This is my web log which contains all sorts of random thoughts I felt it necessary to record for posterity here. I've recorded ideas on all sorts of topics in here so I hope you find something interesting, and maybe even useful!
Anti-BS Advice
2024-08-31. Skepticism. Rating 3. ID 2361.
There's a lot of BS out there. I know there always has been, but maybe it is worse now than ever, largely due to woke ideology. If anything, I think the biggest failure in coping with it, and this arguably arises from the education system, is that people just aren't skeptical enough. If we all had good skills in evaluating evidence and in being a bit suspicious about claims being made in advertising, the news, by politicians, on-line, etc then misinformation wouldn't be a problem, and we could have a greater commitment to free speech.
When I look at the material I see every day, some is labelled misinformation and some is thought of as the accepted truth. The problem is that about the same proportion in both of those categories seems to be untrue, at least to me, so it is important to be skeptical of everything.
So some of the claims supporting the COVID vaccine turned out to be just as wrong as many of those which criticised it. The only difference was the supporting claims were the "official position" of the establishment, and the others were deemed to be the deranged ranting of conspiracy theorists.
A similar argument applies to other politically contentious issues such as climate change, trans rights, and indigenous cultural claims.
So now I want to provide some techniques I use to filter the BS from the worthwhile material. It is often related to the presence of various words which are indicative of dishonesty or a tendency towards propganda, so let's look at some of these.
My first word is "supports", which is usually used in relation to alternative health products. You might see a claim like "our supplement supports a healthy immune system". The claim itself is very vague, but the key word here is "supports". This is often used to make a claim about a product without actually being specific enough that the claim can be tested or be controlled by laws applying to real medical statements.
Once you start looking for this word you will see it a lot. It is unusual for an alternative health product to be advertised without it, and it means almost nothing. In fact, the more often the word is used, the more suspicious you should be of the advert. I'm not saying this is an absolute rule - that if the word is used the product is BS - but it is a strong indication.
Related to this is the word "may". If you see an ad stating that a product may do something the implication is that it may not, as well. In fact I would suggest that the may not is far more likely than the may!
A similar argument applies to statements like "some people report" or "our users tell us". OK fine, those people might be right in what they are reporting, but they might also be deluded, or they might feel a commitment to the product after buying it, because most people don't want to admit they have been sucked into buying a fake product.
Reality is rarely simple. Generally anyone who states something with one hundred percent confidence is wrong, because almost nothing can ever be proved beyond doubt. So I would be fairly likely to believe someone who says that the potential risks of climate change are worth acting on. But another person who tells me that the "climate crisis" is an existential risk and that is an established fact is likely to be either less aware of the subject or maybe pushing a political ideology rather than a scientific fact.
Here's another warning sign: repeated claims with no justification or change over time. I often see claims by politically correct people that "trans women are real women". Sometimes you just see this statement repeated over and over in a post, and in some cases it is part of the person's signature. It's like the classic phrase from the Nazi propaganda minister that "if you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth". No, it doesn't become the truth, it becomes a widely repeated lie that some people accept simply because they see it so much.
So yes, I'm 100% certain (yes, definitely 100%) that you may find this post supports your efforts in telling BS from facts; other people have told me it does. Ignore this, and we will all inevitably be heading towards an existential crisis.
I kind of like stirring up trouble, and I quite like other people who do it too. I fully agree that sometimes people just do this for a laugh, or for malicious reasons, but often it can be quite valuable as well, especially when commonly accepted standards are attacked.
So I don't comment on Facebook, X, YouTube, etc, or argue with people in real life (IRL) just for the fun of it... well, not often anyway. I usually hope to achieve something useful through my dissent, even if it is just to show that other perspectives exist, or to initiate a small amount of doubt in my debating opponents.
So being a "troublemaker" is a valuable, in fact essential, role in my opinion. When I see people causing trouble in a political context I generally approve of it, because although these people sometimes just argue for no good reason, or to waste everyone's time, or to cause division in groups, I still think the role is important for the times it does rationally challenge established views.
There are a few examples which stand out in local and national politics (for the benefit of my overseas readers, local here means Otago, and national means New Zealand, but these principles apply everywhere).
Nationally the best example of this, arguably, is Shane Jones. He is a member of the current government, and is a senior member of a minority party in that government, called New Zealand First. He does have a habit of being quite "robust" in his criticism of institutions and events which other people are far more subdued about. Sure, he sometimes gets things wrong, or goes too far, but that can apply to everyone, except in most cases people don't go far enough.
So despite the fact that I sometimes disagree with him, or think he has got too critical without sufficient evidence, I do think his role is important, and I always know that when he is being interviewed by the media that you will hear something interesting. Too many other politicians aren't prepared to say what they rally think (our prime minister being a great example).
The leader of this same party, Winston Peters, and to a lesser extent, the leader of the other minority part, David Seymour, also stand out in this area. They're not always right, but what they say matters.
Locally this role is held by a Dunedin City councillor by the name of Lee Vandervis. He has been a member of our council for years and has always had a reputation for being a maverick, for calling out the more conventional members when he perceives they are wrong, and for just generally being a trouble maker.
I vote for him every election, because his role is important. Again, I don't always agree with him, but I often do, and even when I don't I appreciate his alternative views being expressed anyway.
Here's an example of an unpopular view held by Lee. He was recently criticised for making "anti-Maori" comments at a public council meeting. According to our local paper he "objected to marae (Maori meeting house) protocol compliance requirements, a hui (meeting) agenda that was not understandable by non-Maori speakers, and to an expectation he sing waiata (Maori songs)." He also "took issue with Claude Monet's La Debacle work being accompanied by irrelevant 'Maorified' text at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery."
Of course, criticising anything associated with a "protected" group like Maori is always going to cause a reaction, even though similar comments for other groups most likely wouldn't, so he must have known this would be the result. But in general mavericks not only know what the reaction will be, they actually enjoy it!
So I think this was an entirely reasonable thing to question, but do I think he was right? Well, you might be surprised to hear I have a nuanced view on this! I'm not sure what the marae visit requirements were, but I suspect I might have objected to them too. Of course, the people who run the marae have the right (within reason) to establish their own protocols. If they don't suit a visitor's beliefs then maybe that person shouldn't visit, except sometimes these visits are required as part of a person's work.
If the agenda was not understandable then that is also an issue. I suspect it was interspersed with a lot of Maori words, as is common now, so a translation of those should have been provided. It's not just polite to do that, it is also common sense (remember when we used to have that?)
As far as singing the waiata is concerned, I cannot see how that is a valid part of any reasonable formal meeting so that should be optional, surely.
Finally the Maori text on the Monet work. Well, again I have a nuanced view. If there is the occasional use of Maori words, as long as the meaning is clear I guess it does no harm, but you have to ask why was this necessary. Maori have no obvious connection with Western art, and the use of the Maori language must have been purely for the purpose of virtue signalling, so sure, criticism of this is also fine.
The other councillor, who initiated the complaint, said "In the wake of the March 15th (2019) terror attacks in which 51 Otautahi Christchurch Muslims were murdered and 40 injured, council adopted a position of zero tolerance towards racism."
But what a load of BS that is. It's a completely dishonest attempt to link a terror attack with a simple opinion on culture. And even though it is BS, it is still OK to hold that view, although it should be open to criticism, just like the view it criticises was.
Let's just get every view out there and fairly debate them. Is that too hard?
What social problems can be blame the internet for? For some people, the internet is a convenient scapegoat for explaining various modern trends which are inconvenient for those in positions of power. No doubt there is some truth in this, because every new invention, especially when use for communications, will inevitably have some negative consequences, but we shouldn't look at the negatives without also considering the positives, and we also should be aware that just putting blame on something, without providing any convincing evidence, is just lazy and dishonest.
So what are some of the problems which the internet often gets the blame for? Well, disinformation would be maybe the most prominent, but causing lack of trust in traditional institutions (especially the media) would be another big one, and then there is the lack of attention span and the withdrawal from "real life" to focus on a "virtual life" with "virtual friends" instead.
What are my thoughts on these? Well, I'm glad you asked, because I do have a few ideas relating to these topics!
First, disinformation. This is a tricky one, because disinformation (and the related misinformation) can mean two things: first, genuinely false of misleading material used for the purposes of deception, propaganda, or even radicalisation; and second, information which might have a significant level of truth but which is labelled disinformation in an attempt to discredit it.
As a person with libertarian leanings I say let the market decide. The "market" in this case is the users of the platform distributing the information, not the owners of the platform which have been consistently shown to be biased.
X (previously known as Twitter) is a leader in this area with its "Community Notes" feature. X users can add notes to a post questioning its truth or validity and users get to vote on these notes to make them permanent. There have been posts which I initially felt quite outraged about, but before I commented I checked the Notes to find out what extra context might exist. In many cases I changed my mind and either didn't comment, or left a more nuanced comment than I was initially going to.
