Adam Bell
@adambell.bsky.social
3.3K followers 560 following 1.4K posts
Director of Policy at Stonehaven. Ex BEIS. Energy geek. All skeets in a personal capacity. @adam_grant_bell on the bird site
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adambell.bsky.social
'Pick Up Artist', someone who read The Game and learned that 'negging' - saying negative things to women in order to lower their self esteem - was a good thing to do and definitely not just being a willy.
adambell.bsky.social
Oh, I learned the lyrics to every Smiths song because my wife is a huge fan and I wanted to appear cool. But there's a difference between putting in effort with someone you've actually met and using an AI to automate responses to enough women to produce a 'return'.
adambell.bsky.social
Only if it is fashioned entirely out of bluestone and people are encouraged to undertake pagan practices on the town square.
adambell.bsky.social
This is just automated PUA stuff, the modern negging for the modern pathetic wazzock. These men deserve to contribute to the 'male loneliness epidemic' until they stop thinking women have cheat codes and start thinking of them as people.
youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com
this is sociopathic behaviour and I think we need to treat it as such! just because something has become easy to do doesn't mean it has become less creepy, or more acceptable!
adambell.bsky.social
The only notifications I get from Twitter now are from climate sceptics having a go at me for something I said in the media. I am very happy to never go back.
explaintrade.com
This is an exact encapsulation of why I moved to Bluesky.

No amount of handwringing in the Atlantic about how I owe some eternal Promethean suffering to the discourse is going to make me stay on a site I hate, that stopped doing anything for me professionally years ago.
Well – no. Bluesky may or may not be, as one centre-right friend who felt unwelcome put it, “self-righteous island”. But the idea that’s why we went is nonsense. That I’ve largely stopped posting on a site that’s done more to shape my career and social circle than the rest of the internet combined is less about avoiding rival opinions (I love arguing with people who are wrong!) than with the fact the site simply became unusable. It stopped generating the things (good jokes, interesting debate, clicks) I wanted; it became extremely good at generating the things (racists, pornbots, racist pornbots) I did not.
adambell.bsky.social
Ahahahaha, I would love to see people flogging 'policy toolkits' be obliged to prove that they had been demonstrated in a laboratory environment...
adambell.bsky.social
There are so many historical examples where, "Not paying the troops," has ended extremely well for everyone involved.
adambell.bsky.social
But they totally look like a bar you can fill up by clicking until you get a technology out the end, and so for a generation raised on Civilisation they are very attractive. /fin
adambell.bsky.social
TRLs provide a route for policymakers to analyse innovation, but in doing so they presume greater levels of control over innovation than may be legitimate. It is highly unclear that innovation is as linear and single track as they imply. /4
adambell.bsky.social
In the case of NASA this was probably true, as it had a specific set of tests involving, well, space that it could apply. For wider use, definitions of TRLs become vague. UKRI has a different definition of TRL9 to Ofgem, and so on. /3
adambell.bsky.social
It's used extensively in energy policy amongst other areas and a great deal of innovation policy seems to be based on the idea that policymakers can move innovations between TRLs via spending enough money. /2
adambell.bsky.social
I actually think the idea of a 'Technology Readiness level', originally developed by NASA with a set of specific definitions for spaceflight, has become the grown-up version of a technology tree, inasmuch as it assumes linear progression in technology development. /1
duncanweldon.bsky.social
Genuinely think the concept of the tech tree has done a lot of damage.
edutecheditor.bsky.social
“Since 1991, the video game Civilization, now in its seventh installment, has become one of the most successful game franchises ever. That means millions of kids have grown up with Civ as one of their formative ways of thinking about history.” (via @jstor.bsky.social) #AcademicSky
adambell.bsky.social
He's a public sector manager. Who thinks the public sector would benefit from his management. This is the simplest explanation that fits the evidence, particularly his contention that the UK and by extension mangerialism is not broken.
adambell.bsky.social
I'm not saying the Prime Minister has no things he would want to change, but he is certainly this kind of politician more so than any other. There is no grand vision for the country. And the country does badly need a grand vision that isn't, "FOREIGNERS OUT!"
adambell.bsky.social
...rather than in pursuit of a higher goal. But once they achieve power, they rarely know what to do with it. However, because all their focus is on achieving power, they are inevitably better at doing it than those who have a plan.
adambell.bsky.social
There is a peculiar archetype of politician who exists in every party - yes, even the Lib Dems - who wants to be a politician purely to be a politician and for no other reason. They judge their actions through what will accrue more power given the incentives of their particular party...
stephenkb.bsky.social
It's never the comms. Labour's comms is grey because in the absence of a clear strategy for what the government wants to achieve, no-one can defend or articulate what the government says in an interesting or exciting way.
lewisgoodall.com
I do wonder if Labour might look at the sorts of people dominating the discourse and dominating the content wars and maybe, just maybe, rethink the sorts of grey figures they routinely put up for interviews, instructed at that to be as cautious as possible. Things have changed. Their comms hasn’t.
adambell.bsky.social
True, but not saying that hardly helps No10 here!
Reposted by Adam Bell
tomh-analyst.bsky.social
Ah, NESO Winter Outlook day. That wonderful time when even though the *actual report* states barely anything of concern, grifters get to invent totally made up scenarios that imagine all ICs are unavailable at once because a lack of wind turns off French nuclear....or something.
adambell.bsky.social
Perchance they avoided saying it on purpose...
adambell.bsky.social
This means they'll be able to charge much more to largely sit there for much of the year, and enjoy 15-year contracts for doing so, while charging us through the nose when they do in fact run. /4
adambell.bsky.social
Essentially what they're going to do is remove the price limit in the Capacity Market - the tool Government uses to ensure we have enough capacity to keep the system stable - for new build gas plants, as well as a bunch of other assets. /3
adambell.bsky.social
You can be assured that it will very rapidly extend to older plants as soon as Government realises that they'll need extensive refurbishments to stay current. /2
adambell.bsky.social
The Government has snuck out a new wheeze to raise energy bills by letting new build gas plants extract even more rents. /1 assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68db9e...
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
adambell.bsky.social
smdh the Egyptians beat us to this nirvana by literal millenia