Posts by BenWilson
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Which way is more likely?
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LOL. Confession
I've read the Truth more than once. A friend buys it religiously. The boxing commentary is actually quite good. The personal classifieds are incredible in their sheer size, you really get the impression there's a hell of a lot of hookers in Auckland working for bugger all. And the rest is amusing in a Viz magazine kind of way, once. I always chuckle at their headlines, in which 'vice girls' and 'gangs' have a lot to say, particularly about P and 'crooked cops'. I suspect all 4 topics are permanently on the payroll.
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I always thought of Howlett as 'Part European'. Am I wrong?
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Re: PPPs, in particular in schools.
Once again, we get policy that isn't policy. There are no specifics, just a very broad indication that National would like to consider some options that they say Labour don't. They don't specifically say what the options are, just that they hinge around the difference between public and private ownership of infrastructure. And they're only committing to consider the options, not to actually act on them.
Which leads immediately into a sad socialism vs capitalism debate, going over arguments that have been boringly familiar since the time of Karl Marx, and ending in ideological camps shouting obscenities at each other. This may convey an idea of difference, but practically we still have no idea if there is any.
National's current playbook of hoping to win on the strength of "capitalism is better than socialism", will not carry them through an election year. I'm not saying that is because socialism is better than capitalism. It's because only the ideological camps care. Everyone else doesn't want to have to guess what being 'more capitalist' means, they want specifics. Does it mean less tax? What cuts will be needed? Will schools be sold? Will schools be built? Where? How much will it cost?
And there are many areas of policy in which "capitalism vs socialism" has no real part to play anyway. Foreign policy, for instance. National appear to just be shadowing Labour there. Drug policy? Does either ism have a position on drugs? I don't know or care, I want to know what National are going to do.
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LOL, OK. I hope you aren't having a duel today!
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I have to be honest and say I wouldn't know the answer to any of the questions either. But then I'm not saying I'll be helping the Pacific Island community either. In my area, Avondale, which has a big PI population (both my neighbors are large PI families), they don't really seem to either need or want any help, and are just people much like anywhere I've ever lived before. Curiously, it's the longest I've ever lived anywhere without having my car stolen or broken into. Remuera was shocking for that.
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I'd be interested to read it at length if you have a link. I'm familiar with Cantor and infinity, denumerable or otherwise, so don't hold back!
There are available to us an infinite number of choices so therefore there must be an infinite number of consequences.
That's not trivially true, needs a bit more elaboration. You may have a lot of choices which lead to the same consequences. But clearly both choice and consequence would need to be very clearly defined if you want to be mathematical about them.
Just because a set you are dealing with is infinite, and some subsets of it are also infinite, doesn't mean they're all equally likely. If you choose a natural number randomly, then you have a 100% chance of choosing a natural number, a 50% chance of choosing an odd number, and a 1 in 1000 chance of choosing a number divisible by 1000. Yet all of them are infinite sets, of exactly the same size.
So I'm sure that, yes, there are universes which are possible that are all Bad, or all Good, as a direct result of choices that lead toward them, but I'd think the most likely universes (by a factor of nearly 100%) are a mixture. I could walk into SkyCity and win every game I played, bankrupting the house in one evening (or more likely getting kicked out after winning a few thousand dollars, beaten up, and told never to come back). But more likely is I'll win some, lose some, and the general trend will be towards losing.
Similarly with choices, some people make mostly good choices, some mostly bad, and most people are somewhere between. So the chances of an all-bad-choice universe are tiny, even if there are an infinite number of ways that could happen.
Furthermore, choices are not a zero-sum-game. There's not always a loser and a winner. With many choices, everyone is a loser, like 'let's have a nuclear war'. I think there are fewer 'all-are-winners' choices. But there are plenty of 'most-are-winners' choices, and that's usually the best place to be unless you are extremely talented. That's why the stockmarket is a better gamble than the horses, and also why there is more money in the stockmarket.
Which was why I contended your point:
But if at every opportunity of action the universe splits into an infinite number of alternative universes, all going down those paths of different choices, then half of those alternatives will lead to a better world and half will lead to a worse world.
If I am standing on a very, very high tightrope, I surely have an infinity of directions I can move in just in the x-y plane. But only ones along the line of the rope will be good choices, all of the rest involve falling off it and hurting myself. If the choice was random it is almost certain I would fall.
You see my point? Just because there are 3 outcomes from every choice (better or worse or the same), doesn't mean they are equally likely. Sometimes all of the options are the same, like 'what actions should I take whilst being hanged?'. If the hangman knows his job every path leads to your death. I guess you can split hairs and say it's better if you're calm, or if you struggle you might squeeze a couple more seconds of life out, but the options all dry up pretty quickly.
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They weren;t civilians. THey were soldiers. But I think you mean they were working on civilian projects.
LOL, can't resist this, but English is so ambiguous. When I said civilian reconstruction engineers I see you attached civilian as a modifier to engineer, rather than as a modifier to reconstruction. But you got the right intention in the end, as a result of actually honestly trying to understand what I was saying. That's the difference between this blog and many others. Crapping on about poor grammar doesn't go on for hundreds of abusive posts.
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Afterwards, during, who cares? They weren't fighting, they were helping rebuild shattered civilian infrastructure. It's noble cause however you look at it, whoever it purportedly supports.
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insider, civilian reconstruction engineers is hardly 'sending troops'. If that was the only presence the USA maintained, I don't imagine they'd be suffering hundreds of attacks every month.
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