This is rather belated cancelling; but seems, to me at least, long overdue:
In what was described by historians as an “unprecedented” public reckoning with Britain’s slavery and colonial past, an estimated 39 names – including streets, buildings and schools – and 30 statues, plaques and other memorials have been or are undergoing changes or removal since last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests…
The University of Edinburgh has renamed the David Hume Tower because of the philosopher’s alleged racism
Hume's racism was news to me, as was his involvement in the slave trade. Certainly disappointing, as he is one of history's most important philosophers; whose work is foundational to scientific empiricism. I had thought that he was anti-slavery, but apparently that was just for other people in other times; reducing people to objects to be bought and sold as property, was apparently just fine for his mates. This is from last year by; the David Hume Fellow at the University of Edinburgh in 2016!
A petition by a student of the University of Edinburgh has called for the re-naming of its David Hume Tower, drawing attention to the philosopher’s 1753 essay, Of National Characters, in which he voiced his suspicion that “negroes” are “naturally inferior to the whites”…
his views served to reinforce the institution of racialised slavery in the later 18th century. More importantly, the fact that he was involved in the slave trade is now a matter of record, thanks to a discovery in Princeton University Library. It was there that I recently found an unknown letter of March 1766 by Hume, in which he encouraged his patron Lord Hertford to purchase a slave plantation in Grenada… he had facilitated the purchase of the plantation by writing to the French Governor of Martinique, the Marquis d’Ennery, in June 1766. Indeed, he lent £400 to one of the principal investors earlier in the same year…
Anyone with Hume’s intelligence would recognise the enormity of slavery. But Hume sought to benefit from it. In Of National Characters, he justified it. When James Beattie of Aberdeen criticised Hume’s racist comments in 1770, Hume was unmoved. The last authorised edition of the essay, published in 1777, repeats the same sentiments, almost verbatim.
Edit: This seems a better fit for OM than MS's post – which is more about Banks being fired than cancelling per se. I may despise his racist rant, but that is incommensurable to a reckoning for historical crimes against humanity.
Private virtue and making a contribution to the history of philosophy, science or art are different things I guess. That Ezra Pound became an anti-Semite fascist sympathiser won't stop me loving the poems of his 'Cathay' collection. Somewhere (I couldn't begin to understand or describe exactly where) we cross a boundary from one to the other.
Conquest and slavery where universal features of all human societies, and while considered undesirable if you were on the losing end – they were largely accepted as legitimate aspects of life for millenia.
That Hume, or anyone else of his era for that matter, doesn't tick everyone of our present day list of essential virtues is hardly surprising.
You cannot call disgust at Hume's support of the slave-trade anachronistic, when many of his own contemporaries disagreed with him. Specifically; "James Beattie of Aberdeen criticised Hume’s racist comments in 1770" (extracted from longer quote @1 above). Furthermore; as didn't die until August 1976, he would have been quite well aware of the growing abolitionist movement:
Some of the first freedom suits, court cases in the British Isles to challenge the legality of slavery, took place in Scotland in 1755 and 1769. The cases were Montgomery v. Sheddan (1755) and Spens v. Dalrymple (1769). Each of the slaves had been baptized in Scotland and challenged the legality of slavery. They set the precedent of legal procedure in British courts that would later lead to successful outcomes for the plaintiffs. In these cases, deaths of the plaintiff and defendant, respectively, brought an end before court decisions.
Yes I get that – but the abolition of slavery was not a single event and at some arbitrary point in time. It was a process that took all of a century or more to achieve even some of it’s goals.
Keep in mind that if we had a complete historic record of the views of virtually anyone living in that era, us moderns would find grounds to cancel them one way or another.
If we agree to ignore the issue of alleged presentism for the sake of argument (without implying that either of us is conceding the point), the tower itself was not built until 1963. By that time, there was a growing slave-descended population in Britain from her former colonies. Also, the philosopher’s 1753 essay; Of National Characters, was then known. Though Waldman had not yet uncovered the documents evidencing Hume's involvement in the slave-trade.
This is not some ancient temple being renamed, it is a fairly ugly tower block. Why should the students of today; who started the petition to rename the building, have to endure the shadow of past exploitation? Should students have no say on the campus environment within which they study?
If they were suggesting burning all the Hume books in the Edinburgh University library, I would not at all approve. But there is a difference between refusing to celebrate an oppressor, and erasing them from history.
There are no perfect people; but we do celebrate those who like Hume, managed to rise above their imperfections and failings to achieve at least one thing remarkable and significant. This we can memoralise – because if we look for dross we quickly find it's ubiquitous, banal and teaches us nothing.
It's said that it's never a good idea to meet with your heroes. Like all of us, they too have feet of clay.
exactly. People are more complicated than a single pass/fail tally at the end.
Celebrating someone celebrates their shortcomings as well as their positive aspects: you can't put up a statue dedicated only to the good bits of what someone did. It's a statue of the entire person, "warts and all"…
As a devotee of Lynch, I believe that achievement is its own reward.
Regarding memorials/statues/monuments/place names/buildings/plaques etc. etc. that honor achievers, IMHO we should 'celebrate' them "warts and all" (thanks McFlock). Education is the key – get itout in the open!
What to do with markers of our colonial past?
(Introduction; Our Imperial past is all around us; Comparing New Zealand's debate with the United States)
"Visit our skills section of the Classroom to find some ideas as to how we can interrogate the memorials and monuments from our past to support a social inquiry approach to learning and support teachers and students to engage with issues and ideas critically."
How far does this principle apply? Do we cancel Aristotle? Does it only apply to dead white men? Do we cancel the Romans for having the most enduring (and often brutal) empire of history? Do we dig up every historic deed and scrutinise it for some reason to erase it?
All these are absurdities of course, because history can never be changed. We're allowed to re-examine what we think it means, but imposing our values on the lives of our ancestors always struck me as arrogant and dishonest.
Arrogant because the reality is that if we were to be living in that same period, within the same culture, we too would almost certainly have believed and acted exactly as they did. We all like to think we would have been the moral heroes in history, but the brutal reality is that the odds are very much against that.
And dishonest because the real motive I think has nothing to do with improving the lives of living people, but to feed into a narrative that selectively discredits anything to do with Western civilisation.
If Western Civilisation is being more frequently targeted with a more nuanced view of historical figures, maybe Western Civilisation shouldn't have spent several hundred years teaching its kids and people in its occupied territories that history revolves almost exclusively around shallow outlines of figures from Western Civilisation.
At some point we should come to terms with the reality that Western civ has dominated much of the past 400 years or so for a number of good reasons. But that era largely ended with the end of WW2.
And while it was the last of a series of empires stretching back 10 millenia, it was also a substantial factor in creating the initial technical, economic and social platforms on which humanity is now building a wholly new global civilisation.
A platform the whole of humanity will necessarily extend and enhance as this century progresses. In time I suspect future generations will regard Western civ, flawed as it was by it's own location in the age of empires, as a remarkable catalyst toward achieving the unity of humankind.
Or in short, like the figures of history some are so keen to cancel, we're better off embracing the whole of our history as it truly is – warts and all.
Who has suggested that we "cancel Aristotle" (whatever that means), or the Romans, or the Egyptians for that matter?
If you really believe that the real motive behind a "warts and all" recontextualisation (my preference) of abhorent historical practices is to selectively discredit "anything to do with Western civilisation", then we'll have to agree to disagree.
Hey all we need to do is stick up an accompanying statue of a figure in chains, pointing accusingly at the person in question. It should be at least the same size.
Someone with a Harold subscription …. for my sins, fill your boots.
While Craig was largely self-represented he did seek legal assistance in the preparation of his claim and during trial. He sought more than $150,000 for this and was also awarded disbursements of $95,000 by Justice Edwards.
The most damaging falsehood published by Slater, Craig argued at November's hearing, was the allegation he was abusing his position as leader of the party to carry out a "witch-hunt" and commit electoral fraud.
"One cannot run for office if there has been a finding of electoral fraud," he said.
Justice Edwards said the defamatory statements relating to personal sexual morality fall into a different category, her decision released to the Herald reads.
"The damage caused by these statements must take into account that Mr Craig was found to have sexually harassed Ms MacGregor and that other statements directed at this aspect of Mr Craig's character were found to be true. That does not mean Mr Craig did not suffer further reputational damage which must be compensated.
"But it does mean, as Mr Craig properly acknowledges, that the true statements moderate the impact of the defamatory statements relating to personal sexual morality."
Can't abide Colin Craig's politics and he made a real dick of himself lying in the grass trying to look all sensual in his political hey-day. His harassment of the young woman who worked as his secretary (or whatever) was indefensible but the malicious defamatory nature of the Slater creep, whose list of criminal and dishonest offending makes Craig's copybook seem quite clean in comparison, should be once again exposed for all eyes to see.
You reap what you sow and Slater's sure reaping it now.
What would the response be if the Gov announced on Monday that they were going to re-establish the MoW and 'borrow' the funds to implement a housing and infrastructure programme that will provide training and employment for anyone who wanted it?
How about this hypothetical MoW instituting a; work-share scheme, where they act as an intermediary to businesses who need a certain number of hours of work done each week? 4day weeks (particularly when no more than two days worked in a row) result in more productive workers. Certainly a lot better than the; precarious on-call "independent contractor" shiftwork, that leaves people in a constant state of; anxiety, sleep-deprivation, and unable to plan (or schedule) for the future.
If this MoW were to act to ease some of the "compliance costs" of employing more workers, rather than sweating those workers they do employ, some businesses might even get onboard with the idea. And once it was demonstrated that; less miserable workers are more productive workers, other businesses should jump on the train too.
Unless the managerial class are only giving lip service to the primacy of the bottom-line in Capitalism? Because it seems that some businesses (not even mentioning alleged names here, due to concerns for legal consequences for TS), would rather operate with the main goal of the grinding down their workers, so as to puff up the sense of self-satisfaction of their "betters". For that, they need the spectre of joining the hungry horde of unemployed with which to threaten those in low-quality jobs (/contracts). Especially now that the supply of compliant overseas workers willing to surrender their passports to their employers (/residence-sponsers) has been curtailed with the pandemic.
why would it be make work? If we need more trained tradies, the govt can make that happen and establish jobs to build the houses. It's not like they're making up jobs.
fair point. I took that to mean that those that want work in the building industry would be able to get a job (because there would be heaps), but training people not suited is not a good idea and I wouldn't trust WINZ in that regard.
Yes, Weka. Pat's hypothetical MoW should not involve any current WINZ (especially managerial) staff.
They would bring along the punitive mindset that has caused so much misery for some many impoverished people over the years. To the extent that some of our more vulnerable Aotearoans would rather; beg in the streets, and sleep rough, rather than deal with their pusillanimous spite.
I would rather see a Ministry of Works that is not trying to also be an employment or training agency as a major function. Stuff needs to be built. Well.
I also agree with the first concept, but I suspect there are different concepts as to what a new MoW should be doing. I believe a priority is for engineers, designers, architects, and of course lawyers ad accountants to work with contractors to deliver solutions across the "Works" needs of central, regional and local government. The Kaikoura road development worked better than examples like the Kapiti Expressway and Transmission Gully because it was an emergency – government employees worked with private companies to just get on with it as one team; we have left so much to the private sector that many projects become a legal battle over interpretation s, between a government with a chequebook and a single purpose company which folds when it has made its money. The new MoW should supervise / monitor / approve work stages, but I would not expect it to employ apprentices; it may own some equipment from time to time; but it should also encourage competitive industries by using both large and small firms as appropriate.
There should be a government sponsored job guarantee program. This is because only a government has the financial capacity to guarantee enough work is available, while the private sector will only create as much work as is profitable.
The alternative is a near permanent shortfall in total jobs, leaving the worst off without the benefits of employment and dependent on benefits, through no fault of their own.
This has been well established since, and was the main improvement of Keynes General Theory over established theory of its day.
I would expect that some form of MoW would be required to implement a 'green new deal' so obviously it could have a range of roles , not necessarily manual labour as appears to have been construed and on job training is very effective, indeed critical, even after tertiary education, so there should be no fears there.
Historically the MoW designed , oversaw and often constructed our major projects in transport (including rail), power generation, irrigation etc sometimes in partnership with the private sector…..all things that need addressing for CC mitigation.
There appears to be no consideration/concern on the impact on the private sector, or the financial implications….but for some reason WINZ features?
No, not yet Treetop. But I am social distancing and mask wearing as if we were, when in public. PAL2, and maybe even higher in te Ika Nui may well be on the way; especially if that Auckland pair were indeed working in that BBQ King asian restaurant in Albany after leaving the Pullman. People really must remember to keep track of their movements; a little time now, may mean a lot of time later.
I don't care if you use a 5cent paper notebook, or the newest phone: Just remember to record your movements at the time! You will have forgotten details by the end of the day (unless you're eidetic I guess, in which case you already have an internal record).
The most affected at level 2 is the hospitality and entertainment industry, weddings and funerals as no more than 100 people at a venue with the exception of split groups of 100 at some locations churches, library's.
When it comes to limited community transmission could be occurring (see 4.3) this is evident when a cluster has formed.
I would like to see a level 2 for a period of 2 weeks when ever there are 3 or more separate community cases. Waiting for active clusters in more than one region is being to slow. Covid thrives in group settings and has a way of ramping up cases. Going from level 1 to level 3 appears to be the norm in NZ.
Please don’t confuse community case with community transmission. Unless there is a very recent update (AKA ‘breaking news’) that I have not seen or missed, there is no evidence of community transmission despite the dramatic increase in number of tests. There is also no sign of clusters. I don’t even think you can argue that the current community cases are “separate”. Level 1 is the appropriate level for now, IMO.
I am aware of the difference between what a community case is and what community transmission is. I have not said that there is current community transmission. A current level 2 is when there is community transmission.
I have made it clear that there would need to be 3 separate community cases before a level 2. Every time there is a community case there is a chance of community transmission occurring. So far 2 separate community cases have occurred and the origin is known. I have set the bench mark at 3 separate community cases as I feel that staying at level 1 is not enough.
I knew you were going to ask me why 3 was my limit.
Contact tracing and testing needs to occur without any delay. The resources for this need to be available where ever the community case has occurred. Going to level 2 would reduce gatherings to 100 so as not to exhaust contact tracing and testing resources.
But without a knowledge of average contact numbers and tracing and testing capacity, 3 is still an arbitrary number.
If the government can handle tracing dozens of people and testing thousands, no need to go to level two.
If the government can't trace and test all the infected contacts from one person, we end up with community transmission and going up a few levels anyway.
Limited community transmission could be occurring.
Active clusters in more than 1 region.
Neither of those things are happening. Certainly no reason for the whole country to be in L2, but I'm don't think that even in Ak/Northland it's necessary. Last time I looked the govt is saying there is no community transmission.
I have noticed the change in people's behaviour when there is a community case. Testing and scanning which is the right thing to do. I do not want people to be complacent regardless of where they live. Staying at level 1 could add to the complacency.
For those trying to make sense of the sex/gender wars, one of the features is the weaponisation of semantics.
