Links 37: A Scottish Republic, and AI threats
things I found interesting
Should the Scottish independence question include being a republic?
Believe in Scotland asks whether it would be better if the question asked in as future referendum on Scottish independence included the commitment that Scotland be a republic (thus removing King Charles as head of state):
we asked questions around specific messages and policy areas so we could test how they impact on base independence support. One of the questions we wanted an answer to is would offering an Independent Scottish Republic increase independence support? Indeed, it's strange that the independence movement as a whole does not know the answer to this important question.
We now have a new and significantly less popular monarch. Scandals over profiteering from charity rents, Prince Andrew facilitating access for Chinese spies and indeed his links to Epstein and a £12m financial settlement to end a civil case alleging sexual assault, brought against him in the US. So now is the time to ask the question and open up a conversation about monarchy versus republicanism in an independent Scotland and to investigate what impact it might have on independence support.
The answer:
So we polled the following question.
If Scottish independence meant that Scotland would be a republic - meaning the King would no longer be the head of state, so Scotland’s governance would be fully democratic and not a monarchy - how would you vote if there were an independence referendum tomorrow?
Republicanism moves independence support from 54% in the same poll to 59%.
So there you have it -- adding a commitment to republicanism in the indyref question increases support for indy by 5%!
Will Scotland Have Another Independence Vote?
James Ker-Lindsay asks Will Scotland Have Another Independence Vote?:
In short, James Ker-Lindsay thinks that many Scots are too cautious, that Scotland needs to forget about any idea of keeping the pound sterling after independence, and should fully and enthusiastically sign up to the EU and the Euro.
I kinda agree with this: it makes sense for Scotland to no longer use the UK's currency (though it might keep it for a short time as a transitional arrangement). Instead, Scotland should get its own currency, the Scottish Pound, and join EFTA and the EEA immediately after independence. Scotland should also apply to join the EU but that might take about 1-3 years to achieve. After joining the EU a decision as to when to join the Euro needs to be taken, and Scotland should do so when the time is right economically.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the new right
Ayaan Hirsi Ali praises the new right:
This year, throughout the Western world, hard-working people made their voices heard and put their trust in the Right. New political parties were forged: in the UK, the Right-wing Reform Party won 4 million votes and gained 100,000 members; in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders helped to form an historically Right-wing government; and Italy, Sweden, Austria, Finland, the Czech Republic, and Germany have all seen the popularity of patriotic conservative parties rise, especially among the young.
People who have been betrayed or forgotten are rallying against the discursive strictures of woke-inflected neoliberal regimes. They are also sending a message to weak so-called “conservative” parties whose policies are indistinguishable from the quasi-socialist, anti-patriotic Left. Make no mistake: the Western world is in the midst of several concurrent crises. But, thanks to the democratic mandates issued by the people in 2024, there is hope.
The problem with this analysis is that yes, a lot of conservative parties, and left wing parties are unpatriotic. But so are a lot of new right parties: whether it’s UK’s Reform, Germany’s AfD or Hungary’s Orban, they are pro-Putin, which makes them traitors against their own countries, against Europe and against the human species. For that reason I can never support them.
What is necessary, then, is the creation of a new political movement which is:
against immigration of low skilled people and people who don’t like European values
for Europe being militarily strong and united against Putin and any other external enemy
for economic growth and against regulations that prevent it (for example, in the UK this means against planning regulations that prevent building houses, workplaces, etc)
for ordinary people having a decent life and against all the wealth going to the rich and big corporations
Because, as I see it, no-one in Europe stands for all of these.
People called themselves Romans into the 20th century
It's well known that after the Eastern Roman Empire stopped speaking Latin and spoke Greek, they still called themselves Romans up to the end in 1453.
What's less well known is that some Greeks regarded themselves as Romans into the 20th century:
Relatedly, the last head of state to have the title Caesar, Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, reigned until 1946, was later the democratically elected Prime Minister from 2001-2005, and is still alive.
Elon Musk pulls the voters' strings
This from Deep Left Analysis:
Elon Musk artificially boosted the Nietzschean Vitalists, along with the rest of the far right, to increase turnout for Trump. After Trump’s victory, he has dumped them on their signature issue: immigration. All they can do now is impotently vacillate between complaining and coping for the next four years.
I think what is important here is not the proximate issue (of immigration and H1B visas), but that Musk has the power to artificially boost or limit the reach of particular accounts, and that he uses that power to boost or diminish political ideologies that he likes or dislikes.
The problem with this is that the political conversation is largely carried out on the internet, and if the internet's gatekeepers control what gets an audience, they (to some extent, at least) control what people think. And thus you end up with a society controlled by the rich and powerful, i.e. the ruling class, and not a democracy.
For this reason I think it should be illegal for any large social media site to boost or diminish any political ideology.
Musk controls The Current Thing
Helen Dale writes:
In buying Twitter and making it X, Musk purchased a significant part of the site’s ability to “make the weather” in current affairs terms. In other words, “the Current Thing” is now a right-leaning dynamic, and will be for the foreseeable future.
More precisely, it's a Musk-leaning dynamic.
This is a serious problem. The problem is that social media (like traditional news media) are controlled by rich people and they therefore tend to be biased towards the rich. If Labour were sensible they'd do something about this. They won't of course, because they barely understand the problem and aren't intelligent enough to come up with anything like the correct solution.
AI is a serious threat
Philosophy Bear writes that We need to do something about AI now:
Two of the catastrophic threats from AI that I am worried about (of several) are:
Out-of-control AI killing us all
Control, powerful AI leaving the vast majority of the population poor and impotent, creating a permanent underclass without economic power- and in the end, without political power either.
And makes sensible suggestions, including:
Civil society engines oriented around defending the rights of common people in an era of AI need to be constructed.
Above all, we must reject any suggestion that we can “sort this out down the road”. Safeguards and solutions must be created before and not after technologies which will take away our economic and political bargaining power.
Any suggestion that only a particular layer of workers will be affected must be rejected, what replaces white collar workers will soon replace blue collar workers.
The exact nature of these demands will need to be worked out as we progress, the ideas of the movement can only arise from the movement itself, but we must begin to think.