Posts by Stephen Judd
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Lucy: it's clear that David Garrett is quite simply a nutjob, and his party is a sick joke. If we are to take him seriously, prison rape is a part of ACT's "Law and Order" policy.
If anyone gets the opportunity to engage an ACT person in the near future, please ask them whether they're intending to leave their new policy of prison rape in the hands of prisoners. After all it could be outsourced to a private provider for profit.
Can public execution and being burned in the hand be far behind?
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Lucy: I wonder if corrections officers in a private prison will be unionised...
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Eh, any large enterprise in the private sector works like this too. Endless meetings and arse-covering are a product of large organisations. It's just that in NZ, there are only a few large organisations apart from the public servce so we think that the public service is odd.
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"I just think that my work will be more meaningful and fulfilling if done in the context of my own country."
That is a sentiment I admire and respect.
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I dont think the beast called science agrees then. Neuroscience tho is making inroads into explaining thissupposedly intangible called spirituality which so far looks to be a product of our minds. So maybe enmasse we should make an effort to accept this as a possibility.
In that case, I think we are using the word "spirit" to mean different things. I suspect as is often the case on PA we are in fact in vehement agreement.
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andin: I think Morgan was making the observation that science agrees that spirit is intangible. Which is literally true. A scientific observation of "spirit" of any kind would be earth-shattering.
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I think in the context of "I'm not religious but...", people are pre-emptively defending their claim to be a good and moral person with finer feelings.
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I always suspect that people who say stuff like "I'm not religious but I am very spiritual" are basically trying to have it both ways and see themselves as superior to both theists and atheists.
I can't remember where I read this, but anyway:
"I don't believe in organised religion but I am spiritual" is an odd position. It's all of the baggage of superstition, without any of the benefits of community.
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That Bruce Sterling presentation is one of the most fascinating reads I've had in years
Really? I thought it was an incoherent jumble with few concrete statements, no valid conclusions, and quite a few errors of fact. I regret having wasted my time reading it. I bet it was entertaining as a sincerely delivered speech, but if you try to actually analyse it it's nuts.
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The thing that gets me is that there seems to be a large group of people, exemplified by Tizard, who:
- think that (actual) ISPs and recording rights holders are the only players, even though there are many providers of network access who are not ISPs, and many kinds of copyright works on the net that are not music recordings, and;
- don't seem to notice that the law is worded far more broadly than that.I mean, in principle, I'm not opposed to some sort of policy that specifically deals with the issue of private individuals sharing copyright works on peer-to-peer networks. (Although I'd want some intense and independent assessment of the economic harm suffered by rightsholders). But the law as drafted seems to cover far, far more than that case. It's as though Tizard is defending a different law than the one she presided over.