Author Archives: Puddleglum

Ten years of stress in New Zealand: Update

Posted on 20th Feb, 2016 by Puddleglum

Update: Looking at this visualisation from p. 2 of the latest Canterbury Wellbeing Index, it seems that it is accepted that ‘High Stress’ has indeed gone up in New Zealand – and more so in Canterbury – between 2008-2010 and … Continue reading →

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Ten years of stress in New Zealand

Posted on 20th Feb, 2016 by Puddleglum

The 5th anniversary of Canterbury’s devastating earthquake on 22nd February, 2011 is looming. A recent after-shock of 5.7 magnitude quake has provided added stress to an already stressed population. There have been recent reports of increased suicides and suicide-related calls, depression and anxiety in … Continue reading →

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On the very idea of ISIS – Part II

Posted on 19th Oct, 2015 by Puddleglum

In the first part of this post I argued that beliefs held by individuals are not a good basis on which to analyse geopolitical events. Both beliefs and their associated collective-level behaviours are the result of other forces operating in the environment … Continue reading →

Posted in Human Nature, International Politics, Media, Military, Philosophy, Political Psychology | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

On the very idea of ISIS – Part I

Posted on 19th Oct, 2015 by Puddleglum

The very idea of wanting to explain a practice–for example, the killing of the priest-king–seems wrong to me. All that Frazer does is to make them plausible to people who think as he does. It is very remarkable that in … Continue reading →

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When is bias no longer bias? When it’s everything.

Posted on 13th Sep, 2015 by Puddleglum

Is Mike Hosking politically biased? I think the answer is ‘yes’. Is our media politically biased? I think the answer is also  ‘yes’. Is our society politically biased? That’s not quite so easy to answer. But for a more worrying reason … Continue reading →

Posted in Democracy, Economics, Free Market, Human Nature, Media, New Zealand Politics, Political Psychology | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Why Syrian refugees?

Posted on 6th Sep, 2015 by Puddleglum

There’s two aspects to the Syrian refugee crisis that are worth thinking about a bit more deeply. That’s because both of them represent something of a departure from past behaviour. The first is the question which a few commentators, such … Continue reading →

Posted in Human Nature, Human Wellbeing, International Politics, Media, New Zealand Politics | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Pointless referenda I would like

Posted on 1st Sep, 2015 by Puddleglum

Well, the flag’s well and truly come down for the start of the silly season so let’s get into the spirit of it all. Yes, time to put aside all that serious politico stuff that ‘lefties’ get so uptight about. As … Continue reading →

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PMs just wanna have fun …

Posted on 25th Apr, 2015 by Puddleglum

According to John Key it was all just innocent “horsing around“. It wasn’t, of course – as John Armstrong in the New Zealand Herald understands. And Key knew that too. All his protests to the contrary amount to him pulling our collective … Continue reading →

Posted in Democracy, Human Nature, National Identity, New Zealand Politics, Political Polls, Political Psychology | Tagged , , , , | 17 Comments

Seven Sharp, Campbell Live and TV Ratings – The ‘Nudge’ Factor

Posted on 10th Apr, 2015 by Puddleglum

University of Chicago economist Richard Thaler and Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein  wrote a generally well-received book in 2008 called ‘Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness‘. It was an accessible assemblage of very well known work in psychology … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Free Market, Human Nature, Political Psychology | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

The politics of the empty tomb – Part II

Posted on 9th Apr, 2015 by Puddleglum

[In Part I of this post I suggested that – even for the non-religious – there’s some interesting social, economic and political insights to be gained from considering the ubiquitousness of religion. More specifically, I claimed that the myth of … Continue reading →

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