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
Indeedy- and not just the retired. All of us would benefit from that. And if AI is going to massively reduce the amount of work humans need to do, moving to a world of gentleman scholar-artists is one of the more wholesome outcomes.
One of the maddening things is that the bits of the education system that used to do those things pretty well and across the country- FE, Adult Education, the Open University- are basically on their last legs.
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?
Tell her to separate out issues she can control from issues she can't. If (big if) translation goes extinct as a career, tough, you have no choice but to choose something else. But that does not render all modern languages at all universities either intrinsically or extrinsically useless. Quality of subject in itself, university and course matters much more.
In general it is a good idea to do something you love for its own sake, rather than something you don't like for reasons that may prove and illusion.
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.
You might want to think about the well-known expression 'never put all your eggs in one basket'
A solicitor whose firm reported him to the SRA for dodgy tweets has been struck off.
Farrukh Najeeb Husain directed his ire at Jewish barrister Simon Myerson KC and Jewish Times journalist Hugo Rifkind. In the posts he called Rifkind a “Zionist pig” and said that Myerson “wreaks [sic] of white privilege”.
He also referred to Israel as “ShitRael” and asked Rifkind if he was “just mentally retarded as a racist?”
Bevan Brittan, where Husain is understood to have worked as a self-employed contractor in 2021, reported the immigration and employment lawyer to the SRA for his posts.
At his SDT hearing Husain argued that he was anti-Zionist and simply opposed to the state of Israel, rather than antisemitic, and that he had drafted his tweets poorly and hastily.
But the regulator said he appeared “to conflate antisemitism, anti-Zionism and opposition to the Israeli government” and had ended up “demonstrating hostility towards Jews because they are Jewish”.
Husain represented himself during the proceedings but rather lost his rag with the SRA, and with Capsticks, which acted for the regulator at the tribunal, and with Campaign Against Antisemitism, which testified on the SRA’s behalf.
The lawyer accused the SRA of “weaponising new antisemitism” and of being “in bed” with Campaign Against Antisemitism. He also claimed that Capsticks barrister Louise Culleton was a British “imperialist” who “bang[ed] on about the Holocaust because [she] wants to hide [her] country’s own crimes”.
At other points Husain asserted that Myerson was a “fascist”, and claimed the expert witness from Campaign Against Antisemitism was himself an antisemite who was “engaging in the antisemitic trope that there is a collection of Jews who are self-haters, who have turned against their nation and who are spouting conspiracy theories”.
He also went after the SRA’s investigating officer, sending “offensive emails when he was displeased with the course of the SRA’s investigation”.
In one he accused the officer of being "a Zionist apologist and fascist like ur organisation" and claimed the officer was “a Sikh Punjabi” who was “angry" because of tweets made "by me about the Sikh national hero Ranjit Singh as a rapist of Muslim women”.
The tribunal found some, though not all, of Husain’s offensive or inappropriate tweets were antisemitic, but denied the SRA’s application for costs.
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.
Moving to Israel given the current situation is hardly moving somewhere safer . And the caller was overreacting to one by- election result.
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
Indeedy- and not just the retired. All of us would benefit from that. And if AI is going to massively reduce the amount of work humans need to do, moving to a world of gentleman scholar-artists is one of the more wholesome outcomes.
One of the maddening things is that the bits of the education system that used to do those things pretty well and across the country- FE, Adult Education, the Open University- are basically on their last legs.
I really enjoyed doing my PPE degree with the OU. Took a lot of time and effort, but definitely worth it. And mademy mind work in a different way to the technical stuff I have to deal with in my day job.
Macfarlanes has apologised to staff after an external speaker went off-piste while talking about his experiences during World War 2.
To mark Holocaust Memorial Day, Macfarlanes held an event with a guest speaker from the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET), whom ROF is not naming.
The talk was “very interesting to start with”, said a source, as the speaker, who is in his 90s, described being interned by the Nazis in a concentration camp where he worked as slave labour until he was liberated in 1945.
Things “took a turn for the worse” when he strayed outside the talk's remit and expounded on current events, referring to pro-Palestine protesters as “mobs” who were “all refugees who weren’t even born here” and had been “brainwashed by social media”.
“Be careful of these Islamists… these lot are coming for you and British democracy once they are done with us”, he allegedly also said, claiming that “All these wealthy Arabs are funding these universities which are brainwashing people”.
A source said that “People sat and listened throughout but afterwards quite a few attendees were visibly upset”.
Now the firm has issued an apology, emailing Macs staff to say that “Towards the end of the session, [the speaker] made unplanned comments expressing his personal views about the contemporary political landscape and used some offensive language”.
“These comments came as a surprise to both the firm and the Holocaust Educational Trust. They do not reflect the firm's view and we apologise for the offence and hurt which we know was caused by this”, it said.
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"
I don't have time to follow all your links - but at least have the honesty to admit that the one from your previous post was clearly about sanctions, whoever blew up 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
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."
Given the fictionalisation of Chinese statistics, the bankruptcy of Evergrande (I think you may be aware of this, the fact that they are dynamiting skyscrapers because they are poorly built and they cannot fill them because of catastrophic demography, I wouldn't be too confident about that.
FPT. This was a vote against Netanyahu. Yesterday revulsion at the treatment of Gazans reached fever pitch (anyone seeing the footage would understand why) and Gorgous was the person most powerfully articulating the anger and impotence most people felt.
This would have gone well beyond just Muslims. It was one of the most distressing sights I've seen. The Israelis action has now moved way beyond security into outright barbarism.
And how does the MP for Rochdale influence Netanyahu in any shape or form?
They have elected a hugely compromised individual with a track record of cozying up to dictators and mass murderers. Even two years ago he was poo-pooing the very idea that Putin might invade Ukraine.
The government and Labour both articulate a desire for a ceasefire and long term settlement. What will the ludicrous cat imitator bring to the argument?
People weren't voting for a cat imitator. They were voting for the strongest symbol of support for Gazans and Palestinians that was on show. The way it makes a difference is by news outlets TV newspapers and the hullabaloo surrounding the result making waves throughout the country and possibly beyond. It has been pretty wall to wall so far
Looking on the bright side, this result reminds us of the value of actually getting out there and campaigning.
I'm not sure we can really conclude that. It's such an unusual scenario that any local campaigning was in a unique position. In broad terms I still think a lot of campaigning activity is of unclear effect, and many campaigners a bit in denial because no one wants to think it makes marginal difference most of the time.
