Why I'm deleting my Facebook account (Soon)

UPDATE: Facebook has released a statement on why it supports CISPA. I still disagree with its support, and I'm still probably going to go ahead with this.

Facebook supports CISPA. In conjunction with the title of this post, it could probably be my shortest one yet, but I suppose I should explain why it's bad.

CISPA, or the Cyber-Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, to give it its full name, is the latest in a long line of acts - such as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PROTECT IP, also known as PIPA) - which, if passed, will basically screw over internet users in the US and, due to the US-centric nature of a lot of websites, internationally as well. The sponsor claims that it's nothing like SOPA, but there are definite parallels, and it doesn't change the fact that CISPA is bad news for a second.

Whilst that link goes in to more detail, in short, CISPA is bad because it's so vaguely worded it can cause exactly the same stuff that SOPA could have, and enables greater corporate complicity in handing over our information, should they choose. This circumvents other protections, from what I can gather.

This is, of course, in addition to all the privacy dodginess Facebook has already.

To this end, I've set up a page on, er, Facebook for a 'delete your account day' in protest (not sure on the date though: any ideas? (I'm thinking maybe the 28th or just over a fortnight from now)). I've also created a blogspot for this (mainly so there was a website for the facebook page which wasn't totally self-promoting).

See also:
Techdirt: CISPA Is A Really Bad Bill, And Here's Why
CNET News: Say 'hello' to CISPA, it will remind you of SOPA

Boing Boing: Facebook supports horrible proposed Internet bill CISPA

The 28 Corporations that support CISPA 

Lumin Consulting CISPA infographic

The Wikipedia page on CISPA

Electronic Frontier Foundation: After denouncing SOPA and PIPA, how can Facebook support CISPA?

Digital trends: CISPA supporters list: 800+ companies that could help Uncle Sam snag your data

And, for some semblance of balance:

It's imperfect, but CISPA isn't the devil in disguise.

This was written before CISPA, but it still has a few interesting points re: reasons to delete your Facebook account:

Mandrake's Blog: Eleven Reasons Why I Want To Quit Facebook (And One Reason Why I Can't)

You'll notice the link to my anti-CISPA blog isn't stopcispa.blogspot.com. That's because there's already one.

There's also, of course, an Avaaz petition.

EDIT: put the wrong ending on the other stop CISPA blogspot, now fixed. 

Political Broadcasts in 'spin' shocker!

On the off chance you were watching ITV news yesterday (10.04.2012), you probably saw this Conservative Election Broadcast (rage warning; it's a Conservative election broadcast), which is the first of two I've decided to look at today because I'm a total masochist. Apparently, ALL the Labour councils are trying to get a ton of money, whereas no Tory council would ever do that. It's an election broadcast, so of course they're going to lie. And if Labour aren't crap in comparison to the Tories, then its because the Tories are truly exceptionally crap - and even then Labour suck. However I'm already narked at my own (Tory) council for probably cutting my school transport subsidy*. And they're also cutting the hours elderly and disabled people will be able to use their bus passes as well.

And, since Pickles and Cameron express such ire for council barons, I'd like to introduce you to David Parsons, the Tory leader of Leicestershire County Council who's spent £210,000 on the council car since April 2006, or, rounding it to 6 years, roughly £35,000 per year. His office in general cost more than £1 million in the past 5 years. Or £200,000 per year on average (peaking at £384,000). Admittedly, some of that is hiring people, but it's still ungood to say the least. His salary, admittedly, at 'only' £56,000 isn't obscene, but it's also thought he might have hired a personal PR guy back in 2010, you know, when they were deciding the cuts.  There's probably a reason he's facing a vote of no confidence.

That aside, the Telegraph has found that Chief Executive pay was functionally rising as of August 2011, despite the video claiming the exact inverse to be the case. In fact, the top paid chief executive is head of Essex and Brentwood councils, on £260,000 a year. They're both, to my knowledge, Conservative. In fact, Brentwood is none other than Eric Pickle's own constituency! Things are slightly better than the worst of 2007/8, but Pickles' claims are still laughable.  Especially considering that, her aside, the top five has a lot of Tory council Chief Execs. Hammersmith and Fulham Borough Council? Conservative. Buckinghamshire County Council? Conservative. Norfolk County Council? Probably Conservative.  Surrey Country Council? Guess what? Actually every single one of the top 5 council executives in terms of pay work for Tory councils, as did the chief executive of Kent county council (excepted from the Telegraph's top 5 due to special circumstances (explained in a note there)). So yeah. Unless there was a revision (which there could have been), the Tories are massive hypocrites.Which actually isn't a shock, come to think of it.

In addition to this stuff, the £186,877 Camden spent on 7 Trade Union activists? £186,877/7= roughly £26,700 per person, or roughly £500 above average salary in 2011 (Telegraph link). And just over 1/10th of the aforementioned head of Essex and Brentwood councils's pay.

Of course, egregious spin is a feature of Party Election broadcasts. Case in point, this post's other sporkee: last month's (March 2012's) "Delivering on our promises".  I'm not going into depth, but after 20 seconds of wooly stuff about what they've done, there's this real gem from Cameron: "the most important part of accountability is politicians being judged on whether they keep their promises". A few seconds later there's a shot of him signing a pledge to stop Labour's 'tax on jobs' (a boost in National Insurance). Which is of course, precisely what the Tories did. Or not (scroll down to the bottom). I could use now to pick on Nick Clegg, but it's just too easy an opportunity to do more than this.  The rest is just Cameron boasting about how he's going to force his values onto us, wrecking people's lives with the benefits cap, repeating Mail-rhetoric on immigration, and lying about the NHS. It's probably fairly standard fare.

There's this glurge as well, but that's enough for today and it's not as recent. Althought here is some definite irony in them declaring that Labour ruled during peak youth unemployment.

Of course, like I said before, if Labour doesn't look crap in comparison, it's because the Tories are ridiculously bad. The main reasons why my examples are all Tory is because it's their broadcasts I'm focussing on. And they did preside over the start of the recession, although I doubt they inherently caused it (like the broadcasts imply) and the post-war Labour government was in surplus from 1948-51 (contrary to Tory claims that every Labour government hasn't done that, it was also when the NHS was first set up, funnily enough). Plus, they're utterly ineffective as opposition. And we all know about the Lib Dems.


