The Bastard Academic

I came across a wonderful poster image by a talented artist, Michele Rosenthal , which depicts a robot debate: Granted, these aren't all the logical fallacies that exist, but it covers the most obvious, and most abused ones. But why are they important? We currently live in an age where we have access to more information that at any other point in history, and yet somehow we still think that arguing from emotion, or with our cognitive dissonance blinders on, is both right and acceptable: it isn't, not by any stretch of the imagination. Postmodernism may have a place, but not here. Yes, you absolutely are allowed to feel they way you want to, but debates are places for facts and ideas that need to be scrutinised rigorously, not with playground threats and character assassinations. "I feel" is not an argument that belongs in a debate - your feelings are valid for you, yes, but you can not simply refute the evidence-based assertion of vaccinations work with the st...

As we know, there are ~235 billion emails sent per day, a number that keeps growing year-on-year. A staggering 48% of that traffic is spam of one description or another, a figure that has actually come down 21% in the past 4 years alone. Despite varying scams and spam being prevalent and well-known, still people fall for them and shell out hundreds of thousands of pounds to cyber criminals each year. Today, I’m going to take a look at an interesting blackmail spam email I received and break down how to identify this as something obviously a scam, and why it is also a phishing expedition as opposed to real blackmail. I’ve taken out my email details, but the rest is exactly how I got it: A Fun Blackmail Scam attempt The first to check, with every email you get not just the ones you suspect of being dodgy, is the sender name and email address. Now even a neo-luddite can spot that something is fishy here: 986@501.416 is clearly not a real email address. If you aren’t sur...

As a Welshman, I have always been cautious of independence: I have always wanted it for my nation, but years of political mistrust and abuse by England have not left us in a good enough state economically to do much of anything to change this state of affairs. Which brings us to the trigger event for this post, and why I'm particularly miffed. The Swansea Tidal Lagoon project had all the hallmarks of Something Good: a renewable energy technology that would create not just jobs at the site, but create employment opportunities and new businesses along the supply chain, as well as regenerate a coastal area. It would also serve as a template business and regeneration project that could be replicated around the UK, and possibly exported abroad. And all for a little more than the cost of a DUP bribe  £1.3 billion. My opening paragraph has probably given away that not all is well with this. Instead of investing in not just a one-off project, but the full rejuvenation of industry and c...