Interesting thread, but I think the statistical methodology is questionable, for a number of reasons. Eleven is an extremely small sample, and I would use VI not leader approval, as the former is a better predictor of the general election result. In addition, there is likely to be some omitted variable bias, since many have observed that voters tend to punish parties that have been in power for a decade or more. Adding a dummy variable for the number of elections previously won could affect the results significantly. Fourthly, there is very likely to be multicollinearity between the two explanatory variables. Multicollinearity invalidates regression analysis, and it is likely to be a particular problem this time. The opposition leader's popularity, and the unpopularity of the current government, could affect their score last time, particularly if they are the same people. A standard part of regression analysis is to test for this, e.g. using VIFs. Finally, I don't agree that a crucial battleground like Scotland should be omitted since so much of Labour's hopes rest there. Since it performed much more like the rest of the UK pre-2015, perhaps a dummy variable should be included?
I think the best way to test for any "mountain to climb" effect is to look at a seat level, rather than nationally. Is the swing towards Labour greater in seats it already holds? If so, then holding more seats will be an advantage. This also has the merit of having a more than sufficient sample size. I vaguely recall some analysis that showed a small effect for seats held for the first time, but no effect beyond that. But at some point I might have a go myself.
Anyway, it is an interesting and important question, and, despite disagreeing with the methodology, I think the conclusion is highly plausible.
Noted. Taking your points in order
Eleven is an extremely small sample. Yes, but you use what you have.
I would use VI not leader approval. Good point. Pause. Go on then
There is likely to be some omitted variable bias. Well yes, but you can say that about any model. Rules-of-thumb are good enough for government work
There is very likely to be multicollinearity between the two explanatory variables. I thought about this, but I'm not sure. Both between the variables (L vs S) and within them (S's internal components*1) appear to be independent-ish.
I don't agree that a crucial battleground like Scotland should be omitted. Agreed, but within its boundaries @OnlyLivingBoy 's model is good enough
In short (too late - Ed), @OnlyLivingBoy has distilled a large, complex situation down to a more manageable subset and created a simple model that PBers can understand. Each step requires a bit of teeth-gritting but simple robust models is what PB needs, and I think this is the first since @isam 's gross satisfaction model.
*1 Ouch - this bit is debatable.
I particularly like punting Scotland into the "too complicated" basket - add your own number.
Follows the best traditions of economic modelling.
Scotland needs its own model.
I might give it a go but the average Scottish voter has been dazed and confused ever since 2014.
And, unlike England and Wales, we have an ongoing police investigation that might turn things upside down again. (Yousaf is surprising on the upside, imo).
No need to call it an opinion, he is.
But since his own party colleagues accused him of being utterly unfit to be First Minister and said he wouldn't last five minutes, we're talking a low bar there.
In the US, they're very keen on standardized testing, which is similar to IQ.
My son always hits it out the park on the reading comprehension, typically scoring in the 92nd to 98th percentile. But on spatial reasoning, he's typically middle of the road (at best), usually coming in somewhere between the 40th and 55th percentile.
I always wonder about kids like that: who score very well on one part of a test, but averagely on another. If he'd been taking the 11+ in the past, would he have gone to Secondary Modern because one part of his scores was not that great.
I concur with the OLB potential LAB 340 seats outcome.
This is based on me using the following non scientific approach:
No one likes CON or Rishi anymore
There is no real enthusiasm for Keir or LAB
But the first factor significantly outweighs the second for an electorate to reluctantly give LAB an 8% lead at the GE which will convert into around 340 seats
Another way of looking at it...
340 Labour and 100ish others (40 SNP, 40 LD, 20 NI) leaves 210 Conservatives. So the big two almost, but not quite, swapping scores.
If you offered that to thoughtful members of the blue team, I reckon they'd bite your arm off faster than an XL Bully.
Talking about the latter - the "ban" is seemingly continuing to unravel faster than a stuffed woollen doggie toy owned by one.
Won't be party political though, as SKS also signed up to the Sunak strategy. But it's another high profile Sunakian promise, like boats'n'inflation.
You are weirdly keen for this ban not to happen. Consistently so
I suggest you go away and watch the video of Ian Price being eaten alive in Staffordshire two days ago. Seriously. Everyone needs to watch it, to know what we are dealing with. It is extremely disturbing - as bad as an ISIS or Cartel video - and it’s in a garden in Middle England
I won’t link directly to it but it’s now so viral a Twitter search of “ian price video” will get you straight there
Be warned
Once you’ve seen it you will realise there is no choice, these animals are so big, dangerous and aggressive they need to be banned immediately. As @williamglenn said last night, the question isn’t “whether a ban will work” it’s whether the government can afford to wait til the end of the year
Soon enough there will be one of these videos involving a child
People can be absurdly sentimental about animals, especially in this country.
Once @Carnyx has watched the Ian Price video he can look at this. The bloodline of half the XL Bullies in the UK
It doesn't alter the fact that a lot of people will sympathise more with the bully dogs, than the people who fall victim to them. There'll be heart-rending tales of poor Satan, who would never hurt a fly, having to be put to sleep.
I met some of these people, who were donors to Wood Green Animal Shelters, when I worked there.
I know the type, too
Selfish idiots, not very bright, see themselves as nice people because “I’m a dog person!”
I treat people like shit. But I love dogs. Therefore I am lovely. Cat lovers don't seem to have that.
I gather that the New Zealand authorities are seriously thinking of banning cats from being ‘outside’, due to their hunting the indigenous fauna, which have, until 200 or so years ago, been more or less predator free.
I v isited this place years ago. Amazing place to stay at night, best time to see wall to wall marsupials and monotremes, or rather fence to fence, as it had a electrified fence to keep out the cats. Founder even had a cat fur hat Davy Crockett style to make the point. Made him VERY unpopular with a certain element in the local population.
Interesting thread, but I think the statistical methodology is questionable, for a number of reasons. Eleven is an extremely small sample, and I would use VI not leader approval, as the former is a better predictor of the general election result. In addition, there is likely to be some omitted variable bias, since many have observed that voters tend to punish parties that have been in power for a decade or more. Adding a dummy variable for the number of elections previously won could affect the results significantly. Fourthly, there is very likely to be multicollinearity between the two explanatory variables. Multicollinearity invalidates regression analysis, and it is likely to be a particular problem this time. The opposition leader's popularity, and the unpopularity of the current government, could affect their score last time, particularly if they are the same people. A standard part of regression analysis is to test for this, e.g. using VIFs. Finally, I don't agree that a crucial battleground like Scotland should be omitted since so much of Labour's hopes rest there. Since it performed much more like the rest of the UK pre-2015, perhaps a dummy variable should be included?
I think the best way to test for any "mountain to climb" effect is to look at a seat level, rather than nationally. Is the swing towards Labour greater in seats it already holds? If so, then holding more seats will be an advantage. This also has the merit of having a more than sufficient sample size. I vaguely recall some analysis that showed a small effect for seats held for the first time, but no effect beyond that. But at some point I might have a go myself.
Anyway, it is an interesting and important question, and, despite disagreeing with the methodology, I think the conclusion is highly plausible.
Noted. Taking your points in order
Eleven is an extremely small sample. Yes, but you use what you have.
I would use VI not leader approval. Good point. Pause. Go on then
There is likely to be some omitted variable bias. Well yes, but you can say that about any model. Rules-of-thumb are good enough for government work
There is very likely to be multicollinearity between the two explanatory variables. I thought about this, but I'm not sure. Both between the variables (L vs S) and within them (S's internal components*1) appear to be independent-ish.
I don't agree that a crucial battleground like Scotland should be omitted. Agreed, but within its boundaries @OnlyLivingBoy 's model is good enough
In short (too late - Ed), @OnlyLivingBoy has distilled a large, complex situation down to a more manageable subset and created a simple model that PBers can understand. Each step requires a bit of teeth-gritting but simple robust models is what PB needs, and I think this is the first since @isam 's gross satisfaction model.
*1 Ouch - this bit is debatable.
I particularly like punting Scotland into the "too complicated" basket - add your own number.
Follows the best traditions of economic modelling.
So I used to think Russell Brand's switch to become an alt-right idiot was a commercial one. But maybe it was because he knew this shit was coming and he calculated the alt-right conspiracy nutjob crowd would be more likely to stick by him?
Has Roger offered his thoughts on this yet?
I won’t feel entirely comfortable following my leanings against Brand until Roger has defended him
Brand is 'talent', and therefore any woman not wanting to be abused by him should just go and become hairdressers...
It's sad that lots of people still have such a mindset.
In the US, they're very keen on standardized testing, which is similar to IQ.
My son always hits it out the park on the reading comprehension, typically scoring in the 92nd to 98th percentile. But on spatial reasoning, he's typically middle of the road (at best), usually coming in somewhere between the 40th and 55th percentile.
I always wonder about kids like that: who score very well on one part of a test, but averagely on another. If he'd been taking the 11+ in the past, would he have gone to Secondary Modern because one part of his scores was not that great.
That’s why, 70+ years ago, I was taught how to “pass” IQ tests.
For the thousandth time, "populism" means self-consciously appealing to the "people" in a way that is, prima facie at least, antagonistic to elites. It's isn't a synonym for trying to be popular. You can appeal to ordinary people without trying to drag class warfare into it. If your political opinion involves bashing "elites" (Oxbridge graduates, Jews, the illuminati, North London liberals, the "wokerati", globalists, etc), then you're delving into populism. If you're just putting forward policies you think are right and condemning those you think are wrong, you aren't a populist.
Populism touches everything and is probably present in almost every political movement to some degree. Using the word "populism" thus refer to times when it's particularly concentrated or toxic, or largely divorced from any kind of coherence.
So the attack on bankers in the immediate aftermath of the GFC was probably only very lightly populist because there really was a profound issue with the way banking was affecting our economy and a political response was sensible. Whereas the idea that a cabal of globalists are trying to control your mind through vaccines and chemtrails, and we need to overturn the whole system to free ourselves, is rabidly populist (and mercifully not that popular because it's completely insane).
Populism exists on all sides of the political spectrum.
Blaming the West, bankers, successful businessmen and industrialists for all the world's ills is populist. As is kneejerk banning of nuclear power and all forms of oil & gas immediately. Communism was essentially a direct appeal to populism.
It's characterised by playing to short-term base emotion against what are easily painted as elite or vested interests - which is why it is "popular" - rather than seeking to understand, channel and lead it into more reasoned, rational and longer-term policies that address the root causes.
I'm afraid I disagree completely. 'Populism' is a reaction to unpopular political decisions being taken. 'Populism' would have no cause to exist if our democracy was a true reflection of the 'popular' will. We're encouraged by media/films etc., to see large collections of people as baying, dangerous, panicking mobs, but actually where people have real control, you get peace and prosperity. In Switzerland, they have popular democracy. Their politicians have wanted to take them into the EU for the longest time, but the people refuse, and Switzerland's comparative economical position keeps improving. When there's an issue of substance, there's a referendum, the results of which politicians enact without demur. British people make similarly wise decisions when given the chance - perhaps every nation does.
In the US, they're very keen on standardized testing, which is similar to IQ.
My son always hits it out the park on the reading comprehension, typically scoring in the 92nd to 98th percentile. But on spatial reasoning, he's typically middle of the road (at best), usually coming in somewhere between the 40th and 55th percentile.
I always wonder about kids like that: who score very well on one part of a test, but averagely on another. If he'd been taking the 11+ in the past, would he have gone to Secondary Modern because one part of his scores was not that great.
That’s why, 70+ years ago, I was taught how to “pass” IQ tests.
My middle daughter's 11+ scores were very spiky. Very good at comprehension, good at verbal reasoning, ok at maths. On her overall score she passed (which is how they do it in Trafford) - but had you had to pass all three separately, she probably wouldn't have.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
If you really think IQ can be measured to the tenth of a point, that is rather revealing.
I once took an IQ test that put me in the 160s, and then another that put me in the 140s.
It's all crap. ...
You're surely not saying "It's all crap" just because the two scores differed?
No, not at all. The bit of my post that you snipped is actually a stronger reason why I think it's crap, although the variability also is involved.
The fact that one person can have a real range of abilities on what is mostly a mental task is a signal that there's something a lot more complex going on than can be reduced to a single score. My calamitous kitchen bumbling is not because I am unable to measure 200g of flour into a tared scale; that's easy. Its my ability to follow the steps of the recipe without my head bouncing around and getting confused. My mind leaps around like a flea instead of crawling along like a worm. Which means I can pick out different aspects and see surprising new angles, but I cannot follow linear instructions. IQ tests, with their discrete mini puzzles, suit me very well. And yes, the puzzles are often thematically linked, but not linearly dependent, those are separate things. I'm ok with themes. That's why I think it's crap. IQ tests seem incredibly well designed to make people like me look great. But I introspect (a lot) and I have a good measure of my flaws and my stupidity. And I know that you could set tests that others would fly through but would make me look like a head trauma patient.
For the thousandth time, "populism" means self-consciously appealing to the "people" in a way that is, prima facie at least, antagonistic to elites. It's isn't a synonym for trying to be popular. You can appeal to ordinary people without trying to drag class warfare into it. If your political opinion involves bashing "elites" (Oxbridge graduates, Jews, the illuminati, North London liberals, the "wokerati", globalists, etc), then you're delving into populism. If you're just putting forward policies you think are right and condemning those you think are wrong, you aren't a populist.
Populism touches everything and is probably present in almost every political movement to some degree. Using the word "populism" thus refer to times when it's particularly concentrated or toxic, or largely divorced from any kind of coherence.
So the attack on bankers in the immediate aftermath of the GFC was probably only very lightly populist because there really was a profound issue with the way banking was affecting our economy and a political response was sensible. Whereas the idea that a cabal of globalists are trying to control your mind through vaccines and chemtrails, and we need to overturn the whole system to free ourselves, is rabidly populist (and mercifully not that popular because it's completely insane).
Populism exists on all sides of the political spectrum.
Blaming the West, bankers, successful businessmen and industrialists for all the world's ills is populist. As is kneejerk banning of nuclear power and all forms of oil & gas immediately. Communism was essentially a direct appeal to populism.
It's characterised by playing to short-term base emotion against what are easily painted as elite or vested interests - which is why it is "popular" - rather than seeking to understand, channel and lead it into more reasoned, rational and longer-term policies that address the root causes.
I'm afraid I disagree completely. 'Populism' is a reaction to unpopular political decisions being taken. 'Populism' would have no cause to exist if our democracy was a true reflection of the 'popular' will. We're encouraged by media/films etc., to see large collections of people as baying, dangerous, panicking mobs, but actually where people have real control, you get peace and prosperity. In Switzerland, they have popular democracy. Their politicians have wanted to take them into the EU for the longest time, but the people refuse, and Switzerland's comparative economical position keeps improving. When there's an issue of substance, there's a referendum, the results of which politicians enact without demur. British people make similarly wise decisions when given the chance - perhaps every nation does.
Direct democracy has its benefits, but its flaws too.
If you want to see it done badly (and I'm curious if @rcs1000 would agree or disagree) look at California.
In California as I understand it, then they will vote under direct democracy to cut taxes, and to increase spending, and to run a balanced budget and all sorts of contradictory desires that are pretty much impossible to square.
Sometimes democracy is about making a choice, and each choice has a negative consequence, an "opportunity cost". Parliamentary democracy allows balancing those consequences, if you try to directly insist you get the positives but not the negatives then that's not making direct democracy better, its making it impossible.
To do it right is a real challenge and needs real safeguards.
I think it was in a facebook conversation. Which is less private than an email, but more private than a tweet. I accept it's a shade of grey - but it clearly wasn't intended for mass consumption. But my point was more that most people outside showbiz and academia would consider what she said entirely reasonable.
I concur with the OLB potential LAB 340 seats outcome.
This is based on me using the following non scientific approach:
No one likes CON or Rishi anymore
There is no real enthusiasm for Keir or LAB
But the first factor significantly outweighs the second for an electorate to reluctantly give LAB an 8% lead at the GE which will convert into around 340 seats
Another way of looking at it...
340 Labour and 100ish others (40 SNP, 40 LD, 20 NI) leaves 210 Conservatives. So the big two almost, but not quite, swapping scores.
If you offered that to thoughtful members of the blue team, I reckon they'd bite your arm off faster than an XL Bully.
Talking about the latter - the "ban" is seemingly continuing to unravel faster than a stuffed woollen doggie toy owned by one.
Won't be party political though, as SKS also signed up to the Sunak strategy. But it's another high profile Sunakian promise, like boats'n'inflation.
You are weirdly keen for this ban not to happen. Consistently so
I suggest you go away and watch the video of Ian Price being eaten alive in Staffordshire two days ago. Seriously. Everyone needs to watch it, to know what we are dealing with. It is extremely disturbing - as bad as an ISIS or Cartel video - and it’s in a garden in Middle England
I won’t link directly to it but it’s now so viral a Twitter search of “ian price video” will get you straight there
Be warned
Once you’ve seen it you will realise there is no choice, these animals are so big, dangerous and aggressive they need to be banned immediately. As @williamglenn said last night, the question isn’t “whether a ban will work” it’s whether the government can afford to wait til the end of the year
Soon enough there will be one of these videos involving a child
Please don't watch such a video. It is of a man being killed. This is not entertainment. It is not necessary to see this to understand why dogs which can kill a grown man are not suitable as pets. It is distasteful and disturbing to think of man's agony being shared in this way. Honestly, I understand why @Leon feels strongly about the issue and I share his concern but some common decency is also needed.
Related to the Russell Brand story, there have been some interesting articles on 'the great uncancelling' on Tortoise media. Essentially, they are observing a trend whereby cancelling isn't working, using the example of Johnny Depp in particular - these allegations are not sticking unless someone actually gets sent to jail. See also the fact that Andrew Tate is now back in business, and that the allegations (and court findings) against Trump have don't seem to be harming his political prospects. Elon Musk also made some vaguely supportive comments towards Brand yesterday. We may not be seeing 'progress' in the way that some posters think.
Yet Huw Edwards and Pip still remain out on a limb. Careers over. Neither have done anything illegal. Poor Pip has been thrown to the Wolves by people he used to consider friends.
But these people didn't trade on notoriety to start with, though.
I think the phenomenon is more of uncancellable notoriety. These people get stronger the more loudly they're condemned ; so provoking people is in fact their currency, and actually part of the currency of our times - "owning the libs", "I love liberal tears", "white womens' tears", "pale, male and stale tears": ; pick your self-perpetuating language of provocation from the left or right.
Wasn't there an author of a best-selling book around that same time who in similar vein bragged about his promiscuity, and who also became an Alt-Right maverick?
Some of these men left behind a lot of victims.
It seems to be a common theme across media and the arts.
I am reminded of a Hollywood producer who said that the original Polanski prosecution ruined the party atmosphere in Hollywood.
