Not good news from Kyiv. Officials in Kyiv have told people to evacuate the city. From the telegraph
Officials in Kyiv have told people to evacuate the city for the first time since March because Russian missile attacks have destroyed its power generation systems.
Vitaliy Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv and a former world heavyweight boxing champion, said that 450,000 apartments in the city now didn’t have any electricity.
“If you have relatives or friends in the suburbs of Kyiv who have a separate water supply, a stove and heating, plan to stay there temporarily,” he said in comments to Ukrainian media on Saturday evening.
“Please make arrangements so that in the event of a bad scenario, you can stay with your friends or acquaintances for a while.” Kyiv city officials later told the New York Times newspaper that plans had been drawn up to evacuate the entire city, which had a pre-war population of 3 million people.
Re Stodge’s post (won’t quote it to save space), I agree that people took things too far if they believed it heralded a never ending Pax Americana.
But, where the Francis Fukuyama thesis is absolutely bang on is that with the internal collapse of the Soviet Union we said goodbye to probably the last serious ideological challenger to liberal capitalism.
The threats since are either forms of reaction - radical Islam is an appeal to the past, so is Trump, or simple geopolitical competition which doesn’t seriously attempt to change the course of world history and is not universalist. The pseudo-ideology of modern Russia is just nationalism plus some derivative US culture war. China offers no grand vision for the world other than an alternative counterparty to do business with.
if England lose this, Jones should go (he won't). They have made zero progress
Imagine the score if the Argentina coach hadn't been coaching the Lebanese RL side until yesterday.
Brilliant solo try from Van Poortvliet tho
This is the frustrating thing about England. Jones has such a wealth of talent at his disposal. As much as any coach on the planet
Eddie is a busted flush of a coach. I could write a book about his attacking system failures.
Marcus Smith is a lovely club stand off but he is a million miles away from being a international ten and I'm amazed Eddie bowed to media pressure and put him in the side. Almost every touch he had today added negative value to the England attack.
For whatever reason we are averse to popping the ball out of tackles and seem to want to play staccato ruck rugby. Kills any speed in the attack. I get that popping is riskier, but that’s what leads to breaks of the line in modern rugby. We can no longer just out Orc teams. They are all professional, all have huge packs. So we need to learn to run the ball, and not just one out rugby all the time.
The jury is still out on Marcus Smith. Hasn't had the impact we might have hoped, but he is still a source of creativity and he has scored some excellent solo tries
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Not good news from Kyiv. Officials in Kyiv have told people to evacuate the city. From the telegraph
Officials in Kyiv have told people to evacuate the city for the first time since March because Russian missile attacks have destroyed its power generation systems.
Vitaliy Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv and a former world heavyweight boxing champion, said that 450,000 apartments in the city now didn’t have any electricity.
“If you have relatives or friends in the suburbs of Kyiv who have a separate water supply, a stove and heating, plan to stay there temporarily,” he said in comments to Ukrainian media on Saturday evening.
“Please make arrangements so that in the event of a bad scenario, you can stay with your friends or acquaintances for a while.” Kyiv city officials later told the New York Times newspaper that plans had been drawn up to evacuate the entire city, which had a pre-war population of 3 million people.
What they’ve actually done is come up with sensible contingency plans should the city need to be evacuated.
if England lose this, Jones should go (he won't). They have made zero progress
Imagine the score if the Argentina coach hadn't been coaching the Lebanese RL side until yesterday.
Brilliant solo try from Van Poortvliet tho
This is the frustrating thing about England. Jones has such a wealth of talent at his disposal. As much as any coach on the planet
Eddie is a busted flush of a coach. I could write a book about his attacking system failures.
Marcus Smith is a lovely club stand off but he is a million miles away from being a international ten and I'm amazed Eddie bowed to media pressure and put him in the side. Almost every touch he had today added negative value to the England attack.
For whatever reason we are averse to popping the ball out of tackles and seem to want to play staccato ruck rugby. Kills any speed in the attack. I get that popping is riskier, but that’s what leads to breaks of the line in modern rugby. We can no longer just out Orc teams. They are all professional, all have huge packs. So we need to learn to run the ball, and not just one out rugby all the time.
Correct. When watching England count how many times a forward passes the ball and how often that it is to a back.
On that second count you can go a whole game without seeing that happen.
Ball either goes to "The forwards" or "the backs". It makes the England attack so easy to read despite playing a double pivot system.
Combine that with teams remembering to play a dedicated fullback to prevent England kicking them to death like they puled of on the 2018-19 season and England are an impotent threat in attack and their narrow defence is vulnerable out wide.
Just noticed a tweet from @david_herdson talking about the Lib Dem MIRAS plans.
If you want to raise taxes and discourage buy to rent - remove the ability to deduct any interest from loans on residential property.
Davey is just flailing about trying to get some attention.
I’ve no doubt they’d be a beneficial check on either a Tory or Labour minority government. But they’re not doing much to justify voting for them in their own right.
Liverpool need a big hearted backs to the wall win, and up against a spurs with some injury concerns and who have conceded first in 9 of their last 12, Liverpool to take advantage of a weaker opponent on paper at last.
The slight shift down to an increase in Dem turnout .
Within the margin of error and the fundamentals still mean its a struggle for the Dems but given some of the other recent polling on the generic ballot the Dems will gladly take this poll.
Compared with the UK the stability of US electoral support is striking.
Re Stodge’s post (won’t quote it to save space), I agree that people took things too far if they believed it heralded a never ending Pax Americana.
But, where the Francis Fukuyama thesis is absolutely bang on is that with the internal collapse of the Soviet Union we said goodbye to probably the last serious ideological challenger to liberal capitalism.
The threats since are either forms of reaction - radical Islam is an appeal to the past, so is Trump, or simple geopolitical competition which doesn’t seriously attempt to change the course of world history and is not universalist. The pseudo-ideology of modern Russia is just nationalism plus some derivative US culture war. China offers no grand vision for the world other than an alternative counterparty to do business with.
So I think that’s the real importance of 1989.
Thanks for the kind word and you're not wrong.
I do think with the hindsight of 30 years and especially with the pandemic experience, a new challenge has emerged to liberal capitalism. I've called it elsewhere the "post-work" experience - as I've always said, I work to live, I don't live to work. A number, not perhaps significant but it's clearly had an impact, have abdicated from economic activity and choose to live without work.
Now, if they want and can afford to do that, fine but it has and continues to have an impact on the economies of the west raising questions about where and how labour shortages are resolved which, as we've seen, incites wider debate on identity, the role of migrants and the kind of society in which we want to live.
Possibly for the first time, prosperity through growth is no longer seen as the ultimate objective - this is I think the primary reason for the failure of Kwarteng's budget. He thought it was still 1980 but the world has moved on and notions of "fairness" in terms of wealth distribution and equity are now to the forefront.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Just noticed a tweet from @david_herdson talking about the Lib Dem MIRAS plans.
If you want to raise taxes and discourage buy to rent - remove the ability to deduct any interest from loans on residential property.
Davey is just flailing about trying to get some attention.
I’ve no doubt they’d be a beneficial check on either a Tory or Labour minority government. But they’re not doing much to justify voting for them in their own right.
Having been first to propose energy windfall taxes, a winter energy price cap, and now the only party seriously proposing a complete overhaul of Ofwat and tougher regulations on water companies I think they’re doing plenty of substance in 2022.
I don’t think the mortgage subsidy is a good idea though.
Still, we could list half a dozen policy ideas from Labour in the last couple of years that don’t stand up to scrutiny, and the same number or more from the conservatives that are utterly idiotic.
Lets just say that the country was so impressed by him that the Dems almost chose a superannuated socialist as candidate to succeed him and that the country elected Donald Trump.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
The irony being that liberal democracy has turned in upon itself, once the lack of alternative became evident.