Gender Critical Feminists use the term 'sex' to mean biological sex at the level of human reproduction, hence bio sex is immutably binary (for humans to reproduce you need a person who produces sperm and a person who produces and egg, and there are only those two options, there is no third or fourth).
The smash the binary activists use the term 'sex' to mean something or things less well defined (and almost always ignore the sperm/egg definition). Often sex and gender are conflated and there is a large degree of fudginess.
Hence someone arguing that the biological categories of male and female didn't exist before some humans came up with the concepts. This doesn't work at the biological level obviously, but I'm not sure it works at the social level either. It's the denial of science that is going to bite up big time though.
Biology denial will become absolutelty dominant in social and political discourse unless you stand up to it. pic.twitter.com/mIwjxX9Mbu
If we are talking; biology, then we are wading into the ongoing nature/ nurture scientific debate. For this, we need to be aware of the terms; genotype & phenotype, and how the are linked. Genotype denotes the genetic configuration of an organism, whilst: Phenotype indicates how that genotype is expressed within a given environment. Hopefully everyone already understands what I mean by; base-pair, DNA, RNA, gene, chromosome, nucleus, cell, coding, allele & trait? I will try use only Wikipedia links (because I could easily get too technical for some if I started linking to primary sources), however; my pre-teen kids could understand this explanation, if you need a brief reminder (and the hyperlink skip times in the description are useful for navigation):
Also, none of this will make much sense if you deny the; rigorously demonstrated scientific fact (to avoid confusion about the jargon "theory") of environmentally mediated genetic evolution. Basically; genes on chromosomes code alleles. So we have got as far as; Mendalian genetics, Punnett squares & SB chromosomes, already; yay!
However, that is a gross oversimplification for human gene expression, it works okay for some flower's colours though. Most genes interact with other genes in the process of gene expression. Furthermore, these interacting genes also interact with their environment. Moreover, intercodons; supposedly "inactive" DNA between genes on a chrmosome, mess everything up (to an almost Lamarckian extent).
Fundamental to the way in which organisms cope with environmental variation, phenotypic plasticity encompasses all types of environmentally induced changes (e.g. morphological, physiological, behavioural, phenological) that may or may not be permanent throughout an individual's lifespan. The term was originally used to describe developmental effects on morphological characters, but is now more broadly used to describe all phenotypic responses to environmental change, such as acclimation (acclimatization), as well as learning.[2] The special case when differences in environment induce discrete phenotypes is termed polyphenism.
So now, that we've had that brief (& very incomplete) biological primer, I can actually address Weka's comment: We can take; Man and Woman, to be socially defined phenotypic terms for human genders, because their development (through Old English to Archaic Deutsch, maybe even as far back as ancient Babylon – though that's a stretch) predated the discovery of evolution, let alone chromosomes (we didn't even know there were 46 of them in humans until 1956!). Whereas; Male and Female, are used as jargon to denote sex (noun, not verb); Genotypes XY or XX, on the 23rd chromosomal pair respectively.
In humans, the presence of the Y chromosome is typically responsible for triggering male development; in the absence of the Y chromosome, the fetus will undergo female development. More specifically, it is the SRY gene located on the Y chromosome that is of importance to male differentiation… In most species in XY sex determination, an organism must have at least one X chromosome in order to survive.
So when someone is being called a; TIF (Trans-Identifying Female), rather than a; trans-Man, that is not actually incorrect, scientifically; though it is culturally offensive (not getting into why that is so now – this comment is long enough as it is!). The currently preferred term; AFAB (Assigned Female At Birth), is likewise not scientifically incorrect – and has the added bonus of not getting you punched in the face if you say it (testosterone can be a powerful mood destabilizer to those still getting used to it; during their first, or second, puberty).
Thus we (finally!) get to the point of addressing; eNBee (NonBinary), criticism of the assumption of a gender binary in humans. Sometimes, a person's phenotype has developed such that they do not much identify with either gender. And it gets tiring to be constantly questioned about knowing our own minds; on the basis of biology, by people who may not know the difference between; a genotype and a phenotype. If it helps to think of us as trans-Intergender, then I wouldn't be upset, though others might be if you said that out loud.
Sex assignment at birth usually aligns with a child's anatomical sex and phenotype. The number of births where the baby is intersex has been reported to be as low as 0.018% or as high as roughly 1.7%, depending on which conditions are counted as intersex.
when you cut and paste from wikipedia the links stay active and above a certain amount in a comment on TS you will get caught in the spam filter. Can't remember what the number is but your comment above had too many links in it.
I probably should have split it into two or more parts, yes; Weka. But I assumed that I'd be banned for that reply, so figured that I'd just post it all at once (& make a reply to RL on our then current discussion before the hammer came down), then go do some gardening. Starting to cool down a bit now, so I am back inside getting dinner in the oven for when the kids come home from their granny's. Pleasantly surprised to see that I can still comment here.
Think I misunderstood your previous mod instruction upthread. I thought you were saying that I should keep the length of each individual quote shorter, not that I should have turned the hyperlinks into plain text. Will try remember in future.
You need to remove links if you don't want your comments to end up in the spam filter. Overly long cut and pastes will sometimes get deleted by moderators, so best to avoid that too. There's a bit in the Policy about that. So that’s two separate but overlapping things.
People don't generally get banned for content here, unless it is grossly in breach of the Policy. People get banned for behaviour or for putting the site at risk legally. I'm not seeing you doing either of those things. It does get tedious for moderators to constantly have to point this out though.
So you basically just ignored my point, and presented one of the TA arguments. Which is fine, and I guess it reinforces what I was saying.
GCFs use the word 'sex' to refer to how mammals, including humans, reproduce. One person type has sperm, the other person type has eggs, one of each are needed to reproduce the species. There is not alternative to that for Homo sapiens.
How humans talk about gender, or sex in social terms, is a different matter, but the point I was making is that the semantics cause a lot of confusion and people talking past each other. The issue over what 'sex' means, and how biological or social sex should be defined is largely undermined by the inability and/or unwillingness of both sides of the war to talk with each other to gain understanding (this imo is the massive problem with the 'no debate' position).
I totally get why trans and NB people want to have a go at defining sex, but I also totally get why women do too and why they're so pissed off about what is going down.
Except "GCFs" apply that measure to people without sperm or eggs or any other reproductive capability, and to people who have combinations of other reproductive features.
Which in a population of five million tends to start excluding (sorry, being critical of) hundreds or thousands of people or even more.
Ahem, maybe try not engaging in dishonest smears. You were explaining why so called GCFs view is invalid (despite being consistent with biological science). I on the other hand did not make any value judgements with that statement.
The binary model of sex, even for mammals, is ok for primary school. Slamming everyone into that model (be it based on sperm or organs or genetics) will exclude and marginalise dozens, hundreds, or thousands of NZers. That's in addition to the thousands who "GCFs" intend to exclude and marginalise.
That’s why “0.02%” matters.
Your criticism is still of so called GCFs use of an abstraction and presumably the fact that a small subset of people don't fit neatly into one of the two categories. But as discussed the two categories used by society are somewhat simplistic and there are some people with abnormalities.
Now, just because there is a categorisation this does not marginalise anybody because they don't fit neatly into it. It is in fact the manner in which someone is treated based on their category (or lack there of) which is the cause of any marginalisation.
So its really about time for you to explain why so called GCFs claims that the category female is biological are wrong. This would be much more welcome than further dishonest claims about value judgements I never made.
Actually in the tweet I started the thread with and the one you originally replied to, I was talking about two things: biology, and the semantics used to discuss that in two sides of the sex/gender wars.
"That's in addition to the thousands who "GCFs" intend to exclude and marginalise."
Would you mind pointing to some examples of GCFs intending to exclude and marginalise intersex people?
ok, so you believe that I am intentionally wanting to exclude intersex people from society because I pointed out that there is a reality backed up by science that humans reproduce via two sex classes? Despite me not having said that nor believing that that intersex people should be excluded.
So any discussion of binary sex is intersexphobic? Or just when GCFs do it?
Nic, I agree. Especially as I started the thread by pointing out that the differences in understanding of the word is part of why there is a war and lack of understanding.
Restricting a conversation to two precisely-defined categories marginalises everyone who does not neatly fit into either of those defined categories. They never come up in consideration.
Marginalising intersex people is an unintended byproduct of intentionally marginalising trans people by insisting sex is binary.
But yeah, when we fall into patterns of assuming that everyone is a male or a female, it's just as marginalising as assuming everyone is het, whether we intend to or not.
So no, when you or I assume sex is binary, we're not intentionally marginalising intersex people. We're doing it unintentionally.
thanks McFlock. So, sorry to keep banging on about it, but semantics.
If the definition of sex that GCFs want to use, in order to talk about the oppression of the sex class of females, is the one I gave originally (egg/sperm etc), then are you saying this is intentionally transphobic and unintentionally intersexphobic?
If you are saying that GCFs/women shouldn't talk about their own sex class using a definition based in physical reality backed up by science that describes their experience in the world, would you mind explaining why trans activists get to choose a definition that suits them but GCFs don't?
Also, how is denying binary sex not sexist, where binary sex is the basis upon which women are oppressed?
But the trans debate doesn't just involve GCFs talking about themselves and their own identity alone. A common topic of discussion is the people they wish to exclude from that description be it in sports or public amenities or whatever.
As for "scientific", either according to definition of sex or indeed any advantage non-binary people might have in competitions, actual biologists and sports physiologists seem to find things less clear cut, in my nonlinking experience.
One position of GCFs is that there is a conflict of rights, and that we need an open and transparent discussion about those, so we can figure out what is fair and what society should do. That discussion is actively suppressed in a number of important ways – by trans activists, by social media platforms, by trans allied organisations, by MRAs and other bad faith actors online, by cancel culture, by political parties. It's extraordinary and I've never seen anything else like it in politics.
Sports is a good topic to go into, because then we can stop talking about trans people, and talk about trans women, trans men, women and men, and it becomes much easier to talk about biology and why it matters. GCFs don't exclude trans people from sports, they say that women's sports should be for females (so trans ppl can still take part in sports, but TW shouldn't have automatic access to women's sports).
Yes, there are some tricky cases where it's unclear about someone's biological sex, but that's different from males wanting to take part in women's sports on the basis of gender identity, which is by far the biggest number of people. GCFs are saying it should be biologically based (and have pretty good rationales for that), TAs say it should be based on GI, and then often start conflating that with bio sex, but the evidence is very strong (and growing) that most TW have similar biological advantages as other males in relation to competing against women.
Again, the issues of fairness there are affected by biology, and by social concerns. To say that women should give up sex-segregated sports in order for other people to be included needs an explanation for why women should give that up.
Am curious how you see people who ID as NB participating in sport. At high school, once scholarships kick in, and at the elite level. NB people who aren't physically transitioning.
not sure what you are getting at there "McFlock". GCFs generally understand what intersex is, and where you start talking about inclusion you're now talking about social aspects of sex/gender, not biological ones.
The woman in the OT isn't talking about intersex people, she is saying that there is no such thing as male/female at all, that it was invented by humans as a concept. I pointed out that the two sides of the war use language in distinctly different ways and that this is important in understanding what is going on. I don't know if she is meaning the social aspects alone or if she literally means there is no such thing as bio binary sex, but this isn't an uncommon assertion. Hence my pointing to the issue of semantics.
Are you suggesting that because of the existence of intersex people and the need to normalise their existence in society (which I agree with obviously), that there is no such thing as biological sex as defined above? It's not that all humans have to produce either sperm or eggs, it's that the species cannot reproduce without the combination of the two, one coming from one sex category and the other coming from the other. If you believe that intersex people indicate that this is false, can you please explain how.
The common response from GC people at this point is that humans are biologically bipedal even if some humans are born without two legs.
Classifying humans as bipedal doesn't mean one refuses to make spaces accessible to people without legs.
Defining sex in regards to theoretical reproductive capacity is a contrived (old people? Infertile people? vasectomies?) and convoluted way of telling people which bathrooms they should be excluded from.
that's quite a few, very large leaps you are making there McFlock.
Understanding binary sex =/= refusing to make spaces for people on the basis of gender.
How humans reproduce isn't theoretical, it's physical reality. Nor does understanding human reproduction mean anything about whether individuals can reproduce, nor assign morality/values to those people that can and can't. That would be the patriarchy and neoliberalism that does that.
The point that I can't tell if you don't get or are ignoring is that feminists want to be able to talk about the basis of the oppression of women and that's not possible if they aren't allowed to talk about biological sex. People are free to disagree with them, but the push to say that there is no such thing as biological sex is hugely problematic for feminists, and I would have thought humans generally given the rise of anti-science culture.
If you want to argue that there is no such thing as biologically female and male, that's fine (I disagree obv), but what you appear to be doing today is saying that definitions of binary sex are prejudicial so let's pretend they're not real.
Biological sex is real. Binary sex is not – it's a child's oversimplification.
And that is important, because much of the discussion involving biological definitions of sex ends up being which individuals have to use what toilet based on a binary set of labels on the door.
sure, but that's a social issue and we haven't yet dealt with the baseline issue of semantics that prevents understanding of why we end up talking about toilets.
For instance, I'm not seeing anything in what you've said that suggests you understand the GCF view that starts with biological sex as binary, and why it matters to understand that and for feminists to be able to talk about it.
The argument over toilets is a really good example of why the semantic issues matters, not least because so many people use that to dismiss women's concerns and politics. Buggered if I know why you would be arguing for men's access to women's toilets though. Maybe you think you're arguing for transsexual women's access, but that's not what's happening out there in the world.
(you also appear to be saying binary sex is real and not real /shrug).
yeah, and maybe you think this oft-repeated discussion is an essential semantic debate that will solve something, rather than just another instance of marginalising the thousands of NZers who don't neatly fit into one box or t'other. But in the real world…
I made it clear that I was talking about sex not gender (incl gender identity). There's nothing inherently exclusionary about talking about binary sex within feminist politics. You've asserted there is but haven't demonstrated out. You've made some leaps from my original points to somehow this being about keeping trans people (read TW) out of women's bathrooms, but as already pointed out they're mightly leaps that have no evidence in this discussion.
I mean I can make mighty leaps too, based on having heard this arguments so many times. Women should cede their politics, and given up their sex based rights, because other people are being marginalised by the same shitty system that oppresses women. You're basically arguing for men to have access to women's spaces (physical, cultural, political) and to uphold the systems that oppress women (and trans ppl for that matter). That's sexist af.
Nek minnit, the conversation breaks down. There was a reason I said at the start that the semantics are critical in understanding the war.
You're basically arguing for men to have access to women's spaces (physical, cultural, political) and to uphold the systems that oppress women (and trans ppl for that matter).
There’s nothing inherently exclusionary about talking about binary sex within feminist politics.
This is strictly true but if the ‘talking about binary sex within feminist politics’ is that a person must meet the bio-binary definition of female to be part of the class Women, then that politics definitionally excludes trans and intersex women, and NB people.
Yep, exactly. Like I said at the start, the semantics matter a great deal.
In this case, I meant males. I find it easier to talk about men, women, trans women, trans men, it's pretty clear then what is biology and what is gender ID.
