Hancock's Half Hour

[Trainee neophyte]

Science is fine, you just don't understand how it works, very messily.

Science, much like everything else these days, has been appropriated by the people giving the money. Research depends on funding, and funding comes with strings attached. An entirely different issue is how the results of that research, tainted or otherwise, is then presented, propagandised and promoted for reasons that may or may not be honest and fair. A good example might be Al Gore, who managed to become a billionaire through manipulating the green message. He did not make all that money by selling books and videos, by the way.

Yes you've relied on these people before. Very non-transparent and they do love to rely on the mainstream Russian propaganda channels like RT and Sputnik. So I'd give them a swerve if that doesn't dent your income too much.

I see what you did there: infer I get paid to troll, raised the "Evil Russia" spectre to frighten the children, and generally made no attempt whatsoever to address the information, but rather attempt to discredit the source. Only The Guardian and other right-thinking sources allowed? As I have said, everyone likes to choose which "facts" are real facts, mostly by not actually addressing the facts themselves. I don't have the resources, time, or enthusiasm to go off and be a roving investigative reporter, so I do it third hand, by trawling the internet. It is clear that both government and traditional media all lie, consistently. Therefore you have to go further into the darker, more dangerous reaches of the universe, which has its own issuez. What I don't know, for certain, is what is truly factual,and what is nonsense made up for the benefit of some individual or group. Just floundering in the soup like everyone else - the only difference may be that I at least try to taste as much of it as I can. It still comes down to taste and personal preference in the end, but you can't accuse me of being a fussy eater, unlike some.

 

[Rorschach]

However, I found this info at a very nice website called lockdownskeptics.org (https://lockdownsceptics.org/2020/06/11 ... e-science/) - do you think they have an axe to grind?

Yes it's run by Toby Young who is basically a notorious alt-right troll.

Alt-right, now we know how deluded you are :roll:

 

[Chris152]

To balance the pain there may be a very good argument for a tax surcharge on pensioners (for 3-5 years?) to recognise the benefit to them and the sacrifice made by younger people to at least partially rebalance the impacts of CV-19.
Probably a radical and unattractive thought for many on this forum - but worth thinking about!

Lock em up in their homes for several months and then charge them for the privilege.
Apart from the alternatives Jake's suggested above, there are probably better pots of excess wealth that could be taxed more heavily without the ethical problem of charging a vulnerable group for the 'favour' society's done them?

 

[Rorschach]

Hey I get attacked for my views and then you lot want to heavily tax all the old folks for something that isn't their fault! :shock:

I certainly would not want to tax them, they release their wealth when they die anyway so why make them suffer in their final years? The stress would probably push some into an early grave.

People just need to take responsibility for their own lives and let everyone else do the same.


As an aside, just been reading the rules for shopping starting tomorrow. Almost seems like the shops don't want anyone to come, totally unworkable and will fail after 5 minutes. Yes I do know what I am talking about, I worked in retail for several years.

 

[Jake]

Alt-right, now we know how deluded you are :roll:

:roll :roll :straightjacket

 

[Jake]

I see what you did there: infer I get paid to troll, raised the "Evil Russia" spectre to frighten the children

Just a joke about your spatial distance from Macedonia plus the frequency with which you bring up Putinist shill points and sources. As I've said before I think it is actually just really bad information hygiene.

 

[Andy Kev.]

Yes it's run by Toby Young who is basically a notorious alt-right troll.

That is one of those instructive posts which says far more about the poster than the content does about its subject.

I defy you to produce one single scrap of evidence which could lead to Toby Young being branded as a "troll". He's certainly a conservative both with a large and small "c" but hardly "right wing" in the pejorative sense of the term and he's certainly not "alt-right". In many ways he is a true liberal, having, amongst other things just founded the Free Speech Union as a response to the increasingly totalitarian tendencies which we regularly see in our universities, media, twattosphere etc. He's also founded a magazine called The Critic which is intended to counter left wing dominance of the public space, something which one might imagine democrats of all political persuasions would most heartily welcome.

Now of course if you don't value free speech, then he must be seen as some kind of enemy.

So, I repeat my challenge: produce one scrap of evidence which could lead to Toby Young being legitimately branded as a troll. (Hint: articles slagging him of (usually in the Guardian) are not actually evidence.)

 

[Chris152]

In many ways he is a true liberal, having, amongst other things just founded the Free Speech Union as a response to the increasingly totalitarian tendencies which we regularly see in our universities, media, twattosphere etc.

That'll be the same kind of 'free speech' mr trump wants to defend against Twitter's fact checks etc on his posts?

 

[Andy Kev.]

