Interesting stuff

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Blowin started the topic in Friday, 21 Jun 2019 at 8:01am

Have it cunts

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blowfly Friday, 10 Jul 2020 at 3:23pm

"Yes some would like to lump Hom sapiens and Homo Neanderthals in to the same species, but they havent been they are still regarded as difference species."

The concept of a species is a human attempt to define nature.....and not a very succesful one. By the most common definition, organisms able to produce fertile offspring, H. Sapiens and H. Neanderthalensis would be members of the same species as the DNA evidence is clear that they did produce fertile offspring. Unfortunately for that idea, there many clades in which different "species" regularly produce fertile offspring. So the discussion comes down to sematics and convenience. The word "human" is most regularly used in evolutionary terms to refer to all members of the genus Homo, so by that usage, not only are Neanderthals human, but so are the other species in the genus which, depending on how you classify them (an area of much disagreement) could be anywhere up about 10.
It is easy to find materials online that argue the case for or against the Neaderthals status, but it is completely meaningless in terms of the biology since we already know our exact degree of relatedness to them, and that is all that really matters. By all means place them in another species if you like but it does not change the fact that they were the closest population to us, shared many of our features and had a culture similar to early H. sapiens. The once wide spread idea that their cognitive capacities were much less than our own is also getting harder and harder to justify as more detailed evidence of the sophisticated nature of their culture emerges. So, not as simple as you thought Indo.

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Pops Friday, 10 Jul 2020 at 3:29pm

BB, would you agree that whether various members of the homo genus are to be considered "human" would be more of a philosophical question than a biological one? Similar to the question of what should/shouldn't be considered as a "person"?

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blowfly Friday, 10 Jul 2020 at 4:14pm

I think you can consider it from any number of angles Pops since it is only semantics. People will take different positions in regard to their personal views. For me, I would advocate for it to be used for the whole genus since the degree of relatedness between the species is so close. If the usual standards of genetic classification were applied we would have to also include chimpanzees and gorillas in the same genus. This does tend to upset some people so I don't think we need to be dogmatic about it. At the same time though, I think it would be a good sign if it could be accepted as it would demonstrate a greater awareness of what we actually are and just how much of our behaviour derives directly from our primate ancestry. The exceptionalism claimed by religions for humans, in the narrowest sense, lacks supporting evidence and prevents realistic analysis of our individual and collective behaviour.

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indo-dreaming Friday, 10 Jul 2020 at 4:26pm

ha ha if i knew this would have been the outcome i would have just said Homo sapiens instead of humans in my mock up story.

Never thought of it before but i guess Humans is just a common word that could be a little fuzzy to its true meaning, i always thought it just mean Homo sapiens but can it also cover other Homo species?

I have a decent knowledge of plants (well topical plants) i always try to use latin names instead of common names, common names can be confusing, guess its the same with what human actually means :D

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JQ Friday, 10 Jul 2020 at 6:26pm
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indo-dreaming Sunday, 12 Jul 2020 at 8:58am

Me?

Im not sure what your point is of tagging me?

Is it because it's being planned to be manufactured in Australia?

Up to them how much profit they want to make, I'm sure a very similar thing will (or probably already) be made elsewhere cheaper.

Says it's a couple of years from being commercial manufactured, if similar things aren't already made in Asia by then you can bet they will be.

Doesn't really seem that impressive anyway, you can already buy super flexible thin panels mate was showing me some the other day he bought for camping.

Apparently solar paint has already been developed too.

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GuySmiley Sunday, 12 Jul 2020 at 9:57am

CSIRO were well advanced on paintable solar panels until Abbott took an axe to their funding .... way better to trust an invisible sky guy that science

But it works Indo making it easier to transition to renewables now

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udo Tuesday, 14 Jul 2020 at 8:18am

Over 40 yrs of age history of high cholesterol
Get those arteries scanned
Gyngell is a lucky fellow....Heart attack after training / no major symptoms just felt off....Hospitalised - stented x2.

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factotum Tuesday, 14 Jul 2020 at 8:20am

Next up, Nine's current chairman?

Hang on...you need to have a heart...

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udo Thursday, 16 Jul 2020 at 8:32pm

Hey Zen, David Farnell has passed away..Father of Baby Gammy
Good ...im glad filthy fucking PeD

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zenagain Friday, 17 Jul 2020 at 12:20am

I'm not understanding Udo?

Why the hell would I care?

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factotum Friday, 17 Jul 2020 at 12:32am

2GB/ACA fever

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factotum Friday, 17 Jul 2020 at 12:56pm
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sypkan Friday, 17 Jul 2020 at 2:55pm

"...DiAngelo has convinced university administrators, corporate human-resources offices, and no small part of the reading public that white Americans must embark on a self-critical project of looking inward to examine and work against racist biases that many have barely known they had.

