Evidence & the Gaza War

RUSI - the Royal United Services Institute has done an interesting piece about the IDF's use of AI for military targeting & says it's "more about speed than accuracy". RUSI "outlines broadly how targeting cycles operate, including the critical points where technology could limit or expand civilian deaths". It's a long read & you may not want to read it all. But the conclusion is that the IDF use it's systems  " not to refine targeting, but to expand & expedite it's target cycle...which constitutes a systematic devaluation of Palestinian lives, which could be reasonably considered collective punishment."

https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/israel-defense-forces-use-ai-gaza-case-misplaced-purpose

I have followed the creation of the state of Israel since I was in my teens & read "Exodus" by Leon Uris, published in 1958. No one should minimise the history of Jews around the world. They have suffered more than most. Notably at the hands of the Nazis. The creation of a Jewish state after the Holocaust seems necessary & inevitable. 

I do have a huge issue with the way that the Israeli very right wing government & the IDF have conducted the war against the Palestinians. I have tried to find evidence supporting the claims of the IDF that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields & justification for bombing hospitals, schools & refugee camps. I am struggling to find any. In addition they have killed aid workers & journalists. 

"Oxfam and Human Rights Watch have observed or documented that the Israeli authorities have carried out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks in violation of international humanitarian law following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks in Israel, imposed collective punishments on the civilian population, deprived the civilian population of objects indispensable to its survival, and used starvation of civilians as a weapon of war. These are all grave violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and customary international humanitarian law. The vast majority of Gaza’s population has also been forced to flee their homes, many as a result of Israeli actions that amount to war crimes". 

Amnesty International says the IDF are creating a "buffer zone” along the eastern perimeter of the occupied Gaza Strip (which) should be investigated as the war crimes of wanton destruction and of collective punishment." This is 16% of the entire occupied Gaza Strip. Also "Israeli military has unlawfully destroyed agricultural land and civilian buildings, razing entire neighbourhoods, including homes, schools and mosques". 

There is so much evidence to support the conclusion that what the Israeli government & IDF is doing, not to mention what they are tolerating settlers doing to Palestinians in the West Bank, you would imagine that they would would be committed to providing plentiful evidence to support the claims they make about Hamas & Hezbollah (in Lebanon).  But although I understand that what is effectively a guerrilla war is very difficult to win - Afghanistan is a prime example, I haven't seen the Israeli information machine provide very much evidence at all to justify it's actions.

In the absence of evidence I have to conclude that they are behaving illegally, the death & destruction is completely unacceptable & the USA & UK need to stop supporting this onesided war. There also does need to be a legal holding to account.

One of the worst things about this war is that although the IDF do not allow any journalists into Gaza, which to my mind speaks volumes for the fact that they can not justify it, there is plentiful verified evidence from brave journalists & NGO's, plus from Palestinians themselves, which we see daily on our TV's.

We all know what is happening.

 

We don't need no education....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iITFrcNLcA  Pink Floyd "The Wall" 1979. The year I became the head of a primary school at 34.

I had been trained in the 60's. I espoused, Montessori, Piaget, Steiner. I believer in child centred education & learning by doing, not by rote. Since then the world has changed immensely. So have I.

I still believe the child should be the centre of what is taught. They should have a really broad based education & learn by experiencing. No one learns to drive a car from a book or how to play football from a video. But we have AI. We have sophisticated technology. We have interactive whiteboards & computers. The rate of change is exponential.

Even more importantly than that the world is simply not the same place it was in the 70's. We have mass consumerism, but many of the old industies & jobs have gone. We have limited natural resources & need to find different ways of doing things. Family structure & parenting has changed out of all recognition. Populations are more mobile. In many ways we are more fortunate, but we have also lost reliability & structure. The needs of individuals & society are worlds away from the 70's.

But although education has changed I really don't think it has been given the time to really think about the needs of modern children, the state, the world & the system. What's more, I think we desperately need to do that or our children won't be prepared for an uncertain & changing world.

