Ok, I may have cast aspersions on Leon’s acuity previously but he’s spot on about the Bernard Manning thing. Am I being a sap to worry about a politician being called el Loco before they’ve even started?
'In their final televised debate ahead of the elections, Mr Massa questioned Mr Milei’s views of Margaret Thatcher and the Falklands, which Argentina refers to as Las Islas Malvinas.
Mr Milei called Thatcher one of the “great leaders,” to which Mr Massa retorted, “Thatcher is an enemy of Argentina yesterday, today and always.”'
Milei’s victory was celebrated by other big beasts of the global far-right including Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro, who had championed his campaign and has promised to attend his inauguration. “Hope is sparkling in South America once again,” Bolsonaro wrote on X, hailing what he called a victory for “honesty, progress and freedom”.
Maybe its me, but deciding that: - Half your population (women) should be chained to the kitchen; - Everyone should own (And use) guns (by everyone, he means Men - women don't count - see the point above); - Blowing up your central bank (rather than - you know - sacking everyone and getting better people in) - Allow human trafficking in body organs (what could possibly go wrong there) - Banning sex education AND abortions - Ban immigration
I just.... think it's a fast one way track to destroying your country in five years.
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religion” - without any of the beauty and nobility of the great religions. It fills the void left by capitalism (as other grander religions retreat in the west)
As much as I despise the man - I hate the articles talking about how appalling it is for Nigel Farage to be on I'm a Celeb and how it's giving a platform to hate. Not because they're wrong, but because they also participated in that for the longest time and the media outlet that probably deserves the most ire for making and keeping Nigel Farage relevant is the BBC who constantly stuck him on panel shows and QT disproportionately to their representation and polling (because he pulled in ratings with his antics, much like 45).
Looks like they are going to do it. Cut benefits for poorest to fund tax cuts.
Just incredible.
Sunak has totally lost the plot.
Steve Webb @stevewebb1 · 56m Benefit cuts alert - DWP just issued a notice (see below) of an 'ad hoc' publication on benefit upratings on Wednesday - in years where they simply pay inflation, they don't do this. Looks like this will be their defensive doc, justifying using the more recent inflation figure.
This is not only class war and wealth redistribution - it is going to bad for growth. Why? Because poor people spend their money, so money circulates in the economy, and rich people don't, so it will sit in an account and not get spent.
A pedant notes: lowering taxes implies LESS wealth redistribution.
Another pedant notes: money doesn't just sit in an account. If I have £100 in the bank with Barclays, it's not just sat in cash in a box. Barclays lend it to other people, or invest it, to do things with.
Nope - it is redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich. Poor people pay taxes too - VAT as well as income tax. You may argue cutting taxes is not redistributive - you are not taking something you previously did - but I believe in a society and in a society we should fund minimal conditions for all people. If we are lowering the conditions for the poorest to the benefit of the richest - that is redistributive.
It isn't that the poor are "spend happy" it is that they have to spend money on food and living and such, so the money moves more.
Money that banks invest on behalf of their clients does not move as much as money spent by the poor - if I go to my corner shop and buy goods, that corner shop owner (as someone also relatively poor) will spent that money relatively soon to whoever they buy goods from, and the money will keep moving. If a portfolio management company is doing investments it will go into property, most likely, and then wait for that property price to just inflate over time. The money stays still.
Well I think the thought that 'investment' goes into property is a little simplistic. I think investment goes to a lot more places than that. And even money invested in property doesn't just sit there; it is an asset which allows other borrowing to be made. It no more 'just sits there' than the wealth I invest in a child's toy 'just sits there' once it is turned from cash to plastic tat. But it's a linguistic point I really take issue with here. Cutting benefits and taxes is not wealth redistribution; it is the opposite. If you have £100 and the government takes ten of those pounds and gives it to me, that is wealth redistribution. If the government then decides only to take £5 from you and give it to me, that is less wealth redistribution.
I fundamentally disagree. Again - I believe that society should provide a minimum standard of life. Government welfare exists to have that. If you reduce that minimum standard to allow rich people to have more money, that is redistributive - whether you like it or not. You are balancing the books of giving more to the rich by taking away from the poor.
That might be what society should do, but that is done BY redistribution. It isn't a question of whether I like it or not, it's a question of what redistribution means. If you want to be more Sweden and less USA, you do that by redistributing wealth. Sweden is more redistributive than the USA. No-one says the USA is a highly redistributive society because the rich have more than the poor, because that's the opposite of what redistribution means. This may seem a minor semantic point, but using words to mean what they mean and what people expect them to mean is important.
I also fundamentally don't think that the government's job is to featherbed.
The moral difference between cutting taxation (which is in effect confiscation from the self sufficient, aspirational and productive) and cutting handouts (which should be a spur to creating more productive, self sufficient and aspirational individuals) needs to be made by a Tory government.
Are there no work houses, are there no prisons...
Yep, the liberal left big statists LOVE to squeeze the productive parts of the economy to help the unproductive.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
During covid, who was a more essential worker - a nurse, a shelf stacker, an Amazon delivery driver; or an investment banker?
As my other post describes - rewarded by capitalism with more money is not the same as productive.
They were all essential. Where do you think the money to pay all that furlough and business support came from?
Government. Money is just an expression of labour value. Government just guarantees its value. As long as government can influence its labour market and controls its own currency, it can basically do what it wants. The former is much harder than the latter, especially in a global market - but it isn't impossible.
Colour me unconvinced by GCSE Marxism.
I have neither the time nor inclination to debate further; suffice to say that while government can 'create' money, that's not remotely linked to labour value and, pretty much by definition, actually depreciates it.
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religion” - without any of the beauty and nobility of the great religions. It fills the void left by capitalism (as other grander religions retreat in the west)
I was reading a book last night, Orion Shall Rise by Poul Anderson, which did strike me about our need for, well, storytelling and societal mthologising.
For every society must have a myth to live by, else it's a walking corpse that will soon fall to the ground.
With the red tories increasing their attacks on the Green party, it shows how worried they are. I wonder why?
The Greens are the new Labour Party
The Greens are the workers party
The Green Party is not the establishment
The Green Party represents ordinary people
Rinse and repeat for Tories and Reform
Yebbut at the heart of the Green Party is, er, or should be Green policies. Which they are not.
Sayeth Ben Goldsmith, your party funder or ex party funder:
"The Green Party is simply a harder-left version of Labour. We don’t have any ‘green’ party in the sense of a party whose attention is focused on the protection and restoration of the natural world; a party for those of us for whom nature is the biggest issue. It’s a huge shame."
You support them because they are a harder-left version of Labour. Which is fine. But at least play it straight and stop with all the "green" bolleaux. Call it as it is.
I agree with Ben.
The Green Party needs a huge kick up the backside. Eject all the Trots and focus on environmentalism.
Eject all the Trots and where are they going to go? Maybe they could take over the Conservative Party, that would be fun.
Nah, the former Revolutionary Communists have that one, via Spiked Online.
Spiked these days are about as revolutionary as Romesh Ranganathan or Michael McIntyre's comedy.
No, they still have the RCP mentality, hence the Brexitism and Putin apologism, just the party line has changed.
Putin apologist? I can't say I read it all the time, but when I look in they are seem very pro-Ukraine. Hardly Tucker Carlson-esque.
As far as I am aware most people now regard it as right of centre type of outlet, raging against the woke, the anti-free speech, get government out of our lives stuff. Actually its very predictable and makes for rather uninteresting content when you know the exact take on everything ahead of time, and not exactly stuff that will get Corbynite hard left fringe excitable.
e.g. the revolutionary lot these days are involved with XR, Just Stop Oil, in a bid to overthrow the system, the spiked people seem to be uninterested in such climate alarmism and more about drinking tea moaning about PC gone mad.
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
It has and it hasn't. Capitalism is the only gig in town, I get that, but...poverty in developed countries, inequality in developed countries, the rich getting richer while most of us struggle to maintain equilibrium, transnational corporations ripping the absolute arse out of us...it's all a man-made debacle, isn't it? We're the only species on the planet that has to pay to live and the vast majority struggle to stay in the game. That's only going to get worse if we continue with the exact same system. Our beloved Leon loves his Skynet apocalypse fantasy, but he's probably a little bit correct. AI taking jobs that millions of people do currently begs the question as to what jobs will they then do? We can't all retrain as AI developers. Couple that with climate change and mass immigration. There's going to have to be some sort of reckoning in the not too distant future.
As much as I despise the man - I hate the articles talking about how appalling it is for Nigel Farage to be on I'm a Celeb and how it's giving a platform to hate. Not because they're wrong, but because they also participated in that for the longest time and the media outlet that probably deserves the most ire for making and keeping Nigel Farage relevant is the BBC who constantly stuck him on panel shows and QT disproportionately to their representation and polling (because he pulled in ratings with his antics, much like 45).
I'd agree, except I would add that I do think they are wrong.
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
It has and it hasn't. Capitalism is the only gig in town, I get that, but...poverty in developed countries, inequality in developed countries, the rich getting richer while most of us struggle to maintain equilibrium, transnational corporations ripping the absolute arse out of us...it's all a man-made debacle, isn't it? We're the only species on the planet that has to pay to live and the vast majority struggle to stay in the game. That's only going to get worse if we continue with the exact same system. Our beloved Leon loves his Skynet apocalypse fantasy, but he's probably a little bit correct. AI taking jobs that millions of people do currently begs the question as to what jobs will they then do? We can't all retrain as AI developers. Couple that with climate change and mass immigration. There's going to have to be some sort of reckoning in the not too distant future.
You should compare it to the world of 1800. That's a world where 90% live in absolute poverty, compared to 8% now.
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religiob
“The largest religious complex in the world” (Wiki)
And
“The artistic legacy of Angkor Wat and other Khmer monuments in the Angkor region led directly to France adopting Cambodia as a protectorate on 11 August 1863 and invading Siam to take control of the ruins.”
(wiki)
In terms of striking human constructions I’d put it up there with the very greatest. It was overrun with tourists pre Covid which has maybe led some to underrate it (due to a bad experience). I’ve been lucky enough to see it almost alone - back in the noughties
20 years ago if if you got up early or lingered late you had it to yourself
Right. Official global top ten of pre industrial sites in indisputable order
1. Gobekli Tepe and the Tas Tepeler 2. Angkor Wat 3. Pantheon 4. Temples of Luxor and Karnak 5. Teotihuacan 6. Hagia Sophia 7. Taj Mahal 8. Stonehenge 9. Agrigento 10. The monastery of Solovetsky
Bubbling under
Borobodur Pyramids of Giza Great Wall of China Chichen itza and palenque Chambord The Renaissance ensemble of Florence El Escorial The walled city of Jerusalem Macchu piccu Abu simbel Krak des chevaliers The forbidden city The temples of Kyoto Lhasa The entirety of Kathmandu My flat
That’s it. That’s the list. There is no argument. The only argument is where you put the great gothic cathedrals of Europe. Taken as a whole they would be in number 2 or 3
Individually I’m not sure any of them make the top 10
Stonehenge? Nah. Top 50 maybe; its profile is largely down to it happening to be in the land that was Top Nation for 100 years or so.
You must have a gothic catherdral in the top 10, probably a couple. Choose one at least from: Notre Dame, Westminster Abbey, Lincoln, Chartres or Reims. I choose Lincoln.
The Alhambra also needs to be in the top 10. The Colosseum and the Pantheon, too while we're at it.
So my top 10 is now 15 or so.
Also Lascaux, at least top 20.
I’ve got pantheon at number 3!
I think Stonehenge makes it due to its superb mise en scene. If it was tucked away in a valley no one would care
But the designers chose brilliantly. Alone on the Plain. No wonder it was a pan European pilgrim site from the off
The great cave art is of world changing importance. But they aren’t structures. That was my criterion
Looks like they are going to do it. Cut benefits for poorest to fund tax cuts.
Just incredible.
Sunak has totally lost the plot.
Steve Webb @stevewebb1 · 56m Benefit cuts alert - DWP just issued a notice (see below) of an 'ad hoc' publication on benefit upratings on Wednesday - in years where they simply pay inflation, they don't do this. Looks like this will be their defensive doc, justifying using the more recent inflation figure.
This is not only class war and wealth redistribution - it is going to bad for growth. Why? Because poor people spend their money, so money circulates in the economy, and rich people don't, so it will sit in an account and not get spent.
A pedant notes: lowering taxes implies LESS wealth redistribution.
Another pedant notes: money doesn't just sit in an account. If I have £100 in the bank with Barclays, it's not just sat in cash in a box. Barclays lend it to other people, or invest it, to do things with.
Nope - it is redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich. Poor people pay taxes too - VAT as well as income tax. You may argue cutting taxes is not redistributive - you are not taking something you previously did - but I believe in a society and in a society we should fund minimal conditions for all people. If we are lowering the conditions for the poorest to the benefit of the richest - that is redistributive.
It isn't that the poor are "spend happy" it is that they have to spend money on food and living and such, so the money moves more.
Money that banks invest on behalf of their clients does not move as much as money spent by the poor - if I go to my corner shop and buy goods, that corner shop owner (as someone also relatively poor) will spent that money relatively soon to whoever they buy goods from, and the money will keep moving. If a portfolio management company is doing investments it will go into property, most likely, and then wait for that property price to just inflate over time. The money stays still.
Well I think the thought that 'investment' goes into property is a little simplistic. I think investment goes to a lot more places than that. And even money invested in property doesn't just sit there; it is an asset which allows other borrowing to be made. It no more 'just sits there' than the wealth I invest in a child's toy 'just sits there' once it is turned from cash to plastic tat. But it's a linguistic point I really take issue with here. Cutting benefits and taxes is not wealth redistribution; it is the opposite. If you have £100 and the government takes ten of those pounds and gives it to me, that is wealth redistribution. If the government then decides only to take £5 from you and give it to me, that is less wealth redistribution.
I fundamentally disagree. Again - I believe that society should provide a minimum standard of life. Government welfare exists to have that. If you reduce that minimum standard to allow rich people to have more money, that is redistributive - whether you like it or not. You are balancing the books of giving more to the rich by taking away from the poor.
That might be what society should do, but that is done BY redistribution. It isn't a question of whether I like it or not, it's a question of what redistribution means. If you want to be more Sweden and less USA, you do that by redistributing wealth. Sweden is more redistributive than the USA. No-one says the USA is a highly redistributive society because the rich have more than the poor, because that's the opposite of what redistribution means. This may seem a minor semantic point, but using words to mean what they mean and what people expect them to mean is important.