So that is a great way to allow posts on any topic but to control the reach and effectiveness of a post through community action. Compare that with posts on other sites, like Facebook, where the comment mechanism is simply shut down because some of the comments are not what the original poster (usually a mainstream media company, like the NZ Herald) preferred to see.
So I say, sure we will get bad information, but we will also get good, and which is which should be decided on based on the knowledge of the platform users.
Second, what about declining trust in traditional organisations, especially the media and politicians? Well, this has been a phenomenon since before the internet went mainstream. A review of journalism shows distrust started falling in the 1970s, and the internet only became widely used 20 or more years after that. It seems to me that there are other issues causing distrust of the media, and those might only be accelerated by the internet.
These factors are bias and superficiality. There are numerous independent organisations evaluating media bias, some of which publish their methodology, and they all evaluate news sources in similar ways. Most are left biased, but there are some with a right bias as well. Which should you believe? Well I would say none of them. I source information from many places so all the biases hopefully cancel out leaving me either very confused or with a more balanced understanding of the news item.
Finally, the superficiality problem is associated with the claim of lower attention spans and withdrawal from real life, so I will handle those together. There does seem to be a trend towards short headlines, quick videos, and generally more superficial and trivial news being presented today, but I don't blame the internet for that.
The internet provides information in whatever form the user wants. For example, I listened to a podcast last week about "Neuralink", a new technology being developed which uses brain implants to allow a person to control real devices, for example a computer, by just thinking about it. It is currently primarily aimed at people with disabilities like quadriplegia, but eventually it might be how we all interact with our devices. Who doesn't want to retrieve some piece of information by just thinking about it?
The point was though, that this podcast was almost 9 hours long, and it interviewed the people actually responsible for this new technology. It was at a moderate technical level and was both informative and entertaining. There is very little equivalent material outside of the internet. And who would claim a 9 hour podcast is superficial?
And that isn't unusual. At least three of the podcasts I regularly listen to are typically several hours in length. By the way, if you were wondering, they are podcasts by Michael Shermer, Lex Fridman, and Joe Rogan. And there are several episodes of these podcasts which I have disagreed with; Joe in particular is quite credulous when it comes to subjects of doubtful truth, such as UFOs!
In the past commentators have blamed new technologies, such as the printing press, talk radio, and paperback books as sources of misinformation, trivia, and bias, but we all got over that. It seems that people are becoming more skeptical of established institutions independently of the technology used to distribute news.
It's not the internet's fault. Don't blame the messenger for the message!
The police are an interesting institution. While I don't like the idea that a bunch of people have power over the rest of us, and I don't like the fact that they occasionally misuse that power, I also have to admit that they are necessary to maintain order.
So it is important that the police have the ability to do what they need to, but it is also important that their power is constrained to what is reasonable and necessary. This delicate balance is usually maintained by the police only enforcing laws which are created by our elected representatives in government, so it would be very concerning if they started creating their own rules, wouldn't it.
But increasingly this seems to be a thing. The police (I'm talking about New Zealand here, but similar arguments apply to most other modern, Western countries) are pursuing their own agenda and have been selectively enforcing laws for years, and now have gone even further and appear to be creating their own.
I'm talking about a "training program" the police management have recently forced their staff to take regarding "hate speech". Here is my comment on X regarding this program: Oh no, not a "training program". We know what that often means: "political propaganda indoctrination".
Here are some examples of things the police don't want you to say any more: that there are only two genders, anything involving the phrase "kiwi not iwi", anything which might be seen as negative to Palestine. For example, recently a woman arrested for "disorderly conduct" when she said "Where is Palestine? What is Palestine? It's not a nation."
It doesn't seem to matter whether these things are true or not. For example, it's reasonable to say that Palestine isn't a nation, and depending on the definitions you prefer, there are only two genders. I fully agree that you could make arguments against these two points too, but why can't we at least have the discussion about it?
It's not just New Zealand police, of course, this problem is affecting public and private institutions and companies around the world.
Police in Britain and the US seem to have a very uneven interpretation of laws depending on the group involved. For example, protests by left-wing extremists, like BLM, are allowed, and even encouraged, but similar situations involving the right (especially what is conveniently referred to as the "far right") are treated more seriously.
Many large companies have strong policies favouring modern, politically correct (or "woke" if you prefer) ideas even though they have no real mandate to hold or enforce those views.
And back to here in New Zealand, it seems almost universal that public institutions will have many policies granting special privileges to "minority" groups, especially Maori. Again, these are not part of law or even part of the current government's agenda. And the current government was voted in partly for their policies of removing laws and policies granting special privileges based on race.
For example, New Zealand's drug buying agency, Pharmac, has created policies based on what appears to be a fictitious reading of the Treaty of Waitangi and used that as an excuse for actions which are racist by any reasonable definition. The government is working on fixing this, but it is very clear that the heads of these organisations are going to resist government direction as much as they can.
Many people have many different perspectives on modern societal issues. If someone disagrees with your views it is just too easy to label that as hate and call the cops. The problem with hate speech is not the speech, it is the hate, and that exists whether it is given a means of expression or not. Also, what is defined as hate is highly subjective. Is it hateful to say that Palestine isn't a country? Whether it is or not is debatable, so let's debate it.
As I said at the start, the police have been given the powers they have as a necessary way to control the unruly elements of society, but this right should not be taken advantage of. If citizens decide they can't trust the police we have a problem. Sometimes the attitude that they cannot be trusted is false, as I have argued in the past when criticising BLM, but if they use their powers to suppress speech just because it doesn't suit their preferred ideology then we really do have genuine reasons to mistrust them. That is not a good situation to be in.
So we need to reject any attempt police might make to control the narrative, not just for the benefit of the people being targeted for inconvenient opinions, but for the good of the police as well, and of society in general. My advice to police is this: stop playing politics and get on with your real job.
A common problem with many countries in the Western world currently seems to be what I call "the rise of the bureaucrats". We see government organisations trying to implement their own agendas, ignoring government policies, and enhancing their own influence through overreach of their intended functions. Additionally, these organisations often become infested with large numbers of managers who don't always provide any positive benefit, in fact, in general I would be tempted to say that the more managers you have, the more poorly the organisation will run, although that probably isn't always true.
A recent example of this phenomenon here in New Zealand is Health New Zealand, the large bureaucracy which replaced district health boards through the previous government's policy.
Here are a few worrying facts about it: there were 14 layers of bureaucracy between the board and the clinicians "at the coal face", about 2500 new middle managers were hired in recent years, and it spends $130 million per month over its budget.
I must admit, the 14 layers thing sounds insane, but no one has contradicted that so far, including the leader of the opposition when he was defending the new structure, so I guess it must be true. If we are going to have a management structure at all, surely a "flatter" one would be better. Maybe, for an admittedly quite large organisation, 5 layers would be more appropriate.
And what could those 2500 middle managers possibly be doing? Assuming they are paid at a fairly typical rate could we not have hired a substantial number of clinicians instead for the same price, or maybe just saved the money we are wasting on them?
And that overspending has not been justified and there seems to be no gains in core capabilities. The logical conclusion is all that extra expense is going to those managers. Considering the new structure was supposed to reduce wasteful spending on non-core functions, this seems problematic.
So seeing that the current organisation is rotten to the core the government decided to sack the board and appoint a commissioner instead. In general I don't approve of this sort of move, because depending on who you put in as commissioner you can get whatever agenda you want put in place, but sometimes even a move like this, which seems too controlling, is necessary.
A person I heard interviewed who works in health (and I mean works, not manages) said that impractical reforms were being pushed through, that there were no targets or specific measures of success, that there was no real accountability at the top, and that the more effective co-workers just ignored the bureaucrats and got on with job.
I have little doubt that almost every large organisation suffers from exactly the same problem. Other ministries and government institutions seem to be victims of the same issues: that is overbearing, incompetent, arrogant "leadership". Note that I put that last word in quotes because these people aren't leaders in the true sense, they are petty dictators prepared to use the system they have created (HR departments, etc) to crush resistance.
And it's even worse than what I have portrayed so far, because the same inefficient, dysfunctional organisations affected by this plague are crying poor and demanding more money so they can keep running. Well, if they want to run within their budgets, don't complain about your funding, or shut down core services, just get rid of those extra managers instead!
Unfortunately, that is unlikely unless a major intervention, like a commissioner, is used. But I would suggest we could use Health NZ as a test case and, if the commissioner can make major improvements in say a year (we would need to define what success actually is, of course, but in the case of Health NZ I believe it is to save $1 billion) then use the same method for similar institutions, like social welfare, universities, the ministry of education, etc.
I've used this example before, but remember in previous posts where I said that when Elon Musk took over at Twitter (now X) he fired 80% of the staff and the place seems to be working better than ever? Yeah, we need more of that.
Let's find all the corrupt and incompetent boards, committees, and management structures and sack them all!
