How To Get There 10/2/19

Written By: - Date published: 6:57 am, February 10th, 2019 - 178 comments
Categories: Deep stuff - Tags: ,

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This post is a place for positive discussion of the future.

How To Get There is an Open Mike for ideas, solutions and the discussion of the possible.

The Big Picture, rather than a snapshot of the day’s goings on. Topics rather than topical.

We’d like to think it’s success will be measured in the quality of comments rather than the quantity.

Let us know what you think!

178 comments on “How To Get There 10/2/19 ”

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  1. WeTheBleeple 1
    10 February 2019 at 7:50 am

    Where Are We Going: Dr Nate Hagens. Talk from 2:45 – 59:30.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrN0lbbSVOA

    “This story is the perfect storm for the human brain to reject. Complex, threatening, future tense, abstract, no immediate solutions…”

    “At 3.5% growth, over the next 25 years, we will double everything we’ve ever consumed in the last 10 000 years.”

    Main points or conclusions:

    Energy underpins economy and we are living midway through a one-time carbon pulse.

    We are headed for a world with less physical consumption.

    After basic needs are met, the best things in life are free.

    “The average American uses 38 times the energy of the average Filipino, yet on subjective wellbeing studies, they’re equal.”

    “We reward reductionist intelligence [at the cost of wisdom]. We need sophisticated generalists who know how the real world works.”

    “Realistic views are not popular. We will have to respond to a smaller economy, it doesn’t have to be a disaster.”

    Less vs more needs to be unpacked. It means less physical stuff it doesn’t mean the things that really matter in our lives. It doesn’t imply poverty. It implies delving into other riches, family, community, creativity, arts, nature, restoration, engagement in the world.

    “Community is vital to what’s coming.”

    “If this stuff is crazy, the world needs a lot more crazy.”

    Dr Hagen covers economy, environment, human behaviour, psychology, and more. An enlightening talk worth the effort. I will note it seemed slow to start but was well worth persevering.

    His goals with the content:

    1) Educate and inspire would be catalysts and small groups working on better futures to integrate a more systemic view on reality.

    2) Empower individuals to make better personal choices on navigating and thriving during the ‘Great Simplification’ coming our way.

    3) Change what is accepted in our cultural conversation to be more reality based.

    • Robert Guyton 1.1
      10 February 2019 at 9:02 am

      From your descriptions, WTB, Dr Hagen’s prescription is the right one. I’ll have a look when I get the chance. Watched “Downsizing” last night; miniaturising humans to reduce waste and save the planet. Problem is…Various scenarios were presented; the little guys were no help..as bad was the normals, and the next iteration, those who’d built an escape vault, seriously deluded, and in the end, by my reckoning anyway, the filmmakers believe compassion, abandonment of personal goals and pleasures for the sake of those less fortunate, love for one’s fellowman, was the answer and the reason for living. If anyone’s seeing, I’d be interested to hear other interpretations.

      • WeTheBleeple 1.1.1
        10 February 2019 at 10:21 am

        The Great Simplification 😀

        Working with the rules of nature, rather than economics. You, me, we’re the new gurus, willing or not.

        See, the world needs generalists and ecologists BADLY.

        Once manufacturing goes back to a local affair much of the mess we make will subside. All that global transport, chemical fertilisers, ecocidal compounds… simply not necessary to flourish.

        This morning I ate fresh organic grapes, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries for breakfast.

        Doing it hard…

        • Robert Guyton 1.1.1.1
          10 February 2019 at 12:31 pm

          Grapes, out of doors, in Southland, are fabulous this year! I’m very surprised by that. As those vines, clambering through the sub-canopy, mature, I expect heavier and heavier crops. Now, however, I have to protect those bunches from the birds!
          Apples are dropping, fully ripe, to the ground now; Keswick codlin initially, but others following. I’m stewing fresh heritage cooking apples every morning to top off my porridge (I’m Orcadian by descent and nature and know it’s summer, but love oats).

          • WeTheBleeple 1.1.1.1.1
            10 February 2019 at 3:41 pm

            You apple people are a strange lot. We banana folks are cooler, having to live with more heat.

            I planted a passionfruit under a large privet a few days ago. A bit hot to plant but sister turned up with plants so… I love that they drop their fruit… though clambering for grapes sounds a lot of fun. Pete in Florida grows passionfruit under large oaks. The tendrils hang on to the rough bark and they climb all the way up into the canopy. Hard hat area he reckons haha.

            I like oats too but I like them raw. I grew some by just tossing seed about and now some come back in places, but I don’t process them I just throw the seed heads to the chickens.

            The grapes up here are particularly tasty too. I don’t know the pedigree the traditional purple round seeded table grape. Very nice. When you grow them in trees, it’s a no prune let em run scenario? Do you start in shade? How close to a trunk, how big a hole, seedling or established wee vine? Details!

            • Robert Guyton 1.1.1.1.1.1
              10 February 2019 at 5:03 pm

              The grapes growing in my forest garden are of various pedigrees and from all over the South. All are experimental but some have come from vines growing out of doors – the famous but rarely seen heritage “Southland grape” is doing very well here. I grow them from cuttings in sandy soil over the winter or in water during spring and summer. I plant them nearby to the trunk of all sorts of trees and shrubs, pretty randomly selecting, as I’m trialling…I prune to one or two leaders and guide them up for the first two years, then they find their own ways. I prune back to two buds wherever I can reach and whenever I remember. I also remove leaves to let the sunlight onto the fruits. Some vines grow unnoticed, as my garden is wild and I’m not very methodical; they seem to enjoy both those aspects. I plant into a small hole and don’t feed them. I do water in the first year, as much to imprint their location as anything else. Grape vines are pretty robust. I have no pests or diseases here, yet. I’m starting on black passionfruit also, growing them up a “teepee” of rhododendron branches (I call it my lurkem” because I lurk there when I need to be difficult to find). I really want to grow banana passionfruit, but it’s to unpopular with my community of councillors and DoC and F&B mates. My childhood was smothered in them. There is the similar crimson/red variety, but I’m not having good fortune with those seeds.

  2. Dennis Frank 2
    10 February 2019 at 7:57 am

    Aiming for the future with economic policy ought to be a focus. How to get there? Depends how much we ought to allow the past to recycle into the future.

    Hybrid socialism/capitalism is what we have. General agreement that we must transcend neoliberalism is emerging, but without any plan for how. My suggestion has been a more formalised design, but could such a process produce an ideology?

    I’ve been advocating a synthesis for almost 30 years. Hegel’s dialectic (thesis and antithesis) can achieve resolution in synthesis. Most commentators, in contrast, assume that the dialectic is perpetual. I’d like to challenge them to provide a rationale. Is perpetual motion viable? Must the haves fight the have-nots forever?

    I see no necessity for that. Wealth-generating enterprise and wealth-distributing governance can co-operate. Oscillating left/right govts tweaking the balance is what we have, but can we do better than that? I’d like to see class analysis regenerate itself by casting off its marxist skin. The serpent as symbol. White man, him speak with forked tongue. Out of the right side of his mouth, via capitalism, out of the left side, via socialism. Keeps the control system going.

    • Gosman 2.1
      10 February 2019 at 8:35 am

      On first look this just seems to be a variation of Blair’s third way or Clinton’s triangulation. It is very easy to argue for some hybrid “new” way between extremes of Capitalism and Socialism but it is very difficult to put meat on any bones in relation to how it would work.

      • Dennis Frank 2.1.1
        10 February 2019 at 9:01 am

        Yes indeed. Which is why I’ve framed it thus. Muddle through the middle, which is what we’re all doing, or intelligent design? If the latter, what design elements or principles must be included.

        I believe the principle of enterprise is the basis of business (capitalism) and care-taking is the basis of governance (socialism). Care-taking is praxis rather than principle, so I tend to use equity as the basic principle of socialism.

        However, since I’ve never been a socialist, I think it best to just challenge socialists to do better. If they can!

        • Gosman 2.1.1.1
          10 February 2019 at 9:04 am

          Ideologically people on the hard left have despised people like you almost more than people like me. That is why Blair holds a special level of hatred for Corbyn supporters in the UK. That and his support for invading Iraq.

          • Dennis Frank 2.1.1.1.1
            10 February 2019 at 9:40 am

            The extent to which that’s true is the extent to which the hard left marginalise themselves. Minto & Bradford, for instance. The latter had a political career via compromise, and collaborating with more-centrist colleagues. Progress comes from that transcendent praxis. Dragon-induced pathology can be defeated by a sufficiently strong mind.

          • KJT 2.1.1.1.2
            10 February 2019 at 11:49 am

            Looking for solutions is not helped by inaccurately characterizing as “hard left”, mildly social democratic solutions, such as Corbyns.

            That would make Holyoak and Muldoon raving communists! In your book.

