cpcallen
1mo ago
And set up an online exchange to trade it. Maybe they could call it MTGOX, has a nice ring to it. ;-)
cpcallen
3mo ago
Some female coworkers mentioned to me that they like trans people and "have trans friends", but don't like the bathroom change.
FWIW I believe your colleges and think that the preference being revealed is that they prefer not to share a bathroom with male-presenting persons, rather than that they prefer not to share with trans women.
A very similar circumstance has arisen at a venue I and my girlfriend frequent, where all the formerly segregated toilets have for the last couple of years been officially gender-neutral, with signs describing them as such—"with toilets" and "with toilets and urinals".
The preponderance of attendees at the events I frequent nevertheless continue to use the room corresponding to the gender they present as, including a handful of non-passing-but-not-for-want-of-effort trans women.
My girlfriend has nevertheless indicated that she is quite uncomfortable with this arrangement—not so much because trans women use the formerly women's toilets, but because at least a few cis men do too.
This situation, where the toilets continue to be de-jur gender-neutral despite remaining de-facto segregated (except for some boundary-testing by inconsiderate men) seems especially absurd given that there was already a perfectly serviceable single-occupancy gender-neutral toilet available anyway!
It will be interesting to see if the recent court ruling results in any rethinking of thisarrangement but if anything I suspect it will cause the organisation that runs to be even less likely to roll back the change, since as it is they can credibly claim there are no toilets reserved for women, and therefore none that trans women might (as a result of this ruling) be denied the right to use.
cpcallen
4mo ago
Yes, but how much do they charge for smaller orders, and how much do you pay each year to own a car? In the UK we pay £2–4 for delivery of a £40+ order every few weeks (buying the rest of what we need on foot, typically once a day on the way home from the station). Let's say we spend £150/y on delivery (certainly an overestimation). No car can be owned for so little, even if you could get insurance and fuel for free.
cpcallen
6mo ago
OK, I agree that the nations of the earth are indeed the powers that be (at least to a very extensive degree). So your argument is that one would like to be able to set up a new country, but all the land on Earth is already spoken for? That is indeed an considerable difficulty, and plausibly a motivation for planetary exploration.
cpcallen
6mo ago
we could make a space elevator from conventional materials
Doesn't the moon's very slow rotation (~1x month) make that rather impractical? The elevator would have to extend to and beyond the earth-moon L1 or L2 point, since lunarstationary orbits are impossible (they are outside the Moon's SOI).
I have genuinely never understood why some people find the UN tyrannical. It seems to me that it is toothless, and even if it were not it would at worst be an institution of mediocre democracy (a bit like the EU or indeed the US). That is no tyranny. Yet "one world government" has been a meme since my childhood. That has always seemed like a worthy if probably far off goal to me—what about it do you find so objectionable?
cpcallen
7mo ago
Thanks. It seems you are correct: Gallant may be a murderer, but his victim was truly nasty. I not a supporter of the death penalty, and vigilante justice is inherently problematic for a variety of reasons, but it's clear that Gallant and his co-convicted were taking care of a problem that the justice system had failed to.
cpcallen
7mo ago
it turns out that the original murder was a case of vigilantism against, allegedly, a habitual abuser of women.
This is an interesting claim—suspiciously convenient but not implausible—so I was interested in learning more. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much reported in the coverage of the pardon about the original conviction. Can you point me to your source for this?
cpcallen
7mo ago
Indeed: I've been trying to discourage people from sending me messages on Facebook ever since they broke the seamless email <-> messages gateway. I even looked in to trying to build a bit that would reply to any FB message with a request that the correspondent email me instead. Alas it was not feasible given my expertise and motivation (both relatively high).
Well, if I'm in a hurry then 70, but if not then I'll happily sit in the left lane with the lorries, which are limited to 60. Definitely never knowingly faster than the posted limit, since I don't want a ticket and speed cameras are ubiquitous on the motorways here.
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