This does seem to be the Tory tactic. We're rubbish and Labour are no better. Best not to vote at all unless you are over 65!
Is it a winning formula?
It was a genuinely glorious feeling to clear my student loan the other week.
Of course, being the SLC known as the Stupid Loan Company they first got the figure wrong, then gave me the wrong account details and finally told me the wrong payment reference.
But when I had finally worked through all that by patiently referring them to their own website and saw a balance of £0.00 there it was worth it.
I left 5 years of University with an honours degree and a Diploma and not a penny of debt. Not many pennies in credit either but no debt at all. My generation was spoilt rotten, no doubt about it.
Different times had different experiences for different people.
It was better for many who went to university.
It was worse for many who didn't.
Contrarily there's probably never been a better time to be young, northern working class in comparison to being young, southern middle class than what we have now.
WHY do people hate Elon Musk so much? It's quite insane, the level of anger and loathing he generates
I am not a Musk fanboi, I think he is often an awkward twit and is socially inept, and prone to grandiosity and confabulation. But he is also a highly intelligent man with a dash of inventive genius, one of the "great men" of our time. Yet people are so filled with hatred for him they try and argue he is "dim". It is profoundly odd
Political historian Geoffrey Wheatcroft explains how the Conservative Party has changed since the days of Thatcher, and how Brexit created an ‘existential crisis’ within the party. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGU6Yr8p0Wc
Musk's greatest asset is his drive: his willingness to work at an incredibly high rate and to pull everybody around him up to that rate, and get them working harder than they would otherwise work. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs also had that skill.
His greatest liability (right now) is what I call Rowling Disease (and, no, that's nothing to do with trans). Rowling's first books were better because she took the advice of editors. As she became more famous, she no longer took the counsel of others, and her books became long and bloated. The same is true of Musk. At Tesla, there were stand up rows between Musk and the engineers over the Model S and 3. But Musk listened when people said "this won't work". By the time we got to the Cybertruck, Musk was so convinced of his own genius, he refused to listen to anyone who raised issues. Indeed, in the old days people who fought with Musk got rewarded for their passion with promotion. Now they get fired.
WHY do people hate Elon Musk so much? It's quite insane, the level of anger and loathing he generates
I am not a Musk fanboi, I think he is often an awkward twit and is socially inept, and prone to grandiosity and confabulation. But he is also a highly intelligent man with a dash of inventive genius, one of the "great men" of our time. Yet people are so filled with hatred for him they try and argue he is "dim". It is profoundly odd
Because some people believe his words and actions mark him out as a fascist. That's a perfectly reasonable reason to despise someone, and not in the least bit odd.
The only question is, are they wrong or right about that?
I don't think he is remotely close to being a fascist, but anyway that is irrelevant to my point. A lot of the anger directed at Musk is eerily personal and visceral, and not connected to his politics. People hate him in some unhinged way, to the extent they will seriously argue he is a moron barely able to fry an egg
In short: he triggers a certain type of person, generally less intelligent people but not always - and I can't yet work out why
Look, some of the criticism is obviously misdirected, but I'm sure it's for the reasons I'm saying. He's intervening politically in ways that make people angry and afraid, they look at his statements and decide that he really is as terrible as all that.
Leaving aside whether they're right, what happens next? Well, when someone is as contemptible as that, any defence of them is seen as whitewashing the important thing about him: that he's dangerous. Someone can point to an achievement, and they don't feel able to acknowledge that because it risks someone getting the wrong idea that he's not all bad. Few people would want to find merit in, say, Hitler's paintings because they're afraid of how such an endorsement seems.
This is, I think, what you already suspect. You mention Trump, and Brexit. But the same phenomenon is visible elsewhere. See also Corbyn, Starmer, Sunak, AI, Scottish independence, Michael Gove, the monarchy, Sinn Fein, whatever. People have decided that THIS person or thing is bad news, and they shut themselves off from anything positive.
Also I don't think you're immune either. I think we are all prone to it. Also, I think you already understand much of this and you like to push buttons, knowing that people will react this way. I think you know much of this already, but you want people to react, so you've wrapped up praise of Musk into a question that presupposes the unreasonableness of hating him. You're asking people to come and play on your home turf. Well, enjoy it if that's what you're doing. It's good sport if you're into it. But don't lose sight of the reality of some of the criticism levelled against Musk. He's not a harmlessly awkward nerd. It's darker than that. How dark, I'm not sure, I don't enjoy spending much time fishing around in that particular drain. So I'll leave it up to others to make a final judgement on his character.
