touzen (u/touzen) - Readit News

touzen commented on Try and ygdp.yale.edu/phenomena/t... · Posted by u/treetalker

Sardtok · 15 days ago

It's kind of funny that in Norwegian, people mix up the infinitive "to" and "and", as they are pronounced the same, "o" in IPA. So we have the same thing in Norwegian writing, but if you happen to use "and", you must use the imperative form of the verb for it to be grammatically correct. So, "try to stop me" is "prøv å stoppe meg", and "try and stop me" is "prøv og stopp meg". The latter is much more colloquial.

This isn't a problem in Swedish and Danish, as their infinitive marker is "att/at", which in Norwegian only means "that" in its conjunctive form.

I wonder if there's any relation to the Norwegian here.

touzen · 15 days ago

Actually, the situation is even weirder in Swedish! Even though we write "att", it is pronounced "o" when used to mark an infinitive but not when used like the word "that" in English. So, in the sentence

  Jag tror *att* han gillar *att* äta
  I think *that* he likes *to* eat

the first "att" (that) is pronounced similar to its orthography but the second one (to) is pronounced "o".

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/att#Swedish

touzen commented on Facebook Must Really Suck At Machine Learning blog.eladgil.com/2016/11/... · Posted by u/ktamiola

cpeterso · 9 years ago

How do people (readers or news agencies) handle this problem in non-English speaking communities? I'm curious what approaches have already been tried.

touzen · 9 years ago

In Sweden, we have had numerous incidents where fake news has been spread with the purpose of spreading anti-immigrant sentiment. A recent example is a rumour stating that we had banned christmas decorations as it might offend muslim immigrants. What actually happened was that the Swedish Transport Administration had urged people not to decorate street poles as it might be a violation of our electricity laws. [0]

We haven't really figured out how to address these issues. The best we've got now is an initiative by Metro called Viralgranskaren (~"viral post inspector") that debunks myths like these. [1] What I think needs to happen is for the education system to start putting a larger emphasis on skepticism and source criticism. These skills and qualities are crucial for a 21th century liberal democracy.

[0]: http://www.snopes.com/sweden-bans-christmas-lights/

[1]: http://www.metro.se/nyheter/viralgranskaren/ (sadly only available in Swedish, it seems)

touzen commented on Gothenburg's six-hour work day experiment hangs in the balance thelocal.se/20160421/goth... · Posted by u/ptaipale

socalnate1 · 9 years ago

"Deputy Mayor and Moderate party spokesperson Maria Ryden, who is one of the politicians behind the motion told The Local she felt it was "unfair" to continue the project, because it was not sustainable in the long term.

"We might as well stop now," she argued."

This is nuts, don't they understand the point of a test?

touzen · 9 years ago

The idea of a six hour workday is an extremely politically divisive issue in Sweden. It's even controversial _within_ the Swedish left. The Moderate party in Gothenburg isn't being driven by a lack of understanding but by ideology (the Moderate party being the largest conservative party in Sweden).

touzen commented on The EU Is on the Verge of Collapse–An Interview with George Soros nybooks.com/articles/2016... · Posted by u/nkurz

ju-st · 10 years ago

Nobody is against the EU except far-right political partys and their supporters. edit: so far left, too, sorry!

touzen · 10 years ago

That's not entirely true though. There are a lot of leftists who oppose the EU because they believe it is to neoliberal, prioritizing the protecting of businesses rather than the interests of the people. At least that's the case here in Sweden, and I'd be surprised if we were unique in this aspect.

touzen commented on David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show' theguardian.com/world/201... · Posted by u/patrickk

spindritf · 12 years ago

The idea that the market will solve such things as environmental concerns, as our racial divides, as our class distinctions, our problems with educating and incorporating one generation of workers into the economy after the other when that economy is changing

Is this idea actually being implemented anywhere? Isn't education, even in the US, almost wholly sponsored by the government? People talk about student loans but those are also guaranteed by the government, right? And then the government grants those loans special status by preventing you from ever discharging them in case of bankruptcy.

