Billionaire business mogul Richard Branson was left injured with a hematoma on his hip and a “nasty cut elbow” after hitting a pothole while cycling in the British Virgin Islands and crashing “hard”.
Branson wrote on Instagram, sharing a picture from the roadside: “Took quite a big tumble while cycling in Virgin Gorda a little while ago! I hit a pothole and crashed hard, resulting in another hematoma on my hip and a nasty cut elbow, but amazingly nothing broken.
“We were cycling with Alex Wilson, who fell after me, but thankfully he was ok as well. I’m counting myself very lucky, and thankful for keeping myself active and healthy. After all, the brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all!”
The 73-year-old has history with cycling crashes and said “I thought I was going to die” after a 2016 incident which left his bike “completely destroyed” and thrown off a cliff in the British Virgin Islands, where he owns the 74-acre Necker Island.
That fall happened after he hit a ‘sleeping policeman’ piece of road furniture while descending a hill in the dark.
“The next thing I knew, I was being hurled over the handlebars and my life was literally flashing before my eyes,” he said. “I really thought I was going to die. I went flying head-first towards the concrete road, but fortunately my shoulder and cheek took the brunt of the impact, and I was wearing a helmet that saved my life.
“My bike went flying off the cliff and disappeared. We’ve since recovered the crumpled bicycle, completely destroyed. My cheek has been badly damaged and my knee, chin, shoulder and body severely cut.”
And in 2021 the businessman, who was knighted in 2000, was hospitalised after another “colossal” bike crash while taking part in an event on one of the Caribbean islands.
Branson believed the brakes on his bike failed, and said that in his opinion there was “no question” his cycle helmet had saved his life.
In the same year, in a bizarre episode detailed on our live blog, Virgin Galactic admitted that Branson had not rode a bike to the Spaceport America launch site where his space flight launch happened.
“The footage of Sir Richard Branson shown during the event on Sunday was pre-recorded and misidentified in the broadcast. We regret the error and any confusion it may have caused,” a Virgin Galactic official confirmed.
It’s a beautiful day to go to space. We’ve arrived at @Spaceport_NM. Get ready to watch LIVE at 7:30 am PT | 10:30 am ET | 3:30 pm BST https://t.co/PcvGTmA661 #Unity22 pic.twitter.com/4KjGPpjz0M
— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) July 11, 2021
Trek Bicycles claimed Branson rode one of its custom-made bikes on launch day, but it turned out the clip, which Branson shared to Twitter and was published by Virgin with the line ‘earlier today’, was actually from a week earlier. After the flight, Branson said, “It’s so awesome to arrive on a bicycle, across this beautiful New Mexico countryside.”
-1024x680.jpg "“Clear anti-cyclist bias”: Lawsuit filed against Toronto police after cop doored cyclist… before ticketing rider over incident")
136 thoughts on “Richard Branson bloodied by cycling crash after hitting pothole and falling “hard””
Wishing him a speedy recovery
Wishing him a speedy recovery and hope he gets back on the bike soon.
Is it just me, or does “hematoma” sound a lot worse than “bruising”?
Yes, yes it does.
Yes, yes it does.
hawkinspeter wrote:
I thought there were medically defined differences that often get conflated, like when people exaggerate a headache into a migraine?
hawkinspeter wrote:
Haematoma is 100 km to bruising’s 62.13 miles, the same thing but sounds far more impressive!
ETA Having looked it up out of curiosity there is actually a difference, a haematoma is blood pooling after leaking from larger blood vessels, sometimes forming clots, that can be felt as a lump, whereas bruising involves small amounts of blood leaking from smaller capillaries. I stand corrected!
Yes, I had a Heamatoma after
Yes, I had a Heamatoma after a bike crash last year (slipped on a patch of oil and end ended up bashing my hip badly on the kerb). Was damn painful and I was concerned about the swelling (as well as the general cuts and bruises I’d gained) so got seen by the nurse at the GP who diagnosed it as a Haematoma. It did go down after a few weeks
He seems to have a lot of
He seems to have a lot of crashes.
Perhaps the British Vigin
Perhaps the British Vigin Isles might have to start taxing people to fix the roads
That’s the first thing I
That’s the first thing I thought. Paying no tax might seem great if you are super rich, but you still have to interact with the rest of the world the moment you leave your residence.
neilmck wrote:
One of the best things I ever heard about tax, not sure of the originator: “You have to decide whether it’s better to have a Ferrari but only have cart tracks to drive it on or a Porsche but the roads are all in excellent condition.”
Rendel Harris wrote:
If the Porsche is a 911 then good roads won’t help you, it is still programmed to head backwards into the nearest tree!
We say ‘haematoma’ and
We say ‘haematoma’ and ‘haemoglobin’, unless there’s been some mass capitulation like there was with ‘sulfur’. I suppose the vague implication of ‘haematoma’ is that it’s a collection of blood which could (not necessarily should) be sucked out, as opposed to multiple small abounts of blood between the muscle fibres (not fibers).
like when people exaggerate a headache into a migraine?
Or a cold into ‘flu’- this has led to the unhelpful belief that flu is a bit of a joke, and not something you die of.
Indeed. “e” and “ae” (or
Indeed. “e” and “ae” (or rather “æ” – compose-key + a + e on some systems) are different vowels with different sounds.
wtjs wrote:
Well, I tend to say “bruising” instead as that’s what it looks like. However, maybe “ecchymosis” would be the most impressive term to use if it’s over 10mm (I got that from the Wikipedia page and it annoys me that “mm” is a measurement of length rather than area).
It also snaps my cranks when people mis-label a bad cold as “flu” – if you’re not bed-ridden then it’s most likely not flu. (However, I eventually caught Covid whilst on holiday in Lisbon and mistook it for a hangover and apart from skipping one evening meal, didn’t really suffer much from it)
hawkinspeter wrote:
Could be lupus
(PS: sorry – been binge watching ‘House’ on one of the streaming services)
(PPS: it is never lupus)
Yes, none of that Amerikun
Yes, none of that Amerikun spelling please.
