Right now I'm travelling and gotta do a lot of things, so I can't do full justice to your post right now, but hopefully in a few days.

However, I'd like to address what I think is the heart of the matter.

Apologies for being blunt, but I think your idea of what a naval war in the Pacific would look like is not very realistic, and I understand now why you believe China is less vulnerable than it actually is. — Tzeentch

I'm taking your premise as given that the US simply wins in the pacific. Of course there's plenty of details that could be debated, given China's immense industrial capability and perhaps their own secret weapons and all that.

However, assuming the US wins the initial engagement, what I'm talking about is the time span of like 10 years.

Even without nuclear weapons, China is obviously going to develop a counter strategy and seek every way to break the blockade.

So my central question to the proposal is can the US just keep this up for a decade or even more? What exactly is the end game?

There would be immense industrial and political blowback to implementing a blockade. Substituting China completely in all industrial processes is a tall task. The blockade would be clearly viewed as illegal and illegitimate for the entire world so other countries may protest, sending their own merchant ships to China while also potentially refusing to trade with the US. There could be continuous industrial and political crisis after crisis to maintain such a policy.

So what's the long term strategy. Do you consider the US et. al. more industrially self sufficient than Russia + China and co. ?

The costs mentioned in my previous post of running the blockade and optimizing a strategy to inflict costs on the US (causing casualties) is over this 10 year period of consideration. Is your premise that the US would have no casualties in such an intense conflict with China over the long term? Or then the casualties are acceptable and supported domestically?

So these are the kinds of end game issues I have a hard time seeing how they can be dealt with by the US over the long term.

I was going to type a more lengthy reply in response to some of your points, but I think in the 'limited war vs. full-scale conflict' you're defending a reasonable position, and I would like to settle that part of the discussion as follows: — Tzeentch

In addition, this particular thread is focused on Ukraine so I haven't wanted to go too far off topic. I had intended to make a new thread focused on geopolitics on the global level, where the overall US strategy would be more suited to discussion.

Unfortunately I have not yet had the time, though Ukraine seems winding down now so perhaps suitable to now expand to it's roll / function in the global geopolitical struggle.

I agree that the plan I am laying out for a potential US strategy to renew its hegemony would be an ambitious and risky one. Therefore, I think there's a reasonable chance for the US to take a more conservative approach in line with your limited war view. — Tzeentch

Likewise, I do not find your proposal of a large scale and high intensity war implausible in the least. We've had world wars before in similar tense situations.

My criticism has been more in the form of a challenge precisely to get into details of how such a confrontation would play out and what the aims would be.

For, although things have stayed the same, in terms of great power rivalry, things have also changed in terms of nuclear weapons, global supply chains and also trains.

Since we seem to disagree about China's relative strength and vulnerability, and its capacity to strike back, giving us different ideas of the cost-benefit situation, I think this is the more interesting place towards which to steer our discussion. — Tzeentch

I'm not sure we disagree on capabilities.

The difference in comparing to WWI and WWII is that in those conflicts the situation was such that the losing side could be entirely conquered or forcing a capitulation.

The US has no means of actually conquering china and forcing a capitulation would require nuclear weapons. So the situation is similar to that of the cold war where the tensions were quite high and possibility of direct confrontation always present, but neither side was willing to risk nuclear war.

So this is the dynamic that I think is the best reference frame, in that proxy wars can be fought all over the place but pushing too directly and too forcefully may solicit nuclear escalation and so there's is extreme reticence.

For example, that is a central hypothesis to my analysis of the Ukraine conflict, that US / NATO could have supplied far more damaging systems and equipment far earlier that could have had a far greater chance of actually pushing the Russians back to their borders, but wargaming that out super duper probably results in the use of nuclear weapons. For, US / NATO could have provided all the cruise missiles, longer range air defences to strike aircraft, even F-35 and F-22's and diesel submarines and so on, if they "really, really, wanted", and most importantly a massive scale up of drone production and supply using that larger economic power even only of the US, Ukraine to win.

So my basic contention is that it would be a similar "not too much" stable point for US-Chinese relations.

I think you underestimate what a sea blockade (and accompanying disruption of land-based alternatives) would do to China.

China's economy would implode, and its international trade network and ties with its overseas partners would be severed. It would essentially cease to be a great power overnight, leaving it with only its land-based military power to do what - invade a neighbor? — Tzeentch

Implode is a strong term.

Obviously China would still be there with enormous production capacity and problem solving capacity, so China would then work on getting around the blockade.

There's also a lot of political complexity to a blockade due to massive problems for global supply chains.

Other neighbouring countries can be traded with by train but also China can send ships into neighbouring territorial waters and the US would need to then commit acts of war on those countries also.

I also don't have enough time at the moment to go to details, but these are the kinds of concerns I have with the prospect of a US blockade with China.

Assuming it does not go nuclear but China sort of "take it" they could anyways inflict costs on the US due to the lethality of missiles, China can keep US ships fairly far from the Chinese coast, certainly outside Chinese territorial waters, and then continuously run the blockade with a civilian ship and an escort. Chinese would be then within it's right both morally (for most people in the world) and also in international law to run the blockade with escort and then return fire. These ships could be unmanned.

So even if China cannot entirely break the blockade and defeat the US navy it can in this iterative process inflict costs with continuous improvement to the strategy.

So it becomes a case of how long can US maintain the blockade, to what extent it could contain blowback in the rest of the world for a clearly illegal blockade. Other countries may send their merchant ships to China, daring the US to sink them.

All of these factors would make things very messy and very quickly so my main issue is not so much that such a blockade could not be started but what is the endgame?

Navy ships are expensive and if the US is blockading China and China is regularly running the blockade and manages to sink ships, even a really nice ship ... the response can't just be nuclear (otherwise the correct strategy is just to nuke China to begin with), and once the US starts losing ships it's very difficult to engage in a war of attrition at sea (you sort of need either overwhelming control or then to leave, as we saw recently in the Red Sea even moderate costs inflicted by the Houthis caused the "Coalition of the whatever" to leave).

Now, without nuclear weapons then it would certainly be within the realm of possibility, if not super likely at this point, for the US et. al. to galvanize their populations into total war and go on a world conquest campaign and truly physically contain China. I'm not entirely confident what would actually happen in such a hypothetical but certainly conceivable.

However, with nuclear weapons, push too much on a nuclear armed state and at some point their going to resort to nuclear weapons use.

↪boethius I think yours is a perfectly valid view to have. In spirit we agree: the Americans are playing a hidden hand using Europe and Ukraine as pawns. — Tzeentch

Yes, we definitely agree on the fundamentals and the objectives of world domination.

