I see X community notes are being used by lefty eco twits to attack critics of EVs...

and around it goes

DaveS,
I haven't yet dipped into the Stalingrad series because it looked pretty daunting. Might jump right in at Tik's crisis since that'll probably give good enough coverage of what has broken him. Thanks for the pointer.

Yesterday Jo Nova told of Swedes and Norwegians not too happy about the European grid. Apparently not that keen on the umbilical to the UK either. IMO this whole "open market" idea is idiocy. Each country should aim for energy self-sufficiency, paying a premium to use interconnectors for rebalancing. Having massive flows across interconnectors at market prices is bound to make the whole thing fragile.

And today, Jo's on American climate scientists feeling threatened by Trump's return.

The underlying Guardian article (well up to Guardian standards) refers to a Pew Poll which found that public trust in scientists is down 10% on pre-pandemic levels.

I was wondering how that percentage was measured. Clicking on the Pew Poll link, and digging further down to the (rather complicated) questionnaire itself, it turns out the question is:

Scientists. How much confidence do you have in them to act in the best interests of the public?

FWIW, this is on the heels of asking the same question about elected officials, journalists, the military, religious leaders and business leaders.

The 10% drop is in percentage of respondents with positive responses. The offered responses seem calculated to herd people to one place. Here they are:

1 A great deal of confidence
2 A fair amount of confidence
3 Not too much confidence
4 No confidence at all

#2 and #3 are magnets for everyone and, given a trade-off between not being "fair" and having "too much" confidence, #2 is going to attract a lot of people. If I were wording such a survey (and didn't want to skew it), I'd have symmetrical questions using trust and distrust:

1 strongly trust
2 somewhat trust
3 somewhat distrust
4 strongly distrust

But I suppose I'm not a pollster.

TiKHistory is a good channel. He was more into military history but his highly detailed narrative of Stalingrad over countless episodes broke him (somewhere in his playlist you'll find a 'I'm a broken man' video) after which he had a bit of a reset and now tends to post more on historical-political-economic themes. But hopefully he'll complete the epic Stalingrad series one day.

Dave Jones did a 3-hour interview with Lee Felsenstein on the Amp Hour. Sound quality was so-so, but the guest was interesting having been in computers since the late 50s. (Perhaps his best known achievement was creating the Osborne portable computer in the '80s)

Not included in the show notes was his take on AI (would have been in the third hour, and it looks like they lost interest in making notes at two hours). Rather unoriginally, he refers to AI as artificial stupidity, but he was quite confident it would make a satisfactory replacement for a large number of jobs. Specifically "bullshit jobs" like the people who pad out documentation with boilerplate stuff. AI will do a worse job of it, but it doesn't matter and it'll be cheaper.

Listened to a few more TikHistory videos. Good listening, and his economics "lens" gives a different take on supposedly settled stories.

Did some rationalising on the podcasts I'm suscribed to. Kicked out an ABC show that used to be 1/3 worth listening to, but lately might be 1/12. Replaced it with Josh Szeps's Uncomfortable Conversations. He's a pretty firm leftie and seems a little more self-regarding than is healthy, but he's intelligent, and interviews interesting people. Confident it'll be a step up from the ABC stuff I ejected.

tomo,
Very welcome. I thought of it myself, but I bet it's far from original. I remember the pride and disappointment in my spoof of the Marxist slogan:

From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

It was over a century late to claim originality. Apparently cynics existed even in Marx's time, and he had the above thrown back at him very early in response to his version. Googling today, I see that it has become popular to associate the above with capitalism. Seems to me it's universal.

You in the U.K. do seem to be particularly well supplied with imbeciles in political office. We've got a grim crop here too, but, well... I suppose Starmer is of the school of management where you aim to surround yourself with less gifted people so you'll look good by contrast. That's setting the ministerial bar pretty low.

Anyhow, did enjoy Lammy's mangled metaphor of "a rat with its tail between its legs". I can imagine how pleased you must be to be hearing all he has to say.

tomo,
I hadn't previously listened to a whole Joe Rogan show. As well as the machismo on hunting and the like, there was a bit of "new age" stuff about people being spiritually interconnected, which seemed a bit weird (miles better than wokishness though).

Anyhow, I can see how he might be troubled if there's a gaggle of frustrated Democrats sticking pins in voodoo dolls labelled "Rogan". He can try them with logic — that Kamala had been invited, etc. — but doesn't he know that the unfairest thing in the world is a level playing field.

On toxoplasma, I wouldn't be surprised if its uncanny symptoms were an inspiration for Douglas Adams's Babel fish, and the logical disproof of the existence of God.

I'll need more of a hint on Rayner's weekend exploits. Googling turns up plenty about housing, but I don't see anything likely to earn her a university gong. Maybe there's been a breakthrough, and they finally have a Doctor of Hypocrisy?

The Conversation is certainly a beacon. Like a lighthouse, it's one to steer away from.

Quite enjoyed Brendan O'Neill's latest with Josh Szeps. I hadn't heard of him, but he was an ABC radio presenter who resigned on air (before he was pushed), making his views known while he was at it (best part: I’m a gay guy, but I hate Mardi Gras).

Anyhow, I don't suppose I'd agree with him on much politically, but strongly concur about the lack civil conversation with people you disagree with politically. IOW: the sort of conversation completely missing from The Conversation.