(Thread IKs:
OwlFancier, crispix)
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Tesseraction posted:Tbf a lot of terfs are obsessed with trans sport issues. 
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Apr 26, 2024 10:08
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Dabir posted:I vaguely recall having covered Mali a little bit when I was at school. I couldn't tell you where it is or even what shape it is, but I do know it had a big old empire for a while. My only real memory of doing anything related to africa in school history was a few classes on the transatlantic slave trade, but iirc the teachers just kind of phoned in that bit of the triangle and didn't say much of anything about who was doing the selling or why, or how that worked within the whole colonial system. Africa itself was pretty unhelpfully portrayed as this big homogenous land with zero attention to the various cultures and political groups and how they interacted with each other and the European powers.
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Apr 26, 2024 10:22
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domhal posted:Absolutely dual the Highland Main Line. Electrify it. Run more trains. Prioritize that over the A9. But dual the A9 as well. They serve different roles. Somewhere as spread out as the Highlands will always have cars they are a necessity. The best that can be achieved is that most rural people transition to electric cars. The A9 is a major route for everyone in the Highlands and it should be a decent modern road. gonna devils advocate this because for me it boils down to why the A9 currently runs under capacity for the existing traffic, so there's no need to dual it due to that - if anything, dualling it will make traffic worse through induced demand it's a major freight route but that can be solved by increasing rail capacity even at either end with Mossend and Inverness yards - a 600m+ freight train is the equivalent of 100 lorries per train so there's no need for that really if you can marshal it properly so it boils down to journey time - is a 70mph dual carriageway that much of a time saving vs a 60mph A road? Yes but not really massively. So for me, the unspoken thing is that people don't want to drive at 70mph they want to drive at 80+ bad new re Highland Main Line is that it's not just doubling for most of the length, it'll also be quad tracking in places for freight passing loops - big job but the big issue isn't that line, it's capacity on the E&G and the WCML
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Apr 26, 2024 11:20
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keep punching joe posted:My cynical take is that the Greens have been polling too well in Scotland and the SNP see them as a threat in the General Election (whenever that is). Not winning seats but splitting the vote enough that they will damage SNP chances. There was also the possibility of the Greens pulling out first, so at least by this move Yousaf can appear like it was his idea and not forced upon him. The Greens polling hasn't improved much at all* and currently is still within margin of error of their previous election result. The SNP vote has collapsed somewhat and it remains to be seen if that's going to manifest itself as a transfer of votes to other parties or just reduced turnout. It seems like a SNP voter is just as likely to switch to Labour as Green though. * ~9% in regional vote vs. 8.1% in the election. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_Scottish_Parliament_election
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Apr 26, 2024 11:30
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It's interesting how the landscape of Scottish politics has changed over the last few years since the indyref mind. Afaik it used to be super tribal whether you went for specifically Labour or the SNP, but that seems to have changed a lot and we have a quite a few people now who aren't guaranteed to vote one way or the other. There's much less of that 'a donkey with a red/yellow rosette could get elected' thinking. I guess that's probably a good thing for political engagement in general but it's a blessing and a curse for the bigger parties - the SNP won a landslide but none of those new votes are secure in the way, say, Labour's would be in Liverpool. It's good though, it means politicians have to actually win people over rather than coasting. That said, I don't think the SNP are going anywhere as the biggest Scottish party, there's still a lot of support for them based on general pro-indy feeling in a lot of people, regardless of this kind of drama. They may well lose a few seats in the GE though and I can't see them winning a majority in Holyrood next time either. Best case scenario is they have a bit of an internal shakeup, put someone else in charge, and go crawling back to the greens, because the green influence on this govt has been really important even beyond environmental stuff, for tenancy rights etc. I follow a bunch of awful landlord groups on Facebook etc and they are absolutely loving this.
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Apr 26, 2024 11:46
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Bozza posted:gonna devils advocate this because for me it boils down to why Very interesting. I would like the A9 to be safe - speed cameras addressing that was mentioned earlier; the old canard is that the many switches between single and dual carriageway causes accidents - and resilient - ambulance access to Raigmore and buses should be able to get through on such a major route. If this is the case already then dualing not something to go to the mat for. Would be good to see improvements to A82 and A87. Wondering whether rail freight would lead to north-west-bound freight going on lorries out of Inverness instead of Glasgow?