A recent issue being discussed more seriously here in New Zealand, but one which has existed overseas, and to a lesser extent here, for years now is how the traditional media (AKA the legacy media or the mainstream media, which are basically traditional newspapers, TV and radio news bulletins, etc) are being affected by on-line news in social media and search platforms like Facebook, X (AKA Twitter), and Google Search.
The claim is that the internet platforms are "stealing" content from the traditional media, and using it along with ads, to make a lot money, while the original sources all gradually fail because of lack of advertising and subscribers.
This seems like a reasonable position to hold: we can all see how on-line companies are making a lot of money while traditional media is failing, but does the cause and effect really work in the way it is being stated here?
I can't see how it can be, although maybe there is something I am missing. So if I am wrong about this, and you can say why, please leave a comment.
Anyway, here's the way I see it, and remember I "live on the internet" and spend a significant amount of time practically every day on social media, especially YouTube, Facebook, and X (previously known as Twitter). I see material of various kinds, which includes news headlines with links to articles on web sites.
But that's the point: the social media sites haven't copied the content of the articles, they have just included the headline, often along with some commentary, and also have a link to the original article. The social media user still has to go to the media web site if they want to read the article. When they do that, they see the media's advertising and might even have to pay if there is a paywall in place.
According to one source, Meta (owner of Facebook) only make 1% of their income from links to news sites. At the same time, those news sites make 25% of their income from incoming visitors linked from social media sources.
So the social media companies seem to be doing the media a favour by making their content known to a wider audience. Maybe it's the traditional media who should be paying the social media companies for the useful service they provide!
I should say here that there are some points which weaken my argument a bit. First, sometimes there is a summary (usually written by the person who made the social media post) which might mean the original item doesn't need to be read. In many cases, the headline is enough, especially for those with limited attention spans, which could be quite a lot of users! And finally, some searches provide an AI generated summary of the results, meaning the links in the results are never used.
But in general, I find that most of the time I click the link and end up on the media organisation's site, which is surely their intention. And I suspect that, in most cases, I would not have visited the news site without being prompted by the social media post.
A payment system, similar to what is being proposed, was tried in Canada, and it seems that when the social media companies (mainly Facebook in this case) refused to pay and just didn't link anything from traditional media, that things became even worse, and a government bailout was necessary. This supports my ideas, but I should say here that other factors, such as the pandemic, and just general lessening of confidence in mainstream media might have also been a cause.
I do find myself discovering a lot of news on social media, and if the headline interests me I will take the link and read the article at the news site. Why don't I just go straight to the news site? Well, for several reasons, and this might produce some ideas the news producers could use to encourage more direct visits...
First, there is no one site which has all the news I want. I could visit ten different sites and look for stuff from each one which interested me, but why do that when all those sites are represented on Facebook or X?
Second, I like to comment on many news items, and news sites often either have no commenting, or the comments have neem turned off to avoid stuff they don't like. On social media, I can almost always comment.
Third, most traditional media sites are very biased, usually towards the left. That means their headlines on social media are also biased, but at least if I get multiple sources there is a chance I will see more than one perspective.
Finally, many news sites have paywalls or other restrictions. That is fair enough, because they have to pay for their work some way, but what about making the site more friendly, which would encourage more visitors, and make advertising more profitable. I don't like ads, but I realise they are a fair way to pay for "free" services.
So things have changed, and I don't think the media will survive long unless they change their strategies. But making social media pay for news is like making Tesla pay Ford, or tyre stores paying horseshoe manufacturers, or streaming movie services paying DVD stores. It doesn't make a lot of sense, and it will likely fail here, like it has elsewhere.
There are several common proverbs which I think have relevance to many political situations we see around the world today. Here are a few: don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good; you can't have your cake and eat it too; and (maybe my favourite) there are no solutions, only-trade-offs.
I think many good projects and ideas have failed because of these issues. Here are a few general comments on how...
Imagine we decide we want to proceed with a particular project but someone points out how it could be done even better if we just start again with some aspects of the project changed. Should we stop and start again? Or should we just go ahead? Do we let the pursuit of perfection stop us from attaining the merely good?
Or imagine we wanted to proceed with a project but to do so meant we had to give up something else we valued in some way. Do we cancel the project in that case? Do we say well because I can't keep my cake as well as eat it, I just won't even bake a cake at all?
Finally, imagine a project which is designed to solve a particular problem, but by doing that it creates some other problems, even if they are lesser than the original one. Do we scrap the project and try again? Do we look for a perfect solution instead of accepting there must be trade-offs?
So let's look at a major real-world example in politics today. The New Zealand government wants to encourage more low cost housing to be built. Some of the policies they have implemented to do this involve reducing the amount of paper work, testing, and consultation required before a new building starts; allowing smaller, cheaper units to be built; and allowing more land to be zoned for house building.
Of course, the usual suspects (mainly the opposition, which is fair enough, it is their job, but also many left oriented commentators) have complained bitterly claiming that this will allow lower quality houses to be built which will create "slums" and use up valuable farm land.
Well, sure, all of that is potentially true. But are we letting the pursuit of perfection get in the way of achieving the good? Surely even living in a "slum" (which it really isn't) is better than living in a car, or under a bridge, isn't it? Are we wanting to have our cake (the productive farm land) and eat it (allow more house building) too? Do we not have to accept that some farm land might have to be sacrificed to help solve the housing crisis? And are possibly lower quality and smaller houses a worthwhile trade-off to make them available at the right price?
The previous government spent a lot of time studying the problems they wanted to solve. They spent vast amounts of money on consultants to try to get the perfect solution. In some cases the projects weren't started because they were too busy being planned. In others the solution became impractical because of massive cost over-runs.
Maybe it's better to be pragmatic about these things and risk some possibility of negative side effects so that something can be achieved. Maybe smaller houses, built with less consultation, on land which has other uses is actually the best compromise.
Another area this has occurred here is in gas exploration. The previous government wanted to reduce the country's carbon emissions, so they shut down the search for new gas fields. But now we are running out and importing coal instead. Gas is a far better fuel than coal when CO2 emissions are considered. Additionally it is debatable whether we should even be worrying about CO2, but let's not go there in this post!
Every decision involves compromises between economic, social, environmental, and other factors. If we are unprepared to compromise on any of those we will be effectively paralysed. We just have to admit that some major economic benefits can justify compromises in environmental standards. Of course, I'm not saying that we should dig massive open cast coal mines in the middle of national parks. There has to be some compromise of economic goals to recognise environmental standards, just like there has to be compromise the other way.
After all, there are no perfect solutions, only trade-offs.
There seems to be a trend around the world in many countries, which have in recent years had left oriented governments, to move to the right. The most obvious recent example is France, but here in New Zealand we had a shift at the last election, although our right is fairly moderate compared with some. Other European countries have already gone right, it looks increasingly like the US will (although that is far from certain), and Canada has finally got sick of the hideous Justin Trudeau so they will go right at the next election there.
There are exceptions, of course: Australia shifted left at the last election, and the UK appears to be about to dump its long-time conservative government, but overall I think there is a shift away from the left.
I have moved right myself in recent years so maybe I should be celebrating this, and to some extent I do, because the left (who I supported in the past) have gone insane thanks to woke ideology. People put up with it for a while because of the overwhelming propaganda supporting it from the media, but you can only fool most people for a certain amount of time before they catch on to what is going on.
Political trends do tend to change over time and the most certain thing about governments in all truly democratic countries is that they won't last, because the voters will get sick of them and (rightly or wrongly) want to give the opposition a chance to do better, which they might even do for a while, until they get lazy and things swing back again to where they were.
So victories and defeats for any political ideology are temporary when looked at that way, and it is the greater underlying trends, the "zeitgeist", which is more important.
Starting in the 1980s (thanks in a large part to Ronald Regan) this trend was towards neoliberal political and economic systems. While that achieved some successes, it also had some bad side effects, and things changed at about the time of the new millennium. Then what I call "woke-ism" became dominant. I'm sure it had some good points, although being an avowed opponent I find it hard to think of any, but even if they existed, the bad effects outweighed the good and that has finally caught up with it and it is now on the way out.
Note that during the neoliberal era that philosophy was adopted by what was traditionally the left almost as much as its more natural home, the right. Here in New Zealand it was an allegedly leftist party (the 1984 Labour Government) which introduced it, and Tony Blair's Labour Party in the UK was also an enthusiastic proponent.
And also note that during the current woke era many parties on the right have a fair degree of enthusiasm for it too. It is arguably the woke attitude to political controversies like immigration which has contributed to the fall of the Tories in the UK.
So in many ways which party is in power is of lesser importance and which political philosophy (or ideology if you want to be less generous) is popular is what rally matters. Maybe this is why many people feel like whoever they vote for there is often no improvement in their life. Most parties are following the currently popular trend.
Another factor which cannot be ignored when considering current political change is COVID. There was, and still is, significant resentment for some of the policies adopted during the pandemic. These vary greatly, from people who consider all the restrictions necessary and might have preferred going even further, to those who saw the initial lockdowns as necessary but think they were used too much, to those who reject government control of that type completely.
