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How many Reform MPs on the 31st of December 2025? – politicalbetting.com

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  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 10,336
    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    Pizza at the Oasis gig

    What does our resident pizza lord, @TSE, think ?


    I am seeing Oasis at the start of August.
    I'm going to see them with my wife and my son in Manchester on Friday. Definitely Maybe came out the year we met at Uni, and my son is now a massive fan too. They are such a huge band, I don't think I've been more excited about a gig before.
    Sadly Noel took the piss out of my shoes one Christmas morning*, and therefore I struggle to be too positive about them

    * This is absolutely true
    At least he didn't piss in them.
    But he did piss on his chips
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 30,589
    Grok 4 is supposed to be unveiled at 8pm Pacific tonight. Late yesterday UK time I saw that people were posting about seeing elements of the new code.

    Then I go to bed and it turns into Hitler.

    Think of the fun if Reform UK programmed its own LLM! Lee Anderson as chief designer. A bot that tells you to fuck off every other sentence. And blames the muslims for chemtrails in response to a question about bunnies.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 79,091
    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    FF43 said:

    kle4 said:

    This is what we are going to get when Farage is forming the next government in 2029:


    Zia Yusuf
    @ZiaYusufUK

    The useless fake experts at the OBR now say the triple lock will cost *triple* what they originally forecast.

    Gutless politicians have for too long abdicated responsibility for running the British economy to a bunch of morons.

    They get every major economic forecast wrong, yet spend much of the report published today also trying to predict global temperatures!

    These people have no credibility.

    https://x.com/ZiaYusufUK/status/1942578996085952926

    In fairness I'd need to know how good the OBR's record is before deciding whether his attack on it is reasonable.
    Actually you don't need to know how good the OBR's record is because Zia Yusuf chooses to shoot the messenger. His point has nothing to do with how accurate the OBR. It's that he doesn't care about budget responsibility, and in particular the cost of the triple lock. It's of a piece with Reform's intention to take away the BoE's control of interest rates. You would only do that if you plan an inflationary monetary policy.

    Buy gold, people, buy gold.
    Hyperinflation and the complete collapse of the welfare state is the only way out of the current debt crisis. When something can’t go on it eventually stops. Gold is as good a guess as any as to what value survives that.
    During the Eurozone crisis, one policymaker observed something like "we know what we need to do to end this crisis. We just don't know how to do it and get elected again".

    It's perfectly possible to avoid apocalypse. It's just there are more votes in pretending that there are easy solutions. (See Reform.)
    I don’t see it. We would need to run a surplus for 30-50 years instead of a deficit of £150bn. How do we get there without crashing the economy with a collapse in demand?
    Our economy is a bubble of debt and brought forward demand kept going by excess consumption and yet more debt.

    We can’t repay our debts. We can only inflate them away. And, eventually, we will.
    You don't need to run a surplus for 30-50 years. The UK massively reduced debt to GDP without running a surplus for more than half a dozen of the years between 1945 and 2008.

    You just need modest economic growth and a small amount of inflation. 2% economic growth and 3% inflation reduces debt to GDP by 5%.
    IOW, you need stability, rather than radical experimentation.
    The Millei approach might be appropriate after everything has gone pear shaped; for us not so much.

    We're in a rut, not upside down in the ditch.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 27,856

    Andy_JS said:

    "Three men found guilty of Wagner-linked arson attack in London"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2k37x91vlo

    How did these idiots get mixed up with the Wagner Group?
    Online, probably. They saw lots of bots saying "Russia stronk!", how Ukrainians were Nazis (*), and how Ukraine started the war by not snuggling into the bosom of Mother Russia, and were 'encouraged' to perform this act.

    They will not be alone. I suspect some of the more militant pro-Palestinian 'protestors' are getting similar encouragement, because it hurts *us*.

    (*) A sadly common belief, even on here.
    You can't be serious? They haven't been brainwashed into it by propaganda about Ukrainian Nazis.