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Apr 26, 2024 11:53
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The alba terf says she'll save the SNP from defeat, so that's that.
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Apr 26, 2024 12:11
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an independence readiness thermometer in every house
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Apr 26, 2024 12:25
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domhal posted:Very interesting. I would like the A9 to be safe - speed cameras addressing that was mentioned earlier; the old canard is that the many switches between single and dual carriageway causes accidents - and resilient - ambulance access to Raigmore and buses should be able to get through on such a major route. If this is the case already then dualing not something to go to the mat for. Don't think there's much you can do with the A82 for great swathes of it. I am totally unfamiliar with it south of Ballachulish but my granny lived in Taynuilt & we'd go visit every school holidays except Christmas & it'd be the sort of huge undertaking that Britain just doesn't do and hasn't in decades. Because the road down Loch Ness is snug against the hill on one side & the loch on the other. It's not quite as bad south of Drumnadrochit really, and then obviously you'd have to massively improve the bridges across the Caley Canal of which there's 5, & I remember how much of a nightmare they had just trying to put the new one in next to the Tomnahurich Street swing bridge because emergency services were having a nightmare getting across to new developments on the west side of the canal. Anyway, cars are shite, get them binned.
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Apr 26, 2024 12:33
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Seems Davey boy is on a trip through post-Soviet Asia and Mongolia in order to try and increase engagement between them and Britain. Literally the only good policy he maintained during his tenure was diplomacy with other countries, somewhat undermined by being dragged into the collective cuntosity towards Europe his howling band of jackals demanded by 2015. And now it's the only good part of this government, which is a different, more fascistic breed of cuntosity.
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Apr 26, 2024 12:33
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domhal posted:Very interesting. I would like the A9 to be safe - speed cameras addressing that was mentioned earlier; the old canard is that the many switches between single and dual carriageway causes accidents - and resilient - ambulance access to Raigmore and buses should be able to get through on such a major route. If this is the case already then dualing not something to go to the mat for. good question I think the reality, certainly for the Hghlands, road transport is key to the future but for me it should be last (hundred) mile rather than like you say off the train at Mossend near Glasgow then on the back of a lorry from there. really what Scotland (and the UK but lol Tories) need is a viable transport and logistics plan for the future certainly in ye olde days before reliable road transport it was about inner city railfreight depots which then went out by cart/bike which actually is the most sensible way of moving stuff en masse. as someone posted earlier in this thread, transport makes up 1/3 of Scotland's carbon emissions so Something Must Be Done, but of that I think less that 5% of that 1/3 are rail emissions. something like 80% of journeys in Scotland by rail are by electric train so by and large we have decarbonised rail transport but modal shift is vastly more important to getting that number up - it's about : - removing flights aka better rail/ferry connections, better anglo-scottish journey times RIP HS2, u wiv da angles now - removing cars from the road, particularly for the sub 5km journeys aka 15 min cities, bike and walking infrastructure, better buses, trams - removing lorries from the road aka better rail freight and freight handling, local delivery networks and low carbon last mile this is all well known, well understood stuff but it's functionally a total revolution in logistics and infrastructure, certainly in terms of "state intervention" with a whole industry and the way we run society
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Apr 26, 2024 14:09
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Gambrinus posted:Beyond me why Rowling is considered an authority on anything other than being a successful author. From a few pages back and I haven't caught up on the thread, but it's for the same reasons David Baddiel, Rachel Riley and other uninformed dolts with big followings, money and right wing views are treated as experts. They're useful attack dogs for the Press and others who radicalised them. The press can't outright say a lot of things because they get sued and have to issue corrections. But private citizens who get radicalised by the press by putting the two and two given to them and make five-hundred are going to give interviews, go on twitter and loudly shout to anyone who will listen that they've cracked the code and figured out the problem is the ones the press keeps saying are the problem. Then the Press give them cushy interviews that reinforce what the media told them. Then it becomes an endless feedback of Dogwhistle, Dogs barking and more dogwhistles. The celebrities are just small and numerous enough that it's not worth your time getting into prolonged and costly legal battles with them and just big enough to bully and attack anyone who calls them out on this behaviour. JK Rowling is a huge get for the transphobes because she's isolated by her wealth, arrogant by her success, genuinely hurt by the people who loved her turning on her and obnoxiously powerful and petty. She's very litigious and will sue you if you point out how bigoted she is. She's got the wealth to destroy anyone who gets to her. She's a very useful attack dog for a Press who will use her bigotry as a proxy to advance the bigotry they want. If she destroys her reputation then who cares, The press are clean, their enemies have been savaged and another attack dog will spring up to be used. They won't hesitate to hang her out to dry the second she is no longer useful or becomes an embarrassment, as the press have done for Rachel Riley. Essentially, the Press use celebrities like The West uses Israel against the Middle East, or Ukraine against Russia.
