Our local media is currently gripped by the murder of a dog walker in Aberfeldy, a place where murders are not exactly commonplace. He died on 17th February but the murder inquiry only began a week later when they got around to doing the autopsy and found the bullet.
I mean, how the f*** does that happen?
Reminds me of this one. Sometimes plod astonishes me.
“Essex police had initially concluded that Palmer died of an internal haemorrhage linked to recent surgery until a post-mortem examination revealed that he had been shot six times”.
Our local media is currently gripped by the murder of a dog walker in Aberfeldy, a place where murders are not exactly commonplace. He died on 17th February but the murder inquiry only began a week later when they got around to doing the autopsy and found the bullet.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
You’re not hearing, because you’re not listening. You made you mind up ages ago that it’s just another culture war.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
Plenty of people give a shit about Gaza. Palestinians face famine. Kids are getting blown to pieces. Yesterday the IDF slaughtered 120 people waiting for food. Plenty of people give a shit about this, believe me.
I understand yesterday's tragedy was sparked by attempts to take goods off the aid trucks and the IDF firing warning shots over their heads
That's one of 4 versions of events coming out of Israel.
Everybody knows they lie and they lie and the lie and they lie.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
Plenty of people give a shit about Gaza. Palestinians face famine. Kids are getting blown to pieces. Yesterday the IDF slaughtered 120 people waiting for food. Plenty of people give a shit about this, believe me.
Absolutely. I know people with little interest in the Middle East and no religious leanings of any kind who can hardly bear to watch the news, and think the slaughter in Gaza is the most important current issue.
Galloway is a charismatic campaigner, in the same league as Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn.
I am reminded of a quotation from some years ago "the problem of Atheism is not that people believe in nothing, it's that they will believe in anything".
The dull politics that we have at the moment over important issues like the economy and public services is very uninspiring, with little to choose between parties. Neither side shows any vision as an alternative.
So we are left with different forms of Populism, whether from the left with Galloway, or from the Culture War of Braverman. People want something more interesting than the grey blob that is Starmer or Sunak, even when sold by a snake oil salesman.
The trouble for normal politicians is the one expressed by That Belgian in 2008; "we know what needs to be done, just not how to get re-elected after doing it".
And in the short term, it's going to be boring and fairly unpleasant for a lot of us. Much like @Leon's weight loss plan.
The one to watch is Agentina. Thats the only democracy departing from the stodgy democratic consensus on welfare, and government.
Whether Argentina revives or collapses into Mad Max failed state chaos is yet to be seen.
Argentina was previously so fucked that people were emigrating to *Peru*, to get out of it.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
No, you are wrong.
Fox jr2 is neither Islamist nor anti-semite, but won't be voting Labour in his East London constituency because of Starmers policy on Gaza. He is inclined to LD or possibly Greens.
I am very uninspired by Starmer, and highly suspicious of Streeting, so no Labour supporter but it is not over Gaza. I have been given pause for thought in terms of voting because even shire Leics which has been blue for a century may turn red at the GE on recent polling, and it would be fun to bury the Tories as a party here.
No, I'm not wrong. You cite East London and Leicester.
That's ground zero for this sort of nonsense. And, no offence, but your son might not exactly be a typical floating voter.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
No, you are wrong.
Fox jr2 is neither Islamist nor anti-semite, but won't be voting Labour in his East London constituency because of Starmers policy on Gaza. He is inclined to LD or possibly Greens.
I am very uninspired by Starmer, and highly suspicious of Streeting, so no Labour supporter but it is not over Gaza. I have been given pause for thought in terms of voting because even shire Leics which has been blue for a century may turn red at the GE on recent polling, and it would be fun to bury the Tories as a party here.
Isn’t this all a bit Walter Mitty though? The UK has practically zero influence on what happens in the Middle East yet people are acting as if this is a key plank of party policy.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Technically speaking shelling is a form of rocket science.
As a pedant I have to tell you it is absolutely not. No rocketry involved in artillery shells.
Yes, it's ballistics but does have a fair amount in common with rocket science.
I demur. When you are taught rocket science it’s really to do with the rocket equation and staging in the atmosphere, and orbital dynamics outside of it. Rockets might go on to have a ballistic trajectory, but that’s someone else’s problem and they can worry about things like air resistance and wind (which I will have assumed to be zero).
Galloway is a charismatic campaigner, in the same league as Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn.
I am reminded of a quotation from some years ago "the problem of Atheism is not that people believe in nothing, it's that they will believe in anything".
The dull politics that we have at the moment over important issues like the economy and public services is very uninspiring, with little to choose between parties. Neither side shows any vision as an alternative.
So we are left with different forms of Populism, whether from the left with Galloway, or from the Culture War of Braverman. People want something more interesting than the grey blob that is Starmer or Sunak, even when sold by a snake oil salesman.
The trouble for normal politicians is the one expressed by That Belgian in 2008; "we know what needs to be done, just not how to get re-elected after doing it".
And in the short term, it's going to be boring and fairly unpleasant for a lot of us. Much like @Leon's weight loss plan.
The one to watch is Agentina. Thats the only democracy departing from the stodgy democratic consensus on welfare, and government.
Whether Argentina revives or collapses into Mad Max failed state chaos is yet to be seen.
Argentina was previously so fucked that people were emigrating to *Peru*, to get out of it.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Technically speaking shelling is a form of rocket science.
As a pedant I have to tell you it is absolutely not. No rocketry involved in artillery shells.
No-one holds British politicians responsible for what happens in Israel and Palestine. Starmer made what's turning out to be a substantial mistake by going all-in for Israel at the start, making it a mandatory Labour policy, and is finding it hard to pivot away from that position now.
No matter how horrible the Palestinians, Israel will be ten times more horrible back. It's Israeli policy and always has been. It was entirely predictable and Starmer completely misread the situation.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
No, you are wrong.
Fox jr2 is neither Islamist nor anti-semite, but won't be voting Labour in his East London constituency because of Starmers policy on Gaza. He is inclined to LD or possibly Greens.
I am very uninspired by Starmer, and highly suspicious of Streeting, so no Labour supporter but it is not over Gaza. I have been given pause for thought in terms of voting because even shire Leics which has been blue for a century may turn red at the GE on recent polling, and it would be fun to bury the Tories as a party here.
Isn’t this all a bit Walter Mitty though? The UK has practically zero influence on what happens in the Middle East yet people are acting as if this is a key plank of party policy.
I agree. The honest line from both the PM and LoTO would be “I agree it’s awful but literally nothing we can say makes a difference either way, now all stop being dicks to each other about it within the UK”.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
I've got to agree with Casino on this one. Never gets a mention amongst my acquaintances, beyond "It's awful but God knows what the solution is". I can understand that muslim and jewish voters are likely to be more motivated by it. That's 7% of the population though.
I thinl where it may hurt Starmer is where the Palestinian vote is the strongest and in that respect some of his London seats will be interesting if the conflict is ongoing at the GE
To those labour supporters who say it was a terrible night for the conservatives I think labour have more to be worried about not least as Reform did very poorly
The reincarnation of Galloway feels like a setback for Starmer due to his charisma. He will get a lot of airtime. Maybe GBnews will give him a show between Mogg and Farage.
However, Galloway is no Corbyn. Galloway is a seriously unpleasant character with some unpopular positions (Russia, climates). It’s not impossible to see a scenario where he discredits opposition to Starmer.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Congratulations to your daughter. I agree with you, she should do the course that she's most excited by, she'll have a better time and get a better degree. The labour market is so uncertain I think it makes less sense than it did before to try to tailor your degree to make yourself more employable. I hope she gets the grades to take up her preferred choice - my eldest daughter is also doing A levels in May/June then heading to Uni. Fingers crossed for all of them. Being young right now isn't easy, but they're doing a great job of it in the main.
Being 17-18 is always hard, if exciting, but this present cohort have it incredibly hard. I read an impassioned, eloquent reddit essay by a very bright 18 year old the other day. He is facing the same dilemma as my older daughter, he believes his chosen career is deeply menaced by AI and will not exist in a decade, he confessed to deep depression, and it was not hard to understand why
And so many areas of human life are gonne be impacted, it's not just a few white collar jobs, it is millions and millions of jobs, from call centre workers to accountants and laywers and bankers, to aspiring actors, writers, musicians - almost anyone
What the F are we all gonna do?!
Just like people said when they invented the tractor.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
I've got to agree with Casino on this one. Never gets a mention amongst my acquaintances, beyond "It's awful but God knows what the solution is". I can understand that muslim and jewish voters are likely to be more motivated by it. That's 7% of the population though.
I thinl where it may hurt Starmer is where the Palestinian vote is the strongest and in that respect some of his London seats will be interesting if the conflict is ongoing at the GE
To those labour supporters who say it was a terrible night for the conservatives I think labour have more to be worried about not least as Reform did very poorly
I still don't understand why Starmer didn't extract a big public abject apology from Ali over his Israeli conspiracy comments in return for continued Labour backing.
Weren't there multiple comments that kept coming to light? He did try the approach you suggest initially.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
No, you are wrong.
Fox jr2 is neither Islamist nor anti-semite, but won't be voting Labour in his East London constituency because of Starmers policy on Gaza. He is inclined to LD or possibly Greens.
I am very uninspired by Starmer, and highly suspicious of Streeting, so no Labour supporter but it is not over Gaza. I have been given pause for thought in terms of voting because even shire Leics which has been blue for a century may turn red at the GE on recent polling, and it would be fun to bury the Tories as a party here.
My son is also 'off' Labour because of Gaza. It's a widespread sentiment amongst younger people and is going to cost votes (and maybe seats). Starmer is overcompensating on Israel/Palestine because of the Corbyn era. It is deliberate. He calculates the bigger electoral risk to be any whiff of 'Oh so Labour hasn't really changed then'. He's probably right.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
No, you are wrong.
Fox jr2 is neither Islamist nor anti-semite, but won't be voting Labour in his East London constituency because of Starmers policy on Gaza. He is inclined to LD or possibly Greens.
I am very uninspired by Starmer, and highly suspicious of Streeting, so no Labour supporter but it is not over Gaza. I have been given pause for thought in terms of voting because even shire Leics which has been blue for a century may turn red at the GE on recent polling, and it would be fun to bury the Tories as a party here.
No, I'm not wrong. You cite East London and Leicester.
That's ground zero for this sort of nonsense. And, no offence, but your son might not exactly be a typical floating voter.
I cite Horsham. Also not the home of the typical floating voter.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Technically speaking shelling is a form of rocket science.
As a pedant I have to tell you it is absolutely not. No rocketry involved in artillery shells.
Base bleed, for a start.
Not rocketry, unless anything with an element of propulsion is, in which case so are jets and ships.
No-one holds British politicians responsible for what happens in Israel and Palestine. Starmer made what's turning out to be a substantial mistake by going all-in for Israel at the start, making it a mandatory Labour policy, and is finding it hard to pivot away from that position now.
No matter how horrible the Palestinians, Israel will be ten times more horrible back. It's Israeli policy and always has been. It was entirely predictable and Starmer completely misread the situation.
Starmer's following precisely the right strategy for floating voters, even if it does cause some left-wing activists in inner city seats to burst a blood vessel.
And whilst Israel isn't taking any prisoners - sometimes literally - the ten times more horrible stuff is hyperbole: look at what Hamas did to children and babies on invasion day.
