Nic Elliott

Why doesn’t SAGE model positive scenarios?

It’s a week before Christmas, and the veil has been lifted once more on the decision making at the highest levels of government in the UK.

In a rare moment on twitter, the head of modelling for the government’s SAGE committee admitted that it would be essentially pointless to model positive outcomes of covid this winter, and that actually it’s policy makers that decide what to model.

We discuss that decision making process and how it’s only designed to go in one direction.

Nic thinks this is one of many examples where the tide is starting to turn, but will a good old fashioned lockdown be enough to dissuade people again?

From Facebook fact checks to Libertarian Party politics, we wrap up 2021 with the most positive message we can give – don’t comply, and have a very merry Christmas.

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What do we know, so far?

Nic reads out a list of things we now know for sure related to SARS-CoV-2 and in particular its origins. Knowing what you know, how do you process that information, and how do you cope with the burden of the truth?

Andrew analyses the methods of the enemy and asks whether its the perfect blend of communist reasoning with fascist methods, which leads Nic to ask the question, does hard centrism naturally lead us to technocracy?

Rory Stewarts Bow

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Do libertarians need encouragement?

On this, our 100th podcast, we talk about whether its a trait of those who love freedom to have the confidence to be a self starter, and just get on with things.

Do you need encouragement or praise, or do you employ critical thinking and rational self-interest in order to know you’re doing the right thing?

Maybe those on the side of no coercion and voluntaryism are used to hiding their views, even though they think as we do. Does practicing critical thinking lead to an increase in confidence?

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Inject or infect?

Andrew revists a libertarian thought experiment and applies it to virus infections & government jabs to see whether the state is once again guilty of cakeism.

Surely we can apply the same rules to both injections and infections?

And Nic decides to find out what the UK medicines regulator means when it says the Covid gene therapies (vaccines) are “safe and effective”.

Is 2 months really enough for a trial of an experimental drug where you don’t follow up on more than half of the recipients?

Have more people become ill from a supposed preventative than from contracting the virus itself?

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Have No Morals But Your Own

Andrew is calling for a General Election, but do we really want Keith in charge?

Is there a better model of healthcare for the Covid age? Are neo-liberals just itching to tame but not eliminate state intervention?

And have people outsourced their morals to a higher power – the state.


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Is Democracy A Check On Power?

The biggest encroachment on civil liberties has taken place in 2020, and under a Conservative government.  How did this happen without any scrutiny?

Democracy was one of the first things to be suspended, so how can it be used to check the power of those at the top?

Do opposition parties ever oppose when it really matters?  Or when they sense a threat to the entire establishment, do they buckle up for the ride, so as to maintain their place in the system?

And what of the rule of law?  Sacrosanct for some, but if bad laws are passed, isn’t it our moral duty to disobey them?

We discuss all this and more, in the latest edition of Sounding Board.

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Hackonomics: Market Forces and Unethical Behaviour

With the recent hacking attacks at Twitter and Garmin, Nic explains the detail behind another attack on a company called Blackbaud.

They claim to have stopped a cyberattack, but they are explicit that they paid the ransom demand.

Can companies really guarantee their data is not going to be released or sold after paying the ransom?  Why did Blackbaud admit to paying it?

Will this behaviour encourage more cybercriminality, and do market forces actually mean that it’s in the interests of cybercriminals to not release the data?


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Can Libertarianism Ever Take the UK?

The US has a different political structure as well as a culture with more emphasis on liberty – at least superficially.

It also has a Libertarian Party that fields candidates for President.

But what about the UK?  Who is the closest we have to a Ron Paul and can they succeed anywhere in the current party system?  Or are we stuck with Steve Baker…


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Agent Based Behaviour Modelling

When did locking down a population, or closing schools become the agreed way of dealing with an epidemic?

Andrew explains where the lockdown model was pioneered (you won’t believe it if you don’t already know), and we discuss why it became popular as a methodology despite being so flawed.

Why were policy makers so ready to curtail our basic freedoms?  Will behaviour modelling be turned towards other policy areas to “prove” that something needs to be done?


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The Great Derangement

After more than a week of Black Lives Matter protests, and statues being torn down, we discuss whether destruction of public property is as bad as private property, and how the Autonomous Zone in Seattle has already formed at least one government since ditching the last one.  The Minneapolis Police force is being officially dismantled, but what will be created in its place, and is this a good experiment?

J K Rowling has put the cat amongst the pigeons again with her thoroughly reasonable and logic tweets on biological sex and the existence of women, but yet the woke are in full backlash.  Are the general public starting to see the inherent contradictions in woke ideology?

Maybe we are under no more danger any more from Coronavirus (hint, we kind of never where), and that’s why all this woke nonsense has surfaced again.  It’s amazing what you can do while you are on government paid furlough. 

And what of Boris?  Does he resemble another former Tory Prime Minister?

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash