Dominic Cummings

I wonder why you bother with GN, if you honestly think it makes no difference.

That point was that this is a chat forum, nothing discussed on here will influence Government policy.
Even if politicians come on GN to ask for opinions, I doubt that they take the slightest bit of notice when decision making, unless it is near election time.

I have to acknowledge that I've learnt a lot on GN but I am not an influencer.
Any of my family who are out there making a difference wouldn't have the time or inclination to spend on GN anyway.

I think there is a change in how people object too Alegrias1.

We now have a great deal of what Tony Judt called, in Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century (2008), the "neo-Fascist right, whose program constitutes one long scream of resentment - at immigrants, at unemployment, at crime and insecurity, at "Europe'." I would go further and say the scream is against anyone who is not screaming with them - but then I feel the right has moved from economic politics to cultural politics so I would say that, wouldn't I.

lemongrove

I seemed to have touched a nerve here! ?
Some posters just don’t get analogies it seems, and now we have our old friend ‘gaslighting’ getting a mention yet again.
Forums and venting therein, are much the same as people sitting around in pubs, if that offends your sensibilities (because you imagine you inhabit a loftier intellectual place) then too bad. It doesn’t mean that the venting has no value, but it is at much the same level.
Everyone is an expert with Google as their friend as well, plus acres of copying and pasting.
We should all take forums with a big pinch of salt and enjoy the ride, but seriously, when it comes to rants about the government of the day, nobody is changing anything, although it may feel good to get it off your chest.Nobody ever changed things by yakking in the pub or on threads.
When it comes to local matters close to home, of course you can help to change something, even protest marches can influence thinking.
Still, if you like thinking that what you bang out on the keyboard here influences anything politically in any meaningful way, then carry on thinking it, it doesn’t hurt anyone.

So why do you bother with it?

Now I really am being serious here, but I suspect some people will take offence.

Many posters think they are being called names, told their opinions don't count and so on. A great number of these posters post things with no background in fact; they post these things as gospel and defend it as "their opinion" to which they are entitled. Even when a post is explained to them in great detail, they don't get it. There's a belief amongst some that if anyone questions any discriminatory posts, that their freedom of speech is being questioned. And that the person questioning it is a swot, or something....

The "sheep" comments and so on are usually used to tell people who believe in facts that they are ....well....stupid, I think.

Well, you're going to get argued with. Its an internet forum. Its what we do

This is getting more silly than the post that started it. No where did I say you used it Mollygo. I said it was what you were doing.

Do as I say not as I do Show me my use of that phrase.
I didn’t choose to denigrate you any more than you seem to me to do to me or others. There are often inferences on here to people being like sheep or references to ‘the usual other half’ which are not intended to be complimentary.
We probably all appear differently to other posters from how we are in real life.

On a comfy seat with a pint in front of them ( cup of tea on GN) whilst they pontificate on how things should be done and how much better they should have been done. Even though in reality they don’t have a clue what should have been done or when.

That is such a breathtakingly sweeping statement.

In other words, don't question what your betters have decided?

Is that what you mean, Mollygo? Because that is exactly what it sounds like.

Mollygo

*Maybe GN doesn’t have a direct impact on the real world, but some posters do.*
Exactly! When people are not sitting here typing, they might, for all we know, be doing great things in the real world. I too am actually having an impact on the lives of others in my local and not so local community, when I’m not posting on here.

If you learn something on GN that you can apply in the real world, that’s even better. Posters do learn things over the course of a discussion, some even without denigrating the behaviour of those who disagree with them.

Interesting to see the "do as I say not as I do" maxim coming into use again.

You say Posters do learn things over the course of a discussion, some even without denigrating the behaviour of those who disagree with them..

And yet you chose to denigrate me when you post

But PippaZ that’s exactly how you seem to me-a person with a narrow view, yours.

I had not posted anything about you or to you personally. Why do you feel the need to denigrate someone you see as disagreeing with you (although I didn't) and then suggest that others do this and by default, that you don't.

Very much a case of preaching to others while ignoring your own behaviour. Hypocrisy in action.

In the same way, the original post about pubs On a comfy seat with a pint in front of them ( cup of tea on GN) whilst they pontificate on how things should be done and how much better they should have been done. Even though in reality they don’t have a clue what should have been done or when. is used to denigrate others while suggesting the poster would never do this - notice this is about "they" not "we".

Last February/March when the herd immunity was being bandied about i said i hope i get covid soon rather than when i get seasonal asthma.
We know it was the policy so why Patel denied it this week i don't know.

The Mother's Day weekend should have been the time to lockdown yet Boris still stood after closing schools saying it was ok to visit mums. I wonder how many more died because of that weekend. It was only when Boris got it they seemed to change on herd immunity.
This isn't hindsight or key board warrior and cummings is confirming that what everyone thought had happened did happen.

What i have taken from Cummings is him saying that the Government were a bunch of no nothings who thought they didn't need expert advice.
But to be fair all Governments are that until they get faced with anything and that becomes there downfall.
Boris got in to get Brexit done. People voted for him to do that.
The vaccination programme will redeem him from this even now he has openly let the Indian variant through the front door.
Blair used to get Teflon Tony but Boris is Brush it off Johnson and that's what he has always been like in all these years he was in the public eye before becoming PM.
So Cummings probably won't damage BoJo cos he just blusters on regardless and that's what the majority of the British public seem to want.

