Dominic Cummings is the Chief-of-staff of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He managed the Vote Leave campaign in 2016, the primary campaign during the UK referendum on European Union membership (campaigning successfully to leave the EU).
His success in Vote Leave is down to a targeted digital campaign on Facebook using the services of Cambridge Analytica / AggregateIQ. These are the root actions that sparked Facebooks turmoil around election advertisements that may again affect the 2020 US Presidential campaign.
Cummings is an anarchist and has said he wants to tear down the UK Civil Service, getting rid of mandarins and long-term civil servants, and replace it with something else. This blog post is part of that change.
It's government by data science, perhaps technocratic. With a governing majority of 80 seats, by December 2019 election, he thinks he -- the government -- has space to do controversial or unpopular things, and tearing down the civil service is something he believes is necessary.
Slight clarification: he's an anarchist in the sense of wanting to subvert the existing established order and ignoring rules and conventions along the way, not in the sense of rejecting hierarchies and advocating self-governed societies. Unless I'm completely mistaken.
Is there some context or information missing here? He's a disciple because he quotes Graham once in a blog post in a fairly pedestrian way? Surely no reasonable person would describe that relationship as being a 'disciple' unless there is something more?
Searching the wider internet for "Dominic Cummings" "Paul Graham" doesn't seem to reveal any meaningful connections.
And who is the person who has editorialised this title quoting when they say 'heads' in quotes?
My read: he's realized that England's government gave up with hint of a clue it had after the rise of the EU, Brexit is about to reveal that fact, and it's time to grasp at straws in hopes that some kind of half assed imitation of ARPA will save it?
Come now. Let's just accept England's natural fate as a US protectorate alongside Guam if it leaves the EU.
I think this is about improving decision-making and effectiveness of government. I'm not an expert but I imagine a surveillance play would be handled via MI5 (domestic security) and not Downing Street. Moreover, Johnson is vaguely libertarian.
Dominic Cummings, Steve Bannon, Olavo de Carvalho, Amit Shah, endless number of similar clones in EU...just amazing to watch what kind of people are getting propped up by the attention economy.
Cummings shares some qualities with the rest of that list, but he’s not a nationalist if you believe his extensive blogging.
Although he is comfortable using the language of nationalism, which perhaps amounts to the same thing practically.
I’m also not sure how right wing he really is. He seems fairly liberal in his own views on immigration, race and so on. Although again, he panders to those with different views.
I don’t agree with Cummings on many things, but I don’t think it’s fair to put him in a list with those other names.
I stand to be corrected. It’s possible I misunderstand him. He’s hard to misunderstand.
Starts by quoting Eliezer Yudkowsky, winds up advertising for "weirdos from William Gibson novels". I would have to eat so much cheese to dream something as weird as this.
A lot of odd and downright false assertions ITT. Anti-Brexit people are too often mistakenly conflating Cummings/Johnson and Farage as if everyone in favour of Brexit has precisely the same views. In reality they ran two different campaigns in very different styles and in fact one of Vote Leave's main aims was to keep Farage off the TV as much as possible because he was (and is) a turn off to the majority and presumably most swing voters.
I voted Remain at the time, but stumbling across Cummings' blogs and subsequently reading about Tetlock [0] + David Deutsch's arguments [1] has left me in favour of Leave (although I don't have strongly nailed down views on this).
This project is a great idea to improve the effectiveness of government by creating tools that will help ministers and officials make better decisions in the face of complex systems. Will it work? I'm optimistic but there will surely be unknown unknowns that could derail progress in addition to plain old politics.
Also, Timothy Gowers (Fields Medallist) has an interesting piece in favour Remain [2], although he overlooks the fact that differences in institutional design of UK vs EU mean that sovereignty has significant implications beyond just sovereignty for sovereignty's sake.
Edit: Would love to hear counterarguments from downvoters btw. I don't mean that in a hostile way, I've changed my mind on this topic many times in the past 3 years and I'd be more than happy to be exposed to more good arguments against Brexit and Cummings' ideas.
My take was that Cummings saw Farage as a useful way to draw in the anti-immigrant crowd whilst being able to wash Vote Leave's hands of hints/accusations of racism?
Interesting to see the video with Deutsch there; I wasn't aware he had publicised opinions on this. Seems like you could summarise his argument as saying that adversarial political systems are more democratic and more effective than consensus-based political systems. It seems quite odd to me in the same way that some of his work in physics is. He's taken a principle of Popper's ("Democracy is measured by how easy it is to remove a policy or government") as a seemingly absolute axiom and spread it quite thinly to the extent that FPTP is seen as more democratic simply because policies get added and removed more frequently. I can see how this attitude links in with Cummings' obsession with effectiveness.
