![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 9 to 33 of 135. Go back in thread:
Posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 19:42:23
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 6, 2018, at 19:55:37
I found some of the ideas interesting, thanks for posting it.
I am wary of statistics. The more I learn about statistics the warier of them I come to be.
Data collection. Data storage. Data security. And then the particular statistical tests that are run on the data. And then the results that are shared (often words only and not the actual test that was run and the numbers that came out). The purpose of the data we hear about (the data analysis or commentary that we hear about) has an agenda... Either way...
I guess, at the end of the day, despite very attempt to confuse up the language and tower of Babbel the issue... It comes down to the 'haves' and the 'have nots'. And people see that their children grow up to have significantly less than they had growing up and less than they had as adults, too. It seems undeniable that that is the case for more and more people... You don't have to travel very far in the world from wherever you are locally placed and see with your very own eyes that people really aren't doing so well...
The stats are dodgey about how many people there actually are in the world, too. But that number keeps growing and growing and growing and growing and growing...
A basic economic assumption seems to be that there are a finite amount of resources that people fight over and there are winners and there are losers. There are losers. There is this idea that you get to be a winner by being smarter than everyone else and working harder than everyone else... That that is what things are about.
And most people jump into that game. Because you have to choose sides: Will you have or will you have not?
And then people from both sides become sucked into that ideology, somehow...
And everybody feels like they hvae everything to lose by things being different.
The whole money thing...
I mean...
Some people go where they please and take what they please. Other people do not.
But I'm wary of this, too.
Marketing...
I mean... People *want to believe* life it like that for some (want to aspire to it). Might snap and snarl that they aren't doign so well temporarily -- but would gladly inflict on others everything that was inflicted on themselves.
There used to be this 'blame the victim' mentality. I thought society had moved beyond that. But I now see it's back full force in government policy and so on. It is apparently common knowledge that victims most likely go on to offend against others. So identifying people as victims is one and the same as idenfitying people as future offenders. There was this thing in NZ a little while back with this study that wanted to identify future victims (you know the idea 'are your parents Maaori? (Yes means there is a statistical association, you see the 'burden of being Maaori', or similar) are your parents on welfare?...) They wanted to tag 'vulnerable children' and track them to, you know, see what happened. Because, you know, people can do whole degrees in these sorts of things...
It was stopped... But of course it wasn't really. It's being done all the time. I suspect that's what's mostly gone wrong with my life in this country. I've been tagged as a have not because of my Mother...
At teh end of the day... The pieces of paper and the numbers written on them...
Actual physical material concrete stuff. Who gets what, where, when... Boom bust cycles 'it's only temporary'. The idea of some people getting into deep dept (so the 'have' is only temporary). Others... It's all they've ever known...
I still worry about the marketing...
I genuinely believe that there are a small group of people with genuine morality. There is something Pascal's wager about this. You have to live your life as though there were and being the change you want to see because the alternative (not living that way and then being dismissed by those people as being one of the psychopathic majority) would be the worst possible outcome.
Most people have brought into the ideal of a few people doing what they want when they want because they want... Whether they have or have not... The're as bad as each other really (either are ruinign things for us all - or would do so if they had opportunity).
I don't know.
I just keep coming back to 'marketing, really'.
____
I went to this talk a while back on something something in Japan. A Russian leader person visited and there was an attempted assasination. The leader person wanted to leave - but the Japanese leader people were all apologetic and there was...
A public outpouring of grief. There was some emotion... Some ideology... And this idea of falling on your sword because of shame - not because of your own actions, but because of the actions of another. Anyway, this lady fell on a sword and there was a letter found that she wrote explaining how she had fallen on her sword out of grief about the attempted assassination - that's how badly she felt about the whole thing...
And the talk was about her as something of a national hero. Because the whole display... Well... It sort of made it... Uh... Socially inappropriate, or something, for the Russian to cut the tour of Japan short. The idea was that it must have been some isolated guy who tried to assasinate him, rather than the assassination being more organisationally motivated, you see.
Anyway...
I got to thinking about it. And about how convenient that emotion / social strategy was in the situation.
An invading army was traditionally motivated by the spoils of war. By raping the women, particularly. If you could convince a potentially invading army that the women would fall on their swords (disembowel themselves out of shame) then that would help demotivate the invasion...
And I got to thinking whether she was a national hero or a national matyr. A national... Scapegoat. Whether the whole thing had been staged by the national military, even.
