OK, It's My Fault

A friend recently complained about the outrageous cost of moving a phone number to a new residence. I sympathised, explaining that it's all to do with a lack of competition in the telecommunications infrastructure, & how this leads to inefficiencies, or at least a lack of interest in improving the service. I went on to describe how it is fundamentally a federal government issue, & how regulation is probably the only way out of the monopolistic mess we're in - that we need a fundamental philosophical shift to invest in (or encourage investment in) infrastructure differently.

He asked me how my grand plans for fixing the problem were received by the powers that be. I thought about it - I had, in fact, made a complaint to the ombudsman as a direct result of a particularly bad experience moving house. That, however, doesn't change policies. I hadn't offered my suggestion to Telstra directly, or complained to my local MP in the hope of it becoming government policy because ...

The more I thought about it, under the insistent gaze of my interlocutor, the more confused I got. How on earth did you get a good idea - not just a complaint - before the eyes of decision makers? In the case of MPs, they are supposed to represent their electorates, so why wouldn't they be a valid repository of voters' suggestions? I suspect that my MP's policies are more representative of his party's than his voters'.

You don't have to be too cynical to be of the opinion that sending a suggestion to the CEO of Telstra is probably less useful than having a quiet beer with an acquaintance whose happiness state makes him more likely to agree with you. That's why it's preferable to float such brilliant ideas in alcohol first.

So I have come to the conclusion that everything is my fault. I have solutions to many of the problems we face in day to day life, but I haven't bothered to express them to the appropriate powers that be. Line up & take a pot-shot at me the next time you move house & get slugged with a service charge for your phone, gas, or electricity. I'm also responsible for your mobile drop-outs, broadband data costs, the price of petrol & milk, late trains, the poor bus service, overhead power lines, roadworks, stray cats, & that weird smell down at the park.

Until I get around to telling the people in charge about all my great ideas, you're all going to have to put up with the problems.

The Inside Outside Dilemma

It's interesting to step back & watch a changing of the Government. It's not just the list of promises that will inevitably be broken - because the party that makes the biggest promises generally wins, by definition - but the rapid change in gears from being in Opposition to being in Government, being an outside observer pointing out mistakes to being the one supposedly with the hand on the tiller.

Some new Governments do it well. Some get lucky, so decimating their opposition that there is no-one left to effectively heckle. Some ... just have to grin sheepishly & make excuses as to why statements they made in opposition were based on insufficient information, or that they weren't aware "how bad things were" until they took the reins.

Worse, sometimes there has to be an about-face where politicking gets in the way of governing. Then we see a change from "our economy is stuffed - we will fix it!" to "hey, Mr Trading Partner, our economy is actually a great investment", or "we will force our neighbours to comply with our border protection plans!" to "hey, Mr Neighbour, we're in desperate need of your assistance because we can't actually do anything without you".

It's not naivety that makes an Opposition say stupid things. It is naivety that makes people believe them. That's the sad part. Oppositions will get away with outrageous lies as long as they can - that seems to be their sole purpose after being elected to parliament without being able to form the majority.

We often think that Governments lie because they break promises. The reality is that Governments rarely make promises they don't keep - they are in Government & are empowered to act. It's only Oppositions who can make outlandish claims without any need to back them up with evidence. They just need to make an emotional appeal through the media, who know full well what a good story looks like - & that really correlates with, or contains, the truth.

We - the voting public - are to blame for the quality of our Oppositions as much as for the Government. We elected them all at exactly the same moment.
Perhaps we should have a review of the voting system whereby people could mark off their choices with more than a tick - a truly preferential system, for example (number these for each candidate):

• I think this candidate would perform well as an effective member of the Government
• I think this candidate would bring the Government to task as a member of the Opposition
• I think this candidate is excellent entertainment, but should never be a member of a major party
• I think this candidate should be locked up
• I think this candidate is the least dangerous of the options before me

That would truly turn things inside out.

Skeptics in the House

Much to my wife's shock, I recently made the claim that the Liberal Party is the natural governing party for Australia - not just because we're right of centre politically - just a little bit conservative - but because, fundamentally, we are a nation of skeptics.

There's nothing wrong with those classic Strine responses to any statement (with optional rising inflection):

• "Ya reckon?"
• "Ya think?"
• "Ya don't say"
• "Are you f***ing kidding?"

These are obviously a direct result of a level of skepticism ingrained in the Australian psyche.
But sometimes, you just have to accept that you're talking to (or about) someone who knows more than you, is an actual (recognised) expert in their field, or simply is right.

There's a lot of talk these days about mandates - & I don't just mean in politics, where having the support of a third of the voting population is seen as clearly being able to speak for all. Popularity is not the seal of approval that you are right - only that people will listen to (or watch) you.

Is anyone really of the opinion that, say, Kim Kardashian should be politically active? I have no idea what her politics are, but I suspect that she could run for the Party Party Party Party & people would vote for her.
That doesn't give her a mandate. That doesn't even mean that people agree with her platform. It just means that, say, she's prettier than the alternative.

But I've gotten off track - & I would never suggest that our current PM is pretty. Australia would not vote for KK because she's not a skeptic.
Clive Palmer is a skeptic. Bob Katter is a skeptic. The Democrats were skeptics ("Keep the bastards honest!"). Pauline Hanson was a super-skeptic.

The Liberal party are also conservatively skeptic. Along the skeptic spectrum, a lot of the above were left-wing (radical) - even if they were right-wing from a political point of view. The Liberal Party is centre-right skeptically & politically.
I'm not talking about the actual Liberal Party here, but the theoretical one. Individuals within a party at any time may make it appear more skeptical or more radically skeptical.

