Today’s links Palantir’s NHS-stealing Big Lie: And the everyday miracle of Trusted Research Environments. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019, 2023 Upcoming appearances: Where to find me. Recent appearances: Podcasts, events and more. Latest books: You keep readin’ em, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Colophon: All the rest. Palantir’s NHS-stealing Big Lie (permalink) Capitalism’s Big Lie in four words: “There is no alternative.” Looters use this lie for cover, insisting that they’re hard-nosed grownups living in the reality of human nature, incentives, and facts (which don’t care about your feelings). The point of “there is no alternative” is to extinguish the innovative imagination. “There is no alternative” is really “stop trying to think of alternatives, dammit.” But there are always alternatives, and the only reason to demand that they be excluded from consideration is that these alternatives are manifestly superior to the looter’s supposed inevitability. Right now, there’s an attempt underway to loot the NHS, the UK’s single most beloved institution. The NHS has been under sustained assault for decades – budget cuts, overt and stealth privatisation, etc. But one of its crown jewels has been stubbournly resistant to being auctioned off: patient data. Not that HMG hasn’t repeatedly tried to flog patient data – it’s just that the public won’t stand for it: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/21/nhs-data-platform-may-be-undermined-by-lack-of-public-trust-warn-campaigners Patients – quite reasonably – do not trust the private sector to handle their sensitive medical records. Now,…Pluralistic: Palantir's NHS-stealing Big Lie (08 Mar 2024)