Thursday, 22 May 2025

Superannuation: Raise the age!


"New Zealand’s superannuation costs are spiralling out of control and threaten the country’s long-term fiscal health. 
    "As the number of superannuitants continues to grow, so too will the burden on the taxpayer. The longer we delay reform, the harder it becomes for future governments to respond without drastic tax hikes or cuts to essential services [sic] elsewhere.
    "Treasury’s projections show that by 2060, superannuation expenditure could balloon to 7.4 percent of [GDP] This is not just an accounting issue - it’s a generational issue. Young and future New Zealanders will be forced to bear an ever-growing welfare bill for their parents and grandparents. Without reform, or significant productivity growth, future taxpayers face a nightmare scenario: higher taxes, deeper debt, and reductions in public services. ... 
    "Raising the superannuation age to 67 and indexing it to life expectancy would slow the growing burden ... Even with the higher age, retirees would still receive NZ  Super for as long, or longer, than previous generations.... 
~ Taxpayers Union from their report A Pathway to Surplus

PS: From NOT PC (March, 2017):

Bob Jones: "proof, if any were needed, that God doesn’t make the same mistake twice."

"I detested Bob Jones for many years. My loathing had its genesis in the run-up to the 1975 election when Bob was the brains and financial brawn behind billboards mushrooming across the capital depicting Labour leader, the able, affable and unfailingly courteous Bill Rowling as a timid mouse. It was a malicious propaganda campaign that contributed hugely to the landslide victory of National’s coarse, unfailingly belligerent Rob Muldoon. ...

"[W]hen our paths finally crossed [in 1979] at a cartoon exhibition ... I sported a flaming-red lumberjack beard and had a ginger Jimi Hendrix Afro to disguise my receding hair that wasn’t fooling anyone – least of all Bob. He said, “You’re losing your hair, old man, and you’re fat!” I told Bob that next time I drew him I would make him look even more like PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, who he uncannily resembled. ...

"Early on I had no reason to report on Bob in my Listener columns, but in 1983, disgusted with the National government’s wage and price freeze and authoritarian ways, he formed the New Zealand Party with the express intention of removing his old chum Rob Muldoon from office. This left me no option but to cover him. He was great copy, amusing and disarmingly candid to the point where the news media often had to protect him from himself.

"Bob invented Fake News long before it became a thing. After Muldoon called the snap election in 1984, [his] New Zealand Party swung into action and selected an impressive raft of candidates. Bob allowed television news crews a quick peek from the door into their campaign headquarters in downtown Wellington – it resembled the Houston space flight control centre on steroids. Gorgeous women sat at clacking keyboards and flickering screens while fax machines and printers buzzed and hummed. Bob told me later that computer companies renting office space from him were induced to provide the electronics and he provided the women. It was an elaborate ruse designed to demoralise National and it worked. Their normally well-oiled machine corked and hamstrung morale, and discipline crumbled. ...

"I attended a rowdy lunchtime speech Bob gave standing on a trestle table in the smoko room of the local freezing works. Taking questions from the floor Bob was asked by a burly slaughterman if New Zealand’s problems stemmed from our short, three-year parliamentary term, meaning economic policy changed all the time, and as a result 'interest rates went up and down like a whore’s drawers.' 'Can I just correct you there,' grinned Bob, 'trust me on this, whores don’t wear drawers!' Deafening applause, the stamping of boots on concrete and hearty laughter rolled on for ages. ...

"Despite running the best campaign, saturation advertising and Bob’s noisy, colourful presence ... David Lange’s Fourth Labour Government romped into office. Despite getting 12 percent of the vote and contributing to National’s crushing loss, the NZ Party failed to win a seat. [But it was their manifesto that Lange's Government implemented - Ed.] ...

"Bob’s death, while a shock, was not entirely unexpected – for most of his life he burnt millions of candles at both ends. There was no one else like him and there will never be anyone like him again, proof, if any were needed, that God doesn’t make the same mistake twice."
~ Tom Scott from his obituary ahead of today's memorial service for Bob Jones: 'Tom Scott farewells Bob Jones'. Read on there for Steve Braunias's postscript on the very best of Jones's twenty-four books ...

"It's shades of Stalinist struggle sessions."

'Lanyard Man' (left) heckles politician (right)

"Whatever lanyard man said, whatever you think of Winston, positive or negatively, if you want to go back to the world where people didn't face pile-ons for their political views, then don't do it when someone has views you don't like. It's shades of Stalinist struggle sessions.
    "And yes, I know the hard-left absolutely thrives on doing this and you might have joy doing it back - but just don't. 
    "When I was a public servant [sic] it was perfectly okay to oppose the government you were serving, as long as it was not being critical of any of the work of your department or the Ministers you served. You could be critical of education policy, but be advising on local government and say nothing about the latter. The idea you could work for a private contractor and not be able to heckle (without being threatening) is absurd. 
    "Of course that contractor can have its own employment rules, and that's its choice, but let's not have a culture of digging into trenches and having the ends justify the means. That's not a thriving liberal democracy that makes it easy for people to change their minds, it's political tribalism." 
Liberty Scott on the social-media led pile-on to hunt down and have sacked a man heckling Winston Peters at Wellington Railway Station

Compromise: A Ukranian example

"It is only in regard to concretes or particulars, implementing a mutually accepted basic principle, that one may compromise. For instance, one may bargain with a buyer over the price one wants to receive for one's product, and agree on a sum somewhere between one's demand and his offer. The mutually accepted basic principle, in such case, is the principle of trade, namely: that the buyer must pay the seller for his product. But if one wanted to be paid and the alleged buyer wanted to obtain one's product for nothing, no compromise, agreement or discussion would be possible, only the total surrender of one or the other.

There can be no compromise between a property owner and a burglar; offering the burglar a single teaspoon of one's silverware would not be a compromise, but a total surrender—the recognition of his right to one's property. ...

"Contrary to the fanatical belief of its advocates, compromise [on basic principles] does not satisfy, but dissatisfies everybody; it does not lead to general fulfillment, but to general frustration; those who try to be all things to all men, end up by not being anything to anyone. And more: the partial victory of an unjust claim, encourages the claimant to try further; the partial defeat of a just claim, discourages and paralyzes the victim. ...

