An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
The obsession with race is a disease.
You obviously spend too much time quoffing Massolino Vigna Rionda Riserva rather than mixing with toxic masculine football fans. Racism is a real issue, not something outsiders are obsessing over.
And it's not just football either.
He probably has a point about the Guardian though. It’s gone downhill since Rusbridger left.
Yes it's a terrible paper. All over the place.
I'm a susbcriber - I think it's fine. If you don't like it don't read it.
By all accounts it is not a happy office, at the moment
"Guardian Media Group chief Annette Thomas quits after clash with editor Publishing boss disagreed with Katharine Viner over direction and governance of group"
The New York Times is a huge threat to them, in the medium term
I think the issue for all papers is the decline of print, the switch to online content, and how to make that commercially sustainable.
Gosh, what a startling insight!
With all due respect, I think the papers are aware of this, and the argument is now someway beyond your point. eg the NYT is now making fat profits with a highly effective paywall. As such it is able to expand, on all fronts, and it is aggressively going after UK readers - you can subscribe to the NYT for 50p a week from Blighty
That's a bargain, because the NYT is an excellent paper in many ways, especially if you like obsessive woke-ish race-crazed English language journalism, along with splendid cooking and travel sections. That is to say: it is the Guardian, but richer and more powerful, and that is a potential death warrant for the Guardian
These "checks" showing stuff up if you've been arrested or whatnot. What happens if you're wrongly arrested ? Seems a bit off that a police error could put a black mark against your name - isn't that why we have courts and so forth ?
The Ian Huntley precedent.
He was arrested a few times but never charged/convicted.
Now if someone had looked to see his arrest record it would have been a great big red flag not to hire him at a school.
I think he was arrested five times for rape/sexual assault, including one on a ten year old girl, whom he threatened to kill if she told anyone.
Though Huntley was working as a caretaker as a school, wasn't it a secondary school. The victims knew him as the boyfriend of Maxine Carr who worked at their primary school.
So I don't think a DRB check would have saved the girls, as his employment at another place was not how he made contact with them. Marine Carr would have passed a DRB check.
I really do wonder whether all the hassle and delay to employment, which often stretches for months with some police forces, has made any impact on crime. Has anyone got any definite figures. I would like to be wrong.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Look at it from the perspective of his colleagues many of whom there are surely black and Asian. Is it fair on them to be working with someone who thinks they're scum? Would you risk them walking out to other companies to hold on to a known racist?
Actions have consequence. This is a case of a racist knobhead chatting shit and getting banged.
Far too judgemental. We all say mad things from time to time, especially in moments of great emotion (like England losing a final on penalties)
If this dude has a history of racism, then fair enough, but just one word said in anger or sadness or whatever? No. Why can't he be allowed to apologise profusely, and continue with his life? A bit of Christian forgiveness wouldn't go amiss
Also, this case shows just how easy it is to ruin lives by hacking social media, should you be so inclined. Just get into a Twitter account and make them say the N word. Bingo, they are cancelled, career finished. Bonkers
I've been drunk and posted stuff on here in the past I've subsequently regretted.
Thankfully, we have forgiving editors and mods on here who largely know the posters and can assess if, fundamentally, they're a good or bad egg or not.
Sometimes it's complicated.
You've never been racist, though and you've never openly called any black person a n****r. As I said earlier, you need to look at it from the perspective of his non-white colleagues and potential managers. Why should they work alongside someone who thinks they're scum?
I haven't, although I have told a couple of stereotype jokes in the past that (by today's standards) would probably land me in trouble. I also used the word "gay" to mean "crap" like virtually everyone else in the late 1990s. I laughed at "women drivers" jokes. Probably did at "blokes in dresses" too. A bit laddish. A bit Inbetweeners.
All of those could finish me in certain circles (most?) today if I'd made them on social media under my own name and they were discoverable.
I really think some of this is there but for the grace of God go I.
But none of that is racist. You don't look at a black or Asian person, see the colour of their skin and think they're scum.
Again, I'll speak from my perspective. If this had happened in my company and an employee was caught being racist in this manner I'd want them out. If the company didn't do it I'd start to consider my own options and whether it was worth staying somewhere that was okay with employing known racists.
Oh, I think he definitely had to go. I don't disagree with the dismissal.
It's the long-term route back and rehabilitation I was pondering.
He had an opportunity to start with a public apology but he went down the insane asylum route of "a mean hacker did it". People have to want to be rehabilitated. They have agency.
After years of studying it, I believe that cryptocurrency is an inherently right-wing, hyper-capitalistic technology built primarily to amplify the wealth of its proponents through a combination of tax avoidance, diminished regulatory oversight and artificially enforced scarcity.
The chap I feel sorry for is the one who accosted Chris Whitty, assuming it was just drunken over-familiarity. He used to be an estate agent, too. If you look at videos of happy, drunk England fans, that is what they do. And yes, it is a pita if you happen to get in the way but if there was no malice intended, then basically he's lost his job for being a tiresome drunk prat.
Yes, that's the other example I was thinking of. Another is the England cricketer who got cancelled and now has mental health challenges.
As a 19-year old student one of my friends took a drunken piss next to the manneken pis. We thought it was hilarious at the time and took pictures. Of course, it was loutish.
Much of what you do at that age is about careless rebelling, puncturing taboos and not giving a sh*t - it's one way you can (initially) assert your free will and independence in the world but, there's a world of difference between a fleeting moment you can forget about and look back upon recognising its stupidity, and being held accountable for it for all time.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Look at it from the perspective of his colleagues many of whom there are surely black and Asian. Is it fair on them to be working with someone who thinks they're scum? Would you risk them walking out to other companies to hold on to a known racist?
Actions have consequence. This is a case of a racist knobhead chatting shit and getting banged.
Far too judgemental. We all say mad things from time to time, especially in moments of great emotion (like England losing a final on penalties)
If this dude has a history of racism, then fair enough, but just one word said in anger or sadness or whatever? No. Why can't he be allowed to apologise profusely, and continue with his life? A bit of Christian forgiveness wouldn't go amiss
Also, this case shows just how easy it is to ruin lives by hacking social media, should you be so inclined. Just get into a Twitter account and make them say the N word. Bingo, they are cancelled, career finished. Bonkers
I've been drunk and posted stuff on here in the past I've subsequently regretted.
Thankfully, we have forgiving editors and mods on here who largely know the posters and can assess if, fundamentally, they're a good or bad egg or not.
Sometimes it's complicated.
You've never been racist, though and you've never openly called any black person a n****r. As I said earlier, you need to look at it from the perspective of his non-white colleagues and potential managers. Why should they work alongside someone who thinks they're scum?
I haven't, although I have told a couple of stereotype jokes in the past that (by today's standards) would probably land me in trouble. I also used the word "gay" to mean "crap" like virtually everyone else in the late 1990s. I laughed at "women drivers" jokes. Probably did at "blokes in dresses" too. A bit laddish. A bit Inbetweeners.
All of those could finish me in certain circles (most?) today if I'd made them on social media under my own name and they were discoverable.
I really think some of this is there but for the grace of God go I.
It's worth noting that old holborn has something that deletes all tweets after a week. I suspect something that deleted all social media posts after a month or so would be rather popular and a sane step for a lot of people.
If Twitter simply installed a gizmo that automatically barred tweets that contained the N word (and others?) that would save a lot of grief all round. It already queries tweets that seem offensively aggressive
The internet tried that in the early days which resulted in Scunthorpe not existing in a lot of places.
We wouldn't have much luck with a Stocksbridge and Penistone by-election.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Look at it from the perspective of his colleagues many of whom there are surely black and Asian. Is it fair on them to be working with someone who thinks they're scum? Would you risk them walking out to other companies to hold on to a known racist?
Actions have consequence. This is a case of a racist knobhead chatting shit and getting banged.
Far too judgemental. We all say mad things from time to time, especially in moments of great emotion (like England losing a final on penalties)
If this dude has a history of racism, then fair enough, but just one word said in anger or sadness or whatever? No. Why can't he be allowed to apologise profusely, and continue with his life? A bit of Christian forgiveness wouldn't go amiss
Also, this case shows just how easy it is to ruin lives by hacking social media, should you be so inclined. Just get into a Twitter account and make them say the N word. Bingo, they are cancelled, career finished. Bonkers
I've been drunk and posted stuff on here in the past I've subsequently regretted.
Thankfully, we have forgiving editors and mods on here who largely know the posters and can assess if, fundamentally, they're a good or bad egg or not.
Sometimes it's complicated.
You've never been racist, though and you've never openly called any black person a n****r. As I said earlier, you need to look at it from the perspective of his non-white colleagues and potential managers. Why should they work alongside someone who thinks they're scum?
I haven't, although I have told a couple of stereotype jokes in the past that (by today's standards) would probably land me in trouble. I also used the word "gay" to mean "crap" like virtually everyone else in the late 1990s. I laughed at "women drivers" jokes. Probably did at "blokes in dresses" too. A bit laddish. A bit Inbetweeners.
All of those could finish me in certain circles (most?) today if I'd made them on social media under my own name and they were discoverable.
I really think some of this is there but for the grace of God go I.
It's worth noting that old holborn has something that deletes all tweets after a week. I suspect something that deleted all social media posts after a month or so would be rather popular and a sane step for a lot of people.
If Twitter simply installed a gizmo that automatically barred tweets that contained the N word (and others?) that would save a lot of grief all round. It already queries tweets that seem offensively aggressive
The internet tried that in the early days which resulted in Scunthorpe not existing in a lot of places.
It’s no wonder why Labour are miles behind in the polls given their views on trans rights, the knee and all the stuff that doesn’t interest the rump of voters. Boris Johnson shouldnt be the only adult in the room but in the past year he clearly is.
I get the feeling the only adult in the room isn't Boris Johnson, it is Rishi Sunak. After his victory over aid spending, he is clearly a man with a plan.
I reckon it is a pretty good plan at that.
Next step: Deal with the triple lock.
Let's hope so. Rishi Sunak would be almost impossible to beat at the next election if he's Tory leader.
The perfect play for the Tories if to get through COVID crisis, then shuffle off Boris. The public inquiry will mostly dump on Boris and Hancock handling and Sunak, other than eat out to help out (and actually i don't think that actually harmed him), has been seen to have a good pandemic.
They thought when Blair went Iraq etc would go with him. It didn't and I doubt it will leave 'Eat out to help out' Richi either. He was a Brexiteer supporter of Johnson. Hopefully that will be enough to see him off.
Yes, I dont understand the view that Sunak would be a shoe in. Some may find him attractive, but he doesn't have the apparent cuddly appeal of Johnson, which covers up his very dark side. If I were Starmer I would be looking forward to facing Sunak at a GE.
Many on the left are relying on the "Tories are racists" card to damage them at the moment. It would be difficult to do that with Sunak in charge.
On the matter of public shaming - in reality, the best thing to do is just to delete social media, or just be extremely careful about it. Avoid getting drunk or losing self control in public. It used to be ok and the world used to be forgiving, now it is not. Everything is disclosable and can be traced back to you. At some point, we will realise that the world we have created is a horrendous nightmare, but we are a long way off this realisation. The reality is that people are flawed and people will always say stupid things, but this insight is inconsistent with the belief in humanism and societal progress, which for many people passes for religion.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
The obsession with race is a disease.
You obviously spend too much time quoffing Massolino Vigna Rionda Riserva rather than mixing with toxic masculine football fans. Racism is a real issue, not something outsiders are obsessing over.
And it's not just football either.
He probably has a point about the Guardian though. It’s gone downhill since Rusbridger left.
Yes it's a terrible paper. All over the place.
I'm a susbcriber - I think it's fine. If you don't like it don't read it.
By all accounts it is not a happy office, at the moment
"Guardian Media Group chief Annette Thomas quits after clash with editor Publishing boss disagreed with Katharine Viner over direction and governance of group"
The New York Times is a huge threat to them, in the medium term
I think the issue for all papers is the decline of print, the switch to online content, and how to make that commercially sustainable.
Gosh, what a startling insight!
With all due respect, I think the papers are aware of this, and the argument is now someway beyond your point. eg the NYT is now making fat profits with a highly effective paywall. As such it is able to expand, on all fronts, and it is aggressively going after UK readers - you can subscribe to the NYT for 50p a week from Blighty
That's a bargain, because the NYT is an excellent paper in many ways, especially if you like obsessive woke-ish race-crazed English language journalism, along with splendid cooking and travel sections. ie it is the Guardian, but richer and more powerful, and that is a potential death warrant for the Guardian
Glad to enlighten you - surpised you hadn't spotted the issue yourself tbh.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
The obsession with race is a disease.
You obviously spend too much time quoffing Massolino Vigna Rionda Riserva rather than mixing with toxic masculine football fans. Racism is a real issue, not something outsiders are obsessing over.
And it's not just football either.
I think most of it is outside football now, even if there is some crossover between racist organisations like the EDL and football fans. Very little racism happens within grounds in England, it is when some pissed up bloke is sulking in his underpants alone that these things get posted.
Better to be in his underpants alone than sharing them with someone else.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Look at it from the perspective of his colleagues many of whom there are surely black and Asian. Is it fair on them to be working with someone who thinks they're scum? Would you risk them walking out to other companies to hold on to a known racist?
Actions have consequence. This is a case of a racist knobhead chatting shit and getting banged.
