Things that make you go hmmmm

what makes you think hmmmm about that Chch??

Don't get him started

I'm not a fan of virtue signaling 

(trigger warning)

The 4th Reich marches under the flag of the rainbow!  Conform to diversity or die Infidel!

We shall create special camps for those who refuse to acknowledge our supreme ways! 

Diversity uber alles!

Oh no, where's my safe space: I am in big trouble now :D

In case the Herald are reading this looking for a scoop I am being sarcastic :)

Yes, how dare I have a different opinion Ryan!

My bad.

Social Justice for all and free hugs for everyone! No borders! My house is your house! Unicorns and Rainbows for everyone!***

Am I on your page yet Ryan?

*** terms and conditions apply. Only those whose views we approve will get a free unicorn

In case the Herald are reading this looking for a scoop I am deadly serious about the Unicorn 

Say what you want, I just don't want to waste my time reading it again. Your snide remark just reinforces my opinion.

To be fair Ryan, you made the first snide remark in this exchange. 

That is fair

I've always found that view odd.

You don't like people conforming to views different to your own, but conforming to your views would be the same issue you don't like to someone else.

I.e. if they aren't doing what they think is right, or doing what they like, because of your views, they would be doing the opposite to what they want.

It's the same as when people get offended, someone says what they did wasn't offensive and say "you take offence, don't give it", saying you can't tell me what is or isnt offensive to me.  And then when a CIS straight white male is offended they tell him why he isnt allowed to be offended.

Or when people say everyone gets too offended these days, calling anyone who is offended a snowflake.  Then when someone kneels during the national anthem or another quiet protest they get super offended going on bigger rants than the ones they criticized.

All that crap seems so contradictory to me.

The jersey looks super cool though.  Ill be interested to see how it looks in tackles and play when different areas get pulled.

fair enough, although even if it is virtue signalling I think its pretty cool

Got to admit I had a chuckle when I read that last line

I'm definitely immature

Then if that is the case just ignore me. Or maybe we can hug it out next time I'm in town? Actually could I stay at your house? Open Borders and all that :)

Can't think of anything more gross than you two hugging.

HOMOPHOBIC

(kidding)

You, Ryan and me all hugging it out together?

World Peace can be achieved one hug at a time fellas

Excellent 10 minute talk by Michael Shermer, Editor of Skeptic Magazine, on Free Speech, strongly recommend it;

http://bigthink.com/videos/michael-shermer-how-ske...

Interesting talk.

However The whole "holocaust denier" aspect has been twisted in my opinion. Now anyone who asks questions outside of the officially accepted holocaust narrative is called a :"holocaust denier and is immediately tarred and feathered as a neo nazi etc ". Is that really a fair label?

To deny something is to say it did not happen at all and thats very different from questioning something or looking into something a little closer and drawing your own conclusions which may differ from what others think.

If someone says there was no holocaust then sure call them a holocaust denier but if someone asks questions about the holocaust or has some doubts over some areas regarding what happened then I really don't see a problem. All history should be open to critical scrutiny and debate...even the holocaust.

The whole idea of making it illegal to discuss the holocaust outside of the accepted narrative is bizarre.

I much prefer open discussion, as the truth will always shine truth anyhow.

Did you watch all of it? You basically just outlined his exact point.

He was saying let them speak so we can publicly debunk the ideas, not to legislate against them and try to shut them up entirely, because that makes them more attractive to conspiracy theorists. 

He also referred to them as Holocaust Revisionists. 

Usually I don't like it when people laugh and scoff about a conspiracy theory, because that just fuels the conspiracy theorists common narrative which is that people won't debate them, they just mock, no factual discussion. But I think this guy is qualified to do that considering he spent literally years researching and debunking the theories. 

Sorry I should have been more specific in that was I was talking in general not just about the speech in the link.

Sorry, I missed the gist of that! Ignore my comment ;)

So long as you ignore my typos :D

What do people think of the government wanting to tax stuff people buy over the internet from overseas?