Now, for the kicker. Why on earth are we such a nation of skeptics? Why can't we just admit that someone else could be right for once, or could be an expert?
It's not the English overseers that are the experts anymore, it's normal Australians who happen to be highly educated or experienced experts in a given field. They do not hold a position of privilege that has to be undermined simply because it's fun to do so.

If only we could embrace knowledge, wisdom, expertise. If only we could look up to people who have dedicated their lives to some facet of human endeavour who is willing to share that experience. I think that would make us the clever country we always wanted to be.

However, as long as the average Australian is a skeptic, they need fair representation in the parliament(s). Thus, regrettably, the Liberal Party is the natural government.

Class Struggle

An acquaintance of mine is a staunch supporter of the Labor Party because it is the party of the working class person. I almost laughed when he said that, because I have for some time seen it as an amalgam of unionism & socialism - an uneasy alliance. He, however, believes that, by definition, the Party is there to fight for the rights of the common worker, etc, & that the fight is far from over.

On the other side of the coin, the Liberal party is an uneasy alliance between the landed conservatives & the middle class greasy pole climbers.

This is where it gets interesting.

Those who support the Labor Party expect structure - bureaucracy - layers of society or administration, where they start at the bottom, & some lucky few can be hoisted to the heights of political recognition. This takes a party headquarters that works like a war office on the basis that unions are always heavily organised, & therefore the party structure has local & regional gatherings, etc, layer upon layer.
Labor party members believe in their structure. They believe that there needs to be structure. They believe in the public service because it's just another structure. They believe in a sizable government, because that's what it takes to run a country.

Those who support the Liberal Party don't like structure. They believe that it holds them (personally) back, oppresses them, stunts their growth as human beings, impinges on their freedom of expression. They believe that the party structure should be flat, & that government should be small.
As a consequence, they believe that they know better than any structure, because they are cleverer than the working class, & don't need structure to protect them from big bad business.

The independent thinking of a semi-educated middle class will always be its own downfall. Fundamentally, they don't know better, & they refuse to be taught.

I am reminded of C S Lewis' "Forbidden Planet" series, where one of the characters is writing for the newspapers. He only needs to write for papers that aim at the middle class. There's no point writing for the upper class, because they can't be told anything, & writing for the lower class won't be understood. The object was to write in such a way that the middle class was convinced that it was coming up with the ideas for itself, & then they would embrace the notion as their own.

This is the basis of shock-jocks, who are always right wing - they convince middle-class people of what they are thinking, encouraging a particular point of view (only), as if it was a ground-swell of awareness, rather than a version of broadcaster push-polling.

So, my acquaintance is correct - the Labor Party, in all its unionist bureaucracy is the party of the working class - the kind of party that workers can believe in, because it is the kind of structure that they need to believe in, producing the kind of government that they expect to make decisions for them.

Taxing Facts

Sometimes I think of myself as too conservative to be a socialist, or too left-wing to be liberal. Think of that what you will. My politics don't follow party lines, so I'm just being me.

I was thinking about taxes. I don't care how much I get taxed, because I see that as a part of society that I contribute to. I don't like the tax dollars being wasted, but can't see how it is. In fact, I suspect that the professionals in the public service do as good a job as they can.
Make of that what you will.

The fixed price for carbon, which became known as the Carbon Tax in Australia, was considered at first a step in the right direction for bringing down the production of carbon emissions by increasing the cost of producing said emissions.
In theory, this is a direct effect.
The reality is that the increased cost of producing the service that produced the emissions was passed directly on to the consumer, & the consumer was then compensated for the increase by the government that collected the revenue ... but there was no correlation between between the rise in one & the offset of the other.

Fundamentally, although the idea of taxing the polluters is a good one, it doesn't encourage anyone to do anything about it, but shifts the money around. I believe that there was an effect on carbon emissions, but this could be more about people looking for cheaper alternatives & lowering demand, rather than any polluter changing their ways.

To ensure that things really change, you need to encourage investment in, & therefore availability of, alternatives. You can also discourage investment in pollution.
The easiest way to do this is to change the way that people are taxed on the profits in carbon-emission-oriented industries.
That's radical. It's also time-consuming, because it requires an assessment at the polluters end to determine how profitable the carbon-emitting aspect of the business is, & therefore what tax should be applicable to the profit of the company.

This sounds too hard, but the theory goes that people (investors) will move away from those companies who aren't investing their energy into lower-emission alternatives.
Tax concessions in green energy (for example) companies' profits would redistribute that investment appropriately.

Rather than applying a tax to the primary producer, hitting the secondary investor would have less of an impact on the end user, & would seem to be less of an administrative nightmare because there are fewer people involved in the process overall.

The end user would simply see less availability of high-emission products, or else cheaper low-emission products. Do they need to care more than that?

Now you see my political dilemma - I'm fundamentally all for climate change awareness & taxation, but don't believe it's been done right so far.

Government - What's it good for?

Here's a fundamental question, especially in a country that has just gone through elections - what does the parliament do?
You can see that the title I used above is different. At first, that's what I was thinking - "government" - but then I realised very quickly that I didn't mean those that don't get elected. There are public servants, appointments, etc, who get on with the job they were expected to perform (to some degree) with interference only from those that we, the people, elect.

