Criptic Critic Conscience and Known for it

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

The WTC reports produced by NIST represent the most obvious example of politically motivated pseudoscience in history. The physical experiments NIST performed did not support its conclusions. The reports were not peer-reviewed and public comments that challenged the findings were ignored. NIST will not share its computer models—the last supposed evidence that supports its conclusions—with the public and therefore its conclusions are not verifiable. These glaring facts should be readily recognizable by any scientist and, given the unprecedented impact of the resulting War on Terror, this abuse of science should be the basis for a global outcry from the scientific community. The fact that it is not—with even Oreskes and Conway ignoring this most obvious example—indicates that many scientists today still cannot recognize false science or cannot speak out about it for fear of social stigma. It’s possible that our society has not suffered enough to compel scientists to move out of their comfort zones and challenge such exploitation of their profession. If so, the abuse of science for political and commercial purposes will only get worse.





 

 

How Science Died at the World Trade Center

Science has been misused for political purposes many times in history. However, the most glaring example of politically motivated pseudoscience—that employed by U.S. government scientists to explain the destruction of the World Trade Center (WTC)—continues to be ignored by many scientists. As we pass the 10th anniversary of the introduction of that account, it is useful to review historic examples of fake science used for political purposes and the pattern that defines that abuse.
An early example of pseudoscience used to promote a political agenda was the concerted Soviet effort to contradict evolutionary theory and Mendelian inheritance. For nearly 45 years, the Soviet government used propaganda to foster unproven theories of agriculture promoted by its minister of agriculture, Trofim Lysenko. Scientists seeking favor with the Soviet hierarchy produced fake experimental data in support of Lysenko’s false claims. Scientific evidence from the fields of biology and genetics was banned in favor of educational programs that taught only Lysenkoism and many biologists and geneticists were executed or sent to labor camps. This propaganda-fueled program of anti-science continued for over forty years, until 1964, and spread to other countries including China.
pseudoscienceIn the 2010 book Merchants of Doubt, authors Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway describe several other examples of the misuse of science, spanning from the 1950s to the present. They show how widely respected scientists participated in clearly non-scientific efforts to promote the agendas of big business and big government. Examples include the tobacco industry’s misuse of science to obfuscate the links between smoking and cancer, the military industrial complex’s use of scientists to support the scientifically indefensible Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), and several abuses of environmental science.
As Oreskes and Conway made clear, science is about evidence. “It is about claims that can be, and have been, tested through scientific research—experiment, experience, and observation—research that is then subject to critical review by a jury of scientific peers.” In science, if experiments performed do not support a hypothesis, that hypothesis must be rejected. If conclusions fail to pass peer-review due to a lack of supportive evidence or the discovery of evidence that directly contradicts them, those conclusions must be rejected.
From Lysenkoism through the examples given by Oreskes and Conway, politically motivated pseudoscience demonstrates a pattern of characteristics as follows.
  1. There is a lack of experiments.
  2. The results of experiments are ignored or contradicted in the conclusions.
  3. There is either no peer-review or peer-reviewer concerns are ignored.
  4. The findings cannot be replicated or falsified due to the withholding of data.
  5. False conclusions are supported by marketing or media propaganda.
  6. Hypotheses that are supported by the evidence are ignored.
All six of these characteristics of pseudo-science are exhibited by the U.S. government investigation into what happened at the WTC on September 11th, 2001. That investigation was conducted by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) and it had much in common with the examples given by Oreskes and Conway. As with the false science that supported tobacco use, millions of lives were lost as a result—in this case through the “War on Terror.” Like support for the Strategic Defense Initiative, the abuses were focused on supporting the military-industrial complex. And as with the environmental examples, NIST’s manipulations affect everyone on the planet because they prop up a never-ending war.
In terms of historical experience, the destruction of the three WTC skyscrapers was unprecedented. No tall building had ever experienced global collapse for any reason other than explosive demolition and none ever has since that time. In terms of observation, nearly everyone who examines the videos from the day recognizes the many similarities to explosive demolition. Perhaps the most compelling evidence in favor of the demolition theory is that the NIST WTC Reports, which took up to seven years to produce, exhibit all six of the characteristics of politically motivated pseudoscience.
The lack of experiment:
NIST performed no physical experiments to support its conclusions on WTC Building 7. Its primary conclusion, that a few steel floor beams experienced linear thermal expansion thereby shearing many structural connections, could have easily been confirmed through physical testing but no such testing was performed. Moreover, other scientists had performed such tests in the past but since the results did not support NIST’s conclusions, those results were ignored (see peer-review comments below).
The results of experiments were ignored or contradicted in the conclusions:
  • For the Twin Towers, steel temperature tests performed on the few steel samples saved suggested that the steel reached only about 500 degrees Fahrenheit. This is more than one thousand degrees below the temperature needed to soften steel and make it malleable—a key requirement of NIST’s hypothesis. NIST responded by exaggerating temperatures in its computer model.
  • Another key requirement of NIST’s explanation for the Twin Towers was that floor assemblies had sagged severely under thermal stress. Floor model tests conducted by my former company Underwriters Laboratories showed that the floor assemblies would sag only 3 to 4 inches, even after removal of all fireproofing and exposure to much higher temperatures than existed in the buildings. NIST responded by exaggerating the results—claiming up to 42-inches worth of floor assembly sagging in its computer model.
  • After criticism of its draft report in April 2005, NIST quietly inserted a short description of shotgun tests conducted to evaluate fireproofing loss in the towers. These results also failed to support NIST’s conclusions because the shotgun blasts were not reflective of the distribution or trajectories of the aircraft debris. Additionally, the tests suggested that the energy required to “widely dislodge” fireproofing over five acre-wide floors—required by NIST’s findings—was simply not available.
There was no peer review and public comments from peers were ignored:
NIST published its own WTC reports and therefore its work was not subject to peer-review as is the case for all legitimate science. The people and companies involved in the NIST investigation were either government employees or contractors dependent on government work and were therefore not objective participants.
In terms of indirect peer-review, the international building construction community has made no changes to building construction standards in response to NIST’s officially cited root causes for the WTC destruction. Furthermore, no existing buildings have been retrofitted to ensure that they do not fail from those alleged causes.
NIST provided a period for public comment on its draft reports but the comments provided by those not beholden to government were not supportive of NIST’s findings. In some cases, as with NIST’s linear expansion claim for WTC 7, independent scientists submitted comments about physical tests they had performed (which NIST had not) that directly contradicted NIST’s findings.
There was one important exception to NIST’s ignoring of public comments. After a physics teacher’s well-publicized comments, NIST was forced to admit that WTC 7 was in free-fall for a vertical distance equivalent to at least eight stories of the building. Structural engineers have since noted that many hundreds of high-strength steel bolts and steel welds would have had to vanish instantaneously for an 8-story section of the building to fall without any resistance.
The findings cannot be replicated or falsified due to the withholding of data:
NIST will not share it computer models with the public. A NIST spokesman declared, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, that revealing the computer models would “jeopardize public safety.” Because NIST’s conclusions depend entirely on those computer models, they cannot be verified or falsified by independent scientists.
False conclusions are supported by media or marketing propaganda:
As with the Soviet propaganda machine that supported Lysenkoism and the tobacco industry’s marketing propaganda, NIST’s pseudoscience was fully and uncritically supported by the mainstream media. Hearst Publications, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and Skeptic magazine are examples of media that went to great lengths to stifle any questioning of the official account and divert attention from the glaring discrepancies.
NIST depended on that media support as indicated by the timing of its release of reports. NIST’s final report appeared to be scheduled for dual political purposes, to coincide with the seventh anniversary of 9/11 and to give the appearance of finished business at the end of the Bush Administration. The timing of NIST’s other reports coincided with political events as well. These included the draft report on the towers in October 2004—just before the election, the final report on the towers—just before the fourth anniversary of 9/11, and NIST’s first “responses to FAQs”—just before the fifth anniversary. All of them appeared to involve politically motivated release dates.
The report release dates allowed time for the media to quickly present the official story while public interest was high, but did not allow time for critical review. With the report on WTC 7, the public was given just three weeks prior to September 11th, 2008 to comment on a report that was nearly seven years in the making.
Hypotheses that are supported by the evidence were ignored:
Throughout its seven-year investigation, NIST ignored the obvious hypothesis for the destruction of the WTC buildings—demolition. That evidence includes:
  • Free-fall or near-free fall acceleration of all three buildings (now acknowledged by NIST for WTC 7)
  • Photographic and video evidence demonstrating the characteristics of demolition for both the Twin Towers and WTC 7
The WTC reports produced by NIST represent the most obvious example of politically motivated pseudoscience in history. The physical experiments NIST performed did not support its conclusions. The reports were not peer-reviewed and public comments that challenged the findings were ignored. NIST will not share its computer models—the last supposed evidence that supports its conclusions—with the public and therefore its conclusions are not verifiable.
These glaring facts should be readily recognizable by any scientist and, given the unprecedented impact of the resulting War on Terror, this abuse of science should be the basis for a global outcry from the scientific community. The fact that it is not—with even Oreskes and Conway ignoring this most obvious example—indicates that many scientists today still cannot recognize false science or cannot speak out about it for fear of social stigma. It’s possible that our society has not suffered enough to compel scientists to move out of their comfort zones and challenge such exploitation of their profession. If so, the abuse of science for political and commercial purposes will only get worse.
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7 Responses to How Science Died at the World Trade Center