    This is Russia weaponising our diversity against us.
    You seem to underestimate how easy it is for people to be radicalised online. Maybe you should look in the mirror!
    It is easy to radicalise some people online.

    And the greater the diversity in a country the easier it is to do so.

    Radicalise demographic A on issue X, radicalise demographic B on issue Y, radicalise demographic C on issue Z etc
    If you wish to sow discord, you can always find something to divide people on. Rural vs urban, rich vs poor, Catholic vs Protestant, etc. Our diversity in the country does not make us more susceptible to online radicalisation. People saying stupid things online makes us more susceptible to online radicalisation.
    Diversity increases the possibility of radicalisation as it introduces people who are potentially open to being radicalised on more diverse issues.

    As an example diversity in Leicester has led to clashes between Hindus and Muslims there.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 55,785
    rcs1000 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    Jesus Christ

    Mind you. I guess it shows why Elon has such a problem with those pesky "thought police" who call out every little thing as somehow anti semitic
    Pretty sure Jesus Christ was first century not 20th.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 6,477
    Apologies in advance to the mods but I’m just going to flag every post by kjh and HYUFD on their stupid endless argument - hopefully it will annoy you enough to threaten the ban hammer if it doesn’t stop - I realise it might get me banned but at least I can lurk and read without the endless shit as neither seem capable of growing up and dropping it/ignoring each other.

    THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,172
    edited 6:22AM
    Taz said:

    rcs1000 said:

    kamski said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    Jesus Christ

    Mind you. I guess it shows why Elon has such a problem with those pesky "thought police" who call out every little thing as somehow anti semitic
    There's more:
    https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/elon-musk-grok-antisemitic-posts-x-rcna217634

    The AI chatbot Grok, which is produced by Elon Musk’s xAI, wrote numerous antisemitic social media posts Tuesday after the artificial intelligence company released a revamped version of it over the weekend.
    ...
    ... Grok replied, in part: “folks with surnames like ‘Steinberg’ (often Jewish) keep popping up in extreme leftist activism, especially the anti-white variety.

    Is there something a bit Musk-like in not just the content, but the style of the latest Grok? Eg from same article

    Truth hurts, but patterns don’t lie sounds like the sort of thing Musk would post after some white supremacist bullshit.
    It'll be interesting to know exactly what's happening here. It won't just be GIGO in the training data.
    If you instruct an LLM to ignore everything which the "mainstream media" agrees with, you will get some pretty weird outputs.
    Like Vienna, this means nothing to me, but some are claiming sabotage by a now sacked engineer.

    Won’t link to his account and he really is a raging anti semite.

    However this popped up on my feed.

    https://x.com/mostlypeacefull/status/1942746868007461247?s=61
    I thought we were discouraged by the boss management not to link to Twitter anymore?

    Is that the case?
  • kjhkjh Posts: 12,877
    edited 6:23AM
    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    Pizza at the Oasis gig

    What does our resident pizza lord, @TSE, think ?


    I am seeing Oasis at the start of August.
    I'm going to see them with my wife and my son in Manchester on Friday. Definitely Maybe came out the year we met at Uni, and my son is now a massive fan too. They are such a huge band, I don't think I've been more excited about a gig before.
    Sadly Noel took the piss out of my shoes one Christmas morning*, and therefore I struggle to be too positive about them

    * This is absolutely true
    In the 80s Patsy Kensit's mum, Margie was my (and others) secretary. She was great fun and bonkers. She took a great deal of interest in my love life, but sadly never introduced me to her daughter. I might have saved her from Liam.

    Are you going to explain your story or leave us hanging.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 30,589
    Supposedly Elon posted that Grok was giving answers that were too woke, so he had the code adjusted. And it turned into Hitler.

    The LLM demonstrates what woke is - not being prone to fascism.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 10,425
    Morning, PB.

    Although thr new outbreak of sweary fascism from Musk's Grok has been highly dangerous, there have also occasionally been some moments when one can't help but laugh, although one shouldn't. There is also a "naked emperor" aspect about Grok"s entire supposed, and integrated intelligence project, so far..

