Sampson

Brits and other Europeans do exactly the same thing with Africa, The Middle East, Latin America, South East Asia etc. tbf. It’s only because we’re in Europe that we see the cultural differences more strongly in every day life.

”Keep politics out of x” is an inherently extremely political statement in and of itself. Politics affects everything and when you say you want to keep politics out of something what you are actually saying is you strongly support the political status quo and strongly oppose any political change in that field whatsoever.

Coffee is absolutely one of lifes greatest small pleasures. I try not to be too elitist when it comes to other foods/drink, but a tub of cheap instant coffee from your draw just isn’t the same as a cup of freshly brewed stuff. Almost every other European country has coffee brewers in their kitchen as standard like Brits have kettles. I’m the opposite to SpaceX, in that I don’t really get our obsession with instant coffee in the UK, brewed coffee should be the baseline.

Thanks for this. Better knowledge than me. i saw someone on bbc the other day refer to Europe (by which they meant non-Russia/Belarus/Turkey Europe) as currently being Jim Carrey realising he’s in the Truman Show with regards to US ally-ship. I thought it was a fun comparison. I don’t think we still realise just how profound an effect the Russian-Ukraine war has had on turning geopolitics upside down in the west the past 3 years or so. It feels like Europe has only very recently woken up to realising that America actually doesn’t have its back as much as we assumed.

American politics is so weird. All these people chanting with signs and politics with signs for RFK becoming health secretary. Imagine millions of people going crazy like a football crowd with placards and cheering on Matt Hancock or Wes Streeting being made health minister in the UK.

One thing I’ve been thinking about with Trump is that the geopolitical world clearly isn’t in the same place it was 20 years ago under George Bush when America was the undisputed world super power and were the poster child of “the west” (which included western and Central Europe). It really feels like we have 4 distinct geopolitical world powers again now in the US, the EU, Russia and China. Russia and China have more in common with each other and some sort of vague alience but disagree on a lot too to the point they feel always a moment away from falling out. And now it feels the same with the US and EU. I think this stuff with Greenland I don’t think we’ve seen really in dividing the West since the WW2, maybe the Suez crisis but this feels a lot more like one western country flat out gunning for another rather than trying to put their foot down for going rogue.

Looks like Trump pulling foreign aid includes Ukraine according to latest bbc. But “the president of peace” definitely isn’t just about giving Putin all he wants.

There were the same “AI is just a tool” comments about the internet in the 1990s. I think there’s a YouTube video with Jeremy Paxman and David Bowie and article with Bill Gates and Terry Pratchett having a discussion about exactly that. I don’t think it’s a human “flaw” to be unable to predict the negative ways the internet would wire our brains, I think it’s very difficult to actually predict or know that in advance and it’s the same with AI. To be partially to tongue-in-cheek I think an MP (I don’t remember who or for which party) was recently bigging up using AI to check tax and immigration declarations and applications in HMRC and the Home Office. And all I could think was if you want a Deus Ex style post-apocalyptic world where the world nations states all become run by AI which has no care for human life and does not take into account human emotions, then training them to be an objective 3rd party so you can remove the human from the decision making process in asylum processes and rules is probably how you’d start to go about it.

I’m not sure I want AI to become so innovative tbh. The internet has passed the threshold from being good for society to bad for society for me. And AI scares me even more. Recycling sounds like a much better thing than private corporations and nation states both aggressively trying to get ahead in AI Edit: Going off topic now though, I guess this belongs in the General News thread.

Oh I thought it was something to do with AI.

Maybe I’m being dumb but I don’t get what the bottle top refers to for the EU.

Yep and it’s something I’ve said many times on this forum many times . That Population ageing is one of the two greatest challenges of humanity this century along with climate change and we’re already seeing its impact in profound ways as states cannot economically support their ageing populations more and more. But at least politicians actually talk about climate change, they don’t even want to talk about population ageing, let alone deal with it, because by definition it’s telling a larger and larger swathe of the voting population that they’re too expensive for the state, and it’s way easier politically to blame economic problems all on immigrants and benefits scroungers.