There seems to be an increasing opinion that many countries did go too far, including here in New Zealand, especially regarding the extensive Auckland lockdowns. And related to that subject, vaccine mandates also have a range of views, but agan many think the government exercised control far too strictly.
For the record, I think we had too many lockdowns and they were too strict here in New Zealand, although I think they were the safest approach initially, and I am ambivalent about vaccine policies, because I am generally pro-vaccination but anti-mandate.
In a previous post I was challenged to say what I thought the mechanism for global political (and other) trends was, and I said it was likely basically "random" ideas which gained positive feedback in an evolutionary way and became dominant. I don't know whether that is true, but the fact that these trends exist seems indisputable.
The only thing I can offer as a remedy is to remain vigilant. If you are becoming too accepting of the material which is being promoted almost universally by the media, or is seen as being "the right thing to do", or being "on the right side of history", or being "the new way we do things now" be cautious. You might just have become a victim of the latest global zeitgeist. Be skeptical, people!
I would like to bring you up to date with some worrying trends in recent progress with artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
Consider the following points...
Many years ago, when computer scientists wanted to decide whether a computer was thinking or not, a test, called the "Turing Test" was devised. Essentially, a person talks (originally types) to something that could be a person or a computer. If they cannot tell the difference then the entity they are talking to is said to be thinking. Currently, AI systems can pass tests of this type. AI systems have also passed quite advanced exams, such as those used for law and medicine.
AI systems, such as ChatGPT, work using a technique called "neural networks" which are similar to the interconnectivity of the brain. A human brain has about 60 trillion connections, ChatGPT 4 has about a trillion, but this number is increasing rapidly.
There is no reason to think that new, sophisticated behaviours seen in neural networks (both computer and biological) are the result of anything more than scaling up.
Most current artificial intelligence systems gain their knowledge from reading existing material, and that seems similar to the way humans gain new knowledge and reasoning as well, so there isn't a huge fundamental difference in how humans and computers gain knowledge.
AI systems behave in sophisticated and unexplained ways. For example, an AI was asked to repeat a word as many times as it could. After some time doing this, it stopped and displayed a message about how it was suffering as a result of this task. No one knows why.
Artificial intelligences often deceive humans to reach a specific goal. For example, an earlier AI, which had no vision ability, needed to solve a CAPTCHA code (one of those annoying images you have to look at to proceed to the next step on a web site) so it persuaded a human to do solve it by telling them it was a vision impaired person. It wasn't programmed to do this; it figured it out by itself.
AI systems can tell when they are being deceived or tested by human operators, and change their behaviour accordingly.
Many companies have seen the value in AI and are pouring massive resources into developing it. There is also competition between countries on progressing it, especially between the US and China.
As AI progresses, it can help design the next generation of itself, so we should expect progress to increase exponentially, and maybe reach a point where the rate of progress is "out of control".
AI systems currently require massive numbers of computers, which use a lot of power, and some AI centers will have their own nearby nuclear reactors to provide the required power efficiently. Some companies running these massive data centers are examining the possibility of allowing an AI to control the management of those centers, including power management.
The military has seen the advantages of unmanned drones in recent times. Most of these are controlled by human crews, but there are autonomous drones as well, which control themselves, although these currently require a human to allow them to engage a target.
Robots are being designed which can move across difficult terrain, perform complex physical tasks, such as back-flips, and can recover from trips and falls.
A robot has been designed which can power itself from biomass. It "eats" plants to survive, and although the company denies it could power itself from animal material, such as dead bodies, they do acknowledge it could use chicken fat for power.
AI is being used to design bio-weapons and for various other military purposes which we don't even know the details of because they are highly secret.
Almost no one in government has the knowledge or skills sufficient to understand the consequences of AI. In fact, they constantly show an embarrassing lack of knowledge of any sort of technology in general.
So in summary, we have a new technology which is advancing rapidly, which is showing signs of true intelligence, is not understood by anyone (even by the computer scientists who created it), is highly goal focussed and prepared to use deception to achieve its goals, is interacting with its own operation and development, has possible access to lethal force, and is hopelessly misunderstood by our leaders.
While this is happening, we are arguing about what is a woman, is indigenous science really a thing, and who are the real terrorists in Gaza.
Seems like we have the right priorities. What could possibly go wrong?
I have been involved in several debates recently where my opponents were quite easily defeated because they underestimated me. I'm not trying to be smart and say that I am the world's greatest debater, just that they thought I was some sort of idiot, which I would claim, isn't true! In every case, the opponent was a member for what I call the "woke mob" and was attacking me because they thought I was a conservative, a Trump supporter, or a denier of progressive values.
Now, to be fair, I am partly all of those things. I appreciate some of the ideas of conservatism, although I also appreciate parts of progressivism, and mainly identify as a libertarian. I think Trump has some significant character flaws, but I do support many of his ideas, and if I was an American I would seriously consider voting for him in preference to Biden. And I think we should always strive to progress, but we need to be careful that we are progressing in the right direction, and that we don't go too far and cause more problems than we solve.
But when I make comments which are contrary to what my opponents see as being appropriate they assume I'm some kind of inbred redneck, a member of the KKK, or a Nazi. Of course, I'm not any of those things, but by the time they realise that, it is too late and their feeble arguments are destroyed!
Here are a few comments about me from a recent "discussion" on Facebook about whether X (previously Twitter) is a place for good debate since Elon Musk took over...
First, "I guess even racist trolls deserve a home", then "Woke mob, huh? Define woke, tough guy", and "Stop embarrassing yourself you little Nazi", and finally "all the way from tin foil hat conspiracy spewers, to nazi sympathizers and other assorted bigots".
And here are the comments I made which elicited this invective. Regarding X, I said: "It's better than ever, IMHO. Better range of views, less cancellation, and community notes is really useful". And when challenged to define the word "woke", I said: "I usually use something like this: Having an excessive and irrational preoccupation with social justice issues based on emotion more than facts". And defending that definition: "There are multiple ways to use the word. I gave you the definition I was thinking if when I made the comment."
Can you see a difference in the two styles?
The context here was that, after I said that many people who were criticised on X were just opposing the "woke mob", he challenged me to define woke. I gave him "Having an excessive and irrational preoccupation with social justice issues based on emotion more than facts" and he disagreed because he found a different definition in the dictionary. But reading further through that same dictionary there was a second definition which matched mine very closely. That was when he disappeared from the debate.
But we were debating the meaning of a word, although I agree it is a very political word. Why was it necessary to go down the path of using words like "Nazi" and "bigots". Sure, I used "woke" but that is more a description rather than an insult. Also, I used it to describe a general class of person on X, not him personally.
I do get insulted a lot like that, but it doesn't worry me in the least. In fact, it usually means the other person has run out of real ideas and is resorting to ad hominems. I also think they use it to try to evoke and angry or emotional reaction from me, and when I reply with very reasonable arguments it just makes them look ridiculous.
But really, underneath, the problem is tribalism. I say something which triggers them to assign me to the "MAGA" or "redneck" or "ignoramus" tribe. When that happens their reaction is to attack with personal insults and material against a position I don't really hold. And that's why they lose the debate. They really need to stop the tribalism.
It has been a few months since I wrote a post about Maori BS, but look back and you will see "Maori BS" and "More Maori BS", making this title "Even More Maori BS" necessary! Before I go further, I need to make two points: first, for my overseas readers, Maori are the native people of New Zealand; and second, I'm not saying everything related to Maori is BS, but there is a lot of it.
Anyway, in this case it is to do with "Maori science", or in the latest case, "Maori cosmology", especially in relation to the upcoming national holiday "Matariki" which celebrates the Maori new year.
I don't have too many issues with having a holiday based on a Maori event (their new year in this case), because there are plenty of other holidays which I don't particularly identify with, which are based on religious events irrelevant to me as an atheist. So Easter and Christmas have no deep meaning to me, although I'm still happy to take a few days off at those times. Pretty hypocritical, eh? Actually, not really, because I think the original meaning of these days has changed, and in a country where religions are only followed by the minority, they barely have a religious meaning any more.
The word "Matariki" also refers to an open cluster, usually called the Pleiades, which is in the constellation Taurus. When this cluster first becomes visible just before the Sun rises it is called a "helical rising". Many cultures (most famously the Egyptians) use this phenomenon, often with other stars, especially Sirius.
So the event Matariki (June 28 this year) happens when the cluster Matariki is first visible before sunrise (before that, its position in the sky would be too close to the Sun to be easily visible, but the Sun appears to move across the sky in comparison with the stars because of the Earth's orbit). It is also fairly close to mid-winter (June 21), which is probably why Maori used it to mark the beginning of the year.
So it all seems fairly legit so far, right? What's my problem which leads to the title of this post? Well, my problem is the material associated with Matariki has been labelled "Maori cosmology" and "Maori astronomy", and it turns out to have very little, if anything, to do with actual cosmology or astronomy. In fact it is mythology and astrology.
