JasSmith

No, please, continue to support my arguments. I very much appreciate it.

I don't know what you think you're proving with that link. Do you think I'm arguing that political advertising isn't real? Because I never argued that. Cambridge Analytica scraped a lot of Facebook data, and it is claimed they used that data to advertise to potential voters. So what? That's how democracy works: convincing potential voters of the righteousness of your cause. Are you arguing that people should no longer be allowed to debate and inform each other in a democracy?

I'm not sure if you read your sources but you are only corroborating what I argued. It's a lot of empty talk. None of them are willing to act. Take the example of the border security. It's theatre. Even if an illegal immigrant is stopped, they still have the right to reside in the country for many years, and indefinitely if they refuse to leave in most circumstances. All of this is paid for by German citizens. I can't believe you would use the Greens as an example of a party getting tough on immigration. They have zero policies to reduce immigration.

To summarise your sources: not a single party is willing to act on immigration. Don't be surprised when people vote for parties which will.

Yes? But what does this have to do with immigration?

I'm not making that link. The user above argued Brexit was caused by appeasement. I was addressing that specific claim.

I generally side against the neoliberals. In this case, they have been tirelessly fighting for globalisation and high immigration. Like all economic policies, it comes with some good and some bad. It has certainly resulted in a lot of top line wealth generation. The problem is that most of it has been accrued at the top. This is not sustainable. I think this is why we are seeing a general backlash to globalisation: the experiment hurt a lot of middle and lower class people.

Spending X on advertising will increase your product sales by Y.

Because it exposes products to customers who were otherwise unaware of their existence or features, not because advertising has special brainwashing powers.

I think there is an implied argument you are making that unless people vote the "correct" way, they're misinformed. I think some people just have different priorities. They care about different things and for this reason, consume different media. I was horrified to learn my wife clicks on ads when she's shopping. Apparently that works for her. It doesn't mean she's wrong. Just that she's not as rigorous about her selection process because she's ultimately happy with the outcome.

Popper’s paradox of tolerance gives in my view pretty clear guidelines on what to protect and what not to tolerate. I believe that if we held onto that, fascism would have a much harder time.

Popper did make his line clear: physical violence.

"I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols."

So I agree with you. Tolerate up to the point of people using physical violence to enact their political aims.

I think you are falsely equating the choice not to seek out new knowledge with the belief that the adverts one sees on TikTok are all correct. I understand you believe the latter is a serious problem. I just do not. I have much more respect and faith in the average person.

Privacy laws are poor in Europe in general. Companies are required to facilitate the access of data for governments. The only way to prevent this is to encrypt all data before upload and use a VPN for all access to the cloud to avoid a potential raid at your home. Users will be quick to argue "well if you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear!" I have never found that a compelling argument.

No. Advertising exists to inform people about products and services. I do not subscribe to the notion that advertising can convince an average voter to vote against their best interests or contra to facts. Not in a Western society in which one can easily obtain the facts on the internet. This might be true in a country like China where the internet is tightly controlled and facts aren't easy to obtain.

Brexit happened because successive neoliberal governments ground low and middle class workers into dust. The two party system provided no alternative to voters than the two neoliberal governments. So when voters got the chance, they burned a cherished institution to the ground in protest. The issue here is decades of neglecting the wellbeing of citizens, and I'm dismayed that you would argue the issue might be actually listening to voters for the first time in generations. It is the exact opposite that is needed in the UK and around Europe.

I don't think that's accurate. You can see voter turnout for the 2015 and 2019 elections here. It's true that some voters went to KF and Nye Borgerlige, but even more voters went to RV and SF. I think you are right to argue it caused more people to vote for parties further on the left and right, but the far left appears to be the aggregate winner.

I have, and I think you are wrong. However both of us are using very vague words like “appeasement” and I’m beginning to think we’re not using the same definitions. We might be remembering the facts which align with our narrative and ignoring those which do not. The truth might lie somewhere in between.