The greatest part of the price the consumer pays for these items goes to individuals and companies other than the artists who originally created the work. In many cases the actual creator could do a lot better if they could bypass the publisher or distributor. And that’s what the internet allows which is why these corporations are so enthusiastic about shutting it down.

I recently saw a graphic which divided up where the money goes from the price we pay for a CD. It showed the record company making about 70%, the artist about 1% and the producer, manager, and studio, etc making the rest. I suspect this isn’t accurate but according to other sources the artist gets at most about 16%.

So yet again we have a case of worthless parasites (business people, lawyers, accountants) exploiting both the artists and the consumer (you and me) so you can see why some people feel justified in bypassing the corrupt system and acquiring their music and movies by other means.

I don’t support piracy in most cases but I would rather have piracy than restrictive laws which cripple the freedom of the internet. So if I was a person charged with enforcing the law I would ignore most of what currently goes on but I wouldn’t extend that to people who are professional pirates.

I’m usually hesitant to criticise sites which encourage file sharing, but the alleged piracy site, MegaUpload, which has recently been raided by the New Zealand police, is an interesting case. The rather suspicious seeming founder of the site, Kim Dotcom, was allowed into New Zealand despite his rather dubious background. That was an interesting decision and there are now allegations he “bought” his way into the country – something which seems entirely possible.

I think everyone agrees that swapping of copyright material does happen at this site but that doesn’t mean the owners are responsible for that activity and it doesn’t mean that they technically broke any laws. After all, whether something is immoral or ethical has little to do with whether it is legal or not.

There is also the consideration that Dotcom has made a fortune from this site plus his mansion contained many weapons: both legal and illegal. The police assault on the place, with a helicopter and armed defenders, did seem a bit over the top though. Are there not more important crime-related problems we can spend this sort of money on?

Another interesting event related to this whole sorry story is the attacks by the “Anonymous” movement who retaliated against the organisations who originated the charges by attacking several sites, including the Universal Music Group and the US Justice Department.

Some people have labelled Anonymous as terrorists, criminals, or hackers. Well according to some definitions they are, but they could also be labelled as activists who are doing what they think is right. Sure, they are using illegal tactics but when the laws exist almost solely for the benefit of big corporations who can blame them? Again, I don’t want to see laws broken without good cause but at the same time people must do what they think is right.

The internet is currently under attack. Sure, in some ways it is the “wild west” but do we really want it subdued and turned into yet another tool for making the corporations even richer and more powerful? If a corporation can use the internet in a positive way then that’s fine. I buy stuff at the iTunes and app stores because they work well, have reasonable prices, and return most of what I pay to the actual developer (70% to the developers of iPhone apps). That’s reasonable and if the traditional media companies gave us what we wanted at a fair price I think people would avoid piracy. But they’re too ignorant and arrogant to do that. Who are the real criminals here?

Interestingly I have spent a lot less time in New Zealand’s main city than I have in some similar places in other countries. For example, since I spent any time in Auckland last I have been to Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney (several times), and San Francisco. I hope that I might have a few hours to look around between the time time spent sorting out computer issues, but that will have to wait to see just how dire the problems actually are!

It sounds sort of unpatriotic but I can’t see a lot of point in spending time in Auckland because anything it has Sydney also has, but more. And the travel time and cost to get to Sydney isn’t that much greater. But they say a change is as good as a holiday and Auckland’s weather has finally improved so it should be quite pleasant.

On the subject of the weather, I will be in a good position on that front during my visit. Generally our friends from the more northern parts of New Zealand like to make subtle (and not so subtle) comments regarding the superiority of their weather in comparison to ours near the more southern, cooler part of the country. But this year the south has got great weather over the holiday period so I can reverse the trend on them this time.

This second part of the entry is being typed from my hotel room on the second day of my visit. There has certainly been plenty to do here and I could probably stay a week to get everything sorted out properly but instead it has turned into a frenetic burst of activity to get as much done as possible.

