Oh well if Will Geddes says "there might be all sorts of tricks and stunts ... but this wouldn't be one of them" then I guess that's the truth sorted out.

Well most of that wealth is in the Tesla meme-stock (whose valuation he uses as collateral for credit), encompassing various nonsense-ventures, the roadster that never materialised, the electric articulated truck with thermonuclear-explosion-proof windscreen that doesn't exist, a fake remote controlled robot, self-driving cars without the necessary sensors, not to mention a whole host of other stuff like a Mars colony that cannot possibly happen while observing the laws of physics as we understand them. Sorry but it was all such obvious bullshit to anybody that even paid a little bit of attention. How none of it was fraud is beyond me (free speech!). Instead of getting prosecuted governments (not limited to republicans) gave him contracts worth billions with which he extended and consolidated his burgeoning power.

There is a whole host of people who facilitated Musk's rise to power, from billionaire-owned media outlets failing to question his bullshit, to $TSLA owners who have probably profited quite handsomely in the last few months. But I suppose that is the nature of capitalism laid bare - I'll get mine and fuck you.

If it is true that one of China's policies, with regard to beating America over the last and coming decades, was 'do nothing and win' we can see exactly why through Musk's story.

I said direct me to a low carb plant based diet.

In response you told me you had, but that it didn't need to be low carb. Then you suggested an Indian diet, as if everybody in the UK is going to adopt that. You are talking nonsense. This is an easy block for being a waste of time.

You didn't say what diet your mum changed from. You could replace a lot of grains and root vegetables (very high in carbohydrate), (not to mention high sugar) with a lot of non-root vegetables and see a big reduction in diabetes symptoms, but that doesn't mean the diet is particularly low carbohydrate.

Oh I see, it's the angry non-factual person.

I am not wasting my time with this. Block it is.

Please direct me to a low carbohydrate plant-based diet.

A high carbohydrate and so high insulin-producing plant-based diet certainly isn't healthy for me. The evidence that it is extremely problematic for many if not most people is compelling.

With the best will in the world, the plain and simple fact is that there are too many people [both on the planet, if the intention is for everyone to live the ultra-high-energy/consumption 'developed world' lifestyle, and] in the UK in particular, when accepting the reality of 21st century society.

We are not anywhere near food or energy secure.

Ah yes, David "will of the people bollocks" Lammy, as he put it on twitter in response to the brexit referendum outcome that he didn't like.

I worked in recording studios for nearly a decade about twenty years ago or so ago, recording all kinds of stuff including film and tv scores.

Producers and composers were overwhelmingly from a privilieged > public school > Oxbridge background. Presumably the lack of representation from other groups is either the same or worse now.

The people I worked with tended to have grown up with money/privilege (meaning it is easy to piss about producing films). But some kind of Oxbridge old boys network/snobbery mostly covers why this lack of opportunity for the general public exists. Of course Oxbridge is all about nepotism and privilege. I have lived around very privileged people and very underprivileged people. I haven't noticed one iq point of difference between the two cohorts. If anything, being forced to struggle makes people atronger (until the amount of hardship to be endured becomes too much).

I can say that it was often the ones that acted like they expected to be waited on hand and foot, who didn't show any class whatsoever when it came to actually paying their bills on time (often if at all).

British society is rife with it. Ultimately these type of people being in charge makes our society extremely weak. As we move beyond 20th century political/economic liberalism this weakness will be exploited by adversaries.

The question is do you want serious cyber criminals, and whatever authoritarian government shows up at some point and starts tearing up the already increasingly authoritarian UK rule book (hi America) to have access to all communications? Should they have access to journalist's sources, and other activists' communications? Should cyber criminals have access to all financial data?

You don't get one without the other. Encryption either works or it doesn't. And you can certainly assume that dedicated nation state actors (who will and do work with people that do not want a liberal open society in countries across the world including the UK) will quickly develop the capability to circumvent any exploitable encryption.

In this case the increasingly authoritarian/data-totalitarian UK government and secret services has been trying to do it in secret. They want their eyes on everything at all times and damn the consequences for an open society. They sure are doing their bit to end the 20th century idea of a free, open, tolerant society I grew up being told existed.

Then again, I watched some sort of parliamentary enquiry more than a decade ago where somebody from gchq nonchalantly admitted they abuse UK citizen's human right of privacy as a matter of course and everybody in the room just shrugged. It caused no ripple at all in the press. No doubt the likes of gchq face all sorts of threats we the public are not aware of, but they appear to operate with no checks and balances whatsoever, and they are playing right into the hands of extremists who want to see the end of an open society in order that their extreme views become more acceptable.

It must be said that personal privacy is a cornerstone of a civilised society. You either have that or you don't. For many people, particularly those that pay attention to this stuff, we have already gone too far. There is a lot an individual can do to mitigate the intrusion of US tech corporations, but destroying encryption, in a world where so much can only be done online, affects everybody regardless of personal choices they have made. To try and do it in secret is even worse.

The US has always got the dollar-as-global-reserve-currency out of its military spending, which is a large part of how post second world war America accrued a huge portion of unearned global wealth. Trump, those that voted for him, and those that spent decades creating this situation for personal enrichment are rapidly hastening the end of this situation.