The only issue is what can practically be achieved and what will be attempted (rational or irrational).

1. While Europe looks weak now, it is, in potential, a lot stronger than Russia. In fact, on paper Europe is to Russia what Russia is to Ukraine. When the Europeans get into a direct conflict with Russia, they will be motivated to mobilize all that of potential in ways and with a speed that defies normal peace-time expectations. It may even be able to score initial successes against the Russians, as Napoleon and Hitler did too.

Well yes and no.

There's lot's of practical issues in terms of the geography that such a war would take place, nuclear weapons, Europe's larger economy is not industrial, debts compared to Russias war chest, etc.

However, the two biggest factors are Europe is not a united nation state and China is backing Russia.
— Tzeentch

Therefore, I think Europe may be successfully goaded into going to war with Russia on its own (or only with soft promises of US support), especially if some gigantic (potentially false-flag) incident takes place that swings European opinion. — Tzeentch

Limited war, perhaps ("enhanced cold war" with a limited Finno-Russian war added on top I think is likely, which is of course the pattern of the original cold war with "enhancements" in Korea, Vietnam and so on); however, some sort of total war involving all of Europe seems to me very unlikely due to the lack of unity and the lack of a sensible war plan (such a war would go nuclear, compared to a bunch of Finns dying the forest "standing up" to the Russians wouldn't be much of a bother).

2. China may look very well-established and geographically safe, but the entire question is how China will fare with its sea lanes cut off. The US may not need to land a single soldier on the Chinese mainland to starve the Chinese economy and create an asymmetrical situation not unlike the one which eventually sunk the Soviet Union. — Tzeentch

It is of course an interesting question, but the US also does a lot of trade as well as fabrication in China and the region (which is integrated with China's manufacturing base).

So it would also have immense domestic effects as well as immense consequence to multi-national corporations.

It's unclear to me what the end game would be, as China wouldn't just "go away" in such a scenario, but whether faring better or worse would be fighting back both diplomatically and militarily. So it's unclear to me how long the US could maintain such a force posture of blockading China indefinitely, and once some agreement needs to be reached (like we see is becoming necessary with Russia) then I don't see a reason to assume the whole ordeal would be more costly to China than to the US

While China as a sovereign country is safe, China as an international rival to the US is not, and that is the dimension which matters in this fight over global dominance. — Tzeentch

US may simply not have the capacity for such a move, is my main concern. Would be difficult to sustain and could easily damage the US just as much of pretty much everything, from domestic opposition and chaos to diplomatic standing in the world.

3. If the US is going to make a renewed bid at global domination, we can only expect them to be willing to take extraordinary risks. Barring a nuclear exchange (which benefits no one, and should thus be avoidable), the US sits high and dry on its island where the chances of fallout are minimal. — Tzeentch

But to really do what you're proposing, even if nuclear weapons are avoided somehow, would still require a lot of American soldiers and sailors and aviators fighting and dying.

Too much and that creates intense domestic opposition.

Just like the first cold war, you could have indirect engagements, even quite intense such as Vietnam and analogously Ukraine (in terms of fighting intensity), but still relatively small context on a global scale between the major players.

Trying to war game out some really intense direct conflict between the great powers is really difficult to even plot out a pathway to victory, must less be confident it can be achieved. That's my main issue with such a massive move as you are proposing.

You can read all about the saga of business cove in these two archives:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Q4Vfr5U7Lc7_k2ZK6GKgagyMSYeYEPPp?usp=share_link

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SXU6VkygIWM14S4O-IQQUhlz41qYBjFH?usp=drive_link

Stay tuned!

Then I'd be all like ... ah yes, Isabel Dos Santos was ye ol' business sea monsters name ... I remember her well I do.

Psst. It's been stated by the ultimate authority here that this particular line of topic needs to take a hard backseat, if you will. At least for some time. — Outlander

If people just stopped citing me I'd stop citing what they have to say about their citations of me and in what appears to me as a frolicking back and forth, ebb and flow of legitimate discourse.

The verdict seems to be, not that the good sir is unaware of possibility of risks, but that his "concern" for such vary significantly from your own. — Outlander

For those interested, that is misunderstanding my whole point.

As I described, you can ascribe lower values to both likelihood and cost (it's a mix of art and science to evaluate risk, outside essentially laboratory controlled conditions), but the categories of risk litigation are clearly defined and have some non-zero likelihood of happening and incurring some cost.

In addition, one's tolerance for risk can be amazingly high.

Whatever the numbers, however, the rational framework is the same: Whatever numbers you put to the risk and whatever is the risk you are willing to tolerate. My point is just make sure number 1 is lower than number 2 and I'm lambasted as the most preposterous of business dullards.

The reason the debate dragged on is that @Jamal is risk averse, the main justification for making the business being to avoid liability. If he was high risk tolerant, absolutely willing to see how a bankruptcy plays out if it comes to that, live and learn and bounce back stronger with an interesting tale to tell, then there would be no tension in the exchange. As ye ol' business sea captain, I'd just be reminiscing about all ye ol' business sea monsters out there, and @Jamal would simply be eager to get out there on the business high seas, feel the salty business spray in his face, look out to the horizon wondering what business marvels and terrors may be out there to discover, come what may.

@Jamal would just be like "pray, boethius, tell us again of ye ol' business battle with ye ol' giant business squid with ye ol' giant business tentacles; how did ye contend with such a behemoth of the dark business deep?".

Living on the edge, flying by the seat in my pants, relying upon the kindness of strangers. — Hanover

Absolutely boethius approved.

But are you managing a limited liability company that affects other people's interests who entrust you with their philosophy-client needs?

↪boethius I'm going to go out on a limb and predict the regulators will never come over and try to curb stomp our lemonade stand into the ground, nor will they seize our data and read your musings one day and herald you as a prophet for having tried to save us from ourselves. — Hanover

Seems to me honestly a cavalier attitude. A lot of controversial things are said on the forum, though maybe the idea is that will change.

From my perspective, UK doesn't seem a bastion of free speech right now, and the practical differences for incorporating somewhere else is very low.

At this point you talk to yourself, agreeing with your wisdom, while everyone else wonders why. — Hanover

The essential part is that it is wisdom, but I am talking with the people responding to me. For example, I'm talking with you right now.

