The “ I’ve got something to say, but it doesn’t warrant its own thread “ thread.

[Trav Le Bleu]

I dunno about anyone else, but I wake up every morning and one of my first thoughts is to wonder what new insanity Trump has released upon the world.

[Thefox81]

26 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

I dunno about anyone else, but I wake up every morning and one of my first thoughts is to wonder what new insanity Trump has released upon the world.

Im exactly the same. Put the news on expecting something.

[leicsmac]

2 hours ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

I dunno about anyone else, but I wake up every morning and one of my first thoughts is to wonder what new insanity Trump has released upon the world.

I wish I could say that I was surprised about any of it, tbh. 

 

Still, there are some encouraging signs that sometime soon, the storm will pass and perhaps the ideology he and his represent will finally be confined to the past without dooming us all. Hopefully. 

[Trav Le Bleu]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

I wish I could say that I was surprised about any of it, tbh. 

 

Still, there are some encouraging signs that sometime soon, the storm will pass and perhaps the ideology he and his represent will finally be confined to the past without dooming us all. Hopefully. 

The real worry is that so many people across one country think his behaviour is appropriate or acceptable.

 

I know he's very much not the most popular person in the US after recent events, but he still has millions of supporters. It baffles me that he's got more than 100.

[leicsmac]

40 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

The real worry is that so many people across one country think his behaviour is appropriate or acceptable.

 

I know he's very much not the most popular person in the US after recent events, but he still has millions of supporters. It baffles me that he's got more than 100.

Ain't that the damn truth. 

 

But I don't think that's necessarily a new phenomenon, sadly, and it appears that what he represents, while possibly confined to the past in terms of power, will always need to be watched for and guarded against. 

[Ian Nacho]

Never forget when those lads from Birmingham had a few days off so thought they'd do a European Soccer Saturday Challenge but Villa scored first. 

[Corky]

Gary Neville has become too prominent in football.

[The Year Of The Fox]

Tonight’s Apprentice Final featured the two best candidates with the two best pitches I can remember 

[FoyleFox]

13 hours ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

I dunno about anyone else, but I wake up every morning and one of my first thoughts is to wonder what new insanity Trump has released upon the world.

Yep. And, every time I get a breaking news notification, I automatically think 'wtf has he done now'... usually followed by 'for foxes sake' or words similar 

[Tommy G]

Going to Villa park tomorrow presume uber from New St is the best option ?

[Trav Le Bleu]

4 hours ago, Tommy G said:

Going to Villa park tomorrow presume uber from New St is the best option ?

Your best option is not to go to Villa Park, you weirdo!

[Tommy G]

5 hours ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

Your best option is not to go to Villa Park, you weirdo!

I’m supporting my new team you weirdo 

[Mike Oxlong]

7 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

I’m supporting my new team you weirdo 

Having a new team is weird you weirdo 

[The Bear]

I went to Villa Park once to watch Villa v Wolves. One of the worst 0-0s I've ever witnessed. 

 

I wouldn't bother. 

[HighPeakFox]

Being a weirdo is normal. 

[Tommy G]

8 hours ago, The Bear said:

I went to Villa Park once to watch Villa v Wolves. One of the worst 0-0s I've ever witnessed. 

 

I wouldn't bother. 

4-3, was class. #UTV

[foxile5]

The entire downfall of social standards is index linked to low intelligence and internet access.

 

It’s unpalatable to say and for people to hear but allowing stupid people an equal voice has led to this. In fact, it’s actually leading to an anti-intellectual society where the smart people who, in other times, would be leading without question are now made to feel frustrated and marginalised.

 

Allowing thickos access to the internet and a voice on it has warped our society beyond help, I fear. 

[leicsmac]

20 minutes ago, foxile5 said:

The entire downfall of social standards is index linked to low intelligence and internet access.

 

It’s unpalatable to say and for people to hear but allowing stupid people an equal voice has led to this. In fact, it’s actually leading to an anti-intellectual society where the smart people who, in other times, would be leading without question are now made to feel frustrated and marginalised.

 

Allowing thickos access to the internet and a voice on it has warped our society beyond help, I fear. 

And the thing is that this is neither a new nor unexamined problem.

 

Both Plato and Socrates over two thousand years ago wrote reams on how such issues (though obviously without the mass communication part) could plague any attempt at a truly democratic process, right up to disaster. Unfortunately, as smart as they were, they didn't really have a palatable solution, either.

