Meet in person. Rule no. 1.

Language can be a barrier, but not insurmountable.

Also that lockdown destroyed many social connections and it is up to each and every one of us to take the initiative instead of expecting it to happen to us.

Did it ever stop?

I wonder if a foreign government would be able to use this data to precisely pinpoint the physical location of critical staff families and use it in a targeted attack.

It means that they are much closer than other human beings would be. Many studies have been done on identical twins for various purposes.

I've seen worse. I found the premise interesting at least.

Long dead? Within living memory. Britain still has colonies with millions of people in them.

"You might be thinking of the British overseas territory"

Not just them, but I'll leave it at that.

Some years ago when the United Nations started critiquing colonies, the British overseas ones were rebranded as "territories" and "dependencies." (The French still have overseas colonies, the so called DOM-TOMs, and also some nearer to home.)

Some of these overseas ones like Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands have overwhelming support for British rule thanks to an aggressive neighbour. Some of these remaining colonies have active independence movements with varying support.

>Not just them, but I'll leave it at that.

Okay then if you're just going to be cute and nonspecific there's no point in continuing this discussion. I'm not interested in trying to decipher vague insinuations.

I don't think you'd like the answer. Not all of its colonies were vast distances away.

"Crown dependencies" are one phrase used to rebrand British colonies but there are other ones.

> the so called DOM-TOMs

Fun fact: they've not been called that in 23y, they're DROM-COM

Rebranding doesn't change what they are. Tahiti, New Caledonia and maybe even Corsica (depending on who you speak to) are all treated like colonies.

Not to open a can of worms, but there are probably people who still consider Northern Ireland a colony.

They can consider what they like, but it is factually wrong. People in NI get to vote in UK elections.

A reasonable case can be made that it should be Irish territory, not British, but that is a territorial dispute.

The people in Tahiti get to vote for representatives in Paris. But French Polynesia is still a colony.

A small colony doesn't count?

They're not colonies. An overseas territory is not the same thing as a colony.

You can rebrand something as a territory or a dependency (or a DOM-TOM in the French case) but they're still the same. Even during the height of colonialism many of these places had some self-government and even democracy (Hong Kong). That was partly a practical consideration as many of them were so far away they had to run themselves to some extent.

But not all of Britain's colonies are far away.

The people living there might struggle to identify the difference?

Are you calling them stupid?

Mauritius and La Réunion are doing much better than say Madagascar.

I think it was in reply to the "with millions of people in them" comment.

I haven't tried this but I would be very sceptical about the transcription of lyrics. Is there some way to correct errors?

California hasn't "weighed it". It's doing the same thing as Britain, Australia, the European Union etc.

Obviously some people have signed some agreement somewhere or they all came up with this round about the same time by coincidence.

I believe it is largely Meta pushing this so they can more accurately track people over 16.

Certainly one of the interest groups pushing for this (as it makes their data harvesting more valuable)... But I think it ties into long range Fourth Industrial Revolution goals such as CBDC and digital ID in its later forms.

There is no presumably about Israel. It is armed with nukes. It gives every indication of being so. Mordecai Vanunu was persecuted for leaking info.

Fred Hoyle suggested this back in the seventies and eighties and was berated for it.

They're lucky to have benches. I know many UK towns where you would struggle to find any.