Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
OK I might have an answer for this having had a similar experience with new Christmas lights which were rated 'E' even though they were LEDs.
The next thing I noticed was the Wattage figure given at 2kw. 2kw for a string of led bulbs?????
Then I noticed the small print 2kw/1000 hours so actually 2W and very efficient for 240 bulbs.
I looked on the internet and saw that there is a new way of expressing energy efficiency because of the confusion caused in the past by using wattage for brightness (which it isn't) which is then confusing when buying LEDs which are expressed in wattage with an equivalent wattage for brightness (which of course is bonkers but what we have been doing rather than using you know an actual brightness measure). Invariable someone somewhere has ordered a 60W led bulb and got a nice suntan.
The new scheme rather than simplifying things will probably cause more confusion and one obvious one appears to be a light bulb apparently, but incorrectly, rated at 2kw (when they are 2kw/1000h) with a response of 'F**k me, that will be an E rating then.
The E rating makes no sense.
Expressing kW in per hour terms makes no sense because it is a unit of power, ie energy per unit of time (hence kWh, power times time, is a unit of energy). Perhaps they meant it used 2kWh of energy in 1000 hours, ie was 2W?
It’s nearly as bad as using watts as an expression of brightness in the first place, hence LED bulbs saying “8W (60W equivalent)” on the packaging.
Maybe we need a better scale of light intensity? I’m all for candle equivalents. After all we use horse power for engine power!
Isn’t that a lumen?
1 lumen = 12.5 candles
How many lumens is one burning witch?
Serious - the lumen has been so abused that it tells you very little about how much light you get.
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
OK I might have an answer for this having had a similar experience with new Christmas lights which were rated 'E' even though they were LEDs.
The next thing I noticed was the Wattage figure given at 2kw. 2kw for a string of led bulbs?????
Then I noticed the small print 2kw/1000 hours so actually 2W and very efficient for 240 bulbs.
I looked on the internet and saw that there is a new way of expressing energy efficiency because of the confusion caused in the past by using wattage for brightness (which it isn't) which is then confusing when buying LEDs which are expressed in wattage with an equivalent wattage for brightness (which of course is bonkers but what we have been doing rather than using you know an actual brightness measure). Invariable someone somewhere has ordered a 60W led bulb and got a nice suntan.
The new scheme rather than simplifying things will probably cause more confusion and one obvious one appears to be a light bulb apparently, but incorrectly, rated at 2kw (when they are 2kw/1000h) with a response of 'F**k me, that will be an E rating then.
The E rating makes no sense.
Expressing kW in per hour terms makes no sense because it is a unit of power, ie energy per unit of time (hence kWh, power times time, is a unit of energy). Perhaps they meant it used 2kWh of energy in 1000 hours, ie was 2W?
It’s nearly as bad as using watts as an expression of brightness in the first place, hence LED bulbs saying “8W (60W equivalent)” on the packaging.
Maybe we need a better scale of light intensity? I’m all for candle equivalents. After all we use horse power for engine power!
Isn’t that a lumen?
1 lumen = 12.5 candles
Gosh this is still going. Sorry for several of my posts earlier. My account was obviously hacked by an idiot.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it. It's why almost no society, however poor, however unequal, has seriously attempted to rid itself of the rich and powerful. Even communist societies simply change the people who are rich and powerful.
Not sure the evidence backs up the statement "Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it". The vast majority of people seem to me to be quite happy to get on with life and leave the Game of Thrones BS to a minority of egotists who have a void in their hearts to fill. Obviously, our more conservative-minded folk, also find comfort in the structure and rules that this creates. Our more radical folk, focus on the inherent silliness of the whole thing and like to tear it down.
I think this is right to large extent. I think people like to be in control of their own lives but mostly have little interest in being in control of anyone elses. Being 'on top' strikes most people as being rather silly.
For an odd minority, though, it's an overwhelming obsession.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
I think that bollocks.
If anything has destabilised marriage it is that women have resources of their own now, and don't have to put up with feckless men playing away.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
It is hard to disentangle cause and effect as happy and stable couples do tend to marry and stay that way.
It is a big factor in social mobility (or the lack of it) too. There is a big class divide in how stable marriages are, and the effects on children. Bad economic times are tough on relationships.
Incidentally I would recommend this history of marriage (from a rather American perspective). Marriage has always been about economics, or at least until recently was:
Statements like 'marriage has always been about economics' are obviously either incomplete or untrue.
Some species by nature form pair bonds for life in the natural world. This has no relation to economics. It is their evolved response to the dilemmas of mating, offspring, individual and species survival.
Humans have offspring with inordinately long nurturing periods. (I was with an hour old lamb yesterday, which could walk fine). An enduring pair bond is an obvious, if not the only, solution to the human condition.
It is more true to say 'economics is always about how to nurture small humans' than 'pair bonding is all about economics'.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
LOL, that's hilarious. The idea that men suppressed their testosterone and stayed loyal is quite ridiculous. Many men had affairs and/or saw prostitutes, and the women were trapped in their marriages.
Women were routinely abused within marriage by their husbands and their rights suppressed. Not the men's testosterone.
I’m talking about nice guys. Alpha but nice
Clearly the bastards will be bastards and the Betas of PB will be glad for anything they can get
LOL. This 'beta' shite again .I guess you see yourself as the alphaist of alpha males; a true stag amongst men?
Maybe the Alphas need to walk out of the caves, stop making firewood by head butting trees… and try talking to women as if they are people?
Maybe, that way, their partner will buy them a chainsaw for Christmas and then they can massively improve their productivity in the firewood line.
PBers with long memories will recall that I was happily not married to Wor Lass for over 20 years.
What finally made us get married (10 years ago) was the desire to be each other's next of kin. So some random cousin doesn't get to turn off my ventilator.
Getting the certificate hasn't changed our ongoing commitment to each other.
I mistakingly read this as an incident leading to the Channel Tunnel being flooded. It’s actually the HS1 line tunnel under the Thames that’s flooded, so still a major incident, and it’s led to more than 10,000 passengers stranded at St. Pancras and in Paris
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it. It's why almost no society, however poor, however unequal, has seriously attempted to rid itself of the rich and powerful. Even communist societies simply change the people who are rich and powerful.
Not sure the evidence backs up the statement "Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it". The vast majority of people seem to me to be quite happy to get on with life and leave the Game of Thrones BS to a minority of egotists who have a void in their hearts to fill. Obviously, our more conservative-minded folk, also find comfort in the structure and rules that this creates. Our more radical folk, focus on the inherent silliness of the whole thing and like to tear it down.
I think this is right to large extent. I think people like to be in control of their own lives but mostly have little interest in being in control of anyone elses. Being 'on top' strikes most people as being rather silly.
For an odd minority, though, it's an overwhelming obsession.
This needs to be so, is Thomas Hobbes 'strong man' theory of government is true. Which it is. When tempered by democracy it gives some terrible people something to do which doesn't involve killing us all in our beds. Check out Sudan to see what happens when it goes wrong. (You have to search it out because though a million times worse than Gaza the world as a whole couldn't care less).
PBers with long memories will recall that I was happily not married to Wor Lass for over 20 years.
What finally made us get married (10 years ago) was the desire to be each other's next of kin. So some random cousin doesn't get to turn off my ventilator.
Getting the certificate hasn't changed our ongoing commitment to each other.
I'm married so that some random cousin doesn't get to keep the ventilator on.
I mistakingly read this as an incident leading to the Channel Tunnel being flooded. It’s actually the HS1 line tunnel under the Thames that’s flooded, so still a major incident, and it’s led to more than 10,000 passengers stranded at St. Pancras and in Paris
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
I am not an expert on this but I think (from looking at the information from various organisations working on energy saving) that you have this the wrong way round.
The A++ system is the old system that existed in both the UK and EU for many years. The A to G system is the new system that is being introduced both in the UK and the EU.
So are we giving them more time to change the labelling than the EU is? Presumably they wouldn't have bothered to put seperate energy ratings on unless they have to or felt there was some advantage in showing A++ still here. Although I note that even when the rules are harmonised again they will apparently still have to print two labels, showing the same thing, one with a UK flag and one with the EU flag. Presumably tested twice too? What a colossal waste of time and money.
When will you guys realise it wasn’t about the economics?
You don’t value the philosophical freedoms and therefore the costs seem pointless. Someone who does value them thinks it makes sense.
Economics won’t sway people’s view
I guess if people value seeing two labels on a product with a union jack on one of them and like paying extra for that privilege then there's really no helping them.
No they just don’t see it as a negative in the way that you do - to the extent that, even though you have been proven wrong you continue to use it to disparage those fellow citizens that you clearly despise
I was wrong to suppose from the divergent labels that we have diverged - it seems it was merely a coincidence that the EU label showed a more stringent marking regime than the GB one did. Every day is a school day. I'm glad to see that the extra GB label is merely a pountless virtue signalling facet of Brexit not a genuinely malign one. I don't despise anyone (you Brexit people are so convinced everyone is despising you all the time, it must be exhausting). I just don't like paying extra for stuff so people can get a thrill out of meaningless sovereignty, eg over putting our own labels on things. I don't despise people who have chosen to impose these costs on our economy but I am pissed off with them, sure.
I mistakingly read this as an incident leading to the Channel Tunnel being flooded. It’s actually the HS1 line tunnel under the Thames that’s flooded, so still a major incident, and it’s led to more than 10,000 passengers stranded at St. Pancras and in Paris
PBers with long memories will recall that I was happily not married to Wor Lass for over 20 years.
What finally made us get married (10 years ago) was the desire to be each other's next of kin. So some random cousin doesn't get to turn off my ventilator.
Getting the certificate hasn't changed our ongoing commitment to each other.
There are more than a few people who need to check out IHT rules and a few other things before deciding to stay unmarried. That certificate can be worth well into six figures.
I mistakingly read this as an incident leading to the Channel Tunnel being flooded. It’s actually the HS1 line tunnel under the Thames that’s flooded, so still a major incident, and it’s led to more than 10,000 passengers stranded at St. Pancras and in Paris
I'm not even sure if the flooding is directly under the Thames. Those tunnels are over 2km long, so plenty of tunnel on each side. Brunel's Thames Tunnel it ain't.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
It is hard to disentangle cause and effect as happy and stable couples do tend to marry and stay that way.
It is a big factor in social mobility (or the lack of it) too. There is a big class divide in how stable marriages are, and the effects on children. Bad economic times are tough on relationships.
Incidentally I would recommend this history of marriage (from a rather American perspective). Marriage has always been about economics, or at least until recently was:
Statements like 'marriage has always been about economics' are obviously either incomplete or untrue.
Some species by nature form pair bonds for life in the natural world. This has no relation to economics. It is their evolved response to the dilemmas of mating, offspring, individual and species survival.
Humans have offspring with inordinately long nurturing periods. (I was with an hour old lamb yesterday, which could walk fine). An enduring pair bond is an obvious, if not the only, solution to the human condition.