Not good news from Kyiv. Officials in Kyiv have told people to evacuate the city. From the telegraph
Officials in Kyiv have told people to evacuate the city for the first time since March because Russian missile attacks have destroyed its power generation systems.
Vitaliy Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv and a former world heavyweight boxing champion, said that 450,000 apartments in the city now didn’t have any electricity.
“If you have relatives or friends in the suburbs of Kyiv who have a separate water supply, a stove and heating, plan to stay there temporarily,” he said in comments to Ukrainian media on Saturday evening.
“Please make arrangements so that in the event of a bad scenario, you can stay with your friends or acquaintances for a while.” Kyiv city officials later told the New York Times newspaper that plans had been drawn up to evacuate the entire city, which had a pre-war population of 3 million people.
What they’ve actually done is come up with sensible contingency plans should the city need to be evacuated.
Yep - the first half the story implies you needed to move NOW, then the final paragraph says make plans to do so if the time comes and it's necessary to do so
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
The Chinese might suggest otherwise. I'd not advocate their system, but a billion or so people have seen their standards of living massively increase very rapidly.
Just noticed a tweet from @david_herdson talking about the Lib Dem MIRAS plans.
If you want to raise taxes and discourage buy to rent - remove the ability to deduct any interest from loans on residential property.
MIRAS was for the own residence, only, I think?
Yep - but one argument for MIRAS is that it brings BTLers and homeowners on an equally footing - as for both parties some part of the interest will be tax deductible. I'm just suggesting that equality can be achieved a different way and it would raise some additional tax revenue at the same time
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
The Chinese might suggest otherwise. I'd not advocate their system, but a billion or so people have seen their standards of living massively increase very rapidly.
True but I don't think that means the system is sustainable in the long term. The party is obviously very wary of the attractions of western freedom.
In many ways liberal democracy is a victim of its own success. It is where people want to move to. Which creates new challenges.
Just noticed a tweet from @david_herdson talking about the Lib Dem MIRAS plans.
If you want to raise taxes and discourage buy to rent - remove the ability to deduct any interest from loans on residential property.
Davey is just flailing about trying to get some attention.
I’ve no doubt they’d be a beneficial check on either a Tory or Labour minority government. But they’re not doing much to justify voting for them in their own right.
Having been first to propose energy windfall taxes, a winter energy price cap, and now the only party seriously proposing a complete overhaul of Ofwat and tougher regulations on water companies I think they’re doing plenty of substance in 2022.
I don’t think the mortgage subsidy is a good idea though.
Still, we could list half a dozen policy ideas from Labour in the last couple of years that don’t stand up to scrutiny, and the same number or more from the conservatives that are utterly idiotic.
Some posters here may disagree with some of what the Lib Dems are saying. But at least they are talking about issues that matter to people.
I recognise that the PB Tories are all so wealthy that they do not have any financial problems, but what is the Conservative Party proposing to do to help people who are worried about the increased cost of their mortgages? Conservatives do not even realise that there is a problem.
Interesting storyline, Gavin Williamson has got. Clearly somebody wants him out. But out from what? What are his responsibilities in government? I thought a minister without portfolio didn't have a role in any department or ministry (although they may have one in their political party) and just turned up to cabinet. But Gavin has a post at the Cabinet Office which is a ministerial department. Or is it just a formality so he can get cabinet papers? I'm kinda curious about what he's working on.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
The Chinese might suggest otherwise. I'd not advocate their system, but a billion or so people have seen their standards of living massively increase very rapidly.
True but I don't think that means the system is sustainable in the long term. The party is obviously very wary of the attractions of western freedom.
In many ways liberal democracy is a victim of its own success. It is where people want to move to. Which creates new challenges.
Western freedoms are much like the theatre. You want to have it available, but you rarely go.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
The Chinese might suggest otherwise. I'd not advocate their system, but a billion or so people have seen their standards of living massively increase very rapidly.
China is not an evangelical system - they are not looking to export an alternative ideology. Moreover their vastly increased wealth came from operating in the global capitalist system. So that’s the capitalist bit of liberal capitalism clearly triumphant. As for the liberalism: they’re not looking to set up an alternative to the WTO or a closed system. If anything they stand to lose more from protectionism than the US or EU. So they are playing the liberal trade rules.
Do they offer a kind of authoritarian paternalist alternative to democracy? I think a few people feared so until a couple of years ago. But now? Covid has exposed the weaknesses of that form of organisation, Russia has shown up the dangers of cronyism and oligarchy, and the continuing brain drain to the West shows they are not winning any kind of soft power competition.
Once people start migrating in their thousands from liberal democracies to authoritarian dictatorships seeking to become Chinese or Iranian citizens that will signify a change but I can’t see it. I think immigration flows are a very good indicator of which systems have most universal appeal.
It's a wet grey Sunday in November. The rain is coming again. The cost of living is forcing people to eat rocks. Nuclear war seems highly possible. Millions of people are crippled by Long Covid. The Russian army is raping eastern Europe. Ebola returns. Climate change means the seas will soon boil. AI threatens the jobs of anyone who isn't already on fentanyl. No one is having sex. Young people prefer dictators to democracy. The rain is coming again. A barrel of oil costs 33 trillion dollars. Illegal migrants are raiding Aldis across Kent. Trump is heading for re-election. America faces civil war. Woke people are ruining society. Pop music is finished. IQs are dropping. Sperm counts are falling. England lost the rugby. And the Queen is dead
It's a wet grey Sunday in November. The rain is coming again. The cost of living is forcing people to eat rocks. Nuclear war seems highly possible. Millions of people are crippled by Long Covid. The Russian army is raping eastern Europe. Ebola returns. Climate change means the seas will soon boil. AI threatens the jobs of anyone who isn't already on fentanyl. No one is having sex. Young people prefer dictators to democracy. The rain is coming again. A barrel of oil costs 33 trillion dollars. Illegal migrants are raiding Aldis across Kent. Trump is heading for re-election. America faces civil war. Woke people are ruining society. Pop music is finished. IQs are dropping. Sperm counts are falling. England lost the rugby. And the Queen is dead
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
It's a wet grey Sunday in November. The rain is coming again. The cost of living is forcing people to eat rocks. Nuclear war seems highly possible. Millions of people are crippled by Long Covid. The Russian army is raping eastern Europe. Ebola returns. Climate change means the seas will soon boil. AI threatens the jobs of anyone who isn't already on fentanyl. No one is having sex. Young people prefer dictators to democracy. The rain is coming again. A barrel of oil costs 33 trillion dollars. Illegal migrants are raiding Aldis across Kent. Trump is heading for re-election. America faces civil war. Woke people are ruining society. Pop music is finished. IQs are dropping. Sperm counts are falling. England lost the rugby. And the Queen is dead
Did I miss anything?
Have you been to the Pike Hotel in Ibiza by the way
It's a wet grey Sunday in November. The rain is coming again. The cost of living is forcing people to eat rocks. Nuclear war seems highly possible. Millions of people are crippled by Long Covid. The Russian army is raping eastern Europe. Ebola returns. Climate change means the seas will soon boil. AI threatens the jobs of anyone who isn't already on fentanyl. No one is having sex. Young people prefer dictators to democracy. The rain is coming again. A barrel of oil costs 33 trillion dollars. Illegal migrants are raiding Aldis across Kent. Trump is heading for re-election. America faces civil war. Woke people are ruining society. Pop music is finished. IQs are dropping. Sperm counts are falling. England lost the rugby. And the Queen is dead
Did I miss anything?
Have you been to the Pike Hotel in Ibiza by the way
Just noticed a tweet from @david_herdson talking about the Lib Dem MIRAS plans.
If you want to raise taxes and discourage buy to rent - remove the ability to deduct any interest from loans on residential property.
Davey is just flailing about trying to get some attention.
I’ve no doubt they’d be a beneficial check on either a Tory or Labour minority government. But they’re not doing much to justify voting for them in their own right.
