Sampson

It’s inevitable with AI, heard on The News Agents podcast yesterday that graduate jobs down 33% in the space of 1 year which is utterly insane - that 1/3rd of jobs for young people are gone in a year. That’s the problem with this government and the opposition and perhaps even more so under Reform who are in Musk’s pocket and talking about deregulating AI and let big money run riot with it - we’re currently undergoing the biggest technological revolution in human history, bigger than the Industrial Revolution, bigger than the internet and the government and so much of the opposition are sat their dicking around arguing about 0.1% growth or shrinkage and taxes being put up or down a bit. None of that is going to matter in 5-10 years when all the jobs have been replaced by robots. This isn’t just the “oh AI will create new jobs, like how deindustrialisation under Thatcher created all these service jobs” stuff anymore - service jobs done by younger people are going, blue collar jobs are going, middle class office jobs are going and there’s going to be nothing to replace them with.

Bergkamp and Hesjey’s goals would’ve been at Filbert Street.

One of those things I think we’d all say we might do in that situation but that I think few of us would genuinely have the bravery to do when push came to shove.

Depends on what you mean by best? Just technique, how good it looks, or do you include importance and context of the game in that? Albrighton vs Sevilla for example is probably the one that felt the biggest and made me celebrate the most.

Feck me. If that is real, that guys is a fecking hero and should get the highest honours Australia can give.

No mention of Godspeed You! Black Emperor?

Scary thing is that this is the shit coming our way when his “good friend” Nigel Farage gets in power in 2029 and what 1/4 of our fellow citizens actually want to be ruled by.

Haha. Well my preference by this point, especially after the US and Russia have now semi-formally allied up against us would be a United States of Europe spanning from Iceland to Ukraine but that’s pipe dreams.

BBC is definitely starting to change its wording to become softer towards China and less soft towards the US now. Don’t know if it’s an editorial decision or just a subconscious one as the British public’s views on both countries are changing but there’s no way you’d have seen the main headline of this story being “US seizes oil tanker off Venezuela as Caracas condemns 'act of piracy' “. That act of piracy quote would’ve been buried at the bottom of the article 18 months ago, not as a way to frame the headline.

I mean, it was a pretty much solely state distributed economy where the factories, farms and mines were collectively owned and the goods made by them were distributed by the state rather than individuals or corporations with money used essentially only as tokens, that sounds like a pure socialist economy to me. The USSR wasn’t like modern Russia where it’s lots of partially-state owned corporations competing with each other in the market owned by oligarchs or whatever. Nor modern China which hasn’t been communist since the 90s. Feels a bit “real Brexit has never been tried” when people say this. That being said talking about socialist and communist economies is a bit redundant in modern post-industrialised service and data driven economies of 2025. Debates about who should own the factories, farms and mines and the resources made by them are kind of irrelevant when most people work in service or distribution.

Yeah fr. Imagine if France invaded and bombed out south west England and everyone living there fled to the midlands and the north and you said “oh Bristol is just a bombed out shell nowadays, we should just give it up it’s like we’re like a bald man fighting over a comb. But Bristol is where people grew up and lived their whole lives, they feel memories of Clifton deep in their core; it’s where their parents and grandparents are buried as well as all the memories they had with them etc. I grew up in Leicestershire and also lived in Portsmouth for many many years, if either Leicester or Portsmouth got invaded, it wouldn’t just feel like “oh it doesn’t matter, it’s just a city; and I can go and move to Newcastle and start a new life there as that’ll still be British territory. Places where people spend years with their loved ones are important to people, trying to bat that off as Ukrainians fighting over a comb feels like a very sad and unempathetic way to view humans and humanity. It’s not a game of Risk where people are just fighting over dots on a map for the people living there, people are fighting over their identity and memories of loved ones.

You remember the last 2 world cups right? Both pure propaganda exercises in which the press in the uk were all saying “wow, can’t believe how smooth it’s been here” and kissing the Russian and Qatari arses. The Brazil one before where we did have all the anti-Balsanaro protests had the protests pretty much buried by the media (and those 2014 protests look way more important in hindsight as the ascension of Balsanaro and Erdogan in that summer in 2014 were arguably the start of the age of populism and anti-liberal democracy we’re in now).

I’m sorry, but he has picked a side and drawn a line in the sand and been very open about it on multiple occasions, and he picked it before he was even elected. This latest formal openness of hostility towards the UK and Europe is just the formal end of Project 2025 which is something that was widely shared and known about before the election. Farage seems to have picked the same side and has been pretty clear about his alignment with Trump as well. A major problem has been we’ve been told we’re not allowed to use the f word or call a spade a spade for years, or that we’ve been told “he just says these things for attention he doesn’t mean them or follow through” even when he’s been extremely consistent about his viewpoint, because people wanted to bury their heads in the sand about it.

