Predicting the future - only brave people or fools need apply

Only a brave person or a fool dares predict the future, or so the adage suggests.

Ben McLeish.

Bravery as commonly understood has not been a noted personal quality and as foolishness is subjective, that decision rests with you.

Goulburn Valley voters opted on July 2 for what they saw as security ahead of bravery and eschewed foolishness preferring imagined good sense and predictability.

Any useful attempt to address the future demands bravery and a targeted foolishness, both being the antithesis of the nostalgia and ache for the warmth of what is known and familiar as was illustrated by electors in the seat of Murray.

The Goulburn Valley has clearly profited from its adherence to conservative values, but no longer can we shield ourselves from the future by grasping at what was.

Our shift to the future will not be easy as it requires what Ben McLeish says is a “mass cognitive shift.”

McLeish, a primary organizer of Britain’s Zeitgeist Movement and a student of English, Literary and Cultural Theory who graduated from the University of Warick, said, writing in “Anticipating 2025”: “Without a basic recognition of our fundamental misalignment with nature, we cannot begin to harvest the great benefits that a decentralized, truly participatory organizational model can afford; what has been termed as a Natural-law/Resource-based economy.” 

The same book quoted the late economist John Meynard Keynes who said: “The idea of the future being different from the present is so repugnant to our conventional modes of thought and behaviour that we, most of us, offer a great resistance to acting on it in practice.”

So considering what McLeish and Meynard Keynes say and to free ourselves of the conservatism that appears to have opened the door to a Canberra office for Damian Drum and condemns us to what once worked, but which will be wholly inappropriate as a decidedly different tomorrow rolls around, we need to resculpt our values and behaviours.

Little, beyond the laws of physics, will be the same as the decades roll by; our education system is busy training people for jobs that soon won’t exist; the “Internet of Everything” will impact our daily lives from health to energy consumption and shopping to life expectancy, and give us artificial intelligence.

Australia's PM, Malcolm Turnbull -
his plan for 'jobs and growth' could
be innovated our of existence.

This is not your colloquial “cross-roads”; rather, this is a blind canyon from which the only escape hinges on innovation, but not of the sort espoused in recent weeks by Malcolm Turnbull who focussed on only “jobs and growth”.

Most everything with which we are familiar – human movement (transport), health, insurance, manufacturing, education, work, agriculture, currencies, shopping, leisure, and property – will be subject to and changed by innovation.

And, in fact, the jobs and growth envisaged by our PM will be largely innovated out of existence.

 

To the conservatives such a future appears dystopian; to the brave, it is exciting, but our damaged climate, a product of the innovation of the type sought by our PM,  promises a future in which fresh thinking will be about understanding, adapting to changed circumstances, and to mitigating our carbon dioxide emissions, and so slowing climate change

Considering Seneca's advice and avoiding the road to rapid ruin

Good advice can frequently be found in the past and it was a Roman philosopher who knew nought about today’s challenges but to whom we ought to be listening.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, known as Seneca the Younger, talked about how slowly things came into being and yet how quickly they could dissipate.

He said: "It would be some consolation for the feebleness of ourselves and our works if all things should perish as slowly as they come into being; but as it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid."

Here in the Goulburn Valley, we have had our shoulders to the wheel for nearly two centuries creating what was to become one of Australia’s richest food bowls, seeing off many threats and being equal to countless challenges, but a largely unseen and misunderstood difficulty lurks in the shadows.

Seneca the Younger talked of “sluggish growth” and warned of “rapid ruin” and now after near 200 years of growth driven by energy unleashed from fossil fuels, we face the latter.

Interestingly, those who built this fertile place, face a never before encountered nexus with the refuse from the fossil fuels that has accumulated in the atmosphere threatening rapid ruin.

A 10 000 year “Goldilocks” era, highlighted by an Industrial Revolution ignited by the liberation of energy from fossil fuels, opened the door to utopian times which are now quickly becoming dystopian.

Earth, the only planet we have, is more than four billion years old and if reduced to 24 hours, humans have been here for maybe three seconds and so in about a tenth of a second we have trashed the place, in that we are behaving like a bunch of pleasure seekers at an out of control house party.

At this point, it’s probably worth considering the question asked by Italian professor in Physical Chemistry at the University of Florence, Ugo Bardi, who wondered if we have reached the limits of human intelligence?

Now there is a question and the sentiment it implies that will undoubtedly rile many, but considered objectively, the professor has grounds for his argument for even a cursory look around the world illustrates that even the simplest of things, that cost nothing, such as kindness, friendliness, sharing and collaboration are in short supply.