Having been first to propose energy windfall taxes, a winter energy price cap, and now the only party seriously proposing a complete overhaul of Ofwat and tougher regulations on water companies I think they’re doing plenty of substance in 2022.
I don’t think the mortgage subsidy is a good idea though.
Still, we could list half a dozen policy ideas from Labour in the last couple of years that don’t stand up to scrutiny, and the same number or more from the conservatives that are utterly idiotic.
Some posters here may disagree with some of what the Lib Dems are saying. But at least they are talking about issues that matter to people.
I recognise that the PB Tories are all so wealthy that they do not have any financial problems, but what is the Conservative Party proposing to do to help people who are worried about the increased cost of their mortgages? Conservatives do not even realise that there is a problem.
until interest rates hit 7% then the tickbox exercise checks that have been in place since 2015 or so show that there really isn't (in theory) a problem because checks were done to ensure people could repay if the loan hit that interest rate.
The fact reality and theory are too completely different things seems not to have been grasped by most people including politicians. But it gives them a reason not to do anything just yet - because frankly we can't afford it.
It's a wet grey Sunday in November. The rain is coming again. The cost of living is forcing people to eat rocks. Nuclear war seems highly possible. Millions of people are crippled by Long Covid. The Russian army is raping eastern Europe. Ebola returns. Climate change means the seas will soon boil. AI threatens the jobs of anyone who isn't already on fentanyl. No one is having sex. Young people prefer dictators to democracy. The rain is coming again. A barrel of oil costs 33 trillion dollars. Illegal migrants are raiding Aldis across Kent. Trump is heading for re-election. America faces civil war. Woke people are ruining society. Pop music is finished. IQs are dropping. Sperm counts are falling. England lost the rugby. And the Queen is dead
Did I miss anything?
The USA is facing civil war is one thing which doesn't seem to stand up.
Consider that if tens of millions of people with guns think that the 2020 election was stolen from them what have they done ?
Seemingly nothing.
Where are the terrorism campaigns and armed uprising in the Appalachians or Rockies ?
Honestly think if the republicans gain both houses on Tuesday there could be the start of moves towards peace talks with Russia. Certainly if Trump got back in he would want peace talks with Russia
"No another penny to Ukraine." Republicans Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene announced that if her party takes back control of Congress next week, they will slash military funding to Ukraine.
It's a wet grey Sunday in November. The rain is coming again. The cost of living is forcing people to eat rocks. Nuclear war seems highly possible. Millions of people are crippled by Long Covid. The Russian army is raping eastern Europe. Ebola returns. Climate change means the seas will soon boil. AI threatens the jobs of anyone who isn't already on fentanyl. No one is having sex. Young people prefer dictators to democracy. The rain is coming again. A barrel of oil costs 33 trillion dollars. Illegal migrants are raiding Aldis across Kent. Trump is heading for re-election. America faces civil war. Woke people are ruining society. Pop music is finished. IQs are dropping. Sperm counts are falling. England lost the rugby. And the Queen is dead
Did I miss anything?
The USA is facing civil war is one thing which doesn't seem to stand up.
Consider that if tens of millions of people with guns think that the 2020 election was stolen from them what have they done ?
Seemingly nothing.
Where are the terrorism campaigns and armed uprising in the Appalachians or Rockies ?
people are mostly still relatively comfortable economically thats why
"No another penny to Ukraine." Republicans Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene announced that if her party takes back control of Congress next week, they will slash military funding to Ukraine.
Honestly think if the republicans gain both houses on Tuesday there could be the start of moves towards peace talks with Russia. Certainly if Trump got back in he would want peace talks with Russia
Not a great idea - all it does is create a temporary truce while Russia rearms itself.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
The Chinese might suggest otherwise. I'd not advocate their system, but a billion or so people have seen their standards of living massively increase very rapidly.
True but I don't think that means the system is sustainable in the long term. The party is obviously very wary of the attractions of western freedom.
In many ways liberal democracy is a victim of its own success. It is where people want to move to. Which creates new challenges.
Nobody moves to Britain or the US for the liberal democracy, whatever on earth that means. It's relatively easy to set up a business and there's party pluralism in elections? Is that what it means? The academics who go to the US under Fulbright for example, and the migrants from poorer parts of Eastern Europe and further afield who get into Britain and overstay their visas so they can skivvy in hotels etc. and send money back to their families in Albania or wherever ... I doubt either business regs or politics featured much in the calculations made by many of them... other than maybe inasmuch as they know they'll be earning valiuta and are confident they can get back out again carrying said valiuta (Fulbright) or having sent it out every so often (skivvies) without much of a problem. Which is certainly not true of many other countries in the world.
It's a wet grey Sunday in November. The rain is coming again. The cost of living is forcing people to eat rocks. Nuclear war seems highly possible. Millions of people are crippled by Long Covid. The Russian army is raping eastern Europe. Ebola returns. Climate change means the seas will soon boil. AI threatens the jobs of anyone who isn't already on fentanyl. No one is having sex. Young people prefer dictators to democracy. The rain is coming again. A barrel of oil costs 33 trillion dollars. Illegal migrants are raiding Aldis across Kent. Trump is heading for re-election. America faces civil war. Woke people are ruining society. Pop music is finished. IQs are dropping. Sperm counts are falling. England lost the rugby. And the Queen is dead
It's a wet grey Sunday in November. The rain is coming again. The cost of living is forcing people to eat rocks. Nuclear war seems highly possible. Millions of people are crippled by Long Covid. The Russian army is raping eastern Europe. Ebola returns. Climate change means the seas will soon boil. AI threatens the jobs of anyone who isn't already on fentanyl. No one is having sex. Young people prefer dictators to democracy. The rain is coming again. A barrel of oil costs 33 trillion dollars. Illegal migrants are raiding Aldis across Kent. Trump is heading for re-election. America faces civil war. Woke people are ruining society. Pop music is finished. IQs are dropping. Sperm counts are falling. England lost the rugby. And the Queen is dead
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
"No another penny to Ukraine." Republicans Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene announced that if her party takes back control of Congress next week, they will slash military funding to Ukraine.
Plenty of Republicans in Congress though will vote with the vast majority of Democrats to keep funding military funds for Ukraine eg Senator Romney as would GOP Senate Minority leader McConnell.
While likely incoming Speaker McCarthy has also said 'no blank cheque' for Ukraine funds that is also not the same as cutting off funds altogether
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
Whether through eugenic mating or cosmetic surgery, China is also producing more HOT TEEN GIRLS
Honestly think if the republicans gain both houses on Tuesday there could be the start of moves towards peace talks with Russia. Certainly if Trump got back in he would want peace talks with Russia
It's a wet grey Sunday in November. The rain is coming again. The cost of living is forcing people to eat rocks. Nuclear war seems highly possible. Millions of people are crippled by Long Covid. The Russian army is raping eastern Europe. Ebola returns. Climate change means the seas will soon boil. AI threatens the jobs of anyone who isn't already on fentanyl. No one is having sex. Young people prefer dictators to democracy. The rain is coming again. A barrel of oil costs 33 trillion dollars. Illegal migrants are raiding Aldis across Kent. Trump is heading for re-election. America faces civil war. Woke people are ruining society. Pop music is finished. IQs are dropping. Sperm counts are falling. England lost the rugby. And the Queen is dead
Did I miss anything?
All of this started when YOU voted for Brexit...
a lot of people voted for brexit to reduce immigration...didnt work out too well for them though
It's a wet grey Sunday in November. The rain is coming again. The cost of living is forcing people to eat rocks. Nuclear war seems highly possible. Millions of people are crippled by Long Covid. The Russian army is raping eastern Europe. Ebola returns. Climate change means the seas will soon boil. AI threatens the jobs of anyone who isn't already on fentanyl. No one is having sex. Young people prefer dictators to democracy. The rain is coming again. A barrel of oil costs 33 trillion dollars. Illegal migrants are raiding Aldis across Kent. Trump is heading for re-election. America faces civil war. Woke people are ruining society. Pop music is finished. IQs are dropping. Sperm counts are falling. England lost the rugby. And the Queen is dead
Did I miss anything?