It's a good thing I can't vote, cause I'd have to pick revolution (which comes under 'spoiling the ballot', but whatever)**.

* Full disclosure: I'll be in 16+ if/when it comes into effect, and, whilst not having access to the school bus is merely inconvenient for me (I'm a twin, there's no way my family can afford £980 (£490 each)), I can't imagine it'd do much good for others' prospects at attending 16+.

**Well, maybe the Greens. I have little faith in the electoral process as it is though.

Wanted: Free Labour for Tesco

Edit: It would appear that the "permanent" part was some sort of error on Tesco's or the JobCentre's part. They aren't forcing us into permanent posts yet. The whole thing is still bullshit though.


Edit 2: Tesco have pulled out and started their own scheme.Tesco still suck, but at least they're paying their work experience bods. And pissing off the Torygraph to boot (it "undermine[s] the Coalitions own efforts", apparently).
 
Tesco, and anyone complicit in this, should go fuck themselves. There are several more articulate ways that I could have phrased that sentence, but none of them would have quite had the impact appropriate for a response to a call for someone to work in a permanent post 6 week stint for their Job Seekers' Allowance (back up link in case the actual advert has since been removed, (credit to @latentexistence for the screenshot)) The title of this post was only mildly hyperbolic, if that.


Did I mention that the post was permanent? (it turns out it isn't, it was just a mistake)

Of course, this is only a particularly egregious development (although probably not a unique one) in the ongoing attacks on what Tory rhetoric calls a "something for nothing culture" on the part of people. meanwhile, they're sweeping the fact that "something for nothing" probably applies more to companies under the metaphorical rug.

For instance, from May to November 2011, 24,010 people were forced into unpaid placements for a month. On pain of losing benefits for 1/4 of a year. Because, y'know, it's not like the placements at, say, "high-street chains" would have been suitable for anything other than government-subsidised unpaid labour or anything like that. (charity work is also an option (still a rather dodgy one considering it's forced), but charities aren't the ones getting the contracts).

In addition to this, there are cases such as the one of Cait Rielley, who ended up on a two week placement at Poundland stacking shelves (for 'training'). Of course, Poundland could have really needed the help, for example their Christmas sales went up by 25% last year. You can't expect them to actually pay their workers, can you? Anyway, why's she moaning when some people have placements of six months. That was sarcasm in case you haven't guessed.

It might be worth making a note of the 'logic' behind forcing people to work for well below minimum wage. The idea is that paying companies to take on free labour will get the people forced to work into the habit of working again, as "a sanction" for 'sabotaging' attempts to get them jobs (warning: Mail link, and it's one of their really dodgy ones as well). Sometime down the line, this will magically get them an actual paid job (of which there are, of course, no shortages). 

Actually, the point the 'Coalition source' made to the Mail about workfare being a "sanction" ("But is it meant as a sanction? Yes – and we are convinced it will have an effect") may well be hitting straight to the point about why the Government is doing this. The idea of people getting jobs at the ends of it is secondary to a vindictive rage at those who have the misfortune to be unable to find a job (when there are 6 people looking for every vacancy, it's not exactly fair to ay that unemployment's down to being 'workshy'). There's this twisted logic that trying hard enough will cause a job to materialise.

The really ironic thing being that, if anyone's sabotaging people's attempts to find work, it's the Government giving companies free workers. Why the hell would a company hire someone (even for under a living wage), when they can get someone to work for them for free? I'm not some sort of economics expert (my knowledge runs to Freakonomics and intuition for the most part), but I don't think you have to be one to realise that - if workfare was ever really intended to get people into work without a great deal of doublethink being applied - something, somewhere has gone horribly wrong. Unless there's some fancy counter-intuitive economics thing I don't know about (which I'll concede as being a possibility).

Of course, to answer my rhetorical question, public outcry could force companies to at least vastly reduce their 'employment' of people on workfare (it worked on Sainsbury's and Waterstones), and there's a day of action on the 3rd of March. Because, seriously, this whole thing is bullshit.

See also:
Boycott Workfare
A Latent Existence: Who benefits from the Work Programme
A Latent Existence: Government work placement schemes little more than slave labour
Edingburgh Eye: The ideology of workfare

A History of Science: By @The_Activists

I really should be more aware of what I'm like, sometimes. I came on the internet a few days ago intending to do my Humanities and design homeworks, and ended up checking on The Activist Socialist Party to make sure they hadn't done anything too ridiculous and/or similar to The Party recently.

It was a bad idea.

As you know, a while ago they wrote something that, functionally speaking, denounced Relativity as a capitalist plot. I wish I was making that up.

Remember that? Well somehow they've done it again. But worse.

I present to you my analysis of "Theoretical Physics: The Mythology of Materialistic Capitalism" by the Activists Science Collective. Warning: side effects of reading the article itself may include: rage, confusion and a complete and utter loss of coherence.

The central conceit is given as it being "no accident that Newtonian mechanics and capitalism arose at the same period in history" (in the 17th century/1600s. I want you to hold that figure in your heads). This is similar to the protestant reformation for some reason, and thus follows a short, extremely Mind Screwy, history of capitalism and the Lutherian movement. I think. Anyway, this brings us up to the present day with sweatshops in Asia. This bit is actually slightly less bad than it sounds (but only because of me making it seem extremely bad - that it took me 3 reads to get my head round is still somewhat telling), but it isn't really the point of this article. Although the bit about "the individual entrepreneur, the industrialist and the secular scientist bent on taking apart and controlling the world" who were apparently created by the Reformation was a nice touch (never mind that newton was a devout Christian. And that secular scientists would have no interest in a religious ideal).

What is the point, is the sheer utter mind melting shit that follows.

Ready?

Here goes...