No offense (actually some offense intended) but you really do sound like Russian bot most of the time on here.. Literally all you ever do is rant about the UK, Europe, Starmer, Merz and Macron or the “Liberal dictators” as you called them. Even with the Trumpian esque capitals on “their populations HATE them” (also fishy you’re saying “their” and not “our”) The 28 point peace plan literally says that Europe has to pay to rebuild part of Ukraine and give the prophits to the US. It also literally says that Europe cannot have planes and defences in Poland or near the border and Ukraine has to massively limit its army, leaving it liable to be rolled over in the future. The peace plan is the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact part 2 between Trump and Putin - it’s designed so America and Russia can carve Ukraine up for profit in a few years and make the UK and the rest of Europe pay for it. It’d be absolutely absurd for Europe to just sign up to this. It’s all well and good Trump and Vance saying Europe needs to defend themselves, but this isn’t even throwing us in the river and saying “learn to swim”, it’s throwing us in the river rolled in a carpet with a 500tonne lead weight attached and then turning to the media and saying “we’re just giving them swimming lessons, it’s for their own good”, it is solely about Trump making money (as most of his intentions are). This peace treaty doesn’t even allow us to grow a defence and it makes us do all the rebuilding work and America gets all the money of that rebuilding for some reason, so we can’t even pay for our defence at a time when Russia is literally sending threatening drones and making very thinly veiled threats as far west as Denmark This isn’t a plan which allows Europe to build up a defence network in Europe - it’s a plan which actively *stops* and *hinders* Europe building a defence network, that’s why we will obviously never support it if Ukraine itself actively rejects it and I find it a bit odd that you seek to come on here every week demanding that we should just do that tbh. Wasn’t only a few months ago you were chiding anyone saying Putin is the new Hitler because Putin can’t even take Ukraine? Now you’re saying he is going to roll through Ukraine and changing your tune about how it’s suddenly over for them?

I understand the argument, but my gut feeling is more that the reasons for the low birth rates that seem impossible to shift are far more cultural than economic. They’re far more about society becoming inherently less face-to-face social and humans are social pack animals like wolves, penguins or ants, that’s how our brains are wired and how we survived. I mean it’s one thing saying people spend too much money on small things like coffees or Netflix subscriptions mean they don’t have money so choose not to have children, but that doesn’t explain why all the research shows that younger generations have way less friends and have way less sex and way less close relationships (be it romantic or platonic) than they used to, and why you constantly hear adults (and I feel this myself) say how hard it is to make genuine long lasting friendships after school and university these days (which is also probably a major reason for the mental health crisis) when making friends was a rudimentarily easy thing to do for most of human history - but we’ve almost created a society where saying “I wish I had more friends” or asking other adults if they want to meet up in the evening is almost an embarrassing thing to do. I’m not religious in the slightest, but losing that meeting space where everyone went to church every Sunday to meet each other in different parts of society is a big part of that I think. Pubs are almost losing their importance as social meeting places as people drink much less too.

I think you’re missing the point. These are decades old trends of low birth rates that exist from the old Soviet Union days. The point is, child mortality rates and life expectancy also grew rapidly in many countries over the past 50 years which means the low birth rates aren’t going to show in population crashes yet, but before that they absolutely are starting to show in ageing populations where you’re going to have to expect a small number of tax payers to support both economically, politically and culturally a population of majority of elderly people all who naturally need way more healthcare and support than the average 30-something. Look in South Korea for example, in 1950, 75 years ago its population was around 20 million, now it’s around 50milliom. In 75 years in 2100 it will back down to 20million as if stands, but in 1950 the average age was 18, in 2100 it will be above 60 (and probably only a couple of million women left of child bearing age) Because this is exponential by 2175 it will probably be only a couple of million people left. While South Korea is the most drastic example, the general pattern exists pretty much uniformly across the non-Africa, India and the Middle Eastern world.

Then why are the birth rates in Nordic countries with the high child benefits and very good maternity and paternity benefits on the floor? And when they even increased these it only increased birth rates in first generation immigrants from Africa but barely moved the needle in 2nd-3rd generation immigrants or people whose grandparents were all from the country? What you have suggested is exactly the kind of thing governments also thought was going to be common sense over the past decades but just hasn’t worked in practice in modern industrialised or post-industrialised countries.

These demographics exist everywhere except for Africa, India and the Middle East though that’s the problem. I know you love to rant against the Liberal establishment and think everything is about individual “leaders”, but the low birth rates are pretty much universal across all industrialised nations in Europe, Asia, North, Central & South America, Australia and New Zealand, regardless of dictatorships or institution led democracies, regardless of type or “strength” of leadership, regardless of capitalist economy, command socialist economy or Latin American populist black market and bung economies. That’s the exact problem - different types of governments, different economic systems, different leaders have all tried to solve the demographic problems and nothing works. If we found a model that had we could use it and say “yes it’s the fault of weak leaders or capitalism or liberalism” but we haven’t and it isn’t, it just seems to be an inherent by-product of our industrialised world. The worst problems are actually in Asia because they are so strictly anti-immigration. I mean South Korea, which has the single most devastating demographic train about to hit it of any county with very little immigration and a birth rate of about 0.7 children per woman, in 20-40 years you’ll probably have half the population living in retirement homes and the average worker having to pay more in tax than their average wages to support the countries incredible healthcare and pension costs. China is a couple of decades behind because it industrialised later but it’s already ageing rapidly and starting to see its pension funds running huge deficits.

