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  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,068

    Well, there was that charity boss who got turfed out from the charity he'd founded with his redundancy money for the cardinal sin of visiting BLM's website, reading it, and disagreeing with their avowed aims of ending capitalism and defunding the police.

    https://twitter.com/NickBuckleyMBE/status/1283818837830512642

    If that is the whole story then it is very wrong for him to be sacked.

    The charities version is "Contrary to what has been said by others, our decision to terminate our relationship with Mr Buckley was not based on, nor influenced by, his personal blog posts, nor any social media comments or online petitions. As was made clear to Mr Buckley at the time, the board of trustees took the appropriate action to protect the charity’s reputation following legal advice and Charity Commission guidance".

    We have no way of knowing which is correct.
    He doesn't seem to understand the legal obligations of a charitable Trustee, who depending on whether the charity is registered as an ICO or a more conventional structure are personally liable for their actions. It is not the founder of a charity but rather its Trustees that are its owners.

    Any charity that employs people has to have a grievance policy, including an appeals mechanism. There is an obligation to follow employment law too. If those have been failed, the Trustees are potentially liable.

    He may have been an unpaid volunteer at the charity, in which case employment law is not applicable. Nonetheless it is the Trustees responsibility to safeguard the interests of the charity.

  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019

    Toby Young is a Johnson/Gove/Cummings outrider doing his bit to fight the culture war the Tories correctly believe is essential to keeping their voting coalition together. There’s not much more to see in his free speech union than that.

    Utter nonsense.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53444752 I wonder how this sort of story will impact the reparations movement, I remember a few weeks ago there was outrage at a Tory councillor commenting about the involvement of Africans in the slave trade. I assumed, like many, he was wrong. Maybe not.

    The great majority of slaves taken by Europeans from Africa were sold to them by other Africans. Direct raids in which Europeans snatched people from coastal areas were not particularly common (in contrast with the North African or Barbary slave trade, in which Africans abducted large numbers of Europeans through pirate raids on coastal settlements and ships at sea.)

    This is why historians talk about the Triangular Trade when discussing the history of slavery: Europeans (and Americans of European descent) sailed to Africa with ships loaded with trade goods, they bought African slaves from other Africans with the goods, carried the slaves off to work their plantations, and then shipped the goods from the plantations back to their population centres for sale. The value of the plantation goods vastly exceeded the price paid to purchase and feed the slaves, hence the massive profits generated.

    People who talk about reparations tend not to mention either the Barbary trade or the sale of African slaves by other Africans. It suits them to simplify history and to portray pre-modern Africans uniformly as defenceless victims of the most appalling violence. The African slaves were, of course, defenceless victims of the most appalling violence. The many Africans who profited from taking and selling slaves, not so much.
    Just because something is complex does not mean it isn't also simple. There are women who profit from and enable sex trafficking. Does this mean that the assertion "sex trafficking is a criminal industry based on the exploitation of women by men" is wrong or "misleading" or "simplistic"? No it does not. Indeed if someone doggedly maintains this, I would question their motives. Ditto here. So tell me - what are your motives?
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019

    As Alastair says, employment tribunals are a pretty solid protection for anyone sacked for expressing views irrelevant to their work. Presumably the bus driver didn't abuse his customers - what he thought and said in his private life should be neither here nor there. It shouldn't matter if he was an open Nazi or ISIS sympathiser so long as he behaves professionally at work.

    There is more of a difficulty if your job is about expressing opinions. Organisations that claim to be non-partisan like the BBC can reasonably make it a condition of employment as a commentator that you don't express clear preference for one party or opinion or another - I think some of their senior people have sailed close to the wind on this and it does harm the organisation.

    Beyond that, what it mostly comes down to is prominent people getting criticised. Some of the criticism may be unfair or unpleasant, and if it becomes abusive harassment there are laws against that too. Otherwise, it rather goes with the job. Some prominent journalists IMO go out of their way to whip it up, as it makes them more prominent.

    by the way, I'm puzzled by Casino Royale saying that he joined the FSU because people, some of them up to recently anonymous, had been unfairly critical here. I try to be polite to everyone and I hope CR doesn't feel I've been slagging him off. I think his contributions here are interesting and we'd be poorer without them. But CR is himself anonymous. I don't see the risk to his career if someone attacks his pseudonym, even unfairly. I've taken somewhat greater risks over the years by not being anonymous, but as an MP I felt that went with the job too, and now I'm no longer an MP my opinions outside my special field of work are pretty irrelevant.

    One word: doxxing.

    And it's not true to say no-one knows who I am. Several regular posters and the editors do.

    By the way: I wasn't referring to you. The perpetrators know who they are.
  • On topic, a problem with this debate is that it's used by appalling rent-a-gob "journalists" like Sarah Vine and Toby Young as a way of saying they should be allowed to be as appalling as they like without being criticised for it.

    But there is an element of truth in the argument - albeit it doesn't actually affect the Vines and Youngs of this world, who thrive on vapid controversialism.

    Jon Ronson's "So You've Been Publicly Shamed" is very good on this. The people who get it are those who tell a misplaced joke, or make a mistake, or even hold an odd view that has nothing to do with their job. People will share, condemn, and pile on with social media. Suddenly, they are public enemy number one. There is no forgiveness, no sense of proportion, no acceptance mistakes get made, no nuance.

    It is also true, I'm afraid, that a lot of people cannot see an argument with which they disagree without attacking the moral character of the person making it. They can't seem to understand honest, decent people disagree - the person questioning my worldview has to be a shill, a bigot, a moron etc.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,087
    The irony is that, at least in the UK, we have a government run by polemic opinion columnists in a way that hasn't really happened before. Now isn't the time to discuss whether that's a good development, but this is clearly a government of Toby's Mates. And yet, Toby isn't happy... see his obsession with lockdown denial.

    Maybe, like many unions, Toby's Union is about job preservation. Being an annoying columnist (the tame tory in the Guardian, say, or anyone in the Spectator) used to be a pretty sweet gig. Now, papers are in a financial mess. The internet means that there is competition that is free and far more extreme, if you like that sort of thing. (There must be another example of a field hollowed out by nasty free stuff on the web). And, as Alistair point out, it's much easier to hear the public boos when someone in the media elite drops a clanger.

    Maybe Tobes is worried about losing his job.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    edited July 2020

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53444752 I wonder how this sort of story will impact the reparations movement, I remember a few weeks ago there was outrage at a Tory councillor commenting about the involvement of Africans in the slave trade. I assumed, like many, he was wrong. Maybe not.

    The great majority of slaves taken by Europeans from Africa were sold to them by other Africans. Direct raids in which Europeans snatched people from coastal areas were not particularly common (in contrast with the North African or Barbary slave trade, in which Africans abducted large numbers of Europeans through pirate raids on coastal settlements and ships at sea.)

    This is why historians talk about the Triangular Trade when discussing the history of slavery: Europeans (and Americans of European descent) sailed to Africa with ships loaded with trade goods, they bought African slaves from other Africans with the goods, carried the slaves off to work their plantations, and then shipped the goods from the plantations back to their population centres for sale. The value of the plantation goods vastly exceeded the price paid to purchase and feed the slaves, hence the massive profits generated.

    People who talk about reparations tend not to mention either the Barbary trade or the sale of African slaves by other Africans. It suits them to simplify history and to portray pre-modern Africans uniformly as defenceless victims of the most appalling violence. The African slaves were, of course, defenceless victims of the most appalling violence. The many Africans who profited from taking and selling slaves, not so much.
    Agree; it's the old hen & codfish' story isn't it
    The codfish lays ten thousand eggs/ the humble hen lays one/but the codfish does not cackle to show what she has done/And so men scorn the codfish/while the humble hen we prize/ Which only shows to you and me/ it pays to advertise.

    The Triangular Trade, and it's consequences, have been written about, often quite extensively, in Western literature since about 1750; the Barbary slave trade almost forgotten and rarely written about apart perhaps from in rather prurient and racist books about nubile young white girls sold to 'rich Arabs'.

    One 'set' of my grandchildren are at an international school in Bangkok, where history is Western dominated. Eldest granddaughter (14) had, though, not long ago to write an essay about Western colonisation in SE Asia. Said realising for the first time that Thailand had, unlike it's neighbours, never been dominated by a European Power, made her prouder of her mother's country.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53444752 I wonder how this sort of story will impact the reparations movement, I remember a few weeks ago there was outrage at a Tory councillor commenting about the involvement of Africans in the slave trade. I assumed, like many, he was wrong. Maybe not.

    The great majority of slaves taken by Europeans from Africa were sold to them by other Africans. Direct raids in which Europeans snatched people from coastal areas were not particularly common (in contrast with the North African or Barbary slave trade, in which Africans abducted large numbers of Europeans through pirate raids on coastal settlements and ships at sea.)

