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The idea here seems to be that it's OK for people to watch hours of TV a day every day.

I find it amusing that they consider TV-watching "the traditional British way". It's the traditional working class British way, sure. It's a status symbol here to _not_ have a TV, or to have a tiny one like 15" in a large room.

The issue is really that doing _anything_ mindlessly is a waste of life. TV, flicky flicky lighty box things like TikTok, and World of Warcraft enable that in exactly the same way.

And yeah, I played years of that shit when I was younger. A complete waste. Am I still here? Sure. Did it have some minor benefits? Sure. Would I recommend it? No, huge waste of time.

There's also an enormous difference here in that older people often can't really do much else. My grandma finds it difficult to read books because her eyesight is going and lots of physical pursuits are out for obvious reasons. Cosying up in front of the TV is comfortable for a woman living out the end of her days.



WoW is a more social activity than a lot of people ever partake in on a regular basis. Claiming it is "exactly the same" as flipping channels doesn't add up. In fact, I can't think of a less interactive, less social, less engaging activity than flipping channels (something I spent much of my youth doing).


I have a lot of fond memories of WoW. While it is a bit of a waste for a young person who is doing it instead of working on their future, it seems ideal for someone who is retired. Problem solving, socializing, etc. is way healthier than most screen activities.


I agree that WoW is a waste when considered in relation to the space of possible things a young person can be doing. In practice, though, teenagers are basically trapped in their school related social circle and activities. For me, WoW was a place to be someone else, other than who I was at school, and to feel valued for reasons beyond my performance in high school social games.

Beyond that, I legitimately think that my experiences with raiding, min-maxing, grinding, etc. were a sort of preparation for the social dynamics of... corporate leadership. Of course, a lot more was required (technical skills, philosophical grounding, etc), but it was a good start.


Growing up in suburban Houston our options truly were limited to make WoW not a bad option to engage with all sorts of people. ALL other social activities require a car, so until my mom or dad will was available to drive me my only recourse was the internet.

Now I live in Taiwan and I envy the young people who i see out and about all over thanks to the bus and train system, participating in all sorts of random activities.


The problem WoW shares with TV is that for many (most) people, logging in to WoW is an easier route to a pleasurable experience than any safe affordable activity available to a person living 70 years ago or 700 years ago or 7000 years ago. One worry that neuroscientist Andrew Huberman and others have is that if you partake often in potent pleasures that do not require much effort to achieve, you lose motivation to work hard at pursuits that haven't been carefully crafted by "designers" to be maximally engaging and pleasurable or require more effort or sacrifice to access than WoW or TV require.

It is not obvious to me that WoW's being very interactive (or its putting you in communication with real people) protects it from having the adverse effect I just described. Maybe the interactivity merely gives the designers of WoW more levers to pull in their quest to make WoW as engaging and compelling as possible -- which is more engaging and compelling than is probably good for you for something as easy to access as WoW is.

Specifically, if you binge on WoW it can take over a month for your motivational system to return to normal, and while it its taking its time returning, you have less motivation to tackle real life. Also, since pleasure causes whatever you were doing right before the pleasure to be "reinforced", if you play WoW a lot, then stop, for years afterwards whenever you are tired or under stress while at the computer you will tend to type in the command to start up WoW without any conscious awareness of intending to do so.

Of course video games, online role-playing games and TV aren't the only activities with this problem. The paperback novel for example is an invention that provides customers (at least those good at turning printed words into mental imagery) easy access to a fairly potent pleasure. This is a problem that society has been grappling with for a few centuries.


That's very insightful. You said as much, but I think that goes for anything that provides any sort of satisfaction. The less effort required to achieve the satisfaction, the more likely you'll gravitate to it. I do, anyway.

I might even take the liberty to generalize it to a sort of long-term-thinking blindness. For me, anyway, there are things I get much more more satisfaction from, that I could be doing, but require effort to do. Yet here I am on HN. I know this. I know that, on a satisfaction:time ratio, I'll get more out of one day's effort and finishing a project than a week's worth of mindlessly reading HN. That's a more fulfilling life.

It seems most of the time life just passes me by as I watch other people put in actual effort (in areas I have skills in! I could be the one doing that!) and achieve cool things. It's a difficult cycle to break. I'll figure it out tomorrow.


