Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: Poor Choices, in reply to giovanni tiso,
At what point did it become a pile-on? What made it okay, if it was okay?
There isn’t a magic boundary, but certainly we can recognize clear examples of a pile on, and Willie and JT got one. Quite a few people did not think it was OK. But it was actually quite hard for them to express that, I think. And being on the other side, one of the pilers, I felt powerful. I don’t regret it in that instance, but I wouldn’t make a habit out of it personally.
Months later, no consequences at all have found their way to the actual Roastbusters, other than the pile-on they got, which does show the limits of the effectiveness. On their Facebook pages, I was rather shocked, TBH, and I’m not easily shocked by abuse. But there were quite literally thousands of people saying that they hoped these guys would get raped and murdered, usually with the writers own sick rape fantasy inserted for variety. But they’re shitheads who don’t give a toss, so all the abuse served only to give them more attention, which they were after in the first place, and also some sympathy.
On the flipside, though, they organized pile-ons themselves, on their victims. And that has been so effective that they haven’t actually suffered any legal consequences for the alleged crimes even now, years later, and after all that public controversy.
There’s no rules for pile-ons, which is probably part of the attraction. Like the Murder on the Orient Express, no one is the killer, and everyone is.
ETA: Presumably that's the attraction of firing squads and stonings as forms of execution too. No one knows who threw the killer stone, and who clean missed. It's the crowd that killed you, not any individuals.
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Hard News: Poor Choices, in reply to Bart Janssen,
But we use death to make a point all the time, and rightly so.
Indeed. This whole thread is using death to make a point. Even if the point is not to do so, that's still a point.
the rule on the internet has been and always will be
Don’t be a dickThe entire point of there even being a rule of law is because that golden rule does not work in large groups.
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My 2c is that a food blog would make more money than all the other blogs put together. Good food is something people love to pay for. The market is huge. It's also something people love to talk about, so getting content would be easy.
Think about how many tourists to any location that could be covered (and there is NO reason to restrict that to NZ) would google search for somewhere to eat, read and appreciate the content, and then click on the ad taking them to one of the places, just because searching harder is a PITA for them.
This one is well overdue. If you keep talking about it, someone else is going to do it first.
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Hard News: The Cycle Frolic, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
But surely it adds a customer ($), and potentially takes another car off the road – why couldn’t they see that as something that could grow their business’s attractiveness and viability – and perhaps a nod to their part in the ‘holistic whole’ of the transport options – or are they blinkered to other income streams?
Aha, but if the alternative for the customer is to chain up their bike and catch a bus, then they have to pay for two rides, one to get back to their bike.
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Hard News: Growing up in public, in reply to izogi,
Hopefully this is just a passing phase.
They were doing it when I lived there in the late 90s, so no, I think that's for keeps. Their uniform of black leather is pretty gangster too, it gives you a bit of a shock to see that kind of thing walking the streets.
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Presumably Lorde is playing with the "Isn't NZ a state of Australia" thing.
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I'm pretty sure the key message that most non-wonks will have got is "Labour is promising more money for babies" and details of how much more are lost in the wash.
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Hey Damian, you missed one. The guy on Media 7 (and reboots) is a pretty top bloke too.
I like to think becoming a dad has made me a better person, or at the very least made me want to be.
I’d go with that. It’s definitely a lot harder to indulge in a pessimistic world view. Giving up isn’t an option.
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Hard News: All John's Friends, in reply to Chris Waugh,
What, beyond fashions and technologies, has changed?
Just a few things off the top of my head, particular to America:
-Women got the vote
-Blacks got the vote
-Homosexuality is allowed
-Education is near universal
-There is a welfare stateThese are pretty big things to the people who got them.
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Hard News: All John's Friends, in reply to llew40,
I’m aware of a lot of Auckland based conservative voters who hate the tactical voting aspect of Epsom
That only matters if they're in Epsom.
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