People mention Gaza in real life (in the UK) just like they mention the Strictly. It is there, it exists, it sometimes ebbs and flows in the national consciousness and for some people it is hugely important.
But ain't no one going to win (or lose) an election over it.
We all want a ceasefire but a vote in Rochdale isn't going to bring that about.
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.
Is my point yes. Unionist and Leaver is not an uncommon combo - but how about one who's also rooting for Donald Trump? If I have any single question that can act as a litmus for whether I have time for somebody, that is it. Are you hoping Trump beats Biden in November? Anybody answering Yes, or feeling Yes and lying to me saying No, well they'll just have to labour on in life with me thinking ill of them.
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
I really thought the local Labour voters would stick with Ali, that would have been an effective way to snub Starmer and make an akward choice around if he could be brought back into the fold after a 'suspension'.
I guess they were angrier than I thought, but Galloway almost literally presenting as being the MP for Gaza kind of limits the impact, that perfect storm of factors won't be repeated much.
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.
Due to the reliability issue, AI is an assistant, where accuracy is required. So ranting opinion piece writers are looking down the barrel of gun.
In the software world, we have many layers of automation between (most) humans and the bare metal. Code completion tools have been around a long time.
What AI can do, is the spade and shovel work. Freeing up peoples time for the valuable stuff.
On the subject of degrees - do one in something you really, really like. At a good university. Providing the subject isn't actually insane, it won't make much difference in the world of work. My eldest and most of her contemporaries are doing this, and already planning a Masters in business (etc) to pivot towards the world of work at the end.
Except for a tiny number of subjects, the first degree is only looked at by employers in terms of where it was, and did you get a 2.1 or above. What they are looking for is someone of the intellectual calibre to go to university and get a degree.
Clearly this was mainly a Muslim protest vote for Galloway in Rochdale to send Starmer a message over Gaza. However it has also ironically meant that Sunak has had his second best by election result as PM after Uxbridge, with the Tories beating Labour and the LDs
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.
So is life generally and work in particular.
Often with a greater variety of people than at a university.
And going to university after experiencing something of work and life can be a benefit.
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.
My main goal in going to university wasn't an academic one and I was pleased to achieve it within a month of arrival.
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.
Yes, I agree. She is considering this
I think she should do wait and reapply to do classics at Oxbridge. She's bright enough, and I think the moe traditional setting might benefit her. She lacks self confidence, and being able to say "Oh, I'm at Cambridge" would be good for her, emotionally - give her a little boost
Not that the universities she's got offers from are bad, they are certainly not, they are all excellent
She has also thought of UCL - which is very different again, and also world class - but she really wants to get outta London, and I understand that
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...
My uncle and aunt were both born in Rochdale and they, with my father opened a shirt factory there before it failed in the depression
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.
Intentonally? Or just that Williamsons even more of a crank so makes anyone look bad?
"GEORGE GALLOWAY IS NO LONGER THE FAVOURITE TO WIN ROCHDALE" - TSE
Didn't age well
From that same piece.
This morning Galloway was the favourite this morning to win the by election but as we can see now Azhar Ali, the official but disowned Labour candidate, has become the favourite but the betting markets can often be wrong.
I remember the 2006 Dunfermline and West Fife by-election where when the candidates walked on to the stage Labour were the overwhelming favourites at close to 1.01 on Betfair and yet when the results were announced the Lib Dems won by nearly 2,000 votes.
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
Covid is coming - give you that one, although as you weren't on PB, I think the honour goes to @eadric
It came from the lab - contested - "also non-experts should hut up about stuff they are not experts in" - @leon, (who is not a scientist)
Ukraine is not winning the war, and will not reach the Azov Sea - to be seen, but probably right.
Putin is close to nukes (he was) - proof?
America is going mad about UFOs, whether they exist or not (they did go mad, indeed still are) - its no different from all the other flaps
That bomb on the bridge? It was a lorry - proof?
And on and on, and, best of all, my most titanic achievement in the history of geopolitics: THE NECKLACE - proof? All I see is assertion. Maybe she just likes the design?
You also missed out what3words.
I had a friend at Uni who loved a bit of gambling and was convinced he was winning all the time, because he mentally blocked out all the losing bets. My next door neighbour periodically wins a few hundred quid on football accumulators. At face value he is doing ok - but then I remember for every weekend he tells me how well he did, there are 20 weekends when he doesn't mention betting...
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...
My uncle and aunt were both born in Rochdale and they, with my father opened a shirt factory there before it failed in the depression
Ironically they were all conservatives
I know a lot of people lost their shirt in the depression but to lose a whole shirt factory is another level!
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
I understand Corbyn, but Davis? That seems...odd.
On the Reform point: I think @kinabalu's description of GG as alt-left is pretty accurate, and the horseshoe applies. Someone who might vote Reform could find a lot to like in GG's manifesto.
Which, in an alternate universe, might suggest a viable policy platform. Reform without the anti-furrin bit, GG without the odiosity. I suppose that's Corbyn, though, and that bolt has been well and truly shot.
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.
Yes, I agree. She is considering this
I think she should do wait and reapply to do classics at Oxbridge. She's bright enough, and I think the moe traditional setting might benefit her. She lacks self confidence, and being able to say "Oh, I'm at Cambridge" would be good for her, emotionally - give her a little boost
Not that the universities she's got offers from are bad, they are certainly not, they are all excellent
She has also thought of UCL - which is very different again, and also world class - but she really wants to get outta London, and I understand that
"being able to say "Oh, I'm at Cambridge" would be good for her..."
AI not going to take over the role of espionage then?
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...
My uncle and aunt were both born in Rochdale and they, with my father opened a shirt factory there before it failed in the depression
Ironically they were all conservatives
I know a lot of people lost their shirt in the depression but to lose a whole shirt factory is another level!
It was a very hard time for them and their workforce
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.
No, AI changes all of that
Is AI really going to replace all lawyers, doctors and bankers and engineers? If so you may as well study something you love as most of us will be loving off a UBI funded by a robot tax doing occasional temporary contracts
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.
My main goal in going to university wasn't an academic one and I was pleased to achieve it within a month of arrival.
Lost virginity? First pint of snakebite and black?
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.
Most firms also want well rounded employees who do sport and the arts and extra curricular activities too not just their degree subject
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."
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
When did you start posting? End of 2020? So the earliest you could have predicted Covid was coming was quite some time after it was already here.
I'm not sure you'd want to remind people of a poster called Eadric, who in between anti Muslim hate rants (I guess that's why Eadric was banned) went from saying Covid was nothing to worry about, to assuring us that at least 25% of us would die from it.
