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Public: Politics: Party
Centrifugal Party   (+1)  [vote for, against]
Dyson-based view of politics

Ideologies often posit forces such as the market or class struggle to explain political phenomena. In many cases, these forces are very likely to be fictitious or exaggerated.

Centrifugal force is an example of a similarly fictitious entity in physics, which has apparently been posited by James Dyson. Apparently, the fact that Britain is physically on the edge of Europe means we should leave it.

Here, then, is a new political theory which explains processes in a similar way. Geographically, each continent can be seen as a centrifuge whizzing round at amazing speed and the peripheral bits should leave, e.g. Ireland, Britain and Turkey, or Mexico and Alaska. Similarly, the social system in each country is similarly turbinate and the richest and poorest should also leave, leaving us with just the middle class, and also middle management should be the only kind of work available, a la Golgafrincham. Marginalised groups, being on the edge, should also be excluded and so forth.

In fact, centrifugal social forces do not exist because they are forms of inertia, in other words conservatism, acting at a tangent to the direction of motion.

I personally see rotary motion as inferior ideologically to linear, which is why I like hovercraft.

Incidentally I still don't know what I think about the EU.
-- nineteenthly, Jun 11 2016

my head is spinning enough already (EU) without you adding to it!
-- po, Jun 11 2016


// see rotary motion as inferior ideologically to linear, //

[marked-for-psychiatry]

//which is why I like hovercraft //

At least that makes sense.

// Incidentally I still don't know what I think about the EU //

They're all a bunch of bloody foreigners. That's all you need to know.
-- 8th of 7, Jun 11 2016


Nudge nudge wink wink, should apply to gender too...
-- 4whom, Jun 11 2016


The EU is like any other club that aims to share resources - it works well for the poorer members, and badly for the wealthier ones.

Given that many of the 20 countries that have been admitted since the original founding of the EU are very much poorer than the original members, it follows that the club is becoming less and less advantageous to its richer members. Therefore, the only reasons for remaining in are things like reducing the likelihood of war, or the long-term wider benefit of making the poorer members richer.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 11 2016


A chienne is only as strong as it weakest link...
-- 4whom, Jun 11 2016


// reducing the likelihood of war, //

Eh ? That will hurt the weapons export trade ...

// the long-term wider benefit of making the poorer members richer. //

But if that happens, where will be the motivation for citizens of those member countries to work long hours in menial jobs for starvation wages and no employment security or immigration rights ? Be realistic ...
-- 8th of 7, Jun 11 2016


//where will be the motivation for citizens of those member countries to work long hours in menial jobs for starvation wages and no employment security//

I don't know - what keeps you at it?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 11 2016


The unparalleled opportunities to help ourselves to the product.
-- 8th of 7, Jun 11 2016


How many McFlurries can a man take?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 11 2016


Billions and billions ...

But we weren't meaning that. We mean the drums of addictive mind-altering substances that are added to all the products.
-- 8th of 7, Jun 11 2016


Mind-altering, not waistline-altering ...
-- 8th of 7, Jun 11 2016


In some ways, not a bad idea, in other ways, a bad idea.

There's something to be said for centrist politics, as long as the populace is educated, informed and not a bunch of media-led x-phobic hate-mongers. I sort of see a centrifugal party working a bit like this, with all the crazy David Ike/Nigel Farage stuff getting ejected, while normal, friendly pro-nice, pro-future, pro-kindness, pro-helping, centrist politicians remaining at the centre.

Unfortunately, the world seems to be going in the opposite direction where bat-shit-crazyness seems to attract various sections of the population who are happy to be spoon-fed towards some polarised fantasy-world where it's ok to hurt other people in order to further the careers of a tiny elite, on the hope and prayer that they'll be given special treatment once their chosen whispering demagogues are handed power. In other words, the fringes are given so much more attention than they deserve, clouding out the less exciting voices of the sensible middle. An anti- centrifugal status quo where all the loons get preferential treatment by the news networks who want to sell excitement, danger and drama, to the detriment of facts, kindness and helping.
-- zen_tom, Jun 12 2016


// normal, friendly pro-nice, pro-future, pro-kindness, pro-helping, centrist politicians remaining at the centre.//

That would be really helpful - if they're all gathered together in one place, it's much easier to target the mortar barrage.
-- 8th of 7, Jun 12 2016


David Icke's on the edge in ways other than political, I think. Unpopular opinions are not always wrong, and not always right either.
-- nineteenthly, Jun 13 2016


No but, like science, those unpopular opinions that are backed by truth (though you could, if feeling cynical insert the word expedient here) tend to be the ones that win through e.g. banning slavery, fairness over sexism, racism, liberal economics over nationalism etc - at least in the long term.

Revolution and extremist ideas can have a strong short term impact, and sometimes that might seem necessary, but tend to generate ripples of difficulty and strife that reverberate for many years after the event.

As stated previously, all this falls down if the populace are happy to be fed a diet of misinformation and spin, so I accept this is a simplification - but we do have well practiced methods for dealing with bias in scientific enquiry, it might be worth using them more widely.
-- zen_tom, Jun 13 2016


more a comment on a comment; I hard about remittance people spreading out to the British colonies because they were kind of socially er, sometimes prohibited at Britain.
-- beanangel, Jun 17 2016


//In fact, centrifugal social forces do not exist because they are forms of inertia, in other words conservatism, acting at a tangent to the direction of motion.//

There's a general problem with identifying the supposed "direction of motion" of a society, except with hindsight.

In fact there are several. Not the least of them is that it tends towards a form of "might is right" reasoning, whereby whichever side of a particular question is winning at the moment is deemed to define and own the future, so that opposition to it can be defined as regressive.

There was a striking example of this in 1930s Europe, when democracy was widely viewed as a thing of the past, to be superseded either by Fascism or by Communism. Spain's attempt to retain and revive democracy was mocked by one Fascist commentator (possibly Mussolini?) as being like going back to gas-light in the age of electricity.

Another, more theoretical problem with it is that arguments both ebb-and-flow and, simultaneously, morph into slightly different arguments, so that, by careful selection of reference points, you can usually make either side of an argument look like the wave of the future.

//I personally see rotary motion as inferior ideologically to linear//

Actually, that part makes sense to me.
-- pertinax, Jun 18 2016


//it's ok to hurt other people in order to further the careers of a tiny elite//

There are significant elements of this within the status quo, and if you make a general policy of excluding fringe elements, you will also exclude any serious attempt to change that.
-- pertinax, Jun 18 2016


I just want to say that I wish I'd said "ideologically inferior" instead of "inferior ideologically".
-- nineteenthly, Jun 18 2016


It's funny how the policy makers in any given society are those best served by the status quo, and never seem to consult those who have been failed by society before creating its newest policies.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 18 2016


Splitter!
-- pertinax, Jun 19 2016



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