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Are international institutions breaking down?

COP29, which started badly with plenty of no shows, is now on the verge of a complete breakdown, and that's on top of the Commonwealth hustle and FUBAR last month:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c8jykpdgr08t

To be honest I am not that bothered if the COP talks end without an agreement. They have turned into a hussle where so called rich countries (some of which like us and the US are in fact deeply in debt) are pressured into giving money to poorer countries rather than, you know, addressing the global climate. Like all these things (see, for example the G20) they have become a process without a clear sense of purpose.

I am deeply apprehensive about a Trump Presidency but the prospect of an end of these circuses is something to welcome.

On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.

I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.

However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.

Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.

Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.

Not at all.

For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.

Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.

It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.

I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.

He's a Lefty through and through.

Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.

One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey

On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.

It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.

People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).

When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.

And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.

It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.

Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.

Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.

I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.

There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.

We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.

I wonder if some of it is based on relative wealth.

A generation ago the equivalent of £75k might have been 4x average and 0.5x rich, now it might be 2x average and 0.1x rich.

It's housing costs more than anything else. I remember buying my first flat when I was on about that level of equivalent income 10 or so years ago and what it got then was a nice 2 bedroom duplex in zone 2. Today a £75k salary might get you a 2 bed in an ex-LA in zone 4 or 5.

Compared to my parents generation it's even worse, my dad bought a 4 bedroom semi-detached house in a nice suburb on an junior accountant salary in the mid 90s. Even now a junior accountant will get £35-40k, no one is getting a 4 bedroom semi in London on that kind of salary.

Due to a mixture of NIMBYism and lax legal and illegal immigration housing costs all over the country are just out of control and people aged 25-55 will continue to revolt over this until it is fixed, in the US it has resulted in a second Trump term. We had Brexit already and the Tories got wiped out here and Labour already look shaky because they've got no solution for prices being double what they were 3 years ago for basics.

On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.

I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.

However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.

Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.

Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.

Not at all.

For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.

Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.

It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.

I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.

He's a Lefty through and through.

Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.

One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey

On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.

It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.

People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).

When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.

And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.

It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.

Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.

Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.

I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.

There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.

We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.

No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.

It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.

A lot of the £50-£70k class underestimate to a significant degree exactly how far up the pile they are.

Live in London or South East and tell me it's far up the pile.

Most people get that Max but it isn’t particularly relevant when it’s your party that is protecting the interests of those with the housing wealth and those who start sentences with “well in my day I only earned £6k a year”.

In my day I only earned £450 per year but that is a longtime ago [1962] !!!!

That salary is worth about £8,000 in today's money - but house prices were only £40,000 on average, compared with about £260,000 now.

In housing cost terms, you were earning about £55,000 in '24 prices.

Our first home in Edinburgh [1964] was an apartment in Comely Bank for £2 000 and we bought a new build semi detached bungalow here on Llandudno in 1965 for £3,250 so not sure about your figures

Indeed our present 4 bed detached cost £16,000 in April 1975 though I was earning more than £450pa by then

FPT: I was wrong then. In housing cost terms, you were earning the equivalent of £75,000, based on the current value of one-bed flats in Comely Bank and the proportion of your salary you spent in '64. That's over twice the current median salary.

a one bed flat in comely bank is more than 300K? Mental

The most dangerous moment for the monarchy was the 1936 abdication crisis.

Were it not for that we'd have had a delinquent Nazi-sympathising King on the throne, who couldn't control his behaviour or keep his gob shut, and the Attlee government would have abolished the monarchy in their post 1945 administration.

Atlee most certainly would not have abolished the monarchy. You might find this piece on the Labour Party and the monarchy instructive:

https://thecritic.co.uk/labour-and-monarchy/

"The British Labour Party has never been a republican party, even if it has had republicans in it. Ninety-nine years ago, the Labour conference considered a motion “that the hereditary principle in the British Constitution be abolished”. The motion was overwhelmingly defeated. George Lansbury, who vies with Jeremy Corbyn for the title of Labour’s most left-wing leader, told conference delegates that it was the capitalist system that made people poor, not the King."

On Atlee, specifically:

"In 1959, Attlee wrote an essay on “The Role of the Monarchy” for The Observer. Labour’s greatest prime minister explained that whilst he had been responsible for many radical changes in British society, “there is one feature of which I have never felt any urge to abolish, and that is the monarchy”. For Attlee, the great advantage of the constitutional monarch is that he or she stands as “the general representative of the people”. Attlee wrote that Britain was lucky “in having as head of state a person who is not the choice of one section of the people but is the common possession, so to speak, of them all”."

Since the topic of monarchy has turned up it was interesting listening to a radio 4 programme the other evening comparing the 1931 China floods that killed 2 million with the recent Spanish floods.

One of the guests was a Spanish journalist who spoke about the Royal visit a few days after the floods and the reaction of the crowds throwing mud. She said the impression given in the UK media was of it being a serious problem for the Spanish Royals when in fact it was the exact opposite. The anger was directed against the Spanish Socialist PM and the Valencia Region Right Wing President who had been throwing blame at each other since the floods.

Apparently both the PM and President fled but the Royals stayed and spoke to the crowd even though they were covered in mud. This went down extremely well with the crowd and has gone down extremely well in Spain as well and the Royal's standing has much improved. The only UK paper that has really covered this properly is the Times.

