Four years of housing uncertainty. Thanks National.

Important to remember that on top of Chris Bishop's announcement this week of recommended changes to the Resource Management Act, unlikely you'd think to be passed before the next election (with all the uncertainty that that will generate), is his and his boss's other injection of uncertainty into housing — i.e., what the planners will and won't allow on a building site — with an admission, buried in a speech yesterday, that this uncertainty will persist until at least 2027!

Dan Brunskill spotted the admission tucked into the speech, calculating that "National's U-turn on the bipartisan accord caused a three-year delay to housing reform"! He explains:

In a speech to the Property Council summit in Auckland on Thursday, Bishop said "Going for Growth” and other reforms would only be bedded in “from 2027 or so onwards.” 

This delay follows the National Party’s decision to abandon a bipartisan housing agreement, called the MDRS (medium density residential standards), negotiated from the National side by Judith Collins and Nicola Willis in 2021.

At the time, Willis said Labour and National had come together “to say an emphatic ‘yes’ to housing in our backyards.” [And this gave every developer certainty.] 

But new party leader Christopher Luxon sided with his NIMBY caucus colleagues in the run-up to the 2023 election and forced [sic] Bishop to rush out an alternative policy after letting his opposition to the arrangement slip during a public meeting.

National’s new policy allowed councils to opt out of the denser housing rules, provided they zoned their cities for 30 years of growth "immediately" — but, almost two years later, not a single council has formally adopted the policy.

Bishop said on Thursday the finer details of the policy’s first phase were still being worked through by officials and local councils should be ready to implement them in 2027.

This is partly due to a “sequencing problem” as the Government is also planning to introduce an entirely new resource management regime towards the end of next year. ... 

Housing reform and the new resource management rules will be implemented as part of the 2027 Long Term Plan cycle [they hope], or roughly four years after Bishop backtracked on the MDRS.

Four fucking years! George Gregan would be proud.

Speaking of NIMBY numpties, here's Bishop's idiotic boss protesting a new apartment development on the site a of a decommissioned and abandoned mechanic's workshop:

'China's Trade Surpluses are Not a Source of Strength'

“'China believes it has a mandate to rule the world,' and that it is using trade balances to accomplish this. ... But, ultimately, Chinese trade surpluses [don’t] help ... '[Right up to] 1839 ... trade favoured the Chinese.' Little good it did them: China [eventually] experienced military humiliation, political and social disintegration, and an eventual descent into communism. ...
   "China’s 'strategy of generating massive trade surpluses [would] not have worked [when money was] backed by bullion ... the trade surpluses incurred by exporting more than its imports [would] have caused China’s currency to appreciate ... [making] Chinese manufactures more expensive and less attractive for outsourcing…'
   "'That never happened' ... because [without a gold standard] China [could devalue] its currency, harming its own people...' .... China’s currency manipulations have imposed costs on its citizens in terms of reduced real incomes. 

   "That isn’t all. The currency creation necessary to keep the yuan’s exchange rate with the dollar somewhat stable when new dollars are being produced at an impressive rate has helped fuel one of the biggest property bubbles in history [in both China and the US] .... [A] US deficit on the trade account must be offset with a surplus on the capital account ... [so] to maintain its export advantage was devious: it invested in the United States, 'buying US assets with US dollars ...The CCP today sits atop a $3 trillion hoard of assets, many of them American.' 

    "And, again, little good it did them. Holding significant stocks of depreciating US government debt isn’t, in fact, a source of strength. China cannot dump them to drive Federal borrowing costs up without tanking their value, which the Federal government is doing itself. As for those US assets, like farmland, it isn’t going anywhere, just like the buildings bought to much distress by the Japanese in the 1980s.
   "China’s government might well be running a trade surplus as a matter of policy. It may even be doing so with the aim of strengthening itself relative to geopolitical rivals like the United States. But ... it has tried this before [and] that same history indicates that the prospects for the government in Beijing are not good. Little good it did the Qing dynasty and little good will it do the Communist Party....

   "As Adam Smith observed in 'The Wealth of Nations,' mercantilism can enrich a few individuals but not entire countries – it detracts from, rather than adding to, the general welfare."

~ Composite quote from John Phelan, Kevin Roberts and Richard Fulmer from the post 'China's Trade Surpluses are Not a Source of Strength'

RMA REPLACEMENT: The good, the bad, and the cattle

Chris Bishop has finally announced his chosen groups' recommendations to replace the RMA.

There's a lot to think through, so here are my first thoughts on their recommendations ...

The good (or not-so bad)

• Property rights gets precisely zero mentions in the RMA, and even less recognition. Here in this report however its gets exactly 25 mentions — a decent number — the first appearing almost as point one, after talking about how the two new Acts would be split up, and even before a section on Te Tiriti [Contents]

• That same hierarchy appears to be reflected in the "Goals." Remembering in law that earlier stated paragraphs/sections/clauses take priority over those stated later, the hierarchy given here is: property rights > separation of incompatible land uses > well-functioning urban and rural areas .> development capacity > infrastructure > natural hazards and the effects of climate change > public access > Māori cultural matters. So if property rights were well-defined and well-protected, that might be sufficient. But see below for the devil ...
• The two replacement Acts (one for environment, one for central planning) are said to "both ... be based on the enjoyment of property rights" [emphasis in the original]. This is stated as "the guiding principle." Good.
• "Both Acts," says the recommendations, "will include starting presumptions that a land use is enabled, unless there are minor or more than minor effects on either the ability of others to use their own land." Good. The devil, of course, is in the detail of how those "effects" are defined, and by whom.
• The RMA was said to be "effects-based," and so are these two replacements. So prepare to be underwhelmed. Yet whereas the RMA looked at ill-defined and undefinable "effects" like "amenity values," "natural character" and "such as the architectural style or colour of a neighbour’s house," this seems to be somewhat more objective. Somewhat. (The problem here being these "externalities" that they talk about, about which see more below. And the all-but certain prospect of regulatory creep to protect "heritage" suburbs and areas of particular "character.")
• "Better recognising property rights," says the recommendations, "requires a more certain regulatory environment so people can know as far as possible what they can and can’t do with their land." The intention is good. 
• It looks like long-existing activities to which new neighbours chose to come (such as speedway at Western Springs, for example) will now be protected. "That is, those that come to the nuisance should not be able to complain about it." Great news, if that's properly done.
• Providing a low-cost tribunal to whom to object to a council's decision is good. (But may not stay low-cost.) And providing "for rapid, low-cost resolution of disputes between neighbours" also sounds good. And that's all that we do need. Maybe a kind of "Disputes Tribunal" or "Small-Consents Tribunal" staffed by experienced part-timers to adjudicate simple no-bullshit disputes about rights to light, to air, to support and so forth based on earlier precedent. In other words, much like an early common-law court ...

