Overstatement - a sign that the cracks are appearing

 Whether it happens in the pulpit or from the preaching chairs at kindergarten, we plebs should be aware that when all the noisy ones start overstating and oversimplifying, they not only can't be trusted, but they should not have any power over us. 

We may realize if we look and think more clearly than they are  that they don't infact know what they are doing . 

Someone who did know what he was doing

One of the best things I ever saw on Wikipedia ( a great thing) was a 20 page outline of depression and why it was a growing phenomenon and disease in the West ---so direct and helpful in helping us understand and deal with it.

It was punchy and pointed because it was written by someone who not only studied the medicine and science side, but who had spent his life helping people . It was taken down because he didn't have enough citations. (I don't have time for that either --that would mean spending life in a Uni and also all dealing with the pedantic naysayers on the net )

We live in a time in history when you are not encouraged to speak freely , when the conventional wisdom comes from kindergarten ( hoping someone will approve your distilled wisdom through citation - ) and worse ,that ever present lazy thinking cynical silencer who has all their lives not made sense of anything and has all the changes of cul de sac ideas to prove it.

Real wisdom does come from reason science and the pen , but only the free pen.!!!!

As we all should know, if one of us speaks up in the face of tyranny , we may well be speaking up for most of us.... and the truth . Overstatement is listed as an example of someone gripped by their need to try and retain their own sense of power over us

Real wisdom does come from reason science and the pen , but only the free pen.!!!!

Governments about to collapse

 The redoubling of effort that precedes COLLAPSE of a powerful party is designed to keep the audience from seeing that that party has sent the country broke. See Santayana on the science of such phenomenon in history. 
The EXTRA big spending by a party that precedes COLLAPSE is designed to keep the very cost conscious audience from seeing that that party is sending them broke ;
Things must, whatever the cost, look like they are getting better - Such rhetoric and imagery falls apart when the desperado's claim does not make sense  For eg : that "houses are becoming more affordable and holding their value at the same time"
It appears that modern governments can use advertising to say whatever the people want to hear --  even if it doesn't make sense. Nothing risks a collapse like allowing the ruling party a big advertising budget ( Parliaments should legislate to limit it )  

Less obvious but just as common is the less costly redoubling of effort  to 
-- please the people by appearing to do things that give them things 
-- give the people a sense of calm and steady state 

Even less obvious is the costly redoubling of effort to 

--keep spending big on what is seen as a moral responsibility 
 - keep a war going by saying how just that war is
-- make the people feel better about themselves.  This has to be subtle to work  

-- make the reporting (by being good friends with the media ) look like the government are actually winning the war . 

Notes 
If there is a fear on the peoples mind's the leader will often being very consoling.Detail is not important but acting confident is . 
His or Her party will remind the people that they have a solution and to stick with it  ( not about how much it will cost in the short term) .That;s one reason why there is a risk if the solution changes .

Clearly The Brits have lost the plot because if releasing new gases will cool the atmosphere , even Jeremy Clarkson will not get a subsidy to have a wild field and all real English farmers will just go broke-- with no payment for being good boys .  
see the [CO2 ] argument 
---If the solution is costing too much, do not even try to explain why. The Government must in such situations be unflappable.   
A Politician trying to defend a scientific solution is one of the worst things a politician can do . Its likley to emind the public that polys really are often stupid . A smart but  untrustworthy PM will let one of his ministers go into defense on such matters.    
-- Make sure  you make the people feel better by using the advertising budget to full extent possible
-- increase the money that government spend in the media , infront of cameras and on marginal voters 

I could go on .
It appears that in times of real threat,  the public can be completely captivated , not by logic but by fear that what they fear could come true . Such times are not for logic but an appeal to righteousness , self righteousness and even sacrifice " we , "meaning you slaves ", need to suffer pain .  " 
Amazingly some people are happy with the Emperor parading in the street and handing out lollies.

 

The illusion of strength

 For those of us who follow the Master,  the idea that "we are winning the war" is quite real,  but it is seldom something we see day to day in the world around us. 

We, like all those who see their causes apparently failing,  can get fanatical easily .
Sorry about that when it happens . 

But while  a downturn can get to us,  our master looks after us and we learn to see and keep investing in the future   " using That hideous strength " .

.A down turn is hard work .But low ebbs are where the vision of  ultimate success is often where the outcome is most concrete  and sustainable  What also sustains us, is that we learn form experience  that the picture we have  of things going the right way is often just that -- an illusion . 
.   

