alarcos.bsky.social
Prof. UCL Econ. Computational Economist & ex-Theoretical Physicist, Alpine Glacier hiker, born: 30 Messidor CLXXIV.
2,155 posts
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805 following
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🕯😢
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🕯😢
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Like the GOP, the Tories stopped being conservative a long time ago.
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And with AI, we have an excellent tool for producing a mix of reliable and unreliable statements that students should subject to their critical skills incessantly.
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Whatever we call it, the Trump movement is manifestly a danger to liberal democracy.
It is both an inspiration & an ally to similar movts elsewhere.
Meeting that challenge requires us first to recognise it as such.
Complacency is not just bad punditry. It's a dereliction of democratic duty. [END]
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I see 2 groups of Remainers: 1) those that were in the EU for convenience & are now 'terribly inconvenienced' but not angry, and 2) those who had (or still have) EU and lived citizenship & are angry about the rights & freedoms destroyed for themselves and/or others
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😂
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For me, this category contains Umberto Eco & Gabriel Garcia Marquez😊
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The cruelty is not incompetence. It's the intended message.
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Of course, if 'performative morality' is all that counts, then none of what I wrote above makes any sense. So be it. I make my choices that I am accountable for and need to live with. Others make theirs.
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Just like the Netherlands would need to handle its criticism of Indonesia's handling of minorities' human rights carefully for it to be effective, so does Germany wrt Israel. There are plenty countries in the world that can lead on addressing these matters vs Israel with less historical ballast.
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I utterly reject the actions by the current Israeli government, Nethanyahu's policies in Gaza constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, in my view. I know many Israelis who see it similarly. But then my circle of acquaintances there is biased towards the Peace activists and Labour party.
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My daughters were both born in Germany and are dual nationals. Raising them in a way that empowered them to responsibly and constructively deal with the '33-'45 German history, as well as with the individual histories of their grandparents and great grandparents, was important.
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Whether I like that is irrelevant. It's simply a consequence of the choices made by my parents' generation. My father wasn't deployed to Indonesia between '45 and '48, but two of my uncles were. I am not guilty of anything that happened there, but I am responsible for how I deal with that legacy.
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It has nothing to do with guilt, but everything with taking history into account in a proper way. I am Dutch, if I engage with people from Indonesia, particularly from the Moluccan islands, or from Aceh, I have to take into account the Dutch history there and deal with it responsibly.
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Post-war generations in Germany, or post-war migrants into Germany, evidently have no blame for what happened '39-'45. But there is a *responsibility* for dealing with that history. It doesn't matter whether you choose to accept that, it's simply there even if you choose to ignore it.
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So, if your tummy aches after eating a sandy sandwich on Omaha beach, can you then legitimately claim to have "shrapnel injuries from D-Day"?
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The Turing scheme never managed to actually generate much demand. The grants were pitiful and the process was opaque, badly communicated, and frankly mowing someone's lawn for the couple of hours it would take you to apply ... would get you a similar pay-out.🤷♂️
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I think this take on the Israel-Germany relationship is shortsighted and a distraction from where the real support for the Nethanyahu regime sits. Just like German troops can't be the first Nato troops to show up at Ukraine's frontline, neither can Germany lead in sanctioning Israël.
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Not surprised at all. I think they just don't have the capability right now. The UK gov & border control is like my university and having an effective IT system. All talk, lots of words, lots of wasted resources on the latest promises of IT consultants, but nothing gets beyond beta-testing quality.
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I think he is on a Signal chat with Hegseth and Medvedev🤐
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🕯️🌹
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Alternative fuer America?
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Isn't it awesome how these market-geniusses are so forward-looking they priced this in months ago😬
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This is like a low-budget, B-serial, amateur, X version of the Prigozhin 'thunderrun'😂
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In every fascist takeover, there's at least one 'Night of the Long Knives' ... let's see whether this goes 🤷♀️
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Indeed! The thing with fascism is that the only choice is the one between fighting them early or late. Doing it late might cost a generation.
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Unless we make 'atoning and learning from it' a perfectly acceptable pathway to saving face. Less adversarial and competitive politics would allow that. I also noticed in education how students are increasingly into 'saving face' the wrong way by blaming everyone else, rather than by ... learning.
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No worries, degree-centrality is overrated, eigenvector-centrality is what really matters😄
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Not "absurd" but standard authoritarian practice. Next on the agenda: swearing allegiance to the leader rather than the constitution.
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If someone voted Leave, then May, then Johnson, and still supports Reform ... they haven't been "bamboozled" then they're making excuses and are getting away with it.
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A tool that does statistical optimization of its output misses critical outliers🤔 Is that ... news? I mean for anyone who knows what AI really is inside that 'black box'? But good to know it is also being empirically confirmed.
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I bet we will soon have cheap, useless AI that excels at appearing useful while efficiently wasting your time, patience, and electrical power.😄