Links - 14th August 2020 (2)

IATA - About IATA Travel Centre - "The IATA Travel Centre delivers accurate passport, visa and health requirement information at a glance You can count on the IATA Travel Centre as your trusted, centralised source for the latest international travel requirements - as it is powered by Timatic. The IATA Travel Centre is the most accurate source available because we draw on a comprehensive database used by virtually every airline, and information gathered from over 1,600 official sources worldwide, such as immigration and police authorities. What’s more, our user-friendly system is constantly updated, so when you search for destination-specific details, you can rest assured the information returned is both current and complete."

MEDIA RELEASE: Anti-Asian Racism Rife Amid COVID-19 in Canada’s Largest Cities – Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice - "as many as 1 in 5 respondents do not think it's safe to sit next to an Asian or Chinese person on a bus, if they have no mask (21%)"
Not reported:
- How many respondents do not think it's safe to sit next to an Asian or Chinese person on a bus if he has a mask
- How many respondents do not think it's safe to sit next to a white (or whatever) person on a bus if he has no mask
I have a feeling if you survey Chinese people, given their mask fetish, more than 21% would not think it's safe to sit next to anyone on a bus if he had no mask
SJWs gonna SJW. Even by the standards of trash studies this is awful. No wonder. It comes from the "Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice"

One in 5 Canadians think it’s not safe to sit beside an Asian person on the bus, according to recent poll - "Toronto police have repeatedly said they are not experiencing any “notable increase” in hate crimes since the pandemic started. But spokesperson Meaghan Gray acknowledged hate-related incidents often go unreported.“I’m not sure our numbers would accurately reflect the possible lived experiences for some members of the community,” said Gray."
There goes the narrative
"Lived experience" aka flights of fantasy mean that there has been an astronomical increase in hate crimes but the reporting rate has plummeted because something something white supremacy, resulting in no net significant increase in reported hate crimes in Toronto

When You Eat Can Be Just as Important as What You Eat - "In our busy and highly stimulating world, our circadian rhythm could use some assistance. “The two biggest cues you can give your body to tell it the time of day [are] light and food,” says Manoogian. “Evolutionarily, those were very reliable cues to know the time of day. But in modern society, light and food are available around the clock. This can lead to circadian disruption.”Such disruption is associated with an increased risk of heart disease and diabetes... One way to help our bodies is by practicing “time-restricted eating.” What that means is this: Eat within the same 10-hour window every day. That’s it. So if the first thing that you consume is at 8 AM, your last meal should be at 6 PM.The end of your 10-hour eating window should not coincide with your bedtime. (Water is fine, however.)... “Time-restricted eating … can improve glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity, can lead to about a 5 percent weight loss, improves endurance and decreases blood pressure”"
"Intermittent" does not appear in here and "fasting" only once?!

How Much Do the Ingredients Cost in Your Favorite Foods? - "The restaurant business is notoriously tough, and owners have a myriad of costs ranging from health permits to commercial rent.On average, 30% of a restaurants revenues go to labor costs, 30% goes to general overhead, and 30-33% is spent on ingredients. Making a decent profit in the restaurant industry is a high hurdle... In order to cover all of these costs and still make a slim profit (generally 3-5%), restaurants need to mark up ingredients on average 300%. But some items offer dramatically different margins than others... The markup you pay for a given item ranges anywhere from 155% to 636% — and generally, the higher-end meal you purchase, the better the deal you’re getting... Despite being priced $6 more than the standard Cobb salad, the farm to table version has a much lower markup. This is because it contains so many high-cost items: artichokes ($1.15 per salad), organic chicken ($1.13), frisee ($1.08), and bougy touches like a quail egg ($0.66) and prosciutto speck ($0.44)... We looked at two variations of the omelette: a standard spinach option, and the Denver omelette, which contains ham and cheese. Both had much higher markups than the other items we’ve looked at so far... But the true king of marked up dishes? The pizza... Add-ons generally tack on an additional $1 to $3 to the price you pay. For the restaurant, these add-ons typically don’t cost them very much to purchase.Let’s say you add cheese ($1.50) to your standard hamburger. That slice of cheese probably costs the restaurant around 10 cents — but it raises what you pay from $9 to $10.50. That one small addition raises the markup from 384% to 436%... For the first time in recorded history, Americans are spending more at restaurants ($54 billion) than they are on groceries ($52 billion)"

Gender differences in mate selection criteria: Sociobiological or socioeconomic explanation? - "Consistent with past research, men placed more emphasis on the item Good Looks, whereas women placed more importance on the item Good Financial Prospect. Contrary to the structural powerless model, women's expected income was positively related to ratings of the importance of a potential mate's earning capacity in the college sample"
Women look for richer men. Rich women look for even richer men

Priyamvada Gopal On Resistance In The British Empire | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra - "The pointing out of common ground is something we see all the way from anti slavery through to 20th century anti colonialism, talking about the ways in which the ruling classes of Britain are the same people who might be oppressing people in the colonies, but also exploiting the British working classes. So there is, there is a constant laying out of common ground and common cause which we see in anti slavery and anti colonialism. With anti colonial movements you see, for instance, that by the time you get to the 1950s and 1960s, people like Fanna Brockway [sp?] who are involved in anti colonialism starts to become very involved in anti racism. And he and others who were members of the Movement for Colonial Freedom, which was a British organization set up in the 1950s. The movement for colonial freedom transforms itself by the 1970s into an organization called Liberation, which then is very involved in anti apartheid activism in Britain and many of the people involved in liberation also became part of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which in turn has populated the British anti war movement today. So there is absolutely a genealogy and that's something I was also keen to draw out. That anti slavery doesn't end with abolition. Anti colonialism doesn't end with independence, but these things morph into new dissident movements that take on more contemporary challenges...
I think that too much of the discussion around decolonizing the curriculum has been around diversity. And I think that people are still not very clear about the distinction between diversity and decolonization. My experience of decolonization so far at the level of the curriculum has still been one of a degree of benevolence. So for instance, in my own department, we have agreed to teach our small handful of black and Asian writers or open up the curriculum to the possible study of non mainstream black Asian writers. That to me, it seems to me not the answer. Decolonization, and I tell my students, this is really a question of all of us. And I mean, all of us asking, what is our relationship to the project of empire and how has that shaped how we are today? So this idea that decolonization means throwing white men off the curriculum and replacing them with black women, which is how it has been interpreted in some sections of the British media, I think it's completely wrong... I'm a little concerned that the discussion on decolonization has become one of tolerance and assimilation, rather than a more complicated and challenging engagement with how the British Empire shaped the world for several centuries, and that this is a legacy and an afterlife that we all carry with us... in a very unfortunate way, the story of Empire, rather than a story in which we are all shaped by, in which some of us are complicit, that story has been racialized. And it has been racialized, unfortunately, into a story of white benevolence and black and brown people essentially, as being uplifted by white benevolence. And I think that there is a great deal of racialized investment in that story"
So much for the 'myth' of the slippery slope - if it is celebrated is it still a myth?
Given how much people shit on Empire, it's strange she claims the story is one of white benevolence
Addendum: No surprise at all she made racist remarks later

Victim culture hits the courts: Woman gets paid for career she MIGHT have had but gave up for marriage and kids - "In an unusual divorce case, a woman has been awarded not only half of the assets she and her husband owned, but also a large payout for potential earnings she would have earned had she never given up her career to have children.The judgement in London could have dangerous implications for future marriages ending in years to come, thanks to a court ruling over “relationship-generated disadvantage.”... What makes the decision especially egregious is that the divorcing woman was not only awarded £400,000 for her supposedly stymied career, but also half of the £10 million she and her husband had in assets. The husband is also a solicitor. One would assume the splitting of assets would prove suitable compensation for one person’s career ‘taking precedence’ over their partner’s in a relationship, but now that is not enough... Keir’s celebration of “the principle of compensation” still existing in family law is bizarre, because people going through divorces – especially men – are already responsible for what many would argue is a hefty amount of compensation awarded to their partners through settlements, alimony and the splitting of assets. To now create a new avenue where you need to pay someone for an imaginary, ‘what if’ life they could have had if they never married you is preposterous, and merely one more way for people to take advantage of an already flawed system.Staking a claim to assets or money earned while together is one thing, but to argue a significant other needs to take responsibility for your decisions is victim culture nonsense. And if one is “putting family ahead of ambition and earning power,” but they are also legally allowed to later be compensated for making such a choice, this sounds like they didn’t put family ahead of anything... This ruling is essentially giving legal precedent to a very extreme form of victim culture. If you can get a settlement from a significant other because they are responsible for your past decisions, plenty of other people can make arguments that they are owed compensation from individuals in their past who they see as responsible for their failures. And in a world where people fight tooth and nail to argue about what precise labels hold them back and which groups of ‘privileged’ people keep them down, there are plenty who would surely love to make another person responsible for what they see as their plights in life."
A man is not a financial plan, but a divorce is
Sounds like men should just stay at home instead so they can get half the assets and more in a divorce