I have also had a chance after work to have a bit of a walk around the city and down to the harbour and I have actually enjoyed being here more than I thought, although I still think Sydney’s better!

I’m flying out early tomorrow afternoon so I have about 3 hours in the morning to get a few tasks finished. I also hope I have configured enough remote access services so that I can administer some of the servers, computers, and other devices by “remote control” from back in Dunedin. Or maybe I should avoid that technique and aim for another trip here in the future!

Most people agree that Jobs was a genius. He wasn’t a genius in the same way that Einstein was – having exceptional intelligence – but he had a unique combination of artistic and engineering skill, amazing intuition about how his devices should work, and an unstoppable ambition to make Apple the greatest technology company ever.

His professional life seemed to have two stages: the early years which were full of disasters, ridiculous fiascos, and crazy decisions which made Apple a huge success story and then almost destroyed it a few years later; and the later years when he returned to Apple when the company just produced one exceptional product after another: the iMac, Mac OS X, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, the iTunes store, and the Apple stores.

How did he do it? I don’t know, but there were elements of genius, elements of luck, and maybe most important: elements of pure determination and persistence. Apple became the world’s most important and biggest (by some measures) technology company under his leadership. Could anyone else have done it? I doubt it. Will Apple be able to continue succeeding now that Jobs is gone? Only if they remember the lessons he has given them.

There was one big reason Apple did so well when other great technology companies gradually sunk into oblivion (I’m thinking about HP, IBM, Microsoft, and RIM, but I’m sure there are many others). That reason was that Apple did not follow the standard corporate business model. It was better than that.

I guess the number one edict of the standard model is: profits first. Given the huge profits Apple makes you might think that philosophy applies there too, but I don’t think it does. Jobs himself said so and I think his actions showed that. Jobs’ philosophy was “products first”. He created products people wanted and were prepared to pay for. Because of the success of the products, profit naturally followed.

Another unusual aspect of Apple’s strategy was that it didn’t give its customers what they asked for. Jobs said that if Henry Ford had given his customers what they asked for he would have given them a a faster horse, instead he gave them what they really wanted (even though they didn’t know it). Of course it’s easy to create something you think people might want but only Jobs has consistently created new products which genuinely are so highly loved by their users.

Apple does no product testing, it does no focus groups, it doesn’t do PowerPoint presentations, and it’s very suspicious of the advice and opinions of experts in business, management and marketing. Many of these are contrary to “best practice” and that’s why other companies don’t succeed like Apple does: they just follow the crowd. And many of them have the audacity to claim they are innovators or entrepreneurs. What a joke!

For Apple to continue to succeed it must continue valuing the opinion of the engineers and artists (people like Jony Ive) who have the real talent. The CEO is currently Tim Cook who has a degree in industrial engineering (that has to be good) and an MBA (that is very, very bad). Let’s just hope he forgets all the crap he learnt when he did that MBA!

I’m not pretending these people were perfect because they clearly weren’t. Steve Jobs really was often totally unreasonable and arrogant. Hitchens had some odd political views which many people would disagree with. But they were both also geniuses and that makes it easier to overlook their deficiencies.

I’ve already talked about Steve Jobs (in an entry titled “Think Different” on 2011-10-07) so this time I should say something about “The Hitch”. If you have never experienced Hitchens speaking search for a video of him on YouTube and you will see what I mean. He generally destroys those who dare to debate him with a combination of excellent recall of information and vicious wit (some titles include “Hitchens vs God (god loses by the way)”, “Al Sharpton Gets Hitchslapped”, “Christopher Hitchens Destroys Biblical miracle”, and “A Big HitchSlap!”). His victims are often described as being “Hitch slapped”!

In this entry I want to discuss some of his best quotes. As I have said before, quotes don’t necessarily mean much but they are often a good starting point for discussion and sometimes a concise description of a philosophical position.