The bad (or not-so good)

• The so-called "Expert Advisory Group" delivering these recommendations was established only in September 2024, and given only three months until Christmas to do their job — giving, as they themselves say, only a "short time ... for what is a very substantial task." Given that National in both government and opposition have been talking about "reform" for decades, it seems almost impossible to believe that's when this work first began. And yet, there's no hint from either Bishop or Simon Court (his ACT associate) of any earlier thinking around this. Which would be incredible, right?
• So no wonder "Further detailed policy work will [still] be needed to fully develop our proposals and address outstanding issues and areas of detail." In other words, don't get excited yet. Details .. devil ... etc.
• The Planning Act's purpose is not "protection of property rights" (i.e., part of the very purpose of government); nor yet is it "allowing property owners to exercise the peaceful enjoyment of their property while recognising that same right in others" (i..e, a recognition of where right-based boundaries lie, rather than some subjective "balancing" of rights). So whatever the press releases say, it's not a bottom-up law based on property rights. Instead, the stated purpose is: "To establish a framework for planning and regulating the use, development and enjoyment of land." In other words, it's top-down planning. As will be the related Natural Environment Act.
• The RMA was said to be "effects-based," yet we see how well that turned out! These replacement Acts are also said to be effects-based, with the effects this time "regulated ... on the economic concept of externalities." [Executive Summary, Recommendations, 5b]
• externalities, however, are essentially an anti-concept, i.e., an unnecessary, approximate, and and rationally unusable term designed to replace and obliterate some legitimate concept (much like "stakeholders" or "opportunity cost" are also); in this case it's an economists' way to avoid talking about property rights. And the real cause of many “externalities” is generally that private property rights have not been adequately defined, nor sufficiently well protected! (For example, if property rights are well-defined and well-protected, a downstream landowner could sue in a court of law for an upstream farmer’s action in dirtying the waters.)
• the presumption of the proposed Planning Act
• While both replacement Acts are said to "be based on the enjoyment of property rights," these rights appear to come as  gifts from the state, subject to "approaches to regulation standardised at the national level" and requiring a "justification report" if the"approach" has any departure from that. [Executive Summary, Recommendations, 5c]. And the refusal to recognise or allow ownership of Crown "resources," but only a license, give little motivation to protect that resource, while limiting the ability of these limited license-holders to sue in common law if the resource is damaged by others.
• In a sense this whole thing is irrelevant, since the whole country will still be zoned anyway — zoned according to town planners' predilections, with their own additional "overlays," "areas" and "precincts."  So fewer zones, to be sure: but does it really matter how many principalities it takes to make up a whole kingdom — the fact is that you still have to make obeisance to a prince. (Note here that town planning (with its zones) has only been around here since 1928, and you'll notice that most of those in that alleged profession prefer to live in places built before then. Ever asked yourself why that is?)
• Whatever the headlines might say, the recommendations here still favour inclusion of a Treaty Clause. Less ill-defined than before, to be sure, listing what is said to be "relevant aspects of the statute enacted in light of Treaty obligations." But still there, poisoning all objective law. 
• One of the worst part of the present RMA is the scope given to objectors from anywhere to "submit" on a resource consent application to oppose/delay/kill it off. It's not only unjust, it's illegitimate — only those with standing, in a common-law sense, have the right to object to any "effects" on their property rights (hence the importance of well-defined and well-protected rights.)  That focus on proper standing would, on its own, limit objections to those with a right to mount one, and also kill off the potential for illegitimate objections by trade competitors. But I see nothing here to substantially change this situation. And they still explicitly allow for "public notification" of activities or effects along the lines of the existing Act.
• Providing "for rapid, low-cost resolution of disputes between neighbours" sounds good. So why involve councils at all in disputes between neighbours? (And you can complete the thought by realising that's the only common-sense part of any "planning application.")   Since these Acts still call for council, however, their halfway-house proposal of a "Planning Tribunal" to site between council and Environment Court might at least save some applicants some money. (Unless of course it becomes just another layer in an already lengthy process, or so popular and so necessary — and staffing of these "expert" bodies so difficult — that the delay in being heard becomes unconscionable.)
• Finally, one of the many uncertainties under the present RMA regime is the uncertainty faced by land-owners when "ancestral lands, water, sites, waahi tapu, and other taonga" no longer owned by iwi or hapu, but foisted on present land-owners on the basis of often non-objective oral histories or other unsubstantiated accounts. See for example Auckland's "Taniwha Tax," and other councils' "SASMs." The report nonetheless recommends "that future legislation should retain the existing RMA mechanisms for Māori participation and make further provision for Māori engagement." (The only improvement might be a recommendation for better record-keeping of the decision-making processes around these impositions.

The cattle

So they weren't given much time, and arguably in that short time came up with something better than decades of earlier meddlers and "taskforce" writers did. But who exactly wrote this report? 

We have, to list them all with their chosen "professions":

• an "environmental planner,"  
• an economist "with expertise in natural resource and environmental economics"
• a "resource management practitioner"
• the general manager of Tauranga City Council (infamous for their ill-named "Smart Growth" strategy that made the small city one of the least affordable in the country)
• and a "professional director" who chairs the kingitanga.

Nice. All folk who've made piles of money out of this ill-defined and poorly-written pile of excrement.

Chairing the group is a barrister, who's also made her career from that ever-giving trough labelled "resource management law." ( I was reminded again of Mencken's famous saying that All the extravagance and incompetence of our present Government is due, in the main, to lawyers, and, in part at least, to good ones. They are responsible for nine-tenths of the useless and vicious laws that now clutter the statute-books, and for all the evils that go with the vain attempt to enforce them. Every Federal judge is a lawyer. So are most Congressmen. Every invasion of the plain rights of the citizens has a lawyer behind it.")  

I looked in vain for someone in that list, anyone at all, who might be a business owner or developer who's had their balls in the planner's vice, or a land-owner begging for permission from these grey ones to use their own land. Not a hint of it. Just folk who've been making a killing over many years from their snouts being in that same trough. (There is one bureaucrat who's a policy chap from Federated Farmers — not a farmer although he grew up on one' —who's issued his own minority report essentially arguing for better definition and clarity, to limit the possibility of regulatory creep. )

So what to expect from that group?

To be fair, it's better than I'd expected.

But given how many decades it's taken to start turning this ship around, and this will be the one chance in all that time, it's not as good as it could be.

And there's still plenty of work to do (which is to say too much) for the various species these authors represent.

Furthermore, with the legislation not to be passed before the next election, I'd expect it only to get worse rather than any better. This, you'll realise, is the high point.

Here's the group's own table summarising their main recommendations:

NB: For a more mainstream view (some might say a "less-jaundiced" one) here are the initial reaction from planner Stu Donovan, who is focussed on affordable housing. And some short common-sense thoughts from Matt Prasad.

"You do not *understand* America.”

"The Declaration of Independence stated, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are create equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.' Note the phrasing 'all men' (in this context meaning 'all humanity'). This idea of universal human rights was later enshrined in the Constitution. The 14th Amendment guarantees due process to all people, not just citizens, and not just white people.
    "So if you are defending the idea of deporting people, or sending them off to some hell-hole in El Salvador, without a trial or any opportunity to defend themselves, then you do not love America. You do not understand America.”

