Would You Jump Off a Cliff?

Well, it seems a large minority of TikTokers would, if someone on there did it first.

Now, it takes a certain type of cretin to follow the dangerous dares or "challenges" on TikTok, or dubious advice, but I'm forever seeing a litany of children and adults alike that believe everything they see on TikTok is (a) safe, (b) actually really happening like it is depicted on screen.

I mean, hopefully the majority of us have learned that the videos where a person throws an object, be it a ball or whatever and it lands in a net or lands upright might not be what they are actually seeing.

The throwing a ball into a net trick only needs someone to throw the ball out of shot and then another person closer to the net to drop a ball into it with the requisite delay, to make it look like the thrower actually landed the ball in the net.

The TikTok "hack" of using gorilla glue to smooth Afro-Caribbean hair down famously caught one girl out who was actually brave enough to highlight how stupid she was to follow the advice and how it actually damaged her hair and skin.

Then there are the deadly challenges where kids have ended up choking themselves to death.

Now you can't censor this shit off the internet, it will just pop up somewhere else on the internet.

But what you can is hopefully instil a healthy dose of  sceptical intelligence into your kids that they will carry on to adulthood, so when they see this crap they don't take it as gospel, or they don't instantly go out and copy it. Obviously choking yourself to unconsciousness is not a good idea, gluing your hair down to your head is not a good idea either. 

Those "hole in one" videos? How many attempts failed before they actually succeeded? If the object goes off camera shot, do you think that maybe someone is positioned off camera closer to the net/hole or whatever in order to make it look like they did a hole in one? 

Don't get me started on the prank videos where kids prank their parents or grandparents to the point of  heart attack. One day grannie will drop dead from shock and a TikToker will be up before the judge on manslaughter charges.

And then there's Mizzy. The most despicable TikToker of them all. 

Fake threatening people, making them think he has a knife and getting in their face to try and get a reaction. Dog-stealer and home invader extraordinaire. He's rightly been slapped with a court order to stop his shenanigans, but I fear he's one of the Zoomers that have never been told no. 

He's abused enough people all his life from parents to teachers to (probably) social workers, to know how to play the game and until he meets some form of authority that  will put up some boundaries for him to slam into I suspect he'll just ignore the court order.

Had someone been able to slap him or punch him for his abusive actions, then he might have stopped earlier. But these days abusing someone up to the point they react is okay. It's the person reacting with a slap or a punch that gets into trouble. 

The problem is as in Mizzy's case, they just continue to escalate until typically something unfortunate happens. Either Mizzy ends up stabbed or shot because he abused the wrong person, or someone reacts to his abuse and they end up in jail. 

I doubt Mizzy will end up in jail. His sort don't. They know how to play the system, how to abuse and then play the victim when caught out in their abuse. He's the sort that will become a wife-beater in later life. He doesn't know any different. Abuse is part of his DNA and he'll use some aspect of his life to excuse his actions, like all abusers do.

Government by Fad. (The Danger of Slavishly Following Focus Groups).

 For decades now, probably even before the Blair Government, we had Government policy influenced by Focus Groups.

The John Major Government really started it, but Blair really went to town using focus groups to influence Government policy. Successive governments have followed suit, slavishly following fads as suggested by focus groups.

For instance, take Diesel cars.

Focus groups insisted that if Diesel cars were more economical and used less fuel, shouldn't government promote their use?

So in the Nineties and Noughties, we got incentives through reduced taxation to move to Diesel cars. If you try and buy a car from the noughties, then it's hard to find a Petrol-powered car, most are Dirty Diesels.

And it wasn't long for focus groups to class Diesels as dirty, once there were so many of them the problems with Diesel engined vehicles became a serious enough issue. So government policy went hard on cleaning up the engines with particulate filters. 

But then the engines and emissions system became so complex, they started to become unreliable.

The particulate filters did nothing to reduce Nitrogen Oxide (NOX) emissions. So we then went to adding extra stuff into the exhaust to reduce NOX. Hence the rise of "Adblue" tanks on cars. Some easily filled, some tucked away and essentially unfillable. 

This adblue additive was so important that manufacturers made it impossible to start the car if the tank was empty. A tank on some cars you can't fill yourself without dismantling the car or getting it up on a ramp. Hardly a good idea on something that is a normal consumable like washer fluid.

