robert shrimsley @robertshrimsley · 2h The presumptive US ambassador to Israel totally vindicating those Gaza supporters who couldn't bring themselves to vote for Harris
But surely you have to be something of a numpty to believe in supernatural events whichever background you come from.
I think I was aged about 3 when I realised that religion was complete bollocks...about the same time when I learnt about Santa Claus. It amazes me that anyone older than the age of 3 still believes in any of this nonsense.....
My daughter went to a CofE school. I remember she had a falling out with one of her friends once over a stuffed toy. Said friend claimed that the toy had been made for her by God. My daughter read the label which said it was made in China.
Course, my daughter is now a weekly churchgoer, so it does something for her even if she doesn't believe in the omnipotent creator bit.
You asked a very valid polite question about gender on the previous thread.
Can I suggest that you wait until the outcome of the FWS appeal to the Supreme Court later this month because that judgment, whatever it is, will set out what the law currently means and may or may not solve the issues or make them worse.
There is plenty of detailed legal analysis of the legal issues the court will have to determine, much of it quite dry and complex. The proper approach to statutory interpretation is not exactly a topic to set the pulse racing. If you want links to that analysis and indeed the published legal arguments by some of the parties let me know.
I also think it unwise to rely on US statistics about child gender surgery for what is happening here because the approach there is very different to the approach taken here and the statistics and medical information / approach need to be carefully analysed. The Cass Report is probably the best starting point for anyone interested in the U.K. position. There is also a recent Family Court decision which is illuminating in this regard.
The position in relation to women's rights is best approached by reading the now significant number of judgments by Employment Tribunals on cases brought by women. Again the judgments are long and often very technical but well worth reading if you want to understand the legal issues and why so many women have been winning such cases.
The interesting question is why, pace the CoE, so many institutions are making the same mistakes and not learning any lessons.
As to which see about a million previous posts from me ...... 😀
Did you feel there was consensus we could come to from my points, namely:
there are only two (biological) sexes;
there should be an additional category or categories for trans people that protect them separately from men/women in their own spaces (loos etc.) and also in things like sports;
that trans people should be allowed to live freely;
that trans people are people;
that people under 18 should not be having life altering surgery;
that people over the age of 18 should be able to have life altering surgery should they deem it necessary (and with the appropriate safeguards applied);
that if, for example, a trans person wishes to be called "she" despite their biological sex being male (or vice versa), that this should be respected but if incorrect, one should not be treated as a bigot - this should be much the same as getting somebody's name wrong.
Can this be a position from which the country/the world come to a settled view and move on?
Be interesting to know exactly what it was that was tweeted and the fully story.
I do find the whole idea of non-crime hate incident worrying creep. You have either allegedly committed a crime, in which the police should be investigating, or you haven't, and they shouldn't.
Its a bit like the recent cases of people being offensive at the football. They are arseholes, but they aren't unique in that, being an arsehole and disrespectful shouldn't be a crime, rather society can decide for themselves what they think about such people.
Be interesting to know exactly what it was that was tweeted and the fully story.
I do find the whole idea of non-crime hate incident worrying creep. You have either allegedly committed a crime, in which the police should be investigating, or you haven't, and they shouldn't.
Its a bit like the recent cases of people being offensive at the football. They are arseholes, but they aren't unique in that, being an arsehole and disrespectful shouldn't be a crime, rather society can decide for themselves what they think about such people.
Supposedly they are needed to help the police target resources.
NCHI recording stems from the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. The 1999 Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report called for Codes of Practice to create “a comprehensive system of reporting and recording of all racist incidents and crimes”. NCHI recording has since expanded to cover all the protected characteristics covered by hate crime laws in England and Wales: race, religion, disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity. This data is vital for helping the police to understand where they must target resources to prevent serious crimes which may later occur.
You asked a very valid polite question about gender on the previous thread.
Can I suggest that you wait until the outcome of the FWS appeal to the Supreme Court later this month because that judgment, whatever it is, will set out what the law currently means and may or may not solve the issues or make them worse.
There is plenty of detailed legal analysis of the legal issues the court will have to determine, much of it quite dry and complex. The proper approach to statutory interpretation is not exactly a topic to set the pulse racing. If you want links to that analysis and indeed the published legal arguments by some of the parties let me know.
I also think it unwise to rely on US statistics about child gender surgery for what is happening here because the approach there is very different to the approach taken here and the statistics and medical information / approach need to be carefully analysed. The Cass Report is probably the best starting point for anyone interested in the U.K. position. There is also a recent Family Court decision which is illuminating in this regard.
The position in relation to women's rights is best approached by reading the now significant number of judgments by Employment Tribunals on cases brought by women. Again the judgments are long and often very technical but well worth reading if you want to understand the legal issues and why so many women have been winning such cases.
The interesting question is why, pace the CoE, so many institutions are making the same mistakes and not learning any lessons.
As to which see about a million previous posts from me ...... 😀
Did you feel there was consensus we could come to from my points, namely:
there are only two (biological) sexes;
there should be an additional category or categories for trans people that protect them separately from men/women in their own spaces (loos etc.) and also in things like sports;
that trans people should be allowed to live freely;
that trans people are people;
that people under 18 should not be having life altering surgery;
that people over the age of 18 should be able to have life altering surgery should they deem it necessary (and with the appropriate safeguards applied);
that if, for example, a trans person wishes to be called "she" despite their biological sex being male (or vice versa), that this should be respected but if incorrect, one should not be treated as a bigot - this should be much the same as getting somebody's name wrong.
Can this be a position from which the country/the world come to a settled view and move on?
Part of the problem with this debate is framing.
In progressive thought, protecting the rights of a protected group/class is an absolute. The problem of when two such groups rights interact is rarely examined.
In this case, there are the rights of women vs the rights of trans.
Some claim there is no clash. Which is hard to reconcile with the heated debate.
The only possible end is compromise. Which isn’t a dirty word.
You asked a very valid polite question about gender on the previous thread.
Can I suggest that you wait until the outcome of the FWS appeal to the Supreme Court later this month because that judgment, whatever it is, will set out what the law currently means and may or may not solve the issues or make them worse.
There is plenty of detailed legal analysis of the legal issues the court will have to determine, much of it quite dry and complex. The proper approach to statutory interpretation is not exactly a topic to set the pulse racing. If you want links to that analysis and indeed the published legal arguments by some of the parties let me know.
I also think it unwise to rely on US statistics about child gender surgery for what is happening here because the approach there is very different to the approach taken here and the statistics and medical information / approach need to be carefully analysed. The Cass Report is probably the best starting point for anyone interested in the U.K. position. There is also a recent Family Court decision which is illuminating in this regard.
The position in relation to women's rights is best approached by reading the now significant number of judgments by Employment Tribunals on cases brought by women. Again the judgments are long and often very technical but well worth reading if you want to understand the legal issues and why so many women have been winning such cases.
The interesting question is why, pace the CoE, so many institutions are making the same mistakes and not learning any lessons.
As to which see about a million previous posts from me ...... 😀
Did you feel there was consensus we could come to from my points, namely:
there are only two (biological) sexes;
there should be an additional category or categories for trans people that protect them separately from men/women in their own spaces (loos etc.) and also in things like sports;
that trans people should be allowed to live freely;
that trans people are people;
that people under 18 should not be having life altering surgery;
that people over the age of 18 should be able to have life altering surgery should they deem it necessary (and with the appropriate safeguards applied);
that if a trans person wishes to be called "she" despite their biological sex being male, that this should be respected but if incorrect, one should not be treated as a bigot - this should be much the same as getting somebody's name wrong.
Can this be a position from which the country/the world come to a settled view and move on?
I do not wish to be rude but until I know what the SC says there is very little point you and I agreeing any consensus because the law and the political consequences of that will determine the consensus, if any.
From a personal view I pretty much agree with what you say save for the last point. Calling someone by their preferred name is polite but no-one has the right to demand what people call them when they are not present. That strikes me as very narcissistic and can be pretty coercive. Nor is it right to force someone to lie. That can feel like an attempt to control and dominate a woman. It is important to call a transidentified man ie a dysphoric man a man because that explains why he is not allowed in a woman's space. Accuracy matters - in law, in statistics, in evidence etc.,. Seeking to override a woman's gut instincts - when she sees a male stranger in an unexpected place - is wrong because those instincts are necessary to keep her safe. Undermining those is what predators and those enabling them seek to do. That is quite wrong.
In a social setting where you know the person calling a dysphoric man you know "she" may matter less and be fine. So it is context specific and must be freely chosen. People must be free to decide for themselves without being accused in various vile ways for not speaking how others want them to speak.
Between you and I we may achieve a consensus. We do not rule the world, though.
You asked a very valid polite question about gender on the previous thread.
Can I suggest that you wait until the outcome of the FWS appeal to the Supreme Court later this month because that judgment, whatever it is, will set out what the law currently means and may or may not solve the issues or make them worse.
There is plenty of detailed legal analysis of the legal issues the court will have to determine, much of it quite dry and complex. The proper approach to statutory interpretation is not exactly a topic to set the pulse racing. If you want links to that analysis and indeed the published legal arguments by some of the parties let me know.
I also think it unwise to rely on US statistics about child gender surgery for what is happening here because the approach there is very different to the approach taken here and the statistics and medical information / approach need to be carefully analysed. The Cass Report is probably the best starting point for anyone interested in the U.K. position. There is also a recent Family Court decision which is illuminating in this regard.
The position in relation to women's rights is best approached by reading the now significant number of judgments by Employment Tribunals on cases brought by women. Again the judgments are long and often very technical but well worth reading if you want to understand the legal issues and why so many women have been winning such cases.
The interesting question is why, pace the CoE, so many institutions are making the same mistakes and not learning any lessons.
As to which see about a million previous posts from me ...... 😀
Did you feel there was consensus we could come to from my points, namely:
there are only two (biological) sexes;
there should be an additional category or categories for trans people that protect them separately from men/women in their own spaces (loos etc.) and also in things like sports;
that trans people should be allowed to live freely;
that trans people are people;
that people under 18 should not be having life altering surgery;
that people over the age of 18 should be able to have life altering surgery should they deem it necessary (and with the appropriate safeguards applied);
that if, for example, a trans person wishes to be called "she" despite their biological sex being male (or vice versa), that this should be respected but if incorrect, one should not be treated as a bigot - this should be much the same as getting somebody's name wrong.
Can this be a position from which the country/the world come to a settled view and move on?
Part of the problem with this debate is framing.
In progressive thought, protecting the rights of a protected group/class is an absolute. The problem of when two such groups rights interact is rarely examined.
In this case, there are the rights of women vs the rights of trans.
Some claim there is no clash. Which is hard to reconcile with the heated debate.
The only possible end is compromise. Which isn’t a dirty word.
I think I am proposing some kind of middle ground, am I not? Do you object to what I say, I think it's a fair compromise, no?
You asked a very valid polite question about gender on the previous thread.
Can I suggest that you wait until the outcome of the FWS appeal to the Supreme Court later this month because that judgment, whatever it is, will set out what the law currently means and may or may not solve the issues or make them worse.
There is plenty of detailed legal analysis of the legal issues the court will have to determine, much of it quite dry and complex. The proper approach to statutory interpretation is not exactly a topic to set the pulse racing. If you want links to that analysis and indeed the published legal arguments by some of the parties let me know.
I also think it unwise to rely on US statistics about child gender surgery for what is happening here because the approach there is very different to the approach taken here and the statistics and medical information / approach need to be carefully analysed. The Cass Report is probably the best starting point for anyone interested in the U.K. position. There is also a recent Family Court decision which is illuminating in this regard.
The position in relation to women's rights is best approached by reading the now significant number of judgments by Employment Tribunals on cases brought by women. Again the judgments are long and often very technical but well worth reading if you want to understand the legal issues and why so many women have been winning such cases.
The interesting question is why, pace the CoE, so many institutions are making the same mistakes and not learning any lessons.
As to which see about a million previous posts from me ...... 😀
Did you feel there was consensus we could come to from my points, namely:
there are only two (biological) sexes;
there should be an additional category or categories for trans people that protect them separately from men/women in their own spaces (loos etc.) and also in things like sports;
that trans people should be allowed to live freely;
that trans people are people;
that people under 18 should not be having life altering surgery;
that people over the age of 18 should be able to have life altering surgery should they deem it necessary (and with the appropriate safeguards applied);
that if, for example, a trans person wishes to be called "she" despite their biological sex being male (or vice versa), that this should be respected but if incorrect, one should not be treated as a bigot - this should be much the same as getting somebody's name wrong.
Can this be a position from which the country/the world come to a settled view and move on?
Part of the problem with this debate is framing.
In progressive thought, protecting the rights of a protected group/class is an absolute. The problem of when two such groups rights interact is rarely examined.
In this case, there are the rights of women vs the rights of trans.
Some claim there is no clash. Which is hard to reconcile with the heated debate.
The only possible end is compromise. Which isn’t a dirty word.
I think I am proposing some kind of middle ground, am I not? Do you object to what I say, I think it's a fair compromise, no?
The question is whether the compromise is equally hated by both sides.
Some interesting numbers from Yougov on Welby today.
Reform voters despise him, just 1% have a favourable view of him and 54% unfavourable as do pensioners nearly as much, 54% of over 65s seeing him unfavourably and just 5% favourably.
Labour voters seem to like him a bit more though, 9% view him favourably and 27% unfavourably as do young people, 11% of 18 to 24s view him favourably and just 10% unfavourably. 7% of Tory and LD voters view him favourably but neither view him as negatively as Reform supporters do https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/2024/11/12/feea0/1
You asked a very valid polite question about gender on the previous thread.
Can I suggest that you wait until the outcome of the FWS appeal to the Supreme Court later this month because that judgment, whatever it is, will set out what the law currently means and may or may not solve the issues or make them worse.
There is plenty of detailed legal analysis of the legal issues the court will have to determine, much of it quite dry and complex. The proper approach to statutory interpretation is not exactly a topic to set the pulse racing. If you want links to that analysis and indeed the published legal arguments by some of the parties let me know.
I also think it unwise to rely on US statistics about child gender surgery for what is happening here because the approach there is very different to the approach taken here and the statistics and medical information / approach need to be carefully analysed. The Cass Report is probably the best starting point for anyone interested in the U.K. position. There is also a recent Family Court decision which is illuminating in this regard.
The position in relation to women's rights is best approached by reading the now significant number of judgments by Employment Tribunals on cases brought by women. Again the judgments are long and often very technical but well worth reading if you want to understand the legal issues and why so many women have been winning such cases.
The interesting question is why, pace the CoE, so many institutions are making the same mistakes and not learning any lessons.
As to which see about a million previous posts from me ...... 😀
Did you feel there was consensus we could come to from my points, namely:
there are only two (biological) sexes;
there should be an additional category or categories for trans people that protect them separately from men/women in their own spaces (loos etc.) and also in things like sports;
that trans people should be allowed to live freely;
that trans people are people;
that people under 18 should not be having life altering surgery;
that people over the age of 18 should be able to have life altering surgery should they deem it necessary (and with the appropriate safeguards applied);
that if a trans person wishes to be called "she" despite their biological sex being male, that this should be respected but if incorrect, one should not be treated as a bigot - this should be much the same as getting somebody's name wrong.
Can this be a position from which the country/the world come to a settled view and move on?
I do not wish to be rude but until I know what the SC says there is very little point you and I agreeing any consensus because the law and the political consequences of that will determine the consensus, if any.
From a personal view I pretty much agree with what you say save for the last point. Calling someone by their preferred name is polite but no-one has the right to demand what people call them when they are not present. That strikes me as very narcissistic and can be pretty coercive. Nor is it right to force someone to lie. That can feel like an attempt to control and dominate a woman. It is important to call a transidentified man ie a dysphoric man a man because that explains why he is not allowed in a woman's space. Accuracy matters - in law, in statistics, in evidence etc.,. Seeking to override a woman's gut instincts - when she sees a male stranger in an unexpected place - is wrong because those instincts are necessary to keep her safe. Undermining those is what predators and those enabling them seek to do. That is quite wrong.
In a social setting where you know the person calling a dysphoric man you know "she" may matter less and be fine. So it is context specific and must be freely chosen. People must be free to decide for themselves without being accused in various vile ways for not speaking how others want them to speak.
Between you and I we may achieve a consensus. We do not rule the world, though.
I am not sure my final point came across correctly or perhaps it was misunderstood?
