Month: April 2016

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”

I often say that I find the world’s so called “leadership” to be incompetent (amongst other things), and while I think I’ve already more than adequately justified that critique, it appears some think I’m being unfair; so let me just briefly reiterate the universal critique: Continue reading “Justifying a critique of the status quo”

I’ve been hearing for a very long time, and it seems to be increasing, or perhaps the change in my own perspective makes it appear more prominent … the expression of opinions by people, which go beyond the scope of what it would be possible for them to say with certainty, especially given their lack of specialist and contextual information.

Perhaps you’re familiar with this scenario: Continue reading “Opinions and Certainty”

For those who may be interested, I am writing a manuscript for a book, likely to be digitally published as a means of generating some income to help fund this work. Continue reading “Book publishing”

When your own cells start attacking each other, when your immune system itself fails … you’re in serious trouble.

Capitalism is the economic equivalent of an autoimmune disease … let’s look at the evidence: Continue reading “Capitalism: the autoimmune disease of civilisation”