PhobosAnomaly

A great question. I was going to call it a “thought experiment”, but as Wikipedia more succinctly calls it, a “philosophical concept”. I’m wary of jumping to the paradox of tolerance as a device to handwave away violence against anyone.

It’s an important point to consider and it raises vital questions that challenges my own argument, but ultimately the rights of the human override any philosophical ideals.

In this instance, I would much rather preserve the rights of any person - arsehole or not - rather than subject them to sexual violence because of a perceived difference in political opinion.

Thanks for your reply, I appreciate your insight.

We still disagree, but I genuinely appreciate the additional context you have to offer. I’m not wholly altruistic, I think Fuentes is a massive piece of human garbage.

But, he is human - and with that, is his right to human rights.

I don’t like him as much as the next person and that is an entirely subjective opinion, but levelling the same kind of hatred and lack of compassion effectively makes you no better than fanny balls Fuentes is. It’s a dangerously small leap from <I don’t like what this person stands for> and therefore sanctioning sexual assault, to <they don’t like what I stand for> and therefore sanctioning sexual assault.

I suspect we’re on the same broad page, but our means are vastly different.

You and I are on such vastly different platforms that you’re one of the few people I don’t think I can find any common ground with. Whereas I agree one’s own qualified rights end where others rights begin, I consider basic human rights to be absolute, and certainly not influenced by whatever political views you do or don’t share.

By extension, the abstracted opinion of “I think it’s funny that <a group of people I don’t like> <experiences something terrible>” is borderline fascism in itself, and your position is cancerous to any anti-fascist movement you’re involved in.

Nah it wasn’t. Although I really should listen to more of her stuff.

Seriously though, what is the deal with trying to stop others from doing the exact same thing that you are doing by speaking in the imperative form?

It’s a comment section after all.

Stop trying to police language.

dat irony tho

Thanks for taking the time to reply, but:

Many of us heard it back in 2016, but the media

I lost interest after this. Someone’s talking about normalising the sexual assault of a group of people - as likeable or dislikeable as they may be - and all I can see is some “I told you so” word salad?

I’m sorry if I’ve picked you up wrong, but I’m happy to be corrected.

Do you hear yourself?

Nah that’s fair enough, I get it. It’s a reasonably common thing in the UK - either the person who takes it is a local rogue who’ll flog the travelcard for a quid, or it’ll be used by someone away out on the piss for the night.

I just found it odd is all. Like, if you take it and it works, happy days - you’ve saved yourself a bit of cash. If the ticket gate spits it back at you, then oh well, back to plan A.

It’s cool to hear your take on it though, thank you.

Hey thanks for your insight.

Maybe in the UK we’re super used to fast fashion shite like Primark or Asda George. I mean, the designs are cool but the quality rivals that of the Looney Tunes ACME products.

Maybe you’re right though, maybe I’m looking at them through rose tinted specs. I rather like the Old Navy stuff or American Eagle. The material just seems to last a tad longer than the supermarket pish in the UK.

Oh man, I forgot the ESTA. A travel plan for your travel plan for your travel plan.

We’ll have the ETIAS to do soon as well. Won’t be long before the dude at the border in Gibraltar will be like “¿que tal bruv, where’s Travelling With Authority Treaty form?”.

Oh well. We did it to ourselves 🙁

edit: forgot to say, thanks for the addition.

Definitely worth calling your mobile provider beforehand - I think I had an add-on where I could pay £2 per day and use my contract allowance as usual. It worked nicely.

Cheers for the added advice.

It was a bit over 18 months ago I was last in a CVS, but as as already been pointed out, the US is a huge place so there’s bound to be regional differences. Glad contactless payments (or is it tap-to-pay in the US?) has become the norm.

Irn-Bru too, funnily enough.

The FDA aren’t a fan of how it (or was) made.

Hello fellow Brit.

Everything is bigger. That’s an obvious statement, but the knock on effect is that nobody seems to have a sense of “nearby”. I frequently went out running on the pavement around two or three blocks, and people either looked at me as if I was possessed, or honked their horns like a “run Forrest run!” type thing because there was literally nobody else out putting miles on tarmac.

Retail parks are a cracking example. I was out with a friend who knew the area well, and we wanted to go from one store at one end of the retail park to the other. I was happy to walk the three or four hundred metres and back, but they were positively horrified at the thought of not taking the car to another parking spot there.

Speaking of driving - know your rules. Four way interactions are a cool invention. Roundabouts traffic circles are fucking wild going in from the right.

See those 300, 200, 100yd marker boards on A-roads and motorways allowing you to figure out what lane you need to be in to take your slip road? Purely optional in the US. Be ready for people in lane three (or four, or five, or six) to see their exit and cut straight across. Blind spot checking is for nerds and communists.

Things have changed lately, but go out with two or three changes of clothes, and that’s it. The clothes in the US are generally much cooler and much cheaper, it’s a good excuse to get new gear. Depending on where you’re going though, it’s hard work getting particular stuff - asking for Under Armour’s heatgear stuff if you go running in winter will get you some real fuckin’ weird looks in Florida, where even the vests are sometimes hotter than a duffle coat.

The border: know your shit - where you’re going, how much you got, who you’re with. The border force agents (whatever their unit is called) are generally super cool, but they ask super intrusive questions. That Marks and Spencer ham baguette you got in Gatwick/Edinburgh/Manchester? Eat it quick, because it isn’t going through customs.

Not sure how long you’re going for, but get a Post Office multi-currency card, or a credit card that specialises in the US Dollar or low international currency fees. While you’re at it, feel free to wow them with contactless payments. Last time I went to CVS, I had tapped the card before the cashier had finished his spiel about swiping the card, and refused to believe I’d actually paid for a few seconds. It’s like a magic trick with none of the effort.

Overt generosity is mostly viewed suspiciously. I left the DC metro system at a gate, and tried to hand off my all-day travel card for someone else to use for the day, and was looked at like I’d shit on their station concourse and drew a Greek flag in it. It’s not like the tube.

Tylenol: get shitloads. It’s basically paracetemol wrapped in bubblegum. Outstanding for hangovers.

Enjoy it! The Americans are friendly enough even if the majority of them make some pretty wack political choices, but that’s another discussion. They’re generally sound as fuck, and find the British accent something of a novelty, so feel free to use it as a get out of jail card if you make a social faux pas. (edit: I don’t mean literally, I haven’t tried it on police officers)

Have fun, let us know how you get on!

I suspect the answer lies in paragraph 4, where I’m making the assumption that the scammers make contact directly with the buyers, and invite a payment to be made to the scammers rather than the brokers.

I suppose in a strictly legal sense, the brokers are off the hook then as they’ve no idea the scammers have asked the buyers to send a payment.

It’s scummy as fuck all round.

Man I miss Eudora back in the day. I used the mail client in SeaMonkey before I just started using my phone to check mail.

The 90s and 2000s were a simpler time.

Is that a picture of a tweet of a printout of a MS Notepad file that was probably cut and pasted from a forwarded email, newsgroup post, or web page?

my head hurts

I do it for two reasons: partly because it’s fuck all business to anyone else (within reason) what the status of my relationship is.

Mainly though, because it generally messes with folk because they don’t understand what it means, and feel compelled to ask silly questions about it.

It looks like a pepperoni pizza that was stored on its end.