Accepting anything offered to you on the first offer is a bit rude. Basically, you are a guest of someone and shouldn't be a burden on them. They have to prove to you that you are not a burden, and then once that is clear you don't feel bad being served.
Then your tea comes with cake, ham sandwiches and biscuit which is beyond the scope of the initial drink you were offered.
very culturally dependent. In Germany, the first offer is the offer. If you refuse it, there will not be a second one; and making a second, third offer, in turn, would be rude in Germany, as it is pestering and assumes I'm lying with the first answer or I don't know what I want. How dare you assume this? :D
The English always think the Germans terribly rude. In turn, Germans find these English (also Irish, I guess) conventions of running around things fifteen times for ritual terribly exhausting, a complete waste of time and honestly, just an outright lie.
Take email rules. Germans ridicule this "Hi, how are you, how's the family?" loop before the email (or phone call, or meeting) comes to "I need this from you." A German mail is "Hi, I need this. Thanks."
That is not rude at all; the contrary, you did not force your family on me and didn't pretend to care about things that you do NOT care about, and you didn't impose on me with private things from strangers that I do not care about. (in the English mail, signified by the fact that there are no actual answers. "Fine!" .... Great, that was useless and just signaled openly that we really do not care and the question was, in fact, a lie.)
It's not a lie. Often the "how are you" is answered with "not bad", i.e. nothing much to say or don't want to talk about it, but sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it turns into a conversation about how life is going, or the problems you're having, or what you're looking forward to at the weekend or on your holiday. Or maybe just some idle chat about how hot it's been. Not only is this inevitably more fun than whatever the meeting was supposed to be about, it allows you to become closer with your colleagues.
It's basically just giving some room for that social interaction, which may or may not be used.
though it's not giving room in general; if it actually does depends on whether, in this context, it MAY be used or not, which the question itself doesn't communicate. This makes it a hornet's nest to actually use it. A purely ritual "how are you" met with actual emotional expression might make the situation quite awkward.
Thus, there are deeper contextual frames you need to understand in order to know if that "how are you" actually means "please, open up" or it it only means "I'm just checkmarking politeness in this convo before I tell you to stay 3 hours longer today".
I sometimes meet foreigners who have been to Poland and learned a few phrases from the locals. Usually "How are you" is among them only because they have specifically requested this to be translated, but I've never heard this being used as a greeting in my entire life.
I'm neither english or german, but I do prefer this german approach of making single offers to visitors and being direct in work emails. Being direct doesn't have to mean bossy or rude, it just means getting to the point.
if by 'lie' you mean part of the culturally specific social ritual which is an essential glue knitting disparate people together, then yes, it's a lie.
we lie all the time to knit people together, yes, of course. The key is in the "culturally specific" part. What kinds of lies are coded as rude and what kinds of lies are coded as glue? This differs, which was all I'm saying. I don't want to take the ritual from the English; I just want to keep them from making it universal (the English are very good at making whatever they do universal around the globe. ahem)
This isn't just different between cultures, it's different between status positions, scenes, relationship levels. If someone I'm just getting to know asks me for lunch and I don't feel like it, I'll say "I'd love to, I can't" if I do want to keep making a relationship with that person. If someone's an old friend, I'll say, "I don't want to", knowing that our friendship won't be hurt by that.
I remember an implicit rule in India that politeness comes in 3 waves, 1st is always ignored, 2nd too, only when you mention something a 3rd time then you can be honest and serious.
Yeah a good break down, and despite its size, Ireland has quite a variation depending on your county. As with everything trivial we'll fight you about it.
For a really good look at tea drinking read Strumpet City, apart from it being an amazing novel, has the many ways they brewed and drank tea at the turn of the century.
Irish Black tea tends to be different than English Black tea, apart from being superior of course, we source the leaves from different locations, something something due to rationing during WWII...
It's more complicated than that. If my comments on news.ycombinator.com are removed, am I being censored or just asked to leave a publicly accessible private venue.
That is to say, where do free speech zones begin, publicly accessible private areas areas end, and even public right-of-ways end?
It's really a complex question when you delve into nuance, and I think it's worthwhile to do that, even for people who genuinely as deeply pro-free speech.
I think the key is for each platform to have consistent rules that allow users to decide if they want to engage. Reddit is an extreme example, where every sub is allowed to make its own rules. Want to delete any content using the letter 'E'? Go for it!
There's also the shutting down of protests that are loud because they are against one thing being heard. It is hard to determine whose free speech prevail there.
If you read the original arguments in favor of freedom of speech, it's actually quite easy to determine who should prevail. Back in 1644, John Milton argued in favor of allowing bad ideas to be published for the following reason[1]:
> Bad meats will scarce breed good nourishment in the healthiest concoction; but herein the difference is of bad books, that they to a discreet and judicious Reader serve in many respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate.
Thomas Paine said something similar in his introduction to The Age of Reason[2]:
> You will do me the justice to remember, that I have always strenuously supported the Right of every Man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.
As did John Stuart Mill in On Liberty[3]:
> But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
In short, freedom of speech isn't some deontological argument about the rights of the speaker or writer. It's a consequentialist argument about the rights of people to read or listen. Every time you silence someone, you are denying others the right to read what they want to read or hear what they want to hear. If some protesters are disrupting a talk, they are the ones who are in the wrong, as they are denying others the chance to get the information they want. Many in the audience might not agree with the views expressed, but they want to understand the ideas so they can strengthen arguments for their own views.