The smartphone pandemic.
But wait... liberal democracy has no serious competitors apparently And never will.
"Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Just noticed a tweet from @david_herdson talking about the Lib Dem MIRAS plans.
If you want to raise taxes and discourage buy to rent - remove the ability to deduct any interest from loans on residential property.
MIRAS was for the own residence, only, I think?
Yep - but one argument for MIRAS is that it brings BTLers and homeowners on an equally footing - as for both parties some part of the interest will be tax deductible. I'm just suggesting that equality can be achieved a different way and it would raise some additional tax revenue at the same time
The removal of higher-rate mortgage interest relief against income tax for individual landlords, happened a couple of years ago.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
I’d say that’s a huge win for liberalism. Relatively tariff free trade means we can match huge demand worldwide for renewables infrastructure - particularly solar PV - with rapidly increasing supply, largely from China.
If every country operated as an autarchic producer and consumer solar panels would be many times more expensive than they currently are.
This is the stuff the liberals fought for in the 19th century and it continues to create opportunities for supply to meet demand and in so doing trigger more demand. Unfortunately it did that for bad polluting technologies, but now it’s doing so for renewable ones, and at speed.
Just noticed a tweet from @david_herdson talking about the Lib Dem MIRAS plans.
If you want to raise taxes and discourage buy to rent - remove the ability to deduct any interest from loans on residential property.
MIRAS was for the own residence, only, I think?
Yep - but one argument for MIRAS is that it brings BTLers and homeowners on an equally footing - as for both parties some part of the interest will be tax deductible. I'm just suggesting that equality can be achieved a different way and it would raise some additional tax revenue at the same time
The removal of higher-rate mortgage interest relief against income tax for individual landlords, happened a couple of years ago.
I'm not talking about higher rate relief - I'm talking about all relief because asset classes should be taxed identically in all cases (and currently they are not).
The point is that the crappiest landlords I encounter are those who borrow money to purchase property to let because they don't have the spare cash to afford to do repairs quickly (or often at all).
Now there are 2 ways to create equality but as reintroducing MIRAS is unlikely to occur (because the government can't afford it) the other option is to remove the incentives landlords get.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
I’d say that’s a huge win for liberalism. Relatively tariff free trade means we can match huge demand worldwide for renewables infrastructure - particularly solar PV - with rapidly increasing supply, largely from China.
If every country operated as an autarchic producer and consumer solar panels would be many times more expensive than they currently are.
This is the stuff the liberals fought for in the 19th century and it continues to create opportunities for supply to meet demand and in so doing trigger more demand. Unfortunately it did that for bad polluting technologies, but now it’s doing so for renewable ones, and at speed.
The problem with liberal social market democratic capitalism is that it's so successful that it becomes boring and gets taken for granted.
And, its flaws generally get played up, while the flaws of the alternatives get played down. People see thousands of Chinese soldiers goose-stepping in unison, and think that represents an invincible future.
The same thing happened with communism and fascism in the twenties and thirties.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
Whether through eugenic mating or cosmetic surgery, China is also producing more HOT TEEN GIRLS
The West is totally finished
and a big factor in male motivation to work is hot young women....if you are a young man surrounded by obese women i think you are much less likely to work hard than if you are surrounded by hot young women....it is human nature in action.....
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
The Chinese might suggest otherwise. I'd not advocate their system, but a billion or so people have seen their standards of living massively increase very rapidly.
True but I don't think that means the system is sustainable in the long term. The party is obviously very wary of the attractions of western freedom.
In many ways liberal democracy is a victim of its own success. It is where people want to move to. Which creates new challenges.
Nobody moves to Britain or the US for the liberal democracy, whatever on earth that means. It's relatively easy to set up a business and there's party pluralism in elections? Is that what it means? The academics who go to the US under Fulbright for example, and the migrants from poorer parts of Eastern Europe and further afield who get into Britain and overstay their visas so they can skivvy in hotels etc. and send money back to their families in Albania or wherever ... I doubt either business regs or politics featured much in the calculations made by many of them... other than maybe inasmuch as they know they'll be earning valiuta and are confident they can get back out again carrying said valiuta (Fulbright) or having sent it out every so often (skivvies) without much of a problem. Which is certainly not true of many other countries in the world.
Probably quite a lot of people, rich and poor, move to the US and UK because in their home countries, they'd be killed for having the wrong beliefs/pissing off the wrong people.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
Whether through eugenic mating or cosmetic surgery, China is also producing more HOT TEEN GIRLS
The West is totally finished
and a big factor in male motivation to work is hot young women....if you are a young man surrounded by obese women i think you are much less likely to work hard than if you are surrounded by hot young women....it is human nature in action.....
The slight shift down to an increase in Dem turnout .
Within the margin of error and the fundamentals still mean its a struggle for the Dems but given some of the other recent polling on the generic ballot the Dems will gladly take this poll.
Compared with the UK the stability of US electoral support is striking.
On each side 40-45% loathe the other side so much that they don't care how bad their own politicians are.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
Whether through eugenic mating or cosmetic surgery, China is also producing more HOT TEEN GIRLS
The West is totally finished
and a big factor in male motivation to work is hot young women....if you are a young man surrounded by obese women i think you are much less likely to work hard than if you are surrounded by hot young women....it is human nature in action.....
What if you have 'a thing' for chubby women? Asking for a friend...
David Allen Green, the deeply irritating Remoaner lawyer, has "migrated" to Mastodon
Nervously says he will keep Twitter for the odd "broadcast" comment
1/20 he migrates entirely back to Twitter?
When are we setting up Wnkr?
I think they already have. But it's called "Mastodon"
Lol!
it's poignant and bathetic to watch them try and get Mastodon working. They don't seem to have realised what I pointed out earlier on: Mastodon is already seen as a liberal-left Woke Remoanery bubble-chamber, so anyone who disagrees with the Woke perspective on everything will avoid it like the Covid. So there won't be any arguments to be had, and no outrage to be savoured, and no Twitter pile-ons to abhor. Mastodon will be a boxing match with one boxer. It will be a lame-ass failure
Of course, the same fate befell Gab and Parler. They're both empty pointless echo chambers.
Content moderation is hard. If you don't have it at all, you get violent threats, (unwanted) pornography, and advertisers fleeing your platform because they don't want to be featured next to an announcement from the KKK.
We have it to a lesser extent here.
You want to foster a community and to have a diverse range of opinions. You want to be light touch. But you also have to recognize that if people don't enjoy being on your site, they will find somewhere else to hang out.
I wish Elon luck, and think the move away from advertising is a good idea.
BUT. $8/month is a lot for Twitter. And fostering a community is hard.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
Whether through eugenic mating or cosmetic surgery, China is also producing more HOT TEEN GIRLS
The West is totally finished
and a big factor in male motivation to work is hot young women....if you are a young man surrounded by obese women i think you are much less likely to work hard than if you are surrounded by hot young women....it is human nature in action.....
What if you have 'a thing' for chubby women? Asking for a friend...
"No another penny to Ukraine." Republicans Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene announced that if her party takes back control of Congress next week, they will slash military funding to Ukraine.
i dont think Trump running will have the same impact this time...his schtick which was new and shocking in 2015 is now all a bit meh. Also fox news dont seem to be covering him that much
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
That's the China which consumes over half the world's coal output ?
