Rayvin

How did I know this response was coming Seems to be the standard in situations like this. It's nothing to do with this place mate, I just enjoy a good discussion - you can get plenty of them on here. If you're instead saying that I shouldn't take you seriously, then duly noted.

The only time I would ever advocate for a physically harmful action is if it's the only way to prevent someone hurting others. So for instance, I could get on board with Putin being assassinated since we appear to have no other mechanism to get rid of him, and he's killing thousands. That said though, if he stood down and was tried for war crimes, I wouldn't want him executed. I don't remember posting that, but it's possible because it's consistent with my internal view on the matter. And beyond that, honestly, I don't think you've seen shit from me calling for violence against other people. Unless being very angry and calling people out for what they are constitutes violence. I think you're scrambling around now because you've no argument on this other than "criminals are evil". I've tried to engage you earnestly in this and I regret it, you're not even making arguments.

And Hitler, yes. Understanding how these people come to be, what drives them and why they have such rampant disregard for those around them would go a long way to better equipping society to prevent them getting into the positions of power that they do. Doesn't mean they aren't human. It is especially important, in fact, that we regard them as human. Even Jordan Peterson made this point man. Did you really think you were going to 'gotcha' me with this for fuck's sake. This is a deeply held principle that I have spent many hours thinking on and challenging myself with.

I don't have Twitter but if I did I'd be throwing in the towel now. Is there a viable alternative in any real sense though?

I'm not saying they have to forgive, goalpost shifter, I'm saying they have to accept that these people are human and stop running away from why these things happen because it's "easier" to just rage and hate and see them as less than human. That attitude is what causes this in the first place frankly. Only the left actually tries to do anything meaningful in tackling crime because only the left tries to understand it. And I say left generously here, what I mean is the centre, the left, and really anyone with any actual common sense. Notably excludes significant swathes of the right who prefer to respond emotionally and assume criminals are "evil" and "animals", words which remove any responsibility from society for doing anything to prevent it. Further case in point - domestic violence. Have mentioned this before but nonetheless - I worked with a counselling charity to help them with their sustainability, and the CEO told me that in the fight against domestic violence, they'd save more women if money was being spent on helping the men who were violent. Unfortunately, she went on, there is no political will to do so because society can't stomach the idea of helping such people. The consequence of that backwards social attitude, is more women suffering domestic violence. This isn't the thread for this anyway and I apologise to everyone for de-railing it, but my original point is that Putin conscripting criminals to go and die in Ukraine outrages me no less than any of the others he's forcing to go and die for his right wing, authoritarian, populist bullshit. Those people are human and he's treating them as playthings in the same way he's treating everyone else.

I always refer people to Brendan Cox on this. His wife (Jo Cox, MP) was murdered by a right wing terrorist - the right itself in this instance would have to throw their hands up and say "well, he was just evil, nothing anyone could have done". Cox on the other hand publicly forgave the man and called for greater understanding into the root causes of social division. He held true to his principles because he understood that the man who killed his wife had been turned into a vehicle for murder by right wing propaganda focused on hate. To call that man an animal and write him off is to take our eye off the real reason for her death. The politics and media of the right wing - and we have to stand in defiance of their hatred and insecurity day in and day out to prevent society collapsing around us.

I would rephrase this. The Liberal left is brave enough to recognise that people who do these things are human beings, and that the darkness of thought which compels such actions could with the right set of circumstances, occur in any of us. Therefore we have to be able to understand them as we have to be able to understand ourselves - and doing so is the only way to make anything better. The hellfire and brimstone right instead hides from the truth and prefers to call these people animals and other dehumanising terms because it wishes to believe that there is just something innately evil in them, that this cannot be explained or reasoned with, and that they should be written off. They are people. As such we are compelled to understand them if we want to deal with the causes if them committing crimes. Otherwise we're doomed to simply live in a world were crime is a relentless evil that we cannot deal with other than shooting it dead at every opportunity. Which is indeed the world the right thinks it lives in.

You understand what conscripted means right? They're not being afforded an opportunity here, they're being forced to do it because in his eyes, as former criminals, they're lesser human beings. So they are in fact paying an additional debt to society.

Aye my bad, I saw that and somehow was under the impression that she was administrating the procedure rather actually being the complainant.

I don't think we should underestimate how powerful that rhetoric was mind you, Russia definitely did shut up and go away. We've heard nothing about them since...