Yes, he said that. Out loud. To camera….
Roisin Murphy also appears to be doing very well with her new album despite the music industry's combined attemots to slience her (not that Roisin chose controversy - she made a private comment about puberty blockers that 90% of the population would be in total agreement with, which she subsequently (in my view needlessly) apologised for, but that was enough for a mass pile on .)
Although she seems to have been quietly removed from 6music and the BBC sites.
She got an uncritical writeup in the Guardian though, and still on their Culture front page. I also seem to recall her apology was of the sorry-you-felt-bad nature, though I may be wrong.
It wasn't entirely uncritical. To paraphrase: this is a very good album musically but she is guilty of wrongthink and therefore an awful person and therefore her album is a bad thing.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
And to think you've wasted that genius on, checks... travel writing.
I know. To think, I could have been a banker or a politician or a lawyer, instead I am forced to wander the lonely world, looking at things like rivers and stuff
Bonjour!
Where's this ?
It isn't the same charming French-Swiss border region that I also passed through this summer by train, is it ?
No, it’s the Gorge du Tarn in Lozere. A somewhat neglected corner of France. Amazingly
Aha. So it's actually that far from where I was, as I meant the French-Italian border region instead, east of Lyon. There are some similarities in the landscape, despite you being in the South-Central department.
That looks gorgeous, and I recommend some of the towns and landscapes I passed, too, from the look of them, such as the beautifully Proustishly named Pont de Beauvoisins. There's still so many relatively untouched beautiful regions of France.
It’s actually nowhere near Italy. It’s the last bit of northern France where it is really southern France. The moors of aubrac, the gorges du Tarn, the Causses and the Cevennes
It’s a startling change as you drive south of the Causses - suddenly it’s all ochre tiles and olive trees
So its part of southern France which you think looks like northern France ?
My first reaction at looking at that picture was that it was southern France.
It has a 'Jean de Florette' look to me.
Apologies. Misleading photo. That’s where I am now. That’s my view from my little cottage
It is indeed southern France. Languedoc. I drove down from lozere on Friday
Lozere is spectacular in places and it does feel tantalisingly torn between north and south
According to my Paris mole, the only reliable measure of latitude in France is whether they call it a pain au chocolat (north) or a chocolatine (south).
This is a fantastic article. It'd be great to see more of this kind of analysis here. That's regardless of the conclusion. Although I'd like to see a Labour majority, I don't have a strong view on whether it's likely or not, and insightful analysis of the data should always be welcome whichever way it points.
I concur with the OLB potential LAB 340 seats outcome.
This is based on me using the following non scientific approach:
No one likes CON or Rishi anymore
There is no real enthusiasm for Keir or LAB
But the first factor significantly outweighs the second for an electorate to reluctantly give LAB an 8% lead at the GE which will convert into around 340 seats
Another way of looking at it...
340 Labour and 100ish others (40 SNP, 40 LD, 20 NI) leaves 210 Conservatives. So the big two almost, but not quite, swapping scores.
If you offered that to thoughtful members of the blue team, I reckon they'd bite your arm off faster than an XL Bully.
Talking about the latter - the "ban" is seemingly continuing to unravel faster than a stuffed woollen doggie toy owned by one.
Won't be party political though, as SKS also signed up to the Sunak strategy. But it's another high profile Sunakian promise, like boats'n'inflation.
You are weirdly keen for this ban not to happen. Consistently so
I suggest you go away and watch the video of Ian Price being eaten alive in Staffordshire two days ago. Seriously. Everyone needs to watch it, to know what we are dealing with. It is extremely disturbing - as bad as an ISIS or Cartel video - and it’s in a garden in Middle England
I won’t link directly to it but it’s now so viral a Twitter search of “ian price video” will get you straight there
Be warned
Once you’ve seen it you will realise there is no choice, these animals are so big, dangerous and aggressive they need to be banned immediately. As @williamglenn said last night, the question isn’t “whether a ban will work” it’s whether the government can afford to wait til the end of the year
Soon enough there will be one of these videos involving a child
Please don't watch such a video. It is of a man being killed. This is not entertainment. It is not necessary to see this to understand why dogs which can kill a grown man are not suitable as pets. It is distasteful and disturbing to think of man's agony being shared in this way. Honestly, I understand why @Leon feels strongly about the issue and I share his concern but some common decency is also needed.
For the thousandth time, "populism" means self-consciously appealing to the "people" in a way that is, prima facie at least, antagonistic to elites. It's isn't a synonym for trying to be popular. You can appeal to ordinary people without trying to drag class warfare into it. If your political opinion involves bashing "elites" (Oxbridge graduates, Jews, the illuminati, North London liberals, the "wokerati", globalists, etc), then you're delving into populism. If you're just putting forward policies you think are right and condemning those you think are wrong, you aren't a populist.
Populism touches everything and is probably present in almost every political movement to some degree. Using the word "populism" thus refer to times when it's particularly concentrated or toxic, or largely divorced from any kind of coherence.
So the attack on bankers in the immediate aftermath of the GFC was probably only very lightly populist because there really was a profound issue with the way banking was affecting our economy and a political response was sensible. Whereas the idea that a cabal of globalists are trying to control your mind through vaccines and chemtrails, and we need to overturn the whole system to free ourselves, is rabidly populist (and mercifully not that popular because it's completely insane).
Populism exists on all sides of the political spectrum.
Blaming the West, bankers, successful businessmen and industrialists for all the world's ills is populist. As is kneejerk banning of nuclear power and all forms of oil & gas immediately. Communism was essentially a direct appeal to populism.
It's characterised by playing to short-term base emotion against what are easily painted as elite or vested interests - which is why it is "popular" - rather than seeking to understand, channel and lead it into more reasoned, rational and longer-term policies that address the root causes.
I'm afraid I disagree completely. 'Populism' is a reaction to unpopular political decisions being taken. 'Populism' would have no cause to exist if our democracy was a true reflection of the 'popular' will. We're encouraged by media/films etc., to see large collections of people as baying, dangerous, panicking mobs, but actually where people have real control, you get peace and prosperity. In Switzerland, they have popular democracy. Their politicians have wanted to take them into the EU for the longest time, but the people refuse, and Switzerland's comparative economical position keeps improving. When there's an issue of substance, there's a referendum, the results of which politicians enact without demur. British people make similarly wise decisions when given the chance - perhaps every nation does.
Direct democracy has its benefits, but its flaws too.
If you want to see it done badly (and I'm curious if @rcs1000 would agree or disagree) look at California.
In California as I understand it, then they will vote under direct democracy to cut taxes, and to increase spending, and to run a balanced budget and all sorts of contradictory desires that are pretty much impossible to square.
Sometimes democracy is about making a choice, and each choice has a negative consequence. Parliamentary democracy allows balancing those consequences, if you try to directly insist you get the positives but not the negatives then that's not making direct democracy better, its making it impossible.
To do it right is a real challenge and needs real safeguards.
That's exactly right: voters regularly put in place contradictory ballot initiatives, which the legislature then gets tied up in knots attempting to implement, even though it is patently impossible (sometimes) to run a balanced budget, not raise taxes and spend [x] on education or high speed rail.
And that is exactly why we have representative democracy; to allow us to delegate the relative priorities. If we don't like the choices the representatives make, we can always change them.
Which is why I would say the danger is not populism (or should I say populist policies) per se. So long as the ballot box remains an effective mechanism for evicting those leaders and parties who fail to perform, then it is (almost all) the checks and balances you need.
But when that gets removed, then that's when shit really happens. It is the undermining of democracy and democratic institutions which is to be feared, not the specific policies of the populists.
I concur with the OLB potential LAB 340 seats outcome.
This is based on me using the following non scientific approach:
No one likes CON or Rishi anymore
There is no real enthusiasm for Keir or LAB
But the first factor significantly outweighs the second for an electorate to reluctantly give LAB an 8% lead at the GE which will convert into around 340 seats
Another way of looking at it...
340 Labour and 100ish others (40 SNP, 40 LD, 20 NI) leaves 210 Conservatives. So the big two almost, but not quite, swapping scores.
If you offered that to thoughtful members of the blue team, I reckon they'd bite your arm off faster than an XL Bully.
Talking about the latter - the "ban" is seemingly continuing to unravel faster than a stuffed woollen doggie toy owned by one.
Won't be party political though, as SKS also signed up to the Sunak strategy. But it's another high profile Sunakian promise, like boats'n'inflation.
You are weirdly keen for this ban not to happen. Consistently so
I suggest you go away and watch the video of Ian Price being eaten alive in Staffordshire two days ago. Seriously. Everyone needs to watch it, to know what we are dealing with. It is extremely disturbing - as bad as an ISIS or Cartel video - and it’s in a garden in Middle England
I won’t link directly to it but it’s now so viral a Twitter search of “ian price video” will get you straight there
Be warned
Once you’ve seen it you will realise there is no choice, these animals are so big, dangerous and aggressive they need to be banned immediately. As @williamglenn said last night, the question isn’t “whether a ban will work” it’s whether the government can afford to wait til the end of the year
Soon enough there will be one of these videos involving a child
Please don't watch such a video. It is of a man being killed. This is not entertainment. It is not necessary to see this to understand why dogs which can kill a grown man are not suitable as pets. It is distasteful and disturbing to think of man's agony being shared in this way. Honestly, I understand why @Leon feels strongly about the issue and I share his concern but some common decency is also needed.
I unwittingly saw a video about 15 years ago of a man having his head sawn off. It stays with you. It's best avoided.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
And to think you've wasted that genius on, checks... travel writing.
I know. To think, I could have been a banker or a politician or a lawyer, instead I am forced to wander the lonely world, looking at things like rivers and stuff
Bonjour!
Where's this ?
It isn't the same charming French-Swiss border region that I also passed through this summer by train, is it ?
No, it’s the Gorge du Tarn in Lozere. A somewhat neglected corner of France. Amazingly
As a "stagiaire" student in 1964 I went on a study tour of the Midi by coach. My travelling companion, seated next to me on the coach, as it happens was Peter Lilley. The Gorges du Tarn was a highlight along with the red cathedral/castle at Albi and the quantity of champagne offered by the local authorities and quaffed at each stop on the route
I think Labour is on course for a clear majority and it won't even be close.
I think on the range of likely possibilities it's certainly a higher chance than many other ones, like Tory most seats.
I think the evidence is staring us right in the face, but people don't believe it.
Sure, that support for Labour is very soft but that's not going to go away until the current administration is evicted in 14 months time.
I think that's pretty plausible. The question then is, when the voters are thoroughly sick of Labour's failure to do anything to tackle Britain's problems, where next will they turn?
Will they turn to the Tories? Either because the Tories rapidly sorted themselves out, or simply for want of any alternative.
Will Farage, or some other far-right populist or crypto-Nazi, harvest the burgeoning discontent?
The Greens?
The LIBDEMS? (No lauighing at the back!)
British politics in the mid to late 2020s looks like it will be wide open, with the public desperate to be convinced that someone has the answers that are required to the problems faced by the country.
In the US, they're very keen on standardized testing, which is similar to IQ.
My son always hits it out the park on the reading comprehension, typically scoring in the 92nd to 98th percentile. But on spatial reasoning, he's typically middle of the road (at best), usually coming in somewhere between the 40th and 55th percentile.
I always wonder about kids like that: who score very well on one part of a test, but averagely on another. If he'd been taking the 11+ in the past, would he have gone to Secondary Modern because one part of his scores was not that great.
That’s why, 70+ years ago, I was taught how to “pass” IQ tests.
My middle daughter's 11+ scores were very spiky. Very good at comprehension, good at verbal reasoning, ok at maths. On her overall score she passed (which is how they do it in Trafford) - but had you had to pass all three separately, she probably wouldn't have.
IIRC passing all three is the situation in Kent. Grandson 2, clever little chap, did so but his younger sister didn’t. She’s much more drama etc directed.
On populism, it also has to be said that there is often a reverse assumption at work, among those who most decry it ; technocracy. The populist isn't just , as for some, a byword for authortitarism, anti-democracy, or some form of damage to his or her country's constitutional order, but also, for others, the person who is furthest from international economic realism, and so must be saved by the technocrat.
This works often, but not always ; Lula, in Brazil, as mentioned, ignored economic consensus and the strictures of the West and still grew his economy and society. The Iranian regime of Mossadeq and the Chilean one of Allende were making some forms of modest economic and social progress before the interventions of the West. It's complicated.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
If you really think IQ can be measured to the tenth of a point, that is rather revealing.
If you really can’t see a joke when it is says “this is obviously a joke” then….
Sadly, my IQ is insufficient to allow me to divine when you are joking about one of your pet obsessions.
I’m not obsessed with IQ per se, I AM intrigued by the cognitive dissonance required to dismiss it entirely as a metric. IQ is a flawed measurement but it is still useful, and it definitely measures something - speed of reasoning? - that is remarkably helpful in industrialised technological societies.
Someone with an IQ of 130 will be obviously “smarter” than someone with an IQ of 70. Likewise, barring exceptional sporting or artistic talent in the low IQ person, the high IQ person will nearly always do better in life - earn more, meet a partner, buy a house, have a career
The fact that IQ tests sometimes give uncomfortable results is not a reason to dismiss them entirely, however much we might wish it so
IQ is a series of tests that individually do a reasonable job of measuring cognitive ability in various different areas.
At the same time, the weighting between - say - spatial and verbal reasoning is entirely subjective. Who's to say one should be a 12, and the other a 20? Why not the other way around? And why is there no measure of the ability to pick up new concepts quickly? Or indeed, anything about short term memory capacity, which some other tests rate as a very important part of cognition.
It is also provably the case that with a little training on tests, you can move your baseline by 20 points or so. Which tells you that at least a chunk of what IQ measures is learned, rather than innate.
So, I don't think one should throw them away. But I wouldn't imbue them with some magical power to divine the intelligence of a person. (I would also point out that once you're about one standard deviation away from the mean, they become increasingly poor at predicting income.)
It always strikes me how the kind of person who is keenest on rubbishing IQ tests, suddenly becomes a keen evangelist for IQ tests when they can use a low IQ score to save some poor benighted criminal from the noose
Which makes perfect sense for the same reason that people laughed at your putting a decimal point on an IQ score.
Realistically the only way to take an IQ score semi 'seriously' is to add a +- 20 points margin of error to it.
If someone's IQ is below 70, then they've got real issues.
If someone's IQ is above 120 then they're bright, on what IQ measures at least (maybe not emotional or other issues).
Comparing a 97 to a 107 though? Saying the 97 is below average, while the 107 is brighter? Nah, that's just bullshit.
Arguments about IQ remind me of arguments about BMI. Both measures have big weaknesses that mean we shouldn't elevate them to the final word on intelligence or health, but they can still be useful in some contexts.
Where they're different is that IQ is probably most useful when looking at individuals, but BMI is probably most useful when looking at populations - but then I would say that, given that I score comfortably above the median on both measures...
I think Labour is on course for a clear majority and it won't even be close.
I think on the range of likely possibilities it's certainly a higher chance than many other ones, like Tory most seats.
I think the evidence is staring us right in the face, but people don't believe it.
Sure, that support for Labour is very soft but that's not going to go away until the current administration is evicted in 14 months time.
I think that's pretty plausible. The question then is, when the voters are thoroughly sick of Labour's failure to do anything to tackle Britain's problems, where next will they turn?
Will they turn to the Tories? Either because the Tories rapidly sorted themselves out, or simply for want of any alternative.
Will Farage, or some other far-right populist or crypto-Nazi, harvest the burgeoning discontent?
The Greens?
The LIBDEMS? (No lauighing at the back!)
British politics in the mid to late 2020s looks like it will be wide open, with the public desperate to be convinced that someone has the answers that are required to the problems faced by the country.
We have to hope it will be someone sensible telling the hard truths. Rather than malevolent peddling comforting fantasies. Pat experience makes me less than hopeful.
I think Labour is on course for a clear majority and it won't even be close.
I think on the range of likely possibilities it's certainly a higher chance than many other ones, like Tory most seats.
I think the evidence is staring us right in the face, but people don't believe it.
Sure, that support for Labour is very soft but that's not going to go away until the current administration is evicted in 14 months time.
My sense is that after partygate and Boris' antics the public were still willing to give the Tories one more chance. But after the Truss fiasco, I think much of the public decided a change of government was needed and switched off. To win them back Sunak would have to have done a exceptional job (and though he is better than his two predecessors, he hasn't) or Starmer would have to made an enormous mistake (which he seems determined to avoid given his ming vase strategy).
Boris could have survived either the parties or the financial sleaze. But not both.
The Conservatives could have survived Boris or Truss. But not both.
I think Labour is on course for a clear majority and it won't even be close.
I think on the range of likely possibilities it's certainly a higher chance than many other ones, like Tory most seats.
I think the evidence is staring us right in the face, but people don't believe it.
Sure, that support for Labour is very soft but that's not going to go away until the current administration is evicted in 14 months time.
My sense is that after partygate and Boris' antics the public were still willing to give the Tories one more chance. But after the Truss fiasco, I think much of the public decided a change of government was needed and switched off. To win them back Sunak would have to have done a exceptional job (and though he is better than his two predecessors, he hasn't) or Starmer would have to made an enormous mistake (which he seems determined to avoid given his ming vase strategy).
I think Sunak is clever, polished and hard-working but is politically inept.
That said, he's also unlucky. He'd have won the 2015 election against Miliband easily.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
And to think you've wasted that genius on, checks... travel writing.
I know. To think, I could have been a banker or a politician or a lawyer, instead I am forced to wander the lonely world, looking at things like rivers and stuff
Bonjour!
Where's this ?
It isn't the same charming French-Swiss border region that I also passed through this summer by train, is it ?
No, it’s the Gorge du Tarn in Lozere. A somewhat neglected corner of France. Amazingly
Aha. So it's actually that far from where I was, as I meant the French-Italian border region instead, east of Lyon. There are some similarities in the landscape, despite you being in the South-Central department.
That looks gorgeous, and I recommend some of the towns and landscapes I passed, too, from the look of them, such as the beautifully Proustishly named Pont de Beauvoisins. There's still so many relatively untouched beautiful regions of France.
It’s actually nowhere near Italy. It’s the last bit of northern France where it is really southern France. The moors of aubrac, the gorges du Tarn, the Causses and the Cevennes
It’s a startling change as you drive south of the Causses - suddenly it’s all ochre tiles and olive trees
So its part of southern France which you think looks like northern France ?
My first reaction at looking at that picture was that it was southern France.
It has a 'Jean de Florette' look to me.
Apologies. Misleading photo. That’s where I am now. That’s my view from my little cottage
It is indeed southern France. Languedoc. I drove down from lozere on Friday
Lozere is spectacular in places and it does feel tantalisingly torn between north and south
According to my Paris mole, the only reliable measure of latitude in France is whether they call it a pain au chocolat (north) or a chocolatine (south).
