Freedom Hits 2006

True automotive freedom has to be 3 to 4 hour delays driving out of Wellington north bound on State Highway 1. Merry Xmas and thank Christ for the motor vehicle. I can just hear the collective anger, frustration, whinging kids... Just what you needs to begin your holidays. And if you think more roads will solve this you head is up your arse.

Thank god for America - I mean what would the citizens of Iraq done if they hadn't been libertated. The world is a safer place, and the citizens of Iraq must be enjoying the blandishments of democracy this Christmas. On another note "Iraqi insurgents", freedom fighters, terrorists, criminals, thugs whatever you like to call them have offered the US a 30 day truce to get the fuck out of Iraq on news of several more dead americans fighting for the continuation of the American Way of Life - What a choice, either leave the place to the Shiite death squads or continue sending Marines home in body bags, as long as you are able to fill up the Ford Explorer it's worth, isn't that right punters.

Imagine trying to sleep with the temperature 27 degrees C, at night. Melbourne is currently enjoying such conditions - nothing to do with Global Warming however, continue burning whatever you need to burn to ensure the economy ticks along at 3% growth per annum.

While we are on the topic of Australia, the drought is certainly putting constraints on peoples freedom to water their gardens and wash their cars. Once again - nothing to do with global warming I am sure...

Feel free to add your freedom picks for the year in the comments.

Share the love
Merry Xmas
Steve

Far Quitery Knows No Bounds.
or, please do not post pointless points in my comments

The biggest flaw of the pseudo-philosophy called "objectivism" is that its principle tenents are a priori inalienable self-evident truths. Essentially this is a necessary condition for the belief that any particular act is objectively right or wrong. Additionally not helping the cause is the fact that the dogma is overly represented by juvenille pimply faced boys whom after discovering it promptly annoint themselves all knowing rational pedants ready to comment (logically of course) on everything and anything.

Now, I like to think of myself as a philosopher, but unlike Paris Hilton I don't always go out wearing my makeup. Generous helpings of narrative bullshit, satire, illogical mutterings, irrational polemic piffle, and off the cuff thoughts and notions is all wonderful stuff. Living your life with the stupid attitude that prompts you to attempt to logify every sentence you write or utter is about as boring and pointless as it gets.

The reductio of this position is inherent in this little gem by Kane Bunce. Now I don't know much about Mr Bunce other than what can be gleaned by his posts (and his occasional comments on various blogs) but by a strange paradoxical reason that just occurred to me governmental control is most certainly needed such that utter fuckwits like this don't get to make any decisions about matters of public and private good. Bunce is a cartoon of his own ideology. His ridiculous comments policy stands against everything his ideology stands for.

For your amusement I have assembled a brief selection of quotes from Mr Bunce.

• "Why is it that Iran and North Korea are merely considered rogue states? Both are more than rogue states. They are a threat to the West. Western nations should pull out of Iraq and send their troops to these two countries instead. ... And while they are at it why not deal to Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon?" (get in touch with the redneck within) These people are terrorists and the world would be a safer place without them, were gonna bring these suckers to justice!!!
  
  
• "To teach a child, or an adult for that matter, that they have a responsibility to others will lower their mental health not raise it" What lower it below their nose, or below their crotch?
  
  
• "No person has any responsibility to others" Oh, I wish I could apply this to my son sometimes.
  
• "Is the extinction of great white sharks a travesty for humanity? No, I don't think it is. It is not a species we rely on to survive, so it is no travesty to humanity." It's just lucky we NZers rely so heavily on the kiwi.
  
• "And he said a world without tigers would not be worth living in. Clearly he values tigers above humans." I think I might be overly valuing porn and alcohol.
  
• "And as the science gets older it gets safer, like all scientists" It's just a shame the chemist that developed thalidomide wasn't 85.
  
• "So we here in New Zealand will receive local cooling, which is contrary to global warming" Oh, this science obviously isn't old enough yet! What a relief.
  

nb. I think free speech is overated - therefore I have comment moderation turned on - I do not have a comments policy - I just make it up as I go along. I reject capitalism per se as a farce and a joke nevertheless I have little option but to participate in it - however I can think of better ideas, I have issues with democracy just because a majority of individuals believe something, it does not necessarily follow that it is either true or good. And I certainly do not believe in a fundamentalist approach to private property rights. That is overall I typically disagree with capitalism's consequentialist approach to ethics, in favour of perhaps a combo of deontological and virtue or character based approaches. Sometimes the ends never justifies the means. And if you disagree with that, well, you simply aren't thinking about it.

