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Samizdata quote of the day “The unwarranted gloom about the UK and the exaggerated respect for the EU are not new. Many of those who now say that Britain must stay as closely aligned to the EU as possible predicted disaster when the pound left the exchange rate mechanism in 1992; prophesied a decade later that Britain would rue the day that Gordon Brown gave the single currency a wide berth; and said with the utmost confidence in 2016 that a vote for Brexit would lead to an immediate and deep recession and a massive increase in unemployment. None of these things happened.”
– Larry Elliott, writing in – yes – the Guardian. Even if you don’t share his left-leaning, Keynesian economics, much of what he says he about the EU debate is spot-on. He is right, for example, to remind folk of just how lousy the forecasts of various EU pushers down the years have been, and continue to be. The shamelessness is, well, shameful.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Except that Bruin (via Balls) was determined that the vision of Bliar using the credit & plaudits for signing up the UK to the single currency as a stepping stone towards the office of European President would never some to pass….
Very true, but no experience of the practical failure of EUrophile forecasts will ever shake the belief of some in their essential excellence, any more than the expiry of one “ten years to save the planet” deadline will prevent many warmenists from warning us about the urgency of the next one. In both cases, the creeds attract because they give their followers a rhetoric for claiming wisdom beyond (and so power over) the common herd. And the loud aggressive commitment against their foes that they encourage makes later apostasy very shaming to the apostate.
A few individuals will wise up individually, each in their own slow time, but the organised pushing of Project Fear will never die.
Having just watched May’s statement outside Downing Street Caligula’s horse Incitatus looks increasingly attractive.
Their gloom and doom predictions remind me of the apocalyptic messages of some religious cultists.
Irrational and unconditional beliefs can drive some people a bit mad.
We should not shame such people. We should pity them.
Not even Senator Incitatus could have dragged May’s dodgy deal through Westminster.
Increasingly I see “fact checking” web sites like Snopes and so on giving star ratings or Pinocchio ratings to various political statements. Wouldn’t it be excellent if there were a directory of prognosticators which contained a database of their predictions and the correctness of these predictions, and then, whenever their byline appeared on an article a little star rating appeared indicating their predictive accuracy? I guess you could even do it as a Chrome plugin.
I occasionally watch Fox Business channel on Saturday, and there are always lots of guys making stock recommendations. However, rarely if ever is there follow up to indicate how well their predictions did. For financials it is pretty much black and white (it went up or it went down), so for those guys it would be really easy. Some of the softer predictions, for example, around the consequences of Brexit or Donald Trump’s presidency, or poll predictions, might be a bit harder to quantify.
For example, all the people who said the economy would crash if Trump got elected — why would we ever listen to them again? (The answer of course is that “experts” are selected on the political desirability of their predictions, not their predictive accuracy. Something, BTW, that is more and more beginning to pollute the discourse of actual science too.)
I imagine this may be the last time Larry Elliott writes for ‘The Guardian’ and that many of its readers fled shrieking to their safe spaces.
“(The answer of course is that “experts” are selected on the political desirability of their predictions, not their predictive accuracy. Something, BTW, that is more and more beginning to pollute the discourse of actual science too.)”
Would this be a reference to the failings of the doomsday predictions of the climate change alarmists? That one has been running for more than thirty years now and I’m not aware of them getting any of their predictions right. They have been trying to pin the recent forest fires on climate change but there have been no significant trends in either temperature or rainfall in the area and it is obvious that mismanagement of woodland is the real culprit.
The situation we face is a very dangerous one.
Not only are Civil Servants (such as “Olly Robbins”) fanatically opposed to British independence – but the British Prime Minister (Mrs Theresa May) is also deeply ANTI British, determined to keep us under the regulations of the European Union present and FUTURE.
What to do? I am only a local councillor – and I have already placed myself in a very vulnerable position by openly and publically opposing Mrs May. Only Conservative Members of the House of Commons can actually remove Mrs May – and 48 have NOT had the courage the send in letters of No Confidence.
“Yes, but Paul the Act of Parliament mandating we leave the European Union on the 29th of March 2019, has already been passed – all we have to do is block Mrs Mays UTTERLY EVIL “Withdrawal Agreement” and we leave with No Deal”.
Yes, I know all that – but Mrs May will still be Prime Minister and she and the Civil Service will work fanatically to make sure that independence FAILS, they will try and make all the dire predictions of “Operation Fear” the truth – food shortages, lack of medicines and so on. The people will know that it is their own government that is undermining the country, they will blame independence.
And the media?
All television stations in Britain are pro European Union – “Ofcom” prevents any pro independence television stations.
And the newspapers? Even traditionally Conservative newspapers such as the “Times” and the “Daily Mail” have become just mouthpieces for the endless lies of Mrs May.
“What can be done?”
I just do not know what can be done.