~ Stewart Margolis from his post 'Let's Get Real'

Jeremy Clarkson v Elon Musk [updated]

Elon Musk (a sensitive wee chap) sued Jeremy Clarkson back in 2008 for a review of a Tesla. Clarkson won. Now, he's flipping the bird as well.

“The sudden pan-global decision to uncrowdfund Tesla and to break the door mirrors off as many of its cars as possible is not funny. But also, it’s kinda hilarious. Especially if you’re me. ...
    “Things are so bad that a friend of mine who was trying to save the world (and a few quid on the congestion charge) has now fitted a sticker to his Tesla saying he bought it before he knew Musk was an idiot ...
    "I said [in my review] it was unreliable, which it was; that it was ridiculously expensive, which it was; and that because it weighed more than most moons, it didn’t handle very well. Which it didn’t.
    "Musk was very angry about this and sued us for defamation, claiming I had a problem with electrical cars and had written the piece before even setting foot in the car.
    "He lost the case, and the appeal, and he’s never really got over it. He still claims I was biased and that we pretended his car had broken down when it hadn’t. Even though it had.
    "I should really have sued him back, but I feared he’d call me a paedo, so instead I just waited on the river bank for his body to float past. And now it has."

More background here:

UPDATE: 

"Tesla is being forced to change the name of its so-called 'Full Self-Driving' driver assistance feature in China.
As spotted by Electrek, the Elon Musk-led company is now going by the name "Intelligent Assisted Driving" in Chinese on its website. ...
    "The software itself appears to be suffering from some potentially dangerous flaws. Drivers had been testing the software — before it was paused — on public streets in China, racking up a huge number of fines. Chinese Tesla owners have found that the system is misinterpreting bike lanes as right turn lanes, running red lights, and hogging bus lanes illegally ...
    "The carmaker has already run afoul of regulators for its misleading naming convention — after all, as Tesla admits on its website, the "Full Self-Driving" feature doesn't make good on its promise of fully autonomous driving and requires drivers to be ready to take over at all times.
    "In 2022, the California DMV alleged that Tesla put out 'untrue or misleading' advertisements on its website in relation to its Full Self-Driving and Autopilot tech...
    "For almost a decade, Tesla has been marketing its driver assistance software using misleading language.
    'That's likely already had severe consequences. US regulators have linked the carmaker's software to hundreds of collisions and dozens of deaths, warning that Tesla's marketing is lulling its customers into a false sense of security."

To be clear, as one tester shows — whatever Musk tells the market to inflate Tesla's share price — the cars are neither self-driving nor autonomous. So be careful out there. [Main test section starts 8:10]

"Private property rights do not just protect us; they provide the strongest possible protection for the environment"

Cartoon by Nick Kim 

"The solution is simple: Don't tinker with the procedures for acquiring a Resource Consent. Don't tinker with the Environment Court. Don't 'recraft' the RMA. Don't 'streamline it, don't 'fix' or 'reform' it. 

    "Instead, drive a stake through its heart. [Draw up transitional measures] to reinstate the common law protections of property and environment -- and then get the hell out of the way."

          ~ me, writing 20 years ago in the NZ Herald

"New Zealand has had nearly a decade under the RMA, under planning legislation that abolishes property rights and provides no environmental protection...In doing so we have ignored eight centuries of common law that protects both.

~ me 23 years ago, writing on 'New Zealand's Persecuted Minority: Property Owners' 

"Protection of property rights is amongst the chief reasons for which governments are constituted, yet successive NZ governments over recent years have not only ignored your property rights, but have actively sought to remove them. ...

"New Zealanders who once themselves understood the crucial importance of property rights now seem bemused by their lack, until perhaps they themselves find they can’t build on their own property, can’t cut down their own trees, can’t use their property in ways they always have, or find that control of their property has been passed to someone else … and that someone carries a clip-board and must be called ‘Sir’ … and we must pay that person for the privilege of asking them permission to do what we want to on our own land.
It’s not right.

"Author Ayn Rand once observed that when the productive have to ask permission from the unproductive in order to produce, then you may know that your culture is doomed. Aren’t we there now?

The productive have been asking permission from the unproductive in order to produce … and you haven’t been getting it, have you. Not without a fight. Not without iwi consents. Not without a large legal bill, and several weeks months spent with a consultant.

"There is a litany of projects across the country – projects both large and small --that have never and will never get of the ground – permission having been sought at great time, energy and expense, and permission never having been granted. The number of large infrastructure projects completed in the last ten years can be counted on the fingers of one foot.

"[And there are uncountable small projects, things that you and I would have once attempted], that are just stillborn; never to be tried, as people realise that there’s no point in planning projects and paying for consultants and for permission that will never be granted.

"And there are people who have now realised that their land is no longer their own, since ownership means nothing when you must ask someone else’s permission in order to use that which you own.

"It’s not right.

"We’ve lost our property rights, and we’ve lost the understanding of why property rights are important. What we’re losing is part of our heritage: part of what made the West rich, and part of what protected our freedom, our liberty, and our lives.

...

"The need for a legal framework protecting property has been long ignored or taken for granted by economists and legal theorists of all stripes, but its importance is slowly being re-understood by contemporary thinkers. Tom Bethell’s landmark book 'The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity Through the Ages' traces successes and disasters of history consequent upon the respective recognition or denial of property through the ages: Ireland’s potato famine, the desertification of the Sahara, and the near-disastrous US colonies at Jamestown and Plymouth can all be traced to lack of respect for property.... 

"Bethell identifies four crucial blessings of property that can't easily be recognised in a society lacking the secure, decentralised, private ownership of goods. These are: liberty, justice, peace and prosperity. The argument of [his] book is that private property is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for these highly desirable social outcomes.

"Property rights then give us a firm place to stand deserving of legal protection — a Turangawaewae. Their full legal and constitutional protection is crucial, in order to ensure that their protection is not taken away by arbitrary legislative fiat, as has happened over recent years. ...

"The most glaring recent example of the destruction of property rights by legislative fiat is that of the Resource Management Act (RMA). In all the nearly five-hundred pages of the RMA there is not one reference to property rights — not one! — yet it is people’s property and their use of it with which the RMA deals directly. ...

"Private property rights do not just protect us; they provide the strongest possible protection for the environment, since owners with clearly defined and secure property rights have a strong incentive to care for their own land. Our property rights act like ‘mirrors,’ reflecting back on ourselves the consequences of our own actions.

"[Properly directed, as the common law was once allowed to,] they also give us the power to act as guardians against abuse by others — specific legal power to act against those who would damage the environmental values of our property.

"As property rights are eroded however, people become less willing to invest in good stewardship because they are uncertain as to where the benefits of their labours will finally accrue.

"Most damage to the environment is the result of ‘the tragedy of the commons’ whereby people are encouraged to ‘take the last fish’ or ‘cut down the last tree’ because if they don’t, then someone else will. Property rights solves the ‘tragedy of the commons’ by defining ‘whose tree’ it is, and by giving secure legal protection to those planning longer range by planting trees.

