Interesting Links for 10-06-2025

[andrewducker]

1. This seems like a reasonable overview of how Labour are doing on the economy

(tags:economics labour uk )

2. The Trump Administration's Nasty Campaign Against Trans People

(tags:lgbt bigotry usa transgender OhForFucksSake )

3. The Allegory Of The Cave - Further Details

(tags:comic philosophy funny )

4. Fiber Optic Bird's Nest Heralds A Fiber Drone Summer In Ukraine

(tags:Ukraine fibreoptics drone war nature birds technology )

5. World fertility rates in 'unprecedented decline', UN says

(tags:fertility population )

6. Civil servants told to consider quitting if they disagree with policy over Gaza

(tags:uk gaza government )

7. Give new dads six weeks off work at nearly full pay, MPs say

(tags:uk parenting fatherhood )

8. Uber brings forward trialling driverless taxis in UK

(tags:automation taxi uk driving transport )

Comments

[cmcmck]

Trump has spent the last couple of weeks insulting and bullying a sixteen year old trans girl athlete in California.

What a big brave 'man' he is.

[juan_gandhi]

Thank you! Really impressed by that Plato's comic about "the science is settled".

[wildeabandon]

Wow. It tells you something when Helen Lewis is suggesting that your transphobia has gone too far...

[bens_dad]

6. The Foreign Office do sound as if they have gone to far, but the government is objecting to some things that the Israeli government is doing:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8xgk1ek19lo
I wonder how much of this is down to the way it is being reported/spun ?

[bens_dad]

8. I'd be alot happier if it were Waymo trialling them than Uber.

How about driverless taxis costing the the same as those with drivers, but the the drivers cost going to the government, not Uber (or Waymo, or ...) ?

Or even doing that for all AI ?

[andrewducker]

Looks like Waymo are doing the hardware for Uber in Austin.
And Uber are using Wayze in the UK.
So I suspect we'll get a variety of partnerships over time.

The UK might nationalise them at some point. But probably not this week.

[bens_dad]

DOh!

Uber != Tesla.

So not ideal, but not a disaster.

[danieldwilliam]

Is it a problem if fertility rates drop?

Or rather, who is it a problem for and who else sees it as a benefit?

[andrewducker]

It's a problem in Japan and South Korea already, where the number of people entering the workpool is far lower than the number leaving it, and the percentage of older people (expensive to look after) is getting higher and higher.

It *is* easily economically solved through allowing more migration. But, alas, this is a solution that does not go down well with the people who own our newspapers.

This is a good video by the FT about the issue in Japan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmdujC0MUKA

There was a great one about how it's affecting things socially in South Korea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufmu1WD2TSk

[danieldwilliam]

If global fertility is down we can't get any migrants.

[andrewducker]

It's still above replenishment rate globally. 2.35 globally, 1.51 in Developed Regions, 2.47 in Less Developed (from).

Not anticipated to go beneath replenishment rate globally until 2080s.

I think it's mostly a question of how lopsided your inverted population pyramid gets. If you can slowly bring population down, you can probably manage a soft landing. If you bring it down too sharply then you probably have structural issues.