Nuclear power and spiders

Buying a house here should be an absolute bargain.

 

Mask Wearing

Imagine if the Government said that from the 19th July, for the sake of personal freedom, people can drive on whichever side of the road they liked. That they should exercise their own good judgment. 

The problem here is that there are going to be lots of accidents, and people will be afraid to drive. It has a negative impact on society as a whole. OK, an extreme example, but it illustrates the point in respect of facemasks (people in the UK will no longer be obliged to wear them from the 19th July).

The thing is that "personal freedom", when taken too far -- and often it is -- has a very negative impact on society as a whole.
But people in modern western societies are brainwashed into thinking that personal freedom is more important than collective responsibility.

Worried about long covid.

 94% of white people in their 50's or older in the UK have had at least one vaccine dose.  I'm white and in my 50's, but I haven't.  Why?  Essentially because of my health anxiety (I suffer both from health anxiety and social anxiety).

I worry way too much about my health.  That includes being averse to anything entering that body that interferes with its functioning.   And often, when I take pills of one type or another, they have deleterious side effects eg rennie is amazingly effective at immediately stopping my acid reflux during the night, but is more likely than not to lead to bouts of diarrhoea the next morning.  A few years ago when taking beta blockers for high blood pressure, I found that my heart didn't seem to be able to beat fast enough when I went for a run. When relaxing my heart rate was getting as low as the upper 30's (although, at that time, sometimes it went as low as the low 40's even without beta blockers. More typically, though it was around 50).  And I had a pupil dilation exam back in February 2019 (almost 2.5 years ago), and it's still having the occasional negative effect on my vision! (although seemingly very slowly improving over time.  I was very squeamish at the time, and as a result I think too much of that liquid was put in my eye to make the pupils widen, so that most probably did the damage).

So, anyway, I'm very averse to getting the jab. However, I'm even more averse to getting covid.  I was hoping to avoid both.  Unfortunately, the Government, in its never-ending ineptness, have decided to drop mandatory face-masks and social distancing from the 19th of July in England. Just read the following article in the independent:

Thousands facing long Covid as ‘collateral damage’ of Boris Johnson’s decision to lift restrictions

If I don't get the vaccine there's a fair chance I could get long covid, or maybe even die considering my age.  So, I'm in a dilemma on what to do...

Why do we have a mind-numbingly incompetent Government who seem hell-bent on spreading the virus as much as possible?  I have been banging on about people freely entering the country and spreading the virus ever since back in January 2020.  And  a few weeks ago on facebook I mentioned the extraordinarily bad decision to allow people in from India given the spread of a new variant there (now called the delta variant).

OK, decisions...

When I die

 

That sounds like a plan!

A Confusing Road Sign

 

That would make smoke billow from an autonomous car.

Asking Boris Johnson about God.

In the following article the author Robert Peston says:

"I followed up by asking whether he believed in God, mentioning that the Labour leader Keir Starmer said he did not.
In response Johnson paraphrased the bible, saying "the foolish man has said in his heart there is no God". 

What "God" is or means is highly ambiguous. It would be more useful asking him whether he believes there is an underlying reason and meaning behind all things. Whether the Universe and our lives exist due to blind happenstance, or whether there is an intelligence underlying and coextensive with reality as a whole.

We cannot see the self

The fact that you can’t see your eyes doesn’t mean that you don’t have any. Likewise, the fact we cannot see the self doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. The self is that which perceives, it's not itself a perception.