Self ID means that any male can have access to women's space – toilets and changing rooms, refuges and rape crisis, women's prisons, sports teams, scholarships and political positions etc. This is the push from transactivists (in the UK from what I can tell they want the sex exemptions that enable women's spaces removed from law entirely), and it's a big part of why many left wing feminists who were previously largely unconcerned about TW using women's toilets suddenly mobilised and got politically active.
In case it's not clear, my point in the previous comment was about men not trans women (although I think there are issues with and for TW too).
This is strictly true but if the ‘talking about binary sex within feminist politics’ is that a person must meet the bio-binary definition of female to be part of the class Women, then that politics definitionally excludes trans and intersex women, and NB people.
Yes. Women need to retain the rights in law based on being female (let me know if you need an explanation why). This is exclusionary of males too, and exclusion isn't inherently wrong. For instance, as Pākehā I support Māori to have their own spaces separate from non-Māori. Likewise I also support trans people to have their own spaces.
What I took McFlock to be saying was that exclusion of trans people from being able to take part fully in society is wrong, and I agree with that. But that's a different thing.
Would you mind explaining why NB males should have access to women's spaces, for example a women's track team, or a position in a political party that is specified for women because of societal sexism?
Would you mind explaining why NB males should have access to women's spaces, for example a women's track team, or a position in a political party that is specified for women because of societal sexism?
I didn't advocate for that so I have no explanation for most of that but I did say non-binary people, because a NB peson who was assigned female at birth would prefer non-gendered terms.
that's cool arkie, I've yet to see a good explanation about the NB side of it. Or any explanation really, other than that women shouldn't have their own spaces and should share with everyone else. My reading of that is that the place we are heading towards is removal of sex class protections entirely, and that should be a concern for the left as a whole not just feminists.
So it's not actually the semantics that are the problem, it's who gets to be an arbiter of someone's sex – themselves or someone else.
Both of which have issues, especially when biases are thrown in – upthread you asked about my attitudes to elite sport.
Professional sports advantage people with differences that give them an advantage in that sport – height, reach, muscle development, etc.
So here's one of the many articles that questions why Caster Semenya had to medically lower the testosterone levels that apparently gave her an advantage, when Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt have other biological advantages over their competition and that is regarded as fine.
Where traits determined to be of another sex give an advantage in a discipline, then that will eventually affect every top-level athlete in that discipline, as sports scouts optimise their scouting to get people with those advantages. So maybe athletics will have to get more nuanced than binary, too.
edit: my brain hurts, so I might leave the thread until tomorrow.
Semantics aren't the problem, they're an issue in talking about sex/gender that isn't often identified early on and leads to much confusion and people talking past each other (and in other contexts, the semantics are weaponised).
Yes, who gets to define sex is central to the whole thing. Feminists are saying, hey you cannot talk about definitions of sex that affect women without talking to us. We've had this discussion before. Women weren't consulted because Stats NZ (and the GP) think that GCF views on this don't matter or are a problem, so they actively seek to avoid or suppress them. The semantics issue is inherent in what Stats NZ is doing too.
Semenya isn't trans. My point about sports above was about trans women wanting to compete in women's sports, and the fairness issues this raises. Yes, all sorts of biology factors into sports, and the research is showing clearly that in many sports, the advantage that males have over females survives transition. It certainly exists before transition. And testosterone measuring is insufficient.
At the class level, in most sports, males out compete females because of biology. This is why we have sex segregated sports. Looking at individual advantages, and finessing how elite sports manages that, won't stop women from losing out as their sports are opened up to males.
Would love to hear how NB people fit into this too. If trans people should be included in the category of their choice on the basis of self-ID, why not NB people? Make an argument for abolishing sex segregated sports then I guess.
this popped up on twitter today because the Scottish government, very strongly advocating for trans rights at the expense of women's rights, has admitted that sex is binary.
2. It is not the role of the Scottish Government to have a view on this matter. However, there is general scientific consensus that, although exhibited at lower levels than some other species, human beings are considered to be sexually dimorphic.
But even though we are not extremely dimorphic nor extremely non-dimorphic, we are still a species with a binary system of sex in that there are only two reproductive roles.
The treatment of Semenya is what happens when a dimorphic continuum is mashed into a binary categorisation. Some pretty shitty treatment of people who might not be close to one of the poles, when only transwomen are supposed to be treated shittily.
The earth has two geographic poles. But almost nobody is at the "north pole" or the "south pole".
are you saying that you believe sex is a spectrum that sits between two poles?
By all means talk about the fairness with Semenya. I haven't looked at her situation closely so would be interested to hear ideas on how it can be resolved. But intersex and trans people aren't the same, so I'm just not sure what that has to do with opening up women's sports to males. If you want to make a case for desegregating sport by sex, please do. Otherwise as far as I can see the argument is that some males should be allowed to compete against any and all females, irrespective of fairness to women. Understandably, a lot of women aren't too happy about that.
As for the north and south pole, Flo Jo is the fastest ever recorded female runner of 100m. She runs it in 10.49s.
"In 2017, 744 senior males ran 2825 100m races faster than 10.49s"
Biological sex is binary, it confers advantages differently in both sexes, and at the level of class that matters. I don't believe that the social issues of fairness for trans people (trans women in this case) can be resolved by ignoring the issues for women that exist because of physicality (material reality in the GCF lingo).
I'm saying that that's what your twitter link says dimorphic means, and thats what the Scottish parliament called it.
What intersex, trans, or women with significantly higher than average testosterone levels have in common is that they don't fit neatly into a binary sex categorisation. That applies whether the rule is self-ID or an external arbiter applying some contrived binary construction.
I don't think that's what Elliot is saying, but let's leave it for another time when we have better reply function and it's easier to track the thread.
Yes, binary sex is a bitch under patriarchal systems. How we solve that without throwing women, trans people, GNC people, intersex people under the bus is what interests me.
I don't think she is saying there is no such thing as male/female but that humans have imposed a male/female definition on something that is more nuanced biologically and socially than that. Isn't your point, that different groups are talking past each other because of how they have different definitions of who is male, female or something else, the point that she is making, that the point of defining sex was so that we could have intelligent conversations based on assumptions of shared common definitions.
Maybe she is talking social classifications but it looks to me like she is talking about biology as well. And there are definitely people who argue that biological sex is a social construct not an observed reality. Possibly she is conflating the two things, that happens a lot too. I looked up the tweet in its original context, and this is what she said,
we can still have complex & deeply personal feelings about things that are not real – and experience violence as a result of these constructions – but it makes no sense to lock trans people out of the scope of concern. sex and gender as constructed r ..not good ! For anyone
So let's assume she accepts that there is such a thing as biological sex that is binary (as in the GCF definition), but that she is talking about how humans assigned meaning to those two categories, and she believes that this is in a binary male/female form is damaging to humans and trans people in particular.
What I'd like to see is this idea debated widely. Because at this time it's being used to change laws that affect another class of people (women), and not only without asking them but actively suppressing the debate. That's a massive problem. Maybe Lola is right, maybe the GCFs are right, maybe there is something else we don't get yet. But it's important that we talk it through.
Biologists use the term either as a verb; sexual reproduction, or a noun; sexual dimorphism (actually, that's an adjective – but "sex" can stand in for both words as a noun). Calling eNBees; Trans-Hermaphrodites, certainly wouldn't be popular in the community; let alone be a Trans Activist talking point! I was trying to be as dispassionate as possible and let the biology speak for itself rather than bang the drum. It was actually nice to use my postgraduate education for once, it certainly doesn't get much of a workout most days!
But why only mammals? Birds do it; Bees do it; Even educated fleas do it…
However, what was your point if you weren't saying that; eNBees are wrong in criticizing the biological underpinnings of gender binary assumption? That still seems to be what you are saying, but I am a bit tired from all the typing and screen time. This reducing people to their reproductive capacity does seem a peculiar point for a feminist to be trying to defend. Where does that leave prepubescent girls, and post-menopausal women?
Let's make this simple. Irrespective of whether they be; Trans-Men, Trans-Women, or T-Hs, do you believe that trans people are people? And thus, presumably, able to know their own minds, without the truth being woman-splained to their poor inadequate selves: Asking for a friend – who couldn't take the constant harassment (to be fair; mostly from male family members), and so can't be here to ask for themself. What with being too dead from the suicidal depession that NZers seem only too keen to deepen. And another friend who went the same way… And another….
Mammals because that's what humans are. We're not insects or birds.
I'm not reducing people to reproductive capacity, so I think you've again misunderstood my point. There's nothing wrong with talking about our sexed bodies, it doesn't mean that is all we are. I'm of the class of humans that produces eggs, and that's been true from before I was born and until I die including as a girl and as a menopausal woman.
As for womansplaining, I wasn't talking about trans people, I was pointing to the issues in the gender/sex wars and the problems with the semantics around the definitions of sex. Trans people can bring to the table all the things they believe, and so can feminists and other women (both groups aren't hive minds and cover a range of beliefs). If you afford trans people the right to self-definition and self determination, I cannot see how you could then exclude women from having the same right. From that point there is the issue of how we talk about these things collectively and what is going to be useful for society.
Biologically speaking, you could say that we (and all other terrestrial vertebrates), are a kind of land-dwelling lobe-finned fish. In the same way that birds are a kind of dinosaur. Inasmuch as cladistics are a useful lens for examining evolution; where the descendant of an organism is recognized as being of a type with that organism. Say; a daughter is related to their mother, except times many generations. However, as this is not conventional usage of the designations, biologists generally agree to treat (lobe-finned – think coelacanth) fish and humans as entirely different things despite how they would be viewed if we weren't so anthropocentric.
Biology is not simple, so I become intensely suspicious of anyone who claims something is simply "biological". Given how long and hard I have had to struggle to achieve even the slight familiarity with the discipline that I have achieved.
Are these; "gender/sex wars", or are the disagreements between groups with different priorities? Wars just sounds so; needlessly dramatic, and like there is no room for compromise or de-escalation. I do like that you note that; "both groups aren't hive minds and cover a range of beliefs", though that is excluding cis-men; who are as damaged by the patriarchy as (almost) anyone.
It may be having spent too much time on this thread today, but I found this Wynn video that I stayed up late to finish watching is germane to the topic at hand:
Yes, feminism excludes men. There's nothing wrong with that. Likewise the trans umbrella. If you want a political movement or belief set that includes everyone try humanism, or the political left.
Are these; "gender/sex wars", or are the disagreements between groups with different priorities? Wars just sounds so; needlessly dramatic, and like there is no room for compromise or de-escalation.
I call it war because it is as you describe. Needlessly dramatic and little room for compromise or de-escalation. Imo that will remain so as along as one side takes the position of no debate and actively suppresses discussion.
And yes, groups with different priorities. GCFs name the conflict of rights, TAs deny there is any conflict of rights, and round and round it goes.
You see, Forget now, whatever salient or rational opinions the performer in your wee clip is intending to impart to us mere mortals is totally and utterly and irretrievably undermined at about 58 seconds when she states that JK Rowling 'can't stand transgenders'.
To my knowledge…and please provide proof if I'm mistaken…but Rowling never said or wrote such a thing.
This conversation would proceed much more smoothly without the lies and hyperbole.
eg the idea that JKR 'can't stand transgenders', in the context of violence and safety she wrote,
I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men.
Not conceding anything here, but probably best to leave yesterday's OM to yesterday. At least we didn't clutter up other threads with this bickering, and hopefully got it out of systems for a couple of days.
I have one more day of summer holidays to spend with my children. The sun is shining and I don't want to waste more time online today. Maybe I'll check in later on – this evening, but my brain will likely be mush by then.
I am not educated in biology, but I am a teacher of language, and I know the difference between a verb and a noun, and gerund(ive)s which enable the combination of their functions.
I thought instantly when I read your first paragraph 'sex as a verb': ah yes, "he sexes the frogs" means he examines them to specify which sex they are. (I nearly wrote 'gender' instead of 'sex'. How insensitive of me! Gender is a big linguistic term too, whereas 'sex' is not.)
I then checked my Collins dictionary, and it gave the very meaning of 'sex' I had understood as a verb, but no other. I cannot make grammatical sense of what you write after that point. As far as I remember I did not 'sex' (verb) my partner to produce our daughter; I had 'sex' (noun) with her.
'Sexual reproduction'? If biologists are using the verb 'sex' with that meaning, can you please give me an example? I want to know how words are being used in new and interesting ways.
If it was just a punctuation typo, sorry for being a boring pedant.
Saying the right words, at the right time, with the right timbre is a sure way to sex up things. The words may not mean anything but they sure can make an impact. The most important erogenous zone is between the ears; the word is mightier than the sword.
Example sentence: Homo Sapiens sometimes breed by having sex, and sometimes have sex while taking prophylactic measures to prevent offspring resulting from this sex. "Sexual reproduction" is a adverb plus a verb? No, that would be; reproduce, "intercourse would be a noun. It's more that "sex" can act as verb by shortening; "to sexually reproduce", to a single syllable. Though you may be right that that's a gerund, I'm not so good with grammar jargon. Anyway, the meaning is distinct from; "sex" as the primary and secondary characteristics that comprise a species' sexual dimorphism.
Plus, I did say I was tired earlier, even tireder now.
Thanks for the link, RMcD. I can't say it was exactly fun reading, but neither was it entirely news to me. I am typing on my phone with the kids catching up on their cartoons (after a week at family's bach where the only screen time was an uncle watching yachts races). So I can't quote any of it though.
I did find the barely repressed glee at; Newbold having the opportunity to study DES toxicity in research that could never have otherwise got ethical clearance to conduct, a bit embarrassing as a scientist. I did recognize it as being similar to the studies into the thalidomide catastrophe however; which, while a disaster for those affected, is fascinating from a biological perspective.
Yeh, there's a reason why scientists have independent ethical approval boards. It's a bit easy to get caught up in the pursuit of knowledge and not notice yourself becoming monstrous. Psychology experiments like; Milgram's compliance studies, come to mind.
Anyway, I probably won't posting much today with taking kids for a swim onceit warms up a bit more. But couldn't find your comment last night, and did want to acknowledge your contribution.
yes Gabby, they are. Just in the same way that our ancestors breathed in air composed of oxygen, nitrogen, and a few other gases for a very long time before science humans invented the ability to identify those gases.
Details of the investigations are contained in a massive police database obtained by The Intercept: the product of a reporting tool developed by private defense company Landasoft and used by the Chinese government to facilitate police surveillance of citizens in Xinjiang.
The database, centered on Ürümqi, includes policing reports that confirm and provide additional detail about many elements of the persecution and large-scale internment of Muslims in the area. It sheds further light on a campaign of repression that has reportedly seen cameras installed in the homes of private citizens, the creation of mass detention camps, children forcibly separated from their families and placed in preschools with electric fences, the systematic destruction of Uyghur cemeteries, and a systematic campaign to suppress Uyghur births through forced abortion, sterilization, and birth control
[…]
The Ürümqi Police Database Reveals:
How Chinese authorities collect millions of text messages, phone contacts, and call records, as well as e-commerce and banking records, from Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.
Invasive surveillance techniques watch for signs of religious enthusiasm, which are generally equated with extremism.