"As Hernando de Soto argues, property rights extend people’s time horizons by allowing them to plan longer-range rather than shorter. In jurisdictions in which property rights are not secure, he writes, it will be observed that people will build their furniture before they build their walls or their roof. The reason for this is that without the protection of property rights, such short-term action is rational: property in such a jurisdiction needs to be kept mobile as property cannot be kept secure. As property rights become more secure time horizons become longer, and planning can become longer range."

~ me, from a 2005 speech on property rights

RELATED:

• 'It's Time to Drive a Stake Through the Heart of the RMA' - Peter Cresswell (2004)
• The problem is not dirty dairying; it's still dirty government (2018)
• How the RMA continues to protect polluters (2015)
• Amy Adams’s meddling dirtier than the dairying (2014)
• The Common Law: How it Protects the Environment – Roger Meiners & Bruce Yandle
• Cue Card Libertarianism -- Common law (2013)
• Water Markets: Priming the Invisible Pump – Terry Anderson & Pamela Snyder, PERC REPORT
• Without Obstruction, Diversion or Corruption: The Power of Property Rights to Preserve Our Lakes and Rivers – Elizabeth Brubaker, ENVIRONMENT PROBE
• The role of property rights in protecting water quality - Environment Probe
• The state can't protect the environment – markets can – Fred Smith, NOT PC (2017)
• What would Party X do about the environment? Part 2: A Nuisance and a BOR – (2011)
• Environmental Water Markets: Restoring Streams Through Trade – Brandon Scarborough, PERC REPORT

"Kiwi Exodus"

The Economist has discovered all is not well down here in this sleepy authoritarian backwater.

From afar [says 'The Economist''s promo], New Zealand always seemed like an ideal destination. Beautiful nature, friendly people, relatively sane politics. And if you’re a fan of Tolkien, you can visit the film home of Bilbo Baggins.

But New Zealanders are leaving their country in record numbers. Almost 129,000 residents emigrated last year—40% above the pre-pandemic average for this century. Holy Shire, what’s going on?! Our report looks at why Kiwis are moving out, where they are going and how their government may struggle to reverse the trend.

It's not so much a "report," however. More just a few pessimistic paragraphs under the heading 'Kiwi Exodus' riffing on the failure of a lacklustre National Government to stop the rot...

New Zealanders ... are leaving their country in record numbers. Almost 129,000 residents emigrated last year—40% above the pre-pandemic average for this century. It is not a case of last in, first out. The majority of those leaving were New Zealanders, rather than immigrants returning home, creating a net loss of 47,000 citizens. ...

Its small economy and relative lack of opportunity have long driven young New Zealanders towards what they call the 'overseas experience,' fanning fears of brain drain. Proportionate to its population of 5.3m, it has one of the largest diasporas in the OECD ...

Recently, New Zealand has been in a rut. The economy is in recession and unemployment has risen. Outgoing Kiwis grumble about costly housing and a crime surge.
 
Unlike most, they have an alternative when times get tough: they are free to live and work in Australia, and vice versa. Almost 15% of them are now based across the ditch”. It is not just that Australia’s economy has weathered the cost-of-living crisis better. The income gap between the pair has been growing for decades. Adjusted for purchasing power, Australia’s per person GDP is about a third higher than New Zealand’s. Its pensions are more generous, and its centre-left Labor government has made it easier for Kiwis to get passports and benefits. By comparison, New Zealand is 'a sinking boat,' says one transplant on a Facebook group for Kiwi expats. Australia is 'best for [an] easy life,' writes another.

In the past, fears of brain drain have proved overblown. Young expats have generally returned, and governments have offset losses by letting in immigrants from countries such as India and China. The result was a 'brain exchange,' says Paul Spoonley, a sociologist at New Zealand’s Massey University. But there is a risk of that changing, he argues. First, he says, it is no longer just young New Zealanders who are leaving, but more experienced professionals and extended families. Second, inward immigration is now slowing. After a post-pandemic spike, it plunged by around a third last year, though the population is still growing. Christopher Luxon, the prime minister, says the solution is 'to build a long-term proposition where New Zealanders actually choose to stay.' But that has not proved easy. In 2009 John Key, then prime minister, set out to 'match Australia by 2025.' In Wellington, the capital, some now joke that a more realistic goal would be to 'beat Fiji by 2050.'

The 'World Happiness Report' Is a Sham

"The happiest countries in the world are in Scandinavia [according to the World Happiness Report]; this year, Finland is followed by Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden. [New Zealand is ranked 12th, between Australia and Switzerland.] America, despite being one of the richest large countries in the world, persistently underperforms: this year, the United States only comes in 24th out of the 147 countries covered in the report, placing it behind much poorer countries like Lithuania and Costa Rica.
    "I have to admit that I have been skeptical about this ranking ever since I first came across it ... while Scandinavian countries have a lot of great things going for them, they never struck me as pictures of joy. ...
    "So to honour the release of this year’s report, I finally decided to follow my hunch, and looked into the research on this topic more deeply. What I found was worse than I’d imagined. To put it politely, the World Happiness Report is beset with methodological problems. To put it bluntly, it is a sham. ...
    "In light of ... confident pronouncements [from media], and in the absence of any critical voices in most of these news stories, you might be forgiven for thinking that the report carefully assesses how happy each country in the world is according to a sophisticated methodology, one that likely involves both subjective and objective criteria. But upon closer examination, it turns out that the World Happiness Report is not based on any major research effort; far from measuring how happy people are with some sophisticated mix of indicators, it simply compiles answers to a single question, asked to comparatively small samples of people in each country ... [which] does not even do a good job of measuring respondents’ satisfaction with their own lives. ...
    "But perhaps the biggest problem with the World Happiness Report is that metrics of self-reported life satisfaction don’t seem to correlate particularly well with other kinds of things we clearly care about when we talk about happiness. At a minimum, you would expect the happiest countries in the world to have some of the lowest incidences of adverse mental health outcomes. But it turns out that the residents of the same Scandinavian countries that the press dutifully celebrates for their supposed happiness are especially likely to take antidepressants. ...
    "It is easy to see why editors are tempted to assign some beat reporter without expertise in the social sciences to write up a fun little story about how much happier those enlightened Scandinavians are compared to benighted Americans. But if the media wants to live up to its self-appointed role as a gatekeeper of reliable information, it can’t continue to be complicit in the spread of such shoddy clickbait."

~ Yascha Mounk from his post 'The World Happiness Report Is a Sham'

RELATED:

1. "It’s not just this survey. Have you ever wondered from where exactly all these folk derive their data for all these things about the world’s happiest this and the freest the-other? I pressed one fellow once whose 'freedom index' showed New Zealand at the time to be the world’s freest — earning us their 'gold medal for freedom' with scores like 9.6 out of 10 for property rights only a few years after the Resource Management Act had taken most of them away.
    "After a whole riot of wriggling to try to avoid the questioning, he eventually conceded that much of their data is based on subjective surveys sent out to selected 'leaders' in each country. And from that news it didn’t take much more to learn that most of those surveys were completed by local cheerleaders desperately keen to trumpet the virtues of their hometown. (Q: Is your place a hell of place to do business? A: [Big tick] Hell, yes!! You’re darn tootin’!)
    "So, garbage in, and garbage out."

