Urtica Ferox

  Are You a Garbled Environmentalist? God the Father. Attributed to  Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano , c. 1515,   The Courtauld Institute of Art. Meet Jason. Jason is a thoroughly modern, well-educated young man. He dabbled with agnosticism at school but is now a confirmed atheist and will only (reluctantly) enter a church for weddings and funerals. He cares about the environment, especially biodiversity, and sometimes lies awake at night worrying about the ever-expanding Red List of Threatened Species. He is involved with a local volunteer group that tackles invasive species, and he strives to save indigenous species, planting only endemic trees in his well-kept town garden. Living in New Zealand he is proud of his clean, green country, and, like any decent person, he welcomes new immigrants. Jason is so convinced of the moral rectitude of his position that he believes he could hold his own in any argument. Is he correct? An important part of Jason’s atheism is his belief in Darw

  Yet Another Good Reason for Cancelling Robots As posted on Breitbart: "Facebook users who watched a video from a British newspaper showing black men received an automated prompt from the social media platform  asking  if they wanted to “keep seeing videos about Primates,” according to the  New York Times. " This embarrassing incident just shows how completely inept artificial intelligence is, yet it's rapidly taking over the world, in everything from internet searches to approving bank loans. "Down with the robots", I say. Isaac Asimov saw all this coming back in the 1940s, and Dr Smith had the right idea in the 1960s.  Read more . Harry Wiren

  Is This Misinformation? The Official Covid instructions to New Zealanders for behaviours at Alert Level 3, as at 6 September 2021): The instructions given by the New Zealand Herald , our largest newspaper, at Alert Level 3, as at 6 September 2021): Notice the difference? The official Government statement specifies those areas where “you legally must wear a face covering”, and they don’t say anything about when you are outside. But the New Zealand Herald statement says, “Wear a mask and maintain social distancing of 2m if you go outside”. So there will be people who read one version, marching around the streets with face masks, glaring at those not wearing them, and people not wearing masks thinking mask wearers are virtue-signalling wankers.   What better way to create social division. Harry Wiren      

  The Cultural Relativist's Dilemma: You End up Speaking Nonsense We ought to respect other cultures and the way they do things, even if they are vastly different from the way we behave. Anyone questioning this assumption would be condemned as a racist, and would be cancelled in whatever form was appropriate to their position. In this article, published in  Philosophy Now (and linked with permission) ,  Dr Ray Prebble not only questions whether this idea makes sense, but argues that it is in fact deeply immoral.  Read more.

  Symbolic D isplays of  the Knee-on-Neck Chokehold Must Stop Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats display the knee-on-neck chokehold. Note the added technique of pinning the arm back, displayed by the unidentified man behind Pelosi  There was widespread belief after the death of George Floyd in 2020 that the knee-on-neck chokehold is simply too dangerous to use, given the horrific results of its over-zealous application. There were many calls for its use to be abandoned, and it was hoped that, with time, the world could come to terms with (but never forget) this appalling incident. Instead, grotesque symbolic use of it has become hugely popular, especially with politicians and sportspeople. The entire team in a Berlin football club display the symbolic knee-on-neck chokehold These displays of violent oppression must stop. It is bad enough that a man died in front of a shocked world, but to continue to symbolically re-enact the event in highly public displays is arguably much worse. These

  Do You Need to Worry about Rising Sea Levels? People are getting very worried about rising sea levels. Local governments are discussing “planned retreat” for coastal settlements, and owners of beach houses are worried about losing insurance cover and ending up with million-dollar views they can’t sell. Do you need to panic? Here’s a few things to consider. The sea level has been rising in New Zealand, where I live, at an average of 1.8 mm per year over the last 120 years. That’s close to the global average. To picture that amount clearly, it’s about the width of a grain of rice every year. Next time you’re at the beach, watching the waves crashing onto the shore, think about a grain of rice.   “Oh,” you say, “but it all adds up. My father’s friend, Jed, says the sea is coming up all around his beach house, and he says it wasn’t like that 30 years ago.” It’s very nasty to experience the sea’s inevitable encroachment, but let’s remain calm and focus. Thirty years at 1.8 mm