Category Archives: Philosophy

Technology, Social Change and the New Paradigm

Racism is as old as time, as are abuses of power, inequality, stratification of societies and the general notion of injustice.

Each revolution brought with it a distinct ‘before’ and ‘after’. The change involved in getting from the ‘before’ to the ‘after’ was usually prolonged, painful and generational. The fall of Rome ushered in a thousand years of darkness in Europe, the fall of Constantinople, on the other hand opened the flood gates of knowledge that led to the European Renaissance.

The Industrial Revolution saw the rise of worker’s rights, unions and labour agreements. In fact, most of the conditions we consider normal in our every day working lives, such as paid holiday and sick leave, overtime pay, the right to strike, regulated working hours and conditions as well as worker safety were hard fought for and painfully gained over decades of struggle.

What we have witnessed in recent times is an increase in the instances of change, each decade, each year, and then each month change was the only certainty. Technology is rushing us along the path of our accelerated history. Moore’s law seems to be limping behind.

Now this change is upon on us on an almost daily basis.

So, what? What have Racism and Revolution to do with accelerated technological change?

There are two fundamental issues we are facing presently. The institutionalized racism towards indigenous peoples (The First Nations of the Americas, the Aboriginals of Australia, the African nations and tribes long traumatized by colonial rule and many more) as well as the institutionalized racism against the imported slave labour in many countries but specifically in the Americas.

The levels of brutality, inequality and despair are beyond the understanding of anyone who has not experienced it. The murder (systematic – some might say) of these minorities is as plain a fact as the gravitational pull of the moon that causes our tides. It is not new.

What is new is that for the first time we witnessed the perfect storm of technological enablement, opportunity and atrocity. Our bandwidth speeds, the all-pervasive devices – video and audio enabled, the legion of social media platforms and streaming services, our very ‘connectedness’ have made us witnesses to murder most foul.

And crucially, we have a population that is technologically aware. Soon there will be nobody left who remembers not being connected. It is changing the very fabric of our human interactions.

No longer was it part of a news report or a statistic quoted in some paper or droned on about by some professors or social commentators. No, this was visceral, this was unprecedented. We watched the murder of a human being as it unfolded. There was no filter, just the raw reality.

We watched it and we did not understand why George Floyd had to die. We watched it but could not do anything. Some might have thought what if this was me or someone I love? The bystanders made us all eye-witnesses. Technology made us face the ugly underbelly of reality. We could no longer hide behind ‘I did not know’ or ‘I did not realise…” – we saw a man, suffocating, calling for his mother. He is now Anyman.

This is not the first time it happened, and I am certain that much worse things have happened, even in recent history. But it is the first time that so many of us were there. Our technological age will, no matter what else it may bring, usher in the answer to the age-old question of ‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’ – Who watches the watchers? We all do.

Our revolution is a revolution of social change, enabled by our technology, not a single piece of technology but the ecosystem of technology we created. Individuals are being held accountable, senior figures resign in disgrace or protest, entire institutions are being dismantled.

All because we have the bandwidth, devices, protocols, social media platforms, cloud computing infrastructures and ability to be almost everywhere at once.

We must be wary of how to deploy our technology lest we mindlessly move like a great organism, individuals nothing but cells in this great behemoth. We must remain moral and ethical human beings. We must continue to reason and seek the right answers. Too easily can one be swept up in the Mob. This too technology enables – anonymity and the abdication of individual responsibility.

We must act responsibly and wisely. If we can I do not know.

Thoughts

These, then, were the Floyd wars.
Or the Epstein wars. Or the Pell wars. Or the trade wars.

Or the never ending wars on ideas, concepts, slogans – immaterial, impossible to define but, oh, ever so profitable.

It was a time when men of God raped their flock, and all knew and none were punished.
It was a time when the billionaires no longer wanted to be the ‘have-most’s’, they wanted to be the ‘have-it-all’s’
Wealth of nations disappeared into coffers of the few.
It was a time when the rich no longer answered to the laws.
It was a time when the few rich were sacrificed to protect the tribes of the rich in their depravities.

It was a time of slavery and abuse.
It was a time of failed systems and dying institutions, but, zombie-like, they marched on, unaware and unwilling to acknowledge the rot deep in their bones.

It was a time of unequaled advances, potential health and wealth for all but greed festered uncontrollably in every corner.

It was a time of disease.
It was a time of homelessness and forgotten veterans from wars that served no moral purpose.
It was a time when hundreds of millions could not work, could not hope, could not build.

It was a time when Twitter presidents and tyrants and despots and self-serving bureaucrats determined the fate of nations looking to blame each other for all the ills and hoping none would look too closely.

It was a time when many said ‘No more’ and were jailed and killed and tortured and disappeared and silenced and ignored for their troubles. Lucky to be ignored.

It was a time when they could bear no more and violence and provocation and false truths reigned in the world.
What came then was the mighty upheaval, waking the long slumbering leviathan, the wrath of the many, the poor, the forgotten, the inconsequential, the ‘useless eaters’.

What happened then many saw coming, but few recognised for what it was.
The end of all certainty.
A time of flux.
We are writing the story. Not some unknowable force.
We are responsible to history.
We will be judged.

