Building Utopia

Green Sprawl: Why not?

2011-12-20T16:45:00.000-08:00

Andrew D Atkin:

You believe that sprawl is bad. You believe that cars are bad. You believe that public transport is good, or better. You believe that urban rail is efficient. You believe that compact cities are good, or better. You believe there's not enough land. You believe it's natural for house prices to just keep going up, and UP. And you believe that people who wear the environmental badge are, surely, always the good guys?

Well reader, it is and long has been all bullshit. Please read on.

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The only images we ever seem to get presented to the general public of the dreaded SPRAAAAAWL are the ones designed to make sprawl look like an environmental apocalypse, whereby sprawl is supposed to seem like something engineered by the devil himself. But what we are never told by the modern planning saints (who are here to do God's work and force us all into high-density apartments - er, excluding themselves) is that urbanisation in New Zealand is a mere 1 part in 150 of the land area. And globally, maybe less than 1 part in 100.

But the truth is sprawl is not only environmentally benign, it can be environmentally beneficial. The following image gives a simple way of demonstrating my point. We can call it "Green Sprawl". It's drawn (barbarically) to make the point of how green-sprawl property development could work. There is of course no end to the different possible styles of development, but the image gives you the core theme anyway.

Imagine housing development that sprawls out more like a spider-web than a concentrated cluster; covering huge areas, if you like. Everyone's back yard extends out to a forest (well it would certainly look and feel that way), with all kinds of plants and trees all around you. Yet strategically planted so residence can still have the sun on their porches. Imagine all you can hear is the wind and natural sounds, because the transport system supporting your development is near-silent and electric. And your privacy, as you might want it, is almost total.

Efficiency:

The transport system can be exceptionally efficient because there's no stop-and-go operation from using largely one-way flow-off/on infrastructure, and it can use fully automated cars. Most of the cars can be for single occupancy only (if it's network-based - it would be). Also, it can be mostly run on solar to keep people happy who believe in problematic AGW.

If power-supply for houses is a little more costly because the development's are so spread out, then all you have to do is fairly step-up the price. In response to this, people can (and will) do things like install good insulation, use pressure-cookers for food, employ ground-based heat-pumps, LED lighting, and a bit of clever technology with showering systems etc. All these things can more than eliminate this concern.

Worried about pipelines? People can turn their human waste into fertiliser if need be, and catch their water off the roof. Especially in water-rich countries like New Zealand.

So no problem. Rational price pressures will naturally drive housing and lifestyle design, and with good environmental effect. Great, super ecologically-sound resort-style living.

Distance efficiency:

Imagine I got a typical city, say Christchurch, New Zealand, and stretched it out like a piece of chewing gum to cover 4x the area (and filled in the difference with plants)...

The effect of this would be that you double the distances between the stops, because area increases by the square of the distance. So how would that affect the fuel bill and travel time? Maybe an increase of just ~20% because cruising a little longer between the stops means little in a typical urban environment, in terms of transport costs. Most of the time and energy revolves around having to constantly re-accelerate your vehicle - stop-and-go is the curse of transport inefficiency in an urban environment. This is part of the reason why low-density cities are typically just as -and if not more- efficient in terms of transport costs than typical high-density cities.

Another factor comes from the fact that when cities sprawl out, key services follow them. So new transport demand becomes largely localised to the fringes, likewise resisting the development of severe congestion in a growing city so typical of high-density cities.

The "tyranny of distance" is further numbed with the potentials of telecommuting, and full-automation transport technology (as previously commented on). In particular, with full-automation there is the opportunity for unmanned 'micro-cars' than can conveniently post any given item to your door, from the moment you make your order. This is coming. So how much of a problem will travel be when you don't have to travel at all?

As you can see, reader, we can well afford to spread out - even dramatically.

What if?

Now imagine if the entire world embraced Green Sprawl, similar to how I have described it, and eventually covered not 1% but more like 10% of the entire earths surface with spider-web style property development*. Would this be the end of the world?...you know, the hideous blight of the evil homo sapien who, unlike all other animals, has no business living with nature and should just damn well get back in his zoo? Nope. The opposite. In fact from an environmental outlook I would say that the more we spread out the better.

The environment enjoyed and loved by people, directly, is the environment that will surely be most well defended. And especially with respect to the people who are lucky enough to grow up in it. Indeed, look at how people so consistently say "Not in my back yard!" when someone tries to build a home in their leafy view.

Conclusion:

So why not? I mean how on earth can we justify forcing people out of nature and into a "human zoo" against their will? Is it not so wrong that only the rich should be able to do what humans have done since the beginning of time, and live amongst the greenery? And to say - did you know that astronauts in space stations begin to suffer from serious depression when they don't get to work on the plant experiments? The need for greenery is in our genes!

One rationalisation I have come across, to justify killing the sprawl option, is the [erroneous] claim that humans are more productive when forced to live like battery chickens. Shall I decode the reasoning for you? "We planners hereby declare that we have the right to relate to the people's of our city as though they are our personal resource, and we therefore choose to force-create the conditions that will drive OUR people to work harder and likewise produce more".

This kind of reasoning literally moves in the direction of slavery. This is the sort of thing that happens when people get lost in their political positions, and begin to interpret their power as entitlement rather than responsibility.

To take a more detailed look at the twisted reasoning behind forcing people out of the greenery, and into the concrete, see here.

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*Massive green cities, from green sprawl, would actually be the among the most biodiverse and life-dense places on earth, second only to the coral reefs and rain forests. True environmentalists (not people-hating communists dressed in green drag) should love it.

Time to consider Reproduction Licenses?

2011-12-16T19:04:00.000-08:00

Andrew D Atkin:

Most people's reaction to the idea of the state defining who can and cannot breed is one of knee-jerk rejection, because of course it seems like a violation of citizens rights. I understand, but the fact remains that if you don't believe in reproduction licensing then you believe in the alternative; and the alternative is to let thousands of children be born to monsters. That is, people who perpetuate abuses and neglect on levels that you may not even wish on your worst enemy. So choose your greater evil?

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I have written periodically in my blog that I believe in reproduction licenses, but I want to make a dedicated statement on it. We live in a country, and world, where serious child abuse is so common that it is a norm. But we don't take serious action. Why?

The problem is, I believe, that we have far less political pressure than there should be to address this problem. Here are some thoughts as to why:

1. The biggest problem is the out-of-sight/out-of-mind effect. Yes we know child abuse is an ugly and pervasive problem, but it's still only abstractions to our minds because we can't see it and feel it personally.

2. Another problem is that, ironically, not even the people who are subject to child abuse can see it and feel it (fully) because they repress it.

-This relates to the permanence of the damage: See my Understanding Mental Sickness.

3. Once abuse has distorted the mind (and yes, it literally distorts the functioning and even structure of the brain), you get an individual who no longer even knows what normal is.

-Imagine a father beating the death out of his son while saying: "My dad beat me up when I did something wrong and I turned out ok". You get my point.

4. Too many people with personal demons to hide. What child-abuser wants their children to be tested for signs of abuse? This is probably why the topic is often taboo.

So here we have this personally and socially devastating problem that just won't go away. In fact it's getting worse because we have a welfare system that supports highly damaged people in having as many children as they want, and regardless of their personal status. I know it's a bit crass to say so, but in part at least you could interpret the DPB (domestic purposes benefit) as a breeding programme for the criminal class, because functionally that's what it has been for so many cases.

However, removing financial support for woman with children is not a realistic option. Once children have come into this world they should be supported as well as they reasonably can be. They cannot be blamed for a mother's incompetence and, as the reader will probably agree, they should not be left for dead.

But if we are to retain our welfare system and continue to support children, and regardless of who they are born to, then we need to seriously consider actively imposing ourselves so as to regulate who can and cannot have children in the first place. Because the alternative is the status quo - that is, thousands of children being born into hell, leaving us with a profound current and inter-generational problem that will spread and endure indefinitely.

I am not speaking theory I am speaking fact. We are already dealing with the consequences of this today.

Education:

Some people believe that education can provide the answer to the cycle of child abuse. They are no doubt well intentioned, but wrong. They do not understand the impact that child abuse has on the individual.

Yes education is important, and it can help to some degree, but it is limited. You can never truly 'enlighten' someone who has been robbed of their childhood. The repression, developmental deficiencies, and distorted emotional programming run far too deep.

Think about it. If education could solve the problem then our species wouldn't need a childhood in the first place. It takes about 20 years in a proper environment for the human animal to develop into a capable parent themselves. You're dreaming if you think a short-term remedial "cook book" programme can substitute it!

So how would reproduction licensing work?

My ideal model is to make it so that mothers cannot breed until they are first awarded a license. However, you cannot regulate to avoid an accidental pregnancy, and a forced-abortion is politically impossible and in my view morally unacceptable. So, there would be many cases where a woman will get pregnant, want to keep her baby (even though she's a mess), and in turn will have her baby without a license. So how do you deal with this?

I believe the punishment would have to be forced surgical sterilisation once the woman's baby is born. Accept the one baby, do your best for them, but then no more.

Yes I know that is brutal. But the incentive to get a license before pregnancy must be strong otherwise the law will be useless and dysfunctional. I wish there were a nicer way but I can't see it. And remember, a woman can always choose not to "walk off the cliff" by taking proper precautions before sex. The state would only have to be brutal for if she insists on being impulsive and stupid. At the least, the message would be clear: Pregnancy is a serious business.

Who would be awarded a license?

If I had it my way it wouldn't be the bottom 30% of society because I know how damaged 'normal' is. But the points of reference are subjective - no-one is non damaged. Basically, the larger the fractional cut-off number, the faster you can eradicate the impact of severe inter-generational damage within your society.

However 30% would almost certainly be politically impossible. My personal guess is that only the bottom 10% would be restricted from reproduction. Regardless, stopping the worst of the worst from breeding would be a major step forward and put us on the right track.

How do you measure fitness?

It's only recently that we have had the tools to make a reasonable decision.

Believe it or not, the least of the concerning attributes for winning a reproduction license would be things like gainful employment, good manners and attitudes, and social conformity etc. These things are skin deep. People can do all the "right" things but still for all the wrong reasons, and vise versa. What you want to look for is signs of substantial psychological damage. This can be detected with background reports, and more importantly physical and mental analysis using brain scans. Genetic physical/mental fitness is a concern to look at as well, which I speak about later.

It's a given that you will never have a perfect screening system. There will always be the borderlines who in principle should or should not have been awarded a license. But that would be a small price to pay for the advantage of stopping the bulk of societies most damaged people from breeding.

Population control:

Another great advantage of reproduction licenses is that you establish the infrastructure for direct population control. No one can argue that this may not one day be a necessity, if it is not already.

I know that people argue that the Malthusians have got it wrong, and that populations stabilise with wealth. But these people are looking at our industrialised societies only from the surface. I can't say for sure, but I retain a strong suspicion that the conditions have long been introduced to (deliberately) keep population growth suppressed in the industrialised world. (See here for my comprehensive statement on this). And if so, then I for one would like to see the exchange of our current form of 'tyranny' for direct controls on population, via reproduction licensing.

Better to limit the number of children people can have directly, than to psychologically condition and economically starve them out of the option?

The eugenics question:

The eugenics question relates to the other great advantage of reproduction licenses. We can include in the list of prerequisites that parents-to-be have no serious risk of passing on chronic disorders to their children.

In our society we do not let nature "have its way" and let people with chronic genetic problems die of their own shortcomings. Though on a humane level this is obviously great, it's bad practice for the long-term. By facilitating the "survival of the weak" we threaten the future health of our species. So maybe we need to think about doing surgically what nature will otherwise do catastrophically? Again, I speak about this in detail here.

Conclusion:

So you think I'm a Nazi? Nope. I'm a realist. And sometimes the nice things to believe are not the real things to believe. And can I say that I'm not the one who promotes the idea that thousands of children should continue to be born to parents who will exchange what should be love with sexual and aggressive release. I won't labour the point, but again, if you're not for effective change then you choose the status quo and whatever it is that the status quo will evolve into. It's not pretty.

I believe that the time for reproduction licenses has come. At the least can we start talking about it? If there are better (realistic) solutions to the problems that I'm talking about then great, I'm all ears. But so far I can't see them.

Was 9-11 an inside job?

2011-12-02T15:51:00.000-08:00

Andrew D Atkin:

Remember that tyranny is the historic norm, our species is just as insane as it ever was, and horrors on the scale of 9-11 (intelligently organised, or not) are no freak show.

So may we dare to ask the question? Was 9-11 an inside job?

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The idea of 9-11 being an inside job is not something that any sane person would want to believe. The implications of such a thing--if it were in fact to be true--are difficult to say the least. You would have to re-consider/develop much of your entire world view, and it would be to a view that is far from the happy "western sunshine" model that we all want to embrace.

If you're an American in particular, then an inside job would mean not that you have a luke-warm democracy, but that you have no democracy at all; and it wouldn't just mean that your country suffers from an infestation of psychopaths, but that those psychopaths are in the drivers seat. And it would mean things like the fact that every day you send your kid away to get their schooling, you can know they'll be conforming to programmes specified by an elite that value your children about as much you or I value livestock. Etc.

Very uncomfortable. But let's look at some 9-11 facts anyway.

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There are many facts about 9-11 that justify some rational suspicion. Such as, the fact that the evidence from the collapsed towers was rapidly cleared and melted down (rather than explicitly examined), or the fact that traces of thermite (a military-only type advanced explosive) was found in the debris...and much more 'funny stuff' that I can't recall.

But these things, to me, are no smoking gun. They do not induce my serious suspicion. However, the following clip does...

The official story is that Tower-7 collapsed from a fire and also a boiler explosion in the bottom-center of the building. First respect that no steel-frame building has ever before collapsed from a fire, and Tower-7 collapsed in a manner identical to a perfect controlled demolition:

Now what are the chances of this? What are the chances of the building collapsing like a perfect controlled demolition as a result of a fire? This is like winning first-division lotto three time over, and in consecutive weeks on a single ticket. The chances are not small - they're incredible.

The idea that the exploding boiler can induce a demolition-style implosion sounds hard to believe as well. Does hot water really contain enough thermal energy to pull that off? And what are the chances of the nature (trajectory) of the explosion just so happening to facilitate the right impacts on the major support columns, for a demolition-style implosion to occur? Again the chances are just so small, if not impossible.

Even if a building of this type could collapse from a fire, then you would expect it crumble away gradually--over hours or even days--as each of the major supporting columns (24 in this case, I think?) finally gives way.

I am not the only one who sees it this way. There is a petition somewhere out there that literally thousands of architects and engineers have signed in support of a second investigation into 9-11. I understand that they are primarily responding to the same things that I am responding to.

Even if you do not believe that 9-11 was an inside job, the Tower-7 collapse is in itself extraordinarily suspicious. I believe it's fair to say that that much is not open to interpretation.

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Have you ever seen the movie, Trading Places? (I recommend it - it's entertaining). The producer of that movie is Aaron Russo. Aaron developed a close relationship with Nick Rockefeller, who is the son of David Rockefeller. According to Aaron, Nick Rockefeller gave him substantial insider information about the 9-11 event (and other), and he did so several months in advance of 9-11 actually happening.

Aaron is very interesting, and he certainly doesn't come off as psychopathic or delusional. Aaron had nothing to gain in making his assertions. He was already very successful. Has was also knowingly dying of cancer at the time of this interview (now dead).

His interview as follows:

But how would it be possible to pull off?

Compartmentalisation. For example, the military makes top secret planes with only a few people understanding the final project, by compartmentalising their operations. You have one team making the wings (only) and another team making the drive-units (only), etc. Only the guys at the top 'put it all together'. Everybody else only knows what they need to know.

In the 9-11 scenario, if it is in fact an inside job, the people who made the explosives would almost certainly have had no idea what those explosives would be used for; and the people who installed them into the buildings would have been told it was just some form of high-tech fire-retardant, etc.

In a compartmentalised world, and especially one with official secrecy, nearly everyone operates on faith with respect to the ultimate objectives they're attending to. You can appreciate the latent danger of misplaced power in this context, as maybe too few people do (or can) hold the "big boys" to account.

Who believes in an inside job?

If I was earning big money in a government job, or big money on some level of the corporate private sector, I would never write a post like this one. I'm asking for trouble if for no other reason than because of the way it makes me look to my colleages, and clients. This especially applies for if I was in a government job. You get it? Inside-job is not something you're allowed to believe.

So how then do you know that only kooks ask the question and have serious suspicions? Well, all I can say is that you might be very surprised at what many highly reputable and well-educated people [privately] believe about this 9-11 thing.

As I have said before on my blog: Being embarrassed to be associated with a conspiracy is not, in itself, the right reason to dismiss it.

Conclusion:

I know full well that government corruption goes way further than what most people assume of it, and what we call democracy is a bit of a human-management exercise joke. The 9-11 event may indicate that it goes even further and that we have the blackest of people running the show.

Maybe there is not enough evidence to be absolute with the conclusion, but there is most certainly enough evidence to be seriously suspicious. A truly honest government would accept and respect that much at least - rather than demonising the critics.

As for the engineers and architects who want a second investigation, we can know that it couldn't realistically prove anything in itself. If 9-11 were in fact an inside job, then asking for a second investigation would be like asking a corrupt judge to find himself guilty and prosecute himself. Obviously at this level of the game it's about power, not justice.

What is a Recession?

2011-11-22T13:11:00.001-08:00

John Banks, sole-surviving Act party parliamentarian.

Andrew D Atkin:

Recessions are painful but they are the medicine - not the disease.

Let's say I bought myself a little restaurant. I employed, say, 20 people. But because I refused to put enormous amounts of sugar and dairy into my food my business failed, because New Zealander's generally don't like food that doesn't come with the diabetes and heart disease. I then go bankrupt, close my business, and lay off all my staff.

What next? The premises that my business was on are open for new lease, the equipment that I owned is up for sale, and relating to the job market my staff are up for sale too of course. However, there's a time-lag on the sale because the (ex) staff and (ex) landlord asked for too much money for their premises and labour. But naturally, they eventually drop their prices because some income is better than none. They drop their price to the point where entrepreneurs get excited about the opportunity to start a new business, using the [then] redundant premises and labour. The new business has a good (or appropriate) idea and they want to start it up at a good price, which is now being offered.

The new business does well because it sells McDonald's instead of Kebabs. The people are re-employed, the landlord gets some rent, and the customers get their service. So we have our recovery.**

So what happened exactly from a macro-economic outlook? What happened was basically a micro-scale recession and then correction. The original business was selling a product out of sinc with the demand and the possible asking price - that is, the asking price that can cover costs and achieve a tangible profit. The original business was effectively a "distortion" and likewise it naturally failed.

At the point that that business failed it was creating a recession. A recession is basically just the point where parts of an economy dissolve back into the resource base, and in turn this functions as a precursor that allows other more appropriate businesses to reabsorb the resources and take over.

A surplus of resources created by a recession drives new business development, as the glut lowers the price of base resources. So the recession facilitates the price signal for the following correction.

A 'real' recession is when the entire economy goes through a retraction as mass businesses fail or recede, for whatever reason.

Delaying the recession:

Now let's imagine another scenario. Rather than letting our micro-economy get rid of its "errors" and re-adjust to the corrected demand, I instead lobby the government to provide me with a subsidy to keep my kebab business alive. My staff and I all promise to vote for the National party if they rip off the tax payer so as to keep me afloat. The National party then plays ball and invents ambiguous economic or moralistic reasons to not let my business fail, along with lots of scaremongering.

And so the National party borrows more money to subsidise my business and in the name of "protecting jobs" and "driving the recovery" etc.

Good idea? No. In fact it's a very bad idea. First because the economic distortion just goes on, and as the economy is imbalanced it can only be supported with debt-financing. An imbalanced economy does not pay its own way. So instead of getting your correction you just drive the economy into debt - for supposedly economic (but really political) reasons.

Alas, sooner or later the debt used to fund my non-viable business will have to be paid back. When this finally happens the recession will be more painful than needed had been, because not only must your economy adjust to what it should have adjusted to in the beginning, it must also now adjust to paying off its debt - the pendulum swings the other way. This means maybe not a recession but a depression (which is just an extreme recession) with the final result being a much reduced living standard. And riots if you can't afford to pay people their dole.

-And for the record, this is exactly what has happened to the USA and many other countries around the world today. They are now fighting bankruptcy.

You cannot cure an economy of the need for a recession once you have an imbalance*. You can only delay it. Delaying a recession requires debt-financing and a callous disregard for the long-term social cost of fueling, rather than purging, the economy of its original distortion.

Our current situation in New Zealand:

The National government is borrowing $300m per-week to avoid a (needed) recession. That is serious money. Remember that with their debt-fuelling they are only delaying the recession (that is, the full intensity of it) and likewise making the problem worse. If the government carries on its merry way we might be a Greece in 3 years time, and the country officially bankrupt. We will then be in the hands of the IMF (like we nearly were in the 1980's until 'rogernomics' saved us from third-world status). The IMF is basically the global pawn shop. They will bail out NZ but with operational dictations and asset sales included.

This is what happens when politicians say "I don't want a recession during my tenure" and so delay it, and therefore worsen the problem with debt-fuelling for until the next political term.

It was originally the Labour government that created New Zealand's problem by facilitating a distortion in demand, by artificially inflating property prices. I explain this in detail here, but in short they induced people to borrow on the backs of their houses which created a 'rouge' debt-input into the economy. This in turn led to an "economic growth" which could only be as temporary as an individuals ability to live off their credit card. It was faulty economic growth because it was based on a distortion in demand leading to a structural distortion of the supply base. And the supply-response was not an increase in internal manufacturing or other real production (which is the Keynesian economists wishful-thinking ideal), but an increase in the importation of other people's goods (BAD!).

But then the current National government, rather than letting our economy go into a proper recession (and employing appropriate reforms) preserved the problem with chronic debt-fuelling from the governmental end of the game. New Zealand's [massive] public sector needs to retract.

We celebrated Labour for making us artificially rich because all the voter's could see at the time was the money. Fools gold! And now, just as foolish, we celebrate National for keeping us away from the recession of which would have been the necessary pay-back from Labour's mismanagement. But in time, when we really have to pay the piper, we will probably be despising both of these governments. Some of us already do. The others don't get what a recession is and why we have to go through with it.

Where is public education when you need it?

So who should you vote for?

There is only one political party that seems to be prepared to seriously confront New Zealand's two great immediate problems (housing unaffordability and massive national debt) today - ACT. And no they didn't pay me to say that. It's just the way it is and this is why I endorse them. I don't agree with everything they want to do but they are the best political option in terms of critical policy today.

Our other major parties seem to be willing to bankrupt the country. They talk about the problem of debt but offer no realistic solution except the image of solution. Like suggesting we put out our house fire with a garden hose when really we need a fire truck.

And sadly the media has allowed our main parties to operate presidential-style soundbite debates and in the process the minor parties have been sidelined, so no one is there to truly hold our government to account. And also of course, the distractions have been helped with childish (and probably deliberately engineered) sideshows such as the 'tea cup' saga.

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*Unless by chance you discover a way of achieving a major boost in productive capacity with your given resource base, or there is a major increase in international market prices for the goods that your economy sells. But that's hoping and gambling. You should always spend within your known means.

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**I will include that once you have your basic recovery so that your resources are back in production, the developmental phase from there is that the tighter job market drives up the cost of labour (good!). In turn, businesses are forced to substitute labour with capital and operational improvements, which in turn increases productivity per-capita/hour worked, over time. This is how real economic development works.

However, it can be (and historically has been) undermined by saturating the New Zealand job market with too much immigrant labour too soon, which takes away the pressure on business to invest in capital and technique (ahead of labour) for a qualitive improvement in economic development.

Getting rid of poverty in New Zealand: Impossible?

2011-10-31T16:13:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

It's all about supply!