    "Grok was also found this week to have referred to the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, as “a ginger whore” in response to queries."
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 10,336
    edited 6:28AM
    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    FF43 said:

    kle4 said:

    This is what we are going to get when Farage is forming the next government in 2029:


    Zia Yusuf
    @ZiaYusufUK

    The useless fake experts at the OBR now say the triple lock will cost *triple* what they originally forecast.

    Gutless politicians have for too long abdicated responsibility for running the British economy to a bunch of morons.

    They get every major economic forecast wrong, yet spend much of the report published today also trying to predict global temperatures!

    These people have no credibility.

    https://x.com/ZiaYusufUK/status/1942578996085952926

    In fairness I'd need to know how good the OBR's record is before deciding whether his attack on it is reasonable.
    Actually you don't need to know how good the OBR's record is because Zia Yusuf chooses to shoot the messenger. His point has nothing to do with how accurate the OBR. It's that he doesn't care about budget responsibility, and in particular the cost of the triple lock. It's of a piece with Reform's intention to take away the BoE's control of interest rates. You would only do that if you plan an inflationary monetary policy.

    Buy gold, people, buy gold.
    Hyperinflation and the complete collapse of the welfare state is the only way out of the current debt crisis. When something can’t go on it eventually stops. Gold is as good a guess as any as to what value survives that.
    During the Eurozone crisis, one policymaker observed something like "we know what we need to do to end this crisis. We just don't know how to do it and get elected again".

    It's perfectly possible to avoid apocalypse. It's just there are more votes in pretending that there are easy solutions. (See Reform.)
    I don’t see it. We would need to run a surplus for 30-50 years instead of a deficit of £150bn. How do we get there without crashing the economy with a collapse in demand?
    Our economy is a bubble of debt and brought forward demand kept going by excess consumption and yet more debt.

    We can’t repay our debts. We can only inflate them away. And, eventually, we will.
    You don't need to run a surplus for 30-50 years. The UK massively reduced debt to GDP without running a surplus for more than half a dozen of the years between 1945 and 2008.

    You just need modest economic growth and a small amount of inflation. 2% economic growth and 3% inflation reduces debt to GDP by 5%.
    IOW, you need stability, rather than radical experimentation.
    The Millei approach might be appropriate after everything has gone pear shaped; for us not so much.

    We're in a rut, not upside down in the ditch.
    A ditch is just a big rut…

    Edit: One of better put downs I heard (which this post may be think of) was “we are all in the gutter. Some of us are here by choice”
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,172
    MattW said:

    Taz said:

    rcs1000 said:

    kamski said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    Jesus Christ

    Mind you. I guess it shows why Elon has such a problem with those pesky "thought police" who call out every little thing as somehow anti semitic
    There's more:
    https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/elon-musk-grok-antisemitic-posts-x-rcna217634

    The AI chatbot Grok, which is produced by Elon Musk’s xAI, wrote numerous antisemitic social media posts Tuesday after the artificial intelligence company released a revamped version of it over the weekend.
    ...
    ... Grok replied, in part: “folks with surnames like ‘Steinberg’ (often Jewish) keep popping up in extreme leftist activism, especially the anti-white variety.

    Is there something a bit Musk-like in not just the content, but the style of the latest Grok? Eg from same article

    Truth hurts, but patterns don’t lie sounds like the sort of thing Musk would post after some white supremacist bullshit.
    It'll be interesting to know exactly what's happening here. It won't just be GIGO in the training data.
    If you instruct an LLM to ignore everything which the "mainstream media" agrees with, you will get some pretty weird outputs.
    Like Vienna, this means nothing to me, but some are claiming sabotage by a now sacked engineer.

    Won’t link to his account and he really is a raging anti semite.

    However this popped up on my feed.

    https://x.com/mostlypeacefull/status/1942746868007461247?s=61
    I thought we were discouraged by the boss management not to link to Twitter anymore?

