So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

Chat about stuff other than Transformers.
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Sades
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

Post by Sades »

Swappable butt cheeks?

What have I missed in this fandom?
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Skyquake87
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

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A model kit aimed at the adult collector market, which you as an adult may or may not want to buy, depending on your own personal preferences. This one's created a stir as it's based on a flagship female character (Windblade), who has a very obviously female form as can be seen from mainstream toys and media. The model kit accentuates these attributes, although it's not actually entered production yet. It's essentially a re-run of people's thoughts and feelings when this thing popped up; https://www.bing.com/images/search?view ... ajaxhist=0

In some corners of the internet, there's been the usual baiting and abuse in discussions over this, followed up with threats and so on. Because it's the internet and gives people an excuse to be c*nty to each other.

Or as the Farside once had it:

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view ... ajaxhist=0

It's the usual unedifying spectacle that makes you wish for some kind of plague to thin out the herd...

Swappable but cheeks. Imagine if you had that in real life. I suppose we already do, or cosmetic surgeons wouldn't exist.
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

Post by Denyer »

Skyquake87 wrote: Sun Jun 07, 2020 9:27 amIt's essentially a re-run of people's thoughts and feelings when this thing popped up;
Plus YouTube outrage peddlers and hanger-on mobs. Apart from YT also being a cesspit amplifying anything that produces views, that's why Twitter fundamentally doesn't work -- it's two or three hundred million people in a room together left to beat the shit out of each other to generate ad revenue for the site owners.
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

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I can't remember the last time I read the comments on a YT video. Probably on one of Dr Jake's Very British Reviews as he made some comment about charging for water when it falls from the sky, or similar. Always gets my back up, that one. Generally watch through the smart TV, so miss any comments. And don't watch, er, 'Bikini Unboxings'. Humans are weird.
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

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Skyquake87 wrote: Sun Jun 07, 2020 6:38 pm I can't remember the last time I read the comments on a YT video.
It's the videos and feedback loops. They've disabled comments on videos with kids, which gives you some idea how widespread that aspect of problems was.

But they're still actively promoting conspiracy theory shite, the more foaming kind of incels who hate Doctor Who or Star Wars having women in, and the end of WH40K fandom that sees the fiction as an instruction manual and is currently melting down over this as "up next" recommendations, based on very vanilla browsing.

What gets promoted isn't just what what lots of people have viewed, but what keeps people on the site for the longest amount of time, which = more ad viewing.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... dical.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... il/555350/
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

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Ahh, yeah. Windblade statue thing. Ehhhhhhhhhh.

I try to stay in Paleo Twitter and thereabouts. So much better for my mental health.
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

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Quite right. I think after all the initial excitement of the interwebz, I only regularly visit about 10 or 12 sites.

@Denyer; think the only time those kinds of videos have tipped into my feed were when I watched a documentary about a guy who went to a flat Earth convention ('A Global Movement', apparently....). I didn't click on any of them though, as I deal with enough mental conspiracy theorists and Freeman On The Land types at work to give all that cack short shrift. Think YTs clever spying technology has learnt from my pitifully small pool of things I like to watch on YT not to bother me with that rubbish again. Hooray for being tracked and watched online by multinationals for their own gain!
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

Post by tahukanuva »

Clay wrote: Tue May 26, 2020 9:20 pmI mean, two members from here got married and had a kid, so you're still on the low end of the "this forum changed my life" scale, lol.
Fair enough lol
Which part of Kentucky are you in? I seem to remember you being in Tennessee before.
I was in Tennessee! I recently moved to Lexington for my wife’s graduate school. It’s pretty nice up here, in that it’s basically Tennessee but with more hard liquor and horses, which is impressive considering how much of both of those there is in Tennessee.

————

As for the Windblade kit, I personally thought that the original design drawing showed promise, especially considering that it was done by a hentai pin-up artist. I’m a fan of Windblade, and had the final design been, like, 20% less horny and 20% more Windblade-accurate, I probably would’ve bought one. I never expected them to go up on the horny and down on the “looks like Windblade” resulting in a medium-horny figure of a completely generic large-assed robot.

