Open mike 11/06/2023

Written By: notices and features - Date published: - 92 comments
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92 comments on “Open mike 11/06/2023”

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  1. 1

    Deepfake AI has its upsides, including endless cultural cross-referencing.

    Star Wars in German. Watch out for the triangular battleship.

  4. 4

    The Green Party policies of higher tax on wealth to fund a guaranteed minimum income are excellent, and would transform NZ for the better. Would make a massive dent in poverty and reduce our collective NZ love of hammering on the poor. This makes the Green Party one of the very few parties with policies that actually address inequality, the greatest scourge currently plaguing NZ in my opinion.

    I'm a bit interested in whether the Bomber at Daily Blog will agree – he has been calling for our massive inequality / class issues to be dealt with, rather than focus on identity politics (and I agree), and at last the Greens are looking a bit more like that.

    1. 4.1

      Seems a good move. Marama (from your link): "The Income Guarantee means families will always have enough kai, or to buy the shoes and warm clothes that children need. Students will no longer have to skip meals to make ends meet and can focus on their study. And if something happens that stops people from working, there is a guaranteed income that's enough to live on." Applied socialism, huh?

      They'll be too scared to admit that, I suspect. However issuing a policy that implies the intent to achieve a UBI outcome without calling it UBI will work in proportion to the number of voters who get the subtle message.

      Simulating often works as well as being authentic. Some would argue the clever simulation of this policy is a pointer to their authenticity. Paradox often rules politics!

    2. 4.2

      Let’s work towards a Labour/Green coalition. And the Greens make a wealth/land tax a non negotiable.

      1. 4.2.1

        Yes, please, please make it non negotiable and poor old chippie receives another kick in the guts regarding re election.

      2. 4.2.2

        The Greens are not proposing a land tax as such, they’re proposing a wealth tax that will leave most New Zealanders untouched. Only rabid RWNJs and trolls would object to this with their usual froth & hot air.

          1. 4.2.2.1.1

            Why should the Greens make a wealth tax non-negotiable? Because you think it is good policy and you would support it and you would vote for any party that would support this? If not, why not?

        2. 4.2.2.2

          anyone earning under $125,000 would pay less tax as a result, with a tax-free threshold of $10,000.

          Davidson said it was "a transformational new way" of doing income support to lift every family out of poverty.

          https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/491772/green-party-announces-income-guarantee-plan-to-help-households-meet-rising-costs

          Yep. IMO this would be transformational. And under $125,000 ?

          That surely must be most of NZ ?

          Looks good to me : )

          1. 4.2.2.2.1

            Shouldn’t be too long before someone has a tax calculator up and running to see if you are better off with tax cuts under National or the Greens.

            1. 4.2.2.2.1.1

              No need for a calculator, Jack. I already know I’d very likely be better off, money-wise, under a NACT government. The very wealthy will be, for sure. However, any children might not be. Many other people might not be.

              Do what’s best for you, Jack, and let us know how much better you’ll be off under NACT.

    3. 4.3

      The Greens now have a clearly articulated tax policy to take to the election. This is to be welcomed. It should now flush Labour out to come clean on their tax policy too. Do they agree with their coalition partner or not?

    4. 4.4

      Na , not keen on ubi, tax wealth by all means but use it to give world class health, education, infrastructure.

      Giving money away is a bad idea.

          1. 4.4.1.1.1

            Fair enough. Some people think we should cull the Social Welfare system and most if not all benefits.

            One question for you though: what to do about those people & children already trapped in poverty? Let them eat cake? Let them swim? Let them learn some valuable life-lessons about making good personal choices?

            1. 4.4.1.1.1.1

              It's a terrible knife edge balance imo.

              But build a shit load of state house for you're solo parents feed kids at school, dacare etc,

              There will always need to be benefits, but people need to left in no doubt that we pull the net as one, and they are required to do their bit.

          2. 4.4.1.1.2

            "Nothing like handouts to trap one in poverty, ."

            A tired slogan, not actual information – and in fact the exact opposite of the truth.

            Multiple studies show that versions of guaranteed minimum incomes do the exact opposite – they free people from poverty, give massive improvements in wellbeing and result in higher participation in employment.

            https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-28/for-more-than-20-guaranteed-income-projects-the-data-is-in

            https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/an-experiment-to-inform-universal-basic-income

            Poverty tends to trap people in poverty, as does a lack of opportunity due to lack of resources.