Cluelessness, Democracy and Suburban Hell for Everyone
"Freedom is the recognition of necessity" (Hardin, 1968)

Those enamoured by liberal democracy (in an idealistic way) are often guilty of incorrectly assuming that (and I think I've said this a few times) contained within the slurry of half-arsed ideas that our information-overloaded society offers, there is at least one idea that if enough people believe it then it must be true.

Peter Cresswell who runs a NZ blog site called Not PC provides a good example of greed oriented fuckwittery and complete and utter lack of foresight, let alone "I want to leave a place that my kids or grand kids will want to live in".

Cresswell thinks suburban sprawl is a good thing! Cresswell opposes anyone and anything that seeks to slow development and growth in favour of "leaving it to the markets" - in other words leaving it to the greedy fucks that will turn the world into a shoebox apartment for a fast buck.

When people like Cresswell get his way, we simply decrease the amount of time between now and when we are all living in a shithole. If Cresswell had his way we'd do stupid things like slice up millions of hectares of currently productive farmland so him and his plonker libertarian mates can have (totally unproductive but esthetically pleasing) lifestyle blocks complete with Ford Explorers and McMansions - of course the poor people can all live an hours happy driving away from the city in exurbian ghettos.

Anyway, in response to his blog titled Countrywide Zoning is Unwanted Government Control I posted this comment.

Peter, I often read your blog, and I often think that instead of actually thinking about things you simply regurgitate misled dogma and flawed idealism. This article/blog entry and your recent obsession with endless economic growth predicated upon urban sprawl and the bloated property market confirms my observations.

Interestingly there is an increasing group in society, those that anguish over such things as population growth but are loathe to relinquish any of the privileges that they now enjoy. Furthermore contrary to the techno-hubris that we've assumed over the last century, the set of "no technical solution problems" contains members. We do not, as libertarian economists would have you believe live on a planet that can sustain endless economic growth, or expansionism. If the people of china wish to live like all of us in the west we'd need about another 3 or 4 planets worth of resouces.

There are limits on a finite planet and I expect the consequences of pushing those limits are beginning to manifest themselves now. Recommended research, if you can be bothered (why would you, we live in a democracy, if enough people believe something it must be true aye.) The Tragedy of The Commons. (as a starting point). Suburban sprawl and growth is part of the problem. Not the solution. You can't solve the problem of depleting resources by depleting them at a faster rate.

Update 1. 22-11-05
As an epilogue to this, PC's mates compelled to illogically support their brain-dead leader continued for some time to regurgitate the "Suburban sprawl is good!" message under the weak guise of "choice". One respondant claimed "the law of abundance" to be a law of nature, see my first paragraph above for a response to that.

Actually what's going on here is the vehement defence of a living arrangement and economy that is increasingly disconnected with reality. Hardin (1968) argues

"natural selection favours the forces of pyschological denial. The individual benefits as an individual from his ability to deny the truth even though society as a whole, of which he is a part, suffers"

The difference between "choice" and a 6 and a half billion people owning a quarter acre block in suburbia seems to be something Peter Cresswell and his mates either haven't or don't want to consider, the latter a clear illustration of Hardin's point, the prior simple ignorance.

If Cresswell and his obese on consumerism junkies ("because it's my choice") wish to continue with their plans for suburban sprawl then we'd better start sending troops to the middle east since the remaining (2/3's of the world's oil supply) is there and that's what it takes to sustain suburbia.

New Zealand Ponders Peak Oil

The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those who have not got it.

George Bernard Shaw.

As we all race to convert the fictitious new capital in our properties into Toyota Prados, LCD screen TVs, and package holidays to the Gold Coast cluelessness in regard to the global energy/economic situation continues unabated.

The single most important ingredient for economic growth is increased energy consumption yet most New Zealanders including a sizable gaggle of dense politicians are yet to make this connection. Energy is the capacity to do work, no energy, no work. Yet energy is taken for granted. At least it has been until about now.

