Bright Lights, Big City
Lifted from the comments, it turns out that Transport For London is advertising assisted suicide. They seem to be giving it quite a push:
Westminster Death Tunnel sponsored by @dignityindying pic.twitter.com/fW0mbtqVRc
— Fleur Elizabeth (@fleurmeston) November 25, 2024
Very on-brand, I’d say. Almost too on-the-nose. I mean, if London’s buses and tube network were suddenly to be plastered with huge posters saying END IT ALL NOW, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO, it wouldn’t be entirely inexplicable, or entirely dissonant with the customer experience.
It’s perhaps worth noting that Transport For London has a staff training centre, complete with fake station and platform, and “suicide pits,” where employees learn how to manage what are euphemistically referred to as “passengers taken unwell” or “disruptions to the tube service.” Events that occur on average once or twice a week.
In 2019, staff “intervened” in the self-destructive thoughts of 426 customers deemed “visibly in distress,” “up from 252 in the previous year.”
As EmC quips darkly in reply,
Update, via the comments:
The adverts for assisted suicide are now being partially covered, by persons unknown, with posters for a Samaritans helpline.
Consider this an open thread.
Sooo, they’re saying “Instead of jumping on the tracks and disrupting service, why not avail yourself of this lovely clean method”?
As someone who’s experienced the soul-withering properties of attempts to travel in London – and would not care to repeat it – there is, I think, an unhappy irony.
It’s also worth noting that TfL, supported by London’s leftist mayor, Sadiq Khan, has been quite eager to forbid adverts on the tube for foods deemed insufficiently healthy and life-affirming, including artisanal cheeses.
Fame at last.
Well, it wasn’t an entirely inapt comment. If I were of a mind to seriously degrade someone’s mental health and make them feel utterly wretched, urging them to live in London would be a pretty good way to do it.
The adverts for assisted suicide are now being partially covered, by persons unknown, with posters for a Samaritans helpline.
[ Post updated. ]
The adverts for assisted suicide are now being partially covered, by persons unknown, with posters for a Samaritans helpline.
Good people – and sane people – still exist.
To be clear, I don’t at the moment have strong feelings on the subject, in principle, in theory. But the location of the adverts – and their sheer density, dozens of them, one after another – in a place where unhappy people regularly hurl themselves onto the tracks – seems a little, um, tone-deaf.
Watching the video above, the experience of walking down a tunnel in which every wall is plastered with repeated invitations to extinguish yourself does strike me as a bit of a downer. A dark irony.
Subliminal message: “If you have to ride public transit, your life really sucks.”
The tube is bad enough as an occasional visitor, a grim novelty experienced for just a day or two. But as something that has to be endured every day, at rush hour, when it’s at its most unpleasant, I think demoralisation would be difficult to avoid.
A thread on the mentally corrosive effects of so-called “diversity training.”
Oh, and That Thing That Never Happens has… well, you know.
Nearly one a week actually commits? I tried to look up comparable stats for NYC subway system. Of course google and now even Perplexity.ai are shit but it appears that for a system that handles 20% more passengers, their numbers were less than half London’s. That was until there was an “alarming increase” to 27 in 2022. Gee, wonder why suicides are increasing in general? I thought leftism taking over the world was supposed to bring us joy? Wonder how such is playing out in Canada, home of the MAID service.
According to Wikipedia, the number of suicides on the tube network has for decades, when averaged, been around one or two a week.
Is there any connection between this push for assisted suicide and the recent changes to inheritance tax?
Coincidence? Rising promotion of assisted suicide simultaneous with the decline of the NHS and the welfare system.
They seem to be giving it quite a push:
I see what you did there
Not much ‘diversity’ in the kill yourself advertising.
It would definitely help.
[ Wipes bar, whistles nonchalantly. ]
Ever get the feeling gullibility is striven for?
I have often wondered how people can imbibe the most obvious mental poison.
See also.
How did we get from Men on Books to Men on Military?
Government-paid gender transition: two snaps. Actual combat readiness: hated it!
Minefield clearing duty.
It’s one of the things I’ve tried to convey here over the years. It’s not just that a great deal of progressive posturing is absurdly pretentious or factually wrong or logically incoherent, often bizarrely so. It’s that the mindset implied by the posturing is obnoxious and dysfunctional. It’s psychologically disgusting.