Education is both individual & societal. Both need to benefit. If we don't equip our children with the skills to be happy, balanced & productive individuals at whatever level, our society will not flourish. Most educational change is imposed from the top. From politicians. The world & it's wife thinks that they know what education should be because they went to school. But by definition their education is out of date. 

We need people with real experience & expertise to look at educational trends around the world & select the really good tested methods. We also need an open public discussion about what we as a society want education to be. We are in the 21st century, but education isn't. It's all about testing, examinations, administration & box ticking, putting huge pressure on the teaching force who are leaving in droves. No one wants to be a head now. 

A good education depends on good teachers who are well trained, creative & dedicated. It's a caring profession. It runs on goodwill. That has been eroded away by bureaucracy & overwork. 

But the most important thing is that our children need to enjoy school & feel that it is relevant to their lives now & in the future. I seriously doubt that it is.

Hope

Hope is not the same as wishing. I can wish I might win a million, but it's unlikely, a) because I don't gamble & b) because the odds are stacked against it.

I can hope. My hopes are fairly simple - good health & lives for my family & friends, a good death eventually for me, to do more good than harm in my life. 

But what hope do so many people in the world now have? If you follow the news you don't need me to enumerate the many devastating & utterly pointless conflicts, or the malnutritian & famine, or the crimes against women, the lack of basic human rights, sanitation & water.....That doesn't even include the people suffering from depression & mental illness.

"Individuals with very low levels of well-being—and in despair in particular—suffer not only poor outcomes on the health, longevity, and productivity fronts, but they also typically avoid civil society, live in loneliness and isolation, and are vulnerable to misinformation, conspiracy theories, and radicalization".

"A growing body of evidence suggests that the single most consequential component of subjective well-being is hope. It is critical to future outcomes for individuals and society. People usually think of hope as an emotion rather than something that can be measured and linked to behavioral, economic, and political outcomes. Economists who study hope define it slightly differently. Hope is not simply the belief or feeling that one’s circumstances will get better, that is optimism. Rather, hope is optimism combined with the belief that one has the agency to make things better".

https://www.brookings.edu/about-us/

My question is, if the world does not take action to make our countries more equal & evenly balanced, if we don't share land, wealth & resources, what will happen? My guess is that we will create a "monster" race. A race so disenchanted with the unfairness & inequality of many societies that they will be prepared to do anything to right the wrongs.

The difficulty I have is that I think the evidence for this is already there for everyone to see. All forms of extremism, religious of otherwise, are already clearly visible. The extreme right & extremely religious aren't able to listen. Populism is rampant. Self interest & power is all that matters to many. 

I would like you to think what you individually can do to force change. We have to hope that we have power to influence politicians because they are the only ones who can take effective action. At the moment I don't see much evidence of that.

 

Gifts & Politics

Christmas is on the horizon. My heart sinks every year. What to buy? Where to buy it? Will it be a good present or go straight to the present drawer or charity shop? It would help if I enjoyed shopping, but I just don't have the energy or inclination now.

MP's can accept gifts, it's not illegal so long as they follow the "Rules" & declare them. The Register of Financial Interests says the total value of gifts that Sir Keir Starmer has accepted since October 2023, (i.e. before becoming PM), is £74,905.80 - 11 football match tickets valued at thousands of pounds, as well as more than £24,000 in work clothes and accessories.There is also accommodation valued at £20,437.28 plus loans & gifts of clothing for his wife.

I can well understand that if "ordinary people" become very senior politicians there will be costs that their salaries don't meet. Sir Keir's net worth is said to be around £7.7 million, however, & it could rise to between £10m and £15m. That to me is wealthy. I would have thought he could afford his own clothes & specs. If HRH Katherine can patronise some hight street shops I would have thought Sir Keir & his wife could too.

I can also understand that actually having the time to go shopping must be extremely difficult. But then I imagine they have personal shoppers for that.