As the price of a barrel of oil continues to march skyward those with a modicum of wetware between the ears have begun asking “why?” There are various ways to answer this question for now I’m sticking to a simple explanation and it can be expressed in a single word - scarcity.

Rampant demand growth for oil across the developed and transitioning economies can simply be translated as desire. Our collective desire for all manner of techno-gadget consumer products, McMansions, V8 SUVs, speedboats, individually wrapped plastic packaged food, weekend recreational shopping and tropical holidays, that is, our greed driven desire for material success grossly exceeds our ability to be happy with what we have got. We are alcoholics to utility maximisation, drunk on instant gratification and heavily in debt because of it. If consumer products were drugs we’d all be lining up at the door of the Salvation Army.

The reason the price of oil is so high is a direct result of out of control desire effectively increasing the scarcity of the resource. The fall of the iron curtain and consequent proselytization of western style individualism and democracy throughout the world has created unprecedented levels of desire for more and more “stuff”. And the only way to ensure we get to
have this stuff is through continued economic growth. The demand to burn increasing amounts of oil necessarily follows.

Thus, as a consequence some might argue of the exploding global capitalistic society within which we live, it is ourselves that have driven the price of oil to its current level. Don’t blame the oil companies blame yourself. And if enlightenment philosopher David Hume was correct in that “all conflict springs from scarcity” the roller door to the double garage of self-destruction has already been opened. Iraq and Iran both swim on a sea of oil and everybody wants it. We want it so bad we are prepared to die for it.

If the current price of petrol, indeed oil were not enough to irritate you, dampen your economic confidence, the looming spectre of “Peak Oil” is certain to rain heavily on the current consumption parade.

We are almost at the point at which half the entire global endowment of oil has been consumed, discovery of oil peaked in the 1960s and despite all technology and the scouring of the earth for more, discovery has steadily declined since. Today we burn almost 84 Million barrels per day. Andrew McKillop an energy economist, argues we will be lucky to increase this figure to a maximum 90 Million barrels, at this point increasing depletion and continued demand will offset new discovery – we’ll be going backwards. With demand growth running at about 3 million barrels per year the current economic world party is likely to last at most another few years – maybe another term of Government.

Already many of the world’s large iconic oil regions are in decline, the North Sea, Norway, arguably or very soon Saudi Arabia. By the end of this decade the western industrial world will descend into a surreal hyper-scarcity miasma. If you think petrol is expensive now, just wait another year or two. Supply of the black oozy lifeblood of the economy will begin shrinking by about 3% per year. Economic growth throughout the western world will end abruptly as hyper-inflated oil prices become structural shortages! Hume’s conflict will manifest itself at the service station as well as the streets of Baghdad.

Some New Zealand politicians (Greens, Labour although it’s not admitting it yet) have already realised this scenario is just around the corner. Some with all the hubris of schoolyard bullies continue to laugh about it (ACT, National, United Future). With an election looming PowerLess NZ invites New Zealanders to make the distinction. Simply email your politician and ask them how they are planning today for peak oil – building more roads obviously is not the correct answer (nor for that matter is dropping out of Kyoto). Don’t accept feel good newspeak answers.

The remainder of this decade will be increasingly defined by energy or a lack thereof. Voters ought to consider this issue seriously; our collective continued well being depends on action now. Well prepared, New Zealand could be well placed to weather such a storm but preparation will require intensive national effort in order to dramatically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. This election make the right decisions so that the effort can begin.

Steve McKinlay for
Powerless NZ
18 August 2005

The 'A' Bomb In Wardour Street

Where the streets are pave with blood,
With cataclysmic overtones,
Fear and hate linger in the air,
A strictly no-go deadly zone,
I don't know what I'm doing here,
Cause it's not my scene at all,
There's an 'A' bomb in Wardour Street,
They've called in the Army, they've called in the police.
Paul Weller, 1978

I think there are two thoughts we ought to seriously consider in respect of the terrorist bombings in London last week.

Firstly, much media commentary has, in my opinion, vaulted to the naive conclusion that the bombings are Islamic fundamentalist (Al Qaeda) retribution for the UK's involvement in the war in Iraq. A seemingly obvious corollary to this position being that because New Zealand was not involved in the invasion of Iraq we would not be considered a target by Al Qaeda, JI or other terrorist cells operating in our vicinity.