My first quote is this short and simple one: “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”

That is a very compact definition of many skeptics’ views and I think it’s true. Anyone who has a theory based on no evidence can have that theory rejected without the need to present evidence against it, because a theory with no evidence isn’t a theory, it’s an opinion. So anyone who believes something “on faith” can never have that belief taken seriously simply because there’s just no need to, it’s simply irrelevant.

Here’s another: “The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species. It may be a long farewell, but it has begun and, like all farewells, should not be protracted.”

So not only should the religious faithful not be taken seriously but they are also infantile and their way of thinking belongs in the past. Again I agree: one of my objections to religion is that it’s embarrassing. People who really believe the world is 6000 years old and that those who don’t believe the same thing as them are evil are stupid and embarrassing to our species.

Finally here is the ultimate quote (of life, the universe, and everything): “Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.”

I will analyse this point by point. First: “Beware the irrational, however seductive.” Many religious fundamentalists ask me why I won’t believe what they do because if I did I would get eternal life. That idea is irrational but the idea of banishing death is certainly seductive. But believing something doesn’t make it true. If I believed in Santa should I expect lots of expensive gifts next Christmas? Believing something doesn’t make it true, it just makes the believer deluded.

Next: “Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others.” We should not enslave ourselves to any god, real or imagined. If a god actually existed and required humans to fully submit to his will I still wouldn’t be interested in worshipping him. The poor Christians who let their imaginary god and their churches think for them are truly pitiful.

Then: “Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish.” I think many people in the skeptical and atheist communities have been too “nice” in the past. They have been so careful when discussing their views that they have failed to say what they really believe. The new atheists, including Hitchens, have been far more open in what they say and this has, of course, lead to conflict.

I’m occasionally accused of being arrogant myself! I remember on one occasion discussing religion with an Anglican minister and being accused of being arrogant simply because I didn’t believe the same thing he did. I think we need to say what we really think without any regard for how it will be perceived – at least in most situations although I admit sometimes a more subtle strategy might be more effective.

Then: “Picture all experts as if they were mammals.” That one short sentence is important but can be easily misused. All experts are prone to errors. But this shouldn’t be extended and used as an excuse to reject facts. Even though the experts who support evolution and climate change are mammals they should still be believed because those mammals also have plenty of facts on their side!

Then: “Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity.” We can’t all spend our lives protesting or occupying Wall Street or being arrested over environmental activism but we should do what we can. We should always be prepared to do what’s right because there’s plenty of unfairness and stupidity out there.

Then: “Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence.” I love arguing (or to put it more politely debating) with people over the big issues even though many people think it’s a waste of time. But I agree that argument is good for it’s own sake, as long as it is about things that really matter.

Then: “Suspect your own motives, and all excuses.” If everyone followed this one rule most of the world’s problems would be solved. I so often see people criticise others for doing exactly what they do. And yes, I know I probably do this myself occasionally and I am aware of which of my beliefs are weakest. One of the reason I engage in debates is to test them and I have changed my mind on some subjects in the past – a phenomenon I have never seen in a fundamentalist of conservative.

Finally: “Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.” We do live in connected social communities and we do need to consider other people in how we live but in the end we need to do what we think is personally right, not what anyone else tells us.

That’s it. One of the greatest quotes of all time, in my opinion. I think anyone who follows the deeper meaning behind this will be a good and worthwhile person. Thank you Hitch.

Fiordland is mostly wilderness and covered with dense forest and it has some of New Zealand’s best walking tracks, including the Milford and Kepler tracks. We aren’t into serious tramping but we did do a few shorter walks along these tracks and I got a few photos which I will post on the relevant sections of my web site when I get the chance.

The main walk involved a bus trip from Te Anau to a small harbour half way up the lake, followed by a boat trip to the head of the lake where the Milford Track begins. The track is about 50 kilometers long and usually takes 3 days to complete but we just walked a couple of hours up the valley and didn’t get as far as the big climb up to the pass and out to Milford Sound on the other side.