If you don't think people are rational or intelligent enough to consume certain ideas safely, well then you might as well get rid of the entire idea of democracy, as you shouldn't trust them to vote either.
I strongly recommend that you revise your post - the 'original' arguments in favour of free speech date back to the 5th century BC.
"Freedom of speech and expression has a long history that predates modern international human rights instruments.[6] It is thought that the ancient Athenian democratic principle of free speech may have emerged in the late 6th or early 5th century BC.[7]
Freedom of speech was vindicated by Erasmus and Milton.[6] Edward Coke claimed freedom of speech as "an ancient custom of Parliament" in the 1590s, and it was affirmed in the Protestation of 1621.[8] England's Bill of Rights 1689 legally established the constitutional right of freedom of speech in Parliament which is still in effect, so-called parliamentary privilege.[9][10]"
> Bad meats will scarce breed good nourishment in the healthiest concoction
Funnily enough, this might not hold true in this current era of media. Bad information (disinformation) cause real harm, see antivaxxers, political radicalism, etc. So this topic is a bit more nuanced with platforms in place that can echo speech based on potentially malicious intent.
It is not all about the technology. Someone comes over to your home, they don't get to browser your CV flac collection, and talk about it. Log into Spotify and presented with a world of choice, it's harder to choose. Go to your collection, flick through the records discover favourites you haven't listened to in ages. putting a record on is a ritual, demanding attention, flicking through files is just for diverting attention. The best tech doesn't mean the best product.
As an aside, thank you for reminding of how terrible the Spotify library design is.
You should be able to have a similar experience with your digital collection. I wish I could flick through covers in my library rather than browse a grid.
Even the buying of vinyl is an experience. Going to a store dedicating time to purchase something like 12 tracks, while flipping through tens of not hundreds of large items with artwork ranging from Beautiful to meh to thought provoking.
One option in the future is the that United Kingdom refers to the monarchy not the government. If Scotland became Independent, they could retain the monarchy. So you could argue the kingdoms are united, but different governments "serve" the monarch in different countries. This would require England and Wales to come up with a new name for their new country unless Wales also asked for independence.
True,but they were colonies that were under the British Empire, rather than being made part of the UK, that slowly gained dominion status granted self-governance that eventually came full governance. The United Kingdom was formed around 1707, between England and Scotland. Ireland was joined in 1801. Ireland left the United Kingdom in 1921 coming a dominion until becoming a republic and cutting all ties to the monarchy.
My scenario doesn't abolish the United Kingdom, it abolishes it as a country, not as an entity. Which would be either largely symbolic, or something closer to the EU in design
> My scenario doesn't abolish the United Kingdom, it abolishes it as a country
But surely a kingdom has to have a defined territory over which the monarch is sovereign?
Of course there is precedent for having a government in exile (which claims a territory it has no control over), and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (which doesn't claim any territory at all), but I think if you want the "UK" to refer to an institution, then it should stand for "the United Kingship".
The monarch would be sovereign, but he/she/they would execute their powers through different elected assemblies in different parts of the Kingdom. The two assemblies would have no influence over each other.
Not sure the monarch has really executed its powers over government since ousting Lord Melbourne in the 1830s. So it really is just about tradition and pageantry.
When Ireland voted for independence, it was officially part of the UK. The UK as a whole would have voted against independence for Ireland. Does that mean under democratic rules Ireland was not allowed for it to be separated from the main country?
We'd be better off asking why unionist don't want to join rather than telling them they have no choice.
I don't think anyone is telling them that: in fact their concerns are absurdly well catered for, though you wouldn't know it listening to the constant complaints.
We can split hairs about what is and is not democratic until the end of time, but the debate takes place in a historical vacuum: the creation of Northern Ireland was a response to a very specific set of circumstances, and I don't think yak-shaving about democratic niceties casts any light.
It is moot anyway, because there is no prospect of changing Northern Ireland's status without democratic sanction. Which vote of course takes place at the pleasure of His Majesty's Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
It is not quite at the pleasure of His Majesty's Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. It is defined in law that if there are grounds to believe it would pass they would be required to hold a border poll. This could be decided in court, as in if say opinion polling was at 70% and nationalist parts were winning 70% of the votes, and the Secretary of State refused to hold the poll. They could be brought to court and a judge could rule the secretary has no grounds to refuse.
Indeed, but someone from NI can also join the Irish Olympic team. I guess the use of GB rather than UK is a way of addressing that sensitive question by not including NI as default in one team.
Also Football and Rugby. In general the sporting associations have a conditionally Unified Ireland policy, where it's really flexible which countries an athlete can compete for.
Northern Ireland has its own Football team, though I guess anyone who was born in NI has the right to be an RoI citizen they could choose to play for RoI instead. There is only a single Irish Rugby team though.
Government's role is more than just launching rockets at the lowest price point. People deride pork barrel politics and contracts going all over America, but supporting communities is part of the mandate of a government. NASA funding is also partially possible, as politicians can say it is supporting jobs. If they couldn't justify it like that, NASA funding would be a lot less.
