Echoes from history

During the 1970s a series of films were made by the Central of Information during the energy crisis. These films all implored people to “Switch off Something” - a campaign from government aimed at energy conservation during the three day week. It’s interesting that in the more than 45 years between these and the recent Corona virus/Covid 19 information films from UK Government these are many parallels; their presentation is pretty much as austere now as they were then. They’re very direct and imposing your get across the message of national crisis. They are an interesting series of films and give a view of how government responded to national crisis and how it intended to inform the public nearly 50 years ago.

What we believe to be "better" is often just someone's prejudice: "And history shows us that it's only a small leap from believing in cultural superiority to believing in biological superiority, that a group's achievements are due to their innate capacities." (from "Superior: The Return of Race Science" by Angela Saini) Start reading it for free: https://amzn.eu/44z5ANK -------------- Read on the go for free - download Kindle for Android, iOS, PC, Mac and more http://amzn.to/1r0LubW

History is resplendent woth examples.of why expertise matters and how disaster follows when politics is a greater priority than knowledge "By 1961 an estimated 400,000 small reservoirs were in a state of disrepair; roughly one in three either collapsed, silted up or leaked dry.50" (from "Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62 (Peoples Trilogy Book 1)" by Frank Dikötter) Start reading it for free: https://amzn.eu/4UerNf5 -------------- Read on the go for free - download Kindle for Android, iOS, PC, Mac and more http://amzn.to/1r0LubW

How nationalism, no matter how extreme always becomes a power of fundamental contradictions because no ideology can escape the gravity of unintended consequences: "Between 1936/ 7 and 1938/9 the number of foreign workers increased from 274,000 to 435,000." (from "The Third Reich in Power, 1933 - 1939: How the Nazis Won Over the Hearts and Minds of a Nation" by Richard J. Evans) Start reading it for free: http://amzn.eu/27UK0qS

TV licence could be abolished from 2027, says Nicky Morgan -  https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/feb/05/tv-licence-could-be-abolished-from-2027-says-nicky-morgan There is a lot wrong with the BBC but you don't improve any service by closing it down. The idea that the BBC is anachronistic and slow to develop is pure gaslighting though; the BBC brought colour television, Ceefax (decades before the Web), pay-for-TV like BBC Select (30 years ago), early Internet integration (BBC Networking Club - 1994), stereo and high definition broadcasts and up to iPlayer that beat Netflix to the UK by 5 years. Following streaming services haven't really competed - they've took advantage of cheap cloud computing to sell access to low rent movies which isn't innovative or even that useful. All that's really happening is they're catching up to the BBC where they were with the 1990 Broadcasting Act that turned ITV into utter dogshit. ITV went from the The World at War to Th...

On 26th July 1982, the BBC broadcast “ A Guide to Armageddon ” [YouTube] as part of the QED documentary 1 series which ran between 1982 and 1999. The programme was written and produced by Mick Jackson and is clearly an early blueprint for Threads , although Threads was updated following several important scientifically credible ideas particularly that of nuclear winter. The programme was 30 minutes in length and was a detailed investigation into the effects of a nuclear weapon exploding over a large city, London being the chosen example. It theorised what effect a 1 megaton airburst weapon would have and demonstrating vigorous impartiality, the programme cited it sources at the very beginning: Sources for " QED A Guide to Armageddon ": Glasstone, S and Dolan J. D. (1977) J. D. The Effects of Nuclear Weapons . U.S. Department of Defense : U.S. Department of Energy. United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment. (1979) The Effects of Nuclear Weap...