        • Incognito 2.1.1.2
          10 February 2019 at 7:56 pm

          I personally am not all that keen on the need for or even framing it as intelligent design. It sounds like cocky hubris to me with an element of determinism or fatalism even. I’d favour intelligent action with an intelligent action plan. The future is open-ended and uncertain (unwritten) and this should be reflected in our approach to it.

    • Gosman 2.2
      10 February 2019 at 8:59 am

      Dennis, now that we are on this topic perhaps you could address some issues you were reluctant to go in to depth on in previous discussions earlier on in the week.

      Do you think it is possible building a new economic model from the left when many left wingers are reluctant to even contemplate problems inherent in some left wing economic ideas and look to place the blame for any failure on external rather than internal factors?

      • Dennis Frank 2.2.1
        10 February 2019 at 9:14 am

        I do, but inasmuch as leftists have been exhibiting their reluctance to do so since the need first became evident in the early ’70s, there seems to be an extremely powerful psychological deterrent operating in their collective psyche.

        I see such components as operating in mass psychology like dragons. Take Maduro, for instance. The food aid comes down the highway in huge trucks, intended to keep starving Venezuelans alive. The dragon in his head says “Evil! You must not let the people get it! Better that they die!” So he obeys.

        He even tells the world it is evil and that’s why he’s stopping it. He’s being honest and repeating his instruction from the dragon within. Psychotherapy is the discipline we have evolved for the slaying of those internal dragons. Politicians are reluctant to submit to such discipline. They’d rather continue acting as the agents of their dragons. However, children are brainwashed with heroic dragon-slaying stories all over the world, and adults have those operating as exemplars within. So contempt for politicians who refuse to exercise self-discipline is inevitable. Applied political psychology is the key to progress…

        • Gosman 2.2.1.1
          10 February 2019 at 9:18 am

          I’d argue that dragonslaying concept is deeply imbeded in the psyche of the hard left. The whole concept of class warfare is about vanquishing the ‘evil and exploitative’ capitalists who live off the fruits of the labour of the working class. With such views underpinning the ideology it is no wonder there is no room for compromise.

          • Dennis Frank 2.2.1.1.1
            10 February 2019 at 9:33 am

            You’re not wrong. The current model is wrong. The diagnosis of the hard left is wrong. Two wrongs don’t make a right. To get it right, the incentive-structure of the system must be changed.

            Money being the primary medium of incentive-structuring, that means redesigning its flow. Like plants in an ecosystem where irrigation is designed to enable all to prosper, people must be provided with enough to play their natural part in the system.

            Since work maintains fitness, funding of work ought to be the focus. If businesses are no longer able to do that, the task falls to government…

            • Gosman 2.2.1.1.1.1
              10 February 2019 at 9:43 am

              Money only represents value. It is those values you need to address not money itself.

              • Dennis Frank …
                10 February 2019 at 9:55 am

                I’m talking about the functional aspect. Banks create money more often than the govt but no reason not to alter the balance between them. The magic of financial alchemy entrances people. Why not exploit that?

            • Gosman 2.2.1.1.1.2
              10 February 2019 at 9:45 am

              Work for work sake can be incredibly environmentally destructive. The work needs to serve a purpose.

              • Dennis Frank …
                10 February 2019 at 9:53 am

                Exactly. That’s what the incentive-structure has to design for. Parihaka was a model for resilience, inasmuch as Te Whiti organised his people to do communal agriculture to feed themselves. Yet all of coastal north Taranaki has looked the same since I first saw it in the 1950s as a child. Maori land. If you look hard, farm animals may become evident.

              • KJT …
                10 February 2019 at 9:55 am

                Funny then, that some of the most purposeless, and socially and environmentally destructive work, is the highest paid.

                The MOW shovel leaners, built roads, railways, power stations, hospitals.

                New Zealands highest paid are busy making houses and farms unaffordable, to the extent only banks really profit.

                • Dennis Frank …
                  10 February 2019 at 10:00 am

                  The system rewards those who game it. The cleverest players get to maximise their share of those rewards. I provided a scheme to limit the resulting inequality, but leftist Greens didn’t want to discuss it. They seem to think organised whining is better than solving the problem.

                  • KJT …
                    10 February 2019 at 11:53 am

                    More to the point, the self interested block attempts at solutions.

                    And most of the blockers, like yourself, think that positive change can happen without changing their degree of privilege.

                    For example we cannot reduce poverty without the lucky giving something up. Resources are finite.

                    • Dennis Frank …
                      10 February 2019 at 12:49 pm

                      A story is often told: `give a man a fish, you feed him once; teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime’. I think it shows that your zero-sum thinking doesn’t totally cover the situation.

                      That said, I’d take 90% of the wealth accrued by the 1% and redistribute it in a worthy cause – but I’d only give it to those needy who genuinely try to contribute to society. Parasites at the bottom are as undesirable as those at the top.

                    • KJT …
                      10 February 2019 at 1:40 pm

                      The “deserving” and “undeserving poor”.

                      Where have we heard that, before?

                    • McFlock …
                      10 February 2019 at 2:04 pm

                      Teach a million men to fish, the fisheries get plundered as each sells his surplus catch, and then nobody has any damned fish.

                    • greywarshark …
                      10 February 2019 at 2:06 pm

                      Let’s aim at distribution to all and assistance to improve; then check out who is having difficulty with that and provide them with basic amenities and something useful to occupy themselves with. It is no use in reforming society just to go to a level decided by a machine-like system of so-called justice that turns into injustice. That’s continuing with our present neo-liberal theme, the theme of the anti-Christ.

                      If we went for a mix of useful approaches from different philosophical avenues and started with the Stoic approach with their four attributes it would only be good as a rule for ourselves individually. We would however be picking out the cherries from a mix that gets darker in the implementation of the rest of the theory.

                      The Stoics thought that the good life (eudaimonia, often translated as “flourishing”) consisted in cultivating one’s moral virtues in order to become a good person.

                      The four cardinal virtues recognized by the Stoics were: Wisdom (sophia), Courage (andreia), Justice (dikaiosyne), and Temperance (sophrosyne).
                      Stoicism 101 | How to Be a Stoic

                      However others state a warning about the need to understand what Stoicism means in full.
                      https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/the-problem-with-stoicism-cd4183f7a24

                      It gets complicated in its translation from theory into the real world.
                      Both Sartre and Kant saw human consciousness as something exceptional in nature, the very source of our free will. Stoicism sees consciousness as a spectator as fate blindly unfolds around and through us, freedom lies only in our take on things (the question the Stoics wrestled with was to what extent even our take on things was determined).

                      What would be disturbing to most people -even those who admire Seneca’s maxims- is the passivity of Seneca’s stoicism: the idea that you can do nothing to effect real change in the world, only to your circumstances as you perceive them.

                      Wild Beasts and Great Leaps
                      This is perhaps why (and I’m being speculative now) stoicism was so popular in the late Roman world, an empire that became increasingly cruel to those it ruled over while disparity of wealth widened at an increasing rate. (While Roman aristocrats philosophised in their perfumed and covered sedan chairs, pregnant women were thrown to wild beasts in amphitheatres to the roar of cheering crowds).

        • francesca 2.2.1.2
          10 February 2019 at 12:23 pm

          Dennis re Venezuela
          Are you aware that the Red Cross and Caritas has refused to have anything to do with said aid and the UN warns against its politicisation ?

          “The International Red Cross, the Catholic church’s aid organization Caritas and the United Nations rejected U.S. requests to help deliver the currently planned ‘aid’ because it is so obviously politicized:

          “Humanitarian action needs to be independent of political, military or other objectives,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York on Wednesday.
          …
          “What is important is that humanitarian aid be depoliticised and that the needs of the people should lead in terms of when and how humanitarian aid is used,” Dujarric added.”

          And Dennis, refusal of aid is not so unusual it seems

          https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/07/venezuela.hurricanekatrina

          • Dennis Frank 2.2.1.2.1
            10 February 2019 at 12:40 pm

            Behaviour like this is immoral regardless whether done by the left or right. If anyone wants to help anyone else, the only appropriate role for interested third parties is monitoring the process to ensure no harm is done.

            Prevention of the aid reaching those who need it is only ever done by scum. If that cap fits the Red Cross & UN, mental illness could explain their behaviour, but seems to me that moral corruption is more likely.

            • francesca 2.2.1.2.1.1
              10 February 2019 at 1:13 pm

              Last year of course, Venezuela did accept UN aid, after agreements were made between the Venezuelan govt and the UN

              https://www.dw.com/en/un-releases-emergency-aid-to-venezuela/a-46463279

              Could it be that the current aid is being offered without the proper authorisations?
              As the US (and therefore its vassals) does not recognise the elected President
              A provocation rather than a kindness

              • Dennis Frank …
                10 February 2019 at 1:29 pm

                Wouldn’t surprise me. Trump et al often seem gauche. Cluelessness in regard to protocols that normally apply could indeed explain it. There does need to be an adult in the room at some point. Perhaps the UN chief will explain the situation to the world?