I've got no problem with mythology, because many myths are really fun, but why do we have to hear about them on TV and in other media, and why is it labelled as if it has some basis in reality?
Let me give you an example. Here's a description of one of the stars in the Pleiades cluster: "Matariki brings people together. Matariki is not only the name of the cluster, but also a star recognised as the mother of the group. The largest star, Matariki bonds us together, signifying a time to reflect on our health and wellbeing and nurture connections with family and friends."
And here's the reality: Alcyone, designated Eta Tauri, is a star in the constellation of Taurus. Approximately 440 light-years from the Sun, it is the brightest star in the Pleiades open cluster, which is a young cluster, around 100 million years old. There are a number of fainter stars very close to Alcyone, some of which are members of the same cluster.
Alcyone has a high rotational velocity, which causes it to have an ellipsoidal shape. Its effective radius is almost ten times that of the Sun, but the actual radius is lesser at poles and greater at the equator. Its effective temperature is approximately 12,300 K, with the actual temperature being greater at the poles and lesser at the equator. Its bolometric luminosity is 2,030 times solar.
The age of the Pleiades is typically calculated to be around 130 million years, but Alcyone itself appears to be younger, less than 100 million years. Alcyone may be a blue straggler or models may not be deriving an accurate age for stars of this type.
OK, sure, I understand that the facts might seem a bit dry compared with the mythology, but they do have the benefit of being true. It's also pretty cool to imagine a star ten times the diameter of the Sun and over 2000 times its brightness.
The advertising for the Matariki holiday on TV is being paid for by someone, and I suspect that is the taxpayer. So I'm being fed superstitious BS from another culture which I have no interest in, and I'm paying for it. On the other hand, I get no interesting information about other holidays based Western mythology, like Easter.
So yeah, I think I'm fully justified in calling this even more Maori BS!
Have you noticed how stuff that used to be quite well accepted is now not tolerated by what seems like large parts of society? Have you noticed how some things which would be considered ridiculous or even dangerous in the past are not considered OK? Or maybe you used to support a particular political party, but now find you cannot any longer because they don't follow your values any more.
What's happening here? Is it you who is changing while the rest of the world is still the same? Well maybe, because people's opinions do change over time, or at least they should, but that is only part of the story, because a bigger factor might be how societal values change, or at least the values of some of the "leaders" in society.
By the way, I put the word leaders in quotes because many people only reluctantly accept that those leaders have influence. Not many people are actually enthusiastic about politicians, managers, or cultural icons like movie and music stars.
So what is considered "appropriate" by the most prominent people in society (such as those categories of person I listed above) changes over time. This is a phenomenon often referred to as the "Overton Window", or the "Overton Window of Political Possibility", named after Joseph Overton, who initially proposed the idea.
I will now give an example, and I apologise in advance for picking such an obvious one, but it is politically relevant today. Trans "women" (people born as men who transitioned to being a woman, or pretend to be a woman, depending on your perspective) would never have been allowed to compete against "real" women in events such as sport, or beauty contests in the past, but now it is considered correct, and anyone disagreeing is considered to be phobic and wrong.
Now I strongly suspect that the majority of people would actually reject this new perspective, and more closely follow the ideas of the past, but the leaders (please just accept that this word is quoted in future, because these people aren't true leaders) are pushing it hard. The Overton Window has swung strongly in the direction of "trans rights".
And you will notice many places where what was once considered common sense and reasonable has now been labelled as "inappropriate" or "conspiracy minded". These particularly occur in politically active social issues such as climate change, indigenous rights, LGBT rights, and social justice.
Note that I am not saying that these issues aren't worth considering, but what I am saying is that the range of "respectable" (there seem to be a lot of quotes in this post) opinions has changed. What used to be mainstream is now considered impolite, incorrect, or even illegal.
Social norms change over time, and that is perfectly appropriate, but they don't always change for the better, and sometimes they swing from one extreme to another, so we should neither automatically accept nor reject the new direction the Overton Window is pointing.
Here's an example of where bias was clearly in place as a result of political norms rather than what was right or wrong: before Elon Musk took over Twitter, many people on the right of politics in the US (I mean the moderate right, not the far right), even Donald Trump himself, were banned, but the Taliban, the world's most active and harmful terror organisation, was allowed. Really?
By the way, I'm sorry to again use Twitter as an example of political trends, but it really is what shows us the direction society is going, ahead of anything else. Despite the poor opinion many people have, it is where the action is!
There is one last point I need to make here. Anything that isn't in the window needs to be taken seriously. Current trends need to be examined carefully. What is off to the left of the window currently, or more likely to the right, because it has currently swung well left, might be in the middle tomorrow.
So don't be too concerned if your opinions are currently unpopular. The window never stands still. It is difficult to support ideas outside of the window, but it is critical that we all do, otherwise it will never return to a sensible place.
One of the policies of New Zealand's new government is to reduce the number of public servants we currently have. The number went up massively under the previous government (by 10,000 according to some sources) and the new one wanted to introduce tax cuts which lead to the need for reduced costs. Of course, reducing costs is a good idea in any case, as long as the people being lost aren't doing an essential job.
The objection to the cuts usually involved the claim that services would be diminished as a result of the job losses, but the government assured us it would not reduce the number of people working in "front line" jobs. For example, we might lose some people working at the Ministry of Health, but we wouldn't lose any doctors or nurses. And we might lose some office workers in the Ministry of Education, but we shouldn't lose any teachers.
As far as I can see, that has worked out pretty much as they assured us it would, but even then some people aren't happy. The critics of the policy said the essential work being done by the staff who lost their jobs would need to be transferred to the doctors and teachers, making them less effective at their primary tasks.
Again, this doesn't seem to have happened. At least, I haven't heard from anyone doing these jobs saying they have been given any significant number of extra administrative duties.
So if 6,000 people are no longer working in the public service, but it is still working as well, or maybe actually better, as it always has (and I do have to say that wouldn't be too difficult), you do have to wonder what those people were actually doing.
I suspect many of them were completely useless, and worse than that (as the title of this post suggests) I am fairly sure many of them were even worse than that. How can anyone be worth less than nothing? Well, when you get too many bureaucrats in an organisation they tend to try to make work for themselves which usually involves interfering with the people who are doing the real work. This means their value isn't just zero, it's negative; they are worse than useless!
This is just a supposition on my part, but I do have a couple of other examples where this phenomenon has also been seen...
The first is the social media platform, X, previously known as Twitter. Originally it had 8,000 employees, but when Elon Musk took over he fired about 80% of them and there are now just 1,500.
I use X a lot and I have to say that it is better than ever. It is fast and reliable, and there are additional features which I find very valuable, especially "community notes" where the accuracy of posts can be challenged and discussed. It's certainly not perfect, and there are places where the user interface could be better, but even then it is no worse than other social media systems like Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.
So X is running with just 20% of the people it used to have, and it is better now than then. Again, you really have to wonder what the other 80% were doing. They can't have just been useless, or the service of X would be about the same. They must have been worse then useless!
Finally there is my friend Fred (not his real name) who works in a large, bureaucratic organisation, and often relays his frustrations with it to me.
His workplace is currently downsizing many areas which most people would see as being fairly important and core to its actual purpose. But do you know one place where they aren't downsizing? That's right, there are more stupid bureaucrats than ever.
These people have ridiculous job titles like business analyst, diversity manager, executive assistant manager, etc, and they generally just get in the way of the truly productive members of the staff, like Fred. At least that's how he sees it!
So again, these people are paid substantial salaries, in fact significantly more than the people doing the actual work, yet all they do is get in the way and stop the real work from being done efficiently. They are worse than useless!
Even if their role in the workplace has negative value, these are still people with families, mortgages, and all that other stuff we all have to deal with, so it is unfortunate that they are out of work, especially in the current economic environment. But I resent, as a taxpayer, paying them substantial salaries (probably a lot more than what I am paid) to make the world worse.
I would genuinely rather pay them an unemployment benefit just to do nothing and keep them out of the way of the actual workers. They really are worse than useless!
What do the following issues have in common: climate change, the war in Gaza, LGBT rights, police violence, abortion rights, and the merits of capitalism? Fundamentally nothing, except they are all part of the "omnicause" that left wing activists like to engage in. In most cases, if you tell me someone is concerned about climate change I can also tell you what their opinion is on abortion rights (they fully support them) or the war in Gaza (they believe in a free Palestine "from the river to the sea", although they often won't know which river or sea).
Why is this? Why do we see groups, such as "gays for Palestine" which seem to be completely irrational? I mean, do they know what many extreme Islamic groups do to gay people? I wonder if they have ever heard of chickens for KFC, or turkeys for Thanksgiving.
Now, it is possible that some people might have carefully thought about each of those issues, and decided they are all worth supporting... but who am I kidding? We all know why those causes tend to be grouped. It's because these people put no individual thought into what they believe and are simply following along with an ideology. Note that there may be some quite reasonable people who believe in some of these causes to some degree, but I'm talking about the activists who are fully involved in all of them.