It was all awfully... COnvenient. You see.
I think a lot about how 'good' marketing is for things like supermarkets. I mean... It is pretty freaking amazing. I mean supermarkets are all 'progressive food enterprises' monopoly over here, these days, I think. Our people's lives are prematurely shortned by diseases of malnutrition. I mean obesity. I mean obesity resulting from malnutrition. We are a primary producer of food for England, traditionally. Also for large cities in the USA, Australia, and (increasingly) Hong Kong. Anybody curious at all about what food is available on the shelves / how that food is marketed to citizens of a country that is largely about teh primary production of food for foreign markets? Anybody curious about how much dairy content there actually is in any of the items like ice-cream or yoghurt or cheese or even butter (mostly salt) or even milk? In a country that is largely devoted to producing it for foreign markets - I mean.
I just walk around teh supermarket and am very much aware of the securtiy cameras tracking eye gaze and product placement and so on and so forth.... One rule 'house wins'.
Anyway... All these marketing techniques to make people happy with the fact that basic items like milk and butter and cheese and meat and so on are not for us... Potato weevels, even.
Apparently the Irish potato famine led to the population decreasing in number. I heard it is the only population to have decreased in number, so. I mean, I heard that the population of Ireland today is still pre-famine number.
I think the biggest lie we're sold is that we need to keep breeding more and more and more and more gamma babies as the solution to everything.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 20:01:53
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 4, 2018, at 19:30:41
I shuddered a lot at this one.
Because (if Australia is anything like NZ) there are a lot of phoney jobs out there. I mean, there are things they call 'jobs' but you need to purchase a uniform (and / or pay for the uniform to be laundered) and you need to pay for parking in the vicinity etc... Such that the hourly rate you earn is actually less then the costs involved in taking the job.
I used to believe that they wouldn't make you do anything like that if you were a genuine person...
But my more recent experience of things in Dunedin, particularly, leads me to believe that actually, yes, that is precisely the sort of things that some people would do.
Stanford Prison Guard experiment-style. Or Nazi electrocution experiment-style.
There are people who are forced to work at these job agencies. Who have quotas on how many people they need to give those awful 'jobs' to. If they don't send people to those awful jobs - then they will be next. They will be sent off to one of those awful jobs instead...
These actually are the sorts of pressures some people are operating under.
And it would be nice to think that these people must be fundamentally base, or something, to be treated, so.
But my recent experience of things in Australia and New Zealand... And that's simply not so.
And I think 'who would make all of these people do these awful things? and why?' Because there really is enough for everyones need...
And I think it is about human depravity. The urges... Needs... Some people have in genuinely sadistic directions.
Something about how not everyone can grow up with self-esteem. Who would dance in our strip clubs? And what would the point of a high speed internet connection be if there wasn't so much porn?
People want things... And there need to be people who will do fairly much anything for money. There needs to be something that will incentive things... There need to be incentive structures. Not for meaningful work... But precisely for things that aren't meaningful work at all. The real value of it... You have to keep self esteem pretty low, indeed, because it's hard to overestimate just how sick so many people really very genuinely are...
Posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 20:17:38
In reply to Re: Paul Jay » sigismund, posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 20:01:53
I mean, you need people to manufacture drugs and weapons and so on, too. Because rich people might want to acquire those things. And people might want to acquire those things in a way that is less tracked. And less tracked means moving back to cash (less of that all the time) so, uh, barter system?
We need people to be in gangs. To be prostitutes. To traffic drugs.
To traffic people. Children. Women.
It is important not to underestimate the needs some people have...
I suppose largely it's a temporary life-stage sort of thing.
The whole 'alpha male strategy' was a temporary life-stage sort of thing. It's not at all a long term survival strategy. It's tied to life being nasty brual and short.
You grow out of it...
If you have the money to. Perhaps.
I don't know.
I suppose if people think that you are rich then won't assume that you must be for sale.
There's always that.
Perhaps...
There's, uh, largely *only* that.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 20:35:54
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 20:17:38
I guess it's about seeing people as less than human and thinking you are justified as treating them as less than human because of this, that, or the other reason.
Sometimes people don't want relationships with persons. Where there is a sense of equality or mutuality. Where there needs to be negotiation with give and take. People would rather have control over a minion or pet and get their way mostly. I suppose I tend to underestimate the number of people who buy into all that...