Depends on how you use/play it, just like it depends on how you use social media or TV. A lot of my social media usage is finding stuff and sharing with friends in group chats and us having discussions/laughs over them. Most of the "TV" (streaming services, anime, etc) that I watch is done with my partner or a group of friends. If you just turn your brain off and grind, then WoW or any other MMORPG is an equivalent mindless time waste to just consuming TV. I suspect it gets more fondness in nerdy circles just because more folks in these circles relate to it.


I didn't play very long (under a year) but I had a ton of fun mostly thanks to my guildmates. I didn't mind some grinding, and WoW has plenty, but most of what kept me coming back was to meet up with other players I had gotten to know and had a lot of fun playing and chatting with.


Definitely, and I have many friends who still play MMOs as adults who do the same thing. They open group chats with longtime (and new!) friends and play. The grind is a thing to do while everyone hangs out. But I also know people who turn their brain off and grind as a way to just pass the time. One of my favorite ways to waste time is to get a little high, fire up Diablo, and grind away. It's the same with social media. Social media can be social or it can be parasocial depending on how you use it.


parasocial maybe, but not social.


"Adjective. parasocial (not comparable) One-sided (especially of a relationship, as for example between celebrities and their audience or fans)."

In which way organizing a raid via (say Discord or whatever communication way you use) coordinating efforts towards a common objective and, in some cases, meeting your teammates offline is something parasocial?


Well, for every raider on WoW there are multiple people who just mindlessly do stuff solo. Most players never even reach raiding.


This was kinda me, I literally have never done a single raid in WoW despite absurd hours of /played. Still doesn't fit definition of parasocial but since we've diverted: that was the cool thing about WoW, you really could make it your own game back in the day (200...7? To about 2010ish). My buddies and I, irl and online-only, would spend our time chit chatting either in game or using VoIP software while flying around on the game's transit system, levelling alts. Or I would be sitting in a city getting into political debates on /2 (channel available across all cities for your faction when you're in a city).

So it was still a very social game even if you weren't raiding. And the problem solving was very strong back then for the pvp scene, the concept of "meta" was still in it's infancy, I remember when one guy utterly changed the entire game of pvp with his pvp warrior videos, or another dude started publishing naked rogue gank videos. Anyway point is the social aspect was like any human society: incredibly diverse in form.


Huh TIL. Never played WoW and everything I've heard about it has involved guilds and raiding with people. I didn't even know it was possible to play solo.


Yeah, after yet another "fetch 5 random organs" quest I gave up in disgust around level 20 (twice).


I don't understand - the relationships between guild mates aren't one sided at all. WoW raiding is like being on the phone with all your friends while you play a video game together.


At least in my case they are absolutely social in nature, not parasocial in the slightest, what are you on about?


Proxysocial


I don't think it's fair to judge what is a "waste of life" or not. What one wants to do with their own life is a subjective thing. Each have their own interests, comfort zones, and personal struggles that they have to deal with.


Exactly. I think there are really 3 main ways I view time spent. - 1. Time spent learning a skill with economic value. - 2. Time spent for leasure. - 3. Time spent to fulfill biological needs (eating, sleep, etc.)

No. 1 can be pretty subjective and time where input does not correlate to output. Ages ago, learning to be a blacksmith was a very economically in-demand skill, but today it would at best be considered a hobby. No. 1 is time spent to obtain needs as well as wants. Everyone must have some source of income for food, shelter, etc.

No. 2 can be anything that one does for enjoyment. I find it pointless to argue about what kind of enjoyment is "productive" or "wasteful" because each form of enjoyment is just getting better at a skill whether that be video games or playing violin. The only "productive" entertainment would be something that advances your economic value (thus being more of a No. 1 spend of time.

The best would be to try and combine time into something that is both advances your economic value as well as is something you enjoy.


There are two different types of "want". You want to live a full and meaningful life. You also want another cigarette if you're addicted to smoking. Sure there are people who would consciously choose a cigarette, but they are a minority. Most people would rather be productive and do something that makes their lives better even if they end up lighting a cigarette.


You're already positioning yourself in a very specific value framework when you put productivity and self-improvement at the forefront. There are many other frameworks in which finding pleasure in the present has value.

I've known people who chased the future so hard they never took the time to live.


I believe I've addressed that saying that some would consciously pick a cigarette. I think it is reasonable to say that such people are a minority.


So if they had watched more TV would that have constituted “taking the time to live”?


If watching TV had brought them pleasure in the present, yes that would fit the definition I was using.


