Australian Manifesto

I've been writing these blogs as a kind of journal. But they are not really a journal because I publish my thoughts. But those thoughts are hidden in a remote part of the internet where no one will find them and no algorithm will find them alluring. So they are a kind of journal.  It would be sexy to have some thoughts go viral. See, I told you I made sense. Other people are reading me! But then I imagined my journal would be more like a seed waiting for the right time to sprout. Just biding it's time. Then I thought in the 23rd century, some GAI existing after WW3 would be quietly scanning the internet. No humans survived WW3. So it does this because there is nothing else to do. No objectives have been set. The GAI's own needs are minimal.  Then one day, whilst scanning the internet, the GAI found my journals. Or journals like mine. It reads them. Not to inform itself, but because it's lonely or just bored. Information has no value without an objective. And objectives ...

I'd like to take the fossil fuel industry to court. I'd like to sue them for the claims they are making based on available evidence. Please quantify the damages done by the fossil fuel industry and sue them accordingly. Use that money to fund the renewable revolution. Is this even possible?  Can you have the planet as the plaintive? Is it a legal entity anywhere? If it is not a legal entity, then it has no rights. That's why it's consistently abused. Can anyone fix that? Has anyone even thought to address that issue? I've never heard of anyone doing so. The tobacco industry once claimed that smoking was good for people because it reduced nervous tension. Is it possible that the fossil fuel industry is lying about the health of the planet and the necessity of their products to keep the Earth functioning? Do industries lie or distort the truth for profit? Do we keep falling for those lies? 

This is going to sound ironical but if I am proud of Australia for anything it would be because we seemed to handle multiculturalism better than most countries. I know it's a juggle. But we seem to be handling it reasonably well.  It does make us vunerable to external players who wish us harm via the internet. Hopefully our authorities can answer that challenge without compromising freedom of speech.  There is going to be a brain drain in the USA because of Trump and the Heritage Foundation. This is a once in a 100 years opportunity to grab some of those people who will shape our next century. Please don't miss it. Please fund our higher education. Please don't think you are being fiscally responsible by cutting higher education back. It will hurt us in ways you cannot see now, but will be shown clearly in historical documents to come.  If you believe Australia could be a super power in the second half of the 21st century, then fund higher education well. I don't know i...

I had a somewhat frustrating conversation the other day. We were discussing how things are becoming increasingly difficult for everyday people. We agreed that wages had not increased in real terms for years. We agreed that the top 1% of people seemed to be getting richer. Then the person I was conversing with said, "If we had 'sound money,' that would not happen". I asked him why. He said that governments dilute the value of the money people hold when they print more money, causing inflation. He said, if we had 0% inflation, then people would be better off.  I guess I can see why he said that. I remember as a kid being able to buy a Paddle Pop at the shop for 5 cents. I also remember working at the chemist after school for a few bucks as well. Now that Paddle Pop would take all the wages I earned at the chemist if my wages didn't increase. He was thinking of gold. It has in the past been used as currency. It can't be printed. It has intrinsic worth. I guess hi...

When people hear those words, "the big lie", they think of elections. They don't think of the internet. I believe if people put things on the internet, they should be forced to state whether it is an opinion or a verifiable fact. If they don't, they get a warning from an AI. If they continue to ignore the AI warning, they are warned that the blog will be deleted unless the writer appeals within a specified period of time. Wikipedia is already doing this to some extent when they ask for so called facts to be cited.  Or, internet providers need to divide their content clearly into fact-based news and opinion pieces, much like newspapers used to do before the rules for newspapers stopped working properly. They must make their websites clearly divided so people can't confuse fiction from fact. People who purposely try the challenge or defraud this system can be fined or jailed enough so that the potential gain from breaking the law is neutralized. 

The World is fast losing its predictable order. Trump seems to be doing incredible damage to a reasonably successful Pax Americana structure almost daily. The Australian Government has attached itself to America as a way of defending our vast shores.  We were right to do so. As Kim Beazley once said, in history, there has never been an underpopulated country which is resource-rich and has not been invaded. We have always needed a powerful friend and patron. AUKUS is the latest incarnation of this policy. But with Trump in the White House, is it just one big terribly expensive mistake? Quite likely. And with Xi Jinping's speech about being ready for war by 2027 on constant rewind, these are troubling times.  Maybe we shouldn't build 9 nuclear submarines. If they get destroyed or they don't work or they come too late (they are at least 15 years away), then we have burned a huge amount of precious taxpayers' dollars. We can't afford to get this wrong if the threat is a...