I’m deeply cynical about so-called disruptive businesses: the AirBnbs, the Deliveroos, the Ubers. I don’t think there’s anything particularly admirable about using VC money to undercut and destroy the competition or trying to evade the regulations designed to protect the people who use the service or the people who do the work. But I was… Continue reading Uber is running out of road
Category: Bullshit
Pernicious nonsense and other irritants
Olympian ignorance
Today in the Olympics, a weightlifter didn’t win a medal. This wouldn’t be remarkable if the weightlifter weren’t Laurel Hubbard, a transgender woman. But Hubbard it was, and her loss is confusing me. I thought trans women had to be kept out of sports because of their male-born advantage? That’s what social and right-wing media… Continue reading Olympian ignorance
This is not a technology story
I’ve had multiple calls from media wanting to do an item today on the tech story du jour, the NHS COVID app telling more people to isolate. But it’s not a tech story. The app is pinging more people because more people are getting infected. The uncritical framing of this as an app problem rather… Continue reading This is not a technology story
Entitlement
Another great piece by Jessica Valenti, this time on the hilarious idea that if women don’t want to sleep with right-wing men it’s a sign of “political discrimination” and authoritarianism. As Valenti points out, it’s the same argument put forward by incels. The only difference is that this time the whiny man-baby has been to… Continue reading Entitlement
Staged to invoke rage
This report by the Los Angeles Blade should – but probably won’t – make UK anti-trans activists think about what they’re doing and who their friends are. It’s an investigation into the alleged sauna incident I wrote about the other day, which was used by neo-Nazis as an excuse to crack heads and stab people.… Continue reading Staged to invoke rage
Careless Wispa
Over the weekend, Allison Bailey from the so-called LGB Alliance proved how divorced anti-trans activists are from the reality-based community. On discovering a Wispa bar and a lemon in her garden, she immediately came to the obvious conclusion: trans activists were trying to kill her dog. Nobody, least of all trans activists, was trying to… Continue reading Careless Wispa
Fairy tales
Remember when The Telegraph used to be a serious paper? Now it’s reduced to this. The story is based on claims by one anonymous woman who claims that the children’s channel CBBC somehow turned her child trans. The age of this child? 19.
You can’t trust this story about the National Trust
The National Trust did no such thing. It merely told its volunteers that if they wanted to wear face paint or glitter to mark Pride month, they wouldn’t get into trouble for doing it. See also: Stonewall supposedly banning the word “mother” or any of the other anti-trans culture war stories infesting both right- and… Continue reading You can’t trust this story about the National Trust
Belief
Over the next few days you’re going to hear a lot about Maya Forstater, the contractor who took her former employer to a tribunal after they didn’t renew her contract. Forstater is vocally anti-trans and claims that she was discriminated against because of this. The tribunal found that Forstater’s views, which she claimed were a… Continue reading Belief
“Rhetorical horseshit”
Former Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger gave an interview to The New Statesman in which he happily claimed that kids today are easily triggered snowflakes who can’t handle robust debate. If you’re thinking that’s the kind of crap you’d expect from a columnist in the right-wing press, you’re not the only one: journalist Mic Wright thinks… Continue reading “Rhetorical horseshit”