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.
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.
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,
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.
Applying for asylum abroad can result in being classified as a terrorist, as part of an initiative to prevent the “backflow” of foreign ideas.
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TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
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 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
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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.
https://twitter.com/lecanardnoir/status/1355242095817195528
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/
https://twitter.com/zaelefty/status/1355210995141062656
https://twitter.com/zaelefty/status/1355210999763263488
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,
https://twitter.com/lolaolufemi_/status/1207691821134098432
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://twitter.com/ashishkjha/status/1354995265426616321
[…]
https://twitter.com/ashishkjha/status/1354995269818003459
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/