You don’t. If you’re even entertaining the thought that there is more to learn than what you already know you are displaying intelligence. Stupid people “know” they’re NOT stupid and intelligent people constantly question their own intelligence. This is why a grown adult with the reading age of a 12yr old can spend twenty minutes online and become the world’s foremost authority on… 5G, vaccines, international geo politics, chemtrails, why the Nazi party were “ackshully” socialist etc. etc.

Another classic example of a technically correct answer missing nuance and context.

That’s incredible - thanks. The idea of the ultimate endgame of capitalistic monopolies looking suspiciously like communism always confused me as it seemed they were just doing the communist legwork before the state intervenes. I’ll probably have a go at section 2, Engels / DiaMat, fairly soon.

Thanks. I’m passingly familiar with Lenin and the New Economic Policy but I’d like to better understand the key differences to Marx’s Communist theory that it had/s. Also, without wanting to be controversial, a good piece about China. Is it Marxist / Communist or not - or is it more complicated than that?

Any particular theory you have in mind, if you don’t mind me asking?

I don’t know… revel in the fact that you are living (so far) through an event that could be epoch defining? Not everybody gets a front seat to history. That’s, uh, about all I’ve got for now. Sorry.

The Bot is wildly inaccurate as other people have pointed out. Even having the idea of potentially one person verifying the veracity of all news media is plainly ludicrous.

You are more than welcome to choose from one of the pre-prepared opinions that we have on offer here… no need to bring anything new to the table and confuse such an obviously binary subject.

I know. It’s weird just how good the UK’s social housing was. There was a great belief that the housing estates you built had a direct effect on the people who lived there. Compare that with some of the US’s efforts - that demolished place in St. Louis, O’block in Chicago etc. Different worlds. Eventually the UK government switched to inner city high rises (“streets in the sky”) and social results were… mixed, to say the least. Throw a lot of poor, disenfranchised, non native, non related people in a closed building and, shock horror, negative results were had. Colour me surprised.

Funnily enough the council-built housing in the UK is generally of a very high structural and architectural quality. I am currently sitting in a 100+ years old council property that is still eminently habitable. Only four houses of the 125 that were built here have been demolished. All others are currently inhabited. It all began at the end of WW1:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tudor_Walters_Report

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Taikonauts are Chinese. All three words, Cosmo, Astro, Taiko - naut describe the same job; it just depends what agency certified you as to what you get called.

I don’t know. I live in one of the many western democracies that have maybe six or seven relatively normal parties to vote for; as well as a few more to the edges of the political spectrum. I think this question only applies to people in the US.

“He always was a bit of a… reader when he was young.” said with such utter contempt and disgust; like it was a terrible thing.

I’m not from the US but we do have FPtP here. I propose that all political positions should be filled in a manner similar to selecting a jury. Grab a bunch of citizens at random, do some vetting, install those that pass into the various positions. Three year limit. All major national policy votes taken via a (digital, on your phone) referendum. I strongly believe the only way to save politics is to remove “professional politicians” from the mix.

The majority of UK building societies turned themselves into banks; maybe twenty years ago when the legislation was passed to enable it. A select few still exist though, but I don’t believe any are that large.

I’ve just quoted your advice in reply. Again, thanks for the recommendation a while ago.

In a thread of advice from gay men to straight men someone told us that gay guys have extra choice in underwear - it’s wild until you see it. They recommended: “Andrew Christian, Box, or Aussiebum, or any of the other underwear sites that cater to gay men. We have styles of underwear you wouldn’t believe.” They weren’t wrong. I bought for comfort - not sexiness.

Have a wider choice of underwear. Some beautiful individual in another thread put me on to “gay” underwear… comfort settings I’d never dreamed of. I’d feel contained performing CPR in these badboys. Apparently this clothing change is the first step on the road to man love - according to the absolute brains trust I’ve had the pleasure of working with for the last couple of months.

I’ve always interpreted it as meaning that I care so little for something I can’t even be bothered to put the effort in to not care about it as much as I should… but, yeah, it’s used incorrectly way too often and makes no sense most of the time.