Posts by B Jones

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  • Hard News: The fake news problem,

    Insane looniness would have been a pleasant diversion. It was the nastiness I had a problem with.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: The fake news problem,

    I had a go on Facebook to see how reporting a fake news post worked – it basically gave me the option to block the poster or hide them. The damage isn’t done in it annoying me, it’s done in it scaring people without access to the broader information base to assess it.

    Google seems better – if you ask a question common to a conspiracy field it sometimes comes up with a conspiracy answer as a "featured snippet", if credible people haven’t specifically addressed it. I’ve reported those, and noticed later that they don’t show up as often. It’s not perfect, but something seems to be happening in their little black box of processes.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to Ally Cat,

    Because all those unwanted, damned inconvenient nuisance children were no longer being born to uneducated, careless, low income, probably unmarried women who didn’t want them in the first place, wouldn’t care for them and wouldn’t drag them up to be anything more than anti-social at best and deeply criminal at worst.

    Wow, a misogynistic argument in favour of abortions? I'm familiar with the Freakonomics theory, but that's a damned unkind way to express it.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: Our Mental Health System: Let’s…,

    Can anyone recommend any resources/sites for friends of people who have had mental health crises?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report Reply

  • Access: Autism: where have we come from…,

    I posted that as confirming Hilary's suspicions of official thinking, rather than endorsing that thinking one way or another. They've probably published more of it on the Education website, if it's being quoted in the Herald.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report Reply

  • Access: Autism: where have we come from…, in reply to Hilary Stace,

    As some of us joked it was because she thought you could cure autism at pre-school and then those children wouldn't need any resources later on.

    Today's news:

    "Officials have identified one potential fix as spending more money on support for pre-schoolers.

    That is because evidence shows the benefits of early intervention. If funding was weighted to the early years, there would be less demand as a cohort moved through the schooling system, a recent Cabinet paper reasoned."

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report Reply

  • Up Front: Our House,

    Well, that’s certainly something else.

    It’d be worth citing your claims about Spain – as far as I could tell with a quick google, female prisoners are generally separated from male ones there.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: The Dr G giveaway,

    I so so wish I could go, but I'm on a plane to somewhere interesting that day. Will there be any transcription or recording or liveblogging or something for posterity?

    Something odd I've noticed in the last couple of years is Goldacre being cited favourably by people making the exact same mistakes in interpreting science that he highlights (eg this). I'm really interested to see whether that comes up here.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report Reply

  • Up Front: Our House, in reply to Tom Semmens,

    Maybe while in prison male and female prisoners can form better relationships?

    That sounds an awful lot like "hey, why don't we put more women at risk so they can help men overcome their violence problems." The idea that prison is a safe place for people seems naïve.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report Reply

  • Access: Autism: where have we come from…,

    Sounds to me like a misunderstanding of a principle that's gotten a lot of currency in the social services sector in recent years - early intervention is very useful in a lot of areas (and a persuasive argument for people not wanting to spend more money down the track) but not a panacea.

    There's plenty of scope for staff at the periphery of a large organisation to get the wrong end of the stick of what's going on in the centre (and vice versa), but that's not much comfort when it's the staff at the periphery making decisions affecting real people within a framework that's either wrong or poorly understood.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report Reply

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