I walked the whole track many (and I mean many, like about 40) years ago but it is hard to remember what the experience was like so it was good to have a small reminder of it. Of course, I would have loved to have got up the pass for the awesome views and gone down to Sutherland Falls on the other side (one of the tallest waterfalls in the world) but that will have to wait for another occasion.

The main purpose of the visit was to catch up with the rest of the family and to celebrate my brother’s 50th birthday. So we had 18 family members for meals and other events including a rather pleasant al fresco dinner at an Italian restaurant where we enjoyed some good New Zealand wines in the sunshine until quite late.

I can write this blog entry now instead of driving like I usually would because my daughter is driving. That has turned out to be quite useful and she is not too bad a driver. Good enough anyway that I feel reasonably secure sitting in the back typing on my iPad.

Yes, I took my iPad on holiday with me but it does get worse because I also took my iPhone and laptop, plus we had another iPhone, two other iPads and two other laptops there as well. I don’t think it’s bad using technology like that as long as it doesn’t keep you too much out of the sun enjoying the great outdoors. And knowing Fiordland it could just as easily have rained most of the time and then the technology would have been really welcome! As it happened I just used the laptop to process photos in the evening after we got back to the house.

So that’s by quick report on my summer holiday. Unfortunately the rest of my summer break is most likely going to be spent more on programming work than relaxing but that’s my fault for starting too many projects I guess!

There were various statistics presented in the report so I might just go through a few of them and comment on related matters of (I hope) interest.

According to the survey of 1000 people about a third think the Earth has been visited by aliens. So called “minority” groups such as Maori and Pacific people had a higher rate of belief than New Zealanders of European origin. I’m not sure what that means.

There’s nothing too silly about believing in aliens. After all, just about every rational person thinks there is life elsewhere in the Universe, that life should lead to intelligence at least in some cases, and that some intelligent life must be far more advanced than us since our planet formed almost 10 billion years after the Big Bang.

The problem is that if aliens have visited Earth they have certainly acted strangely. They seem to have been very obvious to certain groups of people and kept themselves well hidden from others (for example, very few UFO reports come from astronomers). So even if we think aliens should exist I think it’s still safest to work on the interim hypothesis that they haven’t visited Earth.

The same survey found that 55 per cent believe that some people have psychic power, such as ESP. I guess a lot of popular culture does push the idea that psychic powers are real and few people have much familiarity with the real research (and even then there are a few results which seem to support the idea) so this level of belief isn’t a surprise.

Psychic powers in general would require new laws of physics because it’s hard to see how they could be accommodated within the current understanding of the Universe, but they aren’t completely impossible. However the requirement to change the well understood laws of physics to explain a phenomenon which has almost zero evidence for existence is not rational. So people who believe in psychic powers are very likely either ignorant or irrational. Still, the fact that those labels apply to only just over half our population is actually fairly good!

The fact that women (67%), older people (63%), and Maori (60%) are more likely to believe is probably best left alone. It’s hard to comment on a phenomenon like that without seeming sexist, ageist or racist!

So what about that ultimate question: Does God exist? In New Zealand 60% of the population believe in a “god or universal spirit”. It’s rather unfortunate that the “universal spirit” bit was added there because I don’t think anyone (myself included) really knows what that means. It can mean so many different things that it really means nothing so the whole statistic is almost useless.

That result is actually quite low, especially when the “universal spirit” stuff is included. Obviously genuine religious belief is low here and other recent statistics seem to indicate it is declining. Good news at last!

Related to this 80% think that Jesus was a real person and 57% believe in life after death. Belief in Jesus as a real person is yet another question which is open to interpretation. Obviously the Bible stories aren’t true, and no rational person would believe them, if only for the reason that the stories are contradictory!

So how close to the traditional portrayal of Jesus would a real historic figure have to be before we could say he actually was the person described in the Bible (because he really wasn’t described anywhere else, a suspicious fact in itself)? Would it be sufficient to have someone who vaguely fitted the description? Should we say the Bible gospels are “based on a true story” like some movies?

