Liffguard

48 minutes ago, Ran said:

As trans people become a larger part of the population, there's no great reason there can't be sports divisions for them specifically, not unlike how we see for various functional disabilities at the Paralympics.

I know it's not your intention to imply being trans is a disability, but this is still an extremely unfortunate comparison.

13 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Another term of Tory rule, and children working in factories in terrible conditions *will* be contemporary.

There aren't any factories, they'll be picking fruit and running scam call centres.

1 hour ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

Way too many fae fannies and sorcerous schlongs flying around.

Pretty sure I saw the Fae Fannies open for the Sorcerous Schlongs at Download festival once.

During my recent stateside visit I actually got to see two cybertrucks in the wild. My first thought was that in real life they're even uglier than pictures and videos suggest. My second thought was the body rusting issue is very much not exaggerated.

I think the leadership of Israel and its backers should think very very hard about whether they want to live in a world where diplomatic offices are considered valid military targets, especially in situations where two countries aren't formally at war.

Not sure if it's good or bad for our political system's legitimacy and long-term viability when it's considered a bad thing - not just bad, but illegitimate, laughable really - for people to actually participate in politics beyond ticking a box every five years.

My dad is currently in hospital. He doesn't normally use a tablet but he asked me to bring my mum's old ipad up to him so he could read his various newspaper subscriptions and watch netflix while he recovers. I wanted to deliver it to him fully charged. It's one of the ones with a USB-C slot. So I plugged it in, it didn't charge. No worries, dodgy charger, tried a different one. Didn't charge. Tested the charger on my phone, charged just fine. Maybe the charging port on the ipad is busted? Eventually discovered that while the ipad has a USB-C shaped charging port, it's not universal. It will only charge with an Apple branded USB-C charger, thus defeating the entire point of moving away from a proprietry standard to a universal one.

I fucking hate Apple so much. They also started the lunacy of removing audio jacks from devices. Literally paying more for reduced functionality.

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

So saying they will implement policies that they cannot afford and won’t create much benefit ( except in the heads of far left voters) isn’t going to help them. Suddenly they have to be realistic. 

 

 

It's a point that's been made before, but austerity is the thing we can't afford. Austerity has made the public financial situation worse. It's kicked necessary infrastructure spending down the road, creating greater long-term costs in favour of limited short-term savings. It's choked growth and stirred social unrest, and hollowed out state capacity. Promising more austerity is the crazy, unrealistic promise. More public investment is the sober, sensible position.

34 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Fixing at least some of the damages they have done during their time in goverment will take time and money.

Money which Starmer and Reeves have largely ruled out spending. I'm sorry, but this is the core of the objection. The left-wing objection to Starmer is that there are certain policy priorities that need to be enacted to start reversing the damage of austerity, and that he has mostly ruled-out enacting them.

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You have councils on the verge of bankruptcy, failing public services, the increase in foodbanks (which preceded the Russian invasion) etc.

Exactly, and the left-wing objection to Starmer is that we are unconvinced he's going to actually do anything about these problems.

To put it in the most ultra-simplified terms possible, Corbyn had bad electoral politics, but good policy. Starmer has good electoral politics (debatabely, it's a point of discussion the extent to which current polling success is down to factors that are largely external to him, but let's allow if for now for the sake of argument) but bad policy. And we don't want a government that enacts what we consider to be bad policy. That's really the core of it.

11 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Yep, you can raise the argument with the electorate again and try to win that argument then. But for the moment you lost the argument. Whether it was because you failed to deliver your point convincingly (messaging) or because your point was not good is another discussion. But ultimately you failed to win the argument (at that point in time).

What really annoyed me to no small extent was this. Corbyn lost two GEs. The second one disastrously. The first one he ran against a horribly weak incumbent, poor campaigner, with a poor policy platform she then had to reverse. Yet, Corbyn failed to win. In some ways he won by not losing as big as he was thought to... Then he lost against Bozo, the Brexit Clown. And all the flaws of why Corbyn should not have been Leader culminated in an electoral disaster.