I am not convinced. Rather, I have learned that one of America’s favorite advice books of the moment is actually a racist tract. Despite the sincere intentions of its author, the book diminishes Black people in the name of dignifying us. This is unintentional, of course, like the racism DiAngelo sees in all whites. Still, the book is pernicious because of the authority that its author has been granted over the way innocent readers think."

"..DiAngelo also writes as if certain shibboleths of the Black left—for instance, that all disparities between white and Black people are due to racism of some kind—represent the incontestable truth. This ideological bias is hardly unique to DiAngelo, and a reader could look past it, along with the other lapses in argumentation I have noted, if she offered some kind of higher wisdom. The problem is that White Fragility is the prayer book for what can only be described as a cult."

"...And herein is the real problem with White Fragility. DiAngelo does not see fit to address why all of this agonizing soul-searching is necessary to forging change in society. One might ask just how a people can be poised for making change when they have been taught that pretty much anything they say or think is racist and thus antithetical to the good. What end does all this self-mortification serve? Impatient with such questions, DiAngelo insists that “wanting to jump over the hard, personal work and get to ‘solutions’” is a “foundation of white fragility.” In other words, for DiAngelo, the whole point is the suffering. And note the scare quotes around solutions, as if wanting such a thing were somehow ridiculous.

A corollary question is why Black people need to be treated the way DiAngelo assumes we do. The very assumption is deeply condescending to all proud Black people. In my life, racism has affected me now and then at the margins, in very occasional social ways, but has had no effect on my access to societal resources; if anything, it has made them more available to me than they would have been otherwise. Nor should anyone dismiss me as a rara avis. Being middle class, upwardly mobile, and Black has been quite common during my existence since the mid-1960s, and to deny this is to assert that affirmative action for Black people did not work.

In 2020—as opposed to 1920—I neither need nor want anyone to muse on how whiteness privileges them over me. Nor do I need wider society to undergo teachings in how to be exquisitely sensitive about my feelings. I see no connection between DiAngelo’s brand of reeducation and vigorous, constructive activism in the real world on issues of import to the Black community. And I cannot imagine that any Black readers could willingly submit themselves to DiAngelo’s ideas while considering themselves adults of ordinary self-regard and strength. Few books about race have more openly infantilized Black people than this supposedly authoritative tome."

"...White Fragility is, in the end, a book about how to make certain educated white readers feel better about themselves. DiAngelo’s outlook rests upon a depiction of Black people as endlessly delicate poster children within this self-gratifying fantasy about how white America needs to think—or, better, stop thinking. Her answer to white fragility, in other words, entails an elaborate and pitilessly dehumanizing condescension toward Black people. The sad truth is that anyone falling under the sway of this blinkered, self-satisfied, punitive stunt of a primer has been taught, by a well-intentioned but tragically misguided pastor, how to be racist in a whole new way."

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blowfly Friday, 17 Jul 2020 at 3:02pm

DiAngelo has convinced university administrators, corporate human-resources offices, and no small part of the reading public that white Americans must embark on a self-critical project of looking inward to examine and work against racist biases that many have barely known they had."

So given the evidence that we all have implicit racist bias what are you advocating? That we ignore it because we are not as aware as we should be of its existence? Some take that approach to a cancer diagnosis. It doesn't end well for them and ignoring implicit racist bias will not end well for societies that pursue that path.

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sypkan Friday, 17 Jul 2020 at 3:12pm

Im advocating what that guy up there in the article is advocating, the black dude...

less guilt ridden cultish ideological dogma

counter productive obsessive compulsive divisive dogma

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factotum Friday, 17 Jul 2020 at 4:56pm

Sepp, good to see you taking up the scared fragile little weird white guy mantle from that old MIA clown, whatshisface!

Interesting stuff!

Yew!

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sypkan Friday, 17 Jul 2020 at 5:26pm

so nothing to say on the ins and outs of the article facisto?

no nuance? no rebuttal?

...nah, I didn't think so...

just months ago you were pushing DiAngelo's barrow (...is she seppo?...)

you wouldnt dare wanna talk out of turn I guess, ...it might expose your white fragility...

funny you mention ya mate, you were pretty quiet for a while there, I thought you must have been feeling 'cancelled', after all, even your guru chomsky came down on you

funny times

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Johknee Friday, 17 Jul 2020 at 10:29pm

“So given the evidence that we all have implicit racist bias what are you advocating? “

There’s significant disagreement as to what the IAT measures IF it measures anything at all. The ANU study is questionable, at best. The social psychologists that created the IAT have sold you a dud and basing policy on a dodgy, Freudian-like metric is a bad idea.

There’s a tonne of literature on the IAT. Here’s one paper to start you off

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=IAT+van+ravenzwa...

That paper is behind a paywall, unfortunately. But ‘resurchers’ only read abstracts!

