by frog
Published in THE ISSUES by frog on Mon, February 20th, 2012
Tags: general debate
General debate, February 20, 2012
Published: February 20, 2012
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Please use 
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
memo to frog:..
i have been getting out and about more and commenting on more sites..
and i have some feedback to share:..
1) i think you should reinstate the different commenting system you trialled…and then bowing to howls of outrage..canned..
..when you trialled it i may have even been one of the ones who moaned about it..
..if so i was wrong..
..being able to reply directly underneath the comment you wish to reply to makes for a much more satisfying commenting-experience..
..(which is surely what you are striving for..?..)
..and mini-threads within threads can happen…which also add to the dialogue/experience..
2)..i reckon you should get rid of the downticks..(but retain the up-ticks..)
..and it’s not because i receive most of them..but because it adds nothing to the blog/commenting experience..(and..i mean..it hasn’t stopped me at all..eh..?..)
..and so much of that downticking is mindless..and only directed at an individual..not the content of the comment…(which i presume was yr original intention..?..)
..this blog is one of the few to retain a negative-tick system..and you have to ask..why..?..and can see why others ditched it..
..but..bottom line..it adds nothing…
my final request is a repeat of one i have made more than once earlier…
..in that i source/link between 30-40 news stories/backgrounders each and every day..
..whoar is a news-aggregation site..not me blogging what i had for breakfast..and how i am feeling..and who/what i am grumpy at..
..there are now over 50,000 stories/links in the whoar searchengine….
..and by any measure it is a member of the media/a media outlet…
..and could you plse pay my work the basic respect..
..of moving my listing from yr blog-roll..
..to yr media-roll..
..thank you..
..and could you also plse spell whoar all in one case..
phil@whoar.
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Those looking at the issue of those on the DPB trying to study as Paula Bennett did, should look beyond the TIA and also factor in the impact of those with children over 6 being required to be available for part-time work.
Can people study full-time on the DPB and meet the availability for part-time work work test?
Perhaps those on the DPB with children over 6 should be required to be available for part-time work OR be in study – part-time or full-time.
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Your obsessive compulsive swamping of this site with your blather and spam has been enough to drive me away from even bothering to come here. I mean even to read, let alone post.
I’d be as bold as to suggest that I’m not the only one who is thouruoghly put off this excellent forum because you swamp it. Take a break.
[frog: Sam, I tend to take a more relaxed approach to moderation on general debate threads than topic-specific ones, but I think you do have a point. Phil, a bit less promotion here of your site would be appreciated.]
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sam..sam….’trolls’..by definition…
..use fake names..and personal insults/abuse (devoid of any cleverness/intelligence…)
my name is phillip ure..
..yours..?
..and i could be bitchy about yr absence..
..and note that we hardly knew/missed you..
..eh..?
..but i won’t..
phil@whoar.
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hey frog..!..how about answering what i asked in the first question..?
..and you think what i post here is not promoting ideas..?
(many like veganism..i know most of you oxymoronic animal-eating greens hate..being called on how full of green-bullshit you are..eh..?..discomfitting..eh..?)
..i criticise..i don’t abuse..
..most of the fuckwits like that troll you are supporting..childish/petty/schoolyard-abuse..’fill-ewe’..?..that’s the best you’ve got..?)
..are you saying what i post is not green-relevant..?
..you lean in with that snarky little anonymous troll..?
..i post about one fucken link a day..on average..out of the many i find each day that would be totally relevant here..
..and that is too much..?
..you know what this/that is frog..?
..that/this is fucken censorship…
..and just stepping back a bit more..
..why the fuck should you object so much to a general news-aggregation site that is greener than any other..?
..in a normal world..you would be finding/linking to the vast number of green/totally-relevant stories i find..
..but you never have done that…have you frog..?
..was it something i said..?
phil@whoar.
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in fact frog..most of the/any interesting shit/links on this site..
..have been posted by me..
..eh..?
..shall we turn the subject around to yr abject failure to promote this site to what it could/should be..?
..that’d be a conversation to have..eh..?
phil@whoar.
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I second phil u’s site changes. Although I’m still not sure as to whether Whoar is media or opinion. It’s therefore in both the media monitor and leftwing blog ticker sites I run.
Is The Jackal even in the frogblog blogroll? How insulting.
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“failure to use proper paragraphs to enhance the legibility of your posts, overuse of “…” and rambling trolling shall all be considered sufficient cause for moderation of posts. If offences continue, the individual shall be banned”
Because Phil’s last 3 posts are spam (as are 90% or more of his posts), infractable on many boards I frequent. And the first two of the posts are trolling personal attacks, which would see Phil taking a holiday from the site for a few days anywhere else.
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i wouldn’t take it personally jackal..
..it is more indicative of the ongoing lack of attention paid to..
..and chrs for the double-billing..
phil@whoar.
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The link’s title says it all. An exceptional case for a first world nation, a surge in third world illness.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/6448733/Surge-in-disease-blamed-on-social-inequality
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..have been posted by me..”
I don’t find your links or comments very interesting at all.
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that’s because you don’t click on them..eh..?
..you are claiming to be feeling the quality of the cloth from looking at the come-hither sign outside the store..eh..?
..proudly ‘not led’..eh..?
..heh..!
..and it feels sooo good…
..but you will never know..
..silly you..eh..?
..trying to review/pontificate from a position of total ignorance..
..is that a pattern with you..?
..pontificating from a position of total ignorance..?
phil@whoar.
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Given you don’t know whether I click on your links or not, pot/kettle.
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seeing as you dislike them so much..
..i’m kinda picking you don’t..
..and that’s called an educated-guess..eh..?
phil@whoar.
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I have not been disappointed visiting Phil’s links, passing through his site far more often than I comment there, but I definitely find stuff that is worthwhile at the other end. He provides an aggregation of information culled from elsewhere, and it is really not bad.
… and a lot of his criticisms have enough truth in them to make a fair bit of sense – IF one can manage not to take them personally. He may be about as smooth as a silicon carbide grinding wheel, but his points are not often wide of the mark.
So I would appreciate leaving him to do his thing and be who he is here.
His input adds value in my opinion.
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chrs bj..
phil@whoar.
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Tenants in our own land
There’s been a lot of talk recently about whether Pengxin Group has financial backing from the Chinese government. There’s no doubt that China has an agressive policy of using the financial advantage the recession gave them to secure resources and assets from other countries. It is no wonder then that at least one of the Crafar farms is going to be occupied…
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Anyone interested in what Phil is aggregating can simply go to Phil s website; it doesn’t need to be copied on here.
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Re Phil’s original post – yes, that would be good. I would comment more often except that the posting I’d like to respond to is so far up the line it wouldn’t make sense.
And I also agree about the downticks – if the posting is unacceptable for personal insults then frog can issue a warning and delete if it goes on.
I don’t like Phil’s sneering style either, but I’d rather have him here than not – his comments are mostly relevant to Green issues.
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http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/confessions_of_a_greenpeace_dropout/
“You could call me a Greenpeace dropout, but that is not an entirely accurate description of how or why I left the organization 15 years after I helped create it … During the early 1980s two things happened that altered my perspective on the direction in which environmentalism, in general, and Greenpeace, in particular, were heading. The first was my introduction to the concept of sustainable development at a global meeting of environmentalists. The second was the adoption of policies by my fellow Greenpeacers that I considered extremist and irrational. [snip]
This was when I first fully realized there was another step beyond pure environmental activism. The real challenge was to figure out how to take the environmental values we had helped create and weave them into the social and economic fabric of our culture. This had to be done in ways that didn’t undermine the economy and were socially acceptable. It was clearly a question of careful balance, not dogmatic adherence to a single principle. [snip]
Despite my efforts, the movement abandoned science and logic somewhere in the mid-1980s, just as society was adopting the more reasonable items on our environmental agenda. [snip]
Ironically, this retreat from science and logic was partly a response to society’s growing acceptance of environmental values. Some activists simply couldn’t make the transition from confrontation to consensus; it was as if they needed a common enemy. When a majority of people decide they agree with all your reasonable ideas the only way you can remain confrontational and antiestablishment is to adopt ever more extreme positions, eventually abandoning science and logic altogether in favor of zero-tolerance policies. [snip]
We should be growing more trees and using more wood, not cutting fewer trees and using less wood as Greenpeace and its allies contend. Wood is the most important renewable material and energy resource. [snip]
Geothermal heat pumps, which too few people know about, are far more important and cost-effective than either solar panels or wind mills as a source of renewable energy. They should be required in all new buildings unless there is a good reason to use some other technology for heating, cooling, and making hot water.
The most effective way to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels is to encourage the development of technologies that require less or no fossil fuels to operate. Electric cars, heat pumps, nuclear and hydroelectric energy, and biofuels are the answer, not cumbersome regulatory systems that stifle economic activity. [snip]
Many activist campaigns designed to make us fear useful chemicals are based on misinformation and unwarranted fear.
Aquaculture, including salmon and shrimp farming, will be one of our most important future sources of healthy food. It will also take pressure off depleted wild fish stocks and will employ millions of people productively.