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Our likable Prime Minister, John Key, does not need to concern himself with the cost of living.
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The issue of greed and poverty seems to be becoming a topic of interest in New Zealand, and certainly the rest of the industrialised world. It's being pushed by working class heroes like Gareth Morgan, and others. But they all seem to promote the same simple (and questionable) solution: Tax the rich and give to the poor - the "Robin Hood" solution.

In my Explaining New Zealands Property Disaster I made the point that one of the most sure-fire ways to create a poverty class is to facilitate an under-supply of what is essential. Our core essentials are of course housing and food. My point is that you can also achieve the opposite (anti-poverty) by facilitating an over-supply of what is essential.

By definition people do not compromise on what is essential. This is why prices for essentials are so vulnerable to severe hikes resulting from under-supplies. An under-supply of houses or food tends to bid up the price to whatever the market can afford, as buyers must aggressively compete amongst each other to avoid being the guy who misses out. But when you facilitate a mild glut then the opposite can occur, as sellers must compete amongst themselves to avoid being the guy who can't sell (or rent out) their property. And so, with an over-supply, the price is essentially driven down to what the bottom of the market can afford. A form of egalitarianism? Sure!

Likewise, if the bottom of the market can only afford to pay, say, $100pw rent for their home, then generally that is what the rent for simple houses will fall to; because, again, in the context of a glut it's the seller who is struggling to not miss out, and they will always prefer to rent their property out for something rather than nothing.

Now look at the New Zealand Green party. Their leader, Metiria Turei, recently stated that the most important issue for New Zealand right now is housing affordability. Wonderful! I could not agree more with her on that. But their party currently promotes the idea of increasing the minimum wage, while at the same time they promote the idea of forced urban intensification (commonly termed: Smart Growth); that latter of which is, bluntly, housing under-supply policy.
So what would the effect be of these combined policies?

The increased minimum wage will simply translate to higher rents - 'Robin Hood' style wage hikes will bounce back to where they don't belong. In New Zealand we have a serious under-supply of houses so rents are set to whatever the market can afford. If renters come to afford more via a minimum wage hike, then it will be the landlord's who finally get the booty.

So what is the best policy for getting rid of poverty in New Zealand? Well, policy that works to ensure an adequate supply of the essentials is not just a method, it is a PREREQUISITE. Until these working class heroes start talking about abundant housing and food supply they are wasting their time. The supply issue must come before anything else.

There are many things you can do to ensure an abundance of good food and housing to drive the base cost of living down. And doing this is intrinsically easy in a country like New Zealand because it is industrialised and very well endowed with basic resources. However, I don't want to focus on those details here. I want to ask the question of why it's not actually happening.

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Resistance to change: What would happen if good food and housing were cheap?

This is an interesting question, and here we can see some of the incentives to not let it happen. That is, the incentives to deliberately keep people struggling to make ends meet. My focus on this issue will be for housing because this is the 'killer' living cost for New Zealand right now.

Firstly, we need to model what would happen if houses fell back to their "real" non-inflated value of about $200k a unit, rather than $450k+ per unit.

The Banks:

These guys would have a heart attack. All those mortgages held by people who will not be in the black for many years. How many of those mortgage holders would just declare bankruptcy and hand their toxic liability back to the banks? Maybe thousands?

And then if a given bank ultimately fails then maybe they would somehow infiltrate government and force a bailout by getting everyone to believe that an isolated bank failure will lead to the implosion of the entire financial system (as in the USA show)? Regardless, insofar as bank power translates to political power (and I'm not sure if or how much they can/do), we can see that there would be no "political" incentive for a correction in the property market, and instead staunch resistance to it.

What's more the banks of course want to sell the largest mortgages they can, so naturally they want people in debt up to their eyeballs - that's their business. And that requires costly homes and therefore artificially inflated land prices.

Government:

These guys would freak out too, insofar as they care about winning another political term.

Remember that before people can pay down their mortgage they have to earn money that they get taxed on, and when the cost of living is high so must your income be high. If houses and food were cheap then people wouldn't have to work so many hours, and that means (potentially) a major reduction in the tax base.

The only solution to this "problem" is a reduction in services and government bureaucracy. Government must shrink. And when you already have a huge public sector in a finely balanced democracy (New Zealand's current situation) your mass public-sector job cuts will almost certainly ruin your chances of winning the next election.

Also, New Zealand has a rapidly growing national debt. This debt needs to be serviced, so that is another concern relating to a shrinking tax base.

Business status quo:

Though start-ups that are not dependant on local markets (exporters) are generally repelling by costly industrial/commercial land and a high cost of living, business status quo will generally like it.

Business with land assets will want their land value to maintain its inflated status. Extra costs, in all forms, will ultimately be passed on to the consumer. So these guys would understandably lobby government to keep land inflated. This especially applies to landlords. Indeed, I would imagine that the Auckland council, which is currently pushing a high-density (land-restricting) "vision" onto Aucklanders, will probably get most of their submissions in support of their plans from landlords.

Another fundamental is that as people don't have to work so hard there will be a net reduction of economic activity alround, as people trade work/consumption for more spare time as they can redefine their work-life balance. This dynamic alone can lead to effective oversupplies which can ruin the profitability of business status quo, up until they and/or their competitors recede to the adjusted demand. This adjustment scenario is great for consumers, but not business status quo.

Note: I should also point out that if you had a major reduction in economic activity then you will of course have many job losses. This can be devastating for people who are mortgaged up to the limit. Hence, we get more political pressure to keep the property market inflated. With this property disaster we have created for ourselves things have become difficult and precarious.

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Conclusion:

It's quite simple. By making the base cost of living low you take the New Zealand economy, and New Zealand in general, back to the 1950's - a time when we had small government, only Dad had to work, minimal personal and nearly no national debt, as many kids as you would sanely want, and no need for a massive welfare system; and also less people getting [materially worthless] degrees only because they're desperate for an income that might buy them a home. Only it would be a better and more efficient New Zealand due to the virtues of modern systems and technologies.

As you can see Reader, you are a tax slave and a debt slave. You function to serve the interests of the status quo, and no doubt you will continue to do so because you're just too busy trying to survive to learn about who's pulling one over on you and why. Your ability to 'escape' has been reduced by the assault on the base cost of living that has been going on for decades now. This especially applies to generation-Y and onwards. Alas, it's just so easy to screw-over the naive.

....But then if you are young, you're not thinking of having too many of those expensive kids, are you? I mean you can barely even afford the rent! (The ultimate objective behind it all may be population control, as I have periodically suggested on this blog). And if you do have kids then the government will be bringing them up; because they're off to a daycare centre because your wife has to go out to work. I wonder what your little Johnny will achieve there... No doubt they will grow up to work even harder than you have to - full of "aspiration" and work "ethic". They will sure as hell need to be!

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Addition: 19-11-11:

I wish to include David Willmott's excellent statement relating to housing affordability in Auckland, also included in my Explaining New Zealand's property disaster.

It's sad, but New Zealander's are so drunk on misinformation and trite from the mainstream media that the majority of Aucklander's will never come to understand what is killing their city. And so they will keep voting for well supported but hapless fools like Len Brown instead.

*****Are you a New Zealander? If so then I urge to you to forward David's talk to your friends and contacts - Hey it's just a couple of clicks! He says it so well and it's just so important.

Do schools bribe people out of their minds?

2011-10-20T15:32:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin:

Here is a clear example. Take someone who has developed great drawing skill. They can take whatever picture they have in their mind and almost perfectly reproduce it on paper. For an artist this skill must of course exist to a given degree, but it's only one half of the story. There is also the ability to conceive of an image that has aesthetic interest in the first place.

My point is that the ability to draw accurately, though an essential skill in itself, is ultimately secondary. It's like a developed limb to the mind, but not the mind itself. The more "primary" mind is the mind that conceives of what image to produce in the first place. That's the mind that designs - not just reproduces.

So crudely speaking, you can see the artist as having three layers to function: the physical control over their hand, the secondary mental skill of being able to articulate their imagined image, and the primary mental skill of being able to design the image in the first place.

My ultimate point from this model is that we can see these three 'layers' operating everywhere, with everything we do.

Schools:

So what is it that schools teach, relating to my model? Well, from my observation they are incredibly secondary-level thinking heavy. They basically exist to create people who can articulate an image (as my example), yet they do not facilitate the ability to conceive of an image in the first place.

But schools don't get us to look at it this way. This is because they are overwhelmingly designed to create technicians - not "minds". Schools teach what can be taught and you cannot teach the "designing" (or primary, as I put it) mind.

The development of the designing mind has nothing to do with educational programmes as we know them, because primary thinking simply can't be taught. It always develops from its own intrinsic curiosity/nature - from just mucking around, if you like. It's a development that is (and must be) too autonomous for prescriptive educational programmes to reach.

Note: Can I stress that design-type thinking is not just 'talent' that we are born with. No mental faculty appears out of nothing. It must always developmentally evolve.

The bribe:

All kids love to develop their primary mind. And I would say that they do so because it's the most important level of the intellect (historically!). So, schools have to contradict natural law and buck around 4 billion years of evolution so as to force young people to near-exclusively concentrate on secondary-level thinking; and they do. They do it with bribery and threats.

Schools create programmes which dictate that the child removes themselves from their intrinsic thought processes. If they don't do it they will be humiliated with a label like ADHD or be directly punished; and if they don't do it well enough they will be socially degraded as neither they nor their peers understand that their performance (or lack of it) is not an intelligence test. (Though maybe an IQ test?).

Most parents reinforce the pressure too. They weep with joy when they see their little Johnny create an image which looks more like a photograph than a scribble. They too have been "brainwashed" by a culture of schooling designed to hyper-concentrate the development of secondary-level thinking skills.

As the child gets older the direct emotional bribes/threats retract as they realise (or believe) that their future prosperity will be governed by their academic (secondary) skills, as opposed to the development of their mind. And in this institutionalised world we have created for ourselves their investment might now be rational. Corptopia, as I call it, demands intellectual servitude.

Conclusion:

You can never forget that a child (and adult) is operating a 'mental economy'. The kid that does so well at school has given their mind to what will make them do well, and whether or not this is the best place for them to be is subjective, because there will always be a cost. Where ever your mind is also indicates where it isn't -- forcing a child into one zone also means forcing them out of another. And if you think your kid is going to become some kind of a genius for getting straight A's then think again. The so-called greatest minds throughout history have tended to come from people who never took their schoolwork so seriously.

John Taylor Gatto, probably the most famous educational historian today, believes that genius is as common as dirt...if you simply get the programmes out of young children's minds. Maybe he's right? But I would say that the most important aspect of allowing your 'primary' mind to develop is that you can more directly take control of your life. Enslaving your mind to technician-only status is surely not a good place to be if you want to write your own script.

One of my favourite sayings: The most important skill is not the ability to think, but the ability to recognise what you should be thinking about in the first place. The latter comes from the "mind behind the mind", as I put it, which is the primary mind telling the secondary mind what to do. And as I believe, when the primary mind doesn't develop properly empty faith and assumptions come in to take its place. Like intellectual servants operating on faith that their masters know best.

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Addition: 23-10-11:

The following video is a 3-part series joined into one clip. The first part in the series I liked in particular. They made some very good insights, and I certainly agree with their [essential] assertion that allowing a child to develop effectively means letting them run with their intrinsic interest. Whether they realise it or not, they are promoting what is described as the "unschooling" method of educational development.

Agenda politics: How real is it?

2011-10-02T15:43:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

The non-politicised academic world knows exactly what policies do and don't work, and they know exactly how market economies work and where their problems are, and how to deal with them. They know how to achieve real economic development and with egalitarian effect (no poverty). We've done it all before and the dynamics of recent histories are not ambiguous. So what's really going on? Why do we willfully insist on destructive policies? Are we being played for fools?

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If we were cool-headed people wanting to develop public policy, then our starting point for any given policy would simply be the objective. As scientifically minded people we would have (or should have) made no religion out of any given ideological method. We would have been trained into looking at all public policy from a boringly matter of fact position, whereby our conclusions are derived from best research and reason, and not empty impressionistic opinions.

So, if our objective was, say, affordable housing, then we would study relevant histories to see what policy works best for that given objective, while also developing a critical understanding of why those given policies had worked well so we can then know how to apply them, or not, or modify them for our specific context. You know...boring, sensible, reasonable policy development. No bull**t. Just reason and realism. No childish debates. Just intelligent discussions.

Now shouldn't it be obvious to everyone that this is how policy development should work? Making love to ideologies without a willingness to test or reconsider them is for nit-wits. Right? Of course.

Even still, we seem to have created this political culture where everyone is conditioned into having a "team-A versus Team-B" relationship with public policy, and entire political parties for that matter. We link our ideas to our ego's and expect others to do likewise, when really we should be demanding intelligence. We also have the media feeding this relationship with an Oprah Winfrey style presentation of issues, where they could otherwise have provided a format for real understanding.

None of this is conducive to a culture of scientifically derived public policy.

What the conspiracy theorists and some analysts say:

Agenda politics is supported by what I would describe as scientific policy development. That is, the agenda (or objective) is the focus - not an ideological belief in any given policy method for its own sake. When the agenda is the strict focus policies would be predictably developed from an intelligent and matter of fact position, like I argued they should be in the beginning of this post.

Now the conspiracy theorists (and I don't know if that's a fair or exclusive definition for the club I'm referring to) have been saying that the entire world is run by agenda politics, and the 'agenda people' do indeed develop their policies scientifically, and with the same kind of direct objectivity that you would expect from the military. And they will tell you that the ideology show presented to the public is nothing more than a massive perception-management exercise with the purpose of providing to the public ideological rationalisations for policy that is, in truth, scientifically derived. The idea is that those false rationalisations are necessary so as to ensure people do not come to understand how and why they are being manipulated/managed, as that would naturally contradict top-down control. Especially of course if people don't agree with where they're being led.

Crazy idea? But why should it be. How many people in the political world cannot understand the obvious importance and desirability of developing policy from a scientific position? And why on earth would the UN (and the UN is a powerful driver for public policy, world over) recommend policies to nations that have not first been exhaustively long-term modelled? Don't tell me they can't afford it and it can't be done. Nobody just guesses about policy when they don't need to. (That's the point!).

Behind our politicians must be a force that represents agenda politics. This is the most reasonable assumption I believe we can make. If money rules the world (yes it does) then I cannot see how money would tolerate the petty world of opinionated politics. The money people will have an agenda, be what it may, and that agenda would surely employ people to find the right policies that have the right effects to reach the specific objectives in service of the people who have the most power (money).

So again, the idea that the real world of politics is driven by mindless ideology ahead of science is to me a bit far-fetched. Not enough people are that stupid. Demanding objective research is the most obvious and simple thing we can do, so surely it would be done?*

The curious Alan Watt has asserted that someone somewhere high in the United Nations (I can't remember the quoted name) once openly stated that there was both an official and real reason for every given policy that the UN pushes. He has also claimed that the people who really control national governments are the politicians advisor's, not the politicians themselves, and it is the advisor's who know what's really going on and what the real objectives behind the implemented policies are.

This could make sense, because if politicians are the frontline of a (supposed) propaganda machine then they would obviously be most effective (and reliable) in their role if they were to believe in their own nonsense. But regardless, with the effective compartmentalisation of power (like in the military) only a minimal level of propaganda would be required to achieve a political world of penetrating and scientifically directed top-down control. If people inside the system simply don't know enough to challenge a given policy position, then generally they won't. They will just take it on faith that the ordered changes are the right thing to do, as they do.

Maybe the best question the public can ask politicians, or whoever is advising or controlling them, is simply: "How did you derive this policy position? Where is the research and long-term modelling behind it of which I expect you to have done?"

But then, finally, if we are operating on Agenda politics, then that means we are being directed. And if so then where, exactly, are we being taken to?

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*Note: Real research is not to be confused with political research. What I mean by political research is the scenario where vested interests pay a research body to "prove" a pre-desired conclusion, as opposed to just seeking the truth. That is, where researchers operate like lawyers trying to prove their case, rather than judges trying to objectively determine the truth. I believe that the IPCC is clear example of political (propaganda) research.

-Relating to my affordable housing scenario, Phil McDermott provides an excellent example of real research.

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Some other posts relating to this insight:

Time to put away your faith: The government is not your friend.

Agenda22: A personal wishlist for human-social evolution.

Operation population control?

Confessions of a political dominatrix wannabe.

A kind of WW3: Human management Versus individual liberty.

The end of Buses?

2011-09-08T16:53:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

Automated technology status:

Google has been successfully developing a fully automated car. Meaning total automation - no drivers. With their modified Toyota Prius they have clocked-up about 250,000 km to date, operating their car in urban areas. The only accident they have thus far had has been from another car driving into the back of them.

The key (current) challenge with developing a full-automation car is getting the computational requirements down, which as it happens are still very intensive. However, Google is meeting this challenge in an ongoing development effort whereby they are learning to compress otherwise unnecessary data. The latter is a somewhat tedious process, but it's inevitable that major refinements in software will be made. Certainly with their early computer programmes there will be much "crunching" that is not ultimately required. Of course, as computers become ever more efficient in themselves hardware will reduce this problem as well.

Here is a clip relating to Google's development:

A first application:

Even with a hefty computer in the boot we can see a first 'killer' application: Automated shuttle-buses.

The only reason why buses are so big is because we must cover the cost against the drivers. This concern is mostly eliminated with an automated system. A more ideal (and much more energy-efficient) vehicle size would be for about 10 people - not 40. It would mean more frequent and more direct services, faster and also much cheaper.

With improved popularity (compared to buses) is should cut significantly into car demand as well. This would be heavily reinforced if congestion charging were to be employed.

Suggested design:

I think a plug-in series-type hybrid would be ideal, using a small diesel-electric generator. It would be mostly silent in operation, have good handling with the lower centre of weight (due to battery ballast), and would be smooth running.

I would also suggest minor rear-wheel as well as front-wheel steering for convenient flexibility, as an automated system can exploit this to the full. It can make it much easier to negotiate a relatively wide vehicle.

A vehicle of this type would be very efficient and well suited to stop-and-go operation.

The following image is a best-guess ideal for an automated shuttle-bus. Three rows of three seats, with relatively generous spacing between the seats for a wide(ish) vehicle. You can do away with an aisle by having a door for each row, like a conventional car. The pay-off for doing this is generous seating space, faster off and on loading, and more immediate privacy for passengers.

Operating characteristics:

I would imagine that you could operate the system in the style of both a bus and a shuttle-bus. You can offer people a reduced fare in exchange for conforming more to the system (which basically means accepting walking to and from a bus stop, or another designated area), and a considerably more expensive fare can be paid for if you wish to have the vehicle come to you directly.

It should be easy to organise your trip from the internet, which provides us with a medium for highly flexible pricing systems.

Fares can be paid automatically with a pre-paid card like what is used in Wellington (New Zealand) buses today. Audio-intercom can be used if a human operator is required for anything, and surveillance cameras can be installed for security.

Capacity:

Fully automated vehicles can platoon. They can safety follow another vehicle from only a few centimeters behind, which increases capacity. Also of course, the shuttle-buses should operate with about 8 people at peak time, so should improve road capacity significantly alround.

Conclusion:

How can buses and trains compete with this technology which could be deployed in maybe just a few years time (politics withstanding)? The answer is they can't - not on any level. And remember I am talking about the application of technology which has now been demonstrated. The truth is we can and will go much further than just automated shuttle-buses, in time.

Yet rail and [conventional] bus advocates are willfully deaf, dumb and blind to the motion of modern transport technology, and Auckland council in investing billions into a rail system that will be (and largely already is) a massive white elephant.

Do we need a Georgia Guidestone?

2011-09-01T14:32:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

We need to set boundaries - Not tell people what kind of light bulbs they can and can't use.
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Someone with lots of cash put up a Stonehenge style monument in Georgia, USA, which looks like a constitutional wish-list for humanity's relationship to nature, and itself.

Here is the list inscribed on the stone:

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1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.

2. Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.

3. Unite humanity with a living new language.

4. Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.

5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.

6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.

7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.

8. Balance personal rights with social duties.

9. Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.

10. Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.

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What I like about the Georgia guidestones is the principle of forming a functional constitution to definitively establish humanity's relationship with the natural world. I believe there is room for this. If humanity does not specify its relationship to the natural world then there's nothing concrete to stop our species from potentially over-running it.

Worst case scenario would be reducing the entire planet to a global farm resulting from uncontrolled population growth and/or irresponsible government, or massive toxic contamination from irresponsible commercial risk-taking, etc. [And this is our latest morbid example. How many more can we withstand?].

However, if we're going to form an 'ultimate' ecologically-focused constitution then it needs to be "hard" and not "soft". What I mean by this is that it needs to be like any proper contract: Strictly specific with no or only minimal room for subjective interpretation. On this level the Georgia guidestones are a poor example. Although some of its assertions are clear, statements like "Avoid petty laws and useless officials" can mean anything to anyone, all depending on your perspective.

Poorly specified laws are dangerous because that which is open to interpretation is open to abuse. Not only can vague definitions make laws fail to enforce what they are [apparently] intended to enforce, they can also be abused so as to enforce that which they should not be enforcing.

Humanity does need to clearly define its relationship to the natural world, I believe. We need to define the 'acceptable' human footprint and the boundaries of that footprint. And it needs to be intelligently and comprehensively considered. Over simplistic Georgia guidestone type statements will never do.

For example, declaring that we should have no more than 500,000,000 people living on this earth, as though that should be an absolute goal, is nonsense because the human footprint does not need to be toxic. We can develop an abundant, healthy and sustainable biosphere with billions of people alive and kicking. And by using advancing technologies we could probably get our population to the tens of billions in time. Hence, it would be better not to define population absolutes but simply to define limits in terms of the human footprint. We should define basic limits on toxic spill-off into water, land and air, and acceptable deforestation levels, etc. If we can comfortably put ever more people into that given specified boundary then that should be fine.

Conclusion:

Again, you want to keep the eco-constitution highly specific to environmental fundamentals, otherwise it will be used and abused to drive political ends which may have no sincere grounding in positive environmental practice. A classic example of the latter is with what is termed Smart Growth. Smart Growth claims to be about the positive environmentalism, but with objective analysis we can see that it quite blatantly is not. It is deep social and/or economic engineering, abusing the public's environmental concern to justify the forced changes. "Smart growth" is the kind of thing that can, does and will happen when you don't develop an eco-constitution that links directly to the fundamental status of the natural world.

So yes, let's develop some kind of Georgia guidestone, but do it PROPERLY. We should clearly define our environmental boundaries, but in a way that does not allow our environmental concern to be used as a tool for rouge political and financial interests. Indeed, a well developed eco-constitution should protect us from the latter, making environmentalism a practice - not a weapon.

Great assumptions: Indirect propaganda

2011-07-18T14:39:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

Be careful how you take your education - it can be as much of a distraction as an enlightenment.

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From looking at some popular science and other magazines, I have noticed they are already taking the position that the Anthropogenic Global Warming scare is totally real, and the science is conclusive. They make this assertion not by stating it outright, but by simply writing 'secondary' articles based on this assumption. They talk as though problematic AGW is a given as they discuss developing technologies to deal with its effects, etc, while paying no credence to the debate supporting it all.

Now this is interesting. Because regardless of what the truth relating to the AGW scare may be, if you have the media all calmly talking about it as though the science is in and the debate is over, then the public will, over time, not even question the assumption, and instead it will just become "common knowledge" that carbon emissions are a bad thing and must be averted. Most critically, people will form that assumption without any thought or knowledge relating to the science at all. This dynamic applies to the extreme for when people are born into this form of propaganda. Extremely challengeable assertions can so easily reach 'common knowledge' status, naturally sucked-up by the public like osmosis.

So with this kind of (indirect) propaganda you can win a debate without even having it. Indeed, you can get to the point where people look at you like you're a freak for even suggesting something as "bizarre" as the idea that we shouldn't worry about carbon emissions. And again, they may adopt that view without an ounce of personal understanding backing up their [socially reinforced] assumptions.