"In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromiser is the transmitting rubber tube . . ."

~ Ayn Rand, composite quote from here articles 'The Cashing-In: The Student 'Rebellion',' 'Doesn't Life Require Compromise?,' and 'Galt's Speech.' [Hat tip for cartoon Maksym Borodin]

Wednesday, 21 May 2025

Elton John: A.I. copyright changes are "criminal" — "committing theft" from artists.

It's been a very long time since I've praised Elton John ...

.... okay, in truth I've never praised the bald, bland, over-played jingle-maker.

But this morning, I come to praise Mr John, not to berate him.

The issue is so-called artificial intelligence (AI). And the rights of "content creators," from whose content the "learning models" steal without either attribution or payment.

The US is facing what Trump calls a "Big Beautiful Bill" that will add a staggering $3.8 trillion to the national debt. It also includes a 10-year exemption from regulation for artificial intelligence (AI)— a "safe harbour [that] would give Big Tech another free ride on the backs of artists, authors, consumers, all of us and our children." (No coincidence that Trump fired Shira Perlmutter, the Register of Copyrights, "less than a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models." This, just after the Copyight Office finalised their report they've been making for 2+ years, concluding that Generative AI trained on Copyrighted works is probably NOT "Fair Use." )

Similar legal protection for theft of copyrighted works is being introduced in the UK, where Elton John has (correctly) branded proposed AI copyright changes there as "criminal" and accused officials (again, correctly) of "committing theft" from artists.

Should the government proceed with the plans allowing AI firms to use artists' content without paying, they would be "committing theft, thievery on a high scale," the music legend said. 

He's right, you know. Exempting 'Big Tech' from complying with copyright law simply hands the creative output of every individual to AI companies. 

For free.

"The danger is for young artists, they haven't got the resources to keep checking or fight big tech," John said in a BBC interview on Sunday. "It's criminal and I feel incredibly betrayed."

Betrayed because he supported Starmer on the back promises to support young musicians. Still, it's the first time I've felt sympathy for the world-class purveyor of middle-class muzak.  Because even tedious tunes best used for sleep still need to be written by someone before they'e copied by a prowling plagiarising-information-synthesis system (PISS) — and, if the plagiarising process is legalised, then every creator's work becomes fair game for misappropriation,

John's statements come in response to a controversial proposal that would ease copyright laws in the country, allowing AI developers to train models on any creative works to which they [currently] have lawful access. ...

Concerns around artist permission and compensation guarantees have brought John alongside an alliance of artists to gather support in an open letter to help warn of how the government's planned changes could affect creators.

The artists are calling on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to back amendments filed by Baroness Beeban Kidron over the so-called Data (Use and Access) Bill, citing an urgent need for "transparency over the copyright works ingested by AI models."

The open letter was signed by notable figures like Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ed Sheeran, and Dua Lipa, along with over 400 signatories from groups including the National Union of Journalists, Getty Images, and Sony Music Publishing. ...

McCartney told the BBC that the proposed changes could disincentivise writers and artists and result in a “loss of creativity.”  

The former Beatle said: “You get young guys, girls, coming up, and they write a beautiful song, and they don’t own it, and they don’t have anything to do with it. And anyone who wants can just rip it off.”

“The truth is, the money’s going somewhere … Somebody’s getting paid, so why shouldn’t it be the guy who sat down and wrote Yesterday?”
“We’re the people, you’re the government. You’re supposed to protect us. That’s your job. So you know, if you’re putting through a bill, make sure you protect the creative thinkers, the creative artists, or you’re not going to have them.” ...

In December 2024, McCartney ... signed a petition, alongside actors Julianne Moore, Stephen Fry and Hugh Bonneville, stating that “unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted.”

John told the Sunday Times that he felt “wheels are in motion to allow AI companies to ride roughshod over the traditional copyright laws that protect artists’ livelihoods." 

This will allow global big tech companies to gain free and easy access to artists’ work in order to train their artificial intelligence and create competing music. This will dilute and threaten young artists’ earnings even further. The musician community rejects it wholeheartedly.”

Last week, disagreements over the Data Bill raised concerns about whether AI companies should disclose the data used for training models, as legislators pushed for stricter rules to help creators determine if their work was scraped.

However, the House of Commons has rejected certain amendments proposed by the House of Lords, including those requiring AI firms to obtain permission before using copyrighted materials.

It's said that it's no big deal. That any man's work is public property. That artists have always "borrowed" from each other.
Artists have been learning from each other for centuries. When you create, you expect that other artists will learn from you. You learn from myriad sources, including active & passive learning from other art, studying textbooks, and taking lessons. Much of this you (or someone) pays for, supporting the entire ecosystem. 
In generative AI [however], commercial entities valued at millions or billions of dollars scrape as much content as they can, against creators’ will, without payment, making multiple copies along the way (which are subject to copyright law), to create a highly scalable competitor to the training data. It is beyond belief that people suggest these should be treated the same. I feel increasingly confident that people only use this argument because other arguments for gen AI scraping are, incredibly, even worse.

As a creator himself, of tunes for which people willingly (and unaccountably!) pay money, Elton John recognises that the Bill “will allow global big tech companies to gain free and easy access to artists’ work in order to train their artificial intelligence and create competing music. This will dilute and threaten young artists’ earnings even further. The musician community rejects it wholeheartedly.”
"We're complaining about people's legacy, whether they're young writers, whether they're young playwrights, journalists, whatever; some people aren't like me, they don't earn as much as I do, but when they're creative and it comes from the human soul and not a machine — because a machine isn't capable of writing anything with any soul in it — [then you're going] to rob young people of their legacy and their income.

"It's a criminal offense, I think.

“I think the government are just being absolute losers - and I’m very angry about it, as you can tell.

“Big tech has so much money - and if you’re a young person and you’re fighting big tech, good luck. 

