let me save you from ever having to watch question and answers ever again with my handy template.
first off the panellists...
2 politicos, 1 government, 1 opposition. no programme is complete without the input of these gods of the irish nation. in fact they are so important that when the dail closes for a nice long summer break apparently politics stops cause the programme also goes on holidays
3 commentators. now a note on this, these tend to be members of a lobby group that get invited on when their particular hobby horse gets an airing.
if you happen to be a lobbyist you can get your hobby horse onto qanda on a slow news week by releasing a study or survey with preferably shocking finding. or so you will say, if they're not actually shocking muster some outrage and appeal to the damage it will do to (godsend to busybodies everywhere) that
usefully vague but positive word society. with statistics, something like 70% of teenagers said they know how to get heroin or that 9 out of 10 cats do not prefer whiskers, good and shocking
at least one of these commentators will undoubtedly be independent (relatively speaking in that they're not pushing a particular agenda today) these tend to do awkward things like pointing out the stupidity of your plan. just ignore them nobody will notice.
now the show goes like this......generally 3 questions are asked and ''answered''. brush up on these or better yet forget them completely, makes it easier on your eyes as theres no need to roll them in utter contempt as often.
audience member kicks it all off by asking a question..... surprise.
government minister. blah blah...we have spent 400 million euro (tap table for emphasis)...blah blah (more statistics) blah.
opposition guy. blah blah...waste...blah...when we were in government...blah blah blah.
lobbyist. blah blah... if we value our society... blah blah blah... more funding (never more money far too crass)... blah.
now repeat for all subsequent questions and shows. if you are none the wiser and have gained no insight about any of the topics, that's ok that's not what qanda is about. it's really just an avenue for propaganda, despite appearances no actual discussion took place, you just thought that's what happened what with all the talking and raised voices and emotion.
if you have actually learned something then something has gone wrong with someones spiel. or there was a really awkward panellist on.
Saturday, June 23
the form of a discussion rather than actual discussion
i caught a bit of saturday view today and it just confirmed to me the reason why i don't listen to or watch political shows anymore. they basically only have the form of a debate, people sitting around together talking about issues of the day but unlike an actual debate there's no real information exchanged or real understanding of the views proffered.
the reason is the stupidity of the topics and the essentially talking head nature of the programmes by which i mean the tendency (it seems to me) of the participants to simply take turns to make speeches and not to actually have a debate. the discussion on these shows tends to be full of meaningless phrases and buzzwords which have very little meaning and convey no information and result in no actual argument but a kind of argument by label, i.e whether these phrases/buzzwords have a positive or negative connotations to the audience. the use of vaguely defined words or words that have an ambiguous meaning result in either misunderstandings or pretty meaningless answers.
that happens most with questions and answers where basically various interest groups and politico's get 3/4 of an hour to deliver un-illuminating propaganda. i'll do a separate post about that programme.
anyway back to saturday view and the very first question sets the tone....
they are not built as that word is usually used which implies working from a plan to get to a specific outcome. it's this kind of sloppy use of language which deludes all kinds of social engineers into thinking that with just enough legislation and spending that they can change the ''plan'' and build a better (as defined by themselves) society, economy or whatever.
take the examples above.... society, economy and some of the words used later in the show like quality of life, social cohesion, celebrating diversity. what the fuck do these mean exactly to people who used them? using words that have ambiguous meaning just results in other people not understanding exactly or even generally what you are saying. how the fuck can you have a discussion like that? what's the point of listening to a show like that?
take ''debates'' on immigration for example. celebrating diversity means what exactly? what actions does that entail? or the option usually expressed in opposition to that assimilation. assimilate to what exactly? what are the values that immigrants should have gained so that they may be deemed assimilated? who decides what these values are? but all you get on these shows are people bandying about these terms as though these terms had not only a very definite meaning but that also the audience knows them.
totally fucking pointless waste of time.
sorry about the ranting nature of the post
the reason is the stupidity of the topics and the essentially talking head nature of the programmes by which i mean the tendency (it seems to me) of the participants to simply take turns to make speeches and not to actually have a debate. the discussion on these shows tends to be full of meaningless phrases and buzzwords which have very little meaning and convey no information and result in no actual argument but a kind of argument by label, i.e whether these phrases/buzzwords have a positive or negative connotations to the audience. the use of vaguely defined words or words that have an ambiguous meaning result in either misunderstandings or pretty meaningless answers.