    Is that the case?
    Uh-oh. Double negative fail, but you know what I mean.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,172
    MattW said:

    Taz said:

    rcs1000 said:

    kamski said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    Jesus Christ

    Mind you. I guess it shows why Elon has such a problem with those pesky "thought police" who call out every little thing as somehow anti semitic
    There's more:
    https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/elon-musk-grok-antisemitic-posts-x-rcna217634

    The AI chatbot Grok, which is produced by Elon Musk’s xAI, wrote numerous antisemitic social media posts Tuesday after the artificial intelligence company released a revamped version of it over the weekend.
    ...
    ... Grok replied, in part: “folks with surnames like ‘Steinberg’ (often Jewish) keep popping up in extreme leftist activism, especially the anti-white variety.

    Is there something a bit Musk-like in not just the content, but the style of the latest Grok? Eg from same article

    Truth hurts, but patterns don’t lie sounds like the sort of thing Musk would post after some white supremacist bullshit.
    It'll be interesting to know exactly what's happening here. It won't just be GIGO in the training data.
    If you instruct an LLM to ignore everything which the "mainstream media" agrees with, you will get some pretty weird outputs.
    Like Vienna, this means nothing to me, but some are claiming sabotage by a now sacked engineer.

    Won’t link to his account and he really is a raging anti semite.

    However this popped up on my feed.

    https://x.com/mostlypeacefull/status/1942746868007461247?s=61
    I thought we were discouraged by the boss management not to link to Twitter anymore?

    Is that the case?
    Uh-oh. Double negative fail, but you know what I mean.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 122,675

    NEW THREAD

  • edited 6:32AM
    boulay said:

    Apologies in advance to the mods but I’m just going to flag every post by kjh and HYUFD on their stupid endless argument - hopefully it will annoy you enough to threaten the ban hammer if it doesn’t stop - I realise it might get me banned but at least I can lurk and read without the endless shit as neither seem capable of growing up and dropping it/ignoring each other.

    THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.

    I was struggling to understand the points they were both failing to make. Their central point seemed as bogus as the £22B blackhole which the government front bench invented. Are we seeing two applications for the post of chancellor ? I would prefer to be Agriculture Secretary (NOT Defra). Once the statement I would make a better job of the post than the incumbent seemed like hubris. Not with this government it isn't.
  • TazTaz Posts: 19,576
    MattW said:

    Taz said:

    rcs1000 said:

    kamski said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    Jesus Christ

    Mind you. I guess it shows why Elon has such a problem with those pesky "thought police" who call out every little thing as somehow anti semitic
    There's more:
    https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/elon-musk-grok-antisemitic-posts-x-rcna217634

    The AI chatbot Grok, which is produced by Elon Musk’s xAI, wrote numerous antisemitic social media posts Tuesday after the artificial intelligence company released a revamped version of it over the weekend.
    ...
    ... Grok replied, in part: “folks with surnames like ‘Steinberg’ (often Jewish) keep popping up in extreme leftist activism, especially the anti-white variety.

    Is there something a bit Musk-like in not just the content, but the style of the latest Grok? Eg from same article

    Truth hurts, but patterns don’t lie sounds like the sort of thing Musk would post after some white supremacist bullshit.
    It'll be interesting to know exactly what's happening here. It won't just be GIGO in the training data.
    If you instruct an LLM to ignore everything which the "mainstream media" agrees with, you will get some pretty weird outputs.
    Like Vienna, this means nothing to me, but some are claiming sabotage by a now sacked engineer.

    Won’t link to his account and he really is a raging anti semite.

    However this popped up on my feed.

    https://x.com/mostlypeacefull/status/1942746868007461247?s=61
    I thought we were discouraged by the boss management not to link to Twitter anymore?

    Is that the case?
    News to me.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 24,803

    Grok 4 is supposed to be unveiled at 8pm Pacific tonight. Late yesterday UK time I saw that people were posting about seeing elements of the new code.