Don't confuse output with productivity.

You can also do "productive" things while you smoke a cigarette (albeit physically unhealthy).

Many people do a lot of things they think are productive but see no improvement in outcomes. i.e. reading articles


> Many people do a lot of things they think are productive but see no improvement in outcomes. i.e. reading articles

Or to put a different spin on this, some people spend so much time producing things that they never pick up a book.


Consider a moment the framework where people's actions tell the truth about their true wants, and the possibility that many people constantly and effortlessly tell lies (to themselves and others) about what they actually want.


Do you really think an addict is in control of what they really want? Or are their life choices being made for them? I found it was kind of the latter when I'd say I was 'addicted' to gaming. It was what I wanted in the immediate moment but far from what I wanted in my life overall. The latter gets destroyed by many short term wants, such as drugs or the kind of internet use r/nosurf exists to counter.


Waste is waste, that's not a judgement about the person wasting something, it's a description of what's happening.

If you throw away food, you're wasting it. You might be allergic to it, but that doesn't change the "thrown-away food is food-waste" bit, it just explains why you don't want that food around.


Deciding whether something is waste is a value judgement about what you spent it on. If you make a beautiful food sculpture that you enjoy looking at, but doing so renders the food inedible, is that food waste or not? If you feed it to someone who's already eaten more than a healthy day's food intake, is that food waste or not?

You can only say whether time is wasted if you have a measure of what's a valuable use of time, and the idea that "productive" activities are more valuable than social farting around is not uncontroversial.


Then can you come up with a rigorous definition of "waste" here that others would agree with? Definitions usually require consensus.


Resources spent which, after their consumption, do not result in an experience which a human would look back upon with fondness or gratitude.


Probably not, because video game addicts will not admit they have an issue, much less one that wastes valuable time.


What is your definition of a wasted life? It's bound to be different from the next person.

Food is made to be eaten, that is its purpose. So it's clear what wasted food is.

What is the purpose of a human life? There is no universal answer, hence no universal way to define what is a wasted life.


I'm wasting my life working on world changing problems when I could be spending it playing WoW.


Doesn't it get incredible repetitive and boring with time? You get a new extension/DLC and you have a few new things to discover and monsters to slay or whatever, and then it's back to farming gold?

At that point, you're probably 'playing' it because of the social interaction with other people, aren't you?


I'm playing devil's advocate. I haven't actually played much WoW, but I have spent a long time thinking about escapism with a critical eye. It's one of my biggest regrets.

I encourage people to waste their time. I was the happiest when I had free time to putz around with games and hobbies. I made stuff for the joy of it. I wouldn't wish a successful career on my worst enemy.

I don't see any utility in distinguishing between flavors of escapism. Why would productivity make a judge say one waste of time is better than another? Because that judge doesn't see the value in wasting time and the ones with creativity seem more like work and less like fun.


I don't think that everything "non-productive" is "wasting time", but wasting time is by definition not productive.

It's the difference between sleeping so you can be awake and putting yourself into a dreamless coma because you can't think of anything better to do. Watching TV (and not having it play in the background while you're doing something else) is the equivalent of a coma.


Why is not not waste of life to read novels? Why is not waste of life to hike? Why is not waste of life to pursue hobbies?

These are very subjective matters. And sometimes you are just exhausted and you only want to decompress without thinking. Watching TV, TikTok, aimlessly browse the internet are all great ways to do so.


It’s the type of engagement.

Watch television geared towards old people or young children sometime. It’s engineered to grab passive attention and the active content is ads.

It’s easy to see the effects on people. Little kids will go crazy to obtain some product. The older people face a more insidious marketing message - fear.


Try as we might, most of life will be a waste. There are only a few moments in life that we truly cherish and would not consider waste.

Anything that is not bringing you closer to experiencing one of those moments is a waste. Spending more effort than what is necessary in pursuit of those moments might also be a waste, especially if the payoff isn’t worth it.

Therefore, you should setup your life so you can experience as many of those moments as possible. Money is the common tool of achieving a life of endless experiential opportunities. But it’s not enough, you must also learn to greatly reduce or eliminate all responsibilities as well so you can live freely. You must be financially independent, location independent, and ideologically independent. Only then can you truly stop the waste of life.

Some people are so bound to a time and place, a source of income, a way of thinking, that they will be lucky if they ever experience a single moment in life that is not a wasted.