The same Richard Branson who
The same Richard Branson who’s received over £300m in tax free dividends and the same one who expects British tax payers to bail out his airline to the tune of £500m and the same one who sued the NHS for not giving him a contract? Is this the Richard Branson who can take his leeching and fuck right off? And when he gets there fuck off some more down a pothole filled road the finish the job by further fucking off? That one?
Exactly.
Exactly.
When are we finally gonna stop portraying ridiculously rich people like they are cool.
Thery are not. Rich people are scum, and they need to be shunned and ridiculed (and heavily taxed, of course).
I know some people who are so
I know some people who are so poor, the only thing they have is money…
Sredlums wrote:
Billionaires must have a similar emotional disorder to other hoarders, except their hoarding of money is basically depriving other people of their fair share (e.g. they make a lot of money by under-paying their employees).
We shouldn’t allow billionaires to exist as it’s a ridiculous amount of money and is an obvious sign of greed and selfishness. Anyone with a social conscience is never going to every accrue that amount of money as they’ll realise after a few million that they have no need for it, yet there are plenty of people who are dying for the want of money/food/water/medicine. For someone to continue getting richer shows that they have no compassion.
hawkinspeter wrote:
https://www.ehd.org/science_technology_largenumbers.php
Another way to understand
Another way to understand large numbers is conversion to timescales:
– one million seconds is 11 days
– one billion seconds is 35 years
(from memory)
Almost every person in the UK
Almost every person in the UK is ‘hoarding’ an enormous amount of wealth relative to the global average.
Why not show the billionaires how it’s done and given away your excess wealth to those who haven’t got their “fair share”?
UK median wealth is £125000 whilst globally the figure is a bit shy of £7000 so if you aim to ‘redistribute’ about 95% of what you own you should be about right.
Rich_cb wrote:
Someone with £125k is 18 times wealthier than someone with £7k. Someone with £1Bn is 8000 times wealthier than someone with £125k.
Are they really both ‘enormous’? Kinda feels like stretching a definition there somewhere.
It’s a subjective term but I
It’s a subjective term but I’d argue they are both enormous.
If you consider what 18x UK averages looks like to get some perspective.
18x the median UK wealth is £2.25m. I’d say that was enormously wealthy.
18x the average UK house price is a house worth about £5m. I’d say that was enormously expensive.
From the perspective of someone with a wealth of £7k I imagine £125k is enormously wealthy.
Rich_cb wrote:
If someone with £7k thinks £125k is enormous, what word would they use for some who has 143,000 times the wealth that they do? It’s not the same.
Then consider what £125k actually means. Say you plan on retiring at 70 and living to 82… that’s £10k a year. Does that sound enormous? Honestly?
Do you think it’s reasonable or rational to claim that no amount of wealth can be criticised if a person isn’t willing to give that up?
The wealthy are always
The wealthy are always defined as those with more money than the person answering the question…
It’s fairly undeniable that the average UK resident is enormously wealthy on a global scale.
Of course virtually everyone besides Elon Musk can point to somebody who’s richer than them and demand that they should be doing more but the simple fact is that most UK residents are the global 1%.
You might think that it should really be the 0.1% who do more but from the perspective of the bottom 50% of the planet both groups look very similar.
I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking with you final question. Could you clarify it?
Rich_cb wrote:
So what? When someone in the top 1% has 0.004% of what an entry level billionaire has it’s really not the same thing.
And ok – everyone except Elon can say ‘hey it’s not my responsibility, I’m not that rich’… so what’s your point? Is there no reasonable cause to call for them to do something, or to do something to them? After all, as you’ve pointed out they do have hundreds of thousands of times more than an enormous amount of wealth.
No idea what confused you, but ok. Is it reasonable to claim that no-one can criticise the excess wealth of a billionaire unless they’ve given up all but £7000 of their own money?
I think it is reasonable to
I think it is reasonable to criticise those who continue to spend frivolously whilst criticising others for not doing enough to help those with less money.
An expensive takeaway coffee is equivalent to a month’s wages in Zimbabwe.
The wealth the average UK person has is almost unfathomable to somebody earning that amount.
I don’t think you have to give up everything above the global average to be beyond criticism but you certainly have to make a significant effort at ‘redistribution’.
Rich_cb wrote:
Well you may not think that, but you did in fact say it. So if you didn’t mean what you said then, what do you mean now?
And being beyond criticism is not the same thing as having the right to criticise. At the moment you making a ‘don’t criticise the rod in your neighbour’s eye while ignoring the splinter in your own’ kinda point – which I’m sure you can appreciate doesn’t sound exactly right.
It also ignores any consideration of who is actually in control of the structure which imposes the gigantic wealth gap. Is the person buying the £4 coffee responsible for the Zimbabwean coffee farmer’s tiny wage, or is it the billionaire who owns a global coffee broker?
Why is that coffee broker a
Why is that coffee broker a billionaire?
Because millions of people pay for their coffee and don’t care about the supply chain.
We all have a personal responsibility for the state of the world.
If you’re not willing to take responsibility for your own actions then don’t criticise others for acting in a similar fashion.
Let he who is without sin…
Rich_cb wrote:
We have a responsibility for what we do. If you’re claiming that not being informed about, or even not caring about the structure of the world is the same as deliberately creating and profiting from it, then I really don’t know where your moral compass is pointing. I don’t know what point you’re trying to make. Ultimately we all have to consume something, and it’s not easy to find out where absolutely everything you buy comes from… and that’s by design!
And if you want to talk similarity, you are again looking in the wrong direction. If your bloke with £125k was having a face to face conversation with your bloke with £7k, and the 1 metre between them represented their wealth gap, Richard Branson would be standing in a different town. If they were having the conversation in London, Elon Musk would be in Marrakesh.
If I could throw that far, I would have no qualms whatsoever about casting that stone. I simply can’t comprehend why you do.