Evidence that biometric data collected under the “Physicals for All” health program feeds into the police surveillance system.
Police use community informants to collect massive amounts of information on Uyghurs in Ürümqi.
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Completed reads for February: The Dream of Scipio, by CiceroThe Dragon Masters, by Jack Vance The Dream of Scipio is Pearman’s translation. A very quiet month in the reading department… but a truly excellent one in the writing department. Better yet, this was not merely short stories, but solid ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (Colombia, 18 February 2020) Two soldiers, Jhony Andrés Castillo Ospino and Jesús Alberto Muñoz Segovia, fell into the hands of the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN; National Liberation Army). Their capture produced the usual reactions that they had been kidnapped when in fact they were prisoners ...
As much of the world is still implementing lockdowns, including New Zealand, it is a good time to see how Sweden has fared. After being demonised for a year for having relatively moderate restrictions the Swedish death toll is rather much in line with other years. Sweden followed the standard ...
Under The Influence Of The "Governance" Kool-Aid: The furore surrounding Mayor Andy Foster's "review" of the Wellington City Council's "governance" is but the latest example of the quite conscious delegitimization, and sinister re-framing, of spirited political opposition and debate as irresponsible, immature and “dysfunctional”. It shows how very far from ...
Hello there everybody. I’ve been asked by Mr Thinks to come on his blog today and speak my mind about stuff. The government has a lot to answer for. I was sitting there last week as Auckland came out of it’s latest lockdown and I knew the government was making ...
There are times when tikanga needs to be broken for tikanga to survive.I recently gave a presentation on Māori economic history based on my Not in Narrow Seas. Its most important message was that Māori proved to be a very adaptable people continually evolving as new opportunities arose. The European ...
Some of you may remember our blog post "A conundrum: our continued presence on Facebook" in which we detailed our misgivings about and decision to stick with Facebook for the time being. So these latest developments - reposted from the Cranky Uncle homepage - might come as a bit of surprise! ...
Image credit:Quick Data Lessons: Data Dredging Oh dear – another scientific paper claiming evidence of toxic effects from fluoridation. But a critical look at the paper shows evidence of p-hacking, data dredging and motivated reasoning to derive their conclusions. And it was published in a journal shown to be ...
We've had a housing crisis for the past decade, and successive governments have done nothing to solve it. Why not? Bernard Hickey gets it right when he says its all about protecting the rich: The Government is reluctant to push down house prices fearing they'll loses the support of ...
There’s more of the Obama legacy here and Deporter in Chief: Obama chucks out 2,000,000 and Can Trump really deport more people than Obama? and Obama, gay rights and the killing drones ...
My Department Right Or Wrong: Far from “politicians involving themselves in some Corrections matters” being a bad thing, their involvement – along with that of the Ombudsman – constitutes a necessary check upon the unreasonable and unlawful exercise of authority over prison inmates by prison staff. A Corrections Minister who ...
New Zealand is supposed to have a progressive tax system, which taxes people according to their ability to pay. But it turns out that the rich are cheating: The wealthiest New Zealanders pay just 12 per cent of their total income in tax on average, according to research from ...
Ground truths on warming When we think about rapid climate change of the kind we've accidentally unleashed and the warming of Earth systems inherent in the process, we tend to focus on phenomena in order of their immediate tangibility, their drama. Sea ice loss in the Arctic, atmospheric and ocean ...
by Daphna Whitmore The Department of Corrections has called in the police over a pamphlet that supports protests at Waikeria Prison, saying the material might incite another riot. The group People Against Prisons Aotearoa denies it advocates for riots and has said it “encourages persistent, peaceful protest action such as striking from ...
One theme in the literature dedicated to democratic theory is the notion of a “tyranny of the minority.” This is where the desire to protect the interests of and give voice to electoral minorities leads to a tail wagging the dog syndrome whereby minorities wind up having disproportionate influence in ...
I've just lodged my fourth complaint to the Ombudsman for deemed refusal of an OIA request by police this year. That brings their total to four for four - every request I have sent them has not been answered within the legal timeframe, even when they extend it to give ...
Will the health reforms proposed for the Labour Government make the system better or worse? Health commentator Ian Powell (formerly the Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists) gives his analysis of what change is most necessary, and what should be avoided. The review of the Health ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections An off-course polar vortex meandered toward the Mexican border, bringing with it frigid Arctic air rarely seen as far south as Texas. Frozen equipment rendered power generation systems in the state inoperable, forcing grid operators to begin rolling blackouts to customers then left to fend ...
Just as National once produced a “rock star economy” that Grant Robertson rejected as being only for the rich, the Labour Government has produced an economic “bounce back” that leaves out the poor. Branko Marcetic argues for a rise in benefit levels to give the poor a real bounce back. ...
Virginia has voted to abolish the death penalty: State lawmakers gave final approval on Monday to a bill that will end capital punishment in Virginia, a dramatic turnaround for a state that has executed more people than any other. The legislation repealing the death penalty now heads to the ...
Yesterday a New Zealand Judge issued a formal finding that the Department of Corrections had treated prisoners in a cruel, degrading and inhumane manner, illegally detaining them, using excessive force, denying them basic necessities unless they performed degrading rituals of submission first. Some of the conduct appears to be criminal: ...
The Herald reports that there is a "storm brewing for the Climate Change Commission". The "problem"? Polluters are unhappy with its economic projections saying that action will not be as costly as they have previously claimed: Last week a coalition of over a dozen New Zealand business and industry ...
The Green Party are calling on the Government to assess how the COVID-19 leave support scheme can be better improved, distributed and enforced so that workers can properly take leave when self-isolating. ...
We know that when our rural communities do well, all of New Zealand benefits. Labour is committed to supporting our regions so that, together, we can achieve even more. Here are just some of the ways we’re backing rural communities. ...
Government data today shows that the wealthiest New Zealanders aren’t paying their fair share of tax, whilst everyone else chips in, Green Party spokesperson on Finance Julie Anne Genter said today. ...
The Green Party welcomes the change in the Reserve Bank’s remit to consider the impacts on housing when making financial decisions, but housing affordability shouldn’t be left to the Reserve Bank, Green Party Co-leader and Housing spokesperson Marama Davidson said today. ...
The Green Party welcomes the passing of the Local Electorate Act Māori Wards Amendment Bill which ensures Māori have a say on local issues across Aotearoa New Zealand. ...
New UMR research reveals that 69 percent of New Zealanders agree that the government should increase the amount if income support paid to those on low incomes or not in paid work. ...
The Green Party are celebrating the Labour Government bringing forward the timeline to ban conversion therapy, and will push to ensure any draft bill properly protects all of our Rainbow communities. ...
The Green Party is joining the call for ‘brave policy action’ to address rapidly increasing inequality in New Zealand, which is likely to be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
Green MPs currently in Auckland, Marama Davidson, Chlöe Swarbrick and Golriz Ghahraman, will remain in Auckland for the next 72 hours. Those in Auckland today for Big Gay Out who have flown home will self-isolate for 72 hours. These decisions will be subject to any new information that may arise ...
Health Minister Andrew Little welcomes the Initial Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission’s assessment that transformation of New Zealand’s approach to mental health and addiction is underway. “This is an important step in the Government’s work to provide better and equitable mental health and wellbeing outcomes for all people in New ...
The Government’s Consumer Travel Reimbursement Scheme has helped return over $352 million of refunds and credits to New Zealanders who had overseas travel cancelled due to COVID-19, Consumer Affairs Minister David Clark says. “Working with the travel sector, we are helping New Zealanders retrieve the money owed to them by ...
An additional 88,000 students in 322 schools and kura across the country have started the school year with a regular lunch on the menu, thanks to the Government’s Ka Ora, Ka Ako Healthy School Lunches programme. They join 42,000 students already receiving weekday lunches under the scheme, which launched last ...
New Zealand’s economic recovery has again been reflected in the Government’s books, which are in better shape than expected. The Crown accounts for the seven months to the end of January 2021 were better than forecast in the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU). The operating balance before gains ...
More than half of New Zealand’s estimated 12,000 border workforce have now received their first vaccinations, as a third batch of vaccines arrive in the country, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says. As of midnight Tuesday, a total of 9,431 people had received their first doses. More than 70 percent ...
The Government is significantly increasing its investment in restoring Central Otago’s waterways while at the same time delivering jobs to the region hard-hit by the economic impact of Covid-19, says Land Information Minister, Damien O’Connor. Mr O’Connor says two new community projects under the Jobs for Nature funding programme will ...
The Government has confirmed details of COVID-19 support for business and workers following the increased alert levels due to a resurgence of the virus over the weekend. Following two new community cases of COVID-19, Auckland moved to Alert Level 3 and the rest of New Zealand moved to Alert Level ...
The Government remains committed to hosting the Women’s Rugby World Cup in New Zealand in 2022 should a decision be made by World Rugby this weekend to postpone this year’s tournament. World Rugby is recommending the event be postponed until next year due to COVID-19, with a final decision to ...
Community and social service support providers have again swung into action to help people and families affected by the current COVID-19 alert levels. “The Government recognises that in many instances social service, community, iwi and Whānau Ora organisations are best placed to provide vital support to the communities impacted by ...
The Government is following through on an election promise to conduct an independent review into PHARMAC, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Health Minister Andrew Little announced today. The Review will focus on two areas: How well PHARMAC performs against its current objectives and whether and how its performance against these ...
Some of the country’s most forward-thinking early-career conservationists are among recipients of a new scholarship aimed at supporting a new generation of biodiversity champions, Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says. The Department of Conservation (DOC) has awarded one-year postgraduate research scholarships of $15,000 to ten Masters students in the natural ...
I acknowledge our whānau overseas, joining us from Te Whenua Moemoeā, and I wish to pay respects to their elders past, present, and emerging. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you all today. I am very pleased to be part of the conversation on Indigenous business, and part ...
Social Development and Employment Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced today that main benefits will increase by 3.1 percent on 1 April, in line with the rise in the average wage. The Government announced changes to the annual adjustment of main benefits in Budget 2019, indexing main benefit increases to the average ...
A Deed of Settlement has been signed between Ngāti Maru and the Crown settling the iwi’s historical Treaty of Waitangi claims, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little announced today. The Ngāti Maru rohe is centred on the inland Waitara River valley, east to the Whanganui River and its ...
With a suite of Government income support packages available, Minister for Social Development and Employment Carmel Sepuloni is encouraging people, and businesses, connected to the recent Auckland COVID-19 cases to check the Work and Income website if they’ve been impacted by the need to self-isolate. “If you are required to ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has expressed her condolences at the passing of long-serving former Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare. “Our thoughts are with Lady Veronica Somare and family, Prime Minister James Marape and the people of Papua New Guinea during this time of great ...
E te tī, e te tā Tēnei te mihi maioha ki a koutou Ki te whenua e takoto nei Ki te rangi e tū iho nei Ki a tātou e tau nei Tēnā tātou. It’s great to be with you today, along with some of the ministerial housing team; Hon Peeni Henare, the ...
The Government is backing a new project to use drone technology to transform our understanding and protection of the Māui dolphin, Aotearoa’s most endangered dolphin. “The project is just one part of the Government’s plan to save the Māui dolphin. We are committed to protecting this treasure,” Oceans and Fisheries ...
Major water reform has taken a step closer with the appointment of the inaugural board of the Taumata Arowai water services regulator, Hon Nanaia Mahuta says. Former Director General of Health and respected public health specialist Dame Karen Poutasi will chair the inaugural board of Crown agency Taumata Arowai. “Dame ...
The newly completed Hibiscus Coast Bus Station will help people make better transport choices to help ease congestion and benefit the environment, Transport Minister Michael Wood and Auckland Mayor Phil Goff said today. Michael Wood and Phil Goff officially opened the Hibiscus Coast Bus Station which sits just off the ...
New funding announced by Conservation Minister Kiri Allan today will provide work and help protect the unique values of Northland’s Te Ārai Nature Reserve for future generations. Te Ārai is culturally important to Te Aupōuri as the last resting place of the spirits before they depart to Te Rerenga Wairua. ...
Today the Government has taken a key step to support Pacific people to becoming Community Housing providers, says the Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio. “This will be great news for Pacific communities with the decision to provide Pacific Financial Capability Grant funding and a tender process to ...
Conservation Minister Kiri Allan is encouraging New Zealanders to have their say on a proposed marine mammal sanctuary to address the rapid decline of bottlenose dolphins in Te Pēwhairangi, the Bay of Islands. The proposal, developed jointly with Ngā Hapū o te Pēwhairangi, would protect all marine mammals of the ...
Attorney-General David Parker today announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges. Two of the appointees will take up their roles on 1 April, replacing sitting Judges who have reached retirement age. Kirsten Lummis, lawyer of Auckland has been appointed as a District Court Judge with jury jurisdiction to ...
Government announces list of life-shortening conditions guaranteeing early KiwiSaver access The Government changed the KiwiSaver rules in 2019 so people with life-shortening congenital conditions can withdraw their savings early The four conditions guaranteed early access are – down syndrome, cerebral palsy, Huntington’s disease and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder An alternative ...
The Reserve Bank is now required to consider the impact on housing when making monetary and financial policy decisions, Grant Robertson announced today. Changes have been made to the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee’s remit requiring it to take into account government policy relating to more sustainable house prices, while working ...
The Labour Government will invest $6 million for 70 additional adult cochlear implants this year to significantly reduce the historical waitlist, Health Minister Andrew Little says. “Cochlear implants are life changing for kiwis who suffer from severe hearing loss. As well as improving an individual’s hearing, they open doors to ...
The Local Electoral (Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill passed its third reading today and will become law, Minister of Local Government Hon Nanaia Mahuta says. “This is a significant step forward for Māori representation in local government. We know how important it is to have diversity around ...
The Government has added 1,000 more transitional housing places as promised under the Aotearoa New Zealand Homelessness Action Plan (HAP), launched one year ago. Minister of Housing Megan Woods says the milestone supports the Government’s priority to ensure every New Zealander has warm, dry, secure housing. “Transitional housing provides people ...
A second batch of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines arrived safely yesterday at Auckland International Airport, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says. “This shipment contained about 76,000 doses, and follows our first shipment of 60,000 doses that arrived last week. We expect further shipments of vaccine over the coming weeks,” Chris Hipkins said. ...
The Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Carmel Sepuloni has today announced $18 million to support creative spaces. Creative spaces are places in the community where people with mental health needs, disabled people, and those looking for social connection, are welcomed and supported to practice and participate in the arts ...
Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Andrew Little today welcomed Moriori to Parliament to witness the first reading of the Moriori Claims Settlement Bill. “This bill is the culmination of years of dedication and hard work from all the parties involved. “I am delighted to reach this significant milestone today,” Andrew ...
22,400 fewer children experiencing material hardship 45,400 fewer children in low income households on after-housing costs measure After-housing costs target achieved a year ahead of schedule Government action has seen child poverty reduce against all nine official measures compared to the baseline year, Prime Minister and Minister for Child Poverty ...
It’s time to recognise the outstanding work early learning services, kōhanga reo, schools and kura do to support children and young people to succeed, Minister of Education Chris Hipkins says. The 2021 Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Awards are now open through until April 16. “The past year has reminded us ...