"Coronavirus Diaries: I’m a Lesbian. But Since the Lockdown, I’ve Been Sleeping With My Male Roommate." : PinkpillFeminism - "Almost everything that is wrong with liberal feminism has been incidentally covered in this "article... So, in summary, a girl who used to date men but has dated women for a few years is now sleeping with a man and now isn't sure if she can still "identify" as a lesbian. Meanwhile, the fuckboy she lives with is using her for easy access to sex, and even though she felt used and sad when he fucked her and didn't text her or communicate with her (even though they literally live together), she still was happy to be picked by him later that night, because somehow this is going to be empowering sex that will help her "figure out her sexuality?" She is a Deluxe Quarter Pounder Pickmeisha with an extra side of Pickme."
Someone's gonna get #MeToo-ed soon

The Side Effects of Social Distancing

The Side Effects of Social Distancing (Ep. 409) - Freakonomics Freakonomics

"BLOOM: Yeah, with benefit of hindsight, it was a mistake in particular to have massive tax cuts over the last two, three years, because we’re actually growing very fast. What would have been much better is to push down the government debt so that right now when we really need it, we could spend money. Normally, you want to have big blowouts in recessions to support the economy, and earn your savings back in the booms. And instead, we’re in the hangover from spending in a boom and suddenly you’re hit with a recession with very little money left in the bank. So the fiscal position, I think, is much more worrying because there we should have been generating a surplus, and instead there’s a big deficit...

DUBNER: As a finance person who’s seen a few of these rises and falls now over the past few decades, do you have any general advice for people?

MOSKOWITZ: Yes, I have very specific advice. Don’t touch it.

BLOOM: One of the basic findings from economics is, you can’t outthink the market

MOSKOWITZ: Any time people try to time the market, they end up doing far more damage than they help themselves. It’s very difficult to do. As one example, I had many colleagues — these are famous economists — who said last week, “I’m buying, I’m buying like crazy. This will be a blip.” They’re all sorry they did.

BLOOM: And you’re swimming with the sharks, because the other side of that trade is guys on Wall Street that eat for lunch retail investors like us, that don’t really know what we’re doing.

MOSKOWITZ: So what I’ve always done — and I’m not the only financial economist that would tell you this — many of us would — is, you have a long-term strategy. You stick to it. And you can’t be blindsided or emotional about these short-term blips because you can’t really do much about them. So the best advice is actually not to look...

BLOOM: Employees working from home — so these were people, I should say, were booking telephone calls and making— processing data on computers. So they were kind of individual working jobs. They were 13 percent more productive. I mean, 13 percent is a huge increase. And the reasons they told us was, you know, A, it’s quieter at home, so they could concentrate more. But B, actually, they just tended to work their full shift rather than spending as much time at lunch or arriving late or taking long toilet breaks. Secondly, their quit rates halved. Many of them much preferred working from home and didn’t want to leave their job. And thirdly, once you controlled for performance, since they were performing better, they actually weren’t getting promoted any faster — so there is some sting in the tail, that being at home seemed to reduce your ability to get promoted... it’s really not a team job. So that’s why you can be at home four out of five days a week. 

The second point was that after the end of the study, they then ask employees to re-decide whether they wanted to work from home or come back into the office. And half of the employees said after spending nine months at home, they didn’t like it. They felt isolated and lonely and they volunteered to come back into the office. So for me, the warnings from the Covid experiment is A, the type of working from home we’re talking about now is very extreme. It’s full-time, five days a week. I should note that less than five percent of Americans currently do that. Lots of people work from home a day a week, but very few people work from home full-time. It’s kind of like comparing going to the gym sporadically with marathon training, so it’s pretty extreme... 

I really worry about a big tick up in people getting depressed, mental- health issues, which leads to health issues, more generally, because of the isolation it could lead to. My prediction is, we will find that people that do routine jobs may perform okay at home but for the majority of us, I think it’s going to be pretty painful personally, with all the loneliness. And I suspect will be pretty damaging for productivity, particularly as time goes on. So I think if there’s one or two weeks, it wouldn’t be so bad. But if it stretches on to three to six months, I think it’s going to be hugely damaging economically... I think another thing that’s going to be damaged in the long run, actually, is: if everyone’s working from home, there’s not going to be that kind of workplace discussions, coffee-table discussions, lunchtime talk. And most of that, it turns out, is important for long-run innovation...

MOSKOWITZ: Nobody likes commuting. It’s actually the number one thing on surveys that people say they hate the most. And I think the longer this goes, you’ll have more requests for, “Hey, look, I could do this commute three days a week. But not five.”...

BLOOM: I’m not that optimistic that remote learning is going to be that successful. The reason is from personal experience, I feel a lot of my value-added is what I’ll call the personal-trainer effect — you know, giving students motivation. You’re forcing people to focus for an hour and a half. For example, probably the biggest single improvement in my teaching was the year that I banned laptops and cell phones from being used in the class. And it was miraculous. Suddenly everyone pays attention. Whereas when it’s offline, it’s so easy to get distracted by watching the football or seeing the news or watching the stock market...

MOSKOWITZ: Here’s my view on this. And just from 25 years of teaching, myself. I find if you’re just teaching facts and methods, that can be done almost as well online as it can live. You could even argue maybe even better online because you can supplement it with video materials, and you can record it, right, and get it perfect. If you’re trying to teach someone how to think and you’re trying to teach them, let’s say, how to do research or how to ask an interesting question and get a scientific answer, that’s much more hands-on. So, you know, if I’m teaching basic investments — what’s a stock, what’s a bond — I think I can do that just as well online as I probably can in the classroom.But if you’re talking about training students how to think, right, and how to really, you know, whether it’s writing an English essay or writing a poem or coming up with a computer program that does X or, you know, thinking about how to price some obscure private-equity firm — that, I think, requires a lot more back and forth, a lot more interaction. And I suspect that the reason that we still have the university model, is that’s what they’re trying to do. What I tell my students is, I’m trying to teach you how to think, because what I teach you today may not be relevant 5, 10, 20 years from now. But if you know how to think about it, you’ll be able to figure it out. When LeBron James— very terrible analogy. But, you know, there’s a reason that basketball players want to play in front of fans... when you’re teaching, you’re reacting to your students. You see their faces, you see their questions, you see confusion. Sometimes you see a light go on. That’s very difficult to do. Even though you see their faces on the flat screen, it’s not quite the same...

BLOOM: I think socialization is actually really important. It’s also interesting that the American system has been criticized heavily for doing not that well in international comparable maths tests and science tests and reading tests, but Americans are very good at socializing, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence. There’s lots of American startups and successful C.E.O.s and entrepreneurs. It’s part of this socialization process. From an early age, American kids are taught to argue, to speak up. And I think that will be lost if we move entirely to online home-based teaching...

DUBNER: Can you talk for a second about your past research on the association between climate change and violence?

BURKE: So one thing we have done is assemble historical data from around the world on violent outcomes. And what we find is a very strong linkage between changes in temperature and increases in various types of violence. So temperatures go up, you actually see more homicides in the U.S. You see more civil wars in sub-Saharan Africa. So this is not a new finding. It comes through very clearly in many different datasets... psychologists have shown for a long time that if you just put people in a room and turn up the temperature, you can piss them off even if there’s no one else in the room. But patterns of social engagement also change. So a warm evening, many more people are out on the street and maybe there are enough different social interactions that lead to an increase in crimes. And these larger scale-changes, declines in economic productivity or other outcomes, is the standard explanation for why you would see things like civil war, civil conflict, increase when temperatures go up...

