If you want to look at this as an optimist: scrapping all support for social sciences across an entire country is a great social science experiment. Now we get to learn how important social sciences are!
Is that tragic optimism? New Zealand, are you ok over there? I guess we’ll never know.
No. We’re not.
Our current ultra (for us) right wing government is busy pillaging the country to line thier own and their cronies’ pockets.
- survive covid like fucking champs
- fire Jacinda
- do stupid cruel shit <— you are here, aka the “fuck around” stage
Well, kids, that’s where the betting pool opens.
I don’t catch all the news all the time, just learning they got rid of Jacinda. Why? Why in the actual fuck would you get rid of her?
She quit, basically. Couldn’t deal with the stress of holding on to her beliefs while facing the soulless ghouls of politics. Using less colorful language, of course.
And to be fair, her kid is about 18 months, im guessing?
Or have I dropped a year or two in my calculations?
I had actually been planning a proposal for this fund for next year (social science). I’d sat through seminars on how to write a good proposal, and no one mentioned funding getting cut was even a possibility. The universities were completely blindsided.
It’s a decision that seems to be driven purely by ideology, and mostly comes from one of the junior coalition partners (Act). I know for a fact that their leader has been expressing discontent about some of the research being done that has been criticising him (I.e. showing how his party spreads misinformation).
KiaOra, mind pointing me in the direction of that research if anything is available?
The New Zealand Social Media Study did some analysis of fake news during the '20 and '23 election campaigns. They did a bit more in 2020, here are some of their results: https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/hppi/psir/psir-research/election/facebook-campaign-communication
I’m actually getting scared now. Project 2025 seems to be global. Every country on Earth is moving in stride with the fascists and seemingly happily so. This planet is about to get very ugly.