Threatening who? Has he told someone to shut up and go away again?

Sure but even so, it's some progress. Imagine if we did get to 100% - you set it up state owned and charge people cost + 2% for future proofing.. no one would ever freeze in their homes again. Fully energy independent.

Is it really that high? That's actually really impressive.

Tbf to them, that's a really compelling argument. "The economic consequences of cutting ourselves off from our largest trading partner could harm GDP by up to 5% in the short to medium term and make us a poorer country" is a much less robust argument, from an intellectual standpoint, than "HA HA Fake Wall Go BOOM"

Fully agree - this has to be the end of them for good, we can't risk any more of this incompetence. They've disaster capitalist'd the country to the brink of oblivion. I'm prepared to give Starmer the benefit of the doubt on whatever it takes to win him power, if he locks them out for good. The thing is though, I feel like there'd need to be an actual conversation around how much damage they've done, and I'm not sure anyone is prepared to talk about it yet. At this point it's not even about whether you're left or right wing - it's about whether you appreciate that running a country requires a serious attitude, intelligence, experience, and competence, or whether running a country is a game to be played by born to rule rich fucks who substitute all of the above with a posh accent and a tendency to spout off in Latin. Eton must be a fucking shit school btw if this is the calibre of moron it's pumping out. See also Oxbridge's PPE course.

Yeah ok. It's really useful then IMO. @PaddockLad would you accept this - xG may not tell you anything you couldn't see yourself (IMO it could but I will accept you may just be a more astute observer than I am, wouldn't be difficult) but given that it collects -everything- in this context across all players, it therefore proves its use by converting the analysis into a quantitative form that can be easily manipulated/sorted to quickly offer the same level of insight that you'd otherwise have to spend hours of time watching games to replicate. Therefore, it's a great tool for assessing players who we don't normally get to watch much playtime of - maybe it does indeed have more diminished impact at a club where you watch every game though.

Truth be told mate, it doesn't particularly matter to me whether you did or not. Plenty of people I care about did too. What matters to me at this point is people burying their heads in the sand and refusing to see reality - which I've not seen from you yet, so don't take that comment the wrong way. In direct response, the biggest venn diagram overlap between those who voted for Brexit and any other political issue is immigration (closely followed by the reinstatement of the death penalty, interestingly). Given your views on immigration as expressed so far, it seems a logical inference. It's either that or you want to bring back hanging I'm afraid - I don't make the rules

How is the 'expected' bit of XG established again? Do they have a database of all goals with specific criteria assigned and then do a weighted average (which would be awesome) or is it just goals from a specific part of the box? (which would be practical but not as awesome).

I'm aware

We just have to hope that the need becomes clear. The tables are turning in the media at least, you can see it even at staunch Brexit cheerleaders like the Telegraph and the BBC.

The only thing the Tories ever manage to grow is inequality. For all that people went off on Corbyn for being ideological (rightly) the Tories are actually far more consistently ideological in their crazed pursuit of austerity. There is no economic justification for it at a time when we need growth. They won't run out of money, they can afford to raises taxes on corporations, but because that would mean that everything they stand for is shown up to be the nonsense that it is, we have to watch them double down on destroying what's left of this once proud nation.

More than enough though. I think it will continue to be a long game with Brexit though and even with my staunch opinions I'm ok with that as long as we're moving towards rejoining. People need time to understand that they really did vote to make us weaker, insignificant and poorer. Starmer's approach is to pretend that's not happening so that he can win in the short term, but the media is now starting to talk about it more honestly and that in turn will make it more possible for Labour to do so. As that happens, that 57% will become 60, then 65% etc. Once it reaches that kind of level, we can likely persuade the EU to forgive us.

Am actually feeling fairly positive on things atm. The Brexit Sea change, the Suella scandal and now Matt Hancock. The Tory party is an incompetent, hilarious mess even under Sunak. There genuinely were no capable Brexiteers it seems.

Think I heard a Labour MP say in the commons yesterday that 70% of them were legit. Depends where they're coming from too tbh, that may also be a factor in the increase. I wouldn't even put it past the Tories to have manufactured it themselves in order to give them something to 'win' on.

I've never observed any significant ill feeling towards City from our fanbase, I think possibly because your success came at the expense of many clubs we genuinely didn't like. Charnley and Ashley were entirely on their own path with what the club did anyway, you can fully consider the institution and the fans to be hostages in that situation.