Opinion

We are heading for an all-or-nothing deal with the EU. It's over two months since the Referendum on whether the UK should leave the EU, and a few things have started to happen. Firstly, we have a new team in government, led by Theresa May, who seemed determined to make Brexit happen, and make Brexit work. These people seem bloody minded, are impervious to evidence and are happy to steamroller due process. The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is also anti-EU, will uphold the referendum and is an electoral disaster. An extremely weak opposition. The Labour leadership contender Owen Smith seems much more amenable but probably lacks enough support in the wider Labour Party. The Remain campaign Remain shambolic. They have now rebranded themselves "Open Britain" and seem indistinguishable from the Leave campaign. The man to really fear is David Davis, the Minister for Brexit. He seems to be in favour of "Flexcit", using EEA as a stepping-stone to leaving the EU, but...

I was just watching the F1 Belgian Grand Prix qualifying, and was struck by a couple of sentences which occurred in the space of about 10 minutes. On a (male) racing driver, by a man: "apart from being tall dark and handsome, what do we know about Manor's new driver?" On David Coulthard, by a woman, "he's completely gorgeous". No similar comments on females were made. I have no problem with this, but I wonder how feminists would have reacted if the genders of the drivers were reversed? I could imagine them using this as further "proof" that society is inherently sexist, is objectifying women, and that the value of a female is still tied to her appearance. If you look at glossy magazines and calendars, they are full of well toned topless men. A Google search for "sexy male calendar" yields more hits than a similar search for "sexy female calendar." I don't care, but I do mind feminists claiming that only females are obje...

Brian lives with long-term partner Eugene. But Brian is always grumbling, and one day they decide to split up. Act 1: The breakup Scene 1: Brian : We need to talk. Eugene : Uh oh, okay then. Brian : You've changed and I'm not happy any more. I don't like living under your rules. You need to change... Eugene : I'm not sure I can. Brian : That's it, I'm walking out. Scene 2: Brian : I need to take control of my life. I'm leaving. Eugene : Fine, just go. Brian : I'll save so much money because I won't need to pay any household bills. Eugene : You are an idiot. Brian : I save so much time on paperwork. Eugene : You are still an idiot. Brian : I won't need to see your stupid friends any more. Eugene : But my friends are great and really help us out. Brian : I really mean it. I'm going. Eugene : Well, what are you waiting for? Act 2: The separation Scene 1: Brian : Before I go, I have a few demands. Eugene : What? Just go away already. ...

I found David Davis's article on his economic strategy for Brexit to be quite illuminating. Here it is: http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2016/07/david-davis-trade-deals-tax-cuts-and-taking-time-before-triggering-article-50-a-brexit-economic-strategy-for-britain.html The main points are as follows: 1) Britain should start making trade negotiations now 2) We should sound out the EU prior to invoking Article 50 3) We should invoke Article 50 when we're good and ready (e.g. by year end) 4) The EU will in all likelihood yield to our demands to access the single market 5) We should be prepared to walk away from the EU (to WTO rules) 6) Many trade deals can be in place within 2 years. 7) Our long term future is rosier outside of the EU. Another source of (quite blunt) views on Brexit come in the comments sections of The Express, and other tabloids who have been feeding their readers all sorts of anti-EU pro-Brexit stories which have stoked up their readership in...

Article 50 (A50) represents the point of no return, where the UK formally announces that it is withdrawing from the EU. The real point of no return was of course the referendum result, but A50 represents the next milestone in the Brexit process. Those calling for an early A50 argue that there is no benefit to delaying, as this just adds uncertainty and delays the entire process and inevitable recovery. They (mainly Leavers) don't want the referendum result annulled. Those who want to delay A50 say that we need time to prepare (not least, set up a new department for Brexit), and entertain the notion of pre-negotiations, as well as buying time to set up trade deals elsewhere in the world. The EU is very clear that there can be no exit negotiations until Article 50 has been triggered, and it looks very unwilling to compromise. The markets have taken the Brexit vote relatively calmly, and so far it's been very smooth going. This is because nothing has actually happened yet, and wo...