I am saying, if for example, somebody is identifying as a "he" but is biologically a she and I call them "she" and they say "actually I am a he", I should not be treated as a bigot for getting it wrong.
But if I get it wrong repeatedly, I'm not a bigot just (socially) I approach it much the same as getting somebody's name wrong, it's rude/sloppy/bad manners. Does that make more sense to you?
I wasn't wishing to say, if you see somebody and you believe/know they are one sex or the other, you should have this overridden especially when it comes to single sex spaces. But I think the issue of single sex spaces should primarily be resolved by having spaces for trans people specifically. In the case it's not, I don't disagree with what you are saying but that isn't really the point I was trying to make.
I am not sure I understand your point about referring to people when they are not there though. In a social setting if somebody kept getting my name wrong and I wasn't there, I would hope they would correct others?
Perhaps using a name was trivialising something which I am not trying to, so I hope you would read it in that context.
President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House already carried the potential for sweeping changes to the Federal Reserve. But now a growing question is not how the central bank will operate under Trump but if it’ll continue to operate at all.
Elon Musk, a key Trump backer who is expected to have considerable sway in helping shape Trump’s policies, included a “100” emoji while resharing Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah’s post on X calling for abolishing the Fed.
“The Executive Branch should be under the direction of the president,” Lee said Thursday in a post on X, hours after Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters he wouldn’t resign if Trump asked him to. “The Federal Reserve is one of many examples of how we’ve deviated from the Constitution in that regard,” Lee added. “Yet another reason why we should #EndTheFed.”
@Cyclefree without trying to get you to speculate, would you be able to briefly summarise the two sides of the case for which we are awaiting a judgment and what you think deciding one way or the other would mean? I have read it a little bit but I am not sure I totally understand it.
President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House already carried the potential for sweeping changes to the Federal Reserve. But now a growing question is not how the central bank will operate under Trump but if it’ll continue to operate at all.
Elon Musk, a key Trump backer who is expected to have considerable sway in helping shape Trump’s policies, included a “100” emoji while resharing Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah’s post on X calling for abolishing the Fed.
“The Executive Branch should be under the direction of the president,” Lee said Thursday in a post on X, hours after Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters he wouldn’t resign if Trump asked him to. “The Federal Reserve is one of many examples of how we’ve deviated from the Constitution in that regard,” Lee added. “Yet another reason why we should #EndTheFed.”
Trump an interest rates expert of course by his own admission
So something I wanted to investigate today was what signals there were available before the election that showed a Trump wave and I think it was on YouTube. I went back an looked at video metrics with a broadly pro-Trump vs pro-Harris and the difference was massive.
What I found was that videos on the pro-Trump side had huge subscribers to views ratios, you'd get videos from people with just 50k subscribers getting 2-3m views and the larger content creators with between 1m and 2m subs were easily doing over their total subscriber numbers, that to me says there's a level of grassroots interest in the content and generally these videos are pulling in lots of new eyeballs who aren't necessarily interested in politics or Trump, it's likely that they've seen the video shared somewhere in group chat or by some personality on Instagram or tiktok.
After watching the videos what also struck me is that 9/10 of them are either someone speaking into a camera from their bedroom just chatting about Trump and going through some of the new news or a react video or they're a guy with a camera man and a mic talking to real people getting real life opinions on screen, obviously they're edited so I can't take what was on screen as the full truth but the production values were very, err, rustic. What also surprised me was the sheer number of interviews with black and Latino people voting for Trump in working class areas and the reasons for those people voting for Trump all being broadly the same - jobs, prices, illegal immigrants.
On the flip side the Harris videos didn't have anything like those numbers/ratios. I would see a few videos that made it over 1m but it was a rarity and most often what you'd see is big content creators with 5-6m subscribers only getting 500-600k views for their uploads which is good but it seemed like they couldn't get beyond their core audience or even their whole audience. The other big difference was that the pro-Harris videos all had much higher production values, they almost felt like watching long form adverts and rarely did they go out and speak ordinary people. They tended to concentrate more on what Trump was saying or just acting as a mouthpiece for the campaign it felt like. Not a single one really disagreed with anything that Harris had put out and they all seemed extremely defferential to "Madame President" which almost felt like a running joke by the end of my watch of those videos.
Anyway, my takeaway is that YouTube, at least this time, gave us a window of what was happening on the ground, the subscribers to views ratios on videos is a good measure of how well content is getting to non-core audiences and on that measure pro-Trump content absolutely destroyed the Harris camp and on top I actually felt as though the pro-Trump content creators were much more racially diverse than the Harris ones who were almost exclusively white and middle class. The Trump content seemed to come from a lot more working class voices which are naturally more diverse.
One of the more interesting ones was a black guy who you can see in real time switch from Biden/Harris to Trump after going to Trump rallies as an observer and to conduct interviews with Trump supporters. He goes in expecting to be racially abused or physically threatened and at the first rally it's all high fives and "good to see you here, have a MAGA hat" etc... That guy has almost 2m (I suspect mostly black) subscribers and they all watched him become a Trump voter and the comments are all hugely supportive in all of the videos of him and of the Trump supporters who welcomed him with open arms.
I think in the run up to 2028 keeping a better eye on YouTube metrics will give us a very good picture of what's actually happening on the ground. I don't think we have an equivalent scene in the UK just yet but by the time the next election rolls around there could be.
But surely you have to be something of a numpty to believe in supernatural events whichever background you come from.
I think I was aged about 3 when I realised that religion was complete bollocks...about the same time when I learnt about Santa Claus. It amazes me that anyone older than the age of 3 still believes in any of this nonsense.....
My daughter went to a CofE school. I remember she had a falling out with one of her friends once over a stuffed toy. Said friend claimed that the toy had been made for her by God. My daughter read the label which said it was made in China.
Course, my daughter is now a weekly churchgoer, so it does something for her even if she doesn't believe in the omnipotent creator bit.
You asked a very valid polite question about gender on the previous thread.
Can I suggest that you wait until the outcome of the FWS appeal to the Supreme Court later this month because that judgment, whatever it is, will set out what the law currently means and may or may not solve the issues or make them worse.
There is plenty of detailed legal analysis of the legal issues the court will have to determine, much of it quite dry and complex. The proper approach to statutory interpretation is not exactly a topic to set the pulse racing. If you want links to that analysis and indeed the published legal arguments by some of the parties let me know.
I also think it unwise to rely on US statistics about child gender surgery for what is happening here because the approach there is very different to the approach taken here and the statistics and medical information / approach need to be carefully analysed. The Cass Report is probably the best starting point for anyone interested in the U.K. position. There is also a recent Family Court decision which is illuminating in this regard.
The position in relation to women's rights is best approached by reading the now significant number of judgments by Employment Tribunals on cases brought by women. Again the judgments are long and often very technical but well worth reading if you want to understand the legal issues and why so many women have been winning such cases.
The interesting question is why, pace the CoE, so many institutions are making the same mistakes and not learning any lessons.
As to which see about a million previous posts from me ...... 😀
Did you feel there was consensus we could come to from my points, namely:
there are only two (biological) sexes;
there should be an additional category or categories for trans people that protect them separately from men/women in their own spaces (loos etc.) and also in things like sports;
that trans people should be allowed to live freely;
that trans people are people;
that people under 18 should not be having life altering surgery;
that people over the age of 18 should be able to have life altering surgery should they deem it necessary (and with the appropriate safeguards applied);
that if, for example, a trans person wishes to be called "she" despite their biological sex being male (or vice versa), that this should be respected but if incorrect, one should not be treated as a bigot - this should be much the same as getting somebody's name wrong.
Can this be a position from which the country/the world come to a settled view and move on?
Part of the problem with this debate is framing.
In progressive thought, protecting the rights of a protected group/class is an absolute. The problem of when two such groups rights interact is rarely examined.
In this case, there are the rights of women vs the rights of trans.
Some claim there is no clash. Which is hard to reconcile with the heated debate.
The only possible end is compromise. Which isn’t a dirty word.
I think I am proposing some kind of middle ground, am I not? Do you object to what I say, I think it's a fair compromise, no?
The question is whether the compromise is equally hated by both sides.
That’s usually a good sign.
That is facile. A single sex space for women cannot be single sex if any sort of man is let in. So there can be no compromise there.
But the framing is important. There is no right for a man to be in a woman's space. The right of the transidentified man is (a) to be recognised as such - which is the case by virtue of the gender reassignment pc and (b) not to be exposed to the risk of attack in a men's space. That latter right is not dealt with by forcing women to accept a man in their space. It is dealt with by having spaces for such men eg unisex or gender neutral loos / prisons / services etc or ones specifically for such men eg rape crisis centres for them where they can be themselves and be safe. I would welcome that.
The problem arises because some "trans" people seem more intent on the denial of women's rights or on inserting themselves into spaces without their consent than in creating spaces for themselves. It is that insistence on denial of women's right to have boundaries and to consent which is the source of the aggro. That is very old-fashioned predatory male behaviour at worst and at best a rather narcissistic demand for self-validation at women's expense. No woman should be obliged to participate in that.
So something I wanted to investigate today was what signals there were available before the election that showed a Trump wave and I think it was on YouTube. I went back an looked at video metrics with a broadly pro-Trump vs pro-Harris and the difference was massive.
What I found was that videos on the pro-Trump side had huge subscribers to views ratios, you'd get videos from people with just 50k subscribers getting 2-3m views and the larger content creators with between 1m and 2m subs were easily doing over their total subscriber numbers, that to me says there's a level of grassroots interest in the content and generally these videos are pulling in lots of new eyeballs who aren't necessarily interested in politics or Trump, it's likely that they've seen the video shared somewhere in group chat or by some personality on Instagram or tiktok.
After watching the videos what also struck me is that 9/10 of them are either someone speaking into a camera from their bedroom just chatting about Trump and going through some of the new news or a react video or they're a guy with a camera man and a mic talking to real people getting real life opinions on screen, obviously they're edited so I can't take what was on screen as the full truth but the production values were very, err, rustic. What also surprised me was the sheer number of interviews with black and Latino people voting for Trump in working class areas and the reasons for those people voting for Trump all being broadly the same - jobs, prices, illegal immigrants.
...
The American right is very strong on YouTube. And of course the Daily Wire has turned into a huge operation, over 1 million paying subscribers.
Farage has been following a similar approach taping into YouTube, regularly gets 100k+ views on a video.
You asked a very valid polite question about gender on the previous thread.
Can I suggest that you wait until the outcome of the FWS appeal to the Supreme Court later this month because that judgment, whatever it is, will set out what the law currently means and may or may not solve the issues or make them worse.
There is plenty of detailed legal analysis of the legal issues the court will have to determine, much of it quite dry and complex. The proper approach to statutory interpretation is not exactly a topic to set the pulse racing. If you want links to that analysis and indeed the published legal arguments by some of the parties let me know.
I also think it unwise to rely on US statistics about child gender surgery for what is happening here because the approach there is very different to the approach taken here and the statistics and medical information / approach need to be carefully analysed. The Cass Report is probably the best starting point for anyone interested in the U.K. position. There is also a recent Family Court decision which is illuminating in this regard.
The position in relation to women's rights is best approached by reading the now significant number of judgments by Employment Tribunals on cases brought by women. Again the judgments are long and often very technical but well worth reading if you want to understand the legal issues and why so many women have been winning such cases.
The interesting question is why, pace the CoE, so many institutions are making the same mistakes and not learning any lessons.
As to which see about a million previous posts from me ...... 😀
Did you feel there was consensus we could come to from my points, namely:
there are only two (biological) sexes;
there should be an additional category or categories for trans people that protect them separately from men/women in their own spaces (loos etc.) and also in things like sports;
that trans people should be allowed to live freely;
that trans people are people;
that people under 18 should not be having life altering surgery;
that people over the age of 18 should be able to have life altering surgery should they deem it necessary (and with the appropriate safeguards applied);
that if a trans person wishes to be called "she" despite their biological sex being male, that this should be respected but if incorrect, one should not be treated as a bigot - this should be much the same as getting somebody's name wrong.
Can this be a position from which the country/the world come to a settled view and move on?
I do not wish to be rude but until I know what the SC says there is very little point you and I agreeing any consensus because the law and the political consequences of that will determine the consensus, if any.
From a personal view I pretty much agree with what you say save for the last point. Calling someone by their preferred name is polite but no-one has the right to demand what people call them when they are not present. That strikes me as very narcissistic and can be pretty coercive. Nor is it right to force someone to lie. That can feel like an attempt to control and dominate a woman. It is important to call a transidentified man ie a dysphoric man a man because that explains why he is not allowed in a woman's space. Accuracy matters - in law, in statistics, in evidence etc.,. Seeking to override a woman's gut instincts - when she sees a male stranger in an unexpected place - is wrong because those instincts are necessary to keep her safe. Undermining those is what predators and those enabling them seek to do. That is quite wrong.
In a social setting where you know the person calling a dysphoric man you know "she" may matter less and be fine. So it is context specific and must be freely chosen. People must be free to decide for themselves without being accused in various vile ways for not speaking how others want them to speak.
Between you and I we may achieve a consensus. We do not rule the world, though.
Um, "nobody has the the right to demand what people call them when they are not present"?
Surely everybody has that right? How often do you call non-trans people by a name other than their preferred name. "I was watching Noel Edmunds the other night - well he calls himself "Noel Edmunds" but I call him "Gingerballs Tidybeard" - and i said to my wife Wulfstan that he annoyed me. Wulfstan got up in a huff, said "My names Julia goddammit" and took the dog Mittens for a walk" You can see the problem.
UK snooker qualifying starts later this week. 2021 Champion Zhao Xintong, who returned from a ban in September, is in the draw as an invitation after winning two amateur events with 2 147's. He'll have to win 4 matches to even qualify for the last 32 main event, but he's a recent course and distance winner, and easily top 10, if not higher, on ability. He's got huge incentive to get back his pro status. He's 40-1 to win the tournament. Seems like a value loser, and worth a few quid as a fun bet. I'm on.
Welby did the right thing by handing his hat in. Whens the Pope resigning his position given the shit perpetuated, known about and had fuck all done about it within the Catholic Church?
@Cyclefree without trying to get you to speculate, would you be able to briefly summarise the two sides of the case for which we are awaiting a judgment and what you think deciding one way or the other would mean? I have read it a little bit but I am not sure I totally understand it.
Oh my dear - it is immensely complex and even though I have read all the arguments a number of times I'm not sure I have got every aspect right.
I have quite a lot of work stuff to do but if I find the time I will try.
On the flip side the Harris videos didn't have anything like those numbers/ratios. I would see a few videos that made it over 1m but it was a rarity and most often what you'd see is big content creators with 5-6m subscribers only getting 500-600k views for their uploads which is good but it seemed like they couldn't get beyond their core audience or even their whole audience. The other big difference was that the pro-Harris videos all had much higher production values, they almost felt like watching long form adverts and rarely did they go out and speak ordinary people. They tended to concentrate more on what Trump was saying or just acting as a mouthpiece for the campaign it felt like. Not a single one really disagreed with anything that Harris had put out and they all seemed extremely defferential to "Madame President" which almost felt like a running joke by the end of my watch of those videos.
Anyway, my takeaway is that YouTube, at least this time, gave us a window of what was happening on the ground, the subscribers to views ratios on videos is a good measure of how well content is getting to non-core audiences and on that measure pro-Trump content absolutely destroyed the Harris camp and on top I actually felt as though the pro-Trump content creators were much more racially diverse than the Harris ones who were almost exclusively white and middle class. The Trump content seemed to come from a lot more working class voices which are naturally more diverse.
One of the more interesting ones was a black guy who you can see in real time switch from Biden/Harris to Trump after going to Trump rallies as an observer and to conduct interviews with Trump supporters. He goes in expecting to be racially abused or physically threatened and at the first rally it's all high fives and "good to see you here, have a MAGA hat" etc... That guy has almost 2m (I suspect mostly black) subscribers and they all watched him become a Trump voter and the comments are all hugely supportive in all of the videos of him and of the Trump supporters who welcomed him with open arms.
I think in the run up to 2028 keeping a better eye on YouTube metrics will give us a very good picture of what's actually happening on the ground. I don't think we have an equivalent scene in the UK just yet but by the time the next election rolls around there could be.
It's interesting how in 2017/2019 YouTube and social media in the UK was such a bad arbiter of opinion, if you'd trusted that you'd have thought Labour would win.
President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House already carried the potential for sweeping changes to the Federal Reserve. But now a growing question is not how the central bank will operate under Trump but if it’ll continue to operate at all.