DUBNER: I mean, I’m old enough now to remember when computing started to become pretty widely available and a lot of smart people said, “Well, that is the end of cities. It’s the end of in-person work, period. Everybody’s going to live in, you know, Fiji or wherever they want.” And it just didn’t happen. In fact, the opposite happened. This propinquity turned out to be incredibly valuable, and urbanization has risen and risen and risen. So I’m curious about what curiosities you may have to — what kind of lasting effects you may want to look for as an economist."

The American obsession about taxes (despite them being relatively low) where they keep bitching about paying too much in taxes and that it's better for them to keep their money instead of funding social programs cannot solely be explained by how dysfunctional their government is (i.e. their not getting much back). Perhaps it's linked to the mythology about taxes and their Revolution - even if they get representation now they still don't like taxes

Links - 14th August 2020 (1)

TikTok Users In China Temporarily Banned For Speaking Their Own Cantonese Language Instead Of Using The Official Mandarin 

Mutual Intelligibility of Sinitic Languages - "a monolingual speaker of Cantonese cannot understand a monolingual speaker of Mandarin and vice versa.  There is zero intelligibility between the two languages.  In fact, even within the huge collection of speech forms that fall under the umbrella of "Mandarin," there are many varieties that are more or less mutually unintelligible... The old canard that "when the dialects are written down they are the same" is simply untrue, since what gets written down are not the regional variants but standard Mandarin (and in earlier times Classical Chinese, a dead language for at least two thousand years).  If one, as a tour de force, does contrive to write unadulterated Cantonese or Taiwanese, for example, they will be as hard for a reader of Mandarin to understand as spoken Cantonese or Taiwanese is for a speaker of Mandarin to understand."

Michelle Fullwood's answer to How are written Mandarin and written Cantonese different? - Quora - "Cantonese and Mandarin sometimes use different words to represent the same concept. This is often the case among high-frequency closed-class words. In this case the written word in Cantonese often has a specific character that is either not part of the standard Mandarin set.
佢 keoi5 "he/she/it", c.f. Mandarin 他/她/它 tā My favourite example of this is 冇 mou5. Take a guess as to what it means! Here's a hint: 有 jau5 (C) / yǒu (M) means "to have". Answer: since it doesn't have the two horizontal bars of 有, it means "to not have", and is the equivalent of Mandarin 没有 méiyǒu.
Another large class of such words are borrowings from other languages like English. For example, in Hong Kong, the English word for "taxi" was borrowed as: 的士 dik7 si2 "taxi", c.f. Mandarin 出租车 chūzūchē lit. "hire car"... Mandarin and Cantonese sometimes share a word that descended from a common Middle Chinese word, but whose pronunciation diverged. In this case, they both use the same character(s) for the word. But Cantonese always uses traditional characters, while Mandarin is written with simplified characters in China and Singapore.
我 ngo5 "I", c.f. Mandarin 我 wǒ
個 go3 "generic classifier", c.f. Mandarin 个 (simplified) / 個 (traditional) gè Mandarin and Cantonese have different grammar. For example, in Mandarin ditransitives (e.g. using the verb "give"), the word order is verb–indirect object (recipient)–direct object, while in Cantonese the word order is verb–direct object–indirect object. In this case, the written Cantonese will usually reflect the Cantonese word order.
畀嗰本書我 bei2 go2 bun2 syu1 ngo5 "Give the book (to) me" (source: Wikipedia), c.f. Mandarin 给我那本书 gěi wǒ nà běn shū "Give me the book""

Nat Turner with the burner on Twitter - "The “dictatorship” of the democratic people’s’ republic of North Korea has done more for the liberation of marginalized people than this country you’re definding. Fuck every aspect of this country and it’s disgusting tool, the military. I wish that “dictatorship” won the war."
This self proclaimed Marxist (and also "secular humanist"?!) lives in Detroit/DC. Imagine hating your country that much. Why don't these peple all go live in the Communist countries they love so much?
Comment from elsewhere: "Years ago I was arguing with an American Maoist about fuck knows what. Doesn't matter. Probably something to do with the importance of freedom because he said something foolish like "yeah I'd rather be in prison in China rather than free in America". And I was like "wow, you know you can prove this right now by flying to China and immediately getting yourself arrested, because it's really easy to get arrested in China. You can live your dream life in a Shanghai prison."He stopped responding and eventually blocked when a few people agreed with me. I can only assume he chose shitty freedom over awesome prison."

Marx-y Marx and the Funky Bunch☭ on Twitter - "Kim Jong Un is objectively a more moral person than every single member of the US government"
He lists his pronouns in his profile. Communist countries would not tolerate his degeneracy of course

이름없음 on Twitter - "If you equate both titles “Supreme Leader” and “Prime Minister” with the descriptor “head-of-state” but think one sounds more ‘totalitarian’ than the other as if “Supreme” is not simply just a synonym for “Prime” and “Leader” a synonym for “Minister” - then you might be a racist!"
Its profile: "I have pronouns." Hurr This person lives in New Zealand and used Jacinda Ardern as an example

‘Zoom fatigue’ is taxing the brain. Here's why that happens. - "The unprecedented explosion of their use in response to the pandemic has launched an unofficial social experiment, showing at a population scale what’s always been true: virtual interactions can be extremely hard on the brain... group video chats become less collaborative and more like siloed panels, in which only two people at a time talk while the rest listen. Because each participant is using one audio stream and is aware of all the other voices, parallel conversations are impossible. If you view a single speaker at a time, you can’t recognize how non-active participants are behaving—something you would normally pick up with peripheral vision.For some people, the prolonged split in attention creates a perplexing sense of being drained while having accomplished nothing... That’s why a traditional phone call may be less taxing on the brain, Franklin says, because it delivers on a small promise: to convey only a voice... If you’re feeling self-conscious or overstimulated, Normand recommends you turn off your camera. Save your energy for when you absolutely want to perceive the few non-verbal cues that do come through, such as during the taxing chats with people you don’t know very well, or for when you want the warm fuzzies you get from seeing someone you love. Or if it’s a work meeting that can be done by phone, try walking at the same time.“Walking meetings are known to improve creativity, and probably reduce stress as well”"
So much for the hype about online learning

Hero Creates AI Doppelgänger of Himself to Get Out of Zoom Video Meetings - "To build his bot, Reed recorded himself in Quicktime looking quizzical, confused, opening his mouth, and smiling, and took screenshots. When these images cycle through, it almost looks like Reed has a poor connection—and he programmed his bot to say as much"

Tiananmen Square Massacre: How China's Millennials Discuss It Now - "Twenty-five years after June 4, 1989, even China’s educated youth have only a foggy understanding of the incident, and they’re skittish about discussing it openly. Textbooks don’t mention the violence that left hundreds, maybe thousands, dead in the streets of Beijing. The Chinese Internet has been scrubbed of all but the official accounts. (The first result on the search engine Baidu is a short article from People’s Daily concluding that the incident “taught the party and the people a useful lesson.”) The Chinese government has arrested dozens of people in recent weeks for planning or participating in events related to the anniversary, and police have warned foreign journalists not to cover the story. Still, most young Chinese people I approached were willing to talk—as long as they could remain anonymous. Awareness of the Tiananmen incident among young Chinese tends to correlate with education level, exposure to the world outside China, and general curiosity... Most Chinese parents don’t talk about politics with their children, said Amy, a bright 26-year-old from Guangdong province who works for a tech company in Beijing. But she was an exception: she heard about the incident from her father. “He hated Deng Xiaoping,” she said. “He thinks Deng caused China to have no morals, no beliefs. I asked why, and he said, ‘Deng Xiaoping ordered tanks to run over college students. Do you think that’s what a good person does?’” Later, when she was attending a top university in Beijing, one of her professors showed photos and videos from the protests. “The teacher told us not to mention it outside class”... Everyone I talked to knew the basic outline: Student protests, government crackdown, innocent civilians shot dead. But they weren’t all sure why the protesters were so upset. Jenny, a sharp 25-year-old legal expert living in Beijing, guessed it had to do with corruption. Several people suggested that the students were being manipulated by outside forces, particularly foreign governments... You can’t blame them for being confused. The 1989 protesters themselves didn’t know exactly what they wanted. They complained variously about high inflation, corruption, and a lack of democracy... Even if they’d agreed on a set of goals, they couldn’t agree how to achieve them: Some wanted revolution, while others pushed for incremental change... As Louisa Lim writes in her new book The People’s Republic of Amnesia, “moving on—not dwelling on the past—has become a key survival tactic, perhaps the most important one.”... She believes that even searching for forbidden key words could get her in trouble, she said: “They can track you down within minutes.” They were pessimistic that the next generation would know any more about 1989 than they do. The post-’90s generation, the oldest of whom are now graduating from college, prefer American TV shows and Korean pop stars to social issues, said Amy. Susan argued that most young Chinese are too focused on getting by to worry about grand political issues. “They don’t care, as long as they have something to eat and a place to live,” she said. “We’re just walking dead.” Between the quest for material goods and the squelching of her own curiosity, Jenny said, “the government succeeded. We’ve been brainwashed.”"

