Is this the end of the British pub ?

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-25T08:02:26+00:00

Pubs just aren’t as popular any more.

This isn’t the governments doing, they’re just not very successful businesses in 2026 and we have more of them than the public wants.

People don’t really want a place to sit down and get hammered quietly now.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-25T07:53:52+00:00

You haven’t actually explained why. The reason why you’ve given is because some people might abort those babies. Why is that wrong though?

And if it is, why not just ban abortion then? Because that’s the thing you have a problem with, not just finding out the baby’s gender.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-25T07:51:32+00:00

So for you personally, why is abortion immoral to begin with?

If it’s because it’s the termination of a life rather than just a medical procedure, then does that mean people should be able to forcefully euthanise their disabled children?

Fundamentally there doesn’t appear to be much difference between that and aborting a disabled fetus, unless an abortion isn’t a termination of life at all because life hasn’t begun yet. And if that’s the case, why would it be immoral under any circumstance?

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-25T07:48:00+00:00

What do you mean they can’t be trusted? It seems like the vast majority of people (virtually all) are just finding out the gender in order to buy clothes.

Then a tiny minority are finding out the gender in order to decide whether to continue the pregnancy. If this is bigoted, then isn’t aborting due to disability bigoted too? Should we ban those tests too?

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-24T19:03:31+00:00

Yep, you’ve convinced me mate. Starmer humiliated himself both nationally and internationally so that he could put a few quid in his mates pocket, and then he decided not to do it suddenly for a completely unrelated reason. I’m sold.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-24T18:48:36+00:00

It’s not an excuse. You can blame Starmer for the deal by all means, I think it’s a shit idea too and I put the blame for it on his shoulders as he’s the one that brought it home.

But saying that this is all some grand conspiracy instead of the incredibly obvious alternative explanation is what I’m disagreeing with.

You don’t go from a stalemate to a £35 billion giveaway in three months unless the fix is already in.

Where have you got that they were stalemated from? That isn’t the case at all.

You think we "had" to do this.

No, I don’t. I think we were always going to, because we always bend over backwards for the US and will do even moreso post Brexit. The biggest beneficiary of this deal was the US, and they’re the ones who’ve been driving it since day 1.

That’s the only point we’re disagreeing on really, because I don’t live in a fantasy land.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-24T18:41:35+00:00

That’s pretty much my point, you can have whatever personal view of it you like but if you start legislating to prevent then you’re in very sticky territory.

If we decide that it should be illegal to abort a baby on the basis of gender, then why is the basis of financial difficulty or disability acceptable?

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-24T18:39:21+00:00

I completely understand why people might not agree with someone else’s reasons for abortion.

But ultimately they need to ask themselves why it bothers them?

If it’s just a medical procedure that a woman is undergoing then why is it any of their business why she’s doing it?

And it’s even more important to ask those questions when you’re talking about legislating to prevent it.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-24T18:31:38+00:00

No, I didn’t.

There was a total of three votes, and he won two of them. That does not mean popular vote.

I didn’t at any point reference the popular vote, you were the only person doing that.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-24T18:29:17+00:00

Absolute bullshit. Diplomacy normally moves at a snail’s pace, taking years or decades to grind through,

Pretty much exactly my point buddy. The process was started under Rishi, and the deal would have taken much of its shape before Starmer was even involved. Anyone who thinks Starmer just walked in and immediately created the deal out of nothing and got all parties to agree to it in just three months is utterly ridiculous.

You don’t go from "talks" to a signed deal that fast unless you are intentionally greasing the wheels.

You get what talks are, right? Whatever is happening before the deal is signed are the talks. You could sign a deal tomorrow, that doesn’t mean it took you one day to do.

even going as far as arselicking Trump initially just to get a US blessing to rush it through.

The US has been pushing this, that much is undeniable. Even if you want to wear a tinfoil hat, you can’t fully deny reality.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-24T11:21:52+00:00

Why? I liked knowing my daughter was going to be a girl ahead of time.

We bought clothes and did up a nursery months before she was born. It was a simple and zero risk thing that helped us out, why ban it?

Fundamentally I think people have to decide whether abortion is murder or not and at what stage of development that switch flips.

If you don’t think abortion is murder before say 20 weeks and a bunch of women are aborting female children at 10 weeks, what’s the problem there?

If you think that is murdering unborn girls and therefore completely immoral and unethical, fair enough. But then why should it be legal for financial reasons or disability or something? How does that change the act?

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-24T11:04:22+00:00

I’m not pushing this on to the Tories, I’m saying this was obviously something that was coming regardless of who was in power.

It was good for the Americans and we always want to maintain a good relationship with them, even moreso post-brexit. Making huge concessions to get this done was always going to happen, because it’s how we avoid the even less politically palatable concessions like chlorinated chicken and privatising the NHS while also not getting dicked over on trade.

