All are welcome (even RVBoy)From what I've seen, RVBoy tries to focus on technical concerns.
In your new role, will you get to travel outside the home country? Many New Zealanders are privileged to travel fairly widely (I'm in Philly next week, fwiw, and my kids are in the South of France) and it's one of those "the more you know, the more you realize you don't know" scenarios. That's how it seems to me, anyway.
My first and last political comments on UT for the year: first, don't imagine that "all the rest" have it in for you or for your country. Second, IMHO there is a new balance of power and the nuke is no longer the ultimate weapon. Biological warfare gives even the tiniest "state with a grudge" the opportunity to strike a terrific blow at any Western population. IMHO foreign diplomacy needs a total overhaul: for example, permanent Security Council seats with veto rights in the UN... denying others the right to do that which we ourselves practice routinely... that's like a big "kick me" sign IMHO. which is fine when you're the 6'4 giant in a field of schoolboys... but not so smart if the others get slingshots and start landing dog turds on you from out of sight ;-)
As for UT- if it's taking too much time or creating interpersonal situations you don't like, just turn off Chatter... I did it months ago.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1