I also fundamentally don't think that the government's job is to featherbed.
The moral difference between cutting taxation (which is in effect confiscation from the self sufficient, aspirational and productive) and cutting handouts (which should be a spur to creating more productive, self sufficient and aspirational individuals) needs to be made by a Tory government.
Are there no work houses, are there no prisons...
Yep, the liberal left big statists LOVE to squeeze the productive parts of the economy to help the unproductive.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
During covid, who was a more essential worker - a nurse, a shelf stacker, an Amazon delivery driver; or an investment banker?
As my other post describes - rewarded by capitalism with more money is not the same as productive.
They were all essential. Where do you think the money to pay all that furlough and business support came from?
Government. Money is just an expression of labour value. Government just guarantees its value. As long as government can influence its labour market and controls its own currency, it can basically do what it wants. The former is much harder than the latter, especially in a global market - but it isn't impossible.
Colour me unconvinced by GCSE Marxism.
I have neither the time nor inclination to debate further; suffice to say that while government can 'create' money, that's not remotely linked to labour value and, pretty much by definition, actually depreciates it.
Many people who claim to be wealth creators are in fact wealth accumulators. The only true wealth creators are people who make things more efficient.
I worked all my career in IT and 75% of the time the projects we delivered made things a bit more efficient, so overall I class myself as a good wealth creator. Unfortunately, I have proved to be not such a good wealth accumulator. (Although that's probably at least partly because wealth per se doesn't motivate me that much.)
With the red tories increasing their attacks on the Green party, it shows how worried they are. I wonder why?
The Greens are the new Labour Party
The Greens are the workers party
The Green Party is not the establishment
The Green Party represents ordinary people
Rinse and repeat for Tories and Reform
Yebbut at the heart of the Green Party is, er, or should be Green policies. Which they are not.
Sayeth Ben Goldsmith, your party funder or ex party funder:
"The Green Party is simply a harder-left version of Labour. We don’t have any ‘green’ party in the sense of a party whose attention is focused on the protection and restoration of the natural world; a party for those of us for whom nature is the biggest issue. It’s a huge shame."
You support them because they are a harder-left version of Labour. Which is fine. But at least play it straight and stop with all the "green" bolleaux. Call it as it is.
I agree with Ben.
The Green Party needs a huge kick up the backside. Eject all the Trots and focus on environmentalism.
As a member of the Green Party - it won't happen. Why? Because the kind of change needed to deal with climate change is incompatible with modern capitalism. Companies cannot treat emissions and pollution like an externality, but they do because governments let them and it increases profit. "Unused" land which have thriving, if small, ecosystems should not be considered an economic waste - but they are. (I note how after Bolsenaro started his mad hacking at regulations protecting the Amazon, most people discussed how good this was going to be for the Brazilian economy and investors, and not how devastating it would be towards future human life on this planet). We cannot have an economic system that is not just aiming at profit, but continual exponential growth of profit, when we have finite resources.
And then we get to the impacts of climate change - something disproportionately caused by the richest in the world that will disproportionately harm the poorest in the world. If we truly want to prepare the world for what is to come without millions or even billions dying - we will need to focus more spending on Africa and India, and the poorest in our country.
That is why environmentalism and the Green party has to be inherently left wing - because conservationism (the conservative idea of environmentalism - of just keeping the environment the same in what they believe is "normal") will not do anything to prevent or deal with the horrors we are facing.
You are not aware that the markets were consistently against Bolsenaro and his bullshit - which was part of his ranting?
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
The "best" period of capitalism for the average worker was the creation of the welfare state and post war consensus - where state intervention was high, taxes on the wealthiest were high, and investment and infrastructure and the public good were high. The worst excess of capitalism - the Robber Baron era and the era of imperial exploitation prior to this, and the post Reagan / Thatcher neoliberal consensus we're now living in. The 90s boom was only due to oil and the internet, as well as the post Soviet optimism and selling off of state assets from previously communist countries. We are now living in a time when my generation are predicted to be worse off that the last, and the entire political consensus during my lifetime has been Thatcherism and trickle down - from Major to now. It clearly isn't working - if it ever did.
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religiob
“The largest religious complex in the world” (Wiki)
And
“The artistic legacy of Angkor Wat and other Khmer monuments in the Angkor region led directly to France adopting Cambodia as a protectorate on 11 August 1863 and invading Siam to take control of the ruins.”
(wiki)
In terms of striking human constructions I’d put it up there with the very greatest. It was overrun with tourists pre Covid which has maybe led some to underrate it (due to a bad experience). I’ve been lucky enough to see it almost alone - back in the noughties
20 years ago if if you got up early or lingered late you had it to yourself
Right. Official global top ten of pre industrial sites in indisputable order
1. Gobekli Tepe and the Tas Tepeler 2. Angkor Wat 3. Pantheon 4. Temples of Luxor and Karnak 5. Teotihuacan 6. Hagia Sophia 7. Taj Mahal 8. Stonehenge 9. Agrigento 10. The monastery of Solovetsky
Bubbling under
Borobodur Pyramids of Giza Great Wall of China Chichen itza and palenque Chambord The Renaissance ensemble of Florence El Escorial The walled city of Jerusalem Macchu piccu Abu simbel Krak des chevaliers The forbidden city The temples of Kyoto Lhasa The entirety of Kathmandu My flat
That’s it. That’s the list. There is no argument. The only argument is where you put the great gothic cathedrals of Europe. Taken as a whole they would be in number 2 or 3
Individually I’m not sure any of them make the top 10
Stonehenge? Nah. Top 50 maybe; its profile is largely down to it happening to be in the land that was Top Nation for 100 years or so.
You must have a gothic catherdral in the top 10, probably a couple. Choose one at least from: Notre Dame, Westminster Abbey, Lincoln, Chartres or Reims. I choose Lincoln.
The Alhambra also needs to be in the top 10. The Colosseum and the Pantheon, too while we're at it.
So my top 10 is now 15 or so.
Also Lascaux, at least top 20.
I’ve got pantheon at number 3!
I think Stonehenge makes it due to its superb mise en scene. If it was tucked away in a valley no one would care
But the designers chose brilliantly. Alone on the Plain. No wonder it was a pan European pilgrim site from the off
The great cave art is of world changing importance. But they aren’t structures. That was my criterion
Parthenon was an autocorrection of my mistyped Pantheon, now corrected.
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
It has and it hasn't. Capitalism is the only gig in town, I get that, but...poverty in developed countries, inequality in developed countries, the rich getting richer while most of us struggle to maintain equilibrium, transnational corporations ripping the absolute arse out of us...it's all a man-made debacle, isn't it? We're the only species on the planet that has to pay to live and the vast majority struggle to stay in the game. That's only going to get worse if we continue with the exact same system. Our beloved Leon loves his Skynet apocalypse fantasy, but he's probably a little bit correct. AI taking jobs that millions of people do currently begs the question as to what jobs will they then do? We can't all retrain as AI developers. Couple that with climate change and mass immigration. There's going to have to be some sort of reckoning in the not too distant future.
You should compare it to the world of 1800. That's a world where 90% live in absolute poverty, compared to 8% now.
Yup. Capitalism is much like democracy. The worst system of economics, except for all the rest.
As to ecology - a brief look at the ecological disasters wrought by various communist governments should give you pause.
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religiob
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religion” - without any of the beauty and nobility of the great religions. It fills the void left by capitalism (as other grander religions retreat in the west)
I was reading a book last night, Orion Shall Rise by Poul Anderson, which did strike me about our need for, well, storytelling and societal mthologising.
For every society must have a myth to live by, else it's a walking corpse that will soon fall to the ground.
Yes, if all you can offer people is “better and better TVs and then you die” that’s not sustainable. Especially as we all realise those endless TVs are trashing the planet
I’m on a beautiful beach in a remote island off the Cambodian coast. The plastic litter is distressing
No one seems to have pointed out in the media/commentators that if Hunt has, say, £10b headroom then he should press on with the reform plans for social care - as promised by Johnson and in manifesto.
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
It has and it hasn't. Capitalism is the only gig in town, I get that, but...poverty in developed countries, inequality in developed countries, the rich getting richer while most of us struggle to maintain equilibrium, transnational corporations ripping the absolute arse out of us...it's all a man-made debacle, isn't it? We're the only species on the planet that has to pay to live and the vast majority struggle to stay in the game. That's only going to get worse if we continue with the exact same system. Our beloved Leon loves his Skynet apocalypse fantasy, but he's probably a little bit correct. AI taking jobs that millions of people do currently begs the question as to what jobs will they then do? We can't all retrain as AI developers. Couple that with climate change and mass immigration. There's going to have to be some sort of reckoning in the not too distant future.
You should compare it to the world of 1800. That's a world where 90% live in absolute poverty, compared to 8% now.
With respect, the 1800s may as well have been on a different planet.
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religion” - without any of the beauty and nobility of the great religions. It fills the void left by capitalism (as other grander religions retreat in the west)
People who are not into something often misunderstand it and this seems to be the case here. Woke is cool and calculating, a product of the intellect not the soul. It's Roundhead, Cambridge, Blur, not Cavalier, Oxford, Oasis.
As much as I despise the man - I hate the articles talking about how appalling it is for Nigel Farage to be on I'm a Celeb and how it's giving a platform to hate. Not because they're wrong, but because they also participated in that for the longest time and the media outlet that probably deserves the most ire for making and keeping Nigel Farage relevant is the BBC who constantly stuck him on panel shows and QT disproportionately to their representation and polling (because he pulled in ratings with his antics, much like 45).
As much as I despise the man - I hate the articles talking about how appalling it is for Nigel Farage to be on I'm a Celeb and how it's giving a platform to hate. Not because they're wrong, but because they also participated in that for the longest time and the media outlet that probably deserves the most ire for making and keeping Nigel Farage relevant is the BBC who constantly stuck him on panel shows and QT disproportionately to their representation and polling (because he pulled in ratings with his antics, much like 45).
Who, or what, is 45?
I would assume the 45th President of the United States.
As much as I despise the man - I hate the articles talking about how appalling it is for Nigel Farage to be on I'm a Celeb and how it's giving a platform to hate. Not because they're wrong, but because they also participated in that for the longest time and the media outlet that probably deserves the most ire for making and keeping Nigel Farage relevant is the BBC who constantly stuck him on panel shows and QT disproportionately to their representation and polling (because he pulled in ratings with his antics, much like 45).
Sir Patrick turns to the “science capability review”, an exercise conducted with Jeremy Heywood, the then Cabinet Secretary, to see if science capability was “adequate” in Government.
He said the exercise also found that the just ten per cent of the Civil Service fast-stream intake had STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) degrees which he felt “destined the civil service to stay in roughly the same position that it has been for some time”.
For a knowledge led economy this is a disastrous situation. No wonder government knows f##k all about science and technology.
Something Cummings was right about. Statistically, it had to happen.
Sir Patrick turns to the “science capability review”, an exercise conducted with Jeremy Heywood, the then Cabinet Secretary, to see if science capability was “adequate” in Government.
He said the exercise also found that the just ten per cent of the Civil Service fast-stream intake had STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) degrees which he felt “destined the civil service to stay in roughly the same position that it has been for some time”.
For a knowledge led economy this is a disastrous situation. No wonder government knows f##k all about science and technology.
Something Cummings was right about. Statistically, it had to happen.
Big Dom was right about quite a few things. His problem is always the solution, which is normally burn it all down and start again, use AI, data scientists, pay them loads, job done....next problem....
Looks like they are going to do it. Cut benefits for poorest to fund tax cuts.
Just incredible.
Sunak has totally lost the plot.
Steve Webb @stevewebb1 · 56m Benefit cuts alert - DWP just issued a notice (see below) of an 'ad hoc' publication on benefit upratings on Wednesday - in years where they simply pay inflation, they don't do this. Looks like this will be their defensive doc, justifying using the more recent inflation figure.
This is not only class war and wealth redistribution - it is going to bad for growth. Why? Because poor people spend their money, so money circulates in the economy, and rich people don't, so it will sit in an account and not get spent.
A pedant notes: lowering taxes implies LESS wealth redistribution.
Another pedant notes: money doesn't just sit in an account. If I have £100 in the bank with Barclays, it's not just sat in cash in a box. Barclays lend it to other people, or invest it, to do things with.
Nope - it is redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich. Poor people pay taxes too - VAT as well as income tax. You may argue cutting taxes is not redistributive - you are not taking something you previously did - but I believe in a society and in a society we should fund minimal conditions for all people. If we are lowering the conditions for the poorest to the benefit of the richest - that is redistributive.
It isn't that the poor are "spend happy" it is that they have to spend money on food and living and such, so the money moves more.
Money that banks invest on behalf of their clients does not move as much as money spent by the poor - if I go to my corner shop and buy goods, that corner shop owner (as someone also relatively poor) will spent that money relatively soon to whoever they buy goods from, and the money will keep moving. If a portfolio management company is doing investments it will go into property, most likely, and then wait for that property price to just inflate over time. The money stays still.
Well I think the thought that 'investment' goes into property is a little simplistic. I think investment goes to a lot more places than that. And even money invested in property doesn't just sit there; it is an asset which allows other borrowing to be made. It no more 'just sits there' than the wealth I invest in a child's toy 'just sits there' once it is turned from cash to plastic tat. But it's a linguistic point I really take issue with here. Cutting benefits and taxes is not wealth redistribution; it is the opposite. If you have £100 and the government takes ten of those pounds and gives it to me, that is wealth redistribution. If the government then decides only to take £5 from you and give it to me, that is less wealth redistribution.
I fundamentally disagree. Again - I believe that society should provide a minimum standard of life. Government welfare exists to have that. If you reduce that minimum standard to allow rich people to have more money, that is redistributive - whether you like it or not. You are balancing the books of giving more to the rich by taking away from the poor.
That might be what society should do, but that is done BY redistribution. It isn't a question of whether I like it or not, it's a question of what redistribution means. If you want to be more Sweden and less USA, you do that by redistributing wealth. Sweden is more redistributive than the USA. No-one says the USA is a highly redistributive society because the rich have more than the poor, because that's the opposite of what redistribution means. This may seem a minor semantic point, but using words to mean what they mean and what people expect them to mean is important.
I also fundamentally don't think that the government's job is to featherbed.
The moral difference between cutting taxation (which is in effect confiscation from the self sufficient, aspirational and productive) and cutting handouts (which should be a spur to creating more productive, self sufficient and aspirational individuals) needs to be made by a Tory government.
