Interesting Links for 10-03-2018

[andrewducker]

Should we make marriage harder?

(tags: marriage law )

Ireland and Brexit, four ways forward

(tags: ireland uk europe )

China’s lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of real gems. (Yaaaaay!)

Reminder: https://priceonomics.com/post/45768546804/diamonds-are-bullshit
(tags: diamonds Technology GoodNews )

Psychologists have explored why we sometimes like listening to the same song on repeat

(tags: psychology music )

This is why I object to people renting out flats on AirBnB

(tags: housing rental Edinburgh OhForFucksSake )

The Race-Based Mortgage Penalty

(tags: racism housing usa mortgages )

Labour bosses block vote on single market membership

(tags: Scotland labour europe )

Transgender People and “Biological Sex” Myths

(tags: lgbt transgender brain )

Fake news travels much further and faster than real news on social media

(tags: news fraud lies socialmedia )

Your regular reminder that EU migrants have no negative effect on UK wages

(tags: wages immigration UK europe )

Britain’s White-Collar Cops Are Getting Too Good at Their Job

(tags: fraud UK OhForFucksSake corruption politics )

Comments

Should we make marriage harder?

[jack]

I don't know, most people I know usually really worked at theirs ;)

[cmcmck]

Julia is spot on as she usually is!

[ckd]

AIUI, Ireland kept their Schengen opt-out only because they had to to stay in the CTA. If both the UK and Ireland were in Schengen (presumably the scenario the authors of that provision had in mind), that would make the CTA irrelevant; if (when) Brexit breaks the CTA, however....

[cmcmck]

Whoever said marriage was easy to begin with?

Thirteen years, but that's as part of a twenty five year relationship.

The difference between marriage and not marriage? Not all that much in truth.

Mawwwidge

[agoodwinsmith]

I insisted on getting married after my aunt's experience. she had lived with someone for nearly 30 years; cared for him through his illness, paid for his living expenses and medications and medical care. And when he died, she had no rights. His daughter took the body and didn't even tell my aunt where the funeral was.

We had lived together five years by then, and CMCMCK is right about married not being much different from not-married, but I wasn't going to be in the position that, if I needed to go to the hospital for my SOGP, I would be treated as "the girlfriend" - oh no siree.

In Canada, Common-Law is treated pretty much the same as Marriage-With-A-Licence - especially for taxation purposes - but you know? The law can be changed any day by nearly anybody, but usually by dyspeptic old white men who hate being old and wrinkly and want to punish everyone who is not themselves.

Also - most people are young and too inexperienced in financial matters when they get married, and the best advice in the world isn't going to help them understand what a break-down in cordial relations might entail when they are double their current ages.

(edited for misplaced "too")

Re: Mawwwidge

[cmcmck]

Agreed!

In the end it was the element of 'protection' that persuaded us to do the dirty deed especially as I have an extremely thorny, not to say non existent relationship with my creators.

Having been together before said dirty deed also meant we knew each other's foibles pretty well by that stage! :o)

[marahmarie]

Re: Scottish AirBnB nightmare, is "living in a stair" equivalent to USians saying they're "living in an apartment building" (with "apartment", I hope, roughly translating to "flat")? I was trying to form a mental picture of the circumstances described but "living in a stair" over here would literally mean "living in a stairwell" because USians = too often literal.

[andrewducker]

Yup, living in an apartment building with stairs.

(And yes, "block of flats")

"Stair" is definitely a Scottish term - see entry two here:
http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/stair_n1

Not sure how common it is outside of Edinburgh.

[cmcmck]

'Entry' for the bottom of those stairs is another Scottish term with tenement blocks.

[marahmarie]

That's helpful, thank you!

[marahmarie]

"to bide in a stair" (from Entry 2) and "live in a stair" do seem pretty close, and I now I have learnt some Scottish. Thank you! :)

[heron61]

This is why I object to people renting out flats on AirBnB

Between stories like this and AirBnB driving up rents (because landlords can, or at least think they can make more money using their apartments are AirBnB locations), I'm convinced that AirBnB either needs massive reform or to be made illegal - Uber and Lyft are in pretty much the same position, since they basically amount of people trading wear and tear on their car for money, with below US minimum wage (which is already a pittance) money in addition. In short, the "gig economy" is largely a massive scam. Yet another example of what libertarianism at work actually looks like.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, I don't object to people renting out a flat long-term, or a room in their flat. But constant short-term rents destroy an area.

[danieldwilliam]

I think there is a balance to be struck, both in terms of the proportion of residential properties that are being used for short-term lets and the requirements for owner of the property to ensure the good behaviour of their tennants.

There are lots and lots of places that require "some" holiday letting properties in order for their tourist industry to work at all. (I don't think Edinburgh is one of these places - there are ample opportunities for hotels to provide short stay accomodation. We don't *need* holiday lets in order to have a tourist industry - but they might be useful.)

I think I'd like to see short-stay accomodation treated as a change of use for planning purposes and therefore requiring planning permission. I think this would allow Edinburgh to ration the number and manage the density of short-stay accomodation in a way that was useful for Edinburgh and also allow small seaside towns to do the same. I think some sort of additional licensing on top of this with a good behaviour condition attached would be useful along with some practical mechanisms for direct enforcement by neighbours.

[andrewducker]

Just realised I didn't reply to this. Sorry!

"I think I'd like to see short-stay accomodation treated as a change of use for planning purposes and therefore requiring planning permission."

That seems reasonable to me. Having that as (effectively) additional licensing would work to keep things peaceful.

[danieldwilliam]

And it lets places like Edinburgh run a different policy from places like Aberdeen or the touristic areas of the borders which have different needs.