Interesting Links for 17-05-2015

[andrewducker]

I concise guide to the current UK Cabinet. Well worth a read. (tags: uk politics conservatives ) JavaScript at 20 (tags: javascript ) Exercise alone won’t make you lose weight. (tags: exercise weight ) Beware Eurosceptic versions of history and science (tags: history science Europe ) How Many Americans Are Married To Their Cousins? (And how

Comments

[steer]

The Most Depressing Discovery About the Brain, Ever I'm not terribly surprised. I imagine I can sometimes come across as right wing because I correct my friends when they post articles using spurious facts or poor arguments to support beliefs I actually agree with

[steer]

And one final thought along those lines that may convince you that people are being more "rational" than you think: the "Aha, what about what they didn't know?" effect

[andrewducker]

I was having a discussion last night of how much media bias affected the last election, or the independence referendum. And how chunks of the people on "my side" in both cases sound a bit tinfoil-hattish in detecting plots.

But then stuff does come out where civil service people are leaking information to the press and announcing that because they _really_ didn't like the idea of independence, the normal rules of impartiality didn't apply. And then I wonder if sometimes I'm too anti-conspiracy!

[steer]

Well I think that's the viewpoint thing -- taking the "leaking information" thing, you see "conspiracy from supporter leaks information to the press supporting their political interest" I am seeing "heroic whistleblower releases facts that are important to question being resolved."

In a different universe where the vote went the other way there might be people thinking "why on earth wasn't I aware of that information before the vote?" (I mean if the RBS did have plans to leave then actually, I think that certainly should be brought to people's attention because it is really important and will influence how people vote... whereas I assume you think it should not in case it influence the vote.)

We all view the stories through our biases.

[andrewducker]

Oh, no. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be released - I'm saying that it was deliberately released in an illegal manner. I'd have been fine with RBS releasing that information themselves.

"The communication was also issued while the RBS board was meeting to discuss the matter and before the bank had first made a statement to the financial markets, breaching trading rules. "

I wasn't trying to say "That information should have been hidden", I was saying "There was a deliberate move by people who should have been independent to hand any information which would be useful to the No campaign to them."

[steer]

it was deliberately released in an illegal manner

That is the nature of the whistle-blower/leak debate certainly cf Assange, Snowden, Manning...

There was a deliberate move by people who should have been independent to hand any information which would be useful to the No campaign to them."

There was a move by people to release information which proved true and which we do not know would otherwise have been released. If it would have been released before the vote anyway then the net effect of the vote is nothing so they did no harm to the vote. If it would not have been released before the vote then we both believe it should have been.

[andrewducker]

The manner in which information is released matters nearly as much as the facts that are in it.

"LEAKERS PROVE THAT RBS WILL FLEE IF YOU VOTE TO DESTROY SCOTLAND!" has a different impact than "RBS confirm that they have plans in place to ensure that your money is safe, in event of Yes vote."

(Note: I work for a company who thought that they were releasing the latter, and were most upset to find it spun as the former - minus the "leaks" bit.)

[steer]

I see the two headlines as different spin on the same information (modulo the "leaks" part).

[andrewducker]

The leaks bit is rather important, as it makes it look like information was being kept secret in order to influence things.

(Rather than this being an unusually large bit of business planning for dealing with a change in regulations, by a company that is already dealing with numerous borders, what with being a massive multinational.)

[steer]

The information was being kept secret -- it was circulated privately within the company and those outside did not know about it. If it was not being kept secret then it would definitionally have not been possible to leak it.

Maybe the information would have got out there in the end, perhaps before the referendum vote... and maybe not.

[andrewducker]

It was being kept secret because it hadn't been finalised and was still being discussed by the board at that point!

You can hardly expect RBS to announce new plans they haven't finalised yet!

[steer]

As with any leak you could argue that the information would have come out eventually yes.

[andrewducker]

You certainly can when the board was meeting _at the point where it was leaked_ to discuss the release of the information.

And you're still missing the basic point here - which is that lots of people were dismissive of the idea that the civil service were involved in the No campaign at the time, calling it tinfoil-hat nonsense, and later on it turned out that, yes, actually, there were senior members heavily involved. Whether you approve or disapprove is beside the point!

[steer]

The thing is, to me your argument looks like this

[andrewducker]

" The startling thing here is that you're passionately arguing that the right course is that this information should be kept secret until it can be put out there in a manner more favourable to the political viewpoint you agree with in order to influence a vote in a direction you would like"

No, no, and no.

And you now seem to be actively ignoring what I'm actually saying for reasons I really don't understand, arguing against something that I never started talking about.

[steer]

You seemed to be arguing that he should not have released the information.