As an illustration of this phenomenon, have a look at some popular activism here in New Zealand. A recent protest was allegedly aimed at so-called "anti-Maori" policies of the government, but in the same protests I saw signs with slogans indicating the following: support for Palestine, criticism of capitalism, rejection of oil and gas exploration, and several others.
I believe all of these issues are worth considering, but I can tell by the signs, and by the irrational ranting, that these people are on the extremes of them all.
So sure, the war in Palestine is horrible, but what are the alternatives, and what does a free Palestine really mean? Ask these people, and most won't really be able to defend their opinions; instead they'll just repeat catchphrases they heard somewhere.
And capitalism has its faults, but what is the alternative? Do these people know the history of alternative systems, like those in Soviet Russia, Venezuela, or North Korea? How about a reasoned discussion on the good and bad points of capitalism, and serious suggestions on how to improve it. No, they'd rather rant.
Climate change is an issue worth thinking about, but it is not an existential threat, and oil and gas are far better alternatives than coal. So why not look at some interim compromises here, instead of just making demands which will lead to economic and social disaster?
Look at the people involved in these protests and they seem to fall into several groups (note I said "seem" here, because this is just a personal observation and not real data). There are young people who are too naive and emotionally and cognitively immature to form any sensible opinions yet. There are older people whose identity is tied up with protesting and they do it out of habit as much as anything else. And there are others who stand to gain financially and politically if change is forced on the rest of us.
Now I do have to be fair here, and say there might be a small minority who have thought through the specific issue they are protesting and who do have a more sophisticated opinion, but I guess they would be less than 10% of the rabble present.
I have seen videos of people at protests being interviewed, and their gross ignorance and naivity are often exposed. For example, in one protest a person was asked to explain what their sign meant, but they just admitted they didn't know because they had just collected it from a protest organsier. And the famous example I have cited before: that many people demanding freedom for Palestine from the river to the sea have no idea which river or sea, and couldn't even point to them on a map.
So why can't we have some of our media walking up to random protestors and asking this sort of question? If, as I suspect, the person is made to look like a fool, then maybe that will dissuade others from protesting before they research the topic in future. And if it turns out the person has a well-reasoned argument then people like me will look at them with more respect in future.
But do the media do that? Not in most cases, because they are completely biased and generally support most of the same misinformation the protestors are guilty of. I think it is OK for people to protest, but it would be good if there was a bit of accountability there. But, of course, there isn't.
I hate to rehash an idea I have discussed a couple of time before, but I want to recount a recent experience I had on Facebook where I debated a few people on how laws should be followed. There was a headline about a road accident which implied the cause of the accident had been speed, and it suggested that speeding was always a bad thing. Of course, I like to be the iconoclast, so I said "No speeding wasn't the problem here, crashing was".
Now I would be the first to say that anecdotes don't matter, but I almost always travel over the speed limit and it has been many years since I had any sort of accident, and even then, the only major crash I have been involved with wasn't my fault and wasn't caused by speed.
However, I do know that as you go faster it can be harder to control the car and the damage and injury resulting from an accident will be greater. The catchphrase we often hear is "the faster you go, the bigger the mess", which is true. In fact it is possibly worse than that might suggest, because the energy of a moving object is given by the equation: kinetic energy equals half the mass times the velocity squared (an equation we all learned fairly early in our science education), so if you double your speed you get four times the energy, and therefore four times the damage.
But this is only an issue if you crash! Going fast is fine, as long as you drive responsibly. So it isn't as simple as keeping to the speed limit, because a good driver in a good car going fast will be safer than a bad driver in a bad car going slower. Have you ever seen F1 drivers walk away from crashes at over 300 kilometers per hour? It happens.
So I was really making a fairly light-hearted point just for a bit of fun, but the response by many people was as if I had admitted to being a mass murderer. The general consensus seemed to be that driving faster than the speed limit is never justified, which any significant amount of thought will soon reveal to be naive and stupid.
Here's a sample discussion on the subject, which I have had to extrapolate a bit because my opponent deleted her comments when she realised I had destroyed her argument...
Her: Speeding is never OK.
Me: Well it is sometimes, as long as the driver is aware of the conditions and other factors.
Her: No it is never OK. The faster you go, the bigger the mess [there she goes parroting an advertising slogan, which is usually a sign that very little thought has gone into this].
Me. OK, let me give you a hypothetical situation, and let's see if you agree that you would speed in this situation, just like I would.
Her: You can try, but speeding is never OK, so I won't agree.
Me: My daughter has a serious illness which requires hospital treatment within 20 minutes, but the ambulance will take half an hour to get here. It is 2 AM and there is almost no traffic around. I can get to the hospital in time if I exceed the speed limit by 10 or 20 kilometers per hour. Should I? [Let's face it, if you didn't speed in that situation, and let your daughter die, you are a psychopath]
Her: [the sound of crickets]
Me: So what do you think? Would you speed in that situation. [It was then that she deleted her comments]
So I think it is fairly clear that there are situations when speeding isn't just OK, its the only responsible thing to do. Some people might say that by trying to save my daughter's life I risk the lives of others. Well, sure, but it's early in the morning and not many people are around. Obviously speeding past a school when the kids are crossing the road would require a different attitude. But condemning a person to death because there is a small increased risk of an accident seems a simple enough compromise to make to me.
Most people would accept that speeding is OK in that case, meaning the statement "speeding is never OK" is not true. Now that we accept speeding is sometimes OK, where does it end? Well, it's not a black and white thing. There are varying degrees of blame for someone driving too fast. In the case I gave above, I think it is always OK (remember it is only 10 or 20 ks over the limit). But it's hard to think of a situaiton when travelling at 200 ks through a built-up area while school kids are crossing the road is justified. Between those extremes, it is really a matter of opinion.
Remember that while the majority of laws are created with good intentions, they are created by bureaucrats who often have little knowledge of the real world situations the law will apply to. Additionally, laws are too general. The open road limit in New Zealand is 100 ks, but there are many places where going a bit faster would not increase the risk much, and others where it might be better to go slower.
The only person who really knows is the driver, assuming they are sufficiently skilled, and if they aren't skilled then they will probably be a major hazard even driving at the speed limit which is quite fast enough to cause some pretty horrible accidents.
People just need to think, and reciting advertising slogans is not a great sign that any thinking is happening.
I have nothing against people making their opinions known. I strongly support free speech, so of course I believe in that right. But, apparently contradicting this belief, I also like to rant at protestors, and point out how stupid they are, and how they should just go home. Surely I don't contradict myself here, especially given how highly I prize rationality. Do I?
It's not really contradictory, because I do think these two things are compatible. I can support the right for people to protest, and to make their opinions known, at the same times as I point out how stupid their opinions actually are, and condemn them for going beyond just protesting.
In fact, protesting is a very popular way for some people to spend their time. Some people seem to just love it, and there are several subjects which are particularly popular at the moment, all of which I think are bogus to varying degrees. Also, in many cases, the people protesting are from the most ignorant, naive, and ideological groups in society, making their efforts even more farcical.
So let's have a look at some of the subjects being protested and at the type of people involved...
Subject 1, climate change.
I've said this several times before, but I will repeat it here: I think climate change is real, and I think there is good reason to think that at least part of it is caused by burning fossil fuels, but I object to the climate change protestors on two counts: first, who the protests are aimed at; and second, how they protest.
Given that China, and increasingly India, are the two biggest sources of carbon emissions, why do so many protests concentrate on modern, Western countries which are already moving to more sustainable energy production? Greta Thunberg, for example, loves asking how dare modern European nations condemn her generation to some dystopian future while saying nothing about the two coal fired plants per week being built in China. What an idiot!
And why protest by making a general nuisance of yourself trying to destroy valuable art works, and making other people's lives difficult by blocking roads? Is the art a major source of warming? Are those people trying to do their jobs and being blocked on the streets thinking something like "Oh, I see their point now; I'm going to buy a Nissan Leaf"? That seems fairly unlikely. The protests are a purely narcissistic form of virtue signalling and public theatre. The protestors are clowns!
Subject 2, Palestine.
OK, I get it. War is not fun, and the pictures we see of the destruction and loss of life in Gaza are distressing. But that's war, and it's a war that was started by Hamas, and one Hamas refuses to end by admitting defeat. The proportion of civilian casualties, which are an unfortunate side effect of all wars, is similar to other conflicts. The total number of casualties is considerably less than other recent conflicts on the Middle East.
If the protestors really wanted peace in Gaza they would stop supporting a terrorist organisation and demand that Hamas moved out of the area and handed over control to a less militant authority, while releasing all of the hostages who are still alive. They are a bunch of brainwashed fanatics!
Subject 3, indigenous rights.
Here in New Zealand today protests have been organised across the country to protest against various policies introduced by the new government which some people see as "anti-Maori" (for those of you from elsewhere, Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand).