Elon Musk, a key Trump backer who is expected to have considerable sway in helping shape Trump’s policies, included a “100” emoji while resharing Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah’s post on X calling for abolishing the Fed.
“The Executive Branch should be under the direction of the president,” Lee said Thursday in a post on X, hours after Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters he wouldn’t resign if Trump asked him to. “The Federal Reserve is one of many examples of how we’ve deviated from the Constitution in that regard,” Lee added. “Yet another reason why we should #EndTheFed.”
A sure fire way to crash the markets . Keeping interest rates artificially low if the economy overheats won’t end well .
You asked a very valid polite question about gender on the previous thread.
Can I suggest that you wait until the outcome of the FWS appeal to the Supreme Court later this month because that judgment, whatever it is, will set out what the law currently means and may or may not solve the issues or make them worse.
There is plenty of detailed legal analysis of the legal issues the court will have to determine, much of it quite dry and complex. The proper approach to statutory interpretation is not exactly a topic to set the pulse racing. If you want links to that analysis and indeed the published legal arguments by some of the parties let me know.
I also think it unwise to rely on US statistics about child gender surgery for what is happening here because the approach there is very different to the approach taken here and the statistics and medical information / approach need to be carefully analysed. The Cass Report is probably the best starting point for anyone interested in the U.K. position. There is also a recent Family Court decision which is illuminating in this regard.
The position in relation to women's rights is best approached by reading the now significant number of judgments by Employment Tribunals on cases brought by women. Again the judgments are long and often very technical but well worth reading if you want to understand the legal issues and why so many women have been winning such cases.
The interesting question is why, pace the CoE, so many institutions are making the same mistakes and not learning any lessons.
As to which see about a million previous posts from me ...... 😀
Did you feel there was consensus we could come to from my points, namely:
there are only two (biological) sexes;
there should be an additional category or categories for trans people that protect them separately from men/women in their own spaces (loos etc.) and also in things like sports;
that trans people should be allowed to live freely;
that trans people are people;
that people under 18 should not be having life altering surgery;
that people over the age of 18 should be able to have life altering surgery should they deem it necessary (and with the appropriate safeguards applied);
that if, for example, a trans person wishes to be called "she" despite their biological sex being male (or vice versa), that this should be respected but if incorrect, one should not be treated as a bigot - this should be much the same as getting somebody's name wrong.
Can this be a position from which the country/the world come to a settled view and move on?
Part of the problem with this debate is framing.
In progressive thought, protecting the rights of a protected group/class is an absolute. The problem of when two such groups rights interact is rarely examined.
In this case, there are the rights of women vs the rights of trans.
Some claim there is no clash. Which is hard to reconcile with the heated debate.
The only possible end is compromise. Which isn’t a dirty word.
I think I am proposing some kind of middle ground, am I not? Do you object to what I say, I think it's a fair compromise, no?
The question is whether the compromise is equally hated by both sides.
That’s usually a good sign.
That is facile. A single sex space for women cannot be single sex if any sort of man is let in. So there can be no compromise there.
But the framing is important. There is no right for a man to be in a woman's space. The right of the transidentified man is (a) to be recognised as such - which is the case by virtue of the gender reassignment pc and (b) not to be exposed to the risk of attack in a men's space. That latter right is not dealt with by forcing women to accept a man in their space. It is dealt with by having spaces for such men eg unisex or gender neutral loos / prisons / services etc or ones specifically for such men eg rape crisis centres for them where they can be themselves and be safe. I would welcome that.
The problem arises because some "trans" people seem more intent on the denial of women's rights or on inserting themselves into spaces without their consent than in creating spaces for themselves. It is that insistence on denial of women's right to have boundaries and to consent which is the source of the aggro. That is very old-fashioned predatory male behaviour at worst and at best a rather narcissistic demand for self-validation at women's expense. No woman should be obliged to participate in that.
I'm not sure that putting trans people into male spaces is the answer. Having their own spaces seems to be the best compromise here.
You asked a very valid polite question about gender on the previous thread.
Can I suggest that you wait until the outcome of the FWS appeal to the Supreme Court later this month because that judgment, whatever it is, will set out what the law currently means and may or may not solve the issues or make them worse.
There is plenty of detailed legal analysis of the legal issues the court will have to determine, much of it quite dry and complex. The proper approach to statutory interpretation is not exactly a topic to set the pulse racing. If you want links to that analysis and indeed the published legal arguments by some of the parties let me know.
I also think it unwise to rely on US statistics about child gender surgery for what is happening here because the approach there is very different to the approach taken here and the statistics and medical information / approach need to be carefully analysed. The Cass Report is probably the best starting point for anyone interested in the U.K. position. There is also a recent Family Court decision which is illuminating in this regard.
The position in relation to women's rights is best approached by reading the now significant number of judgments by Employment Tribunals on cases brought by women. Again the judgments are long and often very technical but well worth reading if you want to understand the legal issues and why so many women have been winning such cases.
The interesting question is why, pace the CoE, so many institutions are making the same mistakes and not learning any lessons.
As to which see about a million previous posts from me ...... 😀
Did you feel there was consensus we could come to from my points, namely:
there are only two (biological) sexes;
there should be an additional category or categories for trans people that protect them separately from men/women in their own spaces (loos etc.) and also in things like sports;
that trans people should be allowed to live freely;
that trans people are people;
that people under 18 should not be having life altering surgery;
that people over the age of 18 should be able to have life altering surgery should they deem it necessary (and with the appropriate safeguards applied);
that if, for example, a trans person wishes to be called "she" despite their biological sex being male (or vice versa), that this should be respected but if incorrect, one should not be treated as a bigot - this should be much the same as getting somebody's name wrong.
Can this be a position from which the country/the world come to a settled view and move on?
Part of the problem with this debate is framing.
In progressive thought, protecting the rights of a protected group/class is an absolute. The problem of when two such groups rights interact is rarely examined.
In this case, there are the rights of women vs the rights of trans.
Some claim there is no clash. Which is hard to reconcile with the heated debate.
The only possible end is compromise. Which isn’t a dirty word.
I think I am proposing some kind of middle ground, am I not? Do you object to what I say, I think it's a fair compromise, no?
The question is whether the compromise is equally hated by both sides.
That’s usually a good sign.
That is facile. A single sex space for women cannot be single sex if any sort of man is let in. So there can be no compromise there.
But the framing is important. There is no right for a man to be in a woman's space. The right of the transidentified man is (a) to be recognised as such - which is the case by virtue of the gender reassignment pc and (b) not to be exposed to the risk of attack in a men's space. That latter right is not dealt with by forcing women to accept a man in their space. It is dealt with by having spaces for such men eg unisex or gender neutral loos / prisons / services etc or ones specifically for such men eg rape crisis centres for them where they can be themselves and be safe. I would welcome that.
The problem arises because some "trans" people seem more intent on the denial of women's rights or on inserting themselves into spaces without their consent than in creating spaces for themselves. It is that insistence on denial of women's right to have boundaries and to consent which is the source of the aggro. That is very old-fashioned predatory male behaviour at worst and at best a rather narcissistic demand for self-validation at women's expense. No woman should be obliged to participate in that.
I'm not sure that putting trans people into male spaces is the answer. Having their own spaces seems to be the best compromise here.
UK snooker qualifying starts later this week. 2021 Champion Zhao Xintong, who returned from a ban in September, is in the draw as an invitation after winning two amateur events with 2 147's. He'll have to win 4 matches to even qualify for the last 32 main event, but he's a recent course and distance winner, and easily top 10, if not higher, on ability. He's got huge incentive to get back his pro status. He's 40-1 to win the tournament. Seems like a value loser, and worth a few quid as a fun bet. I'm on.
I spent a lot of the lockdown watching classic snooker matches in full, such as the world finals from the 1980s (mostly featuring Steve Davis). A great way to pass the time if you're interested in the game.
You asked a very valid polite question about gender on the previous thread.
Can I suggest that you wait until the outcome of the FWS appeal to the Supreme Court later this month because that judgment, whatever it is, will set out what the law currently means and may or may not solve the issues or make them worse.
There is plenty of detailed legal analysis of the legal issues the court will have to determine, much of it quite dry and complex. The proper approach to statutory interpretation is not exactly a topic to set the pulse racing. If you want links to that analysis and indeed the published legal arguments by some of the parties let me know.
I also think it unwise to rely on US statistics about child gender surgery for what is happening here because the approach there is very different to the approach taken here and the statistics and medical information / approach need to be carefully analysed. The Cass Report is probably the best starting point for anyone interested in the U.K. position. There is also a recent Family Court decision which is illuminating in this regard.
The position in relation to women's rights is best approached by reading the now significant number of judgments by Employment Tribunals on cases brought by women. Again the judgments are long and often very technical but well worth reading if you want to understand the legal issues and why so many women have been winning such cases.
The interesting question is why, pace the CoE, so many institutions are making the same mistakes and not learning any lessons.
As to which see about a million previous posts from me ...... 😀
Did you feel there was consensus we could come to from my points, namely:
there are only two (biological) sexes;
there should be an additional category or categories for trans people that protect them separately from men/women in their own spaces (loos etc.) and also in things like sports;
that trans people should be allowed to live freely;
that trans people are people;
that people under 18 should not be having life altering surgery;
that people over the age of 18 should be able to have life altering surgery should they deem it necessary (and with the appropriate safeguards applied);
that if, for example, a trans person wishes to be called "she" despite their biological sex being male (or vice versa), that this should be respected but if incorrect, one should not be treated as a bigot - this should be much the same as getting somebody's name wrong.
Can this be a position from which the country/the world come to a settled view and move on?
Part of the problem with this debate is framing.
In progressive thought, protecting the rights of a protected group/class is an absolute. The problem of when two such groups rights interact is rarely examined.
In this case, there are the rights of women vs the rights of trans.
Some claim there is no clash. Which is hard to reconcile with the heated debate.
The only possible end is compromise. Which isn’t a dirty word.
I think I am proposing some kind of middle ground, am I not? Do you object to what I say, I think it's a fair compromise, no?
The question is whether the compromise is equally hated by both sides.
That’s usually a good sign.
That is facile. A single sex space for women cannot be single sex if any sort of man is let in. So there can be no compromise there.
But the framing is important. There is no right for a man to be in a woman's space. The right of the transidentified man is (a) to be recognised as such - which is the case by virtue of the gender reassignment pc and (b) not to be exposed to the risk of attack in a men's space. That latter right is not dealt with by forcing women to accept a man in their space. It is dealt with by having spaces for such men eg unisex or gender neutral loos / prisons / services etc or ones specifically for such men eg rape crisis centres for them where they can be themselves and be safe. I would welcome that.
The problem arises because some "trans" people seem more intent on the denial of women's rights or on inserting themselves into spaces without their consent than in creating spaces for themselves. It is that insistence on denial of women's right to have boundaries and to consent which is the source of the aggro. That is very old-fashioned predatory male behaviour at worst and at best a rather narcissistic demand for self-validation at women's expense. No woman should be obliged to participate in that.
I'm not sure that putting trans people into male spaces is the answer. Having their own spaces seems to be the best compromise here.
Which is precisely what I said.
Well then we have found consensus between us on that point but I am still unsure about the above question on naming/referring to people by their preferred gender/pronouns.
It does seem that we are close though - and I would like to know if the rest of PB finds anything to disagree with, with what I've said.
I do believe I sit firmly in the centre on this particular issue but I am happy to be corrected.
So something I wanted to investigate today was what signals there were available before the election that showed a Trump wave and I think it was on YouTube. I went back an looked at video metrics with a broadly pro-Trump vs pro-Harris and the difference was massive.
What I found was that videos on the pro-Trump side had huge subscribers to views ratios, you'd get videos from people with just 50k subscribers getting 2-3m views and the larger content creators with between 1m and 2m subs were easily doing over their total subscriber numbers, that to me says there's a level of grassroots interest in the content and generally these videos are pulling in lots of new eyeballs who aren't necessarily interested in politics or Trump, it's likely that they've seen the video shared somewhere in group chat or by some personality on Instagram or tiktok.
After watching the videos what also struck me is that 9/10 of them are either someone speaking into a camera from their bedroom just chatting about Trump and going through some of the new news or a react video or they're a guy with a camera man and a mic talking to real people getting real life opinions on screen, obviously they're edited so I can't take what was on screen as the full truth but the production values were very, err, rustic. What also surprised me was the sheer number of interviews with black and Latino people voting for Trump in working class areas and the reasons for those people voting for Trump all being broadly the same - jobs, prices, illegal immigrants.
...
The American right is very strong on YouTube. And of course the Daily Wire has turned into a huge operation, over 1 million paying subscribers.
Farage has been following a similar approach taping into YouTube, regularly gets 100k+ views on a video.
I think what's most interesting is that Trump supporting channels outside of a few very prominent ones like infowars or the daily wire are basically just a bloke/woman in a room speaking into a mic about what's going on in the world while the ones on the left have got really high production values with full sets/studios and they all feel like they're connected to the DNC in some way. It makes the Trump content feel much more authentic, when it's people talking about their own journeys or their own experiences and how that relates to what's happening wrt Trump vs Biden/Harris you don't feel sceptical because why would they lie? A lot of the time they disagree with Trump as well, one of the bigger streamers seemed to disagree with Trump on quite a lot very openly. They just never seemed to capture that kind of authenticity with the Harris content, or very rarely. You can see it too, the top viewed content for Harris seems to come from the campaign itself, for Trump it's from third party creators who support him.
Have just returned from a refurbished local pub. Gender-neutral bathroom, together with smug inclusivity message painted on the wall. Six urinals and three stalls.
One of the stalls is marked, in the same painted font as the previous message, "Women only".
You asked a very valid polite question about gender on the previous thread.
Can I suggest that you wait until the outcome of the FWS appeal to the Supreme Court later this month because that judgment, whatever it is, will set out what the law currently means and may or may not solve the issues or make them worse.
There is plenty of detailed legal analysis of the legal issues the court will have to determine, much of it quite dry and complex. The proper approach to statutory interpretation is not exactly a topic to set the pulse racing. If you want links to that analysis and indeed the published legal arguments by some of the parties let me know.
I also think it unwise to rely on US statistics about child gender surgery for what is happening here because the approach there is very different to the approach taken here and the statistics and medical information / approach need to be carefully analysed. The Cass Report is probably the best starting point for anyone interested in the U.K. position. There is also a recent Family Court decision which is illuminating in this regard.
The position in relation to women's rights is best approached by reading the now significant number of judgments by Employment Tribunals on cases brought by women. Again the judgments are long and often very technical but well worth reading if you want to understand the legal issues and why so many women have been winning such cases.
The interesting question is why, pace the CoE, so many institutions are making the same mistakes and not learning any lessons.
As to which see about a million previous posts from me ...... 😀
Did you feel there was consensus we could come to from my points, namely:
there are only two (biological) sexes;
there should be an additional category or categories for trans people that protect them separately from men/women in their own spaces (loos etc.) and also in things like sports;
that trans people should be allowed to live freely;
that trans people are people;
that people under 18 should not be having life altering surgery;
that people over the age of 18 should be able to have life altering surgery should they deem it necessary (and with the appropriate safeguards applied);
that if a trans person wishes to be called "she" despite their biological sex being male, that this should be respected but if incorrect, one should not be treated as a bigot - this should be much the same as getting somebody's name wrong.
Can this be a position from which the country/the world come to a settled view and move on?
I do not wish to be rude but until I know what the SC says there is very little point you and I agreeing any consensus because the law and the political consequences of that will determine the consensus, if any.
From a personal view I pretty much agree with what you say save for the last point. Calling someone by their preferred name is polite but no-one has the right to demand what people call them when they are not present. That strikes me as very narcissistic and can be pretty coercive. Nor is it right to force someone to lie. That can feel like an attempt to control and dominate a woman. It is important to call a transidentified man ie a dysphoric man a man because that explains why he is not allowed in a woman's space. Accuracy matters - in law, in statistics, in evidence etc.,. Seeking to override a woman's gut instincts - when she sees a male stranger in an unexpected place - is wrong because those instincts are necessary to keep her safe. Undermining those is what predators and those enabling them seek to do. That is quite wrong.
In a social setting where you know the person calling a dysphoric man you know "she" may matter less and be fine. So it is context specific and must be freely chosen. People must be free to decide for themselves without being accused in various vile ways for not speaking how others want them to speak.
Between you and I we may achieve a consensus. We do not rule the world, though.
