Recent posts

#31

Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread

Last post by Josquius - November 20, 2025, 04:17:55 PM

On Google, lately I've noticed the AI working. Text appearing saying "I think he is asking about x" and the like. I'm sure it wasn't doing that before.
It's usually wrong of course.

#32

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Tamas - November 20, 2025, 04:14:03 PM

Omg I agree with Simon Jenkins: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/20/unelected-lords-blocking-assisted-dying-democratic-outrage

I didn't realise we are the only non-Muslim country where bloody clergy can sit in the upper (or any) house just because they are the clergy.

#33

Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread

Last post by crazy canuck - November 20, 2025, 04:13:59 PM

Great, society will wallow in ignorance as Google spouts answers that cannot be sourced and are nonetheless trusted.

#34

Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread

Last post by Sheilbh - November 20, 2025, 04:12:15 PM

You think it will be sustainable?

It will be Google's search engine - that's the core of their latest message. At the minute they're summarising text and providing citations. That's significantly affecting publishers but, so far, seems to be increasingly accepted by users. The next stage on what they're announcing will be to replace the entire index of Google search with AI powered interactive experiences. I'm sure there will still be links in that experience - based on publisher experience, for a while users were initially unsure/untrusting and clicking through to the underlying source, now the number actually clicking through has collapsed.

I'd then add that if you get in on the AI personalised advertising you may end up never really needing to leave Google and your interactions powering more effective personalised advertising (with Google acting as creative agency, ad exchange, ad server and publisher).

Wouldn't be surprised to see something similar with Apple as I think AI will hugely help all of the platforms deliver the walled garden versions of the internet they've been building all along.

#35

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Josquius - November 20, 2025, 04:09:41 PM

We are really in a weird place on social media I noticed with LABOUR BAD just a default go to that can never be deviated from.
Yes they're terrible on some areas. Many areas.
But come on. This trial by jury stuff... Half the people don't realise 90% + of cases don't get a trial already or that basically all of Europe abolished trial by jury*.

*mostly over a century ago. Switzerland in Swiss style just last decade. France seems a bit of a key exception but it's rare.

#36

Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread

Last post by Zoupa - November 20, 2025, 04:04:15 PM

Honestly, the way things are going, being ruled by AI doesn't sound much worse than what is already happening.

"It couldn't possibly get worse."

... it can

#37

Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread

Last post by Jacob - November 20, 2025, 03:56:20 PM

You think it will be sustainable?

#38

Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread

Last post by Sheilbh - November 20, 2025, 03:52:05 PM

Joining the Meta AI powered personalised advertising in uses I think will be sustainable, Google recent announcement is making it absolutely clear that they are going very strongly on AI powered search. I wouldn't be surprised if we see it become the default and then only search on Google within a few years.

As I mentioned before publishers are in a really shitty position on this. Google are very robust on their line that if you want to be indexed for search they will scrape your site and they'll use it for indexing and training their AI - there's very little opportunity for an a la carte option. And all publishers are reporting a very strong fall in click through to underlying content from AI summaries and search results.

#39

Gaming HQ / Re: Europa Universalis V confi...

Last post by Sheilbh - November 20, 2025, 03:44:38 PM

Yes, I think that is the story. There is nothing wrong with decentralisation per se, but it is easy to become prey for centralising predators. In our own time the EU is one of the best places to live in the world, with prosperity and great culture, but it is militarily and politically impotent when faced with an aggressive shithole like present day Russia.

I can't remember his name now but that comparison reminds me of the neo-Medieval theory in international relations. I think it's from the English school.

But basically it argues that basically states exist within an international society and that we might be heading back into an era where individuals actually feel more loyalty to localities (cities, sub-national units) or to transnational forms (the EU, "liberal order" etc) with the state as a less central role. A bit like the Medieval era when you had very strong local and transnational forms and identities (cities, Christendom, republic of letters etc) and the state/national level was relatively weak.

Similarly, the French got to stomp around the HRE causing havoc for about 200 years (1618-1815). The HRE was fine as a culture and civilisation, but it took the rise of Prussia to stop the great powers using it as their sandpit.

I'm rather more sympathetic to the French on that one, but I am very anti-Habsburg

The midpoint of the EU campaign in 1587.  From that standpoint I don't think it was obvious that centralizing was a superior state building strategy. The two western European countries with a centralizing drive - England and France - seemed trapped in endless cycles where they would thrive under strong monarchs, only to collapse back into confusion and civil strife during the reigns of weak monarchs or long regencies. And of course that pattern would continue into the mid-1600s.   On the flip side, city states like Venice or city leagues like the Hanse seemed a viable alternative model.  The HRE and the Habsburg agglomeration had all sorts of problems but managed to project resilience and exert power pretty consistently.  The Ottomans were at their height despite granting significant degrees of regional autonomy horizontally and within regions through the millet system.

