<img class="logo" src="/Themes/blanko_fes/images/logofinal.png" alt="The Flat Earth Society" />

Indeed. Somehow taking money to educate foreign students is seen as a good idea. Never mind many go back to China having occupied a place at Uni that an English youth could have had.

I think the reasoning is that it brings a shitton of money to the country. Before the Tory-Lib Dem coalition, a UK/EU student would pay about £3,500 per year of study (still the case for those of us that started their courses early enough, like myself. I think my bill for next year came just under £4k), while a non-EU international would bring in some £26k. Now the balance is a bit closer (9k/26k), but it still means that bringing an international student in == bringing in boatloads of money. That combined with the fact that they are only allowed to work up to 20 hours a week means that they're largely forced to put much more money in the economy than they can possibly take out.

Now, I don't necessarily agree with this system, but it's not completely nonsensical.

Not now, but 4 years ago they were the king makers. They picked Conservatives over Labour and formed a coalition with them instead.

But they were forced to basically ignore their own policies for the sake of the Tories. Do you think UKIP is going to be anything else? They're even more of a bunch of populists than LDs.

Labour left Britain in the worst financial mess it has ever been in. I would never vote Labour as long as I lived.

Meh, I doubt Labour had all that much to do with Lehman Brothers going bankrupt. They didn't handle the financial crisis well, but a party like UKIP (i.e. one that doesn't have a financial policy at all) is not the answer here.

I never voted for them in the first place. But enough is enough.

Give Nick a chance.

I work in a town where I see raids every other day. A party van rocks up, out jump 20 guys with ear pieces and half the fast food shops and market stalls are evacuated as staff scarper in all directions. Really, get closer to London. even you will agree we have a serious problem here.

I've spent some time near London, both in areas like those you described, and some towns near Croydon where the Jobcentre Plus is located on the other side of the road from Wetherspoon's, filled with Brits who do very little with their lives other than claim benefits from one of these buildings, and then cross the street to spend it in the other.

Certainly, this country has a number of problems. I simply do not believe that immigration is the root cause.

If you weren't here, do you not think anyone else can do that job? If you are so skilled, go get a job worth £10GBP in Poland. If the Poles are that smart, you must have dozens of businesses like that.

I fail to see your argument. You said that immigrants disadvantage the inexperienced. As an inexperienced person, I have not found that to be the case.

Poor guy. That's what happens to people when opportunities are few.

The problem is that he's uneducated and fucked his life up, so now he has to pay alimony while struggling to make ends meet.

Of course I do. Graduate unemployment has never been higher. and its never been higher because there are so many foreign graduates competing for opportunities. You are taking a job an English youth could have had. It doesn't matter you might have slightly better grades. I'm sure your £10/h job isn't that specialist.

You might have a point if you ignore the fact that the international opportunities are now plentiful, especially to UK graduates. Leaving the EU would eliminate those.

[...] Why would I want that for my country? I want it protected from that.

Then vote for a party that might actually do something about it. UKIP has no interest in reducing immigration, and they've made it clear on many occasions. In fact, their policies aim for a net increase of immigrants. There are parties out there (notably, Tories and Labour) who seek to cut down immigration while increasing the minimum wage, but without the political and economic suicide of leaving the EU.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: European polls

« on: May 25, 2014, 07:32:47 PM »

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: European polls

« on: May 25, 2014, 07:27:45 PM »

Who set the stupidly high quotas for student visas?

I think that was the Tories. International students bring a lot of money into our community. They've strongly re-focused higher education around internationals (non-EU, mind you) within the last few years.

Because UKIP has momentum.

Less than Lib Dems ever had, and I don't think anyone in their right mind considers Lib Dems to be relevant.

Unless by momentum you mean things like #UKIPWeather.

UKIP votes encourage them to review that.

I strongly doubt it. The BNP had their bubble too, and just look how badly they're doing now. Not even you would vote for them.

When a 40 year old immigrant with 20 years experience rocks up and says I'll take that junior office job for £6/h, how is a kid fresh out of uni supposed to compete with that? Its not Experienced English who lose jobs.

If you know of any people like that - report them to the authorities. They're working for less than minimum wage and are probably employed illegally. Real change starts with real action, and real action starts small.

Besides, I'm 22 and I'm already on £10/h. I had no experience to begin with, I started with a shitty job and worked my way up to a decent job. Once I'm out of uni, I will have a couple of years of managerial experience. That's what will make an inexperienced person lose against me - not my nationality.

A 40 year old Englishman couldn't do that job, because he isn't living with 10 of his immigrant friends in a bedsit with a pissed stained mattress as all his worldy possessions.

Of course he could. In fact, I'm currently employing an Englishman in his 40s alongside a bunch of students (most of them British and then a couple of Malaysians).

Immigrants don't harm workers. They harm opportunities for the young.

I dunno about that. Seriously, there is a lot of work in the UK for the educated young. I could see your point if you were making it about the woefully uneducated British youth - yes, they're at a disadvantage - the Polish are simply so much better at cleaning toilets; but I don't think you have a point when it comes to university graduates.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: European polls

« on: May 25, 2014, 07:09:11 PM »

You wouldn't be in the UK if it weren't for them.

Of course I would, I would have simply been on a student visa.

I didn't vote BNP, because I don't want to see your bloated corpse floating down the Thames as they give this country the enema it so sorely needs.

Oh. Why not LibertyGB, then? They want to stop the rivers of blood.