It's a wet grey Sunday in November. The rain is coming again. The cost of living is forcing people to eat rocks. Nuclear war seems highly possible. Millions of people are crippled by Long Covid. The Russian army is raping eastern Europe. Ebola returns. Climate change means the seas will soon boil. AI threatens the jobs of anyone who isn't already on fentanyl. No one is having sex. Young people prefer dictators to democracy. The rain is coming again. A barrel of oil costs 33 trillion dollars. Illegal migrants are raiding Aldis across Kent. Trump is heading for re-election. America faces civil war. Woke people are ruining society. Pop music is finished. IQs are dropping. Sperm counts are falling. England lost the rugby. And the Queen is dead
It's a wet grey Sunday in November. The rain is coming again. The cost of living is forcing people to eat rocks. Nuclear war seems highly possible. Millions of people are crippled by Long Covid. The Russian army is raping eastern Europe. Ebola returns. Climate change means the seas will soon boil. AI threatens the jobs of anyone who isn't already on fentanyl. No one is having sex. Young people prefer dictators to democracy. The rain is coming again. A barrel of oil costs 33 trillion dollars. Illegal migrants are raiding Aldis across Kent. Trump is heading for re-election. America faces civil war. Woke people are ruining society. Pop music is finished. IQs are dropping. Sperm counts are falling. England lost the rugby. And the Queen is dead
Did I miss anything?
The smartphone pandemic.
But wait... liberal democracy has no serious competitors apparently And never will.
"Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away."
There is no better system, but that does not mean it will endure.
On the one hand, the flaws of the current system are all too evident. On the other, the far right, the far left, Islamists, and Greens can promise paradise.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
Whether through eugenic mating or cosmetic surgery, China is also producing more HOT TEEN GIRLS
The West is totally finished
and a big factor in male motivation to work is hot young women....if you are a young man surrounded by obese women i think you are much less likely to work hard than if you are surrounded by hot young women....it is human nature in action.....
David Allen Green, the deeply irritating Remoaner lawyer, has "migrated" to Mastodon
Nervously says he will keep Twitter for the odd "broadcast" comment
1/20 he migrates entirely back to Twitter?
When are we setting up Wnkr?
I think they already have. But it's called "Mastodon"
Lol!
it's poignant and bathetic to watch them try and get Mastodon working. They don't seem to have realised what I pointed out earlier on: Mastodon is already seen as a liberal-left Woke Remoanery bubble-chamber, so anyone who disagrees with the Woke perspective on everything will avoid it like the Covid. So there won't be any arguments to be had, and no outrage to be savoured, and no Twitter pile-ons to abhor. Mastodon will be a boxing match with one boxer. It will be a lame-ass failure
Of course, the same fate befell Gab and Parler. They're both empty pointless echo chambers.
Content moderation is hard. If you don't have it at all, you get violent threats, (unwanted) pornography, and advertisers fleeing your platform because they don't want to be featured next to an announcement from the KKK.
We have it to a lesser extent here.
You want to foster a community and to have a diverse range of opinions. You want to be light touch. But you also have to recognize that if people don't enjoy being on your site, they will find somewhere else to hang out.
I wish Elon luck, and think the move away from advertising is a good idea.
BUT. $8/month is a lot for Twitter. And fostering a community is hard.
surely the answer is to ban pornography and violent threats plus abusive words like n..g..r but otherwise allow free speech so that even wrong ideas can be tested in debate...twitters censorship was way too heavy handed during covid for example
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
The Chinese might suggest otherwise. I'd not advocate their system, but a billion or so people have seen their standards of living massively increase very rapidly.
True but I don't think that means the system is sustainable in the long term. The party is obviously very wary of the attractions of western freedom.
In many ways liberal democracy is a victim of its own success. It is where people want to move to. Which creates new challenges.
Nobody moves to Britain or the US for the liberal democracy, whatever on earth that means. It's relatively easy to set up a business and there's party pluralism in elections? Is that what it means? The academics who go to the US under Fulbright for example, and the migrants from poorer parts of Eastern Europe and further afield who get into Britain and overstay their visas so they can skivvy in hotels etc. and send money back to their families in Albania or wherever ... I doubt either business regs or politics featured much in the calculations made by many of them... other than maybe inasmuch as they know they'll be earning valiuta and are confident they can get back out again carrying said valiuta (Fulbright) or having sent it out every so often (skivvies) without much of a problem. Which is certainly not true of many other countries in the world.
Probably quite a lot of people, rich and poor, move to the US and UK because in their home countries, they'd be killed for having the wrong beliefs/pissing off the wrong people.
On the other hand quite a few Britons, Europeans and Americans are quite willing to migrate to authoritarian dictatorships that suppress free speech, provided they are well paid to do so. It is why Saudi and the Gulf is full of "expats".
Money drives migration more than political freedom.
This will be a pivotal test case. If Italy succeeds in stopping migrant boat crossings with a simple No Way policy, then the pressure on HMG to do the same will be intense and irresistible
David Allen Green, the deeply irritating Remoaner lawyer, has "migrated" to Mastodon
Nervously says he will keep Twitter for the odd "broadcast" comment
1/20 he migrates entirely back to Twitter?
When are we setting up Wnkr?
I think they already have. But it's called "Mastodon"
Lol!
it's poignant and bathetic to watch them try and get Mastodon working. They don't seem to have realised what I pointed out earlier on: Mastodon is already seen as a liberal-left Woke Remoanery bubble-chamber, so anyone who disagrees with the Woke perspective on everything will avoid it like the Covid. So there won't be any arguments to be had, and no outrage to be savoured, and no Twitter pile-ons to abhor. Mastodon will be a boxing match with one boxer. It will be a lame-ass failure
Of course, the same fate befell Gab and Parler. They're both empty pointless echo chambers.
Content moderation is hard. If you don't have it at all, you get violent threats, (unwanted) pornography, and advertisers fleeing your platform because they don't want to be featured next to an announcement from the KKK.
We have it to a lesser extent here.
You want to foster a community and to have a diverse range of opinions. You want to be light touch. But you also have to recognize that if people don't enjoy being on your site, they will find somewhere else to hang out.
I wish Elon luck, and think the move away from advertising is a good idea.
BUT. $8/month is a lot for Twitter. And fostering a community is hard.
surely the answer is to ban pornography and violent threats plus abusive words like n..g..r but otherwise allow free speech so that even wrong ideas can be tested in debate...twitters censorship was way too heavy handed during covid for example
Really - a lot of clueless anti-vaxxers were allowed to stay for a long time.
It's a wet grey Sunday in November. The rain is coming again. The cost of living is forcing people to eat rocks. Nuclear war seems highly possible. Millions of people are crippled by Long Covid. The Russian army is raping eastern Europe. Ebola returns. Climate change means the seas will soon boil. AI threatens the jobs of anyone who isn't already on fentanyl. No one is having sex. Young people prefer dictators to democracy. The rain is coming again. A barrel of oil costs 33 trillion dollars. Illegal migrants are raiding Aldis across Kent. Trump is heading for re-election. America faces civil war. Woke people are ruining society. Pop music is finished. IQs are dropping. Sperm counts are falling. England lost the rugby. And the Queen is dead
Did I miss anything?
The smartphone pandemic.
But wait... liberal democracy has no serious competitors apparently And never will.
"Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away."
There is no better system, but that does not mean it will endure.
On the one hand, the flaws of the current system are all too evident. On the other, the far right, the far left, Islamists, and Greens can promise paradise.
Liberal democracy perhaps worked better when it was faced with an ideological enemy which, at least notionally, claimed to be on the side of the workers.
Which forced liberal democracies to ensure that sufficient proceeds of economic growth were distributed throughout the socioeconomic ladder.
Compared with the wealth grabbing of the 1% after 2000.
I spent a brief moment at a pub this afternoon with a nice pint of Harvey’s best, and they were playing Jerry Rafferty - Baker Street. It struck me as being the ultimate autumn Sunday afternoon pub track. I had an almost Proustian response to it.
however i think on private forums an echo chamber effect tends to take hold...why...people get dopamine hits from having their views agreed with and dont like dissenting opinions...but the same rules of moderation should apply...unless a poster is being personally abusive they should be allowed to stay and their arguments dissected...