    This is why historians talk about the Triangular Trade when discussing the history of slavery: Europeans (and Americans of European descent) sailed to Africa with ships loaded with trade goods, they bought African slaves from other Africans with the goods, carried the slaves off to work their plantations, and then shipped the goods from the plantations back to their population centres for sale. The value of the plantation goods vastly exceeded the price paid to purchase and feed the slaves, hence the massive profits generated.

    People who talk about reparations tend not to mention either the Barbary trade or the sale of African slaves by other Africans. It suits them to simplify history and to portray pre-modern Africans uniformly as defenceless victims of the most appalling violence. The African slaves were, of course, defenceless victims of the most appalling violence. The many Africans who profited from taking and selling slaves, not so much.
    Many of those who do want funding in one form or another.

    They've calculated (possibly correctly) that this might be the most effective way of getting it.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    I’m really looking forward to watching Twitter, on the day Toby Young gets a Knighthood for his work in education and his founding of the West London Free School.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,585

    Toby Young is a Johnson/Gove/Cummings outrider doing his bit to fight the culture war the Tories correctly believe is essential to keeping their voting coalition together. There’s not much more to see in his free speech union than that.

    Utter nonsense.
    No, absolutely true.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,969
    Anyhoo, Toby Young is wondering how he ended up in Jeffrey Epstein's little black book.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-did-i-end-up-in-epstein-s-little-black-book-

    Perhaps Epstein heard about Toby Young's fetish for masturbating over starving African children and thought that's the kind of bloke I need to meet.

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilyashton/toby-young-has-been-on-a-developmental-journey-since-his

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/matthewchampion/toby-young-has-deleted-tens-of-thousands-of-old-tweets?utm_term=.ytLw1XZPBJ#.cjrxB5beEM
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited July 2020
    An uncharacteristically incomplete header from AlasdairMeeks. The new virulence emanating from social media, and taking in both nativists and progressivists, is not an illusion.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,879

    The irony is that, at least in the UK, we have a government run by polemic opinion columnists in a way that hasn't really happened before. Now isn't the time to discuss whether that's a good development, but this is clearly a government of Toby's Mates. And yet, Toby isn't happy... see his obsession with lockdown denial.

    Maybe, like many unions, Toby's Union is about job preservation. Being an annoying columnist (the tame tory in the Guardian, say, or anyone in the Spectator) used to be a pretty sweet gig. Now, papers are in a financial mess. The internet means that there is competition that is free and far more extreme, if you like that sort of thing. (There must be another example of a field hollowed out by nasty free stuff on the web). And, as Alistair point out, it's much easier to hear the public boos when someone in the media elite drops a clanger.

    Maybe Tobes is worried about losing his job.

    Toby Young is best seen as the Tory Chris Williamson. Just as CW told us what Corbyn thought but couldn’t say, so Toby does on behalf of certain Scottish members of the Cabinet.

  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019
    kinabalu said:

    A great header. Three cheers is insufficient. So five.

    "Cancel Culture" is a self-serving invention of privileged whining tossers who are upset that they no longer get to spout their reactionary cliched bollox free of heckle.

    Well, you know, diddums.

    Why haven't you been cancelled then?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    FPT

    isam said:

    On 25-26 June with Opinium Starmer led by 2, in their last poll Boris led by 1. So this is a rather strange way of reporting Boris increasing/doubling that lead to 2

    https://twitter.com/msmithsonpb/status/1284566332168646658?s=21

    Before another inaccurate PB meme begins..

    Opinium also had a best PM question in their poll ending on July 10th which had Boris Johnson leading the best PM metric by 3%.

    Click the tables, tab V007.

    https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/public-opinion-on-coronavirus-9th-july/

    In short, as ever, wikipedia is often an inelegant source to rely on.
    Is there a Wiki page that collects together these inaccurate PB memes?
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,969
    MaxPB said:

    Interesting but ultimately wrong. You're misrepresenting pressure from a few loud Twitter voices as "the people". The people vote, whether in the ballot box or with their wallets. So far there is little evidence that anyone outside of Twitter cares about this stuff and companies who want to make money want to avoid controversy. It's really nothing more than that.

    Life would be better for everyone if Twitter died and never came back. Hopefully after Trump goes they lose enough of the audience that they go out of business.

    Talking about Twitter, surely that hack must risk famous people coming off it.

    One of the more outlandish theories I've read was that it was really a plan to access the DMs of people like Joe Biden.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Nigelb said:

    The dexamethasome paper has been published.
    Big benefit for those on ventilators; the rest, not so much.

    https://twitter.com/MartinLandray/status/1284157065498427393

    Still significant for oxygen

    Presumably it is counteracting some of the consequences of invasive mechanical treatment rather than the disease itself?
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019

    The irony is that, at least in the UK, we have a government run by polemic opinion columnists in a way that hasn't really happened before. Now isn't the time to discuss whether that's a good development, but this is clearly a government of Toby's Mates. And yet, Toby isn't happy... see his obsession with lockdown denial.

    Maybe, like many unions, Toby's Union is about job preservation. Being an annoying columnist (the tame tory in the Guardian, say, or anyone in the Spectator) used to be a pretty sweet gig. Now, papers are in a financial mess. The internet means that there is competition that is free and far more extreme, if you like that sort of thing. (There must be another example of a field hollowed out by nasty free stuff on the web). And, as Alistair point out, it's much easier to hear the public boos when someone in the media elite drops a clanger.

    Maybe Tobes is worried about losing his job.

    Toby Young is best seen as the Tory Chris Williamson. Just as CW told us what Corbyn thought but couldn’t say, so Toby does on behalf of certain Scottish members of the Cabinet.

    Totally wrong.

    Again.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,969

    FPT

    isam said:

    On 25-26 June with Opinium Starmer led by 2, in their last poll Boris led by 1. So this is a rather strange way of reporting Boris increasing/doubling that lead to 2

    https://twitter.com/msmithsonpb/status/1284566332168646658?s=21

    Before another inaccurate PB meme begins..

    Opinium also had a best PM question in their poll ending on July 10th which had Boris Johnson leading the best PM metric by 3%.

    Click the tables, tab V007.

    https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/public-opinion-on-coronavirus-9th-july/

    In short, as ever, wikipedia is often an inelegant source to rely on.
    Is there a Wiki page that collects together these inaccurate PB memes?
    Well I'm not going to be a school teacher for the next six weeks, so if I have the time, I may start a wiki page on that.

    The first inaccurate meme to be discussed, my appalling fashion tastes, which is a vile calumny.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    malcolmg said:

    ydoethur said:

    DavidL said:

    malcolmg said:

    algarkirk said:


    A discussion of the relation of 'libertarian' and 'liberal' would shed more light.

    Why? I’ve never seen such a discussion ever shedding any light whatsoever. Except to illustrate why PBers are extremely odd and why very few people around here understand how normal voters think and behave.
    Quite right. I think PB is at its best when talking about political betting. There is definite valuable insight offered then by many .If one thing the collective PB are good at its numbers analysis which is very helpful for betting especially in a FPTP election. I bore of most of the ideological debate that creeps into this site away from elections . PB has also get a lot more ruder (being disrespectful to others) and cruder (language) over the last year or two .That's not a good thing. If people do re-tweet and paste on here then can they at least ensure its not containing swearing as it tends to then especially stand out and rarely enhances a point.
    Go join a knitting club and you won't have your sensibilities offended.
    Have you never heard of cross-stitching? Vicious I tell you, vicious.
    There’s plenty of needle involved as well.
    It can be very clicky I've heard.
    What idiot mentioned knitting
    All part of the rich tapestry of life
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Sean_F said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53444752 I wonder how this sort of story will impact the reparations movement, I remember a few weeks ago there was outrage at a Tory councillor commenting about the involvement of Africans in the slave trade. I assumed, like many, he was wrong. Maybe not.

    It's interesting how the British were using both a carrot and stick to try to eliminate Nigerian slavery, and never quite succeeded, during the colonial period. Slavery remains very much a feature of life in West Africa.

    The term "slavery" can cover quite a wide variety of systems. You can have really brutal forms of chattel slavery, where people are just worked till they die, and get replaced, like 18th century Haiti. Or you can have systems where slaves are people, with some rights, not chattels. Quite a big litmus test for the brutality of slavery is whether children of slaves take the status of the mother or the father. If a master fathers a child on a slave, but the child is free (which I believe is common in West Africa), that's a powerful incentive to free the mother. If the child is a slave, it simply boosts the slave population.
    As a general reply on this topic, if European colonisers were responsible for slavery, it must puzzle people how the abolition of slavery pre-dates the colonisation of Africa by decades.

    Of course, slavery was a basic business operation in Africa from at least the time of Arab slavers in the 7th century - and probably for a long time before that.