No so those whose god is their popularity,  like the Pirate Fitzimmons . Turnbull and Phillip Adams and sadly many who hide in what was once our ABC .
The  charm of the rebel starts to wear thin when the childishness of the games they play become obvious to others .
When media heavies  confuse popularity with democracy for example
,When the guru knows everything 
When someone like Flannery dares to open his mouth on every subject he wants and the ABC broadcast it :When Adams trots out every turnup as his own creation .
When  our supposedly intellectual ABC don't question  why Adam Bandt is controlling the agenda of Parliament .    
When the same old same olds keep being trotted out to drum up support for their expensive columns of hot air .Q&A's  total hypocrisy became real to many as it kept moving the targets each few minutes.

Real passions are driven by more than the bank and book accounts ......and last longer.   

As in all ages where dilatants have the stage , most of us are too busy achieving things to let  the  shallow speculation of how things work take up out time . Read Valclav Smil 

When the traitors  ships start to sink , any illusion   that the captain actually has a crew is soon shown if you note all the silence as the rats abandon  the rotting hull .


The Creator of habitats doesn't live in a particular hull and encourages us to live the same : sail the high seas with gay abandon and a faith that says the world is round and the forces can  work for good . 



You may see the ship sinking but we know that you are only seeing a down turn in mere numbers and dramatic highlights. Do fanatics lose sight of what a highlight really looks like?- they certainly have lost sight of how to get there!

The cyclic is a more reliable basis for hope than the linear .

Progressives are their own worst enemies - going too hard in one direction and setting themselves up for overreach .Like the  little kids they often are , they  are impatient to go somewhere and don't care enough about how quickly they can waste their life in quick fixes that don't work.If they are adults they still have to go back to classes they have skipped and which would have helped them be more successful in their latest foray  . 
Those of us who have achieved things need to remind each other of just how many turns there are in the road .If we don't do that, and teach our children about slowing down,  reading  the signposts and making the tough choices ,  the crashes along the way will grow .

Our situation post election 2022 in Australia with progressives advocating a rocket ride to 46% is completely mad and childish.

 All thinking adults  want the reconciliation with fossil fuel supply,  but some of us know you can't forge the way forward .  Many things and much pain  including climbing costs of resources will play a bigger in this reconciliation than mere laws and the the irrational desires to not study previous failures ( eg Carbon tax)  assuage guilt and unrealistic attempts  to stop greed.  

Getting progress is not a matter of speed or even direction as the children have now stated  ( The truth is there are many ways to same end and the wooriers" end is nigh" scenarios are not ours ( inc SMIL)  . 
Anyone who is ever going to really make progress knows achievement comes by knowing the route ,the connections , the distractions --  the HOW  as  Vaclav Smil ( HOW THE WORLD REALLY WORKS) points out so well in his new book .Most progressives  do not know this because they refuse to accept the discipline of walking . They see , like the children they often are , only the end point.   
  

You see , pointing the way is the pedantic child's way and we don't need the increasing numbers of children in Parliament as we ALL  go into what will be  a difficult transition . The adult thing is to remind each other that while the noisy children  will bang on about the end point , we all agree on the end point but need a strategy for each days journey , and it may not be a straight line ; and most importantly won't be achieved before they leave Parliament .
The childish  fights in the house now that they have done this will be hard for everyone to bear . 

If the truth be told , most westerners are not very successful in advancing solutions to complex problems  and show this in their cynicism about old ways ( they have tried -- in a sort of a way)and their vulnerability to new clothes salesmen.

The transition away from fossil fuels is a huge one but one that will need the very same precision ( not the smart arse cutting ) that has made the West great and which is often abandoned by the poor students of our day . . 
True respect for science incl science of economics &ecology is already absent and there is no way the paid off research institutions can ever recover http://ecomia.blogspot.com
30 years of Flannerys flaying around  on the ABC has been 30 years wasted and all we have is a generation of children lost to that institution's cynicism .  The Americans or someone in Asia maybe the first to revive an education system that works because we the reactionary west , sure can't . 

