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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Three local by-elections tonight – won last time by UKIP, L

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  • PaulyPauly Posts: 897
    edited August 2015

    tyson said:

    Apocalypse- immigration is desirable on so many levels. It has single handedly been responsible for delivering us economic growth over the last few decades. The Tories know this as much as Labour.

    Our great NHS would be on it's arse without attracting staff from outside the EU.

    Labour has simply been (slightly) more honest about the benefits of immigration compared to our Tory comrades- and seemingly has paid an electoral price.

    We need ever more numbers of immigrants in ever more increasing numbers to manage our ageing population and skills shortage.

    The African migrant crisis is a mere distraction for the issue that the UK has to open its arms to immigrants of all nations (even those outside the EU) to prosper.



    AnneJGP said:

    One thing I would like the Labour party to be giving serious attention to is how we absorb all the would-be immigrants, whether they are asylum-seekers or economic migrants. It seems to me the only long-term answer is that the whole indigenous population will be compelled to accept a significantly lower standard of living all round.

    If we are to accept all the people who wish to come here we do need to prepare ourselves for the inevitable impacts. As with everything, it's going to be those at the bottom of society who will suffer the most. I reckon it will be much better to grasp the nettle & start giving it serious thought.

    I'd be interested in your thoughts on this.

    I think the ideal situation would be to restrict freedom of movement within the EU, and in regard to migrant crisis to develop a long-term solution where migrants' countries can become habitable again. However the former isn't possible, but I think Labour really need to start acknowledging the issue of immigration if they want the electorate to even consider them remotely credible.
    You do speak bollocks on immigration.
    If immigration is responsible for growth you should recognise it is a ponzi scheme and hence a terrible argument. (Aimed at Tyson)
  • JEOJEO Posts: 3,656
    tyson said:

    Apocalypse- immigration is desirable on so many levels. It has single handedly been responsible for delivering us economic growth over the last few decades. The Tories know this as much as Labour.

    The UK had tremendous economic growth after the early 1990s recession despite the fact we had effectively zero net immigration during that time. (Surpluses some years, deficits in others.)
  • welshowlwelshowl Posts: 4,464
    edited August 2015
    alex. said:

    welshowl said:

    Sean_F said:

    Barnesian said:

    JEO said:

    alex. said:

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/20/jeremy-corbyn-apologise-iraq-war-behalf-labour-leader

    "Channel Four News has unearthed footage of Corbyn in 2014 comparing the actions of Isis to US forces retaking the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. “Yes they are brutal, yes some of what they have done is quite appalling, likewise what the Americans did in Fallujah and other places is appalling,” Corbyn told Russia Today.

    Corbyn’s campaign, in response, said he regarded Isis as a “vicious, repugnant force that has to be stopped”


    Any thoughts on how he proposes to stop them?

    So even now, his campaign just repeats the criticism of ISIS and doesn't take back the comparison with the US? It's just like that IRA interview, where every bad thing the IRA does is brought up and he compares it to the British.
    He seems to apply two princples in this area:
    1. He is on the side of the oppressed
    2. He is against the killing of civilians by any force no matter who.

    In the IRA interview he did condemn the IRA killings but only alongside the killing of civilians by Unionists and by the British military. He wasn't going to agree to single out only the IRA for condemnation no matter how hard the interviewer pushed. He is even-handed in his condemnation.
    The problem is, the IRA were both morally wrong and the worst offenders, in terms of killing.

    It's like saying you regard all killings in WWII as equally bad.
    Indeed. Corbyn's apparent moral equivalence thinking needs calling out for the nonsense it is.
    Any war will cause suffering for civilians as an incidental outcome. It is incumbent on the combatants in any war to minimise that suffering within the context of their military objectives. The organisations that Corbyn cosies up to fail to do that, in fact they actively seek to increase civilian involvement and suffering. And in the extreme case of organisations like ISIS they don't even do so under the cover/excuse of war the suffering of (certain categories of) civilians is an objective in itself. Pacifism for people like Corbyn is just an easy political posture to blame the US/UK for the civilian suffering in any wars they are involved in, and is easily undermined in many cases where Western involvement has been for the purpose of relieving civilian suffering, when Corbyn is shown to be woefully inconsistent.

    Agreed. I'm afraid comrade Corbyn, should he win, having spent 32 years acting like a real life Citizen Smith, is going to have a car crash with the complexity which is reality.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,419
    Artist said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I wish whatever Yougov or w/e it is that's causing the slight drift on Jezza would come out onto the market.

    If he starts to drift out to around 1.7 it'd be interesting. A few backers are probably just getting the wobbles.
    I can imagine Peter Kellner sitting there with his betfair account ^^;
  • HYUFD said:


    ....

    More graduates are having to take non-graduate jobs, especially given how competitive grad schemes are. I know as a graduate I'll most likely be going into a non-graduate job if I'm lucky, and that it'll be great if I even get to earn an average salary one day, let alone get a mortgage (if it can happen).

    What job, if any, a graduate gets is largely a function of what degree they did, where they did it and how good a degree they actually got. Someone with a first in engineering from somewhere like Warwick is not going to have a problem with getting a graduate level job. Someone with a 2:2 in Performing Arts and Business Studies from London Met is going to find the employment market tougher. As the old joke has it:

    The engineering graduate asks, "How does that work?"
    The mathematics graduate asks, "Why does that work?"
    The liberal arts graduate asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

    As for your own circumstances, the world hasn't changed that much in the past few years and surely you had some idea of what you were going to do for a living before you went off to study History and Politics. So what has happened that makes your original game plan invalid and for you now to public fret about being able to get a decent job?

    Tbh, like a lot of people my age when I first went uni I did not have a clear career path. The advice I was given in school, was that if you even want to compete in the job market you need a degree.
    I originally did a degree in History but it added little to my future earnings beyond A Levels and ultimately I have got my present role from an MSc. If you want to make money do well at school and go to a Russell Group University and study a STEM subject, medicine, law or economics (ideally with some extracurricular activities too). We still need liberal arts graduates in the media, to teach and research, to preserve our cultural heritage and museums and work in the arts etc but with a few exceptions an arts degree will not make you rich
    I'm already at uni!

    I was never that great at STEM subjects - fairly average in science and maths particularly. On Russell Group, while it's nice to get into one you don't need to go one in order to do well - there are top unis who aren't in the Russell Group. I don't expect to get rich, I'd just like to earn an average salary, and get a mortgage fora house one day!

    On law, it's one of those oversubscribed degrees now. Everyone wants to be a lawyer, but not everyone will be.
  • tysontyson Posts: 6,117
    That is really eloquent and well argued. In fact I have now changed my mind completely- and we should repatriate all EU, and foreign born immigrants and then see how the UK fares.

    tyson said:

    Apocalypse- immigration is desirable on so many levels. It has single handedly been responsible for delivering us economic growth over the last few decades. The Tories know this as much as Labour.

    Our great NHS would be on it's arse without attracting staff from outside the EU.

    Labour has simply been (slightly) more honest about the benefits of immigration compared to our Tory comrades- and seemingly has paid an electoral price.

    We need ever more numbers of immigrants in ever more increasing numbers to manage our ageing population and skills shortage.

    The African migrant crisis is a mere distraction for the issue that the UK has to open its arms to immigrants of all nations (even those outside the EU) to prosper.



    AnneJGP said:

    One thing I would like the Labour party to be giving serious attention to is how we absorb all the would-be immigrants, whether they are asylum-seekers or economic migrants. It seems to me the only long-term answer is that the whole indigenous population will be compelled to accept a significantly lower standard of living all round.

    If we are to accept all the people who wish to come here we do need to prepare ourselves for the inevitable impacts. As with everything, it's going to be those at the bottom of society who will suffer the most. I reckon it will be much better to grasp the nettle & start giving it serious thought.

    I'd be interested in your thoughts on this.

    I think the ideal situation would be to restrict freedom of movement within the EU, and in regard to migrant crisis to develop a long-term solution where migrants' countries can become habitable again. However the former isn't possible, but I think Labour really need to start acknowledging the issue of immigration if they want the electorate to even consider them remotely credible.
    You do speak bollocks on immigration.
  • kle4 said:


    ....

    More graduates are having to take non-graduate jobs, especially given how competitive grad schemes are. I know as a graduate I'll most likely be going into a non-graduate job if I'm lucky, and that it'll be great if I even get to earn an average salary one day, let alone get a mortgage (if it can happen).

    What job, if any, a graduate gets is largely a function of what degree they did, where they did it and how good a degree they actually got. Someone with a first in engineering from somewhere like Warwick is not going to have a problem with getting a graduate level job. Someone with a 2:2 in Performing Arts and Business Studies from London Met is going to find the employment market tougher. As the old joke has it:

    The engineering graduate asks, "How does that work?"
    The mathematics graduate asks, "Why does that work?"
    The liberal arts graduate asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

    As for your own circumstances, the world hasn't changed that much in the past few years and surely you had some idea of what you were going to do for a living before you went off to study History and Politics. So what has happened that makes your original game plan invalid and for you now to public fret about being able to get a decent job?

    Tbh, like a lot of people my age when I first went uni I did not have a clear career path. The advice I was given in school, was that if you even want to compete in the job market you need a degree.
    Same here (though just pure History for me...though my dissertations were on factional politics). A lot of the Canadian graduates at my Uni already had degrees and said they needed more than 1 just to compete back home!

    Personally I knew it might not help with a specific job path, but I went with history because I love history, simple as. Not sensible perhaps, but there you go, we cannot all do engineering and mathematics.
    BIB: Pretty much my position.
  • HurstLlamaHurstLlama Posts: 9,098
    kle4 said:


    ....

    More graduates are having to take non-graduate jobs, especially given how competitive grad schemes are. I know as a graduate I'll most likely be going into a non-graduate job if I'm lucky, and that it'll be great if I even get to earn an average salary one day, let alone get a mortgage (if it can happen).

    What job, if any, a graduate gets is largely a function of what degree they did, where they did it and how good a degree they actually got. Someone with a first in engineering from somewhere like Warwick is not going to have a problem with getting a graduate level job. Someone with a 2:2 in Performing Arts and Business Studies from London Met is going to find the employment market tougher. As the old joke has it:

    The engineering graduate asks, "How does that work?"
    The mathematics graduate asks, "Why does that work?"
    The liberal arts graduate asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

    As for your own circumstances, the world hasn't changed that much in the past few years and surely you had some idea of what you were going to do for a living before you went off to study History and Politics. So what has happened that makes your original game plan invalid and for you now to public fret about being able to get a decent job?

    Tbh, like a lot of people my age when I first went uni I did not have a clear career path. The advice I was given in school, was that if you even want to compete in the job market you need a degree.
    Same here (though just pure History for me...though my dissertations were on factional politics). A lot of the Canadian graduates at my Uni already had degrees and said they needed more than 1 just to compete back home!

    Personally I knew it might not help with a specific job path, but I went with history because I love history, simple as. Not sensible perhaps, but there you go, we cannot all do engineering and mathematics.
    I think it's fine to do a course of study, degree or otherwise, for the pure joy of the thing. My first degree was mathematics and my first proper job was as a soldier, in the infantry. More recently I did a history degree just because I wanted to, and health permitting, I shall do a masters at Birkbeck. However, if one studies for the love of the subject then one cannot complain about not being able to find a graduate level job. I am afraid Miss Apocalypse was sadly misled.
  • Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    @NCPoliticsUK: Corbyn backers on Betfair getting increasingly concerned about the #LabourPurge. Latest implied %s:

    Corbyn 66
    Burnham 25
    Cooper 8
    Kendall 1
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,419
    I wouldn't bother with law tbh.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,172
    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Barnesian said:

    JEO said:

    alex. said:

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/20/jeremy-corbyn-apologise-iraq-war-behalf-labour-leader

    "Channel Four News has unearthed footage of Corbyn in 2014 comparing the actions of Isis to US forces retaking the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. “Yes they are brutal, yes some of what they have done is quite appalling, likewise what the Americans did in Fallujah and other places is appalling,” Corbyn told Russia Today.

    Corbyn’s campaign, in response, said he regarded Isis as a “vicious, repugnant force that has to be stopped”


    Any thoughts on how he proposes to stop them?

    So even now, his campaign just repeats the criticism of ISIS and doesn't take back the comparison with the US? It's just like that IRA interview, where every bad thing the IRA does is brought up and he compares it to the British.
    He seems to apply two princples in this area:
    1. He is on the side of the oppressed
    2. He is against the killing of civilians by any force no matter who.

    In the IRA interview he did condemn the IRA killings but only alongside the killing of civilians by Unionists and by the British military. He wasn't going to agree to single out only the IRA for condemnation no matter how hard the interviewer pushed. He is even-handed in his condemnation.
    The problem is, the IRA were both morally wrong and the worst offenders, in terms of killing.
    Not in terms of 'civilians'.

    Of those killed by British security forces:
    187 (~51.5%) were civilians

    Of those killed by republican paramilitaries:
    723 (~35%) were civilians

    Of those killed by loyalist paramilitaries:
    877 (~85.4%) were civilians

    http://tinyurl.com/ozlfr62
    That rather implies that the other 1,400 killed by Republicans had it coming.