"Every age requires a myth. With the rise of the industrial age came the myth of the ‘detached, disinterested’ scientist, the cold objective observer who sees the universe exactly as it is. Strange considering that classical mechanics grew out of the very heart of ‘enlightened self-interest’, that they had a very *interested* view of the universe. With the onset of modernity we see yet another transformation of the physical sciences. The first is the *democratisation* of science with Einstein’s theory of relativity in 1905. Now everything, including even time and space, is dependent upon an observers particular point of view. What’s true for Jack might not be for Jill, very expedient as a political force. And is it merely coincidence that quantum mechanics, with its inherent strangeness, followed hard on the heels of surrealism and dada in the 1920′s?"

I honestly can't say about the industrialist era, since I wasn't there and don't know much about it, nonetheless, I don't recall that ever being the main myth. And "myths" can change. They actually vaguely half got it right on the whole "God helps those who help themselves" thing being the biggie. At any rate, how society views scientists isn't necessarily their conscious fault.

As for classical mechanics growing from the "very heart of 'enlightened self interest'". Um, how? I don't get how that works.

And, um, do they know what "democratisation" means? Because I don't think it means the concept of subjectivity. Furthermore, relativity doesn't work that way. It isn't a political concept. yes, the passing of time is relative, and there are small scale distortions in mechanics caused by gravity. But in ordinary life these things aren't exactly noticeable (notable exception: GPSes, but that's related to how they do their navigatey thing). At any rate, there are far many other things which have an effect on perception to a greater extent than physics. As for the quantum mechanics thing, yes, probably. Plus, what was that their last article was called*? Oh yeah "fact is stranger than science fiction". Furthermore, from what I can gather (admittedly based on about.com), Dada started out as a protest against the sort of stuff those guys hate. Talk about irony.

This said, you think that's bad? It gets worse.

"The truth of the matter is that science did not begin in Europe in the 17th century but began about 1500 years earlier in Greece. For it was Pythagoras (570 B. C) who discovered that the natural harmonies of a stretched string correspond to the series of whole-numbers. Before this, the Greeks believed that number and nature (for harmony was considered as being a natural product) where separate. By discovering their connection, mathematics and experience became intertwined and science was born. After this discovery, Pythagoras was reported to exclaim “everything is number”"

Using the definition of "science" to refer to "bad stuff", everything started to go to hell 1500 years earlier than the 1600s, in 570BC,  when Pythagoras invented numbers and science. Right. That makes perfect sense.

If you don't mind me I'm going to go bash my head against the wall. Repeatedly.

And there's more. Christ... This is going to suck...

"And with a strange twist of fate, all of the evidence of modern science points to the fact that the universe *is* wave-like, not particle-like, in character and that the harmonia of Pythagoras was correct after all. Believe it or not, the fundamental principles of the maths is essentially the same."

Right person was right? Yeah, how very strange. Never would have guessed that. Although the universe is both wave and particle-like. In addition to this, in stuff like string theory, the basic mathematics isn't necessarily the same, since it relies on extra dimensions not covered under Euclidean Geometry (the exact number of dimensions varies between 10 and 11 in what I've read, even though apparently the maths can only ever be 100% consistent in 10 and 26 dimensions [1]). I think. But I suppose this is the stuff there's evidence for, and the whole thing is very timey-wimey-wibbly-wobbly. But still, the universe is both wave like and particle like in nature. It's just that sometimes those waves are extra-dimensional and those particles are infinitesimal.

"However, theory has not caught up with practice. Theoretical physicists still proclaim that the universe is composed of well-defined particles."


As in, the standard model? Well yes, the particles wave. So of course theoretical physicists say that (well at least concerning the 4 dimensional one (3 spatial dimensions + time) which we inhabit).Hell, the wavey stuff is actually the more theoretical one from what I can gather (officially speaking I'm a high-level GCSE student, so there's always the caveat that I may be very wrong). So this is wrong. And we haven't defined all the particles yet! Also, the technical term is quanta (which are discrete packets of energy, e=mc^2 and all that).

"In other words, it is still essentially based in mechanics. "

 Uh, sure. Not sure how wave-particle duality contradicts that, when one considers that mechanics can be explained as interactions of stuff.


"In Einstein we read that “If we wish to describe the motion of a material point, we give the values of its co-ordinates as functions of the time”. From this he goes on to  prove his famous time dilation effect. However, according to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, such an operation is impossible. It is not possible to know both the motion and the time of a particle simultaneously." 

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle doesn't work that way. <takes deep breath>. It's actually <looks up on Wikipedia> a "fundamental limit on the accuracy", i.e. "the more precisely one property is measured, the less precisely the other can be controlled, determined, or known". Specifically, the properties in question are the location (not just in time) of a particle, and it's wave function. Which is actually somewhat different to "motion and time". Plus, the main issue is with accuracy.


"Then why do scientists still teach Einstein’s relativity if it is no longer correct? How is it that scientists are given millions to build ‘particle accelerators’ at CERN when this would seemingly violate uncertainty?"

We still learn relativity in the Einsteinian sense because, on all levels above the sub-atomic, it's still correct. And particle accelerators do not violate uncertainty, because uncertainty, as I've mentioned before, doesn't work that way. We can never be 100% certain, sure, but we can get so certain that it probably isn't worth checking any more.

"....If we admit that the universe is wavelike in character, then all of the myths of time travel and so on are debunked, as are the cliches of the lone genius or the absurd belief that science could somehow control time and change *history*."
Because mechanics enables those claims? And how exactly does it debunk "the cliche of the lone genius"? I know the ASP is opposed to the idea of individualism, but come on. At least have some good arguments. At any rate, wasn't it Newton who said that "we stand on the shoulders of giants". No one who claims that they can change history is treated seriously any more (AFAIK).

Space-time itself becomes identified with wave motion and theoretical mechanics, with all of its materialistic undertones, is now revealed for what it is; the myth of industrialists. In contrast, waves suggest an underlying interconnectedness in everything, even a spiritual connection since our very thought processes are dependent upon them."
 Mechanics is not a myth. Mechanics is not some sort of bizzare concept directly opposed to the notion of a wave like universe. Mechanics is the observation of the interaction of those waves. At any rate, why would industrialists seek to promote it? The underlying interconnectedness of the whole wave thing (hold up... isn't that theoretical?) is probably a part of mechanics (I can't say I'm 100% certain, but I think it works that way). 