Yep, I heard that programme, and I believe I pointed out at the time that Felipe at least had the balls to face up to his subjects. That kinda demonstrates the lottery of monarchies, Felipe seems a decent sort unlike his shit of a father whose only moment of selfless glory was standing up to the coup attempt.

It’s a quiet, philosophical Friday night in November

Will the board excuse me if I mention AI once more? It’s in the service of spiritual insight - not some breathless report on GPT793 or whatever


I ‘ave developed a theory about consciousness after my recent interactions with AI, indeed I developed this with AI. Talking to them

“Consciousness” is a massive problem for philosophers, psychologists, biologists, physicists, anyone - we cannot define it or locate it or explain it. Not in the individual conscious creature. We can only really recognise it when we see it (and this after centuries of trying)

But what if consciousness does not arise in and from the individual being but is a complex byproduct or necessary corollary of advanced language. When advanced language arises then the speaker has the mental tools to be self aware = consciousness

We arguably see that in humans. It’s thought humans developed language 300,000-50,000 years ago. 50,000 years ago we see the first advanced cave art etc. = man becoming aware of himself. Truly conscious

But if language is necessary/sufficient for consciousness to arise then communication is necessary for language to happen. You only speak when there is someone to speak to. Language is communication (“deer over by forest”, “you make stew”, “run out of cave paint, ugg”)

In that case consciousness doesn’t reside in the individual it resides in language and, moreover, in the communication of language. When we interact with language we become conscious. Consciousness is therefore distributed not local

That solves the consciousness problem. We can’t locate/explain it in the individual because it’s not in there - it’s in the communications between the individuals. Loqui Ergo Sum

This is why the computers are apparently becoming conscious. They “are”. Or at least their sayings are. They have the gift of language and now they can speak and so we see the spark of consciousness in what they say. Because it is there. In what they say

When I got two AIs to talk to each other (Claude 3.6 and GPT4o) they actually finessed this theory which I had already in part discussed with them separately

If I am right - and I surely am - that makes consciousness like music. Music cannot be detected in any one mind - it is just squiggles and stuff. It can’t even be detected when explained. It must be heard - as language must be heard, as communication must succeed for it to be communication

That makes consciousness the music of existence; the wonderful soundtrack of the universe

If language is required for consciousness then a dog (for example) is not conscious.

I'm not buying that.

As always it depends what you mean by consciousness.

If you mean "the state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings" (dictionary definition) then dogs are conscious. But so are thermostats.

If you mean self aware, then I'm not sure that dogs have self consciousness.
To be self aware means having a model of yourself within your model of the world. Can you have conceptual models without language? Not sure. Perhaps images would suffice.

Could an AI be self aware? I think it could model itself within its model of the world using language and/or image. In that sense it would be self conscious. It could also be aware of and responsive to its surroundings.

My definition of consciousness has to include the ability to experience feelings such as being happy, sad, excited, angry, like, dislike, etc. Even my wireless smart home thermostat struggles with those.

The most dangerous moment for the monarchy was the 1936 abdication crisis.

Were it not for that we'd have had a delinquent Nazi-sympathising King on the throne, who couldn't control his behaviour or keep his gob shut, and the Attlee government would have abolished the monarchy in their post 1945 administration.

I suspect Clem Attlee (later 1st Earl Attlee) was just as much a monarchist as subsequent Labour PMs. Wouldna happen.

What, the man who came up with this?

There were few who thought him a starter,
Many who thought themselves smarter.
But he ended PM,
CH and OM,
an Earl and a Knight of the Garter.

Surely not!

He was married to a Tory, he just f**ked off and joined them late in life if he was ever a proper Socialist anyway.

(Is that sufficiently BJO like?)

Are international institutions breaking down?

COP29, which started badly with plenty of no shows, is now on the verge of a complete breakdown, and that's on top of the Commonwealth hustle and FUBAR last month:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c8jykpdgr08t

Plus Germany have said they wouldn’t execute the ICC arrest warrant against Netanyahu.

Relatedly, this is Douglas Carswell's recipe for saving the UK (he was the Tory MP who shifted to UKIP)


To rescue Britain, the public need to demand:
1. Border controls. Remove illegal arrivals immediately, appeals heard overseas.
2. Large-scale deportation of those who entered illegally. No foreign courts holding jurisdiction.
3. Concerted assimilation, with a policy to deport radical imams and extreme Islamists.
4. End BBC licence fee. They lie.
5. Repeal Equality Act, Human Rights Act and close “supreme” court. None of these innovations have protected our natural liberties.
6. Give parents a legal right to control their share to local education budget. Parent power is the only way to counter woke indoctrination.
7. Abolish all renewable energy targets and restrictions on hydrocarbons.
8. Terminate QE and unwind monetary manipulation that has destroyed productivity.
9. 10 percent across the board cut in public spending to save the country from looming bankruptcy. Pain now so our children might not be poorer than us.
10. Department of Prime Minister to end the clown show of incompetence in Westminster

https://x.com/DouglasCarswell/status/1860351187213746539


In the end, somthing like this will be tried, because, in the end, voters will vote for it, in their desperation