Far too judgemental. We all say mad things from time to time, especially in moments of great emotion (like England losing a final on penalties)
If this dude has a history of racism, then fair enough, but just one word said in anger or sadness or whatever? No. Why can't he be allowed to apologise profusely, and continue with his life? A bit of Christian forgiveness wouldn't go amiss
Also, this case shows just how easy it is to ruin lives by hacking social media, should you be so inclined. Just get into a Twitter account and make them say the N word. Bingo, they are cancelled, career finished. Bonkers
I've been drunk and posted stuff on here in the past I've subsequently regretted.
Thankfully, we have forgiving editors and mods on here who largely know the posters and can assess if, fundamentally, they're a good or bad egg or not.
Sometimes it's complicated.
We all have. But not racist stuff. No one. No one who is still posting, that is.
To post racist shit when you are drunk means there is racist shit going around your head somewhere.
No one who hasn't been banned from PB imo fits that bill.
It’s no wonder why Labour are miles behind in the polls given their views on trans rights, the knee and all the stuff that doesn’t interest the rump of voters. Boris Johnson shouldnt be the only adult in the room but in the past year he clearly is.
I get the feeling the only adult in the room isn't Boris Johnson, it is Rishi Sunak. After his victory over aid spending, he is clearly a man with a plan.
I reckon it is a pretty good plan at that.
Next step: Deal with the triple lock.
Let's hope so. Rishi Sunak would be almost impossible to beat at the next election if he's Tory leader.
The perfect play for the Tories if to get through COVID crisis, then shuffle off Boris. The public inquiry will mostly dump on Boris and Hancock handling and Sunak, other than eat out to help out (and actually i don't think that actually harmed him), has been seen to have a good pandemic.
They thought when Blair went Iraq etc would go with him. It didn't and I doubt it will leave 'Eat out to help out' Richi either. He was a Brexiteer supporter of Johnson. Hopefully that will be enough to see him off.
Yes, I dont understand the view that Sunak would be a shoe in. Some may find him attractive, but he doesn't have the apparent cuddly appeal of Johnson, which covers up his very dark side. If I were Starmer I would be looking forward to facing Sunak at a GE.
Many on the left are relying on the "Tories are racists" card to damage them at the moment. It would be difficult to do that with Sunak in charge.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Look at it from the perspective of his colleagues many of whom there are surely black and Asian. Is it fair on them to be working with someone who thinks they're scum? Would you risk them walking out to other companies to hold on to a known racist?
Actions have consequence. This is a case of a racist knobhead chatting shit and getting banged.
Far too judgemental. We all say mad things from time to time, especially in moments of great emotion (like England losing a final on penalties)
If this dude has a history of racism, then fair enough, but just one word said in anger or sadness or whatever? No. Why can't he be allowed to apologise profusely, and continue with his life? A bit of Christian forgiveness wouldn't go amiss
Also, this case shows just how easy it is to ruin lives by hacking social media, should you be so inclined. Just get into a Twitter account and make them say the N word. Bingo, they are cancelled, career finished. Bonkers
I've been drunk and posted stuff on here in the past I've subsequently regretted.
Thankfully, we have forgiving editors and mods on here who largely know the posters and can assess if, fundamentally, they're a good or bad egg or not.
Sometimes it's complicated.
You've never been racist, though and you've never openly called any black person a n****r. As I said earlier, you need to look at it from the perspective of his non-white colleagues and potential managers. Why should they work alongside someone who thinks they're scum?
I haven't, although I have told a couple of stereotype jokes in the past that (by today's standards) would probably land me in trouble. I also used the word "gay" to mean "crap" like virtually everyone else in the late 1990s. I laughed at "women drivers" jokes. Probably did at "blokes in dresses" too. A bit laddish. A bit Inbetweeners.
All of those could finish me in certain circles (most?) today if I'd made them on social media under my own name and they were discoverable.
I really think some of this is there but for the grace of God go I.
It's worth noting that old holborn has something that deletes all tweets after a week. I suspect something that deleted all social media posts after a month or so would be rather popular and a sane step for a lot of people.
I need that.
Back in about 2012 I ran a Twitter account that I used professionally. I then got pissed one night and got into a slanging match with a Scot Nat who insisted the bonfire people in Lewes were members of the KKK, or mimicking them. I had to delete my account and have never had one since. I just lurk anonymously.
The chap I feel sorry for is the one who accosted Chris Whitty, assuming it was just drunken over-familiarity. He used to be an estate agent, too. If you look at videos of happy, drunk England fans, that is what they do. And yes, it is a pita if you happen to get in the way but if there was no malice intended, then basically he's lost his job for being a tiresome drunk prat.
Yes, that's the other example I was thinking of. Another is the England cricketer who got cancelled and now has mental health challenges.
As a 19-year old student one of my friends took a drunken piss next to the manneken pis. We thought it was hilarious at the time and took pictures. Of course, it was loutish.
Much of what you do at that age is about careless rebelling, puncturing taboos and not giving a sh*t - it's one way you can (initially) assert your free will and independence in the world but, there's a world of difference between a fleeting moment you can forget about and look back upon recognising its stupidity, and being held accountable for it for all time.
I had little sympathy for that one - it looked like an assault not a smidgeon of stupidity.
After years of studying it, I believe that cryptocurrency is an inherently right-wing, hyper-capitalistic technology built primarily to amplify the wealth of its proponents through a combination of tax avoidance, diminished regulatory oversight and artificially enforced scarcity.
Cheers.
you have seen the podcast link I linked to earlier - that one is very much oh boy and you will love it
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Stop being a racist prick and it will stop being an issue. 🤷♂️
Isn't that Leon's point though?
This guy could stop being a racist prick tomorrow but this will always be an issue because it will follow him around for the rest of his life.
The issue is that instead of making a public apology for it and saying he'd atone etc... he's blaming it on being hacked which is laughable. He had a slim opportunity to apologise and maybe keep enough of his reputation intact to find work elsewhere. The problem is he's not sorry, he's a racist.
Do we know for sure he is lying about the hacking?
Genuine question. I have not read the deets of this case
Yep - because it just isn't plausible - who would hack an existing twitter account to post a few racists posts over months in a way that the poster wouldn't notice.
Oh, there's more than just the one post?
I seem to recall there were others when people went through his account.
Bit even if there wasn't way would you hack an account with 1000 or so followers and post a racist tweet - if you can hack into twitter there will be way bigger accounts you could access and use.
Hack a famous account and it probably gets clocked as a hack early on as the famous person releases a statement to that effect. This is some random but easily identifiable guy. By the time it comes out as hack, everyone has moved a long.
But I think the most likely explanation is that it was him and he can’t bring himself to own up.
Either that or he was so pissed he doesn't remember doing it. And doesn't consider himself the kind of person who would do such a thing when sober. This is quite common. And often the most dangerous type.
If someone's racist when they're drunk, they're hiding it when they're sober.
I dunno. I've told lots of people I'm barely acquainted with that they're my best mate when I'm drunk.
After years of studying it, I believe that cryptocurrency is an inherently right-wing, hyper-capitalistic technology built primarily to amplify the wealth of its proponents through a combination of tax avoidance, diminished regulatory oversight and artificially enforced scarcity.
Cheers.
you have seen the podcast link I linked to earlier - that one is very much oh boy and you will love it
Hard to score this, it’s from some academic survey. Howard is too low; Miliband too high!
Lol, imagine not having Mrs Thatcher in first place. Shows everything that's wrong with the lefty liberals that have infested universities.
Does it? How would one rate a leader of the opposition? By how well they held the government to account? By the ratings they had? How many seats they gained? How much they transformed their party during their time in opposition?
Leaving aside their periods as PM, I have no idea how one would decide if Thatcher, or Blair or whoever was the 'best' leader in opposition, so how people ranked them could be interesting. Does IDS lost points vs Corbyn because he was so useless he never even got to fight an election, whilst Corbyn got two chances?
I'd put Wilson top of the LOTO chart.
Since the war very few LOTOs go on to become PM, Wilson did it twice.
But its worth recalling how on a knife-edge politics was at that point, as opposed to for the past few decades.
Do you really think Wilson gaining 14 MPs in 1974 in comparable to Cameron gaining 96 MPs in one go?
Oddly enough, Wilson reduced the Labour vote BOTH times he won an election as LOTO. In 1964 very slightly on a lower turnout (percentage vote fractionally up) compared with Gaitskell in 1959. In 1974 quite substantially compared with himself in 1970 (it was peak Thorpe).
But I am not sure the raw numbers show the full story - parties start from different bases, and the "fundamentals" (economy etc) differ. I would say Wilson was genuinely very good at making the political weather as LOTO in a way most aren't. He was extremely good at writing the narrative, and was a real thorn in the arse of both Douglas-Home and Heath as LOTO.
Both he and Cameron were effective LOTOs. But - were I PM - I'd probably sooner have to deal with Cameron as my opposite number.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
But you weren't bothered when it was said Russian bots were pushing for Brexit.
Also the head of MI5 says most of the abusive social media posts came from inside the UK.
I don’t think that’s quite what he said. He said wasn’t directed by a hostile state actor so wasn’t his problem (but my understanding was these things are independent but tolerated by the regime). He then said that we shouldn’t ignore the problem we have in the UK by focusing on the non-UK posters
On the matter of public shaming - in reality, the best thing to do is just to delete social media, or just be extremely careful about it. Avoid getting drunk or losing self control in public. It used to be ok and the world used to be forgiving, now it is not. Everything is disclosable and can be traced back to you. At some point, we will realise that the world we have created is a horrendous nightmare, but we are a long way off this realisation. The reality is that people are flawed and people will always say stupid things, but this insight is inconsistent with the belief in humanism and societal progress, which for many people passes for religion.
I’ve deleted mine, or deactivated in the case of Facebook so I can reactivate when I need to be in touch with certain people. It’s just not worth it and you don’t need an account to keep up with public figures on Twitter - they never protect their accounts.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Stop being a racist prick and it will stop being an issue. 🤷♂️
Isn't that Leon's point though?
This guy could stop being a racist prick tomorrow but this will always be an issue because it will follow him around for the rest of his life.
The issue is that instead of making a public apology for it and saying he'd atone etc... he's blaming it on being hacked which is laughable. He had a slim opportunity to apologise and maybe keep enough of his reputation intact to find work elsewhere. The problem is he's not sorry, he's a racist.
Do we know for sure he is lying about the hacking?
Genuine question. I have not read the deets of this case
Yes 100% sure. No one is going to hack a random and then post stuff like that. It's completely without credibility. He's not some massive public figure, he's an internet random and hackers don't give a fuck about logging into the accounts if internet randoms. They want to hack Elon Musk and announce Tesla's next car so they can make billions in market manipulation.
In "Person of Interest" it is strongly implied that the head of the Vigilance terrorist organisation was deliberately created by manipulating the life of a fairly ordinary person.
Makes you think... radicalise someone, in just the right ways. If it doesn't work, next target...
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Look at it from the perspective of his colleagues many of whom there are surely black and Asian. Is it fair on them to be working with someone who thinks they're scum? Would you risk them walking out to other companies to hold on to a known racist?
Actions have consequence. This is a case of a racist knobhead chatting shit and getting banged.
Far too judgemental. We all say mad things from time to time, especially in moments of great emotion (like England losing a final on penalties)
If this dude has a history of racism, then fair enough, but just one word said in anger or sadness or whatever? No. Why can't he be allowed to apologise profusely, and continue with his life? A bit of Christian forgiveness wouldn't go amiss
Also, this case shows just how easy it is to ruin lives by hacking social media, should you be so inclined. Just get into a Twitter account and make them say the N word. Bingo, they are cancelled, career finished. Bonkers
I've been drunk and posted stuff on here in the past I've subsequently regretted.
Thankfully, we have forgiving editors and mods on here who largely know the posters and can assess if, fundamentally, they're a good or bad egg or not.
Sometimes it's complicated.
We all have. But not racist stuff. No one. No one who is still posting, that is.
To post racist shit when you are drunk means there is racist shit going around your head somewhere.
No one who hasn't been banned from PB imo fits that bill.
I don't believe there is a human being on earth who has never had a "racist" thought. There is science to back this up. We all perceive skin colour, and otherness, and we have a reflexive wariness - it is Darwinian. The baby that is cautious of outsiders is likelier to survive, and grow into an adult, and have children of her own. Thus the trait flourishes.
On this I am in rare agreement with the Critical Race Theorists. I just passionately disagree with their way of remedying this very human flaw
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Stop being a racist prick and it will stop being an issue. 🤷♂️
Isn't that Leon's point though?
This guy could stop being a racist prick tomorrow but this will always be an issue because it will follow him around for the rest of his life.
The issue is that instead of making a public apology for it and saying he'd atone etc... he's blaming it on being hacked which is laughable. He had a slim opportunity to apologise and maybe keep enough of his reputation intact to find work elsewhere. The problem is he's not sorry, he's a racist.
Do we know for sure he is lying about the hacking?
Genuine question. I have not read the deets of this case
Yep - because it just isn't plausible - who would hack an existing twitter account to post a few racists posts over months in a way that the poster wouldn't notice.
Oh, there's more than just the one post?
I seem to recall there were others when people went through his account.
Bit even if there wasn't way would you hack an account with 1000 or so followers and post a racist tweet - if you can hack into twitter there will be way bigger accounts you could access and use.
