Want Medvedev to win but also want want Novak to get this one more so can get the calendar GrandSlam and overtake rafa and Roger. Will be happy if Novak wins it then call it a day on the big 3 era and for next gen to take over, hopefully with Medvedev as the best of the new era as he's the only one I like.

Regardless of the facts can't say that wasn't an interesting watch.

What was most funny was him saying that he was taken down by Carrie Symonds   

Yes, exactly. One of the cornerstones of liberal society is that you are allowed to be free, up until the point where your freedom impinges on the freedom of others.

Yes but also by the same token your freedom will always have the potential to impinge on the freedom of others.

And nobody will ever have an ultimate freedom of protection from others either.

For example a weird example your ex may not want to ever see you walking in the street and it may really upset and hurt them if they do see you. But because you have the freedom to go outside and to not have to worry about your ex's feelings being hurt that pain for your ex is allowed to occur and she has no personal freedom or protection from that herself because of the personal freedom that you have. It may be so bad to the extent that she feels unable to go outside at the risk of seeing you.

Someone's right to smoke is at the expense of someone else potentially getting 2nd hand smoke. Someone's right to drive a car is at the expense of the environment in which everyone is forced to suffer. Someone's right to eat meat is at the expense of an animal being slaughtered. Someone's right to believe in Islam is as at the expense of others feeling persecuted. Someone's right to play music in their apartment might be at the expense of next door going crazy being forced to hear it. A potential million etc, etc, etc.

The argument I was trying to make was that you could potentially make laws outlawing everyone one of these things. Doing so would increase "societal protection" for people that don't want to have to be subject to the negative consequences of them. And quite often such a law in place could bring additional freedoms for people.

The smoking laws have already changed, but what if they changed further so people weren't able to smoke indoors in their own homes so people would feel more freedom to go into someone else's house? What if we banned everyone from using cars and then we could all have the freedom from environmental damage? What if we banned eating meat so animals would have the freedom to not be slaughtered? What if we banned Islam so people had the freedom not to feel persecuted? What if we banned people from playing music in their apartments that the neighbors could ever hear, so they could have the freedom of peace and quiet?

There are a million things that could be changed and put into law. The more things you outlaw the more people will be 'free from others' which can often create additional freedoms for them but it is always at the expense of less personal freedom that individuals will have to do things.

Sometimes it's obvious where that line should be drawn, like outlawing murder, but often it's not so obvious. And there's plenty of existing laws already where the lines have been blurred. We live in a society where someone who's starving doesn't have the freedom to just go into an orchard and pick an apple off a tree to eat because someone owns that tree and a child can be banned from playing with a skipping rope in case someone gets hurt.

As I mentioned before I believe society is heading more and more towards increased laws and societal protection at the expense of personal freedoms. We may now laugh at the thought of outlawing some of the things I just said that could potential impose annoyance or damage to others but some day in the future it may seem wrong for society to not have them outlawed. Again I don't feel it's for me to say whether this is a good or bad thing but I can see why people who lean more towards personal freedoms may be concerned at the trend.

Anyway the trouble with the line of argument Laundry outlines it is that it assumes that there are given personal freedoms prior to law. Hence the emphasis on law as something which limits. However in many ways law is a prerequisite for the meaningful exercise of choice, stability of liberties etc.

I see what you're alluring to in your statement. And that is true that some personal freedoms can arise from laws being put into place.

For example you would struggle to be openly gay if within your society people would burn you at the stake for such an action. This is societal safety 'from' others, such safety does only occur by forceably detaining people that do want to burn gay people and removing their personal freedom to be able to choose to do this. This law does come at the expense of this personal freedom but it however does also enable additional freedom for gay people.

And again with the conversation of forced wearing of masks or covid passports or the like. Whilst it reduces people's personal freedom of choice to enforce these it does also potentially open up the personal freedom for vunerable people to be able to go into shops and things; which they may not feel safe to do if people are not wearing masks or have a proven covid passport.

Well no I'm a nihilist, I don't believe in morality in an absolute sense and as such don't consider anything at all to be absolutely right or wrong.

I believe what we consider as our morality is nothing more than an adaptation evolved to help us as a individuals (and subsequently our offspring / family). But within that most people have a keen sense of social morality that promotes social cohesion and also altruism as that's been a helpful adaption for people to have. This is usually in conflict though with what may be in our own individual interests. And then those with more prominent leanings towards morality based on social cohesion will naturally be in some moral conflict with those leaning more towards individual interests and freedoms.

Of course if you believe in an absolute morality then you're not going to think the same as this.

Even being a nihilist I do myself still have a moral code that I live by but I realize that this is simply an evolved trait in myself like any other and give it no specific meaning and certainly don't wish to try and impose it onto others as I consider it no better than anyone else's personal moral code.

This interview is fascinating lol

Yes. I have not expressed my own views on what I consider more important out of personal freedom vs societal safety, I'm really not sure even where my lines would be drawn.

But these are things I do believe:

1. That I consider it a moral judgment, and as such there is no right or wrong answer and everyone will have their own views which will lean to whichever side.
2. That practically all laws and rules reduce personal freedom, at an attempt to increase societal safety and cohesion :(again not personally stating that laws are a bad thing even at the expense of personal freedoms).
3. That nature (and I include humans in that) can strike you down at any time and no amount of safety can prevent that, safety can only reduce the odds of it happening :(again not personally stating that it's not a good thing to reduce these odds even at the expense of personal freedoms).
4. That in the case of covid passports for example that have been discussed: Such a passport will increase societal safety and such passports will also reduce personal freedoms and as such it is a trade-off for one over the other :(again not personally stating whether I consider them a good idea or not).
5. That there has been a continous trend in society towards increasing societal safety and this has been at the expense of personal freedoms : (again not personally stating whether this is a bad thing or not).

