I think Scotland leaving would make it more likely.
Scotland has a population of only 5 million people - and London will soon have double of that.
Also London's economy would boast in a massive way since 97% of its income goes to Westminster unlike New York, the mayor of London needs to actively lobby for things London needs. ( this is outside the boost provided by things like staying in the EU ).
Its also more practical - its far easier to secure London's borders then it is to secure all of UK's ( nothing stopping people from Spain riding up Cornwell in a boat )
Westminister could relocate to Sunderland since it would be the new heartland.
Will it matter to Scotland's goal of joining the EU after getting independence from the UK that they would have the worst deficit in the OECD [0] and have, in the past, only been a net contributor to the UK economy in three of the last fifteen years [1]?
It seems to me that the EU might require Scotland to make huge cuts to public spending. Would Scotland's independence be worth more to them than say free university tuition? I guess the SNP would avoid making cuts to certain nationally loved items, but something would surely have to give; either they would get higher taxes, or public spending would have to fall.
Of course, the EU might agree to let them remain and also allow them their deficit, but there looks to be an increasing strain on the EU's richest members, so who knows whether that would be allowed.
> Will it matter to Scotland's goal of joining the EU after getting independence from the UK that they would have the worst deficit in the developing world
You probably intended to say "developed" instead of "developing", but the link actually says worst in the OECD, which is not equivalent to the developed world (though most OECD members are in the developed world, lots of the developed world is not in the OECD.)
I find the whole argument of Scotland rejoining the EU bizarre... work for years to gain independence, just to give it away again.
As for the linked article, I'd like to know what the author meant by 'worldview'. I have a feeling people are getting the EU confused with Europe, as if leaving the EU meant we were no longer European. The media in the UK have clearly done a great job at brainwashing people, the amount of nonsense I've heard in the last few days has been staggering.
Which (to my American eyes) strikes me as odd. Isn't the average Scot given more democratic say by being a part of the U.K. than the E.U.? As I understand it, the E.U. is not a particularly democratic institution to begin with, and without the Westminster to back them up I would think Scotland would be more vulnerable to E.U. politics. Perhaps I am mistaken?
> Which (to my American eyes) strikes me as odd. Isn't the average Scot given more democratic say by being a part of the U.K. than the E.U.?
Independent of how much "democratic say" Scotland has in the EU vs the UK (which I'm not even sure how you would quantify and compare), the EU is a more limited government than the UK, and requires unanimity for certain important actions. Even with the devolved Scottish government, Westminster has more extensive power to set law in Scotland against the will of the people of Scotland than the EU would if Scotland were a member.
> "the EU is a more limited government than the UK"
That's how things stand now, but they won't for long. If an independent Scotland chose to join the EU they'd have to make some tough decisions about how much of their power to give away. For example, will they join the Eurozone? Even if they choose not to now, increasing consolidation of the Eurozone may make it pretty much inevitable in the near future, especially after 2025 when the EU Treasury is due to be set up, as the EU Treasury will almost certainly focus on the economic development of Eurozone countries.
It is difficult to measure how 'democratic' a particular government is. Some have compared the E.U. favorably to the U.K. government while still acknowledging that it falls short in certain regards [0].
But democracy is about more than just voting. It really comes down to "how much say does the average person have in the rules that govern their lives?". Will the Scottish vote count for as much being a part of the E.U. (where they are only 1% of the population) as it will staying a part of the U.K. (where they are 8% of the population)? Will the Scottish parliament retain as much independence from the E.U. parliament as they do from the U.K. parliament? Will the Scottish government be in a position to protect the interests of its people against political machinations, or will they be too often asked to sacrifice on behalf of "the greater good"?
I don't presume to have answers to those questions, so Scotland joining the E.U. may be the smart move. It just doesn't seem obviously so to me.
They may be 8% of the population, but they have 0.15% of the government's power. Scottish law is written mainly in Westminster, in which the conservatives have an absolute majority. 56 of the 59 Scottish seats went to the SNP, only one to the conservatives.
Population of Scotland as a percentage of total UK population: 5.3 million people / 64.1 million people = 8.3%.
Seems like the Scottish have about the same level of say as the rest of the UK population when it comes to the House of Commons. Plus, they have their own parliament in Holyrood.
MPs in opposition still have power, though admittedly less power than those in a majority government.
Also, if Scotland was in the EU government the number of seats would be set roughly proportional to the size of the population vs. the population of all EU countries (though it apparently doesn't follow a set formula, so all the numbers that follow are just to help with guesswork).