Hack a famous account and it probably gets clocked as a hack early on as the famous person releases a statement to that effect. This is some random but easily identifiable guy. By the time it comes out as hack, everyone has moved a long.
But I think the most likely explanation is that it was him and he can’t bring himself to own up.
Either that or he was so pissed he doesn't remember doing it. And doesn't consider himself the kind of person who would do such a thing when sober. This is quite common. And often the most dangerous type.
If someone's racist when they're drunk, they're hiding it when they're sober.
I dunno. I've told lots of people I'm barely acquainted with that they're my best mate when I'm drunk.
I was back to meh the next day.
That's just you being a nice guy shining through more when you're drunk.
These "checks" showing stuff up if you've been arrested or whatnot. What happens if you're wrongly arrested ? Seems a bit off that a police error could put a black mark against your name - isn't that why we have courts and so forth ?
The Ian Huntley precedent.
He was arrested a few times but never charged/convicted.
Now if someone had looked to see his arrest record it would have been a great big red flag not to hire him at a school.
I think he was arrested five times for rape/sexual assault, including one on a ten year old girl, whom he threatened to kill if she told anyone.
Though Huntley was working as a caretaker as a school, wasn't it a secondary school. The victims knew him as the boyfriend of Maxine Carr who worked at their primary school.
So I don't think a DRB check would have saved the girls, as his employment at another place was not how he made contact with them. Marine Carr would have passed a DRB check.
I really do wonder whether all the hassle and delay to employment, which often stretches for months with some police forces, has made any impact on crime. Has anyone got any definite figures. I would like to be wrong.
It's a nightmare, I sometimes I have to sit in judgment about hiring someone who is eminently qualified for a role but when they were 19 they had a slash on a night out and someone complained and they accepted a caution.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
But you weren't bothered when it was said Russian bots were pushing for Brexit.
Also the head of MI5 says most of the abusive social media posts came from inside the UK.
Did he actually say that? I thought he brushed aside the question and then advised we clean our own house first. But I don’t think he actually denied those reports of Russian bots.
Going by this.
The head of MI5 has dismissed claims that Russian bots are responsible for online racist abuse against England footballers and said that this country should shoulder the blame for the problem.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Look at it from the perspective of his colleagues many of whom there are surely black and Asian. Is it fair on them to be working with someone who thinks they're scum? Would you risk them walking out to other companies to hold on to a known racist?
Actions have consequence. This is a case of a racist knobhead chatting shit and getting banged.
Far too judgemental. We all say mad things from time to time, especially in moments of great emotion (like England losing a final on penalties)
If this dude has a history of racism, then fair enough, but just one word said in anger or sadness or whatever? No. Why can't he be allowed to apologise profusely, and continue with his life? A bit of Christian forgiveness wouldn't go amiss
Also, this case shows just how easy it is to ruin lives by hacking social media, should you be so inclined. Just get into a Twitter account and make them say the N word. Bingo, they are cancelled, career finished. Bonkers
I've been drunk and posted stuff on here in the past I've subsequently regretted.
Thankfully, we have forgiving editors and mods on here who largely know the posters and can assess if, fundamentally, they're a good or bad egg or not.
Sometimes it's complicated.
We all have. But not racist stuff. No one. No one who is still posting, that is.
To post racist shit when you are drunk means there is racist shit going around your head somewhere.
No one who hasn't been banned from PB imo fits that bill.
I don't believe there is a human being on earth who has never had a "racist" thought. There is science to back this up. We all perceive skin colour, and otherness, and we have a reflexive wariness - it is Darwinian. The baby that is cautious of outsiders is likelier to survive, and grow into an adult, and have children of her own. Thus the trait flourishes.
On this I am in rare agreement with the Critical Race Theorists. I just passionately disagree with their way of remedying this very human flaw
There's a point at around 15:20 in the PMQs stream (see link in thread header) where Boris just looks totally out of it. I do wonder if he's quite well tbh.
These "checks" showing stuff up if you've been arrested or whatnot. What happens if you're wrongly arrested ? Seems a bit off that a police error could put a black mark against your name - isn't that why we have courts and so forth ?
The Ian Huntley precedent.
He was arrested a few times but never charged/convicted.
Now if someone had looked to see his arrest record it would have been a great big red flag not to hire him at a school.
I think he was arrested five times for rape/sexual assault, including one on a ten year old girl, whom he threatened to kill if she told anyone.
Though Huntley was working as a caretaker as a school, wasn't it a secondary school. The victims knew him as the boyfriend of Maxine Carr who worked at their primary school.
So I don't think a DRB check would have saved the girls, as his employment at another place was not how he made contact with them. Marine Carr would have passed a DRB check.
I really do wonder whether all the hassle and delay to employment, which often stretches for months with some police forces, has made any impact on crime. Has anyone got any definite figures. I would like to be wrong.
It's a nightmare, I sometimes I have to sit in judgment about hiring someone who is eminently qualified for a role but when they were 19 they had a slash on a night out and someone complained and they accepted a caution.
It's the youth indiscretions where people accept the caution without understanding the consequences that are a real problem later on.
The chap I feel sorry for is the one who accosted Chris Whitty, assuming it was just drunken over-familiarity. He used to be an estate agent, too. If you look at videos of happy, drunk England fans, that is what they do. And yes, it is a pita if you happen to get in the way but if there was no malice intended, then basically he's lost his job for being a tiresome drunk prat.
Yes, that's the other example I was thinking of. Another is the England cricketer who got cancelled and now has mental health challenges.
As a 19-year old student one of my friends took a drunken piss next to the manneken pis. We thought it was hilarious at the time and took pictures. Of course, it was loutish.
Much of what you do at that age is about careless rebelling, puncturing taboos and not giving a sh*t - it's one way you can (initially) assert your free will and independence in the world but, there's a world of difference between a fleeting moment you can forget about and look back upon recognising its stupidity, and being held accountable for it for all time.
It is perfectly possible to rehabilitate. Harry used to be the very model of a hooray Henry racist, calling colleagues names as banter, and dressing as a nazi etc. He clearly sees things very differently since having a black fiancé then wife. He has awakened to the pernicious structural racism that persists in society. The very definition of Woke. No one doubts that he has changed.
The internet tried that in the early days which resulted in Scunthorpe not existing in a lot of places.
That's one of those it sounds easy peasy lemon squeezy problems that is actually difficult difficult lemon difficult. What's approrpriate language is context and intent related, and determining those is a lot harder than parsing some text.
That mad Scottish Nat - Calista Hebburn - was a fascinating example of how just one person with fake but incendiary opinions can inflame thousands.
Social media has been weaponised by the Russians and Chinese, and turned against us. And it is getting worse
I read today that the Chinese now have their own version of GPT-3- the quasi intelligent NLP robot. Except this is 10 times bigger than GPT-3, and has been fed on English AND Chinese. It is called Wu Dao.
Google and Microsoft are trying to make GPT-3 stay Woke and they are restricting access partly for that reason. The Chinese will have no such scruples. Wu Dao could invent a hundred Calista Hebburns every day, roiling our politics. Perhaps Wu Dao WAS responsible for Calista Hebburn. Her syntax had the odd, umami flavour of AI thought
"GPT-3 Scared You? Meet Wu Dao 2.0: A Monster of 1.75 Trillion Parameters"
A couple of years ago FrancisUrquhart posted a link to a podcast about disinformation — it may have been the Sam Harris podcast — where the researcher explained the scope of the issue. Now the interview was regarding social media disinformation related to the 2016 election, but the researcher explained that foreign actors, mainly Russia, were pushing every button on every controversial issue you could think of. Guns, race, gender, taxes, the environment, it went on and on.
Ever since then whenever I read some particularly vexing comment I think "is this person real or am I being manipulated?" Sometimes I'll look at their post history, and though I can't prove it I do quite often find a level of either obsession or I suspect a clear intent to sow discord.
If disinformation becomes automated, if it's not already, we will drown in it, and it will do enormous harm to democratic societies.
Psychological warfare is as old as warfare. One thing is for certain: if one side's PW effort causes its enemy's commanders to whinge publicly about all the PW their side is being hit with, then the first side's PW is winning.
Recommended reading: Paul Linebarger's classic 1948 book.
PS: @Leon, you had me for a moment with "NLP". I thought "oh no, have they already written a program to use neuro-linguistic programming?"!
The chap I feel sorry for is the one who accosted Chris Whitty, assuming it was just drunken over-familiarity. He used to be an estate agent, too. If you look at videos of happy, drunk England fans, that is what they do. And yes, it is a pita if you happen to get in the way but if there was no malice intended, then basically he's lost his job for being a tiresome drunk prat.
Yes, that's the other example I was thinking of. Another is the England cricketer who got cancelled and now has mental health challenges.
As a 19-year old student one of my friends took a drunken piss next to the manneken pis. We thought it was hilarious at the time and took pictures. Of course, it was loutish.
Much of what you do at that age is about careless rebelling, puncturing taboos and not giving a sh*t - it's one way you can (initially) assert your free will and independence in the world but, there's a world of difference between a fleeting moment you can forget about and look back upon recognising its stupidity, and being held accountable for it for all time.
One of my friends did that down an alley.
Unfortunately there was a copper walking the alley from the other end.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Stop being a racist prick and it will stop being an issue. 🤷♂️
Isn't that Leon's point though?
This guy could stop being a racist prick tomorrow but this will always be an issue because it will follow him around for the rest of his life.
The issue is that instead of making a public apology for it and saying he'd atone etc... he's blaming it on being hacked which is laughable. He had a slim opportunity to apologise and maybe keep enough of his reputation intact to find work elsewhere. The problem is he's not sorry, he's a racist.
Do we know for sure he is lying about the hacking?
Genuine question. I have not read the deets of this case
Yep - because it just isn't plausible - who would hack an existing twitter account to post a few racists posts over months in a way that the poster wouldn't notice.
Oh, there's more than just the one post?
I seem to recall there were others when people went through his account.
Bit even if there wasn't way would you hack an account with 1000 or so followers and post a racist tweet - if you can hack into twitter there will be way bigger accounts you could access and use.
Hack a famous account and it probably gets clocked as a hack early on as the famous person releases a statement to that effect. This is some random but easily identifiable guy. By the time it comes out as hack, everyone has moved a long.
But I think the most likely explanation is that it was him and he can’t bring himself to own up.
Either that or he was so pissed he doesn't remember doing it. And doesn't consider himself the kind of person who would do such a thing when sober. This is quite common. And often the most dangerous type.
If someone's racist when they're drunk, they're hiding it when they're sober.
I dunno. I've told lots of people I'm barely acquainted with that they're my best mate when I'm drunk.
I was back to meh the next day.
That's just you being a nice guy shining through more when you're drunk.
The internet tried that in the early days which resulted in Scunthorpe not existing in a lot of places.
That's one of those it sounds easy peasy lemon squeezy problems that is actually difficult difficult lemon difficult. What's approrpriate language is context and intent related, and determining those is a lot harder than parsing some text.
Tell me about it - I've made (some of) my money from such problems for 27 years....
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
But you weren't bothered when it was said Russian bots were pushing for Brexit.
Also the head of MI5 says most of the abusive social media posts came from inside the UK.
Did he actually say that? I thought he brushed aside the question and then advised we clean our own house first. But I don’t think he actually denied those reports of Russian bots.
Going by this.
The head of MI5 has dismissed claims that Russian bots are responsible for online racist abuse against England footballers and said that this country should shoulder the blame for the problem.
These "checks" showing stuff up if you've been arrested or whatnot. What happens if you're wrongly arrested ? Seems a bit off that a police error could put a black mark against your name - isn't that why we have courts and so forth ?
The Ian Huntley precedent.
He was arrested a few times but never charged/convicted.
Now if someone had looked to see his arrest record it would have been a great big red flag not to hire him at a school.
I think he was arrested five times for rape/sexual assault, including one on a ten year old girl, whom he threatened to kill if she told anyone.
Though Huntley was working as a caretaker as a school, wasn't it a secondary school. The victims knew him as the boyfriend of Maxine Carr who worked at their primary school.
So I don't think a DRB check would have saved the girls, as his employment at another place was not how he made contact with them. Marine Carr would have passed a DRB check.
I really do wonder whether all the hassle and delay to employment, which often stretches for months with some police forces, has made any impact on crime. Has anyone got any definite figures. I would like to be wrong.
It's a nightmare, I sometimes I have to sit in judgment about hiring someone who is eminently qualified for a role but when they were 19 they had a slash on a night out and someone complained and they accepted a caution.
It's the youth indiscretions where people accept the caution without understanding the consequences that are a real problem later on.
If the media want to do an expose on police misconduct they should focus on police misuse/threats when it comes to cautions.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Look at it from the perspective of his colleagues many of whom there are surely black and Asian. Is it fair on them to be working with someone who thinks they're scum? Would you risk them walking out to other companies to hold on to a known racist?
Actions have consequence. This is a case of a racist knobhead chatting shit and getting banged.
Far too judgemental. We all say mad things from time to time, especially in moments of great emotion (like England losing a final on penalties)
If this dude has a history of racism, then fair enough, but just one word said in anger or sadness or whatever? No. Why can't he be allowed to apologise profusely, and continue with his life? A bit of Christian forgiveness wouldn't go amiss
Also, this case shows just how easy it is to ruin lives by hacking social media, should you be so inclined. Just get into a Twitter account and make them say the N word. Bingo, they are cancelled, career finished. Bonkers
I've been drunk and posted stuff on here in the past I've subsequently regretted.