    Do you think Lee Rigby should be regarded in that light?
    Whatabouttery meets reductio ad absurdum in headlong smash.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,964
    tyson said:

    Scott_P said:

    john_zims said:

    Has there been any explanation why the bin driver that lied repeatedly and was responsible for the deaths of 6 people is not being prosecuted?

    I don't think so. He appeared as a witness in the Fatal Accident Inquiry today, and declined to answer almost every question to avoid incriminating himself
    I read somewhere that he had applied recently to have his license returned.

    I read about today's proceedings too. He was read the names of the men, women and children he killed, and he declined to comment. This kind of thing just makes me feel sad for being human really.
    In my view much of the blame for his silence is on those who declared they were going to prosecute him privately.

    What else could he do?
  • Plato said:

    Page 3 is there to do three things mainly

    To give a large chunk of their readers a pretty smiling girl next door to look at
    To make them feel like she could be their secret girlfriend
    To make a joke about some random subject

    I really do think some females and others miss the point a lot - it's never ever bothered me.

    JEO said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    But, people objectify each other. You meet someone you're attracted to, and you wonder what they'd look like without any clothes on. That's just human nature.

    Being attracted to someone and objectifying them isn't the same thing.
    I don't see how you can distinguish between objectification on the one hand and viewing another person as highly sexually desirable and wondering what they'd be like in bed on the other. At any rate, it seems a very fine, hair-splitting sort of distinction.
    Objectification is when you remove any 'human' characteristics that are a part of someone's personality/persona/mannerisms, and purely see them as object to use for own pleasure. When I've been attracted to someone, I've certainly not seen them like that.
    This is a somewhat arbitrary distinction. Is someone in a loving, thoughtful relationship thinking about their partner's personality at the peak of a raunchy session in bed? Does someone look at a photo of a scantily clad attractive member of the opposite sex and not think they have any human characteristics? I would guess girls that have a warm smile or a mischievous look in their eyes are more often chosen for Page 3.
    Not necessarily that they think of their personality, but they certainly won't believe that their partner exists purely for their entertainment and pleasure.

    On page 3, most of the girls pose in a generically provocative way - and given the focus is on their tits anyway, their personal characteristics hardly matter to readers.
    Those purposes don't really change that it's female objectification, though - and women are already valued for being pretty and young as it is. I'd like to be valued for other traits, as well.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,419
    I did maths because I thought it'd be a decent challenge.
  • Moses_Moses_ Posts: 4,865
    Moses_ said:

    kle4 said:

    Plato said:

    htps://twitter.com/DJack_Journo/status/634474103248932864

    Head of armed forces, General Sir Nicholas Houghton, to be criticised by #Chilcot inquiry

    In 2054, presumably.
    kle4 said:

    Plato said:

    htps://twitter.com/DJack_Journo/status/634474103248932864

    Head of armed forces, General Sir Nicholas Houghton, to be criticised by #Chilcot inquiry

    In 2054, presumably.
    Stunning,

    So the leak implicates the soldier, he is named in advance, before report is issued etc...etc.....etc oh and connected to Cameron .....oh FFS !!!!! Do they think we are stupid.

    You can hear the whitewash buckets officially being stirred as we blog. This sort of thing really pisses me off.
    Even better.....The criticism does not even relate to going to war ......or even during the war it is regarding after the war. Are these muppets serious.
  • foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    But, people objectify each other. You meet someone you're attracted to, and you wonder what they'd look like without any clothes on. That's just human nature.

    Being attracted to someone and objectifying them isn't the same thing.
    I don't see how you can distinguish between objectification on the one hand and viewing another person as highly sexually desirable and wondering what they'd be like in bed on the other. At any rate, it seems a very fine, hair-splitting sort of distinction.
    Objectification is when you remove any 'human' characteristics that are a part of someone's personality/persona/mannerisms, and purely see them as object to use for own pleasure. When I've been attracted to someone, I've certainly not seen them like that.
    If you're genuinely attracted to someone you see them as more than an object, but certainly lust for that person is a strong part of that attraction.
    Lusting after someone isn't the same as seeing them as an object though.
    I think the Greeks came up with the correct distinction. Agape, pure, selfless love, focused on the well-being of the other person. And Eros, sexual desire. I felt both, when I met my future wife, 16 years ago. And the latter involves inevitably, objectification, IMHO.
    I think we'll agree to disagree, as I don't believe sexual desire does involve objectification.
    I think it can do, as the popularity of porno and prostitutes demonstrates (though there are some interesting power dynamics at play also to do with insecure men wanting to be able to exert domination and controlling behaviour).

    Such sexual desire tends to be transient and unsatisfactory. Anyone who has been in a loving relationship finds the sexual desire more fullfilling and it involves less objectification (if any). I think that romantic attachments are at least as commen in men as women.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,553
    Barnesian said:

    Sean_F said:

    Barnesian said:

    JEO said:

    alex. said:

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/20/jeremy-corbyn-apologise-iraq-war-behalf-labour-leader

    "Channel Four News has unearthed footage of Corbyn in 2014 comparing the actions of Isis to US forces retaking the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. “Yes they are brutal, yes some of what they have done is quite appalling, likewise what the Americans did in Fallujah and other places is appalling,” Corbyn told Russia Today.

    Corbyn’s campaign, in response, said he regarded Isis as a “vicious, repugnant force that has to be stopped”


    Any thoughts on how he proposes to stop them?

    So even now, his campaign just repeats the criticism of ISIS and doesn't take back the comparison with the US? It's just like that IRA interview, where every bad thing the IRA does is brought up and he compares it to the British.
    He seems to apply two princples in this area:
    1. He is on the side of the oppressed
    2. He is against the killing of civilians by any force no matter who.

    In the IRA interview he did condemn the IRA killings but only alongside the killing of civilians by Unionists and by the British military. He wasn't going to agree to single out only the IRA for condemnation no matter how hard the interviewer pushed. He is even-handed in his condemnation.
    The problem is, the IRA were both morally wrong and the worst offenders, in terms of killing.

    It's like saying you regard all killings in WWII as equally bad.
    All the killings of innocent civilians in the Irish "Troubles" were morally wrong. The IRA killed about 2,000 people of whom about 35% were civilians. The Loyalist paramilitary groups killed about 1,000 people of whom about 85% were civilians. British security forces killed about 360 people of whom about 50% were civilians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles#Casualties

    All the mass killings of innocent civilians in WWII were atrocious and equally bad.
    For the IRA, Unionist politicians and voters, civil servants, census-takers, postal workers, Conservative politicians and party members, magistrates were all "legitimate targets".
  • john_zimsjohn_zims Posts: 3,399
    The_Apocalypse

    'On law, it's one of those oversubscribed degrees now. Everyone wants to be a lawyer, but not everyone will be.'

    Yes, massively oversubscribed with yearly training contracts only available for approx. 50% of law graduates.
    But still a very good degree to have and recognized as such by employers.
  • @tyson I'm not saying that immigration doesn't have its benefits - my own grandparents were immigrants, and I don't agree with an awful lot of UKIP's rhetoric on the issue. I'm not advocating that immigration should be stopped entirely, either. But cheap labour means wages - and thus living standards - are getting undercut, and many immigrants come here and live in rubbish conditions - creating even more poverty and inequality. We need to know that if immigrants are coming here we can afford it: in terms of education, housing, the NHS etc. And I think we can't afford large-scale immigration.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,040
    I knew things were getting distinctly dodgy but this is a genuinely alarming development. AEP says China is fine again. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/11810420/Chinas-August-scare-is-a-false-alarm-as-fiscal-crunch-fades.html

    The market is already well off its peak but this is a good a sell sign as you will see.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,553

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Barnesian said:

    JEO said:

    alex. said:

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/20/jeremy-corbyn-apologise-iraq-war-behalf-labour-leader

    "Channel Four News has unearthed footage of Corbyn in 2014 comparing the actions of Isis to US forces retaking the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. “Yes they are brutal, yes some of what they have done is quite appalling, likewise what the Americans did in Fallujah and other places is appalling,” Corbyn told Russia Today.

    Corbyn’s campaign, in response, said he regarded Isis as a “vicious, repugnant force that has to be stopped”


    Any thoughts on how he proposes to stop them?

    So even now, his campaign just repeats the criticism of ISIS and doesn't take back the comparison with the US? It's just like that IRA interview, where every bad thing the IRA does is brought up and he compares it to the British.
    He seems to apply two princples in this area:
    1. He is on the side of the oppressed
    2. He is against the killing of civilians by any force no matter who.

    In the IRA interview he did condemn the IRA killings but only alongside the killing of civilians by Unionists and by the British military. He wasn't going to agree to single out only the IRA for condemnation no matter how hard the interviewer pushed. He is even-handed in his condemnation.
    The problem is, the IRA were both morally wrong and the worst offenders, in terms of killing.
    Not in terms of 'civilians'.

    Of those killed by British security forces:
    187 (~51.5%) were civilians

    Of those killed by republican paramilitaries:
    723 (~35%) were civilians

    Of those killed by loyalist paramilitaries:
    877 (~85.4%) were civilians

    http://tinyurl.com/ozlfr62
    That rather implies that the other 1,400 killed by Republicans had it coming.

    Do you think Lee Rigby should be regarded in that light?
    Whatabouttery meets reductio ad absurdum in headlong smash.
    You're the one who's trying to come up with a spurious moral equivalence.
  • MP_SEMP_SE Posts: 3,642


    I'm already at uni!

    I was never that great at STEM subjects - fairly average in science and maths particularly. On Russell Group, while it's nice to get into one you don't need to go one in order to do well - there are top unis who aren't in the Russell Group. I don't expect to get rich, I'd just like to earn an average salary, and get a mortgage fora house one day!

    On law, it's one of those oversubscribed degrees now. Everyone wants to be a lawyer, but not everyone will be.

    The number of LPC graduates to the number of training contracts must be quite worrying to anyone studying law now who 1. doesn't go to a top uni, 2. hasn't got a decent amount of work experience, 3. does not know any lawyers to pester for vacation schemes/pupilages.
  • Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    But, people objectify each other. You meet someone you're attracted to, and you wonder what they'd look like without any clothes on. That's just human nature.

    Being attracted to someone and objectifying them isn't the same thing.
    I don't see how you can distinguish between objectification on the one hand and viewing another person as highly sexually desirable and wondering what they'd be like in bed on the other. At any rate, it seems a very fine, hair-splitting sort of distinction.
    Objectification is when you remove any 'human' characteristics that are a part of someone's personality/persona/mannerisms, and purely see them as object to use for own pleasure. When I've been attracted to someone, I've certainly not seen them like that.
    If you're genuinely attracted to someone you see them as more than an object, but certainly lust for that person is a strong part of that attraction.
    Lusting after someone isn't the same as seeing them as an object though.
    I think the Greeks came up with the correct distinction. Agape, pure, selfless love, focused on the well-being of the other person. And Eros, sexual desire. I felt both, when I met my future wife, 16 years ago. And the latter involves inevitably, objectification, IMHO.
    I think we'll agree to disagree, as I don't believe sexual desire does involve objectification.
    I think it can do, as the popularity of porno and prostitutes demonstrates (though there are some interesting power dynamics at play also to do with insecure men wanting to be able to exert domination and controlling behaviour).

    Such sexual desire tends to be transient and unsatisfactory. Anyone who has been in a loving relationship finds the sexual desire more fullfilling and it involves less objectification (if any). I think that romantic attachments are at least as commen in men as women.
    I should correct myself: It can involve objectification, but it doesn't have to. I agree with you though: I think that relationships are far healthier when they don't involve much objectification. On insecure men, well I think that's the reason why anal sex has become so popular. A lot of the desire for it is based on the power dynamic.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,516
    edited August 2015

    Sean_F said:

    Barnesian said:

    JEO said:

    alex. said:

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/20/jeremy-corbyn-apologise-iraq-war-behalf-labour-leader

    "Channel Four News has unearthed footage of Corbyn in 2014 comparing the actions of Isis to US forces retaking the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. “Yes they are brutal, yes some of what they have done is quite appalling, likewise what the Americans did in Fallujah and other places is appalling,” Corbyn told Russia Today.

    Corbyn’s campaign, in response, said he regarded Isis as a “vicious, repugnant force that has to be stopped”


    Any thoughts on how he proposes to stop them?

    So even now, his campaign just repeats the criticism of ISIS and doesn't take back the comparison with the US? It's just like that IRA interview, where every bad thing the IRA does is brought up and he compares it to the British.
    He seems to apply two princples in this area:
    1. He is on the side of the oppressed
    2. He is against the killing of civilians by any force no matter who.

    In the IRA interview he did condemn the IRA killings but only alongside the killing of civilians by Unionists and by the British military. He wasn't going to agree to single out only the IRA for condemnation no matter how hard the interviewer pushed. He is even-handed in his condemnation.
    The problem is, the IRA were both morally wrong and the worst offenders, in terms of killing.
    Not in terms of 'civilians'.

    Of those killed by British security forces:
    187 (~51.5%) were civilians

    Of those killed by republican paramilitaries:
    723 (~35%) were civilians

    Of those killed by loyalist paramilitaries:
    877 (~85.4%) were civilians

    http://tinyurl.com/ozlfr62
    right so when my mates got a bullet in the head because they were cops that didn't count ?