Um, "nobody has the the right to demand what people call them when they are not present"?
Surely everybody has that right? How often do you call non-trans people by a name other than their preferred name. "I was watching Noel Edmunds the other night - well he calls himself "Noel Edmunds" but I call him "Gingerballs Tidybeard" - and i said to my wife Wulfstan that he annoyed me. Wulfstan got up in a huff, said "My names Julia goddammit" and took the dog Mittens for a walk" You can see the problem.
What I generally call people when they are not present is their name or title in a work context. In my private life I have all sorts of ways I describe people and it is no-one's business but my own. No-one has the right to insist on what pronouns, adjectives or adverbs I use about someone in their absence.
If we're going down that route, though, I INSIST you call me "wise, funny and beautiful" at all times. 😀
On the flip side the Harris videos didn't have anything like those numbers/ratios. I would see a few videos that made it over 1m but it was a rarity and most often what you'd see is big content creators with 5-6m subscribers only getting 500-600k views for their uploads which is good but it seemed like they couldn't get beyond their core audience or even their whole audience. The other big difference was that the pro-Harris videos all had much higher production values, they almost felt like watching long form adverts and rarely did they go out and speak ordinary people. They tended to concentrate more on what Trump was saying or just acting as a mouthpiece for the campaign it felt like. Not a single one really disagreed with anything that Harris had put out and they all seemed extremely defferential to "Madame President" which almost felt like a running joke by the end of my watch of those videos.
Anyway, my takeaway is that YouTube, at least this time, gave us a window of what was happening on the ground, the subscribers to views ratios on videos is a good measure of how well content is getting to non-core audiences and on that measure pro-Trump content absolutely destroyed the Harris camp and on top I actually felt as though the pro-Trump content creators were much more racially diverse than the Harris ones who were almost exclusively white and middle class. The Trump content seemed to come from a lot more working class voices which are naturally more diverse.
One of the more interesting ones was a black guy who you can see in real time switch from Biden/Harris to Trump after going to Trump rallies as an observer and to conduct interviews with Trump supporters. He goes in expecting to be racially abused or physically threatened and at the first rally it's all high fives and "good to see you here, have a MAGA hat" etc... That guy has almost 2m (I suspect mostly black) subscribers and they all watched him become a Trump voter and the comments are all hugely supportive in all of the videos of him and of the Trump supporters who welcomed him with open arms.
I think in the run up to 2028 keeping a better eye on YouTube metrics will give us a very good picture of what's actually happening on the ground. I don't think we have an equivalent scene in the UK just yet but by the time the next election rolls around there could be.
It's interesting how in 2017/2019 YouTube and social media in the UK was such a bad arbiter of opinion, if you'd trusted that you'd have thought Labour would win.
I think YT is just so much bigger now than it was in 2017/19. It also seems to have a very, very even handed content moderation policy now compared to back then, loads of right wing channels were getting banned and demonetised on YT around 2016 after the first Trump victory but Google seem to have realised just how much money they can make selling ads on right wing videos so now they live and let live.
What makes this more powerful for the US is that Trump saw big swings among younger voters which is prime YT demographic. That's the wave that YT seems to have predicted and would have shown us the Trump victory ahead of time.
Welby doesn't have lifetime membership of the House of Lords. It's ex officio so he'll cease to be a member after stepping down as archbishop. Of course most ex Archbishops of Canterbury are offered a life peerages like ex Speakers but as Bercow demonstrated such things are merely convention.
You asked a very valid polite question about gender on the previous thread.
Can I suggest that you wait until the outcome of the FWS appeal to the Supreme Court later this month because that judgment, whatever it is, will set out what the law currently means and may or may not solve the issues or make them worse.
There is plenty of detailed legal analysis of the legal issues the court will have to determine, much of it quite dry and complex. The proper approach to statutory interpretation is not exactly a topic to set the pulse racing. If you want links to that analysis and indeed the published legal arguments by some of the parties let me know.
I also think it unwise to rely on US statistics about child gender surgery for what is happening here because the approach there is very different to the approach taken here and the statistics and medical information / approach need to be carefully analysed. The Cass Report is probably the best starting point for anyone interested in the U.K. position. There is also a recent Family Court decision which is illuminating in this regard.
The position in relation to women's rights is best approached by reading the now significant number of judgments by Employment Tribunals on cases brought by women. Again the judgments are long and often very technical but well worth reading if you want to understand the legal issues and why so many women have been winning such cases.
The interesting question is why, pace the CoE, so many institutions are making the same mistakes and not learning any lessons.
As to which see about a million previous posts from me ...... 😀
Did you feel there was consensus we could come to from my points, namely:
there are only two (biological) sexes;
there should be an additional category or categories for trans people that protect them separately from men/women in their own spaces (loos etc.) and also in things like sports;
that trans people should be allowed to live freely;
that trans people are people;
that people under 18 should not be having life altering surgery;
that people over the age of 18 should be able to have life altering surgery should they deem it necessary (and with the appropriate safeguards applied);
that if a trans person wishes to be called "she" despite their biological sex being male, that this should be respected but if incorrect, one should not be treated as a bigot - this should be much the same as getting somebody's name wrong.
Can this be a position from which the country/the world come to a settled view and move on?
I do not wish to be rude but until I know what the SC says there is very little point you and I agreeing any consensus because the law and the political consequences of that will determine the consensus, if any.
From a personal view I pretty much agree with what you say save for the last point. Calling someone by their preferred name is polite but no-one has the right to demand what people call them when they are not present. That strikes me as very narcissistic and can be pretty coercive. Nor is it right to force someone to lie. That can feel like an attempt to control and dominate a woman. It is important to call a transidentified man ie a dysphoric man a man because that explains why he is not allowed in a woman's space. Accuracy matters - in law, in statistics, in evidence etc.,. Seeking to override a woman's gut instincts - when she sees a male stranger in an unexpected place - is wrong because those instincts are necessary to keep her safe. Undermining those is what predators and those enabling them seek to do. That is quite wrong.
In a social setting where you know the person calling a dysphoric man you know "she" may matter less and be fine. So it is context specific and must be freely chosen. People must be free to decide for themselves without being accused in various vile ways for not speaking how others want them to speak.
Between you and I we may achieve a consensus. We do not rule the world, though.
Um, "nobody has the the right to demand what people call them when they are not present"?
Surely everybody has that right? How often do you call non-trans people by a name other than their preferred name. "I was watching Noel Edmunds the other night - well he calls himself "Noel Edmunds" but I call him "Gingerballs Tidybeard" - and i said to my wife Wulfstan that he annoyed me. Wulfstan got up in a huff, said "My names Julia goddammit" and took the dog Mittens for a walk" You can see the problem.
What I generally call people when they are not present is their name or title in a work context. In my private life I have all sorts of ways I describe people and it is no-one's business but my own. No-one has the right to insist on what pronouns, adjectives or adverbs I use about someone in their absence.
If we're going down that route, though, I INSIST you call me "wise, funny and beautiful" at all times. 😀
You'll forgive me but I am still not sure I really understand.
If the person is present and they go by "he" but you keep calling them "she", I think that's just a bit rude, no? I don't think it's bigoted, just seems rude. Do we agree on that?
If they are not present, I am not really sure I get what you mean. Again if they go by "he" and you keep calling them "she", that's your business but it just seems quite self-defeating to me if somebody who was there corrected you on it?
If you make mistakes I think that should not be held against you or you should feel that you can't, I am just not sure I totally understand what you are getting at. It just seems no different here to me calling you "Bob" when you are actually called "Mary".
But I would like to understand more what you mean.
I am in the process of selling my flat and buying another one. If I have to pay second home stamp duty it is close to 10% of the cost of the new place in total, plus £10k of various fees and moving costs.
I worked it out and I could rent somewhere for pretty much the same cost and then just move freely. I would be paying off a mortgage if owning but given all the up front costs of buying somewhere, it would be 18 months before breaking even.
You asked a very valid polite question about gender on the previous thread.
Can I suggest that you wait until the outcome of the FWS appeal to the Supreme Court later this month because that judgment, whatever it is, will set out what the law currently means and may or may not solve the issues or make them worse.
There is plenty of detailed legal analysis of the legal issues the court will have to determine, much of it quite dry and complex. The proper approach to statutory interpretation is not exactly a topic to set the pulse racing. If you want links to that analysis and indeed the published legal arguments by some of the parties let me know.
I also think it unwise to rely on US statistics about child gender surgery for what is happening here because the approach there is very different to the approach taken here and the statistics and medical information / approach need to be carefully analysed. The Cass Report is probably the best starting point for anyone interested in the U.K. position. There is also a recent Family Court decision which is illuminating in this regard.
The position in relation to women's rights is best approached by reading the now significant number of judgments by Employment Tribunals on cases brought by women. Again the judgments are long and often very technical but well worth reading if you want to understand the legal issues and why so many women have been winning such cases.
The interesting question is why, pace the CoE, so many institutions are making the same mistakes and not learning any lessons.
As to which see about a million previous posts from me ...... 😀
Did you feel there was consensus we could come to from my points, namely:
there are only two (biological) sexes;
there should be an additional category or categories for trans people that protect them separately from men/women in their own spaces (loos etc.) and also in things like sports;
that trans people should be allowed to live freely;
that trans people are people;
that people under 18 should not be having life altering surgery;
that people over the age of 18 should be able to have life altering surgery should they deem it necessary (and with the appropriate safeguards applied);
that if a trans person wishes to be called "she" despite their biological sex being male, that this should be respected but if incorrect, one should not be treated as a bigot - this should be much the same as getting somebody's name wrong.
Can this be a position from which the country/the world come to a settled view and move on?
I do not wish to be rude but until I know what the SC says there is very little point you and I agreeing any consensus because the law and the political consequences of that will determine the consensus, if any.
From a personal view I pretty much agree with what you say save for the last point. Calling someone by their preferred name is polite but no-one has the right to demand what people call them when they are not present. That strikes me as very narcissistic and can be pretty coercive. Nor is it right to force someone to lie. That can feel like an attempt to control and dominate a woman. It is important to call a transidentified man ie a dysphoric man a man because that explains why he is not allowed in a woman's space. Accuracy matters - in law, in statistics, in evidence etc.,. Seeking to override a woman's gut instincts - when she sees a male stranger in an unexpected place - is wrong because those instincts are necessary to keep her safe. Undermining those is what predators and those enabling them seek to do. That is quite wrong.
In a social setting where you know the person calling a dysphoric man you know "she" may matter less and be fine. So it is context specific and must be freely chosen. People must be free to decide for themselves without being accused in various vile ways for not speaking how others want them to speak.
Between you and I we may achieve a consensus. We do not rule the world, though.
Um, "nobody has the the right to demand what people call them when they are not present"?
Surely everybody has that right? How often do you call non-trans people by a name other than their preferred name. "I was watching Noel Edmunds the other night - well he calls himself "Noel Edmunds" but I call him "Gingerballs Tidybeard" - and i said to my wife Wulfstan that he annoyed me. Wulfstan got up in a huff, said "My names Julia goddammit" and took the dog Mittens for a walk" You can see the problem.
What I generally call people when they are not present is their name or title in a work context. In my private life I have all sorts of ways I describe people and it is no-one's business but my own. No-one has the right to insist on what pronouns, adjectives or adverbs I use about someone in their absence.
If we're going down that route, though, I INSIST you call me "wise, funny and beautiful" at all times. 😀
"La donna sapiente, divertente e bella". "Bella" for short. D'y'know, I could make that work... 😃
So something I wanted to investigate today was what signals there were available before the election that showed a Trump wave and I think it was on YouTube. I went back an looked at video metrics with a broadly pro-Trump vs pro-Harris and the difference was massive.
What I found was that videos on the pro-Trump side had huge subscribers to views ratios, you'd get videos from people with just 50k subscribers getting 2-3m views and the larger content creators with between 1m and 2m subs were easily doing over their total subscriber numbers, that to me says there's a level of grassroots interest in the content and generally these videos are pulling in lots of new eyeballs who aren't necessarily interested in politics or Trump, it's likely that they've seen the video shared somewhere in group chat or by some personality on Instagram or tiktok.
After watching the videos what also struck me is that 9/10 of them are either someone speaking into a camera from their bedroom just chatting about Trump and going through some of the new news or a react video or they're a guy with a camera man and a mic talking to real people getting real life opinions on screen, obviously they're edited so I can't take what was on screen as the full truth but the production values were very, err, rustic. What also surprised me was the sheer number of interviews with black and Latino people voting for Trump in working class areas and the reasons for those people voting for Trump all being broadly the same - jobs, prices, illegal immigrants.
...
The American right is very strong on YouTube. And of course the Daily Wire has turned into a huge operation, over 1 million paying subscribers.
Farage has been following a similar approach taping into YouTube, regularly gets 100k+ views on a video.
I think what's most interesting is that Trump supporting channels outside of a few very prominent ones like infowars or the daily wire are basically just a bloke/woman in a room speaking into a mic about what's going on in the world while the ones on the left have got really high production values with full sets/studios and they all feel like they're connected to the DNC in some way. It makes the Trump content feel much more authentic, when it's people talking about their own journeys or their own experiences and how that relates to what's happening wrt Trump vs Biden/Harris you don't feel sceptical because why would they lie? A lot of the time they disagree with Trump as well, one of the bigger streamers seemed to disagree with Trump on quite a lot very openly. They just never seemed to capture that kind of authenticity with the Harris content, or very rarely. You can see it too, the top viewed content for Harris seems to come from the campaign itself, for Trump it's from third party creators who support him.
Isn't the "authentic" look the new vibe, hence why even huge content creators how sit their with visible mics, often holding them, when behind the scenes is this huge team of people e.g. The Fellas studios in the UK do this for their podcasts
It was quite striking that while Trump, Vance and Musk did every podcast that would have them, Harris campaign would only go on the Call Me Daddy podcast and the campaign paid an alleged $100k to make the set for the interview. Seems Harris campaign didn't get the memo.
On the flip side the Harris videos didn't have anything like those numbers/ratios. I would see a few videos that made it over 1m but it was a rarity and most often what you'd see is big content creators with 5-6m subscribers only getting 500-600k views for their uploads which is good but it seemed like they couldn't get beyond their core audience or even their whole audience. The other big difference was that the pro-Harris videos all had much higher production values, they almost felt like watching long form adverts and rarely did they go out and speak ordinary people. They tended to concentrate more on what Trump was saying or just acting as a mouthpiece for the campaign it felt like. Not a single one really disagreed with anything that Harris had put out and they all seemed extremely defferential to "Madame President" which almost felt like a running joke by the end of my watch of those videos.
Anyway, my takeaway is that YouTube, at least this time, gave us a window of what was happening on the ground, the subscribers to views ratios on videos is a good measure of how well content is getting to non-core audiences and on that measure pro-Trump content absolutely destroyed the Harris camp and on top I actually felt as though the pro-Trump content creators were much more racially diverse than the Harris ones who were almost exclusively white and middle class. The Trump content seemed to come from a lot more working class voices which are naturally more diverse.
One of the more interesting ones was a black guy who you can see in real time switch from Biden/Harris to Trump after going to Trump rallies as an observer and to conduct interviews with Trump supporters. He goes in expecting to be racially abused or physically threatened and at the first rally it's all high fives and "good to see you here, have a MAGA hat" etc... That guy has almost 2m (I suspect mostly black) subscribers and they all watched him become a Trump voter and the comments are all hugely supportive in all of the videos of him and of the Trump supporters who welcomed him with open arms.
I think in the run up to 2028 keeping a better eye on YouTube metrics will give us a very good picture of what's actually happening on the ground. I don't think we have an equivalent scene in the UK just yet but by the time the next election rolls around there could be.
It's interesting how in 2017/2019 YouTube and social media in the UK was such a bad arbiter of opinion, if you'd trusted that you'd have thought Labour would win.
I think YT is just so much bigger now than it was in 2017/19. It also seems to have a very, very even handed content moderation policy now compared to back then, loads of right wing channels were getting banned and demonetised on YT around 2016 after the first Trump victory but Google seem to have realised just how much money they can make selling ads on right wing videos so now they live and let live.
What makes this more powerful for the US is that Trump saw big swings among younger voters which is prime YT demographic. That's the wave that YT seems to have predicted and would have shown us the Trump victory ahead of time.
Quite a few of these right wingers that got the ban hammers built big businesses kinda off the back of YouTube is censoring us e.g. Steven Crowder. I think YouTube is still quite aggressive on demonetising, but less so on outright ban hammer. Maybe people have got better at skirting the rules as well. They also use it as, I can't say x on YouTube, sign up for our paywalled content, for the full uncensored opinions.