Musings

All of us have favourite books we re-read time and again. These books are places where one can hide, rest and imagine different lives, different times. They have a familiar feel to them, they smell  just right and as soon as the words scroll by one is displaced and captivated.

They allow us to return to times in our lives long thought lost by recapturing vivid memories and associations we had at the time of reading them for the first, the second, the tenth time.

I, myself, have five such books. I will re-read them from time to time. I am drawn to the stories they reveal, the emotions they conjure deep within me. I am happy when I read them, content. I am transported, changed, as each reading will reveal a new detail or a forgotten connection, triggering dormant sections of my mind.

These books are, in no particular order, Healer by F. Paul Wilson, Tuf Voyaging by George R R Martin (written well before his GoT fame), What Mad Universe by Frederic Brown, Hurra, wir leben noch and Es muss nicht immer Kaviar sein, both by Johannes Mario Simmel, and, I fear, not translated into English.

The books by Simmel have the added advantage of purportedly being true stories. Simmel chronicled the events of both books, taking the point of view of the respective protagonists, Jakob Formann (not his real name), a self-made industrialist in post-war Europe, and Thomas Lieven (not his real name), whose story is too unbelievable not to be true.

The other three works are all Science Fiction, but Science Fiction with a decidedly human bend. A man displaced into an alternate reality, similar but maddeningly different from his. It is all he can do to stay alive. Another man unwittingly sharing his body with a second, invading mind, whose consciousness reaches down to the cellular level, leading to inevitable immortality and all its trappings. The final man, not so much a man, but a stylised symbol of a man, stilted, exceedingly well-spoken, philanthropic, fragile and omnipotent – an itinerant merchant without a sense for business in the possession of one of the most powerful weapons ever dreamed up by Science Fiction.

I am not entirely sure what these books say about me, but they are my favourites such as they are. I would take them on a one-way-trip to Mars, pack them in my steamer trunk as I set out to the Paleolithic and strap them to my chest as I tumble down the Einstein-Rosen bridge.

I have learned (and still am), upon reflection, much and more from those books. Mostly how to deal with the unexpected, the shocking, the new and frightening. All the protagonists are anti-heroes, they are all flawed, they are all, in the end, completely dependent upon their own wits and ingenuity to survive and carry on another day.

Maybe you can look at your favourite books anew and ask yourself what they say about you.

Really?

Once again, we find ourselves the butt of political jokes and general international disbelief. Yes, I am talking about the unfolding (unfolded by now) antipodean drama that is the Labour Party.

Really? They think it is a good idea to do this? Before an election?

Colour me cynic, but did the Labour Party bring back Rudd just to win the election and dump him again unceremoniously 6 months hence, because nobody in the caucus likes him?

I am one of those sad sobs that listens to parliamentary radio on 630 AM, almost daily. It is depressing enough most days but this comedy of errors takes the cake. Our lives are determined by people engaged in school yard popularity contests and individual opportunism.

In the immortal words of Kent Brockmann (TM):” I have said it before and I’ll say it again…democracy just doesn’t work.”

I rest my case.

On the topic of movies…

Movies – literally projected pictures that move – changed the scape of entertainment as well the shape of our civilisation. They elevated a hitherto obscure and much maligned art form to an almost godlike status and presence.

In times of traveling performers and small, underpaid troupes of actors, acting itself was not seen as a decent occupation for respectable folks. Indeed, one could watch a performance and then pay a little extra afterwards for a private performance, if you know what I mean.

Not so today. Far removed and aloof actors and actresses move in realms inaccessible to ordinary mortals.

And this is where my gripe lies. I do love movies and the entertainment they bring. But the people in the movies are actors and actresses, not gods. These people are not curing cancer or busy solving the world food crisis. They act. Period.

And get paid unbelievable amounts of money.

This tiny point is just another signpost of our civilisations steady decline into irrelevance and obscurity.

“You are putting the wrong em-PHA-sis on the wrong syl-LA-ble.”

Indeed, we are.

More

Difficult to breathe

Hard to think

Form coherent thoughts

Fingers slowly moving over keys

familiar and alien

poised over letters and symbols and spaces

seeking the ones needed to express

most succinctly

The need

the feelings

slipping into…

lack of clarity?

over the ‘W’, now the ‘O’

still meaning eludes

too many thoughts, emotions

Sadness, guilt, regret, pity, shame (a little),

how to right a lifetime of actions?

how to give and receive peace?

Lost thoughts, orphaned, drift across my mind

dissolving as morning dew at dawn.

Dawn, there will always be another dawn.

I think.

Anachronisms

What do we really know? Not much it appears. Mysteries surround us and trip us up at every turn. Most of the knowledge we assume to be solid is in fact only theory. Not proven. Not fact. Not truth.

We must guard against those that claim to have the truth.

In fact, there is a beautiful saying:

Trust nobody who says they have the truth, trust everybody who is seeking for the truth.

I concur. To go a step further we must get away from an anthropocentric view of the world and accompanying truth(s) and widen our faculties to include all life in our quest for the ultimate answers.

I suspect that will lead us down a very difficult path, but the high road is always the hardest way to travel.

There have been attempts in the past. I call them anachronisms because they do not fit within the time and place, any time and place really, of their occurrence.

My hope is that one day these thoughts will not be anachronistic.