Seeing Rachel Reeves scramble round making the most un-Labour of economic changes - reducing benefits and reducing taxes on the wealthy and saying growth is more important than climate change while refusing to budge on rejoining the single market, showing that growth at all costs clearly doesn’t mean growth at all costs is depressing. I think uk is just completely ****ed economically though. Like it’s not just that the money just isn’t there, but it’s that’s there’s genuinely absolutely nothing any government could do to even help get the economy back on track. Genuinely feel like we have the same conditions as the Weimar Republic and the same metaphorical powder keg waiting to go off right now sadly.

Not a massive fan of the concept of the Vatican, but the Pope seems to be one of the world leaders I agree with most these days which definitely hasn’t always been the case, and I agree with him a lot in this article. If nothing else, I completely agree that the American Christian Right is often inherently unchristian. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0jnz8q6p32o

TIL that it’s “shoo-in” and not “shoe-in”.

I’ve heard some variant on “don’t worry, they’ll never actually get the vote” enough times over the past 9 years to not trust it sadly.

It was interesting reading about the Netherlands and euthanasia during the recent debate on assisted dying in the uk and how it’s become a clear example of legal creep because it’s so hard to define who should be eligible of it and who shouldn’t because cases can be so different. I do think people should be allowed the choice to die but it was a totally valid argument about legal creep in assisted dying law and it’s exactly the same concerns I have about the death penalty.

Yeah it’s the legal and culture creep that scares me most about it and it’s a thing populists have a habit of doing - using emotionally charged examples for legal and culture creep. It’s easy to say this guy should have the death penalty without thinking how that changes the law and defining the reasons he should get it and others don’t as therefore opening up the option for milder examples- we like to think law is black and white but its often very subjective and interpretative as you can’t account for all examples. Same thing with when they put those climate protesters in prison for 5 years or stripped that girl who was born and raised in uk and had no other citizenship of her citizenship because she had parents or grandparents from Bangladesh, they were emotionally charged examples but you’ve set up precedents now that rogue governments or parts of the legal system can use in the future. UK law is based on case laws and you’re setting up legal precedents that judges and lawyers can use in the future as precedents for milder examples.

I disagree we kept Vardy too long, because he is still our best option - its the exact same problem we had with Schmeichel, we bought Daka too replace Vardy, but like Ward, Daka turned out to be awful and way out of his depth at PL level. Vardy is still our best striker at his age, as Kasper was, which says a lot more about our horrendous attempts to replace them, it’s been the recruitment to replace them that’s been the problem.

Saw this doing the rounds today. Great quote.

Seeing some of the UK papers this morning which seem to celebrating Trump and I just don’t get it. If you like what he’s promised for America that’s one thing, if you like that he “owns the libs” that’s another thing, but I genuinely don’t understand how a European newspaper for a European county can celebrate someone who openly wants to stop backing Ukraine and just show Putin he can invade another European country, wait it out for 3 or 4 years then get what he wants and wants to set up huge tariffs on the EU, who even if we aren’t part of anymore are still by far and away our biggest trading partner. I’m not being glib, I would genuinely like some arguments on how Trump is anything other than a bad thing for Europe and the UK.

I would say “get me off this planet” but Mars doesn’t look particularly appealing right now either given who wants to follow me there. Dont think the world has been feeling like such a political powder keg since in the 1930s.

That's great, it starts with an earthquake Birds and snakes, and aeroplanes And Lenny Bruce is not afraid … Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn World serves its own needs Don't mis-serve your own needs Speed it up a notch, speed, grunt, no, strength The ladder starts to clatter With a fear of height, down, height Wire in a fire, represent the seven games And a government for hire and a combat site Left her, wasn't coming in a hurry With the Furies breathing down your neck … Team by team, reporters baffled, trumped, tethered, cropped Look at that low plane, fine, then Uh oh, overflow, population, common group But it'll do, save yourself, serve yourself World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed Tell me with the Rapture and the reverent in the right, right You vitriolic, patriotic, slam fight, bright light Feeling pretty psyched … It's the end of the world as we know it It's the end of the world as we know it It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine … Six o'clock, T.V. hour, don't get caught in foreign tower Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn Lock him in uniform, book burning, bloodletting Every motive escalate, automotive incinerate Light a candle, light a motive, step down, step down Watch your heel crush, crush, uh oh This means no fear, cavalier, renegade and steering clear A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline

What should we rename Dogger Bank?