I think its dodgy as. I already pay tax to the country where I make the initial purchase from as its usually included in the price and now the government want to clip the ticket this end as as well. So I am effectively being taxed twice.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/103510970/government-set-to-propose-amazon-tax

You shouldn't be paying sales tax on overseas purchases, if you are you're getting ripped off.

I agree 100%

How about that, we agree on something :D

I agree 100%

How about that, we agree on something :D

[/quote

By not paying sales tax all you are doing is killing the local supplier. Yes i know it is cheaper overseas but i always try to shop locally. 

I think there should be decent tax on stuff bought overseas.
No doubt many cheap products are being made by workers who are paid badly. Meanwhile, workers in NZ lose their job because of it. Tax away I say.

I shop locally whenever possible but often what I want isn't in NZ shops

Plus NZ shops are rip off price-wise a lot of the time. How do they justify some of their prices? We are a low wage economy but we are expected to pay through the nose for stuff

Also I am not killing any local supplier if I am getting in stuff that the local supplier doesnt stock and sees no need in stocking

I obviously don't know what stuff the local supplier does not have, but I find  that hard to believe.

can someone please tell me what these Clarke Rumours are?

What  I mean is you're not paying sales tax on goods you buy online, retailers will remove local tax for international shipping.

You should be paying Gst on purchases online, and goods you purchase online should be protected under nz consumer guarantee laws which are some of the most comprehensive in the world.

You pay local sales tax if you have the goods sent to a locally based freight forwarders. Usually goods are freight free (in the US & UK) & the freight forwarders are a lot cheaper getting it to NZ. I shipped 12Kg of goods from the UK to NZ for half the price of the usual channels. 

Why should you pay gst on goods purchased overseas? I would have thought an import tax would be more suitable. 

NZ Consumer Gurantee Act shouldn’t have to cover overseas purchases, how could it be enforced? The NZ government have no jurisdiction over the company that is selling the product you are buying overseas. Chances are that goods are bought from overseas because they are either cheaper, or it is not available in NZ. The risk you take is that it might be a piece of SHIT you are buying, that’s why it’s cheap!

Buyer Beware!

Exactly this. Why should the NZ Govt or Govt agency waste resources, trying to enforce NZ legislation overseas, to help someone who made an international purchase online? Be most probably useless trying. 

Nanny state idea. Is totally buyer beware. You buy online overseas, you take on the risk.

If you're buying from a freight forwarding service then you're bypassing where a retailer want's to send the goods and it's your own problem not the retailers if you're paying double tax, I wouldn't be surprised if you can claim back that tax in a lot of jurisdictions anyway. If a retailer sells into NZ legitimately then they should abide by NZ rules, the cost of retail in NZ includes the baked in prices for the Consumer Guarantees act, GST, etc. so NZ retailers are not competing on an equal playing field with overseas retailers, and NZ consumers are not as protected. When NZ retail dies, as retail is dying all over the world, then that employment is lost, and that tax revenue is lost. And it needs to be made back somehow.

If you use a freight forwarding service then that's your problem, but if you're buying legitimately from a retailer that ships and sells to NZ then they should abide by our laws and pay our taxes.

I realise that it's ironic that I'm arguing for this when I also say that eventually we will be without borders and have a gradual loss of sovereignty but I'm not necessarily saying that what I think will happen will be good for us, just inevitable. And, we have to make the current system work somehow, and keep up that tax revenue because when retail fails we're going to have a lot of unemployed people.

Well, officially we're a high wage society according to the world bank. Ahead of countries like Germany, France, Japan, Israel, Italy, Spain, South Korea, etc.

NZ prices include the high cost of labor, the cost of the Consumer Guarantee act, the cost of GST, the cost of shipping at small scale, the high cost of rent.

On a world scale, definitely a medium/high wage economy. If you think NZ has a disparity between wages and prices try Uruguay.

There recently. Qualified audit accountant at KPMG (age 30 so lets say 6-7 yrs work experience post uni), was my Airbnb host in Montevideo. 

