Something came up at the pub today

Whose nature?

2010-11-29T01:53:00.000-08:00

When they say to act in accordance with nature, it invites the question "What is human nature?" or at least "What is my nature?".

I suspect that the only efficacious answer is that the nature in question is one's own. True, panentheism suggests that your nature is pretty much like my nature in many regards; however, the emergence of consciousness largely from and within the particular system of my body suggests that the particular action of reason as I experience it is cogent. For me this has always been a 'little voice inside' that tells me that what I am doing is wrong, when it is. I have never regretted following the advice of this daemon, which is something I couldn't say as regards the times I have ignored it. On those many, many occasions I have later understood how wise that voice is.

Reason allows me to evaluate the causes that mitigate against that voice and right understanding helps to take the wind from their sails.

Matters of indifference

2010-11-28T23:24:00.000-08:00

In matters of indifference it is not enough to rehearse in your head that this is a matter of indifference. It isn't even enough to reflect on and determine what nature wills, like some sort of philosophic CBT. Not when you're secretly (as if you could hide thoughts from reason) reflecting on the impact that action in accordance with nature may have on matters of indifference, such as reputation.

Privacy and police | Database and police

2010-01-17T14:03:00.000-08:00

Privacy and police | Database and police: "But the president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, Cameron Murphy, said privacy safeguards had not kept pace with the increase in information available to police forces."

OUrs is a legal system with a long history. For most of that history people's capacity to know, or to influence, what laws were made has been practically quite limitted. Access to the education needed to understand the laws, access to law-makers and access to good quality legal advice has been far less than most people in our society currently have. Unfortunately, this says more about how hard and how difficult to access things used to be, rather than saying much about what is currently on offer. Thing is, in a very practical way it didn't matter and people largely had the access they needed.

The key to the adequacy of such poor resources and support lay in the relative capacity of the executive arm of government to enforce the edicts of the legislature. People didn't need to understand what the law was when there was less chance that they would be caught if it was broken. For the same reason, it also mattered a lot less precisely what it was that a law said. As a society we could afford to have some 'bad' laws on the books, because they were hard to enforce, or even unenforcable. In a funny way, a chain of imperfections stretching from the voter to the Crown acted as checks and balances on each other in a way that made our Australian society work in a way that we were generally happy with. Citizens were effectively protected from other people, the State and to a lesser extent themselves.

So what's changed? Technology is making our laws ever more enforcable. Suddenly, bad law is actually being applied. People are finding themselves, or those they care for, in trouble and using other new technologies to find out what the law actually is. Too often they find out that they don't actually approve of some of the things enacted in our name. It's all well and good to say that the internet and other technologies have made it easier for the population to know wha tthe law is, and it's true. It's also well and good to say that breaking the laws that make our society possible is bad and should be prevented by the state. Also very true, when the laws genuinely do protect and create the society we choose to have.

The problem is too much of our law is built on the assumptions of imperfection that used to grease the wheels and give society 'elbow room'. These assumptions just don't hold up anymore and laws are hard to change. If nothing else, when you say a law should change you are inherantly in the possition for arguing in favour of something that is against the law and so covered by an assumption of beneficience. How do we continue to have the society we want in the face of an ever-increasing ability of the state to enforce laws that shouldn't always be enforced? I wish I had good answers.

Old Masters or contemporary hippies

2009-12-22T23:25:00.000-08:00

I went to see the French masters exhibit at the Australian National Gallery today, with a dear friends of mine. AS well as being a pretty good respite from the thrills and spills of xmas shopping, it was an eye opener.

I've know for a while that I suffer from a common affliction that leads me to see anything done by somebody who's dead as being inherrantly better than 'normal' stuff. I discovered today that this extends quite comfortably into the slightly echoing world of painting. Extends, curls up and makes itself at home. I'm not sure what it was that I was imagining when I thought of the French Masters. I think it may have come with some sort of halo though.

What I found was a collection of paintings that I could have picked up at a contemporary market somewhere on the coast of NSW. The people and places they introduced me to were people and places I have encountered in my life. From arch women in black boas to nuns on the run, it was familiar and comfortable. Much of it was also challenging and still has my mind realing, but that's part of what I was after.

Were these masters really so ahead of their time? Or, have we fallen so into the furrow they ploughed that it has become a rut? Or even, that the world and those of us in it (however tenuaously at times) change so little?

Definitely worth a look, but wear comfy shows; those solid floors are a killer.

The Australian State in C21 (Part 1)

2009-12-19T13:29:00.000-08:00

NOTE TO SELF: This is meant to be the first in a series of posts that capture the ideas I've been having about the role of the State in Australian society in the twentyfirst century. Some of the other areas I want to cover are: the Australian constitutional monarchy; a resident Head of State; the State as information provider; Republican Australia; and separation of Church and State and the Australian marriage/relationship laws.