It is more true to say 'economics is always about how to nurture small humans' than 'pair bonding is all about economics'.
Isn’t it a physiological fact that the hormonal high of “true love” - 18-30 months - lasts just long enough for a baby to be conceived, birthed and weaned?
Perhaps an urban “myth” but that won’t stop me quoting it, it’s too satisfyingly neat
PBers with long memories will recall that I was happily not married to Wor Lass for over 20 years.
What finally made us get married (10 years ago) was the desire to be each other's next of kin. So some random cousin doesn't get to turn off my ventilator.
Getting the certificate hasn't changed our ongoing commitment to each other.
There are more than a few people who need to check out IHT rules and a few other things before deciding to stay unmarried. That certificate can be worth well into six figures.
Quite so, especially if a southerner with children and a house worth more than average (so probably a Tory voter). That RNRB basically eliminates all IHT on the house, up to £325K. Tha marriage allowance is relatively minor by comparison (but useful for some couples).
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
Are we sure about that ? They do claim a very broad curriculum.
Why would one hold scaffolders rather than Etonians in contempt?
On volunteer steam train drivers, I think that a tight hierarchy may persist partly because such trains still travel the public network and require appropriate regulation.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
Are we sure about that ? They do claim a very broad curriculum.
Why would one hold scaffolders rather than Etonians in contempt?
Curious though to find something, other than a high regard for walls, which brickies and OEs agree on.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
It is hard to disentangle cause and effect as happy and stable couples do tend to marry and stay that way.
It is a big factor in social mobility (or the lack of it) too. There is a big class divide in how stable marriages are, and the effects on children. Bad economic times are tough on relationships.
Incidentally I would recommend this history of marriage (from a rather American perspective). Marriage has always been about economics, or at least until recently was:
Statements like 'marriage has always been about economics' are obviously either incomplete or untrue.
Some species by nature form pair bonds for life in the natural world. This has no relation to economics. It is their evolved response to the dilemmas of mating, offspring, individual and species survival.
Humans have offspring with inordinately long nurturing periods. (I was with an hour old lamb yesterday, which could walk fine). An enduring pair bond is an obvious, if not the only, solution to the human condition.
It is more true to say 'economics is always about how to nurture small humans' than 'pair bonding is all about economics'.
Isn’t it a physiological fact that the hormonal high of “true love” - 18-30 months - lasts just long enough for a baby to be conceived, birthed and weaned?
Perhaps an urban “myth” but that won’t stop me quoting it, it’s too satisfyingly neat
Evolution's promises are very like those of politicians. OTOH other species who pair bond for life don't do so except because that's what they like best. Barn Owls are not moral agents.
It was obvious Starmer was going to about turn when he was elected, as I said so here at the time!
You weren’t here at the time - you only joined two weeks ago.
That brilliant user CorrectHorseBattery said at the time, that Keir Starmer would about turn on all of the pledges after being elected.
Whatever happened to that great user? Along with Leon, they were one of the best users posting.
Certainly among the most prolific…
Not as prolific as you. But then you and CHB were always in a duel
Two types of prolific. I have been on PB, unbanned and no new identities for years. Other posters burn brightly with more frequent posts and rack that post count up! Sadly they often burn out, only for a new start to be born…
Yeah but CHB was fun and entertaining, whilst you are a nice enough chap, you need a bit more of a turbo. I always thought you never really got his sense of humour.
Nah, CHB was a whiny, entitled little sod who was determined to do what he wanted when he wanted irrespective of what anyone else thought.
It was obvious Starmer was going to about turn when he was elected, as I said so here at the time!
You weren’t here at the time - you only joined two weeks ago.
That brilliant user CorrectHorseBattery said at the time, that Keir Starmer would about turn on all of the pledges after being elected.
Whatever happened to that great user? Along with Leon, they were one of the best users posting.
Certainly among the most prolific…
Not as prolific as you. But then you and CHB were always in a duel
Two types of prolific. I have been on PB, unbanned and no new identities for years. Other posters burn brightly with more frequent posts and rack that post count up! Sadly they often burn out, only for a new start to be born…
Yeah but CHB was fun and entertaining, whilst you are a nice enough chap, you need a bit more of a turbo. I always thought you never really got his sense of humour.
Nah, CHB was a whiny, entitled little sod who was determined to do what he wanted when he wanted irrespective of what anyone else thought.
I mistakingly read this as an incident leading to the Channel Tunnel being flooded. It’s actually the HS1 line tunnel under the Thames that’s flooded, so still a major incident, and it’s led to more than 10,000 passengers stranded at St. Pancras and in Paris
Scuttlebutt is that a mains water pipe burst. Thames Water are helping. Apparently it isn't the Chunnel itself that has the problem, but one on the rail link.
(I've little idea why there would be a mains water pipe inside the tunnel; unless it is water being pumped out of the tunnel (all tunnels have to manage water, from leakage or other sources) that Thames Water then use?
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
I am not an expert on this but I think (from looking at the information from various organisations working on energy saving) that you have this the wrong way round.
The A++ system is the old system that existed in both the UK and EU for many years. The A to G system is the new system that is being introduced both in the UK and the EU.
So are we giving them more time to change the labelling than the EU is? Presumably they wouldn't have bothered to put seperate energy ratings on unless they have to or felt there was some advantage in showing A++ still here. Although I note that even when the rules are harmonised again they will apparently still have to print two labels, showing the same thing, one with a UK flag and one with the EU flag. Presumably tested twice too? What a colossal waste of time and money.
Well no. Since you are so fanatically desperate for everything to be about the EU and Brexit you haven't even bothered to find out that the energy standards for light bulbs are not even an EU derived regulation. They are an international standard set by the International Electrotechnical Commission. All the signatory countries/organisations are party to the decisions and the only thing that has changed since Brexit is that the UK now has its own seat at the table rather than that being decided on our behalf by the EU.
But we get our own entirely pointless seperate label thanks to Brexit so that's a big win.
This is one of the clearest examples I’ve seen of someone misunderstanding something, attaching their own agenda to that misunderstanding, then refusing to humbly admit the original error when people point it out.
Why not just say you misread it and revealed your prejudice?
Obviously I have my own prejudices, and wouldn’t have bothered looking up to correct the original mistake had it not been the result of an anti Brexit reflex
I mistakingly read this as an incident leading to the Channel Tunnel being flooded. It’s actually the HS1 line tunnel under the Thames that’s flooded, so still a major incident, and it’s led to more than 10,000 passengers stranded at St. Pancras and in Paris
Scuttlebutt is that a mains water pipe burst. Thames Water are helping. Apparently it isn't the Chunnel itself that has the problem, but one on the rail link.
(I've little idea why there would be a mains water pipe inside the tunnel; unless it is water being pumped out of the tunnel (all tunnels have to manage water, from leakage or other sources) that Thames Water then use?
Using a tunnel (or an adjoining service/safety tunnels) to run services like water, gas or electricity is not unknown, I think?
Is the modern world how Alexandra Kollantai imagined because we have accepted a lot of communism’s ideas, or was it going to be like this anyway under capitalism?
Labours plans for childcare, announced this week, reminded me of ‘The state is responsible for the upbringing of children’ section.
“ Just as housework withers away, so the obligations of parents to their children wither away gradually until finally society assumes the full responsibility. Under capitalism children were frequently, too frequently, a heavy and unbearable burden on the proletarian family. Communist society will come to the aid of the parents. In Soviet Russia the Commissariats of Public Education and of Social Welfare are already doing much to assist the family. We already have homes for very small babies, creches, kindergartens, children’s colonies and homes, hospitals and health resorts for sick children. restaurants, free lunches at school and free distribution of text books, warm clothing and shoes to schoolchildren. All this goes to show that the responsibility for the child is passing from the family to the collective.”
Except the Labour scheme is purely voluntary, for parents who actually desire that help.
The measures contemplated in that essay also seem to be voluntary: "communist not intending to take children away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning to take, violent measures to destroy the family. No such thing!"
And UK society today does feel a shared responsibility for children that we want the state to bear -- education, child benefits, social services looking out for vulnerable children, etc. Like many other aspects of felt shared responsibility this has shifted from being something informally handled in local communities and by individual charity to being something we expect the state to resource and facilitate. That seems to me generally of a piece with the expanding role of the state over the last century plus.
In short, the thrust of Cameron's Big Society. I agree that we have shifted from being community-based to placing greater burdens on the state, and although we can have a lively argument about the causes, that doesn't lead to a cure. I don't know what a Cameron II would have looked like sans Brexit - realistically, just more austerity? - but one hopes he would have realised this.
Which burdens?
Education? Defence? State pension? Welfare safety net? Health?
These are the big ones and they are all now generations old.
The only newish one is elderly social care, where we are in a generations long process of delaying having a rational system.
The other big change is post 18 education, where the burden has shifted from the state to the individual.
It’s a combination of things not a question of getting rid of them.
Fundamentally the cost of living is too high in this country (some for good reasons) and so we subsidise insufficiently productive workers - but that has been abused by some firms in the past.
Fix housing costs / housing benefits (I would tend to have state backed social housing corporations rather than capital being provided by the state directly)
Fix child care costs (a simple measure would be to increase the number of kids a nursery staff member can look after to the European average… although last time that was tried the outrage was extraordinary)
Improve investment in education and training - I would tend to shift away from the mindset of “degrees for all” - with a combination of academic courses and vocational courses (which can be shorter and cheaper).
Simplify the tax and benefit structure to eliminate high marginal rates as specific points
Can somebody explain why Labour was able to meet the 4 hour A&E target in almost every case, along with the 48 hour GP target? And they did so for years and years including during 2008, 2009, 2010.
Why when the Tories came in, did all of these targets start to be missed?
IIRC they faked the results
Move people out of A&E into a triage room or similar. No progress made in treatment but target hit.
Is the modern world how Alexandra Kollantai imagined because we have accepted a lot of communism’s ideas, or was it going to be like this anyway under capitalism?
Labours plans for childcare, announced this week, reminded me of ‘The state is responsible for the upbringing of children’ section.
“ Just as housework withers away, so the obligations of parents to their children wither away gradually until finally society assumes the full responsibility. Under capitalism children were frequently, too frequently, a heavy and unbearable burden on the proletarian family. Communist society will come to the aid of the parents. In Soviet Russia the Commissariats of Public Education and of Social Welfare are already doing much to assist the family. We already have homes for very small babies, creches, kindergartens, children’s colonies and homes, hospitals and health resorts for sick children. restaurants, free lunches at school and free distribution of text books, warm clothing and shoes to schoolchildren. All this goes to show that the responsibility for the child is passing from the family to the collective.”
Except the Labour scheme is purely voluntary, for parents who actually desire that help.
The measures contemplated in that essay also seem to be voluntary: "communist not intending to take children away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning to take, violent measures to destroy the family. No such thing!"