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
Whether through eugenic mating or cosmetic surgery, China is also producing more HOT TEEN GIRLS
The West is totally finished
and a big factor in male motivation to work is hot young women....if you are a young man surrounded by obese women i think you are much less likely to work hard than if you are surrounded by hot young women....it is human nature in action.....
You talking to yourself again
With just 70 posts under his belt he's hardly pushing the envelope. You on the other hand, with 37 thousand and barely a civil word.
This will be a pivotal test case. If Italy succeeds in stopping migrant boat crossings with a simple No Way policy, then the pressure on HMG to do the same will be intense and irresistible
It's irrelevant to the UK though as EU law isn't relevant anymore.
I spent a brief moment at a pub this afternoon with a nice pint of Harvey’s best, and they were playing Jerry Rafferty - Baker Street. It struck me as being the ultimate autumn Sunday afternoon pub track. I had an almost Proustian response to it.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
That's the China which consumes over half the world's coal output ?
I was hoping not to have to deal with that rather stupid point.
China had severe brownouts and blackouts last winter. Like any country in the world including us it is going to do whatever it takes to prevent that happening, including burn coal.
Why don't you click the RH column to sort by per capita, surely the only sensible measure, and see that China is 12th by that measure? Australia 1st, USA 17th, so not a great win for liberal democracy.
This will be a pivotal test case. If Italy succeeds in stopping migrant boat crossings with a simple No Way policy, then the pressure on HMG to do the same will be intense and irresistible
It seems the Italians are saying that the responsibility lies with the flag country of the vessel, in this case Germany, much harder to apply to the Channel.
Exclusive: The Home Office papers that show Suella Braverman was warned over and over about the legal risk of prolonged detention of migrants at Manston
The Sunday Times today takes you through five submissions from mid-September to late October
David Allen Green, the deeply irritating Remoaner lawyer, has "migrated" to Mastodon
Nervously says he will keep Twitter for the odd "broadcast" comment
1/20 he migrates entirely back to Twitter?
When are we setting up Wnkr?
I think they already have. But it's called "Mastodon"
Lol!
it's poignant and bathetic to watch them try and get Mastodon working. They don't seem to have realised what I pointed out earlier on: Mastodon is already seen as a liberal-left Woke Remoanery bubble-chamber, so anyone who disagrees with the Woke perspective on everything will avoid it like the Covid. So there won't be any arguments to be had, and no outrage to be savoured, and no Twitter pile-ons to abhor. Mastodon will be a boxing match with one boxer. It will be a lame-ass failure
Of course, the same fate befell Gab and Parler. They're both empty pointless echo chambers.
Content moderation is hard. If you don't have it at all, you get violent threats, (unwanted) pornography, and advertisers fleeing your platform because they don't want to be featured next to an announcement from the KKK.
We have it to a lesser extent here.
You want to foster a community and to have a diverse range of opinions. You want to be light touch. But you also have to recognize that if people don't enjoy being on your site, they will find somewhere else to hang out.
I wish Elon luck, and think the move away from advertising is a good idea.
BUT. $8/month is a lot for Twitter. And fostering a community is hard.
surely the answer is to ban pornography and violent threats plus abusive words like n..g..r but otherwise allow free speech so that even wrong ideas can be tested in debate...twitters censorship was way too heavy handed during covid for example
Really - a lot of clueless anti-vaxxers were allowed to stay for a long time.
if their arguments are poor they should be dissected....but remember we now even have antivax doctors like Dr Malhotra who testified before Parliament
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
The Chinese might suggest otherwise. I'd not advocate their system, but a billion or so people have seen their standards of living massively increase very rapidly.
True but I don't think that means the system is sustainable in the long term. The party is obviously very wary of the attractions of western freedom.
In many ways liberal democracy is a victim of its own success. It is where people want to move to. Which creates new challenges.
Nobody moves to Britain or the US for the liberal democracy, whatever on earth that means. It's relatively easy to set up a business and there's party pluralism in elections? Is that what it means? The academics who go to the US under Fulbright for example, and the migrants from poorer parts of Eastern Europe and further afield who get into Britain and overstay their visas so they can skivvy in hotels etc. and send money back to their families in Albania or wherever ... I doubt either business regs or politics featured much in the calculations made by many of them... other than maybe inasmuch as they know they'll be earning valiuta and are confident they can get back out again carrying said valiuta (Fulbright) or having sent it out every so often (skivvies) without much of a problem. Which is certainly not true of many other countries in the world.
Probably quite a lot of people, rich and poor, move to the US and UK because in their home countries, they'd be killed for having the wrong beliefs/pissing off the wrong people.
On the other hand quite a few Britons, Europeans and Americans are quite willing to migrate to authoritarian dictatorships that suppress free speech, provided they are well paid to do so. It is why Saudi and the Gulf is full of "expats".
Money drives migration more than political freedom.
Money drives expatriation. In the cases you reference I’m not convinced it drives a desire to adopt a new nationality or citizenship. With the honourable exception of one or two notable citizens of counties like Belize.
Just noticed a tweet from @david_herdson talking about the Lib Dem MIRAS plans.
If you want to raise taxes and discourage buy to rent - remove the ability to deduct any interest from loans on residential property.
Davey is just flailing about trying to get some attention.
I’ve no doubt they’d be a beneficial check on either a Tory or Labour minority government. But they’re not doing much to justify voting for them in their own right.
Having been first to propose energy windfall taxes, a winter energy price cap, and now the only party seriously proposing a complete overhaul of Ofwat and tougher regulations on water companies I think they’re doing plenty of substance in 2022.
I don’t think the mortgage subsidy is a good idea though.
Still, we could list half a dozen policy ideas from Labour in the last couple of years that don’t stand up to scrutiny, and the same number or more from the conservatives that are utterly idiotic.
Some posters here may disagree with some of what the Lib Dems are saying. But at least they are talking about issues that matter to people.
I recognise that the PB Tories are all so wealthy that they do not have any financial problems, but what is the Conservative Party proposing to do to help people who are worried about the increased cost of their mortgages? Conservatives do not even realise that there is a problem.
The LibDems can’t propose the only policy for housing that works.
Because riding the NIMBY tiger is their not very secret weapon….
IDEA: King Charles given absolute monarchical rights to the founding of new towns. Discuss.
David Allen Green, the deeply irritating Remoaner lawyer, has "migrated" to Mastodon
Nervously says he will keep Twitter for the odd "broadcast" comment
1/20 he migrates entirely back to Twitter?
When are we setting up Wnkr?
I think they already have. But it's called "Mastodon"
It has room for you, and the spice you provide, too.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63534240 … At the moment all the servers have their own moderation rules, and some have none. Some servers are choosing not to link to others that are full of bots or seem to have a high quantity of hateful content - this means they will not be visible to those on the servers where they are blocked. Posts can also be reported to the server owners. If it's hate speech or illegal content then those owners can delete it - but that does not necessarily delete it everywhere. It's going to be a huge issue if this platform continues to grow. There are already reports of people being targeted by hateful content….
It's a wet grey Sunday in November. The rain is coming again. The cost of living is forcing people to eat rocks. Nuclear war seems highly possible. Millions of people are crippled by Long Covid. The Russian army is raping eastern Europe. Ebola returns. Climate change means the seas will soon boil. AI threatens the jobs of anyone who isn't already on fentanyl. No one is having sex. Young people prefer dictators to democracy. The rain is coming again. A barrel of oil costs 33 trillion dollars. Illegal migrants are raiding Aldis across Kent. Trump is heading for re-election. America faces civil war. Woke people are ruining society. Pop music is finished. IQs are dropping. Sperm counts are falling. England lost the rugby. And the Queen is dead
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
That's the China which consumes over half the world's coal output ?
I was hoping not to have to deal with that rather stupid point.
China had severe brownouts and blackouts last winter. Like any country in the world including us it is going to do whatever it takes to prevent that happening, including burn coal.
