We are talking big returns to shareholders and as we all know the American political system propped up by donors and massive amounts of money.
The revolving door between Washington DC and lobbying firms and regulatory appointments is undeniable.
When I talk of healing schisms in this country this is where the grace comes in.
Rogan and his guests may not be factually correct 100% of the time. Often, the vibe is what is important. After all, some of the guests have had very powerful interests come after them, in ways we can't imagine.
It's not that Rogan and guests make mistakes sometimes. It's that Rogan fosters a culture of alarm and poor critical thinking. Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone has 20 million follower youtube where critical thinking is not a primary featuer.
the vibe thing I understand. People want a good cultural fit. This is why I think the liberal left have basically opened the door to the right gaining power. An approach of 'you must think like us or you are wrong and will be punished' is a massive fail on so many levels, and we can't even have a conversation about it. But the left aren't platforming the proto-fascists, and the left also has a need for good cultural fit. Everyone is scared and doubling down. At some point we have to learn how to be human with each other again.
There's a strong audience for counter intuitive "new" takes on science and culture. People love novelty and the idea that mainstream knowledge is wrong (freakanomics, blink,…)
As a massively propagandised culture, Americans intuit that something is wrong, but guys like Rogan, Trump, and crazy preachers are selling snake oil solutions and blaming outgroups instead of accurately diagnosing the real problem: oligarchy and crony capitalism
It's an excellent propaganda tactic, keeping the public confused and unable to tell real from fake. Makes them easier to control and stops actual democracy from breaking out.
completely agree about the intuition and how it gets distorted through modern culture (not that I think it's a new thing, but politics, MSM, SM and so on have particular ways of distorting, let's just call it neoliberal capitalism).
I saw a talk once (IRL!) many years ago (before the internets lol) where a Otago Uni bod was presenting research that people often had strong intuitive reactions against things like nuclear power or GE.
Those intuitions often have a legitimate base, it's just that people don't necessarily have the conceptual language to express them in a more rationality or science based way.
Not sure the SM bullshit stops democracy from breaking out, people were already neoliberalised before the internet. For instance we saw the decline of student protests on NZ campuses in the 90s. It's worse since the internet, and even more now with SM. We have the added problem of people being frightened by the polycrisis and looking for ways to both make sense of life in a crisis that won't end in their lifetime as well as an escape from the stress. Someone standing up and saying what they want to hear is powerful. I just wish the left was better at it 😉
Brain chemistry and imaging studies show that regularly consuming online outrage creates a measurable physical addiction to the brain chemicals released in response. Regular outrage consumption also increases cortisol levels, and leads to changes in brain structure that reduces our capacity to process information, changes that are very similar to those seen in people under constant overwhelming stress. I have been reading Joined-up thinking by Hannah Critchlow, published in 2022, which goes into this in great detail.
For social media engagement, the value of stimulating outrage is more money. "..outrage leads to more attention, which in turn leads to more outrage among other users. Outrage therefore usually means virality, attention, longer user times, etc., and thus also higher profits for platform operators. This leads to negative content with a high potential for outrage being technically supported by the platforms’ algorithms. Researchers at New York University even found that content with moral-emotional wording receives a technical boost of around 20 percent in social media."
Outrage and the political process of othering, eg, of Jews or trans people, helps prime users to political manipulation. So the 'vibe' gsays says is captured by Rogan, is in fact unhappiness and stress channelled by Rogan into his smorgasboard of rw ideas, and is in turn, exploited by demagogues like Trump and Posy Parker.
The book 'Joined-up thinking' primarily is about the chemistry and social interaction involved in collective action. Critchlow shows how, unsurprisingly, adding diversity and a greater proportion of women to groups increases the quality of group decision-making measurably, even markedly, as long as the process of planning is consensual and inclusive, not just lip service. I'd recommend this book strongly for anyone who wants to understand more about how our brains and our hard-wired social responses are co-opted negatively, but also more positively, what strong collective decision-making looks like. It goes beyond intellectual debate to a more holistic understanding of how our physical hardware affects our ideas and beliefs.
that's really good. Here's the thing though. Rogan and KJK are both meeting a need in addition to using manipulation to feed an addiction. In the case of KJK, women were and are fucked off at having our rights sidelined. She wouldn't have built such a large following if that wasn't already happening. Likewise, there is a significant proportion of the population who don't trusts science or the MSM or the mainstream generally. Rogan meets the need for them to be heard.
The problem the left has is that it sees those groups of people as wrong and currently takes the position that they should be ostracised. Those groups of people outnumber us, hence the shit show in the US.
I'd be interested if Critchlow has active solutions that the left can use. Having more women involved isn't news to many of us (I've long argued that we should put the aunties and grandmothers in charge of things, not least because they know how to share). The question is how can the left do that in ways that don't provoke a backlash. I agree that it's important to not do it as lip service.
The response to the anti-DEI backlash shouldn't be to double down (we are outnumbered and we will lose). It's to change the narrative while we still can to one that both retains equity and makes sense to the large number of mainstream people who are trying to find meaning in the world. They're the ones that determine who governs.
The anti DEI bandwagon is a great example of complete lies that the right wing spread against left wing movements. Their audience might not be initially resentful or suspicious but their slanted stories about radical Maaris taking da water, or da Mexicans taking our jerbs, or the wimminfolk getting freebies, brings out the worst in people. And gets the working class fighting each other over stupid shit instead of identifying our common enemy
I didn't know the world's richest man had been embraced into the heart of the British intellectual establishment. The Brit intelligensia seem to be having a problem with it:
I was privileged to be made visiting professor of science communication at Heidelberg University in Germany… Tasked with running several seminars on topics of my choice, one of the subjects I chose was: should scientists be political advocates? After reading and talking to people from all sides of the debate, I ended up believing that scientists should try very hard to stay politically neutral.
In a nutshell, my argument is that the public trusts scientists more than politicians because it believes they are impartial and objective experts. Scientists who stray beyond the evidence and become campaigners or advocates for particular policies risk losing that trust.
My final lecture in Heidelberg asked about scientists’ role in an age of polarisation and misinformation. My answer was that the public interest is best served by scientists staying out of politics, doing the best science they can do and communicating it openly without fear or favour.
Neutering scientists is traditional, of course, so she's on safe ground. Yet we got climate change due to that convention of normalcy, so I prefer moral guidance.
Neutering scientists is traditional, of course, so she’s on safe ground. Yet we got climate change due to that convention of normalcy, so I prefer moral guidance.
This makes no sense whatsoever! For example, what neutering and by who? What convention of normalcy caused (!?) CC and how? And preference to/over what, scientific evidence? None of this seems to be connected to content of your comment!?
Okay, sorry if I was too cryptic. James Hansen is one counter-example of course. He persistently spoke out to try for political leverage despite the ivory-tower syndrome imposed by tradition. Her advocacy of neutrality I see as an ongoing attempt to neuter scientists: render them impotent politically. I believe they ought to have as much of a right to free speech as anyone else.
I've been following scientific controversies with active interest since I was a teenager and aware of the power of science since atomic bomb testing turned my nights bright orange a few times in the 1950s. I share with Musk being a physics grad (he also graduated in economics) but his venturing with Trump into making govt efficient could have downsides for govt scientists that the Brit scientists are paranoid about so I'll criticise him if he does any inappropriate culling…
I’m sorry, but I don’t follow your reasoning at all.
Assuming you’re referring to Fiona Fox, why would she as chief executive of the Science Media Centre and an honorary fellow of the Royal Society wish to ‘neuter’ scientists!? Her intention & goal is the exact opposite of what you accuse her of. You seem to confuse political neutrality with silencing (which is what Trump & Musk are doing). Your free speech comment confirms that you’ve created a straw man, possibly even in your own mind.
I still don’t know what convention of normalcy caused (!?) CC and how, and why you prefer “moral guidance” over what exactly?
