MrWorldwideJr

OK I think this is maybe where I'm having trouble because the whole tone of this thread is wildly preachy. Take even the first couple of sentences of your reply, its got this tone of imparting hidden wisdom that I've missed, when really all you're saying is 'you can choose how to spend your money' which tbh is something I was already aware of, but again doesn't count as a financial philosophy. Just feels to me like this whole thread is people taking pretty standard financial advice but delivering it in as patronising a manner as possible.

OK, can you tell us what the 'ideas' are? Because you've written paragraphs and paragraphs worth on this thread and yet all I've got out of it is 'try to save money if you can'. I just assumed that if there is an acronym and an online community and books being written about it there must be more to it than that, some sort of method to follow or some advice on how to save. Yet from what you've said about Barty none of that matters, if you save money then you've done FIRE. Guess I'm just confused about what the point of a thread/online community is if there are no central ideas or processes to follow. What is there to discuss? Obviously you won't see it this way but I would also say that seeing news of a very rich tennis player retiring and immediately thinking 'she must have done FIRE' seems pretty evangelical to me.

What I'm getting from this thread is that all FIRE really means is 'save some money if you can', which obviously is good financial advice in a general sense but I don't really understand how someone can be uber evangelical about it or how it really counts as a philosophy that you can write books on. Maybe I'm missing something of course but if there is any more to it than that then I don't see how a woman who has never once referenced it can be co-opted into the 'movement' just because she happens to have been very succesful in her career and made a lot of money as a result. The reason Barty can retire early is because she won a ludicrous amount in prize money, not due to any financial philosophy she followed (beyond not immediately spending all her prize money I suppose, but as I said that doesn't really count as a philosophy). Her story isn't really applicable to the lives of normal people in any way It strikes me that based on the Ashleigh Barty chat, FIRE can basically claim anybody who is remotely rich or has some money tucked away in a savings account and point to them and say 'SEE, THEY DID FIRE' even if they haven't ever heard of it in their lives.

I'm sure to some extent its act but the lack of basic knowledge/understanding of F1 that Croft appears to have is incredible given that he's been commentating on it for 15 years. I can forgive mistakes made in the moment, its a difficult job, but every race he says at least a couple of things that make him sound like he's been called in to commentate for the weekend having never watched a race before in his life.

'Woke liberals are using cancel culture to suppress freedom of speech and debate' to 'the BBC put a content warning on a Fawlty Towers episode' in less than two hours. Impressive stuff.

Don't get me wrong Dave Ryding has a shot at a medal but he isn't world champion. He won his first world cup race this season which is maybe where the confusion lies. To give an idea of where he stands he's usually somewhere around 10th in the slalom world cup standings (a little higher this year thanks to winning a race) and has 4 career podiums. So he has a chance of a medal but probably more likely he doesn't get one than that he does.

Unclear how your alternative pathway of youth team -> OF colt team -> Nobody's first team because they're still playing in an OF colt team helps matters. I can understand Old Firm fans being in favour of colt teams, its hugely selfish and requires a load of mental gymnastics to justify it as anything other than yet another power grab, but at least its actually something that benefits their club. A fan of anyone outside the Old Firm believing that its a good idea which would be benefit anybody other than two clubs is wild.

I live near Birmingham and have met a few folk from around London who are under the impression that they now live in the North.

I think you're right that most won't be coming at this from an overtly racist point of view. But I think there is definitely ignorance and euro-centrism at play. The debate around the AFCON in this country every two years is very much a bunch of Europeans having a debate about what an African tournament should do based almost entirely on what would be most convenient for European football. Presumably there is a reason/reasons that the tournament is held every two years and primarily in January/February since as far as I can see that has been the case for the last 60 years, you would imagine it must be in some way beneficial for African football for that to be the case, but it never comes into the debate. It all centres around the fact that a non European tournament doesn't fit perfectly into the European football calendar, and asking what the non Europeans can do for us to minimise the disruption.

'People shouldn't criticise elected politicians unless they are personally willing to start a rival political party' seems like a good and sensible take.

My theory on this is that there's maybe nowhere really for the standard at the top to go (I think the standard across the whole tour is significantly higher). I feel like snooker has a limit in that if you can consistently knock in a long red and make 70-80 from it then you're going to be able to win matches against anybody regardless of how good they are themselves. I think you see that in the fact that basically any of the top 16-20 (and a few lower down the rankings as well) are capable of having a random match or even week in which they are unplayable. It then becomes a battle of who can generate chances with their safety most often, who can make the fewest mistakes in the balls when they get their chances and who can keep their level high/deal with it best when their level dips across the longer matches and across the whole season. All of those I think are things that lend themselves to experience - which is why you haven't really seen Higgins/O'Sullivan/Williams drop off all that far even though they are all a good way beyond their peak.