                • In Vino …
                  10 February 2019 at 4:44 pm

                  Rather surprised at the emotive language creeping into your usually measured style, Dennis. (“scum”) And are you aware that the touted photo of tankers etc blocking the multi-lane highway in Venezuela has been busted as fake news? The photo was originally uploaded June 2018 if I remember correctly. The road was blocked back then, and it has nothing to do with recent stories of refusal to accept aid.

                  • Dennis Frank …
                    10 February 2019 at 5:18 pm

                    Yeah I noticed the fake news exposé a couple of hours ago! Amusing that the msm foreign news orgs all got sucked in, not just us.

                    So it does indeed seem as if grandstanding is being done by all key players. An international aid organisation with credibility will have to provide the aid, and the UN will have to cut through the crap to enable it. That will call Maduro’s bluff. If he still refuses the needy access to it, that will prove him a scumbag.

          • greywarshark 2.2.1.2.2
            10 February 2019 at 2:18 pm

            Lovely, now we are back on discussing other countries who are in trouble.
            I thought we were trying to find a way to help NZ go forward.

            We have enough problems of our own and need to glance at Venezuela and what is happening there, but in Open Mike or its own post. If its not Venezuela it is the USA. Please can we concentrate in this post on NZ. We are only little, we regularly hear talk about us punching above our weight, when actually we are really anklebiters and we damn well need to think for ourselves, about ourselves.

            • francesca 2.2.1.2.2.1
              10 February 2019 at 3:06 pm

              Sorry Grey
              Shouldn’t have bitten on that one.

              • greywarshark …
                10 February 2019 at 5:25 pm

                Thanks francesca – your comments are great. I see them and think thank heavens there’s something good to read. I explained what my concern was. But now also I think I am getting stressed and will have to take a few days off. I aim to try the WW2 poster idea Keep Calm and Carry On.

    • Robert Guyton 2.3
      10 February 2019 at 9:06 am

      Or does it come down to every person adopting and practicing Christ-like behaviours.
      Everything else follows.

      • Dennis Frank 2.3.1
        10 February 2019 at 9:24 am

        As praxis, it would be ideal. Problem is, most folk are either unwilling or unable. To high a bar for them to hurdle, Robert. As avatar, he led by example. Some followed, then the church took over the state and it all turned to shit.

        Since then christians doing what he told them have been a minority trend. We sang Onward Christian Soldiers along with the other hymns in primary and intermediate school, in the fifties and sixties. He said love your enemies, God commanded thou shalt not kill, and the christians ignored them both.

        • Gabby 2.3.1.1
          10 February 2019 at 10:40 am

          To be fair, so did everyone else praxy.

        • Robert Guyton 2.3.1.2
          10 February 2019 at 11:46 am

          I’ve always wondered, Dennis, if “at the time of Jesus”, there were people who were almost there; approaching the kind of state we can see would be ideal now; are there such people now, having the advantage of history to scan and books and other media to explore; are there “nascent Christs” scattered throughout our community and were there any then?

          • Dennis Frank 2.3.1.2.1
            10 February 2019 at 12:44 pm

            I doubt it. Giving one’s life for others does happen, but rarely, and normally in instances of a personal relationship that motivates it. Doing it for a general principle, so as to establish an influential myth, is unique.

            • Robert Guyton 2.3.1.2.1.1
              10 February 2019 at 12:47 pm

              It sounds like a metanoic experience, or a manic one, florid even, given full blow. That’s not to say such intensity is wrong, only troublesome to the person experiencing it, generally.

              • Dennis Frank …
                10 February 2019 at 12:55 pm

                Yeshua was a socialist revolutionary in his praxis, but seems to have been highly spiritual in his motivation. I get the impression his departure was carefully planned to be exemplary. Self-sacrifice, using the jewish & roman power-structures that applied to perform the leverage to create the dramatic impact. Yet his final cry, asking why his god had abandoned him, created a mystery none have explained…

                • Drowsy M. Kram …
                  10 February 2019 at 3:17 pm

                  Putting one’s life a risk (intentionally or unintentionally) to help others, even strangers, in (dire) need probably happens more often than we know. Fortunately, deadly consequences are relatively rare.

                  “The protectors risked death if caught by the Nazis.

                  https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/world/europe/12gies.html

                • solkta …
                  11 February 2019 at 7:21 am

                  I really wish you would stop using “praxis” to mean “practice”. Praxis means the unity of theory and practice from a Hegelian perspective and the process of the implementation of theory from a Cartesian perspective. For Jesus spirituality WAS PART of his praxis.

                  And no he was not a socialist revolutionary as he never talked about overthrowing the Romans.

                  • Dennis Frank …
                    11 February 2019 at 8:03 am

                    Well, the last time someone queried my usage of the term I responded by quoting the definition. Traditional usage derives from the Greek root. Pan-cultural transmission of the original meaning of words is the norm in language.

                    The 19th century usage you refer to may have become normal for marxist philosophers into the 2oth century, but in-crowd specialised meanings usually have no impact on the surrounding society. In fact, it is routine to dismiss them as jargon.

                    As I explained previously, praxis means belief compounded with action in accord with that belief. Connotation of continuance is also included. Often nowadays this is expressed as `walking the talk’ or `walking the walk, not just talking the talk’. Behaviour becomes self-disciplined, as in `practice makes perfect’.

                    Your point about his advice on dealing with Romans is valid. I meant my comment to apply to his jewish stance. Re-interpreting what God wants his followers to believe and do, contradicting pharisees & temple rules. Religion is social spirituality – he advised people to break free from the bondage created by tradition. That was revolutionary at the time.

                    • solkta …
                      11 February 2019 at 8:15 am

                      I’m not referring to 19th century usage but to 20th century and contemporary usage and most definitely not to just Marxist usage. If you saw someone come on here every day and use a physics term incorrectly i’m sure it would bug you. You look like a try-hard.

                    • Dennis Frank …
                      11 February 2019 at 8:39 am

                      Well, perception doesn’t make reality. I’ll continue using the term for the reason I gave, since the Greeks knew it was good and the same meaning applies nowadays. English has failed to provide any viable alternative to convey that meaning, hasn’t it?

                  • greywarshark …
                    11 February 2019 at 8:56 am

                    thanks for that solkta. Praxis is an interesting word that i have never used before and it certainly is a powerful end to aim for, giving all the aspects that you have explained.

          • Incognito 2.3.1.2.2
            10 February 2019 at 8:20 pm

            I think that is a wonderful and pertinent question, Robert. Perhaps Christ-like behaviours are scattered throughout our community and we all have elements or the seeds of Christ in us. Irrespective of whether you believe in Christ or not, the story or narrative is real and alive; the symbolism of why Christ died on the cross is powerful. If so, we all are “nascent Christs”. Jung considered Christ and God as archetypes and as such they exist in our collective unconscious to which we’re all connected.

            • Robert Guyton 2.3.1.2.2.1
              10 February 2019 at 10:41 pm

              I reckon so, Incognito. What to do, what to do…
              Perhaps focusing on that question and the possibilities it evokes is how we will get there. Meditating on and thinking purposefully about that point would be a very worthwhile endeavour, in my view.

              • Incognito …
                10 February 2019 at 10:51 pm

                Ah good! We’re on the same page; I started to doubt my writing skills in conveying my meaning & intention …

                Yes, meditation and thinking have a role to play but

                What to do, what to do…

                Just do, just be, and don’t overthink things, which is one of my major weaknesses.

                • Robert Guyton …
                  10 February 2019 at 10:56 pm

                  I’m not having any trouble at all understanding what you write, Incognito.
                  At least, I believe , I know what you’re on about 🙂
                  I don’t suffer from overthinking. It may be that I’m lazy, but I like to let the world think for me. Or think me. Not sure which. With me, maybe?

                • greywarshark …
                  11 February 2019 at 9:43 am

                  Be and do may be two different things.
                  Be> Think> Do. Might be a better mind process to aim for.

                  Janis Ian writes some great songs – here are some lines from ‘Between the Lines’ that refer to not finding something to hold and believe in that’s good and solid in life.

                  In books and magazines of how to be
                  And what to see while you are being
                  Before and after photographs
                  Teach how to pass from reaching to believing
                  We live beyond our means on other peoples’ dreams
                  And that’s succeeding

                  Is this the approach common today? Which sounds like psychopathology to me.
                  ““ Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” ”

                  Janis Ian in her poignant song about the turmoil of a seventeen year old girl; what to do, what to be.
                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k39P2MK6WPo

                  Looking for something in life for a woman seeking fulfilment through finding someone to love and be loved by can lead to an empty life also for that seventeen year old girl or boy.
                  The Come On

  3. Stuart Munro 3
    10 February 2019 at 9:01 am

    Land reform is always the answer – the means of production must lie in the hands of those who will operate it.

    Since Rogergnomics our economic focus has impoverished most New Zealanders and propped up the unproductive rich and exploitive corporations. We will not prosper as a society until that is addressed.

