The Off Topic Topic

[Josquius]

Interesting to see this coming up. Just the other day was reading about the shit football referees are facing and toxicity in grass roots footy.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/64584541

[Barrister]

Interesting to see this coming up. Just the other day was reading about the shit football referees are facing and toxicity in grass roots footy.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/64584541

One of the players on my son's team has now twice been given a 10 minute penalty for swearing at a ref.

The kid is 12.

Thankfully nobody on my son's team had the slightest disagreement or argument with the call.  And despite being a fairly old-school coach (he's in his 60s) he doesn't put up with that nonsense.  His advise at the start of the year was to not show up to the rink with a phone, and not join any team snapchat or other likewise social media.

[The Larch]

And that's without getting into the "toxic parents" syndrome in youth sports.

[Syt]

How kids had fun in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1981:

[HVC]

I wonder how many people the kid with the ventriloquist dummy ended up killing.

[celedhring]

And how Newcastle kids had fun in Spain in 2021 

[Admiral Yi]

 

[The Larch]

Do we have a general thread for deranged right wing conspiracy theories?

Conspiracy theories on '15-minute cities' flourish

Urban planners are fending off abuse fuelled by conspiracy theories about their "15-minute city" regeneration projects which suspicious social media users claim are the road to "climate lockdowns".


The 15-minute city premise is simple -- all amenities such as parks and grocery stores must be accessible within a quarter of an hour walk or bike ride from a person's home.

Developed in 2015 by an academic in France, the concept has taken off worldwide since the Covid pandemic, with cities such as Paris, Melbourne and Copenhagen seeking to make neighbourhoods more liveable and cut car use to curb climate change.

But, as with Covid measures, unfounded online theories about the initiative have flourished.

Top results in a search for "15 minute city" on TikTok contain mostly scornful videos, including claims that the schemes will restrict residents' movement and fine them for leaving their home districts.

A search on Twitter brings up the hashtag #15minuteprisons in third place after #15minutecities and #15minutecity.

The 15-minute city concept is credited to Carlos Moreno, a professor at Paris's Sorbonne University.

He told AFP he had received numerous personal insults over the idea.

"Never have there been proposals for restrictions -- on the contrary, this is a new opportunity: more choice, more services, more desire to thrive in one's neighbourhood," he said.

"Since the start of 2023, the concept of the 15-minute city has been subject to conspiracy theories, produced and shared by people already well known for spreading disinformation about Covid, the climate, vaccines and politics," he said.

"The only arguments they have are lies, manipulation and insults."

Public transport plans
Particular claims debunked by AFP Fact Check in recent weeks have targeted the English city of Oxford and Edmonton, Canada. Claims surfaced in various languages, including English, French and Portuguese.

"You can't leave a 15-minute city whenever you please ... The city walls or restrictions or zones or whatever you want to call them won't be used to keep others out, they'll be used to lock everyone in," says one man in a video viewed more than 59,000 times on Facebook, commenting on the Edmonton plan.

Sandeep Agrawal, director of the School of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Alberta, said there were no grounds "whatsoever" for claiming the plan would implement such restrictions.

"The 15-minute plan intends to provide better connectivity to the rest of the city" by improving public transport links, he told AFP.

"District planning is an ongoing process which involves consultation with the public at various points of its development."

Among moderate critics of the concept, Toronto-based urban planning lecturer and author Jay Pitter has argued it cannot be transposed from European to North American cities and could worsen inequality by spurring gentrification.

Conspiracy theories
In Oxford, councillors reported receiving abuse over plans to limit private vehicles on bus routes at peak hours. Social media users shared an article that falsely claimed residents would be "confined to their local neighbourhood and have to ask permission to leave it, all to 'save the planet'."

A council spokesperson told AFP residents would not be locked down in their homes. Opposition Conservative county councillor Liam Walker, who himself opposed the traffic filters trial, tweeted that the lockdown claims were "completely untrue".

Supporters of 15-minute cities include the worldwide C40 cities alliance plus the United Nations and the World Economic Forum -– targets of numerous false claims that are subject to frequent fact-checks.

