I’m sure that vaccination might be the right thing for some – assuming that we are talking about an effective vaccine that doesn’t do more harm than good. Oh, right… As you were. As they admit, it isn’t something we should be concerned about, URTIs happen every winter and every winter some people fall off their perch because it is their time and that’s what finally sees them off. No, I’m not being harsh, just recognising basic biology. If there was an effective, safe vaccine, then I’d say go for it. However, I no longer have faith in our vaccination programme, so I will not be partaking. That loss of trust is nothing to do with me. I didn’t lie, obfuscate and demonise anyone who dared to raise concerns and I didn’t rush something through before long term results were in.
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Shocking details of corruption and suppression in the world of peer-reviewed climate science have come to light with a recent leak of emails. They show how a determined group of activist scientists and journalists combined to secure the retraction of a paper that said a climate emergency was not supported by the available data. Science writer and economist Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. has published the startling emails and concludes: “Shenanigans continue in climate science, with influential scientists teaming up with journalists to corrupt peer review.” August 26th, 2023 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
 It’s always a fun rhetorical trick. There are nutters out there, yes. So, I’m going to claim that anyone who disagrees with me is one of those nutters. QED, I’m right. Thus neatly avoiding the rational opponents of my beliefs. August 19th, 2023 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
But now, Facebook is censoring accurate information about the relationship between industrial wind energy development and the increase in whale deaths off the East Coast. Yesterday, Facebook and Instagram censored my post linking whale deaths to wind energy off the East Coast of the United States. The censorship came in the form of a “FactCheck.org” article from March 31, 2023, which relied entirely on U.S. government sources. The censorship came on the exact same day that Public and Environmental Progress released a new documentary, “Thrown To The Wind,” which proves that the FactCheck.org article is false. August 15th, 2023 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
We are told climate change is a crisis, and that there is an “overwhelming scientific consensus.” “It’s a manufactured consensus,” says climate scientist Judith Curry in my new video. She says scientists have an incentive to exaggerate risk to pursue “fame and fortune.” She knows about that because she once spread alarm about climate change. … which will come as a shock to no one here 😉 August 13th, 2023 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
It was managerialism that emerged as the true winner of the 20th century’s ideological battles. As Orwell prophesied in 1945: “Capitalism is disappearing, but Socialism is not replacing it. What is now arising is a new kind of planned, centralised society which will be neither capitalist nor, in any accepted sense of the word, democratic.” China is just a bit further down the path towards this same totalitarian future. The West is following. August 10th, 2023 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
Let’s start with the fact that empires were not invented by the modern European nations whose advanced ships and guns were more effective in maintaining them than forced marches and pikes. Stronger nations have colonised weaker ones since the beginning of recorded history; indeed, before there were nations in our modern sense at all. Greeks and Romans built empires, as did the Chinese, the Assyrians, the Aztecs, the Malians, the Khmer and the Mughals. Those empires operated with varying degrees of brutality and repression, but all of them were based on an equation of might and right, which amounts to no concept of right at all. All of them used their power to compel weaker groups to surrender resources, submit tribute, press soldiers into service for further imperial wars, and accept commands that overrode local custom and law. As far as we know, there was one thing they lacked: a guilty conscience. August 7th, 2023 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
Who actually has the power in a capitalist and free market economy? Quite clearly it’s us as consumers. Even something – as here – as trivial as an ad for a beer can lead the capitalists, the producers, losing substantial amounts of money. Billions off the market capitalisation in fact. And all just because some of us consumers decide to switch where and how we’d like to spend our money. August 6th, 2023 | 38 comments - (Comments are closed)
A FEW months ago I wrote here about how William Hague had become a Davos poster boy. I explained how influence and groupthink could turn a libertarian Thatcherite into a globalist, authoritarian technocrat. Shortly afterwards, Hague completed one of the most astonishing U-turns in politics. In a dangerous step towards a Chinese-style social credit system, he joined Tony Blair to help him force ID cards on the public. How people change. In 2004 he voted against Blair’s Identity Card Bill. He voted against it again in 2005. In fact when he was in opposition in 1998, this is what he thought he believed:
However, by 2013, Hague was rejecting claims that the government were spying on the public. The fatal words were ‘law-abiding’ citizens have ‘nothing to fear’. The perennial defence of the dictator. When politicians ask why no one trusts them any more, you can reply in two words: William Hague. At least Blair has been consistent. Read the whole thing. Strongly recommended. August 3rd, 2023 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
We say “freedom of speech.” That’s not really what it is. It’s freedom of thought. People who can’t say openly what they think for too long are forced into a shadow world. Either they give up the right to have their own view of the world and accept into what society or the government tells them. Or they keep their own views but no longer admit them aloud – and spend more and more time and energy gaslighting themselves. Note that I am not using the words truth or lie in this analysis. That omission is deliberate. It doesn’t actually matter whether the speech is right or wrong, objectively true or false. Indeed, the First Amendment makes no reference to the truth or falsity of the speech it protects. Plenty of people have strange ideas. If I think aliens are real but can’t say so, I have lost some essential part of myself. July 31st, 2023 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
Two unanticipated events in 2016 completely shocked our ruling class: the election of Trump in the U.S. and the Brexit vote in the U.K. Our elites did not respond by examining the disconnect between their core assumptions and the will of the people. Instead they decided that, sure, democracy is all fine and well, but naturally, democracy must be protected from these unruly people. After all, the people often don’t know what’s good for them. So those who know better must acquire the capacity to monitor and control the will of the people if we are to ‘defend democracy’. The means for doing this in the digital age, our ruling class divined, is by monitoring populations’ behaviors and shaping their thinking by controlling the flow of information online. The idea of censorship once again became chic. July 25th, 2023 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
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 the benefits, we don’t know the risks. We face, that is, radical uncertainty. So it’s impossible for us to plan anything. For planning assumes that we have an idea of the cost/benefit analysis so that we can say do that, don’t do t’other. And if we are radically uncertain then we can’t do that, can we? July 22nd, 2023 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
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