiry was leaked to the media on Friday, including 70 sworn testimonies from current and former staffers, and concluding that the party was institutionally antisemitic.

and from the same article:

“ . . . a leak of documents from Labour’s disciplinary department to the Sunday Times, (...) included a recording of an official complaining that more than 130 cases were outstanding even though the majority were reported to the party 18 months ago and one had been on the books for more than three years.

The cases included members likening Jewish people to killer viruses, labelling them “bent nose manipulative liars” and calling for the “extermination of every Jew on the planet”.

It reportedly took 10 months for the party to expel a member in Nottingham who wrote that “Jews represent a viral infection that need to be completely eliminated” and said he wanted the “complete extinction of all Jews”.

(Labour claims it’s under 130 cases, to be transparent).

I just find it kind of awful when people aren’t prepared to engage with Labour’s anti-semitism but will vote for them. Like, if you have engaged with their anti-semitism, are aware of it but still want to vote for them then I can’t do anything to stop that, but the number of people who just go blank when I try to talk about it is ridiculous. Oh and also the number of non-Jewish people who will say it’s not true and Jewish people aren’t feeling nervous in this political climate, what do they expect me to do? I’m just like “well I dunno if I feel comfortable telling my Jewish friends I don’t believe them just because you said so”. Like, ??????!

I truly, truly don’t believe that the British public would be this willing to vote for a party who was openly anti-black on the level that the Labour party is anti-semitic. But maybe I’m a naive idiot and they’re not comparable? 

Anyway. Why vote for an anti-semitic party when you could vote Lib Dem? 

[afroggyfrog]

Political compass

To some people a political compass is just a “fun” quiz like “what type of bread are you?” and if you’re that kind of person then don’t waste your breath telling me I’m overthinking. There’s people that take it seriously, maybe they live in a 2d world with simple, 2d beliefs that always be plotted on a 2d grid, or maybe they just want that to be true, because it’s more comfortable than to think “I really don’t understand politics”.

A political compass of political compasses.

One axis can’t be used for more than one question

Let’s say we have a political compass of 1 axis, lets say, it has 2  questions.(i would have added “do you prefer donkeys or elephants” but that would just make it unnecessarily complex)

https://forms.gle/gCifTpqu2hTNo7s86

Do you prefer blue or red?

If you’re in a maze and your path is split, do you go to the left or to the right?

These questions perfectly correspond to what a politics fan might call “democrat” or “republican”, and to be serious, the answers to this probably predict who you’re gonna vote for at least a little. So what’s the problem with this model? You might not think that people who prefer different colours or maze paths wouldn’t hate each other but the whole point of politics is to hate each other So imagine this was a real political test, and if someone answers differently from you, yo hate them. Now imagine that my political axis is GOP and DEM, if you select blue left youre a DEM extremist and if you select red right youre a GOP extremist, anything else and you’re a centrist.

From the point of view of an extremist (according to the american political compass), you’ve got your side, your polar opposite, and some people who are in the middle and it all seems to make some sense.

From the point of view of someone who happens to like red but also sticks to the left side of a maze your political compass results puts you in the exact same spot as your polar opposite whom you hate very much, in the same spot as someone who answered neutral to both questions, and to one side and to the other, sit people who you think as pretty much the same as eachother, since they both just agree and disagree with you in equal measures, and none of it makes any sense.

Now imagine if there was a country where the leftists wore the color red and the rightists wore blue (i think it might just be literally every country except america?) and all of a sudden the same political compass puts all the previous extremists into the middle and it splits the 3 centrists into the left, right, and center (that 1 guy who answers neutral on everything is literally the only person worth the title of centrist)

To put this into the simplest words I can, you can have extremists that are perfectly opposed to each other end up in the middle, unless the questions aren’t all just the same thing rephrased. And this is a huge flaw that you cant get rid of unless you add a new dimension to the compass, a new dimension for every single question you add, at 1 question a line, at 2 questions a 2d grid, at 3 questions a cube... So the political compass can only tell you as much info about someone as you can get frrom asking them only 2 questions, trying to cram more than 2 questions into it will only lead to misrepresentation.

