Yeah like I said, “better things aren’t possible” fatalism.

I didn’t say I don’t consider roads as critical infrastucture, I specifically said “mega roads”, i.e new multi lane motorways that are a waste of money because they will encourage more driving, more sprawl and make traffic even worse in the long run (and I imagine local roads will deteriorate as they did the last time this happened).

Three waters, the ferries, state housing, public transport are all better options right now that are woefully underfunded and in fact actively sabotaged by this govt.

The “we don’t have the density” argument is often pulled out against funding public transport and it’s unfounded. We’re one of the most urbanised countries in the world. We could absolutely build more PT if we chose to, we’ve had far more extensive networks in the past than what we currently do.

Overall, saying what’s happening is a symptom is just an attempt to claim what’s happening right now is inevitable imo. Different choices can be made that would be far less damaging, they’d be positive even and actually address the underlying problems you highlight instead of this “better things aren’t possible” fatalism.

Terribly, with a layer of sneering smugness to boot. The austerity justifciations are national party spin, swallowed whole. The govt is throwing billions to landlords and mega roads while cutting funding for public housing, critical infrastructure and even fucking food banks at a time of record demand for them.

They’re also dumping costs onto households by cranking up user charges and abandoning councils to pay for decades of infrastructure underinvestment.

So no, they’ve chosen to loot and plunder.

Lisa needs braces

This post is talking exclusively about cities, I’m not sure why this argument about rural areas comes up so often when it’s not relevant.

What’s the advantage of the dishwasher opening itself when it’s done?

Aren’t the figures on the package meant to be net weight though?

That’s why they’re so hung up on race / gender / sexuality: those things are caste markers to them, and determine the right and proper role for people in their eyes. If someone steps out of their pre-ordained caste, that’s violating the hierarchy and eroding the rules that keep society ordered-therefore-safe, and therefore inherently immoral to them.

You’ve nailed it. Also, if people start to realise these labels aren’t as fixed they may naturally extend those conclusions to other arbitrary markers - like class and wealth.

Pretty crazy to think they got broken up in the late 90s/early 2000s for simply including IE in a fresh Windows install (im probably over simplifying but still). Yet these days they’re pulling this kind of shit

It’s been done at a town level before, with the same results

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/2/19/21112570/universal-basic-income-ubi-map

it could also just be a group of rocks in the shape of a plane

This whole search was as useless as those plane shaped rocks. Wait a minute… There’s a plane behind those rocks!

The reddit api blocking 3rd party apps pushed a whole bunch of people onto lemmy, and lemmy is very big on FOSS and Linux so it’s been a gateway of sorts

I feel this will just breed resentmint

It’s finally arrived, I’m really liking it so far. Consistent torque, nice stuff like auto cruise control, very quiet. I haven’t got much into the recharging habit so far to compare that with my old ICE car but it seems good - my brain is still acutely aware of the range estimate going down as I drive but I’m sure thatll go away.

It’s a bit of an adjustment having all sorts of menus and beeps and cameras - it’s all a bit sensory overload driving at the moment. My old car was about 15 years old so had none of that haha. Probably more a new car thing than an EV thing

They have said they will build state houses, but they haven’t elaborated on how much and what level of funding they’ll allocate to do it.

All their housing policy seems to mention is cutting the Kainga Ora land acquisition fund to help pay for their ‘build for growth’ policy (I. E. Giving councils funding for new houses to incentives them to be more accommodating to new housing, not a bad idea in of itself on the face of it tbh)

National produced negative state houses last time they were in government and presided over the massive sell off in the 90s. I do not trust their words over their track record on this.

Incidentally, when googling their housing policy to check this, I got this which isn’t related but made me lol.

State housing is like winning lotto

Only because we haven’t built enough of them for decades. This is why we should build much more of them

I don’t think it’s surprising, but good research to have backing this up nonetheless. Pretty much every problem in this country can be traced back to the lack of affordable and stable housing. It makes complete sense to me that a state house with security of tenure comes out better than a private rental you know you have for a year at most (and likely less if no cause evictions come back).

Incidentally, the authors of this study have done a lot of research into housing quality too. They found that providing insulation grants for our notoriously cold and damp houses generated savings many times the cost due to less pressure on the health system and fewer sick days from school and work.

When the people who would have bought $2m properties get blown out of the water by foreign buyers, theyll look to lower priced categories. This is how this will drag house prices up overall.

No it isn’t, they’ve said they’re rolling back both

It seems to depend on where you count your costs and benefits, and who is included in that.

Research seems to say that lower speeds are beneficial to society overall in a range of ways, National only seem to be counting car drivers and their right to continue taking up most of our public road space at the expense of everyone else.

https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/news/2022/lower-speed-limits-dont-just-save-lives-they-make-nz-towns-and-cities-better-places-to-live.html