    Fuck off divvie that's plain offensive.
    You find statistics offensive?
    I find your interpretation of them offensive. A policeman is a civilan and I've seen too many of them buried so fuck off with your cunty staistics.

    tell me why Gabriel Mullaly deserved to be murdered ?

    https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?id=389486484477331&story_fbid=415466615212651

    or PC Micky Todd deserved an AK47 ?

    It's rare I get personal with you these days but thats over the mark. Fuck you.

  • alex.alex. Posts: 4,658
    A university education is, or should be, about a lot more than just getting a degree. And the value of the qualification itself will often not become apparent for several years afterwards. Looking at the first job or two after university is often misleading. However it has always seemed to me that a fundamental flaw in the UK university system is how once is forced down a narrow path before one might seriously be ready to choose. In that sense the US system (as i understand it) seems much better.

    That said, the value of the qualification (unless highly specialised) within the job market is often simply the extent to which it is a filtering mechanism for employers, where once the equivalent filter might have been A-Levels or even O-Levels.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,964

    JEO said:

    Sean_F said:

    But, people objectify each other. You meet someone you're attracted to, and you wonder what they'd look like without any clothes on. That's just human nature.

    Being attracted to someone and objectifying them isn't the same thing.
    He didn't say they were. But it's true: sometimes you objectify someone you are attracted to, even if most of the time you treat them as the three dimensional person they are.

    And you can't deny that magazines like Cosmopolitan have photos of shirtless gym-toned men all over them, so their readers can objectify them.
    BIB: Then that's wrong.

    On Comso: I've never denied objectification works both ways, however generally women are far more objectified than men.
    MP_SE said:

    Sean_F said:

    The trouble with UKIP, is that they don't really provide a solution to the housing problem. So I can't see many of my generation turning to them.

    I think there's a potential opening for UKIP. Just go for the massive house-building programme that we had in the 1930s and 1950s, and loosen planning controls. One thing we learned in May is that UKIP *doesn't* perform well among groups that will die in the ditch to prevent development. They are solidly Tory. UKIP's appeal is far more to the average C1/C2 voter.

    UKIP didn't do badly with young voters. 10% of 18-45 year olds backed them, according to Ipsos MORI.
    Having a landlord as your housing spokesman is not the smartest thing to do.

    There is huge potential for any party advocating mass house building. An interest rate rise would be nice as well. Should be some tasty discounts once all those zombie households start defaulting on their mortgage repayments.
    I think that will clearly on the way to being fixed before Labour get another shot at Govt.
  • tysontyson Posts: 6,117
    edited August 2015
    Re: page 3- PLATO, et al...

    I had a run in with the Sun's page 3 pics editor some years ago when one of my social work clients, a 16 year old girl, went off to do some photos with the Sun. I actually advocated for the pics to be published at the time, but I was shouted down by management. The girl subsequently went on to great fame in other matters, but she despised me for saying that we couldn't allow the pics to be published at the time

    But my point is, as a bloke, I find the page 3 pics really embarrassing to look at, especially if you are seen to be looking at them in public. I'm sure I'm not the only bloke to think this. They make me feel really uncomfortable. They must make women feel uncomfortable too. The world would just be a slightly better place without them.
  • john_zims said:

    The_Apocalypse

    'On law, it's one of those oversubscribed degrees now. Everyone wants to be a lawyer, but not everyone will be.'

    Yes, massively oversubscribed with yearly training contracts only available for approx. 50% of law graduates.
    But still a very good degree to have and recognized as such by employers.

    Really? I was advised that if you're not sure you want to be a lawyer, don't do law. I also don't think a law degree is worth much unless it's from a very very top uni, and you can get into a grad scheme.
  • Tim_BTim_B Posts: 7,669
    Speedy said:

    Tim_B said:

    HYUFD said:

    Tim_B said:

    HYUFD said:

    MTimT said:

    HYUFD said:

    MTimT said:

    HYUFD said:

    MTimT said:

    HYUFD said:

    MTimT said:

    MTimT said:

    For those who are not convinced that the email scandal is having any real effect on Hillary's chances, I recommend you take a gander at the charts towards the end of this article from the Washington Post:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/08/20/yes-its-a-major-problem-that-two-thirds-of-voters-dont-think-hillary-clinton-is-honest-or-trustworthy/

    (Why use one metaphor when two will do?)
    Hillary's chances are more linked to whether she faces Donald Trump or not than her emails
    Bollocks.
    ever be the choice.
    making that less likely
    electoral cycle.
    Well I am not going to stop debating you.

    I show plenty of knowledge of US politics and the GOP does historically tend to pick the frontrunner
    Well I am not going to stop debating you.
    You're not 'debating' anyone - you merely quote polls. We covered this before.

    I show plenty of knowledge of US politics
    Bugger all actually. We covered this before too.


    The fact I do not bow down and lick your boots at every opinion you come out with is no evidence at all for you to come out with a totally baseless statement like that!!
    The problem for Hillary is not her emails, but her lack of campaigning, maybe she thinks she doesn't need to campaign to get the nomination, that it will simply fall on her hand like an apple or something.
    She is doing the same mistake that Burnham, Cooper and Kendall did here, complacency that leaves the field to the only guy that actually campaigns, in her case Sanders, in our case Corbyn.
    Hillary actually campaigns a lot, but her events are carefully controlled, she typically won't talk to the press and she is usually in a roundtable environment rather than in front of a crowd. That's what you do when you have a weak candidate.

    Sanders is the total opposite.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    edited August 2015

    And after seeing Sun readers viewing Page 3 girls, I'd yes, they do believe that girl does exist purely for their entertainment and pleasure.

    The same is true of an opera fan listening to a wonderful soprano singing Casta diva. She's objectified, being regarded purely for the pleasure she gives the listener. The same is true of a tenor singing Che gelida manina. They're dehumanised, reduced to just beautiful voices.

    Equally, an athlete competing in the 100 metres is reduced to just a running machine, judged purely on a timing.

    I take it you want opera and athletics banned?
  • welshowlwelshowl Posts: 4,464


    Though I am a humble arts graduate I at least went to uni with a firm idea that I would use the skills it gave me ( languages ) to differentiate myself from others in the business job market, and by luck or judgement so it has proved, as I built a career in export sales before going on from there. If today's students, who have far less relative job market advantages than I did, don't pause at 18 and think that one through, well words fail me really. Welcome to the real world.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,172

    Sean_F said:

    Barnesian said:

    JEO said:

    alex. said:

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/20/jeremy-corbyn-apologise-iraq-war-behalf-labour-leader

    "Channel Four News has unearthed footage of Corbyn in 2014 comparing the actions of Isis to US forces retaking the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. “Yes they are brutal, yes some of what they have done is quite appalling, likewise what the Americans did in Fallujah and other places is appalling,” Corbyn told Russia Today.

    Corbyn’s campaign, in response, said he regarded Isis as a “vicious, repugnant force that has to be stopped”


    Any thoughts on how he proposes to stop them?

    So even now, his campaign just repeats the criticism of ISIS and doesn't take back the comparison with the US? It's just like that IRA interview, where every bad thing the IRA does is brought up and he compares it to the British.
    He seems to apply two princples in this area:
    1. He is on the side of the oppressed
    2. He is against the killing of civilians by any force no matter who.

    In the IRA interview he did condemn the IRA killings but only alongside the killing of civilians by Unionists and by the British military. He wasn't going to agree to single out only the IRA for condemnation no matter how hard the interviewer pushed. He is even-handed in his condemnation.
    The problem is, the IRA were both morally wrong and the worst offenders, in terms of killing.
    Not in terms of 'civilians'.

    Of those killed by British security forces:
    187 (~51.5%) were civilians

    Of those killed by republican paramilitaries:
    723 (~35%) were civilians

    Of those killed by loyalist paramilitaries:
    877 (~85.4%) were civilians

    http://tinyurl.com/ozlfr62
    right so when my mates got a bullet in the head because they were cops that didn't count ?

    Fuck off divvie that's plain offensive.
    You find statistics offensive?
    I find your interpretation of them offensive. A policeman is a civilan and I've seen too many of them buried so fuck off with your cunty staistics.

    tell me why Gabriel Mullaly deserved to be murdered ?

    https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?id=389486484477331&story_fbid=415466615212651

    or PC Micky Todd deserved an AK47 ?

    It's rare I get personal with you these days but thats over the mark. Fuck you.

    I think we'll leave it at that, shall we?
  • flightpath01flightpath01 Posts: 4,903
    Sean_F said:

    Barnesian said:

    Sean_F said:

    Barnesian said:

    JEO said:

    alex. said:

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/20/jeremy-corbyn-apologise-iraq-war-behalf-labour-leader

    "Channel Four News has unearthed footage of Corbyn in 2014 comparing the actions of Isis to US forces retaking the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. “Yes they are brutal, yes some of what they have done is quite appalling, likewise what the Americans did in Fallujah and other places is appalling,” Corbyn told Russia Today.

    Corbyn’s campaign, in response, said he regarded Isis as a “vicious, repugnant force that has to be stopped”


    Any thoughts on how he proposes to stop them?

    So even now, his campaign just repeats the criticism of ISIS and doesn't take back the comparison with the US? It's just like that IRA interview, where every bad thing the IRA does is brought up and he compares it to the British.
    He seems to apply two princples in this area:
    1. He is on the side of the oppressed
    2. He is against the killing of civilians by any force no matter who.

    In the IRA interview he did condemn the IRA killings but only alongside the killing of civilians by Unionists and by the British military. He wasn't going to agree to single out only the IRA for condemnation no matter how hard the interviewer pushed. He is even-handed in his condemnation.
    The problem is, the IRA were both morally wrong and the worst offenders, in terms of killing.

    It's like saying you regard all killings in WWII as equally bad.
    All the killings of innocent civilians in the Irish "Troubles" were morally wrong. The IRA killed about 2,000 people of whom about 35% were civilians. The Loyalist paramilitary groups killed about 1,000 people of whom about 85% were civilians. British security forces killed about 360 people of whom about 50% were civilians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles#Casualties

    All the mass killings of innocent civilians in WWII were atrocious and equally bad.
    For the IRA, Unionist politicians and voters, civil servants, census-takers, postal workers, Conservative politicians and party members, magistrates were all "legitimate targets".
    Barnsian says ''the IRA killed about 2,000 people of whom about 35% were civilians'' thats all right then because we must not count the policemen and women and the prison warders.
    What an appalling series of steps backwards we are taking thanks to the odious Citizen Corbyn.
    Never mind the leadership result - Labour gave this cretin a platform and expect us to think they are competent to run a country?
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,516

    Sean_F said:

    Barnesian said:

    JEO said:

    alex. said:

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/20/jeremy-corbyn-apologise-iraq-war-behalf-labour-leader

    "Channel Four News has unearthed footage of Corbyn in 2014 comparing the actions of Isis to US forces retaking the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. “Yes they are brutal, yes some of what they have done is quite appalling, likewise what the Americans did in Fallujah and other places is appalling,” Corbyn told Russia Today.

    Corbyn’s campaign, in response, said he regarded Isis as a “vicious, repugnant force that has to be stopped”


    Any thoughts on how he proposes to stop them?

    So even now, his campaign just repeats the criticism of ISIS and doesn't take back the comparison with the US? It's just like that IRA interview, where every bad thing the IRA does is brought up and he compares it to the British.
    He seems to apply two princples in this area:
    1. He is on the side of the oppressed
    2. He is against the killing of civilians by any force no matter who.

    In the IRA interview he did condemn the IRA killings but only alongside the killing of civilians by Unionists and by the British military. He wasn't going to agree to single out only the IRA for condemnation no matter how hard the interviewer pushed. He is even-handed in his condemnation.
    The problem is, the IRA were both morally wrong and the worst offenders, in terms of killing.
    Not in terms of 'civilians'.

    Of those killed by British security forces:
    187 (~51.5%) were civilians

    Of those killed by republican paramilitaries:
    723 (~35%) were civilians

    Of those killed by loyalist paramilitaries:
    877 (~85.4%) were civilians

    http://tinyurl.com/ozlfr62
    right so when my mates got a bullet in the head because they were cops that didn't count ?

    Fuck off divvie that's plain offensive.
    You find statistics offensive?
    I find your interpretation of them offensive. A policeman is a civilan and I've seen too many of them buried so fuck off with your cunty staistics.

    tell me why Gabriel Mullaly deserved to be murdered ?

    https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?id=389486484477331&story_fbid=415466615212651

    or PC Micky Todd deserved an AK47 ?

    It's rare I get personal with you these days but thats over the mark. Fuck you.