Regarding life after death. Maybe this is based on wishful thinking although it was interesting to note that older people believed in it less than younger! There has been real research in this area with some interesting results but the more solid studies which should reveal good evidence have all revealed nothing, a classic sign of a phenomenon which doesn’t exist.

Yet again men were more cynical and women more credulous regarding the existence of god (and don’t forget that rather poorly defined “universal spirit”). Obviously women are more open to poorly supported ideas. Is this good or bad? I will leave it to you to decide!

Finally the saddest statistic of all: a quarter of the participants in the survey believe that astrology can predict the future. Astrology is really rather silly and I’m a bit surprised that belief in it is that high. Still, I suppose it’s all those women pushing the rate up!

A recent OECD report highlighted the increasing unfairness in most societies and put the blame on modern economic policies. This is quite extraordinary from an organisation which has been associated with the economic mainstream in the past. There does seem to be a developing consensus that something must change (a point I’ve been making for years) and even the IMF has admitted the current system has gone too far.

New Zealand was once seen as a very egalitarian society but recently the gap between the rich and poor has increased here faster than most other countries. Between 1985 and 2008 this was particularly obvious. Of course this was triggered by the great 1984 economic experiment where neo-liberal economics was forced on the unsuspecting New Zealand public.

Predictably the current advocates of this ideology disagree that we have a problem. National and Act (the two right wing New Zealand parties) think we should stick with the same policies, but more of them! Yes, the policies which got us into the mess are what we need to get out of it, apparently. I think few people would agree with this analysis now.

The OECD report totally rejects the famous “trickle down” theory which claims that more money going to the rich also results in increased wealth for the poor. How anyone could believe such nonsense is almost incomprehensible but now we have official confirmation that it’s a lie, or worse maybe, a wrong but sincerely held belief of the neo-liberal camp.

It’s interesting to listen to our politicians discuss the subject. They just spout a load of unsubstantiated propaganda. Why do the interviewers let them away with this stuff? Still, at least Peters, Dunne and Banks commented. The finance minister didn’t even bother. I can imagine his thoughts on this: we’ve decided what we want to believe, please don’t bother us with the facts!

So I think it’s beyond doubt now that the economic theories most countries base their politics on lead to greater inequality, unemployment, worsening conditions, and social unrest. The question is this: would we be even worse off following a more interventionist Keynesian approach and is having distinct economic classes like this necessarily a bad thing?

Some people say the rich deserve what they have. They say they work hard for their money. But how do they know that? Many assume that if someone is rich they must have worked hard and they assume that if someone works hard they will get rich. It’s just worthless nonsense. In general (and this is a generalisation which there are exceptions for) the rich are rich because they are self centered and greedy and they have found a way to exploit society for their own benefit.

I say tax the rich hard (if they make over $250,000 tax them at 80%) Most people with extreme wealth say they don’t do it for the money anyway, and many are actually asking to be taxed more. Let’s give them their wish! If they don’t like it they can leave, because we don’t want them anyway.

Interventionist economics can be taken too far. Most people would say it had gone too far in New Zealand before the 1984 “revolution”, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good approach if used more sensibly. Correcting one extreme economic situation by going even more extreme in the opposite direction isn’t a valid approach. Interventionism is really the only sensible solution but it must be used correctly.

When the so-called “markets” are allowed to rule we just end up with a very efficient system to do nothing of any value. We get people making a fortune by trading non-existent financial packages and manipulating markets and whole economies for their own benefit, while other people who are doing scientific research, trying to find a cure for diseases, and producing great art have no money to produce genuinely worthwhile outcomes.

We get real progress when long-term research, good education, and social equality are allowed to flourish. For that we need guidance from some entity which has real values beyond simple greed. Unfortunately that generally means governments, which have their own problems, but they are the best we have.

We need a revolution in how society works but that can’t happen quickly. Until that revolution happens (and it will) we need to re-align our current systems. We need to re-distribute the wealth. Yes, that is what the OECD said. We do need to tax the rich and tax them hard. But we should be careful with what we use that extra tax income for. It should go to truly useful education, health, technology, and scientific projects, because they are the only route to real progress.