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Apr 26, 2024 14:14
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It's very interesting how Rowling et al started being vocally transphobic right around the time that BLM/Breonna Taylor/George Floyd protests were getting big. And by very interesting I mean it's obviously the white evangelicals at it again, in conjunction with a press and celeb culture that had the weird combination of not wanting to engage with their abortion or school prayer rhetoric at all but gladly lapped up all their transphobia.
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Apr 26, 2024 14:39
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Gonzo McFee posted:Essentially, the Press use celebrities like The West uses Israel against the Middle East, or Ukraine against Russia. Ah yes the famously offensive action of "getting invaded and occupied by Russia".
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Apr 26, 2024 14:50
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I think the point is more that they don't give a gently caress about Ukrainian people but support them for geopolitical advantage.
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Apr 26, 2024 14:56
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Tesseraction posted:I think the point is more that they don't give a gently caress about Ukrainian people but support them for geopolitical advantage. If that was the case, why did so many countries offer to let Ukranian people come over and/or change the immigration system to make it easier for Ukranian people to come into a country. (Not I'm not saying this should have only been done for Ukranian people. It should be done for other groups of people moving from countries in large numbers due to wars/other humanitarian crises. What I am saying is that it was right to let Ukranian people into a country without the same level of red tape and for all the resources being used to support these people.)
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Apr 26, 2024 15:03
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Tesseraction posted:I think the point is more that they don't give a gently caress about Ukrainian people but support them for geopolitical advantage. But yeah, the media seemed to forget that Ukraine existed the minute poo poo kicked off in Israel, and never noticed things happening in South Sudan, Belize, Guyana, or Burma in the first place. (Well, they did notice Burma for about a week years ago, but only when it was Rohingya Muslims and not when it was Chin Christians, which is an interesting reversal of the usual media bias.)
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Apr 26, 2024 15:07
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Tesseraction posted:I think the point is more that they don't give a gently caress about Ukrainian people but support them for geopolitical advantage. Exactly, BoJo himself actually flew over there and told them not to make any kind of peace deal but to fight to the end and we'd support them no matter what - and now they are getting completely hung out to dry. Regardless of who shot first our ruling class only cares about how much Russian blood the Ukrainians can spill - even if there's no Ukrainians left standing when the dust settles. The Question IRL posted:If that was the case, why did so many countries offer to let Ukranian people come over and/or change the immigration system to make it easier for Ukranian people to come into a country. Fast tracking Ukrainians through the immigration system was part of the effort to rebrand them as white/european/western rather than slavic/eastern to create further cultural division between Ukr/Rus, and only applied to those with the resources to leave the country in the first place, essentially capturing a proportion of the brain drain out of the country while the poor had to stay and await conscription and death.
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Apr 26, 2024 15:10
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Cookie Cutter posted:Exactly, BoJo himself actually flew over there and told them not to make any kind of peace deal but to fight to the end and we'd support them no matter what - and now they are getting completely hung out to dry. Regardless of who shot first our ruling class only cares about how much Russian blood the Ukrainians can spill - even if there's no Ukrainians left standing when the dust settles. That's not quite accurate. Chinas peace plan which Russia agreed to dropped while Bojo was over there. It was basically give everythin east of Dnipro to Russia or else. I don't disagree with the whole Russian blood thing though as long as it's not us that you mentioned.
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Apr 26, 2024 15:19
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While I agree the west will always use any war they can to their advantage, and are doing so in Ukraine, I find that the discourse around this is often extremely infantilising of Ukrainian people. No you see you don’t want to defend your home really you’re just being manipulated by our government. I’m not saying anyone here has done that necessarily but yeah, that’s my 10p
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Apr 26, 2024 15:27
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Tesseraction posted:Seems Davey boy is on a trip through post-Soviet Asia and Mongolia in order to try and increase engagement between them and Britain. Seems oddly old-fashioned, I understood that the modern way of doing diplomacy is to demand that they cut off all ties with countries that we dislike and agree to only do business with us, or we pass a law saying that they're all terrorists and put sanctions on them.
