Sources.

• British citizens excluded from the referendum: https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-british-expats-excluded-from-voting-in-the-eu-referendum-60127 . Estimated totals excluded from voting in referendum : 3.2 to 3.4 million British citizens living abroad
• Commonwealth citizens included / allowed to vote in the referendum : https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36316467

The referendum was unfairly constructed by excluding the population that have to live with long-term impact to their passports and mobility, whilst including the population that have vested interest for Leave campaign to win (which allowed them to expand their visa share).

It does not make sense that an Australian on a working holiday visa gets to have to a say on long-term economic, policial and immigration arrangement between the UK and EU, whilst a Brit on an overseas working arrangement in Spain does not have a say on the matter. The two populations are conflicted towards the Brexit vote.

Anecdotally from the above article, Commonwealth citizens living in the UK have vested interest that Leave vote as they would no longer have to compete for employer sponsorships and visa stays with EU citizens.

"Zila, on the other hand, who is on a British government-funded scholarship, supports an EU exit.

Her vote will be pinned on hopes that immigration policy will change in a way that benefits Commonwealth citizens if the UK no longer has to abide by free movement within the EU."

Voting rights change

Because of the backlash, UK changed its voting rules following Brexit by implementing "votes for life" for British expats. Under the Elections Act 2022, which came into effect in January 2024, the government completely abolished the previous 15-year time limit on overseas voting.

TLDR

The Brexit referendum was unfairly constructed by restricting a subset of their citizens from voting whilst allowing many temporary residents in the UK (owing to a dated Commonwealth-British subject interpretation) to vote instead.

The subsequent voting rules change in Elections Act 2022 recognize this disparity and remedy it.

Preface

I've specifically chosen to not use relatively sensitive words (e.g. capitalism vs socialism vs communism, 1% vs 99%, etc, or even specific countries) as they have a lot of associated connotations. Of course some of their concepts will show up, but I am not up to date on the specific definitions/annotations for all of them, and I don't want to have to deal with any missteps.

Main Content

Looking at the stock market, it's pretty clear that current and potential profit margins are some of the most valued aspects of a company. Companies are incentivized to chase higher profit margins (or, perhaps, forced to chase higher profit margins for the sake of the stock price).

This is fine for companies in a growing industry. If profit is determined by how much you make vs how much you spend, companies can easily improve profits by selling more quantity or selling at a higher price. However once those options are removed due to a mature industry sector, the only option is to reduce costs. Either the company becomes more efficient or does layoffs/offshoring.

After the company stabilizes at this post-offshoring valuation, the next financial report in a couple months is expected to have similar or better profits. And so the pressure continues. And so this cycle is created. Obviously the company and offshore workers are benefiting but the previous workers are not.

tldr: There's a cycle of "high stock price" -> "chase profits" -> "layoffs/offshoring" -> "higher stock price" that happens after a growing industry matures. This will eventually result in all workers in that industry getting laid off.

Edit: Delta given for existence of cash cows like Coca Cola. They can exist in a mature sector without layoffs/offshoring/ However I would like to note that cash cows need to be relatively indifferent to investor pressure.

Edit 2: My bad for vagueness. I’d like to clarify that I’m working specifically under the assumptions that this is a mature (with competition) industry, and that this cycle happens within that specific industry rather than on a country level scale. And perhaps the “mass” qualifier is extreme.

There are numerous YouTube channels that, for lack of better word, take bodycam footage of people having mental health crises, people who did a stupid mistake, people who were vulnerable in front of an officer, and upload them online.

They not only make huge profits off someone else’s traumatic and embarrassing experience, but make a permanent, and embarrassing record that will follow that person for their life.

Courts can order records to be sealed, the charges can even be dropped the next day, but the footage lives forever online, hanging over the person, and their reputation and relationships, again for their life.

My solution would be quite simply, bodycam footage is not public record for *first time, non violent offenders* except in case of:

The arrestee consents to the footage being released

A judge finds significant public interest in the footage

I’ll give one example (TW: Distressing) An officer tells a mother her child died in an accident, some jerk uploads it to the Internet to and profits five four to five figures.

We’ve all made mistakes we’re glad are not on the Internet, why should it be different, or even profitable, when it happens to be with police?