As UK residents we’re guilty
As UK residents we’re guilty of exactly the same thing you accuse Branson et al. of.
We enjoy our relative enormous wealth, using it for frivolity when it could be used to ameliorate harm in the world’s poorest countries.
Identifying someone wealthier than you doesn’t remove your own culpability.
Rich_cb wrote:
But we don’t do it. We benefit from it, absolutely. But we (your standard £125k having people) don’t control it. We don’t design it. We don’t go out there and purposefully make it happen. Identifying the average Joe who bought the £4 coffee doesn’t remove the culpability of the shark who imposed the impossibly low price for a kilo of beans from the farmer. I really have no idea what point you think you’re making. I’m not being facetious either, I really don’t know where you’re going with this.
And again – you’re going to have to find another word to describe the wealth of billionaires if you’re reserving ‘enormous’ for the average westerner.
You cannot remove
You cannot remove responsibility from the customer.
Ultimately without the customer there is no market.
If you go to a shop and buy something you have responsibility for the production of that product. The carbon footprint of that product is your responsibility. The supply chain abuses are your responsibility.
If you’re paying someone to do something then you are responsible for what they are doing.
Take responsibility for your own actions and your effects on global inequality before pointing the fingers at others. Especially if those ‘others’ have actually been empowered by your actions in the first place.
Rich_cb wrote:
So the existence of market demand justifies any action taken to fulfil that demand while generating absolute maximum profit, does it?
So it’s my responsibility… but I can’t ask for anything to be done about it because that’s just privileged whinging?
Why ‘before’? Does that actually make sense? Even if it does, how do I know when I’ve met your standards for being able to speak? You said the £125k person should give away 95% of their money first, but then you said that was silly and you obviously didn’t mean it. So how much money should they give away? And what if I’ve already only got as much money as they’re supposed to end up with? Am I then permitted to comment on the utter absurdity of demanding that normal people give up significant chunks of their wealth before asking for honest to god billionaires to do anything at all?
The market demands what the
The market demands what the market demands.
If you want ludicrously cheap meat, don’t be surprised if animal welfare isn’t prioritised.
If you want cheap coffee don’t be surprised if workers in the supply chain aren’t treated well.
If you find that a company you use doesn’t adhere to standards that are acceptable to you then choose a different company that does. Write to the first company and tell them why you’re no longer their customer. That’s not whinging that’s using your power as a consumer.
If you make absolutely no effort to use your privileged global position to at least ameliorate some of the suffering in the rest of the (far less privileged) world then you don’t get a pass by pointing the fingers at others.
How can this produce a
How can this produce a billionaire owner?
Rich_cb wrote:
But we’ve already established that coffee isn’t cheap. Remember? You said it was really expensive. You criticised people for being willing to pay a lot of money for a coffee… and yet coffee brokers are still billionaires and coffee farmers still don’t make enough to buy a coffee. Bit of a disconnect in your argument that you need to work on.
The word ‘if’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. What if you want to find out the farm standards of the coffee you buy? What if the company you buy from tells you their farmers are really well treated? What if they point to an independent, certified NGO who visits their farms and certifies that the conditions there are great? What if that NGO is actually a joint venture between the billionaire coffee broker and a bunch of his billionaire coffee broker friends and it actually exists to deliberately not find any evidence of not great conditions? Is it still your fault for being fooled and you’re still exactly as responsible and culpable as the people who did the fooling?
Aha, finally we have a standard to work on! And that standard is not making absolutely no effort. Ok cool, I do get a pass for pointing the finger at others. So what on earth are you moaning about?
Wingguy wrote:
I can recommend buying beans from https://www.hasbean.co.uk/ for a more ethical experience as they try to deal with the coffee growers/processors themselves and give more information about the specific farm and coffee process.
I didn’t say all coffee was
I didn’t say all coffee was expensive. I said some coffee was expensive. Please don’t try and deliberately mislead.
If you choose to buy the cheapest coffee beans available then the onus is on you to check that that low price hasn’t been achieved at the expense of workers in the supply chain.
If the coffee company engages in fraudulent practice to completely conceal their poor practice then you’re not responsible. If the cover up is known about then you still are.
You’ve misrepresented my position in your last paragraph too. If you make no effort you can’t point the finger, if you make a token effort then you can’t expect any more from others etc.
Rich_cb wrote:
I’m just trying to figure out what you’re saying. You’ve twice claimed that global injustice is caused by people buying coffee that’s too expensive and you’ve also claimed it’s caused by people buying coffee that’s too cheap. How are we supposed to know what the right amount to pay for coffee is?
Now the kicker, do you honestly think that paying more for coffee means that growers are paid more. Apart from at the absolute bargain basement end of the scale, do you really think there’s any direct connection between price of raw material and price of end product?
And do you honestly think this is a vanishingly rare occurence?
Ok, so you said we should give away 95% of our stuff, but you obviously didn’t mean that because it’s silly. Then you said we should just not do anything, but you obviously didn’t mean that because it’s silly. So what do you mean? Give away just enough that it begins to make a noticeable impact on the lifestyle we can afford to lead? I’m more than happy to be allowed to ask billionaires to do that. I mean seriously, think just how much of a billion quid you have to give away before it makes any difference to you.
I haven’t claimed that at all
I haven’t claimed that at all.
I’ve pointed out that instead of making frivolous discretionary purchases people in the UK could use some of their enormous wealth to ameliorate global suffering.
Please don’t try and deliberately mislead.
If you want to know how much an ethical cup of coffee costs then do some research, find genuine ethical companies and look at what they charge. That should give you a ball park figure for how much ethical coffee should be costing. If a cup of coffee is a lot less than that then corners are being cut somewhere.
It takes time but it is part of your responsibility as a consumer.
Rich_cb wrote:
Can they do both? If I don’t give away so much that I can’t afford a nice coffee sometimes, is it still too hypocritical of me to criticise the unethically gained wealth of billionaires?