Three new Jobs for Nature projects will help nature thrive in the Bay of Plenty and keep local people in work says Conservation Minister Kiri Allan. “Up to 30 people will be employed in the projects, which are aimed at boosting local conservation efforts, enhancing some of the region’s most ...
The Government has accepted all of the Holidays Act Taskforce’s recommended changes, which will provide certainty to employers and help employees receive their leave entitlements, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Michael Wood announced today. Michael Wood said the Government established the Holidays Act Taskforce to help address challenges with the ...
The Government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and faster than expected economic recovery has been acknowledged in today’s credit rating upgrade. Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) today raised New Zealand’s local currency credit rating to AAA with a stable outlook. This follows Fitch reaffirming its AA+ rating last ...
Tena koutou e nga Maata Waka Ngai Tuahuriri, Ngai Tahu whanui, Tena koutou. Nau mai whakatau mai ki tenei ra maumahara i te Ru Whenua Apiti hono tatai hono, Te hunga mate ki te hunga mate Apiti hono tatai hono, Te hunga ora ki te hunga ora Tena koutou, Tena ...
The Minister of Justice has reaffirmed the Government’s urgent commitment, as stated in its 2020 Election Manifesto, to ban conversion practices in New Zealand by this time next year. “The Government has work underway to develop policy which will bring legislation to Parliament by the middle of this year and ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage and Social Development Hon Carmel Sepuloni today launched a new Creative Careers Service, which is expected to support up to 1,000 creatives, across three regions over the next two years. The new service builds on the most successful aspects of the former Pathways to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jordy Meekes, Research Fellow, Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, The University of Melbourne That Australian women earn less than Australian men is well-known. The latest calculation put the gap – the extent to which the average female full-time wage is ...
All the major news events, which will hopefully not be too many. Get in touch at info@thespinoff.co.nz Help keep The Spinoff alive and kicking. Click here to learn how you can support The Spinoff from as little as $1.8.00am: The day aheadThere are a couple of things we’ll be looking out ...
In this week's Critic's Choice review, Guy Somerset watches I Care a Lot on Amazon Prime and wonders if kindness has its limits Do you think Jacinda Ardern has been watching I Care a Lot? It would explain a lot, As Newsroom political editor Jo Moir wrote earlier this week, ...
By Ramzy Baroud At a glance, it may appear that the split of Arab political parties in Israel is consistent with a typical pattern of political and ideological divisions which have afflicted the Arab body politic for many years. This time, however, the ...
Discovering that her favourite summer drink is apparently an offence against wine, Charlotte Muru-Lanning sets out to uncover whether it’s actually so awful to serve red wine on the rocks.After many summers spent pouring red wine over ice without much thought, it recently struck me that maybe this combination was, ...
LISTEN: Extra Time examines two big issues in women's sport this week - postponing the Rugby World Cup and the Silver Ferns' battle for the crown that eludes them. Poised at one game a piece, can the Silver Ferns overcome a spirited young Australian Diamonds side and end a nine-year drought without netball's ...
"If Maggie said she was going to bake a cake, Lois always turned up with one that was bigger, more chocolatey and with fancier icing": a shaggy cake story by Shani Naylor. It was 2am. Maggie opened her eyes and lay still in bed. She could hear her husband Ken's ...
The art world is being bombarded with something called ‘non-fungible tokens’. We asked artist and crypto expert Simon Denny to help us explain what they are.At first glimpse, a gif of Nyan Cat is nothing special. It’s a bit cute, a bit nostalgic. So why did one sell for US$450,000? ...
Journalists avoid his calls, editors loathe it when he highlights mistakes. But he reckons he’s not scary at all. Chris Schulz meets RNZ’s Mr Mediawatch, Colin Peacock.Over his summer holidays, Colin Peacock tried to switch off. For much of the previous 12 months, the 52-year-old host of Radio ...
While it has since been deleted and apologised for, an op-ed by former Labour MP Michael Bassett published by the Northland Age and the NZ Herald this week caused an uproar for its racist cherry-picking and false reporting of historical facts. Historian Scott Hamilton sets the record straight.Michael Bassett is ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Deaths, West Europe still not “out of the woods”. Chart by Keith Rankin. Deaths, East Europe remains a major concern. Chart by Keith Rankin. At first glance through our rear-vision mirror, western Europe had a substantial spring outbreak of Covid19, and further outbreaks in spring and ...
A starter’s list for the national Aotearoa museum of the sporting damned. Richard Irvine confronts the demons.The sunGenerally it’s hard to make an argument against the giver of all life, as it provides photosynthesis, vitamin D and enables a wide range of recreational activities. But when it runs rampant around ...
Auckland can breathe a sigh relief knowing at 6am on Sunday the region will move down to Alert Level 2 after another seven long days in lockdown. Government and health officials are now turning their minds to lessons learnt, following a week of mixed messaging, rule-breaking and blame and shame, writes political ...
Three future scenarios after today’s large offshore earthquakes.A trio of serious earthquakes saw parts of Aotearoa shaken, tsunami threats triggered, and tens of thousands of people heading inland after evacuation instructions.Of the magnitude-7-plus events, the first, shortly before 2.30am, was centered off East Cape. Measuring 7.1, it was felt across ...
Analysis - The prime minister came down hard on lockdown rule-breakers but were they clearly told what they had to do? Peter Wilson looks into the reports as another crisis lurks in the background. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Gleeson, Associate professor, La Trobe University News of the blockage of a shipment of 250,000 COVID-19 vaccines from Europe to Australia has caused concern and outrage. The immediate problem will probably be quickly solved through diplomatic channels. Even if it is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Stern, Professor of Geophysics, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington The Tonga Kermadec subduction zone stretches between New Zealand and south of Samoa.USGS, CC BY-SA A sequence of three major offshore earthquakes, including a magnitude 8.1 quake near ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and Director of the Institute for Governance & Policy Analysis Dr Laine Dare discuss the week in politics. This week the pair discuss some of the 148 recommendations ...
The minister responsible for the country's spy agencies says they can't constantly monitor the internet to identify terror threats and instead rely on the public to raise the alarm. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle Celebrity testimonials abound for pills, potions and creams that purport to make you look younger. This time collagen supplements are in the spotlight, after Jennifer Aniston became the face of one ...
Have the government’s Covid-related messages been getting through to Pacific and non-Pacific ethnic communities in South Auckland? Justin Latif tried to find out.John Pulu is one of the best-known television and radio personalities in New Zealand’s Pacific community. He not only fronts TVNZ’s Tagata Pasifika Saturday morning show, but also hosts ...
James Elliott tries to work out what made Mike Hosking and Brian Tamaki tick everyone off this week. The week started with Aucklanders back under Alert level 3 and Mike Hosking on Alert Level 6. “Mike’s Minute” on NewstalkZB on Monday, which as usual lasted significantly longer than a minute, ...
Fonterra has confirmed what most analysts had been predicting and lifted its 2020/21 forecast farmgate milk price range to $7.30 – $7.90 kg/MS, up from $6.90 – $7.50. This should send a further surge of confidence across NZ’s rural regions, hopefully in a wave strong enough to encourage farmers to ...
A Financial Times leader delivers advice that Finance Minister Grant Robertson should (but probably won’t) consider. Essentially, the advice is to resist the temptation to involve the central bank in the challenge of slowing the rise in house prices. Changing regulation and reforming planning law is a smarter way to ...
The NZ Superannuation Fund has divested from five Israeli banks due to their suspected involvement in illegal settlement construction. Michael Andrew reports.The Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation, an autonomous crown entity and manager of the multi-billion NZ Super Fund, has divested from five Israeli banks due to their funding of ...
A contestant on the new season of The Bachelor has apologised for ‘controversial’ social media posts comparing mask wearing to ‘slavery’ and for questioning the scientific consensus around Covid-19. Stewart Sowman-Lund reports.Shivani Pragji is – according to her LinkedIn profile – a solicitor working for the Ministry of Business, Innovation ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, PhD, Media and Politics, Deakin University A couple of days ago, the musician Grimes sold some animations she made with her brother Mac on a website called Nifty Gateway. Some were one-offs, while others were limited editions of a few ...
Analysis: We are able to send a blaring alert to the phone of every New Zealanders to warn of Covid lockdowns, yet we still struggle to warn them of the danger of a tsunami This coming week, it will be 10 years since Japan was hit by the Tohoku earthquake, one ...
Moa brewery sold in February for $1.9m, leaving behind an unsavoury legacy. Michael Andrew speaks to the new owner about how the brewery plans to move forward, while at the same time returning to its Marlborough roots.Moa Brewing Company’s new owner Stephen Smith has criticised the company’s old marketing strategy, ...
By RNZ News An 8.0 earthquake has struck near the Kermadec Islands, hours after a 7.4 quake near the Kermadecs and a 7.1 off the North Island coast, A 7.4 quake struck near the Kermadec Islands earlier this morning. The islands are 800km to 1000km from New Zealand. National Emergency ...
National Parks are being closed off to allow fallow deer to be bombarded with 1080 poison. The proposal has drawn strong criticism from the Australian hunting public and also New Zealand’s Sporting Hunters Outdoor Trust. Laurie Collins, spokesman ...
In the fallout from the Dirty Politics defamation hearing, how can the Food and Grocery Council and its chief continue to deny involvement in attacks on public health academics? Tim Murphy explains its stance. The middleman has 'fessed up. So where does that leave the two prominent players on either side ...
Mike Hosking is a king of breakfast radio, a lover of blazers, and deliverer of opinions via his long-running online video series, Mike’s Minute. José Barbosa absorbed three months’ worth of those opinions in one go, and lived to tell the tale. Just. To be honest, I hadn’t thought about ...
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 The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (Bloomsbury, $25)This 2011 bestseller set during the Trojan War has ...
A new poem from Melbourne-based poet Grace Yee.I have heardthat the price of a pound of gold has gone grey over the last couple of monthsthat the first sovereign lord beheaded his grandsonthat chinese market gardeners in suburbia shipped out after decades of fastingand purificationthat evil-intentioned hooligans penetrated the palace ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dave Parry, Professor of Computer Science, Auckland University of Technology Although international travel restrictions for Australia have been extended to at least June, there may still be potential for a trans-Tasman bubble with New Zealand (and maybe some other countries), according to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jamie Triccas, Professor of Medical Microbiology, University of Sydney The United States’ drug regulator, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said last week COVID vaccines updated for variants won’t need to go through full randomised controlled clinical trials. The booster shots will ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Milte, Matthew Flinders Senior Research Fellow, Flinders University The final report from the aged care royal commission this week was damning. Speaking of a system in crisis, it calls for an urgent overhaul. The Morrison government has been facing difficult questions ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David John Eldridge, Professor of Dryland Ecology, UNSW After 200 years of European farming practices, Australian soils are in bad shape – depleted of nutrients and organic matter, including carbon. This is bad news for both soil health and efforts to address ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zoe Vaill, PhD Candidate Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology Students are heading off to universities around Australia, whether for the first time or as returning students, with expectations of a year of learning, making friends and enjoyable socialising. For some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jan Thomas, Vice-Chancellor, Massey University As first-year students flooded onto campuses around the country this week, gripped with uncertainty and curiosity about their new lives, I too returned to university to learn. For the first time since what feels like forever, but ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW After years of repeatedly missing its inflation target through too timid monetary policy, in the past week the Reserve Bank has decided to get tough. Not only did it hold its closely watched cash rate target ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter McNeil, Distinguished Professor of Design History, UTS, University of Technology Sydney It’s Sydney Lesbian and Gay Mardi Gras festival time. LGBTQI people are enjoying what some call “gay or lesbian Christmas”. It’s not quite the same in the era of COVID, ...
A tech expert is warning the government could face multiple stumbling blocks if it makes QR code scanning mandatory - in particular when dealing with tech giants like Apple and Google. ...
*This story first appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission. A tsunami alert has been issued after a 7.4 earthquake near the Kermadec Islands. The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) says it expects strong and unusual currents and unpredictable surges at the shore. It says the threat is from ...
Live coverage of the snap lockdown and the search for a source of the latest infection. Auckland is now at alert level three, NZ at level two. Get in touch at stewart@thespinoff.co.nz 7.50am: Two major earthquakes strike; tsunami warning in placeTwo major earthquakes have struck off the coast of New Zealand ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Cabinet to decide on lifting lockdown today, questions raised about the stability of the housing market, and people instinctively respond to tsunami threat after earthquake.A decision will be made today on whether or not Auckland will come out of level ...
The military is showing little sign of backing down, but the coup could have the unintended consequence of unifying Myanmar society in opposition, across significant ethnic divisions. A month ago, citing dubious claims of electoral fraud in the November 2020 election, Myanmar’s military deposed the country’s democratically elected National League for Democracy ...
Were we right to leave lockdown so early after the Valentine's Day cluster was first discovered? And was our return to lockdown a result of anything more than bad luck? Marc Daalder reports Ashley Bloomfield and Jacinda Ardern fronted a press conference on February 17, three days after Auckland plunged ...
With the America's Cup first-to-seven showdown about to begin, Suzanne McFadden asks a six-time winner how much could it come down to the helmsmen? Murray Jones knows the exact essence of what makes an America’s Cup helmsman great. A phenomenal Kiwi sailor in his own right, Jones has worked alongside ...
Rio Olympian Helena Gasson may be one of the oldest Kiwi swimmers still at the top of their game, but she's found a new gear - breaking 20 NZ records in the past 18 months. Even in the year of Covid, with her plans abruptly changed and her training schedule interrupted, Helena ...
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by Steve BrauniasFICTION 1 Auē by Becky Manawatu (Makaro Press, $35) "She wrote a lot of Auē in a family friend’s house at the moody mouth of the Mokihunui River, 20km ...
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This is rather belated cancelling; but seems, to me at least, long overdue:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/29/tributes-to-slave-traders-and-colonialists-removed-across-uk
Hume's racism was news to me, as was his involvement in the slave trade. Certainly disappointing, as he is one of history's most important philosophers; whose work is foundational to scientific empiricism. I had thought that he was anti-slavery, but apparently that was just for other people in other times; reducing people to objects to be bought and sold as property, was apparently just fine for his mates. This is from last year by; the David Hume Fellow at the University of Edinburgh in 2016!
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/david-hume-was-brilliant-philosopher-also-racist-involved-slavery-dr-felix-waldmann-2915908
Edit: This seems a better fit for OM than MS's post – which is more about Banks being fired than cancelling per se. I may despise his racist rant, but that is incommensurable to a reckoning for historical crimes against humanity.
Private virtue and making a contribution to the history of philosophy, science or art are different things I guess. That Ezra Pound became an anti-Semite fascist sympathiser won't stop me loving the poems of his 'Cathay' collection. Somewhere (I couldn't begin to understand or describe exactly where) we cross a boundary from one to the other.
Personally I find this presentism feeble minded.
Conquest and slavery where universal features of all human societies, and while considered undesirable if you were on the losing end – they were largely accepted as legitimate aspects of life for millenia.
That Hume, or anyone else of his era for that matter, doesn't tick everyone of our present day list of essential virtues is hardly surprising.
