Markets...

Markets are a little bit like oxygen you need it to survive but too much is deadly. The market was not a deliberate creation it has always existed ever since somebody traded a sheep for a goat (they got ripped off). The rich and powerful along with multinational corporations do use the market to keep themselves in power and this isn’t good for the majority of citizens. But having everything owned by the government also has a number of problems such as endemic corruption.

Yes governments need better controls over the market. The rich and large corporations need to be prevented from influencing Democratic governments through political donations and special access for VIPs at the party level. The government itself should not be a market, but in most parts of the world it is just that. Just look at Clive Palmer, in Australia, he basically bought himself a seat in the lower house and the balance of power in the Senate. This sort of thing should not be allowed to happen.

There are many good things about markets. I look at the burgeoning trade in electronic gadgets such as Arduino and Raspberry Pi. This market supports a large and growing DIY community called the maker movement. Also supporting the maker movement is open source hardware and software communities.

Open source is about the free exchange of ideas - it could be considered to be a market just one in which everything comes free of charge. Members of such communities all benefit as they can leverage the power of multiple brains to solve problems and to do things they could never do alone.

Open source is really the opposite of patents. The current patent regime is a market for ideas, while also being used as a glass prison for ideas - they can be seen, but not used, not without paying somebody anyway. I think this system is incompatible with a world where ideas rapidly evolve where education is fast free and easy. B can grab As idea put their own spin on it and have a product that they can sell at unprecedented speed. Then A can then do a similar thing with Bs idea. B is not a thief as A freely distributed their idea with the intention that somebody else would improve it. Both A and B are richer for it. Patients had a purpose once upon a time but now they are just a wrench in the gearbox - a bug in the system.

I've said this before, there needs to be some way to use the power of the Internet to create an open source government where power truly is in the hands of the people.

Things That Drive Me Nuts - Aggressive Marketing

I am a big fan of open source software (mostly because it’s free ;) and I also really hate purchasing something that I really don’t need or in a perfect world shouldn’t exist. An example of this is antivirus software. The super paranoid part of me believes that it is the antivirus software companies themselves that is behind computer viruses... I’m 99% sure that isn’t true. There is no doubt that a whole underworld industry exists creating viruses that can intercept passwords install malware or recruit your computer into a botnet that can then be used to send, spam emails, phishing and denial of service attacks.

Unfortunately, anti-virus software is necessary - that doesn’t stop me from getting the free version of whatever antivirus program I choose. The problem is the free version is really just a marketing exercise designed to push, trick or harass you into buying the full product. The last software I had, Avast, was a real bitch from the instant I installed it did not stop. Multiple, times a day it would spring up to remind me to upgrade.

Then at about two months ago it started saying that time about run out and that it was critical that I update it. So I clicked to update it and I could not find the free version and when I did work out where to click to get the free version it tricked me and tried to make me buy it anyway. I lost it and installed Avira antivirus which hasn’t bitched once so far. Then I uninstalled Avast. Non-ironically it was really sad that I uninstalled it and gave me a chance to continue using the free version - arseholes*.

This is just one example of marketing gone crazy. Yes I guess I was trying to take advantage a bit but I think of all the products out there, from cars to funeral insurance, created by companies with hyper aggressive marketing departments. They use harassment, fear, envy, guilt and greed - taking advantage of our most vile emotions to make a buck. It makes me sick.

If you have your own story about the evils of marketing I would like to read about it in the comments.

*Wikipedia has a page called Arsehole! I'm such a child, sometimes.

We Hope You Enjoy the Ride

Self-driving cars have been predicted by science-fiction for many years and finally they may be hitting our roads. Google recently unveiled its first self-drive autonomous car which has no pedals, steering wheel or seemingly no method of control. Not having any way to control a car other than voice seems a little scary to me. Maybe they should have some sort of smiley faced driver to give an illusion that there is at least something driving.

Science-fiction fans will remember Johnny Cab out of the original (and by far the best ("consider that a divorce")) Total Recall movie. Although, I seem to remember Johnny Cab tried to murder Arnie… Okay, just ignore that sentence.

Self-driving cars are definitely on their way with car manufacturers gradually building in more and more automation with every new model. Some cars available today will swerve or apply the brakes to avoid accidents, keep the car in the centre of its lane not to mention cruise control and parking assistance. These cars are sneaking up on us.

Hopefully, this won’t result in a Disney Cars situation where they gain sentience kill us all and then replace us. Joking aside, I believe that self-driving cars will probably be a lot safer than the cars we use today. It will allow the elderly and disabled a lot more freedom even if they do not have the ability to drive a car. It will undoubtably change the way we think of cars and open up new ways of using them. Car sharing will become commonplace as cars are able to look after themselves, you will not need to worry about some idiot getting drunk and crashing it. Taxi and bus drivers could be a thing of the past.

