Interesting Links for 31-03-2021

[andrewducker]

While Scottish independence would have immediate economic costs, history suggests there are long-term benefits

(tags:scotland independence viaDanielDWilliam economics )

Alba Party candidate apologises for posts mocking 'Romanian beggars' for being "fat as as big, juicy, over-fed pigs"

(tags:racism scotland politics )

Alba Party candidate apologises for calling Nicola Sturgeon 'cow'

(tags:politics Scotland )

Fake Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

(tags:Amazon unions USA fraud Twitter )

Amazon tweets trolling Congress were so bad that IT thought account was hacked

(tags:Amazon Twitter politics OhForFucksSake )

People With Depression Show Hints Of Distorted Thinking In The Language They Use On Social Media

(tags:depression language psychology )

Covid contracts still unpublished despite Boris Johnson's claim

(tags:lies contracts BorisJohnson )

Police found a mafia fugitive on YouTube, posting cooking tutorials

(tags:food videos Mafia YouTube wtf )

The cost of speaking up against China (and its genocide)

(tags:China genocide )

The USA is undergoing a widespread attack on the rights of trans people

(tags:LGBT rights transgender USA )

Scotland public funding 30% higher than England (because of higher taxes, and still less than in 2010)

(tags:tax Scotland budget )

Coyote & Crow - A science fiction and fantasy tabletop RPG set in a near-future where the Americas were never colonized, created by a team of Natives.

(tags:roleplaying kickstarter USA scifi )

"I Like That The Boat Is Stuck"

(tags:pandemic boats mentalhealth society )

How to lose $10,000,000 by doing something stupid.

(tags:business marketing startups failure )

Comments

Alba Social Media

[danieldwilliam]

It's unclear to me whether the couple of Alba social media issues are the usual sort of thing that happens when you float a new party; rapid and poor candidate vetting, some nutters and fringe jobs turning up and so on or whether it speaks to them attracting a bunch of Tartan Tories.

I'm currently tending towards the latter view but we'll see I guess.

Re: Alba Social Media

[andrewducker]

Yes. Whether they can be the "regressive view SNP" and get enough votes to make a difference is going to be interesting.

Re: Alba Social Media

[danieldwilliam]

My view remains that most people won't notice or care as the election is going to be about

1) Independence Yes / NO
2) IndyRef Now / Later
3) EU Membership Yes / No
4) COVID Handling Sturgeon vs Johnson
5) Sturgeon / Salmond Good Guy / Wanker
6) 1 Domestic Policy issue of your choice - probably education.

If Alba are still around in 2026 then it might have seeped through in to the popular consciousness that Alba have a different tone on social issues than e.g. the SNP and SGP.

Re: Alba Social Media

[andrewducker]

Yeah. With the caveat that there are certain minimum levels of things that we expect. If the SNP suddenly turned out to be racist then I'd expect that to shoot up the rankings quite quickly for a bunch of people.

Re: Alba Social Media

[danieldwilliam]

Well maybe,

The continued existence of UKIP and co tells me that there is a political market for a bit of traditional British racism.

And , yeah, if the SNP's Secret Plan to Ship All They Sassenachs From O The Sacred Soil of Scotia was leaked that would jump in to people's attention for sure.

But, a new, badly vetted, and probably soon to be former, candidate for a new, minor party once tweeted something a bit racist but which lots of people agree with - unlikely to move the needle.

Most people aren't on Twitter, most people are not following politics on Twitter, or at all. The whole, "you did a gaff, resign in shame" shtick unlikely to have much of an impact.

Longer term it might, but, see my comment above about UKIP. If between now and the next election Alba became the pro-indy party which was just fine with Lawrence Fox, then for everyone like you and me who wouldn't touch them with a barge poll made out of Dettol then there would be someone else who was quite enthusiastic.

Many people look at progressives and think they are progressing in the wrong direction.

Re: Alba Social Media

[andrewducker]

Oh yes - Alba might well suck up *more* people if they came out with stuff like that, because there currently isn't a home for "Wants Independence, But Unpleasant" people.

Edit: I was more thinking that it would move the needle for the SNP if it came out that Nicola Sturgeon had been recorded complaining about all of those dark skinned people in Scotland. Or if the SNP turned out to have been covering up anti-semitism amongst their members.

Re: Alba Social Media

[danieldwilliam]

Aye, that sort of thing would cause the SNP some difficulty.

And they do occassionally get a bit of stick when an SNP supporter makes negative comments about "They English."

Czeck and Slovakia

[danieldwilliam]

I wonder what other examples, like the Velvet Divorce, of increased autonomy there are that might be informative to Scotland's situation.

Re: Czeck and Slovakia

[andrewducker]

How's Ireland doing? I hear they used to be part of the UK and then got autonomy.

Re: Czeck and Slovakia

[danieldwilliam]

I'm not sure Ireland is that useful of a comparison.

Firstly, it was a while ago.

Secondly, it took quite a while for the Irish economy to pick up and I think it was coming from a much, much lower position relative to the UK than Scotland would be. It wasn't until Ireland joined the EEC. (I think there might be some other structural, cultural and political things going on in Ireland between 1930 and 1960 too but I don't know the history well enough.)

Thirdly, Ireland benefits from its deliberately chosen corporation tax rates. Two impacts, an actual benefit and it also makes things like the per capita GDP statistics a bit screwy.

Fourthly, Ireland had a nasty civil war immediately after independence. This probably had an adverse impact on per capita GDP.

Re: Czeck and Slovakia

[andrewducker]

True. I was more thinking about, right now, the ability of small countries sharing an archipelago (and border) with England to successfully look after their citizens.

I appreciate that the corporation tax rates will have an effect on the outcome.

Re: Czeck and Slovakia

[danieldwilliam]

For sure, if you want an example of whether a small 21st Century country next to the UK can do okay then Ireland is a good example. Although, with the corporation tax rate some people might not like some of the details of the answer.

But it's not a great example I think of what might happen in the 10 years post independence for a 21st century social democracy with relatively high levels of per capita GDP. Unless you think we're going to have an utter melt down in the 2030's.

Re: Czeck and Slovakia

[andrewducker]

Fair point. We hopefully wouldn't follow the same route they did!

People With Depression Show Hints Of Distorted Thinking In The Language They Use On Social Media

[jack]

I'm suspicious of any form of automated detection because there's so many ways it can go wrong, even before you start treating the metric rather than the disease. But "everyone says" being overrepresented rang really true -- it's not just language about sadness, it's a normal turn of phrase but one that I recognise as being increased by certain unhelpful habits of thinking...

Re: People With Depression Show Hints Of Distorted Thinking In The Language They Use On Social Media

[andrewducker]

Oh yeah. I don't have a problem with automated things where there are no down sides. But you will have a ton of false positives.

As for the Xi Regime

[dewline]

My first thought is - as per usual - that mainland China deserves far better governance than it's currently getting from Xi Jinping and his crew practicing what looks very much like fascism "with Chinese characteristics".

Of course, my opinion is affected by the current, ongoing sufferings of Huseyin Celil, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, among many others, at the hands of the current regime. And the suspicion that Xi wants Canada to pipe down and behave like a Good Little Client State, just as Stephen Harper seems to have agreed to via the FIPPA he negotiated in Canada's name.