I quite like the “lines” where a preference over certain consumables matches different broad cultural traits. There is the “beer belt” which is largely the Northern European preference for beer v the southern for wine, the Rostigraben (Rosti Trench) in Switzerland between the French and German cantons. I seem to remember another geographic/cultural split between potato countries and som other choice in Europe as well.
Related to the Russell Brand story, there have been some interesting articles on 'the great uncancelling' on Tortoise media. Essentially, they are observing a trend whereby cancelling isn't working, using the example of Johnny Depp in particular - these allegations are not sticking unless someone actually gets sent to jail. See also the fact that Andrew Tate is now back in business, and that the allegations (and court findings) against Trump have don't seem to be harming his political prospects. Elon Musk also made some vaguely supportive comments towards Brand yesterday. We may not be seeing 'progress' in the way that some posters think.
Yet Huw Edwards and Pip still remain out on a limb. Careers over. Neither have done anything illegal. Poor Pip has been thrown to the Wolves by people he used to consider friends.
But these people didn't trade on notoriety to start with, though.
I think the phenomenon is more of uncancellable notoriety. These people get stronger the more loudly they're condemned ; so provoking people is in fact their currency, and actually part of the currency of our times - "owning the libs", "I love liberal tears", "white womens' tears", "pale, male and stale tears": ; pick your self-perpetuating language of provocation from the left or right.
Wasn't there an author of a best-selling book around that same time who in similar vein bragged about his promiscuity, and who also became an Alt-Right maverick?
Some of these men left behind a lot of victims.
It seems to be a common theme across media and the arts.
I am reminded of a Hollywood producer who said that the original Polanski prosecution ruined the party atmosphere in Hollywood.
Yes, he said that. Out loud. To camera….
Roisin Murphy also appears to be doing very well with her new album despite the music industry's combined attemots to slience her (not that Roisin chose controversy - she made a private comment about puberty blockers that 90% of the population would be in total agreement with, which she subsequently (in my view needlessly) apologised for, but that was enough for a mass pile on .)
Although she seems to have been quietly removed from 6music and the BBC sites.
She got an uncritical writeup in the Guardian though, and still on their Culture front page. I also seem to recall her apology was of the sorry-you-felt-bad nature, though I may be wrong.
It wasn't entirely uncritical. To paraphrase: this is a very good album musically but she is guilty of wrongthink and therefore an awful person and therefore her album is a bad thing.
I saw a hilariously over the top negative review of Starfield; you see it wasn't that the game was bad, it was that Bethesda wasn't sufficiently transfriendly.
Fortunately (as the decidedly average Hogwarts Legacy game has shown), it turns out that these review bombs seem to do very little in the real world to dent demand,
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
Always be wary of people who can quote you their IQ. I knew mine 43 years ago when I had to take a test for a job. I have no idea what it was now.
I last took an IQ test decades ago. Since then, I've aged, and had meningitis, which sodded about with my short-term memory. I wish I'd done IQ tests and memory tests right before the illness, to see how there were affected, and to see how far it has recovered.
I have little doubt that my 'official' IQ has probably decreased as I've aged, if only because I used to love those sorts of puzzles and questions as a kid, and I don't do them now. But my amount of general knowledge, and experience, has increased.
@OLB - The article is great. The small amount of variation in c shows you are on the right lines.
On IQ: it's rubbish. There's no "there" there. But when I was 12 my mental age was 96. I wish it had only been 36. Or even 24 for that matter.
One of these days, somebody will annoy an awful lot of people by publishing a book on how to answer the types of question that have to be answered to get >140 on the kinds of puzzle that make up IQ tests.
@Leon - The Languedoc, huh? Be careful not to ask too many questions about the Abbé Boudet who didn't have time for simony because he was too busy recording information about the aliens in his heavily coded work on etymology.
I think Labour will get across the line, but I disagree with the idea that we're in Sunak's honeymoon period. He didn't get a honeymoon!
Yes that's an interesting question. Personally I think every leader gets a honeymoon and his only way from here is down, but that's something we can track in the data in the coming months.
I reckon he had his honeymoon from day 1 (24 October) to the Autumn Statement (17 November). Since then, it's been increasing disappointment building into bubbling resentment. And whilst turning that round is always possible, I don't really see how he does it.
The honeymoon wasn't really based on anything more than the sheer fucking relief that La Belle Dame sans Clue had gone. I don't think there is anything like genuine enthusiasm for the little dweeb anywhere.
My cousin, whose in-laws are from Richmond, has told me for years that he's a popular local MP. FWIW.
I don't think he's universally unpopular, but dweeb seems about right.
I think Labour is on course for a clear majority and it won't even be close.
I think on the range of likely possibilities it's certainly a higher chance than many other ones, like Tory most seats.
I think the evidence is staring us right in the face, but people don't believe it.
Sure, that support for Labour is very soft but that's not going to go away until the current administration is evicted in 14 months time.
My sense is that after partygate and Boris' antics the public were still willing to give the Tories one more chance. But after the Truss fiasco, I think much of the public decided a change of government was needed and switched off. To win them back Sunak would have to have done a exceptional job (and though he is better than his two predecessors, he hasn't) or Starmer would have to made an enormous mistake (which he seems determined to avoid given his ming vase strategy).
I think Sunak is clever, polished and hard-working but is politically inept.
That said, he's also unlucky. He'd have won the 2015 election against Miliband easily.
Different times.
And William Hague would probably have beaten Gordon Brown in 2010 and Neil Kinnock would likely have beaten John Major in 1997.
Some election winners are natural campaigners eg Cameron, Boris and Blair, for others provided they are not too extreme whether they win or not is often down to luck ie avoiding a charismatic leader of the opposing party and taking over when the mood is for change
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
And to think you've wasted that genius on, checks... travel writing.
I know. To think, I could have been a banker or a politician or a lawyer, instead I am forced to wander the lonely world, looking at things like rivers and stuff
Bonjour!
Where's this ?
It isn't the same charming French-Swiss border region that I also passed through this summer by train, is it ?
No, it’s the Gorge du Tarn in Lozere. A somewhat neglected corner of France. Amazingly
Aha. So it's actually that far from where I was, as I meant the French-Italian border region instead, east of Lyon. There are some similarities in the landscape, despite you being in the South-Central department.
That looks gorgeous, and I recommend some of the towns and landscapes I passed, too, from the look of them, such as the beautifully Proustishly named Pont de Beauvoisins. There's still so many relatively untouched beautiful regions of France.
It’s actually nowhere near Italy. It’s the last bit of northern France where it is really southern France. The moors of aubrac, the gorges du Tarn, the Causses and the Cevennes
It’s a startling change as you drive south of the Causses - suddenly it’s all ochre tiles and olive trees
So its part of southern France which you think looks like northern France ?
My first reaction at looking at that picture was that it was southern France.
It has a 'Jean de Florette' look to me.
Apologies. Misleading photo. That’s where I am now. That’s my view from my little cottage
It is indeed southern France. Languedoc. I drove down from lozere on Friday
Lozere is spectacular in places and it does feel tantalisingly torn between north and south
According to my Paris mole, the only reliable measure of latitude in France is whether they call it a pain au chocolat (north) or a chocolatine (south).
I quite like the “lines” where a preference over certain consumables matches different broad cultural traits. There is the “beer belt” which is largely the Northern European preference for beer v the southern for wine, the Rostigraben (Rosti Trench) in Switzerland between the French and German cantons. I seem to remember another geographic/cultural split between potato countries and som other choice in Europe as well.
You'll like the Barassi Line, then. If not already aware of it.
100,000 overdose deaths in this year in the US; the most ever and it’s only September. Most involve fentanyl.
100,000! That’s roughly a Bath or a Carlisle losing every single living soul in the space of 9 months. An obscene statistic. I worry we’ll see the same here.
Might go some way to solving the demographic problem ...
It's struck me more than once that Leon has railed about the fentanyl disaster (and I agree with him there)... while also advocating old-age euthanasia by means of hard drugs.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
And to think you've wasted that genius on, checks... travel writing.
I know. To think, I could have been a banker or a politician or a lawyer, instead I am forced to wander the lonely world, looking at things like rivers and stuff
Bonjour!
Where's this ?
It isn't the same charming French-Swiss border region that I also passed through this summer by train, is it ?
No, it’s the Gorge du Tarn in Lozere. A somewhat neglected corner of France. Amazingly
Aha. So it's actually that far from where I was, as I meant the French-Italian border region instead, east of Lyon. There are some similarities in the landscape, despite you being in the South-Central department.
That looks gorgeous, and I recommend some of the towns and landscapes I passed, too, from the look of them, such as the beautifully Proustishly named Pont de Beauvoisins. There's still so many relatively untouched beautiful regions of France.
It’s actually nowhere near Italy. It’s the last bit of northern France where it is really southern France. The moors of aubrac, the gorges du Tarn, the Causses and the Cevennes
It’s a startling change as you drive south of the Causses - suddenly it’s all ochre tiles and olive trees
So its part of southern France which you think looks like northern France ?
My first reaction at looking at that picture was that it was southern France.
It has a 'Jean de Florette' look to me.
Apologies. Misleading photo. That’s where I am now. That’s my view from my little cottage
It is indeed southern France. Languedoc. I drove down from lozere on Friday
Lozere is spectacular in places and it does feel tantalisingly torn between north and south
According to my Paris mole, the only reliable measure of latitude in France is whether they call it a pain au chocolat (north) or a chocolatine (south).
I quite like the “lines” where a preference over certain consumables matches different broad cultural traits. There is the “beer belt” which is largely the Northern European preference for beer v the southern for wine, the Rostigraben (Rosti Trench) in Switzerland between the French and German cantons. I seem to remember another geographic/cultural split between potato countries and som other choice in Europe as well.
In the US, they're very keen on standardized testing, which is similar to IQ.
My son always hits it out the park on the reading comprehension, typically scoring in the 92nd to 98th percentile. But on spatial reasoning, he's typically middle of the road (at best), usually coming in somewhere between the 40th and 55th percentile.
I always wonder about kids like that: who score very well on one part of a test, but averagely on another. If he'd been taking the 11+ in the past, would he have gone to Secondary Modern because one part of his scores was not that great.
Depends whether the grammar took the top 10% or the top 25%, some grammars are more selective than others. Though 11 and 13+ are mainly verbal and numerical reasoning rather than spatial reasoning too like iq tests
Thanks to @OnlyLivingBoy for an interesting header, though I confess the maths was over my head.
I think the chances of a near total collapse of the Tory vote are quite high and, therefore, that Labour could end up with a substantial majority. Sunak simply does not have a clue what he is doing and has ended up in a senior job far too soon.
Before the rains come I need to do some deadheading and enjoy my salvia uliginosa - a salvia with the most exquisite azure blue flowers. Then it will be time to settle down with the J Parker's catalogue and order spring bulbs for planting in the next few weeks or so.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
If you really think IQ can be measured to the tenth of a point, that is rather revealing.
If you really can’t see a joke when it is says “this is obviously a joke” then….
Sadly, my IQ is insufficient to allow me to divine when you are joking about one of your pet obsessions.
I’m not obsessed with IQ per se, I AM intrigued by the cognitive dissonance required to dismiss it entirely as a metric. IQ is a flawed measurement but it is still useful, and it definitely measures something - speed of reasoning? - that is remarkably helpful in industrialised technological societies.
Someone with an IQ of 130 will be obviously “smarter” than someone with an IQ of 70. Likewise, barring exceptional sporting or artistic talent in the low IQ person, the high IQ person will nearly always do better in life - earn more, meet a partner, buy a house, have a career
The fact that IQ tests sometimes give uncomfortable results is not a reason to dismiss them entirely, however much we might wish it so
IQ is a series of tests that individually do a reasonable job of measuring cognitive ability in various different areas.
At the same time, the weighting between - say - spatial and verbal reasoning is entirely subjective.
And it is provably the case that with a little training on tests, you can move your baseline by 20 points or so. Which tells you that at least a chunk of what IQ measures is learned, rather than innate.
Many moons ago in a discussion with hyufd I highlighted some of the training you could do/give to boost your IQ score. There are some very simple techniques.
There are but you are very unlikely to be able to go from a 70 IQ to a 140 IQ, there are limits.
IQ can measure education level but can also measure genetic intelligence which is inherited
I concur with the OLB potential LAB 340 seats outcome.
This is based on me using the following non scientific approach:
No one likes CON or Rishi anymore
There is no real enthusiasm for Keir or LAB
But the first factor significantly outweighs the second for an electorate to reluctantly give LAB an 8% lead at the GE which will convert into around 340 seats
Another way of looking at it...
340 Labour and 100ish others (40 SNP, 40 LD, 20 NI) leaves 210 Conservatives. So the big two almost, but not quite, swapping scores.
If you offered that to thoughtful members of the blue team, I reckon they'd bite your arm off faster than an XL Bully.
Talking about the latter - the "ban" is seemingly continuing to unravel faster than a stuffed woollen doggie toy owned by one.
Won't be party political though, as SKS also signed up to the Sunak strategy. But it's another high profile Sunakian promise, like boats'n'inflation.
You are weirdly keen for this ban not to happen. Consistently so
I suggest you go away and watch the video of Ian Price being eaten alive in Staffordshire two days ago. Seriously. Everyone needs to watch it, to know what we are dealing with. It is extremely disturbing - as bad as an ISIS or Cartel video - and it’s in a garden in Middle England
I won’t link directly to it but it’s now so viral a Twitter search of “ian price video” will get you straight there
Be warned
Once you’ve seen it you will realise there is no choice, these animals are so big, dangerous and aggressive they need to be banned immediately. As @williamglenn said last night, the question isn’t “whether a ban will work” it’s whether the government can afford to wait til the end of the year
Soon enough there will be one of these videos involving a child
Please don't watch such a video. It is of a man being killed. This is not entertainment. It is not necessary to see this to understand why dogs which can kill a grown man are not suitable as pets. It is distasteful and disturbing to think of man's agony being shared in this way. Honestly, I understand why @Leon feels strongly about the issue and I share his concern but some common decency is also needed.
I unwittingly saw a video about 15 years ago of a man having his head sawn off. It stays with you. It's best avoided.
I've never sought to watch Funkytown, (the Mexican torture video), but even just reading about it made me wish that I had not done so.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
If you really think IQ can be measured to the tenth of a point, that is rather revealing.
If you really can’t see a joke when it is says “this is obviously a joke” then….
Sadly, my IQ is insufficient to allow me to divine when you are joking about one of your pet obsessions.
I’m not obsessed with IQ per se, I AM intrigued by the cognitive dissonance required to dismiss it entirely as a metric. IQ is a flawed measurement but it is still useful, and it definitely measures something - speed of reasoning? - that is remarkably helpful in industrialised technological societies.
Someone with an IQ of 130 will be obviously “smarter” than someone with an IQ of 70. Likewise, barring exceptional sporting or artistic talent in the low IQ person, the high IQ person will nearly always do better in life - earn more, meet a partner, buy a house, have a career
The fact that IQ tests sometimes give uncomfortable results is not a reason to dismiss them entirely, however much we might wish it so
IQ is a series of tests that individually do a reasonable job of measuring cognitive ability in various different areas.
At the same time, the weighting between - say - spatial and verbal reasoning is entirely subjective.
And it is provably the case that with a little training on tests, you can move your baseline by 20 points or so. Which tells you that at least a chunk of what IQ measures is learned, rather than innate.
Many moons ago in a discussion with hyufd I highlighted some of the training you could do/give to boost your IQ score. There are some very simple techniques.
Quite. When I was young I had an IQ test. Some of the things there were of types I had never encountered before. Even some prac tice would have helped enormously.
It didn't affect my schooling, but I can't help thinking: they used to divide childrten into grammar sheep and tech modern goats on that basis??
Arguing with Leon about IQ is an indicator of low EQ.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
And to think you've wasted that genius on, checks... travel writing.
I know. To think, I could have been a banker or a politician or a lawyer, instead I am forced to wander the lonely world, looking at things like rivers and stuff
Bonjour!
Where's this ?
It isn't the same charming French-Swiss border region that I also passed through this summer by train, is it ?
No, it’s the Gorge du Tarn in Lozere. A somewhat neglected corner of France. Amazingly
Aha. So it's actually that far from where I was, as I meant the French-Italian border region instead, east of Lyon. There are some similarities in the landscape, despite you being in the South-Central department.
That looks gorgeous, and I recommend some of the towns and landscapes I passed, too, from the look of them, such as the beautifully Proustishly named Pont de Beauvoisins. There's still so many relatively untouched beautiful regions of France.
It’s actually nowhere near Italy. It’s the last bit of northern France where it is really southern France. The moors of aubrac, the gorges du Tarn, the Causses and the Cevennes
It’s a startling change as you drive south of the Causses - suddenly it’s all ochre tiles and olive trees
So its part of southern France which you think looks like northern France ?
My first reaction at looking at that picture was that it was southern France.
It has a 'Jean de Florette' look to me.
Apologies. Misleading photo. That’s where I am now. That’s my view from my little cottage
It is indeed southern France. Languedoc. I drove down from lozere on Friday
Lozere is spectacular in places and it does feel tantalisingly torn between north and south
According to my Paris mole, the only reliable measure of latitude in France is whether they call it a pain au chocolat (north) or a chocolatine (south).
I quite like the “lines” where a preference over certain consumables matches different broad cultural traits. There is the “beer belt” which is largely the Northern European preference for beer v the southern for wine, the Rostigraben (Rosti Trench) in Switzerland between the French and German cantons. I seem to remember another geographic/cultural split between potato countries and som other choice in Europe as well.
I think "Beer Belt" is more appropriate as a term for the male version of the female "Muffin Top".
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
And to think you've wasted that genius on, checks... travel writing.
I know. To think, I could have been a banker or a politician or a lawyer, instead I am forced to wander the lonely world, looking at things like rivers and stuff
Bonjour!
Where's this ?
It isn't the same charming French-Swiss border region that I also passed through this summer by train, is it ?
No, it’s the Gorge du Tarn in Lozere. A somewhat neglected corner of France. Amazingly
Aha. So it's actually that far from where I was, as I meant the French-Italian border region instead, east of Lyon. There are some similarities in the landscape, despite you being in the South-Central department.
That looks gorgeous, and I recommend some of the towns and landscapes I passed, too, from the look of them, such as the beautifully Proustishly named Pont de Beauvoisins. There's still so many relatively untouched beautiful regions of France.
It’s actually nowhere near Italy. It’s the last bit of northern France where it is really southern France. The moors of aubrac, the gorges du Tarn, the Causses and the Cevennes
It’s a startling change as you drive south of the Causses - suddenly it’s all ochre tiles and olive trees
So its part of southern France which you think looks like northern France ?