And that's that. And it also took way too much effort. To the Science Collective, on the off chance that you're reading this, just stop. Please.

[1] I think this is in Hyperspace by Michio Kaku, but don't hold me to that.
*It's pretty clear that this is the same person, xe may be writing under the name of a different collective, but there are stylistic quirks it shares with the earlier piece (for example *this* kind of emphasis and the use of British English for the most part), and there is a thematic continuation.

(NB: As before, the proviso that I may have made some mistakes still stands, feel free to point them out.)

No, @The_Activists, relativity is not some sort of capitalist plot

I don't like the Activist Socialist Party for a wide number of reasons: they're Stalinist; they run polls where the options are "I agree with the party line", "I believe in the party line" and "I am a strawman" (sometimes not even that; in one poll the options were all permutations of "Trotsky's good, but should have joined the Bolsheviks earlier", although one added that "Stalin whooped his ass" which is a nice touch); they post some really bad stuff (to the point where I sometimes feel like I'm falling for an invocation of Poe's Law); they seem to focus their energy on creating "revolutionary information flows", such as twitter accounts which offer facts without bothering to check them and Michael Jackson and Jesus fanfics.. Oh, and I forgot the American nationalism, but, in short, they're a combination of every bad stereotype of lefties that you've seen. That's just here for full disclosure issues.

Anyway, "The Activists Editorial Collective" has published an article denouncing science as being corrupted by "hyper-capitalism". This is all very well and good if we're talking about arms research, which probably counts as science, albeit a form I want nothing to do with. But no, the targets of this piece is, I shit you not, the theory of relativity. It's a long article, so I won't requote all of it here (here's a link if you want to read it [trigger warning: it contains an ableist slur]), but there are several bad points made therein.

The first paragraph, which introduces the conceit that scientists have focused their ideas towards what can get them funding, isn't too objectionable, I suppose, but there is still the issue that it dismisses out of hand modern science as chasing "science fiction" instead of "the truth". Something weird in an article titled "Fact is Stranger than Science Fiction", but I digress. The idea being that capitalism caused this because "science fiction sells".

The Second paragraph cites Stephen Hawkin's A Brief History of Time in support of this. Specifically, it cites the "obligatory" chapter about the theory of Special Relativity which "all patronising “science for the layman” books" have (what even the biology ones?) as science fiction. The reasoning for this?

"Here we read for the umpteenth time that “time is relative”. This, we are told, is because moving clocks do not stay at a constant rate. Yet in a later chapter (I no longer have the book because I threw it out), he speaks about the “estimated time since the the big bang”. So the question arises “estimated time since the the big bang *relative to whom*?"

 *ahem* Relativity does not work that way". Want to know what we measure the passage of time relative to? Us*. 
*Well, the observer. i.e. us.


That has to be the easiest counter argument I've ever made in my life. And I haven't even read the bloody book in question! (I'd quite like to, but I haven't really seen it around in any of the bookshops I've been in recently).

The article may then argue that the two stock responses are "1. you simply don’t understand the math, or 2. our logic has been designed to deal with phenomena at the very large or very small scales of the universe" but maybe there's a reason for that. Although the brain fart which construes most of the parapgraph which follows probably helps prove point 2 more than anything. I'll just reproduce it here:

"But if what these “scientists” say is true, then apparently our logic *has* been designed to understand it. Furthermore, this is not a testable scientific statement. There is *always* the possibility that our logic might be wrong and how on earth could we measure the extent to which our reasoning was faulty without using reason itself? And whereas modern science claims to be able to undo time and history, it still speaks of its own history as if it were immutable. It is hypocritical. In fact, it doesn’t take us long to find exactly where Einstein went wrong with his maths. What he calls “time” and represents with numbers on a line is not a measure of “history” at all but a measure of the frequency *of* the light waves used in the measuring process. In short, these are nothing more than the megalomaniac fantasies of geeks and social outcasts. The latest chapter is the search for the Higgs-Boson “God” particle at the CERN particle accelerator. Despite the efforts of many legitimate mathematicians and scientists to undo this damage, Einstein, the poster-genius of physics, is just too damned profitable to question."


 Where do I start here? Let's see, first of all, this is claiming that the way human logic works is not a verifiable statement, which rebutes the 2nd stock response, but fails to do anything about the first and is probably a rather shit argument. Also, if, say, I was to accidentally and briefly think that "2+2=5", and this lead to me getting, say, a maths question wrong, then I can probably reason that I'm wrong and where I went wrong.

Secondly, claims of time travel are floated as a possibility, but dismissed as unlikely. No one claims to be capable of rewriting time, let alone erasing it. Truly changing the past is impossible. Given that Michio Kaku (who'll appear later) gave time travel the designation of "Class II impossibility" (something which, basically, isn't likely to happen for thousands of years, even if it's possible) in his book Physics of the Impossible, I suppose this aspect of science fiction is integrated somewhat into science though.But any changes are more likely to result in the time traveler becoming stranded in the wrong timeline or create a paradox. If such a thing is possible. Which, honestly, I have to say I highly doubt, but can't entirely rule out. One more likely theory (and possibly one compliant with physics) is that, even if we made a time machine, we could only 'go back' as far as it's creation. At any rate, this discussion is somewhat redundant since Stephen Hawking (aka the guy who this part of the argument is meant to be aimed at) has also come out and said that the fact that we aren't overrun by time tourists means that time travel probably won't happen. For more information I might as well recommend the Wikipedia on this.

So no, thinking that possibly maybe time travel could happen does not make believing in history hypocritical.