So again, it sounds an awful lot like you’re being naive enough to assume that the cost of the beans has a noticeable impact on the cost of the cup of coffee. Do you seriously believe that is the case? Multi-billion dollar companies have to short change the farmers in order to make their product cheap enough for westerners to buy? Cos hoooo boy, do I have some news for you if that’s the case.
You seem to be deliberately
You seem to be deliberately trying to steer this discussion away from general principles and into semantics.
Ethical coffee beans cost more than mass market coffee beans. A company that pays its employees a living wage with good sick pay and other benefits will have higher staffing costs. Running a business in an environmentally sustainable way will often cost more than the alternative. An ethical cup of coffee will cost more than an unethical one.
As a consumer you have a responsibility to research these things.
Price isn’t the only thing to judge but it is a good indicator to start with. The cheapest meat in the supermarket is very unlikely to also have the highest welfare standards etc.
Rich_cb wrote:
I’m desperately trying to find out what your general principles are apart from an insistence that buying more expensive things is bad while buying cheaper things is also bad, that consumers are directly responsible for everything the market does while they’re also very often not, and that none of us should be criticising billionaires unless we make some ethical sacrifices, which we very often do. I mean, I have asked what the point you’re trying to make is on several occasions and I really don’t think we’re any closer to it yet.
Again though, we’re here at the point of you thinking that the cost of goods and the cost of running the business directly impacts the retail price. But what happens when the retail price is set by what the market will sustain? Then there’s a complete disconnect. Bad costs as much as good, if not more.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/01/children-work-for-pittance-to-pick-coffee-beans-used-by-starbucks-and-nespresso
You’re deliberately
You’re deliberately misrepresenting what I have said and, to be honest, it’s getting quite tedious.
If you don’t think that the cost of running the business and buying raw materials impacts the cost of the product produced then you are delusional.
It’s possible for an unethical product to be priced as expensively as an ethical product but it will be more profitable as a consequence.
As a.consumer you have a responsibility to look into the products and services you use and only choose those that operate ethically. That may mean paying more.
Rich_cb wrote:
Is that a confident assurance
Is that a confident assurance? Or can’t you remember?
Rich_cb wrote:
That you castigating others for deliberate misrepresentation and being tedious is ironic beyond measure? That is most definitely a 100% confident assurance.
We’ve previously established
We’ve previously established that you don’t really know what that means so ironically we can’t have much confidence in that assurance.
Rich_cb wrote:
See above. The cost of the coffee that goes into a £2.50 cup is <£0.01. It’s delusional to think the market rate of a high street cup of coffee is connected to that cost.
Exactly! Finally you agree with what I’m saying, yet you still seem to be deliberately misunderstanding the implication.
Again, you’re deliberately
Again, you’re deliberately misrepresenting what I’ve said.
You’re talking about coffee beans whilst I’ve clearly mentioned the overall costs of running the business AND buying the raw materials.
It is possible for an unethical product to be priced similarly to an ethical product but that isn’t always the case. As I e repeatedly said the onus is on the customer to do the research, price can be a useful guide however.
Rich_cb wrote:
I’m pretty sure that you are misrepresenting what you’ve said at this point. In this case, the vast majority of the ethical problem is with the cost of the raw materials. Unless your western high street coffee shop is hiding a child labourer under the counter the serious exploitation is at the <£0.01 per cup level. Any coffee chain you’ve ever heard of could make a huge change at that end of the supply chain and not change their prices one bit. The fact that you’re now talking about the entire cost of running their business including everything that is entirely irrelevant to the customer’s ethical responsibilities is entirely disingenuous.
It can be – but as you’ve just agreed it also very much cannot be.
You’re the one who’s become
You’re the one who’s become fixated on the cost of coffee beans. Ethics don’t just apply to raw materials. As I’ve pointed out already in this discussion.
Right from the start of the discussion I’ve talked about ethical business practice. If you think the only part of a coffee shop that could be more/less ethical is the beans then you’re hopelessly ignorant.
Staff pay, staff sick pay, holiday entitlement, parental leave etc. All major costs and all subject to significant variation between different businesses.Thats before we even consider all other materials in use. Milk, takeaway cups, cup carriers etc etc.
Your responsibility as a consumer is to consume ethically, that means looking at all aspects of a business you use and also, considering whether you actually need to consume any given product.
That’s the general principle.
Rich_cb wrote:
Right from the start of this discussion you’ve been talking about how staggeringly wealthy everyone in the UK is compared to the rest of the world and why we shouldn’t be criticising billionaires while hoarding our own staggering wealth. Since a British coffee shop worker is already enormously wealthy compared to a Zimbabwean coffee farm worker it seems odd to complain about something as trivial as holiday entitlement, doesn’t it? It certainly seems incredibly disingenuous of you to put them on the same level after everything else you’ve said about the enormous wealth we all have.
It definitely sounds like you now think most of us in the UK are being oppressed by billionaire corporations and really do have some legitimate redistribution of wealth causes to complain about. Which, I’ll be honest, comes as a surprise.
And if you’re unable to find out info on every aspect of every facet of every business you ever buy things from, every aspect of every facet of every other business in their supply chain, you can’t complain about people who’ve actively decided to employ child labour as a profit maximisation strategy?
Just because people in the UK
Just because people in the UK are staggeringly wealthy on a global scale doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be treated ethically.
Consumers have a responsibility to do research into the products they buy.
If the information about child labour was readily available but you bought the product anyway I’d suggest you weren’t in a moral position to criticise many people.
If the information isn’t readily available or is actively hidden then consumers can be excused their ignorance.
Rich_cb wrote:
What’s unethical about being paid an enormous amount of money on a global scale?
Can’t the boss point to the fact that a person in Zimbabwe would give their right arm to be paid that same amount? Wouldn’t they be correct?
Everybody deserves ethical
Everybody deserves ethical treatment.