Population of the EU, minus UK but adding in Scotland... 447 million people (approx.)
5.3 million people / 447 million people = 1.2% (approx.)
As far as I can see from Wikipedia, Slovakia has roughly the same size of population as Scotland, and if I've read the table correctly it has 13 MEPs.
I think democracy and underrepresentation are different things and it seems most don't see the difference. Would London be more democratic as a separate state? They voted to stay in the EU but it seems their vote doesn't count much as the UK leaves the EU. Does it make the UK undemocratic? Of course not.
I think the idea behind EU is that united you can accomplish more(at least on long term). It's democratic but like any democratic system it has multiple players. UK left it because it couldn't control it not because it was not democratic. That's not necessary a bad thing for the rest of EU
I feel like a broken record at this point, but... The European Parliament has less power than every other parliament that I know of in one crucial way... They cannot propose new laws. Without the power to propose new laws, they cannot set the agenda for the EU. Only the European Commission can propose new laws, and Commissioners are not voted for by the general public. That's the key reason that the EU is not as democratic as the UK's political system, elected representatives do not have the full power to represent your interests, they can only shape what other people propose.
Commissioners are not voted for by the general public directly. Each country appoints one. Why is the general public not annoyed at the undemocratic Prime Minister ? He's not voted for directly either. Same for each member of the cabinet.
How many times... the Prime Minister IS democratically elected! If you're interested in how it happens, follow the upcoming Conservative leader elections.
As for the countries appointing a Commissioner, it doesn't matter as Commissioners have a clear mandate to avoid taking instructions from their own government. In other words, they don't represent the people that appoint them either. If you don't believe me, watch this video from the European Commission's own YouTube channel, see if you can spot the bit about not taking instructions from their own countries...
> How many times... the Prime Minister IS democratically elected. If you're interested in how it happens, follow the upcoming Conservative leader elections.
The upcoming Conservative leader elections will elect the new prime minister, and will not be a direct democratic election of the British populace, so that would seem to support the upthread claim that the PM is not directly, democratically elected.
I don't know if you're from the UK or not, but I'll assume for the moment that you're not... In the UK system, you vote for members of parliament (MP for short) that represent your local area. The majority of MPs have party affiliations, so in principal you vote based on both the local candidate and the party that you want to rule the country (in practice many people know diddly squat about their local MP and vote purely on party affiliation). So long as a party reaches past a set number of MPs in order to reach a parliamentary majority, the leader of that party becomes the prime minister.
In principal, as people are voting for the best combination of MP candidate and party that suits them, there's no need for a new election to decide the new prime minister as the Conservatives still hold the parliamentary majority. In practice, as most people know very little about their MPs and are voting based on the personality and perceived competency of the party leader (and/or identification with the principals of the party), there will be people calling for a new general election.
I didn't vote for the Conservatives, and I'd like to see Labour take their place, but now is not the right time to do so. Not only have we got the uncertainty surrounding Brexit, there's also a civil war going on in the Labour party, which is likely to get worse when the report from the Chilcot Inquiry on the Iraq war is released next week. We need stability right now, new UK elections can wait until 2020.
Also, the leader of each party is voted for by the members of that party, and anyone can become a member of a party by paying a small membership fee. If you care about who is the leader of a particular party, you do have the choice to have a say in it.
they cannot set the agenda for the EU. Only the European Commission can propose new laws
That's unfortunately placed. The European Commission does not set the agenda for the EU either (that's done by the European Council, which is directly elected).
In principal the European Council sets the agenda for the EU, but the European Council cannot propose new legislation. It's the legislation that sets the direction of the EU.
This sounds quite democratic to me. Am I wrong? "A new team of 28 Commissioners (one from each EU Member State) is appointed every five years.
The candidate for President of the Commission is proposed to the European Parliament by the European Council that decides by qualified majority and taking into account the elections to the European Parliament."
Commissioners don't represent the people that elected them, they take an oath to put the interests of the EU itself ahead of the wishes of member countries.
Well, the gov cabinet members are not elected either. People elect only key people(i.e. the PM/president etc) that have the power to delegate others to work on their behalf(i.e a chain of command that starts with the vote).
I don't see how the interest of the EU would not be the interest of the member countries.
All cabinet members have a dual role, as they are also their constituent's MP. Furthermore, if they do a bad job in either role, they can be voted out at the next election. The same type of democratic accountability does not exist for EU Commissioners, as the general public can't vote for someone to replace them.