What has evolved as a parliament has a strange history from the two conflicting needs to counsel the monarch & to ensure that the monarch doesn't overstep the rights of the people. Here, of course, "the people" were those with property & money, with things at stake.
As soon as you have reviewing the monarch, you end up with a monarch who is always trying to test their limits, & thus parliament becomes a shaggy dog.
Essentially, we can't get rid of the one we've got. It's also grown since its inception to take over the roles of many other political functionaries.

Direct monarchy doesn't happen in Australia, & even the Vice-Regal has very fine teeth. Therefore, the parliament isn't counselling anyone - it seems to be a self-perpetuating process of navel gazing, that is, reviewing itself.
This is all well & good if it had well-defined functions on which to base its review. It seems to be there just "to rule".

Other things that happened to Australia is the true separation of Church & State, & a theoretically independent Judiciary.
The latter is not quite true, because the laws (the Queen's Law, in fact) come from the parliament.
The interpretation is left to judges, whose experience is relied on thereafter - unless the parliament decides to do something about them as individuals.

There is no Church. There are some left-overs from a once-Anglican dominance (we talk of parishes within an electoral boundary), but there are now so many churches that there seems no relationship between any one of them & a given parliament.
This, to me, means two things - there is no social cohesion on questions of morality & ethics (or even debate), & the parliament thinks that it should step into the gap (heaven forbid!).

I think gay marriage is a classic example here. Why does the parliament decide on the social representation of people's relationships?
Can a church not recognise & perform gay marriage within its separate articles? How can a parliament then say what marriages that church can perform (or will be "recognised")?
Australia is a special case where de facto relationships are already recognised by the parliament (& the government) as equivalent to marriage.
How can the parliament interfere with a church in that way?

If a bunch of ordinary people elected to create laws (or review them) is given the power to determine what a church can do - or the judiciary - then they have too much power, & surely we should have some kind of review on that process itself to ensure that the parliament doesn't overstep the rights of the people (not just those whose support got them there).

This seems to be going around in circles - meet the new boss: same as the old boss.

Not My Fault

Call me an arch-conservative (go on - be the first!), but I don't like whining liberals who complain about the world & how so many wrongs need to be righted.
This is, fundamentally, a revenge mentality - there is a wrong, someone needs to be punished, & then "we" will feel better.
It doesn't matter if we are talking about law, politics, or sport, people think they have a right to retribution in matters that don't actually concern them or directly affect them.

Let's do this with examples.

Law.

Although I'm all for victim impact statements & assessments, let's limit the range of victim defined. Perhaps I should say that we could leave it in the hands of professional victim assessors, rather than broadcasting "Hey, who wants to be a victim here?"
In a murder, there is generally one victim. They are dead. That's a big impact, but nothing can be done to change that.

No parent can get their child back. No parent should expect blood money. I say "expect" intentionally. Society may punish the perpetrator in such a way that it "profits", & these funds should then be pushed towards ameliorating the grief associated with the victim's loss, definitely.
However, buying a new house doesn't count.

The old Gaelic concept (& I'm sure it existed elsewhere) of blood money was to compensate a family for the loss of a worker - in the same way that you would compensate if you'd killed someone's cow. This is no longer relevant to our society, but we keep acting as though it is.

Don't even get me started on the precedence principles in the legal profession - where once judgement was by the King, then by his representatives, & now must look as consistent as if that was still the case.
I doubt if HM feels it is like that now.


Politics.

In a recent Australian election - & it's not the first time I've heard it - voters "punished" the government due to their unhappiness with various aspects of its organisation or its policies.
In what way did "punishing" a political party improve the lot of those voters?
Regardless of the opposition's policies, voting with revenge in mind is stupid.

I'm not even going to continue with how the new government then systematically removed any public servant or office with the taint of their predecessors.
Government is meant to be the stability that rules the country & keeps it from dissolving into anarchy & chaos.
I believe that seeking revenge on the temporarily unpopular former ruling tribe can lead only to further retribution down the track.


Sport.

This story seems to have legs for so many reasons. When one football team lost a game "because" the referees failed to notice an infringement by the other team, all hell broke loose.
Someone had to be held responsible for the tragedy - remember, this is football.
So, who perpetrated the "crime"? Obviously, the side that infringed, right?

I doubt that the infringement was intentional, but it also reflects on the reliance by that team on the referee to ensure that they didn't infringe - that is, they weren't clever enough to self-monitor.
The team that lost didn't notice until after the game, & only then protested that they had lost because of the unnoticed infringement, & that someone had to be held to account.

This is football! It's entertainment for the masses! Do we really need to "punish" someone for not imposing the rules perfectly? Does there need to be revenge?
Do we need to hold someone ultimately responsible for what is, at the base level, a small number of men trying to keep two teams of bigger angrier men from killing each other by pointing out the limits to which they can apply their aggression?

Schrodinger & the Numbers Game

A few things have popped into my head recently, & I've managed to put them together - diets, election platforms, & rugby league. Stay with me on this.

I believe that people (humanity) will focus on concrete things to try to corral the abstract. This is obvious pattern-matching behaviour which was wonderful when survival was a day-to-day struggle, but not so helpful now when we have a lot more structure in our existence - culturally & environmentally.

Case number 1: dieting.
Everyone "knows" that a lower calorie diet will help you lose weight. In general, this is true. For most people this is almost a given. For some, it just isn't.
Some seemingly low calorie foods just stop some people from losing weight due to biochemical interactions that make them store fat regardless, or don't let them burn it off - without going to extreme measures like starvation.
On the surface, this makes sense. However, if you play the numbers game - low calorie = weight loss - then you can quickly get to the point of "if I eat less meat, I can have a chocolate", which is probably not good, because the essential fats & proteins in meat is good for you (in small doses), but the chocolate isn't.
Same calories. Different outcome. No weight loss.
Don't play the calories. Look at the bigger (fatter) picture.

