What is the 5G conspiracy theory. I assume it cannot be that the virus actually travels over the airwaves, so must be that it makes us all weaker and more vulnerable to infection?
One conspiracy is that apparently there's no virus at all and this is all about us reacting to 5G, or some such rubbish, but I think for most it is as you say, which is a longstanding kind of position well before 5G even, about no proof that mobile masts and the like are not not hazadous to our health.
I've already had an FOI request for details about 5G health checks.
4G was responsible for swine flu and 3G for SARS.
True fact.
The 1G Herpes outbreak was a right pain (literally).
What is the 5G conspiracy theory. I assume it cannot be that the virus actually travels over the airwaves, so must be that it makes us all weaker and more vulnerable to infection?
One conspiracy is that apparently there's no virus at all and this is all about us reacting to 5G, or some such rubbish, but I think for most it is as you say, which is a longstanding kind of position well before 5G even, about no proof that mobile masts and the like are not not hazadous to our health.
I've already had an FOI request for details about 5G health checks.
4G was responsible for swine flu and 3G for SARS.
True fact.
The 1G Herpes outbreak was a right pain (literally).
Been chatting to a Labour activist this morning, they still think they won the argument and Starmer will be a more presentable face to the same busted policies. If this is the thinking that Labour activists have then it's going to be a long road.
Part of my message to my newly rejoined Labour friends is "your 2019 manifesto was shit". What's more it's pointless talking about 2019 or 2017 or Blair or whatever - that's all the past in a world that doesn't exist any more. They're going to love me...
The political party who grasp both the mood of the public post-Covid and connect with their Hopes and Fears can dominate. All the more reason why a policy platform that had zero Hope but invoked a lot of Fear needs to be buried.
I actually don't think the situation is going to be that different once all of this is over. There will be calls for more strategic reserve for manufacturing and onshoring of supply chains. Other than that I think the vast majority of voters recognise this is an extremely odd situation. It's possible that laws will be written over which programmes are to be instituted and what the eligibility criteria. I don't foresee a huge change in the national psyche that suddenly makes people more liable to vote for socialists.
If Labour have any sense they will not be offering socialism. They won with pragmatism (Wilson) or centrism (Blair).
"Socialism" means what exactly? Politics is about selling a narrative. And as soon as you have to spend time explaining what your pitch is about you've lost the audience.
The watershed changes I referred to are there to be seen. People don't have to commute to an office to do a desk job. Expect a steady move away from 5 days a week in the office roles with all that entails for transportation, support businesses etc. People have discovered that collective effort for a common cause is worth a little self sacrifice. I don't think people will be as self-absorbed and self-centred as we have seen in recent decades.
And finally the environment. The transformation in air quality is stunning. Finding ways to cut traffic levels and with it pollution for good feels like a key societal driver. Say goodbye to HS2 and the Heathrow runway. Say goodbye to anything other than accident black spot road schemes - getting less travel happening rather than making it easier will be the driver. We've seen governments set out unlikely targets on both emissions and polluting vehicles - unlikely no more. They'll be pulled forward.
None of these things are about getting people to "vote for socialists" - Supermac campaigned proudly on how many hundreds of thousands of council houses his Conservative government had built...
I hope you are right on all of this as this is a vision I could very much buy into. But I fear the inertia built into the system is perhaps just too much to overcome in the way you and I might wish even with an event as powerful as this one.
If you hate expertise, then experts are going to find it pretty tricky to vote for your party. And before long they're all in another party.
It is interesting that you assume that everyone will have a party affiliation.
I probably should have said 'voting for another party'. In the US, some polls have found that just 6% of scientists identify as Republicans vs. 55% as Democrats.
If that figure of 55% really is for "identifying as Democrats" that is a really high figure. A large number of scientists will vote but not consider themselves "to be a Democrat" we would be looking at a split of 20% voting Rep 70% voting Dem and 10% not voting. (It is reasonable to assume that scientists are more likely to vote than an average adult citizen and that "scientist" means working as a scientist or is a post-graduate in a science subject.)
Science is true whether you believe it or not. It's the Republicans that have to change.
"Science is true" is a statement without any significant meaning whatever.
No, the meaning is fairly clear, even if it was poorly expressed. Republicans can ignore or deny science, defund or obstruct it, but none of that will alter the validity of the scientific process.
“We have a culture here in Germany that is actually not supporting a centralized diagnostic system,” Drosten said. “So Germany does not have a public health laboratory that would restrict other labs from doing the tests. So we had an open market from the beginning.”
"80% of all people infected in Germany are younger than 60, the Robert Koch Institute said on Monday, indicating that the outbreak hasn’t yet taken hold in older people, where the risk of death is much higher. In Spain the number of affected over-60s is around 50%."
This article is a couple of weeks old. Be interesting to know if the 80% stat is still anywhere near true.
Have the UK done a particularly bad job at shielding oldies? Did they not listen and carried on with normal life too long?
We know in the UK, 1/3 of ICU patients are ethnic minorities. Wonder what the age demographic is? Are they for instance more weighted towards elderly Asians, who are much more likely to a) be devotedly religious and b) live in multi-generational households.
The ICNARC report said the median age of those admitted to ICU was 61, and the upper quartile was 69.
But of course that says very little about the number of older people who are ill or the severity of their illness. It says something about the people the NHS is admitting to ICU, given the scarcity of resources.
I note a report last night about the scarcity of body bags, the fact that corpses are being wrapped in sheets instead, reassuring comments that corpses aren't all that infectious because the virus degrades quickly after death, advice to place a cloth over the face so corpses don't "exhale" when they are being moved, and so on and so forth.
One can only shudder to think what would have happened under the original herd immunity plan.
I would suggest that there would not be a huge difference between the number of experts who hold strong right wing views and those who hold strong left wing views. Institutions, by their very nature, tend to lean to the left but that is only because the left are more comfortable in an institutional environment. At the same time many more who are more right orientated or perhaps more anti-statist (as I do think the right/left axis is obsolete to a large extent) are working in the private sector. They are still leaders in their field and may be making more advances than those in the institutional environment but they tend not to be as high profile given the nature of the environment in which they are working.
Right. But a couple of things -
Institutions lean naturally to the left and the left are more comfortable in institutions? No, I can't go with that. Not many socialists in many of this country's venerable institutions.
And I sense you're under-weighting the whole arts and creative and social sciences side. There are more left-wingers at the top in business than right-wingers writing great plays, if I can put it that way.
Those 1000 random experts -
200 left wing 350 left of centre 175 apolitical 200 right of centre 75 right wing
That's my best shot.
On the issue of institutions I fear you are too long away from any of our universities. The culture of conformity and fear that is seen is so many of our institutions these days is very sad and undermines the very purpose of those institutions.
So you prefer to treat people as children rather than give them the information they need to know to look critically at what someone is saying and judge where facts may have been slanted or omitted.....a typical hard left attitude...people can't be trusted they might not come to the "right" conclusion
The adult vs child comparison is relevant but not in the way you intend it. Imagine listening to an expert on astronomy who you know is a crazy Marxist talking about Uranus. You, the child, will listen to him without bias. But you, the adult, will struggle to do so. So, yes, we aspire to the childlike state in this regard.
Sky just outed Prof John Ashton as a labour supporter and he really lost it, objecting that he was not a member of the labour party and has not been in the labour party for the last year.
He asked Sky not to politicise this !!!
Oh the irony
This is the first time I have seen Sky declare the politics of those experts they interview and it is refreshing
What next , asking them to wear badges of shame
It is only correct that those with a political agenda are introduced accordingly
Just because he is not a Tory does not mean he has a political agenda. Tory extremism is getting to a ridiculous stage now. Copying Trump and only allowing Tories to be experts and wanting people to be wearing badges denoting their politics etc is not healthy policy , as I said we saw the results of that in Germany previously.
Malc. That is just nonsense
I want to hear balanced arguments from across the political divide but I do expect those with an agenda or are activists to be made known to their audience
And who decides who has an agenda or is an activist? You? The government? The people’s truth commission?
Ever heard of the 'Register of Members' Interests'? It would be like that, but with political affiliations, both professional and personal.
It would be utterly _fascinating_
So to be clear you want to investigate everyone’s political history, create a register and use it to discredit experts with unhelpful opinions to the government.
This escalated somewhat.
I want transparency. You know, that thing the lefts wanks on about day and night? Voices presented as authorities on the media have tremendous power to shape opinion - I think the audience deserves to know the personal and professional agenda of those doing the shaping.
Or were you all joking about that 'transparency' thing, and you only want it when it hurts the government?
You don’t want transparency, you want to make the political debate exclusively partisan, because you think it will discredit some of the government’s critics.