There is no cause for alarm about climate change. The climate is always changing. Some of the proposed “solutions” would be far worse than any imaginable consequence of global warming, which will likely be mostly positive. Cooling is what we should fear. [snip]
Wealth and urbanization will stabilize the human population. Agriculture should be mechanized throughout the developing world. Disease and malnutrition can be largely eliminated by the application of modern technology. Health care, sanitation, literacy, and electrification should be provided to everyone.
No whale or dolphin should be killed or captured anywhere, ever. This is one of my few religious beliefs. They are the only species on earth whose brains are larger than ours and it is impossible to kill or capture them humanely.”
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Choose your battles…namely the vegan thing…I get it, really I do, it’s VERY dear to your heart. But you’ve got your point across so so many times now. It’s really tedious.
Stop spamming Whoar, or if you must how about a brief ‘digest style’ index posted once only each general debate. As others have stated above.. If I wanted to, I’d be there already.
Less is more… try it, you may be pleasantly surprised!
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“..those posts that you take considerable time to create..”
well the thing is…it is like turning on a tap..eh..?
..that’s why it flows so well..eh..?
“..It’s really tedious..”
did you pick the flesh out of yr teeth before saying that..?
..and..why won’t you give yr words room to breath…?
..the white-space is free..eh..?..no trees were harmed etc..
..your all pushed-together/shoulder-to-shoulder words..
..fries my slightly larger than yours brain..eh..?
..’i just can’t read it’..
..eh..?
..a digest style in one post..?..sounds good..
..seeing as that would be a quantum leap up in links from the average one i post most days..
..go scrolling back thru the general debates..if you doubt my word..
..but a ‘digest’..?
..hmmm..!..you’ve got me thinking about that now..
“..namely the vegan thing…I get it, really I do..”
no you don’t..
phil@whoar.
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The Environment Southland Council were provided with an opposing view of Lignite Mining today and while commercial interests get extended time to promote their projects we were initially allotted ten minutes. Considering the lignite projects will increase our carbon emissions by 20 million tons a year (from our current level of 70 million) this is no small issue and commercial interests should not be given preference over environmental concerns.
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/lignite-presentation-to-environment.html
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It will be interesting to see how they react. High time the Green party got involved in Regional council elections – this is where some of the decisions with the most enviromental impact are made and with the increasing complexity of issues and the pressure from government to mine everything, RCs need to be well-prepared and willing to do the research. Ten minutes for a presentation on such a crucial issue is nowhere near enough.
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This is what happens when National comes into office in terms of impact on the public sector. It’s bad enough that this reduces the capacity and performance to the local population, but then there is the impact on our place in the wider world. Both the foreign affairs ministry and defence are hit this time.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/6456777/Labour-fears-for-Kiwis-in-ministry-shake-up
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/6456756/Defence-staff-eye-leaving-as-morale-falls
The new development goes beyond undermining public serice capability and makes government dependent on private (capital) corporate partners. And part of achieving this is to appoint foreigners to head our public service, the local corporate suit chosen to head the Foreign Affairs Ministry the exception for obvious reasons. Thus there is no longer any respect for local instutitonal knowledge and local public service capacity.
This is to render us as a mere subsidiary to global corporatisation, to demean national sovereignty and undermine local capacity for independent self-governance. Thus make us a helpless dependent on our inter-connected place in a global market where countries are dependent on foreign capital and expertise from a global apparatchik class that seamlessley move from private to public position. Like knights of the fuedal order.
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Dismantling the reason for war
The excuses for war have focused mainly on a threat of terrorism from Iran and nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands. The propaganda for war is as usual, highly flawed. It is based on a falsehood that the United States and Israel are somehow operating their nuclear weapons industries properly, and can therefore judge a hypothetical threat from Iran.
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Are there Right Hands for Nuclear Weapons?
I don’t think so.
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In the case of “Naturists” such self-hatred is understandable; they are such a sorry lot. But hatred is too strong an emotion to feel toward them; pity and contempt are the most they rate.
As for me, willy-nilly I am a man, not a beaver, and H. sapiens is the only race I have or can have. Fortunately for me, I like being part of a race made up of men and women — it strikes me as a fine arrangement — and perfectly “natural”.”
– Lazarus Long, in ‘Time enough for Love’, (1973) by Robert Heinlein.
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Typical straw man comment from silly old Heinlein. He should have stuck to writing kid’s SF, which he was very good at. I always appreciated the rather silly film of ‘Starship Troopers’ for taking the piss out of the original, much sillier, and deeply militaristic book.
