BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Rich countries are in a demographic crisis with an ever decreasing working population to support pen...

Rich countries may be dealing with a burden of supporting more old people but raising the population is not the answer. more developed countries are already under huge environmental pressure because of their large populations and we cannot suddenly have a huge increase in the already pressured housing pool and road system without huge damage. Further, the welfare system that supports the elderly is one of the great attractions for immigrants who will certainly not all be young and may well not choose to be workers. How can you prove that ‘welfare scrounging’ won’t make the situation worse.
Rich countries that have boomed in the 90’s are short of both skilled and unskilled workers who are ...

Importing labour is an ineffective sop to the problems. There is still unemployment in all rich countries and retraining and education are the way to improve the supply of skilled labour. Why should companies sponsor students if they can import their labour cheaper? As well as brain draining poor countries the proposal will allow governments to ignore the marginalised in their own country. Labour shortage is temporary and a bust may well cause all those immigrants to return to their own countries of origin which have not grown economically because of the absence of workers and are now structurally dependent on remittances.
The UK policy of removing anonymity has not affected the number of sperm donors negatively. The num...

For the reasons above, few would-be sperm or egg donors wish to be known to any children resulting from their donation. Removing anonymity is therefore a major deterrent, especially as in most countries little money is paid for sperm donations (more is paid for eggs because the procedure is much more intrusive and unpleasant for a female donor). It was widely predicted that removing anonymity in the UK would result in a fall in donations, and this has in fact happened for both eggs and sperm – despite government claims that sperm donors have increased, the number of actual donations has crucially gone down. If the donor name were to appear on the actual birth certificate of any child, it is obvious that even fewer people will be prepared to donate. Given the desperation of infertile couples seeking assistance with conception, and the long waiting lists for both eggs and sperm, the predictable consequence of this policy is both lamentable and cruel.
Clearly the government cannot stop women and couples going overseas in search of anonymously-donated...

Because lifting anonymity makes it so much more difficult to conceive a child through the government’s regulated health care system, desperate couples will be driven to look for alternatives. Women will be tempted to seek sperm informally from male friends (the Do-It-Yourself “turkey baster” approach). Couples will go abroad as “fertility tourists”, seeking eggs and sperm in countries where donors can still remain anonymous. Such consequences are clearly bad for everyone, being unregulated, often emotionally messy, and possibly even dangerous. They also make it much less likely that parents will be honest with their children about their origins, defeating the whole point of the policy.
It would be wrong to force parents to tell their children exactly how they were conceived, but the s...

This argument assumes that the truth is always told on birth certificates at the moment. Unless the government is going to institute a programme of compulsory nationwide DNA testing, putting the “truth” on every birth certificate is not attainable and probably not desirable. This argument also makes big assumptions about what constitutes a father, placing the unmet donor who will have nothing to do with the upbringing of the baby above the caring partner who is committing to its care. The definition of mother is even weaker in the case of egg donation, as the birth-mother’s placental environment plays so strong a part in the development of the foetus she has nurtured in her womb for nine months, and laboured to bring safely into the world.
Many of the objections to lifting anonymity from sperm and egg donation assume there is some stigma ...

In many cases it may be good for children of donor-assisted conceptions to know all about their origins, and to meet their biological father or mother. All the parties involved may be happy with the outcome. Parents should even be encouraged to be open and honest with their children, as the parents of adopted children already are. But this isn’t going to be right for everyone, all of the time, and it should not be forced on people. Why does this have to be a blanket policy, enforced by the state? Why can’t donors decide if they want to be anonymous or not? Why not let would-be parents decide what kind of donor to use, and what to tell their particular family?
Children have a right to know who their real parents are. This is already the case with adoption, w...

Children have a right to know who their real parents are. This is already the case with adoption, where anyone has the right to see a copy of their birth certificate when they are 18, giving them the choice to find out about, and perhaps meet their biological parents. The UK law gives donor children equality with adopted children, and should be followed by other countries. Putting this policy in place encourages parents to be honest with children in their early years, because they know that at 18 they can find out the truth, especially if the policy of lifting anonymity is extended to putting both biological parents’ names on the birth certificate.
Removing anonymity will meet a psychological need to know where we come from and why we look and act...