If you're sure it's pearls before swine, just accept our stubborn moroness. — Hanover

What I am describing is the most basic business advice possible, traditionally called "sober deliberation", but probably described most succinctly and famously (at least in business circles) by Jeff Bezos writing to his shareholders that you can read directly on the SEC website:

Some decisions are consequential and irreversible or nearly irreversible – one-way doors – and these decisions must be made methodically, carefully, slowly, with great deliberation and consultation. If you walk through and don’t like what you see on the other side, you can’t get back to where you were before. We can call these Type 1 decisions. — To Amazon Shareholders, Jeff Bezos, SEC

Usually his letter is quoted for what he has to say about Type 2 decisions, that are reversible, as his main point is that a large organizations has a tendency to start treating every decision as Type one irreversible decisions. Why that is the usual purpose of the reference is because it is not controversial in the business community that you may want to put some thought into Type 1 decisions.

@Jamal, faced with a decision affecting all members of our community (but at least with the support of most, so there's that), is basically of the attitude "Jeff Bazos is full of shit and anyone who proposes an irreversible decision, like the jurisdiction of incorporation and type of incorporation, 'must be made methodically, carefully, slowly, with great deliberation and consultation' is a business moron that we should all ignore, to use the words of our most erudite and sharpest philosopher."

Let's hope that the admin at the new site doesn't somehow forget to approve his registration. :wink: — Jamal

Every single scenario I described can happen to you.

And as you say yourself, as soon as you are faced with actual liability then you are stuck in the UK jurisdiction, can't move, can't just closeup shop and walk away. The start of one lawsuit, no matter how spurious, could commit you to dealing with UK jurisdiction, all choices (that you have right now) removed from you, for years. That's high impact, regardless of the eventual result! so the likelihood does not have to be very high to warrant taking such a risk seriously.

boethius I love you. You're a rare breed. — Outlander

I love you too Outlander <3

Any benefit (or detriment and consequence) of his decision is now his and his alone to own. — Outlander

That maybe, but the point of risk analysis is also to have a plan to deal with things, so they don't catch you off guard.

For example, if @Jamal sees to it to always be able to answer (in terms of resources and time) a summons in some reasonable amount of time, by flying back to the jurisdiction his business is incorporated, that would already be a big risk mitigating factor. But would require pro-active planning for it on @Jamal's part such as not taking engagements that would make it impossible to answer a summons.

Likewise all the risk categories can be planned for and mitigated.

Just because base jumpers conclude that "probably" no one will crash, that does not mean the event shouldn't be planned for so as to potentially save their life if they didn't die on impact.

The mitigation strategy for being harassed by a government official could be just immediately close up shop, for example, or then make as much noise as possible and become super famous!

So even if someone's mind is made up and not affected by new information (such as how to professionally go about making business planning decisions), the analysis is still critical to be sure to keep the risks as low as possible and have some basic plan of what to do if they happen.

For those interested, once you've gone through the steps of net-present-value analysis and something seems reasonable to do, the next analytical steps are taking into account things like opportunity-costs, depreciation of assets, insurance policy analysis (of the bad things that can happen, is it already insured, is it a net-present value to insure against it; would insurance resist such a claim, to what extent can they do so and can that be dealt with, would successful insurance effectively equalize the costs or only somewhat as there would be reputational damages and other non-insurables anyways involved, etc.), various discount and interest rates, and a bunch of accounting stuff I don't even know how to do.

You keep repeating the falsehood that operating as a company creates new risks. — Jamal

Way more risks.

As a UK business you can for sure be sued in the district your business in incorporated. As we've been debating, being sued in some random UK district is pretty special circumstances and then to enforce that ruling on you as a person would anyways require coming to the district where you actually live and have assets and enforce that ruling that way.

Being a UK citizen is not equivalent to having a business.

Furthermore, the fact that you can be sued and someone can argue that you're providing a service for clients, means that's a hurdle they need to overcome. A judge could easily throw out such a case when he or she learns that you aren't a business, you don't make promises, and philosophy is your hobby that you do for your own betterment and the betterment of mankind.

The "it's actually a service" argument usually requires some actual tangible benefit you would normally get from a company, like shoe shining.

"Arguing with people", as we are doing right now, you certainly can get from a company but you can also get in pretty much every aspect of private life from your wild ass parties I've never been invited too, on the street, in the bar, with family at Christmas, with strangers on a train; all of which aren't paid services and when you're arguing with a company it's likely also not the intended service you paid for.

So there's a good chance if anyone did sue you right now a judge would just throw the case out. Every hurdle to a court hearing is both additional protection and disincentive to actually suing you, as there's all these problems to solve.

Likewise, any sort of consumer protection mechanism, if someone complained right now and they don't have a business number and they're trying to convince some consumer protection bureaucrat that "actually he's a philosophy business selling arguing with him and others services", their reaction will most likely be considerably less than enthusiastic.

As soon as you're a business it goes without saying you provide a service, as that's what businesses do. No hurdle to starting the complaint process: you have a business ID, brand, address of incorporation, clear as day where you are liable. If your service is providing philosophy somehow then that's your service, same rules apply as providing any other service.

And maybe step back and consider the consistency here.

Every extreme scenario I describe you dismiss offhand, zero engagement, and yet the primary motivation to make a business is to avoid a 19 million pound liability? An extreme scenario that can actually be easily dismissed as those levels of fines are for multi national corporations that actually have 19 million pounds lying around, not micro-businesses. However, what people may do if they get emotional enough and can really do those things (like start consumer protection mechanisms of one kind of another) is 100% a risk that cannot be dismissed.

To further support your decision to mitigate this 19 million pound fine risk you propose a spurious argument that you can potentially be sued right now as a business, even though you are clearly not a business, and so you may as well be a business!!

Now, I've described plenty of spurious arguments that you dismiss offhand!!

However, your spurious argument that you're already a business is unlikely to ever actually happen. Judges do not view themselves as having the time to bring private citizens to court to have them account for the actions of a business that clearly doesn't exist. It must be very clear that you are in fact operating as an illegal business (getting money to shine my shoes) for this argument to apply.

Yes, people can contribute to the upkeep around here out of the goodness of their heart: but that does not make them special and doesn't change the relationship in any substantive way, and, more importantly, you clearly don't aim to profit but are clearly just helping out your fellow philosophy hobbyists and a little help your way is appreciated. Super clear as day non-formal hobby club of some sort that people have a right to do based on the freedom of association.

As soon as you're a business, you can easily be brought to court to answer to spurious arguments. Private citizens must be protected from predatory business and therefore judges must try to afford private citizens every opportunity to hold their services to account and have their day in court. On that day it can become clear that the matter is really, really, really dumb, but to get to that clarifying moment can be reall expensive.

But if boethius was, as @Outlander said, "just trying to look out for the best interest of Jamal, and as a result, all of us," you have to wonder why he responded to every correction with an evasion such as "Well the main point is that..." — Jamal

There's zero evasion, the idea you could start a business and cannot ever be summoned to court is absurd, for any business. Moreso for a business that does anything remotely controversial in addition to hurting specific people's feelings (which, at least from my perspective, some banned members seem to have had their feelings hurt).

