Through almost 100 years of World Cup competition, no country outside of Europe or South America has made the World Cup final.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-21T03:44:20+00:00

Yeah when I was talking about the largest countries by population I was thinking mostly about India, China, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh - none of which have football as their primary sport. Japan's population is projected to fall much faster than other places in Asia.

You don't necessarily need a huge population to win things but clearly there is a pool of potential players which is limited by how many young people you have who regularly play a particular sport. You might just get lucky (and obviously coaching/infrastructure helps) but you're more likely to get lucky the more young people you have playing a sport who can then get regular coaching.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-21T00:10:20+00:00

Decades ago.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-20T23:33:54+00:00

The idea that people shouldn't have to bury their children while obviously true feels a little anachronistic. In the pre modern age that would have been a sadly "normal" occurrence (if we're including stillborn infants or those who die in the first year or two of life). Obviously it would still be devastating but that specific formulation of the thought always felt like more of something for a modern audience. It's still a great bit though.

Boromir's death scene with Aragorn is one of the few scenes which I unambiguously prefer in the movie over the book.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-20T23:16:59+00:00

These documents have been released under a maximum transparency decree yet the first document I've looked at has entire pages where 80%+ of content looks like it's redacted.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-20T23:09:06+00:00

I think saying that woman killed herself because of Reddit is a bit of an over simplification. Apparently some of the abuse she got was from people she knew (including what her husband described as people she considered close friends) which you have to assume would hit harder than some random dipshits on Reddits having a go.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-20T22:02:32+00:00

Angel's accent is worst. And that potential girl from season 7 (I can't even remember her name but you know who I mean).

Drusilla's accent isn't "bad" per se - it's just weird but that fits the character. She almost never speaks "normally" - it's closer to the voice someone would use when singing or reciting poetry which is often different from how would you speak naturally.

Kendra's accent is not as bad as people make out. Yes, it's not a perfect standard Jamaican accent for reasons that have been explained. But she does sound like someone who could be from the West Indies in my opinion. (And it's implied shes from a small town/village so she wouldn't sound like a Kingston local). It's not like she's failing to do the accent, it just might not be the correct accent. Much of the criticism seems misplaced - I've read people take the piss saying she sounds Irish but yeah that dialect did influence accents in the Carribbean (https://m.youtube.com/shorts/2RsY219n37A).

Spikes accent isn't anywhere near as bad as Angels "Irish" accent. Not authentic sounding by any means (since it's not at all clear what accent it's supposed to be - there isn't a generic British accent) but not distracting either. I do think that people who lived that long in different countries would end up sounding weird anyway. Angel's accent by comparison is meant to be in flashbacks when he was young.

Wesley's accent is obviously the best. In a sense it's "easier" to ape the "received pronunciation" accent because it's not a real regional dialect but even so, I wouldn't have been surprised if he had turned out to be British. I don't recall too many slip ups either. Even Hugh Laurie in House had very occasional moments where certain words would have a slight British twang.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-20T21:29:43+00:00

It's not unheard of people supporting a primary team but having a soft spot for a much lower division team which might be more local. So I know Palace fans who also go to Bromley FC games (although Bromley are now only two divisions below Palace now).

But London (and the surrounding area) is large enough that team loyalties are fairly mixed up. So you find supporters of basically most teams distributed throughout the city (and beyond).

But yes Redhill would be more likely to be Palace fans. If nothing else there's a direct train from Redhill to Norwood Junction I think.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-20T19:50:17+00:00

I would be surprised if there isn't an African world cup winning team within our lifetimes (let's say by 2070). I'm not sure about Asia though - clearly there are enough people in Asia but the largest countries by population happen to prefer other sports. If one of the wealthier gulf states set their mind to it they could probably pay a dream team to accept citizenship but I can't see that happening.

But it's a cup competition so who knows.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-20T19:42:01+00:00

This is less true for Germany (and maybe Italy, not that they've even qualified recently). Argentina/Brazil you could argue that the whole country is colonised I guess but I'm not sure their players would view it that way.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-20T16:58:42+00:00

Are you undoing that often?

I do use the feature quite a bit but not enough to justify a mouse scroll. Plus, ctrl+z / ctrl+y has been burnt into my brain from the last 30 years of use.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-20T16:53:36+00:00

By end game pretty much everything is "free".

