Bad beat/Moaning/Venting thread - Mammy told me not to come.

[dobby]

FFS!

Lol. Only a tenner a month through her work. I shipped you the brothers business which he got installed today btw so feck.off with the eyes

[Strewelpeter]

David Davin Power's hair isn't a wig WT actual Feck is it then

[SatNav]

Lol. Only a tenner a month through her work. I shipped you the brothers business which he got installed today btw so feck.off with the eyes

he happy with it ?

[6starpool]

David Davin Power's hair isn't a wig WT actual Feck is it then

Hair?

[Kayroo]

Incorrect. The electoral district of Sydney doesn't include the western suburbs where most of the Muslim population lives. Out of the 17 electroral districts that voted no 12 were western Sydney suburbs. So yes your post completely factually incorrect.

The local mosques were actively preaching no votes as noted by the Australia Bureau of Stats, clearly this didn't get wide media reporting as would be fairly standard practice.

Edit: Sorry for triple post on my phone!

You do know those areas are majority religious as opposed to majority Muslim. There is, I accept, a direct correlation between the areas of Sydney which identify as having the largest proportion of religious adherents generally and the No vote but that actually undermines your point. The greatest growth in responses between 2011 and 2016 for religious affiliation in Australia was "No Religion". Muslims went from 2.2% to 2.6% in the same period. Blaxland, with the highest no percentage in Australia, has one of the highest Christian populations in the country too - the percentage being roughly double that of Islam in the area.

You are conflating Islam with anti-marriage equality while distinguishing christians. The fact is all religions tend to be horrible on gay rights. Which is probably why the largest religious self-identification in Australia is now "No Religion"

[Denny Crane]

And although I frown on subjective evidence, my time living in Australia would tend to back up the above observation.

True although I seemed to have stayed in a Jewish quarter in Melbourne. Was even lads wearing kippahs in the gym.

[Raoul Duke III]

talking of TV , we are lobbing out a FREE 32 inch LG tv , whole package sports /movies 63 euro a month for 6 months . the sports and movies come in at half price for 6 months

Add a second box @16 euro per month to go with your luvverly new tv, ( second box requires decent Broadband to run it )

PM me obv

thinking of cancelling Sky here , can I cancel and rejoin with your good self or is that just messing?

also, how do I find out if I can get your fibre here? you didn't have it 12 months ago.

[Raoul Duke III]

I seemed to have stayed in a Jewish quarter in Melbourne. Was even lads wearing kippahs in the gym.

one of the biggest Jewish cities in the world!

now there's a quiz question - without Googling, name the 10 cities in the world with the largest Jewish populations

my effort:

SPOILER

1. 1. NYC (duh)
   2. London
   3. Manchester
   4. Los Angeles
   5. Miami (guess)
   6. Melbourne
   7. Paris
   8. Moscow
   9. ehhhhh, dunno. Johannesburg
   10. umm, errr, ummm San Fran?

[Raoul Duke III]

oh, and my previous assertation was completely wrong

Melbourne is not one of the 10

[Raoul Duke III]

oh, and I meant outside Israel obvs

[Keane]

Would have thought the likes of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem would have featured.

[dobby]

he happy with it ?

Dunno. Will ask for an update at the weekend.

[jack90210]

Blaxland, with the highest no percentage in Australia, has one of the highest Christian populations in the country too - the percentage being roughly double that of Islam in the area.

This is again factually incorrect in regard to the district of Blaxland - source 2016 Australian census, Had Islam 29.2%, Catholic 19.2%, No Religion 13.4%, Not stated 9.2%, Buddhism 8.2% vs Australia as a whole Islam 2.6%, Catholic 22.6%, No Religion 25.1%, Not stated 9.6%, Buddhism 2.4%.

Outside of the top 5 above. Christians as a total was 63,212 v Islam 50,997.

