Posts by Neil Morrison
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
My point-of-view is that from the longer perspective of history, we tend to assign greater roles to technological change as we are able to take a wider view of them. You look for causes that related to significant social changes and assign them as causative.
it's a bit chicken and egg but cuneiform did arise from the need to keep records of agricultural production and organised agriculture was the basis for "civilisation".
Thus Spoke Zarathustra disolves into The Blue Danube.
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I don't know much about social networking and all I know of Marshall McLuhan comes from Woody Allen movies but writing developed in conjuction with the emergence of large-scale social organisation - that could not have happened without writing.
So social structure and information technology have been feeding off each other for a long time.
I think there's quite a few other linkages between information ,technology and human society. That social networking might play a critical and new role in social change I think is quite possible.
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Russell Brown,
Like this, it seems almost reassuring.
That millitary-industrial complex comes in handy from time to time.
I'm a bit skeptical about that article's claim that "US hopes are solidifying around the reformist Mohamed ElBaradei". That would be a bit prematutre and Obama looks to be taking his lead from what's going on in Egypt and not picking winners at this point at least.
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Stephen Judd,
I find it hard to put any other construction on what Campbell said.
I didn't get the impression he intended to make that implication, rather that the intro was poorly written. The jumping and down about the govts and our diplomats supposed lack of response to situation of NZers in Egypt seemed a little off the mark as well.
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Andrew Sullivan links to an interview with the Muslim Brotherhood.
A few things to disagree with of course but comparatively anodyne, even when it comes to Israel, and they're not expected to have a huge influence in a post-Mubarak government.
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Stephen Judd,
Campbell's implication that Key is, by virtue of his mother and the acclamation of the Jerusalem Post, acting out some sort of traitorous solidarity with Israel, rather than being his typical ill-informed self.
Key's refering specifically to the role Mubarak has played regarding Israel in the peace process and apart from omitting Jordan gets it pretty much right. It's a complicating factor for the Obama administration which gives $US1.3 billion a year to the Egyptian army as a result of the Egypt/Israel peace agreement brokered by Carter all those years ago. (The army is currently playing a moderating role, co-incidence perhaps).
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Russell Brown,
The US and European leaders have effectively cut Mubarak loose; Key is still praising him.
praise?
The United States has a close partnership with Egypt and we've cooperated on many issues, including working together to advance a more peaceful region.
maybe just recognising the complexity.
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What the partial sell-off does sound like is almost the opposite – trying to push various SOEs into a model that is more typical of publicly traded companies by mimicing a diversified shareholder structure.
Why “opposite"? Isn’t what’s proposed for the power companies the same as Air NZ?
But I’m curious, if a partial sell-off of the power companies would have a net negative effect then surely, by the same logic, the govt buying all the Air NZ shares would have a net positive effect.
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If, for arguments sake, there is no gain to be had through a partial sell-off then presumably it would make sense for the govt to buy all the Air NZ shares.