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Joined 3 months ago
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Cake day: July 5th, 2024

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  • My understanding is that “persons” refers to people in discrete groups, where what separates those groups is pertinent to the topic being discussed.

    For example - ‘indigenous persons’ refers collectively to indigenous people, but acknowledges that there are separate subgroups of indigenous people within that. You could equally say “indigenous people” and it would be correct but you lose that nuance by not acknowledging that there are internal divisions within the group you are referring to.

    Not saying that’s the dictionary definition, but that’s how it’s generally used in my field.


  • As an outsider looking in, I’ve seen a lot of footage of rallies and events (on both sides) that are just absolutely crazy to me. Almost dystopian. People with painted faces, all kinds of merch, hollering and shouting and cheering like it’s the X Factor or a rock concert or something. You see people being interviewed outside the events and it’s like a festival in the background. It’s really, really bizarre. We have problems with our politics here too but not like that. I can’t believe that all of those people are ACTUALLY that passionate about any policies themselves, it’s just vague culture wars nonsense with a bizarre personality contest as a proxy for it.

    As I say, I’m not trying to act superior. My country has its share of problems too, just a very different sort.





  • I worked a 4 day week for years (4*10 hours) with my old employer and it was fantastic. And I can say for sure that it didn’t affect productivity for me or my team.

    I don’t have kids but several of my colleagues did and it was a game changer for them. Especially the one whose partner worked for the same organisation, who could sync it up to save an absolute fortune on childcare (which is absurdly expensive here).

    Another colleague was a single mother and had the choice to choose which days she did each week, meaning she could do more with her child and make it to events and such. I have no doubt that that will have a long term positive impact on her son too.

    For me as a childless person I could use 2 days of annual leave to get 5 days off straight. £40 return ticket to Spain or Italy, a cheap hotel, and you can have a lovely little holiday any time of year.

    I had to leave for unrelated personal reasons but that shift pattern was glorious. No less work got done and everyone was happier. And it turns out - surprise surprise - when your staff are happy they produce better work.

    It’s such a no brainer. But I won’t get excited, because a certain generation seems to take any improvement for the younger generation as some kind of personal attack.















  • I’ll just start by saying I found your comment very interesting and insightful and I’ve learned a lot about the local challenges so thank you for taking the time to educate me. I still stand by my core argument but I appreciate your account and it was an interesting read.

    What I would add is that I think it’s very easy to fall into the trap of judging all tourists by the loud ones. The vast majority are just trying to get some time away and enjoy some time abroad and do so respectfully. I’d respectfully disagree that they’re the minority. Yeah, certain places get more tourists because the flights are cheap. Well, times are tough and I think less well-off people also deserve a holiday. It’s not really their fault if some places are more affordable than others.

    Vacant holiday homes is a massive problem here as well, especially in regions like Cornwall and the Lake District. And also London, where the ultra wealthy of the world essentially use the city as a bank account to store their wealth. Personally I’m in favour of taxing the hell out them to disincentivise the practice and bring down house prices for genuine residents and families. But much like the tourism situation we’ve been discussing, it’s such a huge source of income for the country that I don’t envision this really happening. As much as I’d like it to.

    It’s the job of politicians to resolve the systemic issues (though I don’t pretend to know how). If they don’t have a strong enough mandate to do so then, well, that’s democracy isn’t it? I say this as someone who about a week ago won the first vote of their adult voting life after a decade and a half living under a conservative government who I can’t stand. By all means campaign and protest to support your cause for the next vote, but I continue to condemn the type of protest shown in the original post. I don’t think it’s right to form a mob around perceived-foreigners, chant at them and spray water at them - which is my core point I wanted to originally make.