If we go down that route we will end up in the mess America finds itself in today where there is no political debate, just people shouting at each other.
Good grief, if the odd lefty or righty expert pops up on the telly as a talking head think we can probably cope. We have for years. It doesn’t appear that to have done the Tories much harm electorally.
The cost of outing affiliations is far greater.
At the risk of jumping in...
There was a case yesterday of an activist with a long track record of campaigning against the government. He was introduced as “an NHS consultant critical of the government’s handling of PPE”
In my view that is misleading the viewers. But equally you are right that if Dr Smith happens to have voted for Blair, Brown, Cameron and Swinson that is not relevant to anyone.
I like @edmundintokyo analysis that the most audacious candidate always wins. Maybe a feature of presidential elections in a media heavy age.
So I reckon it works all the way back to about 1968, not sure about before that.
Trump > Clinton H Obama > Romney Obama > McCain Bush W > Kerry Bush W > Gore Clinton > Dole Clinton > Bush HW Bush HW = Dukakis Reagan > Mondale Reagan > Carter Carter = Ford ??? Nixon > McGovern Nixon > Humphrey LBJ < Goldwater ??? JFK = Nixon ???
I like it as a heuristic because audacity is the kind of thing that should help you win the specific states you need, and also contested elections, whereas a lot of the traditional measures like the strength of the economy or the parties alternating don't feel like they'd explain the person who's supposed to win thanks to some deep structural reason losing the popular vote.
What is the 5G conspiracy theory. I assume it cannot be that the virus actually travels over the airwaves, so must be that it makes us all weaker and more vulnerable to infection?
One conspiracy is that apparently there's no virus at all and this is all about us reacting to 5G, or some such rubbish, but I think for most it is as you say, which is a longstanding kind of position well before 5G even, about no proof that mobile masts and the like are not not hazadous to our health.
I've already had an FOI request for details about 5G health checks.
4G was responsible for swine flu and 3G for SARS.
True fact.
The 1G Herpes outbreak was a right pain (literally).
If you hate expertise, then experts are going to find it pretty tricky to vote for your party. And before long they're all in another party.
It is interesting that you assume that everyone will have a party affiliation.
I probably should have said 'voting for another party'. In the US, some polls have found that just 6% of scientists identify as Republicans vs. 55% as Democrats.
If that figure of 55% really is for "identifying as Democrats" that is a really high figure. A large number of scientists will vote but not consider themselves "to be a Democrat" we would be looking at a split of 20% voting Rep 70% voting Dem and 10% not voting. (It is reasonable to assume that scientists are more likely to vote than an average adult citizen and that "scientist" means working as a scientist or is a post-graduate in a science subject.)
Science is true whether you believe it or not. It's the Republicans that have to change.
There is however also a problem when those who call themselves scientists do not work scientifically and veer into advocacy and politics.
All science is inherently political. It's futile to try to decouple the two, and indeed science needs political advocacy just as much as any other interest does.
That is simply wrong.
Practicing science is based on the principle of the scientific method. If you do not adhere to this method then you are not acting as a scientist. Politics has no place in this. That is where so many people go fundamentally wrong.
The truth lies somewhere in between, science is not inherently political but it isnt true that politics has no place in science either. They inevitably overlap, the degree of overlap depends on the society, in the soviet union or the roman inquistion for example science was very much politics led. That situation is neither desirable nor inevitable, but it clearly does happen to varying degrees.
What is the 5G conspiracy theory. I assume it cannot be that the virus actually travels over the airwaves, so must be that it makes us all weaker and more vulnerable to infection?
Strong version: there is no virus at all, what people are suffering from is the direct effect of 5G radio waves.
Weak version: 5G saps the immune system, making us all susceptible to the virus.
All it needs to be disproved is a virus hotspot that doesn't have any 5G.
There must be several around by now, does anyone know of one?
I assume Iran doesn't have any 5G.
Well, yes and no.
You're obviously right, but there is no point arguing with a conspiracy theorist as their response is just to come up with some additional layer of bullsh1t. Their can't be "disproved" in their own minds as they just don't work in that way.
Well I can imagine COVID and 5G might be correlated because they both happen in more global, densely populated cities with good transport links.
Also they are likely to have more pollution which might make cases of the virus worse.
But I was interested in whether the virus occurs in large numbers anywhere without it, I just checked and Iran was rolling out 5G countrywide in March this year, so presumably it was operational in some way as the virus hit them.
So you prefer to treat people as children rather than give them the information they need to know to look critically at what someone is saying and judge where facts may have been slanted or omitted.....a typical hard left attitude...people can't be trusted they might not come to the "right" conclusion
The adult vs child comparison is relevant but not in the way you intend it. Imagine listening to an expert on astronomy who you know is a crazy Marxist talking about Uranus. You, the child, will listen to him without bias. But you, the adult, will struggle to do so. So, yes, we aspire to the childlike state in this regard.
You don't have talk some piffle why would I disregard a marxist astronomer talking about uranus.....a marxist expert talking about economics on the other hand yes it very much is relevant, likewise a marxist expert on healthcare systems it is relevant. Believing people cannot discern when ideology is potentially colouring information is exactly treating people as stupid.
You just want people who will sheep like believe what they are told by your ilk. Showing your true colours.
What is the 5G conspiracy theory. I assume it cannot be that the virus actually travels over the airwaves, so must be that it makes us all weaker and more vulnerable to infection?
One conspiracy is that apparently there's no virus at all and this is all about us reacting to 5G, or some such rubbish, but I think for most it is as you say, which is a longstanding kind of position well before 5G even, about no proof that mobile masts and the like are not not hazadous to our health.
I've already had an FOI request for details about 5G health checks.
4G was responsible for swine flu and 3G for SARS.
True fact.
The 1G Herpes outbreak was a right pain (literally).
How do they explain the Black Death?
Come on, sheeple!
Are you really going to accept, as the Powers that Be want, that the appearance of the mechanical clock in the early 14th century had absolutely nothing to do with the Black Death?
If you hate expertise, then experts are going to find it pretty tricky to vote for your party. And before long they're all in another party.
It is interesting that you assume that everyone will have a party affiliation.
I probably should have said 'voting for another party'. In the US, some polls have found that just 6% of scientists identify as Republicans vs. 55% as Democrats.
If that figure of 55% really is for "identifying as Democrats" that is a really high figure. A large number of scientists will vote but not consider themselves "to be a Democrat" we would be looking at a split of 20% voting Rep 70% voting Dem and 10% not voting. (It is reasonable to assume that scientists are more likely to vote than an average adult citizen and that "scientist" means working as a scientist or is a post-graduate in a science subject.)
Science is true whether you believe it or not. It's the Republicans that have to change.
There is however also a problem when those who call themselves scientists do not work scientifically and veer into advocacy and politics.
All science is inherently political. It's futile to try to decouple the two, and indeed science needs political advocacy just as much as any other interest does.
That is simply wrong.
Practicing science is based on the principle of the scientific method. If you do not adhere to this method then you are not acting as a scientist. Politics has no place in this. That is where so many people go fundamentally wrong.
The truth lies somewhere in between, science is not inherently political but it isnt true that politics has no place in science either. They inevitably overlap, the degree of overlap depends on the society, in the soviet union or the roman inquistion for example science was very much politics led. That situation is neither desirable nor inevitable, but it clearly does happen to varying degrees.
The funding and administration of science are of course political, as is any human group endeavour. And its conclusions inevitably impact on politics. Problems arise when they don’t sit comfortably with people’s prejudices.
I like @edmundintokyo analysis that the most audacious candidate always wins. Maybe a feature of presidential elections in a media heavy age.
So I reckon it works all the way back to about 1968, not sure about before that.
Trump > Clinton H Obama > Romney Obama > McCain Bush W > Kerry Bush W > Gore Clinton > Dole Clinton > Bush HW Bush HW = Dukakis Reagan > Mondale Reagan > Carter Carter = Ford ??? Nixon > McGovern Nixon > Humphrey LBJ < Goldwater ??? JFK = Nixon ???
I like it as a heuristic because audacity is the kind of thing that should help you win the specific states you need, and also contested elections, whereas a lot of the traditional measures like the strength of the economy or the parties alternating don't feel like they'd explain the person who's supposed to win thanks to some deep structural reason losing the popular vote.
Johnson was pretty audacious compared to Goldwater. His great society and civil rights platform was bold and in American terms, near revolutionary.
Kennedy was audacious in just going for the presidency.
Truman fought a much more energetic campaign than Dewey, who deliberately played it low key to avoid controversy.
I would suggest the most obvious exception is Eisenhower.
For a functioning democracy we are better with an informed demos. Given that why when some argue that we should give voters more information are you arguing that we shouldn't?
