Stilgherrian » hypocrisy

Sit up! You’re on the Web!

Stilgherrian — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:09:35 +0000

It’s either independent discovery or suppressed memory. Web usability expert Jakob Nielsen’s latest Alertbox column explains something I’ve been saying for years: that people sit up to use a website, and that changes their behaviour.

Unfortunately he’s been saying it for years too, so maybe I got it from him and then forgot.

Anyway, in Writing Style for Print vs Web he says:

I’ve spent many columns explicating the differences between the Web and television, which can be summarized as lean-forward vs. lean-back:

On the Web, users are engaged and want to go places and get things done. The Web is an active medium.

While watching TV, viewers want to be entertained. They are in relaxation mode and vegging out; they don’t want to make choices. TV is a passive medium.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t have entertaining websites or informative TV shows. But it does mean that the two media’s contrasting styles require different approaches to entertainment and education.

The differences between print and the Web may not seem as strong, but to achieve optimal results, each requires a distinct content style.

The very useful article then gives examples and good advice before spruiking his $1000+ per day seminars.

Nielsen is a smart man — though he isn’t always right on everything, as some of his fans believe. Still, if you’re considering the audience’s needs (and shouldn’t you always be doing that?) he’s spot on.

Of course I’m a complete hypocrite, because some of my posts have 1000 words of straight text. Rules were made to be broken.

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Slavedriver Rudd fails the exploitation test

Stilgherrian — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:58:56 +0000

My good friend Stephen Stockwell asks whether, after a week of reports that our new Prime Minister is driving his public servants too hard, we could call Rudd the Australian Federal Government’s answer to Jason Calacanis? Perhaps he’s onto something.

In The Age today, author and lawyer Dr Mirko Bagaric reckons the ultimate test of character is when a person has unchecked power. “That is why at work you can get a pretty good gauge of the character of your bosses but not your underlings,” he says. “They are too busy being nice to you to try to get ahead.”

So what does Bagaric make of the many, many reports of public servants complaining that Rudd has turned their lives into a “nightmare” through overwork? Bagaric says, “Rudd has spectacularly failed the exploitation test.”

In a well-argued essay, Bagaric writes:

One trait is even more offensive than using others: hypocrisy. Trying to get credit for what you are the opposite of, is an egregious insult to fundamental tenets of natural justice.

Before the last election, Rudd said he empathised with the plight of time-pressed working families and that he recognised the need to restore “fairness into the workplace”. The 60,000 people who make up the federal public service are every bit as entitled to be treated with respect as the rest of the community.

Yes, helping the PM run the country is an important job, but we are not in a war zone. There is no demonstrated need for people to work manic hours, no major crisis; and the PM’s ideas and effectiveness deficits don’t constitute a catalyst for anyone else grinding themselves into the Canberra dirt.

So, what should the PM expect of his troops? He should be telling them exactly what social scientists have known for decades about the connection between employment and leading a fulfilled life. Work is important to leading a fulfilling life, but rarely should you let it define you (unless you are genuinely passionate about it), and it certainly should never defeat you.

Moreover, more is often less. There are only so many productive hours (about eight) that one can consistently complete each day. Anything beyond that is just about presenteeism — looking to do something instead of actually doing it. It has nothing to do with effectiveness.

Spending time reflecting, contemplating, revisiting decisions, redrafting, consulting with others is usually dead time. There’s a lot of truth in the observation of former Nine chief executive Sam Chisholm that “losers have meetings, winners party”.

I’ve been in my own self-induced schedule crunch this week, and have yet to reflect on Rudd’s first six months in office. But as I emerge and see what others have been writing, I’m not impressed. Just don’t get me started on the Bil Henson saga!

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Am I a hypocrite for using PayPal?

Stilgherrian — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:51:13 +0000

Given what I’ve written about eBay Australia and PayPal recently, is it hypocritical to have added a “donate” button to my website which works through PayPal? I don’t think so. After all, I did say that for small businesses setting up online, PayPal is “often the most cost-effective way to accept credit card payments, and the easiest to set up technically”. And it is. I got that “donate” button set up in 10 minutes. The gripe was about eBay forcing its sellers to use PayPal, which they own. What do you think?

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Lesson from Iraq: don’t ignore international law

Stilgherrian — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 09:21:23 +0000

Of all the writing about the 5th anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, one of the more interesting pieces is by Mary Ellen O’Connell (pictured) of Notre Dame Law School. In Learning from the Iraq War: The Wisdom of International Law, she argues that the most tangible lesson is that the US ignores international law at its peril.