In many ways he is a true liberal, having, amongst other things just founded the Free Speech Union as a response to the increasingly totalitarian tendencies which we regularly see in our universities, media, twattosphere etc.

That'll be the same kind of 'free speech' mr trump wants to defend against Twitter's fact checks etc on his posts?

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Why come up on a thread simply to demonstrate an inability to deal with the point being made? I mean really, why do it?

However, I will draw deep of my well of patience and point out the following: the right to free speech is, or should be, universal. Put very simply (even Trump or Corbyn should be able to understand this):

a. Only very bad people try to put limits on free speech and they tend to be the kind of people who, if left unchecked, go on to build gulags or concentration camps. In other words, the quality of totalitarianism is not constrained by it coming either from the extreme left or from the extreme right.

b. One of the great qualities of the exercising of said right is that it often provides clear examples of the old saw of "give him enough rope and he'll hang himself". Let them all speak: we are capable of judging what they say. Again, it is principally the totalitarians who do not trust our ability to judge; North London, North Korea - no difference really. One of the wisest things said in relation to this came from Abraham Lincoln: You can fool all of the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. (But then again he was a democrat and champion of free speech so I suppose there's a chance that we can look forward to his statue being torn down.)

c. The reason your post is so abysmal is that it was Tony Young who was under debate and, clearly being unable to cope with that, you chose to attempt to distract by bringing in the matter of Trump. Free speech is not bad because of Trump's (mis)use of it but rather Trump is bad because of what he does with and to free speech (amongst other things). We can all see that.

Did you not say that you once worked as an academic? That is deeply worrying. I sometimes fear for democracy, even for civilisation itself.

 

[Chris152]

it was a question ak. you seem to have gone off on one rather than answer it properly.

 

[Andy Kev.]

Then it was a poor question and it was or seemed to be an example of a typical tactic which is sadly so often employed in what passes for argument these days.

If you want to make a point about Trump and his curious relationship with free speechn then make one.

 

[Chris152]

thanks ak

 

[Setch]

I think Chris was making a point about Toby Young's relationship to free speech, namely that it's great when it's his free speech, but rather less important when it's voicing an opinion he disagrees with.

 

[Andy Kev.]

I think Chris was making a point about Toby Young's relationship to free speech, namely that it's great when it's his free speech, but rather less important when it's voicing an opinion he disagrees with.

Then he was making his point ineptly. Telepathy is a rare quality.

And if that were the point he was trying to make, he would be clearly and demostrably wrong: Toby Young's Free Speech Union is open to anybody of any political persuasion who values free speech. While I cannot claim to have read all his journalism, I have never encountered in any which I have read the least indication that he wants to restrict the right of free speech for anybody else. Quite the opposite in fact.

 

[Andy Kev.]

In more general terms, I've just been looking at pictures of masses of people queueing at places like Primark. It just seems a bit sad if blind consumerism is all people thought they had to look forward to during the lockdown. "I've got my freedom back! I know what do to: I'll go and buy some tat." Or am I just being too harsh?

OTH I suppose it's a sign of a well off society.

 

[Droogs]

no Andy not harsh but they are just following our golden haired adonis of a leader's orders to save the economy regardless of "cost" lol

 

[Andy Kev.]

Droogs,

I think that from the economy's point of view, an outbreak of rampant consumerism will be most welcome and of course the welfare of all of us ultimately depends on how the economy does.

It just struck me as a bit sad from a cultural point of view. That said, I'd be fair play for a criticism of snobbery. Who am I to decry spending one's hard earned at Primark? That said, I think I'd rather see a world where we (re)learned to save and then bought fewer things of high quality made by serious and preferably local craftsmen and women. It's the disposable wear-once-and-forget aspect of consumerism that I think does nobody any good.

 

[Droogs]

100% agree with you there Andy

 

[Rorschach]

I would imagine a good proportion of the people wanting to get into Primark are people like my SIL who has 3 children that have outgrown a vast proportion of their clothes in the last 3 months. Saw them today with their trousers at half mast! :lol:

 

[Trainee neophyte]

I know a thread is getting weird when I start getting privately messages about it - probably time to extract myself before things get out of hand. Again .

I saw a young girl, possibly teenager, on the BBC today talking about how she was going shopping, but was still scared about catching the virus. Complete nonsense, given that whatever method of getting to the shops that she used, including walking, would have been far more dangerous than the risk of any viral infection she might be subjected to. But we must all be scared, all the time, about everything. Russia has hypersonic nuclear weapons, you know. We should probably invade before it's too late.

On that happy note, I shall now go and seek out a sharpening thread - far less contentious. I'm going to try really hard to not look in on this one for a bit, much to everyone's relief, no doubt.