[Strewelpeter]

one of the biggest Jewish cities in the world!

now there's a quiz question - without Googling, name the 10 cities in the world with the largest Jewish populations

my effort:

SPOILER

1. 1. NYC (duh)
   2. London
   3. Manchester
   4. Los Angeles
   5. Miami (guess)
   6. Melbourne
   7. Paris
   8. Moscow
   9. ehhhhh, dunno. Johannesburg
   10. umm, errr, ummm San Fran?

You are not counting Israeli cities ?
I'd say the the top 10 maybe 20 outside there are all in the US after that London and other European cities. Don't think Moscow would still have any sort of significant population with them all having gone to Israel and the US.

[Raoul Duke III]

You are not counting Israeli cities ?
I'd say the the top 10 maybe 20 outside there are all in the US after that London and other European cities. Don't think Moscow would still have any sort of significant population with them all having gone to Israel and the US.

yeah, not counting Israel - you are more correct than me:

here's the list:

SPOILER

NYC
LA
Miami
San Fran
Chicago
Philadelphia
Paris
Washington
Boston
Buenos Aires

and then:
Toronto
Atlanta
London
Moscow
San Diego
Montreal
Cleveland

Don't know where I pulled Manchester out of! Although it was one place ahead of Berlin which rather interestingly has 25,000 Jews. And Tehran has the same. Mad Ted.

[cardshark202]

one of the biggest Jewish cities in the world!

now there's a quiz question - without Googling, name the 10 cities in the world with the largest Jewish populations

my effort:

SPOILER

1. 1. NYC (duh)
   2. London
   3. Manchester
   4. Los Angeles
   5. Miami (guess)
   6. Melbourne
   7. Paris
   8. Moscow
   9. ehhhhh, dunno. Johannesburg
   10. umm, errr, ummm San Fran?

SPOILER

Buenos Aires is definitely on there afaik as there's at least a quarter million Jews there.

[Kayroo]

If I were female I'd beg Kayroo to talk dirty to me.

You wouldn't need to beg

[Strewelpeter]

wikipedia throws up some interesting answers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiryas_Joel,_New_York

Kiryas Joel sounds like a fun place

[Kayroo]

This is again factually incorrect in regard to the district of Blaxland - source 2016 Australian census, Had Islam 29.2%, Catholic 19.2%, No Religion 13.4%, Not stated 9.2%, Buddhism 8.2% vs Australia as a whole Islam 2.6%, Catholic 22.6%, No Religion 25.1%, Not stated 9.6%, Buddhism 2.4%.

Outside of the top 5 above. Christians as a total was 63,212 v Islam 50,997.

You are quoting 2011 statistics for Australia wide not the 2016 statistics. If you want to ignore the broader point and squabble on the numbers at least be accurate and I can't find the specific breakdown of religious make up of Blaxland you refer to but I'll accept it for the purpose of this argument.

You simply can't overlook the fact that majority religious areas have a higher preponderance to a no vote. Islam is actually less of a correlation to the no vote areas than being of Chinese descent.

I'm not defending Islam by the way. No interest in defending any religion frankly. I just hate nonsense comments like the one you made. It reduces such a complex demographic and sociological issue down to "sure the Muslims hate the gays, but the Christians are getting better at it aren't they?"

[Solksjaer!]

Since I upgraded the car and having Bluetooth
For the 1st time commuting. I've fallen back in love with Spotify. Commuting no longer a chore.
Anyone worth following with An other voices/ jules slant on da music .

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

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[Kayroo]

Outside of the top 5 above. Christians as a total was 63,212 v Islam 50,997.

I got the stats breakdown.

Your national figures are from 2011 not 2016.

[gorrrr72]

My mixed doubles partner drew Deta Hedman in the first round

SPOILER

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[Mellor]

LOL, this is such utter bullshit.

Let's start by noting that at most Muslims make up 3% of Australia's population in total, mostly concentrated in urban areas.

Sydney, which has about 19/20% of its population made up of Muslims, had an 83.7% Yes vote with a participation rate of 80.5% of the overall population.