  1. Werner says:
    Congratulations, a brilliant article with loads of good informations and links.
    Thanks.
    Just a reminder: I never got a critical answer to my remarks on the hypothesis of “basement” bombs”, in the North Tower (if, which is not at all proven, why only there?) :
    http://digwithin.net/2013/11/17/jet_fuel/
  2. aletho says:
    Well gee.
    Just look at climate “science”.
    Or pharmaceutical studies.
    Worst of all, the saturated fat/cholesterol scam.
    https://alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/the-saturated-fat-scam-whats-the-real-story/
    The consequences have been arguably far greater than GWOT in terms of lives lost.
  3. Drew Gibbs says:
    Thank-you Kevin for your energetic research and writing… very inspiring! Some of us out here are listening!
  4. David Fletcher says:
    All very good, but an examination of Orrestes’ own swervings from scientific method in service to the ‘warmist’ agenda should have sounded a warning to mr Ryan. eg. the shoddy basis for her claims that 97% of scientists support “The Science”. For a normally meticulous researcher, I suggest that mr Ryan has not checked her out all that thoroughly.
    A quick perusal of the one star amazon reviews of her “Merchants of Doubt” should raise serious doubts as to her motivation and methodology. Her ad-hominem attack style, in itself, should sound the alarm.
    In addition, her argument by analogy conflating Big Tobacco with the Big Whatever which would seek to ‘deny’ her take on climate matters, doesn’t advance anyone’s understanding one iota, other than to warn that powerful interests will dissemble. Like we didn’t know that already
    The elephant in the room which consistently escapes the notice of politically purblind far green left eco-warriors such as N.O. is the cabal of far more powerful interests , specifically banking, who must be delighted to have Orrestes et al, all looking in the other direction for their villains!
    Otherwise, a fine rational artical as ever Kevin.
  5. Daniel Noel says:
    Thank you so much for the last paragraph. It points to the most successful and most alarming layer of the 9/11 conspiracy: the apparent amazingly effective censorship of a self-evident televised criminal controlled demolition of the twin towers and of its transparent cover-up. Much evidence supports the theory that the 9/11 false flag and Osama bin Laden’s associated aerial prowess suffered from error and improvisation. By contrast, there is no question that the censorship was been masterfully prepared and executed. Hence the conspiracy theory that the 9/11 censorship would be only one manifestation of a much larger conspiracy.
    I’ll add that the technical censorship of the World Trade Center’s controlled demolitions is a worldwide phenomenon. Particularly intriguing is the continued silence of engineering institutions in countries that are ostensibly threatened by some U.S. military intervention, like Iran.
    Love,
  6. student says:
    This is one of your best articles. There’s a great need for methodology in exposing establishment corruption, given that you can’t expect the establishment’s judiciary to do it.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Robinson Jeffers - “The beauty of modern/Man is not in the persons,” he wrote in “Rearmament, but in the/Disastrous rhythm, the heavy and mobile masses, the dance of the/Dream-led masses down the dark mountain.”

fucking ny times


Rearmament

 These grand and fatal movements toward death: the grandeur
of the mass
Makes pity a fool, the tearing pity
For the atoms of the mass, the persons, the victims, makes it
seem monstrous
To admire the tragic beauty they build.
It is beautiful as a river flowing or a slowly gathering
Glacier on a high mountain rock-face,
Bound to plow down a forest, or as frost in November,
The gold and flaming death-dance for leaves,
Or a girl in the night of her spent maidenhood, bleeding and
kissing.
I would burn my right hand in a slow fire
To change the future ... I should do foolishly. The beauty
of modern
Man is not in the persons but in the
Disastrous rhythm, the heavy and mobile masses, the dance of the
Dream-led masses down the dark mountain. 





Shine, Perishing Republic

  While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening
to empire
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the
mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots
to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and deca-
dence; and home to the mother.

You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stub-
bornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:
shine, perishing republic.
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thick-
ening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet there
are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant,
insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught--they say--
God, when he walked on earth. 



Carmel Point

 The extraordinary patience of things!
This beautiful place defaced with a crop of surburban houses-
How beautiful when we first beheld it,
Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs;
No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing,
Or a few milch cows rubbing their flanks on the outcrop rockheads-
Now the spoiler has come: does it care?
Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people are a tide
That swells and in time will ebb, and all
Their works dissolve. Meanwhile the image of the pristine beauty
Lives in the very grain of the granite,
Safe as the endless ocean that climbs our cliff.-As for us:
We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;
We must unhumanize our views a little, and become confident
As the rock and ocean that we were made from.




Hurt Hawks

The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder,
The wing trails like a banner in defeat,

No more to use the sky forever but live with famine
And pain a few days: cat nor coyote
Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons.

He stands under the oak-bush and waits
The lame feet of salvation; at night he remembers freedom
And flies in a dream, the dawns ruin it.

He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse.
The curs of the day come and torment him
At distance, no one but death the redeemer will humble that head,

The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes.
The wild God of the world is sometimes merciful to those
That ask mercy, not often to the arrogant.