The rich people I know mostly seem to believe that their friends are only their friends because they are rich... Their being rich makes it easy for people to come and stay with them and so on, I suppose... But it makes for a superficiality in the relationship... They get to do whatever and other people try and smooth things over for them, all the time... My rich friends seem genuinely fearful that they wouldn't have friends if they weren't rich... They seem happy enough to work with that, though, rather than working to develop genuinely mutual relationships. They... Opt out of personal development?
I don't know.
The government gave beneficiaries a $20 per week increase to help with power costs, last week (for the next few months). It sounds a lot because our currency is over-inflated... Of course my power bill was $90, to match that... To keep 2 rooms (bedroom, kitchen) and a lobby within WHO temperature (18-21) range of heating...
I'm supposed to pretend it's not cold. That's what people do here. Just pretend it's not cold. Pheunomia is caused by nasty bacteria and people die prematurely because of gluttony... Yeah, right.
Of course it's impossible to avoid statistics... It's just that there is so much money tied up in confusing and obscuring... And sometimes it's worth trying to get at some of the more fundamental assumpitons. Often what you find in that first chapter of 'particular field101). Economics is an alien land...
Because the things that are most important in life... Happpiness. Health. Education. Wealth. Flourishing. None of these are limited resources. None of these are particularly quantitative. A better world is a world with more of this stuff -- and more of this stuff is not particularly associated with any kind of increase in the number of people). Quantitative measures shift the subject and divert attention with (most often) shiny things that actually work to undermine the above...
Posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 20:38:33
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 20:35:54
me and only me has exclusive access to this resource
is the beginning of the end
Posted by sigismund on July 10, 2018, at 20:42:01
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 20:17:38
Have you ever seen any of Ivan Sen's movies?
Part Aboriginal and Vietnamese, he now lives with his wife in Beijing. He makes films in and about Australia like no one else I've seen. "Goldstone" is pretty good. I grew up west of the range, which you kind of need to appreciate his stuff.
Posted by sigismund on July 10, 2018, at 20:48:23
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 20:38:33
On the drug front I enjoyed "Sicario"
The drugs follow the neo-liberal/DEA project in South America, and the US military everywhere else. I suppose the CIA needs lots of cash. Indochina, Afghanistan, Colombia.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 21:05:05
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 10, 2018, at 20:42:01
No, I haven't. Thanks. I will take a look and see what I can find.
I never used to bother much with the news (tv or paper) because I thought it was mostly marketing and I didn't want it to have sway over my mind.
But one of the Law Proff's I liked said something about how else are you going to know anything about what is going on in the world?
And I suppose she's right.
Only, I'm very much aware that the very best of the marketing / propaganda techniques are employed to try and take control of populations. And the government really sets the tone of things for it's people... So... What are they trying to sell us, today?
Things feel oppressive... Have been for a while. The art about the place is oppressive, and so on. Timetabling is artificially constructed to make things over-crowded and oppressive. And... Who profits from that?
If people are afraid then they are easier to control, in a sense. I suppose.
But things eventually get too oppressive. People get sickened by their sychophants and blow up dolls aren't particularly interesting for very long. People travel about the country and it's hard not to see the mess that they've made...
For a time, here, they really seemed to be running with something along the lines of extending. The psych technique, I mean. Just how bad do things have to get before people, uh, stand up for themselves? Demand change? Our leaders seemed to have some sort of desperation in their eyes, even, that they didn't mean for things to have gotten quite so very bad for so many of us... I guess they didn't know about how when you chain up an elephant when it's little. Or.. Perhaps... They very specifically did.
It's about control of populations.
It is like... Why do we need to be all 9-5 for the working day? Studies have shown people are more productive at home etc.
- Parking. Wilsons parking Australa. It's a business.
- To keep the crime rate down. Domestic violence.It is just about keeping the people busy... Incentive structures... Buy buy buy! On weekends...
I have underestimated the value of sucking up. That's mostly what people want to see... They actually do prefer their people naieve and wide eyed and / or with frontal lobe deficit...
Posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 21:29:07
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 21:05:05
http://www.med-health.net/images/10415909/image002.jpg
I mean, you don't get adults similarly malnourished in developed western nations - right?
Posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 22:21:56
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 21:29:07
https://potatoesnz.co.nz/education/potato-know-how/
yup. potatoes and milk.
deja vu.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 22:23:15
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 22:21:56
chips usually, of course.
i remember we used to say 'cheap as chips' but now it's like, four bucks for chips that aren't a nasty flavour.
of course you can cook your own...
but, yeah.
let them eat potato.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 23:57:58
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 6, 2018, at 19:55:37
> ...According to the Continuous Mortality Investigation, life expectancy for a 45-year-old man has declined from an anticipated 43 years of extra life to 42, for a 45-year-old woman from 45.1 more years to 44. Theres a decline for pensioners too. We had gained ten years of extra life since 1960, and weve just given one year back. These data are new and are not fully understood yet, but it seems pretty clear that the decline is linked to austerity, perhaps not so much to the squeeze on NHS spending though the longest spending squeeze, adjusted for inflation and demographics, since the foundation of the NHS has obviously had some effect but to the impacts of austerity on social services, which in the case of such services as Meals on Wheels and house visits function as an early warning system for illness among the elderly. As a result, mortality rates are up, an increase that began in 2011 after decades in which they had fallen under both parties, and its this that is causing the decline in life expectancy.
> Life expectancy in the United States is also falling, with the first consecutive-year drop since 1962-63; infant mortality, the generally accepted benchmark for a societys development, is rising too. The principal driver of the decline in life expectancy seems to be the opioid epidemic, which took 64,000 lives in 2016, many more than guns (39,000), cars (40,000) or breast cancer (41,000). At the same time, the income of the typical worker, the real median hourly income, is about the same as it was in 1971. Anyone time-travelling back to the early 1970s would have great difficulty explaining why the richest and most powerful country in the history of the world had four and a half decades without pandemic, countrywide disaster or world war, accompanied by unprecedented growth in corporate profits, and yet ordinary peoples pay remained the same. I think people would react with amazement and want to know why. Things have been getting consistently better for the ordinary worker, they would say, so why is that process about to stop?
Okay, wow. That's the first I've heard of any of that. The 'Continuous Mortality Investigation'... Huh. Actuary data. Huh. Subscription only. Of course... Hmm... And this is the UK... The 'decline in home visits' thing seems reasonable...
Maybe I should look a little more into actuary data. I was only looking at the WHO... But insurance company data, if you can get it, for sure...
Opoid epidemic? First I've heard of that. Holy crap. I'd really love to find the references for these stats...
How is your opiate stuff? You are / were mostly recreational, yeah? Or a bit more than that?
Posted by sigismund on July 11, 2018, at 17:42:13
In reply to Re: Paul Jay » sigismund, posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 23:57:58
>How is your opiate stuff?
I like opiates. (Perhaps I suffer from an endorphin deficiency? The opiate receptor is the devil's receptor?) But this world does not permit them, and the consequences of running out are such that I don't seek them out. It's just a question of how you choose to eat your sh*t sandwich, so it doesn't matter.
What I do not understand about the US figures is the death rate. Given dependence and standardised doses opiates should not be causing this death rate. Therefore these users are not adequately maintained with stable tolerances (of course not), or the supply is very variable. Fentanyl in fake Rx opioids?
Posted by sigismund on July 12, 2018, at 2:17:16
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 11, 2018, at 17:42:13
My favourite US actor, Philip Seymore Hoffman overdosed on heroin, which given his history seemed unlikely unless fentanyl was involved.
Then there was Prince. As far as I know he thought he was taking oxycodone. Not so easy to OD on that IMO. Then there was Heath Ledger, the same. Certainly lots of oxycodone is not fun.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 14, 2018, at 0:30:59
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 11, 2018, at 17:42:13
> I like opiates. (Perhaps I suffer from an endorphin deficiency?
Maybe. Or maybe you have lots of receptors for them, or something, so their presence is especially nice for you. I don't know.
I have tried opiates in several forms and I never really got them. I mean, I mostly felt like I wasn't high at all and would be 'I think I need some more because I'm just not feeling it' after having comperable amounts to others who felt it alright. Amphetamines really hit my pleasure centres, though. Amphetamines and mushrooms all together were quite the trip :) Ah, the good old days...
> the consequences of running out are such that I don't seek them out.
Right. I've sort of thought about getting up early in the morning to go mushroom hunting and I similarly have just decided that it isn't really worth it. The consequences of getting into trouble over it... It's just not worth it for me, anymore.
I'm glad I got the chance to have experimented with an awful lot of things in my lifetime, though. I think it makes me more resiliant / less corruptible now.
