Submitted to Pearls & Irritations 26 Aug 2025. Without civilisation, claimed Thomas Hobbes in 1651, life was, and would be, ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. Given how nasty and brutish much of our world is at present, and how many people’s lives are shortened by our brutishness, and how many people are extremely poor,… Read More Origins of our collective brutishness
This was provoked by a well-meaning but needlessly inflammatory Facebook post on a local page. I thought a more considered comment would be better. To those who find the flying of three flags divisive – they are not, they merely reflect our history of division. If we want to be united, we need to acknowledge… Read More Three flags?
What does the Labor government think its purpose is? Since 1996 the question keeps recurring. Apparently it is not to address global warming with the urgency required, nor to demand the US stop enabling genocide in Palestine, nor to reduce disastrous inequality and house prices, nor to restore some security to employment, nor to stop… Read More Labor’s purpose: corruption and subversion?
The failures of privatised child care and aged care have starkly illustrated the inability of markets to deliver quality service. The failure applies to all human services. The grand neoliberal experiment of the past four decades has also failed to deliver the thriving economy that was its central claim. The failures are not just a… Read More Failures in privatised care starkly illustrate the inevitable failure of Neoliberalism
Are we just selfish brutes who need to be civilised into social, moral behaviour? If not, where do our decency and altruism come from? Can we resist the tides of fear and control rolling over us and cultivate more compassionate and peaceable societies? [Published by Pearls & Irritations 10 July 2025] Elon Musk reckons ‘the… Read More Empathy, morality, civilisation, and resisting tyrants
Climate, AI, plastics: we are either tipping or are blundering blindly towards tipping into irreversible damage from our own activities. As well, nuclear weapons lurk, ready to kill off most of who or what might be left. Either we pay attention to why we are engaging in this collective insanity, and act on it, or we… Read More Tipping into the approaching dark age
It is the most cynical of moves, clearly we’re supposed to have forgotten about it in 3 years’ time.… Read More Albo’s true colours already plain to see
Let us cultivate our strength of character, so we have the gumption to go our own way in the world, being a constructive presence among nations, as we were briefly after WWII, when Australia was a prime mover in the formation of the United Nations.… Read More ANZAC: Honour the Dead, Spurn the Myths and Militarism
Almost the entire Australian political class has government spending exactly backwards.… Read More Budget Fudget
This is a statement I just posted on Facebook Just to be clear: Netanyahu is a mass murderer of innocents. The State of Israel was founded on terrorism and has practised repression and apartheid throughout its brief history. Several of its Prime Ministers were terrorists. And now it perpetrates mass murder of innocents. Note: This… Read More Israel is perpetrating mass murder of innocents
Thrival Economics 