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."
Except that your prediction wasn’t by PPP, but by GDP. Not only were you wrong, you we out by an absolute mile: China is nowhere near the US, even now.
Just admit it. Be the bigger man. Put your hands up and say: “Sorry, PB, I was wrong.”
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.
Everyone is different but there is a case for thinking differently about undergraduate subjects, unless you want to do something fundamentally and permanently vocational such as medicine or engineering - the sort of the thing AI will affect but can't abolish.
Lots of subjects can't be superseded because they are just formative, intellectually basic (and hard) and no changes alter their status. Physics, chemistry and so on in sciences; philosophy, ancient history, Egyptology and so on in the humanities.
On the whole they are slightly less subject to whim and fashion, and often intrinsically more interesting.
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
Most of those are *very* debatable, at best.
Also Nordstream. It wasn't Putin, FFS. He gained nothing from it
It was probably Ukraine with some help from others (Poland? Baltics? UK?) and the prior approval and possible assistance at a distance of the Americans
PB's weird attachment to the Putin Did It theory of Nordstream was quite bizarrre
Denmark and Sweden have now both officially concluded their investigations into Nordstream, and they have concluded, "Ooops, it's a big mystery, we will never know"
What does that tell you? It tells you this:
"And who blew it up?
As Denmark and Sweden have just formally ended their investigation without any information on the likely culprit, options get gravely limited. The culprit is almost certainly an ally, and definitely not Russia. #NordStream"
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
Does this mean the average Chinese person is in real terms better off than the average American?
On the subject of value of first degrees for the world of work - I've never (and I don't know anyone who does) used the *subject* of the first degree in hiring someone.
The name of the university (sadly or not) carries more weight.
It’s not that bad for Sir Keir, as the Labour candidate was genuinely damaged goods, an easy bit of PR to get out of what would have been an embarrassing loss. As @Stuartinromford says, they may have lost anyway, so Azhar Ali’s sacking turned out to be a good thing
Amazing that they came fourth with 7% though… no one predicted that. They were odds on to win 24 hours ago! Shows how dangerous by election betting can be. I had thought backing Labour at 2/1 after Ali had been sacked was a good bet. I didn’t bet at all on this one though
I wonder whether the result will encourage the likes of Jezza, Diane & some other pro Palestine Labour MPs , particularly in constituencies with a large Muslim population, to run as a ‘Workers Party’ candidate?
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.
My main goal in going to university wasn't an academic one and I was pleased to achieve it within a month of arrival.
Lost virginity? First pint of snakebite and black?
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.
Conversely, Corbynism was popular with rather a lot of people, even if it was unpopular with more people. That's the needle that any Labour leader has to thread.
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
Most of those are *very* debatable, at best.
Also Nordstream. It wasn't Putin, FFS. He gained nothing from it
It was probably Ukraine with some help from others (Poland? Baltics? UK?) and the prior approval and possible assistance at a distance of the Americans
PB's weird attachment to the Putin Did It theory of Nordstream was quite bizarrre
Denmark and Sweden have now both officially concluded their investigations into Nordstream, and they have concluded, "Ooops, it's a big mystery, we will never know"
What does that tell you? It tells you this:
"And who blew it up?
As Denmark and Sweden have just formally ended their investigation without any information on the likely culprit, options get gravely limited. The culprit is almost certainly an ally, and definitely not Russia. #NordStream"
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.
Yes, I agree. She is considering this
I think she should do wait and reapply to do classics at Oxbridge. She's bright enough, and I think the moe traditional setting might benefit her. She lacks self confidence, and being able to say "Oh, I'm at Cambridge" would be good for her, emotionally - give her a little boost
Not that the universities she's got offers from are bad, they are certainly not, they are all excellent
She has also thought of UCL - which is very different again, and also world class - but she really wants to get outta London, and I understand that
My personal view is that she should do the degree if it is a passion of hers. But take this time to really have a think about her future career.
Absent a few specialist areas the degree you do won’t close doors to any career but the key thing is having an idea about the end goal and how you can demonstrate the necessary competencies. What skills does the degree teach that would be applicable to that career? Take some modules that emphasise that skill if possible - a good talking point in an interview. Outwith the degree, use the university experience to build contacts and engage in interests- graduate recuitment majors heavily now on what you bring to the table as a person as aside from the pure academics. Think about using the university infrastructure to build up a couple of great examples, perhaps organising or participating in a sponsored event or a society leadership position or a sports team. It’s all about building the story nowadays, less about what your degree was in.
Clearly this was mainly a Muslim protest vote for Galloway in Rochdale to send Starmer a message over Gaza. However it has also ironically meant that Sunak has had his second best by election result as PM after Uxbridge, with the Tories beating Labour and the LDs
Just a bit of fun, but the swing from Con to Lab was 13%.
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."
Except that your prediction wasn’t by PPP, but by GDP. Not only were you wrong, you we out by an absolute mile: China is nowhere near the US, even now.
Just admit it. Be the bigger man. Put your hands up and say: “Sorry, PB, I was wrong.”
Well, no. Not when I was right. Sorry. Mad currency volatility has increasingly rendered Nominal GDP the less useful measure. Also Russia's ability to prosecute this horribly pricey war shows that PPP is probably a better measure of national power than Nominal GDP.
Russia is not some economic dwarf like Spain, it is much higher up the scale, as its PPP ranking shows
China overtook the USA years ago, on multiple metrics: see the FT article
Otherwise yes one should always admit errors. What3Words is forever a stain of shame, for which I can only pour ashes over my head
And the window of opportunity for Liz Truss to "surprise on the upside" is, I am forced to admit, beginning to close
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
Does this mean the average Chinese person is in real terms better off than the average American?
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.
My main goal in going to university wasn't an academic one and I was pleased to achieve it within a month of arrival.
Lost virginity? First pint of snakebite and black?
First cheese and wine party, in the chemistry department's freshers reception.
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
Does this mean the average Chinese person is in real terms better off than the average American?
Probably about 25% of US GDP per head. China's economy is now slowing sharply, and the population is falling. The US's population is increasing quite fast, so at some point, total US GDP is likely to move back ahead of Chinese.
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...
My uncle and aunt were both born in Rochdale and they, with my father opened a shirt factory there before it failed in the depression
Ironically they were all conservatives
Rochdale used to be a town that made stuff. Of course there were Conservatives! We had a Tory councillor for years and years - he owned a shop / post-office. Lovely guy. National party politics can be kept out of local politics.