Case number 2: political campaigning.
Although it was riotously funny to hear Australia's Liberal Party claim that their platform was to "stop the boats" (boats of asylum seekers arriving via Indonesia) in a state election on the other side of the country (in NSW), having it echoed on a national level was no surprise - unless you noticed the opinion polls which suggested that almost no-one cared about that issue.
Because the Liberal Party had the platform, they made a case for it being on the agenda. You can't argue against something that doesn't exist. The policy stood. The party got kudos (without explaining how boats would be stopped).
Overall, nothing much changes.
The policy was irrelevant, but the electorate fell for it because the Liberal Party seemed so sure of themselves that it was important, therefore it must be. The Labor party did not make any such claims in their platform.
The Liberals played the numbers & won.

Case number 3: rugby league.
With finals afoot, every match becomes sudden death, & a bad refereeing decision can be a season-ender. Thus it has happened, unfortunately to a team two years in a row. The followed the rules - played the numbers - but the referee didn't. They should have won.
Rather, they should have been concentrating on the game, which they lost.
The referee is there to impose the rules. There is a common understanding of those rules between the teams & officials. It is for the officials to interpret them.
If they make a mistake, then it's between them & their higher powers - & no-one else.
Rules are there to minimise the chaos, & there is rarely divine retribution when a rule within a game is not followed - in fact, they have a whole set of rules around how to interpret breaking the rules - called penalties.
Look at the scoreboard. Suck it up, losers. Maybe next year.

Oops - the Schrodinger reference ... if you stop worrying about the cat, it won't enter into your head that it's probably dead. Get on with your life.

Let Me Get This Straight

I was already totally over the idea of voting a week ago, & wanted my old favourite ads back on TV, but as it came closer to the day I was expected to tramp up to the community centre to prove I hadn't died since the last such event, I got to thinking about democracy (as you do).

A certain proportion of the people (hopefully more than half, even if indirectly) will get their wish & the people they support will get the chance to have the policies of the political party they (not the voters) belong to be presented before a parliament which also contains representatives of the lesser portion of the population (those representatives also mostly belonging to a political party that their supporters do not).
The object of the game is that those who have the majority can simply say "this is what we'll do", & those who don't say "I wish you wouldn't, but there's nothing I can do about it", & this goes on for a few years, & then the roles might reverse.

Sure, there's a lot more bitching & moaning, kicking & screaming, & other pre-schooler-esque entertainments along the way, all being televised to the bemused or frustrated populace by those who are now simply reporters (there are so few journalists left), scrambling to be "first" with the news that everyone read on Twitter hours before.

Fortunately, this process (electioneering, at least), only consumes a month or two, & we can get back to complaining about all politicians, rather than trying to defend some favoured ones as simply being misunderstood.

Life goes on. Democracy drains the energy of the soul & the public purse. Nothing really changes (except for the relative position of caricatures in cartoons).

It's interesting how much you can glean about a process that you've lost interest in. The only alternative is a radical shake up of the system; & let's face it, if there's one thing the voters don't like, it's actual change.

Educating the Educators

There was a kerfuffle in this great brown land over changes to funding in education to allow for a leveling of the playing field in high schools (in particular) to build a better platform for our children's future. This is an admirable sentiment - if a little pointless. We don't really want to give more opportunities to those who would never take them, but rather should allow for those who would take opportunities to be exposed to a better education. This is a different thing.

But what exactly are we teaching kids these days? The same as we've ever taught them. Teaching the same stuff in a better way doesn't improve their future - it restricts it. If you look at employability (rather than further education at University because high school just doesn't prepare young adults enough), there are things that come up again & again that we often think of as attributes rather than skills. I differentiate these because most people seem to think that attributes can't be taught.

The things that I look for in an employee are:

• Ability to think - this is creative thinking, not critical, which is taught too often
• Adaptability - change is the future
• Multi-tasking - being used to handling multiple things, & this isn't a gender thing
• Team skills - working in a team, leading a team, not working alone
• Pressure - we leave this to students who want to do well in the HSC, but all types of non-University roles come under pressure
• Soft skills in general - emotional intelligence, for example

There are many other things that are teachable & useful, but they have one thing in common - they don't fall under the traditional subjects taught in high school, & the teachers that we have are not skilled or trained in these areas. We can't expect them to suddenly start teaching new curricula. There needs to be some planning to get us to the point where we can effectively introduce & deliver these topics & work towards our children's real future.

That way, we can become a much more cleverer country.

Give me Skin

I've just listened to Nassim Taleb talking about his theories of not bailing out failures in the financial services, but rather encouraging those who experiment on a small scale (with less likelihood of large losses). Similarly, those who fail massively should not be encouraged to continue doing what has been proven to not work - that is, traditional dollar-following behaviour. Those who take large corporations to the brink should suffer from their own misdeeds, directly - that is, should themselves be made bankrupt before the company is. The rule of Hammurabi - the architect of a house that collapses should be punished.

The same should be said of politicians. Small failures are seen as loss of face, & those who might otherwise try something new are discouraged from doing so because the people (or media) will lose faith in them - politicians are expected to be "always right". But those who fail spectacularly by not experimenting - by taking the tried & true course of the past into an unknowable future - are simply retired or shunted aside to do it again somewhere else, with sizable pensions & their dignity intact.

