Posts tagged politics

The absurdity of banning end-to-end encryption

:: security, politics

[An old article I forgot to publish.]

The UK government wants to effectively ban end-to-end encryption for messaging. Even if this was desirable, it is not usefully possible. The effort wasted on this futile and stupid attempt to do the impossible would be better spent elsewhere.

Mickey mouse

:: politics

The tories are very keen that what they call ‘mickey mouse degrees’ be abolished, in favour of apprenticeships. At first blush, this seems to be just a depressing utilitarian idea. But then it seems at first rather odd, and then not odd at all.

The tory death spiral

:: politics, doomed

It is very hard to see what the tories think they are trying to do. They face an opposition which, while not particularly progressive, is a lot more progressive than they are. This opposition is also much more popular than they are. So what are they doing? They’re proposing policies which are even more extreme than the ones they’ve already enacted. Why?

There is no cabal

:: politics, doomed

Everyone wants to believe in conspiracies. Some people believe that the alarmingly far-right government of the UK is conspiring with shadowy plutocrats to enrich themselves. That government itself apparently believes in the ludicrous ‘15-minute city’ conspiracy theory, and that something variously known ‘the blob’ and ‘lefty lawyers’ is working furiously against them. Trump supporters in the US believe in more conspiracy theories than it’s easy to count. Their opponents believe that Trump is a sock puppet for Putin, or in various conspiracies called ‘disaster capitalism’. People on all sides think the Jews or, perhaps, the Muslims, are behind everything. Or is it the climate scientists?

Government by conspiracy theory

:: politics, doomed

Here is the British government’s new ‘plan for drivers’. And here is a quote from it:

We will explore options to stop local councils using so-called “15-minute cities”, such as in Oxford, to police people’s lives

We are now ruled by people pushing conspiracy theories: either knowingly because they think that provoking further divisions in society will keep them in power, or because they believe the conspiratorial nonsense they’re peddling to be true. I don’t know which is more terrifying, but in either case these people are grotesquely unfit to be in office.


Wayback machine link because rewriting history is pretty much certain here.

15-minute cities

:: politics, doomed

The government of Britain wishes to stop councils — councils elected by local people — implementing schemes where essential amenities are always within a 15-minute walk for their voters.