My theory (and, I think, that of @bondegezou , with whom I had a small charity bet, which I think technically I won, though in reality we were both so far off what we thought would happen that arguably we both lost and should both bung the Alzheimers charity a fiver) was that the following groups, in rough order of importance, would see Azhar Ali over the line:
People not really paying attention and just ticking the box marked 'Labour' (the ignorant) People who had already voted People who were paying attention, but still on balance wanted the Labour candidate - albeit debadged - over any of the others (the indifferent) People voting Azhar Ali in order to keep GG out People who agreed with Azhar Ali about Israel but not so furiously that they felt moved to vote GG People who rated Azhar Ali personally for other reasons
As it happened, Labour got so few votes that I can only conclude groups 1 and 3 aren't anywhere near as important as I thought. So good news that people are paying attention after all. But bad news that enthusiasm for Starmer's Labour is so shallow.
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
Does this mean the average Chinese person is in real terms better off than the average American?
No. Apart from anything else Chinese rents are insane, even worse than here. American real estate is affordable in most places, depending on where you live.
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...
My uncle and aunt were both born in Rochdale and they, with my father opened a shirt factory there before it failed in the depression
Ironically they were all conservatives
I know a lot of people lost their shirt in the depression but to lose a whole shirt factory is another level!
It was a very hard time for them and their workforce
Yes, a tough time all round. My great grandfather was laid off from the Naval dockyard at Devonport and supported his family playing jazz clarinet in the pubs and clubs of the area. They weren't well off even at the best of times but by all accounts he was a resourceful man well versed in making the best of any situation and the family still enjoyed summer holidays on the beach at Whitsands, where they'd catch crabs to eat for dinner.
On the subject of value of first degrees for the world of work - I've never (and I don't know anyone who does) used the *subject* of the first degree in hiring someone.
The name of the university (sadly or not) carries more weight.
Something we need to end if Britain is ever to reach the economic uplands envisaged by the Brexiteers and, later, Liz Truss.
Rochdale is an odd seat. It was a Labour/Lib Dem marginal, in 1959 and 1964, and again, from 1970-2010, which makes it strange in itself. Then, after 2010, voters went all over the place. The Labour vote has ranged from 7-58%, the Conservative vote from 13-33%.
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.
Intentonally? Or just that Williamsons even more of a crank so makes anyone look bad?
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
Most of those are *very* debatable, at best.
Also Nordstream. It wasn't Putin, FFS. He gained nothing from it
It was probably Ukraine with some help from others (Poland? Baltics? UK?) and the prior approval and possible assistance at a distance of the Americans
PB's weird attachment to the Putin Did It theory of Nordstream was quite bizarrre
Denmark and Sweden have now both officially concluded their investigations into Nordstream, and they have concluded, "Ooops, it's a big mystery, we will never know"
What does that tell you? It tells you this:
"And who blew it up?
As Denmark and Sweden have just formally ended their investigation without any information on the likely culprit, options get gravely limited. The culprit is almost certainly an ally, and definitely not Russia. #NordStream"
It is worth repeating that it didn't require some special technology to blow up the pipeline. All the evidence is that a handful of divers placed the explosives from a rented yacht. It's not very deep - you could just about do it on air (maybe), but with mixed gas, the depth is routine.
The location of the pipeline is on standard navigation charts - to try and prevent someone anchoring on top of it. It would stand out from the bottom in an ordinary fish finding sonar
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
Covid is coming - give you that one, although as you weren't on PB, I think the honour goes to @eadric
It came from the lab - contested - "also non-experts should hut up about stuff they are not experts in" - @leon, (who is not a scientist)
Ukraine is not winning the war, and will not reach the Azov Sea - to be seen, but probably right.
Putin is close to nukes (he was) - proof?
America is going mad about UFOs, whether they exist or not (they did go mad, indeed still are) - its no different from all the other flaps
That bomb on the bridge? It was a lorry - proof?
And on and on, and, best of all, my most titanic achievement in the history of geopolitics: THE NECKLACE - proof? All I see is assertion. Maybe she just likes the design?
You also missed out what3words.
I had a friend at Uni who loved a bit of gambling and was convinced he was winning all the time, because he mentally blocked out all the losing bets. My next door neighbour periodically wins a few hundred quid on football accumulators. At face value he is doing ok - but then I remember for every weekend he tells me how well he did, there are 20 weekends when he doesn't mention betting...
OK I have packing to do for South America, but let's focus on one. The lorrry. It was a lorry on that bridge
"On 8 October 2022, at 6:07 a.m., a fire broke out on the Crimean Bridge as a result of an explosion of a bomb loaded onto a truck, which occurred on the road bridge, on the westbound vehicle lanes running from Russia to Kerch in Russian-occupied Crimea. "
"Last month, a truck laden with explosives drove across the Kerch bridge, a critical artery connecting Russia with its troops fighting in southern Ukraine. A train traveled alongside."
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
Does this mean the average Chinese person is in real terms better off than the average American?
No it means there are more of them
But the 'purchasing power parity' aspect, I mean. What's that saying?
Labour needs to hope the Gaza situation sorts itself out before they’re in power, because it is an impossible political challenge for any British government with very limited influence. A sometime ally and vulnerable state is going postal and acting like a thug, and the West doesn’t know what to do.
I think Labour’s position on this is reasonable diplomatically although I think the Lib Dems have the positioning best worked out. But nobody will thank them.
The one silver lining, considering the by-election stats, is that the conservatives were down 22%.
Yes, while Rochdale is anomalous for most parties, that is in line for the Conservatives with other by-elections.
Not much to get excited about for REFUK, LDs or Greens either, but also in line with recent polls and by-elections.
To be fair to the Greens they didn't compete here either as their candidate had some unsuitable social media comments as well. But, yes, Refuk and LD's both performed poorly.
It’s not that bad for Sir Keir, as the Labour candidate was genuinely damaged goods, an easy bit of PR to get out of what would have been an embarrassing loss. As @Stuartinromford says, they may have lost anyway, so Azhar Ali’s sacking turned out to be a good thing
Amazing that they came fourth with 7% though… no one predicted that. They were odds on to win 24 hours ago! Shows how dangerous by election betting can be. I had thought backing Labour at 2/1 after Ali had been sacked was a good bet. I didn’t bet at all on this one though
I wonder whether the result will encourage the likes of Jezza, Diane & some other pro Palestine Labour MPs , particularly in constituencies with a large Muslim population, to run as a ‘Workers Party’ candidate?