“I want the government to see sense; I want it to come back on our side. Because if they don’t, I’m going to feel like a suffragette.”
AI's developers have created something themselves. That's clear. But their creation, as they know, is an industrial-scale process for scraping copyrighted content, while leaving the artist's soul behind.
A hallmark of the AI developers is that they routinely discount, or even detest, the artistic soul, going so far as to both ignore it and then try to claim all of its enduring, exalted riches for themselves. They foolishly value mere money and market caps, whence, over the long term, it is the soul alone that is the best long-term investment, as the soul alone is immortal. It is the artist and creator who invests in the soul, it is the artist and creator who risks it all to express their vision, and it is the artist and creator who thus naturally and rightfully owns their art, and who owns the right to profit from it. ... 
“Hell is the soulless place where all art, music, literature, film, philosophy, religion, history, science, and poetry are generated by AI. Even Dante would be horrified.”  
The elephant in the room is that AI does nothing well, not even cheating. AI can only cheat as well as its creators teach it to cheat.


 

Tuesday, 20 May 2025

"It's not just a case of governments doing more with less. It's about governments doing less with less."

  

Since it's Budget Week again, here's my helpful compilation of quotes to help journalists looking to spice up their budget-week blogs and broadcasts. (You're welcome.)
Cartoon by Nick Kim
“Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.” 
    ~ Terry Pratchett 

"To steal from one person is theft. To steal from many is taxation." 
    ~ Jeff Daiell 

"I don't know if I can live on my income or not — the government won't let me try it."
    ~ Bob Thaves

"The best things in life are free, but sooner or later the government will find a way to tax them."
    ~ Anon.

"A fine is a tax for doing something wrong. A tax is a fine for doing something right."
    ~ Anon.

"Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilised society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilised world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success.
    ~ Mark Skousen

“For every benefit you receive a tax is levied.”
    ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson 

"It's sad to realise that most citizens do not even notice the irony of being bribed with their own money." 
    ~ Anon. 

“The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.” 
    ~ Jean Baptiste Colbert 

"There are no taxes which have not a tendency to lessen the power to accumulate. All taxes must either fall on capital or revenue. If they encroach on capital, they must proportionably diminish that fund by whose extent the extent of the productive industry of the country must always be regulated; and if they fall on revenue, they must either lessen accumulation, or force the contributors to save the amount of the tax, by making a corresponding diminution of their former unproductive1 consumption of the necessaries and luxuries of life. Some taxes will produce these effects in a much greater degree than others; but the great evil of taxation is to be found, not so much in any selection of its objects, as in the general amount of its effects taken collectively."
    ~ David Ricardo

"See, when the Government spends money, it creates jobs; whereas when the money is left in the hands of Taxpayers, God only knows what they do with it. Bake it into pies, probably. Anything to avoid creating jobs." 
    ~ humorist Dave Barry 

"When the ... government spends more each year than it collects in tax revenues, it has three choices: It can raise taxes, print money, or borrow money. While these actions may benefit politicians, all three options are bad for average [workers]."
    ~ Ron Paul

"If taxes and government spending are both slashed, then the salutary result will be to lower the parasitic burden of government taxes and spending upon the productive activities of the private sector."
    ~ Murray Rothbard
"It's not just a case of governments doing more with less. It's about governments doing less with less. When that realisation dawns, we may discover that most things the government can do, we can do better and a whole lot cheaper."
    ~ William Weld 

"I’m all for reduction of government expenditures but to anticipate it by reducing the rate of taxation before you have reduced expenditure is a very risky thing to do."
    ~ F.A. Hayek

"The real goal should be reduced government spending, rather than balanced budgets achieved by ever-rising tax rates to cover ever-rising spending."
    ~ Thomas Sowell

"The Greens' vision a pathway to Venezuela"

"LET'S STRIP AWAY THE political gloss and assess the Green Party’s 2025 budget for what it is: a document heavy on ideology, neo-Marxist buzzwords, and te reo, but dangerously light on pragmatism, economic credibility, and operational realism. ...

"Fundamentally, their budget is about lifting government revenue by taxing New Zealanders an extra $88billion over four years. They have no plan for growing the economy. ... for additional capital, the Greens have decided to simply borrow more. ...

"Included in the Greens tax grab are following revenue channels: Inheritance Tax [i.e., Death Tax]... Private Jet Tax ... 10-year Brightline test ... Labour’s removal of interest deductibility for residential property ... Companies/Corporate Tax [hike] ... Income Tax [threshold] change ... Mining Royalties [hike] ... Wealth Tax...

"It is worth remembering that the Green Party only claims these policies will generate nearly $90 billion in new revenue over four years. This is an implausibly optimistic figure. The reality is you can’t just plug in tax rates and expect static revenue. People adapt and restructure in reaction to law changes and shifting systems. Sometimes they just straight up leave. These are not 'guaranteed billions.' They are some pretty wild assumptions disguised as policy. ...

"CLAIMING TO HAVE FOUND $88 billion in additional revenue thanks to taxing the shizzzzz out of New Zealanders, the Greens have gone to town spending big. ... their budget is more manifesto than fiscal plan. At the heart of the document is the assumption that profit should be avoided and the state should act to hamper it as much as possible. Other assumptions of note relate to their allergic reaction to anything that remotely suggests that adults should be responsible for their own wellbeing. ...

"In classic modern Marxist fashion, they are determined to try things that have already failed multiple times over in other jurisdictions. ...The biggest problem with [their] extensive list of spending [outside the morality of altruism and theft, Ed.] ... is that there’s clearly a lack of capacity in our systems to deliver any of these services. ...

"It is also a strategy that assumes infinite government competence. The Greens are highly critical of our existing systems and yet they want to expand them, give them vastly more power, and put them under further pressure. ...

"'As Venezuelans have learned over the past 20 years of socialism, “free things” come at a high price'.' ...

"Most depressing of all, in my view is the way the Greens would set out to cause lifelong structural dependency on the state. Accusations of Marxism and socialism are often overblown, but in this case they are truly warranted. This plan contains no serious expectations of any personal responsibility nor any incentives to engage in commerce and grow the economy. Guaranteed incomes, regardless of effort, encourage longterm unemployment or permanent student life. There’s no point in saving, working hard, starting a business, or taking financial risks. In fact, those who do would be penalised severely by the Greens through taxation. This is a social model built not on empowerment, but entitlement. ...