~ me from my 2012 post 'NZ: Prosperous?'

2. "[T]here are many things wrong with the way these indices are scored – none of them inspiring much confidence in their methodology.
    "The Index of Economic Freedom scores countries according to a subjective scale on the size of their government; their legal system and property rights; the size and scope of government; freedom to trade internationally (or not); and something they call oxymoronically 'regulatory efficiency.”'
    "I say a subjective scale because these numbers recorded to three significant figures are based largely on surveys conducted by business groups in each host country; and are difficult to take seriously when New Zealand comes in with a whopping 95 out of 100 for property rights ... and 96.1 out of 100 for business freedom (in other words, almost as good as it’s possible to get)  ...
    "Bear in mind that the only reason American foundations produce indices like these is to browbeat American politicians. But if New Zealand is nearly as good as it gets in this modern world, there really is something wrong with the world we’re in."

~ me from my 2014 post 'New Zealand third freest?'

3. "So since most of these surveys are garbage in garbage out, I figured I’d track this one metric as a measure of how reliable all the others are.

"Bear in mind that this survey, like all such surveys, aren’t carried out by folks in the field fully endowed with local knowledge. They’re pulled together by people at desks very far away from the places they write about ... with facility mainly in handling a spread sheet and a bunch of somebody else’s dubious data.

"Their appendix tells me their source of dubious data for the score on property rights is something called the Global Competitiveness Report, put out by a group called the World Economic Forum. … The Forum is best known for its annual winter meeting for five days in Davos.” Remember Davos? A meeting of men famously described by Daniel Hannan as deriving most of their income, directly or indirectly, from state patronage.

"So where did Davos Man get his figures from for his Global Competitiveness Report? I went to the report to check:

'The GCI uses the World Economic Forum’s annual Executive Opinion Survey to capture concepts that require a more qualitative assessment, or for which comprehensive and internationally comparable statistical data are not available. For this year’s GCI, more than 14,000 business leaders in 140 economies were surveyed on topics related to national competitiveness. ...

"What proportion is opinion, and what proportion is this other data?

'The exact share of Executive Opinion Survey data in the 113 indicators used to calculate the index varies slightly by country, depending on its stage of development. In general, approximately two-thirds of the data used in the GCI 2015-2016 are derived from the Executive Opinion Survey and one-third is derived from international sources’ statistics.'

"So how much of the data is simply opinion? Answer: About two-thirds, emanating from this 'Executive Opinion Survey.'

"And where do we find this Executive Opinion Survey data? Answer: We don’t. It’s not publicly available.

"It is however possible to discover that New Zealand’s Executive Opinion Survey data comes from a survey completed by just 46 people (see the Survey’s Table 2, page 81.). Names and addresses of this select group of cronies are unfortunately not supplied. However the report does list Phil O’Reilly’s Business NZ as their local 'partner institute' (the 'unique strength of Business NZ being, according to their own website, their 'capability to engage with government officials, community groups, MPs and Ministers on a daily basis'). So I’m guessing the cronies are his.

"None of the survey data of this infamous forty-six appears on the Business NZ website, but the NZ Initiative website at least does offer this cautionary note:

'Note the information in the opinion survey can be skewed by perception and by small samples (e.g. New Zealand has a sample size less than 50) and therefore can have substantial error ranges, so analysis should be confirmed with supporting logic and evidence.'

"None of which either the Fraser Institute nor Davos Men have bothered to do.

"Meaning that a subjective worldwide survey of cronies and business cheerleaders gets trumpeted every year as bestowing upon this small authoritarian backwater a medal for freedom – and people who should know better post pieces praising  'reform' in which the government ended up bigger, the total tax take ended larger, and Big Brother became 'bigger and more ominous then ever'.”

~  me from my 2016 post  'A wooden spoon for the Fraser Institute’s “economic freedom” medal'

University education has an entirely undeserved higher status than industry training

"Nearly twice as many New Zealand school leavers fall into unemployment as undertake workplace-based learning. ...
    "In Germany, approximately half of all school leavers participate in the country’s ‘dual training’ apprenticeship system. In contrast, in New Zealand, only 6% of school leavers undertake workplace-based training ...
    "This represents a significant waste of human capital and opportunity, especially considering that industry training leads to many high-demand vocations.
    "The root of the problem is cultural. University education has higher status [entirely undeserved - Ed] than industry training among parents, schools, teachers, and students themselves.
    "The status disparity is exacerbated by the strong orientation of schools toward university preparation as the default setting. ...
    "If clearer pathways from school to industry training were established as a serious option for all students, esteem for industry training would gradually improve."

~ Michael Johnston from his report 'Trade Routes: Charting New Pathways from Secondary School to Industry Training'. Listen here to a podcast with Johnston discussing the report.

The New Zealand Initiative · Trade Routes: Charting New Pathways from Secondary School to Industry Training

"Treaty of Waitangi politics intrude ever more conspicuously into many areas of our society and our public life." Including internet access!

"Treaty of Waitangi politics intrude ever more conspicuously into many areas of our society and our public life. 

• "Even New Zealand’s left-leaning mainstream media have picked up on the University of Auckland's compulsory indoctrination-rich Waipapa Taumata Rau course
• "Janet Dickson’s challenge to the Real Estate Authority over their compulsion on estate agents to undertake a compulsory professional development module called Te Kākano (The Seed)
• "another example in tertiary education concerns efforts to decolonise [sic] the Massey University BA degree ...

"Such examples barely lift the lid on the extent of Treaty indoctrination across the public service, the education and research sectors, businesses and professional regulatory bodies. For example, 

• the Midwifery Council’s Scope of Practice
• the cultural safety requirements imposed on practitioners by the New Zealand Psychologists Board, and 
• the Treaty-centric competency standards for New Zealand pharmacists ...

"A very heavy focus on one population is evident in the charters, mission statements and constitutions of many organisations in New Zealand. ... [I]t seems that even the Internet cannot escape the current identity politics. ... [even if s]uch technology is universally available to the entire world and, by its very nature, is not exclusive to any one ethnicity. In fact, it is one of the most democratising of any technology ...

"[And yet] the InternetNZ Council [which operates the regional registry for New Zealand, i.e, the .nz Register]... has on its agenda the ... overarching Strategic Goal of 'Centring Te Tiriti o Waitangi' as a Strategic Priority, and ethno-centric preferences that dominate five Strategic Goals and 13 out of 25 sub-goals [including] ...  