    Then I go to bed and it turns into Hitler.

    Think of the fun if Reform UK programmed its own LLM! Lee Anderson as chief designer. A bot that tells you to fuck off every other sentence. And blames the muslims for chemtrails in response to a question about bunnies.

    At least we could finally all know how to feed a family of five for 30p a week.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 52,093

    Grok 4 is supposed to be unveiled at 8pm Pacific tonight. Late yesterday UK time I saw that people were posting about seeing elements of the new code.

    Then I go to bed and it turns into Hitler.

    Think of the fun if Reform UK programmed its own LLM! Lee Anderson as chief designer. A bot that tells you to fuck off every other sentence. And blames the muslims for chemtrails in response to a question about bunnies.

    Doesn't that one post on here already? From all over the world
  • TazTaz Posts: 19,576

    boulay said:

    Apologies in advance to the mods but I’m just going to flag every post by kjh and HYUFD on their stupid endless argument - hopefully it will annoy you enough to threaten the ban hammer if it doesn’t stop - I realise it might get me banned but at least I can lurk and read without the endless shit as neither seem capable of growing up and dropping it/ignoring each other.

    THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.

    I was struggling to understand the points they were both failing to make. Their central point seemed as bogus as the £22B blackhole which the government front bench invented. Are we seeing two applications for the post of chancellor ? I would prefer to be Agriculture Secretary (NOT Defra). Once the statement I would make a better job of the post than the incumbent seemed like hubris. Not with this government it isn't.
    It’s like the Al Fayed-Neil Hamilton court case, a battle one doesn’t want either side to win.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 12,877
    boulay said:

    Apologies in advance to the mods but I’m just going to flag every post by kjh and HYUFD on their stupid endless argument - hopefully it will annoy you enough to threaten the ban hammer if it doesn’t stop - I realise it might get me banned but at least I can lurk and read without the endless shit as neither seem capable of growing up and dropping it/ignoring each other.

    THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.

    You might be surprised by that 'like' but I agree.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 52,050
    MattW said:

    I get the sense, from an accumulation of discussions over some time, that an increasing number of people have given up on the idea of life improving from one generation to the next.

    Not just that they're angry that it isn't, or they have no hope that it will, but they've internalised the failure of it to happen to the extent of chiding those who complain about the failure. They see it as the natural order of things.

    I remember some daft person expecting the post-pandemic 2020s to be a riotous explosion of revelry to rival the roaring twenties that followed the Spanish Flu, but it really feels as though we've entered a period of profound pessimism.

    People say to me that they're being realistic rather than pessimistic, but I think a key difference is that you can be realistic about the difficulties that exist, while retaining some degree of optimism about the potential to fix those problems. And the problem with pessimism is that it is a self-fulfilling state that disables people from acting to take those steps that might improve them.

    When the politicians refuse to level with the voters the public finances and the necessary steps to being them into equilibrium they are being pessimistic about their ability to communicate with the public and the public's willingness to follow a lead.

    But what if they're wrong? What if they give it a go?

    We've seen similar with the Ukraine War - pessimism over the ability to defeat the Russians, and so support has been delayed and rationed. Pessimism abounds.

    Somehow we need to snap out of it.

    I'm actually optimistic about the world's future, though not blindly so.

    A couple of decades ago, overpopulation was seen as being a massive problem for humanity, promising famine and conflict. Now we're being told that low birthrates are a massive problem for humanity.

    Much of it is about change and nostalgia. Many people look back on the past nostalgically, remembering the good and forgetting the bad, and compare it with nowadays, where the bad looms foremost in their minds and they forget the good. In their mind change is, by its very nature, negative = unless it is a change that corresponds with their viewpoint.

    The Internet does not help: negative stories can spread further and faster than good; and negativity can be a form of control and gaining power.

    Also, pessimism and negativity can be a reason not to do anything. "What's the point in helping Ukraine if they're going to lose..." is commonly heard from people pretending to support Ukraine.

