Comments for Dave's Archives

Comment on Carbon tax lies by jane

jane — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 04:44:31 +0000

Dave, Liealot never opens his mouth but lies come tumbling out. The blatant lie wrt the 83yo Perth pensioner’s power bill in parliament is a case in point. despite being at pains to conceal the contents of the bill, some sharp eyes and sharper researchers discovered that the increase was because her usage had nearly doubled.

Interesting the power company suggested that she do what Liealot failed to do, advise her to have a free government audit of her home.

Comment on Failing: a taxonomy of techniques by Jason

Jason — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 03:41:21 +0000

Re. the Arse Cover — in one particular class in high school, our multiple-choice tests were marked with the well-known “piece of card with the answer key punched out” device. The card is placed over the completed test and the marker can scan for correctly ticked choices.

One student handed in a sheet with every single option on every single answer ticked, and got a perfect score. He got away with it until the very moment the teacher handed the tests back weeks later.

Also, I have a few pictures of some stellar examples of ‘The Resignation’ I should show you some time.

Comment on Help! Help! I’m being regulated by Lau Guerreiro

Lau Guerreiro — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 16:57:24 +0000

I agree that the proposed solution may not be the ideal solution, but neither is what we currently have. The important question is whether we can improve on what we currently have and if so how.

I’ve just written a couple of blog posts on this subject, which make some good arguments that I think you might find interesting and useful.

The first one is titled “Freedom of the press argument is deceitful” and debunks the argument that says that the public is smart enough to identify biased and untruthful media for themselves and that therefore we don’t need any regulation.

Here’s a summary of the second post titled “what’s better than freedom of the press”

Many of the opponents of media regulation will blindly hold aloft the sacred cow of the freedom of the press as if it is an indisputable truth that can not be surpassed by anything else.

Well I dispute its importance.
Freedom of the press is not the essential ingredient that ensures a well functioning democracy – its truth in media that is most important…

Freedom of the press may or may not lead to a diversity of opinion, and a diversity of opinion may or may not lead to the truth being made public.

What is important for society and democracy is that the truth is made public; and if we could get to the truth via another path other than through freedom of media and diversity then we should be prepared to take that path, rather than to keep holding aloft the sacred cow of freedom of the press.

Freedom of the press is a means of getting to the desired goal – it is not the desired goal – but some people have made it so. Truth is the goal.

Sometimes freedom will lead to truth but sometimes it won’t… its not the freedom we seek … its the truth!

If we make this paradigm shift then the debate will become very different.

I’ve written a couple of blog posts related to this subject on my blog http://www.amimakingsense.com.au and I’d appreciate hearing your opinion of the arguments I put forward there.

Regards
Lau

Comment on Non-consensual wisdom by Help! Help! I’m being regulated | Dave's Archives

Help! Help! I’m being regulated | Dave's Archives — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:45:07 +0000

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Comment on Curing viral misinformation by Non-consensual wisdom | Dave's Archives

Non-consensual wisdom | Dave's Archives — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 10:57:01 +0000

[...] Previously, Shane Greenup brought to my attention two very interesting software projects, with somewhat similar goals: his own rbutr (currently in beta testing), and Dan Whaley’s Hypothes.is (currently being planned and prototyped). [...]

Comment on Curing viral misinformation by Dave C

Dave C — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:50:14 +0000

Thank you enormously for bringing those projects to my attention — they sound very interesting indeed.

I’ll get in touch with you by email…

Comment on Curing viral misinformation by Shane Greenup

Shane Greenup — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:48:24 +0000

What an amazing sense of timing you must have John Cook brought this post to my attention as I have been talking with him over the past few weeks about a new project I am working on, which, judging by this post, I think you will be interested in: http://www.rbutr.com

You may also be interested in http://www.Hypothes.is, which is very similar to Dispute Finder – but backed by a lot more klout and money ($100,000+ just funded through Kickstarter, plus some wealthy people working on it).

Feel free to email me if you want to talk more about what we are trying to do with rbutr – we’re close to entering a closed-beta phase.

Shane Greenup

Comment on Hopes for 2012 by Anthony

Anthony — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 02:08:23 +0000

Anyone who’s been to London for more than an airport transfer has consumed recycled water. Singapore, likewise. Its rejection in Toowoomba pushed it off the radar for a while but I think it’s back (or at least on its way).

Your last point is spot-on. But is sport indeed “important”? Well, I suppose it is, but by no means enough to take up 30% of a news bulletin or consume the front (and back) pages of a newspaper. That has to stop. It won’t.

Great post, Dave.

Comment on Unhinging the Bolt by Jason Heeris

Jason Heeris — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 11:47:53 +0000

my esteemed nemesis, the Slightly Disgruntled Scientist

*twirls moustache* nyeh heh heh... You might also be interested in Mark Bahnisch's Andrew Bolt, racial vilification and ‘freedom of speech’:

Free speech, as the judgement in fact indicates, must be speech that is accountable to truth.

Comment on Manoeuvring the boats by Dave C

Dave C — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:11:23 +0000

Yes, I surmise that’s what Labor is aiming for – trying to make Abbott choose between his stated policy goals and his political advantage. But Abbott seems able to get away with whatever policy contradictions he likes, perhaps due to the overall level of anger towards the government (much of which Abbott and his supporters have managed to generate themselves).

(I’ll have to look into my intermittently faulty maths…)