You can keep trying to build your straw men if you like but I’m getting bored.
The discussions about global inequality and ethical consumerism are separate. Trying to conflate them to score some points is not really going to work.
Rich_cb wrote:
I knew we’d agree on something sooner or later.
Rich_cb wrote:
If you bought something at a Post Office any time in the last 25 years, is Horizon your fault?
Given that it’s been a
Given that it’s been a monopoly for much of that time I’d argue no.
Consumers only have a responsibility in a free market.
Rich_cb wrote:
So if you used it to send a parcel you could have used Fedex for instead, Horizon is your fault? Just as much as Paula Vennels, just as much as Fujitsu, just as much as the people who hid evidence and lied to the courts… That’s on you?
Well – if you sent a parcel
Well – if you sent a parcel of rogues to a parliament – (presumably Rich would conceed elections are a kind of a free market* … of politicians and parties [ or lizards, as Douglas Adams suggested ] ) and *they* presided over such a “monopoly” … perhaps it would be?
* Of course this is a concept that people are unlikely to agree on – or even if they exist and where… Hmm, probably need more dimensions on the political hypercube.
This is descending into a bit
This is descending into a bit of a straw man argument.
If you buy a product or service in a free market you should take the responsibility to check that the company is operating in a way that you are happy with as you share responsibility for its actions.
If that information is completely concealed from you, as per Horizon, then you’re not responsible.
If the information is publicly available you’re responsible.
Rich_cb wrote:
No, it’s a you man. You said “You cannot remove responsibility from the customer.”
It’s not my fault you said that when what you actually meant was “You can remove responsibility from the customer and companies run by billionaires often try very, very hard to do that.”
Consumers bear responsibility
Consumers bear responsibility for the production of the products that they buy.
An exception can sometimes be made in the case of fraud on the part of the product supplier.
So, to rephrase.
You cannot remove responsibility from a customer in a free market where all pertinent information is available.
Hope that’s clarified it enough for you.
In reality most ethically questionable products can be uncovered with a few quick online searches.
Rich_cb wrote:
Cool, consumers sometimes have responsibility for buying known unethical products, but bosses always have responsibility for making unethical production decisions. Remind me again why this means it’s unfair to criticise them?
I never said we shouldn’t
I never said we shouldn’t criticise bosses of unethical companies.
Please don’t try and deliberately mislead.
Rich_cb wrote:
“If you’re not willing to take responsibility for your own actions then don’t criticise others for acting in a similar fashion.”
Yeah. Exactly…
I actually said earlier in
I actually said earlier in the thread that we should not use the products of unethical companies and write to the company to explain why.
The quote you’ve produced was not related to unethical companies.
Please don’t try to deliberately mislead.
Rich_cb wrote:
So it was a semantic argument and not a general principle?
In some very specific situations we should not criticise others if we don’t take responsibility, but in most other situations we can?
You shouldn’t criticise
You shouldn’t criticise others for their actions if you act in a similar way.
If you run a large multinational company in a deliberately unethical way then you shouldn’t criticise other evil plutocrats.
If you don’t then criticise away.
In a free market consumer choice is hugely influential. Stop using an unethical product and let the company know why. If enough of us follow suit then change will occur.
Rich_cb wrote:
Oh I see. For some reason when you said “As UK residents we’re guilty of exactly the same thing you accuse Branson et al. of” I thought you meant it. But it’s very good to hear that you finally agree that the two things are in fact not the same.
I do kinda feel like we could have saved a lot of time along the way somewhere though.
You’re conflating the two
You’re conflating the two discussions.
That discussion was about hoarding resources. In that context I stand by that statement.
Trying to then take a quote from one discussion to score points in a separate discussion is frankly dishonest. I’ve asked you multiple times to stop trying to deliberately mislead. You seem incapable of doing so.
If we can’t have a discussion in good faith then I’m not interested in having it.
Wingguy wrote:
Big businesses usually have whole departments dedicated to misleading customers – often known as “Marketing”. Sometimes, they also have to take the drastic step of rebranding when their name becomes associated with toxic behaviour (typically due to whistleblowers or investigative reporters).
Incidentally, it’s a common tactic by big businesses (and their simps) to try to push responsibility onto consumers as they’re often compelled to be as irresponsible as possible in order to maximise profits and shareholder returns. Nearly all companies will have the most psychopathic individuals in charge of them as non-psychopathic leaders will not be prepared to take certain actions (e.g. Paula Vennells pursuing sub Postmasters to steal money from them). You can also see this kind of shifting of responsibility with big multi-national corporations pushing the “green agenda” but only when it comes to consumers separating recycling or buying bamboo socks etc.
In truth, consumer actions are virtually worthless compared to the actions of corporations.
hawkinspeter wrote:
I should be agreeing with Hirsute and just begging for the end but you made a point about shareholders – and I agree, but … presume you, like me, have work / personal pension(s) and are not just burying nuts for winter yourself (or otherwise micromanaging the investments?) There’s a big source of cash which may or may not be “taking responsibility” by funding stuff we may approve of more, or less…
chrisonabike wrote:
Quite.
This also highlights the issues of tracing the origins of everything that we consume and determining exactly how the people/animals/environment involved is treated. It’s virtually impossible for someone in a modern society to validate their “responsibilities” without returning to a much simpler rural existence and avoiding paying any tax.
hawkinspeter wrote:
It’s what we elect governments to do (or not do). If we wanted higher standards in lots of things, we could have them legislated for, monitored and enforced. Most people don’t want that enough, though, especially if the bad stuff happens overseas or it would mean paying more.
Dnnnnnn wrote:
Also, governments tend to be subverted by big business interests, so what the populous wants is way down the list. Also the population can be directed by big media companies to have different priorities and even to desire things which are not in their own best interest.
Subverted?? You mean they
Subverted?? You mean they were all there for some other reason?
hawkinspeter wrote:
I think you might be suggesting big business and The People are two separate and relatively homogenous blocks with necessarily opposing interests. I don’t think that’s the case – there’s a lot of overlap. It’s not in most businesses’ interests to have immiserated consumers and an ineffective state.