Her passion is Classics. Totally pointless, totally non vocational, but she REALLY likes it. I've told her to go for that. Better to spend three years having intellectual fun, and let the future go hang, there's a 40% chance the computers will turn us all into pets by 2033, anyway
While I don't agree with your AI doomporn, I do agree with the idea she should follow her passion at university, not do a degree with a specific job in mind.
I had my whole career planned in high school, did the degree, didn't get the job (my buddy did as it happens)
I did meet people at university who offered me various jobs and haven't had a day out of work since
Old friend of mine went on, after his degree (Cambridge) to lecture at another university. On the Old Testament. I asked him once what his students did for careers and he said many went into marketing, where their education in close argument paid dividends.
Given the result, maybe Labour dodged a bullet here. Bad as this result was for them, losing with an endorsed Labour candidate would have been even worse.
Even more than BoJo, Galloway has the charisma to get people to vote for him once... If not to keep them voting for him, or maintain any other sort of relationship.
We should probably all be grateful for that.
This was clearly a single issue election. It was always going to be. The events of yesterday just made it more so. Galloway to be fair has been fighting the Palestinian cause for long before this latest incident. I think his wife is Palestinian.
This is a serious moment for Starmer. He has put all his eggs in one basket. He is the champion of all things Israeli. A word out of place and your career as a Labour candidate is over. To the outsider he appears to have as little interest in the Palestinians as Sunak. The Israelis have put him in a very difficult place. Thanks to the last three months the plight of the Palestinians is now becoming widely known. Hamas have in many ways acted as a cover for it. It is more obvious in the West Bank where there is no Hamas. Israel is quite simply an apartheid state and to be on the wrong side of it is not a good look for a Labour leader
What would have happened if Labour had continued to support their candidate in Rochdale do you think?
You make a good point. He has gone down this rabbit hole and there's no going back. Say you don't believe in Zionism and you're out. There are many Rabbis who don't believe in Zionism. Can you imagine Blair being so robotic about an issue that he has absolutely no knowledge of?
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Good morning everybody! I suggest that if your daughter is doing a degree, which would encourage her to think, and to question, then the degree, she takes will stand in good state, whether or not technology has overtaken her particular subject. The very best of luck to her; granddaughter number two has this morning sent off two uni applications. They are Australian universities so they don’t start until February next year, by which time she will have her IB results.
Without going into details, she chose a degree she thought she would quite enjoy, BUT also because it was likely to lead to a good career: it wasn't her first choice emotionally, it wasn't the degree she would choose if nothing else mattered
She is very bright and she'd now genned up on AI and she is convinced that career could very easily not happen: it's in a cognitive field ripe for automation. She's correct, to my mind
Her passion is Classics. Totally pointless, totally non vocational, but she REALLY likes it. I've told her to go for that. Better to spend three years having intellectual fun, and let the future go hang, there's a 40% chance the computers will turn us all into pets by 2033, anyway
When we were doing the rounds with our son we went to LSE where a truly inspirational Maths/finance lecturer came seriously close to stealing his heart. He said, "when you go to University, choose something you love. You have the rest of your life to be bored."
It was spot on advice and made me, once again, regret my dull, pragmatic, choice of law.
It sounds to me that you have had a very interesting career in Law, as interesting as mine in Medicine.
People are endlessly fascinating and surprising. It's great to fossick about in their lives and be paid well to do so.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Technically speaking shelling is a form of rocket science.
As a pedant I have to tell you it is absolutely not. No rocketry involved in artillery shells.
Base bleed, for a start.
Not rocketry, unless anything with an element of propulsion is, in which case so are jets and ships.
Artillery very definitely includes honest-to-god rockets these days, and has since the earliest days of rocketry. The BM-21 Grad is just one example.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
AI is poorly understood and hyped. It’s easy to be sceptical.
For all that, and perhaps even because of it, AI is going to be hugely disruptive.
We’ve not seen the start of it. Brace indeed.
I went to a publishing conference this week. You can now produce an audiobook with AI (they prefer the term 'synthetic voice' which made me think of the scene in Aliens) and one company is offering something called 'voiceswitcher' which allows the listener to switch between different voices, accents, dialects for a single audiobook.
I agree: it's coming and in spite of the hype and misunderstanding it's impact will be profound and far-reaching (like web 1.0). William Gibson referred ambiguously to 'The Jackpot' in his book The Peripheral and in the book (not the Netflix series), this was never explained but hinted at whole swathes of humanity essentially made redundant (in every sense).
It's going to be even bigger than web 1.0. It may be so profound we don't have a true historical analogy to employ
It could be like the advent of the car, electricity, the industrial revolution, the Renaissance, and fire, all at once, with extra scary bits as we wonder if the robots will kill us
OR it may all a load of hype and it will be more like the first Blackberry
Truth is probably nearer the more epochal scenarios
Richard Osman and Marina Hyde discussed the impact of AI on the entertainment industry in this Tuesday's episode of their 'The Rest is Entertainment' podcast. They made some similar points that you've made - there'll always be a market for that high-end auteur/artisanal stuff, but loads of people are ultimately screwed.
Osman made a point that the growth of AI is somewhat constrained by the production of computer chips - I can't remember the numbers but essentially the leaps and bounds we have seen in AI can't be sustained because there isn't enough computing power out there to allow it. I have no idea how true that is but he sounded like he knew what he was talking about!
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Congratulations to your daughter. I agree with you, she should do the course that she's most excited by, she'll have a better time and get a better degree. The labour market is so uncertain I think it makes less sense than it did before to try to tailor your degree to make yourself more employable. I hope she gets the grades to take up her preferred choice - my eldest daughter is also doing A levels in May/June then heading to Uni. Fingers crossed for all of them. Being young right now isn't easy, but they're doing a great job of it in the main.
Being 17-18 is always hard, if exciting, but this present cohort have it incredibly hard. I read an impassioned, eloquent reddit essay by a very bright 18 year old the other day. He is facing the same dilemma as my older daughter, he believes his chosen career is deeply menaced by AI and will not exist in a decade, he confessed to deep depression, and it was not hard to understand why
And so many areas of human life are gonne be impacted, it's not just a few white collar jobs, it is millions and millions of jobs, from call centre workers to accountants and laywers and bankers, to aspiring actors, writers, musicians - almost anyone
What the F are we all gonna do?!
As with all these things, the threat of AI is overblown. When I first went to work (50 years ago next year), I was told that computers would take over our jobs within a decade. Despite that, I never had a day of unemployment and ended up working in computers with a job that could not even have existed when I first left school.
Congrats to your daughter Leon. She's clearly very bright and will prosper whatever technology throws at her.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
No, you are wrong.
Fox jr2 is neither Islamist nor anti-semite, but won't be voting Labour in his East London constituency because of Starmers policy on Gaza. He is inclined to LD or possibly Greens.
I am very uninspired by Starmer, and highly suspicious of Streeting, so no Labour supporter but it is not over Gaza. I have been given pause for thought in terms of voting because even shire Leics which has been blue for a century may turn red at the GE on recent polling, and it would be fun to bury the Tories as a party here.
My son is also 'off' Labour because of Gaza. It's a widespread sentiment amongst younger people and is going to cost votes (and maybe seats). Starmer is overcompensating on Israel/Palestine because of the Corbyn era. It is deliberate. He calculates the bigger electoral risk to be any whiff of 'Oh so Labour hasn't really changed then'. He's probably right.
I have heard a lot of this anecdotally and it “feels” right. But we don’t see it in voting intention polling so I wonder why? It is that they’d otherwise be 50%+?
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
No, you are wrong.
Fox jr2 is neither Islamist nor anti-semite, but won't be voting Labour in his East London constituency because of Starmers policy on Gaza. He is inclined to LD or possibly Greens.
I am very uninspired by Starmer, and highly suspicious of Streeting, so no Labour supporter but it is not over Gaza. I have been given pause for thought in terms of voting because even shire Leics which has been blue for a century may turn red at the GE on recent polling, and it would be fun to bury the Tories as a party here.
My son is also 'off' Labour because of Gaza. It's a widespread sentiment amongst younger people and is going to cost votes (and maybe seats). Starmer is overcompensating on Israel/Palestine because of the Corbyn era. It is deliberate. He calculates the bigger electoral risk to be any whiff of 'Oh so Labour hasn't really changed then'. He's probably right.
Starmer’s Gaza ‘policy’ isn’t doing a lot for me as a much older voter.
Not convinced Labour would have held this seat even if Ali had the support of Labour .
Certainly Starmer made a mistake with his messaging initially . Luckily for Labour there’s only one Galloway .
I think they would have held it, though it might have been a relatively narrow win. I suspect much of the independent vote was ex Labour, as the Tory vote was bang in line with national polling. With a Muslim candidate, who I'm sure would have been able to find a form of words that was sufficiently pro-Palestinian without departing too far from from party policy, Galloway's vote would have been reduced a bit, and that would have seen Labour home.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Congratulations to your daughter. I agree with you, she should do the course that she's most excited by, she'll have a better time and get a better degree. The labour market is so uncertain I think it makes less sense than it did before to try to tailor your degree to make yourself more employable. I hope she gets the grades to take up her preferred choice - my eldest daughter is also doing A levels in May/June then heading to Uni. Fingers crossed for all of them. Being young right now isn't easy, but they're doing a great job of it in the main.
Being 17-18 is always hard, if exciting, but this present cohort have it incredibly hard. I read an impassioned, eloquent reddit essay by a very bright 18 year old the other day. He is facing the same dilemma as my older daughter, he believes his chosen career is deeply menaced by AI and will not exist in a decade, he confessed to deep depression, and it was not hard to understand why
And so many areas of human life are gonne be impacted, it's not just a few white collar jobs, it is millions and millions of jobs, from call centre workers to accountants and laywers and bankers, to aspiring actors, writers, musicians - almost anyone
What the F are we all gonna do?!
I think the speed of what's happening on the research side is passing a lot of people by. Soon enough it'll be in production amongst smaller firms, if not 'the enterprise' as they tend to be quite slow. A recent paper that caught my eye :
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
No, you are wrong.
Fox jr2 is neither Islamist nor anti-semite, but won't be voting Labour in his East London constituency because of Starmers policy on Gaza. He is inclined to LD or possibly Greens.
I am very uninspired by Starmer, and highly suspicious of Streeting, so no Labour supporter but it is not over Gaza. I have been given pause for thought in terms of voting because even shire Leics which has been blue for a century may turn red at the GE on recent polling, and it would be fun to bury the Tories as a party here.
Isn’t this all a bit Walter Mitty though? The UK has practically zero influence on what happens in the Middle East yet people are acting as if this is a key plank of party policy.
I completely agree, and have said so to Foxjr2, but he is an intelligent young man with sound values and sees things differently. His vote counts for as much as mine.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
Plenty of people give a shit about Gaza. Palestinians face famine. Kids are getting blown to pieces. Yesterday the IDF slaughtered 120 people waiting for food. Plenty of people give a shit about this, believe me.
I understand yesterday's tragedy was sparked by attempts to take goods off the aid trucks and the IDF firing warning shots over their heads
That seems a very naive interpretation. Ben Gvir has already used that narrative to justify curtailing the aid convoys.
If the aid convoys stop for a few weeks the 30,000 dead, which I suspect is probably on the low estimate side multiplies quickly.