It could be a generational difference between us. She wrote "Scientists who stray beyond the evidence and become campaigners or advocates for particular policies" to disallow those who add interpretation and meaning to evidence. That's a blatant attempt to emasculate that group!
It's precisely what Hansen had to do to blow the whistle on the establishment. And recall how the left remained in collusion with the right in their denial stance despite Hansen's repeated warnings thro the '90s.
Throughout my adult life the media have tried to suppress scientific evidence of public harm being done by this that & the other. Pesticides, PCBs etc.
Employers of scientists routinely prevented them speaking out, so the alt media was the only way forward in the '70s & '80s. Govt in western countries worked with corporations to prevent disclosure until a semblance of transparency gradually began to be used like a fig leaf to cover the moral nudity of the establishment. She should be trying to empower the voice of science in the public interest. Her advocacy of neutrality merely maintains the normalcy of a morally corrupt control system. Re Trump & Musk, it remains to be seen if their agenda is to target the Deep State or merely pretend to do that in the guise of improving govt operational efficiency. They could even be serious about trying to achieve the latter. Your theory is also feasible; the influence of T's father may have been too internalised too young (re fascist tendencies). I haven't ruled that out – but Musk is a self-declared centrist…
Stuff today in The Post has an article on the Centrist, the only link I can find to it is on PressReader, which I can access via my local library account on my phone.
It reports that the site, with only one name as site owner, is a news aggregator, mixed in with op-ed pieces, all of which carry no bylines, and with a sprinkle from dubious rw propagnda outlets.
'Centrist' ads claim unbiased media, but analysis shows a clear rw bias. It has pushed political stances, for example, attacking (surprise, surprise) the idea of a wealth tax. There is subtle, but constant, anti EV bias. The article also examines the shadowy Grenon, who is moving up to controlling The Herald.
"The Centrist's rw perspective isn't inherently problematic. The potential concern is how it may be perceived as repackaging rw views as neutral…while sometimes bypassing journalistic practices that inform readers and ensure accountability….It is the systematic promotion of specific economic and social views that happen to align with one political faction under the guise of aggregation"
Unfortunately we can't cite text from the PressReader but my scan of the appraisal there leads me to join you in deeming the Centrist slanted to the right and therefore a deceit strategy operating in the guise of centrism.
The example of the top 311 paying an average of 9% tax, low enough to be risible, is a good example. We can thank Labour for approving that status quo continually, altho it has been recently attempting to suggest that it may transcend that traditional timidity.
Any genuine centrist media org would support a policy of equity in taxation. Riddling the tax code with escape clauses to allow the rich to crawl out those holes has been a bipartisan part of normalcy way too long already!
re the conversation above, the NZ far right are gearing up to take another run at the Greens, this time the MP who took over the list seat left by Tana. Probably would have been a twitter silo, but now Peters is involved and indirectly implying that Doyle is a paedophile.
This was entirely predictable. What happens next depends on the depths that the MSM will sink to. I expect Plunkett will amplify it on The Platform, not sure beyond that.
Can't really stop the baying mob, but the response needs to go beyond liberal reactions against calling a gay man a paedophile. I don't think Doyle is a child sex abuser, but maybe he is? Maybe Peters is as well. How would we know? This is why we have child safeguarding, because it's not possible to know which men are dangerous (and some women).
The sane responses to concern in the public that go beyond the baying mob is to talk about child safeguarding and address prejudice against gay people.
That liberals have either blocked child safeguarding conversations or ridiculed them, is part of why we are in this situation. It's not the baying mob we have to convince now, it's the people who will look at the images and start to wonder.
And part of that wondering is because the liberalisation of sex has outstripped mainstream society. This article about the situation in the UK is pertinent and essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the broader dynamics at play. There will be a natural tendency to say oh it's just one person (or in this case, two), but it's not, any more than it is in the het population. The problem is the erosion of child safeguarding, and we just have to stop being so resistant to that conversation.
btw, I don't actually know if Doyle is gay (and it's not really any of our business). He self-IDs as non-binary and is a GP MP, which would be enough for the far right to go rapid.
the twitter trolls/astroturfers have turned up. If you are following on twitter, these are new accounts (not many followers) who are digging dirt or shit stirring. Probably from the Dirty Politics crew, or any number of RW orgs who want to harm the Greens or the left.
lol…O'Brien, Landy, Baker, Shields, McRae, Lipanovic, Redbaiter, Holyhekatuiteka, Tamiki, etc, etc,… a veritable who's who of cookers, cranks, and anti-trans voices, have all shown up…
well duh, I just explained that the hard right were driving this. I didn't say they were new accounts, I said I was starting to see new accounts joining in.
"The co-founder of a Surrey LGBTQ+ group has been found guilty of raping a 12-year-old boy he met on Grindr.
Stephen Ireland, 41, was convicted of raping the child in the Addlestone flat he shared with David Sutton, 27, on 19 April 2024.
Ireland, who co-founded Pride in Surrey in 2018, was also found guilty of three counts of causing a child under the age of 13 to engage in sexual activity, one count of sexual assault of a child under 13 and six counts of making indecent images of children.
Sutton, who also volunteered with the organisation, was found guilty of three counts of making indecent photographs of children and one count of possession of an extreme pornographic image."
the write up in the Critic piece about that (in my comment) is worth reading. It talks about what is happening at Surrey Pride now, basically pretending that it didn't happen, and two of the men running SP are former lovers of one of the men convicted. It also mentions other similar cases.
What should be happening is a wide ranging public and private discussion about why these men have ended up in these positions, and how to prevent it in the future. But of course that would require a conversation about boundaries and putting limits on sexual expression, so unlikely I think.
This says a lot about priorities. 12th of March was the day the summing up happened in the court case.
Can you guess what else happened on the 12th of March? Runnymede Council awarded Pride in Surrey one of its Civic Awards. Its Pride Hub community centre was chosen as Cultural Organisation of the Year. Could they have shown less sensitivity towards a 12-year-old victim of rape than handing a gong to the project that was his rapist’s brainchild?
2.gay men targeting younger males, as heterosexual men do younger females is a known male behaviour pattern.
3.that in this case the gay males doing it were part of a LGBT+ group rather than a LGB group, is what it is. In times past there was no separation between the two groups.
Child safe guarding is not specifically a LGBT+ issue.
There is child poverty (societal), there is parental neglect and or child abuse (family upbringing) and there are predators.
These can be people of a priesthood, a christian ministry, in faith based (and state) care homes and schools. Victims are female and male youth.
That there is a kulturekampf effort by some on the right to revisit equal citizenship (no discrimination based on sex or sexuality) via "gender identity" is what it is.
Child safe guarding is not specifically a LGBT+ issue.
Very true, but LGBT+ has some specific issues distinct from say the Catholic Church. The main one being the liberal push for sex positivity meeting the erosion of boundaries as intentional philosophy from queer theory.
Some of us have commented in the past about the blurring of boundaries as there's been a shift from historic Pride marches with a big focus on adult sexuality to the current desire to make them family friendly. Hence things like pup tents at Pride with kids sitting with men in their sexual fetish gear.
Another example of the failure of boundaries was rainbow dildo butt monkey, where an adult act NGO was contracted to provide child entertainment at a public library and they sent a man in a rainbow monkey suit with a giant phallus and bare butt.
Or Desmond is Amazing, child drag star, posing with naked men.
There are not isolate examples, they're part of a pattern. What happens when women try at talk about this is we get told we're prudes. That's part of the erosion of safeguarding. It's not the RW position that we're seeing today where hatred of queer culture is mixed in with concern for kids, it's a different position that is progressive, but not at the expense of kids. And you are right, it's not just LGBT+, it's in fact an issue of adult sexuality generally and where men's rights and desires trump those of children.
It may be, the LGB pride movement may have a problem with focus on their acceptance of their sexuality and normalising their families at the same public event.