• Implement Ngā Pae: Pae Kākano | Horizon 1....
• understand what it means to InternetNZ | Ipurangi Aotearoa Group to be Tiriti-centric....
• embed Te Tiriti through our strategies, policies, practices, people capability to achieve digital equity, digital inclusion and access for Māori ...
• [ensure] a Te Tiriti o Waitangi perspective guides everything we do. ...
• [ensure] investment priorities are guided by clear objectives that promote equity, align with priorities identified by Māori in the sector.

"It is perfectly reasonable that effective engagement with Māori, as with all stakeholders, should be part of the mission of InternetNZ. However, by declaring that it will be Te Tiriti-centric, InternetNZ, like our universities, is implicitly taking a political stance, when as a user-focused organisation it should remain entirely neutral....

"The stated goals stand at odds with the principles of [worldwide] internet governance as identified, for example, by the global Internet Society[which undertakes] the global management of the Internet.  ...

"As a critical facility for Internet access for New Zealanders, InternetNZ needs simply to recommit to the fundamental principles of a globally interconnected world, that demonstrate no preference for any particular ethnic, religious, social, economic, national, cultural or racial grouping. ... 

"[W]e must avoid even the remote possibility that access to a .nz domain name could be frustrated because the user may not support one or more of the strategic goals outlined above, or New Zealanders’ rights and responsibilities being differentiated by race."

~ John Raine and David Lillis from their post 'In Case You Were Wondering – InternetNZ and the Treaty'

“What is happening with the vandals in the White House is similar to what happened to Austral[as]ia in 1942 with the fall of Singapore.

“What is happening with the vandals in the White House is similar to what happened to Australia in 1942 with the fall of Singapore. I don’t consider America to be a reliable ally, as I used to.
    “Frankly, I think it is time we reconsidered our priorities and think carefully about our defence needs, now that we are having a more independent posture... Our future is now in a much more precarious state than it was on 19 January.
    “Trump 1.0 was bad enough. But Trump 2.0 is irrecoverable.”

~ former chief of the Australian Defence Force Admiral Chris Barrie, from the artic le '‘Vandals in the White House’ no longer reliable allies of Australia, former defence force chief says'

“'The US is utterly not a reliable ally. No one could see it in those terms ... [President] Trump is wilful and cavalier and so is his heir-apparent, JD Vance: they are laughing at alliance partners, whom they’ve almost studiously disowned.'
    "America had been fundamentally altered by Trump’s second administration and that American leadership of a rules-based international order was 'not returning'.
    "“'The speed of America disowning allies to embrace a new world order where it cuts deals with Russia and China has been so astonishing that people are struggling to grasp it, especially in this country, where people just cannot contemplate a world where America treats so lightly its alliance with Australia'.”

~ former Australian foreign affairs minister Bob Carr, from the article 'Bob Carr says Aukus a ‘colossal surrender of sovereignty’ if submarines do not arrive under Australian control'

The public interest ..."

“'The common good' (or 'the public interest') is an undefined and undefinable concept: there is no such entity as 'the tribe' or 'the public'; the tribe (or the public or society) is only a number of individual men. Nothing can be good for the tribe as such; 'good'' and 'value' pertain only to a living organism—to an individual living organism—not to a disembodied aggregate of
relationships.
    “'The common good' is a meaningless concept, unless taken literally, in which case its only possible meaning is: the sum of the good of all the individual men involved. But in that case, the concept is meaningless as a moral criterion: it leaves open the question of what is the good of individual men and how does one determine it? ...
    "So long as a concept such as 'the public interest' (or the 'social' or 'national' or 'international' interest) is regarded as a valid principle to guide legislation [however, then] lobbies and pressure groups will necessarily continue to exist. 

    "Since there is no such entity as 'the public,' since the public is merely a number of individuals, the idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others."

~ Ayn Rand, a composite quote from her essays 'What is Capitalism?' and 'The Pull Peddlers,' collected in her book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Vale Bruce Moon (1930-2025)

Renegade historian Bruce Moon passed away peacefully yesterday morning. Many NOT PC readers will be aware of his work, perhaps from his contributions to the books 'Twisting the Treaty' or 'One Treaty, One Nation' (to which I also contributed), or from one of his many articles, letters, or submissions to Parliament.

Roger Child's obituary below gives us a glimpse of the man we have lost. 

The passing of leading historian Bruce Moon

By Roger Childs

"Of all the fake history with which New Zealand is swamped today, nothing is more

blatant than the claim that “Aotearoa” is, or was, the Maori name for our country."

~ Bruce Moon

Sadly I never met Bruce Moon face to face, but we did exchange scores of e-mails. Like Waikanae’s John Robinson, Bruce was a mathematician and scientist who came to history later in life. Like many of us, he couldn’t believe how many so called “respected historians” like Anne Salmond, Jock Phillips and Vincent O’Malley twisted elements of our country’s story, notably the history of Maori-Settler relations, and of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Bruce was a stickler for evidence-based history—taking notice of what people who witnessed the actual events had to say. (In his writing he was meticulous in citing his sources.) He rejected “presentism” and the dishonesty of many Maori activists and their fellow-travelers in looking back at events from a one-sided point of view, often without quoting references.

He was also dismayed at the obsession of the mainstream media in promoting the view that Natives/New Zealanders (only called “Maori” from the 1840s), had been given a hard time by settler governments, when in the Treaty of Waitangi —and in subsequent legislation like the establishment of four special seats in parliament and votes for women —they had been treated humanely.

No Maori land was “stolen,” his writing argued, and confiscations only occurred when forewarned tribes rebelled against the government. Compare the Maori’s experience of colonisation with Aborigines in Australia, the black tribes of South Africa and Native Americans in the United States.

A distinguished career

Bruce Moon was born in Christchurch in 1930 and after attending Southland Boys High School he took his degree at Otago University, majoring in mathematics. He pursued a career in computer science, working in this field in England, Australia and New Zealand. In 1981 he became General Manger of Business Computers Limited. He was a Past President of the NZ Computer Society.

Later he lectured in mathematics at Canterbury University, rising to become Associate Professor. After retiring he taught mathematics and science in a mission school in Vanuatu; was a volunteer in an Indian village for disabled people; and taught English and physics to Tibetan refugees.

When he started looking closely at New Zealand history late in life, he was amazed at how some historians twisted the truth,  basing their conclusions too often on unreliable oral history.

Bruce was also appalled at Maori academics making connections between modern-day events and past treatment of Maori.  In commenting on the 2019 Christchurch terrorist attacks, for example, Waikato University’s Leonie Pihama and Tom Roa claimed that Maori had been victims to acts of terrorism in Aotearoa in the past. Bruce took them to task in a long open letter which ended: "I accuse you of using the tragic events in Christchurch for an inexcusable attempt to advance a racist political agenda and in contempt of the fine principles of scholarship which a university should stand by."

Speaking the truth to all

For some people, Bruce Moon was a man to fear! Some years ago he was scheduled to speak on 'Twisting the Treaty and other Fake History' in Nelson, but the Council was worried there would be trouble, so would not allow one of their venues to be used. The talk now called 'A Jaundiced View of the Treaty' was held later with no problems. Not surprisingly, the House Full sign went up.