Surely, this is wrong. At the least, it is illogical. The theory of evolution is all about survival of the fittest - organisms experimenting until the most apt becomes dominant. Many inapt variations will not become dominant. The previously dominant - which did not adapt - will die out along with all of the others. This is why it is such a neat theory - people understand that, to progress, we must try different things to find the best way forward.

No-one believes in a straight-line evolution where a species changes over time from one form to another, by hitting on the one & only advantage that will cause successful evolution. Note, too, that evolution is a process that we usually only see as an historical progression from the distant past to now, forgetting all of the deviations that didn't make it this far. It would be arrogant to believe that we - the mankind of today - are the ultimate end of God's plan. If that's the case, then what's the point?

If we don't change our approach to new problems, then we are not evolving. We are engineering our own extinction. Political parties that rely on their past to formulate their future are the dinosaurs of today. Some unexpected event will see their rapid demise, due to their own lack of change. If they do not have the ability to adapt, then they will not be able to face change.

Politicians who will not evolve are holding back progress. Here, progress means making the world a better place. Politicians who will not adapt should not be allowed to stand in the way of those who can. Politicians who stand in the way of progress & manage to fail, should be chastised to the point where such non-evolutionary conduct is discouraged. That's having a direct consequence of non-productive behaviour. Those with the courage to stand up for trying new things & succeeding - for evolving - should be rewarded with greater support & responsibility.

Change is inevitable. What that change is, is unknowable. Good government is about leadership in times of crisis, contingency planning in times of flux, & good management in times of short-term predictability. Without all three, no politician or political party can be a part of good government in the long term.

The Family Unit

As loathe as I am to start an entry with a reference to the IT industry - one of the most important parts of delivering a solution to a problem is having a good model of the problem in the first place - one based on the real world or the business process. This seems obvious.

Yet, we often use a bad model in business processes & then promulgate that mode into the rest of society - or else keep a model that is so out-dated that it loses relevance.

A classic example of this is ownership of things. Traditionally, people who owned things were those in power - the ruler, the local lord, the man of the house. Everyone else was beholden to them. This has, I believe, changed. These days, anyone can own things. More to the point, some things aren't owned by one person alone.

In everyday life, we should change our concept of who "owns" things. In the case of big things, now that people can easily own their own homes, the "persons" who own the property have to be listed & are held responsible for the loan, etc. I have already used different nomenclature in describing this scenario - persons own a property, families live in homes. Why can't families own homes?

A child may not be held responsible for a mortgage, but a family is not parents & children. Up until recently, it was next to impossible for a single woman to take out a mortgage, or two people who weren't married, whether that was a de facto relationship, siblings, or parent & child. These are all perfectly good examples of family, from societies point of view, but not examples of collections of people that a bank would consider worthy of a mortgage.

In solution modelling, you would say that an important part of the system is a person. For a mortgage, you would allow for two people - with restrictions on who those people are. Why? A marriage these days is not a permanent thing. De facto relationships are so common & lasting that they are indifferentiable from marriage to, say, the tax department or social services - & this does not even come close to relationships which are not recognised by the state (gay marriages). This still limits non-traditional groups of people who have even stronger ties - siblings, for example.
We need to model the system that allows for a certain group of people (to be specified) to act as a unit in the same way that a lord was once thought of - as a possessor of things.

Even something as simple as a credit card or a car seems to be a problem in collective ownership. A car must have one & only one registered owner (or corporate entity). Yet, in my own case, we have one car in the family - it is shared amongst three drivers. I am now the only member of a motoring association.

A family unit is hard to put your finger on, socially. I know some families where each parent & their children have different surnames - & a family from one country where each individual gets their own surname, not a family name. How do you "name" that family unit? It's not the "Daffy" family because they share a surname. It might be "Daffy's" family to some people, or "Daisy's" family to someone else. Regardless, we should be able to register a group of people as a unit - a family unit - & treat it in the same way that we currently treat individuals & (only) some relationships.

People form their family units in any way that they want to - because there can be no laws to stop them (forming a group - there are laws over what they can do within that group). We should model the system - government - in such a way that it recognises these family units & treats them with the respect that they deserve.

Tribal Politics

It's not often that I get topical on politics, but I think this is useful with an election coming up.
Australian politics is too tribal.

You might laugh at that statement, but it's true. Most democracies are tribal - you belong to a tribe, even if you don't see it in the ethnic sense. The swinging voters in the political system are really those who don't identify with the tribe options available.

When we get presented with the idea of tribes in politics, the immediate thought is racial division, like Fiji, or religious division, like Syria or Egypt. The reality is that demographic division, like Australia & the UK, is just as tribal. Labor is considered working class. Liberal is considered ... not. If you identify with the ideals of the former - socialism, unionism, etc, then you are an ideological member of that tribe. If you don't directly believe in those things, then you are a member of the diametrically opposed tribe. If you don't like either tribe, or have been ostracised by one, then you have no tribe to belong to.

This notion of the tribe - the need to convince the tribe that there is still a strong leader who will be able to feed them with media pap over the cruel winter of the parliamentary year - drives politics. If the government did not represent one tribe to the detriment of the other, & did not need to pacify its own tribe or else make it grow, then politics would become nigh on boring, except for the occasional interesting issue where individual opinion comes into play - gay marriage being one such.