    We should also never miss an opportunty to raise the plight of Devon and Cornwall villagers, taken into slavery in the 1600's by Moorish corsairs. Perhaps they should have a statue?

    https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-cornwall-42515373/barbary-piracy-that-enslaved-thousands-culturally-erased
    Its palpably obvious that slaves have existed in many different cultures and time periods throughout human history, including our own. It is probably also true that the worst period for slavery (or at least one of them) was during the Atlantic slave trade.
    How do you reach that conclusion?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    Yes free speech covers the right to complain about things that offend you. That extends not just to those seeking cancellations but to those complaining about cancellations too. And in Mr Meeks case to those complaining about those complaining about cancellations. And in the case of those attacking Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    And for those who attack those who attack Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    Its simple really isn't it?

    It is. Freedom of speech under the law. We have it. To say we don't is an insult to those who really don't. The Toby Youngs of this world are being ineffably precious and entitled. I'd draw a comparison to people - often the same people - making out that mandatory masks in shops during a pandemic is a step along the "slippery slope" to loss of liberty. It's utterly pathetic.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019

    Toby Young is a Johnson/Gove/Cummings outrider doing his bit to fight the culture war the Tories correctly believe is essential to keeping their voting coalition together. There’s not much more to see in his free speech union than that.

    Utter nonsense.
    No, absolutely true.
    No absolutely untrue.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    MaxPB said:

    Interesting but ultimately wrong. You're misrepresenting pressure from a few loud Twitter voices as "the people". The people vote, whether in the ballot box or with their wallets. So far there is little evidence that anyone outside of Twitter cares about this stuff and companies who want to make money want to avoid controversy. It's really nothing more than that.

    Life would be better for everyone if Twitter died and never came back. Hopefully after Trump goes they lose enough of the audience that they go out of business.

    Talking about Twitter, surely that hack must risk famous people coming off it.

    One of the more outlandish theories I've read was that it was really a plan to access the DMs of people like Joe Biden.
    Err, why? Joe Biden's messages are basically just a bunch of words strung together by predictive text.

    For example... "I'm against Trump and get back to the same time as the economy and all of the people who are sharing connections ideas and opportunities"
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,969
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Interesting but ultimately wrong. You're misrepresenting pressure from a few loud Twitter voices as "the people". The people vote, whether in the ballot box or with their wallets. So far there is little evidence that anyone outside of Twitter cares about this stuff and companies who want to make money want to avoid controversy. It's really nothing more than that.

    Life would be better for everyone if Twitter died and never came back. Hopefully after Trump goes they lose enough of the audience that they go out of business.

    Talking about Twitter, surely that hack must risk famous people coming off it.

    One of the more outlandish theories I've read was that it was really a plan to access the DMs of people like Joe Biden.
    Err, why? Joe Biden's messages are basically just a bunch of words strung together by predictive text.

    For example... "I'm against Trump and get back to the same time as the economy and all of the people who are sharing connections ideas and opportunities"
    For the same reason people were interested in Hillary's emails?
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019
    edited July 2020
    Sandpit said:

    I’m really looking forward to watching Twitter, on the day Toby Young gets a Knighthood for his work in education and his founding of the West London Free School.

    Toby Young is a shock jock and sometimes a bit of a penis. He also is very honest (too honest at times) writes very well (and thoughtfully) and has done great work in education and in defending free speech. He is also very funny - I enjoy his books and standup and he makes some good points.

    Is he beyond criticism? No, absolutely not. Sometimes I vehemently disagree with him. And he can be juvenile too. Sometimes I'm embarrassed for him.

    It doesn't mean he doesn't make a valued contribution to public life. And he doesn't deserve to be cancelled either - which we'd all be poorer for.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    edited July 2020
    kinabalu said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53444752 I wonder how this sort of story will impact the reparations movement, I remember a few weeks ago there was outrage at a Tory councillor commenting about the involvement of Africans in the slave trade. I assumed, like many, he was wrong. Maybe not.

    The great majority of slaves taken by Europeans from Africa were sold to them by other Africans. Direct raids in which Europeans snatched people from coastal areas were not particularly common (in contrast with the North African or Barbary slave trade, in which Africans abducted large numbers of Europeans through pirate raids on coastal settlements and ships at sea.)

    This is why historians talk about the Triangular Trade when discussing the history of slavery: Europeans (and Americans of European descent) sailed to Africa with ships loaded with trade goods, they bought African slaves from other Africans with the goods, carried the slaves off to work their plantations, and then shipped the goods from the plantations back to their population centres for sale. The value of the plantation goods vastly exceeded the price paid to purchase and feed the slaves, hence the massive profits generated.

    People who talk about reparations tend not to mention either the Barbary trade or the sale of African slaves by other Africans. It suits them to simplify history and to portray pre-modern Africans uniformly as defenceless victims of the most appalling violence. The African slaves were, of course, defenceless victims of the most appalling violence. The many Africans who profited from taking and selling slaves, not so much.
    Just because something is complex does not mean it isn't also simple. There are women who profit from and enable sex trafficking. Does this mean that the assertion "sex trafficking is a criminal industry based on the exploitation of women by men" is wrong or "misleading" or "simplistic"? No it does not. Indeed if someone doggedly maintains this, I would question their motives. Ditto here. So tell me - what are your motives?
    Primarily to make a brief reply to a message in which surprise was expressed at the involvement of some Africans in the slave trade, summarising some historical facts. But yes, I'm also deeply sceptical about the reparations movement. All of the people who profited or suffered directly from the Triangular Trade have been dead for a very long time indeed. Therefore, quite where we are meant to begin in assessing who to distribute resources to by way of redress, and especially who to take them from, God alone knows.

    There's a world of difference between reappraising history, action against discrimination and promoting equality of opportunity, and redistribution from the wealthy to the poor generally through taxation, and - what? Exacting recompense from countries and their populations for the behaviour of (some of their) ancestors? Race-based levies? I'm really not getting how demanding "reparations" for what happened between the 16th and 19th Centuries is meant to create progress. It is, after all, a term previously applied to vanquished populations being made to pay the price of their own defeat.
  • "Woke" is in most cases just the re-branding of "politically correct", whereby racists and hateful people get their views challenged and they don't like it.

    There are notable exceptions of course.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,087
    kinabalu said:

    Yes free speech covers the right to complain about things that offend you. That extends not just to those seeking cancellations but to those complaining about cancellations too. And in Mr Meeks case to those complaining about those complaining about cancellations. And in the case of those attacking Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    And for those who attack those who attack Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    Its simple really isn't it?

    It is. Freedom of speech under the law. We have it. To say we don't is an insult to those who really don't. The Toby Youngs of this world are being ineffably precious and entitled. I'd draw a comparison to people - often the same people - making out that mandatory masks in shops during a pandemic is a step along the "slippery slope" to loss of liberty. It's utterly pathetic.
    Yup. There's freedom to say stuff. There's no right to necessarily make a living from saying stuff, and there never has been.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    edited July 2020

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Interesting but ultimately wrong. You're misrepresenting pressure from a few loud Twitter voices as "the people". The people vote, whether in the ballot box or with their wallets. So far there is little evidence that anyone outside of Twitter cares about this stuff and companies who want to make money want to avoid controversy. It's really nothing more than that.

    Life would be better for everyone if Twitter died and never came back. Hopefully after Trump goes they lose enough of the audience that they go out of business.

    Talking about Twitter, surely that hack must risk famous people coming off it.

    One of the more outlandish theories I've read was that it was really a plan to access the DMs of people like Joe Biden.
    Err, why? Joe Biden's messages are basically just a bunch of words strung together by predictive text.

    For example... "I'm against Trump and get back to the same time as the economy and all of the people who are sharing connections ideas and opportunities"
    For the same reason people were interested in Hillary's emails?
    Nah, Biden is a front candidate for the democrats, he's keeping the seat warm for whoever comes next. Honestly, his brains are probably so addled by now they are just hoping he doesn't die during the campaign after the nomination has been finalised. Tbh, he might still win if the VP pick is any good.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,879
    kinabalu said:

    Yes free speech covers the right to complain about things that offend you. That extends not just to those seeking cancellations but to those complaining about cancellations too. And in Mr Meeks case to those complaining about those complaining about cancellations. And in the case of those attacking Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    And for those who attack those who attack Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    Its simple really isn't it?

    It is. Freedom of speech under the law. We have it. To say we don't is an insult to those who really don't. The Toby Youngs of this world are being ineffably precious and entitled. I'd draw a comparison to people - often the same people - making out that mandatory masks in shops during a pandemic is a step along the "slippery slope" to loss of liberty. It's utterly pathetic.
    It’s culture war. Both sides feed off each other. Toby Young needs Owen Jones who needs James Delingpole who needs Ash Sukar and so on and so on. Right now it gets a lot of attention. There may be less focus when the economy moves front and centre, which it will.

  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019

    kinabalu said:

    Yes free speech covers the right to complain about things that offend you. That extends not just to those seeking cancellations but to those complaining about cancellations too. And in Mr Meeks case to those complaining about those complaining about cancellations. And in the case of those attacking Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    And for those who attack those who attack Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    Its simple really isn't it?