No-one holds British politicians responsible for what happens in Israel and Palestine. Starmer made what's turning out to be a substantial mistake by going all-in for Israel at the start, making it a mandatory Labour policy, and is finding it hard to pivot away from that position now.
No matter how horrible the Palestinians, Israel will be ten times more horrible back. It's Israeli policy and always has been. It was entirely predictable and Starmer completely misread the situation.
Starmer's following precisely the right strategy for floating voters, even if it does cause some left-wing activists in inner city seats to burst a blood vessel.
And whilst Israel isn't taking any prisoners - sometimes literally - the ten times more horrible stuff is hyperbole: look at what Hamas did to children and babies on invasion day.
It depends what floating voters you are talking about of course. But I agree I don't think Labour will lose or come drastically short because of Israel/Palestine. It's more a pointer to a lack of astuteness in Starmer that could be a problem for his leadership.
The ten times worse is policy, not hyperbole. If they don't reach that ratio of horribleness, it's not for the lack of trying.
Given the result, maybe Labour dodged a bullet here. Bad as this result was for them, losing with an endorsed Labour candidate would have been even worse.
Even more than BoJo, Galloway has the charisma to get people to vote for him once... If not to keep them voting for him, or maintain any other sort of relationship.
We should probably all be grateful for that.
This was clearly a single issue election. It was always going to be. The events of yesterday just made it more so. Galloway to be fair has been fighting the Palestinian cause for long before this latest incident. I think his wife is Palestinian.
This is a serious moment for Starmer. He has put all his eggs in one basket. He is the champion of all things Israeli. A word out of place and your career as a Labour candidate is over. To the outsider he appears to have as little interest in the Palestinians as Sunak. The Israelis have put him in a very difficult place. Thanks to the last three months the plight of the Palestinians is now becoming widely known. Hamas have in many ways acted as a cover for it. It is more obvious in the West Bank where there is no Hamas. Israel is quite simply an apartheid state and to be on the wrong side of it is not a good look for a Labour leader
What would have happened if Labour had continued to support their candidate in Rochdale do you think?
SKS would have been under serious pressure from the Israel lobby and the Party divide would have been there for all to see.
Worse than that his "we have changed as we have zero tolerance"... line would have been exposed for what it is and the Tories and their press supporters would have had a field day at GE 2024
Ditching his hand picked shortlist Candidate was literally his only option
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Technically speaking shelling is a form of rocket science.
As a pedant I have to tell you it is absolutely not. No rocketry involved in artillery shells.
Base bleed, for a start.
Not rocketry, unless anything with an element of propulsion is, in which case so are jets and ships.
Artillery very definitely includes honest-to-god rockets these days, and has since the earliest days of rocketry. The BM-21 Grad is just one example.
Ah but that would be rocket assisted rounds. I think the shelling referred to above, in so far as there is much and the Israelis aren’t mostly using air power, will be from their old M109s I think. And I might be wrong, but I think that’s means standard 155mm shells.
I started this being a pedant over a throw away joke and I am determined to die on this hill.
Edit - Meant to say “joke about shelling specifically, so anything like MLRS is right out of scope”.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
No, you are wrong.
Fox jr2 is neither Islamist nor anti-semite, but won't be voting Labour in his East London constituency because of Starmers policy on Gaza. He is inclined to LD or possibly Greens.
I am very uninspired by Starmer, and highly suspicious of Streeting, so no Labour supporter but it is not over Gaza. I have been given pause for thought in terms of voting because even shire Leics which has been blue for a century may turn red at the GE on recent polling, and it would be fun to bury the Tories as a party here.
Isn’t this all a bit Walter Mitty though? The UK has practically zero influence on what happens in the Middle East yet people are acting as if this is a key plank of party policy.
I have a lot of sympathy with that but I think a lot of people see it as a "values" question. Are you instinctively on the side of the oppressed, brutalised Palestinians or are you on the side of the rightfully angry but authoritarian Israelis?
Starmer had to deal with the nightmare of antisemitism that Corbyn in his ignorance and stupidity blighted the party with but people look at his position and think that he does not share their values. Which is seriously bizarre for someone who once earned his living as a human rights lawyer.
It's not what can we do about it but how do we feel about and it is hard not to be appalled at the recent actions of the IDF.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Technically speaking shelling is a form of rocket science.
As a pedant I have to tell you it is absolutely not. No rocketry involved in artillery shells.
Base bleed, for a start.
Not rocketry, unless anything with an element of propulsion is, in which case so are jets and ships.
Artillery very definitely includes honest-to-god rockets these days, and has since the earliest days of rocketry. The BM-21 Grad is just one example.
Certainly TSE is right as far as Hamas goes. They use rockets, not conventional artillery.
Not convinced Labour would have held this seat even if Ali had the support of Labour .
Certainly Starmer made a mistake with his messaging initially . Luckily for Labour there’s only one Galloway .
I think they would have held it, though it might have been a relatively narrow win. I suspect much of the independent vote was ex Labour, as the Tory vote was bang in line with national polling. With a Muslim candidate, who I'm sure would have been able to find a form of words that was sufficiently pro-Palestinian without departing too far from from party policy, Galloway's vote would have been reduced a bit, and that would have seen Labour home.
It would have been very tight I expect. But all by-elections have their unique situation and circumstance.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
No, you are wrong.
Fox jr2 is neither Islamist nor anti-semite, but won't be voting Labour in his East London constituency because of Starmers policy on Gaza. He is inclined to LD or possibly Greens.
I am very uninspired by Starmer, and highly suspicious of Streeting, so no Labour supporter but it is not over Gaza. I have been given pause for thought in terms of voting because even shire Leics which has been blue for a century may turn red at the GE on recent polling, and it would be fun to bury the Tories as a party here.
Isn’t this all a bit Walter Mitty though? The UK has practically zero influence on what happens in the Middle East yet people are acting as if this is a key plank of party policy.
Not at all. To Labour supporters having your heart in the right place has always been important sometimes crucial. Starmer is seriously testing us.
There are a number of high profile shadow cabinet members in trouble in Constituencies with similar demographics due to their apparent support for a "plausible genocide"
Wes Streeting will go if Israel is still genociding at the next GE and Cooper is under serious pressure.
Great acceptance speech by GG btw love the way he tells SKS how it is and the reason why he won.
He pointed out that he won because Labour withdrew support from their candidate so Labour had, effectively, no skin in the game? Is Labour doing to withdraw support from Streeting and Cooper? Who will win their seats?
You really are not only a nasty sectarian you also are an idiot.
I don't think you listened to his speech. He said he won because of SKS and his stance on Gaza.
Only an idiot would think that were not so. Wesley is in serious danger trust me for the same reason with an excellent pro Palestinian independent already in place as his main rival.
Last night was very profitable for me from a betting point of view but in hindsight I shouldn't have covered my winnings by going green on Lab too as they only came 4th.
SKS is the only leader of the opposition in history to hand pick his shortlist in a safe seat and finish 4th
If Labour had a candidate in the election it would have won handily.
BTW @bigjohnowls , I understand you’re a Green Party member? How did the Greens do last night? I understand their candidate had very similar views to you on the conflict?
EDIT BJO’s candidate got 436 votes. Way to go BJO. You’re always backing winners.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
No, you are wrong.
Fox jr2 is neither Islamist nor anti-semite, but won't be voting Labour in his East London constituency because of Starmers policy on Gaza. He is inclined to LD or possibly Greens.
I am very uninspired by Starmer, and highly suspicious of Streeting, so no Labour supporter but it is not over Gaza. I have been given pause for thought in terms of voting because even shire Leics which has been blue for a century may turn red at the GE on recent polling, and it would be fun to bury the Tories as a party here.
My son is also 'off' Labour because of Gaza. It's a widespread sentiment amongst younger people and is going to cost votes (and maybe seats). Starmer is overcompensating on Israel/Palestine because of the Corbyn era. It is deliberate. He calculates the bigger electoral risk to be any whiff of 'Oh so Labour hasn't really changed then'. He's probably right.
I have heard a lot of this anecdotally and it “feels” right. But we don’t see it in voting intention polling so I wonder why? It is that they’d otherwise be 50%+?
The biggest mystery is the Green VI, which should be a natural home for disaffected Labour supporters but has been declining. I can only think there’s been some churn with the Greens perhaps losing some of the disaffected Tory and Conservative nimby voters recently.
I don’t think there’s any good position for Labour on this. The Tories can go all out islamophobic and not lose votes. Labour only has to sneeze in a way that implies less than wholehearted support for Israel and voters will remember the antisemitism than contributed to its 2019 election loss. Their only tactic is to hope - that the conflict fades from prominence and fizzles out.
Our local media is currently gripped by the murder of a dog walker in Aberfeldy, a place where murders are not exactly commonplace. He died on 17th February but the murder inquiry only began a week later when they got around to doing the autopsy and found the bullet.
I mean, how the f*** does that happen?
Surprisingly easily, especially if you aren't expecting it and there are no suspicious circumstances. As you say, not the sort of thing that happens in Aberfeldy? Frosty weather, too? IANA pathologist but they are trained to look all ove, and not just focus on the obvious issue, as it is so easy to miss even lethal wounds of this kind.
The issue is perhaps the delay in the pm.
Incidentally when a relative died overnight c. 13 years ago the funeral was delayed till a PM (not necessarily a full one) was done. Similar death of another relative four years ago - no such thing, somewhat to my surprise as the deceased was if anything in better health, though also very old). I believe that routine examinations of formally unexpected deaths are no longer the case?
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
No, you are wrong.
Fox jr2 is neither Islamist nor anti-semite, but won't be voting Labour in his East London constituency because of Starmers policy on Gaza. He is inclined to LD or possibly Greens.
I am very uninspired by Starmer, and highly suspicious of Streeting, so no Labour supporter but it is not over Gaza. I have been given pause for thought in terms of voting because even shire Leics which has been blue for a century may turn red at the GE on recent polling, and it would be fun to bury the Tories as a party here.
My son is also 'off' Labour because of Gaza. It's a widespread sentiment amongst younger people and is going to cost votes (and maybe seats). Starmer is overcompensating on Israel/Palestine because of the Corbyn era. It is deliberate. He calculates the bigger electoral risk to be any whiff of 'Oh so Labour hasn't really changed then'. He's probably right.
I have heard a lot of this anecdotally and it “feels” right. But we don’t see it in voting intention polling so I wonder why? It is that they’d otherwise be 50%+?
Noise and numbers aren't the same thing.
There are people who are really really let down by what Starmer has done, because they believed in Corbyn Labour. They're just outnumbered by those who, especially towards the end, were utterly repulsed by Jez, to the extent that many were prepared to vote for Boris Bloody Johnson.
That doesn't mean that annoying your core vote is a good thing in itself. But if it's necessary to win over softer supporters, it's generally the right thing to do, because it's not often that you can win on a core vote alone.
I wonder how long it will take the Conservatives to relearn that lesson?
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Congratulations to your daughter. I agree with you, she should do the course that she's most excited by, she'll have a better time and get a better degree. The labour market is so uncertain I think it makes less sense than it did before to try to tailor your degree to make yourself more employable. I hope she gets the grades to take up her preferred choice - my eldest daughter is also doing A levels in May/June then heading to Uni. Fingers crossed for all of them. Being young right now isn't easy, but they're doing a great job of it in the main.
