No it isn't. It's debatable if the safety features are still necessary with modern wiring and electric code imporovments, but the features are objectively there, and they objectively make the plugs safer.
And the design of these features wasn't because of "substandard" wiring. It is because the UK used to use ring circuits in old houses, which are unsuitable to be protected by central breaker boards with breakers for each room, necessitating fuses in the plugs. That doesn't make the system any less safe. As long as a fuse is present, and the circuits are adequately sized, where precisely on the circuit a fuse is located is irrelevant.
Also, the fuse inside the plug provides an utterly unique advantage that no other country has: The fuse can be used to protect the external wire from over current. Centralised fuses are exclusively designed to prevent over current on the main, internal circuit, they don't give a crap what happens on the other side of an outlet. A central fuse protecting a 16A circuit will do nothing to stop you from pulling 15Amps through a 3 amp cable. A fuse inside the plug, appropriately sized for those 3 Amps, will in fact protect the cable itself. This is particularly useful for extension cords. Other countries without fused plugs need to either just flat out mandate ALL extension and multiplug cords be capable of safely handling the maximum current of a household circuit (e.g. Germany) OR just ignore that rather major safety hazard entirely and just kinda hope that nothing bad happens (e.g. USA) (if you've ever wondered, that's specifically why chaining extension cords together in the US is considered dangerous)
Jup, that's a really good feature. You can get aftermarket child shutters for EU style plugs as well, but they require you to twist the plug before inserting, making them kinda inconvenient, and they have to be specifically installed by parents. Though I don't think that's the worst thing in the world. After all, we don't make any of our other products or home designs toddler safe by default. It's generally regarded as the parents responsibility to ensure their home is child proof before they get a child.
But the UK version of just having it in every outlet as a hidden feature that you wouldn't even notice if you don't know it's there is definitely the best approach.
(Though it does make low form factor UK plugs almost impossible, because every plug must have a ground prong, even if there's no actual safety need to have one)
Having switched outlets wouldn't make US plugs any safer, at least not in any meaningful way.
The individual switches on UK outlets don't really add significantly to safety, they're mostly just a convenience feature, because for an electrical plug/outlet to even be considered safe in the first place, it has to be always safe, whether it's powered or not. You can't rely on people switching off unused outlets instead of doing actual safety design.
The main factors that make US plugs less safe than UK ones is the potential for exposed metal contacts with a closed connection to the outlet, the lack of internal fuse and the lack of polarisation, and, particularly in combination with the first point, the comparatively weak grip strength and protruding design that make it easy for a plug to become (partially) unplugged by accident.
That's like a principal letting the bully keep all the lunch money they stole from someone, let the bully chose what lunch they're allowed to buy in future, in exchange for the bully pinky promising to stop bullying the victim, and then acting surprised that the victim doesn't fall on their knees in gratitude for this amazing deal
That's pretty much universally the view on freedom and rights that today's neo conservatives have.
They cry states rights and freedom when someone else wants to ban them from doing anything at all, but the instant someone else is doing something they don't like, they suddenly make up moral panics to justify federally banning those things.
That is to say, conservatives by and large don't have any principles beyond being selfish and hateful towards minoritied. Everything else, including fundamental freedoms and human rights is negotiable so long as it doesn't negatively affect them OR negatively affects the people they hate more than them. They just use terms like freedom or rights to virtue signal when it suits them, but are just as happy to drop the pretence the millisecond doing so becomes beneficial to their goals.
A good example is the free speech screeching of conservatives in the heyday of fact checking, Vs. Their tortured justifications and dismissals of Trump's blatant attacks on free speech and press today.
Or alternatively, many TERFs and their open willingness to draw support, and work together with misogynistic conservative groups and even straight up open Neo Nazis, just because those groups also hate trans people, all whilst turning around and claiming with a straight face that they're doing this for women.
The quote in the original french version is, at least iirc, let them eat brioche, so cake isn't even a good translation. More something like "let them eat sweet bread".
But translating brioche as cake instead makes the quote sound even more tone deaf and outrageous.
