Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

I've been in the sea at Newquay before in a wetsuit. And that was too cold for my liking, ankle deep is about as far as I can bear cold water.

yeah an afternoon paddle in August at Hornsea with the icy North Sea rattling the shingle up your legs is about my level

Enjoyed this column quite a bit. Pretty ruthless on someone who claims they will "self-destruct":

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jan/22/ask-philippa-perry-im-single-about-to-turn-40-and-fear-i-will-self-destruct

Roger Deakin loved the seaside, some of the best bits of Waterlog are about beaches. He actually seemed to like people, unlike eg Sinclair.

ok busted it's like 20 years since i (skim)read waterlog but beaches still aren't wild swimming

Guardian leading the way in removing the 'T' from LGBT with their 'LGB+' designation, no doubt at the behest of the sensible middle-class white person lobby

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/25/young-people-england-wales-twice-likely-identify-lgb-overall-population

holy shit

metadata harder to kill:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/lgbt-rights

times are hard at the Graun, the cost of those extra Ts adds up

Thank you Bill.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/24/bill-gates-startup-cow-burps-methane-emissions

I was also surprised at the usage of LGB+ but I think it is because there is a separate section in the ONS census data around trans identity.

Yes, in census terms the letters LGB (sexual orientation) and the letter T (gender identity) represent different kinds of information. Every newspaper that reported on this story used LGB+ in this way (presumably because that's what the ONS used in their own reports on this data).

dammit did i just get outraged for no reason??

no because fuck the ONS

Do you hate stats too?

well it was the main reason I failed at maths and physics

I don't think I need to make a case for why british state bodies that monitor and classify population(s) have never been a benevolent force in the world

also not to sound like a reactionary but I hate the alphabet soup even though I use it sometimes - it seems to be a recipe for D&Q (and reflects general longer term masculinisation and gentrification and cissificstion of gayness in particular) - despite what some gay and trans activists seem to believe sexuality and gender identity and sex aren't discrete and only sometimes coincidentally overlapping spheres of being or whatever

D&Q stands for divide and quonker I guess I'm sleep deprived

i don't think that's really the effect of lgbt as an acronym, which is inclusive of both sexuality and gender identity?

of course, people using lgb is a blatant attempt to divide & conquer outside of some very limited cases where it makes sense (stats like those above probably are one)

No capture of stats is simply an attempt to take a snapshot of "the world as it is" tho, and every rationale given for where the limits are drawn needs to be, at least, heavily scrutinized

I don't think I need to make a case for why british state bodies that monitor and classify population(s) have never been a benevolent force in the world

― your original display name is still visible (Left), Thursday, 26 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Do you think those ideologies inform the work at ONS today?

It sounds like ONS doing more work on trans identity and how that's captured could be more accurate and representative? But the other issue is some of the people that use it and, in this case, the people that report on it.

iirc the relevant census question in 2021 were considered best practice re: trans status/gender identity etc. (or at least decent enough) but then partway through the census the ONS caved to a transphobic campaign and updated their guidance re: the question on sex (to insist on sex as recorded on birth certificate only, not passport which is much easier to change for trans people in the uk) so it's possible that just mangled the data but i've seen people say the data seems generally reasonable despite that potential issue

Worth mentioning that while I understand where Left is coming from, the absence of a state body that monitors and classifies population(s) in the context of race comes in very useful whenever countries like France want to dismiss the concerns of minority populations.

Did mention at a FAP once that I find it amusing that UK census distinguishes between "white british" and "white (other)", could not imagine any other country I've had contact with doing that.

i’m white (other) and proud!

(nb not really)

The explanation for this I think is mainly originating in tracking Irish populations, for some of the reasons the census is supposed to (ie for measuring needs for services etc) and obviously this is even more meaningful in NI. That it also encompasses other white ethnic groups is a springboard off this, I would imagine. Ireland’s CSO measures it as “any other white background” fwiw. It may be used similarly across Europe to measure order minority populations?

There was a decrease in the number of people identifying their ethnic group as "White: Irish", from 531,000 (0.9%) in 2011 to 507,000 (0.9%) in 2021.

