Davie P

A bit of a ramble here. I was having a conversation with someone the other day who was drawing a link between between children bullying each other and how 'adults' behave on social media. One example they pointed out was a recent news story about Loganair on the Shetland TImes website. In the comments section someone had taken the photo of local staff and superimposed clowns faces, much to the amusement of many Facebook users. If a child had done that to a group of other children it would be considered bullying, but apparently it doesn't apply to adults and we merrily poke fun at people for doing their jobs. What kind of example is that for young folk? Perhaps I'm getting old, but I have noticed a decline in the civility with people's comments on Facebook, particularly local news websites' comments sections - folk insulting folk, throwaway negative comments, general pleepsing about local services (which are amongst the best in the UK, if not the world). I've challenged a few folk about Facebook posts they've made when I've met them in real life and there seems to be a disassociation between their social media behaviour and their 'real life' behaviour. People seem to be emboldened to say whatever they feel like online without considering the impact on others' A final point - I spoke to someone who works for a business that operates across Scotland and he tells me that the level of needless negativity they get on social media from Shetland is completely disproportionate compared to other areas. (Sweeping comment alert) Ultimately, I've been wondering if Shetlanders are negative by nature, or are we maybe a little 'entitled'?

Did you really believe we’d pay no attention or have no interaction with Europe post-Brexit? So not even trading with our nearest neighbours? I can’t recall even the most extreme and xenophobic versions of Brexit pushing for that. What would the benefits of this ‘flavour’ of Brexit be?

Is there anyone on these forums who thinks Brexit has worked out well? I'm genuinely interested. Is there anyone who voted for Brexit that, if given the chance, would go back and vote the same way again?

I believe it will be graded aggregates. I recall being told by an engineer that the cables sit in a gravel trench in a bed of 'dust', and the same goes on top, then backfilled with the peat

What do you suggest instead of "the the system of so-called 'governance'" then?

I primarily use a Mac, and also Safari can be troublesome with 4OD, and some other streaming services too. So I use Chrome for streaming, and Safari for everything else. I'm not a fan of updating operating systems or applications unless absolutely necessary, but my 2012 Macbook can't run the latest versions of Chrome and Safari which throws up problems with some websites. There are other browser options, such as Opera, which are worth exploring and are less demanding on older Macs.

This is a fairly comprehensive list of evidence re: Russian interference / influence on Brexit > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_Brexit_referendum "....the report leaves open the possibility that Moscow-based information operations, especially through social media and Russian state-funded broadcasters like Sputnik and RT—and backed up by targeted support to influential voices within UK politics—may well have been a significant factor. Crucially, the UK Government is accused of making a deliberate effort not to find out how Russian influence may have affected the June 2016 vote." https://www.csis.org/blogs/brexit-bits-bobs-and-blogs/did-russia-influence-brexit "the government had reason to suspect a violation of our democratic processes and ignored it. An admission of such a breach would have caused embarrassment" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/21/russian-meddling-brexit-referendum-tories-russia-report-government

I feel the same @Wheelsup. In my case it's an instinctive reaction, and having reflected on it, it's because this individual doesn't seem to have an understanding or interest in the nuances of UHA of someone who had grown up in the "Lerwick Up Helly Aa Community" (to quote @Muckle Oxters). UHA is more than an event to many men and women - it's a lifestyle, and a strong part of their identity. By attacking UHA from various 'legal' angles, and trying to play down folks wishes and concerns as sexist, misogynistic and backward, he is likely to do more harm than good to his crusade and is unlikely to win the 'hearts and minds' of the Lerwick Up Helly Aa Community. This individual seems to be trying to portray people who do not agree with him as xenophobic or anti-incomer, when most people I know who don't agree with him don't care where he came from - it's his lack of understanding and empathy they resent. I only know what he has written in letters, but there also seems to be an element of virtue signalling and wishing to be a knight in shining armour. I'm quietly in favour of women's involvement in squads, but it's not my decision, and I agree that the avenues he is pursuing is likely to result in heels being dug in and divisions being strengthened.