    I think we'll leave it at that, shall we?
    Is that an apology or a run away ?
  • FinancierFinancier Posts: 3,916
    Ben Bradshaw was absolutely hopeless on Newsnight when trying to defend the Labour purge on suspected non-Labour leadership voters.. He was up against a Labour member who stopped voting Labour after the Iraq war and voted Green at the last GE.
  • @HurstLlama I know graduates in humanities subjects who have done reasonably well, so it's not all bad news. But I don't consider myself misled, even despite my own pessimistic outlook. My experience of going to uni has helped me grow as a person, and either way is something to put on my CV.
  • TykejohnnoTykejohnno Posts: 7,362
    tyson said:

    That is really eloquent and well argued. In fact I have now changed my mind completely- and we should repatriate all EU, and foreign born immigrants and then see how the UK fares.

    tyson said:

    Apocalypse- immigration is desirable on so many levels. It has single handedly been responsible for delivering us economic growth over the last few decades. The Tories know this as much as Labour.

    Our great NHS would be on it's arse without attracting staff from outside the EU.

    Labour has simply been (slightly) more honest about the benefits of immigration compared to our Tory comrades- and seemingly has paid an electoral price.

    We need ever more numbers of immigrants in ever more increasing numbers to manage our ageing population and skills shortage.

    The African migrant crisis is a mere distraction for the issue that the UK has to open its arms to immigrants of all nations (even those outside the EU) to prosper.



    AnneJGP said:

    One thing I would like the Labour party to be giving serious attention to is how we absorb all the would-be immigrants, whether they are asylum-seekers or economic migrants. It seems to me the only long-term answer is that the whole indigenous population will be compelled to accept a significantly lower standard of living all round.

    If we are to accept all the people who wish to come here we do need to prepare ourselves for the inevitable impacts. As with everything, it's going to be those at the bottom of society who will suffer the most. I reckon it will be much better to grasp the nettle & start giving it serious thought.

    I'd be interested in your thoughts on this.

    I think the ideal situation would be to restrict freedom of movement within the EU, and in regard to migrant crisis to develop a long-term solution where migrants' countries can become habitable again. However the former isn't possible, but I think Labour really need to start acknowledging the issue of immigration if they want the electorate to even consider them remotely credible.
    You do speak bollocks on immigration.
    Well your well argued point is that all the terrible young men of economic refugees /some asylum seekers hanging round street corners in Italy should be deported here because they would be better off according to you.

    The NHS wouldn't need more nurses from overseas if we didn't take in millions more immigrants and the ageing population needs more immigration,immigrants get old too pal.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,553

    Sean_F said:

    Barnesian said:

    Sean_F said:

    Barnesian said:

    JEO said:

    alex. said:

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/20/jeremy-corbyn-apologise-iraq-war-behalf-labour-leader

    "Channel Four News has unearthed footage of Corbyn in 2014 comparing the actions of Isis to US forces retaking the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. “Yes they are brutal, yes some of what they have done is quite appalling, likewise what the Americans did in Fallujah and other places is appalling,” Corbyn told Russia Today.

    Corbyn’s campaign, in response, said he regarded Isis as a “vicious, repugnant force that has to be stopped”


    Any thoughts on how he proposes to stop them?

    So even now, his campaign just repeats the criticism of ISIS and doesn't take back the comparison with the US? It's just like that IRA interview, where every bad thing the IRA does is brought up and he compares it to the British.
    He seems to apply two princples in this area:
    1. He is on the side of the oppressed
    2. He is against the killing of civilians by any force no matter who.

    In the IRA interview he did condemn the IRA killings but only alongside the killing of civilians by Unionists and by the British military. He wasn't going to agree to single out only the IRA for condemnation no matter how hard the interviewer pushed. He is even-handed in his condemnation.
    The problem is, the IRA were both morally wrong and the worst offenders, in terms of killing.

    It's like saying you regard all killings in WWII as equally bad.
    All the killings of innocent civilians in the Irish "Troubles" were morally wrong. The IRA killed about 2,000 people of whom about 35% were civilians. The Loyalist paramilitary groups killed about 1,000 people of whom about 85% were civilians. British security forces killed about 360 people of whom about 50% were civilians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles#Casualties

    All the mass killings of innocent civilians in WWII were atrocious and equally bad.
    For the IRA, Unionist politicians and voters, civil servants, census-takers, postal workers, Conservative politicians and party members, magistrates were all "legitimate targets".
    Barnsian says ''the IRA killed about 2,000 people of whom about 35% were civilians'' thats all right then because we must not count the policemen and women and the prison warders.
    What an appalling series of steps backwards we are taking thanks to the odious Citizen Corbyn.
    Never mind the leadership result - Labour gave this cretin a platform and expect us to think they are competent to run a country?
    Few things make me very annoyed, but apologetics for the IRA are one of them.
  • MP_SEMP_SE Posts: 3,642

    john_zims said:

    The_Apocalypse

    'On law, it's one of those oversubscribed degrees now. Everyone wants to be a lawyer, but not everyone will be.'

    Yes, massively oversubscribed with yearly training contracts only available for approx. 50% of law graduates.
    But still a very good degree to have and recognized as such by employers.

    Really? I was advised that if you're not sure you want to be a lawyer, don't do law. I also don't think a law degree is worth much unless it's from a very very top uni, and you can get into a grad scheme.
    Law is a well respected degree which has a reputation for being particularly difficult. I can't think of many non STEM degrees where the same can be said.
  • And after seeing Sun readers viewing Page 3 girls, I'd yes, they do believe that girl does exist purely for their entertainment and pleasure.

    The same is true of an opera fan listening to a wonderful soprano singing Casta diva. She's objectified, being regarded purely for the pleasure she gives the listener. The same is true of a tenor singing Che gelida manina. They're dehumanised, reduced to just a beautiful voice.

    Equally, an athlete competing in the 100 metres is reduced to just a running machine, judged purely on a timing.

    I take it you want opera and athletics banned?
    I don't want to ban page 3, though I don't really agree with the examples you've used. There's a difference between appreciating someone's skill at singing or sport, to sexual objectification. For a start a skill is a part of who someone is, and liking a voice, or watching someone run does not literally mean you think it's there for your pleasure. Whereas objectification, as I explained previously is where you think someone is literally there for your sexual pleasure and entertainment; where their own personality, thoughts, feelings, desires don't come into the picture.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,051
    edited August 2015

    'I'm already at uni!

    I was never that great at STEM subjects - fairly average in science and maths particularly. On Russell Group, while it's nice to get into one you don't need to go one in order to do well - there are top unis who aren't in the Russell Group. I don't expect to get rich, I'd just like to earn an average salary, and get a mortgage fora house one day!

    On law, it's one of those oversubscribed degrees now. Everyone wants to be a lawyer, but not everyone will be. '

    If you are graduate then you are likely to at least make an average salary, as for law degrees or law conversion students again it is graduates of the Russell Group who are most likely to get a training contract with a City or Corporate Firm and Oxbridge graduates who are most likely to get a top pupillage in a civil chambers
  • john_zimsjohn_zims Posts: 3,399
    @The_Apocalypse

    'Really? I was advised that if you're not sure you want to be a lawyer, don't do law. I also don't think a law degree is worth much unless it's from a very very top uni, and you can get into a grad scheme.'

    My son did Law with French at UAE ,got a training contract but didn't enjoy law and changed career. At subsequent interviews apparently the Law degree went down well as it was recognized as being a tough degree.
  • MP_SE said:

    john_zims said:

    The_Apocalypse

    'On law, it's one of those oversubscribed degrees now. Everyone wants to be a lawyer, but not everyone will be.'

    Yes, massively oversubscribed with yearly training contracts only available for approx. 50% of law graduates.
    But still a very good degree to have and recognized as such by employers.

    Really? I was advised that if you're not sure you want to be a lawyer, don't do law. I also don't think a law degree is worth much unless it's from a very very top uni, and you can get into a grad scheme.
    Law is a well respected degree which has a reputation for being particularly difficult. I can't think of many non STEM degrees where the same can be said.
    As I said: it depends where you go. A law degree from St Andrews is respected - but one from Westminster? Most likely not.

  • flightpath01flightpath01 Posts: 4,903

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Barnesian said:

    JEO said:

    alex. said:

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/20/jeremy-corbyn-apologise-iraq-war-behalf-labour-leader

    "Channel Four News has unearthed footage of Corbyn in 2014 comparing the actions of Isis to US forces retaking the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. “Yes they are brutal, yes some of what they have done is quite appalling, likewise what the Americans did in Fallujah and other places is appalling,” Corbyn told Russia Today.

    Corbyn’s campaign, in response, said he regarded Isis as a “vicious, repugnant force that has to be stopped”


    Any thoughts on how he proposes to stop them?

    So even now, his campaign just repeats the criticism of ISIS and doesn't take back the comparison with the US? It's just like that IRA interview, where every bad thing the IRA does is brought up and he compares it to the British.
    He seems to apply two princples in this area:
    1. He is on the side of the oppressed
    2. He is against the killing of civilians by any force no matter who.

    In the IRA interview he did condemn the IRA killings but only alongside the killing of civilians by Unionists and by the British military. He wasn't going to agree to single out only the IRA for condemnation no matter how hard the interviewer pushed. He is even-handed in his condemnation.
    The problem is, the IRA were both morally wrong and the worst offenders, in terms of killing.
    Not in terms of 'civilians'.

    Of those killed by British security forces:
    187 (~51.5%) were civilians

    Of those killed by republican paramilitaries:
    723 (~35%) were civilians

    Of those killed by loyalist paramilitaries:
    877 (~85.4%) were civilians

    http://tinyurl.com/ozlfr62
    That rather implies that the other 1,400 killed by Republicans had it coming.

    Do you think Lee Rigby should be regarded in that light?
    Whatabouttery meets reductio ad absurdum in headlong smash.
    Cobblers. The the whole charade of self serving pro IRA percentage playing is pathetic and deserves all the horse manure poured over it. Absurdum too right you are.
  • foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    But, people objectify each other. You meet someone you're attracted to, and you wonder what they'd look like without any clothes on. That's just human nature.

    Being attracted to someone and objectifying them isn't the same thing.
    I don't see how you can distinguish between objectification on the one hand and viewing another person as highly sexually desirable and wondering what they'd be like in bed on the other. At any rate, it seems a very fine, hair-splitting sort of distinction.
    Objectification is when you remove any 'human' characteristics that are a part of someone's personality/persona/mannerisms, and purely see them as object to use for own pleasure. When I've been attracted to someone, I've certainly not seen them like that.
    If you're genuinely attracted to someone you see them as more than an object, but certainly lust for that person is a strong part of that attraction.
    Lusting after someone isn't the same as seeing them as an object .
    I think we'll agree to disagree, as I don't believe sexual desire does involve objectification.
    I think it can do, as the popularity of porno and prostitutes demonstrates (though there are some interesting power dynamics at play also to do with insecure men wanting to be able to exert domination and controlling behaviour).

    Such sexual desire tends to be transient and unsatisfactory. Anyone who has been in a loving relationship finds the sexual desire more fullfilling and it involves less objectification (if any). I think that romantic attachments are at least as commen in men as women.
    I should correct myself: It can involve objectification, but it doesn't have to. I agree with you though: I think that relationships are far healthier when they don't involve much objectification. On insecure men, well I think that's the reason why anal sex has become so popular. A lot of the desire for it is based on the power dynamic.
    If you are interested in the politics of sex then you may find this book interesting:

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1180583.Mapping_Desire

    It does date from the early nineties so has not up to date with the online world, but is an interesting piece of work on sex (and transgressive sex in particular) across cultures.

  • john_zims said:

    @The_Apocalypse

    'Really? I was advised that if you're not sure you want to be a lawyer, don't do law. I also don't think a law degree is worth much unless it's from a very very top uni, and you can get into a grad scheme.'

    My son did Law with French at UAE ,got a training contract but didn't enjoy law and changed career. At subsequent interviews apparently the Law degree went down well as it was recognized as being a tough degree.

    I was advised by someone who did Philosophy at Cambridge, and then changed to law via conversion (she's now working for a law firm btw).
  • alex.alex. Posts: 4,658

    john_zims said:

    The_Apocalypse

    'On law, it's one of those oversubscribed degrees now. Everyone wants to be a lawyer, but not everyone will be.'

    Yes, massively oversubscribed with yearly training contracts only available for approx. 50% of law graduates.
    But still a very good degree to have and recognized as such by employers.

    Really? I was advised that if you're not sure you want to be a lawyer, don't do law. I also don't think a law degree is worth much unless it's from a very very top uni, and you can get into a grad scheme.
    Standard advice for anyone thinking that doing Law A-Level might have any merit, didn't think it extended to a degree.

  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,040

    MP_SE said:

    john_zims said:

    The_Apocalypse

    'On law, it's one of those oversubscribed degrees now. Everyone wants to be a lawyer, but not everyone will be.'

    Yes, massively oversubscribed with yearly training contracts only available for approx. 50% of law graduates.
    But still a very good degree to have and recognized as such by employers.

    Really? I was advised that if you're not sure you want to be a lawyer, don't do law. I also don't think a law degree is worth much unless it's from a very very top uni, and you can get into a grad scheme.
    Law is a well respected degree which has a reputation for being particularly difficult. I can't think of many non STEM degrees where the same can be said.
    As I said: it depends where you go. A law degree from St Andrews is respected - but one from Westminster? Most likely not.

    St Andrews does not teach law. Once upon a time it was conjoined with Dundee University and when they split Law stayed with Dundee.
  • DairDair Posts: 6,108

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    But, people objectify each other. You meet someone you're attracted to, and you wonder what they'd look like without any clothes on. That's just human nature.