Thankfully, we have forgiving editors and mods on here who largely know the posters and can assess if, fundamentally, they're a good or bad egg or not.
Sometimes it's complicated.
You've never been racist, though and you've never openly called any black person a n****r. As I said earlier, you need to look at it from the perspective of his non-white colleagues and potential managers. Why should they work alongside someone who thinks they're scum?
I haven't, although I have told a couple of stereotype jokes in the past that (by today's standards) would probably land me in trouble. I also used the word "gay" to mean "crap" like virtually everyone else in the late 1990s. I laughed at "women drivers" jokes. Probably did at "blokes in dresses" too. A bit laddish. A bit Inbetweeners.
All of those could finish me in certain circles (most?) today if I'd made them on social media under my own name and they were discoverable.
I really think some of this is there but for the grace of God go I.
It's worth noting that old holborn has something that deletes all tweets after a week. I suspect something that deleted all social media posts after a month or so would be rather popular and a sane step for a lot of people.
I need that.
Back in about 2012 I ran a Twitter account that I used professionally. I then got pissed one night and got into a slanging match with a Scot Nat who insisted the bonfire people in Lewes were members of the KKK, or mimicking them. I had to delete my account and have never had one since. I just lurk anonymously.
A friend of mine with an extremely high profile job once got riled by a provocateur, while drunk, and my friend ended up making insane threats to go round and stab his foe (he didn't mean it and would never do it, but he was pissed and furious). Luckily his target was forgiving, and allowed him to apologise and delete the tweets, and no one else noticed
If the tweets had come to light and been publicised (and my friend is well known in his world) that career would have ended overnight. He might even have gone to jail
Today I visited the local Co-op for the first time in 16 months. Step by step, normality returns.
Sainsbury's for me today. 100 per cent masked up. Still some gaps on the shelves. Three or four recycling bins were overflowing with cardboard, presumably through some combination of fly-tipping, Sainsbury's not being on the ball, and home deliveries generating a lot of waste. Though come to think of it, there were stories recently that not enough cardboard was being recycled; maybe this was a reaction to that.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
But you weren't bothered when it was said Russian bots were pushing for Brexit.
Also the head of MI5 says most of the abusive social media posts came from inside the UK.
Did he actually say that? I thought he brushed aside the question and then advised we clean our own house first. But I don’t think he actually denied those reports of Russian bots.
Going by this.
The head of MI5 has dismissed claims that Russian bots are responsible for online racist abuse against England footballers and said that this country should shoulder the blame for the problem.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Look at it from the perspective of his colleagues many of whom there are surely black and Asian. Is it fair on them to be working with someone who thinks they're scum? Would you risk them walking out to other companies to hold on to a known racist?
Actions have consequence. This is a case of a racist knobhead chatting shit and getting banged.
Far too judgemental. We all say mad things from time to time, especially in moments of great emotion (like England losing a final on penalties)
If this dude has a history of racism, then fair enough, but just one word said in anger or sadness or whatever? No. Why can't he be allowed to apologise profusely, and continue with his life? A bit of Christian forgiveness wouldn't go amiss
Also, this case shows just how easy it is to ruin lives by hacking social media, should you be so inclined. Just get into a Twitter account and make them say the N word. Bingo, they are cancelled, career finished. Bonkers
I've been drunk and posted stuff on here in the past I've subsequently regretted.
Thankfully, we have forgiving editors and mods on here who largely know the posters and can assess if, fundamentally, they're a good or bad egg or not.
Sometimes it's complicated.
We all have. But not racist stuff. No one. No one who is still posting, that is.
To post racist shit when you are drunk means there is racist shit going around your head somewhere.
No one who hasn't been banned from PB imo fits that bill.
I don't believe there is a human being on earth who has never had a "racist" thought. There is science to back this up. We all perceive skin colour, and otherness, and we have a reflexive wariness - it is Darwinian. The baby that is cautious of outsiders is likelier to survive, and grow into an adult, and have children of her own. Thus the trait flourishes.
On this I am in rare agreement with the Critical Race Theorists. I just passionately disagree with their way of remedying this very human flaw
Yes, that is the ultimate taboo in today's society and is probably true.
The trick is to be aware of that reflexive trait in the brain stem, so your neo-cortex can overrule it.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Stop being a racist prick and it will stop being an issue. 🤷♂️
Isn't that Leon's point though?
This guy could stop being a racist prick tomorrow but this will always be an issue because it will follow him around for the rest of his life.
The issue is that instead of making a public apology for it and saying he'd atone etc... he's blaming it on being hacked which is laughable. He had a slim opportunity to apologise and maybe keep enough of his reputation intact to find work elsewhere. The problem is he's not sorry, he's a racist.
Do we know for sure he is lying about the hacking?
Genuine question. I have not read the deets of this case
Yes 100% sure. No one is going to hack a random and then post stuff like that. It's completely without credibility. He's not some massive public figure, he's an internet random and hackers don't give a fuck about logging into the accounts if internet randoms. They want to hack Elon Musk and announce Tesla's next car so they can make billions in market manipulation.
In "Person of Interest" it is strongly implied that the head of the Vigilance terrorist organisation was deliberately created by manipulating the life of a fairly ordinary person.
Makes you think... radicalise someone, in just the right ways. If it doesn't work, next target...
It's a numbers game.
I need to find the link but the reason why a lot of scam emails have bad spelling and other seemingly obvious flaws is because it's a numbers game. out of the 100,000 emails 99,500 see through it (so disqualify themselves) but the other 500 are valid targets worth spending more time trying to con.
The jet created for the Prime Minister to travel in hasn't been used for travel at a time of very heavily restricted international travel. Meanwhile it continues to be used in its primary role.
Whodathunkit ?
Angela HoofinMouth is going to be pushing this one to her Twitter followers. And it will result in the sky falling in. Or not.
As the twitter reply giving the context @Scott ignored put it:
This plane is a multi role Voyager aircraft which can complete air-to-air refilling as well as cargo and personnel transport not just VIPs/BoJo. I live near RAF Brize Norton and see it flying all the time.
The internet tried that in the early days which resulted in Scunthorpe not existing in a lot of places.
That's one of those it sounds easy peasy lemon squeezy problems that is actually difficult difficult lemon difficult. What's approrpriate language is context and intent related, and determining those is a lot harder than parsing some text.
It may be apocryphal, but one of the early filters in US schools banned all golf results as they contained Fred Couples.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Stop being a racist prick and it will stop being an issue. 🤷♂️
Isn't that Leon's point though?
This guy could stop being a racist prick tomorrow but this will always be an issue because it will follow him around for the rest of his life.
The issue is that instead of making a public apology for it and saying he'd atone etc... he's blaming it on being hacked which is laughable. He had a slim opportunity to apologise and maybe keep enough of his reputation intact to find work elsewhere. The problem is he's not sorry, he's a racist.
Do we know for sure he is lying about the hacking?
Genuine question. I have not read the deets of this case
Yes 100% sure. No one is going to hack a random and then post stuff like that. It's completely without credibility. He's not some massive public figure, he's an internet random and hackers don't give a fuck about logging into the accounts if internet randoms. They want to hack Elon Musk and announce Tesla's next car so they can make billions in market manipulation.
In "Person of Interest" it is strongly implied that the head of the Vigilance terrorist organisation was deliberately created by manipulating the life of a fairly ordinary person.
Makes you think... radicalise someone, in just the right ways. If it doesn't work, next target...
Strongly implied? It was outright stated I thought. Good show.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
But you weren't bothered when it was said Russian bots were pushing for Brexit.
Also the head of MI5 says most of the abusive social media posts came from inside the UK.
Did he actually say that? I thought he brushed aside the question and then advised we clean our own house first. But I don’t think he actually denied those reports of Russian bots.
Going by this.
The head of MI5 has dismissed claims that Russian bots are responsible for online racist abuse against England footballers and said that this country should shoulder the blame for the problem.
These "checks" showing stuff up if you've been arrested or whatnot. What happens if you're wrongly arrested ? Seems a bit off that a police error could put a black mark against your name - isn't that why we have courts and so forth ?
The Ian Huntley precedent.
He was arrested a few times but never charged/convicted.
Now if someone had looked to see his arrest record it would have been a great big red flag not to hire him at a school.
I think he was arrested five times for rape/sexual assault, including one on a ten year old girl, whom he threatened to kill if she told anyone.
Though Huntley was working as a caretaker as a school, wasn't it a secondary school. The victims knew him as the boyfriend of Maxine Carr who worked at their primary school.
So I don't think a DRB check would have saved the girls, as his employment at another place was not how he made contact with them. Marine Carr would have passed a DRB check.
I really do wonder whether all the hassle and delay to employment, which often stretches for months with some police forces, has made any impact on crime. Has anyone got any definite figures. I would like to be wrong.
It's a nightmare, I sometimes I have to sit in judgment about hiring someone who is eminently qualified for a role but when they were 19 they had a slash on a night out and someone complained and they accepted a caution.
It's the youth indiscretions where people accept the caution without understanding the consequences that are a real problem later on.
If the media want to do an expose on police misconduct they should focus on police misuse/threats when it comes to cautions.
Trouble is you can't tell children in school or uni that accepting a caution is not something to do lightly and you really need external (calm, rational and not from a parent) advice before agreeing to accept one.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Look at it from the perspective of his colleagues many of whom there are surely black and Asian. Is it fair on them to be working with someone who thinks they're scum? Would you risk them walking out to other companies to hold on to a known racist?
Actions have consequence. This is a case of a racist knobhead chatting shit and getting banged.
Far too judgemental. We all say mad things from time to time, especially in moments of great emotion (like England losing a final on penalties)
If this dude has a history of racism, then fair enough, but just one word said in anger or sadness or whatever? No. Why can't he be allowed to apologise profusely, and continue with his life? A bit of Christian forgiveness wouldn't go amiss
Also, this case shows just how easy it is to ruin lives by hacking social media, should you be so inclined. Just get into a Twitter account and make them say the N word. Bingo, they are cancelled, career finished. Bonkers
I've been drunk and posted stuff on here in the past I've subsequently regretted.
Thankfully, we have forgiving editors and mods on here who largely know the posters and can assess if, fundamentally, they're a good or bad egg or not.
Sometimes it's complicated.
We all have. But not racist stuff. No one. No one who is still posting, that is.
To post racist shit when you are drunk means there is racist shit going around your head somewhere.
No one who hasn't been banned from PB imo fits that bill.
I don't believe there is a human being on earth who has never had a "racist" thought. There is science to back this up. We all perceive skin colour, and otherness, and we have a reflexive wariness - it is Darwinian. The baby that is cautious of outsiders is likelier to survive, and grow into an adult, and have children of her own. Thus the trait flourishes.
On this I am in rare agreement with the Critical Race Theorists. I just passionately disagree with their way of remedying this very human flaw
Yes, that is the ultimate taboo in today's society and is probably true.
The trick is to be aware of that reflexive trait in the brain stem, so your neo-cortex can overrule it.
It is obviously and provably true. But people are now SO scared of being seen as *racist* they won't even address it. Madness
The internet tried that in the early days which resulted in Scunthorpe not existing in a lot of places.
That's one of those it sounds easy peasy lemon squeezy problems that is actually difficult difficult lemon difficult. What's approrpriate language is context and intent related, and determining those is a lot harder than parsing some text.
It may be apocryphal, but one of the early filters in US schools banned all golf results as they contained Fred Couples.
At one stage it was impossible on this site to discuss the Stocksbridge and Pen*stone constituency. Scunthorpe fine, however.
That mad Scottish Nat - Calista Hebburn - was a fascinating example of how just one person with fake but incendiary opinions can inflame thousands.
Social media has been weaponised by the Russians and Chinese, and turned against us. And it is getting worse
I read today that the Chinese now have their own version of GPT-3- the quasi intelligent NLP robot. Except this is 10 times bigger than GPT-3, and has been fed on English AND Chinese. It is called Wu Dao.
Google and Microsoft are trying to make GPT-3 stay Woke and they are restricting access partly for that reason. The Chinese will have no such scruples. Wu Dao could invent a hundred Calista Hebburns every day, roiling our politics. Perhaps Wu Dao WAS responsible for Calista Hebburn. Her syntax had the odd, umami flavour of AI thought
"GPT-3 Scared You? Meet Wu Dao 2.0: A Monster of 1.75 Trillion Parameters"
A couple of years ago FrancisUrquhart posted a link to a podcast about disinformation — it may have been the Sam Harris podcast — where the researcher explained the scope of the issue. Now the interview was regarding social media disinformation related to the 2016 election, but the researcher explained that foreign actors, mainly Russia, were pushing every button on every controversial issue you could think of. Guns, race, gender, taxes, the environment, it went on and on.
Ever since then whenever I read some particularly vexing comment I think "is this person real or am I being manipulated?" Sometimes I'll look at their post history, and though I can't prove it I do quite often find a level of either obsession or I suspect a clear intent to sow discord.
If disinformation becomes automated, if it's not already, we will drown in it, and it will do enormous harm to democratic societies.