Coronavirus news: Foodora Is Ditching Canada Two Months After Workers Win Right to Unionize - "After five years in Canada, food delivery company Foodora is pulling out of the country in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The announcement comes two months after its workers won the right to unionize... Foodora "has been unable to reach a level of profitability in Canada that’s sustainable enough to continue operations"... The timing of the announcement raises questions because there’s been a reported increase in demand for food delivery services, which are considered an essential service during the pandemic... Foodsters United, the union representing workers, said in a statement that it is “saddened and greatly disappointed” in Foodora and Delivery Hero for their “poorly thought-out decision.”  Foodsters said restaurants and couriers will only have two weeks to find alternate ways to survive during the COVID-19 pandemic. “This demonstrates a complete disregard for the wellbeing of us workers in an already extreme and uncertain time”"
Presumably this is the fault of capitalism and nothing to do with unionisation increasing costs and making an already loss-making business model only subsidised by venture capitalists' money even more unviable

The Millennial Lifestyle Is About to Get More Expensive - The Atlantic - "To throw cash at people every time they walk into a restaurant does not sound like a business. It sounds like a plot to lose money as fast as possible—or to provide New Yorkers, who are constantly dining out, with a kind of minimum basic income... I don’t know if it makes sense, and I don’t know how long it’s going to last. Is there a better epitaph for this age of consumer technology?... It’s easy to spend all day riding unicorns whose most magical property is their ability to combine high valuations with persistently negative earnings—something I’ve pointed out before. If you wake up on a Casper mattress, work out with a Peloton before breakfast, Uber to your desk at a WeWork, order DoorDash for lunch, take a Lyft home, and get dinner through Postmates, you’ve interacted with seven companies that will collectively lose nearly $14 billion this year. If you use Lime scooters to bop around the city, download Wag to walk your dog, and sign up for Blue Apron to make a meal, that’s three more brands that have never recorded a dime in earnings, or have seen their valuations fall by more than 50 percent... To maximize customer growth they have strategically—or at least “strategically”—throttled their prices, in effect providing a massive consumer subsidy. You might call it the Millennial Lifestyle Sponsorship, in which consumer tech companies, along with their venture-capital backers, help fund the daily habits of their disproportionately young and urban user base. With each Uber ride, WeWork membership, and hand-delivered dinner, the typical consumer has been getting a sweetheart deal.For consumers—if not for many beleaguered contract workers—the MLS is a magnificent deal, a capital-to-labor transfer of wealth in pursuit of long-term profit; the sort of thing that might simultaneously please Bernie Sanders and the ghost of Milton Friedman. But this was never going to last forever. WeWork’s disastrous IPO attempt has triggered reverberations across the industry. The theme of consumer tech has shifted from magic to margins. Venture capitalists and start-up founders alike have re-embraced an old mantra: Profits matter.And higher profits can only mean one thing: Urban lifestyles are about to get more expensive... Am I getting ripped off by these companies, or am I kinda-sorta ripping them off? In many cases, the answer is the latter... The meal-kit company Blue Apron revealed before its public offering that the company was spending about $460 to recruit each new member, despite making less than $400 per customer. From afar, the company looked like a powerhouse. But from a unit-economics standpoint—that is, by looking at the difference between customer value and customer cost—Blue Apron wasn’t a “company” so much as a dual-subsidy stream: first, sponsoring cooks by refusing to raise prices on ingredients to a break-even level; and second, by enriching podcast producers. Little surprise, then, that since Blue Apron went public, the firm’s valuation has crashed by more than 95 percent."

Links - 10th August 2020 (2)

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, The Road Through Yemen - "[On hostage taking by a disgruntled Filipinio security guard] [Paray’s] hostages were now free… He's been charged with attempted murder, serious illegal detention and the unlawful possession of a firearm and explosive device. Extraordinarily, days later an opinion poll showed 60% of respondents supported his actions" 

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Italy's Invisible Enemy - "‘He checked out her profile and instantly he liked what he saw. But Wada [sp?] wears a full face veil. So it wasn't her looks that appealed. What inspired him was her bio, which said, I'm just a simple woman who has a goal to marry young. Three days later, a direct message pinged into Wada’s inbox, asking for her hand in marriage. Wada was obviously surprised, but pleasantly so. She says he hadn't even heard my voice or seen my face, and he asked me to marry him. So I knew he was really different... Nata [sp?] says that he didn't want to see Wada’s face before they married, but Wada’s family insisted on it. According to her, they didn't want him to be disappointed after the wedding’"

BBC Radio 4 - Moral Maze, Profiling, Safety and Trust - "‘They called it stop and frisk, and the New York Police were none too gentle about it, targeting overwhelmingly young black and Hispanic men for weapons searches. Then Mayor Bloomberg was bullish about it. Going where the crime and the criminals were, he said, producing figures that showed more than 90% of murderers, and incidentally their victims, were young black and Latino males. Now Democratic presidential hopeful Bloomberg says that was wrong. Discriminatory, counterproductive. He should have apologized earlier he says. Profiling is controversial. As this side of the Atlantic Michael O'Leary, boss of Ryanair has been finding out after he suggested that airport security should concentrate on young men of a Muslim persuasion as he put it, rather than families with kids. Racist, said the Muslim Council. Nonetheless, profiling is part of everyday life. Insurance companies do it, supermarkets, Facebook. Using computer algorithms to categorize us, to weigh up our potential for profit or risk. The police here have been piloting the technique to identify currently low level criminals likely to move on to what they call high harm crimes, perhaps with knives and guns. The civil liberties lobby says profiling to predict crime is a violation of our rights that angers and alienates marginalized communities. Proponents say it's common sense to concentrate on where the data says the danger lies. It actually eliminates bias and human error they say.’...
‘If more than 90% of those convicted of murder in New York were blacks and Latinos, can you explain why it was morally wrong to concentrate on them when searching for weapons?’
‘I think if we think about the ways in which this kind of profiling operates and the idea that people who are convicted or people who enter into prison for whatever reason, is the way in which we understand who is more likely to commit an offense, then what we're becoming blind to is the fact that the criminal justice system and the policing which leads up to those convictions may itself be institutionally racist’...
‘I think one of the best ways in which we can try to reduce levels of violent crime or indeed any type of crime within our economy isn't necessarily simply with policing. So if we look at the economies with the, or the policies of the lowest levels of crime, despite the fact we often keep borrowing policies from the United States, we should probably be looking at places across Europe, which have far lower levels of crime. And the way that they address those kinds of crime isn't simply through profiling or more aggressive forms of policing. It's by increasing levels of access to housing, increasing levels of education’...
‘The police are criticized for the PREVENT scheme, which is actually engaging with civic society, which is actually saying, you know, you come on board with us and help us. Because they can't do this on their own. So they get attacked for that as well when they do try to engage with civic society’"
Presumably men are overrepresented in the criminal justice system due to institutional sexism; it seems the witness is unaware of the criminological literature on homicide data being reliable

