Posts by David Chittenden
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OnPoint: MSD's Leaky Servers, in reply to Sacha,
The shooting of the messenger? Yes, all over the right wing blogs, sir.
Oh, I can imagine. Thanks
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OnPoint: MSD's Leaky Servers, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Thanks Matthew. 2 f***'n years! OK. That makes complete sense ...
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Hi all,
I'm living away from NZ and am late to this news. Firstly, it's of course shocking and great work Kieth for uncovering it.
There are now 22 pages of comments and I am not going to wade through them but I guess someone has already asked some questions I have in mind and also got some good answers. Can someone help me here please?
This security breach seems to have been going on for some time. Kieth also needed some time to document the degree of the breach - the kinds of information that was available etc. And as Kieth has demonstrated some of it is very personal information about very vulnerable people and sensitive situations. I understand that Kieth took one week to research and release his findings. Even if the breach had already been going on for some time it seems to me that one week is a long time to knowingly keep very sensitive information unprotected.
I'm all for holding those responsible to account and for exposing the severity of the breach, but it seems to me that protecting the vulnerable should be a slightly higher priority from a public interest point of view.
Did I understand correctly? Did anyone discuss these issues?
Thanks!
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Hard News: The Advocate, in reply to Sacha,
Beautiful example of the human truth in a 'soft' story - Kiwi who helped create Big Bird, and a love story spanning 50 years.
Very nice story, thanks Sacha.
Really enjoyed the full JC interview. Nice to get an insight into some of the pressures and demands as well as how much of himself he puts into it.
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Hard News: The Advocate, in reply to Steve Barnes,
I have to admit that when Campbell covered the "Corngate Scandal" I felt annoyed that he expected the then PM, Helen Clark, to have all the information at her fingertips without giving her the "Heads Up" on the guts of the interview.
If my memory serves me correctly, John Campbell publicly said that he regretted his uncompromising approach in that interview. It was a long time after the interview but for me it did say something about the man. I'm not sure he ever said so to Helen though ...
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Changing topic to Paul Ryan's selection for the Media3 show ...
The US election rhetoric is unbelievably tribal and mainly full of loud shouting.
Here are some facts* on Paul Ryan and women.
And the media coverage is usually very biased. Here's a rare case of a reporter actually knowing her stuff and calling the Republican for the liar he is
*I haven't checked them but there is a web link ...
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Speaker: The gathering of the small tribe, in reply to Russell Brown,
LIKE!
Good timing - and it made me laugh! :)
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Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to David Chittenden,
Actually, I think I have badly over stated that. Many with dominant extrinsic values are under-educated (for whatever reasons) and therefore understandably may have a lower IQ. I think I need to find that research again .... Apologies!
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Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to DeepRed,
And I can safely say from my own private school experiences that wealth and intellect don't have a proportional relationship.
Actually they do. I've also read articles which show that those with more money have a stronger set of extrinsic values (my post above) and have a lower IQ. (Which is probably a good time to say that IQ is a rather flawed and limited assessment of intelligence, but I still like stating it!!!)
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Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to DexterX,
Great article Russell and great posts everyone. I can't believe how much some of you find the time to post ... :)
The problem is not enough socialism for the rich, and not enough free market for the poor.
I also think that it is a little more complex than this (as I know DeepRed does). It's a great line though and it certainly feels like that sometimes.
But I'm also weary of our universal human failings and although this is a fantastic Internet forum I know I’m partly (mostly?) drawn because I’ll feel support for what I already think. We all to greater or lesser degrees try to be rational and ‘evidence-based’ but I read somewhere that neural imaging shows that we are only capable of thinking rationally for 3 hours a day (seems way too low I know!) For all the rest we are on some degree of autopilot. It’s biological and we mostly just look for errors in the patterns we are used to (think how much you actually remember from driving the route home from work). This is just to say that we have an excuse for oversimplifying!
Ultimately both sides of the political divide want what’s best for the overall betterment of society in spite of all the hot air. They simply have different ideas as how to best attain that goal.
But I don’t quite agree with is either. I think both sides have different ideas of what the better society is – as well as different ideas about how to get there. In the end, I think we (subconsciously?) want to live in societies where people have similar values to those that we do. Values research (articles, TED talks) shows us that people cannot easily hold ‘extrinsic’ (think caring for others, the environment etc) and ‘intrinsic’ (think money, beauty, status etc) values at the same time. To make a simple us vs them comparison, we can divide people into those that have a stronger set of intrinsic and those that have stronger extrinsic values. What is really scary, is that our increasingly consumer, advertising-driven, status-gained-through-money-and-looking-good culture is changing the weighting of individual and societal values. And the reason we need to keep money out of politics is that it brings a certain values set with it (along with other negative effects).
But we all think we are right, and maybe I remember this research because it gives me an easy way to reaffirm what I already thought ;)