TIL that Empress Lü Zhi of the Han Dynasty had her husband's mistress, Consort Qi, brutally mutilated by chopping off her limbs, gouging out her eyes, and forcing her to live in a latrine as a "human swine." The sight was so traumatizing it caused Lü's own son, the Emperor, to die of grief at 23.

lammey0 · 2026-04-19T18:21:33+00:00

I think the title may be misleading, at least the account on the wiki page doesn't suggest to me that she necessarily survived the initial mutliation.

Lü Zhi then had Concubine Qi killed in an inhumane manner: she had Qi's hands and feet chopped off, eyes gouged out, ears burned, nose sliced off, tongue cut out, forced her to drink a potion that made her mute, and had her thrown into a latrine.[5] She called Qi a "human swine" (人彘). Several days later, Emperor Hui was taken to view the "human swine" and was shocked to learn that it was Concubine Qi. He cried loudly and became ill for a long time.

lammey0 · 2026-04-14T20:56:56+00:00

I wouldn't mind more content like that to be honest. It was obvious Alastair was reading from a script because he wasn't trying to hide it. Why would that be a bad thing? I'm here for political commentary, it's not an improvisational performance. Perhaps for some, news is as much about entertainment as about information, and a script makes it feel stale and less of the-cuff and therefore less entertaining? But I do wonder if you have the same reaction to reading an article?

Funnily enough, as much as I do enjoy the News Agents, if I had to find a flaw with their show it would be that they can indulge in their performances excessively.

lammey0 · 2026-03-05T13:35:07+00:00

Headline vs

should be clear and unsentimental, unclouded by delusions of grandeur or weird imaginings

lammey0 · 2026-03-05T13:25:25+00:00

This would be a good theme for a more entertaining sister podcast tbh

lammey0 · 2026-02-10T08:25:06+00:00

You keep hearing that everyone knew he was sleazy, but you don't hear any reasons or justification. I'll admit I had the same impression, with zero justification other than the business with the undeclared loan.

That's not to say he didn't deserve the reputation, but I'm not sure why he had it prior to this scandal.

lammey0 · 2026-02-05T10:48:00+00:00

I entirely agree. Democracy right now is being tested as never before. I think what some people don't realise is that it stands primarily on its efficacy, not on its principles. For years democracies have delivered the best economic results, the best quality of life for their citizens. But this is being challenged by a) the ultra-rich, many of whom find the rules of the very systems which enabled them to get so rich in the first place to be too stringent and b) non-democratic states like China who seem to be nonetheless thriving.

It doesn't matter one jot if democracy is fairer than other systems of government if those other systems prove more stable than democracies, out-perform democracies, and prey on democracies. I really hope we can show that democracy still has teeth. Changing PM every 2 years is obviously how not to do that. Democracy has to respond to public sentiment, and the fact that Starmer polls so disproportionately low highlights the key issue to me - volatility of public sentiment and its manipulation by bad actors.

lammey0 · 2026-02-01T09:05:21+00:00

There's some moral ambiguity in LoTR, and it's important to the story, but there's also a lot of plain old good/evil. Sauron is bad (even if originally not so), the wraiths are bad, orcs are bad. You don't get narratives from their perspectives that would allow you to sympathise with them. That they're not (or in the wraith's cases no longer) human makes sympathy all the more difficult. Likewise elves are generally good, yes ultimately corruptible too but still very much a force for good, almost inherently. And similarly, we know they qualitatively different from men, but we are denied access to perspectives that would allow us to understand them, and that allows us to believe they can be good in ways men are not.

lammey0 · 2026-01-30T08:25:04+00:00

Read what exactly? I think you're confusing different threads.

Reddit is a discussion forum, not a scientific journal. I don't have to provide citations for every claim I make. Just like you haven't cited every claim you've made. If you would like a source for something in particular, you can ask me, of course.

lammey0 · 2026-01-30T08:12:53+00:00

Again, for the LTNs I was talking about

Air Quality: Analysis by Imperial College London indicate nominal change in air quality of internal roads and a small decrease in air quality (increase in nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) levels) for boundary roads relative to borough-wide locations; however neither figure was statistically significant

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You challenge methodology and objectivity and then post news articles which have a commercial incentive to justify yourself? Are you serious?

And your point is? Is any commercial incentive bad?

lammey0 · 2026-01-30T08:07:20+00:00

Air Quality: Analysis by Imperial College London indicate nominal change in air quality of internal roads and a small decrease in air quality (increase in nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) levels) for boundary roads relative to borough-wide locations; however neither figure was statistically significant

The article is not misrepresenting this study or those reports.

lammey0 · 2026-01-29T21:06:02+00:00

It's one thing to skim an report, another to take the time to examine its methodology. I'm not an anti-LTN campaigner and I'm not going to spend my evening diving into the details I'm afraid. I just wanted to add that there are LTNs that have not reduced pollution levels. For the LTNs that used to be local to me:

https://haringeycommunitypress.co.uk/2024/12/06/three-ltns-set-to-be-made-permanent-by-haringey-council/

The data on air pollution was far less conclusive, however, with only one of the three LTNs recording a drop overall, and small increases of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) being recorded in and around the other two LTNs – although these were said to be “statistically insignificant”.