BUT none of my opinion on the kit itself really matters in light of all the ridiculous things that happened afterwards. While the initial response against the kit was, diplomatically, ‘a little much‘, it was fine, because people are allowed to complain online. But then it becoming some kind of totem for the anti-sjw crowd to rally around? Having my fanbase and most of my twitter friend circles caught in one of those manufactured right-wing culture war crusades? Having it the model kit company thank the slur-hurling jackasses who made the whole mess?

It sucked. There’s no two ways about it, it sucked. Ideally, the kit would be cancelled as a direct consequence and punishment, but let’s be real; none of the people using that kit as an attack excuse were ever going to buy one.

(I would like to note here, though, that at conventions Flame Toys’ grey prototypes had little “pending license approval” cards, so there’s a solid chance that Hasbro ha(d/s)n’t signed off on Windblade anyway)
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

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Denyer wrote: Sun Jun 07, 2020 12:10 pmthat's why Twitter fundamentally doesn't work -- it's two or three hundred million people in a room together left to beat the shit out of each other to generate ad revenue for the site owners.
Yeah, social media in general is just too big. Too many people all together in one place, and even if only 5% of them are irredeemable assholes, and only 5% of them are abusive psychos, that's still hundreds of thousands of foaming at the mouth lunatics let loose to run free and shit on everyone else. Hence why anyone who posts an even mildly controversial opinion has a good chance to wake up the next morning to 500 DMs from strangers threatening to rape their grandmother.

I can't even imagine how it must feel to be e-mobbed by so many strangers that they outnumber the people I've ever met in real life. But all that requires is for 1% or 1% of 1% of the user base to be psychos who care about the topic you commented on.

In that sense, I think Twitter is genuinely too much for the human psyche to process. How do you deal with being attacked (or adulated) by a small town's worth of people all at once and keep any sense of perspective? Can you? Would you even want to? I don't think Kurt Eichenwald was thinking "But what about the 300,000,000 users who aren't trying to kill me!" when alt-right goons were sending him strobing GIFs on Twitter in an attempt to trigger his epilepsy...
Skyquake87 wrote: Mon Jun 08, 2020 5:51 pmI deal with enough mental conspiracy theorists and Freeman On The Land types at work to give all that cack short shrift.
That sounds "interesting"...

I can't tell you how happy I am that I no longer have any public-facing roles at work. Getting sworn at because people were mad at the companies that hired us to do surveys for them was (almost) never fun.
tahukanuva wrote: Mon Jun 08, 2020 7:40 pmI was in Tennessee! I recently moved to Lexington for my wife’s graduate school. It’s pretty nice up here, in that it’s basically Tennessee but with more hard liquor and horses, which is impressive considering how much of both of those there is in Tennessee.
You're making me want to visit Kentucky for vacation one day!

(Also, I always think Kentucky is way farther south than it actually is until I look it up on a map...)
tahukanuva wrote: Mon Jun 08, 2020 7:40 pmBUT none of my opinion on the kit itself really matters in light of all the ridiculous things that happened afterwards. While the initial response against the kit was, diplomatically, ‘a little much‘, it was fine
I really don't think it was fine. The whole thing had descended into an absolute shitshow long before the incel crowd got wind of it and started indiscriminately attacking people. The leading reactions I saw escalated very quickly from "We don't like this Windblade" to "Anyone who likes this is a sexual deviant and a thought criminal", because large-scale social media is inherently toxic. It amplifies the most extreme voices on any given subject, because it lets them find each other and reassures them that their extreme opinions are actually totally normal.
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

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Hence Populism. And hooray for that as it works out so well for us all...
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

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Warcry wrote: Sat Jun 06, 2020 6:13 am And by the same token, people in this very thread have said they like the kit, and I'm pretty sure they're not planning to pleasure themselves to it while posting on Return of Kings. I might think they have bad taste, but that doesn't make them bad people. Should we denounce them anyway because some assholes like a thing they like?
To be brutal, for the five people who like it for The Right Reasons, it's not worth it for all the negative connotations and impact of it.
inflatable dalek wrote: Fri Jun 05, 2020 2:28 pmIf there was a Carbombya themed playset coming out in 2020, would you be be "Well, that should happen for the people that like it?"
Honestly? My thoughts would probably be about the same as they were when I first saw this Windblade: "Dammit, that's a terrible idea. I really hope people don't buy this, so that they learn not to do it again."