Big business and media are certainly powerful and influential – but not so powerful that we don’t still have lots of legislation, standards, policy and taxes they didn’t choose.
Dnnnnnn wrote:
I’d say that the legislation exists in spite of big business. Workers had to strike to get things like weekends off and holiday entitlement and you can see the opposite starting to happen, especially in the U.S. with zero contract hours and a startlingly tiny minimum wage. Certainly, the big businesses were backing Brexit as they could then try to push for weakening the worker protections that come along with the E.U. and there’s already evidence that the Tories wish to remove basic human rights in their push to send refugees over to Rwanda.
hawkinspeter wrote:
Certainly?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/mar/15/cbi-member-survey-reveals-huge-support-for-remaining-in-eu
hawkinspeter wrote:
I’d say that’s partly my point – people power prevailed. Not always, certainly, but in many cases.
Big business is not always anti-legislation either. Setting high regulatory standards is a good way to deter new entrants to the market, particularly those who’d seek to undercut you with lower standards/costs.
People power again.
Certainly some were, but the CBI – on behalf of many of the biggest – weren’t. Brexit will have been a pain for many of them. The EU generated lots of regulations – but it also gave them the world’s largest single market.
Isn’t this that’s more a vote chasing policy than something big business is pushing? EU countries are apparently looking at similar schemes.
Dnnnnnn wrote:
More and more I wonder if it’s “people elect a government to make sure the other possible government(s) doesn’t/don’t get in”?
Or more “I think this lot will at least do something about (x)” or “at least they won’t do (y)”, or “I just won’t have anyone in (red|blue|green|yellow|purple …)”?
chrisonabike wrote:
Or more “I think this lot will at least do something about (x)” or “at least they won’t do (y)”, or “I just won’t have anyone in (red|blue|green|yellow|purple …)”?— chrisonabike
I fear that’s about as deeply as most people think about it. Governing is hard and complicated and has lots of conflicting pressures but most people don’t want to engage with that. Keir Starmer seems to have recognised this.
Rich_cb wrote:
(far far OT now) Now this is an interesting question – degrees of knowledge, certainty and responsibility. It’s clearly becoming more of an issue, not less, as we are exposed to increasing volumes of information available at a higher speed.
Taking Horizon – word was out in 2009. By 2012 this was sufficiently known that the Government pressured the Post Office into getting in the accountants etc. In 2017 it was in court again and 2019 there were legal rulings that pointed to grave problems.
One of the great benefits / conveniences of many organisational systems is that of abstraction and thus simplification and reduction of responsibility. That applies whether as a consumer, a shareholder (“all I did was invest and get a dividend…”), a manager or director*. In the Horizon case it seems everyone was just “doing their job” and accepting what their boss / their supplier / the Post Office (for government) told them. Thus none were responsible for the outcome!
Could possibly bring this thread back to consider cycling and even potholes / road maintenance – probably gone too far out now.
* Unless you’re unlimited – or get brought to book in the US where they make responsibility for corporate crimes a bit more personal.
Wingguy wrote:
This is one of the fundamental problems underlying Capitalism. The theory behind it relies on “free markets” which rely on customers having access to relevant information and being able to choose amongst different options. However, as is evident, most companies deliberately hide information from customers and as companies get bigger, their power grows and thus they can force smaller competitors out of the market (this happens even if the smaller company is “more efficient”) as they seek to gain a monopoly.
(However, the Post Office’s monopoly is also bolstered by the government as they are the only provider of certain services)
Well I’d buy a premium
Well I’d buy a premium Zimbabwean coffee from there (especially at Zimbabwean prices!) Except that my arms don’t reach that far. And I can’t justify popping over on bike before work. I could get me some beans … I suspect that a lot of the difference is going to the middlemen* and precious little is making it back to Zimbabwe.
Always worth asking “so what?” I suspect that this ultimately isn’t making the world a more stable place – but that’s a bit abstract. More directly almost everyone wants smugness points in some way – even if privately. (Or “the approval of others for being in some way pro-social”).
“it’s complicated, history etc.” is probably where I should stop – plus I’m not sure where to go next to pin this one on Richard Branson. He was involved with an airline though…
* Or on taxes which are ultimately to do with the negative effects of our state and friends, NGOs and companies.
In terms of who’s spoiling it
In terms of who’s spoiling it for everyone – it is I!
https://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2020/02/who-are-one-percent-super-polluters.html
…even though from the figures mark1a found in the road.cc survey I’m clearly not in the upper tier of road.cc users.
And I do have a whopping 3.5 bikes (inc. timeshare). Though 0 cars currently.
Well, been nice knowing you – I guess they’ll be coming for me soon. All things considered it’s been a very comfortable life (and a priviledged one, I see now). Although often it hasn’t felt that way. It’s that human thing of comparing yourself to others – seems a) we never even suspect the existence of most of the others and b) we discount the conditions of the have-nots and tend to focus on those who seem to be doing a bit better than us (“it’s really not fair”)…
I liked that article.
I liked that article.
It’s good to get some perspective as to who the 1% actually are!
chrisonabike wrote:
Why did you choose the words ‘a bit’?
Wingguy wrote:
I think we rate ourselves relative to similar people mostly.
So I doubt most have a chilly fear because Richard Branson is doing 10 to the power n (for large n) better than them. But very few are competing with him. If however Chuck, Lance and Nigel from the chain gang are all going up in the world but I’m not that may disturb my calm. (Perhaps a bad analogy if the cycling club aren’t our closer friends / neighbours. If we only see them for that we might be fine with them pulling away financially if we’re reeling them in while cycling…)
It’s the “lots of little makes plenty” again. My emissions/resource usage will be miniscule compared to many MPs, never mind the Bransons. But there are millions of us in the US / Europe / Australia using resources up / producing climate-affecting emissions at an unsustainable level. Rather spoils it for the other 90% / 95% / 99%…
Rich_cb wrote:
Do you not understand the incredible difference between someone who has a few thousand vs someone who has a few billion?
