Andrew Dunne

@parentingboyz Mike "Road Frontage" Rice

Love is love

me: these are headphones. they go over your ears so you can privately listen to music or podcasts time-traveling pilgrim: so then why do people play stuff loudly off their phone in public spaces? me: okay, you're actually picking up on things way faster than I thought

Britain needs to reckon with the fact that it is not just a developing country economically, but also in political culture. - There are widespread perceptions of corruption. - Governments are not capable of pulling off large projects without enormous consent generation schemes through established interest groups (NGOs) and massive side payments - The government is not trusted with expropriation tools - Even left-wing governments cannot raise broad-based taxes (and the far left opposition don’t make the case for broad-based taxes, but that they can extract loads of money from the rich and other scapegoats) - Even right-wing governments cannot take away state welfare entitlements - There is a dizzying array of inconsistent privileges - Parties are becoming less ideological and more tribal. There are explicit ethnoreligious parties standing, and bloc voting is becoming more and more common. - Everyone thinks that all politicians are liars - Almost no one is willing to take a hit in the interests of the country, and no one is expected to. I think all of these things are connected, and I also think it’s foolish and self defeating to pretend we are Britain of the 1950s, or Denmark, and that we can simply implement the most efficient policies by deciding to — we just need more political will! Instead, we need to be realistic about what a country in our situation can achieve. We need to come up with ways to steadily build state legitimacy and state capacity, by stigmatising dishonesty and using the tools of the past, which worked when we were last in this situation. The government can’t be trusted to spend money, so taxes need to be hypothecated to things voters want if we want to raise more. Large projects need to involve more specific deals with losers, overriding objectors with local support not (nonexistent) national fiat. Anything controversial needs to be approved in a party’s manifesto, or in a referendum. If it can’t be voted through, it cannot be implemented. If the voter doesn’t want it, they need to be convinced, or it can’t be done.

Can't believe it's been 1996 years since that slag betrayed the son of god for thirty pieces of silver, it freaks my nut out to this day.

mcnulty: sorry i’m late, i was having sex. where are we on stringer bell kima: sorry i’m late, blame my annoying baby. gotta go find bubs bunk: despite drinking enough to kill a horse nightly, i’m never late lester: I Am Become Computer

Going to the dentist is class if you've ever been to screwfix and thought they should start doing taste tests.

Look at my premier league team dawg we’re going to the championship

Why can’t we just ban them? They’re tacky and a massive eyesore

Buy one of me pittttchurs will ye?

got to really question the intelligence of someone who wants to be tottenham manager this much

Alexa how do I unswallow bleach coys

@DreyerChina @toddyjenk greatest league in the world

@acjry @NetflixFR Joyeux anniv Anne-C!

@NetflixFR 1992. J’ai 34 ans aujourd’hui 🪩

Mettez votre année de naissance, on vous donne un film.

Yes talkSPORT I’m familiar with how our season is going thanks

@jc4p still very much claude pilled though and getting a tonne of value out of it.

@jc4p +1, as a PM *tantalisingly* close every time

every time anthropic launches a new feature i get excited to show my PMs I realize it's justtt not ready this time: the Asana plug-in doesn't allow modifying the board, you can't move cards

Dele Alli spotted outside Jamaal’s 5in1 in Inchicore? Have Pats hijacked his move to Bohs?

Xabi Alonso and Xavi Hernandez being pitched the Tottenham project

Completely right. Growing up in Cork in the early 2000s meant not knowing many people my age interested in history, economics, politics, or the genres of music I was into. If it wasn't for online discussion forums (the contents of which have mostly shifted on to sites like Twitter, Reddit, Discord, Youtube) I would have been much more intellectually isolated and less able to explore those interests. Supporters of social media bans for teenagers must have a very narrow idea of what both under-16s and the internet are like. I feel bad for the kids whose parents won't help them circumvent these laws (as mine would have, thankfully).