I just do not have the energy to get genuinely angry about something as insignificant as toys.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the people dealing with this crap in fandoms where they're having to fight for both their spaces in it and better representation would love to be in the privileged position of just being able to shrug their shoulders at these things as well. It's exhausting, but people are having to fight every inch of the way right now.

The let's all be friends and treat different views as all equally valid is a lovely idea, but we're seeing repeatedly that it doesn't work. Because it's only ever the one side that tries to meet in the middle and attempting to do so is how America is now a full on military police dicatorship burning itself to the ground. With the UK not far behind.

The fandom wars might seem small fry in comparison, but it's similarly people just trying to hold their own ground in what should be a safe space.

inflatable dalek wrote: Fri Jun 05, 2020 2:28 pmA friend wrote a very eloquent blog piece on how this affected her that puts it all far better than I could. I'm going to have to wait to hear back from her that it's OK to share it because she very carefully doesn't mention it's about Windblade directly because she was afraid of term searchers finding it and starting the attacks again.
If she's willing to let you share it, I would be interested in reading it.
They were off Twitter for a bit when I contacted them last week. They said it was OK to share the text, but not the link. Because as said, they don't want the trolls finding it (which is also why it doesn't directly say what it's about). I'd forgotten Flametoys actually did a tweet thanking the "Supporters" (ie, the harassers) of the toy. So **** it and **** them.


What follows is the words of my friend:


[Removed, there's no safe way to post this if you're trying to protect someone. --Denyer]
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

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If you google the first two sentences of the essay you go straight to the blog post plus get a photo of the person who posted it, it's basically the same as linking it. For the same reason don't use images on one social media profile that can identify others if searched for with TinEye or Google Images. (And stay off Facebook, which will map together images, email addresses and phone numbers without any deliberate input -- not great for political dissidents, sex workers, anyone who doesn't want their "real" persona in front of family, etc).
in what should be a safe space
Parts of the fandom are relatively safe, for some value of that phrase, but they're actively managed forums/groups and depend on whether you agree with the prevailing ideologies of those places -- i.e. here the community consensus has tended to be to not suffer idiots except for entertainment value, and with the occasional disagreement over who needs to be a lesson. Fairly centre left in crude models, although I'm sure it feels far more left-wing to dickheads. But somewhere like The Padded Cell, for those who remember it, was actively trying to create that sort of thing -- a couple of decades ago (it probably helped that Nightwind's a different generation). It's just that people seem to have given up in favour of shitty generic social media, and trying to stake out space for a niche community on Twitter is like camping on an active volcano next to the KKK.

edit: The Padded Cell is still online, apparently it got migrated across to Tapatalk. Almost as inactive as Transfans but two admins having logged in as recently as two years ago.
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

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Could you edit out the "HERE'S HOW YOU FIND THEM" bit? Yes, I'm sure anyone desperately keen to could still work it out. But as there was a specific request for anonymity, maybe don't shout about it? It might just be basic precautions, but it's still a precaution.
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

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I've edited it out of your post. Relying on people with bad intentions to be thick isn't going to help someone being stalked. You're better off messaging Warcry.
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

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Denyer wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 11:10 pm I've edited it out of your post. Relying on people with bad intentions to be thick isn't going to help someone being stalked. You're better off messaging Warcry.
No need. I read it before it got taken down. :)
inflatable dalek wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 7:01 pmTo be brutal, for the five people who like it for The Right Reasons, it's not worth it for all the negative connotations and impact of it.
I really think that's uncharitable. I think you'd find that almost anyone who actually likes this Windblade (as opposed to the jackasses using it as a shallow excuse to attack strangers) like it for fairly innocent reasons. Dismissing them really doesn't accomplish anything aside from needlessly making enemies out of people who'd probably agree with you on 90% of everything else.
inflatable dalek wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 7:01 pmThe let's all be friends and treat different views as all equally valid is a lovely idea, but we're seeing repeatedly that it doesn't work. Because it's only ever the one side that tries to meet in the middle and attempting to do so is how America is now a full on military police dicatorship burning itself to the ground. With the UK not far behind.
You know, I hear that exact thing from both my right-wing and left-wing friends on the regular. And of course it's always their side that's trying to compromise and the other side that's strident and refusing to cooperate. I think the truth of the matter is that neither side is even willing to accept compromise anymore. Things have become so polarized that "compromise" now seems to mean "you capitulate entirely to what I want or you're a Commie Nazi". And this is in Canada, remember, where we have the most boring politics ever and our major political parties only pretend to disagree about anything. The only thing we're even arguing over is what colour of tie the person selling us out to their corporate overlords is wearing, and yet anyone on the other "team" is a literal traitor to the country. And I think the internet is to blame for most of that. Why should I be willing to compromise on anything when there are so many strangers out there willing to give me Likes no matter how extreme of a position I post? If that many people agree with me, obviously I'm 100% right!