Then there is the football matches & events. I imagine that socialising at this level means that there would be a huge number of offers of free tickets. After all it does your event no end of good if the PM attends. There is a "quid pro quo". But is it a good image when real fans & supporters have to fork out vast amounts of money they probably can ill afford to follow their clubs? Given the Taylor Swift ticket fiasco, again are the optics of accepting those good?

The path is littered with elephant traps for politicians. In a way I don't want them to be spending their time worrying about minutiae like this. I would rather they ran the country effectively. But they do have well paid advisors & civil servants. I would expect them to be speaking truth to power about the advisibility of accepting gifts. 

I would also expect people who are at the top of government to have the common sense to understand that if it wouldn't look good in the headlines of the Daily Mirror or Daily Mail they probably shouldn't do it. Especially not when they are telling us on a daily basis that things will only get worse for all of us.

How Are You?

This has become such a meaningless, empty, phrase. I listen to Radio 4 a lot & am really fed up with interviewees saying that alongside "thank you for having me". Firstly, if you aren't really interested in the reponse to "How are you" then why are you asking? Secondly presumably the interviewee has been chosen because they have some expertise or experience to bring to a question & is possibly being paid for sharing it. The type of programmes I listen to aren't social occasions. I hope that all parties are polite, but phrases like this are grating & completely unnecessary. 

I do try not to rant too often on this Blog, but this is really p...... me off.

It's true on a personal level too. When someone says "How are you" generally the response is "I'm fine thanks, how are you". It tells the questioner nothing & they usually let it go, because it is generally accepted as just a convention. People rarely expect a genuine answer. 

However sometimes when you respond, the person you are speaking to then goes into lengthy detail about how they, or sometimes a member of their family, is. This has happened to me several times recently. While I'm happy to say that I'm possibly not having a good day, I really don't want to go into detail with most people, however genuine their enquiry. Similarly, unless it's a close friend or family, I really don't need to know the finer points of their medical condition or latest visit to the hospital. I especially don't want that level of detail about their relation, who I don't know.

It's all about appropriateness & balance. It is important to interact with people socially in a real & friendly way. We should be interested in eachother. But some people simply don't seem to have a filter. They don't seem to be able to judge what is & is not appropriate, genuine & interesting to someone else rather than "unloading". 

It isn't simply about saying the words. It's about listening & being able to pick up clues from facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, context clues, etc that tell you whether the conversation is appropriate to the person & the situation.

Maybe we are losing the ability to do that because we are communicating via our mobiles & computers too much. Real social interaction needs be face to face. Even touch is important. You can't do that over a phone, computer or radio. 

 

Complication, Confusion & Trust

I think we all benefit from simple messages. 

Personally I don't find maths easy, but I do understand visual graphs & charts. I like simple explanations of things, for example Prof Spieglehalter is my icon of easy to understand. Similarly I'm a fan of "More or Less". What I really dislike is the modern technique of political interviewing, as exemplified by some of the presenters of the "Today" & "PM" radio 4 programmes. To be fair, it must get really irritating when politicians simply don't answer the question, but trot out the response they have been programmed to put across, which may or may not have any relevance to the question. Interruptions & speaking across eachother is extremely annoying to the listener.

Our world & it's problems are very complicated. If I consider the Climate Emergency, the current ongoing wars, food security, wealth distribution.... none of them are simple. It is almost impossible to give a black & white synopsis of the information we have. I doubt that one person can grasp the total picture & certainly no one could put forward an easy solution that would work. We need teams of expertise to reach consensus in decision making. So I have no issues with advisors, so long as they are qualified to advise.

So people like me, who are interested in what is happening to our world & what the solutions & outcomes might be, can become confused by the warring voices. Not least because there are "bad actors" who quite deliberately muddy the waters. Who do we believe? Who do we trust? 