The bankruptcy auction of InfoWars stuff was crazy, $10 millions of product and multi-million dollar studio setups.
On the flip side the Harris videos didn't have anything like those numbers/ratios. I would see a few videos that made it over 1m but it was a rarity and most often what you'd see is big content creators with 5-6m subscribers only getting 500-600k views for their uploads which is good but it seemed like they couldn't get beyond their core audience or even their whole audience. The other big difference was that the pro-Harris videos all had much higher production values, they almost felt like watching long form adverts and rarely did they go out and speak ordinary people. They tended to concentrate more on what Trump was saying or just acting as a mouthpiece for the campaign it felt like. Not a single one really disagreed with anything that Harris had put out and they all seemed extremely defferential to "Madame President" which almost felt like a running joke by the end of my watch of those videos.
Anyway, my takeaway is that YouTube, at least this time, gave us a window of what was happening on the ground, the subscribers to views ratios on videos is a good measure of how well content is getting to non-core audiences and on that measure pro-Trump content absolutely destroyed the Harris camp and on top I actually felt as though the pro-Trump content creators were much more racially diverse than the Harris ones who were almost exclusively white and middle class. The Trump content seemed to come from a lot more working class voices which are naturally more diverse.
One of the more interesting ones was a black guy who you can see in real time switch from Biden/Harris to Trump after going to Trump rallies as an observer and to conduct interviews with Trump supporters. He goes in expecting to be racially abused or physically threatened and at the first rally it's all high fives and "good to see you here, have a MAGA hat" etc... That guy has almost 2m (I suspect mostly black) subscribers and they all watched him become a Trump voter and the comments are all hugely supportive in all of the videos of him and of the Trump supporters who welcomed him with open arms.
I think in the run up to 2028 keeping a better eye on YouTube metrics will give us a very good picture of what's actually happening on the ground. I don't think we have an equivalent scene in the UK just yet but by the time the next election rolls around there could be.
It's interesting how in 2017/2019 YouTube and social media in the UK was such a bad arbiter of opinion, if you'd trusted that you'd have thought Labour would win.
I think YT is just so much bigger now than it was in 2017/19. It also seems to have a very, very even handed content moderation policy now compared to back then, loads of right wing channels were getting banned and demonetised on YT around 2016 after the first Trump victory but Google seem to have realised just how much money they can make selling ads on right wing videos so now they live and let live.
What makes this more powerful for the US is that Trump saw big swings among younger voters which is prime YT demographic. That's the wave that YT seems to have predicted and would have shown us the Trump victory ahead of time.
Quite a few of these right wingers that got the ban hammers built big businesses kinda off the back of YouTube is censoring us e.g. Steven Crowder. I think YouTube is still quite aggressive on demonetising, but less so on outright ban hammer. Maybe people have got better at skirting the rules as well. They also use it as, I can't say x on YouTube, sign up for our paywalled content, for the full uncensored opinions.
The bankruptcy auction of InfoWars stuff was crazy, $10 millions of product and multi-million dollar studio setups.
YT has got really good content categorisation for advertisers, if you're a tyre company looking to sell to right wingers you can make sure you're on those channels only quite easily so YT doesn't demonetise right wing channels much now and the content guidelines are pretty fairly applied across both left and right channels. If Trump does do away with section 230 YT will be one of the only media platforms that complies from day one IMO. The likes of Twitch are going to be in serious trouble with how unevenly they apply their content moderation guidelines. I wouldn't be surprised if Bezos just sells Twitch to get rid of the hassle, it doesn't fit in with the rest of their portfolio now and it also doesn't make any money.
So something I wanted to investigate today was what signals there were available before the election that showed a Trump wave and I think it was on YouTube. I went back an looked at video metrics with a broadly pro-Trump vs pro-Harris and the difference was massive.
What I found was that videos on the pro-Trump side had huge subscribers to views ratios, you'd get videos from people with just 50k subscribers getting 2-3m views and the larger content creators with between 1m and 2m subs were easily doing over their total subscriber numbers, that to me says there's a level of grassroots interest in the content and generally these videos are pulling in lots of new eyeballs who aren't necessarily interested in politics or Trump, it's likely that they've seen the video shared somewhere in group chat or by some personality on Instagram or tiktok.
After watching the videos what also struck me is that 9/10 of them are either someone speaking into a camera from their bedroom just chatting about Trump and going through some of the new news or a react video or they're a guy with a camera man and a mic talking to real people getting real life opinions on screen, obviously they're edited so I can't take what was on screen as the full truth but the production values were very, err, rustic. What also surprised me was the sheer number of interviews with black and Latino people voting for Trump in working class areas and the reasons for those people voting for Trump all being broadly the same - jobs, prices, illegal immigrants.
...
The American right is very strong on YouTube. And of course the Daily Wire has turned into a huge operation, over 1 million paying subscribers.
Farage has been following a similar approach taping into YouTube, regularly gets 100k+ views on a video.
I think what's most interesting is that Trump supporting channels outside of a few very prominent ones like infowars or the daily wire are basically just a bloke/woman in a room speaking into a mic about what's going on in the world while the ones on the left have got really high production values with full sets/studios and they all feel like they're connected to the DNC in some way. It makes the Trump content feel much more authentic, when it's people talking about their own journeys or their own experiences and how that relates to what's happening wrt Trump vs Biden/Harris you don't feel sceptical because why would they lie? A lot of the time they disagree with Trump as well, one of the bigger streamers seemed to disagree with Trump on quite a lot very openly. They just never seemed to capture that kind of authenticity with the Harris content, or very rarely. You can see it too, the top viewed content for Harris seems to come from the campaign itself, for Trump it's from third party creators who support him.
Isn't the "authentic" look the new vibe, hence why even huge content creators how sit their with visible mics, often holding them, when behind the scenes is this huge team of people e.g. The Fellas studios in the UK do this for their podcasts
It was quite striking that while Trump, Vance and Musk did every podcast that would have them, Harris campaign would only go on the Call Me Daddy podcast and the campaign paid an alleged $100k to make the set for the interview. Seems Harris campaign didn't get the memo.
It's rather sad to see the triumph of the large microphone, sat-at-desk, neon sign in background setup where they just waffle for ten-fifteen minutes. I prefer the lecture or scripted format delivered straight to camera from a script or autocue, it's a lot easier to listen to while you are working.
President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House already carried the potential for sweeping changes to the Federal Reserve. But now a growing question is not how the central bank will operate under Trump but if it’ll continue to operate at all.
Elon Musk, a key Trump backer who is expected to have considerable sway in helping shape Trump’s policies, included a “100” emoji while resharing Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah’s post on X calling for abolishing the Fed.
“The Executive Branch should be under the direction of the president,” Lee said Thursday in a post on X, hours after Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters he wouldn’t resign if Trump asked him to. “The Federal Reserve is one of many examples of how we’ve deviated from the Constitution in that regard,” Lee added. “Yet another reason why we should #EndTheFed.”
A sure fire way to crash the markets . Keeping interest rates artificially low if the economy overheats won’t end well .
And the Fed does a lot more than set the US base rate(s). American banking failures are still a feature of their system now (5 went bust last year, with combined assets of over half a trillion), but were endemic pre-Fed and even after the creation of the Federal Reserve system, it still took decades to get a reasonable grip.
In theory, such functions could be carried out by a politically-controlled Executive office. After all, the Bank of England was effectively a Treasury agency for most of the post-War era - not that this was a marked period of British success. But whether they could be carried out by a Trump-run Executive agency (or even whether Trump would want such an agency) is an entirely different question. Getting rid of the Fed would certainly open up scope for corruption on a whole new front, if Trump wanted to fill the space left for essential operations with private firms contracted by the Treasury Department.
And that's before we even start on Musk's interest in crypto.
On the flip side the Harris videos didn't have anything like those numbers/ratios. I would see a few videos that made it over 1m but it was a rarity and most often what you'd see is big content creators with 5-6m subscribers only getting 500-600k views for their uploads which is good but it seemed like they couldn't get beyond their core audience or even their whole audience. The other big difference was that the pro-Harris videos all had much higher production values, they almost felt like watching long form adverts and rarely did they go out and speak ordinary people. They tended to concentrate more on what Trump was saying or just acting as a mouthpiece for the campaign it felt like. Not a single one really disagreed with anything that Harris had put out and they all seemed extremely defferential to "Madame President" which almost felt like a running joke by the end of my watch of those videos.
Anyway, my takeaway is that YouTube, at least this time, gave us a window of what was happening on the ground, the subscribers to views ratios on videos is a good measure of how well content is getting to non-core audiences and on that measure pro-Trump content absolutely destroyed the Harris camp and on top I actually felt as though the pro-Trump content creators were much more racially diverse than the Harris ones who were almost exclusively white and middle class. The Trump content seemed to come from a lot more working class voices which are naturally more diverse.
One of the more interesting ones was a black guy who you can see in real time switch from Biden/Harris to Trump after going to Trump rallies as an observer and to conduct interviews with Trump supporters. He goes in expecting to be racially abused or physically threatened and at the first rally it's all high fives and "good to see you here, have a MAGA hat" etc... That guy has almost 2m (I suspect mostly black) subscribers and they all watched him become a Trump voter and the comments are all hugely supportive in all of the videos of him and of the Trump supporters who welcomed him with open arms.
I think in the run up to 2028 keeping a better eye on YouTube metrics will give us a very good picture of what's actually happening on the ground. I don't think we have an equivalent scene in the UK just yet but by the time the next election rolls around there could be.
It's interesting how in 2017/2019 YouTube and social media in the UK was such a bad arbiter of opinion, if you'd trusted that you'd have thought Labour would win.
I think YT is just so much bigger now than it was in 2017/19. It also seems to have a very, very even handed content moderation policy now compared to back then, loads of right wing channels were getting banned and demonetised on YT around 2016 after the first Trump victory but Google seem to have realised just how much money they can make selling ads on right wing videos so now they live and let live.
What makes this more powerful for the US is that Trump saw big swings among younger voters which is prime YT demographic. That's the wave that YT seems to have predicted and would have shown us the Trump victory ahead of time.
Quite a few of these right wingers that got the ban hammers built big businesses kinda off the back of YouTube is censoring us e.g. Steven Crowder. I think YouTube is still quite aggressive on demonetising, but less so on outright ban hammer. Maybe people have got better at skirting the rules as well. They also use it as, I can't say x on YouTube, sign up for our paywalled content, for the full uncensored opinions.
The bankruptcy auction of InfoWars stuff was crazy, $10 millions of product and multi-million dollar studio setups.
YT has got really good content categorisation for advertisers, if you're a tyre company looking to sell to right wingers you can make sure you're on those channels only quite easily so YT doesn't demonetise right wing channels much now and the content guidelines are pretty fairly applied across both left and right channels. If Trump does do away with section 230 YT will be one of the only media platforms that complies from day one IMO. The likes of Twitch are going to be in serious trouble with how unevenly they apply their content moderation guidelines. I wouldn't be surprised if Bezos just sells Twitch to get rid of the hassle, it doesn't fit in with the rest of their portfolio now and it also doesn't make any money.
This is where always Google and Meta excels. They are way ahead of everybody else in matching advertiser with eyeballs. Still far from perfect, but provide easy to use tools that gives advertisers control.
Not sure who would buy Twitch though. If Bezo can't make the numbers ad up and he owns AWS, a third party is still going to have to use AWS but now won't get mates rates.
On the flip side the Harris videos didn't have anything like those numbers/ratios. I would see a few videos that made it over 1m but it was a rarity and most often what you'd see is big content creators with 5-6m subscribers only getting 500-600k views for their uploads which is good but it seemed like they couldn't get beyond their core audience or even their whole audience. The other big difference was that the pro-Harris videos all had much higher production values, they almost felt like watching long form adverts and rarely did they go out and speak ordinary people. They tended to concentrate more on what Trump was saying or just acting as a mouthpiece for the campaign it felt like. Not a single one really disagreed with anything that Harris had put out and they all seemed extremely defferential to "Madame President" which almost felt like a running joke by the end of my watch of those videos.
Anyway, my takeaway is that YouTube, at least this time, gave us a window of what was happening on the ground, the subscribers to views ratios on videos is a good measure of how well content is getting to non-core audiences and on that measure pro-Trump content absolutely destroyed the Harris camp and on top I actually felt as though the pro-Trump content creators were much more racially diverse than the Harris ones who were almost exclusively white and middle class. The Trump content seemed to come from a lot more working class voices which are naturally more diverse.
One of the more interesting ones was a black guy who you can see in real time switch from Biden/Harris to Trump after going to Trump rallies as an observer and to conduct interviews with Trump supporters. He goes in expecting to be racially abused or physically threatened and at the first rally it's all high fives and "good to see you here, have a MAGA hat" etc... That guy has almost 2m (I suspect mostly black) subscribers and they all watched him become a Trump voter and the comments are all hugely supportive in all of the videos of him and of the Trump supporters who welcomed him with open arms.
I think in the run up to 2028 keeping a better eye on YouTube metrics will give us a very good picture of what's actually happening on the ground. I don't think we have an equivalent scene in the UK just yet but by the time the next election rolls around there could be.
It's interesting how in 2017/2019 YouTube and social media in the UK was such a bad arbiter of opinion, if you'd trusted that you'd have thought Labour would win.
I think YT is just so much bigger now than it was in 2017/19. It also seems to have a very, very even handed content moderation policy now compared to back then, loads of right wing channels were getting banned and demonetised on YT around 2016 after the first Trump victory but Google seem to have realised just how much money they can make selling ads on right wing videos so now they live and let live.
What makes this more powerful for the US is that Trump saw big swings among younger voters which is prime YT demographic. That's the wave that YT seems to have predicted and would have shown us the Trump victory ahead of time.
Quite a few of these right wingers that got the ban hammers built big businesses kinda off the back of YouTube is censoring us e.g. Steven Crowder. I think YouTube is still quite aggressive on demonetising, but less so on outright ban hammer. Maybe people have got better at skirting the rules as well. They also use it as, I can't say x on YouTube, sign up for our paywalled content, for the full uncensored opinions.
The bankruptcy auction of InfoWars stuff was crazy, $10 millions of product and multi-million dollar studio setups.
YT has got really good content categorisation for advertisers, if you're a tyre company looking to sell to right wingers you can make sure you're on those channels only quite easily so YT doesn't demonetise right wing channels much now and the content guidelines are pretty fairly applied across both left and right channels. If Trump does do away with section 230 YT will be one of the only media platforms that complies from day one IMO. The likes of Twitch are going to be in serious trouble with how unevenly they apply their content moderation guidelines. I wouldn't be surprised if Bezos just sells Twitch to get rid of the hassle, it doesn't fit in with the rest of their portfolio now and it also doesn't make any money.
This is always where Google and Meta excel. They are way ahead of everybody else in matching advertiser with eyeballs. Still far from perfect, but much better than everybody else.
Someone I know at Google's advertising business always says "money is green, it isn't red or blue" which seems to be the big realisation that all media industries are going through at the moment. Excluding over half of Americans by declining their business or not making products for them is completely backwards.
On the flip side the Harris videos didn't have anything like those numbers/ratios. I would see a few videos that made it over 1m but it was a rarity and most often what you'd see is big content creators with 5-6m subscribers only getting 500-600k views for their uploads which is good but it seemed like they couldn't get beyond their core audience or even their whole audience. The other big difference was that the pro-Harris videos all had much higher production values, they almost felt like watching long form adverts and rarely did they go out and speak ordinary people. They tended to concentrate more on what Trump was saying or just acting as a mouthpiece for the campaign it felt like. Not a single one really disagreed with anything that Harris had put out and they all seemed extremely defferential to "Madame President" which almost felt like a running joke by the end of my watch of those videos.
Anyway, my takeaway is that YouTube, at least this time, gave us a window of what was happening on the ground, the subscribers to views ratios on videos is a good measure of how well content is getting to non-core audiences and on that measure pro-Trump content absolutely destroyed the Harris camp and on top I actually felt as though the pro-Trump content creators were much more racially diverse than the Harris ones who were almost exclusively white and middle class. The Trump content seemed to come from a lot more working class voices which are naturally more diverse.
