Posts by Adam H
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I thought it was an excellent campaign Russell - and nice to chat again after all that time :)
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Hard News: The miserable archive, in reply to andin,
WHAT?? So a law can be interpreted differently by a government?
Yes. It's one reason I left the public service after National got in. Their weaselly VFM bullshit gave a licence to every closet arsehole in the public sector. Tone comes from the top, but its the front line who let it happen. -
Hard News: Bikelash, paralysis – and progress, in reply to Mike O'Connell,
I went and looked up Sparrows, and found this :)
Thanks for the steer.
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Legal Beagle: Questions, but no answers,…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
I was hoping someone would ask about the Saddam Hussein reference.
Because that's the thing: it results in a war that no-one wins in the end.
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The traditional response to what is apparently an attempt by National to expose lack of experience is to drown them in information. I call it the Saddam Hussein defence.
Then you can take delight in either watching them try and digest, or pointing out when they miss salient points. Either way you win.
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I can't help but think that the foundation is:
- the hand-wringing old farts who seem to think that today's kids are far worse than they were with alcohol and
- how over-regulation of any sector always benefits the big players.Then you just layer in poorly trained ever changing staff and the rest is easy.
There's a good story here on what (may have...) happened in Sydney. God help me, I'm about to post a link to the Daily Mail. Please forgive me.
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And there we have it: proof that Key really was the moderating influence on National.
And a warning for all those who look at the USA / UK and think "it couldn't happen here"
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to Craig Young,
How about something like $40 million a day lost to various forms of tax dodging? I do wonder if the reaction would have been the same if she'd said she'd done a few cashies to feed the baby while she was a student or suchlike.
But for me it's simple - the machine would have let this lie if she hadn't raised it herself, just a tragic error of judgment.
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So about a dozen years ago I started building an analysis shop to try and figure out why people did dumb things.
And as part of my research into "nudge", I became very conscious of how easy it was to make my brain misfire. I took the TV aerial off the roof, threw away the satellite dish and became very careful about my "use" of newspapers.
I have noticed that English appears to be clumsily but probably successfully using some Trump techniques - today he dropped in some baseless comment about drug testing... the other day it was half a billion dollars for more coppers (because crime must be, like, out of control man). I recall that such methods are especially effective on older brains.
I guess I'm saying the propaganda mechanisms aren't new. The depressing thing is that maybe we can just see them better now, like when I suddenly started noticing it.
My defence was to try and turn it off, because the cognitive dissonance can really mess with your head. But what we really need is a way to fight back. Sadly, that probably needs similar techniques, because challenging people on their misconceived notions has no effect...
I'm in if anyone has a suggestion...
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Polity: Behavioural economics and Hekia Parata, in reply to andin,
And we’re just clever monkeys, tho, our best achievement is deluding ourselves it seems.
Yep. That.
I guess what leaves me most frustrated with the economics profession are the ones like Friedman who seem to think that using Greek notation is an excuse to behave like a sociopath. Look what it did to Thatcher:
I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families."