Being 17-18 is always hard, if exciting, but this present cohort have it incredibly hard. I read an impassioned, eloquent reddit essay by a very bright 18 year old the other day. He is facing the same dilemma as my older daughter, he believes his chosen career is deeply menaced by AI and will not exist in a decade, he confessed to deep depression, and it was not hard to understand why
And so many areas of human life are gonne be impacted, it's not just a few white collar jobs, it is millions and millions of jobs, from call centre workers to accountants and laywers and bankers, to aspiring actors, writers, musicians - almost anyone
What the F are we all gonna do?!
It doesn’t really matter. Having followed your output on here I am convinced we’ll all be dead in a nuclear firestorm and/or a super evolved strain of Covid-19 anyway.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
I've got to agree with Casino on this one. Never gets a mention amongst my acquaintances, beyond "It's awful but God knows what the solution is". I can understand that muslim and jewish voters are likely to be more motivated by it. That's 7% of the population though.
I thinl where it may hurt Starmer is where the Palestinian vote is the strongest and in that respect some of his London seats will be interesting if the conflict is ongoing at the GE
To those labour supporters who say it was a terrible night for the conservatives I think labour have more to be worried about not least as Reform did very poorly
The reincarnation of Galloway feels like a setback for Starmer due to his charisma. He will get a lot of airtime. Maybe GBnews will give him a show between Mogg and Farage.
However, Galloway is no Corbyn. Galloway is a seriously unpleasant character with some unpopular positions (Russia, climates). It’s not impossible to see a scenario where he discredits opposition to Starmer.
There's something in that. In a very different way, Netanyahu is discrediting support for Israel and a rise in anti-semitism is a direct result - people hear him saying Israeli policy is all about fighting for Jewish people everywhere, to which "not in my name" is the only appropriate response.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
No, you are wrong.
Fox jr2 is neither Islamist nor anti-semite, but won't be voting Labour in his East London constituency because of Starmers policy on Gaza. He is inclined to LD or possibly Greens.
I am very uninspired by Starmer, and highly suspicious of Streeting, so no Labour supporter but it is not over Gaza. I have been given pause for thought in terms of voting because even shire Leics which has been blue for a century may turn red at the GE on recent polling, and it would be fun to bury the Tories as a party here.
Isn’t this all a bit Walter Mitty though? The UK has practically zero influence on what happens in the Middle East yet people are acting as if this is a key plank of party policy.
Not at all. To Labour supporters having your heart in the right place has always been important sometimes crucial. Starmer is seriously testing us.
But the actual government, the one that will face them in a GE, is openly endorsing anti-Muslim sentiment and accusing mainstream Labour politicians of being in the pockets of islamists. There is an election to win still.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
No, you are wrong.
Fox jr2 is neither Islamist nor anti-semite, but won't be voting Labour in his East London constituency because of Starmers policy on Gaza. He is inclined to LD or possibly Greens.
I am very uninspired by Starmer, and highly suspicious of Streeting, so no Labour supporter but it is not over Gaza. I have been given pause for thought in terms of voting because even shire Leics which has been blue for a century may turn red at the GE on recent polling, and it would be fun to bury the Tories as a party here.
My son is also 'off' Labour because of Gaza. It's a widespread sentiment amongst younger people and is going to cost votes (and maybe seats). Starmer is overcompensating on Israel/Palestine because of the Corbyn era. It is deliberate. He calculates the bigger electoral risk to be any whiff of 'Oh so Labour hasn't really changed then'. He's probably right.
I have heard a lot of this anecdotally and it “feels” right. But we don’t see it in voting intention polling so I wonder why? It is that they’d otherwise be 50%+?
The biggest mystery is the Green VI, which should be a natural home for disaffected Labour supporters but has been declining. I can only think there’s been some churn with the Greens perhaps losing some of the disaffected Tory and Conservative nimby voters recently.
I don’t think there’s any good position for Labour on this. The Tories can go all out islamophobic and not lose votes. Labour only has to sneeze in a way that implies less than wholehearted support for Israel and voters will remember the antisemitism than contributed to its 2019 election loss. Their only tactic is to hope - that the conflict fades from prominence and fizzles out.
I do wonder whether Sunak will unleash Modhi on (parts of) the Hindu vote. Letting some of his MPs bash Muslims wouldn’t hurt that either.
I wish sectarianism would bugger off out of mainland GB (assume NI is too much to hope for).
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Congratulations to your daughter. I agree with you, she should do the course that she's most excited by, she'll have a better time and get a better degree. The labour market is so uncertain I think it makes less sense than it did before to try to tailor your degree to make yourself more employable. I hope she gets the grades to take up her preferred choice - my eldest daughter is also doing A levels in May/June then heading to Uni. Fingers crossed for all of them. Being young right now isn't easy, but they're doing a great job of it in the main.
Being 17-18 is always hard, if exciting, but this present cohort have it incredibly hard. I read an impassioned, eloquent reddit essay by a very bright 18 year old the other day. He is facing the same dilemma as my older daughter, he believes his chosen career is deeply menaced by AI and will not exist in a decade, he confessed to deep depression, and it was not hard to understand why
And so many areas of human life are gonne be impacted, it's not just a few white collar jobs, it is millions and millions of jobs, from call centre workers to accountants and laywers and bankers, to aspiring actors, writers, musicians - almost anyone
What the F are we all gonna do?!
Do a manual job. Those will always exist in a world of AI. She should do plumbing, carpentry or health and social care.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Good morning everybody! I suggest that if your daughter is doing a degree, which would encourage her to think, and to question, then the degree, she takes will stand in good state, whether or not technology has overtaken her particular subject. The very best of luck to her; granddaughter number two has this morning sent off two uni applications. They are Australian universities so they don’t start until February next year, by which time she will have her IB results.
Without going into details, she chose a degree she thought she would quite enjoy, BUT also because it was likely to lead to a good career: it wasn't her first choice emotionally, it wasn't the degree she would choose if nothing else mattered
She is very bright and she'd now genned up on AI and she is convinced that career could very easily not happen: it's in a cognitive field ripe for automation. She's correct, to my mind
Her passion is Classics. Totally pointless, totally non vocational, but she REALLY likes it. I've told her to go for that. Better to spend three years having intellectual fun, and let the future go hang, there's a 40% chance the computers will turn us all into pets by 2033, anyway
I used to think it’s worth doing a degree on a subject you love, I did it myself, but I’ve changed my mind over time looking at younger generations and talking to them about their choices and hopes and expectations.
I would advise anyone wanting to go to university to get a degree in the most valued subject they can get on, whether it’s a science or maths or something very highly regarded and do it at the best rated university they can possibly get into.
So many kids waste so many years and so much money studying for degrees where they get into the job competition and they want these great jobs they’ve been told they will get by having a degree and finding that all the good jobs are going to their peers who went to better universities or who have better regarded degrees.
Get something in your pocket that makes you attractive to employers whatever job you go for because they see you can work hard, have intellectual rigour and ability. Then you can either use that to go into a serious career, earn money and later on have the freedom and financial situation to follow what you love, what you love at 17/18 is not always what you love when you are 25 or later.
Or you can bank that great degree, do what you love after university and if it’s not working out you still have a great qualification to shift into another career.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Technically speaking shelling is a form of rocket science.
As a pedant I have to tell you it is absolutely not. No rocketry involved in artillery shells.
Base bleed, for a start.
Not rocketry, unless anything with an element of propulsion is, in which case so are jets and ships.
Artillery very definitely includes honest-to-god rockets these days, and has since the earliest days of rocketry. The BM-21 Grad is just one example.
Ah but that would be rocket assisted rounds. I think the shelling referred to above, in so far as there is much and the Israelis aren’t mostly using air power, will be from their old M109s I think. And I might be wrong, but I think that’s means standard 155mm shells.
I started this being a pedant over a throw away joke and I am determined to die on this hill.
Edit - Meant to say “joke about shelling specifically, so anything like MLRS is right out of scope”.
A BM-21 round wouldn't even get out of the end of the tube if it weren't for the rocket - so 'assisted' is carrying a heavy charge there.
It reflects a serious point, though, in general: the different meanings of shell/bomb/grenade/missile/rocket in different languages can cause confusion if not precisely translated in reportage. (And between eras, also: a Great WAr bomber could be a chap in khaki with two haversacks of Mills Bombs.)
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Good morning everybody! I suggest that if your daughter is doing a degree, which would encourage her to think, and to question, then the degree, she takes will stand in good state, whether or not technology has overtaken her particular subject. The very best of luck to her; granddaughter number two has this morning sent off two uni applications. They are Australian universities so they don’t start until February next year, by which time she will have her IB results.
Without going into details, she chose a degree she thought she would quite enjoy, BUT also because it was likely to lead to a good career: it wasn't her first choice emotionally, it wasn't the degree she would choose if nothing else mattered
She is very bright and she'd now genned up on AI and she is convinced that career could very easily not happen: it's in a cognitive field ripe for automation. She's correct, to my mind
Her passion is Classics. Totally pointless, totally non vocational, but she REALLY likes it. I've told her to go for that. Better to spend three years having intellectual fun, and let the future go hang, there's a 40% chance the computers will turn us all into pets by 2033, anyway
When we were doing the rounds with our son we went to LSE where a truly inspirational Maths/finance lecturer came seriously close to stealing his heart. He said, "when you go to University, choose something you love. You have the rest of your life to be bored."
It was spot on advice and made me, once again, regret my dull, pragmatic, choice of law.
It sounds to me that you have had a very interesting career in Law, as interesting as mine in Medicine.
People are endlessly fascinating and surprising. It's great to fossick about in their lives and be paid well to do so.
That is certainly the best part of it. I also like believing I can make a difference. The complainer in last week's rape trial reached out to say that the conviction will change her life. That sort of thing really gives you a boost. I am sure medicine gives many similar boosts.
But I am much more fascinated by economics than I ever was by law and would have loved to study economic history. When I retire that is certainly my plan for a second degree. My mind might struggle more with the maths these days but hopefully wide reading and life experience will offset that.
No-one holds British politicians responsible for what happens in Israel and Palestine. Starmer made what's turning out to be a substantial mistake by going all-in for Israel at the start, making it a mandatory Labour policy, and is finding it hard to pivot away from that position now.
No matter how horrible the Palestinians, Israel will be ten times more horrible back. It's Israeli policy and always has been. It was entirely predictable and Starmer completely misread the situation.
Starmer's biggest problem was that interview with Nick Ferrari where he implied turning off the water would be fine. So desperate was he to be rid of the shadow of Corbyn in these areas of general Labour party policy that he had an unusually sure (For a politician) tone to his voice that that is what he really thought of the situation, and his subsequent row backs from that particular interview have garnered as much attention as a page 92 correction to a blazing red top headline.
So anyway, Galloway. He can talk, and he's on 'my' team if you want to reduce politics to a binary Left/Right dynamic, but I cannot stand the guy. He runs on 4 star premium unadulterated personal vanity, rather like those alt-right motormouth grifters who you can't move for these days. That he's on the left makes it no more appealing to me. In fact if you want to know who he most reminds me of it's another alt-left, 'gift of the gab' narcissist who also despises women. Russell Brand.
There are a number of high profile shadow cabinet members in trouble in Constituencies with similar demographics due to their apparent support for a "plausible genocide"
Wes Streeting will go if Israel is still genociding at the next GE and Cooper is under serious pressure.
Great acceptance speech by GG btw love the way he tells SKS how it is and the reason why he won.