Mr. Viewcode, hidden Chinese debt that's provincial rather than national might also be a significant problem for the country. But, as you say, the fictional nature of official statistics makes it hard to tell.
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?
Tell her to separate out issues she can control from issues she can't. If (big if) translation goes extinct as a career, tough, you have no choice but to choose something else. But that does not render all modern languages at all universities either intrinsically or extrinsically useless. Quality of subject in itself, university and course matters much more.
In general it is a good idea to do something you love for its own sake, rather than something you don't like for reasons that may prove and illusion.
My daughter is not doing languages, that was just an example
FWIW if I did have a child intent on doing foreign languages so as to pursue a career in translation I WOULD say something: I would tell them they are delusional. 99% of translation jobs are going to disappear, they already are disappearing
By all means study a foreign lingo as an act of love, of expanding your mind, of encountering a new culture - all fine. Like learning the viola. But the idea it will neatly lead to a well paying job as a translator is now farcical
"Who killed the EU’s translators? Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims."
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.
Yes, those early takes are a grand old tradition of nonsense.
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.
Moving to Israel given the current situation is hardly moving somewhere safer . And the caller was overreacting to one by- election result.
Agreed on both points, but it now feels as though we are simply talking across one another so I’ll leave it there.
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?
Your daughter can study foreign languages for fun and intellectual stimulation and later become a French teacher or spot welder. Most of a foreign language degree is not relevant to translation anyway. It's basically like an English degree but reading foreign books and plays instead of Shakespeare.
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.
You might want to think about the well-known expression 'never put all your eggs in one basket'
Yeah I do, and I don’t. That’s one reason (among many) that I have an Apple Watch Ultra, easily the best tech product I have ever purchased.
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
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
It's pretty simple, Russia and Brazil have oceans of really, really poor people. Poverty of the kind we don't have, basically. Both have a much smaller rich bit - a tiny piece where you get fancy cocktails, nth star hotels etc.
Imagine that Britain halved public service spending (or more) and spent that on the military. which would mean about 10x the military spending we have now. We'd have bigger armed forces than Russia, in equipment terms.
That's basically how Russia works - plus a pile of left over, rusty stuff from The Days of Empire.
To put it another way, if the Polish plans to expand their military go through, they will have a larger, better equipped army (in terms of equipment) than Russia. And these plans are considered economically quite feasible.
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.
You might want to think about the well-known expression 'never put all your eggs in one basket'
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?
Your daughter can study foreign languages for fun and intellectual stimulation and later become a French teacher or spot welder. Most of a foreign language degree is not relevant to translation anyway. It's basically like an English degree but reading foreign books and plays instead of Shakespeare.
+1
I'd also recommend doing as many side activities and non-core subject modules as you can. Some unis are setting up the equivalent of Maker Spaces (UCL did) - learn to weld and play with a lathe, while doing your degree in French.
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.
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?
Tell her to separate out issues she can control from issues she can't. If (big if) translation goes extinct as a career, tough, you have no choice but to choose something else. But that does not render all modern languages at all universities either intrinsically or extrinsically useless. Quality of subject in itself, university and course matters much more.
In general it is a good idea to do something you love for its own sake, rather than something you don't like for reasons that may prove and illusion.
My daughter is not doing languages, that was just an example
FWIW if I did have a child intent on doing foreign languages so as to pursue a career in translation I WOULD say something: I would tell them they are delusional. 99% of translation jobs are going to disappear, they already are disappearing
By all means study a foreign lingo as an act of love, of expanding your mind, of encountering a new culture - all fine. Like learning the viola. But the idea it will neatly lead to a well paying job as a translator is now farcical
"Who killed the EU’s translators? Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims."
I have a friend who was a simultaneous translator for could have been the UN or somesuch. They said it was the most stressful thing imaginable and all of them sat there with piles of chocolate and coffee in front of them which they would wolf down as they went.
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.
You might want to think about the well-known expression 'never put all your eggs in one basket'
I like the three item approach:
Proper credit card for the pub
Hard copy ticket for the train
Phone for posting on PB 👍
Only one of those is needed (clue: it’s not the plastic or card). Phone and smartwatch - liberate yourself of pointless landfill.
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. There are a LOT more Chinese people.
Yes sorry! - I meant the 'purchasing power' adjustment.
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,.."
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.
You might want to think about the well-known expression 'never put all your eggs in one basket'
I like the three item approach:
Proper credit card for the pub
Hard copy ticket for the train
Phone for posting on PB 👍
Only one of those is needed (clue: it’s not the plastic or card). Phone and smartwatch - liberate yourself of pointless landfill.
I also find a wallet useful to carry the card , ticket and of course cash
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"
I don't have time to follow all your links - but at least have the honesty to admit that the one from your previous post was clearly about sanctions, whoever blew up Nordstream.
lol
I just watched your video, they clearly talk about "rolling back" Nordstream in vehement terms, and the dude makes heavy hints about going beyond "suspension", if Russia invades Ukraine, and instead "ending Nordstream permanently" - ie blowing the fucker up
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.
You might want to think about the well-known expression 'never put all your eggs in one basket'
I like the three item approach:
Proper credit card for the pub
Hard copy ticket for the train
Phone for posting on PB 👍
Only one of those is needed (clue: it’s not the plastic or card). Phone and smartwatch - liberate yourself of pointless landfill.
I also find a wallet useful to carry the card , ticket and of course cash
AKA lugging around pointless landfill that ruins the line of one’s trousers.
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.
Eventually everything will move to Google/Apple/X Wallet but in my wallet National Trust, Costco, Yorkshire Wildlife Park all have cards which don't have digital forms. Also needed a physical debit card for the plumber's cash withdrawal.
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
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.
Yes, sorry, my literal question was silly. I was more just wondering about the PPP measurement. What it's driving at.
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,.."
It would be one of your AI deepfakes.
That is actually quite a profound point
In a year or less so many of these vids will become plausibly deniable. Scary
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.
You might want to think about the well-known expression 'never put all your eggs in one basket'
I like the three item approach:
Proper credit card for the pub
Hard copy ticket for the train
Phone for posting on PB 👍
Only one of those is needed (clue: it’s not the plastic or card). Phone and smartwatch - liberate yourself of pointless landfill.
Many people have reduced their wallet to a slimline job to hold work ID, driving license, 2 cards, and some cash folded away for those places that don't take cards.