Two weeks here and I now understand less about Brexit than when I arrived. Truly, it’s uncommon for me to feel more dumb as time passes.
Screw it, then. I’m headed for Heathrow and so on to a land where I can at least grasp most of how it is that the politicians are trying to screw us over. Let me know how it turns out.
llater,
llamas
Stonyground
Would this be a reference to the failings of the doomsday predictions of the climate change alarmists?
Certainly that is a prominent case, but would that it were the only one. This sort of nonsense has polluted science all over the place. Second hand smoke, racial and sexual differences and almost everything that exists in social science, compound that with the utter devastation of economics.
Fortunately it is absent mostly in the hard sciences so far, but that is more because (IMHO) they don’t touch on the sensitive issues rather than because of their “hardness”. Medicine, which is a fairly hard science, is certainly becoming politicized. For example, the insane notion, that now seems to be taken as gospel truth in medicine, that a child can determine their “real” gender by the time they are four years old… They can’t decide if they should eat their vegetables, or what their bed time is, but cutting off their little wiener or their not even existing yet breasts, is apparently within the capabilities of their wise four year old ruminations. Were you to question such a notion you are a homophobic/transphobic Nazi monster blinded by your white/male/cis-privilege. This being what passes for argument in these politicized debates, ad-hominem having been moved from a “logical fallacy” to being a core part of the scientific method.
Everyone should be deeply concerned with this gay, straight, cis, trans, four year old or forty. When politics starts to control science we all die a little sooner.
“Medicine, which is a fairly hard science, is certainly becoming politicized. For example, the insane notion, that now seems to be taken as gospel truth in medicine, that a child can determine their “real” gender by the time they are four years old… […] Were you to question such a notion you are a homophobic/transphobic Nazi monster blinded by your white/male/cis-privilege. This being what passes for argument in these politicized debates…”
It always seems equally insane to me that we can think we know the minds of other people better than they do themselves. (As in: “No, you’re wrong. You really do love Brussels sprouts! Yum! Yum! …”) But unlike some others, I welcome questions and debate on the topic. It would surely be equally bad if politics meant science was not allowed to say claims of being transgender *were* true, if it turned out they were.
Do you want to ask your questions and debate the topic with me?
It’s a bit off-topic for a post about the EU/Brexit, so I’ve got no problem with it if you don’t.
What I can never understand is that an independent (or semi-independent) Britain is still within living memory, we handled our own trade and political relationships back in the day and it was not exactly a nightmare task.
Back in the 1970’s Britain’s woes were a combination of mismanagement of the economy and the crippling power of the communist unions, both echoes of what Mr Corbyn intends to bring about. We should be far more bothered about the leftist utopia being heralded by the Labour Party than exit from the EU, if we are concerned with Britain’s economic future.
Why do people believe that returning to a pre-EU is going to be such as disaster? With all the doom-mongering about leaving I have yet to see any of this demonstrated in respect of the pre-EU days which were not that long ago.
“Why do people believe that returning to a pre-EU is going to be such as disaster?”
Because they’re protectionists.
The entire basis of the EU, and the political classes support for it both here and in the EU, is based on protectionist thinking. All those old arguments in Bastiat’s ‘Sophisms’ are the ones being trotted out again. Nobody has made a persuasive case in the current debate explaining exactly why protectionism is bad, and it’s not taught in school, so many still find their arguments convincing.
Everyone here keeps acting as if everyone knew that protectionism doesn’t work, and thus are mystified about their motivations and strategies. But *both* sides in the negotiations think protectionism *does* work.
If they truly understood their economic best interests, they’d have disbanded the customs union decades ago.
Regarding free trade, is it not true that free trading for mutual benefit would be the default position if it were not for the interference of politicians?
“Regarding free trade, is it not true that free trading for mutual benefit would be the default position if it were not for the interference of politicians?”
No. Traders spontaneously come up with the same idea all on their own, as Adam Smith noted in 1776.
The idea of raising your own income by excluding the competition, getting a local monopoly on supply, seems to be founded on the territorial/tribal instinct, which probably goes back to pre-human times. It’s the psychological basis of socialism too. (Seize control of the means of production, exclude non-union competition, get a local monopoly on the supply of labour, raise your own wages through the resulting shortage of supply.)
@Nullius in Verba
“No, you’re wrong. You really do love Brussels sprouts! Yum! Yum! …”)
FWIW, I think the bias against Brussel sprouts is rooted in a deep seated franco-phobia. Were they called “freedom sprouts” I think you all would join me in eating those delicious things every day. (BTW, if it wasn’t clear, the first part is sarcasm, but the eating every day? Yum, yum.)
It would surely be equally bad if politics meant science was not allowed to say claims of being transgender *were* true, if it turned out they were.