How did we get from Men on Books to Men on Military?
First, the guy is Air Force, so “military” is a bit of a stretch anyway, but if he is still in his first 180 days, he can (should) be yeeted for failure to adapt, if past that. “The likelihood that the member is a disruptive or undesirable influence in present or future duty assignments” assuming they have a stack of counseling statements to back it up.
Just needs somebody in the food chain to do it, which may be a tall order in these days of troubled DIE in which we live in.
Are you thinking of this famous cartoon?
A much earlier version of the same cartoon:
Other than honorable discharge.
On it’s way out: DEI
On it’s way in: DIE
Move along, move along. No Islam to see here.
They need to stick Starmer’s face on the suicide posters.
pst314: Well, as plan benefits go it is sort of a one-off…so, you know, Win-Win.
Is it my imagination, or is there a distinct lack of melanin-enhanced diversity in these ads, such that one would expect to be crucial to getting approved for TfL in any other campaign?
Wonder how such is playing out in Canada, home of the MAID service.
Things are ramping up quite nicely thanks.
A paraplegic veteran who has represented this country in the armed forces and at the Paralympics has been trying for five years to get funding to build a wheelchair ramp built for her home. They won’t give her the funding for the ramp but they’ve offered her MAiD instead
JuliaM: well, you would think so, wouldn’t you? And just as remarkably, all of the photos are of people who appear healthy, balanced and rather content…no obvious end-of-my-rope-no-way-out desperation, no staring haunted eyes/spectral visages–just the nice lady next door who’s going to put down that guitar she’s been practicing and and go for the Final Exit. Geeze, folk songs tend to be pretty depressing, but who knew they were that bad?
The shooter, Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, has now had terrorism and hate crimes added to his charges after authorities found evidence on his phone that he searched for synagogues and Jewish community centers. Also, maybe, that he visited jihad websites but I’m not sure.
As has been pointed out, it would have been inappropriate for the police to say that this was a hate crime until they had admissible evidence of his motives.
More details here.
This from the thread:
Not ironic at all. Feature, not bug, of DEI ‘training’. Creating hostility among the great unwashed is a valuable service to the Ruling class.
I like the phrase “prison onset gender dysphoria”. Going to remember that one.
You’d think the whole ‘Allahu Akhbar’ thing would offer a clue.
According to multiple reports, it was unclear what he yelled.
From the New York Post:
The accompanying video bears that out.
This was made possible by the ‘conservative’ Texas judiciary. It’s why I voted against every Texas Republican judicial candidate in November.
It was not clear to me when I listened on the CWB website, and the initial reports said that multiple people were uncertain what he said. (And the 72 Hour Rule exists because initial reports are so often inaccurate or downright wrong.)
Thus, it seems reasonable for the police to have said nothing until they could ascertain the facts with confidence.
One has to wonder how they got elected in the first place: Did they misrepresent their positions? Did they “evolve in office”?
Those heinous vandals will probably end up in jail.
A bit of both would be my surmise. Haven’t paid much attention to judicial elections in the past. That’s not going to be the case going forward.
Given a smart lawyer, a jury trial could be quite…interesting.
The sailor panel wasn’t SFW and had to be left out.
😁
.
Not only that, much like certain ‘relief’ work and the symbiotic relationship of the lawyers with the insurance companies, creating more friction generates more demand for those doing the training.
My experience digging into Florida judicial elections, and it is my understanding that this is not unique to Florida, there is practically nothing that you can ask a judicial candidate about their position on anything. The SCOTUS confirmation style of questioning is way more specific than anything you can ask at the state level. They hide behind a certain ‘ethics’ standard that applies to most states. Some states have begun to chip away at that standard but in Florida all you can go on is their visible sex, skin color, name, and spouse and/or number of children and maybe animals that they chose to show in their campaign literature. Added: Ooh! And fashion sense. So there’s that.
Every year I have to do anti-bribery training and thanks to the insistence on “representation” in all media, the clear message is that only women and brown people commit bribery and influence peddling.
