Profile avatar
chriswilson100.bsky.social
Amateur dilettante. I am serious, and don't call me Shirley. Je suis Marxiste, tendance Groucho.
56 posts 36 followers 292 following
Discussion Master
comment in response to post
I call Alexander Graham Bell and tell him I've got a great idea for a... No, wait I haven't thought this through.
comment in response to post
What if the error is thinking there's an overpayment when there wasn't. If they take money without justification what protection do people have? Isn't that theft? The argument can't be 'we wouldn't make a mistake' when the whole thing is predicated on the possibility they would.
comment in response to post
"thoroughly plausible, utterly crooked lawyer who pretended to be the perfect gentleman while he spun a web of deceit" Is it Keir Starmer?
comment in response to post
Would you agree the greatest monument to the sacrifices of WW2 were the welfare state, including the NHS and council housing, paid for by progressive taxation? Why has the Labour Party turned around 180° and started punching down at the most vulnerable?
comment in response to post
Is it that they believe voters preferences are endogenous: concern re immigration is a given? Labour can shoot Reform's fox. Whereas the salience of immigration was created as an electoral strategy by the populist right. So they're agreeing with Tufton St not voters link.springer.com/article/10.1...
comment in response to post
Here's a theory from @jemgilbert.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... "the demoralisation and disempowerment of the Labour left has been pursued as an end in itself"
comment in response to post
And yet, the bits that aren't spectacularly wrong seem like a good summary. Which is an achievement. Simultaneously concise and bollocks. This may be emblematic of AI more generally
comment in response to post
comment in response to post
I'm in my sixties and this says nothing to me about my life. It feels entirely like a confected, top-down attempt to gussie up some patriotism for a divided, failing nation. We can't have social justice, but here's some flags. And I'm sure there will be no mention of the heroic sacrifice of The USSR
comment in response to post
comment in response to post
What if they didn't lay a trap? What if they provided an excuse?
comment in response to post
There very obviously is more to it than that. Why do republicans allow Trump untrammelled power? Why do voters vote for him? Is the problem that liberals can only see individual moral character and therefore systems are invisible to you? Hint: rentier capitalism and pluto-populism
comment in response to post
They could do both at once. Say Reform are Tories and copy their policies. Best of both worlds. Kill two birds with one stone. What could go wrong?
comment in response to post
Hey Richard, are you still living in a Tax Haven in order to avoid giving back to the society that made you rich? What principle of leadership does that demonstrate? And how does an honest man become a billionaire in the first place?
comment in response to post
Please tell me that Overdue Space Opera is the actual title and not just a placeholder.
comment in response to post
My favourite Captain Beefheart album.
comment in response to post
Read the air. On day on which Labour are punching down at the most vulnerable people in Britain, this "party of work" bullshit is unforgivable. Says who? Since when? What does it even mean? Or does truth not matter when you're serving the interests of socially useless extractive elites?
comment in response to post
I really enjoyed Muddling Through, and I don't want to carp, but isn't Vikings to Ukraine quite a short trip? Given who founded Kiev.
comment in response to post
1) the replacement of specialist correspondents with generalist columnists 2) the great man theory of history is easier than understanding complex systems
comment in response to post
Congratulations on "Tuftonpilled"
comment in response to post
comment in response to post
Did they mention paying your taxes?
comment in response to post
OK, but isn't that restating the proposition? What's different so that politicians are lower quality. Why does the system select for them? I'm not starting an argument, I'm looking for enlightenment.
comment in response to post
So what's the underlying cause? What would have to happen for ministers to know what they wanted in sufficient detail?
comment in response to post
Let's honour their memory by not cutting benefits for people with disabilities.
comment in response to post
Isn't this a) China and b) austerity. Neither just stopped. Something Happened
comment in response to post
Isn't the point that Trump just isn't an alpha male, but desperately wants to be? His inherited wealth has always let him bully people. It doesn't look like masculinity because its a desperate impersonation. One of the hallmarks of masculinity is not caring about it. See Obama for details.
comment in response to post
You only really need the first nine words...
comment in response to post
What's their alternative? Conservatism is now culture war in defence of extractive elites. But who to attack? Women are integrated into workforce, gay marriage accepted without fuss, racism looks bad. There's only trans people and immigrants left. Their economics have failed, there's nothing else
comment in response to post
So does mine.
comment in response to post
It's about creating a culture war to redirect attention away from extractive elites. Murdoch wants tax cuts and this how to build an electoral coalition to get them.
comment in response to post
He added: “Except, ask black nurses about their experiences of being bullied in the workplace in an organisation that has had black people in it since it was founded pretty much" What a bastard, eh? You're a journalist, you should know better than to believe what you read in the papers.
comment in response to post
Delete it from your viewing history, and if you have to delete your search history
comment in response to post
Sir Ian Gilmour once said that Thatcher relied on her imagination for evidence. I assumed at the time that was intended as criticism.
comment in response to post
I'm not an expert. However, I refer you to my profile picture. This is bollocks. He says "the requirement of a formal system is often forgotten" and then immediately forgets it.
comment in response to post
Lights Out For The Territory by Iain Sinclair. One of the quotes on the cover says "a demented Magus of the English sentence", and they're not wrong.
comment in response to post
"Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist." JMKeynes
comment in response to post
I hate to be pedantic but a curates egg doesn't mean good in parts: it's rotten all the way through. While we're here, lasers don't focus and carrot and stick isn't reward and punishment.
comment in response to post
"Not all engineers are violent extremists, of course, but an astonishing proportion of right-wing (but not leftist) extremists are engineers" www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/caps...
comment in response to post
I seem to recall that in the 90s, every so often someone in Labour would say "we should make the positive case for the EU" and everyone would nod their heads and nothing would happen. This argument depends on Labour actually doing the thing, rather than just recommending someone else do it.
comment in response to post
Hi Peter. I'm a citizen of the UK. Why do I want the prime minister to generate a piece of news? What would the benefit to me be? If I want the prime minister to implement policies that make life better, what am I missing?
comment in response to post
It's still true though, isn't it? The presumed tone of voice doesn't trump the facts.
comment in response to post
I think I remember before the referendum there was a lot of talk about still having access to the single market etc. Only afterwards was Brexit defined by the Tory hard right as hard Brexit. So maybe voters have thought this all along. Or have I misremembered what happened?
comment in response to post
...a common meeting place for white supremacists: "Auntie Di’s Establishment Aryanism" What?
comment in response to post
So "knowing what they're doing/ competence" wasn't even an option? That would be my first choice.
comment in response to post
comment in response to post
This Liam Byrne?: "Let’s face the tough truth – that many people on the doorstep at the last election, felt that too often we were for shirkers not workers." "If you can work, and won’t - we have to say, we will ban a life on welfare."
comment in response to post
"his usual tonal mishmash of basic pop culture and a Classics degree." *Chefs kiss*
comment in response to post
You go first
comment in response to post
They got married to Amadeus Uranium and moved to the country