    It is. Freedom of speech under the law. We have it. To say we don't is an insult to those who really don't. The Toby Youngs of this world are being ineffably precious and entitled. I'd draw a comparison to people - often the same people - making out that mandatory masks in shops during a pandemic is a step along the "slippery slope" to loss of liberty. It's utterly pathetic.
    Yup. There's freedom to say stuff. There's no right to necessarily make a living from saying stuff, and there never has been.
    But, as long as it's within the bounds of the law - which should not be carved lightly, whether one can earn such a living should be up to people freely deciding to purchase what is being said.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    kinabalu said:

    A great header. Three cheers is insufficient. So five.

    "Cancel Culture" is a self-serving invention of privileged whining tossers who are upset that they no longer get to spout their reactionary cliched bollox free of heckle.

    Well, you know, diddums.

    Why haven't you been cancelled then?
    Quite.

    Man with loud voice and revolving bow tie used to holding forth uninterrupted at the best tables now struggling to get a reservation and getting heckled by the staff when he complains.

    This is "cancel culture". It's simply TERRIBLE.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019

    kinabalu said:

    Yes free speech covers the right to complain about things that offend you. That extends not just to those seeking cancellations but to those complaining about cancellations too. And in Mr Meeks case to those complaining about those complaining about cancellations. And in the case of those attacking Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    And for those who attack those who attack Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    Its simple really isn't it?

    It is. Freedom of speech under the law. We have it. To say we don't is an insult to those who really don't. The Toby Youngs of this world are being ineffably precious and entitled. I'd draw a comparison to people - often the same people - making out that mandatory masks in shops during a pandemic is a step along the "slippery slope" to loss of liberty. It's utterly pathetic.
    It’s culture war. Both sides feed off each other. Toby Young needs Owen Jones who needs James Delingpole who needs Ash Sukar and so on and so on. Right now it gets a lot of attention. There may be less focus when the economy moves front and centre, which it will.

    Looking at your Twitter feed (which I only do from time to time now) you're not shy of doing a bit of that yourself.

    I far prefer your posts on here than your David Schneider act when you play to the crowd.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited July 2020

    "Woke" is in most cases just the re-branding of "politically correct", whereby racists and hateful people get their views challenged and they don't like it.

    There are notable exceptions of course.

    I'd partly agree. Woke is both a catch-all term to dismiss all progressive thinking, and, to a somewhat smaller extent, does capture the left end of the new social media-driven stridency of expression. A term for the rightward trend would help balance things out.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,068
    Charles said:

    Nigelb said:

    The dexamethasome paper has been published.
    Big benefit for those on ventilators; the rest, not so much.

    https://twitter.com/MartinLandray/status/1284157065498427393

    Still significant for oxygen

    Presumably it is counteracting some of the consequences of invasive mechanical treatment rather than the disease itself?
    I would think it simply a marker of severity of disease. The inflammatory cytokine storm is a week or two post viral, and that is the point that dexamethasone helps. In other words, if you are not severe enough to need a ventilator, then dexamethasone won't help much.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    kinabalu said:

    Yes free speech covers the right to complain about things that offend you. That extends not just to those seeking cancellations but to those complaining about cancellations too. And in Mr Meeks case to those complaining about those complaining about cancellations. And in the case of those attacking Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    And for those who attack those who attack Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    Its simple really isn't it?

    It is. Freedom of speech under the law. We have it. To say we don't is an insult to those who really don't. The Toby Youngs of this world are being ineffably precious and entitled. I'd draw a comparison to people - often the same people - making out that mandatory masks in shops during a pandemic is a step along the "slippery slope" to loss of liberty. It's utterly pathetic.
    It’s culture war. Both sides feed off each other. Toby Young needs Owen Jones who needs James Delingpole who needs Ash Sukar and so on and so on. Right now it gets a lot of attention. There may be less focus when the economy moves front and centre, which it will.

    It doesn't get a lot of focus, out there in the real world off the internet no one cares. No one cares what Owen Jones thinks and no one cares what James Delingpole thinks. It's why newspapers are going bankrupt. A few of my wife's friends came over for dinner yesterday evening and it was a real eye opener that women in their late 20s and early 30s give so little fucks about this stuff, the subject of JK Rowling came up and all of them either didn't care or were broadly supportive of what she said. If, as Alastair is claiming, that the pressure groups are representative then they would all have been raging against her, yet they weren't, mostly they didn't care
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    FPT

    isam said:

    On 25-26 June with Opinium Starmer led by 2, in their last poll Boris led by 1. So this is a rather strange way of reporting Boris increasing/doubling that lead to 2

    https://twitter.com/msmithsonpb/status/1284566332168646658?s=21

    Before another inaccurate PB meme begins..

    Opinium also had a best PM question in their poll ending on July 10th which had Boris Johnson leading the best PM metric by 3%.

    Click the tables, tab V007.

    https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/public-opinion-on-coronavirus-9th-july/

    In short, as ever, wikipedia is often an inelegant source to rely on.
    Is there a Wiki page that collects together these inaccurate PB memes?
    Well I'm not going to be a school teacher for the next six weeks, so if I have the time, I may start a wiki page on that.

    The first inaccurate meme to be discussed, my appalling fashion tastes, which is a vile calumny.
    I'm looking forward to Mr Dancer's Wiki edits to your history calumny meme....
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,454

    kinabalu said:

    Yes free speech covers the right to complain about things that offend you. That extends not just to those seeking cancellations but to those complaining about cancellations too. And in Mr Meeks case to those complaining about those complaining about cancellations. And in the case of those attacking Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    And for those who attack those who attack Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    Its simple really isn't it?

    It is. Freedom of speech under the law. We have it. To say we don't is an insult to those who really don't. The Toby Youngs of this world are being ineffably precious and entitled. I'd draw a comparison to people - often the same people - making out that mandatory masks in shops during a pandemic is a step along the "slippery slope" to loss of liberty. It's utterly pathetic.
    It’s culture war. Both sides feed off each other. Toby Young needs Owen Jones who needs James Delingpole who needs Ash Sukar and so on and so on. Right now it gets a lot of attention. There may be less focus when the economy moves front and centre, which it will.

    Maguire and Pierce have the double act nailed. They absolutely sell better to TV stations as a pair. Often they both say what is expected of their caricature for effect rather than what they really believe.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    As Alastair says, employment tribunals are a pretty solid protection for anyone sacked for expressing views irrelevant to their work. Presumably the bus driver didn't abuse his customers - what he thought and said in his private life should be neither here nor there. It shouldn't matter if he was an open Nazi or ISIS sympathiser so long as he behaves professionally at work.

    There is more of a difficulty if your job is about expressing opinions. Organisations that claim to be non-partisan like the BBC can reasonably make it a condition of employment as a commentator that you don't express clear preference for one party or opinion or another - I think some of their senior people have sailed close to the wind on this and it does harm the organisation.

    Beyond that, what it mostly comes down to is prominent people getting criticised. Some of the criticism may be unfair or unpleasant, and if it becomes abusive harassment there are laws against that too. Otherwise, it rather goes with the job. Some prominent journalists IMO go out of their way to whip it up, as it makes them more prominent.

    by the way, I'm puzzled by Casino Royale saying that he joined the FSU because people, some of them up to recently anonymous, had been unfairly critical here. I try to be polite to everyone and I hope CR doesn't feel I've been slagging him off. I think his contributions here are interesting and we'd be poorer without them. But CR is himself anonymous. I don't see the risk to his career if someone attacks his pseudonym, even unfairly. I've taken somewhat greater risks over the years by not being anonymous, but as an MP I felt that went with the job too, and now I'm no longer an MP my opinions outside my special field of work are pretty irrelevant.

    One word: doxxing.

    And it's not true to say no-one knows who I am. Several regular posters and the editors do.

    By the way: I wasn't referring to you. The perpetrators know who they are.
    There is so much paranoia and wannabe victimhood around all this. For my sins I've read thousands of your posts over the last 2 years and not one single time have you said anything that would threaten your liberty or livelihood.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    kinabalu said:

    Yes free speech covers the right to complain about things that offend you. That extends not just to those seeking cancellations but to those complaining about cancellations too. And in Mr Meeks case to those complaining about those complaining about cancellations. And in the case of those attacking Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    And for those who attack those who attack Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    Its simple really isn't it?

    It is. Freedom of speech under the law. We have it. To say we don't is an insult to those who really don't. The Toby Youngs of this world are being ineffably precious and entitled. I'd draw a comparison to people - often the same people - making out that mandatory masks in shops during a pandemic is a step along the "slippery slope" to loss of liberty. It's utterly pathetic.
    It’s culture war. Both sides feed off each other. Toby Young needs Owen Jones who needs James Delingpole who needs Ash Sukar and so on and so on. Right now it gets a lot of attention. There may be less focus when the economy moves front and centre, which it will.

    Maguire and Pierce have the double act nailed. They absolutely sell better to TV stations as a pair. Often they both say what is expected of their caricature for effect rather than what they really believe.
    Yes - those two. Tired old schtick.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    The irony is that, at least in the UK, we have a government run by polemic opinion columnists in a way that hasn't really happened before. Now isn't the time to discuss whether that's a good development, but this is clearly a government of Toby's Mates. And yet, Toby isn't happy... see his obsession with lockdown denial.

