..a short tribute

This post is just a short tribute. The YouTuber known as Jeff C died recently. I didn't know him personally, but I've followed his work for a long time now. So much so that his voice has been a regular fixture in my life these last five or six years or so. I'm saddened and quite shocked by his sudden death. In fact, part of the reason I'm posting is to try and process it myself. Since I found out yesterday evening I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.

He was a great man. One of the great voices of our time.

I'm sharing the video below as it seemed quite fitting. I only came across it and watched it for the first time last night when I was downloading some of his other videos and livestreams to keep for posterity. He was a truly good man and he will be missed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WSfFAj9LhY&t=494s

Happy Brexmas.

A little Christmas day post. Brexmas.

Obviously yesterday the Brexit deal was announced. I have no real idea what the details are, but everyone seems fairly happy with it. So broadly it feels good. It was announced yesterday just as I was leaving the house. Coincidentally where I live it began snowing at almost the exact same time.

It wasn't a great snow, basically just a fancy, white rain. So it had no chance of laying, though as it fell it did create a brief sense of winter wonderland. As I got soaked heading into town I kept catching glimpses of Boris, alongside Union Jacks, on TV screens through windows as it was broadcast to the nation. Quite picturesque.

Postal Voting - UK Style

I received some post yesterday, courtesy of the Labour Party, offering me the opportunity to request a postal vote. Obviously it's unfair to cast aspersions. After all, postal voting is perfectly legal. However, these days I almost instinctively equate postal voting with fraud. So my first thought was, "Surprise, surprise, Labour pushing the Biden method."

The fact that they use the coronavirus as a further reason to vote by post making my head shake in disapproval even more.

I'd like to believe that every postal vote is rigorously vetted, but it stands to reason that the more postal votes there are the harder it is to do this. Simply for practical reasons.

The form I was sent only requires a date of birth and a signature. Even the phone number and email boxes are 'optional'. Again, I would hope each application is thoroughly checked, but it doesn't take a genius to see how easy it would be to exploit such a system if things are a little lax or overstretched.

For example, I live in a household with three other adults. So four letters popped through the door yesterday. It wouldn't be difficult for one person to fill in all four and send them back.

Another thing I dislike about postal votes is the way it makes it easier for people to be leaned on in regard who they're voting for. For example, a dominant member of a household or community could easily press others into voting a particular way.

The beauty with the poll booth is that you enter on your own. So no one can see how you vote. A housewife may pay lip service to the politics of her domineering husband at home, but can vote according to her own judgement in the secrecy of the poll booth. Safe in the knowledge that it'll remain private. However, when you're filling in a form at home that's not always the case.

Likewise it's easier to pressure and bamboozle elderly people. Particularly those that are in care homes or that are dependent upon carers.

In the post-Brexit referendum days we started seeing some discussions about an upper age limit on voting. The argument being that we don't allow children to vote as they're not mentally developed enough, therefore the same should likewise apply to older people whose faculties are failing.

When it comes to voting in person though this argument is completely redundant. If someone is mentally capable enough to deliberately get out of bed on polling day and then head to the polling station to vote then they're clearly capable enough to make their own judgement when it comes to politics. Someone not in possession of their faculties wouldn't be capable of this, nor is it likely that they'd think to do so anyway.

So there's no need for any upper limit, as those that are incapable naturally stop voting when they become incapable.

With postal voting though this becomes far more problematic. As a carer or family member can fill in the form and process the application on behalf of a person who is in serious mental decline. It therefore stands to reason that this helper will also be in a position to guide or overly influence the older person's vote as well.

Like nudging a wealthy widow into signing an updated will and testament.

With people in care homes barely allowed to step outside this year it's all too easy to imagine how they'll be pressured into voting by post from this position of 'safety' as well.

Marijuana is the smell of capitalism..

Just a quick post today. I want to make note of something that I thought I'd already mentioned on here, but I must not have. I guess I must have just tweeted about it or something.

As the title suggests it's that marijuana is the smell of capitalism.

Firstly, before I start, I should note that I'm not pro-marijuana. I don't really care what other people get up to in their personal life, but it's not my thing. So I'm generally against the use of recreational drugs. I'm more interested in the economic aspect.

What interests me in particular is that it shows how entrepreneurial normal people can be when a gap in the market presents itself.

As the gap in supplying marijuana can't be legally filled people with less to lose and more to gain step in to take the risk. You'll literally see scruffs from "lazy, jobless" council estates setting up entire marijuana farms in attics and garages. To then distribute it at a profit around the area.

