Interesting Links for 12-09-2019

[andrewducker]

If Computers Are So Smart, How Come They Can't Read?

(tags:knowledge ai Technology reading )

The Iconic Electric Eel Is Actually Three Species (None of which are eels)

(tags:electricity fish )

Do psychedelics relax your belief system?

(tags:belief psychedelics lsd )

Those with autism make good social psychologists

(tags:autism psychology )

Our political system is to blame for what's happening in Parliament

(tags:politics uk )

New Edinburgh children's hospital delayed until autumn next year

(tags:hospital conference Edinburgh fail )

Brexit Disaster Capitalism: £8 Billion Bet on No Deal Crash-Out by Boris Johnson's Leave Backers

(tags:UK Europe finance OhForFucksSake )

In-game spending should be regulated by gambling laws and so-called loot boxes banned entirely for children, MPs say.

(tags:games money children uk )

Lots Of People Going Around With Mild Hallucinations All The Time

(tags:hallucinations perception psychology psychedelics )

Poll: 51% of Northern Ireland voters back united Ireland

(tags:NorthernIreland polls ireland )

José Vs. Joe: Who Gets A Job?

(tags:names jobs video racism )

Boris Johnson denies lying to the Queen over suspension of parliament (I _totally_ believe him)

(tags:BorisJohnson lies queen )

Comments

Johnson and the Queen

[danieldwilliam]

a) He didn't do it. He didn't do. She's only got herself to blame. If you'd have been there, if you'd have heard it, I betcha you would've done the same.

b) Difficult to deny this, it's a finding of fact by the Inner House of the Court of the Session. We may actually be looking at malfeasance in public office.

c) Not sure how lying to the Queen plays in an election. "His brother doesn't trust him and he lied to the Queen" is a pretty good attack line.

Re: Johnson and the Queen

[andrewducker]

I know that there are lifelong Conservative voters who are disgusted with him.
I'm related to at least one of them.

Re: Johnson and the Queen

[danieldwilliam]

And I don't know if that translates in to the voting for someone else or abstaining. I could believe an enthusiam gap might build up.

If I were Corbyn I'd keep Johnson on the hook for a while yet and let the whole country see him for what he is. That can only help the opposition.

[danieldwilliam]

This on the hedge funds' position is interesting

https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/09/12/1568281802000/No-deal-Brexit-is-not-a-hedge-fund-conspiracy/

[movingfinger]

If I were the Republic of Ireland, I wouldn't want to deal with the DUP on a day-to-day. Why invite your friend to move in if they're insisting on having their douchebag right-wing over 24-7?

[calimac]

Back during the height of the Troubles, I would ask Irish Republicans who insisted on the annexation of the North, "Why do you want a polity with Ian Paisley in it?" I guess the point is still valid.

[andrewducker]

The same reason, one assumes, that the northern states don't want to throw out the ones with a ton of racists in them - doing so would abandon Your People to having to deal with them as a much larger proportion of the population.

[calimac]

"the northern states don't want to throw out the ones with a ton of racists in them"

Don't be so sure. Supposedly one of the famous thought questions in the Google job application is "If you had to eliminate one of the 50 states, which would it be?" My answer would be, "Can I have two? Texas and Florida." This despite the fact that I have both friends and relatives in Texas; they'd just have to move. (I had relatives in Florida too, but they were all very old and are now buried in Wisconsin, where they came from.)

[skington]

The correct answer is Delaware, to send a message that the race to the bottom to be as corporate-friendly as possible is now over.

[danieldwilliam]

Why Texas and Florida?

[calimac]

Inevitably Republican despite large Democratic minorities, and lots of electoral votes.

[danieldwilliam]

Reunification would be a tricky business just on the politics along.

For Reunification one needs a Border Poll. One has to assume that a Border Poll would be close. Say 55%-45% in favour.

That leaves about half of the population of NI having voted not to be part of the country they are now in.

Republic of Ireland population 5m. Nothern Ireland 1.9m.

So that leaves 850,000 Republic of Ireland citizens having voted against being in the country, about 12% of the total population (or the United Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.)

If you split the 45% in to three groups 15% On Balance Best to Remain in the UK, 15% Very, Very Keen on the UK, 15% Being in the UK is Foundational to my Life and Self-Identity you are probably left with 300 thousand people who just will never accept that they should be living in the country that they are now living in. 4% of the population being very angry for a very long time about being in the wrong country sounds difficult to manage to me.

I wonder if you might see lots of Ulstermen immigrate to the Mainland following a vote for reunification.

And do Celtic supporters then adopt their own version of the Famine Song?

[calimac]

And contrast to the Protestants who are totally opposed to joining the Republic, the Catholics who are totally opposed to remaining in the UK, and you have in a nutshell the reason the Ulster problem is insolvable and has caused so much headache over the years.

[danieldwilliam]

It's not insolvable.

It had been solved.

Between Irelend, Northern Ireland, the UK and the EU we'd created an jurisdiction and a geographic zone with a constructively ambiguous status and with sufficient protection for individual rights and for the various historic communities interests. What we needed was about three generations of peace, open borders, the rule of law and some sort of improvement in the material standard of living within the EU.

What we got was Farage and Cameron and the rest of the clown car parade that they ushered in.

[calimac]

No. It was ingeniously papered over, but it wasn't solved. This might have evolved into a solution in time, if the scab hadn't been picked over, but Brexit threatens to tear it wide open again.

[naath]

The City & the City; clearly needs to be taken more seriously

[calimac]

From the header "If Computers Are So Smart, How Come They Can't Read?" I was expecting an article on how OCR still doesn't work very well. Instead, we find that computers can read, they just can't understand what they read.

"Our political system is to blame" is half-right and half a lot of electoral reform cant. Electoral reform is a good idea, but it's not the panacea it's made out to be.

Is this the first time a majority of Northern Ireland voters have backed a united Ireland? If so, it's a huge shift, as the stated UK position has usually been that it will not cut N.I. off so long as a majority of the people want to stay in the UK. I wouldn't do anything as the result of some poll, but if there were a referendum and it came out that way ...

Boris's claims, that the prorogation is totally normal and that it's inexplicable why Labour, which said it wanted an election, wouldn't vote for one, are either totally disingenuous or else a sign that he really is as utterly stupid as he sometimes pretends to be. I suspect the former: it's electioneering nonsense intended to fool the less politically savvy or more genuinely clueless part of his supporters.

[andrewducker]

Northern Ireland polls have down "in the event of a hard border we want reunification" before, but never without that qualification that I'm aware of.

I suspect that once people are persuaded that a United Ireland is a good idea they won't be easily persuaded it's a bad one.

[calimac]

Maybe this is just the first poll under the current assumption of "a hard border is coming, either down the Irish border or in the Irish Sea," which is what you get when you combine Brexit with Boris.

[andrewducker]

Could well be.

Interesting that all the demographics under 65 were in favour.

I wonder if those people will keep their stance, and things will change over the next decade, or if they'll change as they get older.

[danieldwilliam]

The other factor I think in this is austerity.

The British gpvernment for 10 years has decided to reduce the size of the state. This has the effect of reducing fiscal transfers between regions and redistribution between economic classes. This has been going on during a period of slow and unequal economic growth.

Nothern Ireland will have been on the wrong side of this equation being a poor region with lots of poor people in it.

It may be the case that if the British state were growing, that redistribution were an explicit government policy and the economy were growing at 5% per annum that people's views on being in the UK would shift back towards support.