I was not, by any means, suggesting that transgenderism isn’t a real phonomenon, it most certainly is. FWIW, I think it is VASTLY more complex than the usual pop science treatment of “you are” or “you aren’t” but pop science is always trivialized to the point of inanity. However, if you are a guy and want to live as a girl, and maybe modify your body to be more female like, then more power to you.
No, my concern was the idea that four year old kids know anything about that at all, or have the wisdom to judge it. Some little boy sees his sister getting treated like a princess and gets jealous. He says something to him granola eating mommy: “I wish I were a girl”, and ten years later they are trying to chop off his little pee-pee.
Do you want to ask your questions and debate the topic with me?
Always down for a debate dude, (or dudette — your moniker is genderless), but one pre-requisite for a debate is a point of disagreement, which seems to be absent here…. However, when I was a kid my dad would ask my opinion on something, then he’d debate it with me, but make me take the opposite point of view to that which I subscribed. A developmental tool for which I have always been grateful. I can do a pretty strong argument in favor of socialism, much though I loathe it.
@Nullius in Verba
BTW, since my Latin is pretty rusty I looked up the meaning of your username. Nullius in verba: “On the word of no-one”, which is the motto of the Royal Society. What a wonderful motto. It is the very essence of science, the very antithesis of the complaint I had about the politicization of science.
It made me smile, and made me happy to think of such a wonderful phrase. So thanks for sharing.
“FWIW, I think it is VASTLY more complex than the usual pop science treatment of “you are” or “you aren’t” but pop science is always trivialized to the point of inanity.”
True. Agreed.
“No, my concern was the idea that four year old kids know anything about that at all, or have the wisdom to judge it.”
Kids know very well what they like, what they want, and how they think and feel. And they pick up on behavioural gender categories and where they fit in to them quite early. They don’t necessarily have the knowledge/wisdom to know what’s best to *do* about it, but that’s a different question. (Not even a four year old is dumb enough to believe you if you say they like sprouts when they know they don’t. But a four year old is probably not so good at judging whether it would be a wise decision to eat them anyway. I assume that’s what you really meant.)
“but one pre-requisite for a debate is a point of disagreement, which seems to be absent here…”
I agree. Given what you say now, I don’t think there is. But then I don’t think there’s any disagreement between your view and that of the medical profession either. I can’t speak for the granola-eating mommies (or for the burger-eating daddies in the other direction…), but the medical guidelines on treating dysphoria say the same thing.
“It made me smile, and made me happy to think of such a wonderful phrase. So thanks for sharing.”
You’re welcome! It was one I picked up in the climate debate – trying to make the point to people who thought they were on the side of science while continually citing argument from authority. (‘Argumentum ad Verecundiam’ is another handy bit of Latin, from Locke, you might like too.) 🙂
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/locke-the-works-vol-2-an-essay-concerning-human-understanding-part-2-and-other-writings/simple
The European Union means ever more regulations controlling all aspects of life – and crushing everything from the commercial freedom of small business enterprises, to political Freedom of Speech.
Also remember that the ever increasing regulations of the European Union are usually ON TOP OF (not instead of) national regulations.
Anyone who did know this before I wrote the words above (if there was anyone) NOW HAS NO EXCUSE.
If you STILL support the European Union even AFTER knowing the threat it poses to such things as Freedom of Speech (on-top-of national regulations) then you are the enemy. You now have no excuse – none.
I have been seeing a few of our “right-wing” pundits Stateside saying that “the Brexit campaign of course was mendacious.”
I don’t get it. How so?
Nullius in Verba
Kids know very well what they like, what they want, and how they think and feel. And they pick up on behavioural gender categories and where they fit in to them quite early.
My daughter, who is considerably older than four, knows that she only likes chicken fingers, even at the fanciest of restaurants. Oh, and pickles, plus chicken noodle soup, but only the mega noodle (not double noodle, but sometimes the one with the stars in it.)No matter how much I try, she is absolutely confident in her dining choice. Nonetheless, I am pretty certain that by the time sexuality is an issue in her life that her culinary pallet will have broadened.
Kids do know what they want, it is just completely unrelated to what they want as adults. Moreover, telling little boys that their feelings that they are girls (or vice versa) when they are four is a self fulfilling self reinforcing process. So some random gender confusion moment, which could be caused by a lot of random events, (“my sister always gets more candy at Halloween because she is cute”, “my brother always gets to play soccer, and I have to go to ballet”) can get fixed into the mind of a child, especially when oh so serious granola moms and dads get that “we are woke” thing going on.
Consider that kids can know with great accuracy how and what they feel, but that it’s society that then tells them that “those feelings mean you’re really a male/female/fill in the blank“.
So a boy who feels things and likes things that we as a group have always considered to be “effeminate” is now encouraged to believe that this means he is feminine – a female.
