How likely is ‘likely’? Does ‘likely’ have a higher probability than ‘probable’? I put together a quick quiz so you can see how you interpret probability phrases, then see how you compare with others: probability.kucharski.io

Essentially *all* research and expert assessments show that this does not work. It will not counter Farage, but literally push votes towards Reform.

It genuinely is impossible to overstate how profoundly stupid and strategically illiterate this decision is.

You cannot out-Reform Reform.

But there isn't a general election in six months' time, there's just 'governing in a time of global instability, with no plan, when you've chosen to make your guiding light what the focus groups are screaming about at any time'.

But it won‘t happen. What strikes me about the Starmer government is the complete strategic paralysis. There were a few individual decent new laws. But there is no programme of government that would give it purpose or compass.

You can't out-Reform Reform. You can't out-Farage Farage. Any attempt to do so simply makes them stronger every time. Why do we have to go through this every time? It's not even a matter of dispute any more.

Those trying to understand the tariffs as economic policy are dangerously naive.

No, the tariffs are a tool to collapse our democracy. A means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief.

1/ A 🧵 to explain his plan and how we fight back.

This is what the redundancy wave in British Higher Education currently looks like on the map:

‘British University Redundancy Map’ maps.app.goo.gl/yUteDm2MCXUi...

I get why Starmer, Macron and Meloni don't want to give Trump a pretext to pull the US out of Europe. This isn't criticism of EU/UK public diplomacy.

But analysts and policymakers need to quietly face the implications of what Trump and Musk are doing to US state capacity.

Amazing to me that successive UK governments seem to place little to no value in British soft power. Overseas aid. BBC (and the World Service). Universities. Creative arts and related industries. All of them, to some degree, getting cut/eroded.

If the UK was really, really smart, it would now plough tens of billions into research centres and take in all the American academics fleeing the US. Spoiler: the UK is not smart. 🇬🇧

This is a beautiful graphic of an amazing process and every time I see it all I can think about is how it looks like Q got gradually squeezed out of the goth letter clique

Terrence Tao: "The 2023-level AI can already generate suggestive hints and promising leads to a working mathematician and participate actively in the decision-making process. ...
(1/2)

Creators: When you can (and you almost always can), celebrate your fellow creators in public. Take joy in their successes, talk them up to your own fans and friends, and do what you can to make them feel welcome and included in the community we are all part of. It will make everyone's lives better.

This is absolutely true. Somewhere around 1/3 of every population group tend towards insular, trad tribal thinking. Always have, always will. A similar proportion are outward looking, inclusive, progressive. Neither will change. Power goes to whomever moves more of the 1/3 who have no firm positions

Amusing* in a way that government's engouement with data science has coincided with the decline of the UK's public data collection systems.

*Not amusing at all.

Short-changed graduates are just another symptom of the British economic disease.

If you have low investment and low or zero productivity growth, then when your grads enter the job market, they’ll have fewer and weaker opportunities than grads in a country that had higher growth