Open mike 08/02/2023

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, February 8th, 2023 - 28 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:


Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

28 comments on “Open mike 08/02/2023 ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. weka 1
    8 February 2023 at 8:51 am

    Latest iteration of how cancel culture is backfiring, and how this is sparking a backlash against trans people.

    A game based on JK Rowling's Harry Potter books is about to be released. There's a whole genre of misogyny and anti-women's rights on social and mainstream media that focuses on JKR. She's branded as a transphobe, but when you ask people how is she transphobic, almost no-one can explain how, they just know. Here's what she says in her own words,

    https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/

    Meanwhile, the latest push to cancel JKR is gearing up around the game.

    https://twitter.com/LeoKearse/status/1623002986749341712

    The account that started it is thankfully getting a lot of pushback, closed comments, but read the Quote Tweets,

    https://twitter.com/iamsamgibbs/status/1622570858626617344

    2.7 million followers influencer account posted this poll, and got trashed,

    https://twitter.com/HonsCupboard/status/1623013124520521730

      • Corey 1.1.1
        8 February 2023 at 11:39 am

        Like millions of kids who grew up on HP I paid $50 bucks extra so I can play it early (it comes out officially on the 10th) it's a bloody wonderful, charming game.

        It's fascinating this launch. Usually with big AAA+ games for the last five years, they get utterly review bombed to hell because streaming and social media has created an environment where people get paid to actively hate games more than play them.

        This is a turning point It truly shows how irrelevant the lynch mobs have become that the public is drowning out the claims of "you're a Nazi if you play this game" "you're killing trans people if you play this game " (honestly the extreme hyperbole is much much much much worse than that)

        Im shocked reviewers mostly just reviewed the game (and it got high scores, so often they'll take the lynch mobs side) despite quite real threats of losing your job by organized smear campaigns. Streamers who stream the game are being abused and tracked (literally) and having campaigns to get their sponsors pulled.

        But people are playing and streaming it anyway.

        There was a turning point yesterday even in pro boycot spaces where pro boycotters were turning on the radicals.

        People just wanna play a god damn game and have fun. This game is selling like God damn hot cakes and it's not even officially released yet.

        Ps the game is really good and I think jks movie last year flopped not because of boycotts but because fantastic beasts 3 was genuinely bad! Jk is an amazing author but definitely needs more time to develop as a screenwriter. People still love this world no matter what the lynch mobs say.

        • weka 1.1.1.1
          8 February 2023 at 1:14 pm

          People just wanna play a god damn game and have fun.

          there's a large part of failing to read the room in this. Both in the backlash against gender ideology, but also the world is an increasingly hard place, fun is often what people need rather than purity.

          Besides, how come there's an objection to a game that has a lineage to JRK rather than to the games that objectify women? I assume the game itself is relatively PC.

          Do you see connections between the gamergate parts of the gaming community and those who hate on JKR and other feminists?

        • Thinker 1.1.1.2
          8 February 2023 at 11:10 pm

          In the 70s and 80s, the religious right would do similar hate speech against certain rock groups because of things they said or reinterpreting the lyrics of this or that song.

          Some groups obviously courted that kind of criticism but a lot of it was people trying to get control of other people by dictating how they should live.

    • roblogic 1.2
      8 February 2023 at 9:14 am

      “What is the price for being a TERF?”

      “Death.”

      “And what is the price for playing the Harry Potter game?”

      “Also death.”

      “…maybe the TERFs have a point.”

      Absolutist ideologies cannot promise freedom from retaliation, only a temporary delay based on escalating compliance.

      “Solidarity” that goes only one way is tribute; “allyship” that binds only one party is hegemony. There is a running theme of using horizontal language of choice to describe systems which are vertical, hierarchical, coercive in their essence. And this cannot be ignored forever.

      https://twitter.com/TheAgeofShoddy/status/1622857397705543680

      https://twitter.com/TheAgeofShoddy/status/1623046296205680640

      (via @TheAgeOfShoddy)

  2. roblogic 2
    8 February 2023 at 11:45 am

    Now that Jacinda is gone the VFF/ Counterspin self-promoters are out looking for trouble elsewhere. Today they hijacked C. Luxon's meeting in Rangiora.

    https://twitter.com/DCANZ2/status/1622867376986550274?s=20

    • Mike the Lefty 2.1
      8 February 2023 at 3:15 pm

      Didn't think that Jacinda's resignation would satisfy them for long.

      • woodart 2.1.1
        8 February 2023 at 6:12 pm

        luxon at the coalface of nutters.