Another minor difference: one 'side' is a partnership of independent sovereign democracies who voluntarily cooperate for mutually beneficial economic, social and defence reasons, and the other 'side' isn't. And I'd question Ghostrider's assertion that "the end result is little different." The end result for whom, and comparing what?

So the Ukraine, and any other border nation, should just be left as a "'no mans land' buffer 'fighting zone'"?

I take it you have very little knowledge of the recent history of the Ukraine, the voting record of Ukrainians on issues such as EU and NATO membership, or even the processes and requirements for joining the EU or NATO. But there you go...... And there we have it. It's all just a big conspiracy designed to distract people from Covid. FFS. To say that a sovereign country being invaded, a million+ displaced refugees, and unknown numbers of civilian casualties is Putin "throwing his toys out of his pram" is poor form

Indeed. I've been involved in some online discussions that are basically people Googling whatever the subject is and posting links back and forth to each other without actually reading or digesting the information. When I were a lad.... books and articles were read, experienced people were listened to, thoughts were pondered and some clarity was reached before mouths were opened. Now folk seem happy to find the first article they feel backs their point up and post that saying "see..." whilst believing that to be research. I wonder if, in the age of information, we are losing our abilities to process the information in a meaningful way?

Where's the line between questioning the consensus and creating a world of paranoid mistrust? The promotion of conspiracy theories and spread of misinformation is an inevitable consequence of the internet (I naively believed the internet would be a force for consensus and collective knowledge, but them human nature got in the way...), and I'm wondering if we're heading toward a future where information and evidence are of no particular value to many people, and they're just looking for a narrative that suits their world view, then creating and spreading misinformation to back their views up? Political and media spin have been with us since the dawn of politics and the media but personally I don't know why 'the person on the street' would just casually make stuff up and circulate it on the internet. I'm sure they have their motives. What do you folks think? Have we come out the other side of the age of reason and science, and into the age of perpetual misinformation?

For me, Brexit was the apex because it represented a tipping point for one of the world's longest functioning democracies (a model upon which many Western democracies are based) and a failure of the classic view of the 4 Estates of Democracy. We are now in a new era in the UK where it is 'acceptable' for the government (the Executive) to ignore Parliament (the Legislature) and the courts (the Judiciary) and use the media (the 4th Estate, which has traditionally had a function to hold the other 3 to account) to manipulate voters into voting for something which would demonstrably make the majority worse off. Personally, I feel that the move from 'editorial' media to 'social' media has rendered the function of the 4th Estate, to a large degree, obsolete. Mass manipulation seems quite straightforward on Social Media (e.g. Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal). Folk will believe what they want to believe, do very little in the way of fact checking, and seem particularly susceptible to simple false equivalences (e.g. the infamous NHS Bus blaming the EU for government's underinvestment in health services, and the government blaming immigrants for their underinvestment in social services and housing in deprived areas). It all seems very plausible to many people, and Social Media provides the online echo chambers for these manipulations to take hold and become accepted as fact. All the government then has to do is present their latest legislation as the silver bullet to shoot the bogeyman they created, and call anyone who challenges them 'undemocratic' or 'unpatriotic'

I agree, and there's several factors at play, some of which vex me greatly: A debasement of the media - the 4th estate of democracy - people no longer expect to pay for news, investigative journalism is on its knees, and news has been replaced by opinion-ised 'infotainment' Statistics show that attention spans are going down across the board, particularly amongst younger people (the endless scroll of social media.....) Participation in consensus politics and local democracy has been replaced by online echo-chambers and keyboard warrior-ism - everyone has the ability to share ill-informed opinions without consequence, and there seems to be more of a desire to prove everyone else wrong that to actually put our collective heads together to solve problems and build a better future Brexit was the apex of the above

Are we going over this once more George? How were the "Common Market, the E.E.C, the E.C, the E.U." "inflicted" upon us, and which parts of the British democratic system do you think are undemocratic? Of all the many times you've posted the same thing over the years, I can't recall you ever backing it up.