Risk analysis starts with considering extreme scenarios and then working your way down to the mundane.

It will be your business. If you don't want believe anything extreme could possibly happen, such as some government official in the UK reading something published/hosted by your business and being like "we need to put an end to this," then ok don't believe that could possibly happen.

The reason I propose that as a risk worth considering is because there's a pathway available to you at the moment that would reduce all categories of speech-litigation risk, from the smallest to the most extreme, which is incorporate in a place with far more clear and secure freedom of speech laws. UK may still take issue, but they can't force a foreign business to do something in a foreign country without that also being the law in that foreign country (they also know foreign countries don't like that, same as no UK judge wants to be told what to do by some foreign judge according to laws that don't exist in the UK, say sharia law, so the reticence to even try to compel a foreign company to do something is extremely high).

However, if you're response is "that's fantasy, no government official has ever taken issue with things people say online and then gone about abusing power to suppress that speech or as retaliation," well then ok, sure, but there's still all the other categories of litigation risk.

As I say, make your own risk scenarios and assign your own likelihood and impact numbers to them.

Some scenarios (disgruntled ex-forum client of your forum business) I'm not saying are existential, just a pain in the ass that you may need to deal with and other strategies available avoid creating service-client legal relationships.

The purpose of considering this category of risk is that you may need to deal with such a scenario that consumes a lot of your time, all the money, and a lot more, you've brought in through the service equivalent of donations, and completely erases all the benefits and peace of mind you thought the business would create for you. Now if you sit down and think about this scenario and conclude the risk of this happening is 20% ... ok, is that a risk you're willing to take?

And so on for other risks, all the scenarios I propose have some likelihood of actually happening.

As with all risk analysis, there is a threshold below which the additional risk is just added noise to your daily risk of being just being alive; just another of many improbable disasters that could befall you at any moment from being struck by lightening to being in a plane crash. Risk is non-actionable when it approaches this "improbable disaster noise".

Risk that requires further analysis is anything above this "background risk noise".

Doesn't mean anything has to be done about the risk but only further analysis can provide some reason to do nothing. To take base jumping, once the weather is such that there is a "freak gust" risk that could be lethal, maybe our base jumper is still going to jump but it obviously depends on "how likely": 1 in a 1000 is way higher than the otherwise risk of death that day, but perhaps still far below the base jumpers risk tolerance, but let's say some numbers guy comes up with 1 in 10 ... obviously a different situation and anyone who jumps would be considered to have a death wish, playing Russian roulette for all intents and purposes.

In terms of dealing with the risk, even super mundane legal harassment by an ex-member that has zero merit and can't possibly win but a judge is willing to give them their day in court to hold you accountable, you still have to show up in court and deconstruct even spurious arguments.

There's a whole spectrum of risk, lot's of risk categories, the "go-no-go" decision should be based on some rational evaluation of all the risks and summing them over a reasonable period of time before a choice to renew, handoff or abandon naturally re-emerges, say 5 years, and that total risk below your risk tolerance.

Now, exactly what number in terms of likelihood and impact will be somewhat subjective. Take our base jumpers, they may agree there's wind, may agree gusts to happen, but one may "feel" the weather is simply calm enough that a freak gust would be 1 in a million, so jumps, and another feel it's more like 1 in a hundred and so doesn't jump.

The rational framework for making the decision is nevertheless the same for each jumper.

So in your case, you should make a spreadsheet with the different categories of litigation and compliance risk, and punch in numbers of likelihood over 5 years and then impact (basically money required to deal with the eventuality). The sum of all these values will be some expected value of the decision.

From a business planning perspective, what really bothers me is that no actual benefits have been described. You could change technology, comply with the laws, without making a business and creating any of these client-service litigation risks.

So, the expected value in this case is always negative. Normally, for a business, or then new business project, to be a good idea you go through this exercise about the risk and then go through the same exercise about the benefits. Analytical milestone 1 is the expected value of the benefits far outweighing the expected value of the risks.

To take our party management corporation for example, all the risks of what can befall wild party goers (and the impact on the bottom line) can be analyzed in the above way, but then also all the benefits of people paying for the party, networking with celebrities that absolutely need to be at your parties, legal consenting sexual opportunities as the party maestro everyone loves and so on.

However, if you go through all the costs and risks and the expected value of costs exceeds the expected value of the benefits, then the decision cannot be rational.

Analytical milestone 2 is then considering the stochastic nature of reality and that even if the expected risk-benefit is positive there is still the possibility of catastrophic failure, and that's where the risk tolerance comes in.

Analytical milestone 3 is then considering the ways to lower the risks even further and amplify the benefits.

boethius is just trying to look out for the best interest of Jamal, and as a result, all of us. Misguided or not. Why so authoritarian all of a sudden? Are you trying to emulate someone? :chin: — Outlander

And maybe the current plan is the best one, if we considered other plans there would be negatives in those too.

For example, my plan of get @Benkei to legally administrate in his jurisdiction, may run into the little problem of @Benkei never in a million years ever agreeing to that.

However, it's only in elaborating different plans, subjecting them to critical scrutiny, that we can be somewhat confident what the best plan is.

There's also plan don't-incorporate.

The reason @Jamal needed a structure to do contracting work is that it greatly simplifies other businesses hiring his services and transferring him the money.

In this case, if we're talking about really small amounts, then it should be seriously considered to just keep things private property, hobby level activity, no services, no clients, no trade registry duties and liabilities.

If a structure is to be made, I would seriously recommend it's because there's some plan to bring in significant funds to achieve more goals.

So that's the basic framework I'd propose as a starting point of analysis.

I'm also not drawing any conclusions for @Jamal here, as his risk tolerance could anyways be super high as well as his willingness to fly back to the UK anytime to deal with whatever it is. Likewise, the negatives in the viable alternative plans could be deal breakers whereas dealing with UK litigation is not. Some analysis is required to be confident about any conclusion.

And what you for certain shouldn't believe is that by making a limited liability business to provide a forum service to forum clients, that you are reducing your risk.

You are greatly expanding it, with essentially no benefits from my point of view.

Pure fantasy. — Jamal

If you have some reason to believe you can never be brought to court, that would be one thing. Royal immunity for example.

However, the starting assumption for any business is that litigation can and will occur and so how to minimize the risk and how to deal with it.

Playing whack-a-mole trying to prove each risk scenario I describe can't possibly happen is not a reasonable business planning methodology.