Why are you asking the question again when I have answered it so comprehensively?
What is the 5G conspiracy theory. I assume it cannot be that the virus actually travels over the airwaves, so must be that it makes us all weaker and more vulnerable to infection?
One conspiracy is that apparently there's no virus at all and this is all about us reacting to 5G, or some such rubbish, but I think for most it is as you say, which is a longstanding kind of position well before 5G even, about no proof that mobile masts and the like are not not hazadous to our health.
I've already had an FOI request for details about 5G health checks.
4G was responsible for swine flu and 3G for SARS.
True fact.
The 1G Herpes outbreak was a right pain (literally).
How do they explain the Black Death?
Jews, witches and those with heretical ideas (I’m not sure you wanted an actual answer but they were the main scapegoats).
It’s not tangential at all. You have given another good example of false equivalence between real expertise in an area and a reactionary blowhard who doesn’t like what he is being told. At least Nigel Lawson achieved substantial things in a different field in his earlier career.
Yet the blue team want to be able to bellow their idiocies to the nation just because, well, just because they don’t like what those with some actual expertise are saying.
It was absolutely tangential - I was saying it was a good additional point to the previous point, which was about declaring political allegiance. That was 'relating to' the previous point while being on a different course, which is the definition of tangential.
It wasn't a criticism, but it was definitely expanding out the issue from merely about politics, but to more trust being given to actual experts than non experts. Such situations are often because of politics, but it was a wider point.
What I find annoying is the number of "experts" from various lobby or pressure groups who are all too often publicly funded at least in part that the media in general, and the BBC in particular, introduce and treat as independent analysts giving an objective assessment. It should be made clear that they are there to present their agenda and they should be questioned accordingly. If their argument is strong enough, such as with global warming, that should not prove a problem to them.
I also don't agree that because someone is not an expert they are not entitled to express a view. They are but they deserve to be made to look foolish with questions about important technical details that they simply won't know. Again this should be made clear to the viewer/listener. The idea that Toby Young is an expert in just about anything is a bit of a stretch but he is still entitled to express an opinion.
Lawson is an example of another problem which is someone who is an expert using their skills in an area outwith their expertise. He is intelligent and numerate but he is not a scientist. As a result what he says should be weighed lightly when compared with someone who is. Too many people are doing this with epidemiology at the moment which is why we have had so many crap mathematical models.
To be fair to Lawson his beef with climate change is not with whether there is global warming but with the economic impact of the carbon reduction policy. He thinks mitigation is a more sensible policy approach. Arguably that is his field of expertise
Experts from both left and right certainly bring their politics to the table with their opinions don't be so damn naive. There are plenty of ways to present facts that whilst not untrue are definitely misleading. Knowing the affiliation is crucial to being fully informed.
Example: An expert in renewable energy commenting on a new scheme will highlight some facts as more important than others or even omit others depending on whether they are an XR guy, a green party guy, a labour guy, or a tory guy.
All the facts will be true. All will paint a different picture by what is omitted or downplayed.
Anyone saying strong affiliation with an ideology is not important in experts and we don't need to know is basically saying "Hey we don't need full information"
Everyone is a stew of biases. I think only in a very small fraction of cases will those biases be neatly encapsulated by party affiliation. What's needed is a general understanding that any expert will be talking from the perspective of somebody with a particular set of interests and values
For a functioning democracy we are better with an informed demos. Given that why when some argue that we should give voters more information are you arguing that we shouldn't?
Why are you asking the question again when I have answered it so comprehensively?
You hadn't when I asked it now you have. You prefer the proles to be kept in the dark because they can't be trusted to think for themselves. I prefer to hope people on the whole can learn to think myself
I like @edmundintokyo analysis that the most audacious candidate always wins. Maybe a feature of presidential elections in a media heavy age.
So I reckon it works all the way back to about 1968, not sure about before that.
Trump > Clinton H Obama > Romney Obama > McCain Bush W > Kerry Bush W > Gore Clinton > Dole Clinton > Bush HW Bush HW = Dukakis Reagan > Mondale Reagan > Carter Carter = Ford ??? Nixon > McGovern Nixon > Humphrey LBJ < Goldwater ??? JFK = Nixon ???
I like it as a heuristic because audacity is the kind of thing that should help you win the specific states you need, and also contested elections, whereas a lot of the traditional measures like the strength of the economy or the parties alternating don't feel like they'd explain the person who's supposed to win thanks to some deep structural reason losing the popular vote.
Johnson was pretty audacious compared to Goldwater. His great society and civil rights platform was bold and in American terms, near revolutionary.
Kennedy was audacious in just going for the presidency.
Truman fought a much more energetic campaign than Dewey, who deliberately played it low key to avoid controversy.
I would suggest the most obvious exception is Eisenhower.
And yet the less audacious, and the more invisible that Biden remains, the better he seems to do in the polls. He’s comfortably seen off a number of far more energetic, audacious rivals for the nomination.
Experts from both left and right certainly bring their politics to the table with their opinions don't be so damn naive. There are plenty of ways to present facts that whilst not untrue are definitely misleading. Knowing the affiliation is crucial to being fully informed.
Example: An expert in renewable energy commenting on a new scheme will highlight some facts as more important than others or even omit others depending on whether they are an XR guy, a green party guy, a labour guy, or a tory guy.
All the facts will be true. All will paint a different picture by what is omitted or downplayed.
Anyone saying strong affiliation with an ideology is not important in experts and we don't need to know is basically saying "Hey we don't need full information"
Everyone is a stew of biases. I think only in a very small fraction of cases will those biases be neatly encapsulated by party affiliation. What's needed is a general understanding that any expert will be talking from the perspective of somebody with a particular set of interests and values
Precisely the point with out knowing in general what those biases and interests are you cannot fully evaluate what they are saying
It’s not tangential at all. You have given another good example of false equivalence between real expertise in an area and a reactionary blowhard who doesn’t like what he is being told. At least Nigel Lawson achieved substantial things in a different field in his earlier career.
Yet the blue team want to be able to bellow their idiocies to the nation just because, well, just because they don’t like what those with some actual expertise are saying.
It was absolutely tangential - I was saying it was a good additional point to the previous point, which was about declaring political allegiance. That was 'relating to' the previous point while being on a different course, which is the definition of tangential.
It wasn't a criticism, but it was definitely expanding out the issue from merely about politics, but to more trust being given to actual experts than non experts. Such situations are often because of politics, but it was a wider point.
What I find annoying is the number of "experts" from various lobby or pressure groups who are all too often publicly funded at least in part that the media in general, and the BBC in particular, introduce and treat as independent analysts giving an objective assessment. It should be made clear that they are there to present their agenda and they should be questioned accordingly. If their argument is strong enough, such as with global warming, that should not prove a problem to them.
I also don't agree that because someone is not an expert they are not entitled to express a view. They are but they deserve to be made to look foolish with questions about important technical details that they simply won't know. Again this should be made clear to the viewer/listener. The idea that Toby Young is an expert in just about anything is a bit of a stretch but he is still entitled to express an opinion.
Lawson is an example of another problem which is someone who is an expert using their skills in an area outwith their expertise. He is intelligent and numerate but he is not a scientist. As a result what he says should be weighed lightly when compared with someone who is. Too many people are doing this with epidemiology at the moment which is why we have had so many crap mathematical models.
To be fair to Lawson his beef with climate change is not with whether there is global warming but with the economic impact of the carbon reduction policy. He thinks mitigation is a more sensible policy approach. Arguably that is his field of expertise
Which seems deliberately ignorant of the economics of renewables, though.
And yet the less audacious, and the more invisible that Biden remains, the better he seems to do in the polls. He comfortably seen off a number of far more energetic, audacious rivals for the nomination.
Time for the ‘I Like Joe’ badges ?
I don't think it applies to primaries, definitely not ones against incumbents.
I like @edmundintokyo analysis that the most audacious candidate always wins. Maybe a feature of presidential elections in a media heavy age.
So I reckon it works all the way back to about 1968, not sure about before that.
Trump > Clinton H Obama > Romney Obama > McCain Bush W > Kerry Bush W > Gore Clinton > Dole Clinton > Bush HW Bush HW = Dukakis Reagan > Mondale Reagan > Carter Carter = Ford ??? Nixon > McGovern Nixon > Humphrey LBJ < Goldwater ??? JFK = Nixon ???
I like it as a heuristic because audacity is the kind of thing that should help you win the specific states you need, and also contested elections, whereas a lot of the traditional measures like the strength of the economy or the parties alternating don't feel like they'd explain the person who's supposed to win thanks to some deep structural reason losing the popular vote.