> "I don't see how the interest of the EU would not be the interest of the member countries."
Perhaps it's worth considering other groups they can be serving, namely themselves and big business. In terms of serving themselves, changes that expand the influence of the EU over member states can be of interest to the Commission even if they didn't serve the individual member states, as the goal could be to create a European super state (there are signs that this is what's planned for the EU, especially the Eurozone countries). As for serving big business, there are over 30,000 lobbyists in Brussels, that number wouldn't be so high if they weren't having some success. I could point out examples of the European Commission pushing forward proposals from big business if you're interested?
Fortunately was not given to us by external forces(i.e. God) so if it's not democratic enough I'm sure it could be amended. Unfortunately UK didn't have such demands... The undemocratic argument seemed to be just a pretext.
The EU is about a united/cohesive and strong Europe. Ukraine is a european country outside kf EU and look what kind of issues they have and how the other european countries responded.
I'll leave 'strong' aside for the moment. Looking at united/cohesive, how united/cohesive do you want to see EU member countries become? Would you like to see a United States of Europe? If not, where do you draw the line, what decisions should national governments retain control over?
With border controls in place people don't feel very united and the border control was the main reason why the UK had to leave EU.
I think the more integrated EU becomes the better for all so you end-up with USE but this should take time(i.e 100 years). To sum it up UK is not interested in the EU values or political integration. It wants just a trade agreement so I fail to see how EU could meet its demands.
> "border control was the main reason why the UK had to leave EU"
No, it wasn't. Again, at the risk of repeating myself, the reasons for leaving the EU were far more diverse than the mainstream media led people to believe. If you think that the main reason for leaving was border control then you've been lied to, it's as simple as that.
Actually if you have a good relationship with your coworker and are struggling to go though his things you could just call him up after work or even during work to help you out ?
There is always ways to make things work when relationships are good.
Most people have little reasons to switch jobs if they are happy.
I've actually done this and my former co-worker wrote back and helped me out. So...
Lately, I've trended towards not trying to work with people at future jobs I've already worked with as I don't like the pressure of having to live up to whatever expectations they or others have. I'd rather someone have reasonable expectations that I can actually beat and vice versa.
The Millennial angle is interesting. The comments and to a lesser degree the article itself imply that millennials are the ones quitting without notice. However in my personal experience, I have only ever seen boomers quit on the spot, whereas millennials and genXers have gone above and beyond by giving 3 or more weeks. Younger workers seem much more afraid of the potential damage a negative reputation can do to their future careers.
In the US and all developed nations, our quantitative easing programs are an abstracted, less violent but fiscally equivalent analog to burning a store or selling the future for the present. The consequences of these choices will also come to our door in time.
See dp4a on GTX1080. You're a hot commodity if you can build on that. See also Google's TPU where they managed 8-bit inference but probably not 8-bit training (though that may be more of a memory or bandwidth limitation).
I have no personal experience working for Samsung but know quite a few who did work for their US team and most don't have a positive experience. I also know some who worked for other South Korean companies. Lets just say the Korean work culture is quite different than in a typical US company. Hopefully the Joyent guys will be shielded from all this.
I worked with two project managers from their US team STA (Samsung Technologies America). One was OK. The other one was a fucking psychopath. I'm talking about needlessly and viciously backstabbing all in range. Totally unbelievable. Never seen anything like it, and god help me I hope I never see it again.
Later, I visited their HQ in Korea and met some of their Indian and Korean development teams. They were competent but the work culture was toxic. People were expected to attend 11PM daily review meetings where the issues list was painfully re-read pointlessly and nothing at all was achieved. Koreans were expected to live in numbered company compounds, catch a numbered company bus and ascend to a numbered floor in a numbered company skyscraper after an airport security style physical check. Smoking allowed strictly twice per day in a designated corner of the compound. All movement is tracked. Psychotic Confucian management style. I honestly thought to myself: if this is a vision of the future, I want no part of it.
Then you should see the japanese way of working, it's also quite fun! I believe this is common in most of asia. I have worked in China and it's not quite different at all from what you're saying.
Working in China is way different from Japan/Korea, at least for the companies I've been exposed to. There is much more freedom in how you get things done, there is less hierarchy, there is more value placed on programmers (which is why Koreans, Japanese, Taiwanese seem to come here to work in spite of the pollution).
