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There is a difference between "Non-essential" and "Unnecessary".
A pub is not "Essential" to life, but it's a social need: drinking at home does not fill the same needs.
A hairdresser is not "Essential" - but my life would be really rather short if I had to cut Herself's hair!
A restaurant is not "Essential", but it's important to relationships and to business.
Clubs aren't "Essential", but it's where boy meets girl and the parents of the future take their first steps in that direction.
And "Little shops" provide a significant number of the jobs (and thus income) that the whole of society requires in order to keep money moving and standards of living improving.
Society can cope without "Non-essential" services, shops, and recreational places for a while: but not forever.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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A balanced view, posted online...!?! Is the Internet broken? Has the Web fallen!?! 
Has The Lounge been taken over by stable minds?
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raddevus wrote: A balanced view, posted online...!?!
Somebody sent it to him.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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raddevus wrote: Has The Lounge been taken over by stable minds?
[Looks around]
Nope.
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My take is that hairdresser and barber shops will be one of the first non-essential businesses to open.
I'd rather be phishing!
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We should only keep the companies that spark joy.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Several years ago (not long after nine eleven) I was pondering what the next attack on the US of A might be. Like I often do, this ended up in a manuscript for a novel - but if I let anyone read it, I would immediately be arrested for planning terror attacks.
Anyway, in this apocalyptic story targeted biological attacks were an essential element, I had to choose who to attack. I surprised myself by how many groups, mainly identified by their profession, could be "taken out" in order to end up with a more streamlined society. Honestly, I was not only surprised, but scared. The mental (and moral) exercise of writing this manuscript raised so many issues that I have still not come to rest with the scare.
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Member 7989122 wrote: I surprised myself by how many groups, mainly identified by their profession, could be "taken out" in order to end up with a more streamlined society.
The problem with "streamlining societies" is that the societies that do it either become decadent or turn on themselves almost immediately.
Pick any historical instance of what is now termed "ethnic cleansing" for evidence.
Trying to make a society "better" by removing or suppressing elements of it has almost invariably led to the fall of the society itself, but people still believe that they should (and have the inalienable right to) try.
Democracy as it stands might suck, but it's still proven itself to be far better than any of the alternatives.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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At the risk of going political, the largest non-essential "business" on the planet is government. Way too much of government has nothing to do with governing and has everything to do with attempting to control every single thing in life.
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I think you are right.
Why don't you establish an anarchist organization to throw out the politicians? If you can establish a strong organization to promote anarchy, your guys may be able to throw all those worthless politicians out, and have them replaced with your guys, anarchists who really understand how to manage a society without government.
You will of course have to establish some system to make sure that people behave exactly as you want them to, when you wipe out those government regulations that restricted them. In an anarchist society, with no mechanisms available to enforce regulations, you need other tools to make sure that your ideas about how a society should operate become effective. You might appeal to e.g. NRA or extreme religious fundamentalists. You may have a slight problem in that these organizations hardly qualify as "anarchistic". Quite to the contrary.
If you do not want anarchy, your alternative is to go for the archy. Accept the structures as they are today, fight within them. Become a politician yourself. Make people vote for you, show them that you can do a better job that gabbing Donald Duck.
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I am fine at imagineering(I try to imagine software bugs away all the time), it's when it comes to the engineering that things get a bit tricky for me...
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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Judging by most of their output, you become an imagineer by learning how to endlessly repeat formulas that worked the first time they were used.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I live in The Netherlands and normally, if I look up when the sky is clear, I can see anything between 6 and 20 vapour trails but, they have all gone. With them, the background low frequency rumble that is always present has gone as well. In its place you can hear bird song much more clearly. It's great. The last time this happened was when the Icelandic Eyjafjallajökull volcano blew up in 2010.
Andy
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Same here in the UK
if I hear a plane, I go outside to marvel at the sight (only noticed one this week)
Eyjafjallajökull - show off
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Ain't it wonderful!
I'm hiding from exercise...I'm in the fitness protection program.
JaxCoder.com
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Until the zombies come out.
Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other.
Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it.
Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.
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I live close to O'Hare International Airport[^] and under the center of three landing patterns, at any given time there are a dozen or more planes in the air, not this week. It hasn't been this quiet since 9/11, it's mighty eerie!
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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We're not so close to an airport; it must be truly amazing for those of you who are. A once in a lifetime opportunity to sell a house!!
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Yes, you are right! Twice in a lifetime at this point.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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I used to live near DFW and on a clear night could count as many as 14 airplanes all strung out on the same approach.
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I can see 7 or 8 on the same approach, lesser on the other two. It is impressive to witness.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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I read a report the other day saying seismologists are hearing earth tremors they've never been able to hear before. Humans are simply noisy and literally rattle the planet.
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You can experience something similar under a power outage: The humming from the freezer and fridge stops, the hiss from the ventilation system, the fan in your home PC stops... You start hearing the creaking in the walls of your house, the dripping from that leaky faucet, the kids walking around upstairs. You may have some battery powered clock (with arms) that you never before knew were ticking.
If you ever do "power drills" - similar to fire drills, but switching off the main power switch for the entire weekend to learn how well you would cope under a long lasting power outage - you will have almost the same experience, although you would probably hear some "electrical noise" from your neighbors'.
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