I don't like greedy people, which can be a bit of a problem if you consider that there's strong opinion in the psychological and evolutionary communities that its a trait we have evolved to express in spades. It's just one of the many joys that comes from an environment that has changed far more rapidly than an evolutionary timescale can readily adapt to. From what I here and read (particularly of late) it's just one of many.

Issues like a mismatch between evolutionary fitness in the face of rapid changes in our environment are the sort of thing that it is very hard for an individual to allow for in the conduct of our daily lives. Not only is it inherrently hard to go against one's inbuilt tendencies, it's hard to acquire the information to know you need to; let alone how to do it if you choose to. Sounds like the sort of issue that the State, with it's huge investment on behalf of the community in research, development and information aggregation, is ideally situated to help with.

So, the State is well positioned to assist with the problem, but what should it do?

I'm one of those people who prefers enablement to nanny-state regulation; at least where it has a good chance of working. Apart from anything else, it's hard to legislate that people and organisations not be 'greedy'. Whose standards do we apply? What penalties are appropriate? It's a very subjective area. Certainly one that I think most people would respond differently to in different situations. It's the sort of situation that makes it hard for the State (let alone politicians) to come up with a satisfactory response. I have an idea...

I suspect that there are a lot of other people out there who, like me, aren't all that supportive of what they consider to be greed. Problem is, they don't know when a person or an organisation is taking more than their fair share of the resources. Often, how resources are divided is the subject of confidentiality agreements, or is inherrently hard or impossible to attribute. There's not much anyone can do about the latter sort, which unfortunately covers most acts of individual greed.

Acts of organisational greed are a little easier to determine, because there tend to be records available. Records that show things like an organisation's profit margin, staff expenditures as a percentage of profit, average employee income vs net profit. I'm sure you get teh drift by now; just as I'm sure there are far better measures that could be proposed and adopted. Where the information is already in public hands it can be made publicly available. Where it exists in private hands, it can be made the subject of mandatory reporting. Where it doesn't exist, but could, it can be mandatorily collected and reported.

This information would allow people to judge for themselves who the greedy organisations and businesses are (together with who they view as simply a damn good investment) and modify their behaviour towards the organisation as they see fit.

It will take legislative change and those who benefit from public ignorance of how much they take from the community vs. how much they return to it will scream blue murder. Too bad.

It does the Australian citizen no good to allow the organisations that are within and part of our communities to succumb to the evolutionary proclivities of their owners, managers and staff. It is a propper role of today's Australian State to make it possible for people to exercise their power when it comes to organisational greed.

ATO cracks down on quick sales

2009-12-16T11:57:00.000-08:00

ATO cracks down on quick sales: "Tax counsel at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia Yasser El-Ansary said the determinations would deter private equity companies from investing in Australia and the Government would need to decide if this was the direction it wanted to take."

I suspect that this is precisely the direction that we want to take. Australia should welcome investment, with little regard to its geographic source. We aren't talking about investment in this instance.

We're talking about companies that come into our country, take over successful businesses, run them and structure them as a short-term cash cow and then flog them off at an inflated rate. Much (if not all) of the profits leave the country and genuine investors are squeezed out of the market, or hve to pay inflated rates for businesses that aren't structured for long-term outcomes.

If you want to participate in our community you must contribute to it. You must employ, build, train, connect, service and sustain our society if you would be entitled to the benefits and freedoms we have established for its creation, protection and enrichment.

Crying poor? Count your rooms and houses, and think again

2009-12-15T12:14:00.000-08:00

Crying poor? Count your rooms and houses, and think again: "Today's generation wants to start with the sort of house that my generation expected to finish with ie start with a 'MacMansion' instead of a cheap house with successive upgrades as budget permitted."

Of course I want to start with what I will end up in, or at least something I wouldn't be loath to end up in. Australia has gotten it into its collective consciousness that the family home is an asset. Government, the construction industry and individuals are geared to feed ever-increasing house prices.

The way I see it, I can't afford to buy small and work up. It's going to take me the rest of my feasable working life to pay off a mortgage on the sort of place I want to end up in at today's prices. The sort of housing people used to start on (i.e. smaller, older, poorly situated, etc.) is hard to find, expensive to maintain and doesn't appreciate in value at anything like the rate of where I need to get to.

I'm looking to end up in a lower maintenance, energy efficient, appropriately networked, etc. property. Somewhere I can spend my old age, prefereably in the company of one or more other adults.

