Posts by Russell Brown
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Up Front: Fairy-Tale Autopsies, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
Gee, I felt like I should strategically dip my hat below one eye while I read this post.
Nice. Warren Beatty styles.
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Hard News: Dreaming of a world without evidence, in reply to BenWilson,
I was thinking the most perverse outcome is that it’s almost as bad in terms of production safety to consumers as the uncontrolled manufacture that illegal drugs suffer from. Better to have fewer, better tested drugs.
The trade in the grey-area chemicals is amazing. Factories in Asia produce them literally by the ton, and sell them online by the kilo. It's hard to know how good the process is, but they're not actually made in sheds. It's all totes legal.
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Hard News: Dreaming of a world without evidence, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
I wonder if this will be the round-about resolution to the war on drugs: synthetic analoges that replicate the effects of traditional drugs but can’t be banned in a more process oriented, policy-based political culture.
Quite possibly. But that can lead to some perverse outcomes.
One “legal” high has already been taken off the market because its active ingredient was deemed a THC analog – it was banned because it was, um, banned.
That’s the reason that BZP was allowed for so long, while some possibly more benign substances, phenethylamines, were banned because they fell foul of the extremely broad analog provisions in our Misuse of Drugs Act; ie, they were deemed analogs of MDMA etc. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.
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Hard News: Dreaming of a world without evidence, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Peter Dunne, like others of his ilk, need to realise that the War on drugs is actually a war on people, who just happen to take drugs.
There's a guy called Julian Buchanan, just joined VUW, who is very good value on this theme.
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Up Front: Fairy-Tale Autopsies, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Clap if you believe in fairies?
Only the pretty ones.
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Just official now: Media7 has won "best digital only TV show on Freeview" and "best TV show on a channel on Freeview" in the 2011 Freeview Awards. Back Benches runner up in both categories.
So we both beat Close Up and Campbell Live ;-)
Chuffed.
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Hard News: Dreaming of a world without evidence, in reply to Lyndon Hood,
The PM noted this was coming out and opined it might have an impact on ‘advice’. As opposed, presumably, to policy
Arrggh.
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Up Front: Fairy-Tale Autopsies, in reply to Sacha,
the copyright thread (ok, that’s just two people with different ideas)
That was a prime example not of differing ideas but of a wilfully unpleasant approach to conversation by just one person. I don’t know anywhere offline that would put up with such behaviour.
And I really shouldn't have put up with it for as long as I did, but I wanted to be fair. The insults were largely directed at me and I figured I could put up with a bit more of that than everyone else. And letting trolls run for a while can actually provoke useful discussion. It just never ends well.
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Up Front: Fairy-Tale Autopsies, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
Emma: I think you might be talking about libertarians–the species who are deaf to anything which does not match with their rather dismal view of the world and their hilarious notion that Ann Raynd is The Best Writer Ever.
Arguing with doctrinaire libertarians can be a fun way to pass time, but it never really works out, because they'll never take on board a concept that crosses their doctrine.
I used to talk to Perigo (he was less daft then) on my bFM Wire show occasionally in the 90s, and it was actually very convivial.
But I recall one time stopping him dead by pointing out that as a venerator of property rights and the courts, he should be marching in the streets alongside Maori who'd had millions of acres of private property stolen by the state. It was as if he couldn't hold all the ideas in his head.
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Thank you, Emma.
But can I also take the opportunity to note that there are also people who are not trolls or tinks, but who sometime simply disagree with most of the crowd, and might be a bit frustrating at times? I do think the T-word is sometimes overused in these forums.
More often than is strictly sensible, I will try and discuss things offline with people who are actually trolling. There is a tradition of people charging in to PAS and getting all offside with everyone before they get the hang of the culture and settle down and contribute, and I always hold the hope that’ll be the case. I don’t like banning people.
But generally, that’s just a recipe for yet more unpleasant behaviour, as if my attempt to mediate only validates whatever preconception they thought they had. Sigh.