You do not know him, you communal people, or you have forgotten him;
Intemperate and savage, the hawk remembers him;
Beautiful and wild, the hawks, and men that are dying, remember him.

II

I'd sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk;
but the great redtail
Had nothing left but unable misery
From the bone too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed under his talons when he moved.

We had fed him six weeks, I gave him freedom,
He wandered over the foreland hill and returned in the evening, asking for death,
Not like a beggar, still eyed with the old
Implacable arrogance.

I gave him the lead gift in the twilight.
What fell was relaxed, Owl-downy, soft feminine feathers; but what
Soared: the fierce rush: the night-herons by the flooded river cried fear at its rising
Before it was quite unsheathed from reality.



(10 January 1887 – 20 January 1962 / Allegheny, Pennsylvania)

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Jim Morrison's father navy rear admiral, was commander of the U.S. naval forces in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Gulf of Tonkin Incident of August 1964, which sparked an escalation of American involvement in the Vietnam War.

Wells Tao How's that story go where unloved children become famous and loved by the world, to die like sputter kites masquerading as rockets?
Like ·· Share Tom James, Thomas Devenney and Mingus Noone like this.

Wells Tao I can't quite escape enough to explain it, but in the movie I'm streaming, Peter McLeavey is playing Andy Warhol and there's a cue of Jim Morrison wannabe's with not one of them willing to die for something, we've lost that ability to chant and pray and find ecstasy with authentic authority.
Like · Reply · 2 · 12 hrs

Mingus Noone You mean the Mickey Mouse club?
Like · Reply · 1 · 12 hrs

Wells Tao I just killed an injured mouse with my hands, I can say that I killed something now. I feel bathed in its blood. It was a mistake. That has me licensed for the next.
Like · Reply · 11 hrs

Alice Bartlett encourage you to bludgeon a baby possum still moving in the pouch of its timms-trapped dead mother to really find your thoroughgoing connection with what it is to kill. i nearly threw up but will do it again when needed and fully expect to nearly throw up each time. they also make good blood and bone for fruit trees. that is separate , but follows.
Like · 2 mins

Wells Tao compete in pain, hierarchy of cool, spiritual war fare
Like · Just now

Maia McDonald I still chant morning and night
Like · Reply · 11 hrs

Maia McDonald for peace and nuclear disarmament among other things ...
Like · 11 hrs

Wells Tao the invisible soul of a beauty queen















Friday, February 6, 2015

Peace Tree Revolution Logo


the unconscious aspect of work, the escape,

Wells Tao
10 hrs ·

the unconscious aspect of work, the escape, I accept that but I also see how it is abused. Our need to escape overrides our need to take responsibility for what ever it is that we are making. Beuy's calling it 'art' tried to bring this to awareness, this normal thing we participate in is actually a creation, held together by our desire to escape it. First step after 'everything is art', & "everyone is an artist' is notice what you are making, and who your audience is. Second step is to renounce unconscious passivity in this behavior and seek to articulate what exactly it is your practice of art is of. More steps later...
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    Zarah Bergamot, Ra Ra Ra, Deth Bethlehem and 10 others like this.

Barry Thomas and unpack the economies at work within each and every work.workplace/industrial goal. Then oblige oneself to ask... what am I 'paying' for this work? what are the social environmental, cultural and even familial/personal costs. Then how can I reduce this burden...
Unlike · Reply · 4 · 9 hrs

Wells Tao step 3.
Like · 2 · 9 hrs

Thursday, February 5, 2015

What if evoking the 'tall poppy' idea is simply an attempt to express the banal existence of a readily admitted cultural hierarchy that systematically crushes individual expression . ..

Wells Tao
February 3 at 2:34pm ·

What if evoking the 'tall poppy' idea is simply an attempt to express the banal existence of a readily admitted cultural hierarchy that systematically crushes individual expression into passive consumer conformity while ensuing that the calling out of this behavior is a reinforcement of the very means of perpetuating such a hierarchy. If we kept our focus on the culture that crushes, what would happen?
Like · Share - Jason Biggal, Carmen Potter, Jason Secto and 6 others like this.