Two issues aside immediately, firstly that New Zealand actually has troops based in both Iraq and Afghanistan, in this sense we are involved whether we like to think we are or not, and secondly multinational Islamic terrorist groups had been executing terrorist attacks for at least a decade prior to the invasion of Iraq.

Nevertheless it is a tempting position to hold, a kind of simplistic justification that somehow makes sense of the carnage and at the same time immunises ourselves from having to face the possibility that it could ever be possible in this country. Yet those holding this belief, I argue, are missing the point. Furthermore, the complacent belief that we could be immune to such threat ought to immediately raise questions about the nature of such a belief and what it might be based upon.

Rohan Gurnaratna, author of Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror, points out that since 9/11 Al Qaeda's network within the Asia-Pacific has remained virtually intact. Cells had been particularly active in the Philippines and Malaysia and it is now common knowledge (since Bali) that Jemaah Islamiyyah (JI) was inflitrated in the early 90s and is the face of Al Qaeda in our part of the world. The current spiritual leader of JI, Abu Bakar Bashiyar lives in Indonesia. JI was formed by Abdullah Sungkar and after his death in 1999, Bashiyar his closest friend took over. It was a meeting between Sungkar and Osama in Afghanistan that spawned JI (Gurnaratna, 2002, p189).

Australia and New Zealand's isolation offer some natural level of protection however the very nature of our liberal democracies offer up vulnerabilities not currently exploitable in nations with now much tightened level's of security. Just as the terrorist threat moved beyond the Middle East in the 1970s and 1980s, and with rapidly developing technological global communications terrorist cells could operate with relative ease in both New Zealand and Australia. Our inherent ideological weakness (a free liberal society) combined with a growing terrorist threat in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore make our part of the world according to Gurnaratna, Al Qaeda's new theatre.

And the point is this, it is not the invasion of Iraq that is the direct cause of any, least not recent terrorist activities, it is our way of life, it is the excesses, degradation, arrogance and freedom of western styled democracy that is the target of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism. The absense of Islamic shari'ah law and the substitution of man-made civil law looms large in the mind of an islamic extremist. Those burying their heads in the sand about possible terrorist attacks in New Zealand ought to rethink their position. Terrorists are opportunists. And New Zealand is rapidly rising up the list of liberal democracies that present clear and tangible opportunities.

One blunt response I heard last week as news broke of the terrorist attack in London was this - "who cares?". Thus the second consideration I ask readers to think about begins with these headlines today;

Suicide Bombers Kill 34 or 21 Killed, Scores Wounded in Baghdad Bombing

You might find a small article buried away in the recesses of your local newspaper, a search on Google News turned up plenty of links, most weren't running this as a cover story. You could run the argument that Iraqi deaths aren't as important as British deaths, or perhaps more acutely, that the information isn't as interesting or relevant.

But then, who really cares right?

On Being Quiet!

One might wonder, why the silence? I can tell you. In two weeks I'm off on a junket tour of Sweden, Scotland and England. Specifically, Vasteras, near Stockholm, Sweden for the E-CAP (European Conference on Computing and Philosophy). I am presenting a paper entitled "Can Knowledge be an Immutable Data Type? The limits of the model theoretic approach". More than happy to provide more detail for those interested. But, I'm getting ready to expose my credentials to a bunch of professors of philosophy. This is the real world!

In the mean time here is something for those hanging out for a peak oil rant.

This was the result (my result) of an exchange with someone who was interested in my provision of a solution for Peak Oil. Actually, that's not entirely fair. This was my ranting and raving. Simple as that. I place no blame on any individual that asks me any question - I am the one with the problem.

Society is fine. Continue consuming at your leisure!
The reality of all those people (consumers) is called real-politik. The change required goes right to the heart of democracy. You have to do away with democracy if you want things to change, because inherent in democracy is individual freedom and property rights. These rights will have to be foregone in a new world.

The minute you or I or some politician tells someone else what they can do and what they cannot do with their own property, whether that is land, resources, labour whatever you have lost some of that freedom that democracy holds so dear, that what is yours is yours to sell or do as you wish with.