And then [for the Corbynista] it was the nasty media, Blairites and what not that were responsible. Not his flaws (his unfavorability ratings), platform (nonsensical, unclear Brexit position). And Jones was very firmly in the internal saboteurs (Blairite) are to blame camp.

As for Starmer. Yes, he is utterly uninspiring. But ultimately he will (presumably) have achieved more as a Labour leader than Corbyn. If you don't win elections, you can't enact policies. That's the very basic nature of politics. Which goes back to winning the argument. Starmer wants to win a broad coalition and peel off as many Tory voters as he can. He could and arguably push a more progressive/left message. Esp. with the shape the SNP is in right now, he could conceivably win quite a few seats up north.

Anyway, I am now shopping for a new thread title.

There are plenty of points to argue here, but they're all orthogonal to the point I'm making. I'm not here to relitigate the Corbyn years, and indeed the discussion I'm trying to have isn't about Corbyn. Starmer can stand on his own merits, and criticism of Starmer can be made on its own merits, without having to kneejerk respond "but Corbyn."

Re the first bolded, the problem isn't that he's uninspiring (he is, but it's irrelevent). The problem is that he's promoting bad policy and harmful ideology. Maybe it's all a ruse to get elected and he'll swing left in power? I guess that's not impossible, but I remain highly sceptical. I think this is who he actually is.

Re the second bolded, this is true, but again, the corollary is that the purpose of winning elections is to enact policy. It's no achievement to win, and then continue the very policies that have led to our current problems. And people who want different policies are well within their rights to criticise, and to leave the party if they feel it no longer represents them or serves as a vehicle for the change they want to see enacted.

12 hours ago, Werthead said:

  Hide contents

tons of Jason Momoas - Momoii? - to keep interest 

On 3/19/2024 at 6:39 AM, Heartofice said:

Well it’s not terrible,  but it’s also not great. It gets a lot of credit on the basis of low expectations, due to it being  SyFy show and seemingly being more comprehensible than the Lynch movie. 
 

I rewatched it when the first Dune movie came out couple of years ago, and it reaffirmed in my mind why the story doesn’t really suit a movie of its own. In of itself it’s pretty unexciting and uneventful, it was only during Children that the story tends to pick up. 

I honestly really love the SyFy adapation. It's cheap and cheesy as hell, and the acting veers between wooden and melodrama. But it's earnest, and theatrical (literally, it comes across as a filmed stage play), and I adore the costumes and the general visual design. I think it really nails the pomp and opulence.

On 3/18/2024 at 8:46 AM, Liffguard said:

It's a genuine problem. Digitial storage does not actually appear to be all that durable long-term, contrary to the idea that something is effectively permanent once it's on the internet.

I would suggest that if you've already paid for the tracks once and now lost them, there's nothing unethical in just pirating them now to restore them. But of course, in the age of streaming, there's significantly less demand for pirated music and therefore no guarantee that you'd actually be able to find the same tracks again anyway.

In essence, in the digital age it's apparently suprisingly easy for a particular piece of art or culture to just...disappear.

As always, relevant xkcd.

13 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

His political hero, Jeremy Corbyn

 

This isn't really true. He was pretty critical of Corbyn during his time as labour leader, and wrote an entire book about the Corbyn leadership period that is far from hagiographic. He's currently vocally critical of Starmer and his leadership team, with good reason IMO, but that's an entirely different thing from uncritical support for Corbyn. And indeed, it's weird how Corbyn is always brought up as some kind of reflexive dismisal whenever Starmer is criticised, as if it's somehow illegitimate to criticise Starmer on the merits. As if politics is a team sport and everyone can be broken down into supporters of our guy and supporters of their guy, so any criticism of our guy has to be deflected by dunking on their guy.

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You win the political argument, by convincing a majority.

Okay, so since (for example), a supermajority of British voters support nationalisation of essential utilities, it makes sense that both major parties are currently competing with each other to be the government that introduces that. Except, of course, they aren't. And this is true of a whole host of other policies. There is a clear disconnect between what the public acutally wants and what the Westminster set is willing to do. And to be frank that goes equally for things I personally support (e.g. nationalisation) and things I don't (e.g. immigration restrictions). The idea that an election is some kind of intellectual market stall where everyone lays out their proposals on a free and fair playing field and the end result is some kind of representative microcosm of the public will is just not borne out by our actual results.