At the moment, what many companies face is not a surplus of skilled labour, but a real shortage.
AI is an opportunity not a curse. Many people work long and stressful days, caused by a lack of productivity and repetitive administration. AI fits neatly into this space, freeing up time and resource that can be better spent on upskilling people.
If the world moves to a place where people are working shorter, more productive and more satisfying days then I do not think that in and of itself will be a bad thing. There will be pain points as there are at any point of change, the key there will be identifying the way the market trends are going and making sure people are protected through access to training and development.
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?
Tell her to separate out issues she can control from issues she can't. If (big if) translation goes extinct as a career, tough, you have no choice but to choose something else. But that does not render all modern languages at all universities either intrinsically or extrinsically useless. Quality of subject in itself, university and course matters much more.
In general it is a good idea to do something you love for its own sake, rather than something you don't like for reasons that may prove and illusion.
If she likes Classics, it would do no harm to her career prospects anyway. Whatever happens with AI (which even if only the least out there predictions come about, is going to be enormously disruptive).
FPT. This was a vote against Netanyahu. Yesterday revulsion at the treatment of Gazans reached fever pitch (anyone seeing the footage would understand why) and Gorgous was the person most powerfully articulating the anger and impotence most people felt.
This would have gone well beyond just Muslims. It was one of the most distressing sights I've seen. The Israelis action has now moved way beyond security into outright barbarism.
And how does the MP for Rochdale influence Netanyahu in any shape or form?
They have elected a hugely compromised individual with a track record of cozying up to dictators and mass murderers. Even two years ago he was poo-pooing the very idea that Putin might invade Ukraine.
The government and Labour both articulate a desire for a ceasefire and long term settlement. What will the ludicrous cat imitator bring to the argument?
People weren't voting for a cat imitator. They were voting for the strongest symbol of support for Gazans and Palestinians that was on show. The way it makes a difference is by news outlets TV newspapers and the hullabaloo surrounding the result making waves throughout the country and possibly beyond. It has been pretty wall to wall so far
*some people* were voting for it. Most people votes for other candidates or didn't vote.
But it was a valid question asked. What will Galloway bring to the debate? Will he transform the way that Parliament deals with the war? With whom will he forge alliances? The SNP? Labour? The Tories?
Galloway is a peacock. With the emphasis on the second syllable.
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.
Fake news.
Sure. All these GDP figures are fake. Nevertheless China is a US scale power both economically and militarily because it also has a US scale economy.
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,.."
It would be one of your AI deepfakes.
Obviously - everyone knows that the Submersible Nuns from the Vatican use Android.
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?
Tell her to separate out issues she can control from issues she can't. If (big if) translation goes extinct as a career, tough, you have no choice but to choose something else. But that does not render all modern languages at all universities either intrinsically or extrinsically useless. Quality of subject in itself, university and course matters much more.
In general it is a good idea to do something you love for its own sake, rather than something you don't like for reasons that may prove and illusion.
My daughter is not doing languages, that was just an example
FWIW if I did have a child intent on doing foreign languages so as to pursue a career in translation I WOULD say something: I would tell them they are delusional. 99% of translation jobs are going to disappear, they already are disappearing
By all means study a foreign lingo as an act of love, of expanding your mind, of encountering a new culture - all fine. Like learning the viola. But the idea it will neatly lead to a well paying job as a translator is now farcical
"Who killed the EU’s translators? Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims."
I have a friend who was a simultaneous translator for could have been the UN or somesuch. They said it was the most stressful thing imaginable and all of them sat there with piles of chocolate and coffee in front of them which they would wolf down as they went.
The sooner that is replaced by AI the better.
That's absurd.
Nothing can replace coffee and chocolate (apologies to @Cyclefree ).
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.
Eventually everything will move to Google/Apple/X Wallet but in my wallet National Trust, Costco, Yorkshire Wildlife Park all have cards which don't have digital forms. Also needed a physical debit card for the plumber's cash withdrawal.
Tax dodging plumber? And why do you need to keep the card about your person? Mine are all stuffed in a drawer at home.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
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
Indeedy- and not just the retired. All of us would benefit from that. And if AI is going to massively reduce the amount of work humans need to do, moving to a world of gentleman scholar-artists is one of the more wholesome outcomes.
One of the maddening things is that the bits of the education system that used to do those things pretty well and across the country- FE, Adult Education, the Open University- are basically on their last legs.
I actually did it when I was 35. Was betting at home and decided to do a university course to fill in the spare time. I did Humanities at Brighton, thinking it would reinforce my existing supposedly left wing views. I didn’t have the intention to change career on the back of it. Arrived just after voting for Gordon Brown in 2010 and left as a member of UKIP!
Didn’t finish the course in the end, but it was interesting to be back in the classroom.
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.
Fake news.
Sure. All these GDP figures are fake. Nevertheless China is a US scale power both economically and militarily because it also has a US scale economy.
And also trade. China is the world's biggest importer and exporter. These figures are not "faked" because they can be checked against reciprocal figures in the trading partners
Being the world's biggest trader itself gives China huge global power, you don't want to upset Beijing because it might stop importing your coal/machines/luxury goods, and then your economy is fucked
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.
Fake news.
Sure. All these GDP figures are fake. Nevertheless China is a US scale power both economically and militarily because it also has a US scale economy.
Sorry, no.
Its GDP is nowhere near that of the US. You can argue the toss on other measures, but GDP? Nope.
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?
People mostly don't, and shouldn't, study languages to become a translator. In any case translation became a niche profession well before AI.
You study languages because you have a fascination with other cultures. Which talks to your point: study what interests you.
I can see my action items for today are not going to get done. I'm watching deer in my garden. This is the first time in a while. We used to get a regular visitor but one day he turned up with a head wound full of green bottles and maggots and he was so docile he let me catch him. I sat with him for a couple of hours waiting for a deer charity to turn up, but on inspection of the wound they shot him.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
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.
Eventually everything will move to Google/Apple/X Wallet but in my wallet National Trust, Costco, Yorkshire Wildlife Park all have cards which don't have digital forms. Also needed a physical debit card for the plumber's cash withdrawal.
Tax dodging plumber? And why do you need to keep the card about your person? Mine are all stuffed in a drawer at home.
Plumber's taxes are his responsibility. Tbh I don't generally head out and about with it unless I need it for a specific purpose, just saying that at the moment having a wallet is useful in life.
