There is a lot more nuance than is explained or even hinted at in the article.

There are a bunch of biased comments in the article.

• It paints the Maori as a consistent group.
  • Before the arrival of the British and for a long time after, the Maori were similar to the Greek city states; alliances, wars, betrayals and friendships.
  • Their culture was just as fragmented.
• It says in the article that Maori speak te Reo.
  • This is unfortunately not true, it is changing and there is more te Reo being spoken “in the wild”; but walking down the street, it is not often I hear te Reo being spoken.
  • te Reo is an amalgamation. The Maori were a diverse group, each had their own dialect, at some point in the recent past te Reo was “standardized”. There was a bunch of contention around some words that were pronounced and spelt differently by different Iwi.
• The land grabs and persecution parts are true.
  • Some Iwi did a lot better than others.
  • Some Iwi didn’t sign the treaty at all.
  • Some tribes “sold” their land, when they thought differently.
• The part about Te Pati Maori only holding 6 out of 123 seats is funny.
  • There are 7 Maori electorates, TPM won a bunch of these. Labour won some.
  • Every party has Moari MP’s, TPM is not the only Maori voice in parliament. Implying TPM is the only voice for Maori is demeaning. The Maori people are not a monolithic group; their politics is as varied as any other group.

The main issue is that the two treaties, the English language version and the version written in “Maori” are not the same. Te Triti (the Maori version) grants rangatiratanga; or self determination to the Iwi; whilst the English version grants sovereignty to the crown. There are a bunch of other differences, but this is the main one.

Contract law has the doctrine of Contra Proferentem; or against the drafter. Since the British crown wrote the treaties; as at the time there was no Maori written language; the interpretation of the contract should be read as to benefit the non-drafting party, in this case Te Triti should be taken as the “correct” one.

Now to the issue with the proposed bill.

• It sets out to “equalise” all peoples, which on the surface sounds really good. Why wouldn’t you want to treat people equally?
• Under NZ law, all peoples are already equal!
• There are specific carve outs, to allow for the closing of historic inequities suffered by Maori. The bill seeks to remove or reduce these.
• There is also culture war bullshit, around dual names for government departments etc.
• Treaty negotiations have been ongoing for decades at this point. They look set to continue for many decades to come. The ACT party wants this to stop.

Some say that ACT are hiding their racism behind the guise of equality. My opinion is that they are not specifically being racist. ACT is the libertarian party here; I think this is a long game to transfer more power to the corporates and private sector. This kind of culture war crap is a great smoke screen to transfer more power away from the people.

It is a combination of this and the power of propaganda.

When you can control the information that people consume, you can have a huge influence over what they think.
If you can influence the thoughts of a big portion of the populous, you can create control structures. You use these control structures to move people into their emotional decision making more often. The more often you can keep people in their emotional decision mode, the easier you can control what they do.
The thing is, the easiest way to keep people in their emotional thought mode, is to pull the fear and anger levers. Keep people afraid and angry, and you can steer society.

The other problem with this is, the people who see through this kind of thing are not the majority.
The people who can see through the techniques, are not always the traditionally “smart”; but higher intelligence is certainly an advantage.

To quote a non-computer savvy friend from a few years ago. When he was talking to someone else, I just over heard the conversation.

Na, I use VLC player. It always works, it will play a slice of cucumber.

Auckland is the definition of sprawl.

A bunch of laws were past on the last few years to combat it, but we find see the effects for decades to come.

Wow, he looks so excited by this news

From ChatGPT; I know it is lazy!

Here’s a parody of “White and Nerdy” called “Shady and Shifty”, written to the tune of Weird Al’s classic: “Shady and Shifty”

(To the tune of “White and Nerdy”)

(Intro)
They see me lyin’
My schemes are thriving
Tryna catch me shady and shifty
Tryna catch me shady and shifty
Tryna catch me shady and shifty
Look at me so shady and shifty

(Verse 1)
First-class cons, yeah, that’s my mission
Got a fake ID and a forged prescription
Emails phishing, crypto missing
“Too good to be true” is my ammunition

I’m a smooth talker, spin a great tale
Sell you beachfront property up for sale
NFTs, pyramid schemes
Get rich quick, yeah, that’s the dream

I scammed your grandma, took her savings
Promises golden, but I’m just faking
Drop a fake link, then I’ll ghost ya
Too slick, I’m like a grifting virtuosa

Deceiving’s an art, and I’m Picasso
Write a fake check with a lotta zeroes
Skim the top like I’m making cream
Run my hustle, living the dream