The trouble with an in/out referendum is that there are many different issues which all get conflated into one binary decision. It’s a bit like voting for Labour/Conservative, when you may not agree with everything one particular party does. It would be utterly wrong to paint the majority of Leavers as racists. Although I voted Remain myself, it is important to understand and respect the people who voted Leave. There are some very good, and very valid reasons for voting Leave: We do not agree that the United States of Europe is the right direction for Europe, and we do not want to be part of it. Further integration is undesirable.  The European project is doomed to failure, perhaps by a debt crisis. Best just to leave a sinking ship.  We have no control over our borders, either from Eastern Europeans, Turkey, or from other migrant crises from Syria.  Our sense of identity is fundamentally British, not European.  We have our own values, which are distinct fro...

Although events are unfolding at a rapid pace, a lot of these things are largely irrelevant. It looks like the Conservative Party will hold itself together and conduct an orderly leadership election. The sheer panic of Friday 24rd of June is now over, and the markets have rebounded. There will be no annulment of the result, no re-runs, and no early general election. The rhetoric of the Leave politicians has changed. There has been a huge amount of back-pedalling by the Leave campaigners, who now recognise late in the day the need to cooperate closely with Europe. They now recognise that they must (1) stay in the single market, and (2) retain bank "passporting" rights, which mean that our banks can operate in Europe from London. By default, both of these would be forfeited if we left the EU. The markets have responded positively, because if Britain does maintain access to the single market and passporting, then it's almost business as usual. But I fear their optimism ...

I've been following various anti-feminist groups for a few months, and am now, in a very unscientific sense, able to summarise my impressions. My brushes with feminism have always been quite problematic, and it's fair to say that all is not well with feminism. It is perfectly reasonable to criticise feminism, because bad feminism, of which there is a lot, will at best achieve nothing and at worst actually end up harming women and men. My main criticisms of feminism are that it's incredibly pejorative, and it only focusses on the problems of one gender. In fact, any feminist who focuses on, or even raises the issue of men, is rather insultingly called a "menimist", and is accused of bleating "what about the men?" Ironic, since the entire point of feminism is "what about the women?" Like feminism, anti-feminism actually comes in many different flavours, and it's important to realise that not all feminists are crazy, and not all ...

As a software developer, I see regular discussion about gender issues in software engineering. In particular, this article by Bruce Perens asserts that women are treated badly in open source, and gives some suggestions how to address it. Another interesting website is  geekfeminism.org , in particular their  Timeline of incidents . I would certainly agree with Perens that online communities can be very hostile and rude, yet I think it goes too far to suggest that the majority of men in general, and open source contributors in particular, have a problem, even subconsciously, with women. The few women I have encountered in a technical context have been excellent, and I wish there were more of them. I certainly avoid online discussions for the reason that people can be very rude, and this is a real shame. But as a man, who in spite of my limited online presence, has been at the receiving of rudeness from plenty of men and women. The normal, sensible reaction to this, is tha...

A feminist article was recently brought to my attention, called "How to Talk to Little Girls" by Lisa Bloom . Whilst I agree with everything Lisa says, my heart immediately sank, as it reminded me once again that feminists only ever care for their own. The entire article would have been equally valid if it had been talking about little boys. For the TL;DR, the article basically forwards the idea (which I agree with) that praising girls' appearance is counter-productive since it emphasises body image, which can lead to harmful obsessions. Instead, little girls should be engaged on an intellectual basis, for example by talking about books. There are a few assumptions here. 1) that body image issues only affect girls. I uncovered some articles from The Guardian (2012) and by Naomi Weinshenker (2014) that basically suggest that men and teenage boys are as much if not more worried about body image than women. Certainly, teenage boys kill themselves more often than teena...

If feminism were really about gender equality, then feminists should be spending time looking at all situations where people are disadvantaged on the basis of gender. Yes, that includes men. The immediate reaction - that only women are disadvantaged on the basis of gender - is simply untrue. The fact is that men and women face quite different challenges. The challenges faced by women are quite well known. They generally earn less money than men, they are underrepresented at senior level in various institutions including board rooms and government, they are more often and more severely the victims of sexual and domestic violence, religion can restrict them in various ways, they are more housebound and take on an unfair burden of child-rearing, they feel they have lower status, men disrespect them, they sometimes get worse education, they get raped in war, they have less freedom.  I may have missed some. And I’m all for fixing these issues, by for example mandating equal pa...