Women at war - HistoryExtra - "‘Perhaps this is a tricky question because of the limits of terminology. But is your understanding that most of these women or a lot of the women that you came across in the book, were passing as, as men for pragmatic and practical reasons rather than, for example, they were what we would call today transgender?’
‘I mean, one of the things that makes it so difficult, but I kind of like the difficulty of this is that we have to read a lot of these accounts through other people's lens and through a historical lens as well, because the notion of having a sexual orientation or sexual identity is a fairly modern concept. So on the one hand, I think a lot of women were doing this because it gave them access to so much that they couldn't have as women. So for example, it gave them access to money, it gave them access to a profession. I mean, you have, you know the shipwright Mary Lacey who writes her memoir in the 18th century and not only did leaving her job as a domestic servant, and to become William Chandler, enable her to become a shipwright, carpenter. But it also enabled her to have relationships with other women. So, you know, there was so much that women could gain. Sometimes they were running away from a really abusive relationship. I mean, there's lots of news stories of women on ships or women, you know, women as sailors on merchant, on merchant ships who were there because sometimes they say, a stepfather, a cruel stepfather has forced them into it. Sometimes they say because they're running away from a cruel stepfather or an abusive husband. So there is this idea that, that it offered them liberty, it offered them rewards that they couldn't have as women. But you also read through these accounts that some of them really enjoyed doing this as well. And it, maybe it conformed more with how they felt about themselves, that they were masculine women. But I think that in a period when notions of what it meant to be male and female was so much more rigidly defined, you can understand, you know, that as motivation. I mean, the one thing that we're really lacking is a lot of detailed accounts of how these women felt. You know, what their internal landscape was, as it were. They don't talk a lot about their bodies. They only talk about them in passing’"
The trans brigade is going to lynch her for "erasure"

Coronavirus: A Historical Perspective | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra - "‘Zamora, which is a town in northwestern Spain, which was and in fact still is very pious Catholic city. And there was a very charismatic, very influential Bishop there at the time, who basically just defied the provincial authorities. And at the height of the pandemic in the autumn of 1918, ordered his flock into the churches to pray for forgiveness for their sins, which he insisted was the cause of this terrible punishment, divine punishment. And so everybody crowded into the churches, and made their prayers to St Rocco, who is the patron saint of pestilence and plagues and that meant lining up to kiss his relics, everybody kissing the same relic and, and Zamora went on to record one of the highest death rates from that flu in the whole of Spain, if not in the whole of Europe. So, you know, very kind of clear effect there. And I think today, you know, you do see the effect of religion, but it's very kind of marginal. So there are reports of people in the Iranian shrine city of Qom, licking the shrine defiantly and we hear that some of the early clusters in South Korea came from churches. But generally speaking, there has been a much less of an effect of organized religion, I think’...
The fake news problem. A lot of young people have said to me, the problem is that good information is behind paywalls. Whereas fake news is free. The assumption there is that they shouldn't have to pay for their information"

The Genius Of Artemisia | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra - "‘And then the marriage starts to run into problems. And there's complicating factor here, which is that Artemisia was having an affair with a patron, apparently with the kind of knowledge and awareness of her husband. And this, again, is a very, very, it’s a thing that kind of might feel quite uncomfortable and alien to us now. But in these court contexts, when you have marriages, which are still arranged marriages, to some extent, for business reasons, and you have a wealthy patron who's in a position to do you favors in terms of getting you commissions and so on, it wouldn't be unheard of though I could see it might be quite uncomfortable for a husband to go along with his wife having that affair and maybe because she sort of genuinely wants to, but maybe on a little bit of a transactional basis as well, like, I like you enough to do this and to get favours in return. So it is very, very complex’"

BBC World Service - The Food Chain, The mystery of mukbang - "‘Hano [?] has a theory as to why it became so popular so quickly.’
‘So, in South Korea, people not only share a table, but also eat from the same dishes. So eating together and sharing food, are at the centre of Korea's eating culture. And also Korean people think eating as a communal activity. And also eating alone is somewhat socially stigmatized. So I think by watching mukbang, people have, like, social sense of togetherness, even though they are actually physically eat alone’
‘Help me understand, how do people perceive eating alone in South Korea? Why is it so stigmatized?’
‘I think because of Korean people just basically think eating is somewhat social activity that you have to do with other people. Eating alone is associated with loneliness and then people find uncomfortable in some way.’...
‘If someone has a binge eating disorder, they are triggered by anxiety. They're triggered by different things other than hunger or a love of food. That's what classifies it as a disorder. And so this is not that. This is just watching someone else eat. And I don't know that anyone specifically has wanted to binge because of me, but they will crave what I'm eating. And often I hear that people who have trouble eating, like watching my videos, or people who are on diets, watch the videos, they'll watch it while they're having their salad or they're having whatever it is they're eating, to still get that sense of satisfaction, even though they're not actually having it’"

BBC World Service - The Food Chain, Fried chicken: Fast food champion - "‘I'm the co founder of something fresh and we own Africa's largest food truck which is a double decker bus. And I'm in South Africa.’...
‘In a way you're trying to create a new, a new sector in the market anyway, like premium fast food.’
‘We had exactly the opposite... When we started off, our chicken was fairly cheap. And people wouldn't buy… it’s too cheap, it's weird. We in the market, and who’s this guy? Where is he getting his chicken from?... Which is like, not coming to my store. And then I literally almost doubled my price. And then I couldn't make enough chicken.’
‘Right. So you pitched it as a premium product.’
‘Yes. So now the perceived value with the people were going crazy and you know people look at fried chicken and think to themselves that's just fried chicken. There is a lot of science that goes into fried chicken. You can overcook fried chicken, you can under fry. No one wants to find any blood especially, you know, if you have bone in, there could be a bit of blood, you could just undercook it’
‘Oh, we stopped doing wings because of that. We stopped serving it because so many people complained’...
‘Buttermilk... is not super acidic. It's just acidic enough, just enough to break down the proteins in the chicken... … fried chicken is not just an easy meal. It's an experience. It's a lifestyle. It's a culture, you know, you go all around the world and everyone has their own version of fried chicken. You go to the US, there’s Nashville Hot chicken, you know, you go to China they've got Szechuan pepper chicken. South Korea has got so many versions of chicken. South Africa, up in Africa. Everyone has, if you meet somebody and they don't know what fried chicken is, you have to find out what is wrong with that person.’...
‘The chicken, the size of chicken in Korea is… very small compared to other chickens over the world because we kill chicken when when they're young, so that it doesn't have those those weird flavor into it. But often people come to our restaurant and complain about the size of the wings, and it's really hard to get the wings by itself. So surprising we're using frozen wings from abroad. However, with our brining and then breading, the funky flavor into it is gone by the time we serve to our customers.’"

Everything You Wanted To Know About Roman Britain: A Podcast With Miles Russell - HistoryExtra - "The great thing about Roman baths is we look at them, we think they're great sort of hygienic health property areas. Most of these baths don't have plugs. There's no way we can see that the water can come out unless someone's bucketing it. So it might be that in a big plunge pool in a town bath, the water's been in there for weeks, it becomes like a human soup. So probably the Roman bathhouse is one of the least hygienic places you can imagine in Roman Britain"

BREAKING: CNN Busted Using Footage from Hurricane Harvey in COVID-19 Report - "Jeremy M. Jack is a father and sign language interpreter living Roseville, CA. Recently, his son frantically contacted him by phone to share the fact that CNN was using footage of him (and others) from a grocery line in Houston during preparation for HURRICANE HARVEY to sensationalize their Covid-19 narrative. Here’s what he posted:
“Okay… I have held my tongue about this COVID-19 insanity but after #CNN used MY face to report outright LIES that continue to incite the mass hysteria around this issue…all bets are off! My son starts blowing up my phone today saying DAD you are on the news about the Corona Virus! I was completely confused… so I find out that while reporting on the conditions in San Francisco as a result of the virus they used footage of ME and others during Hurricane Harvey in Houston lined up outside of Kroger’s on Westheimer near the Beltway! CNN is using MY face to present misleading journalism that continues to seriously impact our economy and the every day decision making of the public. This is not okay.. do actual research for yourself."

Civic Nationalism vs Ethnic Nationalism

A: 9 August: Happy Indigenous Peoples Day everyone. I am proud to be English - a defined ethnic group. We are the indigenous people of our homeland, England, one of the countries which make up Great Britain 🎉 #PatrioticAlternative

National Indigenous Peoples Day - Wikipedia

Indigenous Peoples Day 2020 - Patriotic Alternative 

The English are the indigenous people of England and are a defined ethnic group. Likewise the Welsh/Wales, Scottish/Scotland, Cornish/Cornwall etc. Together, we are the indigenous British people of Great Britain. Today we celebrate our rich heritage and culture which have shaped this island and our people. British children will be a minority in the classroom by 2037.
The children of today will be the Britain of tomorrow.

