Unfortunately a lot of sites have ditched support for RSS over the past 10 years requiring tedious work arounds if you can get it to work at all.

I hope it can make a comeback but I’m dubious.

I’d take slight issue with this. Having untreated depression and working at heights are also dangerous but driving is by no means safe. As @[email protected] pointed out driving is safer in most other developed countries than it is in the USA. Simple behaviour and policy changes can make it substantially safer and the fact that drivers don’t take the danger of driving seriously is a huge factor making it more dangerous.

The Socratic method is used extensively in medical training to the point that I think most doctors wouldn’t think of it as the Socratic method but rather just as the way you speak to students and trainees.

I can’t imagine how it could work in a lecture hall, it’s best used one on one or at most small groups.

Someone told this to workers at a cafe I go to occasionally. They don’t usually have a particularly long wait which makes it seem insincere and a little ridiculous.

I think the debate on this issue is blown out of proportion.

First, giving a small amount of money to someone in need is a very direct and human act of compassion which makes it worthwhile, if you gift someone money it is their prerogative what they do with it and the idea that it is harmful is blown out of proportion.

Second, giving money to a local charity is also worthwhile, if you don’t feel comfortable for whatever reason.

The idea that one approach is good and the other is actively bad is at best a distraction and at worst an excuse to do nothing at all

The fact is that even in Australia, which by world standards has a not bad safety net, it is not possible for most people to get crisis housing and waiting lists for public housing are rarely less than 6 months, welfare payments can be cut off for trivial reasons and public mental health services are overwhelmed. These are the problems that successive governments have refused to tackle.

If you can make someone’s day with a small gift then please do.

Respectfully, I am very confident you are misreading this situation. The thought patterns displayed in the original post are almost textbook typical of major depression and would be extremely atypical of someone who is a genuine emotional manipulator.

Other posts here have given genuine good advice, unfortunately I have to agree that while I am sure you are well meaning, you are being quite unhelpful here.

Apricots, upside down pears, Easter eggs, those teeny tiny sealed shot glasses of UHT milk you get in hotels, those big marbles we used to call Tom bowlers in primary school, eye balls, a large toy ant(assuming 6 holes in the holder rather than 12, otherwise 2 large toy ants)

The possibilities are endless!!!

This is true, an egg won’t last long unrefrigerated after its opened ;)

In much the same way that almost no one has perfect physical health, almost no one has perfect mental health.

You don’t need to be a complete wreck to be able to benefit from paying attention to your mental wellness.

Eating well, regular exercise, mindfulness, forgiveness, good sleep practices are all worth practicing whether you feel unwell or not.

I’m a huge advocate of gardening. It gets you outdoors and active, gives a sense of achievement, you learn and improve over time, it’s popular enough that you can get involved in a community, if you’re growing veg it promotes healthy eating.

It should be mandatory.

I’m lucky to have been able to experiment a bit with this as my work is flexible and I’m in a pretty good bargaining position. I also do a fair bit of unpaid work out of hours.

Having either Friday or Monday I’ve found to be little different. Having alternating Fridays and Mondays is pretty awesome, 4 days on, 2 off, 4 on, 4 off.

There’s a lot to be said for a mid week day off too. I’m looking at moving to a new employer and hoping to go negotiate a 3 day week, maybe Mon-Tues-Thur for example which will be heaven if I can pull it off.

I can’t say that I’m very familiar with the UK laws in depth other than that they have been in operation for many years and are generally considered effective.

For referenda there’s no reason you can’t have a publicly funded campaign for yes and no and limit private advertising, we have something like that here in Australia.

Sortition, random selection, when combined with an elected body has a lot of benefits. It has the advantage of having professional politicians with institutional knowledge and relationships while also having a body the that is actually representative of the larger population.

100% agree!

As an addition to this I firmly believe medical marijuana is a phase.

Now I’ve made people angry here’s the nuance.

CBD/THC combinations certainly have a role in some patients with chronic pain, especially where it’s use can avoid or reduce the use of opioids.

There are clear specific uses such as intractable epilepsy where it is clearly the best treatment. It is effective for glaucoma but there are better treatments available.

I’m highly suspicious of marijuana having any role in mental health and there are, in my opinion, no convincing studies published showing that it is useful at all despite the fact that large studies have been done and presumably file-drawed.

The idea that smoking is an appropriate delivery method for a medication when other methods are available is insane. Very few things are as bad as tobacco smoke but inhaling smoke is bad for you.

My prediction is that in 20 years we will have cannabis derivatives in capsules that fulfil the specific purposes and the idea that any doctor prescribed marijuana to smoke will seem insane to younger doctors.

A bicameral legislature, one house elected by mixed member proportional system and the other selected at random from the voting age population. Legislation must pass both houses, if it passed one house but not the other it can go to referendum at the same time as the next general election.

You can also have things like citizen initiated referenda. Campaign finance laws similar to those in the UK are also desirable.

No. This sort of arrogant rubbish needs to be shut down.

In my job - a doctor - I routinely discuss difficult and complex topics with people of all backgrounds and education levels. With very few exceptions people are able to understand difficult topics.

It is my experience that the most difficult people to work with are not ordinary people but those who hold the opinion that everyone else is stupid.

With very few exceptions sortition and participatory democracy have worked well whenever they’ve been tried.

I have an idee fixe that I could set up a non profit that bought homes and rented them at a price somewhere between the maintenance cost and the market price. It would make a profit and slowly expand providing more and more affordable housing. Ideally it would start with more than 1 million but doesn’t need to.

I think we mostly agree.

For context I’m a doctor who is constantly pushing back against profit driven motives.

Being time constrained is an effect of capitalism but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t real work to be done.

People can and should take time out to express their personalities, hopes and frustrations and bond and be together in the workplace. That said, personal communication in the workplace and professional communication are different beasts.

Not thinking about what you’re trying to say or what information you need leads to rambling tirades in person and paragraphs that could’ve been sentences in emails, this is not being a machine, it is wasting my time and the time of my patients(whose rambling tirades it is my pleasure to listen to😉)

Reminder me of this

“What to do if you find yourself stuck with no hope of rescue: Consider yourself lucky that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn’t been good to you so far - which, given your present circumstances, seems more likely - consider yourself lucky that it won’t be troubling you much longer.” Douglas Adams

Excellent, I’m going to add to this, even if the the answer justifies/requires an explanation put the answer first ie “Yes, long explanation” is vastly superior to “Long explanation, so yes”

If you don’t have time to do something right what makes you think you have time to do it twice?

Respect other people’s time. When dealing with a busy person in a professional context;

• Emails should be as short as possible while still conveying the needed information, don’t make a busy person excavate the relevant info from somewhere near the middle of the fifth paragraph.
• Whenever possible phrase a question in a way that can be answered in one word.