Eni Aluko

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

See, this is what sons are for; so you can show rather than tell; create a world you're happy to leave to your children. That's the only way the world knows you're not just talking nonsense. Don't teach us, a bunch of dirty old drunks who have long forgotten how to listen; teach your young boys where it can actually do some good. They see you every day, you can show them what a good, honest life looks like; lead them by example. Salute your father dear, kiss your darling mother, drink a pint of beer. As the man said.

Then everyone can see you mean what you say as you have a sincere incentive, a stake in the future that does not simply involve filling civilisation up with cheap African imports; perhaps among the least civilised folk in Creation (as a cheap African import myself, I know very well of that which I speak).

It was alright when Wenger did it, I suppose, but it's no way to build a better world.

Anything else is just chickening out, rolling over, no matter how many books you've read or how many words you need to use to justify it. The world needs fewer Captain Blackadders and many more Captain Darlings. Fortunately for now though, that's what we get.

I dunno, Kolo helped build a world which was better in terms of invincibility than any before or since.

But yes, I get what you're saying about kids and a stake in the future of humanity. You have no choice in that and it makes the transition much easier to deal with. I get that.

But the social contract that underpinned the Romantic period - that coincided with the industrial revolution, massive economic growth based on British free trade {the informal empire} and the Pax Britannica, the growth of political power and social liberty for the poor, the welfare state and the growing middle class - was based on kids knowing they would have a better life than their parents.

And across the west {and I'm talking about the west as Romanticism was a western phenomenon} this social contract has broken down. Whether we talk about the cost of buying a house, the student debt that doesn't guarantee a secure middle class job, the rise of AI now taking the well paid, white collar jobs that those best and brightest students took as their guaranteed reward for studying hard, there's no longer the belief that most kids will have a better life than their parents.

Most revolutions, eg French, Russian, occur when there's an oversupply of educated middle classes for the available jobs.

That's one reason for the rise of wokeism. I know the latest PC terms which you learn at uni and can tell off those less educated working classes who are making more money as a plumber than I am as a graduate. I may be poorer than you, but I am superior because I am purer. Exactly the same reason behind religious fundamentalism whether Jihadis or the Hindutva fascists. I may not be rich, but I am doing God's work so He will reward me more and I can therefore feel better by killing an infidel or untouchable.

You sound like one of the lucky ones. You know your kids will have a better life than you. But your reality is an increasingly small one. More and more people are finding the opposite.

And there's no easy political solution. Not that people will vote for when they want jam today. Hence the rise of populist and extremist parties across the west.

Inequality's growing. Instead of an 11+ for grammar school, we divide the country at 18 on who goes to uni. And make them pay for the three years with fewer and fewer jobs at the end of it. You need rich parents to help buy a house, you need parents with connections to get you internships and the money to support you while you work for free.

We're regressing to the Georgian oligarchy of the late Enlightenment. The kids are fuming about the world we were leaving them - ignoring the growing inequality, falling living standards, fewer prospects, and the fact that tax-scamming tech oligarchs are stealing the tax revenues that paid for the welfare state and the economic growth required to create the jobs for this huge new generation of graduates with middle class aspirations.

They are scared to **** about global warming like we were of nuclear war. But while everyone just doing nothing stopped WW3, it's making global warming worse. And now we have right wing culture warriors like Trump and his European acolytes actively wanting to create more global warming as it pisses off their culture war opponents.

We're seeing the effects, worse every year. 38C in Canada, forest fires across the globe. Delhi could soon get to the state where it becomes too hot to live in summer. Well have water wars and wars for resources and climate refugees from across the globe as everyone tries to pull up their own drawbridges and expects everyone but them to make the required sacrifices.

So the young try to distract themselves by putting on a keffiyeh and campaigning for trans rights to feel like they're doing something that will make a difference. Because accepting the reality of global warming and their complete lack of agency to stop it will be soul destroying.

I'm genuinely happy that it's working out for you and your son. But for many it's not. And the number of losers is increasing every year. And that explains the discontent, the rise of populism and extremism, and the search for scapegoats to blame for the inevitable loss of western status.

Far flung our navies melt away
On dune and headland sink the fire
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Ninevah and Tyre
God of nations, spare us yet
Lest we forget, lest we forget.

You should thank your lucky stars/the Divine [delete as applicable] that things have worked out so well for your son. I just pray they keep working out for your grandkids.

Maybe AI will come up with solutions, but given the investments {and the mentality of the tech bros} all the benefits will go to them and their shareholders, not to the public.

Which takes us back to the situation in the late middle ages when only the aristos and very rich had money to lend. The demand for money vastly exceeded supply so the price of money, the interest rate, was huge. So the profits from all trade and innovation went to the ultra rich who lent the money, not those who did the trade mission or made the invention.

As I say, in so many ways we are regressing to the situations as they were in previous eras.

With added global warming.

"create a world you're happy to leave to your children."

Have we? Not you, personally, but the West or humanity as a whole.

As stated, the social contract that underpinned the Romantic era, that kids would inherit a better world with better prospects than their parents has broken down. Not for you and your son, thank God. But for increasing numbers every year.

And that leads to populism, extremism and revolution, assuming climate change doesn't kill us directly, or indirectly due to climate-based resource wars.

We actually need more Baldricks with cunning plans because the more I look at this, the harder I find it to see a solution.

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

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