Psychological warfare is as old as warfare. One thing is for certain: if one side's PW effort causes its enemy's commanders to whinge publicly about all the PW their side is being hit with, then the first side's PW is winning.
For contrast, compare with Russia in the run-up to the 2018 Russian presidential election, when it was public knowledge that the US and Brits were carrying out political ops, including using NGOs. Putin - did he whinge? He didn't have to. It was like water off a duck's back.
The chap I feel sorry for is the one who accosted Chris Whitty, assuming it was just drunken over-familiarity. He used to be an estate agent, too. If you look at videos of happy, drunk England fans, that is what they do. And yes, it is a pita if you happen to get in the way but if there was no malice intended, then basically he's lost his job for being a tiresome drunk prat.
Yes, that's the other example I was thinking of. Another is the England cricketer who got cancelled and now has mental health challenges.
As a 19-year old student one of my friends took a drunken piss next to the manneken pis. We thought it was hilarious at the time and took pictures. Of course, it was loutish.
Much of what you do at that age is about careless rebelling, puncturing taboos and not giving a sh*t - it's one way you can (initially) assert your free will and independence in the world but, there's a world of difference between a fleeting moment you can forget about and look back upon recognising its stupidity, and being held accountable for it for all time.
It is perfectly possible to rehabilitate. Harry used to be the very model of a hooray Henry racist, calling colleagues names as banter, and dressing as a nazi etc. He clearly sees things very differently since having a black fiancé then wife. He has awakened to the pernicious structural racism that persists in society. The very definition of Woke. No one doubts that he has changed.
I need to find the link but the reason why a lot of scam emails have bad spelling and other seemingly obvious flaws is because it's a numbers game. out of the 100,000 emails 99,500 see through it (so disqualify themselves) but the other 500 are valid targets worth spending more time trying to con.
Exactly, because they are trying to find the gullible not the naturally skeptical. They want people who don't notice stupid domain names, weird formatting, emojis, odd spelling, etc.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Stop being a racist prick and it will stop being an issue. 🤷♂️
Isn't that Leon's point though?
This guy could stop being a racist prick tomorrow but this will always be an issue because it will follow him around for the rest of his life.
The issue is that instead of making a public apology for it and saying he'd atone etc... he's blaming it on being hacked which is laughable. He had a slim opportunity to apologise and maybe keep enough of his reputation intact to find work elsewhere. The problem is he's not sorry, he's a racist.
Do we know for sure he is lying about the hacking?
Genuine question. I have not read the deets of this case
Yes 100% sure. No one is going to hack a random and then post stuff like that. It's completely without credibility. He's not some massive public figure, he's an internet random and hackers don't give a fuck about logging into the accounts if internet randoms. They want to hack Elon Musk and announce Tesla's next car so they can make billions in market manipulation.
In "Person of Interest" it is strongly implied that the head of the Vigilance terrorist organisation was deliberately created by manipulating the life of a fairly ordinary person.
Makes you think... radicalise someone, in just the right ways. If it doesn't work, next target...
It's a numbers game.
I need to find the link but the reason why a lot of scam emails have bad spelling and other seemingly obvious flaws is because it's a numbers game. out of the 100,000 emails 99,500 see through it (so disqualify themselves) but the other 500 are valid targets worth spending more time trying to con.
I had never consider that - it actually makes a lot of sense.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Look at it from the perspective of his colleagues many of whom there are surely black and Asian. Is it fair on them to be working with someone who thinks they're scum? Would you risk them walking out to other companies to hold on to a known racist?
Actions have consequence. This is a case of a racist knobhead chatting shit and getting banged.
Far too judgemental. We all say mad things from time to time, especially in moments of great emotion (like England losing a final on penalties)
If this dude has a history of racism, then fair enough, but just one word said in anger or sadness or whatever? No. Why can't he be allowed to apologise profusely, and continue with his life? A bit of Christian forgiveness wouldn't go amiss
Also, this case shows just how easy it is to ruin lives by hacking social media, should you be so inclined. Just get into a Twitter account and make them say the N word. Bingo, they are cancelled, career finished. Bonkers
I've been drunk and posted stuff on here in the past I've subsequently regretted.
Thankfully, we have forgiving editors and mods on here who largely know the posters and can assess if, fundamentally, they're a good or bad egg or not.
Sometimes it's complicated.
You've never been racist, though and you've never openly called any black person a n****r. As I said earlier, you need to look at it from the perspective of his non-white colleagues and potential managers. Why should they work alongside someone who thinks they're scum?
I haven't, although I have told a couple of stereotype jokes in the past that (by today's standards) would probably land me in trouble. I also used the word "gay" to mean "crap" like virtually everyone else in the late 1990s. I laughed at "women drivers" jokes. Probably did at "blokes in dresses" too. A bit laddish. A bit Inbetweeners.
All of those could finish me in certain circles (most?) today if I'd made them on social media under my own name and they were discoverable.
I really think some of this is there but for the grace of God go I.
It's worth noting that old holborn has something that deletes all tweets after a week. I suspect something that deleted all social media posts after a month or so would be rather popular and a sane step for a lot of people.
If Twitter simply installed a gizmo that automatically barred tweets that contained the N word (and others?) that would save a lot of grief all round. It already queries tweets that seem offensively aggressive
The internet tried that in the early days which resulted in Scunthorpe not existing in a lot of places.
There's a point at around 15:20 in the PMQs stream (see link in thread header) where Boris just looks totally out of it. I do wonder if he's quite well tbh.
I thought he actually then answered that question reasonably well, though. It was an attempted Starmer sucker punch, but didn't land in the end.
He certainly had a bad day in the office overall. But it was a bad day due to poor decisions several weeks ago. I don't really buy into the idea there is some kind of underlying health issue there (beyond being overweight and so on).
The internet tried that in the early days which resulted in Scunthorpe not existing in a lot of places.
That's one of those it sounds easy peasy lemon squeezy problems that is actually difficult difficult lemon difficult. What's approrpriate language is context and intent related, and determining those is a lot harder than parsing some text.
It may be apocryphal, but one of the early filters in US schools banned all golf results as they contained Fred Couples.
At one stage it was impossible on this site to discuss the Stocksbridge and Pen*stone constituency. Scunthorpe fine, however.
And that highlights the scale of the issue - Scunthorpe is a very known problem (it's called the Scunthorpe problem) but hundreds of variations exist.
"The Met Police has denied its policing operation at the Euro 2020 final failed, claiming it had warned Wembley that many ticketless fans were on the way."
These "checks" showing stuff up if you've been arrested or whatnot. What happens if you're wrongly arrested ? Seems a bit off that a police error could put a black mark against your name - isn't that why we have courts and so forth ?
The Ian Huntley precedent.
He was arrested a few times but never charged/convicted.
Now if someone had looked to see his arrest record it would have been a great big red flag not to hire him at a school.
I think he was arrested five times for rape/sexual assault, including one on a ten year old girl, whom he threatened to kill if she told anyone.
Though Huntley was working as a caretaker as a school, wasn't it a secondary school. The victims knew him as the boyfriend of Maxine Carr who worked at their primary school.
So I don't think a DRB check would have saved the girls, as his employment at another place was not how he made contact with them. Marine Carr would have passed a DRB check.
I really do wonder whether all the hassle and delay to employment, which often stretches for months with some police forces, has made any impact on crime. Has anyone got any definite figures. I would like to be wrong.
It's a nightmare, I sometimes I have to sit in judgment about hiring someone who is eminently qualified for a role but when they were 19 they had a slash on a night out and someone complained and they accepted a caution.
It's the youth indiscretions where people accept the caution without understanding the consequences that are a real problem later on.
If the media want to do an expose on police misconduct they should focus on police misuse/threats when it comes to cautions.
Trouble is you can't tell children in school or uni that accepting a caution is not something to do lightly and you really need external (calm, rational and not from a parent) advice before agreeing to accept one.
There used to be a huge thread on one of the youth organisations with dozens of examples of teenagers with lives wrecked through accepting a police caution. It is an evil system when misused.
Fortunately one of Theresa May's better initiatives was to reset the record of youngsters at, I think, 18.
The internet tried that in the early days which resulted in Scunthorpe not existing in a lot of places.
That's one of those it sounds easy peasy lemon squeezy problems that is actually difficult difficult lemon difficult. What's approrpriate language is context and intent related, and determining those is a lot harder than parsing some text.
It may be apocryphal, but one of the early filters in US schools banned all golf results as they contained Fred Couples.
At one stage it was impossible on this site to discuss the Stocksbridge and Pen*stone constituency. Scunthorpe fine, however.
The Betfair forum will not allow the name Yeats – the racehorse and stallion (and poet). No-one knows why.
There's a point at around 15:20 in the PMQs stream (see link in thread header) where Boris just looks totally out of it. I do wonder if he's quite well tbh.
I think he won't contest the next election as a result of his scare with Covid-19. Before that it was about 90% certain that he would have still been leader in 2023/24 IMO.
The internet tried that in the early days which resulted in Scunthorpe not existing in a lot of places.
That's one of those it sounds easy peasy lemon squeezy problems that is actually difficult difficult lemon difficult. What's approrpriate language is context and intent related, and determining those is a lot harder than parsing some text.
It may be apocryphal, but one of the early filters in US schools banned all golf results as they contained Fred Couples.
At one stage it was impossible on this site to discuss the Stocksbridge and Pen*stone constituency. Scunthorpe fine, however.
And that highlights the scale of the issue - Scunthorpe is a very known problem (it's called the Scunthorpe problem) but hundreds of variations exist.
My friend had problems with surname. Spam traps really didn't like a surname with MILF in it.
I see we have had the usual Wednesday spike in cases to dash hopes of them peaking. I look forward to the usual suspects claiming next Monday that cases have levelled off in the mid 40k cases...
(1) The schools break up next Friday. See Scotland case numbers for what happens when schools break up. (2) The rate of increase in new cases has absolutely collapsed already. Even without schools breaking up, we would likely see cases top out pretty soon.
I forecast a peak in infections of 50k. I don't think that looks very far from the truth.
Bastille Day Firework display in Paris on France 24 in a minute.
I love the fact that the total prisoner content at the time was (per Wikipedia)
"At this point, the Bastille was nearly empty, housing only seven prisoners:[27] four forgers; James F.X. Whyte, a "lunatic" imprisoned at the request of his family; Auguste-Claude Tavernier, who had tried to assassinate Louis XV thirty years before; and one "deviant" aristocrat, the Comte de Solages, imprisoned by his father using a lettre de cachet (while the Marquis de Sade had been transferred out ten days earlier)."
The chap I feel sorry for is the one who accosted Chris Whitty, assuming it was just drunken over-familiarity. He used to be an estate agent, too. If you look at videos of happy, drunk England fans, that is what they do. And yes, it is a pita if you happen to get in the way but if there was no malice intended, then basically he's lost his job for being a tiresome drunk prat.
Yes, that's the other example I was thinking of. Another is the England cricketer who got cancelled and now has mental health challenges.
As a 19-year old student one of my friends took a drunken piss next to the manneken pis. We thought it was hilarious at the time and took pictures. Of course, it was loutish.
Much of what you do at that age is about careless rebelling, puncturing taboos and not giving a sh*t - it's one way you can (initially) assert your free will and independence in the world but, there's a world of difference between a fleeting moment you can forget about and look back upon recognising its stupidity, and being held accountable for it for all time.
It is perfectly possible to rehabilitate. Harry used to be the very model of a hooray Henry racist, calling colleagues names as banter, and dressing as a nazi etc. He clearly sees things very differently since having a black fiancé then wife. He has awakened to the pernicious structural racism that persists in society. The very definition of Woke. No one doubts that he has changed.
I'd rather have old Harry than a cuck
That's as maybe, but do you doubt that he has genuinely changed over these issues? He is Woke personified.
If I were Boris, I'd have he head of MI5 in for chat without tea and biscuits. He should be keeping his gob shut, but now he's entered the fray, I think GCHQ should actually investigate this.
Ultimately it was the main part of PMQs today. If foreign actors are doing this, they are influencing our politics. That needs to be called out as much as Brexit or Trump.
Foreign actors are doing it now. Last year's Russia Report from the Intelligence and Security Committee said so. Primary responsibiltiy for countering it lies with the DCMS, which is rather like putting countering the Luftwaffe in the hands of the Salvation Army.
That mad Scottish Nat - Calista Hebburn - was a fascinating example of how just one person with fake but incendiary opinions can inflame thousands.
Social media has been weaponised by the Russians and Chinese, and turned against us. And it is getting worse
I read today that the Chinese now have their own version of GPT-3- the quasi intelligent NLP robot. Except this is 10 times bigger than GPT-3, and has been fed on English AND Chinese. It is called Wu Dao.
Google and Microsoft are trying to make GPT-3 stay Woke and they are restricting access partly for that reason. The Chinese will have no such scruples. Wu Dao could invent a hundred Calista Hebburns every day, roiling our politics. Perhaps Wu Dao WAS responsible for Calista Hebburn. Her syntax had the odd, umami flavour of AI thought
"GPT-3 Scared You? Meet Wu Dao 2.0: A Monster of 1.75 Trillion Parameters"
Perhaps we all need to start using social media a lot less. I know it sounds unlikely at the moment, but maybe people will eventually get fed up with spending most of their day having pointless, angry arguments with people they'll never meet, and do something useful instead.