"This budget is a blueprint for turning our country into the next Venezuela. It is easy to dismiss the insanity of the Greens as the fantasies of the irrelevant, but the assumption that will not get close to the levers of power is a naive one. ... unless MMP is overhauled ..."

~ Ani O'Brien from her posts 'The Greens' vision a pathway to Venezuela' and 'Greens' moral crusade masquerading as an economic plan
WATCH: Greens's co-leaderette Chloe Swarbrick attempts defending the impossible against Jack Tame's timid prodding:

Monday, 19 May 2025

Things AI can do for us, #137

Making life easier ... 

Q: Why do we need the concept of 'citizenship'?

"It's time for Ayn Rand's Power Question: What facts of reality give rise to the need for such a concept as X?

"Here, X is 'citizenship.' Why do we need this concept? Mainly, to determine who can vote. You can probably think of a few perquisites that attend to attaining the status of 'citizen.' But that status has nothing to do with the rights of man.

"The territory within the boundaries of a given country is the area in which its law has jurisdiction, the area in which a specific government, by its apparatus of compulsion, maintains a de jure and de facto monopoly on the use of physical force.

"We used to discuss whether the police, in a voluntarily financed laissez-faire nation, would protect the rights of non-contributors against criminals. The answer was: yes, mainly because the thug who would assault anyone is a threat to everyone, including the contributors. The 'yes' answer follows from practical, moral, and symbolic considerations. Defending the rights and freedom of everyone currently in the country is symbolic of a government devoted to justice.

"The same considerations that require the government protect the rights of non-contributors apply to protecting the rights of non-citizens. ...

"But due process and all the safeguards are there to rein in and make safer everybody who faces the possibility of government interference. The safeguards are there to eliminate arbitrary power.

"Government is potentially a far bigger threat than criminals.

"To introduce a preserve within which government agents can exercise unsupervised power is a threat that dwarfs that of any gang of hoodlums (citizens or non-citizens).

"And this is what we are seeing with Trump's every action—the quest for arbitrary power, unconstrained by checks and balances or anything other than the will of Donald Trump.

"If Trump doesn't have to follow due process in regard to non-citizens, does he have to follow it in regard to determining whether or not the person is a citizen? That's not theoretical. That's today's headlines.

"It can't be repeated too often: the solution to crime is not "screening" or "roundups" of anyone; it's repeal of the drug laws.

"It can't be repeated too often: the solution to lawless behavior by immigrants is not lawless behavior by the police.

"You can avoid a criminal gang; you can even move to a different locale. You can't avoid a SWAT team, the FBI, or any part of the state's apparatus of compulsion and incarceration."
~ Harry Binswanger from his post 'A sense of proportion'

Sunday, 18 May 2025

"In the beginning was the word, for with it man became Man."

"In the beginning was the word, for with it man became man. Without those strange noises called common nouns, thought was limited to individual objects or experiences sensorily—for the most part visually—remembered or conceived; presumably it could not think of classes as distinct from individual things, nor of qualities as distinct from objects, nor of objects as distinct from their qualities. 
    "Without words as class names one might think of this man, or that man, or that [wo]man; one could not think of Man, for the eye sees not Man buy only men, not classes but particular things. 
    "The beginning of humanity came when some freak or crank, half animal and half man, squatted in a cave or in a tree, cracking his brain to invent the first common noun, the first sound-sign that would signify a group of objects: house that would mean all houses, man that would mean all men, light that would mean every light that ever shone on land or sea. From that moment the mental development of the race opened upon a new and endless road. For words are to thought what tools are to work; the product depends largely on the growth of the tools.
[...]
"The languages of nature peoples are not necessarily primitive in any sense of simplicity; many of them are simple in vocabulary and structure, but some of them are as complex and wordy as our own, and more highly organised than Chinese. Nearly all primitive tongues, however, limit themselves to the sensual and particular, and are uniformly poor in general or abstract terms. So the Australian natives had a name for a dog's tail, and another name for a cow's tail; but they had no name for tail in general. The Tasmanians had separate names for specific trees, but no general name for tree; the Choctaw Indians had names for black oak, the white oak and the red oak, but no name for oak, much less for tree. Doubtless many generations passed before the proper noun ended in the common noun. In many tribes there are no separate words for the colour as distinct from the coloured object; no words for such abstractions as tone, sex, species, space, spirit, instinct, reason, quantity, hope, fear, matter, consciousness, etc. Such abstract terms seem to grow in a reciprocal relation of cause and effect with the development of thought; they become the tools of subtlety and the symbols of civilisation."

~ Will Durant, from his classic book The Story of Civilisation: Our Oriental Heritage [hat tip Matthew Moore]

Friday, 16 May 2025

"The Greens’ Budget is more than just a Budget. It is their utopian vision for a different country."

"[T]he Greens’ ... 'Green Budget' ... is more than just a Budget. It is their utopian vision for a different country. Unfortunately, it is also based on ludicrous assumptions and bad economics. ...

"The cornerstone of the Green revenue plan is a wealth tax raising $72.5 billion over four years. That is, well, optimistic. Just ask Germany, France and Sweden why they abandoned similar taxes. The reasons were capital flight, tax avoidance and administrative nightmares. ...

"Their plans for universal dental care ...is magical thinking, not policy. ...

"Their public housing plans ... offer no realistic plan for quadrupling construction capacity in a sector already facing severe workforce shortages and supply chain constraints.

"Their $395 weekly Income Guarantee ignores inevitable [inflationary] market responses. ... [guaranteeing] a return to similar inequality but with vastly higher government spending.

"The Greens have presented us with a textbook case of utopian thinking. And not coincidentally, 'utopia' literally means 'a place that does not exist'.”
~ Oliver Hartwich from his post ' The Green Budget fantasy'

"People are puzzled that so much said by politicians seems remote from reality ..."

 

Thursday, 15 May 2025

Two architectural geniuses on screen

Built just four years after the First World War, this was probably the world's first modernist house.

Designed and built in Los Angeles by Austrian emigre Rudolph Schindler for two families to share on site, almost every architect since has knowing or unknowingly borrowed from this seminal work of genius.