It's essentially just slick and vibrant business. Albeit illegal business.

So whenever I smell that distinctive smell outside. A common aroma on English streets these days. I instantly think; "capitalism".

It shows, in an odd way, how industrious people can be when they have a market demand to fill. It also illustrates why it's harder for poorer people, indeed most people, to make headway in the legal markets. As legal markets tend to be already cornered by large business. 

It always makes me wonder what would happen if other things were made illegal.

If oranges were made illegal would we see illegal orchards popping up in backrooms and basements to fill the demand for fresh orange juice?

Now we live in age where much of normal human life is being deemed illegal will this black market capitalism also rise to fill these natural demands too? It'll be interesting to see what happens.

In fact, that's what reminded me of this today. I saw footage earlier of police trying to cut their way into a building to stop an illegal 'lock in' 😅

Perhaps they'll finally succeed in making all alcohol and pubs illegal. Then we'll have years of spending billions to stop the illegal trade. Then eventually someone will have the bright idea of legalising it all again and taxing it.

Wanna See a Polar Bear in an Orchard?

As we're now getting into winter I'm beginning to face the same conundrum I face every year; leave the heating off or kill the polar bears.

With my bedroom being in the attic of the house it can get a little cold, but flicking my little heater on feels like a guilty luxury. So I'm always quite mindful.

It got me thinking though. I always tend to see these things not so much through an environmental lens, but more through a work done lens. I tend to be more mindful of the fact that it requires human effort to produce these things I'm using. So the guilt partly stems from the sense that I'm being a selfish burden by being so profligate.

Someone somewhere is doing manual labour in a hi-vis, so I can be toasty while I sit at my laptop.

In fact, it reminds me of when I first became a vegetarian back when I was a teenager. What pushed me over the edge to becoming one was not so much the animal suffering but the fact that people had to work 40 hours a week in a slaughterhouse.

I remember thinking what a horrific job that must be. One that I could never ever do myself. So the logic followed. If I wouldn't do that job why should I expect someone else to do it on my behalf? Every time I ordered a burger I created a reason for someone to be stuck in that environment.

If I just ordered an apple pie instead I'd be creating a job in an orchard. Much more wholesome.

(This is supposed to be a polar bear in an

orchard - looks a little Christmassy though)

I'm not sure if I'm in a minority when I think like this. You don't often hear vegetarians make this human-focused argument for the cause. The focus tends to be on the animals, which I guess makes sense. I do think the appeal to work done would probably be a more effective argument when it comes to many of these things though. Especially the environmental arguments, where the logic is often contested and contorted.

This highlights another paradoxical problem we have as a society. We want to create jobs, because people obviously need employment to support themselves, but by doing so we're literally creating more work for people. Which aside from generally not being fun also leads to more resources being consumed. So it's like we're chasing two contradictory dreams.

A life of leisure ..but in full employment.

I wonder, will we ever see a politician who says; "Vote for me, I'll create fewer jobs" ?

I guess some parties have moved a tad in this direction with '4 day weeks', etc, but still, it's all a little muddled. It's a hard mental bind to escape from.

I remember once seeing the actress Liza Tarbuck on TV telling a story about how she had told a guy off for littering and his response was, "..but I'm creating a job for someone." Obviously that's a bit of an extreme example, but we do have this attitude where creating employment is so desired that making work for other people, even in the most menial and pointless sense, is often viewed as a net good.

Perhaps The Great Reset is already on the case to tackle this? What with UBI and so forth.

Come to think of it, we often talk about how we're heading into some sort of dystopian future. Which in many ways I don't doubt. However, if we return to the above mentioned slaughterhouses I think they can be taken as pretty good evidence that we're already in one.

I'm not one of these vegetarians that's totally against eating meat. I'm sure if I was starving in some African village I wouldn't quite have the same reservations about it. Plus it is quite normal out there in the animal kingdom, and a human hunting an animal through the jungle scrub isn't too dissimilar to a lion hunting its prey. So it's hardly something that can be considered unusual or unnatural.

When we moved into mechanised slaughter I think we crossed the line though. We had the intelligence to create all these wonderful advances. Yet used them to create relentless conveyor belts of doom, for already captive animals. It really is quite a cold and barbarous use of technology. An obvious indication that our morals lag behind our wit.

"We're heading into a dystopia!" people cry. Tell that to the cows.

Perhaps if we want to stop people being sheeple we should start with the actual sheep.