It’s like the world’s best kept secret
Current Affairs EU In or Out
- Thread starter micknick
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It’s like the world’s best kept secret
I work with tech companies, and pretty much all of them over hype their technology. I've yet to meet a single one that would deliberately underplay their offering, yet that must be what's happening here. Our technological saviour is out there but is too shy to shout about their tech.
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
Bruce, the problem with what you are saying here is that it’s fundamentally dishonest.
Labour did mess up with the immigration bill (over the communications if nothing else), though again it was a second reading of a bill that everyone acknowledges has to happen if we actually leave. They did not draw up the text, nor did they agree to its content, and it’s not clear that they actually changed their stance on it anyway (for instance the NS’s journalist Stephen Bush reported it was being a one line whip initially and argued with Chris Leslie over what it meant).
However the main objection I have to what you’ve posted is that it doesn’t acknowledge that the only way to stop this madness, the red lines, the harsh immigration measures, the incompetence, and yes even Brexit itself is to get rid of this Government. There is no other way to deal with the crisis; a unicorn party is not going to emerge.
Nor is anyone’s opinions likely to change when “experts” (or rather those the media and politicians choose to use and present, who are much more likely to be creatures of think tanks as well as expert in their field) discredit themselves by trying to excuse away very real issues that people are experiencing. On almost every issue of the day, some shill will be on TV telling us all what a good idea that something is - whether that is restricting union activity, keeping taxes low, keeping the railway in private hands, saying how good it is that so many go to university now or that the EU is an unqualified good. Misinformation is everywhere, and it mainly comes from the mouths of educated people who are paid to provide opinion rather than fact.
Look at OFOC and their spokesperson Femi Oluwole for example - an organisation based in a building with other organisations arguing for the same ends, funded by unknown means and fronted by a photogenic 20-something who cannot have gained enough experience to make him a national authority on anything. These are exactly the same problems we have with the likes of the TPA (apart from Chloe Westley being female).
Labour did mess up with the immigration bill (over the communications if nothing else), though again it was a second reading of a bill that everyone acknowledges has to happen if we actually leave. They did not draw up the text, nor did they agree to its content, and it’s not clear that they actually changed their stance on it anyway (for instance the NS’s journalist Stephen Bush reported it was being a one line whip initially and argued with Chris Leslie over what it meant).
However the main objection I have to what you’ve posted is that it doesn’t acknowledge that the only way to stop this madness, the red lines, the harsh immigration measures, the incompetence, and yes even Brexit itself is to get rid of this Government. There is no other way to deal with the crisis; a unicorn party is not going to emerge.
Nor is anyone’s opinions likely to change when “experts” (or rather those the media and politicians choose to use and present, who are much more likely to be creatures of think tanks as well as expert in their field) discredit themselves by trying to excuse away very real issues that people are experiencing. On almost every issue of the day, some shill will be on TV telling us all what a good idea that something is - whether that is restricting union activity, keeping taxes low, keeping the railway in private hands, saying how good it is that so many go to university now or that the EU is an unqualified good. Misinformation is everywhere, and it mainly comes from the mouths of educated people who are paid to provide opinion rather than fact.
Look at OFOC and their spokesperson Femi Oluwole for example - an organisation based in a building with other organisations arguing for the same ends, funded by unknown means and fronted by a photogenic 20-something who cannot have gained enough experience to make him a national authority on anything. These are exactly the same problems we have with the likes of the TPA (apart from Chloe Westley being female).
I said earlier, and I’m genuine , I don’t know what it’s supposed to do that would solve the issues .
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
The only solutions are a shared customs area or a border. Nothing else will work.
Mate I’ve been arguing that point for some time , with a border in the Irish Sea perhaps the most workable although far from ideal . My point was I just don’t understand what this technology is supposed to do . what is could potentially do , even if it existed , to solve the border issues .
Brazil and Dubai are doing some form of it or are about to,not sure of the details but the must exist in some form for them to be going ahead.
NilSatisOptimum
Player Valuation: £70m
Well I'm sure if the technology was there, someone or some startup companies would be shouting from the roof tops they have the answer and make themselves £billions.