America is a different story entirely, though. I'm not convinced anything has actually changed, other than that everyone now has a camera to record what's going on. The USA has been on this exact trajectory since Pearl Harbor. Eisenhower warned them, but nobody listened. I don't know how they're going to pull out of this spiral but I really hope they do.
inflatable dalek wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 7:01 pmThe fandom wars might seem small fry in comparison, but it's similarly people just trying to hold their own ground in what should be a safe space.
Everywhere should be a safe space! But realistically, we know some places aren't, and Twitter is right at the top of that list. It's too bad really, that there just aren't any places around anymore like the Archive was in it's heyday. The Transformers fandom used to be made up of communities, where people had to treat each other decently or be chased off. Nowadays it's aggregated into two or three gigantic cesspits where most of the people you interact with are total strangers and you'll inevitably get attacked by lunatics for any comment you make that garners any amount of attention.

I sympathize with people who feel like they're not welcome in the fandom and have to fight for their place, but I genuinely don't even know where they can do that anymore. Short of disowning the fandom entirely and just starting their own, parallel community like the Chinese did, I'm not sure how these new fans will ever find a place to be comfortable.
inflatable dalek wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 7:01 pmWhat follows is the words of my friend:
The worst part of all this is how absolutely none of it is surprising. :( For what it's worth, your friend has my sympathies.
Denyer wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 10:13 pmIt's just that people seem to have given up in favour of shitty generic social media, and trying to stake out space for a niche community on Twitter is like camping on an active volcano next to the KKK.
It really is too bad that the days of smaller online communities seems to have been strangled by massive social media giants. I can't fathom it, myself. The community aspect was the whole attraction of the fandom to me, back in the day.

And I think that people tend to forget just how public social media is. Outside of DMs there's really no such thing as private on Twitter, and no matter how innocuous your opinions, there's a good chance that you'll be confronted by assholes when you're expressing those opinions with a megaphone in the town square. It shouldn't happen, but as long as people continue to use platforms whose business model is to make money off of outrage, it will.
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

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Warcry wrote:I sympathize with people who feel like they're not welcome in the fandom and have to fight for their place, but I genuinely don't even know where they can do that anymore. Short of disowning the fandom entirely and just starting their own, parallel community like the Chinese did, I'm not sure how these new fans will ever find a place to be comfortable.
"Fandom" isn't monolithic, so the same as it's always been -- start your own place where you can set your own rules and if enough people agree and have the time and energy to post it'll have some legs. This usually means starting with students, or people who otherwise have a lot of free time, but mostly students. Conveniently, they're also more likely to be receptive to current vocabulary and ideals, or actively progressive.

Hosting's cheaper than it's ever been and software's mature. But apart from maybe the start of the century, it's always been easy to set up forums. Or chat rooms. Communities are harder. What's the value proposition? We grew up with each other, but what would make you join another community now?

Transformers might be multi-generational, but the bulk of the fanbase, like with comics, is old (and white, and male, but age is a huge differentiator). Even if people are fairly nice the only way kids mesh with fogies who have different life concerns is if the kids actively fit in with that, or if the kids are the majority and the fogies joining their commune do.

And generalising, thirty and forty somethings have less time for identity politics, non-binary pronouns, etc. They've "found" themselves already and have screaming offspring. They might be rabidly behind a particular set of politics or cause, but groups of any large size quickly run into the need for broad brush "no real world politics" rules -- there'll be exceptions made for topical and relatively clear cut things like overt racism, cruelty to animals or child abuse, but the only way you get to have free and open conversations about eg Boris Johnson being a moron and mass murderer is if that's the majority opinion.

