We’re publishing an original piece today by Dr Gary Sidley, a retired NHS Consultant Clinical Psychologist, about the ethics of ‘nudging’ the public to comply with Covid restrictions. Dr Sidley was the organiser of a letter signed by dozens of psychologists and therapists and sent to the British Psychological Association in January that raised ethical concerns about the Government’s use of covert psychological techniques to secure behavioural change. He has now heard back from the Chair of the Ethics Committee at the BPS and, needless to say, he dismisses all of the concerns. Here is an extract from Dr Sidley’s article:
The British Psychological Society (BPS) is the leading professional body for psychologists in the U.K. According to their website, a central role of the BPS is: “To promote excellence and ethical practice in the science, education and application of the discipline.” In light of this remit, I – together with 46 other psychologists and therapists – wrote a letter to the BPS on January 6th, 2021, expressing our ethical concerns about the use of covert psychological strategies as a means of securing compliance with Covid restrictions. In particular, our alarm centred on three areas: the recommendation of ‘nudges’ that exploit heightened emotional discomfort as a means of securing compliance; implementing potent covert psychological strategies without any effort to gain the informed consent of the British public; and harnessing these interventions for the purpose of achieving adherence to contentious and unevidenced restrictions that infringe basic human rights.
Responses from the BPS to our initial letter were slow and circuitous. However, on July 1st we received an email from Dr. Roger Paxton, the Chair of the Ethics Committee, which clarified the BPS’s position: in the Committee’s view, there is nothing ethically questionable about deploying covert psychological strategies on the British people as a means of increasing compliance with public health restrictions.
An in-depth inspection of Dr. Paxton’s defence of the BPS reveals that it is evasive, disingenuous and wholly unconvincing.
Worth reading in full.
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Is that model’s guesses split by star-sign?
I think Sagittarians are most at risk, SAGE is taking the Pisces though if anyone still trusts these dice-rolling simulators.
Hey, I’m a Sagittarian!!
Talking about this sort of thing, astrology and prediction and all that, there’s this ‘news’ story about the Illuminati card game from the 90s, which some say predicted the events now.
https://www.theweek.co.uk/odd-news/106131/card-game-from-the-1990s-predicted-coronavirus
Strangely enough, a week before Princess Diana’s death, I was playing this game with my mate. There was a Diana card, which he had in play, and I killed her off with a Hit and Run – an assassination card which pictured a speeding car…
Also, there’s the card pictured below, which looks familiar, post 9/11…
Maybe Sage should simply draw cards from an Illuminati deck to determine their soothsaying. They’ll be more accurate.
It makes me think we’re in a simulation and someone running it is taking the piss!
I think you are being very unfair.
To astrologers, that is – they are far more likely to get closer to reality than certain modellers tend to be…
Sounds like you were keen to Aries your thoughts on that, you do need to ram these things home.
SAGE cant be wrong forever, they’ve got to get their cloud formation and goats entrails type
guessespredictions right eventuallyNo, it’s going to be a disastrous winter if SAGE are predicting otherwise. Goes to prove their predictions are good once you understand it’s a negative correlation.
Well that pissed on Whitty’s fireworks didn’t it? I bet he’s fuming!
Twenty wrong predictions in a row, and now they get one right. Be grateful peasants.
F. I’m worried now – looks like we could be in for a real epidemic. 🙂
I’m worried too. Could be a ‘sunk cost’ scenario. I.e. we have got ‘infections’ down, let’s make sure that they stay down by introducing plan B.
Or Psyops. Let them think it’s ok and then the Boosters do their job and will tell them, sorry you have to lockdown, wear a full face helmet and hop on one leg when you visit the empty supermarket having walked 3 miles because there’s no fuel.
All of this would be have been over 14 months ago if they would just stop meddling. Small summer blip, schools back, natural immunity built, old people released from isolating guidance. Sept 2020. If only we knew back then…….
We did know but we got sneered at, jeered at, ridiculed and brick-walled
So we like sage when it agrees with us do we?
I, for one, will still campaign for this shower of
shi*s“scientists” to be disbanded & prosecuted for crimes against me personally.This was my immediate thought too!
No, we don’t respect them at all – but it’s preferable that they come out with things which we agree with than that they follow their usual path of demanding more restrictions!
This discovery explains a lot:
“Oxford University researchers have discovered the densest element yet known to science.
The new element, Governmentium (symbol=Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312
.
These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called pillocks.
Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact.
A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete.
Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2 to 6 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganisation in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.
In fact, Governmentium’s mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganisation will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.
This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration.
This hypothetical quantity is referred to as a critical morass.
When catalysed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium (symbol=Ad), an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium, since it has half as many pillocks but twice as many morons.”
Now that’s what I call science.
Love it. Nobel prize in the bag!
Class 👍
Very Good!
I agree with all positive comments and this piece deserves a wider audience.
As Trabant says:
Class.
True scientific understanding.
And built from quarks of which self-interested, venal and useless are the most common.
The number of COVID-19 inpatients in Wales (21 Sep 21) per 100k is HIGHEST for the FULLY VACCINATED:
Muzzles, Nazipapiere, jibby-jabbies by the million, and the Gulag Wales ‘case’ rate goes through the roof.
Solution? More Nazipapiere, booster blackmail, more facepants – can’t fail, can it?
Don’t ‘bash’ Britain for big Covid outbreak, Oxford expert says
https://mol.im/a/10132489
Stabbing 💉
All 💉
Gullibles 💉
Everywhere 💉
Modellers predicting declining cases! Now I’m really worried 😀
I wonder what will happen with the boosters. Heard of 3 more serious adverse reactions this week. One ending in death 10 mins after the shot. If the rate of adverse was as low as is claimed it would be odd to hear of one. I have heard of others before this, one in the family.
My Mum had a bad reaction to the booster, with hindsight she had a reaction in spring too. Affected her breathing (she has asthma), but much worse this time. Given all the stories about reactions I have heard all year, and the fact they seem to get worse with each jab, some will inevitably die. I now know 4 people with bad reactions, three of which ended up seriously ill in hospital.
V sorry to hear. Has she yellow carded both events? And can you persuade her not to have the next?
Could it simply be the cold virus has run its course for now? The koolaid is ineffective, hard to prove it helped. Herd immunity with T cell immunity a little more believable.
Thankfully we know that we can fully trust SAGE modelling! Ludicrous.
So Dishy is leaking from the Treasury against Boris and Sage.
Well done Dishy.