Then the Diesel cars got older and dirtier as they wore out and focus groups really, really didn't like the amount of black smoke they chucked out. Focus groups wanted government to protect the lungs of the little ones. so now Diesel engined vehicles are fined if they enter our cities and their Ultra Low Emission Zones. 

Now we are in the strange situation that Diesel cars attract less vehicle excise duty, because the old incentives are still in place, but will be fined if they enter a city because they're not welcome.

This is how governments making policy based on focus groups and fads can seriously fuck up things for people. 

Governments should not be social engineering. They should not be flip-flopping according to the latest fads. 

The same goes for current fads like gender ideology, so-called climate change, net zero and the rest.

Stop following fads and start governing. Government should be above fads, above public expressions of fashion. 

Government should govern, which means consistency, reliability, steering a steady ship, so that there are no shocks to the system. There are no u-turns. The country has a long-term strategy rather than the short-termism we see these days.

The Conservative government has been in power now for 13 years. The last three with a 80-seat majority. You'd think there would be consistency across those 13 years, but no, there hasn't been any consistency in policy as the Conservatives have bickered constantly, we've had several Prime Ministers as their approval waxes and wanes according to public opinion. We've had policies and u-turns on policy.

This flip-flopping on policy based on public opinion really has to stop. Government's are not in place to be likeable, they are in place to govern. 

The Radicalisation of the Poor.

It seems to me talking to various friends, that there is a rising radicalisation amongst the poor.

It's been several decades now since the poor were really, truly represented in politics and in Parliament.

That was bad enough, but now Parliament is actively enacting policies that directly impact the lives of the poor.

Whether it's climate change legislation, the piss-poor energy policy in this country or  whole host of things, they directly make the lives of the working poor worse. The plight of the poor doesn't matter any more. We are effectively invisible from a political perspective. 

Lets start with local government. Local Ultra Low Emission Zones are springing up in various towns and cities across the country. Directly impacting those too poor to buy a car that complies with the legislation.

A decent car is at least 3-4 thousand pounds these days. Not an insubstantial sum for someone earning just over minimum wage.

The introduction of ULEZ across the country has artificially inflated the cost of cars that comply

Then I mentioned last week, there is the cost of Vehicle Excise Duty or Road Tax as most people call it. £700 a year for a car costing £1500. 

Now the poor are being kettled into 15 minute cities with fines if they step above their station and try to move anywhere in the car they can barely afford.

It seems the personal freedoms of the poor are under attack. 

Thanks to globalism the poor compete with people in China, India and Malaysia for wages, so the wages of the poor have been under attack for decades. The Brexit vote was a vote against globalism and the rise of corporate government. 

Even if the poor want to better themselves the cost to start a business is increasing as the rules are ever more restrictive and ant-competitive. The corporate government works to cement the big corporations in power and prevents any competition.

I just wonder how long the poor will continue to withstand this onslaught?

However, time is slim: the rise of AI and robots threatens unskilled manual labour. If the poor want to show their disapproval then the time is now.

We are not represented politically, so there is only one course of action: a general strike.

Even middle-class jobs are threatened by AI. It would be good if they joined in as well. The middle classes should join a General Strike because they are threatened by AI as much as the working classes have been hit by globalism,

This is an assault on the working population by global corporations. The working classes have suffered reductions in wages, the ignominy of zero hours contracts, loss of job security. 

The middle classes will be next, as AI starts to make inroads into the law, education, the arts, etc. It will not be long before a full length photo-realistic film is created by AI, from writing the screenplay to creating the photo-realistic visuals, AI will pitch an idea, write the screenplay and create the film itself. Once it understands what sells, then the process will become almost automatic.

AI will be able to scan the law and create new legislation. It will be able to scan millions of documents and create cases for the defence. Currently it's not quite real-time, but there may come a time when a pair of computers both prosecute and defend cases. Human lawyers will be out of a job, because who will rely on a fallible human up against an AI that can instantly scan all the documents ever created to make case law? There will be no contest, the AI will always win.

AI wins in education too. It will be able to assess the child's abilities and then teach them in the most appropriate manner. There will be no "one-size-fits-all" education system. Instead each child will have an education tailored to their needs. And no doubt the needs of the corporate sponsors, who will eventually be running the country. 

That's the future the corporation want for us, the workers. Them in charge, making maximum profits for those that can afford shares, whilst the former workers become the under-class.