And UK society today does feel a shared responsibility for children that we want the state to bear -- education, child benefits, social services looking out for vulnerable children, etc. Like many other aspects of felt shared responsibility this has shifted from being something informally handled in local communities and by individual charity to being something we expect the state to resource and facilitate. That seems to me generally of a piece with the expanding role of the state over the last century plus.
In short, the thrust of Cameron's Big Society. I agree that we have shifted from being community-based to placing greater burdens on the state, and although we can have a lively argument about the causes, that doesn't lead to a cure. I don't know what a Cameron II would have looked like sans Brexit - realistically, just more austerity? - but one hopes he would have realised this.
Which burdens?
Education? Defence? State pension? Welfare safety net? Health?
These are the big ones and they are all now generations old.
The only newish one is elderly social care, where we are in a generations long process of delaying having a rational system.
The other big change is post 18 education, where the burden has shifted from the state to the individual.
It’s a combination of things not a question of getting rid of them.
Fundamentally the cost of living is too high in this country (some for good reasons) and so we subsidise insufficiently productive workers - but that has been abused by some firms in the past.
Fix housing costs / housing benefits (I would tend to have state backed social housing corporations rather than capital being provided by the state directly)
Fix child care costs (a simple measure would be to increase the number of kids a nursery staff member can look after to the European average… although last time that was tried the outrage was extraordinary)
Improve investment in education and training - I would tend to shift away from the mindset of “degrees for all” - with a combination of academic courses and vocational courses (which can be shorter and cheaper).
Simplify the tax and benefit structure to eliminate high marginal rates as specific points
Etc etc
The ratio of staff in nurseries was a classic rejoinder to the argument that higher standards are always better and have no side effects.
In London, this means that nursery costs about the same as a cheapish private school.
So great nurseries for those who can afford it.
For those who can’t, semi-demi-legal child minding. Often completely unregulated.
Is the modern world how Alexandra Kollantai imagined because we have accepted a lot of communism’s ideas, or was it going to be like this anyway under capitalism?
Labours plans for childcare, announced this week, reminded me of ‘The state is responsible for the upbringing of children’ section.
“ Just as housework withers away, so the obligations of parents to their children wither away gradually until finally society assumes the full responsibility. Under capitalism children were frequently, too frequently, a heavy and unbearable burden on the proletarian family. Communist society will come to the aid of the parents. In Soviet Russia the Commissariats of Public Education and of Social Welfare are already doing much to assist the family. We already have homes for very small babies, creches, kindergartens, children’s colonies and homes, hospitals and health resorts for sick children. restaurants, free lunches at school and free distribution of text books, warm clothing and shoes to schoolchildren. All this goes to show that the responsibility for the child is passing from the family to the collective.”
Except the Labour scheme is purely voluntary, for parents who actually desire that help.
The measures contemplated in that essay also seem to be voluntary: "communist not intending to take children away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning to take, violent measures to destroy the family. No such thing!"
And UK society today does feel a shared responsibility for children that we want the state to bear -- education, child benefits, social services looking out for vulnerable children, etc. Like many other aspects of felt shared responsibility this has shifted from being something informally handled in local communities and by individual charity to being something we expect the state to resource and facilitate. That seems to me generally of a piece with the expanding role of the state over the last century plus.
In short, the thrust of Cameron's Big Society. I agree that we have shifted from being community-based to placing greater burdens on the state, and although we can have a lively argument about the causes, that doesn't lead to a cure. I don't know what a Cameron II would have looked like sans Brexit - realistically, just more austerity? - but one hopes he would have realised this.
Which burdens?
Education? Defence? State pension? Welfare safety net? Health?
These are the big ones and they are all now generations old.
The only newish one is elderly social care, where we are in a generations long process of delaying having a rational system.
The other big change is post 18 education, where the burden has shifted from the state to the individual.
It’s a combination of things not a question of getting rid of them.
Fundamentally the cost of living is too high in this country (some for good reasons) and so we subsidise insufficiently productive workers - but that has been abused by some firms in the past.
Fix housing costs / housing benefits (I would tend to have state backed social housing corporations rather than capital being provided by the state directly)
Fix child care costs (a simple measure would be to increase the number of kids a nursery staff member can look after to the European average… although last time that was tried the outrage was extraordinary)
Improve investment in education and training - I would tend to shift away from the mindset of “degrees for all” - with a combination of academic courses and vocational courses (which can be shorter and cheaper).
Simplify the tax and benefit structure to eliminate high marginal rates as specific points
Etc etc
Make degrees for all literally true. Degrees in plumbing, welding etc.
Can somebody explain why Labour was able to meet the 4 hour A&E target in almost every case, along with the 48 hour GP target? And they did so for years and years including during 2008, 2009, 2010.
Why when the Tories came in, did all of these targets start to be missed?
IIRC they faked the results
Move people out of A&E into a triage room or similar. No progress made in treatment but target hit.
Mind you, two anecdotes:
1) My aunt (86) had a fall, cut her leg badly. Rang for an ambulance, told it would be a four hour wait. Bystanders got her to hospital. (This was in Wales, by the by, so not a Tory issue.)
2) My next door neighbour, also 86 and on blood thinners. Had a fall, broken rib, punctured lung. Also a four hour wait. Fortunately grandson was there and was able to take him to hospital.
Something seems to be badly wrong somewhere. I'm assuming it's staffing shortages (although @Foxy would of course have more insight) but whatever it is it's obviously not ideal. Both those people would have died if they had been reliant on an ambulance.
Is the modern world how Alexandra Kollantai imagined because we have accepted a lot of communism’s ideas, or was it going to be like this anyway under capitalism?
Labours plans for childcare, announced this week, reminded me of ‘The state is responsible for the upbringing of children’ section.
“ Just as housework withers away, so the obligations of parents to their children wither away gradually until finally society assumes the full responsibility. Under capitalism children were frequently, too frequently, a heavy and unbearable burden on the proletarian family. Communist society will come to the aid of the parents. In Soviet Russia the Commissariats of Public Education and of Social Welfare are already doing much to assist the family. We already have homes for very small babies, creches, kindergartens, children’s colonies and homes, hospitals and health resorts for sick children. restaurants, free lunches at school and free distribution of text books, warm clothing and shoes to schoolchildren. All this goes to show that the responsibility for the child is passing from the family to the collective.”
Except the Labour scheme is purely voluntary, for parents who actually desire that help.
The measures contemplated in that essay also seem to be voluntary: "communist not intending to take children away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning to take, violent measures to destroy the family. No such thing!"
And UK society today does feel a shared responsibility for children that we want the state to bear -- education, child benefits, social services looking out for vulnerable children, etc. Like many other aspects of felt shared responsibility this has shifted from being something informally handled in local communities and by individual charity to being something we expect the state to resource and facilitate. That seems to me generally of a piece with the expanding role of the state over the last century plus.
In short, the thrust of Cameron's Big Society. I agree that we have shifted from being community-based to placing greater burdens on the state, and although we can have a lively argument about the causes, that doesn't lead to a cure. I don't know what a Cameron II would have looked like sans Brexit - realistically, just more austerity? - but one hopes he would have realised this.
Which burdens?
Education? Defence? State pension? Welfare safety net? Health?
These are the big ones and they are all now generations old.
The only newish one is elderly social care, where we are in a generations long process of delaying having a rational system.
The other big change is post 18 education, where the burden has shifted from the state to the individual.
It’s a combination of things not a question of getting rid of them.
Fundamentally the cost of living is too high in this country (some for good reasons) and so we subsidise insufficiently productive workers - but that has been abused by some firms in the past.
Fix housing costs / housing benefits (I would tend to have state backed social housing corporations rather than capital being provided by the state directly)
Fix child care costs (a simple measure would be to increase the number of kids a nursery staff member can look after to the European average… although last time that was tried the outrage was extraordinary)
Improve investment in education and training - I would tend to shift away from the mindset of “degrees for all” - with a combination of academic courses and vocational courses (which can be shorter and cheaper).
Simplify the tax and benefit structure to eliminate high marginal rates as specific points
Etc etc
Make degrees for all literally true. Degrees in plumbing, welding etc.
Degrees in plumbing are a load of shit, and just take the piss.
Is the modern world how Alexandra Kollantai imagined because we have accepted a lot of communism’s ideas, or was it going to be like this anyway under capitalism?
Labours plans for childcare, announced this week, reminded me of ‘The state is responsible for the upbringing of children’ section.
“ Just as housework withers away, so the obligations of parents to their children wither away gradually until finally society assumes the full responsibility. Under capitalism children were frequently, too frequently, a heavy and unbearable burden on the proletarian family. Communist society will come to the aid of the parents. In Soviet Russia the Commissariats of Public Education and of Social Welfare are already doing much to assist the family. We already have homes for very small babies, creches, kindergartens, children’s colonies and homes, hospitals and health resorts for sick children. restaurants, free lunches at school and free distribution of text books, warm clothing and shoes to schoolchildren. All this goes to show that the responsibility for the child is passing from the family to the collective.”
Except the Labour scheme is purely voluntary, for parents who actually desire that help.
The measures contemplated in that essay also seem to be voluntary: "communist not intending to take children away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning to take, violent measures to destroy the family. No such thing!"
And UK society today does feel a shared responsibility for children that we want the state to bear -- education, child benefits, social services looking out for vulnerable children, etc. Like many other aspects of felt shared responsibility this has shifted from being something informally handled in local communities and by individual charity to being something we expect the state to resource and facilitate. That seems to me generally of a piece with the expanding role of the state over the last century plus.
In short, the thrust of Cameron's Big Society. I agree that we have shifted from being community-based to placing greater burdens on the state, and although we can have a lively argument about the causes, that doesn't lead to a cure. I don't know what a Cameron II would have looked like sans Brexit - realistically, just more austerity? - but one hopes he would have realised this.
Which burdens?
Education? Defence? State pension? Welfare safety net? Health?
These are the big ones and they are all now generations old.
The only newish one is elderly social care, where we are in a generations long process of delaying having a rational system.
The other big change is post 18 education, where the burden has shifted from the state to the individual.
It’s a combination of things not a question of getting rid of them.
Fundamentally the cost of living is too high in this country (some for good reasons) and so we subsidise insufficiently productive workers - but that has been abused by some firms in the past.
Fix housing costs / housing benefits (I would tend to have state backed social housing corporations rather than capital being provided by the state directly)
Fix child care costs (a simple measure would be to increase the number of kids a nursery staff member can look after to the European average… although last time that was tried the outrage was extraordinary)
Improve investment in education and training - I would tend to shift away from the mindset of “degrees for all” - with a combination of academic courses and vocational courses (which can be shorter and cheaper).
Simplify the tax and benefit structure to eliminate high marginal rates as specific points
Etc etc
Make degrees for all literally true. Degrees in plumbing, welding etc.
Degrees in plumbing are a load of shit, and just take the piss.
When it comes to invective, you can’t hold a (plumber’s) candle to @malcolmg.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
Interesting and wrong. There is a gigantic community of all ages who get married and stay married, even if that is smaller than it was.
Also a very large community of those who, having had a matrimonial disaster, get married again.