You should sit down and list all the litigation risks you can think of and evaluate the probability of each occurring within a 5 year time span. Feel free to ignore what I consider risks needing consideration, make your own list and your own calculations.

Risk is likelihood multiplied by impact.

So extreme scenarios are less likely but higher impact which is why they need to be considered, if they can happen.

Some freak gust of wind maybe unlikely but could kill one of our dear base jumpers, so they should consider carefully the weather patterns.

Now if you do that exercise and the risk (the entire spectrum of litigation risk) is below your threshold of risk tolerance, then you can entertain the idea of lowering the risk even more but it's not a big issue.

What you're discussing is creating a structure that can be far more easily used to bring you to court (you won't have any special leeway compared to any businessman if you want to do business; there's not "100 pounds a month" business law that stipulates you don't have to deal with things other businessmen have to deal with). Even one court process can take years to resolve, be immensely stressful and costly (even just to get to court if you don't live close by!).

My main point here is before flipping that switch you should really make sober reflection and analysis.

What are the litigation risks? How likely are they to happen? Can you deal with them if they do happen?

At the moment you seem to be engaged in magical thinking that if you're just good faith (from your own perspective) and follow a short list of rules based on your own understanding of them, then you can't be sued.

To escape an existing legal liability! Like I’m already facing a fine or a lawsuit and I form a company to escape the consequences. So you've misunderstood. It would not apply to TPF. — Jamal

That is for sure, zero question.

The argument that you've premeditatedly done that, knowing you would create immense liabilities without a reasonable business plan to handle those liabilities, is an argument a plaintiff can make and a judge can listen to, among many other arguments, sound or unsound.

UK courts may want to make an example of you that you can't just make a small company, no intention to grow a business, to do what you were doing before on your personal liability, simply to create immense damages and then walk away.

It wouldn't bother the business community if you aren't making any money and clearly aren't doing business. Plaintiff attorneys can be all like "is @Jamal like really an entrepreneur? Really?

But even if you win the argument, it's still a whole process to be in court, defending yourself, and engage with these kinds of arguments. Which is what happens in court, plaintiff attorneys can make dozens of spurious arguments to force you to deconstruct each one only to eventually get to an argument that actually matters, which you're too exhausted to deal with precisely well enough to win that argument.

A judge won't make your case for you as a business (what a judge may try to do if you're a private individual).

If you're representing yourself you're at a massive disadvantage.

The Online Safety Act applies to all websites that are accessible in the UK, regardless of where the owners live/are incorporated or where the website is hosted. — Michael

But it's very different if you're incorporated outside the UK.

If you're incorporated outside the UK then it's far less likely for UK courts to simply fine you 19 million pounds, and there's no enforcement mechanism immediately available from UK courts to a business incorporated in another country. The UK can either then complain to you, complain to the country you're actually in, or then shutoff access to the website in the UK.

What the UK couldn't really do is demand foreign small businesses to show up in UK courts. Mostly they would just ignore as much as possible foreign small business websites, and if they can't for some reason then they would threaten to just turn off the website in the UK if the demands aren't satisfied.

If you're not breaking any laws where you actually incorporated then it's not really possible for UK courts to enforce any action against you (other than turn you off in the UK, an action they can enforce).

So being incorporated elsewhere would be a totally different relationship to UK law. Consumer protection mechanisms would not want to deal with complaints against foreign small business, whereas they maybe eager to deal with speech complaints of UK based small businesses to set the example.

Hence, the most impactful thing to reduce the entire spectrum of speech based legal actions, is to be in a country that has super excessive free speech laws and courts just don't hear those cases.

However to address the substance of your last point:

And that's the end of it." Continuing to spin up long posts one after another is not helpful in the overall picture. — Leontiskos

This is exactly the time in a business where lengthy analysis and deliberations are helpful.

@Jamal right now has a whole spectrum of choices available and a whole community to help implement whatever choice is made.

The best choice can really have a lot of benefits.

Any option is going to have pros and cons.

Simply elaborating a risk does not mean that risk is likely nor that risk is unacceptable.

The point is first to properly understand the risk, evaluate it's likelihood and impact, then see to what extent the risk can be mitigated, and finally to either accept the risk or discontinue whatever it is.

For example, base jumpers evaluate the risk of jumping to their doom, do what they can to mitigate it, and ultimately accept the remaining risk if they choose to jump. Each base jumper has some risk tolerance.

So all the risks I've spelled out may not happen, but seem to me can possibly happen so best to think about it long and hard, be sure of the facts and also how those risks can be reduced.

You did some quick research about some other legal system and then assumed that it would also apply to the UK? — Leontiskos

That would be additional reason in favour of those jurisdictions over the UK jurisdiction.

It seems like you are not a legal professional, and you are trying to offer Jamal legal loopholes to evade UK laws, or else suggesting that he cede ownership of the site to some other individual in some other country. — Leontiskos

That makes no sense.

Zero UK law preventing @Jamal from incorporating where he wants. Of course, many conditions may apply whatever the choice, but having a business in another jurisdiction is not a "loophole".

That seems worrisome. Further, your arguments don't make sense to me. Make of your suggestions actually seem counterproductive, such as your suggestion that Jamal should ditch what is apparently the UK equivalent of an LLC (limited liability company). As has been pointed out, this would saddle Jamal with more liability than not. — Leontiskos

What I've pointed out is that limited liability is not a guarantee, it's a privilege that can be challenged, so something @Jamal must take into consideration. One classic way to find out you have no liability protections is if the plaintiff can demonstrate you created the business primarily to escape liability.

The bankruptcy process does not end with declaring bankruptcy and then managers just brush off their hands and walk away. The managers of a business can then be sued personally by arguing their actions were not lawful or sufficiently reasonable to maintain their limited liability (reckless or negligent etc.).

At some point you have to say, "My suggestions have been heard. They have not been heeded. And that's the end of it." Continuing to spin up long posts one after another is not helpful in the overall picture. — Leontiskos

You must be new to philosophy forum, but you are very welcome here I'm sure.

I really don't understand what point you're trying to argue. The facts are that (a) if we are to continue to provide access to UK residents then we must comply with the Online Safety Act and that (b) it is better for a private limited company to risk being fined £18 million than for Jamal to risk personally being fined £18 million. — Michael

I'm not arguing against either point.

My point is those two problems can be solved in many different ways, in particular many different jurisdictions and several kinds of incorporations.

There's also many different organizational strategies to do whatever the goals are and also have available the resources to deal with foreseeable eventualities.

There will be pros and cons of any choice.

but I don't see that his particular arguments are cogent. — Leontiskos

Lawsuits don't need to be cogent to get started. That's my first issue.