Johnson was pretty audacious compared to Goldwater. His great society and civil rights platform was bold and in American terms, near revolutionary.
Kennedy was audacious in just going for the presidency.
Truman fought a much more energetic campaign than Dewey, who deliberately played it low key to avoid controversy.
I would suggest the most obvious exception is Eisenhower.
And yet the less audacious, and the more invisible that Biden remains, the better he seems to do in the polls. He comfortably seen off a number of far more energetic, audacious rivals for the nomination.
Time for the ‘I Like Joe’ badges ?
The fewer car crash interviews he does, and the more Donald Trump tweets, the better?
You don't have talk some piffle why would I disregard a marxist astronomer talking about uranus.....a marxist expert talking about economics on the other hand yes it very much is relevant, likewise a marxist expert on healthcare systems it is relevant. Believing people cannot discern when ideology is potentially colouring information is exactly treating people as stupid.
You just want people who will sheep like believe what they are told by your ilk. Showing your true colours.
You mentioned adults and children with the usual inference that the former condition is preferable. My observation in response is that adults are far more likely than children to allow political bias to intrude into areas where it shouldn't. And we are talking about political bias here remember. This is not piffle. It is a good point.
I like @edmundintokyo analysis that the most audacious candidate always wins. Maybe a feature of presidential elections in a media heavy age.
So I reckon it works all the way back to about 1968, not sure about before that.
Trump > Clinton H Obama > Romney Obama > McCain Bush W > Kerry Bush W > Gore Clinton > Dole Clinton > Bush HW Bush HW = Dukakis Reagan > Mondale Reagan > Carter Carter = Ford ??? Nixon > McGovern Nixon > Humphrey LBJ < Goldwater ??? JFK = Nixon ???
I like it as a heuristic because audacity is the kind of thing that should help you win the specific states you need, and also contested elections, whereas a lot of the traditional measures like the strength of the economy or the parties alternating don't feel like they'd explain the person who's supposed to win thanks to some deep structural reason losing the popular vote.
Johnson was pretty audacious compared to Goldwater. His great society and civil rights platform was bold and in American terms, near revolutionary.
Kennedy was audacious in just going for the presidency.
Truman fought a much more energetic campaign than Dewey, who deliberately played it low key to avoid controversy.
I would suggest the most obvious exception is Eisenhower.
And yet the less audacious, and the more invisible that Biden remains, the better he seems to do in the polls. He comfortably seen off a number of far more energetic, audacious rivals for the nomination.
Time for the ‘I Like Joe’ badges ?
The fewer car crash interviews he does, and the more Donald Trump tweets, the better?
Whatever it is, it’s working. Reassuringly dull is my interpretation.
I like @edmundintokyo analysis that the most audacious candidate always wins. Maybe a feature of presidential elections in a media heavy age.
So I reckon it works all the way back to about 1968, not sure about before that.
Trump > Clinton H Obama > Romney Obama > McCain Bush W > Kerry Bush W > Gore Clinton > Dole Clinton > Bush HW Bush HW = Dukakis Reagan > Mondale Reagan > Carter Carter = Ford ??? Nixon > McGovern Nixon > Humphrey LBJ < Goldwater ??? JFK = Nixon ???
I like it as a heuristic because audacity is the kind of thing that should help you win the specific states you need, and also contested elections, whereas a lot of the traditional measures like the strength of the economy or the parties alternating don't feel like they'd explain the person who's supposed to win thanks to some deep structural reason losing the popular vote.
Johnson was pretty audacious compared to Goldwater. His great society and civil rights platform was bold and in American terms, near revolutionary.
Kennedy was audacious in just going for the presidency.
Truman fought a much more energetic campaign than Dewey, who deliberately played it low key to avoid controversy.
I would suggest the most obvious exception is Eisenhower.
I think the "audacity" argument is absolute bunk.
Both Clinton's wins came in three-cornered fights where Perot was a reasonably serious and probably more "audacious" candidate.
It's far from obvious that Bush Jnr was more audacious than his rivals - he was a pretty conventional candidate in most respects (as were his rivals - just saying it's not clear).
Dukakis was hardly a bold candidate, but was at least as audacious as the very by-the-book Bush Snr.
McGovern was a poet socialist who ran a frankly foolhardy campaign (not totally unfairly characterised as "amnesty, acid, abortion") against a pre-Watergate, conventional Nixon.
LBJ was radical in one way, but Goldwater was really out there.
You can always talk yourself into saying the winning candidate was more "audacious". But it lacks precision, and is highly arguable in almost all cases.
You don't have talk some piffle why would I disregard a marxist astronomer talking about uranus.....a marxist expert talking about economics on the other hand yes it very much is relevant, likewise a marxist expert on healthcare systems it is relevant. Believing people cannot discern when ideology is potentially colouring information is exactly treating people as stupid.
You just want people who will sheep like believe what they are told by your ilk. Showing your true colours.
You mentioned adults and children with the usual inference that the former condition is preferable. My observation in response is that adults are far more likely than children to allow political bias to intrude into areas where it shouldn't. And we are talking about political bias here remember. This is not piffle. It is a good point.
Yes I already understood your point that you think that everyone should be treated as a child and just do what they are told and believe what they are told by the left
Practicing science is based on the principle of the scientific method. If you do not adhere to this method then you are not acting as a scientist. Politics has no place in this. That is where so many people go fundamentally wrong.
Do you think that 100% of a scientist's working life is spent in the lab? Certainly when doing research, a scientist should practice the scientific method, and that should be apolitical. But what about when applying for grants, or deciding between avenues of research to pursue, or speaking at conferences, or being interviewed by the media, or writing a layman-targeted article for a journal or magazine, or giving a lecture, etc.? None of these things fall within the realm of the scientific method, and politics is relevant to all of them.
As a basic example, it's up to a scientist to persuade a granting organisation that their research is worth the money, and that's eventually fed through from the public, e.g. via tax or charitable donation. There can't be any scientific practice without all this politics.
Simplistic rules of engagement don't solve the expert advice/viewpoint issues: 1. Scientific method is paramount but process of science is imperfect, knowledge is provisional, scientists have flaws. 2. Open scientific process corrects the biases and poor work - eventually. 3. It would help if experts were more upfront about uncertainty and when they are talking professionally or giving a "political" opinion. 4. Follow the money: sponsorship, grants, advancement will introduce bias. 5. The modern state, big business & military are deeply involved with funding of academia. There is an unresolvable "military industrial complex" issue. 6. Not all science and academic subjects are created equal. I would rate expert opinion about planetary orbits, epidemiology, climate change and macro economics in decreasing order of authority.
And yet the less audacious, and the more invisible that Biden remains, the better he seems to do in the polls. He comfortably seen off a number of far more energetic, audacious rivals for the nomination.
Time for the ‘I Like Joe’ badges ?
I don't think it applies to primaries, definitely not ones against incumbents.
I don’t think ones against incumbents count, as the incumbency advantage tends to be so great. Set those aside, and it arguably does.
Simplistic rules of engagement don't solve the expert advice/viewpoint issues: 1. Scientific method is paramount but process of science is imperfect, knowledge is provisional, scientists have flaws. 2. Open scientific process corrects the biases and poor work - eventually. 3. It would help if experts were more upfront about uncertainty and when they are talking professionally or giving a "political" opinion. 4. Follow the money: sponsorship, grants, advancement will introduce bias. 5. The modern state, big business & military are deeply involved with funding of academia. There is an unresolvable "military industrial complex" issue. 6. Not all science and academic subjects are created equal. I would rate expert opinion about planetary orbits, epidemiology, climate change and macro economics in decreasing order of authority.
Scientific experts generally aren’t experts in policy, anyway. And policy simply isn’t science, however informed by science it might be.
I feel it's time to make an outlandish prediction:
Boris Johnson will become to the Right what Tony Blair is to the Left.
It's possible.
The thing about Reagan was that people basically liked him, and rooted for him, and wanted him to do well. Sunny disposition and apparent lack of malice was key. Obviously people on the Left despised him and he had some poor press, but the "silent majority" kept on side even to the extent of electing his VP when he retired. It's not unimaginable that we could see the same with Boris. Sir Keir will need to think very carefully about the tone he adopts - has to avoid being seen as nit-picking clever-clogs who may be right but remains unloved.
One issue is that actual experts screw up because they are the wrong sort of experts. Bringing this back to the important question, ‘how did we make such a massive mistake as to waste a week toying with herd immunity?’
The reports say that SAGE was divided, with clinicians and epidemiologists saying it was crazy and, on the other side, behavioural scientists and mathematical modellers saying, no it will be fine. Just look at that division and it beggars belief that each side was treated equally. At the time I exploded at the naivety of the latter and, as it turns out, they have been wrong, disastrously wrong, and they are now responsible not just for the extra thousands of deaths but also in elongating the lockdown for a long time yet, having let the virus spread enough to make it so.
