Interesting Links for 07-02-2023

[andrewducker]

1. Star Wars, The Osmonds, and Twincest Predictions

(tags:StarWars twins incest music predictions )

2. Scientists suggest way to help children get desensitised to peanut allergy (effective for 80% of them)

(tags:peanuts allergies )

3. Call of the Void: Seven years on, what do we know about the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370?

(tags:airplanes crash Malaysia )

4. How damaging is the trans prisoners row for the SNP?

(tags:transgender lgbt snp scotland )

5. The kindest way to break up with a friend is to ghost them

(tags:friendship )

6. What actually helps reduce bullying?

(tags:bullying society )

7. LGBTQ: Plan to make it easier to change gender in Wales

(tags:lgbt wales transgender GoodNews )

8. I have regularly thought that more computing education should be as apprenticeships. I suspect the same is true of many other jobs.

(tags:apprentices Education uk )

9. China is building a staggering amount of solar power, here's how

(tags:China solarpower )

Comments

4

[danieldwilliam]

I fear the Gender Recognition Reform Bill issue will prove difficult for Sturgeon. Not necessarily politically fatal but problematic.

Firstly there is the optics.

And I draw a distinction between three things

1) public sympathy for trans-rights

2) what the GRR Bill *actually* does

3) what people who are not paying any attention to the issue whatsoever until they read the newspaper headlines last week *think* the GRR Bill does (this is most people in Scotland)

and the different levels of public warmth and salience on the those things.

The public, when asked, seem broadly supportive of trans-folk being treated better - but they do not think it is a very important issue for them.

When asked in detail about the specific reforms that the GRR attempts to bring in the public appear to be much much sceptical about those. They are possibly on balance actually against them. Difficult to tell because getting people to pay attention to that fine level of policy in an opinion poll is tricky. The best polling I've seen on the specific policy changes does indicate the public were not supportive. However, still not an important issue to most people.

I suspect that for the many people who are only just starting to pay attention now that the story is making headline and looking at what they now think the GRR is about - folks will be against that and think it is very important.

Now supporters of the GRR can say till you are blue in the face that the GRR is not about what people *think* it is about. And my response to that is to point those people at the AV referendum campaign and forecast that that argument will not end well and try to sell you a bus for 350 million Euros.

Second factor is the SNP's relationship with the SGP and specifically the ongoing issues with SGP ministers making incorrect statements to Parliament on the question of offshore wind energy potential. That sort of situation has been viewed by Sturgeon as a resigning matter in the past. How Sturgeon manages that whilst the SNP and SGP relations are potentially strained during a period where the SNP has to manage the optics of point 3 above whilst the SGP take a much more forceful line on transrights will be interesting to watch.

Third, this issue is at risk of damaging the independence movements short-term prospects. Those prospects are based in part on the SNP's image of sensible, competent modestly beige centre-left government. The independence movement (which lots of people do think is important to them) is a bit split over the Referendum Now or slowly softly catch thee monkey approach. Those short term prospects and the relative calm between those two factions of the independence movement I think rests a lot on Sturgeon's own reputation, popularity and political strength. If she's not in a strong position then both the promise of competent government and her own ability to manage the political divisions in the independence movement are weaker.

And that's before we consider the question of independence as an instrumentallity. People are broadly voting for Scottish independence in order to get something else - usually that something else is Not Tories or some form of Beige, Red or Green programme of government. There are some people who take the opposite tack and will vote for the Unionist Tories exactly in order to prevent an independent Scotland being socially liberal. There's probably not many of them and they probably mostly vote Tory already so the valence of the issue is not high - but worth keeping an eye on.

Forth, time is not the side of the SNP. They've been in government for more than decade. Sturgeon as FM for 8 years. They will probably win the next round of general elections but I don't see them winning the 2029 general elections. By 2029 Keir Starmer will have been UK Prime Minister for a whole parliament and the Vote Indy to Get Beige Centre-Left Careful Social Democracy boat will have sailed. I think that if they can't gain the necessary mandate for independence in the next three or so years then they are going to have wait a whole cycle of governments. And the independence polling is very close. So getting dragged in to any kind of messy, undignified, factional fight - particularly one which people don't think is a Top Ten issue for them is not going to help the stability perception.

Lastly, because Sturgeon has been so personally attached to the issue and these specific reforms have been accompanied by some pretty devise and intemperate language it's difficult for her to manoeuvrer round this. That's made worse by the likelihood that the GRR Bill does not actually do what people think it does, so she can't actually change policy in order to achieve what most voters think they want on this issue.

Probably not fatal but a potentially sticky spot.

9

[danieldwilliam]

That's an interesting approach which I think is going to work well in China and perhaps not work well at all in the USA or Europe wehre governments have to be a little bit less persuasive about what people put on their roofs.

The secondary win for China, and all of us, is that the volumes of solar panels being made to put on those roofs is going to help drive the long-term cost reductions from scale and learning curve effects.

I think we'll need to wait until solar PV installation prices are much more economically attractive to see the sort of retro-fit they are getting in China.

But we coud do much much more within our own paradigms of getting stuff done to support rooftop solar. Mandating in all new builds and slowly shifting the property tax status to support rooftop solar for example.

8

[danieldwilliam]

There are a lot of jobs where an apprenticeship, or a graduate apprenticeship or some sort of hybrid model would work very well. My own fields of accountancy and law are probably ripe for more in-work training and education.

[liv]

8. Degree apprenticeships are a really good idea and expanding that programme is one of the few actually good things the current government has done. My current employer runs one such course for bioinformatics, absolutely a classic example of a case where you need real-world experience and coaching more than you need theoretical knowledge, especially as most uni bioinformatics courses are wildly out of date.

There are some potential downsides; one is the background climate of snobbism, where the qualifications you gain are looked down on, in the same way that vocational qualifications are thought of as "lesser" than academic qualifications like GCSEs, A Levels and university degrees. That's not just, people might say mean things about you behind your back, it has a big impact on job prospects. The other is that badly run apprenticeships are just an excuse for companies to pay very low wages and not actually provide any meaningful training. Partnering with universities helps to counterbalance that, but sometimes you end up with people trying to do 90% of the academic work of a traditional degree in effectively 20% of the time.

[altamira16]

How is #2 different from the current way of doing Oral Immuno-Therapy?

Is it that people who would fail out at the smallest doses can begin Oral Immuno Therapy if you boil the nuts (instead of flunking out at the smallest doses?)

What do they mean by 80% effective? The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology is claiming a 60-80% effectiveness rate for the current form of Oral Immuno Therapy (OIT).

What is the drop out rate like? With current OIT, the drop out rate during the build up phase is incredibly high. This happens because people can experience anaphylaxis and incredibly upset stomachs during the build up phase, and they may decide it is not worth it.

You also have to eat an amount of the thing you are allergic to everyday forever to continue to be desensitized.

I think there are Facebook groups for OIT, and there were some issues like teens lying about taking their doses every day and then experiencing anaphylaxis when their parents said "I need to watch you do it." The kids didn't realize the importance of EVERY DAY to maintaining their desensitization.

There are different goals for OIT. Some people have a goal of tolerating an accidental bite, and others have a goal of free eating a thing that they were once allergic to. I think which you can do depends on the maintenance dose you stick with.

[agoodwinsmith]

#6

Have you come across the actual studies she found about training non/bully/victim students in community regulation? I would like to read those.