Next up, there's the whole "Einstein's maths was wrong" bit. Basically the author claims that since time =/= history the maths was wrong. Except it isn't really once you remember that in this case time is considered the fourth dimension (I think). Not the frequency of the light waves. We use the frequency of the light waves to work out how much redshift there is. A larger amount of redshift indicates that the thing in question is further away and thus older. Ironically enough, Einstein did think he'd gone wrong with his maths. I don't really understand the maths to be honest (I'm a GCSE student in maths, albeit a high level one, and, hell, Wikipedia tells me that Einstein had issues with the tensor calculus which forms the foundation of it all, Einstein), but I can recall reading in, uh, some book (I think it was one of the Horrible Science ones, but don't hold me to that), that he spent a lot of his life attempting to disprove the idea of the expanding universe. So yeah.

Chances are then, relativity isn't some "megalomaniac" fabrication from "geeks and social outcasts", it's an actual theory. That was a large chunk of my life that I won't be getting back.

That leaves the search for the God particle. I have to admit I'm fairly certain that, at this point, searching for sub-atomic particles is turning into a turtles all the way down situation, only with different species of turtle and a few zebras thrown in for good measure, but there is evidence to suggest that the Higgs Boson may actually exist. So it's not some sci-fi fantasy. I'm not entirely certain what the use is, but it looks like there's a good chance that it exists. And this is a science experiment, so you can suck on that for a bit.

Anywho, the next target is Michio Kaku's Physics of the Future. This is also a book I've not read/TV series I've not seen. Nonetheless, I'm fairly certain that this bit, in response to the alleged inclusion of the claim of there being bad times economically in the next 20 years resulting from Moore's law being finished by "single atom transistors" giving way to "quantum states":
"Moore’s law is supposed to be some type of estimate of scientific progress but is merely measured on the growth in computer speed taken over the last few decades (as if the two were synonymous)."
 Uh, Moore's law is more like an estimate of technological progress. It's the number of transistors which can "inexpensively fit onto an integrated circuit". And it's a law in the way that Godwin's law is, except in this hypothetical a large section of our economy relies on everyone comparing their opponents to Hitler.

I'm just going to swap to line by line rebuttal for rest of this rubbish starting after "During this part of the TV show they cut in footage of mobs fighting mounted police carrying guns and battons, no doubt from an actual revolution." Which I can't judge on, having not seen the show.

[Trigger warning for the next couple of paragraphs: Ableist slur]
































"Are these so-called scientists retarded? “Oh, I was expecting to buy a 16 gig computer this year but one hasn’t been invented. Ergo, must kill wife and kids!”."
 .... what.

 For starters, "retarded" is not an acceptable word to use. I must confess that in real life I'm a total coward who frequently fails to call people out on using it, but nonetheless there are a lot of reasons why it should be cut out of your lexicon.

As for the nasty strawman, are you suggesting that revolution is analagous to killing your wife and children? (way to assume gender identity and/or be heteronormative there (and probably a large number of other privilege denials that I've missed), BTW). Because you're definitely hinting that their logic means, to them, that their predictions turning out to be false leads to revolution, but here you have the scientist wanting to kill their family. So, revolution = killing your family? If not, what is the point of this strawman? Where the hell did it come from?

"Where does one start with such hubris? First of all Moore’s “law” isn’t a law. It’s merely an observation. Computers are not natural phenomena but a simulacrum of 0′s and 1′s. Are these people so detached from the real world, so self-delusional that they honestly believe their own failure would create world revolution?"

 Yeah. Believing that a stop in unsustainable growth which is overly relied on will cause issues in the economy, probably because capitalism relies on expansion, and thus social unrest (not necessarily revolution). Truly they are full of hubris. Everyone knows that revolution only comes through the creation of "revolutionary information flows", such as pretending to be Jesus. Which isn't hubristical at all. Got it.

Also, appeal to nature is a logical fallacy, and in case you can't tell, people use computers. I'm using one now. You used one to write this. So maybe they're just a little integrated into our culture. I must admit Kaku's argument is rather odd, but come on. If anything it highlights a shortcoming in capitalism. You know, the thing we're meant to be against?

"No, these are the bourgeois fantasies of a parochial elite and Kaku is merely their celebrity spokesman. In contrast, there are millions  of real scientists working on legitimate problems like curing disease, increasing food supply, creating more sustainable resources of energy and so on. These people often work on or below the breadline. They will be the at the forefront in the new regime."

The "No True Scotsman" thing is another logical fallacy. That said of course, there is absolutely nothing useful about GPSes and navigation. At all. So yeah. Plus, science often has unintended bonuses, just ask anyone who's ever used a microwave.

So, it would appear your "new regime" would fail to take it into account. Just as well that I sure as hell don't want your revolution then.

In short, you, The Activists Editorial Collective/The_Activists, suck. I probably wasted my time writing this, but I suppose it's not just enough to ignore something. Nah, you've got to "deconstruct" it and render it worthless ;P.


NB: I might have made some mistakes in the science. I did gloss over a bit of the Special Relativity fail to avoid this (sorry, but it's getting late and I really cannot be arsed to teach myself tensor calculus), but if I've made any mistakes I'll be glad if you'll correct me.

Should criminals have rights? Yes, actually...

You can bleat all you want about how they lost the "right" to any rights when they did whatever it was they did, but the fact remains that people who have committed crimes are still people. If you believe that rights can be taken away then they aren't rights; they're privileges.

At any rate, whilst I'm no fan of our prison system (it doesn't bloody work for starters), the whole idea is that in and of itself the sentence is sufficient punishment. Leaving aside the issue of the government blocking the European Court of Human Rights' ruling that prisoners should get the vote (which I'll get to in a minute), there remains a couple of worrying attacks in the past few days on the rights of ex-prisoners.

The first came yesterday, where it was revealed that there were plans (to be released next month) under which "convicted criminals are to be banned from claiming compensation for injuries sustained in attacks, in prison or after release" (emphasis mine). This is presumably the government wanting to win Daily Mail merit points for being tough on criminals, but even leaving the issue of it basically meaning prison guards don't have to bother with looking after the inmates (or possibly even it giving them the ability to beat up prisoners themselves (NB: I might be reading too much into this with that one)), the bar on suing after release, after the justice system has ostensibly done punishing you, after you could very well have reformed, then we have a major issue. Every human being should generally have the right not to be assaulted, so to see the government deciding to lift that ban, be it for populism (or wanting to apply the presented will of the people) or other purposes, is rather alarming. I don't really like the whole government thing, but if it absolutely has to be here it should at the very least offer some protection to all its citizens.


