With Mike Hosking off on holiday, Heather du Plessis-Allan was joined by Tim Wilson and Trish Sherson to Wrap the Week that was.
They discussed the situation with the gold mine, lizards, and Department of Conservation, the company working to resurrect the moa, and ask the question of if it’s better to be smart or dumb.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tris Shurson Tim Wilson with us this morning Morning you.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Guys, Good morning, morning morning, And why.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Are you sending us these studies about smart people being evil?
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I think it's just it's a it's a it's this
is from the General Intelligence, so it's not some wonky study,
as Trish was trying to allege just before we came on.
It's I think I think we have this sort of idea.
There's a commonly held view that intelligence equals moral fiber,
and this study suggests that intelligence actually means you can
argue your way out of moral constraints. So it's just helpful.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
I think.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Are moral constraints are necessarily a good thing?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah, of course they are. Of course, of course they
are because they because they shape our behavior, they shape societies. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Well, I'm almost going to wade into some deeper water
here with Tim, which might be slightly tricky, but I
am not a church going person and give a bit
of a side eye in terms of moral fiber over
that way. So I haven't seen this study. I love
how Tim just slips this one in without circulating it,
(01:10):
so no one can really go through what they I
said it out last night.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
I read I read you can't come anybody for your laziness.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Sorry, yeah, you can't write anybody for your laziness. And Trush,
I'm not saying you're not a moral person because you
don't go to church.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Of course, not you are, No, Tim, I'm going to
come back at you on this one. Okay. So morals
are what you think they are, right, So, so basically
you might think that saving the lizards is the moral
thing to do, but Trish may think that saving the
jobs is the moral thing to do. And then you're
just going with your gut instincts. But actually the smart
people are the ones who consider it abandon the morals
and go for the right thing. Let's yeah, that and
(01:47):
that is too complicated, too complicated.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
No, no, it's not too complicated. But there's actually what
this what the survey says is there's there's two there's
two different kinds of moral decisions. One is the individualizing,
which is about care quality. Others are more binding things
like loyalty, authority, proportionality. So these are all means that
we use to assess our moral behavior. Intelligence can act
(02:14):
on those, But what the survey found was that intelligence
could actually help you evade them. So if we say, okay,
let's not worry about the lizards and go for the gold,
that's fine. That's actually a decision based on assessing all
of the options. It's not necessarily a moral one.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I see what you're saying. Your intelligence helps you make excuses.
But on the subject of the lizards, Trish, what would
you choose the lizards or the jobs?
Speaker 3 (02:40):
I would choose going ahead with the development down there.
And I'm going to put a different spin on this.
I'm going to put taps into this mix instead of lizards.
I don't know if you saw there was a story
in the last couple of weeks about another there was
a plumbing business around New Zealand was going under, and
(03:03):
I thought, you know, how many taps are not being
put in New Zealand because of planners and others saying
no to projects. And so it's the same with the
lizards down in the South Island. If you look at
the construction industry overall in New Zealand, it's one of
that's struggling the most because it's mired in this kind
(03:24):
of stuff. It's mired and people just saying no.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Do you think I think Tim that The solution is
actually we go ahead with the mine, we save some
of the lizards, and then we just if we lose them,
we reverse engineer them like the moa.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah, I was actually thinking thinking about that too. Oh
you know, just geniet at the moas. But pardon me,
the lizards back into existence. The problem, the problem with
which genech editing is unintended consequences. So, for example, five
hundred and fifty million birds have perished across the UK
and Europe because of the loss of food sources because
of herbicide tolerant, genetically modified plants. That's changed the ecosystems
(04:05):
that those birds used to feed on. So you know,
I mean, well, if we re engineer the moa and
it decides it likes to eat kiwi for breakfast, what if.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
It decides it likes to eat us.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Well, here's the reality about the moa story this week
is that even though we have had their most amazing
moa discovery in New Zealand, it was absolutely the fascination
of Victorian England the discovery of the moa. And it
was one tiny piece of moa thigh bone, tiny like
(04:37):
an inch long, that was taken from the East coast
over to London and studied there. From that one piece,
they imagined the moa into existence, which is pretty amazing
when you think about it. But in all of the
bits of moa that we've got, and there are some
huge collections in Otago and Canterbury, there is not a
full genome sequencing. So these things are going to be
(04:59):
like they're going to be frank and.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Moaes, aren't they parading as much?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
They're going to be hybrid. But but also don't forget
this that along with the moa, the hunting of the moa,
its habitat went so up and up in central Otago
where that's a huge moonscape. Now, I've always thought that
was what it was like. That was one of our
most lush carpeted places of forest where the moa lived.