Do we have a clear example of this kind of misplaced propaganda today? By god do we what! Schooling. I have long noticed that pretty much every discussion on education that exists in the mainstream media has, since virtually forever, reinforced the assumption that child development should be institutionalised. We preach it everyday, directly and indirectly, but without ever really thinking about it. Have you ever looked into the science and history behind what we call education, and the facts associated with non-institutional child development? Of course you probably haven't. If you did you would quickly realise that we are having the wrong conversations, and those wrong conversations keep you locked-in to the wrong foundation assumptions. The debate that we never even had was won by default.

--Tip! The most potent propaganda never looks like what it is.*

The more our minds are tuned into the media, the more we become conditioned to those indirectly suggested assumptions. We form opinions that we don't even realise are not our own.

To a degree this is understandable in that some things must be assumed, so we can get on with our lives and function. But what is not acceptable (or dignified) is actively turning our backs on direct invitations to review those embedded assumptions, like they should be treated as sacred cows.

Well, at the least, don't laugh a controversial view off the stage just because the government told you to do so. Because if you're going to do that, then you might as well wear a t-shirt that says: "My mind is your b**ch".

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*If propaganda looked like what it is, then it would trigger your critical mind both into the picture and on-topic, and that's exactly what a propagandist wants to avoid. Propaganda is about changing (or establishing) views beneath critical thought - not with it.

Further, this is closely related to hypnosis. Hypnosis works by suppressing activity within the front-left cortex so as to, basically, let the individual believe in their [externally directed] dream. It's the left-frontal area of the brain that tells you when you're in a fantasy. When it's off-line you simply don't even question what you subjectively experience as real. Again, just like when you believe that your dream is real while you are sleeping.

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Addition 6-8-11: The great political assumption?

One of the most fundamental assumptions in modern politics, and this applies to New Zealand especially, is the assumption that we have no "shadow government" behind our government. And you had better sign up to this assumption if you want to get your editorial printed in the NZ Herald (and elsewhere) because otherwise you are a conspiracy theorist, and in turn your credibility is custard. Right? Obviously, yes.

The effect? Political movements that don't make sense are rationalised to the public on the premise of selfish political motivations, ideological thinking, or corporate backing etc. (If there's no higher-level governance then what else could the drivers be - right?). And all these rationalisations of which are based on that premise work to reinforce that great central assumption: There is no functional government behind our government.

But again, if there is in fact a functional government behind our government, then all those editorials will only be protecting it, not holding it to account. Because the idea that there even might be a shadow government is then assumed to be ridiculous, by default, due to that non-stop presentation of "secondary" propaganda.

Note: I am not saying that there is a government behind our government in this article as such. I am saying that we can see how the assumption that there isn't one is, incidentally or not, relentlessly reinforced as all conversation and thinking is based on this presumption.

It's interesting how cultures can potentially breed their own great delusions once and if they get on the wrong track. All you need to do is quietly isolate the rouge points of view, and the propaganda train will come to be automatic and self-reinforcing.

Is casual sex normal?

2011-07-17T17:20:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin:

It bores me looking at articles such as this, talking about promiscuity. They never get to what's behind the issue. The issue becomes trivialised into some kind of moralistic or feminist thing, which with better understanding we can see that it's not.

My outlook:

Yes, casual sex is normal. No it's not "supposed to be" normal. Yes, people should screw around if they want to. No you shouldn't celebrate that they do. Yes, casual sex is not unhealthy in itself. No it's not an expression of health.

Human sexuality:

The human animal more than any other is dependant on a stable family to grow up in (properly), and that requires well-attached parents. Human sexuality is an intense part of that attachment.

-We all know this, though politicised scientists might always "prove" something else.

If casual sex is so natural, why then are people so universally devastated when their partners cheat on them? Why have we been biologically programmed with this response? And if a stable family is not what a child needs after all, then why are kids traumatised by a broken home? And if we are not supposed to attach in sex, then why does the attachment process (in normal conditions) occur, as well described by people such as Desmond Morris? And most significantly, as a species we never evolved with contraception. So it would seem strange that sex should be casual by nature when the consequences of the act (children) have, historically, always demanded attachment.

Nope. Casual, promiscuous sex is not normal normal. It's now common and culturally normalised, but not normal in the human meaning of the word.

So where does casual sex come from?

It comes mainly from the effect of deprivation. A child that does not attach to its parents will not attach to anyone as an adult (in a real way), because the function of attachment has been locked out of consciousness (repressed). People like this can easily engage in casual sex because, basically, they hardly have sex at all. As a subjective process they literally can't have 'normal' sex.

Another possibility is peer pressure. This is ugly and no-one should tolerate it. Having a mass of neurotic children who can and do screw whoever/whenever is one thing, forcing other young people to be pressured by them is another.

And another possibility still is with schools providing bizarre forms of sex education that serve to "normalise the abnormal", and at an age when children can't know any better.

-How about some real sex education? Why not teach the impact of child abuse and infantile damage on human sexuality, and also the pervasiveness of that damage? And throw in a special module on incest too, as it represents the most extreme way to destroy someones sexuality.

Conclusion:

Let people do whatever they want with their bodies - just so long as it's sincerely mutual, they don't get pregnant in a messed-up state, nor spread too many diseases. If people are promiscuous then the damage has already been done, so there's no point in crying over spilt milk.

But don't celebrate promiscuity. See it for what it is. It is still an expression of a more serious problem relating to deep damage within early childhood. And the latter is what our society needs to be talking about - not this moralistic trivia.

Is this Real?

2011-07-16T02:46:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

I'm trying to put the pieces together as to how my world really works. Trying to understand the bizarre policies governments forever insist on employing. Policies that fly in the face of what makes a healthy, free, sustainable and prosperous society.

So the following is an assertion. I might be wrong - or not quite right. For me this is still hypothetical. I invite any contributions because I don't know how tight all my facts are on this. Regardless, I have a developing suspicion that NZ politics works something like what I explain and describe in the following.

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Treaties:

We know that the USA has a famous constitution that protects individual rights. How exactly does that constitution work? Like this: The leader plus the senate passes a new bill. The bill is then sent to the supreme court. The supreme court determines if the new laws contained within the bill are consistent with the Constitution (constitution = constant law, regardless of government will). So what if the bill is not consistent? The supreme court then throws the bill out and tells the executive branch to try again. So, the constitution is in fact the highest law of the land - higher than the president. The constitution is (and was) designed to protect the public from the ever-present danger of governmental corruption or stupidity.

Point being? Treaties are functionally the same thing. When your nation signs an international treaty they give up a part of their sovereignty, because the government is bound to make no law that is inconsistent with the treaty.

Yes, treaties are serious business. In theory you can sign a nation into oblivion with them, because once employed there's nothing that your democracy can do to (legally) rebel from them. Again, like constitutions treaties ride above governmental power.

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New Zealand and its treaties:

The following paragraph was extracted from the international treaties list, dated July 2011, obtained from the New Zealand Foreign Affairs and Trade website.

Begins.

New Zealand is currently party to approximately 1,500 international treaties. As many treaties are in force for a limited period of time, New Zealand has been party to a total of almost twice that number. Each year, New Zealand is engaged in a multitude of international negotiations that may result in the conclusion of new treaties. In addition, existing treaties may be amended as international circumstances require.

Ends.

Are we looking at New Zealand's real functional government i.e. that mass of treaties? I'm not too sure. I have requested a comprehensive (though condensed) copy of our treaty list which I hope will be posted to me soon.

In particular what I'm interested in is the possibility of Auckland (and other councils) having planning policies which are now legally rooted into some form of international agreement. It would explain a lot.

For example, a few years ago I sent my article on Smart Growth [an older, smaller version] to Mike Lee, Chairman of the [then] Auckland Regional Council. He got back to me saying that although he did not agree with my position fundamentally, after reading my piece carefully he accepted that my points were valid. Weird! Many of those points in that article are pretty damn juicy. I couldn't see how he could accept my piece as valid in principle, yet still hold the view that forced intensification should be Auckland's future.

But then maybe I'm not talking to ideology after all, but law? Again, it would explain a lot. I still don't believe that our politicians are as dumb as they look.

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The politics:

From here let's operate on the presumption that that mass of treaties we've signed up to is basically New Zealand's functional government. What, then, would be the meaning of the political show that we're exposed to?

Obviously its purpose would be public relations - upholding the fantasy that we're a sovereign nation.

A naive politician with good intentions might enter parliament and say..."Ok guys, I wanna do this"...and then have an official within the public service say back to them..."Sorry but we can't. It would contradict our international obligations (treaties). And doing too much of that would make us a rouge state which in turn may invoke UN sanctions. We still need to import that oil, Sir".

If that scenario is (basically) the game, then we can know that our politicians will be in no hurry to come out and tell us that our country's sovereignty has been too signed-away for them to take a major new action on our behalf. You would probably end up with riots in Wellington if they did this, and that would and could achieve nothing if the UN retains its power to induce maybe devastating sanctions.

-Remember I'm thinking theoretically when I state all this.

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Interdependence:

The power of the UN to enforce sanctions (that hurt) equates to the level of interdependence.

I have already expressed in a previous post that I see no reason why New Zealand needs to be so obsessed with developing its trade economy, considering we are so well endowed with the resources to take care of our needs locally.

But there is a good reason to advance the trade economy. It creates interdependence, and likewise advances the UN's latent power to hurt us with sanctions. Quite simply, the more we need to import fundamentals like oil, the more we can't afford to tear up our treaties.

Is this the real reason why top politicians have been pushing for a proportionally larger trade economy, and for so many years? I wouldn't be too surprised.

Independence institutes domestic vulnerability and in turn enhanced UN power. We should remember that interdependence can be a form of economic weaponisation.

(I understand that the UN has already starved many thousands of Iraqi children with sanctions. You're particularly vulnerable when you can't even grow your own food).

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Justifying the treaties:

Most treaties, as I currently assume at least, are or will be based on that which specifically affects other nations. So you can justify the implementation of a treaty for where and when we deal with other countries. Likewise, the larger the trade economy (interdependence, again) the more "invasive" the treaty process can become, as you create larger grounds for their implementation and impact on our lives.

Also we have treaties on human rights and the environment, as these concerns can be interpreted as International.

Human rights:

Treaties on human rights are of concern because that would represent international law dictating to domestic-only operations. So although it can be justified as a defence for sovereign individuals, it is (or can be) distinctly intrusive nonetheless. Also, when treaties on human rights include sub-categories such as "rights of indigenous people" then things can get particularly controversial I believe, because you are then beginning to define the human rights-status of individuals on the grounds of their ancestry, which is philosophically spurious to say the least. My point is that toying with definitions can make international treaties step well beyond their mark. Slippery slope?

Environment:

What we do domestically can have environmental impacts world over. Hence, in principle, you can justify treaties here. And as we know this is exactly where we are moving with the anthropogenic global warming scare. Because everything we do today depends on oil, we therefore have a basis for forming treaties that may dictate to nations to just about any explicit degree. Indeed is that the idea? Use the AGW nonsense scare to justify treaty-formation that cuts deep into the operation of nations?

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Who signs the treaties?

The next question to my hypothesis is: "Who, then, signs the treaties?". Don't know. But if the goal is indeed the progressive subversion of national sovereignty, then it would have to be a groomed infiltrator working for the UN or maybe even a level above it. I understand that the UN is a private organisation? If so then who are the money men behind the UN, and how deep and pervasive is their reach?

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The argument for it:

The rationalisation for an international government, that basically has existing nations under its thumb, is for many serious reasons sound. This is why I consider the move, if it's happening today, to be tangible.

And likewise if it's happening then it seems logical that creating a world bound by international treaties, and a world highly vulnerable to sanctions (interdependent), would be the most robust way of achieving that ends. Maybe even the only way? At the end of the day a functional world government must be locked-down into law. This, I think, is how you can do it.

On Psychopaths: A letter from an insider

2011-06-23T00:31:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

I have been given permission to post this very interesting letter. It was recently sent to me by a man who obviously knows far more about the serious criminal world than myself. It is a response to my previous post, Should we be screening for Psychopathy?

As requested it is anonymous.

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The major part of your argument may be realistic although you don’t seem to realize the true nature of psychopaths and those that label a person a psychopath. I have studied psychopaths for several years, approximately 40 years. I have more personal experience with psychopaths then most people ever have or ever will have.

The first thing you have to consider is education. Did you attend a university? Did you ever encounter a professor with whom you had some grievance such as grades or what he/she was teaching? The vast majority of psychiatry is taught by universities, I would suggest the vast majority of professors teaching these classes are themselves psychopaths, if not, at least sociopaths. Therefore, how can you expect such a professor to teach realistic courses in the soft sciences or even in the neurology departments that experiment on brains with the use of (on the most part MRIs?)

As I said I have a lot of personal experience with psychopaths. I believe my story is different from most that you might hear. I will tell you my story only for the sake of showing that those that label people psychopaths cannot be trusted.

I was a child in a family of twelve children, my father a WW2 veteran. He did try hard to be a good parent but was unable to, I believe, for one reason because he was suffering himself from the effects of his painful experience in the war. Another reason was my mother who was obviously mentally ill, I did not know it at the time, but when she went missing for several weeks or months and we all thought she was hiding out in bed, she was actually in a mental hospital.

My mother has always said I was a rotten bastard from the day I was conceived and she does so still today some sixty years later. My mother, as did my father picked their favorite children and the rest of us suffered under extremely abusive conditions. Mind you I still believe my father tried, he was just unable to control his anger or his favoritism for the few of the twelve. Of course, my mother also had her favorites, I was not one of either.

I suppose you already have figured out that I was not a wonderful loving child. I got into all kinds of trouble, mostly because I could not understand why United States citizens that invaded our village every summer had so much more than us. We had no heat or running water, while the cottages owned by US citizens were heated all winter, had water, even working telephones, although empty from September to June of every year, except for food, cigarettes, and alcohol they left behind in hopes that we that broke in would be happy to get that and not destroy their cottages. On the most part, the children like me were happy to take up part time residence in their cottages during winter, enjoying the food, warmth, showers, etc. I was about eight years old when I got into this scenario.

Since there were only a couple hundred year round residences that serviced the vacation industry during the summer I became well known as one that took advantage of the cottages. Our family was poor, more so than most since there were so many kids. I got beaten at least weekly by the other kids in town mostly because I was the one less cared for at home, seldom had reasonable clothes, and never any candy or such to share as the rest of my siblings did, at least the siblings close to my age. I often came home bloody and wore those bloodied clothes back to school the next day. My father in attempting to control me beat me often until I was about twelve when I just started laughing at him and he ran out of energy before he could make me stop laughing. My mother on the other hand never laid a hand on me, as she said, “I was not worth punishing.”

At fourteen I was taken to a local mental hospital (a wing of a general hospital.) I did not like being confined so I acted out and was sent to a provincial hospital. Again, uncontrollable I was sent to a Maximum Security hospital for the Criminally Insane. At fourteen I was labeled a psychopath. I have to add that even the psychiatric community did not accept that a boy of fourteen could be a psychopath. Although I had never committed a violent act, never charged or convicted of any such act I was housed with approximately forty psychopaths. Rapists, child molesters, murderers, mass murderers and even a couple businessmen. I spent a long time learning what they were about and who they were. I walked, talked, and interacted with them during the day; luckily we all had separate cells during the night. I learned very quickly that I had to show no fear of them or anything else, also that they should fear me. As it turned out I got along well with most of them and I had only a few problems while there.

I was finally released when I hit a fellow that had kicked me; I was put in the bullpen. The fellow in the bullpen next to me talked to me a lot, but every time someone opened his cell door he punched them in the face. He had been transferred there from a penitentiary where he was doing twelve years for murder. I told him if he kept acting like that he would never get out, he explained that he would be out and back in the pen within a week, or so, he was better off doing his twelve years in the pen then being in this place for as long as they wished to keep him. Further, he told me that by following their rules, getting along well, accepting all the torture, capsule treatments, LSD treatments, Scopolamine, speed, electric shock etc. I was the one that would be there forever. He was released back to Kingston penitentiary a couple days later, and I took his advice. I told them to F-O every time they wanted me to take another drug treatment or start some new advanced therapy method, I began telling the doctors they were the psychopaths not me and I went from the bullpen to the front door, and never returned.

After leaving although I had only about a grade six education at twenty one years old I went to college for about six month and then to university. I might add that during my time at university, during a seminar with approximately 20 so called educated people, except my vote, they voted unanimously that anyone that has a diagnosis as a psychopath should be hung immediately; this was in a philosophy class in which we were discussing the pros and cons of capital punishment.

Several years later I have never had a run in with the law, never charged or convicted of any crime, not even a parking violation. I raised two children on my own because my wife left when my son was born and she was unable to accept that my son had CP and would be confined to a wheelchair for life. He lived with me until he was 21, and in his second year of college. He did finish his four year course in teaching the disable to live independently and he now works for Independent Living for the last several years. He is married, owns his own home, and is doing quite well. My daughter did have some difficulties as a teen but now has four children, she is married to a hard working fellow, and they are doing just fine. I am sure this is absolute certain proof that I am a psychopath and should have been put to death upon diagnosis.

I should also add that many of the people from that psychiatric facility attempted a class action law suit against the province and the hospital for crimes against humanity along with several other crimes. Obviously, since the courts are paid by the Province they would not hear the case. I have attached a copy of that class action law suit just so you can see this is not a joke or a made up story.

My point in all of this is, who do you expect to decide who is and who is not a psychopath. Doctors and therapists are often wrong. Further, since I have MS, I know that MRIs are not always right or conclusive. MS is multiple scaring of the brain and/or spine. If an MRI shows multiple scares on the brain and/or spine but cannot say the person has MS, how could you possibly expect them to be sure that some difference in the brain can conclusively prove the person is a psychopath.

The only way justice can be served is to make lawmakers, businessmen, banksters, and the rest follow the law as any other citizen has to. Not as in the recent case of the New York governor who signed into law that all men caught paying prostitutes must go to jail, and when he got caught paying in the range of 13 thousand for a prostitute he stepped down and was given his own television show. Add to that G.W. Bush and Clinton, both presidents of the United States of America, Clinton claimed he could do anything he wanted as he was the President. G.W. Bush said he could torture, tap telephone calls, anything he pleased because he was the President. When G.W. Bush first became president a woman accused him of raping her, she was immediately put in a mental hospital and as far as I know, no one has ever heard from her, or anything about her since. Again, I say, all that needs to be done is to hold every person accountable for their actions, if they commit a crime, they should be charged, and if convicted, punished as would anyone else. The most resent, Obama, has lied, cheated, took the US to war without congressional approval, this is illegal but he claims it is not because he is the president. In this case some other political liar is pretending to take him to court over not consulting congress on the war, this is just a game, in any other case the president would not be sued and going to court he would be impeached; again because he is president he gets away with doing as he pleases.

Further, you mention that after a person takes these psychological tests, and I suppose MRIs, the information should be posted on the internet. What if the information is wrong? The majority of people in the US believe second election which put G.W. Bush in as the president for a second term was rigged, there were congressional hearing on the ways in which the computer systems could be compromised, and still nothing was done. So some poor guy gets bad results from his testing and it is listed on the internet, he is scared for life, most likely he would have a very hard time getting a job, if he could at all. On the other hand some companies might like this type of so called psychopath, so he gets hired on. How many customers or people he ran into would trust him, how many would want anything to do with him.

I can give a life example of this as well. During my stay in the hospital for the criminally insane they had a television station come in and do a documentary on the place and people there. The documentary started with something like, this place houses rapists, murders, mass murderers, etc. there was no mention of a few that had really done anything particularly wrong; they were just unmanageable as kids.

I was in that documentary. As I said previously, I tried my best to make sure everyone there was afraid of me instead of thinking I was afraid of them so I acted like a real tough kid, as nasty as a bear with a toothache. That person was shown in the documentary, when I got out some people still remembered that documentary and knew me, particularly those from my home town. I was likely one of the most feared people in town. I still was just about ten years ago when I moved out of that town. It has been a lot of years now so I am sure no one would recognize me where I now live. In fact the real reason I was put in the hospital in the first place was because the authorities did not believe my family was capable of looking after me, and believed it was for my best interest.

That is the kind of problem you would create with posting some doctor’s or therapist’s views on the internet, no doctor or therapist is correct 100% of the time.

You present a good argument, unfortunately you assume that these tests would always be correct when in fact in the soft sciences they seldom are, and in the case of using MRIs, as I said MS is a perfect example of how bad they can be.

You really should look up Multiple Scleroses (MS,) it seems pretty simple, multiple meaning 2 or more, scleroses meaning scares. Any MRI can see scaring on the brain or spine, so if there are more than two it should be a simple matter, yet it is one of the most difficult diseases to diagnosis because MRIs are not perfect and they most certainly would not be in seeing certain regions of the brain different colors, scared, larger, smaller, whatever. It is just not that simple.

LETTER ENDS:

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The point made that we have to be careful with diagnosis is absolutely valid. We must be extremely careful to test the tests - especially in such a sensitive territory as this. In the scenario that someone receives a psychopathy diagnosis, and maybe the diagnosis is made public, then it should be linked with an open statement informing of the insecurities in the testing methods (be what they may).

However, for politicians (and other) that can send thousands of people away to be killed in wars etc, I still believe we need to conduct the most comprehensive analysis possible, for the sake of profiling. I feel it's a price that the most powerful people in our society should have to pay for the sake of maximising our security against [latent] tyrants. But also, of course, there should always be the option that a powerful person step down from their position if they wish to not have their profiles made public.

The other point that was made relates to what makes a psychopath - or maybe different types of psychopaths? This is not entirely clear, at least not to me. I think the essence of a psychopath is just raw inhumanity: This means a dead-cold indifference to the well-being of others. Not so much blood-lust or acted-out rage or anything like that, but a shoulder shrug at the thought of someone else being devastated as a result of your dishonest or immoral actions.

I gather it's easy to confuse 'psychopathy' with what's termed 'antisocial personality disorder'; the latter of which is generally the product of a particularly nasty childhood. Psychopathy seems to be an even deeper problem still: going right back to [probably toxic] events within the womb leading to deep imprints and epigenetic distortions, and maybe there are base-genetics factors as well. But as to the genesis of psychopathy, I'm really not too sure - is anyone?

Finally I would like to say that this letter that was sent to me was much appreciated.

Andrew Atkin

Confessions of a political dominatrix wannabe

2011-06-14T00:54:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

I am attracted to the idea of forming a political party that can help drive New Zealand and the world in the direction of my own image (and all of us have an image, whether it be an image of control or freedom).

What I realised is that if I did form a political party I would like to do it with me operating behind the scenes, using others to do my public work for me. Not because I'm evil, but because the last thing I would want to have to do while trying to strategise and form "good" public policy is to have to put on a monkey show for the public, and absorb all the stresses that come with that job. It's tedious and I'm too busy!

Indeed, if I had plenty of cash then the only thing that would stop me from employing a puppet would be not being able to find someone that I can trust to pull it off. But then, as my devious mind thought, could I find someone to pull it off? Who would have the right attributes? Ahh...it's surprising how much you realise you know when you put yourself in an employers position, with a specific agenda for what you want your employees to do!

If you're going to use puppets in your political game then I believe you want them to be either infantile, spineless, psychopathic or zealot. (I'm so mean!!)

Infantile: You need to be able to walk up to them, put your hand on their shoulder and warmly shake their hand, tell them that they're doing a fantastic (and tough!) job, and that they're part of a great team and that they're fighting the good fight. And that needs to be good enough for them. If they're living in a cozy la-la land it will be. They will quickly rationalise their own thinking to agree with what you say in terms of the policy you're employing them to push, and so they will reliably buy your propaganda. It's simply too uncomfortable and difficult for them not to, mostly due to their intense need to be accepted (by the group) and impress.

