X : Do you not like any Conservatives?
Me : Of course I do. Being Old Labour (Socialist), I have a closer affinity to many One Nation Tories than I do with Blairites, Thatcherites or Communists. Vice versa One Nation. We value the market as a tool, society matters more.

X : So you think the current One Nation Gov is ok?
Me : Most of the One Nation Conservatives were kicked out of the party. Largesse with the Gov purse in a "Chumocracy" is not what Disraeli meant by "One Nation".
X : I don't understand the point you're making?
Me : Both parties - Labour and Conservative - have tended to be broad churches. You'll often find agreement within groups from multiple parties and infighting between groups within a party.
... so when you say "Do you not like any Conservatives" then you're making two assumptions - that Labour is one thing and that Conservatives are one thing. It's not the case, never has been.
You choose a party, a broad church, based upon general consensus i.e. you agree with more of their policies than you agree with some other party's policies. That doesn't mean you never agree with the other party's policies or people within the other party - of course you do.
X : Does that mean we should re-organise the parties?
Me : A "new liberal" and a "social capitalism" party?
X : Yes
Me : Bad idea ...
... as we know from biological systems and the work of CS Hollings (I've tried to summarise) then diversity (including diversity of thought) is needed for resilience of a system. You don't want to encourage cults and single dogma. Broad churches are more resilient ...
... and that actually hits at one of the problem of our economic systems. We try to use one size fits all approaches, when we should be using context specific approaches based upon how evolved something is.
Which is why we should learn from China on this, they seem to have a good handle on the issue with the Gov not only acting as a VC (special economic zones etc) but nationalising utilities when needed (i.e. Alibaba). They use the market as a tool, where appropriate.
X : There are at least two strands of Liberal. You're just using Clegg style yellow book liberalism.
Me : I was keeping it simple to explain a point, the main party's are broad churches and not one thing. I agree that liberals have many facets.
Me : A fairer criticism would probably be ... "where's the SNP"?

The SNP is at least more politically relevant but as I said, I was keeping it simple.
X : Isn't socialism nearer to communism.
Me : No. Well ... that depends upon your perception i.e. economic thought is distorted between regions. You can see this by sticking to Western philosophy and comparing US to Europe and their perceptions of China and economic thinking.
X : Does that mean your map of political thought has bias?
Me : First, it's not a map - it's simply a diagram to express a point. Second it is loaded with bias from perception, even the axis (e.g. the economic axis) is loaded with bias towards a more European centric view.
X : Well, at least individualism vs collectivism is understood.
Me : Not really. In the US, when politicians talk about "together" they often mean "a group of individuals" ... these words can have very different intentions.

More from Simon Wardley

"Fifty-nine percent of those polled said they believed China will become more powerful than the U.S. within 10 years" - https://t.co/3vN4I1TjwP ... I hate to break it to you but it already is in many areas.

When I published this work (originally from 2015) -
https://t.co/GYOItA3StZ - I did tend to get a lot of pushback from US folk when presenting it.

Six years later, less so.


I expect China to start to tackle inequality this year. It's the Achilles heel of the West. We have no response, nor Governments with the required skill, strategy or practice to respond.

We will ultimately face a more advanced, more wealthy and more equal society ...

... as that example of what "is possible" / "good looks like" shift to the East, we will face a painful shift as we question our own values including our kind of democracy. But in reality, the problem is not with our values but our shockingly poor standards of leadership.

X : Is this because of Trump?
Me : No, this has been going on since the 1990s. There has been no effective counterplay to the long game that Deng Xiaoping started. Just hubris, arrogance and exceptionalism with annual Economist articles on "How China will fall".

More from Society

Patriotism is an interesting concept in that it’s excepted to mean something positive to all of us and certainly seen as a morally marketable trait that can fit into any definition you want for it.+


Tolstoy, found it both stupid and immoral. It is stupid because every patriot holds his own country to be the best, which obviously negates all other countries.+

It is immoral because it enjoins us to promote our country’s interests at the expense of all other countries, employing any means, including war. It is thus at odds with the most basic rule of morality, which tells us not to do to others what we would not want them to do to us+

My sincere belief is that patriotism of a personal nature, which does not impede on personal and physical liberties of any other, is not only welcome but perhaps somewhat needed.

But isn’t adherence to a more humane code of life much better than nationalistic patriotism?+

Göring said, “people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”+

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Recently, the @CNIL issued a decision regarding the GDPR compliance of an unknown French adtech company named "Vectaury". It may seem like small fry, but the decision has potential wide-ranging impacts for Google, the IAB framework, and today's adtech. It's thread time! 👇

It's all in French, but if you're up for it you can read:
• Their blog post (lacks the most interesting details):
https://t.co/PHkDcOT1hy
• Their high-level legal decision: https://t.co/hwpiEvjodt
• The full notification: https://t.co/QQB7rfynha

I've read it so you needn't!

Vectaury was collecting geolocation data in order to create profiles (eg. people who often go to this or that type of shop) so as to power ad targeting. They operate through embedded SDKs and ad bidding, making them invisible to users.

The @CNIL notes that profiling based off of geolocation presents particular risks since it reveals people's movements and habits. As risky, the processing requires consent — this will be the heart of their assessment.

Interesting point: they justify the decision in part because of how many people COULD be targeted in this way (rather than how many have — though they note that too). Because it's on a phone, and many have phones, it is considered large-scale processing no matter what.