The chap I feel sorry for is the one who accosted Chris Whitty, assuming it was just drunken over-familiarity. He used to be an estate agent, too. If you look at videos of happy, drunk England fans, that is what they do. And yes, it is a pita if you happen to get in the way but if there was no malice intended, then basically he's lost his job for being a tiresome drunk prat.
Yes, that's the other example I was thinking of. Another is the England cricketer who got cancelled and now has mental health challenges.
As a 19-year old student one of my friends took a drunken piss next to the manneken pis. We thought it was hilarious at the time and took pictures. Of course, it was loutish.
Much of what you do at that age is about careless rebelling, puncturing taboos and not giving a sh*t - it's one way you can (initially) assert your free will and independence in the world but, there's a world of difference between a fleeting moment you can forget about and look back upon recognising its stupidity, and being held accountable for it for all time.
One of my friends did that down an alley.
Unfortunately there was a copper walking the alley from the other end.
If I were Boris, I'd have he head of MI5 in for chat without tea and biscuits. He should be keeping his gob shut, but now he's entered the fray, I think GCHQ should actually investigate this.
Ultimately it was the main part of PMQs today. If foreign actors are doing this, they are influencing our politics. That needs to be called out as much as Brexit or Trump.
Foreign actors are doing it now. Last year's Russia Report from the Intelligence and Security Committee said so. Primary responsibiltiy for countering it lies with the DCMS, which is rather like putting countering the Luftwaffe in the hands of the Salvation Army.
That mad Scottish Nat - Calista Hebburn - was a fascinating example of how just one person with fake but incendiary opinions can inflame thousands.
Social media has been weaponised by the Russians and Chinese, and turned against us. And it is getting worse
I read today that the Chinese now have their own version of GPT-3- the quasi intelligent NLP robot. Except this is 10 times bigger than GPT-3, and has been fed on English AND Chinese. It is called Wu Dao.
Google and Microsoft are trying to make GPT-3 stay Woke and they are restricting access partly for that reason. The Chinese will have no such scruples. Wu Dao could invent a hundred Calista Hebburns every day, roiling our politics. Perhaps Wu Dao WAS responsible for Calista Hebburn. Her syntax had the odd, umami flavour of AI thought
"GPT-3 Scared You? Meet Wu Dao 2.0: A Monster of 1.75 Trillion Parameters"
Perhaps we all need to start using social media a lot less. I know it sounds unlikely at the moment, but maybe people will eventually get fed up with spending most of their day having pointless, angry arguments with people they'll never meet, and do something useful instead.
Steady on! Pointless repetitive argument is the bread and butter of this site.
If I were Boris, I'd have he head of MI5 in for chat without tea and biscuits. He should be keeping his gob shut, but now he's entered the fray, I think GCHQ should actually investigate this.
Ultimately it was the main part of PMQs today. If foreign actors are doing this, they are influencing our politics. That needs to be called out as much as Brexit or Trump.
Foreign actors are doing it now. Last year's Russia Report from the Intelligence and Security Committee said so. Primary responsibiltiy for countering it lies with the DCMS, which is rather like putting countering the Luftwaffe in the hands of the Salvation Army.
That mad Scottish Nat - Calista Hebburn - was a fascinating example of how just one person with fake but incendiary opinions can inflame thousands.
Social media has been weaponised by the Russians and Chinese, and turned against us. And it is getting worse
I read today that the Chinese now have their own version of GPT-3- the quasi intelligent NLP robot. Except this is 10 times bigger than GPT-3, and has been fed on English AND Chinese. It is called Wu Dao.
Google and Microsoft are trying to make GPT-3 stay Woke and they are restricting access partly for that reason. The Chinese will have no such scruples. Wu Dao could invent a hundred Calista Hebburns every day, roiling our politics. Perhaps Wu Dao WAS responsible for Calista Hebburn. Her syntax had the odd, umami flavour of AI thought
"GPT-3 Scared You? Meet Wu Dao 2.0: A Monster of 1.75 Trillion Parameters"
Perhaps we all need to start using social media a lot less. I know it sounds unlikely at the moment, but maybe people will eventually get fed up with spending most of their day having pointless, angry arguments with people they'll never meet, and do something useful instead.
The chap I feel sorry for is the one who accosted Chris Whitty, assuming it was just drunken over-familiarity. He used to be an estate agent, too. If you look at videos of happy, drunk England fans, that is what they do. And yes, it is a pita if you happen to get in the way but if there was no malice intended, then basically he's lost his job for being a tiresome drunk prat.
Yes, that's the other example I was thinking of. Another is the England cricketer who got cancelled and now has mental health challenges.
As a 19-year old student one of my friends took a drunken piss next to the manneken pis. We thought it was hilarious at the time and took pictures. Of course, it was loutish.
Much of what you do at that age is about careless rebelling, puncturing taboos and not giving a sh*t - it's one way you can (initially) assert your free will and independence in the world but, there's a world of difference between a fleeting moment you can forget about and look back upon recognising its stupidity, and being held accountable for it for all time.
One of my friends did that down an alley.
Unfortunately there was a copper walking the alley from the other end.
If I were Boris, I'd have he head of MI5 in for chat without tea and biscuits. He should be keeping his gob shut, but now he's entered the fray, I think GCHQ should actually investigate this.
Ultimately it was the main part of PMQs today. If foreign actors are doing this, they are influencing our politics. That needs to be called out as much as Brexit or Trump.
Foreign actors are doing it now. Last year's Russia Report from the Intelligence and Security Committee said so. Primary responsibiltiy for countering it lies with the DCMS, which is rather like putting countering the Luftwaffe in the hands of the Salvation Army.
That mad Scottish Nat - Calista Hebburn - was a fascinating example of how just one person with fake but incendiary opinions can inflame thousands.
Social media has been weaponised by the Russians and Chinese, and turned against us. And it is getting worse
I read today that the Chinese now have their own version of GPT-3- the quasi intelligent NLP robot. Except this is 10 times bigger than GPT-3, and has been fed on English AND Chinese. It is called Wu Dao.
Google and Microsoft are trying to make GPT-3 stay Woke and they are restricting access partly for that reason. The Chinese will have no such scruples. Wu Dao could invent a hundred Calista Hebburns every day, roiling our politics. Perhaps Wu Dao WAS responsible for Calista Hebburn. Her syntax had the odd, umami flavour of AI thought
"GPT-3 Scared You? Meet Wu Dao 2.0: A Monster of 1.75 Trillion Parameters"
Perhaps we all need to start using social media a lot less. I know it sounds unlikely at the moment, but maybe people will eventually get fed up with spending most of their day having pointless, angry arguments with people they'll never meet, and do something useful instead.
My 17 year old barely uses it. And certainly wouldn't dream of arguing with a "random" on it. It's a tool. One we didn't grow up with, so isn't second nature to our generation. We are late Victorians struggling to drive automobiles. And secretly wishing everyone would ride horses again.
The chap I feel sorry for is the one who accosted Chris Whitty, assuming it was just drunken over-familiarity. He used to be an estate agent, too. If you look at videos of happy, drunk England fans, that is what they do. And yes, it is a pita if you happen to get in the way but if there was no malice intended, then basically he's lost his job for being a tiresome drunk prat.
Yes, that's the other example I was thinking of. Another is the England cricketer who got cancelled and now has mental health challenges.
As a 19-year old student one of my friends took a drunken piss next to the manneken pis. We thought it was hilarious at the time and took pictures. Of course, it was loutish.
Much of what you do at that age is about careless rebelling, puncturing taboos and not giving a sh*t - it's one way you can (initially) assert your free will and independence in the world but, there's a world of difference between a fleeting moment you can forget about and look back upon recognising its stupidity, and being held accountable for it for all time.
It is perfectly possible to rehabilitate. Harry used to be the very model of a hooray Henry racist, calling colleagues names as banter, and dressing as a nazi etc. He clearly sees things very differently since having a black fiancé then wife. He has awakened to the pernicious structural racism that persists in society. The very definition of Woke. No one doubts that he has changed.
I think you're crediting too much sentient thought to Harry there.
Harry acts on his emotions and the environment around him.
There's a point at around 15:20 in the PMQs stream (see link in thread header) where Boris just looks totally out of it. I do wonder if he's quite well tbh.
I think he won't contest the next election as a result of his scare with Covid-19. Before that it was about 90% certain that he would have still been leader in 2023/24 IMO.
I've just had a peek at PMQs, Boris looks no worse than normal. He often does that "gasping mackerel on the deck" face, his jaw hanging open
I don't think he looks particularly ill or overweight, he just looks his age now, after a prolonged period of being boyish in appearance.
He is 57, his hair is thinning, he's plump, he's heading towards 60, he probably drinks a fair bit - and it shows. He is not alone
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Look at it from the perspective of his colleagues many of whom there are surely black and Asian. Is it fair on them to be working with someone who thinks they're scum? Would you risk them walking out to other companies to hold on to a known racist?
Actions have consequence. This is a case of a racist knobhead chatting shit and getting banged.
Far too judgemental. We all say mad things from time to time, especially in moments of great emotion (like England losing a final on penalties)
If this dude has a history of racism, then fair enough, but just one word said in anger or sadness or whatever? No. Why can't he be allowed to apologise profusely, and continue with his life? A bit of Christian forgiveness wouldn't go amiss
Also, this case shows just how easy it is to ruin lives by hacking social media, should you be so inclined. Just get into a Twitter account and make them say the N word. Bingo, they are cancelled, career finished. Bonkers
I've been drunk and posted stuff on here in the past I've subsequently regretted.
Thankfully, we have forgiving editors and mods on here who largely know the posters and can assess if, fundamentally, they're a good or bad egg or not.
Sometimes it's complicated.
We all have. But not racist stuff. No one. No one who is still posting, that is.
To post racist shit when you are drunk means there is racist shit going around your head somewhere.
No one who hasn't been banned from PB imo fits that bill.
I don't believe there is a human being on earth who has never had a "racist" thought. There is science to back this up. We all perceive skin colour, and otherness, and we have a reflexive wariness - it is Darwinian. The baby that is cautious of outsiders is likelier to survive, and grow into an adult, and have children of her own. Thus the trait flourishes.
On this I am in rare agreement with the Critical Race Theorists. I just passionately disagree with their way of remedying this very human flaw
I thought this phenomenon (or something like it) is explained very effectively in the book Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman and others: we make automatic generalisations based on physical characteristics, including race, it is hard wired within us.
I have travelled and lived in other countries and I am absolutely sure that this is one of the least racist countries in the world. If you want to look at racist country, look at China.
I see we have had the usual Wednesday spike in cases to dash hopes of them peaking. I look forward to the usual suspects claiming next Monday that cases have levelled off in the mid 40k cases...
(1) The schools break up next Friday. See Scotland case numbers for what happens when schools break up. (2) The rate of increase in new cases has absolutely collapsed already. Even without schools breaking up, we would likely see cases top out pretty soon.
I forecast a peak in infections of 50k. I don't think that looks very far from the truth.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Look at it from the perspective of his colleagues many of whom there are surely black and Asian. Is it fair on them to be working with someone who thinks they're scum? Would you risk them walking out to other companies to hold on to a known racist?
Actions have consequence. This is a case of a racist knobhead chatting shit and getting banged.
Far too judgemental. We all say mad things from time to time, especially in moments of great emotion (like England losing a final on penalties)
If this dude has a history of racism, then fair enough, but just one word said in anger or sadness or whatever? No. Why can't he be allowed to apologise profusely, and continue with his life? A bit of Christian forgiveness wouldn't go amiss
Also, this case shows just how easy it is to ruin lives by hacking social media, should you be so inclined. Just get into a Twitter account and make them say the N word. Bingo, they are cancelled, career finished. Bonkers
I've been drunk and posted stuff on here in the past I've subsequently regretted.
Thankfully, we have forgiving editors and mods on here who largely know the posters and can assess if, fundamentally, they're a good or bad egg or not.
Sometimes it's complicated.
We all have. But not racist stuff. No one. No one who is still posting, that is.
To post racist shit when you are drunk means there is racist shit going around your head somewhere.
No one who hasn't been banned from PB imo fits that bill.
I don't believe there is a human being on earth who has never had a "racist" thought. There is science to back this up. We all perceive skin colour, and otherness, and we have a reflexive wariness - it is Darwinian. The baby that is cautious of outsiders is likelier to survive, and grow into an adult, and have children of her own. Thus the trait flourishes.
On this I am in rare agreement with the Critical Race Theorists. I just passionately disagree with their way of remedying this very human flaw
Yes, that is the ultimate taboo in today's society and is probably true.
The trick is to be aware of that reflexive trait in the brain stem, so your neo-cortex can overrule it.
It is obviously and provably true. But people are now SO scared of being seen as *racist* they won't even address it. Madness
Isn't that what Unconscious Bias training is all about?
@Casino_Royale I think the today's ultimate taboo is paedophilia (rightly so imo*).
It's interesting to reflect on how the taboos have risen and fallen in prominence over the decades and centuries. 150 years ago paedophilia and racism would have been seen as a bit distasteful at worst - whereas homosexuality, female promiscuity, blasphemy would all have been seen as serious transgressions.
(*But it's hardly surprising I feel that as I am, like we all are, steeped in current attitudes.)
