Experts know stuff that you don't

Michael Gove famously said during the EU referendum campaign that "we are fed up with experts". This from a man whose only qualification for being Education Secretary was that he went to school.

At the time it seemed laughable, but after the election of Trump I now realise how pernicious a concept it really is. Think about it for a moment: if you are told that it is OK not to trust experts, then who do you trust? Your "gut instinct" based on your own limited experience? Or the politicians telling you that experts are wrong and they are right?

Nowhere is the contrast between experts and lay-people more obvious than in the TV shows The Great British Bake Off and Strictly Come Dancing.

In the Bake Off there are 2 judges. They set the challenges, they taste the bakes, they choose a winner. Simple. Who better to decide the winner of a baking contest than the only 2 people who have tasted the results? And yet, look at the outrage on social media when people's favourite baker gets eliminated from the show. People actually stop watching (or say they do) because they disagree with the judges decisions. People who have not tasted the results... and probably don't even bake themselves at all.

On Strictly it is different. There is a panel of judges who have some influence
on the result, but ultimately the winner is decided by a public vote. The hosts actually tell you to "vote for your favourite" if you want to keep them in. So it is not a dancing competition as such, it is a popularity contest. In contrast with the Bake Off, my mother actually stopped watching Strictly because the best dancer didn't win... she hated the fact that the public vote trumped the judges.

Even worse; on Strictly the studio audience actually boo judges who make critical comments about dancers they like; and cheer judges who say nice things.

So in our popular culture there is an atmosphere that experts are at odds with the public and that public opinion, democracy, must win out.

Why? Because people are lazy. If you see something you don't agree with, then it is easier to ignore it or label it "fake news" than to check its accuracy. Experts don't always agree, so it is easier to ignore them, or pick the one you instinctively agree with, than to weigh up the different arguments and come to an informed opinion.

This is an area where mainstream media like the BBC are letting the public down. Instead of pandering to the 8 second attention span with shorter and shorter pieces, repeated over and over again. They should be offering an alternative to the intellectual deserts of social media.

Examine the experts. Become meta-experts if you like. Help the non-experts of the public to explore the options in as neutral a way as possible.

Worry less about politics and focus on facts. Lets stop reporting people's opinions as news. I really don't care what anyone says on Twitter.

People get stuck in social media bubbles that feed their own prejudices back at them in amplified form. It is toxic. But most people realise this and would like something better... at least some of the time.

Experts are not people who seek to control you. They are people who have worked and studied in a subject for a long time and understand it better than most people. Why would I think I know best on anything relating to economics or medicine or science or agriculture? I know a few things... but nothing about those subjects.

Michael Gove is a back-stabbing manipulating creep who shouldn't be in a position to make decisions over anyone's life. Let's deliver the ultimate smack down by learning to trust experts again.

Brexit is as brexit does

I am sick of hearing politicians bickering about Brexit. The media love a scrap. Especially one where there aren't many public facts that require leg-work to check. So expect months and months more of it.

People talk as if "the deal" for 2019 is going to be the EU / UK relationship set in stone forever. It isn't. Our relationship with other countries has evolved over at least a thousand years; and will continue to evolve for many more decades at least ... until Amazon, Facebook and Google own everything and nation states become irrelevant.

I would rather remain in the EU. But clearly that can't happen now, since we have already given notice (article 50) and there is no mechanism to cancel. If we did try to re-apply to the EU do you think they would let us back in? It would require a unanimous vote of the 27 ... so it only takes one to hold a grudge ... and France really took some convincing to let is in in the first place.

So we are leaving. People need to accept that and move on. We aren't going to make a good start out there on our own if half the population keep griping about the referendum for the next 20 years. "This is all because of Brexit" might be true, but you can't turn back the clock, and every journey has to start from where you are, not where you would like to be.

There has been a conflict in Britain for decades about whether we should be more like America or more like Europe. That's because we have unique ties to both of those continents. The people pushing for Hard Brexit are free market zealots who believe in a small state and a winner-takes-all society - that's because they already won, and want their families to keep winning.

Everyone else is either arguing for No Brexit or just slagging off the Hard Brexit people as stupid. They aren't stupid, they have a plan. What is a better plan? Where is the alternative vision? By the next election we will be out of the EU. If the opposition parties don't have a clear alternative to offer the people (52% of which wanted to be out) then we will be stuck on a path to Americanisation.

I really don't want that.

Xenophobia is a symptom not a disease

There are quite a few people living in my home town that my mother would call Johnny Foreigners (*) if she were still alive. Being an affluent place, they are almost all either students, self-employed or people with jobs. In other words, they all make a net contribution to the community.

I know this. I am a mostly rational person.

And yet there are times when I feel uncomfortable with them around me. I think that is called xenophobia.

Yesterday I was walking along and there were 4 young men approaching from the other direction. This was fine until I could hear that they were talking in a foreign language. Not just a language I cannot speak; a language I could not even identify. Suddenly I felt threatened. For just a moment.

So it was their language, not their appearance.

Actually, it was probably their gender too. Because previously I have noticed that when there are women walking near me talking a foreign language, I don't feel threatened in the same way. I feel alienated. Like I don't fit in... in my home town.

It was that last point that got me thinking. I hardly ever talk to my neighbours. When I do, I kind of get the impression that they are just being polite and would rather be doing something else.

So people talking foreign languages around me are not threatening my sense of community. Instead they are making me realise that I don't really have a community to be part of.

Am I alone in this? Is the anti-immigrant (xenophobic) sentiment stoked by hate publications like the D@ily M@il, and interfering morons like Donald Trump, really a symptom of the breakdown of community in the UK?

I think it could be a factor.

People seem to be spending more and more time (via their phones) with their family and close friends. And consequently less and less time with the people who live nearby.

Hell. I don't think I even know the names of the people who live more than 2 doors away from me. That is shocking, isn't it? If I went and knocked on their door they would probably think I was being weird... or after something.

How did this happen, and how can we fix it?

The next time you find yourself thinking something negative about a foreigner, ask yourself if you ought to just try being a bit more friendly yourself!



(* did people with that attitude always assume foreigners were male?)

My cat died

She was nearly 12 years old.

Sooty 2005-2017

The fact that I am calling her "my cat" is quite an achievement. My wife persuaded me that we should get a cat in 2005. I was quite reluctant. There is a joke that goes:

Women love cats; men say they love cats; when women aren't looking, men kick cats.

And whilst I never actually kicked the cat, I wasn't all that keen on it for the first year or two. Note the "it" there.

Time changes people though. And she was a very sweet cat. She would often come and sit on my lap... and she hardly ever scratched me, badly.

Cats become one of those constants in your life, like the Queen. They are always there and they change so slowly that you don't notice. We had a lot of bad things happen to us, and Sooty was always a reminder of better times.

That became abundantly clear to me in 2011 when my wife died. After that, Sooty was a walking reminder of her. It was a dark time, and Sooty helped me get through it. Maybe more so than any of my human friends. A cat never says the wrong thing.

And so here we are in 2017. It was a type of cancer called lymphoma, apparently. Which spreads quickly and is incurable. At least it was over quickly; I would have hated to see her decline and suffer over a long time. I was with her when she died.

Now it is just me.