By Nature Unfair

28 comments on “By Nature Unfair ”

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1. ianmac 1

   18 August 2022 at 9:54 am

   And thus Australia, UK, USA etc owe us nothing except to acknowledge our fawning and maybe reward us with a few crumbs of trade which are beneficial to them.
2. AB 2

   18 August 2022 at 10:56 am

   The mistake may be in caring too much about what the rest of the world thinks. The clear-eyed view is that we're a small, docile outpost of global capitalism, mostly ripe for exploitation by Australian shareholders, global tech giants, etc, along with our own domestic cartels and monopolists.

   When the rest of the world does bother to take notice of us, it's mostly so they can extract out of context snippets for their own domestic propaganda purposes. Such as the blatantly dishonest misrepresentations of our Covid response appearing in the Telegraph or the Daily Mail in order to forestall any unfavourable comparisons with the abysmal efforts of the UK Tories. Or the silly sanctification of NZ by some foreign liberals as a place where kindness and tolerance reign supreme.

   Being small and irrelevant imposes constraints but also allows some freedom of action. As the climate disaster bites this action will be about adaptation, resilience and security in our material and social essentials – all done somehow through a just transition. It's 80 years since Allen Curnow wrote: "Simply by sailing in a new direction, you could enlarge the world". It was 1942, 300 years since Tasman's landfall. Even in 1942 he expressed that idea ironically and ambiguously – and saw it as already in some ways a failure. But also that we can't stop trying.
3. Adrian 3

   18 August 2022 at 11:30 am

   Another thing to be happy with was beautifully encaptured by Thomasin McKenzie being interviewed by Stephen Colbert and replying to his comment on us Kiwis dislike of tall poppys as “ We just seem to not like arseholes “. Perfect!
   Congratulations on a well written piece Advantage.
4. Robert Guyton 4

   18 August 2022 at 11:34 am

   Rewarded?

   By whom?

   And why should that matter a jot?

   Is "reward" – a pat on the back from someone we admire, our motivation for living in the manner of our choosing?
   • Ad 4.1

     18 August 2022 at 11:41 am

     There ain't much room in this world for altruism.

     If there is no return for being good, there will be little reason to be good.
     • Blazer 4.1.1

       18 August 2022 at 11:56 am

       Our reward is to quote Bill English….an 'open economy'…which enables overseas capital to come and gain control of our resources and make wonderful profits .

       How lucky can you…get!
     • Robert Guyton 4.1.2

       18 August 2022 at 12:18 pm

       That's contrary to what the spiritual leaders of the world have said 🙂
       • Ad 4.1.2.1

         18 August 2022 at 12:23 pm

         The common one to most of them – the Golden Rule – is precisely reciprocal.
         • Poission 4.1.2.1.1

           18 August 2022 at 12:27 pm

           He who has the gold rules.
           • Obtrectator 4.1.2.1.1.1

             18 August 2022 at 4:10 pm

             Only because everyone's decided to agree that gold is valuable. Which to my mind is utter hooey. It looks nice and doesn't corrode, but that's all. You can't build or make anything useful with the stuff, or eat it.
             • Macro …

               18 August 2022 at 4:51 pm

               It's a good conductor of electricity 🙂

               After silver and copper.

               https://www.thoughtco.com/thmb/BmT6ZIXFzx8LSd0TbOjVeluOGwU=/1500×1000/filters:fill(auto,1)/the-most-conductive-element-606683_FINAL-cb8d31a0404241e2a3187e67c7b57e8c.gif
             • Robert Guyton …

               18 August 2022 at 6:40 pm

               Gold is a substance that mirrors heaven.

               It's not heaven, but we know what it promises.
           • Robert Guyton 4.1.2.1.1.2

             18 August 2022 at 6:38 pm

             All that glisters is not gold.
             • Poission …

               18 August 2022 at 7:22 pm

               Just need a bit of gold to glisten.

               https://twitter.com/PeterSweden7/status/1559933029736390659
     • Stuart Munro 4.1.3

       18 August 2022 at 2:52 pm

       There ain't much room in this world for altruism.

       On the contrary, altruism attracts a significant competitive advantage.