Spineless: These are your indifferent, sleepy bureaucrat types. They will tow the party line, maybe in dismay at times, but they won't actually do anything about that which they don't agree with - not on the level of sabotage, at least. When pushed too far they will simply resign and be happy enough to say "no blood on my hands" if they have prior agreed to confidentiality. These people are not so much puppets but drones that can make up the numbers. They are your classic career politician.

Psychopathic: Psychopaths have an underlying flat, robotic flavour to them that is transparent when you're not being bribed by their "charm". However, they can be paid off to do anything. These are the kind of puppets you want if you're in the business of truly serious corruption.

Zealot: So consumed in a single issue that they don't even bother trying to understand the others. They will be "confidence and supply" to all your other policies. So long as you can satisfy their issue (because it integrates with your agenda anyway) they will be reliable drones on everything else.

And so, as I believe, your real politicians (decision makers) could live behind these character types.

But would this have happened? That is my real point. Are there idealistic people like me, but with heaps of money and contacts, who would want to get on with the job of "good social management" and are prepared to outsource the front-man role?

I can easily imagine something like this developing because I can relate to it. People with really big money probably won't play (public) politics - why should they? And once a strong political movement of this type develops and entrenches itself it could, no doubt, become a massive interlinked corporation in its own right, over time.

So I wouldn't think that the idea of a "government behind a government" as impossible or merely some kind of conspiracy theory. The more I contemplate it the more possible and even probable it seems to me. That is, in terms of something that could and would naturally evolve. And indeed, there is already plenty of incidental evidence suggesting that our visible politicians don't really run the show.

Think about this: How can you think with a the public media constantly beating at your door, looking for a story? No serious minded person/s wants to be a public front-man if they can avoid it. It makes perfects sense to isolate the front-man role from the real policy developers. And then, from here, it makes sense to collaborate with other behind-the-scenes players (if they exist) and incorporate both sides of the political game so as to manage multiple political parties. Strategic co-operation will only enhance your power. The latter of course takes direct contempt for the democratic process, but it's still perfectly possible. And most likely? My best bet is that the real world of politics is much cosier than it appears.

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Addition: 11-11-11

This is defintately an interesting clip. One of my favorite sayings: "You put the money on the table, and people believe what they want to believe".

Trade economy Versus domestic economy

2011-06-06T00:26:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

I get a bit worn out with the media and government constantly promoting the idea that we need to export more to have a higher living standard. But why?

A good life means: Good houses, good food and good health. The other stuff is not fundamental. If your economy can provide for the fundamentals cheaply, and well, then it's hard to lose.

Obviously the trade economy is essential because there's too much that a country like New Zealand cannot make on its own, like laptops and cars etc. But the idea that the trade economy should define our base living standard is a bit ridiculous, I believe.

In a country like New Zealand the tools are at hand for everyone to own an affordable home, and have easy access to excellent food, because all these things are (or can be) provided for only too easily within the domestic economy. Yet, we have all these people struggling to make ends meet, even with the basics. So what's really going on?

The biggest evil is our under-supply in houses. If you don't get on top of that then a poverty class is guaranteed, because buyers have no choice but to bargain with whatever monies they have to not be the guy who misses out, or be forced into over-crowded conditions. This is the sort of thing that creates poverty - not a lack of exports, as such.

This obsession with the trade economy looks to me like an obsession with an economy of the type that allows rich people to go on exotic holidays every year and import massive SUV's. That is, the stuff that doesn't really matter, or matter as much.

New Zealand, just 50 years ago, had no difficulty housing and feeding itself with just one family member earning a 40-hour wage. For all our so-called economic growth we can't even dream of doing this today. So please, media and government, spare us this crap on "rising living standards". We're operating a rich man's economy, and that's an economy structured to make luxuries cheaper and the fundamentals more expensive.

If we reduced our international purchasing power, then that would mean less frequent computer upgrades, slightly less exotic clothes, and maybe cars that don't accelerate so explosively at the traffic lights. Who cares!!

We need to focus first on the domestic economy, and before anything that means getting rid of under-supplies on the fundamentals. Once housing and food is cheap, everything else becomes much easier. And I haven't spoken about education because research shows that money, after a minimal point, only wrecks it.

But why has our economy been engineered this way? Best guess: Population control. When the basics are cheap you can have as many kids as you want. Personally I believe in population control, but not like this. You should introduce direct caps via reproduction licences.

Agenda 22: A personal wish-list for human/social evolution

2011-06-05T13:59:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin:

Well, as the idea goes, the UN rules the world and they have an agenda. Behind the agenda, of course, is a vision. A vision of where they want "spaceship earth" to go. And a visionary agenda is, as it must be, about controlled evolution.

So this is what the conspiracy theorists (and other) will tell you. I do not believe it is far fetched. I have seen too much. I doubt that this world of ours is being left to self-evolve, or at least there are strong interests doing their best to make sure that it doesn't.

Appreciating this, there must in turn be an agenda backed by a master vision, like I previously suggested. And also behind the vision must be a functional religion - meaning, the vision must be the current answer to the power class's ultimate value system.

Must we have a vision? Well I don't know. But, for better or worse, I will give you my own utopian vision for where humanity should (or at least could) go. I will be thinking from 200-years projections so get ready for a geeky focus. Here goes!

World government and a scientific dictatorship:

Sorry but it's going to happen because we have to have it.

Take the scenario of having a world made up of say 50 separate states, where each state has a 10% chance of devastating the global environment sometime over the next 100 years. This not-too-unrealistic scenario is the reason why humanity has become so dangerous. (I speak about this here). There is probably over a 90% chance that we will ruin ourselves soon if we carry on as individual states, free to do whatever any given psychopathic dictator may wish. The Gulf oil spill and Fukushima meltdowns being only the beginning of what can happen.

A world government could neutralise the profound threat of rouge states. Even if a world government had a 10% chance of destroying everything in itself, it still leaves us with a much better chance for our long-term survival than the status quo.

The world government needs to be scientific in its operation, in that mathematical truths must come before democratic wishful thinking. Ignorance cannot be left to rule in such a volatile world. Freedom is a virtue always to be respected, and facilitated to the highest degree possible, but it must be and will be put on a leash when and as required.

Population control and eugenics:

We have the tools at hand for effortless prosperity for the entire world over, if only we direct our resources properly and stop wasting time with stupid systems that don't need to exist. Problem is, we would probably be left with a population explosion if we did this.

The result being, we will be left with the need to directly (and aggressively) control population so as to stop humanity from becoming a plague. But, as soon as you actively control population you then become a eugenicist by default, because you in turn control who does and does not breed.

Well, it has to be done and will be done, because we have and will have resource limits at any given time. And we will not be breeding people who are violent and stupid unless maybe we want to breed a servant class i.e. breeding people for specific useful purposes, like we breed dogs.

Servant breed: If we are to breed humans for specific roles, then we can know that with modern robotics brawn is outdated. You would want totally non-rebellious "people" that are very good at technician work, and very good at remote-controlling robotic machinery. Breeding them to be small and furry makes them low maintenance. Why would you want them big?

Now is this idea sick and immoral? I'm not too sure. If you're using genetic engineering then you're playing God and that's a bit creepy to me at least, but if it's just selective breeding then maybe it's ok? Furry little creatures can still live happy and rich lives, I'm sure. And if you're taking good care of their needs, and they're happy to remain in the psychological state of a child (so they don't get their "own ideas" and become difficult), then they should be perfectly happy with their position of servitude - just like a well cared for pet.

I know this looks a bit ridiculous, but something tells me it's going to happen anyway - in time. Why wouldn't it? It's more than possible, and if we're going the way of eugenics then shouldn't we be breeding for what is practical?

Physical human expansion:

Nuclear energy, or free energy systems, will allow humanity (and life in general) to migrate underground. Underground human life can be exceptionally efficient and provide for the sustainable expansion of our species into the 100 billions or even trillions over the very long term. Once you can tunnel and provide artificial light for cheap, via free energy, you can expand underground almost indefinitely. I feel confident that free-energy systems are real and are being suppressed by vested interests today.

But when should humanity move underground? It could do so after it has specified how much it wants to "intrude" on the natural (surface) world. Maybe 50% of the Earths forests should be left alone?

As humans develop their ability to live underground, in artificial eco-systems, they can and then will eventually migrate to other planets when required, boring into them and settling there like termites. Once you've got the essential minerals and a sustainable energy source, the universe really can be your oyster, so to speak. Leaving the earth is not hard once you replace the first two stages of rocket propulsion with electromagnetic rail-guns and ram-jets, and robotics allows for the easy mining of any other planet. And has the U.S military already got anti-gravity?

Conclusion:

Yes - very geeky. But quite realistic still, and if you're trying to think 200+ year time-lines then this is how you must think. And indeed, everything I have suggested, as a long term plan, we know we can already achieve given the current technology base.

If we are to be driven by some incredible long-term agenda, as my reasoning suggests we might be, then one thing we must absolutely insist on is the steadfast respect for life, especially human life. As soon as you develop an agenda that compromises the value of human life you create the foundation for the sickest of people to gain power and domination. Standards must be maintained, and it is indeed totally unnecessary to compromise the well-being of human life; other than, at worst, forced sterilisations.

My "vision" is based on my own "religion" which is the value of life, as life being the ultimate value in itself. Life, as a body, should be allowed to expand, and that should be our goal - indefinite expansion.

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Addition 8-6-11:

A thought:

When thinking about creating my hypothetical servant people, I basically put myself in the position of a sociopathic control freak. It's interesting, because from here I thought that if you were to have a breed of humans who are specifically designed for servitude, then you wouldn't want them getting rooted into natural families. As you might intuitively guess, this would probably lead to a kind of resistance to management. You can imagine them digging their heels in to changes that they might experience as disruptive, to their families, of which they would defend before anything. So how do get around this?

According to Alan Watt, the global Elite have for many years been attacking the family unit. They have apparently done so by: providing welfare systems that remove dependency on the father, including the wider family structure, while at the same time aggressively promoting promiscuity through the media, and also promoting the so-called woman's liberation movement so to ensure the state gets the kids in pre-school for a time, because Mum has to go out to work. The result being: fragmented families from poor or no pair-bonding, solo mothering, state financial dependency and the state part-taking over childrearing at ever earlier ages. Watt claims that this was all carefully planned and totally deliberate for the sake of taking down the traditional family unit, and for the goal for extreme centralisation.

Watt's assertion is interesting (and the effect is certainly real), but I don't think you have to fragment the family to achieve the centralisation goal. I think it could be more effective to create a culture where the state simply teaches young people how to bring up their children. The effect? If successful, parents will come to see themselves (and effectively be) agents of the state in childrearing. They can be conditioned to see the state as the higher authority - the father above the father. Likewise, if you can imprint this relationship (which is what all that education would really be about*), you could then easily manage the families as the state operationally becomes the family head. Hence, people and their families can be easily managed. It would just be a matter of 'updating' their education.

Aldous Huxley said he could see a Brave New World scenario developing (which is what I am basically talking about here) simply because it's such an efficient form of slavery. He is right. If people come to love their servitude by loving the state, and seeing the state as the inherently superior authority, then they will indeed be wilful slaves to it. And there's no more efficient may to maintain a slave-relationship than to have them actually want to be one!

*Interestingly, John Taylor Gatto claimed that the real purpose of forced government schooling is to teach people their place i.e. You are the child, the State (or "great society") is the father. [My words] Children don't rebel - or never seriously. They just have hissy fits at the most. Maybe the Elite are already ahead of me?

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Addition 17-6-11:

How far has the American military gone?

We know that the American military has done horror story experiments on its own soldiers, so as to test new forms of weaponry. We also know that millions of people have been killed by the military for reasons that have nothing to do with defence or humanitarian idealism.

My point? The military, at its higher levels at least, is driven by a psychology that is different to what we recognise as normal. It is psychopathically pragmatic. It considers its soldiers (and probably other personnel) to be mere biological sub-components of its war machine, and as dispensable as any other.

Now, if this is the case, as it seems to be, then we can ask ourselves: "How far has the US military gone with respect to breeding human soldiers for desired characteristics?" It's a good question because it's hard to believe they would have any qualms about breeding humans. Their deeds have already shown us that much.

I for one would not be surprised if the US military had developed underground bases (probably massive) to support and advance 100% secret breeding programmes for soldiers and other types of useful humans. Again, why wouldn't they? They spend fortunes developing machines, so why not their personnel too? Curious thought!

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Addition 26-6-11:

Dangerous knowledge?

We know that the military uses advanced psychological profiling for the purpose of positioning their own staff, and we know that they would have in turn been studying (and will continue to study) the human animal exhaustively. The latter is obviously required for ever more accurate profiling for the purpose of making people ever more predictable. Like I expressed earlier, it comes back to that institutionalised relationship to military personnel as just biological sub-components of the war machine, so reason tells us that we must have been studied to the maximum because it only makes sense to do so.

So, how far has the military's knowledge of humans advanced, and who has access to this knowledge and how is it being used? More curious thoughts, because if your war machine comes to know and understand people down to extraordinary detail (and it probably does/has) then that is incredibly dangerous power - if put in the wrong hands.

Alan Watt claims that human nature (and the nature of human 'types') has indeed been studied for eons, and as I have expressed in earlier posts his assertion makes good sense to me. You will probably find the most fascinating studies on homo-sapiens within the U.S military today, especially considering the kind of analysis that can be achieved with modern tools such as EEG and MRI machines, etc. Hmmm...Time to get creeped out by the fact that the military gives Hollywood little backhands to tweak their movies? And also remember that the military was the inventor of kill-everything-that-moves video games. Oh - and the inventor of what we call schooling (that's going right back to Prussian times).

President Eisenhower stated in a major speech that American's should be absolutely wary of what their military industrial complex was (or could) turn into. The more I reflect on it the more his warnings sound like very, very good advice. It's hard to see how anything could stop the military-industrial complex's expansion and eventual domination, if that were to be its agenda. If you can predict all cause-to-effects, because you know humans so well, then if there is a way to achieve total domination then you will almost certainly find it - and securely so.

Are we being Militarised?

2011-05-14T21:52:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

I admit that the following is rather speculative, and I invite contributions. It's very much an 'open thinking' hypothesis. Nonetheless I believe what I write makes sense, and is consistent with what I have personally observed.

What is a Civilisation?

I think there are two basic kinds of civilisations: Civilisations based on resources and civilisations based on defense.

A civilisation that develops from resources would be an expression of concentrated development growing from an area of concentrated resources - so, the population just keeps on growing to a massive size because the resource base naturally permits it. A society like this is still tribal, as we are a tribal animal, only the many "tribes" that compose the civilisation are not rigidly geographically defined, nor explicitly intra-tribally dependant i.e. trade is intensive. I think this kind of civilisation is in essence what western civilisation has been for over the last hundred years or so, though less so today.

The other kind of civilisation is based on defense. In short, these are civilisations that are, basically, massive fortified communities. They can develop directly from threatened tribes joining together to form collective defenses (like the New Zealand Maori did, as I understand); or they can develop as a peaceful resource-based civilisation that later becomes threatened by external dangers, and in turn comes to develop the character of a militarised society.

The character of a militarised society:

The structure of a militarised society is heavily exaggerated centralisation and hierarchy.

In a militarised society conformity is king, hence the need for centralisation. A militarised society does not serve the individual but the collective; so, everyone must give up a major part of their productive life to the singular objective of collective defense. Hence, a militarised society is tax and compulsion heavy.

Understandably, a militarised society is rooted in fear (conscious and/or unconscious). I believe it must be otherwise people would abandon their civilisation for the outskirts, and develop their own non-militarised communities. There must always be the feeling of "barbarians at the gate", so to speak, otherwise your society will progressively disintegrate. A militarised society is not what people want if they feel they don't need it.

By default a militarised society does not and cannot represent freedom. It represents security.

The psychology of a militarised society:

Over generations a militarised society will become imprinted in the civilians as 'natural'.

People become belittled by their fears and look up to their hierarchies. They see people further up the ladder as 'above them' in substance. In other words, they believe in hierarchy on an emotional level (as opposed to just an operational formality) and so it becomes psychologically easy for them to know and conform to their place. They might believe that man is equal as a religious abstraction, but they will not actually feel that way. (In my view that is the essence of true hierarchy.)

This I believe is what happens when you have a mature, militarised society. Its operational mode of hierarchy becomes natural for people. But on the deepest of levels, it is still rooted in fear. Behind the parental (and/or scholastic) programming within a hierarchical society lies the emotional need to conform to that programming in the first place, and again that need will be rooted in fear. It's just like epigentic programming - scared parents pass on their fears to scared children. It's about efficient adaptation, and "programmed" parents always give their children a head start, whether they know it or not.

I do not believe that there is anything unnatural about a militarised society as such. It's a necessary adaptive condition demanded by tough circumstances. But it's certainly unnatural when you don't need it.

Are the powers-that-be creating an unnatural militarised society?

Orwell's movie, 1984, was an extreme expression of an artificially created militarised society. People were kept in fear of an enemy that did not really exist so as to create support for centralised control. But another example from Aldous Huxley's movie, Brave New World, was more interesting. Brave New World depicted a militarised society based in part on the fear of what everything would turn into if they lost their centralised control. You don't need barbarians at the gate as such - just something for everyone to be afraid of.

There's no doubt that the trend in western civilisation has been towards the militarisation of society. We're reeking of it more than ever. And I think the Brave New World model is what we are largely moving into, supported through government schooling especially, though artificial (or not?) fears are always being generated like in the 1984 movie.

It's a bit of a combination of both styles, I think. It's like schooling gives us our conditioning, and TV gives us our fears. We are constantly being spooked by terrorism, global warming, leaky nuclear power plants, etc, and the answer, as we are told, is always more centralisation, even global centralisation.

Why is this happening? I can only speculate. There are real threats, namely over-population. But the kind of threats that are real threats seem too long term for people to emotionally respond to today, so the controlling oligarchy is militarising us with artificial here-and-now threats instead, because they believe we won't centralise otherwise. But that's just a guess. Others would say it's just power-lord control-freakism, and that might be part of it too.

A better solution?

Let the world decentralise into non-defensive civilisations because no-one (in their non fear-ridden minds) wants to live in a Soviet Russia. But educate people into the factual, ultimate need for some centralised control due to the true long-term threats such as over-population and diabolical rouge states, etc. Or at least do this for people who can accept reason, responsibility and care about long-term sustainability. And people like that should be "created" by pulling the neurosis out of society, as I have talked about before.

A kind of WW3: Human management Versus individual liberty

2011-04-17T21:03:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

In standing back and taking an holistic view of this globe of ours, I can say that I think there are, basically, two opposing forces in our world that are driving public policy, and the formation of our future/s. One is the drive of the individual to live a prosperous and self-determined life, and the other is the need for those individuals to be managed; and yes, managed somewhat like an animal.

So which of the sides are the goodies and badies? Neither, I believe. The scientifically-orientated minds that are driving much of our public policy today (as I believe) are bound to be serious realists. They will know that population control must be a necessity, in time. They will know that humans are not above natural law (and so there will be a price to pay for providing support for the 'weak' to reproduce, over the long term). They will know that there are millions of corporate psychopaths out there itching for the opportunity to grasp power. They will know that child abuse is the true great social problem of our time. And they will know that the world we are developing is becoming ever more volatile with respect to its capacity for self-obliteration.

My point? I'm afraid us humans need to be managed, at least to some degree. Up to a point, having contempt for democracy can be the right position to take, all depending on the populace's capacity to be realistic and reasonable.

I have spoken specifically about this before:

Optimum Sustainability

The difference between me and "camp libertarianism"

Am I a tyrant?

The value of world government

The libertarian position is respectable. Everyone in principle should have a self-determined life, have the fair opportunity for prosperity, and have the state out of their face and off their backs to the greatest degree possible/reasonable. But you can't make a religion out of this truth. Freedom and self-determination can still only exist within the boundaries of what is workable, for both the short and long term. Hard truths must come even before democracy.

Now because of this, if I was to engage in and/or develop a political party I would insist on one key top-down policy: Reproduction licences.

With reproduction licenses we can develop the most most humane, efficient and effective form of "third way" position between libertarianism and human management. We can calmly solve the problem of population control, negative eugenics, and even serious child abuse by direct prior-screening for parents, and regulating reproductive quantities.

If the public can accept the "great intrusion" of reproduction licences, then we can remove the controls on so many other levels. We can get rid of compulsory schooling as we know it, we can get rid of [deliberately?] engineered hardship, and we can let people live where and how they want.

But what if people can't come to accept this? What if they insist on having as many children as they want, regardless of developing resource scarcities, and even if they are a total psychological/biological mess themselves? Then that is the point where I for one would say "screw democracy". Because then only an arrogant and maybe even brutal world government could save us from ourselves.

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Addition: 25-4-11

It appears I have an open seconder, Professor David Marsland. He also makes my key points, and very well.

Reader, if our domestic society was built with glass walls, then I would say 98% of the opponents to people like David Marsland and myself would seriously reconsider their views. If you could directly see the black hell that tens of thousands of children are (unnecessarily) born into, you would probably come to appreciate that there's a place for the intelligent application of reproduction licences.

Time to put away your faith: The government is not your friend.

2011-03-12T20:38:00.000-08:00

Andrew D Atkin.

Being a good citisen does not mean being obedient to your government, as such. It means being critical of it. It means doing your bit to help keep your nations government straight.

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I think that it's perfectly natural for people to have no interest in social policy as such when they are under pressure. That is, I think it's natural for people to operate on faith that their governments have their personal interests at heart, and that corruption exists only at the peripheries, not the core. At least it's natural if they also have received enough suggestion that this is in fact so, and again if they have other pressing concerns to be occupied with.

All of us have to take at least some things on faith, in part because we have to get on with our lives - namely, bringing up the next generation. People are not so much stupid when it comes to social policy, they are just busy. All of us are more ignorant than informed: Again because we have to be, to function, and to get on with our primary role of reproduction.

However, social policy is now responsible for a MASSIVE part of our lives, in New Zealand and virtually every other country too. We have a government that takes over 50% of our incomes via tax so as to direct and regulate the nature of our production and consumption. They also control the development of your children via compulsion schooling (at ever younger ages). They heavily regulate your gross income by regulating the labour markets. They control your health systems, and largely the quality (or lack of) of your foods. And so much more. Modern government has become incredibly pervasive.

So how can we justify being glib in relation to social policy? Ignorance is understandable when it relates to things that should not be a priority for our attention, but given the fact that New Zealand could now be described as a socialist state (or very close to it) shouldn't we be finding the time to focus on what our governments are and are not doing? Shouldn't this now be a critical topic for everyone?

It's ironic, but the bigger New Zealand's government has become the more indifferent the people have become to it. (That is, indifferent in terms of critical review, not just "where's my hand-out?"). The opposite should be the truth. The bigger your government is the more it should be under your microscope.

So where has this blind faith come from? I think propaganda within schools and the media must be a part of it. Topics of the type published on my blog, for example, are kept away from children. And we are all fed the impression that at base the government is our friend, and that corruption only really exists on the level of a few ministers being a bit naughty with happy-time credit cards, etc.

Wake-up calls:

Well, there are two giant policies that I am very familiar with that have forced me to question the idea that the government/s is my friend. Education and city planning. There are others of course but for now I will just focus on these.

Schooling:

Here is the fact: Alternative schooling (in its many forms) has proven beyond a doubt that children do not need to be institutionalised in an expensive, inefficient government-controlled structure for children to master the basics and more. In fact children consistently learn better in alternatives, even in relation to what can be measured.

You could argue that the government should impose compulsions on some parents/children, but only on an innocent-until-proven-guilty basis, and only in response to gross developmental problems. But there is no argument to justify the government controlling the development of your children outright as they do today, at least no argument that the public should accept.

