hippoptolemy

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• Commented on Summer webcomics
  Alas, The Nib is shutting down but it's provided top-shelf (admittedly US-centric) satirical webcomics for ten years now. Most people would be familiar with Mister Gotcha, but there are plenty of gems to be found there....
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  Around this blog it's called "The Slaveowners' Treasonous Rebellion" I object to that name only on the grounds that it's non-specific....
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  "Mutilation"? They can go screw themselves, the jerks saying that. Hell, my partner would love to have reduction surgery - getting down to a C from an F.... Yes, I used to be a lab assistant in a histopathology...
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  well, if u want to interpret "there is a school of thought that worries that..." as "...and i support it wholeheartedly", knock urself out. i got terf relatives, that's where i hear about this stuff Lezsek didn't imply that...
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  Well said. Rowling and others have frequently claimed that they experienced their own gender anxiety as children/teenagers and, born into the modern world, they fear they might have been pushed towards transition. It's a baseless concern. As a boy, I...
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  Re: '[Robodebt] .. No one even looks like being charged.' My impression is that this is still an on-going investigation/exploration. Should be easy enough to find where the report/complaint saying that the robodebt activity was unethical got stopped. IME,...
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  The trouble about this area is that almost everyone who makes a noise about it does so from one of the extreme positions - and, worse, accuses everyone who disagrees of being an extremist at the other end. It's...
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  You can tiptoe as much as you like but all it boils down to is that TERFs advocate for the erosion of trans rights, invoking a theoretical framework that hasn't been cutting edge in more than fifty years, which is...
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  Relevant to the discussion: in the last Australian federal election, the Coalition government (read: an unholy alliance of free-market Liberals and protectionist, socially-conservative Nationals) attempted to stoke the flames of the culture wars by running an anti-trans candidate. It didn't...
• Commented on Strong and Stable!
  I see no evidence that the Black Panthers were "political prisoners" jailed for their political beliefs. All of the jail sentences (which for the most part appear pretty lenient compared to the actual crimes) appear to be for the...
• Commented on Upcoming blog outage
  Sorry to hear, hope you have a steady recovery....
• Commented on I can't even
  On whether Kwarteng is an economist (he's not), an economic historian (most accurate) or a political historian with a passing interest in economics, the reality is that he's more than knowledgeable enough to know better than to execute a series...
• Commented on I can't even
  In the other thread I reasoned that once Truss was in place at least the UK government would be able to start pulling the fiscal levers and manage the economy away from disaster, over Boris' absenteeism. I didn't predict that...
• Commented on London Bridge
  Incidentally, I'm going away for the next few days, so anyone who wants the final word can have it. But turning back to Foxessa's earlier comments, she was plainly talking about how England was able to industrialize quickly, not early:...
• Commented on London Bridge
  Been away from these comments for a few days so apologies if I miss a response to anything. Elderly Cynic writes: Turn it round. If wheat was the main staple, the UK would have needed 20-25 million acres of arable...
• Commented on London Bridge
  From Appendix B and Appendix D of The Great Divergence: British wheat yields in the 1770s averaged about 23 bushels per acre. At 8 bushels to the quarter and 5 quarters to the ton, this converts to 523 kg/acre. ....
• Commented on London Bridge
  Most of the regulars here have deep subject matter knowledge of several areas. They might benefit from thinking about how often they have found the outside world thinks something in their area is just common sense, when it's actually...
• Commented on London Bridge
  What English population collapse? The big ones were the Black Death and the English Civil War in the 17th Century. Not an English population collapse, but universal limitations on population growth in the absence of the Haber process or,...
• Commented on London Bridge
  This is where I highly, highly recommend the ecological argument laid out by Robert Marks. Prior to industrialization (and I'm simplifying here, so any errors in the simplification are my own), population density could only get so great before it...
• Commented on London Bridge
  As a mere schoolchild, I knew about Britain's involvement and the triangular route back then - not a lot, but I didn't know much history at all. And I can assure you that, among respectable academics, primary sources are...
• Commented on London Bridge
  I have been reliably informed here that from Charles II onward the Monarchs HAVE NO POWER, and it's all Parliament's fault. Well, that settles that then. @ Troutwater I'm wondering if there's a little culture-clash going on here, something...
• Commented on London Bridge
  I am not a historian, but the statement "In the 1950s, little was known and little had been written about Britain’s involvement in the Atlantic slave trade and slavery." is just plain bollocks. The University of Cambridge library gives...
• Commented on London Bridge
  And so, at best, the sweatless prince was merely incurious as to whether the teenager he was presented with was trafficked or coerced. That hardly improves things....
• Commented on London Bridge
  I've forgotten what it's called, but I'm sure there's some tradition where some one or some thing takes on all the sins of the community. Then they get sacrificed. The UK seems to have done just that. Pick some...
• Commented on London Bridge
  By 'the ear of the PM' I mean the UK prime minister is regularly dragged to Buckingham Palace for a private audience. It's rather more difficult to play the la la la game when someone is sitting directly across from...
• Commented on London Bridge
  On the main topic, there's an interesting conversation on the Empire podcast about the death of the monarch in the context of Britain's colonial legacy. Well worth a listen: hosts Anita Anand (the journo, not the Canadian politician) and William...
• Commented on London Bridge
  And, returning to the original subject, I wonder how much Charles is going to do/be able to push response to global warming.... Very little directly but he can probably do quite a bit to facilitate. He's regularly in the...
• Commented on London Bridge
  My wife's money was heavily on "George VII". But there you go. Charles III it is. Try not to break anything, Charles. The Crown episode about this just about writes itself: Charles is being pestered by one royal official...
• Commented on London Bridge
  When all's said and done ... Elizabeth Windsor went from being 96 but well enough to attend a personal audience to appoint a new prime minister three days ago, to dying with her family around her bed. Which suggests...
• Commented on The gathering crisis
  I specifically said iron production; coal was used extensively for heating in 1700, but not much for iron (coke didn't really start to be used until later). As I said above, no way would have it supported even the...