It seems "age" inappropriate when done at the same time.
The other.
It may be that when this includes/transfers to LGBT+ there is something else going on.
Maybe because the transgender does not involve, biological men as fathers or biological women as mothers, it is not just seen as "age" inappropriate. But also involves promoting acceptance of their "transvestite" appearance … and to children not their own.
{Of course children are only there with their own parents consent and generally for some performance/to the children costumed story telling, but other parents want to prevent these gatherings in public places – censor books etc}.
don't really know what you are saying there sorry.
But, yes, it's about age appropriateness, but also, the politics that is saying let's push the boundaries on public sexuality without regard to people for whom this is not ok. In this case, children.
It both exposes them to adult sexuality in ways that aren't ok, but it also removes barriers that prevent paedophiles from having access to children ie safeguarding.
I'm not sure it's about the T per se, more so the queer culture's insistence on subverting norms and transgressing boundaries. Which again, is about appropriateness, but also there is a strain of queer culture that basically says sex with kids is ok. Talking about that is inhibited because of the taboo on talking about gay men that sexually abuse kids.
Maybe because the transgender does not involve, biological men as fathers or biological women as mothers, it is not just seen as "age" inappropriate. But also involves promoting acceptance of their "transvestite" appearance … and to children not their own.
I don't really understand this.
The stories are legion about, particularly fathers/husbands, ie biological men in the pursuit of transgender, or transvestite really, activities, who break the hearts of their families by their choices to put their AGP fantasies above their lives as husbands, male friends, fathers and family members.
Some parents do have concerns about 'family friendly' so-called, drag queens/cross dressers appearing at libraries and other places. Of course some women do too but as Weka says 'What happens when women try at talk about this is we get told we're prudes. That's part of the erosion of safeguarding.'
The fact that the Free Speech Union considers the acceptance or not of drags in libraries is a free speech issue while many, often women (those terrible prudes) consider it to be a child safety/safeguarding issue shows the gap.
As Weka says 'it's in fact an issue of adult sexuality generally and where men's rights and desires trump those of children'.
Again as Weka says
But, yes, it's about age appropriateness, but also, the politics that is saying let's push the boundaries on public sexuality without regard to people for whom this is not ok. In this case, children.
So apparently now we, as a society, see no need (or feel constrained in asking) to ensure that public displays of often male sexuality to be toned down in public places. Everything is left to the parents, the caregivers…..to me this is a strange mix of classic RW/libertarian stuff and boosting the acceptance of people whose lives are different often seen as a kind leftie thing to do. Very laissez faire but placing a possibly unfair burden of parents who get little backing from society.
Perhaps those women who could not 'see the joke', back in the day, should rise up and grab the honour of being a prude. With my prude cap firmly in place I wonder at the Pride Parades saying they are family friendly yet making little attempt to tone down some parade items so they are actually family friendly.
On Mrs Google family friendly is given this meaning 'A family-friendly product or service is one that is considered to be suitable for all members of an average family.' (original bolding)
I am well aware of the fun/liveliness of adult entertainment that includes innuendo and drag. Also of the actual family fun innuendo/Dame & handsome boys(ie women) in pantomimes. I'm also thinking that without a solid grounding in fairy stories where things present differently to what they are, some of the drag costuming/ideas would be pretty much unintelligible to children.
Some of what is seen at Pride Parades leaves too little to the imagination, and suffers for this both from an adult's and child's point of view.
I've found this incredibly difficult to write being used to taking a fair, large and liberal view of most things…….
it's quite difficult to talk about child safeguarding also because we just don't use those concepts much. I remember seeing it being discussed in the UK GC context and realising there was a lot of formal things I didn't actually know that much about. I think we take them for granted, much like we did with women's sex based rights until they started to be removed.
I don't even know if we have child safeguarding organisations in NZ, nor how government and NGO policy is informed.
So apparently now we, as a society, see no need (or feel constrained in asking) to ensure that public displays of often male sexuality to be toned down in public places. Everything is left to the parents, the caregivers…..to me this is a strange mix of classic RW/libertarian stuff and boosting the acceptance of people whose lives are different often seen as a kind leftie thing to do. Very laissez faire but placing a possibly unfair burden of parents who get little backing from society.
this is a good point. The problem we have now is that so much of the sexual expressions are public. Long gone is 'in the privacy of your own home'. It's not hard to see where this is going if we don't stop and have a public conversation about it. And yes, it's men's sexuality that's pushed the farthest, unsurprisingly.
I wonder why still 23% of people polled support removing the Living Wage requirement for government-contracted cleaners, security guards, and caterers.
Who woulda thunk it that a violent thug and poster boy for toxic masculinity who's been credibly accused of rape and sex trafficking would choke and violently assault a woman.
The landlord is supposed to have never had it so good.
But their enabler is neither a competent manager of the economy nor for the society, so the migration inflow is down and the migration outflow is up.
developers with unsold townhouse stock have placed some of their units into the rental market.
This will slow supply of new building. With rent price flat-lining the rising cost of maintenance, rates and insurance cost negate any advantage from falling interest cost. Thus property value gain looks to be minimal.
As fewer people become or remain landlords and developers start to sell their excess stock into rising demand from home buyers the supply of rental property will tighten up.
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This video includes personal musings and conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). From "founder" of Tesla and the OG rocket man with SpaceX, and rebranding twitter as X, Musk has ...
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I came in this morning after doing some chores and looked quickly at Twitter before unpacking the groceries. Someone was retweeting a Radio NZ story with the headline “Reserve Bank’s budget to be slashed by 25%”. Wow, I thought, the Minister of Finance has really delivered this time. And then ...
So, having teased it last week, Andrew Little has announced he will run for mayor of Wellington. On RNZ, he's saying its all about services - "fixing the pipes, making public transport cheaper, investing in parks, swimming pools and libraries, and developing more housing". Meanwhile, to the readers of the ...
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming, 1921ALL OVER THE WORLD, devout Christians will be reaching for their bibles, reading and re-reading Revelation 13:16-17. For the benefit of all you non-Christians out there, these are the verses describing ...
Give me what I want, what I really, really want: And what India really wants from New Zealand isn’t butter or cheese, but a radical relaxation of the rules controlling Indian immigration.WHAT DOES INDIA WANT from New Zealand? Not our dairy products, that’s for sure, it’s got plenty of those. ...
In the week of Australia’s 3 May election, ASPI will release Agenda for Change 2025: preparedness and resilience in an uncertain world, a report promoting public debate and understanding on issues of strategic importance to ...
Yesterday, 5,500 senior doctors across Aotearoa New Zealand voted overwhelmingly to strike for a day.This is the first time in New Zealand ASMS members have taken strike action for 24 hours.They are asking the government tofund them and account for resource shortfalls.Vacancies are critical - 45-50% in some regions.The ...
For years and years and years, David Seymour and his posse of deluded neoliberals have been preaching their “tough on crime” gospel to voters. Harsher sentences! More police! Lock ‘em up! Throw away the key. But when it comes to their own, namely former Act Party president Tim Jago, a ...
Judith Collins is a seasoned master at political hypocrisy. As New Zealand’s Defence Minister, she's recently been banging the war drum, announcing a jaw-dropping $12 billion boost to the defence budget over the next four years, all while the coalition of chaos cries poor over housing, health, and education.Apparently, there’s ...
I’m on the London Overground watching what the phones people are holding are doing to their faces: The man-bun guy who could not be less impressed by what he's seeing but cannot stop reading; the woman who's impatient for a response; the one who’s frowning; the one who’s puzzled; the ...
You don't have no prescriptionYou don't have to take no pillsYou don't have no prescriptionAnd baby don't have to take no pillsIf you come to see meDoctor Brown will cure your ills.Songwriters: Waymon Glasco.Dr Luxon. Image: David and Grok.First, they came for the Bottom FeedersAnd I did not speak outBecause ...