He pointed out that he won because Labour withdrew support from their candidate so Labour had, effectively, no skin in the game? Is Labour doing to withdraw support from Streeting and Cooper? Who will win their seats?
You really are not only a nasty sectarian you also are an idiot.
I don't think you listened to his speech. He said he won because of SKS and his stance on Gaza.
Only an idiot would think that were not so. Wesley is in serious danger trust me for the same reason with an excellent pro Palestinian independent already in place as his main rival.
Last night was very profitable for me from a betting point of view but in hindsight I shouldn't have covered my winnings by going green on Lab too as they only came 4th.
SKS is the only leader of the opposition in history to hand pick his shortlist in a safe seat and finish 4th
If Labour had a candidate in the election it would have won handily.
BTW @bigjohnowls , I understand you’re a Green Party member? How did the Greens do last night? I understand their candidate had very similar views to you on the conflict?
EDIT BJO’s candidate got 436 votes. Way to go BJO. You’re always backing winners.
No he was caught spouting islamophobic nonsense and the Greens rightly withdrew their support from him. One of the Independents was being supported by a lot of green activists but he too was controversial and received a suspended sentence literally the day before the vote.
So anyway, Galloway. He can talk, and he's on 'my' team if you want to reduce politics to a binary Left/Right dynamic, but I cannot stand the guy. He runs on 4 star premium unadulterated personal vanity, rather like those alt-right motormouth grifters who you can't move for these days. That he's on the left makes it no more appealing to me. In fact if you want to know who he most reminds me of it's another alt-left, 'gift of the gab' narcissist who also despises women. Russell Brand.
Unless you’re a Unionist Brexiteer who shares platforms with Farage, he’s not on your team. He’s on Team GG.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
I'd remind her of a rather unwise fellow who, over a decade ago, said that there would be no lorry drivers in a decade because of autonomous vehicles.
Some posters have a rather poor history of predictions, however much they hype themselves (and their predictions) up.
See also:
• China will be the world’s biggest economy in five years (predicted five years ago, over and over again on here)
Does anyone know anything about the candidate/Party who came second?
That is a much neglected part of the reporting, IMO. Tully was so politically naive that he didn't even realise he was entitled to a free mailing for his election material.
If any alternative to Galloway had been well organised, they might well have beaten him.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Good morning everybody! I suggest that if your daughter is doing a degree, which would encourage her to think, and to question, then the degree, she takes will stand in good state, whether or not technology has overtaken her particular subject. The very best of luck to her; granddaughter number two has this morning sent off two uni applications. They are Australian universities so they don’t start until February next year, by which time she will have her IB results.
Without going into details, she chose a degree she thought she would quite enjoy, BUT also because it was likely to lead to a good career: it wasn't her first choice emotionally, it wasn't the degree she would choose if nothing else mattered
She is very bright and she'd now genned up on AI and she is convinced that career could very easily not happen: it's in a cognitive field ripe for automation. She's correct, to my mind
Her passion is Classics. Totally pointless, totally non vocational, but she REALLY likes it. I've told her to go for that. Better to spend three years having intellectual fun, and let the future go hang, there's a 40% chance the computers will turn us all into pets by 2033, anyway
When we were doing the rounds with our son we went to LSE where a truly inspirational Maths/finance lecturer came seriously close to stealing his heart. He said, "when you go to University, choose something you love. You have the rest of your life to be bored."
It was spot on advice and made me, once again, regret my dull, pragmatic, choice of law.
It sounds to me that you have had a very interesting career in Law, as interesting as mine in Medicine.
People are endlessly fascinating and surprising. It's great to fossick about in their lives and be paid well to do so.
That is certainly the best part of it. I also like believing I can make a difference. The complainer in last week's rape trial reached out to say that the conviction will change her life. That sort of thing really gives you a boost. I am sure medicine gives many similar boosts.
But I am much more fascinated by economics than I ever was by law and would have loved to study economic history. When I retire that is certainly my plan for a second degree. My mind might struggle more with the maths these days but hopefully wide reading and life experience will offset that.
Also ability to focus, and motivation. It's surprising how much more quickly one picks up mathematics if one really has to do it, so long as one has a basic understanding, compared to messing around in a classroom at school.
Still better than doing a degree you didn't want to do because it was 'sensible', and ending up not doing anything very useful. Friend of mine was in that position - ended up with a very poor degree. (What saved him was joining the drama soc - ended up with a career in TV and media. But he should still have done something a bit more congenial.)
FPT. This was a vote against Netanyahu. Yesterday revulsion at the treatment of Gazans reached fever pitch (anyone seeing the footage would understand why) and Gorgous was the person most powerfully articulating the anger and impotence most people felt.
This would have gone well beyond just Muslims. It was one of the most distressing sights I've seen. The Israelis action has now moved way beyond security into outright barbarism.
And how does the MP for Rochdale influence Netanyahu in any shape or form?
They have elected a hugely compromised individual with a track record of cozying up to dictators and mass murderers. Even two years ago he was poo-pooing the very idea that Putin might invade Ukraine.
The government and Labour both articulate a desire for a ceasefire and long term settlement. What will the ludicrous cat imitator bring to the argument?
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
No, you are wrong.
Fox jr2 is neither Islamist nor anti-semite, but won't be voting Labour in his East London constituency because of Starmers policy on Gaza. He is inclined to LD or possibly Greens.
I am very uninspired by Starmer, and highly suspicious of Streeting, so no Labour supporter but it is not over Gaza. I have been given pause for thought in terms of voting because even shire Leics which has been blue for a century may turn red at the GE on recent polling, and it would be fun to bury the Tories as a party here.
Isn’t this all a bit Walter Mitty though? The UK has practically zero influence on what happens in the Middle East yet people are acting as if this is a key plank of party policy.
Not at all. To Labour supporters having your heart in the right place has always been important sometimes crucial. Starmer is seriously testing us.
In England and Wales Starmer is the only game in most towns and the LDs in a few others if you want rid of the Tories. If you don't mind another five years of Sunak, then Braverman then Jenrick vote for any number of crackpot minor parties.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
They voted on a motion for a ceasefire last week. Labour and Tories want exactly the same thing.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Congratulations to your daughter. I agree with you, she should do the course that she's most excited by, she'll have a better time and get a better degree. The labour market is so uncertain I think it makes less sense than it did before to try to tailor your degree to make yourself more employable. I hope she gets the grades to take up her preferred choice - my eldest daughter is also doing A levels in May/June then heading to Uni. Fingers crossed for all of them. Being young right now isn't easy, but they're doing a great job of it in the main.
Being 17-18 is always hard, if exciting, but this present cohort have it incredibly hard. I read an impassioned, eloquent reddit essay by a very bright 18 year old the other day. He is facing the same dilemma as my older daughter, he believes his chosen career is deeply menaced by AI and will not exist in a decade, he confessed to deep depression, and it was not hard to understand why
And so many areas of human life are gonne be impacted, it's not just a few white collar jobs, it is millions and millions of jobs, from call centre workers to accountants and laywers and bankers, to aspiring actors, writers, musicians - almost anyone
What the F are we all gonna do?!
As with all these things, the threat of AI is overblown. When I first went to work (50 years ago next year), I was told that computers would take over our jobs within a decade. Despite that, I never had a day of unemployment and ended up working in computers with a job that could not even have existed when I first left school.
Congrats to your daughter Leon. She's clearly very bright and will prosper whatever technology throws at her.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
I'd remind her of a rather unwise fellow who, over a decade ago, said that there would be no lorry drivers in a decade because of autonomous vehicles.
Some posters have a rather poor history of predictions, however much they hype themselves (and their predictions) up.
See also:
• China will be the world’s biggest economy in five years (predicted five years ago, over and over again on here)
• Liz Truss will surprise on the upside
In a purchasing power parity comparison, China exceeded US GDP a couple of years ago
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
I fear she is getting info from some very excitable sources on the internet... What is her intended career? Its unlikely to be fully automated, notwithstanding the impact of AI.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Congratulations to your daughter. I agree with you, she should do the course that she's most excited by, she'll have a better time and get a better degree. The labour market is so uncertain I think it makes less sense than it did before to try to tailor your degree to make yourself more employable. I hope she gets the grades to take up her preferred choice - my eldest daughter is also doing A levels in May/June then heading to Uni. Fingers crossed for all of them. Being young right now isn't easy, but they're doing a great job of it in the main.
Being 17-18 is always hard, if exciting, but this present cohort have it incredibly hard. I read an impassioned, eloquent reddit essay by a very bright 18 year old the other day. He is facing the same dilemma as my older daughter, he believes his chosen career is deeply menaced by AI and will not exist in a decade, he confessed to deep depression, and it was not hard to understand why
And so many areas of human life are gonne be impacted, it's not just a few white collar jobs, it is millions and millions of jobs, from call centre workers to accountants and laywers and bankers, to aspiring actors, writers, musicians - almost anyone
What the F are we all gonna do?!
I think the speed of what's happening on the research side is passing a lot of people by. Soon enough it'll be in production amongst smaller firms, if not 'the enterprise' as they tend to be quite slow. A recent paper that caught my eye :
We obviously visit the same subreddits! I have seen both of these
Thing is, it is every day now, isn't it? It used to be you'd get a startling AI announcement once every year or two, then once every few months, then about once a month, now it feels weekly, daily, hourly
As some have said, THIS is what it feels like to be on an exponential curve, or - as someone else put it in a clever YouTube video - "we are now entering the second half of the chess board", and the grains of rice keep piling higher and higher
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Good morning everybody! I suggest that if your daughter is doing a degree, which would encourage her to think, and to question, then the degree, she takes will stand in good state, whether or not technology has overtaken her particular subject. The very best of luck to her; granddaughter number two has this morning sent off two uni applications. They are Australian universities so they don’t start until February next year, by which time she will have her IB results.
Without going into details, she chose a degree she thought she would quite enjoy, BUT also because it was likely to lead to a good career: it wasn't her first choice emotionally, it wasn't the degree she would choose if nothing else mattered
She is very bright and she'd now genned up on AI and she is convinced that career could very easily not happen: it's in a cognitive field ripe for automation. She's correct, to my mind
Her passion is Classics. Totally pointless, totally non vocational, but she REALLY likes it. I've told her to go for that. Better to spend three years having intellectual fun, and let the future go hang, there's a 40% chance the computers will turn us all into pets by 2033, anyway
When we were doing the rounds with our son we went to LSE where a truly inspirational Maths/finance lecturer came seriously close to stealing his heart. He said, "when you go to University, choose something you love. You have the rest of your life to be bored."
It was spot on advice and made me, once again, regret my dull, pragmatic, choice of law.
It sounds to me that you have had a very interesting career in Law, as interesting as mine in Medicine.
People are endlessly fascinating and surprising. It's great to fossick about in their lives and be paid well to do so.
That is certainly the best part of it. I also like believing I can make a difference. The complainer in last week's rape trial reached out to say that the conviction will change her life. That sort of thing really gives you a boost. I am sure medicine gives many similar boosts.
But I am much more fascinated by economics than I ever was by law and would have loved to study economic history. When I retire that is certainly my plan for a second degree. My mind might struggle more with the maths these days but hopefully wide reading and life experience will offset that.