Going into Iraq, we ignored the UN Charter, which prohibits the use of force except in self-defense or with Security Council authorization. Once in Iraq, we ignored the Hague Regulations, requiring us to put a stop to looting and to make only necessary changes to local law and government. We ignored the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit secret detention and abuse of prisoners of the kind we saw at Abu Ghraib.

The talk on Iraq is all about what went wrong, whether the surge is working, and when we can get out. We hear virtually nothing about international law and look set to repeat our mistakes. Violating the law has cost our nation and Iraq dearly. It has denied us the guidance of rules based on long experience and moral consensus. We have lost standing in the world, a literal fortune, and precious lives. Rather than internalizing the lesson of law violation in Iraq, we continue to defy the law in serious and self-destructive ways.

At some point, sooner or later, America needs to understand that international law does indeed apply to everyone — including America. Otherwise any US action against any other nation breaking the law is nothing but hypocrisy. (Hat-tip to Blog Them Out of the Stone Age.)

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Labor’s better economics qualifications

Stilgherrian — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:17:52 +0000

The Labor party a risk to the economy? Perhaps not, since eight of their front bench have degrees in economics — including Craig Emerson with a PhD — while only three Coalition ministers have the qualifications.

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Shirtless? Can’t buy a shirt, sorry

Stilgherrian — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 09:09:04 +0000

You’d think that Abercrombie and Fitch, who use imagery of the shirtless male throughout their marketing, would appreciate a few more shirtless men, right? Apparently not.

New York-based Improv Everywhere, who cause “scenes of chaos and joy in public places”, placed 115 shirtless men in A&F’s store on 5th Avenue.

After about 15 minutes… security employees started approaching all of our men and asking them to either put a shirt on or leave. They informed us that the model was a paid employee and his state of undress didn’t justify ours. So despite the fact that the store constantly bombards you with the image of the shirtless male, Abercrombie still maintains a “No Shirts; No Service” policy. Some agents protested that they were trying to buy a shirt, but the staff countered with the not-so-logical, “If you put on a shirt then you can buy a shirt”…

Two agents were actually stopped while in the process of checking out! They were waiting in line for 10 minutes to buy some $45 shirts, only to be grabbed at the register. One of them was in the process of handing over his credit card as he was nabbed and informed he wasn’t allowed to make a purchase!

There’s plenty of photos and videos, some of which are quite, erm, scenic if you’re so inclined.

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Pinky goes to Hillsong

Stilgherrian — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 23:00:44 +0000

Whaddya think about the Hillsong Church, eh? No, actually, I’ll go first. It worries me.

Of the various controversies about Hillsong, two stand out for me:

Fundamentalism is A Very Bad Thing, whether it’s about Islam, Christianity, Marxism, Free Market Economics, wind power generation or whether the milk goes in first. The Church of Virus lists Dogmatism as one of the Three Senseless Sins, and while CoV is somewhat tongue in cheek it’s nevertheless spot on. Fundamentalism denies individual thought or adaptation to changing circumstances. Fundamentalism is nothing more than intellectual bullying: “I will tell you what to think.” This is dangerous. When people cease to think for themselves they become slaves. Hillsong is a Fundamentalist organisation: internal debate is not permitted.
Prosperity Theology is a hypocritical perversion of what that Joshua bar Joseph bloke was actually saying. OK, the gold-plated silk-clad parasites of the Vatican aren’t exactly a shining example of his teachings either. But to appropriate the Jesus brand and leave out all the difficult bits is a lot like that Che Guevara t-shirt as a symbol of enlightened rebellion.

Now I’m all for freedom of religion. Please, everybody, think for yourselves and decide your own beliefs! That’s a fundamental human right. I support you in your endeavours. But another fundamental right is freedom of speech. I get to say why I think you’re wrong (and vice versa), and out of that interchange some glorious new synthesis might arise.

Hillsong denies those fundamental human rights to its own members — by suppressing thought through Fundamentalism and suppressing free speech by denying dissent.

Pinky Beecroft, the sometimes-scrambled former lead singer of Machine Gun Fellatio, has been attending Hillsong and wrote about it for Manic Times. Long, but packed with ironic observations.

If it’s all about Jesus, why is The Big Screen usually full of imagery of the band or, especially, the pastors? Why is there a raised-arm gesture that we all recall from movies about WWII? Why are so many of the messages about people who’ve had their lives changed once they decided to write a cheque?

Pinky gets deeper into “the vibe” when he moves to Hillsong’s mothership at Baulkham Hills…

It’s incredibly like an Eskimo Joe gig except that the music’s hookier and there are more females at Hills, with the vast majority of them quite hot-looking.