#IndigenousPeoplesDay

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=975878882929880

B:  "The future society is made by those who show up"

Mark Steyn.

Me: So are you celtic, Anglo saxon, Norman or something else?

B:  I'm a civic nationalist.

The problem with these indigenous days is. You grant it for one, you grant it for all. But as soon as you deny any "group" then they have a right to feel resentment.

That's why I think the whole idea is bollocks and I prefer civic nationalism because it is based on shared ideas and values within a coherent political unit - the nation state. Something you can shape with a vote.

A: Do you have a problem with the indigenous British becoming a minority in our own homeland within just several decades?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/white-britons-will-be-minority-before-2070-says-professor-8600262.html

Me: I was addressing A

B: Yeah.. Mine was just a general comment. Not aimed at anyone in particular.

It's why celebration of a nation state e.g. In Australia they have Australia Day. It likely to be more socially cohesive than having days based on "ethnicity".

A - Kind of but not really because of skin colour. I'm anti-mass immigration and pro nationalism (civic). So under the civic nationalist anti-mass migration system the phenomena would simply not occur.

But if such a change is driven because of "diversity is good NPC woke garbage" and all that crap then yes. I'm firmly against that.

I guess the outcome would be the same as the ethnonationalist (which I'm not) but for civic nationalist reasons. I hope that makes sense???

A: 1/ Why do you refer to ‘skin colour’ in respect to my question?

2/ You talk of mass migration; do you realise that the indigenous British will become an ethnic minority within just several decades even if all immigration were to cease immediately?

B: Fair questions.

1. It was implied in the article you linked to. So I wasn't clear whether you were referring to "white" or "Anglo-Saxon" or "Celtic" or whatever...

2. Kind of. Yes. Is British an ethnicity or a nationality though. There is a difference or at least I'm using them in a different context. Assuming the current demographic trends then yes. I've read The Strange Death of Europe. But I'm not clear on your definitions.

I guess do you think British is an ethnicity? Or a nation?

If ethnicity then by definition any citizen will always be British so we can not be an ethnic minority if citizenship is granted based on British values.

If you mean British as a single ethnicity it isn't. It is made up of various ethnic groups so I guess which ethnic groups would you consider to be British and which are not. E.g. Cornish, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon etc etc etc.

These discussions are hard unless we agree on terms as nationality and ethnicity are sometimes used interchangeably. But I think they are distinct.

Me: it's peculiar how when it comes to Europe a lot of people insist on only using the terms to refer to ethnicity

BTW I think you meant

"if nationality then by definition any citizen will always be British"

I find it interesting how in Canada some people put their ethnicity as "Canadian". No they're not aboriginal

B:  Yes. I did mean that is mistyped....cheers.

A: You appear unaware that British is an umbrella/collective for the various ethnic groups of Britain, which includes the English, the Scottish, the Welsh, the Northern Irish, the Cornish - the countries that make up Great Britain.

It would be helpful to this discussion if you could watch this short explanation
https://youtu.be/e8LCm91r8Jo

B: I'm not unaware of it. It can be used synonymously in some cases. That's why I asked for clarification. My point was regards to citizenship. So I could become a Chinese citizen but I wouldn't fit into any of the variety of their indigenous ethnic groups. So I would not be any ethnic " variety" of Chinese, obviously. I think it was Lauren Southern who did a viral video about this with regards to passports....

A: The British (the tribes English,Scottish,Welsh,Cornish) are a defined collective ethnic group - no iffs/buts.

Of course someone who does not belong to one of the tribes can have British citizenship - but that is an entirely different matter. An example being Priti Patel - daughter of Ugandan Indian parents - she is not ‘British’.

So my question once again is: do you have a problem with the British becoming a minority in their own ancestral homeland within just a few decades?

B: Sure if it is because of diversity driven garbage. But it wouldn't happen under low immigration civic nationalism as I explained earlier.

You can make the same ethnic argument for Cornish separatism, Scottish separatism. Etc.

It's at what level the political unit is to be accepted.

For example do you support Scottish Independence?

Welsh separatism - based on the ethnicity graph earlier they have less in common with England which is majority Anglo-Saxon. Whereas Wales is almost zero Anglo-Saxon.

Or maybe that each nation should only be one ethnic group?

On a political level since devolution there is a strong case for an English Parliament.

What level the national state should be and the ethnics groups it contains will always be a source of debate. The ethnicity map above is based on current UK borders but of course it was different in the past. That's partly the argument the IRA use for reunification.

These arguments have always been and always will be.

A: I believe the tribes are stronger under a single union. But I don’t know why you bring this into the discussion.

The existing problem, and which is leading to the British becoming a minority, is because of its civic nationalism policy - that anyone can become British. Don’t you see that?

I’ve also said that if immigration was halted tomorrow, that would not make any difference; unless something is done to reverse the present situation; the British will still become a minority in their homeland within just several decades. Do you accept this and understand the reason why?

B: I didn't bring tribes in. You did.

Sure I understand the main conflicts between ethnonationalism and civic nationalism. But I'm not an open borders mass immigration one. So it would not follow to the outcome you say. We don't have civic nationalism in the UK. We have mass immigration cultural relativism crap.

Of course I understand why. Because of the demographics. The various fertility rates amongst different groups. As outlined in The Strange Death of Europe. I also had to study demography. I'm a geography teacher.

"The tribes are strong as one Union" argument can be used by the IRA. Or if you want to translate it to a higher political level the European (a United States of Europe). The tribes of Europe are stronger as one.

But as Jordan Peterson points out once the hierarchy gets too distant from the electorate then they start losing faith in the democratic system as the power of voting gets more and more diluted.

Me: the cornish also have a separatist streak *Braveheart freedom GIF*

what do you think of allowing 3 million Hong Kongers into the UK?

A: Tribes/Stronger: You questioned me on Scottish Independence. I said it wasn’t relevant to the discussion.

The present system recognises anyone with a British passport/citizenship as ‘British’ - that is civic nationalism.

It’s not until Britain recognises that the British (the actual British) have a right of self-determination, that the present course of the British becoming a minority in their own homeland within just several decades can be addressed/reversed. That is ethno-nationalism.

B: Ok. Your a British Nationalist. That's fine. I'm just saying the same arguments can be made for Welsh Nationalism. Irish Nationalism. Scottish Nationalism. It's a question of where you draw the line at the political unit (the nation state, and which ethnic groups are going to be the majority of its formation and then the extra via low migration to be assimilated - depending on whether you think Uk is overpopulated, about right or underpopulated).

I actually support Scottish independence in principle but the SNP are fake nationalists.

Gabriel - It's a harsh one. In terms of assimilation 3 million is too many. Even though the cultural divide is nothing like letting 3 million from Sudan in (which would be beyond stupid). Then there are all the housing, infrastructure, public service and pressures on the green belt.

There are at least probably 2 million in the UK illegally that need booting out first. So I guess allow a reasonably sustainable number? Also any criminals with dual citizenship, boot them out too. That will kick out a load of Islamists for a start.

A: On the one hand you do not dispute the findings of leading demographers, backed up with government data (ONS, census etc), if nothing is done to halt the matter, the British (the actual British) will become a minority in their own homeland within several decades for the reason of fecundity. You appear to object to such a concept.

Yet you say that you are a civic nationalist - the very system under which ‘anybody can be British’.

Do you not see the problem?

B: Reread my posts. I haven't said that at all. Our system is not a civic nationalist low migration system. We have been running net 250k plus migration system for ages now (and with cultural relativism....the very fact that FGM is even a thing here proves it) especially since the A8 joined the EU. And fertility rates in some Islamic communities is much higher. Hence they are segregated areas. The No Go Zones.

Not sure how else I can explain what I think. Sure is see the problem and I understand why. Like i said, I've studied demographics and know the patterns pretty well.

Low migration civic nationalism does not mean "anyone can be British". An Islamist, even just one will never be British. You could have a self-loathing Anglo-Saxon communist born to an expat family in France who moves to Britain and they will never be British either.

I guess the question is, at least in terms of immigration policy - what does it mean to be British? I support strict vetting. Trumps extreme vetting was too weak even by my standards...lol

Give me a well assimilated West Indian who loves Britain over a self-loathing ex-pat back to England Anglo-Saxon "intellectual" communist day and night.