    Maybe, like many unions, Toby's Union is about job preservation. Being an annoying columnist (the tame tory in the Guardian, say, or anyone in the Spectator) used to be a pretty sweet gig. Now, papers are in a financial mess. The internet means that there is competition that is free and far more extreme, if you like that sort of thing. (There must be another example of a field hollowed out by nasty free stuff on the web). And, as Alistair point out, it's much easier to hear the public boos when someone in the media elite drops a clanger.

    Maybe Tobes is worried about losing his job.

    Toby Young is best seen as the Tory Chris Williamson. Just as CW told us what Corbyn thought but couldn’t say, so Toby does on behalf of certain Scottish members of the Cabinet.

    Alister Jack is capable of thought? Well, it’s a theory.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    "Woke" is in most cases just the re-branding of "politically correct", whereby racists and hateful people get their views challenged and they don't like it.

    There are notable exceptions of course.

    I'd partly agree. Woke is both a catch-all term to dismiss all progressive thinking, and, to a somewhat smaller extent, does capture the left end of the new social media-driven stridency of expression. A term for the rightward trend would help balance things out.
    Common sense?
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited July 2020
    kyf_100 said:

    You can be cancelled these days for something as simple as saying "women do not have penises" on Twitter.

    I fully support trans people and their right to transition, but the woke mob cancelling people for turning biology into ideology need to be stopped.

    Cancel culture isn't about re-branding PC, it isn't about people with prehistoric views finally getting their comeuppance, either.

    It's about deliberately and systematically silencing anyone who dares to contradict a very specific "progressive" ideology. It is dangerous. And it needs to be stopped.

    I partly agree with this, but I also think this same, religious, in the negative rather than positive sense, intolerance and stridency of expression is just as visible in the modern identity movement of the right, too, such as in Brexit. The common denominator is a new fixation with the expression of personal identity as 'making truth' , rather than progressivism or reaction.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    What would be ‘to cancel someone’ be in English?
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,039
    The R number, [Prof Dingwall] said, is inflated by cases in care homes and in hospitals but in the community he believes there are now large swathes of the country with almost no community transmission.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/18/environment-fear-fuelled-flawed-modelling/

    Let's hope he is right, and cases continue to fall into the autumn.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    Yes free speech covers the right to complain about things that offend you. That extends not just to those seeking cancellations but to those complaining about cancellations too. And in Mr Meeks case to those complaining about those complaining about cancellations. And in the case of those attacking Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    And for those who attack those who attack Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    Its simple really isn't it?

    It is. Freedom of speech under the law. We have it. To say we don't is an insult to those who really don't. The Toby Youngs of this world are being ineffably precious and entitled. I'd draw a comparison to people - often the same people - making out that mandatory masks in shops during a pandemic is a step along the "slippery slope" to loss of liberty. It's utterly pathetic.
    It’s culture war. Both sides feed off each other. Toby Young needs Owen Jones who needs James Delingpole who needs Ash Sukar and so on and so on. Right now it gets a lot of attention. There may be less focus when the economy moves front and centre, which it will.

    It doesn't get a lot of focus, out there in the real world off the internet no one cares. No one cares what Owen Jones thinks and no one cares what James Delingpole thinks. It's why newspapers are going bankrupt. A few of my wife's friends came over for dinner yesterday evening and it was a real eye opener that women in their late 20s and early 30s give so little fucks about this stuff, the subject of JK Rowling came up and all of them either didn't care or were broadly supportive of what she said. If, as Alastair is claiming, that the pressure groups are representative then they would all have been raging against her, yet they weren't, mostly they didn't care
    I also agree with this. Although the Culture War stimulates me - and I am firmly on one side of it - I do think it's mainly digital and has far less salience in flesh & blood spaces. That said, it is helping the Right in elections and therefore for all its attractions I'd like to see the Left disengage a little, leave the Right swinging at thin air and thus falling over. I think we can do this because to the extent it's about social progress "victory" is assured. Electing Tory governments won't stop it. The values of the young and youngish will soon be mainstream.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    kyf_100 said:

    You can be cancelled these days for something as simple as saying "women do not have penises" on Twitter.

    I fully support trans people and their right to transition, but the woke mob cancelling people for turning biology into ideology need to be stopped.

    Cancel culture isn't about re-branding PC, it isn't about people with prehistoric views finally getting their comeuppance, either.

    It's about deliberately and systematically silencing anyone who dares to contradict a very specific "progressive" ideology. It is dangerous. And it needs to be stopped.

    I partly agree with this, but I also think this same, religious, in the negative rather than positive sense, intolerance and stridency of expression is just as visible in the modern identity movement of the right, too, such as in Brexit. The common denominator is a new fixation with the expression of personal identity as 'making truth' , rather than progressivism or reaction.
    You are ploughing a precise and unusual furrow on this. Good luck. :smile:
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718

    kinabalu said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53444752 I wonder how this sort of story will impact the reparations movement, I remember a few weeks ago there was outrage at a Tory councillor commenting about the involvement of Africans in the slave trade. I assumed, like many, he was wrong. Maybe not.

    The great majority of slaves taken by Europeans from Africa were sold to them by other Africans. Direct raids in which Europeans snatched people from coastal areas were not particularly common (in contrast with the North African or Barbary slave trade, in which Africans abducted large numbers of Europeans through pirate raids on coastal settlements and ships at sea.)

    This is why historians talk about the Triangular Trade when discussing the history of slavery: Europeans (and Americans of European descent) sailed to Africa with ships loaded with trade goods, they bought African slaves from other Africans with the goods, carried the slaves off to work their plantations, and then shipped the goods from the plantations back to their population centres for sale. The value of the plantation goods vastly exceeded the price paid to purchase and feed the slaves, hence the massive profits generated.

    People who talk about reparations tend not to mention either the Barbary trade or the sale of African slaves by other Africans. It suits them to simplify history and to portray pre-modern Africans uniformly as defenceless victims of the most appalling violence. The African slaves were, of course, defenceless victims of the most appalling violence. The many Africans who profited from taking and selling slaves, not so much.
    Just because something is complex does not mean it isn't also simple. There are women who profit from and enable sex trafficking. Does this mean that the assertion "sex trafficking is a criminal industry based on the exploitation of women by men" is wrong or "misleading" or "simplistic"? No it does not. Indeed if someone doggedly maintains this, I would question their motives. Ditto here. So tell me - what are your motives?
    Primarily to make a brief reply to a message in which surprise was expressed at the involvement of some Africans in the slave trade, summarising some historical facts. But yes, I'm also deeply sceptical about the reparations movement. All of the people who profited or suffered directly from the Triangular Trade have been dead for a very long time indeed. Therefore, quite where we are meant to begin in assessing who to distribute resources to by way of redress, and especially who to take them from, God alone knows.

    There's a world of difference between reappraising history, action against discrimination and promoting equality of opportunity, and redistribution from the wealthy to the poor generally through taxation, and - what? Exacting recompense from countries and their populations for the behaviour of (some of their) ancestors? Race-based levies? I'm really not getting how demanding "reparations" for what happened between the 16th and 19th Centuries is meant to create progress. It is, after all, a term previously applied to vanquished populations being made to pay the price of their own defeat.
    I'm not sure how far my ancestors in rural West Wales 'profited' much, if at all, from the Triangular Trade.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,674

    malcolmg said:

    tlg86 said:

    Well, there was that charity boss who got turfed out from the charity he'd founded with his redundancy money for the cardinal sin of visiting BLM's website, reading it, and disagreeing with their avowed aims of ending capitalism and defunding the police.

    https://twitter.com/NickBuckleyMBE/status/1283818837830512642

    If that is the whole story then it is very wrong for him to be sacked.

    The charities version is "Contrary to what has been said by others, our decision to terminate our relationship with Mr Buckley was not based on, nor influenced by, his personal blog posts, nor any social media comments or online petitions. As was made clear to Mr Buckley at the time, the board of trustees took the appropriate action to protect the charity’s reputation following legal advice and Charity Commission guidance".

    We have no way of knowing which is correct.
    BiB - are they saying that there's something else going on, misconduct or some such?
    They are clearly claiming "something else" is the reason as it "was not based on, nor influenced by, his personal blog posts, nor any social media comments or online petitions."

    I have absolutely no idea what the something else is.
    He probably did not like the big fat salaries they were all handing out to each other and that peed them off big time.
    The trustees of the charity concerned are unpaid, as is the case with the vast majority of trustees of all charities.
    Good to know that some in the charity sector are not lining their own pockets more than doling out charity
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    nichomar said:

    What would be ‘to cancel someone’ be in English?