Almost every political extremist sits in the center

Because the larger the number of possible policies you could use to guess someones political compass position, the more combinations of extreme stances on each policy could end up canceling each-other on the compass, but that doesn’t make them any less extreme, it just means that in order to be in one of the corners or the sides only 8 combinations of extremist opinions can be had. If you have 3 policies each with 2 extremist stances that can be had, thats already 8 combinations, for 4 policies thats 16, for 10 policies that let you be an extremist thats 1024 combinations. That means that if humans were only capable of having 10 policies then only 0.8% of the ideologies with the most extremist positions on each policy would be seen as an extremist by the political compass.

But even if it’s broken in theory, you would at least expect right wingers to be on the right side and left wingers to be on the left side of the compass, since even if your opinion isn’t represented by the political compass, neither is your opinion represented by the 2 parties, so they should at least misrepresent your opinion in the same way (it always boils down to 2 parties because our voting systems are just broken but voting systems deserve their own separate post)

Why americans are immune to noticing its defects

I’m not a historian, but I read somewhere that the popular version of the political compass cant be applied to 20th century european politics because the political compass of the time was this triangle.

It seems pretty intuitive that different cultures at different time periods would need unique and incompatible political compasses. A political compass may ask stuff about race to someone who’s never talked to someone of a different race irl, or a question about congress to someone who’s country doesn’t have a congress, it can ask “are people more divided by class than by nationality” and the answer feels like it should vary solely by the country they are in rather than by their opinion, these are all questions I randomly got by searching for political compass.

Perhaps it’s just a coincidence but every political compass I ever saw seemed like it was designed to only work on americans, this may or may not be due to the fact that american politics are the only politics that are ever talked about internationally. I also went and searched for “compas politic romanesc”, i found a study written in english that contained a political compass quiz written for romanians  but the site where the quiz was hosted is just a blank page for me, you can still find the questions written in english in the link to the study at page 10) Every other result was also in english, so I wouldn’t even know political compasses existed if i didn’t know english.

So why does the compass designed for your personal culture  end up feeling useful?

There’s this bias called the halo effect. To put it simply, if you are a fan of someone, or something, you’re going to convince yourself that every part of it is good, if you’re a democrat, you’ll convince yourself that everything they do is right, even if there’s no reason why ideas like open borders, climate change alarmism, additional taxes, gay marriage etc are related, you’ll convince yourself that if you like more ideas from democrats than you like from republicans, you’ll have to like ALL the ideas that come from democrats.

If you live in a world where everyone’s convinced themselves that there’s 2 sides then all of a sudden the political compass doesn’t feel like its grossly oversimplified to the point of making no sense, in fact, it even looks like it has more nuance than it needs, why do we need the authoritarian axis again? oh, theres a couple loud minorities in addition to the main parties, like communists and fascists and libertarians and hippies and because they’re all american off-brands the political compass puts each of them into their unique spots on the compass.

Sure every american who calls themselves a fascist will end up on the far right, but not Mussolini himself with his “race is a social construct” ideas, the father of fascism himself could be deemed a centrist by a modern-day political compass because hes not american.

Extremists that happen to be seen as centrists by the compass can simply be forgotten, after all, they’re probably the way they are because they’re not americans which means you’ll never have to discuss politics with them.

The silver lining

In a world where due to a broken voting system there are only 2 parties that matter, and where the halo effect makes people unnaturally aligned with the either one of the 2 dominant parties, a political compass could be helpful to someone who lived in a cave and was never corrupted by constant stream of political propaganda that is spewed online. Sure that his randomly-generated political opinion is 90% likely to be somewhere in the center, where every extremist sits, except 4 of them, but just on the off-chance that he aligns with one of the sides that america has deemed worthy of being trademarked he will know it, and can buy their branded stickers and hats.

The alternative

Just don’t talk about politics It’s a waste of time.

[moversdevelopment]

Ten worst marketing fails in 2019

With 2019 behind us, we can freely take a look at how the world of marketing has fared in the previous year. And what a year it’s been, with an astounding number of failures in marketing. We’ve outlined some of the worst (and funniest) examples of bad marketing practices below! It is our hope that you will come to understand just how much room there is for making mistakes when it comes to marketing. And with Movers Development to guide your business, you will be better off in knowing how to avoid marketing fails.