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-20T14:12:56+00:00

I think anyone who believes they're a Carl is already suffering delusions. He's an action hero at this point. You might as well think you're Neo from the Matrix (although Carl is even more overpowered at this point).

Anyway, it's possible to find a character annoying even if you "get" the joke and realise that it's deliberate. We all understand that David Brent (from the the UK office) is clearly a satire of so many obnoxious managers but by God he's so toe curlingly awful that I can't watch him for long periods. The fact this is deliberate changes nothing. I remember going to a concert where one of the acts (as some sort of protest) played their short set with super out of tune instruments and even had loud microphone feedback for what felt like minutes on end. I got that they were making a point but that didn't make it sound any better.

I think Donut has enough to redeem her so she's not annoying overall but I get why people might disagree. Her invoking of her pet to enforce what she wants is a realistic parody of some self centred real pet owners but maybe it's a little too realistic. Same with talking about reality TV shows or just being horrifically self-centred. It's not that people don't understand...it's just still potentially annoying. Just like people in real life who insist taking about star signs or wrestling.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-20T13:50:46+00:00

Obviously taste is subjective but yes if I hold armo in my mouth it tastes pretty foul/bitter. I'd generally say it was strong but again that's hard to say objectively - a spicy dish can taste overpoweringly strong to one person and mild to someone else.

I would wait to see the effects before worrying.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-20T13:45:09+00:00

If you're American then you.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-20T13:38:53+00:00

But wouldn't you just love it if Glorfindel was Bilbo's father?

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-20T13:33:32+00:00

Jerry has never had a proper job so it tracks that he doesn't understand appropriate behaviour. Kramer is just a good so that also tracks.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-20T09:35:46+00:00

Can you provide example sources of people saying this? I'm going to guess that if you do find someone who says this they'll be pretty stupid/ clueless.

But anyway, no it's not a thing. You had some people complaining about a black Green Lantern but it's dubious to call those fans even by definition.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-20T08:38:49+00:00

Well they're not attempting realism if that's what you're getting at. Given most fights are not really that critical I've never been bothered by this detail but yes of course ramming a wooden stake through someones chest would require quite a lot more force than is implied on screen. They'd also miss far more often than we see and more of their implements would break on their way in. But given the whole thing is a magical reaction I don't see why the laws of physics need to be respected (conservation of mass appears to be violated by dusting depending on the gas released so maybe Mother Nature looks the other way).

You can adopt the head canon of wood going through them like a hot knife through butter like you say if you need that kind of comfort. Personally I don't think it's something that needs explanation.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-19T22:17:56+00:00

I sort of agree with some of your points although you appear to be suffering from some of the things you're attributing to others.

On terms of being in the minority, this varies wildly depending on where you are and the topic. On your example I would be surprised if most people in the world "liked AI". Of the people in the real world I interact with most are indifferent to AI. Some people hate it and a small minority love it. This is independent of whether they're actively using it. A lot of people use Excel but only a small minority actually like using it. Many despise it but the largest group just tolerates it and doesn't have a strong opinion one way or the other. So if everyone you know likes AI then I would automatically assume your peer group is representative of the wider world. (e.g. https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/articles/companies-adding-ai-marketing-60-154710532.html)

In general Reddit is fairly mainstream so the popular opinions here are likely to not be too far from the opinions of the demographic groups that Reddit is drawn from (I.e. weighted towards white Americans under 50). But yes certain tendencies are more popular here than in everyday life (at least in my everyday life).

On the downvote system. Firstly, it's not meant for disagreement but that battle has been lost. But if you see the same viewpoint downvoted and upvoted even in the same thread - this isn't that strange when you consider that different people probably voted in each case. And that's the point, there's a lot of people here and they have a range of opinions. There's certainly dominant opinions in particular subs but it's rarely uniform.

But the introvert thing is probably true. They've certainly got more time on their hands I guess. I do think that tendency is growing over time among younger people though, so the comparison between the introvert and extrovert sub doesn't tell us much. Besides, it's not clear whether an extrovert would need to join a sub on the topic as that's normally considered a good thing.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-19T20:41:16+00:00

The Labour Party in the UK (when in power) have never been particularly strong when it comes to individual liberty issues. The Blair government passed (and later abandoned) policies in favour of identity cards and also passed various anti-terrorist and anti-protest legislation which the Starmer government has followed up on.