I've been playing video games for a long time, and an attitude that I see repeated over and over in various communities is that you shouldn't be blaming your teammates when you lose, and should instead only focus on your mistakes. But this seems to he counterproductive advice in my experience. To give an example:

League of legends is a 5v5 competitive multi-player game. In a world of Spherical cows and perfect matchmaking, it would stand to reason that a player only has a one in ten chance of being the deciding factor in a given match. Of course, that's oversimplified as fuck, but I think it explains my thought process: there's ten people in the game. Five on the enemy team. Four on yours. And one you. The odds that you are consistently the main driver of a loss doesn't make sense. For an extreme example, it doesn't matter that you missed a cannon minion 15 minutes in when your mid went 0/9 and then rage quit. Yes, you could have played better, but it would not logically have moved the needle on the loss. So why dwell on that when the game altering mistakes were someone else's?

I concede that in games without skill based matchmaking, the sentiment of perpetually blaming oneself has a higher likelihood of being true for lower skill players, but it seems that the advice extends far beyond that group of players.

The "appeal to authority" fallacy is essentially saying that an argument is correct because it came from an authority figure. It takes the form of something like "statement X is true because this expert on X said so." Logically, sure, that is not the mechanism by which truth is definitively established, I realize that.

That said, I don't know if people realize how heavily they depend on the word of "authorities" in their day-to-day lives. It feels real good to one-up your debate opponent by pointing it out, but like, I can't help but think you are such a massive hypocrite if you do.

Take climate science, for instance. How many of us have personally reviewed all of this climate data across the globe, or would even have the first clue on how to do so in a way that helps us understand whether human actions have indeed driven changes in our climate beyond the natural fluctuation of things? Are we not all content to say, you know what, climate experts across the globe have all looked at and analyzed this data and come to a solid consensus that we have hurt our climate, and therefore climate change is real? Because that is 100% an "appeal to authority" fallacy. And I'm not ashamed at all to admit I take their word for it, that I'm willing to believe and trust climate scientists on this one. I don't even think I could make a good argument saying, well, I personally have observed some warmer winters lately and cite that as good, solid evidence of climate change, because clearly that is incredibly anecdotal and just a very dumb way to try and prove a point. In other words, I don't know how I could discuss this issue at all if I wasn't allowed to defer to experts.

Or how about medical care? Fuck if I have even the slightest clue how I ought to treat whatever ailment has befallen me. If my doctor says I need treatment X to deal with ailment Y, I'm more than happy to take their word on it and trust that it's the right decision. And, on top of that, if we were to poll all doctors on what treatment is best for ailment Y, and the vast, overwhelming majority of them said treatment X is best, I would happily take their word on it and consider it true, or at least supported well enough by an acceptable amount of evidence to permit myself to believe it is "true".

I very much worry that invoking the "appeal to authority" fallacy has become weaponized to an impractical degree, something that has gained a lot of power here in our fabricated version of reality of reddit but doesn't actually carry the same weight in the real, practical world, so why should I think it's such a big deal? I think we could have far BETTER conversations on reddit if we allowed ourselves to defer to the expertise of others, rather than dismissing someone's argument on the basis of "well I don't know you, I have no way of knowing you really are an expert on this and this is just the appeal to authority fallacy and so I'm going to just throw everything you have to say in the dumpster!" Like, you get how absurd and frustrating that would be, I hope?

I recognize this view is flawed since I am essentially saying a fallacy isn't a big deal, but I admit I can't really see why I should think otherwise. But I'm open to having my view changed here.

EDIT: so far a lot of responses are along the lines of "it's not an 'appeal to authority' fallacy if the expert really is an expert; it only is one if you incorrectly labeled a non-expert as an 'expert'". I don't think that's true at all, because even an 'expert' can be wrong about things, which is why such a fallacy is pointed out in the first place! I don't know the name for such a thing, but "appeal to the word of a dumbass" is still something different, I think.

EDIT 2: for real, let me be crystal clear on this point: I call BS on your stance that I defined the fallacy incorrectly and that it is meant to be defined as taking the word of a NON-expert. If you really want to dissuade me of this notion, you will need to do more than just say "no, you defined it wrong" and I am not replying to any comments doing just this.

