The Intractable Politics of Ireland

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Using quantum measurements to create different rulers in every branch of the wave function would be amazing. And have you thinking about doing it using quantum measurements so that there are different branches of the wavefunction with completely different rulers in each branch? That would be amazing, too. But to bring it back to Earth brain, I'm sure you saw the news that Ireland by by referendum actually decided they would amend their constitution and open the way to allow abortion,. Right? So this seems like a very intractable, like just one of those political issues. How would that ever get resolved? Why the vote went the way it did and had so much democratic legitimacy was in part because the country was at this

“Democracy may not exist, but we’ll miss it when it’s gone” — or so suggests the title of Astra Taylor’s new book. We all know how democracy falls short, in practice, of its lofty ideals; but we can also appreciate how democratic values are crucial in the fight for a more just society. In this conversation, we dig into the nature of democracy, from its origins to the present day. We talk about who gets to participate, how economic inequality affects political inequality, and how democratic ideals manifest themselves in any number of real-world situations.

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Astra Taylor is a filmmaker, author, and activist. Her documentary films include Zizek!, The Examined Life, and most recently What Is Democracy? Her books include The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital age and the new Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone. She has taught sociology at the university level, and written for publications from n+1 to The London Review of Books. She was active in the Occupy movement, and is a co-founder of the Debt Collective.