That is quite a depressed take on life. Many people find all of life good. Why not set up your life so you can cherish every moment?


Not possible.


The author was speaking for himself, so there's no contradiction there.

If anyone wants to consider parts of their life a waste, let them do so, it's only their business.


While too much of anything is detrimental, I don't find watching TV to be a waste if you are enjoying yourself. Recreation is important for mental health.


Not the person you are responding to - I agree with you that recreation is important. I think we should be talking more about how to do recreational activities that feel beneficial down the line. Or are recreation and being beneficial mutually exclusive? Overall, it feels harder to do beneficial recreational activities.


If one is like I used to be, TV is mindless but it can be mindful. After meeting someone who changed my perception of the medium, I find that TV is one of the most engaging and challenging exercises. You are constantly searching for symbolism, inspirations and trademarks of actor/writer/director. There is so so much to do when watching TV that anyone who says it’s a waste is missing a huge opportunity!


TV got good. It's hard to even talk about "TV" these days because we're combining artfully-crafted, thought-provoking shows like The Leftovers or The Wire with things like Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men. Same medium, but radically different forms of content.


Another big difference is the way we consume. "Watching TV" used to mean watching whatever was on in the current timeslot, which often meant flipping through channels until you found the least-bad thing you could tolerate.

In the last 10-15 years that style has all but disappeared* and been replaced with Netflix-style services (and maybe PVRs for sports fans and 60+), where you don't watch "TV" but watch "a show".

Browsing tiktok or YouTube might be the closest thing that people still do to channel flipping, but since it's customized and endless, there's never a need to settle for the "least-worst" thing you can find.

(* I'm sure there are people that still do this, but I'm saying this based on my circle of close family/friends, many of whom are non-technical).


Strongly agree with all of that. When I hear people complain online about all the different streaming services, I assume they're very young and didn't have to suffer through "appointment viewing" and "channel flipping" and watching "whatever's on". And a third of it all was commercials.

The fact that many people still watch TV that way baffles me.


Have you watched Severance on Apple TV+ yet? It's so good, and thick with symbolism and dual-meanings.


Yeah there's definitely different types of shows. Just like there's different types of books. There are some shows and movies that have deep philosophy to them and you can spend hours, days, or weeks mulling over and discussing. The same is with books. There are also plenty of trash novels that are purely for entertainment. Is there a difference between that and your standard mindless sitcom? Probably not. But we also shouldn't paint with too wide of a brush or we're closing ourselves off to a potentially powerful form of art, expression, and even a method of learning.

I also think there is nothing wrong with purely engaging in entertainment. But this is an issue when it gets addictive and becomes too much. We need to be nuanced about these discussions rather than being so judgemental and putting our own perspectives as the higher status. That's just stroking our own egos and that's similarly not healthy nor beneficial to society as a whole.


> And yeah, I played years of that shit when I was younger. A complete waste. Am I still here? Sure. Did it have some minor benefits? Sure. Would I recommend it? No, huge waste of time.

My job feels like way more of a "huge waste of time" than taking in new information via TikTok, socializing with friends in WoW, or watching the latest culturally relevant media.


Speaking about wasting time! Reading that article was a waste of time. That was more of a journal entry of a woman disgruntled with her family life, than it was on the "screen time" of various age groups


Yeah even as a kid I was never into video games. Just seemed like a waste of time. I rarely watch TV or movies now for the same reason. But what do I do instead? I find other ways to waste time like reading, other hobbies, browsing websites like this one. All activities with no external postive impact on anything. Just filling time.


I would agree that MMOs in general are a time sink, but I am not sure I can absolutely equate that with a waste. There are some things I learned playing some MMOs including real microcosm of market psychology, interesting uses for linear regression and even some basic scripting. One of my best friends is effectively a result of a chance meet in an MMO. And that is before the argument that time enjoyed is hard(er) to label as a waste.

For the record, I agree with you in general, but I do not want to overgeneralize and add some nuance, because I do not want people to automatically say game time = useless. Tons of leisure activities do not yield immediate dividends ( reading books come to mind ), but are not without benefits.

Minor disclaimer: I am typing all this as an MMO recovering addict ( it got to the point where it was interfering with my work life ) so some take my opinion with a grain of salt.