    With record levels of household debt, the need for a Seisachtheia is building. A pay to play condition for Australian banks to enter our lucrative mortgage market is long overdue.

    • Gosman 3.1
      10 February 2019 at 9:05 am

      Many a failed state has believed the same thing. Zimbabwe being a prime example.

      • Stuart Munro 3.1.1
        10 February 2019 at 9:15 am

        Quite. But we’re a failed state now. Our property system is a better way to make money than productive commerce or agriculture, and has been for more than thirty years. And none of the supposedly pro-economic commentators like yourself show any sign of preparedness to address such issues.

        For all your pretensions to a belief in benignant markets you are remarkably fast to exploit their failings for personal advantage, and reform has no urgency for you – you might fairly be characterized as preferring a failing market to a functional one – lacking the talent, no doubt, to prosper on your merits.

        • Gosman 3.1.1.1
          10 February 2019 at 9:21 am

          We are no where near a failed state. This is why most people don’t take the views of the hard left seriously. That view is almost exactly like Trump’s views on the threat of immigration in terms of basis in reality.

          • KJT 3.1.1.1.1
            10 February 2019 at 9:48 am

            300 000 children in poverty.

            Hospitals crumbling, working poor, overpriced houses, run down infrastructure.

            Private banks taking more interest offshore than our exports, earn.

            Living off the remains of the social capital from the 50’s and 60’s Governments.

            Not a “failed State’?

            But Gosman is well paid for denying reality, so all is well with the world.

          • Stuart Munro 3.1.1.1.2
            10 February 2019 at 10:02 am

            Ok so you’ve got nothing to offer but denial – It’s no more than we expect of your intellectual bankruptcy.

            But this column is about how we achieve a better society – it is not merely yet another platform for you to grandstand your inanities with respect to Venezuela or Zimbabwe.

            Land reform is a historically well-established way of responding to challenges of unsustainability and poverty created by far right fuckwits like you. If you have a credible alternative solution, by all means let’s hear it – that’s what this column is for.

            Are we a failed state? None of my interests have been served under Rogergnomics – I’m not getting ahead – nor is my cohort. Nor are we making substantive progress on social or economic issues, housing, poverty, work life balance, sustainability, – much less creating a better society for our successors.

            That’s not success.

          • patricia bremner 3.1.1.1.3
            10 February 2019 at 10:25 am

            Soon people who throw Trump into a discussion will be equal to those throwing Hitler into a conversation lol lol

            Are you a rentier or a creator?

            • greywarshark 3.1.1.1.3.1
              10 February 2019 at 10:33 am

              Asking open-ended questions of Gosman just encourages him – he is incorrigible and …

              From google –
              incorrigible
              Dictionary result for incorrigible
              adjective: incorrigible
              1.
              (of a person or their behaviour) not able to be changed or reformed.
              “she’s an incorrigible flirt”
              synonyms: inveterate, habitual, confirmed, hardened; incurable, unreformable, irreformable, irredeemable, intractable, hopeless, beyond hope/redemption;
              chronic, diehard, deep-dyed, dyed-in-the-wool, long-standing, addicted, hard-core;
              impenitent, uncontrite, unrepentant, unapologetic, unashamed;
              informalimpossible
              “she’s an incorrigible flirt”
              antonyms: occasional, repentant
              noun
              noun: incorrigible; plural noun: incorrigibles
              1.
              an incorrigible person.
              “all repeat offenders, but none of them real hard-case incorrigibles”

          • Graeme 3.1.1.1.4
            10 February 2019 at 11:21 am

            “We are no where near a failed state.”

            There’s no arguing with that.

            And yet you always bring up the failed state argument whenever any reform that will diminish unbridled capitalism is proposed. Zimbabwe was a “failed state” long before it was Zimbabwe and Venezuela has also been a “failed state” for a very long time, probably from about the point it became Venezuela. (selective snapshots excepted in both cases, I’m looking at the long term overall picture)

            New Zealand has a moderate and stable political and social culture which sets it well apart from your “failed state” comparisons and makes your arguments appear facetious and probably just trolling for the sake of it.

            Stuart is right, reform of our property system is needed. We aren’t alone in that, it’s an issue in all 2nd world societies along with a few 1st and 3rd world ones as well. When the land is increasing in value faster than any productive return from that land you have a problem. Even capitalists should understand that. Our current tenure system and land use controls worked fine in a rapidly developing colonial society but incentivise speculation and non-use (call it creating value, but not utility)

            What form that reform should take I’m unsure, but it will need a lot more than any possible CGT, that would just be pissing on the edges of a bushfire. On the other hand it could be that the legislative side is fine, but a cultural change is needed, in which case a taxation response is required. Cullen’s report will be interesting as they have been dealing with these issues.

            • KJT 3.1.1.1.4.1
              10 February 2019 at 11:55 am

              “Nowhere near a failed State”.

              Tell that to a Maori kid in Northland.

              Agree with the rest of your post.

              When land has more monetary value, when taken out of food production, and used for a foreign millionaires waterfront mansion?

            • Stuart Munro 3.1.1.1.4.2
              10 February 2019 at 4:17 pm

              At the lowest level, one of the land reforms required might be something like the right to plant trees, or establish mowless lawn or garden on a landlord’s property. I don’t see them welcoming such a tenant’s right, but both greater sustainability and greater community interaction depend on such capacities.

              Communities readily grow over the back fence by gifts of produce, or even seed or cuttings. Increasing numbers of NZers are excluded from such activities, because they rent. This impoverishes them both financially and socially.

              A reform that reverses the negative trend in home ownership is therefore urgent – notwithstanding the whining of Gosman – though it might be achieved in part by redefining some notions of property, such as by allowing or creating spaces for tiny or mixed tiny and conventional communities.

              The land cleared in Christchurch by confiscation would be well suited to such communities for instance. Tiny houses are in general portable, and less susceptible to damage from shifting foundations than larger and heavier conventional buildings.

          • CHCoff 3.1.1.1.5
            10 February 2019 at 5:34 pm

            ‘We are no where near a failed state.’

            That’s half correct. We have alot of dysfunction but NZ remains a very rich ‘culture’ in many respects comparatively to other places in the world, however that dysfunction is frothing at the mouth to increase exponentially & it’s not as simple as just deporting people like John Key either.

            NZ has alot of sound fundamentals that are helping keeping things at check, but it is being opened up to the world, from within and without, that is coming from a very different place and set of values.

            This is only going to increase, and may seek to do so rapidly and exponentially at that, but whatever the new identity it may be, this new type of variable is going to be part of the equation of what has to be taken into account, the question is will NZ culture go down the river or will it flourish?

            NZ is not a failed state, it doesn’t need a new operating system to address it’s rapidly emerging challenges BUT it does need an upgrade. NZ needs to take democracy to the next level is the solution. We did so about 100 years ago with the Womans vote, & the current situation requires NZ becoming a leading democratic trading state and society again in the world, through a systemic rebalancing of the systems of governance to those of politics.

            Again NZ is in the position, that many other places are not, where an effective upgrade to the issues above is more a natural progressive step of our current system & associated culture rather than a whole sale change.

    • WeTheBleeple 3.2
      10 February 2019 at 9:21 am

      Here’s some capitalist land reform.

      https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/09/world/americas/brazil-dam-collapse.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

      I absolutely agree on land use. Those working the land must be local to the land.

      Corporates should all be on a trial basis in our country – clean up or get out.

      • Gosman 3.2.1
        10 February 2019 at 9:23 am

        5hen you will drive out investment. Do you know why Northland has high rates of poverty.

        • WeTheBleeple 3.2.1.1
          10 February 2019 at 9:28 am

          Gee, I guess northland needs a giant tailings dam then.

          But, enlighten us Gosman, who offered investment then spat the dummy. Let’s hear the story of the nasty poor folk.

          • Gosman 3.2.1.1.1
            10 February 2019 at 9:41 am

            I asked you why Northland had so much poverty and your answer is “guess they need a giant tailings dam”. How odd.

            • WeTheBleeple 3.2.1.1.1.1
              10 February 2019 at 10:26 am

              Who are the investors Northland turned away?

              Just read the article, watch the dam collapse (footage provided) then tell me more about capitalism’s saving grace.

              Companies like those responsible for this are not welcome anywhere.

        • KJT 3.2.1.2
          10 February 2019 at 9:51 am

          Low wages and decades of Government neglect.

          It was Government investment in infrastructure which made Tauranga take off.
          If they had waited for the private sector, they would still be sleepy hollow.

          • Gosman 3.2.1.2.1
            10 February 2019 at 9:54 am

            There are hardly any jobs in the North let alone liw paid ones

            • KJT 3.2.1.2.1.1
              10 February 2019 at 10:03 am

              Yes. Since immigration has lowered wages, Richardson made a huge poverty trap, the high dollar killed our engineering firms, and successive Governments have ignored Northland, there is not much money left to support local business.
              However National’s decade long recession is starting to lift, finally. Small manufacturers are still going, despite all the odds, and with the chances of NZ first making inroads on the Northern vote, politicians are promising us some much needed infrastructure.

