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  • Lang Spoon
    replied
    Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
    Am I right that the UK, like the US, has enormous disparities in health outcomes depending on which block one lives on? Ranging from very good to very bad?
    Absolutely. Depending on your postcode, male life expectancy can go from early 80s to 60s.

    Leave a comment:


  • ad hoc
    replied
    The Awesome Berbaslug!!!

    Prevent is a system which says that teachers must report their pupils to the authorities if they show signs of supporting dangerous ideologies. It is, as you can imagine, a fucking disgusting programme that is basically a fascist wet dream, but they got it through by saying it's about rooting out fundamentalist terrorism.

    As you have intimated above socialism is about dreaming of a better society*. Adding socialism to Prevent, is basically saying if the kids you're teaching have dreams you should report them to the authorities. It's pure and overt fascism


    ​​​​​​(*I'd refer to myself as a pessimistic socialist. Someone who thinks the current system is utterly fucked and needs to be changed at all levels, but doesn't believe that it's possible because human beings are basically self interested twats who are easy to manipulate by scumbags)

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  • Hot Pepsi
    replied
    Am I right that the UK, like the US, has enormous disparities in health outcomes depending on which block one lives on? Ranging from very good to very bad?

    Leave a comment:


  • The Awesome Berbaslug!!!
    replied
    Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View Post
    This guy is a very good writer. I don't agree with everything he writes, but his heart is in the right place, and he's coming at all these issues from a position of knowledge and expertise.

    Leave a comment:


  • The Awesome Berbaslug!!!
    replied
    Originally posted by ad hoc View Post
    OED: "a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole"

    Fucking diabolical philosophy and it is quite right that children should be arrested (or "closely monitored") for believing in it ​
    That's a bit broad isn't it? I .mean regulated brings in thoughtful conservatives. Shit it brings in Richard nixon and the epa.

    My problem with it is its grand to promise a brighter tomorrow as a result of your political ideology, but it's just a utopian grift if you don't have any clear means of implementing it. I mean if all of your promises centre around the state owning the means of production etc the big questions I would ask are

    1. How are you going to get political acceptance for the state owning everything, when the talk of tax rises from britains staggeringly low levels causes near revolt?

    2. What happens when you lose the election, does private property come back? I mean there will be elections won't there? I mean otherwise how are we going to avoid the whole thing turning into an exercise in totalitarian control, where politically connected insiders horde wealth and power and.....

    3. We need to talk about the big pile of human skulls, because not everyone is going to want to go along with this brave new tomorrow. Traditionally this ends in a big pile of skulls. What are the plans for avoiding the big pile of skulls? I mean, have you ever met a farmer? It's going to be your skull or theirs.

    The state taking control of the means of production etc sounds nice and convenient, but, you know, call me a gloomy gus, but on first glance all I can really see are a whole bunch of unpleasant insurmountable problems. If you Can't answer those questions, then you may as well be going from door to door with the watchtower. It's fucking nonsense, and anyone involved in it is wasting their time. If you aren't a narcissistic grifter looking for thralls in a micro party, then might I suggest taking a look at social democracy,

    Essentially make the middle classes and wealthy pay a bit more tax, and use the money to fix the various market failures that are killing your economy and society. Basically everything you think is bad is a 'market failure'. Child poverty for instance is a good example. There's a lot more money out there than you'd think, and you can achieve a lot in 10 years. Now it may seem as though the idea of raising taxes is almost as implausible as seizing the UK operations of Microsoft, but it is technically possible, it has been done in other places, and also.....no pile of human skulls. (I get the strong feeling that most people who describe themselves as socialists are actually social democrats, but there's some sort of romantic historical vibes to describing yourself as a socialist)
    Last edited by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!; 11-10-2023, 01:31.

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  • Felicity, I guess so
    replied
    Originally posted by ChrisJ View Post

    I guess that rubber-stamps the end of my teaching career.
    We are doing compulsory Prevent training in our Faculty for the first time. In our team chat today we all agreed we will have to take turns denouncing each other as socialists

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  • Hot Pepsi
    replied
    Everything is a "grievance narrative" to the people causing the grief.

    I don't advocate for the abolition of all private property, just the things that everyone needs and will always need - land, water, air, natural resources, infrastructure, education, health care and, in many cases, housing. I also like the idea, as put forth by Kim Stanley Robinson in New York 2140, that we could make the money supply a public utility.

    Leave a comment:


  • ChrisJ
    replied
    Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View Post
    Official government line in Britain is that the Prevent needs to root out socialism

    Socialism = a grievance Narrative.

    hear that Nye Bevan, Jennie Lee, William Morris, Rosa Luxemburg, Bernie Grant, Salvador Allende....
    I guess that rubber-stamps the end of my teaching career.

    Leave a comment:


  • Discordant Resonance
    replied
    Reading about Winston Peters ahead of the NZ election, he seems somewhat of a wild card - a Maori who wants to abolish their electorates and downplay their language, and claiming they are an alien people, and that's only the beginning of his Faragesque populism.

