I’m so handsome and charming I shouldn’t be in the same room as 90% of women and 10% of men lest they become so overcome with insane list they rip their clothes off and have hours of hard, passionate, energetic sex with me. I just couldn’t bear to break up every non-lesbian couple I meet with my incredible animal magnetism, so for the good of society, people must only be allowed to admire me from a distance.

Christians have their own flag?

Tylee Durden is am allegory for toxic masculinity. He talks a big game about individuality and self-determination, but Project Mayhem is even more strictly conformist and anti-individualistic than the corporate culture it’s rebelling against.

People like Andrew Tate watch the movie and think Tyler Durden is an example to be followed but they don’t even take on his critique of capitalism.

Like. In his speech at the start, about how your possessions own you, he’s not wrong about society. But instead of offering a real solution, all he does is gather men with social issues into a rage-fuelled terrorist cult which he can’t even control. Much like the One Ring uses good intentions to corrupt its wearer to evil, so Tyler Durden uses genuine feelings of dissatisfaction and disaffection men feel in the late 20th century to pointlessly destructive aims, ultimately reproducing the very power structures they claim to fight against.

No, Bruce Wayne us the scientist, the monster is Batman.

NCR?

I would make it illegal to buy a house if the buyer already owns a house which is unoccupied for at least half the year.

Patents expire if six months pass during which the patent holder does not make any products which use that patent. The countdown dies not reset if the patent is sold or traded away.

Companies must publicly post everybody’s wages once a year.

All job ads must include wages offered and all benefits. Candidates can try to negotiate higher wages if they wish, but they at least know where the floor is.

Any digital product sold or “licenced” with DRM must be patched to remove the DRM if the verification server goes down (Stop Killing Games is actually making some solid progress on making this into EU law).

Sex workers sharing a home out of which they both work shall not be considered a brothel.

Living off the proceeds of a prostitute will be legal as long as there is no coërcion. The existing law mostly makes it illegal for sex workers to rent homes or support disabled friends and family members, while pimps simply ignore the law.

No, I’m actually quite big.

I genuinely think Daikatana is a decent (but flawed) game.

You’re thinking of Caster Semenya. She’s XX, she just happens to have unusually high testosterone levels.

If you aren’t taking testosterone… I have no idea, but I would imagine you could compete as whichever gender you wish.

I’m currently reading The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars, and Caliphs by Marc David Baer. It traces the history of Ottoman Türkiye through the sultans, with a particular focus on the European character of pre-WWI Türkiye and how much European history and culture was shaped and influenced by the Turkish. Indeed, Baer states in the introduction that he wrote the book to push back on the idea that Türkiye isn’t “Western” and that their history was peripheral to overall European history.

In particular, the centralisation of power in kings which is emblematic of Early Modern European history was driven to a large extent by non-Turkish kingdoms copying what was clearly working for Türkiye. Türkiye did take part in the Age of Discovery, establishing trading ports and colonies all along southwest Asia and as far as India, long before Portugal got there. Turkish nobles and artists were as much a part of the 15th-century Renaissance as those of France and England. And a big part of why Protestantism was able to establish itself in Germany was that the Holy Roman Emperor had to grant heretics considerable concessions in exchange for them joining the war against the Sultan.

Baer doesn’t say Suleiman the Magnificent was bisexual, but he also very specifically doesn’t nor say it.

It’s a prequel starring Phoenix’s Japanese ancestor in the 19th century. I haven’t played any of the games so I don’t know how it translates. I do know that Sherlock Holmes had to be renamed Herlock Sholmes because copyright can be ridiculous.

My epidemiology professor explained it to me.

In principle, iffy results would be countered by other scientists researching the same area, but you know, replication crisis.

You shouldn’t start fires in data centres. They have very effective fire suppression systems.

Also, scientists are human. If a company offers to fund their research, they feel gratitude and want to find results which benefit their funders. They probably won’t fabricate results, but the interpretation will be biased.

Here is the original paper.

Mosquitoes are not evolving attraction to mosquito repellant. The mosquitoes described in the article were bred in a lab to see if it could happen.

I don’t know Can you repeat the question?

Common history, so we know conquest and colonialism when we see it.

The Irish view Cromwell the way Palestinians view Netanyahu. The English treatment of Ireland under Cromwell is a lot like the modern treatment of Palestine by Israel, which is why Irish people are so pro-Palestine.

One thing that often surprises English people who move here is just how much we hate Cromwell.

Choosing the university near my home village.

If you’re still in secondary school, only apply to units far enough away that your parents will have no choice but to let you move out.

Workin’ 8 to 5 What a way to make a livin’