Sounding Board

Over the past couple of months, Andrew has found that some of his best thoughts come when he’s driving. As he can’t very well text and drive, he’s been recording them on his phone. With a couple of months of recordings now accumulated, he decided to play them to Nic in order for them to... The post Motorcar Musings appeared first on sounding board .

This week, Nic wants to steel man vaccines. Let’s be honest. We struggle with this one! Is it possible to steel man the arguments for vaccinating the entire population (including people who have had it and are now immune) without steel manning authoritarianism? We certainly give it the old college try along with making a... The post Steel Manning Vaccines appeared first on sounding board .

This episode Andrew wants to talk about something close to his heart: Gaming. More specifically, he wants to talk about gamers, as they have been in and out of the media for the past few years. We start by talking about games themselves and what they entail, to give you an idea of the type... The post Gamers – will they save us? appeared first on sounding board .

This week, we’re back talking about the only game in town: the ‘rona. We discuss the ridiculous behaviour of a new phenomenon: “leapers” and relay information about how well the new vaccine centre around the corner from Sounding Board HQ is doing. Spoiler: not very. We also discuss covid centrism, as well as applying it... The post I’m Forever Blowing Covids appeared first on sounding board .

Andrew is calling for a General Election, but do we really want Keith in charge? Is there a better model of healthcare for the Covid age? Are neo-liberals just itching to tame but not eliminate state intervention? And have people outsourced their morals to a higher power – the state. Please visit our website to... The post Have No Morals But Your Own appeared first on sounding board .

Speak to anyone on the evangelical left, and they’ll tell you that cancel culture doesn’t exist. They’ll maintain that cancel culture is merely just consequences. That people are simply being held to account for things that they are saying or doing. And by holding them to account, they’re only using free speech. But the question... The post Cancel Culture appeared first on sounding board .

This episode, we discuss Elliott’s Law, which Andrew has just created: a) In politics, respect only flows one way: in the direction of statism. People more statist than you are always “misguided”, people less statist are always “dangerous”. There’s this idea that a little (or a lot) more state than what you prefer, is always... The post Elliott’s Law appeared first on sounding board .

In this season of festivity and joy, it’s time for the Sounding Board Christmas message. Will it be a message of hope for the future? Will we be encouraging others to “stay safe” and keep away from Granny? Don’t be silly. In this special Christmas edition of Sounding Board Nic keeps it very simple, and... The post The Sounding Board Christmas Message appeared first on sounding board .

The government found just the excuse it needed – a new strain of the coronavirus – to lockdown in all but name and cancel Christmas for a huge swathe of rhe country. We talk about the rules of Tier 4 and how it was announced, and whether there needs to be a new scientific discipline... The post The Covid Christmas Cancellation appeared first on sounding board .

As England heads toward a return to the Lockdown tiering system and out of the 4 week November national Lockdown, we discuss how meaningless the numbers are that have driven us this far. How exactly to do you count false positives with the now ubiquitous PCR test for SARS-CoV-2? Does the recent Chinese study really... The post The Covid Casedemic appeared first on sounding board .

After a brief hiatus (circuit break?) due to work commitments, we’re back, and we’re raring to go. This time, we talk about the recent US Election. We discuss the results and whether they appear, on the face of it, to be slightly dodgy. We then discuss the corporate press (legacy media), fact checkers and the... The post US Elections, Social Media And The Desperate Corporate Press appeared first o...

After receiving our first ever gift from a listener of a bottle of scotch, Andrew explains how whisky is made and what makes a good one. We then talk about free speech and whether it’s ever right to have any restrictions on it. The Darren Grimes incident of the last week shows just how far... The post Whisky, Free Speech and Discrimination Law appeared first on sounding board .

This week, Nic notices that there has been a noticeable change in the political landscape, with the two main parties finally diverging over lockdown policy. But is this a good thing or not? Certainly when all political parties agree then alarm bells should ring, but if one goes even further, even more authoritarian, will that... The post Circuit Breaker Or Will Breaker? appeared first on sounding...