My first reaction at looking at that picture was that it was southern France.
It has a 'Jean de Florette' look to me.
Apologies. Misleading photo. That’s where I am now. That’s my view from my little cottage
It is indeed southern France. Languedoc. I drove down from lozere on Friday
Lozere is spectacular in places and it does feel tantalisingly torn between north and south
According to my Paris mole, the only reliable measure of latitude in France is whether they call it a pain au chocolat (north) or a chocolatine (south).
I quite like the “lines” where a preference over certain consumables matches different broad cultural traits. There is the “beer belt” which is largely the Northern European preference for beer v the southern for wine, the Rostigraben (Rosti Trench) in Switzerland between the French and German cantons. I seem to remember another geographic/cultural split between potato countries and som other choice in Europe as well.
I've heard it said that every European country has a grey and green North where the industry and wet weather is and a yellow and brown South where the beaches and vineyards are.
100,000 overdose deaths in this year in the US; the most ever and it’s only September. Most involve fentanyl.
100,000! That’s roughly a Bath or a Carlisle losing every single living soul in the space of 9 months. An obscene statistic. I worry we’ll see the same here.
Might go some way to solving the demographic problem ...
It's struck me more than once that Leon has railed about the fentanyl disaster (and I agree with him there)... while also advocating old-age euthanasia by means of hard drugs.
Except it's mainly people who should be in their prime who are dying from drug overdoses:
On populism, it also has to be said that there is often a reverse assumption at work, among those who most decry it ; technocracy. The populist isn't just , as for some, a byword for authortitarism, anti-democracy, or some form of damage to his or her country's constitutional order, but also, for others, the person who is furthest from international economic realism, and so must be saved by the technocrat.
This works often, but not always ; Lula, in Brazil, as mentioned, ignored economic consensus and the strictures of the West and still grew his economy and society. The Iranian regime of Mossadeq and the Chilean one of Allende were making some forms of modest economic and social progress before the interventions of the West. It's complicated.
The problem with Lula is that he is pro-Putin. The problem with Allende was that he was pro-Soviet.
Brief comment on the OP. It's a nice and simple analysis, and very welcome. On the data, the number of seats in England went up from 516 in 1979 to 533 at the last election. Probably not enough to have a big effect, but seats expressed as a proportion of the total would have been better. On the regression scatter diagram the three rightmost observations are New Labour, and perhaps a little exceptional and probably influential for the estimated slope.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
If you really think IQ can be measured to the tenth of a point, that is rather revealing.
If you really can’t see a joke when it is says “this is obviously a joke” then….
Sadly, my IQ is insufficient to allow me to divine when you are joking about one of your pet obsessions.
I’m not obsessed with IQ per se, I AM intrigued by the cognitive dissonance required to dismiss it entirely as a metric. IQ is a flawed measurement but it is still useful, and it definitely measures something - speed of reasoning? - that is remarkably helpful in industrialised technological societies.
Someone with an IQ of 130 will be obviously “smarter” than someone with an IQ of 70. Likewise, barring exceptional sporting or artistic talent in the low IQ person, the high IQ person will nearly always do better in life - earn more, meet a partner, buy a house, have a career
The fact that IQ tests sometimes give uncomfortable results is not a reason to dismiss them entirely, however much we might wish it so
IQ is a series of tests that individually do a reasonable job of measuring cognitive ability in various different areas.
At the same time, the weighting between - say - spatial and verbal reasoning is entirely subjective.
And it is provably the case that with a little training on tests, you can move your baseline by 20 points or so. Which tells you that at least a chunk of what IQ measures is learned, rather than innate.
Many moons ago in a discussion with hyufd I highlighted some of the training you could do/give to boost your IQ score. There are some very simple techniques.
There are but you are very unlikely to be able to go from a 70 IQ to a 140 IQ, there are limits.
IQ can measure education level but can also measure genetic intelligence which is inherited
IQ *cannot* measure "genetic intelligence", whatver that means. It can only measure some sort of score to do with brain capacity, including experience, training, and general cultural upbringing (language, notably, used in the test).
So I used to think Russell Brand's switch to become an alt-right idiot was a commercial one. But maybe it was because he knew this shit was coming and he calculated the alt-right conspiracy nutjob crowd would be more likely to stick by him?
Has Roger offered his thoughts on this yet?
I won’t feel entirely comfortable following my leanings against Brand until Roger has defended him
Brand is 'talent', and therefore any woman not wanting to be abused by him should just go and become hairdressers...
It's sad that lots of people still have such a mindset.
What talent?
A good question, hence why I put it in quotes.
But as he spent years on TV and radio, and was a minor star in Hollywood (anyone wanting a definition of Hell, have a child who loves to watch the film 'Hop', where Brand voices the main character...), it can be assumed he has a talent, even if it is only in narcissism.
Anyway, my comment was mainly a reference to some comments made by another poster, long before MeToo...
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
And to think you've wasted that genius on, checks... travel writing.
I know. To think, I could have been a banker or a politician or a lawyer, instead I am forced to wander the lonely world, looking at things like rivers and stuff
Bonjour!
Where's this ?
It isn't the same charming French-Swiss border region that I also passed through this summer by train, is it ?
No, it’s the Gorge du Tarn in Lozere. A somewhat neglected corner of France. Amazingly
As a "stagiaire" student in 1964 I went on a study tour of the Midi by coach. My travelling companion, seated next to me on the coach, as it happens was Peter Lilley. The Gorges du Tarn was a highlight along with the red cathedral/castle at Albi and the quantity of champagne offered by the local authorities and quaffed at each stop on the route
The Gorges have become super popular as a cycle touring destination. I have a Saint Malo to Nice half sketched out that goes that way. One of these days…
So I used to think Russell Brand's switch to become an alt-right idiot was a commercial one. But maybe it was because he knew this shit was coming and he calculated the alt-right conspiracy nutjob crowd would be more likely to stick by him?
Has Roger offered his thoughts on this yet?
I won’t feel entirely comfortable following my leanings against Brand until Roger has defended him
Brand is 'talent', and therefore any woman not wanting to be abused by him should just go and become hairdressers...
It's sad that lots of people still have such a mindset.
What talent?
That's the entertainment industry for you, and the BBC is one of the worst for it. Talent isn't a noun as you or I would use it, instead it's typically preceded by "the" as a determinative verb.
He doesn't 'possess talent', he's not 'talented'. He's "the talent" instead.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
And to think you've wasted that genius on, checks... travel writing.
I know. To think, I could have been a banker or a politician or a lawyer, instead I am forced to wander the lonely world, looking at things like rivers and stuff
Bonjour!
Where's this ?
It isn't the same charming French-Swiss border region that I also passed through this summer by train, is it ?
No, it’s the Gorge du Tarn in Lozere. A somewhat neglected corner of France. Amazingly
As a "stagiaire" student in 1964 I went on a study tour of the Midi by coach. My travelling companion, seated next to me on the coach, as it happens was Peter Lilley. The Gorges du Tarn was a highlight along with the red cathedral/castle at Albi and the quantity of champagne offered by the local authorities and quaffed at each stop on the route
Albi brings back memories. Took the kids there - and further south - a couple of decades back.
The summer Concorde crashed.
Daughter won a painting competition in a tiny Pyrenees village. With about a dozen contestants.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
If you really think IQ can be measured to the tenth of a point, that is rather revealing.
If you really can’t see a joke when it is says “this is obviously a joke” then….
Sadly, my IQ is insufficient to allow me to divine when you are joking about one of your pet obsessions.
I’m not obsessed with IQ per se, I AM intrigued by the cognitive dissonance required to dismiss it entirely as a metric. IQ is a flawed measurement but it is still useful, and it definitely measures something - speed of reasoning? - that is remarkably helpful in industrialised technological societies.
Someone with an IQ of 130 will be obviously “smarter” than someone with an IQ of 70. Likewise, barring exceptional sporting or artistic talent in the low IQ person, the high IQ person will nearly always do better in life - earn more, meet a partner, buy a house, have a career
The fact that IQ tests sometimes give uncomfortable results is not a reason to dismiss them entirely, however much we might wish it so
Generally yes, with as you say a few top sports stars like Beckham or artists like Elvis who did not have high IQs but were exceptionally talented and creative in their fields.
However a few serial killers have had high IQs as did many leading Nazis who earnt well, were married had a house and top career in the Nazi party and Germany government or SS, that did not make them good people
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
If you really think IQ can be measured to the tenth of a point, that is rather revealing.
If you really can’t see a joke when it is says “this is obviously a joke” then….
Sadly, my IQ is insufficient to allow me to divine when you are joking about one of your pet obsessions.
I’m not obsessed with IQ per se, I AM intrigued by the cognitive dissonance required to dismiss it entirely as a metric. IQ is a flawed measurement but it is still useful, and it definitely measures something - speed of reasoning? - that is remarkably helpful in industrialised technological societies.
Someone with an IQ of 130 will be obviously “smarter” than someone with an IQ of 70. Likewise, barring exceptional sporting or artistic talent in the low IQ person, the high IQ person will nearly always do better in life - earn more, meet a partner, buy a house, have a career
The fact that IQ tests sometimes give uncomfortable results is not a reason to dismiss them entirely, however much we might wish it so
IQ is a series of tests that individually do a reasonable job of measuring cognitive ability in various different areas.
At the same time, the weighting between - say - spatial and verbal reasoning is entirely subjective.
And it is provably the case that with a little training on tests, you can move your baseline by 20 points or so. Which tells you that at least a chunk of what IQ measures is learned, rather than innate.
Many moons ago in a discussion with hyufd I highlighted some of the training you could do/give to boost your IQ score. There are some very simple techniques.
There are but you are very unlikely to be able to go from a 70 IQ to a 140 IQ, there are limits.
IQ can measure education level but can also measure genetic intelligence which is inherited
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
If you really think IQ can be measured to the tenth of a point, that is rather revealing.
If you really can’t see a joke when it is says “this is obviously a joke” then….
Sadly, my IQ is insufficient to allow me to divine when you are joking about one of your pet obsessions.
I’m not obsessed with IQ per se, I AM intrigued by the cognitive dissonance required to dismiss it entirely as a metric. IQ is a flawed measurement but it is still useful, and it definitely measures something - speed of reasoning? - that is remarkably helpful in industrialised technological societies.
Someone with an IQ of 130 will be obviously “smarter” than someone with an IQ of 70. Likewise, barring exceptional sporting or artistic talent in the low IQ person, the high IQ person will nearly always do better in life - earn more, meet a partner, buy a house, have a career
The fact that IQ tests sometimes give uncomfortable results is not a reason to dismiss them entirely, however much we might wish it so
IQ is a series of tests that individually do a reasonable job of measuring cognitive ability in various different areas.
At the same time, the weighting between - say - spatial and verbal reasoning is entirely subjective.
And it is provably the case that with a little training on tests, you can move your baseline by 20 points or so. Which tells you that at least a chunk of what IQ measures is learned, rather than innate.
Many moons ago in a discussion with hyufd I highlighted some of the training you could do/give to boost your IQ score. There are some very simple techniques.
There are but you are very unlikely to be able to go from a 70 IQ to a 140 IQ, there are limits.
IQ can measure education level but can also measure genetic intelligence which is inherited
I’m always chary of assessing people’s intelligence by job, or making assumptions about their abilities and expectations. For example, I have a nephew (by marriage) who is a senior NHS professional. He has two brothers, one a solicitor and the other a convicted violent thief who died of drug abuse. Their father is an Irish traveller and asphalter.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
If you really think IQ can be measured to the tenth of a point, that is rather revealing.
If you really can’t see a joke when it is says “this is obviously a joke” then….
Sadly, my IQ is insufficient to allow me to divine when you are joking about one of your pet obsessions.
I’m not obsessed with IQ per se, I AM intrigued by the cognitive dissonance required to dismiss it entirely as a metric. IQ is a flawed measurement but it is still useful, and it definitely measures something - speed of reasoning? - that is remarkably helpful in industrialised technological societies.
Someone with an IQ of 130 will be obviously “smarter” than someone with an IQ of 70. Likewise, barring exceptional sporting or artistic talent in the low IQ person, the high IQ person will nearly always do better in life - earn more, meet a partner, buy a house, have a career
The fact that IQ tests sometimes give uncomfortable results is not a reason to dismiss them entirely, however much we might wish it so
IQ is a series of tests that individually do a reasonable job of measuring cognitive ability in various different areas.
At the same time, the weighting between - say - spatial and verbal reasoning is entirely subjective.
And it is provably the case that with a little training on tests, you can move your baseline by 20 points or so. Which tells you that at least a chunk of what IQ measures is learned, rather than innate.
Many moons ago in a discussion with hyufd I highlighted some of the training you could do/give to boost your IQ score. There are some very simple techniques.
There are but you are very unlikely to be able to go from a 70 IQ to a 140 IQ, there are limits.
IQ can measure education level but can also measure genetic intelligence which is inherited
IQ *cannot* measure "genetic intelligence", whatver that means. It can only measure some sort of score to do with brain capacity, including experience, training, and general cultural upbringing (language, notably, used in the test).
It can measure all the latter but they are mostly related to educational qualifications achieved and the job you do, otherwise the rest is genetic IQ and intelligence inherited from your parents
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
If you really think IQ can be measured to the tenth of a point, that is rather revealing.
If you really can’t see a joke when it is says “this is obviously a joke” then….
Sadly, my IQ is insufficient to allow me to divine when you are joking about one of your pet obsessions.
I’m not obsessed with IQ per se, I AM intrigued by the cognitive dissonance required to dismiss it entirely as a metric. IQ is a flawed measurement but it is still useful, and it definitely measures something - speed of reasoning? - that is remarkably helpful in industrialised technological societies.
Someone with an IQ of 130 will be obviously “smarter” than someone with an IQ of 70. Likewise, barring exceptional sporting or artistic talent in the low IQ person, the high IQ person will nearly always do better in life - earn more, meet a partner, buy a house, have a career
The fact that IQ tests sometimes give uncomfortable results is not a reason to dismiss them entirely, however much we might wish it so
IQ is a series of tests that individually do a reasonable job of measuring cognitive ability in various different areas.
At the same time, the weighting between - say - spatial and verbal reasoning is entirely subjective.
And it is provably the case that with a little training on tests, you can move your baseline by 20 points or so. Which tells you that at least a chunk of what IQ measures is learned, rather than innate.
Many moons ago in a discussion with hyufd I highlighted some of the training you could do/give to boost your IQ score. There are some very simple techniques.
There are but you are very unlikely to be able to go from a 70 IQ to a 140 IQ, there are limits.
IQ can measure education level but can also measure genetic intelligence which is inherited
IQ *cannot* measure "genetic intelligence", whatver that means. It can only measure some sort of score to do with brain capacity, including experience, training, and general cultural upbringing (language, notably, used in the test).
It can measure all the latter but they are mostly related to educational qualifications achieved and the job you do, otherwise the rest is genetic IQ and intelligence inherited from your parents
Doesn't work that way. The interaction is too complex.
Edit: also: So IQ cannot measure the genetic component of intelligence (which itself is a statistical construct that can't be viewed on its own).
You've backtracked from claiming it can measure "genetic intelligence". Which is at least an improvement, it must be said.
Brief comment on the OP. It's a nice and simple analysis, and very welcome. On the data, the number of seats in England went up from 516 in 1979 to 533 at the last election. Probably not enough to have a big effect, but seats expressed as a proportion of the total would have been better. On the regression scatter diagram the three rightmost observations are New Labour, and perhaps a little exceptional and probably influential for the estimated slope.
Thanks. You are right about using proportions, I wanted to keep things simple hence modelling absolute seat numbers but proportions are probably more accurate. Of course we are looking at England and Wales and some of the English gains will be offset by Welsh losses, but still. I actually disagree with you on the New Labour elections. The only one that looks odd there is 2005, when Labour seems to have held onto a lot of seats they should have lost (IIRC they had a lot of very narrow wins through luck or clever targeting of resources, and this set the stage for losing a lot of seats in 2010). Both 97 and 01 don't look like they're off the regression line and hence are unlikely to be influencing the results much. Why were the New Labour years special? Labour had a very popular leader in 97 and 01 and in 01 was coming from a strong starting point - both captured in the model. Hence, we are already allowing for the fact that Starmer is no Blair. If he were Blair (1997 Blair not 2023 Blair) the result would not be in question, I think. If you exclude these three elections then you would exclude all the elections that Labour won. Then you will rely on predicting a potential Labour victory from data that include no Labour victories. I think that would be harder to defend empirically - always dodgy to predict things outside the support of the previous data.
@OnlyLivingBoy - Can you make it even tighter by defining X not as net leader satisfaction S but as a linear function of S and A, where A is absolute satisfaction with the Labour leader (or, which comes to the same thing, the mean satisfaction with the two leaders)?
I saw a hilariously over the top negative review of Starfield; you see it wasn't that the game was bad, it was that Bethesda wasn't sufficiently transfriendly...
I see your rant and I raise you this rant below, from the gender critical direction. It's operatic and very sweary [TLDR: Starfield allows you to choose your pronouns. He is a bit miffed and wishes to express his disquiet]
Fortunately (as the decidedly average Hogwarts Legacy game has shown), it turns out that these review bombs seem to do very little in the real world to dent demand,
At a certain threshold, a given event or person will be attacked online. That threshold varies depending on time, subject and availability of social media. As social media has expanded, that threshold has lowered and now people are attacked for nearly everything. The existence of a review bomb is not important, it is the size. If the number of people objecting affects sales, it matters. If not, not.
100,000 overdose deaths in this year in the US; the most ever and it’s only September. Most involve fentanyl.
100,000! That’s roughly a Bath or a Carlisle losing every single living soul in the space of 9 months. An obscene statistic. I worry we’ll see the same here.
Might go some way to solving the demographic problem ...
It's struck me more than once that Leon has railed about the fentanyl disaster (and I agree with him there)... while also advocating old-age euthanasia by means of hard drugs.
Except it's mainly people who should be in their prime who are dying from drug overdoses:
Is that the case though? Warning what I'm about to say is utterly brutal and devoid of humanity.
There was a famous study by the Freakonomics team decades ago that legalised abortion lowered crime rates. Why? Because disproportionately the 'unwanted' potential babies that were aborted so never born would disproportionately have grown up to be criminals, so by disproportionately never having been born (removed from the pool prematurely) the crimes they would have committed never occurred.
If we take the humanity and tragedy of fentanyl out of the equation, a part of me wonders if a similar effect may be occurring with fentanyl.
Is it removing high functioning people at the prime of their life from society?
Or is it removing those who in other times might have been unproductive crack, or heroin, or meth addicts and taking them out instead?
If the latter then it may be, in a very cruel, and very inhumane manner, boosting societies productivity.
Which, to add the humanity back into the equation, is not to be welcomed.