If I were Boris, I'd have he head of MI5 in for chat without tea and biscuits. He should be keeping his gob shut, but now he's entered the fray, I think GCHQ should actually investigate this.
Ultimately it was the main part of PMQs today. If foreign actors are doing this, they are influencing our politics. That needs to be called out as much as Brexit or Trump.
Foreign actors are doing it now. Last year's Russia Report from the Intelligence and Security Committee said so. Primary responsibiltiy for countering it lies with the DCMS, which is rather like putting countering the Luftwaffe in the hands of the Salvation Army.
That mad Scottish Nat - Calista Hebburn - was a fascinating example of how just one person with fake but incendiary opinions can inflame thousands.
Social media has been weaponised by the Russians and Chinese, and turned against us. And it is getting worse
I read today that the Chinese now have their own version of GPT-3- the quasi intelligent NLP robot. Except this is 10 times bigger than GPT-3, and has been fed on English AND Chinese. It is called Wu Dao.
Google and Microsoft are trying to make GPT-3 stay Woke and they are restricting access partly for that reason. The Chinese will have no such scruples. Wu Dao could invent a hundred Calista Hebburns every day, roiling our politics. Perhaps Wu Dao WAS responsible for Calista Hebburn. Her syntax had the odd, umami flavour of AI thought
"GPT-3 Scared You? Meet Wu Dao 2.0: A Monster of 1.75 Trillion Parameters"
Perhaps we all need to start using social media a lot less. I know it sounds unlikely at the moment, but maybe people will eventually get fed up with spending most of their day having pointless, angry arguments with people they'll never meet, and do something useful instead.
If I were Boris, I'd have he head of MI5 in for chat without tea and biscuits. He should be keeping his gob shut, but now he's entered the fray, I think GCHQ should actually investigate this.
Ultimately it was the main part of PMQs today. If foreign actors are doing this, they are influencing our politics. That needs to be called out as much as Brexit or Trump.
Foreign actors are doing it now. Last year's Russia Report from the Intelligence and Security Committee said so. Primary responsibiltiy for countering it lies with the DCMS, which is rather like putting countering the Luftwaffe in the hands of the Salvation Army.
That mad Scottish Nat - Calista Hebburn - was a fascinating example of how just one person with fake but incendiary opinions can inflame thousands.
Social media has been weaponised by the Russians and Chinese, and turned against us. And it is getting worse
I read today that the Chinese now have their own version of GPT-3- the quasi intelligent NLP robot. Except this is 10 times bigger than GPT-3, and has been fed on English AND Chinese. It is called Wu Dao.
Google and Microsoft are trying to make GPT-3 stay Woke and they are restricting access partly for that reason. The Chinese will have no such scruples. Wu Dao could invent a hundred Calista Hebburns every day, roiling our politics. Perhaps Wu Dao WAS responsible for Calista Hebburn. Her syntax had the odd, umami flavour of AI thought
"GPT-3 Scared You? Meet Wu Dao 2.0: A Monster of 1.75 Trillion Parameters"
Perhaps we all need to start using social media a lot less. I know it sounds unlikely at the moment, but maybe people will eventually get fed up with spending most of their day having pointless, angry arguments with people they'll never meet, and do something useful instead.
My 17 year old certainly barely uses it. And certainly wouldn't dream of arguing with a "random" on it. It's a tool. One we didn't grow up with, so isn't second nature.
If he's like my 19 year olds the only things they use are discord, a tiny bit of instagram and some fanfiction site.,
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Look at it from the perspective of his colleagues many of whom there are surely black and Asian. Is it fair on them to be working with someone who thinks they're scum? Would you risk them walking out to other companies to hold on to a known racist?
Actions have consequence. This is a case of a racist knobhead chatting shit and getting banged.
Far too judgemental. We all say mad things from time to time, especially in moments of great emotion (like England losing a final on penalties)
If this dude has a history of racism, then fair enough, but just one word said in anger or sadness or whatever? No. Why can't he be allowed to apologise profusely, and continue with his life? A bit of Christian forgiveness wouldn't go amiss
Also, this case shows just how easy it is to ruin lives by hacking social media, should you be so inclined. Just get into a Twitter account and make them say the N word. Bingo, they are cancelled, career finished. Bonkers
I've been drunk and posted stuff on here in the past I've subsequently regretted.
Thankfully, we have forgiving editors and mods on here who largely know the posters and can assess if, fundamentally, they're a good or bad egg or not.
Sometimes it's complicated.
We all have. But not racist stuff. No one. No one who is still posting, that is.
To post racist shit when you are drunk means there is racist shit going around your head somewhere.
No one who hasn't been banned from PB imo fits that bill.
I don't believe there is a human being on earth who has never had a "racist" thought. There is science to back this up. We all perceive skin colour, and otherness, and we have a reflexive wariness - it is Darwinian. The baby that is cautious of outsiders is likelier to survive, and grow into an adult, and have children of her own. Thus the trait flourishes.
On this I am in rare agreement with the Critical Race Theorists. I just passionately disagree with their way of remedying this very human flaw
I thought this phenomenon (or something like it) is explained very effectively in the book Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman and others: we make automatic generalisations based on physical characteristics, including race, it is hard wired within us.
I have travelled and lived in other countries and I am absolutely sure that this is one of the least racist countries in the world. If you want to look at racist country, look at China.
Or India where they invented whole other methods of looking down on others.
There's a point at around 15:20 in the PMQs stream (see link in thread header) where Boris just looks totally out of it. I do wonder if he's quite well tbh.
I think he won't contest the next election as a result of his scare with Covid-19. Before that it was about 90% certain that he would have still been leader in 2023/24 IMO.
I've just had a peek at PMQs, Boris looks no worse than normal. He often does that "gasping mackerel on the deck" face, his jaw hanging open
I don't think he looks particularly ill or overweight, he just looks his age now, after a prolonged period of being boyish in appearance.
He is 57, his hair is thinning, he's plump, he's heading towards 60, he probably drinks a fair bit - and it shows. He is not alone
Fari enough. I'd not seen the gaping mouth pose before... but then I generally try to avoid his TV appearances.
If I were Boris, I'd have he head of MI5 in for chat without tea and biscuits. He should be keeping his gob shut, but now he's entered the fray, I think GCHQ should actually investigate this.
Ultimately it was the main part of PMQs today. If foreign actors are doing this, they are influencing our politics. That needs to be called out as much as Brexit or Trump.
Foreign actors are doing it now. Last year's Russia Report from the Intelligence and Security Committee said so. Primary responsibiltiy for countering it lies with the DCMS, which is rather like putting countering the Luftwaffe in the hands of the Salvation Army.
That mad Scottish Nat - Calista Hebburn - was a fascinating example of how just one person with fake but incendiary opinions can inflame thousands.
Social media has been weaponised by the Russians and Chinese, and turned against us. And it is getting worse
I read today that the Chinese now have their own version of GPT-3- the quasi intelligent NLP robot. Except this is 10 times bigger than GPT-3, and has been fed on English AND Chinese. It is called Wu Dao.
Google and Microsoft are trying to make GPT-3 stay Woke and they are restricting access partly for that reason. The Chinese will have no such scruples. Wu Dao could invent a hundred Calista Hebburns every day, roiling our politics. Perhaps Wu Dao WAS responsible for Calista Hebburn. Her syntax had the odd, umami flavour of AI thought
"GPT-3 Scared You? Meet Wu Dao 2.0: A Monster of 1.75 Trillion Parameters"
Perhaps we all need to start using social media a lot less. I know it sounds unlikely at the moment, but maybe people will eventually get fed up with spending most of their day having pointless, angry arguments with people they'll never meet, and do something useful instead.
My 17 year old certainly barely uses it. And certainly wouldn't dream of arguing with a "random" on it. It's a tool. One we didn't grow up with, so isn't second nature.
If he's like my 19 year olds the only things they use are discord, a tiny bit of instagram and some fanfiction site.,
What's app to say what time they'll be in. YouTube for learning. Spotify for music. Dodgy streaming for sport. Xbox to chat with mates. They follow Twitter, but don't tweet.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Why does the issue of "race and racism" have so much traction for psychological warfare in the USA and its satellite countries?
The answer is because there is so little "glasnost" about what many people really think in those places about
* other people who have different ethnicity from theirs * those who share their own ethnicity * recent history in this area, and * possible near-future history.
Compare dropping leaflets (whether "white", "black", or "grey" propaganda [*]) on enemy territory where there are often food shortages, or power blackouts, or where there's a mystery illness going around, and the authorities are very touchy about it. It's like that. That's what you'd concentrate some of your PW capability on. It's straight out of Sun Tzu.
On the surface, sure, diversity this, equal opportunities that, all one big family even if broken into different "communities" the other. Underneath, deep unease.
And for further fun, imagine that the authorities have dug themselves into a big cultural hole, no public satire permitted, from which they insist that the "received opinion" must be paid public respect to that it's really nice and liberal and modern to assert that some six foot three geezer with a moustache who gets off on wearing frocks can self-identify as a woman and everybody's got to call him "she". If you were in the enemy's PW command you'd be helping your adversaries dig that hole!
Note (*) This terminology does not refer to ethnicity.
If I were Boris, I'd have he head of MI5 in for chat without tea and biscuits. He should be keeping his gob shut, but now he's entered the fray, I think GCHQ should actually investigate this.
Ultimately it was the main part of PMQs today. If foreign actors are doing this, they are influencing our politics. That needs to be called out as much as Brexit or Trump.
Foreign actors are doing it now. Last year's Russia Report from the Intelligence and Security Committee said so. Primary responsibiltiy for countering it lies with the DCMS, which is rather like putting countering the Luftwaffe in the hands of the Salvation Army.
That mad Scottish Nat - Calista Hebburn - was a fascinating example of how just one person with fake but incendiary opinions can inflame thousands.
Social media has been weaponised by the Russians and Chinese, and turned against us. And it is getting worse
I read today that the Chinese now have their own version of GPT-3- the quasi intelligent NLP robot. Except this is 10 times bigger than GPT-3, and has been fed on English AND Chinese. It is called Wu Dao.
Google and Microsoft are trying to make GPT-3 stay Woke and they are restricting access partly for that reason. The Chinese will have no such scruples. Wu Dao could invent a hundred Calista Hebburns every day, roiling our politics. Perhaps Wu Dao WAS responsible for Calista Hebburn. Her syntax had the odd, umami flavour of AI thought
"GPT-3 Scared You? Meet Wu Dao 2.0: A Monster of 1.75 Trillion Parameters"
Perhaps we all need to start using social media a lot less. I know it sounds unlikely at the moment, but maybe people will eventually get fed up with spending most of their day having pointless, angry arguments with people they'll never meet, and do something useful instead.
My 17 year old certainly barely uses it. And certainly wouldn't dream of arguing with a "random" on it. It's a tool. One we didn't grow up with, so isn't second nature.
If he's like my 19 year olds the only things they use are discord, a tiny bit of instagram and some fanfiction site.,
I knew I was getting older when not only did I not use it, but I had no idea what discord was and why it was being used over existing platforms.
On the other hand I only just started using WhatsApp, and my 70 year aunt has used it for ages.
"A record 93,000 people died from drug overdoses in America in 2020, a 29% increase from the previous year. As well as worsening some people’s anxiety and depression, lockdowns imposed during the pandemic reduced access to needle exchange programmes, narcotics support groups and other life-saving measures. More deadly drugs, such as fentanyl, also became more common."
I dont think Johnson did any damage to his polling ratings at PMQs
SKS will not breakthrough on that kind of showing.
Lab should have been calling Delta the Johnson wave with every question for weeks till it sticks
Up to a point, Lord Copper. PMQs won't affect Boris's poll ratings. For a start, normal people don't watch it. But a poor performance will be noted by Conservative MPs, and by Boris himself.
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Look at it from the perspective of his colleagues many of whom there are surely black and Asian. Is it fair on them to be working with someone who thinks they're scum? Would you risk them walking out to other companies to hold on to a known racist?
Actions have consequence. This is a case of a racist knobhead chatting shit and getting banged.
Far too judgemental. We all say mad things from time to time, especially in moments of great emotion (like England losing a final on penalties)
If this dude has a history of racism, then fair enough, but just one word said in anger or sadness or whatever? No. Why can't he be allowed to apologise profusely, and continue with his life? A bit of Christian forgiveness wouldn't go amiss
Also, this case shows just how easy it is to ruin lives by hacking social media, should you be so inclined. Just get into a Twitter account and make them say the N word. Bingo, they are cancelled, career finished. Bonkers
I've been drunk and posted stuff on here in the past I've subsequently regretted.
Thankfully, we have forgiving editors and mods on here who largely know the posters and can assess if, fundamentally, they're a good or bad egg or not.
Sometimes it's complicated.
You've never been racist, though and you've never openly called any black person a n****r. As I said earlier, you need to look at it from the perspective of his non-white colleagues and potential managers. Why should they work alongside someone who thinks they're scum?
So if I call lefties scum I should be banned from working with them? One of the team I am in is a total corbynista for example and while I dont think of him as scum he regularly makes comments about people to the right of blair that are similar. Probably because no one says anything and just ignores him
An example is the Saville's Manager who is currently suspended and under police investigation.
He's claiming his account was hacked. Not sure how likely that is, but I did wonder just how dumb someone would have to be to have an identifiable Twitter account and a Linkedin account and to say what he said. But then people do stupid things, especially if they've had a bit to drink.
