I don’t think Bezos was a blocker here, allegedly he was a fan of Stargate. I remember that being specifically called out when Amazon acquired MGM.

You’re making two competing arguments. One is that AI is going nowhere and the government shouldn’t invest. And another that we are going to the AGI future and we should build it here. If you think 2 billion to OpenAI is expensive then you’ll be shocked by how much it would cost to get enough AI talent to move to the UK and build us something that competes with the top US and Chinese models.

The government is going to have to make a gamble one way or another and it either costs us a lot of money or risks a huge opportunity. There aren’t any winning options that make everyone happy.

I’m not pro this for reasons others have pointed out, but there is a ray of sunshine alongside the clouds of “just give loads of taxpayer money to a foreign company and hope it improves matters”.

If humanity is on a path to true artificial evidence, one of the worst case scenarios is that we end up with a few AI-haves (read: billionaires) and then the rest of humanity end up as the have-nots fighting over the scraps left over. What we have here is a government aspiring to ensure we all have equal access to the AI future. This is a hugely important thing that should not be downplayed even if the current approach is ham-handed at best. This is a baby that should not be thrown out with the bath water.

Funny that Marty Sliva was just talking about Mario Paint yesterday in his DK Bananza video.

Also, rare entertaining NSO drop trailer. More of this, please.

It works on my two-year-old, but the older one definitely wouldn’t fall for it.

Maybe I’m argy because it’s a hot sweaty armpit of an evening. You can call me a twat but you are also now trying to paint me with “you agree with the Nazis” after I roiled against antisemitism so maybe introspect a little on that. To avoid shouting past each other, here are my beliefs on this matter and maybe you can tell me if there’s anything here you actually disagree with.

• I believe constructing a hierarchy of discrimination is not just a waste of time but an entirely negative action. Discrimination takes many forms and arguing who has it worst doesn’t do anything to counter discrimination. Instead, it creates animosity between discriminated-against groups who could instead be comparing notes on better ways to counter discrimination in all forms.
• I believe Dianne Abbott is more interested in playing with hierarchies of discrimination than she is in opposing discrimination in all forms. I believe this because she said that she thought black people had it worse than Jews, and when this upset Jewish people, she was not interested in understanding why (see: my point about animosity), she faked contrition, and she put out an apology that we can now all see as worthless because it was only there to allow her to stand again as a Labour politician. She has sown animosity between Jews and black people, and those of any other creed or culture who seek to oppose discrimination.

Your devil’s advocacy was for the question “is she wrong” and my answer is even if she’s right, she’s making things worse for everyone.

If you’re playing devil’s advocate then they’re not your words, you are advocating for the worst version of an argument. So why would it be a problem for be to mention satan? Unless those are actually your views, in which case you aren’t playing devil’s advocate.

You didn’t deny the holocaust, but your argument is flawed. The nazis thought of the Jewish people as a race. They attempted a genocide on that basis. They were being racist. Proudly so.

I’m not here with honest intent? Abbott was suspended from the Labour Party for what she said. Multiple organisations called them disgraceful. She herself retracted her words, hamfistedly blaming them on a drafting error, and apologised for them. But I’mm, random internet man, am the one who’s arguing in bad faith?

Now she has said that she doesn’t regret that period and clearly her apology was not in any way genuine contrition. She offered empty platitudes to crawl back into the party she claims to love while not in any way actually reflecting on the things she’s said.

Let’s look at her actual words, shall we, satan?

Tomiwa Owolade claims that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people all suffer from “racism” (“Racism in Britain is not a black and white issue. It’s far more complicated”, Comment). They undoubtedly experience prejudice. This is similar to racism and the two words are often used as if they are interchangeable.

It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice. But they are not all their lives subject to racism. In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus. In apartheid South Africa, these groups were allowed to vote. And at the height of slavery, there were no white-seeming people manacled on the slave ships.

She talks about sitting at the back of the bus. Rosa Parks took a stand in 1943. Concurrent to this event, Jewish people, of the Jewish race, were being exterminated in the holocaust. If Diane Abbott is more interested in arguing for a dictionary definition of racism that includes the suffering inflicted on black people but excludes the holocaust, than she is in trying to understand why this would be incredibly offensive to the Jewish community, she can get in the bin.

And if you’re more interested in watering down accusations of antisemitism to mere “anti-Zionism” then you too are more interested in playing with dictionary definitions than you are in calling out actual racism when it actually happens and you can do likewise.

Fortunately you’re just playing devil’s advocate, eh?

For those skimming headlines: these are the same comments that she was previously suspended for before the election, and which her retraction of was a key part of her even being allowed to run as a Labour candidate. She’s literally gone “that stuff I was kicked out for and had to grovel for forgiveness for? Actually I don’t apologise”.

I’d start to question her faculties but she’s always been a disaster.

Honestly they’re a running gag on a lot of politics discussion spots. Without digging too hard, here’s a recent poll they shared from Freshwater Strategy, a “reputation management” (astroturfing) company who aren’t a British Polling Council member. And then they’ve run election forecasts based on this gibberish. Basically they’ll run anything that looks bad for Starmer’s Labour. And even though there’s no shortage of that, they’ll plumb the depths to find the least credible stuff.

They then use their “trusted source of stats” status to broadcast fairly unhinged views, such as flytipping is fine actually and criminalising it is an affront to the working poor.

TBH looking at single polls is an exercise in futility and you’ll be trying to draw out data from the noise. Much better to bookmark Politico’s Poll of Polls and check in on it occasionally.

Seems that Rachel Maskell should be added to that list of suspensions.

StatsForLefties has dreadful form for misrepresenting stats, taking data out of context, and general poor practice. I’d not choose to follow them unless you actively want to be misinformed.

“They can’t arrest all of us!” - People, all arrested

UPDATE: he’s been cleared already, apparently the investigation was rushed and the deadline for submission has not yet been reached.

Can’t believe that Rupert’s “give me money to play pretend at doing real inquiries” might not be totally legit. Bet the inquiry will involve some really big dinners.

Yes, yes, death to FPTP…

The report, external took evidence up to August 2023

I bet that information has become dated incredibly fast, but I don’t know in which direction. Iran’s Supreme Leader seems pretty keen on lashing out wildly following the events of the last month or two, but also they’ve had significant loss of military assets and local capability. Does that put us at more of a risk of terrorist-style attacks?

Let’s do the More or Less thing. Is that a big number?

• England has a land area of just over 13,046,000 hectares ^{https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/land-use-in-england-2022/land-use-statistics-england-2022}
• 215,000 / 13,046,000 = 1.6% of England we’re talking about here.

I’m big on environmentalism and regenerating England’s natural habitats, but trading a percent or so of total land area to ensure people have homes seems like a no brainer. Ideally we’d build higher density to avoid having to continue suburban sprawl, but any homes > perfect homes that are never built.

Oof, can’t lie, that significantly impacts my desire to get the game. They did such a good job with 1+2 in fighting years of licensing rot, I’d assumed they’d have equivalent success with 3+4.