Now, I made mention of The Daily Mail earlier, and this is where the second attack on the rights of people who've been convicted/cautioned (it's somewhat fuzzy) comes from. Now, there haven't been any plans leaked for a direct attack in this regard from the government (as far as I know), but the Mail's decided that, as 1/3 of people on out of work benefits has a conviction (or a caution, it's actually really fuzzy on that point), 1/3 people on out of work benefits is a scrounger who's using them to prolong their criminal career. Not because the stigma around a criminal record is such that it's impossible to get a job, and that at least some of them have given up crime. The entire thing seems to be calculated to make people hate benefit claimants, even though, when taken in the decade leading to 2010, the figure for proportion who had received a conviction or a caution in the past decade was 26%. In the. This is a more indirect attack, but it's still an attack. Furthermore, I would be very surprised if something related to this doesn't appear on the aforementioned plan, probably barring anyone who's been convicted of anything from claiming out-of-work benefits, possibly for a long time. This is just drumming up support for such an action.(NB: I could be reading a lot into this which might not be the case)

At any rate, this brings me to the voting thing. The vote is, basically, a placebo button, but the disenfranchisement of prisoners is more broadly symbolic. It's a way of showing that the opinions of prisoners aren't meant to be considered. That criminals are, well, criminals and thus don't deserve consideration. So, all in all, it's a good thing that at least this government isn't prone to arbritary deterrent sentencing and arresting (e.g. of protestors) or anything like that, right?...right?...right?


... Okay, where do you reckon will be easier to mover to: Finland, Norway or Iceland?

Citing Injustice

 EDIT: yeah, this didn't work out. Gonna leave this up though since I only Orwell stuff if I have really good reasons to.

A few months ago, I started a twitter account called "CitingInjustice", I decided to make it in response to an account entitled "InjusticeFacts", "an open, circulating, that deal[s] with the injustices which plague our world". The problem was that, due to not actually requiring any proof, it had posted a number of pretty blatantly false 'facts' (at this point for full disclosure purposes I should point out that I have several issues with the Activist Socialist Party (the group I think runs the account), but this in part comes from the issues I have with InjusticeFacts). meanwhile, injustice still exists.

I promptly failed to actually do anything much with the account, making only 3 tweets, in part because I was the only one doing all the work and I made it bloody difficult for myself in addition to this.

Anyway, I've decided to make a full-on blog for Citing Injustice over at Wordpress.com, and it'll operate off a roughly similar submission system (well, it's a hybrid of that and the one the broader ASP uses on their Wordpress site), since, much like the Death Eaters in Harry Potter, they have had some good ideas that are worth stealing. Even stopped clocks are twice once a day n'all that.

So yeah, this post was pretty much an announcement for this project. Note that, whilst I'm the main person who runs it ATM, I am not averse to any help, advice and/or criticism you want to give me.

NB: A large part of this post was 'nicked' and modified from the About page of Citing Injustice.

Common Era: A Marxist Plot, Apparently

If you're bored, fancy a laugh, and don't mind giving MailOnline a hit, I humbly suggest you read this article by James Delingpole from today, entitled "How the BBC fell for a Marxist Plot to destroy civilization from within". This isn't some kind of joke, or an exaggeration, that's the actual title of the article.If you don't want to give the Mail hits, go here (thank you @LudditeWebDev) and don't tell them I sent you.
It's about the decision made by them to swap to using "Common Era" instead of "Anno Domini" and to use "Before Common Era" instead of "Before Christ" on the BBC website, with it citing that it intends to keep in with modern practice.*

And if you think that's bad, you ain't seen nothing yet. Indeed there are some real 'gems' in this thing.
Starting with, um, the start "When you mention to a Muslim or Hindu that the year is 2011, do you ever feel a twinge of guilt about your closet religious chauvinism?"He asks, rhetorically and ridiculously since the whole argument is about the suffix, not saying that they year is 2011 (which it is in both CE and AD). And why on Earth would anyone need to go round asking what year it is? It's a crap example really.
He then asks similarly ridiculous and rhetorical questions about the opening sequence of One Million Years BC and what you would if you were to catch your child reading 2000AD.
 
Skipping ahead a few paragraphs (in which he claims that only members of the Left-Wing academe have ever heard of CE (which is annoying, since I knew of it long before I was lefty, and I know that at least one of my older (not left-wing) relatives on my mum's side occasionally uses it (either my grandad or my great-uncle) since the the two terms are basically the same thing, not to mention that I keep thinking it's "Amino Domini") and generally moans about the weasellyness of the reason allegedly given*) we get this lovely thing: "And so yet another small part of our tradition, language and culture takes a step closer to extinction. We didn't ask for it; we didn't want it; yet still it's happening because a tiny minority of politically correct busybodies have wormed their way into institutions such as the BBC and taken control. 
Their goal is to create a world where Left-wing thinking – on 'fairness', on race, on sexual equality, on the role of government – becomes the norm. So far, they are doing brilliantly.
This capture of the language for political ends was exactly what George Orwell warned us of more than 60 years ago in his book 1984. In the appendix he described how Big Brother devised its language Newspeak to make it impossible for people to think in the 'wrong' way."
 
Where do I start? Well, first of all the implication that 'fairness' and sexual equality being the norm is bad, as is left-wing thought on race (i.e. going off his lovely little A-Z of political correctness, not being a racist) My personal favourite bit, however, has to be the invocation of 1984 to describe something a right-winger (who is writing for The Mail of all things) doesn't like. Really, it should be a corollary to Godwin's law: "As a writing by a right-winger grows longer, the probability that someone will be compared to The Party nears 1". let's call it Smith's law or something.