The Health Minister says the striking doctors already “well remunerated,” and are “walking away from” and “hurting” their patients. File photo: Lynn GrievesonLong stories short from our political economy on Wednesday, April 16:Simeon Brown has attacked1 doctors striking for more than a 1.5% pay rise as already “well remunerated,” even ...
The time is ripe for Australia and South Korea to strengthen cooperation in space, through embarking on joint projects and initiatives that offer practical outcomes for both countries. This is the finding of a new ...
Hi,When Trump raised tariffs against China to 145%, he destined many small businesses to annihilation. The Daily podcast captured the mass chaos by zooming in and talking to one person, Beth Benike, a small-business owner who will likely lose her home very soon.She pointed out that no, she wasn’t surprised ...
National’s handling of inflation and the cost-of-living crisis is an utter shambles and a gutless betrayal of every Kiwi scraping by. The Coalition of Chaos Ministers strut around preaching about how effective their policies are, but really all they're doing is perpetuating a cruel and sick joke of undelivered promises, ...
Most people wouldn't have heard of a little worm like Rhys Williams, a so-called businessman and former NZ First member, who has recently been unmasked as the venomous troll behind a relentless online campaign targeting Green Party MP Benjamin Doyle.According to reports, Williams has been slinging mud at Doyle under ...
Illustration credit: Jonathan McHugh (New Statesman)The other day, a subscriber said they were unsubscribing because they needed “some good news”.I empathised. Don’t we all.I skimmed a NZME article about the impacts of tariffs this morning with analysis from Kiwibank’s Jarrod Kerr. Kerr, their Chief Economist, suggested another recession is the ...
Let’s assume, as prudence demands we assume, that the United States will not at any predictable time go back to being its old, reliable self. This means its allies must be prepared indefinitely to lean ...
Over the last three rather tumultuous US trade policy weeks, I’ve read these four books. I started with Irwin (whose book had sat on my pile for years, consulted from time to time but not read) in a week of lots of flights and hanging around airports/hotels, and then one ...
Indonesia could do without an increase in military spending that the Ministry of Defence is proposing. The country has more pressing issues, including public welfare and human rights. Moreover, the transparency and accountability to justify ...
Former Hutt City councillor Chris Milne has slithered back into the spotlight, not as a principled dissenter, but as a vindictive puppeteer of digital venom. The revelations from a recent court case paint a damning portrait of a man whose departure from Hutt City Council in 2022 was merely the ...
That's the conclusion of a report into security risks against Green MP Benjamin Doyle, in the wake of Winston Peters' waging a homophobic hate-campaign against them: GRC’s report said a “hostility network” of politicians, commentators, conspiracy theorists, alternative media outlets and those opposed to the rainbow community had produced ...
That's the conclusion of a report into security risks against Green MP Benjamin Doyle, in the wake of Winston Peters' waging a homophobic hate-campaign against them: GRC’s report said a “hostility network” of politicians, commentators, conspiracy theorists, alternative media outlets and those opposed to the rainbow community had produced ...
National Party MP Hamish Campbell’s ties to the secretive Two By Twos "church" raises serious questions that are not being answered. This shadowy group, currently being investigated by the FBI for numerous cases of child abuse, hides behind a facade of faith while Campbell dodges scrutiny, claiming it’s a “private ...
National Party MP Hamish Campbell’s ties to the secretive Two By Twos "church" raises serious questions that are not being answered. This shadowy group, currently being investigated by the FBI for numerous cases of child abuse, hides behind a facade of faith while Campbell dodges scrutiny, claiming it’s a “private ...
The economy is not doing what it was supposed to when PM Christopher Luxon said in January it was ‘going for growth.’ Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short from our political economy on Tuesday, April 15:New Zealand’s economic recovery is stalling, according to business surveys, retail spending and ...
This is a guest post by Lewis Creed, managing editor of the University of Auckland student publication Craccum, which is currently running a campaign for a safer Symonds Street in the wake of a horrific recent crash.The post has two parts: 1) Craccum’s original call for safety (6 ...
NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff has published an opinion piece which makes the case for a different approach to economic development, as proposed in the CTU’s Aotearoa Reimagined programme. The number of people studying to become teachers has jumped after several years of low enrolment. The coalition has directed Health New ...
The growth of China’s AI industry gives it great influence over emerging technologies. That creates security risks for countries using those technologies. So, Australia must foster its own domestic AI industry to protect its interests. ...
Unfortunately we have another National Party government in power at the moment, and as a consequence, another economic dumpster fire taking hold. Inflation’s hurting Kiwis, and instead of providing relief, National is fiddling while wallets burn.Prime Minister Chris Luxon's response is a tired remix of tax cuts for the rich ...
Girls who are boys who like boys to be girlsWho do boys like they're girls, who do girls like they're boysAlways should be someone you really loveSongwriters: Damon Albarn / Graham Leslie Coxon / Alexander Rowntree David / Alexander James Steven.Last month, I wrote about the Birds and Bees being ...
Australia needs to reevaluate its security priorities and establish a more dynamic regulatory framework for cybersecurity. To advance in this area, it can learn from Britain’s Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, which presents a compelling ...
Deputy PM Winston Peters likes nothing more than to portray himself as the only wise old head while everyone else is losing theirs. Yet this time, his “old master” routine isn’t working. What global trade is experiencing is more than the usual swings and roundabouts of market sentiment. President Donald ...
President Trump’s hopes of ending the war in Ukraine seemed more driven by ego than realistic analysis. Professor Vladimir Brovkin’s latest video above highlights the internal conflicts within the USA, Russia, Europe, and Ukraine, which are currently hindering peace talks and clarity. Brovkin pointed out major contradictions within ...
In the cesspool that is often New Zealand’s online political discourse, few figures wield their influence as destructively as Ani O’Brien. Masquerading as a champion of free speech and women’s rights, O’Brien’s campaigns are a masterclass in bad faith, built on a foundation of lies, selective outrage, and a knack ...
The international challenge confronting Australia today is unparalleled, at least since the 1940s. It requires what the late Brendan Sargeant, a defence analyst, called strategic imagination. We need more than shrewd economic manoeuvring and a ...
This year's General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) will take place as a fully hybrid conference in both Vienna and online from April 27 to May 2. This year, I'll join the event on site in Vienna for the full week and I've already picked several sessions I plan ...
Here’s a book that looks not in at China but out from China. David Daokui Li’s China’s World View: Demystifying China to Prevent Global Conflict is a refreshing offering in that Li is very much ...
The New Zealand National Party has long mastered the art of crafting messaging that resonates with a large number of desperate, often white middle-class, voters. From their 2023 campaign mantra of “getting our country back on track” to promises of economic revival, safer streets, and better education, their rhetoric paints ...
A global contest of ideas is underway, and democracy as an ideal is at stake. Democracies must respond by lifting support for public service media with an international footprint. With the recent decision by the ...
It is almost six weeks since the shock announcement early on the afternoon of Wednesday 5 March that the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Adrian Orr, was resigning effective 31 March, and that in fact he had already left and an acting Governor was already in place. Orr had been ...
The PSA surveyed more than 900 of its members, with 55 percent of respondents saying AI is used at their place of work, despite most workers not being in trained in how to use the technology safely. Figures to be released on Thursday are expected to show inflation has risen ...
Be on guard for AI-powered messaging and disinformation in the campaign for Australia’s 3 May election. And be aware that parties can use AI to sharpen their campaigning, zeroing in on issues that the technology ...
Strap yourselves in, folks, it’s time for another round of Arsehole of the Week, and this week’s golden derrière trophy goes to—drumroll, please—David Seymour, the ACT Party’s resident genius who thought, “You know what we need? A shiny new Treaty Principles Bill to "fix" all that pesky Māori-Crown partnership nonsense ...
After stonewalling requests for information on boot camps, the Government has now offered up a blog post right before Easter weekend rather than provide clarity on the pilot. ...