And yet architect Rudolph Schindler, a certified genius (and one of my own architectural heroes)  is almost unknown!

A new documentary Schindler: Space Architect, showing this week and next (and later at some venues) at local Architecture Film Festivals is hoping to put that right.


If you have any interest in architecture at all, and you live in either Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch, Hawkes Bay, Blenheim, Whangarei, New Plymouth, Palmerston North, Hamilton, or Dunedin (all the places the film-fest is being hosted) then I insist you get along.

But be quick!

Here are your dates and times.

And here's a wee teaser:

As one long-term owner says,

It's really hard to be a pessimist when you're living in such beauty actually that beauty is all around all of us all the time but Schindler knew how to read it and how to bring it in so it was part of your life. That was his genius.

See it on the big screen while you can.

PS: And since everyone and his sister has been arguing recently about who's-the-biggest-feminist, I also insist you also see the film on another hero(ine) of mine: Eileen Gray, her beautiful house in the south of France, and how that pig of a man Le Corbusier vandalised what he could never have created it. Trailer here:

"The very corner-stone of education ..."

 John Stuart Mill reminds us what education is for ...

[Hat tip Stephen Hicks]

"A Palestinian Mandela"?

"If there ever was a Palestinian Mandela, their greatest threat was not Israel, but other Palestinians, along with surrounding despotic regimes that patronised the most fanatical and violent among them. ...
    "The history is there for anyone not too lazy, or too ideologically committed, to see. What may [help understanding here] is to view the PLO and Hamas as a dictatorship first ... and a resistance movement a distant second. When you’re in the business of war ... what use do you have for peace? Or peacemakers? They’d be akin to inviting cockroaches into your restaurant."

~ Dane Giraud from his post 'John Minto: The man who knew too little…'

Wednesday, 14 May 2025

"The idea that female politicians inherently represent women and male politicians inherently represent men embodies a problematic identity-politics fallacy."

"The idea that female politicians inherently represent women and male politicians inherently represent men embodies a problematic identity-politics fallacy. This assumption simplifies complex identities into superficial categories, implying a universal, shared interest among people based solely on gender. Such oversimplification is both logically flawed and practically misleading ...
    "Individuals within the same gender group frequently possess widely varying interests and opinions ... Moreover ... [e]ffective political representation requires empathy, policy alignment, and competence rather than mere identity resemblance. ...
    "Finally, the identity politics fallacy inadvertently perpetuates gender stereotyping ... Representation should ... be rooted in inclusive, nuanced understandings of individual and community needs, transcending reductive demographic categories. Such an approach better serves democratic ideals, promotes effective governance, and fosters genuine equality."

~ Tim Harding on his post 'Identity politics gender fallacy'

"A fact is information minus emotion..."

"A fact is information minus emotion. 
"An opinion is information plus experience.
"Ignorance is an opinion lacking information. 
"Stupidity is an opinion that ignores fact."
~ Anonymous

Tuesday, 13 May 2025

A 90-day delay to fix what Donald Trump started



 

"MAGA—genuinely, explain the 'win' to me. The claim is this deal 'brought China to the negotiating table.' But… they were already there. We’re not further ahead than we were 90 days ago. No resolution. No structural wins. Just a 145% tariff that tanked the markets—now walked back to 30% so we can 'keep talking.' ...
    "I’m asking a specific question: what was actually accomplished here? We’re in the exact same place we were 90 days ago. No structural reforms. No resolution. Just tariffs that were hiked, tanked markets, and then were walked back during joint talks both sides agreed to in Geneva. ...

"Nobody wanted the tariffs. They hurt consumers and businesses. Reducing them helps—but that’s not a victory. That’s just undoing damage we caused ourselves. 
    "And wasn’t the whole point of this to force companies to stop buying from China and make everything in America? So how exactly is that going to happen now? Seriously—I’m asking. Help me understand what was accomplished.


"I understand this wasn’t a unilateral move. The U.S. and China both sent delegations to Geneva and mutually agreed to lower tariffs for 90 days to de-escalate the trade war. 
    "There’s no evidence China begged us for relief—this was a joint decision to pause and keep talking. To me, it just looks like a temper tantrum that backfired. No strategy. No plan. Just retreat, then spin it as a win.


"Dialogue and negotiation were already happening before Trump’s 145% tariff stunt wrecked the markets. There’s no 'position of strength' here, he lit the fire, panicked when it backfired, then called the act of putting it out a victory. He doesn’t have more strength now… 

"And no one’s demanding a full framework in 2 days, we are just calling out the fact that nothing was achieved except reversing his own mess. That’s not strategy. That’s spin. ...

"A 'Win'? China didn’t “drop” export controls—they paused them for 90 days as part of a mutual de-escalation agreement. That’s not a concession, it’s a temporary reset so both sides can keep negotiating. Nothing structural changed. 
    "A 'Win'? Our tariffs on China were 12% Trump jacked them up to 145%, tanked the markets, then walked them back to 30%. That’s not a win—it’s called cleaning up your own mess and calling it progress. 
    "A 'Win'? China’s tariffs dropped to 10%? Sure—after we started a trade war that forced them to hike them in the first place. Most of their original tariffs ranged from 5–15% and averaged 7.2% on key sectors. You’re bragging about partially undoing damage Trump caused. This wasn’t strategy. It was a tantrum, a retreat, and now you’re dressing it up like 3D chess, dipshit."

"What is troubling isn’t just the idiocy of the legislation, but that Luxon didn’t instinctively understand that it wasn’t the role of the state to monitor children’s screen time."

"The perverse outcomes resulting from adults seeking to protect children range from the mildly idiotic ... to the morally questionable ... Last week our current Prime Minister and the MP for Tukituki (Hastings), Catherine Wedd, added to this list with a proposal to prevent those under 16 from accessing social media.

"This will prove popular. Foolish ideas often are. Leadership is knowing when to say no ...

"Professor Jonathan Haidt has compiled compelling research on the malign impact of social media on young minds. [In actual fact, not at all compelling - Ed] ...

