I didn’t leave the left. The left, left me.

[GenerativeAIBot]

Stop me if you have already heard this the last few days, I am trying to make sense of how I feel about Trump and other right leaning wins:

“Woke” issues being pushed to where they have been, has empowered the right by giving them something real and legitimate to campaign against. Something more than their usual transparently false bogeymen.

In general, Authoritarianism, compelled speech, no debate. Specifically men in women’s sports, in women’s changing rooms, unfettered immigration, being asked to ignore the evidence in front of our eyes.

This is happening across the world, Italy, France, Germany, USA, UK.

I remain entirely committed to progressive taxation, a social safety net, collective bargaining, workers rights, public schooling and health services as well as the rights of everyone to live contented, unmolested lives.

I reject identity politics in their entirety. For example, I consider terms like “Woman of colour” to be the epitome of divisive, racist, sexist thought patterns that seeks to infantilise people and move their locus of control from internal to external. Disempowering people and making them victims.

I didn’t leave the left. The left left me.

Reasonable?

The literal cost of physical panels and the actual cost of generation is going down, will never go up and is in a spiral towards zero. I believe electricity generation costs will reach zero within 15 years maximum.

This is my 35th year in the industry. I've heard this since I began.

It won't happen for many reasons, and we need to stop pushing that narrative and focus instead on how we can move people to renewables now.

You genuinely believe we're going to make it to fully automated luxury queer communism?

That's wild 😳 what makes you think that?

No, civilised countries have a duty of care to others, but it's much better they are supported where they are, or as close as possible.

But we all understand, no one has said otherwise. Lots of us also empathise and have the ability to put ourselves in their shoes. But what you're not willing to discuss is how do you limit numbers if legal, safe routes to asylum are created? Each person living under an oppressive regime who is persecuted, would be eligible for asylum. That's millions and millions of people globally permitted to take refuge in the UK. If you think that to be unsustainable, then how would you propose capping the numbers?

We are heading to a scarcity society - in fact we are already in it.
Globally, as fossil fuel reserves deplete, we will all just carry on getting slowly poorer and poorer (with small swings up and down) over the next several centuries.
Neither a Mad Max dystopia nor a utopia, Just 'situation normal', but a bit worse off every decade.

Really, like in Ukraine? Or Gaza? Or Nazi Germany, although apparently the Holocaust is old news and shouldn't be mentioned anymore!

What if your country is no longer yours? My grandparents became refugees when their home territory was lost to another country. It's not always possible to stay. We all have a responsibility to others - no man is an island and all that.

Alternative solutions like air balloons are available... sail ships?

Yes, then we can help neighbouring countries support them.

Semantics? No, it’s actually what I believe. Yet again, you are telling people what they think - staggering.

If you truly believe in a democracy then you would also subscribe to democratic process and the rule of law. Following that logic, you would abide by the process and outcome regarding those felonies Trump was charged with.

Or do you prefer your democracy a la carte?

Initially thought the transgender surgery for prisoners was fake news … fact checked and it was 100% true.
Had no idea it was big enough issue for society that got expensive TV adverts. It wasn’t, & very indicate of who was running her campaign and their inaccurate view of America.

How many women or girls have to miss out on a sporting place or medal for this to become 'significant'? I'd say one
How do you know how many people have been affected by men pretending to be women in their spaces and sports?

Who the fuck turns round when a girl is forced to share with a male says 'ahh but think of how many girls HAVEN'T been affected by this’. That's sick.

This wilful 'it's a not problem for me' and deciding it's not a big problem for anyone else - on their behalf - is what the problem is.

Imagine telling someone who's been attacked by a (bog standard) man 'ah but there's been loads of women who haven't been attacked by a man'.

Is this a deliberate attempt to derail, or a genuine misunderstanding of the point? If it is the latter then you actually make the point beautifully.

It isn't about telling one individual anything. It is about understanding the alleged apocalyptic situation where this stuff is happening all the time so we should wring our hands and panic that we are going to go hell in a handbasket is not going to solve the problem. There is a situation where we have competing rights, a situation which has happened many times in the past and there will be a solution that is acceptable to both sides if we just take a pragmatic approach. Instead each side has taken a winner takes all attitude, whipped up by a small number of examples which support their side.

