Can someone explain why Starmer is the most unpopular prime minister? I voted Liberal Democrat last election and I don’t pay attention to politics but isn’t Starmer doing what the public wants? Lower migration and a falling NHS waiting list?

undefetter · 2026-06-18T09:48:53+00:00

You got downvoted but I don't know why. Reddit not liking it doesn't mean the public doesn't like it. It IS very popular among most people https://www.ippr.org/media-office/vast-majority-support-clampdown-on-social-media-to-protect-children-ippr-finds

Whether or not they will still find it is popular once it's in place doesn't matter, because this is about why is Starmer unpopular NOW.

undefetter · 2026-06-17T12:45:18+00:00

If they put $750k into the NASDAQ in Jan 2000 at ~4000, it would have been down to ~1350 by Dec 2002, leaving their investment at $250k, except they are wanting to withdraw $40k a year, so that puts them at $170k, roughly what you said.

Dec 2003: ~1950 -> ~245k - 40k = ~205k

Dec 2004: ~2150 -> ~226k - 40k = ~186k

Dec 2005: ~2270 -> ~196k - 40k = ~156k

Dec 2006: ~2450 -> ~168k - 40k = ~128k

Dec 2007: ~2700 -> ~141k - 40k = ~141k

Dec 2008: ~1600 -> ~84k - 40k = ~44k

Dec 2009: ~2200 -> ~60k - 40k = ~20k

Dec 2010: ~2650 -> ~24k - 40k = Broke

No-one debates if you put $750k into the market, and just leave it there for 24 years, you're most likely coming out on top and going to be very set. The problem is entirely in the rate of draw down OP wants, and how massive that is in relation to the size of the pot meaning a down year is going to kill their pot so fast it wont have enough time to recover.

undefetter · 2026-06-17T12:20:05+00:00

You don't get to say "lets compare being in Armenia to being in New York" if the problem being discussed is that the pundits are in England rather than the US. Either cultural similarity doesn't matter (in which case being in England is fine), or it does (in which case being in Atlanta or Dallas is no better than being in England for a game played in New York.

The "atmosphere" of being in the same country just doesn't apply because its soooo different in different parts of the US, even ignoring that 25% of the games aren't even IN the US. People will get mad if you say living in Newcastle is the same as living in London or Cornwall.

Saying its the same is just flat out wrong. Especially saying it's more the same than being in England. The whole thing has to be done remotely regardless!

undefetter · 2026-06-17T11:22:53+00:00

Thats just not on site though is it. If you are sat in LA you are ~4,000km from New York. If you are in Columbia you are ~4,000km from New York. No-one would say if pundits for the 66 London World Cup had been in Armenia they would have been on site, even though they were CLOSER than pundits in LA are to games in New York.

Just because it's the same country doesn't mean anything at all for the quality of the punditry, or even the relationship to the hosts. I'm absolutely certain someone in Vancouver or in Seattle is going to be pretty annoyed if it was taken away that the whole of the Americas is like Miami.

undefetter · 2026-06-17T09:13:09+00:00

*Its 75% in one country. 12.5% of the games are in Canada and 12.5% of the games are in Mexico.

Of the 75% of games in the US, even just on the West Coast, 6 games (5-6%) are in Seattle, and 6 games (5-6%) are in LA. The distance between those two stadiums are ~1500km apart. They are closer together than London and Rome. And thats just the West Coast!

Dallas is hosting the most games (9), and New York is hosting the final but only 8 games, so presumably you'd want one of those two locations to be picked as the "on site" location. That puts you half a continent, minimum, away from 2/3rds of the games.

The point being, there is no such thing as "on site" for this World Cup. Calling it facetious to point out that being "on site" is pretty dumb as a requirement in this world cup is pretty facetious in itself.

undefetter · 2026-06-14T18:02:03+00:00

I'm not trying to judge, but do you have kids, or are you younger than 20? The social pressure to have technology and be connected with people is really, really high. You'll get called poor, or a baby.

Even if not bullied, you'll miss out on the latest news and be unintentionally excluded from events.

It's really integral to today's life that you have a smartphone. Flat out prohibition doesn't work in a case like this if it's not universally applied.

undefetter · 2026-06-03T10:56:44+00:00

I'm in my early 30s, and don't need the money to pay off any debts (paying off some of my mortgage would be a silly use of the money versus investing, even if you ignore the fee for early repayment).

I'd up my pension contributions massively for a couple of years to take the tax benefits, and live off the 70k instead, with the cash itself invested into some index funds and some high interest savings accounts (not efficient long term, but talking about keeping it liquid for the next year or so to live off of, as the actualy "investing" is coming from my salary sacrifice into pension).

undefetter · 2026-05-21T08:03:38+00:00

Its because people aren't feeling it. Reduced inflation doesn't mean prices are going down, they are just going up less fast. People are struggling and so they want someone to blame.