This syndrome results from the idea that if anyone is going to do something which itself is bad then it might as well be me who does it. For example, if a resource, such as fish, is being overexploited then eventually the last fish will be taken. If that is going to happen anyway then I might as well be the person to take that last fish before anyone else does, since the end result is the same.

The same applies to many environmental and social phenomena, such as global warming, war, and exploitation of any natural resource.

What did the person think as he cut down the last tree on Easter Island, for example? He must have known that it meant disaster in the long term but he did it anyway. But since someone else was going to do it if he didn’t it was actually entirely sensible for that person to do it, just like it’s entirely sensible for individual countries to continue to pollute the atmosphere or decimate non-renewable resources because other countries would do the same thing if they didn’t.

It’s a classic case of the “prisoner’s dilemma” where a prisoner must either inform on his fellow prisoner or not, but where the punishment he receives depends on both his and his fellow’s actions. If neither informs there are few negative consequences, but if one does and the other doesn’t the informer gets off free but the person informed on has a harsh punishment. The best response is to stay silent as long as the other person also says nothing but that risks receiving the worst punishment if the other person does say something against you.

This phenomenon relies on individuals acting independently and exhibiting no collective wisdom and, as I said above, it’s the basic cause of many of the world’s problems. Why should a fishing company avoid overfishing and why should a forestry company log sustainably when they know that their competitor might not follow the same rules? Competition is usually touted as the solution to all of our problems but (although I admit it can produce good outcomes) the reality is that it actually the cause of most of them.

It’s a difficult problem to solve because being greedy and acting in what seems like an illogical and immoral way is actually the only sensible approach in these situations. It is actually entirely rational to act that way in a competitive environment where trust is uncertain. The prisoners’ should both betray their partner and individual countries or companies should act in the most self-serving way possible even though the final outcome for both will be worse.

The best solution is to remove the environment where these rules apply. We should base our economic and political systems more on cooperation than competition or we should introduce a higher authority than simple market pressures and have extremely strong controls in place to prevent individual behaviour being detrimental to the long term future of the majority.

That has been contrary to accepted wisdom for many years. But current economic dogma is increasingly obviously a failure. The outcome of neo-liberal economic strategies is clear both through the predictions of gaming theory and the actual observations of what is happening in the world. We should start making the necessary changes now rather than waiting for them to be forced on us. Do we want the whole world to end up like Easter Island?

First I want to mention a materials scientist who was being interviewed in a podcast who claimed the atomic number of iron was 56 and that it had an odd number of electrons. I’m a computer consultant/programmer and have only a passing interest in chemistry but even I know the atomic weight of iron is (approximately) 56 and that it’s atomic number is actually 26. Also, last time I checked, 26 is an even number, not odd!

I guess it’s easy to say something in a pressure situation like a public interview that you would know is wrong if you thought about it in a more relaxed situation but I hear this sort of stuff all the time. Many of the computer technology commentators I hear interviewed for example say some really interesting stuff. The basic knowledge of the public regarding sci-tech is poor enough already without them being mislead by “experts”.

But why is the basic knowledge of science and technology so poor? Maybe it’s because the teaching of the subject is also poor. Here’s a few interesting stories from that school I mentioned above…

The ICT (information and communications technology) teacher uses Netscape Navigator as her web browser. According to Wikipedia (I wonder if she’s heard of that) the final release of Navigator was in 2007. And yes, it does matter, because the web is a very quickly evolving environment where browsers need to be constantly improved to keep up with new standards such as HTML5.

I have also heard in that class that the teacher is just as often the pupil because the more IT literate members of the class often have to show her how to do things. Sure, it’s tough trying to keep up with the latest in an area like IT but you would think a teacher might be able to do a bit better than that!