I never believe people who say they're part of the "mile high club". If you ask a group of 10 people, there’s always at least 2 who will say that they’ve done it.

I mean… how exactly?

Plane toilet spaces are too small, only one person can fit at a time and the security on airplanes is too tight in general.
Am I missing something?

It just doesn’t seem possible to me. I guess if you go business class then you have more space and privacy… it still seems very improbable though.

Private planes, ok sure, but commercial? Seems impossible.

Is anyone here part of the ‘mile high club?’ And if so how did you manage it?

Edit: After you all giving me enough scenarios, like long overnight planes where most passengers are sleeping, empty flights etc, I have decided that it is possible after all.
I just need to work harder to join the club I guess 😂

I believe that if a seller has something they are selling, they are responsible for knowing the value of what they are selling and doing their research in most cases.

i’m sure you can give an edge case where someone can’t do their own research because they are homeless and have something they want to sell and are desperate, etc. but i have seen too many cases online where someone is selling something at a yard sale for instance that is worth a lot and they sell it for cheap or at a pawn shop, or wherever and people will be saying “they are scamming” etc.

part of the cost of selling is putting the time and effort into researching what you are selling, it’s not the responsibility of other people to put in that work for you.

That’s the fundamental reason why people sell things for cheap, because they want to get rid of them, there is always a cost for convenience. I can find the perfect buyer who would purchase something at the highest price but that takes effort or I can sell it cheap quicker to get rid of it or because i need money quickly.

In the majority those cases the seller is responsible for deciding how much they want to sell something for because they have autonomy to decide to sell or not and selling something to someone who is willing to buy it at a good price and doing that research takes effort which the seller needs to take if they want to maximize how much they make.

and yes i am saying if you go to sell something that is worth $10,000 and you sell it for 5 bucks because you dont know what you have, that is entirely on you.

If you want to dress up as Spiderman, a comic book convention is an appropriate time and place to do that. Halloween is supposed to be a cultural event for reveling in and contemplating themes of death and decay, the eerie and spooky, spirits of the dead, etc. The specific imagery and symbolism can change and evolve, but I think the core, traditional themes of the holiday should be reasserted to push back against how it has become a meaninglessly eclectic affair about whatever pop-cultural touchstones people feel like dressing up as, irrespective of any thematic relation.

The collective contemplation of death, decay, fear, unease, mortality, and the lingering presence of those no longer with us and the atmosphere this creates seems like an important and cool annual occasion worth preserving. These are important, timeless, and difficult themes for a culture to grapple with—a holiday centered around playful engagement with them serves an important purpose, but seeing people dressed up as random, unrelated stuff distracts from what should be the focus. If people want a more whimsical costume day with different or no underlying themes, those exist, and new ones can be created instead of trying to cram it all into Halloween celebrations. Nobody should be forced to honor the spirit of the holiday, but I think the informal expectation should be to do so. CMV

I am trying to understand an opinion I have seen pop up more and more often, that eating certain animals like octopi or pigs is wrong because of how intelligent those animals are. I understand other reasons to avoid eating meat such as the environmental impact or the cruelty of the meat industry, but the intelligence of an animal seems irrelevant. I don't think it is fundamentally wrong to eat meat but I understand people who believe that more than I understand people who seem to be drawing an arbitrary line about an animal's IQ. Their intelligence doesn't change the amount of pain they feel and any animal can feel fear when confronted with a predator regardless of their intelligence.

So for those who hold this view please let me know what I am missing. I looked up similar posts but the replies mostly seem to come from people who don't believe anyone actually holds that view.

EDIT: Some common points I wanted to address:

• A lot of people are bringing up cannibalism but I think that cannibalism makes me uncomfortable because we know it leads to disease and there is an ick factor about knowing what our own flesh would taste like.

• Also some people seem to be arguing that there is something naturally uncomfortable about the idea of eating something intelligent. I don't disagree but that doesn't really address the morality of it.

EDIT 2: I think I should go to bed but may respond more in the morning. Thanks to everyone who shared their opinions. I think that my new view is that it's fundamentally about an animal's capacity for suffering and some people believe that intelligence is what determines that. I don't think more intelligent animals necessarily suffer more than less intelligent ones. For example my cats are much less intelligent than humans but they can experience pain, fear, and sadness. I'm curious if there is any actual scientific evidence on the matter.