I belong to a couple of organisations which let one look at mind-stretching subjects without the time consuming extras of a formal degree. There’s U3acommunities which has developed out of the demands on non-contact we all experienced over Covid, and provides a range of lectures on, at the moment, scientific subjects, although the management is hoping to add more humanities subjects. There’s also the Cafe Scientifique which exists in many cities and provides talks on all sorts of subjects. You’ve earned some free time in retirement; don’t block too much off.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
They voted on a motion for a ceasefire last week. Labour and Tories want exactly the same thing.
They didn't vote on a ceasefire. The gerrymandering by SKS meant there was no recorded vote on a Ceasefire. The Government wanted a pause
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
I'd remind her of a rather unwise fellow who, over a decade ago, said that there would be no lorry drivers in a decade because of autonomous vehicles.
Some posters have a rather poor history of predictions, however much they hype themselves (and their predictions) up.
See also:
• China will be the world’s biggest economy in five years (predicted five years ago, over and over again on here)
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
I'd remind her of a rather unwise fellow who, over a decade ago, said that there would be no lorry drivers in a decade because of autonomous vehicles.
Some posters have a rather poor history of predictions, however much they hype themselves (and their predictions) up.
See also:
• China will be the world’s biggest economy in five years (predicted five years ago, over and over again on here)
• Liz Truss will surprise on the upside
In a purchasing power parity comparison, China exceeded US GDP a couple of years ago
So what? His prediction was by GDP (the standard measure) and it is miles away. He was on here almost daily banging on about it and telling anyone who demurred that they were an idiot.
FPT. This was a vote against Netanyahu. Yesterday revulsion at the treatment of Gazans reached fever pitch (anyone seeing the footage would understand why) and Gorgous was the person most powerfully articulating the anger and impotence most people felt.
This would have gone well beyond just Muslims. It was one of the most distressing sights I've seen. The Israelis action has now moved way beyond security into outright barbarism.
And how does the MP for Rochdale influence Netanyahu in any shape or form?
They have elected a hugely compromised individual with a track record of cozying up to dictators and mass murderers. Even two years ago he was poo-pooing the very idea that Putin might invade Ukraine.
The government and Labour both articulate a desire for a ceasefire and long term settlement. What will the ludicrous cat imitator bring to the argument?
It'll be interesting to hear Galloway speak in parliament on Gaza and Ukraine.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
No, you are wrong.
Fox jr2 is neither Islamist nor anti-semite, but won't be voting Labour in his East London constituency because of Starmers policy on Gaza. He is inclined to LD or possibly Greens.
I am very uninspired by Starmer, and highly suspicious of Streeting, so no Labour supporter but it is not over Gaza. I have been given pause for thought in terms of voting because even shire Leics which has been blue for a century may turn red at the GE on recent polling, and it would be fun to bury the Tories as a party here.
Isn’t this all a bit Walter Mitty though? The UK has practically zero influence on what happens in the Middle East yet people are acting as if this is a key plank of party policy.
I completely agree, and have said so to Foxjr2, but he is an intelligent young man with sound values and sees things differently. His vote counts for as much as mine.
The UK has little influence, but it's certainly not zero. Especially while we retain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Good morning everybody! I suggest that if your daughter is doing a degree, which would encourage her to think, and to question, then the degree, she takes will stand in good state, whether or not technology has overtaken her particular subject. The very best of luck to her; granddaughter number two has this morning sent off two uni applications. They are Australian universities so they don’t start until February next year, by which time she will have her IB results.
Without going into details, she chose a degree she thought she would quite enjoy, BUT also because it was likely to lead to a good career: it wasn't her first choice emotionally, it wasn't the degree she would choose if nothing else mattered
She is very bright and she'd now genned up on AI and she is convinced that career could very easily not happen: it's in a cognitive field ripe for automation. She's correct, to my mind
Her passion is Classics. Totally pointless, totally non vocational, but she REALLY likes it. I've told her to go for that. Better to spend three years having intellectual fun, and let the future go hang, there's a 40% chance the computers will turn us all into pets by 2033, anyway
When we were doing the rounds with our son we went to LSE where a truly inspirational Maths/finance lecturer came seriously close to stealing his heart. He said, "when you go to University, choose something you love. You have the rest of your life to be bored."
It was spot on advice and made me, once again, regret my dull, pragmatic, choice of law.
It sounds to me that you have had a very interesting career in Law, as interesting as mine in Medicine.
People are endlessly fascinating and surprising. It's great to fossick about in their lives and be paid well to do so.
That is certainly the best part of it. I also like believing I can make a difference. The complainer in last week's rape trial reached out to say that the conviction will change her life. That sort of thing really gives you a boost. I am sure medicine gives many similar boosts.
But I am much more fascinated by economics than I ever was by law and would have loved to study economic history. When I retire that is certainly my plan for a second degree. My mind might struggle more with the maths these days but hopefully wide reading and life experience will offset that.
My plan for retirement (I'm many decades away) is to self-fund a long winded History PhD. It's going to be the most bloated and self-indulgent thesis that was ever written - a high bar, but I am ambitious.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
Plenty of people give a shit about Gaza. Palestinians face famine. Kids are getting blown to pieces. Yesterday the IDF slaughtered 120 people waiting for food. Plenty of people give a shit about this, believe me.
I understand yesterday's tragedy was sparked by attempts to take goods off the aid trucks and the IDF firing warning shots over their heads
That's the IDF position.
Starving people are desperate, and do desperate things. It wouldn't have been a panic without that factor, and the IDF set that up.
FPT. This was a vote against Netanyahu. Yesterday revulsion at the treatment of Gazans reached fever pitch (anyone seeing the footage would understand why) and Gorgous was the person most powerfully articulating the anger and impotence most people felt.
This would have gone well beyond just Muslims. It was one of the most distressing sights I've seen. The Israelis action has now moved way beyond security into outright barbarism.
And how does the MP for Rochdale influence Netanyahu in any shape or form?
They have elected a hugely compromised individual with a track record of cozying up to dictators and mass murderers. Even two years ago he was poo-pooing the very idea that Putin might invade Ukraine.
The government and Labour both articulate a desire for a ceasefire and long term settlement. What will the ludicrous cat imitator bring to the argument?
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
No, you are wrong.
Fox jr2 is neither Islamist nor anti-semite, but won't be voting Labour in his East London constituency because of Starmers policy on Gaza. He is inclined to LD or possibly Greens.
I am very uninspired by Starmer, and highly suspicious of Streeting, so no Labour supporter but it is not over Gaza. I have been given pause for thought in terms of voting because even shire Leics which has been blue for a century may turn red at the GE on recent polling, and it would be fun to bury the Tories as a party here.
My son is also 'off' Labour because of Gaza. It's a widespread sentiment amongst younger people and is going to cost votes (and maybe seats). Starmer is overcompensating on Israel/Palestine because of the Corbyn era. It is deliberate. He calculates the bigger electoral risk to be any whiff of 'Oh so Labour hasn't really changed then'. He's probably right.
I have heard a lot of this anecdotally and it “feels” right. But we don’t see it in voting intention polling so I wonder why? It is that they’d otherwise be 50%+?
You can't say - but if SKS is correct they'd be lower in the polls with a more pro Palestine position, since it'd be costing more in floatersville than it would be appealing elsewhere.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
They voted on a motion for a ceasefire last week. Labour and Tories want exactly the same thing.
They didn't vote on a ceasefire. The gerrymandering by SKS meant there was no recorded vote on a Ceasefire. The Government wanted a pause
They don't want exactly the same thing.
They are both on the wrong side of history.
The motion calling for an immediate ceasefire was passed by parliament. A motion above and beyond what the government was happy with. Not that it makes the slightest difference to either Netanyahu or Hamas.
No-one holds British politicians responsible for what happens in Israel and Palestine. Starmer made what's turning out to be a substantial mistake by going all-in for Israel at the start, making it a mandatory Labour policy, and is finding it hard to pivot away from that position now.
The British political centre of gravity on the El Classico of the Middle East is shifting. Starmer is getting caught on the wrong side of the issue.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Good morning everybody! I suggest that if your daughter is doing a degree, which would encourage her to think, and to question, then the degree, she takes will stand in good state, whether or not technology has overtaken her particular subject. The very best of luck to her; granddaughter number two has this morning sent off two uni applications. They are Australian universities so they don’t start until February next year, by which time she will have her IB results.
Without going into details, she chose a degree she thought she would quite enjoy, BUT also because it was likely to lead to a good career: it wasn't her first choice emotionally, it wasn't the degree she would choose if nothing else mattered
She is very bright and she'd now genned up on AI and she is convinced that career could very easily not happen: it's in a cognitive field ripe for automation. She's correct, to my mind
Her passion is Classics. Totally pointless, totally non vocational, but she REALLY likes it. I've told her to go for that. Better to spend three years having intellectual fun, and let the future go hang, there's a 40% chance the computers will turn us all into pets by 2033, anyway
I used to think it’s worth doing a degree on a subject you love, I did it myself, but I’ve changed my mind over time looking at younger generations and talking to them about their choices and hopes and expectations.
I would advise anyone wanting to go to university to get a degree in the most valued subject they can get on, whether it’s a science or maths or something very highly regarded and do it at the best rated university they can possibly get into.
So many kids waste so many years and so much money studying for degrees where they get into the job competition and they want these great jobs they’ve been told they will get by having a degree and finding that all the good jobs are going to their peers who went to better universities or who have better regarded degrees.
Get something in your pocket that makes you attractive to employers whatever job you go for because they see you can work hard, have intellectual rigour and ability. Then you can either use that to go into a serious career, earn money and later on have the freedom and financial situation to follow what you love, what you love at 17/18 is not always what you love when you are 25 or later.
Or you can bank that great degree, do what you love after university and if it’s not working out you still have a great qualification to shift into another career.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
I'd remind her of a rather unwise fellow who, over a decade ago, said that there would be no lorry drivers in a decade because of autonomous vehicles.
Some posters have a rather poor history of predictions, however much they hype themselves (and their predictions) up.
See also:
• China will be the world’s biggest economy in five years (predicted five years ago, over and over again on here)
• Liz Truss will surprise on the upside
In a purchasing power parity comparison, China exceeded US GDP a couple of years ago
So what? His prediction was by GDP (the standard measure) and it is miles away. He was on here almost daily banging on about it and telling anyone who demurred that they were an idiot.
He was wrong.
Leon is economically naive, but his sense of China's current economic heft is essentially correct.
The more interesting question is what happens over the next decade - and that's not obvious.
I’ve been lurking around these parts long enough to remember when any mention of [redacted] was banned for fear of Mike being subjected to legal action.
Now we’ve had several threads in a row indefatigably dominated by [redacted], I can’t help but feel it was much nicer when the old policy was still enforced and [redacted] was denied the oxygen of attention.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
I've got to agree with Casino on this one. Never gets a mention amongst my acquaintances, beyond "It's awful but God knows what the solution is". I can understand that muslim and jewish voters are likely to be more motivated by it. That's 7% of the population though.
I thinl where it may hurt Starmer is where the Palestinian vote is the strongest and in that respect some of his London seats will be interesting if the conflict is ongoing at the GE
To those labour supporters who say it was a terrible night for the conservatives I think labour have more to be worried about not least as Reform did very poorly
The reincarnation of Galloway feels like a setback for Starmer due to his charisma. He will get a lot of airtime. Maybe GBnews will give him a show between Mogg and Farage.
However, Galloway is no Corbyn. Galloway is a seriously unpleasant character with some unpopular positions (Russia, climates). It’s not impossible to see a scenario where he discredits opposition to Starmer.
