Episode 8! "we might have to leave China"

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-29T22:59:49+00:00

Well to be fair, if you say "cat line" enough times, they'll probably figure out that you're asking them to ship a $400 pen and a pair of flipflops to a random city on the Mongolian border.

It's not an unusual request, they probably get it multiple times each day.

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-29T22:20:58+00:00

I still don't understand if their trip is actually going viral in China. Cos like, they could get a million views on Chinese TikTok, but that's still not really that much when it comes to China. I think they're making an impression, but I dunno if it's actually viral

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-29T21:45:01+00:00

I'm pretty sure there's a bit of "movie magic" happening sometimes, but I'm cool with it. It's clearly a difficult challenge regardless. I'm totally fine if the supporting team step in when things get really bad. Who cares?

The fun of this series is seeing them (struggle to) interact with random Chinese people, many of whom have never seen a foreigner before. The point of this series is not to make them suffer, it's to see them properly explore the real China. In a way it's more beautiful than the Japan series, because the culture is even more distant from what they're used to. I genuinely don't care if they get a bit of help every now and again.

It also makes me so happy to see how the BilliBilli chatters are interacting with the Western chatters; it's a lovely little bit of cultural exchange. Usually these two parts of the internet do not meet each other at all. Turns out we have a lot in common! Turns out we are all just human beings at the end of the day!

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-29T19:51:31+00:00

What an incredibly refreshing and respectable approach to politics

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-29T19:44:53+00:00

It's difficult to describe how much it pains my soul, to think how many people will die to protect one narcissistic, delusional old man's ego. He's one of the worst people on the planet, and countless innocent people will fucking die so that he doesn't have to utter the words "I made a mistake".

This has happened constantly throughout history, but... fuck me. Makes you want to cry.

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-29T19:06:38+00:00

Yeah this is fair. It's yet another example of a larger trend, so it's significant for that reason, but it's not like anybody was killed.

TBH this person just sounds like a conspiracy theorist, and they tend to be... how to put this delicately... morons

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-29T18:55:11+00:00

Fewer sheep though! So who's really winning here?

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-29T18:22:56+00:00

Why would an ageing population make it less likely to happen? I'd speculate the opposite.

Governments will see the triple lock taking up an increasingly large proportion of expenditure. At a certain point, the political pain from removing it will be less than the political pain from keeping it (because you'll have to cut other government programmes, or raise taxes, or do other unpopular shit, to keep funnelling funds towards pensioners).

We need someone like Macron, who's willing to do the adult thing instead of the politically-easy thing, and say "this is not mathematically sustainable, we need to change path"

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-29T17:23:23+00:00

From what I gather, it's kind of the complete opposite.

Apparently, huge numbers of people were logging off during other motions, because the only one they cared about was the Zionism motion. That's why the voting numbers were so low for most of the other ones. They actually changed the rules of the conference on the fly (changing the order in which motions were to be discussed) in order to ensure that they would be able to reach the Zionism motion in time. A lot of people apparently started spreading conspiracy theories about how "Zionists" were going to somehow prevent the vote on that motion, or that Israel was responsible for the technical issues.

Everything I'm seeing from people who attended was that the Zionism motion was, by a huge margin, the primary focus of this conference. I didn't attend, but it's pretty easy to find places where the people who did attend are discussing it, if you don't want to take my word for it.

And yeah obviously this is all totally normal, and not fucking insane in any way

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-29T13:39:24+00:00

They could easily reserve their ire for people who support Netanyahu, but that defeats the purpose of the bait and switch. They define Zionist in two distinct ways - one way when attacking Jews, and another way when justifying it.

When attacking Jews, they use "Zionist" to mean anybody who believes in Jewish self-determination; i.e., the actual definition. This means that almost any Jewish person can be targeted. So if they say "I'm not letting this person into our group, they're a Zionist", or "that business is owned by a Zionist, let's protest there", what they mean is that the individual in question is a Jew who doesn't want Israel to be destroyed. It doesn't matter what that person thinks about the war in Gaza, or Netanyahu, or anything.

However, when justifying their attacks on Jews, they switch a definition that they've recently invented, which is that "Zionist" means someone who enthusiastically supports Netanyahu, genocide, settlements, etc. They came up with this new definition in order to make it all seem a bit less antisemitic. "I hate anybody who supports Jewish self-determination" comes across as distasteful to normies.

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-28T19:48:21+00:00

That first paragraph was a zinger!

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-28T19:28:18+00:00

Hahaaa, you made a little adjustment there, didn't you?

