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UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

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Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#71

Post by hkt »

andrewstuart wrote: post #42
morbia wrote: post #23

This is something that comes up time and time again with our recent string of conservative governments, going back to Cameron. At this point I'm pretty convinced that it is a dead cat strategy to avoid us talking about the lack of fruit and vegetables in the supermarkets. Or maybe I'm just being hopeful.

How do people in UK feel about the food shortages? Do they blame brexit?

Partly Brexit, but partly our model of capitalism is broken. Our energy prices going wild means that local growers who rely on LED lighting out of season simply turned the lights off as there was no conceivable way of them producing economically.

That, in turn, is because despite the "subsidy" we have allowed our energy market to be designed around investors rather than consumers. Most of the continent has shielded consumers from the brunt of price rises: we haven't.

Really, it is just the brokenness of a British ruling class that prefers the success of the financial sector to a decent quality of life for citizens. It isn't caused by Brexit, Brexit is just a symptom.

Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#72

Post by Penyngton »

jjulius wrote: post #20
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #18

Here is something even more stupid from the UK: Reading ‘Lord Of The Rings’ And ‘1984’ Could Lead To Right-Wing Extremism, Gov’t Report Warns https://dailycaller.com/2023/02/16/reading-lord-of-the-rings... Edit: Someone from the UK govt downvoted me :D

Do you have a source that actually quotes the government document it references? Your link is just a rehash of an original piece which itself offers literally no evidence of it's accuracy. In point of fact, I searched further and found this[1]... >Fox News Digital could not verify the extent of the list of books, movies and shows flagged under the government program and the Home Office could not verify the existence…

William Shawcross's Independent Review of Prevent [0] has on page 24

> 3.46 While the products related to Islamist terrorism focus on the most serious material relating to violent Islamist ideology, mostly Islamic State and al-Qa’ida, much of the material covering Extreme Right-Wing falls well below the threshold for even non-violent extremism.

> 3.47 This material tends to deal with broader themes and often covers content that relates to narratives on social media. These products not only covered non-violent far right extremism, but also examples of centre-right debate, populism, and controversial or distasteful forms of right-leaning commentary and intolerance. Some of this material falls well short of the extremism threshold altogether.

> 3.48 I saw one RICU analysis product from 2020 on Right-Wing terrorist and extremist activity online which referenced books by mainstream British conservative commentators as “key cultural nationalist ideological texts”. The same document listed “key texts” for white nationalists as including historic works of the Western philosophic and literary canon.

Emphasis mine.

So it is certain that some mainstream books were considered signifiers of right-wing extremism by Prevent's Research Information and Communications Unit (RICU), but I haven't seen any official publication of exactly what the list contained.

[0] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-revie...

Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#73

Post by favaq »

Agingcoder wrote: post #59
nivenkos wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of Europe is suffering shortages the same though, it's just that in the UK the supermarkets refused to pay more. Whereas like here in Sweden you can buy tomatoes, but they now cost $10 per kg.

Well, it's winter now - I'd expect off season fruits and vegetables to be more expensive? Or do you mean that tomatoes are more expensive now than last winter?

"off-season tomatoes" hasn't been a thing in decades. Tomatoes are available at affordable prices all year long.

Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#74

Post by 34523trefds12 »

andrewstuart wrote: post #42
morbia wrote: post #23

This is something that comes up time and time again with our recent string of conservative governments, going back to Cameron. At this point I'm pretty convinced that it is a dead cat strategy to avoid us talking about the lack of fruit and vegetables in the supermarkets. Or maybe I'm just being hopeful.

How do people in UK feel about the food shortages? Do they blame brexit?

[dead]

Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#75

Post by throwbadubadu »

andrewstuart wrote: post #42
morbia wrote: post #23

This is something that comes up time and time again with our recent string of conservative governments, going back to Cameron. At this point I'm pretty convinced that it is a dead cat strategy to avoid us talking about the lack of fruit and vegetables in the supermarkets. Or maybe I'm just being hopeful.

How do people in UK feel about the food shortages? Do they blame brexit?

Who would dare to.. but then some have great ideas like one would need an ""economic NATO"" (if such thing would just exist... against China ofc) like Liz Truss recently... lol satire cannot make this better.

[1] https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Supply-Chain/Economic-NATO...

Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#76

Post by Dyac »

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #47
andrewstuart wrote: post #6

This is the same country that considered their advances in computing during World War 2 to be so important that they hid them and left the USA to capitalise on the innovation. We'll leave our poor UK cousins to carry out their "techxit".

Yes, we are great at sacrificing long term benefit for short term advantage. Apparently our ability to break various crypto systems was regarded as too sensitive. I believe we continued to break encrypted communications for some time after the war, including those of our allies. Would be interested if anyone knows of a good history of this aspect of post war Britain.

Sexism is apparently a big reason. Many of the early British computing experts were female. At some point it was "professionalised" and these skilled and experienced women were displaced by less skilled and less experienced men.

Here's a New Statesman article about it: https://archive.is/zsijz

Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#77

Post by Gordonjcp »

fmajid wrote: post #56
andrewstuart wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do people in UK feel about the food shortages? Do they blame brexit?

Brexit is a symptom of the underlying incompetence of the British political class, not a cause.

> Brexit is a symptom of the underlying incompetence of the British political class, not a cause.

It's not incompetence. It is deliberate sabotage.

The economy is being smashed to pieces so the Conservatives can steal it and sell the bits off for a quick fix of cash. They're all junkies, who will steal whatever public property they can to sell, and now they've worked out they can do it to the whole country.

Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#78

Post by msie »

londons_explore wrote: post #68
Stephanemw wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not enough. UK popular media reporting focuses on the supplier's blaming this on 'the weather', or energy prices in production countries [0][1][2][3]. No real discussion on how European shelves don't appear to have this problem. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64718826 [1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/22/aldi-asda-m... [2] https://news.sky.com/story/tesco-and-aldi-to-ration-some-veg... [3] ht…

A big chunk of the problem is competition law preventing prices increasing in events like this. Supermarkets in France just increase the price for tomatoes for a few months and pay suppliers slightly more to get the stock they want. In the UK, competition law prevents jacking up the price during a supply interruption, meaning suppliers prefer to direct scarce goods to France instead, where they earn more. That makes…

Citation? I've seen two articles on UK price inflation and none of them mention this problem of competition law. Price inflation does exist in the UK.

Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#79

Post by Gordonjcp »

Thorrez wrote: post #31
Veen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because 1) Turing wasn’t jailed and 2) The Government doesn’t put people in jail; that’s the courts.

Speaking from a US standpoint: 1. The legislature makes laws 2. The courts make judgements based on those laws 3. The police officers drag people into jail All 3 are part of the government.

The UK isn't the US. The UK government does not work like or even resemble the US government.

Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#80

Post by msie »

londons_explore wrote: post #70
Stephanemw wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Production costs varying over the seasons or supply availability I can understand. I can't understand how /every/ UK supermarket chain made the same decision to decline the higher costs without asking myself if they spoke to each other about it. Emergent behaviour caused by racing to the bottom?

Anti price gouging laws prevent them jacking up prices when there is tight supply. They literally can't offer to pay more.

And yet there is price inflation. How is that any different?
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