Feb 14th was of course V day, an awareness day for plight of women suffering from violence. The good: Anything which helps to reduce human suffering is a very good thing. Women are still disadvantaged far too often, and society has been too slow in redressing this. Women suffer terribly from violence. In many types of violence, particularly sexual violence, the suffering of women is far greater than that of men, in terms of both quantity and severity. Some types of violence, when divided into type, culture and region, are genuinely single-gender. Many types of violence, including violence against women, are underreported, and it’s a good thing to raise awareness of this so we can do something about it. Violence against all people of any race, colour, creed or gender is unacceptable. Feminists do a tremendous amount of good in helping women, and this is rarely to the detriment of men. The bad: Violence overall affects men and women in roughly equal measure, but diffe...

I recently came across this website by Perry Marshall, which makes a really interesting proof of the existence of God. The argument is basically that DNA constitutes information (a code), yet all information that we know of is the product of a mind. Randomness cannot create information. Therefore, God exists. Lovely argument. Now let's pick some holes. 1) My first observation is that this argument is almost exactly the same as entropy. The argument is that DNA is a low entropy state. Yet randomness always increases entropy. Therefore DNA cannot be the product of random processes, therefore it must be the work of God (or Maxwell's Demon). However this argument is invalid because localised decreases in entropy are perfectly possible, and expected, even though the entropy of the system as a whole increases. Considering that the site claims to make use of information theory, it presumably is aware of information entropy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_entropy It fo...

I've recently discovered Pat Condell's fine video collection . This is everything an atheist would like to say, but is far too polite to. Not Pat Condell. Stinging, delicious, and leaves you feeling very naughty.

I recently came across Nick Boström's article about the simulation argument , which goes that there is a non-zero chance that we are actually simulated individuals, and not actually made of carbon at all. It was spun out of The Matrix series of movies, though is a recurring theme right from Descartes and the Brain in a Vat. Key to this idea is the argument of substrate independence , that is, carbon-based cells are not the only possible way of conjuring consciousness. Surely it isn't the carbon-based molecules per se that cause consciousness, but rather their configuration, and the kinds of computation (if that's the right word) being performed. Surely any "computer program" that reproduces the workings of the brain sufficiently well would suffice, since its operation and outputs would be essentially identical to the biological brain. The simulation argument goes that we are not all that far from achieving that level of computation, so therefore there may wel...

The UK government has recently introduced legislation that any citizen is required to provide decryption keys for any privately encrypted data, or face a 2 year jail term. The excuse is that they need to "fight terrorism". This all sounds very Orwellian, where in George Orwell's book "1984", even a thought is a crime, and an invisible enemy is concocted in order to make the population more submissive. Sound familiar? Encryption is a technology that is out of the bag. The authorities are technically powerless to break strong encryption schemes, although they do have some very large computers to try to crack encryption keys. The numbers are always on the side of the individual however - no matter how large a computer the police have, you can use a key that is too large for them. The fundamental question is whether I should even be allowed to have secrets that aren't in my head? Is possession of information in itself a crime? Again, George Orwell's th...

The true origins of Christianity: http://www.sprword.com/videos/zeitgeist.html

Big Brother racism? There is a storm in a teacup about a contestant Jade Goody who made some remarks on the Big Brother TV series which could be construed as racist. I saw the program in question and she was certainly laying into Shilpa, and she certainly came across as a nasty bully. Racism is such a sensitive issue, and I'm surprised that none of the other housemates had a word with Jade before ruining her reputation on national TV. However I am really concerned that there are taboo topics, and some things that you aren't allowed to say. Speech should be free. In spite of racism being a real problem, I actually think we should be confident enough to have racist banter, in the same way that we can have sexist banter. It's a shame that we are still too insecure, and too afraid of being labelled racist. We live in a politically correct society. I have once or twice said things and immediately regretted them. For example I was once talking to a half-Indian whilst drunk...