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England's A' Level results are a perfect microcosm of our society: the more privilege you already have, the more benefit of the doubt you get going forward.
Lazy Kid at Expensive Public School:
Grades Marked Up.
Hard Working Kid doing well at poor State School:
Marked Down.
Lazy Kid at Expensive Public School:
Grades Marked Up.
Hard Working Kid doing well at poor State School:
Marked Down.
This is how we ended up with incompetent Ministers causing a massacre as a result of their inability to grasp basic models of risk management. Even the supposedly smartest guy in Government didn't understand modelling under conditions of severe existential risk.
But: Dinghies!
But: Dinghies!
This article, co-authored by the author of "Black Swan" & "Anti-Fragile", who actually understands what he's talking about & isn't some huckster posh boy who feels the need to redraft his old blogs to make it look like he predicted the pandemic, nails it. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/25/uk-coronavirus-policy-scientific-dominic-cummings
"Dominic Cummings loves to theorise about complexity, but he’s getting it all wrong"
'The error in the UK is on two levels. Modelling and policymaking.'
...
'The error in the UK is on two levels. Modelling and policymaking.'
...
'First, at the modelling level, the government relied at all stages on epidemiological models that were designed to show us roughly what happens when a preselected set of actions are made, and not what we should make happen, and how.'
'The modellers use hypotheses/assumptions, which they then feed into models, and use to draw conclusions and make policy recommendations. Critically, they do not produce an error rate. What if these assumptions are wrong? Have they been tested? The answer is often no.'
'For academic papers, this is fine. Flawed theories can provoke discussion. Risk management – like wisdom – requires robustness in models.
'But if we base our pandemic response plans on flawed academic models, people die. And they will.'
[AND THEY HAVE.]
'But if we base our pandemic response plans on flawed academic models, people die. And they will.'
[AND THEY HAVE.]
The article makes clear how catastrophic Cummings's overweening arrogance & over-estimation of his own abilities have been in terms of their impact on England's deadly & callous response to pandemic has been. Don't forget it, even if they reduce death toll to zero by next year.
As we watch unemployment soar into millions, companies tank, inequality proliferate, society fragment, look abroad to countries that handled things better & understand:
IT DID NOT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY.
DO NOT LET GOVT BLAME REFUGEES.
THIS IS NOT A DRILL. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/08/why-britain-failed-coronavirus-pandemic/615166/?utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2020-08-12T05%3A00%3A34
IT DID NOT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY.
DO NOT LET GOVT BLAME REFUGEES.
THIS IS NOT A DRILL. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/08/why-britain-failed-coronavirus-pandemic/615166/?utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2020-08-12T05%3A00%3A34
