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sornars's comments

sornars | 8 years ago | on: Does Brexit end not with a bang but a whimper? 

   I've never understood this argument. Surely all you have to do is write a law that says: in the absence of British law, default to EU legislation. That's the essence of the great repeal bill, is it not?
My understanding of one of the big issues with defaulting to EU law is that disputes under EU law are settled by the ECJ and EU regulatory bodies (which are governed by ECJ rulings). This is not suitable for post-Brexit Britain's red lines. Accommodating this requires revisiting and rewriting the law to use British equivalents and I suspect this is a more time consuming process than a simple find-replace job.

This is also why Theresa May plans to use the 'Henry VIII clauses'[1] which allows the Government to amend laws (in this case, the Great Repeal Bill) without further scrutiny from parliament. This is potentially problematic as those amendments can include pretty much anything.

[1] https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/henry-vi...

sornars | 8 years ago | on: Spanish police doing an intervention in Fundació puntCAT office

Because it violates the Spanish constitution as ruled by Spanish courts (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/02/catalonia-sece...).

The follow up argument is the government has the power to amend the constitution but it currently has no interest in doing so. If Catalans want to secede they must first convince their (national) politicians to amend the consitution to make secession legal and then hold a referendum on secession itself.

sornars | 8 years ago | on: Theresa May says the internet must now be regulated after London terror attack

I was hoping to capture your last point when I said people need to assess party platforms as a whole. I understand that most people who voted Leave cannot really vote Lib Dem in good conscience. I hate to see parties lock up single issue voters into electoral blocks like that but that's what happens under our current (broken) system.

Having said that, I don't think any of that detracts from my point - the electorate don't care enough about privacy to make it their hot-button issue. The people have chosen to prioritise the NHS, Brexit, Immigration and the War on Terror over privacy. All of those are important and the politicians up for election respond accordingly to their priorities. If a UKIP-like party that focused on civil liberties started hoovering up votes then the main parties would also respond; unfortunately I don't see that happening due to voter apathy on the topic.

sornars | 8 years ago | on: Theresa May says the internet must now be regulated after London terror attack

If the people cared about individual liberty they'd vote outside the big two parties (Tories and Labour) and take a look at the Lib Dems who have promised to repeal the Investigatory Powers Act rather than enhance it. The fact that the electrate doesn't care about these issues (and that the Lib Dems are on track to lose vote share) means they'll end up with the politicians they deserve.

I appreciate the issues FPTP presents and that people need to assess party platforms as a whole but the truth is most people don't care enough about privacy to make it a priority and so the UK will continue to get a bit more authoritarian every election.

sornars | 8 years ago | on: Google Contributor: Buy an ad removal pass for the web

I feel like your second point was a missed educational opportunity for users. Ad views are worth a lot more to advertisers (and consequently, publishers) than what you are willing to pay - 'free content' isn't free and if you as a user aren't willing to pay for it then it's probably not fair to complain about the ads. The thing that upsets me is when I am willing to pay for content (Washington Post, The Economist, FT, etc.) and I still get served ads.

Online advertising reminds me of airline travel in the sense that people complain about the low quality service but are only willing to purchase the cheapest flights. The industry has shifted to accomodate what people actually want, not what they say they want.

sornars | 9 years ago | on: The EIF has frozen funding to new UK VCs

I dislike the hyperbolic way this is portrayed in the article but anything that makes funding harder for the UK tech scene can't be a good thing, even if it's not official policy for these instituitions.

sornars | 10 years ago | on: What Americans know and don't know about science

RE: Polio - I suspect this is because most Americans do know who the other options (Isaac Newton, Marie Curie and Albert Einstein) are. This may be reflected in the fact that the most obscure of those three (Marie Curie) is also the one with the most incorrect guesses.
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