Literally just picked one random city with a WILDLY unrepresentative Muslim population and it was a huge Yes vote. Your bullshit throwaway remark doesn't stand up to even the most cursory examination.

You’re normally bang on when it comes to facts and figure, but you are way off the mark on this one. Horrendously incorrect. Applying national demographics to small areas is silly. Australia isn’t very integrated.
The Sydney 84% stat above is the metropolitan area alone, not greater Sydney. He above post is the equivalent of using stats for central Dublin and applying it to Leinster.

Sydney, which has about 19/20% of its population made up of Muslims, had an 83.7% Yes vote with a participation rate of 80.5% of the overall population.

Well, that’s complete horseshit for a start. The actual breakdown was; No religion (32%), Buddhist (22%), Not Stated (17%), Catholic (13%), Anglican (3%). Islam was so low it wasn’t reported…whoops

The actual facts.
The State or Territory, with the lowest Yes vote was surprisingly NSW (57%). The highest ACT (74%), which in enclaved within NSW.
The highest Yes electorate was Metropolitan Sydney. Rural NSW was also a strong Yes.

So clearly something was dragging down the state average. A quick look at the electorate results makes that clear. 12 of 17 ‘No’ electorates were in NSW. Geographically they stand out pretty sorely. 12 contiguous electorates in western Sydney.

SPOILER

You do know those areas are majority religious as opposed to majority Muslim. There is, I accept, a direct correlation between the areas of Sydney which identify as having the largest proportion of religious adherents generally and the No vote but that actually undermines your point.

Obviously, you’d be forgiven for not being familiar with Western Sydney. But undeniably, these areas would have a very strong Muslim population. Many times higher than the national average.
The most popular answer in the census was ‘No Religion’. So obviously, there’s a massive parallel with ‘No Religion’ and ‘Yes’. But you are making a logically jump with the above claim. Can you cite source for that?

Take Hume for example, large rural area immediately to the west of the 12 western Sydney electorates that voted ‘No’. Hume is the areas where ‘No religion’ isn’t the top answer, Catholic is top, followed by Anglican. Christian religions make up 75% of respondents.
Hume voted 59% Yes. Above the state average.

Whitlam on the south coast. Picked randomly. Catholic and Christian are the top responses. Voted 65% Yes. Above the national average.

So while there might be a slight drop in Yes votes coinciding with No Religion votes. The claim that the actual religion is inconsequential is ridiculous.

Muslims went from 2.2% to 2.6% in the same period. Blaxland, with the highest no percentage in Australia, [b] has one of the highest Christian populations in the country too - the percentage being roughly double that of Islam in the area.

Ok, let’s take Blaxland as an example. One of the highest Christian populations? That’s simply not true. Christian respondents were significantly less than Hume for example, just over half as many. Nowhere near double that of Islam, not even close.
The fact is, in the 2016 census. Top answer for religion was Islam (29.2%).
For those that know Sydney, but not official electorate names, Blaxland = Bankstown/Paramatta.

You are conflating Islam with anti-marriage equality while distinguishing christians. The fact is all religions tend to be horrible on gay rights. Which is probably why the largest religious self-identification in Australia is now "No Religion"

All religious are to various degrees anti-gay rights. But while Jack90210 was being disingenuous singling out Islam, you are being equally disingenuous by painting all religions as being equally horrible.

You are quoting 2011 statistics for Australia wide not the 2016 statistics. If you want to ignore the broader point and squabble on the numbers at least be accurate and I can't find the specific breakdown of religious make up of Blaxland you refer to but I'll accept it for the purpose of this argument.

That breakdown he refereed was from 2016. Your claim above was wrong.

You simply can't overlook the fact that majority religious areas have a higher preponderance to a no vote. Islam is actually less of a correlation to the no vote areas than being of Chinese descent.

I'm not defending Islam by the way. No interest in defending any religion frankly. I just hate nonsense comments like the one you made. It reduces such a complex demographic and sociological issue down to "sure the Muslims hate the gays, but the Christians are getting better at it aren't they?

