Posts by BenWilson
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Speaker: Generation Zero: Let's Grow Up, in reply to James Bremner,
I'm not against sprawl entirely. I just don't think it should be the only option. As for the math you're doing on the cost of sprawl development vs intensification, it's broken. Auckland already is a sprawl and it already has property costs that are far beyond what they should be. You don't have to be a lefty to see that intensification is a good. You just have to be strangely blinkered to think that it's an all or nothing thing, organized along lines of political belief, and that the suburban castle is the last line of defense against the socialist overthrow of all that is decent in this world. Newsflash, many cities in right wing countries are intensively developed. Many right wing people like to live in cities. It's not a left-right issue at all. It's about people getting the right to live that way if they want it. In Auckland, it's not much of an option. We can fix this.
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Re: The low ownership of cars in Auckland, isn't the reason obvious? It's densely populated and has public transport options. The same goes for every big city (Wellington is even better than Auckland on this score). The only reason it seems bad in Auckland is because commuting in a car is probably more onerous here than in most other places, in terms of having to drive slowly. There's more cars per km of lanes, in other words. Which feels like more cars per person subjectively. In fact, we just have less road each. Given that, it's hardly surprising that pressure would be to actually have less cars each.
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Speaker: Generation Zero: Let's Grow Up, in reply to Sacha,
Big difference between buying your home and land-banking the rural-urban fringe.
Given that I haven't substantially developed what I bought, the same principle is at work. The main difference is the scale, and the risk. Buying rural land can be hugely risky. If it's not zoned for development, it's a bunch of paddocks with grass, hogging capital without any particular return.
I'm not shedding any tears that developing another 29 hectares of suburbs has been made costly by opportunist speculators. I'd way rather that the whining developers put their efforts into more intensive urban development. The reason that they won't is because they are "greedy" too. It is their "greed" that has made the other kind of greed that they are lamenting even possible.
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Hard News: Media3: We have much to discuss, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Who’s got jurisdiction on that one? A successful attempt would render most prosecutors unavailable.
Probably depends on the planet. For some uncharted tiny nowhere planet it might just be a small claims court thing. But to take out something like Earth it's really important to go through the proper channels. I'd probably outsource that to Vogons, they know how to do the paperwork.
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Notes & Queries: Paul, in reply to Dylan Bland,
That’s an unfair and untrue comment. My discomfort came from the article, not Paul. I thought I made that point very clear.
OK, fair enough, I retract that estimation of probabilities, which comes mostly from my own experience of feeling uncomfortable myself. It's pretty natural to feel uncomfortable around adults who behave in ways that are often highly inappropriate, just because of who they are. To stick with it is hard work.
I'll say no more, it took some resources of your own to say your point. It's how you feel.
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Notes & Queries: Paul, in reply to Dylan Bland,
I think Paul should tell Paul’s story.
Given that he's intellectually disabled, the likelihood of this being coherent is low. Do you think that such people's stories should only be told by them? My aunt is also intellectually disabled, but in a profound way. She can't read or write, doesn't even really know what a story is. The limit of her story, which is now over 50 years old, should be the 5 words she can put together into a sentence? Insisting on this is precisely what makes the intellectually disabled into unpeople, invisible to those with no experience of them. Everyone's got an opinion about them, but very, very few people have to actually deal with them, and even fewer do so willingly, without expectation of reward beyond perhaps the satisfaction that they have done good. I want to hear from them. It helps give me insight into how I can help, and what might be expected as outcomes for people with these troubles.
Also, Paul is only a first name. He hasn't been singled out, with surname, address and phone number, facebook page and photos. Only people who already know Paul will recognize him from the descriptions. I expect they'll be nodding their heads on every point.
I'm sorry you found the story made you uncomfortable. Making people uncomfortable is the story of Paul's life, it seems. You'd probably be a damned sight more uncomfortable being in the room with him. And you'd be enduring endless discomfort if you chose to help him frequently. I'm glad that David has that courage.
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Notes & Queries: Paul, in reply to Dylan Bland,
but to me it comes across as deeply impersonal and seeks to objectify a real person.
It is an extremely difficult subject to write about. The question of the agency of the subjects is tricky. But David made clear from the very first paragraph that Paul tells his story all the time, that he wants it to be heard. Perhaps he doesn't fully understand the ramifications of the hearing of it, but nor does he understand the ramifications of it not being heard either. That is a choice other people have to make. And it's certainly a story worth hearing.
There might be objectification in it, if the intent were to ridicule Paul, or to treat him unsympathetically. But I don't see any of that. It holds the man up as a human being worthy of dignity and understanding. It also hides nothing, doesn't gloss over the difficulties. That might be less "objectifying", but it would also be patronizing and would present a false impression.
The author states that “I treat Paul as much as possible like I’d treat anyone” yet if Paul weren’t intellectually disabled, I doubt very much this article would be published on this blog.
That's rubbish. The blog has discussed large numbers of people who are not intellectually disabled. Typically, what is focused on about people in an interesting story is what makes them different. A story about Paul that made no reference to his disability would not really be a story about Paul.
Also, the statement is "as much as possible". That's a world apart from "all the time". If you wish to try to not objectify people who are different, you have to attempt to treat them as though their difference is not everything about them. Indeed, I don't think I've mentioned to my disabled son that he is any different from anyone until this year, when I told him for the first time what happened to him. But every day I have to deal with the fact that he is different, and to make decisions around that constantly. I can't, for instance, walk more than 10m away from him in public situation, because he can't see that far, and will become very upset. When giving him into the care of someone else, I have to tell them what his troubles are, because otherwise he might suffer from their ignorance.
And that is what David is doing here - he's helping us pull back the veil of ignorance just a little bit more. I think it's a great piece.
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Speaker: Generation Zero: Let's Grow Up, in reply to Matthew Poole,
We don’t have a shortage of land, we have a gross oversupply of greedy fucks who are incentivised by an utterly bizarre tax loophole to sit on land for a decade.
LOL strong words. Or one could say that there’s exactly as many “greedy fucks” as you’d expect for the incentive. Pretty much anyone who has a chunk of money might as well be in land as not. It’s not their fault it’s incentivized. I’m one such greedy fuck – I want my capital going where it’s most valuable, and with property going up so fast it’s crazy not to be in property, even if it’s all going to end in tears in the long run. Every time I look at selling up and using the money for something “more productive” I come back to “but then I’ll have to rent a shithole for the same monthly outgoing, and whatever return on the capital I get elsewhere I’ll have to pay income tax on”.
In the case of these guys who purchased the Flat Bush land, it’s worth bearing in mind that if they hadn’t bought it, someone else would be holding something worth the same amount, or quite possibly more. Anyone “fuming” about this is mostly fuming that they didn’t get to the money pot first.
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Hard News: Media3: We have much to discuss, in reply to Emma Hart,
And I’d be madder about the ‘penalty for distribution worse than penalty for commission’ if it wasn’t already illegal to distribute images of things it’s perfectly legal to do.
Also, bizarrely, there's a great many things we're not allowed to do, heinous crimes, for which depiction is so normalized as to not even have age restriction. Murder, extortion, kidnapping, torture, mass murder, serial murder, assault, GBH, robbery, mugging, armed robbery, wreckless driving resulting in death, threatening violence, genocide, planetary destruction, the list goes on.
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Hard News: Media3: We have much to discuss, in reply to Emma Hart,
This also applies to cartoon fantasy characters – fairies, centaurs, dragons, etc, who look like they might be minors.
Presumably one can spot an underage dragon by its small breasts?
ETA: But for boy dragons? Presumably if the penis is less than 10 feet long it's underage?
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