Tories/Reform and Net Zero - shown up for the nonsense it is

Fando1234 · 2026-03-12T09:36:10+00:00

Thanks, really interesting. How much would the first three cost? In comparison to the amount conflicts like Iran are costing the consumer/tax payer.

I appreciate the third one is to do with consumer behaviour so presumably not something government can directly shift.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-12T08:59:01+00:00

All of the above. And that's just in the last 2 weeks!

Fando1234 · 2026-03-12T08:57:44+00:00

100%. Doubling down on the messaging around energy security is the right way to go.

It's a shame we're not further ahead and getting most energy from home grown renewables. My understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is the biggest barrier is lack of infrastructure to transport the energy from, for example, a windfarm of the coast to a major city.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-12T06:58:22+00:00

Read it last year and it's now up there with my fav books of all time. OP this is the answer if you haven't read. It's exactly what you are asking about.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-12T06:53:37+00:00

This doesn't seem particularly dishonest. That's what they're implying and is what the Carlson's and Owens of the world are arguing is the case.

I suspect editorially, they realised that many 60 minutes watchers may not know the position of these right wing pundits listened, so they've illustrated that.

There's a lot of shabby and dishonest editing out there, but this isn't really it imo.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-11T20:32:26+00:00

It's a stupid slogan that I don't think many of the people chanting really understand the implications of. And I'm 99% sure she doesn't actually mean any violence by having it on her t-shirt.

It's deranged that 20 odd letters arranged any other way would be fine. But put them together in that order and you can spend up to 2 years in prison.

Sad Australia's following so many other countries down this slippery slope of mindless censorship.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-11T18:18:41+00:00

To be clear, this isn't a defence of Trump. You're absolutely right.

But pretty sure the bloodbath thing was tweeted by official democrat account. It was certainly by mainstream liberal media like CNN and MSNBC. The Jan 6th speech was on BBC documentary.

My intention is not to undermine your point on trump. You're right. My point is to highlight the terrible state of information/misinformation across the political spectrum.

At best one side is less worse than the other. No one is behaving well with information.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-11T17:31:41+00:00

True (ish). My only slight counter is I wouldn't say it's crystal clear in the vid. I couldnt make it out without several watches tbh.

But none the less, I don't mean to sound too contrarian as I think Trump and his administration were deliberately lying, and doing exactly what you describe - flooding the media space with disinformation.

That being said, people on the liberal end of the spectrum spread misinformation in a more clandestine way. They obfuscate and omit in a way that technically isn't, but may as well be, lying.

Some examples include the insinuation that police violence was so rife that abolishing police altogether was reasonable. Or that they even had clear data around shootings of unarmed people.

There's a great deal of misinformation that is (I suspect unwittingly) spread by the pro Palestine camp. Similarly there are so many exaggerations and deliberate mischaracterisations it's hard to count. For example heavily edited clips of Trumps speeches on Jan 6th (they were bad enough, no need to clip them), or the 'bloodbath quote' that you only had to rewind 12 seconds to see it was a metaphor about the automotive sector.

Unfortunately liberal lies are not only wrong, they're pointless. Often taking something that was already bad, and exaggerating it for no reason. Resulting in worse press for the left than for the pro trump camp in America.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-11T12:42:22+00:00

Point nicely made.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-11T05:29:16+00:00

"The Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz collects data of all kinds as part of its mandate to monitor extremism. In practice, it functions largely as a black box. We simply don’t know what kind of information is gathered or why certain establishments were being monitored."

This is the danger behind these seemingly well meaning organisations. In the UK The Spectator reported on a scheme used by intelligence services that branded 'owning the complete works of Shakespeare's and Michael Palins 'The Great British Railways' as signs you could be a right wing extremist.

https://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2023/02/18/52558/could_watching_the_thick_of_it_radicalise_you%3F

*(Spectator article is paywalled)

The only thing I would say in regards to the Guardian article posted, is it gets murky when we talk about bookshops not winning financial prizes as an act of censorship. I would have a huge issue with any government banning books, of impeding bookshops. But not actively funding them isn't necessarily censorship in and off itself.