            1. 4.4.1.1.2.1

              I tend to agree – although both cases can be true at the same time. Conventional welfare handouts that are conditional and constrain a person's opportunities and agency are I believe prone to trapping people in poverty. There is a fair bit of evidence to support this idea.

              But the core aspect of a GMI – or better still a fully tax integrated UBI – is that it is unconditional and the impact is quite different for exactly the reasons you lay out.

  5. 5

    I applaud the invitation from the electoral review chair for constructive criticism and participation in the review process. However, I think the timing is a little off and there’s little appetite among the people and parties to really get stuck into this. Thus, this seems yet another review that will be archived and a wasted opportunity, which is a real shame.

    There were no accusations of bias from the leaders of Labour and National, but they were at best muted; aside from the Greens, who cheered the review’s ideas and called for cross-party cooperation, there was little in the way of enthusiasm.

    https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/10-06-2023/i-would-like-to-hear-from-all-those-people-electoral-review-chair-responds-to-critics

    Some people seem more interested in gotcha politics and chasing trivialities in the greater scheme of things. There’s some evidence that all this negativity and adversarial (and unreasonably tribal & partisan) politics can reduce voter turnout, especially among less-informed or less-partisan voters, by increasing cynicism, apathy or confusion.

  6. 6

    I can't understand why the Greens want a wealth tax of 2.5% on $2m+ , but tax trusts over $2m at 1.5% ??? Doesn't that just encourage more transfer to trusts??

    1. 6.1

      The trust tax will be on all assets in private trusts without the $2M/person threshold. Therefore, it would not make sense to move money to trusts to avoid a wealth tax, at least not up to the threshold, but also not beyond up to $5M/person (by my calculations).

      The main impact is that wealth per se will be taxed more than at present, to a degree. Of course, any (personal) income generated through investments, for example, will be taxed as such (i.e. as income).

      That’s my take on it.

  7. 7

    Heh just watched Jack Tame, torture luxon, the anger was boiling just under the surface from luxon, I've seen that ugly in him a few times.

    He didn't convince me on gmo.

    He looked hopelessly conflicted on housing policy,

    Bloody brilliant!!

  8. 8

    Of course the local wingnut/cooker brigade have been pushing this.

    Pinpointing an exact point of origin for the fictional stories is difficult, but media coverage of the school litter box hoax goes back to at least as early as 2021 in Canada. Similar rumours began to swirl in Michigan in December that year, in the wake of a video showing a board of education meeting in which a speaker claimed that litter boxes were placed in student bathrooms for those who identify as “furries”. The existence of both child “furries” and litter boxes in bathrooms was debunked the next month by Reuters but similar stories continued to spread among schools in other states. Ahead of the 2022 US elections, various prominent Republican politicians and media personalities continued to propagate the hoax. Despite there being no confirmed instances of schools providing litter boxes for students, social media has helped to amplify the tale

    https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/08-06-2023/no-whangarei-girls-high-school-students-are-not-identifying-as-cats

    The reality.

    Parents with students in Jeffco Public Schools may have seen some interesting items on their back-to-school shopping lists this year, including buckets and kitty litter.

    That’s because more teachers are opting to include “go buckets” in their classroom, to be used by students as toilets during prolonged lockdowns.

    “I think it’s a weird idea,” said parent Michelle Gebers. “But I guess if you’re in a lockdown situation, it’s not something every parent is thinking about.”

    The idea was first brought up a few years ago, when students at Alameda High School were stuck in lockdown for more than four hours.

    https://kdvr.com/news/local/half-of-jeffco-schools-now-have-kitty-litter-filled-buckets-for-lockdowns/

      1. 9.1.1

        Just to be clear, you think that because the far right are using Kellie Jay Keen's centrist, populist women's rights movement that seeks to retain women's sex based rights and protect children from overmedicalisation, and they are using that to direct hatred at trans people, that Kellie Jay Keen deserves death threats?

        1. 9.1.1.1

          I'd like to know when exactly you decided that directing violence at women speaking up about their politics was acceptable. And why. Because I remember a brief point in history when the left condemned this. Those days are gone, now protecting women from violence is no longer a fundamental principles, instead it depends on the women being subservient to someone's political views.

          1. 9.1.1.1.1

            Posie Parker is a provocateur. Among the GC political views and misinformation she pushes, she also includes abhorrent, violent ideas. Parker has been recorded as saying: that trans men should be sterilised; that men with guns should go into and patrol womens' toilets, ie, she sanctions gun violence against trans women; and that trans women are sexual perverts who are also pedophiles.

