I get it, but I still think it's crazy.

Kinda... but having experienced s fraction of it, I know from personal experience that it's not quite that easy:

There are a million things to "do" that improve humanity and don't involve money. If I didn't have to work for a living, I could dedicate my life to picking up all the trash from near where I live. I could plant trees, or learn a language.

Being spoiled for choice makes it harder for many people. There are a million things you can do, you only have time to do an infinitesimal number of them, many (like pure leisure) may lack a sense of purpose or fulfillment etc.

It's not just a disease of billionaires, it's just more stark with them somehow. It's not that unusual for people who hit retirement to just stop and watch TV all day until they die. Even with meager resources there's a million things you can do. A little litter picking as you say, community volunteering, and so on.

If billionaires all retired to become farmers, I don't think that would be a bad thing.

OK not a billionaire, but have you seen Clarkson's Farm? His solution to the farming crisis is to be rich and famous to pull in punters for adjacent services. Real scalable that is...

We took more than one :(

I knew it was bad, I can see the numbers etc etc, but it got brought home to me in a very visceral way recently, being at a startup. It's based in London.

We got a customer in Ireland. Firstly supply chains are just shit now. It can take as long to import stuff from Germany as China, whereas this used to be friction free next day stuff. Sure there are global shocks, but cutting ourselves out of a fucking massive market has exacerbated our problems a lot. Many fewer local suppliers. Friction on import etc etc. It's not that we can't get stuff but everything moves much slower now.

And then there's the export! Basically it's complicated to sell goods to the EU now. It takes a ton of work and time and also money to sort out the paperwork even if there's no duties. And this is not productive time. This just sucks productivity away. No wonder we have a productivity crisis here.

Fortunately for now the UK still respects CE for now, so I can ignore UKCA certification and concentrate on the bigger market.

But it's just friction, friction, friction all the way down. We went into Brexit wit national productivity problems and now we have loads more paper shuffling jobs. that has not helped.

UK has been in decline, with overpopulation and underinvestment and corruption since the 1950s.
We were told that joining the EU would save us,

Well, being in the EU did put the decline on hold while we were a member. But fortunately we left, so the pattern from the 1950s onwards can continue apace. wouldn't want to beak the pattern.

All what violence?

There's been a few riots, but it's not like the UK has a monopoly on those around Europe. And also, some of them were in Belfast. You do know Northern Ireland can reunify with Ireland at any time at which point it becomes part of the EU? You know that, right?

By all means be angry about the aggressive stupidity on display from the UK (I am and I live here), but that's no excuse to be based in a false reality.

And as a border country, I assume the Margrave of "the British Islands", will do his duty and do border controls to all people that enter the future EU where "the British Islands" might be a part again: just as he is doing right now!

The British Isles includes the Republic of Ireland among its countries which is as of last week (it looked that way at the ferry port anyway) still a member of the EU.

The allegedly left wing biased BBC were Farage's biggest booster for about a decade.

Yes the British public may now be in favour of rejoining but it's only because they're still deluding themselves into thinking the European Union will let them rejoin on the same terms they left on, i.e. with exemptions from giving up the Pound and adopting the Euro or joining the passport-free Schengen Area.

Heh. Don't threaten me with a good time!

the collective amnesia about boris is remarkable ... is that a british thing?

What collective amnesia about Boris?

Brexit had many architects. In terms of out and out destruction of the UK economy, I think Cameron stands head and shoulders above the rest.

I think what happened to the UK, socially and economically, should be enough to deter anyone else from making the same mistake.

It's kind of an irony that the Tories saved Europe (sort of). There were big rumblings about various exit parties, but once they saw us turns out it's so bad even the Le Pen's kinda dropped the idea.

Should a member be allowed to leave and then rejoin and then leave and then rejoin with no penalty?

The penalty makes itself simply by not being in the EU. The EU doesn't need to enact any extra penalties to make it bad enough, frankly. :(

The UK should really be commended for their incredible display of political incompetence.

We weren't just done with it then though. We had Bojo and then Truss saying "hold my beer".

But despite considerable flare and flashiness, neither could quite oust that administration from both first (Brexit) and second (austerity) place.

Worst of all it was a non-binding referendum.

Worst of all it was a non binding referendum ruled to have broken the election rules. If it were binding then by law it would have had to be rerun.

It's so fucking stupid and I wonder when I'm supposed to stop being sympathetic/understanding about people who shat on themselves out of racism and fucked everything for the rest of us.

You get raptured up there and it turns out up there is up a hill in East Texas.

Harsh.

Our former colonies have all made the metric switch just fine.

Yes. It's an objectively superior system.

As a Briton who emigrated to Canada as an adult and married an Aussie, before returning to the UK, I can attest to the fact that you can adjust.

I lived in the US for 3 years. There as a big sign board out the bank on the main road displaying temperatures in F, and all the weather reports were in F as well. I could not get used to it. I really tried, but internally I was always converting back to C for intuition. Maybe it takes longer.

I've been trying to reprogram myself away from lbs and stone for weights and feet and inches for height but it's an uphill struggle.

There's something about learning them at a formative time which sticks annoyingly hard.

And let me tell you I get super pissy with the barman if he gives me 568.260.

The stingy bastard.

If I ruled the EU, anyone leaving the EU must stay out for at least two decades. After that, the UK is welcome back but they must fit in.

Well it's been almost a decade since we invoked article 50

Euro as currency.

Works for me.

Metric system.

We're mostly metric now. Exceptions being miles on roads, pints in the pub and how people talk. You can't legislate the latter. It would personally suck for me to go to kms because I learned miles at a formative age and it's hard to reprogram one's brain. They are a little silly though. But you can pry my 568ml glass from my slightly damp, drunken hands.

The pint of course is defined entirely by metric measurements now.

Drive on the right side of the road.

I don't think Ireland wants to change all their roads to drive on the right either and they're a fully paid up member of the EU.