Posts by Bart Janssen
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber driver, in reply to BenWilson,
You got Surged!
Yeah I know. It was a combination of me misinterpreting the multiplier and the estimated base cost being ~100% wrong - all on my first use of Uber. Nothing to do with the actual driver but definitely soured the whole experience.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber driver, in reply to BenWilson,
Driver safety
No I meant that they driver in a safer manner on the roads :).
Gosh aren’t those no U-trun signs annoying and WTF are those dotted yellow lines on the side of the road there for anyway
signed grumpy of Mt Roskill
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Hard News: How the years flew by ..., in reply to Zach Bagnall,
Kiwis prefer property investment over productive economic investment (eg Kiwisaver).. a wholesale cultural change is necessary.
If it was only kiwis then the only real problem would be the Australian banks taking a billion dollars a year out of New Zealand and we could cope with that that, just.
But it isn't kiwis who have the money now.
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Hard News: How the years flew by ..., in reply to Luke Williamson,
Or is there some other vital component required?
New Zealand is poor. That's a fact we can't/won't admit to ourselves. We have simply very little of value to contribute to the world and we as a country are poor.
The consequence of that is that people from countries that are rich have more money to spend than New Zealanders.
In that environment, allowing those people from other countries who have money to buy our assets without any restrictions whatsoever is insane.
But we continue to allow this insane policy because we cannot admit we are poor.
We may as well sell every second born child into slavery.
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I've had two uber rides. One paid for by a friend. And the one that makes me doubt I will use Uber again. Essentially the multiplier (which I misinterpreted) combined with a ludicrous "estimated cost" meant we paid roughly three times what a taxi would cost.
I have no problem with breaking the taxi monopoly but nothing in my Uber experience makes me want to ride again.
I am glad your experience as a driver has been good.
As for the P requirement ... well if it is meant to ensure that taxi drivers and uber drivers are safer on the roads ... roflnui
The extra certification on the vehicle seems OK.
Can't see any justification for Uber deciding to unilaterally lower the standards - kind of like McDs deciding burger meat doesn't need to be stored in the fridge.
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Is this personal and very human horror to which our society subjects it's citizens really worth that tax cut?
The weird thing is most folks really aren't selfish, they will happily donate to charities and relief funds or give their old sheets to refuges. But suggest for a second that it could be done by taxation and people turn blue with anger, bizarre.
I do want to start a rumour that autism can be cured by vaccination ... that would be bad wouldn't it.
It also strike me that whenever I read threads like this the people working at the desk at the support organisations really want to help, but it is a management structure and policy dictated from the minister down that the system either work well or do harm. It's not the actual system or the people in it that are the problem but rather the way the system is administered.
That argues that we don't need a new system but rather we need the system managed with a different attitude.
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I can see why you'd leave out alcohol and tobacco, essentially you avoid a fight with both those lobby groups and there are other organisations dealing with those already.
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Hard News: Approved by lunchtime, in reply to BenWilson,
But what actions that “taking into account” leads to are far more complex than just taking the advice of whoever produced that evidence.
Which is true sometimes.
Where I get grumpy (alright grumpier) is the idea that 95% of the scientific community is say X, but Mr Concerned of Mt Roskill presents unsupported blog to the contrary and for some bizarre reason that must be given equal weight by our MP because [insert insane reason here].
That's why trolling me about climate change and liberal feminists will make me really pissed off.
And while I know you are talking about the genuinely grey areas where I really have no issue with considering all the opinions - that is all too easily translated by the trolls into "hey I found this farmer who said the water in his river was just fine so we can ignore Mike Joy and all his data".
Also in this age of equality we should allow witches to be minister of magic too - it would save money on domestic airfares too.
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Hard News: Approved by lunchtime, in reply to BenWilson,
It looks to me like a necessary but not sufficient condition of the job of a representative.
So ... you agree with me that our representatives need to take into account evidence when they make laws.
Dude that's all I want and that's all I said.
The problem with the laws around cannabis is they are framed as public safety laws and public health laws. If they were instead framed as public morality laws, which is what they are since they ignore data and evidence, then fine.
At that point I can say I think they are stupid but I live in a democracy and the majority are fine with that.
However if those laws do harm ...
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Hard News: Approved by lunchtime, in reply to BenWilson,
What Mathew was saying was it's Ok to make rules and laws that are wrong - because democracy.
And you are conflating science and the pursuit of data with the data itself.
At no point did I suggest a meritocracy or rule by scientists so arguing against that is pointless.
What I did say is that the democratically elected representatives are failing to do their job if they make laws that not based on facts, data and evidence. It's not complicated.
Making a law that makes compound X illegal based on a rationale that compound X is unsafe when all the data show compound X is safe is a failure by the democratically elected representatives to do their job.
Making a law that says compound X is illegal because use of compound X is culturally unacceptable is a different thing and may or may not be reasonable depending on the culture.
What I was simply saying and it is very relevant to the topic is that unless you specifically make the law then you should be using the data and evidence to guide the law making process. It really isn't that hard.
As for "the people" being in charge - well that sounds nice until you get a council deciding to remove fluoride from the water supply to the detriment of the public health - because they were democratically elected (and excluded all the public health experts from the vote because of conflict of interest).
As for scientists ruling the country - well it would be nice to have a minister for science who was scientifically literate at least.