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

[andrewducker]

No.

Because that is not the discussion I am having. It has never been the discussion I am having.

I am having a discussion about people believing in conspiracties or not, based on what evidence there is, how some people think there is a conspiracy when there isn't, and how I may actually have tuned myself to the point where I fail to spot conspiracies when they are actively there.

That's the conversation I was having here, and it's the one I've been trying to have ever since.

I am absolutely not debating whether people should or should not leak things, in what circumstances - because I frankly don't have all the information on that particular leak to hand, and so am not qualified to talk about what happened in that particular circumstance, aside from the fact that everyone denied at the time that the civil service was involved, and that they were claiming impartiality, and later on turned out not to be at all so.

[steer]

Apologies if I offended you. In this case, what you see as a conspiracy I see as absolutely reasonable behaviour.

[andrewducker]

Conspiracy: "a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful."

Now, I'm perfectly willing to agree on harmful here. But there was clearly a (1) secret plan, (2)by a group, to do (3)something unlawful.

I'm not sure if you think that (1) it wasn't secret, (2) that there weren't multiple people involved or (3) they weren't breaking civil service impartiality rules. But all three qualifiers here seem blindingly obvious to me.

[steer]

OK technically (3) isn't the same as unlawful but let's ignore that -- it's a conspiracy in the sense wikileaks or any other whistleblowing is a conspiracy.

Or to put it the way that I put things when people try to argue "taxation is theft" -- "OK, let's go with your definitions here, it turns out I, and most reasonable people, believe that sometimes, in some situations, conspiracies are absolutely brilliant and something we should completely cheer for and wholeheartedly support."

So it's a conspiracy -- but not in the way that people use the word conspiracy when they intend to argue that something is bad because it's a conspiracy.

[andrewducker]

But I was never arguing it was necessarily bad. We're both smart/educated to know that morality is subjective.

[steer]

OK, let me change the viewpoint -- if you argue this action falls into the class "conspiracy" I would argue that conspiracies are not something that can be regarded as "tinfoil-hattish" (which is the comment you began with) but in fact conspiracies are something we should regard as normal, expected and we should encourage in many circumstances.

[andrewducker]

But the "tinfoil hat" bit applies to the fact that they are secret, people are denying them, there's no evidence for them, and yet people persist in believing in them. Nothing to do with whether they are positive or negative.

Why would changing whether we're in favour of them or not matter?

Edit: Matter to the "tinfoil hat" bit. Obviously it matters to one's overall view.

[steer]

I'm struggling with your definition of conspiracy to be honest. I suspect we're talking at cross purposes somehow but I can't work out how.

In this case the "conspiracy" in question (we secretly plot to reveal true information to the public) was secret for a short amount of time (enough time for the information to be revealed before RBS could say "Oh, please don't" at which point all the relevant information was revealed and the "conspiracy" exposed, nobody rational could deny the "conspiracy" and believing in said "conspiracy" was completely normal.

[andrewducker]

In this case the "conspiracy" in question (we secretly plot to reveal true information to the public) was secret for a short amount of time (enough time for the information to be revealed before RBS could say "Oh, please don't"
Hang on - are you assuming that that was the total extend of the conspiracy

[steer]

Hang on - are you assuming that that was the total extend of the conspiracy?

Yes... and nothing you posted says anything different. You posted stuff about the motivation of the person doing the leaking and I argued from the start that his motivation is not the relevant thing here. Whether the civil servant in question posted it believing he was saving the union or believing fairies had told him to that's not really the point. The point is the information itself.

I will go back to what I said in an earlier post: whether you believe Manning release the "collateral murder" video because he's an honest soul trying to stop injustice or because he's an evil communist who's anti America doesn't change the truth of the video. If the reaction to that video is "the person who released this hates America" probably that reaction needs reevaluation rather than the information itself.

"Yes, I did it, and I'm glad, and I'd do it again." That seems, to me, the correct reaction. It would be a cleaner situation (in the case of the civil

[andrewducker]

The second case is nothing to do with the "right to know".

And you seem to be completely ignoring it, despite me repeatedly pointing you back to it.

Are you doing this to illustrate the original article? Or is there some reason why you think it's ok for civil servants to give biased advice to prop up one political point of view over another while claiming impartiality?

[steer]

You posted two articles there I was only talking about the first.

The second case mainly about the letter writing I've no particular opinion on. It doesn't seem like any kind of conspiracy (indeed quite the opposite since it's about a public letter) but do you believe there's more to it than stated in that article? For example you say civil servants gave biased advice but I can't find anything about that in the articles you linked to.

[andrewducker]

Right, so you agree that there were multiple people, at different points, deliberately acting on one side.*

In which case the conspiracy did go beyond a single event.

Yes?

*Again, whether we're in favour or against those acts has no bearing on whether they fit the definition or not.

[andrewducker]

Of course, given half an hour in a meeting - it's _not_ a conspiracy if you have multiple who all happen to do be on one side and aren't talking to each other.

So it rather depends if various senior civil servants are deliberately working together, or merely all acting in the same direction.

(And I have no idea which.)

[steer]

Ah... you suspect the two (person making speech and person leaking information) were working together somehow? It's not impossible but it's hard to see what benefits that collaboration would bring.

"I'm going to release secret information about a company I work with, this will support our political beliefs."

"Great, I'm going to make a speech supporting our political beliefs."

"Brilliant, how could we cooperate?"

"Um.... guess we should not do it on the same day?"