One of the more interesting ones was a black guy who you can see in real time switch from Biden/Harris to Trump after going to Trump rallies as an observer and to conduct interviews with Trump supporters. He goes in expecting to be racially abused or physically threatened and at the first rally it's all high fives and "good to see you here, have a MAGA hat" etc... That guy has almost 2m (I suspect mostly black) subscribers and they all watched him become a Trump voter and the comments are all hugely supportive in all of the videos of him and of the Trump supporters who welcomed him with open arms.
I think in the run up to 2028 keeping a better eye on YouTube metrics will give us a very good picture of what's actually happening on the ground. I don't think we have an equivalent scene in the UK just yet but by the time the next election rolls around there could be.
It's interesting how in 2017/2019 YouTube and social media in the UK was such a bad arbiter of opinion, if you'd trusted that you'd have thought Labour would win.
I think YT is just so much bigger now than it was in 2017/19. It also seems to have a very, very even handed content moderation policy now compared to back then, loads of right wing channels were getting banned and demonetised on YT around 2016 after the first Trump victory but Google seem to have realised just how much money they can make selling ads on right wing videos so now they live and let live.
What makes this more powerful for the US is that Trump saw big swings among younger voters which is prime YT demographic. That's the wave that YT seems to have predicted and would have shown us the Trump victory ahead of time.
Quite a few of these right wingers that got the ban hammers built big businesses kinda off the back of YouTube is censoring us e.g. Steven Crowder. I think YouTube is still quite aggressive on demonetising, but less so on outright ban hammer. Maybe people have got better at skirting the rules as well. They also use it as, I can't say x on YouTube, sign up for our paywalled content, for the full uncensored opinions.
The bankruptcy auction of InfoWars stuff was crazy, $10 millions of product and multi-million dollar studio setups.
YT has got really good content categorisation for advertisers, if you're a tyre company looking to sell to right wingers you can make sure you're on those channels only quite easily so YT doesn't demonetise right wing channels much now and the content guidelines are pretty fairly applied across both left and right channels. If Trump does do away with section 230 YT will be one of the only media platforms that complies from day one IMO. The likes of Twitch are going to be in serious trouble with how unevenly they apply their content moderation guidelines. I wouldn't be surprised if Bezos just sells Twitch to get rid of the hassle, it doesn't fit in with the rest of their portfolio now and it also doesn't make any money.
This is always where Google and Meta excel. They are way ahead of everybody else in matching advertiser with eyeballs. Still far from perfect, but much better than everybody else.
Someone I know at Google's advertising business always says "money is green, it isn't red or blue" which seems to be the big realisation that all media industries are going through at the moment. Excluding over half of Americans by declining their business or not making products for them is completely backwards.
So something I wanted to investigate today was what signals there were available before the election that showed a Trump wave and I think it was on YouTube. I went back an looked at video metrics with a broadly pro-Trump vs pro-Harris and the difference was massive.
What I found was that videos on the pro-Trump side had huge subscribers to views ratios, you'd get videos from people with just 50k subscribers getting 2-3m views and the larger content creators with between 1m and 2m subs were easily doing over their total subscriber numbers, that to me says there's a level of grassroots interest in the content and generally these videos are pulling in lots of new eyeballs who aren't necessarily interested in politics or Trump, it's likely that they've seen the video shared somewhere in group chat or by some personality on Instagram or tiktok.
After watching the videos what also struck me is that 9/10 of them are either someone speaking into a camera from their bedroom just chatting about Trump and going through some of the new news or a react video or they're a guy with a camera man and a mic talking to real people getting real life opinions on screen, obviously they're edited so I can't take what was on screen as the full truth but the production values were very, err, rustic. What also surprised me was the sheer number of interviews with black and Latino people voting for Trump in working class areas and the reasons for those people voting for Trump all being broadly the same - jobs, prices, illegal immigrants.
...
The American right is very strong on YouTube. And of course the Daily Wire has turned into a huge operation, over 1 million paying subscribers.
Farage has been following a similar approach taping into YouTube, regularly gets 100k+ views on a video.
I think what's most interesting is that Trump supporting channels outside of a few very prominent ones like infowars or the daily wire are basically just a bloke/woman in a room speaking into a mic about what's going on in the world while the ones on the left have got really high production values with full sets/studios and they all feel like they're connected to the DNC in some way. It makes the Trump content feel much more authentic, when it's people talking about their own journeys or their own experiences and how that relates to what's happening wrt Trump vs Biden/Harris you don't feel sceptical because why would they lie? A lot of the time they disagree with Trump as well, one of the bigger streamers seemed to disagree with Trump on quite a lot very openly. They just never seemed to capture that kind of authenticity with the Harris content, or very rarely. You can see it too, the top viewed content for Harris seems to come from the campaign itself, for Trump it's from third party creators who support him.
Isn't the "authentic" look the new vibe, hence why even huge content creators how sit their with visible mics, often holding them, when behind the scenes is this huge team of people e.g. The Fellas studios in the UK do this for their podcasts
It was quite striking that while Trump, Vance and Musk did every podcast that would have them, Harris campaign would only go on the Call Me Daddy podcast and the campaign paid an alleged $100k to make the set for the interview. Seems Harris campaign didn't get the memo.
It's rather sad to see the triumph of the large microphone, sat-at-desk, neon sign in background setup where they just waffle for ten-fifteen minutes. I prefer the lecture or scripted format delivered straight to camera from a script or autocue, it's a lot easier to listen to while you are working.
There is still loads of that on YouTube. Veritasium makes science videos with production quality on par if not exceeding traditional tv channels.
But the trashy / yuff end, its gone from try to fake how good everything appears to faking the authentic look now being in vogue.
So something I wanted to investigate today was what signals there were available before the election that showed a Trump wave and I think it was on YouTube. I went back an looked at video metrics with a broadly pro-Trump vs pro-Harris and the difference was massive.
What I found was that videos on the pro-Trump side had huge subscribers to views ratios, you'd get videos from people with just 50k subscribers getting 2-3m views and the larger content creators with between 1m and 2m subs were easily doing over their total subscriber numbers, that to me says there's a level of grassroots interest in the content and generally these videos are pulling in lots of new eyeballs who aren't necessarily interested in politics or Trump, it's likely that they've seen the video shared somewhere in group chat or by some personality on Instagram or tiktok.
After watching the videos what also struck me is that 9/10 of them are either someone speaking into a camera from their bedroom just chatting about Trump and going through some of the new news or a react video or they're a guy with a camera man and a mic talking to real people getting real life opinions on screen, obviously they're edited so I can't take what was on screen as the full truth but the production values were very, err, rustic. What also surprised me was the sheer number of interviews with black and Latino people voting for Trump in working class areas and the reasons for those people voting for Trump all being broadly the same - jobs, prices, illegal immigrants.
...
The American right is very strong on YouTube. And of course the Daily Wire has turned into a huge operation, over 1 million paying subscribers.
Farage has been following a similar approach taping into YouTube, regularly gets 100k+ views on a video.
I think what's most interesting is that Trump supporting channels outside of a few very prominent ones like infowars or the daily wire are basically just a bloke/woman in a room speaking into a mic about what's going on in the world while the ones on the left have got really high production values with full sets/studios and they all feel like they're connected to the DNC in some way. It makes the Trump content feel much more authentic, when it's people talking about their own journeys or their own experiences and how that relates to what's happening wrt Trump vs Biden/Harris you don't feel sceptical because why would they lie? A lot of the time they disagree with Trump as well, one of the bigger streamers seemed to disagree with Trump on quite a lot very openly. They just never seemed to capture that kind of authenticity with the Harris content, or very rarely. You can see it too, the top viewed content for Harris seems to come from the campaign itself, for Trump it's from third party creators who support him.
Isn't the "authentic" look the new vibe, hence why even huge content creators how sit their with visible mics, often holding them, when behind the scenes is this huge team of people e.g. The Fellas studios in the UK do this for their podcasts
It was quite striking that while Trump, Vance and Musk did every podcast that would have them, Harris campaign would only go on the Call Me Daddy podcast and the campaign paid an alleged $100k to make the set for the interview. Seems Harris campaign didn't get the memo.
I think the authentic vibe has a been a big thing for a very long time. People who have enough money to make high production videos have preferred to carry on making them as if they hardly have got any spare resources and have done for many years, because they think it makes them appear more ordinary and "democratic". I suppose it's similar to the way that hardly any businesspeople carry briefcases these days, whereas in the 80s and earlier they'd pretty much all have one, and these days prefer to walk around with backpacks as if they're student hitchhikers. Maybe one day the fashion will go in the other direction again. (When I was about 10 years old I remember looking forward to the day I would walk around with a shiny briefcase, but I've never actually done it).
So something I wanted to investigate today was what signals there were available before the election that showed a Trump wave and I think it was on YouTube. I went back an looked at video metrics with a broadly pro-Trump vs pro-Harris and the difference was massive.
What I found was that videos on the pro-Trump side had huge subscribers to views ratios, you'd get videos from people with just 50k subscribers getting 2-3m views and the larger content creators with between 1m and 2m subs were easily doing over their total subscriber numbers, that to me says there's a level of grassroots interest in the content and generally these videos are pulling in lots of new eyeballs who aren't necessarily interested in politics or Trump, it's likely that they've seen the video shared somewhere in group chat or by some personality on Instagram or tiktok.
After watching the videos what also struck me is that 9/10 of them are either someone speaking into a camera from their bedroom just chatting about Trump and going through some of the new news or a react video or they're a guy with a camera man and a mic talking to real people getting real life opinions on screen, obviously they're edited so I can't take what was on screen as the full truth but the production values were very, err, rustic. What also surprised me was the sheer number of interviews with black and Latino people voting for Trump in working class areas and the reasons for those people voting for Trump all being broadly the same - jobs, prices, illegal immigrants.
...
The American right is very strong on YouTube. And of course the Daily Wire has turned into a huge operation, over 1 million paying subscribers.
Farage has been following a similar approach taping into YouTube, regularly gets 100k+ views on a video.
I think what's most interesting is that Trump supporting channels outside of a few very prominent ones like infowars or the daily wire are basically just a bloke/woman in a room speaking into a mic about what's going on in the world while the ones on the left have got really high production values with full sets/studios and they all feel like they're connected to the DNC in some way. It makes the Trump content feel much more authentic, when it's people talking about their own journeys or their own experiences and how that relates to what's happening wrt Trump vs Biden/Harris you don't feel sceptical because why would they lie? A lot of the time they disagree with Trump as well, one of the bigger streamers seemed to disagree with Trump on quite a lot very openly. They just never seemed to capture that kind of authenticity with the Harris content, or very rarely. You can see it too, the top viewed content for Harris seems to come from the campaign itself, for Trump it's from third party creators who support him.
Isn't the "authentic" look the new vibe, hence why even huge content creators how sit their with visible mics, often holding them, when behind the scenes is this huge team of people e.g. The Fellas studios in the UK do this for their podcasts
It was quite striking that while Trump, Vance and Musk did every podcast that would have them, Harris campaign would only go on the Call Me Daddy podcast and the campaign paid an alleged $100k to make the set for the interview. Seems Harris campaign didn't get the memo.
I think the authentic vibe has a been a big thing for a very long time. People who have enough money to make high production videos have preferred to carry on making them as if they've hardly got any spare resources for many years, because they think it makes them appear more ordinary and "democratic".
2-3 years ago many of these YouTubers were building flashy sets, really upping production values, multi-camera, 4k etc etc etc, aping what a traditional tv setup would have been. More recently, they have really really leaned into this make it look crap, with particular trend to now holding some shitty mic.
So something I wanted to investigate today was what signals there were available before the election that showed a Trump wave and I think it was on YouTube. I went back an looked at video metrics with a broadly pro-Trump vs pro-Harris and the difference was massive.
What I found was that videos on the pro-Trump side had huge subscribers to views ratios, you'd get videos from people with just 50k subscribers getting 2-3m views and the larger content creators with between 1m and 2m subs were easily doing over their total subscriber numbers, that to me says there's a level of grassroots interest in the content and generally these videos are pulling in lots of new eyeballs who aren't necessarily interested in politics or Trump, it's likely that they've seen the video shared somewhere in group chat or by some personality on Instagram or tiktok.
After watching the videos what also struck me is that 9/10 of them are either someone speaking into a camera from their bedroom just chatting about Trump and going through some of the new news or a react video or they're a guy with a camera man and a mic talking to real people getting real life opinions on screen, obviously they're edited so I can't take what was on screen as the full truth but the production values were very, err, rustic. What also surprised me was the sheer number of interviews with black and Latino people voting for Trump in working class areas and the reasons for those people voting for Trump all being broadly the same - jobs, prices, illegal immigrants.
...
The American right is very strong on YouTube. And of course the Daily Wire has turned into a huge operation, over 1 million paying subscribers.
Farage has been following a similar approach taping into YouTube, regularly gets 100k+ views on a video.
I think what's most interesting is that Trump supporting channels outside of a few very prominent ones like infowars or the daily wire are basically just a bloke/woman in a room speaking into a mic about what's going on in the world while the ones on the left have got really high production values with full sets/studios and they all feel like they're connected to the DNC in some way. It makes the Trump content feel much more authentic, when it's people talking about their own journeys or their own experiences and how that relates to what's happening wrt Trump vs Biden/Harris you don't feel sceptical because why would they lie? A lot of the time they disagree with Trump as well, one of the bigger streamers seemed to disagree with Trump on quite a lot very openly. They just never seemed to capture that kind of authenticity with the Harris content, or very rarely. You can see it too, the top viewed content for Harris seems to come from the campaign itself, for Trump it's from third party creators who support him.
Isn't the "authentic" look the new vibe, hence why even huge content creators how sit their with visible mics, often holding them, when behind the scenes is this huge team of people e.g. The Fellas studios in the UK do this for their podcasts
It was quite striking that while Trump, Vance and Musk did every podcast that would have them, Harris campaign would only go on the Call Me Daddy podcast and the campaign paid an alleged $100k to make the set for the interview. Seems Harris campaign didn't get the memo.
Maybe the aesthetic will creep back into mainstream media, like the days of Phillip Schofield in the BBC 'broom cupboard'.
One final thing about YouTube (as I need to do some work)....it is definitely the place where kids get a huge chunk of content rather than watching tv, but I think the demographic is much wider these days, where you have middle aged people who grew up with it but also oldies on their iPads have morphed from Maureen get on t'interweb to that YouTube to find out how to fix a leaking radiator to actually watching regular content e.g. I highly doubt its 18-30 year olds watching Farage and GB News YouTube content.
I recommended a video the the other day of some bloke who does food reviews and moaning about EV cars and was doing a clickbaity how much he made. What was interesting was he has 200k subs and they are all oldies. He seems to get quite significant revenue due to the demographics of his viewers.
Charlie Kirk reveals the 2024 Trump Campaign blueprint that won Donald Trump the White House.
Kirk said the campaign "hacked" the election by sidestepping the media.
1. "Don't spend your time knocking on doors about a suburban soccer mom who's weighing her options."
2. "Spend your time in very Republican areas where there are what we call disengaged voters."
3. "We registered thousands of young men to vote in fraternities. And that was way easier than us going to try to win over swing voters."
4. "[The Trump Campaign] threw the Republican consultant playbook out."
5. "[The Trump Campaign] looked at demographics and they realized if we can make the electorate 3% more masculine... they deemphasized racial politics and they emphasized more of a masculine machismo approach."
6. "High-propensity voters is where the Republican party has always been focused. But Trump came in, he said, 'No, no, no, we're gonna focus on low propensity voters, the welder, the electrician, the carpenter, the police officer or the person that's just not registered to vote.'"
7. The Trump Campaign used Josh Shapiro's "Motor Voter" plan.
"[Shapiro] thought that was gonna help Democrats... it helped Republicans because of lower [propensity voters]."
"What Donald Trump's campaign did is they hacked the 2024 election, not in a way that people would think."
"Everyone has a supercomputer in their pockets... Why are we worried about what CNN is saying?"
"They said, 'Why don't we go on the most ambitious, over-the-top low propensity voter communication strategy on Theo Von, Joe Rogan, Nelk Boys, Logan Paul...'"
"They said, 'Why don't we go on the most ambitious, over-the-top low propensity voter communication strategy on Theo Von, Joe Rogan, Nelk Boys, Logan Paul...'"
Much was made of the Rogan appearance, but far less about his appearance on likes of Nelk Boys and Logan Paul. They have massive following among the young "bros", who I doubt even know any hosts on CNN or Fox News.
Couldn't disagree more with both of these: the WHO and the "experts". You don't need it to be higher than 16 degrees imo.
