my_hat_stinks

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A sect is a sub-group of people unified by beliefs or practice, a denomination is essentially just a large named sect. Christianity is not monolithic and organises into groups, it by definition has sects.

Even if you were right it’s such a ridiculously pointless and pedantic argument, it does nothing to further the conversation. You’re just trying to use cheap gotchas as a thought-terminating cliche. The only thing you’ve done is to force us to literally argue semantics, that is not a good look for you.

For completeness, here’s a Christian source using the word sect to describe Christian groups, one of the top search engine hits when I searched.

The important factor isn’t whether someone can be addicted (otherwise you’re banning nearly everything), it’s the harm that addiction causes. As a general rule of thumb physical dependencies like alcohol are more harmful than habitual addictions, but that obviously isn’t the whole story.

Caffeine addiction is the same category as alcohol and tobacco but causes so little harm that I don’t think anyone is seriously opposed it. On the other end of that scale is something like meth or other hard drugs, generally understood as destructive and has few serious supporters encouraging use. Breaking these addictions is almost always hard and physically taxing, in some cases can even be lethal.

Marijuana addiction is in the same category as most things that make you feel good or form habits so it’s harder to nail down a proper scale, but the lower end is probably something like video games; a debilitating addiction is possible but uncommon and most people would oppose a blanket ban on the basis of “can be addictive”. Gambling is on the other end can definitely ruin lives. I’d say that’s a little worse than coffee. Breaking these addictions is more like breaking a bad habit, it can feel hard for the addict but generally isn’t going to kill them.

From your description it sounds like they haven’t complied with a legally binding ombudsman decision. The ombudsman is the last stop before legal action, you should get in touch with a real solicitor rather than ask for anonymous advice online.

An N322A form might be what you need to enforce the decision, but if I were you I’d check with Citizens Advice or a lawyer first.

Uploading your consciousness to a machine wouldn’t really extend your lifespan. Think of it like moving a file from one device to another; the file isn’t actually moved, you just get a copy on the second device. You and your digital clone will also begin to diverge immediately as the lived experience of being a new digital entity would be different from continuing life as a meat person.

The closest you can get is to Ship of Theseus it; get a machine implant which gradually takes over brain functions as cells die or parts of the brain fail. Single stream of consciousness in a single body, now fully digitised. Incidentally this is also closer to biological processes to replace cells, though the brain cells renew much less frequently then other cell types. I think some areas don’t naturally get replaced over a lifetime too but I’m not certain on that, either way you’d want to go faster than natural cell replacement.

Alternatively you could make the transfer process dissolve your meat brain. Personally I’d say you are dead and your clone lives on but its the same argument as Star Trek style transporters; the clone still feels like it’s you so if they got to where you want to go does it really matter?

You’ve just described spam. Mass unsolicited messaging.

Either that’s enough engagement so that’s what they should have done instead of spam thousands of accounts or it’s not enough engagement and they have no reason to spam thousands of accounts. You can’t just decide to start spamming because you want more users in your new community.

That makes no sense. The decision to close this community was made in a pinned post. If that’s not enough engagement the community shouldn’t have been closed.

And it’s differentiated from IC meaning Independent Contractor by…?

No, corporate jargon is stupid and saying it’s acceptable because a big corp uses corporate jargon is even stupider.

IC is a common term for integrated circuits and a hundred other things.

Maybe it’s used for workers in your specific region/field but that’s not definitely universal and it’s not even a useful or descriptive term. Managers are also individuals who ostensibly contribute something to the company. The distinction between managers and workers is that the workers are the people doing the actual work, not that they’re individuals.

Sounds like corporate jargon. Why not just say worker, a term everyone understands?

Not sure what that has to do with anything? The article says there’s spaces for blue badge holders, that’s the UK’s scheme for parking spaces for people with mobility issues.

When their kid grows up and has kids of their own. Then you know they’re a grand dad.

Some local residents have not been onboard with the lack of car spaces at the new station.

If you need a car to reach the station it’s questionable to claim you’re local.

I also take idioms literally, I read the entire book right there before deciding whether to buy it. Obviously you can’t trust how they chose to present the book so you need to read it to know if it’s worth reading.

They only need to overlap at the start and end, meaning the rest of the line can be way off and it’ll still start and stop at the same places. Here’s a quick graph courtesy of WolframAlpha showing three curves with the same start and end point.

Which line is more gradual or smooth really depends on what you mean by those terms.

Another way to visualise it is to imagine a string tied taut between two posts making a straight line. If you add some slack to the string so it’s no longer taut you’ll see the middle curve as it’s pulled down by gravity, but it’s still tied to the same two posts so it starts and ends in the same place as the taut one.

I don’t know about the big bang, but the elephants and turtle are Terry Pratchett. Discworld, Pratchett’s most well-known setting, is a disc shaped world on the back of four elephants on the back of a turtle.

Okay, I’ll simplify. Store advertises three sandwich. You buy three sandwich. You get one sandwich. Store says fees+taxes ate other sandwiches. You say it’s fine, you got sandwich. I say it’s not, store lied.

They absolutely can give a solid number even when a lottery runs in areas with different taxes, they simply choose not to because they make more money that way and for some reason you lack regulation there. See for instance here where the prize money may be partially subjected to income tax, meaning tax varies wildly depending on the winner’s other income:

£10,000 every month for 30 years. […] However, based on tax rules and rates at the date of these Procedures, the monthly payments will not be less than £10,000 after tax.

So there’s three obvious choices: mislead customers, calculate the correct prize after relevant taxes and advertise that, or give a fixed value and eat the cost of any taxes themselves. They chose the first one.

A lottery isn’t necessarily inherently a scam, at least no more than gambling is in general. In practice the odds of winning are pretty poor compared to alternatives but as long as they’re up front about the odds of winning I wouldn’t call that a scam. Eg, this lottery lists the odds of winning each prize, though it would definitely be better if they published those on the main page rather than in the terms. A fairer lottery is possible pretty easily by adjusting the prize values, range of numbers to select, or how many numbers the gambler selects. This would kind of defeat the purpose of most lotteries to raise money for government, but personally I’m for more progressive taxes anyway.

Advertising one prize when the real prize is significantly lower is just lying and not an inherent trait of lotteries.

You’re walking down the street and see a sign in a new sandwich place saying they have a three-for-one deal on, buy any one sandwich and get two sandwiches completely free. Sounds like a great deal, it might be a bit much but you skipped breakfast today and you can always keep one for later anyway, right? So you head inside and think about what you want, maybe you’re cutting back on red meat and you’re tired of chicken so you go with a tuna or cheese sandwich. You get to the counter to pick up your tuna+cheese sandwich, the worker hands over your two freebies and you walk out. Turns out you’re hungrier than you thought so you practically inhale your tuna+cheese, barely savouring the flavour. You reach for your second sandwich but when you unwrap it you discover it’s not the same as the one you ordered; it’s bread with a thin smear of butter, technically it is a sandwich but it’s definitely not what you wanted or expected when you ordered.

Did you get scammed? Are you okay with that since you still got one sandwich even though you chose that vendor because they advertised three?

It really shouldn’t be a controversial statement to say that lying to people to get their money is wrong. If it really makes no difference as you’re suggesting why can’t they just advertise the real value instead?