Don't swallow gum

Let this be a lesson to those who swallow gum:

The BBC and Advertising

Just read this article:

BBC confirms plans to make over-75s pay TV licence fee

This article was linked to on twitter and many on there are saying the licence fee should be abolished and the BBC should show adverts. That people can skip the adverts or get a cup of tea, go to the toilet etc during the adverts if they don't like them.

I think they're failing to grasp the bigger picture. If the BBC get paid for showing the adverts, then who is paying for these programmes?  It'll be the one's that pay the BBC, the companies who goods and services are advertised. So where do they get the money from? They take a hit on their profits? Unlikely, I imagine they'll increase the prices of their goods and services to cover the cost. Meaning we all pay anyway, but on average more than the license fee (as the programmes AND the adverts now need to be paid for) and we have to suffer the adverts to boot!

And to what avail? The total amount spent on goods and services is unlikely to change significantly as a result of adverts, the money spent just gets shifted to those products that are the most heavily advertised. So other companies have to spend more on advertising to compete, resulting in higher prices still. It's all just so irrational.

The world would be much better if there were no adverts on TV and we just paid for it all directly.

Is travelling back in time possible?

It seems to me there are 3 possible reasons why we might never be able to travel backwards in time:

1. We will never create the technology to do so, either because civilisation ends before the technology is invented or because the technology required is simply beyond the ability of human beings to invent.
   
2. Because the laws of physics prohibit the possibility of traveling backwards in time.
   
3. Because the past doesn't exist. So we can't travel to the past for the same reason we can't travel to Narnia.

I suspect we will never travel backwards in time, and that is because the the past doesn't exist i.e "3".

Is this argument against an afterlife as compelling as it might seem?

One could equally retort:

What we're being asked to consider is that if you damage the lenses in your spectacles in one way so as to result in a deterioration of your vision, you damage them in another way resulting in yet further deterioration of one's vision, and yet if the spectacles suddenly disintegrated our vision would be fully restored??  You silly irrational people!

Also see this post and a more expanded version here in my other blog.

The Universe

The Universe Sphere has 380,000 laser etched dots, each one representing a galaxy, revealing the largest scale structure of our universe. It contains a 3D mapping of galaxies in a volume of our universe spanning 800 million lightyears in diameter https://t.co/oJcITpUaCf pic.twitter.com/lAX9fEffYI

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 1, 2019

Super.  Are we at the centre?