You cannot call disgust at Hume's support of the slave-trade anachronistic, when many of his own contemporaries disagreed with him. Specifically; "James Beattie of Aberdeen criticised Hume’s racist comments in 1770" (extracted from longer quote @1 above). Furthermore; as didn't die until August 1976, he would have been quite well aware of the growing abolitionist movement:
[deleted]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism
[cut and paste too long, and too many links tripped the spam trap – weka]
Just one paragraph then?
Yes I get that – but the abolition of slavery was not a single event and at some arbitrary point in time. It was a process that took all of a century or more to achieve even some of it’s goals.
Keep in mind that if we had a complete historic record of the views of virtually anyone living in that era, us moderns would find grounds to cancel them one way or another.
If we agree to ignore the issue of alleged presentism for the sake of argument (without implying that either of us is conceding the point), the tower itself was not built until 1963. By that time, there was a growing slave-descended population in Britain from her former colonies. Also, the philosopher’s 1753 essay; Of National Characters, was then known. Though Waldman had not yet uncovered the documents evidencing Hume's involvement in the slave-trade.
This is not some ancient temple being renamed, it is a fairly ugly tower block. Why should the students of today; who started the petition to rename the building, have to endure the shadow of past exploitation? Should students have no say on the campus environment within which they study?
If they were suggesting burning all the Hume books in the Edinburgh University library, I would not at all approve. But there is a difference between refusing to celebrate an oppressor, and erasing them from history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40_George_Square#:~:text=40%20George%20Square%20is%20a,(often%20abbreviated%20as%20DHT).
There are no perfect people; but we do celebrate those who like Hume, managed to rise above their imperfections and failings to achieve at least one thing remarkable and significant. This we can memoralise – because if we look for dross we quickly find it's ubiquitous, banal and teaches us nothing.
It's said that it's never a good idea to meet with your heroes. Like all of us, they too have feet of clay.
I used to celebrate David Hume, then I learned new information: Now I don't.
But I do still think much of his writing has merit, and would read again. Though certainly with a bigger grain of salt than previously.
Was Hume a 'good person'?
exactly. People are more complicated than a single pass/fail tally at the end.
Celebrating someone celebrates their shortcomings as well as their positive aspects: you can't put up a statue dedicated only to the good bits of what someone did. It's a statue of the entire person, "warts and all"…
As a devotee of Lynch, I believe that achievement is its own reward.
Regarding memorials/statues/monuments/place names/buildings/plaques etc. etc. that honor achievers, IMHO we should 'celebrate' them "warts and all" (thanks McFlock). Education is the key – get it out in the open!
How far does this principle apply? Do we cancel Aristotle? Does it only apply to dead white men? Do we cancel the Romans for having the most enduring (and often brutal) empire of history? Do we dig up every historic deed and scrutinise it for some reason to erase it?
All these are absurdities of course, because history can never be changed. We're allowed to re-examine what we think it means, but imposing our values on the lives of our ancestors always struck me as arrogant and dishonest.
Arrogant because the reality is that if we were to be living in that same period, within the same culture, we too would almost certainly have believed and acted exactly as they did. We all like to think we would have been the moral heroes in history, but the brutal reality is that the odds are very much against that.
And dishonest because the real motive I think has nothing to do with improving the lives of living people, but to feed into a narrative that selectively discredits anything to do with Western civilisation.
If Western Civilisation is being more frequently targeted with a more nuanced view of historical figures, maybe Western Civilisation shouldn't have spent several hundred years teaching its kids and people in its occupied territories that history revolves almost exclusively around shallow outlines of figures from Western Civilisation.
At some point we should come to terms with the reality that Western civ has dominated much of the past 400 years or so for a number of good reasons. But that era largely ended with the end of WW2.
And while it was the last of a series of empires stretching back 10 millenia, it was also a substantial factor in creating the initial technical, economic and social platforms on which humanity is now building a wholly new global civilisation.
A platform the whole of humanity will necessarily extend and enhance as this century progresses. In time I suspect future generations will regard Western civ, flawed as it was by it's own location in the age of empires, as a remarkable catalyst toward achieving the unity of humankind.
Or in short, like the figures of history some are so keen to cancel, we're better off embracing the whole of our history as it truly is – warts and all.
Count the number of generals pre-1600CE "or so" you know of off the top of your head.
How many were from "Western Civilisation"?
Does that reflect the global disposition of great generals?
Who has suggested that we "cancel Aristotle" (whatever that means), or the Romans, or the Egyptians for that matter?
If you really believe that the real motive behind a "warts and all" recontextualisation (my preference) of abhorent historical practices is to selectively discredit "anything to do with Western civilisation", then we'll have to agree to disagree.
Why then is this current fad for cancelling historic figures so very selective about where it lands?
Dude plants a field of corn. Actively weeds other crops. Wonders why the rain on the field only touches corn.
Hey all we need to do is stick up an accompanying statue of a figure in chains, pointing accusingly at the person in question. It should be at least the same size.
Someone with a Harold subscription may be able to tell us more about this latest round in Whaleoik vs the world: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/colin-craig-v-cameron-slater-former-conservative-party-leader-awarded-325000-against-bankrupt-blogger/EWB4JMT5ZNDC3IXZLDCKYQJYAQ/
Someone with a Harold subscription …. for my sins, fill your boots.
While Craig was largely self-represented he did seek legal assistance in the preparation of his claim and during trial. He sought more than $150,000 for this and was also awarded disbursements of $95,000 by Justice Edwards.
The most damaging falsehood published by Slater, Craig argued at November's hearing, was the allegation he was abusing his position as leader of the party to carry out a "witch-hunt" and commit electoral fraud.
"One cannot run for office if there has been a finding of electoral fraud," he said.
Justice Edwards said the defamatory statements relating to personal sexual morality fall into a different category, her decision released to the Herald reads.
"The damage caused by these statements must take into account that Mr Craig was found to have sexually harassed Ms MacGregor and that other statements directed at this aspect of Mr Craig's character were found to be true. That does not mean Mr Craig did not suffer further reputational damage which must be compensated.
"But it does mean, as Mr Craig properly acknowledges, that the true statements moderate the impact of the defamatory statements relating to personal sexual morality."
That appears to be the gist.
funny they paywalled that.
How does it work when someone is already bankrupted? If Slater makes or saves money in the future, does he have to pay Craig?
It would be helpful if they unravelled his wife's finances as well..
I'm happy with the outcome of that case.
Can't abide Colin Craig's politics and he made a real dick of himself lying in the grass trying to look all sensual in his political hey-day. His harassment of the young woman who worked as his secretary (or whatever) was indefensible but the malicious defamatory nature of the Slater creep, whose list of criminal and dishonest offending makes Craig's copybook seem quite clean in comparison, should be once again exposed for all eyes to see.
You reap what you sow and Slater's sure reaping it now.
What would the response be if the Gov announced on Monday that they were going to re-establish the MoW and 'borrow' the funds to implement a housing and infrastructure programme that will provide training and employment for anyone who wanted it?
That the first part is a great idea, while the second will no longer fly. Make-work is not our future.
How about this hypothetical MoW instituting a; work-share scheme, where they act as an intermediary to businesses who need a certain number of hours of work done each week? 4day weeks (particularly when no more than two days worked in a row) result in more productive workers. Certainly a lot better than the; precarious on-call "independent contractor" shiftwork, that leaves people in a constant state of; anxiety, sleep-deprivation, and unable to plan (or schedule) for the future.
If this MoW were to act to ease some of the "compliance costs" of employing more workers, rather than sweating those workers they do employ, some businesses might even get onboard with the idea. And once it was demonstrated that; less miserable workers are more productive workers, other businesses should jump on the train too.
Unless the managerial class are only giving lip service to the primacy of the bottom-line in Capitalism? Because it seems that some businesses (not even mentioning alleged names here, due to concerns for legal consequences for TS), would rather operate with the main goal of the grinding down their workers, so as to puff up the sense of self-satisfaction of their "betters". For that, they need the spectre of joining the hungry horde of unemployed with which to threaten those in low-quality jobs (/contracts). Especially now that the supply of compliant overseas workers willing to surrender their passports to their employers (/residence-sponsers) has been curtailed with the pandemic.
why would it be make work? If we need more trained tradies, the govt can make that happen and establish jobs to build the houses. It's not like they're making up jobs.
provide training and employment for anyone who wanted it
Training and employment, sure. Just not the last part.
What, it's ok if they only employ ppl who don't want a job?
It is OK if they train and hire enough people to do the work properly. That is all.
fair point. I took that to mean that those that want work in the building industry would be able to get a job (because there would be heaps), but training people not suited is not a good idea and I wouldn't trust WINZ in that regard.
Yes, Weka. Pat's hypothetical MoW should not involve any current WINZ (especially managerial) staff.
They would bring along the punitive mindset that has caused so much misery for some many impoverished people over the years. To the extent that some of our more vulnerable Aotearoans would rather; beg in the streets, and sleep rough, rather than deal with their pusillanimous spite.
I would rather see a Ministry of Works that is not trying to also be an employment or training agency as a major function. Stuff needs to be built. Well.
How is it 'make work' if it's providing housing we need?
I also agree with the first concept, but I suspect there are different concepts as to what a new MoW should be doing. I believe a priority is for engineers, designers, architects, and of course lawyers ad accountants to work with contractors to deliver solutions across the "Works" needs of central, regional and local government. The Kaikoura road development worked better than examples like the Kapiti Expressway and Transmission Gully because it was an emergency – government employees worked with private companies to just get on with it as one team; we have left so much to the private sector that many projects become a legal battle over interpretation s, between a government with a chequebook and a single purpose company which folds when it has made its money. The new MoW should supervise / monitor / approve work stages, but I would not expect it to employ apprentices; it may own some equipment from time to time; but it should also encourage competitive industries by using both large and small firms as appropriate.
There should be a government sponsored job guarantee program. This is because only a government has the financial capacity to guarantee enough work is available, while the private sector will only create as much work as is profitable.
The alternative is a near permanent shortfall in total jobs, leaving the worst off without the benefits of employment and dependent on benefits, through no fault of their own.
This has been well established since, and was the main improvement of Keynes General Theory over established theory of its day.
I welcome a better approach to jobs like that. Just not at the expense of having a powerful development agency.
It is not "make work" when it is necessary.
Read my replies above.
By 'borrow' if you mean reserve bank credit I would applaud such an announcement.
But such a notion is beyond Robinson's grasp. Intellectually and philosophically.
Print money would be cheaper if the supply of materials and labour can be managed without inflation.
A sigh of relief from most people – vitriol from bill-padding private sector non-providers and the tory press.
K…interesting and not the responses expected.
I would expect that some form of MoW would be required to implement a 'green new deal' so obviously it could have a range of roles , not necessarily manual labour as appears to have been construed and on job training is very effective, indeed critical, even after tertiary education, so there should be no fears there.
Historically the MoW designed , oversaw and often constructed our major projects in transport (including rail), power generation, irrigation etc sometimes in partnership with the private sector…..all things that need addressing for CC mitigation.
There appears to be no consideration/concern on the impact on the private sector, or the financial implications….but for some reason WINZ features?
Curiouser and curiouser.
Do you think NZ should be at level 2?
No, not yet Treetop. But I am social distancing and mask wearing as if we were, when in public. PAL2, and maybe even higher in te Ika Nui may well be on the way; especially if that Auckland pair were indeed working in that BBQ King asian restaurant in Albany after leaving the Pullman. People really must remember to keep track of their movements; a little time now, may mean a lot of time later.
I don't care if you use a 5cent paper notebook, or the newest phone: Just remember to record your movements at the time! You will have forgotten details by the end of the day (unless you're eidetic I guess, in which case you already have an internal record).
https://covid19.govt.nz/alert-system/about-the-alert-system/
Link explains the levels clearly.
The most affected at level 2 is the hospitality and entertainment industry, weddings and funerals as no more than 100 people at a venue with the exception of split groups of 100 at some locations churches, library's.
When it comes to limited community transmission could be occurring (see 4.3) this is evident when a cluster has formed.
I would like to see a level 2 for a period of 2 weeks when ever there are 3 or more separate community cases. Waiting for active clusters in more than one region is being to slow. Covid thrives in group settings and has a way of ramping up cases. Going from level 1 to level 3 appears to be the norm in NZ.
Please don’t confuse community case with community transmission. Unless there is a very recent update (AKA ‘breaking news’) that I have not seen or missed, there is no evidence of community transmission despite the dramatic increase in number of tests. There is also no sign of clusters. I don’t even think you can argue that the current community cases are “separate”. Level 1 is the appropriate level for now, IMO.
I am aware of the difference between what a community case is and what community transmission is. I have not said that there is current community transmission. A current level 2 is when there is community transmission.
so if we don't currently have community transmission why would we need to be in L2?
The criteria for being at level 2 has not been reached.
I would like level 2 to be changed so that when there are 3 or more separate community cases that NZ goes to level 2 for 2 weeks.
So why do you want nationwide level 2 for community cases rather than for community transmission?
It's been almost two weeks since the community cases were out of MIQ, with no community transmission I've heard about.
Govt made the right call again.
I have made it clear that there would need to be 3 separate community cases before a level 2. Every time there is a community case there is a chance of community transmission occurring. So far 2 separate community cases have occurred and the origin is known. I have set the bench mark at 3 separate community cases as I feel that staying at level 1 is not enough.
Why is three your limit rather than one or a dozen?
The current thresholds are clear: no likely community transmission to any significant degree, imported/iso cases only;
clusters and community transmission;
multiple clusters and multiple community transmission;
widespread in the community.
Three cases that weren't detected in quarantine seems arbitrary.
I knew you were going to ask me why 3 was my limit.
Contact tracing and testing needs to occur without any delay. The resources for this need to be available where ever the community case has occurred. Going to level 2 would reduce gatherings to 100 so as not to exhaust contact tracing and testing resources.
But without a knowledge of average contact numbers and tracing and testing capacity, 3 is still an arbitrary number.
If the government can handle tracing dozens of people and testing thousands, no need to go to level two.
If the government can't trace and test all the infected contacts from one person, we end up with community transmission and going up a few levels anyway.
Here are the criteria for L2 (from Incog's link)
Neither of those things are happening. Certainly no reason for the whole country to be in L2, but I'm don't think that even in Ak/Northland it's necessary. Last time I looked the govt is saying there is no community transmission.
Auckland maybe – these rest of us are more responsible. 😉
I have noticed the change in people's behaviour when there is a community case. Testing and scanning which is the right thing to do. I do not want people to be complacent regardless of where they live. Staying at level 1 could add to the complacency.
Yes, I noticed when i was out and about today, a lot more people scanning the QR codes.
Absolute gold!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/114832273/jim-hubbard-cartoons
For those trying to make sense of the sex/gender wars, one of the features is the weaponisation of semantics.
Gender Critical Feminists use the term 'sex' to mean biological sex at the level of human reproduction, hence bio sex is immutably binary (for humans to reproduce you need a person who produces sperm and a person who produces and egg, and there are only those two options, there is no third or fourth).
The smash the binary activists use the term 'sex' to mean something or things less well defined (and almost always ignore the sperm/egg definition). Often sex and gender are conflated and there is a large degree of fudginess.