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I always disliked his misogyny – in his future, if there were any women, they tittupped around in high heels serving coffee to the blokes who did the real work. Not a great thinker.
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Yeah, his ‘adult’ fiction was ghastly for women’s roles, the kid’s stuff was also very boyish, and the rare male-female interactions were a bit like something out of ‘Archie and Veronica’. Clean, wholesome and completely daft.
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Never did like facile science fiction.
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BTW; Someone must have voted for this party called Shorty and His Silly Band of Schoolyard Bullies – anyone like to own up?
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I wouldn’t think of it as misogyny. He LIKED women. His imagination simply did not reach past them as objects… not uncommon for most of the writers of his age particularly in the Science Fiction genre.
Consider, he was born in 1907. He was 60 years old when the BEGINNINGS of the women’s movement (2nd wave) appeared.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-wave_feminism
The book quoted was published in 1973, he was nigh on 70. The movement had not yet run its course, and it is doubtful he could have really grokked the change.
As for the quality of his writing, it sometimes works and sometimes not, but his ideas and imagination were always good for pushing the boundaries of the day. Some folks now may find them a bit old-hat, but he explained science in his science fiction, as well as creating tales, and most of us who “grew up” with his work were influenced by it.
He did fall into the libertarian trap. A lot of very intelligent people do, not realizing or recognizing the places w here their imagined society violates human limitations. “The Moon is a harsh Mistress” was an excellent example of this, as the libertarian ideal was only achievable with a non-human intelligent machine handling the organization. Very Randian.
Starship Troopers was aimed at the juvenile audience. Not a book for adults – quite. Nor in any way a book for pacifists… but not a bad book – when I was a lot younger, and still not bad. Just without a lot of depth.
Yet I could not sit through even the first 3 minutes of the film as it was so false to the actual book. I have not re-read it or any of his work, in a long time.
I never liked and still do not, the stuff that is sold here as “Science Fiction”. Fantasy it is for the most part, and science only a little.
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@bjchip 8:42 PM
Other than the women who didn’t want to fuck him, that is!
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Mysogeny is still an ingrained disaster.
Carefull there Toad – you’ll be parked up with a certain P. Uuuurrrgghhh.
And what about the Cricket? – I reckon our selectors ought shelve the precious ego’s and pick the best eleven – otherwise these Africaaners will walk over us without a contest!
Oh! E Ron Hubbard?
If I get fiscally desperate – I’d do a better job
I can’t believe any followers are genuine.
Having said that – I watched a two hour Doco on Waco today – and the only thing less credible than the (similar) abuse from Koresh, was the mindless Tyranny from his own Govt. – why, indeed fund those who will kill you?
Here I look for the hospital system to save me from well-documented effects of Gulf War Syndrome – and their response?
MAKE OUT YOUR WILL!
It’s a tempting option
Who, in the Nazi Death Camps. wouldn’t have favoured a quick answer.
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PS; My offer for a professed National Voter to front remains open…..
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Well, given we’re talking about Heinlein and SciFi… “I know I’m a Green voter, but who are all you zombies?”
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Gosh Ivy… and me a dues paying member
I take it you don’t approve of SciFi for Greens? Read any Cherryh?
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Not to put too fine a point on this, but the best hope for preservation of this planet is for us to be able to leave it at a reasonable price.
That’s actually true.
If we have cheap access to space we can:
1. Build Satellite Solar Power Systems and shut down the coal fired power generation. All of it. Around the world.
2. Build mirrors in space to control warming or cooling as required.
3. Create factories in space to build products for our use and dump waste where it cannot be a problem.
4. Obtain minerals and other resources without digging them out of Mother Earth.
… and that is just the start of the changes it would give.
That is regarded by most here as “Science Fiction” but it is ENTIRELY possible. No new scientific principles need discovery, no unobtainium needs to be obtained. It is a matter of planning and engineering for a longer term than any corporate balance sheet would stand, but it plays to human strengths. We ARE “Clever Monkeys”.
Getting everyone to agree to take a haircut, agree to a climate treaty, is not one of our strengths (Unable to maintain social coherence in groups larger than about 200).
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BJ,
While all technically feasable I do have one issue.
Who controls the gadgets in space controls the earth. For example
The controller of the mirrors can cause crop failures in an “enemy” state, create an oasis in a desert for an friendly state, etc.
You get my drift.
Before those technically feasable space plans are instigated I think we need to solve some basic human problems first.
As a species we are terribly tribal (have been since caveman days) and I cant ever foresee a time when cooperation between the tribes will extend to agreement earth wide for climate control measures.