I don't know if the market could remove divides but neither does anyone else because it's a completely untested hypothesis.

touzen · 12 years ago

In Sweden private for profit schools and schools run by the municipalities compete with each other. All of them are funded by the tax payers and they get a certain amount of money for every student.

The system is a disaster, with a lot of for profit schools slashing costs to maximize profits regardless of what the consequences are for the students. And that's just one of the many failures of the system.

Basically, the problem is that markets don't necessarily generate the best solutions from a social perspective, markets generate the solutions that create the largest profits. You have to some how get the markets to stop chasing profits, which is easier said than done.

touzen commented on Sweden closes four prisons as number of inmates plummets theguardian.com/world/201... · Posted by u/frank_boyd

berrypicker · 12 years ago

> libertarians refuse to acknowledge the positive effects of equality

You just made this up, or, you don't understand the difference between trying to force equality and equality itself. Equality may have positive effects, trying to force it upon people does not, this is a well-documented phenomenon Example, colleges - entry requirements are lowered in top colleges for Black students, who, in turn, have higher drop out rates because they can't keep up.

>While not everything on Wikipedia is true, it's certainly a less biased source than the ones you refer to.

This is the equivalent of saying "your sources are biased, mine are not" to affirm your socialist ideas.

touzen · 12 years ago

1) Equality doesn't "just happen". It's something that must be actively pursued. Basically all equality is "forced".

Also, the type of positive discrimination that you describe is irrelevant to this discussion. Your ramblings on "forced equality" were in response to my view that you shouldn't discriminate job applicants because of their ethnicity.

The absence of discrimination is not the same thing as positive discrimination.

2) Whether or not my ideas are socialist (I think "progressive" is a better word) is irrelevant here. The truth is, I can back my claims with credible sources. You cannot.

touzen commented on Sweden closes four prisons as number of inmates plummets theguardian.com/world/201... · Posted by u/frank_boyd

alan_cx · 12 years ago

"Immigrant" is not a "race".

That said, a very recent report in the UK shows that immigrants are more productive and add value in the UK, contrary to right wing hate mongering. No idea if that is the same anywhere else, but it does show a difference between what we are told and the actual economic facts.

touzen · 12 years ago

While it is true that "immigrant" is not a "race", the idea that swedes are inherently less criminal than all other ethnicities is still racist.

One might argue that "racist" should be replaced with the term "xenophobic" or something like that. However the underlying assumption is still that some groups are "better" than others simply because of their ethnicity.

touzen commented on Sweden closes four prisons as number of inmates plummets theguardian.com/world/201... · Posted by u/frank_boyd

berrypicker · 12 years ago

Yes, I think employers should be able to refuse somebody based on ethnicity, whether I agree with the act itself or not is irrelevant, I believe in the freedom to do so. My personal opinions regarding employment do not affect my belief that you can't force equality.

One economist supporting my view doesn't make me right, okay, but you haven't really added anything, you just labelled him right-wing and left it there, probably because being right-wing means being wrong to you. The arguments and evidence is there though.

Your posts are full of logical fallacies, another one is present in your last paragraph (ad hominem - is Kaczynski's work on maths now wrong too because he murdered someone?), so I'm going to stop responding to you. I've had these arguments with liberals too often, where they accuse me being an evil, immoral person because I don't think a better society will result from just giving and giving until everybody's seemingly equal.

touzen · 12 years ago

Your economist being right wing is relevant because most libertarians refuse to acknowledge the positive effects of equality. Noting that a source is biased is a valid point.

I agree that pointing out that Kaczynski is an insane serial killer who forced a bunch of papers to publish his anarcho-primitivist manifesto by threatening to keep bombing people (WTF?) doesn't prove he's a poor mathematician. However, we're not talking about his maths skills. Being a brilliant mathematician doesn't really make you an expert on social issues.

"Economic inequality is positively and significantly related to rates of homicide despite an extensive list of conceptually relevant controls. The fact that this relationship is found with the most recent data and using a different measure of economic inequality from previous research, suggests that the finding is very robust." - Wikipedia

While not everything on Wikipedia is true, it's certainly a less biased source than the ones you refer to.