Interesting Links for 23-08-2025

[andrewducker]

1. Elizabeth I and the 'Blackamoors': the Deportation that never was

(tags:viaNancyLebov racism history uk )

2. The public reject the use of ChatGPT by politicians (60% - 25%)

(tags:ai politics polls )

3. M&S insists bra fitting services are trans inclusive

(tags:shopping women transgender UK LGBT )

4. How much of your history do you have to share with someone before sexual intimacy isn't considered a crime?

(tags:assault transgender sex UK law )

5. Canada is getting new Covid vaccines. Place your bets on whether they reach the UK...

(tags:canada pandemic vaccination )

Comments

[nancylebov]

2. The public rejects the idea of politicians using ChatGPT to answer letters. This doesn't say whether they can recognize ChatGPT if it's used.

[andrewducker]

I'm not sure why that would matter?

[nancylebov]

It matters because politicians will lie about using ChatGPT. If the public can't recognize it, the politicians won't be called out.

[andrewducker]

I'm sure that they will intermittently make stupid mistakes. And be judged for it.

[anna_wing]

Any information that would have caused someone to change their mind about consenting to have sex with you if they had known it beforehand.

[andrewducker]

I think that's a reasonable approach. I was certainly on that side when it came to the police officers who slept with protestors while infiltrating them.

[wildeabandon]

The trouble with that is that in the absence of mind-reading it translates into "anything that might cause someone to change their mind", which is literally anything, and thus not actually possible to tell someone on a first date. As such, if you're going to sleep with someone you've just met, and there's something that would make you change your mind, it should be on you to ask about it.

[anna_wing]

Then the responsibility is on the perpetrator if it turns out that what they did not disclose was relevant. Court can decide. There's case law.

Sex by deception vitiates consent and is rape.

[wildeabandon]

There is indeed case law, which argues that "very narrow restrictions should apply to such cases of deceit in the context of rape prosecutions. (The reasoning being that otherwise rape could be alleged following any minor broken promise or any misrepresentation with sexual activity, and would risk no longer being a uniformly serious offence.)"

The fact that having one particular non-transmissible medical condition is considered rape-by-deception, but that lying about being an undercover police officer is not, makes it blindingly obvious that case law is not fit for purpose.