Tribe membership is generally long term - there is a personal investment of your ideals when you join a tribe. Occasionally, the tribe lets you down & you decide to leave it. You might even join the opposition tribe. In a time of war (elections), this may mean fighting (voting) against your former neighbours. There is a tendency to be the cruelest warrior in the new tribe - seeking revenge for past wrongs (real or imagined). But then, who are you really hurting? Did you leave the old tribe because it had so changed that their ideals no longer matched yours? Or did you simply leave it because the ideals represented in the tribe didn't match as closely as you'd once thought? Does your new tribe match your personal beliefs any better? Will the world be a better place if your new tribe rules over your old tribe & tries to impose their beliefs on you?

As a metaphor, this can be stretched to breaking point, but too few people put themselves in the position of understanding why they act in a particular way, & what the consequences will be. My brother-in-law, long-time working class, changed his voting preferences in recent years. He knows what he's no longer supporting, but I often wonder if he understands that he now supports the opposite - whatever that may be. "They must be punished!" I hear him thunder. Must is so strong a word.

Children of the Community

Children are an important part of the community - they become us. I mean that in the sense that, many years from now, they will be the driving force, the adults in power, & take our place in the community. I also mean that they will become like us - they will take their guidance from what they see us do. If we are mean-spirited, then they will be. If we are generous, then they will learn from that.

The children of different cultures grow up to be different adults as a result of this. Those who were brought up to respect their elders expect that respect out of their children. Those who were brought up secluded from the world will keep their naivety & transfer it to their children. In some cases, this is the promulgation of social norms, in others it is a deviation in one family that singles them out & their future generations. This is a form of social genetics - small mutations in each generation make the whole of society evolve.

We, as intelligent humans, do get the opportunity to change the social genetics if we act consciously, as opposed pre-destined genes. If we have the vision to see what is happening around us, we can determine what we prefer our society to be, &, hopefully, take some responsibility for changing it.

Our choice is the first step - taking responsibility.

I look on children as inspirational. If I see a few toddlers running around in circles giggling, it makes me laugh. I have no idea what they find funny, but they have such joy in their lives. If a stranger sees me smiling in public at such children, there is the risk that I get seen as a pedophile. The worst part is that the person who thinks that will probably not do anything about it - they will just move on with the thought in their mind. They will take no responsibility for that thought they had. It's a worst-possible-scenario case that they allow to fester in their own mind. After all, it's not their children.

If the average person sees two young teenagers in a fight, they will avoid it - turn away, walk quickly past, keep clear - because they don't want to get involved. Not their children. It's the modern way.
My wife, on the other hand, comes from one of those backward countries where children are a part of the community. You can be guaranteed that someone will recognise one of the children, the two will be broken apart, & each will be cuffed around the ear. Not only that, but the parents of both children will be informed - & both boys know it! - so they can look forward to another cuffing when they each get home.
The children of that community know how they should behave, & are reminded of it. They are appropriately admonished by society as well as their family. That is a very healthy community.

If I go back to the Australian scenario, there is always a little old lady up the street who notices the boys' fighting. She's the only one who might go to the parents with the tale. If she tried to break up the fight - the only one who would try - then she'd be knocked over by one of the boys. When she gets to the boy's home, the mother is shocked that her son would be fighting "Not my little Johnny - he's never been in a fight!" When Johnny comes home, he is asked about the incident. He feigns innocence. His mother is justified in her opinion. The boy escapes justice - & then plots his revenge on the nosy old lady up the street.
Who has been punished? Who has learned a lesson here?

We, as intelligent humans, get the opportunity to change our society.
It just takes a first step - taking responsibility.

Political Voodoo

With an election looming, the blame game has started & is now in full swing - politicians on both sides are telling us what the other side is going to do if they get into power, or how what the other side has done has foiled their grand schemes. Scapegoats are sought & appropriately sacrificed to the media bonfire. The government, of course, has been doing this for some time. We call them "scandals" because "incompetence" has too many syllables for prime time, & "blame" sounds too dull.
In fact, that's all we're really doing - finding someone to blame for a failure in the system somewhere, rather than finding out what really went wrong & fixing that - that would be too hard, require time & resources, & wouldn't make the prime time news. Once upon a time, you had to be quick enough to make the morning edition of the paper, but with twenty-four hour news, there's the trickle of newsworthy stuff to keep the media hungry, & then the big release each day to prove that the politicians are indeed awake.

When it comes to blaming someone for something so that we don't look too deeply into the problem, politics is becoming masterful. Many a minister of questionable background has been foisted into a portfolio for which they are unsuited or have no interest, only to be blamed when something within that realm - over which they had no control - falls apart at the seams due to a fundamental policy problem brought down from above, or else an incompetence in the implementation of a perfectly good policy carried out at the lowest levels.
I look with dismay at the political career of Peter Garrett - someone not well suited to the Labour Party, but who got them a lot of votes because he appealed to them. Within Labour, as an outsider, it was easier to treat him with disrespect. He had the credentials as Environment Minister, but was shunted into lesser roles when policies were mishandled. His fault? I doubt if he had the administrative background to oversee the implementation - that's for the public service. He did, however, know how to talk to environmentalists about the issues. He had real opinions. He was muffled, however, & his fellow politicians could not allow him to deviate from the party line.

From the perspective of a voter (or the media), when a policy fails, then someone must pay the price for the failure. We choose to pick on the Minister because they are a face. We use them as a voodoo doll & stick pins in them in the hope that causing them pain will somehow make our lives better. This is, of course, particularly silly. We should take responsibility for the actions of ourselves & our society, rather than looking for a puppet to hurt. When questionable insulation installers roamed the streets "taking advantage" of the "windfall" in the industry, where were the industry representatives who did not certify these people? Where was the community that allowed such people into the homes of their neighbours who knew no better?