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Apr 26, 2024 15:35
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The Question IRL posted:If that was the case, why did so many countries offer to let Ukranian people come over and/or change the immigration system to make it easier for Ukranian people to come into a country. Countries can, sometimes, do things that are good. But I don't think it should be confused for actual holistic human compassion like your or I might exhibit. You personally might see someone start a fight, lamp them one to stop them, and then look after the person they hit, because you as a human are concerned with the wellbeing of the other human. But countries aren't human, every single action taken is not done with a unified consciousness and they are incapable of feeling anything. They might concede to international pressure to accept refugees, or see the right kind of refugees as a useful pool of labour which will face less domestic resistance than the usually available immigration pools, they might export arms because the arms trade has political power and it is an acceptable form of state spending, and they might see geopolitical advantage to both of those actions, but the whole function of "the government" is to be inhuman, to function as a machine. That doesn't mean it's perfectly logical but it does mean that just because one action might seem good or compassionate, you shouldn't assume other actions are the product of the same compassionate mind or expect the same conduct in the future. Countries can not "care" about people the way a human being can. They can't feel anything. They are machines and systems. They can no more exhibit care than a LLM AI can. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Apr 26, 2024 |
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Apr 26, 2024 15:36
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Jakabite posted:While I agree the west will always use any war they can to their advantage, and are doing so in Ukraine, I find that the discourse around this is often extremely infantilising of Ukrainian people. Given that recruiters are having to literally kidnap dudes off the street and drag them to the front lines and there's diplomatic moves on to force Ukrainian men who've fled to other countries back home to do their duty (i.e. die), I'm not sure at all that the Ukrainian people are as eager to continue the fight as you might think they are.
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Apr 26, 2024 15:40
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Tesseraction posted:I think the point is more that they don't give a gently caress about Ukrainian people but support them for geopolitical advantage. Yeah I felt that was obvious, especially given the complete loss of interest of the West the moment it was obvious Ukraine was hosed and poo poo kicked off in Israel. A weird derail attempt.
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Apr 26, 2024 15:44
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Jakabite posted:While I agree the west will always use any war they can to their advantage, and are doing so in Ukraine, I find that the discourse around this is often extremely infantilising of Ukrainian people. Every nation state has its myths that inspire huge masses of people to do self-defeating things while others don't believe in them at all, the UK is no different, how many people still live here under the impression a monarchy is a good, and even necessary thing, and at least entertain the idea of it being so important they would die for it (even if they are unlikely to actually go through with it if the chips were down), despite the British crown and state not caring about them one single jot and probably seeing them as a drain on resources or an inconvenient number on a spreadsheet. I think the main thing is to avoid treating Ukrainians as a homogenized mass with a single unified opinion in one way or the other, that is the infantilising part for sure
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Apr 26, 2024 15:45
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Pistol_Pete posted:Given that recruiters are having to literally kidnap dudes off the street and drag them to the front lines and there's diplomatic moves on to force Ukrainian men who've fled to other countries back home to do their duty (i.e. die), I'm not sure at all that the Ukrainian people are as eager to continue the fight as you might think they are. Please don't do this.
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Apr 26, 2024 15:52
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Cookie Cutter posted:Exactly, BoJo himself actually flew over there and told them not to make any kind of peace deal but to fight to the end and we'd support them no matter what - and now they are getting completely hung out to dry. Regardless of who shot first our ruling class only cares about how much Russian blood the Ukrainians can spill - even if there's no Ukrainians left standing when the dust settles. The 'Peace Deal' that you speak of that was supposedly scuppered by the perfidious West may have appeared reasonable sounding to the casual observer, consisting of a few major tenets: -Territorial status quo -Ukraine to accept permanent neutrality with no alliances -Ukraine to totally disarm, with no obligation on Russia to do anything in return -Ukraine's security to be 'guaranteed' by various Western powers and Russia (maybe China too, can't remember). This seemed something Ukraine might be able to accept as a compromise. But the full details of the negotiations were released recently. Russia made crystal clear that the critical final point - the only actual concession it was offering - included a requirement for absolute unanimity over any action by the guarantor countries to defend or support Ukraine from aggression in future. Given that the most likely future aggressor toward Ukraine would be Russia, this gave them a veto over any future Western (or other) support for Ukraine in the event if Russian aggression, be it direct intervention or sending arms. This effectively made the proposed security guarantees Ukraine would get in exchange for giving up its foreign policy ambitions, territory and ability to defend itself, utterly worthless. Effectively, Ukraine would have to give up any ability to defend itself, giving Russia effective domination of the country. Ukraine was not keen on this, and Russia refused to budge so negotiations broke down. As much of a shithead as he is, Boris didn't dictate the position of either country.
