McFilter

Interesting Things on the Internet: January 6th 2020

• Grenfell – Are firefighters to blame? Understanding human error. Excellent article on the difference between blame and accountability, and how we need more of the latter (for Grenfell, but also elsewhere).
• One nation, tracked An investigation into the smartphone tracking industry. Sobering reading from the New York Times, investigating how our location is tracked and not-actually-anonymised by tech firms and apps on our smartphones.
• IGP's Social Prosperity Network publishes the UK's first report on Universal Basic Services. Arguably a better option than a Universal Basic Income, particularly for the transport and information options - I'm less convinced on the shelter or food options: I can see how giving people cash for their rent could just let rents rise to absorb it, but we'd need to overcome the stigma of "council housing". But maybe we've already managed that with right-to-buy mixing up the ownership on estates (my house in Cambridge for example, is ex-council and others in the street are still council- (or housing association-) owned), so as long as new council-builds are a mixture of rent and own across all the sizes and types, we can avoid the problem?