In short, yes. I am scared I'll never get into a house. I am scared that I'll be a million miles from services and human contact in a shoebox that's falling down around me. I am scared that if I start with something unsuitable it may be as much as I ever get.

Internet Censorship Plan Approved In Australia | Stephen Conroy

2009-12-15T02:53:00.000-08:00

Internet Censorship Plan Approved In Australia | Stephen Conroy: "The Federal Government has announced it will proceed with controversial plans to censor the internet after Government-commissioned trials found filtering a blacklist of banned sites was accurate and would not slow down the internet."

See, I don't remember that ability to ban nominated sites being an issue. The issue is how many unbanned sites will be collatoral damage.

Religion | Parliament of World Religions

2009-12-14T00:07:00.000-08:00

Religion | Parliament of World Religions: "Within virtually all religions, and sometimes between denominations within a single religion, a belief prevails that other faith cultures cannot be called ''religious'' or ''religions'' because they are wholly wrong."

More sloppy journalism. It would be patenty untrue to say that 'most' of the world's religions believe all (or even most) other religions are 'wholly wrong'. To go to the deeper extreme of 'virtually all' is IMHO absurd. At the very least it is the sort of strong claim that warrants decent and explicit support when used by a professional in a public forum.

As an aside, the use of number of adherants to classify a religion as major or minor has a strong inbuilt bias. It favours religions that promote large families in combination with chldhood indoctrination (no perjorative overtones intended) and religions that seek new adherants and converts. Many religions do not fit this description. This is particularly true of indiginous and pagan religions.

Etiquette | Manners

2009-12-13T23:59:00.000-08:00

Etiquette | Manners: "Then there are the E-types such as the airline staff who forced Paralympian Kurt Fearnley to crawl through Brisbane Airport because they insisted he check his wheelchair and theirs wasn't suitable for him."

While I largely agree with the article that this is taken from (and am probably more of an E-type then I'd like to believe), this sort of misrepresentation to make a point annoys me. The athlete in question made a pricipled stand about using a wheelchair that could not be self propelled. I understand why and may well have done the same; however, the wheelchair on offer was not incompatable with his condition. If anything, the example is one of E-type behaviour on the part of the athlete, rather than on the part of the low-level airline staff. What lead the gentleman in question to feel that he was entitled to treatment other than that offered to all other people in his situation? Maybe he feels that being an athlete gives him an entitlement. He certainly felt entitled to use his position as a sportsperson to trash the brand of an organisation that makes more effort than many (although not sufficient effort).

Kevin Rudd And Asia-Pacific Forum | ASEAN

2009-12-07T23:07:00.000-08:00

Kevin Rudd And Asia-Pacific Forum | ASEAN: "Thank you for bringing to our attention some of the humourous goings on in the world of international politics. It is clear that Mr Rudd is continuing where his labour predecessors left off: attempt some mechanism of being part of ASEAN. I am not sure this is apporpriate for Australia, and cyncial that Mr Rudd activities in this area is part of his lobbying for a post-PM senior diplomatic role in the UN.

Mr Rudd's focus ought to be on how Australia can bring leadership and guidance to the Pacific regions through the PICTA/PACER forums. ASEAN has already mandated the establishment of an ASEAN Community by 2015. Australia ought to be focussed on its Pacific region and possibly create an ANZPac (for instance) Community. This would give greater leverage, not just to Australia and New Zealand, but also to the other oft forgotten Pacific nations when dealing with ASEAN.

Furthermore, the ANZPac region would benefit from a harmonisation of international law through the implementation of community law. Mr Rudd ought to position Australia as the nation to bring the Pacific nations together rathing than trying to muscle in on another turf where we would lack any real or substantiative role.

Politics, as is often the case, is getting in the way of the common sense approach. Australia will always trade with Asia. We will not miss out on any benefits that arise through Asia's continued growth. As liberal as Mr Rudd is vis e vis international relations, he ought to focus on our own region.
Michael A. | Neutral Bay - December 08, 2009, 8:14AM"

The trouble with this is that it leaves Australia as the only member of the grouping with significant resources. That is likely to become a political and economic problem sooner, rather than later. After all, the likely future circumstances of many of the Pacific nations in question in the coming century will likely be a challenge to whatever grouping they are part of.

Given that I don't see leaving them out of any political/economic community on this basis as productive or ethical, the larger grouping Rudd is proposing is more attractive. Even if only because it includes more countries that have significant and varied resources to help tackle such challenges.

Another advantage of the Asia-Pacific Community is that it provides a body with a capacity to undertake environmental management and stewardship of the Pacific basin ecosystem(s). There is no current grouping that is able to speak for all countries that share responsibilities within that system.