Sampson

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.

Political discourse in the 2020s:

Funny thing is it’s just done by some guy tweeting whatever pops into his head at any moment as his attention rapidly swings from one thing to the next. A bit like how the UK drew the borders of the Middle East over a lunch break after WW2 and have pretty much led to 80 years of war and in fighting because of it. I get why conspiracy theorists find the idea of a secret society of intelligent people at the top pulling all the strings comforting. The reality of the world and how much random trails of thought from some guy affect the world is much scarier

I think bovril agrees with you, as do most of the population according to polls, it’s just that Starmer doesn’t and wants to hold up this failed Hard Brexit. It’s the UK setting these red lines not the EU.

Yeah exactly. The BBC did an article about it over new year. I think we told our self the EU wouldn’t want us back but reality is because of Ukraine and the greater need of European defence there’s a lot more appetite amongst the EU than you might have expected for UK to rejoin. And I think the Labour Party deep down would like to rejoin. Problem is they’re too scared to open up that wound again. But polls show overwhelming favour in the Uk in both rejoining and also overwhelmingly favouring EU over the US nowadays as the geopolitical power to align with. 68% have said they would happily take freedom of movement back now to get back in the single market. I think a lot of people realise now that freedom of movement didn’t mean just everyone wanted to come but meant that you largely got people coming to the uk who wanted to work and fill labour gaps often even temporarily from culturally similar countries and then go home. It was much easier to plug short term labour gaps without having to give out longer term visas to people from outside western countries in order to fill these gaps. Changed my vote from Labour to LibDem btw in last years election because of Starmer’s weird red lines on holding up a hard Brexit, completely against both his voters wishes and clearly his own deep-down beliefs. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2dxzyg9y3eo.amp

I’m glad others are optimistic. In early 2016 I probably would’ve felt the same. Sadly, I’ve heard enough variations of “don’t worry, people won’t actually vote for it” over the past 8 years to feel a lot less confident.

I would love to laugh but I’m worried this all means Musk is going to throw his weight behind Tommy Robinson becoming leader.

I’m still in the depression phase of grief about western values of liberal democracy being on their last legs sadly. But I’m starting to reach acceptance. If it was just the uk or Farage and Trump I think I’d go out and campaign against them, but it’s the whole of Europe, North America and Australasia trending this way and not just one or two leaders and feels too big and unstoppable at this point.

Fixed that for you

I think these things always feel a bit gatekeepy. But golf cricket or baseball are hardly non-stop athletic events either and are widely considered sports for historical reasons. So I have no problem considering some of those things sport.

Absolutely think Europe should be creating its own alliance system separate from NATO now, offering Canada, Australia and NZ membership too. Genuinely don’t trust the US to stand up to Russia or democratic values one bit right now. You just know Farage types would be screaming about creating a European army though.

Not sure rational people go around saying immigrants eat people’s pet dogs and cats to win political arguments

I agree. The thing for me as well is with the too much news/overwhelm of information we have going that it is undoubtedly better for many people’s mental health to ignore the background to the news and keeping fully updated, which makes it easier to just hear drip fed 2nd hand accounts scrolling social media and the like. It’s why I agree that “the people get the politicians they deserve/vote for” no longer rings true to me when keeping on top of politics is so mentally draining. Media-driven voter apathy by bad actors feels like a very real phenomenon nowadays and I can’t say I really blame people for trying to get away from politics. Unfortunately that ultimately means these populists deliberately creating voter apathy and creating endless false equivalents seem to be winning. I don’t know if you know Hank and John Green, who are some of the earliest educational YouTubers/podcasters but I heard them talking about it recently and they summed it up well when they said (paraphrasing) - I was so excited about the internet and how it would create access to more information and create more open democracy worldwide, but now we’re here it seems obvious it would do more of the opposite and cause so many problems for democracy and bury real information under so much misinformation - because new mass communication tend to do this. I just hope social media is not as costly as the printing press and radio were before humans manage to get a hold of it.

Much like the Tories post-Brexit or the populist right in Italy: they create anti-immigrant rhetoric but know that the native population is too old and so requires immigrants once they get into power and they aren’t prepared to rip the plaster off the economy which is so reliant on immigrants. Part of me actually thinks we should let the populist Right have their wish and do net zero immigration for a decade and watch public services, the pension system and healthcare system spiral out of control from the elderly native population where no one is having children to make the point. But then they didn’t seem to care when that happened with Brexit and plenty of them still try and convince themselves it was the right decision.

Way too many people on the road (both drivers and cyclists) think your lights are solely about helping you see and not also about being seen.