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gonzo21 February 11 2016, 12:17:40 UTC
Wait, so twitter swore they weren't going to start re-ordering tweets via algorithm to control what people see a few days ago, and now they're announcing that this is exactly what they're doing now?

And I bet you the difference between Scotland and England's attitudes towards remaining in the EU boils down to there being far fewer immigrants and refugees up here in Scotland.

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sashajwolf February 11 2016, 14:46:33 UTC
Maybe. Scotland has 8% of the UK population and 10% of the refugees, so per capita it's living up to its responsibilities slightly better than the rest of the UK, but it's true that it has a 7% immigrant population compared to 13% across the UK as a whole. That percentage is rising far more rapidly than elsewhere, though - and there's no rational reason that should be considered a bad thing, since the evidence is that immigration is either a wash or a slight economic benefit.

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gonzo21 February 11 2016, 14:57:16 UTC
Aye, but if you go outside Edinburgh or Glasgow, it's pretty damned rare to see a non-white face.

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sashajwolf February 11 2016, 15:12:00 UTC
Statistically that usually leads to more prejudice rather than less - the most prejudiced areas in England are those with the lowest percentages of refugees and immigrants - so we can look forward to seeing anti-immigrant and anti-refugee prejudice in Scotland decline further as populations become more diverse.

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momentsmusicaux February 11 2016, 13:25:07 UTC
> If you win at something, you're more likely to cheat.

I agree with your analysis.

Also, they should call that 'the Gurgeh principle'.

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andrewducker February 11 2016, 14:19:59 UTC
Adam Fenton pointed out that it was also "Loss Aversion".

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simont February 11 2016, 17:09:18 UTC
Also, they should call that 'the Gurgeh principle'.

It put me in mind of the Asimov story Mirror Image, but now I see you say that, your fictional example is better.

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momentsmusicaux February 11 2016, 13:27:08 UTC
I've decided The Spectator is a total sack of shit and I'm not going to believe anything written in it. A few months ago on the train I spotted a copy and had a read, and it was a climate change special, and full of the most appalling climate change denial junk.

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momentsmusicaux February 11 2016, 13:28:07 UTC
Most of its columnists seem to be old middle-to-upper-class gits whose main thrust is 'but surely things are fine as they are'. Gurgeh principle ;)

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andrewducker February 11 2016, 14:20:19 UTC
I agree with your analysis of The Spectator.

But also feel that the government advice is on really, really shaky grounds here.

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brixtonbrood February 11 2016, 18:38:04 UTC
The More or Less Radio 4 analysis seemed to suggest that the benefits of moderate consumption were indeed overstated unless you're a postmenopausal woman (a lot of teetotallers used to be poorer and that's why they died younger), but that because almost everybody apparently routinely understates their consumption in surveys the figures that the risk/benefit analysis are based on are also about 50% too low.

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Coco bonds: what are they and why have they hit bank sh cartesiandaemon February 11 2016, 13:51:26 UTC
I wonder if there's any better way of organising government guarantees. Like, now so much is online, maybe people could have bank accounts with the government directly which are completely guaranteed, and not tied to the health of a bank which also does investing. Like government bonds, but convenient. Except it would make it that much easier for the government to confiscate people's money.

And I guess, it would funnel the entire "savings reinvested in the economy" through the government rather than bank lenders which would be a gigantic change.

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RE: Coco bonds: what are they and why have they hit bank sh andrewducker February 11 2016, 14:21:50 UTC
The government only guarantees the first £75k. Anything over that isn't guaranteed. Whereas the bonds in these cases are for people loaning huge quantities to the banks. And those absolutely shouldn't be guaranteed. They're commercial loans from entities big enough to manage their own risk.

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RE: Coco bonds: what are they and why have they hit bank sh drdoug February 12 2016, 09:00:26 UTC
Surely this only looks like a remotely good idea if you assume that interest rates are negligible or negative for the medium to long term. Otherwise it is more transparently nationalisation of the retail banking sector (in normal times, holding people's savings and lending it - or multiples of it - out is a lucrative private business), and that's ... a lot further in terms of state control of the economy than I am happy with.

It also wouldn't solve the big problem here, which is systematic effects of the failure of large banking institutions. The impact on private savers of a large-scale failure can be politically important, but economically relatively small. Remember Lehman Brothers didn't deal with ordinary retail investors.

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How the movie Airplane! is like Gilbert and Sullivan cartesiandaemon February 11 2016, 13:52:28 UTC
I often love films like that, which are funny, but completely deadpan from the characters. Airplane is SO ridiculously I hadn't realised that was the case :)

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Re: How the movie Airplane! is like Gilbert and Sullivan resonant February 11 2016, 14:09:16 UTC
And it is even more funny when you realize it was a line-by-line parody of the movie "Zero Hour".

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kalimac February 11 2016, 14:35:04 UTC
The interview from which I quoted Jerry Zucker discusses that.

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RE: How the movie Airplane! is like Gilbert and Sullivan a_pawson February 11 2016, 15:54:17 UTC
Airplane is IMHO the funniest film ever made. What makes it so great is that there are simply so many jokes of all types. From slapstick, surreal humour, right through to some fairly technical jokes about ATC, it includes pretty much every type of comedy. It was also written in such a way that there is a gag roughly every 10 seconds. Not everyone finds every joke funny, but they come at you so thick and fast that if you miss a couple it doesn't matter. This I find a flaw in many modern film comedies - they contain only a handful of jokes, all of which are seen in the trailer.

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