And I’m not trying to back up Jacks point, I’m just pointing out that many of your claims are factually incorrect. Is he wrong too. It’s ridiculous to levy all the blame at Muslims. As you said, those area also have a large Chinese population. Realistically, the Australian media will be happy to blame and shame both Muslims and Chinese over the nest few days.

[Kayroo]

You’re normally bang on when it comes to facts and figure, but you are way off the mark on this one. .

I take my beating with humility.

My basic point, however badly made in my attempt to parse the census data and polling returns to make it, is that religion generally tends to correlate with an anti-gay marriage sentiment and to single out Islam is just indicative of a bias.

I suppose I have to accept my own bias in light of what you’ve said against religion generally. I was interested to see the correlation between Chinese areas and No votes but I have no basis for why that correlation exists.

I’ll completely defer to you on this one Mellor. If I’ve gotten it wrong, I’ve gotten it wrong. My bad.

[Kayroo]

His whole argument is about being microscopically correct so he can point fingers at all Muslims. It's a distraction from the overall point he was building on this weak foundation that Christians are great for being so willing to change. But we don't know if they changed or not because they've never actually voted on this before. Nor do we know if they changed more than Muslims changed.

I can’t believe I’m saying this but Hitch has made my point better than I did.

God last night I really wasn’t on my game at all was I?

[Guest]

If I were female I'd beg Kayroo to talk dirty to me.

God last night I really wasn’t on my game at all was I?

GAB seemed to enjoy it

[The Aul Switcharoo]

Finally got fucked at the airport. Small crack on my passport due to it being 7 years old and general wear and tear was enough for some Ryanair genius on a power trip to stop me from boarding.

Monkey tilt. Eamonn, if that was you there'll be war

[Raoul Duke III]

I can’t believe I’m saying this but Hitch has made my point better than I did.

God last night I really wasn’t on my game at all was I?

5star, serious account hacking at play here.

Please investigate stat.

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[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

...

[jack90210]

Thank you Mellor for that, facts are facts! Sometimes the truth is uncomfortable for some.

Kayroo I took those stats from the 2016 Australian census as Mellor confirmed. Perhaps the national comparisons are 2011 (although I didn't see that noted) but it doesn't change the overall point in any way. I don't see why they would use 2011 in such a beautifully comprehensive dataset overall either.

[Raoul Duke III]

Now that the soccerball nonsense is safely out of the way, we can concentrate on a proper sport....cricket.

The Ashes will be underway shortly. England look in disarray between injuries and self-inflicted stupidity so we won't be going anywhere near the win market. Not that I think this Aussie team is any great shakes but, at home, they should have more than enough to see off England.

The market I've been looking at is Top Batsman. We had a nice touch in this with David Warner at 10\1 last time. I'm ignoring the English batsmen in this as, Root (who is one of the top 10 I've ever seen) excepted, they don't convince me at all. Former run machine Cook is in decline too. The pressure of the captaincy should weigh on Root.

The one I'm going for this time is Usman Khawaja who is consistently a high scorer on Aussie pitches. I think he'll tuck into England's change bowlers, especially Moeen. 8/1 or so will do me for a sweat.

Warner and Smith also likely to do very well but at the prices, Khawaja is the man for me.

[Kayroo]

5star, serious account hacking at play here.

Please investigate stat.

I was going to go for the classic "footballer caught sending dick pics to a woman who isn't his wife on twitter" excuse of account hacking and I'm having my people look into it.

I have to let Hitch have one every once in a while.

Besides, you can't be as much of a smug know-it-all as I am without the ability to admit when you've got it wrong. I do think my overall point stands on its own but I was utterly wrong with the stats as Mellor so brilliantly demonstrated.

[Denny Crane]

Much like how the gay marriage referendum seemed to increase the number of visible same-sex couples in Ireland, I've seen more lesbian couple since Wed than I have all month in Oz.