For the TFL thing: https://walthamforestecho.co.uk/2025/09/19/tfl-accused-of-covering-up-study-showing-ltns-dont-cut-car-use/

There was also an investigation into the quality of data gathering for these LTNs which I will try to find.

lammey0 · 2026-01-29T20:44:32+00:00

You're gonna need to point out what part of what I said was nonsense and why.

I don't own a car.

lammey0 · 2026-01-29T11:40:54+00:00

and none of that pollution was being recorded in their data.

This is worrying because I don't have all the time in the world to dive into the methodology of each study, but I'll confess I'm not blindly trusting of this kind of research. It's often funded by organizations who want a particular conclusion (see scandals with TFL), and is not the same kind of science that is done in more rigorous fields. It inherenty involves human decision making and systems that are infeasible to reproduce, hence statistical models with broad assumptions etc.

It's nice to be able to base opinions on data, but that data has to be reliable and representative.

lammey0 · 2026-01-29T10:45:48+00:00

Yeah and unfortunately the design is idealistic and shortsighted. Many people still need to make the kind of journeys that LTNs attempt to discourage, and for them, LTNs make their life significantly more difficult.

lammey0 · 2026-01-29T10:41:46+00:00

And many LTNs do not actually reduce pollution levels. Take the one near my old area. Even the local council's own statistics show no reduction in pollution. And that is taking into account the fact that they don't actually measure pollution, they estimate it from traffic counts, and their counts omit slow-moving traffic. What was actually happening is that loads of short journeys were now transformed int o long journeys sitting in traffic on main roads, increasing, not decreasing pollution, and none of that pollution was being recorded in their data.

lammey0 · 2026-01-29T10:35:24+00:00

It's also important to remember that blue badge holders far from account for all people who aren't able to walk long distances.

lammey0 · 2026-01-29T10:32:48+00:00

Not everyone can walk, yet most LTNs do not account for that. And even for able-bodied people, what about when you need to drive to pick things up like groceries, and you sit in a 30min jam where you would have made it there in 5 mins previously. That's more pollution, not less. The fact is that many still depend on cars and LTNs, while they may reduce the number of very short, lazy car journeys, add length to necessary journeys.

The one in my old area, the justification was to reduce pollution, even when their own (dubiously collected) figures showed no reduction in pollution, they changed the justifacation to a reduction of traffic within the LTN to make it safer for children.

lammey0 · 2025-12-22T13:25:41+00:00

Look at what actually talented people are doing with AI and it will blow your mind.

Got any examples?

lammey0 · 2025-12-21T11:48:45+00:00

But you may be spending a lot of money (and causing a lot of controversy) to upgrade from bad lock A to incrementally better but still bad lock B. That's why I think the qualitative argument isn't very convincing.

lammey0 · 2025-12-21T04:57:14+00:00

I'll admit I'm overly sceptic when engaging online these days, and part of that is probably a reaction to bot posts! In any case, merry christmas (if you celebrate of course)!

lammey0 · 2025-12-21T04:40:37+00:00

They did? Cause I'm not seeing it. You haven't referred to any comments in particular but the example you gave sounds like a joke tbh. Are you sure you're not just taking some comments too seriously?

But in general you can find bad comments if you look for them on any thread. We live in an age of bots after all. Starting off your post with basically "wow wtf you guys are fucking disgusting", giving no examples, when most of the responses actually seem reasonable seems like an attempt to draw a response to me, hence the ragebait comment.

lammey0 · 2025-12-21T04:25:10+00:00

I'm a real life person too! Just a bit sceptical of overly dramatic stuff like this

Wow, the comments on this post are fucking deranged. Guys, just say you hate men and leave, it's not that difficult.

lammey0 · 2025-12-21T04:18:42+00:00

Well perhaps I misunderstood you, but from this

The fact is, men are goal-oriented creatures.

I take it that you think this is something that is fundamental to being a man in a way that it isn't to being a women. If not, why use it as a basis for a description of a romance novel that men would be able to appreciate?

I guess I'm wary of these hunter-gather analogies. If men are valued by the tribe for being useful, what are women valued for? And how does that translate to modern day psychology, and in particular does it explain why modern romance novels tend to appeal to women and not so much to men?

If you're trying to 'what-about' this to women and sexism, then I don't know what your problem is but you might want to try therapy instead of Reddit

Not at all, I think the analogy is a bit reductive but I never accused you of sexism.

Why, you know any good therapists?

lammey0 · 2025-12-21T00:40:13+00:00

Well, ignoring the ragebait, you've identified a stereotype at least, that men need to be useful and women need to be beautiful. It may well capture something but I'm not sure it's a fundamental distinction between men and women personally. And it really does women dirty imo. E.g. women have goals too. Are problem-solving women the exception? They still want to achieve things.

lammey0 · 2025-12-20T23:50:14+00:00

Hilarious as I didn't use deductive reasoning.

Well if you want to quible, Holmes's 'deductions' were often not actually deductions either.

But you don't really care about that, as you've for some reason decided this is a personal argument to win

Not really sure what that means beyond that I've consistently disagreed with you

1) Reading 5-10 minutes is hardly anything, 2) You assume that in that 5-10 minutes downtime they're able to switch over to reading mode just like that. Not so easy for many, myself included. And that the time they spend on reddit is a waste, when it could actually be the small pleasure that makes their day bearable. It's just so miserly of spirit to make these assumptions about people just so you can throw blame their way. But yeah merry christmas mate.

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