Heike Ngan Exactly....law of attraction....crushed flat by what we focus on.
Like · Reply · February 3 at 6:32pm

Wells Tao I was trying to paint of picture of how we are crushed by distraction and misdirection. That attention is lead by anticipated reaction, cries of pain that are equally made out as cries of pleasure. Changing nothing, relieving nothing but the surface, and that this 'culture' we are told is enough. Not for me...
Like · 3 · February 4 at 11:43am · Edited

Heike Ngan It's just cronyism, nepotism, egotism, consumerism, ........among many other manipulation/marketing things. Are we buying or selling? To find some kind of truth and meaning, try peeling back the hierarchies like you would the layers of an onion, and yo...See More
Unlike · 2 · February 4 at 5:47pm

Wells Tao which is why we need to move on, life being art, we need to start being able to describe what we are doing, what is it the art of? The life of?. Yes that is it. What are you doing with your time, and tell me what the art of it is?
Like · February 4 at 10:29pm

Wells Tao I may or may not agree
Like · February 4 at 10:29pm

Heike Ngan Somewhere, sometime quite long ago, someone said to me that if an art-piece needs a book to describe and/or validate it to make it resonate with a soul, a mind or a heart, then it isn't worth diddly-shit....the essay description is obviously more engaging....As I said Wells, it's either marketing, or resonating, or a bit of both.....but it is always exactly what it is.
Like · February 4 at 11:01pm

Wells Tao I love books, and an art work can be even better with one.
Like · February 4 at 11:02pm

Wells Tao but it is always exactly what it is, a life of what
Like · February 4 at 11:04pm

Heike Ngan I'm done. Thanks Wells Sleep well.
Like · February 4 at 11:08pm
  
Michael Gresham Did you take a breath whilst writing that?
Like · Reply · February 4 at 3:45pm

Wells Tao Some people read out loud, I read in my mind, and my mind can read breathing in and out.
Like · 2 · February 4 at 4:50pm

John Philip Cadwallader Beats the opposite alternative.
Like · February 4 at 6:52pm
  
Michael Gibson What if post-modern discourse is really a load of disingenuous bollocks designed to obscure the fact that the writer has nothing to say?
Like · Reply · Yesterday at 1:22am

Wells Tao what are you responding to, can you articulate that?
Like · Just now

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Tao Wells Speech, at petcha Kutcha, when it was free to attend. 2009

Edit
Tao Wells Speech, at petcha Kutcha, when it was free to attend. 2009
February 4, 2015 at 11:34am

so , um

Shakespeare said that the world was a stage
and, when we hear something like that, out of all the things that he said, that,
the reason why that  stands out is cause somehow that has the ring of truth to it,
somehow that, that,
that
makes
sense

There’s been a lot of people since who’ve come up with their own ideas.
um,
Warhol said “I am a machine”, Jackon’s Pollock said “I am nature”
they said a lot of things but those things in relation to their lives and their works
somehow they too, sounded real, sounded like “Oh my God, you’re right”!
Warhol you’re punching out canvases like a machine, you’re making those screen prints of those news items like a machine, you’re reflecting back the machine of our lives back to us, this thing that creates culture or whatever it is.

So, what I’m interested in is, a statement made by an Artist, round the 70’s
and the statement is “Everyone is an artist”.
was made by an artist, Joseph Beuys.
now that, when someone makes that statement, when Joseph Beuys makes that statement or anyone says that statement, for me, immediately it says ‘well if everyone is an artist, there really isn’t any artists, if we’re all artists there’s no art’ so it becomes like a meaningless statement. ahh

Now what I’d like to try and do is, is just kind of explore that statement for what I’ve (um) come to understand it to mean, from my 9 years of academic study and 10 years of practice as a public artist.

Now,
when; for me when Joseph Beuys said ‘every one is an artist’
what he’s trying to say there is that ‘yes there is a class of people,
there is a elite group, of people in this “systems of economy” that are trained to produce
“specialised”, or what I call ‘super commodities’, that are ‘art’.

And
that it is, it’s ridiculously unfair that the rest of us,
the rest of everyone else’s production is not seen, or not given the same regard or the same tick of approval (um) that this specialised group
get for their super commodities
that they create.

So,
what he, what he was interested in, is well hold on,
the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, these people have skills, they make creative decisions on how to create
and do their jobs effectively, um,
with what they have.
And so,
what what’s really needed is an expanded idea of what an artist is.
We need to take back the idea of creativity and how important that is, the art in our lives, so that everyone becomes responsible, as an artist.
And that’s what I truly believe what he is meaning by “everyone is an artist” is that everyone, it is not that everyone is off the hook ‘aw well anyone can be an artist, it doesn’t really matter’, it’s actually that he’s putting you on the hook, he’s saying ‘Hey, You
Garbage Man,
You,
 Business Man,
You,
Corporate Business Politician’,
‘You are the Artist therefore you are responsible for making sure that the product that you create has to be contributing to the holistic and comprehensive picture that is people living on this planet’.

And that responsibility is the art, it’s the,
it’s the way that you can conceive
that you fit in to this holistic organism
of
existing.