His monthly wage $USD1,200/mth. About $USD15K/year.

Yet prices not far below NZ level. Paid $USD30 for 150ml sunscreen, at a pharmacy! Admittedly I think I may have been ripped off a bit.

But was a constant theme, there talking too locals - massive disparity between wages and cost of living. Argentina similar.

Retail won't fail, though there maybe more empty shops in your CBDs. It will evolve. You can't get a haircut online, or get served your coffee through a computer screen. 140 years ago there would have been a blacksmiths aplenty in downtown Wellington. They all disappeared, and someone else took over their 'shop front'.

Just can't see how you can make sure an overseas retailer selling worldwide (incl NZ), abide by NZ consumer law. There will simply be millions of overseas retailers selling stuff online. 

It isn't the job of NZ Govt/govt agency to police them, and again how do you enforce a jeweler in Tallin, Estonia to manufacture, sell or whatever to NZ standards?

Simply caveat emptor, ie as a buyer take responsibility for your decisions. 

Yes, retail will evolve, that's the reason why I'm so bullish about Wellington. Wellington doesn't have much of the big box retailer or mall culture, artisinal and small shops and hospitality is the future, things which you'll struggle to get online and most importantly an experience. There will definitely be less employment in all sectors in the future, we're already seeing it in retail with fashion chains seeming to collapse every week, supermarkets having self service kiosks and delivery, gas stations having pay at the pump, etc. In the US wallmart will go into your house and put your groceries in your fridge for you when you're not at home. In the future that will be done by drone.

But, I disagree about the coffee statement. You already see very high quality instant coffee like sudden coffee and things like the nespresso machines, and this will only improve. But, you'll also be able to get barista made coffee delivered to your hand by drone within minutes of ordering.

The solution to the CBD is to make it a destination and something social, I could get coffee delivered by drone but it's much better to have it in a cafe with my friends.

Knowing the Baltic states well, I'd imagine the jewelery from Talinn to be of high quality. But, there should be global consumer protection laws under trade agreements like the TPP, if I buy something online and it dies after six months the retailer should make good on my purchase, and that should be the price of accessing the NZ market.

Yeah you are probably right re the coffee Ryan. At previous job (now a bum), I would use work's Nepresso machine 2-3 times a day. Maybe buy a cafe coffee once a week. But then I'm a tight arse.

And yes Amazon I think are already trialling delivering books by drone. Christ the world above our heads, is going to be full of those things buzzing around delivering shark. 

But someone still has to fly the drones, and a barista level coffee won't make itself - or will we then have a machine for that?

Basically it's the often spouted truth, that a huge number of the jobs say 10 years from today, don't even exist right now. I don't think we will see any mass unemployment, and a lot of retail service sector just can't move online, eg your barber.

Why would someone have to pilot the drones? A computer is going to be much better at it than a human and also is infiintely scaleable.

It's going to be interesting to see how it develops, because while we do have historical precedent when it comes to the evolution of jobs, we don't have historical precedent for it moving at the pace it's going to. 

I can't remember the exact numbers, but in the US for example, a huge number of people have jobs driving vehicles. You would think that most of those jobs would disappear in a very short space of time. Will these new jobs that we don't know of yet, be there and ready when it happens? Will the jobs be of a higher level i.e. programming/coding type creative roles? If so then these type of people won't be equipped to change careers overnight like that. We could well have a shortage in high-level development and analysis work, and an abundance of low-level blue collar workers now unemployed. 

What impact would something like that have on society? Quite a big impact you would think... and not a good one. 

Obviously all just speculation, but it's a possibility. 

What do people think of the UBI concept? It seemed to be gaining traction with trials round the world, but then recently Finland (I think) basically cancelled it's trial and is moving on from the idea. The reasons given weren't clear though, I couldn't tell if it was actually because it has failed, there were no statistics or measurements in what I read, perhaps it could be a change in the political leadership, or something else, not sure. I'm very interested to see how these trials turn out. Some previous ones have shown very positive data trends.