(The Science says so?!)
Sincerely held beliefs are wonderful things. Matters of faith then are not often subjected to the scrutiny of how they hold up to reality, because we believe them.
The problem is when belief meets reality and inevitably there is a collision, metaphorically speaking.
This is just such a time in New Zealand, where the sincere beliefs of Prime Minister Luxon about the harms from social media to young people need comparison with what is actually
the case.
Truth being stranger than fiction is an old maxim. Keen to be seen to be “doing something” the PM wants us all to join his church where the evil social media giants are hurting our kids.
QUICK DO SOMETHING? But do what? Panic?! Constrain ourselves and our children for someone’s beliefs? Purchase a little ‘safety’ for the price of our liberty seems to be the
direction of travel envisioned.
This sounds like a recipe for disaster, especially with so much noise about but no decipherable signal. It’s beginning to smell a lot like 2020.
But what about “The Science”? The Science says…what does the Science say?
The venerable Professor Haidt and his work, The Anxious Mind, have been cited by the Prime Minister, as well how impressed Mr Luxon was at meeting the academic in 2017.
However eloquent and articulate the work of Haidt, the research cited doesn’t substantiate his polemic and rhetoric.
John Ioannidis of Stanford University in a landmark published 2005 research review argues most research findings are false due to poor design.
So despite the argument of harms, there is no substantive quantitative and statistically sound research as a basis for the contentions of Jonathan Haidt.
In fact there is much criticism of the lack of rigor in the research cited in his book The Anxious Mind, so his support for restrictive government action is unsupportable on that
basis.
The junk Science and Research upon which the Professor’s material is based is of the zeitgeist since 2020. Short on substance and emotions driven.
So what?
Legislating with non-specific scripting is a la mode at present, a decided contrast with our law making tradition.
Check out Education Minister Stanford’s under-the-radar changes to the Education and Training (Systems Reform) Bill regarding Home Education at five minutes to midnight as
exhibit “A”.
Mr Peters is quite correct. We’ve had 40 years of this type of nonsensical deference to experts in bureaucracy. It’s past time to pull up and review results. The alternative is
expect more hijack, ambush and at speed.
The regulatory landscape is being described as “twisted spaghetti” by Mr Seymour, so the benefit of the doubt should not be with the bureaucracy given they are the cooks in the
kitchen.
It’s more than time to get back to an understanding of our constitutional patrimony, the English constitution, which came to these shores on February 6th, 1840. Oh yes, that!
The broad brush approach allowing bureaucrats to write secondary regulations is ripe for abuse by civil servants, think on 2020 as a case in point.
Reinforcing constitutional rights of the electorate is overdue with ideologically captured officials running amok on the taxpayers account but seldom accountable to New Zealanders.
The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) might reflect upon the harms inflicted from 2020 onwards by deployment of Behavioural Economics. The conversation is overdue.
Material released under OIA after having to go to the Ombudsman demonstrates a clear lack of accountability for State action. That’s called abuse of power.
Presently DPMC refuse to have the discussion about psychological damage from Applied Behavioural psychology or Nudging messaging deployed without our consent or knowledge
during Covid.
Ironically, Senator Alex Antic in Australia is taking the lead.
Across the ditch here, crickets! So how is it reasonable to blame external organisations for societal ills when the perpetrators might actually occupy offices in Wellington?
Oh but algorithms you know they’re addicting…the Science said so.