Are there no work houses, are there no prisons...
Yep, the liberal left big statists LOVE to squeeze the productive parts of the economy to help the unproductive.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
Currently we have a very large segment of the British population that is unproductive. The retired. They’ve been doing pretty well under this government.
And we have another big segment of the population that is productive: people of working age. They’ve been shafted by this government.
Squeezing the productive parts of the economy to help the unproductive is precisely what this Tory administration has been doing since 2010.
Defining people as unproductive is a dangerous, dehumanising trope, reducing people to numbers. I think that applying it to 'retired people' is also a lie; production does not just consist in creating money.
We have been there before, and need to resist any such language. Human beings cannot be reduced to numbers.
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religiob
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religion” - without any of the beauty and nobility of the great religions. It fills the void left by capitalism (as other grander religions retreat in the west)
I was reading a book last night, Orion Shall Rise by Poul Anderson, which did strike me about our need for, well, storytelling and societal mthologising.
For every society must have a myth to live by, else it's a walking corpse that will soon fall to the ground.
Yes, if all you can offer people is “better and better TVs and then you die” that’s not sustainable. Especially as we all realise those endless TVs are trashing the planet
I’m on a beautiful beach in a remote island off the Cambodian coast. The plastic litter is distressing
Your definition of woke is such a weird conception - it goes back to the old red baiting of claiming the godless atheistic communists are wedded to their communism because of their atheism.
"Woke" is just being aware of structural prejudice, and (as I have said a godawful number of times) comes from AAV as far back as the 1920s. Historical figures that would be considered "woke" now include MLK, as his own family have recognised, and would likely include any progressive writer or politician of the last 50 years. Advocating for marriage equality would be considered "woke" now. Advocating for the right of women to vote, or have access to no fault divorce, would be "woke" (and indeed, many prominent right wing media types in the USA are arguing against both...)
No one seems to have pointed out in the media/commentators that if Hunt has, say, £10b headroom then he should press on with the reform plans for social care - as promised by Johnson and in manifesto.
With the red tories increasing their attacks on the Green party, it shows how worried they are. I wonder why?
The Greens are the new Labour Party
The Greens are the workers party
The Green Party is not the establishment
The Green Party represents ordinary people
Rinse and repeat for Tories and Reform
Yebbut at the heart of the Green Party is, er, or should be Green policies. Which they are not.
Sayeth Ben Goldsmith, your party funder or ex party funder:
"The Green Party is simply a harder-left version of Labour. We don’t have any ‘green’ party in the sense of a party whose attention is focused on the protection and restoration of the natural world; a party for those of us for whom nature is the biggest issue. It’s a huge shame."
You support them because they are a harder-left version of Labour. Which is fine. But at least play it straight and stop with all the "green" bolleaux. Call it as it is.
I agree with Ben.
The Green Party needs a huge kick up the backside. Eject all the Trots and focus on environmentalism.
For me, the key to green politics is sustainability, not just environmental sustainability, but financial sustainability. A balanced budget must be at the heart of a green economy, but "green" parties just want permanent deficits.
As much as I despise the man - I hate the articles talking about how appalling it is for Nigel Farage to be on I'm a Celeb and how it's giving a platform to hate. Not because they're wrong, but because they also participated in that for the longest time and the media outlet that probably deserves the most ire for making and keeping Nigel Farage relevant is the BBC who constantly stuck him on panel shows and QT disproportionately to their representation and polling (because he pulled in ratings with his antics, much like 45).
Who, or what, is 45?
I would assume the 45th President of the United States.
So why not say that? Wierd. Do people do that about other US presidents? Or PMs?
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religiob
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religion” - without any of the beauty and nobility of the great religions. It fills the void left by capitalism (as other grander religions retreat in the west)
I was reading a book last night, Orion Shall Rise by Poul Anderson, which did strike me about our need for, well, storytelling and societal mthologising.
For every society must have a myth to live by, else it's a walking corpse that will soon fall to the ground.
Yes, if all you can offer people is “better and better TVs and then you die” that’s not sustainable. Especially as we all realise those endless TVs are trashing the planet
I’m on a beautiful beach in a remote island off the Cambodian coast. The plastic litter is distressing
Your definition of woke is such a weird conception - it goes back to the old red baiting of claiming the godless atheistic communists are wedded to their communism because of their atheism.
"Woke" is just being aware of structural prejudice, and (as I have said a godawful number of times) comes from AAV as far back as the 1920s. Historical figures that would be considered "woke" now include MLK, as his own family have recognised, and would likely include any progressive writer or politician of the last 50 years. Advocating for marriage equality would be considered "woke" now. Advocating for the right of women to vote, or have access to no fault divorce, would be "woke" (and indeed, many prominent right wing media types in the USA are arguing against both...)
All beliefs typically have rational as well as non-rational motivations. This is true on both sides of the "woke" debate (and arguably the anti woke often seem to have the more hysterical and emotional tone).
As much as I despise the man - I hate the articles talking about how appalling it is for Nigel Farage to be on I'm a Celeb and how it's giving a platform to hate. Not because they're wrong, but because they also participated in that for the longest time and the media outlet that probably deserves the most ire for making and keeping Nigel Farage relevant is the BBC who constantly stuck him on panel shows and QT disproportionately to their representation and polling (because he pulled in ratings with his antics, much like 45).
Who, or what, is 45?
I would assume the 45th President of the United States.
So why not say that? Wierd. Do people do that about other US presidents? Or PMs?
I've seen it a few times by Americans, but not noticed it until the last few months.
As much as I despise the man - I hate the articles talking about how appalling it is for Nigel Farage to be on I'm a Celeb and how it's giving a platform to hate. Not because they're wrong, but because they also participated in that for the longest time and the media outlet that probably deserves the most ire for making and keeping Nigel Farage relevant is the BBC who constantly stuck him on panel shows and QT disproportionately to their representation and polling (because he pulled in ratings with his antics, much like 45).
Who, or what, is 45?
I would assume the 45th President of the United States.
So why not say that? Wierd. Do people do that about other US presidents? Or PMs?
Looks like they are going to do it. Cut benefits for poorest to fund tax cuts.
Just incredible.
Sunak has totally lost the plot.
Steve Webb @stevewebb1 · 56m Benefit cuts alert - DWP just issued a notice (see below) of an 'ad hoc' publication on benefit upratings on Wednesday - in years where they simply pay inflation, they don't do this. Looks like this will be their defensive doc, justifying using the more recent inflation figure.
This is not only class war and wealth redistribution - it is going to bad for growth. Why? Because poor people spend their money, so money circulates in the economy, and rich people don't, so it will sit in an account and not get spent.
A pedant notes: lowering taxes implies LESS wealth redistribution.
Another pedant notes: money doesn't just sit in an account. If I have £100 in the bank with Barclays, it's not just sat in cash in a box. Barclays lend it to other people, or invest it, to do things with.
Nope - it is redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich. Poor people pay taxes too - VAT as well as income tax. You may argue cutting taxes is not redistributive - you are not taking something you previously did - but I believe in a society and in a society we should fund minimal conditions for all people. If we are lowering the conditions for the poorest to the benefit of the richest - that is redistributive.
It isn't that the poor are "spend happy" it is that they have to spend money on food and living and such, so the money moves more.
Money that banks invest on behalf of their clients does not move as much as money spent by the poor - if I go to my corner shop and buy goods, that corner shop owner (as someone also relatively poor) will spent that money relatively soon to whoever they buy goods from, and the money will keep moving. If a portfolio management company is doing investments it will go into property, most likely, and then wait for that property price to just inflate over time. The money stays still.
Well I think the thought that 'investment' goes into property is a little simplistic. I think investment goes to a lot more places than that. And even money invested in property doesn't just sit there; it is an asset which allows other borrowing to be made. It no more 'just sits there' than the wealth I invest in a child's toy 'just sits there' once it is turned from cash to plastic tat. But it's a linguistic point I really take issue with here. Cutting benefits and taxes is not wealth redistribution; it is the opposite. If you have £100 and the government takes ten of those pounds and gives it to me, that is wealth redistribution. If the government then decides only to take £5 from you and give it to me, that is less wealth redistribution.
I fundamentally disagree. Again - I believe that society should provide a minimum standard of life. Government welfare exists to have that. If you reduce that minimum standard to allow rich people to have more money, that is redistributive - whether you like it or not. You are balancing the books of giving more to the rich by taking away from the poor.
That might be what society should do, but that is done BY redistribution. It isn't a question of whether I like it or not, it's a question of what redistribution means. If you want to be more Sweden and less USA, you do that by redistributing wealth. Sweden is more redistributive than the USA. No-one says the USA is a highly redistributive society because the rich have more than the poor, because that's the opposite of what redistribution means. This may seem a minor semantic point, but using words to mean what they mean and what people expect them to mean is important.
I also fundamentally don't think that the government's job is to featherbed.
The moral difference between cutting taxation (which is in effect confiscation from the self sufficient, aspirational and productive) and cutting handouts (which should be a spur to creating more productive, self sufficient and aspirational individuals) needs to be made by a Tory government.
Are there no work houses, are there no prisons...
Yep, the liberal left big statists LOVE to squeeze the productive parts of the economy to help the unproductive.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
During covid, who was a more essential worker - a nurse, a shelf stacker, an Amazon delivery driver; or an investment banker?
As my other post describes - rewarded by capitalism with more money is not the same as productive.
They were all essential. Where do you think the money to pay all that furlough and business support came from?
Government. Money is just an expression of labour value. Government just guarantees its value. As long as government can influence its labour market and controls its own currency, it can basically do what it wants. The former is much harder than the latter, especially in a global market - but it isn't impossible.
Colour me unconvinced by GCSE Marxism.
I have neither the time nor inclination to debate further; suffice to say that while government can 'create' money, that's not remotely linked to labour value and, pretty much by definition, actually depreciates it.
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religiob
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religion” - without any of the beauty and nobility of the great religions. It fills the void left by capitalism (as other grander religions retreat in the west)
I was reading a book last night, Orion Shall Rise by Poul Anderson, which did strike me about our need for, well, storytelling and societal mthologising.
For every society must have a myth to live by, else it's a walking corpse that will soon fall to the ground.
Yes, if all you can offer people is “better and better TVs and then you die” that’s not sustainable. Especially as we all realise those endless TVs are trashing the planet
I’m on a beautiful beach in a remote island off the Cambodian coast. The plastic litter is distressing
Your definition of woke is such a weird conception - it goes back to the old red baiting of claiming the godless atheistic communists are wedded to their communism because of their atheism.
"Woke" is just being aware of structural prejudice, and (as I have said a godawful number of times) comes from AAV as far back as the 1920s. Historical figures that would be considered "woke" now include MLK, as his own family have recognised, and would likely include any progressive writer or politician of the last 50 years. Advocating for marriage equality would be considered "woke" now. Advocating for the right of women to vote, or have access to no fault divorce, would be "woke" (and indeed, many prominent right wing media types in the USA are arguing against both...)
You're wasting your time, Leon is the McCarthy of the 2020s. To question the suggestion that Woke is going to destroy civilisation is to show yourself as suspect, deeply suspect.
As much as I despise the man - I hate the articles talking about how appalling it is for Nigel Farage to be on I'm a Celeb and how it's giving a platform to hate. Not because they're wrong, but because they also participated in that for the longest time and the media outlet that probably deserves the most ire for making and keeping Nigel Farage relevant is the BBC who constantly stuck him on panel shows and QT disproportionately to their representation and polling (because he pulled in ratings with his antics, much like 45).
Who, or what, is 45?
I would assume the 45th President of the United States.
So why not say that? Wierd. Do people do that about other US presidents? Or PMs?
Presidents are often referred to by their number, yeah.
With the red tories increasing their attacks on the Green party, it shows how worried they are. I wonder why?
The Greens are the new Labour Party
The Greens are the workers party
The Green Party is not the establishment
The Green Party represents ordinary people
Rinse and repeat for Tories and Reform
Yebbut at the heart of the Green Party is, er, or should be Green policies. Which they are not.
Sayeth Ben Goldsmith, your party funder or ex party funder:
"The Green Party is simply a harder-left version of Labour. We don’t have any ‘green’ party in the sense of a party whose attention is focused on the protection and restoration of the natural world; a party for those of us for whom nature is the biggest issue. It’s a huge shame."
You support them because they are a harder-left version of Labour. Which is fine. But at least play it straight and stop with all the "green" bolleaux. Call it as it is.
I agree with Ben.
The Green Party needs a huge kick up the backside. Eject all the Trots and focus on environmentalism.
As a member of the Green Party - it won't happen. Why? Because the kind of change needed to deal with climate change is incompatible with modern capitalism. Companies cannot treat emissions and pollution like an externality, but they do because governments let them and it increases profit. "Unused" land which have thriving, if small, ecosystems should not be considered an economic waste - but they are. (I note how after Bolsenaro started his mad hacking at regulations protecting the Amazon, most people discussed how good this was going to be for the Brazilian economy and investors, and not how devastating it would be towards future human life on this planet). We cannot have an economic system that is not just aiming at profit, but continual exponential growth of profit, when we have finite resources.
And then we get to the impacts of climate change - something disproportionately caused by the richest in the world that will disproportionately harm the poorest in the world. If we truly want to prepare the world for what is to come without millions or even billions dying - we will need to focus more spending on Africa and India, and the poorest in our country.
That is why environmentalism and the Green party has to be inherently left wing - because conservationism (the conservative idea of environmentalism - of just keeping the environment the same in what they believe is "normal") will not do anything to prevent or deal with the horrors we are facing.
You are not aware that the markets were consistently against Bolsenaro and his bullshit - which was part of his ranting?
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
The "best" period of capitalism for the average worker was the creation of the welfare state and post war consensus - where state intervention was high, taxes on the wealthiest were high, and investment and infrastructure and the public good were high. The worst excess of capitalism - the Robber Baron era and the era of imperial exploitation prior to this, and the post Reagan / Thatcher neoliberal consensus we're now living in. The 90s boom was only due to oil and the internet, as well as the post Soviet optimism and selling off of state assets from previously communist countries. We are now living in a time when my generation are predicted to be worse off that the last, and the entire political consensus during my lifetime has been Thatcherism and trickle down - from Major to now. It clearly isn't working - if it ever did.
Stripped of the ideology, perhaps you’re just nostalgic for a time when the west was preeminent and you didn’t have to compete with billions of workers in the global south.
