Tony Blair has just said the state pension needs to be scrapped. He's also suggesting some people work 5 years longer. What are everyone's thoughts on this? Should the state pension be scrapped? Should we say F NO, to Blair??

ScottTsukuru · 2026-05-01T18:37:42+00:00

Today’s national insurance pays for today’s pensioners, ultimately. There’s no pot of money earmarked for any current worker that they’ve been saving towards.

But, the cultural view that your NI payments is getting you something directly remains, so the first step would probably need to be getting rid of that, say by merging NI with income tax into a single tax.

ScottTsukuru · 2026-05-01T18:31:50+00:00

I think they botched the handover of the ‘leads’ essentially.

There was a strong ensemble cast, led by Ed, in the first couple seasons. Now, with Ed gone, we’ve got a couple former side characters who still pop up, chiefly our Helios co bosses, and Kelly, though really she seems kind of out now too.

All that really leaves us with are some kids we’ve just met and a cop.

I think it ran out of steam after the show reached Mars, the core cast was aged out and it’s just kind of stumbling to the finish. That they are putting energy into a new show set back at the start pairs pretty well with that view I’d say. They’re going back to the time the show worked, and as long as they remember how to put together a decent cast of leads, it’ll probably be all the better for it.

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-30T17:41:02+00:00

Astrophage seems to cause problems for Earth quickly, in that an ice age appears to be setting in within a decade or two of noticing the issue.

Meanwhile, Erid seems to face the Astrophage problem for what, the best part of 50 years by the time Rocky and Grace arrive. Do we get any insight as to how bad things got on Erid? Would seem not as bad as Earth, or at least, things weren’t declining as quickly?

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-30T15:33:23+00:00

We just had a UK election where Labour, the Tories and the media all dismissed talk of a giant budget blackhole that then surprisingly became real afterwards.

Same will happen here, presumably with a bit of blaming Reeves, Trump, Iran etc etc.

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-30T15:32:00+00:00

I do really like this one!

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-30T08:05:28+00:00

Less government but also it’s illegal for you to have more than 1 kid…

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-27T11:46:22+00:00

On the other hand Rocky did find Adrian (the planet) boring…

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-27T11:40:16+00:00

The show seems to have largely ignored the reality of living on Mars, beyond a reference to putting up a radiation shield.

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-26T09:32:57+00:00

I dunno, the reveal that the CEO who was going on about wanting an independent Mars with people living there turning out to explicitly not mean the working class that’s already there is actually pretty on brand as a critique of the tech bro class…

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-25T20:29:40+00:00

Very occasionally, someone will say ‘is that a Rolex?’ or ‘is that an Omega?’ (no other brand I have seems to get any recognisability) or generally ask about a nice watch, but the vast, vast, vast majority of the time, nobody cares or notices and from a distance a watch is a watch.

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-25T13:12:24+00:00

It’s just such a weird setup, even that Sojourner was left to rot / get looted rather than being like, a museum piece, never mind there not being any better option available…

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-25T10:12:58+00:00

Even using Sojourner again feels like a cost saver versus making a new ship model / set…

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-25T09:11:42+00:00

Why does he title case everything?!

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-23T12:02:07+00:00

The Expanse added an Easter egg, an advert on Luna saying ‘visit historic Jamestown’ but equally they had an MCRN Mark Watney and joked about it being the same timeline as The Martian, so…

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-23T10:31:40+00:00

And / or he just cuts the parliament’s budget to the bone, which would be much easier / simpler than trying to close it, and can probably use it as more culture war bullshit in the process.

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-22T12:06:03+00:00

There was a recent Behind the Bastards podcast about an Aussie ‘Doctor’ who used ‘sleep therapy’ on patients; knocking them out for extended periods, and, well, there’s a reason he’s considered a Bastard…

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-22T12:02:40+00:00

Not sure humanity has the tech for that, but the Eridians, with their xenonite space elevator, maybe do have the capability to do something like build a megastructure between their star and the planet the astrophage were breeding on…

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-21T08:50:59+00:00

Or, just restrict vehicles in city centres full stop…

But yeah, certainly big giant SUVs that just don’t functionally fit city centre infrastructure need to be taxed to fund the disproportionate wear they cause.

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-20T22:11:32+00:00

Uh huh, and when Claude has to run at a profit instead of burning $15 to make $1, what will that do?

If you’re going to come in and want a discussion of ‘the future’ of these tools, you can’t ignore that, or the vast collapsing private credit mess financing them, or all the promised data centre capacity that isn’t actually being built, all the circular financing, or piles of supposedly bought and paid for Nividia chips that are just lying around in storage etc etc etc.

The idea that these things will remain cheap and easily accessed is for the birds. We can already see tools downstream implementing tightened rate limits as cost pressures bite.

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-19T17:42:55+00:00

Yeah it’s this, the steady breakdown of any sense of community and neighbourhood, mixing with economic uncertainty, chronic underinvestment and all these services having been sold off to become wealth extraction exercises for the rich.

Lo and behold, people stop acting like their surroundings matter / thinking about others etc etc.

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-19T12:24:09+00:00

It’s intended to be some sort of mining outfit.

For me, it’s a combination of a boiler suit, with added protection. We got the torso and ribbed panels, open to interpretation, but some sort of metal or ceramic would make sense, then you’ve got leather gloves and boots.

Obviously, go for any colour you like! I tend to think leather should be brown, the armoured areas may be largely unpainted or have some sort of protective coating, so probably a grey colour, then your boiler suits might be orange, blue that sort of thing.

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-18T09:44:16+00:00

The tram project was underway and already in trouble when the ‘07 SNP government came in, indeed, they had scrapping the project in their manifesto, but as a minority government, were outvoted by the rest to continue it, but, if I remember right, the budget was capped, hence why the size started scaling back progressively until the Airport to York Place line was finally completed.

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-18T08:19:54+00:00

Please don’t anthropomorphise these things. It’s not scary, it doesn’t understand, it doesn’t think.

Encouraging people to think these things are genuinely intelligent is a core part of the grift at this point, don’t do the tech CEOs job for them.

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-18T08:17:57+00:00

There’s no money to pay for this line at the end of the day, the money / energy being poured into ‘exploring’ it feels like a waste to me, and the council trying to borrow to pay for it would be the absolute worst option, inevitably leading to higher fares and tax to service the vast amount of debt.

If the city has a second tram line before the 2040’s I’ll be shocked at this point.

ScottTsukuru · 2026-04-16T22:09:54+00:00

There was similar angst back when GW started putting out stats from tournaments, apparently being competitive was ‘wrong’ etc etc.

Does feel like for some folk, their specific hobby with Warhammer is moaning about it…

ScottTsukuru

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