[Solksjaer!]

Much like how the gay marriage referendum seemed to increase the number of visible same-sex couples in Ireland, I've seen more lesbian couple since Wed than I have all month in Oz.

SHIT there's yer man again Mary. Quick kiss me.

[Keane]

Since I upgraded the car and having Bluetooth
For the 1st time commuting. I've fallen back in love with Spotify. Commuting no longer a chore.
Anyone worth following with An other voices/ jules slant on da music .

Not exactly what you are looking for but I came across a thread on Reddit that must contain some hidden gems during the week:

What's a 10/10 album from the last 15 years by a relatively obscure artist/band?

[Solksjaer!]

Not exactly what you are looking for but I came across a thread on Reddit that must contain some hidden gems during the week:

What's a 10/10 album from the last 15 years by a relatively obscure artist/band?

Perfect. I shall mostly be in this thread all week.

Thanks

[Denny Crane]

That is indeed what Lucienda said.

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

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[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

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[Strewelpeter]

.

strong cider was being sold at 18p per unit of alcohol, fortified wine at 27p per unit and the cheapest vodka and gin at 38p, increasing the risks for problem drinkers.

Alcohol Focus Scotland has calculated that adults buying one brand of strong cider can drink their maximum recommended weekly limit of alcohol – 14 units – for £2.52.

Robison said the ruling had “global significance. This is a historic and far-reaching judgment, and a landmark moment in our ambition to turn around Scotland’s troubled relationship with alcohol.”

Alcohol-related deaths in Scotland had increased in the five years since the legislation was passed,

[Guest]

I swear I’ll do time if this bumps up the 2E bottles of Franziskaner in Lidl(which occasionally go on sale 4 for a 5er). People who do triathlons should not be in positions of power

[Denny Crane]

.

Anyway. The people getting mashed on cheap cider are likely having a tough enough time as it is without taking money out of their pockets and into Tesco's.

[Tar.Aldarion]

^^^ want a twitter app that translates every tweet to that guys language!

https://www.reddit.com/r/ScottishPeopleTwitter/

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

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[Tar.Aldarion]

[Denny Crane]

As strew, my thought-mate, noted the other day. It is touching that it is around cheap cider that people's consideration for the poor has suddenly come to the fore.

What lack of housing, unfair educational differences, and awful public healthcare for the poor could not do, the humble £1 bottle of White Lightning was finally able to achieve.

This should have made World Kindness Day special mention.

Normal Hitch posting service has resumed.

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

...

[Strewelpeter]

Can't find a link to it but there was a very persuasive medical prof who was involved in the case on the radio this morning unashamedly accepting the argument that this was targeted while not directly at the poorest in society they will be affected but at those who consume the cheapest alcohol explaining that the facts simply are that that cohort are vastly overrepresented when the disastrous health outcomes are measured.

Meh no point in going around in circles, you are wrong. It is going to happen and I'm as certain as I can be of anything that no matter how successful it turns out to be in 5 years time the alcohol pushers who lost market share and their fellow travellers will turn up with new versions the same lies as they are peddling now.

[6starpool]

Can't find a link to it but there was a very persuasive medical prof who was involved in the case on the radio this morning unashamedly accepting the argument that this was targeted while not directly at the poorest in society they will be affected but at those who consume the cheapest alcohol explaining that the facts simply are that that cohort are vastly overrepresented when the disastrous health outcomes are measured.

Meh no point in going around in circles, you are wrong. It is going to happen and I'm as certain as I can be of anything that no matter how successful it turns out to be in 5 years time the alcohol pushers who lost market share and their fellow travellers will turn up with new versions the same lies as they are peddling now.

Almost all of that is relevant to the gambling industry too, but you don't have similar views on that.

[darwinatemyhamster]

Bollox. I think that's the new one and I forgot to record it. Darwin hamster posted about it here a couple of weeks back.

Edit: txt herself to record it on +1. She had it series linked already for me. Legend

And what a cracking opener it was!