When conducting business you can easily be sued as doing business creates contractual relationships and all sorts of obligations that people can easily argue you've broken.

So my first concern is can any lawsuit of any kind be dealt with?

Does it make sense to create the potential situation of needing to fly back to the UK, deal with court processes, potentially for years, for a business aiming to make 100 pounds a month?

Even if the case makes no sense and has no merit but a court process is needed to determine that.

That's stress test number 1.

Stress test number 2 would be someone taking particular fanatical displeasure with @Jamal and deciding to carry out some maximally disruptive series of complaints. Will @Jamal have time to deal with that and show in exhaustive detail that the alleged wrongdoing did not occur?

Stress test number 3 is someone wants the assets of the company and decides harassing litigation is the best way to make @Jamal just give up and hand over the business, too much hassle and stress even to deal with.

Stress test number 4 is a case of some actual grounds of breaking some law (perhaps a law we all disagree with but is a law and there is merit to the idea the law has been broken).

I think you have a misunderstanding of the Online Safety Act. If we don't comply then the Office of Communications (Ofcom) can fine us (up to £18 million or 10% of revenue, whichever is higher) or take us down. — Michael

This is one issue.

Who would be reporting you for not following this act is likely private individuals.

This would be in the broad category of consumer protection mechanisms that the government does but a private individual initiates.

There maybe many such mechanisms such as data protection and so on.

It has nothing to do with private individuals suing us because they believe they've been harmed. — Michael

For what a private individual can most easily sue you is service related. You provide a service, client receives that service, the client is unhappy with it and brings you to court. There can be all sorts of legal doctrines used to do so and all sorts of harms claimed. What is clear from the outset is that you're a business, you provide a service, one of your clients is dissatisfied so should probably have their day in court to test if you're business practices are reasonable and lawful (i.e. the threshold is low).

As I said, the offence happens where the harm is suffered. — Jamal

I've done some research quickly on this topic.

So first, whatever the result of the case elsewhere, your local district court would need to agree to enforce it and that can result in re-litigation.

However, all these kinds of cases are essentially defamation cases of clearly identifying and attacking a particular identifiable person, not political or artistic speech cases which is what I'm talking about.

At least in the EU you could not be sued elsewhere for political or artistic speech, a plaintiff would need to come to your district to submit such a claim.

"Where the harm occurred" is targeted harm, not the general harm to the whole world of just bad taste and bad ideas.

I'm pretty confident it would be the same in the UK.

Yep! — Jamal

Well then that would be additional reason to incorporate in another jurisdiction, as you'd either appear at distance (and so at a disadvantage) or then need to move around even in the UK!

That's a wildly insane legal doctrine that makes it even easier to harass people due to their speech.

As I said, the offence happens where the harm is suffered. — Jamal

Seems to me really preposterous and obviously the UK courts jettison this doctrine the moment someone sues a UK resident, for saying something while in their home in the UK ... from another country.

As I said, the offence happens where the harm is suffered. So yes, the case can be brought in London because that's where the harm occurred, but in reality the defendant would usually appear remotely by video. — Jamal

Well that does seem to me strange.

However, can you be sued right now in London for something you say on philosophy forum?

Or northern Scotland or anywhere in the UK if someone feels you've harmed them directly or indirectly through this philosophy forum?

The plaintiff's location is the connection. It's about where the harm has occurred. — Jamal

Again, most regular people don't go cause harm far from where they live.

So a private individual who says something online in Northern Scotland, that someone in London takes issue with, will need to appear in London court?

The offence has occurred in Northern Scotland or in London?

For, we're talking about online speech.

Why do you think consumer rights magically appear just because a company exists? They don't. Anyone who could hypothetically sue The Philosophy Forum Ltd could already do the same against me personally today. The company just limits my personal exposure if someone ever did try something. — Jamal

Right now philosophy forum is your private property that you don't provide a service through. So it's like inviting us to your private house: you can invite us to come in and you can tell us to go.

Once you're a company, you are by definition providing a service. You can't go to court and say you are a company but you provide no product or service ... yet you do things anyways (i.e. you have activity that creates liability, unlike a shelf or zombie company).

Providing service creates consumer protections.

What you're saying is basically akin to you throw parties every weekend and people just come and party and it's always been easy and you've never had to worry about the law, and therefore if you made a company to organize parties it would be the same level of laissez faire nonchallantness and general unconcern for the law.

The situations of private party and company party service are very different, just more easy to visualize what kind of business liability is created in throwing wildass spanking crazy parties like we all know you do.

You can easily visualize someone choking, starting a fire, having a heart-attack, getting sick from the buffet (or something else entirely!) and then blaming you for it as the party business operator. You can't as easily visualize people taking issue with political and artistic speech because you obviously don't have a problem with political and artistic speech, but you need to really put yourself in the viewpoint of someone who does and what legal mechanism you maybe in the process of creating for them to express their frustrations.

What I'm providing is a framework to analyze liability and business decisions.

You should assume at all times there is a pathway to wild success and a pathway to total destruction. Your actions as well as outside events you have no control of will determine which pathway occurs.

Ultimately, a reasonable business decision is one where the pathway to wild success is more probable than complete destruction (but they are always both within the realm of possibility).

Liability analysis starts with the worst case scenarios.

Either there's some reason those worst case scenarios won't happen: no one's ever been too upset with being banned or what's said, politicians have never taken issue with what random people say about them online, and so on, or then there's a probability estimate that is low enough that the benefits outweigh the risk.

Once the risks are identified you then want to further optimize the strategy and decisions.

Optimization means sensitivity analysis.

The biggest risks in what you want to do are legal hazards due to unlawful speech risks. The most sensitive factor in determining those risks is jurisdiction. The more you're in a jurisdiction where pretty much any speech is not unlawful, then the lower those litigation and other consumer protection mechanisms risk become.

Then for-profit or non-profit would be the next most sensitive factor.

My recommendation would be to aim to make a structure that is financially sustainable and can handle all the kinds of events that are likely to happen, including normal life events like you get sick or have something else you need to do for a while.

Whatever the most suited jurisdiction, perhaps it is as you say and a non-profit is more complicated, but perhaps it can also more easily bring in the resources to thrive.

This is simply not true in UK law. — Jamal

You're saying you could live in Norther Scotland and be forced to appear in a London court by a plaintiff, without the case having any connection to London (except maybe the plaintiff lives there)?

That would indeed be a really unusual legal system.

The usual legal system is that the vast majority of regular people can only be sued in the district where they live.

Exceptions would be things like you have a house in another district and someone is suing about that house (and some reason the district should hear the case concerning that house and that it should belong to you, for example), but most regular people don't have a house elsewhere than where they live ... or any house.