One TikTok video about Edmonton blamed the reforms on Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and "his World Economic Forum intentions" – despite it being a city scheme, not a federal one.

[Syt]

[Josquius]

Do we have a general thread for deranged right wing conspiracy theories?

I've seen this stuff about.
This city planner has great patience:
https://mobile.twitter.com/RE_MarketWatch/status/1625362883193278464?


From what I can gather a big source of the conspiracy lunacy comes from Oxford alongside the 15 minute city plan also incorporating a model which restricts directly driving between neighbourhoods in the centre of the city, forcing you to go out and use the ring road instead- which looking at Oxford on a map should be a lot less inconvenient than it might sound. The city is basically laid out in a cross shape.
The thing is though they've had this setup in Gronginen for years and its fine and Oxford are setting up a very limited version of it where you're allowed to drive through the centre for up to 100 days a year.

[The Larch]

Do we have a general thread for deranged right wing conspiracy theories?

I've seen this stuff about.
This city planner has great patience:
https://mobile.twitter.com/RE_MarketWatch/status/1625362883193278464?


From what I can gather a big source of the conspiracy lunacy comes from Oxford alongside the 15 minute city plan also incorporating a model which restricts directly driving between neighbourhoods in the centre of the city, forcing you to go out and use the ring road instead- which looking at Oxford on a map should be a lot less inconvenient than it might sound. The city is basically laid out in a cross shape.
The thing is though they've had this setup in Gronginen for years and its fine and Oxford are setting up a very limited version of it where you're allowed to drive through the centre for up to 100 days a year.

The topic already reached the Commons, where a Tory MP raised the terrifying prospect of... Sheffield. 

Nick Fletcher MP
@NickFletcherMP
15 MINUTE CITIES

I spoke in Parliament today to ask the Government to hold a debate on the international socialist concept of so called 15 minute cities and 20 minute neighbourhoods.

Ultra Low Emission Zones (ULEZ)  in their present format do untold economic damage to any city. However the second step after ULEZ is this so called 15 minute cities or 20 minute neighbourhoods.

These will take away your personal freedoms as well. Bristol, Oxford, Canterbury are signed up for them as is now @SheffCouncil. See their minutes of 2 February 2022.

In there it is minuted that the @SheffCouncil  resolved:

"....notes Metro Mayor Dan Jarvis's calls to "transform our infrastructure for cycling and walking, and put in place the building blocks for compact and liveable 15-minute neighbourhoods" .....

I do not want @MyDoncaster  which is also a labour run socialist council to do the same.

ULEZ cost the tax payer money. Simple as. However 15 minute cities will cost us our personal freedom and that cannot be right.

I believe in Net Zero and in having a strong local economy and encourage us all to do our bit. But destroying our towns and cities and keeping us prisoners in our communities is not the way.

When did the Tories start throwing around socialist as an insult as if they were Americans?

[Sheilbh]

Always From 1910:




From 1929:



But Tories often have a go at Labour as "the socialists" - Labour politicians wax and wane on whether they refer to themselves as socialists. Needless to say it was not in fashion when Blair was in charge, but Starmer says he still sees himself as a socialist.

I do find it genuinely baffling how the standard arguments over cycling and driving in provincial British cities have become the thin end of the wedge of an international conspiracy

Edit: And on anti-socialist posters, always had a soft spot for this Liberal effort from the twenties


And worth saying - this is from 1903 - that Labour's message hasn't really changed much either


Edit: I'd love a campaign against Landlordism

[Josquius]

Checked out the twitter of that MP. Jesus
I guess he knows he's just a temporary squatter in the position so might as well see how much he can burn.

[Maladict]

The thing is though they've had this setup in Gronginen for years and its fine

More than fine. I've always wondered why the Groningen solution wasn't implemented in more cities.
 They've now started experimenting with banning all motorized traffic, including buses, from the city centre.

[Tamas]

The thing is though they've had this setup in Gronginen for years and its fine

 They've now started experimenting with banning all motorized traffic, including buses, from the city centre.

Fuck old people I guess.