The 2001 UK census was the first which allowed British citizens to identify an Irish ethnicity. In all previous British censuses, figures for the Irish community were based on Irish birthplace. The percentage claiming White Irish descent in England and Wales was 1.2 per cent, with the highest concentration found in the London Borough of Brent, where they made up 6.9 per cent of the population, while the figure for Scotland was 0.98 per cent. The Irish have been the largest source of immigrants to Britain for over 200 years and as many as six million people in the UK are estimated to have at least one Irish grandparent.

i’m white (other) and proud!

Say it loud.

Bizarrely, in 2016 I was included in the Irish census as I was staying in a B&B in Dublin the night it happened. I was thrilled.

Lol

Our census is supposed to be everyone present in the country on the night of. Glad to know they are serious about it!

I'm not going to defend the french approach which is also bad in their special way but the race/ethnicity stuff is a mess in so many ways esp when people/orgs adopt and apply current census categories uncritically. like does asian mean from the indian subcontinent or from asia - since it often seems to exclude (asian) arabs and variously includes or excludes chinese people? and are all muslim bengalis bangladeshi? are turks or kurds or roma white or asian or other? are white irish and "other white" people BAME? where do what americans call hispanic/latinx people go? does it depend on their skin colour? and so on forever

well yeah race in being a social construct that is applied inconsistently across the board shocker, but that is surely an issue that goes way beyond census or state action

yes but those things obvious feed back into and reproduce the construct in particular ways based on which lines they consider more and less important to draw

*obviously

To be clear, you're not saying "they have the wrong answers to these questions" but "it's a sin to consider these questions?"

primarily that this kind of data collection and analysis constructs and naturalises the kind of world it alleges to describe to serve the interests of whoever is ordering/funding/doing it and I think the world constructed by british imperialism is horrifying and indefensible (as well as ugly, boring, and pedantic) but the positivistic scientistic affect of this kind of activity works to obscure this and makes assertions like mine seem sound hysterical, irrationalist, unscientific etc (I assume that's what the sin thing is getting at)

secondarily that it's a mess even on its own terms and causes all kinds of day to day and long term confusion in how we talk about and conceive of these issues

also that even when it's not the initial or primary intention or purpose of the exercise, laying it all out like this in the world we have now makes eugenics and mass surveillance and employment of divide & conquer culture war techniques kind of an inevitability

Sure, I guess science would be, you let us know which of the answers to the questions serve the interests of british imperialism, and then we go and look at what the answers are, right? I don't have to explain why 'whatever the answers are, they're the wrong answers' is a religious position?

Sure, I guess science would be, you let us know which of the answers to the questions serve the interests of british imperialism, and then we go and look at what the answers are, right? I don't have to explain why 'whatever the answers are, they're the wrong answers' is a religious position?

(Sorry for double post)

I don't have to explain why 'whatever the answers are, they're the wrong answers' is a religious position?

Could you? I'm not sure what "religion" has to do with being opposed on principle to the state using racial categories as a tool of governance (assuming I'm following Left's objections)

also that even when it's not the initial or primary intention or purpose of the exercise, laying it all out like this in the world we have now makes eugenics and mass surveillance and employment of divide & conquer culture war techniques kind of an inevitability

Gotta catch ‘em all

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Labour_and_the_London_Poor

i think it was working at a SureStart, the greatest political achievement of anybody ever, that first woke me up to the data panopticon state and its remorseless self-propulsion

I don't quite know how to read you andrew but you also seem to be suggesting some kind of unquestionable objective fact of the matter behind it all. I'm not sure if you're using religion pejoratively or not and if so why it matters. but even if a particular answer does seem to partially capture a material reality (they're more useful if they can do that to some extent), even if some groups can make use of that answer to bond or assimilate or bargain or rebel, I don't see how that justifies the entire edifice, or makes it (actually or theoretically) a neutral enterprise

I'm not saying any of that, I'm saying that "I don't know how this works, but however it works, it's bad" is a stupid fucking thing to say.

Clearly not what Left is saying. Wind your neck in.

clearly I'm not the only one struggling with reading comprehension but call me stupid because that's my position on a lot of things (the discipline of economics, for example)

🚨 Personal news! Today is my last day at The Economist. I am thrilled to be joining The Guardian next month as their senior China correspondent. Will miss all my clever colleagues but so excited to dive back into the biggest story in the world，好久不见！

— Amy Hawkins (@amyhawk_) January 27, 2023

Economist to Guardian.