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I mean, there's a pretty harsh reality check there. You win the political argument, by convincing a majority.

Okay, and while a lot of people in the UK support a lot of the same policies as Corbyn, he did ultimately fail to convice enough of them to vote for the Labour party. That's fair enough. The thing is, if you hold a political philosophy that you believe will ultimately make for better lives for the people in the country, and you lose, the sensible response should be to change your strategy about how you you convince people, not ditch the philosophy for whatever you think will win, even if it doesn't actually make things better.

And that's fundamentally what the argument is about. Labour under Starmer is looking extremely likely to win the next general election. It might even be one of the biggest landslides of all time. It's looking likely that this will be due to an utter collapse in Tory support rather than a growth in Labour support, but whatever, a win is a win. But what is winning political office for? People criticise Starmer because he gives every indication of pursuing policies that will continue the UK on its current path. Yes, Corbyn lost, and yes, Starmer will probably win. But winning only matters if you use it to improve people's lives. Starmers critics believe, rightly or wrongly, that the policies Starmer will pursue won't do that.

You can agree or disagree with them on that, but can you at least accept that it's fair and legitimate to leave a political party that no longer shares your political philosophy? Why would a left-winger stay in a party that promotes (what they perceive to be ) right-wing policy?

8 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Which countries would you say have the best dental care, in terms of quality of care and cost? Because it certainly isn't here in the UK.

Anyways, asking for a friend who is about to drop a big stack 'o cash on a full set of dental implants.

 

 I have a friend who always flies to Poland for dental work.

15 hours ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

Here's what grinds my gears: as a music collector, I'm constantly getting shafted in this age of streaming.

When iPods first arrived on the scene, I was excited. Finally I could carry 80GB+ of music around with me and enjoy as I pleased. Of course, the fact that the Classics were phased out before the Minis were a hint that big collections were not the priority.

Fine enough. I still have my CDs, which I can rip into mp3s. Good thing I did, since CDs and CD players have since been phased out.

Well, at least mp3s allow me to store and organize my collection. Which is still true, except "store" sometimes means Apple Music corrupting my files.

This past Friday, I found that, after I updated to Mac OS Sonoma, just under 600 of the music files stored on my external hard drive were corrupted after importing them to the Apple Music library.

Fucking. Hell.

(I regret not having pursued vinyl more seriously)

It's a genuine problem. Digitial storage does not actually appear to be all that durable long-term, contrary to the idea that something is effectively permanent once it's on the internet.

I would suggest that if you've already paid for the tracks once and now lost them, there's nothing unethical in just pirating them now to restore them. But of course, in the age of streaming, there's significantly less demand for pirated music and therefore no guarantee that you'd actually be able to find the same tracks again anyway.

In essence, in the digital age it's apparently suprisingly easy for a particular piece of art or culture to just...disappear.

14 minutes ago, Jace, Extat said:

ISIS is destroyed.

 

True.

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All from the air

Not true. It took air strikes supporting ground operations for that. And not solely from the US.

I think Bret Devereaux did a pretty decent overview on the limits of strategic air power. TLDR, using air power alone to achieve strategic goals has a very poor track record.

Look, I don't want nuclear weapons to proliferate further. People sometimes talk about the threat of nuclear annihilation as if it ended in 1991, when that is very much not the case. The weapons still exist, and the more parties who have them, the more complex the situation becomes, the more likely circumstances line up in such a way that they get used. I do not want more states to get nuclear weapons.

But the reasons states pursue nuclear weapons is because they frankly have a very rational security incentive to possess them. And there appear to be a lot of people in the US - including lots of powerful, prominent people - who really, really seem to desperately want a war with Iran for some reason. And it's frightening, because a war with Iran would be a fucking disaster for everyone. So Iran has very rational reasons to develop a nuclear weapon. And in the long run the best way to counter that is to allay those security fears.