Listening to the wrong sort of experts is why we are where we are now,
You beg the question of whether a week was wasted. You also sound like a snake oil salesman. That is not to say you are wrong.
Give snake oil to cure disease X. Patient gets better -- proves snake oil works. Patient gets worse or stays the same -- increase the dose. Loop to top. Patient dies -- proves patient started snake oil treatment too late.
Also works for antibiotics, and lockdowns. You could still be right though.
I feel it's time to make an outlandish prediction:
Boris Johnson will become to the Right what Tony Blair is to the Left.
It's possible.
The thing about Reagan was that people basically liked him, and rooted for him, and wanted him to do well. Sunny disposition and apparent lack of malice was key. Obviously people on the Left despised him and he had some poor press, but the "silent majority" kept on side even to the extent of electing his VP when he retired. It's not unimaginable that we could see the same with Boris. Sir Keir will need to think very carefully about the tone he adopts - has to avoid being seen as nit-picking clever-clogs who may be right but remains unloved.
Should have prefaced that by saying Ronald Reagan is a better analogy than Blair for Boris.
This does not read well, Better Together? "pooling and sharing resources," they said in 2014. Turns out that means the 4 biggest PPE providers in the UK REFUSING TO SHIP TO SCOTTISH CARE HOMES AND CONCENTRATING ON ENGLAND ONLY!
Care to comment about the reports that the Scottish government refusing to pony up for PPE for Scottish care home staff? Reports that manufacturers are happy to provide to Scotland... once the funding is sorted
The allegation that Tom Watson pushed to have Ken Livingston just suspended to embaress Corbyn is actually based on selective misquoting of a conversation where the LAbour staffers were discussing a conspiracy theory about Tom Watson.
Extract being rage shared
Actual full conversation
Corbynites spend last 5 years complaining their man was selectively misquoted, proceed to selectively misquote.
I must be the only person who doesn't understand why people social distancing while having a picnic is wrong, but police walking up and talking to hundreds of people a day for these offences, whilst potential spreading the virus is a good thing.
I like @edmundintokyo analysis that the most audacious candidate always wins. Maybe a feature of presidential elections in a media heavy age.
So I reckon it works all the way back to about 1968, not sure about before that.
Trump > Clinton H Obama > Romney Obama > McCain Bush W > Kerry Bush W > Gore Clinton > Dole Clinton > Bush HW Bush HW = Dukakis Reagan > Mondale Reagan > Carter Carter = Ford ??? Nixon > McGovern Nixon > Humphrey LBJ < Goldwater ??? JFK = Nixon ???
I like it as a heuristic because audacity is the kind of thing that should help you win the specific states you need, and also contested elections, whereas a lot of the traditional measures like the strength of the economy or the parties alternating don't feel like they'd explain the person who's supposed to win thanks to some deep structural reason losing the popular vote.
Johnson was pretty audacious compared to Goldwater. His great society and civil rights platform was bold and in American terms, near revolutionary.
Kennedy was audacious in just going for the presidency.
Truman fought a much more energetic campaign than Dewey, who deliberately played it low key to avoid controversy.
I would suggest the most obvious exception is Eisenhower.
I think the "audacity" argument is absolute bunk.
Both Clinton's wins came in three-cornered fights where Perot was a reasonably serious and probably more "audacious" candidate.
It's far from obvious that Bush Jnr was more audacious than his rivals - he was a pretty conventional candidate in most respects (as were his rivals - just saying it's not clear).
Dukakis was hardly a bold candidate, but was at least as audacious as the very by-the-book Bush Snr.
McGovern was a poet socialist who ran a frankly foolhardy campaign (not totally unfairly characterised as "amnesty, acid, abortion") against a pre-Watergate, conventional Nixon.
LBJ was radical in one way, but Goldwater was really out there.
You can always talk yourself into saying the winning candidate was more "audacious". But it lacks precision, and is highly arguable in almost all cases.
I don't mean taking bold policy positions particularly, it's definitely *not* true that the less centrist candidate reliably wins. I'm talking about things like being prepared to tell spectacular untruths with a straight face, or snaffle policies from the other side without regard for ideological consistency.
The allegation that Tom Watson pushed to have Ken Livingston just suspended to embaress Corbyn is actually based on selective misquoting of a conversation where the LAbour staffers were discussing a conspiracy theory about Tom Watson.
Extract being rage shared
Actual full conversation
Corbynites spend last 5 years complaining their man was selectively misquoted, proceed to selectively misquote.
Does the left accept the concept of being 'necessarily excluded' for any other other group in any other context? I thought that inclusion and diversity were innate goods that must be enforced by policy - with quotas, if necessary - in areas where they do not naturally occur.
Strange that right-wing representation should be the only exception, no?
My point is the opposite. We should not shoehorn party politics into areas which have nothing to do with party politics. Nobody should be excluded from a discussion in the area of their expertise because of their politics. The valid exclusion is on the grounds of not having any expertise. It just so happens that this will in practice have a disproportionate impact on the Right.
The counter argument is that metric will be intrinsically biased
An expert will normally believe there is an action that can improve whatever situation they are looking at. This would normally require that governments do something. Hence a bias towards government action
Someone on the philosophical right might be opposed to action regardless of the situation (or have a higher bar at least). This can be applied as a general philosophy regardless of the specific situation - they may not be an expert in crowd control, for example, but might believe it is better that the police don’t baton charge citizens as a matter of principle
I must be the only person who doesn't understand why people social distancing while having a picnic is wrong, but police walking up and talking to hundreds of people a day for these offences, whilst potential spreading the virus is a good thing.
Because if everyone does it, there will be no social distancing.
I feel it's time to make an outlandish prediction:
Boris Johnson will become to the Right what Tony Blair is to the Left.
It's possible.
The thing about Reagan was that people basically liked him, and rooted for him, and wanted him to do well. Sunny disposition and apparent lack of malice was key. Obviously people on the Left despised him and he had some poor press, but the "silent majority" kept on side even to the extent of electing his VP when he retired. It's not unimaginable that we could see the same with Boris. Sir Keir will need to think very carefully about the tone he adopts - has to avoid being seen as nit-picking clever-clogs who may be right but remains unloved.
It may be that Boris becomes to the right what Margaret Thatcher was to the right: someone who redefines Conservativism. Thatcher ran explicitly against Heath and implicitly against most of his predecessors. Boris ran against Cameron and May.
And yes, Boris is charismatic and likeable, though in terms of delivery perhaps more like Trump than Reagan. Maybe it is to do with learning their craft on unscripted television rather than scripted film, or perhaps mere coincidence.
And yet the less audacious, and the more invisible that Biden remains, the better he seems to do in the polls. He comfortably seen off a number of far more energetic, audacious rivals for the nomination.
Time for the ‘I Like Joe’ badges ?
I don't think it applies to primaries, definitely not ones against incumbents.
I don’t think ones against incumbents count, as the incumbency advantage tends to be so great. Set those aside, and it arguably does.
Sorry, I meant primaries for the opposition running against an incumbent, which tend to lean dull (Biden, Romney, Kerry, Dole, Dukakis)
The term Stalinist is thrown about far too liberally (sic), but Trump's willingness to use social media to dump on people is reminiscent of the old monster's methods of whispering campaigns, news articles and letters to newspapers to indicate who was out of favour in the court of the Red Czar.
At least the base of Fauci's skull is unlikely to come into contact with a Walther Model 2.
I feel it's time to make an outlandish prediction:
Boris Johnson will become to the Right what Tony Blair is to the Left.
No matter what compromises and failures they have, no politician who wins them three general elections will ever be rejected by the Tories. Even Baldwin wasn’t, although you wouldn’t realise it unless you were very expert given the narrative Churchill tried to impose with some success in the late 1940s.
That is what separates them from Labour. Labour care about abstract ideas. Tories care about winning.
This also goes a long way to explain why only three Labour leaders have won majorities in general elections compared to ten Tories.
One issue is that actual experts screw up because they are the wrong sort of experts. Bringing this back to the important question, ‘how did we make such a massive mistake as to waste a week toying with herd immunity?’
The reports say that SAGE was divided, with clinicians and epidemiologists saying it was crazy and, on the other side, behavioural scientists and mathematical modellers saying, no it will be fine. Just look at that division and it beggars belief that each side was treated equally. At the time I exploded at the naivety of the latter and, as it turns out, they have been wrong, disastrously wrong, and they are now responsible not just for the extra thousands of deaths but also in elongating the lockdown for a long time yet, having let the virus spread enough to make it so.
