1. Some thoughts about picking over the bones of the referendum loss.
TLDR - get over it, move on, and most importantly, find a better strategy.
You are the Sensibles.
In terms of process and economics it’s no competition.
And in terms of sovereignty, well, you can’t eat sovereignty.
It is true that those victories were founded on a series of gross untruths
More from Objective Columnist
I tend to agree with this - of course many things can still go wrong...but (certainly on the UK side) as the list of outstanding issues decreases and as the cost of no deal becomes more apparent deal momentum will increase.
I find it most amusing that people invest so much value in public statements, briefings, tabloid headlines, the tweets of obscure backbenchers etc. Cherchez les fundamentals!
There is a deep vein of analytical pessimism in one particular direction, which, whether correct or not, is noteworthy. On the one hand, a firm belief in the fundamentals - gravity exists - but on the other hand those fundamentals are not meaningful to the final decision.
But gravity does exist! Whether one likes it or not. We do not have wings. Or feathers. And the realisation of the fundamentals will impact the political calculation (though timing differences may apply).
You don’t have to invest any particular optimism or see any virtue in the principal players to make this point.
Still, he's taken a very big step back now. The cliff risk was today; both sides were so close to the edge they could easily have gone over it. The fact @10DowningStreet didn't means Govt must genuinely believe there's now a landing zone that works, & which it can sell ENDS
— Mujtaba Rahman (@Mij_Europe) December 13, 2020
I find it most amusing that people invest so much value in public statements, briefings, tabloid headlines, the tweets of obscure backbenchers etc. Cherchez les fundamentals!
There is a deep vein of analytical pessimism in one particular direction, which, whether correct or not, is noteworthy. On the one hand, a firm belief in the fundamentals - gravity exists - but on the other hand those fundamentals are not meaningful to the final decision.
But gravity does exist! Whether one likes it or not. We do not have wings. Or feathers. And the realisation of the fundamentals will impact the political calculation (though timing differences may apply).
You don’t have to invest any particular optimism or see any virtue in the principal players to make this point.
A quote from this excellent piece, neatly summarising a core impact of Brexit.
The Commission’s view, according to several sources, is that Brexit means existing distribution networks and supply chains are now defunct and will have to be replaced by other systems.
Of course, this was never written on the side of a bus. And never acknowledged by government. Everything was meant to be broadly fine apart from the inevitable teething problems.
It was, however, visible from space to balanced observers. You did not have to be a trade specialist to understand that replacing the Single Market with a third country trade arrangement meant the end of many if not all of the complex arrangements optimised for the former.
In the absence of substantive mitigations, the Brexit winners are those who subscribe to some woolly notion of ‘sovereignty’ and those who did not like freedom of movement. The losers are everyone else.
But, of course, that’s not good enough. For understandable reasons Brexit was sold as a benefit not a cost. The trading benefits of freedom would far outweigh the costs. Divergence would benefit all.
The Commission’s view, according to several sources, is that Brexit means existing distribution networks and supply chains are now defunct and will have to be replaced by other systems.
Brexit reality bites: The new dawn of trade friction via @RTENews https://t.co/p6VdlhZUAN
— Tony Connelly (@tconnellyRTE) January 9, 2021
Of course, this was never written on the side of a bus. And never acknowledged by government. Everything was meant to be broadly fine apart from the inevitable teething problems.
It was, however, visible from space to balanced observers. You did not have to be a trade specialist to understand that replacing the Single Market with a third country trade arrangement meant the end of many if not all of the complex arrangements optimised for the former.
In the absence of substantive mitigations, the Brexit winners are those who subscribe to some woolly notion of ‘sovereignty’ and those who did not like freedom of movement. The losers are everyone else.
But, of course, that’s not good enough. For understandable reasons Brexit was sold as a benefit not a cost. The trading benefits of freedom would far outweigh the costs. Divergence would benefit all.
More from Health
Before we get too far into 2021, I thought I’d write a thread recapping some of the research that came out of my lab in 2020. Most of this work was led by my talented team of graduate students, Kerrianne Morrison, @kmdebrabander, and @DesiRJones.
Back in January, a news story was published about Kerrianne’s study showing improved social interaction outcomes for autistic adults when paired with another autistic partner.
A detailed thread about the study and a link to the paper can be found here (feel free to DM me your email address if you’d like a copy of the full paper for this study or any of our studies):
Another paper published early in 2020 (it appeared a few months earlier online) showed that traditional standalone tasks of social cognition are less predictive of functional and social skills among autistic adults than commonly assumed in autism research.
Next, @kmdebrabander led and published an innovative study about how well autistic and non-autistic adults can predict their own cognitive and social cognitive performance.
Back in January, a news story was published about Kerrianne’s study showing improved social interaction outcomes for autistic adults when paired with another autistic partner.
A detailed thread about the study and a link to the paper can be found here (feel free to DM me your email address if you’d like a copy of the full paper for this study or any of our studies):
In our new paper out today, autistic adults held a \u201cget to know you\u201d conversation with an unfamiliar autistic or typically-developing (TD) person. We were curious: would social interaction outcomes differ when their partner was also autistic? THREAD https://t.co/4koqUKV9G1
— Noah Sasson (@Noahsasson) December 11, 2019
Another paper published early in 2020 (it appeared a few months earlier online) showed that traditional standalone tasks of social cognition are less predictive of functional and social skills among autistic adults than commonly assumed in autism research.
How well does social cognition predict functional and social skills in autism? Our new paper attempts to answer this question. This thread summarizes why we conducted the study, what we found, and why I think it\u2019s important. https://t.co/KB1nIpK0M2
— Noah Sasson (@Noahsasson) August 16, 2019
Next, @kmdebrabander led and published an innovative study about how well autistic and non-autistic adults can predict their own cognitive and social cognitive performance.
New by @kmdebrabander and our lab: Autistic adults don\u2019t differ from non-autistic adults in the accuracy of their self-assessment on general cognitive tasks but are less accurate on social cognitive tasks. This however was unrelated to social functioning https://t.co/0MrqMKKO0r
— Noah Sasson (@Noahsasson) September 20, 2020
Now you know I love to sh-t in Harvard. But I also like accuracy. So I decided to go look at Harvard’s catalog to see its lack of military history that this article describes (they only teach history of pets it claims) and what I found shocked me! Shocked me! A thread: 1/
First off, Harvard students literally have multiple sections of military history that they can take listed. (It appears these ones are taught at MIT, so they might have to walk down the street for these) but... 2/
Say they want to stay on campus...they can only take numerous classes on war and diplomacy...3/
They have an entire class on Yalta. That’s right. An entire class on Yalta. 4/
But wait! There is more! They can take the British Empire, The Fall of the Roman Empire for those wanting traditional topics... 5/
\u201cMilitary history\u201d is only in decline if you\u2014like the author & experts in this obnoxious piece\u2014see the subject as a narrowly defined, white dude-oriented, guns & bayonets approach. The field is 1000% better off w/today\u2019s diversity of topics & historians. https://t.co/dUf3OWyVpQ
— Jonathan S. Jones (@_jonathansjones) February 1, 2021
First off, Harvard students literally have multiple sections of military history that they can take listed. (It appears these ones are taught at MIT, so they might have to walk down the street for these) but... 2/
Say they want to stay on campus...they can only take numerous classes on war and diplomacy...3/
They have an entire class on Yalta. That’s right. An entire class on Yalta. 4/
But wait! There is more! They can take the British Empire, The Fall of the Roman Empire for those wanting traditional topics... 5/