Measured on the aforementioned 24-hour time scale we have only tenths of a second left to make wholesale changes to our lives, shifting from our energy-rich, accumulative, individualistic and ego-driven ways epitomized by our existing market-driven economy.

Modernity, certainly for most Australians, is attractive, but to lean on a political mantra from the early 70s, “It’s time” to challenge the market myths and in putting people before profit, willingly forego some of those promised pleasures and work to build resilience in your community and help slow Seneca’s “rapid ruin”.
 

Baffling us with bluster and 'Econobabble'

"Econobabble" by
Richard Denniss.

“Econobabble” caught my attention about the time Malcolm Turnbull orchestrated the July 2 Federal Election.

The PM announced election date earlier this month and we have been subjected to exactly that ever since.

A friend, Juris, and the father of Peter Greste (who began his journalism career in Shepparton) recommended the Richard Denniss book.

Juris has had a life-long interest in urban design and through that has developed a keen sense of the sensibilities of what it is the makes life better and how the inappropriate language can easily corrupt understanding.

“Econobabble” is about exactly that as it is the verbal sleight-of-hand used to make what should be simple, almost unintelligible and impenetrable to most people, and to give it a sense of sophistication and importance.

Most seeking election, from our PM down, talk as if the economy is a science (it’s not), something that only an elite in-group can appreciate and understand and so it is best left to those who pull the financial levers, or that is the implication.

Words like “surplus”, “deficit”, “deregulation”, “profits” and terms such as “market forces”, “terms of trade”, “invisible hand”, “red tape”,  and “nanny state”, “live within our means” are frequently thrust into discussions to both confuse listeners and portray a sense of knowledge; knowledge advocated with such confidence that it’s unquestionably correct and beyond challenge. That is “Econobabble” in full flight.

Unlike science that is based on measurable and identifiable facts, the economy is little more than opinion, but being at the heart of modernity it inevitably, and quickly becomes the province of he or she with the loudest voice, the most charisma and so the most influence.

The recently signed Tran-Pacific Partnership is the pinnacle of “Econobabble" as it took more than 1000 pages of text to explain what Denniss says could be summed up in one line – “There will be no restrictions on trade between Australia and the United States”.

Rhetoric is remote from the restraints of physics, but in economics, anyone can float any idea they like (Australia’s Treasurer doesn’t need any economic qualifications to hold the nation’s purse strings) and so inevitably conversations about money quickly become “Econobabble”.

It is disturbing that the health of our economy and the broader health of Australian society are interrelated is an idea that has become entrenched in the national conversation.

Australia is, or close to the richest nation on Earth and yet even a cursory look shows that many people live in poverty, many are homeless, many live precarious lives, healthcare is not universally available or equitable in any sense, education is becoming polarized between the rich and the rest, and the essence of our society is being skewed to emphasize the individual at the expense of our communities.

Australia may well be economically rich, but it is socially poor as the innovation and drive that has long enriched the country has morphed and solidified into a way of life that favours a relative few and leaves the rest scrambling for the scraps.

Denniss argues we should never acquiesce when confronted by apparently knowledgeable and authoritative people, rather we should question their every comment, and be aware of confirmation bias (agreeing with something simply because it supports existing beliefs).

We should ready ourselves for what will be another month or so of “Econobabble”.

The Turnbull budget will not have just the imagined impacts

People from around here will feel the impact of the recent Federal Budget, but not necessarily only in the way they imagine.

My shoulders drooped as I listened to the oft-repeated mantra of “jobs and growth” as I sensed many here would be warming up to join the chorus seemingly unaware that “less” is what we need, not “more”.

In a world seriously troubled by human-induced climate disruption, policies and budgets based on 20^th Century values and ideas will simply not work.

Rather than look back for solutions and employ ideas offensive to the planet, Mr Turnbull, and his cohort need to lift their gaze and see that the unfolding world of the 21^st Century will be strikingly different and instead of the much-cited and inappropriate exhortation for jobs and growth, our leaders should be helping create and build a community able to thrive in an energy constrained future.

Such an idea undoubtedly doesn’t fit with the ideologies of either of Australia’s major political parties with both pandering to the populist ideas and values that have hardened since the Industrial Revolution to become an entrenched societal practice.

Living here in the Goulburn Valley doesn’t provide us with any protection from climate change for the south-east corner of Australia is experiencing changes to both weather and seasons, just as is the case around the world.

