And I don’t care what side you’re on, until we have evidence they were stopped, we CANNOT assume they have.

Absolutely. Not saying "it's still happening" doesn't mean believing it has stopped.

While you’re correct we have no evidence of it continuing, we DO have evidence that there was a raid in his property and none of the blackmail material we’ve heard about from multiple people over many years, including video evidence

But loads of material that fits the description of "blackmail material" has now been released. So far it has not been anything that could convict anyone - but it has undoubtedly been incriminating. So there's an obvious possibility that material was found but it did not amount to usable evidence.

Do you mean, "will it prevent ICE making use of these agreements with local police forces" or "will it prevent ICE from deploying onto Maryland's streets and committing acts of violence and repression?

No I think it's very important that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, two child sex traffickers, former also a child sexual abuser, were convicted and imprisoned. They were not the "two faces", they were facilitating (and in Epstein's case, partaking in) the illegal, immoral acts we're talking about.

You don't know if the rape gang carried on. You've got no evidence for it. That doesn't mean it didn't happen, but it's just wrong to say without evidence.

Saying it contributes to a world where it's normal to just accuse people of shit. It doesn't only blow onto the wealthy and the powerful who you think are bad - the giant paedophile conspiracy theory which you're subscribing to helped elect Trump. It never mattered that Trump was mentioned in the files - it never mattered what was true because people like the OP, people like you, chat a load of shit and think it's ok. You can do better.

That is why I care about it. So no, I didn't got'em, because you don't get it.

I think it's important to be truthful, and I also think it's important that Epstein and Maxwell were both sent to jail.

And I think it's even more important to push back against statements that are made not for their truth but just for their vibes, and the idea that calling out their lack of truth is somehow an opposition to the vibe. You can just say something true that expresses your feelings adequately, and it doesn't contribute to an environment where truth doesn't matter.

Great, glad we're on the same page.

I also want to stop the boats and the exploitative gangs doing this, but any approach that isn’t opening up safe and legal routes for applications to be made is just advocating for everyone else to bear the burden of global instability the UK played a disproportionate role in creating.

Safe, legal routes are key, but are also a way to do the opposite of having "everyone else [...] bear the burden", because in a world where refugees are not seen as a global problem to be handled multilaterally to ensure the burden is shared, making it easier to claim asylum means you'll receive a higher share.

This can end up with people talking at cross-purposes because in any disagreement there can be a reluctance to address the numbers: what level of immigration is the right one? We need to balance

1. bringing young people into the country to offset our ageing native born population
2. our obligations to refugees
3. the societal problems that come from rapid change in the balance of cultures. To be explicit, I'm not talking about "white replacement" here, I'm talking about what happens to a society - let's take a coastal Spanish town for a reverse example - and dump a bunch of immigrants - English retirees there - at a high rate. The local population is liable, reasonably in my view, to be annoyed if a load of people arrive and don't integrate well.

So what rate will balance those three things? I dunno, but looking at how migration has changed over the last few decades, it's not surprising that we are seeing a lot more annoyance under the third item.

the UK played a disproportionate role in creating.

I don't think this kind of thinking is very productive though. Maybe the UK as a country does bear some responsibility, but whether it is disproportionate is hard-to-impossible to quantify. Most small boat arrivals over the past few years are from Iran. Should UK citizens now be considered responsible for the actions of our government over 70 years ago? For a counter-coup that could never have been foreseen? Or should radical repressive Islamists bear more of that responsibility?

The next largest contingent is Afghanistan - but the UK went into Afghanistan with as part of a large multi-national coalition, so just what proportion of the responsibility is ours?

The next largest is Iraq - where we certainly bear a higher portion of the blame.

Then comes Albania - I don't know anything we've done to fuck them up. (Arrivals from Albania are now very low)

Next comes Syria - again I don't believe Britain has any responsibility for the situation there.

But if we are to incorporate this thinking into policy, it can't come as some kind of thought-terminator, "we did bad things in the world, so we have to be punished, so we must take whatever." We need to have at least a rough idea of which countries we have adversely affected, how significantly, and therefore roughly how many people that means we ought to take as some kind of reparation.

Otherwise, it's a non-starter; it wouldn't provide any practical guidance, so it would be little more than virtue signalling.

Huh.

Well I'll be damned! I actually thought Google zoomed out to a globe but that's only on the satellite layer.

At least those tools actually are for navigation, not for showing the entire world.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a Mercator map except in internet content complaining about them

Uh, didn't Epstein go to jail

Because political "shower thoughts" aren't shower thoughts at all, they're soapboxing.

reading speed of 1500 wpm

this is bait