Thread by @Gilesyb

@PipsFunFacts Damn, I wasn't hoping to reread it that soon, at least not without a strong coffee and some willingness to browse the links. But from what I skimmed:

@PipsFunFacts I would be slightly politer than @t0nyyates (but think this is worth reading)

https://twitter.com/t0nyyates/status/1212821257277841408?s=20

but my fear is:

- as my snark implied, he mischaracterises the nature of the government problem - odd for a man of some great political insight. It isn't a science project

@PipsFunFacts @t0nyyates And he probably extrapolates far too much from two key formative experiences: the success of Vote Leave, which most of my sort characterise as "dressing up a bad thing as a good thing, well done", and the frustration of the Blob in DFE, which may or may not be justified

@PipsFunFacts @t0nyyates Finally, as Tony implies: there is an almost industrial-scale harvesting of zeitgeisty TED talk style intellectual talking points: machine learning, AI, prediction markets, SuperForecasting, etc - with such gigantic optimism that it just keeps reminding me of the 1950s....

@PipsFunFacts @t0nyyates when a lot of economists and scientists thought they could "solve" big issues with planning, and came a (long time fuse) cropper - and were extrapolating the one-off recovery from the 1930s slump, the explosion of general purpose technologies used in WWII, etc

@PipsFunFacts @t0nyyates the contrast between this and the actual stuff of government is quite jarring. You cannot Machine-Learn your way past the unavoidable trade-offs of the benefits system, SuperForecast vault over the huge economic cost of net zero, Prediction Market the northern towns to prosperity

@PipsFunFacts @t0nyyates But hey! he is an optimist. We should welcome that. He is an optimist, with power, trying (with the exception of Brexit, most would say) to do the right thing, with some energy. It will be interesting to watch. Just don't be intellectually cowed by it, there is no cause to be