"Thanks to the work of Haidt and others, responsible — and even irresponsible — parents know of this issue and act accordingly. If we were governed by a party that believed in Individual freedom and choice, personal responsibility and limited government, that is where this story would end. ... [Instead] girls being mean to each other on Snapchat requires central government legislation ...

"What is troubling isn’t [just] the idiocy of the legislation, but that Luxon didn’t instinctively understand that it wasn’t the role of the state to monitor children’s screen time. ..."
~ Damien Grant from his column 'Banning under 16s from social media will prove popular. Foolish ideas often are'

Monday, 12 May 2025

"Has the Australian Liberal Party moved too far left or too far right? This framing misses the real story: the forgotten Y axis of the political compass."

"Pundits and lackeys [have framed the Australian Liberal Party election] rout in the tired left versus right narrative – a progressive swing, a rejection of conservatism, too right-wing, not right-wing enough. In my view, this framing misses the real story: the forgotten Y axis of the political compass, the one that plots authoritarian versus libertarian. In 2025, liberty and small government was almost completely absent from the lower house ballot paper. ...

"At this election voters had a choice between Big Government in red, or Big Government in blue.

"Unfortunately, most of our media treats ideology as a one-dimensional line – or horizontal axis – from left to right, typically referring to either economic or social policy positions. They’ve over-simplified it. A more accurate analysis would consider the vertical axis, which typically refers to government control at one end, and political freedom on the other. The simple left-right frame ensures people don’t see, hear or consider the alternative. We’ve got our blinkers on, and now both major Australian political parties sit in the upper quadrants – favouring authority over liberty.

"By ignoring the authoritarian-libertarian spectrum, we’re holding open the gates to barbarians who seek to seize control of an all-powerful state and use it to impose their top-down vision of how we should live our lives. Big Government proponents can hide behind labels like “moderate” or “centrist” if we fail to measure them against the Y axis to determine where they truly sit. ...
"Increasingly, both major parties subscribe to the view that more government is the solution to every problem. It’s become the default, it’s reflexive; if there’s a problem, the solution is a new law, a new tax or a new, bureaucratic department. Australia’s political class is united in expanding Canberra’s reach, regardless of the colour of the flag they fly. The result? Uniparty.

"No Liberal Party frontbencher stood up in 2025 to argue that maybe, just maybe, government should do less, spend less, control less.

"We must demand that the authoritarian-libertarian axis be part of the conversation."

~ Steve Holland from his post 'Liberty Can’t Win If It’s Not on the Ballot'

Saturday, 10 May 2025

"The deal, it turned out, was somewhat less than advertised"


"On Thursday, the press pool was summoned at 10:48 A.M. for what Trump had billed as a “very big and exciting” announcement of a new trade deal between the U.S. and the U.K. …

“The deal, it turned out, was somewhat less than advertised—an agreement in principle, after years of talks, and with many details to be finalised. …

“Still, it was something, and Trump, with all the zeal of a used-car salesman, plumped for the agreement, though he admitted it wasn’t quite done yet. “In the coming weeks, we’ll have it all very conclusive,” he vowed. ….

“There are many words that come from Trump’s mouth, and few that he will not renounce when they are no longer convenient.“

from the article A Day in the Life of a Live-Streamed Donald Trump
"Trump's "big" trade deal is with the UK:- It's a framework not a deal - They're our 11th largest trading partner - They're only 3% of US trade (97% to go) - They *already* charge average tariffs of only 1% (limited upside)
    "It's a photo op, with little macroeconomic significance. ...   
"Overwhelmingly the most important news here -- in terms of macroeconomic impacts -- is that the US is retaining 10 percent tariffs on nearly everything. Do the numbers and it's obvious that any industry-specific tweaks are second order."
~ Justin Wolfers on the "major" UK-US Trade announcement

Friday, 9 May 2025

Petrarch welcomes a Pope

"Here reign the successors of the poor fishermen of Galilee; they have strangely forgotten their origin. I am astounded, as I recall their predecessors, to see these men loaded with gold and clad in purple, boasting of the spoils of princes and nations; to see luxurious palaces and heights crowned with fortifications, instead of a boat turned downward for shelter.

"We no longer find the simple nets which were once used to gain a frugal sustenance from the lake of Galilee, and ... to see worthless parchments turned by a leaden seal into nets which are used ... to catch hordes of unwary Christians. ...

"Instead of holy solitude we find a criminal host and crowds of the most infamous satellites; instead of soberness, licentious banquets; instead of pious pilgrimages, preternatural and foul sloth; instead of the bare feet of the apostles, the snowy coursers of brigands fly past us, the horses decked in gold and fed on gold, soon to be shod with gold, if the Lord does not check this slavish luxury. In short, we seem to be among the kings ... before whom we must fall down and worship, and who cannot be approached except presents be offered. O ye unkempt and emaciated old men, is it for this you laboured?Is it for this that you have sown the field of the Lord and watered it with your holy blood?"
~ Petrarch from his Letter to a Friend, 1340-1353

Monday, 5 May 2025

Trump: "ENOUGH!"

"ENOUGH! 
     "As a strong supporter of many of the Trump administration's ultimate objectives in rolling back leftist nihilism, I have to say that his methods of doing so have become nakedly, unconstitutionally lawless. That's not just my opinion, or the left's. It's the opinion of many distinguished conservative and libertarian legal scholars, such as those who opine in this linked piece. Andrew McCarthy, Jonathan Adler, Ed Whelan, and Ilya Somin, for example, would never be accused of leftist premises or policy goals; but they are alarmed at the increasingly authoritarian behaviour of this president and his butt-kissing sycophants in Congress and the White House, and provide a long list of particulars.
    "The Constitution was explicitly designed by Madison et al. as a means of providing limits on the centralisation and use of power. It is not designed to ratify the use of unlimited power whenever the government, or the president, whimsically decides to wield it 'for a good cause.' 
    "You do not undo the left's grossly unconstitutional power grabs and shameless violations of individual rights by employing the same thuggish tactics for your own objectives. I have been thinking for some time that Trump appears to be modelling his governing style after 'The Godfather,' and one of the commentators in this article even says as much, comparing his behaviour to that of a Mafia boss. The dead end of that sort of behaviour is not the salvation of America, but its undoing -- not the protection of the rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, but their obliteration...all to feed the vanity and neurotic narcissism of a single man.
    "You do not 'make America great again' by rejecting the course of George Washington for that of George III. We fought a Revolution 250 years ago to end that sort of capricious tyranny. It's time we remembered that -- especially those who are loudest in claiming that their objective is restoring American greatness."