Edited 19 April by leicsmac

[Sampson]

Yeah, as time has gone on, I’m convinced the social internet is the worst thing to happen to humanity. It was sold as making all our lives easier and us more prosperous but I’d bet that an average working or middle class European feel like their life is way shitter than it was in the mid-90s or even the mid-00s before social media when none of us really had internet access yet. Not necessarily their job or even personal economy, but how they feel day to day and moment to moment in the pit of their stomach. 
 

Regardless of the economic side - there’s way more mental health problems because of the constant barrage of bad news and manafactured perfect people to compare yourselves to, people are way more paranoid about saying the wrong thing or making a drunken or naive mistake and making yourself easily Googleable and therefore unemployable for life, personal data everywhere online, way more crap desk or retail jobs and nothing that gives you the satisfaction of actually making something, studies show people have way worse attention spans, way less friends and way less sex and romantic relationships these days because even dating and friendships have become fast food app culture and everyone is ****ing addicted (myself included so no judgement) because it was too profitable for tech companies to get us so addicted to the social internet (which incidentally is probably the single most addictive thing mankind have ever made and if it was a natural drug it’d be considered class A and thered be endless public health campaigns about cutting down online useage).

 

And then to top it all off, most of us aren’t really better off than we would’ve been in the mid 90s, whilst the richest tech people have gone from being hundreds of millionaires to being trillionaires and the richest tech companies are now richer than the country of the UK.

 

AI is going to be all this but 100 times worse too.

 

Sadly, as the great philosopher Quasar once said: “You can’t un-lick a butthole that’s already been licked.”

[Parafox]

10 hours ago, HighPeakFox said:

Being a weirdo is normal. 

Trump?

[Parafox]

10 minutes ago, Sampson said:

Sadly, as the great philosopher Quasar once said: “You can’t un-lick a butthole that’s already been licked.”

But you can lick it again.

[foxile5]

55 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

And the thing is that this is neither a new nor unexamined problem.

 

Both Plato and Socrates over two thousand years ago wrote reams on how such issues (though obviously without the mass communication part) could plague any attempt at a truly democratic process, right up to disaster. Unfortunately, as smart as they were, they didn't really have a palatable solution, either.

Any attempt to mitigate this is essentially fascism isn't it. 

 

It's way more pronounced now. Look how many people do their own research vs how many actual PhD holders are in the public domain shaping progress. 

[leicsmac]

9 minutes ago, foxile5 said:

Any attempt to mitigate this is essentially fascism isn't it. 

 

It's way more pronounced now. Look how many people do their own research vs how many actual PhD holders are in the public domain shaping progress. 

Or some other form of authoritarianism, yes. The Chinese and their way of dealing with it comes to mind. 

 

And you know what the really scary thing is (that I've mentioned here often and at length and am going to repeat, sorry)? Such issues directly interfering with policymaking in various fields, scientific primarily, will cause damage that will certainly be nasty and might, just might, end up being absolute.

 

It's awful, but the idea of long term civilisational survival and everyone having an equal voice on the complex scientific methods used to guarantee the continuity of that civilisation may well be utterly incompatible. 

 

But people simply don't want to think about how terrible that outcome would be. Denial is the first stage of grief, after all.

[HighPeakFox]

46 minutes ago, Parafox said:

Trump?

He's not weird, he's way way beyond that and scarily so. 

[foxile5]

3 hours ago, leicsmac said:

 

 

And you know what the really scary thing is (that I've mentioned here often and at length and am going to repeat, sorry)? Such issues directly interfering with policymaking in various fields, scientific primarily, will cause damage that will certainly be nasty and might, just might, end up being absolute.

 

 

Oh jeeze, yeah. Much easier to make policy that placates comment sections and shuts up the vox populi rather than make a difficult decision that's going to get them all chuntering. Particularly when political horizons only stretch as far as the next election, now. 

 

Imagine if there were a really serious communicable disease in the next year or two. You'd never instigate a lockdown again. Too many folks knowin' their rights about the scamdemics. It simply wouldn't happen. So doubtless the pandemic response policies of the future will be shaped around that. No point doing the scientifically sensible thing if those with the loud, aggressive voices are going to call the Chief Medical Officer an industry plant, or whatever.