Kind: Notes

“[…]the traditionally secretive world of diplomacy is now being acted out on social media. The governments of 169 countries (88 per cent of all UN members) are now on Facebook, and Denmark even has an Ambassador to Silicon Valley.”

I understand governments making use of new communications technologies.  But when that channel is in the control of one organisation with no accountability, it is concerning.  And a country having an ambassador to the tech industry shows the disproportionate power it has.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3csy65z

Full Fact is very helpful.

I was listening to a podcast which said around 40,000 EU citizens working as NHS staff had left since the Brexit vote and we’re facing a huge shortfall.

It’s a bit more nuanced than that reading the Full Fact page on it: https://fullfact.org/health/eu-staff-nhs-what-has-happened-referendum/ 

While there does seem to be a slight trend of EU citizens saying fuck this I’m off, I’m not sure the original figure is something I can legit post angrily about.

Bit boring checking facts all the time.  I like social health care and I like Europeans though, don’t need no numbers for that.

Reading more Iain M. Banks. Use of Weapons. It’s good. His writing style has gone from super linear and rip roaring to totally nonlinear and introspective in the space of a couple of books. I’ve enjoyed all of them so far. This one is much more comical too. The Culture is getting more morally ambiguous by the book as well, which I like. Love a bit of moral ambiguity.
Went to a talk by Shoshana Zuboff today about surveillance capitalism and her book on it. I would like to read the book. Anyone read it? From the talk I got the impression that she has provided a very rigorous analysis of the problem, but less of a prescription on how to resist and change. But I think that’s acknowledged, as she herself said ‘naming is a first step towards taming’.