Brief comment on the OP. It's a nice and simple analysis, and very welcome. On the data, the number of seats in England went up from 516 in 1979 to 533 at the last election. Probably not enough to have a big effect, but seats expressed as a proportion of the total would have been better. On the regression scatter diagram the three rightmost observations are New Labour, and perhaps a little exceptional and probably influential for the estimated slope.
Thanks. You are right about using proportions, I wanted to keep things simple hence modelling absolute seat numbers but proportions are probably more accurate. Of course we are looking at England and Wales and some of the English gains will be offset by Welsh losses, but still. I actually disagree with you on the New Labour elections. The only one that looks odd there is 2005, when Labour seems to have held onto a lot of seats they should have lost (IIRC they had a lot of very narrow wins through luck or clever targeting of resources, and this set the stage for losing a lot of seats in 2010). Both 97 and 01 don't look like they're off the regression line and hence are unlikely to be influencing the results much. Why were the New Labour years special? Labour had a very popular leader in 97 and 01 and in 01 was coming from a strong starting point - both captured in the model. Hence, we are already allowing for the fact that Starmer is no Blair. If he were Blair (1997 Blair not 2023 Blair) the result would not be in question, I think. If you exclude these three elections then you would exclude all the elections that Labour won. Then you will rely on predicting a potential Labour victory from data that include no Labour victories. I think that would be harder to defend empirically - always dodgy to predict things outside the support of the previous data.
I think in 2005 you also have to bear in mind that the Labour campaign emphasised the "vote Blair, get Brown" situation, in an attempt to minimise the damage done to Blair by the Iraq War. I think it's a measure of the success of that campaign, and Brown's relative popularity at the time, that Labour outperformed the model in that general election.
For the 2019 general election I think you could say that the model provides an estimate of the Brexit effect on that election. It's interesting that both 1979 and 2010 - election sin which Labour lost office - are ones where Labour underperform the model, but no such effect is seen in reverse for 1997.
@OnlyLivingBoy - Can you make it even tighter by defining X not as net leader satisfaction S but as a linear function of S and A, where A is absolute satisfaction with the Labour leader (or, which comes to the same thing, the mean satisfaction with the two leaders)?
I think that would risk over fitting the model given N=11.
100,000 overdose deaths in this year in the US; the most ever and it’s only September. Most involve fentanyl.
100,000! That’s roughly a Bath or a Carlisle losing every single living soul in the space of 9 months. An obscene statistic. I worry we’ll see the same here.
Might go some way to solving the demographic problem ...
It's struck me more than once that Leon has railed about the fentanyl disaster (and I agree with him there)... while also advocating old-age euthanasia by means of hard drugs.
Except it's mainly people who should be in their prime who are dying from drug overdoses:
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
If you really think IQ can be measured to the tenth of a point, that is rather revealing.
If you really can’t see a joke when it is says “this is obviously a joke” then….
Sadly, my IQ is insufficient to allow me to divine when you are joking about one of your pet obsessions.
I’m not obsessed with IQ per se, I AM intrigued by the cognitive dissonance required to dismiss it entirely as a metric. IQ is a flawed measurement but it is still useful, and it definitely measures something - speed of reasoning? - that is remarkably helpful in industrialised technological societies.
Someone with an IQ of 130 will be obviously “smarter” than someone with an IQ of 70. Likewise, barring exceptional sporting or artistic talent in the low IQ person, the high IQ person will nearly always do better in life - earn more, meet a partner, buy a house, have a career
The fact that IQ tests sometimes give uncomfortable results is not a reason to dismiss them entirely, however much we might wish it so
IQ is a series of tests that individually do a reasonable job of measuring cognitive ability in various different areas.
At the same time, the weighting between - say - spatial and verbal reasoning is entirely subjective.
And it is provably the case that with a little training on tests, you can move your baseline by 20 points or so. Which tells you that at least a chunk of what IQ measures is learned, rather than innate.
Many moons ago in a discussion with hyufd I highlighted some of the training you could do/give to boost your IQ score. There are some very simple techniques.
There are but you are very unlikely to be able to go from a 70 IQ to a 140 IQ, there are limits.
IQ can measure education level but can also measure genetic intelligence which is inherited
IQ *cannot* measure "genetic intelligence", whatver that means. It can only measure some sort of score to do with brain capacity, including experience, training, and general cultural upbringing (language, notably, used in the test).
It can measure all the latter but they are mostly related to educational qualifications achieved and the job you do, otherwise the rest is genetic IQ and intelligence inherited from your parents
Doesn't work that way. The interaction is too complex.
Edit: also: So IQ cannot measure the genetic component of intelligence (which itself is a statistical construct that can't be viewed on its own).
You've backtracked from claiming it can measure "genetic intelligence". Which is at least an improvement, it must be said.
Logically IQ can reflect either educational qualifications achieved or skills used in the job you do or intelligence inherited from your parents or a combination of all of those.
So I used to think Russell Brand's switch to become an alt-right idiot was a commercial one. But maybe it was because he knew this shit was coming and he calculated the alt-right conspiracy nutjob crowd would be more likely to stick by him?
I just assumed it was because he was an idiot.
But that doesn’t invalidate either of your other hypotheses.
Has anyone on the freethinking alt-right though freely enough to have a "why am I at a party with all the most awful people in London?" epiphany?
That's part of it. There is a grim elegance in the way that a poor economic outlook causes populism to grow, and populist governments tend to turn the economy into a pile of poo, which allows populist leaders to thrive...
All governments are populist the variations are which parts of the populace they target for votes.
Populist is used as a term of abuse when the groups being targeted are 'people like them' instead of 'people like us'.
And, depending upon the circumstances, some politicians are able to spread their populist arms to encompass more groups.
For example Clinton and Blair in the 1990s were able to govern during times of economic prosperity and geopolitical security allowing them to give a greater than normal amount of people what they wanted.
I think the difference is how you respond when giving people what they want is impossible, or at least has massive predictable downsides.
The Populist (capital P) answer seems to be to give people what they want now, and damn the consequences. Or blame shadowy forces for thwarting the democratic will. And the article does have a working definition of what Populism looks like, and it's rather uncomfortable reading for the UK;
The researchers find that having a populist leader hits a country’s GDP per capita and living standards by about 10% over 15 years as the economy turns inward, institutions are undermined and risks are taken with macroeconomic policy.'
I think this can be right, but we also need to be careful with definitions. Lula was fervently dismissed as a "populist" by publications such as "The Economist", and other self-appointed priests of middlebrow analysis , when he arrived, but he's actually done his country both a lot of social and economic good.
There are other cases, however ;.)
The study is reporting an average effect. Many individual cases will vary from that.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
Always be wary of people who can quote you their IQ. I knew mine 43 years ago when I had to take a test for a job. I have no idea what it was now.
I last took an IQ test decades ago. Since then, I've aged, and had meningitis, which sodded about with my short-term memory. I wish I'd done IQ tests and memory tests right before the illness, to see how there were affected, and to see how far it has recovered.
I have little doubt that my 'official' IQ has probably decreased as I've aged, if only because I used to love those sorts of puzzles and questions as a kid, and I don't do them now. But my amount of general knowledge, and experience, has increased.
@OLB - The article is great. The small amount of variation in c shows you are on the right lines.
On IQ: it's rubbish. There's no "there" there. But when I was 12 my mental age was 96. I wish it had only been 36. Or even 24 for that matter.
One of these days, somebody will annoy an awful lot of people by publishing a book on how to answer the types of question that have to be answered to get >140 on the kinds of puzzle that make up IQ tests.
@Leon - The Languedoc, huh? Be careful not to ask too many questions about the Abbé Boudet who didn't have time for simony because he was too busy recording information about the aliens in his heavily coded work on etymology.
Quiz: who, where, when?
Visit of Socialist candidate François Mitterrand to Rennes-le-Château in the 1981 presidential campaign
This is a fantastic article. It'd be great to see more of this kind of analysis here. That's regardless of the conclusion. Although I'd like to see a Labour majority, I don't have a strong view on whether it's likely or not, and insightful analysis of the data should always be welcome whichever way it points.
As I said to Heathener last week, if people want to offer PB threads like this and then OGH is more than happy to publish them.
Simply repeating Labour are going to win a majority ad infinitum doesn't cut it.
This is a fantastic article. It'd be great to see more of this kind of analysis here. That's regardless of the conclusion. Although I'd like to see a Labour majority, I don't have a strong view on whether it's likely or not, and insightful analysis of the data should always be welcome whichever way it points.
As I said to Heathener last week, if people want to offer PB threads like this and then OGH is more than happy to publish them.
Simply repeating Labour are going to win a majority ad infinitum doesn't cut it.
Brief comment on the OP. It's a nice and simple analysis, and very welcome. On the data, the number of seats in England went up from 516 in 1979 to 533 at the last election. Probably not enough to have a big effect, but seats expressed as a proportion of the total would have been better. On the regression scatter diagram the three rightmost observations are New Labour, and perhaps a little exceptional and probably influential for the estimated slope.
Thanks. You are right about using proportions, I wanted to keep things simple hence modelling absolute seat numbers but proportions are probably more accurate. Of course we are looking at England and Wales and some of the English gains will be offset by Welsh losses, but still. I actually disagree with you on the New Labour elections. The only one that looks odd there is 2005, when Labour seems to have held onto a lot of seats they should have lost (IIRC they had a lot of very narrow wins through luck or clever targeting of resources, and this set the stage for losing a lot of seats in 2010). Both 97 and 01 don't look like they're off the regression line and hence are unlikely to be influencing the results much. Why were the New Labour years special? Labour had a very popular leader in 97 and 01 and in 01 was coming from a strong starting point - both captured in the model. Hence, we are already allowing for the fact that Starmer is no Blair. If he were Blair (1997 Blair not 2023 Blair) the result would not be in question, I think. If you exclude these three elections then you would exclude all the elections that Labour won. Then you will rely on predicting a potential Labour victory from data that include no Labour victories. I think that would be harder to defend empirically - always dodgy to predict things outside the support of the previous data.
In 2005 Howard's Conservatives actually won the popular vote in England of course, 35.7% to 35.4% for Blair's Labour.
Yet New Labour won 286 seats in England to just 194 for Howard's Tories
Brief comment on the OP. It's a nice and simple analysis, and very welcome. On the data, the number of seats in England went up from 516 in 1979 to 533 at the last election. Probably not enough to have a big effect, but seats expressed as a proportion of the total would have been better. On the regression scatter diagram the three rightmost observations are New Labour, and perhaps a little exceptional and probably influential for the estimated slope.
Thanks. You are right about using proportions, I wanted to keep things simple hence modelling absolute seat numbers but proportions are probably more accurate. Of course we are looking at England and Wales and some of the English gains will be offset by Welsh losses, but still. I actually disagree with you on the New Labour elections. The only one that looks odd there is 2005, when Labour seems to have held onto a lot of seats they should have lost (IIRC they had a lot of very narrow wins through luck or clever targeting of resources, and this set the stage for losing a lot of seats in 2010). Both 97 and 01 don't look like they're off the regression line and hence are unlikely to be influencing the results much. Why were the New Labour years special? Labour had a very popular leader in 97 and 01 and in 01 was coming from a strong starting point - both captured in the model. Hence, we are already allowing for the fact that Starmer is no Blair. If he were Blair (1997 Blair not 2023 Blair) the result would not be in question, I think. If you exclude these three elections then you would exclude all the elections that Labour won. Then you will rely on predicting a potential Labour victory from data that include no Labour victories. I think that would be harder to defend empirically - always dodgy to predict things outside the support of the previous data.
I think in 2005 you also have to bear in mind that the Labour campaign emphasised the "vote Blair, get Brown" situation, in an attempt to minimise the damage done to Blair by the Iraq War. I think it's a measure of the success of that campaign, and Brown's relative popularity at the time, that Labour outperformed the model in that general election.
For the 2019 general election I think you could say that the model provides an estimate of the Brexit effect on that election. It's interesting that both 1979 and 2010 - election sin which Labour lost office - are ones where Labour underperform the model, but no such effect is seen in reverse for 1997.
That's an interesting point, I hadn't thought of that but you're right, if anything Labour underperformed in 97. What I did notice in 79/83 and 05/10 was some over correction or swing back after an off model result. If that repeats next time after under performance in 2019 then that favours Labour. I would add 10 seats to a Labour seats forecast for this, but it's very speculative and perhaps reflects wishful thinking so I didn't put it in my piece.
This is a fantastic article. It'd be great to see more of this kind of analysis here. That's regardless of the conclusion. Although I'd like to see a Labour majority, I don't have a strong view on whether it's likely or not, and insightful analysis of the data should always be welcome whichever way it points.
As I said to Heathener last week, if people want to offer PB threads like this and then OGH is more than happy to publish them.
Simply repeating Labour are going to win a majority ad infinitum doesn't cut it.
I think Labour is on course for a clear majority and it won't even be close.
I think on the range of likely possibilities it's certainly a higher chance than many other ones, like Tory most seats.
I think the evidence is staring us right in the face, but people don't believe it.
Sure, that support for Labour is very soft but that's not going to go away until the current administration is evicted in 14 months time.
My sense is that after partygate and Boris' antics the public were still willing to give the Tories one more chance. But after the Truss fiasco, I think much of the public decided a change of government was needed and switched off. To win them back Sunak would have to have done a exceptional job (and though he is better than his two predecessors, he hasn't) or Starmer would have to made an enormous mistake (which he seems determined to avoid given his ming vase strategy).
I think Sunak is clever, polished and hard-working but is politically inept.
That said, he's also unlucky. He'd have won the 2015 election against Miliband easily.
Different times.
What do you take as signs that he is clever? His premiership doesn’t seem to me to evince much cleverness.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
If you really think IQ can be measured to the tenth of a point, that is rather revealing.
If you really can’t see a joke when it is says “this is obviously a joke” then….
Sadly, my IQ is insufficient to allow me to divine when you are joking about one of your pet obsessions.
I’m not obsessed with IQ per se, I AM intrigued by the cognitive dissonance required to dismiss it entirely as a metric. IQ is a flawed measurement but it is still useful, and it definitely measures something - speed of reasoning? - that is remarkably helpful in industrialised technological societies.
Someone with an IQ of 130 will be obviously “smarter” than someone with an IQ of 70. Likewise, barring exceptional sporting or artistic talent in the low IQ person, the high IQ person will nearly always do better in life - earn more, meet a partner, buy a house, have a career
The fact that IQ tests sometimes give uncomfortable results is not a reason to dismiss them entirely, however much we might wish it so
IQ is a series of tests that individually do a reasonable job of measuring cognitive ability in various different areas.
At the same time, the weighting between - say - spatial and verbal reasoning is entirely subjective.
And it is provably the case that with a little training on tests, you can move your baseline by 20 points or so. Which tells you that at least a chunk of what IQ measures is learned, rather than innate.
Many moons ago in a discussion with hyufd I highlighted some of the training you could do/give to boost your IQ score. There are some very simple techniques.
There are but you are very unlikely to be able to go from a 70 IQ to a 140 IQ, there are limits.
IQ can measure education level but can also measure genetic intelligence which is inherited
IQ *cannot* measure "genetic intelligence", whatver that means. It can only measure some sort of score to do with brain capacity, including experience, training, and general cultural upbringing (language, notably, used in the test).
It can measure all the latter but they are mostly related to educational qualifications achieved and the job you do, otherwise the rest is genetic IQ and intelligence inherited from your parents
Doesn't work that way. The interaction is too complex.
Edit: also: So IQ cannot measure the genetic component of intelligence (which itself is a statistical construct that can't be viewed on its own).
You've backtracked from claiming it can measure "genetic intelligence". Which is at least an improvement, it must be said.
Logically IQ can reflect either educational qualifications achieved or skills used in the job you do or intelligence inherited from your parents or a combination of all of those.
There is nothing else it can measure
Lots of other things. Spatial intelligence, for instance, has n othing inherently to do with qwualifications or job done.
And it still doesn't measure genetic intelligence, whatever that is. Any more than a measuring jug can measure the amount of alcohol in a pint of beer.
100,000 overdose deaths in this year in the US; the most ever and it’s only September. Most involve fentanyl.
100,000! That’s roughly a Bath or a Carlisle losing every single living soul in the space of 9 months. An obscene statistic. I worry we’ll see the same here.
Might go some way to solving the demographic problem ...
It's struck me more than once that Leon has railed about the fentanyl disaster (and I agree with him there)... while also advocating old-age euthanasia by means of hard drugs.
Except it's mainly people who should be in their prime who are dying from drug overdoses:
Is that the case though? Warning what I'm about to say is utterly brutal and devoid of humanity.
There was a famous study by the Freakonomics team decades ago that legalised abortion lowered crime rates. Why? Because disproportionately the 'unwanted' potential babies that were aborted so never born would disproportionately have grown up to be criminals, so by disproportionately never having been born (removed from the pool prematurely) the crimes they would have committed never occurred.
If we take the humanity and tragedy of fentanyl out of the equation, a part of me wonders if a similar effect may be occurring with fentanyl.
Is it removing high functioning people at the prime of their life from society?
Or is it removing those who in other times might have been unproductive crack, or heroin, or meth addicts and taking them out instead?
If the latter then it may be, in a very cruel, and very inhumane manner, boosting societies productivity.
Which, to add the humanity back into the equation, is not to be welcomed.
I get Only Living Boy's maths, more or less. But with him being a Labour voter, you might think he had an interest in is a variable the value of which is now unknown and which simply goes missing from his formulae. How will Labour’s campaign unfold in the hands of Starmer and Reeves? As it seems to me, it is already very easy for Labour to remind people that, thanks to 14 years of Tory government, there are areas of the public domain (health, education, justice) where expensive intervention, not to mention more investment, is badly and urgently needed. But it is difficult then to find a way forward without acknowledging that the overall tax take has to increase. How might this be achieved? Answer: let it be clear that “tax” is no confined to the four taxes that 95% of people pay (with two of them—Council tax and VAT—being regressive). The tax burden has to shift from taxes on income to taxes on wealth, the most glaring of which—Capital Gains Tax—is only ever paid by those in the top 2 or 3%. There is no need to speak of a wealth tax, but only to be clear that the very wealthy should pay more. Only so, can the injustice/unfairness of the increasing inequality seen in the last twenty years start to be redressed. The start must be to point out some simple facts about the extent of this increasing inequality. I think the sooner Sunak and Reeves start to bring this to attention, the better.
Uman, Ukraine, a Hasidic pilgrim kisses a chevron in the form of a red and black flag with a Star of David on the hand of a Ukrainian military regiment Azov with the call sign Rebbe, who came to Uman for the holiday of Rosh Hashanah for one day from the front line in the east. https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1703358614096801953
The Sunday Times have another important story today, utterly grim on so many levels.