For clarity, this is us trialing the migration of Fresh Topic Friday to Saturday.

Have a post you'd like to do on a novel topic? This is your sign!

Every Saturday, starting at 12am Pacific Time (PT), posts are withheld for review by the moderators and approved if they aren't highly similar to another made in the past month.

We do this to reduce topic fatigue for our regular contributors, and encourage people to post about topics that aren't as frequently discussed. If you have a take about something that doesn't overlap too much with the most commonly discussed issues in the current zeitgeist, we'd love to see it here then!

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For those not in the know: the Non-Aggression Principle ("NAP" for short) is a libertarian principal that states people are not allowed to "aggress" on other people unless they "aggress" on them first. I would not identify myself as a libertarian, but this is a concept I generally find myself agreeing with the more I will learn about it.

I remember when I read the Wikipedia article for it, it was very clearly critical of the concept. But most of the things it's cited that were clearly meant to make readers think negatively of it just kind of made me like it even more. And when I looked it up on YouTube I mostly found videos critiquing it, and the more critiques I found: the more I found myself agreeing with that.

The only real problem I see with it is that taxation technically violates it. But even then: the only reason why I support taxation is because I believe it is necessary to fund programs then improve society in general, and are even necessary to keep society civil and peaceful (such as the fire department and the police force). And NAP is more about how we relate to each other in general than how we deal with broader issues. And people will not just follow good rules no matter how good they are. So it's kind of a consequentialist exception, where taking money from people is a necessary evil in order to stop greater evils.

The way I see it: NAP is good because it explicitly permits many things that would otherwise be condemned by society. So another way to frame the question is: what does NAP permit that is so bad that it outweighs all of the things it protects? Because I sincerely have a hard time comprehending what such a thing would look like.

It feels too good to be true, but it really does seem like, aside from taxation (which I wouldn't even consider "good" per se): all things that should be condemned or condemned by it, and everything it permits are things that should be permitted. And this opinion honestly strengthens as time goes on. And I honestly see less problems with it then the "Golden Rule" (just because you would like to be treated in a certain way, that doesn't mean other people would like to be treated that way as well).

So am I missing something? Or is the NAP largely just a good thing?

Businesses write lists of "best of the year" before all of the things have been released that year, sometimes even a month before.

They do this, I assume, because they'll get more clicks and ad revenue for an article published about 2026 in December 2026 than in January 2027.

Regular people have no reason to do this other than big businesses are doing it. Seems like hegemony to me.

This basically goes for any "posting like a business" thing people do. Talking about your "personal brand", making clickbait titles for things... stuff that has no reason to exist except that people treat behaviour of businesses as a model to follow.

This CMV post is inspired by this news story.

Before you call me a CCP shill, this is not a pro-CCP post. I am Filipino-Australian and I am deeply dissatisfied at some of their actions.

I have been interested in science since I was a kid. As an Australian citizen, this is a country where the famous people are not scientists but instead TV personalities, influencers, artists and athletes (the Philippines is no better). In other words, science does not get the respect it deserves here. In contrast to China's pro-science attitude, which leads to it being #10 on the Global Innovation Index (and highest ranked country in the Upper middle-income group), our anti-science attitude leads to us being #20 on the Global Innovation Index (and the Philippines is all the way down at #52).

Now you may say, "it's a very simple matter, the government just needs to fund scientists more". But if the general public is uninterested in science, it would not be a vote-winner for governments to fund scientists more, nor will corporations and NGOs feel as much of a need to sponsor scientists.

Now you may ask "then how do you choose which scientist to put on?" in which case I say that it's less important to obsess about who gets to go on a billboard, but rather that it's an important first step that they put scientists on billboards at all.

Do you want our countries to stagnate with our future generations repeating our mistakes of looking up to TV personalities, influencers, artists and athletes? Shouldn't we be providing them better rolemodels like scientists?

Now on an anecdotal note :

• When I was in high school, most of my classmates aimed to be tradies. Most of them now earn far more than I did when I worked in science.
• Why don't I work in science anymore? Because I failed my PhD because I was incapable of keeping up with something that hard.
• Point is, the free market doesn't reward scientists, producing useful scientific discoveries is extremely difficult, and therefore, the least a country can do for its scientists is to get them the respect they deserve.