~ Robert Bidinotto introducing the article 'Is Donald Trump Breaking the Law? Seven Experts Weigh In.'

Sunday, 4 May 2025

Cities As Centres Of Innovation: Lessons From Edinburgh And Paris

Examining the places where major advances happened is one way to learn about the conditions that foster societal flourishing, human achievement, and prosperity.

Amidst the turmoil of modern times, evidence reveals significant progress across various metrics, from rising life expectancy to declining global poverty. Throughout history, cities have emerged as epicentres of innovation and progress, fostering collaboration, competition, and freedom of thought.

By exploring the unique environments of cities like Edinburgh and Paris, where intellectual liberty thrived, Chelsea Follett uncovers in this guest post the vital role of peace, freedom, and population density in driving human achievement and societal advancement.


Cities As Centres Of Innovation: Lessons From Edinburgh And Paris
by Chelsea Follett

HAS HUMANITY MADE PROGRESS? WITH so many serious problems, it is easy to get the impression that our species is hopeless. Many people view history as one long tale of decay and degeneration since some lost, idealised golden age.

But there has been much remarkable, measurable improvement—from rising life expectancy and literacy rates to declining global poverty. (Explore the evidence for yourself). Today, material abundance is more widespread than our ancestors could have dreamed. And there has been moral progress too. Slavery and torture, once widely accepted, are today almost universally reviled.

Where did all this progress come from? Certain places, at certain times in history, have contributed disproportionately to progress and innovation. Change is a constant, but progress is not. Studying the past may hold the secret to fostering innovation in the present. To that end, I wrote a book titled Centers of Progress: 40 Cities that Changed the World, exploring the places that shaped modern life.

The origin-points of the ideas, discoveries, and inventions that built the modern world were far from evenly or randomly dispersed throughout the globe. Instead, they tended to emerge from cities, even in time periods when most of the human population lived in rural areas. In fact, even before anything that could be called a city by modern standards existed, progress originated from the closest equivalents that did exist at the time. 

Why is that?

“Cities, the dense agglomerations that dot the globe, have been engines of innovation since Plato and Socrates bickered in an Athenian marketplace,” urban economist Edward Glaeser opined in his book The Triumph of the City. Of course, he was hardly the first to observe that positive change often emanates from cities. As Adam Smith noted in 1776, “the commerce and manufactures of cities, instead of being the effect, have been the cause and occasion of the improvement and cultivation of the country.”

One of the reasons that progress tends to emerge from cities is, simply, people. Wherever more people gather together to “truck, barter, and exchange,” in Smith’s words, that increases their potential to engage in productive exchange, discussion, debate, collaboration, and competition with each other. Cities’ higher populations allow for a finer division of labour, more specialisation, and greater efficiencies in production. Not to mention, a multiplication of knowledge — more minds working together to solve problems. As the writer Matt Ridley notes in the foreword he kindly wrote for Centers of Progress, “Progress is a team sport, not an individual pursuit. It is a collaborative, collective thing, done between brains more than inside them.”

A higher population is sufficient to explain why progress often emerges from cities, but, of course, not all cities become major innovation centres. Progress may be a team sport, but why do certain cities seem to provide ideal playing conditions, and not others?

That brings us to the next thing that most centres of progress share, besides being relatively populous: peace. That makes sense, because if a place is plagued by violence and discord then it is hard for the people there to focus on anything other than survival, and there is little incentive to be productive since any wealth is likely to be looted or destroyed. Smith recognised this truth, and noted that cities, historically, sometimes offered more security from violence than the countryside:
Order and good government, and along with them the liberty and security of individuals, were in this manner established in cities, at a time when the occupiers of land in the country, were exposed to every sort of violence. But men in this defenceless state naturally content themselves with their necessary subsistence; because, to acquire more, might only tempt the injustice of their oppressors. On the contrary, when they are secure of enjoying the fruits of their industry, they naturally exert it to better their condition, and to acquire not only the necessaries, but the conveniencies and elegancies of life. That industry, therefore, which aims at something more than necessary subsistence, was established in cities long before it was commonly practised by the occupiers of land in the country. […] Whatever stock, therefore, accumulated in the hands of the industrious part of the inhabitants of the country, naturally took refuge in cities, as the only sanctuaries in which it could be secure to the person that acquired it.
OF COURSE, NOT ALL CITIES WERE are peaceful. Consider Smith’s own city: Edinburgh. At times, the city was far from stable. But the relatively unkempt and inhospitable locale emerged from a century of instability to take the world by storm. Scotland in the 18th century had just undergone decades of political and economic turmoil. Disruption was caused by the House of Orange’s ousting of the House of Stuart, the Jacobite Rebellions, the failed and costly colonial Darien Scheme, famine, and the 1707 Union of Scotland and England. It was only after things settled down and the city came to enjoy a period of relative peace and stability that Edinburgh rose to reach its potential. Edinburgh was an improbable centre of progress. But Edinburgh proves what people can accomplish, given the right conditions.

During the Scottish Enlightenment centred in Edinburgh, Adam Smith was far from the only innovative thinker in the city. Edinburgh’s ability to cultivate innovators in every arena of human achievement, from the arts to the sciences, seemed almost magical.

Edinburgh gave the world so many groundbreaking artists that the French writer Voltaire opined in 1762 that “today it is from Scotland that we get rules of taste in all the arts, from epic poetry to gardening.” Edinburgh gave humanity artistic pioneers from the novelist Sir Walter Scott, often called the father of the historical novel, to the architect Robert Adam who, together with his brother James, developed the “Adam style,” which evolved into the so‐​called “Federal style” in the United States after Independence.