Accidental Spying on Conversations By Google

If you were to get a website marketing analysis these days, one thing would be clear – you have to rank well on Google in order to succeed. But even this giant makes a misstep here and there – especially in the previous year. Google faced one of its biggest marketing blunders yet in July of 2019.

Their Google Home smart speakers, the rival to Amazon’s Alexa, have actually been recording and transcribing human conversations in their vicinity. A public broadcaster from Belgium revealed this, showing how a Google contractor actually had access to the conversations. Among them, more than a hundred and fifty recordings didn’t have anyone saying the phrase “OK Google” – the words that are supposed to be a signal for the device to start listening.

Peloton’s Christmas Advert

In this day and age, visibility is everything. If you’re wondering “what is the best way to advertise my business“, a lot of the traditional marketers will point towards a good old Christmas advert. However, it’s 2020 – and your message needs to stay perfectly within the bounds of political correctness. Peloton – the fitness giant – made the mistake of including a somewhat sexist message in their yuletide ad. It was a husband who brings an exercise machine back home to a dutiful wife, and then she proceeds to work out over the next year. Suffice it to say that the ad received significant backlash.

Christmas is the best time for original advertisements – but also the most difficult one!

IBM Facial Recognition Scandal

Whether we’re talking about moving company leads or the lead generation for any other niche – breakthrough technologies like machine learning are constantly being used for lead generation software. These programs scour the Internet for data on any prospective clients and easily systematize them. However, data privacy is a big concern here – and that ties in neatly with one of the biggest marketing fails of 2019 committed by IBM.

In March of that year, IBM received an accusation of misusing people’s Flickr photos. More specifically, it turns out that IBM used these photos to train their machine learning algorithms for facial recognition. Notably, they did not ask for the permission of any people who were in the images. This facial recognition project took almost a million photos out of a Yahoo-compiled dataset of images posted on Flickr. Most of these people had absolutely no idea of what their pictures were used for.

A series of credit cards, including Apple’s white one, representing marketing fails.

In their statement on the issue, IBM claims that it took extreme care not to step out of compliance with data privacy laws and principles.  Still, plenty of photographers who posted the images on Flickr were taken by surprise to find their photos contained data for skin tones, facial geometry, etc. While IBM added the option of opting out of the program, it seems that there is still no way to remove the photos that were previously used by IBM.

Boris Bangers

Sometimes, a brand can gain a lot by voicing their stance on politics in an opportune time. However, in most cases – dabbling in politics publically as a big company will lead to trouble. The British sausage producer Heck found this out the hard way.

The company hosted the not-universally-popular British prime minister Boris Johnson in their factory. This wouldn’t be too bad in and of itself, but they showed support for his polarizing politics by making a particular Boris Banger sausage specifically in the PM’s honor. The move turned out to be one of the bigger marketing fails of the year. While Heck gained the publicity they were after; it’s safe to say that they probably didn’t expect a social media maelstrom that came after. In the current British political climate; siding with either of the two dominant parties isn’t something a sausage company should think about seriously.

Apple’s New Credit Card

We all know that Apple has one of the most successful marketing and brand-building efforts in the history of the world. However, even they allow themselves marketing fails here and there. For example – Apple’s religious dedication to pristine white products. While it has made them recognizable, it also made them the laughing stock with the creation of their line of credit cards.

Apple’s new credit card is as white as their other products – but at what cost?

When they launched the card in August 2019 Apple warned users that the white plastic could be “dirtied” or discolored permanently; due to fabrics used to manufacture jeans and some wallets. They had to publish an entire guide on keeping the card crispy clean. Can you imagine taking the time to maintain your credit card? Hilarious. Still, we’re sure that plenty of Apple users won’t find it difficult in order to stay on-brand. 

US Military Threats

One of the funniest marketing fails happened not on the part of some major brand or a large corporation. Instead, the US Military committed this particular blunder. Back in September, the military issued an apology on account of a, particularly threatening tweet. The Twitter post in question was a joke made by a member of the communication service who was managing the account at the time. Below a picture of airmen and a stealth bomber, the employee in question jokingly tweeted that this was what alien hunters would see if they stormed Area 51. Let’s just say that the public didn’t take kindly to this PR bombshell (all pun intended).

Contact our company today and make sure that your moving business does not suffer any unwanted marketing disasters.