Is fear the latest virtue that must be signalled? As we discuss Trump’s recovery and Andrew’s wife experience with the NHS, we ask whether it’s now trendy to show just how fearful you are. We also talk about social media censorship, and whether you’d end up with even more liars, as all the proof they... The post Fear As A Virtue appeared first on sounding board .

Some actual infections have finally occurred in Nic’s office, and of course, everyone is fine, but wouldn’t it have been better for this to happen in the summer months rather than trying to suppress until the changing of the seasons when all the other bugs appear again? Trump also tests positive, along with his wife... The post Office outbreak, Trump tests positive and what about the roads? appear...

The biggest encroachment on civil liberties has taken place in 2020, and under a Conservative government.  How did this happen without any scrutiny? Democracy was one of the first things to be suspended, so how can it be used to check the power of those at the top? Do opposition parties ever oppose when it... The post Is Democracy A Check On Power? appeared first on sounding board .

Nic is back from Cornwall after cancelling his trip to Corfu, but how much of a holiday was it, being herded through one way systems, with mask nazis everywhere? He also shares his recent experiences with masks and how its stopped him attending medical appointments. We cover the exam grading debacle, where yet another computer... The post Exam Grades, the Rule of Six and Our Growing Police State a...

Further to Andrew’s recent blog post about Virtue Broadcasting, we take the topic further. We discuss virtue signalling in general, before moving on to the louder, shoutier form that is broadcasting. We talk about different forms of signals, from Twitter bios to mask wearing to clapping like a trained chimpanzee every Thursday evening. We talk... The post Virtue Broadcasting appeared first on soun...

In this edition we review some of the latest polling and see just how crazy the numbers are for people supporting the unprecedented government interventions of 2020.  Does it very much if you are a Labour or Tory voter or are they all happy to be authoritarian in an pandemic. Andrew tells the story of... The post The Chocolate Episode appeared first on sounding board .

Is a common language enough any more or do you need to somehow signal your political or woke intentions?  How does that work when the Overton Window shifts so frequently? We talk about the evolution of terms such as “Coloured People” and “People of Colour” to define groups of people, and whether its a feature... The post Left Leaning Language and Grievance Signalling appeared first on sounding boa...

With the recent hacking attacks at Twitter and Garmin, Nic explains the detail behind another attack on a company called Blackbaud. They claim to have stopped a cyberattack, but they are explicit that they paid the ransom demand. Can companies really guarantee their data is not going to be released or sold after paying the... The post Hackonomics: Market Forces and Unethical Behaviour appeared fir...

The US has a different political structure as well as a culture with more emphasis on liberty – at least superficially. It also has a Libertarian Party that fields candidates for President. But what about the UK?  Who is the closest we have to a Ron Paul and can they succeed anywhere in the current... The post Can Libertarianism Ever Take the UK? appeared first on sounding board .

When did locking down a population, or closing schools become the agreed way of dealing with an epidemic? Andrew explains where the lockdown model was pioneered (you won’t believe it if you don’t already know), and we discuss why it became popular as a methodology despite being so flawed. Why were policy makers so ready... The post Agent Based Behaviour Modelling appeared first on sounding board .

Over four months since the peak of Covid19 infections in Britain and the government thinks that now is the right time to mandate mask wearing in shops. Aside from the morality of the state telling you how to dress, do these loose pieces of cloth actually do anything? This edition, we talk about the utter... The post Real Maskism Has Never Been Tried appeared first on sounding board .

For weeks, Andrew has been pestering Nic to talk about books. To keep him happy, in this edition Nic interviews Andrew about a handful of his favourite reads. Starting out with Economics In One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt, Andrew moves on to discussing four of his favourite novels; George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New... The post Libertarian Good Reads appeared first on sounding board .