I know this. John Key knows this. And many well-informed others on this topic know it too. Yet government controlled schooling isn't going anywhere. We are getting ever more of it. So what does this mean? Special interests control our government? Maybe. But if special interests can pull off something as extreme as compulsion-schooling then your government is clearly not your government. (Maybe I should change my post title to "Your special interests are not your friend"?)

Education is not a "little" policy. It's deeply formative on both the individual and our society. In fact this policy alone is so big and our governments relationship to it so unacceptable, that alone it should make you question whether the government is your friend.

Urban Planning:

Take an intelligent, non paid-off individual who is first agnostic on the issue of forced-intensification (Forced intensification = cramming people together into high-density cities whether they like it or not). Let those 'agnostics' hear the arguments for and against forced intensification, and they will almost certainly agree that it is a shocking social policy that should be outlawed as soon as possible. Forced intensification devastates housing affordability and for a negligible or even negative environmental gain. It suffocates economic development and is ruthlessly anti-egalitarian.

I know this, and so does the current government (in New Zealand). Will it be reversed? Why was it allowed to happen in the first place? It has been going on for over 10 years now and I have yet to see any serious shot-across-the-bow on this issue from our government.

This is a another very big social policy that indicates that the government is far from our friend.

Conclusion:

The government has made so many people so poor over the years, that people just don't have the time to see who exactly is whipping their backs, and why*. They are fed rubbishy face-value impressions from the schools and media, and they generally come to believe in those impressions because it takes just too much time and energy (for them) to otherwise study a little further.

People have been taught that it's ok to have essential faith in their government and all the institutes that revolve around it, because they are apparently only there to take care of you. I would like to believe this too, but it's not real. I have provided two substantial examples in this post that should indicate to rational people that they should worry about their government, or worry about whoever or whatever is maybe controlling it. Sadly, the government is clearly not your friend.

So if the government is not representing you, and is instead consistently employing strange (and drastic) policies that can't make sense, then what on earth is it doing exactly, and why? One interesting possibility is that there's a government behind our government/s driving an agenda through our governments [In short: The UN rules the world and they know what they want it to look like]. The idea being that our politicians are just mouthpieces and our public servants are just bureau-goons for an order from above...if you dare to entertain a conspiracy theorist.

So how do you escape a government that does not represent you?

Only answer in my opinion: Extreme (as in down to 5,000 to 10,000 pop units) governmental and economic decentralisation. Most power needs to be concentrated in a government that you can get your hands on, so to speak.

The more distant your government the less it will care about you. A "big government" within a "big society" becomes a society unto itself (classing). Their official role of representation at base becomes only an abstraction. On a socio-emotional level, the "little people" will hardly even exist to them. You might as well be Africans living in a far-away distant tribe.

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*You've got double-income families that can barely afford to bring up two children without government assistance. Four decades ago, you could bring up 4+ children with only Dad bringing home the bacon. (My grandfather was a schoolteacher and managed to support his wife plus 8 kids - and they all got fat from eating too much pudding).

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Addition: 28-3-11

Very recently, as I understand, New Zealand's central government has insisted that the Auckland super city provide evidence-based research, for if it wants the national government to financially support its programmes, such as rail investment.

This is actually the least of what the central government should be doing, but their move is being touted as a shot-across-the-bow to Auckland's council.

I can agree, at least, that the current National government has thus far shown far less enthusiasm for the idea of forced-intensification than the previous Labour government. But we will see. Policy-unspecific words on paper don't mean much in themselves. "Demanding evidence" doesn't tell us what evidence will finally be accepted.

Also, if it is true that New Zealand's social and economic policy is primarily driven by the United Nations, then this "battle" between central and local government will be a show. And if so, then the predetermined winner will be Smart Growth because smart growth is UN policy. And likewise, if this is the case, central government will come to accept "evidence" for the desirability of forced-intensification and its accompanying rail-based development, as provided by the super city's council, because that would be the agenda from above. Who knows(?).

(And they would do so in the same way that they [seem to have] accepted evidence on climate change as provided by the demonstrably corrupt and politically-driven IPCC.)

But it's too soon to judge as to whether or not this will just be a show. A false validation may make the status quo even more irreversible. We will see.

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Addition: 10-7-11:

The argument against what I have written about governments not being your friend relates to the idea that governments are only responding to what the public believes it wants. This is true but only up to a point. If a government knows that the public are ignorant on a given issue, then why don't they take the opportunity to help educate them, over time? Why don't they teach real economics in schools, and other things that kids should learn about to make something of a competent vote?

And why do we see the same nonsense policies being introduced all over the developed world? And why are we constantly being subject to false debates that confuse what are actually [otherwise] very clear issues?

Something bigger is going on. I am becoming ever more convinced that it's all about human management - not democratic representation.

Breaking New Zealand out of the economic doldrums: An idea.

2011-02-26T18:07:00.000-08:00

Andrew D Atkin.

The popular issue in my home country today seems to be: "How do we get the New Zealand economy to really grow?"

Well, what New Zealand needs to do is focus on capitalising on its natural advantages. New Zealand has the ability to develop and sell lifestyle property developments to a global market that are second to none. The far-reaching value of this could be revolutionary to the nations development.

Here is how it can be done, and in my view how it should be done. It's an idea that I have preached for some time, but I would like to provide a condensed vision (and a condensed explanation) with a specific model that should give some food for thought.

As follows:

New Zealand's (potential) resort-type lifestyle property developments are worth as much as they are accessible. In short, this means New Zealand could dramatically increase the value of its developable land if it can also increase the performance and efficiency of its/a transport system, and of course its telecommunications systems.

No comment needs to be made for modern telecommunications, but the ULTra PRT system (or similar) provides new opportunities especially applicable to future property development in New Zealand.

The ULTra PRT system:

In short, ULTra is a PRT (personal rapid transit) system that I have long believed has vast potential for New Zealand property development.

ULTra is fully automated (no drivers) and operates with off-line stations so there is no start-stop operation along the route, making it particularly efficient for many applications. Riders only travel with people that they want to travel with - like a car. ULTra has finally been developed, and its first installation is Heathrow airport - ready for in-service operation.

Note: There would be some superficial changes in an ULTra system designed for residential and long-distance applications.

An "ULTra vision" for New Zealand:

The vision I have in mind [and to stress this is only a best-guess idea, for the sake of providing an example] is an ULTra-loop that runs from Auckland up around the northern coastline, and back again. The following image is self-explanatory. (Red = the proposed ULTra line. It crudely indicates where the mainline might go - supporting coastal property developments).

The northern part of New Zealand, in particular, has a beautiful climate, topography, and a vast interesting coastline. And virtually no nasties like chronic weather extremes, snakes, crocodiles, flying cockroaches etc. The soils are fertile and it's richly green. It is also close(ish) to Auckland - a modern city with a population of about 1.4 million.

Model ULTra installation for New Zealand:

For a long-distance installation you will need to make the roads double-laned each way, for the sake of total-system reliability. You need to be able to get a faulty vehicle off the mainline quickly.

The cars should be electrically powered with battery back-up so the vehicles can self-power when required. Most of the cars should be small 2-seaters, with some being larger multi-purpose vehicles. Other vehicles will be for freight.

An ULTra road will be much cheaper to construct than a traditional road because it is narrow, and supports a fraction of the load of a more typical road designed to accommodate trucks.

I would imagine a constant operating speed of about 80km/h which is energy-efficient, economical and very safe. High-speed bypass lines could always be built in the future if desired.

With corner-banking built into the ULTra road there would be almost no side-forces, making the system particularly comfortable for a New Zealand [hill-ridden] context. You don't need to drive and you can work or sleep on it.

The economic effect:

Obviously something like this would be developed over decades if it were to ever go ahead. But you hardly need to build a 1,000km ULTra line all at once to actualise, potentially, a substantial economic reaction.

What we can offer to the world is exceptionally cheap living (especially cheap housing) and in a resort-like environment which should be very attractive to a vast portion of the global market. And that spells: human resource magnet. Not only would you create demand supporting a boom in property development (goodbye recession) but you also lay a foundation that would be attractive to start-up companies that are not interested in paying out big wages to compensate for their staffs exaggerated living costs.

Note: Refer to Phil McDermotts piece relating to this. We need to realise that personal costs and company costs are ultimately linked - what you give/take from one hand must ultimately come out of the other. Artificially driving up living costs is no way to promote positive economic development.

What kind of growth?

Some industries will be dependant on very close access to a large city, such as Auckland. But many others will not, and many parts of others will not. The latent demand for just about any kind of industry located on my proposed ULTra line is as good as bottomless. New Zealand is tiny relative to our 6.5 billion-population world.

One good example is health: Gerald Celente, the famous trends forecaster, has recently said that anything to do with health will be a major growth industry in the future. How can you fault that? The industrialised world is getting older and sicker. Medical industries/services based along the ULTra line could provide an international service to a demand that we could never saturate. Remember cheap (yet high quality) living systems means that we can import good doctors and technicians etc, for less pay. And also ULTra-based hospitals (and other) can be built for much less than traditional hospitals. (I won't go into detail on this here, but with the ULTra system you can build out - not up).

And what would that be worth to the New Zealand locals, in direct terms? Well, I have a workmate who has been in real pain for months with a hernia that our public health system cannot yet afford to fix!

The list of opportunities goes on virtually forever. Here is the picture: What you are doing with my idea is creating a fertile "agar plate" for growth. If you give the global market a good reason to base their operations in New Zealand, then they will do so. What I believe I am proposing is the cheapest way for New Zealand to effectively do this. It's that simple.

I am talking about using new technology to capitalise on our natural advantages. This is how New Zealand can prosper in a globalised economy.

Environment:

I will keep it short. The ULTra system may use as little as 10% of the energy of standard cars, for a given distance traveled. ULTra paves over a negligible amount of land. The housing supported by the ULTra line can be based, say, 100-200 meters away from the beach and built in good taste (beauty before fashion!). "Sprawling" low-density housing tends to promote rich and diverse replantation. ULTra supports efficient access to local farms for minimal food-miles (and top-quality food).

The black status quo:

If you like my vision then you are most certainly not going to like the Auckland Super City's vision. Theirs is a vision of forced urban intensification - the direct opposite of what I have proposed.

It's an institutionally embedded ideological vision that would be thrown out of an honest court of law in less than 15 minutes, because its premises are so weak. Sadly that court does not exist - only a few decades of anti-sprawl propaganda. (The type of propaganda that makes people subconsciously assume that New Zealand is 20% urbanised, rather than 0.7% urbanised. The latter of course being the truth).

Please see my "Smart growth?" article to find out what's killing Auckland and New Zealand today.

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Addition: 28-2-11

Here are some images of the Northern coastline (that I ripped off the internet) typical of New Zealand, to give non-Kiwi's a feel for what the country is like.

There is nothing "barren" about a typical New Zealand coastline. The landscape is just too broken up.

And the Auckland Super City's vision is more akin to the following...

And that wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't forced. The Super City will have Aucklander's living in this vision, whether they like it or not.

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Update: 02-11-11

Here is another transport system which I have long believed has serious potential - SkyTran.

SkyTran is moving forward rapidly in its development as the following video suggests. It could represent the cheapest (in terms of infrastructure) and certainly most energy-efficient way to integrate the northern coasline with Auckland, as my prior image indicates. It certainly wouldn't do everything (it doesn't need to), but as a general support system it can drastically improve the efficiency and feasibility of mass-coastal development in New Zealand.

I can appreciate that PRT systems like ULTra may be made largely redundant with the development of full-automation technology in cars (these technologies are moving forward so quickly!). If this is the case, then systems such as ULTra may be applied mainly to special applications for new townships that want to eliminate cars from their immediate area; that is, used for facilitating resort-style property developments.

Should we be screening for Psychopathy?

2011-02-12T14:23:00.000-08:00

Andrew D Atkin:

It is estimated that 0.5% of woman and 2% of men are psychopaths.

Take a look at America. They're zapping people with (arguably) dangerous scanners at airports because a given passenger might be a threat to the public. Fair enough? Maybe. But going by history, statistics and still our present, we must admit that the most profound public threat is and has been governments - not individuals or isolated groups of individuals. Governments are where the most incredible and vast acts of terrorism have typically come from.

So where are the controls to protect the public from the threat of the wrong hands acquiring great power? Where are those "political scanners" for the public interest, and who can argue that it does not make sense to employ them?

Well, it looks like we now have the tools to clinically recognise psychopaths, whether those psychopaths want to be recognised or not. Modern research using advanced brain scans has shown that there are distinct differences between a psychopaths brain and a normals. But first let's review what a psychopath actually is:

What is a psychopath?

The type of psychopaths that we should be focusing on are corporate psychopaths, as they have been termed. These are people who do not care about others to a "reptilian" extreme, are fake, manipulative, diabolically self-serving, but are people who do not tend to end up in prison due to their intelligence and self-control.

Corporate psychopaths can actually be worse than the types you will find in prison because they are particularly good at obtaining power; and, eventually, being highly destructive from their positions of power.

The characteristics I highlighted have been directly correlated to distinct differences within the function and structure of the brain. Psychopathy runs way deeper than just an imperfect upbringing. It has a genetic base, and probably a major epigenetic base (epigenetic = genetic 'switching' via the womb environment).

This is why psychopathy is basically incurable. The damage is just far too primary for existing therapies to reach. When someone's neurophysiology makes it truly impossible for them to care about others there is only so much you can (and can't) do. A psychopath couldn't care even if he wanted to. Again, that is how deep-set the damage is.

As I personally see it, psychopathy is a kind of socio-emotional autism. The psychopath experiences no emotional meaning in being a "part of" and "with" other people. Indeed, findings have suggested that their mirror neurons are dysfunctional. Mirror neurons are an essential part of our capacity to understand and relate to others on an interpersonal level.

The following is a great little documentary "I, Psychopath" which can give the reader a feel for what a corporate psychopath can be like:

Why are corporate psychopaths good at obtaining power?

Because they're living in a chess game might be a good answer. Psychopaths are happy to do whatever they can to win. They are the personification of ruthlessness. They can also be very cunning as they can (and do) naturally think of strategies that normals would never consider (due to morality). So the psychopath sees and exploits more opportunity.

In a competitive world the intelligent psychopath can be extremely competitive. That is the problem. Remember it's hard to win an election by telling people the truth. The psychopath can warmly lie to your face, much too easily.

Screening? Yes!

The USA's political system was built in a manner specifically to protect against corruption. The founders were realistic about the fact that the highest of places tend to attract the lowest of people, so they created a governmental organisation based on the separation of powers*.

This is the kind of thinking we need today. We need to stop wasting time throwing eggs at rotten politicians, and instead create controls to stop them from becoming politicians in the first place.

Sophisticated psychological profiling moves in this direction. We need to make it uncompetitive to be a psychopath, and luckily now we can. All prospective politicians should be expected to go through psychological testing, and their profiles should be made public via the Internet. Yes, this is intrusive somewhat, but it's a price that they should be expected to pay considering the importance of their positions.

Psychological testing for teachers and fireman has already been introduced in some parts of the world. See here for an excellent article on this.

Not just politicians?

Personally I do not think that New Zealand's political scene is overrun with psychopaths. Speaking intuitively, I think you would be more inclined to find them hidden away in your bureaucracies.

I believe that psychopathic testing should be applied to powerful public servants, and it should be applied to powerful players in the private sector as well. Basically, once an individuals official influence reaches a certain substantial level, they should have to accept open psychological testing.

Conclusion:

Though psychopathy is a particularly nasty problem, it is certainly not the only one. There are also the problems of zealotry and group-think - more "normal" problems that virtually all of us suffer from to given degrees.

If we can somehow screen for other concerns for a more complete profile, then that would be a good idea too. But again, psychopathy is a particularly dangerous attribute that we should definitely go out of our way to look for, using compulsory testing.

27-6-11: An involved letter was sent to me responding to this post. I gave it a dedicated post here.

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*Unfortunately it seems to be breaking down today because those 'separate' powers are getting ever more infiltrated by the same corrupt interests. So the separation is becoming cosmetic, so to speak.

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Addition: 21-2-11:

Tyrants:

Imagine walking up to a new born baby and shooting it in the head, in front of the mother, and just to let everyone know who's boss. Obviously this unimaginable vulgarity takes either pure psychopathy or extreme insanity. But it's the sort of thing that goes on where psychopathic dictators have been in charge.

Psychopaths are everywhere, but usually we don't get to see them acting-out North Korea style. But that is only because psychopaths need power to be visible. The successful psychopath is not self-destructive.

In our society we have created intensely strong behavioural social pressures that allow us to live in the illusion of our "civil society". It's a dangerous illusion, because we can (and do) start to believe in the fairytale that everyone is such a lovely person...because we don't get to see what that "lovely person" is doing to their children, in their own home. That is, we don't get to see them when they have the opportunity to be the tyrants that they might very well be.

If you give someone the opportunity to treat an entire nation like they do their children, then they will do it. They will do it because scaling up the game does not change it - they are the same subjective psychology, living in the same psychological world. Power only exposes corruption - it does not create it.

Again, the tyrannical parent who ruthlessly rules over his 4 children with that absolute feeling of entitlement will do just the same to 4 million, if given the chance.

You can see my point. It is more than important to create controls to block psychopaths from positions of serious power. The latency for tyranny is just too real and prevalent. Even if we can't see it directly it is everywhere. Go by the child abuse statistics.

What is a Zealot? The relationship between repressed pain and beliefs.

2011-01-13T19:02:00.000-08:00

Andrew D Atkin

Note: To understand this article best you need to familiarise yourself with my: Understanding Mental Sickness.

My favourite psychologist, Dr Arthur Janov, recently wrote an interesting piece on "Conversion Experiences". I believe that conversion experiences, as described by Janov, give us a direct insight into the relationship between unconscious pain and beliefs.

As follows:

A 'conversion experience' can happen when an individual is in a state where their defense system is breaking down completely [Meaning: they are struggling tremendously to contain severe repressed pain imprinted from their early childhood and infancy]. They are basically at a point so low that they're fighting a full disintegration into psychosis. When their 'conversion experience' happens, they may see an image of Jesus (or whatever) and will then be shown a new 'path' and a new way of being, usually with a religious association. They have an hallucinogenic experience which restructures their focus, and their entire defence system.

So what's really going on with these people? With confidence, I can say that their minds have simply defaulted into a more ruthless defensive structure, because the old defensive structure was just not cutting it. (Is it not co-incidental that people who go through these 'conversion experiences' do so at the most desperate points in their lives?). Subjectively this transfer feels like a conversion into some kind of 'higher state'. But it is not an enlightenment, it is an hallucination. It is a psychotic event. The individual is driven further from reality - not closer to it.

But what's interesting is that conversion experiences work. And this, most importantly, shows us the tremendous power of beliefs to help repress pain.

So how exactly do beliefs repress pain?

We don't know exactly. But very rigidly held 'core' beliefs seem to facilitate a mental state where everything is "simplified". My best guess is that that 'simplicity' functions to stop the mind from wondering...that is, wondering into reflective territories that could trigger unconscious pain. Hence, the beliefs, in this way, would reinforce the secondary defense system (secondary defence system = the defence system that stops unconscious pain from being triggered).

Also, the new beliefs provide a new way for the 'converted' individual to see the world around them, and this in turn will serve to dissociate their minds from the real-life context linked to their (imprinted) pain. [Memories are always linked to context]. So, the new beliefs should basically facilitate a heightened form of escapism.

--Nothing spells-out the relationship between repressed pain and beliefs (or more specifically, the need to repress pain with beliefs) more transparently than conversion experiences.

Resistance to change:

With the conversion experience we can also see why certain people with rigidly held beliefs cannot change their minds, regardless of what information is presented to them. Imagine, for example, an individual who has previously gone through a conversion experience being (somehow) forced to realise that what they believed was nonsense. How would they react?..

You only have to remember why they formed their beliefs in the first place to know the answer to that. If they really could change their minds, then they would probably be thrown back to the very state that they were in just before they had their conversion experience - pre-psychosis. Hence, it's just not going to happen (and doesn't!).

The power of the beliefs will be proportional to the valence of the repressed pain that the beliefs are containing. If the individual does ultimately change their minds, then it will only be over a very, very long and delicate period of time - where they might switch from one defensive ideological structure to another.

Extreme brainwashing: A forced conversion experience?

I don't know much about the art of Orwell 1984-style brainwashing, but it looks a great deal like, basically, a forced conversion experience. The individuals defenses are weakened through incredible abuse and deprivation, and then from there they re-form their ideologies with the help of a psychopath.

So you can assume the individual is put into a state of pre-psychosis, and then from there has no choice but to embrace whatever defense they can to mentally escape the agony...and ultimately any belief structure will do, so long as the mind can escape into it and likewise away from the pain.

Normal brainwashing:

The conversion experience is dramatic, and it illuminates the from-A-to-B path towards embracing beliefs for defensive purposes.

But does such a dramatic path need to be taken, to employ beliefs into the service of blocking pain? I doubt it. People with massive unconscious pain can still simulate the end-product we see from conversion experiences, without going through the pre-psychotic phase. (And they can get there with the help of others, or by themselves). And I think these people are what you would recognise as your normal run-of-the-mill Zealots.

And you can see why they are dangerous in politics. Their beliefs aren't just beliefs - they are entire psycho-emotional "religions" for them. And likewise, you must assume their ideas/positions to be immune to serious reason. If they have the power, then you're going to get their "vision" whether you like it or not. Their ideas are not open to reconsideration.

The drive of a Zealot:

The belief structure is one dynamic, but the drive behind the beliefs (that motivates the individual to enforce their ideals) is the other. That is the primary defence system - the compulsion.

Compulsions are the "converted" energy coming from repressed pain. The more the repressed pain, the greater the compulsion. Again, refer to my Understanding mental sickness. I can't give a simple explanation on this here.

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Addition: 14-2-11:

Further on brainwashing:

It has long been my thinking that brainwashing is first an expression of the state of the individual, and not what others have done to that individual as such. I believe that if you can brainwash someone then that someone always was brainwashed. It's just that someone from the outside changed the ideological variables.

Take someone who has run away into a cult and "lost their minds". I would say their mind always was lost, it's just that the fact if it becomes obvious when they "mindlessly" internalise the ideation's of another [sub]culture. Our sanity shows not so much in what we believe, but our psychological relationship to what we believe.

So what's the difference between someone who can and can't be easily brainwashed? Pain! The more our ideologies are linked to our defences, and the more potent our defences are from the amount of pain they must contain, then the more rigidly we must stick to our ideologies/defences.

I made the point earlier that serious brainwashing begins with abuse. But the truth is, I believe, that all brainwashing begins with abuse. It's the powerful pains that occur within womb-life, birth and the first year or so of our lives in particular that must be avoided. This is the common "torture zone" that nearly all of us have to absorb, that in turn leads to ideology-escapism in our future.

The Global Warming Saga: A simple view on an over-complicated story.

2010-12-19T00:49:00.000-08:00

Andrew D Atkin

I have already written on this issue, but I think I can make a clear and simple 'master picture' which I would like to contribute.

As follows:

Nobody is arguing that an increase in CO2 will lead to some increase in average global temperatures, in itself. But it is only a very mild greenhouse gas. If we doubled the CO2 concentration in our atmosphere (from where it is now) we would get around a 0.5 to 1 degree Celsius increase in average global temperatures, which is benign and probably even eco-beneficial.

[Our world would support more plant growth overall if it were a little warmer than today, and CO2 is plant food. CO2 is literally (and vitally) an atmospheric fertiliser].

So where is the argument? How the apocalypse? The argument from the IPCC (Inter-Governmental panel on Climate Change) is based on the idea that the marginal increase in warming coming from an increase in CO2 will be amplified by positive-feedback; that is, a slight increase in warming will heavily snowball via reactive processes in the atmosphere, so that we end up with a temperature increase not just about a half a degree greater (from the CO2) but eventually more like 3 or 5 degrees greater (or more?).