Ah, but there was a Minister to blame. Problem solved. That'll learn 'em. Those dodgy installers won't do that again!

Progressive Politics

The more I look at politics in this & many other western democracies, the more the looking is tinged with dismay. The media often portrays the childishness of "he said/she said/they said" statements as so much throw-away sound-biting. When you look closer, it appears that that encompasses the whole substance of what political parties represent - mutual opposition.

That childishness reminds me of children playing in the sand - where there's only one shovel & one bucket. One child may have the majority (both implements), & they build while the other child fumes. If there is a sharing of power, then the two children will work at cross-purposes. When one child loses power, the other child will demolish all that they have built & start again, re-creating their vision from the last time they had power.
Both children are subject to the child & the support (& approval) of adult supervision, but they seem to ignore both, intent on their idea of how to build a castle in the sand.

Let's step back into reality. The two most important factors in government are, the general feel of the electorate - which can be affected through good leadership, & the climate of the times - (often external) factors not immediately under the control of the government. These are the adult supervision & the changing tide mentioned above. Many politicians think that the adults are a changing tide, & ignore it accordingly, as if there is no influence. This is inherently not just defeatist, but ignorant.

You modify the opinion of the electorate through how your actions are interpreted - this is party through performing the right actions, & partly through manipulation of how those actions are represented (through the media, for example). Does this sound obvious? This means that approval of castle building can be manipulated, to some extent.

You cannot change the tides, but you can monitor, anticipate, & harness their energy & impact. If you continue to ignore them, then it's at your peril - your sand castle will be washed away, in the same way that a child can be told by its parent that it's time to give up the bucket & spade.

Criticism is all well & good, but progressive politics needs a solution. Building castles that last comes about when there is co-operation in the sand castle building. Asking the other children to watch the tide or offer advice on how to deal with it, delegating the power of the shovel or bucket, building on others' successes & learning from their mistakes (rather than forgetting or ignoring both), are all things that lead to better sand castles. These are also things lacking in modern politics.
The "I am right, you are wrong" (or "I am right, you are left") way of looking at government assumes that the tide is irrelevant (never changes) & the approval is fickle. Going forward, progressive politics must take both into consideration & deal with them appropriately.

Embrace change. Embrace the future. Create good government. Go forward.

The Man Elected King

In an old Don Henley song, commentary on the status of the US President is somewhat at variance to their actual power - however, & this is the important part, the perception of the voters is that they are electing someone with some sort of absolute power to make decisions in their name, & can thereafter be held responsible for not fulfilling their dreams.
Do we so need someone to blame? Or are we so tribal that we need someone to be seen as the leader of the rabble?

Democracy is supposed to be a system whereby a monarch is not necessary - government is through the people's representatives. It makes no sense for there to still be monarch from amongst these. It makes no sense for two reasons:

• it gives the impression that the leader is elected for that purpose (not for being a representative)
• it assumes that one of the elected representatives must be the leader

So, what happens if the best leader is not amongst those elected? Or cannot "form a majority" in the parlance of the Westminster system? This is a common enough problem that shows one of the major defects of that system.

We still think of nationhood as being embodied in a leader - someone who represents "us" on the world stage. Surely, this should have nothing to do with electing local representatives into a body for setting policies & laws. It just makes no sense.
Similarly, that person should not be expected to represent or talk to the whole populace, because, by definition, they only have the support of half of those who vote - sometimes even less in a two-party-preferred system. This doesn't make them any more likely to represent the non-voters.

Call me a monarchist, if you like, but at least a monarch is someone you can do nothing about, & is therefore not worth complaining about - they simply represent the monarchy, not a political party or an agenda; they have no need to be popular or seek re-election or bombard people with propaganda. You could say that there are far more advantages to disadvantages.

To be honest, all historical disadvantages of the system have become irrelevant, mostly through the maturity of the population, combined with advances in information & communications. I think it's also been proven many times over that democracy does not work in many parts of the world explicitly because people think it guarantees that their king rules the people in their name (their tribe, the one they voted for, beats the other tribe). This to me implies that party politics should not be foisted on anyone who wants to become socially mature.

Good monarchy - with a few simple safe-guards - is a far more effective form of government. Leadership should take advice from the people's representatives (as an executive), & act on that advice without fear of repurcussions to their own position. In this case, by safe-guards, I do not mean that there should be a group of people who can depose the monarch if they disagree. That way leads to the same systems we currently call "democracy". The only safe-guards are around the actual fitness of the leader to make decisions, & ensurance that enough information is available to them. Of course, you always have that little problem of who is watching the watchers ...

Put a Label on it

I do not consider myself "radical", & yet much of my thinking definitely is. I juts don't like the label; more specifically, I do not like the negative connotations that people associate with that label. De Bono long ago pointed out how the words that we use gather meaning in certain contexts that make them thereafter unusable. He pointed out otherwise harmless words like "superficial", which has now been associated with terms like "slipshod", implying that no real effort was applied - just scratching the surface of a problem. From his medical background, a superficial wound, for example, is a relatively good thing, though.

Similarly, radical. There was a political movement in England in the 1800s that tried to be independent of the two major parties. They still have that problem there, & we in Australia have it now. The two major parties try to paint themselves as diametrically opposed, yet both trying to cover the middle ground of the "undecided" voter. The reality is that the middle ground is the silent majority who have no possible allegiance to either of the major alternatives, but are trapped in a political system that simplifies government into politics, & politics into two-party-preferred. In the US, the system is geared even more towards the two major alternatives, to the point where it is very difficult for an "independent" (anyone else) to be even recognised. In Fiji, I asked locals what differentiated the major parties, & was told that one was conservative & the other socialist. Asking deeper questions revealed that the division was actually racial - one was Indian-dominated & the other Native-dominated. It's just in the label.