Of course, it could be argued that this whole thing is censorship, shaping the language to make us unable to articulate concepts which people don't like. Such as the first year of Our Lord being the 5th year of Our Lord. Okay, the whole AD vs CE thing is petty. The two terms are all but interchangeable. People don't think of "Anno Domini" as being inherently Christian (well, I don't at least), we just think of it as "AD" as opposed to "BC". We essentially use it as "CE" but without actually calling it that. Thus trying to make changing between two perfectly interchangeable terms to what is held up to be the high point of authoritarian language changing just makes Delingpole look like a ninnyhammer. Not least because he bemoans left-wing thought almost in the same breath - doesn't he realise that Orwell was a socialist?

A couple of skipped paragraphs later, and Delingpole elaborates on what he means by the capture of language for political ends, citing a series of alleged redefinitions:
"So it was, for example, that a traditionally free market cap¬italist word such as 'investment' was suddenly being hijacked to mean 'government spending'. 'Diversity' no longer meant 'plentiful variety' but 'an excuse to nurture grievance at tax¬payers' expense'. 'Discrimin¬ation', formerly used to mean 'discernment', now meant 'yet another excuse to nurture grievance at taxpayers' expense'." (NB: The weird dashes are actually in the article, not sure if it's a glitch, or actually meant to be there)
So, one word had a slight shift in usage so it could also be used to refer to public sector spending and two words happen to apply to people now as well, something not actually precluded in their definitions. Got it.

Also, elitism has got its more pejorative definition because, all to often, it is only society's "elite" (read: rich) who can afford the best schools, the best opportunities.People call the Free Schools scheme elitist because it is seen as being predominantly utilised by the middle class. In fact, "elitism" tends to refer to the social elites valuing themselves and being valued as better than others, or being granted better opportunities due to class-based discrimination. 

In fact, dictionary.reference.com defines elitism as: "1. Practice or belief in rule by an elite 2. Consciousness of or pride in belonging to a select or favoured group" Two of the definitions of elite (probably the ones used, going off word choice ("an elite" rather than "the elite") are: "...2.  persons of the highest class <example> 3. a group of persons excersising the major share of authority or influence within a larger group" With a 5th adjectival definition: "representing the most choice or select"  The term "elitist" itself is defined in the adjectival form as either "1. (of a person or a class of persons) considered superior by others or by themselves, as in intellect, talent, power, wealth or position in society" or "2. Catering to or associated with an elite class, its ideologies, or its institutions" and in the noun form as either "3. a person having, thought to have, or professing superior intellect or talent, power, wealth or membership in the upper echelons in society" or "4. a person who believes in the superiority of an elite class"

So, going off the second definition of "elitist" anything the Tories do is elitist. It's not really a redefinition of the word. Also, only by a stretch of a couple of all the definitions here can Delingpole's definition (the best) not be a redefinition and claiming of a word for his own political ends.What's wrong with using the words "the best" to connote the best of something anyway?

Mr. Delingpole does some weird rhetorical "does it matter" thing, in which the words "isn't it only fair that we should be a bit more considerate to the sensitivities of other races, religions and creeds?" actually and astonishingly appear. Followed by him calling such an undertaking "cultural suicide" and thus abusing the English language to his own political ends. Tut tut.

And this is where it suddenly shoots past Illuminati conspiracy theories on the WTFometer:  

"Most of us may not realise this but the ideological Left certainly does, for it has long been part of its grand plan to destroy Western civilisation from within. The plan's prime instigator was the influential German Marxist thinker ('the father of the New Left') Herbert Marcuse. A Jewish academic who fled Germany for the US in the Thirties, he became the darling of the Sixties and Seventies 'radical chic' set.
He deliberately set out to dismantle every last pillar of society – tradition, hierarchy, order – and key to victory, he argued, would be a Leftist takeover of the language, including 'the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race and religion, or which oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care etc'. 
In other words, those of us who believe in smaller government or other 'Right-wing' heresies should be for ever silenced." 

It kind of speaks for itself, but there are a couple of things that I want to pick out: First off, "leftist grand plan to destroy Western civilisation from within" (emphasis mine)? So, all civilisation is Western civilisation? And "plan to destroy Western Civilisation from within"? What is this, the Cold War?! (admittedly, said war was in recent history and in Marcuse's time, so it could be, but it seems a bit of a stretch for 2011, plus I'll probably end up re-reading this after studying it for GCSE History and end up feeling like a knobhead, ah well). Anyway, what has Herbert Marcuse's race got to do with it? I digress, but was it really necessary information?

Anyhoo, Delingpole claims that he wanted to dismantle society and take over the language by... "the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race and religion, or which oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care etc'". Delingpole correctly points out that the last part applies to right-wing thought (although the stuff the first bit is opposed to is better translated to "not being a dickhead"), and I'm not saying I think Marcuse was right (unless 'removal of tolerance' refers to counter assemblies and speeches the whole thing is very authoritarian and ungood and moral high ground giving), but, at the same time, I'm not sure how this tallies in with the "OMG, this will lead to Newspeak!" rhetoric of the rest of the piece. Nor am I sure how this will dismantle society and/or lead to total chaos. Really, if we're heading straight for the world of 1984 it's clear that there is some vestige of order there. This not even taking into account the fact that he's bemoaning disapproval of people who are opposed to free healthcare. We only need to point to the USA for why Marcuse might have been half-right there.

Of course, that Macuse's teachings formed the basis for "every revolutionary group, from the Black Panthers to the Baader-Meinhof gang". Which is probably true if we only count groups which follow Marcuse's teachings, and even then the groups mentioned had a wider influence than just one man, and I have yet to see evidence of some connection with the BBC, which is what Delingpole is supposedly writing about. Really, revolutionary state television? How does that work?!

The whole thing is wrapped up by the old "baa baa rainbow sheep" thing being brought up (and the lack of response to such things today being complained about, since it's not like that was one particularly egregious example or something) and this:
"This complacency is fatal. Great civilisations do not die from the sudden arrival of the barbarians at the gates. They succumb much more slowly than that, from the death-by-a-thousand-cuts permitted from within by those who have forgotten why their traditions and cultural values are worth defending." 
Which is a deep warning, but slightly over the top. And possibly inaccurate; in my opinion, the problem isn't people who decide that their traditions and cultural values aren't worth defending who are the downfalls of civilisations (if so, explain all the changes in society in the past century); it's the people who start to think of the thousands of cuts as worth keeping open since doing so is the done thing, even when it makes no sense. The people who've been charging for a cliff for years, but won't stop because they won't see the evidence arrayed of their impending doom. Which is also a bit over the top for this context, but there you go.