              If the vandals don’t get back in soon, we may even get the Northport rail line, and upgrades to the Northern line, which should have happened years ago.

              Hell. We may even get road safety improvements, North of the holiday homes in Omaha.

              • greywarshark …
                10 February 2019 at 10:14 am

                KJT
                You describe the events of the past caused by political malfunction by National, which Labour opened the Pandoras box to. We have been battling with the evil spirits that rose out of that box ever since. Pray God we can keep the lid slammed shut on them and cope with what have escaped in the past. By action, and community building as well. Join hands and sing kumbyah and anything and everything that brings action-oriented people of goodwill to work together for a better future.

                • patricia bremner …
                  10 February 2019 at 10:32 am

                  Yes Grey, one small step at a time. To thrive we cooperate share and care.
                  Beware the “Investor” with their dangled beads and blankets for the locals and their smooching of power.

                  • KJT …
                    10 February 2019 at 11:29 am

                    It is interesting to compare communities, over the long term, that have followed the ‘giving away the family jewels’ to attract outside investment route, with those that have spent the same amount in local development and capability.

                    Outside investors, take the cream and leave as soon as they have a better offer, usually leaving poverty, depletion and costs in their wake.

                    Had enough of that in Northland, already.

                    For example, in Southland, Governments have chosen to prop up the aluminum smelter. A never ending taker of money for a few jobs.
                    Support for local small business is less costly and will do more for Southland. As the support for the local polytechnic has shown.

                    Much as dairy is unsuitable for Southland, it does show how Government support of provincial industry, is effective.

        • greywarshark 3.2.1.3
          10 February 2019 at 12:00 pm

          Gosman goes from one false stepping stone to another and encourages us to follow across the river, whether safely or not. I suggest not to follow blindly, as only some of his questions are useful to the way forward. We don’t want to be still arguing about matters long past at the time we reach the Pearly Gates.

          While we are indulging in circular arguments we aren’t applying our minds to subjects that we have initiated. What can we achieve when we do our own thinking, checking on what others have said, done, are doing about it so as to round it out to a well-thought move.

        • Stuart Munro 3.2.1.4
          10 February 2019 at 12:09 pm

          Excellent – investment under current settings pumps wealth out of communities, it doesn’t add value. The less investment we get the better – it’s just another word for financialization. Accountants don’t run farms better than farmers or fisheries better than fishermen or factories better than engineers. Any economic system, like Rogergnomics that pretends they do is doomed to sustained underperformance. The kind of sustained underperformance successive governments, instead of addressing, have papered over with mass migrant capital inflows.

  4. greywarshark 4
    10 February 2019 at 9:20 am

    We do have to watch that we don’t sink into innumerable discussions on theories about systems and which would be preferable, left or right, trickle-down or trickle-up. It can be so obsessive and absorbing and played up by the RWs to the detriment of useful action necessary to enable future decent life respecting individuals and the community.

    • WeTheBleeple 4.1
      10 February 2019 at 9:26 am

      Absolutely agree. We’re in the same boat and we care about the same things. Clean rivers and beaches, good clean water to drink, healthy food, environmental care, good education, good healthcare, community, resilience….

      Why is it so hard to see we want the same things, and we care about many of the same things.

      Left-right is just more BS. Where do you stand, what camp, with us or against us?

      I stand for planet Earth and all its inhabitants.

  5. Jenny - How to get there? 5
    10 February 2019 at 9:23 am

    The Greens have proposed free public transport for under 19s

    Every person who has no choice but to drive for a living, knows the difference between the school holidays and the start of the school term.

    The many extra cars on the road involved in getting to school and university represent a huge carbon footprint. Fare Free New Zealand want all public transport to be fare free. Cheaper than subsidising private transport, free public transport is opposed by the roading, fossil fuel, and automotive lobby, creating a huge political blockage. I have suggested that to break through this political blockage we need to explore partial free public transport options

    The Greens are of the same opinion.

    Fare Free New Zealand

    http://farefreenz.blogspot.com/2017/08/greens-pledge-free-public-transport-for.html

    “A ‘Green Card’ would be created, which would also provide free off-peak travel for tertiary students and those doing apprenticeships.

    Under the policy all people with a disability on a supported living benefit would also be eligible for free public transport.

    The Greens’ transport spokesperson, Julie-Anne Genter, said the policy would cost $70-80 million a year.

    “That would buy about 1km of the Puhoi-Warkworth motorway, if we look at the announcement made by the National government for $10.5bn on a few highways – that’s 100 years of free public transport.”

    • WeTheBleeple 5.1
      10 February 2019 at 9:30 am

      Absolutely agree this is the right way to go. You can tell by who opposes it….

      The gold card for seniors is actually a pilot for free transport, at least partially?

      • Gosman 5.1.1
        10 February 2019 at 9:46 am

        There is no such thing as “free” transport.

        • Robert Guyton 5.1.1.1
          10 February 2019 at 9:57 am

          Floating downstream.

          • greywarshark 5.1.1.1.1
            10 February 2019 at 10:05 am

            Let’s play Poohsticks rather than think for positive approaches to the future. Also a home for aged white men with useful hobbies to take up their time, so they leave the thinking to people who care.

        • KJT 5.1.1.2
          10 February 2019 at 10:08 am

          Would you rather have to pay the price of ever more motorways and congestion?

          “Free” to the user, public transport, is a much cheaper option.

        • KJT 5.1.1.3
          10 February 2019 at 10:09 am

          Agree. Providing almost “free” roads to the tracking industry, comes at a huge cost.

        • Dennis Frank 5.1.1.4
          10 February 2019 at 10:11 am

          Free to the user. Tax-payer funded to the non-user. User-pays as ideology seems to be evaporating. Job elimination via technology looms as long-term prevention of it ever returning to viability.

          I suspect the future is a credit-based society. How to get there? Via an appraisal of the concept of social credit, I suspect. Dismissal before trial never seemed sensible.

          • greywarshark 5.1.1.4.1
            10 February 2019 at 10:19 am

            I would like to see local currencies set up with a small input of national currency.

            • Dennis Frank 5.1.1.4.1.1
              10 February 2019 at 10:31 am

              By who? Success depends on competence. There must be a reason the schemes trialled in the eighties failed to achieve contagion. Seems like some have endured if one can trust hearsay. But noteworthy success would produce replication and that hasn’t happened.

              Give that the right defer to the status quo, progress ought to be driven by the left, many would assume. Since the left also defer to the status quo (while calling themselves progressive) it will require substantial collective endeavour to actually make progress. A radical centrist effort, probably…

              • greywarshark …
                10 February 2019 at 11:21 am

                Yeah true. Cutting through that discussion one reason our Green Dollars didn’t work in Nelson is that there was no enforcement of the principle of rights and responsibilities. When you try to set up something that will be good if it is a success, then there must be rules to ensure its success; there must be a basis of practical rules. It appears to have succeeded in the past, and there is a general understanding of rules to make it work, but not in enough detail. The

                From my observation one rule needed is that those using the system must reciprocate – basically working on the basis of that well-known phrase ‘ there is no such thing as a free lunch’. The sort of thing that is continually spouted by RWs to the left, but the RWs only talk that, they actually utilise the system wanting the opposite. The left must actually talk and walk the talk.

                We did not have a demand that people do something within the system each month to balance whatever they had just traded in – ie if someone had bought something on Green Dollars then they would need to sell/do something for someone else within the system. (Green Dollars was an internal value system based on values of external dollars). Our system though with many nominal members became a bit moribund, and when we negotiated the use of Green $ within the local body system, when the Council wanted reciprocation from the members to balance the debits built up – because it was a freewill system – there was no willingness to support the system with their own volunteer hours eithr to balance their own personal a/c or to support the strength of the system. The local body was disappointed in our lack of integrity with the system and withdrew co-operation and the benefits that had been enjoyed by members.

                So it is necessary to realise what money is about, we take it for granted and use it blindly. Realising that it is an exchange of credits and promises. The coin or note is drawn on a national system of legal promises, and this used to be put on banknotes – The …promises to pay … or something similar. The lack of understanding of the system is what would break alternative systems and no doubt is why there is not a litany of successes.

                If it is seen as a system of obligations to repay, and to be part of building a strong, working economic community, then it will succeed. The whole thing has to be thought through properly, set down as a viable scheme so that all understand it, not each having wishful notions of how good it is, and how it is a Good Thing to Do which with notions of Rightness will automatically work. Community money and the ability to transact, trade and market one’s skills or goods, is too basic to our lives to rely on wish fulfilment.

