INSIDE THE WORLD OF MEETUP

 It wasn't a subject I had a strong opinion about but was led by a woman with knowledge in this field. The conclusion I reached was that DEI was started with good intentions. Unfortunately, the enforcement of it often caused more problems than it ever intended to solve. People raised points but there was no heated debate. Use these events to do walk planning on the way home, unfortunately it rained.

 This is a presentation on how money works, from cash to Bitcoin to proposed CBDCs. From my perspective, 80% of the talk was a bit pointless. I'd owned cryptos for a decade, and most of it covered the basics that I already knew.  The debate aspect was CBDCs being used as a “tool for control”. I'd posted a link from my anti-conspiracy blog refuting social media arguments against a cashless society. The response was that CBDCS were not a “conspiracy theory”. I pointed out that rational objections such as a foreign university student being unable to buy food from campus because they had gone cashless were perfectly valid. I also pointed out outrageous claims such as an Australian saying his country hadn't printed any banknotes since 2018. Or CBDCS were going to turn our country into North Korea and go deep into conspiracy territory. They seemed more interested in arguing over the definition of “conspiracy theory” than answering my questions. Funny that.

  It was a double bill of meetups starting with the debate. The presentation went well but the subject matter was a bit open ended and went off in several directions. One woman who was a raw milk advocate clearly had her agenda. She also happened to be a hard core anti-vaxxer (big shock) thankfully others shut her down as well. I picked up 3 people for my pub crawl.

 Attended a 2 hour debate where we discussed the Uk energy supply. The presentation included the big improvements that had been made in wind and solar energy. I was expecting it to descend into silly arguments about climate change but thankfully that didn't happen.   Planned a walk on the way home.

A 2 hour debate between about 20 people in an upstairs room in a pub. Not as heated as the previous one about the pharmaceutical industry. I provided the following...... Police show minimal interest in lower level crime especially when it involves juveniles. Part of the problem is the amount of paperwork they have to complete in order to process. Then the courts will often give minimal punishments. Easier to brush it under the carpet, as a result more people don’t bother reporting it. Crimes unreported as public lose faith in police - BBC News Coronavirus lockdowns . Police openly admitted they didn’t have the resources to enforce the rules and many lockdown fines went unpaid. Regardless of your opinions on covid/lockdowns it doesn’t paint the police or justice system in a good light. OPINION: "There simply aren’t enough police officers to enforce a lockdown" (wiltshire999s.co.uk) Majority of coronavirus fines unpaid in some parts of England, data suggests | ITV News Use of ...

  Not the sort of thing I ever envisioned myself doing on meetup but nothing else was happening that day and the weather was awful. I'd debated with Chris on numerous issues on walks and was persuaded to join his group. They meet in a downstairs room at the malt cross every 6-8 weeks.  It began with a 30 minute slideshow highlighting the good and bad of the pharmaceutical industry (which to be fair was well balanced). Followed by a debate, I thought 20 people was far too many but about a dozen people including myself did the majority of the talking. For the record I'm pro science, pro vaccine and consider the alternative medicine industry a scam. Needless to say a hardliner who promoted the theory that covid vaccines make you magnetic (a fringe theory even among antivaxxers) dominated most of the conversations. I expected a lot to be like her but the group was balanced, the debate was civilised. There were a wide range of subjects which off topic such as face to face...