how private companies (notably facebook) have taken over the ‘public square’

In that for me it brings into focus that recourse by commentators to repeat the old cliché – as issued here by Simon Bridges in this anonymous editorial…

In planning, we call it a 'third space' – that place designed into cities and neighbourhoods where people meet up, play a game,…

https://www.deviantart.com/deepred6502/art/Freeway-of-Heaven-760596915

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/?image_id=2831773

“Discrimination towards rainbow communities is still hugely prevalent in Aotearoa and more needs to be done to address it. The Day of Silence campaign is about raising awareness and asking New Zealanders to consider what part they play in ending homophobia, biphobia and transphobia in…

Perhaps we could throw it in the hat

I see Dr Bryce Edwards has penned a piece for Newsroom which largely pulls the same neo-colonial stops already covered in this thread i.e. misrepresentation of terms like “banned”, “free speech” etc.

There’s some interesting elements to this, none…

If you graduate from Darwin University is that a pass or a fail?

[[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/15/age-of-obesity-shaming-overweight-people | Not to sure we can trust either of those two institutions to give the full picture of all they get up to. And we dont need anymore glossy images of an increasingly…

I suspect the life skills course…

It's the curriculum, not the course materials. For NCEA courses that have credits right through to level 3. You waxed lyrical that you'd often pondered why this doesn't exist. Ponder…

You certainly woke me up. To reiterate what Katharine said:

I love this place because I learn so much.

whakawhetai koe mo tou mahi!

And some of us have put quite a bit of effort into that – but without genuine political support and organising, it means very little. A decade of my life I won't get back.

History has been witness to how societies killed their differently abled population as they were seen as useless and a burden on society. The Nazi regime eliminated many differently abled people in concentration camps. In ancient Rome, people and even babies born with disabilities were…

I mean, really, you expect students to come to that list of philosophy topic…

Um. Using the internet effectively to find answers to questions is also taught in schools these days.

Thank you, lovely thought – beautiful language/meaning – and the same to you! I love this place because I learn so much.

Yes, indeed, but I think living up to them becomes so much easier when you learn how to reflect on your actions based on understanding the various/different ethical…

I’d be embarrassed to be most news editors and producers right now.

I’m embarrassed to be Pākehā right now – more than ever. As I read somewhere:

"𝕳𝖊’𝖘 𝖆 𝖙𝖞𝖕𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖑 𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖉𝖚𝖈𝖊 𝖔𝖋 𝖍𝖎𝖘 𝖈𝖚𝖑𝖙𝖚𝖗𝖆𝖑 𝖓𝖎𝖈𝖍𝖊, 𝖓𝖔𝖙 𝖆 𝖗𝖆𝖈𝖎𝖘𝖙."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m7AeSRRTYs

2:44

White men…

You can teach morals all day long, getting people to live up to them is always going to be the hard part and not just the average bloke on the street. It seems to get harder…

expired

"I teach (the very basics!) of moral philosophy at Massey to College of Science students…

ehara koe i a ia!

I must say, as both an alumni and a lecturer at Massey, I’ve been a bit surprised/disappointed that I haven’t come across more support expressed for Jan Thomas’ decision.

FWIW, I explained my position on it on this blog (it was the first…

Sorry to hear that. Publishable elsewhere?

I'd be embarrassed to be most news editors and producers right now.

Only fresh opinions count.

In fact he’s just been nominated New Zealander of the Year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JrlKcoD1Qw

... saying anything at all, but in an aggressively hostile way with the aim of intimidating the speaker. The message is "people like me only kill a few people a year, and mostly in the USA.…

It's easy – just support people you think are doing the right thing, disagree with those doing the wrong thing, and pretty soon you'll be called a social justice warrior and accused of virtue signalling.