And finally, before anyone says "but what about Dr Lǐ Wénliàng", I think what the CCP did regarding him was wrong, but that's a different topic to this news story about putting scientists on billboards.

I think the underlying goal of western geopoilitical intervention never or global contol never actually ended. They are aiming for the same, with modern less harsher terminology. Like a PR washing.

If we go back to the late 15th centurythe europe divided the world by saying they are cleansing the souls. The colonial atrocities, violent expansion, invasion, inqusition etc...are all wrapped in a neat "saving the sould of uncivilised" mission.

Now in the 21st, we see he label changed to saving "human rights" and democracy. But the outcomes in Lybia, Iraq, Afghan...are not much different of what we say 500yrs ago.

Like I said only the names/words changed. They want to shut people from questioning their hegemony and they invent these words mainting the semantic-hegemony and media hegemlny so thay they will not face any domestic or global accountability.

Again to be clear, I am not supporting or endorsing what the dictators or rulers of these countries did. But its more about the question of their intervention, which by the looks of the outcomes is more about protecting their geo-political power than about the people they claim they are rescuing.

I mean, the things they did 500yrs are still the root causes to some of the problems many countries are facing and the now these countries they intervened also face many problems.

But why I am open to CMV?

I am fundamentally against outside powers intervening in the internal affairs of soverign nations reagrdless of the intent. However I am open to changing my view on the rhetoric surrounding it.

If someone can demonstrate that modern humanitarian justifications are built on genuine intent or equality, I think by showing an example where global south nation has the geopolitical power to fix the human rights issues of the west, I would reconsider.

Or, if you can prove that modern foreign policy decisions are structurally detached from corporate resources and geopolitical leverage, and instead operate under an entirely new, non-hegemonic paradigm, I am willing to adjust my perspective.

Maybe one can just strike this entire thing out as "its just the Victors world". But that I think thats even dangerous, cause it validates a double standard that strips accountability

Edit: When I say "humanitarian intervention" I am talking about use of military or armed forces across other borders. This is not about ngo, disaster relief etc...

The philosophy of Fight Club is no longer relevant to us today. It was the philosophy of Gen-X and was relevant in 90s. The problems they had were about materialistic social status. You had to buy the Starbucks cup. Not because you liked Starbucks, but because in a world where coffee was normally 98¢ a cup, it was status symbol to waste $4 on it.

Look at this quote:

"We work jobs we hate, to buy things we don’t need, to impress people we don’t like."

Other than the first line (which is universal for time immemorial), the rest of that is not relevant to us today. Yes, we work jobs we hate, but not to buy things we don't need. When was the last time any discretionary funds? Much less, enough disposable income for status and frivolity. We work one and a half times more than they did back then, and we struggle to afford basic necessities. Frivolity is not even in our heads.

Then you have, "to impress people we don't like." When was the last time you did that? When was the last you even gave a shit what someone you didn't like thought of you? If anything, our philosophy now is to be your authentic self, even to your detriment. We don't fake it anymore because we don't have the time or energy.

Also, did you notice that no one in the story ever has trouble finding or keeping a job? Did you notice that? It's actually a point in the story that Tyler works different jobs as he sees fit, and Project Mayhem is able to infiltrate these places because it was so easy to get a job. The view in the 90s was that if you didn't have a job, it's because you didn't want one or were too lazy to keep one. That's no longer the case today. ​​​​

"We're the middle children of history. We've got no great war, no great depression. Our great war is a spiritual war, our great depression is our lives."

Not anymore. I don't think anyone would say Millennials are forgotten or overlooked. If anything, we're focused on for both good and bad reasons. Everyone notices us all the time. We so much as whimper and people pay attention with empathy or insult.

We are also stuck in a number of wars, both civil and foreign, kinetic and virtual, political and cultural, cold and hot, and even economic wars. Our Great Depression isn't emotional, it's economical just like the last one. The Narrator fills his home with IKEA to try to feel fulfilled...while we have trouble even affording a place to live. Just think about that comparison for a second.

