Interesting Links for 31-10-2020

[andrewducker]

Loathing of Boris Johnson fueling surge in support for Scottish independence

(tags:Scotland independence BorisJohnson politics polls )

Deaths per hundred thousand people - 156 countries do better than the UK, only 10 do worse

(tags:pandemic UK OhForFucksSake )

"Oh Jeeeesus": Drivers react to Tesla's full self-driving beta release

(tags:driving automation Tesla Doom )

I'm fairly sure I danced to this at Infest

(tags:music birds video )

A New Way to Plug a Human Brain Into a Computer: through your veins

(tags:cyborg blood brain )

Coronavirus Deaths Are Highly Likely To Exceed The Government's Worst Case Scenario, According To New Sage Analysis

(tags:pandemic doom )

"Not just a virus that kills people"—WHO spotlights long-term COVID-19

(tags:pandemic Doom )

On the suspension of Jeremy Corbyn

(tags:labour UK )

"Why Biden May Be the Best Bet to Beat Trump" (prescient, from last year, explaining things very well)

(tags:politics USA demographics democrats )

Gene Roddenberry on whether Kirk and Spock were lovers

(tags:StarTrek fanfic relationships )

The Biden campaign bus is being harassed by gun toting Trump supporters

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1322336226792321025.html
(tags:politics USA harassment OhForFucksSake )

Covid job losses lead MPs to call for trials of universal basic income

(tags:GuaranteedIncome UK pandemic )

What does future world population growth look like?

(tags:population growth thefuture )

Comments

[anna_wing]

While I take no view on other people's domestic politics, I agree with Sullivan on the dangers of identity essentialism, and his remarks have clarified for me why I find it so rebarbative.

Not to mention that when I was in university, I wasn't interested in meeting people just like me; I could do that at home any time. I wanted to meet people who were different. Why else bother to leave the library?

[coth]

That article on population is extremely thorough.

[calimac]

Self-driving cars: If "Drivers are expected to keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel at all times", then there is no point to having self-driving software. There's no point even in testing it in real-world conditions until it gets a lot better than that; leave it to closed tracks. The problem is, even if the drivers are adequately trained (which past experience suggests they are not), keeping a vigilant eye on something that should only occasionally need human intervention, and that sudden and immediate, is beyond human capacity. If the drivers need to be vigilant at all times, they should be actually driving.

Suspension of Corbyn: This is a good example of articles on British politics I read with inadequate background. I hadn't heard that Corbyn had been suspended, or what the EHRC report said, and nothing I've found on now searching has answered the question I now have, which is: did Starmer suspend Corbyn on the basis of the media soundbites, without having read yet Corbyn's full statement? My rule one of political speech is: when it's claimed that somebody said something abnormally stupid, check for their full statement, because it usually turns out that it's at least misleading or taken out of context. (Unless the someone is Trump, for whom "abnormally stupid" is normal.)

Kirk and Spock: brilliant response, just brilliant. Fanfic writers can write what they want, but we know it's nonsense and doesn't fit the characters.

Harassment of the Biden bus: Proof that the police were biased comes in the refusal to help because it was "out of my jurisdiction." In the US, all police (except federal forces like the FBI and Secret Service), from state troopers to city cops, get their authority from the state government and may legally operate anywhere in the state. "Jurisdiction" is a matter of administrative convenience and has no application in an emergency.

Population: It says that the growth rate is falling because fertility is falling, but if it says why fertility is falling I missed it. In biology class in college decades ago, I learned that animal fertility rates are generally a function of infant mortality rates, but when the latter change abruptly the former may take some time to adjust. So my guess is that's what's going on here: infant mortality dropped, and now after a while fertility rates are following it.

[andrewducker]

Totally agreed on Tesla. If you go from "three hours of staring blankly into the distance while the car drives" to "react within 1 second or people die" then people are going to die.

Fertility in humans is inversely associated with women getting education and access to contraception. https://wol.iza.org/uploads/articles/228/pdfs/female-education-and-its-impact-on-fertility.pdf
(The "main message" at the end of page 1)

[calimac]

I'm glad they discussed India, Indonesia, and Kenya, because I wasn't sure how much women's education and contraception access applied in developing countries.

[birguslatro]

I agree self-driving cars are pointless if you need to watch what the car's doing all the time. But going by the videos I've seen, the people selected to try the update seem to be real beta testers in the sense that they know they're producing feedback to train the system. And they're watching it like a hawk! And going by the chatter I heard in one of the videos, the owner seemed to have been testing it for much longer than these videos have been coming out. At some point, it does have to be put in the public's hands and trickling it out over a few years seems better than a big-bang approach.

Lots of short videos of testing it by this Twitter user...
https://twitter.com/kimpaquette

[calimac]

When a self-driving car killed a pedestrian in Arizona two years ago, the person behind the wheel was watching, instead of the road, videos on her cell phone. Presumably like a hawk.