All this is about is people trying to make money. It's just that now we have an entire global system supporting that aim. As long as this system is in place resources will be exploited at ever increasing rates. Try telling a mother in Bangladesh that she cannot feed her children because it's immoral to fell forests so she can graze her animals. So what do you do about that - ship in grain by container from the first world. That's not a solution, that's the problem.

What is it that you can possibly do - bring in laws to stop the importation of all that stuff we buy from Bond and Bond, the Warehouse, Noel Leeming... Do we prevent people buying cars and living in suburbs? Where to you house people if you are not going to let them live in suburbs? City Ghettos? The average wage in NZ is less than 35,000 - most people on this kind of money live from week to week. All they are concerned about is paying the bills and feeding their kids. It's a treat to them to afford to buy a Playstation for Christmas for the kids, it's a treat to them to have MacDonalds and hire a video in the weekend. What do you do, take this away from them? Tell them they have to go back to cross stitch and macrame - for gods sake most of these people can't read anyway, they don't go the library for entertainment they turn on the TV - the TV tells them to buy stuff, and if they don't they are losers.

Changes only happen in the face of extreme adversity. At the moment there is nothing like this. NZ is experiencing the highest level of employment and economic growth since before the last oil crisis in the 70s. Nothing will change until 450,000 people are displaced, unemployed. Nothing will change until it costs more to fill your car each week than it does to pay your mortgage. Nothing will change.

Jo if I can't convince scientists that there are severe problems ahead what hope do we have of convincing people living on the breadline in Naenae, or middle class familys with 2 BMW's in the garage mortagaged to the hilt, their kids at Queen Margaret and Scots college living in Khandallah. They don't care. To them it's all bullshit, all they want is a better life. Energy - that is someone elses problem, they pay their taxes, they expect water to come out of the tap when they turn it on, they expect the light to go on when they hit the switch.

I'm mostly disinterested in trying to change the world - you drive yourself mental trying to do that. I'm interested in peak oil from a sociological/anthropological point of view. If I provoke one or two people to think about it, then that's great. The solution to peak oil is well beyond my comprehension, I can't even be bothered thinking about solutions. The only solution I see actually panning out is for the worst to happen, because only when this happens will the entire perversity that we call civilisation that has taken 4 generations to build be destroyed. At that point we can begin to look at how we might live, post industry.

Maybe this is a proposed solution.

Increase petrol tax by 300% incrementally over the next 3 years
Use the money to double rail infrastructure across NZ
Increase road tax (rego) on all vehicles larger than 1200cc - quadruple it at least.
Make vehicles less than a 1000cc and motor bikes etc exempt.
Ban all imported vehicles immediately over 1200cc
Reduce speed limit on open road to 60k
Stop all new suburban development
Stop all immigration immediately
Impose massive tariffs on all imported goods - basically take out all the mega-shopping chains and encourage localised production again.
Implement compulsory NZ wide permaculture and market gardening regimes/education
Force suburbs to become to some extent self sufficient in food production, energy generation, water supply
Stop all new road projects
All international trade deals are off.
Implement emergency food rationing (because at this point you will have made a lot of people unemployed)
Implement full scale command economy. Unemployed people have to move to argricultural areas and begin that kind of work or get harshly reduced benefits. Government control where resources get spent etc.
Stop all tax dollars going into arts/cultural/sport... DOC programmes, limit all research funding to appropriate areas.
Can both TV1 and Maori TV (a massive waste of resources) - use radio as a news/information medium.
Impose voluntary repatronisation for new immigrants - back dated to say 1990.
(NZ will have to reduce it's population)
Introduce 1 child policy
Increase student fees to cover all costs for non-essential education. (That is English Lit and Athenian Coinage courses will no longer be funded by the taxpayer - this money will be needed to build new infrastructure/rickshaws and grow food.

Now that we have implemented a soviet like state, we'll need to encourage and coerce people to participate in this new utopia.
Introduce government implemented education schemes, praising the virtues of the new system.
Teachings will include discouraging class distinctions, a leveling of society where doctors and farmers are held in the same esteem.
In this uptopia we will also have to have a strong military/police presence because there will be descenters.
However, the good news is that most of the highflyers - those people with big fat houses in Roseneath and Remuera will move to Australia or somewhere else.

