Flic

@Witchfire @Soup it’s illegal in London but not elsewhere in the UK. The stupid thing, though, is that it’s illegal everywhere in the UK to *drive* on the pavement. But you can’t punish the driver of a stationary car for driving on the pavement if you didn’t see them do it. Technically maybe they flew? Airlifted in?

(Plus also enforcement of most driving infractions is super lax here)

@Hossenfeffer but when it comes down to it I think really we’ve ceded our understanding of morality to “the market” anyway. It’s bad when politicians say to do it but if “the people” follow (or if, for example, we regulate schools so they *have* to follow) and that’s the only way to make it sell then it’s ok. Majority rules, I guess. But my personal feeling is that when it comes to pure morality it’s about where the power lies. And often that’s the power of controlling the narrative.

@Hossenfeffer as with everything it usually boils down to who has the power/control. An (adult) reader can choose what they read or how they interpret it, and can also often control what a child reads and how that child interprets it too. A subject cannot choose how they are read about, so it is up to the writer and publisher to control that message and reduce misinterpretation where possible. It’s a similar framework to cultural appropriation or “doing an accent”. Are you punching up or down?

@Hossenfeffer well “this is offensive [to the subject]” is more valid than “this is dangerous [to the reader]” for one. A subject can’t choose what the reader thinks of them afterwards - they have to hope that the reader understands enough context to realise they are, actually, equally human. A reader, in contrast, gets to choose whether they agree with the premise. Otherwise history would have destroyed all copies of every religious book, or Mein Kampf or the Little Red Book or Das Kapital.

@Hossenfeffer @racemaniac n*r is deemed a slur *by the group it is used about*. “Transgender” is not. Changing references to be more inclusive/respectful of a group is very different to erasing the existence of a group entirely.

@penquin to clarify, yes, it has loads of standard ebooks on there but it’s up to your library how many copies, if any, of anything in the catalogue to make available. My library usually has about 3-4 copies of anything popular and you get them for two weeks, but you can delay the hold if your turn comes up and you’re busy reading something else. If anything is crazy popular they will review and make more available to reduce the waiting time.

@penquin probably depends on your library but mine has plenty of normal books on there.

@lepinkainen @penquin Kobo has a basic browser so you probably could. I downloaded a few copyright-free books from standardebooks.org directly onto my Kobo the other day.

@penquin @lepinkainen Kobo also comes preloaded with overdrive so you can get books from the library as well. The wait can be quite long though - but if you have enough on hold that doesn’t really matter too much

@SnotFlickerman @cm0002 unless he’s done the research himself he won’t know whether the results are viable - as he says, they’ve got to test the “new” one. So at best it gives you a bit of a head start on new avenues, at worst it completely wastes your time down a new rabbithole.

@sugar_in_your_tea @Habarug there’s an app called StreetComplete which gameifies this as well. Gets a bit addictive if you’re not careful