A: 1/ Do you accept that under the present system, anyone with a British passport/citizenship is categorised as ‘British’?

2/ Do you dispute the findings of leading demographers whose research is based upon government data (ONS, census etc), that if nothing is done to halt the matter, the British (the actual British - not immigrants or people of immigrant descent) will become a minority in their own homeland within several decades?

B:  1) In law then yes. Do I agree on that basis? No. I think I've explained why previously.

2) No. I've said that from the very start. I've even said 2 million need booting out and a load with dual nationality who have criminal records.

The big but though is in demographic extrapolation. Because fertility rates, political policies etc change over time. So under the assumptions made by the ONS, then yes. But only if those assumptions remain as they are.

A: 1/ Do you accept, therefore, that being British is not a legal or social construct, rather it is based on a belonging to one of the tribes of Britain - eg being English, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish - each of which are defined ethnic groups, those countries (England, Scotland, Wales) which make up Great Britain?

2/ You appear to suggest that only non-British (those as defined in 1 above) ought to be ‘booted out’ for various reasons. Is this right?

B: 1. No. I think it is a value set. Or maybe to be more specific I think that's a better way to look at it if you were going to have a strict immigration policy and use extreme vetting. For example is a British person who calls for the destruction of Britain and its erasure off the map really British in any meaningful sense. I don't care that much about DNA.

2. I think within the parameters of the law and what is practical, ethical and could be sold as a policy then yes. Practically you can't actually deport anyone who is a "pseudo-Brit" anyway because no country would just accept them. That's half the problem with letting illegal immigrants set foot on British soil after they have burnt their paper work. Almost none are deported.

A: 1/ One cannot alter the meaning of British; that being English, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish - defined ethnic groups. Whether you personally ‘care’ about ethnicity or DNA is irrelevant; it is real. Whether a British person is badly behaved, or has good or bad values, does not make that person any more/less British.

2/ You agree that non-British people ought to be deported for the various reasons which you outlined (criminals etc).

Once again, do you not recognise there is a problem with you position?

B: I think I have tried my best to answer the questions honestly as I can.

I have one for you.

Can anyone from Britain ever become an Australian?

A: I’ll await your answer to mine firstly, then be pleased to address yours

B: Eh? I have answered loads of your questions. I ask one and get nothing. Lol.

A: I would prefer to finish one area of discussion before moving on to a new one.

Your position is flawed; it needs to be resolved. Or is that why you wish to change the subject?

B: I'll leave this thread to stand for itself. I've invested time and effort into answering multiple questions I ask you just one and you don't even give a reply. It's not a new discussion it is directly linked to the topic being explored.

You can actually have different meanings for words they evolve over time, it's called semantics.

A: OK then....let’s go with your question as it will expose the folly of your rationale!

Please answer yes or no to the following:

1. Could David Lammy be English?

2. Could David Lammy be Australian?

B: That's not an answer you are just firing more questions at me.

Sorry fella. This is a disingenuous conversation. Maybe others wish to chip in.

A: Gotcha!

B:  By not answering a single question yet I have invested time and thought into multiple ones.

Fair enough. Others can read and judge for themselves.

Me: maybe you can get someone of Norman descent into this thread to denounce the bloody Germans who have only been in the UK since the 18th century

Next find someone of Anglo-Saxon descent to denounce the damn Normans who are immigrants and only came over from 1066

After that find someone of Gaellic stock to condemn the Anglo-Saxons as foreign invaders who need to be thrown out of the UK

B: I tried having a discussion but it was just a fire loads of questions at me, never answer a single one back gotcha game. Oh well....lol. Ironically Cathy Newman Mark 2 in an inverted way.

 Ssshhhh that would involve understanding history.

A: The ‘gotcha’ is that, as you know full well, anyone can be Australian - even David Lammy.

Whereas David Lammy could never become English,Scottish,Welsh,Cornish - the indigenous peoples and defined ethnic groups of England,Scotland,Wales,Cornwall respectively. One cannot magically ‘become’ an ethnicity, in the same way that a man cannot magically become a woman and vice versa!

In summary, it is impossible to be black and English, or Scottish, or Welsh, or Cornish because those are distinct ethnic groups - defined as ‘White European’. Whereas one can be black...or any ethnicity for that matter...and be Australian.

Links - 10th August 2020 (1)

Selective Service May Force Women to Register For the Draft After the National Coalition For Men Wins Sex Discrimination Lawsuit - "a Texas judge ruled that the Selective Service System (SSS) violates the Constitution by requiring only men to register for the draft. The court ruled with the National Coalition for Men (NCFM) in a lawsuit claiming the male-only draft constitutes discrimination against men. NCFM's lawyer told PJ Media that even if the SSS appeals, they are likely to lose again. He also suggested the Pentagon will not end the draft, so women may have to register."The male-only registration requirement of the Military Selective Service Act ... violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution," U.S. District Judge Gray H. Miller ruled... "We take the position that if women are in combat then they should have to register for the draft," the lawyer explained. "There's no more excuse to discriminate against men because women are in combat."... the National Coalition for Men explained why fighting this discrimination is important. "Forcing only males to register is an aspect of socially institutionalized male disposability and helps reinforce the stereotypes that support discrimination against men in other areas such as child custody, divorce, criminal sentencing, paternity fraud, education, public benefits, domestic violence services, due process rights, genital autonomy, and more."... Last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) attacked the National Coalition for Men, smearing it as a group dedicated to "Male Supremacy.""
Feminists calling this misogyny in 3... 2...

Grocery stores are adapting to male shoppers — and treating them like knuckleheads - ""Men are not terribly strategic," Stewart said. "They walk in and buy what they remember is needed. They're buying for right now, or maybe tonight. Anything beyond that is too long-term."Case in point: Women are most likely to buy 12-packs of beer, while men typically buy 6-packs, according to Underhill."Men tend to be hunters: They want to kill something quickly, drag it out and feel successful," he said. "Women, though, they're thinking ahead and planning accordingly."Men also tend to spring for pricier cuts of meat and are more easily influenced by a brand's name or reputation, Stewart said. There are more likely to buy what is easily visible and catches their eye"

Coronavirus: Malaysian men in shopping muddle amid lockdown - "The Malaysian government's decision to allow only "the head of the family" to leave the house to shop, as part of measures to suppress the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak, has had unintended consequences.Some men are unexpectedly finding themselves responsible for the grocery shopping and suddenly having to distinguish between bewildering varieties of vegetables, spices and herbs."

A 16-year-old British girl earns £48,000 helping Chinese people name their babies - "A 16-year-old has made £48,000 from a website she made to give Chinese babies English names.Beau Jessup, a British A-level student from Gloucestershire, came up with the idea after a family visit to China.They were out for a meal with friends when she was asked to give an English name to a newborn baby.In China it is considered important to have an English name for future study or business with the UK. 'Special Name' requires the user to pick five of the 12 personality traits they hope their baby will grow intoIn China they name their child based on the elements and Beau wanted a similarity between how they pick their Chinese name and how they pick their English name.And she does this by assigning personality traits to each English name... the Chinese are fascinated by western culture but their access to it is restricted by the government in China.There isn't open access to the internet so they can't use standard baby naming websites that people may use in the UK."Being exposed to luxury items and things like Harry Potter, Disney films and Lord of the Rings means they use those for reference."I once heard of someone called Gandalf and another called Cinderella.""
Mohammad is none of the top 10 baby names in England and Wales. Probably people forget that most Muslim males are called Mohammad

Are female urinals the answer to queues at the loos? - "A few years ago, Nathalie Des Isnards was attending a music festival with her husband David, and planning to watch her favourite group.Before the show, they headed to the toilets. "I spent 30 minutes in the queue waiting to pee," she recalls. Much to her frustration, she missed the first part of the concert.Meanwhile David took just "two minutes", and saw the whole show."I was upset. I told myself, 'We're in the 21st century, something should be done about that.'"She set about creating a women's urinal. The simple seatless basin she devised is housed in a cubicle with roof and door, designed for faster use but also privacy... According to their research, 90% of toilet queues are women needing only to urinate... Other urinal products have launched with varying success... Gail Ramster, a senior researcher at the Royal College of Art's Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, is sceptical about female urinals."It's quite a change in our habits to start using urinals," she says. Factors like clothing and privacy could be issues for some women."Some people have used them at festivals and they have some success, but whether they can become widespread enough in those situations, or more extensively, I'm a little doubtful.""

