UK: No 10 Backlash as chief refuses to acknowledge severity of "super forecaster´s" views
By Iain Fraser - GEO´ Editor-at-Large
Málaga Press & Technology Centre
Sycophant-in-Chief, Dominic Cummings is coming under calls from across the house to quit as he
continues to refuse to acknowledge the severity of No 10 aide, Andrew Sabinsky´s vile views and comments after a series of his posts on social news aggregator site Reddit came to light.
In response to heavy media questioning as to whether he regretted the appointment, Cummings party line is simply that the government needed 'superforecasters' rather than 'political pundits who don't know what they're talking about' shirking any responsibility whatsoever and failing to condemn the views of his appointee. Instead he told the assembled press pack gathered outside his house to read a book on "superforecasting" by Philip Tetlock, a positive boon for the largely unknown wordsmith.
This not only levels serious questions about the selection and vetting protocols in place before the appointment of "Government advisers" but also reinforces the current questioning about the "social responsibility" of media outlets
like Reddit and my old bête noire, Facebook ...
Sabinsky, a 27 year old, self-styled "super forecaster" who posted a series of indefensible posts on
"rape and incest fantasies" quit amid fury at past comments in which he also wrote about forced contraception preventing the creation of a "permanent underclass" and also suggesting that black people had lower IQs.
Since the original posts exposed by The National, other historic [posted] ramblings have surfaced in which Sabinsky apparently advised a woman that her boyfriend liking pornography about incest, paedophilia and rape was not 'all that much to worry about' going on to comment that he himself had "a thing for incest erotica myself despite never having had those fantasies relating to my actual family".
Sabinsky is thought to have been working as a "contractor" on defence and "other policy areas" and
appointed under Cummings recruitment drive for "weirdos and misfits". In that respect I guess he
fitted the bill, but Downing Street has still failed or declined to explain exactly what vetting process that he and other potential "advisers" may or may not have been subject to and beggars the question how can an individual with these views ever be allowed to advise any Government.
After the media backlash and cross party furore he announced that he was stepping down due to 'media hysteria' and to avoid being a 'distraction' for the government, tweeting "Hey all, The media hysteria about my old stuff online is mad but I wanted to help HMG (Her Majesty´s Government) not be a distraction" "Accordingly I've decided to resign as a contractor. I hope no.10 hires more ppl w/ good geopolitical forecasting track records & that media learn to stop selective quoting."
In another tweet Sabinsky added that he joined the government team to do 'real work' and claimed he was the victim of "a giant character assassination" accusing the media of "selective quoting" and "hysteria".
He went on to post "I know this will disappoint a lot of ppl but I signed up to do real work, not be in the middle of a giant character assassination: if I can't do the work properly there's no point, & I have a lot of other things to do w/ my life."
The current business minister and MP for Spelthorne, Kwasi Kwarteng told Sky News that there must be 'much more severe' vetting in No10 so the same mistakes could not 'happen again' saying that 'What I do know is his remarks were offensive and racist and as soon as they came to light he left the government pretty quickly,' going on to say that Sabinsky´s views were "racist" and "totally unacceptable".
What exactly is Superforecasting?
The only reference I can find to "superforecasting" seems to be the 2015 book written by the
aforementioned economist, Philip E. Tetlock in his tile "Superforecasting; The Art and Science of
Predicition" Tetlock a veritable "sooth sayer" is a Canadian-American political science writer, and
is currently the Annenberg University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is
cross-appointed at the Wharton School and the School of Arts and Sciences. He was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019.
Editors View
This not only levels serious questions about the selection and vetting protocols in place before the appointment of "Government advisers" but also reinforces current concerns about the "social responsibility" of media outlets like Reddit and of course my old bête noire, Facebook.
While I fully accept that the British security services have their work cut out fighting extremism, even a cursory google search would have revealed that this individual had bizarre views that were not compatible with any Governmental appointment.
I myself was delivered a "Facebook Fatwa" effectively banning me from the platform for life simply for telling the truth after I was involved in exposing their involvement with now disgraced and defunct research firm Cambridge Analytica. I have written many pieces on this and Facebook´s stifling of the free press, particularly, where their name is involved. In fact I am still taking legal advice as to whether their actions towards me were "unconstitutional". Yours Aye! Iain Fraser