    Being attracted to someone and objectifying them isn't the same thing.
    I don't see how you can distinguish between objectification on the one hand and viewing another person as highly sexually desirable and wondering what they'd be like in bed on the other. At any rate, it seems a very fine, hair-splitting sort of distinction.
    Objectification is when you remove any 'human' characteristics that are a part of someone's personality/persona/mannerisms, and purely see them as object to use for own pleasure. When I've been attracted to someone, I've certainly not seen them like that.
    If you're genuinely attracted to someone you see them as more than an object, but certainly lust for that person is a strong part of that attraction.
    Lusting after someone isn't the same as seeing them as an object though.
    Because, presumably, you just wanna start a book club with them...
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822

    For a start a skill is a part of who someone is, and liking a voice, or watching someone run does not literally mean you think it's there for your pleasure. Whereas objectification, as I explained previously is where you think someone is literally there for your sexual pleasure and entertainment; where their own personality, thoughts, feelings, desires don't come into the picture.

    A distinction without a difference. If you hear a pretty voice, you think 'that's a pretty voice', and you enjoy the fact that she's singing for your (and others') pleasure. If you see a picture of a pretty girl, you think 'that's a pretty girl'. Or even 'that's a girl who, in the right circumstances, and if I wasn't happily married, and if I wasn't too old and bald for her, then in some fantasy world....'.

    In none of these cases are you thinking that your reaction represents the entirely of the real human being who is being paid to entertain you.
  • FinancierFinancier Posts: 3,916

    @HurstLlama I know graduates in humanities subjects who have done reasonably well, so it's not all bad news. But I don't consider myself misled, even despite my own pessimistic outlook. My experience of going to uni has helped me grow as a person, and either way is something to put on my CV.

    It used to be accepted that regardless of the subject of your degree, going to university taught the undergraduate how to think and think critically. However, after a lot of graduate interviews this year, we are finding that truism no longer holds in general.

    Personally, my favourite subjects were and still are History and English Lit; however when choosing my degree course (many years ago) I did not like the potential careers in those subjects at that time. I also liked Chemistry and got a scholarship to study Chem Eng at uni. From there, whilst being employed, I did a Marketing degree and then a Harvard MBA. My driving force was, and still is, understanding how things work - whether technical or societal.
    However, our business has become a global leader purely due to our radical thinking which results in giving clients economic solutions to their problems.
  • Moses_Moses_ Posts: 4,865
    tyson said:

    Re: page 3- PLATO, et al...

    I had a run in with the Sun's page 3 pics editor some years ago when one of my social work clients, a 16 year old girl, went off to do some photos with the Sun. I actually advocated for the pics to be published at the time, but I was shouted down by management. The girl subsequently went on to great fame in other matters, but she despised me for saying that we couldn't allow the pics to be published at the time

    But my point is, as a bloke, I find the page 3 pics really embarrassing to look at, especially if you are seen to be looking at them in public. I'm sure I'm not the only bloke to think this. They make me feel really uncomfortable. They must make women feel uncomfortable too. The world would just be a slightly better place without them.

    Simple solution.....Don't buy the Sun and look at page 3 in public.
  • welshowlwelshowl Posts: 4,464

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Barnesian said:

    JEO said:

    alex. said:

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/20/jeremy-corbyn-apologise-iraq-war-behalf-labour-leader

    "Channel Four News has unearthed footage of Corbyn in 2014 comparing the actions of Isis to US forces retaking the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. “Yes they are brutal, yes some of what they have done is quite appalling, likewise what the Americans did in Fallujah and other places is appalling,” Corbyn told Russia Today.

    Corbyn’s campaign, in response, said he regarded Isis as a “vicious, repugnant force that has to be stopped”


    Any thoughts on how he proposes to stop them?

    So even now, his campaign just repeats the criticism of ISIS and doesn't take back the comparison with the US? It's just like that IRA interview, where every bad thing the IRA does is brought up and he compares it to the British.
    He seems to apply two princples in this area:
    1. He is on the side of the oppressed
    2. He is against the killing of civilians by any force no matter who.

    In the IRA interview he did condemn the IRA killings but only alongside the killing of civilians by Unionists and by the British military. He wasn't going to agree to single out only the IRA for condemnation no matter how hard the interviewer pushed. He is even-handed in his condemnation.
    The problem is, the IRA were both morally wrong and the worst offenders, in terms of killing.
    Not in terms of 'civilians'.

    Of those killed by British security forces:
    187 (~51.5%) were civilians

    Of those killed by republican paramilitaries:
    723 (~35%) were civilians

    Of those killed by loyalist paramilitaries:
    877 (~85.4%) were civilians

    http://tinyurl.com/ozlfr62
    That rather implies that the other 1,400 killed by Republicans had it coming.

    Do you think Lee Rigby should be regarded in that light?
    Whatabouttery meets reductio ad absurdum in headlong smash.
    Utter bollocks I'm afraid.
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    edited August 2015
    alex. said:

    A university education is, or should be, about a lot more than just getting a degree. And the value of the qualification itself will often not become apparent for several years afterwards. Looking at the first job or two after university is often misleading. However it has always seemed to me that a fundamental flaw in the UK university system is how once is forced down a narrow path before one might seriously be ready to choose. In that sense the US system (as i understand it) seems much better.

    That said, the value of the qualification (unless highly specialised) within the job market is often simply the extent to which it is a filtering mechanism for employers, where once the equivalent filter might have been A-Levels or even O-Levels.

    If you want personal tuition you have to go to Oxbridge. That isn't a good situation IMO.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,172



    Is that an apology or a run away ?


    It's certainly not an apology. If you go off on one at the bare reproduction of some text on Wiki, your skin thinness is obviously at gold leaf levels.

    It's a great recurring PB theme, those with little experience or knowledge of one place in these little islands feeling perfectly entitled to comment in the most disobliging terms upon that place, while on a hair trigger about their own shibboleths.
  • tysontyson Posts: 6,117
    Apocalypse- my point is that we cannot afford to stop immigration. We rely on it for our basic services, and for economic growth. Any meaningful studies show that mass immigration benefits the economy. And so benefits our public services through filling staff shortages, and paying the taxes that keeps them going.

    Of course many immigrants go into shitty accommodation. But I've done too, when I was young, trying to improve myself. But many of them rise out of it like I did.

    We should be pleased that we are a country that both attracts immigrants, and that benefits from immigration.

    @tyson I'm not saying that immigration doesn't have its benefits - my own grandparents were immigrants, and I don't agree with an awful lot of UKIP's rhetoric on the issue. I'm not advocating that immigration should be stopped entirely, either. But cheap labour means wages - and thus living standards - are getting undercut, and many immigrants come here and live in rubbish conditions - creating even more poverty and inequality. We need to know that if immigrants are coming here we can afford it: in terms of education, housing, the NHS etc. And I think we can't afford large-scale immigration.

  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,553

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Barnesian said:

    JEO said:

    alex. said:

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/20/jeremy-corbyn-apologise-iraq-war-behalf-labour-leader

    "Channel Four News has unearthed footage of Corbyn in 2014 comparing the actions of Isis to US forces retaking the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. “Yes they are brutal, yes some of what they have done is quite appalling, likewise what the Americans did in Fallujah and other places is appalling,” Corbyn told Russia Today.

    Corbyn’s campaign, in response, said he regarded Isis as a “vicious, repugnant force that has to be stopped”


    Any thoughts on how he proposes to stop them?

    So even now, his campaign just repeats the criticism of ISIS and doesn't take back the comparison with the US? It's just like that IRA interview, where every bad thing the IRA does is brought up and he compares it to the British.
    He seems to apply two princples in this area:
    1. He is on the side of the oppressed
    2. He is against the killing of civilians by any force no matter who.

    In the IRA interview he did condemn the IRA killings but only alongside the killing of civilians by Unionists and by the British military. He wasn't going to agree to single out only the IRA for condemnation no matter how hard the interviewer pushed. He is even-handed in his condemnation.
    The problem is, the IRA were both morally wrong and the worst offenders, in terms of killing.
    Not in terms of 'civilians'.

    Of those killed by British security forces:
    187 (~51.5%) were civilians

    Of those killed by republican paramilitaries:
    723 (~35%) were civilians

    Of those killed by loyalist paramilitaries:
    877 (~85.4%) were civilians

    http://tinyurl.com/ozlfr62
    That rather implies that the other 1,400 killed by Republicans had it coming.

    Do you think Lee Rigby should be regarded in that light?
    Whatabouttery meets reductio ad absurdum in headlong smash.
    Cobblers. The the whole charade of self serving pro IRA percentage playing is pathetic and deserves all the horse manure poured over it. Absurdum too right you are.
    For the far left, the IRA in the 1970s and 1980s fulfilled the same role as Islamist radicals do today. Backward, reactionary, wanting to drag society back to the 17th century, but anti-British, so their heart was in the right place.
  • foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548

    tyson said:

    That is really eloquent and well argued. In fact I have now changed my mind completely- and we should repatriate all EU, and foreign born immigrants and then see how the UK fares.

    tyson said:

    Apocalypse- immigration is desirable on so many levels. It has single handedly been responsible for delivering us economic growth over the last few decades. The Tories know this as much as Labour.

    Our great NHS would be on it's arse without attracting staff from outside the EU.

    Labour has simply been (slightly) more honest about the benefits of immigration compared to our Tory comrades- and seemingly has paid an electoral price.

    We need ever more numbers of immigrants in ever more increasing numbers to manage our ageing population and skills shortage.

    The African migrant crisis is a mere distraction for the issue that the UK has to open its arms to immigrants of all nations (even those outside the EU) to prosper.



    AnneJGP said:

    One thing I would like the Labour party to be giving serious attention to is how we absorb all the would-be immigrants, whether they are asylum-seekers or economic migrants. It seems to me the only long-term answer is that the whole indigenous population will be compelled to accept a significantly lower standard of living all round.

    If we are to

    I'd be interested in your thoughts on this.

    I think the ideal situation would be to restrict freedom
    You do speak bollocks on immigration.
    Well your well argued point is that all the terrible young men of economic refugees /some asylum seekers hanging round street corners in Italy should be deported here because they would be better off according to you.

    The NHS wouldn't need more nurses from overseas if we didn't take in millions more immigrants and the ageing population needs more immigration,immigrants get old too pal.
    I was involved in a case recently of an illegal immigrant who came via casualty with a serious problem. He had been seen in the hospital a number of times and had never paid his bill (we bill those not entitled to NHS care). We did some emergency care but have refused to see him for follow up unless he pays. It is an interesting situation, and we did contact the immigration service to see if they wanted to come and enforce deportation on him. They were not interested. It was all a bit unsatisfactory. I suspect we will see him again when he next comes with a flare up.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,172
    welshowl said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Barnesian said:

    JEO said:

    alex. said:

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/20/jeremy-corbyn-apologise-iraq-war-behalf-labour-leader

    "Channel Four News has unearthed footage of Corbyn in 2014 comparing the actions of Isis to US forces retaking the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. “Yes they are brutal, yes some of what they have done is quite appalling, likewise what the Americans did in Fallujah and other places is appalling,” Corbyn told Russia Today.

    Corbyn’s campaign, in response, said he regarded Isis as a “vicious, repugnant force that has to be stopped”


    Any thoughts on how he proposes to stop them?

    So even now, his campaign just repeats the criticism of ISIS and doesn't take back the comparison with the US? It's just like that IRA interview, where every bad thing the IRA does is brought up and he compares it to the British.
    He seems to apply two princples in this area:
    1. He is on the side of the oppressed
    2. He is against the killing of civilians by any force no matter who.

    In the IRA interview he did condemn the IRA killings but only alongside the killing of civilians by Unionists and by the British military. He wasn't going to agree to single out only the IRA for condemnation no matter how hard the interviewer pushed. He is even-handed in his condemnation.
    The problem is, the IRA were both morally wrong and the worst offenders, in terms of killing.
    Not in terms of 'civilians'.

    Of those killed by British security forces:
    187 (~51.5%) were civilians

    Of those killed by republican paramilitaries:
    723 (~35%) were civilians

    Of those killed by loyalist paramilitaries:
    877 (~85.4%) were civilians

    http://tinyurl.com/ozlfr62
    That rather implies that the other 1,400 killed by Republicans had it coming.

    Do you think Lee Rigby should be regarded in that light?
    Whatabouttery meets reductio ad absurdum in headlong smash.
    Utter bollocks I'm afraid.
    I'm glad you agree.
  • welshowlwelshowl Posts: 4,464
    tyson said:

    Apocalypse- my point is that we cannot afford to stop immigration. We rely on it for our basic services, and for economic growth. Any meaningful studies show that mass immigration benefits the economy. And so benefits our public services through filling staff shortages, and paying the taxes that keeps them going.

    Of course many immigrants go into shitty accommodation. But I've done too, when I was young, trying to improve myself. But many of them rise out of it like I did.

    We should be pleased that we are a country that both attracts immigrants, and that benefits from immigration.