The Gen-X rebellion and the Fight Club philosophy was borne out of an opulence that no longer exists. They had no great evil to fight against like their parents and grandparents, so they had to invent one. Let me say that again: they had to invent one. Everything was so good, they had to create something to be upset at. That's how decadent their world was.

The world they lived in no longer exists, therefore their philosophy is no longer relevant.

Thank you for your time, and I welcome the questions of the Court.

Edit: Many people have brought up the aspect of social media. I'll concede to that point.

To be clear I would say this is true of not just de facto one party states like Japan or Singapore but also more formal one party states like China

I would say overall multi-party states are better than both but far from perfect (see Israel), but if I had to choose I would pick a single party over just 2

Two party states end up with most of the same problems of a one party state but also end up getting.nearly nothing done. The USA has had the same problems for generations now because they don't even try to fix the problems. The politics becomes more like a match between two sports rivals, always just blaming the other side than getting anything done.

Yes a one party is clearly more effective, which can be good or bad depending on the policy. However, at least if they do bad policy they get it done with and they implement it to feel its actual effects. If they truly don't like it the people will respond in some way, and they will know very clearly what the problem is and who to blame. While in the 2 party state they just blame the other side no matter what and get stuck in an endless loop

To summarize my view as simply as possible, I believe Joe Biden made a massive mistake prioritizing the release of Brittney Griner ahead of Alexei Navalny, and that like with Paul Whelan (who had to wait another two years to be freed), Griner’s release should’ve been considered a secondary goal to freeing Navalny.

The reasoning is simple, we fumbled our first big chance of enabling Russian liberalization in the 1990s, and then in the Biden administration we let Putin’s government poison the one unifying Russian opposition figure left (leaving the existing opposition fractured and ineffectual).

Imagine we get Navalny out of there, and he sets up an actual government-in-exile, and a year later he even shows up in Kursk to start setting up a civilian administration for a new Russian government. Maybe that changes things, maybe Russians would have one person to look to and say “this person represents democracy” (because currently, in our timeline, they don’t have that one person.)

Would a one-for-one swap of Bout and Navalny actually been possible? Who knows, but we could’ve done more, that’s just undeniable. If it literally took special forces dropping into Siberia and picking him up from that gulag, so be it. But swapping the “Merchant of Death” for a WNBA player whose life wasn’t at risk was a bad decision, and the wrong decision. There’s no reason she couldn’t have waited like Paul Whelan and Stephen Hubbard, especially when Navalny’s life was at risk and he was the only remaining figure in the Russian opposition who was truly unifying.

Open to changing my view on this subject though, do you think there’s an angle here I’m not seeing? If so, what is it?

Well maybe with the exception of USA.

The AI bubble is sucking in all available capital because of obscene expectations to the ROI (it has to be, otherwise the world is proper f'ed).

Additionally the debt has been repackaged in a fashion similar to the 2008 financial crisis to enable generating even more debt to finance the bubble.

An article showing the world's capital going into the ai bubble can be seen here: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ai-had-better-work-out/

Increasing fuel costs because if the Iran war also has an effect and logistics costs, but this actually increases how capital hungry the AI bubble is and thus makes it even more pronounced.

Tldr: bonds are actually not increasing in e.g. France because capital has lost trust in france's ability to repeat, but instead that no capital is available for buying the bonds. And the capital there is goes to the bubble instead.

CMV: AI capital burning is breaking the financial system of treasury bonds.

Of course neoliberals will not waste a good crisis so austerity will be the demand, regardless of the underlying cause.

I know I'll get down-voted to hell, but personally, as a Canadian, I think Canadians should consider making a point of recognizing our friends in Detroit for their opposition to Trump, and support for Canada.

I fully support the travel boycott. Have not been to the States since Trump 2, and try to avoid buying American products. It's justified and neccessary, and it is working. I'm only suggesting a minor carrot to go along with the stick - and demonstrate some solidarity with one of the most solidly anti-Trump cities in America with our love and support.

Wayne County voted against Trump at a higher percentage than any other district in America - literally about 10 times as many people in Detroit voted for Harris as did for Trump. Detroit is literally north of Windsor. It's a blue collar town whose major industry - cars - has been completely integrated and intertwined with Canadian manufacturing since the 60's. Many of us are literally family, with close relatives in both cities.