Outside, there’s a sausage sizzle, hot coffee and lots of space to hang out and chat to other Hillsongers. In the last few weeks it’s mostly just been Hey, how’re you doin’? and stuff like that, the odd chat about mobile phone plans, harder to understand than God himself, and one weird conversation with a 21-year-old redhead girl who confessed to me “Hillsong makes me so excited, I always want to have sex with my girlfriend straight after.” We swapped phone numbers. True story.

… and eventually he’s gripped by a life-changing revelation.

I can see a future, for the first time in years. I think I’ve been really depressed, for a long time now, with my career in trouble and my finances mostly non-existent. Too old for record companies, too weird for radio, too thin to be the next John Farnham.

But here at Hillsong, none of that matters. I’m a champion. I’ve been worried that I would be too old to fit in, or not conservative enough, or that my voice is not sufficiently trained. But now I think maybe I’ll be OK. Maybe I don’t have to be young and beautiful. It occurs to me: this is not some fascist organisation, leeching the tax-payer, run by evil, youth-exploiting despots — that’s in Ultimo, and it’s called Triple J.

Pinky’s article triggered lots of thoughts. Some of them led to this essay. Others led to a question. I’ve discovered that one of my business clients is owned by a Hillsonger. By helping that business, I’m helping 10% of its profits go to a “church” which, if not exactly evil, is at least an organisation which I do not wish to support. What should I do?

Happy Sunday. God Bless. Merry Meet. All Hail Eris.

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The tyranny of the ideal

Stilgherrian — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 23:54:48 +0000

A spot-on observation from Dave Snowden:

…autocratic managers and the dark side of management consultancy have discovered how to keep their penny and still eat the bun.

The way it works is this. You spend a lot of money putting in control systems based on idealised process flows and ways of working. This applies in customer relationship management and health & safety alike along with many other fields. It looks really good on the flow charts. However the day to day reality of dealing with customers, or doing the job (say on an oil rig) means that people have to break the rules. Your business depends on their doing so and as long as it has a good outcome you ignore it. However if something goes wrong, you bring out that rule book and the idealised model and now you have someone to blame: the poor schmuck who has been making your business work for you.

Thanks to Johnnie Moore for the pointer.

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“Let’s just write that down…”

Stilgherrian — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 22:28:20 +0000

Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson reckons Australia needs a Bill of Rights. I reckon he’s right about rights. And that’s because the central issue reminds me of when we were running The Core magazine…

The Core’s sole source of income was advertising, and most of it came from nightclubs. Nightclub managers are [coughs] the most honourable and [chokes] reliable [gargles] businessmen and women who can be found. Their integ… [coughs] [chokes] … sorry, I seem to have something caught in my throat.

They’d brag about how their new club night would be the biggest, brightest thing ever. “It’ll be huge,” they’d say. They’d want to book a heap of advertising — on credit, of course — and wanted discount.

“Sure,” I’d say, showing them our rate card and the discounts on offer.

“We’ll book a full page for 8 weeks then, for that 25% discount,” or whatever it was.

“Sure,” I’d say again. “Just sign here.”

And then they’d freeze.

“What’s this?” they’d ask nervously.

“Oh this is just our standard advertising booking form, showing what we just agreed. It says that you’re booking a full page for 8 weeks, and you’ll get a 25% discount — and that if you don’t run for 8 weeks, or don’t pay on time, the price reverts to the normal rate. Just sign there at the bottom.”

And that’s when they’d start mumbling about having to see how things went, or they had to check with the owner, or where did I leave those car keys…

Verbal agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, as the saying goes. If I’m doing business with the reptiles that run nightclubs, I’ll make sure there’s a written record. If you’re genuine about sticking to your side of the bargain, then writing it down shouldn’t be the least bit controversial.

The same goes for politicians.

Especially politicians who come up with ideas like non-core promises.

If, as the Citizenship Test says, we have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equality under the law and so on, how about we just write that down? If we’re genuine about “Australians having rights,” there can’t be anything wrong with putting it on paper, and signing it into Law.

Last night Geoffrey Robertson reminded us that Australia had fallen to 35th and 39th in the two latest international press freedom ratings. Today, I’m sure some redneck talkback callers are saying a Bill of Rights will destroy the church or somesuch paranoid rant. They are simply wrong. A Bill of Rights would protect their chosen religion too.

If anyone opposes a Bill of Rights, they’re not genuinely interested in human rights for others, only for themselves. It’s as simple as that.