There may also be a lesson for the culture warriors on the Conservative benchers, and that lesson is, it can work. You'd not get the proverbial fag paper between the parties' economic policies, so Starmer is hoping to win on competence. By campaigning and winning on Gaza, Galloway proved there is more to politics than not spooking the markets.
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.
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.
Manual trade jobs also do not need 4 years Uni racking up huge tuition fee debt as well.
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
Does this mean the average Chinese person is in real terms better off than the average American?
Probably about 25% of US GDP per head. China's economy is now slowing sharply, and the population is falling. The US's population is increasing quite fast, so at some point, total US GDP is likely to move back ahead of Chinese.
25% having adjusted for PPP, you mean? Real terms?
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."
Except that your prediction wasn’t by PPP, but by GDP. Not only were you wrong, you we out by an absolute mile: China is nowhere near the US, even now.
Just admit it. Be the bigger man. Put your hands up and say: “Sorry, PB, I was wrong.”
Well, no. Not when I was right. Sorry. Mad currency volatility has increasingly rendered Nominal GDP the less useful measure. Also Russia's ability to prosecute this horribly pricey war shows that PPP is probably a better measure of national power than Nominal GDP.
Russia is not some economic dwarf like Spain, it is much higher up the scale, as its PPP ranking shows
China overtook the USA years ago, on multiple metrics: see the FT article
Otherwise yes one should always admit errors. What3Words is forever a stain of shame, for which I can only pour ashes over my head
And the window of opportunity for Liz Truss to "surprise on the upside" is, I am forced to admit, beginning to close
Don't feel bad about W3W. I once used it to find a layby in Devon to be reunited with my wallet which someone on Dartmoor had found, and got in touch with me via my dentist, whom he contacted after finding an appointment card in it. (Do I risk getting Anabobz going on this? Probably not...)
But anyway, the more important point: I'm genuinely puzzled at the Russian economy. Arguably it should rank alongside Spain or Italy - it has three times more people but its people are only a third as well off, very roughly. And yet it clearly has rather more heft than that. My assumption is that its ability to wage war on this scale has largely been done through drawing down on its massive reserves, which it built up based on exports of oil and gas. And also that these are now, if not totally exhausted, severely depleted. So Russia will be economically unable to continue to wage war on anything like the same scale after this summer. We'll see.
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
Does this mean the average Chinese person is in real terms better off than the average American?
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 am seriously considering studying African 20th Century history and economics to keep me interested in retirement. Of any useful purpose? Almost certainly not, but fascinating, and I love Africa.
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
Does this mean the average Chinese person is in real terms better off than the average American?
No it means there are more of them
But the 'purchasing power parity' aspect, I mean. What's that saying?
You earn less but the stuff you buy costs less. The problem I think with PPP here is that the stuff Chinese buy mostly doesn't cost less. Obviously I don't have the data to back that up.
Overall GDP is about the same as the US and that measure is the one that matters in some contexts. For example in the power that China can project militarily and economically.
Labour play the exact same game as Galloway, Remember the Batley and Spen leaflet, it's just now Starmer will be called out on it in parliament by Galloway
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
Does this mean the average Chinese person is in real terms better off than the average American?
Probably about 25% of US GDP per head. China's economy is now slowing sharply, and the population is falling. The US's population is increasing quite fast, so at some point, total US GDP is likely to move back ahead of Chinese.
25% having adjusted for PPP, you mean? Real terms?
Income in China varies tremendously by region (much more than the USA)
A middle class Chinese person in a rich coastal city enjoys a lifestyle comparable to a middle class American (and there are maybe 100m or 200m Chinese people like this)
The further west you go, the further inland, the poorer it gets, much poorer than anywhere in the USA, even Mississippi
It’s not that bad for Sir Keir, as the Labour candidate was genuinely damaged goods, an easy bit of PR to get out of what would have been an embarrassing loss. As @Stuartinromford says, they may have lost anyway, so Azhar Ali’s sacking turned out to be a good thing
Amazing that they came fourth with 7% though… no one predicted that. They were odds on to win 24 hours ago! Shows how dangerous by election betting can be. I had thought backing Labour at 2/1 after Ali had been sacked was a good bet. I didn’t bet at all on this one though
I wonder whether the result will encourage the likes of Jezza, Diane & some other pro Palestine Labour MPs , particularly in constituencies with a large Muslim population, to run as a ‘Workers Party’ candidate?
An interesting post @isam. It didn't cross my mind that Labour might have lost anyway with an untarnished candidate which would have been bad news for them whereas this is a bit of PR handling as you say. They dumped a bad candidate. Although I suspect if they had had a decent candidate they would have won, but that is an interesting angle.
Similarly your last paragraph. I don't really expect that to happen, but it is an interesting thought.
My theory (and, I think, that of @bondegezou , with whom I had a small charity bet, which I think technically I won, though in reality we were both so far off what we thought would happen that arguably we both lost and should both bung the Alzheimers charity a fiver) was that the following groups, in rough order of importance, would see Azhar Ali over the line:
People not really paying attention and just ticking the box marked 'Labour' (the ignorant) People who had already voted People who were paying attention, but still on balance wanted the Labour candidate - albeit debadged - over any of the others (the indifferent) People voting Azhar Ali in order to keep GG out People who agreed with Azhar Ali about Israel but not so furiously that they felt moved to vote GG People who rated Azhar Ali personally for other reasons
As it happened, Labour got so few votes that I can only conclude groups 1 and 3 aren't anywhere near as important as I thought. So good news that people are paying attention after all. But bad news that enthusiasm for Starmer's Labour is so shallow.
Agreed on your post-mortem. There's also the question of how much the campaigning, canvassing and get-out-the-vote operation matter. But the huge fall in the Labour-not-Labour vote (+ the good turnout + the independent in second place) does suggest that the people of Rochdale were well-informed and following what was going on.
I donated £7.50 to Alzheimer's Research UK this morning. (I know the bet was for £5. The £2.50 was a self-imposed penalty for being so wrong.)
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?!
The tech job market is very tight at the moment, here and in America, with Big Tech following TwiX and laying off thousands but that is about saving money, not AI.
A lot of the jobs under threat from AI were endangered anyway by outsourcing and offshoring. Klarna is using AI customer service chatbots but most firms have had these for years; the difference now is they can actually solve problems and not leave the caller desperate to be passed to a human operator.
There really is some hysterical over reaction to the Galloway win .
A Jewish caller on the Radio 5 live saying it’s over for them in the UK and they need to move. To where exactly Israel which is hardly safe .
Hang on, I think that caller deserves a bit more empathy.