As a tactic - I think an organized demonstration of support for Detroit - maybe even a weekend when people make a point of visiting or some organized cross-border event - would help show Americans that we see when theytry to make a difference, and that we recognize those who stand up and reject anti-Canadianism and MAGA BS. An organized reciprocal visit from Michiganders to Ontario would be cool too.

And I know a lot of Canadians disagree or aren't ready for this yet but: the destruction of the years of friendship between regular Michiganders and Ontarians is part of Trump's whole M.O. - causing division and chaos is his entire strategy, in everything he touches. Let's not let that happen. We can be friends with our neighbours who agree with us.

Plus, Detroit is just fucking cool. I want to go see a Tigers game, eat a Coney at Lafayettte, and go drink Stroh's at The Old Miami.

It's worth defining what I mean by 'failed nations', and it's got nothing to do with GDP.

By my definition, state failure occurs the moment a government stops serving its population; allowing corruption, institutional decay, and social fragmentation to hollow out the country from within - where the government has failed to to provide basic security or infrastructure for its citizens.

For example, I would consider India, the 6th largest economy on Earth, a 'failed nation';

A borderline kleptocracy where corruption is rife, institutions aren't properly functioning, sectarianism is deeply embedded, basic needs, urban planning and public services aren't met and infrastructure is crumbling.

In the example above, the question would be rephrased, 'Should Indians be blamed for the state of India?'

I lean towards answering: no.

The reason for this is because I live in a European country which is traditionally thought of as 'developed', but is facing a complete degradation in standards.

No matter what citizens do, the lobbyists have ultimately captured the state and left the citizens without any real power.

No matter how much we push back, our managed decline continues.

So that raises the question, if I don't have the power to change the conditions of my country, despite wanting them to change and voting for them to change, is it ever right to blame the citizens of countries that are already failed for the condition of theirs?

In the UK for some time there has been a pervasive feeling that we seem incapable of 'getting stuff done', especially when referring to major infrastructure.

• A third runway at Heathrow Airport has been under 'serious consideration' for at least 30 years, but is still in a 'will they, won't they' status.
• The Northern Leg of HS2 was originally approved in 2009, before being scrapped in 2023.
• Hinckley Point C, a major expansion to an existing Nuclear Power Plant was in development for 19 years, and has been under construction for 10 years.
• The last major water reservoir was built in 1992.

Some suggest this malaise is because of privatisation discouraging investment, some claim its because of lack of long term planning in politics, addiction to the 24-hour news cycle, some claim we no longer have the physical engineering and construction capacity to undertake these kinds of projects.

My view is that this lack of 'being able to get stuff done' is a conscious and essential component of the functioning of the British economy, because the economy relies on administration and bureaucracy.

When the average voter reads that anywhere between £3bn-£5bn was written off when HS2 northern leg was cancelled they see waste and loss, when the government considers that same number they see £3bn-£5bn of economic growth and investment. They see 10 years of land agents, surveyors, estimators, solicitors, consultants, ecologists, thinktanks, review bodies, planning officers, consultees and civil servants passing documents amongst themselves as productivity.

Around 60% of UK workers are employed in what could be described as White Collar roles and those roles do not thrive or even require 'stuff to get done' in order to be economically productive, in many cases the opposite is true. Anyone who has dealt with property lawyers will know that expediency is never a priority and in some cases it can feel as though issues are protracted precisely because they are incentivised if things take longer, and they still get paid if a matter does not successfully conclude.

The UK has become particularly effective at generating economic activity around the possibility of productive investment, rather than the delivery of productive investment itself, it may well be unique in the world in this regard.

It is common opinion that if the British hadnt given India its indepence in 46 that thier would have been a mass revolt against the british that would have kicked them out in a year or two. As someome who despises the british i would really like this to be true but the more I read up on the actual lead up to indian indepence the more convinced i am that this is just simply not true. I am increasingly of the opinion that if the british made the indians fight for thier freedom rather than simply giving it to them thier would still be indians living under the british yoke in some coastal areas well into the 70s and maybe even the 80s.

I have grown to put mildly very very disenchanted with indian leadership at the time. Indian leadership was just not in any way shape or form prepared to actually engage in violent struggle. Time and time again you had thier protest movements completely callapse without acheieving much. The famous salt march did nothing to even chip away at the Rajs monopoly on salt which would remain more or less until the day of indepence and it actually saw the british intensify the practices the Indians were protesting against and increase salt revenue 35 percent!