The inside story of the school that gave its pupils HIV
By 1987 Treloar College in Hampshire had infected 122 boys with contaminated blood. Ade Goodyear, one of only 30 still alive, recalls the day he was given the shattering news
It was a bright, sunny afternoon in May 1985 when Ade Goodyear, then 15, and four other pupils were told by their housemaster to go to the school’s health centre. At six months old Goodyear had been diagnosed with haemophilia, a genetic disorder in which the blood fails to clot. For the past six years he had been a pupil at Lord Mayor Treloar College in Alton, Hampshire, one of England’s leading centres in caring for disabled children.
Adopted as a baby, his father had sought refuge for him at Treloar’s when he was nine. Goodyear had been badly bullied at his local school; the worst incident resulted in a boy fracturing his elbow with an iron bar in a bid to find out what happened to a haemophiliac when he bled.
Over the years Goodyear had been regularly treated for his condition at Treloar’s health centre and so he thought nothing of the housemaster’s request. But it was a meeting that was to dramatically change the course of his life.
The centre had an open-door policy and it was not unheard of for them to be seen as a group, but it was unusual. Sitting behind the desk was Dr Anthony Aronstam, the centre’s director. He was accompanied by Dr Maneer Wassef, the resident haematologist, who endeared himself to the pupils by playing table tennis with them in the evening after lessons. Unusually, the head of physiotherapy and two nurses were also present...
...Eventually Aronstam, with tears welling up in his eyes, told the pupils: “Some of you here have been given HIV.” Walking around the room, he lifted his left hand and pointed to each boy and said: “You have, you haven’t, you have, you haven’t, you have.” This last “you have” was directed at Goodyear, who was at the end of the line of boys closest to the door.
I think Labour is on course for a clear majority and it won't even be close.
I think on the range of likely possibilities it's certainly a higher chance than many other ones, like Tory most seats.
I think the evidence is staring us right in the face, but people don't believe it.
Sure, that support for Labour is very soft but that's not going to go away until the current administration is evicted in 14 months time.
My sense is that after partygate and Boris' antics the public were still willing to give the Tories one more chance. But after the Truss fiasco, I think much of the public decided a change of government was needed and switched off. To win them back Sunak would have to have done a exceptional job (and though he is better than his two predecessors, he hasn't) or Starmer would have to made an enormous mistake (which he seems determined to avoid given his ming vase strategy).
I think Sunak is clever, polished and hard-working but is politically inept.
That said, he's also unlucky. He'd have won the 2015 election against Miliband easily.
Different times.
What do you take as signs that he is clever? His premiership doesn’t seem to me to evince much cleverness.
He married the daughter of a billionaire, you cannot get more intelligent than that.
I went away to think about the nature of terror, of outrage videos, and of viewing graphic violence. Here are my thoughts:
The video I saw of a man having his head sawn off purported to be an Islamist "execution" of a Westerner. From what I can recall, the ground looked arid, the victim was white and the hands and arms of the killer were brown, so it tracks, but I had no other clues. I wondered why the person who sent it to me had sent it to me. I have a hypothesis these days.
The purpose of getting other people to view graphic real-life violence is to induce a state of shock, into which you can insert a political message. Western imperialism is Islamophobic and must be resisted. Islam is bad and must be resisted. Capitalism is evil. Socialism is evil. There's no point to anything so come make some chaos. Your children are under attack. These dogs must be banned. These dogs must be killed. Whatever.
Shocking violence is like plough that rips up the level ground of the mind. You plough to sow.
Violent spectacle is what terrorism is about. It intends to radicalise. And lesser than terrorism but exploiting the same traumatic pathways is: the sharing of violent videos. You see it on Twitter. A video of a something and some "explanatory" text. Refugees rioting in Sweden. Police cracking the skulls of peaceful BLM protesters. Sometimes the putative context is a deliberate lie or obfuscated. Sometimes it's real. But always it's designed to harm the viewer enough that an opinion, probably a radical one, can be sown.
I'm not pointing fingers, and I don't have a firm recommendation. Just some thoughts. I still see that man being murdered sometimes when I close my eyes, and it's a long, long time ago since I saw the video. I am not in contact with the person who was perhaps trying to radicalise me. They hurt me and I suspect it was as a means to end, which is a small act of evil. If you have an opportunity to share such a video, to draw someone's attention to it, I think it's best you don't. Even if you think it's clinches your argument, whatever that is.
I saw a hilariously over the top negative review of Starfield; you see it wasn't that the game was bad, it was that Bethesda wasn't sufficiently transfriendly...
I see your rant and I raise you this rant below, from the gender critical direction. It's operatic and very sweary [TLDR: Starfield allows you to choose your pronouns. He is a bit miffed and wishes to express his disquiet]
Fortunately (as the decidedly average Hogwarts Legacy game has shown), it turns out that these review bombs seem to do very little in the real world to dent demand,
At a certain threshold, a given event or person will be attacked online. That threshold varies depending on time, subject and availability of social media. As social media has expanded, that threshold has lowered and now people are attacked for nearly everything. The existence of a review bomb is not important, it is the size. If the number of people objecting affects sales, it matters. If not, not.
The thing with review bombs generally is to look at the reason behind the bomb, which is fairly easily discernable normally. Steam does this really, really well by separating recent reviews from all time ones.
If it's something relevant (eg a broken game or poor quality) then take that into account. If it's not then discard.
My favourite game to play which I've played since early access about a decade ago has on Steam an Overwhelmingly Positive rating throughout it's history. A review bomb occurred at the start of the latest invasion of Ukraine by Russia when the publisher (Eastern European I believe) put a "we stand with Ukraine" message on their website with a Ukrainian flag, which is still there today. Prompting a bombing almost exclusively in Cyrillic or broken English. Didn't do them any harm whatsoever thankfully, if anything the opposite as it then got extra publicity elsewhere in a positive manner. The Russian trolls got bored and moved on before long.
Related to the Russell Brand story, there have been some interesting articles on 'the great uncancelling' on Tortoise media. Essentially, they are observing a trend whereby cancelling isn't working, using the example of Johnny Depp in particular - these allegations are not sticking unless someone actually gets sent to jail. See also the fact that Andrew Tate is now back in business, and that the allegations (and court findings) against Trump have don't seem to be harming his political prospects. Elon Musk also made some vaguely supportive comments towards Brand yesterday. We may not be seeing 'progress' in the way that some posters think.
Yet Huw Edwards and Pip still remain out on a limb. Careers over. Neither have done anything illegal. Poor Pip has been thrown to the Wolves by people he used to consider friends.
But these people didn't trade on notoriety to start with, though.
I think the phenomenon is more of uncancellable notoriety. These people get stronger the more loudly they're condemned ; so provoking people is in fact their currency, and actually part of the currency of our times - "owning the libs", "I love liberal tears", "white womens' tears", "pale, male and stale tears": ; pick your self-perpetuating language of provocation from the left or right.
Wasn't there an author of a best-selling book around that same time who in similar vein bragged about his promiscuity, and who also became an Alt-Right maverick?
Some of these men left behind a lot of victims.
It seems to be a common theme across media and the arts.
I am reminded of a Hollywood producer who said that the original Polanski prosecution ruined the party atmosphere in Hollywood.
Yes, he said that. Out loud. To camera….
Roisin Murphy also appears to be doing very well with her new album despite the music industry's combined attemots to slience her (not that Roisin chose controversy - she made a private comment about puberty blockers that 90% of the population would be in total agreement with, which she subsequently (in my view needlessly) apologised for, but that was enough for a mass pile on .)
Although she seems to have been quietly removed from 6music and the BBC sites.
She got an uncritical writeup in the Guardian though, and still on their Culture front page. I also seem to recall her apology was of the sorry-you-felt-bad nature, though I may be wrong.
It wasn't entirely uncritical. To paraphrase: this is a very good album musically but she is guilty of wrongthink and therefore an awful person and therefore her album is a bad thing.
I saw a hilariously over the top negative review of Starfield; you see it wasn't that the game was bad, it was that Bethesda wasn't sufficiently transfriendly.
Fortunately (as the decidedly average Hogwarts Legacy game has shown), it turns out that these review bombs seem to do very little in the real world to dent demand,
You can self-identify in HL though and there is an AMAB woman character (according to the Ukrainians) so JKR must be sat on her platinum toilet fuming.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
If you really think IQ can be measured to the tenth of a point, that is rather revealing.
If you really can’t see a joke when it is says “this is obviously a joke” then….
Sadly, my IQ is insufficient to allow me to divine when you are joking about one of your pet obsessions.
I’m not obsessed with IQ per se, I AM intrigued by the cognitive dissonance required to dismiss it entirely as a metric. IQ is a flawed measurement but it is still useful, and it definitely measures something - speed of reasoning? - that is remarkably helpful in industrialised technological societies.
Someone with an IQ of 130 will be obviously “smarter” than someone with an IQ of 70. Likewise, barring exceptional sporting or artistic talent in the low IQ person, the high IQ person will nearly always do better in life - earn more, meet a partner, buy a house, have a career
The fact that IQ tests sometimes give uncomfortable results is not a reason to dismiss them entirely, however much we might wish it so
IQ is a series of tests that individually do a reasonable job of measuring cognitive ability in various different areas.
At the same time, the weighting between - say - spatial and verbal reasoning is entirely subjective.
And it is provably the case that with a little training on tests, you can move your baseline by 20 points or so. Which tells you that at least a chunk of what IQ measures is learned, rather than innate.
Many moons ago in a discussion with hyufd I highlighted some of the training you could do/give to boost your IQ score. There are some very simple techniques.
There are but you are very unlikely to be able to go from a 70 IQ to a 140 IQ, there are limits.
IQ can measure education level but can also measure genetic intelligence which is inherited
IQ *cannot* measure "genetic intelligence", whatver that means. It can only measure some sort of score to do with brain capacity, including experience, training, and general cultural upbringing (language, notably, used in the test).
It can measure all the latter but they are mostly related to educational qualifications achieved and the job you do, otherwise the rest is genetic IQ and intelligence inherited from your parents
Doesn't work that way. The interaction is too complex.
Edit: also: So IQ cannot measure the genetic component of intelligence (which itself is a statistical construct that can't be viewed on its own).
You've backtracked from claiming it can measure "genetic intelligence". Which is at least an improvement, it must be said.
Logically IQ can reflect either educational qualifications achieved or skills used in the job you do or intelligence inherited from your parents or a combination of all of those.
There is nothing else it can measure
Lots of other things. Spatial intelligence, for instance, has n othing inherently to do with qwualifications or job done.
And it still doesn't measure genetic intelligence, whatever that is. Any more than a measuring jug can measure the amount of alcohol in a pint of beer.
Of course it does, engineers, architects and graphic designers for example would use spatial intelligence skills regularly
I saw a hilariously over the top negative review of Starfield; you see it wasn't that the game was bad, it was that Bethesda wasn't sufficiently transfriendly...
I see your rant and I raise you this rant below, from the gender critical direction. It's operatic and very sweary [TLDR: Starfield allows you to choose your pronouns. He is a bit miffed and wishes to express his disquiet]
Fortunately (as the decidedly average Hogwarts Legacy game has shown), it turns out that these review bombs seem to do very little in the real world to dent demand,
At a certain threshold, a given event or person will be attacked online. That threshold varies depending on time, subject and availability of social media. As social media has expanded, that threshold has lowered and now people are attacked for nearly everything. The existence of a review bomb is not important, it is the size. If the number of people objecting affects sales, it matters. If not, not.
The thing with review bombs generally is to look at the reason behind the bomb, which is fairly easily discernable normally. Steam does this really, really well by separating recent reviews from all time ones.
If it's something relevant (eg a broken game or poor quality) then take that into account. If it's not then discard.
My favourite game to play which I've played since early access about a decade ago has on Steam an Overwhelmingly Positive rating throughout it's history. A review bomb occurred at the start of the latest invasion of Ukraine by Russia when the publisher (Eastern European I believe) put a "we stand with Ukraine" message on their website with a Ukrainian flag, which is still there today. Prompting a bombing almost exclusively in Cyrillic or broken English. Didn't do them any harm whatsoever thankfully, if anything the opposite as it then got extra publicity elsewhere in a positive manner. The Russian trolls got bored and moved on before long.
I am not a gamer and although I know of the existence of Steam and Starfield, I don't have the experiential knowledge to interpret it. Thank you for the useful information.
Firstly, thanks to @OnlyLivingBoy for his analysis, which is very good and shows the correlation on the net satisfaction score, highlighting (again) that this seems to be a better indicator than pure party vote intentions.
One thing that could help Labour win a tsunami of seats in the next election is that there are many Conservative seats with small majorities so it does not much of a swing for these seats to fall.
However, I will make one observation and one opinion on the analysis.
1. The observation is that Starmer seems to be doing around the same as Kinnock and Miliband is at a similar stage, although better than Corbyn. So not great.
2. I'm going to disagree with the view Starmer's ratings will improve as we get into the election for two reasons.
The first is that, so far, when Starmer has had to explain policy in more detail when quizzed, his performance when responding is mixed to say the least. It is obviously not inexperience but more seems to be personality-based and / or the need to keep the left wing of his party happy. In the scrutiny of a GE campaign, if he continues on as he has done so far, he is going to get himself into trouble very quickly.
The second goes back to the charts. Starmer's rating quickly dropped off and has never recovered since then, a similar pattern to every other leader bar Blair. Moreover, again ex-Blair, none of those leaders saw a noticeable uptick when they got closer to the election, with the possible part exception of Major. I think most people have already made up their minds as to what they think of Starmer and I think it can be summed up as "meh". I also don't think that will. change. That might get him across the line but, if I am right about 1, then it will not.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
If you really think IQ can be measured to the tenth of a point, that is rather revealing.
If you really can’t see a joke when it is says “this is obviously a joke” then….
Sadly, my IQ is insufficient to allow me to divine when you are joking about one of your pet obsessions.
I’m not obsessed with IQ per se, I AM intrigued by the cognitive dissonance required to dismiss it entirely as a metric. IQ is a flawed measurement but it is still useful, and it definitely measures something - speed of reasoning? - that is remarkably helpful in industrialised technological societies.
Someone with an IQ of 130 will be obviously “smarter” than someone with an IQ of 70. Likewise, barring exceptional sporting or artistic talent in the low IQ person, the high IQ person will nearly always do better in life - earn more, meet a partner, buy a house, have a career
The fact that IQ tests sometimes give uncomfortable results is not a reason to dismiss them entirely, however much we might wish it so
IQ is a series of tests that individually do a reasonable job of measuring cognitive ability in various different areas.
At the same time, the weighting between - say - spatial and verbal reasoning is entirely subjective.
And it is provably the case that with a little training on tests, you can move your baseline by 20 points or so. Which tells you that at least a chunk of what IQ measures is learned, rather than innate.
Many moons ago in a discussion with hyufd I highlighted some of the training you could do/give to boost your IQ score. There are some very simple techniques.
There are but you are very unlikely to be able to go from a 70 IQ to a 140 IQ, there are limits.
IQ can measure education level but can also measure genetic intelligence which is inherited
IQ *cannot* measure "genetic intelligence", whatver that means. It can only measure some sort of score to do with brain capacity, including experience, training, and general cultural upbringing (language, notably, used in the test).
It can measure all the latter but they are mostly related to educational qualifications achieved and the job you do, otherwise the rest is genetic IQ and intelligence inherited from your parents
Doesn't work that way. The interaction is too complex.
Edit: also: So IQ cannot measure the genetic component of intelligence (which itself is a statistical construct that can't be viewed on its own).
You've backtracked from claiming it can measure "genetic intelligence". Which is at least an improvement, it must be said.
Logically IQ can reflect either educational qualifications achieved or skills used in the job you do or intelligence inherited from your parents or a combination of all of those.
There is nothing else it can measure
Lots of other things. Spatial intelligence, for instance, has n othing inherently to do with qwualifications or job done.
And it still doesn't measure genetic intelligence, whatever that is. Any more than a measuring jug can measure the amount of alcohol in a pint of beer.
Of course it does, engineers for example would use spatial intelligence skills regularly
But that isn't true of all jobs. You said "skills used in the job you do". That excludes skills not used in the job one does. No job uses all skills. So skills used in the job is a useless criterion. Completely useless.
Delete 'job' and just say multiple skill types, and you might be getting some of the way there.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
If you really think IQ can be measured to the tenth of a point, that is rather revealing.
If you really can’t see a joke when it is says “this is obviously a joke” then….
Sadly, my IQ is insufficient to allow me to divine when you are joking about one of your pet obsessions.
I’m not obsessed with IQ per se, I AM intrigued by the cognitive dissonance required to dismiss it entirely as a metric. IQ is a flawed measurement but it is still useful, and it definitely measures something - speed of reasoning? - that is remarkably helpful in industrialised technological societies.
Someone with an IQ of 130 will be obviously “smarter” than someone with an IQ of 70. Likewise, barring exceptional sporting or artistic talent in the low IQ person, the high IQ person will nearly always do better in life - earn more, meet a partner, buy a house, have a career
The fact that IQ tests sometimes give uncomfortable results is not a reason to dismiss them entirely, however much we might wish it so
IQ is a series of tests that individually do a reasonable job of measuring cognitive ability in various different areas.
At the same time, the weighting between - say - spatial and verbal reasoning is entirely subjective.
And it is provably the case that with a little training on tests, you can move your baseline by 20 points or so. Which tells you that at least a chunk of what IQ measures is learned, rather than innate.
Many moons ago in a discussion with hyufd I highlighted some of the training you could do/give to boost your IQ score. There are some very simple techniques.
There are but you are very unlikely to be able to go from a 70 IQ to a 140 IQ, there are limits.
IQ can measure education level but can also measure genetic intelligence which is inherited
Sorry been away. I agree you can't go from 70 to 140. I also think it unlikely you could train someone with 70 at all (but I don't know that). @rcs1000 suggests 20 points and that doesn't seem unreasonable to me for someone around average intelligence.
I have no doubt there is inherited intelligence but it is complicated. None of my family have been tested (except me 50 odd years ago when I had to take a test for a job. I don't know the score now but I do know that I had to exceed 130). However it is pretty clear our family have very different IQs. My wife will say (because she has) that I am more intelligent than her, but then she clearly can do things I can't do. She is much better at language and I certainly don't think I could have done the learning required that she did in her medical career. However I do have a better memory for general stuff and I am more logical and challenge 'why stuff is/happens' all the time which she (like most people) just accept.
My children are extreme. My daughter is (in my opinion) of average intelligence. Less intelligent than both of us. My son on the other hand (and I won't bore people with the details) is on the far extreme of intelligence. Literally off the scale. Where the hell did that come from? There is nothing in our family histories to explain that
And then of course there is emotional intelligence and my daughter is better at that than my son.