And at the moment we all know that there are massive holes of this holistic system of human beings existing,
From
our shit getting into the water when it’s naturally fertilizer, I mean ‘duh’ there’s a stupid um,ah mistake right away. You know, from driving fossilised fuelled cars that are destroying our environment, I mean ‘duh’ there’s a problem. I mean there are massive holes in our products that need artists, people to take responsibility for and to step up and what’s happening is instead of this idea of everyone is an artist being, being promoted by Institutions and our Academies and our, our our various power sources, the idea is, is, is squashed, it’s paved over.
Instead we have the elite group getting stronger and stronger playing out at the top of this power pyramid its little market of trinket selling,
of a one hundred and one different flavours of ‘everyone is an artist’ but without anything new,
without any new ideas, because the new idea would have to mean ‘well, hey,
maybe we’re not at the top of this power pyramid’, maybe we’re actually getting it wrong over, over and over again and all we’re doing is protecting our own little interests and making sure we receive a massive amount of profit for whatever trinkets we make.

So, we have to expand this idea of creativity, we have to expand this idea of art and we need to um,
let go.



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    Jason Biggal, Michael Armstrong, Heike Ngan and 15 others like this.

Jean E Loomis You are right! If everyone put their creativity into the job what ever that job is it would transform the outcome. You can see this very clearly in teaching - the difference between a teacher who is creative versus a teacher who is only there for the paycheck, huge difference in the student outcomes.
Like · Reply · 4 · 10 hrs

    Wells Tao they DO put their creativity into their job, there is no avoiding this, even if that 'creativity' manifests as 'only there for pay check' conceptually that is language that can be articulated and negotiated with.. But recognizing this and linking it back to feeling responsible for what is being produced is made difficult, which also makes it worth while.
    Like · 2 · 10 hrs
    Wells Tao
    Write a reply...

Mike Nixon Like this, pecha kutcha tho ? , no if it is being charged for excessively ?, just collecting other peoples content to profit off it.
Like · Reply · 10 hrs

    Mike Nixon replied · 2 Replies · 10 hrs

Maia McDonald KIA KAHA, KIA MAIA, KIA MANAWANUI - TEHEI MAURI ORA - Tama tu, tama ora, tama moe, tama mate. AROHANUI X
Like · Reply · 10 hrs
Neil Macgregor MacLeod Two more statements I like - "I am life being aware of itself." and Bronowski's observation - "We (humans) are Nature's experiment to see if intelligence has survival value."
Like · Reply · 1 · 10 hrs
Neil Macgregor MacLeod Wasn't it the Balinese who claimed "we have no artists - everything we do is art." To implement your main argument we need that attitude - and we need to distinguish art which is an activity from the 'art world' which is just wheeling and dealing in the end result.
Like · Reply · 1 · 9 hrs
Ali Bramwell beautifully succinct
Like · Reply · 9 hrs
Alice Rose Before Art was signed and names became a commodity, there was Art to the glory of rich benefactors, usually prescribed by religion. Arts commercialism, and its 'superstars' seem to have developed out of this and taken over our right to participate, exp...See More
Like · Reply · 1 · 8 hrs
Barry Thomas Here we go again...

Art is only leading seeding radical new memes in the pavement cracks of culture...framing elephants in rooms....See More
Like · Reply · 2 · 8 hrs · Edited

Wells Tao "Good to see you starting to re-define art, artists, roles vs getting hooked up on 'what is it the art of?'" - Barry, the point of re-defineing is to answer the question what is it the art of?
Like · 28 mins
Wells Tao Again, your art definition is propoganda not art.
Like · 27 mins
Wells Tao Art's job is to do what it's told.
Like · 27 mins
Wells Tao don't sorry bro me, that's lame. You don't have any authority except your ability to reason and provide evidence of such, i.e it's not my experience that artists (at least the ones i've met) EVER know what it is that is great about what they have made. full stop.
Like · 25 mins

    Wells Tao your last point I almost agree with, but it's not 'people' it's you and me, and if you think this is what is needed, Beuy's wasn't wrong. But not widely understood. I could help you but you seem determined to be an artist. And i'm looking for those that want to shed that skin.
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    Wells Tao
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Harry Silver Was that in the overseas terminal building in Wellington? Having a flashback, trying to remember if I remember.
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    Wells Tao yes
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    Wells Tao
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Kenneth Lee Morgan · 4 mutual friends
salvidore said i am drugs
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Wells Tao https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150498533072181&set=a.172933277180.132978.577792180&type=3&theater
DARE TO TELL KIDS THE TRUTH ABOUT DRUGS
Wells Tao

DARE TO TELL KIDS THE TRUTH ABOUT DRUGS
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Ra Ra Ra life is medication
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    Wells Tao for death
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Jason Biggal We can expand on this idea we are all works of Art, Nature the greatest Artist of all perhaps, I guess the powers that may be, may not have wanted to hear that Truth, never the less there it is, in all its raw beauty and the Beauty of any work or Quote, un- Quote '' Art Works'' lays in the Beholder of their own perceptions and inspirations. How we perceive it is mostly up to our own thoughts. How we react or view it again is an individual perception that can be shared, so the art can be in many different forms or ideas or perceptions as thought patterns very greatly just as there are many, many different art forms and Artists, not just a simple set for certain individuals only. That's the Universal thread its access-able really to most if not all people on some level so we all participate as art and works of art. Weather its good or not is another story.
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Wells Tao I'm not talking about interpreting different pages from the bible. I'm talking about dropping the bible all together.
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Jason Biggal Again that's just one perception I 'm not talking about it either its an open comment about of whatever you want it to be, and many can't handle that concept'' so you let go or hang on to what ever truth or perception you want''
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Monday, February 2, 2015

The whole 'Tall Poppy' thing is a non issue. Like the "what is art" issue, it is only a means TO NOT ENGAGE in what is attempting to be presented.