As much as I despise the man - I hate the articles talking about how appalling it is for Nigel Farage to be on I'm a Celeb and how it's giving a platform to hate. Not because they're wrong, but because they also participated in that for the longest time and the media outlet that probably deserves the most ire for making and keeping Nigel Farage relevant is the BBC who constantly stuck him on panel shows and QT disproportionately to their representation and polling (because he pulled in ratings with his antics, much like 45).
Who, or what, is 45?
I would assume the 45th President of the United States.
So why not say that? Wierd. Do people do that about other US presidents? Or PMs?
I've seen it a few times by Americans, but not noticed it until the last few months.
I think that the Bushes really started it with 41 and 43, as an affected way of differentiating between 2 President George Bushes. I don't really remember it being much of a thing before that.
With the red tories increasing their attacks on the Green party, it shows how worried they are. I wonder why?
The Greens are the new Labour Party
The Greens are the workers party
The Green Party is not the establishment
The Green Party represents ordinary people
Rinse and repeat for Tories and Reform
Yebbut at the heart of the Green Party is, er, or should be Green policies. Which they are not.
Sayeth Ben Goldsmith, your party funder or ex party funder:
"The Green Party is simply a harder-left version of Labour. We don’t have any ‘green’ party in the sense of a party whose attention is focused on the protection and restoration of the natural world; a party for those of us for whom nature is the biggest issue. It’s a huge shame."
You support them because they are a harder-left version of Labour. Which is fine. But at least play it straight and stop with all the "green" bolleaux. Call it as it is.
I agree with Ben.
The Green Party needs a huge kick up the backside. Eject all the Trots and focus on environmentalism.
As a member of the Green Party - it won't happen. Why? Because the kind of change needed to deal with climate change is incompatible with modern capitalism. Companies cannot treat emissions and pollution like an externality, but they do because governments let them and it increases profit. "Unused" land which have thriving, if small, ecosystems should not be considered an economic waste - but they are. (I note how after Bolsenaro started his mad hacking at regulations protecting the Amazon, most people discussed how good this was going to be for the Brazilian economy and investors, and not how devastating it would be towards future human life on this planet). We cannot have an economic system that is not just aiming at profit, but continual exponential growth of profit, when we have finite resources.
And then we get to the impacts of climate change - something disproportionately caused by the richest in the world that will disproportionately harm the poorest in the world. If we truly want to prepare the world for what is to come without millions or even billions dying - we will need to focus more spending on Africa and India, and the poorest in our country.
That is why environmentalism and the Green party has to be inherently left wing - because conservationism (the conservative idea of environmentalism - of just keeping the environment the same in what they believe is "normal") will not do anything to prevent or deal with the horrors we are facing.
You are not aware that the markets were consistently against Bolsenaro and his bullshit - which was part of his ranting?
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
The "best" period of capitalism for the average worker was the creation of the welfare state and post war consensus - where state intervention was high, taxes on the wealthiest were high, and investment and infrastructure and the public good were high. The worst excess of capitalism - the Robber Baron era and the era of imperial exploitation prior to this, and the post Reagan / Thatcher neoliberal consensus we're now living in. The 90s boom was only due to oil and the internet, as well as the post Soviet optimism and selling off of state assets from previously communist countries. We are now living in a time when my generation are predicted to be worse off that the last, and the entire political consensus during my lifetime has been Thatcherism and trickle down - from Major to now. It clearly isn't working - if it ever did.
Stripped of the ideology, perhaps you’re just nostalgic for a time when the west was preeminent and you didn’t have to compete with billions of workers in the global south.
I mean, I'm not particularly nostalgic for the economics or social policies of the post war consensus either. But, if you want to be a defender of capitalism as a way of bringing poor people out of poverty - you should be defending the policies under capitalism that did that, not the policies under capitalism that have made living conditions worse.
Boris Johnson asked if graphs presented at a meeting were a “mirage”, prompting “incredulity” from those attending, Sir Patrick said.
The former chief scientific adviser said the prime minister had to be “managed” in the meeting, and asked himself: “is it always like this?”
Sir Patrick wrote in one diary entry in September 2020: “Chief Constables have said current rules too complex and difficult to police. PM looking glum. Then suddenly - ‘Is the 144 whole thing a mirage? The curves just follow a natural pattern despite what you do’ Incredulity in the room [...]
“The whole meeting carefully manages the PM (is it always like this?) and he eventually approves the measures - really just reinforcing and enforcing what we should be doing anyway.
-----
This will get all the headlines for Boris, what a Bozo....but the graphs were wrong, repeatedly. It also shows a certain arrogance among the scientific advisers.
The graphs were often wrong, but they were less wrong than the random thoughts that flitted through Boris’s head.
That's my point. Boris doesn't understand data, should he be expected to understand mathematical modelling....the problem is nobody did in government (outside of Big Dom data guy), or nobody challenged the echo chamber of those producing them.
Some of the stuff that was produced was utter farcical. Some of us pointed out the clear flaws on here at the time.
One big point that I don't believe has really been covered yet, why was it so difficult to get the required data. They had to hire outside contractors to right complex parsers even to produce the daily case / death figures, that had to run for several hours just to pre-process the data.
This is the kind of concrete flaws that need addresses for the future.
Cummings was very keen on data, which is admirable. Not much about Cummings is admirable, but that is. I remember talking to Big Dom’s data guy in early March (I think… maybe late Feb) about having an internal dashboard with key data, but I don’t think that ever happened quite in that form. Vallance has talked today about only 10% of civil servants having a STEM background and I would agree that’s an important issue. But government did have Vallance and Whitty and various other government scientists and external advice (SAGE and more). The science was heard and did impact on policy.
I don’t see the Inquiry hearings as supporting your claim of an echo chamber. We’ve heard about all sorts of disagreements. Today we’ve heard about disagreements between Vallance and Whitty, for example.
If you do understand data, then you understand the difficulties in producing data. No-one who’s worked as a health data science is surprised at the challenge in getting accurate and timely data out of complex systems. You could do something about that, but it would require major investment in systems. Sadly, I see zero appetite for investment in pandemic preparedness in the current government.
There was a echo chamber on the models. Nobody seems to ever say, I am not sure they are right. And when they had multiple models, it always skewed to believe the worst of them. when even the most optimistic ones overstated things.
Rather the disagreement is what to do in response to them.
I'd disagree. During 2021, I posted about times when the models had been more optimistic than things had unfolded - but the media never brought those up. I guess it ties in with your broader point about how bloody awful the media were throughout.
I mean, during late 2020 when the second surge was under way, the Daily Mail posted an article about how the models had been far too pessimistic and showed two graphs from a week apart. In the first graph, there was a fairly broad error margin, which, at the top end, went over 1000 hospitalisations per day. The second one had tighter error margins (as you'd expect) around a central line which trended higher than before.
But because the top end of the error margin was lower than before (because it was tighter around that higher line), their line on it was how the model had been too pessimistic before.
Head. Desk.
(As an aside, it's also kind of fun to see which misinformation merchants Boris was imbibing at different times. The stuff about "the curves always follow a natural path" is straight from Ivor Cummins, for example)
No one seems to have pointed out in the media/commentators that if Hunt has, say, £10b headroom then he should press on with the reform plans for social care - as promised by Johnson and in manifesto.
As much as I despise the man - I hate the articles talking about how appalling it is for Nigel Farage to be on I'm a Celeb and how it's giving a platform to hate. Not because they're wrong, but because they also participated in that for the longest time and the media outlet that probably deserves the most ire for making and keeping Nigel Farage relevant is the BBC who constantly stuck him on panel shows and QT disproportionately to their representation and polling (because he pulled in ratings with his antics, much like 45).
Who, or what, is 45?
I would assume the 45th President of the United States.
So why not say that? Wierd. Do people do that about other US presidents? Or PMs?
I've seen it a few times by Americans, but not noticed it until the last few months.
I think that the Bushes really started it with 41 and 43, as an affected way of differentiating between 2 President George Bushes. I don't really remember it being much of a thing before that.
It was a better option for the Bushes than Bush I and Bush II, which would have had monarchical overtones.
It's like any jargon. If everyone understands it then it can be a useful shorthand, but it creates a barrier for anyone who doesn't know the jargon.
As much as I despise the man - I hate the articles talking about how appalling it is for Nigel Farage to be on I'm a Celeb and how it's giving a platform to hate. Not because they're wrong, but because they also participated in that for the longest time and the media outlet that probably deserves the most ire for making and keeping Nigel Farage relevant is the BBC who constantly stuck him on panel shows and QT disproportionately to their representation and polling (because he pulled in ratings with his antics, much like 45).
Who, or what, is 45?
I would assume the 45th President of the United States.
So why not say that? Wierd. Do people do that about other US presidents? Or PMs?
I've seen it a few times by Americans, but not noticed it until the last few months.
I think that the Bushes really started it with 41 and 43, as an affected way of differentiating between 2 President George Bushes. I don't really remember it being much of a thing before that.
It was a better option for the Bushes than Bush I and Bush II, which would have had monarchical overtones.
It's like any jargon. If everyone understands it then it can be a useful shorthand, but it creates a barrier for anyone who doesn't know the jargon.
Sorry - my fault, its partly an affect of consuming a lot of US political media and partly that Trump specifically has leant into it as a means of branding. He sells 45 American football jerseys and such, and lots of Trump supporters refer to him as 45.
Looks like they are going to do it. Cut benefits for poorest to fund tax cuts.
Just incredible.
Sunak has totally lost the plot.
Steve Webb @stevewebb1 · 56m Benefit cuts alert - DWP just issued a notice (see below) of an 'ad hoc' publication on benefit upratings on Wednesday - in years where they simply pay inflation, they don't do this. Looks like this will be their defensive doc, justifying using the more recent inflation figure.
This is not only class war and wealth redistribution - it is going to bad for growth. Why? Because poor people spend their money, so money circulates in the economy, and rich people don't, so it will sit in an account and not get spent.
A pedant notes: lowering taxes implies LESS wealth redistribution.
Another pedant notes: money doesn't just sit in an account. If I have £100 in the bank with Barclays, it's not just sat in cash in a box. Barclays lend it to other people, or invest it, to do things with.
Nope - it is redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich. Poor people pay taxes too - VAT as well as income tax. You may argue cutting taxes is not redistributive - you are not taking something you previously did - but I believe in a society and in a society we should fund minimal conditions for all people. If we are lowering the conditions for the poorest to the benefit of the richest - that is redistributive.
It isn't that the poor are "spend happy" it is that they have to spend money on food and living and such, so the money moves more.
Money that banks invest on behalf of their clients does not move as much as money spent by the poor - if I go to my corner shop and buy goods, that corner shop owner (as someone also relatively poor) will spent that money relatively soon to whoever they buy goods from, and the money will keep moving. If a portfolio management company is doing investments it will go into property, most likely, and then wait for that property price to just inflate over time. The money stays still.
Well I think the thought that 'investment' goes into property is a little simplistic. I think investment goes to a lot more places than that. And even money invested in property doesn't just sit there; it is an asset which allows other borrowing to be made. It no more 'just sits there' than the wealth I invest in a child's toy 'just sits there' once it is turned from cash to plastic tat. But it's a linguistic point I really take issue with here. Cutting benefits and taxes is not wealth redistribution; it is the opposite. If you have £100 and the government takes ten of those pounds and gives it to me, that is wealth redistribution. If the government then decides only to take £5 from you and give it to me, that is less wealth redistribution.
I fundamentally disagree. Again - I believe that society should provide a minimum standard of life. Government welfare exists to have that. If you reduce that minimum standard to allow rich people to have more money, that is redistributive - whether you like it or not. You are balancing the books of giving more to the rich by taking away from the poor.
That might be what society should do, but that is done BY redistribution. It isn't a question of whether I like it or not, it's a question of what redistribution means. If you want to be more Sweden and less USA, you do that by redistributing wealth. Sweden is more redistributive than the USA. No-one says the USA is a highly redistributive society because the rich have more than the poor, because that's the opposite of what redistribution means. This may seem a minor semantic point, but using words to mean what they mean and what people expect them to mean is important.
I also fundamentally don't think that the government's job is to featherbed.
The moral difference between cutting taxation (which is in effect confiscation from the self sufficient, aspirational and productive) and cutting handouts (which should be a spur to creating more productive, self sufficient and aspirational individuals) needs to be made by a Tory government.
Are there no work houses, are there no prisons...
Yep, the liberal left big statists LOVE to squeeze the productive parts of the economy to help the unproductive.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
Currently we have a very large segment of the British population that is unproductive. The retired. They’ve been doing pretty well under this government.
And we have another big segment of the population that is productive: people of working age. They’ve been shafted by this government.
Squeezing the productive parts of the economy to help the unproductive is precisely what this Tory administration has been doing since 2010.
Defining people as unproductive is a dangerous, dehumanising trope, reducing people to numbers. I think that applying it to 'retired people' is also a lie; production does not just consist in creating money.
We have been there before, and need to resist any such language. Human beings cannot be reduced to numbers.
Isn't the problem that it's absurdly easy to reduce human beings to numbers? And sometimes it's the right, necessary thing to do (see the use of QALYs to prioritise healthcare).
But yes- we need to keep the ability to do manual overrides when the numbers do something mathematically accurate but dehumanising. The numbers can tell us where we are, but not what we should do- though they can be powerfully suggestive.
(Which is why USA capitalism might not be the way to go. A brilliant machine for generating wealth, but much less good at turning that wealth into good lives.)
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religiob
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religion” - without any of the beauty and nobility of the great religions. It fills the void left by capitalism (as other grander religions retreat in the west)
I was reading a book last night, Orion Shall Rise by Poul Anderson, which did strike me about our need for, well, storytelling and societal mthologising.
For every society must have a myth to live by, else it's a walking corpse that will soon fall to the ground.
Yes, if all you can offer people is “better and better TVs and then you die” that’s not sustainable. Especially as we all realise those endless TVs are trashing the planet
I’m on a beautiful beach in a remote island off the Cambodian coast. The plastic litter is distressing
Your definition of woke is such a weird conception - it goes back to the old red baiting of claiming the godless atheistic communists are wedded to their communism because of their atheism.
"Woke" is just being aware of structural prejudice, and (as I have said a godawful number of times) comes from AAV as far back as the 1920s. Historical figures that would be considered "woke" now include MLK, as his own family have recognised, and would likely include any progressive writer or politician of the last 50 years. Advocating for marriage equality would be considered "woke" now. Advocating for the right of women to vote, or have access to no fault divorce, would be "woke" (and indeed, many prominent right wing media types in the USA are arguing against both...)
