26 April 2021

For the uninitiated, a guide to Indian Netflix

Growing up, the pickings for Indian film and television available here in New Zealand were slim. All I knew was 90s and early 2000s Bollywood, and let's just say, not a lot of it resonated (although with age and wisdom, I've reversed that view).

Thankfully, Netflix today has a treasure trove of Indian offerings, and not just in the Bollywood genre. All of these help showcase the diversity within India, the social/political issues that are relevant, and how the culture has developed over time. Here are some of my picks for dipping your toes into the Indian Netflix scene (full plots are given in the links). [Note I am neither an expert nor a connoisseur,  my recommendations are basic. Probably the Indian equivalent of recommending Friends to someone who has never watched US television before]

My number one pick: Lagaan


The film Lagaan is all about cricket. I hate cricket. I should not enjoy this film as much as I do. And yet, it is the best. It is an epic underdog story between the Indian villagers and the British rulers. It tells the story of a truly evil tax system (hi there, 'tax is love' brigade). And has a great soundtrack to match. Watch it for some history of British rule. Watch it for one of the most nail biting cricket matches of all time. Watch it because it's a classic.

If you want to the epitome of the Bollywood genre: Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham

I've always had a soft spot for this film, and I've yet to come across another film that has quite met this standard. Everything about it is OTT. It is a treat for the senses, and the soundtrack accounts for a disproportionate number of bangers for the era. The main theme of the film is all about the importance of family, which is not the most compelling pitch when I'm trying to sell it to others. Except it just is Bollywood. 

If you're interested in Bollywood but also need a solid storyline: Swades

Not all Bollywood films have a compelling plot, which is why I'm rather partial to Swades. This film is entertaining enough, but also effectively deals with some important subjects like the caste system, village politics and the importance of educating girls. It still has the traditional Indian tropes of song and dance, but I liked that this just felt a bit more substantial than some of the other Bollywood offerings.

If you want to know what an arranged marriage entails for Indians today: Indian Matchmaking (limited Netflix series):

Well, this is awkward. I was going to wax lyrical about how great this show is. Except when I went to Google it for a plot summary, it turns out that opinion is really divided (the link is just one of the examples of the criticism the show has received). But personally, I really really liked this show. Even as an Indian, I only had a vague understanding of what arranged marriages entail in the modern era, so the show is educational in that respect. I was also fascinated by the diversity of approaches to the custom and the attitudes of Indians towards love and marriage in general: from the culturally conservative to the more Western influenced.

Yes, there are parts that made me cringe: such as the obsession with caste and skin colour, and some of the attitudes around being a dutiful wife. But I think the show works because it has layers. On one level, you can enjoy it for what it is: an entertaining and educational look into an age old practice, with some  lovable (and some less so) characters to draw you in. On a deeper level, there's enough material in there to write essays on the diversity of cultural attitudes within India and its diaspora today. If you think all arranged marriages are degrading for women and take away their personal choice, watch this show: things are never that simple.

For an uplifting story of innovation, perseverance and challenging cultural norms: Pad Man

I didn't really know what to expect going into this film. I definitely didn't anticipate it being such a fascinating look into the innovation process and the perseverance required before success. This is a sweet and heartbreaking story about one man's attempts to develop hygienic and affordable sanitary pads, within a context where people, but especially men, are not supposed to talk about 'women's issues'.

A serious subject, made lighter with Bollywood flair: Toilet: Ek Prem Katha

The importance of hygienic sanitation in India's rural villages doesn't really scream Bollywood. It is a serious subject that raises important issues around women's safety, public health, and how difficult it is to shift religious and cultural norms. Maybe it's one of those things you have to see to believe, but I think the juxtaposition of the song and dance numbers enhanced the film. In any case, it's something different, something educational, and something that sticks in your head.

#MeToo, but make it Indian: Bombay Begums (limited Netflix series)

Welcome to postmodern India. What shocked me most about this series was how undeniably new it felt. Granted, this is a Netflix series so the cinematography is distinctly spectacular. Perhaps it was the seamless merging of Western and traditional Indian culture throughout. Where wearing a sari to board meeting felt just as appropriate as a blazer. Or perhaps it was the ability to touch on universal themes affecting women (like sexual harassment) as well as country-specific (like not being able to rent an apartment as an unmarried woman).

