Posted by alexandra_k on January 23, 2021, at 16:04:20
In reply to wah wah wah!!!, posted by alexandra_k on January 23, 2021, at 15:03:13
I am angry because these are the people that ruined it all.
New Zealand is a tiny little leg of an Australian trip.
Academics from the Northern Hemisphere with research they want to get out there (to discover points of connection for future collaboration) can get a rental car and travel the length of NZ in 2 weeks - giving talks at each University on their way through.
That's what people used to do.
But this stopped.
Before Covid.
It stopped before Covid.
The Universities stopped publically advertising talks. The Universities stopped inviting people to talks by speakers.
The Universities didn't want people saying things to the speakers like 'I've been a graduate research student here for the last 10 years and my supervisors never allow me to give research talks and never allow me to send my work out for publication'.
It was embarrassing.
I was having to tell them that our books were being systematically removed from the shelves to make room for 'group work study space' (aka - nothing).
Auckland wasn't part of ULAZ (it wasn't part of a reciprocal lending library scheme) and books that had been donated that were valuable (e.g., early edition Grey's Anatomy) were being vanished altogether and the shelves were becoming increasingly filled only with the sorts of crap that you get when old people die after the shops and private sellers have picked over everything. They were increasingly keeping books in 'book jail' behind the counter where you needed to present a student ID to view the book in library only for up to one hour (thereby preventing people from studying from the book).
Things like that.
So... The talks stopped.
There weren't department seminar series.
Then the talks sort of morphed... Changed... We started getting talks from people saying that they tortured people for their research (detained them involuntarily after accuring them of stealing when they had been set up). IN order to... See what would happen. In order to... Teach compliance around the University. The Psychology department of some country was doing this. Apparently that study research was funded by some International Law Society or something like that...
Or talks about how NZ Government was going to change it's laws so that if you couldn't protest being teh subject of experimental research (e.g., ebcause you had dementia) then they could do scientific experimentation on you -- because no consent is implied consent.
And it is a bit hard to know about euthanasia... Only these types... Were the ones most opposed to it. Likely because the developmetn of laws around when it was okay would make it clear that what was currently happening (who was deciding and how they were deciding) was very much not okay.
Where hospice and whether your will is in order and things are right with Gods representatives on earth. I mean to say. So the private sellers can sell your possessions, at least, and donate the garbage to the University. Or whatever whatever however that goes...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1113471
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20200805/msgs/1113475.html