Facebook 'safe' function.

[srw]

That's life all over though. That fellow who accosted Tim Farron was pretty much the real life version - yell your view at someone until you get bored, and then bugger off. Political "debate" has coarsened, and I don't think it's entirely the internet's fault.

(Sorry for the thread derailment).

My suspicion is that most political "debate" was always pretty coarse, and that what history has recorded is the tiny sober, rational fraction.

 

[velovoice]

One of my facebook friends, who lives near London and family in the US, posted. That sort of thing makes sense - people who live near London work in and go out to London, and if you just know that someone is "near London", and don't know the area, you might have the wrong impression about their risk exposure.

Yes, it's my family not knowing London that makes it a problem. My mother used to be the family "comms hub" and she's always been a light sleeper, so when 7/7/2005 happened, all I had to do was phone her (at 1am her time) to say "let everyone know I'm okay" and that was fine. Now she's in a home with late-stage Alzheimers but my younger sisters are on Facebook off and on all day -- one of them knows London quite well, the other not at all but is an unbelievable alarmist and drama queen -- so FB "mark yourself Safe" is a Godsend!

 

[velovoice]

I've just noticed an American friend of mine who lives in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, has marked herself safe -- without a doubt because all her family in the USA won't have a clue that she is in fact 40+ miles away from London Bridge/Borough.

 

[srw]

I've just noticed an American friend of mine who lives in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, has marked herself safe -- without a doubt because all her family in the USA won't have a clue that she is in fact 40+ miles away from London Bridge/Borough.

Likewise for someone who lives in the next town to us in Buckinghamshire who does a lot of business in the US.

Do the math (as our transatlantic cousins say) and it becomes obvious how safe from murderous maniacs we really are. Last night's ram-raid and stabbings killed 7. That's roughly two months worth of murders for the whole of London, and roughly two days of road death for the whole of the UK.

London and its neighbourhood is home to about 20,000,000 people. The chances of any individual being caught up in any single incident like this are so close to zero as makes no practical difference. You are far more likely to be killed by an ordinary road incident than by someone who's hired a van with intent to murder.