I Dream of Utopia

I thought I would share with you a letter I wrote to Dr Shashi Tharoor MP of Trivandrum in Kerala, India in response to his notorious speech at the Oxford Union (it infamously went viral) on reparations for India from Britain reflecting the British Raj's failings and India's subsequently improved global position in recent times. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7CW7S0zxv4 I wrote the letter in response to this article posted on his Facebook page: http://www.rt.com/uk/316791-corbyn-empire-working-class/ RE Oxford. What about the exploitation by the lower classes of those from a more privileged background - the real situation? Or of family members who know better through study and hard work being shamelessly criminally tortured by idiots? I think that the issue is teaching people about the official social hierarchy and what people think of those who don't understand are guilty of abuse. The reality is that Britain does owe compensation but only because the...

BRLSI 6 th July 2015 Sean McGly, of the Open University Notes by William Gaskell King John is known to us as a “Rotter”. There were 3 ways of judging a king: 1.        Knight 2.        Priest 3.        Judge King John lived in the shadow of his older brother, King Richard the Lionheart. They were of the Angevin Dynasty, the counts of Anjou,. King Richard had bankrupted the country with crusades. King John earned the nickname “mollygladum” which means “soft sword” for paying tribute to the king of France early in his reign for the protection of English lands in France. King John is known to have murdered his nephew Prince Arthur out of jealousy perhaps as he was set to be next in line for the throne as the son of King Richard. King John was tenacious despite his failures; he was only partially competent as a warrior, following up victories with moments of bad judgements le...

BRLSI 8 th July 2015 Dr Chris Brooke, Historian, Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS), University of Cambridge Notes by William Gaskell Jean-Jacques Rousseau Rousseau was born in Geneva in 1712 and moved soon to Paris after his mother died when he was very young and was then educated with books. Eventually he was a secretary to the Ambassador of France in Venice in 1743-1744. He was famously friends with the French philosopher Diderot. He then wrote and published a famous essay that became popular and started many further conversations by correspondence with people writing to him to respond to his essay and him then spending much of his time responding to those letters. His idea stated in The Social Contract that values were the causes of people becoming very bad deriving from the Biblical theology of the Original Sin. After publishing this essay he was then forced in to exile in 1762 in England. Adam Smith Adam Smith was born in 1723 in Kircaldy...

Jacob Rees-Mogg MP BRLSI 10 th July 2015 Notes by William Gaskell Adam Smith (1723-1790) Born in Kircaldy, which was former PM Gordon Brown’s seat in parliament. He was friends with Hume and had dinner with him on Hume’s death bed. He was a Humanist as it is generally acknowledged that people don’t learn anything at Oxford University, his alma mater. Dr Johnson – English pioneer – was Adam Smith’s rival and so Smith suffered his rudeness. At Edinburgh University lectures, Smith’s Humanist point was thus: ·          Empathy is basis of virtue ·          Extraordinary increase in productivity thought the division of labour Example given was the quality of industry collapses with the fall of the Roman Empire as people no longer are treated properly by a central governing authority as money is no longer respected. Smith was fundamentally opposed to artificial limits of wages and producti...

Bristol Festival of Ideas Alvin Roth from Stanford University, Nobel Prize-winning economist. Wills Memorial Building, University of Bristol 13 th July 2015. Notes by William Gaskell Markets and trade are the most ancient hallmark of human civilisation. In the modern world markets have developed with the standardisation of wheat that helped match the quality of grain to the correct market price. But markets are not always standardised. For example markets like eBay have become very big and congested and so we now need to navigate them with a search engine. ·          Safety of the market place needs to be considered ·          Artificial reputation mechanism to indicate customer satisfaction with supplier is thus implemented for market security NHS match up doctors with hospitals who most want to be together but the old system didn’t work because of human factors; the best match perhaps woul...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evanescent_wave The evanescent waves end up forming a fringe of surface plasmons and these energy nodes affect how light propagates through a material, I suppose a bit like supernumerary interfaces. This means that the energy of the light waves forms singularities at these points before dissipating and propagating along the path of the light in the material. I suppose like a filtering system from God - we do not know how to describe the beauty of t he creation holistically without acknowledging it may not be the material properties directly causing this phenomena, as we have not yet learned how best to use this particular property with physics, but rather some energetic force that acts within materials, ever present yet ever diminishing. Some cosmic resonance that could be harnessed - with change these resonances could change the very interaction of matter. I was just thinking the other day at work, evanescent wave...

To blow or not to blow: The psychological toll of (not) blowing the whistle Dr Katie Porkess MSc MBA PhD FISMA 1 st July 2015 BRLSI, Bath, UK. Notes by William Gaskell “Whistleblowing is the disclosure by organisation members of illegal immoral practices [sic].” Examples of Whistle blowing Silkwood film about nuclear safety in USA Lady got plutonium poisoning and then crashed her car and died while testifying against her company for lapses in health and safety. Air –Shield Inc Salvador Castro in 1995 noticed a baby incubator was unsafe and same up with fix – he reported t regulator and was sacked and never worked again. Crossrail Frank Morris in 2012 raised health and safety issues on behalf of his consultancy and was dismissed. He then petitioned Crossrail for 1 and a half years by billboarding them outside of their HQ offices daily with the support of his union until he and his company were re-instated by Crossrail. Walsgrave Hospital Dr Raj Mithu in 2001...