GERS Day 2022

[scottsdad]

In recent centuries (until the mid-20th century) the measure of how much a country was propsering long-term was population growth. If a nation's population was growing then the country was doing well.

In 1707 Scotland had one fifth of the population of England. Now it is a tenth. In the intervening years England has prospered whilst Scotland has not. 

Take any other measure you like, the union has held Scotland back.

[Duries Air Freshener]

41 minutes ago, AsimButtHitsASix said:

No matter where you stand on independence it's impossible to say that Scotland has benefited, overall, from being in the Union. Of course there has been benefits but, unless anyone has something that can transport them to a parallel dimension, we don't know how Scotland would have done as an independent nation. 

That’s a logical fallacy.

[Fletcher23]

41 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

In recent centuries (until the mid-20th century) the measure of how much a country was propsering long-term was population growth. If a nation's population was growing then the country was doing well.

In 1707 Scotland had one fifth of the population of England. Now it is a tenth. In the intervening years England has prospered whilst Scotland has not. 

Take any other measure you like, the union has held Scotland back.

It is the snp that has held Scotland back for years now. 

[coprolite]

10 minutes ago, Duries Air Freshener said:

That’s a logical fallacy.

No it's not it's a sound point.  There is no counterfactual or control that can reliably show how Scotland would have done outside the Union. 

Of course that does also mean that we can't know for sure whether being in the Union has been net negative for Scotland. 

I'm not particularly in favour of independence but i can't see how a modest fiscal transfer to Scotland shows that Scotland benefits overall,  when all monetary and industrial policy over the last 45 years has deliberately handicapped the former heavy industrial areas of the Celtic fringe and North of England and chosen to pursue low inflation ahead of full employment.  

That's like saying that redundancy is actually a net plus to you because increased company profits will pay part of your benefits. 

[AsimButtHitsASix]

22 minutes ago, Duries Air Freshener said:

That’s a logical fallacy.

Is it, aye?

[Duries Air Freshener]

44 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

In recent centuries (until the mid-20th century) the measure of how much a country was propsering long-term was population growth. If a nation's population was growing then the country was doing well.

In 1707 Scotland had one fifth of the population of England. Now it is a tenth. In the intervening years England has prospered whilst Scotland has not. 

Take any other measure you like, the union has held Scotland back.

I think the prospering of a country is subjective.

Depending on our own personal priorities, we will come up with different answers.

For me, it’s about having a society where anyone willing to work hard can live comfortably and raise families.

It’s about a whole other bunch of things too, like how we treat our fellow human beings.

Population growth is certainly not something I’d hold up as a metric.

The Union has absolutely helped Scotland prosper IMO.

[G51]

Happy GERS day everyone. Hopefully we can scud PSV Eindhoven tonight, WATP

[AsimButtHitsASix]

8 minutes ago, Duries Air Freshener said:

I think the prospering of a country is subjective.

Depending on our own personal priorities, we will come up with different answers.

For me, it’s about having a society where anyone willing to work hard can live comfortably and raise families.

It’s about a whole other bunch of things too, like how we treat our fellow human beings.

Population growth is certainly not something I’d hold up as a metric.

The Union has absolutely helped Scotland prosper IMO.

The important part of this is the "IMO". 

I, personally, don't particularly agree with population growth as any sort of absolute and put it down on the list of metrics to consider but just because you don't hold it as something to use doesn't mean it is without merit.

Yer claiming absolutes on hypotheticals but think I'm the one who's committed the logical fallacy.

 

Fascinating.

Edited August 24, 2022 by AsimButtHitsASix

[Duries Air Freshener]

5 minutes ago, coprolite said:

No it's not it's a sound point.  There is no counterfactual or control that can reliably show how Scotland would have done outside the Union. 

Of course that does also mean that we can't know for sure whether being in the Union has been net negative for Scotland. 

I'm not particularly in favour of independence but i can't see how a modest fiscal transfer to Scotland shows that Scotland benefits overall,  when all monetary and industrial policy over the last 45 years has deliberately handicapped the former heavy industrial areas of the Celtic fringe and North of England and chosen to pursue low inflation ahead of full employment.  

That's like saying that redundancy is actually a net plus to you because increased company profits will pay part of your benefits. 

I’ve thought hard about this and still believe it to be a logical fallacy.

The claim was that because we don’t know what the future would have been without the Union, we cannot tell if Scotland benefited from it.

Whether we benefited or not can simply be told by whether things improved at the time of the creation Act of Union and thereafter.

[Duries Air Freshener]

4 minutes ago, AsimButtHitsASix said:

The important part of this is the "IMO". 

I, personally, don't particularly agree with population growth as any sort of absolute and put it down on the list of metrics to consider but just because you don't hold it as something to use doesn't mean it is without merit.

Yer claiming absolutes on hypotheticals but think I'm the one who's committed the logical fallacy.

