Noit

The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz. Makes me actively angry every time I think about it. The author throws out so many of these amazing sci-fi “what if” moral questions and then handles them in the most offhand, throwaway way, as if they’re annoyed that the question has been raised and want to get away from discussing it as soon as possible.

Examples include:

Q: is it ethical to give worms sentience, In secret and in defiance of a government that says giving creatures sentience should be discussed? A: yes, and you shouldn’t nark on the person secretly giving the worms sentience.

Q: is it ethical to genetically engineer an entire species to fulfil a role that might otherwise be done by unthinking machines? A: Yeah so long as you also genetically engineer them to enjoy that work and let them quit if they don’t like it.

Those aren’t loose interpretations of an ongoing plot. Each of those is thrown up and resolved within a few pages and then never mentioned again. Any of them could have been a great Star Trek episode. But instead they’re tossed away without discussion.

UPDATE: he's been cleared already, apparently the investigation was rushed and the deadline for submission has not yet been reached.

Can't believe that Rupert's "give me money to play pretend at doing real inquiries" might not be totally legit. Bet the inquiry will involve some really big dinners.

Yes, yes, death to FPTP...

The report, external took evidence up to August 2023

I bet that information has become dated incredibly fast, but I don't know in which direction. Iran's Supreme Leader seems pretty keen on lashing out wildly following the events of the last month or two, but also they've had significant loss of military assets and local capability. Does that put us at more of a risk of terrorist-style attacks?

Let's do the More or Less thing. Is that a big number?

• England has a land area of just over 13,046,000 hectares ^https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/land-use-in-england-2022/land-use-statistics-england-2022^
• 215,000 / 13,046,000 = 1.6% of England we're talking about here.

I'm big on environmentalism and regenerating England's natural habitats, but trading a percent or so of total land area to ensure people have homes seems like a no brainer. Ideally we'd build higher density to avoid having to continue suburban sprawl, but any homes > perfect homes that are never built.

Oof, can’t lie, that significantly impacts my desire to get the game. They did such a good job with 1+2 in fighting years of licensing rot, I’d assumed they’d have equivalent success with 3+4.

Yes, but Reform preaches Christian forgiveness for spousal abuse.

For those keeping track, they were elected with 5 MPs, dropped one due to bullying allegations / Farage feeling threatened (take your pick), gained one in a by-election by literally half a dozen votes, and now they’ve lost another due looks like COVID loan fraud.

This is what a party full of unserious people looks like.

Sure Start is BACK baby.