> What I do not understand about the US figures is the death rate. Given dependence and standardised doses opiates should not be causing this death rate. Therefore these users are not adequately maintained with stable tolerances (of course not), or the supply is very variable. Fentanyl in fake Rx opioids?
I don't know.
I suspect there is a lot of variability in supply / that doses are not standardised at all. For example, as supply dwindles suppliers bulk it out with contaminants and end users need to use more to get the same effect. Then a new shipment comes in and people start selling purer stuff which can lead to overdoses for end users.
There is a prepratory response with IV users of opiates, too. The body expects the drug as part of a standardised preparation / injection ritual and alterations to that process can result in overdoses. So if, for example, someone else prepares the needle for the person whereas they usaully did that themself, or if they rushed part of the process because someone was banging on the bathroom door.
I don't know why there is a particular epidemic for them now. Surprised to hear that. To hear those stats.
I've been studying a little public health, you see. And we learn about stats. Only the stats we learn about are different stats.
The trouble with NZ stats is I know a little something about how they are collected. For example, I know the unemployment rate only looks so low because they put security guards outside Work and Income doors to prevent people from entering the building to prevent people from applying for unemployment.
There was even something about how census data is altered by the government so it falls in line with administrative data. In other words, if more people say they are unemployed by census than by those who were registered as unemployed by local Work and Income offices they will choose to display the Work and Income office data.
It's not even worth the money it's not even printed on. It's a complete and utter sham.
I really don't see another way to view that.
What makes me think the actuary people will release actual stats? I think they probably release 'useful' stats for their purposes. They are probably interested to see what the up and coming hopefuls might make of what they have offered them to play with...
Would be my guess.
But it is interesting that someone is out and saying that things are objectively worse (mortality is falling) in the UK and USA. I hadn't heard that before.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 14, 2018, at 0:47:10
In reply to Re: Paul Jay » sigismund, posted by alexandra_k on July 14, 2018, at 0:30:59
I read the Wiki article on the Irish Potato Famine because I had heard the population of Ireland was lower today than it was pre-famine and I thought that that just didn't sound plausible to me, at all... But it's actually true. Wow. I mean true by millions of people.
Mostly not death by famine - but immigration.
About the landowners in England... And then you don't want to have to travel to Ireland to collect rent from the farmers leasing the land so you employ middle-men who are located in Ireland. Reasonable enough...
But then the middle-men get greedy. They divide the plots of land up smaller and smaller and smaller and the prices are artificially increased. Instead of farmers having enough land to produce a diversity of crops for their family and for sale the increased intensification results in 1 acre of potato which (with the milk of a cow) can apparently provide a nutritionally adequate diet for a single family (as in people aren't appearing to drop dead or get sick from some kind of nutritional deficiency). If you have a little extra potato you might have enough to feed a piglet so it grows up to be a pig. Then you can take your pig to market... Or you can have baked potato with bacon mmmm...
But then there was enough food for the people in Ireland that was still being produced in Ireland when the potato famine hit. But it was all marked for export and they continued to export it instead of sending it to the poor houses.
At some point the situation for the middle men was about getting as much money as they could (it's only temporary) and using that to buy passage to America or wherever for a 'better life'. And they fled... By millions. Most of the people fled Ireland.
A sustainable life.
Or something.
People just decided to abandon Ireland.
It's all very sad. Maybe we should change our name to New Ireland. Or maybe I should look into what happened to the old Zealand.
Our population just keeps on increasing due to immigration. It doesnt' seem to matter how badly we treat our people they just keep on flocking to us.
That's the trouble, really. The middle men / managers. Scraping together all they can for their exit strategy. Like the people did who made it here, I guess.
Why are people so awful?? Most of them. Seems to me. Why do people buy into these strategies / play these games??
Posted by alexandra_k on July 14, 2018, at 0:56:26
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by alexandra_k on July 14, 2018, at 0:47:10
oh. zeeland a dutch province sort of island sea-land. new sea-land and australia was new holland haha.
Posted by sigismund on July 14, 2018, at 15:32:31
In reply to Re: Paul Jay » sigismund, posted by alexandra_k on July 14, 2018, at 0:30:59
The falling premium on whiteness seems to be associated with opiate use.
Posted by sigismund on July 14, 2018, at 15:37:51
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by alexandra_k on July 14, 2018, at 0:56:26
So Western Australia was New Holland? And New South Wales was the rest? I don't know how the British allowed such a thing.