Is this like your ridiculous attempt to justify drilling for more oil in the North Sea that was based on complete lies?
I don’t have the patience to deal with your right wing bollocks
The simple fact is that you
The simple fact is that the average UK resident has more than enough disposable income to prevent a lot of suffering in less developed countries.
How many vaccinations could be bought for the price of a takeaway coffee? How many mosquito nets for the cost of a new groupset?
You are enormously wealthy by global standards and you choose to spend your money on frivolous purchases rather than alleviate the suffering of your fellow humans. That remains true for almost every single UK resident. Whinging about billionaires doesn’t change that.
You didn’t like the north sea figures because they undermined the basis of your own opinion. That doesn’t make them lies.
Rich_cb wrote:
Figures? You boldly stated that the oil was specifically for use of the UK and saved having to transport oil to/from Europe which is a complete lie
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/31/grossly-irresponsible-uk-hands-out-24-new-north-sea-oil-and-gas-licences
I’m pretty sure I didn’t.
I’m pretty sure I didn’t.
I argued that the oil and gas produced in the UK would lead to lower imports to Europe from elsewhere.
It’s complete indisputable that European produced gas has a lower carbon footprint than that produced elsewhere and shipped here. For LNG the difference is huge.
Your only counter argument was that increasing oil production here would lead to an increase in global supply. I argued it would lead to decreased production elsewhere.
Since that discussion American oil and gas production has increased hugely. Global prices have decreased in response to this increased supply and OPEC have cut their production in response to that.
Your only counter argument appears to have been disproved.
So now you just resort to shouting “lies”.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/30/energy/saudi-arabia-extend-production-cut-opec/index.html
Rich_cb wrote:
You’re “pretty sure” that you didn’t make that argument? As I recall you mentioned it more than once and tried to justify that North Sea oil would save CO2 as it would be used directly by the UK which of course completely ignored the fact that the processing would be done in Europe, so it appears that you just heaped lie upon lie. You consistently claimed that the oil was specifically for UK use and would reduce heating costs etc, but again, that was never true at any point.
The selling of new North Sea drilling licences is completely unjustifiable unless you want the billionaires getting richer still, which seems to be what you want, or at least you believe their lies and are happy to repeat them.
I’m sure I argued on a
I’m sure I argued on a European scale for oil.
I may have argued on a UK scale for gas but that’s reasonable.
Alas, our non-photographic memories cannot be relied on. A link to the original discussion is required.Any idea what the article title was?
To justify banning UK and gas exploration you have to demonstrate that the policy delivers some tangible benefit in order to eschew the benefits in terms of taxes, employment and balance of trade.
If UK production doesn’t lead to increased global CO2 production then what other justification is there for the ban?
Wait – what? Policies need
Wait – what? Policies need tangible benefits? *Attempts to hide behind a blue passport – it’s too soon…*
Rich_cb wrote:
What?
It’s been very clear that there is no justification for new oil exploration in light of the world’s continued CO2 dumping into the atmosphere. How can you possibly believe that it’s better to dig up more oil and burn it rather than leaving it where it is?
Oh, let me guess, you’ll try to throw around some figures on other people making profit and so why should Sunak’s family and friends make a bit more profit too?
That people like you are trying to justify the burning of more oil in pursuit of profits is beyond disgusting. I shall say no more as you make me feel physically sick.
(For anyone that’s interested, here’s a previous discussion: https://road.cc/content/news/what-happened-britains-golden-age-cycling-302995)
We will need oil and gas for
We will need oil and gas for the foreseeable future. Even in 2050 we’re still predicted to be using gas for some electricity generation.
Given that we will be using it it makes sense to use oil/gas with the lowest possible carbon footprint.
That means locally produced.
Rich_cb wrote:
So much truth here and so aplicable to so many other products, it makes you wonder why a vocal minority were allowed to tell our closest neighbours to fuck off!
Last time I checked if
Last time I checked if something was genuinely manufactured in the EU then it can be sold to the UK tariff free.
If it’s manufactured a long way away and then imported into the EU for a bit of paint etc then it can’t.
Glad it’s got your support.
I know it’s fantastic, remind
I know it’s fantastic, remind me again how one demonstrates genuine manufacturing in EU and the paper trail, and of course associated cost rises, that have been introduced. The costs must be similar to the agreements we had peviously when nothing needed checking.
How would you know you were
How would you know you were importing a genuine European product under the old system?
It could have come from anywhere. Now you can be sure you’re getting the more environmentally friendly option.
It didn’t make any difference
It didn’t make any difference. All goods entering EU were subject to EU regulations. Internal movement wasn’t an issue. And, of course, we all know how standards in UK are dropping without EU protection. You’ve just shot yourself in the foot there.
“The more environmentally friendly option” give your head a wobble, UK farmers losing out to imported lamb from NZ. The whole process of border control isn’t exactly environmentally friendly.
I’m surprised that you actually believe the shite you spout.
Your precious, and failed, brexit is now in the hands of the racists and the billionaires, normal people have woken up and seen (and paid/are paying for) the damage. .
You might want to look up the
You might want to look up the carbon footprint of NZ lamb compared to EU. You might be surprised.
Regardless we could import just as much NZ lamb as EU members as we do now so not sure what point you’re making. I’d be surprised if you were to be honest.
I’m honestly surprised, not
I’m honestly surprised, not surprised, that you’ve taken such a complex comparison and cherry picked the info that you want.
I see Europe at 41 kg/co2e https://apps.carboncloud.com/climatehub/product-reports/id/474195137510
While NZ is at <7kg/co2e https://beefandlambnz.com/discover/road-to-carbon-neutral-low-carbon-beef-lamb/
This is unbelievable.