But who is doing that lemongrove, we are having a discussion.

And it's completely inaccurate as I have just pointed out. I could list the changes in legislation that grew from activism on MN but I dont think it would alter the narrative.

The point I am making here Lucca is that it’s a mistake for anyone to take themselves too seriously on forums.Or, to take any other posters or the subject matter, to heart too much.

Lemongrove I don’t quite get what point you are making ?
That we should not have political discussions ? Not feel strongly about issues and express ourselves here ? Of course people use google, just like they would have used reference books in the past.

I think the truth is, and confirmation is becoming evident, that the plan A of herd immunity was one of the most disastrous plans nearly inflicted upon the U.K. population.

NotSpaghetti

Maisie you are right about the late lockdowns.
Many of us (who were able) had already "locked down" at least a couple of weeks before we were told to lock down the first time.
If we could look at Italy and see what was coming, so could Boris Johnson and his crew.

Exactly!

I seemed to have touched a nerve here! ?
Some posters just don’t get analogies it seems, and now we have our old friend ‘gaslighting’ getting a mention yet again.
Forums and venting therein, are much the same as people sitting around in pubs, if that offends your sensibilities (because you imagine you inhabit a loftier intellectual place) then too bad. It doesn’t mean that the venting has no value, but it is at much the same level.
Everyone is an expert with Google as their friend as well, plus acres of copying and pasting.
We should all take forums with a big pinch of salt and enjoy the ride, but seriously, when it comes to rants about the government of the day, nobody is changing anything, although it may feel good to get it off your chest.Nobody ever changed things by yakking in the pub or on threads.
When it comes to local matters close to home, of course you can help to change something, even protest marches can influence thinking.
Still, if you like thinking that what you bang out on the keyboard here influences anything politically in any meaningful way, then carry on thinking it, it doesn’t hurt anyone.

Lucca

NotSpaghetti

Maisie you are right about the late lockdowns.
Many of us (who were able) had already "locked down" at least a couple of weeks before we were told to lock down the first time.
If we could look at Italy and see what was coming, so could Boris Johnson and his crew.

Exactly!

Ditto

NotSpaghetti

Maisie you are right about the late lockdowns.
Many of us (who were able) had already "locked down" at least a couple of weeks before we were told to lock down the first time.
If we could look at Italy and see what was coming, so could Boris Johnson and his crew.

Exactly!

Maybe GN doesn’t have a direct impact on the real world, but some posters do.
Exactly! When people are not sitting here typing, they might, for all we know, be doing great things in the real world. I too am actually having an impact on the lives of others in my local and not so local community, when I’m not posting on here.

If you learn something on GN that you can apply in the real world, that’s even better. Posters do learn things over the course of a discussion, some even without denigrating the behaviour of those who disagree with them.

The language used to suggest that the discussions on public forums is akin to going down to the pub for a natter, is a form of gaslighting

The poster is trying to sow the seeds of doubt in people’s minds as to the value of such discussion and debate.

But that concept is as wrong as it can be. Public forums, whatever form they take (including the pub) are undoubtedly part of the vehicle of change. Have been since humans could talk.

And actually I dont think its particularly true. MN the site where GN originated has completely changed the narrative on womans rights for example and numerous political campaigns have sprung from that sone of which have led to a change in legislation. So I think it's quite short sighted to think that. As long as people dont think talking on social media is activism in itself then it's fine. I am not sure what purpose saying armchair warriors etc serves except to try and shut debate down.

Cummings seems to be the only person in government who knows ANYTHING about science !!!

Spoilt baby Cummings thrown his rattle out of his pram ?

NotSpaghetti

Maisie you are right about the late lockdowns.
Many of us (who were able) had already "locked down" at least a couple of weeks before we were told to lock down the first time.
If we could look at Italy and see what was coming, so could Boris Johnson and his crew.

I agree. I had locked myself down days before any official announcement. It wasn't a difficult decision.

Obviously, it was a more difficult decision at national level because it involved businesses and various support schemes, but there should have been planning for those. We were a couple of weeks behind other countries, so we had prior warning.

Mollygo

But PippaZ that’s exactly how you seem to me-a person with a narrow view, yours.
I’m quite sure it’s not how you see yourself, but GN is a tiny world, populated by lots of anonymous, individual points of view, yours and mine among them, with which you may or may not agree.
It’s a place where posters can and do criticise others for not agreeing with them.

It has no impact on the real world, and some, realistically and sensibly, are able to recognise that.

Maybe GN doesn't have a direct impact on the real world, but some of the posters do. In my own small way, I know I've had an impact in my local community and I expect others could claim the same. Occasionally, there's a good discussion on GN which has influenced my thinking.

Unless everybody wants to behave like a sheep, any forum for discussion is good. Historically, it's how political opinion has been formed.

I wonder why you bother with GN, if you honestly think it makes no difference.