Sampson

They treat it like it’s all a game. I think someone else said it, but the USA doesn’t have the same scars of the world wars as Europe does, it was essentially a faraway foreign war for them like Iraq or Afghanistan was for us with no real chance of hurting them at home, of course sad for the proportion of the population who lost family members in invasions but it didn’t affect everyone in the country in the same way. They didn’t have the air raids, the rationing, the blackouts, the evacuations, the seeing friends and family members die, the seeing cities you’d visited turned to rubble, the having to kill your beloved family dog or cat so they couldn’t make noise at night, they don’t have those stories that got passed down by parents or grandparents like we all do. As such, they don’t have the same cultural understanding of what war really means to individuals at an animalistic survival level like we do in Europe (or like they do in China and Japan). That’s why they can still treat it like a game like this.

The worst is when people are on the bus, train or metro and just watching YouTube or ticktok with the sound turned up and no headphones, like they want everyone to listen to the shitty conspiracy theory video they’re watching

Connections Puzzle #1005 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟪🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪 Last 2 were tough and half guessed. There was a bit of Americanism in them

Wordle 1 727 4/6 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 🟩⬜🟩⬜🟩 🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Same thing happened to Stalin - get rid of anyone who dares disagree with you and surround yourself with people who think you’re the 2nd coming of Christ and will say yes to anything you want while calling anyone who argues with you a “woke cancer” and yeah, you won’t be making carefully critiqued and debated arguments anymore

What about Iain Hume’s penalty miss vs Sheffield Wednesday that sent us down to League One?

Putting Moltbook in the hands of Zuckerberg does not strike me as a good idea https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg1x788dreo Facebook owner Meta buys 'social media network for AI' Moltbook

Wordle 1 726 5/6 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Connections Puzzle #1004 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩

That’s fair I was being overly sarcastic I apologise. I think it’s the same all round the world though tbh in secondary cities, the economy of most countries even those that didn’t deindustrialise has sort of congregated towards the 2 or 3 big cities of a country and these mid size cities have been left behind a bit Lived in Portsmouth for a long while and they managed to survive by turning into a student city in the 00s and early 10s, but that’s all falling apart now as less people are going to uni and visa restrictions are even making it harder to get the international students to cover the costs. They’ve tried revitalising a few parts of the city and the seafront which looks nice but it’s hard to know where they city is going to go next, there’s still the old arcades on the seafront from the 60s where it used to be a south coast holiday town that look very out of date now.

I would imagine the biggest conflict in human history in which every city had to transform into a military-industrial complex breaking out 3 years later and and which completely bankrupted the country probably had a lot to do with it

It’s funny how you make up your own red herrings in your head. I took one look at Penn and tried to convince myself Sean Brown and Sean Duke are definitely 100% famous names too and like “I’ve definitely got in the back of my mind they’re the real names of famous rappers” or something.

Wordle 1 725 3/6 ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ 🟩⬜🟨⬜🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Connections Puzzle #1003 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟪🟨🟪 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟦🟦🟦🟦

It’s actually not as confusing as it used to be. Once you remember Donald Trump was the reality tv star he was for decades in the US. reach the realisation that Donald Trump’s sole motivation is to be the richest and most famous person who ever lived (and that he had little care about anything else, certainly not the lives or suffering of other human beings), and to do that he’s used reality tv and The Real Housewives shows as inspiration by constantly exaggerating bitchy arguments and .then exaggerating making up a short time later and continuing that cycle in an ever escalating degree. Avcording to an episode of the Rest us Politics, it’s allegedly an open secret Trump and his cronies all make billions off betting on the markets before he makes big announcements knowing what’s coming and high ups in the US were showing them how you could see them making money off all his moves by how they place bets just before the endless up-and-down news cycles of escalating shit.,. Then you realise Elon Musk is currently the same and trying to drive the same thing amongst the tech bros and in various European countries It’s not confusing like it used to be when there’s all kinds of secret negotiations and real politik - thar doesn’t happen anymore, it’s all just public spats on twitter. The Zelenskyy attack in the White House, ratxheting up Switzerland’s tarryffs because he found the PM too whiny on the phone, it really is that basic and crass, The world has become a Reality TV show, one that doesn’t care who lives or dies, as long as there’s drama to drown out all the shit so they can make more money of the escalating cycle of drama.

A worthy reminder in these times. The Mower by Philip Larkin The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found A hedgehog jammed up against the blades, Killed. It had been in the long grass. I had seen it before, and even fed it, once. Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world Unmendably. Burial was no help: Next morning I got up and it did not. The first day after a death, the new absence Is always the same; we should be careful Of each other, we should be kind While there is still time.

AI has made this thread much less fun the past year or two.

Had a complete brain fart today. Got as a yellow letter in my 3rd guess, but in my mind I had it as as a greyed out letter that wasn’t in the word, so I made it impossible for myself. Wordle 1 724 X/6 ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ 🟨⬜⬜🟨🟨 🟨🟩🟨🟨⬜ ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟨 ⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜ ⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜

Connections Puzzle #1002 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟨🟪🟩🟨 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟪🟩🟪🟪 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟩🟩🟩🟩

I think this Reform councillor in Nottingham sums them up, they spend £75k on flags to which someone says “you could’ve fixed 1,000 potholes with that money” to which they say “shut up about the flags, we’ve run out of money” It’s all just meaningless culture war shit, it’s not about fixing the country (in fact they want the country to be run down so they can continually go on about what a shithole Britain is and talk the country down ad nauseam).

Couldn’t see today’s at all, failed miserably Connections Puzzle #1001 🟪🟩🟨🟨 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟪🟦🟪🟦 🟪🟦🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟪🟦

Wordle 1 723 5/6 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨 ⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜ ⬜🟩🟨⬜🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Looks like everyone doing well today. The green group was one of the easiest I remember. Connections Puzzle #1000🎉 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟪🟪🟪🟪

Took me far longer than usual to see it Wordle 1 722 4/6 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜🟩🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