LondonLax

I remember some commentators earlier in the thread commenting that the UK would be fine outside the European Market because apparently Trump was an anglophile and would love to help the UK out with a favourable trade deal

There are always two schools of thought on technology taking jobs. The first says that technology will take human jobs and humans will become redundant whilst the second says that technology has always taken some jobs but others have been created so it will be fine in the future as well. There is a couple of things to consider though and the main one is the emergence of A.I. The argument from the second camp always goes along the lines of ‘we will always need people to program the robots’ or ‘we will need people to think creatively where robots can only do rote tasks’. The trouble is, with A.I., that is no longer true. When we crack quantum computing robot processors will have the processing power required to think in creative ways, to create art or design software for other robots etc. The second point is that while in the past jobs have always been created in response to technological advances they have not been created at the same rate that other jobs have been lost. For example, prior to the industrial revolution people worked in agriculture from childhood through to death. The manpower that was required to produce demanded it. It wasn’t until machines were invented that people were able to be released from this labour force and take up education prior to starting work in their teens. As time went on and more jobs were lost to technology people stayed out of the workforce and in education longer, now it is typical that people stay in education into their 20s. In the future people will need to stay out of the workforce even longer, if they ever get an opportunity to join at all.

All of these things will be done by tech in a long enough time line (and some in quite a short time line). The only chance human athletes will have to compete is if we go cyborg in a ‘can’t beat them then join them’ response.

Think bigger, there is no reason why it would not. Humans are limited by their physical constraints but technology has no such limits. Anything a human can do technology could replicate and then improve on. The only way humans could compete is to augment ourselves with the same technology to move past our physical limits.

The mistake you are making is applying it to the current dynamic. I agree, in our current society it could not be possible. Imagine however a society where no humans are able to find a job because anything a (limited) human can do (limitless) technology can do better. Such a society, run on our current capitalist dynamic, would mean all wealth and all means of production would be confined to a handful of humans who own the patent (capital) on that technology. The problem then is that they would asset strip the rest of the population until the only people left to buy their products are the other capitalist oligarchs. In such a society the will of the people would be to tax and redistribute the wealth earnt from having the patients on these technological means of production. The redistribution would form a basic income for the rest of the population to live on and hence be able to buy the products these oligarchs are selling. Clearly we are not there yet but this is the direction of our society and we will reach a tipping point with enough jobs lost to technology, it seems it is only a matter of when, not if.

He is talking about 'intellectual elites', not about money. He is feeding meat to his base who don't like 'intellectuals sitting in their ivory towers telling them they know whats best for them' etc.

The Poles and other former communist countries have benefited most. Wages and standards of living have come on leaps and bounds in places like Czech / Slovakia or former Yugoslavia. Eastern Europe is now the go to place for European manufacturing. The southern countries of western Europe have not done so well out of it.

The office would be top for me. One of the only ones I could watch multiple times. Peep show probably number two then a bunch of shows after that.

Unfortunately though, if we are accepting the premise that old people vote conservative, demographic trends in western countries means they are gaining new voters at a faster rate then their (even) older voters are dying.

That's just it isn't it, what teacher is going to want to get in a gun fight with a nutter carrying an assault rifle. It's just such a stupid idea on so many levels.

Ok maybe hate is not the right word but there is definitely a whiff of schadenfreude in this thread. As an Australian I understand 'tall poppy syndrome' very well But we normally leave our winter Olympians alone. We're usually pretty pleased that we managed to have a squad there at all. I was wondering if there must have been some sort of scandal with her or maybe she had been mouthing off in the lead up to the games but it sounds like it is just the media building her up with expectations she couldn't deliver on.

Worrying about teachers losing it and shooting kids isn't the biggest issue with this for me. It's the idea that you have to make teachers responsible for holding gun battles with armed intruders. What a sad outcome when people who just wanted to teach kids now have to have the responsibility of taking part in a gunfight to protect them from mass murderers. So many Americans seem to have this bullshit John Wayne hero fantasy about this kind of thing, expecting Mrs Robinson to ride in and blast away the bad guy.

Why all the hate for one of your athletes?

Australia fought alongside the US in Vietnam.

Looks like you got an Australian import model.

Some of these posts sound like people were assuming we would never lose a game again this season.

I think an element of ego also comes into the debate. If you are a white person (particularly a white male) it is a tough thing to admit to yourself that you are playing this ‘game of life’ on the easiest starting setting. The realisation that other people are playing on a harder difficulty setting but some are still doing better than you are is not an easy thing for the ego to take.

It just comes down to a lack of empathy. Not everyone is capable of experiencing empathy unfortunately. Some people have a bad experience in life and say to themselves "I had a bad experience so I know what it's like to have a bad experience. Those other people shouldn't complain because we all have bad experiences." These people are not capable of seeing the totally different world they live in compared to other people.

"Hanlon's razor"

This is a good post. I would like to make one caveat though and point out that is applies to western society (i.e. the place where we all live). The dynamic is different in other parts of the world but racism still exists. It is not only white people oppressing ‘brown people’. It’s a majority population oppressing a minority population, whether it’s Han Chinese oppressing Tibetans (and other Chinese minorities) or Burmese oppressing Rohingyans or Sunni Arabs oppressing Kurds or any other example you can point to around the world.

This sounds like the Scandinavian version of the debate over 20-20 and test match cricket

And 5. Trump appears not to know what the three branches of government are.

He is one of the few in the squad who would understand what is needed mentally to keep winning week after week and is in a position to feed that to the rest of the side.

I think the experience of players like Terry and Jedinak now leading the side has helped him focus.

Dominant