The post Ten worst marketing fails in 2019 appeared first on Movers Development.

from Ten worst marketing fails in 2019

[wionews]

German Election Special: Right wing AFD leader speaks exclusively to WION

The Alternative For Germany (AFD) has taken a strident stance against German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s admission of millions of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Islamic states in North Africa.

The party which is being termed “extreme right wing” is slated to change Germany’s post-WWII history dramatically on Sunday, September 24 when it is predicted to win almost 10% of the vote in general elections and enter Germany’s Bundestag or parliament for the first time.

In an exclusive chat just two days before Germany’s general election, AFD’s senior board member and Chief of Lower Saxony, Armin-Paul Hampel tells WION’s Sr Foreign Editor Padma Rao Sundarji that it is Muslims from countries with Islamist terrorist presence -and not Indians – whom his party does not welcome in Germany.   Q: Armin-Paul Hampel, you are an award-winning television journalist (‘’IN GANDHI’S FOOTSTEPS”) based here in India and elsewhere and have stayed loyal to your old Indian friends. Your kids were born in India, at one point they spoke Hindi but no German. Your family had integrated well here. In 2013, you co-founded Alternative For Germany (AFD)  a party that has been termed extreme rightwing by the international and German media. AFD wants no foreigners in Germany. Does that include Indians?     A: Not at all ! I lived in India for 11 years, why should I change my opinion about India? In fact, even the opinion of AFD is not as you describe.

It’s a different story. We have a problem with about 1 million people from northern Africa who migrated to Germany in 2015. In keeping with the German constitution, we have to offer shelter people who are political refugees and my party agrees that such people are welcome to come to our country.

But in reality, only 15-20% of those 1 million people were political refugees. The rest had economic reasons for coming here. To that, my party says it is too much, Germany cannot afford it, we cannot finance them. And that we must find better and more solutions for people who are trying to migrate from Arab and Muslim countries into Germany. India is not affected at all.   Q: All German governments have, in recent years, campaigned aggressively in India to attract Indian students and professionals to come to Germany. There is reportedly a huge shortfall of IT talent there. Your party is slated to change 70 years of German history by being the first rightwing party to enter the Bundestag on Sunday. Will AFD support the continuation of this canvassing for Indian talent?   A: Absolutely – that is the point. Look, since 2013 - the year we founded our party, we have been asking for a migration law in Germany. Once, we had a blue card, similar to the American green card. AFD has been saying Germany wants people who are well-trained to come and take up jobs here. We have a need for well-trained and well-educated people and there are a lot in India.  

But because we are a German-speaking country,  people from India are unfortunately not so willing to come here. But we will still continue to invite them if they have good qualifications, experts in the one or another important subject, good engineers or in the IT branch. That’s not the problem.

The problem is that we have a different situation in Arab countries like Syria, Iraq and others where there is war, some other crisis or unstable governments. We are asking for better support from the United Nations, which, unbelievably reduced its budget in 2015.

We want the UN to increase its budget, send experts to Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, and armed with a robust mandate of the UN, establish safe havens over there with the help of NATO and local troops to protect such refugees.  

But spending billions of Euros to get people from an 8000-mile distance – from the Bosphorus, from Arab countries – into Germany – is just wrong. These people have different cultures, different ethnic backgrounds, a different religion.

Many are not well-educated, some never went to school at all. All this makes it difficult for them to adapt to Germany. We do want to help. But we at AFD say that we should do that by investing the money right there, on the spot – for good medicare,  safe housing, good education, etc. That would be far more effective than transporting 1 million people across thousands of miles to Germany.   Q: You are set to make history by entering parliament on Sunday. This is an era of coalitions. And that means compromise. Which of your beliefs, goals will AFD be willing to compromise or tweak if you are part of one such coalition?     A: We want to learn parliamentarianism to start with and we’ll do that by sitting in the opposition for a start. We are not thinking of joining any coalitions at this time.

Instead, we want to prepare ourselves to be able to take on greater responsibility in 2021, when the next general elections will be due.

Under normal circumstances, it is hardly possible for a party that was founded only four years ago to cross the 5% vote share hurdle to enter parliament.  But we achieved 4.8 percent in 2013 itself, barely a few months after we established AFD.