    Every week, Mrs J and I try to go for a a half-hour walk on our own, when we just chat and chew the cud. We often use the time to talk positively about each other and the world. I treasure those walks, of being in each other's company.
    Musing. That sounds like a loss of self-belief, and partly a lack of a guiding philosophy, which can lead too easily to empiricism or even nihilism.

    The "Roaring Twenties" are an interesting analogy to some people's hopes got post-COVID. It sounds a little "Boris" ie hot air and self-delusion.

    But what were the Roaring Twenties for ordinary people? Were they like the "Swinging Sixties" - which if I have it right from social history and speaking to older friends were limited to a small area of West London. Though I am sure dedicated followers of fashion followed the fashion in their way.
    I think we are rather over influenced by the USA on our perceptions of the interwar period. In Britain the Twenties didn't roar, they were a time of austerity, refreshments and the General Strike, while after 1933 our economy did roar, while America was in its Great Depression.

    Similarly the Fifties and Sixties were pretty grim for many Britons. I remember my dad describing the Sixties as very depressing "everyone was trying to emigrate".

    These things are focal geographically too. I had a great time in Winchester and London in the Eighties, but that wasn't true further north. I re-watched "Letter to Brezhnev" recently and it's nearly as grim socially as "The Boys from the Blackstuff".
  • kamskikamski Posts: 6,468

    Taz said:

    rcs1000 said:

    kamski said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    Jesus Christ

    Mind you. I guess it shows why Elon has such a problem with those pesky "thought police" who call out every little thing as somehow anti semitic
    There's more:
    https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/elon-musk-grok-antisemitic-posts-x-rcna217634

    The AI chatbot Grok, which is produced by Elon Musk’s xAI, wrote numerous antisemitic social media posts Tuesday after the artificial intelligence company released a revamped version of it over the weekend.
    ...
    ... Grok replied, in part: “folks with surnames like ‘Steinberg’ (often Jewish) keep popping up in extreme leftist activism, especially the anti-white variety.

    Is there something a bit Musk-like in not just the content, but the style of the latest Grok? Eg from same article

    Truth hurts, but patterns don’t lie sounds like the sort of thing Musk would post after some white supremacist bullshit.
    It'll be interesting to know exactly what's happening here. It won't just be GIGO in the training data.
    If you instruct an LLM to ignore everything which the "mainstream media" agrees with, you will get some pretty weird outputs.
    Like Vienna, this means nothing to me, but some are claiming sabotage by a now sacked engineer.

    Won’t link to his account and he really is a raging anti semite.

    However this popped up on my feed.

    https://x.com/mostlypeacefull/status/1942746868007461247?s=61
    I bet that's b/s. And even if it is the work of a single engineer, a single engineer should not be able to do that much damage.

    It really is the Wild West.
    Does the single engineer have a name that begins with "El" and ends with "on Musk"?
  • kamskikamski Posts: 6,468
    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    Pizza at the Oasis gig

    What does our resident pizza lord, @TSE, think ?


    I am seeing Oasis at the start of August.
    I'm going to see them with my wife and my son in Manchester on Friday. Definitely Maybe came out the year we met at Uni, and my son is now a massive fan too. They are such a huge band, I don't think I've been more excited about a gig before.
    Sadly Noel took the piss out of my shoes one Christmas morning*, and therefore I struggle to be too positive about them

    * This is absolutely true
    At least he didn't piss in them.
    "The Beatles could shit in my handbag I’d still hide my polo mints in there" - Liam Gallagher
  • kamskikamski Posts: 6,468
    DavidL said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    Jesus Christ

    Mind you. I guess it shows why Elon has such a problem with those pesky "thought police" who call out every little thing as somehow anti semitic
    Pretty sure Jesus Christ was first century not 20th.
    He still lives!
  • SandraMcSandraMc Posts: 758
    Taz said:

    Pizza at the Oasis gig

    What does our resident pizza lord, @TSE, think ?