"Experts slam the World Health Organisation's advice to set your home thermostat at 18°C - and insist your house needs to be at least 20°C to keep you warm this winter"
Southampton defender Taylor Harwood-Bellis says his future father-in-law Roy Keane has played a part in his recent development. The Manchester City academy product, who has received his first senior England call-up, recently got engaged to Keane's daughter Leah.
On the flip side the Harris videos didn't have anything like those numbers/ratios. I would see a few videos that made it over 1m but it was a rarity and most often what you'd see is big content creators with 5-6m subscribers only getting 500-600k views for their uploads which is good but it seemed like they couldn't get beyond their core audience or even their whole audience. The other big difference was that the pro-Harris videos all had much higher production values, they almost felt like watching long form adverts and rarely did they go out and speak ordinary people. They tended to concentrate more on what Trump was saying or just acting as a mouthpiece for the campaign it felt like. Not a single one really disagreed with anything that Harris had put out and they all seemed extremely defferential to "Madame President" which almost felt like a running joke by the end of my watch of those videos.
Anyway, my takeaway is that YouTube, at least this time, gave us a window of what was happening on the ground, the subscribers to views ratios on videos is a good measure of how well content is getting to non-core audiences and on that measure pro-Trump content absolutely destroyed the Harris camp and on top I actually felt as though the pro-Trump content creators were much more racially diverse than the Harris ones who were almost exclusively white and middle class. The Trump content seemed to come from a lot more working class voices which are naturally more diverse.
One of the more interesting ones was a black guy who you can see in real time switch from Biden/Harris to Trump after going to Trump rallies as an observer and to conduct interviews with Trump supporters. He goes in expecting to be racially abused or physically threatened and at the first rally it's all high fives and "good to see you here, have a MAGA hat" etc... That guy has almost 2m (I suspect mostly black) subscribers and they all watched him become a Trump voter and the comments are all hugely supportive in all of the videos of him and of the Trump supporters who welcomed him with open arms.
I think in the run up to 2028 keeping a better eye on YouTube metrics will give us a very good picture of what's actually happening on the ground. I don't think we have an equivalent scene in the UK just yet but by the time the next election rolls around there could be.
It's interesting how in 2017/2019 YouTube and social media in the UK was such a bad arbiter of opinion, if you'd trusted that you'd have thought Labour would win.
I think YT is just so much bigger now than it was in 2017/19. It also seems to have a very, very even handed content moderation policy now compared to back then, loads of right wing channels were getting banned and demonetised on YT around 2016 after the first Trump victory but Google seem to have realised just how much money they can make selling ads on right wing videos so now they live and let live.
What makes this more powerful for the US is that Trump saw big swings among younger voters which is prime YT demographic. That's the wave that YT seems to have predicted and would have shown us the Trump victory ahead of time.
I'd say the moderation policy is vicious, and massively open to abuse. Youtube have seriously damaged their brand.
it is routine for commentators on Ukraine to refuse to even use certain words because it gets their videos demonetised. An example is how Russian troops are described as "demilitarised" rather than "killed", ships are "promoted to be a submarine", or words from 1960s batman (eg "kaboom", "kaboomed") are used rather than "blown-up" or "exploded". If a body appears on a news report, your video is gone.
There are numbers of Ukraine news and analysis channels that have just moved part or all of their content off the platform to places like Patreon or Discord or Telegram.
Even one I know running computer simulated battles between modern navies has problems.
There are military history channels that have done the same thing. Drachinifel gets around it usually because he is at a very high material quality, and has a "channel stops at 1950" policy.
Plus there is an absurd attitude to copyright strikes, which ignores Copyright Law (eg fair dealing), and therefore opens up mechanisms for that as a means for getting vids you don't removed. A standard technique for Russian bots.
"A report detailing his "horrific" beatings of teenaged boys was presented to some Church leaders in 1982. But the recipients of that report "participated in an active cover-up" to prevent its findings, including that crimes had been committed, coming to light, the Makin review said."
Tale care with that. Our media are fishing for juicy nuggets without giving a complete picture, and their concern is named people hanging on media gibbets, plus sensational stories. It always is. Concern for victims, and prevention of future repeat events, which should be first, always comes second.
"Church leaders" in that quote is enticingly vague. In 1982 afaics can see from the sections of the Makin Report I have studied, it was a few leaders in one parish, and a couple of trustees in an independent trust ("Iwerne Trust") which existed purely to organise said holiday camps. The independence of the trust made it easier for Smyth to isolate his abuse once he was established inside the network.
With reporting like that there will be various groups trying to make hay using it to smear over all sorts of other people who omitted to do things they could have done.
Just the practice of such reporting will incentive those who know to forget that they heard and keep their eyes shut, for fear of being "scooped". That's how media exposure works - a newspaper writes a story making an allegation, and you start getting (up to death) threats and emails to your employer.
We learnt that when the tabloids were running "who is your local paedophile" front pages in the late 1990s, and when they got it wrong innocent people were driven out of their homes.
In this case, for general awareness I'd suggest reading the timeline section of the report. Start at section 11.3 on page 34 and keep going as long as you can stand.
The thing that shouts to me is how ordinary he was. Targeting particular people as THEY did THAT, whether the perp or the people who are deemed to have taken no action when they could have done so, misses the important point that the next one could be your or my colleague, neighbour or partner - or maybe ourselves.
After all, we have just had a member of PB who got semi-drunk or drunk at normal drinks receptions, lost his inhibitions, then started touching up a female staff member because at the time he thought it was an OK thing to do.
You couldn't use the same tactics at a UK election. Over here it's still the case that winning middle-of-the-road voters is the key to success, not getting "disengaged" people to vote — except at a referendum like the Brexit one.
You couldn't use the same tactics at a UK election. Over here it's still the case that winning middle-of-the-road voters is the key to success, not getting "disengaged" people to vote — except at a referendum like the Brexit one.
Trump did get middle of the road voters behind him too, he won nearly half of Independents who thought Harris and Walz were too left liberal
Anyhow, a C of E story is not complete if it does not involve the use of the word "defrocked".
I thought the problem was with people being detrousered, not defrocked.
Excellent excuse to recall the little Norfolk parish of Stiffkey. Famous for only two things: a 40mm Bofors gunsight attachment, the Stiffkey Stick, and a defrocked padre.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigns after Church of England scandal"
That man is a plank.
He will end up declaring himself to be a rip-roaring supporter of Donald Trump, as people who are legally in the USA, and their children, are locked up in separate concentration camps because Trump and his thugs don't give a damn about the law.
Couldn't disagree more with both of these: the WHO and the "experts". You don't need it to be higher than 16 degrees imo.
"Experts slam the World Health Organisation's advice to set your home thermostat at 18°C - and insist your house needs to be at least 20°C to keep you warm this winter"
Trump picks for second go around, certainly doesn't look like it will be any quieter than the first time.
Trump said in the Rogan interview that one thing he messed up first time around, as an outsider, was to pick too many of the existing swamp creatures to run departments, and that he was determined not to the same this time. There’s definitely a few outsiders and reformists on the list for 2025.
The Peter Sentenello video highlights well the amount of waste and corruption that exists in DC, that a president not in hock to the lobbyists should be able to eliminate.
"Mhairi Fraser: the rising Tory force who was bowled over by Trump She starred at PopCon with a tirade against Covid lockdowns, and she may shape the Conservatives’ post-Sunak trajectory"
Peter Mandelson’s consultancy Global Counsel advised the Chinese fast fashion company Shein until earlier this year, the Guardian can disclose.
The retail company contracted Global Counsel until earlier in 2024, though it never appeared on Global Counsel’s list of clients published by the Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists (ORCL).
Couldn't disagree more with both of these: the WHO and the "experts". You don't need it to be higher than 16 degrees imo.
"Experts slam the World Health Organisation's advice to set your home thermostat at 18°C - and insist your house needs to be at least 20°C to keep you warm this winter"
Trump picks for second go around, certainly doesn't look like it will be any quieter than the first time.
Trump said in the Rogan interview that one thing he messed up first time around, as an outsider, was to pick too many of the existing swamp creatures to run departments, and that he was determined not to the same this time. There’s definitely a few outsiders and reformists on the list for 2025.
The Peter Sentenello video highlights well the amount of waste and corruption that exists in DC, that a president not in hock to the lobbyists should be able to eliminate.
Donald Trump is the only US President ever to be convicted of corruption. He’s already effectively been selling cabinet posts. Last time he was in power vast sums of money were diverted to his own business interests.
You think he won’t be in hock to lobbyists? They’ll just need to pay more.
Trump picks for second go around, certainly doesn't look like it will be any quieter than the first time.
Trump said in the Rogan interview that one thing he messed up first time around, as an outsider, was to pick too many of the existing swamp creatures to run departments, and that he was determined not to the same this time. There’s definitely a few outsiders and reformists on the list for 2025.
The Peter Sentenello video highlights well the amount of waste and corruption that exists in DC, that a president not in hock to the lobbyists should be able to eliminate.
Donald Trump is the only US President ever to be convicted of corruption. He’s already effectively been selling cabinet posts. Last time he was in power vast sums of money were diverted to his own business interests.
You think he won’t be in hock to lobbyists? They’ll just need to pay more.
What we are going to see is a vast transfer of wealth from the poorer to the richer, and a consequent reduction in the little help the poor and poorer get from the state.
It's a bold experiment, and to be fair to Trump's administration, it is something that he said they would do. But a question is how long a state can remain a state when the masses are ruled over by an oligarchy.
On the subject of diets did anyone else grow up thinking Martin Luther was famous for being forced to eat worms by some archaic version of Ant and Dec?
Ant and Dec was after that point on my life, so no…
But surely you have to be something of a numpty to believe in supernatural events whichever background you come from.
I think I was aged about 3 when I realised that religion was complete bollocks...about the same time when I learnt about Santa Claus. It amazes me that anyone older than the age of 3 still believes in any of this nonsense.....
Christ is the saviour of all mankind, as you will discover on the day of judgement
I think I'm pretty representative of about 75% of British people.
I was baptized C of E but I don't regularly go to church except for life's biggest events (birth, marriage and death) and I've always said I'm agnostic...
But... but... but...
At my absolute pit of despair and at the worst time of my life, which was in 2022 while I myself was being treated for cancer and my mother, who I was longtime carer for, was dying from metastatic breast cancer, I found myself calling out to a higher power and asking Him for the strength to get through the trials that I knew were ahead. And I did feel some comfort. Was that just my mind trying to ease itself? Or did a higher power hear me?
I personally would describe myself as "spiritual" in that I do believe our energy goes on beyond death and I hope that one day when my time comes, I'll see those I loved and lost. Where "religion" fits into that, I don't know, but that's my own personal belief. 🙏
The still, small voice of calm
Drop Thy still dews of quietness, Till all our strivings cease; Take from our souls the strain and stress, And let our ordered lives confess The beauty of Thy peace.
In Baku today it is as if there are five @DavidLammy clones. He is everywhere at COP & making a huge & hugely positive impression. I can’t exaggerate how great it is to have such a senior figure drag the focus away from the technocratic one-dimensional focus on carbon counting towards championing the actual natural world we all depend on and without which we haven’t a hope of stabilising the climate.
It is wonderful to see & so good to have the UK back & leading on this, the most important cause of all 👏🌎👏
"Much of survivors’ anger has been directed at Carlos Mazón, the conservative head of the regional government. On the day of the floods, he had a three-hour lunch with a female journalist that, according to local media, did not finish until 6pm, when some towns and villages were already swamped and the first reports of missing people had come in."
This is one of my personal irritations - fare dodging is endemic at East Ham but unfortunately Sadiq Khan and Transport for London seem happy to go running to the Government for extra money rather than trying to recoup the lost fares. C2C and I have to say the Elizabeth Line seem a lot more proactive about dealing with fare dodgers and anti-social behaviour on trains such as begging.
I know it's tiny in the cosmic scheme of things but it's this low-level criminality which degrades the quality of life in, I suspect, not just London but other towns and cities.
Give Khan a break. He's too busy lecturing Donald Trump and whacking up taxes to pay for e.g. £10 million on a training course featuring tests to determine the “colour” of Met Police officers’ personalities, a six figure salary for a "night czar" or £500,000 of free ads for a vaginal moisturiser company (that one is just bizarre).
You really can't expect him to pay attention to trivialities like public safety.
One of my clients is an incredible hard bitten and cynical Australian who sits on the executive committee of a large US public company. She swears by the colour test - they did it at her firm and it has been really impactful in helping teams work together much more effectively
But surely you have to be something of a numpty to believe in supernatural events whichever background you come from.
I think I was aged about 3 when I realised that religion was complete bollocks...about the same time when I learnt about Santa Claus. It amazes me that anyone older than the age of 3 still believes in any of this nonsense.....
My daughter went to a CofE school. I remember she had a falling out with one of her friends once over a stuffed toy. Said friend claimed that the toy had been made for her by God. My daughter read the label which said it was made in China.
Course, my daughter is now a weekly churchgoer, so it does something for her even if she doesn't believe in the omnipotent creator bit.
It’s a bit unreasonable not to allow Him to delegate a bit to China. After all he did send his son to be a piñata for our sins
robert shrimsley @robertshrimsley · 2h The presumptive US ambassador to Israel totally vindicating those Gaza supporters who couldn't bring themselves to vote for Harris
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@robertshrimsley
·
2h
The presumptive US ambassador to Israel totally vindicating those Gaza supporters who couldn't bring themselves to vote for Harris
https://x.com/robertshrimsley/status/1856418289657770427
Did you feel there was consensus we could come to from my points, namely:
there are only two (biological) sexes;
there should be an additional category or categories for trans people that protect them separately from men/women in their own spaces (loos etc.) and also in things like sports;
that trans people should be allowed to live freely;
that trans people are people;
that people under 18 should not be having life altering surgery;
that people over the age of 18 should be able to have life altering surgery should they deem it necessary (and with the appropriate safeguards applied);
that if, for example, a trans person wishes to be called "she" despite their biological sex being male (or vice versa), that this should be respected but if incorrect, one should not be treated as a bigot - this should be much the same as getting somebody's name wrong.
Can this be a position from which the country/the world come to a settled view and move on?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/12/telegraph-journalist-allison-pearson-hate-crime-alleged/
Be interesting to know exactly what it was that was tweeted and the fully story.
I do find the whole idea of non-crime hate incident worrying creep. You have either allegedly committed a crime, in which the police should be investigating, or you haven't, and they shouldn't.
Its a bit like the recent cases of people being offensive at the football. They are arseholes, but they aren't unique in that, being an arsehole and disrespectful shouldn't be a crime, rather society can decide for themselves what they think about such people.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/non-crime-hate-incidents-code-of-practice/non-crime-hate-incidents-code-of-practice-on-the-recording-and-retention-of-personal-data-accessible
NCHI recording stems from the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. The 1999 Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report called for Codes of Practice to create “a comprehensive system of reporting and recording of all racist incidents and crimes”. NCHI recording has since expanded to cover all the protected characteristics covered by hate crime laws in England and Wales: race, religion, disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity. This data is vital for helping the police to understand where they must target resources to prevent serious crimes which may later occur.
In progressive thought, protecting the rights of a protected group/class is an absolute. The problem of when two such groups rights interact is rarely examined.
In this case, there are the rights of women vs the rights of trans.
Some claim there is no clash. Which is hard to reconcile with the heated debate.
The only possible end is compromise. Which isn’t a dirty word.
From a personal view I pretty much agree with what you say save for the last point. Calling someone by their preferred name is polite but no-one has the right to demand what people call them when they are not present. That strikes me as very narcissistic and can be pretty coercive. Nor is it right to force someone to lie. That can feel like an attempt to control and dominate a woman. It is important to call a transidentified man ie a dysphoric man a man because that explains why he is not allowed in a woman's space. Accuracy matters - in law, in statistics, in evidence etc.,. Seeking to override a woman's gut instincts - when she sees a male stranger in an unexpected place - is wrong because those instincts are necessary to keep her safe. Undermining those is what predators and those enabling them seek to do. That is quite wrong.
In a social setting where you know the person calling a dysphoric man you know "she" may matter less and be fine. So it is context specific and must be freely chosen. People must be free to decide for themselves without being accused in various vile ways for not speaking how others want them to speak.
Between you and I we may achieve a consensus. We do not rule the world, though.
That’s usually a good sign.
Reform voters despise him, just 1% have a favourable view of him and 54% unfavourable as do pensioners nearly as much, 54% of over 65s seeing him unfavourably and just 5% favourably.
