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.

In the Economist it stated that they had got married which I was very surprised to read ...

Not sure if they would do a wedding as his kids would pull amazing faces on the day

There should be a marriage certificate to prove it. You would think he would go for maximum publicity. Still, if she is his wife now, there is a vacancy.

Peregrina
Finding the cert would be easy if we had the foggiest where he'd been over the last few months
and the records offices were up to date

[quote BigChocFrenzy]**@RedToothBrush This article very much fits the themse of your Minority Report OP:

Students challenging the A-levels debacle have exposed the anti-democratic politics of predictive models

[[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/19/ditch-the-algorithm-generation-students-a-levels-politics]]

The injustices of predictive models have been with us for some time.

The effects of modelling people’s future potential
– so clearly recognised and challenged by these students –
is also present in algorithms that predict which children might be at risk of abuse,
which visa application should be denied, or who has the greatest probability of committing a crime.

Our life chances
– if we get a visa,
whether our welfare claims are flagged as fraudulent,
or whether we’re designated at risk of reoffending –

are becoming tightly bound up with algorithmic outputs.
Could the A-level scandal be a turning point for how we think of algorithms – and if so, what durable change might it spark?

Resistance to algorithms has often focused on issues such as data protection and privacy.
The young people protesting against Ofqual’s algorithm were challenging something different.

They weren’t focused on how their data might be used in the future, but how data had been actively used to change their futures.

The potential pathways open to young people were reduced, limiting their life chances according to an oblique prediction.

The Ofqual algorithm was the technical embodiment of a deeply political idea:
that a person is only as good as their circumstances dictate

The metric took no account of how hard a school had worked,
while its appeal system sought to deny individual redress,
and only the “ranking” of students remained from the centres’ inputs.

[/quote]
BCF I was aware of it going on elsewhere in some form, just not exactly where it was being used.

Big data is fucking scary. DH working in tech has seen some of the stuff that is being used and its terrifying.

I think at some point there will be a wholesale backlash against it. But for now, our privacy laws and data protection is in no way strong enough.

It's no wonder if the most deprived kids don't think they have a future, when government data predicts they don't either .... and then treats them as if it is a done deal

Why on earth would the public need to hunt for a marriage cert for their PM

• it's only on MN that people do weird things like hiding marriage from everyone !

imo more noteworthy to hide his marriage, if he has indeed done so, than not to marry
(Either of them may not be that keen either on the relationship, or its formalising)

Politicians normally love the chance to parade something wholesome like a wedding, good for anyone's image.
Maybe planning it for a time when they can have a big celebration without looking crass.

It's no wonder if the most deprived kids don't think they have a future, when government data predicts they don't either .... and then treats them as if it is a done deal

.....while all the time talking about "levelling up". I got into an argument/discussion on another thread about this, when someone was extolling Gove's efforts who apparently wanted to do something to improve the chances for disadvantaged children. I said that he had a funny way of showing it.

ICouldHaveCheckedFirst - I haven't had a chance to talk to my neighbours yet, whose two boys go to that school. It seemed a bit ghoulish to go running across the road to get the gossip

Me: rumour has it the power couple at no10 arent getting married
Dh: I didn't think Dominic and Boris were in a relationship...

@BigChocFrenzy

Why on earth would the public need to hunt for a marriage cert for their PM - it's only on MN that people do weird things like hiding marriage from everyone !

imo more noteworthy to hide his marriage, if he has indeed done so, than not to marry
(Either of them may not be that keen either on the relationship, or its formalising)

Politicians normally love the chance to parade something wholesome like a wedding, good for anyone's image.
Maybe planning it for a time when they can have a big celebration without looking crass.

Or there is an election coming up and they want good pr.

Or theyve news they need to bury. Badly. (plenty coming up, which would do well with being kept off the front page with a nice bridal photo)

That plus, im willing to bet Johnson wants a good ole party with more than 4 people in attendance under his own covid rules. Cant get away with shagging the bridesmaid or having a raucous stage do atm.

I'd not heard anything about schools in Scotland having outbreaks. I had to search specifically for it on the BBC news homepage. Talk about burying bad news.

The implication seems to be this far that it's community transmission to a pupil, rather than transmission within the school?

There should be more space at universities next year because EU students start paying international fees.

But international fees bring in oodles more money to the universities, so even admitting more UK students next year isn't going to solve the universities problems.

@RedToothBrush

Me: rumour has it the power couple at no10 arent getting married Dh: I didn't think Dominic and Boris were in a relationship...

... 😂😂 .... 💩 at the thought of consummation ...

Meanwhile view from Germany on Brexit negotiations looks about right:

"I've got new plans.

Right here, in my right-hand pocket.

If you'd like to take a look..."

It's no wonder if the most deprived kids don't think they have a future, when government data predicts they don't either .... and then treats them as if it is a done deal

The number of times I've heard rich middle class people refer to disadvantaged youngsters as unemployable. It's the internet, some of them are doing it for reactions, but it is a common opinion, merely some of us express it with sympathy rather than disgust. I said myself that they don't have a chance. There is so little room now and so few chances left. Where now for this shitshow of a country.

Honeysucklejasmine - the "school outbreaks" do appear to be community transmission rather than school transmission - especially as the "first" cases were on the first day the schools went back So as such, to be fair, it's not really news - unless that fact that it's being acted upon really quickly is "news" . As yet, as far as I can make out, there's no evidence that there has been any in-school transmission - but that could always change.

It's been covered a lot in the Scottish Government's daily Coronavirus briefing - although the news about the primary school local to me was after today's briefing.

The number of times I've heard rich middle class people refer to disadvantaged youngsters as unemployable.

I suppose they always thought like that, but thinking now of post war Britain, back then there were a good range of decently paid manual jobs that men at least could go into, so the upper middle class didn't need to worry about the working class.

There wasn't a great lot for women, about the only apprenticeships for women that I can think of were in hairdressing.

pretty
Heaven forfend! You generally have your ear to the ground

Honey
The news articles are easily found on the Scotland section within news.
They are probably not popping up on the main (UK) section because they don't meet the threshold for clicks (algorithms again!)

There have been localised outbreaks in the central belt plus Dundee. Several have been linked to house parties.
Aberdeen has had its lockdown extended.
There's also been a cluster in a food processing factory (29 cases).
Today's main Scottish story is that nearly 700 may have contracted it at work.

Oh, more schools than I realised. See
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53833823

And it's nearly 600 people, not 700.

[[
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53831643 ]]

That last link was the total number since the start, though there are doubts expressed in the article about accuracy.

Good summary on Scottish situation in this article:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53837337

(interesting that the SG estimate is that there are only a few hundred infectious people in Scotland at the moment - between 125 and 300).

interesting that the SG estimate is that there are only a few hundred infectious people in Scotland at the moment - between 125 and 300
Seems utterly reasonable to me
and younger fitter kids will shake it off without going near a medical centre
(75% of new positive tests are healthy)
so its all a bit of a non story

Yes I found them in the Scotland section. But with schools in Enand due to return soon, and many thinking along lines of seeing how it goes in Scotland to judge safety, it seems odd that it's not been picked up more. Surely someone decides what goes on the front page? It's not purely algorithm, they still have editors.