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?
Tell her to separate out issues she can control from issues she can't. If (big if) translation goes extinct as a career, tough, you have no choice but to choose something else. But that does not render all modern languages at all universities either intrinsically or extrinsically useless. Quality of subject in itself, university and course matters much more.
In general it is a good idea to do something you love for its own sake, rather than something you don't like for reasons that may prove and illusion.
My daughter is not doing languages, that was just an example
FWIW if I did have a child intent on doing foreign languages so as to pursue a career in translation I WOULD say something: I would tell them they are delusional. 99% of translation jobs are going to disappear, they already are disappearing
By all means study a foreign lingo as an act of love, of expanding your mind, of encountering a new culture - all fine. Like learning the viola. But the idea it will neatly lead to a well paying job as a translator is now farcical
"Who killed the EU’s translators? Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims."
I have a friend who was a simultaneous translator for could have been the UN or somesuch. They said it was the most stressful thing imaginable and all of them sat there with piles of chocolate and coffee in front of them which they would wolf down as they went.
The sooner that is replaced by AI the better.
That's absurd.
Nothing can replace coffee and chocolate (apologies to @Cyclefree ).
Is there some kind of fish that would, if it could, eat itself to death. I would be that fish with coffee and chocolate. Given an unlimited supply of both I could continue until I exploded. 70% from Waitrose on the one hand, and Swiss Water Processed Decaffeinated Columbian on the other. Or rather, in the other.
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.
You might want to think about the well-known expression 'never put all your eggs in one basket'
I like the three item approach:
Proper credit card for the pub
Hard copy ticket for the train
Phone for posting on PB 👍
Only one of those is needed (clue: it’s not the plastic or card). Phone and smartwatch - liberate yourself of pointless landfill.
Many people have reduced their wallet to a slimline job to hold work ID, driving license, 2 cards, and some cash folded away for those places that don't take cards.
Where are these places? Tax dodging barbers? Places that don’t take cash are more commonplace around here. Indeed I have visited two such establishments today alone.
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?
Tell her to separate out issues she can control from issues she can't. If (big if) translation goes extinct as a career, tough, you have no choice but to choose something else. But that does not render all modern languages at all universities either intrinsically or extrinsically useless. Quality of subject in itself, university and course matters much more.
In general it is a good idea to do something you love for its own sake, rather than something you don't like for reasons that may prove and illusion.
If she likes Classics, it would do no harm to her career prospects anyway. Whatever happens with AI (which even if only the least out there predictions come about, is going to be enormously disruptive).
Yes, I agree
She loves Classics - she would do it for fun if she could - so why not do that? It's still a degree, and it will be from a fine university
I hope she takes that course, but all I can do is gently advise
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.
Yes, sorry, my literal question was silly. I was more just wondering about the PPP measurement. What it's driving at.
Lots of things are cheaper in China than in the US
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
Indeedy- and not just the retired. All of us would benefit from that. And if AI is going to massively reduce the amount of work humans need to do, moving to a world of gentleman scholar-artists is one of the more wholesome outcomes.
One of the maddening things is that the bits of the education system that used to do those things pretty well and across the country- FE, Adult Education, the Open University- are basically on their last legs.
I actually did it when I was 35. Was betting at home and decided to do a university course to fill in the spare time. I did Humanities at Brighton, thinking it would reinforce my existing supposedly left wing views. I didn’t have the intention to change career on the back of it. Arrived just after voting for Gordon Brown in 2010 and left as a member of UKIP!
Didn’t finish the course in the end, but it was interesting to be back in the classroom.
Wasn't that analogous to the journey that Bjorn Lomborg made - started out by looking into the stats for climate change to confirm all the hoo-ha about it and ended up sceptical of many of the claims being made.
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?
Your daughter can study foreign languages for fun and intellectual stimulation and later become a French teacher or spot welder. Most of a foreign language degree is not relevant to translation anyway. It's basically like an English degree but reading foreign books and plays instead of Shakespeare.
Having worked in the past as a commercial translator (not an interpreter, heaven forbid!) I can say that a degree in foreign languages isn't even particularly useful for translation. More important is specialised knowledge in a particular area or field (as well as, obviously, proficiency in the relevant languages). So, in fact, a degree in something other than languages is, counter-intuitively, more useful for finding translation work.
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
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.
Eventually everything will move to Google/Apple/X Wallet but in my wallet National Trust, Costco, Yorkshire Wildlife Park all have cards which don't have digital forms. Also needed a physical debit card for the plumber's cash withdrawal.
Just take a photo of your cards if those organisations really are that bloody backward.
I can see my action items for today are not going to get done. I'm watching deer in my garden. This is the first time in a while. We used to get a regular visitor but one day he turned up with a head wound full of green bottles and maggots and he was so docile he let me catch him. I sat with him for a couple of hours waiting for a deer charity to turn up, but on inspection of the wound they shot him.
Sorry that went from joyous to sad.
LOL very funny. I have had, on various facebook groups, people asking where they should take a wounded pigeon that they have found in their garden.
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
Indeedy- and not just the retired. All of us would benefit from that. And if AI is going to massively reduce the amount of work humans need to do, moving to a world of gentleman scholar-artists is one of the more wholesome outcomes.
One of the maddening things is that the bits of the education system that used to do those things pretty well and across the country- FE, Adult Education, the Open University- are basically on their last legs.
I actually did it when I was 35. Was betting at home and decided to do a university course to fill in the spare time. I did Humanities at Brighton, thinking it would reinforce my existing supposedly left wing views. I didn’t have the intention to change career on the back of it. Arrived just after voting for Gordon Brown in 2010 and left as a member of UKIP!
Didn’t finish the course in the end, but it was interesting to be back in the classroom.
Wasn't that analogous to the journey that Bjorn Lomborg made - started out by looking into the stats for climate change to confirm all the hoo-ha about it and ended up sceptical of many of the claims being made.
Sounds like it, although I’d not heard of him til now
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.
Fake news.
Sure. All these GDP figures are fake. Nevertheless China is a US scale power both economically and militarily because it also has a US scale economy.
Sorry, no.
Its GDP is nowhere near that of the US. You can argue the toss on other measures, but GDP? Nope.
Officially Chinese GDP is about three quarters that of the USA with trend growth significantly higher.
You can argue which figures are more fake but the economies are of broadly comparable size and bigger than the next one.