Removing anonymity will meet a psychological need to know where we come from and why we look and act the way we do. Scientific discoveries make it clear that genetics plays a very strong part in forming our character and characteristics, and many donor-conceived children naturally want to seek the truth about their origins. A fear of incest also drives this need to know, especially when children are themselves considering marriage and starting a family. There are also strong medical reasons to know who your biological mother or father is, as many illnesses (e.g. some cancers) have strong genetic components. The law can make it clear that donor fathers and mothers have no financial or legal responsibility for any children conceived with their sperm or egg. But they have a responsibility to allow any child conceived through their donation to contact them later in search of vital medical information.
The UK policy of removing anonymity has not affected the number of sperm donors negatively. The num...

The UK policy of removing anonymity has not affected the number of sperm donors negatively. The numbers had fallen for three years to 2005, when anonymity was lifted, but increased somewhat in the two years following. The number of egg donors is down somewhat, but the reasons for this are complicated and may have much more to do with wider issues of publicity and incentives than with anonymity.
Clearly the government cannot stop women and couples going overseas in search of anonymously-donated...

Clearly the government cannot stop women and couples going overseas in search of anonymously-donated eggs and sperm, but this isn’t a reason to abandon the policy of transparency at home. Firstly, most couples will trust their own health system much more than foreign ones with fewer safeguards, so they won’t want to go abroad. Secondly, seeking a donor abroad is a much more expensive business, so most people will not pursue it. And finally, as more and more governments see the wisdom of this policy and lift anonymity, fertility tourism will become pointless anyway.
It would be wrong to force parents to tell their children exactly how they were conceived, but the s...

It would be wrong to force parents to tell their children exactly how they were conceived, but the state should not itself play a part in any deception. Through its health system and regulators, the state plays a part in donor-assisted conception. The birth certificate is an official document, and must honestly reflect what the state knows to be true. Allowing some parents to hide this truth from their children amounts to a conspiracy between them and the state and cannot be justified. Given the complications involved, perhaps the names of all the parties involved (biological parents, birth mother and nurturing parents) should appear on the birth certificate.
Many of the objections to lifting anonymity from sperm and egg donation assume there is some stigma ...

Many of the objections to lifting anonymity from sperm and egg donation assume there is some stigma attached to the process. But any shame that people might feel in using a donor, being a donor, or being conceived through donation actually derives from the secrecy surrounding the donation system. Lifting anonymity and encouraging parents to be completely honest with their children about their origins will help remove this stigma. This will in itself make more people willing to become donors and parents more confident in telling children who they really are. Donors should be appreciated by society for what they have done, and should take pride in any children their gift has helped to bring into the world.
Children have a right to know who their real parents are. This is already the case with adoption, w...

There is no absolute right to know who your parents are. To start with, the concept of parenthood in the context of donor-assisted conception is complicated. Is someone who donated an egg or some sperm really a parent? Shouldn’t parent mean the one who cared for you as a baby, got up in the night for you, saw you through teething and childhood illnesses, and worked hard to give you food, shelter and the best life they were able to provide? Given that donors never actually meet the real parents or the actual children, the situation is not at all like adoption or even surrogacy. It is more like blood donation, and should also give the recipient no rights over the donor.\ Secondly, conception and family life have never been tidy affairs, defined by clear rights and rules. Many children are conceived through one-night stands and never know their fathers – should they have the right to access a DNA database of the whole male population in order to find them? What about children conceived as a result of rape? And what about children conceived through infidelity, where the husband and the child are led by the mother wrongly to believe that they are biologically related?
Removing anonymity will meet a psychological need to know where we come from and why we look and act...

People may wish to find out who their biological father is, but it is not always a good idea. Their quest for the “truth” may pull apart their real family, hurting the parents who poured so much love and effort into bringing them into the world and then bringing them up to adulthood. It may leave the child themselves confused and rootless, especially if they can’t ultimately track down their biological donor-parent, or if they do and the person doesn’t want to know them, or doesn’t match their imaginings. And what about the effect on the donor themselves, eighteen or more years on from their brief session in a clinic cubicle? What impact might it have on them psychologically, especially if they now have a real family of their own? And although the law now may say that a child of assisted-conception has no legal or financial claim on the donor, who can say what rights a future court might not discover?\ Nor is the medical argument a strong reason for lifting anonymity. Donors can provide full medical records, even a DNA sample, before they provide sperm or eggs. That is more information than many patients have about a parent, and does not require the full identity of the donor to be revealed.\
History taught in schools sometimes involves flagrant distortion of historical evidence either by th...