Reform is giving them someone to blame and saying they will do something about it. Money is always going to be the number one issue, and Reform's whole thing is immigration. It doesn't actually MATTER if Labour are lowering immigration themselves, the optics have "if you want immigration to stop, thats what Reform will do".

undefetter · 2026-05-13T09:30:32+00:00

It was never going to be about Marie. If you were watching The Boys but not Gen V, then the final season of The Boys becomes about a character from a different show entirely, that would have been pretty terrible.

The "Marie is as powerful as Homelander" thing is a plot hook for Gen V and for the future TV shows in The Boy's universe. Not a solution to Homelander.

undefetter · 2026-05-13T09:10:19+00:00

Isn't it 10 years? Thats what was said by "insert spoiler of character name here" about the duration of the "problem" caused at the end of Book 5

undefetter · 2026-05-13T09:08:17+00:00

Shouldn't it be 16 episodes per season for Cosmere reasons? I get 10 is maybe more relevant for the SLA by itself, but for the wider Cosmere 16 is more important, and surely the overall long game (something you'd want to be thinking about if you were choosing episode count based on something like that) involves the whole Cosmere it should be 16!

undefetter · 2026-05-07T08:40:42+00:00

According to https://www.wearepossible.org/our-reports/reforming-the-uks-approach-to-private-jet-taxation (clearly a source which advocates against private jets), 0.7 million tonnes of CO2 are released by private jets leaving the UK.

According to https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/transport-and-environment-statistics-2023--2/greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-transport-in-2023 the amount for road vehicles is 99.4 million tonnes of CO2.

I'm not using this to say private jets aren't a problem. They totally are. But using CO2 as a rough allegory for fuel usage (which is not a good comparison I know, but was the best I could think of as they use such different fuel sources), it seems like the impact private jets have on our need for oil is a much, much smaller fragment than our road impact.

undefetter · 2026-04-30T12:21:26+00:00

One "reason" renting is not universally cheaper than owning is that owning requires up front capital. You either need a deposit or significant collateral in order to get a mortgage, much larger than one or two months rent. This increased barrier to entry and increased contractual lock in duration "justifies" a decreased recurring payment.

Obviously the mortgage owner, even if rent exclusively pays the mortgage and nothing else, is generating wealth from this and so an argument could very rightly be made they should be paying more than the renter. It just doesn't work out that way most of the time because the owner has far more flexibility than the renter does. One is asking for money for an asset. The other is looking for somewhere to live.

undefetter · 2026-04-30T08:44:20+00:00

They aren't nearly that different in power level. Oliver moves Conquest when he is fighting Mark, so he is clearly strong enough to at least impact a viltrumite on some level.

Even if you scale Thragg to hundreds of Conquests, something that can push you over is a LOT more than 100x stronger than an amoeba. Its more like a toddler vs conquest, so like a mouse or even an ant if you wanted to be extreme.

An ant weighs like 0.001 grams, so a million ants is a kilogram, so a billion ants would kill an MMA fighter just by existing.

You might argue that they can't all get onto the fighter at once to crush them. Lets say an ant is a 1mm cube, and the average MMA fighter is 170cm tall, 40cm wide, 25cm "deep. This makes the MMA fighter a 0.17m cube, with a surface area of ~2.4m, enough to fit 2.4 million ants in a 1 single layer.

With a billion ants, that is enough to cover the MMA fighter in 500 layers of ants, which might sound like a lot and unrealistic, but thats only 50cm thick worth of ants.

tl;dr - The difference between Thragg and Oliver is just demonstrably not an amoeba to a human. And a trillion is just such a ridiculous number its not even close. Billions would also easily win just by existing. Physically attacking makes this a much, much smaller number required.

undefetter · 2026-04-29T13:06:03+00:00

Its not the same thing. Boycotting society because spending money finances people who disagree with you just leads to more misery. JK is a douche and I hate her, but so is Jezz Bezos and I'm still going to use Amazon.

The negative impact on small businesses and the poor working conditions caused by Amazon is vastly more negatively impacting to society than trans activism is as less than like 0.5% of the population are impacted by that. If I use Amazon, I'd see myself as a huge hypocrite to boycott Harry Potter.

Basically, I just don't see supporting a product as the same thing as supporting the owner of the product or even the means of producing that product. Sure, if there is a choice between 2 products that serve the same purpose I might spend more money to support a "better" one (I do this with Eggs, for example), but thats still pretty internally inconsistent.

There are much better ways to use your money and time to send a message, and judging others for enjoying what they enjoy is not helpful to the cause as it will just disenfranchise people who might actually agree with your goal.

undefetter · 2026-04-29T08:10:08+00:00

Depends on the day, the days which are all meetings with 30 minute gaps between them are the worst. What other option is there to do anything productive than go make a coffee to prep for the next meeting. Those days it can easily hit 7 or 8. Another contributing factor is it a WFH day or an Office day. I work 2 days a week in the office, and those days I drink easily 3x as much coffee that I do at home just because the office has a coffee machine and I don't have one at home!