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.
Eventually everything will move to Google/Apple/X Wallet but in my wallet
National Trust, Costco, Yorkshire Wildlife Park all have cards which don't have digital forms. Also needed a physical debit card for the plumber's cash withdrawal.
Tax dodging plumber? And why do you need to keep the card about your person? Mine are all stuffed in a drawer at home.
Plumber's taxes are his responsibility. Tbh I don't generally head out and about with it unless I need it for a specific purpose, just saying that at the moment having a wallet is useful in life.
Go cold turkey. Go cashless. I’ve been cash free for almost a decade now. Trust me. You will never look back.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
I'd remind her of a rather unwise fellow who, over a decade ago, said that there would be no lorry drivers in a decade because of autonomous vehicles.
Some posters have a rather poor history of predictions, however much they hype themselves (and their predictions) up.
See also:
• China will be the world’s biggest economy in five years (predicted five years ago, over and over again on here)
• Liz Truss will surprise on the upside
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.
Eventually everything will move to Google/Apple/X Wallet but in my wallet
National Trust, Costco, Yorkshire Wildlife Park all have cards which don't have digital forms. Also needed a physical debit card for the plumber's cash withdrawal.
Tax dodging plumber? And why do you need to keep the card about your person? Mine are all stuffed in a drawer at home.
Plumber's taxes are his responsibility. Tbh I don't generally head out and about with it unless I need it for a specific purpose, just saying that at the moment having a wallet is useful in life.
Go cold turkey. Go cashless. I’ve been cash free for almost a decade now. Trust me. You will never look back.
I generally do, but we've only got one local chinese that needs cash and I also enjoy having a leak free house. So occasional cash it is.
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.”
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
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.
Fake news.
Sure. All these GDP figures are fake. Nevertheless China is a US scale power both economically and militarily because it also has a US scale economy.
Sorry, no.
Its GDP is nowhere near that of the US. You can argue the toss on other measures, but GDP? Nope.
You are reduced to quibbling on this.
Leon probably couldn't properly define GDP if he put a day's work into it*. He was quite clearly arguing about broad economic heft, and in those terms he was not wrong.
As I noted upthread, the more interesting question is whether China can maintain its current status.
*He probably could, but he'd get bored after 20 minutes.
I can see my action items for today are not going to get done. I'm watching deer in my garden. This is the first time in a while. We used to get a regular visitor but one day he turned up with a head wound full of green bottles and maggots and he was so docile he let me catch him. I sat with him for a couple of hours waiting for a deer charity to turn up, but on inspection of the wound they shot him.
Sorry that went from joyous to sad.
LOL very funny. I have had, on various facebook groups, people asking where they should take a wounded pigeon that they have found in their garden.
Funny? A pigeon I would dispatch with a blow to the head and leave for the foxes, but a deer? You would leave it to suffer for days rather than getting it treated or destroyed humanely. It has no predators here to dispatch it quickly. I can't believe you would be that cruel when there is something you can do about 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
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?
Tell her to separate out issues she can control from issues she can't. If (big if) translation goes extinct as a career, tough, you have no choice but to choose something else. But that does not render all modern languages at all universities either intrinsically or extrinsically useless. Quality of subject in itself, university and course matters much more.
In general it is a good idea to do something you love for its own sake, rather than something you don't like for reasons that may prove and illusion.
If she likes Classics, it would do no harm to her career prospects anyway. Whatever happens with AI (which even if only the least out there predictions come about, is going to be enormously disruptive).
Yes, I agree
She loves Classics - she would do it for fun if she could - so why not do that? It's still a degree, and it will be from a fine university
I hope she takes that course, but all I can do is gently advise
Of course lots of highly paid barristers and solicitors did classics and then the law conversion course, there are still jobs for classics teachers, especially in private schools as we as at top universities and archaeologists, archivists or museum curators and occasionally even PMs have done it do
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.”
It’s also based on a fake exchange rate
Looks like it's been floating naturally after fixes at 0.12 and 0.13 up to 2005 and during 2008 ?
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?
Tell her to separate out issues she can control from issues she can't. If (big if) translation goes extinct as a career, tough, you have no choice but to choose something else. But that does not render all modern languages at all universities either intrinsically or extrinsically useless. Quality of subject in itself, university and course matters much more.
In general it is a good idea to do something you love for its own sake, rather than something you don't like for reasons that may prove and illusion.
If she likes Classics, it would do no harm to her career prospects anyway. Whatever happens with AI (which even if only the least out there predictions come about, is going to be enormously disruptive).
Yes, I agree
She loves Classics - she would do it for fun if she could - so why not do that? It's still a degree, and it will be from a fine university
I hope she takes that course, but all I can do is gently advise
If she doesn't blag it like Boris, it's also pretty good training in how to think.
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
Yes I'd have thought the poorest Chinese were still poorer than the poorest Americans.
So perhaps (PP not nominal) GDP per capita gives the best measure of the overall material standard of living of a country's population.
I wonder who's globally top amongst non-small countries? Eg where are we? And how does China vs USA look on that metric?
Just noting that Galloway received fewer votes than did the second placed Tory candidate at the last general election.
Massive popular mandate it is not.
That kind of analysis didn’t go down well after the two by elections Labour won recently
Did anyone claim Labour had won some sort of massive mandate at them ?
As Galloway just did.
I can’t remember what Labour supporters said, they must have made some claim or other. But when I noted that they had received 5,000 votes less than at the GE in one of them, and added 100 in the other, whereas Blair’s party in 1996 was piling on thousands of new votes in by elections, it didn’t go down 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?
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
Yes I'd have thought the poorest Chinese were still poorer than the poorest Americans.
So perhaps (PP not nominal) GDP per capita gives the best measure of the overall material standard of living of a country's population.
I wonder who's globally top amongst non-small countries? Eg where are we? And how does China vs USA look on that metric?
It's notable that China is also not far behind the US in life expectancy and steadily closing the gap:
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
Indeedy- and not just the retired. All of us would benefit from that. And if AI is going to massively reduce the amount of work humans need to do, moving to a world of gentleman scholar-artists is one of the more wholesome outcomes.
One of the maddening things is that the bits of the education system that used to do those things pretty well and across the country- FE, Adult Education, the Open University- are basically on their last legs.