Again, I have no idea what is going on in your legal system but in UK law, pretty much everything you say in that post is false, and perhaps based on some very peculiar circumstances that you know about from your own life. — Jamal

My own life dealing with both business and court processes.

Your idea that if you just implement the rules reasonably well then you're good is totally false.

People have a right to claim you haven't followed the rules and have a right to make that case and bring that case to court to seek restitution and remedy.

That you think you haven't done and won't do anything wrong does not prevent the above from happening anyways, in any jurisdiction.

The main question is motivation. If no one's ever motivated enough to bring you to court then that obviously won't happen. Your experience with contracting is in that category as businesses don't have time and money to bring contractors to court and engage in years of litigation to recover tiny losses (and I imagine you are good at your job anyways so there's only minor disputes if any).

However, if someone is motivated enough they will find a way to bring you to court.

So that's the essence of my questions:

You have more experience with all the people you've banned than I do, are you confident none of them would bring you to court when they suddenly have consumer rights vis-a-vis The Philosophy Forum Ldt. that would allow them to do so?

Are you confident no one participating or reading the forum would ever interpret anything on the forum as something from the naughty list of no-no's, and be motivated to have their day in court about that?

Are you confident the UK government will never take particular interest in what's said here on their own account for whatever reason?

In a jurisdiction with strong freedom of speech laws (the US being only one of them), none of that analysis is needed as people can't anyways bring you to court over political and artistic speech.

As for legal predation, speech is only one avenue, but could be literally anything, some area of the law you've never even heard about.

Rather than an argument against forming a UK company, this seems to be an argument against existing at all. — Jamal

No, if there's a jurisdiction where judges are likely to simply not hear speech based cases, then that is a huge mitigating factor.

For the expenses of court processes to start accruing, a case needs to be heard by a judge. So if there's a law that you can't say X, Y, and Z then a judge will hear a case by anyone claiming you said that. The case can't be dismissed as the issue is factual and not whether the claim is legal or not to begin with. It could take years to actually prove you never said X, Y and/or Z.

So, if you're (i.e. incorporated structure of whatever kind) in a jurisdiction where you can essentially say anything you want then judges won't hear those cases as the facts don't matter, the plaintiff is not claiming you've acted unlawfully as you can say what you want and therefore there is no factual dispute needing to be resolved by a court process.

Remind me again why you think it's better if I get sued personally rather than The Philosophy Forum Ltd. — Jamal

To sue someone personally you need to go to the district where they live, so the issue of physically getting to court is at least solved.

Once in court you are just a private citizen going about your personal hobby, you're not a business and have none of the responsibilities that go along with that.

A judge will tend to be extremely non-sympathetic to some random foreigner coming and suing a private person in their district and will want to be viewed as protecting citizens that actually live there against vindictive or predatory schemes of outsiders.

There's no expectation that you'd need a lawyer, as you're not a business, or know very well the law, the judge will take that into consideration that you are just a private individual with limited means.

If the judge did rule against you, the damages would also take into account that you are a private individual with limited means and so could be trivial what you're ordered to pay.

The plaintiff's we need to worry about (some random person in the world) would super unlikely live anywhere close to you, so the problem of travel would be reversed and they would need to come and physically be in court to make their case.

All this is a huge disincentive and goes a long way in explaining why no one's ever sued you for banning them.

As soon as you're doing business you get none of these advantages.

If one business had to pay X for some similar thing, then you too should pay X.

There's a list of rules, even if you are following them to the letter, someone can make up a case that you haven't been following them.

All the rules mean is you can be brought to court to account for your rule following.

Terrorism content: material that encourages, glorifies, or provides instruction for terrorism, or originates from a proscribed terrorist organisation — Jamal

This is the one I'd be worried about.

But the basic gist of what I'm trying to say is that "following the rules" is not anyways a way to avoid court and the expenses of even going to court.

Someone can just say you're breaking the law, take things out of context, even fabricate evidence that never happened or make wild claims about what did happen. Who's to say you're in the right and did nothing wrong?

A lengthy and expensive court process.

Wouldn't that be like, a huge deal, turning Jamal into a celebrity overnight and elevating this quiet little corner of the Internet into something anyone here wouldn't ever imagine in their wildest dreams? — Outlander

That would be my plan, but I'd only be confident of that if the business is based in the US as freedom of speech is such a big deal for Americans, plenty of organizations and celebrities dedicated to the cause.

However, UK judges could just put a gag order on @Jamal .. and then he'd never be famous :confused:

Aren't there equal safeguards against this blatant and codified form of abuse of the legal system? Frivolous lawsuits, "lawfare", etc? — Outlander

The problem is proving that is what's happening, then making a law suite about that, then all the suites playing out in court.

But basically, someone who passionately hates @Jamal and takes some issue with something he's done, clearly genuinely believes in their cause as proven by their fanatical endless passionate hatred.

Someone who is really a well resourced predator would have the sophistication and accomplices to carry out such a crime without creating any evidence that is what is happening. They will come to court as simply country folk with good cause and better reputations.

Such an actor could make a company to make a company to make a company to, all in different countries, just to sue @Jamal.

Freedom of speech does pretty much exist in America, land of the free.

My main argument is against the UK jurisdiction, mainly due to all the speech laws that have been created, or suddenly enforced in new ways.

I'm not doubting that the basic administration of a small business is an issue. For example if you were talking about making a new business structure to do contracting work none of this would be relevant.

However, speech people don't like regularly turns into lawsuits, so I do not see how you'd be somehow immune.

There's three categories of problems:

1. An individual makes it their mission to make as many problems for you as possible. For example someone you have or will ban. You need to map out what they would be capable of doing legally, both through consumer and data protection mechanisms as well as lawsuits. What can they force you to deal with. What grounds they could have to have their suite heard and what merits they could have to actually win.

2. Legal predation to take philosophy forum assets and perhaps even your assets. If someone wanted to create a pretext to sue you to then take control of your business, could that be done and how easily? Keep in mind, even if it's clear that's what they are doing, saying so publicly would just result in another defamation suite.

3. Harassment by the government. Maybe someone posts on the forum something about some minister that minister finds out about (as they obsessively police their online mentions) and then uses their government power to go after your business and you yourself: audits, hate speech, money laundering, whatever.

You need to either be confident none of these things would ever happen or then be confident in a strategy and resources available to deal with each one.