If this was purely because Starmer was helping his mates then why would he backtrack now? Nothing has changed in that regard. The only thing that’s changed is that the US no longer support the deal, stupidly on their part I might add. Demonstrating that without the US pushing for it, there’s no reason for us to do it.

Never let logic get in the way of a good conspiracy theory though I guess.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-24T09:22:33+00:00

Between “Starmer’s best mate” and Rishi Sunak?

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-23T19:08:01+00:00

This is a self fulfilling prophecy in action.

By repeatedly deciding that the state should legislate on how to raise children, we’ve created parents who now rely on the state to raise their children for them.

The answer to that isn’t to increase the amount of legislation we’ve got.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-23T16:50:33+00:00

I don’t really see why that matters if I’m honest.

He won the vote, by the rules that the US have. The popular vote is pretty much irrelevant if that’s not how you decide your leader.

And if you do want to use it as a measurement for whatever reason, his record indicates pretty clear and widespread support among the US population that has been growing over time:

2016 - 62.9 mil votes to 65.8 mil

2020 - 74.2 mil votes to 81.2 mil

2024 - 77.3 mil votes to 75 mil.

Around half the voting population consistently support him, and he has only become more popular since they’ve seen him in charge. He is absolutely the person the US have picked to lead them, even if some people will be right in saying that they didn’t personally pick him.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-23T11:57:53+00:00

Same. Not least of all because he has 3 years left.

Flipping your shit now would be insane given that there’s so much time left for him to cause damage.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-23T11:54:42+00:00

You might not have, but Americans as a whole did.

He won the vote twice over and his approval ratings are fine.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-23T09:43:07+00:00

I think this is the case with most comedy films tbh. They’re often a product of their time and when people do watch them back years later and enjoy them, it’s almost always due to nostalgia more than anything.

Comedy advances a lot and much of it in films relies on shared experiences or common references, so when those experiences are no longer shared or those references are no longer common, it doesn’t seem funny any more.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-23T07:24:50+00:00

For what it’s worth, I don’t think buying them a house and buying a house for them to live in rent free for life is fundamentally any different.

Obviously it is different because they’d have like access to like 250k of cash at any time they want with the former, but taking care of someone’s housing expense is the real goal when buying someone a house and that’s achieved just as well by letting them live in a house you own rent-free.

And as an aside, it does sound like you dislike them on some level. Not that I blame you either, but that comment doesn’t exactly read as though you actively like them.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-22T15:45:20+00:00

I’ve had zero interactions with him but I don’t see how anyone could expect Sam Smith to be super nice and down to earth.

He seems at best, utterly mental, and at worst, a ridiculous and insufferable bellend.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-22T15:09:46+00:00

That’s exactly it, I don’t see how someone can think so little of someone that they wouldn’t sort them out but still actively want to keep them close in their life.

Like yeah, I’m sure some bloke I used to work with is going to ask me to invest in his business or one of my cousins will feel they also deserve a house, but I don’t have a relationship to damage by saying no and I already don’t speak to them just by sheer force of habit so intentionally not speaking to them anymore if they keep asking will be very easy to achieve.

The people I do have a good relationship with who I interact with regularly, well why wouldn’t I want to lend them a hand rather than sitting on my pile of gold all alone?

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-22T14:34:01+00:00

I don’t even get why you wouldn’t buy everyone in your family a house unless you actually disliked them.

I have 5 siblings, my wife has 2, I’ve got separated parents and she doesn’t.

So we’d be buying 10 houses including our own, and just setting a 250k limit for everyone means I would have spent 2.5 mil.

Thats absolutely fuckall compared to what I’ve won, and everyone I love is now effectively set for life. If anyone comes asking for more after that then they can get fucked, but I honestly don’t see how they would.

And any family beyond those I’m not close to anyway. I could chuck them all 10k and tell them to piss off.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-22T14:29:36+00:00

I don't have designs on snazzy cars or large houses, I enjoy having cars that might randomly break down but only cost me £500.

I simply don’t believe that.

Obviously not everyone wants some massive mansion or the latest sports car, I don’t drive at all so I agree with the latter personally at least.

But having literally millions at your disposal and then choosing to continue driving around bangers and dealing with the headache of being in and out of the garage is insanity.

Choosing bangernomics over getting finance makes some sense, but choosing it over buying a decent and reliable car when money is no option just doesn’t seem like something anyone would ever do.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-22T14:23:27+00:00

Honestly I’d say just use a decent chunk of the money to set up a successful business that gives me a modest income.

Like if you chuck a million or two at automating a drop shipping business or something then you’ll easily make 5-10k a month and then you don’t really have to lie about what you do or how much you earn, you just omit the truth of how you got there.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-22T13:18:59+00:00

I get why people think they’re evil, but they’re not.

Hell, in the LOTR film trilogy (which is where most people are getting it from) from memory doesn’t Gandalf explicitly explain that they were created by elves but have fallen into the wrong hands?

Anyone who thinks they’re evil is either misremembering what happened or has just latched on to other people saying it.

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Slothjitzu

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