I think this show could easily be written off as an overly-produced drama trying too hard to pander to Western audiences. That would be a mistake. This series makes me excited about the directions Indian film and tv can take in the future, and the stories that are still yet to emerge.

22 April 2021

The right to choose not to have periods

Periods are a normal and natural thing. Few women would describe their periods as joyous as a trip to Disneyland, but they're willing to deal with this aspect of life all the same.

But what if you could choose not to have periods? Just opt out of shark week. The Pill is rightfully recognised as a key part of the sexual and feminist revolution. But there is another part of the feminist revolution that the Pill has enabled: the ability to not have periods. 

For me, the contraceptive pill and the ability to skip periods has significantly enhanced my physical and mental wellbeing. It is an important means of feeling empowered to exercise control and choice over my own body. 

But my goodness, skipping periods is neither cheap nor convenient. We talk a lot about period poverty in New Zealand and the costs associated with periods. But the cost of choosing not to have periods is a bit of a scandal too. That's if women are given the right information about skipping periods at all. It seems like women just can't win.

First up though, here's a little history to illustrate just how poor the advice has been and regarding the Pill. 

Is it safe to skip your period?

Contraceptive pills are organised in monthly strips, with seven placebo pills that allow women to have a monthly period. Since the 1960s up until as late as 2019 (!) women have been advised against skipping their periods when taking the contraceptive pill. 

But here's the thing: those placebo pills that women have been dutifully taking because they were told to don't serve any health function. The placebo pills were introduced in the hopes that, by mimicing a natural menstrual cycle, the Pill would be accepted by the Catholic Church (it wasn't). 

There is no medical evidence to suggest that skipping periods is harmful, or that monthly bleeding is necessary. 

There are several problems with the bad advice in favour of taking the placebo pills:

1) It can actually increase the risk of pregnancy

2) There are significant physical and mental wellbeing costs for some women 

3) It increases the cost of the Pill for women who are skipping the placebo pills, as the six months of pills they are prescribed only lasts 4.5 months.

Family Planning is awesome and has been ahead of the curve in this respect. It has been giving the same advice since 2015: "It’s up to you to decide how you want to take your pill." 

Costs are coming down, but not enough women know about it

There has been progress in this area, but it is slow. In 2017, the Medicines Classification Committee reclassified the Pill from a prescription-only medicine to a restricted medicine, allowing pharmacies to provide the Pill over the counter, provided users meet certain criteria. The changes were likely only made thanks to an application by Green Cross Health who represent Unichem and Life Pharmacies.

The 2017 changes were meant to increase the availability and accessibility of the Pill. But has it? Let's break down some costs based on my own GP and places available to me (so, central Wellington). Costs will likely differ across the country and could be lowered with other subsidies. But annually, it's looking like:

  • If I go through a GP : GP visit ($66) + Prescription fee ($5 x 3 = $15) + Prescription renewal fee ($22 x 2 = $44) + Blood pressure test every six months, or every three months based on GP preferences ($12 or more if your GP is cautious). So...around $137 
  • If I go to a normal pharmacy: One off consultation and six months 4.5 months supply ($45) +  ongoing supply ($15 x 2 = $30) so $75
  • If I go to Chemist Warehouse : One off consultation and six months 4.5 months supply: $19 + ongoing supply ($9 x 2 = $18) so $37
Seriously, bless the Chemist Warehouse and the other discount pharmacies popping up. Those costs really do make the traditional GP set-up seem like daylight robbery. And they're likely bringing down the costs at pharmacies around them. Note that even though the pills the pharmacies sell are not subsidised, they are still cheaper than going the GP route. 

Which brings me to something else I discovered (note I'm entirely relying on what the GP clinic told me, if they're wrong I'd love to know), something that can only be described as a bureaucratic anomaly:

  • If you go through a GP, you have to visit annually. 
  • If you go through the pharmacy you have to visit a GP every three years.

Why the discrepancy? Because they're covered by different guidance and legislation (I can find guidance for pharmacies but not GPs). The cost of GP visits is by far one of the biggest costs in acquiring the Pill, so the minimum frequency of visits matters a lot. 

It's great that pharmacies have managed to lower the costs, but the problem is that this option isn't well advertised. Despite the changes happening in 2017, neither my GP nor the nurse at my clinic knew that this was a thing. And in a 2020 Family Planning survey the cost of GP visits is still cited as a barrier.