The whole 'Tall Poppy' thing is a non issue. Like the "what is art" issue, it is only a means TO NOT ENGAGE in what is attempting to be presented. More often enough where these phrases are deployed it is around serious challenges to the status quo's grip of power and their ability to 'create the frames from which we perceive reality". Don't be sucked in.
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  • Draw Ward well said!
  • Barry Thomas waaaaaaaat... so you advocate never challenging the status quo? You no makin a lot of sense here bro
  • Derek Cowie And yes, well said. Success, if you only have it expressed through others is the pack and their leader the bully.
    Unlike · Reply · 1 · 4 hrs
  • Derek Cowie I think he is saying not to be sucked in by critics of anyone challenging the SQ
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  • Wells Tao We the public pay a lot of money for a select group to be 'artists' to be ' tall poppies' but because they hide that support they in my opinion are responsible for perpetuating these arguments at a level that is easily recycled at their lowest most debased level. We've actually paid for a platform and a discussion to happen on a lot more sophisticated, and relentless level. But that would require those in the job to ACTUALLY be able to do the job, and stand up to the public debate, transparently and be accountable for what they are saying.
    Like · Reply · 3 · 4 hrs · Edited
    • Derek Cowie We pay politicians a lot more to be wheat to be harvested
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    • Wells Tao I don't understand that, but guess your meaning
      Like · 1 · 4 hrs
    • Derek Cowie What amazes me about all this, is that with any personal or group dissent and questioning is a collective fear of engagement, not Catton but for her and us the possibility of intimidation and threat and within a democracy. It is our democratic right to question anything.
    • Derek Cowie within democratic capitalism, if you pay money (taxes) for something you own it you have a democratic right. The legitimate pressure from any taxpayer and in fact any citizen abiding by law and rule, given or taken is, as a right, to demand any in an e...See More
    • Wells Tao yeah a friend woke me up to this idea when he said that a fascist system has to already be in place, culturally before any charismatic despot can take over.. we have the charismatic despot.. but he's not hitler, he's a product, figurehead at the factory... invisible untouchable. And for those that care a very ordinary monster.
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  • Karl Edward Pearce Well said wells, let's step out of the mind of others and start thinking for ourselves. When we let them enslave our minds, they don't need to enslave our bodies.
    Unlike · Reply · 1 · 4 hrs
  • Barry Thomas I just love the idea that a version of a party, a group of people act as a group and stand up for Catton's call for the right to speak and express... let's get behind that call
    Like · Reply · 2 · 4 hrs
  • Wells Tao For me the arts and the sciences have been divided and conquered by the arts failure to go into full conflict with, said religious economic dogma. The arts, for example instead of leading by example, in a way, such as Scientist Dr Mike Joy does, whose every public statement is delivered with a clear declaration that he is working from a platform provided by Massey University. Our university artists in contrast, choose to remain obscure. While privately a few have suggested to me that they would risk losing their jobs if they did promote their income, while possibly being true needs to be tested, and is certainly I believe, NOT the true cost that we the public pay for them not speaking out, as a collective, powerful SILENT body in our visible society.
    Like · Reply · 2 · 4 hrs · Edited
    • Derek Cowie Well i absolutely agree with that and it is precisely why 'The List' and 'Listers' has come to be. In my view science is suspect, corruptable. Nature, the environment IS the only truly 'open' arena to actually contest every man made construct.
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  • Heike Ngan Let's make lollipops with 'comforting' slogans very 'artfully' contrived, then prettily and 'grabbingly' rendered on the wrappers.....just a novel way to capitalise on the mainstream pacifier-syndrome ....and then share the money-spoils with those who really care but starve for their vision and knowing. But then again, that would be immoral, and so the likes of those who wipe the goo from their eyes, and the wax from their ears so as to better see and hear could never walk that dodgy line....after all, two wrongs will never make a right, no matter what the maths books say. This then begs the question...."What is true? ... if everything we do is art?"
  • Barry Thomas Catton... a University teacher ... has delivered big time on her contract to be the conscience of society
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    • Wells Tao nah, she was 'outed", universities win, with the back handed compliment that smart people go to uni, but the general public, get the message that this is just smart people whinning. which is exactly how Key has spun it.
    • Wells Tao whining/ winning
    • Barry Thomas jeeeze you can be tricky to love Taos Art Gardens and Food Project
    • Wells Tao a "conscience" would have promoted it's economic/ political base