I understand he will be welcomed into Parliament by Jeremy Corbyn and David Davis
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
I am not sure what the polls say , but anecdotally I think your wrong, I know quite a few people of various ages and political persuasions (inc old skool Tories) that take the situation in Gaza seriously and are troubled by the suffering of civilians.
Yeah, bollocks do they. Never heard a single person mention it.
To an extent there's a bit of social media hype about it as the latest big thing, that follows from #metoo, #BLM, etc., but there's no serious substance to it.
I've got to agree with Casino on this one. Never gets a mention amongst my acquaintances, beyond "It's awful but God knows what the solution is". I can understand that muslim and jewish voters are likely to be more motivated by it. That's 7% of the population though.
I thinl where it may hurt Starmer is where the Palestinian vote is the strongest and in that respect some of his London seats will be interesting if the conflict is ongoing at the GE
To those labour supporters who say it was a terrible night for the conservatives I think labour have more to be worried about not least as Reform did very poorly
I still don't understand why Starmer didn't extract a big public abject apology from Ali over his Israeli conspiracy comments in return for continued Labour backing.
Because, like 30P Lee, those comments and beliefs align with part of the electorate. I suspect a lot of those who voted for Galloway think along the lines said by Ali. By having him repudiate them they would lose votes (and not just in Rochdale).
Before everyone jumps to conclusions, remember the rather unique situation in Rochdale. It isn't just a bog standard red wall seat. What works here or happens here has been non-standard for decades...
Galloway is a charismatic campaigner, in the same league as Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn.
I am reminded of a quotation from some years ago "the problem of Atheism is not that people believe in nothing, it's that they will believe in anything".
The dull politics that we have at the moment over important issues like the economy and public services is very uninspiring, with little to choose between parties. Neither side shows any vision as an alternative.
So we are left with different forms of Populism, whether from the left with Galloway, or from the Culture War of Braverman. People want something more interesting than the grey blob that is Starmer or Sunak, even when sold by a snake oil salesman.
The trouble for normal politicians is the one expressed by That Belgian in 2008; "we know what needs to be done, just not how to get re-elected after doing it".
And in the short term, it's going to be boring and fairly unpleasant for a lot of us. Much like @Leon's weight loss plan.
The one to watch is Agentina. Thats the only democracy departing from the stodgy democratic consensus on welfare, and government.
Whether Argentina revives or collapses into Mad Max failed state chaos is yet to be seen.
Argentina was previously so fucked that people were emigrating to *Peru*, to get out of it.
Doing a reverse-Paddington.
The Peruvians joke about it. You have to have a good sense of humour to deal with the string of Peruvian governments.
Reputations are an interesting thing. In Peru, they've gone from pro Fujimori (fix the economy and chop up the Shining Path) to anti-Fujimori (booo to corruption and war crimes), back to pro Fujimori (food and lots of order). The idiot daughter nearly got to be president, just on the name.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Do the degree.
We'll have all jobs in 10 years time, and you don't want her disqualified out of the good ones because she didn't bother to get a tertiary education.
Yes, I am telling her to do a degree, I am also telling her to avoid a field which is extremely ripe for automation, and a field she doesn't like THAT much, anyway - this is after her asking me my opinion, not me pressing my Pdooms on her
Sadly, I am not at all sure we will "all have jobs in ten years". We will see unemployment in certain jobs begin to pick up in the next 2-4 years as AI kicks in, and it will speedily spread and accelerate from there
eg
"Klarna started using AI last month for customer support. Here's how it went:
-The AI assistant has had 2.3 million conversations, two-thirds of Klarna’s customer service chats
-It is doing the equivalent work of 700 full-time agents
-It is on par with human agents in regard to customer satisfaction score
-It is more accurate in errand resolution, leading to a 25% drop in repeat inquiries
-Customers now resolve their errands in less than 2 mins compared to 11 mins previously
-It’s available in 23 markets, 24/7 and communicates in more than 35 languages
-It’s estimated to drive a $40 million USD in profit improvement to Klarna in 2024"
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
I'd remind her of a rather unwise fellow who, over a decade ago, said that there would be no lorry drivers in a decade because of autonomous vehicles.
Some posters have a rather poor history of predictions, however much they hype themselves (and their predictions) up.
See also:
• China will be the world’s biggest economy in five years (predicted five years ago, over and over again on here)
• Liz Truss will surprise on the upside
In a purchasing power parity comparison, China exceeded US GDP a couple of years ago
So what? His prediction was by GDP (the standard measure) and it is miles away. He was on here almost daily banging on about it and telling anyone who demurred that they were an idiot.
He was wrong.
I was right. China has exceeded the USA in GDP by PPP
Inded the FT thinks its surpassing of the USA is UNDER estimated
"Sorry America, China has a bigger economy than you"
"Measured at PPP, the latest IMF data shows China’s GDP exceeded that in the US around the time Donald Trump was “making America great again”. It is now 22 per cent larger. The figures make sense when you look at corroborating evidence. China’s electricity generation, for example, overtook that in the US in 2010. And during the 2016-22 period when China’s economy was supposedly making no progress compared with the US, its generation grew 45 per cent, while it was broadly flat in America.
It comforts both the US and China not to acknowledge the changing shift in global economic power."
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
They voted on a motion for a ceasefire last week. Labour and Tories want exactly the same thing.
They didn't vote on a ceasefire. The gerrymandering by SKS meant there was no recorded vote on a Ceasefire. The Government wanted a pause
They don't want exactly the same thing.
They are both on the wrong side of history.
You're unpleasant, an idiot, and a liar. This is the Labour amendment. I highlight the sections for you, not that you care about such quaint concepts as "truth" anyway -
That this House believes that an Israeli ground offensive in Rafah risks catastrophic humanitarian consequences and therefore must not take place; notes the intolerable loss of Palestinian life, the majority being women and children;
condemns the terrorism of Hamas who continue to hold hostages;
supports Australia, Canada and New Zealand’s calls for Hamas to release and return all hostages and for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, which means an immediate stop to the fighting and a ceasefire that lasts and is observed by all sides, noting that Israel cannot be expected to cease fighting if Hamas continues with violence and that Israelis have the right to the assurance that the horror of 7th October cannot happen again;
therefore supports diplomatic mediation efforts to achieve a lasting ceasefire; demands that rapid and unimpeded humanitarian relief is provided in Gaza;
demands an end to settlement expansion and violence; urges Israel to comply with the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures;
calls for the UN Security Council to be meet urgently;
and urges all international partners to work together to establish a diplomatic process to deliver the peace of a two-state solution, with a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable Palestinian state, including working with international partners to recognise a Palestinian state as a contribution to rather than outcome of that process, because statehood is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people and not in the gift of any neighbour.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Can she delay university for a year or two ?
And during that time get a job in a field she might be interested in and experience more of the world generally.
Plus the AI effect might become clearer in that time.
We'll never know, but it's possible that the Rochdale result was the best outcome achievable for Starmer. I wouldn't be surprised if Galloway had won even against a bona fide Labour candidate, and that would have been a significant humiliation causing major ructions for Labour.
Meanwhile, Chris Williamson on R4 this morning has already made progress in damaging the reputation of Galloway's bunch.
Turns out people are decent and don’t much like watching the shelling and mass displacement of a civilian population.
If you don’t represent that view, you unlock the door for people like Galloway. People want the leading parties to take a different position on Gaza. Why on Earth leaders couldn’t call for a ceasefire and peaceful remedies is quite beyond me.
This is not rocket science.
Nah, Galloway is exploiting the prejudices of a certain demographic of the population that's heavily concentrated in Rochdale.
No-one seriously gives a shit about Gaza.
Plenty of people give a shit about Gaza. Palestinians face famine. Kids are getting blown to pieces. Yesterday the IDF slaughtered 120 people waiting for food. Plenty of people give a shit about this, believe me.
I understand yesterday's tragedy was sparked by attempts to take goods off the aid trucks and the IDF firing warning shots over their heads
That seems a very naive interpretation. Ben Gvir has already used that narrative to justify curtailing the aid convoys.
If the aid convoys stop for a few weeks the 30,000 dead, which I suspect is probably on the low estimate side multiplies quickly.
Sky showing the actual incident which shows Palestinians raiding the convoys and the drivers apparently driving over some of them, sadly, creating panic and the IDF opened fire as they felt they were coming under threat
It was also dark
It is just another tragic story of this appalling conflict
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Good morning everybody! I suggest that if your daughter is doing a degree, which would encourage her to think, and to question, then the degree, she takes will stand in good state, whether or not technology has overtaken her particular subject. The very best of luck to her; granddaughter number two has this morning sent off two uni applications. They are Australian universities so they don’t start until February next year, by which time she will have her IB results.
Without going into details, she chose a degree she thought she would quite enjoy, BUT also because it was likely to lead to a good career: it wasn't her first choice emotionally, it wasn't the degree she would choose if nothing else mattered
She is very bright and she'd now genned up on AI and she is convinced that career could very easily not happen: it's in a cognitive field ripe for automation. She's correct, to my mind
Her passion is Classics. Totally pointless, totally non vocational, but she REALLY likes it. I've told her to go for that. Better to spend three years having intellectual fun, and let the future go hang, there's a 40% chance the computers will turn us all into pets by 2033, anyway
Initially I read your last line as 2023, and I thought you were leaning into the incessant teasing from TSE, Anabob and others about the quality of your predictions. I already think better of you for the excellent self-send-up you didn't make. Bravo.
FWIW, I have to advise a bunch of 18 year olds on this every year. My usual schtick is: none of your options are quite as good as most of those who will be advising you (i.e. older generations that got a better deal). However, you still have the opportunity to have a unique and formative 3 years for the price of a graduate tax that you will only pay back if you can afford to. I disagree fundamentally with @boulay's response about using university as an instrumental step on a ladder towards a well-paid job. Kids are going to spend their next 50 years chained to a fairly crap job unless they are extremely lucky, and if they're not passionate about their chosen degree it will show in eg interviews afterwards.
Instead, follow your passions, but with realism and grit. For your daughter: do classics, but with open eyes. It might not lead directly to a job, but if you use the three years at uni to develop yourself into an interesting human being who can solve unfamiliar problems and engage with the world around you, you're going to have the best shot at competing in whatever vestiges of a job market remain once you emerge from uni.
It is higher risk with more potential downside than boulay's approach, I admit. But life without risk is basically pointless drudgery, and when university can be one of the pinnacles of a life well lived, its best to take that risk.
ETA: basically I agree with what you said to her, just with more verbiage.
ETA: Ha! I see you've made essentially the same response to boulay, also without the verbiage. I am concerned that I find myself agreeing with you, and may need to switch to watching Zog (the other entertainment option on offer right now) to bring my intellectual brio back.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
I'd remind her of a rather unwise fellow who, over a decade ago, said that there would be no lorry drivers in a decade because of autonomous vehicles.
Some posters have a rather poor history of predictions, however much they hype themselves (and their predictions) up.
See also:
• China will be the world’s biggest economy in five years (predicted five years ago, over and over again on here)
• Liz Truss will surprise on the upside
See also
Covid is coming
It came from the lab
Ukraine is not winning the war, and will not reach the Azov Sea
Putin is close to nukes (he was)
America is going mad about UFOs, whether they exist or not (they did go mad, indeed still are)
That bomb on the bridge? It was a lorry
And on and on, and, best of all, my most titanic achievement in the history of geopolitics: THE NECKLACE
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Can she delay university for a year or two ?