With the ideologically trapped Federal Government turning its back on climate science and our State Government doing something but treading carefully for fear of breaching its limited mandate, the responsibility to actually do something now falls upon the City of Greater Shepparton.

That would not be unusual, for while many national governments hesitate and procrastinate, and state bodies call for yet another report, many cities have taken up the dropped batten and have introduced projects and ideas into their respective Local Government areas that will lead to resilience and sustainability, and along with that play their part in the wider reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.

Malcolm Turnbull needs to thinking
innovatively about tomorrow.

And so what do we do?

Let’s begin with the city’s transport strategy, which presents us with a wonderful opportunity to think deeply and seriously about what the Shepparton of tomorrow should look like, how it should work and how the people who live here should move about.

Yes, a wonderful opportunity, one which is either the moment when we decide to create a city able to cope with the climate disrupted future or opt for the status quo and wander aimlessly down the same endless and, as time will show a rather rough road.

Courageous decisions will see a city that prioritizes and is friendly to pedestrians; encourages cyclists in the same way; introduces electric (solar charged) transit; and produces reasons about our need for sophisticated inter-town public transport (trains, light or otherwise) that eclipse any contra-arguments put by our State or Federal Governments.

Idealistic? Yes, but if we are to find our way through the troubled times ahead, it is essential we think differently and escape from the fossilized ideas of the current Federal Budget, presented as an “economic plan for the future”.

Take a deep breath, dear reader and look for the cause, rather than at the symptoms

Take a deep breath, dear reader – rather than piecemeal, band-aid handouts from our governments, State or Federal, aimed at the symptoms of society’s ills, we need to look at and treat the cause.

Those symptoms of troubles in our communities are easy to spot, but the cause of those ills are frequently hidden within and behind political and corporate propaganda and populist views that avoid facts and are founded on little more than emotive puffery.

As suggested, take a deep breath for we have been duped, and the world’s prevailing economic system favours only about 60 people, who between them control more wealth than nearly half the world’s population.

While that 60 or so wallow in their wealth, there are billions who live in either poverty, just scrape by or are of the “precariat” class; that is they live precarious lives as they are uncertain of their work, food and housing.

The call by Murry electorate National Party candidate for the forthcoming Federal Election, Damian Drum, for government money to address the illicit drug ice, that he has described as “the most addictive drug ever”, may well be seen as sensible and honourable, but it is little more than another band-aid on a deeper social malaise.

(As an aside, Mr Drum really needs to look more closely at the facts as the legal and socially acceptable drug, alcohol is vastly more costly to society, both through damage to individuals, emotional and physical, and in costs to our health system, law enforcement and work absenteeism, and so rather than worry about ice, Mr Drum should focus on taming  our alcohol addiction).

So, be it alcohol or an illicit drug, they are little more than symptoms of an economic system favoured and encouraged by a handful, embraced by billions who believe there is no other way, and yet it is a process that teeters on collapse, and survives only because of public largesse.

What is going on here?

The world’s prevailing economic system, capitalism, thrived in the 20^th Century, particularly post-World-War-Two when energy was abundant and cheap and innovation, in a siren-like way, led us through what was to become known as the “great acceleration” when everything seemed possible and the only limit was our imagination.

However, the capitalism that solidified during that era as the pre-eminent economic system is broken and the technology that expanded and enhanced our post-WWII experiences advances appears poised to implode.

Thinker and author, Jeremy Rifkin, recently said that we are now living with the “internet of everything”, and this digital technological advance is such that it has eroded the marginal cost of most goods, and as such is like a dagger to the heart of capitalism.

And American author, former professor of the Harvard Business School, political activist, prominent critic of corporate globalization, David C. Korten said, “We need an economy that values life—not money—and safeguards a living Earth.”

Yes, capitalism is slowly crumbling for it has reached the end of its useful life and rather than lament its demise; a demise that will signal the end of distasteful economic inequality and inequity that has plagued at least half the world’s population; we need to sort through and settle on a governance process that is about sharing, collaboration, decency, equality in every sense, and, importantly, will enable humanity to understand and stand shoulder-to-shoulder as it addresses the unfolding difficulties of a human-disrupted climate system.

Much said about 'riots', now it's time to really think about why they happened

Most of us have heard, read or seen stories about the recent Melbourne Moomba Federation Square “riots”.

One of the hazy images taken during the
the so-called "Federation Square riots".

Some immediate reactions about how we should discipline those who crossed certain social mores are as inappropriate as the behaviour of those so-called “rioters”.