(Chorus)
They see me lyin’
My schemes are thriving
Tryna catch me shady and shifty
Tryna catch me shady and shifty
Tryna catch me shady and shifty
Look at me so shady and shifty

(Verse 2)
Social engineering, it’s all a game
Switch the card, redirect the blame
Wire fraud? Yeah, I’m the best
Fake charity with a suit and vest

Hiding in plain sight, charming and clever
Take what’s yours and make it mine forever
Ponzi pro, I stack the dough
Vanished offshore before you know

I sell snake oil like it’s pure gold
Convince you quick, no time to fold
Stock tips, insider flips
I’m cashing out, you’re sinking ships

My scams go viral, my lies are fire
Got you clicking links like an eager buyer
From fake raffle prizes to bonus gifts
I’m the king of con, my grift’s legit

(Chorus)
They see me lyin’
My schemes are thriving
Tryna catch me shady and shifty
Tryna catch me shady and shifty
Tryna catch me shady and shifty
Look at me so shady and shifty

(Bridge)
I know I’m shady, the law don’t faze me
I’ll find new marks if the game gets hazy
Dodging subpoenas, escaping fines
Makin’ my fortune while spinning lies

No morals here, it’s all survival
I’m on the move like I’m going viral
From cons to scams, it’s my domain
Shifty forever, just call me insane

(Outro)
They see me lyin’
My schemes are thriving
Tryna catch me shady and shifty
Tryna catch me shady and shifty
Tryna catch me shady and shifty
Look at me so shady and shifty

Imelda Staunton did an amazing job of playing such a vile character. She really nailed the lawful evil nature from source material.

Agreed, I am teaching my second son to read.

I am having the same conversations as when I taught my first to read.

“ok, this word is a ‘sight word’ because it doesn’t make the sounds you expect. It says won, but it looks like it says on-e”

Well it is nice to have a sign to tell me where to go. Weird that it is in the OB ward though.

So this is why FOSS software is often faster, no traffic jams.

IMO Krita is better than GIMP for the quick simple edits.

Thanks, fixed the link.

When you consider that the top 5 on that list take up 50% of the population. Auckland continues to grow, and at 30% of the population already, it has an crazy effect on the economic decisions in the country.

It is also growing geographically, eventually Auckland and Hamilton will merge somewhere around Huntly (#50).

50k people

Looking at this list some are dubious. e.g. Hibicus Coast (#9) has been swallowed up by Auckland (#1), I would have called it a part of Auckland, much like Manakau City, which isn’t on the list.

Lower Hutt (#6) and Upper Hutt (#18) are on the list but Petone is not, geographically they are part of the same long valley and can almost all be considered part of Wellington like Manakau City is part of Auckland.

But you also get places like Masterton (#28), feels city like, since it is the largest settlement in the region but really it is a big town, it takes up a huge area though. Mainly services the farming communities around it.

Hey, sometimes we just get moved around.

Agreed, but at fewer than 10k people, it is not exactly a city.

Going a little further north, I spent a lot of my teenage years in Athenree… Current population 920… It has grown since I left.

If you mean people from my country… All of them.

New Zealand only has like 10 actual cities. It is not some great feat of memory to know them all.

Average gas price today in NZ: $2.53NZD/l = $5.59USD/Gal (2.53 * 3.78(l to Gal) / 1.71 (NZD to USD))

It can happen, but statistically adult man vs adult woman is not a fair fight.

I knew a guy at university; started going out with this smoking hot girl. She was a regional champ in jujitsu; it didn’t last long, turns out she was a violent piece of shit. Beat him up twice, he left after the second one. She had major anger management issues.

But you turn that story around a little, similar situation, girl has same anger management issues, but without the training etc, she is unlikely to be a threat to any adult guy.

There are so many pessimistic comments.

To those who are saying, something along the lines of, aliens wouldn’t come because they wouldn’t recognise us as intelligent.

That is a really stupid augment, even if they were significantly more intelligent than us, we still standout from all other minds on this planet.

We literally study everything, just for the sake of knowledge.

A high intelligence civilisation that has the ability to reach us, would also have to a high level of curiosity to archive that ability.

To answer question posed. There are two ways to look at this:

• if we assume that, at some point an alien civilisation will contact us, the next 10 years is as statistically likely as another ten year timeframe.
• from a background rate, of the actual likelihood of being contacted at all. I have to say, it is exceptionally unlikely. The travel distances/times, and the time a civilisation exists for, all count against contact especially physical contact.

Trump is an idiot. If he actually cared about US power, he wouldn’t give Xi this opportunity.

It doesn’t matter if it is bullshit or not, the fact that Xi can even make these comments, in a credible manner will hurt US trade relations and by extension, power.