Listening to the wrong sort of experts is why we are where we are now,
You beg the question of whether a week was wasted. You also sound like a snake oil salesman. That is not to say you are wrong.
Give snake oil to cure disease X. Patient gets better -- proves snake oil works. Patient gets worse or stays the same -- increase the dose. Loop to top. Patient dies -- proves patient started snake oil treatment too late.
Also works for antibiotics, and lockdowns. You could still be right though.
It’s not being a snake oil salesman to say that an earlier lockdown would have prevented a couple of doublings of the number of cases (and all that entailed). That’s simply maths.
Whether the government might have been able to enforce it a week earlier is an open question (though they likely could have). And whether they would then have been in a position to manage an earlier lifting of the lockdown is even more open to debate.
I feel it's time to make an outlandish prediction:
Boris Johnson will become to the Right what Tony Blair is to the Left.
That is what separates them from Labour. Labour care about abstract ideas. Tories care about winning.
I don't think that's true any more. The Right have become as ideological as the Left. Just look at the fury today now that Boris has told the country how magnificent the NHS is. And then there's Europe ...
I feel it's time to make an outlandish prediction:
Boris Johnson will become to the Right what Tony Blair is to the Left.
That is what separates them from Labour. Labour care about abstract ideas. Tories care about winning.
I don't think that's true any more. The Right have become as ideological as the Left. Just look at the fury today now that Boris has told the country how magnificent the NHS is. And then there's Europe ...
I must be the only person who doesn't understand why people social distancing while having a picnic is wrong, but police walking up and talking to hundreds of people a day for these offences, whilst potential spreading the virus is a good thing.
One issue is that actual experts screw up because they are the wrong sort of experts. Bringing this back to the important question, ‘how did we make such a massive mistake as to waste a week toying with herd immunity?’
The reports say that SAGE was divided, with clinicians and epidemiologists saying it was crazy and, on the other side, behavioural scientists and mathematical modellers saying, no it will be fine. Just look at that division and it beggars belief that each side was treated equally. At the time I exploded at the naivety of the latter and, as it turns out, they have been wrong, disastrously wrong, and they are now responsible not just for the extra thousands of deaths but also in elongating the lockdown for a long time yet, having let the virus spread enough to make it so.
Listening to the wrong sort of experts is why we are where we are now,
You beg the question of whether a week was wasted. You also sound like a snake oil salesman. That is not to say you are wrong.
Give snake oil to cure disease X. Patient gets better -- proves snake oil works. Patient gets worse or stays the same -- increase the dose. Loop to top. Patient dies -- proves patient started snake oil treatment too late.
Also works for antibiotics, and lockdowns. You could still be right though.
Really, nothing to do with my point at all. I called it at the time and it pains me that I was right and that the time was lost. A lockdown on the 12th March would have saved lives and likely shortened the lockdown itself. Instead we had to hear and read about the crap that we had to wait until people were ready for a lockdown. These people were the snake oil salesman, selling a duff product that leaves people hurt and maybe dead by not implementing the actual science quickly enough.
I followed the clinicians and epidemiologists. They have been proven correct and the behavioural scientists disastrously wrong (the government also being surprised at how much people wanted to follow a strict lockdown being another black mark against them).
And yet the less audacious, and the more invisible that Biden remains, the better he seems to do in the polls. He comfortably seen off a number of far more energetic, audacious rivals for the nomination.
Time for the ‘I Like Joe’ badges ?
I don't think it applies to primaries, definitely not ones against incumbents.
I don’t think ones against incumbents count, as the incumbency advantage tends to be so great. Set those aside, and it arguably does.
Sorry, I meant primaries for the opposition running against an incumbent, which tend to lean dull (Biden, Romney, Kerry, Dole, Dukakis)
Yes I already understood your point that you think that everyone should be treated as a child and just do what they are told and believe what they are told by the left
I wish you would process and engage with content rather than do this. I've seen this (or similar) from you many many times and it seems to be not impacted at all by the specifics of what I actually say.
But in this case perhaps it is useful. Because remember my key point is that people often cannot assess properly the merits of what someone is saying if they strongly disapprove of their politics.
I feel it's time to make an outlandish prediction:
Boris Johnson will become to the Right what Tony Blair is to the Left.
That is what separates them from Labour. Labour care about abstract ideas. Tories care about winning.
I don't think that's true any more. The Right have become as ideological as the Left. Just look at the fury today now that Boris has told the country how magnificent the NHS is. And then there's Europe ...
You could make the same comment about tariffs in the early twentieth century. Or the Monday Club. But these were subordinate to the goal of winning power. In fact, where they were embraced it was usually because the Tories saw them as votewinners (tariffs and Europe certainly were, improbable though that may seem). I well remember the baffled Telegraph editorials on why it was strange that the Tories were not more popular given their Euroscepticism was shared by the population.
The most striking example of this was going into coalition with the very pro-EU and pro-electoral reform Liberal Democrats.
No way would any Tory have said, as a Labour member said of Corbyn, ‘we won’t compromise our principles.’
IF we're talking history then Hunter S. Thompsons account of the 1972 election might be interesting.
He reckoned that what really sunk McGovern against Nixon was his VP pick, who it turned out had mental health issues.
Finger on the button and all that.
Biden??
Hunter S Thompson's book is great fun. But a massive pinch of salt is needed.
Eagleton was dumped off the ticket LONG before election day.
There were two key points to the Eagleton affair. One was that his original nomination was extremely contentious long before his psychological history became news. The process was farcical, with massive in-fighting, and the Convention a PR nightmare.
It was only after the Convention that the electroshock stuff came out. Polls showed considerable sympathy for Eagleton, and arguably the main adverse impact was that the unceremonious dumping of Eagleton tarnished McGovern's "Mr Nice Guy" image. There was no finger on the button aspect, as Eagleton was long gone by November.
McGovern was MILES behind in the head to head polls with Nixon throughout the year, both before and after the affair. The economy was motoring along well after the 1969-70 recession and the polling averages gave double digit leads to Nixon throughout.
So Thompson is a great read... but not even close to right on this.
I feel it's time to make an outlandish prediction:
Boris Johnson will become to the Right what Tony Blair is to the Left.
One of their most succesful leaders?
Yes, that's part of it. But I meant, as I'm sure you realise, a figure who goes through the following stages:
Phase 1 Celebrated because he won, very quickly followed by Phase 2 Tolerated because he wins Phase 3 Sneered at because he wins by not being pure blood Phase 4 Reviled because although he won he lost the beliefs that all True Believers adhere to
I'm not really joking around with this. Like Blair, Boris isn't an ideological person. He's a social and economic libertarian but he does believe in society: taking the sword to that Thatcherite totem was magnificent. He's also an Internationalist. To that advocacy of Society we now have an evangelical passionate defence of the NHS.
One issue is that actual experts screw up because they are the wrong sort of experts. Bringing this back to the important question, ‘how did we make such a massive mistake as to waste a week toying with herd immunity?’
The reports say that SAGE was divided, with clinicians and epidemiologists saying it was crazy and, on the other side, behavioural scientists and mathematical modellers saying, no it will be fine. Just look at that division and it beggars belief that each side was treated equally. At the time I exploded at the naivety of the latter and, as it turns out, they have been wrong, disastrously wrong, and they are now responsible not just for the extra thousands of deaths but also in elongating the lockdown for a long time yet, having let the virus spread enough to make it so.
Listening to the wrong sort of experts is why we are where we are now,
You beg the question of whether a week was wasted. You also sound like a snake oil salesman. That is not to say you are wrong.
Give snake oil to cure disease X. Patient gets better -- proves snake oil works. Patient gets worse or stays the same -- increase the dose. Loop to top. Patient dies -- proves patient started snake oil treatment too late.
Also works for antibiotics, and lockdowns. You could still be right though.
Really, nothing to do with my point at all. I called it at the time and it pains me that I was right and that the time was lost. A lockdown on the 12th March would have saved lives and likely shortened the lockdown itself. Instead we had to hear and read about the crap that we had to wait until people were ready for a lockdown. These people were the snake oil salesman, selling a duff product that leaves people hurt and maybe dead by not implementing the actual science quickly enough.
I followed the clinicians and epidemiologists. They have been proven correct and the behavioural scientists disastrously wrong (the government also being surprised at how much people wanted to follow a strict lockdown being another black mark against them).
I’d agree with that, except that it’s far from clear, firstly, that it would have happened quite so early, and secondly, that they would have been any better prepared for the essential testing, tracking and tracing which must follow any lockdown.
I feel it's time to make an outlandish prediction:
Boris Johnson will become to the Right what Tony Blair is to the Left.