[RichieM]

Its a big picture perspective that maybe traders lose track of in their daily focus on minutae. Maybe your overall thoughts about nanny statism are right (I don't think they are, a lot of people need to be looked after in a lot of ways and the state is normally the best way of doing that), but whether cheap alcohol should be allowed to have external costs to society without this being somehow reflected in the price, is a weird rock to proclaim this from.

But surely you don't think that a huge jump in tax across the board wouldn't be fairer and better while achieving the same price hike to reduce consumption. I am dubious about how big the fall in consumption will be in either case but more tax allows for better treatment etc etc.

Insisting that Tescos and obriens make better margins seems terrible but even just increasing tax on off liscence sales would protect the bar margins and whatever other vested interests are at play. Radical idea to separate booze sales into 2 distinct category's I know.

Basically I could live with increased tax and this would be a very fair tax that would hit all levels of society evenly but this is just a booster for profit margins for the people that the pro pricing side are saying are selling the plain that is killing society.

Surely if you are anti drinking than you don't want to make it an even more lucrative business and encourage more people to set up. Will eventually lead to an offie on every street surely and normalise alcohol purchases even more.

[dobby]

And what a cracking opener it was!

Won't be watching it until tomorrow night so no spoilers please

[hotspur]

His whole argument is about being microscopically correct so he can point fingers at all Muslims. It's a distraction from the overall point he was building on this weak foundation that Christians are great for being so willing to change. But we don't know if they changed or not because they've never actually voted on this before. Nor do we know if they changed more than Muslims changed.

When I first read Jack's post I Googled to see what demographic variables were involved in the breakdown of the results. Then I thought "Wtf am I doing? Someone whose comments I would probably walk out of earshot to avoid in real life is causing me to read and analyse the demographics of West Sydney districts????"

It really does highlight the difference between the Internet and real life. There is no debating that Muslims are socially conservative, especially regarding homosexuality. I don't know if Jack is a racist (I only recall this and his ire about a Kenyan runner), but if he is then he doesn't deserve the attention of serious people.

And yet a proxy argument breaks out about census statistics for the district of Blaxland.

There is a deeper process going on here, which I find much more interesting and I watch in real life. I think I have written before (perhaps I haven't) that along with the evolution of reciprocal altruism (which humans have) there is necessarily the evolution of being able to recognise cheats and punish them.

The reason for this is that if you gave resources to a member of your species and they did not reciprocate in the future then the cheat would gain relative to you. Species-wide, such relative gains in resources would lead to a fitness advantage for those whose with cheating genes compared to altruism genes. So cheats would genetically outcompete and replace altruists in the population.

So for reciprocal altruism to evolve among a species there must be a mechanism for 1) recognising individual members of the species; and 2) punishing cheats. Even Vampire Bats do this.

Now human beings have language and culture. This means that we don't have to be screwed over personally by a cheat to protect ourselves from them, and for our moral indignation to be evoked towards them. We communicate with each other about cheats - being people who behave ungenerously or immorally so we have a general sense of trustworthiness about people.

This is why there is pleasure to be gotten from gossiping, and why it is so common. That pleasure has evolved to drive the behaviour of sharing information about trustworthiness of others. And probably women more than men, as it is a much bigger risk for women to incorrectly trust a man who may impregnate her and bail, given that humans needed to pair bond to raise a baby. Hence women's gossip magazines.

But there is another process within this that I wish to draw attention to as it is fascinating to me, and I only came to really see and understand it in the past two years or so. When you see a group of people gossiping about someone in a righteously indignant way, let's pick the most obvious - Trump, another social in-group cohesion process kicks in.

One person will express disgust at him (and you can discern the relish with which they do it), then another will chime in with similar, then another. And you can see and feel huge energy in a room as everyone wants to give their two cents in agreement.

Essentially what it going on there is a process of people declaring their allegiance to the in-group ethics, their moral indignation at a violator of it, and a clear declaration that they are to be trusted and accepted by the group as evidenced by their expressing contempt. So it becomes an opportunity for a PR exercise by the self to advance that most essential of human needs - acceptance by the group.

