Slowfix -a better paradigm?

Our generations love of technology is understandable - every week we benefit from changes . However like modern day Spencerian simpletons  we will fall completely ( on the above ambition for eg) if  we believe progress is at the end of today .   Children naturally think there parents "know nothing " . Just as well they ere ( take adverse stance )  that way because there parents know little. And just as well they take an adverse stand because born in the image  we don't want our children to be limited by us and our blinkers .  And just as well they take an adverse stand because born in the image  we want them to make  their own name and reputation for forwarding the truth.. 
BUT Many human problems are not dealt with by applying some new salve or new name ( maybe more common) e Technological fixes like
Many people have bought into a pup .( Read ELLUL the technological society ) They throw out the old and buy into the new , when the old may work better and using it costs our children nothing -
infact if we chose slow fix ,we can be expected give OUR CHILDREN  BOTH  a debt free future and a debt free attitude . Thinking outside the box is right but only if what's inside the box works and works better. Repairs, like reform are completely underrated esp by those who muddy the waters by their throwing mud at human solutions to just about anything ( see Churchill qualification for democracy)  .
 Maybe major  new growth industries in Australia could be repair reform ones (copyright 30th May 2012 EA)
Buying into new solutions is expensive and, unless it really works long term , it only builds castles in the unsustainable and non renewable court of retail therapy
Avoid off the Shelf projects ( you heard it first on blogger). Some Liberals are pleased by a return to some simple faith in the past  . 


To pay for everything is one thing . Many productive people will continue to just grow things slowly ( Like farmers have to -- they wait for rain )
The world surrounded by concrete and steel and 2 columns of a retail ledger is a strictly limited world view. Best not to think its BIG PICTURE  after all the earth has been spinning the slow fix solution for billions of years. Worry is put in its proper place by taking a slow fix attitude 
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Labels: debt future offthe shelf, retail therapy, retale therapy, retrail therapy

All this talk about what we MUST do to save the earth is giving us ALL a headache . I'm in for taking a bex and not rushing into it , even though Bob brown may have only 3 years to finally come up with some concrete ideas on how to change people's behaviours . I sort of think he's not exactly the sort of person , with our PM who you would trust to be able to do that.     Do we really know who bullies are when they grow up ?


Lots of people feel the same about Julia and Bob Brown occupying the high moral ground on this issue - its surely requires lots of advice and consideration - not just a knife edge political situation . 


Surely we need to unpick what is happening here a bit more .


 The scene is certainly making people feel very ill.

Labels: sickness .moral high ground

Well I was wrong,(see last post)- most independants by this Saturday have come on board to say "great idea".
The idea of a tax is so simple that its appeal to most politicians is completely understandable .

What do the practical ones think of all this? Well they won't get a chance to disagree with faitdecomplee call at 5pm tonight.  Powerful symbol of a leader who doesn't lead in that very phone call- "what are you calling me for " i might say if I got one. No time for questions like the myriad that will invade their supercilious space afterwards like

Some BIG questions that won't be answered Sunday
1. "when will  we move to a trading scheme" or "you mean you have changed your mind again ?"  You mean " we are not moving back to a trading scheme?" For more reasons why ETS's don't work click here.
2. How come we included agriculture when other countries found it too hard? ( 2 main answers are possible - either we are very very clever, or we are moving where angels fear to tread ) We appear to be only going there because Tony wants to and he thinks its a good idea, with hangers on wanting to please the farmers" .the polys have their reasons- but none of them are very deep and none of them relate in context to ecomia
3. If $25 is only a token , haven't we had that before ( fuel excise)
4. How come you say this is a momentous decision when there is no guts to it -aimed at everyon therefore aimed at noone .At least the fuelexcise (and the 4WD rego) targeted the big wasters.
eoption of calling the problem" everything in the whole earth ie climate change")
5 Why are we doing all this when it won't do anything to stop the earth warming? And why did we ever allow you smart arses to rename the problem so you could get always be proved right action ( the mother of all problems - change which means , even if the earth  cools YOU are still right and YOU have our money!) 

SO MY Conclusion is for tommorow ( 10th July 2011) . It will be  day of celebartion for sure BUT a day of dumb and shallow tricks where THEY will be celebrating token efforts - a fine finale for a Sunday and a fanciful finish for a committee of real religious types.
  

Our PM hasn't run too many of these schools so far,  so it will be interesting to see how it goes . (Dday 10th July 2011)
Her biggest challenge,  it seems to me,   is how to keep the cats in the cradle - the kids seated and listening . It may look like those present have signed away their lives to something good, but will the wheelbarrow move once you try to push it down the road ?
My feeling is that the cats will jump ship early,  leaving the whole concrete mix to set in a spot where it's no earthly use - more paper and hot air to add to the pile .Group ambition is fine but group intention is illusory.