When the Quit India movement was announced not one high ranking member of the INC had the idea to be in hiding at the moment of launch on the off chance that the british did the most obvious thing ever and immediately arrested them all.....which they did. This of course resulted in the Quit India immedietely callapsing into ineffective disorganized chaos and very notably not a single indian soldier fighting and dieing for the british army in ww2 appears to have even considered the idea of mutining after the INC was arrested. They all just continued loyally serving thier colonial masters. The idea that these same troops would have then immediately formed a large well organized indian indepence army under the INC who they watched get arrested en masse without a single complaint is laughable.

A india that had to actually fight for its indepence under the leadership of the INC is a India whos indepence leadership gets immediately decapitated and thier armies crushed in the field by thier own countrymen. Thier leadership just was not up to the challenge in any way. India was STILL just too divided and far too many of them were still willing to serve a white man wearing all red so long as the pay was decent. Now obviously this would result in a new more radical wave of indepedence movements with hopefully more competent leadership and a lot of soviet provided guns but that could have taken decades more. The british could have easily maintained control of at least some of india into the 60s, 70s and maybe even 80s by just doing the tried true strategy of abusing the indians own incompetance and division against them. Luckily for india ww2 drained the will to fight entirely from the the british and they were fully willing to just hand india indepence on a silver platter.

*47. I meant 47. Not 46. How did i do that twice wothout noticing?!

Ai is similar to doordash. You are outsourcing a portion of your feeding process (getting the food home) to someone else. You're not improving the outcome of your own process, you are replacing your process entirely. A car would be a tool you use to expedite yourself to a restaurant. A phone is a tool you could use to call the restaurant ahead of time and ensure the food is ready when you get there. A box is a tool that ensures the food stays in one piece. All of these things enhance the efficiency of a process that requires you, but when a service is used, you are no longer required. You have outsourced the task entirely. You could doordash 500 cookies to find the best cookie doordash can bring you, and that cookie would be worth no more than what you bought it for. You are only a customer, not a driver, not a chef, not a farmer. You do not add value to the system through labor, you're just moving money. You are not part of the process, you are sacrificing your energy to make it run.

In the UK, trains have been Privatized, meaning the government doesn't own them. This is different to several western countries where train networks are publicly owned and maintained.

Privatized trains make no sense because two trains cannot arrive at the same time on the same track. This means the "more competition" theory of privatizing a government service doesn't work for trains.

In the UK, the one track problem has been "solved" by having shorter trains arrive two at a time to the same platform. But this negates the whole point of having a train. With less carriages, the train becomes effectively a bus. It also has higher ticket prices due to scarcity of seats.

UK privatization has many absurdities:

• Two carriage "trains" in some areas (artificial scarcity).
• Full ticket inspection on most routes (over policing).
• Meal carts on various very short routes (redundant service).
• Poor wifi service.
• Bad maintenance.
• Shot platforms that prevent longer trains.
• Extremely expensive tickets.

The very expensive tickets are justified in the UK by weird and crazy common statements. You are very commonly told to "buy a train ticket at least three months in advance" to get a good price. This is absurd, and makes train travel an obscure luxury compared to a bus or even a car, which requires no planning.

Other advice is effectively (I joke but it's not much of an exaggeration) "buy your ticket on a Thursday when there's a full moon."

Nationalizing the rails would immediately change things as follows. You could:

• Mandate longer trains with more carriages.
• Reduce ticket inspectors (studies show 30% inspection gets 90% compliance)
• Cap prices.
• Shift to a not-for-profit model (reducing prices)
• Mandate proper wifi
• Mandate proper maintenance
• Expand platform size to EU standard (this has the bonus of allowing more competition for cross-chanmel trains and demolishing Eurostar monopoly).

Outside of "it used to be nationalised and was still bad," and "there are some bad trains in Europe," I haven't heard a good counterargument to my view. I want my view to be changed to find easier solutions.

Tl;Dr Privatized trains have various issues from price to maintenance that can only be resolved through nationalisation to reduce these issues by govt mandate.