                Links in general:

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_exchange_trading_system (LETS)

                https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/12/23/mincome-in-dauphin-manitoba_n_6335682.html
                A Canadian City Once Eliminated Poverty And Nearly Everyone Forgot About It

                https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/community_currencies.asp

                https://en.wikipedia.org
                /wiki/List_of_community_currencies_in_the_[insert preferred country]

                https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0269094216637332?journalCode=leca
                Sage Journals
                Local Economy: The Journal of the Local Economy Policy Unit
                ‘he conditions and strategies for success of local currency movements’

                keywords for lots of headings – community currency originated in [put country of interest here]

                • Dennis Frank …
                  10 February 2019 at 1:00 pm

                  Thanks for that in-depth analysis, Grey. I suspected as much. Incentive-structuring by design has to be done comprehensively, to ensure success. Then enforcement must be effective. A working example that passes the test of time is what the situation requires.

                • KJT …
                  10 February 2019 at 2:01 pm

                  I had experience of one business to business currency.

                  I suspect it failed because the participants had to charge retail, to cover the money exchange Company’s commission.

                  • greywarshark …
                    10 February 2019 at 2:34 pm

                    If it was the Barter system it had a scent of being a GST or other tax dodge.

                    I remember Japan had efficiencies in business from building up relations with offsiders on a just-in-time delivery basis, they promised the work, the businesses structured their workforce about the work. As long as the market was there, and they both fulfilled their requirements, and paid out promptly that would have given a barter-like transaction in that there was a relationship, and each business was aided by the other. But that is different from a community currency, it is in a separate realm, the business paradigm.

                    How to bring well-being to a community who are thereby encouraged to have input of their skills into society, and be rewarded for that perhaps on an uneven basis, ie putting in a few hours where useful results in a week’s community currency etc.? This goes beyond the Green $ system to a more local UBI that enables everyone to have input and share in the community life that is broader than if the hours put in by otherwise unemployed, lonely, or isolated troublemaking people were not available.

                    If we are to be denied the ability to have work in ‘social hours’ for enough money to live on, or indeed, be unable to find any real work because of the huge reliance on the export-import industry, then we have to plan alternative routes for people to obtain the credits that they need. There is no alternative, under this warped free enterprise system.

        • patricia bremner 5.1.1.5
          10 February 2019 at 10:35 am

          Try community transport then. You know.. not for profit, for wellbeing.

        • Incognito 5.1.1.6
          10 February 2019 at 2:22 pm

          This is an unnecessary pedantic distraction. The point is to provide a more attractive alternative that overall has a less negative outcome and impact. By “overall” I mean that it doesn’t necessarily need apply to each and every one; building a rail loop in Auckland means little to people in the wop-wops or ‘hardened’ petrol heads but because some can benefit from it and some can’t (or won’t) it means that overall it’ll have a positive outcome. We need to look at the whole picture and not get bogged down by semantic and procedural minutiae – that’s what ‘managers’ are for.

    • Janet 5.2
      10 February 2019 at 10:07 am

      “The many extra cars on the road involved in getting to school and university represent a huge carbon footprint.”

      You are right . Remember they shut down all the small country schools. We all walked to school.
      So did many of the children in the cities then.

      “Those working the land must be local to the land.” so must the schools their children go to. The small schools were the hub of the communities and all this has gone.

      • Jenny - How to get there? 5.2.1
        10 February 2019 at 1:15 pm

        Hi Janet. In my vision the schools once again must become the hub of the community.

        Not just as a matter of building communities but as a matter of survival.

        I believe that humanity’s vast population move to the cities is an irreversible one.

        So obviously things will have to be different.

        For instance schools in Japan are built to higher standards than most other public, (or private), buildings making them, a refuge in case of Earthquake Tsunami and Hurricane, and other powerful natural (or man made), cataclysm. And in Japan with the risk of tsunami, built of a reinforced two story construction, where hundreds of people can shelter in case of rapidly rising waters caused by tsunami or storm surge.

        To become hubs for survival schools need to be more than just classrooms, they also need to have working food gardens and kitchens. Existing assets that can be rapidly ramped up during disasters.

        Japan already has nationwide food in schools program so the schools already have working kitchens and a core professional staff, assets that can be ramped up to feed whole communities at short notice.

        A government that was taking climate change seriously with an acknowledgement of the greater threat of extreme events, would immediately legislate for a nationwide food in schools program.

        The benefits of universal free school lunches could be huge
        Greer Berry – Stuff.co.nz, February 13, 2018

        https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/parenting/101383215/the-benefits-of-universal-free-school-lunches-could-be-huge

        Japan’s mouthwatering school lunch program is a model for the rest of the world
        Chris Weller – Business Insider, March 27, 2017

        https://www.businessinsider.com/japans-amazing-school-lunch-program-2017-3/?r=AU&IR=T

    • McFlock 5.3
      10 February 2019 at 2:07 pm

      good idea, that

  6. greywarshark 6
    10 February 2019 at 10:06 am

    From Finland – it is good to hear about countries that seem to cling on to the idea of a decent society with respect for people and a decent economy enabling all.
    https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/382125/finland-basic-income-trial-left-people-happier-but-jobless

    The aim was to see if a guaranteed safety net would help people find jobs, and support them if they had to take insecure gig economy work.
    While employment levels did not improve, participants said they felt happier and less stressed.

    When it launched the pilot scheme back in 2017, Finland became the first European country to test out the idea of an unconditional basic income. It was run by the Social Insurance Institution (Kela), a Finnish government agency, and involved 2000 randomly selected people on unemployment benefits.

  7. Pat 7
    10 February 2019 at 10:35 am

    How to get there?…a new form of rationing

    • WeTheBleeple 7.1
      10 February 2019 at 11:25 am

      Can people please give a synopsis of a talk if they post it? Especially when they get long…

      This guy talks of equitable carbon reduction… let’s stop the finger pointing and start the getting on with it. Waiting for everyone to start is disaster in the making.

      There is an emerging consensus from academics that tightening our belts is a given. There is a lot of fear surrounding this. It needs explaining.

      ‘They want to push us back to the dark ages’

      Absolutely not. Tightening your belt means less consumerism, not starving. Less plastic crap, less disposables, less built in redundancies, less sending food on a multinational holiday before it comes to our plate.

      Less updating the car/device/wardrobe.

      More: Involvement, community, healthy food, arts, local enterprise, clean streams rivers and beaches, more forests, more conservation, more resilience.

      From the talk you posted: “Let’s not pretend that we have succeeded”

      Absolutely. People need to start behaving as if less consumerism is already a thing. Need to make it a thing. Make it fashionable not to be a consumerist twat.

      Kondo the world!

      • Pat 7.1.1
        10 February 2019 at 11:34 am

        the synopsis is there if you look….it may be more succinct than you like…a new form of rationing.

        The “finger pointing ” term you disparage is key to the needed response as is clearly shown in the presentation

        A briefer discussion for those who so desire….same synopsis

        • WeTheBleeple 7.1.1.1
          10 February 2019 at 12:16 pm

          I’m just saying ‘equitable carbon reduction’ is not a realistic aim in the current environment as we don’t have the time to wait for US or anyone else to join up. Yes their involvement would be hugely helpful. There’s nothing stopping countries from telling those imposing carbon allocations to sod off.

          In the meantime: The world is gagging for working examples, ideas, direction. Green New Deal? Let’s see.

          We start with personal responsibility: companies, countries, communities and individuals. I expect ethical and thus ecological consideration from who I buy from, who I vote for, who I listen to, and who I work for… Some compromises have to be made it’s the world we got but I’m pretty hard nosed about where I spend my money and efforts.

          Collectively we can shape the future we want by divesting from the parts of the present we don’t want, and investing (finance, time, effort, votes) in the things we do.

          We all want good jobs, education, food, clean water and environment to live in. We all want a livable environment that isn’t plagued by weather extremes.

          Left, right, green, blue-green, beige…

          Kevin is right that ostentatious leadership swanning off to climate talks is a ridiculous farce. That doesn’t stop the rest of us from getting on with it.

          Don’t buy more junk. Buy a tree of your favorite fruit, or your favorite native, some solar panels, an EV, a vegetarian cooking class…

          • Robert Guyton 7.1.1.1.1
            10 February 2019 at 12:22 pm

            Grow a tree. It’s easier than you think. Grow a dozen and gift them. Grow a grove, a forest! It’s doable.

            • Stuart Munro 7.1.1.1.1.1
              10 February 2019 at 12:49 pm

              Have any tips on Japanese maples Robert? One of my neighbour’s ones has died & I’m plotting to grow some replacements from seed.