    @tyson I'm not saying that immigration doesn't have its benefits - my own grandparents were immigrants, and I don't agree with an awful lot of UKIP's rhetoric on the issue. I'm not advocating that immigration should be stopped entirely, either. But cheap labour means wages - and thus living standards - are getting undercut, and many immigrants come here and live in rubbish conditions - creating even more poverty and inequality. We need to know that if immigrants are coming here we can afford it: in terms of education, housing, the NHS etc. And I think we can't afford large-scale immigration.

    And what about those already here negatively affected? Say the electrician who has to drop his rates by 50%? Does he not get a say?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    I see Le Pen's finally been expelled from the party he founded. Whatever else might be said about his daughter's positions, see seems the only vaguely sensible one in the family, when it comes to politics.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34009901
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,516
    edited August 2015



    Is that an apology or a run away ?


    It's certainly not an apology. If you go off on one at the bare reproduction of some text on Wiki, your skin thinness is obviously at gold leaf levels.

    It's a great recurring PB theme, those with little experience or knowledge of one place in these little islands feeling perfectly entitled to comment in the most disobliging terms upon that place, while on a hair trigger about their own shibboleths.
    Err what family friends being murdered via wiki ? Sod off. Anyone I've quoted Ive known and your views are just plain offensive.

    If you'd any sense you'd say sorry.

    you haven't
  • TykejohnnoTykejohnno Posts: 7,362
    tyson said:

    Apocalypse- my point is that we cannot afford to stop immigration. We rely on it for our basic services, and for economic growth. Any meaningful studies show that mass immigration benefits the economy. And so benefits our public services through filling staff shortages, and paying the taxes that keeps them going.

    Of course many immigrants go into shitty accommodation. But I've done too, when I was young, trying to improve myself. But many of them rise out of it like I did.

    We should be pleased that we are a country that both attracts immigrants, and that benefits from immigration.

    @tyson I'm not saying that immigration doesn't have its benefits - my own grandparents were immigrants, and I don't agree with an awful lot of UKIP's rhetoric on the issue. I'm not advocating that immigration should be stopped entirely, either. But cheap labour means wages - and thus living standards - are getting undercut, and many immigrants come here and live in rubbish conditions - creating even more poverty and inequality. We need to know that if immigrants are coming here we can afford it: in terms of education, housing, the NHS etc. And I think we can't afford large-scale immigration.

    When do we expect Italy to have a rightwing anti immigrant government ? Look what's happening in Swedish politics and will start happening in Germany.
  • DairDair Posts: 6,108

    JEO said:


    Not necessarily that they think of their personality, but they certainly won't believe that their partner exists purely for their entertainment and pleasure.

    At the moment of lust, I don't think most people entertain complex thoughts. I also don't think a Sun reader believes a Page 3 girl exists purely for their entertainment and pleasure.
    Is it really a complex thought not to see your partner as just there for your pleasure? I don't think it is.

    And after seeing Sun readers viewing Page 3 girls, I'd yes, they do believe that girl does exist purely for their entertainment and pleasure.
    I know I've asked this before but you avoided answering.

    How do you actually process women into BDSM as the sub, women into DD/LG and women into rape fantasies? These (relatively common) paraphilias do not fit in with your worldview.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,553



    Is that an apology or a run away ?


    It's certainly not an apology. If you go off on one at the bare reproduction of some text on Wiki, your skin thinness is obviously at gold leaf levels.

    It's a great recurring PB theme, those with little experience or knowledge of one place in these little islands feeling perfectly entitled to comment in the most disobliging terms upon that place, while on a hair trigger about their own shibboleths.
    If you support the IRA just say so. It's like people who obviously wish the holocaust had taken place, but waste lots of breath denying it ever happened.
  • MP_SEMP_SE Posts: 3,642
    alex. said:

    john_zims said:

    The_Apocalypse

    'On law, it's one of those oversubscribed degrees now. Everyone wants to be a lawyer, but not everyone will be.'

    Yes, massively oversubscribed with yearly training contracts only available for approx. 50% of law graduates.
    But still a very good degree to have and recognized as such by employers.

    Really? I was advised that if you're not sure you want to be a lawyer, don't do law. I also don't think a law degree is worth much unless it's from a very very top uni, and you can get into a grad scheme.
    Standard advice for anyone thinking that doing Law A-Level might have any merit, didn't think it extended to a degree.

    I am pretty sure the prospectus I had from either Oxbridge or LSE had A-Level law listed as one of the subjects they would not consider for the total number of UCAS points required for admission. Always thought that was weird as law at an undergraduate level is generally well regarded, whereas, at A-Level it is lumped with all the other mickey mouse courses like General Studies.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,172



    Is that an apology or a run away ?


    It's certainly not an apology. If you go off on one at the bare reproduction of some text on Wiki, your skin thinness is obviously at gold leaf levels.

    It's a great recurring PB theme, those with little experience or knowledge of one place in these little islands feeling perfectly entitled to comment in the most disobliging terms upon that place, while on a hair trigger about their own shibboleths.
    Err what family friends being murdered via wiki ? Sod off. Anyone I've quoted Ive known and your views are just palin offensive.

    If you'd any sense you'd say sorry.

    you haven't
    Now I can't even understand what you're trying to say.
  • tysontyson Posts: 6,117
    That Mr Nabavi is really one of the most stupid arguments I have ever read here.

    Page 3 should have disappeared when they stopped making Carry on Movies, or when Love Thy Neighbour finished.

    And after seeing Sun readers viewing Page 3 girls, I'd yes, they do believe that girl does exist purely for their entertainment and pleasure.

    The same is true of an opera fan listening to a wonderful soprano singing Casta diva. She's objectified, being regarded purely for the pleasure she gives the listener. The same is true of a tenor singing Che gelida manina. They're dehumanised, reduced to just beautiful voices.

    Equally, an athlete competing in the 100 metres is reduced to just a running machine, judged purely on a timing.

    I take it you want opera and athletics banned?
  • For a start a skill is a part of who someone is, and liking a voice, or watching someone run does not literally mean you think it's there for your pleasure. Whereas objectification, as I explained previously is where you think someone is literally there for your sexual pleasure and entertainment; where their own personality, thoughts, feelings, desires don't come into the picture.

    A distinction without a difference. If you hear a pretty voice, you think 'that's a pretty voice', and you enjoy the fact that she's singing for your (and others') pleasure. If you see a picture of a pretty girl, you think 'that's a pretty girl'. Or even 'that's a girl who, in the right circumstances, and if I wasn't happily married, and if I wasn't too old and bald for her, then in some fantasy world....'.

    In none of these cases are you thinking that your reaction represents the entirely of the real human being who is being paid to entertain you.
    When I listen to a song - I'm generally not thinking that's a pretty voice, I'm just enjoying the song, and in some cases regarding the sound of someone's voice - I'm thinking what a great voice they have. On the pretty girl, I don't agree with the scenarios you've set out. When many people I've spoken to (or in some cases seen what they've said online) when they see a pretty girl, they are thinking of her in a sexually subservient position to facilitate their sexual needs. So yes, I'd say that's a real human who thinks that someone is there to entertain them.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,172
    Sean_F said:



    Is that an apology or a run away ?


    It's certainly not an apology. If you go off on one at the bare reproduction of some text on Wiki, your skin thinness is obviously at gold leaf levels.

    It's a great recurring PB theme, those with little experience or knowledge of one place in these little islands feeling perfectly entitled to comment in the most disobliging terms upon that place, while on a hair trigger about their own shibboleths.
    If you support the IRA just say so. It's like people who obviously wish the holocaust had taken place, but waste lots of breath denying it ever happened.
    Godwin..KABOOM!
  • TykejohnnoTykejohnno Posts: 7,362
    edited August 2015
    welshowl said:

    tyson said:

    Apocalypse- my point is that we cannot afford to stop immigration. We rely on it for our basic services, and for economic growth. Any meaningful studies show that mass immigration benefits the economy. And so benefits our public services through filling staff shortages, and paying the taxes that keeps them going.

    Of course many immigrants go into shitty accommodation. But I've done too, when I was young, trying to improve myself. But many of them rise out of it like I did.

    We should be pleased that we are a country that both attracts immigrants, and that benefits from immigration.

    @tyson I'm not saying that immigration doesn't have its benefits - my own grandparents were immigrants, and I don't agree with an awful lot of UKIP's rhetoric on the issue. I'm not advocating that immigration should be stopped entirely, either. But cheap labour means wages - and thus living standards - are getting undercut, and many immigrants come here and live in rubbish conditions - creating even more poverty and inequality. We need to know that if immigrants are coming here we can afford it: in terms of education, housing, the NHS etc. And I think we can't afford large-scale immigration.

    And what about those already here negatively affected? Say the electrician who has to drop his rates by 50%? Does he not get a say?
    Or the poor cnut who lives in those poor areas where more and more poor unskilled immigration takes on the overcrowding affect.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,683

    tyson said:

    Apocalypse- my point is that we cannot afford to stop immigration. We rely on it for our basic services, and for economic growth. Any meaningful studies show that mass immigration benefits the economy. And so benefits our public services through filling staff shortages, and paying the taxes that keeps them going.

    Of course many immigrants go into shitty accommodation. But I've done too, when I was young, trying to improve myself. But many of them rise out of it like I did.

    We should be pleased that we are a country that both attracts immigrants, and that benefits from immigration.

    @tyson I'm not saying that immigration doesn't have its benefits - my own grandparents were immigrants, and I don't agree with an awful lot of UKIP's rhetoric on the issue. I'm not advocating that immigration should be stopped entirely, either. But cheap labour means wages - and thus living standards - are getting undercut, and many immigrants come here and live in rubbish conditions - creating even more poverty and inequality. We need to know that if immigrants are coming here we can afford it: in terms of education, housing, the NHS etc. And I think we can't afford large-scale immigration.

    When do we expect Italy to have a rightwing anti immigrant government ? Look what's happening in Swedish politics and will start happening in Germany.
    Although that isn't anything to do with the EU. Those are asylum seekers arriving from North Africa.

    What Europe needs to do, is to work out the most efficient way - as a group - of preventing people from crossing the Mediterranean.
  • JEOJEO Posts: 3,656
    tyson said:

    Apocalypse- my point is that we cannot afford to stop immigration. We rely on it for our basic services, and for economic growth. Any meaningful studies show that mass immigration benefits the economy. And so benefits our public services through filling staff shortages, and paying the taxes that keeps them going.

    Of course many immigrants go into shitty accommodation. But I've done too, when I was young, trying to improve myself. But many of them rise out of it like I did.

    We should be pleased that we are a country that both attracts immigrants, and that benefits from immigration.

    @tyson I'm not saying that immigration doesn't have its benefits - my own grandparents were immigrants, and I don't agree with an awful lot of UKIP's rhetoric on the issue. I'm not advocating that immigration should be stopped entirely, either. But cheap labour means wages - and thus living standards - are getting undercut, and many immigrants come here and live in rubbish conditions - creating even more poverty and inequality. We need to know that if immigrants are coming here we can afford it: in terms of education, housing, the NHS etc. And I think we can't afford large-scale immigration.

    "Any meaningful study" sounds a bit like "any true Scotsman". Ultimately some immigrants have a net benefit to the economy and some have a net cost. But other countries and other periods in our history have shown that economies can work very effectively with substantually less immigration than we have now. Net immigration of 100,000 a year is above the historical norm, but also at a level that we can integrate. We should try to get the best 100,000 we can out of that.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,516



    Is that an apology or a run away ?


    It's certainly not an apology. If you go off on one at the bare reproduction of some text on Wiki, your skin thinness is obviously at gold leaf levels.

    It's a great recurring PB theme, those with little experience or knowledge of one place in these little islands feeling perfectly entitled to comment in the most disobliging terms upon that place, while on a hair trigger about their own shibboleths.
    Err what family friends being murdered via wiki ? Sod off. Anyone I've quoted Ive known and your views are just palin offensive.

    If you'd any sense you'd say sorry.

    you haven't
    Now I can't even understand what you're trying to say.
    What, Your're thick ?

    Don't think so divvie.

  • oxfordsimonoxfordsimon Posts: 5,844
    MP_SE said:

    alex. said:

    john_zims said:

    The_Apocalypse

    'On law, it's one of those oversubscribed degrees now. Everyone wants to be a lawyer, but not everyone will be.'

    Yes, massively oversubscribed with yearly training contracts only available for approx. 50% of law graduates.
    But still a very good degree to have and recognized as such by employers.

    Really? I was advised that if you're not sure you want to be a lawyer, don't do law. I also don't think a law degree is worth much unless it's from a very very top uni, and you can get into a grad scheme.
    Standard advice for anyone thinking that doing Law A-Level might have any merit, didn't think it extended to a degree.

    I am pretty sure the prospectus I had from either Oxbridge or LSE had A-Level law listed as one of the subjects they would not consider for the total number of UCAS points required for admission. Always thought that was weird as law at an undergraduate level is generally well regarded, whereas, at A-Level it is lumped with all the other mickey mouse courses like General Studies.
    Back in 1986 when I was choosing my options for A level, I was told in no uncertain terms not to study Law A level (which would have had to be done as an evening class)

    I think law tutors prefer to teach from scratch rather than undoing the errors picked up during the A level course!