For all sorts of edgy cultural reasons almost no attention is paid in the arts and popular culture to these realities. This I suppose is because from outside that circle of family life it is intensely boring as a spectacle. (Boris's private life seems much more fascinating that Starmer's or whoever). Long may it remain so.
(BTW it is obvious that with the people under a certain age there is no possibility of proof, because future time needs to pass. But that lacuna cuts both ways.)
That is what happens when self-proclaimed 'alphas' (LOL) generalise from their own experience. They come up with stuff which bears little relation to reality for most people.
Is the modern world how Alexandra Kollantai imagined because we have accepted a lot of communism’s ideas, or was it going to be like this anyway under capitalism?
Labours plans for childcare, announced this week, reminded me of ‘The state is responsible for the upbringing of children’ section.
“ Just as housework withers away, so the obligations of parents to their children wither away gradually until finally society assumes the full responsibility. Under capitalism children were frequently, too frequently, a heavy and unbearable burden on the proletarian family. Communist society will come to the aid of the parents. In Soviet Russia the Commissariats of Public Education and of Social Welfare are already doing much to assist the family. We already have homes for very small babies, creches, kindergartens, children’s colonies and homes, hospitals and health resorts for sick children. restaurants, free lunches at school and free distribution of text books, warm clothing and shoes to schoolchildren. All this goes to show that the responsibility for the child is passing from the family to the collective.”
Except the Labour scheme is purely voluntary, for parents who actually desire that help.
The measures contemplated in that essay also seem to be voluntary: "communist not intending to take children away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning to take, violent measures to destroy the family. No such thing!"
And UK society today does feel a shared responsibility for children that we want the state to bear -- education, child benefits, social services looking out for vulnerable children, etc. Like many other aspects of felt shared responsibility this has shifted from being something informally handled in local communities and by individual charity to being something we expect the state to resource and facilitate. That seems to me generally of a piece with the expanding role of the state over the last century plus.
In short, the thrust of Cameron's Big Society. I agree that we have shifted from being community-based to placing greater burdens on the state, and although we can have a lively argument about the causes, that doesn't lead to a cure. I don't know what a Cameron II would have looked like sans Brexit - realistically, just more austerity? - but one hopes he would have realised this.
Which burdens?
Education? Defence? State pension? Welfare safety net? Health?
These are the big ones and they are all now generations old.
The only newish one is elderly social care, where we are in a generations long process of delaying having a rational system.
The other big change is post 18 education, where the burden has shifted from the state to the individual.
It’s a combination of things not a question of getting rid of them.
Fundamentally the cost of living is too high in this country (some for good reasons) and so we subsidise insufficiently productive workers - but that has been abused by some firms in the past.
Fix housing costs / housing benefits (I would tend to have state backed social housing corporations rather than capital being provided by the state directly)
Fix child care costs (a simple measure would be to increase the number of kids a nursery staff member can look after to the European average… although last time that was tried the outrage was extraordinary)
Improve investment in education and training - I would tend to shift away from the mindset of “degrees for all” - with a combination of academic courses and vocational courses (which can be shorter and cheaper).
Simplify the tax and benefit structure to eliminate high marginal rates as specific points
Etc etc
Make degrees for all literally true. Degrees in plumbing, welding etc.
Degrees in plumbing are a load of shit, and just take the piss.
When it comes to invective, you can’t hold a (plumber’s) candle to @malcolmg.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
Are we sure about that ? They do claim a very broad curriculum.
Why would one hold scaffolders rather than Etonians in contempt?
l
Why indeed.
Though the one thing we can be sure about is that the teaching of contempt for Etonians isn't on their curriculum.
Police killed Niani Finlayson seconds after responding to her 911 call, video shows
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/29/la-police-fatally-shot-niani-finlayson-body-camera ...This was not Shelton’s first fatal shooting. On 11 June 2020, the deputy killed Michael Thomas, 61, also while responding to a call for potential domestic violence. That killing was not caught on camera, but Thomas’s girlfriend later said she and Thomas had been having a verbal argument and that Thomas had tried to stop the officers from entering his home. It was weeks after George Floyd’s murder, and his family said he had been frightened police would kill him. Thomas was unarmed and Shelton shot him in the chest. He was not prosecuted...
It's like Leon keeps banging on about BLM/Woke fascists. What have they got to complain about?
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
Interesting and wrong. There is a gigantic community of all ages who get married and stay married, even if that is smaller than it was.
Also a very large community of those who, having had a matrimonial disaster, get married again.
For all sorts of edgy cultural reasons almost no attention is paid in the arts and popular culture to these realities. This I suppose is because from outside that circle of family life it is intensely boring as a spectacle. (Boris's private life seems much more fascinating that Starmer's or whoever). Long may it remain so.
(BTW it is obvious that with the people under a certain age there is no possibility of proof, because future time needs to pass. But that lacuna cuts both ways.)
That is what happens when self-proclaimed 'alphas' (LOL) generalise from their own experience. They come up with stuff which bears little relation to reality for most people.
Which perhaps explains quite a lot of politics.
I’m not generalising from my own experience, I’m more generalising from friends and family (perhaps the males therein are a self selecting group of philanderers, who knows)
It seems blindingly obvious to me that men like/need sex in more various ways than women - eg men can be satisfied by a dockyard hooker, women less so. Therefore in tying himself to a monogamous life a man makes a sacrifice (of greater sexual satisfaction and variety) and that used to be repaid by womanly subservience (again, I’m not saying this is GOOD, just pointing out facts)
Now women can be independent and sod the subservience (and good for them). But that has effects. Look at the birth rates in ex-patriarchal South Korea. A deal has been broken
I mistakingly read this as an incident leading to the Channel Tunnel being flooded. It’s actually the HS1 line tunnel under the Thames that’s flooded, so still a major incident, and it’s led to more than 10,000 passengers stranded at St. Pancras and in Paris
AIUI Ashford International hasn’t reopened since the pandemic, at least not the International bit with customs and passport controls.
There’s also a lot of trains stuck at St.P, but reopening AI should definitely be on the Plan B list if they can’t get the water out of the tunnel soon! Surprised there doesn’t appear to be an easy way to get trains past the blockage, even with a reduced capacity. I’d perhaps have designed two totally separate tunnels, as with the Channel Tunnel, with each able to run independently and in both directions - would have probably added a billion to the cost of HS1 though.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
Interesting and wrong. There is a gigantic community of all ages who get married and stay married, even if that is smaller than it was.
Also a very large community of those who, having had a matrimonial disaster, get married again.
For all sorts of edgy cultural reasons almost no attention is paid in the arts and popular culture to these realities. This I suppose is because from outside that circle of family life it is intensely boring as a spectacle. (Boris's private life seems much more fascinating that Starmer's or whoever). Long may it remain so.
(BTW it is obvious that with the people under a certain age there is no possibility of proof, because future time needs to pass. But that lacuna cuts both ways.)
That is what happens when self-proclaimed 'alphas' (LOL) generalise from their own experience. They come up with stuff which bears little relation to reality for most people.
Which perhaps explains quite a lot of politics.
I’m not generalising from my own experience, I’m more generalising from friends and family (perhaps the males therein are a self selecting group of philanderers, who knows)
It seems blindingly obvious to me that men like/need sex in more various ways than women - eg men can be satisfied by a dockyard hooker, women less so. Therefore in tying himself to a monogamous life a man makes a sacrifice (of greater sexual satisfaction and variety) and that used to be repaid by womanly subservience (again, I’m not saying this is GOOD, just pointing out facts)
Now women can be independent and sod the subservience (and good for them). But that has effects. Look at the birth rates in ex-patriarchal South Korea. A deal has been broken
No, in South Korea, men haven’t changed (enough) to meet the realities of the modern world.
Life is fairly shitty for many South Korea wives. So women prefer being single.
Can somebody explain why Labour was able to meet the 4 hour A&E target in almost every case, along with the 48 hour GP target? And they did so for years and years including during 2008, 2009, 2010.
Why when the Tories came in, did all of these targets start to be missed?
IIRC they faked the results
Move people out of A&E into a triage room or similar. No progress made in treatment but target hit.
Mind you, two anecdotes:
1) My aunt (86) had a fall, cut her leg badly. Rang for an ambulance, told it would be a four hour wait. Bystanders got her to hospital. (This was in Wales, by the by, so not a Tory issue.)
2) My next door neighbour, also 86 and on blood thinners. Had a fall, broken rib, punctured lung. Also a four hour wait. Fortunately grandson was there and was able to take him to hospital.
Something seems to be badly wrong somewhere. I'm assuming it's staffing shortages (although @Foxy would of course have more insight) but whatever it is it's obviously not ideal. Both those people would have died if they had been reliant on an ambulance.
Good afternoon
This is not just an English issue as I reported on here previously
Wales NHS is run by Labour and is much worse even than in England, and in my case, despite being sent to A & E directly by my GP practice arriving at 5.30pm with suspected DVT, is was not until 8.00am the following morning I actually saw a doctor who immediately admitted me into hospital and arranged an emergency ultrasound which confirmed the DVT
My cardiologist told me on Wednesday I need an urgent pacemaker which he will do in the new year but if I feel dizzy or unwell to come directly into hospital
My family have decided that in those circumstances they would prefer to drive me into hospital rather than wait for an ambulance to arrive
It is time to recognise that comparing the NHS to 14 years ago is not relevant to today's crisis which is shared across all parts of our country
I wish Labour and Streeting well but I do not see any improvement in the short term, especially here in Wales
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
Interesting and wrong. There is a gigantic community of all ages who get married and stay married, even if that is smaller than it was.
Also a very large community of those who, having had a matrimonial disaster, get married again.
For all sorts of edgy cultural reasons almost no attention is paid in the arts and popular culture to these realities. This I suppose is because from outside that circle of family life it is intensely boring as a spectacle. (Boris's private life seems much more fascinating that Starmer's or whoever). Long may it remain so.
(BTW it is obvious that with the people under a certain age there is no possibility of proof, because future time needs to pass. But that lacuna cuts both ways.)
That is what happens when self-proclaimed 'alphas' (LOL) generalise from their own experience. They come up with stuff which bears little relation to reality for most people.
Which perhaps explains quite a lot of politics.
I’m not generalising from my own experience, I’m more generalising from friends and family (perhaps the males therein are a self selecting group of philanderers, who knows)
It seems blindingly obvious to me that men like/need sex in more various ways than women - eg men can be satisfied by a dockyard hooker, women less so. Therefore in tying himself to a monogamous life a man makes a sacrifice (of greater sexual satisfaction and variety) and that used to be repaid by womanly subservience (again, I’m not saying this is GOOD, just pointing out facts)
Now women can be independent and sod the subservience (and good for them). But that has effects. Look at the birth rates in ex-patriarchal South Korea. A deal has been broken
No, in South Korea, men haven’t changed (enough) to meet the realities of the modern world.
Life is fairly shitty for many South Korea wives. So women prefer being single.