Brief comment on the OP. It's a nice and simple analysis, and very welcome. On the data, the number of seats in England went up from 516 in 1979 to 533 at the last election. Probably not enough to have a big effect, but seats expressed as a proportion of the total would have been better. On the regression scatter diagram the three rightmost observations are New Labour, and perhaps a little exceptional and probably influential for the estimated slope.
Thanks. You are right about using proportions, I wanted to keep things simple hence modelling absolute seat numbers but proportions are probably more accurate. Of course we are looking at England and Wales and some of the English gains will be offset by Welsh losses, but still. I actually disagree with you on the New Labour elections. The only one that looks odd there is 2005, when Labour seems to have held onto a lot of seats they should have lost (IIRC they had a lot of very narrow wins through luck or clever targeting of resources, and this set the stage for losing a lot of seats in 2010). Both 97 and 01 don't look like they're off the regression line and hence are unlikely to be influencing the results much. Why were the New Labour years special? Labour had a very popular leader in 97 and 01 and in 01 was coming from a strong starting point - both captured in the model. Hence, we are already allowing for the fact that Starmer is no Blair. If he were Blair (1997 Blair not 2023 Blair) the result would not be in question, I think. If you exclude these three elections then you would exclude all the elections that Labour won. Then you will rely on predicting a potential Labour victory from data that include no Labour victories. I think that would be harder to defend empirically - always dodgy to predict things outside the support of the previous data.
In 2005 Howard's Conservatives actually won the popular vote in England of course, 35.7% to 35.4% for Blair's Labour.
Yet New Labour won 286 seats in England to just 194 for Howard's Tories
Yes, and this is critical to understanding Cameron/Osborne gerrymandering. The Tories got more votes but fewer seats. It took thousands more voters to elect a Conservative MP than a Labour one. They really did convince themselves that Labour was cheating and the electoral system was unfairly skewed red, and therefore it was only fair to place a blue thumb on the scale. So they did.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
If you really think IQ can be measured to the tenth of a point, that is rather revealing.
If you really can’t see a joke when it is says “this is obviously a joke” then….
Sadly, my IQ is insufficient to allow me to divine when you are joking about one of your pet obsessions.
I’m not obsessed with IQ per se, I AM intrigued by the cognitive dissonance required to dismiss it entirely as a metric. IQ is a flawed measurement but it is still useful, and it definitely measures something - speed of reasoning? - that is remarkably helpful in industrialised technological societies.
Someone with an IQ of 130 will be obviously “smarter” than someone with an IQ of 70. Likewise, barring exceptional sporting or artistic talent in the low IQ person, the high IQ person will nearly always do better in life - earn more, meet a partner, buy a house, have a career
The fact that IQ tests sometimes give uncomfortable results is not a reason to dismiss them entirely, however much we might wish it so
IQ is a series of tests that individually do a reasonable job of measuring cognitive ability in various different areas.
At the same time, the weighting between - say - spatial and verbal reasoning is entirely subjective.
And it is provably the case that with a little training on tests, you can move your baseline by 20 points or so. Which tells you that at least a chunk of what IQ measures is learned, rather than innate.
Many moons ago in a discussion with hyufd I highlighted some of the training you could do/give to boost your IQ score. There are some very simple techniques.
There are but you are very unlikely to be able to go from a 70 IQ to a 140 IQ, there are limits.
IQ can measure education level but can also measure genetic intelligence which is inherited
However it does not show ineptness, lack of social skills or stupidity level with anything relevant to living.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
If you really think IQ can be measured to the tenth of a point, that is rather revealing.
If you really can’t see a joke when it is says “this is obviously a joke” then….
Sadly, my IQ is insufficient to allow me to divine when you are joking about one of your pet obsessions.
I’m not obsessed with IQ per se, I AM intrigued by the cognitive dissonance required to dismiss it entirely as a metric. IQ is a flawed measurement but it is still useful, and it definitely measures something - speed of reasoning? - that is remarkably helpful in industrialised technological societies.
Someone with an IQ of 130 will be obviously “smarter” than someone with an IQ of 70. Likewise, barring exceptional sporting or artistic talent in the low IQ person, the high IQ person will nearly always do better in life - earn more, meet a partner, buy a house, have a career
The fact that IQ tests sometimes give uncomfortable results is not a reason to dismiss them entirely, however much we might wish it so
IQ is a series of tests that individually do a reasonable job of measuring cognitive ability in various different areas.
At the same time, the weighting between - say - spatial and verbal reasoning is entirely subjective.
And it is provably the case that with a little training on tests, you can move your baseline by 20 points or so. Which tells you that at least a chunk of what IQ measures is learned, rather than innate.
Many moons ago in a discussion with hyufd I highlighted some of the training you could do/give to boost your IQ score. There are some very simple techniques.
There are but you are very unlikely to be able to go from a 70 IQ to a 140 IQ, there are limits.
IQ can measure education level but can also measure genetic intelligence which is inherited
IQ *cannot* measure "genetic intelligence", whatver that means. It can only measure some sort of score to do with brain capacity, including experience, training, and general cultural upbringing (language, notably, used in the test).
It can measure all the latter but they are mostly related to educational qualifications achieved and the job you do, otherwise the rest is genetic IQ and intelligence inherited from your parents
Doesn't work that way. The interaction is too complex.
Edit: also: So IQ cannot measure the genetic component of intelligence (which itself is a statistical construct that can't be viewed on its own).
You've backtracked from claiming it can measure "genetic intelligence". Which is at least an improvement, it must be said.
Logically IQ can reflect either educational qualifications achieved or skills used in the job you do or intelligence inherited from your parents or a combination of all of those.
There is nothing else it can measure
Lots of other things. Spatial intelligence, for instance, has n othing inherently to do with qwualifications or job done.
And it still doesn't measure genetic intelligence, whatever that is. Any more than a measuring jug can measure the amount of alcohol in a pint of beer.
Of course it does, engineers for example would use spatial intelligence skills regularly
But that isn't true of all jobs. You said "skills used in the job you do". That excludes skills not used in the job one does. No job uses all skills. So skills used in the job is a useless criterion. Completely useless.
Delete 'job' and just say multiple skill types, and you might be getting some of the way there.
Yes, ie engineers use spatial awareness in their jobs.
Firstly, thanks to @OnlyLivingBoy for his analysis, which is very good and shows the correlation on the net satisfaction score, highlighting (again) that this seems to be a better indicator than pure party vote intentions.
One thing that could help Labour win a tsunami of seats in the next election is that there are many Conservative seats with small majorities so it does not much of a swing for these seats to fall.
However, I will make one observation and one opinion on the analysis.
1. The observation is that Starmer seems to be doing around the same as Kinnock and Miliband is at a similar stage, although better than Corbyn. So not great.
2. I'm going to disagree with the view Starmer's ratings will improve as we get into the election for two reasons.
The first is that, so far, when Starmer has had to explain policy in more detail when quizzed, his performance when responding is mixed to say the least. It is obviously not inexperience but more seems to be personality-based and / or the need to keep the left wing of his party happy. In the scrutiny of a GE campaign, if he continues on as he has done so far, he is going to get himself into trouble very quickly.
The second goes back to the charts. Starmer's rating quickly dropped off and has never recovered since then, a similar pattern to every other leader bar Blair. Moreover, again ex-Blair, none of those leaders saw a noticeable uptick when they got closer to the election, with the possible part exception of Major. I think most people have already made up their minds as to what they think of Starmer and I think it can be summed up as "meh". I also don't think that will. change. That might get him across the line but, if I am right about 1, then it will not.
The key thing isn't that Starmer is seen as doing well, it's that Sunak is doing very badly. Not quite as badly as his predecessor, but it wouldn't be that much of a shock if he plumbed those depths.
It is, as they say, A Two Horse Race. And one of them has to lose, making the other the winner.
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
If you really think IQ can be measured to the tenth of a point, that is rather revealing.
If you really can’t see a joke when it is says “this is obviously a joke” then….
Sadly, my IQ is insufficient to allow me to divine when you are joking about one of your pet obsessions.
I’m not obsessed with IQ per se, I AM intrigued by the cognitive dissonance required to dismiss it entirely as a metric. IQ is a flawed measurement but it is still useful, and it definitely measures something - speed of reasoning? - that is remarkably helpful in industrialised technological societies.
Someone with an IQ of 130 will be obviously “smarter” than someone with an IQ of 70. Likewise, barring exceptional sporting or artistic talent in the low IQ person, the high IQ person will nearly always do better in life - earn more, meet a partner, buy a house, have a career
The fact that IQ tests sometimes give uncomfortable results is not a reason to dismiss them entirely, however much we might wish it so
IQ is a series of tests that individually do a reasonable job of measuring cognitive ability in various different areas.
At the same time, the weighting between - say - spatial and verbal reasoning is entirely subjective.
And it is provably the case that with a little training on tests, you can move your baseline by 20 points or so. Which tells you that at least a chunk of what IQ measures is learned, rather than innate.
Many moons ago in a discussion with hyufd I highlighted some of the training you could do/give to boost your IQ score. There are some very simple techniques.
There are but you are very unlikely to be able to go from a 70 IQ to a 140 IQ, there are limits.
IQ can measure education level but can also measure genetic intelligence which is inherited
Sorry been away. I agree you can't go from 70 to 140. I also think it unlikely you could train someone with 70 at all (but I don't know that). @rcs1000 suggests 20 points and that doesn't seem unreasonable to me for someone around average intelligence.
I have no doubt there is inherited intelligence but it is complicated. None of my family have been tested (except me 50 odd years ago when I had to take a test for a job. I don't know the score now but I do know that I had to exceed 130). However it is pretty clear our family have very different IQs. My wife will say (because she has) that I am more intelligent than her, but then she clearly can do things I can't do. She is much better at language and I certainly don't think I could have done the learning required that she did in her medical career. However I do have a better memory for general stuff and I am more logical and challenge 'why stuff is/happens' all the time which she (like most people) just accept.
My children are extreme. My daughter is (in my opinion) of average intelligence. Less intelligent than both of us. My son on the other hand (and I won't bore people with the details) is on the far extreme of intelligence. Literally off the scale. Where the hell did that come from? There is nothing in our family histories to explain that
And then of course there is emotional intelligence and my daughter is better at that than my son.
Brief comment on the OP. It's a nice and simple analysis, and very welcome. On the data, the number of seats in England went up from 516 in 1979 to 533 at the last election. Probably not enough to have a big effect, but seats expressed as a proportion of the total would have been better. On the regression scatter diagram the three rightmost observations are New Labour, and perhaps a little exceptional and probably influential for the estimated slope.
Thanks. You are right about using proportions, I wanted to keep things simple hence modelling absolute seat numbers but proportions are probably more accurate. Of course we are looking at England and Wales and some of the English gains will be offset by Welsh losses, but still. I actually disagree with you on the New Labour elections. The only one that looks odd there is 2005, when Labour seems to have held onto a lot of seats they should have lost (IIRC they had a lot of very narrow wins through luck or clever targeting of resources, and this set the stage for losing a lot of seats in 2010). Both 97 and 01 don't look like they're off the regression line and hence are unlikely to be influencing the results much. Why were the New Labour years special? Labour had a very popular leader in 97 and 01 and in 01 was coming from a strong starting point - both captured in the model. Hence, we are already allowing for the fact that Starmer is no Blair. If he were Blair (1997 Blair not 2023 Blair) the result would not be in question, I think. If you exclude these three elections then you would exclude all the elections that Labour won. Then you will rely on predicting a potential Labour victory from data that include no Labour victories. I think that would be harder to defend empirically - always dodgy to predict things outside the support of the previous data.
In 2005 Howard's Conservatives actually won the popular vote in England of course, 35.7% to 35.4% for Blair's Labour.
Yet New Labour won 286 seats in England to just 194 for Howard's Tories
Yes, and this is critical to understanding Cameron/Osborne gerrymandering. The Tories got more votes but fewer seats. It took thousands more voters to elect a Conservative MP than a Labour one. They really did convince themselves that Labour was cheating and the electoral system was unfairly skewed red, and therefore it was only fair to place a blue thumb on the scale. So they did.
Indeed but it was also partly a reflection of the fact C1 and C2 swing voters tend to be concentrated in the most marginal seats and while Howard won ABs comfortably in 2005 and C1s more narrowly, Blair won C2s strongly still. C2s being key swing voters who voted for Blair then switched to back Cameron and Boris and have now swung to Starmer since Truss and Sunak took the Tory leadership https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2005
I didn’t realise @OnlyLivingBoy had this natural story-telling talent
Translation: I can't understand that formula even with my IQ of 130.
143.7
It is rather a lot of maths for first thing on a Sunday. Nonetheless congrats to @OnlyLivingBoy on his debut, it’s good that this site can offer detailed mathematical analysis
If you really think IQ can be measured to the tenth of a point, that is rather revealing.
If you really can’t see a joke when it is says “this is obviously a joke” then….
Sadly, my IQ is insufficient to allow me to divine when you are joking about one of your pet obsessions.
I’m not obsessed with IQ per se, I AM intrigued by the cognitive dissonance required to dismiss it entirely as a metric. IQ is a flawed measurement but it is still useful, and it definitely measures something - speed of reasoning? - that is remarkably helpful in industrialised technological societies.
Someone with an IQ of 130 will be obviously “smarter” than someone with an IQ of 70. Likewise, barring exceptional sporting or artistic talent in the low IQ person, the high IQ person will nearly always do better in life - earn more, meet a partner, buy a house, have a career
The fact that IQ tests sometimes give uncomfortable results is not a reason to dismiss them entirely, however much we might wish it so
IQ is a series of tests that individually do a reasonable job of measuring cognitive ability in various different areas.
At the same time, the weighting between - say - spatial and verbal reasoning is entirely subjective.
And it is provably the case that with a little training on tests, you can move your baseline by 20 points or so. Which tells you that at least a chunk of what IQ measures is learned, rather than innate.
Many moons ago in a discussion with hyufd I highlighted some of the training you could do/give to boost your IQ score. There are some very simple techniques.
There are but you are very unlikely to be able to go from a 70 IQ to a 140 IQ, there are limits.
IQ can measure education level but can also measure genetic intelligence which is inherited
Sorry been away. I agree you can't go from 70 to 140. I also think it unlikely you could train someone with 70 at all (but I don't know that). @rcs1000 suggests 20 points and that doesn't seem unreasonable to me for someone around average intelligence.
I have no doubt there is inherited intelligence but it is complicated. None of my family have been tested (except me 50 odd years ago when I had to take a test for a job. I don't know the score now but I do know that I had to exceed 130). However it is pretty clear our family have very different IQs. My wife will say (because she has) that I am more intelligent than her, but then she clearly can do things I can't do. She is much better at language and I certainly don't think I could have done the learning required that she did in her medical career. However I do have a better memory for general stuff and I am more logical and challenge 'why stuff is/happens' all the time which she (like most people) just accept.
My children are extreme. My daughter is (in my opinion) of average intelligence. Less intelligent than both of us. My son on the other hand (and I won't bore people with the details) is on the far extreme of intelligence. Literally off the scale. Where the hell did that come from? There is nothing in our family histories to explain that
And then of course there is emotional intelligence and my daughter is better at that than my son.
There is EQ too of course
Well, it is far from clear that EQ or IQ really exist. You can measure a bunch of things, but the score is a construct of how you measured it. It doesn’t necessarily mean that there is an underlying, unidimensional trait.
Firstly, thanks to @OnlyLivingBoy for his analysis, which is very good and shows the correlation on the net satisfaction score, highlighting (again) that this seems to be a better indicator than pure party vote intentions.
One thing that could help Labour win a tsunami of seats in the next election is that there are many Conservative seats with small majorities so it does not much of a swing for these seats to fall.
However, I will make one observation and one opinion on the analysis.
1. The observation is that Starmer seems to be doing around the same as Kinnock and Miliband is at a similar stage, although better than Corbyn. So not great.
2. I'm going to disagree with the view Starmer's ratings will improve as we get into the election for two reasons.
The first is that, so far, when Starmer has had to explain policy in more detail when quizzed, his performance when responding is mixed to say the least. It is obviously not inexperience but more seems to be personality-based and / or the need to keep the left wing of his party happy. In the scrutiny of a GE campaign, if he continues on as he has done so far, he is going to get himself into trouble very quickly.
The second goes back to the charts. Starmer's rating quickly dropped off and has never recovered since then, a similar pattern to every other leader bar Blair. Moreover, again ex-Blair, none of those leaders saw a noticeable uptick when they got closer to the election, with the possible part exception of Major. I think most people have already made up their minds as to what they think of Starmer and I think it can be summed up as "meh". I also don't think that will. change. That might get him across the line but, if I am right about 1, then it will not.
Hard to disagree with much of this.
I do think we've lived (and are living arguably) through unprecedented times. We've had the pandemic, a significant social, economic, cultural, psychological and political event and now we have the war in the Ukraine. It's hard to think of a Parliament since 1945 that has had the upheaval.
One could argue Boris Johnson was just plain unlucky his shiny new Premiership was derailed within three months by a virus although given his 20 years of machinations and manoeuvring to get to the top of the political greasy pole one might see a sense of irony.
I'm simply wary of ascribing the virtues and practices of past elections to this unique experience. I think you're right in that a lot of minds are made up - OGH clings to the "Don't Knows" like a comfort blanket but in lieu of solid polling evidence they will rush back to the Conservatives, I'm of the view they are a chimera.
Starmer is, pace Blair, determined to reassure the wavering ex-Tory voters right up to and even beyond the last minute they can vote for his Labour Party safe in the view nothing too much will change - the Mail is clearly going to turn every Labour policy announcement into a desperate scare tactic to frighten its elderly demographic into staying with the blues.
Ultimately, Starmer's greatest ally may well be the Conservatives themselves - why vote Tory again? might be a good slogan with which to go into a campaign.
Related to the Russell Brand story, there have been some interesting articles on 'the great uncancelling' on Tortoise media. Essentially, they are observing a trend whereby cancelling isn't working, using the example of Johnny Depp in particular - these allegations are not sticking unless someone actually gets sent to jail. See also the fact that Andrew Tate is now back in business, and that the allegations (and court findings) against Trump have don't seem to be harming his political prospects. Elon Musk also made some vaguely supportive comments towards Brand yesterday. We may not be seeing 'progress' in the way that some posters think.
Yet Huw Edwards and Pip still remain out on a limb. Careers over. Neither have done anything illegal. Poor Pip has been thrown to the Wolves by people he used to consider friends.
But these people didn't trade on notoriety to start with, though.
I think the phenomenon is more of uncancellable notoriety. These people get stronger the more loudly they're condemned ; so provoking people is in fact their currency, and actually part of the currency of our times - "owning the libs", "I love liberal tears", "white womens' tears", "pale, male and stale tears": ; pick your self-perpetuating language of provocation from the left or right.