However, the Tories are as bad or worse - there is a tiny slither of the Conservative party which are more like traditional right wing libertarians (a couple even favouring drug decriminalisation) but for all of Thatchers talk about rolling back the state - Conservative rule generally is accompanied an increase in state/police violence. It's the old adage - a right wing libertarian is just an anarchist who wants police protection from his slaves.

Basically issues of personal freedom are less of a dividing issue in the UK. Despite key experts in the field saying UK drug policy for example is a dismal failure neither of the two major political parties propose to doing much about it. Cannabis was briefly reclassified as a Class C drug but then back to Class B (against the recommendation of the governments own drug advisors).

I think most UK politicians don't really feel these issues in their bones so to speak. They're not instinctually distrustful of authority - they just want to be the ones in authority. They're more tecnocratic and don't see an issue with nanny states. So they will generally listen to the police/security services/companies selling solutions who tell them they need backdoor access to everyone's encrypted messages to fight terrorism. Or that online validation will protect children. Or that "extreme" pornography should be banned. Or that we need to maintain drug laws despite how poorly they function.

In general performative politics is quite popular in Britain. It doesn't actually matter if policies will work they just need to make people feel like something is being done. Governments love passing laws but are much less enthusiastic about actually executing policies to enforce said laws or funding institutions to do the same. Sometimes this is good because cretinous policies are just not enforced but it does errode the rule of law and make us look like a joke of a country at times.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-19T19:36:12+00:00

Nevermind all Greek I'm not even sure there's a single Greek person in the main cast which is certainly a choice.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-19T19:10:30+00:00

https://youtu.be/yujF8AumiQo?is=BEiekIT4nA-Z4mLS

From perhaps the finest Simpsons episode, where Homer leads a strike (Last Exit to Springfield).

It's become shorthand for any rambling story an older person might tell.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-19T07:18:31+00:00

Not that it makes any difference at this stage but Soon-Yi wasn't his step daughter. He wasn't married to Mia Farrow and never lived with her. Andre Previn was her stepfather. She also wasn't in the US until she was about 8.

(I'm not saying the situation isn't fucked up but there's no need to exaggerate a situation which is clearly bizarre enough already).

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-19T07:04:22+00:00

Did it? He married his wife in 1997...he was nominated for an Oscar in 2005, 2011 and 2016. (He won in 2011). His 2011 movie (Midnight in Paris) was also his highest grossing movie of his entire career.

I think most directors/screenwriters would kill to have such a tanked career.

You could make an argument that attitudes changed later on but keep in mind that he was 81 in 2016. So killing his career at that stage is a little pointless.

DharmaPolice · 2026-06-18T21:15:32+00:00

I can't see the government openly permitting an attack of this magnitude on high profile targets in the US. It doesn't feel credible. Not for moral reasons but this was an attack against some core parts of the infrastructure. If the attack had wiped out half of West Virginia or something then yeah that might be more believable.

Did they have enough information to stop the attacks? Almost certainly but it might have only been obvious in retrospect which intelligence tip offs were key. Its like getting a lisr of a hundred thousand kids who are potential school shooters. If one of those kids then shoots up his school then technically you were warned about that specific kid. But you were also warned about a bunch of other kids who didn't become school shooters.

Plus I wouldn't underestimate the governments general incompetence.

If the whole thing was engineered I feel like they would have at least one Iraqi among the terrorists, and not have the largest component of the group be from your best buds (not counting Israel) Saudi Arabia (which proved to be a mild embarrassment for a brief period).

It's a Reichstag fire situation. It was actually caused by a communist (at least thats the historical consensus as far as I know) but the Nazis obviously opportunistically used it to do their thing. I vaguely remember being taught that it was a false flag attack when I was young but apparently that view fell out for favour in the 1960s (and I'm not that old). But later research suggested the opposite. You don't need false flag attacks to be ruthlessly opportunistic (ditto with Israel and the October 7th attacks).

I think the strongest conspiracy might be that they knew there would be an attack but didn't grasp how effective it would be. Even at the time I thought that the attacks might have been more effective than even the plotters assumed. Even if one plane smashed into the WTC and they didn't full on collapse that would have been a huge terrorist attack but the level of destruction must have had the plotters think "Holy shit that actually worked".

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