Here are some other articles on it

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/identities/2017...

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2008/07-08/psychometric

No mention of the IAT’s reliability and/or validity when the ABC ran their story on the ANU study.

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blowfly Friday, 17 Jul 2020 at 8:03pm

"The social psychologists that created the IAT have sold you a dud and basing policy on a dodgy, Freudian-like metric is a bad idea."

Well that is the extreme end of one side of what is a complex issue. What is not at issue is the existence of racism itself. This can be in various forms: historical injustices whose consequences in terms of poverty and disadvantage have still not been addressed; explicitly racist organisations; explicitly racist individuals including some prone to acts of extreme violence; enablers of racism in the media; and outright deniers such as the one quoted above. If you are skeptical of the IAT, they provide a solid evidentiary base for action to reduce racism.

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Johknee Friday, 17 Jul 2020 at 11:41pm

I haven’t followed this thread so I’m ignorant as to where the conversation is at. My comment is related to the IAT; something I’m familiar with and have used/assessed.

“If you are skeptical of the IAT, they provide a solid evidentiary base for action to reduce racism.”

I’m not sure I understand your comment but, are you suggesting that the IAT allows us to identify those with an implicit bias I.e. ‘racists’?
Again, that is untrue. As I said previously, there’s considerable uncertainty as to what the IAT measures and if it measures anything at all. IF it was a magical test that allowed us to identify implicit biases in individuals (‘racists’), there is very little evidence to support that those with an implicit bias, measured by this magical test, are likely to be explicitly racist i.e. this measure gives us an indication of how an individual will behave. That’s a big leap and it is often the inference made by those who use this test. This test does
not tell us that an individual or some population of people will commit hate crimes because of an unconscious bias toward group/people XYZ. It has also been used to explain (post-hoc) systemic racism.
Anyway, let’s assume it is a valid measure and we find that 75% of a population has prejudicial attitude toward another race (as per the ANU study) what are we to do? Educate them? But, if it’s an implicit bias, can we use explicit means to change unconscious biases? I’m hoping you can now see why I referred to Freud above. This is pseudoscience or bad science at best.

What is also concerning is that the IAT has been used (in the U.S of Anus) as a psychometric assessment tool in recruitment. An invalidated and unreliable test sold to HR departments (the authors sell the test to companies) as a means to screen out ‘racists’.

“Sorry, sir. You didn’t get the job because you’re implicitly prejudiced.”

“But, I had no idea that I hated XYZ people!”

“Well, sir, now you do. You’ll have plenty of time to educate yourself since you’re unemployed. Also, you should see a therapist about your Oedipus complex.“

The experimental psychology literature is full of studies covering the pitfalls of these types of choice tasks e.g. how they can be gamed, practice effects etc. You’d be hard pressed to find a subfield of psychology that emphasises robust methods and inference more than experimental psychology. These simple choice tasks are their bread and butter and they are sceptical about the IAT to say the least.

Anyway, I agree with the rest of your comment. I do not agree that decisions or inferences can and should be made based on results from the IAT.

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blowfly Saturday, 18 Jul 2020 at 9:47am

“If you are skeptical of the IAT, they provide a solid evidentiary base for action to reduce racism.”

Johknee, the "they" was referring to the other evidence of racism, not the IAT. I accept that the IAT is probably an unreliable way of assessing implicit bias in individuals. I am not so sure that this disproves the existence of implicit bias. I might have a look around for the evidence later.

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Westofthelake Friday, 31 Jul 2020 at 9:55pm

Honestly, just the cold hard no BS truth

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velocityjohnno Monday, 31 Aug 2020 at 3:33pm

Long ago in "Interesting Stuff" FR and Blowin had a bet of sorts on whether Australian coastal real estate would go down in this crisis. Quite a few of us might have thought 'please let it correct...' Well, as time passes we are beginning to get a few data points - relayed in articles at least:

https://www.domain.com.au/news/out-of-town-real-estate-along-the-surf-co...

and a general fleeing of cities is in people's minds:

https://www.domain.com.au/news/melbourne-lockdown-buyer-interest-spikes-...

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freeride76 Monday, 31 Aug 2020 at 3:43pm

my mate bought a house here in 2008, paid 520000 for it.
Sold it in 2016 for 725000.

It went on the market in July 2020 and sold 3 weeks later for 925000.

So, no drop around here. An acceleration of price increase, if anything, as people get the fcuk out of the cities.

Whats driving demand in the cities is what I want to know........there's no immigration and we are supposedly in a recession.

But those houses have to be sold before people can move up here.

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blowfly Monday, 31 Aug 2020 at 4:08pm

"Whats driving demand in the cities is what I want to know."