Progressives in the Green labor alliance are still ( August 2022) very  upbeat about the opportunities that being elected provides them for more action on climate change
.
Stupidly, its progressives  silly shallow faith in being first off the starting blocks  and heading  for  simple meaningless  but tokenistic goals that increase the risk of failure by believing too much in the power of raw power ( a common enough fad of those who have never weilded it ) ---- Its the effectiveness of any action ( not the push factor or  a date and a %)that really matters.

This blind ambition is  stupid in the extreme  when its clear these leaders have no idea of  the critical elements of energy and how it powers our economy .   
Its all very well to talk sustainability but just a joke if you don't know how to get it .  The  oldies  keep talking about batteries and technologies yet to be proven, handcuffed by bad mouthing coal and nuclear . tied up completeley by making mad competing nonsense assumptions about quickly we can all run .  Bankruptcy is the end result of such a process. 
Smil makes the critical  point that we  do need to go there in haste ,  but shows how mad it is to set goals and think its all political and not economic ( eg the price of fuel  being a more efficient  allocator of resources than ANY government policy . So whose pushing and   what cerd do they have ? 

This phenomenon not lost on those of us who know the cycle of impotence( let alone the cycle of radiation  physics which makes us laugh at the mere worship of the invisible --wind and hot air)  .and the end stages of fanaticism .Many of us who know how to manage real world resources,  know the real cost of fanaticism is going to be in a huge unnecessary degradation  of those resources. 

Nothing can touch you for a while  because even  if you don't know what you are actually going to do, you DO have the power to change policy direction and keep the daily media  for new angles happy . The majority of the public will often see all his movement as progress , as they have dome with Mr Andrews clear ability to get ahead of  his own dogs and dodges  and stop them from bighting him on the behind.
This powerful effectiveness o this wonderful (if short trem gain )phenomenon is   not seen by most people who are  used to  being served  some  sweet newness treat each day .

lets face it everyone on the screen is playing the game . What they don't know,  but the panel at  Gruen  know is---- just who is paying
 

Don't give up just yet

 Like Robespierre,  the tyrant may have cut off  enough heads to be desperate; really desperate.  There appear to only a limited number of ways to control people with fear -esp when facts of history come back into focus . 
 The chief  maybe searching for someone to blame for his  incompetence and needless bloodletting ; let alone the ditching of the constitution  and the creation of a police state, 
, Can't blame your own appointments, but you can blame the modellers  (that new group that cover up a lot of muddling ); the high priests,  the blood letters ( Oh dear we don't believe in having them around anymore ) 
Fortunately  for blame shifting,  the average joe blow thinks modelling is science .It is if you providing the assumptions." Lots of people are still at risk, but this time its not me or my appointees " that said so . Lets ignore the history  lets  try asking the Burnet institute for MYOB research.  2000 deaths .  

If you ever get beyond your own understanding , just remind the audience of what really works .   Hymn singing    . 

See " The French Revolution " documentary based on work of T Carlyle or try Peter in Prison  

Mainstream media are going mad

 If Santayana was still around he would be first to note the high level of fanaticism at the moment 
While western leaders show it ,
 The imminent demise of media control is making the media go completely mad . 

an eg 

I wrote a personal message recommendation, as a ecologist, for the Media  to look into the total confusion over what works in reducing carbon dioxide levels .
Facebook thought it didn't meet community standards and removed it . I will send anyone a link who asks for it .
Admins unsatisfactory adjudication of "what's printable "would offend even Voltaire.

Maybe that's the biggest story of the moment ?

You too can ask me for the story -----if you dare . 

The greatest evil is often done in the name of best intention

 
When leaders are Basking in the glory of their own self righteous wisdom, they can be impossible .
. 
They are not going to see reason and back down - they want to redouble the push so they can be proven right .......Such fanaticism is normal in those rare moments when leaders feel they are really doing some good , but the sooner they see that any improvement will be down to operatives )  the less damage all the fooling around with more fear ( you must do what we say) will stop 

The Victorian and Queensland Premiers of the moment have convinced themselves they are defending the good and right  against a torrent of revelation  that they don' t.."Someone will die if you don't do what I say"

 Most leaders don't really don really know what they doing . But in rare moments when they feel and  claim to occupy the highest moral and scientific ground , that self righteousness protects them from seeing what is really going on NOW  ,
For various reasons they are not where they think they  are ,
They think at one hour  they are trusting the best advice and yet on the striking clock they briefly remember they were always more interested always in trying to prove something   Too bad if others pay for my games ---- its fun for me ,
The hypocrites can't have it both ways