Risk

Fucking hell, you're a trooper. An hour of story time each night?

Even with your caveat, that's still a long time!

Maxing out the library card is fantastic though. Go you!

It's always tough to balance giving them too much with giving them too little. I sometimes worry my eldest is a bit too sheltered (less so the youngest, because they get similar media experiences because it's not like I can separate their digital time).

Sometimes a bit of scary is good for them, because they have to grow and become prepared for the real world eventually.

My wife always says that we're raising them to be adults, not children.

Contrary to popular sentiment, I'd say it's not the numbers - it's the age.

For my wife and I, babies are easy. Toddlers were way more of a challenge. But for most of our friends they found it the opposite.

I've heard people say before 1 to 2 is harder whilst 2 to 3 is simple, and in this thread 2 to 3 is harder, etcetera. I'd wager a big part of it is 'when' you add each new child, relative to who your other children are and what they are needing at their current developmental stage.

Word salad is what parenting is all about.

I think the only way to really get a feel for whether it would be a good idea is if a detailed proposal was made. Everything else is just made on feelings.

Over the past few years we've seen the problems with letting simple majorities make country shattering decisions, lack of actual rules allowing ministers to come dangerously close to subverting democracy, and just general opportunity for corruption.

Eh, in all fairness the meat & dairy industry is one thing that we as consumers really do need to take a bulk of responsibility for. I say that as a devout meat eater.

BUT, governments could go a long way by not subsidising dairy and meat and instead subsidising protein alternatives. It's fucking nuts to me that it costs more for me to buy plant protein.

(Before the die hard vegans come at me saying you don't need to eat pseudo (plant) proteins to eat less meat, please remember you're trying to convert people that are familiar and enjoy one diet to another. You're not going to encourage anyone by advocating a cold-turkey or 0% meat approach. I hate that I have to put this disclaimer here, but I'm fed up with arguing with puritanical vegans that overshadow pragmatism.)

If you're not opposed to ordering it online, it gets a lot cheaper when you buy in bulk.

I'm sorry for your new expensive paper weight.

Citizens Climate Lobby, maybe?

Pretty sure the Europeans see as terribly drunk tourists.

Those plants didn't consent, so...

against progress

Who? Artists, generally or those upset that AI/LLMs have been taught from their work? Not what I'm implying at all, as already highlighted extensively.

People criticising AI/LLM art as 'not art/not creative'? Yes.

If you're not conflating my argument, then you are either being really fucking stupid or deliberately trolling. In either case, I'm done wasting my time on you.

So I read why they dropped out of popularity in Southern Europe following the arrival of the potato. It's because to be actually tasty and sweet, the parsnip plant needs to be hit by a hard frost - which presumably just doesn't happen in Southern Europe, and is probably why I can't very tasty parsnips these days in England - because we get fewer hard frosts.

It's hardly ancient.

Christ, the amount of fucking NIMBYism over HS2. How else do people expect the country to prosper if we don't invest in it?