        • Thinker 2.1.1.1
          8 February 2023 at 11:18 pm

          Yes, he was on TV tonight spouting don't be fooled by Hipkins, he was part of Jacindas government so nothings changed.

          He can't seem to see his comments apply to his own circumstances and he could be similarly tainted.

    • Peter 2.2
      8 February 2023 at 4:31 pm

      The really good thing is that those who couldn't get their questions answered by Luxon at the Rangiora meeting can write to him and his office and get personal replies and answers to their specific questions.

      They have media outlets and when they have their answers they can let us all know what they found out. Or how they were replied to. You reckon that's a goer?

  3. Visubversa 3
    8 February 2023 at 12:29 pm

    For any of you who still think that trans people are all Gay.

    "Transbians" (men who claim a special identity) still trying to bamboozle, bully or blackmail lesbians into having sex with them. We are not "cis queer women" – we are lesbians and "No" is a complete sentence.

    https://www.allure.com/story/guide-to-sex-with-trans-women-for-cis-women

  4. roblogic 4
    8 February 2023 at 2:59 pm

    "Emily Writes" is also on Substack these days. Along with Simon Wilson (one of the best reporters in NZ) she put together an excellent piece on 3 Waters

    Explainer: The Government's Three Waters Reform

  5. roblogic 5
    8 February 2023 at 3:46 pm

    Chippy has kiboshed the Hate Speech law reform, and the RNZ/TVNZ merger.

    https://twitter.com/norightturnnz/status/1623141645402411010?s=20

    The Hate Speech reform was fairly mild, it only gained impetus after the 2019 Christchurch Mosque attacks, and was drafted in consultation with the Muslim community.

    "Work on the TVNZ-RNZ public media entity will stop entirely," Hipkins says. "Support for public media needs to be at a lower cost and without such significant structural change."

    The RNZ/TVNZ merger was never a winner with the public, the reasons "why" seemed unconvincing. Martyn Bradbury had high hopes for a public service TV channel without ads and with quality content. Some of the programs that TVNZ produces are gutter trash (f-boy island). But unlike the health reforms there's no compelling need for synergy across different media channels. More editorial independence, with RNZ vs TVNZ newsrooms, is probably a good thing.

    Overall these are obvious things to cut, for a country heading into a difficult economic climate, and a post Covid government needing to focus on the cost of living rather than crisis management. A difficult feat for any government but I think Hipkins is making the right moves.

  6. tWiggle 6
    8 February 2023 at 3:54 pm

    Just watched Chris Hipkins fielding questions about the government legislation refocus. He was credible, energetic, able to pivot quickly, and said the right things without lashings of polly-speak. Luxon is clearly not in the same ballpark at all. He seems a generation older than Hipkins, not just 8 years.

    • Jimmy 6.1
      8 February 2023 at 4:06 pm

      Yes IMO Chris Hipkins communicates very well, better than Jacinda who had a communication degree. I have said on here before that he is the best minister they have and now promoted accordingly.

      • tWiggle 6.1.1
        8 February 2023 at 4:26 pm

        In the 2023 election this government cannot afford to take the Jacinda Ardern high road approach, resting on its laurels and ignoring the opposition. It will need to challenge National's previous record in government, and expose the longterm failure, as shown in other countries, of policies such as charter schools, private prisons, and infrastruture private-public partnerships. They will also need to debunk the tax-cut/lo-state message of ACT. I hope Hipkins can step up to this, he looks feisty to me.

        • Alan 6.1.1.1
          8 February 2023 at 4:40 pm

          He is till lumbered with 3 Waters, good luck with that

        • Jimmy 6.1.1.2
          8 February 2023 at 4:46 pm

          Well Hipkins has made a good start scrapping the TVNZ / RNZ merger and the insurance scheme.

          • Stuart Munro 6.1.1.2.1
            8 February 2023 at 4:50 pm

            Yeah nah – it's important to do something to lift the wretched and backward standard of local journalism. Failure of the Fourth Estate to educate and inform leaves the masses vulnerable to subversion by wreckers like Counterspin.

            • tWiggle 6.1.1.2.1.1
              8 February 2023 at 5:01 pm

              The election will be won on social media and on outrage talkback, not on the big screen or in the press. The first two don't fit readily into the 4th estate as it currently manifests.

              Right-wing politicians already piggyback on counterspin et al to do their dirtier work.

              • Stuart Munro …
                8 February 2023 at 5:59 pm

                In the vacuum left by media abandonment of professional standards, rumour, gossip, lunacy, and conspiracy, flourish.