It’s easy to look objectively as a non-Jewish person and call that an overreaction. But with the history of antisemitism, and the unknowable nature of future politics, it is easy to see how the emphatic nature of GG’s win is pretty scary.
Add into the fact that any sane Jewish person might well feel deeply conflicted about Israel’s actions at the moment and your last statement comes across as pretty callous.
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
You need to grip of your AI thing. Obsessing about it on here is one thing. Letting it affect your daughter's decision about going to university... That's fucked up man.
There really is some hysterical over reaction to the Galloway win .
A Jewish caller on the Radio 5 live saying it’s over for them in the UK and they need to move. To where exactly Israel which is hardly safe .
Hang on, I think that caller deserves a bit more empathy.
It’s easy to look objectively as a non-Jewish person and call that an overreaction. But with the history of antisemitism, and the unknowable nature of future politics, it is easy to see how the emphatic nature of GG’s win is pretty scary.
Add into the fact that any sane Jewish person might well feel deeply conflicted about Israel’s actions at the moment and your last statement comes across as pretty callous.
It’s not callous . Galloway is one MP . There’s not been some anti-Semitic takeover in the Commons and there never will be .
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.
I've shot bank commercials with less disclaimers. Absolute gobbledygook. But I hadn't read it before so thanks for posting it.
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 am seriously considering studying African 20th Century history and economics to keep me interested in retirement. Of any useful purpose? Almost certainly not, but fascinating, and I love Africa.
Great idea
There should be a lot more OAPs/retired doing degree courses in subjects of no practical use to them, but to broaden their horizons/further their knowledge. I think this would be a great thing, both for the individual who keeps their mind stimulated instead of just watching daytime tv, and society overall
Clearly this was mainly a Muslim protest vote for Galloway in Rochdale to send Starmer a message over Gaza. However it has also ironically meant that Sunak has had his second best by election result as PM after Uxbridge, with the Tories beating Labour and the LDs
Just a bit of fun, but the swing from Con to Lab was 13%.
Other way round (which I think you meant) - Lab to Con!
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
Does this mean the average Chinese person is in real terms better off than the average American?
No. Firstly, China has four times America's population. Secondly, Chinese economic statistics aren't worth anything.
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."
Except that your prediction wasn’t by PPP, but by GDP. Not only were you wrong, you we out by an absolute mile: China is nowhere near the US, even now.
Just admit it. Be the bigger man. Put your hands up and say: “Sorry, PB, I was wrong.”
Well, no. Not when I was right. Sorry. Mad currency volatility has increasingly rendered Nominal GDP the less useful measure. Also Russia's ability to prosecute this horribly pricey war shows that PPP is probably a better measure of national power than Nominal GDP.
Russia is not some economic dwarf like Spain, it is much higher up the scale, as its PPP ranking shows
China overtook the USA years ago, on multiple metrics: see the FT article
Otherwise yes one should always admit errors. What3Words is forever a stain of shame, for which I can only pour ashes over my head
And the window of opportunity for Liz Truss to "surprise on the upside" is, I am forced to admit, beginning to close
Don't feel bad about W3W. I once used it to find a layby in Devon to be reunited with my wallet which someone on Dartmoor had found, and got in touch with me via my dentist, whom he contacted after finding an appointment card in it. (Do I risk getting Anabobz going on this? Probably not...)
But anyway, the more important point: I'm genuinely puzzled at the Russian economy. Arguably it should rank alongside Spain or Italy - it has three times more people but its people are only a third as well off, very roughly. And yet it clearly has rather more heft than that. My assumption is that its ability to wage war on this scale has largely been done through drawing down on its massive reserves, which it built up based on exports of oil and gas. And also that these are now, if not totally exhausted, severely depleted. So Russia will be economically unable to continue to wage war on anything like the same scale after this summer. We'll see.
This is why I now think PPP is much more accurate, look at the table of national GDP by PPP
China 35,042,689 United States 27,966,533 India 14,261,176 Japan 6,710,000 Germany 5,715,000 Russia 5,225,543 Indonesia 4,715,436 Brazil 4,257,121 France 4,009,50 United Kingdom 3,988,000 Turkey 3,805,673 Mexico 3,423,585 Italy 3,286,912 South Korea 3.050000 Spain 2,508,000
To me that *feels* about right, in terms of sheer economic heft
One question and issue about coverage pre the Rochdale byelection. An independent came a clear and good second. I was not a fanatical observer of the coverage, but I didn't notice a single mention in the media of this candidate, his policies, or his chances. If correct this suggests a staggering degree of laziness among the journo crowd. Did anyone else notice anything.
Another issue: the odds yesterday shifted markedly towards 'Labour' winning Rochdale. In reality no-one knew anything at all.
Completely off-topic but anyone who likes good food should get themselves over to Jonny Lake's place Trivet in Bermondsey. Best meal I've had in a while.
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
Does this mean the average Chinese person is in real terms better off than the average American?
No. Firstly, China has four times America's population. Secondly, Chinese economic statistics aren't worth anything.
Set against that, China's statistics way overstate their true population...
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
Most of those are *very* debatable, at best.
Also Nordstream. It wasn't Putin, FFS. He gained nothing from it
It was probably Ukraine with some help from others (Poland? Baltics? UK?) and the prior approval and possible assistance at a distance of the Americans
PB's weird attachment to the Putin Did It theory of Nordstream was quite bizarrre
Denmark and Sweden have now both officially concluded their investigations into Nordstream, and they have concluded, "Ooops, it's a big mystery, we will never know"
What does that tell you? It tells you this:
"And who blew it up?
As Denmark and Sweden have just formally ended their investigation without any information on the likely culprit, options get gravely limited. The culprit is almost certainly an ally, and definitely not Russia. #NordStream"
As you would realise if you weren't so gullible/lazy/dishonest (or all three), the last video you linked to is clipped from a discussion about sanctions (even the clip you link to ends with Johnson talking about hoping the senate would 'take up legislation')
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."
Except that your prediction wasn’t by PPP, but by GDP. Not only were you wrong, you we out by an absolute mile: China is nowhere near the US, even now.
Just admit it. Be the bigger man. Put your hands up and say: “Sorry, PB, I was wrong.”
Well, no. Not when I was right. Sorry. Mad currency volatility has increasingly rendered Nominal GDP the less useful measure. Also Russia's ability to prosecute this horribly pricey war shows that PPP is probably a better measure of national power than Nominal GDP.
