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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What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Pacific Media Watch Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent who was held for 12 hours at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, says Israeli forces rounded up Palestinian journalists at the facility and made them kneel on the ground for hours, while naked and blindfolded. “The occupation forces handcuffed and blindfolded us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute chinasong, Shutterstock Electricity customers in four Australian states can breathe a sigh of relief. After two years in a row of 20% price increases, power prices have finally stabilised. In many places they’re ...
Chumbawamba have reportedly issued the deputy PM a cease-and-desist notice after he used their song 'Tubthumping' before his state of the nation speech. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
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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'?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jI9mavbbDw&
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):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m6hHRlKwxY
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:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gDKbT_l2us
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…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE-JoOQ9s7c
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/