Clean hands, Cool head, Warm heart.

GP, Gardener, Radical progressive

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  • 18 Comments
Joined 6 months ago
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Cake day: May 7th, 2024

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  • I’m lucky to have been able to experiment a bit with this as my work is flexible and I’m in a pretty good bargaining position. I also do a fair bit of unpaid work out of hours.

    Having either Friday or Monday I’ve found to be little different. Having alternating Fridays and Mondays is pretty awesome, 4 days on, 2 off, 4 on, 4 off.

    There’s a lot to be said for a mid week day off too. I’m looking at moving to a new employer and hoping to go negotiate a 3 day week, maybe Mon-Tues-Thur for example which will be heaven if I can pull it off.


  • The idea that capitalism and liberal representative (I refuse to use the word democratic) government are the only viable option are so ingrained. It makes it difficult to engage anyone in serious discussion of alternatives.

    What I do is point out injustice when you come across it and suggest a socialist solution. Don’t mention socialism, talk about unions, worker ownership, workplace democracy, social housing, structural injustice.

    If you get pushback I will say something like “I feel like our political system is so focused on capitalist solutions that often good sensible policies don’t get considered”

    With people you interact with frequently this approach will usually, over time, result in them no longer thinking you’re a crackpot and often soften them up for a more detailed discussion in which you can discuss revolutionary change.

    This is the best I have been able to do. Interested to see other responses.



  • I can’t say that I’m very familiar with the UK laws in depth other than that they have been in operation for many years and are generally considered effective.

    For referenda there’s no reason you can’t have a publicly funded campaign for yes and no and limit private advertising, we have something like that here in Australia.

    Sortition, random selection, when combined with an elected body has a lot of benefits. It has the advantage of having professional politicians with institutional knowledge and relationships while also having a body the that is actually representative of the larger population.


  • 100% agree!

    As an addition to this I firmly believe medical marijuana is a phase.

    Now I’ve made people angry here’s the nuance.

    CBD/THC combinations certainly have a role in some patients with chronic pain, especially where it’s use can avoid or reduce the use of opioids.

    There are clear specific uses such as intractable epilepsy where it is clearly the best treatment. It is effective for glaucoma but there are better treatments available.

    I’m highly suspicious of marijuana having any role in mental health and there are, in my opinion, no convincing studies published showing that it is useful at all despite the fact that large studies have been done and presumably file-drawed.

    The idea that smoking is an appropriate delivery method for a medication when other methods are available is insane. Very few things are as bad as tobacco smoke but inhaling smoke is bad for you.

    My prediction is that in 20 years we will have cannabis derivatives in capsules that fulfil the specific purposes and the idea that any doctor prescribed marijuana to smoke will seem insane to younger doctors.


  • A bicameral legislature, one house elected by mixed member proportional system and the other selected at random from the voting age population. Legislation must pass both houses, if it passed one house but not the other it can go to referendum at the same time as the next general election.

    You can also have things like citizen initiated referenda. Campaign finance laws similar to those in the UK are also desirable.


  • Joshi@aussie.zonetoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlAlternatives to congress
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    2 months ago

    No. This sort of arrogant rubbish needs to be shut down.

    In my job - a doctor - I routinely discuss difficult and complex topics with people of all backgrounds and education levels. With very few exceptions people are able to understand difficult topics.

    It is my experience that the most difficult people to work with are not ordinary people but those who hold the opinion that everyone else is stupid.

    With very few exceptions sortition and participatory democracy have worked well whenever they’ve been tried.



  • I think we mostly agree.

    For context I’m a doctor who is constantly pushing back against profit driven motives.

    Being time constrained is an effect of capitalism but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t real work to be done.

    People can and should take time out to express their personalities, hopes and frustrations and bond and be together in the workplace. That said, personal communication in the workplace and professional communication are different beasts.

    Not thinking about what you’re trying to say or what information you need leads to rambling tirades in person and paragraphs that could’ve been sentences in emails, this is not being a machine, it is wasting my time and the time of my patients(whose rambling tirades it is my pleasure to listen to😉)


  • Reminder me of this

    “What to do if you find yourself stuck with no hope of rescue: Consider yourself lucky that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn’t been good to you so far - which, given your present circumstances, seems more likely - consider yourself lucky that it won’t be troubling you much longer.” Douglas Adams



  • Joshi@aussie.zonetoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml*Permanently Deleted*
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    6 months ago

    If you don’t have time to do something right what makes you think you have time to do it twice?

    Respect other people’s time. When dealing with a busy person in a professional context;

    • Emails should be as short as possible while still conveying the needed information, don’t make a busy person excavate the relevant info from somewhere near the middle of the fifth paragraph.
    • Whenever possible phrase a question in a way that can be answered in one word.