(05:24):
And when they got burnt out or smoked out by
the hunters, the habitat went and the haast eagle went
along with it. Okay, here's where for them to live.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Million million. I've got a million dollar idea, I can.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
I can not wait to hear it and then Tim
hit us with it.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Okay, So I've got the perfect ppe right public private venture.
So what we do is we genetically spliced the moer. Okay,
we bring them back, we put them on farms, we
farm them, then we eat them. We get KFC. And
you've heard about KFC, right, k f M can Tucky
fried More the best thing since sliced bread? Talk about
wicked wings? Yeah, No, Kasha billion dollar industry.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Worth waiting for. I think worth waiting for. Smith and
Coey's are selling off the Santa stuff. Who's gonna buy it?
Are you gonna buy it?
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I'm not paying I'm not paying forty grand for a
recycled center, Sleigh. I thought that I thought it was
a bit rich for me. It was a bit rich
for me.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Some people together.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Then there were some gold mannequins, and I've always just
personal thing in mine. I've always found the mannequin a
bit creepy. So no, I don't think I'm going to
be bidding in this auction, do you know what?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Please? I hope to God that my husband's not listening
to this, because we once had mannequins and he got
them from a shop.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
That had c private talk. There's something just between you
and Barry.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Yeah, you know it meant like in retrospect maybe it
should have been, but they were gold as well. He
got them from a shop and they stood by the
spar pool in Wellington for such a long time. I
don't know what happened to them in the end, and
they are utterly pointless. But there are some people, aren't
they who collect weird things like this, and I feel
like that would be you, Tim.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
No, we're actucept the stage. We're trying to have less
rather than more because we just moved house and so
decluttering is the mode. So no, we're not accumulating, we're shedding.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
What brought on the house move.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I wanted to be closer to the school the boys
are going to. They're going to a new charter school
in green Lane, so oh.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Well that makes sense. Are you able to walk? Do
you the kids walk?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yep, they can walk to school. They've got to go
past the macas though, so I'll have to work on
their moral fiber. I hope they're not too smart.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Oh look, tell me something, trus am I am I
because I mean my kids are very small, but the
thought of them walking to school does terrify me somewhat.
Is that just a period that I'm going through? Is
that going to happen at some stage. I'll be fine
with it.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
You will be absolutely fine with it. And you know
you're going to love it when the old the waka
why way the walking school bus turns up outside the
front door and you can say, Marty, whatter the kids
for the day. It's time. It's a lovely moment in
any parent's day.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Now you just started speaking, gray Lynn, Yeah totally.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
It was no one understood what happened.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
We had the wakaway why that's what we had around here. Yeah,
that's the way we roll.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
But there'll be lovely kids going to school together. And yeah, yeah,
just the I used to love walking to school. We
used to my mother. My mother used to walk to
school actually in this now, of course this was a
while ago, but she would walk to school from to
Richmond Road from sort of Herne Bay and you know,
going past tram lines and stuff like that, and her
mum just said see you later.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
She's five years old.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yeah, it was a different world.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Yeah, yeah, no shoes, five years old, gigantic backpack as
it was back in the day. Listen, I'm trish. I
don't know that I I might have made a mistake
giving the all Blacks advice on how to play rugby.
What do you think?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Well, I thought it was a bold call, questioning their
perform it's under the high ball here that I did.
There was a sharp intake of breath at my house
when you went down that road. I thought, all, that's dangerous,
pretty dangers.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
I don't know. I don't know if you could tell, Trish,
but I was feeling uncertain about it, and I think
but I.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Have also picked up this morning. I love the word
that they still use in rugby, and I think for
cricket teams, when you've got a debutante, you know, a
new player in the team. It's such a hilarious and
old fashioned word, and when you think of what debutants
actually are, it always just brings a smile to my face.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Guys, as what if a young woman being presented to society,
I don't know how that would go down in the changing.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Sounds very very rugby, masculine rugby word. Hey, guys, thank
you so much. Just wonderful to talk to the pair
of you and go and enjoy your weekend. That is
Tris Sharson and Tim Wilson. And I'm still tying up
from this. I'm still copping it on the text, and
mainly I'm copping it from Sam for thinking that I
for having the gaul to tell the All Black Sport
to do.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
You didn't go hard enough. You should have told them
not to kick at all.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Yeah, he said it, and not me. I love Damien McKenzie.