    • Barry Thomas have you read her speeches this week?
    • Wells Tao I'd rather not be loved bro, and instead educated by someone who knows something
    • Wells Tao I read her blog post
    • Derek Cowie Catton is almost irrelevant in this now. Hasnt the spotlight shifted to Keymedia
    • Wells Tao probably, i'm a day or two behind (whoops betraying my true interest)
    • Heike Ngan But Catton, for all her youth, knows that the honest observation of what IS right in front of her eyes is worth airing....well, I am taken in by her for one..... She answered as she honestly saw....but maybe not....maybe she is a woman with an agenda. But why not, why not have an agenda, when agenda seems like the only things this propagandist world has got?
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    • Wells Tao in my opinion if your are not a transparent propagandist, you are still an artist, reduced to relying on a system of exploitation that serves the rich and perpetuates the status quo.
    • Derek Cowie She said some stuff. Its all over the internet. Over and over. The scum bags showed up and responded and that shows the immaturity lap dog politics that is NZ. Its a gap to be exploited
    • Derek Cowie Stop trying to define art. Declare it and stick to it. The future is a soft maliable substance
    • Heike Ngan I like that Wells...'In my opinion", or otherwise said, "from my position or perspective"....This is the absolute essence of it all, the nub of it, the truth of the matter....But opinion will never override morality, and that's an inalterable fact
    • Heike Ngan Apparently it is relative these days....but then it's not really morality, is it?
    • Wells Tao i'm stuck on a Nietzschian phrase, "Concepts, the grave yard of perceptions'. There are many way's to read this line. Much to mine.
    • Wells Tao Again, another friend of mine defined it this way, that ethics is what we apply to ourselves, and morality is what we allow the other to apply to ourselves.. I think that's how he put it.. Dick Whyte?
      Like · 2 · 3 hrs
    • Heike Ngan Actually, yes Wells....morality is that shady grey of cultural doctrine....ethics are more clinical. But as a human, and not a machine, somehow morality resonates more with my conscience than cold-seeming ethics ever will.
    • Wells Tao declarations of where one sits along this sliding line slowly become apparent in debates. Paid public roles, equally as slidy, need even more declaration.
    • Wells Tao ok that about does it for zen tao, off for a walk.
      Like · 1 · 3 hrs
    • Wells Tao Thanks all for participating!
      Like · 1 · 3 hrs
    • Heike Ngan Enjoy
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  • Derek Cowie This a long thread Wells Tao but as with so many platforms that snuggle up with philosophy semantics, and Web general Knowledge, the shape shifting dream remains virtual and seems unable to mutate or cross over. Eleanor Catton has brought them out and they have hilariously defined and exposed themselves. The Luminaries, the accolades and most importantly an artist with true conviction, talent and humility is at the heart of this. It is the holy grail that answers all questions of erhics, morality and here, freedom of speech and Barry Thomas is bang on in that chanpioning her, heralding a great woman and artist IS the point. Is Eleanor Catton a defining person bringing change and dialogue with her work and self?
    • Wells Tao yeah there is a long pattern of what I've called 'noble individuals' that have been prepared to voice these issues from time to time. I am not so interested in these individual utterances, but the system that is there, by law by taxes to engage in this area in a more systematic and routine way. The sensationalism attracted to these one off 'successes', including my own, in the end seem to amount to not much.
  • Craig Scott I thought Catton's point was to draw attention to the oozy spread of international neoliberalism.
    Unlike · Reply · 2 · 2 hrs
    • Heike Ngan Her point is simple...the fallout interestingly complex...
      Unlike · 3 · 2 hrs
    • Derek Cowie What she has done is in the public realm. She needs to be supported and affirmed by the NZ creative community
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    • Heike Ngan I'm with her ....these days she's the rarest of beings.....honest.
      Like · 1 · 2 hrs
    • Derek Cowie She is that Heike Ngan. For all 'our' screaming the obvious, she has bravely voiced a collective fear.
    • Derek Cowie We have a great artist in our midst
    • Wells Tao when we need to recognize it takes a great community of great artists for any artists to graduate and become a transparent propagandists.
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    • Craig Scott Well...
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    • Craig Scott ... one of the big clues that neoliberalism is bad is that a bunch of assholes really like it!
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    • Kirsten Forrester Well, that was interesting. I am still haunted by my inadequacies at my last job. Trying to pick and apply new processes and technology later in life led to my becoming anxious about my, er, performance.
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  • Craig Scott https://www.jacobinmag.com/.../06/bulletproof-neoliberalism/

    Bulletproof Neoliberalism To understand how a body of thought became an era of capitalism requires more...
    jacobinmag.com