Did the north not decide to abolish slavery federally until after war was already over? Because surely otherwise, the south would have fought for both of these things.
the rest of the "civilized" world was essentially keeping Germany permanently poor, living under such misery breeds a certain...psychotic world view.
Jup. There's a very strong argument to be made that had the terms of the treaty of Versailles not been so unfair and hostile towards Germany, World War II would have never happened.
Rehabilitation and reconstruction is ALWAYS the best option for the winning side of a large war to extend to the losing side, regardless of who/how/why the war started. Heavily penalising and fucking over the loser for years and years after the war is just going to foster resentment and discontent amongst the population, and make them feel (arguably, with a degree of validity) that conquering th countries fucking them over is the only way their country will see prosperity again.
I mean the layout in terms of functions is generally standardised between PS and XBox style controllers (i.e. "back" is the right hand button, "confirm" is the lower one...) it's just that the buttons have different symbols for those functions across PS and XBox style controllers.
I don't think there's a need to rank one as worse than the other
And then literally one comment later
Of course it makes sense to classify some as worse than others
Goalposts moving more than the ball here. If you can't be fucked to engage with my points honestly, then just say that, instead of this intellectually dishonest goal post moving you keep doing.
You literally just argued, verbatim, that because being called gay in isolated cases can be just as bad as a trans person being misgendered, that makes deliberately misgendering and calling someone gay comparable.
That was your verbatim argument. And you've suddenly moved the goal posts to "of course it makes sense to classify some as worse than others"
So of according to you, if there is a single guy on earth who gets just as upset from being called "doofus" as a black person from being called the N-Word, that in your mind makes calling someone a doofus and calling a black person the N-Word comparable ?
I'm not really counting the first two, as they were more temporary wooden bridges. The 1209 London Bridge was the first, proper, permanent bridge across the Thames.
In general it can be said that poor people do not have the capital to make upfront investments which become profitable over time. Not even just literal investing, but investing in things like a more fuel efficient car, upgrading the insulation in your house/apartment to save on heating, buying non-perishables in bulk when there's a good deal, buying a dish washer instead of hand washing...
So many things that let you save tons of money in the long run, require relatively large upfront investments, that poor people can't afford. That's a big reason why poverty can be such an insidious vicious loop, that can be extremely hard to escape from.
Two identical households, with identical income could have vastly different financial situations, just based on if their income was previously low, and they weren't able to afford any of these investments, vs. If their income was previously high, having allowed them to previously make these large investments to reduce their long term monthly costs, and secure enough liquidity to be able to continue occasionally making these investments.
I mean it was the first ever permanent bridge crossing the Thames in London, and for a long time it was the only bridge in the entirety of east London (despite barely being east of the east-west midpoint of London). London bridge has a lot of interesting history, even if the current one is visually boring.
No it isn't. It's debatable if the safety features are still necessary with modern wiring and electric code imporovments, but the features are objectively there, and they objectively make the plugs safer.
And the design of these features wasn't because of "substandard" wiring. It is because the UK used to use ring circuits in old houses, which are unsuitable to be protected by central breaker boards with breakers for each room, necessitating fuses in the plugs. That doesn't make the system any less safe. As long as a fuse is present, and the circuits are adequately sized, where precisely on the circuit a fuse is located is irrelevant.
Also, the fuse inside the plug provides an utterly unique advantage that no other country has: The fuse can be used to protect the external wire from over current. Centralised fuses are exclusively designed to prevent over current on the main, internal circuit, they don't give a crap what happens on the other side of an outlet. A central fuse protecting a 16A circuit will do nothing to stop you from pulling 15Amps through a 3 amp cable. A fuse inside the plug, appropriately sized for those 3 Amps, will in fact protect the cable itself. This is particularly useful for extension cords. Other countries without fused plugs need to either just flat out mandate ALL extension and multiplug cords be capable of safely handling the maximum current of a household circuit (e.g. Germany) OR just ignore that rather major safety hazard entirely and just kinda hope that nothing bad happens (e.g. USA) (if you've ever wondered, that's specifically why chaining extension cords together in the US is considered dangerous)