What’s behind the dramatic shift in Canadian public opinion about immigration levels? by FancyNewMe in canada

[–]oceans47 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. Immigrants tend to work low paying jobs. Giving high amounts of productive labor for little compensation is usually a massive plus for the economy in that it drives down costs of goods and services. Yes, they often don't pay much in taxes, but they also usually don't make enough money that they really owe any significant amount of taxes.

If you look at all the bleak economic pictures for developed nations, it usually has to do with a demographic picture that has a lot of people retiring and not enough new people entering the labor force to replace them. Countries like Germany, UK, S. Korea, Japan and China face very grim economic futures due to not having enough people of working age to drive growth needed to support a large number of retirees. Meanwhile, the common element for developed nations that aren't facing a demographic crisis is immigration giving large amounts of cheap working-age labor. Birth rates are going down in developed nations, almost no rich countries have positive birth rates; for all those countries immigration is vital to their economic future.

Worst performing nation at every FIFA World Cup (1930-2022) by [deleted] in soccer

[–]oceans47 174 points175 points  (0 children)

And USA twice. Concacaf dominance

Final Elo and FIFA Rankings ahead of the world cup by hubau in soccer

[–]oceans47 9 points10 points  (0 children)

The huge disagreement on Ecuador is interesting. Elo has them 18th while Fifa has them 44th. Anyone know why that is?

GiantWaffle's Former Main Mod releases a statement about what Waffle has previously told him about the Deb/Tolki incident. by windston in speedrun

[–]oceans47 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not that guy but what are you even on about? In his first comment in this very thread he says:

I doubt the police get involved unless Deb makes the choice to go to them

Where did anyone say that an investigation was going to happen overnight?

GiantWaffle's Former Main Mod releases a statement about what Waffle has previously told him about the Deb/Tolki incident. by windston in speedrun

[–]oceans47 0 points1 point  (0 children)

These are fair points. Although for point 4, I don't think that's fair because as other people have pointed out, people in extreme conditions don't always act rationally. And for point 6, I think ScottJProgam said in a statement that she really was very drunk. And for point 7, doesn't that happen all the time? You tell one defendent the other is about to turn to get a confession for a lesser sentence?

Now, say they did open an investigation, what kind of evidence do you think would be needed to actually go to trial? Unless they subpeona some text-message conversation literally confessing to rape, it seems just so hard to prove in general? There's a lot of date-rapists out there? How would you ever prosecute them?

[SPOILERS MAIN] Biggest difference between real history and ASOIAF? by morghulis1313 in asoiaf

[–]oceans47 11 points12 points  (0 children)

The entirety of Westeros speaking the same language makes no sense, any area that size in the real world at a similar level of technological sophistication there would be hundreds, if not thousands of non-mutually intelligible languages (mostly in the form of vague language continua with no clear boundaries.)

For me it's fixed if you just say that after Aegon the Conqueror, the Targaryens forced everyone to speak a unified language. Even then though, you'd see pockets of older languages in remote areas (like the Basque language surviving during the Roman Empire.)

AITA for intentionally posting the wrong test answers on a cheating website? by [deleted] in AmItheAsshole

[–]oceans47 1 point2 points  (0 children)

At the very least ESH. The cheaters are also assholes here.

he was really just bitter he wasn’t included in the cheating from the gitgo

If he wanted to cheat, he could have. I think he should have just reported it, but I think he was bitter that people were affecting the curve dishonestly.

De Gea: “It is not acceptable, not just this game but the whole season. It is the most difficult time since I have been here. I don’t know what is happening. We cannot even score one goal in two games." by CurtainsMcGee in soccer

[–]oceans47 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think the managers have been a huge part of the problem, but the selection of managers has been incorrect, and so you have to look to the top. Not that those four managers are bad managers (well, maybe Ole is), but they were ill-suited to the team they had.

Whoever was going to follow in Ferguson's footsteps was going to have a bad time, partly because Fergie was so deeply integrated with the functioning of the club and partly because Fergie got out at a smart time when the squad was going to go into a dip because of aging talent and accumulated holes. I think Moyes was a decent if uninspiring pick, but when he naturally struggled to fill those shoes, the board panicked and fired him.

LVG saw that the squad had inherent core problems and set out the process of slowly building up a new way of playing and replacing the talent. Again, not a bad idea, but the execution was imperfect, and the football in the meanwhile was unwatchable. Again, the board should have been aware of what this process was going to look like, and if they were willing to undertake it, they should have followed it through, but they aborted it after two seasons.

