26 Comments

1. 

   @dogblessamerica

   December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

   I don't think this dude is as smart as he tries to make out. He reminds me of the billionaire CEO in Don't Look Up.

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2. 

   @eliptats

   December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

   cum

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3. 

   @oncaphillis

   December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

   First and foremost Mr. Cummings is way to full of himself.

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4. 

   @sawadeeh

   December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

   Bad systems get a bail out.

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5. 

   @michaelmayo3127

   December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

   That's were Cummings' deliberations go off the rails: Bismark didn't start WW1, that was the prerogative and actions of Gavrilo Principo. Ferdinahd Cohen-Blind, Bismark's bungled assassin — had he use a gun with a killing calibre, then Bismark would have been killed but, would that have had, any bearing on Gavrilo Principo action in Serbia? I think not. Sounds like Cummings is a mix of Fascist and Anarchist. I wonder what Cummings' thoughts are on proportional-representation, after all he wants more peer-review.

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6. 

   @Johnconno

   December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

   Cummings is a regular Renaissance-Man, I've seen his Google history…

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7. 

   @Will-bo7kg

   December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

   The ideas a partly correct but also ignore the key factor of the electorate where the real problem lays.
   As a democracy, of any type, relies on the electorate to be able to make informed decisions. Weather others agree or not with those decisions.

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8. 

   @brandonp3455

   December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

   Not a flattering thumbnail. Makes it look like they have one of the crackheads from Mitchell and Webb as a chief strategist.

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9. 

   @setaymotofficial

   December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

   Pronunciation: it’s not ashoom is ‘assume’ it’s not as in mushroom

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10. 

    @albertochirinos80

    December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

    Epsilon 5……I mean Russia…….I mean Durham…..👽👽👽👽👽

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11. 

    @fe6767

    December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

    So the man who is accused of concentrating power in himself is a man who blogs about distributed decision making, how ironic!

    Also, the idea that complex systems are subject to major changes as a consequence of minor inputs (a few neurons misfiring causes major brain malfunction, a few worker ants dying causing the major changes to the ant colony) seems counter-intuitive and portrays complex systems as fragile. A more orthodox view is that complex systems should be resilient to minor perturbations, but they should eventually modify their behaviour to deal with long term changes in their environment.

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12. 

    @russelltimmerman3771

    December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

    Dominic Cummings is wrong. Our leaders do not need to be good a prediction. Our leaders advisors need to be good at that. Our leaders need to be able to lead the country in the present tense. If there is a transition to a future tense the leader needs to be able to sell that change. The leader needs a good bullshit detector, he/she needs to know whom to listen to and when and by how much and how to sell his/her decision to the public.

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13. 

    @thumper8684

    December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

    So in summary Dominic Cummings was an A-level project that got out of hand.

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14. 

    @thumper8684

    December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

    If a tory calls another tory a psychopath at least one of them is a psychopath.

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15. 

    @andrewrice9362

    December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

    He basically wants a technocracy which is not a completely absurd idea but it lacks representation. His criticisms of the state of politics are generally sound but his arguments for how it should be replaced are controversial and there would probably be a huge proportion of people who would be hurt from the implementation. I don’t understand how he can be an advocate for experts when he his opinions on brexit ignore all the consequences.

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16. 

    @dilipsharan8699

    December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

    YUCK! 🙂

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17. 

    @TELEVISIBLE

    December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

    Alien from Epsilon 5 ! thats who he is !

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18. 

    @sharonramsey715

    December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

    Well I guess Carrie had a differant belief system and it seemed to have worked better than Cummings. So much for all that brain power he had. She just said it him or me Boris. Pretty easy there.

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19. 

    @sharonramsey715

    December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

    Gone gone he’s f…..g gone and will not be missed.

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20. 

    @julianwilliams9088

    December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

    Don’t know much about Cummings but I find myself agreeing with the ideas in this video

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21. 

    @nicklaskowalski

    December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

    I now understand Cummings’ depiction in Spitting Image much better🤣

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22. 

    @nicklaskowalski

    December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

    These populists a*sholes pry on the stupidity and xenophobia of hardcore voters and the nonchalance of moderates who do not tend to vote much.

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23. 

    @wivory81

    December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

    Cummings is a crackpot, massaging his own ego. He is a dangerous individual, who plays to people’s fears and prejudice, and a liar to boot, as seen during the Brexit campaign. Boris calls him a genius because Boris is so thick, he would think Stan Laurel was a genius.
    Boris and Cummings need to be discarded like a poo bag, and replaced, but with who? The whole Tory party in Westminster is devoid of the talent we need to get us through this disaster. God alone knows where we will be with another 4 years of this lot.