More people could be harmed if Minister for Mental Health Matt Doocey does not guarantee to protect patients and workers as the Police withdraw from supporting mental health call outs. ...
The Green Party recognises the extension of visa allowances for our Pacific whānau as a step in the right direction but continues to call for a Pacific Visa Waiver. ...
The Government yesterday released its annual child poverty statistics, and by its own admission, more tamariki across Aotearoa are now living in material hardship. ...
Today, Te Pāti Māori join the motu in celebration as the Treaty Principles Bill is voted down at its second reading. “From the beginning, this Bill was never welcome in this House,” said Te Pāti Māori Co-Leader, Rawiri Waititi. “Our response to the first reading was one of protest: protesting ...
The Green Party is proud to have voted down the Coalition Government’s Treaty Principles Bill, an archaic piece of legislation that sought to attack the nation’s founding agreement. ...
A Member’s Bill in the name of Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter which aims to stop coal mining, the Crown Minerals (Prohibition of Mining) Amendment Bill, has been pulled from Parliament’s ‘biscuit tin’ today. ...
Labour MP Kieran McAnulty’s Members Bill to make the law simpler and fairer for businesses operating on Easter, Anzac and Christmas Days has passed its first reading after a conscience vote in Parliament. ...
Nicola Willis continues to sit on her hands amid a global economic crisis, leaving the Reserve Bank to act for New Zealanders who are worried about their jobs, mortgages, and KiwiSaver. ...
Today, the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill has passed its third and final reading, but there is one more stage before it becomes law. The Governor-General must give their ‘Royal assent’ for any bill to become legally enforceable. This means that, even if a bill gets voted ...
Abortion care at Whakatāne Hospital has been quietly shelved, with patients told they will likely have to travel more than an hour to Tauranga to get the treatment they need. ...
Thousands of New Zealanders’ submissions are missing from the official parliamentary record because the National-dominated Justice Select Committee has rushed work on the Treaty Principles Bill. ...
Today’s announcement of 10 percent tariffs for New Zealand goods entering the United States is disappointing for exporters and consumers alike, with the long-lasting impact on prices and inflation still unknown. ...
The National Government’s choices have contributed to a slow-down in the building sector, as thousands of people have lost their jobs in construction. ...
Willie Apiata’s decision to hand over his Victoria Cross to the Minister for Veterans is a powerful and selfless act, made on behalf of all those who have served our country. ...
The Privileges Committee has denied fundamental rights to Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, Rawiri Waititi and Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, breaching their own standing orders, breaching principles of natural justice, and highlighting systemic prejudice and discrimination within our parliamentary processes. The three MPs were summoned to the privileges committee following their performance of a haka ...
April 1 used to be a day when workers could count on a pay rise with stronger support for those doing it tough, but that’s not the case under this Government. ...
Winston Peters is shopping for smaller ferries after Nicola Willis torpedoed the original deal, which would have delivered new rail enabled ferries next year. ...
The Government should work with other countries to press the Myanmar military regime to stop its bombing campaign especially while the country recovers from the devastating earthquake. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Nicholls, Senior Research Associate in Media and Communications, University of Sydney Tech giant Google has just suffered another legal blow in the United States, losing a landmark antitrust case. This follows on from the company’s loss in a similar case last ...
Paddy GowerAmanda Luxon. I mean what can you say. Easter is a good time to publish my latest reckons at Stuff because without exaggeration or making too much of things, Amanda Luxon walks among us like Jesus but probably with better shoes.Jesus healed. How good is that? It’s really good, ...
How can an afternoon be long when it starts at one o’clock and finishes at half past three? Beauden thought about that as he stood at the back of the classroom and looked through the large window to the upper grounds where his colleague Monty Spiers was taking a phys ed ...
Alex Casey delves into the enduring success of The Artist’s Way, a self-help book beloved by everyone from retirees to famous rappers. On the video call, my mum is gesticulating so wildly while recounting all her recent creative endeavours that she knocks her cup of tea over a work-in-progress jigsaw ...
Feijoa scholar Kate Evans reviews the dish everybody raves about at Metro’s 2024 restaurant of the year, Forest. People have been telling me I need to try the deep-fried feijoa dessert at Forest for about three years now. I’m embarrassed it took me this long, but it takes a lot ...
Chef, author and reality television judge Colin Fassnidge takes us through his life in television. Colin Fassnidge is a huge television fan. He watches every blockbuster TV series the moment it drops and scores every single show on his Instagram account. It’s a habit that recently caught the attention of ...
Why are shops on Parnell Road allowed to open on Easter Sunday? It’s all thanks to an obsolete rule from the 1970s that’s been ‘frozen in time’.Originally published in 2023.Under our current trading laws, most stores are required to stay closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday (along ...
Yael Shochat, chef-owner of Auckland restaurant Ima Cuisine, shares the recipe for her hot cross buns – regularly voted among the best in the city.Originally published in 2019.HOT CROSS BUNSMakes 12You may use equal weights of pre-ground spices, but you’ll get a much better flavour if ...
Gràinne Moss knows she can’t tackle the final leg of one of the world’s toughest swimming challenges alone.In her quest to complete the Oceans Seven marathon challenge, 38 years after she began, she’s enlisted the help of two remarkable women – one barely out of her teens, and the other ...
By Susana Leiataua, RNZ National presenter There are calls for greater transparency about what the HMNZS Manawanui was doing before it sank in Samoa last October — including whether the New Zealand warship was performing specific security for King Charles and Queen Camilla. The Manawanui grounded on the reef off ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Labor increased its lead again in a YouGov poll, but Freshwater put the party ahead by just 50.3–49.7. This article also covers ...
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on April 18, 2025. Labor’s poll surge continues in YouGov, but they’re barely ahead in FreshwaterSource: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic, $30) Haymitch’s Hunger Games. 2 Careless People: A ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Labor increased their lead again in a YouGov poll, but Freshwater put them ahead by just 50.3–49.7. This article also covers the ...
A new poem by Tusiata Avia. How to make a terrorist First make a whistling sound which is the sound of a bomb just before it lands on a house. Then make an exploding sound which is the sound of the bomb which kills a father, decapitates a mother, roasts ...
The top-rated Scrabble players in the country go head-to-head this Easter weekend. Watch games live from 9.30am on the stream below.How does it all work?The Masters is different to most Scrabble tournaments in that it’s invitational, open only to the top-rated players in the country. The ...
Books editor Claire Mabey appraises all the Austen-adapted films from 1990 onwards to separate the delightful from the duds.For the purists, read our ranking of Jane Austen’s novels here.It is a truth universally acknowledged that not everything is created equal. Since 1990 there have been 12 attempts to ...
To arrive through the heavy red door of Margot in Newtown is to be invited to the best dinner party in town, hosted by the best friends you haven’t yet made. Table Service is a column about food and hospitality in Wellington, written by Nick Iles.Hospitality is a term ...
We recommend the best – and longest – television series to watch this holiday weekend. As the Easter holiday weekend descends and the weather turns a little grim, many of us will turn to the trusty old television for comfort and entertainment. If you’re lucky, you’ll have some time over ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp');Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions.The post Newsroom daily quiz, Friday 18 April appeared first on Newsroom. ...
NONFICTION1 No Words for This by Ali Mau (HarperCollins, $39.99)A free copy of the author’s new memoir was up for grabs in last week’s giveaway contest. Readers were asked to share their feelings about Mau, a former broadcaster and one of the most powerful figures in the New Zealand #metoo ...
Analysis: The announcement last week that Colossal Biosciences in the USA had “de-extincted” the dire wolf, which was last seen 13,000 years ago, was reported worldwide.The three wolf pups generated equal parts fascination and widespread scientific criticism. But is this actually de-extinction, and what are the implications for the potential ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gode Bola, Lecturer in Hydrology, University of Kinshasa The April 2025 flooding disaster in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, wasn’t just about intense rainfall. It was a symptom of recent land use change which has occurred rapidly in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Peter Dutton, now seriously on the back foot, has made an extraordinarily big “aspirational” commitment at the back end of this campaign. He says he wants to see a move to indexing personal income ...