Wasn't there an author of a best-selling book around that same time who in similar vein bragged about his promiscuity, and who also became an Alt-Right maverick?
Some of these men left behind a lot of victims.
It seems to be a common theme across media and the arts.
I am reminded of a Hollywood producer who said that the original Polanski prosecution ruined the party atmosphere in Hollywood.
Yes, he said that. Out loud. To camera….
Roisin Murphy also appears to be doing very well with her new album despite the music industry's combined attemots to slience her (not that Roisin chose controversy - she made a private comment about puberty blockers that 90% of the population would be in total agreement with, which she subsequently (in my view needlessly) apologised for, but that was enough for a mass pile on .)
Although she seems to have been quietly removed from 6music and the BBC sites.
She got an uncritical writeup in the Guardian though, and still on their Culture front page. I also seem to recall her apology was of the sorry-you-felt-bad nature, though I may be wrong.
It wasn't entirely uncritical. To paraphrase: this is a very good album musically but she is guilty of wrongthink and therefore an awful person and therefore her album is a bad thing.
I saw a hilariously over the top negative review of Starfield; you see it wasn't that the game was bad, it was that Bethesda wasn't sufficiently transfriendly.
Fortunately (as the decidedly average Hogwarts Legacy game has shown), it turns out that these review bombs seem to do very little in the real world to dent demand,
You can self-identify in HL though and there is an AMAB woman character (according to the Ukrainians) so JKR must be sat on her platinum toilet fuming.
I thought all role playing games were about self identifying
Comments
But since his own party colleagues accused him of being utterly unfit to be First Minister and said he wouldn't last five minutes, we're talking a low bar there.
My son always hits it out the park on the reading comprehension, typically scoring in the 92nd to 98th percentile. But on spatial reasoning, he's typically middle of the road (at best), usually coming in somewhere between the 40th and 55th percentile.
I always wonder about kids like that: who score very well on one part of a test, but averagely on another. If he'd been taking the 11+ in the past, would he have gone to Secondary Modern because one part of his scores was not that great.
https://www.warrawongws.com.au/
I v isited this place years ago. Amazing place to stay at night, best time to see wall to wall marsupials and monotremes, or rather fence to fence, as it had a electrified fence to keep out the cats. Founder even had a cat fur hat Davy Crockett style to make the point. Made him VERY unpopular with a certain element in the local population.
The fact that one person can have a real range of abilities on what is mostly a mental task is a signal that there's something a lot more complex going on than can be reduced to a single score. My calamitous kitchen bumbling is not because I am unable to measure 200g of flour into a tared scale; that's easy. Its my ability to follow the steps of the recipe without my head bouncing around and getting confused. My mind leaps around like a flea instead of crawling along like a worm. Which means I can pick out different aspects and see surprising new angles, but I cannot follow linear instructions. IQ tests, with their discrete mini puzzles, suit me very well. And yes, the puzzles are often thematically linked, but not linearly dependent, those are separate things. I'm ok with themes.
That's why I think it's crap. IQ tests seem incredibly well designed to make people like me look great. But I introspect (a lot) and I have a good measure of my flaws and my stupidity. And I know that you could set tests that others would fly through but would make me look like a head trauma patient.
If you want to see it done badly (and I'm curious if @rcs1000 would agree or disagree) look at California.
In California as I understand it, then they will vote under direct democracy to cut taxes, and to increase spending, and to run a balanced budget and all sorts of contradictory desires that are pretty much impossible to square.
Sometimes democracy is about making a choice, and each choice has a negative consequence, an "opportunity cost". Parliamentary democracy allows balancing those consequences, if you try to directly insist you get the positives but not the negatives then that's not making direct democracy better, its making it impossible.
To do it right is a real challenge and needs real safeguards.
And that is exactly why we have representative democracy; to allow us to delegate the relative priorities. If we don't like the choices the representatives make, we can always change them.
Which is why I would say the danger is not populism (or should I say populist policies) per se. So long as the ballot box remains an effective mechanism for evicting those leaders and parties who fail to perform, then it is (almost all) the checks and balances you need.
But when that gets removed, then that's when shit really happens. It is the undermining of democracy and democratic institutions which is to be feared, not the specific policies of the populists.
Will they turn to the Tories? Either because the Tories rapidly sorted themselves out, or simply for want of any alternative.
Will Farage, or some other far-right populist or crypto-Nazi, harvest the burgeoning discontent?
The Greens?
The LIBDEMS? (No lauighing at the back!)
British politics in the mid to late 2020s looks like it will be wide open, with the public desperate to be convinced that someone has the answers that are required to the problems faced by the country.
This works often, but not always ; Lula, in Brazil, as mentioned, ignored economic consensus and the strictures of the West and still grew his economy and society. The Iranian regime of Mossadeq and the Chilean one of Allende were making some forms of modest economic and social progress before the interventions of the West. It's complicated.
Where they're different is that IQ is probably most useful when looking at individuals, but BMI is probably most useful when looking at populations - but then I would say that, given that I score comfortably above the median on both measures...
Ah, he's just being friendly!
Rather than malevolent peddling comforting fantasies.
Pat experience makes me less than hopeful.
The Conservatives could have survived Boris or Truss. But not both.
That said, he's also unlucky. He'd have won the 2015 election against Miliband easily.
Different times.
Fortunately (as the decidedly average Hogwarts Legacy game has shown), it turns out that these review bombs seem to do very little in the real world to dent demand,
On IQ: it's rubbish. There's no "there" there. But when I was 12 my mental age was 96. I wish it had only been 36. Or even 24 for that matter.
One of these days, somebody will annoy an awful lot of people by publishing a book on how to answer the types of question that have to be answered to get >140 on the kinds of puzzle that make up IQ tests.
@Leon - The Languedoc, huh? Be careful not to ask too many questions about the Abbé Boudet who didn't have time for simony because he was too busy recording information about the aliens in his heavily coded work on etymology.
Quiz: who, where, when?
FWIW.
I don't think he's universally unpopular, but dweeb seems about right.
Quite an interesting video about drug prices USA vs other countries. Done by a Usonian who now lives in Germany.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtHMB3vroas
Some election winners are natural campaigners eg Cameron, Boris and Blair, for others provided they are not too extreme whether they win or not is often down to luck ie avoiding a charismatic leader of the opposing party and taking over when the mood is for change
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barassi_Line
It's struck me more than once that Leon has railed about the fentanyl disaster (and I agree with him there)... while also advocating old-age euthanasia by means of hard drugs.
I think the chances of a near total collapse of the Tory vote are quite high and, therefore, that Labour could end up with a substantial majority. Sunak simply does not have a clue what he is doing and has ended up in a senior job far too soon.
Before the rains come I need to do some deadheading and enjoy my salvia uliginosa - a salvia with the most exquisite azure blue flowers. Then it will be time to settle down with the J Parker's catalogue and order spring bulbs for planting in the next few weeks or so.
This is what Sunday afternoons were made for.
IQ can measure education level but can also measure genetic intelligence which is inherited
https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/opioid-overdose-deaths-by-age-group/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel={"colId":"Location","sort":"asc"}
But as he spent years on TV and radio, and was a minor star in Hollywood (anyone wanting a definition of Hell, have a child who loves to watch the film 'Hop', where Brand voices the main character...), it can be assumed he has a talent, even if it is only in narcissism.
Anyway, my comment was mainly a reference to some comments made by another poster, long before MeToo...
He doesn't 'possess talent', he's not 'talented'. He's "the talent" instead.
Took the kids there - and further south - a couple of decades back.
The summer Concorde crashed.
Daughter won a painting competition in a tiny Pyrenees village. With about a dozen contestants.
However a few serial killers have had high IQs as did many leading Nazis who earnt well, were married had a house and top career in the Nazi party and Germany government or SS, that did not make them good people
Edit: also: So IQ cannot measure the genetic component of intelligence (which itself is a statistical construct that can't be viewed on its own).
You've backtracked from claiming it can measure "genetic intelligence". Which is at least an improvement, it must be said.
I actually disagree with you on the New Labour elections. The only one that looks odd there is 2005, when Labour seems to have held onto a lot of seats they should have lost (IIRC they had a lot of very narrow wins through luck or clever targeting of resources, and this set the stage for losing a lot of seats in 2010). Both 97 and 01 don't look like they're off the regression line and hence are unlikely to be influencing the results much. Why were the New Labour years special? Labour had a very popular leader in 97 and 01 and in 01 was coming from a strong starting point - both captured in the model. Hence, we are already allowing for the fact that Starmer is no Blair. If he were Blair (1997 Blair not 2023 Blair) the result would not be in question, I think.
If you exclude these three elections then you would exclude all the elections that Labour won. Then you will rely on predicting a potential Labour victory from data that include no Labour victories. I think that would be harder to defend empirically - always dodgy to predict things outside the support of the previous data.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLeT09s-zJU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt8mvYdEFf8 At a certain threshold, a given event or person will be attacked online. That threshold varies depending on time, subject and availability of social media. As social media has expanded, that threshold has lowered and now people are attacked for nearly everything. The existence of a review bomb is not important, it is the size. If the number of people objecting affects sales, it matters. If not, not.
There was a famous study by the Freakonomics team decades ago that legalised abortion lowered crime rates. Why? Because disproportionately the 'unwanted' potential babies that were aborted so never born would disproportionately have grown up to be criminals, so by disproportionately never having been born (removed from the pool prematurely) the crimes they would have committed never occurred.
If we take the humanity and tragedy of fentanyl out of the equation, a part of me wonders if a similar effect may be occurring with fentanyl.
Is it removing high functioning people at the prime of their life from society?
Or is it removing those who in other times might have been unproductive crack, or heroin, or meth addicts and taking them out instead?
If the latter then it may be, in a very cruel, and very inhumane manner, boosting societies productivity.
Which, to add the humanity back into the equation, is not to be welcomed.
For the 2019 general election I think you could say that the model provides an estimate of the Brexit effect on that election. It's interesting that both 1979 and 2010 - election sin which Labour lost office - are ones where Labour underperform the model, but no such effect is seen in reverse for 1997.
Logically IQ can reflect either educational qualifications achieved or skills used in the job you do or intelligence inherited from your parents or a combination of all of those.
There is nothing else it can measure
Simply repeating Labour are going to win a majority ad infinitum doesn't cut it.
Yet New Labour won 286 seats in England to just 194 for Howard's Tories
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_United_Kingdom_general_election_in_England
And it still doesn't measure genetic intelligence, whatever that is. Any more than a measuring jug can measure the amount of alcohol in a pint of beer.
As it seems to me, it is already very easy for Labour to remind people that, thanks to 14 years of Tory government, there are areas of the public domain (health, education, justice) where expensive intervention, not to mention more investment, is badly and urgently needed. But it is difficult then to find a way forward without acknowledging that the overall tax take has to increase. How might this be achieved? Answer: let it be clear that “tax” is no confined to the four taxes that 95% of people pay (with two of them—Council tax and VAT—being regressive). The tax burden has to shift from taxes on income to taxes on wealth, the most glaring of which—Capital Gains Tax—is only ever paid by those in the top 2 or 3%. There is no need to speak of a wealth tax, but only to be clear that the very wealthy should pay more. Only so, can the injustice/unfairness of the increasing inequality seen in the last twenty years start to be redressed. The start must be to point out some simple facts about the extent of this increasing inequality. I think the sooner Sunak and Reeves start to bring this to attention, the better.
Uman, Ukraine, a Hasidic pilgrim kisses a chevron in the form of a red and black flag with a Star of David on the hand of a Ukrainian military regiment Azov with the call sign Rebbe, who came to Uman for the holiday of Rosh Hashanah for one day from the front line in the east.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1703358614096801953
The inside story of the school that gave its pupils HIV
By 1987 Treloar College in Hampshire had infected 122 boys with contaminated blood. Ade Goodyear, one of only 30 still alive, recalls the day he was given the shattering news
It was a bright, sunny afternoon in May 1985 when Ade Goodyear, then 15, and four other pupils were told by their housemaster to go to the school’s health centre. At six months old Goodyear had been diagnosed with haemophilia, a genetic disorder in which the blood fails to clot. For the past six years he had been a pupil at Lord Mayor Treloar College in Alton, Hampshire, one of England’s leading centres in caring for disabled children.
Adopted as a baby, his father had sought refuge for him at Treloar’s when he was nine. Goodyear had been badly bullied at his local school; the worst incident resulted in a boy fracturing his elbow with an iron bar in a bid to find out what happened to a haemophiliac when he bled.
Over the years Goodyear had been regularly treated for his condition at Treloar’s health centre and so he thought nothing of the housemaster’s request. But it was a meeting that was to dramatically change the course of his life.
The centre had an open-door policy and it was not unheard of for them to be seen as a group, but it was unusual. Sitting behind the desk was Dr Anthony Aronstam, the centre’s director. He was accompanied by Dr Maneer Wassef, the resident haematologist, who endeared himself to the pupils by playing table tennis with them in the evening after lessons. Unusually, the head of physiotherapy and two nurses were also present...
...Eventually Aronstam, with tears welling up in his eyes, told the pupils: “Some of you here have been given HIV.” Walking around the room, he lifted his left hand and pointed to each boy and said: “You have, you haven’t, you have, you haven’t, you have.” This last “you have” was directed at Goodyear, who was at the end of the line of boys closest to the door.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-inside-story-of-the-school-that-gave-its-pupils-hiv-rdbkld0g0
The video I saw of a man having his head sawn off purported to be an Islamist "execution" of a Westerner. From what I can recall, the ground looked arid, the victim was white and the hands and arms of the killer were brown, so it tracks, but I had no other clues. I wondered why the person who sent it to me had sent it to me. I have a hypothesis these days.
The purpose of getting other people to view graphic real-life violence is to induce a state of shock, into which you can insert a political message. Western imperialism is Islamophobic and must be resisted. Islam is bad and must be resisted. Capitalism is evil. Socialism is evil. There's no point to anything so come make some chaos. Your children are under attack. These dogs must be banned. These dogs must be killed. Whatever.
Shocking violence is like plough that rips up the level ground of the mind. You plough to sow.
Violent spectacle is what terrorism is about. It intends to radicalise. And lesser than terrorism but exploiting the same traumatic pathways is: the sharing of violent videos. You see it on Twitter. A video of a something and some "explanatory" text. Refugees rioting in Sweden. Police cracking the skulls of peaceful BLM protesters. Sometimes the putative context is a deliberate lie or obfuscated. Sometimes it's real. But always it's designed to harm the viewer enough that an opinion, probably a radical one, can be sown.
I'm not pointing fingers, and I don't have a firm recommendation. Just some thoughts.
I still see that man being murdered sometimes when I close my eyes, and it's a long, long time ago since I saw the video. I am not in contact with the person who was perhaps trying to radicalise me. They hurt me and I suspect it was as a means to end, which is a small act of evil. If you have an opportunity to share such a video, to draw someone's attention to it, I think it's best you don't. Even if you think it's clinches your argument, whatever that is.
If it's something relevant (eg a broken game or poor quality) then take that into account. If it's not then discard.
My favourite game to play which I've played since early access about a decade ago has on Steam an Overwhelmingly Positive rating throughout it's history. A review bomb occurred at the start of the latest invasion of Ukraine by Russia when the publisher (Eastern European I believe) put a "we stand with Ukraine" message on their website with a Ukrainian flag, which is still there today. Prompting a bombing almost exclusively in Cyrillic or broken English. Didn't do them any harm whatsoever thankfully, if anything the opposite as it then got extra publicity elsewhere in a positive manner. The Russian trolls got bored and moved on before long.
One thing that could help Labour win a tsunami of seats in the next election is that there are many Conservative seats with small majorities so it does not much of a swing for these seats to fall.
However, I will make one observation and one opinion on the analysis.
1. The observation is that Starmer seems to be doing around the same as Kinnock and Miliband is at a similar stage, although better than Corbyn. So not great.
2. I'm going to disagree with the view Starmer's ratings will improve as we get into the election for two reasons.
The first is that, so far, when Starmer has had to explain policy in more detail when quizzed, his performance when responding is mixed to say the least. It is obviously not inexperience but more seems to be personality-based and / or the need to keep the left wing of his party happy. In the scrutiny of a GE campaign, if he continues on as he has done so far, he is going to get himself into trouble very quickly.
The second goes back to the charts. Starmer's rating quickly dropped off and has never recovered since then, a similar pattern to every other leader bar Blair. Moreover, again ex-Blair, none of those leaders saw a noticeable uptick when they got closer to the election, with the possible part exception of Major. I think most people have already made up their minds as to what they think of Starmer and I think it can be summed up as "meh". I also don't think that will. change. That might get him across the line but, if I am right about 1, then it will not.
Delete 'job' and just say multiple skill types, and you might be getting some of the way there.
I have no doubt there is inherited intelligence but it is complicated. None of my family have been tested (except me 50 odd years ago when I had to take a test for a job. I don't know the score now but I do know that I had to exceed 130). However it is pretty clear our family have very different IQs. My wife will say (because she has) that I am more intelligent than her, but then she clearly can do things I can't do. She is much better at language and I certainly don't think I could have done the learning required that she did in her medical career. However I do have a better memory for general stuff and I am more logical and challenge 'why stuff is/happens' all the time which she (like most people) just accept.
My children are extreme. My daughter is (in my opinion) of average intelligence. Less intelligent than both of us. My son on the other hand (and I won't bore people with the details) is on the far extreme of intelligence. Literally off the scale. Where the hell did that come from? There is nothing in our family histories to explain that
And then of course there is emotional intelligence and my daughter is better at that than my son.
I did not say ALL skills used in ALL jobs
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/UszRd9DO95M
It is, as they say, A Two Horse Race. And one of them has to lose, making the other the winner.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2005
I do think we've lived (and are living arguably) through unprecedented times. We've had the pandemic, a significant social, economic, cultural, psychological and political event and now we have the war in the Ukraine. It's hard to think of a Parliament since 1945 that has had the upheaval.
One could argue Boris Johnson was just plain unlucky his shiny new Premiership was derailed within three months by a virus although given his 20 years of machinations and manoeuvring to get to the top of the political greasy pole one might see a sense of irony.
I'm simply wary of ascribing the virtues and practices of past elections to this unique experience. I think you're right in that a lot of minds are made up - OGH clings to the "Don't Knows" like a comfort blanket but in lieu of solid polling evidence they will rush back to the Conservatives, I'm of the view they are a chimera.
Starmer is, pace Blair, determined to reassure the wavering ex-Tory voters right up to and even beyond the last minute they can vote for his Labour Party safe in the view nothing too much will change - the Mail is clearly going to turn every Labour policy announcement into a desperate scare tactic to frighten its elderly demographic into staying with the blues.
Ultimately, Starmer's greatest ally may well be the Conservatives themselves - why vote Tory again? might be a good slogan with which to go into a campaign.