Although FPTP probably does make it easier for some policies to be repealed, I think it makes it a lot harder for some policies to be introduced. It results in a kind of "package-deal" politics in which you can often only effectively vote for a certain policy when it's bundled up with a load of other policies which you may or may not like. Take for example cannabis decriminalisation, which over half of the UK support and most of the rest don't have any strong opinion over. The two main parties havenever paid it any attention as they see it risky, therefore it's never seriously discussed.
My previous reading about institutional differences between the UK and the EU had left me with the impression that the EU is significantly more "democratic" in the sense that the broad spread of people's attitudes and opinions is being represented and percolated up to the legislative processes. For example, although the EU Commission isn't directly elected, it is at least selected by heads of state and approved by Parliament members, is renewed every 5 years and can be scuppered in a vote of no confidence. Parliament members are by and large voted in in a proportional way, which I see as generally a positive thing. By contrast the HoL - although it does not propose legislation - wields a certain amount of influence over how legislation is passed, is effectively unelected, and many members are there for life.
There's also the fact that the EU as a political body appears to be more of a self-modifying organism than the UK's political body. For example, recent years/decades have seen significantly more power being vested in the EU Parliament. This may be to do with how young the EU is - it's still working on its method of government.
With Brexit looking quite inevitable now, it will be interesting to compare the ongoing performance of the UK and set it against that of the EU.
I enjoy many of the same thinkers he does, and it pains me that Cummings associates himself with the rationalists. Alan Kay and Paul Graham will be unaffected by being name-dropped I’m sure. Lesswrong and slate star I fear might not, which would be a shame.
I wonder whether Cummings’ main flaw is that he admires scientists and rationalists too much, to the extent that his plans rely on them to solve problems he is deliberately creating, confident they can be overcome.
> Everything else the brexit crowd has produced is a steaming PoS of low quality lies
...which worked. If we accept what you are saying as true then it merely demonstrates the utter incompetence of the Remain crowd at effective communication (that they weren't even able to refute 'low quality lies'), which is kind of an important thing in a political debate.
This is A+ language to hide that he simply wants to hire people with the same worldview/mindset as himself irrespective of qualifications and civil service rules.
Telling also that this is posted on his private blog, not an official government site. He will rip the country apart, make a huge profit for himself and his friends (like Farage) and leave a bloody mess. Damage for decades as we see already now with Britain's conflicted population (huge rift in particular between pro/against Brexit people and on a lot of other lines) but at an institutional scale and reach.
'The Daily Telegraph reported on Cummings's past rivalry with Nigel Farage from the 2016 referendum campaign, and quoted Farage as saying that: "He has never liked me. He can't stand the ERG. I can't see him coming to any accommodation with anyone. He has huge personal enmity with the true believers in Brexit"'
Isofarro|6 years ago
His success in Vote Leave is down to a targeted digital campaign on Facebook using the services of Cambridge Analytica / AggregateIQ. These are the root actions that sparked Facebooks turmoil around election advertisements that may again affect the 2020 US Presidential campaign.
Cummings is an anarchist and has said he wants to tear down the UK Civil Service, getting rid of mandarins and long-term civil servants, and replace it with something else. This blog post is part of that change.
It's government by data science, perhaps technocratic. With a governing majority of 80 seats, by December 2019 election, he thinks he -- the government -- has space to do controversial or unpopular things, and tearing down the civil service is something he believes is necessary.
n4r9|6 years ago
chrisseaton|6 years ago
Searching the wider internet for "Dominic Cummings" "Paul Graham" doesn't seem to reveal any meaningful connections.
And who is the person who has editorialised this title quoting when they say 'heads' in quotes?
Havoc|6 years ago
madhadron|6 years ago
Come now. Let's just accept England's natural fate as a US protectorate alongside Guam if it leaves the EU.
ThomPete|6 years ago
maxheadroom|6 years ago
Jefro118|6 years ago
heavenlyblue|6 years ago
tonyedgecombe|6 years ago
He seems to have drunk the AI koolaid but I’m not convinced he really understands it.
This could all go spectacularly wrong.
hos234|6 years ago
incangold|6 years ago
Although he is comfortable using the language of nationalism, which perhaps amounts to the same thing practically.
I’m also not sure how right wing he really is. He seems fairly liberal in his own views on immigration, race and so on. Although again, he panders to those with different views.
I don’t agree with Cummings on many things, but I don’t think it’s fair to put him in a list with those other names.
I stand to be corrected. It’s possible I misunderstand him. He’s hard to misunderstand.
twic|6 years ago
Jefro118|6 years ago
I voted Remain at the time, but stumbling across Cummings' blogs and subsequently reading about Tetlock [0] + David Deutsch's arguments [1] has left me in favour of Leave (although I don't have strongly nailed down views on this).