One of their most succesful leaders?
Yes, that's part of it. But I meant, as I'm sure you realise, a figure who goes through the following stages:
Phase 1 Celebrated because he won, very quickly followed by Phase 2 Tolerated because he wins Phase 3 Sneered at because he wins by not being pure blood Phase 4 Reviled because although he won he lost the beliefs that all True Believers adhere to
I'm not really joking around with this. Like Blair, Boris isn't an ideological person. He's a social and economic libertarian but he does believe in society: taking the sword to that Thatcherite totem was magnificent. He's also an Internationalist. To that advocacy of Society we now have an evangelical passionate defence of the NHS.
Go Boris. Blairites are gonna luv ya.
Tories only care about power. That's how they've been so successful for hundreds of years.
I feel it's time to make an outlandish prediction:
Boris Johnson will become to the Right what Tony Blair is to the Left.
Tories care about winning.
This also goes a long way to explain why only three Labour leaders have won majorities in general elections compared to ten Tories.
Which is also why they dumped their election winning champ Mrs T - they though she wasn't going to win. They dumped her, then they won. What they did with that victory is another matter, but Blair had learned their lesson. Starmer might too.
I feel it's time to make an outlandish prediction:
Boris Johnson will become to the Right what Tony Blair is to the Left.
That is what separates them from Labour. Labour care about abstract ideas. Tories care about winning.
I don't think that's true any more. The Right have become as ideological as the Left. Just look at the fury today now that Boris has told the country how magnificent the NHS is. And then there's Europe ...
You could make the same comment about tariffs in the early twentieth century. Or the Monday Club. But these were subordinate to the goal of winning power. In fact, where they were embraced it was usually because the Tories saw them as votewinners (tariffs and Europe certainly were, improbable though that may seem). I well remember the baffled Telegraph editorials on why it was strange that the Tories were not more popular given their Euroscepticism was shared by the population.
The most striking example of this was going into coalition with the very pro-EU and pro-electoral reform Liberal Democrats.
No way would any Tory have said, as a Labour member said of Corbyn, ‘we won’t compromise our principles.’
‘Any’ is going a bit far, but you’re right overall.
If you hate expertise, then experts are going to find it pretty tricky to vote for your party. And before long they're all in another party.
It is interesting that you assume that everyone will have a party affiliation.
I probably should have said 'voting for another party'. In the US, some polls have found that just 6% of scientists identify as Republicans vs. 55% as Democrats.
If that figure of 55% really is for "identifying as Democrats" that is a really high figure. A large number of scientists will vote but not consider themselves "to be a Democrat" we would be looking at a split of 20% voting Rep 70% voting Dem and 10% not voting. (It is reasonable to assume that scientists are more likely to vote than an average adult citizen and that "scientist" means working as a scientist or is a post-graduate in a science subject.)
Science is true whether you believe it or not. It's the Republicans that have to change.
There is however also a problem when those who call themselves scientists do not work scientifically and veer into advocacy and politics.
All science is inherently political. It's futile to try to decouple the two, and indeed science needs political advocacy just as much as any other interest does.
That is simply wrong.
Practicing science is based on the principle of the scientific method. If you do not adhere to this method then you are not acting as a scientist. Politics has no place in this. That is where so many people go fundamentally wrong.
The truth lies somewhere in between, science is not inherently political but it isnt true that politics has no place in science either. They inevitably overlap, the degree of overlap depends on the society, in the soviet union or the roman inquistion for example science was very much politics led. That situation is neither desirable nor inevitable, but it clearly does happen to varying degrees.
The funding and administration of science are of course political, as is any human group endeavour. And its conclusions inevitably impact on politics. Problems arise when they don’t sit comfortably with people’s prejudices.
More often problem arise when 'scientists' ignore the scientific method to suit their own political bias. At that point they stop being scientists.
Yes I already understood your point that you think that everyone should be treated as a child and just do what they are told and believe what they are told by the left
I wish you would process and engage with content rather than do this. I've seen this (or similar) from you many many times and it seems to be not impacted at all by the specifics of what I actually say.
But in this case perhaps it is useful. Because remember my key point is that people often cannot assess properly the merits of what someone is saying if they strongly disapprove of their politics.
See?
Which doesn't change the point you are making which is basically
"I don't trust them to draw their own conclusions"
I wish you would engage and just come out and admit it because while harsh my paraphrase of your views is not at heart inaccurate
One issue is that actual experts screw up because they are the wrong sort of experts. Bringing this back to the important question, ‘how did we make such a massive mistake as to waste a week toying with herd immunity?’
The reports say that SAGE was divided, with clinicians and epidemiologists saying it was crazy and, on the other side, behavioural scientists and mathematical modellers saying, no it will be fine. Just look at that division and it beggars belief that each side was treated equally. At the time I exploded at the naivety of the latter and, as it turns out, they have been wrong, disastrously wrong, and they are now responsible not just for the extra thousands of deaths but also in elongating the lockdown for a long time yet, having let the virus spread enough to make it so.
Listening to the wrong sort of experts is why we are where we are now,
You beg the question of whether a week was wasted. You also sound like a snake oil salesman. That is not to say you are wrong.
Give snake oil to cure disease X. Patient gets better -- proves snake oil works. Patient gets worse or stays the same -- increase the dose. Loop to top. Patient dies -- proves patient started snake oil treatment too late.
Also works for antibiotics, and lockdowns. You could still be right though.
Really, nothing to do with my point at all. I called it at the time and it pains me that I was right and that the time was lost. A lockdown on the 12th March would have saved lives and likely shortened the lockdown itself. Instead we had to hear and read about the crap that we had to wait until people were ready for a lockdown. These people were the snake oil salesman, selling a duff product that leaves people hurt and maybe dead by not implementing the actual science quickly enough.
I followed the clinicians and epidemiologists. They have been proven correct and the behavioural scientists disastrously wrong (the government also being surprised at how much people wanted to follow a strict lockdown being another black mark against them).
Whilst at the basic level I agree with you, I would contend that it is too early to claim that the behavioural scientists were wrong. I think that currently the right policy is being pursued but it is possible that the behavioural scientists may be proved right if we start to se wholesale breakdown of the lockdown. People will only put up with this for so long before something breaks.
As I say I do think you are right about the decision that was made. But it is entirely possible that when we look back at this the basic contentions of the behaviouralists will prove to have been correct.
Boris isn't an ideological person. He's a social and economic libertarian but he does believe in society: taking the sword to that Thatcherite totem was magnificent.
I am pretty sure Conservatives do believe in society, just not "Society" (aka other people are to blame).
Mrs T's actual quote -
"But [the safety net] went too far. If children have a problem, it is society that is at fault. There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate."
The counter argument is that metric will be intrinsically biased
An expert will normally believe there is an action that can improve whatever situation they are looking at. This would normally require that governments do something. Hence a bias towards government action
Someone on the philosophical right might be opposed to action regardless of the situation (or have a higher bar at least). This can be applied as a general philosophy regardless of the specific situation - they may not be an expert in crowd control, for example, but might believe it is better that the police don’t baton charge citizens as a matter of principle
I wouldn't say that is a counter argument to mine. It's running in parallel and on a higher plane. When a topic is being discussed, ought there to be representation for helicopter views on how and where the topic sits in the wider framework of all possible topics? Arguably yes. But it could get unwieldy.
where do you find all these moths, most I see are the ones that love my wife's cashmere sweaters
LOL.
Purchase yourself a moth trap, Malc. You can amuse yourself for hours - even while observing lockdown. Just think what might be lurking in the dark in Ayrshire....
I feel it's time to make an outlandish prediction:
Boris Johnson will become to the Right what Tony Blair is to the Left.
One of their most succesful leaders?
Yes, that's part of it. But I meant, as I'm sure you realise, a figure who goes through the following stages:
Phase 1 Celebrated because he won, very quickly followed by Phase 2 Tolerated because he wins Phase 3 Sneered at because he wins by not being pure blood Phase 4 Reviled because although he won he lost the beliefs that all True Believers adhere to
I'm not really joking around with this. Like Blair, Boris isn't an ideological person. He's a social and economic libertarian but he does believe in society: taking the sword to that Thatcherite totem was magnificent. He's also an Internationalist. To that advocacy of Society we now have an evangelical passionate defence of the NHS.
Go Boris. Blairites are gonna luv ya.
Tories only care about power. That's how they've been so successful for hundreds of years.
"What do you mean THEY cut the power? How could they cut the power, man? They're viruses!"
Comments
But of course that says very little about the number of older people who are ill or the severity of their illness. It says something about the people the NHS is admitting to ICU, given the scarcity of resources.