    So I ended up doing English, French, Maths and Physics - my school wouldn't let me doing General Studies as a 5th...
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,516

    Sean_F said:



    Is that an apology or a run away ?


    It's certainly not an apology. If you go off on one at the bare reproduction of some text on Wiki, your skin thinness is obviously at gold leaf levels.

    It's a great recurring PB theme, those with little experience or knowledge of one place in these little islands feeling perfectly entitled to comment in the most disobliging terms upon that place, while on a hair trigger about their own shibboleths.
    If you support the IRA just say so. It's like people who obviously wish the holocaust had taken place, but waste lots of breath denying it ever happened.
    Godwin..KABOOM!
    You can try and divert all you wish but the tone of the thread is you're out of line and can't admit it.
  • tysontyson Posts: 6,117
    Apocalypse- honestly comrade, it was not worth even engaging Nabavi in that dialogue- his points were utterly ridiculous.

    Now immigration- two lefties trying to look for some kind of resolution from different perspectives- that is more worthy

    For a start a skill is a part of who someone is, and liking a voice, or watching someone run does not literally mean you think it's there for your pleasure. Whereas objectification, as I explained previously is where you think someone is literally there for your sexual pleasure and entertainment; where their own personality, thoughts, feelings, desires don't come into the picture.

    A distinction without a difference. If you hear a pretty voice, you think 'that's a pretty voice', and you enjoy the fact that she's singing for your (and others') pleasure. If you see a picture of a pretty girl, you think 'that's a pretty girl'. Or even 'that's a girl who, in the right circumstances, and if I wasn't happily married, and if I wasn't too old and bald for her, then in some fantasy world....'.

    In none of these cases are you thinking that your reaction represents the entirely of the real human being who is being paid to entertain you.
    When I listen to a song - I'm generally not thinking that's a pretty voice, I'm just enjoying the song, and in some cases regarding the sound of someone's voice - I'm thinking what a great voice they have. On the pretty girl, I don't agree with the scenarios you've set out. When many people I've spoken to (or in some cases seen what they've said online) when they see a pretty girl, they are thinking of her in a sexually subservient position to facilitate their sexual needs. So yes, I'd say that's a real human who thinks that someone is there to entertain them.
  • FinancierFinancier Posts: 3,916
    MP_SE said:

    alex. said:

    john_zims said:

    The_Apocalypse

    'On law, it's one of those oversubscribed degrees now. Everyone wants to be a lawyer, but not everyone will be.'

    Yes, massively oversubscribed with yearly training contracts only available for approx. 50% of law graduates.
    But still a very good degree to have and recognized as such by employers.

    Really? I was advised that if you're not sure you want to be a lawyer, don't do law. I also don't think a law degree is worth much unless it's from a very very top uni, and you can get into a grad scheme.
    Standard advice for anyone thinking that doing Law A-Level might have any merit, didn't think it extended to a degree.

    I am pretty sure the prospectus I had from either Oxbridge or LSE had A-Level law listed as one of the subjects they would not consider for the total number of UCAS points required for admission. Always thought that was weird as law at an undergraduate level is generally well regarded, whereas, at A-Level it is lumped with all the other mickey mouse courses like General Studies.
    Schools offer at A level such topics as law, economics and business studies, when really what is required is a greater knowledge of the basics on which can later be built these specialist subjects.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    tyson said:

    That Mr Nabavi is really one of the most stupid arguments I have ever read here.

    Page 3 should have disappeared when they stopped making Carry on Movies, or when Love Thy Neighbour finished.

    So it's a matter of taste. That would be a reasonable argument - certainly one which the Victorians, whom we resemble so closely in this respect, would have agreed with - but this nonsense about 'objectification' is just nonsense, as Ms Apocalypse's intellectual contortions demonstrate.
  • DavidL said:

    MP_SE said:

    john_zims said:

    The_Apocalypse

    'On law, it's one of those oversubscribed degrees now. Everyone wants to be a lawyer, but not everyone will be.'

    Yes, massively oversubscribed with yearly training contracts only available for approx. 50% of law graduates.
    But still a very good degree to have and recognized as such by employers.

    Really? I was advised that if you're not sure you want to be a lawyer, don't do law. I also don't think a law degree is worth much unless it's from a very very top uni, and you can get into a grad scheme.
    Law is a well respected degree which has a reputation for being particularly difficult. I can't think of many non STEM degrees where the same can be said.
    As I said: it depends where you go. A law degree from St Andrews is respected - but one from Westminster? Most likely not.

    St Andrews does not teach law. Once upon a time it was conjoined with Dundee University and when they split Law stayed with Dundee.
    Okay, I just presumed most unis did - but for argument's sake I'll change it to Dundee.
  • foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548
    Dair said:

    JEO said:


    Not necessarily that they think of their personality, but they certainly won't believe that their partner exists purely for their entertainment and pleasure.

    At the moment of lust, I don't think most people entertain complex thoughts. I also don't think a Sun reader believes a Page 3 girl exists purely for their entertainment and pleasure.
    Is it really a complex thought not to see your partner as just there for your pleasure? I don't think it is.

    And after seeing Sun readers viewing Page 3 girls, I'd yes, they do believe that girl does exist purely for their entertainment and pleasure.
    I know I've asked this before but you avoided answering.

    How do you actually process women into BDSM as the sub, women into DD/LG and women into rape fantasies? These (relatively common) paraphilias do not fit in with your worldview.
    Paraphilias and fetishes are the very nature of objectification, with the sexual desire displaced to a physical object or acting role. The psychology of why some people choose to be treated as objects is a very interesting area of the academic literature of sex, and very often to do with other psychological disturbances in the subject. Sometimes it is just economic of course!
  • PaulyPauly Posts: 897
    Conservative HOLD Witney North (West Oxfordshire).
    Witney North (W Oxfordshire) result:
    CON - 33.9% (-9.6)
    LDEM - 25.8% (+14.2)
    GRN - 17.5% (-10.2)
    LAB - 14.6% (-2.7)
    UKIP - 8.2% (+8.2)
    So far so good :D
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    tyson said:

    Apocalypse- my point is that we cannot afford to stop immigration. We rely on it for our basic services, and for economic growth. Any meaningful studies show that mass immigration benefits the economy. And so benefits our public services through filling staff shortages, and paying the taxes that keeps them going.

    Of course many immigrants go into shitty accommodation. But I've done too, when I was young, trying to improve myself. But many of them rise out of it like I did.

    We should be pleased that we are a country that both attracts immigrants, and that benefits from immigration.

    @tyson I'm not saying that immigration doesn't have its benefits - my own grandparents were immigrants, and I don't agree with an awful lot of UKIP's rhetoric on the issue. I'm not advocating that immigration should be stopped entirely, either. But cheap labour means wages - and thus living standards - are getting undercut, and many immigrants come here and live in rubbish conditions - creating even more poverty and inequality. We need to know that if immigrants are coming here we can afford it: in terms of education, housing, the NHS etc. And I think we can't afford large-scale immigration.

    Immigration makes the rich richer and the poor poorer... If the increased wealth of the rich is marginally larger than the decrease in wages of the poor, the net benefit to the economy is still bad for the nation as a whole
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,683
    I don't know if @Casino_Royale is on the board tonight, but he made a comment yesterday about the 800,000 asylum seekers in Germany becoming German citizens, and therefore potentially ending up in the UK.

    Germany is probably the European country where it is hardest to become a citizen (harder than Switzerland or Norway, for example). Being born there is not enough. Being born there and having a German dad is not enough. There is a minimum eight year wait, and that's after getting all the appropriate residence permits (which can take two to three years). And then you are required to prove that are you not going to be a drain on the German taxpayer.

    Germany has a large immigrant community of Turks, many of whom were born there, to parents who have worked there a decade or more, and few of whom are entitled to citizenship.

    The places in Europe where it is easiest to get citizenship are: Portugal, the UK and Switzerland.
  • DairDair Posts: 6,108
    tyson said:

    That Mr Nabavi is really one of the most stupid arguments I have ever read here.

    Page 3 should have disappeared when they stopped making Carry on Movies, or when Love Thy Neighbour finished.

    Page 3 just seems utterly non-sensical. I can't imagine its function in 2015, I certainly can't imagine what it actually offers. Much like most sexual content in television and the movies, it is just... pointless.
  • Dair said:

    JEO said:


    Not necessarily that they think of their personality, but they certainly won't believe that their partner exists purely for their entertainment and pleasure.

    At the moment of lust, I don't think most people entertain complex thoughts. I also don't think a Sun reader believes a Page 3 girl exists purely for their entertainment and pleasure.
    Is it really a complex thought not to see your partner as just there for your pleasure? I don't think it is.

    And after seeing Sun readers viewing Page 3 girls, I'd yes, they do believe that girl does exist purely for their entertainment and pleasure.
    I know I've asked this before but you avoided answering.

    How do you actually process women into BDSM as the sub, women into DD/LG and women into rape fantasies? These (relatively common) paraphilias do not fit in with your worldview.
    I didn't avoid answering it: you just disagreed with my argument. I've said before that most women don't have rape fantasies for a start: and for those that do, they are generally infrequent and differ from rape fantasies depicted in online porn - where the woman generally isn't enjoying. Secondly, whether it is even a 'rape fantasy' is open to question - it's more of a woman 'being taken' than actually been forced to have sex against her will.

    On BDSM - while spanking may be common, full on BDSM sub-dom relationships, are far less common.

  • DairDair Posts: 6,108

    Dair said:

    JEO said:


    Not necessarily that they think of their personality, but they certainly won't believe that their partner exists purely for their entertainment and pleasure.

    At the moment of lust, I don't think most people entertain complex thoughts. I also don't think a Sun reader believes a Page 3 girl exists purely for their entertainment and pleasure.
    Is it really a complex thought not to see your partner as just there for your pleasure? I don't think it is.

    And after seeing Sun readers viewing Page 3 girls, I'd yes, they do believe that girl does exist purely for their entertainment and pleasure.
    I know I've asked this before but you avoided answering.

    How do you actually process women into BDSM as the sub, women into DD/LG and women into rape fantasies? These (relatively common) paraphilias do not fit in with your worldview.
    Paraphilias and fetishes are the very nature of objectification, with the sexual desire displaced to a physical object or acting role. The psychology of why some people choose to be treated as objects is a very interesting area of the academic literature of sex, and very often to do with other psychological disturbances in the subject. Sometimes it is just economic of course!
    The problem with the psychosis hypothesis is that it requires psychoses to be far more prevalent than any evidence I have seen would indicate.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,553
    tyson said:

    That Mr Nabavi is really one of the most stupid arguments I have ever read here.

    Page 3 should have disappeared when they stopped making Carry on Movies, or when Love Thy Neighbour finished.

    And after seeing Sun readers viewing Page 3 girls, I'd yes, they do believe that girl does exist purely for their entertainment and pleasure.

    The same is true of an opera fan listening to a wonderful soprano singing Casta diva. She's objectified, being regarded purely for the pleasure she gives the listener. The same is true of a tenor singing Che gelida manina. They're dehumanised, reduced to just beautiful voices.

    Equally, an athlete competing in the 100 metres is reduced to just a running machine, judged purely on a timing.

    I take it you want opera and athletics banned?
    Getting worked about Page 3 is like being offended by Round the Horn.

    There is far more graphic and brutal stuff just a couple of clicks away on your I Pad or PC.
  • TykejohnnoTykejohnno Posts: 7,362
    rcs1000 said:

    tyson said:

    Apocalypse- my point is that we cannot afford to stop immigration. We rely on it for our basic services, and for economic growth. Any meaningful studies show that mass immigration benefits the economy. And so benefits our public services through filling staff shortages, and paying the taxes that keeps them going.

    Of course many immigrants go into shitty accommodation. But I've done too, when I was young, trying to improve myself. But many of them rise out of it like I did.

    We should be pleased that we are a country that both attracts immigrants, and that benefits from immigration.

    @tyson I'm not saying that immigration doesn't have its benefits - my own grandparents were immigrants, and I don't agree with an awful lot of UKIP's rhetoric on the issue. I'm not advocating that immigration should be stopped entirely, either. But cheap labour means wages - and thus living standards - are getting undercut, and many immigrants come here and live in rubbish conditions - creating even more poverty and inequality. We need to know that if immigrants are coming here we can afford it: in terms of education, housing, the NHS etc. And I think we can't afford large-scale immigration.

    When do we expect Italy to have a rightwing anti immigrant government ? Look what's happening in Swedish politics and will start happening in Germany.
    Although that isn't anything to do with the EU. Those are asylum seekers arriving from North Africa.

    What Europe needs to do, is to work out the most efficient way - as a group - of preventing people from crossing the Mediterranean.
    Bloody hell,I agree with you and the most efficient way is to get tough by sending all economic migrant's back,then you watch the numbers fall coming to Europe crossing the Mediterranean.
  • tysontyson Posts: 6,117
    As you'll see I've tried to influence Apocalypse not to engage further in this debate.

    And yes- you are right. It is a matter of taste and to a lesser extent fashion which is why I said Page 3 has had its day.