              • Robert Guyton …
                10 February 2019 at 1:58 pm

                Hi Stuart. I’ve not much to offer on maples, I’m sorry to say. The only one I have growing here is the sugar maple, Acer saccharum and I bought that as a sapling. It’s growing very strongly and I expect it to get big, but I can’t claim credit for it; it just growed! I’m growing Acer pseudoplatanus as well, in pots and considering my options, as sycamore is a challenging tree, not the lest of those being the council’s view on them! They make great firewood though, and coppicing them seems a really good idea. They grow very readily from seed, as every sycamore owner knows, so I’m guessing other Acer/maples do the same. If you have access to lots of “keys”, sow them all and see what happens. They’ll enjoy light, which they couldn’t get under their parent, and richer soil. I don’t know about any associated fungi, but taking some soil from beneath a healthy parent or cousin would probably help.

          • Pat 7.1.1.1.2
            10 February 2019 at 12:33 pm

            there is so much in your response that misses the key points of the presentations that it begs the question as to whether you have viewed either.

            ….you cannot get blood from a stone….the vast majority of the world are not the problem so the immediate gains (which are crucial) MUST come from the high emitters….buying less junk, planting a tree or some solar panels while nice arnt gonna cut it.

            ….if we are to have any chance of achieving the required reductions then regulation on efficiency standards is needed…and the gains from those efficiencies must be applied to reduction not more consumption

            ….a movement of industry and the required resources, especially labour/expertise to a zero carbon infrastructure has to start now…we cannot continue BAU and transition…we have neither the resources nor time for both

            All of the above cannot be achieved at the local/personal level…it requires regulation and direction from those in the positions to do so

            • Jenny - How to get there? 7.1.1.1.2.1
              10 February 2019 at 2:22 pm

              ….All of the above cannot be achieved at the local/personal level…it requires regulation and direction from those in the positions to do so.

              You’ve nailed it Pat

              The problem is political not personal.

              All politics is pressure

              The job for our leaders is not easy. They have to overcome vast corporate pressure on them to continue with BAU, or at least drag out or postpone any real action.

              Our leaders will need to take a risk.
              For our leaders to take a risk, to go out on a limb, and to unblinkingly face down the powerful fossil fuel corporations requires courage, and imagination, and daring and sustained unwavering determination, this is a lot to ask of anyone.

              They cannot do this without our help.

              Only grass roots public pressure from below can counter the vast pressure coming from the vested interests tied to business as usual.

              Only pressure from below can give our political leaders the political room to act against the pressure from BAU interests.

              Join your nearest climate or environmental group, change the political landscape, march, protest, picket, write letters, fill petitions, be prepared to join with others to put a spanner in the spokes of the next new coal mine, be prepared to support those with the courage to blockade oil exploring ships. Lobby your local MP to take a stand.

              These are the tactics that have worked in the past,

            • greywarshark 7.1.1.1.2.2
              10 February 2019 at 2:29 pm

              Pat
              What are you doing personally about making things better for the future? Besides coming on here as we all are, and advising everyone to organise and petition. What physical thing are you doing that can follow to broaden our own field of action?

              Also Jenny – you must have some good ideas apart from going to meetings, writing, remonstrating. What is your useful public action that you do that we can follow?

              • Pat …
                10 February 2019 at 3:05 pm

                what am i personally doing GWS?….the most significant thing in terms of a realistically successful outcome would be voting Green the previous 3 elections…as Jenny notes those politicians prepared to take meaningful action require support….sadly well less than 10% of the voting public offered that support.

                As the videos make abundantly clear my personal attempts to reduce my emissions have had no impact on the total global emissions and nor will they as long as we continue with the structural causes of CC.
                We have long lived carbon emitting infrastructure being built and planned daily…..collective insanity.

                • greywarshark …
                  10 February 2019 at 3:13 pm

                  So no use doing anything if not immediately measurable Pat. Wait for the pesky politicians actions, if they can get enough public support, if they can bother to vote because there isn’t immediate measurable effect.

                  • Pat …
                    10 February 2019 at 3:21 pm

                    your way has seen 28 years of increasing emissions….with little time left maybe its time to reconsider

                    • greywarshark …
                      10 February 2019 at 5:01 pm

                      No way is my way according to you Pat. And no way do I agree with what you have said. For 28 years the average person has done nothing personally, but asked or waited for government and politicians to show that they take an interest, read etc. about what scientists, especially evidence-based ones, are saying.

                      The politicians have not acted, the people have just reacted to whatever. 28 years of increasing emissions is what you state.
                      It’s time to do something different, acting personally to start training oneself for change, acting locally with others who are thinking and talking and walking at the same time, and watch, read and listen globally and adapt to the change to simple from complex.

                      Is that hard for us to take in? i think it is as we are sold tech and denied the opportunity to learn even how to write well, think for ourselves and use critical thinking to do so. And we are being denied Humanities study because we only need to know about robots, and AI and humans and the wonderful philosophies and approaches to life we have thought up over millenia, are to be abandoned. But you are not concerned. Hot air is an emission and boy there is too much of that around.

                  • Pat …
                    10 February 2019 at 5:10 pm

                    oh dear ….thats an awful lot of assumptions for one post

              • Jenny - How to get there? …
                10 February 2019 at 5:24 pm

                ….Also Jenny – you must have some good ideas apart from going to meetings, writing, remonstrating. What is your useful public action that you do that we can follow?

                Greywarshark

                Hi Grey, you couldn’t go far past following the ongoing campaign to shut down the Mangatangi Coal Mine, the K1 Coal Mine and the Rotowaro expansion, as part of the wider campaign to ban all new coal mines.

                Following Auckland Coal Action’s successful 2 year campaign to shut down the Mangatangi coal mine project. We are now moving on to to a campaign to close down Kopako 1, an old coal mine that has just been reopened in Maramarua. We will also be opposing the new huge planned expansion of the Rotowaru Coal Mine west of Huntly.

                If we can shut down these two new coal mine projects it will be powerful political message to the coal mining industry, ‘New coal mine projects will not be tolerated’. This is a message that we hope will be carried across the Tasman, where the Australian Government plan to allow one of the biggest coal mine projects of all time to be excavated, by the big multinational Adani, the proposed Carmichael open cast Coal mIne.

                Nick explains why K1 must be stopped

            • WeTheBleeple 7.1.1.1.2.3
              10 February 2019 at 2:31 pm

              Maybe we just aren’t seeing the same things in the same way. Or find differing points of interest in the talk. I did zone out for some of it but I tried.

              If people elect to spend their dollars on people other than big emitters, those big emitters lose their ability to emit so much.

              We are their income source. I’ve not seen the rich listen to science or laws or ethics… why would they start now? Survival.

              Survival means different things to different people. To business types it’s always about money, – ‘it’s just business’. To effect change in business stop buying BS and watch them adapt.

              I agree we need movement on industry, regulation, sustainable infrastructure, I’d not argue otherwise. But individuals are part of the planet too. We can effect change.

              You think individuals will have little effect I’m going to have to disagree. We have the votes and the dollars and the labor hours the rich and powerful feed off of. We have, if need be, the angry mob.

              As the conversation on climate change permeates more and more of society, it is perhaps a perilous place for a business or government to be in, should they be of the greenwashed BAU (bullshit as usual) type.

              • Pat …
                10 February 2019 at 2:51 pm

                perhaps you were zoned out when the statement was made that if we had started in 1990 or even 2000 then the bottom up process may have worked …but as we have squandered 28 years and emissions are still rising the time to cease to rely on the sense and goodwill of the large emitters has now passed and the only way to achieve the required goals is by regulation….and enforcement. We didnt and wouldnt rely on something so vague in times of war and its not appropriate now.

                Individuals only have power collectively and the last 28 years have shown there is little collective will…we can waste further time debating the reasons why, it only makes the task more difficult….we have leaders for a reason, its about time they did their job

                the time for softly softly is well passed..or we can continue to choose to fail

                • WeTheBleeple …
                  10 February 2019 at 3:23 pm

                  I agree with what you say re enforcement and that we’ve done too little too late.

                  I still disagree that individual efforts mean nothing. It seems to me a cop-out of individuals who are now wishing to lay blame anywhere but their own consumer life styles.

                  ‘They emit more than me’

                  As you state, the writing has been on the wall for some time.

                  Lifestyles have to change. Yet you keep saying it is of little consequence. It is actually vital to functioning sustainably on the one planet.

                  Looking after one’s own actions and interactions with the planet in mind is not the ‘something so vague’ you make it out to be. It’s direct and purposeful.

                  Waiting for leadership is vague. Unfortunately.

                  • Pat …
                    10 February 2019 at 3:33 pm

                    “I still disagree that individual efforts mean nothing. It seems to me a cop-out of individuals who are now wishing to lay blame anywhere but their own consumer life styles.

                    ‘They emit more than me’”

                    That is not the argument…the point is despite individual efforts the emissions continue to climb…its structural and must be addressed as such

                    • WeTheBleeple …
                      10 February 2019 at 3:47 pm

                      It’s actually systemic.

                      Yes, despite individual efforts the trajectory remains, but from what I’ve seen, most individual efforts are piss poor.

                      It’s systemic and needs to be addressed as such. People, and industry, and governments.

