Interesting Links for 26-11-2021

[andrewducker]

Will glow-in-the-dark materials someday light our cities?

(tags:light )

Why a Mass Effect TV show is a terrible idea

(tags:TV games writing plot )

Priti Patel has quietly been stuffing even more punitive anti-protest powers into the policing bill

(tags:law UK protests OhForFucksSake )

Reinfections of Covid-19 are 90 per cent less likely to result in hospitalisation or death than primary infections

(tags:Pandemic )

Why carbon taxes really work

(tags:co2 globalwarming tax )

The Beatles - Get Back review: Peter Jackson documentary is a seven-hour masterpiece

(tags:Beatles history documentary peterjackson )

It's not 'polarization.' The USA suffers from Republican radicalization.

(tags:USA politics Doom republicans viaDanielDWilliam )

More thoughts on the way that Polarisation has been made The Problem of American politics

(tags:USA politics viaDanielDWilliam )

Tony Blair tells Keir Starmer to 'reject wokeism' and wage war on socialism

(tags:labour tonyblair OhForFucksSake )

The unforced error by Boris Johnson of publishing the letter to the French President

(tags:uk europe diplomacy fail migration france )

Comments

[cmcmck]

Well, Blair was never a socialist but no more is Starmer...........

[dewline]

Blair's a damned fool in this instance. But we knew him capable of it for decades, because of him throwing in with Bush II re: the Second Persian Gulf War.

[armiphlage]

A question on the language of the Boris Johnson letter - when one country sends an official communication to another, is it not customary to send it in one of the recipient country's languages?

[andrewducker]

Use a language other than the one chosen by God for all his peoples to use? Heresy!

(Actually, not sure.)

[ingreatwaters]

I only know that the official copy went in English (although possibly accompanied by unofficial translations) in about 1800, which doesn't help much.

I can imagine an argument that you're more likely to say exactly what you mean in your own language - and then any mistakes in comprehension are the responsibility of the other side's translators!

[calimac]

European diplomacy was conducted in Latin up until about the year mumblemumblemumble, then in French until about the year mumblemumblemumble. Now it's more likely to be English. The EU expects either English or French, but then the UK isn't a member of the EU, is it?

[danieldwilliam]

I think David Allen Green's comment that there is an inherent contradiction between the current UK government's need to play to a domestic audience and its need to cooperete with EU governments is very true and worth thinking through the implications of.

For example, how does the next government find itself in a situation where it is not in that cleft stick? What brings down the current government if it can blame the EU for the problems that the UK government creates by wriggling around in that cleft stick?

[andrewducker]

A Labour government would be less worried about appearing ultra-brexity for the domestic audience. Still *quite* Brexity, but wanting to make a decent deal, in any case.

A future Conservative government would be just as fucked, I suspect.

[danieldwilliam]

But a Labour Party currently seeking to become the next government still has a bit of a Brexit cleft stick problem I think.

[andrewducker]

I think somewhat, yes. I actually think they've done a reasonable job of saying "Brexit is happening, but it's being done really badly." - it's not like Brexit can be undone at this point, so the only question is "Can it be done better?" - and the answer is pretty obvious on that front.

Why a Mass Effect TV show is a terrible idea

[jack]

If they try to film the plot of the games, then yes, it seems like that's what they'd get. I've not played them but I've picked up a bit of the lore second hand. I'd be excited to see it approached the other way -- take the lore and worldbuilding and a few beloved characters, and tell some other story. Or better yet, some alternate-version shenanigan like Loki or What-if, where you can showcase different branches of history that might have happened (both ones featured branching in the games, and ones based on critical historical events establishing the games' status quo); and do one episode "what if character A was the protagonist" and another "what if Shepherd was the protagonist, but gender-fluid", and one "one what if shepherd was killed and people tried to pick up the pieces" etc etc

Re: Why a Mass Effect TV show is a terrible idea

[andrewducker]

I think they'd need to tell the story straight, once, in order to get buy-in from a significant market for alternative versions.

Re: Why a Mass Effect TV show is a terrible idea

[jack]

Well, ok, yes, stories riffing on the original wouldn't land, but you can take the cool stuff fans live, and write a new plot out of it. We have writers for that :)

Why carbon taxes really work

[jack]

Yeah. "Discourage the bad thing, encourage the good thing" is far from the final word on any policy, but it's a good start, and a lot of the time we haven't even tried the good first step yet.

There's so many ways that it's a better fit here than in many other policy areas. Global warming emissions ARE fungible. So "what if companies just keep emitting greenhouse gasses anyway?" Well, no problem -- set the taxes at a level you can pay for offsets or fund greener electricity sources and be happy with that result. It's not like unsafe driving where fines are meant to discourage anyone doing it but don't actually fix the problem -- you're just charging people for the actual cost of the thing they're doing.

And it's bound to increase the cost of some life necessities, and unscrupulous governments will try to say, "guess those are only for the well-off, then". But they ALWAYS say that with ANY policy changes. Saying, "ok, we'll keep subsidising everything we currently subsidise forever, however counterproductive, because any change is bad for someone". Increase carbon taxes. Decrease something else -- e.g. abolish VAT which is a horrendous complexity for limited benefits over other forms of tax. (Yes, VAT has some use, but if you want to tax tourists, there's lots of ways of doing that, and if you want to tax rich people, it's a drop in the bucket.)

Re: Why carbon taxes really work

[danieldwilliam]

I think global warming emissions are fungible as you say and also largely invisible to the end consumer - which also helps a carbon tax have the right impact.

As a consumer it's difficult for me to see how the supply chain for one product is different from the supply chain for a competitor or a substitute - but it's easy for me to see that one costs a little bit more. And easy for the producers of the two rival products to see where along their own supply chain carbon tax costs are being added.

The unforced error by Boris Johnson of publishing the letter to the French President

[jack]

I pretty much agree with the analysis, but Johnson if that's the terminology one's using, Johnson is thousands of unforced errors in a single untucked shirt and pair of baggy trousers... It's certainly bad for the country, but he seems to have a pretty good eye for what looks good for HIM, and pointless macho blustering usually seems to turn out well for him :(

As regards Patel's "policing" bill:

[dewline]

I am not surprised. Further, I won't be surprised - and still very much angered and frightened - if/when this particular bill is first passed into law and then enforced. Against anti-fascist people in general - environmentalists, feminists, human rights activists and so on - of course, rather than against fascists.

All for the money-laundering circuit, right?

A politically illiterate reading of the Riot Act...

[hairyears]

Priti Patel is a bit dim, and lacks the political sophistication to understand that demonstrations are a safety valve.

Even when they get out of hand; even when they escalate to rioting, because that can escalate too.


The bad news about the Right Honourable Lady's grasp of governing by consent is the inescapable law of stupidity in politics...

Someone clever will turn up and do The Difficult Thinking for you.

...And Priti Patel is very well-placed to receive such advice, from clever people in the Home Office who liked Mrs May and her successors, and political advisors with a media background who know that an authoritarian government needs a frightened population and an internal enemy.

So the new laws might just work, in that particularly clever way, if the media are onside with "Our Brave Blue Line Seizes Back Control From The Rioting Scum", "We Will Not Give Up Our Streets To Looters And Arsonists!" (add pictures of not-very-white people loking violent and villainous) and "The Security Forces Are Closing-In on These Anarchists And Agitators".

And, at last, Ministers have an answer to the calls for "Something must be done!" from boneheaded backbench MP's: something will be done, we now have the powers to do it, and Conservative voters - and some others, rather further to the Right - will be reassured, and grateful, and ever such a little bit excited.

As will their Home Secretary.