Essay by Keith Rankin. Operation Gomorrah may have been the most cynical event of World War Two (WW2). Not only did the name fully convey the intent of the war crimes about to be committed, it, also represented the single biggest 24-hour murder toll for the European war that I ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Tietz, Senior Lecturer in Industrial Design, UNSW Sydney A New South Wales Senate inquiry into public toilets is underway, looking into the provision, design and maintenance of public toilets across the state. Whenever I mention this inquiry, however, everyone nervously ...
Shrinking budgets and job insecurity means there are fewer opportunities for young journalists, and that’s bad news, especially in regional Australia, reports 360infoANALYSIS:By Jee Young Lee of the University of Canberra Australia risks losing a generation of young journalists, particularly in the regions where they face the closure ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tessa Charles, Accelerator Physicist, Monash University An artist’s impression of the tunnel of the proposed Future Circular Collider.CERN The Large Hadron Collider has been responsible for astounding advances in physics: the discovery of the elusive, long-sought Higgs boson as well as ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer McKay, Professor in Business Law, University of South Australia Parkova/Shutterstock Could someone take you to court over an agreement you made – or at least appeared to make – by sending a “👍”? Emojis can have more legal weight ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Trang Nguyen, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Global Food and Resources, University of Adelaide Stokkete, Shutterstock Australians waste around 7.68 million tonnes of food a year. This costs the economy an estimated A$36.6 billion and households up to $2,500 annually. ...
Pushing people off income support doesn’t make the job market fairer or more accessible. It just assumes success is possible while unemployment rises and support systems become harder to navigate. ...
A year since the inquest into the death of Gore three-year-old Lachlan Jones began and the Coroner has completed his provisional findings. Interested parties have been provided with a copy of Coroner Ho’s provisional findings and have until May 16 to respond.The Coroner has indicated the final decision will be delivered on June 3 in Invercargill, citing high ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ken Nosaka, Professor of Exercise and Sports Science, Edith Cowan University Drazen Zigic/Shutterstock Do you ever feel like you can’t stop moving after you’ve pushed yourself exercising? Maybe you find yourself walking around in circles when you come off the pitch, ...
On a less controversial note…
Through the years we have found corporations to be using science and politicians to lie to us to protect profits.
Oil companies, tobacco companies, banks and, let's be honest, pharmaceutical companies.
We are talking big returns to shareholders and as we all know the American political system propped up by donors and massive amounts of money.
The revolving door between Washington DC and lobbying firms and regulatory appointments is undeniable.
When I talk of healing schisms in this country this is where the grace comes in.
Rogan and his guests may not be factually correct 100% of the time. Often, the vibe is what is important. After all, some of the guests have had very powerful interests come after them, in ways we can't imagine.
It's not that Rogan and guests make mistakes sometimes. It's that Rogan fosters a culture of alarm and poor critical thinking. Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone has 20 million follower youtube where critical thinking is not a primary featuer.
the vibe thing I understand. People want a good cultural fit. This is why I think the liberal left have basically opened the door to the right gaining power. An approach of 'you must think like us or you are wrong and will be punished' is a massive fail on so many levels, and we can't even have a conversation about it. But the left aren't platforming the proto-fascists, and the left also has a need for good cultural fit. Everyone is scared and doubling down. At some point we have to learn how to be human with each other again.
There's a strong audience for counter intuitive "new" takes on science and culture. People love novelty and the idea that mainstream knowledge is wrong (freakanomics, blink,…)
As a massively propagandised culture, Americans intuit that something is wrong, but guys like Rogan, Trump, and crazy preachers are selling snake oil solutions and blaming outgroups instead of accurately diagnosing the real problem: oligarchy and crony capitalism
It's an excellent propaganda tactic, keeping the public confused and unable to tell real from fake. Makes them easier to control and stops actual democracy from breaking out.
completely agree about the intuition and how it gets distorted through modern culture (not that I think it's a new thing, but politics, MSM, SM and so on have particular ways of distorting, let's just call it neoliberal capitalism).
I saw a talk once (IRL!) many years ago (before the internets lol) where a Otago Uni bod was presenting research that people often had strong intuitive reactions against things like nuclear power or GE.
Those intuitions often have a legitimate base, it's just that people don't necessarily have the conceptual language to express them in a more rationality or science based way.
Not sure the SM bullshit stops democracy from breaking out, people were already neoliberalised before the internet. For instance we saw the decline of student protests on NZ campuses in the 90s. It's worse since the internet, and even more now with SM. We have the added problem of people being frightened by the polycrisis and looking for ways to both make sense of life in a crisis that won't end in their lifetime as well as an escape from the stress. Someone standing up and saying what they want to hear is powerful. I just wish the left was better at it 😉
Brain chemistry and imaging studies show that regularly consuming online outrage creates a measurable physical addiction to the brain chemicals released in response. Regular outrage consumption also increases cortisol levels, and leads to changes in brain structure that reduces our capacity to process information, changes that are very similar to those seen in people under constant overwhelming stress. I have been reading Joined-up thinking by Hannah Critchlow, published in 2022, which goes into this in great detail.
For social media engagement, the value of stimulating outrage is more money. "..outrage leads to more attention, which in turn leads to more outrage among other users. Outrage therefore usually means virality, attention, longer user times, etc., and thus also higher profits for platform operators. This leads to negative content with a high potential for outrage being technically supported by the platforms’ algorithms. Researchers at New York University even found that content with moral-emotional wording receives a technical boost of around 20 percent in social media."
Outrage and the political process of othering, eg, of Jews or trans people, helps prime users to political manipulation. So the 'vibe' gsays says is captured by Rogan, is in fact unhappiness and stress channelled by Rogan into his smorgasboard of rw ideas, and is in turn, exploited by demagogues like Trump and Posy Parker.
The book 'Joined-up thinking' primarily is about the chemistry and social interaction involved in collective action. Critchlow shows how, unsurprisingly, adding diversity and a greater proportion of women to groups increases the quality of group decision-making measurably, even markedly, as long as the process of planning is consensual and inclusive, not just lip service. I'd recommend this book strongly for anyone who wants to understand more about how our brains and our hard-wired social responses are co-opted negatively, but also more positively, what strong collective decision-making looks like. It goes beyond intellectual debate to a more holistic understanding of how our physical hardware affects our ideas and beliefs.
that's really good. Here's the thing though. Rogan and KJK are both meeting a need in addition to using manipulation to feed an addiction. In the case of KJK, women were and are fucked off at having our rights sidelined. She wouldn't have built such a large following if that wasn't already happening. Likewise, there is a significant proportion of the population who don't trusts science or the MSM or the mainstream generally. Rogan meets the need for them to be heard.
The problem the left has is that it sees those groups of people as wrong and currently takes the position that they should be ostracised. Those groups of people outnumber us, hence the shit show in the US.
I'd be interested if Critchlow has active solutions that the left can use. Having more women involved isn't news to many of us (I've long argued that we should put the aunties and grandmothers in charge of things, not least because they know how to share). The question is how can the left do that in ways that don't provoke a backlash. I agree that it's important to not do it as lip service.
The response to the anti-DEI backlash shouldn't be to double down (we are outnumbered and we will lose). It's to change the narrative while we still can to one that both retains equity and makes sense to the large number of mainstream people who are trying to find meaning in the world. They're the ones that determine who governs.
