How To Get There 05/01/20

24 comments on “How To Get There 05/01/20 ”

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1. Robert Guyton 1

   5 January 2020 at 8:48 am

   RedLogix posted this (important in my view) comment yesterday and people responded very positively to it, wishing, it seemed to me, to hear more, explore more deeply, expand upon, the ideas RL had been ruminating on. I'm in that "wishing to tease out the idea" camp and so am posting the body of RedLogix comment here as a seed-crystal for discussion on HTGT today. As the day goes by, I'm also preparing the Big Yurt for a party, more a shared meal tonight, for Southland friends and neighbours who have had enough of the cold, grey, wet weather we've been "enjoying" since spring; humans get glum when there's not enough sun and a night spent eating good food, listening to music and sharing a drink (I'm cracking out my ciders; not that they'll necessarily be a hit; I never know till the cap comes off!) is a good way to buoy-up spirits. I'm planning to talk about RedLogic's ideas there, as many of us enjoy a good philosophical rant discussion.

   "Broadly speaking individuals can be placed somewhere on a spectrum of a personality trait called 'openness to experience'. It's reasonably correlated with political preference. I'd like to explore another useful way to look at it; a few days back I was talking about how any given challenge (I used climbing a mountain as my metaphor) needed three types of thinking … visionary, strategic and tactical.

   In this context, progressive liberal people, open to experience (and I personally score insanely high in this respect) are very drawn to the 'big picture, 10,000 ft view idea'. We're always looking for something new and improved, we are idealistic and are really good at coming up with new long-term visionary goals for the world.

   At the other extreme are the people who score low on this openness trait; they are very averse to risk, and find change unsettling. What they are very good at however is tactical thinking, they take known, proven systems and make them work. They're really good at adapting to short-term challenges and shifts of priority, their attention is totally on the immediate one or two steps ahead and ensuring they get accomplished reliably, safely and efficiently. And while it's taken me a lifetime to appreciate this; I would put it to you that if you want a stable society, you need stable people to operate it.

   So if liberals are natively good at visionary thinking, and conservatives at tactical thinking … what is the role of strategic thinking? That I put to you is what politics is all about. It's the meeting of minds between the visionaries and the tacticians to devise a common strategic plan of action that we can agree on. In other words, liberals and conservatives need each other in order to act effectively.

   Like every other progressive minded person here, I've spent a lifetime being frustrated by people who needed to wait until their world was literally burning down around their ears before they would contemplate change. Yet for me the lightbulb moment was this, berating them, shaming and demonising them was taking me in completely the wrong direction. I needed to understand them, learn what was important to them in order that I could persuade and negotiate with them from a position of strength.

   I needed to love my enemy."
2. weka 2

   5 January 2020 at 10:11 am

   https://twitter.com/64/status/1213545728649220096

   Indeed. The challenge is how to make this as engaging as the sport or bad news. My theory is that what grabs people has an emotional charge in areas that meet their beliefs (positively or negatively). Maybe there are things to be learned from war effort times. Anyone have ideas on how this might work?
   • Janet 2.1

     5 January 2020 at 11:26 am

     “This is catastrophic climate change right now. It's not a problem for future generations, it's our problem and we must change our way of living.” Robert Guyton

     “The challenge is how to make this as engaging as the sport or bad news. My theory is that what grabs people has an emotional charge in areas that meet their beliefs (positively or negatively). Maybe there are things to be learned from war effort times. Anyone have ideas on how this might work?” Weka

     It will take more than a ban supermarket plastic bags act.

     How many changes has each household made to how they “live” daily in NZ in the last year.. about zero. Have they stopped buying and buying – are they thinking about quality and longevity of what they do buy – Have they even started thinking need as opposed to th’need?

     Has there been government funded advertising to stop people in their tracks and take a look at the extravagant ways they are living?

     What has the government done to turn the population to less wasteful ways? Yes, no plastic bags in supermarket but I notice in Auckland The Herald comes wrapped in a plastic bag every day now, no matter what the weather !