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24. 

    @Pincer88

    December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

    Cummings makes a few mistakes.
    1. Markets no longer function as selective mechanisms that weed out 'bad' companies, instead they select competition evading companies that seek to monopolize a market (big tech companies, pharma) or who seek to manipulate political systems in dependency (military industrial complex) and diminishing oversight while increasing funding (look at how the military industry does in the US). Banks that were too big too fail threw us into a global crisis, etc. Of course, market apologists say; that was because of political decisions not to let banks go bust or to have government oversight reinstated. That's a matter of turning the tables on the desired decentralization and deregulation, isn't it? If left unchecked, companies – and their shareholders of course – tend to seek maximalization of profit against the lowest cost and risk. Solution = concentration of power, both financially and political.
    2. There's an awful lot of bad science out there despite peer review. Thomas Kuhn preluded on a mechanism of group think in science due to governing paradigmas. We now see that paradigmas – for instance in climate sciences – also regulate which research is funded and which is not. The peer review has led to people who adhere to a paradiggma doing the reviews while everyone else is regarded as a sceptic or worse, a heretic. (Excellent BBC series in the 1990ies on that, but since Cummings seems to hate the BBC, he probably rejects the insight it delivered).
    3. Politics are being punished. Look at the landslide victories of certain parties or candidates and the demise of others. However, politics are not about the how – at least they are not supposed to – as they are about the what question. By regarding politics as a managerial art, he overlooks the function of it in society. He seems to think it's about solving problems. It isn't and has never been. It's about solving political problems i.e. b getting and staying in power (Machiavelli).
    4. We cannot ask ants if they are happy about their existence. Looking at society in terms of a hive-like organism that has one purpose only – survival – Cummings neglects the fact that for a society to work properly, there has to me more to life than survival. Yes, hardship due to a winner-takes-all organization certainly come with resilience, but nothing besides that. If people were ants, there would be no rebellion against that. BUt people are not mindless ants, bloodcells or neurons; they have minds of their own that tend to pursue irrational goals. Irrational that is in perspective of the survival of society.
    5. Every system, however well designed, tends to entropy and decay. Cummings seems to want to root out the causes of chaos and irrationallity. Many have tried and failed. Everything in nature develops into increasing diversity, chaos and a new equilibrium. Even ant colonies do not always survive the onslaught by other ants. Adaptation is not being stimulated by design, but by probability and diversity, also in goals. Chaos is the natural state of things, design the temporary exception.
    6. What IS the goal of society? Being the leading nation in whatever field? What a nation wants is not determined by a singleminded genius, but by the people or a governing elite. People who sometimes act against their best interest or elites who live life so carelessly that they'll end up under a guillotine. People in general do not learn, either from history or their own mistakes. Incentives by design are not going to change that. People are especially good at pretending to meet the citeria for a positive incentive while evading being caught and get the negative incentives. That's because – unlike ants – we are monkeys, deep down . Social yet treacherous at the same time. No design will stand the most existential incentive that drives a monkey doing monkey business: getting as lot of result as possible while doing as little as possible. Just like in administrative accounting there's no remedy for that either in administrative organisation or efforts to change the mindset of people.

    In short I'll predict this much: Cummings 's ideas are going to fail at one point or the other, just like president Xi Jinpings effort of re-educating the Chinese people with his Big Brother society and indoctrination camps will fail. There's no such thing as fail safe either in nature or nurture. Only those obsessed with the idea of curtailing chaos and failure will end up at the sharp end of both. Greeak tragedies like Oeudipus should have brought that lecture across. Yet somehow people always tend to fly too close to the sun with wings made of feathers and beewax and smash into the earth trying, just like Icarus.

    It is therefore not the aim to prevent failure, but to embrace it as a moment for re-evaluation and another try, or going down doing so. Sorry, but as sympathetic as Cummings's idea sounds, his solution is as otherworldly as it is extreme. The latter especially in its ultimate consequences – which I predict are inhumane and harsh – but I guess people will only learn that when the damage has been done.

    I see a slight resemblance to a young, frustrated Adolf Hitler that made personal vindication his sole aim in life and desperately seeking intellectual justification for that. I for one think his ideas are very bit as dangerous as those who follow them and fail to grasp what they ultimately will result in. Just a different kind of tyranny with no regard for human life or the pursuit of happiness. The portait of Spitting Image is spot on.

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25. 

    @Jide-bq9yf

    December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

    He speaks a good game , wish he walked it .

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26. 

    @bristolfashion4421

    December 25, 2023 at 6:04 am

    …or do you think there's any possibility at all that he's put all that out there, in order to get us all to think we know how he thinks…???

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