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Apr 26, 2024 15:53
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Tigey posted:Effectively, Ukraine would have to give up any ability to defend itself, giving Russia effective domination of the country. This is what it comes down to, effective Russian domination vs effective Western domination via the coup government we installed in 2014. So of course that same government was not keen on the deal, the domination process was already well underway through institutional capture rather than territorial annexation. Tai posted:Please don't do this. Do what? It's true.
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Apr 26, 2024 16:00
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lmao https://twitter.com/ProfDaveAndress/status/1783782786504983028 how could feminism do this to me
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Apr 26, 2024 16:04
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Cookie Cutter posted:This is what it comes down to, effective Russian domination vs effective Western domination via the coup government we installed in 2014. So of course that same government was not keen on the deal, the domination process was already well underway through institutional capture rather than territorial annexation. This is utter horse poo poo and not even able to be proven. There is a literal phone call of a US rep that Russia recorded in UA saying to keep the status quo but the UA government booted their president. There is no 'dominance'. This is a lovely realism talking point that trivalises smaller countries. Cookie Cutter posted:Do what? It's true. Yes because a video on the daily mail means tens of thousands are getting press ganged.
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Apr 26, 2024 16:05
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Cookie Cutter posted:This is what it comes down to, effective Russian domination vs effective Western domination via the coup government we installed in 2014. So of course that same government was not keen on the deal, the domination process was already well underway through institutional capture rather than territorial annexation. Anyway, am on holiday so refuse to spend any more time engaging with you further on this if that's your view. Have fun xx
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Apr 26, 2024 16:11
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Tigey posted:the Ukrainian people Here's some infantilising for you, that's not what I'm doing here. Well aware there are plenty of Ukrainians who would disagree with me. Not many of them live in the Donbas however, after being shelled by the 2014 government for... going on ten years now. I'm gonna leave it here too as things are getting predictably testy. But it is encouraging to see there is more appetite for the idea that our own governments here in the enlightened west don't care about Ukrainian lives despite what they say, because they don't. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Apr 26, 2024 16:18
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Cookie Cutter posted:Here's some infantilising for you, that's not what I'm doing here. Well aware there are plenty of Ukrainians who would disagree with me. Not many of them live in the Donbas however, after being shelled by the 2014 government for... going on ten years now. I'm gonna leave it here too as things are getting predictably testy. But it is encouraging to see there is more appetite for the idea that our own governments here in the enlightened west don't care about Ukrainian lives despite what they say, because they don't. The Donbas that voted in favour of Zelensky in 2019? Why would they vote for the guy shelling them hmmm.
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Apr 26, 2024 16:22
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Tai posted:The Donbas that voted in favour of Zelensky in 2019? Why would they vote for the guy shelling them hmmm. They didn't vote for the guy shelling them, in 2019 that was Poroshenko. Zelensky ran as the anti-war candidate. Basics.
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Apr 26, 2024 16:26
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and they all hugged it out
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Apr 26, 2024 16:29
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*coughing* So, anyway... as we know, countries that still have monarchies tend to be such that the native press do not cover negative news about the royal family. A Spaniard who said that in thanks for the British media letting Spain know that their current king/queen are separated even though the national media won't touch that story, a lot of overseas media is reporting that Chuck is in a very bad way due to the cancer. Funeral plans are being discussed in them.
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Apr 26, 2024 16:29
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I mean I had assumed he was going to die of it, just because he seems like the type to steve jobs himself.
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Apr 26, 2024 16:30
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UK monarch sucked me off???
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Apr 26, 2024 16:38
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OwlFancier posted:I mean I had assumed he was going to die of it, just because he seems like the type to steve jobs himself. Yeah, it's a trillion to one he's trying to homeopathise himself out of it.
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Apr 26, 2024 16:58
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Tesseraction posted:... When you do a Steve Jobs impression too well. 
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Apr 26, 2024 17:12
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