= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
AspiringKnitter comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 9 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (718)
The dark secret, AspiringKnitter, is that all the food magic actually works on the same principle as the Hogwarts Hall meals - enslaved house-elves in obscure kitchens. That they feel no need to mention this merely demonstrates how thoroughly wizarding society is based on slavery. (We didn't hear about the house-elves for how many books?)
One, actually, but your point still stands. That is just plain creepy. Wait a minute. Why would it work for people who don't own house-elves, then?
Watch your Fox News; it's England so they have socialism.
They have socialized slavery?
There are so many things wrong with that.
I think gwern omitted the <sarcasm> tag in his reply
No: it was there, he just spelled it Fox News.
Well, you know, under socialism everyone is a slave to the state. So it's hardly inconsistent.
You know, I wonder whether Magical Britain has policies as liberal (American liberal, which I think means socialist in the rest of the world) as Real Britain. Somehow, I think not, but do we have evidence either way?
Just a minor nitpick, I think it's the other way around. I'm reasonably sure that the American form of liberalism is usually on the right end of the political spectrum in other Western democracies. What is called liberal in other countries is what many Americans would call socialist and what is called moderate is 'American liberal'. Specifically, the Democratic Party's (the major party that most Americans call liberal) significant policy stances would probably be considered moderate in Great Britain and conservative in Denmark.
Nope, in France "libéral" is closer to American "libertarian", i.e. pro-free markets, anti-welfare (as opposed to the "mainstream" right wing, which isn't particularly hostile to big government, and is more about traditional values and whatnot, and of course as opposed to the socialists and other left-wingers, who are very much at odds with the liberals). I think "liberal" has the same meaning in most of Europe (and in most of the world, though I'm less sure of that), and Americans and Canadians are more of the exception (where for historicaly reasons "socialist" had anti-American connotations, so the label "liberal" was adopted instead. This is a gross oversimplification).
Thank you for the clarification. I did remember that in other countries liberal meant classically liberal as opposed to American modern liberalism. So in France, "libéral" is economically liberal but not necessarily socially permissive? Or did you mean "small-l libertarianism" when you referred to American "libertarian" and not the Libertarian Party?
Let me rephrase: we would consider your socialists liberal, even though certain parts of the world have a political spectrum shifted so far to the left that even your right-wing parties are liberal. In this case I meant that I wonder whether Magical Britain is as far to the left as regular Britain.