40 minutes ago, Pebble thats Stubby said:

I am very much against any large donations by individuals or organisations.  since it encourages kickbacks and favours in return.  Blind annonymouse (sorry can't spell) donations might be ok.  although overall I'd prefered a very different fixed rate of party funding.

If it were up to me, organisations would be banned from donating entirely, only donations from individuals allowed, with a maximum of £500 per person per year.

12 hours ago, Jace, Extat said:

I'm in the now, and now calls for action to prevent this occurrence.

"Something must be done. This is something. Therefore we must do this."

I genuinely don't know if you're just doing a bit, but gung ho American defaulting to "let's solve this problem with lots of bombs" is a little on the nose, no?

6 hours ago, Jace, Extat said:

Don't need to nuke Iran. A no-fly zone and indefinite Air Curfew would probably stop them indefinitely... and no need for boots on the ground. We can run the entire campaign from 15,000 feet with enough drones to block out the sun. For as long as it takes. 

Hip, hip! Hooray!

Do you think maybe that frequent rhetoric similar to this from multiple American politicians and media outlets over the years (along with seeing what happened to Saddam and Gaddafi) might possibly constitute a very strong incentive for Iran to develop a nuclear weapons program? Do you think that the USA adopting your position might constitute a very strong incentive for Iran to develop functioning nuclear weapons as quickly as they possibly can, no matter the cost?

Like, I know you're being facetious, but come on.

15 minutes ago, mormont said:

Like TV, or rock'n'roll, or novels?

To be fair I think there's a qualitative difference between these and social media platforms which a) deeply surveill their users and b) algorithmically push content designed to maximise eyeball time above all other factors. Not that Tiktok is unique in that obviously.

13 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I don't exactly think it's lazy, but it is shallow. It apes the events and the characters of the cartoon without understanding what made them special or interesting or enjoyable, and the result is a weird combination of nostalgia and uncanny valley. There are some times that, say, Sokka being clever or funny or self-deprecating show up, and then it goes to something else. You get people literally burned alive and in the next scene you get joyous silliness about Sokka being a mute. 

It reminds me a lot of Rise of Skywalker in that they clearly are trying to trigger the knowledge of a previous series and get you into it that way, but miss out on all the other things that make it work. 

Cargo cult storytelling. Trying to imitate the form of the original story without understanding the underlying mechanics.

23 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

May to stand down, even though she was vile and incompetent, she was still relatively normal compared to the current lot. 

Back in 2016, PJ O'Rourke said about Hilary Clinton vs Donald Trump, "She's wrong about absolutely everything, but she's wrong within normal parameters." I guess that's kind of how I feel about May. In fact, I've taken it to be a somewhat useful rubric for assessing how much and in what ways I disagree with someone. Some people I can't even disagree with as such, because we exist in effectively totally different reality spheres. There's definitely a large contingent of the current Tories who fall into that category.

Just now, Darryk said:

Good grief.

I knew coming into this thread was a mistake.

It's an honest question. Terrorism is a notoriously slippery concept to define properly. Is there a clear distinction between a terrorist and a guerilla fighter? Is a guerilla fighter necesserily less morally praiseworthy than a uniformed soldier? Is the difference between terorrisim and "legitimate" military violence in the choice of target? Is it in possessing the sanction of a recognised state? Is a terrorist who suicide bombs a civilian street to be condemned and a military pilot who drops a bomb on a civilian street to be praised?

All genuinely thorny questions IMO. Not as easy as praiseworthy soldiers and despicable terrorists.

Just now, Darryk said:

Obviously I meant not terrorism. I don't have the time or energy to account for every caveat you might think of.

First, what is terrorism?

Secondly, even if we extend our special appreciation only to the uniformed armed personnel of legitimate states, does that include the invaders of Ukraine? Iraqi soldiers invading Kuwait?

5 minutes ago, Darryk said:

If you're gonna compare American soldiers to 9/11 terrorists then you're a frigging lunatic, simple as that.

Again, was that what I said?

You said that you think soldiers are special because they put their lives on the line. I pointed out that lots of people put their lives on the line in pursuit of evil. Therefore, putting one's life on the line should not automatically be worthy of respect.