Normal people I know of have just arranged a three-household birthday party next Sat because it’s a week before Christmas and “what does it matter, if we’d be allowed to do it then anyway?”. The government’s wooly messaging on this issue is causing harm going far beyond Christmas
Am I furious with those people? Yes I am. Every single one of them. And not just because I have just decided not to go home even though my mum is really unwell because I don’t want to put her at further risk, and a vaccine is coming and I’m not going to fall at the last hurdle.
I am furious because I don’t want any of them to get Covid either just for being idiots.
But keeping people from doing unreasonable things to prevent them from causing harm to themselves and others is what law is there for. Heck, it’s what society is there for.
And this “if everyone looks after their own interests, then everyone’s interests are well looked after” argument is just as much of a crock of shite now as it was when Thatcher made it popular. We are all interdependent and responsible for each other.
The problem is that, left to our own devices, other considerations interfere.

But governments would do well to remember that and to act accordingly, rather than using law when its suits them and referring to (or even gaming) people’s “personal responsibility” when it doesn’t.

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More from @Cybermatron

15 Dec
Aaargh! I hate being “Reviewer 2” but once, just once would I like to peer review a well-written, well-structured article that isn’t clearly just a chapter of someone’s PhD with no further consideration given to how to turn it into its own, fully-fledged and coherent narrative.
Even if I agree with all your good intentions and nearly all of your arguments, if you don’t spend some time kicking this thing into shape before submission, there is very little a reviewer can do to get you published. Here’s a few tips:
1. Start by challenging yourself to cut the thing down by a third. Yes, always. You may not manage all of it, but it will force you to sharpen your argument and eliminate a lot of extraneous detail.
Read 16 tweets
29 Sep
Dear @Jeremy_Hunt , who just said on @Channel4News that “nobody could have predicted the current situation at Universities”, I will happily grant you access to my inbox so you can read the many email exchanges where my academic colleagues and I, you guessed it, predicted this.
Sadly we were ignored. We were ignored because your government does not view higher education as a public good, refused to provide financial support to Universities and thus forced them to lie to students that we could provide a “normal” student experience...
... to get them to enrol in programmes and sign accommodation contracts to prevent them from going under.
Read 7 tweets
26 Sep
What a pile of crock! A thread.
theguardian.com/education/2020…
“It is crucial that gender stereotyping is addressed in schools and discussed in age-appropriate ways with children and young people: it is also crucial that young people questioning their gender identities are supported and listened to without judgment...
... Suggesting to children that it is possible to be born in the wrong body is misleading, regressive and potentially very harmful, and it is good that the DfE has clarified that this should not be done.”
Read 15 tweets
12 Sep
In DP terms, I think loss of control is most closely linked to violations of the purpose limitation principle.
Like @mireillemoret said, this is then also connected to a lack of transparency and, I would argue, fairness (in the Art. 5 sense). But as far as algorithmic decision-making is concerned, purpose limitation is clearly where its at.
Having said that, I’m starting to get very suspicious of the concept of *control* (nevermind *property*) as our loadstar, given its current link solely to the individual data subject, who is mostly not equipped to exercise that control responsibly.
Read 12 tweets
11 Sep
Ok. I’ve done it. For the first time in my life I joined a trade union today.

What finally pushed me over the edge? My employer asking us to ensure that any video footage we record is sub-titled to comply with new disability legislation.
To be clear, I am not disputing that the University should do this. If we are using video recordings, sub-titling is imperative to ensure equality of opportunity not just for students with hearing issues but also for those whose first language is not English.
Listening to a recording is not the same as being in a room with your tutor. There will inevitably be comprehension issues. Sub-titling helps with those.
Read 19 tweets
26 Aug
So this article is interesting from an “f2f teaching” perspective mostly because it acknowledges that some of the variables remain undefined and require further research.
Those variables include what counts as “prolonged exposure” that increases risk, and where the low/high occupancy threshhold is, particularly indoors. Those seem to me the two most important ones, although level of ventilation and airflows come a close second.
I teach solely at PG level. This means that my class size is normally capped at 25 students. My Uni has recently informed us that on the basis of applying 2m social distance, there is exactly ONE teaching room in our entire building that is big enough to accommodate this.
Read 25 tweets

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