Unfortunately the only way to run Sunday School  is the old way . You can't have kids telling you on a consensus or even any other basis what goes down . Such approaches are just a mess; the very reason we need an educational revolution ?. All very well being Winsomeish ,  but best to leave that sort of airy fairness at home, even if its well intentioned.  If you gonna move onto  talk the tough "gunna do" stuff , you have to stick with inground realities . Everyone likes to have a Shot at agriculture and environment,  but those who think they know how to deal with its intricacies,  are often the worst because rural ecomia is complex.
You also can't have too many rules ( even 10 is enough and the new guy got it down to 2 ).   Sustainable Sunday School is about targeting the big bad issue, keeping it simple with targeted solutions and sticking to methods that address the key maladjustment principles consistently. Big handicap for her school is - They aren't even sure what's bad.   Keatings tax on 4wd 's was better targeted , more consistent and manageable than their policy will ever be on fuel . Maid Julia will need a Sheriff of Nottingham to collect it. Not sure where the merry men will go in the meantime.
Kids too aren't silly . She may have convinced Cabinet that the bad thing is something you can't see, but maybe they are used to that ?  If the unbelievers and skeptics are to believe with some faith in the new god and evil ,  the audience will always keep having doubts while you call evil ( pollution )good( sequestration ) Conviction and faith aren't built on shoe leather - they must start with the preacher being convincing and convicting about the nature of evil.

I know MPCCC think they are going to be simple ( a carbon price ) ( we agree - they are going to continue to be simple ) -- but  point is that they are not talking sense here --they are being too superficial with substance stuff .
Sustainable Sunday School  should be about values - simple values . The identification of suspect second rate options and how to recognise them should also be taught , but secondarily ;  Suspect second rate values are things like price. When values are the key,  you don't confuse the goal posts by taking a second rate guide .

Price can be a guide to value but it may not always be. Its certainly not the same thing for rich and poor. If the rich  pollute worst, you won't stop them with whatever  .... $ /tonne,   but you will crush the poor with a little .( CP  will start low.  My guess is 25 )  Marginal economic arguments are too complex for them so I guess they will ignore market realities and hope for the best. 25 / tonne sounds sort of inconsequential and I think they are hoping for something like that,  so they can all get relected ( fat chance of that eh!) rather than really move the earth , as they say they want to when they are selling the invites .
So, as soon as someone realises there is a lot of  unfairness in this hotschpotch attempt at moral correctness,  the priests will become targets for hypocrisy and inconsistency . Bob will no doubt know where reverse gear is and use it .  Like the right  of this world,  the left of this world , and the Greens,
 are about to land themselves in deep stuff - confusing value with price.
They all need to go back to SS and learn those lessons well . Once you correctly identify the bad thing ( always the hardest thing ) you must keep it simple stupid  and let the kids apply the truth to themselves, rather than try to tell everyone how they should behave .

Our hung parliament  is not before time . The majority of Australians have got into the idea that the majority knows best . But the majority do not want to see the future. The majority of Australians in 2010 are living well because of coal and gas exports and do not have to worry that our traditional export sector is dying. The majority of Australians do not care that our presenst prosperity is through the drip feed . We are living like those who have oil , on borrowed time . The majority do not want to see what;s good for our country in the long trem
But we do talk about being green and living sustainably .
The only way to model that is to abandon the decades of economic growth  policy based on quickfix and adopt a sustainable resilience based approach based on slowfix.

A letter to New Scientist Magazine april 2007  just before  I pulled my subs in protest !


Thanks for some stimulating reading . It was good to keep in touch with some of the latest .

However ,we are poor practical scientists who can’t really afford your magazine . Despite the image of your magazine many of us well qualified scientists are increasingly treated in Australia with token gestures and indolent lack of respect that well explains the lack of interest by students in careers in these most fascinating ( mine ) of areas – if not careers .Do a study on how many experienced scientists will retire without providing any mentorship ( key credibility matter!) in the next five/ last five years !

Time you and our leaders took the brain drain pain seriously and took more concrete action . Decide whether old is OK .and even more important to follow than NEW .,Stop all the careless talk and constant speculation in the budget managers playground and the restore support for old distinctions that make science and practice work . Your magazine does not often recognize the difference between love of technology ( one of your themes) and the passion of those who have spent many decades in the very hard slog of real science, innovation and practical earth management .
Technology is often a cover for a form of fix with little more than speculative substance; Wasted talk and experiment ,often at taxpayers expense.

This preoccupation with the NEW might be fine in Australia if it wasn’t driving budgets away from a calling to study things properly, and build on the past . I can say this trend away from intellectual rigor and mentorship is huge after 30years of genuine practical and close planning ties with some of Australia’s best scientists, engineers and some of Australia’s greatest innovators as well. Just how well you support us is a matter of deep concern to those who want to reduce our current commitment to a fad filled future.
Speculation , rather than proper support for innovation , is still one of the biggest growing stumbling blocks to Australia becoming a truly prosperous and clever country .

Time you reviewed the highly speculative side of your skim throughs .

Time you reviewed whether you are more post modern and more philosophically committed than you claim to be . “Truth, False and Both “( last months issue ) may be your cut on avoiding the boring, but it is just more boring reactionary drivel to me ! .After all, there is Truth , Falsehood and Most of the time “just a bit closer to the truth” . Both is the sort of titillating twaddle that we have had to put up (not from science and practice in Australia) , but from our increasingly irrelevant ”art schools “and major media outlets who insist , decade after decade, on feeding us a highly predictable diet of muddling uncertainty wrapped up in some NEW bright speculative dress.

Get real
 talk about poverty and making it happen history with science and practice .( not all innovation let me remind you)
 Talk more about what made Australia great and
 What now limits the sense of fairness and http://fairgomate.blogspot.com
 What now limits support for innovators in this country .

While I expect you also will remain chief advocates for the sort of dull monism that is at the heart of our modern intellectual doldrums, I humbly suggest that the evidence is that new science is “bringing us closer to the truth “and all our current knowledge and speculation is STILL a very small part of a much bigger picture, that we simply do not understand. http://graceware.blogspot.com