This project is a great idea to improve the effectiveness of government by creating tools that will help ministers and officials make better decisions in the face of complex systems. Will it work? I'm optimistic but there will surely be unknown unknowns that could derail progress in addition to plain old politics.
[0] - Superforecasting is a great book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Superforecasting-Science-Prediction...
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdtssXITXuE
Also, Timothy Gowers (Fields Medallist) has an interesting piece in favour Remain [2], although he overlooks the fact that differences in institutional design of UK vs EU mean that sovereignty has significant implications beyond just sovereignty for sovereignty's sake.
[2] - https://gowers.wordpress.com/2016/06/02/6172/
Edit: Would love to hear counterarguments from downvoters btw. I don't mean that in a hostile way, I've changed my mind on this topic many times in the past 3 years and I'd be more than happy to be exposed to more good arguments against Brexit and Cummings' ideas.
n4r9|6 years ago
My take was that Cummings saw Farage as a useful way to draw in the anti-immigrant crowd whilst being able to wash Vote Leave's hands of hints/accusations of racism?
Interesting to see the video with Deutsch there; I wasn't aware he had publicised opinions on this. Seems like you could summarise his argument as saying that adversarial political systems are more democratic and more effective than consensus-based political systems. It seems quite odd to me in the same way that some of his work in physics is. He's taken a principle of Popper's ("Democracy is measured by how easy it is to remove a policy or government") as a seemingly absolute axiom and spread it quite thinly to the extent that FPTP is seen as more democratic simply because policies get added and removed more frequently. I can see how this attitude links in with Cummings' obsession with effectiveness.
Although FPTP probably does make it easier for some policies to be repealed, I think it makes it a lot harder for some policies to be introduced. It results in a kind of "package-deal" politics in which you can often only effectively vote for a certain policy when it's bundled up with a load of other policies which you may or may not like. Take for example cannabis decriminalisation, which over half of the UK support and most of the rest don't have any strong opinion over. The two main parties havenever paid it any attention as they see it risky, therefore it's never seriously discussed.
My previous reading about institutional differences between the UK and the EU had left me with the impression that the EU is significantly more "democratic" in the sense that the broad spread of people's attitudes and opinions is being represented and percolated up to the legislative processes. For example, although the EU Commission isn't directly elected, it is at least selected by heads of state and approved by Parliament members, is renewed every 5 years and can be scuppered in a vote of no confidence. Parliament members are by and large voted in in a proportional way, which I see as generally a positive thing. By contrast the HoL - although it does not propose legislation - wields a certain amount of influence over how legislation is passed, is effectively unelected, and many members are there for life.
There's also the fact that the EU as a political body appears to be more of a self-modifying organism than the UK's political body. For example, recent years/decades have seen significantly more power being vested in the EU Parliament. This may be to do with how young the EU is - it's still working on its method of government.
With Brexit looking quite inevitable now, it will be interesting to compare the ongoing performance of the UK and set it against that of the EU.
Havoc|6 years ago
Everything else the brexit crowd has produced is a steaming PoS of low quality lies.
Maybe they're better at playing the fool than I gave them credit for
incangold|6 years ago
I enjoy many of the same thinkers he does, and it pains me that Cummings associates himself with the rationalists. Alan Kay and Paul Graham will be unaffected by being name-dropped I’m sure. Lesswrong and slate star I fear might not, which would be a shame.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/alanwh...
https://unherd.com/2019/08/dominic-cummings-is-no-chicken/
I wonder whether Cummings’ main flaw is that he admires scientists and rationalists too much, to the extent that his plans rely on them to solve problems he is deliberately creating, confident they can be overcome.
growlist|6 years ago
...which worked. If we accept what you are saying as true then it merely demonstrates the utter incompetence of the Remain crowd at effective communication (that they weren't even able to refute 'low quality lies'), which is kind of an important thing in a political debate.
incangold|6 years ago
celticninja|6 years ago
1_over_n|6 years ago
For left leaning folk don't like cummings new style, does that mean they are thinking conservatively about government?
I think this is an interesting thought experiment?
goatinaboat|6 years ago
growlist|6 years ago
spamlord|6 years ago
L_226|6 years ago
pergadad|6 years ago
Telling also that this is posted on his private blog, not an official government site. He will rip the country apart, make a huge profit for himself and his friends (like Farage) and leave a bloody mess. Damage for decades as we see already now with Britain's conflicted population (huge rift in particular between pro/against Brexit people and on a lot of other lines) but at an institutional scale and reach.
How are this kind of people allowed into power...
growlist|6 years ago
Err...
'The Daily Telegraph reported on Cummings's past rivalry with Nigel Farage from the 2016 referendum campaign, and quoted Farage as saying that: "He has never liked me. He can't stand the ERG. I can't see him coming to any accommodation with anyone. He has huge personal enmity with the true believers in Brexit"'