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    However its party cadre has an unfortunate habit of serially getting caught in compromising situations where it’s clear they support the neo-Nazi far right

This is just like our "totally not neo-Nazi" party here in Finland. Their members continuously get caught on photo with neo-Nazis but they're absolutely not affiliated in any way

orbat  ·  751 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Statement by NATO Heads of State and Government on Russia’s attack on Ukraine

The situation here is unsurprisingly pretty complex.

There's a lot of fairly well-substantiated anxiety that we're going to be next in line due to not being in NATO. Our Foreign Policy Institute said that it's fairly likely Russia will be using military force against us in the "next few years". This really hammers home the sort of anxiety we're talking about here.

A couple of years ago the majority of Finns were against joining, in recent polls it's been about 50/50. It definitely says something that it's still only 50/50, though.

The main argument against NATO seems to revolve around our supposed historical neutrality, but in all honestly it feels more like Finlandization than an actual argument; our "neutrality" has never been exactly neutral, starting with being allied with the Nazis (totally only for convenience, we swear, no ideological ties whatsoever, no sir). Another (and IMO more credible) argument is that we don't want to be dragged into a war by the US – people don't really trust the US especially after Trump, and the US's human rights abuses are often pointed out in NATO discussions. Some also feel a bit iffy about joining an alliance with Turkey, whose human rights record is also not exactly what you'd call stellar. Edit: many especially on the left (where most of the resistance to joining NATO is coming from, in addition to some of the ultranationalist nutballs who love Putin) also say that joining a military alliance makes no sense if you want peace.

The debate you're referring to probably meant the various citizens' initiatives that popped up. We have an online initiative system where the parliament has to consider every initiative with over 50k signatures (done using an eID provider). They, however, aren't in any way compelled to do anything about them, and the majority of initiatives really don't lead to squat unless there was existing political will to do it in the first place.

I'd give about 50-70% odds of us going for NATO membership, although the question is how do we do that without Russia eg. starting a border skirmish before the membership ratification round is done.

Weirdly judgemental. Should everybody just stay in situations that don't make them happy?

orbat  ·  1086 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A message from Jeff Bezos: April 06, 2021

    Wonder why the GOP only can resonate with morons these days

They've gone far enough to the authoritarian side that they're hitting what these studies reference. This snippet from one says it best:

    Right-wing ideologies offer well-structured and ordered views about society that preserve traditional societal conventions and norms (e.g., Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003). Such ideological belief systems are particularly attractive to individuals who are strongly motivated to avoid uncertainty and ambiguity in preference for simplicity and predictability (Jost et al., 2003; Roets & Van Hiel, 2011). Theoretically, individuals with lower mental abilities should be attracted by right-wing social-cultural ideologies because they minimize complexity and increase perceived control (Heaven, Ciarrochi, & Leeson, 2011; Stankov, 2009). Conversely, individuals with greater cognitive skills are better positioned to understand changing and dynamic societal contexts, which should facilitate open-minded, relatively left-leaning attitudes (Deary et al., 2008a; Heaven et al., 2011; McCourt, Bouchard, Lykken, Tellegen, & Keyes, 1999). Lower cognitive abilities therefore draw people to strategies and ideologies that emphasize what is presently known and considered acceptable to make sense and impose order over their environment. Resistance to social change and the preservation of the status quo regarding societal traditions—key principles underpinning right-wing social-cultural ideologies—should be particularly appealing to those wishing to avoid uncertainty and threat.

    Indeed, the empirical literature reveals negative relations between cognitive abilities and right-wing social-cultural attitudes, including right-wing authoritarian (e.g., Keiller, 2010; McCourt et al., 1999), socially conservative (e.g., Stankov, 2009; Van Hiel et al., 2010), and religious attitudes (e.g., Zuckerman, Silberman, & Hall, 2013).

orbat  ·  1395 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: “An Abuse of Sacred Symbols”: Trump, a Bible, and a Sanctuary

You can be a real ass sometimes. How about calm it down on the berating others for opinions for a change? OftenBen wasn't wrong about what they said about you previously.

Just… accept that they have a different opinion, have a sensible talk instead of barging in like everyone else is wrong and you're taking heads.

And I honestly, really don't say this with any malice. You just really tend to be overly critical of other people's opinions. They weren't even being critical of religion as such, as far as I could tell

orbat  ·  4390 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: New Evidence Knocks Down Daryl Bems Claim of Psychic Proof
I wonder why journals don't want to publish negative results? As far as I can see they're just about as valuable as positive ones.
orbat  ·  4576 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Evolving a wind turbine
I've always found GAs insanely interesting. I love the fact that they can come up with solutions that we can't even comprehend, like in NASA's famous antenna experiment or the one where they evolved an FPGA that did tone recognition without a clock source (and this one, of course)