Yes, exactly:…

I was thinking about "social justice warrior" last night, this one comes as an insult from the right, yet I think many on the left will happily claim the…

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/q-and-a/clips/extras/qa-simon-bridges-6573025

"..how fascism works, which is not through a coherent belief system but rather as a parasite on other forms of thinking, on fears."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppvBWIzvPvU

As a person, I…

reverse discrimination is a thing – and so is white fragility

“groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.”

I find that behaviour just as offensive as that of the establishment folk they demonise

Just to be sure I’ve got this, are you saying you find strong encouragement to avoid forms of expression or action that…

I also remember where the term "political correctness" came from – it started as a joke on the…

Them synths can be a tad literal...

;- )

Anyone else enjoying 'Humans'

at the risk of burdening your binary absolutism with the complexity of power dynamics I hope you don’t mind if i fix your typo there Dennis:

m̲i̲n̲o̲r̲i̲t̲i̲e̲s̲:

minorities existing on multiple axes of oppression generally speaking, e.g wahine toa, folk who don’t commonly get to speak from the paepae.…

While they are both racist, their expressions of this are very different. One is just outright hatred and lies, while the other is more slippery. We don’t need to entertain the former, that’s…

it is disheartening, as fascism rattles the door, that Karl Popper’s Paradox of Intolerance is not parlance for those engaging in political discussion, akin to something like ‘Godwin’s Law’. In the same conversations as we’re holding up…

The party exec committee is looking like a robot with a ray-gun having taken…

perhaps you could continue this with someone you take seriously then, comments are open

In the discussion I referenced the cancellation of Hone Harawira’s talk at the University of Auckland Law School. One student said to me: “Where was the outrage then?”…

From having his keyboard hand guided by…

I don’t know whether you’ve offered this seriously but I genuinely invite you to reconsider your position. This…

He just had to go. John Key's main positive legacy, apart from the three way handshake, was ridding us of this tedious old fool.

There are elements of his argument I’m sure you don’t endorse.

(What is needed is more testable general hypotheses regarding possible causal mechanisms, rather…

However, denial of the historical evidence that something is…

Weinstein.

Look Dennis, it's a silly game. For every name you or Don put forward, I could counter it with another of same or different ethnoreligious background. None of this being at all rational or scientific.

For these specific individuals mentioned by both you and Don Brash…

"Forbes list of the world’s top 10 billionaires in 2016 counts no less than three Jews." Anyone…

Couldn't agree more. And Mark Taslov's points are extremely well made.

Don Brash's latest from last night is this pearl of wisdom;

“Jewish culture is more advanced that other cultures”.

And the evidence?

He then listed the…

Despite the cancellation Brash says he was encouraged by the support for free speech.

“Right across the political spectrum from the left to the right people have been very supportive of my right to speak freely on Massey campus and very critical…

Maximising tolerance does actually require you be reasonably intolerant toward particularly intolerant people.

We don't give fucking Al Quada a fair go, they don't get to make paid public exultations on the lack of humanity inherent to western society and the urgency…

How resilient is liberal domocracy? Do we really understand how we arrived at liberal democracy? To what extent does society get shaped unexpectedly by changes in communication…

We sure do, when they’re white

Policy ought to be evidence-based. Our policy on free speech is not excluded by this requirement! Preconceptions & bias have no part to play. They just induce bigotry. Anyone who fails…

The very same Brash who just claimed on camera off the nzherald site that a brief interruption by protesters definitively proved PC has erm gone too far.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwcKwGS7OSQ

1. to bear or hold up (a load, mass, structure, part, etc.); serve as a foundation for.
2. to sustain or withstand (weight, pressure, strain, etc.) without giving way; serve as a prop for.
**3. to undergo or endure, especially with patience…

Mark, if that's how you're going to misrepresent me (and everyone else who criticised Jan Thomas) then there's no point engaging with you.

Those who cancelled their talks.

Clever attempt to change the subject?? I do agree it would be an interesting one. Trying to frame it so it will not seem off-topic is a bit of a challenge. Trolls swear?