Again, like @foxy, you’re merely rephrasing what I said
You can see this in a lot of football discourse; there’s definitely a divide between passing it out from the back and just getting rid of it that aligns with people who are ok with woke and those who are suspicious of it.
I’m not saying the word has too broad a definition or anything, but the people who sit behind me at Hull City every week insist that passing the ball out from the back is ‘woke’.
You can see this in a lot of football discourse; there’s definitely a divide between passing it out from the back and just getting rid of it that aligns with people who are ok with woke and those who are suspicious of it.
I’m not saying the word has too broad a definition or anything, but the people who sit behind me at Hull City every week insist that passing the ball out from the back is ‘woke’.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
It is hard to disentangle cause and effect as happy and stable couples do tend to marry and stay that way.
It is a big factor in social mobility (or the lack of it) too. There is a big class divide in how stable marriages are, and the effects on children. Bad economic times are tough on relationships.
Incidentally I would recommend this history of marriage (from a rather American perspective). Marriage has always been about economics, or at least until recently was:
Statements like 'marriage has always been about economics' are obviously either incomplete or untrue.
Some species by nature form pair bonds for life in the natural world. This has no relation to economics. It is their evolved response to the dilemmas of mating, offspring, individual and species survival.
Humans have offspring with inordinately long nurturing periods. (I was with an hour old lamb yesterday, which could walk fine). An enduring pair bond is an obvious, if not the only, solution to the human condition.
It is more true to say 'economics is always about how to nurture small humans' than 'pair bonding is all about economics'.
Isn’t it a physiological fact that the hormonal high of “true love” - 18-30 months - lasts just long enough for a baby to be conceived, birthed and weaned?
Perhaps an urban “myth” but that won’t stop me quoting it, it’s too satisfyingly neat
However, the greatest benefit of a two parent family is during early childhood and adolescence.
We unfortunately in a vicious cycle. The smaller number of emotionally healthy, two-parent, multichild families means that a smaller share of the following generation has the emotional stability to pick a good mate and stay married. That it turn means the next generation has an even smaller number of emotionally healthy, two-parent, multichild families.
Eventually we got to the point where insuffucient people had warm memories of family-focused childhoods with lots of siblings and cousins around. People instead got attached to the dopamine hits of materialism, which give a temporary high but leave you unfulfilled long term. The result is lots of childfree/oneanddone families and high rates of mental health problems.
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
I am not an expert on this but I think (from looking at the information from various organisations working on energy saving) that you have this the wrong way round.
The A++ system is the old system that existed in both the UK and EU for many years. The A to G system is the new system that is being introduced both in the UK and the EU.
So are we giving them more time to change the labelling than the EU is? Presumably they wouldn't have bothered to put seperate energy ratings on unless they have to or felt there was some advantage in showing A++ still here. Although I note that even when the rules are harmonised again they will apparently still have to print two labels, showing the same thing, one with a UK flag and one with the EU flag. Presumably tested twice too? What a colossal waste of time and money.
Well no. Since you are so fanatically desperate for everything to be about the EU and Brexit you haven't even bothered to find out that the energy standards for light bulbs are not even an EU derived regulation. They are an international standard set by the International Electrotechnical Commission. All the signatory countries/organisations are party to the decisions and the only thing that has changed since Brexit is that the UK now has its own seat at the table rather than that being decided on our behalf by the EU.
But we get our own entirely pointless seperate label thanks to Brexit so that's a big win.
No we get to take part in the actual decision making rather than having that done by some EU official on 'our behalf'.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
Interesting and wrong. There is a gigantic community of all ages who get married and stay married, even if that is smaller than it was.
Also a very large community of those who, having had a matrimonial disaster, get married again.
For all sorts of edgy cultural reasons almost no attention is paid in the arts and popular culture to these realities. This I suppose is because from outside that circle of family life it is intensely boring as a spectacle. (Boris's private life seems much more fascinating that Starmer's or whoever). Long may it remain so.
(BTW it is obvious that with the people under a certain age there is no possibility of proof, because future time needs to pass. But that lacuna cuts both ways.)
That is what happens when self-proclaimed 'alphas' (LOL) generalise from their own experience. They come up with stuff which bears little relation to reality for most people.
Which perhaps explains quite a lot of politics.
I’m not generalising from my own experience, I’m more generalising from friends and family (perhaps the males therein are a self selecting group of philanderers, who knows)
It seems blindingly obvious to me that men like/need sex in more various ways than women - eg men can be satisfied by a dockyard hooker, women less so. Therefore in tying himself to a monogamous life a man makes a sacrifice (of greater sexual satisfaction and variety) and that used to be repaid by womanly subservience (again, I’m not saying this is GOOD, just pointing out facts)
Now women can be independent and sod the subservience (and good for them). But that has effects. Look at the birth rates in ex-patriarchal South Korea. A deal has been broken
No, in South Korea, men haven’t changed (enough) to meet the realities of the modern world.
Life is fairly shitty for many South Korea wives. So women prefer being single.
As a happily married male, I wouldn't ever have wanted to be satisfied by a dockside hooker. That sounds extremely unappealing.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
It is hard to disentangle cause and effect as happy and stable couples do tend to marry and stay that way.
It is a big factor in social mobility (or the lack of it) too. There is a big class divide in how stable marriages are, and the effects on children. Bad economic times are tough on relationships.
Incidentally I would recommend this history of marriage (from a rather American perspective). Marriage has always been about economics, or at least until recently was:
Statements like 'marriage has always been about economics' are obviously either incomplete or untrue.
Some species by nature form pair bonds for life in the natural world. This has no relation to economics. It is their evolved response to the dilemmas of mating, offspring, individual and species survival.
Humans have offspring with inordinately long nurturing periods. (I was with an hour old lamb yesterday, which could walk fine). An enduring pair bond is an obvious, if not the only, solution to the human condition.
It is more true to say 'economics is always about how to nurture small humans' than 'pair bonding is all about economics'.
Isn’t it a physiological fact that the hormonal high of “true love” - 18-30 months - lasts just long enough for a baby to be conceived, birthed and weaned?
Perhaps an urban “myth” but that won’t stop me quoting it, it’s too satisfyingly neat
However, the greatest benefit of a two parent family is during early childhood and adolescence.
We unfortunately in a vicious cycle. The smaller number of emotionally healthy, two-parent, multichild families means that a smaller share of the following generation has the emotional stability to pick a good mate and stay married. That it turn means the next generation has an even smaller number of emotionally healthy, two-parent, multichild families.
Eventually we got to the point where insuffucient people had warm memories of family-focused childhoods with lots of siblings and cousins around. People instead got attached to the dopamine hits of materialism, which give a temporary high but leave you unfulfilled long term. The result is lots of childfree/oneanddone families and high rates of mental health problems.
Melancholically, that is certainly true for me
My family is STUPENDOUSLY fucked up (wait for the memoir) it has not produced stable grand kids
Tho at least there are kids, I guess. I have quite a few childless friends in their 50s - now busily regretting it
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
Interesting and wrong. There is a gigantic community of all ages who get married and stay married, even if that is smaller than it was.
Also a very large community of those who, having had a matrimonial disaster, get married again.
For all sorts of edgy cultural reasons almost no attention is paid in the arts and popular culture to these realities. This I suppose is because from outside that circle of family life it is intensely boring as a spectacle. (Boris's private life seems much more fascinating that Starmer's or whoever). Long may it remain so.
(BTW it is obvious that with the people under a certain age there is no possibility of proof, because future time needs to pass. But that lacuna cuts both ways.)
That is what happens when self-proclaimed 'alphas' (LOL) generalise from their own experience. They come up with stuff which bears little relation to reality for most people.
Which perhaps explains quite a lot of politics.
I’m not generalising from my own experience, I’m more generalising from friends and family (perhaps the males therein are a self selecting group of philanderers, who knows)
It seems blindingly obvious to me that men like/need sex in more various ways than women - eg men can be satisfied by a dockyard hooker, women less so. Therefore in tying himself to a monogamous life a man makes a sacrifice (of greater sexual satisfaction and variety) and that used to be repaid by womanly subservience (again, I’m not saying this is GOOD, just pointing out facts)
Now women can be independent and sod the subservience (and good for them). But that has effects. Look at the birth rates in ex-patriarchal South Korea. A deal has been broken
No, in South Korea, men haven’t changed (enough) to meet the realities of the modern world.
Life is fairly shitty for many South Korea wives. So women prefer being single.
As a happily married male, I wouldn't ever have wanted to be satisfied by a dockside hooker. That sounds extremely unappealing.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
Interesting and wrong. There is a gigantic community of all ages who get married and stay married, even if that is smaller than it was.
Also a very large community of those who, having had a matrimonial disaster, get married again.
For all sorts of edgy cultural reasons almost no attention is paid in the arts and popular culture to these realities. This I suppose is because from outside that circle of family life it is intensely boring as a spectacle. (Boris's private life seems much more fascinating that Starmer's or whoever). Long may it remain so.
(BTW it is obvious that with the people under a certain age there is no possibility of proof, because future time needs to pass. But that lacuna cuts both ways.)
That is what happens when self-proclaimed 'alphas' (LOL) generalise from their own experience. They come up with stuff which bears little relation to reality for most people.
Which perhaps explains quite a lot of politics.
I’m not generalising from my own experience, I’m more generalising from friends and family (perhaps the males therein are a self selecting group of philanderers, who knows)
It seems blindingly obvious to me that men like/need sex in more various ways than women - eg men can be satisfied by a dockyard hooker, women less so. Therefore in tying himself to a monogamous life a man makes a sacrifice (of greater sexual satisfaction and variety) and that used to be repaid by womanly subservience (again, I’m not saying this is GOOD, just pointing out facts)
Now women can be independent and sod the subservience (and good for them). But that has effects. Look at the birth rates in ex-patriarchal South Korea. A deal has been broken
No, in South Korea, men haven’t changed (enough) to meet the realities of the modern world.
Life is fairly shitty for many South Korea wives. So women prefer being single.
As a happily married male, I wouldn't ever have wanted to be satisfied by a dockside hooker. That sounds extremely unappealing.
I doubt you would be satisfied. Candidly, they're high volume providers.
What you really want is a very high class, high end courtesan.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
Interesting and wrong. There is a gigantic community of all ages who get married and stay married, even if that is smaller than it was.
Also a very large community of those who, having had a matrimonial disaster, get married again.
For all sorts of edgy cultural reasons almost no attention is paid in the arts and popular culture to these realities. This I suppose is because from outside that circle of family life it is intensely boring as a spectacle. (Boris's private life seems much more fascinating that Starmer's or whoever). Long may it remain so.
(BTW it is obvious that with the people under a certain age there is no possibility of proof, because future time needs to pass. But that lacuna cuts both ways.)
That is what happens when self-proclaimed 'alphas' (LOL) generalise from their own experience. They come up with stuff which bears little relation to reality for most people.
Which perhaps explains quite a lot of politics.