The fundamental challenge the Remain side was that their only option was to try to point out the benefits of the status quo whilst preaching caution - never the 'sexy' option - whilst the Leave had the benefit of being able to paint pictures of a multiple different futures in which everyone's lives would be better. Remain meant more of the same, whilst Leave was a hotchpotch of scenarios and promises with little detail to back any of up - Leave just had to persuade people that at least one of these competing scenarios would benefit them (from my estimation, there was at least 6 or 7 fundamentally different scenarios that came under the umbrella of 'Brexit')

The 'all politicians are liars' line of discussion is quite tedious, and quite frankly nonsense. I studied politics as a student, worked alongside several politicians at various levels during my career and still take a keen interest in it. There are many politicians of great integrity, past and present, and at all levels of local and national politics, who have contributed very positively to society. However, in all the years I have followed politics I have never seen such blatant dishonesty as that which came from, in the most part, the pro-Brexit politicians and the media outlets which amplified their jingoistic nonsense and glossed over their disregard for due process. They played to the gallery, and promised things that were obviously impossible, with apparent impunity. I feel Brexit was probably the lowest point in British politics for several generations.

Here's the full Retail Impact Assessment - good luck at making sense of it! https://pa.shetland.gov.uk/online-applications/files/953C3248ADDB20F61F783AA1F872D6A7/pdf/2021_106_PPF-RETAIL_IMPACT_ASSESSMENT_AND_ECONOMIC_STATEMENT-387700.pdf After a quick read, it seems that there's a subtle but very important differentiation between having no impact and having no impact on viability - the latter essentially means that the Retail Impact Assessment tries to make the case that whilst there will be an impact, the shops can still survive and remain viable. There's also some interesting statistics in there that makes a case that Shetland shops trade at higher than UK average profit (they use much more complex language, but that's the thrust), so it'll just be the local shops' profit margins that'll be impacted. Obviously, the Retail Impact Assessment has been written from a specific perspective with one aim in mind, so make of it what you will! I think that's down to the reporting of the report, rather than the content of the report

As George alludes to, it's akin to gambling so it depends on your 'risk appetite'. There's winners and losers, but you tend to hear more about the winners. On the whole, the trend has been for the value of BitCoin to be on an upward trajectory, but it's a currency so isn't underpinned by anything 'tangible' (such as the value of a company or a commodity) so the value is based on perception. The bigger financial institutions are now trading in crypto currencies, and it's coming under increasing regulation, so I expect the heady days of early adopters getting-rich-quick are gone. It is, however, still quite volatile so can swing up and down in value dramatically, so there's still significant returns (and losses) to be made. From my understanding, you need to be either be lucky or invest a lot of time and effort into following the markets if you want to make a return on your investment. There's loads of misinformation, hype and 'info-mercials' re: cryptocurrencies on the internet, so it's best to proceed with an element of suspicion and cynicism!

This is an interesting article on the royal's carbon footprint(s) https://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/blog/royal-family-carbon-footprint#link-who-has-the-biggest-carbon-footprint It seems Charles is the worst offender. His mam and her business interests managed to use their privileges to avoid carbon cutting legislation too https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/28/queen-secretly-lobbied-scottish-ministers-climate-law-exemption

I'd be interested to hear more about your research

A friend used to have a breaded dragon and I believe he had a subscription with an online supplier who sent regular packages of live food. Your postie might not thank you though!

I believe Leasks are selling off their buses. Could be worth a try??

The 'victims' are people who don't like seeing the town vandalised. And The War Memorial was a single location, whereas the last incident was several locations. There are arguments to be had regarding the relative symbolism and validity of the 'targets' but the scale is different. From my perspective, the "outpouring of outrage and criticism" doesn't "far exceed" the War Memorial incident (which made it to the national news), but then I don't know where you're sourcing your outrage and criticism from.