Damien McKenzie is the best. You know what, I'll tell
you what I'm terrified about now is that Damien McKenzie
runs out tomorrow and plays a shocker of a game
because I've given him the yips with like they've been
protecting him his mental health and I've just gone just
all over it by saying that.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks that'd be from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
Tris Shurson Tim Wilson with us this morning Morning you.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Guys, Good morning, morning morning, And why.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Are you sending us these studies about smart people being evil?
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I think it's just it's a it's a it's this
is from the General Intelligence, so it's not some wonky study,
as Trish was trying to allege just before we came on.
It's I think I think we have this sort of idea.
There's a commonly held view that intelligence equals moral fiber,
and this study suggests that intelligence actually means you can
argue your way out of moral constraints. So it's just helpful.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
I think.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Are moral constraints are necessarily a good thing?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah, of course they are. Of course, of course they
are because they because they shape our behavior, they shape societies. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Well, I'm almost going to wade into some deeper water
here with Tim, which might be slightly tricky, but I
am not a church going person and give a bit
of a side eye in terms of moral fiber over
that way. So I haven't seen this study. I love
how Tim just slips this one in without circulating it,
(01:10):
so no one can really go through what they I
said it out last night.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
I read I read you can't come anybody for your laziness.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Sorry, yeah, you can't write anybody for your laziness. And Trush,
I'm not saying you're not a moral person because you
don't go to church.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Of course, not you are, No, Tim, I'm going to
come back at you on this one. Okay. So morals
are what you think they are, right, So, so basically
you might think that saving the lizards is the moral
thing to do, but Trish may think that saving the
jobs is the moral thing to do. And then you're
just going with your gut instincts. But actually the smart
people are the ones who consider it abandon the morals
and go for the right thing. Let's yeah, that and
(01:47):
that is too complicated, too complicated.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
No, no, it's not too complicated. But there's actually what
this what the survey says is there's there's two there's
two different kinds of moral decisions. One is the individualizing,
which is about care quality. Others are more binding things
like loyalty, authority, proportionality. So these are all means that
we use to assess our moral behavior. Intelligence can act
(02:14):
on those, But what the survey found was that intelligence
could actually help you evade them. So if we say, okay,
let's not worry about the lizards and go for the gold,
that's fine. That's actually a decision based on assessing all
of the options. It's not necessarily a moral one.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I see what you're saying. Your intelligence helps you make excuses.
But on the subject of the lizards, Trish, what would
you choose the lizards or the jobs?
Speaker 3 (02:40):
I would choose going ahead with the development down there.
And I'm going to put a different spin on this.
I'm going to put taps into this mix instead of lizards.
I don't know if you saw there was a story
in the last couple of weeks about another there was
a plumbing business around New Zealand was going under, and
(03:03):
I thought, you know, how many taps are not being
put in New Zealand because of planners and others saying
no to projects. And so it's the same with the
lizards down in the South Island. If you look at
the construction industry overall in New Zealand, it's one of
that's struggling the most because it's mired in this kind
(03:24):
of stuff. It's mired and people just saying no.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Do you think I think Tim that The solution is
actually we go ahead with the mine, we save some
of the lizards, and then we just if we lose them,
we reverse engineer them like the moa.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah, I was actually thinking thinking about that too. Oh
you know, just geniet at the moas. But pardon me,
the lizards back into existence. The problem, the problem with
which genech editing is unintended consequences. So, for example, five
hundred and fifty million birds have perished across the UK
and Europe because of the loss of food sources because
of herbicide tolerant, genetically modified plants. That's changed the ecosystems
(04:05):
that those birds used to feed on. So you know,
I mean, well, if we re engineer the moa and
it decides it likes to eat kiwi for breakfast, what if.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
It decides it likes to eat us.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Well, here's the reality about the moa story this week
is that even though we have had their most amazing
moa discovery in New Zealand, it was absolutely the fascination
of Victorian England the discovery of the moa. And it
was one tiny piece of moa thigh bone, tiny like
(04:37):
an inch long, that was taken from the East coast
over to London and studied there. From that one piece,
they imagined the moa into existence, which is pretty amazing
when you think about it. But in all of the
bits of moa that we've got, and there are some
huge collections in Otago and Canterbury, there is not a
full genome sequencing. So these things are going to be
(04:59):
like they're going to be frank and.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Moaes, aren't they parading as much?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
They're going to be hybrid. But but also don't forget
this that along with the moa, the hunting of the moa,
its habitat went so up and up in central Otago
where that's a huge moonscape. Now, I've always thought that
was what it was like. That was one of our
most lush carpeted places of forest where the moa lived.
