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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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It says something about HS2 that, even at this late stage, such a sensible figure as Simon Jenkins is putting in a good word for Nigel Farage's advice to 'just walk away'. Since HS2 isn't exactly the first piece of infrastructure in being being overblown, over-budget and over here, it is time to take a deep breath and say
| No more big projects whatsoever. We can't do 'em. |
That means
no nuclear power stations
no public/private hospitals
no turnkey super-prisons
no estuarial bridges
no trunk motorways
no new railroads
no national sports stadiums
no urban tram systems
no... whatever I've forgotten
If private companies want to spend their money building big stuff that's all right by me. I hope they do. And that might include things like giant offshore windfarms and a new electricity grid. I hope it does. But otherwise let's all listen to Nancy Reagan and just say no. Preferably before they ask. Experience suggests it's already too late if it gets that far.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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1. It is clear that modern warfare requires drones and lots of them. This means that any sensible country will stockpile drones by the thousands (and millions).
2. It is clear that drone technology is advancing by leaps and bounds so any stockpile of drones will be obsolescent by the time they will be used.
This was the situation in the nineteen-thirties when wooden biplanes were being rapidly replaced by metal monoplanes which were themselves subject to constant change. The solution adopted was to
1. Build small stockpiles of current designs for the purposes of training personnel in the construction and use of metal monoplanes (and for use in exercises and minor wars).
2. Build shadow factories fully equipped with the wherewithal to build new types should a major war come.
Will we do this? What do you think?
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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In general terms drones are being increasingly used, what I think is required are the modern production lines, with robot technology to be able to mass produce these quickly at sites that are well protected by air defences, along with stockpiles of intelligent chips.
There are plenty of civilian uses for these drones now, the problem is that the British population fears being spied upon, so is resistant to widespread uses of drones, eg they will eventually revolutionise E-Commerce, you will get your orders via drone delivery.
It could be good for peace. I keep on arguing that rather than send peace-keeping troops anywhere, we should develop and offer the UN an integrated peace-keeping drone and troop force. It's good for peace and gives us the skills we will need.
That won't happen either.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Wiley wrote: | | In general terms drones are being increasingly used, what I think is required are the modern production lines, with robot technology to be able to mass produce these quickly at sites that are well protected by air defences, along with stockpiles of intelligent chips. |
Isn't that a shadow factory?
| There are plenty of civilian uses for these drones now |
I doubt there is much overlap. But then not many Spitfires and Hurricanes had civilian uses, though bombers and airliners mixed and matched a bit. And the DC-3 was soon flying me to the Isles Normandes rather than paratroopers to Normandy.
| the problem is that the British population fears being spied upon, so is resistant to widespread uses of drones, eg they will eventually revolutionise E-Commerce, you will get your orders via drone delivery. |
We are already reputedly the most surveilled country in the world thanks to CCTV and, speaking for myself, if I can get a pizza delivered while it's still hot, I'll put up with living in a police state.
| It could be good for peace. I keep on arguing that rather than send peace-keeping troops anywhere, we should develop and offer the UN an integrated peace-keeping drone and troop force. It's good for peace and gives us the skills we will need. That won't happen either. |
Agreed and agreed.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I'd like to recommend James Ker-Lindsay. His YouTubes are the most fair-minded and well-informed commentaries on current international affairs I have come across. Check him out.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I finally got a handle on this disability benefits business when some a-political dude slowly went through it on Newsnight. First off, it's definitely a British problem. Other countries had a surge before, during and after Covid, many have a permanently engorged 'disabled' sector, but nobody's had their balls broken like we have.
Second off, it's definitely a problem (if not necessarily of major dimensions). Soon it will be a third of the working population and be costing a hundred billion. So worth dealing with.
Third, it's definitely bureaucratic in origin. It may be as simple as now applying for it at home--on the computer or the phone--rather than as before, in person at the JobCentre. It's not so much that lying is easier--straight fraud doesn't seem to be a major consideration--as people actually applying. If it's half hour of idle form filling on the offchance, most people (a third of the population anyway) will give it a bash. If you have to make an appointment, go to the Jobcentre etc etc, you probably wouldn't bother.
The other Big Step was getting rid of the 'mild' diagnosis (£35 a week) and keeping the 'serious' one (£97 a week). They assumed the mild would be off the books, instead everyone was put on the serious tab. Who wants to admit someone that's already pocketed several thousand pounds of public money probably didn't need it?
But the real nigger in the woodpile is the fashionability of mental illness. For the first five thousand years of civilisation, nobody wanted to be thought a nutter. But by c 2000 AD there was something of a cachet attached to being a mild personality disorder. The increase is virtually all down to people, mostly young people, coming in with mental health problems.
I don't blame 'em. Being young is a nightmare.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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When you look at the total bill we spend on social protection as a pecentage of GDP, we are boringly about average for a European nation.
It's a bigger UK problem as other nations direct more of their spend towards support projects and prevention, whereas we tend to throw cash at the individual in their time of need, and then try to wean them off it when they hopefully recover (our NHS is the best in the world).
In short, our system will always be worse impacted by any major health shocks.
Try to look at the bright side, other European countries will have expanded their support and prevention services during and after Covid, and then used these services to get folks well again and back into the workforce. Those services don't come cheap. They will have spent more as well. They just spent and planned their way out.
We just kept upping our current spending (more ill people) and then hit on the idea as we were getting overrun.... this is not sustainable in the long term. Which it isn't.
We still don't have a plan. It seems they did.
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