Russia is not some economic dwarf like Spain, it is much higher up the scale, as its PPP ranking shows
China overtook the USA years ago, on multiple metrics: see the FT article
Otherwise yes one should always admit errors. What3Words is forever a stain of shame, for which I can only pour ashes over my head
And the window of opportunity for Liz Truss to "surprise on the upside" is, I am forced to admit, beginning to close
You are getting there. You seem, at least, to now at least understand the concept of contrition.
I will give you time, for time heals, for you to concede the point: to admit, as a gentleman: “Guys, friends, I got this one wrong.”
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
You need to grip of your AI thing. Obsessing about it on here is one thing. Letting it affect your daughter's decision about going to university... That's fucked up man.
As I have specifically said, I HAVE NOT DONE THIS
My daughter is very bright (and stubborn) she reads intensely, she has always laughed off my AI thing, and indeed makes Xmas presents for me that tease me about it
However in recent weeks she has gone off and done her OWN research and realised that her prospective career is indeed in grave jeopardy of automation. So now she is thinking again
All I am doing is trying to give kind fatherly advice (as best I can, who knows anything) which is basically: Do what you love, get a good degree in that subject, then worry about the future
Arguably, I should have said MORE. I never explicitly steered her away from this first subject (despite internal doubts). Maybe I should, and she would not be in this pickle now?
eg If you had an 18 year old daughter convinced she should study foreign languages at uni so she can be a translator as a career, what would you tell her?
There really is some hysterical over reaction to the Galloway win .
A Jewish caller on the Radio 5 live saying it’s over for them in the UK and they need to move. To where exactly Israel which is hardly safe .
Hang on, I think that caller deserves a bit more empathy.
It’s easy to look objectively as a non-Jewish person and call that an overreaction. But with the history of antisemitism, and the unknowable nature of future politics, it is easy to see how the emphatic nature of GG’s win is pretty scary.
Add into the fact that any sane Jewish person might well feel deeply conflicted about Israel’s actions at the moment and your last statement comes across as pretty callous.
It’s not callous . Galloway is one MP . There’s not been some anti-Semitic takeover in the Commons and there never will be .
Not that bit. The bit about ‘to where exactly Israel is hardly safe’. Well quite, but add in that the caller might not want to move to a country with a fascist government. You’re basically saying ‘you don’t have a better option so lump itI’. That’s the callous bit.
Completely off-topic but anyone who likes good food should get themselves over to Jonny Lake's place Trivet in Bermondsey. Best meal I've had in a while.
The tyre company agrees with you. Trivet was awarded two Michelin stars last month.
Another issue: the odds yesterday shifted markedly towards 'Labour' winning Rochdale. In reality no-one knew anything at all.
The first hour after the boxes have arrived, but a count can't be gleaned by eye is generally very unreliable for betting and anything anecdotal spin fed to Jon Craig who is probably the worst offender for passing unsubstantiated and often untrue by-election rumours when the polls close.
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."
Except that your prediction wasn’t by PPP, but by GDP. Not only were you wrong, you we out by an absolute mile: China is nowhere near the US, even now.
Just admit it. Be the bigger man. Put your hands up and say: “Sorry, PB, I was wrong.”
Well, no. Not when I was right. Sorry. Mad currency volatility has increasingly rendered Nominal GDP the less useful measure. Also Russia's ability to prosecute this horribly pricey war shows that PPP is probably a better measure of national power than Nominal GDP.
Russia is not some economic dwarf like Spain, it is much higher up the scale, as its PPP ranking shows
China overtook the USA years ago, on multiple metrics: see the FT article
Otherwise yes one should always admit errors. What3Words is forever a stain of shame, for which I can only pour ashes over my head
And the window of opportunity for Liz Truss to "surprise on the upside" is, I am forced to admit, beginning to close
Don't feel bad about W3W. I once used it to find a layby in Devon to be reunited with my wallet which someone on Dartmoor had found, and got in touch with me via my dentist, whom he contacted after finding an appointment card in it. (Do I risk getting Anabobz going on this? Probably not...)
But anyway, the more important point: I'm genuinely puzzled at the Russian economy. Arguably it should rank alongside Spain or Italy - it has three times more people but its people are only a third as well off, very roughly. And yet it clearly has rather more heft than that. My assumption is that its ability to wage war on this scale has largely been done through drawing down on its massive reserves, which it built up based on exports of oil and gas. And also that these are now, if not totally exhausted, severely depleted. So Russia will be economically unable to continue to wage war on anything like the same scale after this summer. We'll see.
Well frankly the idea that anyone in this day and age carries an ‘appointment card’ about their person or indeed any card whatsoever is somewhat quaint, but I’m glad you found your wallet.
I would of course normally be tempted to ask why you need a wallet at all, because wallets themselves are pointless, in the era of the smartphone.
But, in solidarity with you, and other PBers, I will keep my counsel.
One question and issue about coverage pre the Rochdale byelection. An independent came a clear and good second. I was not a fanatical observer of the coverage, but I didn't notice a single mention in the media of this candidate, his policies, or his chances. If correct this suggests a staggering degree of laziness among the journo crowd. Did anyone else notice anything.
Another issue: the odds yesterday shifted markedly towards 'Labour' winning Rochdale. In reality no-one knew anything at all.
First I heard was the Starsports betting update video that said they were taking lots of money for Galloway and Tully but could not give away Azhar Ali. To be fair, I've not been following this by-election closely but like you, had not heard of Tully until then.
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
Most of those are *very* debatable, at best.
Also Nordstream. It wasn't Putin, FFS. He gained nothing from it
It was probably Ukraine with some help from others (Poland? Baltics? UK?) and the prior approval and possible assistance at a distance of the Americans
PB's weird attachment to the Putin Did It theory of Nordstream was quite bizarrre
Denmark and Sweden have now both officially concluded their investigations into Nordstream, and they have concluded, "Ooops, it's a big mystery, we will never know"
What does that tell you? It tells you this:
"And who blew it up?
As Denmark and Sweden have just formally ended their investigation without any information on the likely culprit, options get gravely limited. The culprit is almost certainly an ally, and definitely not Russia. #NordStream"
As you would realise if you weren't so gullible/lazy/dishonest (or all three), the last video you linked to is clipped from a discussion about sanctions (even the clip you link to ends with Johnson talking about hoping the senate would 'take up legislation')
I mean, the Americans actually BOASTED they were gonna blow it up
I give up. I think if Joe Biden came round to your house with a chunk of the exploded Nordstream pipeline in his hand and a handmade movie of him planting the bomb on the Nordstream pipeline and the signed affidavits of 17,000 submersible Catholic nuns who went under the waves also saw him do it, and who also filmed it on Vatican iphones, you'd still say "Nah, Putin did it"
Comments
But ain't no one going to win (or lose) an election over it.