I actually did it when I was 35. Was betting at home and decided to do a university course to fill in the spare time. I did Humanities at Brighton, thinking it would reinforce my existing supposedly left wing views. I didn’t have the intention to change career on the back of it. Arrived just after voting for Gordon Brown in 2010 and left as a member of UKIP!
Didn’t finish the course in the end, but it was interesting to be back in the classroom.
Wasn't that analogous to the journey that Bjorn Lomborg made - started out by looking into the stats for climate change to confirm all the hoo-ha about it and ended up sceptical of many of the claims being made.
Yes, and he turned out to be entirely wrong in his own predictions. His predictions about the costs of renewable energy from a decade back are now just risible.
So according to Yougov Reform is now doing better even than UKIP did in 2015
But they never do well in actual elections. There is something odd about Reform’s VI numbers. I was an extremely enthusiastic Kipper in 2012- 2016, but can’t get worked up about REFUK at all. Maybe this plays into a kind of stupid appeal to tradition and authority, but what if REFUK won the GE, or were even the opposition and there was another pandemic?
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%.
Swing from Labour to Conservative I think you mean?
Just noting that Galloway received fewer votes than did the second placed Tory candidate at the last general election.
Massive popular mandate it is not.
That kind of analysis didn’t go down well after the two by elections Labour won recently
Did anyone claim Labour had won some sort of massive mandate at them ?
As Galloway just did.
I can’t remember what Labour supporters said, they must have made some claim or other. But when I noted that they had received 5,000 votes less than at the GE in one of them, and added 100 in the other, whereas Blair’s party in 1996 was piling on thousands of new votes in by elections, it didn’t go down well
Didn't bother me. But they were likely of slightly more predictive value than is Rochdale.
Let's see what happens to Galloway at the next election, shall we ?
I can see my action items for today are not going to get done. I'm watching deer in my garden. This is the first time in a while. We used to get a regular visitor but one day he turned up with a head wound full of green bottles and maggots and he was so docile he let me catch him. I sat with him for a couple of hours waiting for a deer charity to turn up, but on inspection of the wound they shot him.
Sorry that went from joyous to sad.
LOL very funny. I have had, on various facebook groups, people asking where they should take a wounded pigeon that they have found in their garden.
Funny? A pigeon I would dispatch with a blow to the head and leave for the foxes, but a deer? You would leave it to suffer for days rather than getting it treated or destroyed humanely. It has no predators here to dispatch it quickly. I can't believe you would be that cruel when there is something you can do about it.
Bloody hell, calm down sugartits. I thought your story was funny and then I segued into my own story which I thought was also funny.
Or to help you with comprehension:
I thought your story was funny. I have a story which I think is funny.
Isn't comprehension useful when contributing to and reading posts on PB.
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
Indeedy- and not just the retired. All of us would benefit from that. And if AI is going to massively reduce the amount of work humans need to do, moving to a world of gentleman scholar-artists is one of the more wholesome outcomes.
One of the maddening things is that the bits of the education system that used to do those things pretty well and across the country- FE, Adult Education, the Open University- are basically on their last legs.
I actually did it when I was 35. Was betting at home and decided to do a university course to fill in the spare time. I did Humanities at Brighton, thinking it would reinforce my existing supposedly left wing views. I didn’t have the intention to change career on the back of it. Arrived just after voting for Gordon Brown in 2010 and left as a member of UKIP!
Didn’t finish the course in the end, but it was interesting to be back in the classroom.
Wasn't that analogous to the journey that Bjorn Lomborg made - started out by looking into the stats for climate change to confirm all the hoo-ha about it and ended up sceptical of many of the claims being made.
Yes, and he turned out to be entirely wrong in his own predictions. His predictions about the costs of renewable energy from a decade back are now just risible.
What did he say and what happened.
Not surprised at all that predictions about a decade hence are wrong. Glad to see you appreciate how difficult predicting the future is.
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
Yes I'd have thought the poorest Chinese were still poorer than the poorest Americans.
So perhaps (PP not nominal) GDP per capita gives the best measure of the overall material standard of living of a country's population.
I wonder who's globally top amongst non-small countries? Eg where are we? And how does China vs USA look on that metric?
It's notable that China is also not far behind the US in life expectancy and steadily closing the gap:
As others have said, the problem is that you cannot trust figures from China. As with Russia from the 1960s to the 1980s, statistics frequently match what the rulers want to display, rather than the reality.
For instance, do you believe only ~60,000 people died of Covid in China?
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
I can see my action items for today are not going to get done. I'm watching deer in my garden. This is the first time in a while. We used to get a regular visitor but one day he turned up with a head wound full of green bottles and maggots and he was so docile he let me catch him. I sat with him for a couple of hours waiting for a deer charity to turn up, but on inspection of the wound they shot him.
Sorry that went from joyous to sad.
LOL very funny. I have had, on various facebook groups, people asking where they should take a wounded pigeon that they have found in their garden.
Funny? A pigeon I would dispatch with a blow to the head and leave for the foxes, but a deer? You would leave it to suffer for days rather than getting it treated or destroyed humanely. It has no predators here to dispatch it quickly. I can't believe you would be that cruel when there is something you can do about it.
Bloody hell, calm down sugartits. I thought your story was funny and then I segued into my own story which I thought was also funny.
Or to help you with comprehension:
I thought your story was funny. I have a story which I think is funny.
Isn't comprehension useful when contributing to and reading posts on PB.
Sorry if I completely misinterpreted @TOPPING although I don't understand what was funny in my post. It wasn't meant to be.
Turnout was 39.7% - very respectable for a by-election. So we can't really say it's because an abnormal number of people sat it out.
And all the theories about how people would vote Labour for the brand or because they hadn't been following the news, came to nothing
Unless people hadn't been following the news and voted against Labour (as they thought). It would be ironic if the guy ditched by Labour for being anti-semitic was not elected due to anti-semitic/pro palestine sentiment causing people to vote against Labour
So according to Yougov Reform is now doing better even than UKIP did in 2015
LLG:RefCon is now 60:34 vs 61:33 last time. Tories have been lucky so far never to drop below 20% and trigger another backbench panic. Galloway's win yesterday will have given them a bit of (false) comfort too.
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
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
Indeedy- and not just the retired. All of us would benefit from that. And if AI is going to massively reduce the amount of work humans need to do, moving to a world of gentleman scholar-artists is one of the more wholesome outcomes.
One of the maddening things is that the bits of the education system that used to do those things pretty well and across the country- FE, Adult Education, the Open University- are basically on their last legs.
