Ruby Forshaw Geography

Evan's lecture at the Royal Geographic Society was an outlook on how half-truths and- to put it frankly- bullshit influence politics. This was a particularly topical analysis, which heavily focussed on rise of populism in 2016. The types of bullshit There are 4 types of bullshit that commonly occur in the media and politics: Bullshitting a question This is where a politician will use synonyms to reword the source of the question, instead of directly answering it. Rewording a truth A proven truth is rephrased to appear to mean something else Accrediting an unproven idea A hypothesis is treated as truth- a good example is the Chilcot Report about the Iraq invasion. It was discovered that the UK intelligence services had no proof that Saddam Hussein had the weapons of mass destruction, it was hypothetical In short, Bullshit can be defined as: "deceptive misrepresentation, short of lying, especially by pretentious word or deed, of somebody's own thoughts...

A great source of lectures is the LSE website, where you can download the podcasts for free. One such talk was by Danny Dorling on the causes of different types of inequality. The key points were as follows: How to improve it Improved equality increases life expectancy fair pay allows the purchase of healthier food improved quality of life reduces the rate of suicide and stress related diseases Losing a war has the potential to restore equality When Japan lost the war against the USA, America redistributed the aristocracy land to the people. Today, the life expectancy is the highest in the world, and steadily rising In equal countries, there is a more representative democracy In the USA, Trump's wall was only accepted because the media only provided 'dumbed down' politics The UK is closing the gap fastest in Europe The 1% are taking less and less However, Gordon Brown put up wealth tax in 2010 which resulted in the richest of...