Posts by mark taslov
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Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to John Farrell,
Cars and electronics – from imported components.
and mutton from….
At some point we might just have to admit that we're a bit thick, our number #8 wire mentality won't cut it in the digital age, we can't recycle, we can't build anything from scratch, heck our chief reason for not getting the electoral commission to introduce a more rigorous voter eligibility criteria is that although we can trust them to count the votes we couldn't possibly trust them to oversee a system to ensure voters understand what they're doing because of some racists 50 years ago. The famous kiwi can't do attitude.
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Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to simon g,
A foreign (second) language test is not a literacy test, or an intelligence test, or an education test. Who knows where voters get their information?
I don’t disgree with this simon or your point, but following the instructions on a ballot does test one’s literacy in the relevant language.
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Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to linger,
I absolutely agree Linger, in all honesty I feel an aim of being more rather than less inclusive is a more productive starting point. That I have a tendency to waste time painting myself into corners over issues that I have little or no passion for is at least as unwelcome to me as it may be to anyone else.
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Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to David Hood,
What’s flawed about it?
“one wrong answer denotes failure of the test.”
I’m sure people here could design a better test- where better is defined as excluding a different group of people that you want to exclude, but it will only be better in the sense of affecting a different group. This test was extremely effective as a gatekeeper.
Your argument hinges on the idea that the gatekeeper wanted to exclude, which we can assume they did. In our case could a test not be administered multiple times (as with a drivers license) with the aim of including everyone capable of interacting with our electoral system? There are 101 ways one could do this. Your inclusive argument would make more sense if we didn’t already exclude people on the basis of age and incarceration.
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Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to David Hood,
I suspect it was to illustrate what happens once you start setting voter eligibility tests
So a flawed example to illustrate what exactly? As of the 2013 census 87,534 do not speak English, 86.1% of whom are adults now. One such person I met last year (here on a parent resident visa) spoke glowingly about John Key, 'key' apparently being one of the handful of English words he knew; No facts, just an emotive response. Sure this demographic might only end up accounting for 1 parliamentary seat, if that, but I’m not seeing any compelling reasons to let illiterate people vote in elections that are basically literacy tests.
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Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to Farmer Green,
Pre-inauguration, that looks like an “early call” :-)
It looked like The Atlantic were running a 2 for the price of 1 electoral college deal.
This analysis of the MSM's role in Trump's victory was quite comprehensive.
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Congratulations on your new position and on your work with Justin Lester Rob. Though I’ve seldom agreed with you, your installments have made for compelling and thought provoking reading. Regardless of remuneration, I sense a positive election result is incentive enough for you and I respect that. Keep up the great work!
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Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to BenWilson,
the basis for access to power
In fairness to Rich’s point and example there, I achieved the required score on that sample test to be granted British citizenship. It wasn’t so much testing intelligence as it was testing knowledge. A test of the nature presented need not be dissimilar to the hoops one need jump through in order to legally drive a motor vehicle.
Having said that I strongly support this:
But outright meritocracy has serious problems as a political system. It’s going to entrench privilege and power, and there is no safety valve at all. At least giveashitocracy does have the valve that if something becomes enough of a problem that the giveashit factor rises, then the entrenched privilege can be swept aside.
Most relevant is that with the US system they have a – loosely defined – meritocratic system already in place to protect their democracy from the worst excesses of the people.
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Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Maybe we should have a liberalised version in the west
Indeed, and voting aside, at a party level - if more stringent restrictions were imposed on new members, the ideological split within British Labour or Trump getting the Republican nomination might be more unlikely.
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Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to B Jones,
Thanks for this. A couple of things possibly also worthy of inclusion are the process to join the party, plus the fact that new membership has dropped to half its previous rate since Xi took office and since that article was published.
In the late 2000s joining the party offered the prospects of a stable – though not well paid compared to the private sector – job for life. Though a shift in public perception under Xi has resulted in a decline in new members annually, a key influence on this drop has been the perception of a heightened ideological resolve.
In contrast I attempted to join the National Party (!?) just now and found I was unable to do so unless I paid $5 - that reason alone.