You may think that self-driving cars are a rather benign future technology and I thought so too. In the light of Edward Snowden revelations there are one or two concerns that could potentially change our lives. The Google car has 360° vision and would probably be able to record it too. Cars may be able to lock the doors on unsuspecting criminals and deliver them straight to the police. Governments, may mandate that all cars must be self-drive - they could do this to reduce the road toll. Meanwhile, our cars may be watching our every move able to report information to law enforcement authorities. No more Thelma and Louise, but no more getting heavy or lighting up a joint on the back seat either.

Self-driving cars have the potential to be a wonderful technology, but we need to make sure that they aren’t used as another weapon to eliminate privacy and bring on a police state.

The SpaceX Dragon V2

Earlier this week the founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, unveiled the Dragon V2 the latest version of the Dragon capsule that will be able to take astronauts to and from the International Space Station. It looks awesome.



It will be reusable and will be able to do a soft landing with no parachutes using its rocket engines to land like a really cool helicopter. It is able to dock with the International Space Station without the assistance of the station’s robotic arm.

The best part is probably the inside - it can carry seven astronauts in relative comfort and the fold down control panel looks like something out of science-fiction.

It has a duel touchscreen while also having all the really important buttons and controls as physical switches in the centre console.

In a few years the V2 may be being used regularly with the Russians threatening to no longer allow American astronauts to use the Russian Soyuz capsule after US sanctions were imposed following the Ukraine crisis. The US currently has no other way to reach space meaning they may need to bring commercial human spaceflight into existence a few years earlier than anticipated. Finally politics may create a second space race.

The goal of SpaceX is to make access to space more affordable through the creation of truly reusable spacecraft.

I have always believed in human spaceflight for multiple reasons. Our planet has been through many extinction events with up to 30% of species destroyed. It is only a matter of time before a super volcano happens or an asteroid strike makes this world very difficult for people to survive. This might not happen for a million years or it might happen tomorrow. Human Spaceflight also gives us some mystery and excitement - something to look forward to.

Did I say I love SpaceX?

Abbott’s Safe Place

I was watching Insiders which mostly makes me scream at the television I don’t know why I watch it. Anyway, after the horrendous post budget press coverage one of the journalists mentioned that the government occasionally likes to retreat to its “safe place”. This so-called safe place is of course that famous three word slogan “Stop The Boats”, or as it is now “We Stopped The Boats” (Chris that is four words).

I do have to hand it to the government they did manage to come through on at least one of their promises. This is a difficult issue for me as I feel for refugees who are fleeing war or persecution, but hundreds of people dashed to death against razor-sharp rocks is just as horrible. Hundreds of people have suffered this fate and hundreds more have drowned. Maybe, in this case, the ends really do justify the means. But this stopping the boats thing raises some very awkward questions.

When the Abbott government was in opposition they supposedly had this answer for a while before it won the election and came to power. They didn’t think to share this idea with the government of the day in an effort to save lives? Did they put politics and the lust for power ahead of the lives of refugees? Or was it the Gillard government that refused to listen putting pride ahead of people? Why couldn’t these two parties talk about fixing this issue together? Either way, both governments share some of the blame for deaths that didn’t need to happen - and that is disgusting.

Having stopped the boats it now may be time to deal humanely with some of the legitimate refugees who are already in the system. There are children in Australia who were unaccompanied by adults on their boat trip to Australia. When these children turn 18 they are not citizens and almost all of them refuse to go back even when offered generous benefits to do so. Remember asylum seekers come from places you would not want to visit let alone live there. They are not eligible for unemployment benefits and they are not allowed to work. They are in a bizarre limbo where they have nothing to look forward to. They are dependent on charities to live. It is worse than for people who leave jail after being imprisoned for years - and these people have done nothing wrong.

There aren’t many of these people in limbo and I think they could be slowly integrated into society. Keep it on the down low, institute a media blackout, whatever. I just think that we may be able to get the same results with being a little less cruel. Having stopped the boats this solution would only have to be a onetime thing. So why not do it?

Be Immunised Not Paralysed! (by Polio)

That was one of the advertising slogans that helped eradicate polio in Australia. Last night I watched Foreign Correspondent it was about the polio emergency in Pakistan.

In northern Pakistan and in some parts of Afghanistan the Taliban have started killing vaccine workers. This is a political, chopping of your nose to spite your face, message to the Americans. The CIA made the fatal mistake of using a polio vaccine clinic to spy on Osama Bin Ladin eventually resulting in his death. The CIA has since promised to never use a vaccine clinic like that again. Targeted drone assassinations continue in the tribal areas of Pakistan which only inflames the situation.

