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oli's avatar

Was to shy to say anything, but thank you, you have answered one of the questions that bothered me most today: How did Britain succeed in managing an empire? And as you said: expropriating wealth has always been the business model. Plus cruelty, I guess.

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DataFran's avatar

I also thought this was a helpful framing of the situation, but I was forced to wonder if maybe there's been some sort of natural limit reached on how much wealth can be expropriated, and from where/whom? Could that be one of the factors driving this chaos?

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oli's avatar

Yes. It has been astonishing to me how little economic substance was left in UK when this business started to dry out. If you can get rich by expropriation, this stops you from innovating.

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Sean Corfield's avatar

Sorry I missed this -- but that's the penalty of living in California and not being a "morning person" I guess :)

Ironic today, since I actually woke up really early and could not get back to sleep -- and was enjoying reading about Truss's resignation and seeing all the lettuce jokes on Twitter. But I didn't check my email until lunchtime.

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Amyphist's avatar

You gave a bit short notice for that one! (Almost as little as Truss did of her resignation speech…) Would have joined if I’d finished work in time, but had to do a late one tonight.

Oh well; post here if you ever do one of these again, with more notice next time please!

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Robert Sillitoe's avatar

Thank you for this evening - a nice surprise after a fairly crap week! Worried I interrupted or talked too much - I don't want to be THAT guy! But it was lovely to hear everyone's opinions and have a sensible conversation with intelligent people! Was nice meeting the group!

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Laura J's avatar

That was good. Thanks again, Laurie. I'm @passeriform on Twitter and I hope I can attend more Zooms with you.

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Laura J's avatar

PST? I imagine it's BST, but am I right?

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Laurie Penny's avatar

that's the badger!

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pauljeremiah's avatar

I should be free just after 18:30, so will try to be there Laurie.

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