Agreed. I guarantee there’ll
Agreed. I guarantee there’ll be a graph appearing shortly. I’m not hanging around.
Most people do, it’s called
Most people do, it’s called tax. Unfortunately our billionaire PM thinks that it should go to his mates and not the needy. You really should stop voting for these cretins.
Rich_cb wrote:
Of course!
<slaps forehead>
That explains why food bank use has rocketed in the last 14 years and why qualified, trained professionals and many others are working yet are struggling to pay their mortgage/rent and other bills. The cost of living crisis is real, we’re not all sitting on piles of money (and most people are not financially illiterate), but some people are getting richer as a direct result of decisions made by politicians and the wealthy; those decisions are made solely to protect their own wealth.
Your comparison is pathetic and an insult to every single person who is finding it hard to make ends meet. It is a direct insult to every person made worse off by changes to disability allowance, those affected by the sick joke that is Universal Credit and lots more that has been deliberately done by the Tories since 2010.
You can take your ‘median wealth’ and stick it up your arse. 99% of it is hoarded and invested by a tiny fraction of the population. They use ‘creative accounting’ (what is considered fraud to anyone with an ounce of integrity) to avoid paying taxes and influence their friends in government to tax the workers more.
Many of them were made wealthier by the 2008 crash, as former trader Gary Stevenson has shown. They got richer through the Covid-19 pandemic and are on course to further increase their wealth. So yet, Billionaires should be taxed more.
But then you seem to be a huge fan of these lying thieves and grifters.
To paraphrase Paul Kimmage, what is it about those deeply selfish, possibly sociopathic charlatans that you admire so much?
Nope.
Nope.
The average person in the UK is incredibly wealthy by global standards.
I’d suggest you look up what ‘median’ actually means as a start.
Once you understand that you’ll see why the rest of your post wasn’t really relevant.
I’d give you 100 likes if I
I’d give you 100 likes if I could, great comment!
“Rich people are scum”.
“Rich people are scum”.
Fact – most of the people trotting out this kind of class war / school age twaddle are themselves very rich when compared to the poverty most of the world lives in.
The lack of self awareness is hilarious.
open_roads wrote:
That’s a very good point, road.cc published the results of a visitor survey for the benefit of their advertisers, and it appears that the sampled data in the response are not exactly living hand to mouth. One person’s “rich” is often another person’s “doing OK’…
https://road.cc/content/page/306469
mark1a wrote:
Wow – I am clearly not an average road.cc user
I know.
I know.
Had no idea most were so hard up…
HP’s probably only ever had
HP’s probably only ever had one tyre for his unicycle, it’s just patch now… still dreaming of a front wheel.
Another reason for liking cycling – there’s snobbishness for sure but you can get and stable a poor-man’s-nag for a price affordable to most in the UK.
chrisonabike wrote:
I am in possession of 4 unicycles, so I’d guess I’m well above the average.
hawkinspeter wrote:
I mean, you and three friends should turn up to claim max car-share points and confuse people at drive-thru takeaways.
My £100 eBay bike celebrated
My £100 eBay bike celebrated its 7th anniversary as daily commuter recently.
Good reason to support cycling infrastructure, helps to level the transport playing field significantly.
An excellent purchase!
An excellent purchase!
I’ve still got my xth hand Dawes which used to be my one bike – free so only costs me what I replace to keep running. OTOH the new everyday bike was bought new and ten times the cost of yours…
I don’t know if cycle paths actually make the Dutch much greener *. However – it definitely increases resilience. I imagine if they needed / wanted to suddenly decrease the use of motor transport they could – without causing people to declare that life was impossible and riot.
* Very hazy anecdata (a handful of visits) but they seemed to be doing a lot of consuming, burning and throwing away and also building / rebuilding. However articles suggest people are a bit healthier and urban areas are certainly much nicer. I suspect between that, the fitness and wider “independent mobility” (recall who else benefits) people’s wellbeing is better. Certainly the surveys suggest their kids are doing better.
Perhaps you should set up a
Perhaps you should set up a gofundme page !
road.cc wrote:
That would mean that only 20% of UK households have an income below £75,000. What an income of £75,000 would do is put them in the 8th decile (for 2021/22), which is slightly (alright, totally) different to being in the top 80%.
Rendel Harris wrote:
That would mean that only 20% of UK households have an income below £75,000. What an income of £75,000 would do is put them in the 8th decile (for 2021/22), which is slightly (alright, totally) different to being in the top 80%.— road.cc
I think they meant “80th percentile”.
Nail. Head.
Nail. Head.
Rich_cb wrote:
How ’bout you two open your own rightwinger cycling forum somewhere, and stop boring us on here with rightwing bollocks comparing the average Briton to Richard Branson (what about the difference between 1600t of CO2 to 9t of CO2 do you not get?).
Both are unsustainable.
Both are unsustainable.
Take some personal responsibility.
Get your own carbon footprint down to a level compatible with a liveable planet.
It’s easy to sit and bleat about the billionaires destroying the planet, it’s a lot harder to do something about it yourself.
Cue the rightwinger
Cue the rightwinger simulating concern for the planet, while actually defending a billionaire…
I’m very confident I’ve done
I’m very confident I’ve done far more to make my lifestyle sustainable than you have so if I’m ‘simulating concern’ I’m not sure what you’re doing.
Deflecting attention from your own shortcomings by denouncing others is a tale as old as time.
Pretend all you like, as long
Pretend all you like, as long as you’re a rightwinger who defends billionaires, you’re part of the problem, not the solution.
I’ve taken personal
I’ve taken personal responsibility for my carbon footprint. Have you?
Posting opinions on the internet does precisely nothing for the climate crisis.
Unless you’ve done something tangible them I’m afraid it’s you who is the problem regardless of what wing you consider yourself on.
A lycra clad ‘private island
A lycra clad ‘private island haver’
Mods please close this thread
Mods please close this thread.
Hirsute wrote:
Shh. At least they’re not talking about helmets!