Liberalism is collapsing under the weight of its own hypocritical intolerance - "the country learned of yet another grooming gang scandal. After similar and harrowing tales from Oxford, Rochdale, Rotherham and other English towns and cities, we can now add Manchester to the list of places where the authorities watched mainly Asian men systematically abuse vulnerable white, working-class girls for years – and do nothing... Two days after the Manchester story broke, Equity, the actors’ trade union, called on its members to “unequivocally denounce” Laurence Fox. Among other things, the actor had raised grooming gangs during an appearance on the BBC. His crime was to deny that criticism of Meghan Markle was racist, and to argue that fear of accusations of racism was a factor in the grooming gang cases. Given the evidence accumulated in abuse inquiries to date, he was quite clearly correct. And yet the liberal-left reaction was to shout him down, attack his character and insult his “white privilege”. This example of illiberal liberalism is not a one-off. Last Tuesday, Sheffield University confirmed it plans to pay students to police behaviour on campus, challenging perceived “microaggressions” deemed to be offensive. Examples of microaggressions provided by the university included students arguing that too many problems are “turned into a race issue”. Restricting free speech, it seems, is not enough: the university’s policy prevents discussion even about the parameters of acceptable speech.Next up, Rebecca Long-Bailey was attacked for her position on abortion. A practising Roman Catholic, the Labour leadership candidate had questioned whether women should have late-term abortions on the grounds that their babies were disabled. Denying any legitimacy to her argument, and ignoring that abortion has always been a conscience issue in Parliament, meaning MPs are not whipped to vote in any particular way, Long-Bailey’s beliefs were attacked as “absolutely toxic”, and critics suggested her policies would be “dictated by the Vatican.” Of course, the liberal-left would never dream of using such language about other faiths, yet the logic of their position is that Catholics should never hold office. But why is this happening? Why is liberalism – especially on the left – becoming so illiberal and intolerant?There has always been a split among liberals between those who value pluralism as the means by which we manage difference in complex societies, and those who value difference only as a means to truth, and with it an increasingly perfect society. These tensions go back to liberal thinkers like John Stuart Mill, but they are becoming more pronounced as left-liberals become more assertive.If difference is only a means to truth, and reason is what leads us to truth, then those with whom liberals differ must be irrational. They represent institutions, norms, traditions and opinions – “prejudice!” – that must be overcome. Just think about how they talk about anybody who disagrees with their positions on almost anything, from immigration to transgender rights.And if identity politics are what matters most – and for left-liberals the old liberal dream of equal political rights is no longer enough – then immutable characteristics, like race and sex, can be attacked, but only if you are attacking white men to compensate for their privilege. This is how liberalism has become so confusing and contradictory. It is how it has grown increasingly illiberal, intolerant and – strangely for a supposedly universal theory – morally relativistic. For left-liberals, the systematic sexual abuse of white, working-class girls by Asian men must be swept under the carpet, the Catholic beliefs of politicians must be suppressed, and the language of students must be monitored and restricted"

Peter Ramirez's answer to How could Snape carry the Sword of Gryffindor to the Forest of Dean if it presents itself only to worthy Gryffindors? - Quora - "despite living a lifetime in the shadow of the House of Slytherin, Snape acted in the manner of a true Gryffindor, performing to the Sword’s mystical edict of loyalty and courage; as such, there was no need for the sentient Sword to act of its own accord... Perhaps it comes down to whether we believe one must forever carry a scarlet letter for the gravest of our mistakes, or whether we think there really can be such things as forgiveness and repentance."

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Japanese Justice and the Fugitive CEO - "[Japan] outwardly looks modern, democratic and technologically advanced, but hides a troubling authoritarianism at the heart of its judicial and penal systems. No one, foreign or Japanese, relishes the prospect of being arrested in this country. It is nothing like being arrested in Britain or America, or any other democratic country I can think of. Take for example, Australian Scott McIntyre. Last year his Japanese wife took their two young children from the family home in Tokyo, and disappeared. This is what is known as parental child abduction, and it is shockingly common in Japan. Mr. McIntyre petitioned the family court to gain access to his children, to no avail. In October last year, after a powerful typhoon hit Tokyo. He wanted to make sure his kids were okay. He went to the only address he knew, that of his Japanese parents in law. He entered the building and knocked at their door. There was no answer, so he left. A full month later, police arrived at his flat and arrested Mr. McIntyre on suspicion of trespassing. For the next 45 days, he disappeared into Japan's Kafkaesque detention system. He was held at the same detention center as Carlos Ghosn a year earlier and under almost identical conditions. He was locked in a windowless cell, allowed out to exercise for only 30 minutes a day. Inside his cell, he was not allowed to stand or move around, but was ordered to sit on a tatami mat without leaning against the wall. For two hours in the afternoon he was allowed a nap. But sleep was all but impossible, because the bright neon lights in the cell were kept on day and night. People become zombies in there, Mr. McIntyre told me. Whenever I was moved from my cell, it was in handcuffs with a rope tethered around my waist. If I was moved from one part of the building to another, I was roped together with other detainees. Remember, this is pre trial detention for a man accused of trespassing... Japanese detainees... told him they were going to confess because they couldn't stand it anymore. They just wanted to sleep in the dark. Japanese prosecutors do not engage in torture. There are no thumbscrews or electric shocks. Just the threat of being held in detention and interrogated day after day until they get what they want. For many, that is enough. Last year, 85 year old Kochi Miata [sp?] was released from prison after serving 34 years for a murder he didn't commit. Mr. Miata’s conviction was based solely on his confession, which he later withdrew during his trial. Confessions underpinned more than 90% of criminal convictions in Japan, and Japan has a conviction rate to rival North Korea. 99.4% of cases that go to court are found guilty. That does not mean that Carlos Ghosn would not have got a proper trial in Japan. After all, he didn't confessed to anything and had a very high powered team of lawyers who say the evidence against him was weak. But it does perhaps explain the widespread sympathy expressed for Mr. Ghosn, even though he skipped bail and fled Japan in a way available only to a very rich man. None of this seems to have had an impact on the Japanese Justice Ministry. After Mr. Ghosn’s escape, Japan's Justice Minister Masako Mori held a press conference, in which she said Mr. Ghosn should return to Japan and prove in court he's innocent of the crimes he is accused. It had to be pointed out to her by journalists, that even in Japan, it is supposed to be the prosecution's job to prove a person's guilt, not the defendant’s job to prove themselves innocent."

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Distorting the Past - "Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, seems to many Poles to be engaging in willful amnesia about the war. He appears to have entirely forgotten about the Soviet invasion of Poland and Finland, the annexation of the Baltic states, and the murder of more than 20,000 Polish prisoners of war in Katin in 1940. Those invasions were facilitated by the Molotov Ribbentrop pact, signed between Germany and the USSR, which had divided Eastern Europe into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence. Mr. Putin said the pact had actually saved lives. He even accused Poland of being the country most responsible after Nazi Germany for starting the conflict... For Russians, World War Two is still known as the Great Patriotic War... it is practically the only 20th century historical event left which unites all Russians today. The Russian narrative says those people lost their lives to save Europe from absolute evil, and those Soviet troops brought only liberation to countries like Poland. The fact Stallin forced a complaint regime on Warsaw, which even he acknowledged was like trying to saddle a cow, given the public's lack of support for communism, is conveniently overlooked. Unlike the Soviet Union, Mr. Putin's regime has an ideological void to fill... Perhaps it would be better, as Israel's president said, to leave the judgment of history to the historians and experts... [On the only female plumber in Jordan] It all started in 2002 when Howler [sp?] was a volunteer with USAID, visiting women in their homes while their husbands were at work and teaching them how to use water saving devices. In Jordan, men aren't allowed to enter a home if the man of the house isn't there. One woman asked Howler if she was able to fix a water leak. Otherwise her husband would have to take time off work to call in a plumber. Howler replied that she couldn't. But it was a lightbulb moment for her. It's women who were the ones dealing with water in the home because their husbands are out at work. And they're the ones who can pass on that knowledge to their children and change the attitude around water efficiency, she says"
Of course, when Merkel endorses a state-sponsored historical narrative, it's a good thing