But UKIP will remove the right for the 380 million Europeans that have the right to work here from coming over. We can start encouraging you all to go back home after that.

With a 17% popular vote across local councils, I don't think we need to concern ourselves with that. They basically stole a bunch of seats from Tories and Lib Dems, which is awesome.

Quote from: fappenhosen on May 25, 2014, 04:27:34 PM

Sounds harsh, but when a generation can't afford their own homes, we have to look to our people before worrying about hurting everyone else's feelings. Sorry PP.

A generation of people who lose their jobs to untrained workers who don't even speak the language of the country they're in. Yeah, blame immigration.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: European poles

« on: May 25, 2014, 06:57:06 PM »

But Thork, UKIP wants immigration. They love immigration. You should have voted BNP, you numpty.

Also, I voted Labour. I hope you're mad.

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Suggestions & Concerns / Re: EJ's posts in "Transgenderism"

« on: May 25, 2014, 06:46:44 PM »

Rule 1 is the hardest rule of all.

And how.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Transgenderism

« on: May 24, 2014, 09:59:03 PM »

I see your point. I'm just not sure if transgenderism is the right answer to the problem here. I think I'd rather simply oppose gender* roles, which I pretty much do myself anyway. Sometimes I do things that would generally be perceived as feminine, and I have considered identifying as trans-something in the past. Ultimately, I reached a point where I'm perfectly comfortable with my gender, and I simply express myself in the ways I want.

Of course, your mileage may vary, but it just seems to me like this kind of approach could solve the problems of many people without resorting to very drastic changes. I'm sure that this is not something that would work for everyone, however.

* - I lack a better word for this, so I'm just going to carry on using it, but I'm confident I'm in agreement with Rama as to the specifics of the roles.

6333

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: EJ's posts in "Transgenderism"

« on: May 24, 2014, 07:33:55 PM »

Your posts were moved to CN as per rule 3, this time with no warning. You already know how this works.

EDIT: Actually, also rule 1.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Transgenderism

« on: May 24, 2014, 04:28:59 PM »

Quote from: Rama Set on May 24, 2014, 04:07:40 PM

Yes and no. This may be semantic but each component of gender I listed has a role to play. Admittedly the social and psychological roles are more fluid.

Right, but you do mean roles?

6335

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Transgenderism

« on: May 24, 2014, 03:34:33 PM »

Quote from: Rama Set on May 24, 2014, 02:49:33 PM

The truth about gender is that it is not solely a physiological idea. It has a psychological and sociological component that gets inaccurately excluded from the conversation when you make statements like this.

By "social component" do you mean gender roles?

6336

Flat Earth Theory / Re: SpaceX commercial satellite launch

« on: May 24, 2014, 03:33:30 PM »

Quote from: Gulliver on May 24, 2014, 11:32:31 AM

Then I'll rephrase, my tone is not relevant to the debate point.

That's fair.

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Flat Earth Community / Re: flight to Buenas aires to sydney

« on: May 24, 2014, 03:27:15 PM »

Quote from: Gulliver on May 24, 2014, 11:27:07 AM

See Newtown's First Law of Motion.

Assuming you mean "Newton's", congratulations, you just referenced something irrelevant. Matter outstanding.

Humans can see airplanes over extended periods of time and be able to note when their courses do not match tracking data or follow sensible flight paths.

I asked you to substantiate your claim, not restate it with more words. Please pay attention. Matter outstanding.

Wrong. In the case of MN379: The tracking systems would have worked, but someone or something turned off the transponder and its backup. In the general case, FlightAware and its ilk are accurate within 5 minutes see: http://flightaware.com/about/faq#howlive

Thank you for the link. I'm pleased to see that it confirms my suspicions about how the data is calculated (granted, it's not surprising that it does, since I sourced my original claim from the very same page):

Quote from: http://flightaware.com/about/faq

FlightAware compiles, aggregates, and processes data from over 45 government sources (in Europe, North America, and Oceania), dozens of airlines, commercial data providers, as well as hundreds of receivers in FlightAware's ADS-B flight tracking network. FlightAware's proprietary algorithms calculate delay and arrival time estimates to offer the most up-to-date and reliable flight tracking data on the Internet.

Oh my. You didn't think it magically tracks every plane's every move, did you now?

Please tell me where I made any assumption or based anything on a false assumption.

See multiple matters outstanding above.

Also my post was a challenge VH's unsupported claims. VH amde the claims, so you should be challenging him, not me.

As you rightly pointed out, Vauxhall is already being challenged - there's no point in two people doing the same thing. Meanwhile, someone needs to keep you in check - otherwise people might think that you actually put some effort into your posts, or even be tricked into believing you.

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Flat Earth Community / Re: flight to Buenas aires to sydney

« on: May 24, 2014, 09:32:36 AM »

Passengers can detect "flying around".

Please substantiate this claim.

Observers on the ground can detect "flying around".

Please substantiate this claim.

Users of real-time tracking of flights and sea voyages, using--for example--http://flightaware.com/, can detect "flying around".

Oh, right, because that gives us accurate information as to where the planes actually are, as opposed to plotting e.g. $timeelapsed/$timeexpected on a line. I guess all we need to do is type in MH370 into this magnificent tool and we'll immediately detect where the missing plane has gone!

No, wait, of course this won't happen, because tools like this are utterly useless for anything other than figuring out if your friend that you're about to pick up from the airport is going to land on time.