The stock market has been rising. Negative gearing is still in place and ...no the Sydney house doesn't have to be sold. Never under estimate how much money is floating around Sydney looking for a decent investment. The usual strategy is to keep the Sydney home as the place of residence. Let the north coast place. Watch them both appreciate, then sell the Sydney place tax free and move.

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freeride76 Monday, 31 Aug 2020 at 4:10pm

Cheers BB , wonder how much of that is going on

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DudeSweetDudeSweet Monday, 31 Aug 2020 at 4:18pm

Laundering Chinese black money.

It’s an Aussie real estate institution !

Seriously...I think first home buyers are stepping up with the access to super in combination with the fact that ASIC has given the green light to sub- prime mortgages to shore up the banks profitability and keep that Ponzi rollin’ on.......

“Shipton said that “there were a range of factors” that influenced ASIC’s decision not to seek special leave to appeal the case to the High Court.

“One of them was that we are in a very different economic environment than we were when we started this case,” he said. “The world has changed”…

[Shipton] noted that “what we do at ASIC is vitally important for the economy and the economic recovery. I want us to be a force for certainty, a force for the recovery.

“But making the decision not to go to the High Court [in the Westpac “wagyu and shiraz” case] the responsible lending laws are now settled…

“I have spoken to the chief executive of each and every large bank… All the feedback is that the law around responsible lending is now settled, now their [the bank’s] job is to make sure their credit systems and lending systems are working to get on and do it [provide credit]”.

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factotum Monday, 31 Aug 2020 at 7:35pm

Plagiarised from MacroBollocks, who themselves cut n pasted from the AFR.

With a bit of original Chi-na bigotry thrown in.

Blowie, sweetie, you always cease to amaze!

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Craig Tuesday, 27 Oct 2020 at 11:26am

Big no no no from me..

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by Matahi Drollet (@matahidrollet) on

 

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Hiccups Tuesday, 27 Oct 2020 at 11:48am

That's pretty impressive. But yeah, nah.

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Blowin Tuesday, 27 Oct 2020 at 1:50pm

That’s not very interesting.

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indo-dreaming Tuesday, 27 Oct 2020 at 4:33pm

Thats pretty crazy, but imagine going over the falls with a foil board.

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factotum Tuesday, 27 Oct 2020 at 5:49pm

Kook?

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factotum Tuesday, 27 Oct 2020 at 7:24pm

Kook!

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belly Wednesday, 28 Oct 2020 at 12:52pm

ABC west coast SA angle grinder article.

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factotum Wednesday, 28 Oct 2020 at 1:26pm

Hang about...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-28/south-australias-wild-west-surf-w...

...is this adding fuel to the fire?

And is my posting here??

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Blowin Wednesday, 28 Oct 2020 at 2:09pm

That sign would draw surfers like flys to shit. Every donkey with a board on their #Vanlyfe would probably have blithely driven past before that thing was put up and now they would be compelled to pull over and stink it up.

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GuySmiley Thursday, 29 Oct 2020 at 8:25pm

@zen

I'm a life long fan of Joni Mitchell. There are certain artists ....., anyway, if you are on instagram check out her 2nd last post where she is playing at the Cafe Au Go Go in 1967. There was someone there that night to hear her play you are likely to recognise .... :)

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zenagain Friday, 30 Oct 2020 at 9:16am

Not on Insta Guy but is it my Nubian Princess?

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GuySmiley Friday, 30 Oct 2020 at 11:58am

there you go @Zen the clip was also on youtube

Joni was 24 at this time but I digress ....

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zenagain Friday, 30 Oct 2020 at 12:47pm

Lovely Guy- I was but a glint in my fathers eye at an Easybeats concert in 1967.

My heart skipped a beat in the first 30 seconds of that clip.

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GuySmiley Friday, 30 Oct 2020 at 2:03pm

I was in primary school @Zen still to start to wonder what all the fuss was about .... who was that most unworthy man saddling up to her anyway? No way to treat a goddess

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Rabbits68 Saturday, 31 Oct 2020 at 12:47am

^^^^^

Blip

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udo Thursday, 19 Nov 2020 at 8:41pm

Calvin Klien Obsession scent - can it catch a Killer
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-45819780

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chook Friday, 20 Nov 2020 at 12:14pm

that's what happens when you put 14yo boys in charge of your tiger capturing program. i presume they have already given blue stratos a try, before moving on to obsession.

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zenagain Friday, 20 Nov 2020 at 12:36pm

Obsession doesn't work on Cougars, they're way too shrewd for that.

I heard the faint glint of a Platinum Amex is what you need to snare your Cougar.

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chook Friday, 20 Nov 2020 at 12:45pm

we could send over our crack team of australian seducers.
if only john mellion was still alive, beer in one hand, spittle on lower lip..."i suppose a root is out of the question?"

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zenagain Friday, 20 Nov 2020 at 12:51pm

We could send over our own Singing Siren, Mr. Gary G esq.