    Leave a comment:


  • Nefertiti2
    replied
    Another socialist is Danny Dorling


    “Honestly,” he continues, “the stories I hear from inside government, they’re basically asking, ‘How do we stop people being on the pavements?’. They’ve lost control of the ambulances, they’ve lost control of the border queues, they can’t afford to house the Ukrainians.” Birmingham council had declared bankruptcy just before we met, and there are many other councils, unable to cover their basic costs, about to go under. “Slough went much earlier than Birmingham, and they’ve had to sell everything. Surrey almost went bankrupt as a county, and the government quietly solved that because you can’t have the county with [Michael] Gove’s seat in it and [Dominic] Raab’s seat in it unable to pay.”

    He says something which ought to be chilling, except now, against the backdrop of the unhinged Conservative party conference, it is quite difficult to believe: “I’ve never seen Conservatives care as much as this. I’ve never had phone calls – ‘What can we do in the short term?’ – before.”

    https://twitter.com/davidolusoga/status/1711754227884638350?s=46&t=vU6yAsWVgvRf_BUO7Um0WA
    Last edited by Nefertiti2; 10-10-2023, 14:48.

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  • ad hoc
    replied
    OED: "a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole"

    Fucking diabolical philosophy and it is quite right that children should be arrested (or "closely monitored") for believing in it ​

    Leave a comment:


  • Lang Spoon
    replied
    TonTon has gone?

    Leave a comment:


  • ursus arctos
    replied
    There can't be more than a handful of people in the uk who actively believe in the end of private property.
    Depends on how large your hands are, but there is one fewer here during TonTon's hiatus

    Leave a comment:


  • Nefertiti2
    replied
    Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
    Well if you actually mean it, it 100% is. If you're just using it as a means to posture then no it isn't. There can't be more than a handful of people in the uk who actively believe in the end of private property.

    Those categories are kind of broad aren't they?
    I see Joseph McCarthy's arrived

    Leave a comment:


  • The Awesome Berbaslug!!!
    replied
    Well if you actually mean it, it 100% is. If you're just using it as a means to posture then no it isn't. There can't be more than a handful of people in the uk who actively believe in the end of private property.

    Those categories are kind of broad aren't they?
    Last edited by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!; 10-10-2023, 13:51.

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  • WOM
    replied
    Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
    Jesus Christ
    See: radical socialist.

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  • ursus arctos
    replied
    Jesus Christ

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  • Nefertiti2
    replied
    Official government line in Britain is that the Prevent needs to root out socialism

    https://twitter.com/_Wrevolution_/status/1711426786444136503?s=20

    Socialism = a grievance Narrative.

    hear that Nye Bevan, Jennie Lee, William Morris, Rosa Luxemburg, Bernie Grant, Salvador Allende....
    Last edited by Nefertiti2; 10-10-2023, 14:16.

    Leave a comment:


  • ursus arctos
    replied
    As were quite a few other names with a similar lineage (Enoch, Esau, Ezra, etc)

    It also exists as a woman's name, but it much less popular as such

    Leave a comment:


  • delicatemoth
    replied
    There's one person I keep in touch with via Linked In. My own profile is a pisstake though, I think it says I work in the defence industry.

    Reality Winner is my favourite American name, followed by London Breed.

    Leave a comment:


  • The Awesome Berbaslug!!!
    replied
    Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
    I'd have thought he'd have come across Ira Gershwin as well.
    Oh I'm well familiar with the name. I'm just wondering where it comes from, or if it was a shortened. Version of another longer name is all. Looking at the Wikipedia entry for the name, it seemed to be quite popular among wasps of a biblical bent in the nineteenth century

    Leave a comment:


  • Hot Pepsi
    replied
    Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
    LinkedIn is like Twitter was in that my experience from other people's which makes me wonder if I'm accidentally doing something right.

    I saw my current job through a post on LinkedIn and its a useful way to keep in touch with people I'm not really friends with.
    If that's all you're doing with it and are willing to be unsentimental about cutting off people who post shit, then you'll probably be ok.

    But I'm trying to build as big of a network as I can to promote stuff, theoretically, and hope that at least some of those people will share it too.
    That almost never happens, of course.

    Also, I sometimes read some of the suggested summaries of articles it posts from papers I don't subscribe to. And then I make the mistake of reading the comments/responses.

    Leave a comment:


  • Patrick Thistle
    replied
    LinkedIn is like Twitter was in that my experience from other people's which makes me wonder if I'm accidentally doing something right.

    I saw my current job through a post on LinkedIn and its a useful way to keep in touch with people I'm not really friends with.

    Leave a comment:


  • Hot Pepsi
    replied
    I feel like I've failed as a person because I don't have much money or much of a career, but then I look at the kind of abject stupidity and evil that I'd have to put up with to have money and a career and I think that maybe I was just born in the wrong century.

    Leave a comment:


  • Hot Pepsi
    replied

    Leave a comment:

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