It isn't simply a question of trust. Our individual lives are busy & complicated. Just dealing with the everyday can be time consuming & difficult. How many of us have the time to verify what we are being told? Why should we have to? But we no longer trust governments & politicians. We don't trust the press & the media. We don't trust the Police. Unbelievably, many do seem to trust Influencers & Social media despite the evidence to the contrary.

I don't expect those with power in charge of government or multinational companies to always get it right. They should be allowed to make mistakes & change their minds, that is human. 

But I do expect them to be open, truthful & take responsibility to put the mistakes right. That seems to be really difficult for them to do because they overridingly want to protect their power, position & wealth. 

What is the answer? The only one I can think of is oversight bodies that actually do their job properly, with the power to hold anyone to account & operate sanctions if appropriate. But seeminly the bodies that we have are unable or unwilling to actually do their job. Hence all the "Special Enquiries".

Our society is in a mess & so is our planet. But we do have the intelligence to put it right. The public just need to get their act together to force change.

A Visit to A&E

I have just spent most of the weekend in the A&E of my local hospital. It isn't the first time, unfortunately I am someone who gets far more than their money's worth from the NHS. I never cease to be grateful for the care & skill of medics. How they cope with the sheer volume & variety of patients & the working conditions continually amazes me. Morale & care seems surprisingly high considering what they have to put up with, so I would never criticise the people who actually work in the NHS.

I do think the system needs a serious overhaul though & have blogged about it before. If they were to follow patients journeys through the system I think they might see opportunities for improvement.

I don't need to bore you with the detail of the circumstances that sent me there, but I will tell you the progress through it. 

14.30 - medical incident -> phoned 111-> initial speedy triage (efficient) -> 2nd triage, same questions but much longer & very inefficient. Took about 45 minutes. Both my daughter & I found it very difficult to understand the person asking questions -> doctor eventually rang hours later -> told to go to out of hours appointment at 19.00 -> a wonderful, competent, GP who sent me to A&E with a printed copy of the notes she took of all the neurological tests she did -> A&E 20.15 receptist + nurse then waiting room -> 9 hours in various waiting areas in a chair! Eventually triaged, same questions, ECG, Bloods, Blood pressure. Doctor eventually, same questions & tests as previously & a CT scan. No one was very interested in the very good notes the out of hours GP had given me. Everyone wanted to go through the same tests & questions themselves & didn't seem to know what the outcome of the previous persons questions & tests were. Long gaps between every interaction with no information -> eventually discharged at about 05.15 next morning. 

I was utterly exhausted having had no sleep & in quite a bit of pain because sitting in really uncomfortable chairs triggers some of my normal health conditions. 

I can completely understand why everyone a patient sees has to ask name, DOB & address. They need to know they are treating the right person. 

What I simply don't understand is why so much time is apparently wasted answering exactly the same health & incident related questions & doing exactly the same neurological tests. Why don't medics have ipads to enter the information as they go & share it with everyone treating that patient? In fact, does a single patient really need to be seen by so many people?

Triage means the preliminary assessment of patients or casualties in order to determine the urgency of their need for treatment and the nature of treatment required.

If my condition had been more serious than it turned out to be I would possibly have been dead after the time that elapsed.

When I got home at about 06.00 next morning, after waiting for a taxi, I went to bed. The hospital apparently tried to phone me around 9.30 to call me back for another CT + angiogram. My phone was turned off, but fortunately I woke up at about 11.00 & my daughter got through in time to collect me & take me back.

I'm fine now. But at 79 with several chronic conditions that experience was very trying. 

I completely understand from far too much experience, as far as a patient can, the difficulties the NHS operates under, (apologies for the pun). I just think that one of the great failings of the system is effective communication & sharing of information. In this age of modern technology it is really not acceptable to be wasting so much time in repetition. The use of ipads might be expensive initially but they could also be linked to the whole NHS computer system & from that every surgery & hospital could access a patient history in real time.

There must be other ways technology could be used to make the system better for medics & patients.