I’m not generalising from my own experience, I’m more generalising from friends and family (perhaps the males therein are a self selecting group of philanderers, who knows)
It seems blindingly obvious to me that men like/need sex in more various ways than women - eg men can be satisfied by a dockyard hooker, women less so. Therefore in tying himself to a monogamous life a man makes a sacrifice (of greater sexual satisfaction and variety) and that used to be repaid by womanly subservience (again, I’m not saying this is GOOD, just pointing out facts)
Now women can be independent and sod the subservience (and good for them). But that has effects. Look at the birth rates in ex-patriarchal South Korea. A deal has been broken
No, in South Korea, men haven’t changed (enough) to meet the realities of the modern world.
Life is fairly shitty for many South Korea wives. So women prefer being single.
As a happily married male, I wouldn't ever have wanted to be satisfied by a dockside hooker. That sounds extremely unappealing.
I mistakingly read this as an incident leading to the Channel Tunnel being flooded. It’s actually the HS1 line tunnel under the Thames that’s flooded, so still a major incident, and it’s led to more than 10,000 passengers stranded at St. Pancras and in Paris
AIUI Ashford International hasn’t reopened since the pandemic, at least not the International bit with customs and passport controls.
There’s also a lot of trains stuck at St.P, but reopening AI should definitely be on the Plan B list if they can’t get the water out of the tunnel soon! Surprised there doesn’t appear to be an easy way to get trains past the blockage, even with a reduced capacity. I’d perhaps have designed two totally separate tunnels, as with the Channel Tunnel, with each able to run independently and in both directions - would have probably added a billion to the cost of HS1 though.
I think they stop at Ebbsfleet rather than Ashford now?
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
Interesting and wrong. There is a gigantic community of all ages who get married and stay married, even if that is smaller than it was.
Also a very large community of those who, having had a matrimonial disaster, get married again.
For all sorts of edgy cultural reasons almost no attention is paid in the arts and popular culture to these realities. This I suppose is because from outside that circle of family life it is intensely boring as a spectacle. (Boris's private life seems much more fascinating that Starmer's or whoever). Long may it remain so.
(BTW it is obvious that with the people under a certain age there is no possibility of proof, because future time needs to pass. But that lacuna cuts both ways.)
That is what happens when self-proclaimed 'alphas' (LOL) generalise from their own experience. They come up with stuff which bears little relation to reality for most people.
Which perhaps explains quite a lot of politics.
I’m not generalising from my own experience, I’m more generalising from friends and family (perhaps the males therein are a self selecting group of philanderers, who knows)
It seems blindingly obvious to me that men like/need sex in more various ways than women - eg men can be satisfied by a dockyard hooker, women less so. Therefore in tying himself to a monogamous life a man makes a sacrifice (of greater sexual satisfaction and variety) and that used to be repaid by womanly subservience (again, I’m not saying this is GOOD, just pointing out facts)
Now women can be independent and sod the subservience (and good for them). But that has effects. Look at the birth rates in ex-patriarchal South Korea. A deal has been broken
No, in South Korea, men haven’t changed (enough) to meet the realities of the modern world.
Life is fairly shitty for many South Korea wives. So women prefer being single.
As a happily married male, I wouldn't ever have wanted to be satisfied by a dockside hooker. That sounds extremely unappealing.
I doubt you would be satisfied. Candidly, they're high volume providers.
What you really want is a very high class, high end courtesan.
Absolutely untrue. They charge far too much so expectations are way too high; also they try to provide the gruesome “girlfriend experience”
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
Interesting and wrong. There is a gigantic community of all ages who get married and stay married, even if that is smaller than it was.
Also a very large community of those who, having had a matrimonial disaster, get married again.
For all sorts of edgy cultural reasons almost no attention is paid in the arts and popular culture to these realities. This I suppose is because from outside that circle of family life it is intensely boring as a spectacle. (Boris's private life seems much more fascinating that Starmer's or whoever). Long may it remain so.
(BTW it is obvious that with the people under a certain age there is no possibility of proof, because future time needs to pass. But that lacuna cuts both ways.)
That is what happens when self-proclaimed 'alphas' (LOL) generalise from their own experience. They come up with stuff which bears little relation to reality for most people.
Which perhaps explains quite a lot of politics.
I’m not generalising from my own experience, I’m more generalising from friends and family (perhaps the males therein are a self selecting group of philanderers, who knows)
It seems blindingly obvious to me that men like/need sex in more various ways than women - eg men can be satisfied by a dockyard hooker, women less so. Therefore in tying himself to a monogamous life a man makes a sacrifice (of greater sexual satisfaction and variety) and that used to be repaid by womanly subservience (again, I’m not saying this is GOOD, just pointing out facts)
Now women can be independent and sod the subservience (and good for them). But that has effects. Look at the birth rates in ex-patriarchal South Korea. A deal has been broken
No, in South Korea, men haven’t changed (enough) to meet the realities of the modern world.
Life is fairly shitty for many South Korea wives. So women prefer being single.
As a happily married male, I wouldn't ever have wanted to be satisfied by a dockside hooker. That sounds extremely unappealing.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
It is hard to disentangle cause and effect as happy and stable couples do tend to marry and stay that way.
It is a big factor in social mobility (or the lack of it) too. There is a big class divide in how stable marriages are, and the effects on children. Bad economic times are tough on relationships.
Incidentally I would recommend this history of marriage (from a rather American perspective). Marriage has always been about economics, or at least until recently was:
Statements like 'marriage has always been about economics' are obviously either incomplete or untrue.
Some species by nature form pair bonds for life in the natural world. This has no relation to economics. It is their evolved response to the dilemmas of mating, offspring, individual and species survival.
Humans have offspring with inordinately long nurturing periods. (I was with an hour old lamb yesterday, which could walk fine). An enduring pair bond is an obvious, if not the only, solution to the human condition.
It is more true to say 'economics is always about how to nurture small humans' than 'pair bonding is all about economics'.
Isn’t it a physiological fact that the hormonal high of “true love” - 18-30 months - lasts just long enough for a baby to be conceived, birthed and weaned?
Perhaps an urban “myth” but that won’t stop me quoting it, it’s too satisfyingly neat
However, the greatest benefit of a two parent family is during early childhood and adolescence.
We unfortunately in a vicious cycle. The smaller number of emotionally healthy, two-parent, multichild families means that a smaller share of the following generation has the emotional stability to pick a good mate and stay married. That it turn means the next generation has an even smaller number of emotionally healthy, two-parent, multichild families.
Eventually we got to the point where insuffucient people had warm memories of family-focused childhoods with lots of siblings and cousins around. People instead got attached to the dopamine hits of materialism, which give a temporary high but leave you unfulfilled long term. The result is lots of childfree/oneanddone families and high rates of mental health problems.
Melancholically, that is certainly true for me
My family is STUPENDOUSLY fucked up (wait for the memoir) it has not produced stable grand kids
Tho at least there are kids, I guess. I have quite a few childless friends in their 50s - now busily regretting it
Even as a young man in my 20s, it was obvious to me that people over 60 prioritized family over everything else.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
Interesting and wrong. There is a gigantic community of all ages who get married and stay married, even if that is smaller than it was.
Also a very large community of those who, having had a matrimonial disaster, get married again.
For all sorts of edgy cultural reasons almost no attention is paid in the arts and popular culture to these realities. This I suppose is because from outside that circle of family life it is intensely boring as a spectacle. (Boris's private life seems much more fascinating that Starmer's or whoever). Long may it remain so.
(BTW it is obvious that with the people under a certain age there is no possibility of proof, because future time needs to pass. But that lacuna cuts both ways.)
That is what happens when self-proclaimed 'alphas' (LOL) generalise from their own experience. They come up with stuff which bears little relation to reality for most people.
Which perhaps explains quite a lot of politics.
I’m not generalising from my own experience, I’m more generalising from friends and family (perhaps the males therein are a self selecting group of philanderers, who knows)
It seems blindingly obvious to me that men like/need sex in more various ways than women - eg men can be satisfied by a dockyard hooker, women less so. Therefore in tying himself to a monogamous life a man makes a sacrifice (of greater sexual satisfaction and variety) and that used to be repaid by womanly subservience (again, I’m not saying this is GOOD, just pointing out facts)
Now women can be independent and sod the subservience (and good for them). But that has effects. Look at the birth rates in ex-patriarchal South Korea. A deal has been broken
No, in South Korea, men haven’t changed (enough) to meet the realities of the modern world.
Life is fairly shitty for many South Korea wives. So women prefer being single.
As a happily married male, I wouldn't ever have wanted to be satisfied by a dockside hooker. That sounds extremely unappealing.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
Interesting and wrong. There is a gigantic community of all ages who get married and stay married, even if that is smaller than it was.
Also a very large community of those who, having had a matrimonial disaster, get married again.
For all sorts of edgy cultural reasons almost no attention is paid in the arts and popular culture to these realities. This I suppose is because from outside that circle of family life it is intensely boring as a spectacle. (Boris's private life seems much more fascinating that Starmer's or whoever). Long may it remain so.
(BTW it is obvious that with the people under a certain age there is no possibility of proof, because future time needs to pass. But that lacuna cuts both ways.)
That is what happens when self-proclaimed 'alphas' (LOL) generalise from their own experience. They come up with stuff which bears little relation to reality for most people.
Which perhaps explains quite a lot of politics.
I’m not generalising from my own experience, I’m more generalising from friends and family (perhaps the males therein are a self selecting group of philanderers, who knows)
It seems blindingly obvious to me that men like/need sex in more various ways than women - eg men can be satisfied by a dockyard hooker, women less so. Therefore in tying himself to a monogamous life a man makes a sacrifice (of greater sexual satisfaction and variety) and that used to be repaid by womanly subservience (again, I’m not saying this is GOOD, just pointing out facts)
Now women can be independent and sod the subservience (and good for them). But that has effects. Look at the birth rates in ex-patriarchal South Korea. A deal has been broken
No, in South Korea, men haven’t changed (enough) to meet the realities of the modern world.
Life is fairly shitty for many South Korea wives. So women prefer being single.
As a happily married male, I wouldn't ever have wanted to be satisfied by a dockside hooker. That sounds extremely unappealing.
I mistakingly read this as an incident leading to the Channel Tunnel being flooded. It’s actually the HS1 line tunnel under the Thames that’s flooded, so still a major incident, and it’s led to more than 10,000 passengers stranded at St. Pancras and in Paris
AIUI Ashford International hasn’t reopened since the pandemic, at least not the International bit with customs and passport controls.
There’s also a lot of trains stuck at St.P, but reopening AI should definitely be on the Plan B list if they can’t get the water out of the tunnel soon! Surprised there doesn’t appear to be an easy way to get trains past the blockage, even with a reduced capacity. I’d perhaps have designed two totally separate tunnels, as with the Channel Tunnel, with each able to run independently and in both directions - would have probably added a billion to the cost of HS1 though.
I think they stop at Ebbsfleet rather than Ashford now?