Labour voters seem to like him a bit more though, 9% view him favourably and 27% unfavourably as do young people, 11% of 18 to 24s view him favourably and just 10% unfavourably. 7% of Tory and LD voters view him favourably but neither view him as negatively as Reform supporters do
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/2024/11/12/feea0/1
I am saying, if for example, somebody is identifying as a "he" but is biologically a she and I call them "she" and they say "actually I am a he", I should not be treated as a bigot for getting it wrong.
But if I get it wrong repeatedly, I'm not a bigot just (socially) I approach it much the same as getting somebody's name wrong, it's rude/sloppy/bad manners. Does that make more sense to you?
I wasn't wishing to say, if you see somebody and you believe/know they are one sex or the other, you should have this overridden especially when it comes to single sex spaces. But I think the issue of single sex spaces should primarily be resolved by having spaces for trans people specifically. In the case it's not, I don't disagree with what you are saying but that isn't really the point I was trying to make.
I am not sure I understand your point about referring to people when they are not there though. In a social setting if somebody kept getting my name wrong and I wasn't there, I would hope they would correct others?
Perhaps using a name was trivialising something which I am not trying to, so I hope you would read it in that context.
President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House already carried the potential for sweeping changes to the Federal Reserve. But now a growing question is not how the central bank will operate under Trump but if it’ll continue to operate at all.
Elon Musk, a key Trump backer who is expected to have considerable sway in helping shape Trump’s policies, included a “100” emoji while resharing Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah’s post on X calling for abolishing the Fed.
“The Executive Branch should be under the direction of the president,” Lee said Thursday in a post on X, hours after Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters he wouldn’t resign if Trump asked him to. “The Federal Reserve is one of many examples of how we’ve deviated from the Constitution in that regard,” Lee added. “Yet another reason why we should #EndTheFed.”
What I found was that videos on the pro-Trump side had huge subscribers to views ratios, you'd get videos from people with just 50k subscribers getting 2-3m views and the larger content creators with between 1m and 2m subs were easily doing over their total subscriber numbers, that to me says there's a level of grassroots interest in the content and generally these videos are pulling in lots of new eyeballs who aren't necessarily interested in politics or Trump, it's likely that they've seen the video shared somewhere in group chat or by some personality on Instagram or tiktok.
After watching the videos what also struck me is that 9/10 of them are either someone speaking into a camera from their bedroom just chatting about Trump and going through some of the new news or a react video or they're a guy with a camera man and a mic talking to real people getting real life opinions on screen, obviously they're edited so I can't take what was on screen as the full truth but the production values were very, err, rustic. What also surprised me was the sheer number of interviews with black and Latino people voting for Trump in working class areas and the reasons for those people voting for Trump all being broadly the same - jobs, prices, illegal immigrants.
...
On the flip side the Harris videos didn't have anything like those numbers/ratios. I would see a few videos that made it over 1m but it was a rarity and most often what you'd see is big content creators with 5-6m subscribers only getting 500-600k views for their uploads which is good but it seemed like they couldn't get beyond their core audience or even their whole audience. The other big difference was that the pro-Harris videos all had much higher production values, they almost felt like watching long form adverts and rarely did they go out and speak ordinary people. They tended to concentrate more on what Trump was saying or just acting as a mouthpiece for the campaign it felt like. Not a single one really disagreed with anything that Harris had put out and they all seemed extremely defferential to "Madame President" which almost felt like a running joke by the end of my watch of those videos.
Anyway, my takeaway is that YouTube, at least this time, gave us a window of what was happening on the ground, the subscribers to views ratios on videos is a good measure of how well content is getting to non-core audiences and on that measure pro-Trump content absolutely destroyed the Harris camp and on top I actually felt as though the pro-Trump content creators were much more racially diverse than the Harris ones who were almost exclusively white and middle class. The Trump content seemed to come from a lot more working class voices which are naturally more diverse.
One of the more interesting ones was a black guy who you can see in real time switch from Biden/Harris to Trump after going to Trump rallies as an observer and to conduct interviews with Trump supporters. He goes in expecting to be racially abused or physically threatened and at the first rally it's all high fives and "good to see you here, have a MAGA hat" etc... That guy has almost 2m (I suspect mostly black) subscribers and they all watched him become a Trump voter and the comments are all hugely supportive in all of the videos of him and of the Trump supporters who welcomed him with open arms.
I think in the run up to 2028 keeping a better eye on YouTube metrics will give us a very good picture of what's actually happening on the ground. I don't think we have an equivalent scene in the UK just yet but by the time the next election rolls around there could be.
But the framing is important. There is no right for a man to be in a woman's space. The right of the transidentified man is (a) to be recognised as such - which is the case by virtue of the gender reassignment pc and (b) not to be exposed to the risk of attack in a men's space. That latter right is not dealt with by forcing women to accept a man in their space. It is dealt with by having spaces for such men eg unisex or gender neutral loos / prisons / services etc or ones specifically for such men eg rape crisis centres for them where they can be themselves and be safe. I would welcome that.
The problem arises because some "trans" people seem more intent on the denial of women's rights or on inserting themselves into spaces without their consent than in creating spaces for themselves. It is that insistence on denial of women's right to have boundaries and to consent which is the source of the aggro. That is very old-fashioned predatory male behaviour at worst and at best a rather narcissistic demand for self-validation at women's expense. No woman should be obliged to participate in that.
Farage has been following a similar approach taping into YouTube, regularly gets 100k+ views on a video.
Surely everybody has that right? How often do you call non-trans people by a name other than their preferred name. "I was watching Noel Edmunds the other night - well he calls himself "Noel Edmunds" but I call him "Gingerballs Tidybeard" - and i said to my wife Wulfstan that he annoyed me. Wulfstan got up in a huff, said "My names Julia goddammit" and took the dog Mittens for a walk" You can see the problem.
UK snooker qualifying starts later this week. 2021 Champion Zhao Xintong, who returned from a ban in September, is in the draw as an invitation after winning two amateur events with 2 147's.
He'll have to win 4 matches to even qualify for the last 32 main event, but he's a recent course and distance winner, and easily top 10, if not higher, on ability.
He's got huge incentive to get back his pro status.
He's 40-1 to win the tournament. Seems like a value loser, and worth a few quid as a fun bet. I'm on.
Probably when hell freezes over.
I have quite a lot of work stuff to do but if I find the time I will try.
It does seem that we are close though - and I would like to know if the rest of PB finds anything to disagree with, with what I've said.
I do believe I sit firmly in the centre on this particular issue but I am happy to be corrected.
One of the stalls is marked, in the same painted font as the previous message, "Women only".
If we're going down that route, though, I INSIST you call me "wise, funny and beautiful" at all times. 😀
What makes this more powerful for the US is that Trump saw big swings among younger voters which is prime YT demographic. That's the wave that YT seems to have predicted and would have shown us the Trump victory ahead of time.
If the person is present and they go by "he" but you keep calling them "she", I think that's just a bit rude, no? I don't think it's bigoted, just seems rude. Do we agree on that?
If they are not present, I am not really sure I get what you mean. Again if they go by "he" and you keep calling them "she", that's your business but it just seems quite self-defeating to me if somebody who was there corrected you on it?
If you make mistakes I think that should not be held against you or you should feel that you can't, I am just not sure I totally understand what you are getting at. It just seems no different here to me calling you "Bob" when you are actually called "Mary".
But I would like to understand more what you mean.
I worked it out and I could rent somewhere for pretty much the same cost and then just move freely. I would be paying off a mortgage if owning but given all the up front costs of buying somewhere, it would be 18 months before breaking even.
It was quite striking that while Trump, Vance and Musk did every podcast that would have them, Harris campaign would only go on the Call Me Daddy podcast and the campaign paid an alleged $100k to make the set for the interview. Seems Harris campaign didn't get the memo.
The bankruptcy auction of InfoWars stuff was crazy, $10 millions of product and multi-million dollar studio setups.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/12/year-masterclass-in-human-destruction-un-chief-tells-cop29
In theory, such functions could be carried out by a politically-controlled Executive office. After all, the Bank of England was effectively a Treasury agency for most of the post-War era - not that this was a marked period of British success. But whether they could be carried out by a Trump-run Executive agency (or even whether Trump would want such an agency) is an entirely different question. Getting rid of the Fed would certainly open up scope for corruption on a whole new front, if Trump wanted to fill the space left for essential operations with private firms contracted by the Treasury Department.
And that's before we even start on Musk's interest in crypto.
Not sure who would buy Twitch though. If Bezo can't make the numbers ad up and he owns AWS, a third party is still going to have to use AWS but now won't get mates rates.
But the trashy / yuff end, its gone from try to fake how good everything appears to faking the authentic look now being in vogue.
Sadly though the Government's Bill to remove the hereditary peers was passed by a majority of 362
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/12/bishops-justin-welby-house-of-lords/
The process for other ABCs has been a Life Peerage on retirement, and that is aiui customary not automatic.
I recommended a video the the other day of some bloke who does food reviews and moaning about EV cars and was doing a clickbaity how much he made. What was interesting was he has 200k subs and they are all oldies. He seems to get quite significant revenue due to the demographics of his viewers.
https://x.com/collinrugg/status/1856436925063639381
Charlie Kirk reveals the 2024 Trump Campaign blueprint that won Donald Trump the White House.
Kirk said the campaign "hacked" the election by sidestepping the media.
1. "Don't spend your time knocking on doors about a suburban soccer mom who's weighing her options."
2. "Spend your time in very Republican areas where there are what we call disengaged voters."
3. "We registered thousands of young men to vote in fraternities. And that was way easier than us going to try to win over swing voters."
4. "[The Trump Campaign] threw the Republican consultant playbook out."
5. "[The Trump Campaign] looked at demographics and they realized if we can make the electorate 3% more masculine... they deemphasized racial politics and they emphasized more of a masculine machismo approach."
6. "High-propensity voters is where the Republican party has always been focused. But Trump came in, he said, 'No, no, no, we're gonna focus on low propensity voters, the welder, the electrician, the carpenter, the police officer or the person that's just not registered to vote.'"
7. The Trump Campaign used Josh Shapiro's "Motor Voter" plan.
"[Shapiro] thought that was gonna help Democrats... it helped Republicans because of lower [propensity voters]."
"What Donald Trump's campaign did is they hacked the 2024 election, not in a way that people would think."
"Everyone has a supercomputer in their pockets... Why are we worried about what CNN is saying?"
"They said, 'Why don't we go on the most ambitious, over-the-top low propensity voter communication strategy on Theo Von, Joe Rogan, Nelk Boys, Logan Paul...'"
"Experts slam the World Health Organisation's advice to set your home thermostat at 18°C - and insist your house needs to be at least 20°C to keep you warm this winter"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14072459/Experts-slam-home-thermostat-winter.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cp9zknp457yo
Good luck with that one....
it is routine for commentators on Ukraine to refuse to even use certain words because it gets their videos demonetised. An example is how Russian troops are described as "demilitarised" rather than "killed", ships are "promoted to be a submarine", or words from 1960s batman (eg "kaboom", "kaboomed") are used rather than "blown-up" or "exploded". If a body appears on a news report, your video is gone.
There are numbers of Ukraine news and analysis channels that have just moved part or all of their content off the platform to places like Patreon or Discord or Telegram.
Even one I know running computer simulated battles between modern navies has problems.
There are military history channels that have done the same thing. Drachinifel gets around it usually because he is at a very high material quality, and has a "channel stops at 1950" policy.
Plus there is an absurd attitude to copyright strikes, which ignores Copyright Law (eg fair dealing), and therefore opens up mechanisms for that as a means for getting vids you don't removed. A standard technique for Russian bots.
"Church leaders" in that quote is enticingly vague. In 1982 afaics can see from the sections of the Makin Report I have studied, it was a few leaders in one parish, and a couple of trustees in an independent trust ("Iwerne Trust") which existed purely to organise said holiday camps. The independence of the trust made it easier for Smyth to isolate his abuse once he was established inside the network.
With reporting like that there will be various groups trying to make hay using it to smear over all sorts of other people who omitted to do things they could have done.
Just the practice of such reporting will incentive those who know to forget that they heard and keep their eyes shut, for fear of being "scooped". That's how media exposure works - a newspaper writes a story making an allegation, and you start getting (up to death) threats and emails to your employer.
We learnt that when the tabloids were running "who is your local paedophile" front pages in the late 1990s, and when they got it wrong innocent people were driven out of their homes.
In this case, for general awareness I'd suggest reading the timeline section of the report. Start at section 11.3 on page 34 and keep going as long as you can stand.
https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2024-11/independent-learning-lessons-review-john-smyth-qc-november-2024.pdf
The thing that shouts to me is how ordinary he was. Targeting particular people as THEY did THAT, whether the perp or the people who are deemed to have taken no action when they could have done so, misses the important point that the next one could be your or my colleague, neighbour or partner - or maybe ourselves.
After all, we have just had a member of PB who got semi-drunk or drunk at normal drinks receptions, lost his inhibitions, then started touching up a female staff member because at the time he thought it was an OK thing to do.
You couldn't use the same tactics at a UK election. Over here it's still the case that winning middle-of-the-road voters is the key to success, not getting "disengaged" people to vote — except at a referendum like the Brexit one.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-he-will-nominate-fox-news-host-pete-hegseth-defense-secretary-2024-11-13/
Please don't go down the same rabbit hole Dawkins did, which turned out to be his own arse he was climbing up.
You missed that said Vicar was mauled to death by a lion, and that Henry Williamson who wrote Tarka the Otter lived there.
https://x.com/LeeAndersonMP_/status/1856339767534801224
"Lee Anderson MP
@LeeAndersonMP_
Now Lock Him Up
👇
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigns after Church of England scandal"
...
David Jenkins was really popular with people who had actually taken time to talk with him, rather than stand up shouting at him through a megaphone.
One who commented of him approvingly was George Carey, of his pastoral qualities despite differences of doctrine and style.
It's never as straightforward as some would like
This interview seems to be the best recent source to get a handle on his thinking:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoN5ovwB8s4
He will end up declaring himself to be a rip-roaring supporter of Donald Trump, as people who are legally in the USA, and their children, are locked up in separate concentration camps because Trump and his thugs don't give a damn about the law.
The US budget deficit is estimated at $1.8trn on a $6trn budget, so there’s a lot of efficiencies to be found if they want to run a surplus. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-deficit/#us-deficit-by-year
Inside America's Corruption Capital - Washington D.C.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQDdnZ__yTk
The Peter Sentenello video highlights well the amount of waste and corruption that exists in DC, that a president not in hock to the lobbyists should be able to eliminate.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/10/mhairi-fraser-the-rising-tory-force-who-was-bowled-over-by-trump
"Mhairi Fraser: the rising Tory force who was bowled over by Trump
She starred at PopCon with a tirade against Covid lockdowns, and she may shape the Conservatives’ post-Sunak trajectory"
Our culture has been forged from the Judeo-Christian tradition and the Church, for good and ill, has shaped our institutions and way of thinking
Peter Mandelson’s consultancy Global Counsel advised the Chinese fast fashion company Shein until earlier this year, the Guardian can disclose.
The retail company contracted Global Counsel until earlier in 2024, though it never appeared on Global Counsel’s list of clients published by the Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists (ORCL).
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/nov/13/peter-mandelson-consultancy-global-counsel-advised-shein-listing-ipo
You think he won’t be in hock to lobbyists? They’ll just need to pay more.
F1: many things have occurred, it seems.
The race director has left suddenly:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/articles/c4gvpn1exnvo
"A senior source said that Wittich had left earlier than expected as a result of his relationship with FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem."
Might increase the chances of someone else replacing the seemingly unpopular Sulayem.
Perhaps less surprisingly, Aston Martin's technical director has gone:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/articles/cgmvx314j1zo
And, as expected, Alpine are going to use Mercedes engines from 2026:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/articles/cx2npqq99xro
Apparently the in-development Alpine engine was exceeding expectations.
It's a bold experiment, and to be fair to Trump's administration, it is something that he said they would do. But a question is how long a state can remain a state when the masses are ruled over by an oligarchy.
Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.
"Much of survivors’ anger has been directed at Carlos Mazón, the conservative head of the regional government. On the day of the floods, he had a three-hour lunch with a female journalist that, according to local media, did not finish until 6pm, when some towns and villages were already swamped and the first reports of missing people had come in."
https://www.ft.com/content/ca1096fd-05d3-43ff-8fb1-abbca2b91997