    'To unperson', of course. As ever, Orwell was a genius at devising neologisms to capture the essence of authoritarian control.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited July 2020
    kinabalu said:

    Yes free speech covers the right to complain about things that offend you. That extends not just to those seeking cancellations but to those complaining about cancellations too. And in Mr Meeks case to those complaining about those complaining about cancellations. And in the case of those attacking Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    And for those who attack those who attack Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    Its simple really isn't it?

    It is. Freedom of speech under the law. We have it. To say we don't is an insult to those who really don't. The Toby Youngs of this world are being ineffably precious and entitled. I'd draw a comparison to people - often the same people - making out that mandatory masks in shops during a pandemic is a step along the "slippery slope" to loss of liberty. It's utterly pathetic.
    No the Toby Young's of this world are exercising their own free speech too.

    You don't win the battle for free speech by shutting up and ignoring those against it.
  • MundoMundo Posts: 30

    kyf_100 said:

    You can be cancelled these days for something as simple as saying "women do not have penises" on Twitter.

    I fully support trans people and their right to transition, but the woke mob cancelling people for turning biology into ideology need to be stopped.

    Cancel culture isn't about re-branding PC, it isn't about people with prehistoric views finally getting their comeuppance, either.

    It's about deliberately and systematically silencing anyone who dares to contradict a very specific "progressive" ideology. It is dangerous. And it needs to be stopped.

    Perfectly put. Cancel culture is a terrifically effective political weapon that makes public examples of a few of those with dissenting views by destroying their lives and then cows a much larger number into silence.

    Well, until they get to the polling station, anyway. Then their silence is often eloquent... :wink:
    Beautifully put, as the last election proved, Twitter <> UK opinion
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,046
    Should it not be cancellation culture?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    The R number, [Prof Dingwall] said, is inflated by cases in care homes and in hospitals but in the community he believes there are now large swathes of the country with almost no community transmission.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/18/environment-fear-fuelled-flawed-modelling/

    Let's hope he is right, and cases continue to fall into the autumn.

    I keep coming back to the point: where is the reservoir of the virus for this second wave coming from? In the SW, for example, Covid is now rare as hen's teeth. We go through the motions - and that helps ensure that it isn't a thing in our lives. But we got it into this country from at least 1,300 sources from holidaymakers and business travellers in France, Italy and Spain. I don't see that being repeated.

    As long as we are sensible about people travelling to hot-spots like Florida - and their responsibilties upon their return - then I reckon we should be OK. Just come down hard on anybody taking risks. (I realise my view is in direct contradiction to a friend's son who is involved with the planning around Britannia hospitals - and who thinks the worst of Covid is yet to come this winter. But then he would, wouldn't he!)
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    kinabalu said:

    Yes free speech covers the right to complain about things that offend you. That extends not just to those seeking cancellations but to those complaining about cancellations too. And in Mr Meeks case to those complaining about those complaining about cancellations. And in the case of those attacking Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    And for those who attack those who attack Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    Its simple really isn't it?

    It is. Freedom of speech under the law. We have it. To say we don't is an insult to those who really don't. The Toby Youngs of this world are being ineffably precious and entitled. I'd draw a comparison to people - often the same people - making out that mandatory masks in shops during a pandemic is a step along the "slippery slope" to loss of liberty. It's utterly pathetic.
    It’s culture war. Both sides feed off each other. Toby Young needs Owen Jones who needs James Delingpole who needs Ash Sukar and so on and so on. Right now it gets a lot of attention. There may be less focus when the economy moves front and centre, which it will.
    Extremes big up opposite extremes, this I have certainly noticed. We have a hard right poster on here - a very skilled one - who is forever scouring the net for the most extreme examples of "Woke" and presenting them as if they're the norm. Result? Innocent people get worked up something rotten and cruelly misled.
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 9,669
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Interesting but ultimately wrong. You're misrepresenting pressure from a few loud Twitter voices as "the people". The people vote, whether in the ballot box or with their wallets. So far there is little evidence that anyone outside of Twitter cares about this stuff and companies who want to make money want to avoid controversy. It's really nothing more than that.

    Life would be better for everyone if Twitter died and never came back. Hopefully after Trump goes they lose enough of the audience that they go out of business.

    Talking about Twitter, surely that hack must risk famous people coming off it.

    One of the more outlandish theories I've read was that it was really a plan to access the DMs of people like Joe Biden.
    Err, why? Joe Biden's messages are basically just a bunch of words strung together by predictive text.

    For example... "I'm against Trump and get back to the same time as the economy and all of the people who are sharing connections ideas and opportunities"
    But .... Trump.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    kinabalu said:

    Yes free speech covers the right to complain about things that offend you. That extends not just to those seeking cancellations but to those complaining about cancellations too. And in Mr Meeks case to those complaining about those complaining about cancellations. And in the case of those attacking Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    And for those who attack those who attack Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    Its simple really isn't it?

    It is. Freedom of speech under the law. We have it. To say we don't is an insult to those who really don't. The Toby Youngs of this world are being ineffably precious and entitled. I'd draw a comparison to people - often the same people - making out that mandatory masks in shops during a pandemic is a step along the "slippery slope" to loss of liberty. It's utterly pathetic.
    No the Toby Young's of this world are exercising their own free speech too.

    You don't win the battle for free speech by shutting up and ignoring those against it.
    His freedom of speech is protected under the law and rightly so. We are in agreement. Sorry, but we are.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    kyf_100 said:

    You can be cancelled these days for something as simple as saying "women do not have penises" on Twitter.

    I fully support trans people and their right to transition, but the woke mob cancelling people for turning biology into ideology need to be stopped.

    Cancel culture isn't about re-branding PC, it isn't about people with prehistoric views finally getting their comeuppance, either.

    It's about deliberately and systematically silencing anyone who dares to contradict a very specific "progressive" ideology. It is dangerous. And it needs to be stopped.

    Perfectly put. Cancel culture is a terrifically effective political weapon that makes public examples of a few of those with dissenting views by destroying their lives and then cows a much larger number into silence.

    Well, until they get to the polling station, anyway. Then their silence is often eloquent... :wink:
    And I still wonder if there is enough of this in the US to ensure that Trump gets re-elected. Much easier to agree with Trump but stay schtum, when the media consensus is that surely every right-thinking person must despise him?
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731
    On 25-26 June with Opinium Starmer led by 2, in their last poll Boris led by 1. So this is a rather strange way of reporting Boris increasing/doubling that lead to 2

    https://twitter.com/msmithsonpb/status/1284566332168646658?s=21


  • isamisam Posts: 40,731
    edited July 2020
    isam said:

    On 25-26 June with Opinium Starmer led by 2, in their last poll Boris led by 1. So this is a rather strange way of reporting Boris increasing/doubling that lead to 2

    https://twitter.com/msmithsonpb/status/1284566332168646658?s=21


    “It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it. The eyeless crature at the other table swallowed it fanatically. passionately, with a furious desire to track down, denounce, and vaporize anyone who should suggest that last week the ration had been thirty grams. Syme, too-in some more double complex way, involving doublethink-Syme, swallow it. Was he, then, alone in the possession of a memory?”
  • YorkcityYorkcity Posts: 4,382
    Foxy said:

    Charles said:

    Nigelb said:

    The dexamethasome paper has been published.
    Big benefit for those on ventilators; the rest, not so much.

    https://twitter.com/MartinLandray/status/1284157065498427393

    Still significant for oxygen

    Presumably it is counteracting some of the consequences of invasive mechanical treatment rather than the disease itself?
    I would think it simply a marker of severity of disease. The inflammatory cytokine storm is a week or two post viral, and that is the point that dexamethasone helps. In other words, if you are not severe enough to need a ventilator, then dexamethasone won't help much.
    Dexamethasone has some nasty side effects.
    It makes you feel hyper and your blood sugars go through the roof.
    However if it helps the chemotherapy in cancer treatment, and has a part to play in co-vid , it must be worth it.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Yes free speech covers the right to complain about things that offend you. That extends not just to those seeking cancellations but to those complaining about cancellations too. And in Mr Meeks case to those complaining about those complaining about cancellations. And in the case of those attacking Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    And for those who attack those who attack Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    Its simple really isn't it?

    It is. Freedom of speech under the law. We have it. To say we don't is an insult to those who really don't. The Toby Youngs of this world are being ineffably precious and entitled. I'd draw a comparison to people - often the same people - making out that mandatory masks in shops during a pandemic is a step along the "slippery slope" to loss of liberty. It's utterly pathetic.
    No the Toby Young's of this world are exercising their own free speech too.

    You don't win the battle for free speech by shutting up and ignoring those against it.
    His freedom of speech is protected under the law and rightly so. We are in agreement. Sorry, but we are.
    It is indeed on that but we are not in agreement that he is being "ineffably precious and entitled".

    Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty and the case for free speech needs to be made.
  • YorkcityYorkcity Posts: 4,382
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Yes free speech covers the right to complain about things that offend you. That extends not just to those seeking cancellations but to those complaining about cancellations too. And in Mr Meeks case to those complaining about those complaining about cancellations. And in the case of those attacking Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    And for those who attack those who attack Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    Its simple really isn't it?