Before rushing forward to damn participants, we need to step back, and think for a moment, and in drawing what some might believe is a long-bow, consider it was generally the broader behaviour of our society that contrived to create those events upon which many have frowned.

“Impossible” I hear many readers muttering.

Society has failed when its narrow focus measures a person’s success and usefulness to their respective communities on a scale that many thinkers see as antithetical to the broader health of the planet and humanity generally.

What we saw at Federation Square was little more than a few voiceless people who ruffled the edges of what is considered normal to illustrate, as best they could, that the workings of society favour only a few and disillusion and disempower the rest.

Does Shepparton have an equal? Of course, but not yet apparent or of the scale witnessed recently in Melbourne.

A glance at Shepparton’s statistics will illustrate discontent among a raft of people; people unable to find their place in our community; people disengaged from education, work and who live without a sense of belonging; they live with a sense of disconnect, a sense they are not a part of our community.

The Melbourne ”rioters” and Shepparton’s disenfranchised need to be included, embraced for nothing alienates a person faster or more thoroughly than disinterest and sensing that indifference, people often go to extremes, crossing social boundaries to remind us of their existence and that they do matter and have opinions worth considering.

Inclusion is an illustration of care; a caring behaviour produces better people running counter to our market economy that is morphing to become a market society in which everything, even kindness is being commodified, that is it can be bought and sold, it is given a market value.

So rather than seeing people as units of profit and loss, we need to embrace them as mums and dads, brothers and sisters, family and friends, workmates and colleagues, and simply as people with feelings just like you and me.

Stand guard over everything that is public, from education through to health and transport, and prevent, if you can, privatization (a code-word for private profit and disregard for the public), for despite the corporate rhetoric, the sale of public assets is not in our best interests. Yes, stand guard, the financialization of society is driving myriad wedges into our democracy.

And as clumsy as they might have been our Moomba rioters were a precise and timely warning that all is not well with our governance, and it would be wrong of us to casually discount that with “Ahh, that’s just city stuff” as the ingredients abound here too.

Socrates the legendary thinker quoted in Plato’s “Apology” said: “Are you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible, and similarly with reputation and honour, and give no attention to truth and understanding.”

The Melbourne “rioters” need our understanding and attention to the truth.

Disconnect between Shepparton and rich spend on military infrastructure

There is an alarming disconnect between Australia’s intention to spend heavily enriching it military infrastructure and life here in Shepparton.

Few in this community have any real and intimate understanding of what war is and why it happens, and how it can be avoided, and find themselves in lockstep with the political rhetoric of the hawks, whose allegiance to the military-industrial complex, which, through its hollow promises, does nought by worsen an already damnable situation.

Many whoop and cheer in support of the Turnbull Government’s intentions to spend lavishly on Australia’s military hardware and troop numbers.

Those same people put a high value on personal and national security but fail to understand that the much sought after security they ache for comes from within the individual and not from what is intended by the Turnbull Government.

Many see any suggestion that we should limit or reduce spending on our incongruously termed “defence” infrastructure as naïve and something that simply panders to pacifists or others unaware of human nature and within that what those same critics would claim is our “war instinct”.

However, according to a Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington, David P. Barash, that instinct simply does not exist.

Professor Barash, who has researched and written about human aggression, peace, and the sexual behaviour of animals and people, argues that those who hold to the “war instinct” idea are wrong and dangerous in clinging to that belief.

David P. Barash.

He discusses capacities and adaptations and while reading and writing are capacities, derivative traits that are unlikely to have been directly selected for, or developed, he says, through cultural processes.

In a recent article published by Aeon entitled “Is there a War Instinct?” Barash wrote: “Similarly, walking and probably running are adaptations; doing cartwheels or handstands are capacities.

“In my view, interpersonal violence is a human adaptation, not unlike sexual activity, parental care, communication and so forth. It is something we see in every human society.

“Meanwhile, war — being historically recent, as well as erratic in worldwide distribution and variation in detail — is almost certainly a capacity. And capacities are neither universal nor mandatory,” he writes.

The Turnbull Government’s intention to spend extravagantly on Australia’s military hardware is not about adaptation, rather it is about capacities; it is about preparing our nation for war.

A nation's strength is in its people, not its military hardware.

Rather than spending ridiculous amounts of our money on these sophisticated boys' toys, Malcolm Turnbull should be spending time with the Australian people building them into an impenetrable force, a society able to withstand any assaults.

Instead of buying war machines, Mr Turnbull should buy for himself a moral compass and share the lessons its points to with his counterparts and then, all Australians.