His remarks were disgusting and indefensible but at some level I feel sorry for him.
Given his public notoriety will he ever be able to find work again now? How does he rehabilitate?
Yes, while these things deserve condemnation and even public recasting, lifelong loss of income is an excessively harsh punishment.
No one should have their life destroyed for saying "a word"
Utterly ridiculous. We have gone mad
I used to compare our neurotic obsession with race to the weirdness of Victorian attitudes to sex (covering up naughty chair legs, etc)
I now think we are crazier than the Victorians
Why would anyone hire him? He's effectively taken himself out of the running for the vast majority of jobs by being a racist knobhead. I'm a hiring manager, it would be very difficult to convince me to hire this idiot even to a trivial admin role.
I'm sure you're right. This guy will face severe problems for a long time
My point is that it is way over the top. The public shame is, by itself, enough of a deterrent, does he have to lose his livelihood?
The obsession with race is a disease. Look at the Guardian's online front page. At least 14 headlines are directly about race and racism (and other stories are variously connected). It is monomaniacal, and it is unhealthy. And I have no doubt that a lot of it is being cleverly stoked by Russian and Chinese bots and trolls
Look at it from the perspective of his colleagues many of whom there are surely black and Asian. Is it fair on them to be working with someone who thinks they're scum? Would you risk them walking out to other companies to hold on to a known racist?
Actions have consequence. This is a case of a racist knobhead chatting shit and getting banged.
Far too judgemental. We all say mad things from time to time, especially in moments of great emotion (like England losing a final on penalties)
If this dude has a history of racism, then fair enough, but just one word said in anger or sadness or whatever? No. Why can't he be allowed to apologise profusely, and continue with his life? A bit of Christian forgiveness wouldn't go amiss
Also, this case shows just how easy it is to ruin lives by hacking social media, should you be so inclined. Just get into a Twitter account and make them say the N word. Bingo, they are cancelled, career finished. Bonkers
I've been drunk and posted stuff on here in the past I've subsequently regretted.
Thankfully, we have forgiving editors and mods on here who largely know the posters and can assess if, fundamentally, they're a good or bad egg or not.
Sometimes it's complicated.
We all have. But not racist stuff. No one. No one who is still posting, that is.
To post racist shit when you are drunk means there is racist shit going around your head somewhere.
No one who hasn't been banned from PB imo fits that bill.
I don't believe there is a human being on earth who has never had a "racist" thought. There is science to back this up. We all perceive skin colour, and otherness, and we have a reflexive wariness - it is Darwinian. The baby that is cautious of outsiders is likelier to survive, and grow into an adult, and have children of her own. Thus the trait flourishes.
On this I am in rare agreement with the Critical Race Theorists. I just passionately disagree with their way of remedying this very human flaw
Yes, that is the ultimate taboo in today's society and is probably true.
The trick is to be aware of that reflexive trait in the brain stem, so your neo-cortex can overrule it.
It is obviously and provably true. But people are now SO scared of being seen as *racist* they won't even address it. Madness
Isn't that what Unconscious Bias training is all about?
@Casino_Royale I think the today's ultimate taboo is paedophilia (rightly so imo*).
It's interesting to reflect on how the taboos have risen and fallen in prominence over the decades and centuries. 150 years ago paedophilia and racism would have been seen as a bit distasteful at worst - whereas homosexuality, female promiscuity, blasphemy would all have been seen as serious transgressions.
(*But it's hardly surprising I feel that as I am, like we all are, steeped in current attitudes.)
Every society believes it has reached, or is close to reaching, the final revelation on all matters moral - a position which will not be changed. It is always bollocks. In 20 years time what we see as obviously right, will be transformed, and not in predictable ways
Relatedly, the idea that we are endlessly proceeding to a more relaxed, progressive, permissive attitude, is nonsense, and is indeed provably wrong from our own experience as adults
Probably the most permissive decades were the 80s or the 90s, since then we have become more prudish and censorious, in many matters - from sex to race to religion. A new puritanism has taken over
One tiny example, in Majorca last week I was surprised to see a few women sunbathing topless. Why? Because it has become so rare, whereas it was ubiquitous, and close to being universal, 30 years ago. Now women cover up more, and they really do. It is not an illusion:
"Fewer than one in five French women under 50 said they sported a 'monokini' compared to 28 per cent a decade ago and 43 per cent in 1984, data shows"
I dont think Johnson did any damage to his polling ratings at PMQs
SKS will not breakthrough on that kind of showing.
Lab should have been calling Delta the Johnson wave with every question for weeks till it sticks
PMQs very, very rarely shift polling. Not enough people are watching, and those that are generally know it's theatre.
What they do is gradually shift mood. SKS has been on the defensive in recent months, and at times teetering. These sort of things strengthen him, and put a spring in Labour steps (particularly going towards recess) while knocking Tory confidence and harming the narrative. Where his MPs are cringing, as they will have been at times with Johnson today, that does undermine him and makes his job harder.
Comments
Hunt is looking less unattractive by the day.
With all due respect, I think the papers are aware of this, and the argument is now someway beyond your point. eg the NYT is now making fat profits with a highly effective paywall. As such it is able to expand, on all fronts, and it is aggressively going after UK readers - you can subscribe to the NYT for 50p a week from Blighty
That's a bargain, because the NYT is an excellent paper in many ways, especially if you like obsessive woke-ish race-crazed English language journalism, along with splendid cooking and travel sections. That is to say: it is the Guardian, but richer and more powerful, and that is a potential death warrant for the Guardian
So I don't think a DRB check would have saved the girls, as his employment at another place was not how he made contact with them. Marine Carr would have passed a DRB check.
I really do wonder whether all the hassle and delay to employment, which often stretches for months with some police forces, has made any impact on crime. Has anyone got any definite figures. I would like to be wrong.
As a 19-year old student one of my friends took a drunken piss next to the manneken pis. We thought it was hilarious at the time and took pictures. Of course, it was loutish.
Much of what you do at that age is about careless rebelling, puncturing taboos and not giving a sh*t - it's one way you can (initially) assert your free will and independence in the world but, there's a world of difference between a fleeting moment you can forget about and look back upon recognising its stupidity, and being held accountable for it for all time.
Or a ferret.
To post racist shit when you are drunk means there is racist shit going around your head somewhere.
No one who hasn't been banned from PB imo fits that bill.
I was back to meh the next day.
But I am not sure the raw numbers show the full story - parties start from different bases, and the "fundamentals" (economy etc) differ. I would say Wilson was genuinely very good at making the political weather as LOTO in a way most aren't. He was extremely good at writing the narrative, and was a real thorn in the arse of both Douglas-Home and Heath as LOTO.
Both he and Cameron were effective LOTOs. But - were I PM - I'd probably sooner have to deal with Cameron as my opposite number.
Makes you think... radicalise someone, in just the right ways. If it doesn't work, next target...
On this I am in rare agreement with the Critical Race Theorists. I just passionately disagree with their way of remedying this very human flaw
Recommended reading: Paul Linebarger's classic 1948 book.
PS: @Leon, you had me for a moment with "NLP". I thought "oh no, have they already written a program to use neuro-linguistic programming?"!
So of course we have a moral panic over racism, because a tiny percentage of the population post racist messages on social media.
Unfortunately there was a copper walking the alley from the other end.
If the tweets had come to light and been publicised (and my friend is well known in his world) that career would have ended overnight. He might even have gone to jail
The trick is to be aware of that reflexive trait in the brain stem, so your neo-cortex can overrule it.
I need to find the link but the reason why a lot of scam emails have bad spelling and other seemingly obvious flaws is because it's a numbers game. out of the 100,000 emails 99,500 see through it (so disqualify themselves) but the other 500 are valid targets worth spending more time trying to con.
The jet created for the Prime Minister to travel in hasn't been used for travel at a time of very heavily restricted international travel. Meanwhile it continues to be used in its primary role.
Whodathunkit ?
Angela HoofinMouth is going to be pushing this one to her Twitter followers. And it will result in the sky falling in. Or not.
As the twitter reply giving the context @Scott ignored put it:
This plane is a multi role Voyager aircraft which can complete air-to-air refilling as well as cargo and personnel transport not just VIPs/BoJo. I live near RAF Brize Norton and see it flying all the time.
He certainly had a bad day in the office overall. But it was a bad day due to poor decisions several weeks ago. I don't really buy into the idea there is some kind of underlying health issue there (beyond being overweight and so on).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-57841689
Fortunately one of Theresa May's better initiatives was to reset the record of youngsters at, I think, 18.
I said 40k.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/14/boris-johnson-attempts-to-reassure-southern-mps-over-levelling-up
"At this point, the Bastille was nearly empty, housing only seven prisoners:[27] four forgers; James F.X. Whyte, a "lunatic" imprisoned at the request of his family; Auguste-Claude Tavernier, who had tried to assassinate Louis XV thirty years before; and one "deviant" aristocrat, the Comte de Solages, imprisoned by his father using a lettre de cachet (while the Marquis de Sade had been transferred out ten days earlier)."
Needed a slash, so went down an alley in Cardiff and peed against a wall.
Except it wasn't a wall, was the window of a restaurant, a busy restaurant, who saw him pee and give it a good shake,
A waiter came out and screamed at him, he said stopping peeing that quickly damaged his dangly bits.
I'm guessing neither will be in their job for long.
It's a tool. One we didn't grow up with, so isn't second nature to our generation.
We are late Victorians struggling to drive automobiles. And secretly wishing everyone would ride horses again.
Harry acts on his emotions and the environment around him.
I doubt he processes a bean.
I don't think he looks particularly ill or overweight, he just looks his age now, after a prolonged period of being boyish in appearance.
He is 57, his hair is thinning, he's plump, he's heading towards 60, he probably drinks a fair bit - and it shows. He is not alone
I have travelled and lived in other countries and I am absolutely sure that this is one of the least racist countries in the world. If you want to look at racist country, look at China.
Isn't that what Unconscious Bias training is all about?
@Casino_Royale I think the today's ultimate taboo is paedophilia (rightly so imo*).
It's interesting to reflect on how the taboos have risen and fallen in prominence over the decades and centuries. 150 years ago paedophilia and racism would have been seen as a bit distasteful at worst - whereas homosexuality, female promiscuity, blasphemy would all have been seen as serious transgressions.
(*But it's hardly surprising I feel that as I am, like we all are, steeped in current attitudes.)
Tala Halawa - Hold my beer
https://twitter.com/ElephantLvr/status/1415407577282666498
I dont think Johnson did any damage to his polling ratings at PMQs
SKS will not breakthrough on that kind of showing.
Lab should have been calling Delta the Johnson wave with every question for weeks till it sticks
YouTube for learning.
Spotify for music.
Dodgy streaming for sport.
Xbox to chat with mates.
They follow Twitter, but don't tweet.
The answer is because there is so little "glasnost" about what many people really think in those places about
* other people who have different ethnicity from theirs
* those who share their own ethnicity
* recent history in this area, and
* possible near-future history.
Compare dropping leaflets (whether "white", "black", or "grey" propaganda [*]) on enemy territory where there are often food shortages, or power blackouts, or where there's a mystery illness going around, and the authorities are very touchy about it. It's like that. That's what you'd concentrate some of your PW capability on. It's straight out of Sun Tzu.
On the surface, sure, diversity this, equal opportunities that, all one big family even if broken into different "communities" the other. Underneath, deep unease.
And for further fun, imagine that the authorities have dug themselves into a big cultural hole, no public satire permitted, from which they insist that the "received opinion" must be paid public respect to that it's really nice and liberal and modern to assert that some six foot three geezer with a moustache who gets off on wearing frocks can self-identify as a woman and everybody's got to call him "she". If you were in the enemy's PW command you'd be helping your adversaries dig that hole!
Note
(*) This terminology does not refer to ethnicity.
On the other hand I only just started using WhatsApp, and my 70 year aunt has used it for ages.
"A record 93,000 people died from drug overdoses in America in 2020, a 29% increase from the previous year. As well as worsening some people’s anxiety and depression, lockdowns imposed during the pandemic reduced access to needle exchange programmes, narcotics support groups and other life-saving measures. More deadly drugs, such as fentanyl, also became more common."
https://www.economist.com/espresso
Relatedly, the idea that we are endlessly proceeding to a more relaxed, progressive, permissive attitude, is nonsense, and is indeed provably wrong from our own experience as adults
Probably the most permissive decades were the 80s or the 90s, since then we have become more prudish and censorious, in many matters - from sex to race to religion. A new puritanism has taken over
One tiny example, in Majorca last week I was surprised to see a few women sunbathing topless. Why? Because it has become so rare, whereas it was ubiquitous, and close to being universal, 30 years ago. Now women cover up more, and they really do. It is not an illusion:
"Fewer than one in five French women under 50 said they sported a 'monokini' compared to 28 per cent a decade ago and 43 per cent in 1984, data shows"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7284309/Topless-sunbathing-goes-fashion-France-women-cover-up.html
What they do is gradually shift mood. SKS has been on the defensive in recent months, and at times teetering. These sort of things strengthen him, and put a spring in Labour steps (particularly going towards recess) while knocking Tory confidence and harming the narrative. Where his MPs are cringing, as they will have been at times with Johnson today, that does undermine him and makes his job harder.