    It is. Freedom of speech under the law. We have it. To say we don't is an insult to those who really don't. The Toby Youngs of this world are being ineffably precious and entitled. I'd draw a comparison to people - often the same people - making out that mandatory masks in shops during a pandemic is a step along the "slippery slope" to loss of liberty. It's utterly pathetic.
    It’s culture war. Both sides feed off each other. Toby Young needs Owen Jones who needs James Delingpole who needs Ash Sukar and so on and so on. Right now it gets a lot of attention. There may be less focus when the economy moves front and centre, which it will.
    Extremes big up opposite extremes, this I have certainly noticed. We have a hard right poster on here - a very skilled one - who is forever scouring the net for the most extreme examples of "Woke" and presenting them as if they're the norm. Result? Innocent people get worked up something rotten and cruelly misled.
    Yes I think I know who you mean.
    It is quite disturbing and best not to be drawn into .
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556

    kyf_100 said:

    You can be cancelled these days for something as simple as saying "women do not have penises" on Twitter.

    I fully support trans people and their right to transition, but the woke mob cancelling people for turning biology into ideology need to be stopped.

    Cancel culture isn't about re-branding PC, it isn't about people with prehistoric views finally getting their comeuppance, either.

    It's about deliberately and systematically silencing anyone who dares to contradict a very specific "progressive" ideology. It is dangerous. And it needs to be stopped.

    Perfectly put. Cancel culture is a terrifically effective political weapon that makes public examples of a few of those with dissenting views by destroying their lives and then cows a much larger number into silence.

    Well, until they get to the polling station, anyway. Then their silence is often eloquent... :wink:
    And I still wonder if there is enough of this in the US to ensure that Trump gets re-elected. Much easier to agree with Trump but stay schtum, when the media consensus is that surely every right-thinking person must despise him?
    If the coronavirus hadn't happened, I would certainly agree with that. The problem for Trump is that the US has failed to get the infection under control, and the economic shock for ordinary people is likely to be huge, with less and more temporary help than in other countries, so those hard facts will probably win out.

    Plus Joe Biden is such a conservative Democrat - a moderate Republican, really - that he doesn't produce the fear factor that a lefty true believer would. You can tell he doesn't give two shits about the Woke cult just by looking at him!
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Alastair's back ...

    A grim day around the world

    Unfortunate juxtaposition
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Toby Young is a Johnson/Gove/Cummings outrider doing his bit to fight the culture war the Tories correctly believe is essential to keeping their voting coalition together. There’s not much more to see in his free speech union than that.

    Often times I find the proponents of a particular view can be the worst people to be putting forth its positives, eg with with both Brexit and anti-Brexit.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    HYUFD said:
    She's only 50? A very impressive career indeed.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    Yes free speech covers the right to complain about things that offend you. That extends not just to those seeking cancellations but to those complaining about cancellations too. And in Mr Meeks case to those complaining about those complaining about cancellations. And in the case of those attacking Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    And for those who attack those who attack Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    Its simple really isn't it?

    It is. Freedom of speech under the law. We have it. To say we don't is an insult to those who really don't. The Toby Youngs of this world are being ineffably precious and entitled. I'd draw a comparison to people - often the same people - making out that mandatory masks in shops during a pandemic is a step along the "slippery slope" to loss of liberty. It's utterly pathetic.
    It’s culture war. Both sides feed off each other. Toby Young needs Owen Jones who needs James Delingpole who needs Ash Sukar and so on and so on. Right now it gets a lot of attention. There may be less focus when the economy moves front and centre, which it will.

    It doesn't get a lot of focus, out there in the real world off the internet no one cares. No one cares what Owen Jones thinks and no one cares what James Delingpole thinks. It's why newspapers are going bankrupt. A few of my wife's friends came over for dinner yesterday evening and it was a real eye opener that women in their late 20s and early 30s give so little fucks about this stuff, the subject of JK Rowling came up and all of them either didn't care or were broadly supportive of what she said. If, as Alastair is claiming, that the pressure groups are representative then they would all have been raging against her, yet they weren't, mostly they didn't care
    I also agree with this. Although the Culture War stimulates me - and I am firmly on one side of it - I do think it's mainly digital and has far less salience in flesh & blood spaces. That said, it is helping the Right in elections and therefore for all its attractions I'd like to see the Left disengage a little, leave the Right swinging at thin air and thus falling over. I think we can do this because to the extent it's about social progress "victory" is assured. Electing Tory governments won't stop it. The values of the young and youngish will soon be mainstream.
    Not so soon and bt then their values will have 'developed'.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    kinabalu said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53444752 I wonder how this sort of story will impact the reparations movement, I remember a few weeks ago there was outrage at a Tory councillor commenting about the involvement of Africans in the slave trade. I assumed, like many, he was wrong. Maybe not.

    The great majority of slaves taken by Europeans from Africa were sold to them by other Africans. Direct raids in which Europeans snatched people from coastal areas were not particularly common (in contrast with the North African or Barbary slave trade, in which Africans abducted large numbers of Europeans through pirate raids on coastal settlements and ships at sea.)

    This is why historians talk about the Triangular Trade when discussing the history of slavery: Europeans (and Americans of European descent) sailed to Africa with ships loaded with trade goods, they bought African slaves from other Africans with the goods, carried the slaves off to work their plantations, and then shipped the goods from the plantations back to their population centres for sale. The value of the plantation goods vastly exceeded the price paid to purchase and feed the slaves, hence the massive profits generated.

    People who talk about reparations tend not to mention either the Barbary trade or the sale of African slaves by other Africans. It suits them to simplify history and to portray pre-modern Africans uniformly as defenceless victims of the most appalling violence. The African slaves were, of course, defenceless victims of the most appalling violence. The many Africans who profited from taking and selling slaves, not so much.
    Just because something is complex does not mean it isn't also simple. There are women who profit from and enable sex trafficking. Does this mean that the assertion "sex trafficking is a criminal industry based on the exploitation of women by men" is wrong or "misleading" or "simplistic"? No it does not. Indeed if someone doggedly maintains this, I would question their motives. Ditto here. So tell me - what are your motives?
    The difference in this case is that the Triangular Trade would not have existed without the supply of slaves provided by African warlords.

    This is not to try and gloss over the traders individual culpability, but you shouldn’t ignore the wrong of the other parts of the chain
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    Barnesian said:

    kinabalu said:

    Yes free speech covers the right to complain about things that offend you. That extends not just to those seeking cancellations but to those complaining about cancellations too. And in Mr Meeks case to those complaining about those complaining about cancellations. And in the case of those attacking Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    And for those who attack those who attack Mr Meeks it extends to those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about those complaining about cancellations.

    Its simple really isn't it?

    It is. Freedom of speech under the law. We have it. To say we don't is an insult to those who really don't. The Toby Youngs of this world are being ineffably precious and entitled. I'd draw a comparison to people - often the same people - making out that mandatory masks in shops during a pandemic is a step along the "slippery slope" to loss of liberty. It's utterly pathetic.
    The problem is orchestrated coercion to silence people you disagree with by bombarding their employers with complaints, who then respond to the "reputational damage" by firing or silencing the person. It is not just the the commentariat that is the target.

    It is a new weapon, using the power of twitter, in the old battle of ideas. As a new weapon it generates a defensive shield (eg the Free Speech Union) or a mirror shield (eg JKRowling et al using Twitter in defence).

    As a liberal and follower of JS Mills, I intensely dislike societal coercion, even though I support community and dislike rugged individualism (I'm not a libertarian). I'm a left wing liberal.

    However I'm finding myself liking comments by people on here who I usually disagree with, and growling at comments by eg @kinabalu who has an iron fist carefully concealed in his velvet glove.
    It's not even all that carefully concealed...
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,068
    kyf_100 said:

    You can be cancelled these days for something as simple as saying "women do not have penises" on Twitter.

    I fully support trans people and their right to transition, but the woke mob cancelling people for turning biology into ideology need to be stopped.

    Cancel culture isn't about re-branding PC, it isn't about people with prehistoric views finally getting their comeuppance, either.

    It's about deliberately and systematically silencing anyone who dares to contradict a very specific "progressive" ideology. It is dangerous. And it needs to be stopped.

    So free speech can only be protected by suppressing free speech? A most ingenious paradox!
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 7,979
    The old battle of ideas is powerfully shown in the Mrs America series.

    There is no twitter but there are mailing lists and orchestrated letter writing campaigns (hello Mrs Whitehouse). By 1978 there is ... the floppy disk! Containing mailing lists.

    There is nothing new in the power aspects of the battle of ideas (Newton v. Hooke and Leibnitz). But there are new tools.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Interesting header. It's produced a debate relevant to itself BTL, which must count as a good success.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    edited July 2020

    kinabalu said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53444752 I wonder how this sort of story will impact the reparations movement, I remember a few weeks ago there was outrage at a Tory councillor commenting about the involvement of Africans in the slave trade. I assumed, like many, he was wrong. Maybe not.