Coming up with instances in which History teaching is used for propagandist purposes does not prove that it is necessarily dangerous to teach History in schools. The vast majority of History teaching does not seek to promote such agendas. All subjects can be distorted if the State and its teachers are prepared to try hard enough - for example, under the Nazis German children were taught Mathematics with a heavy emphasis upon military applications (e.g. calculating angles and ranges for artillery). Instead of banning the subject, what is needed is proper inspection of schools and monitoring of the curriculum, under the control of a democratic government.
Even if no agenda is being consciously or subconsciously pursued, school pupils are presented with o...

It is useful to learn “historical facts”: one cannot engage in historical debates without knowledge of what happened when. For most post-medieval periods, it is possible to establish such “facts” with a very high degree of probability. Even if “facts” are simplified, this need not be “intellectually dangerous”: it is impossible to prove that a real harm results from only knowing the academically dominant interpretation of a historical episode, even if it might be theoretically desirable to consider minority viewpoints too. Indeed, all school teaching involves simplification and generalization: much school science teaching entails discussion of how general rules (learned earlier during a pupil’s school career) are not always applicable.
It is intellectually dangerous to imply to school pupils that they can approach History with the lev...

Where there is uncertainty, this can and should be highlighted if pupils have the intellectual capacity to understand the debate. Much of the benefit of studying History is that it is not (or should not be) solely based upon the learning of facts. Rather, History develops the ability to evaluate and challenge different interpretations. If historical study were postponed to adulthood, this would mean that most people would learn no History, unless they chose to study for a History degree. And it is impossible to escape any discussion of History in adult life - there are many television programmes and press articles devoted to historical subjects every day, and politicians constantly refer to past events to justify their actions. Only if citizens are equipped at school to question such historical interpretations can the public avoid being misled.
History encourages people to become obsessed with past conflicts and alleged wrongs inflicted upon t...

“Organized forgetting” of the past does not lead to harmony: those who allege historic wrongs are unlikely to forget them and will be aggrieved at attempts to deny the significance of the events concerned. This is seen in the Chinese outcry at Japanese attempts to forget the Rape of Nanking. Friendship results from shared recognition of past wrongs, and a resolve not to repeat past injustices and mistakes; studying the past is essential for this. History teaching in schools is especially important when tensions are present: those who set and teach the curriculum can and should strive to be impartial, to counter one-sided historical narratives to which pupils may be exposed by their families and the media.
Even when there is no attempt to deceive or manipulate, postmodernist critiques of History (e.g. Jen...

Even when there is no attempt to deceive or manipulate, postmodernist critiques of History (e.g. Jenkins – see book suggestions below) suggest all History teaching will reflect the preconceptions and aims of those who set and teach the curriculum. The British government announced in early 2006 that History taught in schools should seek to engender a sense of “Britishness” by stressing a shared political and cultural heritage. Even if no historical events are invented, this will lead to an unbalanced account, in which events that support modern political/social ends are highlighted and others receive less attention. The principle that such tainted information can be taught to children is dangerous.
History taught in schools sometimes involves flagrant distortion of historical evidence either by th...

History taught in schools sometimes involves flagrant distortion of historical evidence either by the State or by individual teachers. Attempts may be made to avoid nasty aspects of a nation’s past (e.g. the massacre of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers at Nanking in 1937) and/or to put down other peoples (e.g. the presentation of Australian Aboriginals as uncivilized until the 1960s). As well as these extreme examples, low-level anti-Americanism is arguably pervasive in modern French school textbooks, reflecting tensions between France and the USA arising from the latter’s Gaullist heritage and the recent “War on Terror”. It is highly undesirable for school pupils to be exposed to misinformation peddled in History classes, which can lead to violence, hatred or discrimination.
Even if no agenda is being consciously or subconsciously pursued, school pupils are presented with o...