Plot twist: changes to increase accessibility do not apply to simply skipping periods

Perhaps I should have opened on this point, but I wanted to illustrate the relative costs even if you are using the Pill for the reasons it was intended. If you're using the Pill just to skip periods, the costs are even higher.

First, the pharmacy option isn't available. If you go through the pharmacy you have to say that your primary use for the Pill is for contraception. So you better be having sex.

Eligibility for the PHARMAC subsidy is also affected. If you use the Pill for contraceptive purposes, the PHARMAC subsidy is limited to six months supply. Where the Pill is prescribed for non-contraceptive indications, then the subsidised period of supply is only up to three months per prescription. That brings costs up to around $218.

I don't want to get into the notoriously complex ins and outs of PHARMAC subsidisation, but in reality it wouldn't matter if women had other routes to choose from that could offer competitive prices (e.g. the pharmacy).

Why all this matters for the right to choose

Technically, women have the right to choose whether or not to skip their periods.

In practice though, the system seems to be slanted against them. Despite evidence changing around the risks of skipping periods, we still seem to be in the 1960s.  Accessibility around contraception has improved to enhance a woman's right to choose whether to risk pregnancy, but not whether to endure the discomfort and wellbeing impacts they may suffer due to periods.

Even if experts (and by extension public policy and official guidance) were taking a risk averse approach to the evidence, it still doesn't negate the fact that this has taken away the individual woman's right to understand and weigh the evidence herself, and choose whether to take on that risk. 

There seem to be at least some changes that could help improve the accessibility of the Pill:

  • Recognise that some women choose to skip the placebo pills, and prescribe accordingly. Better yet, produce ranges so that women have a choice whether to have the placebo-inclusive or exclusive varieties.
  • Align the guidance and legislation regarding GP visits. A GP visit every three years seems reasonable. But if that's not palatable, at least apply some risk proportionality so that more at-risk groups might have to visit more regularly.
  • On that note, I have no idea whether the status quo is risk proportionate and whether it has been weighed against the costs of making contraception less accessible. If not, do that.
  • Let creative destruction run its course: we need a Chemist Warehouse (and its equivalents) on every corner. These discount pharmacies show how low the cost of health products and medicines can be. Did I mention they don't charge prescription fees? Discount pharmacies have shaken the game up, but they're facing a battle against smaller players who cannot compete with those prices.

Women should have the right to make informed choices about their bodies, and the right to choose what level of risk they are willing to take on. Deliberately slanting the system away from the most affordable options undermines that right. 

I just pray someone fixes this mess before I reach menopause, but I'm not holding my breath. 

18 April 2021

The term alt-right legitimises white supremacists

Do you ever turn a word over and over again in your head until it loses all meaning? 

For me, my brain has been playing with the term alt-right.

On a conceptual level, I get what it means: the alt-right are hateful people. They are white supremacists, often Islamophobic, and/or anti-Semitic. The term has gained significant traction since Trump, and the news coming out of that era leaves no doubt about how that hatefulness plays out.

But it was only when I read an article about officials tracking New Zealand's alt-right that the term started to sit a little uneasily. How are officials defining alt-right? I know a lot of New Zealand right-wingers of various persuasions. Were any of them alt-right?

I have no trouble believing there are white supremacists in New Zealand. And Islamophobes. And anti-Semites. But seeing the term alt-right in a New Zealand context felt...strange. It felt a little too close to 'right-wing'. And say what you will about the state of New Zealand politics, I do not believe that right wing politics in New Zealand is the home for such views. 

If we take smaller government,  freedom of choice, and upholding individual rights and dignity as starting points, racism and religion-based hatred is by no means the natural end. Some, including me, would argue alt-right views are the antithesis of traditional right wing principles.

So I did a little research. What does alt-right even mean and where did it come from? Most importantly, what is its relationship with the mainstream right?

Most sources seem to place the origin of the term around the 2010s in the United States. And Trump gets mentioned a lot. Not only is alt-right a relatively new term, but it's clear that I'm not the only one unhappy with its use.

The NPR has a good and convincing summary of how white supremacists have adopted the term to appear more legitimate:

If you said I'm white supremacist, you weren't going to get talked to. So they rebranded to white nationalism in an attempt to still be in the conversation about politics in the United States. So it went from white supremacy to white nationalism and now from white nationalism to the alt-right or the alternative right.