If I may speak frankly...Bollocks! If it were true that the earth responds to marginal increases in temperature with a positive-feedback loop (or "snowball" for common language), then we would have already turned into a Venus countless times over from temperature variations that have always (and continuously) happened throughout our ecological history (variations in the suns output being maybe the most significant).

Small, common changes in temperature do not lead to major changes in climate. The medieval warm-period did not turn into a runaway greenhouse effect.

So where did the IPCC get its evidence from? How did it reach its 'weird' conclusions? It did so from computer models. They developed computer programmes that (they claimed) simulated the environment.

Straight off the mark we should be laughing. Because to even suggest you can *accurately* simulate the climate for over a long period of time is a nonsense. This is like claiming divine knowledge - that we don't have. To model the environment so as to simulate it you have to understand it explicitly and be able to measure it - with all the many, many variables accurately accounted for.

First, we just can't do that (yet). We can barely measure known climatic variables, let alone (fully) understand how they all work against each other (which is no doubt why there is still so much debate, research and theory within climate science today). And even if we could measure and account for all the climatic variables (so as to develop accurate long-range cybernetic simulators) we would still require enormous long-term testing so as to develop a simulator that has a reasonable accuracy.

To believe that the IPCC has a "from the God's" cybernetic crystal-ball is one hell of a stretch.

Addition: 30-7-11: Here is an article that appears to vindicate my assertions. You will notice they're talking real world data - not computer models. The former answers to the latter, not the other way around. Models are the guess - real world measurements are the fact.

Conclusion

My conclusion is that we cannot take the computer models seriously. And also, the simple fact that trivial temperature variations (that happen all the time) do not lead to runaway-greenhouse effects suggests the obvious: that the IPCC is a political organisation established to achieve a political end. And an end that has nothing (nor ever did have anything) to do with saving the world from global warming.

Here is a relevant article by Lord Christopher Monckton, probably much more relevant than what I have just written:

Abdication of the West at COP16 Cancun, Mexico

And finally, people like Richard Lindzen (people who study direct measurements of climate - not people who pretend to believe in garbage-in/garbage-out computer simulators) have (supposedly) discovered that the climate is in fact a negative-feedback system (like a natural governor that tends to keep things constant). The latter is far more believable to me, because it would explain the relative stability of our climate in response to normal temperature variations.

Congestion charging? Yes!

2010-12-13T00:03:00.000-08:00

Andrew D Atkin

The principle:

Let's say you started up a coffee shop in town and it proved to be super popular, because unlike the rest of New Zealand you understood the importance of quality-control when it comes to food. So, likewise, you then end up with more demand than you can supply. So what do you do?

You can either actively control (reduce) the demand by pushing up your prices, or you can let the demand manage itself (passively) by allowing big queues to form out your door (so with the queue your customers pay not with more cash, but with their time). Those are your two choices.

From a macro-economic outlook, using queues to control demand is wasteful; because, of course, "human resources" are left standing idle when they could have otherwise been producing (or whatever).

The economy will be richer overall if your coffee shop just increases its price to control the demand. Indeed, I believe that queues, at base, are just an expression of miss-pricing.

Roads:

It's funny how people blame roads for congestion as though they are the problem in themselves. To me, that's a bit like blaming a coffee shop for creating a queue--So get rid of the good coffee shop?

Road congestion is basically just another queue - a queue of cars lining-up to use a popular road. It's a particularly expensive queue because it wastes a heck of a lot of fuel and wears out your car, as well as wasting your time.

Road congestion exists, of course, because it can be too difficult or expensive to build enough supply (more roads) and/or because the public will not accept demand-control for roads via pricing (aka congestion-charging).

Well, this is something that we urgently need to revise, especially for in a city like Auckland.

As follows:

The days of stopping for cumbersome toll-gates are gone. We can precisely and adaptively (adaptively = rapidly changing prices to suit immediate demand) price the roads anywhere and at any time.

Cameras can be set up to read your licence plate when you enter and exist a toll-road, and the administrative process can be fully automated. You can even option for direct-debit from your bank account and have the toll-bill sent to you via email.

We can go further than this still. If we employ a passive RF-tag on all cars integrated with a GPS system then we can abandon the cameras altogether, and people can review costs for going anywhere via the internet, using a real-time 'toll map'.

Sound expensive? Well, the money collected from tolling doesn't just disappear - it will be used to pay your rates. What the council doesn't get from tolls it will get from other means. So, congestion-charging isn't so much another cost, it's basically just demand-control. And you will of course save a lot of money from not having to idle your car nor waste your time in that queue.

The reaction:

If roads are tolled adequately enough so as to get rid of congestion, then the less affluent will tend be more careful with how they drive (or not). You will see an increase in demand for buses, car-pooling, and integrated trips (during peak demand time, at least). You will also see more telecommuting.

But travel will be much easier and more rapid alround, products will be cheaper to buy (because you don't pay more via the mark-up to cover excessive freight costs), and although you will get a toll-bill it will be met with a relative reduction in rates. Again, the money does not just disappear.

You should also get a notable increase in economic productivity, not only from the reduced (total) transport costs, but because un-congested roads can greatly improve accessibility between businesses and customers, providing for some improved economic integration*.

*Note: Some researchers claim that greatly increasing urban density will achieve this effect. I doubt it. The reader might like to review Phil McDermott's piece on this issue:

Are we being a bit dense about productivity?

Congestion-charging Versus Tolling:

By my definition, congestion-charging is where you only toll enough so as to control congestion. Contrasting, straight tolling is based on maximising revenue.

Where congestion-charging is employed you will often see no toll during the off-peak times (because you just don't need it because there's no congestion to battle anyway), whereas there will always be a toll where revenue-based tolling is employed.

I prefer congestion-charging because it provides for the full utilisation of the road, and therefore maximises its productivity. With revenue-based tolling you end up pushing people off the road for even when there is a surplus of capacity.

Political resistance:

It was my prediction from a few years back that the ARC would resist investment in congestion-charging. Why? Because they have their Smart Growth vision and it just won't go away. And that is a vision of a high-density Auckland with concentrated development built up around the railway line...

The (then) ARC knows as well as I do that trains can't compete (on any level) with buses operating on congestion-free roads; and so they would have huge difficulty (as they do already) justifying wasting billions of dollars on their Smart Growth/rail visions ahead of the bus (and other) options, if rational congestion-charging were to be employed. So they want roads sick - not healthy.

And so far my prediction seems to be holding up. Alas, visionaries are simple thinkers: Something is either consistent (and therefore 'good') or inconsistent (and therefore 'bad') with their end-goal visions. Period.

The other resistance is trying to sell congestion-charging to the public who tend to only see an extra bill being presented to them. What can I say?

People, it's just so silly to use queues to control demand. Ultimately, you only end up paying more!

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Addition: 14-2-11

Public-Private Partnerships?

I am suspicious about the use of public-private partnerships (PPP's) in roading investment, because I don't know how it may affect the (toll-based) business model.

Will a government operating under a PPP be forced to operate a revenue-based model, and therefore employ traditional tolling rather than congestion-charging? If so, then it might be best to just stick to public funding for roads, at least for roads that are essential for the national interest. (And if the roads are in fact essential, then that would mean there is no effective investment-risk, and so the government would in turn have no good reason to have the private sector as a part-owner regardless...to share what risk?)

As I explained earlier, revenue-based tolling reduces productivity because it reduces the utilisation of the road. Though the revenue from the toll-road would be increased, the productivity of the road will be reduced. And productivity is what we're after - not a money-go-round.

The private sector is of course exclusively focused on their bottom-line. The [non-monetised] social value of their operation means nothing, and because of this they can sometimes be inefficient and wasteful with respect to an ultimate social advantage. When this is the case, there can be a good argument for direct and maybe exclusive government involvement. Roads may be an example of this.

Am I a Tyrant?

2010-11-28T00:57:00.000-08:00

Andrew D Atkin

A few days ago I had one of my 'scenario' thoughts, and wondered...If someone gave me the power to control the planet, then would I hand that power over for the sake of allowing a global democracy? The answer is no. I would keep the power to myself so as to force things to go the way I think they should go, whether others like it or not.

Why? Because I only trust democracy up to a point. I do not believe that people--nor corporations (and other) that manipulate people--can be trusted to make the right "big" decisions. And because we are now a massive world in terms of population, and now have potentially devastating power to destroy ourselves and our environment (via our technology and infrastructure), I would rather be a partial dictator for today simply to make sure that the worst (according to me) does not happen.

Hideously arrogant? Maybe. I would still do it though.

What exactly would I do?

I would introduce a system of reproduction licences to be employed globally. People will not be allowed to have children if they are in a messed-up state. The reproduction licences would also serve to control population when and as required.

Reproduction licences are the only thing I would specifically insist on, along with honesty and accountability in all aspects of social leadership. I would attack corruption on every level I can.

Other than that an "AndrewTopia" would be extremely prosperous, safe and free. It would protect people from the tyranny of bureaucrats and the raw power of money. It would also protect people from the "tyranny of the majority" which represent democracy at its worst.

It would be the end of occurrences such as the gulf oil spill and half the Amazon rainforest being destroyed for cheap meat etc. It would also be the end to true poverty (globally) within an incredibly short period of time - so easy to do.

My point:

If I can be this "arrogant" so as to claim ultimate power over the world, if I could, and in the name of my personal ideals, then can we expect a global elite to be any different? Would the reader be any different too?

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Addition: 31-12-10:

It's a curious thought, but if you're born into the position of a functioning elite--be what/who they may??--you would then be left with the inheritance of incredible responsibility, whether you like it or not...

Sure you have the power to hand control of your world back to the democratic process, but if you have that power you must then ask yourself if you should really do as such? You would have to be deathly realistic about the consequences of your actions/inactions, because in substantial part at least it will be on your head if that democracy becomes diabolical - because you were the one who had the power to stop it.

You would have to think: If I allow for a true global democracy, then is it realistic to believe that psychopaths (and there are literally MILLIONS of them out there) will not be attracted to power*, of whom could (and eventually would?) someday use and abuse their nations ever more potent weapons of mass destruction, and the like? Would those consequences be on your head, Mr Elite, if you relinquished your power?

Hmmm...the best way to understand someone is often to just put yourself in their position.

My Optimum Sustainability is relevant here.

*And psychopaths are terribly good at obtaining power due to their ruthlessness, and shameless capacity for false-fronts and manipulation.

Note: Population control and Eugenics:

As an elite, you would have to confront the issues of population control, at least eventually. And in turn you would have to confront the issues of eugenics, because you can't really have one without the other.

When you control who can have how many kids, you are then a eugenicist by default, because even maintaining the biological status quo is "unnatural", because you would then be suppressing the "normal" process of reproductive success and failure throughout the human world.

My point is that the conspiracy theorists might be right. Because if we do have a virtual-elite with master control over everything, then not only may we need it, but that elite may have no (ultimate) choice but to control population and in turn make eugenic decisions.

EDUCATION: A new model

2010-11-15T23:39:00.000-08:00

Andrew D Atkin

Who said that turning up to a class in a state-regulated institute, and then learning alongside 20+ others to a strictly prescribed schedule/system, was the optimum way to learn? We should remember that, to a significant degree, the only reason why education worked/works the way that it does today is because we once-upon-a-time never had the tools to make it work any differently. Different world! So how should education work today? What is the modern structural optimum?

With the internet as an information/lecture-base there is no need to regulate anyone's education to a given time or timeline - anyone can now learn anything, whenever they want. And there is also (mostly) no need for traditional classrooms, as demonstrated by home-schoolers and also unregulated home-schoolers (unregulated = no state control at all, which is still allowed to exist in some countries.)

Education should also be "organic". It should--because it now can--evolve with the individual. We should learn as we work, and learn what we need to learn as we need to learn it. Education should basically move much closer to the apprenticeship model which is inherently more efficient, because the material is learnt in relation to real-world experiences (and therefore not learnt in a superficial way) and you can (and do) cut back on an enormous amount of irrelevancy.

Most tertiary education should be for only about 6-12 months as an exclusive and preliminary occupation, and then from there the individual should learn alongside the development of their career.

What's more, the line between tertiary and secondary education should be blurred. I see no reason why secondary education cannot specialise closer to vocational training, for those who want it.

Role of the state?

Well, the best thing we can do is acknowledge that there is no need for the state to have any substantial involvement in education at all. Children have proven that they can efficiently learn the fundamentals without government prescriptions. And that's not an opinion, it's a demonstrated fact.

A good reference: Sudbury Valley School

However, there can still be a role for the government in that they could and should provide the basic architecture for an educational information service.

The following is an extract from my "Personal Public Policy Ideals" post, relating to education. I still feel very confident that I have the right model from a state-involvement perspective.

As follows:

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Education is the parents and students responsibility.

A child's development belongs to the child - not the state. If anyone has the right to regulate a child's education it is the parent.

Note: To interpret a child as a 'human resource' to be exploited by the state (for the national interest) is to take an extreme social-democratic position. The Liberal party absolutely opposes this outlook, within education in particular. Providing incentives to encourage people to become what would be most attractive for the national advantage can be acceptable in itself, depending on the circumstances. However, using actual compulsion for that objective (as though the state owns the child as their personal resource) most certainly is not.

-The government will test for basic literacy and numerical skills once children reach the age of 10 years. If a child fails the test, then government-compulsion may eventually be introduced for the child of concern. Primarily for the sake of the children, we need to ensure the universal development of these most fundamental skills.

Literacy and numerical skills are so fundamental and unambiguously necessary that the government could consider the neglect of the development of these skills a form of child abuse (though not extreme). Though government intrusion should be kept at a minimum, the government should still do a basic check on children's development, and ultimately take compulsory action if basic skills are not being actualised in reasonable time.

Note: Testing should begin from the age of about 10-12 years. The idea that children specifically need to start developing literacy and numerical skills at the very early ages of around 4-7 years is a proven myth. Children in alternative-education occasionally learn literacy and numerical skills from as late as about 10-13 years, and with sound competence and in good time (late-starting does not generally mean late-finishing). Parents and children should be able to prioritise other aspects of development before the ages of 10-12 years, if they wish. Children almost always learn a subject best when they are personally ready to apply themselves to it.

-The government will provide an internationally standardised testing/qualifications service for those who need formal recognition for their academic development. Individuals must pay for the testing/qualifying process, though only at cost price.

People should have to pay for the qualifications process because that is fair (a qualification is a professional asset) and we need to incentivise people to not bother sitting exams that they will probably fail.

-There is no prerequisite to sit any given test (other than financial payment). An achieved qualification will be dictated by the individuals ability to pass the prescribed test.

A qualification should represent exactly what it is meant to represent - knowledge and skill obtained. Not how, where or when you learned.

-The government will provide an extensive free-to-view educational resources provided online. (This resource may run into the hundreds of millions of dollars to initially develop.)

This provides open and free learning for all people [those seeking a qualification, information, or just satisfying or developing interests] for an almost negligible cost (once established).

The online multi-media format is an exceptionally efficient tool for educational learning, and it is still severely under-utilised. If the government provides a broad online service for free, then that would optimise productivity (by making the service more attractive and therefore more used) and eliminates most administrative costs. The resource should be progressively developed on the bases of critical user-feedback.

Net meeting: The online resource should also be integrated with direct links to relevant tutors, experts and consultants. This way students and professionals can get key information quickly and efficiently. An independent credit system should also be integrated with the site, so users can purchase professional services automatically (no cumbersome transactional processes). With the development of cheap broadband, it should also provide direct links to appropriate documentaries, for where relevant productions can be found.

-Though the state will remove itself from the tax-and-subsidy cycle within education as much as possible, the state will ensure that professional education is affordable for all New Zealand citizens.

As soon as the government hooks itself up to education via a tax-and-subsidy cycle, it takes then liberty to impose conditions to ensure that tax-payers money is "well spent". In turn the government inherits a controlling stake in education which can and does lead to intrusion.

Education for the young is an extremely sensitive (and highly ideological) territory, and indeed there is a lot of controversy associated with government-mandated learning systems today [learning systems that have more to do with mental-conditioning than academic learning]. My point is the room for violation of a child's autonomy and a parents rights through government-imposition is substantial and serious. The government should remove itself from the tax-and-subsidy cycle as much as possible for the immediate and long-term protection of children's and parent's rights.

Note: It pays to appreciate that the tests that we employ to measure educational achievement are based on subjectively-derived parameters, and even the tests themselves have an accuracy and meaning which is ultimately subjectively-interpreted. The science (research-based) that we have today only tells us how to get kids to perform on prescribed tests; it does not and cannot tell us what the tests (and therefore supporting curriculum) should actually be, nor what the tests ultimately represent. In other words, there is no such thing as an authority in education, at least not of the type that could justify prescriptive control over your child's development. It's important to understand that when you buy into someone else's standards in education, then you also, wittingly or not, buy into their subjective ideology. No one has scientific authority to define what somebody else's educational development should be, because correct or ideal educational development is impossible to define (non-subjectively) let alone measure. In a metaphorical nutshell: You can measure someone's ability to perform on an IQ test, but you can't measure their intelligence.

-Government educational establishments will not teach values on a compulsory bases.

It is not the place of the state to teach values, neither directly nor indirectly, excluding of course the most fundamental values which boil down to promoting and enforcing basic respect for others.

Values can ultimately be taught in schools, but only at the parents volition. This also applies to values relating to professional and life-balance priorities (it is for individuals to define for themselves what is 'success' or 'achievement' etc.), and even the value of academic education itself i.e. 'existential values' should also be respected as the student's own concern.

Tertiary education:

-The government will not differentiate between the tertiary sector and other educational sectors. Tertiary education subsidies will be reduced to only what is certainly required for the national economic advantage.

A tertiary student has no more right to demand "free" education than the tax-payer has the right to refuse to pay for it. However this position should not intimidate tertiary students. Tertiary education (like all education) does not need to cost much for students who are prepared to learn independently (or in independent study-groups).

-To win a qualification students only need to pay for the testing process. Contrary to the status quo, there will be no instituted forced-dependency on educational service-providers, and likewise there will be no forced-expenditure. Most educational programmes will be freely available online.

With the presented policies, most students will in fact have far greater freedom to learn in their own way and time, and ultimately at much lower personal cost relative to the way that they usually must learn today. And of course, when they enter the workforce they will not be paying (much) for other people's education through their taxes.

Early childhood education:

-There will be no specific policy relating general early childhood education. However, young children will be subject to compulsory periodic evaluation [possibly every 6 months for under 5 year-olds] to check for gross developmental problems and child abuse. Compulsory measures may ultimately be enforced if serious issues are identified.

EXTRACT ENDS:

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Funding note:

We are always being told that education should be "free". But as I like to say..."If eduction were free then we wouldn't have to pay for it out of our taxes". Obviously the 'free' mantra is nonsense employed to (apparently) justify state-funding and therefore state-control over children's educational development. The truth is we should relate to children's education in the same way that we relate to their other basic needs. The state should only step in and help out with funding (via the family support system) when it is actually required. Otherwise the government should give parents their tax dollars back, and basically butt out of it. We need to get rid of the manipulative word "free" and replace it with the genuine ideal of just "universal affordability".

But this is so obviously the right thing to do, is it not? So why doesn't education funding work like this already? A good answer is that we have a voting army of thousands of primary and secondary school teachers, not to mention the subsidised tertiary sector. The bigger the public service gets, the more politically difficult it becomes to reform it (ask France!).

And this is why the general public needs to stop passively listening to the (naturally) self-serving teaching profession, and likewise insist on the comprehensive destruction of their effective monopoly rights over children's education. It's only the right thing to do!

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Addition: 21-11-10:

The public never voted for government control over their education systems. Yet we have it and we (now) accept it. Most of us send our kids to this thing we call school to have their educational (and don't forget social*) lives dictated to by the state, and usually we allow this without even batting an eyelid over it.

In principle this situation is extraordinary, because education as we know it is, by default, a truly profound invasion on the individual by the state.

We have been successfully conditioned into believing (assuming) that it is naturally the way things should be. So what else have we been (or can we be) sucked into believing, over time? Who knows. Maybe just about anything?

*Social note: Is it not perverse that the state dictates so much your child's (non-family) social life, via forced associations/non-associations within the schools? More stuff that we surely should never have accepted?

May I be emotive?...The arrogance of any individual/organisation to believe that they have the right to control the parameters of your (and your child's) social life! To me, this current "normality" of government-directed forced-associations is actually quite disgusting.

Another thought: How much of this thing we call "peer pressure" ultimately revolves around the fact that a child cannot get away from those other people who may enforce conformity-conditions onto them that they would rather not have to tolerate, if only they had the choice? We talk so freely about the social pressures young people are subject to and the issues associated with it...So how about also talking about the people who create those (intrusive) social pressures in the first place?

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Addition: 12-6-11:

Real learning:

Imagine I got you to learn 100 different words and their meanings, and I then tested you with a test that required that you explain the meaning of each learned word presented to you. You then, say, got 100% of the meanings right.

But would this be an expression of an expanded vocabulary? No.

Your vocabulary is an expression of the words that you naturally use in conversation. They are the words that are learnt as opposed to just remembered. If you only remember the words, as isolated knowledge, then your learning is left sitting on a superficial and frankly useless level of your mind. Yes, that test score might say "100%", but it still only measures what it measures - words remembered, not learnt. Straight A's in bullshit is still bullshit.

With this simple example I'm making the point that every practical person intuitively knows: that you don't learn what you learn until you WORK WITH what you learn, and in a real and natural way. Until then your education will be impotent - not assimilated into your intellectual centre, where it can be applied.

And this is why, like I said earlier, education should evolve with the individual through the development of their career/s. It is far more efficient and effective. Both society and the individual would get so much more bang for their buck if we moved heavily towards the apprenticeship model, which we can now at last do.

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Addition: 15-12-11:

The importance of context in learning:

There was an interesting experiment in memory done many years ago, where a group of people were required learn a list of words underwater, with scuba gear. When the group was asked to recall the words on open land they did so poorly as compared to when they went back underwater, and recalled the words from there.

What this experiment showed us is that memory is context-based. When we recall something (that is not yet heavily reinforced) we effectively go back into the context that the original memory was laid down in, and from there we allow our brain to 'regurgitate' the recorded memories. So we go back to the context via imagination. This is what we do when we 'strain to remember' something.

Note: Hypnotism does the same thing, only the imagination--and likewise isolation from the present--is more comprehensive, and so the recall is more detailed and complete.*

I believe that the reason why we don't usually like learning in an academic context, and why most of us find it so tedious and painful, is because the academic context itself is (usually) just not real. So our brain resists it. On a pragmatic level we resist it for good reason; memories need to be linked to the real-world context to be properly retrieved and utilized. And indeed, when is academia interesting? When it is taught in a manner where the information is related to the real world that we know.

Again this reinforces my point that all learning should, as much as possible, evolve with the individual in their proper real-world context. We need to get out of the academic halls of ritualized bullshit and allow learning to become natural again - because we finally have the tools to do it!

*I am suspicious that the difference between someone who is academic and someone who is not is that the academic, psychologically speaking, can "make a home" out of the academic context itself.

I'm speculating, but like with hypnosis an academic disposition could be related to a kind of detachment whereby the mind does not have to compete with a real-world context, of which would otherwise demand the proper association of learned material. In other words, for some people the academic context is the real-world context.

Maybe this is why 'bookish' people often struggle to be practical, and are later dependent on an institutional context to function? They [literally] can't get their minds out of the books?

Are you Pregnant?

2010-11-05T22:54:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

Birth is a highly vulnerable time for a baby. It's a time when imperfections in delivery can (and will) have a severe or even profound long-term impact on the baby, due to traumatic imprinting. [See my Understanding Mental Sickness to learn about trauma-imprinting].