Ah, the Committee for Public Safety, obviously. It worked extremely well for her predecessors. If you haven't read history, google it.

When Jim Mclay becomes the go-to provocateur employed by media on topics related to Māori then that could almost be relevant. Is your intent to suggest that a racist is ok…

That’s a former leader of the National Party you’re trying to cut out of New Zealand’s political life, Mark. There’s more going on here than I can comment on directly but I couldn’t be more opposed to what you’re doing.

I think you’ll find those views are and have been on a fairly constant trajectory for quite some…

And I don't think giving Don Brash and his views the biggest boost since he left Parliament qualifies as "meaningfully resist". More like "stupidly assist".

Sounds like the standard hegemonic response to be honest, less #givenothingtoracism, more #givesomethingstoracism. One comes to expect and anticipate this as a minority, this fanciful notion of the “tolerable bigot” – bad enough that those impacted complain but not so bad that the hegemony…

Simon Bridges exercises his right to free speech at Parliament to ... um, not criticise Judith Collins, who is not his boss.

Having freedom of…

But given it’s a University, Thomas should have set up a committee to deal with public safety issues.…

The end game for the Nazis is they kill everybody who isn't them. That's why they're into this whole "we're the real victim and everyone else is out to get us" thing. It's to justify their fantasy of a world wide…

The thing is, people like this do take that opportunity. Gavin Menzies (author of “1421: The Year China Discovered the World”) gave…

The…

The latter. I…

The obvious example…

Examples? Consider He Taua's decisive action to rid NZ once and for all of the abomination of racist 'haka parties'. In that case those affected acted directly where decades of polite overtures had been met…

Leaving it to someone else has historically not worked out well with this particular politics. Maori can of course sit back and say "not our problem", but I think there's an argument to be made that in fact nazis…

We have people on the ABC and almost every media outlet defending concentration camps, we have secret courts using secret evidence to imprison Australians without…

To me it's more of a moderately amusing…

But I agree that hosting abhorrent views isn’t something that anyone…

Tim and I had some perfectly civil Twitter back and forth (and of course, nobody has crowned me Queen of The Maori Borg so marae will do whatever…

https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/good-is-a-conversation-what-nzs-weekend-of-division-should-teach-us

Fat Bastard works for Dr. Evil. Fancy that.

I would rather hear just West talking about his work ( on class and race) plus his musical work with Bootsy Collins, Prince and others…

Ditto. They got their free speech and most NZers neither wanted to hear it, nor host it. It's a precedent I'm happy with. I hope this is how it goes for any similar acts who want to come here. We do not tolerate…

The Democrats…

I don’t expect it to end up in court…

It is one thing to say the Russians try to use…

One of the main points I took away from it was that The Big Lie is not intended to deceive, convince or to be believed. It’s intended to provoke. It gives a tactical advantage that’s hard to combat and pointing out it’s…

Ignore them and hope the numbers drop off but…

From the current Stuff homepage. Yesterday's trolls don't appear to have rated a headline.

Wow!

I am not sure he thoroughly understands the beliefs of those who he is championing, those who wish to actively disenfranchise people with similar backgrounds to himself.

It will be…

Free speech doesn't mean the right to soil a venue's brand- surely the right to treat comes in here? There is no requirement to offer a venue to anyone? Though, yes, well…

Same…

They deliberately play into that dynamic and social media is the perfect communication technology for them to do that.

And in the background there are people like Putin funding these sorts of…

Ignore them and hope the numbers drop off but reactionary clickbait seems to be an end in…

Boom. Exactly.

But this was worth supporting, particularly as it had…

and I think that the fact that they didn’t…

He said the funding is necessary for him to keep speaking out against the "encroaching mob and horde of mindless violence the left seems to want to unleash on the failing…

Damn, you read it before I corrected it on Eddie Clark's advice :-)

An interesting choice by the director and producer, given his lack of fit with nearly every other local acolyte.

Human Rights Act. NZ BoRA only applies to public actors.