My view on Raikkonen is that he's just managed to succesfully rebrand being an arsehole into 'he's so cool because he doesn't give a f**k'. Which is an achievement in itself I suppose so fair play to him. But take pretty much anything Kimi has said which he is celebrated for and have Hamilton/Verstappen/Vettel/Alonso say it and it would correctly be regarded as them being a p***k.

I've only been watching since the mid session interval but O'Sullivan looks absolutely there for the taking here. Unconvinced that Saengkham is playing well enough to take advantage though.

And did that give Spain noticeably better outcomes during the first lockdown than elsewhere? Ultimately the goal of the lockdown rules wasn't for the streets to be completely deserted. Personally I would argue that the fact we weren't all completely banned from leaving our homes for any reason and were allowed to go for a little walk around the block without being stopped by the police was a good thing.

There isn't grounds for debate and infighting in the sense that nobody in the SNP should be against strengthening transgender rights. However, if there are members of the SNP who are against strengthening those rights, and there certainly are, then there absolutely is grounds for debate and infighting to make sure that the correct side wins out and those rights are strengthened. The alternative to that would be to just not bother with transgender rights in order to make sure there is no infighting, which would absolutely be the wrong response. So with that in mind, the fault for any SNP infighting on the issue certainly doesn't lie with 'academics' who are interested in 'idealistic debates' since transgender rights are not an academic debate or a daft minutiae but a reality for a marginalised group in society (which is exactly what the left wing should be fighting for). The fault lies squarely with the members of the SNP who want to stand in the way of transgender rights.

But they aren't banned, that's exactly my point. Dr Seuss and Enid Blyton books aren't being 'literally removed from society'. I could go online, or to a bookshop, and buy a copy of any one of their books right now. My local library catalogue looks like it contains pretty much every book either of them have ever written. In exactly the same way that FONY, even the original, isn't banned and is indeed one of the most played songs in the country every single December. You can still go on Spotify or YouTube right now and listen to the original, slur included. Again, nothing has happened in the real world, its just some people saying 'actually some of the attitudes promoted by Enid Blyton aren't very good, we should steer away from teaching those attitudes to our kids'. Its not saying that those books should be banned from society, its saying that they should be read with that in mind.

Have they ever live reported results from non-TV tables (or rather tables that they aren't televising)? I don't ever remember it. I'm not saying its right but (similar to the not showing the L128 thing) I don't think its really a sign of them slipping since its not any different to what they've been doing for years. If you click on the results tab at the top they still have all the scores.

One of the most impressive achievements of the right wing worldwide in the last few years has been the success they've had in whipping up opposition against 'cancel culture and the woke stuff', particularly amongst people like yourself who I imagine based on your posting wouldn't identify yourself as wildly right wing, and a lot of it comes through manufacturing controversies where none actually exist. In essence all 'woke culture' is at its heart is people saying 'actually maybe you shouldn't be openly racist/homophobic/transphobic/misogynistic etc.'. What the right does really well is taking that basic premise and wildly exagerrating it to generate a headline like 'SEE. THEY'RE TRYING TO CANCEL FAIRYTALE OF NEW YORK, THEY'RE TRYING TO SAY YOU CAN'T PLAY IT ON THE RADIO ANYMORE, CENSORSHIP!!!!'. Now, do people exist who think that Fairytale of New York shouldn't be played on the radio anymore? I'm sure they do. But comfortably the majority position is along the lines of 'if you can't even play the word f**k in a song on the radio then maybe you also shouldn't be playing the blatant homophobic slur'. At its heart thats hardly a controversial request and it certainly isn't censorship in the sense that the right wing are trying to portray it. If a new song was released in 2021 using that word it would absolutely not be included in a radio edit and nobody would be surprised or upset by that, there's really no controversy here at all. The 'controversy' that rears its head every year about whether it should not be played at all/Shane MacGowan should be cancelled forever etc. etc. is pretty much entirely manufactured. Barely anybody in the real world is actually calling for that to happen. We just blank out one word in the song and move on with our lives, its still the most popular Christmas song, nothing has actually happened to anybody involved. You can subsititute that basic phrase into pretty much any 'cancel culture' controversy of the last five years. JK Rowling, for example, said some very nasty things and people pointed out to her that she actually probably shouldn't. Nothing actually happened to her beyond that, she's still a wildly rich and famous author. Her books still get published and sell incredibly well. If anything it was a net benefit for her as she can now get herself back into the news cycle at the drop of a hat with another run around of her 'I've been cancelled and here's what its like' schtick. Meanwhile, in the real world, the trans people she targeted actually do face real problems, real danger, real attempts from the government to make their lives more difficult but nobody gives a shit about it. They're all too caught up in a little 'you can't say anything anymore' bubble because they've been asked to refer to people by their correct pronouns. That's the real purpose of 'cancel culture', its misdirection and its wild how many people have fallen for it and now seem to think that some of the most disadvantaged minorities in society are actually the aggressors trying to take their right to say what they like away.

