Swedish feminist party burn $13,000 of donations to make a point

Sporkbender Join date : 2010-01-20

Psy-4 wrote:

Anon wrote:: If people started doing it on mass and it began to affect the economy, I can see that banning it might become necessary. Right now, however, there's no real point.

Because why use foresight when making laws, right?

I'm not sure what your idea of using foresight when making laws is, but it's clearly very different from mine.

Anon wrote:

Psy-4 wrote:

Anon wrote:: If people started doing it on mass and it began to affect the economy, I can see that banning it might become necessary. Right now, however, there's no real point.

Because why use foresight when making laws, right?

I'm not sure what your idea of using foresight when making laws is, but it's clearly very different from mine.

"Preempt a known method for manipulating the value of currency in unpleasant ways." Recent events have proven once again that people will do very, very stupid things in service of a get-rich-quick scheme. If "destruction of government property" isn't a good enough reason to ban burning money, then "preempting currency manipulation shenanigans" should be. I realize this is somewhat an academic concern right now, but the possibility does exist, and remember how much of our economic knowledge is still a work-in-progress. The Wiemar Republic honestly thought it could print it's way out of debt, and the first half of the 20th century wasn't exactly the Dark Ages. More recent events like the late 70s have forced us to continually reevaluate what we think we know on the topic.

tl;dr: Economics is called "the dismal science" for a reason. Better safe than sorry.

PS: Don't get into a hair-pulling contest with Psy. You'll wind up humiliated and bald.

Sporkbender Join date : 2010-01-20

gaijinguy wrote:

Anon wrote:

Psy-4 wrote:

Anon wrote:: If people started doing it on mass and it began to affect the economy, I can see that banning it might become necessary. Right now, however, there's no real point.

Because why use foresight when making laws, right?

I'm not sure what your idea of using foresight when making laws is, but it's clearly very different from mine.

"Preempt a known method for manipulating the value of currency in unpleasant ways." Recent events have proven once again that people will do very, very stupid things in service of a get-rich-quick scheme. If "destruction of government property" isn't a good enough reason to ban burning money, then "preempting currency manipulation shenanigans" should be. I realize this is somewhat an academic concern right now, but the possibility does exist, and remember how much of our economic knowledge is still a work-in-progress. The Wiemar Republic honestly thought it could print it's way out of debt, and the first half of the 20th century wasn't exactly the Dark Ages. More recent events like the late 70s have forced us to continually reevaluate what we think we know on the topic.

I know the weaknesses of economics as a science, but we can see some of what is actually happening right in front of us, and we can see what has happened in the past. It isn't an immediate threat and anything that would be likely to catch a government unaware is probably already illegal under laws covering things such as arson. If not, well, a law banning the burning of money probably wouldn't stop them.

As for get rich quick schemes, I think the answer is that if anyone was going to try a stunt like that, they would probably have already done it. Since, AFAIK, they haven't, I'm assuming the odds of it happening are actually pretty minuscule. In any case, "using foresight when making laws" as Psy-4 puts it, to me, involves looking at possible threats, examining the likelihood of them becoming problems and then weighing up the costs and benefits of taking an action and deciding on this basis whether or not to do it, not banning everything that has even the slightest risk of causing problems.

Anon wrote:: Right now the best way I guess I could put it is: It's one thing to burn books you bought as a form of protest, another one entirely to set fire to the library because some of your tax money went into it.

First, it might be better to compare it to burning library books rather than the library itself. Second, if you burn library books, the library will come after you and anyone could see why it would come after you. Since burning money is legal, that's kind of like the library saying it doesn't mind if you burn a few of its books.[/quote]

To refine it further, it's more like the library has never said you can't burn the books. But burning the books still denies others use of those books, a public resource.

Contributor Join date : 2009-06-10 Age : 46

Penguin wrote:

Anon wrote:: Right now the best way I guess I could put it is: It's one thing to burn books you bought as a form of protest, another one entirely to set fire to the library because some of your tax money went into it.

First, it might be better to compare it to burning library books rather than the library itself. Second, if you burn library books, the library will come after you and anyone could see why it would come after you. Since burning money is legal, that's kind of like the library saying it doesn't mind if you burn a few of its books.

To refine it further, it's more like the library has never said you can't burn the books. But burning the books still denies others use of those books, a public resource.[/quote]

More to the point, because those books are a public resource, and you have agreed, by checking them out, to care for them and return them in due time, you have robbed both the library and the public and can, under certain circumstances, be charged with theft and/or fraud.

Sporkbender Join date : 2010-01-20

Penguin wrote:

Anon wrote:

Quote :: Right now the best way I guess I could put it is: It's one thing to burn books you bought as a form of protest, another one entirely to set fire to the library because some of your tax money went into it.

First, it might be better to compare it to burning library books rather than the library itself. Second, if you burn library books, the library will come after you and anyone could see why it would come after you. Since burning money is legal, that's kind of like the library saying it doesn't mind if you burn a few of its books.

To refine it further, it's more like the library has never said you can't burn the books. But burning the books still denies others use of those books, a public resource.

I'm fairly sure that by joining a library, you are signing a contract saying you will return books borrowed from that library intact and within a set time period. There is no equivalent for money.

In any case, there is, or should be, absolutely no need to create a law that explicitly bans burning money. People do it in small quantities for various reasons without doing any real harm. If you want to prevent it being done en masse, then you frame laws that are primarily meant for other purposes in such a way that doing this violates them. You don't bring in a total ban on burning money unless you have a good reason to prevent it being done altogether.

Armbiter of Good Fanfiction Join date : 2009-06-10

herp what is selective enforcement derp

Sporkbender Join date : 2010-01-20

Psy-4 wrote:: herp what is selective enforcement derp

An admission that laws are overly broad in their reach.

Armbiter of Good Fanfiction Join date : 2009-06-10

Very good, now what makes you think that no discretion will be used when enforcing this law?

Join date : 2010-05-18 Age : 41 Location : The Neutral Zone

If women are earning less than men, would that be because many women choose to work part time after having a child? Burning currency isn't going to change that, and is actually pretty counter-productive. Feminism is great, but it sounds like this party might be a bunch of man-hating bigots. Last time I checked, feminism supposed to be about the equality of the sexes.

^ Am I the only one who things BadficReadings is sounding a lot like Ezri Dax as of late?

I am in mostly agreement with Anon re:money burning. There may be reasons for the no-money-buring law, but I think it is unfair to say Sweden is stupid for not having one when they obviously have not needed one thus far. I doubt anyone here is an expert on Sweden's economic structure either, so it just sounds like an ignorent comment to me. 'Hurr, Sweden does not do a thing the way we do, Sweden are dum.'

ETA:Nevermind, after examining the evidence I am now convinced Ezri and Badfics are the same person.

BadficReadings wrote:: If women are earning less than men, would that be because many women choose to work part time after having a child? Burning currency isn't going to change that, and is actually pretty counter-productive. Feminism is great, but it sounds like this party might be a bunch of man-hating bigots. Last time I checked, feminism supposed to be about the equality of the sexes.

Then explain to me why unmarried women with no children still make less than men. About 20 cents less, last I heard.

BadficReadings wrote:: If women are earning less than men, would that be because many women choose to work part time after having a child?

No, it isn't. We know this because women who are working full time still earn - on average - around 75% of the wages of men who work full time.

Women don't earn less than men because they work less. Like Lexin said, women earn about 75% of what men do for the same work and same number of hours.

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