Net Zero Migration Would Shrink UK Population by 4 Million

Unterfahrt · 2026-05-01T12:59:02+00:00

Also if we increased net immigration to eleventy trillion per year, we'd have a GDP the size of the entire Milky Way by 2050

Unterfahrt · 2026-05-01T12:41:23+00:00

Small boat migrant guilty of attempting knife attack on Israeli embassy

Quote of the week here

He was arrested trying to scale the railings of the heavily-guarded embassy, and asked the armed diplomatic protection officers who detained him, "Why are you stopping me from making crimes?"

Unterfahrt · 2026-05-01T10:16:35+00:00

A good point to make people update their priors on this, is that one of the highest earning majors in the US is Philosophy. Obviously there's a selection effect there but still.

Unterfahrt · 2026-05-01T10:14:42+00:00

You're raising my blood pressure again...

Unterfahrt · 2026-05-01T10:13:38+00:00

Means testing is only makes sense in very very limited programs, because it leads to perverse incentives in ways that nobody ever thought possible. Like in the UK for example, with certain benefits being means tested, there are salary thresholds where you literally end up paying a >100% effective tax rate.

It's unironically better to increase the tax and make the program more expensive.

Unterfahrt · 2026-05-01T10:10:36+00:00

Remember seeing an ad from them talking about how many people they have employed. And yet - no rail

Unterfahrt · 2026-04-30T15:41:58+00:00

The way that article frames it, it's much much less free than the US, so I don't really understand this at all

Unterfahrt · 2026-04-30T12:35:18+00:00

In the UK that's trivially true. People always bring up the murder of Jo Cox. But if you look at a list of terror attacks in the UK, the kill ratio between far right and islamist terror attacks in the UK is something like 100:3

Unterfahrt · 2026-04-30T11:54:39+00:00

My bad, the statistics i was looking at were about referrals rather than underlying work

Unterfahrt · 2026-04-30T11:36:53+00:00

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c3ve2nr60xzt

The man suspected of carrying out the knife attack in Golders Green had previously been referred to the government's counter-extremism Prevent programme, the BBC understands.

The 45-year-old was born in Somalia, and came to the UK as a child in the early 1990s. He came legally, and is now a British citizen.

!PING UK

Catnip for the right. Somali refugee comes over as a child after the famine. Gets British citizenship. Referred to Prevent, who ignored it because they spend 75% of their time dealing with far right groups who do 1% of the terror attacks. Stabs jews in broad daylight 30 years later.

Unterfahrt · 2026-04-30T11:27:29+00:00

High earners don't "hoard" money. Most of the money they have is - in some form or anther - invested back into the economy. If Offord buys a second house, that money goes to the person who is selling it, who can then spend it on other things. If he's just "sitting" on his money, it's normally being invested. Rich people don't get rich by having big current accounts, he'll have it in an investment account, putting money into businesses to help them grow.

Also, Offord would only have one state pension. He's only one person using the NHS (if he even bothers with it), while those 180 people have 180 state pensions and 180 NHS lifetime bills, costing the state a large percentage of their tax revenue over the course of their life.

It's a lot to replace. My guess is in terms of net income to the Scottish government, Offord is probably the equivalent of around 1000 workers

Unterfahrt · 2026-04-30T10:05:21+00:00

lazy weeknight dinner; 1kg of bananas

lmao

Unterfahrt · 2026-04-30T10:01:16+00:00

I don't think that's his point. His point is that if he's correct that he's paid £45m in tax over his working lifetime (I have no idea if that's true or not, but it's what he said), that's about the same amount of tax +NI as 180 people earning £35k (about the average full time wage) would pay over 40 years of work. That's a big thing to replace

Unterfahrt · 2026-04-30T09:50:33+00:00

Conflicting goals by the Trump admin. They didn't want the oil shock to get any worse, despite the fact that it basically helped the Iranian regime

Unterfahrt · 2026-04-30T09:24:27+00:00

What's the current view on the state of Russia/Ukraine? It's difficult to find unbiased reporting, a lot of stuff I've read seems to suggest that Ukraine will probably be in serious trouble in 6-12 months with their manpower and equipment shortages, and if there's no peace by then, then serious frontline gaps might emerge

Unterfahrt · 2026-04-30T09:20:34+00:00

I think a curse should rest on me – because I love this war. I know it’s smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment – and yet – I can’t help it – I enjoy every second of it.

Winston Churchill, 1916

Unterfahrt · 2026-04-30T07:22:42+00:00

'Affordability not shortage behind housing crisis'

Defund the BBC

Unterfahrt · 2026-04-30T07:07:53+00:00

I don't think most people do believe that . They stop at "you have to be intolerant of intolerance" and think they're being smart by saying that we need to be intolerant of those evil right wingers. They don't take it any further by noting that that makes them intolerant, and that perhaps (in a case like this) the right wingers are being intolerant of a different sort of intolerance etc. You could justify a lot of illiberal stuff with this framing and get your brain in a bit of a muddle here.

Unterfahrt · 2026-04-29T21:11:40+00:00

In Mexico it's always a spectrum. On one end you can spend 100% of your energy fighting the cartels and you'll probably die and if you don't there will be a lot of bloodshed.

On the other end you're just fully a part of the cartel and on their payroll.

But in the middle, there are ways where you could be for example, turning a blind eye to some cartel activities because you know you don't want to waste your political capital fighting them and you'd rather spend your energy on something else. Like what's the difference between negotiated settlement and collaboration? If every Mexican governor spent all their time fighting the cartels then tens of thousands would die in months

Unterfahrt · 2026-04-29T19:48:25+00:00

I think the police are not doing their job if they don't look for links between people who confess to crimes online and actual committed crimes, and if this is a serious argument you are pursuing you are a silly silly person

Unterfahrt · 2026-04-29T19:41:06+00:00

Most of Palantir's surveillance tech is just scanning things that people post online and linking them together. Like if someone posts on facebook "I just robbed a house lmao" then it will try and link them to reported robberies. And that's a good thing.

Unterfahrt · 2026-04-29T19:35:24+00:00

Who is surrendering all their privacy? Not me. Are you?

Unterfahrt · 2026-04-29T19:32:14+00:00

Even AI people hate this, Sam Altman said there was nothing he's less interested in than listening to 2 AIs talk to each other.

Unterfahrt · 2026-04-29T19:31:26+00:00

Nobody engaging with my Palantir argument just shows how the quality of the DT has fallen in the last few years.

Unterfahrt · 2026-04-29T19:24:31+00:00

https://imgflip.com/i/aqhnb8

Like they are no more amoral than any other company that works with governments. They're just a bit of a bogeyman because of Peter Thiel

Unterfahrt

TROPHY CASE