MarkNicholls / is on Nostr

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Last Notes

2024-03-10 09:55:49

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@npub1g0t…tvm4 I wonder what sort of difference - if any - it would make if solar panels, heat pumps & super-insulation in all new builds were mandatory, along with domestic sewage treatment plants where feasible?

2024-01-03 08:44:03

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@npub1g0t…tvm4 But paradoxically FPTP is, if Reform gains no seats but splits the Tory vote…

2023-10-17 07:45:10

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@npub1sdq…y9vc @npub1g0t…tvm4 it’s hard to give up wealth when you’ve got it, especially in a world that privileges wealth accumulation & depends for its existence on endless consumption. Unless the system itself is changed to prevent massive wealth accumulation occurring, there’s no incentive to voluntarily give up wealth. Anyone who ‘gives all their wealth to the poor’ just adds to the number of poor people, by one…

2023-10-17 06:48:27

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@npub1g0t…tvm4 Which presumably means 2/3 weren’t in favour of reducing wealth inequality, which is pretty astonishing. It only takes a few multi-billionaires to buy key politicians, mass media, & indeed the judiciary, as in the US. Wealth inequality seems to be viewed so often as one of many of our social & political problems, when it’s fundamental to most if not all of them. The ‘elite’ (or ‘predator class’, as they are more properly termed) who govern us aren’t in power because of their talent at governing or their concern for the common good. They’re there because of their wealth, which they’ve acquired largely by the pursuit of their own good, the further pursuit of which is their prime motive for becoming politicians. Their ‘skills’ (which so often comprise large measures of luck, accident & ruthlessness) are the exact opposite of what is required of a decent politician. It’s absurd that we call ourselves a ‘democracy’ when the last people who stand a chance of gaining any kind of political power are the ‘demos’…

2023-10-17 06:08:09

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@npub1hk2…y2k4 “In late 2022, Canada's Department of Public Safety estimated that 33% of the marijuana market is still controlled by the illicit drug trade.” Which is to say, 67% of it isn’t now controlled by the illicit drugs trade, which has therefore lost billions of dollars. Which sounds like an incredible success story - why isn’t that the headline? Sounds like Canada is getting it right….Cannabis legalisation has never been about expanding consumption and ‘increasing exports’, only about damage limitation, crime reduction & permitting research & development into its medical & industrial uses. It’s so easy to grow on a window cill by anyone, anywhere (unlike tobacco), selling it recreationally for profit was always a dubious prospect…

2023-10-15 07:57:38

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@npub1g0t…tvm4 He rather defeats his own argument by describing ‘the decades’ for which these ‘angry old men’ have been in power, which can only mean that ‘angry young men’ (as they once were) are just as much to blame for the conflicts being described, both past & present, not least because they choose to commit the violence these elders exhort. Ideology is the issue, not the age of the ideologues…