Posts by Stephen Judd
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There are THREE cities in Christchurch right now, not one.
(via Kiwipolitico).
The stuff about Refugee City is very, very worrying. Read the whole thing, I just excerpt a part here.
RESCUE CITY is inside the four main avenues, and it is cordoned off. That means almost all our knowledge of it comes from media, and man is it a honey-pot for them!
It’s given us understandably-incessant tales and images of injury, tragedy, loss, broken iconic buildings, heroism, sacrifice, leadership and gratifying international response. It’s extremely television-friendly.
My quake experience started there, but actually almost nobody lives in Rescue City. The resources and attention which are seemingly being poured into it right now are NOT addressing the most urgent post-quake needs of the population of Christchurch.
SHOWER CITY is any part of Christchurch where you can take a hot shower, because you have electricity and running water and mostly-working sewer lines. By latest estimates, that’s about 65% of the city – much of it out west.
In that part of Christchurch, weary and stressed people are getting on with life – though some may be wondering if they still have a job. And a few of them with energy and time to spare are wondering if they can do more to help the rest of the city.
The media naturally lives in Shower City, and they talk almost exclusively to the business leaders and the Rescue City leadership who also inhabit it.
REFUGEE CITY is the rest of Christchurch – mainly the eastern suburbs, though there are pockets elsewhere. It includes perhaps 50,000 to 100,000 people, though a more-mobile chunk of them may have self-evacuated by now.
Only half of those who remain in Refugee City have power, and almost NONE have running water. Many have been living on their own resources, and their neighbours’, for over a week now.
That means that batteries have run down, gas (if they had any to start with) has run out, other supplies are low or gone. Roads are often very bad – and a lot of those from the poorer suburbs have no transport anyway.
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I'm really looking forward to having a good watch. Nice one!
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recordari: no, I don't think you're defending him. I *think* you might be criticising an aggressive rationality on my part, but I'm not sure. Obviously we both seem to be having trouble connecting today.
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Hard News: The First Draft, in reply to recordari,
Again with trying to make my point. Ring wrong does not mean all believers in extraterrestrial influences on Earthquakes are wrong,
No. But I have to insist they should pony up with some sort of evidence and a coherent case for those beliefs, same as Ring.
given time, we might not be better able to predict Earthquakes through understanding this, or another, scientific point. That would be a good thing, no?
That would be a good thing indeed. Who would not want new methods of earthquake prediction?
I'm really struggling here to understand what your problem is with people poo-pooing Ring for being bogus.
There are many instances through history where the widely held belief has proved to be both scientifically wrong, and life-threatening.
They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
Attributed to Carl Sagan.
*ahem* Sometimes we are mistaken. It's all about what's likely, given the evidence. This is no reason to pander to out and out charlatans.
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Hard News: The First Draft, in reply to recordari,
How generous. The sanctity of absolute knowledge must be a comfortable couch to lie on.
It's got nice upholstery too, except for the bit the cat of skepticism keeps scratching...
Seriously dude, what I said about persuasion techniques could be deployed in the service of any belief, whether we thought it was true or not. But I don't pretend permission to sit on the comfy couch of certainty any more than you do.
I still feel it's ok to discuss things that are very probable given the evidence we have without constantly qualifying them with notes about provisions and doubts though.
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Well, he could hardly use the phrase "going down", could he.
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Hilary: I don't have a link to hand, but recently I've been doing a lot of reading about the psychology of persuasion. There's some terribly frustrating aspects: eg, people confronted with evidence that directly contradicts their beliefs often end up strengthened in those beliefs. People given texts that debunk myths often remember the myth over the debunking when tested later.
The only thing I've read in this area that's at all encouraging is that you have better success persuading people to change their minds if you have reinforced their self-esteem first. So in the context of a broadcast whose purpose was to challenge an incorrect belief, I'd be preparing the ground by encouraging viewers to identify with the challenger first, and reassure them that they're smart, clever, good people, before moving into presenting the evidence, and I'd try to do it in a way that allowed people who previously believed to excuse their mistakes as natural and human.
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I think we all want to know whether there will be a Hug Dr Haywood booth on the night.
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On another forum I frequent, I learned from an Aussie newsagent that the Herald Sun had the photo of the Manning children and their Dad on the front page, and that many of his customers refused to buy it because they found it so insensitive.
I have a lot of sympathy for journos on the ground in live media who are in a terrible emotional state and not necessarily able to use their best judgement, not so much for production people in the control room who demand that they live in the edge, even less for editors of print and online media who have more opportunities for considered decisions about what should and shouldn't be shown.