The Lancet published the chart on left with a different X-Axis to downplay fact that cold causes ten times more deaths than heat in Europe. Björn Lomborg corrected that with the chart on right. | Continue reading
We do not know what AI will be useful for. We do not know what it can actually do, what we want done, better than other ways of doing that thing (OK, other than writing C grade essays at GCSE level). We also do not know what might be a problem with what AI can do. We don’t know t … | Continue reading
I haven’t trusted a word the BBC says about much for several decades, but I do remember a time when at least weather reports could be taken at face value. Now I don’t even know if they are lying about that. Turns out many of the breathless inferno weather reports from southern Eu … | Continue reading
An acquaintance of mine on Facebook, a hardline capitalist (so he says) made a comment that no-one has a “right” to a bank account, as they don’t have “rights” (those inverted commas are doing a lot of work here) to healthcare, education, paid-for holidays, etc. He was, of course … | Continue reading
I have a dilemma. I want to write a post about how creepy it is to take a photo of a stranger and put it on social media with a deniably mocking comment. The easiest way to illustrate this would be to post the tweet that caused me to write the post. But if I do that, I am guilty … | Continue reading
Not even Jeremy Corbyn, the most odious public figure in Britain since Oswald Mosley, should be de-banked due to political views. Banking is a highly regulated state protected cartel, they should no more be allowed to do this than to de-bank people for being Jews or Black. If wha … | Continue reading
“Relatives of Nigel Farage have also been refused bank accounts, former Ukip leader reveals”, reports Gordon Rayner at the Telegraph. Relatives and associates of Nigel Farage have been refused bank accounts after being designated as politically exposed persons, or PEPs, the forme … | Continue reading
“A free society is only maintained to the extent that everyone is a dissident.” Jordan Peterson. | Continue reading
“How many environmental justice majors does it take to calculate the CO2 emissions of a light bulb? This isn’t a joke. Businesses now employ scads of college grads to do this. For years America’s political class has lamented that too many college grads are working in low-paying j … | Continue reading
Either the Independent‘s “Race Correspondent” (who, to add to the comedy, is called Nadine White) has written a report almost designed to be misunderstood, or she is a satirist of genius. I present to you this story: “Now the royal family is dragged into the n-word race row” Juic … | Continue reading
“If we don’t learn from the Dutch eco quagmire we might end up with Farmer Clarkson as PM”, warns the Times. Jeremy Clarkson is a bit too much of a Remainer for my political tastes, but we could do a lot worse. But Robert Colvile’s article is not really about Britain’s most famou … | Continue reading
…and Piers Morgan is someone who literally his entire career is now fuelled by this sort of nonsense. And as you know I have been on Good Morning Britain four times now. I have always found it to be a deeply unpleasant experience even when I’ve “won”. Because the way it happens – … | Continue reading
“Research finds ChatGPT & Bard headed for ‘Model Collapse'”, writes Ilkhan Ozsevim in AI Magazine. A recent research paper titled, ‘The Curse of Recursion: Training on Generated Data Makes Models Forget’ finds that use of model-generated content in training causes irreversible de … | Continue reading
Today Moscow repeats its crime by invading Ukraine, by denying the existence of a Ukrainian nation. Think also of Russia’s accomplices in the West — those monstrous liars and accessories after the fact, who say that Ukraine and NATO are responsible for the war in Ukraine, or say … | Continue reading
A new film is out, called The Sound of Freedom, and it is about the horrible topic of child sex trafficking, and based on the experiences of people, such as former US government agent, Tim Ballard, who tried to shut this trade down. The film has become a hit already in the US, ov … | Continue reading
“Scottish politicians have the courage to decriminalise drugs, but Westminster is too timid to let them” – Simon Jenkins, writing in the Guardian. Returning from Htrae, I have to say that the SNP’s courage was the courage of desperation. Scotland has had the highest rate of drugs … | Continue reading
“Covid Censorship Proved to Be Deadly”, writes Bret Swanson in the Wall Street Journal, but you could leave the first word off the headline and it would still be true. It is not necessary to agree with or even understand every one of Mr Swanson’s specific Covid-related points to … | Continue reading
As debate continues on the real or alleged benefits/threats of AI, one slogan we often hear used is the term “garbage in/garbage out”. For me, intelligence has to be able to “self-start” – to know how to ask an insightful question, to even consider if a question is worth asking i … | Continue reading
“Switching transport to electric in a short timescale will inevitably mean buying Chinese. Are we really about to force ourselves to become even more reliant on a totalitarian regime that stamps out freedom in Hong Kong, commits genocide against the Uighurs, threatens war on Taiw … | Continue reading
“Empires were built on exploitation – and adjectives” claims the Guardian‘s Lucy Mangan. Here is the article in which she does it: “Joanna Lumley’s Spice Trail Adventure review – a deeply problematic travelogue”. Ms Mangan writes, Generally, the story of a lucrative trade establi … | Continue reading
The July 4 ruling that the federal government must not demand censorship by social media companies is a major setback in the war on disinformation, reports the New York Times yesterday. The reason, says The Times, is that the Trump-appointed judge and other Republicans have falle … | Continue reading
In an open letter, 68 security and privacy researchers warned the draft legislation will profoundly undermine the essential security used to keep digital communications secure. We note that in the event of the Online Safety Bill passing and an Ofcom order being issued, several in … | Continue reading
The most damaging paper of the pandemic has just been published in The Lancet and it makes stunning reading. | Continue reading