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
Interesting and wrong. There is a gigantic community of all ages who get married and stay married, even if that is smaller than it was.
Also a very large community of those who, having had a matrimonial disaster, get married again.
For all sorts of edgy cultural reasons almost no attention is paid in the arts and popular culture to these realities. This I suppose is because from outside that circle of family life it is intensely boring as a spectacle. (Boris's private life seems much more fascinating that Starmer's or whoever). Long may it remain so.
(BTW it is obvious that with the people under a certain age there is no possibility of proof, because future time needs to pass. But that lacuna cuts both ways.)
That is what happens when self-proclaimed 'alphas' (LOL) generalise from their own experience. They come up with stuff which bears little relation to reality for most people.
Which perhaps explains quite a lot of politics.
I’m not generalising from my own experience, I’m more generalising from friends and family (perhaps the males therein are a self selecting group of philanderers, who knows)
It seems blindingly obvious to me that men like/need sex in more various ways than women - eg men can be satisfied by a dockyard hooker, women less so. Therefore in tying himself to a monogamous life a man makes a sacrifice (of greater sexual satisfaction and variety) and that used to be repaid by womanly subservience (again, I’m not saying this is GOOD, just pointing out facts)
Now women can be independent and sod the subservience (and good for them). But that has effects. Look at the birth rates in ex-patriarchal South Korea. A deal has been broken
No, in South Korea, men haven’t changed (enough) to meet the realities of the modern world.
Life is fairly shitty for many South Korea wives. So women prefer being single.
As a happily married male, I wouldn't ever have wanted to be satisfied by a dockside hooker. That sounds extremely unappealing.
I doubt you would be satisfied. Candidly, they're high volume providers.
What you really want is a very high class, high end courtesan.
Absolutely untrue. They charge far too much so expectations are way too high; also they try to provide the gruesome “girlfriend experience”
"What these clowns didn’t grasp was that you were paying for their disinterest as much as their attention. That bored look was an integral and essential part of the retail blow-job experience. Jeez, it was an insult to your intelligence for her to expect you to believe she was enjoying it, so there was an invaluable honesty about the nature of the transaction if she looked like she couldn’t care less."
Is the modern world how Alexandra Kollantai imagined because we have accepted a lot of communism’s ideas, or was it going to be like this anyway under capitalism?
Labours plans for childcare, announced this week, reminded me of ‘The state is responsible for the upbringing of children’ section.
“ Just as housework withers away, so the obligations of parents to their children wither away gradually until finally society assumes the full responsibility. Under capitalism children were frequently, too frequently, a heavy and unbearable burden on the proletarian family. Communist society will come to the aid of the parents. In Soviet Russia the Commissariats of Public Education and of Social Welfare are already doing much to assist the family. We already have homes for very small babies, creches, kindergartens, children’s colonies and homes, hospitals and health resorts for sick children. restaurants, free lunches at school and free distribution of text books, warm clothing and shoes to schoolchildren. All this goes to show that the responsibility for the child is passing from the family to the collective.”
Except the Labour scheme is purely voluntary, for parents who actually desire that help.
The measures contemplated in that essay also seem to be voluntary: "communist not intending to take children away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning to take, violent measures to destroy the family. No such thing!"
And UK society today does feel a shared responsibility for children that we want the state to bear -- education, child benefits, social services looking out for vulnerable children, etc. Like many other aspects of felt shared responsibility this has shifted from being something informally handled in local communities and by individual charity to being something we expect the state to resource and facilitate. That seems to me generally of a piece with the expanding role of the state over the last century plus.
In short, the thrust of Cameron's Big Society. I agree that we have shifted from being community-based to placing greater burdens on the state, and although we can have a lively argument about the causes, that doesn't lead to a cure. I don't know what a Cameron II would have looked like sans Brexit - realistically, just more austerity? - but one hopes he would have realised this.
Which burdens?
Education? Defence? State pension? Welfare safety net? Health?
These are the big ones and they are all now generations old.
The only newish one is elderly social care, where we are in a generations long process of delaying having a rational system.
The other big change is post 18 education, where the burden has shifted from the state to the individual.
It’s a combination of things not a question of getting rid of them.
Fundamentally the cost of living is too high in this country (some for good reasons) and so we subsidise insufficiently productive workers - but that has been abused by some firms in the past.
Fix housing costs / housing benefits (I would tend to have state backed social housing corporations rather than capital being provided by the state directly)
Fix child care costs (a simple measure would be to increase the number of kids a nursery staff member can look after to the European average… although last time that was tried the outrage was extraordinary)
Improve investment in education and training - I would tend to shift away from the mindset of “degrees for all” - with a combination of academic courses and vocational courses (which can be shorter and cheaper).
Simplify the tax and benefit structure to eliminate high marginal rates as specific points
Etc etc
Make degrees for all literally true. Degrees in plumbing, welding etc.
What would you say is the essential characteristic of a degree, apart from a piece of paper issued by a degree-awarding body?
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
Interesting and wrong. There is a gigantic community of all ages who get married and stay married, even if that is smaller than it was.
Also a very large community of those who, having had a matrimonial disaster, get married again.
For all sorts of edgy cultural reasons almost no attention is paid in the arts and popular culture to these realities. This I suppose is because from outside that circle of family life it is intensely boring as a spectacle. (Boris's private life seems much more fascinating that Starmer's or whoever). Long may it remain so.
(BTW it is obvious that with the people under a certain age there is no possibility of proof, because future time needs to pass. But that lacuna cuts both ways.)
That is what happens when self-proclaimed 'alphas' (LOL) generalise from their own experience. They come up with stuff which bears little relation to reality for most people.
Which perhaps explains quite a lot of politics.
I’m not generalising from my own experience, I’m more generalising from friends and family (perhaps the males therein are a self selecting group of philanderers, who knows)
It seems blindingly obvious to me that men like/need sex in more various ways than women - eg men can be satisfied by a dockyard hooker, women less so. Therefore in tying himself to a monogamous life a man makes a sacrifice (of greater sexual satisfaction and variety) and that used to be repaid by womanly subservience (again, I’m not saying this is GOOD, just pointing out facts)
Now women can be independent and sod the subservience (and good for them). But that has effects. Look at the birth rates in ex-patriarchal South Korea. A deal has been broken
No, in South Korea, men haven’t changed (enough) to meet the realities of the modern world.
Life is fairly shitty for many South Korea wives. So women prefer being single.
As a happily married male, I wouldn't ever have wanted to be satisfied by a dockside hooker. That sounds extremely unappealing.
I doubt you would be satisfied. Candidly, they're high volume providers.
What you really want is a very high class, high end courtesan.
Absolutely untrue. They charge far too much so expectations are way too high; also they try to provide the gruesome “girlfriend experience”
"What these clowns didn’t grasp was that you were paying for their disinterest as much as their attention. That bored look was an integral and essential part of the retail blow-job experience. Jeez, it was an insult to your intelligence for her to expect you to believe she was enjoying it, so there was an invaluable honesty about the nature of the transaction if she looked like she couldn’t care less."
A friend of mine had a hooker who was so disinterested in what he was a-doing she casually cracked open and ate pistachio nuts with her mouth throughout the job, as if he wasn’t there. He claims he found her total detachment “oddly erotic”
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
I have no problem with meritocratic hierarchies. The problems come when the drivers start a private 'drivers school' allowing their sons to miss the experience building steps and jump straight into the 'drivers fast stream'.
Oh, that happened in several forms. Firstly, if you were in the 'in' crowd, your sons would be first in the queue to get jobs at the depot. Secondly, it was up to foremen to decide on who got which tasks, and in-favour people - such as the sons of friends - would get tasks which gained them experience quickly. Thirdly, access to the few tests that were required could be limited.
I've read a good book by an old steam driver who found it took him years longer than it should to become a fireman, simple because he did not have contacts. He was lucky to get a job as a junior as a boy, but found other lads, who he felt worked less hard, found promotion quickly. He ended up an express driver, so it probably wasn't capability.
Also, if you argued with the union reps, they could find interesting ways to make you suffer.
From everything I've read, and from talking to some old guys, BR in steam days was far from meritocratic.
Yes, seems to happen in all orgs but I'm now a lot less forgiving of it having read
The Rise And Decline of Nations – Economic, Growth, Stagflation, And Social Rigidities
It might be in our nature to put our children above others but it ossifies society.
The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities - Veritas Paperbacks (Paperback), Mancur Olson, 2022
Is the modern world how Alexandra Kollantai imagined because we have accepted a lot of communism’s ideas, or was it going to be like this anyway under capitalism?
Labours plans for childcare, announced this week, reminded me of ‘The state is responsible for the upbringing of children’ section.
“ Just as housework withers away, so the obligations of parents to their children wither away gradually until finally society assumes the full responsibility. Under capitalism children were frequently, too frequently, a heavy and unbearable burden on the proletarian family. Communist society will come to the aid of the parents. In Soviet Russia the Commissariats of Public Education and of Social Welfare are already doing much to assist the family. We already have homes for very small babies, creches, kindergartens, children’s colonies and homes, hospitals and health resorts for sick children. restaurants, free lunches at school and free distribution of text books, warm clothing and shoes to schoolchildren. All this goes to show that the responsibility for the child is passing from the family to the collective.”
Except the Labour scheme is purely voluntary, for parents who actually desire that help.
The measures contemplated in that essay also seem to be voluntary: "communist not intending to take children away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning to take, violent measures to destroy the family. No such thing!"
And UK society today does feel a shared responsibility for children that we want the state to bear -- education, child benefits, social services looking out for vulnerable children, etc. Like many other aspects of felt shared responsibility this has shifted from being something informally handled in local communities and by individual charity to being something we expect the state to resource and facilitate. That seems to me generally of a piece with the expanding role of the state over the last century plus.
In short, the thrust of Cameron's Big Society. I agree that we have shifted from being community-based to placing greater burdens on the state, and although we can have a lively argument about the causes, that doesn't lead to a cure. I don't know what a Cameron II would have looked like sans Brexit - realistically, just more austerity? - but one hopes he would have realised this.
Which burdens?
Education? Defence? State pension? Welfare safety net? Health?
These are the big ones and they are all now generations old.
The only newish one is elderly social care, where we are in a generations long process of delaying having a rational system.
The other big change is post 18 education, where the burden has shifted from the state to the individual.
It’s a combination of things not a question of getting rid of them.
Fundamentally the cost of living is too high in this country (some for good reasons) and so we subsidise insufficiently productive workers - but that has been abused by some firms in the past.
Fix housing costs / housing benefits (I would tend to have state backed social housing corporations rather than capital being provided by the state directly)
Fix child care costs (a simple measure would be to increase the number of kids a nursery staff member can look after to the European average… although last time that was tried the outrage was extraordinary)
Improve investment in education and training - I would tend to shift away from the mindset of “degrees for all” - with a combination of academic courses and vocational courses (which can be shorter and cheaper).