In the same school I have been told that the class was told by their social studies teacher that global warming is all made up. Luckily a lot of the class hold the teachers, and the school in general, in such low regard that they didn’t take them too seriously, but this is not only incompetent it’s actually malicious. Most global warming deniers have moved on from denying it is happening to denying that humans caused it. Maybe this clown hasn’t caught up with the latest dogma yet.

Again at this school (I have to say this is certainly not the best school in town but it’s not the worst either) there is a maths teacher who told his class that they would get detentions unless they learnt the New Zealand national anthem in Maori in a few days. This was just before the end of year exams when the students probably had more critical things to do. I don’t think he carried out the threat but I do wonder if anyone failed the exam because they learnt something totally useless instead.

Finally I want to recount another anecdote regarding ICT. During the end of year exam the computer systems were so badly set up that the exam had to be postponed. The computers took 30 minutes (I’m assured this is genuine but there may have been some exaggeration) to launch Word, and then the link to the internet failed. This was the PC lab and the Mac lab works better of course, but even so it does seem rather incompetent.

So these anecdotes indicate some teachers are out of date, ignorant, malicious, politically motivated and incompetent. Of course, it is easy to present any organisation in a bad light if you just list the bad points and ignore the good, and I’m sure there are good points about this school, although I can’t think of any right now. I am also sure that I could make any organisation look bad by listing incidents like this (I certainly could for one place in particular which I won’t name here).

You might think that a libertarian agenda of performance based pay and personality tests for new teachers might help in these situations but I don’t think so. The problem with paying on performance is the definition of that word. It often gets back to who is the best at filling out the paper work and who is most skilled at petty office politics rather than who is genuinely the best at their actual core job (teaching rather than filling in forms) so I have no confidence in that process. And the idea of requiring a personality test is frankly quite scary. I dread to think what sort of mindless automatons are likely to arise from a system like that.

So whatever the education system’s deficiencies might be I think it could be worse. The fact is half of the teachers we have are below average, but doesn’t that apply to everyone?

New Zealand First provided the biggest surprise by getting 6.8% of the vote. So Winston Peters has done it again despite John Key’s best efforts to discredit him. And it’s good to see Winston back in parliament. No matter what else you think of him, he is a real character, plus he actually has some quite worthwhile policies.

Act failed miserably. Despite gaining one seat through the rather unsavoury agreement between them and National, which effectively meant Act only existed because National let them. The Act leader, Don Brash, resigned as leader and perhaps this time he might finally realise that not only is he just not the right type of person for politics but his far right policies are just not wanted by the voting public.

The Greens exceeded their target of 10% (compare that with the opposite extreme of the political spectrum where Act aimed at 10 and got 1) and it looks like they might become a genuine long-term option in the future.

The Maori Party suffered the almost inevitable fate of small parties who get too friendly with a bigger one and lost a lot of support. Why they would ever have entertained the idea of teaming up with National is beyond me. Do they really want to commit political suicide?

So National superficially seem to have a mandate for their agenda of right wing privatisations and nasty social changes. But they don’t really. Many polls show the people of New Zealand don’t want asset sales, and the pathetic turnout (for New Zealand) of under 70% of eligible voters hardly represents a real mandate.

It’s rather depressing that so many people didn’t vote (over one million which is a lot for a small country) even though I can see why. Many on the right would have assumed a victory so perhaps not voting seemed OK. And the left equally assumed a defeat and might not have voted for that reason. But under MMP no battle is ever lost and everyone should have voted. If everyone had voted the right would probably not have the power they do now.

It seems to me that people didn’t vote for National or for right oriented policies, they voted for John Key. For some reason people really like him. Actually I did when he first became our prime minister too but I was astute enough to soon realise that appearances can be deceptive.

Phil Goff in comparison just didn’t really connect with the public and it didn’t really matter who had the better policies because that’s just not what people were voting on.

National also had the advantage of experiencing some bad luck during their time in power. First there was the continuing global financial crisis then the Christchurch earthquakes. Even though they were average at best in how they handled those that was enough.

So we had a low turnout and even the people who did vote probably voted for poor reasons. It looks like democracy fails again!