As it happens the the inevitable delay is now at last gaining traction, maybe until the technology is invented.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47069433
Well I'm not deliberately saying something I know to be false, so not sure about dishonest, but generally I agree that the media are poor conduits for a whole bunch of reasons. Most outlets today either rely on a high number of eyeballs (which supports sensationalism and negativism as both encourage us to click/read/watch), or subscriptions (which tends to support tribalism as outlets pick a side and publish exclusively for it). That's far from ideal, and you can of course add the likes of Facebook to the mix too in terms of their ability to drive and manipulate the public discourse. I'm mainly familiar with the tech sector, and it's a reasonable argument to make that few tech journalists have the technical credentials to really interrogate the story, which coupled with a desire to stay onside with companies so they aren't frozen out can lead to a very uncritical environment. I wouldn't be that surprised to see a similar scenario in politics.
You'll find no argument from me on that, and indeed I gave a talk in the Lords a little while ago on the various factors behind the misinformation crisis. This is a political forum however so I didn't mention the media for that reason, and our politicians do a poor job of delivering evidence-based policy. This is deliberate, as the commons library research team generally do a very good job of providing impartial facts for MPs of all stripes to use when forming their decisions, but too often this basis is ignored in favour of the aforementioned negativism (as parties love to paint the situation as atrocious as that provokes a desire to change in the electorate) and sensationalism (as they love to paint the situation as worse than it is for the same reasons). Chuck in that they dumb down the reasons for a situation existing, usually to paint AN Other as the sole reason for the situation existing and them as the sole saviour of the situation.
The reality is nearly always far more complex, with the problem caused by numerous factors, and the solution proposed by the politicians far from certain to succeed (and usually beholden to many factors outside their control), but that nuanced message not only is impossible to communicate in the soundbites they have available in the media, but also leaves them vulnerable to opponents who ignore all of that and paint the world as simple to fix (if only people vote for them).
And of course, we, the electorate, play a role as well, as politics is usually a small part of our lives. We don't have the time or the inclination to devote a lot of time looking at issues from multiple angles, or getting to the heart of the matters we're voting on. Instead, most people pick a position, and then use the soundbites delivered to them by the politicians and the media to support that position.
I'm not convinced to be honest that there are any parties or people in Westminster who are willing or able to fix that, but I'm fairly sure that Corbyn isn't going to. Will he be better than the twits we have at the moment? Quite possibly, but being marginally less awful is hardly a great commendation for such an important role, is it?
I don’t mean this disrespectfully mate but doing what ? Is this technology to deal with trade or immigration, can potentially worrying cargos be checked or documents from travelers? We’ve spoken at length about the issues with free movement and the problems the border presents so passports , travelers , immigrants and the rest but I read two days ago about lobbying from the US for us to relax food standards . So if we have hormone treated beef or chlorinated chicken how is that checked by technology ? What about the age old issues of fuel or alcohol when we’re out of the union . What I mean is there are just so many different factors and I don’t see how any tech deals with it .
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
Not sure a border in the Irish Sea would work either; you would still need customs at Holyhead / Heysham / Douglas etc as well as Larne and Belfast and they would still have to check things going between Belfast and Dublin (for example).
A customs union would make a lot more sense, with more ability to tweak it to take into account our interests. That May absolutely ruled it out at the start was insane.
Mate there is absolutely no doubt it makes more sense , it’s stand out the best option but if we haven’t got one you’ve got to try and work round it . I think of the other available solutions that seems about the best , I wouldn’t be recommending it but it seems better than some of the others .
They wouldn’t necessarily if as I understand it the idea could be to have free movement across the island of Ireland and the border in the sea . The big issue being the DUP would never agree .
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
Sorry, perhaps dishonest was the wrong word there; I just cannot understand people who want to get rid of this shower but refuse to acknowledge there is only one realistic way we could ever do it.
With regards to your point above, the thing with Corbyn is not so much that I think he’d be better than May (though the lack of red lines and the mainly remain nature of Labour would almost certainly mean a less damaging exit or a higher chance of 2nd ref / remain), it’s that internal reforms offer the possibility of getting rid of this political culture whereby opinion matters more than fact.
If Labour can get to the point where local parties genuinely have control over selection, we might start to see better politicians rather than the sort we have now.
Cargo as far as I know mate, I know there is a Dutch firm that does it as well,
Sorry to be a bit vague but I have switched off on the whole Brexit thing at the moment, just waiting for it to be over with . nothing I can do about it so just ignoring it as best as I can,
more interested in transfer day to be honest at the moment.
Carl O'Ancelotti
Player Valuation: £20m
I've provided multiple quotes from the EU as to why it won't be renegotiated. If you can't be bothered reading them that's your problem.
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