You're wasting your time, Leon is the McCarthy of the 2020s. To question the suggestion that Woke is going to destroy civilisation is to show yourself as suspect, deeply suspect.
I wonder how many people have moved from one side of that argument to the other over the past week or so, as woke TikTok discovered Osama Bin Laden and decided that he had a lot of good points, actually.
As much as I despise the man - I hate the articles talking about how appalling it is for Nigel Farage to be on I'm a Celeb and how it's giving a platform to hate. Not because they're wrong, but because they also participated in that for the longest time and the media outlet that probably deserves the most ire for making and keeping Nigel Farage relevant is the BBC who constantly stuck him on panel shows and QT disproportionately to their representation and polling (because he pulled in ratings with his antics, much like 45).
Who, or what, is 45?
I would assume the 45th President of the United States.
So why not say that? Wierd. Do people do that about other US presidents? Or PMs?
I've seen it a few times by Americans, but not noticed it until the last few months.
I think that the Bushes really started it with 41 and 43, as an affected way of differentiating between 2 President George Bushes. I don't really remember it being much of a thing before that.
It was a better option for the Bushes than Bush I and Bush II, which would have had monarchical overtones.
It's like any jargon. If everyone understands it then it can be a useful shorthand, but it creates a barrier for anyone who doesn't know the jargon.
Sorry - my fault, its partly an affect of consuming a lot of US political media and partly that Trump specifically has leant into it as a means of branding. He sells 45 American football jerseys and such, and lots of Trump supporters refer to him as 45.
I’ve noticed “45” as well: I understood your meaning. It’s pleasingly confusing because a lot of bitter Scot Nats identify themselves as “the 45” or “the 45ers” so it now sounds like they are Trumpites
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religiob
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religion” - without any of the beauty and nobility of the great religions. It fills the void left by capitalism (as other grander religions retreat in the west)
I was reading a book last night, Orion Shall Rise by Poul Anderson, which did strike me about our need for, well, storytelling and societal mthologising.
For every society must have a myth to live by, else it's a walking corpse that will soon fall to the ground.
Yes, if all you can offer people is “better and better TVs and then you die” that’s not sustainable. Especially as we all realise those endless TVs are trashing the planet
I’m on a beautiful beach in a remote island off the Cambodian coast. The plastic litter is distressing
Your definition of woke is such a weird conception - it goes back to the old red baiting of claiming the godless atheistic communists are wedded to their communism because of their atheism.
"Woke" is just being aware of structural prejudice, and (as I have said a godawful number of times) comes from AAV as far back as the 1920s. Historical figures that would be considered "woke" now include MLK, as his own family have recognised, and would likely include any progressive writer or politician of the last 50 years. Advocating for marriage equality would be considered "woke" now. Advocating for the right of women to vote, or have access to no fault divorce, would be "woke" (and indeed, many prominent right wing media types in the USA are arguing against both...)
The problem is you are going back to the basic initial premise of it, whereas others are busy denying it is a thing at all, and those two approaches are incompatible but deployed together.
Many things can be hard to define but still be a real thing, though it is also certainly true plenty of opponents use it as a buzzword for anything they do not like. Everything and anything is 'woke' now, and its incredibly stupid.
For my part I would see it in a very loose way utilised as being more about attempts to direct cultural attitudes to a specific set of political agendas, whilst presenting them as fundamental, inarguable truths. Some of those ideas are good, some arguable, others are dumb. A classic case as seen with protestors or political tribes the world over, in trying to get people signed up to an entire agenda, rather than just the bits they agree with, using a broad label.
It's not nothing, but it's also not the bogeyman you see particularly on american right wing media where it really does mean nothing.
It's also just a really smug description, drawing parallels to an 'open your eyes, sheeple' kind of hectoring to those not yet 'awake'. I don't see what is wrong with just sticking with labels like progressive or liberal, just as open to interpretation after all. Given plenty of people including on here insist woke is not a thing, and I had not heard it used not as a lazy pejorative for years (it seems to have made a comeback), I assume plenty of people like the ideas and not the label too.
No one seems to have pointed out in the media/commentators that if Hunt has, say, £10b headroom then he should press on with the reform plans for social care - as promised by Johnson and in manifesto.
With the red tories increasing their attacks on the Green party, it shows how worried they are. I wonder why?
The Greens are the new Labour Party
The Greens are the workers party
The Green Party is not the establishment
The Green Party represents ordinary people
Rinse and repeat for Tories and Reform
Yebbut at the heart of the Green Party is, er, or should be Green policies. Which they are not.
Sayeth Ben Goldsmith, your party funder or ex party funder:
"The Green Party is simply a harder-left version of Labour. We don’t have any ‘green’ party in the sense of a party whose attention is focused on the protection and restoration of the natural world; a party for those of us for whom nature is the biggest issue. It’s a huge shame."
You support them because they are a harder-left version of Labour. Which is fine. But at least play it straight and stop with all the "green" bolleaux. Call it as it is.
I agree with Ben.
The Green Party needs a huge kick up the backside. Eject all the Trots and focus on environmentalism.
As a member of the Green Party - it won't happen. Why? Because the kind of change needed to deal with climate change is incompatible with modern capitalism. Companies cannot treat emissions and pollution like an externality, but they do because governments let them and it increases profit. "Unused" land which have thriving, if small, ecosystems should not be considered an economic waste - but they are. (I note how after Bolsenaro started his mad hacking at regulations protecting the Amazon, most people discussed how good this was going to be for the Brazilian economy and investors, and not how devastating it would be towards future human life on this planet). We cannot have an economic system that is not just aiming at profit, but continual exponential growth of profit, when we have finite resources.
And then we get to the impacts of climate change - something disproportionately caused by the richest in the world that will disproportionately harm the poorest in the world. If we truly want to prepare the world for what is to come without millions or even billions dying - we will need to focus more spending on Africa and India, and the poorest in our country.
That is why environmentalism and the Green party has to be inherently left wing - because conservationism (the conservative idea of environmentalism - of just keeping the environment the same in what they believe is "normal") will not do anything to prevent or deal with the horrors we are facing.
You are not aware that the markets were consistently against Bolsenaro and his bullshit - which was part of his ranting?
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
The "best" period of capitalism for the average worker was the creation of the welfare state and post war consensus - where state intervention was high, taxes on the wealthiest were high, and investment and infrastructure and the public good were high. The worst excess of capitalism - the Robber Baron era and the era of imperial exploitation prior to this, and the post Reagan / Thatcher neoliberal consensus we're now living in. The 90s boom was only due to oil and the internet, as well as the post Soviet optimism and selling off of state assets from previously communist countries. We are now living in a time when my generation are predicted to be worse off that the last, and the entire political consensus during my lifetime has been Thatcherism and trickle down - from Major to now. It clearly isn't working - if it ever did.
Stripped of the ideology, perhaps you’re just nostalgic for a time when the west was preeminent and you didn’t have to compete with billions of workers in the global south.
I mean, I'm not particularly nostalgic for the economics or social policies of the post war consensus either. But, if you want to be a defender of capitalism as a way of bringing poor people out of poverty - you should be defending the policies under capitalism that did that, not the policies under capitalism that have made living conditions worse.
Are you opposed then to the large scale immigration we've seen since the late 90s? It's undoubtedly one of the major factors that has made things financially more difficult your your generation.
The island is another stunner however. Untouched jungle down to the sea
Last night a G&T cost me $2. On the beach. Cambodia is THE place right now
Surely that will be claimed back, and actually cost you nothing?
I might just take the hit myself. I haven’t spent a cent in a week. This was in a little backpacker town in Koh Rong - Kaoh Touch
I don’t want to bore on - heaven forfend - but Cambodia is in an incredible sweet spot now: travel wise. Phnom Penh is a brilliantly interesting Asian city with good food and bars and nightlife and history and vice - but without the insane traffic or expense of Bangkok, singapore, Hong Kong
You’ve got Angkor Wat - one of the top ten historical sites in the entire world - just down the road. You’ve got pristine jungle and untouched mountains in between
And you’ve got BEAUTIFUL islands with lovely hotels - or empty beaches with wooden shacks - ie like Thailand 30-40 years ago - just offshore. The people are fun and friendly and hedonistic. And they drink all day
And it’s all really cheap (outside the luxe hotels)
as a tropical destination I don’t think it has a rival anywhere in the world. Not even close
Vietnam is great but it doesn’t have Angkor. Thailand has been done. The Caribbean is lovely but it’s boring (Mexico apart but eek Mexico). Myanmar is too weird, the Philippines too dangerous and the food is awful. Indonesia is another world but hard to get to. Etc
I mean yes and Angkor is great but it's no Chartres. The architecture is pretty agricultural if you look at it. The colosseum is 1,000x more sophisticated and was built 1,000 years earlier. And the crowd at Angkor at sunset/sunrise is like the one on the final day at Glasto.
Plus of course much of it is unspoilt as I'm not sure the Halo Trust has reached all of the country (could be mistaken).
But yes well worth a visit and slightly more off the beaten track than other SEAsian countries as you say.
Angkor is sublime. It is a vast temple complex of exquisite complexity that dwarfs anything made in Europe at the same time - in scale and technology and sometimes in artistry
And I’m guessing you were last in Cambodia before Covid. That’s probably the main point
Yes I was. why is that relevant. Has Angkor been given a makeover, aside from all the luxury hotels in Siem Riep.
Angkor Wat was built in the 12th century. Look around at what was going on in Europe then.
The island is another stunner however. Untouched jungle down to the sea
Last night a G&T cost me $2. On the beach. Cambodia is THE place right now
Surely that will be claimed back, and actually cost you nothing?
I might just take the hit myself. I haven’t spent a cent in a week. This was in a little backpacker town in Koh Rong - Kaoh Touch
I don’t want to bore on - heaven forfend - but Cambodia is in an incredible sweet spot now: travel wise. Phnom Penh is a brilliantly interesting Asian city with good food and bars and nightlife and history and vice - but without the insane traffic or expense of Bangkok, singapore, Hong Kong
You’ve got Angkor Wat - one of the top ten historical sites in the entire world - just down the road. You’ve got pristine jungle and untouched mountains in between
And you’ve got BEAUTIFUL islands with lovely hotels - or empty beaches with wooden shacks - ie like Thailand 30-40 years ago - just offshore. The people are fun and friendly and hedonistic. And they drink all day
And it’s all really cheap (outside the luxe hotels)
as a tropical destination I don’t think it has a rival anywhere in the world. Not even close
Vietnam is great but it doesn’t have Angkor. Thailand has been done. The Caribbean is lovely but it’s boring (Mexico apart but eek Mexico). Myanmar is too weird, the Philippines too dangerous and the food is awful. Indonesia is another world but hard to get to. Etc
I mean yes and Angkor is great but it's no Chartres. The architecture is pretty agricultural if you look at it. The colosseum is 1,000x more sophisticated and was built 1,000 years earlier. And the crowd at Angkor at sunset/sunrise is like the one on the final day at Glasto.
Plus of course much of it is unspoilt as I'm not sure the Halo Trust has reached all of the country (could be mistaken).
But yes well worth a visit and slightly more off the beaten track than other SEAsian countries as you say.
Angkor is sublime. It is a vast temple complex of exquisite complexity that dwarfs anything made in Europe at the same time - in scale and technology and sometimes in artistry
And I’m guessing you were last in Cambodia before Covid. That’s probably the main point
Yes I was. why is that relevant. Has Angkor been given a makeover, aside from all the luxury hotels in Siem Riep.
Angkor Wat was built in the 12th century. Look around at what was going on in Europe then.
I’m guessing you saw it rammed with tourists - it definitely and massively detracts
Come now - right now - and you’ll find it much quieter. Won’t last
The timing also matters in terms of the development of Cambodian tourism. In the last five years it has transformed. Phnom Penh is almost unrecognisable. And so much better. The remote primitive islands are suddenly accessible - this is a genuinely new thing
The Chinese road to Sihanoukville (and thus the islands) opened last year. What was a horrible offputting 6-8 hour drive now takes a smooth 2 hours max
Again: come now, before everyone else realises
I’ve been travelling the world for many decades. I’ve learned to recognise when a new country is in THAT sweet spot
Boris Johnson asked if graphs presented at a meeting were a “mirage”, prompting “incredulity” from those attending, Sir Patrick said.
The former chief scientific adviser said the prime minister had to be “managed” in the meeting, and asked himself: “is it always like this?”
Sir Patrick wrote in one diary entry in September 2020: “Chief Constables have said current rules too complex and difficult to police. PM looking glum. Then suddenly - ‘Is the 144 whole thing a mirage? The curves just follow a natural pattern despite what you do’ Incredulity in the room [...]
“The whole meeting carefully manages the PM (is it always like this?) and he eventually approves the measures - really just reinforcing and enforcing what we should be doing anyway.
-----
This will get all the headlines for Boris, what a Bozo....but the graphs were wrong, repeatedly. It also shows a certain arrogance among the scientific advisers.
The graphs were often wrong, but they were less wrong than the random thoughts that flitted through Boris’s head.
That's my point. Boris doesn't understand data, should he be expected to understand mathematical modelling....the problem is nobody did in government (outside of Big Dom data guy), or nobody challenged the echo chamber of those producing them.
Some of the stuff that was produced was utter farcical. Some of us pointed out the clear flaws on here at the time.
One big point that I don't believe has really been covered yet, why was it so difficult to get the required data. They had to hire outside contractors to right complex parsers even to produce the daily case / death figures, that had to run for several hours just to pre-process the data.
This is the kind of concrete flaws that need addresses for the future.
Cummings was very keen on data, which is admirable. Not much about Cummings is admirable, but that is. I remember talking to Big Dom’s data guy in early March (I think… maybe late Feb) about having an internal dashboard with key data, but I don’t think that ever happened quite in that form. Vallance has talked today about only 10% of civil servants having a STEM background and I would agree that’s an important issue. But government did have Vallance and Whitty and various other government scientists and external advice (SAGE and more). The science was heard and did impact on policy.
I don’t see the Inquiry hearings as supporting your claim of an echo chamber. We’ve heard about all sorts of disagreements. Today we’ve heard about disagreements between Vallance and Whitty, for example.