The standard response is “I won’t comment on hypothetical situations” and there’s a good reason for it; if a judge says he’d rule a certain way on a hypothetical case and then the real thing comes along, one of the lawyers will use their publicly stated opinions as a reason to recuse or appeal. I don’t know how to square that particular circle, but something needs to change.
I was wondering what was happening with the younger Younger.
I have to be honest, I’m often bewildered that there aren’t a hell of a lot more private conversations in dive bars between such fathers and men with a penchant for making troublesome people disappear.
Wildly off topic:
The thing is, I understand and to some degree respect that. My concern, based on something my community was going through concerned frivolous lawsuits. Not speaking hypocritically. They do exist. Cases where the plaintiffs have zero evidence. What I wanted to know was in regards to how they run their dockets or wtf they’re called, would they/could they make an effort to review *all* cases to prioritize those that appear to be frivolous and address them earlier so that they don’t drag out costing defendants tens of thousands of dollars in upfront legal fees. This degenerated into even more generically asking if they even care about such. They all dummy up and call even that a a hypothetical case.
We can debate whether this is good or bad but without anything else to go on except superficial prejudice, what’s the bloody point of judicial elections? When I first started voting, I seem to recall that the only voting in regards to judges was about getting recalled because they were not doing their jobs or some malfeasance. That makes sense. But the general public, the voting public, lacks the resources, the knowledge, the understanding, etc. to make decisions between two legitimate candidates. Having them appointed by the legislature or whatever other acceptable authorities there are makes sense. Too much crap, too many people on the typical ballot as it is.
pst314:
re “Wildly off topic”
Can’t swear it’s true but the legend is that the mantra (if not the official motto) of the FFL ran
“Vive La Morte!
Vive La Guerre!
Vive La Legion Etrangere!”
WTP: FWIW (and I think I’ve mentioned this before) one of the rural county judges I used to appear before had a plaque in his chambers stating tersely “OFTEN OVERTURNED, ALWAYS REELECTED.”
Another way to tell men from women.
In something completely different, we have the curious case of Brianna Wu insisting that testosterone make his brain malfunction.
What is he assuming here?
He seems to be saying that his body (fleshy brain) is trying to be female, so it physically rejects male stuff.
I’ve heard other trans say that taking E cured their anxiety, as if their bodies had been crying out for it.
That makes no sense. I thought gender was not about the body at all.
Have we done the brine shrimp one yet?
Because I think we need to check out the brine shrimp thing.
Apparently, a woman from Poland is worried that us white folk living near the Great Salt Lake aren’t properly cognizant of the “brine shrimp as vital to the survival of multiple species and to the GSL as a unique ecosystem.”
I kid you not. They made a video of a bunch of women “marrying” the brine shrimp. I think you’ll find the video has its proper framing.
Also, what in Sam Hill is “feminist blue posthumanites”?
A bit of insight into that video.
Their takeoff point is Spiral Jetty. The video must be fairly recent, given how far they had to walk to reach the water’s edge.
The participants appear to be from Westminster College, and was that THE Annie Sprinkle, the performance artist? Look her up. I think not.
Furthermore, us locals are pretty clear about where brine shrimp rate in the ecology, given the millions of migrant waterfowl who descend on the lake twice yearly for the express purpose of gorging themselves on the shrimp.
Sure, they got sold as Sea Monkeys. And they’re also dredged up to make aquarium food for fish. But they’re bird food most of all.
They end the video by immersing themselves in the water. Given the salt concentration and the distance to their car, their clothes would have dried out and the salt would have crystallized on the cloth, and they would have a very uncomfortable ride home in the stiffness.
My trip to the GSL in 2015.
Brine shrimp close up. The little black eyes are visible even without magnification.
As we’ve seen many times, trans activists are typically – and fundamentally – self-refuting, in that their own statements and behaviour are often very good reasons for others to regard them with some suspicion – and very good reasons to say no.
For instance, when a mentally ill man with badly applied lipstick sneers at “so-called parental rights,” and boasts, rather triumphantly, “We don’t care if you disagree with what we’re teaching your kid.”
If the sight of Mr Fae Johnstone, above, suggests something broken and possibly dangerous, something to which your children should not be exposed, then that doesn’t strike me as outrageous or indefensible.
A not implausible explanation.
That.