     Has the government regulated to stop short life, poor quality products being imported into NZ yet? No they prefer “free trade “ They prefer anti-climate change ,globalised product sourcing and trading rather than building up our self-sufficiency as a nation again.

     Have you like me, got a drawerful of electronic equipment because nothing fits each other, USBs, chargers etc. Has the government done anything to rationalise and standardise things like this.Even my car can recharge at only one of 5 different charging stations due to incompatibility.

     They keep importing more and more people into NZ to create unwanted growth – They keep on with the biggering and biggering of the New Zealand population to keep biggering and biggering NZs economy to some distant undefined point of collapse !

     The government will have to “act” to push the people to “act” unless they are happy to wait until the man-made environment crisis is so bad that people are having to change their ways to just survive. Then it will be dog eat dog.
     • weka 2.1.1

       5 January 2020 at 12:18 pm

       I think both are needed. Governments need to regulate and educate, people need to mobilise and lead and govt will follow. They then feed each other and create more change.

       "How many changes has each household made to how they “live” daily in NZ in the last year.. about zero"

       I see a lot more people now making personal changes. Way more than ten years ago. The plastics issue has been a big motivator, and this is something that can be built on, because it's not just the supermarket bag ban, it's the plan from the Greens and Labour to roll out further strategies, and it's the change in consciousness that supports more govt action and personal action. This is snowball stuff.

       I think this will happen with CC too, is already happening in NZ. Far more people are talking about CC seriously compared to 4 years ago when I started writing posts about it on TS. The pressing issue for me is what actions we take next. @64 made this point today too,

       https://twitter.com/64/status/1213542751603609600

       I struggle to articulate this to people that don't already get it and still think green BAU will be enough. But it's that paradigm shift in thinking that will lead us to the changes in living and action.
       • Janet 2.1.1.1

         5 January 2020 at 2:03 pm

         Thank you .. I understand what you are saying but there are so many "nuts and bolts" that the government could put in place right now that actually won,t be missed – such as unnecessary importing . With the hindsight of coming from early pioneer families I do believe people will naturally regroup into supporting communities as things change and it is clear that some people are needing help. Some of us have never stopped growing and hunting for our own food and some of us have seen community in action. It still is in some parts of rural NZ. Its the scale-back and adjustment needed of the urban people in NZ that I can,t fully visualise.
         • weka 2.1.1.1.1

           5 January 2020 at 3:46 pm

           this is where some of our hope lies, that there have been enough people already doing the things that need to be done so that when the time comes it will be easier for the rest of the population to transition.

           I worry about what urban people are doing and will do too. People like David Holmgren, or the Transition Town groups, have done the visioning work on how communities can be re-established around a powered down lifestyle, so the models are there. I think we are still some way off progressives concerned about CC looking at those options seriously, but I do see some forward movement too.

           What's the unnecessary importing?
           • Janet 2.1.1.1.1.1

             5 January 2020 at 4:39 pm

             Unnecessary importing starts with the one dollar two dollar shop stuff and poor quality products like low cost electrical tools, cut flowers that can easily be grown in NZ and are now putting NZ producers out of business while at the same time presenting a huge bio- security risk to other horticulture in NZ. Like the kind of products that put NZ manufacturers out of business – Crown Lynn/ pottery for example. We need to recapture such skills while they are still in the NZ community – they are also jobs for people !

             Also I suspect if /when things do turn for the worse there will be a bit of an exodus from the cities and good land will become sought after by our city folk not just the overseas bolt holers.
             • Janet …

               5 January 2020 at 4:56 pm

               Early New Zealand communities formed mainly around their schools. Rural schools have been steadily stripped away to the point where some children in the Far North , for example , travel nearly 2 hours to school then 2 hrs back each day – that is if they bother come to school that day !