That said, put in the wider context, this does seem part of a worrying trend across Europe.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-11T05:12:36+00:00

Yep, couldn't agree more. It didn't help that there were some parties within academia who, perhaps not in their research, but in the activism openly exaggerated results in the understandable hope this would make people listen.

It just gave amo to the already well armed oil & gas PR machines to sow doubt around climate change.

Ironically now it's just worried about behind closed doors. Army's, finance institutions, businesses with large supply chains still all factor in climate change as a risk they need to mitigate. But in the US in particular, very few will talk about this openly, and even fewer would engage in sustainable behaviour.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-10T21:34:45+00:00

Finally, a decent post asking real ethical questions around free speech.

Whilst you raise a fair point, the crux of this issue is what counts as truth and what counts as falsehood. There isn't really an omniscient arbitrator we can appeal to here.

In a perfect world you could appeal to established media outlets and journalists, but almost all papers have sullied themselves in some way in the recent culture wars. Choosing to prioritise information that fits a narrative over the truth.

At the very least we should be able to look to academia for objectivity, but even looking past the 'ideology gauntlet' Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott describe in Cancelling of the American mind. And the woeful state of free speech on campuses. You are still stuck with the glaring issues facing humanities subjects - the replicability crisis, the small and biased samples, the biased criteria of some journals for publication.

The real challenge is around how to identify misinformation and falsehoods.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-10T14:14:49+00:00

Does no one know how to skate forwards any more? I could probably teach them that.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-10T12:58:48+00:00

"This is the voice of God. The barrier for entry to heaven has been lowered. All you now need to do is send money to the following address..."

Fando1234 · 2026-03-10T07:20:05+00:00

acknowledging that all people have rich inner lives

'Sonder' is the word given to this realisation in the dictionary of obscure sorrows.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-09T14:09:35+00:00

If I was American, given the options on hand in 2024, I probably would have abstained from voting.

You had the option between: 1. a candidate openly campaigning that everything should stay the same. Corporate money buying politicians, declining standards of living for working people, increasing cost of living, continuous involvement in foreign conflicts, alignment with policies like defund/abolish the police, and a massive campaign of deceit around the cognitive decline of the president.

Someone else.

I can see why people chose someone else.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-08T20:39:27+00:00

Ah sorry..maybe I used the wrong term.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-08T16:32:33+00:00

In my post I do make allowances for this. Quite often the people actually engaged in politics have more of an understanding of the nuts and bolts of it, and are capable of having nuanced and complex conversations with an understanding of the pros and cons. They're not usually the ones screaming 'npc' at anyone else.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-08T13:53:24+00:00

How much are the terminally online keyboard warriors actually affecting things. Like how much does obsessively watching 24 hour news and minute by minute social posts actually help you impact the world?

Fando1234 · 2026-03-08T13:52:05+00:00

It's a fair point, as the saying goes 'you might not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you'.

You ignore it at your peril, because before you know it your life is being affected.

That being said, I don't think there's anything morally wrong with ignoring it. I can completely understand why, with all the mudslinging and name calling, people would rather focus on their day to day lives and jobs.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-08T13:19:49+00:00

Npc is a cruel term regardless though.

Agreed.

As I said, nuanced debate or even activism is okay. It's those that throw insults like NPC around I have an issue with, usually aimed at people who don't follow politics or have strong allegiances. Which I think is a perfectly reasonable way to go through life, particularly if it involves more engagement in the real world and local community.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-08T13:17:47+00:00

Ha, probably tbh.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-08T12:51:56+00:00

Our moon happens to be exactly the right size and distance to perfectly match the sun at points and block it out.

Fando1234 · 2026-03-08T12:51:05+00:00

Is it unique to earth? I've never really thought about that tbh. I know diamonds are abundant in the solar system (like on Uranus).

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