(05:24):
And when they got burnt out or smoked out by
the hunters, the habitat went and the haast eagle went
along with it. Okay, here's where for them to live.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Million million. I've got a million dollar idea, I can.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
I can not wait to hear it and then Tim
hit us with it.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Okay, So I've got the perfect ppe right public private venture.
So what we do is we genetically spliced the moer. Okay,
we bring them back, we put them on farms, we
farm them, then we eat them. We get KFC. And
you've heard about KFC, right, k f M can Tucky
fried More the best thing since sliced bread? Talk about
wicked wings? Yeah, No, Kasha billion dollar industry.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Worth waiting for. I think worth waiting for. Smith and
Coey's are selling off the Santa stuff. Who's gonna buy it?
Are you gonna buy it?
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I'm not paying I'm not paying forty grand for a
recycled center, Sleigh. I thought that I thought it was
a bit rich for me. It was a bit rich
for me.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Some people together.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Then there were some gold mannequins, and I've always just
personal thing in mine. I've always found the mannequin a
bit creepy. So no, I don't think I'm going to
be bidding in this auction, do you know what?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Please? I hope to God that my husband's not listening
to this, because we once had mannequins and he got
them from a shop.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
That had c private talk. There's something just between you
and Barry.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Yeah, you know it meant like in retrospect maybe it
should have been, but they were gold as well. He
got them from a shop and they stood by the
spar pool in Wellington for such a long time. I
don't know what happened to them in the end, and
they are utterly pointless. But there are some people, aren't
they who collect weird things like this, and I feel
like that would be you, Tim.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
No, we're actucept the stage. We're trying to have less
rather than more because we just moved house and so
decluttering is the mode. So no, we're not accumulating, we're shedding.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
What brought on the house move.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I wanted to be closer to the school the boys
are going to. They're going to a new charter school
in green Lane, so oh.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Well that makes sense. Are you able to walk? Do
you the kids walk?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yep, they can walk to school. They've got to go
past the macas though, so I'll have to work on
their moral fiber. I hope they're not too smart.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Oh look, tell me something, trus am I am I
because I mean my kids are very small, but the
thought of them walking to school does terrify me somewhat.
Is that just a period that I'm going through? Is
that going to happen at some stage. I'll be fine
with it.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
You will be absolutely fine with it. And you know
you're going to love it when the old the waka
why way the walking school bus turns up outside the
front door and you can say, Marty, whatter the kids
for the day. It's time. It's a lovely moment in
any parent's day.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Now you just started speaking, gray Lynn, Yeah totally.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
It was no one understood what happened.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
We had the wakaway why that's what we had around here. Yeah,
that's the way we roll.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
But there'll be lovely kids going to school together. And yeah, yeah,
just the I used to love walking to school. We
used to my mother. My mother used to walk to
school actually in this now, of course this was a
while ago, but she would walk to school from to
Richmond Road from sort of Herne Bay and you know,
going past tram lines and stuff like that, and her
mum just said see you later.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
She's five years old.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yeah, it was a different world.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Yeah, yeah, no shoes, five years old, gigantic backpack as
it was back in the day. Listen, I'm trish. I
don't know that I I might have made a mistake
giving the all Blacks advice on how to play rugby.
What do you think?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Well, I thought it was a bold call, questioning their
perform it's under the high ball here that I did.
There was a sharp intake of breath at my house
when you went down that road. I thought, all, that's dangerous,
pretty dangers.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
I don't know. I don't know if you could tell, Trish,
but I was feeling uncertain about it, and I think
but I.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Have also picked up this morning. I love the word
that they still use in rugby, and I think for
cricket teams, when you've got a debutante, you know, a
new player in the team. It's such a hilarious and
old fashioned word, and when you think of what debutants
actually are, it always just brings a smile to my face.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Guys, as what if a young woman being presented to society,
I don't know how that would go down in the changing.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Sounds very very rugby, masculine rugby word. Hey, guys, thank
you so much. Just wonderful to talk to the pair
of you and go and enjoy your weekend. That is
Tris Sharson and Tim Wilson. And I'm still tying up
from this. I'm still copping it on the text, and
mainly I'm copping it from Sam for thinking that I
for having the gaul to tell the All Black Sport
to do.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
You didn't go hard enough. You should have told them
not to kick at all.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Yeah, he said it, and not me. I love Damien McKenzie.
Damien McKenzie is the best. You know what, I'll tell
you what I'm terrified about now is that Damien McKenzie
runs out tomorrow and plays a shocker of a game
because I've given him the yips with like they've been
protecting him his mental health and I've just gone just
all over it by saying that.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks that'd be from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
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