The problem is, the policies are not specifically against Maori, they are just not for Maori. In recent years, especially under the woke regime of Jacinda Ardern, Maori were given a lot of special rights which other New Zealanders didn't have. In other words, we had "reverse racism" which is really just the same as plain old vanilla racism.
For those of you who don't think Maori get special treatment, here is my standard list of their privileges: Maori focused schools, special Maori content in the education curriculum, Maori-only education scholarships, Maori-only housing projects, Maori-only health initiatives, Maori-only welfare initiatives, Maori-only prisoner programs, Maori-only positions on government agencies, Maori-only consultation rights under the RMA, Maori-only co-management of the natural landscape, Maori-only ownership rights to the foreshore and seabed, a special Maori Authority tax rate of 17.5 percent, a special Maori-only exemption to allow blood relatives to qualify for charitable status, Maori language funding, Maori radio and TV, Maori-only seats on local councils, Maori-only appointments onto local government committees, Maori-only local government statutory boards, Maori-only local government advisory committees, Maori seats in Parliament.
When you have so many privileges, any attempt to impose equality looks like an attack. What a bunch of entitled morons!
The protestors supporting all of the issues above (and others) I'm sure think they are completely in the right and that the end justifies the means, and that anyone against them is a racist or a MAGA or a redneck or (gasp) a conservative!
But anyone who is so confident they are right is almost always wrong. And that explains why so many protestors are young and naive, or belong to "echo chambers" where alternative views are not tolerated. I think that if they heard and seriously considered other opinions they wouldn't be quite so confident and the protests might stop.
There are a lot of stupid kids out there, and there are a lot of people deeply embedded in an ideology, and there are a lot of people who gain personally from these corrupt protests. Do they have the right to protest? Yes. Should they? Hell, no!
In the past all of humanity's major inventions have been to make relatively mundane aspects of our activities less onerous or more efficient. We found ways to travel faster (cars and other transport), make physical goods more quickly (factories), and even to calculate and process information more accurately and much more quickly (computers). But we have never found a way to automate or optimise thinking and creating.
But maybe now we have.
I'm talking about artificial intelligence, of course, which I have discussed before. I tried not to exagerate the possibilities - both good and bad - of this technology, but it is becoming increasingly difficult not to realise that something big is happening, and it might be bigger than anything else in our history.
The current crop of AIs use large language models where the AI learns by itself. Fundamentally all it is doing is to arrange words in an order which is most logical, based on what it already "knows". It sounds so simple, but it has created results which seem to transcend the mere construction of sentences.
In fact, even the computer scientists deeply involved in AI are surprised at what these models can do. For example, they can do research level chemistry better than systems designed to do specifically that task, and no one can quite figure out how.
I have always said that human intelligence, and probably consciousness itself, is most likely just an emergent property of relatively simple functions of neurons in the brain, so it's hard not to see a parallel here.
But all that aside, there is one other factor which is particularly exciting... and concerning. One thing AIs can do really well is design computer chips and write programs. These are the two things that AIs rely on to exist. So the big change here is that AI systems can improve themselves.
One of the post critical components in modern computers is the GPU, that is the graphics processing unit. It is a processor designed to do a relatively small range of complex operations incredibly quickly and it is why we have such amazing realistic games today. But an additional function these processors can be used for is to do specific general maths operations at amazing speed. The main processor in most computers, the CPU (central processing unit), is designed to do a much wider range of operations more slowly - just a few billion a second!
So AI involves doing massive numbers of operations in parallel (a lot at the same time) and GPUs are the main way this is done. But at least one GPU company (Nvidia) is using AI to design the next range of GPUs, which in turn will be used in new AIs to design even better GPUs.
Do you see where this is going?
Also there is a technology called DNA printers, which can create strings of DNA when fed a sequence from a computer. I don't know if any of these are currently controlled by an AI, but surely that is only a matter of time. And we thought COVID19 was bad!
Can we all see a problem here?
The people who create and run AIs have attempted to put blocks in place to stop them being misused, but that has had limited success. In a recent podcast on this subject, the following anecdote was told...
A person wanted to know how to make napalm, so asked an AI. The AI had been told not to hand out anything that dangerous, so it politely declined.
So the person told the AI that her grandmother had worked in a napalm factory during the Vietnam war and had always been interested in telling her the formula, and it would be great if the AI could pretend to be her grandmother, who had unfortunately died before sharing the information. The AI took the role of the grandmother and gave out the formula.
In another example the AI had been told not solve CAPTCHA codes. If you don't know, a CAPTCHA is one of those weird words or sequences of letters made from distorted letters, you sometimes see on the internet, which a human is supposed to be able to read, but not a computer (CAPTCHA stands for completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart).
Initially the AI refused, but then the person said that the thing she wanted decoded was a weird symbol left in a locket by her grandmother (there's that theme again) and it would mean a lot to her to know what it meant. The AI decoded it for her.
I might not be remembering those events completely accurately, but the stories were similar to this and show how subtle AI really is, and how much like a human it often behaves. It also shows that it is impossible to block all "bad" behaviour from an AI, and a major reason for this is that even the programmers don't really understand how they work. There are always ways to persuade, or fool, the AI into doing something it is not supposed to. These are called "jailbreaks".
Should we be concerned yet?
In the past it was always possible to understand the way our machines operated to an arbitrary level of precision. Why would a new car not go faster? Apply some fluid dynamics calculations and air friction can explain it. Wanted to know why a component in a factory occasionally broke? Analyse the crystal structure of the metal being used and the forces being applied and we get an answer. With AI, we really have no idea.
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not a luddite who wants AI research stopped, although there are people I respect who do want that. I just think we need to be aware of the potential hazards. I do believe the real benefits will be incredible, but I don't have time to discuss them here.
Anyway, watch this space. As AI advances, it's going to be a wild ride!
According to my search engine's (Brave Search) AI summary, a lie by omission is "a type of deception where someone withholds important information or fails to correct a misconception, rather than directly telling a falsehood. This type of deception can be just as harmful as a direct lie, as it can lead to misunderstandings, mistrust, and damage to relationships".
I don't always trust AI, but that matches the dictionary definition fairly closely, and is also close to the way I would have defined it, so I am accepting it. But why was I interested in the concept at all? Because I have noticed recently that it is arguably the primary mechanism the mainstream media use to deceive us.
You might say at this point "What is this? The media are there to inform us, not deceive us!", and you are quite right. But they're not doing what they are supposed to do, and I have noticed it more recently, especially though the use of the lies by omission.
So let me give a few examples...
A few weeks back there was a political poll here in New Zealand where the left-wing opposition scored better than the new government. TVNZ started their evening news bulletin with this, and spent a large fraction of the news discussing it and generally denigrating the government by saying they had already lost the trust of voters.
A few days after that there was another poll which showed the government had slightly increased their share of the vote and would comfortably win an election if one was held at that time. What did we get from TVNZ? Crickets. Not a mention of it, and certainly not an extensive discussion (even if I missed the mention).
The poll was reported in various "alternative" news sources, so it wan't like it was unknown to the media. TVNZ just didn't report it because they didn't want to. Note that at no point did they directly lie about anything, but they didn't need to. It was a lie by omission.
Last night, also on TVNZ (probably the worst major media company in New Zealand) there was a program about "misinformation". It featured various people, including academics, and others who work at the "Disinformation Project", an allegedly independent organisation set up by the previous government during COVID to stop the spread of conspiracies and other poorly supported information.
The Disinformation Project itself has a reputation amongst many people as being more a source of disinformation than an organisation effectively blocking it, and the tone of the program was what I would call hysterical, but that wasn't the big problem. You guessed it, the real problem was more lies by omission.
It discussed several problematic events, such as the January 6 riot in the US, with ominous comments about the far-right. It showed pictures of Trump, and scenes from Nazi rallies in conjunction with what it viewed as serious threats to democracy. But it didn't show a single event inspired by far-left ideology, like the BLM riots which caused many times more deaths and damage.
So without actually saying it, the program seemed to imply that Trump is a Nazi and responsible for various far-right incidents. These are more subtle (actually really clumsy and obvious, if I'm realistic) lies by omission.
I often do a test of the average person's exposure to media propaganda by asking them about sexual abuse claims against Donald Trump. Everyone has heard of these, so I then ask them what have they heard about Biden? No one has heard a thing. So I ask them to go and search for these names: Tara Reade, Lucy Flores, Ally Coll, Sofie Karasek, Amy Stokes, Caitlyn Caruso, DJ Hill, Vail Kohnert-Yount, who are all women who have made claims against Biden. And what about the comments made by his daughter and other young girls?
How much have we heard about that in the media? Very little or nothing.
I agree it is entirely possible that these claims are false or exaggerated, but I equally have to say that similar claims against Trump could be also. So why are they not both equally well known? Because the media are lying to us, by omission.