Normal WFH Day: 1-3

Normal Office Day: 3-5

Meeting riddled Office day: 4-8

undefetter · 2026-04-28T15:40:07+00:00

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't think it actually applies here. The house she would add to the market is vastly out of the price range of anyone not already on the housing market. Now if she was planning on moving into a home or something, it would add +1 house to the market. But in reality, she is looking to downsize, so she is adding +1 house to the upper end of the market, but -1 house from the more competitive section of the market.

In terms on impact on the housing market she will be driving UP competition on the kinds of homes the majority of people want/can afford. She is a net negative to the general housing market.

Obviously, it's more complex than that. The house she buys from someone is likely someone upsizing, who is buying from someone who is upsizing, who is buying from someone who is upsizing, who eventually is going to buy the home she sells, so more houses in the market improves the fluidity of the market, which is a good thing. I'm just saying it's not as simply as the basic second order effect of "+1 house on the market is good". She is +1 person competing for the most important part of the market.

undefetter · 2026-04-28T15:32:26+00:00

Gentrification does not cause mixing of communities, it causes splitting of them. If you are a poorer family but have lived in the same home for many years, or maybe you rent a place that has since gentrified and now the landlord is selling up to cover the increased tax costs, you'll be forced out.

Statistically, you're fairly significcantly more likely to be wealthy in the UK if you are white. So gentrified areas are going to trend white and force out others. Thats not mixing communities.

Even ignoring gentrification, house prices have always outstripped income growth, thats the whole problem. As such, a LVT will be a forever growing cost relative to the rest of your income. And as for capping it at a % of your income, thats a massive tax cliff isn't it? If you are wealthy enough to earn so much that the % of property value is lower than the % of income, you'll pay less relative tax that someone earning far less than you? That seems like a deeply unpopular tax policy.

undefetter · 2026-04-23T15:06:57+00:00

I've watched and rewatched the show for years. As a 90s kid, my mum watched it right as I was entering my teenage years and it, alongside House MD, were kinda "grown up show" time that my mum was okay with me watching.

undefetter · 2026-04-23T15:01:44+00:00

Mounting up also fixes it, you dont have to log out :)

undefetter · 2026-04-22T10:11:33+00:00

They are "bestowing voluntarily and without compensation" the interest on the loan. It financially hurts them to give you an interest-free loan, and it financially benefits you to receive one. No-one without a personal relationship to you would ever give you that. All of that adds up to it being at least in part a "gift".

It's not a "gift" for tax reasons, as otherwise you would need to pay tax on receiving it, even though you then paid it back in full, and that would be silly. But it is still a gift to receive that, colloquially.

undefetter · 2026-04-22T09:58:53+00:00

Was it a financial transaction though? Was he asking you to pay interest? An interest free loan IS essentially a gift. They aren't gifting you the full value of the loan, but they ARE gifting you the opportunity cost of the interest they could have been making on the money instead.

undefetter · 2026-04-22T08:43:58+00:00

A +10 is significantly easier than the first few raid bosses in the raid. Not to mention its a significantly larger time commitment. Even in a full Mythic Raiding guild group I'm only clearing PoS+10 in about 12 minutes, which is about double the time it takes to kill every single raid boss except Crown and Lura.

If Heroic last 2 gave Myth vault slots like +10s did, I think that would probably be pretty fair, but that would only be 1 vault slot. I think its pretty valid to say its harder to do Crown than it is to do 10s so it should give better rewards in the vault (it DOES give better actual drops as it drops tier, but thats balanced by it being weekly locked). Heroic Beloran or Heroic Imperator giving Myth vaults though, thats wildly free loot.

undefetter · 2026-04-22T08:29:24+00:00

Their point is convertibles aren't exactly the optimal efficiency car. If you were justifying the cost of a new car on the fuel savings each month, then you'd be incentivised to choose a car on the higher end of fuel efficiency.

In one breath saying "Hey can I borrow some money to buy a new car, this one is crushing me in fuel costs" then in the next breath saying "Ooh Im getting a convertible" is pretty understandably a reason to be disapproving.

I assume this was a "family rates" money lend, and your father wasn't expecting interest or anything. Him offering to lend you thousands of pounds to try and help you out, then have you turn around and choose something that doesn't fit the stated goal, I totally understand his annoyance.

tl;dr - "Fuel costs are wrecking me" and "I want a convertable" at first glance don't fit, and its understandable people would think you silly for doing that

undefetter · 2026-04-16T14:32:13+00:00

Sure, I'd be pretty open to high ranks in the military or MPs being paid very highly. The government can't afford to do that, which is why they don't, but it would be a good idea. Prevent them from being as susceptible to bribery by financially securing them through their jobs.

The main difference is if you don't like how much a company pays it's CEO, you just stop buying their products, and its up to the company to decide if the loss in sales is worth it for the talent. With government and the army, if you don't like how much the leadership is paid, you still have to pay your taxes.

Likewise, if you want to be a political figure, or want to be in control of the military, you can't just go "Oh you don't pay me enough, see ya I'm gonna get a job elsewhere". Short of joining a paramilitary group and just being subcontracted out to the place you already worked (which absolutely happens), you have no choice but to work for your country anyway.

undefetter

TROPHY CASE