Clean hands, Cool head, Warm heart.

GP, Gardener, Radical progressive

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  • 11 Comments
Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: May 7th, 2024

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  • It is fine, unless you want a brand that doesn’t have a deal with Bunnings, or unless you want garden furniture that is remotely durable, or unless you want some advice from someone who has experience in hardware.

    Back when Bunnings was one of several large chains and small local hardwares were much more common it was easy, even Bunnings was made better by the competition. Monopolies are bad for consumers.



  • I think this is a bit of a misrepresentation of political correctness. I think the term political correctness is a bit outdated but I’ll use it here.

    Reclaiming derogatory language by minorities is obviously very empowering and has been done successfully. It’s also the case that words that are offensive in one context can be neutrally used, demented and retarded are often used in medical contexts without anyone becoming offended.

    Now one can come up with hypothetical situations where it can be difficult to negotiate whilst being politically correct, especially if the person speaking may not have the vocabulary. But in almost every real life instance of someone complaining about political correctness all that is being asked of them is to be considerate, kind, and inclusive. It can be taken too far but that is the exception, overwhelmingly people are understanding of slip ups or of people not knowing the correct terminology.

    Empathy and kindness are important for their own sake, whether it’s labelled as political correctness or not.





  • The idea that capitalism and liberal representative (I refuse to use the word democratic) government are the only viable option are so ingrained. It makes it difficult to engage anyone in serious discussion of alternatives.

    What I do is point out injustice when you come across it and suggest a socialist solution. Don’t mention socialism, talk about unions, worker ownership, workplace democracy, social housing, structural injustice.

    If you get pushback I will say something like “I feel like our political system is so focused on capitalist solutions that often good sensible policies don’t get considered”

    With people you interact with frequently this approach will usually, over time, result in them no longer thinking you’re a crackpot and often soften them up for a more detailed discussion in which you can discuss revolutionary change.

    This is the best I have been able to do. Interested to see other responses.


  • I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt here but both Suetonius and Pliny are talking about Christians in the 2nd century, Tacitus speaks about Christ only in the context of Nero blaming Christians for the great fire. These are literary evidence for the existence of Christians in the second century but are not direct literary evidence of the existence of Christ as an individual which was the question I was addressing.

    I’d be delighted to be shown to be wrong but I believe my original post stands.


  • I’m by no means an expert but I was briefly obsessed with comparative religion over a decade ago and I don’t think anyone has given a great answer, I believe my answer is correct but I don’t have time for research beyond checking a couple of details.

    As a few people have mentioned there is little physical evidence for even the most notable individuals from that time period and it’s not reasonable to expect any for Jesus.

    In terms of literary evidence there is exactly 1 historian who is roughly contemporary and mentions Jesus. Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus mentions him twice, once briefly telling the story of his crucifixion and resurrection. The second is a mention in passing when discussing the brother of Jesus delivering criminals to be stoned.

    I think it is reasonable to conclude that a Jewish spiritual leader with a name something like Jesus Christ probably existed and that not long after his death miracles are being attributed to him.

    It is also worth noting the historical context of the recent emergence of Rabbinical Judaism and the overabundance of other leaders who were claimed to be Messiahs, many of whom we also know about primarily(actually I think only) from Josephus.



  • I have a personal website, not a business one but if all you want is to display some information and contact details etc then Hover for domain hosting and Squarespace for the website, they are easy to use and relatively cheap for a simple website that looks professional. If you want things like e-commerce or online booking you might want something else although linking to another service from a Squarespace site could work.

    I’m currently shifting to self hosting and having troubles with Hover, but for an easy to use service that doesn’t require any technical knowledge it works fine. They also offer email@yourdomain.com which I use as my main personal email with no worries.

    Please don’t just have a Facebook page, it becomes a real pain for non-facebook users, especially on mobile, and it makes you look like a complete amateur.