Within 5 years if well planned (but lets face it this is logistical nightmare) we'll be using a similar amount of fossil fuel to what we were using before the second world war. Society will resemble that time too. It will take generations for the resentment to fade tho. Violence will most certainly increase. The transition will be extremely harsh. BUT - when the US, the UK, Australia and Europe are all in full scale collapse, NZers will be whinging but living somewhat sustainably.

Steve McKinlay
PowerLess NZ.

New Zealand: In 15 Years Time

In 15 years kids will be kicking battered rugby balls around on multilane highways and sifting through wastelands, sitting amongst rubber tyres, the discarded detritus, the smouldering embers of yesterday.

Rich people still trying to buy very expensive petrol at the few remaining outlets will be subjected to attacks by marauding groups of resentful vigilante's, the baseball bat will emerge as the natural enemy of the SUV.

There will be a massive rush to get out of the suburbs as the middle classes realise all their investment in such lifestyles is worthless, many will remain in denial, desperately clinging to the hope that things will get better as their towns begin to resemble the Minsk ghetto. Things don't get better.

Feudal middle age style villages will begin emerging in rural areas, heavily protected and defended by those that heed the warnings early. Hoards of people will blame the government, totalitarianism will begin to emerge in place of democracy, law and order will become the primary occupation of the Government. Military coups are entirely possible.

Civil disorder, confusion, crime, rape, looting and fear will reign over wide sectors of society. Society will revert largely to a survival of the biggest and strongest. Racial violence will become rife as fringe groups like the National Front grow dramatically in size and assert their authority. People will view certain ethnic groups in society of having no place in NZ. As the fabric of society is eroded essential services will become increasingly unreliable, highrise buildings, sections of airports, The Warehouse, K-marts all will become squatter's quarters as they empty of businesses, unemployment will soar.

Child poverty, disease and malnourishment will escalate. Infant mortality rates will increase. Queues at what used to be supermarkets will be commonplace as transportation and supply lines are increasingly disabled.

The Government will initiate rationing, curfews and pass laws restricting all manner of behavioir, desenters will be severly punished. Hospitals will resemble war time field hospitals as funding drys up.

Suicide will rise dramatically as over committed heavily debted people find nothing left to live for. Universities will close down departments, many schools will close - massive downsizing will be the inevitable result of lack of funds.

Regional and city councils will be unable to maintain essential systems, water,waste and sewerage systems will suffer as rate's funds begin to dry up. Current market oriented business investment to upgrade and maintain electricitysystems will be nonexistent, black outs will be common. Government will be forced to spend money it doesn't have to procure such assets back in a futile effort to regain stability.

City streets will begin to resemble filthy third world cities, complete with beggers, thiefs, touters, hawkers and gangs. Alcoholism and child prostitution will increase.

All non essential funding for the art's, grants, research, subsidies, DOC and environmental projects, etc will dry up. Possum numbers will increase dramatically - that's good, we'll need them for food. Ecological diversity will suffer - but no one will really care.

There will be a necessary harsh adjustment away from our totally unsustainable lifestyles to one that resembles the latter part of the 18th century, but with 4 million mouths. Class divisions will begin to emerge. The debt heavy middle class will disappear overnight. Hundreds of thousands of people will lose their homes a month or so after they lose their jobs. A whole generation will be displaced.

New Zealand will descend into a totalitarian dystopia.

Life will become a bitch.

Long before we begin dreaming optimistically we need to face this reality. Because unless we begin preparing now this is what life in NZ will be like in 15 years - and that's probably an optimistic view.

I'm up on the hills, playing little boy soldiers,
Reconnaissance duty up at 5:30.
Shoot shoot shoot and kill the natives,
You're one of us and we love you for that.

Think of honour, Queen and country,
You're a blessed son of the British Empire,
God's on our side and so is Washington.
Come out on the hills with the little boy soldiers.

Come on outside - I'll sing you a lullaby,
Or tell a tale of how goodness prevailed.

We ruled the world - we killed and robbed,
The fucking lot - but we don't feel bad.

It was done beneath the flag of democracy,
You'll believe and I do - yes I do - yes I do -
yes I do ....

P.Weller 1979