We all want a ceasefire but a vote in Rochdale isn't going to bring that about.
I guess they were angrier than I thought, but Galloway almost literally presenting as being the MP for Gaza kind of limits the impact, that perfect storm of factors won't be repeated much.
Didn't age well
In the software world, we have many layers of automation between (most) humans and the bare metal. Code completion tools have been around a long time.
What AI can do, is the spade and shovel work. Freeing up peoples time for the valuable stuff.
On the subject of degrees - do one in something you really, really like. At a good university. Providing the subject isn't actually insane, it won't make much difference in the world of work. My eldest and most of her contemporaries are doing this, and already planning a Masters in business (etc) to pivot towards the world of work at the end.
Except for a tiny number of subjects, the first degree is only looked at by employers in terms of where it was, and did you get a 2.1 or above. What they are looking for is someone of the intellectual calibre to go to university and get a degree.
Often with a greater variety of people than at a university.
And going to university after experiencing something of work and life can be a benefit.
I think she should do wait and reapply to do classics at Oxbridge. She's bright enough, and I think the moe traditional setting might benefit her. She lacks self confidence, and being able to say "Oh, I'm at Cambridge" would be good for her, emotionally - give her a little boost
Not that the universities she's got offers from are bad, they are certainly not, they are all excellent
She has also thought of UCL - which is very different again, and also world class - but she really wants to get outta London, and I understand that
Ironically they were all conservatives
This morning Galloway was the favourite this morning to win the by election but as we can see now Azhar Ali, the official but disowned Labour candidate, has become the favourite but the betting markets can often be wrong.
I remember the 2006 Dunfermline and West Fife by-election where when the candidates walked on to the stage Labour were the overwhelming favourites at close to 1.01 on Betfair and yet when the results were announced the Lib Dems won by nearly 2,000 votes.
It came from the lab - contested - "also non-experts should hut up about stuff they are not experts in" - @leon, (who is not a scientist)
Ukraine is not winning the war, and will not reach the Azov Sea - to be seen, but probably right.
Putin is close to nukes (he was) - proof?
America is going mad about UFOs, whether they exist or not (they did go mad, indeed still are) - its no different from all the other flaps
That bomb on the bridge? It was a lorry - proof?
And on and on, and, best of all, my most titanic achievement in the history of geopolitics: THE NECKLACE - proof? All I see is assertion. Maybe she just likes the design?
You also missed out what3words.
I had a friend at Uni who loved a bit of gambling and was convinced he was winning all the time, because he mentally blocked out all the losing bets.
My next door neighbour periodically wins a few hundred quid on football accumulators. At face value he is doing ok - but then I remember for every weekend he tells me how well he did, there are 20 weekends when he doesn't mention betting...
On the Reform point: I think @kinabalu's description of GG as alt-left is pretty accurate, and the horseshoe applies. Someone who might vote Reform could find a lot to like in GG's manifesto.
Which, in an alternate universe, might suggest a viable policy platform. Reform without the anti-furrin bit, GG without the odiosity. I suppose that's Corbyn, though, and that bolt has been well and truly shot.
AI not going to take over the role of espionage then?
I'm not sure you'd want to remind people of a poster called Eadric, who in between anti Muslim hate rants (I guess that's why Eadric was banned) went from saying Covid was nothing to worry about, to assuring us that at least 25% of us would die from it.
Just admit it. Be the bigger man. Put your hands up and say: “Sorry, PB, I was wrong.”
Lots of subjects can't be superseded because they are just formative, intellectually basic (and hard) and no changes alter their status. Physics, chemistry and so on in sciences; philosophy, ancient history, Egyptology and so on in the humanities.
On the whole they are slightly less subject to whim and fashion, and often intrinsically more interesting.
It was probably Ukraine with some help from others (Poland? Baltics? UK?) and the prior approval and possible assistance at a distance of the Americans
PB's weird attachment to the Putin Did It theory of Nordstream was quite bizarrre
Denmark and Sweden have now both officially concluded their investigations into Nordstream, and they have concluded, "Ooops, it's a big mystery, we will never know"
What does that tell you? It tells you this:
"And who blew it up?
As Denmark and Sweden have just formally ended their investigation without any information on the likely culprit, options get gravely limited. The culprit is almost certainly an ally, and definitely not Russia.
#NordStream"
https://x.com/mtmalinen/status/1762519521079029873?s=20
And watch this video. The Americans planned it and admitted it, publicly!
"What a video - Now that both Sweden and Denmark have stoped the investigation on who blew up the NordStream pipeline 🤣😁"
https://x.com/HenrikSvane2/status/1762165033046352115?s=20
Labour did the right thing but God what a mess.
The name of the university (sadly or not) carries more weight.
Amazing that they came fourth with 7% though… no one predicted that. They were odds on to win 24 hours ago! Shows how dangerous by election betting can be. I had thought backing Labour at 2/1 after Ali had been sacked was a good bet. I didn’t bet at all on this one though
I wonder whether the result will encourage the likes of Jezza, Diane & some other pro Palestine Labour MPs , particularly in constituencies with a large Muslim population, to run as a ‘Workers Party’ candidate?
What would have happened in Rochdale if Paul Waugh, Labour's preferred candidate, been their candidate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjYva6IUVXw
Absent a few specialist areas the degree you do won’t close doors to any career but the key thing is having an idea about the end goal and how you can demonstrate the necessary competencies. What skills does the degree teach that would be applicable to that career? Take some modules that emphasise that skill if possible - a good talking point in an interview. Outwith the degree, use the university experience to build contacts and engage in interests- graduate recuitment majors heavily now on what you bring to the table as a person as aside from the pure academics. Think about using the university infrastructure to build up a couple of great examples, perhaps organising or participating in a sponsored event or a society leadership position or a sports team. It’s all about building the story nowadays, less about what your degree was in.
Russia is not some economic dwarf like Spain, it is much higher up the scale, as its PPP ranking shows
China overtook the USA years ago, on multiple metrics: see the FT article
Otherwise yes one should always admit errors. What3Words is forever a stain of shame, for which I can only pour ashes over my head
And the window of opportunity for Liz Truss to "surprise on the upside" is, I am forced to admit, beginning to close
My theory (and, I think, that of @bondegezou , with whom I had a small charity bet, which I think technically I won, though in reality we were both so far off what we thought would happen that arguably we both lost and should both bung the Alzheimers charity a fiver) was that the following groups, in rough order of importance, would see Azhar Ali over the line:
People not really paying attention and just ticking the box marked 'Labour' (the ignorant)
People who had already voted
People who were paying attention, but still on balance wanted the Labour candidate - albeit debadged - over any of the others (the indifferent)
People voting Azhar Ali in order to keep GG out
People who agreed with Azhar Ali about Israel but not so furiously that they felt moved to vote GG
People who rated Azhar Ali personally for other reasons
As it happened, Labour got so few votes that I can only conclude groups 1 and 3 aren't anywhere near as important as I thought.