The fight at Rangiaohia [sic] for the recovery of McHale’s body, February 21 1864 (excerpt, colourised), by L.A. Wilson

A few years back Stuff made the ludicrous decision to apologise to Maori for nasty things Stuff-owned papers had said in the past. These articles, claiming to correct untruths of the past, used as their sources people like  tribal leaders and "woke" historian Vincent O’Malley. One article repeated the lies about a “massacre” at Rangiaowhia in 1864. Quite independently, Bruce and I protested in letters to the paper. Unsurprisingly neither was published.  [One of Bruce's articles on which his letter is based is here. My own piece on the incidents at Rangiaowhia, and some of their context, is here. - Ed.]

When Hamilton’s Bishop Stephen Lowe preached a sermon in 2021 about the “massacre,” he also wrote to the Catholic bishops of New Zealand. In the letter he explained the truth about General Cameron’s largely peaceful occupation of the town, and dispelled the myths about a “massacre.” In Bruce’s words, the bishops addressed had neither the courtesy nor the courage to reply.

Bruce will be greatly missed

It is wonderful that Bruce lasted into his mid-nineties. To the end he remained a staunch advocate for getting our history right, and ensuring that our children are taught the truth.

He was a contributor to the excellent Tross publication One Treaty, One Nation with articles on 'There is Only One Treaty' and 'A Very Greedy Tribe – Ngai Tahu.' He also assembled the best of his writings and letters in a collection titled New Zealand: The Fair Colony.

A stickler for truth, evidence, honesty and fairness, Bruce will long be remembered as one of New Zealand’s greatest historians— one with courage and integrity and decency.  He was truly both a gentleman and a scholar.

* * * * 

Roger Childs is a writer and freelance journalist. 

He is a former history and geography teacher, who wrote or co-authored 10 school textbooks. 

His article previously appeared at the Waikenae Watch website.

"I cannot see how anyone could possibly object to a bill committing our country to racial equality and to the sovereignty of Parliament"

"I myself cannot see how anyone could possibly object to a bill committing our country to racial equality and to the sovereignty of the Crown and Parliament.
    "Nor can I see any constitutional objection to our sovereign parliament — the very parliament that has made reference over the years to the ‘principles of the Treaty’ — taking the logical and necessary next step of explaining what those principles are.
    "Nor can I see any objection to leaving the final decision on the matter to a referendum of ordinary citizens ~ whom we do, after all, trust every three years to decide on our rulers for the next Parliamentary term....
    "Nevertheless, some people obviously do object to this bill. Unless they occupy a different reality, however, they must be aware that the bill is, rightly or wrongly, strongly supported by very many other New Zealanders. That is an undoubted and indisputable fact. Those New Zealanders supporting the bill may be misguided, but the fact of their support is absolutely clear. ...
    "[Some objectors argue] that since governments since 1987 ‘have abdicated responsibility’ for interpreting [sections of law containing these principles], that job has been left to the courts — which has now led, allegedly, to ‘clear understandings’ of what [such a section] means. [For example,] that ‘[t]his Act shall so be interpreted and administered as to give effect to the principles of the Treaty…’ ...
    "[Some objectors complain] that governments have ‘abdicated responsibility’ for interpreting [these 'principles' sections], but also complain that Parliament, by this bill, is attempting to interpret the section! [They] cannot have it both ways. Surely Mr Seymour’s bill is an acceptance — not before time! — of Parliament’s responsibility to say what the principles of the Treaty are."

~ David Round from his article 'The Decline of Conservation'

Which is the best Logical Fallacy?

(A list going around on email, originally credited to Brian McGroarty. Hat tips and additions to and from Stephen Hicks, Paul Hsieh, Nancy Tang, Bob Marks, Steven Den Beste, Mike Williams, Justin Weinberg, James Dominguez)

Ad Hominem: This is the best logical fallacy, and if you disagree with me, well, you suck.

Affirming the Consequent: If it is proven that Affirming the Consequent is the best, then I will be very happy. I am feeling very happy, so obviously Affirming the Consequent is the best fallacy.

Appeal to Authority: Your logical fallacies aren’t logical fallacies at all because Einstein said so. Einstein also said that this one is better.

Appeal to Emotion: See, my mom, she had to work three jobs on account of my dad leaving and refusing to support us, and me with my elephantitis and all, all our money went to doctor’s bills so I never was able to get proper schooling. So really, if you look deep down inside yourself, you’ll see that my fallacy here is the best.

Appeal to Fear: If you don’t accept Appeal to Fear as the greatest fallacy, then THE TERRORISTS WILL HAVE WON. Do you want that on your conscience, that THE TERRORISTS WILL HAVE WON because you were a pansy who didn’t really think that Appeal to Fear was worth voting for, and you wanted to vote for something else? Of course not, and neither would the people you let die because THE TERRORISTS WILL HAVE WON.

Appeal to Flattery: If you agree with me that Appeal to Flattery is the greatest fallacy, it shows that you are intelligent and good looking and really good in bed. And a snappy dresser.

Appeal to Force: If you don’t agree that Appeal to Force is the greatest logical fallacy, I will kick your arse.

Appeal to Ignorance: No one has been able to prove that another fallacy is better than Appeal to Ignorance, so it must be the best.

Appeal to Majority: Most people think that this fallacy is the best, so clearly it is.

Appeal to Novelty: The Appeal to Novelty’s a new fallacy, and it blows all your crappy old fallacies out the water! All the cool kids are using it: it’s OBVIOUSLY the best.

Appeal to Numbers: Millions think that this fallacy is the best, so clearly it is.

Appeal to Pity: If you don't agree that Appeal to Pity is the greatest fallacy, think how it will hurt the feelings of me and the others who like it!

Appeal to Tradition: We’ve used Appeal to Tradition for centuries: how can it possibly be wrong?

Argumentum Ad Nauseam:
Argumentum ad nauseam is the best logical fallacy.
Argumentum ad nauseam is the best logical fallacy.
Argumentum ad nauseam is the best logical fallacy.
Argumentum ad nauseam is the best logical fallacy.
Argumentum ad nauseam is the best logical fallacy.
Argumentum ad nauseam is the best logical fallacy.
Argumentum ad nauseam is the best logical fallacy.

Bandwagon Fallacy: It's obvious that Bandwagon is going to win as the greatest fallacy. You wouldn't want to be one of the losers who choose something else, would you?

Begging The Question:
Circular reasoning is the best fallacy and is capable of proving anything.
Since it can prove anything, it can obviously prove the above statement.
Since it can prove the first statement, it must be true.
Therefore, circular reasoning is the best fallacy and is capable of proving anything.

Biased Sample: I just did a poll of all the people in the "Biased Sample Fan Club" and 95% of them agree that Biased Sample is the best fallacy. Obviously it's going to win.

Burden Of Proof: Can you prove that Burden of Proof isn’t the best logical fallacy?

Complex Question: Isn't it terrible that so many people disparage the Complex Question fallacy and beat their wives?

