Finally got around to watching the Dr Who specials with David Tennant, written by returning showrunner Russel T. Davies. Not as bad as Moffat's garbage series. But still, more melodrama, meta-discussion and self-parody. Yawn.
I've been noticing one of the biggest social problems with social media, as a medium (the fediverse included). It occurs when two people who've been in a social media space for a while, interact for the first time.
From each person's POV, they're at their local chatting with friends, and a stranger has come into their social space. Each expects the other to be more diplomatic, as they hopefully would if they joined a group chat at a bar. They'll likely be disappointed.
"Everybody looks at everybody all the time and you don't need to be a celebrity to feel the need for privacy. I myself was recently in big trouble with my Confessor for being slow to post a birthing video. I'm not talking about being either an extrovert or an introvert: I'm talking about people who don't believe privacy is a perversion, people who think it might even be a virtue."
I'm in two minds about Blind Faith. I really enjoyed the sci-fi satire in Ben Elton's earlier novels, especially This Other Eden and Stark. But I find The Circle - the Dave Eggers novel not the lame NetFix adaption - to be much more effective as a dystopian projection of privacy-dissolving "social media". On the other hand, Eggers' novel was published in 2013, while Blind Faith came out in 2007, when FB, YT and Xitter were only just appearing. Making Elton's dystopia much more prophetic.
That said, there's a fine line between satire and snobbery. Idiocracy manages to stay on the right side of it by making its protagonists a working class grunt and a sex worker. Ben Elton's growing disdain for infotainment ("Reality TV" and "social media") pushes some of his later books onto the snobbery side of the line, starting with Dead Famous in 2001. Sadly, for all its aspirations to be Brave New World for the digital age, I think Blind Faith is firmly on the snobbery side of the line too.
Making heat is a poor use of a low-entropy energy like electricity, and it would be good for people to be able to stay warm and cook even when the electricity supply fails. What about replacing fossil gas with biogas made in 21st century sewage treatment plants, like Geneco's Bio-Bus did?
"Broadcasting from inside corporate occupied territory, Pepperspray Productions Video Collective formed shortly after the WTO protests in Seattle, in response to the Independent Media Center's call, "don't hate the media, be the media!". We believe that the Corporate Media is not telling us the whole story, and that the people must make our own media if we want our voices to be heard. Be the media!!!"
"Finance Minister Nicola... Willis isn't giving up on her tax relief centrepiece and told those gathered in Silverstream on Thursday morning that she knew how 'devastating it would be if we were to give up on overdue tax relief'."
Well that's bullshit Jo, benefits are taxed. As is any part-time paid employment we can find, and for the record, our purchases are too (GST). Also, it's gross to see a journalist using the propaganda phrase "tax relief" instead of calling tax cuts what they are.
I may have misread Jo Moir's intention there. But it just infuriates me that not only will those on benefits not get anything much from NatACT First's tax cuts, they're also effectively cutting benefits by changing the way benefit rises are calculated. All while restoring prescription charges and increasing the cost of public transport. So their answer to a cost of living crisis, is to take money from those with the least, and give it to mainly to those with the most.
"Mayors sign letter opposing changes to Māori wards"
Go NZ mayors!
"A Hawke's Bay mayor says the government's proposed changes to Māori wards are racist, because councils can create other wards without requiring a referendum."
NatACT First's cancellation of 3 Waters has forced councils across the country into massive rates hikes and service cuts, so they can absorb the rising costs of bringing neglected water infrastructure up to standard. The local government elections in 2025 will be a chance for citizens to reject councillors who bought into the anti-3 waters propaganda.
Political ShowerThought; if central govt sets a standard for something, it ought to fund local government to bring their infrastructure and services up to that level. If a local govt body sets a standard for themselves, it's reasonable for its ratepayers to foot the bill in full.
For example, if it's up to councils to decide whether to supply water and in what condition, they pay. But if the govt mandates they supply drinkable water, they ought to subsidise the cost of doing so.
I've been thinking about my longstanding use of the term "DataFarmers", as the entities that do "DataFarming". Does it inadvertantly imply that farming is a bad thing? Because that's not what I think.
I have disagreed with farmers many times, over politics and landcare, but I never once thought they intended harm. Now, when I say farmers, I mean people who live on and actually work the land. Not the Queen St "farmers" who increasingly own them. It's hard to say what they intend, beyond profit.
"Labour's housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty... said removing the [First Home] grants, while also restoring interest deductibility for landlords, would make things even harder for renters to get on the ladder."
"[In Falling Down] Bill... represents every person who ever fell down and couldn't get back up again. Every person who followed the rules and did what everyone expected, and got punished for it. Who did everything right and still got screwed over by a system that was stacked against them.
Who spent their entire life striving for something better, only to discover that they were 'not economically viable'."
Falling Down was released in 1993 but I can't think of a 90s film more relevant to our time. It illustrates the fundamental differences between actual neo-nazis, and most of the people who sometimes mouth alt-right talking points (including the Drinker himself). It shows us that most of the latter have more common cause with the left than they realise, if only we could convince them the lies about us are just another part of the Great American Lie they've been sold.