If think there's two seperate things going on here. Obviously wearing a face mask isn't the end of the world for most people and its fair to say that compared to pretty much any intervention they could have brought in its got the lowest cost and getting wound up over them being tyranny or whatever is wild. However, I think its fair to question whether bringing back face masks in such a limited range of settings is actually going to make any meaningful difference. I think thats a seperate discussion but it tends to get swept up with the 'haha, the moonhowlers are calling masks muzzles again' and treated as if the two things are one and the same. This feels a lot more like bringing something small in to soften up people to the idea that larger restrictions might have to come back rather than a measure that will actually make a significant difference on its own.

A petty thing that winds me up about the BBC events is their insistence on starting the programme at the advertised match start time so that we have to sit through the build up as we don't know when the match will actually start. Beyond that I agree with you about the BBC coverage in general, its obvious that the likes of Taylor don't know who most of the players are outside of the established top guys - contrast that with the likes of Alan McManus who has either played against or watched pretty much everyone on the tour it seems. The peak was a couple of years ago when David Gilbert reached the world semi final at the end of a season where he had been in multiple ranking finals and made it into the top 16 and yet was treated by the BBC as if he was an unheard of nobody.

Yeah I think existing pros would resist that. However, given that the world rankings operate on a two year cycle and amateurs will by definition have very few or no points from the previous season I think the chances of someone actually making it into the top 64 and bumping a pro out as an amateur would be pretty remote, it would require a proper run to like a semi final or something. I'm personally in favour of everybody entered in a tournament gaining points regardless of pro status but I think the main benefit of it would be that once an amateur does earn a tour card they could already have some points built up rather than having to start from zero and their initial seedings would be a little more representative, as opposed to it realistically being a way to qualify for a tour card directly. EDIT: Also worth pointing out that, because some qualifying events got cancelled due to Covid, there are only actually 122 players with tour cards (i.e professionals) this season and 128 slots in every regular ranking event. So by extension there are 6 amateurs who are effectively guaranteed an entry to every tournament this season if they want one since they are first on the invite list but won't actually be able to build up a ranking over the course of the season. Even if you wanted to leave space open for a couple of wildcards at each event it seems a bit silly not to have offered at least four of them a tour card to fill up the numbers.

Yeah I sort of expect it from Murphy but I'm a little surprised at the others. Honestly, the first thing I take from pretty much all of their comments is that I'm not 100% sure any of them fully understand how the system works. Williams in particular seems to be complaining in general about the number of players on tour more than amateurs in particular. And Selby and Murphy are both making a far bigger deal out of the professional/amateur distinction in snooker than actually exists. Si Juahui was a pro last year and will be again at some point in the future, the only difference this year is that he isn't guaranteed entry to events and when he does get in they don't count towards the world rankings. I think the root of it for these top guys might just be that they would rather start at say the last 32 and not have to play these early rounds which they probably view as a bit of a formality where all they can really do is slip up, they'd far rather not have to turn up until next Monday and only win 4 or 5 games for the title. So at the end of the day I think its mainly self interest - they would stand to benefit through byes if there were no amateur entrants and if the tour got smaller they would have to play fewer rounds to get to the later stages of events. Sadly none of them really seem to have thought beyond that to the overall health of the game as a whole. Williams idea to make the tour smaller is particularly wild if he wants more people to be making a living from snooker. The relegation cut off at the end of each season is already the top 64, everyone below that drops off tour, if it went any further up the rankings than that then you would basically end up with pretty much everyone outside of the top 16 constantly worried about losing their tour card and therefore livelihood at the end of the season.

Thepchaiya is world number 39, and that's the lowest he's been for years, he's spent most of the past 2-3 years hovering on the edge of the top 16. He's pretty well known for being one of the highest scorers on tour outside of the very top players, just has no safety game to back it up (which isn't going to be an issue against Hendry at present), its not exactly a huge shock for him to do something like this. I think the issue is less that people keep pulling out career best performances when they play Stephen Hendry and more that any player in the top 50 or so is capable of looking like a world beater when put under absolutely no pressure by a player they must be able to see isn't good enough to trouble them any more.

Yeah for a bit of context on the money thing, Shaun Murphy earned £200k for reaching the World final in May and has £413k on the two year ranking list. Si Jiahui earned £31.5k during his two years on tour. I think we can take a guess at who has more money worries.

There's at least a logic to what Robertson is saying, although I still don't agree with him. Its true that most of the top up players are comfortably better than the players who fill the bottom 8-10 places in the rankings. That's not an argument against top up players though, especially given that the alternative is just handing byes to the top 8 or so in every event - its an argument for making changes to the way tour cards are handed out so that these players have one and the players regarded as virtual walkovers don't In any case, it goes without saying that whether they get a top up player or the world no. 120, a top 16 player should be able to beat them over best of 11 and if they don't then they have no business still being in the tournament and they certainly have no right to moan about having to play someone a wee bit too good.