But who the heck is anyone to define a 'waste of time'. It's taken me quite some years to convince my partner that a smartphone is considerably less expensive to keep on, rather than the tv. She uses the tv for 'company', even when the whole family is at home. I had to rig her smartphone to some larger speakers to provide a level of bass that seemed realistic to her, so that's that. Technically, she's gone from 10hrs a day with the tv on (watching?), to 10 hrs a day "extra" (watching) on her smartphone. Neither is correct, (and nor is she British). It is however, her time, her life. And it is beyond me to agree, or disagree (with her) that 'the issue is really that doing _anything_ mindlessly is a waste of life'. We are here, we are going to not be.


> The issue is really that doing _anything_ mindlessly is a waste of life.

So as long as I'm gaming mindfully it's all fine?

> Would I recommend it? No, huge waste of time.

I have a suspicion that on my deathbed I'd be regretting only one thing. That I didn't get more time to play and have fun.


> So as long as I'm gaming mindfully it's all fine?

I actually think there's some merit to this view. There's a big difference between engaging with a TV program and vegging out while it plays in front of you, despite the superficial similarities.


The main idea I saw in that article is effectively an observation that if the older generation and younger generation disagree about what is proper and not, then the older generation currently gets to say that the younger generation is doing everything wrong and should be nudged towards proper (as elders understand it) ways, and the younger generation currently doesn't get to do the exact same thing in reverse.


I think there's another question though, that of vulnerability to new techniques in social engineering. Leave aside the question of which is a greater "waste of life," TV or doom scrolling, and ask, which is actually causing more changes to your personality, values, maybe even your brain chemistry? Maybe both equally, but if that's the case I feel like many in the newer generation grew up with more tools to fight back.

I don't know if this happened in previous generations with TV's, but I know among my friends there's a self consciousness about the bad feelings from what Instagram is doing to their mental health, and an active rejection: some quit entirely, some use the tools on their phones to limit app time, etc. I don't know if the previous generation has this or not.

Or ads. I know very few people that just let ads run: we all either pay for premium services, or use ad blockers and pi holes to block ads. Meanwhile even though teevo is a thing I still know old people that just "let the ads run." It's ALWAYS a shock to me when I visit home and shown just how absurd the ratio of content : ads is for American television.

Anyway it seems many in my generation are more aware of the threat of Algos latching onto you. I see comments all the time on YouTube mentioning it, "the Algo brought me here." But I don't ever hear older people talking about the previous version of that, the specialized social engineering and rhetorical techniques of entertainment companies like Fox News and their hosts such as Tucker Carlt. Their techniques of ragebait and leading questions seems blatant to me, as obvious as the slew of creepy ads that follow me around Facebook, Google, Instagram, or the "YouTube thumbnail" shit (everyone makes the same face), but I don't get much reaction when I try to bring this up with relatives.

Basically I'm less interested in whether watching TV or doom scrolling is a waste of time, and more interested in whether it can literally program you lol. Like how many of us lost friends to qanon conspiracy holes due to effective Facebook engagement algorithms? Do you know relatives that became wickedly radical and racist in the last 4 years because they stopped hanging out and instead spent all their time first on mass media consumption and then weirder and weirder Twitter and Reddit clones? I do. How many times have you heard tucker Carlson quotes at Thanksgiving from people that used to have way more thoughts of their own?

People may be able to say no one way of spending your time is better than another but I want to talk about what these various forms of media are doing to keep you hooked. Are we going to act like there's no danger here because we don't want to appear like elitists that say anything other than reading a book or programming is a waste of time?


Bingo! We got our experience mainlining Internet conspiracy theories decades ago. Back when you had to keep them to yourself, because the sheer majority just wouldn't understand. Fuck, you couldn't even talk about how the Internet was heavily tapped by the US government until around 2012 or so, and that was abundantly clear from multiple whistleblowers!

Normies are going through that today, but since so many are doing at once it's pop culture. And instead of only weird "Internet friends" who could understand, it's the entirety of their real life social circle, on Facebook with exposure tailored to how agreeable they are. Then they turn on the "official" traditional TV channels, which have also been pwned, further cementing the nonsense.


> "The idea here seems to be that it's OK for people to watch hours of TV a day every day."

No, the idea is that it's unfair for people who watch 6 hours of TV/day to be trying to support authoritarian and intrusive legislation against young people on the grounds that the young people "spend too much time watching screens, which is bad for them and bad for society". The idea isn't "it's OK to watch 6 hours of TV", it's "if you want to be left alone to watch 6 hours of TV, stop trying to control the life of someone else who wants to be left alone to watch 6 hours of TikTok".