I actually did it when I was 35. Was betting at home and decided to do a university course to fill in the spare time. I did Humanities at Brighton, thinking it would reinforce my existing supposedly left wing views. I didn’t have the intention to change career on the back of it. Arrived just after voting for Gordon Brown in 2010 and left as a member of UKIP!
Didn’t finish the course in the end, but it was interesting to be back in the classroom.
Blimey. My colleagues in the woke lefty brainwashing academic cabal (Brighton branch) did a shit job then, didn't they?
We will look for learnings and endeavour to do better!
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
Indeedy- and not just the retired. All of us would benefit from that. And if AI is going to massively reduce the amount of work humans need to do, moving to a world of gentleman scholar-artists is one of the more wholesome outcomes.
One of the maddening things is that the bits of the education system that used to do those things pretty well and across the country- FE, Adult Education, the Open University- are basically on their last legs.
I actually did it when I was 35. Was betting at home and decided to do a university course to fill in the spare time. I did Humanities at Brighton, thinking it would reinforce my existing supposedly left wing views. I didn’t have the intention to change career on the back of it. Arrived just after voting for Gordon Brown in 2010 and left as a member of UKIP!
Didn’t finish the course in the end, but it was interesting to be back in the classroom.
Wasn't that analogous to the journey that Bjorn Lomborg made - started out by looking into the stats for climate change to confirm all the hoo-ha about it and ended up sceptical of many of the claims being made.
Yes, and he turned out to be entirely wrong in his own predictions. His predictions about the costs of renewable energy from a decade back are now just risible.
What did he say and what happened.
Not surprised at all that predictions about a decade hence are wrong. Glad to see you appreciate how difficult predicting the future is.
Especially so when, like Lomberg, you have a poor understanding of the underlying issues and instead rely completely on naive statistical analysis and extrapolation.
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
Indeedy- and not just the retired. All of us would benefit from that. And if AI is going to massively reduce the amount of work humans need to do, moving to a world of gentleman scholar-artists is one of the more wholesome outcomes.
One of the maddening things is that the bits of the education system that used to do those things pretty well and across the country- FE, Adult Education, the Open University- are basically on their last legs.
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
Indeedy- and not just the retired. All of us would benefit from that. And if AI is going to massively reduce the amount of work humans need to do, moving to a world of gentleman scholar-artists is one of the more wholesome outcomes.
One of the maddening things is that the bits of the education system that used to do those things pretty well and across the country- FE, Adult Education, the Open University- are basically on their last legs.
I actually did it when I was 35. Was betting at home and decided to do a university course to fill in the spare time. I did Humanities at Brighton, thinking it would reinforce my existing supposedly left wing views. I didn’t have the intention to change career on the back of it. Arrived just after voting for Gordon Brown in 2010 and left as a member of UKIP!
Didn’t finish the course in the end, but it was interesting to be back in the classroom.
Wasn't that analogous to the journey that Bjorn Lomborg made - started out by looking into the stats for climate change to confirm all the hoo-ha about it and ended up sceptical of many of the claims being made.
Yes, and he turned out to be entirely wrong in his own predictions. His predictions about the costs of renewable energy from a decade back are now just risible.
What did he say and what happened.
Not surprised at all that predictions about a decade hence are wrong. Glad to see you appreciate how difficult predicting the future is.
The rapidly falling costs of renewables was one of the easier ones, though. He was professing a similar certainty to the predictions he was critiquing. And he's turned out to be wrong.
I don't have a problem with genuine scepticism - as you say, predictions is difficult. But he was selling his own prospectus.
Comments
One of the maddening things is that the bits of the education system that used to do those things pretty well and across the country- FE, Adult Education, the Open University- are basically on their last legs.
In general it is a good idea to do something you love for its own sake, rather than something you don't like for reasons that may prove and illusion.
Farrukh Najeeb Husain directed his ire at Jewish barrister Simon Myerson KC and Jewish Times journalist Hugo Rifkind. In the posts he called Rifkind a “Zionist pig” and said that Myerson “wreaks [sic] of white privilege”.
He also referred to Israel as “ShitRael” and asked Rifkind if he was “just mentally retarded as a racist?”
Bevan Brittan, where Husain is understood to have worked as a self-employed contractor in 2021, reported the immigration and employment lawyer to the SRA for his posts.
At his SDT hearing Husain argued that he was anti-Zionist and simply opposed to the state of Israel, rather than antisemitic, and that he had drafted his tweets poorly and hastily.
But the regulator said he appeared “to conflate antisemitism, anti-Zionism and opposition to the Israeli government” and had ended up “demonstrating hostility towards Jews because they are Jewish”.
Husain represented himself during the proceedings but rather lost his rag with the SRA, and with Capsticks, which acted for the regulator at the tribunal, and with Campaign Against Antisemitism, which testified on the SRA’s behalf.
The lawyer accused the SRA of “weaponising new antisemitism” and of being “in bed” with Campaign Against Antisemitism. He also claimed that Capsticks barrister Louise Culleton was a British “imperialist” who “bang[ed] on about the Holocaust because [she] wants to hide [her] country’s own crimes”.
At other points Husain asserted that Myerson was a “fascist”, and claimed the expert witness from Campaign Against Antisemitism was himself an antisemite who was “engaging in the antisemitic trope that there is a collection of Jews who are self-haters, who have turned against their nation and who are spouting conspiracy theories”.
He also went after the SRA’s investigating officer, sending “offensive emails when he was displeased with the course of the SRA’s investigation”.
In one he accused the officer of being "a Zionist apologist and fascist like ur organisation" and claimed the officer was “a Sikh Punjabi” who was “angry" because of tweets made "by me about the Sikh national hero Ranjit Singh as a rapist of Muslim women”.
The tribunal found some, though not all, of Husain’s offensive or inappropriate tweets were antisemitic, but denied the SRA’s application for costs.
https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/lawyer-struck-sending-antisemitic-tweets-while-bevan-brittan
To mark Holocaust Memorial Day, Macfarlanes held an event with a guest speaker from the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET), whom ROF is not naming.
The talk was “very interesting to start with”, said a source, as the speaker, who is in his 90s, described being interned by the Nazis in a concentration camp where he worked as slave labour until he was liberated in 1945.
Things “took a turn for the worse” when he strayed outside the talk's remit and expounded on current events, referring to pro-Palestine protesters as “mobs” who were “all refugees who weren’t even born here” and had been “brainwashed by social media”.