One naturally wants to believe that an issue one is involved in is of world-historical importance. But as the judge himself wrote in the decision, “If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in Un … | Continue reading
Well, a day has gone after Independence Day, and I read this interesting article by Bloomberg ($) columnist Adrian Wooldridge about the recent SCOTUS ruling against affirmative action as it applies to higher education. The Court ruled, among other things, that such action violate … | Continue reading
Dear benighted parents, you must understand that we operate under a “higher obligation”. There is a magnificently orotund opinion article by one Professor Sarah J. Reynolds in the Indystar* (the newspaper formerly known as the Indianapolis Star): “Parents’ rights debate missing k … | Continue reading
When I asked my five-year-old grandson what he knew about George Washington, all he could say was, “He owned slaves.” That’s how Washington is remembered today: slaves, bad teeth, and a face on the dollar bill. But he won the Revolutionary War by sheer force of character; the pre … | Continue reading
First, it was clear to me that to attempt to challenge Islamic extremism with facts and logic as Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris had done was to fail on purpose. Despite their efforts, most of the Western world today operates under de facto blasphemy laws which are enforced not by r … | Continue reading
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, … | Continue reading
Just Stop Oil march gets hijacked by stag-do leaving protesters furious Video courtesy of the Daily Mail via Instapundit. The Mail writer reveals an unexpected talent for understatement: The demonstrators are then seen continuing their march, looking displeased. | Continue reading
Following the recent controversy about the closure of a bank account of former UKIP leader Nigel Farage (he is said to have banked at Coutts, although he did not identify that lender by name in his own story), more information about what might have caused this decision is coming … | Continue reading
The identitarian left’s nightmarish image of Britain is utterly divorced from reality. It also flies in the face of ethnic minorities’ own view of the UK, wilfully misrepresenting their experiences. Many groups are very content with life in Britain and are optimistic about the fu … | Continue reading
As reported in the Telegraph, HSBC accused of persecuting dissident Hong Kongers who flee territory The bank allegedly prohibited residents of the city state from making pension withdrawals Before it decided it would be trendier to be known only by its initials, HSBC was the Hong … | Continue reading
Is it ever possible to take a neutral position on the importance of free speech? The task certainly seems quite difficult. As Vogue’s favourite philosopher, Amia Srinivasan, notes this month in the London Review of Books, many Right-wingers seem to assert the value of free speech … | Continue reading
In case you are not aware of this – and there is no way you would if you got all your news from the Sky website – yesterday we learnt that political entrepreneur, Mr Brexit, and all-round inconvenience to the Establishment, Nigel Farage, has had his bank account closed. No explan … | Continue reading
“America doesn’t need more proficiency in Harvard’s Postmodern Nihilist indoctrination. What America needs are thousands of Neo-Enlightenment Revolutionaries.” From a friend of mine called Steve on Facebook, writing about the US Supreme Court decision about Affirmative Action and … | Continue reading
Lockdown ruined Britain – and our deluded leaders couldn’t care less. It was a catastrophic error: we should have pursued a liberal Swedish or Floridian approach. Lockdowns saved or extended comparatively few lives but inflicted huge economic, social, health and psychological dam … | Continue reading
“Drug-taking ‘Enhanced Games’ aims to rival Olympics with 2024 launch” reports the Telegraph. It leads with how the proposal has been denounced, but leaves itself some wriggle room in case the outrage leaves early. London 2012 Olympic gold medallist Anna Meares has slammed a prop … | Continue reading
The cancellation of eminent science writers and statisticians like Dr. Whitehouse and Professor Fenton for ‘wrongthink’ highlights the ever-shrinking boundaries of the discourse around science and medicine and the unwillingness of science’s gatekeepers to challenge groupthink and … | Continue reading
More interesting analysis by Perun… | Continue reading
We live in interesting times… https://www.samizdata.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Zelenskyy-popcorn.mp4 | Continue reading
This surreal turn in the 2023 plotline is a bold stroke, but if the writers can pull off the swivel from tragedy to black comedy, I could get to like it. Russia-Ukraine war live: Wagner chief claims to be in Rostov military HQ; Moscow accuses him of trying to start ‘civil conflic … | Continue reading
MARULLUS: Be gone! Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, Pray to the gods to intermit the plague That needs must light on this ingratitude. FLAVIUS: Go, go, good countrymen, and for this fault Assemble all the poor men of your sort, Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tea … | Continue reading
"We are restricting freedom for the common good": Irish Green Party Senator Pauline O'Reilly says that her government's hate speech bill is about "restricting freedom," and censoring views on gender identity if those views create "discomfort."#gript pic.twitter.com/H7QIT0 … | Continue reading
Will someone please ask the Swedish Doom Goblin if I have time for another Armagnac? | Continue reading
Literary critic Cyril Connolly said that the war between the generations is the only war in which everyone changes sides eventually. He was wrong. Politics is war, of course; and the Conservative Party switched en masse years ago. Unencumbered by any meaningful philosophy, they j … | Continue reading
“My view is that the idea that AI will decide to literally kill humanity is a profound category error. AI is not a living being that has been primed by billions of years of evolution to participate in the battle for the survival of the fittest, as animals are, and as we are. It i … | Continue reading
But grinding poverty is, so far as ministers are concerned, a price worth paying for the cult of net zero. Few independent experts pretend that either solar power or wind power are remotely adequate for the needs of heating and powering a country of approaching 70 million people. … | Continue reading