    The great majority of slaves taken by Europeans from Africa were sold to them by other Africans. Direct raids in which Europeans snatched people from coastal areas were not particularly common (in contrast with the North African or Barbary slave trade, in which Africans abducted large numbers of Europeans through pirate raids on coastal settlements and ships at sea.)

    This is why historians talk about the Triangular Trade when discussing the history of slavery: Europeans (and Americans of European descent) sailed to Africa with ships loaded with trade goods, they bought African slaves from other Africans with the goods, carried the slaves off to work their plantations, and then shipped the goods from the plantations back to their population centres for sale. The value of the plantation goods vastly exceeded the price paid to purchase and feed the slaves, hence the massive profits generated.

    People who talk about reparations tend not to mention either the Barbary trade or the sale of African slaves by other Africans. It suits them to simplify history and to portray pre-modern Africans uniformly as defenceless victims of the most appalling violence. The African slaves were, of course, defenceless victims of the most appalling violence. The many Africans who profited from taking and selling slaves, not so much.
    Just because something is complex does not mean it isn't also simple. There are women who profit from and enable sex trafficking. Does this mean that the assertion "sex trafficking is a criminal industry based on the exploitation of women by men" is wrong or "misleading" or "simplistic"? No it does not. Indeed if someone doggedly maintains this, I would question their motives. Ditto here. So tell me - what are your motives?
    Primarily to make a brief reply to a message in which surprise was expressed at the involvement of some Africans in the slave trade, summarising some historical facts. But yes, I'm also deeply sceptical about the reparations movement. All of the people who profited or suffered directly from the Triangular Trade have been dead for a very long time indeed. Therefore, quite where we are meant to begin in assessing who to distribute resources to by way of redress, and especially who to take them from, God alone knows.

    There's a world of difference between reappraising history, action against discrimination and promoting equality of opportunity, and redistribution from the wealthy to the poor generally through taxation, and - what? Exacting recompense from countries and their populations for the behaviour of (some of their) ancestors? Race-based levies? I'm really not getting how demanding "reparations" for what happened between the 16th and 19th Centuries is meant to create progress. It is, after all, a term previously applied to vanquished populations being made to pay the price of their own defeat.
    Ok I suppose I won't cancel you then. Reparations could only be symbolic since otherwise the sums would be huge. Symbolic gestures can sometimes be helpful but in this case? No, probably not. Doubt it will be happening in any case.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Anyhoo, Toby Young is wondering how he ended up in Jeffrey Epstein's little black book.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-did-i-end-up-in-epstein-s-little-black-book-

    Perhaps Epstein heard about Toby Young's fetish for masturbating over starving African children and thought that's the kind of bloke I need to meet.

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilyashton/toby-young-has-been-on-a-developmental-journey-since-his

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/matthewchampion/toby-young-has-deleted-tens-of-thousands-of-old-tweets?utm_term=.ytLw1XZPBJ#.cjrxB5beEM

    It was a perfectly reasonable article until the last paragraph. He just can’t help himself, can he?
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165
    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:
    She's only 50? A very impressive career indeed.
    I worked my through the BBC's GE coverage since 1992 during lockdown. Sturgeon appears in the 2005 morning after coverage at 1 hour 7 minutes:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV7dqo4h6qs
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    HYUFD said:
    Disagreed.

    Polarisation and "culture wars" are a good thing. It's how the battle of ideas is played out and with true free speech good ideas can rise to the fore and bad ideas get exposed for what they are.

    Countries that appear "unified" as they don't tolerate dissent may be strong temporarily from that but long term their problems will mount as the lack of dissent really means a lack of challenge, a lack of understanding and a failure to address problems.

    Our divisions are our strength not our weakness. That is why any attempts to compel homogeneity of thought must be opposed.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Foxy said:

    kyf_100 said:

    You can be cancelled these days for something as simple as saying "women do not have penises" on Twitter.

    I fully support trans people and their right to transition, but the woke mob cancelling people for turning biology into ideology need to be stopped.

    Cancel culture isn't about re-branding PC, it isn't about people with prehistoric views finally getting their comeuppance, either.

    It's about deliberately and systematically silencing anyone who dares to contradict a very specific "progressive" ideology. It is dangerous. And it needs to be stopped.

    So free speech can only be protected by suppressing free speech? A most ingenious paradox!
    No it depends how you seek to stop it. If you seek to stop it by government action that is illiberal. If you seek to stop it through countering it with your own free speech that is entirely liberal. If you seek to win the argument for tolerance of diversity of thought then that is a good thing.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Foxy said:

    Charles said:

    Nigelb said:

    The dexamethasome paper has been published.
    Big benefit for those on ventilators; the rest, not so much.

    https://twitter.com/MartinLandray/status/1284157065498427393

    Still significant for oxygen

    Presumably it is counteracting some of the consequences of invasive mechanical treatment rather than the disease itself?
    I would think it simply a marker of severity of disease. The inflammatory cytokine storm is a week or two post viral, and that is the point that dexamethasone helps. In other words, if you are not severe enough to need a ventilator, then dexamethasone won't help much.
    That’s the other option, yes. Fundamentally it’s an anti inflammatory.

    I assume it’s both though - can you really get a “mild” cytokine storm and, if not, then why does it benefit people on oxygen who are not ill enough to be ion mechanical ventilation
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    nichomar said:

    What would be ‘to cancel someone’ be in English?

    Getting them fired and making them unemployable by creating a twitter storm over something
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    Question is whether the suppressed but soon to be released report into Russian interference also covers the role of Russian trolls in stirring up controversies like those discussed.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 7,979

    HYUFD said:
    Disagreed.

    Polarisation and "culture wars" are a good thing. It's how the battle of ideas is played out and with true free speech good ideas can rise to the fore and bad ideas get exposed for what they are.

    Countries that appear "unified" as they don't tolerate dissent may be strong temporarily from that but long term their problems will mount as the lack of dissent really means a lack of challenge, a lack of understanding and a failure to address problems.

    Our divisions are our strength not our weakness. That is why any attempts to compel homogeneity of thought must be opposed.
    JS Mill would agree 100%
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    kle4 said:
    Though unlike the USSR where communist Eastern Europe was on the border with the West and had to be held back by NATO, China is on the other side of the world and has shown no sign of expanding territorially beyond Taiwan even with expanded influence in Africa
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    The R number, [Prof Dingwall] said, is inflated by cases in care homes and in hospitals but in the community he believes there are now large swathes of the country with almost no community transmission.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/18/environment-fear-fuelled-flawed-modelling/

    Let's hope he is right, and cases continue to fall into the autumn.

    I keep coming back to the point: where is the reservoir of the virus for this second wave coming from? In the SW, for example, Covid is now rare as hen's teeth. We go through the motions - and that helps ensure that it isn't a thing in our lives. But we got it into this country from at least 1,300 sources from holidaymakers and business travellers in France, Italy and Spain. I don't see that being repeated.

    As long as we are sensible about people travelling to hot-spots like Florida - and their responsibilties upon their return - then I reckon we should be OK. Just come down hard on anybody taking risks. (I realise my view is in direct contradiction to a friend's son who is involved with the planning around Britannia hospitals - and who thinks the worst of Covid is yet to come this winter. But then he would, wouldn't he!)
    What are the Britannia hospitals vs the nightingales?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited July 2020
    FPT for @Pagan2
    Pagan2 said:

    A question for Philip Thompson

    once upon a time most companies paid in company scrip that could only be spent in company stores. While you can argue well if you dont like it change jobs it wasnt so easy. Laws were passed to stop it

    1) Do you agree with those laws or do you regard being paid in company scrip should be allowed

    2) if you answer the law was right what is the difference between that and telling companies they have to also accept hard currency and not just cards. In the first the company issuing the scrips dictates where you can purchase things in the second card issuing companies and dont forget there are really only two are limiting where you can shop by giving you a card or not

    I have no qualms with people getting a benefit in kind of company scrip so long as other laws are followed including getting paid a minimum wage in hard currency and getting taxed on their benefit in kind.

    2: The difference is that cards are hard currency. If you spend pound sterlings in coins, pound sterlings in notes, pound sterlings by BACS transfer, pound sterlings by cheques or pound sterlings by cards your hard currency is pound sterling either way.

    If there is a role for the government to pay it is to ensure everyone has access to being able to get a card. A universal service obligation on banks even if it's only for prepayment or debit cards without borrowing options. Other than that there is no role for the government to play, it is a matter for commercial choice by both businesses and consumers.
  • Surely the Government should stay well out of universities. If they want to no platform people that's their business. You have the right to call that out but why should the Government be getting involved.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    kle4 said:
    On the flip side having a new common enemy will unite a lot of people that were previously not so united. For example I can't see why the UK and EU wouldn't be on the same page on China, it's basically the only policy area where the whole US is united, democrats have made very clear that they wouldn't reverse any of Trump's China policies and may go further on freezing Chinese companies out of the US supply chain.
This discussion has been closed.