If you do understand data, then you understand the difficulties in producing data. No-one who’s worked as a health data science is surprised at the challenge in getting accurate and timely data out of complex systems. You could do something about that
Boris Johnson asked if graphs presented at a meeting were a “mirage”, prompting “incredulity” from those attending, Sir Patrick said.
The former chief scientific adviser said the prime minister had to be “managed” in the meeting, and asked himself: “is it always like this?”
Sir Patrick wrote in one diary entry in September 2020: “Chief Constables have said current rules too complex and difficult to police. PM looking glum. Then suddenly - ‘Is the 144 whole thing a mirage? The curves just follow a natural pattern despite what you do’ Incredulity in the room [...]
“The whole meeting carefully manages the PM (is it always like this?) and he eventually approves the measures - really just reinforcing and enforcing what we should be doing anyway.
-----
This will get all the headlines for Boris, what a Bozo....but the graphs were wrong, repeatedly. It also shows a certain arrogance among the scientific advisers.
The graphs were often wrong, but they were less wrong than the random thoughts that flitted through Boris’s head.
That might be correct, but I doubt anyone would survive the sort of scrutiny that's going on here without appearing silly, stupid or nasty. They're taking what people say in unofficial documents - their unfiltered thoughts - and using that as 'evidence' against BJ and others. Which is particularly bad if the people did not particularly like each other.
I certainly would not survive such scrutiny. I doubt anyone would. IMO it's also not very enlightening.
I think a lot of the media coverage is focused on the personalities and rude things said by or about them. However, that’s not the meat of the Inquiry. Watch the hearings, read the evidence submission, and I think it’s pretty enlightening at understanding what happened and the challenges that arise in these extreme circumstances.
That said, it’s a judge-led Inquiry, not a scientific one. There are questions around the best approaches to handling a pandemic that, I think, are better tackled in the academic literature.
"However, that’s not the meat of the Inquiry"
I think you're correct on that, but I also think that these stories make the inquiry even more irrelevant than it already was. The headlines of who said what about who/what just cement a narrative that many interested people had already formed before the inquiry started. If you feel that Boris wanted all elderly to die, you'll find something in the evidence and the headlines to back that up, even if it is not the truth.
As much as I despise the man - I hate the articles talking about how appalling it is for Nigel Farage to be on I'm a Celeb and how it's giving a platform to hate. Not because they're wrong, but because they also participated in that for the longest time and the media outlet that probably deserves the most ire for making and keeping Nigel Farage relevant is the BBC who constantly stuck him on panel shows and QT disproportionately to their representation and polling (because he pulled in ratings with his antics, much like 45).
The BBC had him on because he had millions upon millions of supporters (ie many, many more than the Green party) who didn't and don't have a voice. Meanwhile you can't fucking move for environmental correspondent this and now a piece on the impending climate catastrophe as it impacts the National Trust that.
No one seems to have pointed out in the media/commentators that if Hunt has, say, £10b headroom then he should press on with the reform plans for social care - as promised by Johnson and in manifesto.
No. Impressive but not even top 30. Or even top 50
To make the list they have to stir something in your soul, perhaps in a way you don’t quite understand
A lot of Roman ruins don’t quite make it because they are staggering feats of engineering yet lack spirituality. Colosseum. Even Pont du Gard
However I have forgotten the Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek. That’s stupefying. Top 30
You saw Angkor in the noughties; I saw it ten years before that. Full of hippies even then and no you really couldn't find a place to be on your own.
Best time I had in Cambodia? Hiring a motorbike taxi to just drive (I think there was some other ruin out of Siem Reap) and he just drove straight out until the only people we saw were soldiers and the only vehicles were army ones. I asked if he would turn round if that was ok, as the looks we were getting were getting ever more intense.
Ringing in my mind were the words of a friend who was a hostage negotiator telling me that when he would be asked by the parents of western tourists to help in SE Asia in "bandit country" then it was wise to remember that western lives were worthless and would be killed as easily as you would step on an ant.
With the red tories increasing their attacks on the Green party, it shows how worried they are. I wonder why?
The Greens are the new Labour Party
The Greens are the workers party
The Green Party is not the establishment
The Green Party represents ordinary people
Rinse and repeat for Tories and Reform
Yebbut at the heart of the Green Party is, er, or should be Green policies. Which they are not.
Sayeth Ben Goldsmith, your party funder or ex party funder:
"The Green Party is simply a harder-left version of Labour. We don’t have any ‘green’ party in the sense of a party whose attention is focused on the protection and restoration of the natural world; a party for those of us for whom nature is the biggest issue. It’s a huge shame."
You support them because they are a harder-left version of Labour. Which is fine. But at least play it straight and stop with all the "green" bolleaux. Call it as it is.
I agree with Ben.
The Green Party needs a huge kick up the backside. Eject all the Trots and focus on environmentalism.
Eject all the Trots and where are they going to go? Maybe they could take over the Conservative Party, that would be fun.
The island is another stunner however. Untouched jungle down to the sea
Last night a G&T cost me $2. On the beach. Cambodia is THE place right now
Surely that will be claimed back, and actually cost you nothing?
I might just take the hit myself. I haven’t spent a cent in a week. This was in a little backpacker town in Koh Rong - Kaoh Touch
I don’t want to bore on - heaven forfend - but Cambodia is in an incredible sweet spot now: travel wise. Phnom Penh is a brilliantly interesting Asian city with good food and bars and nightlife and history and vice - but without the insane traffic or expense of Bangkok, singapore, Hong Kong
You’ve got Angkor Wat - one of the top ten historical sites in the entire world - just down the road. You’ve got pristine jungle and untouched mountains in between
And you’ve got BEAUTIFUL islands with lovely hotels - or empty beaches with wooden shacks - ie like Thailand 30-40 years ago - just offshore. The people are fun and friendly and hedonistic. And they drink all day
And it’s all really cheap (outside the luxe hotels)
as a tropical destination I don’t think it has a rival anywhere in the world. Not even close
Vietnam is great but it doesn’t have Angkor. Thailand has been done. The Caribbean is lovely but it’s boring (Mexico apart but eek Mexico). Myanmar is too weird, the Philippines too dangerous and the food is awful. Indonesia is another world but hard to get to. Etc
I mean yes and Angkor is great but it's no Chartres. The architecture is pretty agricultural if you look at it. The colosseum is 1,000x more sophisticated and was built 1,000 years earlier. And the crowd at Angkor at sunset/sunrise is like the one on the final day at Glasto.
Plus of course much of it is unspoilt as I'm not sure the Halo Trust has reached all of the country (could be mistaken).
But yes well worth a visit and slightly more off the beaten track than other SEAsian countries as you say.
Angkor is sublime. It is a vast temple complex of exquisite complexity that dwarfs anything made in Europe at the same time - in scale and technology and sometimes in artistry
And I’m guessing you were last in Cambodia before Covid. That’s probably the main point
Yes I was. why is that relevant. Has Angkor been given a makeover, aside from all the luxury hotels in Siem Riep.
Angkor Wat was built in the 12th century. Look around at what was going on in Europe then.
I’m guessing you saw it rammed with tourists - it definitely and massively detracts
Come now - right now - and you’ll find it much quieter. Won’t last
The timing also matters in terms of the development of Cambodian tourism. In the last five years it has transformed. Phnom Penh is almost unrecognisable. And so much better. The remote primitive islands are suddenly accessible - this is a genuinely new thing
The Chinese road to Sihanoukville (and thus the islands) opened last year. What was a horrible offputting 6-8 hour drive now takes a smooth 2 hours max
Again: come now, before everyone else realises
I’ve been travelling the world for many decades. I’ve learned to recognise when a new country is in THAT sweet spot
Fair enough. I am not planning to go but am pleased that you have had such a great experience. I look forward to reading about it.
The island is another stunner however. Untouched jungle down to the sea
Last night a G&T cost me $2. On the beach. Cambodia is THE place right now
Surely that will be claimed back, and actually cost you nothing?
I might just take the hit myself. I haven’t spent a cent in a week. This was in a little backpacker town in Koh Rong - Kaoh Touch
I don’t want to bore on - heaven forfend - but Cambodia is in an incredible sweet spot now: travel wise. Phnom Penh is a brilliantly interesting Asian city with good food and bars and nightlife and history and vice - but without the insane traffic or expense of Bangkok, singapore, Hong Kong
You’ve got Angkor Wat - one of the top ten historical sites in the entire world - just down the road. You’ve got pristine jungle and untouched mountains in between
And you’ve got BEAUTIFUL islands with lovely hotels - or empty beaches with wooden shacks - ie like Thailand 30-40 years ago - just offshore. The people are fun and friendly and hedonistic. And they drink all day
And it’s all really cheap (outside the luxe hotels)
as a tropical destination I don’t think it has a rival anywhere in the world. Not even close
Vietnam is great but it doesn’t have Angkor. Thailand has been done. The Caribbean is lovely but it’s boring (Mexico apart but eek Mexico). Myanmar is too weird, the Philippines too dangerous and the food is awful. Indonesia is another world but hard to get to. Etc
I mean yes and Angkor is great but it's no Chartres. The architecture is pretty agricultural if you look at it. The colosseum is 1,000x more sophisticated and was built 1,000 years earlier. And the crowd at Angkor at sunset/sunrise is like the one on the final day at Glasto.
Plus of course much of it is unspoilt as I'm not sure the Halo Trust has reached all of the country (could be mistaken).
But yes well worth a visit and slightly more off the beaten track than other SEAsian countries as you say.
Angkor is sublime. It is a vast temple complex of exquisite complexity that dwarfs anything made in Europe at the same time - in scale and technology and sometimes in artistry
And I’m guessing you were last in Cambodia before Covid. That’s probably the main point
Yes I was. why is that relevant. Has Angkor been given a makeover, aside from all the luxury hotels in Siem Riep.
Angkor Wat was built in the 12th century. Look around at what was going on in Europe then.
I’m guessing you saw it rammed with tourists - it definitely and massively detracts
Come now - right now - and you’ll find it much quieter. Won’t last
The timing also matters in terms of the development of Cambodian tourism. In the last five years it has transformed. Phnom Penh is almost unrecognisable. And so much better. The remote primitive islands are suddenly accessible - this is a genuinely new thing
The Chinese road to Sihanoukville (and thus the islands) opened last year. What was a horrible offputting 6-8 hour drive now takes a smooth 2 hours max
Again: come now, before everyone else realises
I’ve been travelling the world for many decades. I’ve learned to recognise when a new country is in THAT sweet spot
Fair enough. I am not planning to go but am pleased that you have had such a great experience. I look forward to reading about it.
I am genuinely trying to give good travel advice!
They do need to sort the litter on some of the beaches tho. I guess they haven’t quite figured out they have an amazing product to sell. Clean the damn beaches!
With the red tories increasing their attacks on the Green party, it shows how worried they are. I wonder why?
The Greens are the new Labour Party
The Greens are the workers party
The Green Party is not the establishment
The Green Party represents ordinary people
Rinse and repeat for Tories and Reform
Yebbut at the heart of the Green Party is, er, or should be Green policies. Which they are not.
Sayeth Ben Goldsmith, your party funder or ex party funder:
"The Green Party is simply a harder-left version of Labour. We don’t have any ‘green’ party in the sense of a party whose attention is focused on the protection and restoration of the natural world; a party for those of us for whom nature is the biggest issue. It’s a huge shame."
You support them because they are a harder-left version of Labour. Which is fine. But at least play it straight and stop with all the "green" bolleaux. Call it as it is.
I agree with Ben.
The Green Party needs a huge kick up the backside. Eject all the Trots and focus on environmentalism.
As a member of the Green Party - it won't happen. Why? Because the kind of change needed to deal with climate change is incompatible with modern capitalism. Companies cannot treat emissions and pollution like an externality, but they do because governments let them and it increases profit. "Unused" land which have thriving, if small, ecosystems should not be considered an economic waste - but they are. (I note how after Bolsenaro started his mad hacking at regulations protecting the Amazon, most people discussed how good this was going to be for the Brazilian economy and investors, and not how devastating it would be towards future human life on this planet). We cannot have an economic system that is not just aiming at profit, but continual exponential growth of profit, when we have finite resources.
And then we get to the impacts of climate change - something disproportionately caused by the richest in the world that will disproportionately harm the poorest in the world. If we truly want to prepare the world for what is to come without millions or even billions dying - we will need to focus more spending on Africa and India, and the poorest in our country.
That is why environmentalism and the Green party has to be inherently left wing - because conservationism (the conservative idea of environmentalism - of just keeping the environment the same in what they believe is "normal") will not do anything to prevent or deal with the horrors we are facing.
You are not aware that the markets were consistently against Bolsenaro and his bullshit - which was part of his ranting?
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
The "best" period of capitalism for the average worker was the creation of the welfare state and post war consensus - where state intervention was high, taxes on the wealthiest were high, and investment and infrastructure and the public good were high. The worst excess of capitalism - the Robber Baron era and the era of imperial exploitation prior to this, and the post Reagan / Thatcher neoliberal consensus we're now living in. The 90s boom was only due to oil and the internet, as well as the post Soviet optimism and selling off of state assets from previously communist countries. We are now living in a time when my generation are predicted to be worse off that the last, and the entire political consensus during my lifetime has been Thatcherism and trickle down - from Major to now. It clearly isn't working - if it ever did.
Stripped of the ideology, perhaps you’re just nostalgic for a time when the west was preeminent and you didn’t have to compete with billions of workers in the global south.
Well, yes. I don't want to "compete with billions of workers in the global south". At least one of them will be smarter than me and will take my job and I will be poor. So I'd rather that didn't happen thank you.
No one seems to have pointed out in the media/commentators that if Hunt has, say, £10b headroom then he should press on with the reform plans for social care - as promised by Johnson and in manifesto.
No. Impressive but not even top 30. Or even top 50
To make the list they have to stir something in your soul, perhaps in a way you don’t quite understand
A lot of Roman ruins don’t quite make it because they are staggering feats of engineering yet lack spirituality. Colosseum. Even Pont du Gard
However I have forgotten the Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek. That’s stupefying. Top 30
You saw Angkor in the noughties; I saw it ten years before that. Full of hippies even then and no you really couldn't find a place to be on your own.
Best time I had in Cambodia? Hiring a motorbike taxi to just drive (I think there was some other ruin out of Siem Reap) and he just drove straight out until the only people we saw were soldiers and the only vehicles were army ones. I asked if he would turn round if that was ok, as the looks we were getting were getting ever more intense.