Birth in itself is not traumatic for a baby, but it so easily can be traumatic as things can too easily go wrong. Most of us have in fact received significant damage from a less-than-ideal birth, and the personal costs are more serious than we can realise.

Several years ago I gave the following recommendation to a pregnant friend of mine, to help optimise her birth. She had an excellent birth (about 3.5 hours in labour + no complications) and she was very happy with it.

Here was the formula:

1. Dim lights in the delivery room.

A baby's senses are 'tuned' differently to an adults so they can't moderate input like we can. They can be traumatised by "normal" input. [Refer to Frederick Leboyer's classic: "Birth without Violence"]

2. Keep the room quiet.

3. Warm room.

4. No drugs (unless you come to desperately need them).

The birthing process is governed by all kinds of hormones and chemical processes, switching important biological functions on and off. Because of this, drugs can directly interfere with the birthing process, and directly interfere with the baby's physiology as well.

A drugged baby's body cannot respond properly just as a drugged mothers can't. Reducing a baby's ability to adapt will only increase their exposure to damage. (Not to mention that the drugs are damaging in their own right). A relaxed, non drugged-up mother/baby is going to be less likely to need forceps and the like.

5. Natural delivery (no elective C-section).

A baby needs to be stimulated by contractions before coming into the world. Traumatic-imprinting from "canal deprivation" can lead to an [unnaturally] passive and phlegmatic personality.

Also, vaginal mucus is forced into a baby's stomach during natural birthing, which is apparently important for the development of the baby's immune system - a bit like breast feeding.

6. Get comfortable. (The doctors first take orders from you - not the other way around).

My friend told her doctors how she wanted her birth to be, and she said to them: "I don't want to be swearing at anyone (if they didn't do things her way) during my birth".

A bit of "I-will-make-life-difficult-for-you" can go a long way? As a precaution, I would probably make the same kind of statements myself. You don't want a doctor pulling the plug on your authority at the last minute.

7. Do not cut the umbilical cord until the baby is independently breathing.

Common sense?

8. The baby is to be handed over to (and put on) the mother immediately after birthing.

The ultimate social trauma = Remove a baby from its mother immediately after birth.

(This is like me opening up a hole into another universe and then throwing you into it).

9. The baby is to stay with the mother after birthing, for several hours at least.

It is a fact that complex attachments between mother and baby develop during this critical time, like they do for other mammals as well.

10. Maintain a calm and comfortable environment.

A newborn baby is no "protoplasm". This is when/where they need sensitive care more than ever.

11. Do not circumcise your baby boy unless it really must be done. And if you do, use an anaesthetic.

Unnecessary circumcision (...and pre-1980 in New Zealand it was conducted without anesthetic) was/is a truly stupid and barbaric process. Babies would go blue, pass out, and in some cases even die from the pain.

...Did you know: When babies are born non-traumatically they do not scream or cry immediately after their delivery. Yes, that rasping cry from the newborn baby is not normal.

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Many people prefer home-birthing because they want to avoid the clinical setting and have a more natural birth. Good on them, but I don't see why home-birthing needs to be at home as such. Why not create a homely setting directly backed-up with medical facilities (on standby) should it come to be that you need them? Why not have the best of both worlds? This is what my friend did, and her delivery was excellent.

My central point to the pregnant (or one-day pregnant) reader is that you have nothing to lose by taking direct control of your birth and ensuring that it goes your way, which should (hopefully) be a natural way. The result can be a child with significantly less 'primary' emotional damage than what's common within in our society today, which is good not only for the child but the parents of course. Indeed; a happy, lively baby that is not irritable and 'difficult' is going to get the best of what their parents can give them, so the advantages compound. A really good start means a lot.

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Pre-birth note:

Babies are incredibly sensitive to the status of their mother while in the womb. We now know that how a mother feels (and what she consumes) directly impacts her baby on the epigenetic level. This means that the status of the mother actually controls what genes are and are not finally manifest in the baby. There may be (and probably are) powerful womb-time trauma-imprints as well.

Regardless, research has shown that it is beyond argument that the status of the mother/womb is all-important for a child to avoid long-term developmental, behavioural and health problems later in life.

It is so important for a mother to keep away from drugs and a bad diet during this time, and important that she does what she can to avoid stress and be happy. A pregnant woman should never underestimate the importance of how she feels - her baby's physiology is literally dependant on it.

Post-birth note:

The younger your baby is, the more vital your job is. Everything I said in the pre-birth note also applies post-birth, though to a less profound degree.

A mother should do her best to keep well, both mentally and physically, for the first year of her baby's life especially. Other priorities such as buying a house or being financially independent etc. should be strictly secondary during this critical time, in my view.

I also believe that children should stay at home with their mothers (no outsourcing to a daycare centre) at least up until the age of about 6.

The Milgram Experiment: Blind obedience to Authority

2010-11-01T20:42:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin:

The Milgram experiment is a famous psychology experiment. It brought attention to common responsiveness to authority, and to how a normal person can torture and even kill someone when a perceived authority tells them to do so.

I believe that the essence of what the Milgram experiment shows us basically relates to the dynamic of displaced responsibility, which itself mostly comes from a blind (as it often is) faith in authority.

We assume that the authority knows best, so we can (and do) do their "dirty work" and with only the faith that it's for a higher and ultimately justified good.

.....Some "Milgram in action":

Religion:

A couple of weeks ago I was watching a documentary on the Discovery Channel about Blast Fishing. This is where people from third-world countries use cheap explosives to blast-out an area of coral reef, because it offers a cheap and fast way to catch a few fish (the fish just float to the surface dead, after the blast). The problem with it is that it totally destroys the coral eco-system from over a wide area of the blast, which in turn takes hundreds of years to recover.

A man was interviewed who performed blast-fishing (which is illegal, for the record) and was asked how he justified his actions. He emphatically stated that he was doing nothing against his religion - he said that he did not steel, lie or kill.

I think this is a good example of the Milgram effect. The man had effectively displaced moral responsibility for his actions onto his religion. As long as it was ok according to his religion, he could be "happily blind" (morally) to whatever else he was doing. This is similar to what I have written about before, where I describe the mentality of.. "All I have to do is follow the 10 commandments and Jesus will clean up the mess", which religion can create I believe.

It boils down to the same dynamic: displacing responsibility onto a [perceived] higher authority, and going "conveniently" blind to what is real.

The Group:

I would say "the group" is the strongest functional authority for most of us, and the strongest authority that we displace responsibility to. Countless people eat meat, for example, without feeling the need to give even a second thought as to whether or not it is morally acceptable*, and for no other reason than everyone else is doing it.

Of course you could catalogue a library's worth of historic "mob" behaviours of questionable morality.

*I am not saying it's either good or bad to eat meat here, only that the morality of it is often not even tested.

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Another famous experiment: The Asch experiment:

It following video (very short) makes quite a statement of the power of the group over the individual.

The Asch experiment reminds me of one of my old sayings..."If everybody thinks what everybody else thinks, and only because everybody else thinks it, then who exactly is doing the thinking?"

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The Military:

The military gives us an obvious and striking example of the Milgram dynamic, because the military is completely dependant on the direct displacement of responsibility from subordinates to above.

Shouldn't military personnel be checking intensively to make sure their boss's are doing the right thing? Isn't that the least you can do if you going to go around killing people in someone else's name? Alas, I doubt enormously that it would be encouraged. Indeed, the hyper-patriotic mentality (of which is heavily indoctrinated into military personnel) works directly to dis-encourage it.

It's unfortunate, but the military is and always has been dependant on blind obedience to function. The obvious cost is that ultimate power doesn't have to answer to itself, leaving the door open for Tyrants.

Note: Apparently compulsion schooling as we know it today was a direct import from early Germany. It was, as I understand, originally (and specifically) designed to produce good (obedient) military personnel.

You can see how virtually every child that grows up gets the overwhelming message from school--and usually parents too--that obedience is inherently equitable to virtue.

Conclusion:

In my view we all need to learn about the Milgram experiment, so we can understand how dangerous we can be. The Milgram experiment shows us how people who aren't really "bad" can still much too easily do bad. Fronting-up to the Milgram dynamic could do a lot to help us not let it get the better of us.

We can see that we need to actively hold our authorities to account. Displacing responsibility on the basis of a mere faith in authority is immoral, because it can and does lead to immoral actions of which did not otherwise need to occur.

Finally, I will point out that an authority that does not like to be questioned or challenged is the worst kind of authority, because that is an authority that wants you to behave like the people in the Milgram experiment. Of course we should never accept this.

An Internationally Standardised English - please!

2010-10-24T18:18:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

In our new internet-age and ever more globalised world it makes sense to me that we should all be speaking a universally understood language, and ideally as everyone's first language. Of course we are already moving in this direction (with English) but we could still be doing it so much faster and more efficiently.

Here is my idea:

Using the United Nations as a centralised authority, we could develop an internationally standardised form of English: English "Systems International".

An SI-English should first be cleaned-up so as to get rid of unnecessary complexities/contradictions that exist within common English today. We could even look at other possibilities such as expanding the alphabet; that is, maybe creating more (new) letters so as to allow us to more efficiently group sounds. English would be easier for young people (and foreigners) to learn if the letters were more directly correlated to their phonic associations.

An SI-English could be open to updates say every 5-10 years.

A supporting website could provide free education for anyone to learn SI-English. The website should also provide audio downloads for properly pronounced English. (Pronunciation should be standardised to help overcome the problem of understanding people with extreme accents).

Conclusion:

To me this idea is common sense. Language, before anything, is just a communication system and in principle it is silly to have everyone speaking all kinds of different languages in a tightly connected world. We should go out of our way to drive for the process of standardisation, and through our standardisation we should also take the opportunity for fundamental improvements as well. It's easy to do, and it's worth it.

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A little uninformative, but I have to agree with Mr B'stard:

Alan Watt: A curious listen

2010-10-22T01:51:00.000-07:00

Introduced by Andrew D Atkin

The best reason not to dismiss a conspiracy theory out of hand lies in the fact that we have been encouraged to do exactly that. If I was a politician, I would never have the cheek to request blind faith from the citizenry; not after what governments, world over, have done and continue to do.

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Alan Watt is the only "conspiracy theorist" that I can stomach. He speaks in a non-sensationalist manner and gets to the point. But then he (and others) might argue that he is merely an historian? I don't know.

A lot of what Alan Watt says is similar to my own observations, and he is a curious listen. With the amount of irrational crap that I see going on with government policy today, I will not dismiss conspiracy theorists out of hand. Why should I - or any of us?

Personally, I think it's healthy to listen (not necessarily believe - just listen) to conspiracy theorists, at least the ones that seem grounded. You never know, they might be right. Surely no harm done in taking note?

Description:

The crux of what Alan Watt says is that national policy world over is and has been directed by the United Nations. He also claims that the UN, backed by an "elite", has not been afraid to apply extreme propaganda systems so as to actualise their world governance ambitions.

Alan mainly talks about the use of the media for what he describes as deliberate culture creation, and culture creation that has been to a specific UN prescription.

Our culture today, as Alan claims, has been deliberately manipulated so as to get us to accept subordination to "the expert", in particular with respect to government policy. He asserts that the critical result has been that we do not think for ourselves - that is, we accept someone else (the expert) doing our thinking for us. Alan claims that that was the idea all along.

Speaking personally:

It is clear to me that people tend not to think for themselves in critical areas, primarily because they do not feel it's their place to think for themselves i.e. they feel it's other people's place, because they themselves are not "qualified".

The problem is, I believe, that they tend to do this to the point where they turn their backs on their own (would-be) common sense, and this is where/why they can become vulnerable to serious manipulation. And also, of course, because they do not feel it is even their responsibility to have a concern in public policy, so usually they are wilfully indifferent/ignorant to whatever their governments are doing to them.

Alan also comments that the UN has been directing public policy world over, and that is why we have seen the simultaneous introduction of the same policies between various nations.

I personally have noticed this also. Recent examples I can sight (off the top of my head) are Smart Growth urban development policies, the introduction of "values training" in schools (an import from the United Nations, UNESCO), the introduction of the 'working for families' welfare system, and also the attempted introduction of "hate speech" laws.

Note: The latter should be ringing warning bells in particular, because there was never any (substantial) public demand to protect people from "hate speech". This was almost certainly a case of politicians looking for an excuse to suppress free speech.

A good link for some more of Alan Watt's material. Alan speaks very well when he's bouncing off someone.

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Addition: 17-11-10:

Alan Watt speaks about his belief that the world is being run by a very small elite (a common assertion - an assertion even made by people like John F Kennedy).

Alan claims the (supposed) elite have a psychopathic "human management" mentality [my wording - not his], where they see mass-society as nothing more than their personal project, to condition and control (society = sheep, Elite = Shepard). Watt claims that this 'elite' have been conforming to a/the project for the development of a society under "perfect global control" for literally centuries, and that these elite are the true government behind the governments.

How much truth is there in this? I really don't know. But if there really is a long-term strategic project (and plan) that has been going on for centuries, then that is scary; because its durability would suggest that the plan will be dictating to people (that is, to the elite who execute the plans) as opposed to the other way around. Because otherwise the elite (current or previous) would have surely reformed the agenda by now?

So is that actually possible? I believe it is: An establishment based on an agenda can reach a non-negotiable position, because the primary purpose of any establishment--as far as its members are concerned--is to provide wealth and status. And so the premise of an establishment becomes defended by its members, and regardless of the [current] member's personal views with respect to its functional purpose.

Independent thinkers with "updated" views would simply be ejected from the system, as they are ultimately only a threat to the "object" that feeds the other members (including themselves)*. Hence, the system "mindlessly" rules in itself, and without (sustainable) internal challenge.

Whatever individuals themselves might believe has nothing to do with anything - they merely "feed" from the system for as long as they are there. And it won't matter if they're at the very bottom or the very top of the organisation - feeders are feeders.

Finally, the scenario can be like an out-of-control machine that no-one can turn off, because the only people who have the power to do as such are simply too dependant on it to make it happen.

*A good example of the principle might be with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). According to Watt (again) hundreds of scientists who were originally involved with the IPCC left this organisation because they would not tell lies about climate science (a fact, as Watt claims, that the media never told us about). But this is what you should expect...If the functional premise of an establishment is corrupt, then it will attract and promote corrupt (intellectually and/or morally) people, and in turn "spit out" those who are not corrupt. So the establishment wins unto itself - it will only be killed, if it may, from the outside.

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Addition: 22-5-11:

Alan watt: His most fundamental assertion.

According to Watt, The rich Elite have created and entrenched a managerial empire over literally thousands of years. We are an intensively studied and well managed animal, where human management is an ancient and now extraordinarily advanced science. Watt claims that the bulk of this science is hidden and extremely well guarded.

It's like playing chess. The more we are understood, the more we can be predicted and in turn effectively managed. They know how we will and might respond to any given move, and they apparently develop back-up plans on how to deal with any given scenario, which they have prior simulated. So, as Watt claims, we are ruled by the most exhaustive process of thinking things through, many steps ahead.

Technically this is more than possible, especially with vast wealth (to fund the many people to study us and do all that thinking through). And this is interesting because it is indeed exactly how you could and would rule (manage) the world if your Elite were dead serious about the business of doing so. Think about it reader: If this is really what's going on, then how else could you and would you reliably do it?

It also makes sense why an Elite would be so allergic to "the individual", which is another of Alan Watt's claims. The only thing a money empire [that is dedicated to the science and practice of the management of the human animal] has to really worry about is that which cannot be predicted, which is of course the individual. Individual = wild card. Followers by comparison are totally predictable because they just do as they follow. All you have to do is infiltrate a followers camp, take the position of their leader, and then carefully "herd" them wherever you want them to go. Followers will follow. If the followers achieve a revolution it can be your revolution. (And watt claims that most revolutions have in fact been top-down fabrications, insidiously designed by a higher-level Elite.)

Freemasonry: Watt also claims that Freemasonry is a kind of massive religious system used for recruiting people into important positions for the Elite's purposes. I have expressed in my "How to rule the world" post earlier that you would have to do something like this, because your higher-level bureaucracies will need very special treatment because they are so close to 'the truth'.

They guys at the bottom don't matter because as a fragmented whole there's very little they can do or know how to do; isolated outbursts on the bottom levels can always be strategically tamed. But, the operational layers closer to the top of the hierarchy must be very carefully appeased and well taken care of (er, paid off) because they are too close to the ability to organise and overthrow the head above them, if they wished.

I have also talked about this in the idea of a governing cult, where indoctrination may be intensive. I specifically write about this in the extended notes of How to rule the world.

Mobile Robots?

2010-10-22T01:41:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

We are entering the age of ubiquitious robotics. This is no longer a topic for just the geeks - everyone should be interested.

The introduction of ubiquitous robotics could bring in a new era of productive automation. Not so much for our domestic lives, but for many areas of services, maintenance and industrial production. I think we will soon see robotics expanding out from the limited confines of mass-production plants alone.

These future-focused people who try to build robots that part look and act like humans, so as to (supposedly) perform human functions, have got it wrong. Making a robot to simulate a human is as reasonable as making an aircraft that flaps its wings. Like with aircraft, the structural optimum for a mechanical system is completely different to a biological system.

However, I do believe we will see the ubiquitous implementation of flexible, mobile robots in the near future of which may come to offset a vast amount of human labour.

Enabling technologies:

The key enabling technologies that may drive a new era in robotic implementation are the internet, and motion/boundary detection systems (like what many cars have today). It is vital that a flexible, mobile robot can detect its surroundings not only to efficiently transport itself, but to detect people and other objects moving into its path. If a human, for example, moves into a robots paths then the person will be instantly detected, the robot will stop, then signal to the person to get out of the way. The safe functionality provided by boundary detection allows the robot to move rapidly, which is of course essential for productive output. Robots are only going to be deployed when they make economic sense over human labour.

The internet is also essential so as to allow the robots to be efficiently remote-controlled. The great advantage of using the internet as a base to remote-control robots is that you can have one remote-controller assisting maybe tens or even hundreds of robots at a given time. This is because a human only needs to cut in and take over from automated operation periodically. So, when the controller is not assisting a given robot he can then switch over to another robot. Hence, the internet provides an economical option to tide us over from what "fuzzy logic" cannot yet do. Robotics designers do not need to be so obsessed with making flexible robots "think". They just need to first integrate them with the internet.

So what will the 'common' robot look like? For the sake of some perspective, here is my guess:

Robots will become ubiquitous when we start to standardise and mass-produce flexible versions of them, and with many standardised (and compatible) major components.

I would say that the most ideal structure, for common applications, would simply be a robotic arm mounted on a mobile base. It would not simulate a human hand because that would be impractical and unnecessary. The arm would usually come with a tool-kit of several "hands", each hand designed as a specialised tool to perform a specific function.

Stereoscopic remote viewing:

A more minor enabling technology is with stereoscopic remote viewing. 3d-TV systems can now comfortably provide for this.

This sounds information-intensive, but I will point out that you can dramatically compress video information with the use of what I call "spotlight compression". You can target the focus-point for low-compression definition, and then heavily compress other (unimportant) visual information around it . This is perfectly feasible when you only need visual information of the type to carry out a mechanistic task.

In some ways being able to use an adaptable camera will provide better visual feedback than what can be achieved by being in the location in person. You can mobilise the camera for a most explicit and stable view.

Functionality:

All mobile robots will generally run on wheels - they're cheap, rapid and efficient. In some cases they will employ legs for walking as well, but only if absolutely necessary. They will have retractable legs for static stability. I would also imagine a counter-weight will be employed for when the front leg cannot be extended.

The robot can rapidly access a rotating tool-kit (around its "waist") for any given tool. On top of the robot would be a sensor assembly. At the base of the robot would be a rechargeable battery-stack.

They will generally be driven by many small electric motors - not hydraulics. They will probably use blue-tooth technology for wireless internal actuation, within the robotic arm.

The robot will also develop its own mobility map. This means that once it has stationed itself at a given point, it will remember that point. In turn a remote-controller will only have to indicate to the robot the point it needs to be at, and the robot will automatically move there and without remote assistance.

Conclusion:

Even if a 4-foot robot of this type cost $100,000 a piece, if it can displace one human labourer then it would cover its costs in maybe just a couple of years (especially if it can be in operation 24/7). So, we should expect to see the progressive implementation of these kinds of devices as the technology to make it practical is pretty much here today.

However, economies-of-scale is a major factor, and it will no doubt take time for simple robots to be mass-produced efficiently. But again, with the key enabling technologies established, we could safely predict that we will see the far-reaching implementation of mobile robotics soon. And once this progression gets a foothold, it should rapidly build on itself.

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Addition: 3-4-11

A major and growing application for robotics is military. The spin-off technology for civil applications will be invaluable. The following video is very interesting, and the speaker provides a well-rounded talk.

Concept: Ultra-efficient living system

2010-10-18T23:53:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

How do you wish to live?

Most of us live in private one-family units. That's all good of course because we want this feature as our personal living base, and I would say we need it. However, I think we still have a 'missing link' in the structure of our modern living systems, which is what I call the "tribal dynamic".

To specify: The tribal dynamic, by my definition, is immediate access to a neutral territory but a territory that is private to the group ("tribe"). Most of us don't have this. When we visit our friends we are in their place - it's not "our" place. And this territorial dynamic has an effect on social intercourse (at least subconsciously). And when we do meet with our friends in an interpersonally neutral setting, it's pretty much the entire world's setting too (restaurants and bars etc.) i.e. it is not private to the group. This too has a critical effect.

Generally speaking I believe that people are happiest when socialising with their well-established friends in a neutral but exclusive territory; well, at least when they're not socialising for the sake of meeting new people. I can't prove this assertion to be correct of course, it's just my personal 'human' perspective.

So, if you agree, then we can ask ourselves: "How do we provide for the tribal dynamic", so to speak.

My ideas:

Firstly you must have your own private zone (like we do today if we can afford it) and that zone needs to be more than just a bedroom. It needs to be a cabin or "mini-house". It needs to be a place where you can exclusively reside to for as much as 1 or 2 days and without feeling too cramped in. However, it doesn't need to be huge - it can still just be a big sleep-out linked to a "tribal" neutral zone.

Here is my example for what I think would be an ideal cabin:

Description: On the far left is a small Kitchenette close to a corner couch, and the room on the far-right is a double bedroom. In between is a toilet with double-boundary walls. The external (but connected) room is an office.

Additional external rooms can be added if/when needed.

The following image is a perspective of the front of the cabin.

Design: This cabin is practical, space-efficient and good-looking. It's extremely quiet (easy to sleep in) and is structured so that people can move about without tripping up over each other. Even though it's small, it does not have the "just one big room" effect. The internal rooms are well segregated.

The following image provides another perspective of the cabin, showing the kitchenette and a corner of the couch.

Obviously this cabin is thin on facilities. It is in turn supported by the main "tribal" house, shown next.

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The following is my idea for an ideal main house (also the neutral "tribal zone").

It would suit a sunny context with lots of surrounding plants. (Such as a classic New Zealand lifestyle setting).

Description: In the front of the house you have 2 external showers, 1 toilet, 1 bath, and a movie theatre which is the far-left external room. All of these facilities are acoustically isolated from the main body of the house, employing double-boundary walls. In the main body of the house you have a big kitchen (supporting at least two operations) and a dining area to the right of the kitchen. You have a lounge-type area at the far-back of the house.

Design: The main house is designed to provide an open, casual social setting--moving closer to the feel of a cafe'. When people want to watch TV they can go into a separate room, so they don't interfere with people wanting to chat (or vice-versa). The movie theatre also provides a "cosy zone" for people.

You can see with this design that behaviours are more closely (and exclusively) linked with rooms. There is a "place" for everything and it's always "on". You could have a dinner party at 1 o'clock in the morning for example, and no-one would care.

The external showers are spacious and therefore comfortable to use. Being external to the main house you can access them quickly, and without having to make a statement to everyone that you are about to take a shower.

