Peter Jordan and Matt Ridley discuss rational optimism.

I'm really glad to have caught up with this. The more one sees of the counter-narrative to the apocalyptic, the more you have to wonder at how to spread the positive message. It frustrates me immensely, that people like Matt Ridley, Jordan Peterson and Bjorn Lomborg and a plethora of other positive thoughtful voices are ignored in favour of constant doom.

⁠I wanted high hopes for GB News to be a counter-narrative to the usual MSM suspects version of doom. But it looks like they have fallen into the same trap of espousing the equal and opposite bad news to their audience like the polar opposite to the MSM old guard. Which leaves it up to the individual to go and seek positive affirmation regarding the future. But as Matt Ridley pointed out early in the discussion people don't seem to be incentivised to do so of their own accord, unless it's something fluffy, cute or relatively irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. But the evidence of everything being better is everywhere, on all these social media platforms, Youtube etc, people share education, jokes and skits and fluff. So, you have to conclude that if our part of the world were so terrible we probably wouldn't be inclined to have so much fun, and yet as both of these commenters noted; we all seem to believe the sky is falling in, while our lifestyle tells us, moment to moment the complete opposite.

Rational optimism, Peter Jordan has a discussion with Matt Ridley

Matt Ridley's Rational Optimist Blog

The book of the same name The Rational Optimist. 

Dragonflies

I think I can say without fear of impunity, that this year has been the best year for Dragonflies in my entire lifetime. Butterflies are also relatively abundant this year, but dragonflies (and damselflies) are everywhere. I know we live butt up to the Somerset Levels, and Berrow Dunes and their pools aren't far away, but that doesn't detract from the fact that this year, almost every day in every location here about, I/we have seen dragonflies, hawkers and darters.

british-dragonflies.org.uk/

Jordan Peterson interviews and questions Bjorn Lomborg.

One hour fifty-four minutes.

Jordan Peterson interviews Bjorn Lomborg about his book: False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet.

A wide-ranging discussion of cost to benefit of strategies. Upfront it needs to be stated that Bjorn Lomborg, doesn't dispute the reality of Climate Change or the fact that humans are contributing to the process disproportionately. In this interview, he and Jordan Peterson discuss how we as a species and as communities and countries (especially the wealthy west), are doing very little good, and spending a lot of taxpayer's money badly.

Jordan Peterson interviews and questions Bjorn Lomborg Youtube.

Anax Emporator

 A video I shot of an Emperor dragonfly.

Shoot over to Youtube to watch it in fullscreen mode.

Algorithms ... they are not a panacea by any means

 I've had two alerts from Facebook to tell me stuff I have shared within Facebook is either partly false, or on another is spam. One ok, weapons and equipment left behind in Afghanistan not entirely accurate. The other was in response to an advert Facebook presented to me about a HUBless E-bike that I thought looked too good to be true. I was right, so I posted a link to say buyer beware, they want your money and when the thing is fully developed you get it for a ridiculous price. If they fail, you have lost £70.

I have been posting random three-word posts on and off for a few weeks. I did this to see how Facebook ads responds to my posts, and posts I comment on/in with nonsense etc.

I can say with a fair degree of confidence that Facebooks reliance on algorithms to weed out or target its audience and skim off the surface exceptions, has a hell of a long way to go, before it's anywhere near smart.

I suspect Facebooks problem is programmer's with no life experience, but who have been tasked with managing complex human to human interactions and managing misinformation. Coupled with the fact that they have outsourced scrutiny of offensive content that isn't picked up by bots to an 'entity/company' in the Philippines.

Conclusion: Facebook has reached the Snake that eats its tail stage. It still has utility, but the user experience is degraded, and it's internal policeman are metaphorically; too young to be in charge, and believe they can solve all issues with code. This is symptomatic of a generation who don't know how to interact outside their peer group, and never look up from their screens.

Humanity is absent.