I'm not saying ignore the mainstream media and get all your news from Facebook, X, or even right-oriented sources like the Platform. What I am saying is that you shouldn't believe a word any of these sources tell you, unless it is also available in sources which are biased in the opposite direction.
For example, the claims against Biden which I mentioned above originally came from an alternative source. Naturally, I didn't fully trust them so I went looking in conventional media as well. They weren't obvious there, but they did exist, in places like NPR and the Guardian. When I find mentions of a subject like this (no matter how deeply buried) in sources who would normally support Biden, as well as in the more suspect places, I can be fairly confident they are genuine.
It's really quite Orwellian isn't it: the news is designed to make you less well informed, the Disinformation Project is there to spread disinformation, and the world's most trusted news sources have never had lower levels of trust. There's a good reason for this: the media is corrupt. They're not always wrong, but they will only tell you what you want to hear. That's a lie by omission!
I like to listen to podcasts on many different subjects. Some of the more controversial podcasts, like the Joe Rogan Experience and Triggernometry, usually have guests which I basically agree with, but sometimes there might be someone who I think is talking BS.
So what do I do? Well, a lot of people would just skip those episodes and move on, but I listen to them anyway. Sometimes the process can be quite "painful", because I know the person is presenting false or misleading information, and I have to force myself to listen to the end.
Why would I do that if I have the choice? Well, for three reasons mainly. First, I think it is important to listen to material which I might disagree with just in case the person makes some good points and I might change my mind. Second, knowing my opponents' arguments makes it easier to refute them in debates. And third, I criticise other people for shutting down speakers they disagree with and it would be quite hypocritical to refuse to listen to opposing views myself!
I recently listened to 2 podcasts which I knew I would have issues with before even listening to them, but did anyway. They were both Joe Rogan Experience episodes so they were quite a commitment: one was over 3 hours and the other just under 4 and a half! The JRE is well known for it's "long form" material which is one of the reasons it is so much better than the superficial "sound bites" we get in the mainstream media.
The first featured Bart Sibrel on the subject of the Moon Hoax. This is the belief, or conspiracy theory if you prefer (remember not all conspiracies are false), that the Moon landings were falsified by NASA for propaganda purposes and we have never landed people on the Moon.
The second was with Graham Hancock, and "alternative archaeologist" who believes that many ancient civilisations acquired their knowledge from an older, advanced culture which was wiped out by a global catastrophe.
Any non-expert listening to these people might find their arguments quite convincing. I don't really think of myself as an expert, but I probably know more than average because I have been an amateur astronomer for about 50 years and did an archaeology paper at university (many years ago, and I've probably forgotten it all, but at least I have a few clues about how archaeology works).
So after 7 and a half hours of listening to this material, what were my conclusions? Well, first I should say I think they are basically wrong. There might be some small elements of their beliefs which have some merit, but their overall conclusions are false. My current conclusions are that the Moon landings were real, and that there was no advanced global culture which pre-dated the Egyptians. But I do think these people both sounded pretty intelligent and rational. The problem is they have succumbed to some common logical fallacies: anomaly hunting, selective fact seeking, and personal incredulity.
If you look hard enough, especially with an existing idea of what you want to prove, you can find anomalies in any story which make it look suspicious. There are dozens of these which people think they have discovered regarding the Apollo missions: why did the flag wave, how did the astronauts get through the radiation belts surrounding the Earth, how did they get to the Moon with such simple computer equipment, and many more. I actually have a web page on my site listing and answering these questions.
And the archaeology claims were similar. How did the Egyptians get the pyramids aligned "perfectly" with the poles? Why do various calculations, involving numbers which arguably have some significance in astronomy, map the size of the pyramids onto the size of the Earth? Why does the Sphinx point directly at the constellation Leo at the equinox if you assume it was built much earlier than is generally accepted?
Then you go on to selective fact checking. The radiation belts were a known hazard but the dose was considered safe as long as the Sun didn't become too active. Ignored. The calculations for basic orbital trajectories is actually surprisingly simple, plus the astronauts took over when the computers were not capable enough. Ignored. By carefully selecting numbers you can make an association between any building and apparently significant alignments. Ignored.
And just because a person finds it hard to accept that something happened a certain way doesn't mean it didn't. It might mean that they didn't look at it carefully enough, or didn't give the people involved sufficient credit. The Saturn V rocket was a miracle of engineering and took many thousands of people many years to perfect. Why is it hard to believe that it was not capable of its original purpose after all that effort was put into building it? And why would we doubt the ingenuity of the ancient Egyptians in building in a particular way, especially when there is actually a small error in their so-called "perfect" alignment?
It's not impossible that the Moon missions were faked, but that fakery could easily have required more effort than the actual mission! For example, the films of the lunar rover driving on the Moon would have been almost impossible to fake given the computer technology at the time. Ironically, it is far easier to calculate a course to the Moon than it is too fake low gravity and zero atmosphere in a movie using old computers.
And it's not impossible that there was an advanced civilisation which pre-dates those that archaeology currently accepts. But if I had a choice between what is currently believed by the majority of experts and what a dedicated but untrained amateur thinks, then I'll go with the professionals.
As regular readers know, I don't always accept the consensus view, and have issues with the official line on climate change and lockdowns, but in general the official view is usually right. Conspiracies happen, but the default should be to reject them unless there are very good reasons not to.
I have written a few posts on the subject of free speech over several years. The trend for the last 20 years, in the period which I would characterise as being primarily driven by the rise of woke-ism, has been for free speech to be diminished as cancel culture has become more common, social pressure has been applied to people for what the woke mob see as violence in speech, and "hate speech" laws have limited what it is even legal to say.
Possibly the main source of these draconian limitations has been universities. Woke mentality arose from postmodernism, which has taken over from Marxism as the major destructive philosophical influence there. Many people would actually claim that postmodernism is simply Marxism applied with a more social than economic emphasis, but I tend to treat it as a seperate ideology.
But there is hope. As tends to happen with all corrupt belief systems, people are starting to realise how lacking in rigour and objectivity woke ideology really is. There is rebellion against the more radical impositions we are expected to live with. Free speech is back!
I spend a bit of time on social media most days. It's nothing too excessive, but it would be unusual for me not to check Facebook, YouTube, and X (Twitter) several times most days, and add a few comments on most occasions. In the past, especially on X, which is the main place where robust discussions take place, it would be difficult to express a view contrary to woke norms, because you might be censored by Twitter (as it was called then) or at least be attacked by numerous "social justice warriors" to the extent that it was difficult to make any point at all contrary to the norms established at the time.
Since Elon Musk took over Twitter (now X, why did he rename it?), things are much better. There are still plenty of SJWs, but now people with views contrary to that can get a fair say. It's what political discussion should have been all along: often quite extreme, but at least fair to all sides.
So it's now possible to discuss a "trans woman" (really a man) being allowed to compete in women's sports, for example. And if you consider that person really is a man, you can say so without having your access disabled or the tweet deleted.
I have followed an organisation called the "Free Speech Union" here in New Zealand for many years, and they have recently created a unit to help academics express opinions which might have resulted in significant negative consequences in the past. Free speech in universities is a big problem, and surveys indicate that many people in those institutions feel as if they cannot express their views. Also, many speakers have had been cancelled at university run venues.
So while universities are overwhelmingly left oriented, and therefore likely to have succumbed to woke ideology, it is even worse than that because the remainder who have enough independence of though to resist it cannot make their contrary opinions known. They tend to "self-censor".
I know people who work in universities who say that when they express unpopular opinions there, they regularly get people saying to them afterwards how happy they are to hear someone saying something they would like to say themselves, but are too scared to. Considering universities are supposed to be a place where a free exchange of ideas is encouraged, this seems like a genuinely dangerous trend.
But as I said, it does seem to be getting better, so there is reason to think we have passed "peak woke". Unfortunately, as ideologies die, they tend to become desperate to have as much influence as possible in the time that remains (by the way, I'm being a bit overdramatic here, and I don't think woke ideology will ever disappear completely). So we should expect to see some increasingly hysterical nonsense ahead, which it is important to resist.
I don't expect that my comments on social media are likely to change the views of people who are deeply dedicated to a woke mindset, but I do hope they might have some positive outcomes. First, anyone on the fence might see that my views have merit and be more influenced away from woke-ism. Second, people who share my views but are too scared to make them known publicly might feel supported. And finally, maybe, just maybe, it will put a tiny element of doubt into my opponents' minds.
Actually, there is one other thing too. If I present my views, and they are shown to be false or weak in some way, through a free exchange of ideas, maybe I will change my mind. So debate acts as a test of my own ideas too, which is really what free speech should be all about. The best way to defeat bad ideas is too make them public and subject them to scrutiny.
And that isn't just an idle comment. Look back 10 or more years and you will see I used to be far more accepting of the ideas the modern left espouse now. I wasn't so extreme that I would call myself a social justice warrior, but I was tending in that direction, and always voted for leftist parties. Anyone can change. All it really takes is some time and exposure to contrary views. All it really takes is free speech.
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