            She is a disseminator of lies and hate speech, which incite and inflame attacks on the trans community for merely existing, as seen by the huge uptick in hateful and violent social media speech in NZ around her visit against trans people. What goes around comes around is a fair description. Should Parker be able to run to the protection of a law she does not follow herself?

            Do I think hateful and violent speech is a good thing? No, from anyone. Parker does not get immunity for her violent, inciting speech because she is 'defending women'. She certainly does not defend women who find her extreme views dangerous and wrong. She has said we will be 'annhilated'.

            1. 9.1.1.1.1.1

              she is a provocateur, that's not unusual in political movements.

              Among the GC political views and misinformation she pushes, she also includes abhorrent, violent ideas. Parker has been recorded as saying: that trans men should be sterilised;

              From memory, the context was that TM taking cross sex hormones shouldn't get pregnant. Do you disagree with this?

              that men with guns should go into and patrol womens' toilets, ie, she sanctions gun violence against trans women;

              This was in a US context, and afaik she didn't say to shoot TW. It's still abhorrent, and stupid, but it's also normal in the US context.

              and that trans women are sexual perverts who are also pedophiles.

              Citation please. Link, quote and an explanation. I know the two other examples you are referring to, but this one is vague so I'd like some clarity and context.

              She is a disseminator of lies and hate speech, which incite and inflame attacks on the trans community for merely existing

              her main purpose is women's sex based rights. She's not doing this to incite attacks on trans community for merely existing. I'm sure she'd much rather be getting on with her life.

              , as seen by the huge uptick in hateful and violent social media speech in NZ around her visit against trans people.

              Yes. But, we don't actually know what that is, because the people tracking it haven't said or shown, they've only told. We know that some people consider saying TW are male is a violence against trans people, so the details actuall matter. I have no doubt that the FR are now more focused on hating trans people, and we know that the VFF crowd are on board with GC issues now (kind of), but I don't see the kind of abuse you are talking about in their FB groups.

              What goes around comes around is a fair description. Should Parker be able to run to the protection of a law she does not follow herself?

              Ok, thanks for confirming you sanction violence against women. This is what I was pointing to.

                1. 9.1.1.1.1.1.1.1

                  thanks Molly. I saw you do this the other day too. I think it's useful just to break it down each time, as much as we are able (and have the time to).

      2. 9.1.2

        From the article:

        A Twitter account in the name of Layla Le Fey posted threats to the campaigner also known as Posie Parker.

        One tweet said:

        “I’m a trans woman and I’m not ashamed to admit I’d be happy to physically kick the s**t out of you pull your eyes out and break your spine.

        "I live in Portslade,East Sussex, UK. If you want to prove your point that some trans people are extremely violent, I’m game.”

        Another tweet made a threat to burn down her house.

        “I’d be interested in setting fire to her house with with her in it,” the tweet said.

        Interesting that the paper only partially reported the last tweet which I saw when the account was still active.

        Screenshots are posted here:

        https://reduxx.info/trans-identified-male-who-avoided-prison-on-violent-charge-now-threatening-to-brutally-kill-womens-rights-activists/

        Helen Joyce is also targeted by the same man. Unlike the out-of-context claims regarding her views, there is no lack of clarity here:

        I'm no longer surprised by the failure of some to condemn clear directed threats of violence, so I post this just to ensure you – and others – know what and who your reflexive comment defends.

          1. 9.1.2.1.1

            I've resized them finally. Ignore my now deleted reply if you read it earlier.

            I really need to write a tutorial post. Some notes for me as much as anything,

            • put images in separate posts. You can see how they look like they're one image.
            • set size in the width box, to 500 or 600 (some images fit in the TS front end but still look too big for reading/scrolling)
            • if that doesn't work, edit the comment and add width="100%" before the final > (again, sometimes the image looks better at 60% or 80% or whatever)

            to embed twitter images, control click to open any twitter image in a new tab, then use that URL. URL should look like this https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FyOLTHDXoAAtli-?format=jpg&name=medium

  10. 10

    Are you against sacrificing animals for scientific research?

    Are you against sacrificing humans for Tesla’s development and bottom line?