Simplify the tax and benefit structure to eliminate high marginal rates as specific points
Etc etc
Make degrees for all literally true. Degrees in plumbing, welding etc.
What would you say is the essential characteristic of a degree, apart from a piece of paper issued by a degree-awarding body?
A large body of knowledge, understanding it, its history and how to reason with it to produce new knowledge or results.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
Becoming an expert is one of the better ways. I am amazed at the job satisfaction that comes when you tell somebody really high up that they're mistaken and then prove it in a way that makes sense to them.
Problem is of course is that the latter bit is really hard...
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
Becoming an expert is one of the better ways. I am amazed at the job satisfaction that comes when you tell somebody really high up that they're mistaken and then prove it in a way that makes sense to them.
Problem is of course is that the latter bit is really hard...
Yeah, I'd noticed when trying to explain their colossal safeguarding failures to OFSTED.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
Becoming an expert is one of the better ways. I am amazed at the job satisfaction that comes when you tell somebody really high up that they're mistaken and then prove it in a way that makes sense to them.
Problem is of course is that the latter bit is really hard...
I’m sure some don’t take it well even if you do both.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
Becoming an expert is one of the better ways. I am amazed at the job satisfaction that comes when you tell somebody really high up that they're mistaken and then prove it in a way that makes sense to them.
Problem is of course is that the latter bit is really hard...
Yeah, I'd noticed when trying to explain their colossal safeguarding failures to OFSTED.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
Interesting and wrong. There is a gigantic community of all ages who get married and stay married, even if that is smaller than it was.
Also a very large community of those who, having had a matrimonial disaster, get married again.
For all sorts of edgy cultural reasons almost no attention is paid in the arts and popular culture to these realities. This I suppose is because from outside that circle of family life it is intensely boring as a spectacle. (Boris's private life seems much more fascinating that Starmer's or whoever). Long may it remain so.
(BTW it is obvious that with the people under a certain age there is no possibility of proof, because future time needs to pass. But that lacuna cuts both ways.)
That is what happens when self-proclaimed 'alphas' (LOL) generalise from their own experience. They come up with stuff which bears little relation to reality for most people.
Which perhaps explains quite a lot of politics.
I’m not generalising from my own experience, I’m more generalising from friends and family (perhaps the males therein are a self selecting group of philanderers, who knows)
It seems blindingly obvious to me that men like/need sex in more various ways than women - eg men can be satisfied by a dockyard hooker, women less so. Therefore in tying himself to a monogamous life a man makes a sacrifice (of greater sexual satisfaction and variety) and that used to be repaid by womanly subservience (again, I’m not saying this is GOOD, just pointing out facts)
Now women can be independent and sod the subservience (and good for them). But that has effects. Look at the birth rates in ex-patriarchal South Korea. A deal has been broken
No, in South Korea, men haven’t changed (enough) to meet the realities of the modern world.
Life is fairly shitty for many South Korea wives. So women prefer being single.
As a happily married male, I wouldn't ever have wanted to be satisfied by a dockside hooker. That sounds extremely unappealing.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
Becoming an expert is one of the better ways. I am amazed at the job satisfaction that comes when you tell somebody really high up that they're mistaken and then prove it in a way that makes sense to them.
Problem is of course is that the latter bit is really hard...
Yeah, I'd noticed when trying to explain their colossal safeguarding failures to OFSTED.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
Spielman is a woman, and the key problem is (was) that her self-esteem depended on her not realising what a colossal disaster she has been on every level.
You can see this in a lot of football discourse; there’s definitely a divide between passing it out from the back and just getting rid of it that aligns with people who are ok with woke and those who are suspicious of it.
I’m not saying the word has too broad a definition or anything, but the people who sit behind me at Hull City every week insist that passing the ball out from the back is ‘woke’.
Comments
Serious - the lumen has been so abused that it tells you very little about how much light you get.
Some species by nature form pair bonds for life in the natural world. This has no relation to economics. It is their evolved response to the dilemmas of mating, offspring, individual and species survival.
Humans have offspring with inordinately long nurturing periods. (I was with an hour old lamb yesterday, which could walk fine). An enduring pair bond is an obvious, if not the only, solution to the human condition.
It is more true to say 'economics is always about how to nurture small humans' than 'pair bonding is all about economics'.
Maybe, that way, their partner will buy them a chainsaw for Christmas and then they can massively improve their productivity in the firewood line.
Now for my next trick - turkey is overrated. Would much rather have a chicken on Christmas.
What finally made us get married (10 years ago) was the desire to be each other's next of kin. So some random cousin doesn't get to turn off my ventilator.
Getting the certificate hasn't changed our ongoing commitment to each other.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/30/eurostar-passengers-stranded-tunnel-flood-river-thames/
I don't despise anyone (you Brexit people are so convinced everyone is despising you all the time, it must be exhausting). I just don't like paying extra for stuff so people can get a thrill out of meaningless sovereignty, eg over putting our own labels on things. I don't despise people who have chosen to impose these costs on our economy but I am pissed off with them, sure.
Perhaps an urban “myth” but that won’t stop me quoting it, it’s too satisfyingly neat
On volunteer steam train drivers, I think that a tight hierarchy may persist partly because such trains still travel the public network and require appropriate regulation.
On this day when Eurostar is shut because of too much water, remember this story of Rescue By Steam Train when it was shut because of too much snow?
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/steam-to-the-rescue-as-high-speed-rail-fails-5514502.html
A horse, really.
Is he your main inspiration?
Has anyone else had this? Bloody annoying. None of the obvious fixes work
(I've little idea why there would be a mains water pipe inside the tunnel; unless it is water being pumped out of the tunnel (all tunnels have to manage water, from leakage or other sources) that Thames Water then use?
refusing to humbly admit the original error when people point it out.
Why not just say you misread it and revealed your prejudice?
Obviously I have my own prejudices, and wouldn’t have bothered looking up to correct the original mistake had it not been the result of an anti Brexit reflex
Fundamentally the cost of living is too high in this country (some for good reasons) and so we subsidise insufficiently productive workers - but that has been abused by some firms in the past.
Fix housing costs / housing benefits (I would tend to have state backed social housing corporations rather than capital being provided by the state directly)
Fix child care costs (a simple measure would be to increase the number of kids a nursery staff member can look after to the European average… although last time that was tried the outrage was extraordinary)
Improve investment in education and training - I would tend to shift away from the mindset of “degrees for all” - with a combination of academic courses and vocational courses (which can be shorter and cheaper).
Simplify the tax and benefit structure to eliminate high marginal rates as specific points
Etc etc
Move people out of A&E into a triage room or similar. No progress made in treatment but target hit.
In London, this means that nursery costs about the same as a cheapish private school.
So great nurseries for those who can afford it.
For those who can’t, semi-demi-legal child minding. Often completely unregulated.
1) My aunt (86) had a fall, cut her leg badly. Rang for an ambulance, told it would be a four hour wait. Bystanders got her to hospital. (This was in Wales, by the by, so not a Tory issue.)
2) My next door neighbour, also 86 and on blood thinners. Had a fall, broken rib, punctured lung. Also a four hour wait. Fortunately grandson was there and was able to take him to hospital.
Something seems to be badly wrong somewhere. I'm assuming it's staffing shortages (although @Foxy would of course have more insight) but whatever it is it's obviously not ideal. Both those people would have died if they had been reliant on an ambulance.
They come up with stuff which bears little relation to reality for most people.
Which perhaps explains quite a lot of politics.
Though the one thing we can be sure about is that the teaching of contempt for Etonians isn't on their curriculum.
Anyway, nice shootin' Tex!
It seems blindingly obvious to me that men like/need sex in more various ways than women - eg men can be satisfied by a dockyard hooker, women less so. Therefore in tying himself to a monogamous life a man makes a sacrifice (of greater sexual satisfaction and variety) and that used to be repaid by womanly subservience (again, I’m not saying this is GOOD, just pointing out facts)
Now women can be independent and sod the subservience (and good for them). But that has effects. Look at the birth rates in ex-patriarchal South Korea. A deal has been broken
There’s also a lot of trains stuck at St.P, but reopening AI should definitely be on the Plan B list if they can’t get the water out of the tunnel soon! Surprised there doesn’t appear to be an easy way to get trains past the blockage, even with a reduced capacity. I’d perhaps have designed two totally separate tunnels, as with the Channel Tunnel, with each able to run independently and in both directions - would have probably added a billion to the cost of HS1 though.
Life is fairly shitty for many South Korea wives. So women prefer being single.
Ditch the iWank.
This is not just an English issue as I reported on here previously
Wales NHS is run by Labour and is much worse even than in England, and in my case, despite being sent to A & E directly by my GP practice arriving at 5.30pm with suspected DVT, is was not until 8.00am the following morning I actually saw a doctor who immediately admitted me into hospital and arranged an emergency ultrasound which confirmed the DVT
My cardiologist told me on Wednesday I need an urgent pacemaker which he will do in the new year but if I feel dizzy or unwell to come directly into hospital
My family have decided that in those circumstances they would prefer to drive me into hospital rather than wait for an ambulance to arrive
It is time to recognise that comparing the NHS to 14 years ago is not relevant to today's crisis which is shared across all parts of our country
I wish Labour and Streeting well but I do not see any improvement in the short term, especially here in Wales
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST PB, SHAPE UP
I’m not saying the word has too broad a definition or anything, but the people who sit behind me at Hull City every week insist that passing the ball out from the back is ‘woke’.
https://x.com/hitcsevens/status/1740859579666461089?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
We unfortunately in a vicious cycle. The smaller number of emotionally healthy, two-parent, multichild families means that a smaller share of the following generation has the emotional stability to pick a good mate and stay married. That it turn means the next generation has an even smaller number of emotionally healthy, two-parent, multichild families.
Eventually we got to the point where insuffucient people had warm memories of family-focused childhoods with lots of siblings and cousins around. People instead got attached to the dopamine hits of materialism, which give a temporary high but leave you unfulfilled long term. The result is lots of childfree/oneanddone families and high rates of mental health problems.
That is the win.
The "decision" we took is to have an entirely useless redundant label, while keeping the one "some EU official" deems necessary.
BIG fucking win...
My family is STUPENDOUSLY fucked up (wait for the memoir) it has not produced stable grand kids
Tho at least there are kids, I guess. I have quite a few childless friends in their 50s - now busily regretting it
Is everyone living in a parallel universe?
While there are more kids born out of wedlock than previously, divorce rates are a fraction of the levels of 30 years ago.
What you really want is a very high class, high end courtesan.
Now I must start sorting out dinner.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-67842992
But when I tdry to post it gives "Data too long for column 'Name' at row 1" so I am ccing this to @TSE in case it treats him differently from us.
https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-rise-and-decline-of-nations/mancur-olson/edward-l-glaeser/9780300254068
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5776858/
Problem is of course is that the latter bit is really hard...
1) FTPA aside, both May and Massive were able to choose their dates in practice.
2) what allowance is being made for the notorious penny pinching tendencies of Sunak? 2nd May will be far cheaper.