    As Oasis fans seem to think that they are the greatest band ever, the pizza makers probably thought the fans would swallow anything.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,172
    Foxy said:

    MattW said:

    I get the sense, from an accumulation of discussions over some time, that an increasing number of people have given up on the idea of life improving from one generation to the next.

    Not just that they're angry that it isn't, or they have no hope that it will, but they've internalised the failure of it to happen to the extent of chiding those who complain about the failure. They see it as the natural order of things.

    I remember some daft person expecting the post-pandemic 2020s to be a riotous explosion of revelry to rival the roaring twenties that followed the Spanish Flu, but it really feels as though we've entered a period of profound pessimism.

    People say to me that they're being realistic rather than pessimistic, but I think a key difference is that you can be realistic about the difficulties that exist, while retaining some degree of optimism about the potential to fix those problems. And the problem with pessimism is that it is a self-fulfilling state that disables people from acting to take those steps that might improve them.

    When the politicians refuse to level with the voters the public finances and the necessary steps to being them into equilibrium they are being pessimistic about their ability to communicate with the public and the public's willingness to follow a lead.

    But what if they're wrong? What if they give it a go?

    We've seen similar with the Ukraine War - pessimism over the ability to defeat the Russians, and so support has been delayed and rationed. Pessimism abounds.

    Somehow we need to snap out of it.

    I'm actually optimistic about the world's future, though not blindly so.

    A couple of decades ago, overpopulation was seen as being a massive problem for humanity, promising famine and conflict. Now we're being told that low birthrates are a massive problem for humanity.

    Much of it is about change and nostalgia. Many people look back on the past nostalgically, remembering the good and forgetting the bad, and compare it with nowadays, where the bad looms foremost in their minds and they forget the good. In their mind change is, by its very nature, negative = unless it is a change that corresponds with their viewpoint.

    The Internet does not help: negative stories can spread further and faster than good; and negativity can be a form of control and gaining power.

    Also, pessimism and negativity can be a reason not to do anything. "What's the point in helping Ukraine if they're going to lose..." is commonly heard from people pretending to support Ukraine.

    Every week, Mrs J and I try to go for a a half-hour walk on our own, when we just chat and chew the cud. We often use the time to talk positively about each other and the world. I treasure those walks, of being in each other's company.
    Musing. That sounds like a loss of self-belief, and partly a lack of a guiding philosophy, which can lead too easily to empiricism or even nihilism.

    The "Roaring Twenties" are an interesting analogy to some people's hopes got post-COVID. It sounds a little "Boris" ie hot air and self-delusion.

    But what were the Roaring Twenties for ordinary people? Were they like the "Swinging Sixties" - which if I have it right from social history and speaking to older friends were limited to a small area of West London. Though I am sure dedicated followers of fashion followed the fashion in their way.
    I think we are rather over influenced by the USA on our perceptions of the interwar period. In Britain the Twenties didn't roar, they were a time of austerity, refreshments and the General Strike, while after 1933 our economy did roar, while America was in its Great Depression.

    Similarly the Fifties and Sixties were pretty grim for many Britons. I remember my dad describing the Sixties as very depressing "everyone was trying to emigrate".

    These things are focal geographically too. I had a great time in Winchester and London in the Eighties, but that wasn't true further north. I re-watched "Letter to Brezhnev" recently and it's nearly as grim socially as "The Boys from the Blackstuff".
    One distinctive of the 1920s was that the UK paid down war debt very rapidly.

    And of the 1930s we did not dance the American "austerity collapso", but relatively inflated our economy (helped by significant military expenditure re-inflation from quite early.

    Quite a lot of the stuff that reaches the news is fluff - whether slebs. pretend slebs on Instagram or Youtube, politicians trying to pretend that they are entertainment, plus there are other items such as crime - there are comfortably off crims in executive houses as well as the low level crooks on Council Estates. Have a look at a recent "killer hunting down 2 people on Sur-Rons with his Landrover" bigger drug dealer vs smaller drug dealer crime from nearby Derbyshire for that one.
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