And during that time get a job in a field she might be interested in and experience more of the world generally.
Plus the AI effect might become clearer in that time.
Humans will still exist during the AI revolution and university is great for meeting them.
Comments
“Essex police had initially concluded that Palmer died of an internal haemorrhage linked to recent surgery until a post-mortem examination revealed that he had been shot six times”.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gangster-may-have-been-shot-because-of-hatton-garden-heist-757nwgpd2
It bores me shitless.
Everybody knows they lie and they lie and the lie and they lie.
That's ground zero for this sort of nonsense. And, no offence, but your son might not exactly be a typical floating voter.
No matter how horrible the Palestinians, Israel will be ten times more horrible back. It's Israeli policy and always has been. It was entirely predictable and Starmer completely misread the situation.
However, Galloway is no Corbyn. Galloway is a seriously unpleasant character with some unpopular positions (Russia, climates). It’s not impossible to see a scenario where he discredits opposition to Starmer.
And whilst Israel isn't taking any prisoners - sometimes literally - the ten times more horrible stuff is hyperbole: look at what Hamas did to children and babies on invasion day.
People are endlessly fascinating and surprising. It's great to fossick about in their lives and be paid well to do so.
Osman made a point that the growth of AI is somewhat constrained by the production of computer chips - I can't remember the numbers but essentially the leaps and bounds we have seen in AI can't be sustained because there isn't enough computing power out there to allow it. I have no idea how true that is but he sounded like he knew what he was talking about!
You might find it an interesting listen, anyway.
Congrats to your daughter Leon. She's clearly very bright and will prosper whatever technology throws at her.
https://humanaigc.github.io/emote-portrait-alive/ (try the clip of 'the AI lady from Sora' for instance).
And this bit of PR/news :
https://www.klarna.com/international/press/klarna-ai-assistant-handles-two-thirds-of-customer-service-chats-in-its-first-month/
What I find unacceptable is the lack of an apostrophe in the name "Workers Party".
If the aid convoys stop for a few weeks the 30,000 dead, which I suspect is probably on the low estimate side multiplies quickly.
But it's a by election. LAB will be back in the GE in May.
The ten times worse is policy, not hyperbole. If they don't reach that ratio of horribleness, it's not for the lack of trying.
Worse than that his "we have changed as we have zero tolerance"... line would have been exposed for what it is and the Tories and their press supporters would have had a field day at GE 2024
Ditching his hand picked shortlist Candidate was
literally his only option
I started this being a pedant over a throw away joke and I am determined to die on this hill.
Edit - Meant to say “joke about shelling specifically, so anything like MLRS is right out of scope”.
Starmer had to deal with the nightmare of antisemitism that Corbyn in his ignorance and stupidity blighted the party with but people look at his position and think that he does not share their values. Which is seriously bizarre for someone who once earned his living as a human rights lawyer.
It's not what can we do about it but how do we feel about and it is hard not to be appalled at the recent actions of the IDF.
BTW @bigjohnowls ,
I understand you’re a Green Party member? How did the Greens do last night? I understand their candidate had very similar views to you on the conflict?
EDIT BJO’s candidate got 436 votes. Way to go BJO. You’re always backing winners.
I don’t think there’s any good position for Labour on this. The Tories can go all out islamophobic and not lose votes. Labour only has to sneeze in a way that implies less than wholehearted support for Israel and voters will remember the antisemitism than contributed to its 2019 election loss. Their only tactic is to hope - that the conflict fades from prominence and fizzles out.
The issue is perhaps the delay in the pm.
Incidentally when a relative died overnight c. 13 years ago the funeral was delayed till a PM (not necessarily a full one) was done. Similar death of another relative four years ago - no such thing, somewhat to my surprise as the deceased was if anything in better health, though also very old). I believe that routine examinations of formally unexpected deaths are no longer the case?
There are people who are really really let down by what Starmer has done, because they believed in Corbyn Labour. They're just outnumbered by those who, especially towards the end, were utterly repulsed by Jez, to the extent that many were prepared to vote for Boris Bloody Johnson.
That doesn't mean that annoying your core vote is a good thing in itself. But if it's necessary to win over softer supporters, it's generally the right thing to do, because it's not often that you can win on a core vote alone.
I wonder how long it will take the Conservatives to relearn that lesson?
I wish sectarianism would bugger off out of mainland GB (assume NI is too much to hope for).
https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/16/23726139/tesla-robot-update-video-shareholder-meeting
I would advise anyone wanting to go to university to get a degree in the most valued subject they can get on, whether it’s a science or maths or something very highly regarded and do it at the best rated university they can possibly get into.
So many kids waste so many years and so much money studying for degrees where they get into the job competition and they want these great jobs they’ve been told they will get by having a degree and finding that all the good jobs are going to their peers who went to better universities or who have better regarded degrees.
Get something in your pocket that makes you attractive to employers whatever job you go for because they see you can work hard, have intellectual rigour and ability. Then you can either use that to go into a serious career, earn money and later on have the freedom and financial situation to follow what you love, what you love at 17/18 is not always what you love when you are 25 or later.
Or you can bank that great degree, do what you love after university and if it’s not working out you still have a great qualification to shift into another career.
And sorry to be unkind, but
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-multiple-rocket-launcher-used-to-target-hamas-in-gaza-for-first-time-since-2006/
It reflects a serious point, though, in general: the different meanings of shell/bomb/grenade/missile/rocket in different languages can cause confusion if not precisely translated in reportage. (And between eras, also: a Great WAr bomber could be a chap in khaki with two haversacks of Mills Bombs.)
But I am much more fascinated by economics than I ever was by law and would have loved to study economic history. When I retire that is certainly my plan for a second degree. My mind might struggle more with the maths these days but hopefully wide reading and life experience will offset that.
• China will be the world’s biggest economy in five years (predicted five years ago, over and over again on here)
• Liz Truss will surprise on the upside
If any alternative to Galloway had been well organised, they might well have beaten him.
Still better than doing a degree you didn't want to do because it was 'sensible', and ending up not doing anything very useful. Friend of mine was in that position - ended up with a very poor degree. (What saved him was joining the drama soc - ended up with a career in TV and media. But he should still have done something a bit more congenial.)
They have elected a hugely compromised individual with a track record of cozying up to dictators and mass murderers. Even two years ago he was poo-pooing the very idea that Putin might invade Ukraine.
The government and Labour both articulate a desire for a ceasefire and long term settlement. What will the ludicrous cat imitator bring to the argument?
What is her intended career? Its unlikely to be fully automated, notwithstanding the impact of AI.
Thing is, it is every day now, isn't it? It used to be you'd get a startling AI announcement once every year or two, then once every few months, then about once a month, now it feels weekly, daily, hourly
As some have said, THIS is what it feels like to be on an exponential curve, or - as someone else put it in a clever YouTube video - "we are now entering the second half of the chess board", and the grains of rice keep piling higher and higher
There’s also the Cafe Scientifique which exists in many cities and provides talks on all sorts of subjects.
You’ve earned some free time in retirement; don’t block too much off.
They don't want exactly the same thing.
They are both on the wrong side of history.
He was wrong.
Especially while we retain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
The more interesting question is what happens over the next decade - and that's not obvious.
Now we’ve had several threads in a row indefatigably dominated by [redacted], I can’t help but feel it was much nicer when the old policy was still enforced and [redacted] was denied the oxygen of attention.
Reputations are an interesting thing. In Peru, they've gone from pro Fujimori (fix the economy and chop up the Shining Path) to anti-Fujimori (booo to corruption and war crimes), back to pro Fujimori (food and lots of order). The idiot daughter nearly got to be president, just on the name.
Humanity has shit prospects.
Inded the FT thinks its surpassing of the USA is UNDER estimated
"Sorry America, China has a bigger economy than you"
"Measured at PPP, the latest IMF data shows China’s GDP exceeded that in the US around the time Donald Trump was “making America great again”. It is now 22 per cent larger. The figures make sense when you look at corroborating evidence. China’s electricity generation, for example, overtook that in the US in 2010. And during the 2016-22 period when China’s economy was supposedly making no progress compared with the US, its generation grew 45 per cent, while it was broadly flat in America.
It comforts both the US and China not to acknowledge the changing shift in global economic power."
https://archive.ph/SQnuk#selection-2181.0-2189.97
That this House believes that an Israeli ground offensive in Rafah risks catastrophic humanitarian consequences and therefore must not take place; notes the intolerable loss of Palestinian life, the majority being women and children;
condemns the terrorism of Hamas who continue to hold hostages;
supports Australia, Canada and New Zealand’s calls for Hamas to release and return all hostages and for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, which means an immediate stop to the fighting and a ceasefire that lasts and is observed by all sides, noting that Israel cannot be expected to cease fighting if Hamas continues with violence and that Israelis have the right to the assurance that the horror of 7th October cannot happen again;
therefore supports diplomatic mediation efforts to achieve a lasting ceasefire; demands that rapid and unimpeded humanitarian relief is provided in Gaza;
demands an end to settlement expansion and violence; urges Israel to comply with the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures;
calls for the UN Security Council to be meet urgently;
and urges all international partners to work together to establish a diplomatic process to deliver the peace of a two-state solution, with a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable Palestinian state, including working with international partners to recognise a Palestinian state as a contribution to rather than outcome of that process, because statehood is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people and not in the gift of any neighbour.
And during that time get a job in a field she might be interested in and experience more of the world generally.
Plus the AI effect might become clearer in that time.
Meanwhile, Chris Williamson on R4 this morning has already made progress in damaging the reputation of Galloway's bunch.
It was also dark
It is just another tragic story of this appalling conflict
FWIW, I have to advise a bunch of 18 year olds on this every year. My usual schtick is: none of your options are quite as good as most of those who will be advising you (i.e. older generations that got a better deal). However, you still have the opportunity to have a unique and formative 3 years for the price of a graduate tax that you will only pay back if you can afford to. I disagree fundamentally with @boulay's response about using university as an instrumental step on a ladder towards a well-paid job. Kids are going to spend their next 50 years chained to a fairly crap job unless they are extremely lucky, and if they're not passionate about their chosen degree it will show in eg interviews afterwards.
Instead, follow your passions, but with realism and grit. For your daughter: do classics, but with open eyes. It might not lead directly to a job, but if you use the three years at uni to develop yourself into an interesting human being who can solve unfamiliar problems and engage with the world around you, you're going to have the best shot at competing in whatever vestiges of a job market remain once you emerge from uni.
It is higher risk with more potential downside than boulay's approach, I admit. But life without risk is basically pointless drudgery, and when university can be one of the pinnacles of a life well lived, its best to take that risk.
ETA: basically I agree with what you said to her, just with more verbiage.
ETA: Ha! I see you've made essentially the same response to boulay, also without the verbiage. I am concerned that I find myself agreeing with you, and may need to switch to watching Zog (the other entertainment option on offer right now) to bring my intellectual brio back.
Covid is coming
It came from the lab
Ukraine is not winning the war, and will not reach the Azov Sea
Putin is close to nukes (he was)
America is going mad about UFOs, whether they exist or not (they did go mad, indeed still are)
That bomb on the bridge? It was a lorry
And on and on, and, best of all, my most titanic achievement in the history of geopolitics: THE NECKLACE