               Maybe rebuilding such deprived rural communities by reopening or building new strategic rural schools would be a step in the right direction for future proofing right now.
             • A …

               5 January 2020 at 5:03 pm

               I heard those stores are started by new immigrants because they can't do anything else as their previous qualifications are of little use.
               • Janet …

                 5 January 2020 at 5:25 pm

                 It's of no consequence who owns them and new immigrants without suitable qualifications should not have been allowed into NZ to import rubbish into New Zealand. Better if caught in this position they did something constructive as a job, like pick fruit !
3. weka 3

   5 January 2020 at 10:15 am

   David Slack's offering this morning (whole thing worth a read in context),

   History says: no leader lasts forever. But it also says: they can go on a good long time.

   If you find that dispiriting, I offer the dogged undaunted spirit of a newspaper publisher I know. He has made it his life's work to print the truth without fear or favour in a country where that could endanger your life.

   He could have given up many times. Most people probably would have. But he believes that a free press opens the way to democracy. So he presses on, in the face of the bombings, and abductions, and intimidation, and backsliding governments.

   He admires the philosophy of Stoicism. "Concentrate on what is within your power to do," he says, "disregard the hysteria and wrongness around you. Preoccupy yourself with doing what is in your power to be done."

   …

   The way of Stoicism is to put all your energy and effort into what is within your power and not being too troubled by what is not. Your mind is charged, not your emotion. You work as diligently as you can towards whatever goal you have made. You press on despite the craziness.

   What goal might we press on towards? How about accepting that what is in the sky in Australia is not climate as usual and fixing it? How about restoring the idea of the common good and caring for everyone in our society?

   If you'd like to see more of that sort of goodness, history has a little bit more of it out the back.

   https://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/opinion/118571522/history-has-taught-us-enough-lessons-by-now-surely-we-can-learn-from-them
4. Formerly Ross 4

   5 January 2020 at 10:43 am

   There's a good article in the Herald explaining that the criticism of Scomo is political and cynical.

   "…even Blind Freddy can see that there is also a far more cynical campaign being waged against the PM that originated not from the bush but from the leafy and inner-city suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne – hashtag activists who are more angry at Morrison for winning the election than for anything he has or hasn't done about the fires.

   As has been noted, many of the same commentariat who condemned Morrison for not doing enough to fight fires condemned Tony Abbott for actually physically fighting fires.

   It also insults the intelligence of every Australian to suggest that the same people who circulate pictures of the PM's face etched on a ballsack are looking to him for guidance and reassurance in these troubled times.

   If anything, they only want Morrison around so they can spit in his face. […]

   The Twitter left's attacks on Morrison's absence is like the old joke about the two rich ladies complaining about their dinner: "The food here is terrible," the first laments. "I know," agrees the second, "and in such small portions".

   That is the most obvious irony but the even greater one is that all this hypocritical hysteria is probably what tricked Morrison into thinking that all the outrage against him was confected and so he might as well go catch some rays."

   https://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=12298041
   • Sacha 4.1

     5 January 2020 at 2:05 pm

     How does that fit the kaupapa of this post?
     • Jenny How to get there 4.1.1

       5 January 2020 at 4:51 pm

       It doesn't.

       https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-04-01-2020/#comment-1676898

       https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-04-01-2020/#comment-1676987

       https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-04-01-2020/#comment-1677110

       https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-04-01-2020/#comment-1677145

       FoRo dropped similar comment defending Scott Morrison onto Weka's unrelated post.

       And when it was bumped to Openmike refused to debate it.

       This is classic troll behaviour.
       • Incognito 4.1.1.1

         5 January 2020 at 5:14 pm

         IMO, Formerly Ross is not (acting as) a troll. The issue between him and Weka seems to be that he comes across as a CC denialist and that he has not been able or attempted to change this perception despite his feeble protestations. As Weka has pointed out to him, the onus is on him to clarify and argue his point and position.

         The last two links link back to your own comments and thus you’re simply repeating yourself and offering nothing new.