One clue being the way Mr Johnstone’s face frequently contorts into something like a snarl, an expression of hostility or contempt, seemingly independently of what is being said, and in ways that suggest a pointed dissonance. Which doesn’t inspire great confidence.
But dissonance is a recurring motif, practically a signature. And so, Mr Johnstone demands a publicly funded platform to propagate his pernicious nonsense, while simultaneously fantasising about a world in which his critics are “shut down” and “vilified,” and “don’t dare speak their views publicly.”
And he wants leverage over your children.
Suicide! Samaritans! Diversity! Vandalism!
You just have to think outside the box to come up with a win-win solution.
The only drawback is the supporters of Dying with Dignity may actually have to enter an Underground station for a photo op or two.
Heh. Reminded me of this scene from Peacemaker.
Of course this kind of contorting is actually funny…
They should have tried putting it on OnlyFans instead.
…face frequently contorts…
Speaking of which, this one offers us a synonym.
The case has now caught the attention of Libs of TicToc and Elon Musk on Twitter/X so perhaps this idiocy can be stopped in this case before they poison/castrate that boy.
Excellent framing.
Just imagine commentary by the robots.
I heard of her years ago on a blog which said she got her start (in the 80’s?) doing the very “specialized” porn that her name alludes to. The blogger went on to say that she subsequently went off the deep end psychologically into some very weird ways. But I assume that most people in porn are vulnerable that way.
No thanks.
But David should do so, to further enrich his browsing history.
@David: “something broken and
possiblycertainly dangerous”extract:
and:
See, for example, the “We Waz Kangs” delusion and the fraudulent claim that “Greeks stole their philosophy from black Africans”.
No ‘if’ about it.
Well, again, the subset of dysmorphics and autogynephiles who declare themselves activists do tend to be self-refuting for reasons stated above. And the more you’re exposed to their words and behaviour, the more likely it is that your impression will not be favourable. Assuming, that is, that you’re reluctant to pretend.
The brokenness, and the possibility of danger, becomes harder to ignore. And the eagerness to inflict their mental dramas on other people’s children really doesn’t help.
They’re very often people who want to see you punished, by mobs or by law, or in public struggle sessions, for making any reference to mental illness, while displaying signs of quite serious mental illness.
Men can’t jump the broom?
The same applies to “woke” liberals’ attitudes towards any other dissent from dogma.
And these people project their own tyrannical ambitions onto those they disagree with. Hence the endless melt-downs on Facebook and other social media, in which they wax hysterical that Trump’s Nazi militia is coming and that we’re all going to be enslaved by his fascist regime.
Of the ones I know personally, all of them spent the last 20 years enthusiastically supporting the punishment and silencing of any and all conservative views.
Hydrosexuality.
Another wild attempt to justify the emotionally stunted’s fascination with their nether regions.
Further proof of consummation?
It’s nightmare fuel.
Well, it doesn’t exactly suggest a basis for indulgence or affirmation, or letting one’s guard down.
Can confirm.
On TikTok, the chap in question announces his empathy quite a lot. Yet he struggles to imagine how anyone might disagree with him, about pretty much anything.
On another of Wayne’s posts, scroll down to here:
These are subhumans. Monsters.
sf writer John C Wright comments:
This is based on the existence of the Library at Alexandria in Egypt and Greek philosophers going there to learn. However, 1) this was during the period when Egypt was ruled by Greeks and Alexandria was a Greek city and 2) they conflate the brief period when Nubians ruled Egypt with the entire history of Egypt during which Egypt was NOT African.
It is amazing how far you can go when you just ignore facts.
Given the state of public education it’s risky to assume they are even aware of the facts to begin with.
Besides social status is based on histrionic emoting, not doing the work of learning facts & then using those facts to form a worldview that, well, reflects the world.
Also ignored: The many Greek philosophers who lived before the Library was established.
A discussion of assisted dying in the Spectator. I’m waiting for Soylent Green.
In other news of women down by the waters, they are having a normal one in Milwaukee.
Yes you can.
Fire.
Posting this for no particular reason.
Poor pup, 5 miles out to sea and no mouthwash.
The love, tolerance, and joy is palpable.
But, hey, she placed at the Fort Worth Stock Show.
This might be a clue to what’s behind all those “assisted suicide” advertisements.