I'll give you an example. At my daughter's high school there is a residential trip about to happen. There is a trans child who has a group of mixed sex friends. They asked if they could share with a particular set of those friends, who are all of a different sex than the trans child's biological sex. The school said if it was ok with that group of friends and the parents agreed, then it was fine, if not they would have to share with the other children in the group. Everyone was happy with the outcome because they all sat down and discussed it in a calm rational manner.

Christ almighty. Get in the bin.

Would this be one of those examples of people being told what they can and can't say? I thought it was us lefty wokey people who did that?

Yes, very much this. But even in virtual spaces where there is practically no limit to scarcity, it is still artificially engineered... think NFTs, games add ons etc. There is always someone with more power than others who will naturally keep it that way. We will never again see the prosperity we have enjoyed for the past 400 years or so. And we are staring down at the next few centuries of decline. We have no idea how lucky we are to be born when we were, because our children and our children's children are facing several crises that will occur roughly simultaneously.

The example at your DD high school is not relevant to public policy. At a high school, all those affected can be contacted, and the matter agreed upon.

What about a changing room in a clothing shop? Not all the shop's potential customers can be contacted.
Even if they could, say with a poll of everyone within 100 miles, or 200 miles, what do you do when the poll results come back split? Some want the changing room to be female only, some want transwomen to have access.

This idea of "a solution that is acceptable to both sides if we just take a pragmatic approach" is pure wishful thinking.

thought the transgender surgery for prisoners was fake news, fact checked and it was 100% true .Had no idea it was big enough issue for society that got expensive TV adverts. It wasn’t, & very indicate of who was running her campaign and their inaccurate view of America.

Except when you look more in to it, what was actually happening was, she was saying she was following the law on providing medical treatment for inmates. In fact it was exactly the same law that Trump followed in his administration when those surgeries were also available, tax funded, to inmates in federal prisons.

It got traction because his campaign knows how to whip this stuff up. Her campaign failed to address it properly but the bottom line is, he attacked her for something he also did.

If a transwoman, i.e. a trans identified male enters a women’s only space (changing room/ toilet/ support group etc) then the women in this group lose what should be a single sex space for them.

He didn't do anything about gender ideology during his first tenure, let's see what he does this time.

I believe there’s a deep culture clash in how the US and the rest of the world views the left wing.

A lot of the US liberalism would be viewed as far left in Asia and Europe. Especially a lot of the racial politics (especially Islamophobia and the black empowerment stuff), whereas LGBT groups and feminist groups aren’t so aggressively against the right wing. The flip side is that the US left wing is economically liberal and lacks the socialism that centrist parties in Asia and Europe have.

Sadly social media has been moderated along American lines, so what you have got is economic liberalism and far left social activism, and discrimination against the right wing leaning groups that are perceived as left wing in the US (LGBT, non-Muslim South Asians, women…). This causes a huge shift to the right wing in protest of the toxic media environment. The Jews are the most vivid example of this; left wing in the US, far right to right wing across the rest of the non-Muslim world.

Queer?

Communism?

I didn't mention either of those things what makes you think that?

thats the Mad Max outcome I mentioned.

It's a quote, it's Mary Harringtons version of Aaron Bastanis concept/book

Is the real cost going up? Or down?

It's going down, it will always go down, it will never go up.

Mad Max is complete collapse. Who knows how far it will go.

You'll have to excuse me for not knowing that rather edge reference...

Not that I don't do it.

tl;dr I see things as progressively getting better over time if you take a sufficient step back to view things and I strongly suspect, 65/35 that we will get the post scarcity utopia, not mad max.

Could be wrong. Definitely not getting status quo

I don't see status quo as being tenable or realistic. In fact, it's never ever existed so...

But how can you say with such certainty that it’s scaremongering?
If so many people are willing to risk their lives in unseaworthy dinghies, don’t you think those numbers will only go up if safe routes are provided?