Then there's practical issues, starting with not living in the UK. Even if you had representation, a representative can't testify on your behalf so if there's some issue that goes to court, no matter how silly, you'd need to fly back to the UK to be in court for the hearing to explain that the plaintiffs version of events didn't happen and makes no sense. The plaintiff may know you don't live in the UK and so insist on hearings as much as possible to force you to travel and spend money and have your life disrupted.

If you lived in the UK then you could analyze all the issues and then have the plan to just go defend yourself in court whenever you need to, trust to the court's good judgement. However, if the plaintiff can force you to spend money then they can just keep doing that until you're broke.

But whatever the decision it cannot be changed easily, so should be really well thought out.

Serious consideration should be also given to making a simple non-profit.

There are several advantages for this situation:

A non-profit has more sympathy with the courts as a judges generally view non-profits as naive do-gooders with a social mission (if it makes some sense what the non-profit is about) who shouldn't be legally harassed. So that would also solve a lot of the legal problems.

The assets of a non-profit can't be so easily preyed upon by bad actors, so the brand, database, network etc. would be far more secure from legal predation, even if someone did start to legally harass the non-profit.

A non-profit does not have a client relationship with people donating, so gets rid of all those legal problems of payment-for-service.

Whereas I think most of the forum members would agree we don't want commercial advertising here, a non-profit could get grants from other non-profits and foundations who like the cause of dialogue between different ideologies (or then want to be seen supporting the idea), and since it's not advertisement those logos need not be prominent but can be somewhere.

Grants could even be raised to expand operations, such as in person conferences and live debates, maybe even a podcast. Pretty much anything new would be easier to raise donation or grant money than try to make commercially successful.

And these advantages could be easily combined with the advantages of @Benkei helping to legally administer the structure, if he was so inclined.

How I would recommend structuring things is that there's a core group of administrators and the basic fees can be covered by that core group (such as the 100 per month discussed above and other miscellaneous expenses); of course can also be covered by donations but if the administrators can cover the fees if needs be that is a stable foundation (in exchange they have far more influence than anyone else). In addition to that, then we have part of the forum dedicated to members of the community working on grant applications and raising donations to do more things (obviously in a legal way); so if the money is raised, great, if not then those additional things don't happen and therefore no financial problem happens due to nothing happening.

I think his point was, based on his understanding, which I assume to be accurate, OSA compliance basically protects a person from all of that, assuming they abide by its guidelines, which include ability to moderate and delete offending content. — Outlander

What should happen and what does happen are two different things.

I'm not disputing that Jamal can run the forum lawfully.

I'm pointing out that is up for interpretation that only a judge gets to decide, and just going through the process can be immensely expensive.

There's also essentially endless areas of the law to consider, so even if one area was indeed "super locked down" a lawsuit could arise in another area.

To put it another way, someone who hires a lawyer in the UK to find some pretext to sue Jamal's business will almost certainly make good on that contract.

As it stands now, Jamal is a UK citizen open to anyone who is also a UK citizen to take him to court, if they have the wherewithal, of course. — Outlander

If he lived in the UK that would be slightly better as you can at least show up in court and defend yourself.

And yes, it does vary on jurisdiction, precisely as you say. Though what is interesting is this is "hosted" software (as will the new forum be, presumably) meaning it depends on not only where those servers are located but how experienced (or inclined toward the particular site owner or free speech in general) the forum company that provides the software and hosting, which it can terminate the forum "owner's" license or ability to use it at anytime, mind you. What would stop me from filing a request, right now as things are, to either the forum company or if this were actually privately-hosted, the hosting company and essentially accomplishing the same thing (getting the site shut down or forced to remove offending content or otherwise fundamentally changing how it operates? — Outlander

Yes, even more exposure to legal harassment.

And my main issue is the motivation of people who take issue with Jamal and the damage they can do with zero merits at all. Endless ways to legally harass a business, so the more important question is if that motivation would arise.

On top of that, no one is perfect so then there's also all the cases that can arise where the plaintiff actually has merit and the damage that would do (even if every member of philosophy forum thinks the law in question has no merit, that won't matter to a judge).

That said, you seem to know your stuff. Such wisdom is best heeded, perhaps? :smile: — Outlander

Thank you for the appreciation. For some reason experience in business is rarely valued by people wanting to start a business. I'm not really sure why, but I think movies have oversimplified things for people.

But basic recommendation would be to try to take advantage of a lawyer actually being part of our community. That would be simplest and surest way. Even as an experienced business person I'd thank my lucky stars if @Benkei agreed to legally administer my micro forum business. I have zero idea if he would, but that would solve all the above issues: predators look for weak targets and a lawyer is not a weak target so that in itself would solve 99% of potential problems, in addition to @Benkei actually knowing what the law actually says and how a judge is likely to interpret it.

And then there's the actual legitimate lawsuits that you can face from your actual customers.

As soon as you're a business, anyone paying your business is now a client and getting a service.

If you ban them for reasons they don't feel are legitimate they can bring consumer protection complaints also sue you in UK court for financial and emotional damages.

As "normal citizens" they need not ought to know anything, can represent themselves, get coaching and leeway from the judge to seek the justice they are due, which is at minimum a judge hearing their case and making you account for your actions.

There's also legal arguments that exist you likely cannot even imagine exist and are even more surprised judges take them seriously.

For example, right here today you've just explained your primary purpose in making a business is to just continue on as you were before, not grow in anyway, just just pocket the benefits of limited liability protection. Well, someone who's already bankrupted you in court (years from now) can then take this conversation and use your words as evidence your business was bad faith, you never intended to build a real business but just wanted to personally protect yourself from your unlawful speech machinations you call philosophy, you've done nothing different than what you did before as a personal hobby, and therefore the courts should not extend to you the privileges awarded to real serious business people trying to grow the economy with blood, sweat, and tears: that you cannot under the law make a business solely for the purposes of hiding from liability, which it is written in the book of "A new home for TPF" is Jamal's primary consideration in this affair.

As for liability, having limited liability is not written in stone.

If you get sued for hundreds of thousands of pounds the winning party could then argue that it was not lawful to create that kind of liability as a small business to shield yourself from the legal consequences of your reckless speech actions and therefore you should be held personally liable.

And if a business goes bankrupt there are essentially prima facie grounds to hear the case that it went bankrupt for incompetent and unlawful actions.

It's difficult to argue that you're not competent enough to run a business but you are competent enough to run a business legally as grounds for a case to be thrown out.

Why most small businesses don't get sued then is that they have nothing worth taking and have no public exposure, dealing only with people and businesses they know (such as software contracting) and can easily navigate things with common sense. However, public exposure to lawsuits, such as speech people don't like, means anyone in the world can take issue with you and bring you to court, put you through various consumer and data protection processes and other legal "remedies" to what ails them.