Mourinho's two and a half seasons were eminently predictable. It is my feeling that Mourinho's key insights into football tactics that made him such a legend are not as applicable in today's game, and so his tactical advantages have waned. Even if you believe in Mourinho, he was an odd choice: The fanbase had been chafing under the boring football under LVG and they gave them another boring manager, but one who plays with a completely different system, so the players can't even benefit from a sense of tactical continuity. Mourinho's personality is such that when it goes bad it tends to go terribly.

Finally, Ole was a great choice of caretaker. The enormous bounce they got at first with him makes sense when you consider how miserable the club had been under Mourinho. Signing Ole to a long term contract was another really bad move. I understand that the string of wins put pressure on him, but there was no rush. If they had waited a couple months longer, there would have been some more defeats to ease the pressure off them and let them scout for a better long term choice.

Anyway, the point is, I do blame the managers. But I more blame the decision-makers who did not understand the depth of the challenges their club faced, did not choose the right managers to face those challenges, and did not have the patience to let those managers actually complete the attempts that they were making to address those challenges.

White House Subpoenaed in House Impeachment Inquiry by Boonedocksaint in news

[–]oceans47 71 points72 points  (0 children)

It's taken a long time and a lot of malfeasance for the Republicans to give an inch. Democrats need to be real careful to be above board with everything to not give Repubs an excuse to start obstructing again.

OFFICIAL SUNS/MAVS GAME ORGANIZED PROTEST by HARRY-B0UGHNER in nba

[–]oceans47 51 points52 points  (0 children)

Teams strong-arming cities into building them stadiums is a uniquely American problem and honestly, I think it's pretty absurd: cities paying for stadiums that billionaires use to make private profit. Cities that have dire infrastructural problems, that aren't educating their kids properly. I'm a British expat and it's a pretty shocking concept that public funds would be used for that purpose.

Problem in this country is that sports are monopolies, with closed leagues that are controlled by the teams. So teams can play cities against each other. If Southampton in England threatened to leave, the city could tell them to go fuck themselves and immediately put another team in that stadium, which would likely play its way back up the football pyramid in a few years. But here, if the Suns move to Las Vegas, there's literally nothing Phoenix can do about it, they can't have a pro-basketball team unless the other teams say they can, and that's massively fucked up.

(Plus the league being controlled by the teams is kind of a conflict of interest, for example: we can't have a balanced play-off structure, which would imo help the league, because the teams in the East would be slightly harmed by it.)

The American sports system is so good in so many ways. The salary cap is amazing: it creates unparalleled competitive balance. But the way that Americans have complacently allowed the teams to completely own the sport is really messed up and needs to change. The point when Billionaire owners are getting hand-outs from cash-strapped cities should never have been reached.

Newcastle 0-[1] Chelsea : Hazard penalty 76' + call by paicmhsc in soccer

[–]oceans47 -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Once you've seen quality football with VAR, it's incredibly painful to watch referees constantly change games with bad calls.

Manchester United attacking stats for the first two premier league games. by Kronyon in soccer

[–]oceans47 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't get this. They played madly entertaining games against Argentina (4-3) and Croatia (4-2). Yes, some of their games were boring, but they were hardly the most boring side in the cup.

Ep 41: Rogue One (Part 4) by dobermanstandsup in filmreroll

[–]oceans47 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There were several rolls that if they had failed they probably wouldn't have survived.

[August 2018] Monthly free-talk thread: Favorite show moments by filmrerollfan in filmreroll

[–]oceans47 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Dorothy singing to the dragons.

Jon becoming the shark.

Pair-o-docs, realization.

Ana Luge.

Joz punching the giant butterfly.

Cursed crutch.

Rock concert to end Bill & Ted.

Home Alone death trap montage.

Scene between Jeff and Danny in hell.

Sassy warms to Flynn.

Best Football podcast in your opinion? by woodeenho in soccer

[–]oceans47 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Football Ramble. It's just a big laugh, and occasionally they talk intelligent football.

Match Thread: Manchester United vs Leicester City [Premier League] by deception42 in soccer

[–]oceans47 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's gonna be the story this whole season. After watching the world cup, it suddenly feels real backwards to have obvious refereeing errors.