This means that times are changing in Germany.  Maybe a lot of people are not voting for the AFD, but are really voting for an alternative per se.  Be it the CDU, SPD, FDP, Greens or Left, most Germans have lost their faith in the established parties. Those parties represent an Old Boys Club today. They are simply not capable of solving even today’s problems, let alone those of tomorrow.   Q: You may say all these things. But you cannot deny that you are a right-wing party with startling views…   A: Our political opponents always try to push us into that “right wing”” corner. May I tell you that we have many members who were once with the other parties? Be it CDU or SPD, be it the FDP or Greens.

Nobody can say these people all suddenly turned hardcore right wing. Actually, we at AFD are neither left nor right. We are in the centre, we are trying to establish a party which is able to balance facts, access accurate figures, think about them and then decide. This ideology of "Left" and "Right" that was created in the 20th century has been terrible not only for Germany but also Europe and must be abandoned.

We want neither Left nor Right but normal human understanding and the human brain to decide matters – that’s our way. The Old Boys Club of the established parties realise that that there is a new power emerging. That’s why they have been trying hard to keep us out. It’s like anywhere in the world. They will try again next Sunday. And they will fail. Rest assured we will be in the Bundestag with not merely 5%, but more than 10%.      Q: If you are neither Left nor Right, how come the AFD attracts so many skinheads and extreme right-wing supporters?     A: One has to admit that World War II and Nazism in Germany is very much still a topic. But many people reduce our entire history to those 12 terrible years. Germany is actually 1200 years old and Deutschland is a German empire. Yes, the Nazi past was part of our history, a horrible part. But we have been in existence for much longer.

Certain Germans have a problem accepting this fact. Since 1945, Germany has changed so much. We have taken responsibility in all fields, we have accepted our lot due to our history. It is the same in India. When you reflect upon your history, you feel self-confident and proud of your nation. So why should we Germans not be proud about ours, when we have given the world so much?  Science, music, literature, architecture? We say - let’s be proud of those aspects. We don’t have to talk only about 12 dark years all the time, there are 1200 others we can live happily with and be proud of. Maybe some Germans have a problem with that – we don’t.     Q: Opinon polls can’t predict whether the CDU will form a coalition with the FDP or others. But it will be a coalition, that’s almost certain. Which constellation would be most preferable to the AFD?      A: I think all established parties will lose in terms of percentage. People have lost their faith in them. At this moment, tax rates in Germany are the highest in the world. There are a number of problems besetting crucial fields like defence, science, infrastructure, etc. No proper decisions are being taken. Therefore, it really doesn’t matter who will choose to co-habit with whom in a coalition.

It’s one big Old Boys Club and they all stick together anyway. And because they want to cling to power, they don’t have the will, nor the tools, nor the instruments, nor the will to change policies and forge a better future for our country. It’s just the Old Boys Club – and none of them matter. We want to be the new club in Germany.   Q: Please summarize one last time: whom is the AFD against ? All foreigners? Only those with an Islamic background? Or foreigners who don’t adapt to Germany? After all, there are many well-integrated Germans of Turkish origin who are perfectly integrated in Germany….   A: First of all, we have people from all over the world in our country. The reason we have been asking for an immigration policy is so that we can decide exactly who is welcome and who is not.

Yes, we have a problem with fundamentalist Islamic movements. Can you name any country that does not?  When our investigation agencies warn that some of the people we are taking in, may have a terrorist background – yes, we have a problem.

We say: please don’t keep them here, please send them back to where they came from. On the other hand, we are also a party pushing for, not resisting an immigration policy ! We want well-educated people, smart brains, knowledgeable, well-educated people from all over the world, who will easily integrate in Germany.

This has already been happening since decades and people from many countries moved here and are living happily. Our only problem is that we are getting huge numbers -1 million from Africa alone - with ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds which do not fit into our country, especially when they have fundamentalist Islamist influences of the kind of the IS in Syria and Iraq.

We don’t want to accept such people. We want to live peacefully and happily in this country. We don’t want police all over the place, like in London, Berlin, Madrid or elsewhere.

We don’t want to live in constant fear that today may be our last day. But welcoming people who are well-educated and well-trained from India ? They are very welcome here and pose no problem for the Alternative For Germany at all.

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