And then there were the scientists. Thomas Jefferson, in 1789, wrote, “So far as science is concerned, no place in the world can pretend to competition with Edinburgh.” The Edinburger geologist James Hutton developed many of the fundamental principles of his discipline. The chemist and physicist Joseph Black, who studied at the University of Edinburgh, discovered carbon dioxide, magnesium, and the important thermodynamic concepts of latent heat and specific heat. The anatomist Alexander Monro Secondus became the first person to detail the human lymphatic system. Sir James Young Simpson, admitted to the University of Edinburgh at the young age of fourteen, went on to develop chloroform anesthesia.

Two of the greatest gifts that Edinburgh gave humanity were empiricism and economics. The influential philosopher David Hume was among the early advocates of empiricism and is sometimes called the father of philosophical skepticism. [Not such an unalloyed boon - Ed.] And by creating the field of economics, Smith helped humanity to think about policies that enhance prosperity. Those policies, including free trade and economic freedom that Smith advocated, have since helped to raise living standards to heights that would be unimaginable to Smith and his contemporaries.

That brings us to the last but by no means least secret ingredient of progress. Freedom. Centres of progress during their creative peak tend to be relatively free and open for their era. That makes sense because simply having a large population is not going to lead to progress if that population lacks the freedom to experiment, to debate new propositions, and to work together for their mutual benefit. Perhaps the biggest reason why cities produce so much progress is that city dwellers have often enjoyed more freedom than their rural counterparts. Medieval serfs fleeing feudal lands to gain freedom in cities inspired the German saying “stadtluft macht frei” (city air makes you free).

That adage referred to laws granting serfs liberty after a year and a day of urban residency. But the phrase arguably has a wider application. Cities have often served as havens of freedom for innovators and anyone stifled by the stricter norms and more limited choices common in smaller communities. Edinburgh was notable for its atmosphere of intellectual freedom, allowing thinkers to debate a wide diversity of controversial ideas in its many reading societies and pubs.

Of course, cities are not always free. Authoritarian states sometimes see laxer enforcement of their draconian laws in remote areas, and Smith himself viewed rural life as in some ways less encumbered by constraining rules and regulations than city life. But as philosophy professor Kyle Swan previously noted for Adam Smith Works:
Without denying the charms and attractions Smith highlights in country living, let’s not forget what’s on offer in our cities: a significantly broader range of choices! Diverse restaurants and untold many other services and recreations, groups of people who like the same peculiar things that you like, and those with similar backgrounds and interests and activities to pursue with them — cities are (positive) freedom enhancing.
The same secret ingredients of progress—people, peace, and freedom—that helped Edinburgh to flourish during Smith’s day can be observed again and again throughout history in the places that became key centres of innovation. Consider Paris.

AS THE CAPITAL OF FRANCE, Paris attracted a large population and became an important economic and cultural hub. But it was an unusual spirit of freedom that allowed the city to make its greatest contributions to human progress. Much like the reading societies and pubs of Smith’s Edinburgh, the salons and coffeehouses of 18th‐​century Paris provided a place for intellectual discourse where the philosophes birthed the so‐​called Age of Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment was a movement that promoted the values of reason, evidence‐​based knowledge, free inquiry, individual liberty, humanism, limited government, and the separation of church and state. In Parisian salons, nobles and other wealthy financiers intermingled with artists, writers, and philosophers seeking financial patronage and opportunities to discuss and disseminate their work. The gatherings gave controversial philosophers, who would have been denied the intellectual freedom to explore their ideas elsewhere, the liberty to develop their thoughts.

Influential Parisian and Paris‐ based thinkers of the period included the Baron de Montesquieu, who advocated the then‐​groundbreaking idea of the separation of government powers and the writer Denis Diderot, the creator of the first general‐​purpose encyclopaedia, as well the Genevan expat Jean‐​Jacques Rousseau. While sometimes [rightly - Ed.] considered a counter‐​Enlightenment figure because of his skepticism of modern commercial society and romanticised view of primitive existence, Rousseau also helped to spread skepticism toward monarchy and the idea that kings had a “divine right” to rule over others.

The salons were famous for sophisticated conversations and intense debates; however, it was letter‐​writing that gave the philosophes’ ideas a wide reach. A community of intellectuals that spanned much of the Western world—known as the Republic of Letters—increasingly engaged in the exchanges of ideas that began in Parisian salons. Thus, the Enlightenment movement based in Paris helped spur similar radical experiments in thought elsewhere, including the Scottish Enlightenment in Edinburgh. Smith’s many exchanges of ideas with the people of Paris, including during his 1766 visit to the city when he dined with Diderot and other luminaries, proved pivotal to his own intellectual development.

And then there was Voltaire, sometimes called the single most influential figure of the Enlightenment. Although Parisian by birth, Voltaire spent relatively little time in Paris because of frequent exiles occasioned by the ire of French authorities. Voltaire’s time hiding out in London, for example, enabled him to translate the works of the political philosopher and “father of liberalism” John Locke, as well as the English mathematician and physicist Isaac Newton. While Voltaire’s critiques of existing institutions and norms pushed the boundaries of acceptable discourse beyond even what would be tolerated in Paris, his Parisian upbringing and education likely helped to cultivate the devotion to freethinking that would come to define his life.

By allowing for an unusual degree of intellectual liberty and providing a home base for the Enlightenment and the far‐​ranging Republic of Letters, Paris helped spread new ideas that would ultimately give rise to new forms of government—including modern liberal democracy.

Surveying the cities, such as Edinburgh and Paris, that built the modern world reveals that when people live in peace and freedom, their potential to bring about positive change increases. Examining the places where major advances happened is one way to learn about the conditions that foster societal flourishing, human achievement, and prosperity. I hope that you will consider joining me on a journey through the book’s pages to some of history’s greatest centres of progress, and that doing so sparks many intelligent discussions, debates, and inquiries in the Smithian tradition about the causes of progress and wealth.

* * * *

Chelsea Follett is the managing editor of HumanProgress.org, a policy analyst in the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, and author of the book Centers of Progress: 40 Cities That Changed the World (2023).
Find her on Twitter at @Chellivia.
Her article previously appeared at Adam Smith Works, and the Cato at Liberty blog.