Ringing in my mind were the words of a friend who was a hostage negotiator telling me that when he would be asked by the parents of western tourists to help in SE Asia in "bandit country" then it was wise to remember that western lives were worthless and would be killed as easily as you would step on an ant.
So back to Siem Reap we went.
Well then you were incredibly unlucky and I’m mystified. I went to Angkor several times in the noughties. Here’s a photo by me of the main courtyard of the main temple. My iPhone tells me it was taken at 11.07am on 22 January 2007
It seems the new Speaker in Congress is going to release virtually all of the 44,000 hours of security footage from the Capitol Hill security cameras recorded on Jan 6th.
So the next rampaging mob out to assail legislators will know exactly where to go.
No one seems to have pointed out in the media/commentators that if Hunt has, say, £10b headroom then he should press on with the reform plans for social care - as promised by Johnson and in manifesto.
No. Impressive but not even top 30. Or even top 50
To make the list they have to stir something in your soul, perhaps in a way you don’t quite understand
A lot of Roman ruins don’t quite make it because they are staggering feats of engineering yet lack spirituality. Colosseum. Even Pont du Gard
However I have forgotten the Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek. That’s stupefying. Top 30
You saw Angkor in the noughties; I saw it ten years before that. Full of hippies even then and no you really couldn't find a place to be on your own.
Best time I had in Cambodia? Hiring a motorbike taxi to just drive (I think there was some other ruin out of Siem Reap) and he just drove straight out until the only people we saw were soldiers and the only vehicles were army ones. I asked if he would turn round if that was ok, as the looks we were getting were getting ever more intense.
Ringing in my mind were the words of a friend who was a hostage negotiator telling me that when he would be asked by the parents of western tourists to help in SE Asia in "bandit country" then it was wise to remember that western lives were worthless and would be killed as easily as you would step on an ant.
So back to Siem Reap we went.
Well then you were incredibly unlucky and I’m mystified. I went to Angkor several times in the noughties. Here’s a photo by me of the main courtyard of the main temple. My iPhone tells me it was taken at 11.07am on 22 January 2007
When has a company as important as OpenAI ever simply imploded like this?
Important?
LOL.
Well, not important any more perhaps
But important enough as of Friday to be worth $90bn with just 700 employees?
That feels *quite important*
Obvs being the CEO of idaho’s 7th largest car parking software company gives you a loftier perspective
More perspective than being the 15th or 16th best columnist on The Spectator?
I’ve no idea. I’m merely the 4th most important knapper on the Gazette
In other news. This is the guy that sacked Altman. Now he says:
“I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company.”
"I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens"
Places that combine capitalism and religiosity tend to work pretty well. Like Idaho for example.
When has a company as important as OpenAI ever simply imploded like this?
Well off the top of my head I can think of Arthur Andersen, RBS, AIG, Enron, Parmalat. There must be dozens like these which are in a completely different league. You never keep things in proportion.
The island is another stunner however. Untouched jungle down to the sea
Last night a G&T cost me $2. On the beach. Cambodia is THE place right now
Surely that will be claimed back, and actually cost you nothing?
I might just take the hit myself. I haven’t spent a cent in a week. This was in a little backpacker town in Koh Rong - Kaoh Touch
I don’t want to bore on - heaven forfend - but Cambodia is in an incredible sweet spot now: travel wise. Phnom Penh is a brilliantly interesting Asian city with good food and bars and nightlife and history and vice - but without the insane traffic or expense of Bangkok, singapore, Hong Kong
You’ve got Angkor Wat - one of the top ten historical sites in the entire world - just down the road. You’ve got pristine jungle and untouched mountains in between
And you’ve got BEAUTIFUL islands with lovely hotels - or empty beaches with wooden shacks - ie like Thailand 30-40 years ago - just offshore. The people are fun and friendly and hedonistic. And they drink all day
And it’s all really cheap (outside the luxe hotels)
as a tropical destination I don’t think it has a rival anywhere in the world. Not even close
Vietnam is great but it doesn’t have Angkor. Thailand has been done. The Caribbean is lovely but it’s boring (Mexico apart but eek Mexico). Myanmar is too weird, the Philippines too dangerous and the food is awful. Indonesia is another world but hard to get to. Etc
I mean yes and Angkor is great but it's no Chartres. The architecture is pretty agricultural if you look at it. The colosseum is 1,000x more sophisticated and was built 1,000 years earlier. And the crowd at Angkor at sunset/sunrise is like the one on the final day at Glasto.
Plus of course much of it is unspoilt as I'm not sure the Halo Trust has reached all of the country (could be mistaken).
But yes well worth a visit and slightly more off the beaten track than other SEAsian countries as you say.
Angkor is sublime. It is a vast temple complex of exquisite complexity that dwarfs anything made in Europe at the same time - in scale and technology and sometimes in artistry
And I’m guessing you were last in Cambodia before Covid. That’s probably the main point
Yes I was. why is that relevant. Has Angkor been given a makeover, aside from all the luxury hotels in Siem Riep.
Angkor Wat was built in the 12th century. Look around at what was going on in Europe then.
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religiob
Let me just pop one in. It's common but wrong to conflate 'wealthy' and 'wealth creation'. These are not the same things at all. Many people (eg me) are wealthy far in excess of the wealth they create or have ever created. The opposite is true of many many more.
Is that why you feel guilty? And vote left?
No, because I always have been Left. From sentience really. Eg as an early teen I had a little piece in the Daily Express (the "Young Voice of Britain" slot) arguing against the grain of that 'newspaper' that the Politics of Envy was tons better than the Politics of Greed. Very sweet it was. My mum still has it.
But it's true that my time working in the City (esp in Investment banking) definitely reinforced that political slant rather than challenged it.
Very much my outlook too. I've been a Labour supporter all my life. Now that I am pretty well off I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest - I have worked hard and do good work for a successful business and am rewarded accordingly - but I continue to think that the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden and I continue to think that it is the role of government to level up opportunities to offset society's glaring inequalities and injustices. Envy or guilt have nothing to do about it. It's simply a desire to see a modicum of fairness in an unfair world.
I do have a touch of guilt (the money in trading was just stupid) but otherwise, yes same. In a nutshell, how I see it, designing a replacement for capitalism is way above my paygrade, I've seen plenty of devastating critiques but no convincing worked-up alternative economic models that pass a smell test of will they work in practice? So assuming we're stuck with this core MO that screws the many for the benefit of the few, which it sadly and undeniably does, what I want government doing is working hard against the grain of that, always looking to reduce the inequalities that the system left to its own devices so assiduously fosters.
The difference between you and me is that I think that the capitalist system that has developed over the past two centuries has been a positive good for humanity.
Even Marx saw capitalism as being more an antihero than a villain. It created abundance, and broke down feudalism and slavery.
The devastating critiques contrast humdrum reality with an unattainable Utopia (in all likelihood, a dystopia).
I generally agree. The problem with capitalism - especially with late capitalist consumerism - is that it does nothing to nourish or even assuage the spiritual yearnings of Homo sapiens
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religion” - without any of the beauty and nobility of the great religions. It fills the void left by capitalism (as other grander religions retreat in the west)
I was reading a book last night, Orion Shall Rise by Poul Anderson, which did strike me about our need for, well, storytelling and societal mthologising.
For every society must have a myth to live by, else it's a walking corpse that will soon fall to the ground.
Yes, if all you can offer people is “better and better TVs and then you die” that’s not sustainable. Especially as we all realise those endless TVs are trashing the planet
I’m on a beautiful beach in a remote island off the Cambodian coast. The plastic litter is distressing
That is where the plastic litter is. In the Far East (and Africa). In the Pacific Ocean. Meanwhile we can't have plastic straws because student politicos want to make their name.
When has a company as important as OpenAI ever simply imploded like this?
Well off the top of my head I can think of Arthur Andersen, RBS, AIG, Enron, Parmalat. There must be dozens like these which are in a completely different league. You never keep things in proportion.
Yes, of course, all those companies were at the very cutting edge of a technology likely to transform human society within a decade. Especially “Parmalat”
And they all happened in a weekend. And they all happened because, rumour has it, some of the board were worried the company was close to creating an alien and superior intelligence that might destroy humanity.
As my wife pointed out yesterday as we walked past Tate Modern - You shouldn’t have the right to complain about things that existed before your flat was built.
You do however have a right to complain about (and not be subject to) a 10,000 watt lightbulb being lit outside of your existing flat and there are now a lot of flats around the Olympic park
The sphere probably isn’t a problem, the billboards on the outside however are.
And I doubt the finances work without the advertising on the outside.
When has a company as important as OpenAI ever simply imploded like this?
Well off the top of my head I can think of Arthur Andersen, RBS, AIG, Enron, Parmalat. There must be dozens like these which are in a completely different league. You never keep things in proportion.
Yes, of course, all those companies were at the very cutting edge of a technology likely to transform human society within a decade. Especially “Parmalat”
And they all happened in a weekend. And they all happened because, rumour has it, some of the board were worried the company was close to creating an alien and superior intelligence that might destroy humanity.
When has a company as important as OpenAI ever simply imploded like this?
Well off the top of my head I can think of Arthur Andersen, RBS, AIG, Enron, Parmalat. There must be dozens like these which are in a completely different league. You never keep things in proportion.
Yes, of course, all those companies were at the very cutting edge of a technology likely to transform human society within a decade. Especially “Parmalat”
And they all happened in a weekend. And they all happened because, rumour has it, some of the board were worried the company was close to creating an alien and superior intelligence that might destroy humanity.
I MEAN, ARE YOU JUST FRIGGING STUPID
RBS nearly broke the UK.
Don’t worry I’m sure RBS will be more successful next time it fails.
When has a company as important as OpenAI ever simply imploded like this?
Well off the top of my head I can think of Arthur Andersen, RBS, AIG, Enron, Parmalat. There must be dozens like these which are in a completely different league. You never keep things in proportion.
Yes, of course, all those companies were at the very cutting edge of a technology likely to transform human society within a decade. Especially “Parmalat”
And they all happened in a weekend. And they all happened because, rumour has it, some of the board were worried the company was close to creating an alien and superior intelligence that might destroy humanity.
I MEAN, ARE YOU JUST FRIGGING STUPID
RBS nearly broke the UK.
Don’t worry I’m sure RBS will be more successful next time it fails.
I mean we were a few hours from the banks and cash machines running out of money.
As my wife pointed out yesterday as we walked past Tate Modern - You shouldn’t have the right to complain about things that existed before your flat was built.
You do however have a right to complain about (and not be subject to) a 10,000 watt lightbulb being lit outside of your existing flat and there are now a lot of flats around the Olympic park
The sphere probably isn’t a problem, the billboards on the outside however are.
And I doubt the finances work without the advertising on the outside.
It will get built in Paris or Berlin and London, thanks to Khan, will recede further down the rankings of great cities
He is a disastrous mayor. The epitome of mediocre timidity
As my wife pointed out yesterday as we walked past Tate Modern - You shouldn’t have the right to complain about things that existed before your flat was built.
You do however have a right to complain about (and not be subject to) a 10,000 watt lightbulb being lit outside of your existing flat and there are now a lot of flats around the Olympic park
The sphere probably isn’t a problem, the billboards on the outside however are.
And I doubt the finances work without the advertising on the outside.
He is a disastrous mayor. The epitome of mediocre timidity
When has a company as important as OpenAI ever simply imploded like this?
Well off the top of my head I can think of Arthur Andersen, RBS, AIG, Enron, Parmalat. There must be dozens like these which are in a completely different league. You never keep things in proportion.
Yes, of course, all those companies were at the very cutting edge of a technology likely to transform human society within a decade. Especially “Parmalat”
And they all happened in a weekend. And they all happened because, rumour has it, some of the board were worried the company was close to creating an alien and superior intelligence that might destroy humanity.
I MEAN, ARE YOU JUST FRIGGING STUPID
RBS nearly broke the UK.
Don’t worry I’m sure RBS will be more successful next time it fails.
I mean we were a few hours from the banks and cash machines running out of money.
The guy who is - was - taking over OpenAI - believes there is a 5-50% chance that AGI will extinguish all humanity and possibly all life
When has a company as important as OpenAI ever simply imploded like this?
Well off the top of my head I can think of Arthur Andersen, RBS, AIG, Enron, Parmalat. There must be dozens like these which are in a completely different league. You never keep things in proportion.
Yes, of course, all those companies were at the very cutting edge of a technology likely to transform human society within a decade. Especially “Parmalat”
And they all happened in a weekend. And they all happened because, rumour has it, some of the board were worried the company was close to creating an alien and superior intelligence that might destroy humanity.
I MEAN, ARE YOU JUST FRIGGING STUPID
I think that's what happened in your imagination.
The reality - whatever the future prospects* for AI (and I would tend to being a maximalist on this) - is likely far more prosaic.
*Also completely unaffected by the fate of a single company. (Unless you count TSMC.)
Re this sphere thing, leaving all this around light pollution etc to one side - Why do we need to have a ripoff of something that someone has done successfully elsewhere? Why don’t we come up with our own cool, original idea?
London should be a place for innovation and world firsts.
When has a company as important as OpenAI ever simply imploded like this?
Well off the top of my head I can think of Arthur Andersen, RBS, AIG, Enron, Parmalat. There must be dozens like these which are in a completely different league. You never keep things in proportion.
Yes, of course, all those companies were at the very cutting edge of a technology likely to transform human society within a decade. Especially “Parmalat”
And they all happened in a weekend. And they all happened because, rumour has it, some of the board were worried the company was close to creating an alien and superior intelligence that might destroy humanity.
I MEAN, ARE YOU JUST FRIGGING STUPID
RBS nearly broke the UK.
Don’t worry I’m sure RBS will be more successful next time it fails.
I mean we were a few hours from the banks and cash machines running out of money.
The guy who is - was - taking over OpenAI - believes there is a 5-50% chance that AGI will extinguish all humanity and possibly all life
When has a company as important as OpenAI ever simply imploded like this?
Well off the top of my head I can think of Arthur Andersen, RBS, AIG, Enron, Parmalat. There must be dozens like these which are in a completely different league. You never keep things in proportion.
Yes, of course, all those companies were at the very cutting edge of a technology likely to transform human society within a decade. Especially “Parmalat”
And they all happened in a weekend. And they all happened because, rumour has it, some of the board were worried the company was close to creating an alien and superior intelligence that might destroy humanity.
I MEAN, ARE YOU JUST FRIGGING STUPID
RBS nearly broke the UK.
Don’t worry I’m sure RBS will be more successful next time it fails.