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/news/300902739/teslas-autopilot-involved-in-far-more-crashes-than-previously-known

    Ironically, it may get worse because Elon Musk seems to be wary of AI developments, at least some – perhaps a case of ‘when I do it, it’s perfectly ok, but when somebody else does it, it’s bad’.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/27/technology/elon-musk-ai-openai.html

  11. 11

    Archaic laws are bad, right?

    It depends on who you ask and about which laws.

    For example, ACT wants to scrap ‘archaic GE laws’.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/491773/national-would-end-genetic-modification-ban-if-elected

    On the other hand, proposals to bring archaic laws around media regulation into the present are dismissed as ‘hate speech laws 2.0’.

    https://thespinoff.co.nz/live-updates/01-06-2023/hate-speech-laws-2-0-act-wants-to-kill-proposed-online-safety-rules

      1. 11.1.1

        ah. Was using Safari. Just logged in on Firefox and it works fine. Might also be my slowish internet and the slow TS loading times today.

        1. 11.1.1.1

          hmm, nope, still can’t get the images in Molly’s comment to resize. I don’t even know how she got twitter images in, I didn’t think they worked.

          1. 11.1.1.1.1

            this is the html that Molly was using, for reference because I’m replacing the image with the TS URL ones.

            img alt=”” src=”https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FyDpd71XwAIntMM?format=jpg&name=small” />

            1. 11.1.1.1.1.1

              They seem of the right size now; somebody (you?) set width="60%".

              I generally use width="100%" but for these images 60% is fine …

              1. 11.1.1.1.1.1.1

                nothing I did worked in Safari. In Firefox width= worked on the TS images in my comments, but not the twitter images in Molly's comment. I replaced her URLs with the TS ones.

                But below are my twitter tests with results noted. Firefox. Will retest in Safari shortly.

  12. 12

    Repairs today on the server.

    Replaced a dead chassis fan.

    Fixed a failing 4Tb drive in the archive array. manufacture date 14Nov2021. Now looking for the invoice because I'm pretty sure that Seagate had a 3 warranty on Ironwolf. zfs is replacing it in the array.

    Finally added the spare 1Tb SSD for the mdadm array for the standard. Brought it months ago, but this is the first time I have opened the case for a while.

    Pulled out the remaining 12Gb SSDs for various old arrays.

    Realized after I started up again that I'd left the backup_scratch (creates the hourly offshore backups for TS) in the fstab. It was causing startup issues. Booted up on a USB, and fixed it. Reset the backup system to a logical volume off the /home ssd.

    Coffee time.. while I wait for the full backup to complete and ship.

  13. 13

    Must be an inauspicious planet conjunction for mechanical fans, lprent: the fan on my rangehood died today, too…

  14. 14

    any maths bods around? I need to calculate the net minimum wage hourly rate from $22.70 gross. Tax: 10.5% on the first $14,000, then 17.5% on the remaining. I get a net minimum wage of $19.20. Is that right?

    (I'm writing a post on the Greens Guaranteed Min Income)

    2. 14.2

      I suggest adding ACC to that (1.53%) since PAYE is both income tax and ACC levies. Net minimum wage after PAYE is $18.85.

      1. 14.2.1

        Should I include ACC? In the Greens' GMI for disabled people, they would get 80% of the minimum wage. But the GMI is tax free and presumably no ACC levies?

        1. 14.2.1.1

          Generally income is exempt from ACC if it will be paid regardless of injuries as there's no point insuring it, so benefits and Super, for example, are exempt. Based on that principle, agree that increasing disability benefits will not attract ACC levies so net rates should just be after tax.

          I had a look at the policy document and it didn't define "full-time" which is awkward, because most legislative things e.g. Stats NZ, Immigration, Working for Families consider full-time to be 30 paid hours per week but obviously most voters would see it as some range between 37.5 and 40 paid hours per week.

  15. 15

    Can we please factor in the GST costs when talking about how much disposable income us peasants have

      1. 17.2.1

        I like the pictures — and so does my cat! She perked right up and started patting at the screen when they came up…. 🙂

        1. 17.2.1.1

          BD, I wish my cat would just pat the screen instead of walking all over the keyboard pressing keys that have got me doing all sorts of weird formatting and a couple of strange equations and 'something' where I had to ring the broadband company for help as he froze the whole works.

          Then there is the sitting on the keyboard, plonk, and anguished As and Zs and /s dance all over the page.

          Patting sounds quite civilised by comparison.

          PS Weka I love the cat pics too.

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