Why don't you click the RH column to sort by per capita, surely the only sensible measure, and see that China is 12th by that measure? Australia 1st, USA 17th, so not a great win for liberal democracy.
And the UK is 37th.
Now perhaps we should consider how things have changed in recent years.
How about this from May 2019:
Here are two surprising facts which between them help explain why the UK steel industry seems to be in what looks like a perma-slump.
The first is that in the past two years (to be precise, the past 22 months) China has manufactured more steel than Britain has since the height of the Industrial Revolution in 1870.
Try, if you can, to get your head round that.
In the months since the last general election China has produced more steel than Britain - the country where modern steel manufacturing was invented - has produced. Ever.
This fact is all the more startling when you note that until relatively recently China didn't actually make all that much steel and used to get most of its steel from overseas.
I spent a brief moment at a pub this afternoon with a nice pint of Harvey’s best, and they were playing Jerry Rafferty - Baker Street. It struck me as being the ultimate autumn Sunday afternoon pub track. I had an almost Proustian response to it.
A uni friend was from the Sussex area and used to wax lyrical about Harvey’s. We never seemed to find it in good condition. Didn’t seem to travel well. Countless samplings at beers festivals and random pubs confirmedvthis, yet Gary swore it was a great beer. And then one day I finally found a good pint of Harvey’s best, and it was fine. Still don’t think it travels well away from the south coast.
"No another penny to Ukraine." Republicans Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene announced that if her party takes back control of Congress next week, they will slash military funding to Ukraine.
One feature of modern politics is that the loudest morons of a political party are assumed to have more importance than they actually have.
Yes. The two parties in Congress very rarely compromise with each other, but it does occasionally happen, and "continued military aid to Ukraine" has to be pretty much at the top of the short list of topics that can gather enough bipartisan agreement to get something through if necessary.
David Allen Green, the deeply irritating Remoaner lawyer, has "migrated" to Mastodon
Nervously says he will keep Twitter for the odd "broadcast" comment
1/20 he migrates entirely back to Twitter?
When are we setting up Wnkr?
I think they already have. But it's called "Mastodon"
It has room for you, and the spice you provide, too.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63534240 … At the moment all the servers have their own moderation rules, and some have none. Some servers are choosing not to link to others that are full of bots or seem to have a high quantity of hateful content - this means they will not be visible to those on the servers where they are blocked. Posts can also be reported to the server owners. If it's hate speech or illegal content then those owners can delete it - but that does not necessarily delete it everywhere. It's going to be a huge issue if this platform continues to grow. There are already reports of people being targeted by hateful content….
It is a complete mess AND has nothing in common with twitter anyway. It's like those joke substitutions in online shops - we were out of shampoo so sent you some stewing steak instead.
This will be a pivotal test case. If Italy succeeds in stopping migrant boat crossings with a simple No Way policy, then the pressure on HMG to do the same will be intense and irresistible
It seems the Italians are saying that the responsibility lies with the flag country of the vessel, in this case Germany, much harder to apply to the Channel.
Has an NGO, British or otherwise, ever tried running these "rescue" ships across the channel? I wonder what would happen.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
That's the China which consumes over half the world's coal output ?
I was hoping not to have to deal with that rather stupid point.
China had severe brownouts and blackouts last winter. Like any country in the world including us it is going to do whatever it takes to prevent that happening, including burn coal.
Why don't you click the RH column to sort by per capita, surely the only sensible measure, and see that China is 12th by that measure? Australia 1st, USA 17th, so not a great win for liberal democracy.
I’d argue the best assessment is the trajectory nations are on, not necessarily the current position. I think there are huge opportunities in the green revolution that we are missing in the U.K.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
The Chinese might suggest otherwise. I'd not advocate their system, but a billion or so people have seen their standards of living massively increase very rapidly.
True but I don't think that means the system is sustainable in the long term. The party is obviously very wary of the attractions of western freedom.
In many ways liberal democracy is a victim of its own success. It is where people want to move to. Which creates new challenges.
Nobody moves to Britain or the US for the liberal democracy, whatever on earth that means. It's relatively easy to set up a business and there's party pluralism in elections? Is that what it means? The academics who go to the US under Fulbright for example, and the migrants from poorer parts of Eastern Europe and further afield who get into Britain and overstay their visas so they can skivvy in hotels etc. and send money back to their families in Albania or wherever ... I doubt either business regs or politics featured much in the calculations made by many of them... other than maybe inasmuch as they know they'll be earning valiuta and are confident they can get back out again carrying said valiuta (Fulbright) or having sent it out every so often (skivvies) without much of a problem. Which is certainly not true of many other countries in the world.
Probably quite a lot of people, rich and poor, move to the US and UK because in their home countries, they'd be killed for having the wrong beliefs/pissing off the wrong people.
On the other hand quite a few Britons, Europeans and Americans are quite willing to migrate to authoritarian dictatorships that suppress free speech, provided they are well paid to do so. It is why Saudi and the Gulf is full of "expats".
Money drives migration more than political freedom.
Money drives expatriation. In the cases you reference I’m not convinced it drives a desire to adopt a new nationality or citizenship. With the honourable exception of one or two notable citizens of counties like Belize.
I know quite a few economic migrants. I also married one.
The interesting divide (seems to be cultural) is between those who came here to be British.
And those who think this country is shit, the culture is shit* and basically want this country to be like their favourite kind of shithole.
*hating on gays seems to be a big item, for these types. It’s like gays are the new Jews. Mind you, quite a few seem to be AOK with hating on gays and Jews together.
Comments
Officials in Kyiv have told people to evacuate the city for the first time since March because Russian missile attacks have destroyed its power generation systems.
Vitaliy Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv and a former world heavyweight boxing champion, said that 450,000 apartments in the city now didn’t have any electricity.
“If you have relatives or friends in the suburbs of Kyiv who have a separate water supply, a stove and heating, plan to stay there temporarily,” he said in comments to Ukrainian media on Saturday evening.
“Please make arrangements so that in the event of a bad scenario, you can stay with your friends or acquaintances for a while.” Kyiv city officials later told the New York Times newspaper that plans had been drawn up to evacuate the entire city, which had a pre-war population of 3 million people.
But, where the Francis Fukuyama thesis is absolutely bang on is that with the internal collapse of the Soviet Union we said goodbye to probably the last serious ideological challenger to liberal capitalism.
The threats since are either forms of reaction - radical Islam is an appeal to the past, so is Trump, or simple geopolitical competition which doesn’t seriously attempt to change the course of world history and is not universalist. The pseudo-ideology of modern Russia is just nationalism plus some derivative US culture war. China offers no grand vision for the world other than an alternative counterparty to do business with.
So I think that’s the real importance of 1989.
If you want to raise taxes and discourage buy to rent - remove the ability to deduct any interest from loans on residential property.
I'd keep him and put Owen Farrell on the bench
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
On that second count you can go a whole game without seeing that happen.
Ball either goes to "The forwards" or "the backs". It makes the England attack so easy to read despite playing a double pivot system.
Combine that with teams remembering to play a dedicated fullback to prevent England kicking them to death like they puled of on the 2018-19 season and England are an impotent threat in attack and their narrow defence is vulnerable out wide.
I’ve no doubt they’d be a beneficial check on either a Tory or Labour minority government. But they’re not doing much to justify voting for them in their own right.
Liverpool need a big hearted backs to the wall win, and up against a spurs with some injury concerns and who have conceded first in 9 of their last 12, Liverpool to take advantage of a weaker opponent on paper at last.
I do think with the hindsight of 30 years and especially with the pandemic experience, a new challenge has emerged to liberal capitalism. I've called it elsewhere the "post-work" experience - as I've always said, I work to live, I don't live to work. A number, not perhaps significant but it's clearly had an impact, have abdicated from economic activity and choose to live without work.
Now, if they want and can afford to do that, fine but it has and continues to have an impact on the economies of the west raising questions about where and how labour shortages are resolved which, as we've seen, incites wider debate on identity, the role of migrants and the kind of society in which we want to live.