I mean we were a few hours from the banks and cash machines running out of money.
The guy who is - was - taking over OpenAI - believes there is a 5-50% chance that AGI will extinguish all humanity and possibly all life
When has a company as important as OpenAI ever simply imploded like this?
Well off the top of my head I can think of Arthur Andersen, RBS, AIG, Enron, Parmalat. There must be dozens like these which are in a completely different league. You never keep things in proportion.
Yes, of course, all those companies were at the very cutting edge of a technology likely to transform human society within a decade. Especially “Parmalat”
And they all happened in a weekend. And they all happened because, rumour has it, some of the board were worried the company was close to creating an alien and superior intelligence that might destroy humanity.
I MEAN, ARE YOU JUST FRIGGING STUPID
RBS nearly broke the UK.
Don’t worry I’m sure RBS will be more successful next time it fails.
I mean we were a few hours from the banks and cash machines running out of money.
The guy who is - was - taking over OpenAI - believes there is a 5-50% chance that AGI will extinguish all humanity and possibly all life
Bad as RBS was, a cash flow issue and a bank run in the UK is somewhat dwarfed by the nullification of all organic consciousness
5-50%? Pah. I can do FAR better than that. I give it a 99.9% chance that in the final stages of hydrogen fusion, our sun will swell and swell, becoming distorted and bloated, and swallow up the inner planets of the solar system, including Earth (or as close to it as makes no practical difference).
When has a company as important as OpenAI ever simply imploded like this?
Well off the top of my head I can think of Arthur Andersen, RBS, AIG, Enron, Parmalat. There must be dozens like these which are in a completely different league. You never keep things in proportion.
Yes, of course, all those companies were at the very cutting edge of a technology likely to transform human society within a decade. Especially “Parmalat”
And they all happened in a weekend. And they all happened because, rumour has it, some of the board were worried the company was close to creating an alien and superior intelligence that might destroy humanity.
I MEAN, ARE YOU JUST FRIGGING STUPID
RBS nearly broke the UK.
Don’t worry I’m sure RBS will be more successful next time it fails.
I mean we were a few hours from the banks and cash machines running out of money.
The guy who is - was - taking over OpenAI - believes there is a 5-50% chance that AGI will extinguish all humanity and possibly all life
When has a company as important as OpenAI ever simply imploded like this?
Well off the top of my head I can think of Arthur Andersen, RBS, AIG, Enron, Parmalat. There must be dozens like these which are in a completely different league. You never keep things in proportion.
Yes, of course, all those companies were at the very cutting edge of a technology likely to transform human society within a decade. Especially “Parmalat”
And they all happened in a weekend. And they all happened because, rumour has it, some of the board were worried the company was close to creating an alien and superior intelligence that might destroy humanity.
I MEAN, ARE YOU JUST FRIGGING STUPID
We had this same conversation a few weeks ago when you thought Equitable Life was some pin prick in the news when it happened compared to some minor bit of news was taking your fancy at that time. And now this. As I said then it really is like you were born yesterday or you have the memory of a goldfish. It is not like you weren't alive when these things actually happened.
RBS nearly broke the UK banking system
Parmalat, which you specifically dismiss, was and still is, 20 years later, Europe's biggest bankruptcy. The numbers involved make the stuff you are talking about look like loose change. I mean really what are you on?
Arthur Andersen and Enron rocked the financial world.
You are truly mad. You measure everything from 8 am each and every morning as if nothing has ever happened before.
Comments
- Half your population (women) should be chained to the kitchen;
- Everyone should own (And use) guns (by everyone, he means Men - women don't count - see the point above);
- Blowing up your central bank (rather than - you know - sacking everyone and getting better people in)
- Allow human trafficking in body organs (what could possibly go wrong there)
- Banning sex education AND abortions
- Ban immigration
I just.... think it's a fast one way track to destroying your country in five years.
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religion” - without any of the beauty and nobility of the great religions. It fills the void left by capitalism (as other grander religions retreat in the west)
I have neither the time nor inclination to debate further; suffice to say that while government can 'create' money, that's not remotely linked to labour value and, pretty much by definition, actually depreciates it.
For every society must have a myth to live by, else it's a walking corpse that will soon fall to the ground.
As far as I am aware most people now regard it as right of centre type of outlet, raging against the woke, the anti-free speech, get government out of our lives stuff. Actually its very predictable and makes for rather uninteresting content when you know the exact take on everything ahead of time, and not exactly stuff that will get Corbynite hard left fringe excitable.
e.g. the revolutionary lot these days are involved with XR, Just Stop Oil, in a bid to overthrow the system, the spiked people seem to be uninterested in such climate alarmism and more about drinking tea moaning about PC gone mad.
We're the only species on the planet that has to pay to live and the vast majority struggle to stay in the game. That's only going to get worse if we continue with the exact same system.
Our beloved Leon loves his Skynet apocalypse fantasy, but he's probably a little bit correct. AI taking jobs that millions of people do currently begs the question as to what jobs will they then do? We can't all retrain as AI developers. Couple that with climate change and mass immigration.
There's going to have to be some sort of reckoning in the not too distant future.
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religiob I’ve got pantheon at number 3!
I think Stonehenge makes it due to its superb mise en scene. If it was tucked away in a valley no one would care
But the designers chose brilliantly. Alone on the
Plain. No wonder it was a pan European pilgrim site from the off
The great cave art is of world changing importance. But they aren’t structures. That was my criterion
I worked all my career in IT and 75% of the time the projects we delivered made things a bit more efficient, so overall I class myself as a good wealth creator. Unfortunately, I have proved to be not such a good wealth accumulator. (Although that's probably at least partly because wealth per se doesn't motivate me that much.)
As to ecology - a brief look at the ecological disasters wrought by various communist governments should give you pause.
That’s why you get mad shit like Woke. Which is just a tawdry form of progressive “religiob Yes, if all you can offer people is “better and better TVs and then you die” that’s not sustainable. Especially as we all realise those endless TVs are trashing the planet
I’m on a beautiful beach in a remote island off the Cambodian coast. The plastic litter is distressing
Not IHT.
We have been there before, and need to resist any such language. Human beings cannot be reduced to numbers.
"Woke" is just being aware of structural prejudice, and (as I have said a godawful number of times) comes from AAV as far back as the 1920s. Historical figures that would be considered "woke" now include MLK, as his own family have recognised, and would likely include any progressive writer or politician of the last 50 years. Advocating for marriage equality would be considered "woke" now. Advocating for the right of women to vote, or have access to no fault divorce, would be "woke" (and indeed, many prominent right wing media types in the USA are arguing against both...)
@Leon No room for Mt St Michel ?
A balanced budget must be at the heart of a green economy, but "green" parties just want permanent deficits.
Joshua Dobbs: The aerospace engineer who could finally establish himself as an NFL quarterback
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/american-football/67390269
During 2021, I posted about times when the models had been more optimistic than things had unfolded - but the media never brought those up. I guess it ties in with your broader point about how bloody awful the media were throughout.
I mean, during late 2020 when the second surge was under way, the Daily Mail posted an article about how the models had been far too pessimistic and showed two graphs from a week apart. In the first graph, there was a fairly broad error margin, which, at the top end, went over 1000 hospitalisations per day. The second one had tighter error margins (as you'd expect) around a central line which trended higher than before.
But because the top end of the error margin was lower than before (because it was tighter around that higher line), their line on it was how the model had been too pessimistic before.
Head. Desk.
(As an aside, it's also kind of fun to see which misinformation merchants Boris was imbibing at different times. The stuff about "the curves always follow a natural path" is straight from Ivor Cummins, for example)
To make the list they have to stir something in your soul, perhaps in a way you don’t quite understand
A lot of Roman ruins don’t quite make it because they are staggering feats of engineering yet lack spirituality. Colosseum. Even Pont du Gard
However I have forgotten the Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek. That’s stupefying. Top 30
It's like any jargon. If everyone understands it then it can be a useful shorthand, but it creates a barrier for anyone who doesn't know the jargon.
Top 20
But yes- we need to keep the ability to do manual overrides when the numbers do something mathematically accurate but dehumanising. The numbers can tell us where we are, but not what we should do- though they can be powerfully suggestive.
(Which is why USA capitalism might not be the way to go. A brilliant machine for generating wealth, but much less good at turning that wealth into good lives.)
“the 45ers” so it now sounds like they are Trumpites
lol
Many things can be hard to define but still be a real thing, though it is also certainly true plenty of opponents use it as a buzzword for anything they do not like. Everything and anything is 'woke' now, and its incredibly stupid.
For my part I would see it in a very loose way utilised as being more about attempts to direct cultural attitudes to a specific set of political agendas, whilst presenting them as fundamental, inarguable truths. Some of those ideas are good, some arguable, others are dumb. A classic case as seen with protestors or political tribes the world over, in trying to get people signed up to an entire agenda, rather than just the bits they agree with, using a broad label.
It's not nothing, but it's also not the bogeyman you see particularly on american right wing media where it really does mean nothing.
It's also just a really smug description, drawing parallels to an 'open your eyes, sheeple' kind of hectoring to those not yet 'awake'. I don't see what is wrong with just sticking with labels like progressive or liberal, just as open to interpretation after all. Given plenty of people including on here insist woke is not a thing, and I had not heard it used not as a lazy pejorative for years (it seems to have made a comeback), I assume plenty of people like the ideas and not the label too.
Ditto neglecting to find ways to boost Court Capacity, rather than leaving 15k people on remand and wibbling on about building more prisons.
Angkor Wat was built in the 12th century. Look around at what was going on in Europe then.
Come now - right now - and you’ll find it much quieter. Won’t last
The timing also matters in terms of the development of Cambodian tourism. In the last five years it has transformed. Phnom Penh is almost unrecognisable. And so much better. The remote primitive islands are suddenly accessible - this is a genuinely new thing
The Chinese road to Sihanoukville (and thus the islands) opened last year. What was a horrible offputting 6-8 hour drive now takes a smooth 2 hours max
Again: come now, before everyone else realises
I’ve been travelling the world for many decades. I’ve learned to recognise when a new country is in THAT sweet spot
I think you're correct on that, but I also think that these stories make the inquiry even more irrelevant than it already was. The headlines of who said what about who/what just cement a narrative that many interested people had already formed before the inquiry started. If you feel that Boris wanted all elderly to die, you'll find something in the evidence and the headlines to back that up, even if it is not the truth.
Ten days to go.... grr....
Net Favourability of Selected World Leaders Among British Voters (15 November)
Highest:
🇺🇦 Volodymyr Zelensky +32%
🇨🇦 Justin Trudeau +14%
🇮🇹 Giorgia Meloni +4%
🇪🇸 Pedro Sánchez +4%
Lowest:
🇨🇳 Xi Jinping -15%
🇬🇧 Rishi Sunak -19%
🇷🇺 Vladimir Putin -46%
🇰🇵 Kim Jong-Un -54%
https://x.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1726571440479088899?s=20
Best time I had in Cambodia? Hiring a motorbike taxi to just drive (I think there was some other ruin out of Siem Reap) and he just drove straight out until the only people we saw were soldiers and the only vehicles were army ones. I asked if he would turn round if that was ok, as the looks we were getting were getting ever more intense.
Ringing in my mind were the words of a friend who was a hostage negotiator telling me that when he would be asked by the parents of western tourists to help in SE Asia in "bandit country" then it was wise to remember that western lives were worthless and would be killed as easily as you would step on an ant.
So back to Siem Reap we went.
“Breaking: 505 of 700 employees @OpenAI tell the board to resign.”
Coup, counter coup, reformation, revolution
https://x.com/karaswisher/status/1726599700961521762?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Can’t remember anything like this
They do need to sort the litter on some of the beaches tho. I guess they haven’t quite figured out they have an amazing product to sell. Clean the damn beaches!
LOL.
Absolutely empty
Perhaps you’re just jinxed
But important enough as of Friday to be worth $90bn with just 700 employees?
That feels *quite important*
Obvs being the CEO of idaho’s 7th largest car parking software company gives you a loftier perspective
Latest Trump details.
It seems the new Speaker in Congress is going to release virtually all of the 44,000 hours of security footage from the Capitol Hill security cameras recorded on Jan 6th.
So the next rampaging mob out to assail legislators will know exactly where to go.
Ho hum. Only in America?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/17/mike-johnson-january-6-video-footage
Who’s next for the Hot Seat HYUFD? Who do we have as the fourth PM this Parliament to save us all?
Between the ages of 5 and 33 I saw only 3 PMs. Looks like between the ages of 45 and 50 I’m going to see 5.
In other news. This is the guy that sacked Altman. Now he says:
“I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company.”
https://x.com/ilyasut/status/1726590052392956028?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
“I’m sorry I came for the king. And I regret that I missed. Now I regret coming for the king and actually I never meant to do that. Sob”
Places that combine capitalism and religiosity tend to work pretty well. Like Idaho for example.
https://twitter.com/MarkKleinmanSky/status/1726615019801182275
East London is hardly Bortle class 1 dark sky.
And they all happened in a weekend. And they all happened because, rumour has it, some of the board were worried the company was close to creating an alien and superior intelligence that might destroy humanity.
I MEAN, ARE YOU JUST FRIGGING STUPID
You do however have a right to complain about (and not be subject to) a 10,000 watt lightbulb being lit outside of your existing flat and there are now a lot of flats around the Olympic park
The sphere probably isn’t a problem, the billboards on the outside however are.
And I doubt the finances work without the advertising on the outside.
He is a disastrous mayor. The epitome of mediocre timidity
https://x.com/rowancheung/status/1726473420299534491?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Bad as RBS was, a cash flow issue and a bank run in the UK is somewhat dwarfed by the nullification of all organic consciousness
The reality - whatever the future prospects* for AI (and I would tend to being a maximalist on this) - is likely far more prosaic.
*Also completely unaffected by the fate of a single company.
(Unless you count TSMC.)
London should be a place for innovation and world firsts.
It’s all fart and no follow through just like What.Three.Words
Well, as a rough measure, it fills the top six news slots on the NYT mobile website, right now - viewed from different perspectives
RBS nearly broke the UK banking system
Parmalat, which you specifically dismiss, was and still is, 20 years later, Europe's biggest bankruptcy. The numbers involved make the stuff you are talking about look like loose change. I mean really what are you on?
Arthur Andersen and Enron rocked the financial world.
You are truly mad. You measure everything from 8 am each and every morning as if nothing has ever happened before.
For gods sake get things in perspective.