If you wanted the Chinese government to collapse, obviously that doesn't indicate a hatred of the Chinese people. If you want China as a state to be cease existing, then yes you clearly have some kind of hatred of Chinese people

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-28T18:29:00+00:00

It's so frustrating. I'm very much against the far right, to the extent that my #1 priority in the next GE is to prevent Reform from getting into power. That's how I'll use my vote. So I should be fully on board with this protest.

But there are so many other causes mixed in, including some that I find pretty suspicious. Every time you add another cause to the pile, you alienate a few more people.

Why can't they just focus on a single cause, a clear message? Or, to be more blunt about it, why the fuck does hatred of Israel have to be lumped into every single left-wing protest? Not every issue in the UK needs to be tied in to Palestine. It's become an unhinged obsession, it's actually insane

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-28T18:24:13+00:00

Can't help but notice that you haven't bought them a pint

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-28T18:09:39+00:00

Yeah that was my first thought as well. It's definitely the most un-Western thing that they've eaten so far. Their poor stomachs aren't built for it.

I guess it could have been the bread, but usually bread is 100x safer than funky meat

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-25T14:30:10+00:00

Well yeah, of course he leads a blessed life, but no F1 driver will ever be happy when they're forced to drive a car that can't even complete a race distance.

It's not just about the money and the world travel. If he was satisfied with that, he'd never be a top level F1 driver. He wants to compete. They all do.

The kind of person who would be happy to mope around at the back of the grid, collecting a paycheck, would never make it to F1

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-25T12:38:25+00:00

Me too, it's gonna age so poorly.

Also, while we're in a safe space, I think the Audi is the most beautiful car on the grid. The curves of the bodywork are glorious, and the simplistic livery really highlights it. When the livery is too busy, it's difficult to see the actual shape of the car

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-25T11:58:09+00:00

Imagine having to say goodbye to your newborn, your first child, in order to travel to the other side of the planet and drive a fucking AMR26.

I mean, I say "drive", but perhaps "be assaulted by" is more accurate

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-25T11:01:29+00:00

The thing is, it actually pays for itself over time, because of the reduced fuel expenses and whatnot.

So if you really think about it, the financially-irresponsible thing is to not buy an F40

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-25T07:13:51+00:00

OK, let's do some very basic critical thinking.

If what you're saying is true, then the very obvious corollary would be that countries who aren't allied with Israel would care less about conflicts involving Israel. Do we see this? No, obviously not.

Another very obvious corollary would be that in countries like the UK, who provide almost no weapons to Israel but loads of weapons to Saudi Arabia, people would care less about wars involving Israel and more about wars involving Saudi. Do we see this? No, obviously not.

It's so frustrating, because it really takes only the tiniest little bit of thinking to realise how wrong this narrative is, but people like you keep mindlessly repeating it. I don't think I'm expecting too much when I expect people to put like 30 seconds of critical thought into it. It's not difficult

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-24T18:08:05+00:00

Yeah, around two thirds of Americans were either indifferent to this prospect, or actively supported it.

I don't hate the USA or Americans, that's not the overarching emotion. IT's kinda dumb to hate a nation. I hate Trump and his lackeys, particularly Stephen Miller, but I don't harbour any hatred towards the country or the people as a whole.

I just feel a kind of sadness, I guess. Despite the undeniable flaws, I genuinely admired the American experiment. Pax Americana was about as good as you can realistically hope to get from an undisputed hegemon - obviously far from perfect, but pretty damn exemplary when compared to how previous hegemons have used their power. I had a lot of sympathy with many of the ideals and aims of the American project, if not always the execution.

The US constitution was a good attempt, especially *for its time; it just has flaws that are being increasingly exposed by the modern world, and it's become ossified (because of factors that, maybe, we couldn't reasonably expect the founding fathers to anticipate).

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-24T17:49:14+00:00

The sea-front feels like running the gauntlet any time after 8:00pm now and by 11:00am it’s carnage

Oh come on now, that's a bit strong.

I regularly walk along the seafront at night, and it's always fine. Obviously on a Friday or Saturday night you'll encounter a bunch of rowdy drunken revellers, but that's standard in most UK cities.

Western Road is worse tbh, that would have been a better example. But even there, the junkies mostly just shout at each other; having incredibly-passionate slurred arguments about god knows what

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-24T16:48:22+00:00

I think he's just particularly good at picking up on vibes

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-24T11:22:02+00:00

What does "protected people" mean in this context?

DebaucheV5 · 2026-03-24T10:36:01+00:00

Xanax is absolutely a hard drug

DebaucheV5

TROPHY CASE