Blog Roll

Warning: At the outset I want to make something very clear … I would expect (given past experience) that with or without this warning (plus various other notes and caveats throughout this article), it is likely someone could read the following, take objection to it for some reason, and then ironically prove every point I’m making while believing they’re doing the exact opposite … and the reasons for this (as explained in detail by the article itself), can be summarised as follows: Continue reading “Extended Dunning-Kruger Effect and Hanlon’s Razor”

I’ve been reading a lot lately about “the population crisis”, which is the idea that there are simply too many people on the planet. Now … like a lot of other things in this world, it isn’t a simple black and white question or answer like that … so I thought I’d write a bit of an explanation about what is happening to the planet, and how it relates to population.

To really discuss anything like this, you need a baseline, so let’s begin by constructing such a baseline … then we’ll be able to run scenarios against that baseline, and compare those scenarios to the reality we face. Continue reading “Extinction, Garbage, Pollution and Population”

When you listen to almost any socioeconomic or political discourse, you’re bound to hear some of the following philosophical / propagandistic phrases (or similar): Continue reading “Capitalism and Dictatorship.”

A few nights ago I was confronted by a bizarre experience that I wasn’t expecting … I was invited to join some people for drinks that I hadn’t seen in 30 years, and when I got there, I was basically ambushed by 2 of the 3 of them, I don’t know if the 3rd played any part in the ambush or not. Continue reading “Setting the record straight: “my privileged life””

Whether you’re a actor, writer, musician, artist or inventor … the situation is often the same, you’ve got a lot of development time (unpaid), resource requirements (unfunded), experimental risks of trial and error (uninsured and unbudgeted), and various other time and resource costs for which you gain no assistance or income … some of which never even results in any possibility of income … but all of it is a necessary part of the journey in developing your craft and your products. Continue reading “Support for Inventors”

A short while ago I wrote an article on the concept of Ecological Thermodynamic Momentum … which I can probably write better, so I may rewrite it at some stage, but for now I just want to extend the idea a little.

To recap briefly, for this context:

• Thermodynamic momentum, in simple terms is the amount of energy and embodied energy (aka emergy) in the system and pushing change in a particular direction.

Continue reading “Thermodynamic momentum and resistance”

I wrote this letter (edited) to GetUp Australia, as they’re currently running an advertising campaign featuring Sir David regarding the death of 93% of the Great Barrier Reef (a scary reality we must face).

However as I know people (including possible allies) often judge things they do not understand, I’m going to publish this as an open letter also … if anyone has the capacity to forward this to anyone else, such that it can eventually reach David’s eyes … please do so. Continue reading “Open letter to Sir David Attenborough”

I was forwarded a link to a story written for Business Insider Australia by a friend of a colleague (link). I was excited by and appreciative of the initial message, because they offered to introduce me to Brett (from Zendesk, who wrote the article), but as I read the article my enthusiasm quickly dropped.

Now I know there’s a lot of politicking that goes on, and people want to be on the good side of those in power … so maybe he was just painting it in a good light … but nonetheless, I don’t think I can operate within such a scenario which is at best disingenuous or at worst deluded, because our country’s “investment” (less that we used to spend) in “innovation” (handouts to companies whom are already running and shouldn’t need it), is likely nothing I can benefit from anyway. Continue reading “Australia’s disingenuous and unexciting “investment” in “innovation” by the Turnbull govt.”

The short answer, not necessarily … it could actually make things worse.

As Austrian forester / naturalist Viktor Schauberger discovered, when you make processes more efficient, capitalism doesn’t use those efficiencies to save the environment, it uses them to destroy and exploit faster … what he discovered in the earlier part of the 20th century, was that the buoyant bearing capacity of water changed with temperature, and he was convinced this would mean the logging industry could take less wood, because in his thinking it would require less wood to generate the same profits in the same time if their costs went down … instead his heart was broken as his discovery was instead used to destroy his beloved Black Forest, it was stripped before his eyes, almost utterly denuded of trees. Continue reading “Will “unlimited energy” save the environment?”

What if I’m right?

I’ve been saying for some time now, that no viable ecological and social solution exists to simultaneously solve the root cause of all world problems, without:

1. The absence of property, trade & currency based economics, or;
2. The consensus of a majority of people, willing to sacrifice much, or;
3. A dystopian future in which we suffer loss of social liberties (or similar).

Continue reading “Hypothetical: humour me for a minute”