To conclude, if there really is a left-wing dictatorship in the vein of 1984 (or the many actual ones there's been (e.g. China, the USSR)) on the way (which there isn't), or even the principles Marcuse espoused being enshrined in law, I would be dead set against it. But there isn't, and to suggest that there is based off the BBC switching to CE* is somewhat ludicrous.Well, I say "somewhat", I mean "so very incredibly"...

 *On some Q and A I can't find. I might have been accidentally putting "Amino Domini" into the search box when I was trying to find it though. This being one reason why I don't mind the alleged switch to the easier to spell "common era", despite the actual reason they gave being a really crap one. It's also worth considering that Christ being born circa 5BC according to most estimates is a far better reason ("Before Christ" fundamentally makes no sense). All this said, commenters on FailOnline appear to also be unable to track down the Q and A, making this a bit fishy.

See also: The Angry Mob: Mail on Sunday becomes the Daily Star
Tabloid Watch: AD and BC not 'jettisoned' by BBC

EDITS: Fixed the formatting, added an extra sentence which just occurred to me and added this as an explanation of the edits.

Recession? What's one of them?

Today when I was round my (maternal) grandparents, I found myself perusing a copy of The Daily Mail, like I usually end up doing since always reading stuff you agree with is probably a bit polarising and ungood. Anyway, whilst skimming it and being immensely thankful that Littlejohn wasn't in today's edition, I stumbled upon this little brainfart (not direct link, credit to @uponnothing) from Liz Jones, in which she implies that the recession can't exist because she personally hasn't been affected positively by it.

If I was forced to pick the most blindingly ridiculous paragraphs, it would have to be these two anti-gems in something considerably worse than "the rough":
"I brought a brand new land Rover Defender the other day for use on my farm. I went to pick it up. 'Are you throwing in a tank of diesel?' I asked, not unreasonably. 'Oh no,' said the salesman. 'We can't do that as we'd have to do it for everybody'
I thought the motor industry had been the worst affected by the recession?"

Weird grammar aside (speech is meant to have a separate line to indicate a new speaker, and why the hell is that question mark there?), I really don't think Liz Jones knows what a recession is. Or why the motor industry is struggling. Really, she likes to moan, she surely must have noticed the price of a little something going up.

Oil prices? Ring a bell? If so, you're doing better than she is. Honestly, does anyone really think that a struggling industry is going to shell out any more than it absolutely needs to? Oh, right, Liz Jones, apparently (if you can afford a brand new Land Rover Defender, you can probably afford a tank of diesel, whilst the dealership might be comparatively less lucky).

Other "gems" from her amazing brainfart include her bemoaning her treatment at some fancy bar (pro tip: vote with your wallet you ninnyhammer, if you don't like it, leave, don't stay just because it charges a lot) and her overreacting over someone apparently not knowing where something is kept (and maybe being a bit bemused at her trying patronising sign language of the sort we Brits stereotypically use when abroad), and the three anecdotal examples meaning that nobody cares about customer service and/or gives 'journalists' special treatment, so the recession can't be happening. All wrapped up by her pondering whether it's just her who gets treated so horribly by everyone as typified by 3 examples which are clearly so comprehensive /sarcasm.

The fact that unemployment is rising, the economy is shrinking (or growing so little that it might as well be, and even said growth is mucked up by stuff like a fricking wedding) and we're presently being cut to death by the Tories mean precisely nought (okay, the last one is expecting a bit much from the Mail, but come on).

I'd ask why the Mail pays her so much but, uh, yeah. People talk about her. Like I've just wasted quite a bit of my time doing. Oops.

We aren't out of the metaphorical woods yet

Last night the Guardian ran a story online with the headline "Downing Street forces U-turn on Nadine Dorries abortion proposals". What it should have read was "Downing Street withdraws support from Nadine Dorries abortion proposals", since that's what the PM actually did, presumably because his party is viewed as being Conservative enough as is (since they're, y'know, the Conservative party, and they do tend to live up to the name if you're talking US-style "Conservatism" (just not really to the extent that they do it, actually some US Conservatives probably think our Tories are socialists)) and he knows the way the political winds blow (i.e. most people support abortion).

The proposals could still go ahead. Heck, the Grauniad even states:

"...a combination of the unpredictable intake of new Tory MPs, split between social conservatives and modernisers, the number of Roman Catholic Labour MPs, and the high degree of nuance of the amendment make it extremely unclear which way the vote will go."

Whilst I'm not exactly sure what  "high degree of nuance of the amendment" means, that it's "extremely unclear" as to whether it will pass means we're probably not quite out the woods yet. 

This is, of course, the bit where I tell you to write to your MP. I have very little faith in the democratic system, and even less in my MP (he's a Tory in a really safe seat), but it's still worth a shot, I suppose (I am aware of the Abortion Rights letter, but chances are, writing it yourself may be better). Heck, get everyone you know to write to them. MPs aren't going to let a ton of votes pass them by, and they are meant to work for us.

This said, if you happen to possess an uterus, it might also be worth telling Nadine Dorries about it. We ought to stretch that out to Frank Field as well, since he doesn't even have an uterus and he's trying to control what we do with ours (and even who we go to for advice). Although, it'd probably be better to (politely) inform our MPs who do vote in favour of the Amendment of what our uteri (I think that's the plural of "uterus") are doing, since they are more required to listen to us, and more likely to (I reckon Dorries is likely to make sure it isn't something she can report us to the police for and then bin f you aren't a constituent, to be frank). Still, the blogging thing is a brilliant idea, and since Nadine Dorries does have an unhealthy interest in what we do with our uteri we might as well spread the word.

Oh and, Guardian, please stop with the misleading headlines. As of last time I checked, you aren't the Daily Mail.