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From the “It must be true” department…

Stilgherrian — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 06:26:51 +0000

Crikey has brought to my attention a media statement by the Australian Federal Police regarding the Mohammed Haneef case. In part it reads:

AFP Professional Standards has investigated suspected leaks to the media and is satisfied that there has been no unlawful disclosure of information by AFP members. The matters identified as possible inappropriate conduct by officials of other agencies will be referred to the appropriate authorities.

The AFP has acted appropriately throughout the investigation.

Well that’s good then. Some “other agencies” are to blame.

However the statement also says:

The continuing attempts by Dr Haneef’s defence team to use the media to run their case is both unprofessional and inappropriate and the AFP has raised this aspect with the Queensland Legal Services Commission.

Uhuh. And how about an equivalent sentence complaining about the government’s attempts to use the media to run their case? Yes, Ruddock and Andrews, I’m looking at you. Is your behaviour not also “both unprofessional and inappropriate”? No, no equivalent set of words? Oh.

I was under the impression that in Western democracies the police (as well as the “other agencies”) were there to independently uphold the rule of law, not act as the minions of the government of the day. Silly me.

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Taxing the poor, for years

Stilgherrian — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 06:57:49 +0000

The media’s full of the Howard government’s magic $3.7 billion “extra surplus” today. It’s hard to know how to start making sense of it all. But here’s one thought which struck me: the tax-free threshold for personal income tax.

Democrat Senator Andrew Murray says in Crikey today that the amount you can earn before being taxed has stayed at the same figure of $6000 since the year 2000.

If it had been indexed since 2000, it would now be well over $7000. Had the 1980 personal threshold of $4,041 kept pace with earnings, the tax-free threshold would now be well over $15,000.

Senator Murray also points out that the minimum income required for basic subsistence is around $13,000. That is, if you earn less than that, you simply don’t have enough money to cover the basic living expenses of accommodation, food, clothing, education, medical care, transport and so on. Sure, you might be able to fake it for a while, but eventually something will give.

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Choosing to support slavery

Stilgherrian — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 01:35:34 +0000

This quote from Saturday’s Daily Telegraph (not online) really hit me:

They [toys being sold at Christmas in a superstore] are probably made under awful conditions, but what do you do? Accept it… or leave the kids with nothing?

Huh? Read the full article and think again, people. Is giving cheap trinkets to your children so important that you’ll choose to treat other human beings so appallingly?

I can forgive someone for doing this out of ignorance — after all, ignorance can be cured with knowledge. But to know that this is happening and still choose the trinkets! That’s disgusting. I think I’d prefer to walk away from your Omelas.

On the other hand, the very next day it was raining and I bought a $3.50 Chinese umbrella to stay dry. Am I any better?

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Oops, there goes privacy! So now what?

Stilgherrian — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 01:54:31 +0000

Most of the more enthusiastic web developers worry me. In their wild-eyed enthusiasm for the latest, coolest technology they seem almost oblivious to wider or longer-term implications. Nick Bradbury, creator of FeedDemon, a popular RSS reader for Windows, had an interesting take on this recently.

Back in 2004, I asked: “What are we actually building here? A lot of people in my profession wear rose-colored glasses and believe we’re helping to make information free to the world, but some of the early proponents of television believed the same thing. Are we really just building the next version of TV, one even more powerful because it knows your name and shopping habits?”

I thought I was being cynical then, but now I’m not so sure. Google continues to carve out a huge share of the Internet advertising market, in large part by figuring out what we’re paying attention to. The quality of the content doesn’t really matter to them — only the number of eyeballs they can advertise to does. Sounds a lot like commercial TV, doesn’t it?

So far, has the Web been better than TV, or just more targeted? And is it really worth giving up so much privacy in order to get it?

One of the biggest changes facing society right now is a massive loss of individual privacy. And one of the best introductions to the issues is Simson Garfinkel’s book Database Nation.

Garfinkel is a leading researcher in computer forensics, so he’s well aware that “privacy on the Internet” isn’t really about your email address being used to send you spam — despite that being the focus of most website privacy statements.

As he says in Database Nation:

To understand privacy in [the 21st century] we need to rethink what privacy really means today:

It’s not about the man who wants to watch pornography in complete anonymity over the Internet. It’s about the woman who’s afraid to use the Internet to organise her community against a proposed toxic dump — afraid because the dump’s investors are sure to dig through her past if she becomes too much of a nuisance.