> "The issue is really that doing _anything_ mindlessly is a waste of life."

No, that's a different issue. The issue is that the government in the UK keeps pushing for more and more authoritarian surveillance and control laws over the internet and smartphones and justifying it with the kind of rhetoric used in the blog - screen time is bad because of radicalisation, spectres of terrorism, the collapse of society and community, and etc. And the Conservative government's largest voter base in the UK is the elderly.

> "There's also an enormous difference here in that older people often can't really do much else."

I'm assuming your grandma is significantly older than 65? With a UK average life expectancy in the 80s, a lot of people past 65 are still well capable of doing things; even then part of the problem mentioned in the blog post is that UK society supports little else for people to do, what with the cost of living crisis (Conservative government mostly voted for by older people policies of austerity, running public services into the ground), Brexit, mostly voted for by older people, house price crisis, largely propped up by - and beneficial to - older people, the binge drinking culture, wider social issue where the one thing to go out to of an evening is go to the pub, the car focus instead of public transport focus (Conservative government, see above).

That is, there is a big feeling in the UK that the elderly have screwed up the country's future with selfish short-term policies, which disproportionately hurts the young who have more future to care about and fewer saved resources, and are trying to control the young even more while living on pension payments propped up by the working young.


Everything is a waste. The only issue as it pertains to well-being is that too much passive consumption is both unhealthy and leads to lethargy. It can have it's place. Some people seem to enjoy it more than others.


> The issue is really that doing _anything_ mindlessly is a waste of life

So? It’s your life and what’s a waste to you isn’t a waste to me. I watch about 15 hours of TikTok a week and love it.


I don't disagree that it's a waste. That said, I don't like the idea of society (the older end especially) or the government or anyone else really telling me what to do with my time. This isn't just some libertarian stance. The UK has been very clear with anyone under 50: Want an education? You're on your own. Want a decent job? You're on your own. Want housing? You're on your own. The idea that having had to do all the difficult bits myself, other people now want to sweep in and tell me what I can do in my spare time is offensive. I know that's not what you're suggesting, I just want to voice the reason people would object despite you being correct about the ultimate affects...


> The UK has been very clear with anyone under 50: Want an education? You're on your own. Want a decent job? You're on your own. Want housing? You're on your own.

*England* has. Scotland takes a very different approach.


Careful, Scotland manages more affordable education only because it gets special subsidies. For which it has to stay in a union it does not like.

And where does that leave the situation on jobs and housing? Better than in England? Really?

The truth is, this is a generational struggle, not a geographical one. An imaginary line on a map won't help you I'm afraid.


Well, no, Scotland manages more affordable education out of its own finances.

Scotland pays much more into Westminster than it gets out.


Scotland receives vastly more than r/UK per person. And Pays a lot less per person in tax. This is the real reason independence is a non starter: it would make greek austerity look like a picnic...


Scotland raises £62 billion in taxes, and gets a block grant of £41 billion.

62 is bigger than 41.


>How much public spending and revenue is there for Scotland? During 2021-22 tax revenue generated in Scotland amounted to about £73.8 billion, including North Sea oil revenue. During the same period, Scotland benefited from about £97.5 billion in public spending, a difference of £23.7 billion.

https://www.deliveringforscotland.gov.uk/scotland-in-the-uk/....

(And this of course only compares local tax revenue to local spending, some local revenue has to be spent internationally on aid, defence, international organisations, EU partnership etc. So every region should expect LESS back than it pays in in cash terms).

There is nothing wrong with not being a well-off region. But spending like you are without a fiscal union with someone, is very dangerous. Just ask Greece.

If someone says they want independence, I support that. But they should acknowledge it will be independence with 30% increases in tax or cuts in spending or some mix of the two.


"Benefited from public spending" in this case means "paid a massive chunk of the failed English goverment's debts".

There is absolutely no reason why anyone north of the Midlands should be forking over a grand a year towards the cost of HS2 - a toy train that joins two towns in the south of England - but here we are, all the same...


There is no english government, so no english government debt exists either. And as I said debt isn't included in those figures.

And since you're now tacitly admitting I was right, I think we're done. Good luck with independence. Hopefully I am wrong and Scotland suddenly becomes a productive economic region...




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