Travelwithofs

[Sam Dumitriu @Sam_Dumitriu]

“I wouldn’t be able to teach my kids to swim where I learn because the water had been polluted by raw sewage that’d make them sick.”

- In 1995, only 46% of English bathing waters met today’s minimum standard. In 2025, 93% did.

- In 1988, only 65% of bathing waters met the far lower minimum standards of the time.

- This is unsurprising. In the 80s, sewage was routinely discharged into the sea. (Not in exceptional circumstances, but as a matter of practice.)

- In Brighton where I live, almost all sewage was pumped directly into the sea without biological treatment until the 2010s.

- Until relatively recently, there was essentially no monitoring of storm overflow discharges of sewage.

- Some bathing waters have got worse since 2019, but will still be far better than they were in 80/90s

- The number of bathing waters classified as poor has increased, but that’s because they are newly classed as bathing waters.

- £12bn is being spent over the next five years to halve the number of storm overflows.

[Travelwithofs @Travelsofofs]

@mattyglesias I stayed after a girl said David Icke was her hero, that might have been a mistake.

[Travelwithofs @Travelsofofs]

@razibkhan Also the Chief Minister of Kashmir is a half-white guy born in Essex.

[Travelwithofs @Travelsofofs]

@webdevMason It is useful test of reliability, if someone believes insane stories about death row inmates, you should discount everything they say. It made me realise Paul Graham had terrible epistemics.

[Travelwithofs @Travelsofofs]

@CharlesFLehman Do we have good info on how drug consumption changes when someone enters prison? There is a massive smuggling problem but it still probably goes down.

[Travelwithofs @Travelsofofs]

@willsolfiac @phl43 Isn't it just not true, the king might be dumb but his grand vizier and chief of the secret police will be high IQ. Other factors do exist but in every hierarchy you have very smart people near the top.

[Travelwithofs @Travelsofofs]

@tracewoodgrains I have been annoyed at Germans who just say their country.

[Travelwithofs @Travelsofofs]

@TypeForVictory That seems too optimistic, the people in the system who approved this are just bad people who don't like a functioning system. Any form of functiong immigration system even the most liberal would reject literal terrorists.

[Travelwithofs @Travelsofofs]

@mattyglesias It would be so funny if he follows the Tulsi or Fetterman trajectory.

[Travelwithofs @Travelsofofs]

@patio11 @GjMcGowan @thinkingshivers @TetraspaceWest And in lots of places workers face the opposite pressure, so the stats might be unreliable.

[Travelwithofs @Travelsofofs]

@Indian_Meow @razibkhan If you declare yourself Buddhist or Christian you no longer qualify as OBC for Affirmative Action.

[Travelwithofs @Travelsofofs]

@razibkhan But the low IQ Indian Hindu right is very angry about proselytisising and tried to restrict it.

[Travelwithofs @Travelsofofs]

@jhallwood That has worked on two of my ex-girlfriends.

[Sam Freedman @Samfr]

The extent of the PISA gap between England + other western European countries is extraordinary.

In reading, the 25% most disadvantaged pupils in England outperformed the average for *all* students in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Norway etc...

A decade ago there was no gap

[Travelwithofs @Travelsofofs]

@s8mb There should be a list of things that are several times more expensive in one rich country than others. American phone contracts are 5 times more expensive than European ones for some reason.

[Travelwithofs @Travelsofofs]

@Idgitbhh @smalltownrobot @ArmandDoma And human immortality, which makes it exciting and terrifying at the same time.

[Travelwithofs @Travelsofofs]

@KelseyTuoc @xwanyex It isn't particularly relevant, but quite a few of he founders were close to atheism.

[Travelwithofs @Travelsofofs]

@wallaceme It is a pretty strong argument even if it seems pathetic.