You may say cool the Sahara (and make it rain) to enable growing crops for the starving in Africa. However the Sahara is a huge heat source for global winds.
http://www.earthfacts.net/weather/windmovement/
So having a mirror in space to cool the Sahara (as an example) and grow food for Africa is doable but how do you reconsile the weather chanage flow on effects, on the rest of the planet, with sound managment of the solar mirrors?
Can we actually measure the effect that cooling the Sahara will have on global weather?
Again as an example, I’m sure you can think of others. Maybe people in Greenland may want warmer summers to enable better living conditions.
What effect will that have as melting ice raises sea levels?
Do we give that power to the people in Greenland?
Or are we aiming for the One World Government as by the terms of Agenda 21
http://www.myfreedomfoundation.com/index.php/stop_thurston_county/view/agenda_21_planning_a_new_world_order
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Gerrit – I don’t think you need to fear the mirrors in space. They will be big and almost totally unmanoeuverable, so they will be easily knocked out if they fall into the wrong hands. It isn’t possible to park them above one spot to cast a continuous shadow so they can’t force localised cooling – it is the whole planet or nothing. You could use them to focus sunlight onto a region to heat it but the area covered would be large and one mirror on its own probably can’t add enough heat to be significant before it moves past on its orbit.
Solar power stations are more of a potential threat – and I have a science fiction book with exactly that theme. However if you know about a potential threat then it can be mitigated. We also know about a real threat to various countries which we are struggling to mitigate – global warming.
Trevor.
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Bill English – Asshole of the Week
National need to explain why they’re still promoting falsehoods about the potential returns from MOM asset sales, why they’ve dramatically devalued the current dividends and how they’ve managed to borrow $50 billion with practically nothing to show for it?
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Jackal – Funny how an estimate of $6b from asset sales is suddenly much less than the previous extimate of between $5b and $7b.
Even our local kindergarten kids know that 6 comes between 5 and 7. Perhaps opposition polititians and other people who say there’s been a large drop in the estimate could get some value out of returning to kindergarten to learn their numbers.
Likewise, when you claim estimates are false because they are $0.8b above book value, you could do with learning what book value means.
We had a car whose book value had depreciated to the point that when we sold it this month, we got market value which was sixty times higher than it’s book value.
And book value can change dramatically, simply by changing to a different accounting method.
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“Consider, he was born in 1907. He was 60 years old when the BEGINNINGS of the women’s movement (2nd wave) appeared.”
Other male writers of the same age did a tolerable job with female characters – it doesn’t take exposure to full-blown feminism to see women as more than fantasy objects and caricatures.
And as for the depiction of male-female interactions, even Carl Barks (born 1901 and writing for kids) managed to produce more realistic relationships.
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A college dorm with a single thermostat, eh Gerrit
It DOES require something of a change in our management-governance. So does any other solution to AGW and that is a lot of the reason it is so hard for us. However, the nature of the thing is that one nation COULD build the Solar Power Systems and create CATS. The way we operate (cooperation is the LAST resort rather than the first) that would still save our collective butts because when we actually NEED the mirrors as in “work together or die” becomes plain to everyone, we’ll have the tools to put them up…. and SSPS doesn’t affect other people’s climate except to remove the need to put CO2 into the air to make power.
The issue can be finessed… deferred until Mother Nature trumps the objections of the folks who can’t stand the idea of government doing anything and hate the science around AGW.
The point is that CATS pays for itself no matter if there is AGW or not… and there are several countries or groups of countries that could undertake it, just as there are several paths to achieve it.
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If mirrors in space were slightly inflated large balloons, their surface would be naturally rounded, and thus incapable of focussing the sun’s light onto a specific target. They would still meet the need of reflecting sunlight away from the earth but they would pose no danger even if someone were to land on them and try to control them.
Trevor.
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We are having substantial change being forced on a system that clearly doesn’t need it!
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/more-mixed-messages-for-education.html
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Sam – He went to an all male University and he is not “other writers”. Exceptions do not alter the point that his attitudes are not uncommon for his age.
E.R.Burroughs for another mostly contemporaneous example. More racist than sexist, but having a huge influence on boys growing to become men in a world where women were very much still regarded as property.
He reflected his times.
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He reflected his times, which is why quoting him does not impress me.
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Janine
The Green Party, much as I love it, has a streak of what Heinlein described (and IMHO described quite well) there. Usually it is expressed in terms of building dams, occasionally in calls to turn off the Aluminium production… the misanthropic streak IS there.
Heinlein being a sexist or not is irrelevant to that.
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