So let's be clear: white supremacists want to be identified by this term. I had a conspiracy in my head that left wingers deliberately use this term to delegitimise the right. But this is worse.

The term is used to legitimise white supremacy.

An article in the Columbia Journalism Review calls for journalists to stop using the term:

In the Associated Press’ Stylebook, the term “alt-right” is defined as “a name currently embraced by some white supremacists and white nationalists“... Somehow, they were allowed to rework their public personas with a term that makes them sound a little edgy, like an alt-weekly or alt-rock.... Journalists should ask: Does our continued use of the phrase “alt-right” amount to allowing ourselves to be spun by bigots? Can’t we just call a racist a racist?

There are two additional reasons why I think the term needs to go.

First, because the term alt-right is used synonymously with conspiracy theorists, including QAnon. In New Zealand at least, I think that misses a beat. The conspiracy theorists here weren't just targeting a bunch angry, lonely white guys. They were gaining traction with some of New Zealand's most vulnerable: the poor, the less educated and those who did not trust mainstream politics to see them and address their needs. That's not a left/right thing. And if we're serious about addressing conspiracy theorists and their followers, looking exclusively at right wingers won't get you there.

Second, because it's all too easy to conflate the right wing and alt-right. Like the terms far-right and right wing extremism, it makes it sounds like these groups hold all the traditional right values... they just go a little further. 

It's not paranoia, either. Remember when Newsroom exposed that the chief editor for the libertarian think tank the New Zealand Initiative ran a far-right blog? Watching the reactions unfold, it was clear that  some people were a little too eager to announce that they weren't at all surprised that the think tank would harbour a secret racist. 

As if every fiscal conservative is simply a few Jordan Peterson videos away from slipping over the margin to far-right/alt-right/right-wing extremist.

These distinctions matter now more than ever as the country heads into a conversation about hate speech laws. Right-of-centre individuals and organisations who publicly voice their views risk being lumped in as alt-right or allies of the alt-right. And it incentivises some of the more reasonable. less die-on-this-hill types to sit back.

White supremacists do not have a home, and should not be given a home, in New Zealand's right wing landscape.

17 April 2021

Who starts a blog in 2021?

Obligatory photo to remind people I am an actual human being

Listen, nobody starts a blog in 2021 for the fame, power and money.

This isn’t the kind of blog that I anticipate becoming a daily must read or a collection of thoughts so rich with analysis and conviction that it inspires the libertarian revolution.

Primarily, this blog is for me. I’m not one to lower my standards or ambition, but I’d be content if more than two people end up tuning into this (those two people being mum and dad, obviously).

The main motivation for starting this blog is that I do my best thinking through writing. In a previous life when I was writing regular opinion pieces, I’d only really figure out whether my opinion was coherent once the piece was written. So I want to use this blog as a space – a safe space if you will – for exploring the stuff I care about, without the pressure of arriving at fully fledged opinions and conclusions.

I also want to use this blog as a way of keeping track of the stuff that I consume that makes a fleeting impression at the time. I’ve found that I consume a lot of information: books, podcasts, Netflix, academic papers, interesting articles. There is no way my brain can retain all of that.

Of course, I could just keep a paper diary. But I already have several diaries on the go for various purposes (at least one is a dedicated list of my enemies and how I will seek vengeance). But with an online account I might have a better chance of making someone’s life a little better by pointing them to something good in the world.

I don’t have a project plan for this blog. Its use will evolve over time. Or die. I’m willing to kill a blog that no longer serves my needs. But here’s a list of what this blog might turn out to be:

  • Insightful stuff to read or listen to.
  • Good econ papers and thought (I can’t promise this won’t turn into a Tyler Cowen/Tim Harford/Raj Chetty/Eric Crampton fangirl* page in 6 months).
  • Stuff to avoid because they are wrong or deceptive and because I said so.
  • Reckons. About whatever I feel compelled to get off my chest. But probably with some social/cultural/policy element.
  • A celebration of food and wine because we should all indulge in life's bodily and spiritual pleasures before some government regulates the joy out of it.

What this blog won’t be:

  • A libertarian treatise or even a reliable record of how libertarians think. The blog title is a nod to the fact that what I find interesting or infuriating might be different from other people. And I think anyone who purports to approach life as a blank slate either hasn't thought enough or is kidding themselves.
  • Also, there will be no Ayn Rand. 

*Yeah, I'm aware I only named male economists. I'll reflect on that.