       Humans often behave altruistically towards strangers with no chance of reciprocation. Many people donate blood and funds for the benefit of people they will never meet and often do so anonymously. In experimental settings, people often cooperate with strangers in one-shot prisoner’s dilemma’s (in which ‘defecting’ always yields a higher individual payoff) and offer something rather than nothing in dictator games to strangers (when they could have kept everything for themselves)

       Altruism is both the human norm, and a strategy that advantages organisms by group selection. It is the 'rat' or 'freeloader' strategies that are ultimately anomalous – they may involve short term game, but they are punished severely if exposed.
       • Ad 4.1.3.1

         18 August 2022 at 5:23 pm

         Altruism as competitive advantage is an oxymoron.
         • Stuart Munro 4.1.3.1.1

           18 August 2022 at 6:26 pm

           Rational Darwinian actors don't have time to go down the semantic rabbit-hole.
           • Robert Guyton 4.1.3.1.1.1

             18 August 2022 at 7:24 pm

             10 minutes!!!
           • Robert Guyton 4.1.3.1.1.2

             18 August 2022 at 7:24 pm

             With ya, Stuart!
       • Hunter Thompson II 4.1.3.2

         19 August 2022 at 9:25 am

         Back in the 1960s the Xerox Corporation CEO was criticised for "taking s stand on major issues of public concern", ie supporting the UN via a series of TV programmes the company sponsored.

         The affair is described by John Brooks in his book "Business Adventures" (2014) which I recommend to those interested.

         Nowadays most corporations just want to push the facade of their activities doing a public service, without the reality. Image is everything.
         • Stuart Munro 4.1.3.2.1

           19 August 2022 at 7:43 pm

           Long term outcomes are often compromised by insincerity. The corporate horizon is at best eight quarters – pretense may appear to suffice for that long.

           Consider The Marshall Plan – best investment the US ever made – in part because it wasn't conceived as an investment.
5. Ad 5

   18 August 2022 at 12:31 pm

   And speaking of unrewarded risks and their moral hazards, IAG has come out with very timely and pointed requests of government and local government:

   IAG Seeks Three Step Plan For Natural Hazard Prone New Zealand Homes – Commits To Being Part Of The Solution | Scoop News

   "1. A joint government and private sector project to build a common understanding of priority flood-prone communities"

   "2. Implement a National Policy Statement to cease development in flood-prone locations"

   "3. Establish a national programme of investment in flood protection"

   The timing of this statement in the middle of a civil emergency and with the Minister of Civil Defence flying to Nelson is very, very pointed from IAG who insure about 1 in every 2 households.

   Let our uninsurable city valleys re-wild.
6. Belladonna 6

   18 August 2022 at 1:22 pm

   Nature doesn't care about fair.

   But every politician knows that they'd better have the welfare of their citizens front and centre, or they won't be in power long.

   Fundamental disconnect between these two perspectives when it comes to environmental change.
7. RP Mcmurphy 7

   18 August 2022 at 3:25 pm

   life is not fair or unfair. it just is. kiwis have or should their own moral code and b*gger what anybody else thinks. and we dont need any nonsense from those idiotic christian 24/7 teevee assaults on the consciousness of the nation to tell us what is right and what is wrong.

   anyway;"life is short. live it up." Nikita Kruschev
8. Mike the Lefty 8

   18 August 2022 at 5:55 pm

   Why is NZ so "unproductive"? (I personally think the term is a bit misleading but I will stick with it in the absence of a better description).

   Part of the reason is that successive governments have become convinced that most people are stupid, and stupid people need excessive government guidance to prevent them from stupidly harming themselves – thus the proliferation of work safety protocols and the terrible necessity to over signage everything and everywhere. New Zealanders have become stupid because they are expected to be stupid and when you have only low expectations to live up to that is exactly what happens.

   Another part is how performance rated pay is now a big no-no because it is now deemed unfair to those who don't perform. When people no longer get more for extra effort they don't bother and it becomes a race to the bottom.

   Another part is the traditional management – employee gulf. Traditional management training in New Zealand is that your workers are just a pack of grunts and you don't listen to what they say because they know nothing. When workers are treated like dopes they tend to behave like dopes.

   If New Zealand is to become more productive workers and management have to work together much more closely – because it is in both their interests to do so.
   • Ad 8.1

     18 August 2022 at 6:25 pm

     Our export economy was and remains mostly cheap heavy bulky goods.

     We achieve those exports with labour rather than technology.

     There you go.
   • KJT 8.2

     18 August 2022 at 6:57 pm

     Cheap labour, and commidity exports, means no incentive to innovate or manage better.
9. Adrian 9

   19 August 2022 at 9:36 am

   Commodity exports feed people, when you’re hungry you don’t need another flashy gee-gaw. They got us through Covid when others countries had to shut non- essential factories producing shit essentially. Our commodities are the results of huge advances in science and technology, the vast majority of which is locally generated. The two nessecities in life are food and shelter. I think the country has a good balance. Wheat in Ukraine for example, grown on rich deep dark soils produces only about a third per hectare tonnage as NZ crops. The difference can only be better applied knowledge.

   On productivity, when next caught in a road works holdup, count the number of traffic management staff and compare to the actual workers. I have yet to see the operators and labourers out number the Lollypop wielders and those sitting in utes covered in flashing signs.

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