It’s not about people speeding on the nation’s highways who get automatically generated tickets mailed to them thanks to a computerised speed trap. It’s about lovers who will take less joy in walking around city streets or visiting stores because they know they’re being photographed by surveillance cameras everywhere they step.

It’s not about the special prosecutors who leave no stone unturned in their search for corruption of political misdeeds. It’s about the good, upstanding citizens who are now refusing to enter public service because they don’t want a bloodthirsty press rummaging through their old school reports, computerised medical records and email.

It’s not about the searches, metal detectors and inquisitions that have become a routine part of our daily lives at airports, schools and federal buildings. It’s about a society that views law-abiding citizens as potential terrorists, yet does little to effectively protect its citizens from real threats to their safety.

Actually, you could argue that privacy has already been lost — we just don’t realise it yet.

It’s now impossible to drive anonymously across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Every mobile phone is a tracking device. Every web page you look at is logged by your Internet service provider. And a generation is recording every little detail of their lives in LiveJournal or MySpace or Facebook or whatever social media website will make all those look so last week.

My take on this?

Society will have to come to terms with the fact that everyone has skeletons in the cupboard — that joint they smoked, for instance. Roughly 1 in 7 of the men listed on birth certificates isn’t actually the father — but now routine DNA screening for diseases is uncovering uncomfortable bedroom secrets.

Many “bad” things are really quite common — they’re just not talked about. Our private worlds remain private. Or at least they used to.

We’ll have to get used to the idea that politicians, teachers, bus drivers — whoever! — are all flawed humans. We can’t ban those who smoked a joint or has “a history of mental illness” (depression affects 800,000 Australian adults a year) or committed a crime (copyright infringement is now a crime, you know) or there’ll be no-one left!

So long-term we might get a more tolerant society, with a more reality-based view of the world.

However in the shorter term I can see a decrease in tolerance. As new technologies reveal more of our hidden private worlds, people will be shocked to discover “all these criminals” and so on, and there’ll be a crackdown.

It could be an uncomfortable few decades.

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Howard’s concern seems genuine — genuine spin, that is

Stilgherrian — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 06:45:16 +0000

John Howard’s racist intervention into the management of Aboriginal child sex abuse cases seems to be based on genuine personal shock, at least according to one feature story yesterday:

“I thought the report was just horrific,” he said yesterday. “This is very genuine. I am distressed. It is terrible. Little children. Don’t underestimate the personal interest and commitment to this. Or Mal Brough [Howard's Minister for Indigenous Affairs]. He is quite passionate about doing something on this subject. I said to him, ‘We’ve got to do something, we’ve got to grab hold of this. The territory’s not going to do anything.’”

But once that’s out of the way, the spin begins:

“It’s just terrible. Just imagine if it was Dickson, or Brunswick or Marrickville or whatever. It’s just intolerable and you’ve just got to do something about it.

Cute choice of examples, Mr Howard. I don’t know about Dickson (are you reading this, Antony Green?), but I live in the Marrickville electorate and Brunswick is the Melbourne equivalent — both multicultural Labour-voting areas.

Howard’s choice is 100% political. Mention left-wing heartlands so those on the left take the example personally and sympathise with the pain, and those on the right are reminded that these mixed-race communities are a hotbed of sordidness. He certainly doesn’t say “Just imagine if it was Mosman or Elsternwick.”

I mean, there’s no child sexual abuse in suburbs with deciduous trees, and Howard wouldn’t risk upsetting core Liberal party voters by even suggesting it were possible.

Howard doesn’t mention that the Little Children are Sacred report is the 13th enquiry into Aboriginal child sexual abuse since he became PM — three of them federal enquiries!

He doesn’t mention that NT chief minister Clare Martin proposed an interventionist solution a year ago — which he ignored.

He doesn’t mention that federal funding to tackle this issue was cut 4 years ago.

But he does keep emphasizing that he’s taking control, that he’s in control, that once more he’s Big Strong Daddy.

And as I write that a sudden thought crosses my mind. Isn’t Big Strong Daddy the one committing most child sexual abuse?

[P.S. There's interesting comments on this issue attached to my original post. Enjoy.]

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That’s just straight-up racism, Mr Howard!

Stilgherrian — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 00:53:36 +0000

Prime Minister John Howard rides his white horse into Aboriginal Australia to save the kiddies. Yes, banning pornography will prevent child sexual abuse, apparently — despite a complete lack of evidence to support that idea. Despite the fact that whities committing sexual abuse against white kids won’t have pornography banned in their communities. And despite JWH being on the record as saying he’s opposed to censorship of any kind. Just how many ways can you be a complete hypocrite in the one news story?