         Maybe better to leave moderation to the Moderators, yes?
         • RedLogix 4.1.1.1.1

           5 January 2020 at 5:27 pm

           I have to say I agree with the narrow point being made here, the attacks on Morrison reek of cynicism, exploiting a national crisis by turning it into a political one. This is partisan politics at it's worst.

           I don't see this as trolling, in my view FoRo is commenting here in good faith, but the comment is probably misplaced. Also selective … Joe Hildebrand's full article isn't a defense of Morrison, but a denouncement of a decade of dysfunction politics across all the Australian parties.
           • Incognito 4.1.1.1.1.1

             5 January 2020 at 5:33 pm

             Agreed.

             The context was that Formerly Ross was already on slightly thin ice and he did himself no favours with that comment and where he put it.

             I’d like to think that this can all be sorted without further drama but the ball is in his court where it has been for a while.
             • RedLogix …

               5 January 2020 at 5:36 pm

               When you're skating on thin and dangerous ice,

               You can knock and walk in for citizens advice …

               Silvertown Blues …. Mark Knopfler. 🙂
         • Jenny How to get there 4.1.1.1.2

           6 January 2020 at 10:50 am

           Incognito 4.1.1.1

           5 January 2020 at 5:14 pm

           ……As Weka has pointed out to him, the onus is on him to clarify and argue his point and position…..

           As I have pointed out, despite given many opportunities to do so, Foro has repeatedly refused to clarify and argue his point and position.

           Not a right wing troll?

           As well as refusing to engage his brain to defend his position.

           Taking his lead from the NZ Herald Foro (and the Herald), seem to be following the attack line adopted by the right wing Australian talk back hosts and Murdock media.

           …."debating" responsibility for the Australian bushfires…

           …..From the mouths of the Rightwing punditry, [like Foro]* there is no mention whatsoever of the undercutting of operational services to carry out the work Fire services are required to do under normal circumstances, no mention of funding cuts under the Conservative politicians that these people celebrate day in, day out….

           …..it is those who call these behaviours that are the apparently the more nefarious players….

           https://exhalantblog.wordpress.com/2020/01/03/a-standout-example-of-right-wing-truth-inversion-debating-responsibility-for-the-australian-bushfires/

           *[My added notation]. J.

           [As usual, you’re blurring boundaries. A perceived CC denialist (by his own account, a misunderstood commenter) becomes a troll becomes a “right wing troll”. Most likely, I’d be wasting my time if I were to ask you to provide evidence that Formerly Ross is a “right wing troll” because, most likely, you would simply repeat yourself again. I could ask for three pieces of evidence but it would be equally pointless.

           I have also asked you to leave moderation to the Moderators who are quite capable with dealing with such issues. You decided to ignore my request, which puts you in a similar basket as Formerly Ross.

           I’m putting you in Moderation until you acknowledge this moderation note in a satisfactory way – Incognito]
           • Incognito 4.1.1.1.2.1

             6 January 2020 at 1:04 pm

             See my Moderation note @ 10:50 AM.
             • Jenny How to get there …

               12 January 2020 at 7:58 pm

               Hi incognito.

               I did not mean to give you any extra work. I feel that there has been some misunderstanding on my part on how moderation works.

               Please accept my apologies

               I have noted your moderation note. And agree to not to become involved with moderation.

               In future if I am not sure that I am interfering in moderation. I will put my comments in response to a comment I disagree with in an email instead.

               Would that be OK?

               Cheers J.
               • Incognito …

                 12 January 2020 at 11:35 pm

                 Thank you, Jenny, for your kind words; apology accepted.

                 I sincerely doubt that e-mail will be a good way to communicate any misgivings you may have in future.
5. weka 5

   5 January 2020 at 1:38 pm

   https://twitter.com/clementine_ford/status/1213609289752838145
   • weka 5.1

     5 January 2020 at 1:45 pm

     Fundraiser page is here https://www.facebook.com/donate/1010958179269977/

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