Wouldn’t it simply be easier to decide that either sex (gender? – whatever) can encompass any and all of the accepted ranges of feelings and attitudes of any other sex (gender?) and not try to then carve off parts of our bodies so that our plumbing can match our arbitrary labels?
I understand that there are going to be those for whom the entire change is the accurate one, but I’d guess that 90% of those claiming that status now would be left happy if they thought that their gender-nonconforming traits and feelings were just fine for someone of their body type to hold.
“Kids do know what they want, it is just completely unrelated to what they want as adults.”
True. According to the most recent research cited by the current Standards of Care, only 12-27% of children with dysphoria have it persist into adulthood. However, the rate appears to be much higher for adolescents, with less than 2% reverting. That’s why the recommendation is that they allow puberty to progress to at least Tanner stage 2 before considering reversible puberty blockers, which delay the decision until they are 16, are more emotionally and intellectually mature, and can legally decide for themselves. Even then, it requires extensive evaluation sessions to confirm the existence and persistence of intense dysphoria over several years and through puberty, evaluation of other potential mental problems, discussion of the full range of treatment options, which include lower levels of intervention not involving surgery or hormones, and the serious medical consequences you have to live with if you do go for the latter. (I’ve heard a few anecdotal stories of people being passed through without so much counselling by overloaded or ignorant doctors, the NHS is not good even for less controversial conditions and if you go private sometimes the only question they ask is ‘how would you like to pay for that?’, but it’s not recommended medical practice. It’s more common to hear complaints of too much process.) And you have to persist in the face of all the delays, bureaucracy, waiting lists, assessments, legal processes, and all the major social problems that are involved in transitioning – ranging from having to explain to schools and social clubs, to dealing with protests from outraged parents of the other kids, or even more outraged political activists, to bullying and harassment, to having to take more stringent safety precaution when going out in public, to all the hassle learning the rules and processes of your new gender role, (which you have to have demonstrated you can cope with, both psychologically and practically, usually by actually doing it for a year or two). Even going to a public toilet can become a complicated logistical nightmare.
Nobody is going to get to 16 still determined to do it on the basis that when they were 4 they wanted more candy at Halloween! And nowadays, girls play soccer anyway. That’s equality for you.
The medical profession takes the matter seriously. And yes, I’m sure there are no doubt some ‘woke’ parents looking for a ‘trophy’ child with a fashionable condition, just as there are very ‘unwoke’ parents with the opposite attitude right out of the 1950s. I think most parents nowadays are not either, and are just worried sick for their kids and trying to do their best. As with most things in life, mistakes happen, things go wrong, and some kids will inevitably get damaged, whichever way you approach it. The numbers say that there’s less damage and suicide overall if one cautiously proceeds, which is generally the best one can hope for in life, but it’s early days yet and we’re still learning.
It’s really unfortunate that politics has got so wound up in it.
“Wouldn’t it simply be easier to decide that either sex (gender? – whatever) can encompass any and all of the accepted ranges of feelings and attitudes of any other sex (gender?) and not try to then carve off parts of our bodies so that our plumbing can match our arbitrary labels?”
That was the feminists’ argument, back in the 60s and 70s. And to a large extent, women can and have expanded their acceptable social role in that way – men not so much. But that requires imposing a change on all of society, which society understandably resists. We seem to be hardwired to make a distinction between the sexes, and to display it. When you get the wrong wiring, androgynous ambiguity simply doesn’t satisfy that instinctive urge. We also seem to have a hardwired mental body image, too, with one of the major symptoms of dysphoria being feelings of revulsion at one’s own body. The shape of the plumbing matters, even if non-functional.
There are many transgender people able to cope with their dysphoria without surgery – sometimes just changing their social role, as you suggest. Unfortunately, that seems to be even more politically controversial. There are many who won’t accept that someone has changed gender if they haven’t had the surgery, and don’t intend to.
Nobody is going to get to 16 still determined to do it on the basis that when they were 4 they wanted more candy at Halloween!
FWIW, I think it is a myth that just because something is difficult, troublesome, time consuming and so forth that that necessarily means that the basis is particularly solid. People are weird. They get stuck in ruts and won’t move out no matter how much pressure they are under. In fact the very nature of humans is tribalism — us verses them. Oftentimes the persecution actually solidifies the commitment rather than weakening it. Sometimes, and especially so with identity issues, people are able to delude themselves, and put up with unbelievable and hardship. You see this a lot with religious people, even the ones filled with doubts. Their doubts are often a reinforcing factor, they push them down and double down for the complex constellation of benefits they derive, even when they are persecuted to death. Persecution and isolation is a very powerful group bonding process.
As an example, many Venezuelans think the problem is too little socialism not too much.
Of course I am not by any means delegitimizing transgenderism. Like I say, if you are an adult and want to live as a MOTOS, or modify your body to correspond to different body plans, then more power to you. Kids are not capable of even reasoning about things like this.