So, creating places. Personally I'd start by investigating use of existing authentication providers with a chosen platform, so that people can use their existing Twitbook accounts to avoid the grave inconvenience of signing up for another site with a throwaway email address (and it is grave, frictions like registration or slow loading sites or not already having your acquaintances easily in one place have a strong effect on engagement). AFAIK phpBB can do that with with OAuth and Twitter / other sites. Leverage what you've got but don't put up with the limitations of Facebook groups or Twitter's free-for-all shitfest. The "replacement" for forums is forums but made easier.

And yes, maybe at some point I'll look at OAuth for here.
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

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Warcry wrote: Sat Jun 13, 2020 7:30 amYou know, I hear that exact thing from both my right-wing and left-wing friends on the regular. And of course it's always their side that's trying to compromise and the other side that's strident and refusing to cooperate. I think the truth of the matter is that neither side is even willing to accept compromise anymore. Things have become so polarized that "compromise" now seems to mean "you capitulate entirely to what I want or you're a Commie Nazi". And this is in Canada, remember, where we have the most boring politics ever and our major political parties only pretend to disagree about anything.
https://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2020/0 ... some-thing

Except I don't particularly find Cleese funny, or much of that generation of comedy TBH. Python works better as ideas than actually watching it, like HHGTTG does as ideas more than reading most of it.
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

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That link is awesome Denyer, thanks for sharing. Totally agree that people need to accept that we're all a bundle of contrariness and that people can hold conflicting values and opinions on things and that is normal.

I've found the whole business with statues and TV shows deeply depressing as the context is not being looked at - why were those people celebrated / paid to have their own statue put up at the time? The way the news has been carrying on, you'd think that Statue of Colson was put up last week - not in the Victorian era at the height of the British Empire when attitudes at the time were incredibly different! (Did amuse me to read that Colson's statue has him listed as a philanthropist.)
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

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It's similar with situations where change will have an impact on people but solutions that are primarily capitulation and shouting down disregard those people. I'm old, moderately strong, and secure enough to not care about sharing a changing room with anyone, as a for instance. Trans women want a quiet life just like everyone else; see also "the gay agenda" which has always been for people to leave them alone. Until you build into solutions things to stop random arseholes self-identifying and being in women-only spaces, that are accepted by a majority of the public, it's just more years of narratives like "beloved children's author attacked by vile online trolls". And partly it's generational; a lot of the people who actively voted for a policy of Section 28 are alive.

Yeah, Churchill was an absolute bastard by many accounts, as well as not a great peacetime prime minister. He's been reduced to soundbites, even in his day but particularly by people who think they fought in WW2 but were far too young. With statues I think it's possibly a case of public monuments needing to be cycled onto more modern "heroes" -- so put them somewhere safe and actively work on warts-and-all awareness of history with education and documentaries. Preferably not dramatisations, even the well-meaning ones end up more as propaganda and bias versus someone talking or writing about historical figures.

The UK does have a fetish for the past to distract from how shit it is at any particular moment, helped along by curriculums that skip the Empire and the extent of intervening in international politics, arms-dealing, etc.

Going off on a tangent, something that's fascinating is how many comparatively recent London buildings we don't have pictorial evidence of, only descriptions. During the Victorian Egyptology craze buildings were put up, including a lot of temporary structures but also ones that if they'd survived until today would be listed and heritage organisations would be trying to keep around indefinitely. But they were only representative for a short window of time. Most history's like that, it's only now that -- barring EDM pulses -- massive quantities of records are routinely preserved.
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Re: So I'm pretty much out of the fandom at this point

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I think we have a fetish for the past in this country because we miss ruling most of the planet, and that continues to feed through into both our society and our politics - this business of thinking we're somehow better than others or thinking we're better able to deal with things, rather than facing up to the fact that we're not. Britain is not 'world-beating' (to take Johnson's words utterly out context, if not intent) and hasn't been for a good long while. I wish we could get over these attitudes first and foremost. The rest will then surely follow.

...I do like old buildings and stuff and learning about our past. I'd love to go back to the Victorian era have been able to visit the Crystal Palace and whatnot.
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