I am not a radical, & yet I believe that these things should change. The radicals of the past also believed that, which is what was so threatening to those diametrically opposed parties. It is interesting to note that those two parties have changed over time, even been replaced by other parties, but there are still two of them vying for the popular vote.
Those in power - & by this I do not mean those in government, but those in politics - do not like to give up their power. They somehow think that they have the right to be in government because they are very good at politics. I don't agree. To me, this disqualifies them, on the basis that they spend all of their time differentiating themselves from their opposition. If that's the chief aim of both parties, then they are effectively the same.

A valid political alternative is one that sets policies based on government, rather than opposition. A government needs to make decisions for the good of the people, not the re-election of the party. This cannot be done within the confines of the current system.
It is truly radical to believe that change is possible. It is even more radical to want to cause such change. Without change, we get stuck with the labels that are meaningless, misapplied, destructive, regressive & often dishonest.

To move forward, we have to divest ourselves of the labels. We have to think outside of the box we have been placed in. We have to be more than a little radical.

Everything You Say

I'm struggling to start this post, because it works off the premise that everything you say - & the way you say it - has a layer of meaning provided by you (the author) & your reader/listener, based on your background, psychology, state of mind, ability to perceive, communicate, interpret, ... & you end up down the rabbit hole losing all sense of proportion & proper grammar.

Then I thought of the old Police song "Every step you take", & its meanings, relative to the name of the band & the lead singer.

I'll just start again, before my head explodes or crashes into the ceiling before I can find the "Eat me" cake.

What you say says more about you than it does the topic you are discussing, in general. Politics is a classic example. The larger the audience, the bigger the issue, the more strident the voice, the more likely that the communication is not in the words. I should say, the true meaning is not in the words. Politicians are not a special case, but they are a classic example of assuming an audience & treating it in a special way.
Politicians treat people like morons (who else would vote for them?), & everyone knows that the best way to communicate with a moron is to speak louder, slower, & use small words & non-threatening hand gestures. Politicians don't say "You are a moron, so I'll speak slower", but by their actions they demonstrate how they relate to their audience.

Then there's the words that they use to communicate their message. An acquaintance long ago introduced me to "projection" - saying something about someone with the hope that nobody thinks the same of you.

A classic politician statement will go along the lines of "My learned opponent is lying!" I've obviously cleaned that up & made it more polite, but I think I have succinctly represented 50% of politicians' pronouncements. Let's look closely at what they've said, within the context of their belief that they are talking to morons.
They don't say "I am telling the truth!" Morons don't believe you when you say that. Politicians also don't say "They're lying - just ask them!" because morons don't follow up on information provided. (Let's forget about the logic puzzle of how to ask a question of someone who is suspected of lying.)

A politician is actually making an empty statement when they say that their opponent is lying (or that their opponent eats babies, will raise taxes, or intends to sell the public service to an overseas consultancy).
They are in fact expressing a fear. They hope that you'll acquire the fear that they express - that the opponent is untrustworthy, &, more importantly, that you will think that they (the politician) ARE trustworthy. After all, there couldn't possibly be two politicians who lie. The deepest fear that the politician has is that they have lower credibility than their opponent, & they express that fear by wanting you to believe their opponent (has) less.

Children do this a lot. "Johnny, did you eat a cookie?" "No, it was Billy! I saw him!" This is a normal response regardless of whether a cookie was eaten in the first place. Johnny needs to be trusted. Someone needs to bear the blame. Billy isn't there to defend himself. Everyone's happy.

Politicians are slightly more efficient, in that you don't have to ask them if they've eaten a cookie, they will jump straight in to assuming that Billy ate one, & they just want to make sure that they're not covered in crumbs.

Knowledge & Wisdom

Once upon a time, great sages would sit on mountain tops or in caves, contemplating the secrets of the universe. People would come to them seeking their advice, or to find out what knowledge they had acquired, what wisdom they could impart. Students needed a master scholar to gain the basic understanding of their world. Leaders needed guidance. People needed reassurance that answers were out there.
Eventually, some structure was put in place - the caves became artificial stone edifices that we now refer to as Universities. The scholars dress in a manner that is a little more socially acceptable, although their other manners may not have gone through that transformation. This state of affairs did us well for a very long time.
However, the times have changed. The new oracles of knowledge are machines which gather more information & knowledge quickly & easily & make it accessible to the masses with little sacrifice on their behalf. The scholars still delve into the unknown, but they are less likely to be consulted directly. They are networked into the consciousness of humanity.
With knowledge so easily available, it makes it too easy to forget that knowledge is useless without the wisdom to apply it appropriately. Ethics cannot be explained in a web page. It cannot be provided by a search of the internet. I needs someone who has already mastered the topic - gained wisdom - to share their experience.
To the modern mind, this seems to be a bit of a waste of effort - talking to actual people, etc, but it is still necessary. Just as time is still necessary to gain experience - for anything truly worthwhile, there are no short cuts.
The problem is that it takes wisdom to realise this in the first place, & that is something - a little bit of wisdom, enough to know how much you don't know - that is often severely lacking in the young & impatient. Self-reflection is a skill that is not natural, is not easy to learn, cannot be assumed, but is essential for personal growth.
Thus, with time & effort, we can achieve the wisdom we need to use the knowledge that we gain.