Possibly for the first time, prosperity through growth is no longer seen as the ultimate objective - this is I think the primary reason for the failure of Kwarteng's budget. He thought it was still 1980 but the world has moved on and notions of "fairness" in terms of wealth distribution and equity are now to the forefront.
And No10 confirms PM *did* know of complaint
This is becoming a test of Sunak: his mettle in supporting a close ally — but also his judgement and what he knew/did/asked when
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63530070 https://twitter.com/gabriel_pogrund/status/1588945227511103489
I don’t think the mortgage subsidy is a good idea though.
Still, we could list half a dozen policy ideas
from Labour in the last couple of years that don’t stand up to scrutiny, and the same number or more from the conservatives that are utterly idiotic.
Lets just say that the country was so impressed by him that the Dems almost chose a superannuated socialist as candidate to succeed him and that the country elected Donald Trump.
In many ways liberal democracy is a victim of its own success. It is where people want to move to. Which creates new challenges.
I recognise that the PB Tories are all so wealthy that they do not have any financial problems, but what is the Conservative Party proposing to do to help people who are worried about the increased cost of their mortgages? Conservatives do not even realise that there is a problem.
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
not looking to export an alternative ideology. Moreover their vastly increased wealth came from operating in the global capitalist system. So that’s the capitalist bit of liberal capitalism clearly triumphant. As for the liberalism: they’re not looking to set up an alternative to the WTO or a closed system. If anything they stand to lose more from protectionism than the US or EU. So they are playing the liberal trade rules.
Do they offer a kind of authoritarian paternalist alternative to democracy? I think a few people feared so until a couple of years ago. But now? Covid has exposed the weaknesses of that form of organisation, Russia has shown up the dangers of cronyism and oligarchy, and the continuing brain drain to the West shows they are not winning any kind of soft power competition.
Once people start migrating in their thousands from liberal democracies to authoritarian dictatorships seeking to become Chinese or Iranian citizens that will signify a change but I can’t see it. I think immigration flows are a very good indicator of which systems have most universal appeal.
Did I miss anything?
The fact reality and theory are too completely different things seems not to have been grasped by most people including politicians. But it gives them a reason not to do anything just yet - because frankly we can't afford it.
Consider that if tens of millions of people with guns think that the 2020 election was stolen from them what have they done ?
Seemingly nothing.
Where are the terrorism campaigns and armed uprising in the Appalachians or Rockies ?
"No another penny to Ukraine." Republicans Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene announced that if her party takes back control of Congress next week, they will slash military funding to Ukraine.
https://twitter.com/Exusnx/status/1589053173737873408?s=20&t=Go5GUwbvWhrRSp6cocr7iw
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
While likely incoming Speaker McCarthy has also said 'no blank cheque' for Ukraine funds that is also not the same as cutting off funds altogether
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-donald-trump-humanitarian-assistance-congress-c47a255738cd13576aa4d238ec076f4a
It is leftist Democrats too who don't want to fund war efforts for Ukraine, not just the hard right
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/10/25/biden-left-wingers-ukraine-peace-plan-branded-olive-branch-putin/
The West is totally finished
But wait... liberal democracy has no serious competitors apparently
"Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
ICYMI: I wrote about how young women will be the decisive force in the midterms that no one saw coming.
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/2022-midterms-see-more-young-women-registering-vote-n1300528 https://twitter.com/MarisaKabas/status/1589300116275728385/photo/1
https://taxscouts.com/landlord-tax-returns/landlords-mortgage-interest-tax-relief-changes/
If every country operated as an autarchic producer and consumer solar panels would be many times more expensive than they currently are.
This is the stuff the liberals fought for in the 19th century and it continues to create opportunities for supply to meet demand and in so doing trigger more demand. Unfortunately it did that for bad polluting technologies, but now it’s doing so for renewable ones, and at speed.
The point is that the crappiest landlords I encounter are those who borrow money to purchase property to let because they don't have the spare cash to afford to do repairs quickly (or often at all).
Now there are 2 ways to create equality but as reintroducing MIRAS is unlikely to occur (because the government can't afford it) the other option is to remove the incentives landlords get.
And, its flaws generally get played up, while the flaws of the alternatives get played down. People see thousands of Chinese soldiers goose-stepping in unison, and think that represents an invincible future.
The same thing happened with communism and fascism in the twenties and thirties.
"The Lib Dem leader says his party will "end the chaos" that saw three prime minister in two months."
To be fair, the Lib Dems are quite well placed in that respect, having had no prime ministers for the last 100 years.
Content moderation is hard. If you don't have it at all, you get violent threats, (unwanted) pornography, and advertisers fleeing your platform because they don't want to be featured next to an announcement from the KKK.
We have it to a lesser extent here.
You want to foster a community and to have a diverse range of opinions. You want to be light touch. But you also have to recognize that if people don't enjoy being on your site, they will find somewhere else to hang out.
I wish Elon luck, and think the move away from advertising is a good idea.
BUT. $8/month is a lot for Twitter. And fostering a community is hard.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63533769
https://www.worldometers.info/coal/coal-consumption-by-country/
On the one hand, the flaws of the current system are all too evident. On the other, the far right, the far left, Islamists, and Greens can promise paradise.
Money drives migration more than political freedom.
Which forced liberal democracies to ensure that sufficient proceeds of economic growth were distributed throughout the socioeconomic ladder.
Compared with the wealth grabbing of the 1% after 2000.
China had severe brownouts and blackouts last winter. Like any country in the world including us it is going to do whatever it takes to prevent that happening, including burn coal.
Why don't you click the RH column to sort by per capita, surely the only sensible measure, and see that China is 12th by that measure? Australia 1st, USA 17th, so not a great win for liberal democracy.
The Sunday Times today takes you through five submissions from mid-September to late October
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/suella-braverman-was-warned-again-and-again-over-migrant-crisis-at-manston-7k85qrmts
Instead, reason is related to this & etc., etc.:
https://nypost.com/2022/10/17/ghislaine-maxwell-upset-at-losing-special-friend-clinton/
Because riding the NIMBY tiger is their not very secret weapon….
IDEA: King Charles given absolute monarchical rights to the founding of new towns. Discuss.
https://twitter.com/DamianReilly/status/1589171814403825666?t=AmDTsQrM07Lykr9BJSHZiw&s=19
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63534240
… At the moment all the servers have their own moderation rules, and some have none. Some servers are choosing not to link to others that are full of bots or seem to have a high quantity of hateful content - this means they will not be visible to those on the servers where they are blocked. Posts can also be reported to the server owners.
If it's hate speech or illegal content then those owners can delete it - but that does not necessarily delete it everywhere.
It's going to be a huge issue if this platform continues to grow.
There are already reports of people being targeted by hateful content….
Now perhaps we should consider how things have changed in recent years.
How about this from May 2019:
Here are two surprising facts which between them help explain why the UK steel industry seems to be in what looks like a perma-slump.
The first is that in the past two years (to be precise, the past 22 months) China has manufactured more steel than Britain has since the height of the Industrial Revolution in 1870.
Try, if you can, to get your head round that.
In the months since the last general election China has produced more steel than Britain - the country where modern steel manufacturing was invented - has produced. Ever.
This fact is all the more startling when you note that until relatively recently China didn't actually make all that much steel and used to get most of its steel from overseas.
https://news.sky.com/story/the-surprising-facts-behind-the-declining-steel-industry-11725482
I think its fair to say that China has massively increased its carbon emissions in recent decades.
Still don’t think it travels well away from the south coast.
The interesting divide (seems to be cultural) is between those who came here to be British.
And those who think this country is shit, the culture is shit* and basically want this country to be like their favourite kind of shithole.
*hating on gays seems to be a big item, for these types. It’s like gays are the new Jews. Mind you, quite a few seem to be AOK with hating on gays and Jews together.