Written By: - Date published: 2:33 pm, May 9th, 2012 - 33 comments
Ever since I went to his Fabian lecture in February, I’ve been meaning to write about Rick Boven’s last major work before leaving the NZ Institute to its Business Roundtable merger. It’s a major piece of thinking, and a piece he can be proud of signing off with. He charts an uncertain future – one …
Written By: - Date published: 1:32 pm, May 5th, 2012 - 93 comments
How to we improve the consideration of long term issues in the political process? How do we build in incentives to take these issues seriously?
Written By: - Date published: 11:15 am, April 24th, 2012 - 18 comments
Do we really want search results tailored to our mood and intelligence? Are we going to take the most powerful aggregate of information ever assembled by humanity and bend it to our cognitive biases?
Written By: - Date published: 9:35 pm, March 27th, 2012 - 22 comments
“Crusher Collins up close” headlines a two-page article by Andrea Vance in the Saturday March 10 DomPost. It’s not on the Stuff website but deserves a wider audience. John Key might have been unwise to have stayed away on holiday this week – he should remember what happened to Jim Bolger.
Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, December 19th, 2011 - 24 comments
Trillions have been plowed into bailing out banks, investors, and whole countries during the economic crisis. The cost easily exceeds total investment in tackling climate change. Is it, as George Monbiot argues, that elites just look out for themselves, or are humans just incapable of perceiving the danger of large, slowly-building problems?
Written By: - Date published: 11:11 am, November 11th, 2011 - 34 comments
Eleven seconds after this goes up, it will be 11:11.11 11/11/11. Arbitrary but still pretty cool I guess. Once in a century event, having all the same numeral. Interesting to reflect on how much has changed since 11:11.11 11/11/1911. And how little. Wonder what it will be like at 11:11.11 11/11/2111. Better – is all we can hope.
Written By: - Date published: 9:43 am, August 3rd, 2011 - 52 comments
The “free market” exists to make profit. It does have some advantages when everything is running smoothly. But the free market is hopeless in tough times. It never wants to pay out or clean up the mess.
Written By: - Date published: 8:53 am, May 8th, 2011 - 62 comments
George Monbiot on the psychology of political debate (and why we’re all screwed).
Written By: - Date published: 8:17 am, April 23rd, 2011 - 52 comments
DPF reckons “that issues of policy are less important to voters than issues of competence”. What an impoverished view of democracy! Perhaps he should look a little deeper than last week’s poll…
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 9th, 2011 - 15 comments
When I went to China on a private visit in 2008, Helen Clark sent me a text message telling me on no account to leave my cellphone or computer unattended. Over the last few years I noticed baskets in Ministers’ offices for visitors and officials to deposit their cellphones before they went in to see …
Written By: - Date published: 8:45 am, March 25th, 2011 - 42 comments
Yesterday, John Armstrong wrote “Goff’s management of the crisis has already begged a major question.” Apart from making me wonder if the question was ‘is it OK for the Minister of Police to leak stories about ongoing police investigations for political gain’, Armstrong’s misuse of ‘begging the question’ reminded me of this song.
Written By: - Date published: 9:19 pm, March 7th, 2011 - 52 comments
ChrisH submitted this incredibly knowledgeable and well-researched post on the rebuilding of Christchurch a few days ago. The announcement that large parts now lower-lying eastern suburbs will be abandoned lends more strength to his call for a visionary urban plan for the new, more resilient Christchurch. And Phil Goff has the history to present it.
Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, February 19th, 2011 - 41 comments
Over at Dimpost, Danyl wrote an interesting piece after seeing the video of John Key in the House saying that if Kiwi families find themselves needing to go to foodbanks it is their fault. That nasty moment, Danyl thought, explained the disconnect between how the political Left and the general public perceives Key. Actually, it’s just the surface.
Written By: - Date published: 12:28 pm, February 15th, 2011 - 25 comments
Democracy doesn’t suddenly magically appear as though from a conjurers hat. We know that, right? So why are revolutions seeking democracy D.O.A?
Written By: - Date published: 12:17 pm, January 23rd, 2011 - 257 comments
We have a national myth that everyone is in essence equal, yet we have a disparity of wealth where 10% own more than the other 90% put together and 50% have no net assets. How does one square away occupying a position of extreme privilege in a democratic society? Often, by convincing yourself that your privilege doesn’t exist.
Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, January 11th, 2011 - 37 comments
The Left have too long accepted the Right’s turf to fight their battles on. Instead of appealing to individualism, the Left need to make community the norm. But whilst avoiding their turf, we do need to use the Right’s preferred weapon – emotion. We must counter their offer of individual wealth for a few with collective happiness for all.
Written By: - Date published: 7:15 am, December 8th, 2010 - 71 comments
Democracy can be very bad at dealing with hard problems. Case in point, the Nats’ appalling handling of the issue of our ageing population. The Nats are stuck, so the country is stuck, rabbit in the headlights, while the size of the problem continues to grow…
Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, December 5th, 2010 - 13 comments
There seems to have been a reasonable breakthrough in research to reverse ageing. Is it a good thing? If you think the world has resource and environmental problems now, you ain’t seen nothing yet. If you think we have social injustice and insane inequities in wealth now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Written By: - Date published: 2:16 pm, November 6th, 2010 - 29 comments
We’ve had numerous prescriptions claiming to tackle ever growing numbers of social ills, but the elephant in the room; the underlying cause for our problems as a society is always, assiduously ignored. And that means that many of our resources are being wasted (perhaps deliberately) on illusory problems.
Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, October 30th, 2010 - 83 comments
After the Hobbit debacle, no-one can fail to understand the power that those who control capital exercise in a capitalist economy. The system is set up for them, hence the name, and their power is never stronger than during recessions. While capital is unaccountable, we cannot have true democracy and freedom. How can we democratise capital?
Written By: - Date published: 2:15 pm, October 25th, 2010 - 4 comments
The release of 400,000 classified documents on the Iraq war today highlights a much broader issue for New Zealand. As the world moves into uncertainty, some commentators call it a ‘new new world order’, New Zealand must establish itself definitively, cementing the values we wish to hold true for the coming century.
Written By: - Date published: 11:31 am, October 16th, 2010 - 33 comments
Labour have pushed “the republic debate” firmly into the spotlight. This is smart thinking. It’s a clear, logical policy with broad popular appeal. It positions Labour as leaders, nation builders, on an issue where Key and the Nats have painted themselves into a conservative corner.
Written By: - Date published: 2:20 pm, October 14th, 2010 - 34 comments
What should Labour do? One of our regular commenters steps up and answers the question. What more can we add? And, my challenge to the right wingers, can you come up with a similarly broad, coherent and principled summary of what you think National stands for? What should National do?
Written By: - Date published: 11:40 pm, October 8th, 2010 - 17 comments
This government seems to have confused the means and the ends. Growth and money have become the ends, when they only ever should have been the means. Surely what should matter now is that we have a happy, fulfilled society, where people have the opportunity to do what they want.
Written By: - Date published: 11:25 am, October 2nd, 2010 - 18 comments
This question is something that has been on my mind for some time. In this article, Kwame Anthony Appiah, a philosophy professor at Princeton, sets out four examples of current policy that he believes those in the future will look back and say “What were people thinking?”
Written By: - Date published: 12:32 am, September 11th, 2010 - 11 comments
The Civil Defence Emergency Act gives the authorities some extraordinary powers and has seen a handful of people in Christchurch very rapidly tried and summarily convicted of some unusual offences. It reminds us that the State holds huge powers in reserve for times of crisis. It speaks to the strength of our institutions and the people who operate them that these powers aren’t abused.
Written By: - Date published: 12:46 pm, September 6th, 2010 - 71 comments
As far as I know I am the only Standard author to have been right in the middle of the Darfield / Christchurch earthquake. To all commenters and readers in the region – greetings, and keep safe.
Written By: - Date published: 1:33 pm, September 3rd, 2010 - 15 comments
Important issues:
jobs, wages, public service cuts, Supercity & ECAN, national savings, climate change
Not important issues:
how we get a figurehead Head of State
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, September 3rd, 2010 - 31 comments
Due to the discrepancies in the spread of knowledge the free-market is irrational but there is no doubt that we, collectively, have the needed information to make more rational decisions. The problem that occurs is that neither the knowledge nor the tools to help make rational decisions on that information are readily available. Is there a tech solution?
Written By: - Date published: 12:29 pm, August 18th, 2010 - 68 comments
There really isn’t any doubt about this any more, the free-market ideology put forward by the Chicago School of Economics (and the Austrian school) and slavishly followed by National, Act and Labour is predicted on fully informed individuals making rational choices. But individuals just don’t have enough knowledge to know what is best and the market as a whole is irrational as a result.
Written By: - Date published: 6:53 am, July 24th, 2010 - 39 comments
Albert Einstein’s essay “Why Socialism?”, originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949).
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