Hence someone arguing that the biological categories of male and female didn't exist before some humans came up with the concepts. This doesn't work at the biological level obviously, but I'm not sure it works at the social level either. It's the denial of science that is going to bite up big time though.
Okay then…
If we are talking; biology, then we are wading into the ongoing nature/ nurture scientific debate. For this, we need to be aware of the terms; genotype & phenotype, and how the are linked. Genotype denotes the genetic configuration of an organism, whilst: Phenotype indicates how that genotype is expressed within a given environment. Hopefully everyone already understands what I mean by; base-pair, DNA, RNA, gene, chromosome, nucleus, cell, coding, allele & trait? I will try use only Wikipedia links (because I could easily get too technical for some if I started linking to primary sources), however; my pre-teen kids could understand this explanation, if you need a brief reminder (and the hyperlink skip times in the description are useful for navigation):
Also, none of this will make much sense if you deny the; rigorously demonstrated scientific fact (to avoid confusion about the jargon "theory") of environmentally mediated genetic evolution. Basically; genes on chromosomes code alleles. So we have got as far as; Mendalian genetics, Punnett squares & SB chromosomes, already; yay!
However, that is a gross oversimplification for human gene expression, it works okay for some flower's colours though. Most genes interact with other genes in the process of gene expression. Furthermore, these interacting genes also interact with their environment. Moreover, intercodons; supposedly "inactive" DNA between genes on a chrmosome, mess everything up (to an almost Lamarckian extent).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenotypic_plasticity
So now, that we've had that brief (& very incomplete) biological primer, I can actually address Weka's comment: We can take; Man and Woman, to be socially defined phenotypic terms for human genders, because their development (through Old English to Archaic Deutsch, maybe even as far back as ancient Babylon – though that's a stretch) predated the discovery of evolution, let alone chromosomes (we didn't even know there were 46 of them in humans until 1956!). Whereas; Male and Female, are used as jargon to denote sex (noun, not verb); Genotypes XY or XX, on the 23rd chromosomal pair respectively.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_sex-determination_system
So when someone is being called a; TIF (Trans-Identifying Female), rather than a; trans-Man, that is not actually incorrect, scientifically; though it is culturally offensive (not getting into why that is so now – this comment is long enough as it is!). The currently preferred term; AFAB (Assigned Female At Birth), is likewise not scientifically incorrect – and has the added bonus of not getting you punched in the face if you say it (testosterone can be a powerful mood destabilizer to those still getting used to it; during their first, or second, puberty).
Thus we (finally!) get to the point of addressing; eNBee (NonBinary), criticism of the assumption of a gender binary in humans. Sometimes, a person's phenotype has developed such that they do not much identify with either gender. And it gets tiring to be constantly questioned about knowing our own minds; on the basis of biology, by people who may not know the difference between; a genotype and a phenotype. If it helps to think of us as trans-Intergender, then I wouldn't be upset, though others might be if you said that out loud.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex
when you cut and paste from wikipedia the links stay active and above a certain amount in a comment on TS you will get caught in the spam filter. Can't remember what the number is but your comment above had too many links in it.
You can try splitting your comments into two.
I probably should have split it into two or more parts, yes; Weka. But I assumed that I'd be banned for that reply, so figured that I'd just post it all at once (& make a reply to RL on our then current discussion before the hammer came down), then go do some gardening. Starting to cool down a bit now, so I am back inside getting dinner in the oven for when the kids come home from their granny's. Pleasantly surprised to see that I can still comment here.
Think I misunderstood your previous mod instruction upthread. I thought you were saying that I should keep the length of each individual quote shorter, not that I should have turned the hyperlinks into plain text. Will try remember in future.
You need to remove links if you don't want your comments to end up in the spam filter. Overly long cut and pastes will sometimes get deleted by moderators, so best to avoid that too. There's a bit in the Policy about that. So that’s two separate but overlapping things.
People don't generally get banned for content here, unless it is grossly in breach of the Policy. People get banned for behaviour or for putting the site at risk legally. I'm not seeing you doing either of those things. It does get tedious for moderators to constantly have to point this out though.
So you basically just ignored my point, and presented one of the TA arguments. Which is fine, and I guess it reinforces what I was saying.
GCFs use the word 'sex' to refer to how mammals, including humans, reproduce. One person type has sperm, the other person type has eggs, one of each are needed to reproduce the species. There is not alternative to that for Homo sapiens.
How humans talk about gender, or sex in social terms, is a different matter, but the point I was making is that the semantics cause a lot of confusion and people talking past each other. The issue over what 'sex' means, and how biological or social sex should be defined is largely undermined by the inability and/or unwillingness of both sides of the war to talk with each other to gain understanding (this imo is the massive problem with the 'no debate' position).
I totally get why trans and NB people want to have a go at defining sex, but I also totally get why women do too and why they're so pissed off about what is going down.
Except "GCFs" apply that measure to people without sperm or eggs or any other reproductive capability, and to people who have combinations of other reproductive features.
Which in a population of five million tends to start excluding (sorry, being critical of) hundreds or thousands of people or even more.
Yes, thats because peoples chromosomes didn't actually change when they lost reproductive capacity.
Oh so it's not "egg and sperm", it's "chromosomes" that are always male or female and there are never any abnormalities.
No, apparently 0.02% of people don't fit neatly in one of these categories in chromosome terms either. Why should that matter?
Why should 1000 NZers matter?
Ahem, maybe try not engaging in dishonest smears. You were explaining why so called GCFs view is invalid (despite being consistent with biological science). I on the other hand did not make any value judgements with that statement.
We're talking about people, not abstractions.
The binary model of sex, even for mammals, is ok for primary school. Slamming everyone into that model (be it based on sperm or organs or genetics) will exclude and marginalise dozens, hundreds, or thousands of NZers. That's in addition to the thousands who "GCFs" intend to exclude and marginalise.
That’s why “0.02%” matters.
Your criticism is still of so called GCFs use of an abstraction and presumably the fact that a small subset of people don't fit neatly into one of the two categories. But as discussed the two categories used by society are somewhat simplistic and there are some people with abnormalities.
Now, just because there is a categorisation this does not marginalise anybody because they don't fit neatly into it. It is in fact the manner in which someone is treated based on their category (or lack there of) which is the cause of any marginalisation.
So its really about time for you to explain why so called GCFs claims that the category female is biological are wrong. This would be much more welcome than further dishonest claims about value judgements I never made.
"We're talking about people, not abstractions."
Actually in the tweet I started the thread with and the one you originally replied to, I was talking about two things: biology, and the semantics used to discuss that in two sides of the sex/gender wars.
"That's in addition to the thousands who "GCFs" intend to exclude and marginalise."
Would you mind pointing to some examples of GCFs intending to exclude and marginalise intersex people?
any example when someone says sex is binary.
ok, so you believe that I am intentionally wanting to exclude intersex people from society because I pointed out that there is a reality backed up by science that humans reproduce via two sex classes? Despite me not having said that nor believing that that intersex people should be excluded.
So any discussion of binary sex is intersexphobic? Or just when GCFs do it?
Nic, I agree. Especially as I started the thread by pointing out that the differences in understanding of the word is part of why there is a war and lack of understanding.
Restricting a conversation to two precisely-defined categories marginalises everyone who does not neatly fit into either of those defined categories. They never come up in consideration.
No, so called GCFs are not actually restricting speech by using a preferred categorisation in their own speech.
apologies, misread.
Marginalising intersex people is an unintended byproduct of intentionally marginalising trans people by insisting sex is binary.
But yeah, when we fall into patterns of assuming that everyone is a male or a female, it's just as marginalising as assuming everyone is het, whether we intend to or not.
So no, when you or I assume sex is binary, we're not intentionally marginalising intersex people. We're doing it unintentionally.
thanks McFlock. So, sorry to keep banging on about it, but semantics.
If the definition of sex that GCFs want to use, in order to talk about the oppression of the sex class of females, is the one I gave originally (egg/sperm etc), then are you saying this is intentionally transphobic and unintentionally intersexphobic?
If you are saying that GCFs/women shouldn't talk about their own sex class using a definition based in physical reality backed up by science that describes their experience in the world, would you mind explaining why trans activists get to choose a definition that suits them but GCFs don't?
Also, how is denying binary sex not sexist, where binary sex is the basis upon which women are oppressed?
But the trans debate doesn't just involve GCFs talking about themselves and their own identity alone. A common topic of discussion is the people they wish to exclude from that description be it in sports or public amenities or whatever.
As for "scientific", either according to definition of sex or indeed any advantage non-binary people might have in competitions, actual biologists and sports physiologists seem to find things less clear cut, in my nonlinking experience.
One position of GCFs is that there is a conflict of rights, and that we need an open and transparent discussion about those, so we can figure out what is fair and what society should do. That discussion is actively suppressed in a number of important ways – by trans activists, by social media platforms, by trans allied organisations, by MRAs and other bad faith actors online, by cancel culture, by political parties. It's extraordinary and I've never seen anything else like it in politics.
Sports is a good topic to go into, because then we can stop talking about trans people, and talk about trans women, trans men, women and men, and it becomes much easier to talk about biology and why it matters. GCFs don't exclude trans people from sports, they say that women's sports should be for females (so trans ppl can still take part in sports, but TW shouldn't have automatic access to women's sports).
Yes, there are some tricky cases where it's unclear about someone's biological sex, but that's different from males wanting to take part in women's sports on the basis of gender identity, which is by far the biggest number of people. GCFs are saying it should be biologically based (and have pretty good rationales for that), TAs say it should be based on GI, and then often start conflating that with bio sex, but the evidence is very strong (and growing) that most TW have similar biological advantages as other males in relation to competing against women.
Again, the issues of fairness there are affected by biology, and by social concerns. To say that women should give up sex-segregated sports in order for other people to be included needs an explanation for why women should give that up.
Am curious how you see people who ID as NB participating in sport. At high school, once scholarships kick in, and at the elite level. NB people who aren't physically transitioning.
Nic, that was 0.018-1.7% of the population in the quote from wikipedia. What reason do you have for assuming the lowest percentage to be real?
If we split the difference to 0.86% of 5 million, that would be 41,950 NZers you are disregarding.
Where did Nic disregard those people?
Sure, thats just my very simplistic notion that actual intersex is rare. But as I discussed I have not made any value judgements.
Since McFlock appears to be claiming its the wrong categorisation I don't think the number of people is relevant here.
not sure what you are getting at there "McFlock". GCFs generally understand what intersex is, and where you start talking about inclusion you're now talking about social aspects of sex/gender, not biological ones.
The woman in the OT isn't talking about intersex people, she is saying that there is no such thing as male/female at all, that it was invented by humans as a concept. I pointed out that the two sides of the war use language in distinctly different ways and that this is important in understanding what is going on. I don't know if she is meaning the social aspects alone or if she literally means there is no such thing as bio binary sex, but this isn't an uncommon assertion. Hence my pointing to the issue of semantics.
Are you suggesting that because of the existence of intersex people and the need to normalise their existence in society (which I agree with obviously), that there is no such thing as biological sex as defined above? It's not that all humans have to produce either sperm or eggs, it's that the species cannot reproduce without the combination of the two, one coming from one sex category and the other coming from the other. If you believe that intersex people indicate that this is false, can you please explain how.
The common response from GC people at this point is that humans are biologically bipedal even if some humans are born without two legs.
Classifying humans as bipedal doesn't mean one refuses to make spaces accessible to people without legs.
Defining sex in regards to theoretical reproductive capacity is a contrived (old people? Infertile people? vasectomies?) and convoluted way of telling people which bathrooms they should be excluded from.
that's quite a few, very large leaps you are making there McFlock.
Understanding binary sex =/= refusing to make spaces for people on the basis of gender.
How humans reproduce isn't theoretical, it's physical reality. Nor does understanding human reproduction mean anything about whether individuals can reproduce, nor assign morality/values to those people that can and can't. That would be the patriarchy and neoliberalism that does that.
The point that I can't tell if you don't get or are ignoring is that feminists want to be able to talk about the basis of the oppression of women and that's not possible if they aren't allowed to talk about biological sex. People are free to disagree with them, but the push to say that there is no such thing as biological sex is hugely problematic for feminists, and I would have thought humans generally given the rise of anti-science culture.
If you want to argue that there is no such thing as biologically female and male, that's fine (I disagree obv), but what you appear to be doing today is saying that definitions of binary sex are prejudicial so let's pretend they're not real.
Biological sex is real. Binary sex is not – it's a child's oversimplification.
And that is important, because much of the discussion involving biological definitions of sex ends up being which individuals have to use what toilet based on a binary set of labels on the door.
sure, but that's a social issue and we haven't yet dealt with the baseline issue of semantics that prevents understanding of why we end up talking about toilets.
For instance, I'm not seeing anything in what you've said that suggests you understand the GCF view that starts with biological sex as binary, and why it matters to understand that and for feminists to be able to talk about it.
The argument over toilets is a really good example of why the semantic issues matters, not least because so many people use that to dismiss women's concerns and politics. Buggered if I know why you would be arguing for men's access to women's toilets though. Maybe you think you're arguing for transsexual women's access, but that's not what's happening out there in the world.
(you also appear to be saying binary sex is real and not real /shrug).
yeah, and maybe you think this oft-repeated discussion is an essential semantic debate that will solve something, rather than just another instance of marginalising the thousands of NZers who don't neatly fit into one box or t'other. But in the real world…
I made it clear that I was talking about sex not gender (incl gender identity). There's nothing inherently exclusionary about talking about binary sex within feminist politics. You've asserted there is but haven't demonstrated out. You've made some leaps from my original points to somehow this being about keeping trans people (read TW) out of women's bathrooms, but as already pointed out they're mightly leaps that have no evidence in this discussion.
I mean I can make mighty leaps too, based on having heard this arguments so many times. Women should cede their politics, and given up their sex based rights, because other people are being marginalised by the same shitty system that oppresses women. You're basically arguing for men to have access to women's spaces (physical, cultural, political) and to uphold the systems that oppress women (and trans ppl for that matter). That's sexist af.
Nek minnit, the conversation breaks down. There was a reason I said at the start that the semantics are critical in understanding the war.
men or males?
X-Men
There’s nothing inherently exclusionary about talking about binary sex within feminist politics.
This is strictly true but if the ‘talking about binary sex within feminist politics’ is that a person must meet the bio-binary definition of female to be part of the class Women, then that politics definitionally excludes trans and intersex women, and NB people.
"men or males?"
Yep, exactly. Like I said at the start, the semantics matter a great deal.
In this case, I meant males. I find it easier to talk about men, women, trans women, trans men, it's pretty clear then what is biology and what is gender ID.
Self ID means that any male can have access to women's space – toilets and changing rooms, refuges and rape crisis, women's prisons, sports teams, scholarships and political positions etc. This is the push from transactivists (in the UK from what I can tell they want the sex exemptions that enable women's spaces removed from law entirely), and it's a big part of why many left wing feminists who were previously largely unconcerned about TW using women's toilets suddenly mobilised and got politically active.