                  • Pat …
                    10 February 2019 at 3:49 pm

                    either term is appropriate

                    • greywarshark …
                      10 February 2019 at 5:09 pm

                      And what are you doing to bring about that enforcement from government to cope with the structural and systemic emissions.
                      Some of you people are so cold, so pragmatic, that everyone in the country turns into collateral damage. Damaged goods that is what we will be and less useful than before from a market POV.

                      Have you thought about the unintended consequences of that or is it going to be another one of those cataclysmic changes like Douglas et al in the Treasury forced on us? Wouldn’t it be a good idea if we started to make individual changes that will lessen the effect of oppressive dictatorial direction which it appears will be needed.

                      And if Labour don’t do it, the Green-Blue lot will be handed the means, and take the bile from the people I guess. While National come out as fluffy ducks who have been forced into a corner.

                    • Pat …
                      10 February 2019 at 7:04 pm

                      @GWS

                      you keep asking what im doing about it, a question you have posed to others…what are you doing about it?

                      As stated above you make a lot of assumptions….is what Kevin Anderson proposes cold ?….I would suggest the antithesis.
                      Doing what we have (or rather havnt) will create collateral damage on an unimaginable scale…his proposal at least offers a chance…and it is equitable, or at least as equitable as possible.

                      As to unintended consequences I have thought (and posted) about them for years….Kevin Andersons proposals are imo the only realistic option we have left ourselves….and like him I believe we will choose to fail

                      If any of that upsets your sensibilities that is unfortunate, destroying the only environment we have upsets mine

                    • WeTheBleeple …
                      10 February 2019 at 9:21 pm

                      I was being a bit of a dick…

                      My feeling is that climate change as a thing in public perception is only very recent, and not really sunk in yet like it has for many here. It was not long ago people would pull out all sorts of mumbo jumbo figures to refute CO2 and tell you it’s all a hoax, or the science is bogus…

                      Joe Public isn’t doing that any more, only nut jobs and oil vested interests (direct and indirect) do that these days.

                      The public isn’t arguing, but the reality has not quite sunk in. Soon the denial will rise again, the bargaining, and other forms of grief. Then there will be a large and loud demand for an accounting such as that you posted. A reckoning.

                  • Pat …
                    10 February 2019 at 9:49 pm

                    It is indeed a vexed issue….and you are correct that wider public understanding (partial at least) is a recent occurrence…. if the large and loud demand for account is coming it needs to move bloody quickly.

                    • Robert Guyton …
                      10 February 2019 at 10:34 pm

                      “My feeling is that climate change as a thing in public perception is only very recent, and not really sunk in yet ”
                      There will be deep grief. Those who have already suffered it will be needed to help others cross that flimsy bridge.

              • Jenny - How to get there? …
                10 February 2019 at 9:16 pm

                Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals
                Stop obsessing with how personally green you live – and start collectively taking on corporate power
                Martin Lukacs – The Guardian, July 17, 2017

                https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/jul/17/neoliberalism-has-conned-us-into-fighting-climate-change-as-individuals

                These pervasive exhortations to individual action — in corporate ads, school textbooks, and the campaigns of mainstream environmental groups, especially in the west — seem as natural as the air we breathe. But we could hardly be worse-served.

                While we busy ourselves greening our personal lives, fossil fuel corporations are rendering these efforts irrelevant. The breakdown of carbon emissions since 1988? A hundred companies alone are responsible for an astonishing 71%. You tinker with those pens or that panel; they go on torching the planet.

                The freedom of these corporations to pollute – and the fixation on a feeble lifestyle response – is no accident. It is the result of an ideological war, waged over the last 40 years, against the possibility of collective action. Devastatingly successful, it is not too late to reverse it…..

                ….Neoliberalism has not merely ensured this agenda is politically unrealistic: it has also tried to make it culturally unthinkable. Its celebration of competitive self-interest and hyper-individualism, its stigmatization of compassion and solidarity, has frayed our collective bonds. It has spread, like an insidious anti-social toxin, what Margaret Thatcher preached: “there is no such thing as society.”

                Studies show that people who have grown up under this era have indeed become more individualistic and consumerist. Steeped in a culture telling us to think of ourselves as consumers instead of citizens, as self-reliant instead of interdependent, is it any wonder we deal with a systemic issue by turning in droves to ineffectual, individual efforts? We are all Thatcher’s children.

                If affordable mass transit isn’t available, people will commute with cars. If local organic food is too expensive, they won’t opt out of fossil fuel-intensive super-market chains. If cheap mass produced goods flow endlessly, they will buy and buy and buy. This is the con-job of neoliberalism: to persuade us to address climate change through our pocket-books, rather than through power and politics.

                Eco-consumerism may expiate your guilt. But it’s only mass movements that have the power to alter the trajectory of the climate crisis.

      • Janet 7.1.2
        10 February 2019 at 11:35 am

        Yes Need not Th’Need, (things you think you need ). Its been touted for years by The Lorax! ( Dr Seuss !

      • Incognito 7.1.3
        10 February 2019 at 9:33 pm

        Kondo the world!

        I have to ask, do you think that decluttering and getting rid of things that don’t spark joy, and maybe never did in the first place, is a counter-movement to rampant consumerism?

        We give meaning to things, we become attached to things, and by extension we buy things and that by itself gets given meaning. Consumerism and retail therapy work because of basic psychology, a release of dopamine in the brain that make us feel good about the find, the acquisition – it sparks joy, literally, but momentarily and it doesn’t last. All these things and their acquisition are surrogates for our empty soul-destroying meaningless lives – I’m in a cheerful mood right now.

        You know, people used to save their family photo albums with precious pictures from a burning house. The pictures were a memento of experiences and loved ones, stuff with real meaning, but they had no real value or meaning in their own right, and even without those photos the experiences and memories would still be there and exist. Nowadays, photos are on a Cloud. The point is that emotional attachment to material things drives our consumerist urges.

        While I’m at it, other reasons for consumerism are convenience, laziness, lack of imagination & creativity, lack of or poor skills, etc.

        • Robert Guyton 7.1.3.1
          10 February 2019 at 9:52 pm

          Joy?
          Things bring joy ?
          I’m not convinced of that at all.
          I reckon transposing the associations of pleasure from the Ferrari to a found stone is a good start. You will be enormously empowered by doing so, in the main because dropping the stone will be easy. Then, you are free 🙂

        • WeTheBleeple 7.1.3.2
          11 February 2019 at 7:42 am

          The psychology of us and our trinkets is laid bare in the first post – Nate Hagens talk.

          I agree with your take on consumerism, it’s convenience that won the day. You need more time to work for the man to buy the mans stuff.

          Declutter is a physical manifestation of psychological clutter. The old saying ‘messy house, messy head’ applies to many. I work amidst chaos but every now and then a spring cleaning is called for. And it really does help.

          Back in the day a drawer and shed full of clutter – well – the clutter was – nuts and washers and spare bits and plate and timber and tools…. things we made/fixed things out of. Now it’s whole furniture and every gadget under the sun. Sheds full of shit.

          Consumerism is out of fashion. Empty plastic packets.

  8. Ad 8
    10 February 2019 at 10:50 am

    Just had to bring down one of my big Chatham Islands Pukas.

    Combination of drought and some fungus.

    Pretty brutal Summer even for a forest environment.

  9. rata 9
    10 February 2019 at 1:16 pm

    Jacinda and this Labour NZF coalition are doing a great job.
    looking to forward to another 4-5 terms.

  10. greywarshark 10
    10 February 2019 at 3:09 pm

    TRP
    Did you look at the emails today?

  11. Sabine 11
    10 February 2019 at 6:30 pm

    when i bought my dwelling i was told i could just cut ‘that tree’ to make space for a deck or something something……..

    the tree just gave me two washbaskets of beautiful big juicy williams pear to me, and there are still two washbaskets full of them on the tree – too high for me to reach – for the birds.

    so i am watching birds come and go, even the pukeko jumps the fence and i am loving on my tree.

    btw, the ‘lawn’ which i have not mowed in about 5 weeks, is lush, green, full of clover and is a nice place to sit on. who needs a deck?

  12. Jenny - How to get there? 12
    14 February 2019 at 4:23 am

    ‘
    Ocasio-Cortez says we need World War II-scale action on climate. Here’s what that looks like.

    https://thinkprogress.org/green-new-deal-ocasio-cortez-7c9ac944b37d/?fbclid=IwAR2I8ng4mp0xfu1VW1W5miTpSK5lRGzyWgh5AMEX8SShz88CWQmaa2ll4ok

    Today we have another unprecedented emergency. And we need another unprecedented mobilization.
    The resolution introduced by Ocasio-Cortez and Markey outlines such an effort to combat climate change, including the goal of “meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources… by dramatically expanding and upgrading renewable power sources.” It requires building energy-efficient, distributed, “smart” power grids. It includes “upgrading all existing buildings… to achieve maximum energy efficiency” and “spurring massive growth in clean manufacturing.”

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