So good news that people are paying attention after all. But bad news that enthusiasm for Starmer's Labour is so shallow.
Question is how long it will take the people of Rochdale to come to the same conclusion as the people of Bradford did.
The location of the pipeline is on standard navigation charts - to try and prevent someone anchoring on top of it. It would stand out from the bottom in an ordinary fish finding sonar
I had a friend at Uni who loved a bit of gambling and was convinced he was winning all the time, because he mentally blocked out all the losing bets.
My next door neighbour periodically wins a few hundred quid on football accumulators. At face value he is doing ok - but then I remember for every weekend he tells me how well he did, there are 20 weekends when he doesn't mention betting...
OK I have packing to do for South America, but let's focus on one. The lorrry. It was a lorry on that bridge
"On 8 October 2022, at 6:07 a.m., a fire broke out on the Crimean Bridge as a result of an explosion of a bomb loaded onto a truck, which occurred on the road bridge, on the westbound vehicle lanes running from Russia to Kerch in Russian-occupied Crimea. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Crimean_Bridge_explosion
Here's the NYT with the skinny
"Last month, a truck laden with explosives drove across the Kerch bridge, a critical artery connecting Russia with its troops fighting in southern Ukraine. A train traveled alongside."
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/17/world/europe/crimea-bridge-collapse.html
OK, on with the day. Later!
Trades like construction too.
A Jewish caller on the Radio 5 live saying it’s over for them in the UK and they need to move. To where exactly Israel which is hardly safe .
But anyway, the more important point: I'm genuinely puzzled at the Russian economy. Arguably it should rank alongside Spain or Italy - it has three times more people but its people are only a third as well off, very roughly. And yet it clearly has rather more heft than that. My assumption is that its ability to wage war on this scale has largely been done through drawing down on its massive reserves, which it built up based on exports of oil and gas. And also that these are now, if not totally exhausted, severely depleted. So Russia will be economically unable to continue to wage war on anything like the same scale after this summer. We'll see.
There are a LOT more Chinese people.
Overall GDP is about the same as the US and that measure is the one that matters in some contexts. For example in the power that China can project militarily and economically.
https://x.com/timmyvoe240886/status/1763399156356251925?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
A middle class Chinese person in a rich coastal city enjoys a lifestyle comparable to a middle class American (and there are maybe 100m or 200m Chinese people like this)
The further west you go, the further inland, the poorer it gets, much poorer than anywhere in the USA, even Mississippi
Similarly your last paragraph. I don't really expect that to happen, but it is an interesting thought.
I donated £7.50 to Alzheimer's Research UK this morning. (I know the bet was for £5. The £2.50 was a self-imposed penalty for being so wrong.)
A lot of the jobs under threat from AI were endangered anyway by outsourcing and offshoring. Klarna is using AI customer service chatbots but most firms have had these for years; the difference now is they can actually solve problems and not leave the caller desperate to be passed to a human operator.
It’s easy to look objectively as a non-Jewish person and call that an overreaction. But with the history of antisemitism, and the unknowable nature of future politics, it is easy to see how the emphatic nature of GG’s win is pretty scary.
Add into the fact that any sane Jewish person might well feel deeply conflicted about Israel’s actions at the moment and your last statement comes across as pretty callous.
Great idea
There should be a lot more OAPs/retired doing degree courses in subjects of no practical use to them, but to broaden their horizons/further their knowledge. I think this would be a great thing, both for the individual who keeps their mind stimulated instead of just watching daytime tv, and society overall
China 35,042,689
United States 27,966,533
India 14,261,176
Japan 6,710,000
Germany 5,715,000
Russia 5,225,543
Indonesia 4,715,436
Brazil 4,257,121
France 4,009,50
United Kingdom 3,988,000
Turkey 3,805,673
Mexico 3,423,585
Italy 3,286,912
South Korea 3.050000
Spain 2,508,000
To me that *feels* about right, in terms of sheer economic heft
If you look at the GDP Nominal table, it is nuts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
it reckons that Britain is twice as economically powerful as Russia, and that Italy is economically bigger than Brazil. Pfff!
And now I really must pack. An entertaining debate, anon
Another issue: the odds yesterday shifted markedly towards 'Labour' winning Rochdale. In reality no-one knew anything at all.
Here is the clip in context from 39 minutes 0 seconds to 43 minutes 0 seconds, but the whole thing is relevant:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?516513-1/senate-foreign-relations-committee-hearing-us-policy-russia
I will give you time, for time heals, for you to concede the point: to admit, as a gentleman: “Guys, friends, I got this one wrong.”
My daughter is very bright (and stubborn) she reads intensely, she has always laughed off my AI thing, and indeed makes Xmas presents for me that tease me about it
However in recent weeks she has gone off and done her OWN research and realised that her prospective career is indeed in grave jeopardy of automation. So now she is thinking again
All I am doing is trying to give kind fatherly advice (as best I can, who knows anything) which is basically: Do what you love, get a good degree in that subject, then worry about the future
Arguably, I should have said MORE. I never explicitly steered her away from this first subject (despite internal doubts). Maybe I should, and she would not be in this pickle now?
eg If you had an 18 year old daughter convinced she should study foreign languages at uni so she can be a translator as a career, what would you tell her?
I would of course normally be tempted to ask why you need a wallet at all, because wallets themselves are pointless, in the era of the smartphone.
But, in solidarity with you, and other PBers, I will keep my counsel.
https://x.com/Iammurphycolet/status/1762499763000283493?s=20
Here is Biden's SoS Victoria Nuland saying the exact same thing
https://x.com/Iammurphycolet/status/1762499763000283493?s=20
I mean, the Americans actually BOASTED they were gonna blow it up
I give up. I think if Joe Biden came round to your house with a chunk of the exploded Nordstream pipeline in his hand and a handmade movie of him planting the bomb on the Nordstream pipeline and the signed affidavits of 17,000 submersible Catholic nuns who went under the waves also saw him do it, and who also filmed it on Vatican iphones, you'd still say "Nah, Putin did it"