6. What I do believe is that people in a society should have way more direct control over moral-based decisions. In fact I believe that all human-rights laws that are not heavily tied to economics should be made compeltely seperate to government, with seperate democratic representatives to the MPs that decide economic decisions and whatever else. And this branch of democracy should be above our current governement, be able to hold it fully accountable, and also state the laws of the land in regards to what our democracy is and the public should have a lot of direct control over what laws it makes. The case of covid passports and lockdowns and such wouldn't fall under this branch though as they are too linked to the economy, and some other controversal topics wouldn't either such as immigration policy. But things like equal rights, abortion policy, euthanasia, family law, justice punishement - should all fall under this branch and be seperate from our governement that deals with the economics of the country.

Maybe somebody should remind them that in the UK we have freedom of choice.

No we don't have freedom of choice in the UK nor does anyone in any country, never have and never will. That's what I was talking about in my statement above.

Not sure you were making a point, unless there are any straw men logged in to MW

Well I wasn't making an argument against (or for) anyone's comments or views so it can hardly be a straw man argument when no argument was made by me?

Also irrelevant to the context of what point I was making.

Pretty much nothing changed yesterday apart from nightclubs reopening. Nearly every shop is still requiring a mask to be worn and people aren't going to know which shops don't insist on them. That will likely continue for the foreseeable future, if most shops are continuing with masks then they aren't going to lose customers by enforcing it. And at the minute the opposite affect is likely to hurt businesses a lot more with customers avoiding shops that don't enforce mask wearing, so the economics are playing into favour with it also.

The covid passports is a clever threat. Give people a taste of freedom but then tell them it will be taken away unless they get the jabs. I imagine the threat alone will encourage plenty to get vacinnated that otherwise won't have, even if the government do another U-turn on it and don't go ahead with the passports they will have already coerced people into getting vacinnated with the words alone. In fact, I don't know why the governement has played down the idea of covid passports at all. If they played them up instead and said they were definitly going to come into force for all nightclubs and pubs and restaurants and cinemas and foreign travel and such then they will have coerced way more people into getting vacinnated, and then they could always do a U-turn on anything of what they said and not implement the passports wherever in order to make the public and press that were against the passports happy yet again.

Pretty much looks like resignitation level material for Boris given the most recent spoutings of Dom. Not yet, but if an enquiry ever looks like it will commence then I imagine Boris will be taking a long vacation. From what we hear I doubt Boris will even put up much a fight and will be happy to leave the position. He doesn't look like someone who's really enjoying the job - he's had the title and the glory now and I imagine that will be enough for him.

Is Cummings a self-serving arse on a personal vendeta who likely didn't give all that much a toss about the virus either? Of course. But he still looks to be telling the truth in regards to what people have said and done. What Boris is being accused of saying is pretty much on par with what I've seen and heard first-hand many other people in the public say on the issue so it's hardly unbelievable that Boris would have said it; especially given what we know he's like and the way he's spoken about other things in the past. This isn't the sort of thing that's going to be able to be swept under the carpet indefinitely so I don't see how Boris is going to be able to continue past it.

I don't foresee Cummings getting another governement advisement position any time soon or anyone else crossing him who he's got secrets held over 

There's always a very fine line between allowing personal freedoms and having cohesive social safety.

Ultimately nobody is ever really free. You're not allowed to just get a gun and shoot someone, even if you want to and consider it in your best interests; if you do you will be forceably detained against your own will. In this country you're not even allowed to carry a gun on you. Every single law is a restriction on individuals and personal freedoms and freedom of choice that will usually be met with violent forced consequences if not abided by. This is for the benefit of sociality at large over an individuals.

I can garauntee if we had a virus that was signifacntly more deadly and easy to spread we would likely be forcing people to vaccinate. Either that or making it illegal for people to leave their house unless they get themselves vacinnated.

There is also the issue of parental responsibility and parental freedom. You do not have the right as a parent to smack your child, even though many believe they should be able to and it's their choice as a parent. We are lucky to be in a situation where covid is not overly affecting children. If we ever did have a virus that was killing children on mass we may then see the parental choice removed of whether to have your child vacinnated or not and they could be forced to be jabbed by the government.

There will always be many more laws that could be added that will help protect society and others at a large and there are people now advocating for these in many areas of law. Every addition to law though will always be at the detriment to people's personal freedoms. There will forever rage on a battlefront for where these lines should be drawn. Like all moral issues there is no right or wrong answer, people will fall either side of this line, and laws are put into place that try to strike a fair balance between both sides. But make no illusion that you are ever truly free, you will never have freedom of choice nor will you ever have freedom from others being able to hurt you.

Djokovic probably wouldn't have played if there was a BO5.  He wouldn't want to risk tiring himself for the US Open.

I feel he's over-stretching himself as it is and will probably regret it.

I don't belief she realizes still what happened and where the confusion came from with the missing 'no'. I did presume that would happen and I guess that means 1 of 2 things. She doesn't really read the entirety of your posts / puts very little thought into them or she didn't understand the concept of what everyone was talking about. Either way it's probably indictment to the way in which we always see her argue on here.