presidente20

Those numbers are wildly optimistic. I would like to see which studies you are quoting so I can review them.

Do you have a source for those numbers?

Not hypothetical. This is actively being discussed in several countries. Relevant because vaccine passports make even less sense if the vaccines don't work.

There's a good chance that the AZ and Sinopharm vaccines don't work as well.

It's biology folks? Read up about philosophy of science. Science has to be subjected to scrutiny and stand the test of time before we can be confident. Covid jab needs more time.

I think that's a false dichotomy. You're saying the success of vaccine A implies success of vaccine B? That because some people wrongly argued against vaccine A, I can't argue against vaccine B (even at such an early point)?

This is exactly the point. We have decades of evidence for most vaccines and you only need them infrequently. That's a world away from a 6m old vaccine that hasn't been through the normal approval process.

The infection rates for Covid and flu are in the same ballpark so the infection rate is basically irrelevant. So Covid to flu comparison is more like apples to apples. https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m3883/rr

So the earth is 4.5 billion years old and the BBC think 135 years is a suitable sample size?

Handed down. The austerity has been a condition of the bailouts from the ECB & IMF. The Greeks even voted against the terms in a referendum which was immediately overturned. In Italy the EU even went to the lengths of appointing their own man to oversee the terms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Monti#Prime_Minister_of_...

Fair point but I think the problem is that the brain drain is exacerbating the other structural problems in the eurozone.

Spot on.

I think that's an overly conspiratorial view. I agree with your analysis in part but I don't think the EU is doing these things deliberately to undermine, it's more that it's their philosophy (which IMO is counter to the interests of the average european).

No it wasn't. The point of the euro was mainly political - a step towards a single European state. Economically the benefits are reduced transaction costs and reduced currency risk between countries within the single market.

Not true. There are a number of important differences. The US gradually merged into a single currency over a long period of time. As a nation the states have a sufficiently integrated fiscal policy such that budget redistribution is possible. Furthermore the US has a common language and genuinely frictionless trade between states developed over many years. The Eurozone is a bunch of homogeneous economies glued together without fiscal integration or adequate redistribution mechanisms.

But that's rational isn't it? The expected outcome is much lower for someone from a working class background so play safe. You won't have access to connections or sound advice from mentors in the know. You're less likely to be going to a top school where you could 'get away with' a humanities degree.

Agree that I'd like to see more working class kids being ambitious and going for top schools, moving away from home etc but at least play safe and go for something with job prospects.

Good point. The one thing in the article I agreed with is that it's better to do a traditional humanities subject rather than a vocational one (like communications, operations management, business operations). The latter seem to narrow and subject to fashion.

Great point. I think there are some subtle things about Maths in particular and science in general that make it more educational. One is learning to accept and understand things that are at first counter-intuitive. When solving Maths problems I seem to recall that it was often easy to fool myself into a wrong solution due to faulty intuition. Maths trains you to distrust it, dig into problems, use logic and check/test your solution. Furthermore the hard feedback you get helps all the above. Discussing something or writing an essay on a topic which doesn't have a defined answer doesn't seem like a great educational experience even though the activity itself is valuable.

The article contains a number of flaws IMO. Its argument seems to be:

1. Graduates with any degree earn more money and have less unemployment. No doubt true, but how do you discount selection bias here? Given that it's on average the smarter / more diligent part of the population that goes to university a better question would be what's the value add of university (and then break down by faculty / degree)? Maybe their employment rate is higher due to the necessity of having to pay off their tuition fees :)

2. Some humanities people are successful. No doubt. Plenty of smart motivated folks take humanities subjects so it's not surprising that some of them are successful but I'd like to see some data on expected return across the board rather than cherry picked examples. Wildly successful people might be outliers anyway. Also if you're from a wealthy background you could probably do anything and still have a shot at being a CEO.

3. Most examples of jobs for humanities graduates given in the article are not really graduate jobs, e.g. after sales support for Uber (do you really need a degree for that?). Management roles perhaps, but the article doesn't delve into those jobs, presumably there was some sort of vocational experience involved before they were managers?

4. Critical thinking skills. I'm not convinced that humanities degrees do lead to better critical thinking skills. I am biased but it seems to me Maths and hard science subjects would hone your critical thinking much more (isolating variables, logic, understanding complex material) and it's not like Science grads don't read books on other subjects. The author demonstrates a complete lack of critical thinking skills IMO.

5. Understanding of statistics seems like a pretty valuable tool to bring to most occupations and it would be nice if journalists had that and I doubt you get that from Humanities.

6. Empathy? Seriously? You need a degree to develop empathy?

It's surprising that the BBC think it's surprising.

That's right. The approach that works for me is optimising top-down. Save on the big expenses (accommodation, car, groceries) which requires planning and System II thinking. Try and save on the smaller stuff but as you're fighting your impulses (under social pressure, marketing influence etc) its much harder, so go with the flow.

Not convinced. In history as automation has increased working hours have tended to trend downwards.

I doubt anyone smart wants to burn out working under those kind of conditions.

Doesn't sound like a great company to work for. Insane production targets coupled with 'by the way we're examining all costs under a microscope'.

The part about the midnight oil doesn't even make sense and seems to celebrate excessively hard work which I can't believe is a good thing - the studies I've seen seem to point to anything more than a 7 hour day being counter-productive.

Additionally some of the things he has written seem to smack of inexperience. Yeah hierarchies can be annoying but presumably they are there to serve a purpose (after all he set it up!).

Can't disagree with what he says about meetings though!

This is quite shoddy journalism. Does the author present any evidence for any recent antisemitism? Not at all. Tweets here and there, images that can interpreted a number of ways. I find myself in the odd position of defending Corbyn, someone who I disagree with on most issues. It's absolutely clear to me that Corbyn is not antisemitic but merely a critic of certain actions of Israel the modern nation.

Furthermore I haven't seen any evidence of antisemitism in the UK in my lifetime. Canaries in the coalmine? Rubbish.

I had no idea. My claim was clearly hyperbole but I think the substance of the point still stands... it was a high turnout.

I think you're getting caught up in the tittle tattle of 'why people voted' and other fear-based narratives.

Why not focus on the core issues here? Is the EU founded on solid principles? Is it functioning well / showing good judgement? Is it democratic in any effective way? Does a superstate make sense in the 21st century? I answer no to all those four questions. If you think differently then fine but we got a vote each.

That's right, lets disregard the views of the people with life experience in favour of a bunch of highly impressionable, inexperienced teenagers.

That's massive by the standards of modern democracy. Can you name any issue which more people have voted on? Far less people than that vote in most governments.

I think for many people political views are quite tightly bound up with their sense of identity and therefore in practice political debates tend to end up being quite personal and negative. I tend to avoid politics except with very close friends for that reason and therefore agree with atemerov that working relationships should be preserved.

How many of those communist countries were democracies though?

I think my point stands, it's pretty rare for democracies to go to war. If you take the example of WW1, I doubt many people would consider Germany to have been a democracy in our modern understanding of the word.

Anyway where's your evidence that the EU somehow prevents war?

There's nothing to stop the EU going to war with someone else (when they get a military) for starters.