I note a report last night about the scarcity of body bags, the fact that corpses are being wrapped in sheets instead, reassuring comments that corpses aren't all that infectious because the virus degrades quickly after death, advice to place a cloth over the face so corpses don't "exhale" when they are being moved, and so on and so forth.
One can only shudder to think what would have happened under the original herd immunity plan.
There was a case yesterday of an activist with a long track record of campaigning against the government. He was introduced as “an NHS consultant critical of the government’s handling of PPE”
In my view that is misleading the viewers. But equally you are right that if Dr Smith happens to have voted for Blair, Brown, Cameron and Swinson that is not relevant to anyone.
Trump > Clinton H
Obama > Romney
Obama > McCain
Bush W > Kerry
Bush W > Gore
Clinton > Dole
Clinton > Bush HW
Bush HW = Dukakis
Reagan > Mondale
Reagan > Carter
Carter = Ford ???
Nixon > McGovern
Nixon > Humphrey
LBJ < Goldwater ???
JFK = Nixon ???
I like it as a heuristic because audacity is the kind of thing that should help you win the specific states you need, and also contested elections, whereas a lot of the traditional measures like the strength of the economy or the parties alternating don't feel like they'd explain the person who's supposed to win thanks to some deep structural reason losing the popular vote.
Also they are likely to have more pollution which might make cases of the virus worse.
But I was interested in whether the virus occurs in large numbers anywhere without it, I just checked and Iran was rolling out 5G countrywide in March this year, so presumably it was operational in some way as the virus hit them.
You just want people who will sheep like believe what they are told by your ilk. Showing your true colours.
Are you really going to accept, as the Powers that Be want, that the appearance of the mechanical clock in the early 14th century had absolutely nothing to do with the Black Death?
And its conclusions inevitably impact on politics. Problems arise when they don’t sit comfortably with people’s prejudices.
Kennedy was audacious in just going for the presidency.
Truman fought a much more energetic campaign than Dewey, who deliberately played it low key to avoid controversy.
I would suggest the most obvious exception is Eisenhower.
And so has @Jonathan for that matter.
He’s comfortably seen off a number of far more energetic, audacious rivals for the nomination.
Time for the ‘I Like Joe’ badges ?
Boris Johnson will become to the Right what Tony Blair is to the Left.
Reassuringly dull is my interpretation.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8213073/Trump-retweets-FireFauci-hashtag-hits-head-CDC.html
https://twitter.com/CentralBedsCPT/status/1249003469098319873
Both Clinton's wins came in three-cornered fights where Perot was a reasonably serious and probably more "audacious" candidate.
It's far from obvious that Bush Jnr was more audacious than his rivals - he was a pretty conventional candidate in most respects (as were his rivals - just saying it's not clear).
Dukakis was hardly a bold candidate, but was at least as audacious as the very by-the-book Bush Snr.
McGovern was a poet socialist who ran a frankly foolhardy campaign (not totally unfairly characterised as "amnesty, acid, abortion") against a pre-Watergate, conventional Nixon.
LBJ was radical in one way, but Goldwater was really out there.
You can always talk yourself into saying the winning candidate was more "audacious". But it lacks precision, and is highly arguable in almost all cases.
He reckoned that what really sunk McGovern against Nixon was his VP pick, who it turned out had mental health issues.
Finger on the button and all that.
Biden??
As a basic example, it's up to a scientist to persuade a granting organisation that their research is worth the money, and that's eventually fed through from the public, e.g. via tax or charitable donation. There can't be any scientific practice without all this politics.
1. Scientific method is paramount but process of science is imperfect, knowledge is provisional, scientists have flaws.
2. Open scientific process corrects the biases and poor work - eventually.
3. It would help if experts were more upfront about uncertainty and when they are talking professionally or giving a "political" opinion.
4. Follow the money: sponsorship, grants, advancement will introduce bias.
5. The modern state, big business & military are deeply involved with funding of academia. There is an unresolvable "military industrial complex" issue.
6. Not all science and academic subjects are created equal. I would rate expert opinion about planetary orbits, epidemiology, climate change and macro economics in decreasing order of authority.
Set those aside, and it arguably does.
And policy simply isn’t science, however informed by science it might be.
The thing about Reagan was that people basically liked him, and rooted for him, and wanted him to do well. Sunny disposition and apparent lack of malice was key. Obviously people on the Left despised him and he had some poor press, but the "silent majority" kept on side even to the extent of electing his VP when he retired. It's not unimaginable that we could see the same with Boris. Sir Keir will need to think very carefully about the tone he adopts - has to avoid being seen as nit-picking clever-clogs who may be right but remains unloved.
Give snake oil to cure disease X.
Patient gets better -- proves snake oil works.
Patient gets worse or stays the same -- increase the dose. Loop to top.
Patient dies -- proves patient started snake oil treatment too late.
Also works for antibiotics, and lockdowns. You could still be right though.
His VP choice will be important.
Different narrative then eh?
The allegation that Tom Watson pushed to have Ken Livingston just suspended to embaress Corbyn is actually based on selective misquoting of a conversation where the LAbour staffers were discussing a conspiracy theory about Tom Watson.
Extract being rage shared
Actual full conversation
Corbynites spend last 5 years complaining their man was selectively misquoted, proceed to selectively misquote.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/huawei-boss-warns-uk-against-halting-5g-rollout-during-the-coronavirus-crisis-rmtlcqz65
It was hoped that they’d completely eliminated it.
An expert will normally believe there is an action that can improve whatever situation they are looking at. This would normally require that governments do something. Hence a bias towards government action
Someone on the philosophical right might be opposed to action regardless of the situation (or have a higher bar at least). This can be applied as a general philosophy regardless of the specific situation - they may not be an expert in crowd control, for example, but might believe it is better that the police don’t baton charge citizens as a matter of principle
And yes, Boris is charismatic and likeable, though in terms of delivery perhaps more like Trump than Reagan. Maybe it is to do with learning their craft on unscripted television rather than scripted film, or perhaps mere coincidence.
At least the base of Fauci's skull is unlikely to come into contact with a Walther Model 2.
Boris will be Boris....
That is what separates them from Labour. Labour care about abstract ideas. Tories care about winning.
This also goes a long way to explain why only three Labour leaders have won majorities in general elections compared to ten Tories.
Whether the government might have been able to enforce it a week earlier is an open question (though they likely could have). And whether they would then have been in a position to manage an earlier lifting of the lockdown is even more open to debate.
You're not alone.
I followed the clinicians and epidemiologists. They have been proven correct and the behavioural scientists disastrously wrong (the government also being surprised at how much people wanted to follow a strict lockdown being another black mark against them).
But in this case perhaps it is useful. Because remember my key point is that people often cannot assess properly the merits of what someone is saying if they strongly disapprove of their politics.
See?
The most striking example of this was going into coalition with the very pro-EU and pro-electoral reform Liberal Democrats.
No way would any Tory have said, as a Labour member said of Corbyn, ‘we won’t compromise our principles.’
Eagleton was dumped off the ticket LONG before election day.
There were two key points to the Eagleton affair. One was that his original nomination was extremely contentious long before his psychological history became news. The process was farcical, with massive in-fighting, and the Convention a PR nightmare.
It was only after the Convention that the electroshock stuff came out. Polls showed considerable sympathy for Eagleton, and arguably the main adverse impact was that the unceremonious dumping of Eagleton tarnished McGovern's "Mr Nice Guy" image. There was no finger on the button aspect, as Eagleton was long gone by November.
McGovern was MILES behind in the head to head polls with Nixon throughout the year, both before and after the affair. The economy was motoring along well after the 1969-70 recession and the polling averages gave double digit leads to Nixon throughout.
So Thompson is a great read... but not even close to right on this.
Phase 1 Celebrated because he won, very quickly followed by
Phase 2 Tolerated because he wins
Phase 3 Sneered at because he wins by not being pure blood
Phase 4 Reviled because although he won he lost the beliefs that all True Believers adhere to
I'm not really joking around with this. Like Blair, Boris isn't an ideological person. He's a social and economic libertarian but he does believe in society: taking the sword to that Thatcherite totem was magnificent. He's also an Internationalist. To that advocacy of Society we now have an evangelical passionate defence of the NHS.
Go Boris. Blairites are gonna luv ya.
"I don't trust them to draw their own conclusions"
I wish you would engage and just come out and admit it because while harsh my paraphrase of your views is not at heart inaccurate
As I say I do think you are right about the decision that was made. But it is entirely possible that when we look back at this the basic contentions of the behaviouralists will prove to have been correct.
Mrs T's actual quote -
"But [the safety net] went too far. If children have a problem, it is society that is at fault. There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate."