Panto_Villan

….a great manager who turned footballer? I mean that would genuinely be impressive if it happened!

I do sometimes try to read the opinions of fans on other forums but usually it’s impossible because they don’t have threads for individual players. It’s mental. VT has its quirks but it’s miles ahead of the other forums.

The fact we could fall as low as 7th when the other teams play their games in hand show just how insanely hard it is to get European football imo. If we played like this all season and only got 7th I’d actually be quite disappointed. But it’s not unrealistic.

If you're talking about something that happened back in a time where nobody currently alive could remember someone who lived through it, you're talking about things that happened a minimum of 200 years ago - i.e. the Napelonic wars and before. I'd argue that's not recent at all. Honestly I think there's a huge distinction between Jewish people parking the Holocaust when there are still people alive who lived through it and many more who lost relatives in it, and historical grievances that aren't actually a memory anyone alive could possibly have. My pet peeve with the issue is really just that the definition of "recent history" invariably stretches or compresses to suit whatever argument is being made, and at a certain point it becomes farcical.

While I don't deny that's true, it just takes us back to the start of the thread. If we're not allowed to move on from historical grievances, what do we do? Are we obliged to start harassing the Italians about the Roman conquests etc?

Jesus, trying to understand the points Villakram is trying to make is like trying to decode a haiku delivered by Yoda. The rest of the thread is an interesting read, and broadly aligns with my thinking - we need something like the statute of limitations for history. It’s always seemed a bit strange to me when people are pushing historical grievances that happened before anyone that anyone alive today could have met. If nobody can possibly remember anyone that could remember it happening, maybe best just to move on?

Nah, I'm not trying to imply you're delusional / stupid / whatever. I'm just pointing out why I disagree with what you're saying. The arguments you're putting forward for him not being able to just walk away from the war rest on the same assumptions as all the other examples I gave in my previous post - that the Russian people are ready to rise up over Ukraine once it finally dawns on them how awful the war has been for Russia. But I think the evidence points to the fact that most Russians have already realised the war has been a disaster and just don't care enough about it to risk being arrested and tortured, so I don't see why a withdrawal would change things.

My favourite bit is how the 16 lucky survivors of wave 1 clearly just got put back in with the reinforcements for wave 2. What a life.

The thing is that people have been saying the same thing you have at every stage of the war - Putin couldn’t survive when it became obvious that it wouldn’t be a three day war and Russia was going to take heavy losses, then he couldn’t survive when it became obvious Kyiv wouldn’t actually fall, and the sinking of their flagship, and a forced general mobilisation, and the retreats at Snake Island and then Kharkiv and then Kherson etc. Russia has already been deeply humiliated in this war and taken huge casualties. It seems to me that predicting that a specific thing in the war would definitely cause Putin to lose power is a mug’s game. You can disagree with that if you want. As you say, it’s not like we can test the hypothesis either way.

No, they’re not. If that was going to happen it would have already happened. The elites are well aware of the costs of the war and the hollow justification for them, and always have been. Putin blew up their comfortable lives and their access to the West the moment they want to war. He doesn’t need to offer them propaganda because they know they’ll have an unfortunate window-related accident if they cross him. The elites (certainly the oligarchs) would have stopped the war already if they could, but they can’t. They’re already pacified. The common people might be annoyed if the war ends without a decisive Russian victory, but ultimately they don’t have any power (and quite a few of them would believe the lies Putin told them if he pulled out), so it doesn’t matter. Unpopular rulers can hold on a long time if they control the army and security services. Who exactly is going to overthrow Putin were he to pull out of Ukraine (say, for sanctions relief) in your scenario?

No truce / ceasefire is worth the paper it's written on. There was an agreement after Ukraine gave up its nukes that none of the nuclear powers would attack it, and there was a ceasefire after the 2014 invasion that didn't settle the issue either. The only way Ukraine will ever be safe from Russia is by having a sufficiently strong military and / or being in NATO, and they'll probably have both of those things once the war is over.

Have you not watched any of the propaganda currently being spouted by the Russians? Putin can pull out of Ukraine and claim an imaginary victory if he wants. The Russians stupid enough to believe the current propaganda will believe whatever he says is the truth, and the ones smart enough to pretend to believe the propaganda will continue to do that too. Because he still controls all the levers of power - something that's unlikely to change if he decides to pull out of Ukraine. He just doesn't want to do that (yet).

The war isn't going to end until one or both sides feel like further fighting won't help them achieve their goals. Right now Ukraine feels like it can win the long war because of all the Western backing it is getting, and Russia feels like it can win the long war because the West will eventually tire of supporting the war and Russia has a much larger population it can throw into the grinder. Why would either side agree a compromise when they think they can get a better result if they keep fighting? The upcoming Ukrainian counter-attack will be interesting to watch, but there's a very real chance it won't be decisive either way and this war could rumble on for many more months and potentially even years. Kharkhiv was a huge military success for Ukraine but it didn't win the war for them. But there are plenty of ways this war could suddenly come to a quick end with a total victory for Ukraine - a full-on rout of the Russian forces is possible, depending on how hollowed-out they've become after a year of attrition. Or a coup in Russia if the costs of the war become too much to bear. Neither is likely, of course, but if Ukraine continues to slowly push forward and keeps getting Western backing I don't think they'll ever feel obliged to sign a compromise peace deal. Russia's never going to be permitted to get total victory over Ukraine (e.g. conquering the whole country) but if the Ukrainian counterattack doesn't go particularly well, they might find that Republican obstructionism in Congress starts to reduce Western willingness to back Ukraine. That's probably the scenario that the Russians are hoping to get when they drag the war out. They'd have the upper hand in negotiations at that point. So there's a lot riding on this Ukranian counter-offensive. But even if it goes well, it might not end the war just yet.

No, but it's still a handy face-saving cover story he could use if / when he does eventually realise that this war isn't going to play out the way he wants it to.

One of the few managers where having a language barrier with his players might actually be helpful.

Their argument is just that it costs less per year, not less total. Because the government wants to bring down annual spending this is a (short-sighted) way to make that happen.

I think there’s different kinds of white elephant. You get the kind that nobody wants to use, like sports stadiums built in silly places during the Olympics or whatever, and you get the kind that people do want to use but are too expensive for the project to make financial sense to build (but get built anyway). I think the latter category is more forgivable, and is probably where HS2 ends up. It’ll be useful for the country even if it doesn’t provide a good return on investment. It does occasionally end up working out though. The Millenium Dome found a good place for itself in the end. The Channel Tunnel wasn’t a sensible investment but I’m glad it exists, etc.

That’s a really interesting question and I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head. Maybe America, if you want to stretch the definition of “established”? I wonder if China’s geographical wealth distribution has changed substantially as they’ve industrialised in the last 30 years?

“I would like to express regret that HR did not provide accurate information about the financial cost of publicly mocking this particular disabled employee on Twitter”

Yeah, it's pretty clear he was very good at having a vision, raising funding for it, and inspiring others to work on it. He's got plenty of negative traits too, but he (or others) must have controlled them in his earlier career else he wouldn't be where he is now. But I feel like he's a busted flush these days, and he'll struggle to motivate enough intelligent and well-educated people to go and work for him to start a new company. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets removed as the CEO of Tesla soon either, because he's just too much of a liability. I think perhaps you're a bit overly cynical about his work in the 2000/2010s with SpaceX and Tesla. I think it's tough to argue that the products they delivered weren't innovative. And while both companies did get subsidies, I think the existing companies in those industries probably had quite a bit more more (the US space industry in particular was a ludicrously cosy arrangement before SpaceX arrived on the scene). One of the most impressive things about the companies is how they managed to navigate the powerful vested interests, imo. It's also easy to forget all the sneering and fossil fuel misinformation that was aimed at electric cars in the early days. They did well to overcome that. Shame he didn't go down the philanthropy route like Bill Gates, really.

He also seems to be talking down the Capitol riots now. His political views (at least the ones he espouses in public) seem to have lurched to the extreme right so quickly that you've really got to wonder where he'll be in a few years. I don't think Trump ever believed his own lies, and it sorta seems to me like Musk might end up saying the same sort of things but actually believing them. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it did come out that he had developed a serious mental illness or a really major substance abuse problem. Or maybe it's just as simple as he feels like the "normal" people have turned against him and the only people that appreciate him are the hard right, and so he's absorbing their views as he falls into their orbit. But he just seems to be disintegrating mentally.

Yeah, and that’s probably exactly the right place to be. I just find it weird when people refuse to give him that much credit. That’s not aimed at anyone specific on here, I’ve just seen a lot of it going around the internet recently.

I’ve detested the guy since he called the cave diver in Thailand a pedo for no reason, which was at least five years ago. The OP wasn’t asking why people thought he was a word removed though. He was asking why people thought Musk was a genius - and the answer is because SpaceX and Tesla are pretty impressive companies. So while I do think Musk is a massive word removed, I don’t think he managed to become the richest guy in the world purely by being lucky. That doesn’t seem an unreasonable point to be make, personally.

I sorta feel like as he’s become more of and more of a dick over the years, his prior accomplishments get talked down more and more. What he achieved in his early career and then with Tesla and SpaceX is genuinely impressive even if you don’t buy the cult myth that he single-handedly built every car and rocket. I also don’t really buy that your dad being a millionaire means you have an easy path to being literally the richest person in the world. There’s lots more richer dads out there than he had.

My cousin's dating one of their players and although he's played for several League One clubs at point, she was saying Argyle feels like the "biggest" club he's been at - apparently there's quite a strong following in the local area and quite a lot of devoted fans. I guess it must be a one club town round there. Plus in general it just sounds like a nice club to play for (not too many bellends around apparently). So probably quite a good environment to send players on loan to!