The anti DEI bandwagon is a great example of complete lies that the right wing spread against left wing movements. Their audience might not be initially resentful or suspicious but their slanted stories about radical Maaris taking da water, or da Mexicans taking our jerbs, or the wimminfolk getting freebies, brings out the worst in people. And gets the working class fighting each other over stupid shit instead of identifying our common enemy
you might enjoy this
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1378202973526007
Brian Easton has written a good piece on PPPs.
https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/public-private-partnerships
He goes more into the ‘technology’ of PPPs and doesn’t delve into the ideological aspects, unfortunately.
I didn't know the world's richest man had been embraced into the heart of the British intellectual establishment. The Brit intelligensia seem to be having a problem with it:
Gosh, I wondered, what percentage of the members is that?? About 200%, it seems.
Fiona Fox is chief executive of the Science Media Centre and an honorary fellow of the Royal Society. She gives her personal view of the controversy here: https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-views-of-the-uk-2025-february-if-the-royal-society-expels-musk-it-could-harm-trust-in-science/
Neutering scientists is traditional, of course, so she's on safe ground. Yet we got climate change due to that convention of normalcy, so I prefer moral guidance.
This makes no sense whatsoever! For example, what neutering and by who? What convention of normalcy caused (!?) CC and how? And preference to/over what, scientific evidence? None of this seems to be connected to content of your comment!?
Okay, sorry if I was too cryptic. James Hansen is one counter-example of course. He persistently spoke out to try for political leverage despite the ivory-tower syndrome imposed by tradition. Her advocacy of neutrality I see as an ongoing attempt to neuter scientists: render them impotent politically. I believe they ought to have as much of a right to free speech as anyone else.
I've been following scientific controversies with active interest since I was a teenager and aware of the power of science since atomic bomb testing turned my nights bright orange a few times in the 1950s. I share with Musk being a physics grad (he also graduated in economics) but his venturing with Trump into making govt efficient could have downsides for govt scientists that the Brit scientists are paranoid about so I'll criticise him if he does any inappropriate culling…
I’m sorry, but I don’t follow your reasoning at all.
Assuming you’re referring to Fiona Fox, why would she as chief executive of the Science Media Centre and an honorary fellow of the Royal Society wish to ‘neuter’ scientists!? Her intention & goal is the exact opposite of what you accuse her of. You seem to confuse political neutrality with silencing (which is what Trump & Musk are doing). Your free speech comment confirms that you’ve created a straw man, possibly even in your own mind.
I still don’t know what convention of normalcy caused (!?) CC and how, and why you prefer “moral guidance” over what exactly?
It could be a generational difference between us. She wrote "Scientists who stray beyond the evidence and become campaigners or advocates for particular policies" to disallow those who add interpretation and meaning to evidence. That's a blatant attempt to emasculate that group!
It's precisely what Hansen had to do to blow the whistle on the establishment. And recall how the left remained in collusion with the right in their denial stance despite Hansen's repeated warnings thro the '90s.
Throughout my adult life the media have tried to suppress scientific evidence of public harm being done by this that & the other. Pesticides, PCBs etc.
Employers of scientists routinely prevented them speaking out, so the alt media was the only way forward in the '70s & '80s. Govt in western countries worked with corporations to prevent disclosure until a semblance of transparency gradually began to be used like a fig leaf to cover the moral nudity of the establishment. She should be trying to empower the voice of science in the public interest. Her advocacy of neutrality merely maintains the normalcy of a morally corrupt control system. Re Trump & Musk, it remains to be seen if their agenda is to target the Deep State or merely pretend to do that in the guise of improving govt operational efficiency. They could even be serious about trying to achieve the latter. Your theory is also feasible; the influence of T's father may have been too internalised too young (re fascist tendencies). I haven't ruled that out – but Musk is a self-declared centrist…
Stuff today in The Post has an article on the Centrist, the only link I can find to it is on PressReader, which I can access via my local library account on my phone.
Decoding the rightward lean of the 'Centrist'
It reports that the site, with only one name as site owner, is a news aggregator, mixed in with op-ed pieces, all of which carry no bylines, and with a sprinkle from dubious rw propagnda outlets.
'Centrist' ads claim unbiased media, but analysis shows a clear rw bias. It has pushed political stances, for example, attacking (surprise, surprise) the idea of a wealth tax. There is subtle, but constant, anti EV bias. The article also examines the shadowy Grenon, who is moving up to controlling The Herald.
"The Centrist's rw perspective isn't inherently problematic. The potential concern is how it may be perceived as repackaging rw views as neutral…while sometimes bypassing journalistic practices that inform readers and ensure accountability….It is the systematic promotion of specific economic and social views that happen to align with one political faction under the guise of aggregation"
Unfortunately we can't cite text from the PressReader but my scan of the appraisal there leads me to join you in deeming the Centrist slanted to the right and therefore a deceit strategy operating in the guise of centrism.
The example of the top 311 paying an average of 9% tax, low enough to be risible, is a good example. We can thank Labour for approving that status quo continually, altho it has been recently attempting to suggest that it may transcend that traditional timidity.
Any genuine centrist media org would support a policy of equity in taxation. Riddling the tax code with escape clauses to allow the rich to crawl out those holes has been a bipartisan part of normalcy way too long already!
https://www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/360622167/decoding-rightward-lean-centrist
re the conversation above, the NZ far right are gearing up to take another run at the Greens, this time the MP who took over the list seat left by Tana. Probably would have been a twitter silo, but now Peters is involved and indirectly implying that Doyle is a paedophile.
https://x.com/winstonpeters/status/1905710771558097343
https://nitter.net/winstonpeters/status/1905710771558097343#m
This was entirely predictable. What happens next depends on the depths that the MSM will sink to. I expect Plunkett will amplify it on The Platform, not sure beyond that.
Can't really stop the baying mob, but the response needs to go beyond liberal reactions against calling a gay man a paedophile. I don't think Doyle is a child sex abuser, but maybe he is? Maybe Peters is as well. How would we know? This is why we have child safeguarding, because it's not possible to know which men are dangerous (and some women).
The sane responses to concern in the public that go beyond the baying mob is to talk about child safeguarding and address prejudice against gay people.
That liberals have either blocked child safeguarding conversations or ridiculed them, is part of why we are in this situation. It's not the baying mob we have to convince now, it's the people who will look at the images and start to wonder.
And part of that wondering is because the liberalisation of sex has outstripped mainstream society. This article about the situation in the UK is pertinent and essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the broader dynamics at play. There will be a natural tendency to say oh it's just one person (or in this case, two), but it's not, any more than it is in the het population. The problem is the erosion of child safeguarding, and we just have to stop being so resistant to that conversation.
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-lgbtq-movement-has-a-paedophile-problem/
btw, I don't actually know if Doyle is gay (and it's not really any of our business). He self-IDs as non-binary and is a GP MP, which would be enough for the far right to go rapid.
the twitter trolls/astroturfers have turned up. If you are following on twitter, these are new accounts (not many followers) who are digging dirt or shit stirring. Probably from the Dirty Politics crew, or any number of RW orgs who want to harm the Greens or the left.
lol…O'Brien, Landy, Baker, Shields, McRae, Lipanovic, Redbaiter, Holyhekatuiteka, Tamiki, etc, etc,… a veritable who's who of cookers, cranks, and anti-trans voices, have all shown up…
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https://xcancel.com/search?q=benjamin%20doyle&src=typed_query&f=live
well duh, I just explained that the hard right were driving this. I didn't say they were new accounts, I said I was starting to see new accounts joining in.
You don't need too many of these high profile cases around.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx28yj34zgpo
"The co-founder of a Surrey LGBTQ+ group has been found guilty of raping a 12-year-old boy he met on Grindr.
Stephen Ireland, 41, was convicted of raping the child in the Addlestone flat he shared with David Sutton, 27, on 19 April 2024.
Ireland, who co-founded Pride in Surrey in 2018, was also found guilty of three counts of causing a child under the age of 13 to engage in sexual activity, one count of sexual assault of a child under 13 and six counts of making indecent images of children.
