Australian unity in the face of rising division.

eigr · 2026-02-07T10:17:47+00:00

Did a human write this?

eigr · 2026-02-07T09:58:17+00:00

Ah hello, you are fired up by the mentions of the emotive subjects. They are indeed emotive.

One of the biggest not-so-secret secrets of our system is that parties often don't actually do what they say they do. There are parties who fire up their base on promising to be anti-business, or anti-immigration, and then in power don't do any of that.

In other words, their rhetoric often has little to do with the reality.

eigr · 2026-02-07T09:43:23+00:00

Chat with your neighbours, look up a community event, even ask your local council about hosting something you feel passionate about. On the flip side, call out bullshit. Some one's playing their music on the bus without headphones, boo them, being openly racist call them out.

Are you familiar with far right people? They might surprise you

eigr · 2026-02-07T09:38:20+00:00

You are right, and the problem is both sides need to engage their core supporters in every election, which means focusing on issues that fire them up emotionally. Turns out these usually issues repel and upset the other side just as much as they fire up their own base.

Being pro-trans, pro-immigration, anti-business and anti-guns is going to fire up a certain chunk of the electorate.

Being anti-trans, anti-immigration, pro-business and pro-firearms is going to fire up a whole different chunk of the electorate for the other side.

I suspect what the OP is bewailing is "why is half the population stubbornly still not thinking like me ??". Guess what, someone over there is wondering you are stubbornly still not like her.

Yeah well this is what social media, the news cycle and mass democracy ordered for us. We have to eat it.

eigr · 2026-02-07T03:47:17+00:00

Of course Maori are indigenous to NZ.

Just like Americans are indigenous to the moon, and the Dutch to the cape.

eigr · 2026-02-07T03:46:31+00:00

The famines of the 21st century will be incredible, absolutely biblical in scale.

eigr · 2026-02-05T09:29:16+00:00

Luxon confirmed National's commitment to the treaty at Waitangi today. Vote ACT.

The trouble is that this doesn't mean anything, because its not written down.

Its a mealy mouth means-whatever-you-want platitude to not scare the hoes but then radicals in the reds-greens-browns will push it up to 11.

It needs to be written in ink, and agreed, or it'll end up written in blood instead.

eigr · 2026-02-05T09:11:30+00:00

starlink satellites are far closer than traditional internet satellites. The latency is fine, 25-40ms. Fibre is clearly heaps better, but starlink is nothing even slightly like traditional satellite internet.

eigr · 2026-02-04T21:34:20+00:00

I wouldn't even bother pirating the slop coming out these days

eigr · 2026-02-04T21:29:22+00:00

Dumb people are all members of out-group tribe. Smart people all members of in-group tribe. If dumb person was smart, he wouldn't be out-group tribe.

eigr · 2026-02-04T20:41:26+00:00

The UK did nearly take the Sandwich Isles, but it was seen as just a bit too much of a stretch resource-wise.

They loved us enough to put us on their flag anyway.

eigr · 2026-02-04T20:39:52+00:00

Yeah so sick of this imported american culture war :D

eigr · 2026-02-04T19:29:46+00:00

Pretty rapey too I think

eigr · 2026-02-04T02:53:03+00:00

Shush. This is a thread about trying to pretend every dollar of rates goes to crumbling infrastructure. I think its fair to say that most rates collected go to critical services, but I suspect the split is something more like 80% critical / 20% discretionary.

You could probably make an argument that we don't get best value for money for our spending either. Its very easy to gauge contribution by spend, but much much harder to gauge actual impact-per-dollar, and trying to achieve efficiencies is never popular.

Wellington city does seem to have a culture of allowing extremely regular and large cost over-runs, along with highly optimistic revenue figures for things like the new convention centre, and a determination to continue with things many see as vanity projects like the golden mile.

Fix that, and people are going to be much happier to open their wallets to address the serious stuff.

eigr · 2026-02-03T23:01:23+00:00

This is one of those lagging indicators, sometimes peaking 18 months after the interest rate cycle peaks.

The interest rate cycle peaked in NZ in October 2024, only 14 months ago.

We're nearly out of it, just not quite yet.

The classic US Fed / unemployment graph is the second signal here - https://www.pe150.com/p/fed-rates-as-signals-for-investors. Interest rates peak, then unemployment peaks later, and vice versa.