China is definitely way better than Japan. Maybe imitation of all western products year over year could help them to have more western way of working style and etc but still culture is workaholic, robot like obeying, not criticising at all.
My experience in Shanghai/Suzhou is very different fortunately. Not very long days if not needed, high salaries and quite a bit of freedom. Very Western feel while we work with Chinese companies with no Western employees.
From what I understand Samsung is a huge conglomerate of divisions that have little to do with each other.
Samsung Semiconductor is happy to supply chips to Apple even though they're the biggest rival of Samsung Telecommunications the builds the Galaxy phones. Conversely Samsung Telecommunications may or may not pick Samsung chips for their Galaxy phones, it doesn't really matter.
So I guess it depends to what division they will be attached. If they're attached directly to the group, they may actually keep complete freedom and just have a different owner.
Seems like the average complaints people have working at BigCo.
Compared to the kind of stuff that Microsoft, Apple have done in the past in the software world.
And I do not see how this is bad, maybe Samsung is trying to learn why 'Western' engineering is so much superior to 'Asian' engineering by this acquisition ?
Some of the rumors going on say that management back home is very provincial and are rigidly Confucian (hierarchical), which they enforce on their satellite operations. Also, your basic big corp in tech are quite internationalized from the start even at home; e.g. IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Facebook, Apple already employ those from many different cultures even in their home offices.
> And I do not see how this is bad, maybe Samsung is trying to learn why 'Western' engineering is so much superior to 'Asian' engineering by this acquisition ?
It depends if you want to be part of their learning experience or not! Chinese companies have adapted pretty well to acquisitions and satellites, so it isn't an Asian thing. Japanese companies have been known to have similar problems in the past and even currently (though it really depends on the company, and many have had a lot of time to gain experience).
Actually, Japan is another country that is notorious for not being as great as they should be at software, maybe there is a common thing going on?
Considering Samsung has been known to push for proprietary technology (they tried to create market of Android apps that would only work on Samsung's phones) I'm little worried there is going to be some sort of new node.js fork that's incompatible with current one and has some weird licensing stuff or something.
Microsoft is a software company. Samsung is not. If you think they are, then you probably haven't used one of their bloated, buggy phones that they stop updating way too soon.
What it has to do with it being Asian is the culture of conformity and group think; this is in stark contrast to Bryan's statement that at Joyent everyone leads and is led by taking individual initiative.
Don't know. There isn't even a word about Node in the statement from then CEO, but before today I didn't even know what the main business of Joyent is so I can't say how they and Samsung think it's important for them. Just figure, my first thought was "Samsung wants Node, but why?" :-)
Anyway, it's not tightly bound with Joyent anymore so even a worst case scenario won't affect ot much.
As a "millennials" I feel no sense of loyalty to anything, my Education was paid with private money ( or private loans ) and you want me to pay taxes ??. My alma master is treated no differently then Walmart.
My company is just someone I can extract money from, the more I can use them to expand my personal brand image the better.
No sense to loyalty to my city, since I switch it every few years, no sense of community belonging if you do not have a permanent address.
Same goes for country.
This is the world we have created, is it better or worse than any alternative ? only history will be able to tell.
Other than that I suppose I largely agree with the sentiment.
I stopped voting in the Swedish elections partly because I don't see myself going back for a while and I don't think I should have much say if I don't intend to deal with the outcome..
I only maintain ties with my alma mater because they operate sports facilities and clubs that I enjoy, I certainly have no deep emotional connection to the institution itself.
As long as we maintain human to human bonds I don't think losing an artificial sense of community (particularly when used to create a sense of indebtedness or fear of leaving) from a workplace, institution or lack of mobility is any great shame.
Although it strikes me that when you essentially say that you cultivate a personal brand image, it may well be that you are simply replacing one artificial sense of community with another. My point of view would be that any "personal brand" that actually correlates with happiness would come naturally as a side effect of doing things you find fulfilling. Happiness is not a side-effect of some brand-building effort. But perhaps we have different metrics for success or indeed different ideas of happiness.
Scotland has a population of only 5 million people - and London will soon have double of that.
Also London's economy would boast in a massive way since 97% of its income goes to Westminster unlike New York, the mayor of London needs to actively lobby for things London needs. ( this is outside the boost provided by things like staying in the EU ).
Its also more practical - its far easier to secure London's borders then it is to secure all of UK's ( nothing stopping people from Spain riding up Cornwell in a boat )
Westminister could relocate to Sunderland since it would be the new heartland.