Maybe. In terms of 1587 - you've got Elizabeth and Henri IV at around that time who are both monarchs who subsequently provide very important role models/patterns for English and French leaders. So in some sense you're right that there are still cycles of violence to go - and perhaps because of that these are proto-golden ages looked back to nostalgically by subsequent generations.

I think I'd argue that the forces that were in play by the late 15th century were pointing in the direction of forms of centralising modernisation. In particular the forces that emergent modern states were able bring in the Italian Wars against condottieri is absolutely devastating. I'm not sure Italy ever really recovers from that point and becomes an increasing object of other great powers' politics/unable to assert any agency (like the rest of the HRE and RH says). But also I think the particular style of the Portuguese monarchy has sponsored the expeditions to the Indies which is transformative - to the extent that the Venetians are paying anyone for information on what the Portuguese are up to and putting their arsenal to work for the Mamluks to build an Indian Ocean fleet for them to kick the Portuguese out. I think in both cases the writing is on the wall for "traditional" Medieval more decentralised Europe (and, with Europe's discovery of the Americas and with colonisation basically acquiring the depth of effectively another Europe, also for the rest of Eurasia - though that's not clear then).

#40

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Sheilbh - November 20, 2025, 03:25:57 PM

I can see why people find the Right more comforting - no discussions or arguments in the open, gives you the illusion of things going swimmingly.

Nicest possible way - that's mad

My experience of the last Tory government was not peace and quiet on the right. But constant boiling rage, dissension and revolt as they had big rebellions that meant they weren't passing their core legislation, there were multiple votes of no confidence in their leaders and they burned through four leaders in eight years. And none of that was hidden. It was constant exhausting psychodrama briefed and counter-briefed all over the media - including (in fact particularly) in the Tory press (which makes sense - left wing papers have better sources in Labour, right wing papers have better sources in the Tories). It admittedly probably didn't help that for much of that time Labour was going through the exact same experience just without power

Having said that I think a fairly significant part of Labour's pitch was actually that they end that. Starmer's promise that he'd deliver politics "that treads more lightly in people's lives", "stability is the change" etc. As it turns out Labour has its own brand of psychodrama to offer. And it took six years of coalition government and two seismic referendums before the party had its nervous breakdown. All the problems Labour has it's having after eighteen months and having achieved nothing - which I think is a concern

Reading daily news that have standards yet craves controversy for clicks, like the Guardian, is very exhausting.

I sort of agree. I get we're not in a world like 1930 when the BBC could announce "There is no news today" and cut to a piano concert But for example I saw this today:

MoJ to remove right to trial by jury for thousands of cases in controversial overhaul

Exclusive: Courts minister says change needed to stop criminals opting for juries to delay cases, sometimes by years, and clear huge backlog

Which feels a little sensationalist, given as noted in the fifth paragraph, this is the government following recommendations from a review they commissioned by former senior judge Sir Brian Leveson. On the other hand I think it is fair given how the Guardian covered the last government which was always at a pitch of hysteria.

"Reeves is rumoured to be raising income tax, this is really bad according to a lot of people"
"Reeves won't be raising the income tax, this is really bad according to a lot of people"

So on this - I don't think this is a media problem, I think this is a Reeves problem.

For two budgets now we have had six months of the Treasury kite-flying various taxes and spending cuts. I think it's a strategy from a weak chancellor to see what measures might provoke least trouble politically - as opposed to her doing her job.

But I think we've now had several cycles where Reeves' political operation is, I think, materially hurting growth. I saw Andy Haldane, former Chief Economist of the BofE say he thinks that there's "without a shadow of a doubt" a link between poor growth and all the pre-budget speculation. But you see it in charts on consumer and business confidence and spending: it tanked when Labour won an election and Reeves and Starmer toured the country saying "it's worse than we expected" (as had been pre-briefed before the election) prompting speculation there'd be austerity or tax cuts, you see it in the run up to the last budget and the run up to this one.

I'd add that I also think even on a purely policy level it's fairly mad. You can have different views on a wealth tax or an exit tax (both briefed as possibilities by Treasury sources in the last few months) - but I'd suggest whatever your view pre-briefing that sort of tax probably renders it significantly less effective.

"Labour isn't tackling immigration so Reform is surging, this is really bad according to a lot of people"
"Labour is trying to address immigration, this is really bad according to a lot of people"
"We don't build anything, this is really bad according to a lot of people"
"Somebody almost built something, this is really bad according to a lot of people, luckily somebody else intervened in time"

On both of these - I've always said for the government to succeed they need to really upset a lot of the Guardian columnists.

I think there's the Nye Bevan line about power corrupting, but only opposition is comfortable - and sadly I think a lot of the soft left are still pretty comfortable (and I think the PM is probably in that group). Not yet confronting political or policy reality - again I think there are many echoes with the last government and right-wing columnists and similar swing of attitudes from appeasing to outraging them.