Down in and around Tasmania there are lots of French names. Pre-revolution explorers were down there, and that morphed into the Napoleonic wars, and so the British hot footed it down south and established a military garrison, leaving signs of history more obvious than further north, good architecture necessary for the unspeakable process.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 15, 2018, at 21:13:14
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 14, 2018, at 15:32:31
I guess drug overdose would be suicide route of choice for people who had the means to get sufficient amount. I mean, it's the closest thing to drifing off in a painless state, than anything else I can think of.
I suppose drug overdose and motor vehicle fatalities are where we put a bunch of people in order to keep our suicide rates down.
It's not that bad. It's only temporary, after all.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 16, 2018, at 2:21:39
In reply to Re: Paul Jay » sigismund, posted by alexandra_k on July 15, 2018, at 21:13:14
And guns, of coure, for the rural folk. Not so much the Australians because of the whole... I can't remember mass shooting thing that resulted in better gun laws than most places... But gun 'accidents'.
Posted by sigismund on July 16, 2018, at 15:14:24
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by alexandra_k on July 16, 2018, at 2:21:39
That was at Port Arthur in Tasmania.
Nice colonial architecture. As a humane improvement for the time they had introduced isolation cells in which you can sit as I did. the idea was sensory deprivation. No light in any case in there.
There is a ser of photos of men who suffered there. The only place worse was Norfolk Island. One was of a young man taken in for 'sodomy'. Homosexuality was finally legalised in 1997 there. 1924 in Peru.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 17, 2018, at 0:37:21
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 16, 2018, at 15:14:24
> That was at Port Arthur in Tasmania.
Yes.
> There is a ser of photos of men who suffered there. The only place worse was Norfolk Island. One was of a young man taken in for 'sodomy'. Homosexuality was finally legalised in 1997 there. 1924 in Peru.
My Father's first wife was from Norfolk Island. I think he may have lived out there, for a time. Not sure... We vistited when I was fairly young. Around 3 or 4. I don't remember very much of it. Only odd kid-things. Picking mushrooms on the side of the road and riding the only Shetland Pony on the Island. Well, being led around, a bit.
Posted by sigismund on July 17, 2018, at 0:39:04
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 16, 2018, at 15:14:24
One possible reason for the difference between Australia and NZ is the relative unimportance of Rupert Murdoch there. New Zealand feels like a 70s beer garden to me, rather than an armed camp.
Murdoch has been stoking resentment for generations and made a fortune out of it, debasing cultures of which he has been envious, otherwise known, so tiredly these days, as the 'elites'.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 17, 2018, at 0:49:49
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 17, 2018, at 0:39:04
And bananas. We brought a few crates of them back with us. Someone had them growing out in their back yard, a couple rows of banana trees. And the bananas were much smaller than the ones you see in the supermarkets these days. Much more vibrant yellow. Much more vibrant flavour. We would split them down the middle and put marshmellows and chocolate in them and wrap them in tin foil and throw them on the bbq.
Sigh. No wonder I need to sleep so much, with all these things I remember. I mean, really, not from photographs or chatting with my parents about any of this, ever...
> One possible reason for the difference between Australia and NZ is the relative unimportance of Rupert Murdoch there. New Zealand feels like a 70s beer garden to me, rather than an armed camp.
It depends on where you are at, in it.
That's what I've learned in recent years. It is hard to convey the totally distinct worlds people live in. In the same city. Trekking the same roads, even. Just the different schedules people are on and how packed or not they are etc.
Our policemen don't walk around with visible guns, sure. But we have plenty of 'security guards' throwing their weight around...
Most of the worst of it is covert. Psychological.
From people getting their jollies off insinuating that they have the power to do this, that, and the other.
From people living cowed and in fear and so on...
From what choices people make about the role they want to take up / play.
The whole victim / persecuter thing, I guess.
Every now and then I feel like I'm getting tested by people. To see whether I'll take some sort of 'bait'. A willingness to turn on others if they insinuate possible threat to me (just imply it a little bit).
I suppose the worst of it really is of our own making.
That's why I liked the hallucinogen experience. It taught me something of the power of the mind when it comes to constructing our reality. The way we see the world. Such a singificant amount of that is a contribution from our own mind. It really does show you something of the potential power for people to see things differently. TO really change ones whole experience of the world by seeing things differently.
Of course this doesn't... Condone? The atrocities that some people commit against others. The genuine abuses and horrors and so on...
But it is important. Yeah.
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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
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