• 1 Post
  • 566 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: July 1st, 2023

help-circle


  • The issue is that it needs to be informed consent, rather than just “they said yes”… or even worse, “they didn’t say no”. I feel like I need a shower just typing that.

    In this instance, the girl may have seemed like a willing participant - but anyone “consenting” when they’re below 16 (or whatever your local jurisdiction’s legal age is) needs to be taken with a truckful of salt, and in most cases is entirely inadmissable as a legal defence. I’m all for granting young adults the opportunity to make most decisions for themselves - but there are certain grey areas that their age renders them vulnerable to coercion or exploitation, sexual interactions being one of them.

    There are of course very narrow exceptions - most notably the Romeo and Juliet laws, but it’s generally accepted that if one party is below the age of consent while the other isn’t, then the consent is not informed and therefore not valid.

    It doesn’t have to be age-based either. It can be in environments where there is a sufficient difference in power dynamic (big difference in levels of seniority in the workplace; persons with learning disabilities or additional needs; or those with dependency issues) where consent is not informed and is the subject of coercion rather than genuine consent.




  • I asked my eldest child what he wanted to do when he was older.

    He said “I want to be one of those people that put cables into people’s houses”.

    Absolute lad. Electricians are fucking voodoo workers. I don’t think he’ll ever be short of work either!

    edit: that said, if I had to change career tomorrow, I think I’d go into either data networking at the physical layer, or work for a telecoms firm dropping fibre and sorting telephony dramas and whatnot.








  • I mean… that’s one definition of tourism I guess?

    I’m very much a “leave only footprints” sort of guy - I know Brits have a bit of a shit reputation particularly when it comes to inexpensive package holidays, but I think tourism and learning about the rest of the world promotes a greater understanding of the only planet we live on. Whether it’s food; culture; history; or scenes of key historical events - it gives a window into people’s own gaps in knowledge or empathy.

    I agree that an economy based entirely on tourism is a house of cards in itself, but I don’t think it’s a binary choice. Humanity have always had a nomadic element and there will always be those who want to travel, but it should be done sustainably.


  • Having experienced life in a city with a heavy tourism influence, it’s not the tourists that’s the problem, it’s counterintuitively a select few locals ripping the arse out of it.

    • Housing shortages and sky high rents because homeowners and flat owners stick their places on AirBNB and other types of peer to peer services they provide access to;

    • Ludicrous policies imposed on residents by locally-contracted private enterprises like event managers extending their road closures and parking suspensions a quarter mile away from their actual event areas, fucking over residents who actually live there for the other eleven months of the year;

    • Zero hour contracts for those in gig economy or service workers, who get used and abused for a few weeks a year and fucked off when the good times dry up, while business owners have made bank;

    • Increased pressure on public services for a few weeks a year, caused by influxes of folk putting heavy demands on the staff but leaving local residents to foot the tax bill;

    • …and the usual creep towards city centre locations trending towards tat merchants selling utter shite.

    It’s important to note that none of the above is anything wrong, it’s just assholery for the most part…

    …and then those small numbers of “locals” have the gall to blame Mr and Mrs Miggins from halfway across the globe for ruining the city. Fuck all of the way off