[Guest]

Touched by the concern shown by pro alcohol bill types here for the low paid unemployed considering they spend every other day gleefully fantasising about anyone who drives for a living getting fucked onto the scrapheap now they want to ensure when they get to the scrap heap they won’t be able to have a few cheap cans to take away the pain
Life’s tough for a lot of people,cheap beer helps,not every once wants to dress up in Lycra and run in circles like a ponce

[jack90210]

When I first read Jack's post I Googled to see what demographic variables were involved in the breakdown of the results. Then I thought "Wtf am I doing? Someone whose comments I would probably walk out of earshot to avoid in real life is causing me to read and analyse the demographics of West Sydney districts????"

It really does highlight the difference between the Internet and real life. There is no debating that Muslims are socially conservative, especially regarding homosexuality. I don't know if Jack is a racist (I only recall this and his ire about a Kenyan runner), but if he is then he doesn't deserve the attention of serious people.

And yet a proxy argument breaks out about census statistics for the district of Blaxland.

There is a deeper process going on here, which I find much more interesting and I watch in real life. I think I have written before (perhaps I haven't) that along with the evolution of reciprocal altruism (which humans have) there is necessarily the evolution of being able to recognise cheats and punish them.

The reason for this is that if you gave resources to a member of your species and they did not reciprocate in the future then the cheat would gain relative to you. Species-wide, such relative gains in resources would lead to a fitness advantage for those whose with cheating genes compared to altruism genes. So cheats would genetically outcompete and replace altruists in the population.

So for reciprocal altruism to evolve among a species there must be a mechanism for 1) recognising individual members of the species; and 2) punishing cheats. Even Vampire Bats do this.

Now human beings have language and culture. This means that we don't have to be screwed over personally by a cheat to protect ourselves from them, and for our moral indignation to be evoked towards them. We communicate with each other about cheats - being people who behave ungenerously or immorally so we have a general sense of trustworthiness about people.

This is why there is pleasure to be gotten from gossiping, and why it is so common. That pleasure has evolved to drive the behaviour of sharing information about trustworthiness of others. And probably women more than men, as it is a much bigger risk for women to incorrectly trust a man who may impregnate her and bail, given that humans needed to pair bond to raise a baby. Hence women's gossip magazines.

But there is another process within this that I wish to draw attention to as it is fascinating to me, and I only came to really see and understand it in the past two years or so. When you see a group of people gossiping about someone in a righteously indignant way, let's pick the most obvious - Trump, another social in-group cohesion process kicks in.

One person will express disgust at him (and you can discern the relish with which they do it), then another will chime in with similar, then another. And you can see and feel huge energy in a room as everyone wants to give their two cents in agreement.

Essentially what it going on there is a process of people declaring their allegiance to the in-group ethics, their moral indignation at a violator of it, and a clear declaration that they are to be trusted and accepted by the group as evidenced by their expressing contempt. So it becomes an opportunity for a PR exercise by the self to advance that most essential of human needs - acceptance by the group.

In other words people like to stay in an echo chamber that reinforces their views rather than accept facts.

[Keane]

I see there is some pushback starting to accumulate against video game designers who are pushing 'loot boxes' in games to an ever-increasing degree.

This is basically where they make it an option to pay for a bunch of in-game equipment and make it so getting the same stuff without paying is prohibitively time-consuming or difficult.

The kicker is, the loot boxes are randomised, so you're not buying the thing you are after, you are buying a chance to win the thing you are after.

So you buy one, check if it has the goodies you want, get disappointed, buy another one, get disappointed. Now I've invested 50 quid and I still don't have the thing I wanted, what a waste of 50 unless I buy another one and maybe get it.

It's basically gambling/roulette with a strong play on the sunk cost fallacy targeted at children.

[ComradeCollie]

RIP Lil Peep.