that happens most with questions and answers where basically various interest groups and politico's get 3/4 of an hour to deliver un-illuminating propaganda. i'll do a separate post about that programme.
anyway back to saturday view and the very first question sets the tone....
is there a fear now that we are building more of an economy than a society ?what i'd like to know if anyone has heard of a false dilemma? why is it asked as if the two were mutually exclusive? also the inherently vapid nature of the question renders the resultant answers both vague and pointless. first off we build neither an economy or a society, as both are the name we give to the emergent outcomes of the interactions between people.
they are not built as that word is usually used which implies working from a plan to get to a specific outcome. it's this kind of sloppy use of language which deludes all kinds of social engineers into thinking that with just enough legislation and spending that they can change the ''plan'' and build a better (as defined by themselves) society, economy or whatever.
take the examples above.... society, economy and some of the words used later in the show like quality of life, social cohesion, celebrating diversity. what the fuck do these mean exactly to people who used them? using words that have ambiguous meaning just results in other people not understanding exactly or even generally what you are saying. how the fuck can you have a discussion like that? what's the point of listening to a show like that?
take ''debates'' on immigration for example. celebrating diversity means what exactly? what actions does that entail? or the option usually expressed in opposition to that assimilation. assimilate to what exactly? what are the values that immigrants should have gained so that they may be deemed assimilated? who decides what these values are? but all you get on these shows are people bandying about these terms as though these terms had not only a very definite meaning but that also the audience knows them.
totally fucking pointless waste of time.
sorry about the ranting nature of the post
Sunday, June 17
bloody flies
a freaking fly just committed suicide in my cup of tea. and a cup of the good stuff too, well the more expensive stuff at least. incredibly disappointing.
fudge it: part II, or do-gooders propose a stupid idea
this from the IT about the first ''national seminar on taxation, health and tobacco''(1)
if we were to follow the logical stupidity of Ash Ireland in say, measures against climate change , we could remove CO2 from the list of greenhouse gases. this would allow us to pump out as much CO2 as we liked and it wouldn't affect the climate. if we say it doesn't have any effect then it doesn't have any effect!! wooo hooo!!!.
what a bunch of assholes.
now for rhetorical sleight of hand...
(1) a national seminar, makes it sound official and wide ranging, however it's not exactly non partisan...
Ash Ireland is campaigning for the Government to follow other European countries and remove tobacco products from the basket of items which are used to measure the CPI.
Ash argues that if tobacco products can be removed from the CPI - as has been done in other EU countries - the Government will have greater flexibility to increase tobacco prices because related inflation increase will not be an issue.
i wrote about this before removing tobacco (or anything else) from the CPI means that any tax increase will have no effect only on the reported inflation rate not on the actual inflation rate. the whole point of a CPI is to attempt to give the central bank and government some information on the actual inflation. so this idea is immensely stupid.
if we were to follow the logical stupidity of Ash Ireland in say, measures against climate change , we could remove CO2 from the list of greenhouse gases. this would allow us to pump out as much CO2 as we liked and it wouldn't affect the climate. if we say it doesn't have any effect then it doesn't have any effect!! wooo hooo!!!.
what a bunch of assholes.
now for rhetorical sleight of hand...
Ash Ireland chairman Professor Luke Clancy said raising tax on tobacco would be easy to administer, easy to justify on public health grounds and would guarantee an increased tax take while reducing consumptionpublic health grounds used to refer to dangers that were a public danger, in other words that affect anyone involuntarily like communicable diseases. now apparently it means anything that affects the health of an individual member of the public even if it can't affect anyone else.
(emphasis is mine) good to see social engineering and manipulation is still around to make sure we make the right choices(2)"It is important for the Government to remove tobacco from CPI if they are serious about tobacco control and the denormalization of smoking," he said.
(1) a national seminar, makes it sound official and wide ranging, however it's not exactly non partisan...
The event was organised by Ash Ireland in conjunction with The Irish Cancer Society, Irish Heart Foundation and the Research Institute for a Tobacco Free Society.(2)the right choice is whatever do-gooders tell you it is, not what you think it is. just thought i'd clear that up for you.
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