“Be careful of these Islamists… these lot are coming for you and British democracy once they are done with us”, he allegedly also said, claiming that “All these wealthy Arabs are funding these universities which are brainwashing people”.
A source said that “People sat and listened throughout but afterwards quite a few attendees were visibly upset”.
Now the firm has issued an apology, emailing Macs staff to say that “Towards the end of the session, [the speaker] made unplanned comments expressing his personal views about the contemporary political landscape and used some offensive language”.
“These comments came as a surprise to both the firm and the Holocaust Educational Trust. They do not reflect the firm's view and we apologise for the offence and hurt which we know was caused by this”, it said.
https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/exclusive-macfarlanes-apologises-external-speakers-unplanned-remarks-about-palestine
FWIW if I did have a child intent on doing foreign languages so as to pursue a career in translation I WOULD say something: I would tell them they are delusional. 99% of translation jobs are going to disappear, they already are disappearing
By all means study a foreign lingo as an act of love, of expanding your mind, of encountering a new culture - all fine. Like learning the viola. But the idea it will neatly lead to a well paying job as a translator is now farcical
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims."
https://www.politico.eu/article/translators-translation-european-union-eu-autmation-machine-learning-ai-artificial-intelligence-translators-jobs/
Recommended.
Imagine that Britain halved public service spending (or more) and spent that on the military. which would mean about 10x the military spending we have now. We'd have bigger armed forces than Russia, in equipment terms.
That's basically how Russia works - plus a pile of left over, rusty stuff from The Days of Empire.
To put it another way, if the Polish plans to expand their military go through, they will have a larger, better equipped army (in terms of equipment) than Russia. And these plans are considered economically quite feasible.
Proper credit card for the pub
Hard copy ticket for the train
Phone for posting on PB 👍
I'd also recommend doing as many side activities and non-core subject modules as you can. Some unis are setting up the equivalent of Maker Spaces (UCL did) - learn to weld and play with a lathe, while doing your degree in French.
The sooner that is replaced by AI the better.
I just watched your video, they clearly talk about "rolling back" Nordstream in vehement terms, and the dude makes heavy hints about going beyond "suspension", if Russia invades Ukraine, and instead "ending Nordstream permanently" - ie blowing the fucker up
Also needed a physical debit card for the plumber's cash withdrawal.
In a year or less so many of these vids will become plausibly deniable. Scary
Verifiable truth will not exist
At the moment, what many companies face is not a surplus of skilled labour, but a real shortage.
AI is an opportunity not a curse. Many people work long and stressful days, caused by a lack of productivity and repetitive administration. AI fits neatly into this space, freeing up time and resource that can be better spent on upskilling people.
If the world moves to a place where people are working shorter, more productive and more satisfying days then I do not think that in and of itself will be a bad thing. There will be pain points as there are at any point of change, the key there will be identifying the way the market trends are going and making sure people are protected through access to training and development.
But it was a valid question asked. What will Galloway bring to the debate? Will he transform the way that Parliament deals with the war? With whom will he forge alliances? The SNP? Labour? The Tories?
Galloway is a peacock. With the emphasis on the second syllable.
Nothing can replace coffee and chocolate (apologies to @Cyclefree ).
I actually did it when I was 35. Was betting at home and decided to do a university course to fill in the spare time. I did Humanities at Brighton, thinking it would reinforce my existing supposedly left wing views. I didn’t have the intention to change career on the back of it. Arrived just after voting for Gordon Brown in 2010 and left as a member of UKIP!
Didn’t finish the course in the end, but it was interesting to be back in the classroom.
Being the world's biggest trader itself gives China huge global power, you don't want to upset Beijing because it might stop importing your coal/machines/luxury goods, and then your economy is fucked
Its GDP is nowhere near that of the US. You can argue the toss on other measures, but GDP? Nope.
You study languages because you have a fascination with other cultures. Which talks to your point: study what interests you.
Massive popular mandate it is not.
Sorry that went from joyous to sad.
She loves Classics - she would do it for fun if she could - so why not do that? It's still a degree, and it will be from a fine university
I hope she takes that course, but all I can do is gently advise
You can argue which figures are more fake but the economies are of broadly comparable size and bigger than the next one.
Leon probably couldn't properly define GDP if he put a day's work into it*. He was quite clearly arguing about broad economic heft, and in those terms he was not wrong.
As I noted upthread, the more interesting question is whether China can maintain its current status.
*He probably could, but he'd get bored after 20 minutes.
Labour asked “voters to swear on the Quran that they would support the Labour candidate.”
Victorious MP for Rochdale George Galloway makes an extraordinary claim to #TimesRadio.
@GeorgeGalloway | @DarrylMorris
https://x.com/timesradio/status/1763506886827995441?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
As Galloway just did.
Westminster voting intention:
LAB: 46% (-)
CON: 20% (-)
REF: 14% (+1)
LDEM: 7% (-2)
GRN: 7% (+1)
via
@YouGov
, 28 - 29 Feb
Do you think 7.2 RMB /USD is wrong ?
So perhaps (PP not nominal) GDP per capita gives the best measure of the overall material standard of living of a country's population.
I wonder who's globally top amongst non-small countries? Eg where are we? And how does China vs USA look on that metric?
https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/
His predictions about the costs of renewable energy from a decade back are now just risible.
2016, but can’t get worked up about REFUK at all. Maybe this plays into a kind of stupid appeal to tradition and authority, but what if REFUK won the GE, or were even the opposition and there was another pandemic?
But they were likely of slightly more predictive value than is Rochdale.
Let's see what happens to Galloway at the next election, shall we ?
Or to help you with comprehension:
I thought your story was funny.
I have a story which I think is funny.
Isn't comprehension useful when contributing to and reading posts on PB.
Not surprised at all that predictions about a decade hence are wrong. Glad to see you appreciate how difficult predicting the future is.
For instance, do you believe only ~60,000 people died of Covid in China?
Tories have been lucky so far never to drop below 20% and trigger another backbench panic. Galloway's win yesterday will have given them a bit of (false) comfort too.
I can’t quite put my finger on it.
We will look for learnings and endeavour to do better!
He was professing a similar certainty to the predictions he was critiquing. And he's turned out to be wrong.
I don't have a problem with genuine scepticism - as you say, predictions is difficult. But he was selling his own prospectus.