I’m not sure you’re right, I mean there are alternatives that very clearly would work - inhumane ones of course that we would consider horrific today, but that’s never stopped some nutjobs trying these things before and then trying to convince the world that’s the only option. We’re already at the point where 30+ years of many different countries trying many different and opposing policies have been unable to successfully reverse birth rates and natural population decline and population ageing, and certain people see defending their tribe as their ultimately responsiblity, surely history shows us that we’re unfortunately bound to get nutjobs who’ll go down the path of forced pregnancy of every woman and forced euthanasia after a certain age? I mean, Pol Pot just one day decided to start society again from day x and killed 1/4 of his county’s population in 4 years including allegedly killing people who wore glasses because he felt they were a sign of the old world before day x or something, why do you think there wouldn’t be dictators who’d go to those lengths to keep their “Civilization” going in their heads?

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c4gpzep9n8et Interesting statement by Putin on the bbc. I do wonder how much of this war and the Trump administration rather bizarre statement “Civilization erasure of Europe” ultimately comes down to some nationalistic panic over population ageing and the fact despite all the different types of policies tried over the past few decades that no country seems to be able to do anything to successfully reverse it. I do wonder how far we are from some nutjob leaders in some parts of the world trying forced pregnancies or withdrawal of any form of state support, benefits or state healthcare after your 65th birthday (or just straight up euthanasia after a certain age). 'Our long-term task is to preserve and increase our people' - Putin on population declinepublished at 15:40 15:40 Vladimir Putin, pictured during a visit to India last week In Russia, meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin, says efforts to stop the population decline in Russia have so far not borne fruit. "Unfortunately, negative tendencies prevail and the birth rate continues to fall," he said at a meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects. "Our long-term historic task is to preserve and increase our people. Despite the current situation and objective difficulties, we must maintain focus on this objective," he said. According to the World Bank, external, Russia's population has shrunk from 145.4m in 2019 to 143.5 in 2024. Independent researchers and BBC Russian have identified more than 150,000 Russians, externalkilled in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 - although the total number is thought to be much higher.

I’m not sure what that really means. My point is it feels like all the major parties have been avoiding the debate like ostriches burying their heads in the sand since Covid kicked it out the news in early 2020 because “it will just open up old divisions”; even though even though it looms over the country like a giant elephant in the room even more now that the US is openly abandoning the European continent as allies and the past few days quite brazenly and openly expressed what many of us having been saying for months - that under Trump the US favours Russia over us and the EU (and countries like Canada and Australia) and is actively antagonistic towards us and our values .

I think all this shows that regardless of the what people thought about the rights and wrongs of the political institutions of the EU, the timing of Brexit was really catastrophic in hindsight. To uncouple our economy and create antagonistic relationships with the rest of Europe a few years before the US decided to completely abandon us and decide to instead favour Russia like this (and to be frank absolutely no one would’ve believed you of all of this if you’d told them back in 2016) was pretty horrendous timing. We were sold it would cause “Global Britain” and allowed us to trade with the world exactly the moment just before the world decided to become protectionist. The fact the media and country still feels like it’s still all too wounded to even have a debate about it and we all feel that we still have to pussyfoot around a referendum result from a decade ago when the whole point of democracy is you can change course if something isn’t working and aren’t at the whims of a guy dictating, when every poll for a good 4 or 5 years now has shown overwhelming support of favouring Europe is what to do seems weird to me. I think UK and the rest of Europe seem to be desperately holding onto to the hope it’s just a blip and if we can just hold out until 2028… but Trump moves the goalposts so much and successfully takes on the checks and balances that I’m not even sure a Democrat government would looks much different by then.

They don’t. Most of the UK is much more pro-Europe than the US, it’s just because how our voting system designed for 2 parties has now complete broken down now it’s a 5 party system instead, and means the pro-Trump party is currently on about 25% of the vote and would get 100% of the power with that, so they are getting way more media attention then the LibDems used to get when they had had better support under Kennedy and Clegg For reference https://yougov.co.uk/topics/international/trackers/should-britain-have-a-stronger-relationship-with-europe-of-the-us?crossBreak=1824

That’s a really interesting insight to me thank you. It’s the “Darren mode” as you say and the AI patently lying against its own programming and Google guys just shrugging the shoulders bit that scares me though. Nevermind about your bank would use it, I’m frightened governments, judges and lawyers will use it and decide the fates of people’s lives and the direction society goes in based on AI that openly makes stuff up and lies despite being programmed not to and we don’t understand why.

On the flip side, if AI does create a world with no jobs as AI can do everything and where everyone is essentially just on a welfare state being cared for by AI, what’s the point even of money and nations at that point? If we don’t need to pay anyone because AI does everything for us.