 

Fascinating.

Of course Asim, it’s my opinion.

What a joy it is to have us agree on something.

Who’ da thunk it?

[Left Back]

2 minutes ago, Duries Air Freshener said:

I’ve thought hard about this and still believe it to be a logical fallacy.

The claim was that because we don’t know what the future would have been without the Union, we cannot tell if Scotland benefited from it.

Whether we benefited or not can simply be told by whether things improved at the time of the creation Act of Union and thereafter.

It can't because you can't tell what would have happened without the union.  Even if you can say there was a benefit to Scotland since the union you can't say that whatever metric you use to define benefit wouldn't have been higher without the union, therefore not benefitting as much as we could have which would be a detriment.

[Duries Air Freshener]

9 minutes ago, Left Back said:

It can't because you can't tell what would have happened without the union.  Even if you can say there was a benefit to Scotland since the union you can't say that whatever metric you use to define benefit wouldn't have been higher without the union, therefore not benefitting as much as we could have which would be a detriment.

Not being able to tell what a Union-less Scotland would have been like doesn’t negate from the Union’s benefiting influence though.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Duries Air Freshener

[AsimButtHitsASix]

1 minute ago, Duries Air Freshener said:

Not being able to tell what a Union-less doesn’t negate from the Union’s benefiting influence though.

Well... it does. The benefits of the union may well be vastly outweighed by the negatives. We'll never know.

[Duries Air Freshener]

1 minute ago, AsimButtHitsASix said:

Well... it does. The benefits of the union may well be vastly outweighed by the negatives. We'll never know.

Well that would be something else entirely, and of course, a matter of opinion.

And I thank you for keeping it respectful.

[williemillersmoustache]

Quote

it’s about having a society where anyone willing to work hard can live comfortably and raise families.

 

[Arch Stanton]

Hopefully by 2200 tonight it will be PSV's day.

[coprolite]

22 minutes ago, Duries Air Freshener said:

I’ve thought hard about this and still believe it to be a logical fallacy.

The claim was that because we don’t know what the future would have been without the Union, we cannot tell if Scotland benefited from it.

Whether we benefited or not can simply be told by whether things improved at the time of the creation Act of Union and thereafter.

That doesn't separate out other factors like general progress in science and technology.  

Say "Things" in Scotland were rated 5 on an arbitrary scale before Union and 6 after.  You can't attribute that improvement to the Union unless you know that it would have been less than 6. If Scotland was otherwise on course for a 7, it would be hard to argue that the Union improved things. 

Your argument is in fact a logical fallacy,  post hoc ergo propter hoc.  

[Darren]

1 hour ago, AsimButtHitsASix said:

No matter where you stand on independence it's impossible to say that Scotland has benefited, overall, from being in the Union. Of course there has been benefits but, unless anyone has something that can transport them to a parallel dimension, we don't know how Scotland would have done as an independent nation. 

How has being part of the UK benefited us? Apart from the benefits. There's certainly a logical fallacy there.

[Duries Air Freshener]

4 minutes ago, coprolite said:

That doesn't separate out other factors like general progress in science and technology.  

Say "Things" in Scotland were rated 5 on an arbitrary scale before Union and 6 after.  You can't attribute that improvement to the Union unless you know that it would have been less than 6. If Scotland was otherwise on course for a 7, it would be hard to argue that the Union improved things. 

Your argument is in fact a logical fallacy,  post hoc ergo propter hoc.  

Whether we benefited from the Union can only be determined on improvement of pre-Union Scotland, and not opinions of how Scotland may have ended up otherwise.

All in my humble opinion.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Duries Air Freshener

[AsimButtHitsASix]

2 minutes ago, Darren said:

How has being part of the UK benefited us? Apart from the benefits. There's certainly a logical fallacy there.

Well... no.

For instance one could argue a benefit of incarceration is free bed and board but few would argue 10 years in the pokey benefitted the Birmingham Six.

So, yes, whilst being part of the UK in the days of empire helped make a lot of Scottish people very rich and this, in turn, led (directly or indirectly) to benefits to Scottish society we don't know that those benefits would not have arrived via different sources. The Norwegians, for instance, had similar progressions to Scotland on a vaguely similar timeline without the use of Jamaican slave plantations. So being part of the Empire was a benefit but we can't claim that that benefit outweighed potential downsides (clearances, wars, centralisation of power away from Scotland, etc).

To use Norway as another example their oil fund has sustained, and will sustain, their social democratic policies for decades and decades to come. If we were an independent nation thr oil revenue per capita for Scotland would have been massive. We could make the argument that that income being diluted across the UK populace and (some would argue) being frittered away is a downside of the union. This equally ignores the possibility an independent Scotland would have ballsed up this windfall.

So, no, we can point to things and argue that they are positives or negatives of the Union. Both exist. We can't say that overall the Union has been a benefit or hindrance.