An articulate and interesting reply, with some good points. Thankyou. I prefer this measured, cerebral version of you. Keep it up!
However I disagree that it is simply the politics that annoys people. Totally apolitical people HATE him, and never mention his rightwing views. There is something else at work as well as the politics
Musk's greatest asset is his drive: his willingness to work at an incredibly high rate and to pull everybody around him up to that rate, and get them working harder than they would otherwise work. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs also had that skill.
His greatest liability (right now) is what I call Rowling Disease (and, no, that's nothing to do with trans). Rowling's first books were better because she took the advice of editors. As she became more famous, she no longer took the counsel of others, and her books became long and bloated. The same is true of Musk. At Tesla, there were stand up rows between Musk and the engineers over the Model S and 3. But Musk listened when people said "this won't work". By the time we got to the Cybertruck, Musk was so convinced of his own genius, he refused to listen to anyone who raised issues. Indeed, in the old days people who fought with Musk got rewarded for their passion with promotion. Now they get fired.
Musk's greatest asset is his drive: his willingness to work at an incredibly high rate and to pull everybody around him up to that rate, and get them working harder than they would otherwise work. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs also had that skill.
His greatest liability (right now) is what I call Rowling Disease (and, no, that's nothing to do with trans). Rowling's first books were better because she took the advice of editors. As she became more famous, she no longer took the counsel of others, and her books became long and bloated. The same is true of Musk. At Tesla, there were stand up rows between Musk and the engineers over the Model S and 3. But Musk listened when people said "this won't work". By the time we got to the Cybertruck, Musk was so convinced of his own genius, he refused to listen to anyone who raised issues. Indeed, in the old days people who fought with Musk got rewarded for their passion with promotion. Now they get fired.
That's quite perceptive. However Musk is still really successful at most of what he does. Remember when everyone scoffed when he sacked 90% of TwitterX staff? The common view was that it would collapse within hours. It did not
Has TwitterX got worse? Probably (though if you use it cleverly it's as good as ever) - but ALL social media is in trouble as they are swarmed with bots, it is not just a Musk/TwiX problem
If Man City are the Tories and Man U are Labour, was that goal a metaphor?
There was a run of if the FA Cup holders wore blue or white then the Tories would win and if it was red or yellow it would be Labour, if both it would be hung. But just like the Washington last home game result pattern for US presidential elections it broke down in the 2000s.
1950 - Wolves/Labour 1951 - Newcastle/Conservative 1955 - Newcastle/Conservative 1959 - Nottingham Forest/Conservative [Wrong] 1964 - West Ham/Labour [if you consider claret to be the main colour] 1966 - Liverpool/Labour 1970 - Chelsea/Conservative 1974(F) - Sunderland/Hung 1974(O) - Liverpool/Labour 1979 - Ipswich/Conservative 1983 - Manchester United/Conservative [Wrong] 1987 - Coventry/Conservative 1992 - Tottenham Hotspur/Conservative 1997 - Manchester United/Labour 2001 - Liverpool/Labour [It wasn't Foot and Mouth that delayed the election, it was Chelsea winning the FA Cup in 2000] 2005 - Manchester United/Labour 2010 - Chelsea/Hung [Wrong] 2015 - Arsenal/Conservative [Wrong] 2017 - Arsenal/Hung [Wrong] 2019 - Manchester City/Conservative
The BBC reports from Sunak's breakfast photo-opportunity in a pub, when asked about his sodden Downing Street speech: "no pneumonia yet, my suit on the other hand ... I'm not quite sure what state it will be in when I get back down to London."
Given that his suits are variously stated to cost £2,000-3,000, I wonder how this bit of humour will resonate with people struggling to make ends meet.
I thought it was a fair enough line.
The poor man can’t do anything right it seems.
Laughing at himself and still people have to mock? We are a weird country.
One thing I've noticed from lefties is criticism of Asian minorities when it comes to spending money on clothes and shoes.
How dare we get uppity by refusing to shop at M&S.
Comments like 'more money than sense' or 'did you get dressed in the dark?' are designed to keep us in our place.
As a rule I have three or four coats: one for funerals, one for winter (heavy and warm), one for summer (light and hoodless), another for inbetween days. My summer coat has died so I am going into town to buy a new one. It will be from either Next or M&S and cost less than £100. It may be a gilet if I can find one with four pockets. What I really need is a civilian version of this since I carry lots of stuff routinely but it would look silly. So it's going to have to be something utilitarian with lots of pockets but something that doesn't make you look like a nutter.
all my coats are second hand.