In case it's not clear, my point in the previous comment was about men not trans women (although I think there are issues with and for TW too).
Yes. Women need to retain the rights in law based on being female (let me know if you need an explanation why). This is exclusionary of males too, and exclusion isn't inherently wrong. For instance, as Pākehā I support Māori to have their own spaces separate from non-Māori. Likewise I also support trans people to have their own spaces.
What I took McFlock to be saying was that exclusion of trans people from being able to take part fully in society is wrong, and I agree with that. But that's a different thing.
Would you mind explaining why NB males should have access to women's spaces, for example a women's track team, or a position in a political party that is specified for women because of societal sexism?
I didn't advocate for that so I have no explanation for most of that but I did say non-binary people, because a NB peson who was assigned female at birth would prefer non-gendered terms.
that's cool arkie, I've yet to see a good explanation about the NB side of it. Or any explanation really, other than that women shouldn't have their own spaces and should share with everyone else. My reading of that is that the place we are heading towards is removal of sex class protections entirely, and that should be a concern for the left as a whole not just feminists.
So it's not actually the semantics that are the problem, it's who gets to be an arbiter of someone's sex – themselves or someone else.
Both of which have issues, especially when biases are thrown in – upthread you asked about my attitudes to elite sport.
Professional sports advantage people with differences that give them an advantage in that sport – height, reach, muscle development, etc.
So here's one of the many articles that questions why Caster Semenya had to medically lower the testosterone levels that apparently gave her an advantage, when Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt have other biological advantages over their competition and that is regarded as fine.
Where traits determined to be of another sex give an advantage in a discipline, then that will eventually affect every top-level athlete in that discipline, as sports scouts optimise their scouting to get people with those advantages. So maybe athletics will have to get more nuanced than binary, too.
edit: my brain hurts, so I might leave the thread until tomorrow.
Semantics aren't the problem, they're an issue in talking about sex/gender that isn't often identified early on and leads to much confusion and people talking past each other (and in other contexts, the semantics are weaponised).
Yes, who gets to define sex is central to the whole thing. Feminists are saying, hey you cannot talk about definitions of sex that affect women without talking to us. We've had this discussion before. Women weren't consulted because Stats NZ (and the GP) think that GCF views on this don't matter or are a problem, so they actively seek to avoid or suppress them. The semantics issue is inherent in what Stats NZ is doing too.
Semenya isn't trans. My point about sports above was about trans women wanting to compete in women's sports, and the fairness issues this raises. Yes, all sorts of biology factors into sports, and the research is showing clearly that in many sports, the advantage that males have over females survives transition. It certainly exists before transition. And testosterone measuring is insufficient.
At the class level, in most sports, males out compete females because of biology. This is why we have sex segregated sports. Looking at individual advantages, and finessing how elite sports manages that, won't stop women from losing out as their sports are opened up to males.
Would love to hear how NB people fit into this too. If trans people should be included in the category of their choice on the basis of self-ID, why not NB people? Make an argument for abolishing sex segregated sports then I guess.
this popped up on twitter today because the Scottish government, very strongly advocating for trans rights at the expense of women's rights, has admitted that sex is binary.
https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202000116322/
The treatment of Semenya is what happens when a dimorphic continuum is mashed into a binary categorisation. Some pretty shitty treatment of people who might not be close to one of the poles, when only transwomen are supposed to be treated shittily.
The earth has two geographic poles. But almost nobody is at the "north pole" or the "south pole".
are you saying that you believe sex is a spectrum that sits between two poles?
By all means talk about the fairness with Semenya. I haven't looked at her situation closely so would be interested to hear ideas on how it can be resolved. But intersex and trans people aren't the same, so I'm just not sure what that has to do with opening up women's sports to males. If you want to make a case for desegregating sport by sex, please do. Otherwise as far as I can see the argument is that some males should be allowed to compete against any and all females, irrespective of fairness to women. Understandably, a lot of women aren't too happy about that.
As for the north and south pole, Flo Jo is the fastest ever recorded female runner of 100m. She runs it in 10.49s.
"In 2017, 744 senior males ran 2825 100m races faster than 10.49s"
https://fondofbeetles.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/harder-better-faster-stronger-why-we-must-protect-female-sports/
Biological sex is binary, it confers advantages differently in both sexes, and at the level of class that matters. I don't believe that the social issues of fairness for trans people (trans women in this case) can be resolved by ignoring the issues for women that exist because of physicality (material reality in the GCF lingo).
I'm saying that that's what your twitter link says dimorphic means, and thats what the Scottish parliament called it.
What intersex, trans, or women with significantly higher than average testosterone levels have in common is that they don't fit neatly into a binary sex categorisation. That applies whether the rule is self-ID or an external arbiter applying some contrived binary construction.
I don't think that's what Elliot is saying, but let's leave it for another time when we have better reply function and it's easier to track the thread.
Yes, binary sex is a bitch under patriarchal systems. How we solve that without throwing women, trans people, GNC people, intersex people under the bus is what interests me.
I don't think she is saying there is no such thing as male/female but that humans have imposed a male/female definition on something that is more nuanced biologically and socially than that. Isn't your point, that different groups are talking past each other because of how they have different definitions of who is male, female or something else, the point that she is making, that the point of defining sex was so that we could have intelligent conversations based on assumptions of shared common definitions.
Maybe she is talking social classifications but it looks to me like she is talking about biology as well. And there are definitely people who argue that biological sex is a social construct not an observed reality. Possibly she is conflating the two things, that happens a lot too. I looked up the tweet in its original context, and this is what she said,
So let's assume she accepts that there is such a thing as biological sex that is binary (as in the GCF definition), but that she is talking about how humans assigned meaning to those two categories, and she believes that this is in a binary male/female form is damaging to humans and trans people in particular.
What I'd like to see is this idea debated widely. Because at this time it's being used to change laws that affect another class of people (women), and not only without asking them but actively suppressing the debate. That's a massive problem. Maybe Lola is right, maybe the GCFs are right, maybe there is something else we don't get yet. But it's important that we talk it through.
Biologists use the term either as a verb; sexual reproduction, or a noun; sexual dimorphism (actually, that's an adjective – but "sex" can stand in for both words as a noun). Calling eNBees; Trans-Hermaphrodites, certainly wouldn't be popular in the community; let alone be a Trans Activist talking point! I was trying to be as dispassionate as possible and let the biology speak for itself rather than bang the drum. It was actually nice to use my postgraduate education for once, it certainly doesn't get much of a workout most days!
But why only mammals? Birds do it; Bees do it; Even educated fleas do it…
However, what was your point if you weren't saying that; eNBees are wrong in criticizing the biological underpinnings of gender binary assumption? That still seems to be what you are saying, but I am a bit tired from all the typing and screen time. This reducing people to their reproductive capacity does seem a peculiar point for a feminist to be trying to defend. Where does that leave prepubescent girls, and post-menopausal women?
Let's make this simple. Irrespective of whether they be; Trans-Men, Trans-Women, or T-Hs, do you believe that trans people are people? And thus, presumably, able to know their own minds, without the truth being woman-splained to their poor inadequate selves: Asking for a friend – who couldn't take the constant harassment (to be fair; mostly from male family members), and so can't be here to ask for themself. What with being too dead from the suicidal depession that NZers seem only too keen to deepen. And another friend who went the same way… And another….
Mammals because that's what humans are. We're not insects or birds.
I'm not reducing people to reproductive capacity, so I think you've again misunderstood my point. There's nothing wrong with talking about our sexed bodies, it doesn't mean that is all we are. I'm of the class of humans that produces eggs, and that's been true from before I was born and until I die including as a girl and as a menopausal woman.
As for womansplaining, I wasn't talking about trans people, I was pointing to the issues in the gender/sex wars and the problems with the semantics around the definitions of sex. Trans people can bring to the table all the things they believe, and so can feminists and other women (both groups aren't hive minds and cover a range of beliefs). If you afford trans people the right to self-definition and self determination, I cannot see how you could then exclude women from having the same right. From that point there is the issue of how we talk about these things collectively and what is going to be useful for society.
Biologically speaking, you could say that we (and all other terrestrial vertebrates), are a kind of land-dwelling lobe-finned fish. In the same way that birds are a kind of dinosaur. Inasmuch as cladistics are a useful lens for examining evolution; where the descendant of an organism is recognized as being of a type with that organism. Say; a daughter is related to their mother, except times many generations. However, as this is not conventional usage of the designations, biologists generally agree to treat (lobe-finned – think coelacanth) fish and humans as entirely different things despite how they would be viewed if we weren't so anthropocentric.
Biology is not simple, so I become intensely suspicious of anyone who claims something is simply "biological". Given how long and hard I have had to struggle to achieve even the slight familiarity with the discipline that I have achieved.
Are these; "gender/sex wars", or are the disagreements between groups with different priorities? Wars just sounds so; needlessly dramatic, and like there is no room for compromise or de-escalation. I do like that you note that; "both groups aren't hive minds and cover a range of beliefs", though that is excluding cis-men; who are as damaged by the patriarchy as (almost) anyone.
It may be having spent too much time on this thread today, but I found this Wynn video that I stayed up late to finish watching is germane to the topic at hand:
Yes, feminism excludes men. There's nothing wrong with that. Likewise the trans umbrella. If you want a political movement or belief set that includes everyone try humanism, or the political left.
I call it war because it is as you describe. Needlessly dramatic and little room for compromise or de-escalation. Imo that will remain so as along as one side takes the position of no debate and actively suppresses discussion.
And yes, groups with different priorities. GCFs name the conflict of rights, TAs deny there is any conflict of rights, and round and round it goes.
You see, Forget now, whatever salient or rational opinions the performer in your wee clip is intending to impart to us mere mortals is totally and utterly and irretrievably undermined at about 58 seconds when she states that JK Rowling 'can't stand transgenders'.
To my knowledge…and please provide proof if I'm mistaken…but Rowling never said or wrote such a thing.
This conversation would proceed much more smoothly without the lies and hyperbole.
OTOH…
JKR in her own words is revelatory, and plenty of analysis online about how and why she is being misrepresented (including by Contrapoints).
https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/
eg the idea that JKR 'can't stand transgenders', in the context of violence and safety she wrote,
Not conceding anything here, but probably best to leave yesterday's OM to yesterday. At least we didn't clutter up other threads with this bickering, and hopefully got it out of systems for a couple of days.
I have one more day of summer holidays to spend with my children. The sun is shining and I don't want to waste more time online today. Maybe I'll check in later on – this evening, but my brain will likely be mush by then.
Go well y'all.
all good, doesn't look like bickering to me, looks like normal TS debate. Have fun out there in the sun 🙂
What's this 'reduce' business? Who's 'reducing'?
Frankly, who really knows their own mind?
Forget now
I am not educated in biology, but I am a teacher of language, and I know the difference between a verb and a noun, and gerund(ive)s which enable the combination of their functions.
I thought instantly when I read your first paragraph 'sex as a verb': ah yes, "he sexes the frogs" means he examines them to specify which sex they are. (I nearly wrote 'gender' instead of 'sex'. How insensitive of me! Gender is a big linguistic term too, whereas 'sex' is not.)
I then checked my Collins dictionary, and it gave the very meaning of 'sex' I had understood as a verb, but no other. I cannot make grammatical sense of what you write after that point. As far as I remember I did not 'sex' (verb) my partner to produce our daughter; I had 'sex' (noun) with her.
'Sexual reproduction'? If biologists are using the verb 'sex' with that meaning, can you please give me an example? I want to know how words are being used in new and interesting ways.
If it was just a punctuation typo, sorry for being a boring pedant.
Isn’t language telling? One can ‘sex up’ one’s sex life and have more lively sex. Or so I’ve heard …
Indeed, but I thought that slangy phrases like 'sex up' would have little standing in serious biology.
Mind you, I think I have made my most serious biological efforts when sexed up, when I look back…
Saying the right words, at the right time, with the right timbre is a sure way to sex up things. The words may not mean anything but they sure can make an impact. The most important erogenous zone is between the ears; the word is mightier than the sword.
Just wait till somebody uses 'gender' as a verb.☺
Example sentence: Homo Sapiens sometimes breed by having sex, and sometimes have sex while taking prophylactic measures to prevent offspring resulting from this sex. "Sexual reproduction" is a adverb plus a verb? No, that would be; reproduce, "intercourse would be a noun. It's more that "sex" can act as verb by shortening; "to sexually reproduce", to a single syllable. Though you may be right that that's a gerund, I'm not so good with grammar jargon. Anyway, the meaning is distinct from; "sex" as the primary and secondary characteristics that comprise a species' sexual dimorphism.
Plus, I did say I was tired earlier, even tireder now.
…testosterone can be a powerful mood destabilizer …
Chemistry, eh?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1281309/
In all probability we are, as a species, doomed. For the best, maybe.
Thanks for the link, RMcD. I can't say it was exactly fun reading, but neither was it entirely news to me. I am typing on my phone with the kids catching up on their cartoons (after a week at family's bach where the only screen time was an uncle watching yachts races). So I can't quote any of it though.
I did find the barely repressed glee at; Newbold having the opportunity to study DES toxicity in research that could never have otherwise got ethical clearance to conduct, a bit embarrassing as a scientist. I did recognize it as being similar to the studies into the thalidomide catastrophe however; which, while a disaster for those affected, is fascinating from a biological perspective.
Yeh, there's a reason why scientists have independent ethical approval boards. It's a bit easy to get caught up in the pursuit of knowledge and not notice yourself becoming monstrous. Psychology experiments like; Milgram's compliance studies, come to mind.
Anyway, I probably won't posting much today with taking kids for a swim onceit warms up a bit more. But couldn't find your comment last night, and did want to acknowledge your contribution.
If there is no human there to witness it, are two copulating dinosaurs male and female?
dunno Gabby, they could be gay dinos. You might be confusing sexual orientation there with the species ability to reproduce.
If there is no human there to witness it, are two reproducing dinosaurs male and female?
Fuck, Gabby. Have you not heard of parthenogenesis?
yes Gabby, they are. Just in the same way that our ancestors breathed in air composed of oxygen, nitrogen, and a few other gases for a very long time before science humans invented the ability to identify those gases.
You might have to wait a while or use ultrasound to know if they were indeed reproducing as such and not merely playing a sex scene in Jurassic Park.
Ok.
Waiting.
Settle in, folks. It's going to take a while.
[…]
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1354995265426616321.html
Our new besties.
Details of the investigations are contained in a massive police database obtained by The Intercept: the product of a reporting tool developed by private defense company Landasoft and used by the Chinese government to facilitate police surveillance of citizens in Xinjiang.
The database, centered on Ürümqi, includes policing reports that confirm and provide additional detail about many elements of the persecution and large-scale internment of Muslims in the area. It sheds further light on a campaign of repression that has reportedly seen cameras installed in the homes of private citizens, the creation of mass detention camps, children forcibly separated from their families and placed in preschools with electric fences, the systematic destruction of Uyghur cemeteries, and a systematic campaign to suppress Uyghur births through forced abortion, sterilization, and birth control
[…]
The Ürümqi Police Database Reveals:
https://theintercept.com/2021/01/29/china-uyghur-muslim-surveillance-police/