Westminstenders: PreGrades (Minority Report comes to the UK)

[RedToothBrush]

In Aug 2020, London, DC's prototype 'PreGrades' launched from the education department stops plebs before they go to university, reducing the social mobility rate to zero percent. Social mobility is predicted using specialized mutated humans, called "Teachers", who "predict" grades by marking shit lots of course work and exams over a period of years. Would-be social climbers are knocked down in a computer algorithm which distorts reality and hits the disadvantaged hardest. Central government is on the verge of adopting the controversial program nationwide by applying it in all departments from the DWP, the Home Office, the Department of Health and the Department of Justice to predict benefit fraud, getting sick asylum seeking and crime before it occurs.

DC's vision of the future is based on excellence being genetically ingrained into the elite but he must sell this vision to the unsuspecting public in a series of public votes which rely on the idea of the 'undeserving'. Little do they know that they too will be the victims of this plan until a mysterious bug appears and only the wealthy and well connected are able to get hold of adequate PPE and they are no longer able to buy bog roll nor retire to Spain as they had previously and endless queues for pizza form near Kent.

@squid4

My country

How are you, squid? Been thinking about you and your colleagues.

Technology can either amplify or dampen human biases. Keeping control of an individual's information in their own hands is one way of ensuring it's not the former. I listened to episode 141 of Ed Miliband's Reasons to be Cheerful podcast which interviewed a woman from Estonia about how their almost entirely digital citizen-government interaction system works. I'm not a specialist in the subject but it seemed on the surface at least to meet the criterion of individual control.

But that would never fly in the UK.

My dad got back from France on Tuesday after visiting db.

I am owned by have strange cats They like their cat basket - had to take them to the vets two weeks ago and we haven't got round to putting the cat basket back in the garage, so it's sitting in the bottom hallway

PMK with sunflowers. They are a cool 8 feet.

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@HoneysuckIejasmine Thanks for asking. I'm ok. We are all a bit exhausted and demoralised but what else is new...

I feel on the verge of "something" but I'm not quite sure what that something is. Quitting, leaving, rioting... something. I'm scared of something snapping but I'm also finding this unbearable. I feel very privileged and like i can't complain because I have a job and scared for my country. I feel completely exhausted by this exhausting year, and I know I've had it easier than most. Every patient has a covid tragedy to tell me. I am angry or upset every single day, I have never known a year like this. I am working a lot. 12+ hours in masks in hospital a shift is tiring. We don't have air conditioning. COVID19 cases seem to be swarming in numbers but not attacking right now. Keep losing doctors to random 14 day self isolation. It's exhausting. The younger doctors aren't exactly quitting right now but they are ... lining up their ducks. Not committing to training posts. Still around... for now... taking temporary jobs, with exit plans.

I thought I had run out of things to be angry about but I'm pretty upset about the poor A level students. I don't even know any personally. Medicine has tried, not very successfully, to widen its intake for many many years, and I feel like we just went about 50 years back in time. I was an overachiever at an average secondary school, back in the day.

Still no deal brexit to come...

Welcome back, squid. How are you doing?

Your picture set off the theme tune of Gloire de mon Pere in my head, AuldAlliance. I hate all the bird shooting but the scenery's magical.

www.nme.com/news/non-uk-musicians-will-need-visa-to-perform-in-the-country-from-2021-2612337

Non-UK musicians will need visa to perform in the country from 2021

We are managing to push through some good changes in hospital due to covid19 so that's one thing

Lewis Goodall with examples of disadvantaged kids who have lost places at top Unis:

https://mobile.twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1294679384343949312

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Bodoni
You're not far off...
Still way too many hunters of all sorts round here for my liking, making weekend hiking or cycling dangerous for several months of the year.
I cycled past two hunters, complete with guns and dogs, this morning although the season hasn't started yet.

Several key scenes in Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources were also filmed in the villages around where I live.

Although some arsehole thought that fountain would be enhanced by the addition of this soulful statue, which makes me want to commit vandalism every time I see it (not often, as I avoid it...). Emmanuelle Béart should sue, frankly.

I wonder what the French for tacky is ...

There is a middle ground between "de mauvais goût" and "une grosse merde" just waiting to be filled.

I'm still they allowed it, TBH

Thanks for the new thread RTB. I keep wondering what will be the tipping point for people to turn against the government. How much worse will things get?

@squid4
Interesting
I spent sunday night and most of Monday toing and froing from the A&E and then AMU units of our local massive hospital
they have no covid cases
have not done for a few days
despite Bournemouth
but the disruption of COVID has negatively impacted every other treatment area

PMK with a general feeling of but hey, apparently all this is what The People Knowingly Voted For, right?

pmk

DC's vision of the future is based on excellence being genetically ingrained into the elite but he must sell this vision to the unsuspecting public in a series of public votes which rely on the idea of the 'undeserving'.

Surely that is British politics since the days of Disraeli, in a nutshell?

See also the 'whack-a-mole' theory of finite resources (from the previous thread).

Thanks red

I honestly have no words. But if I did, they would all be “aaargh”.

mobile.twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1294734305692979201

Christopher Hope
@christopherhope
EXCLUSIVE Sunday @Telegraph splash
Public Health England will be scrapped and replaced by a new body to protect country against a pandemic next month
Matt Hancock to merge Covid-19 work of PHE with NHS Test and Trace to create National Institute for Health Protection

Christopher HopeMemo
@christopherhope
3h
A senior minister says the change is needed so country to prepare for possible second coronavirus spike: "The National Institute for Health Protection’s goal will be simple: to ensure that Britain is one of the best equipped countries in the world to fight the pandemic

Christopher HopeMemo
@christopherhope
The change will be "effective" within the next month but it will take until the spring formally to complete the organisational change of breaking up a large organisation. A source said: "It will be in place by September."

So in order to prepare for a potential second wave this winter, they’re putting together an organisation that won’t be ready until next spring? I’m sure that will go swimmingly well. ..

By badging it a ‘national institute’ with references to the UK, are they trying to bring the devolved administrations to heel? To harmonise the public health/infection control arrangements in the 4 nations (to bring everyone down to England’s level)?