Same here, with a few exceptions purchased over 20 years ago.
My best coats came from Goodwill and other thrift stores.
Trick is to show up just AFTER some not-so-poor guy has cashed his chips . . .
Musk has made the cardinal sin. Everybody thought he was a progressive as he was on the eco-train, then they have realised that he makes statements in which he is voices more right wing talking points and given back platforms to alt-right types. A lot of online twatterati hate a turncoat far more than the "nazis".
The reaction over this take over twitter are so OTT. I remember the claims that sacking everybody it would total break in no time. Since then every tech company has made big layoffs. Also Telegram has 50 employees and 1 billion users.
I liked Elon until he called that cave rescue guy the P word, when you have a big voice then you should be careful before using that power to harm others.
I fully appreciate that this is a large and competitive field but the instructions I got with my "cordless weed eater" I bought from Amazon are a truly spectacular effort as the worst I have ever seen.
They have 4 pictures of how you might do something wrong and none, that is zero, about how you might put it together correctly. They also have this magnificent sentence: "According to the 4 stuck points on the machine head, place the protective cover at 45 degrees according to the stitching lines on the left and right of the machine shells of the machine head."
No pictures, no diagram showing what the "machine head" might be, no clarity as to what a "stitching line" might be, or a "machine shell" or 45 degrees from what. A truly brilliant effort. It is almost worth buying this piece of metal to get the opportunity to admire such artistry.
On the plus side United are not behind yet.
Perhaps you should head for Dominican Republic to see IF BJxPMxMP might have a slightly used one, used only for giving his mop a light trim?
Thank you all for the responses. Millets/North Face look good, and - surprisingly - TK Maxx looked even better. And yes, I'm not snobbish about charity shops either. But due to a certain amount of time-criticality it will be either M&S or Next. Will let you know how it goes.
Under £8 in the sale. Machine washable. It's awful but it's very utilitarian. Just two pockets but I can sew the internal flaps to build a paperback sized pocket. I have shopped efficiently!
Comments
It was better for many who went to university.
It was worse for many who didn't.
Contrarily there's probably never been a better time to be young, northern working class in comparison to being young, southern middle class than what we have now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGU6Yr8p0Wc
His greatest liability (right now) is what I call Rowling Disease (and, no, that's nothing to do with trans). Rowling's first books were better because she took the advice of editors. As she became more famous, she no longer took the counsel of others, and her books became long and bloated. The same is true of Musk. At Tesla, there were stand up rows between Musk and the engineers over the Model S and 3. But Musk listened when people said "this won't work". By the time we got to the Cybertruck, Musk was so convinced of his own genius, he refused to listen to anyone who raised issues. Indeed, in the old days people who fought with Musk got rewarded for their passion with promotion. Now they get fired.
However I disagree that it is simply the politics that annoys people. Totally apolitical people HATE him, and never mention his rightwing views. There is something else at work as well as the politics
(And, of course, Tesla are now trying to rehire some of the team back...)
Has TwitterX got worse? Probably (though if you use it cleverly it's as good as ever) - but ALL social media is in trouble as they are swarmed with bots, it is not just a Musk/TwiX problem
1950 - Wolves/Labour
1951 - Newcastle/Conservative
1955 - Newcastle/Conservative
1959 - Nottingham Forest/Conservative [Wrong]
1964 - West Ham/Labour [if you consider claret to be the main colour]
1966 - Liverpool/Labour
1970 - Chelsea/Conservative
1974(F) - Sunderland/Hung
1974(O) - Liverpool/Labour
1979 - Ipswich/Conservative
1983 - Manchester United/Conservative [Wrong]
1987 - Coventry/Conservative
1992 - Tottenham Hotspur/Conservative
1997 - Manchester United/Labour
2001 - Liverpool/Labour [It wasn't Foot and Mouth that delayed the election, it was Chelsea winning the FA Cup in 2000]
2005 - Manchester United/Labour
2010 - Chelsea/Hung [Wrong]
2015 - Arsenal/Conservative [Wrong]
2017 - Arsenal/Hung [Wrong]
2019 - Manchester City/Conservative
My best coats came from Goodwill and other thrift stores.
Trick is to show up just AFTER some not-so-poor guy has cashed his chips . . .
And the FA Cup.
This thread has crashed into the side of the wall
Under £8 in the sale. Machine washable. It's awful but it's very utilitarian. Just two pockets but I can sew the internal flaps to build a paperback sized pocket. I have shopped efficiently!