Polio is a very infectious virus that can cause varying states of disability from having a weak arm or leg to complete paralysis requiring mechanical ventilation. It spreads via the faecal-oral route (not washing your hands after going to the toilet) infecting the intestines first then in some cases entering the bloodstream and finally nervous tissue. Over 90% of polio cases have no symptoms at all meaning that virus can hide and spread in seemingly healthy populations then suddenly appear as an epidemic.

Polio is almost like a version of muscular dystrophy - that you can catch. My brother and I have both seen the effects of polio firsthand. We knew the last ever person to be affected by polio in Australia and we also knew June Middleton – "the person who had spent the longest amount of time living in an iron lung". June even had a certificate from Guinness to prove it. Sadly both are no longer with us.

Throughout the first half of the 20th century there was polio epidemic after epidemic. Infectious diseases hospitals the world over had wards full of people in iron lungs. Thankfully, Hilary Koprowski, Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin developed vaccines to fight polio. This has allowed polio to be eliminated throughout the majority of the planet. Starting in 1988 was a final global push for eradication led by Rotary, the WHO and UNICEF. The polio virus should have gone the way of the dinosaurs by now, but war, instability and staggering amounts of stupidity have got in the way of vaccination efforts. It doesn’t help that there are also those in the West who are against any vaccine.

The anti-vaccine lobby only has the option of not vaccinating their children because of the people around them that are vaccinated. These idiots take advantage of what is called herd immunity. A virus like polio needs to travel from person to person, but if enough people are vaccinated it blocks the virus from spreading to the entire population. The anti-vaccine lobby endangers us all especially those where the vaccine does not work and for people that could not be vaccinated because of a compromised immune system.

There is nothing more tragic when you see a young child, who was running around a couple of days before, be struck down and never walk again.

Be Immunised Not Paralysed!

Chris The Revolutionary

I am not much of a revolutionary. In fact recently I have come to the conclusion that revolution is one of the worst things that can happen to a country. Just look at Syria, Ukraine and now Libya -again. Even the poster child for revolution, France, went through centuries of political turmoil after its famous revolution. Contrast this with England - only a couple of kilometres away across the Channel.

In England after many civil wars over the throne a period of stability started during the reign of Elizabeth I. After Elizabeth died childless a lucky marriage 100 years before resulted in James VI of Scotland becoming James I of England uniting the country and building a strong political foundation. In the centuries after this England became a world power and eventually a modern democracy. Now there was a lot of suffering during this period, but who was better off? I would say a gradual evolution into democracy is far better than a bloody revolution and the resulting aftermath.

But then I turn on the TV and see Tony Abbott winking back at me, it’s almost enough to make me a revolutionary. I hate the way politics is today with the 24 hour news cycle, focus groups, corruption, political donations and all that crap.

Our current system of parliamentary democracy is over 100 years old. There are similar systems the world over. Our world is a very different place now and I think it may be time to update democracy.

I imagine using the power of the Internet and social media to make decisions on a countrywide level. Some people will think that is a lot of responsibility being placed in the hands of ordinary people, but it is important to remember that politicians are ordinary people - sometimes very ordinary. Almost all of us have the capacity to become a lot more politically aware and active.

The system I would imagine it would be something like this. Say there is a need for a new law or maybe repealing or improving an existing one. A proposal would go up on Gov.Net and people would be able to read it and to sign it in a similar way to how you sign an online petition. The proposal would have to be written in simple language avoiding bureaucratic, corporate or legal jargon. Just like a change.org petition if it gets enough signatures eventually many people see it - it snowballs.

The proposal gets debated. Experts check it to see if it will work. Eventually the proposal gets to the stage where it can be voted on. Every member of the public gets the opportunity to vote yes, no or to abstain or maybe even have the option to just ignore it. In this way, hopefully, all the stupid proposals sink to the bottom with the best floating to the top and eventually becoming law. This government would still need a public face so a Governor General or President and maybe several members of a Cabinet would still have to be selected. There would also need to be some provision for looking after the hardware and software that runs Gov.Net. All the hardware and software would be open source.

This could possibly be a stupid idea itself. It’s possible this system could be worse than what we have now. It’s possible that we aren’t ready for a system like this, but the status quo at the moment is driving me insane. I don’t think that we should just throw out our current system and replace it with this one. We need to do careful planning and research. Create a simulation or maybe a computer game that uses a government like this. It could also be used to manage something on a small scale such as a company, a town or municipality - if it goes wrong the consequences will not be too catastrophic.

I am dead sure there is something better than what we have now, but I’m still not sure what that is. I will be putting more work into this idea - writing a Constitution for a fictitious country. I may even work on some software for doing this. I just hope our current political leaders don’t drive me completely around the bend before I finish…