    Us men will forever objectify women, and to a lesser extent them us. I find Rihanna spectacularly beautiful, unimaginably beautiful and sexy- and it is not for her voice because I cannot stand any of her records aside from Umbrella. I also like Beyonce and J-Lo for very similar reasons.

    tyson said:

    That Mr Nabavi is really one of the most stupid arguments I have ever read here.

    Page 3 should have disappeared when they stopped making Carry on Movies, or when Love Thy Neighbour finished.

    So it's a matter of taste. That would be a reasonable argument - certainly one which the Victorians, whom we resemble so closely in this respect, would have agreed with - but this nonsense about 'objectification' is just nonsense, as Ms Apocalypse's intellectual contortions demonstrate.
  • tyson said:

    Apocalypse- honestly comrade, it was not worth even engaging Nabavi in that dialogue- his points were utterly ridiculous.

    Now immigration- two lefties trying to look for some kind of resolution from different perspectives- that is more worthy

    For a start a skill is a part of who someone is, and liking a voice, or watching someone run does not literally mean you think it's there for your pleasure. Whereas objectification, as I explained previously is where you think someone is literally there for your sexual pleasure and entertainment; where their own personality, thoughts, feelings, desires don't come into the picture.

    A distinction without a difference. If you hear a pretty voice, you think 'that's a pretty voice', and you enjoy the fact that she's singing for your (and others') pleasure. If you see a picture of a pretty girl, you think 'that's a pretty girl'. Or even 'that's a girl who, in the right circumstances, and if I wasn't happily married, and if I wasn't too old and bald for her, then in some fantasy world....'.

    In none of these cases are you thinking that your reaction represents the entirely of the real human being who is being paid to entertain you.
    When I listen to a song - I'm generally not thinking that's a pretty voice, I'm just enjoying the song, and in some cases regarding the sound of someone's voice - I'm thinking what a great voice they have. On the pretty girl, I don't agree with the scenarios you've set out. When many people I've spoken to (or in some cases seen what they've said online) when they see a pretty girl, they are thinking of her in a sexually subservient position to facilitate their sexual needs. So yes, I'd say that's a real human who thinks that someone is there to entertain them.
    I don't want to stop immigration I just think it needs to be reduced.

    And thanks for your support on the objectification issue, btw.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,040

    DavidL said:

    MP_SE said:

    john_zims said:

    The_Apocalypse

    'On law, it's one of those oversubscribed degrees now. Everyone wants to be a lawyer, but not everyone will be.'

    Yes, massively oversubscribed with yearly training contracts only available for approx. 50% of law graduates.
    But still a very good degree to have and recognized as such by employers.

    Really? I was advised that if you're not sure you want to be a lawyer, don't do law. I also don't think a law degree is worth much unless it's from a very very top uni, and you can get into a grad scheme.
    Law is a well respected degree which has a reputation for being particularly difficult. I can't think of many non STEM degrees where the same can be said.
    As I said: it depends where you go. A law degree from St Andrews is respected - but one from Westminster? Most likely not.

    St Andrews does not teach law. Once upon a time it was conjoined with Dundee University and when they split Law stayed with Dundee.
    Okay, I just presumed most unis did - but for argument's sake I'll change it to Dundee.
    A very fine University (if not with the cache of St Andrews). Went there myself and was lucky enough to meet my wife there.

    Your debate on objectification has been interesting. Personally, I can look at a pretty girl and think she is pretty but I don't lust after her in the sense that I would want sexual contact with her. That is something you should have with those you love and they are not objects. If sex is about self gratification it is pretty poor fare. Maybe I am even older than I think.
  • foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548

    Dair said:

    JEO said:


    Not necessarily that they think of their personality, but they certainly won't believe that their partner exists purely for their entertainment and pleasure.

    At the moment of lust, I don't think most people entertain complex thoughts. I also don't think a Sun reader believes a Page 3 girl exists purely for their entertainment and pleasure.
    Is it really a complex thought not to see your partner as just there for your pleasure? I don't think it is.

    And after seeing Sun readers viewing Page 3 girls, I'd yes, they do believe that girl does exist purely for their entertainment and pleasure.
    I know I've asked this before but you avoided answering.

    How do you actually process women into BDSM as the sub, women into DD/LG and women into rape fantasies? These (relatively common) paraphilias do not fit in with your worldview.
    I didn't avoid answering it: you just disagreed with my argument. I've said before that most women don't have rape fantasies for a start: and for those that do, they are generally infrequent and differ from rape fantasies depicted in online porn - where the woman generally isn't enjoying. Secondly, whether it is even a 'rape fantasy' is open to question - it's more of a woman 'being taken' than actually been forced to have sex against her will.

    On BDSM - while spanking may be common, full on BDSM sub-dom relationships, are far less common.

    I think the widespread interest in Fifty Shades suggests that such desires are actually not uncommon in women. The old adage "treat them mean, keep them keen" and the female equivalent of "playing hard to get" are still in large part true. Of course for an old liberal like me it never worked, as I was not capable of being mean enough!
  • notmenotme Posts: 3,293
    tyson said:

    Re: page 3- PLATO, et al...

    I had a run in with the Sun's page 3 pics editor some years ago when one of my social work clients, a 16 year old girl, went off to do some photos with the Sun. I actually advocated for the pics to be published at the time, but I was shouted down by management. The girl subsequently went on to great fame in other matters, but she despised me for saying that we couldn't allow the pics to be published at the time

    But my point is, as a bloke, I find the page 3 pics really embarrassing to look at, especially if you are seen to be looking at them in public. I'm sure I'm not the only bloke to think this. They make me feel really uncomfortable. They must make women feel uncomfortable too. The world would just be a slightly better place without them.

    There are many things i find uncomfortable. I avoid them when I can. At least with the sun, if you dont buy it is fairly unlikely you'll see them.
  • Dair said:

    JEO said:


    Not necessarily that they think of their personality, but they certainly won't believe that their partner exists purely for their entertainment and pleasure.

    At the moment of lust, I don't think most people entertain complex thoughts. I also don't think a Sun reader believes a Page 3 girl exists purely for their entertainment and pleasure.
    Is it really a complex thought not to see your partner as just there for your pleasure? I don't think it is.

    And after seeing Sun readers viewing Page 3 girls, I'd yes, they do believe that girl does exist purely for their entertainment and pleasure.
    I know I've asked this before but you avoided answering.

    How do you actually process women into BDSM as the sub, women into DD/LG and women into rape fantasies? These (relatively common) paraphilias do not fit in with your worldview.
    I didn't avoid answering it: you just disagreed with my argument. I've said before that most women don't have rape fantasies for a start: and for those that do, they are generally infrequent and differ from rape fantasies depicted in online porn - where the woman generally isn't enjoying. Secondly, whether it is even a 'rape fantasy' is open to question - it's more of a woman 'being taken' than actually been forced to have sex against her will.

    On BDSM - while spanking may be common, full on BDSM sub-dom relationships, are far less common.

    I think the widespread interest in Fifty Shades suggests that such desires are actually not uncommon in women. The old adage "treat them mean, keep them keen" and the female equivalent of "playing hard to get" are still in large part true. Of course for an old liberal like me it never worked, as I was not capable of being mean enough!
    Tbh there's even a debate whether 50 shades actually represented a real sub/dom relationship. Personally, I think it was a combination of hype and curiosity that led to such wide interest in it. I believe there was a recent study done on Britain's sex habits, and it didn't really show that BDSM relationships were that common.
  • PClippPClipp Posts: 2,138
    Pauly said:

    Conservative HOLD Witney North (West Oxfordshire).
    Witney North (W Oxfordshire) result:
    CON - 33.9% (-9.6)
    LDEM - 25.8% (+14.2)
    GRN - 17.5% (-10.2)
    LAB - 14.6% (-2.7)
    UKIP - 8.2% (+8.2)
    So far so good :D

    Indeed yes, Mr Pauly - with the Lib Dems bouncing up very nicely. The Tory vote falling heavily in what I suppose must be Mr Cameron´s own seat. Yes, so far, so good.
  • DairDair Posts: 6,108

    Dair said:

    JEO said:


    Not necessarily that they think of their personality, but they certainly won't believe that their partner exists purely for their entertainment and pleasure.

    At the moment of lust, I don't think most people entertain complex thoughts. I also don't think a Sun reader believes a Page 3 girl exists purely for their entertainment and pleasure.
    Is it really a complex thought not to see your partner as just there for your pleasure? I don't think it is.

    And after seeing Sun readers viewing Page 3 girls, I'd yes, they do believe that girl does exist purely for their entertainment and pleasure.
    I know I've asked this before but you avoided answering.

    How do you actually process women into BDSM as the sub, women into DD/LG and women into rape fantasies? These (relatively common) paraphilias do not fit in with your worldview.
    I didn't avoid answering it: you just disagreed with my argument. I've said before that most women don't have rape fantasies for a start: and for those that do, they are generally infrequent and differ from rape fantasies depicted in online porn - where the woman generally isn't enjoying. Secondly, whether it is even a 'rape fantasy' is open to question - it's more of a woman 'being taken' than actually been forced to have sex against her will.

    On BDSM - while spanking may be common, full on BDSM sub-dom relationships, are far less common.

    I didn't disagree with your argument, I don't see you putting forward an argument, instead your trying to redefine the terms to fit your worldview. Rape fantasies exist without exposure to online porn and the definition of "enjoying" really is far more difficult than you seem to want to accept.

    I think the main problem is that you don't understand just how common these are 40% of women have rape fantasies, 65% of women have Sub fantasies.

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201001/womens-rape-fantasies-how-common-what-do-they-mean

    http://www.lehmiller.com/blog/2014/11/12/how-common-are-bdsm-fantasies-infographic
  • foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548
    Dair said:

    Dair said:

    JEO said:


    Not necessarily that they think of their personality, but they certainly won't believe that their partner exists purely for their entertainment and pleasure.

    At the moment of lust, I don't think most people entertain complex thoughts. I also don't think a Sun reader believes a Page 3 girl exists purely for their entertainment and pleasure.
    Is it really a complex thought not to see your partner as just there for your pleasure? I don't think it is.

    And after seeing Sun readers viewing Page 3 girls, I'd yes, they do believe that girl does exist purely for their entertainment and pleasure.
    I know I've asked this before but you avoided answering.

    How do you actually process women into BDSM as the sub, women into DD/LG and women into rape fantasies? These (relatively common) paraphilias do not fit in with your worldview.
    Paraphilias and fetishes are the very nature of objectification, with the sexual desire displaced to a physical object or acting role. The psychology of why some people choose to be treated as objects is a very interesting area of the academic literature of sex, and very often to do with other psychological disturbances in the subject. Sometimes it is just economic of course!
    The problem with the psychosis hypothesis is that it requires psychoses to be far more prevalent than any evidence I have seen would indicate.
    Paraphilias are neuroses rather than psychoses. Psychoses require delusional states and are very rarely sexual. Neuroses very often are sexual, hence psycho analysts and psychotherapists interest in them.
  • TykejohnnoTykejohnno Posts: 7,362
    rcs1000 said:

    I don't know if @Casino_Royale is on the board tonight, but he made a comment yesterday about the 800,000 asylum seekers in Germany becoming German citizens, and therefore potentially ending up in the UK.

    Germany is probably the European country where it is hardest to become a citizen (harder than Switzerland or Norway, for example). Being born there is not enough. Being born there and having a German dad is not enough. There is a minimum eight year wait, and that's after getting all the appropriate residence permits (which can take two to three years). And then you are required to prove that are you not going to be a drain on the German taxpayer.

    Germany has a large immigrant community of Turks, many of whom were born there, to parents who have worked there a decade or more, and few of whom are entitled to citizenship.

    The places in Europe where it is easiest to get citizenship are: Portugal, the UK and Switzerland.

    I've mentioned this before on here about asylum seekers in other EU countries getting pass ports and heading here is already on the rise .
  • DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    MP_SE said:

    john_zims said:

    The_Apocalypse

    'On law, it's one of those oversubscribed degrees now. Everyone wants to be a lawyer, but not everyone will be.'

    Yes, massively oversubscribed with yearly training contracts only available for approx. 50% of law graduates.
    But still a very good degree to have and recognized as such by employers.

    Really? I was advised that if you're not sure you want to be a lawyer, don't do law. I also don't think a law degree is worth much unless it's from a very very top uni, and you can get into a grad scheme.
    Law is a well respected degree which has a reputation for being particularly difficult. I can't think of many non STEM degrees where the same can be said.
    As I said: it depends where you go. A law degree from St Andrews is respected - but one from Westminster? Most likely not.

    St Andrews does not teach law. Once upon a time it was conjoined with Dundee University and when they split Law stayed with Dundee.
    Okay, I just presumed most unis did - but for argument's sake I'll change it to Dundee.
    A very fine University (if not with the cache of St Andrews). Went there myself and was lucky enough to meet my wife there.

    Your debate on objectification has been interesting. Personally, I can look at a pretty girl and think she is pretty but I don't lust after her in the sense that I would want sexual contact with her. That is something you should have with those you love and they are not objects. If sex is about self gratification it is pretty poor fare. Maybe I am even older than I think.
    Tbh I think among men you're quite rare. I've definitely never heard any guy of my generation think that way - most do think of sex as about self-gratification, in my experience.
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