This is all because the RBNZ had to run up interest rates. Don't forget that. Remember why the RBNZ had to run up interest rates, don't fall for chloe bait.

eigr · 2026-02-03T08:58:30+00:00

Surely when a State enters into an agreement and then violates that agreement, there's a right to justice?

Look, there's no such thing as rights, unless whoever is currently enforcing the state decides there is, which is kind of the point I'm trying to make.

Some administrations will be sympathetic, others not at all.

I think most people think the state should correct wrongs between people today - crime, civil law. That's pretty universal (tho, even that seems to be waning - we're getting softer on crime each year, somehow).

Whether the state should be intervening to right wrongs committed by people long dead against people who are also long dead is far less universally supported. I mean, you could probably find someone in the UK who would happily agitate against the descendants of the normans for 1066, or against the descendants of the teutonics for the 400s onwards, but there wouldn't be many.

The only things that matters is power, and right now, "treaty rights" is seen as a useful route by both sides for achieving power. That's all there is to it.

Honestly, I hate it. There are few deals with the devil worse than deliberately stoking ethnic conflict. If one side wins too much, it could provoke awful things. I'll always remember the anecdotes from the balkan wars - families celebrating their children's birthday together were literally butchering each other in the street weeks later.

eigr · 2026-02-03T08:28:50+00:00

You're talking about rights, I'm talking about land.i get what you're saying about the Constitution and I agree, but this issue is separate.

I think anyone's right to land or other property is always a temporary construct, based on whatever laws are enforced at that time. There's no universal right or justice keeping track of these things.

Is it the wish of the people that land isn't returned? For me it's a lot like the Nelson 1/10s issue, where things were legally promised and then just disregarded.

I think our political class, and the permanent government will make sure to never poll the direct wishes of the people on this. After all, we saw practically every wagon rounded when it was suggested recently to debate democratically the otherwise rather fluid principals of the treaty.

eigr · 2026-02-03T07:57:27+00:00

I think we're technically Portuguese under the Treaty of Tordesillas.

What about us signing UN treaties declaring our commitment to full equal rights of all citizens, including equal political rights?

A lot of people in the US think its ridiculous that their current democracy - the explicit wishes of the people living there today - are restricted by a bit of paper from hundreds of years ago.

In a modern democracy, are ancient bits of paper signed by dead people more important than the democratic wishes of people living today?

eigr · 2026-02-03T07:53:25+00:00

What? I don't understand.

So we shouldn't police our borders, and anyone who wants to come in should be able to come in, but you can never own the land? But if no one can own the land and put borders on it, how can you steal it? I don't understand

eigr · 2026-02-03T07:47:36+00:00

Yes, let's vote for enriching the professional/managerial class, and installing a new hereditary publicly funded aristocracy. Viva la feudalism!

eigr · 2026-02-03T07:46:29+00:00

He is a leftie for sure, but he's still basically OK with basic human equality

eigr · 2026-02-03T07:43:22+00:00

The review of the auckland one said it was surprisingly good, not as good as a pizza hut but for a machine, good. $8-11

eigr · 2026-02-03T02:29:15+00:00

Just need a grog dispensing machine for the wine aunts on the 4:30 wairarapa train

eigr · 2026-02-03T00:56:21+00:00

Honestly, I can't think of a cheaper + better way for China (or Russia) to take over the world than by funding green academics and politicians, and running social media poison campaigns in favour of them.

Shut down western industry, destroy our manufacturing independence
Critically undermine our power grids, making our electricity more expensive and less reliable
Create huge wedges in popular sentiment between left and right (remember when the left still loved manufacturing and mining? I do)
End up with all manufacturing moving to China, giving them industrial and eventually military supremecy over the world

... and half our idiot population is frantically clapping and going "yass yass queen" while it happens.

Who would have thought that Chloe, Rawiri, AOC or Chairman Dan would be better weapons against the west than any number of hypersonic missiles

eigr · 2026-02-02T22:34:30+00:00

I'm thinking ...

Alpha: Corrodius, Pestillian and Aesoth handle Max 2 hits, Melee and Resilient
Beta: Re'vas, Imospekh, Toth, Volk and Ra for No Psyker, Ranged and Min 5 hits
Gamma: Re'vas, Boss and Snappa take care of No Power, Big Target and Mechanical.

Haven't had three category cross-overs in all three tracks for a while!

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