Note: The showers do not need to be in the cabins. The showers would literally be only about a 10-15 second walk away from any given cabin. Also, isolating the showers (and other) from the cabins means that no-one is rushing about in a "get things done" mode, inside the cabins. This feature would help significantly to make the cabins feel more settled, and easy to relax in. (This is also part of the reason why you would want to externalise the office).

The kitchen needs to support 2 operations at least because you would probably have 1 main house supporting about 4 cabins. So that's maybe 4 couples, plus some children if it's for young-ish people. An external wash house (or other) can be added at will. (You can put these things anywhere so I don't need to talk about them here).

You would find that people would be out-and-about at all different times, so you would find that you never need more space/capacity than what I have suggested in this example.

Note: A key feature of the main house is that no-one is there who does not feel like being there. When people are not in the mood for company they can (and will) automatically retreat to their cabins. So the main house would virtually always have a sociable atmosphere, and provide a pleasantly informal context for everyone.

To make my point clearer: there would be no second-guessing as to whether or not you've outstayed your welcome in the main house, or whether or not anyone is hanging around just to be polite etc. On this level it would be unusually fun and "free". But, of course, there is still the option of meeting with people privately in your cabin as well, just like in a traditional home (which is what the cabins basically are).

The following are some perspective shots of the main house:

Front of the house...

Looking at the lounge area from the dining area...

Looking at the kitchen from the dining area...

Rear of the house...

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Other advantages:

Going by my model system, a couple could have a mortgage of about $100,000 - that would cover the cabin and say 25% shares in the main house. That's a mortgage you can pay off in 5-10 years - not 20-30 years (the banks will hate you!).

You can of course share all kinds of other facilities and costs, which further compounds the economies-of-scale advantage.

If it is a lifestyle development, you can plant lots of fruit trees and develop raised vegetable gardens etc, which also reduces the cost of living and improves nutrition. I would imagine that this option too would benefit from an economies-of-scale.

Social advantage for child-rearing:

Personally, I think it's much better for children to grow up in a more socially diverse context, where they have freer access to other (well known and trusted) people and other children around their age. It can also take a load off parents as children can entertain themselves more easily, and friends within the "tribe" can conveniently help take care of their kids as well.

It can also provide for an economies-of-scale for home-schoolers i.e. only one adult may need to stay home for all the kids.

Conclusion:

Overall, the "tribal house" can make for extremely sociable, easy and economic living, whoever you are or whatever you might want to do. I think a tribal house may represent a better living-optimum for many people, and in turn this post is an example/invitation for people to maybe consider it.

Note: Thanks Richard (my very useful brother) for drawing up (and improving) my ideas using your ancient architecture programme.

Time for Voting Agents?

2010-10-02T13:56:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

Why not develop a system where we can voluntarily elect others to vote for us? So, for those of us who cannot be bothered physically voting for ourselves, or studying the political options in serious detail (i.e. the vast majority of voters), there could be the option of choosing an online agent to do our voting for us.

It sounds a bit crazy on the fact of it, but it isn't. Citizens would still retain the right the vote independently. Using an agent is only an option that you can employ if you want to. So, if you find an agent that you have real faith in, and he/she makes a lot of sense when rationalising their voting decisions to you (arguments and discussions should be presented online), then you can choose to just hand your vote over to them.

A critical law to make it work: The voting agent must report to all clients on who they will vote for, and they cannot change their mind on who they will vote for 24 hours before they make their actual vote. Also, any voter can withdraw their faith in their agent and go independent (or just select another agent) about 5 hours before the official voting. This way voters can know exactly what their agents are going to do with their vote (at the ballot box), and in turn they have the final power to undermine their agents decision if they want to. No surprises!

Another rule: NO donations or payments. Indeed, being an internet-based system there can be no justification for monetary exchanges (what would you need money for?). An agent can always communicate with their clients for virtually nothing online, like I am doing right now.

There should also be the rule that anyone over 18 can qualify as an agent.

The effect:

You would get much greater functional voter turn-out and, in my opinion, a much higher quality vote (and this especially applies to local-body elections). And it would, in turn, also give us a higher quality of politician.

The reason why the quality of the vote should be higher is because agents (who could have as little as two or as many as thousands of votes in their hands) would be much more dedicated towards doing their homework, and to in turn explore all political options. Indeed, would they have signed up as a non-profit agent if they did not have a serious interest in public policy?

Votes based directly on homework (rather than image and slogans) in turn leads to knowledge and understanding - directly undermining the power of PROPAGANDA. And the fact that the agents are not being paid will also undermine the power of MONEY. And where politicians can't use these tools you will finally end up with a different kind of politician.

If the rules of the game dictate that only jerks can win - then jerks you will get!

So why not? You wouldn't be taking away anyone's electoral rights. Anyone can still make an independent vote or choose to change to an independent vote at (virtually) any time. In the end you are only creating a new option for people who want it, and those people still choose ("vote") for their agents of course.

Concluding:

With the internet we now have the practical power to operate this option, so we can now think about it at least.

...Who can argue that our traditional democratic process is not embedded with serious structural imperfections; that is, in terms of giving the public what they need and want? Yes, I know, there's no such thing as a perfect system. But there is certainly such thing as an improved system. So again, we should think about this option I believe. It might fit very well with New Zealand's MMP environment today.

Note: I think that in practice you would find that the voting agents would tend to be very well-educated retired people. Plenty of knowledge, experience and time for further study and communication.

Are we creating an Orwellian Corptopia?

2010-10-02T13:49:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

A friend of mine recently applied for a job with a large company. This is what she wrote to me about her interview:

"The interview was weird. I didn't really like it. We had to talk about ourselves and then do these stupid exercises, while 3 of them sat at the back and wrote notes on us. I don't know how it went, they said they'd call by the end of the week if they wanted another interview."

What kind of a person conducts an interview like this? The answer is no person at all. This is an interview conducted by a system. The people administrating it were basically just system facilitators. At an extreme, the facilitators would exercise no personal discretion in decision-making at all. The would simply ask prescribed (from above) questions, tick the boxes, and then calculate the ticks to reach a final conclusion/decision.

So she was interviewed by a system and not a person. What's wrong with that? Nothing except that systems are 100% blind to anything other than what they are programmed to see.

Alas, it in turn takes the meaning of the term "measuring up" to a whole new level. If every job that we applied for operated on systems-criteria with no (or virtually no) human discretion, then we run the risk of every man and woman basing their entire professional development on formal qualifications/attributes only. We then become exclusively focused on "scoring points" as opposed to a more idiosyncratic or maybe "real" development. What would be the point of developing any unique "value added" ability if the all-powerful evaluation-criteria were to be blind to it?

Large organisations are generally systems-heavy with everything. So the way I see it, the more corporatised our society becomes the "dehumanised" our development will be, as our professional success or failure will be ever more exclusively based on prescription-conformity.

The truth is our society already works like this to an extraordinary level today (we are just far too use to it?). Compulsion schooling as we know it is a totalitarian system whereby the state functionally claims ownership over the child's development; and in our schools the child's focus is always to measure-up to somebody else's evaluation criteria, as opposed to education for itself.

If the world becomes completely corporatised (are we going that way?) then we can end up with little or no way out for people who try to reclaim their own development [and in part their lives] for themselves, as their entire future will be dictated by their conformity to the prescriptions - or lack of it.

This is actually the communist system*, or more specifically the fascist system (fascism is where the state and the corporates are one system: eg, the modern USA is close to it). It's a system where people have literally no choice but to conform to the corporate prescriptions to survive. And in turn this means a society of acutely penetrating top-down control. So the corporates make the hoops - you jump through them. That's your life. Period.

Furthermore what's curious is the evolution of our current band of corporatism. Like I indicated before, it is controlled by those who design the systems - virtually everyone else may become only administrators of the systems. Except at the most trivial levels human discretion may be gone, other than for those who develop the systems themselves, and for those at the very top who prescribe what those systems should achieve (your "gods").

Yep, I think we may actually be moving in the direction of an Orwellian "scientifically controlled" society (oh, don't worry about those surveillance cameras. They're the least of your intrusions).

So how far will/could it ultimately go? I would say that the more the corporates take control over "our" governments, the more our society will function like a school...where it's all about reducing ourselves to what ever's on order, as based on somebody else's systemic evaluation criteria.

Where the corporates control the state (and basically are the state) realistic alternatives would be -and to a large degree are- progressively suppressed because big businesses/government does not like competition, and will only tolerate it insofar as they must.

In a complete systems-controlled society only those at the very top would structure how we live our lives. Individual choices would be strictly prescribed - by them. It's a strange but I think very real kind of modern slavery.

The key is to protect the alternatives, and the development of the alternatives - if we can. Let REAL competition rule.

Here are some other of my posts that relate to this issue:

Is Empire America in decline?

Education notes

Smart growth

...And an example of a serious alternative:

Club economies

And maybe a small-scale alternative

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*Note: In communism your job is assigned to you, so communism is a bit more extreme than what we have today. But we are certainly moving in this direction as our choices are becoming ever more strictly narrowed, and top-down prescribed. And as I expressed earlier, our educational development is mostly top-down prescribed.

Another key control feature which is now developing is lifestyle-control, via the implementation of what is called Smart Growth. If the UN has its way, then over time almost the entire world will be urbanised and living the "McLife", whether they want it or not.

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Addition: 14-3-11:

I found the included movie, based on Aldous Huxley's book, Brave New World, interesting. At base, I think the society depicted in the movie could be simply described as the militarisation of civil life (minus the actual wars).

Description: Brave New World represents a totally controlled and stratified society, where people only know what they need to know, and only think what they are allowed to think. The society is peaceful because conformity is automatic; and it is automatic because the people have been subject to incredible conditioning systems from the youngest of ages. Normality has been totally redefined, and based only on what serves the society best. (Collectivism on steroids!)

With the military industrial complex and corporates taking over America (and other), is it completely unreasonable to think that our societies could be led somewhere in the direction described by Huxley's fictional book? I don't believe so. [In fact Huxley himself predicted that we may move in this direction].

About 100 years ago compulsion-schooling was imported into the western world from Prussia. The form of schooling that we have today, originally adotped from Prussia, was specifically designed for military purposes. That is, it was designed (and successfully designed) to create a society of obedient soldiers that could be controlled with ease (thanks to conditioning). You would have to say that this was (and is) a major step-1 towards the development of a Brave New World scenario. And the fact is, we have only gone forward from it - not back. How far will we eventually go?

The limits of beliefs

2010-09-23T23:33:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

One thing that wears me down a bit is the mantra coming from the modernistic preachers who talk about the need for a world of love and compassion and all those innocent and idealistic things. They speak as though belief in the human virtues alone can solve the worlds problems - if only we all "believe in them".

They are right in that the core of the worlds enduring problems is ultimately the human condition. But wrong in observing it, understanding it, and knowing what to do about it.

From my outlook the new-age preachers have one key thing in common: They believe in beliefs. They believe that people can feel compassion, for example, by simply believing that they should...and then from there they try to encourage people to convert their idealised beliefs into some kind of life-practice. Alas, this is where they have it completely wrong.

The truth is real feelings are what they are, and they are an existential reality that goes beyond what can be derived (or modified) via force-of-will or subjective idealism. The only "humanity" that you can create from beliefs alone is the fantasy that you are feeling something that you are not.

Though idealistic beliefs which support social standards are important as a control system, we still need to front-up to what they ultimately are, because beliefs are insecure for the service of a stabilising social effect.

Take "respectfulness" for the sake of example: A person can steadfastly believe in being respectful to others yet, as a "primary self" reality, feel virtually no true respect for anyone at all (most likely due to deep detachment, but that's another topic). A person like this will accidentally screw-up and crap on people all the time and they will do as such probably without even knowing it, or do as such in the name of some empty rationalisation. Because when what's real isn't really there, within the person, we always screw-up for when our behaviour is not being carefully self-monitored. Hence; the unreliability of just believing in being respectful, as opposed to actually being respectful. That's the point.

Yes we need beliefs regarding "who we should be" to facilitate standards and morality etc, but at the end of the day all of this stuff is still only a social-control system. Controlling what? The modern human condition. That is, our common emotional corruption.

See my Understanding Mental Sickness to learn about this:

We can't forget that the real problem of the human condition is not so much what we believe--or "believe in"--but what we feel and don't feel. What we feel is who we are before anything else - that's what defines our human reality.

So, it would be nice if all those new-age guys could understand this, and understand that the war to end all wars will be the war against deprivation, and most importantly childhood deprivation - not the war against "bad ideas". Because deprivation is where the true (original) corruption is created. Deprivation is what gives birth to the need for all those moralistic control systems which we have [understandably and probably wisely] been trained to apply so much esteem to.

I conclude that our beliefs which support self-control are important in that they help to hold our society together. But we should never believe in the functionality of beliefs to the point where we deny the ultimate truths behind them, because we might then never confront and in turn deal with those ultimate causes.

-And indeed, to say, the functional corruption of a society--of which comes from the under-enforcement of moral standards--may only be making transparent a deeper level of corruption that was already there.

How to rule the world

2010-08-31T15:53:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

There are hundreds of articles on the internet promoting the idea that the world is being taken over by the Illuminati...whoever or whatever they are? (I don't really care). On the face of it it sounds a bit silly, and maybe it is silly, but it's still a curious thought because if you really did want to rule the world then the only way you could do it, I believe, is through a secret religious base (and yes, those things do exist).

Why? Because to take over the world you need extraordinary levels of co-operation (specifically corrupt co-operation), and although the amalgamation of vast financial power is perfectly possible (and does and has happened), I don't think that money alone would be a powerful enough lever to buy enough corrupt people off, at least not in the way that you would periodically require. Most greedy people still have a moral limit, and an unpredictable limit at that.

If you want to take over the world then you would need to have an army of people who are both reliably and seriously corrupt [though not necessarily corrupt in their minds]. So what I think you need are "drones"*. By my outlook, only religion has the fundamental capacity to produce an army of obedient drones.

Now could a religious institution function as an extension to some king-pins' world take-over ambitions? Ultimately it probably could. It would do so first by the indoctrination and then strategic infiltration of its people. It would have to place its "drones" into influential positions, and then control them from there. And it would need a lot of them, otherwise too many "normal" people would spoil their plans.

[The infiltration would not have to target every institute in a developed democracy, only the institutes responsible for shaping public opinion. This means the media, educational establishments, general religious establishments, and also of course the parliamentary world itself. With these key target areas well-infiltrated you could probably achieve a penetrating and broad level of control over the direction of your society.]

A unification between vast concentrated wealth and a vast hierarchical religious structure could set the ultimate basis for a top-down world take-over. And of course the use of and establishment of rigid hierarchies would be critical for the regimentation of co-operation. A movement this controversial and extreme could never survive much internal debate I don't think - hierarchy must be key.

Ulterior progress towards a world governing take-over would be an incredible undertaking that would have to occur over a very long period of time, but you could not rule it out straight off-hand - global top-down empire ambitions have been with us for as long as recorded history and probably longer. And it could ultimately be achievable, I believe.

Again it looks like a silly proposition, but then, as I said, religious organisations (and other) have been crusading in lunatic global domination ambitions since the beginning of time. Have we changed? Maybe not all of us. So maybe watch out for those sleepy-looking bureaucrats of the type who gently kiss bottoms and never take risks so as to rise up within our institutional power centers...Because if there really is a world take-over project underway, like so many claim, then religion and the infiltration of religion-controlled people would probably have to be a central part of it.

It's just a thought. I wouldn't take it seriously until you can consistently link people in key positions of power and influence to questionable (secretive) religious institutions, or other comparable organisation. Then it might be worth worrying about.

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With this post I am speaking in terms of principle. I am thinking in terms of what it might take to rule over the world. I know virtually nothing about the details of what's going on with the possible infiltrated control over our lives, but what I do know (as we all should) is that the USA's central bank is not owned by the state and is instead owned by private interests. This situation is irrefutably perverse, and whoever those private interests are they do certainly possess enormous control over the American financial system and economy, and possess an enormous capacity to obtain wealth for themselves via the collection of vast interest payments (from money originally printed out of thin air) and general market manipulations. This is one concerning dynamic that certainly deserves dedicated attention. How on earth did the American Federal Reserve Bank become a private entity?

*I use the word 'drone' because as far as I am concerned that is what someone is who follows religious indoctrination ahead of their own reasoning mind. Forgive me for appearing judgmental, but this is where religious people tend to irritate me a bit - that is, when they can't just keep it to themselves, and instead use their religion as personal justification for the uninvited intrusion on others.

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Addition 27-11-10:

Infiltration note:

Infiltrating the parliamentary world could/may have more to do with infiltrating the advisor's (and supporting bureaucracies) that tell our politicians what to do, rather than directly infiltrating the parliamentary world itself*.

Some have claimed that socialists have in fact achieved this level of infiltration; but first by indoctrinating** (relevant) students in our universities (via an infiltration of globalist-socialist professors), so as to provide an army of future bureaucrats who will (have?) gone on to tell our politicians to, basically, follow UN policy.

It's an interesting thought, because it would explain a lot! The reader might find my Alan Watt post of interest.

*Of interest, I have a relative who works in a high level of the New Zealand public service who once told me.."The politicians don't run the country - the public service does". She commented to me that our politicians don't really know anything, vaguely suggesting that they were little more than stage-props in the real world of public policy.

**Note: University advocates are always telling us that they teach people "how to think". But what does it take to "think"? Nothing as such because it's a natural function that cannot be taught - only facilitated. So how do you facilitate it? With a surplus of free time and energy and access to information. Appreciating this, I think universities actually do the opposite of providing for independent thinking, because they force students to internalise so much stuff over their ideology-formative period that they are left with no spare time to exercise a truly independent mind...which is exactly what they need to otherwise resist subtle or not so subtle indoctrinations. Hmmm...maybe that's the idea? Intellectual liberty or intellectual headlock?

Interesting link: Subversion process?

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Addition: 3-4-11:

Cults and mind-control:

Let's say you had a car and never saw nor ever could see under its bonnet. And let's also say you had a push-bike, too. Now, I could never tell you lies about the workings of your push-bike because you can see how the push-bike works, directly, for yourself. But I could sure tell you lies about how your car works, because you can't see under your bonnet. And so you are therefore dependant on second-hand information from a third party (me) to know, and you are therefore vulnerable to propaganda in relation to what drives a car. This of course applies to all information that we are dependant on third parties for.

Further relating to my example, imagine I told you and all your friends that your car works by some kind of freak-out electromagnetic device, and not an internal combustion process (a lie). If I told you that all your life, and you never heard a contradictory story, and all your friends believed it too, then the idea that cars do not run on some kind of freaky electromagnetic device would seem surrealistic to you. Indeed, if some 'outsider' tried to tell you that you and your chums had been lied to, and cars really run on an internal combustion process, then you would be totally confident in the outsiders lack of credibility. You could even go further; if I opened up the bonnet to show you for the first time an internal combustion engine (that you thought wasn't there) then you may even find yourself questioning your ability to interpret what's in front of your very eyes, as the prior socially-reinforced assumption is so deeply ingrained in your mind.

In essence, mind control is just information control*. All of us are vulnerable to being misled with respect to those areas where we cannot know about something from our own direct experience, especially when the mis-leadership is projected onto groups so that (potential) misinformation becomes socially-reinforced.

A classic example of this abuse can be seen with the promotion of "Stranger Danger". How dangerous are strangers? As individuals we don't and can't really know. Stranger danger is something that third parties have to tell us about. And so they did. They gave us the impression (not statistics) that you had better be very careful with people that you don't know should they be around your children. And we all believe it because we saw no reason not to believe it. But, the truth is that literally 99.9% of child abuse in New Zealand happens in the home, and with people who are well-known and trusted within the family. In terms of children's well-being, strangers should in fact be the least of your concerns. Strangers are more likely to report abuse than conduct it.

And the effect of this propaganda? Children are exposed to fewer adults, and trust amongst the general public has been eroded on false grounds. None of this could have happened if we were not dependant on third parties to determine the threat of strangers for us.

Cults:

Cults represent the ultimate system of mind-control in that they directly control the information that their members do and can receive. Indeed, you can know you're in a cult when you're only interested in what your leader or inside-group has to say!

Cults take information-regulation to an extreme. They may even contain their members within a physical control-environment so as to totally isolate them from external observations/influences. Closed-off families and schools do a lot of this too (Would you call them cults? I suppose that's subjective). The more dependant the individual is on third parties to determine reality for them, the more of a mind-job you can pull on them. A potent and radicalised cult will first and foremost enforce the suppression of external information/influences.

Governing cult?

Now! You can see that with classing (inter-social isolation via stratification) and specialised education systems, you could indeed develop a ruling class (subordinated to an ultimately higher head) that is educated to be fully confident that one of the most irresponsible things a governing class could do is allow for a true, functional democracy.

But how exactly could you teach this? Easy. All you would have to do is fabricate their history lessons, and human behaviour/psychology lessons, and in a manner that would induce them to independently reason that democracy is both a dangerous and foolish game. Basically, you would just have to show them that democracy has been tried before and doesn't work. But, if you want to implant this propaganda without it looking like propaganda, then you need to just stick to your "facts" and let them form their own inevitable conclusions. With the control-environments provided by institutional schooling, this could more than easily be achieved.

Is exactly this being done? Some people have suggested so. Our bureaucratic classes might be fools to think that the arrogance they so often have toward the ignorant peons beneath them would not also be repeated by the hierarchy above them as well.

However, if you wanted to create your well-programmed governing-elite "cult", then you would also need to do two things that are done in all cults. As I suggested earlier, you need to suppress external influences (keep the members in their "Ivory towers"), and you also need to stop them from thinking too deeply. All lies are plagued by natural contradictions...but you need to be reflective to stumble upon them. So make sure your governing class is kept very, very busy i.e. no time for deep thought.

*More specifically, control over how you respond to information, and in what way. Obviously emotive and social forces are as important as just lying and being economical with the truth.

The science of human corruption?

2010-08-28T02:10:00.000-07:00

Andrew D Atkin

The New Zealand government has introduced laws that strengthen the power of its police force. Maybe this needs to be done. But it is a fact, as we know, that police can at times be (and world over have been) shockingly if not brutally corrupt. The latter is a given. So what? So the best question to ask the New Zealand Prime Minister is: "What provisions have you introduced to protect the New Zealand public from the threat of a corrupt police force of which, as we know, could always develop"? A totally legitimate question in response to a demonstrably legitimate concern - right? Of course!

I find it funny how people in positions of power generally put their hands on their hearts and say: "Corrupt? Who me? Not a chance!"..and as though we are supposed to automatically believe them, and as though we are wrongfully insulting them to even express that concern or suspicion. But the fact is that we don't generally know who these people are who run so much of our lives, and of whom we depend on to do the right thing. And the fact is that corruption is a real and prevalent threat/reality within so much of our world of which can be and obviously has been so catastrophically problematic to humanity.

So what does this mean? It means that we should be as coolly objective about the 'disease' of human corruption as we are about cancer and heart disease. If it is a statistical fact that your local politician has, say, a 35% chance of being moderately or maybe even seriously corrupt, then shouldn't we be developing systems (and sciences) to accommodate for this reality? Isn't that the rational thing to do?

....You can see where I am coming from: Where are those systems? Where are the "department of human corruption studies" in our universities? Why don't we study and deal with human corruption in essentially the same way that we study and deal with cancer? Is the topic not worthy of our time? Of course it is - it is deadly important.

As a society we need to stop asking our politicians (and others) to put on a "Mr integrity" show...ahh, too cheap and pathetic. We instead need to insist on the development of the science of human corruption, and the progressive development of systems for human corruption management. Over time it could do a lot to help clean things up, and would prove to be especially important if we want to develop some kind of world government body.

I conclude that when it comes to corruption we need to stop being emotional and defeatist about it, and instead get scientific. Bitching won't solve anything much - study might!