Sampson

Yeh but you’re forgetting that when it isn’t all fixed tomorrow it’s the civil service and “leftist lawyers” faults and the Don needs more powers to be able to dictate society and those checks and balances and separation of powers aren’t really needed anyway, right?

I don’t go there much but then I’ve kind of fallen out of love with football in general, don’t think I’ve watched a game this season.

Reminds me of the “This is Water” speech by David Foster Wallace. Worth rewatching now and again

I absolutely want to see prominent British politicians voicing negative things against Trump tbf. I absolutely want to see that our leaders arwnt above criticising the leaders of US, France, Germany or other western allies when they act or steer the world in a direction that is against western values.

fuchsnft was long term unwell and bed bound and even at one point said he’d lived longer than doctors first predicted iirc, then suddenly stopped posting. Sadly it’s probably likely to assume the worst

David Lynch. Absolute legend. That one feels like a punch in the lungs

The populist right (for want of a better term) have created this catch 22 trap sadly. The trick on climate change is the same trick they pulled on Brexit and Covid. You can make all the economic or scientific arguments you like, Farage/Trump/Musk types will just tell them they’re lying and here’s some reasons why, the things can be completely made up and not in reality, it doesn’t matter. The catch is that as soon as you go back and say “no you’re not believing the expert scientists or economists and evidence” the retort is something on the line of “you’re calling us stupid, how demeaning” to shut down the argument. The sad thing is many intelligent moderates side with them (even politicians like Macron) and say “you can’t talk down to them like that” not only legitimising their opinion but also essentially shutting down any response from the other side. It’s a catch 22 deliberately designed to get the other side in a position where their only rebuttal is one to data or evidence and therefore you can claim they’re demeaning you by inferring you’re less intelligent than them. I still hear many moderates arguing Brexit won because too many Remainers inferred Brexiteers were stupid when all they were doing is saying you need to look at expert economic opinion. Which to me shows this trap the populist right put out continued to work. It’s the whole Metal Gear Solid 2 thing - there’s no such thing as truth anymore because people can’t invalidate each other anymore.

Hadn’t heard that name in decades. Just saw he was in the same comedy group as Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson at Cambridge.

Yes kurzgesagt have done a couple of good videos on it too

4 1/2 years is a long time in society these days, between the 2019-2024 elections we had 3 of the biggest and most society-shifting events in post-WW2 Britain in terms of Brexit, Covid and the Ukraine-Russia war and to me the world and political landscape has shifted so much even in the 9 years since the EU referendum and Trump’s first election campaign that it feels like a very different world. So I don’t really feel comfortable really making any predictions about 2029 yet. I think if an election was held tomorrow though Reform and Tories would take each others votes though as they’re at each others throats all the time and won’t step down for each other and I’d expect a Labour-Lib Dem coalition, the thing Labour and LibDems did well last election was tactical voting and not caring about or particularly fighting in constituencies in which the other was likely to win

Wrong thread

I disagree. Humans have not even travelled to the nearest planet yet and barely made themselves known in Alpha Centauri, 1 solar system over yet. The Milky Way has between 100,000,000,000-400,000,000,000 stars for reference. We’re still a long way off really making ourselves known in other solar systems. And any radio waves take thousands of years to travel to the other side of the Milky Way and then back again - and in the telescope we’re looking at stars and planets on the other side of the Milky Way as they were 1,000 years ago not today. A more advanced civilisation than humans may still also not have left their solar system yet. I still think the odds are way in the favour of their being many planets with more “advanced” life and technology than on Earth within the Milky Way.

I don’t think it’s very unpopular that the Loch Ness monster doesn’t exist. If we were alone in universe as big as ours that’s a very frightening thought and seems extremely unlikely that aliens don’t exist to me. There are just so many stars, planets and moons out there that aliens are almost certain to exist somewhere, whether we ever find them is another matter.

I’m assuming Corky was talking about many on here saying they wanted him shipped out to West Brom for £5mil in 2014-15 rather than going to Arsenal.

Genuinely don’t understand why so many on the right would rather side with the US than the EU. In terms of culture, legal protections, geopolitics, our economy, the EU is clearly the better option in each case. Not saying anything against the US, a lot of it is down to simple geography. But so many politicians and journalists who were the driving force behind Brexit are now seemingly begging us to hurtle away from the EU and towards the US as if we're an isolated island country in the middle of the Atlantic who has equal access to both, rather than one just off the coast of France, with a train connection to them and land border with Ireland and a huge ocean away from the US.

I would add Albrighton to that list too from the title winning team - 300+ appearances for the club, won everything, one of the most committed players ever to wear the shirt, scored 2 of the biggest goals in the club’s history vs Sevilla and Brugge in the CL run, always think of his pin perfect drilled cross to Ulloa in the final minute vs Norwich too to get us back on track after the Arsenal loss in a key pivotal moment in our title winning season etc. etc.

My concern with all this is Trump and Musk in the lead up to the election have already primed people to turn on Ukraine. I give it until February until you get the first shouts of “it’s Zelensky who is not negotiating peace whilst innocent people are dying. We need the war to end” from the populist right. I’d hope the British public, as living in a European country, have a lot more skin in the game than the American public in not wanting to see Russia invade another European country, grind it out for a couple of years before the support from the West gives up because it’s too expensive and then Russia just gets everything it wants, showing a clear blueprint that they (and potentially China) can easily do it again in the future. But I already saw enough depressing stuff from the both the public in the UK and in other European countries during the US election campaign to think that isn’t going to be the case.

Must be this. I thought it might be something about Hallucinating but your answer seems right

What counts as stopping though? Forcing Ukraine to cede land and give up ideas of NATO membership so that Russia can regroup and go again for more in 5 years time after they’ve spent years influencing elections in Europe and North American to get more pro-Russian and pro “strong man” leaders in?

No she doesn’t. If you can’t legally say say a politician who crashed the economy “you crashed the economy” then why even have political discourse? Even more crazy that she’s a Musk style “we don’t have free speech anymore” politician.

The depressing thing is, that one of Trump’s selling points in the election was that he was “the anti-war” candidate, even several on here argued it. Even though it was clear reading between the lines that meant America standing anside and letting Russia and China do what they want. It seems we were all wrong and Trump actually doesn’t even want to rule out wars if aggression against other Western democracies.

No and no, and if the past 9 years have taught me anything, it’s that, as much as we like to tell the world we’re a stable western democracy, Brits would bow down and let an authoritarian leader or dictator take over just like the rest of the countries if the economic conditions are right and they make enough impossible promises about how it will make our life better and kick out “undesirables”.

Starting to think the invention of social media is “the great filter” answer to the Fermi Paradox.

I’ve also been really struggling the past few days. This time of year is always so brutal. Just trying to put one foot in front of the other each day knowing the Spring will eventually come.

It is sadly real and journalists have genuinely just asked Starmer about it in a press conference. This is sadly the 2020s in our timeline.