Interesting Links for 06-07-2024

[andrewducker]

1. What a Labour government means for taxes (mostly good things, although obviously doesn't go far enough)

(tags:tax labour )

2. Nobody has ever won a British election on a smaller vote share than Labour just did. This will cause them big problems in the future.

(tags:labour politics voting uk )

3. Royal College of Psychiatry International Congress: Questions about trans health suppressed

(tags:LGBT psychiatry bigotry transgender OhForFucksSake )

4. Vending machines that are powered by artificial intelligence are selling ammunition for guns in grocery stores in Alabama and Oklahoma

(tags:ai guns shopping USA )

5. Gaza, housing, and trans issues: The reasons young Labour voters turned Green

(tags:Labour GreenParty Gaza transgender housing politics UK )

6. James Timpson has been appointed Minister for Prisons, Parole and Probation. Which is frankly amazing

(tags:prison Labour GoodNews epicwin )

7. Vatican excommunicates Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano for schism

(tags:catholicism conspiracy )

Comments

[cmcmck]

3.Why am I not in the least surprised?

This has been going on for decades!

[gingicat]

*looks up James Timpson*

Oh, epic win indeed.

[rmc28]

They put the Chair of the Prison Reform Trust in charge of the prisons! Someone who has been actively thinking about how to make them better, for some years now! I'm so pleased.

[gingicat]

And reform in a good way!

[hairyears]

3: I wonder where those vending machines' data is up for sale, and what uses could be made of it.

2: The leading argument against Proportional Representation and AV is that small parties of extremists can get in. They're here, right now.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, the UKIP 2010 manifesto basically got implemented.

[mountainkiss]

What does this make you think?

(Very carefully posting this on an old post because I know this is super sensitive stuff, so that you will almost certainly be the only person who sees it.)

[andrewducker]

A declaration from one side of "16 dead" and from the other of "2 dead" doesn't comfort me, it makes me think that either there are multiple datasets, that someone is lying, or that there are very different interpretations going on.

It makes me think I'd like to see an open discussion of this, with evidence presented by all parties.

If this cannot be done publicly, then happening in a closed session that both sides can report results from.

I would be absolutely delighted if it turned out to be a weird mistake. I'd be simultaneously annoyed and happy if it turned out that someone had lied about the numbers being higher. But I'd like to understand more, or have someone who was making the other claims understand more.

[andrewducker]

Just taken a closer look.

The original claim is:
"in the seven years before the High Court decision (on 1 December 2020) there was one death of a young trans person on the waiting list but in the three years afterwards sixteen deaths."

The investigation is " based on an internal audit by the Tavistock of deaths among current and former GIDS patients"

I would like confirmation that people on the waiting list are considered either current or former patients.

Because otherwise you're looking at two different populations. Of course people *receiving treatment* are going to act differently to people who are waiting years for it (or dropping off the waiting list after years on it).

[mountainkiss]

God I'm impressed with your command of data. And also that you posted this. I didn't think you would because I thought that people on your friends list would find it wounding.

[andrewducker]

I'd much rather know where we are, and what is really going on. And I can't find that out if I hide information.

I think the main parts of my internal code of conduct which apply here are:
1) You can't get to where you want to be unless you know where you really are, and you won't know that if you pretend that unpleasant data doesn't exist.
2) It is absolutely not okay to say "We're the goodies, so anything that we do to help us win is, by definition, good."

I am delighted to see that people with a much better grasp of data than me have taken apart the review, particularly to note this piece of evidence. But when I do turn out to be wrong, I feel stupid for a bit, change my mind so that I'm now listening to the latest evidence, and carry on pushing for whatever seems like the best outcome using my now-improved rightness.