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The tweet has been much ridiculed, but I think besides pointing out the factualy inacurracy there are two points that deserve to be mentioned, one concerning sovereignty and involvement in politics of another countries, the other the nature of bubbles (thread)
As to “sovereignty” when it comes to “foreign meddling” - it’s apparently like federalism in the US. Nobody actually believes in the abstract point. Everyone embraces or engages in meddling to support their position. And then turns around and condemns it when it is against it.
The second issue concerns the statistical point made in the tweet. Surveys place Ireland in the most pro-EU group possible. Eurobarometer had positive views at 64%, up by 5 in 2018 negative at 8 ec.europa.eu/ireland/news/i…
If Eurobarometer has to much Eu in it for you - here’s another one: More than 90% want to stay, and those saying Ireland should go the way of Britain down by a lot since 2013 irishtimes.com/news/politics/…
So how is it possible that people believe the contrary? Apart from surveys being wrong in the past (but not by that much, of course): bubbles.
Bubbles are a normal fact of life. In my bubble, there are famous PIL professors, conversations about the VCLT over coffee, wine combined with RoOs. If my bubble were the world, we’d be 90% lawyers and we’d have not a single functioning car because we can’t repair them.
It is normal to be biased because of the bubble you move in. It has always been that way. But the nature of our bubble has changed. In the past we used to have inter-bubble exchanges...
... people belonged to a profession, a church, read one of the few newspapers, everyone watched BBC. That meant you were, by force, exposed to other views. You knew that there was a larger world not agreeing with you.
This has broken down. Our bubbles, our focuses, are closing. You can spend all of your life in a narrow bubble, get all your information from it, interact solely with people within it, not move outside it.
Thanks to the internet, if you want to ONLY have conversations about cats and never ever talk about anything else - you can. If you want to only speak to people who believe the world is flat - you can. Climate change doesn’t exist? - you can. Guns don’t kill people? - you can.