Composition: Each of the other fallacies suck. The Fallacy of Composition is therefore better than the whole lot of them combined.

Denying the Antecedent: If Denying the Antecedent were not the best fallacy, then I would be sad. I am actually in quite a good mood right now, so obviously Denying the Antecedent is the best.

Division: This is the best list of fallacies. It follows that there could be no better description of the Fallacy of Division than this.

Equivocation: The best fallacy is on this list. Equivocation is on this list. Therefore, the best fallacy is equivocation.

The Fallacy Fallacy: Some have argued that the Fallacy Fallacy couldn't be the best fallacy because some arguments for it being the best fallacy are themselves fallacious. Clearly, this is a fallacious argument, from which we can only conclude that the Fallacy Fallacy is indeed the best fallacy.

False Analogy: Just as the jelly donut is the best donut, so too is False Analogy the best fallacy.

False Dilemma: I’ve found that either you think False Dilemma is the best fallacy, or you’re a terrorist.

False Premise: All of the other fallacies are decent, but clearly not the best as they didn’t come from my incredibly large and sexy brain.

Gambler’s Fallacy: In all the previous talks about this subject, Gambler’s Fallacy lost, so the Gambler’s Fallacy is going to win this time because it's the Gambler's Fallacy's turn to win!


Genetic Fallacy is best because all those other people who proposed fallacies only believe them because of their social conditioning.

Guilt by Association: You know who else preferred those other logical fallacies? *(insert pictures of Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot here)*

Hypostatisation (personification): Go, Hypostatisation Fallacy, you can do it! If you just try hard enough you can be the best fallacy there is! Oh come on now, don't look at me like that

Non Sequitur: Non Sequitur is the best fallacy because none of my meals so far today have involved asparagus.

Post Hoc/False Cause: Since I’ve started presuming that correlation equals causation, violent crime has gone down 54%.

Red Herring: They say that to prove your fallacy is the best requires extraordinary evidence, because it’s an extraordinary claim. Well, I’d like to note that “Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence” is itself an extraordinary claim.

Relativism: Well maybe all those other fallacies are the best for you, but to me, the relativist fallacy is the greatest logical fallacy ever.

Slippery slope is the best logical fallacy, and if you disagree with that, well, it’s a few short steps to the total collapse of the logical abilities of mankind and consequent downfall of society in general.

Special Pleading: I know that everyone is posting about their favorite fallacies, but Special Pleading is out-and-out the best, so it should just win with no contest.

Straw Man Argument: Apparently you think the Straw Man Argument is bad because you have something against the Wizard of Oz. Well, you know what? It doesn't have anything to do with the Wizard of Oz! Therefore, the Straw Man Argument must be the best fallacy.

In praise of Gerry Brownlee (IPoGB)

It seems necessary to write a post praising Gerry Brownlee.

Neither a sentence, nor a sentiment, I ever thought I would express.

It turns out however that Mr Brownlee is as contemptuous of the over-use of acronyms as I am. And as opposed as David Seymour appears approving. Bob Edlin takes up the story:

In Parliament this week, ACT MP Mark Cameron lobbed a patsy question at his leader, David Seymour, the Minister for Regulation:

    What recent announcements has he made about cutting red tape?

Seymour replied:

    [an answer filled with acronym-filled gobbledy-gook]

Andrew Hoggard: What particular recommendations did the review make regarding the approvals process under the ACVM?

Speaker Brownlee intervened before the reply was given:

SPEAKER: What’s the ACVM? I hate acronyms.

Hoggard explained: Agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines.

SPEAKER: It’s easy to say. Carry on.

This is true. Full names are easy to say. And easier for a listener (or reader) to digest.

As evolutionary ecologist Stephen B.Heard explains, acronyms put a cognitive load on readers and listeners that obscure the actual message being said (so you can see why politicians generally love them.)

Writing about his pet peeves six years ago, Heard said that over a two-week period he had written peer reviews for three different manuscripts (MSs).

All three included newly coined acronyms (NCAs) to substitute for repeated short technical phrases (RSTPs). I’ve gotten in the habit, whenever I run across an NCA, to use my word processor’s search function (WPSF) to find and count occurrences of the NCA in the MS. Frequently (including for two of the recent three MSs), my WPSF reveals that the NCA is used only once or twice more in the MS. That makes it an RUA – a rarely used acronym – and RUAs are one of my writing pet peeves (WPPs). 

By now that you probably suspect that I’m deliberately using a lot of acronyms to annoy you. You’re right, and if I’ve succeeded, I’ve made my point.

The problem with acronyms in general, and newly coined ones in particular, Heard said, was that they placed a cognitive load on the reader.

As you read that first paragraph of mine, every time you came to an occurrence of “NCA”, you had to stop to decode the acronym – to remember what it stood for, to replace NCA in the sentence with “newly coined acronym”, and then to reconsider the modified sentence to assess what was being said about those newly coined acronyms.
    When an acronym is brand new, that cognitive load is significant. As an acronym becomes more familiar, the load gets smaller, until an acronym as familiar as DNA or SCUBA doesn’t carry any load at all – it’s simply a word synonymous with the original phrase, and often a simpler one at that. The issue is that few acronyms have the status of DNA – carrying lower cognitive load than the phrase it replaces.
    The extra work imposed by a newly coined acronym is worthwhile only if there’s a payoff for the reader; and if you use the newly coined acronym only once or twice, that’s very unlikely.

In his article, Stephen Heard suggested there are four reasons for people loving acronyms – one good, and three dubious at best.The good reason: because sometimes, acronyms really do save reader effort. I’d rather read “DNA” thirty-seven times in a paper than “deoxyribonucleic acid” thirty-seven times.

• The first dubious reason: because acronyms make it easier to write. I’d rather type “DNA” than “deoxyribonucleic acid”, even if it’s just once. Actually, I use all kinds of newly coined acronyms when I’m writing – but then I use search-and-replace to substitute actual words before I put my manuscript in front of a reader. (A custom macro can do this easily, if you like such things.) No decision about how a manuscript looks should be based on how it’s easiest to write – all decisions are about the reader.
• The second dubious reason: because acronyms make the text shorter. Brevity is indeed important (which is why The Scientist’s Guide to Writing has an entire chapter on it). But: while it’s easy to measure brevity by word count, what really matters is not a manuscript’s word count,*** but how long it takes someone to read and understand it. Here, acronyms (and especially novel ones) can be counterproductive.
• The third and most dubious reason: because acronyms make our writing sound science-y. Like the passive voice, “utilize”, the flattening of authorial voice, and the avoidance of contractions, acronyms are a familiar characteristic of our literature. They’re part of what makes a piece of writing feel like authentic scientific writing to us. As writers, we tend to emulate what we read, and we can be downright uncomfortable with text that doesn’t sound like the rest of the literature. Unfortunately, that means our tedious and turgid literature only gets more tedious and more turgid.

Heard wrapped up his article with a plea to cut it out with newly coined but rarely used acronyms (NCBRUAs).