Sutton, who also volunteered with the organisation, was found guilty of three counts of making indecent photographs of children and one count of possession of an extreme pornographic image."
the write up in the Critic piece about that (in my comment) is worth reading. It talks about what is happening at Surrey Pride now, basically pretending that it didn't happen, and two of the men running SP are former lovers of one of the men convicted. It also mentions other similar cases.
What should be happening is a wide ranging public and private discussion about why these men have ended up in these positions, and how to prevent it in the future. But of course that would require a conversation about boundaries and putting limits on sexual expression, so unlikely I think.
This says a lot about priorities. 12th of March was the day the summing up happened in the court case.
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-lgbtq-movement-has-a-paedophile-problem/
Three points
1.what was a 12 year old doing on grinder?
2.gay men targeting younger males, as heterosexual men do younger females is a known male behaviour pattern.
3.that in this case the gay males doing it were part of a LGBT+ group rather than a LGB group, is what it is. In times past there was no separation between the two groups.
Child safe guarding is not specifically a LGBT+ issue.
There is child poverty (societal), there is parental neglect and or child abuse (family upbringing) and there are predators.
These can be people of a priesthood, a christian ministry, in faith based (and state) care homes and schools. Victims are female and male youth.
That there is a kulturekampf effort by some on the right to revisit equal citizenship (no discrimination based on sex or sexuality) via "gender identity" is what it is.
Very true, but LGBT+ has some specific issues distinct from say the Catholic Church. The main one being the liberal push for sex positivity meeting the erosion of boundaries as intentional philosophy from queer theory.
Some of us have commented in the past about the blurring of boundaries as there's been a shift from historic Pride marches with a big focus on adult sexuality to the current desire to make them family friendly. Hence things like pup tents at Pride with kids sitting with men in their sexual fetish gear.
Another example of the failure of boundaries was rainbow dildo butt monkey, where an adult act NGO was contracted to provide child entertainment at a public library and they sent a man in a rainbow monkey suit with a giant phallus and bare butt.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/07/13/the-rainbow-dildo-butt-monkey-is-no-laughing-matter/
Or Desmond is Amazing, child drag star, posing with naked men.
There are not isolate examples, they're part of a pattern. What happens when women try at talk about this is we get told we're prudes. That's part of the erosion of safeguarding. It's not the RW position that we're seeing today where hatred of queer culture is mixed in with concern for kids, it's a different position that is progressive, but not at the expense of kids. And you are right, it's not just LGBT+, it's in fact an issue of adult sexuality generally and where men's rights and desires trump those of children.
One side of it.
It may be, the LGB pride movement may have a problem with focus on their acceptance of their sexuality and normalising their families at the same public event.
It seems "age" inappropriate when done at the same time.
The other.
It may be that when this includes/transfers to LGBT+ there is something else going on.
Maybe because the transgender does not involve, biological men as fathers or biological women as mothers, it is not just seen as "age" inappropriate. But also involves promoting acceptance of their "transvestite" appearance … and to children not their own.
{Of course children are only there with their own parents consent and generally for some performance/to the children costumed story telling, but other parents want to prevent these gatherings in public places – censor books etc}.
And onto health practice as per children …
don't really know what you are saying there sorry.
But, yes, it's about age appropriateness, but also, the politics that is saying let's push the boundaries on public sexuality without regard to people for whom this is not ok. In this case, children.
It both exposes them to adult sexuality in ways that aren't ok, but it also removes barriers that prevent paedophiles from having access to children ie safeguarding.
I'm not sure it's about the T per se, more so the queer culture's insistence on subverting norms and transgressing boundaries. Which again, is about appropriateness, but also there is a strain of queer culture that basically says sex with kids is ok. Talking about that is inhibited because of the taboo on talking about gay men that sexually abuse kids.
I don't really understand this.
The stories are legion about, particularly fathers/husbands, ie biological men in the pursuit of transgender, or transvestite really, activities, who break the hearts of their families by their choices to put their AGP fantasies above their lives as husbands, male friends, fathers and family members.
Some parents do have concerns about 'family friendly' so-called, drag queens/cross dressers appearing at libraries and other places. Of course some women do too but as Weka says 'What happens when women try at talk about this is we get told we're prudes. That's part of the erosion of safeguarding.'
The fact that the Free Speech Union considers the acceptance or not of drags in libraries is a free speech issue while many, often women (those terrible prudes) consider it to be a child safety/safeguarding issue shows the gap.
As Weka says 'it's in fact an issue of adult sexuality generally and where men's rights and desires trump those of children'.
Again as Weka says
So apparently now we, as a society, see no need (or feel constrained in asking) to ensure that public displays of often male sexuality to be toned down in public places. Everything is left to the parents, the caregivers…..to me this is a strange mix of classic RW/libertarian stuff and boosting the acceptance of people whose lives are different often seen as a kind leftie thing to do. Very laissez faire but placing a possibly unfair burden of parents who get little backing from society.
Perhaps those women who could not 'see the joke', back in the day, should rise up and grab the honour of being a prude. With my prude cap firmly in place I wonder at the Pride Parades saying they are family friendly yet making little attempt to tone down some parade items so they are actually family friendly.
On Mrs Google family friendly is given this meaning 'A family-friendly product or service is one that is considered to be suitable for all members of an average family.' (original bolding)
I am well aware of the fun/liveliness of adult entertainment that includes innuendo and drag. Also of the actual family fun innuendo/Dame & handsome boys(ie women) in pantomimes. I'm also thinking that without a solid grounding in fairy stories where things present differently to what they are, some of the drag costuming/ideas would be pretty much unintelligible to children.
Some of what is seen at Pride Parades leaves too little to the imagination, and suffers for this both from an adult's and child's point of view.
I've found this incredibly difficult to write being used to taking a fair, large and liberal view of most things…….
it's quite difficult to talk about child safeguarding also because we just don't use those concepts much. I remember seeing it being discussed in the UK GC context and realising there was a lot of formal things I didn't actually know that much about. I think we take them for granted, much like we did with women's sex based rights until they started to be removed.
I don't even know if we have child safeguarding organisations in NZ, nor how government and NGO policy is informed.
this is a good point. The problem we have now is that so much of the sexual expressions are public. Long gone is 'in the privacy of your own home'. It's not hard to see where this is going if we don't stop and have a public conversation about it. And yes, it's men's sexuality that's pushed the farthest, unsurprisingly.
Some advice about using AI.
https://youtube.com/shorts/rVlmbhwn0RM?si=qNXSOiDAknTfUNcd
Class warfare is still not popular in NZ despite the Coalition’s populist trickery.
https://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/2503/Living_Wage_procurement_rules_survey_report.pdf
I wonder why still 23% of people polled support removing the Living Wage requirement for government-contracted cleaners, security guards, and caterers.
Who woulda thunk it that a violent thug and poster boy for toxic masculinity who's been credibly accused of rape and sex trafficking would choke and violently assault a woman.
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https://www.tmz.com/2025/03/26/andrew-tate-girlfriend-claims-he-attacked-her-during-sex/
https://www.tmz.com/photos/image_png_20250327_ca8ff9bc8d434a51b8352ed913c631d6/
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JD getting his Onan on…
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The landlord is supposed to have never had it so good.
But their enabler is neither a competent manager of the economy nor for the society, so the migration inflow is down and the migration outflow is up.
This will slow supply of new building. With rent price flat-lining the rising cost of maintenance, rates and insurance cost negate any advantage from falling interest cost. Thus property value gain looks to be minimal.
https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/tony-alexander-rental-markets-dramatic-turn-why-landlords-are-worried-47246
Personal Declaration – the bright-line test was introduced on 1 October 2015, a CGT should apply on all investment property purchased after this date. As tax on CG made from 2015 to 2021 is the best revenue source for government. And thus should be government policy in 2026.
Fletcher Building closing home building factory because of a market downturn
https://archive.li/frLHI#selection-4669.0-4689.53