Even if no agenda is being consciously or subconsciously pursued, school pupils are presented with oversimplified information in History. This is a result of the limited time available, the limited intellectual capacity of pupils, the limited knowledge of many teachers (who may not be History specialists, especially in primary schools) and the desire for answers that can be labelled as “correct” or “incorrect” in examinations. Much school History teaching is therefore concerned with memorising “facts”. However, there is arguably no such thing as a “historical fact”, beyond a very basic level (e.g. it is a “fact” that the Battle of Hastings occurred in 1066). For example, the questions of what actually happened at Hastings and what the Battle’s significance may have been lack definitive answers.
It is intellectually dangerous to imply to school pupils that they can approach History with the lev...

It is intellectually dangerous to imply to school pupils that they can approach History with the level of certainty they encounter in other subjects (e.g. Mathematics). If History should be studied at all, it should only be studied by people when they have developed sufficient powers of reason to understand the uncertainties and subtleties inherent in the subject (e.g. at university or in adulthood). There is otherwise a danger that they will treat questionable information as truth.
History encourages people to become obsessed with past conflicts and alleged wrongs inflicted upon t...

History encourages people to become obsessed with past conflicts and alleged wrongs inflicted upon them; it is more productive to forget the past and to seek friendship in the present. For example, modern tensions would be reduced if pupils in Ireland were no longer taught about the Battle of the Boyne (1690) and pupils in South Asia stopped learning about conflicts following the Partition between India and Pakistan (1947).
Even when there is no attempt to deceive or manipulate, postmodernist critiques of History (e.g. Jen...

Some historical theorists argue that it is possible for historians to achieve a considerable degree of objectivity, especially if they seek to be aware of the influences upon their own thinking (e.g. Evans – see book suggestions below). Part of most secondary school History curricula is the consideration of how historians are affected by the context in which they write: this equips pupils to consider critically what they are being taught and why they are being taught it. Moreover, it can be argued that worthwhile ends (e.g. the good relations between different ethnic communities sought by the British government) justify some selection of the History that is taught to schoolchildren. After all, it isn’t possible to teach children everything about all historical periods, so there must be some criteria for making choices about what would be most valuable to study.
Sub-state dissident groups in repressive regimes are able to use the internet in their attempts to d...

The internet frequently works against democracy in the hands of sub-state groups. The internet is the primary medium of coordination for Jihadist groups looking to undermine the few Middle-Eastern states which are in the process of transition to democracy. In April 2007, groups of hackers (allegedly backed by the Russian government) attacked the websites of key politicians, ministries and utilities in Estonia in retaliation for the removal of a Soviet war memorial. The internet has even been used in an attempt to directly influence the outcome of an election through disruptive tactics when in the 2006 Belarusian elections, the websites of the main opposition candidates went offline in the run-up to the election as the result of persistent DDOS attacks. Often what democracy needs to develop is a stable base for elections and the internet is routinely used to disrupt the development of such a base.
Sub-state dissident groups in repressive regimes are able to use the internet in their attempts to d...

Sub-state dissident groups in repressive regimes are able to use the internet in their attempts to destabilise these regimes. Falungong and Tibetan nationalists in China use email lists to arrange protests, making it harder for the state to plan policing in advance and allowing last-minute changes of details. Human Rights Organisations can also coordinate with dissident groups to collect information on abuses, as in the case of Peter Gabriel’s ‘The Hub’ project. Google maps even hosts up-to-the-day accurate information on the locations of reported atrocities in Dafur. Just as the VietCong used a complex tunnel system to evade capture during the Vietnam war, dissident groups now use email, encryption and websites so that they know where the government is operating, either in terms of web monitoring or physical repression. Externally, the internet can enable shareholder activism, as was the case over Berkshire Hathaway’s holdings in PetroChina, the result of a publicity campaign by dissidents within Sudan, Human Rights Organisations and western shareholders in BH.
Unsurprisingly, having originated in America and Europe, the internet brings with it a host of weste...

Suppression of democracy by repressive governments is also aided and abetted by Western firms and governments. Google voluntarily censors material critical of the government in China, giving the Chinese population a false impression of government legitimacy based on Google’s reputation for freedom of information. Yahoo has gone even further by actively handing over the IP addresses of users who have made certain searches, allowing governments to track down democracy activists.\ Governments help the repression because they do not place sanctions on hardware and software which can be used by dictatorial states to filter or track internet access. Whilst it is obvious when stun batons are being imported for torture, or weapons to be used to fight rebels, it is much more difficult to prove that potentially innocent computer hardware will be used to skew the population’s perception of the legitimacy of their government.\