Humanities Desire

Well i wonder whether i should put Osama, i saw him yesterday in the title to get a little attention, however, i probably would only get the wrong kind of attention. In a world where we argue about the Western or Asian model then people ponder the imposition of values from one culture or another we forget the basic tenants of life.

It is a fact that Europe, the Middle East, India and Asia have effectively been joined for the millennium and have alternated leadership throughout that period. We are more similar than we are dissimilar and the main characteristic that has always joined us and and always pushed us forward is the accumulation of wealth. The problems in Afghanistan arise not through a difference in models but the inability to provide them with the wealth they so crave. We give them freedom without the wealth they so desire.

So that is the problem in the modern world wealth can only be delivered to a limited few and the rest, well the rest they turn to whatever they feel may provide some form of salvation and frequently that can be devastating. So man my ape, my humanity the sun rises, the birds rise, the armies march they always have the politicians scheme they negotiate people lose their values, yet, yet life is simple give me wealth the people scream, and if you don't you will fall. Yet the people they breed ever more the politicians they run, they scamper faster we all run but we can't deliver the wealth to the people.

So as i ponder as i placate my daily needs and requirements, as i listen to the over educated masses who seem to forget the basics requirements of life, those that read philosophy avoiding what is visible in front of them.

Man oh so simple, the naked ape.

What is the point I wonder

I wonder sometimes what is the point. I have talent I have a good brain I write more meaningful words than appear in a multitude of newspapers, I periodically email journalist then give up what is the point. Someone emailed me once saying please unsubscribe. She might as well have said, I don't want to think I just want to protect my income.

Journalist protect their livelihood in a world where incomes are dropping people aren't really interested in creativity, in original thinking, why think why write, why imagine, in a world where people are desperate to earn a living, desperate to provide the newest and greatest to their beloved, what is the point in talent.

No one really cares, no ones really wants it. What is the point I wonder.

The Streets of London

Early in the morning I rise and wonder the streets of London. I look to the skies and see the myriad of birds which have risen with me exploiting niches around the every present ape. Life is resilient it searches for another way to exist and persist and it will long after we are gone. We do not yet have the power of the stars so we can destroy ourselves but not all life.

Also in the early hours you understand a little of the city. The immigrants rise and work, they catch the early buses. You can distinguish them from their serious faces, focused on the basics of life unlike the more frivolous natives. So we have created a social system that benefits some, but our city, our great city cannot exist without vast numbers of immigrants perhaps working for less than the minimum wage, many indisputably working in the black market. Like all great cities through the ages it is a magnet for those searching.

They look at me a stranger in amongst them, but massively dependent on them. So in an over populated world, the people are ultimately exploited, unions help, laws help, but there are too many people, too many desperate people and they will be exploited. The only solution is a massive change in attitudes to child birth and control across the planet. The number of young available people drops on a huge scale and salaries and living standards will explode for the poorest. The rich and upper classes would suffer, but the poor would only benefit.

The Meloncholy It comes

I feel my talent, it breaths within me, it stares out of the mirror, it is closer when I read a newspaper, when I turn on the TV I cannot avoid it, talent, yet I hate it so. I understand, I see, I can calculate, I can fathom, yet for all that failure seems to swamp me.

I wish I had no talent, nothing why have it when the world seems so unappreciative, when other qualities are valued more.

The tears they flow sometimes why, oh why I wonder why do you torture me so... give me so much potential and so much failure.

the space

There is a space in my heart, it remains empty.
There is a space in my bed, it remains empty.
There is a space around me.

Sometimes the simplest things are all that we search, yet, meloncholy it comes, does it come to all humans, what do we search. Yet if one day i meet him, i will ask so what came before you.

The universe so wide across our brains cannot comprehend, other intelligent life we have never seen it, met it, so short our lives and we leave a few short words that we hope someone in the future may read, someone may find the answers.

I imagine him some far off man thinking on the solutions, perhaps finally grasping and the laughing and going fuck if i understand that, you stupid fucking computer can you explain that a bit more simply. The computer goes it is the meaning of life you piece of shit of course it is fucking complicated humans inferior beings.

The Next Belief System

So as ever more clutter this little planet, as the floods surround us as the bomb proliferates we must again return to the subject that has tormented man ever since he first began to communicate. What must we believe in?

So now people look to prophets that haven't lived in a millennium that i cannot mock, i cannot draw some of them, others say that we should rid ourselves of religion, yet, yet i look upon the world and know something very simple. We must believe in something, in the modern world that we don't understand, in the world which seems so confusing what must man believe in, i wonder, i wonder, i wonder.

So the Greeks as they cluttered around Athens and built the foundation for the modern and Arabic world, those men those scribes, who were they, who were they that passed the knowledge on for a millennia, please someone write a book, a film for the scribes who passed on the knowledge. You believed in so much, in so little my Greek fathers what must we believe in? Confucius, so you influenced the Chinese, ma, god. Those that believe in the deity can never answer one question which is if there is a god what came first? How did he originate?

So the bomb will come again, it is the way of the world we use technology we always will. Who will drop the next bomb, my blood runs a little colder in my veins as i think. The men sitting in the mine now, as they drill down, life is so cruel, what meaning do we search for, we need a new belief system what should it be?

For that I must think.

Life

Life what is it? We search for its meaning everywhere when it is so simple really. We are meant to reproduce the next generation, produce children that can survive and prosper. We look at artists, musicians and the messages they send and the understanding they seem to have. Yet what do they do? They are simply discussing the ape man's torment in an alien environment. We did not evolve in cities, we evolved on the savanna. We are meant to move, to travel, to see a limited number of people, not see so many women, to have a small tribe we depend on and see regularly. The human condition is dealing with an environment we are not meant for, and the anguish in artists expresses this condition.

We look up at genius in art as it is so individual, nobody looks at the world the same way and they create something unique where as scientists, brighter, more profound search the same questions so appear less unique.

I feel my heart under my shirt now as you all can, I look at the stars above and wonder. The torment of life, it has generally been so short so brutish, we are fortunate if we have limited pain. So now as we have tamed our suffering like no other generation we have seemingly risen above nature, yet as we move further from nature we harm much more, the planet we depend on. The fish stocks, the floating plastic... yet our elite rarely do they stretch themselves. Ben Fogle nice man, but treating the world as a play ground which his grandchildren will never enjoy the same way. Let me see your anger elite, let me see you sacrifice for her.. no you don't do you, you talk your platitudes but we must give up the ipods, we must have less, we don't like having less, we are not good when we must sacrifice when our families must... you are an ape man... we must evolve as our power has, to look beyond our own selfishness, our own short sightedness to see and act more for the whole.

Onward we march the planet will have the last word......

The Shame That is Dutch

So the world cup ends in a farce the only thing rescuing it, is that the Spanish won. The Dutch so liberal in their education, so outward looking played disgraceful football. They were an embarrassment to humanity. In their desperation to win they would do anything. You almost felt they would take a pistol on the pitch and shoot an opposing player.

Robben failed to take his chances and as a fairly nasty human being was unable to look inside and go I failed but ran screaming at the referee. Grow up.

They finished the match abusing the referee instead of asking themselves why they played horrible football and brought the most desperate aspects of humanity onto the pitch. I have always loved the Dutch, but now I wonder what kind of people are they? They are simply human and desperate to win, and when we become desperate we slide quickly back into the jungle. They should not be met by the Queen but sent to work on the farms and learn some respect some humanity.

They were an embarrassment to humanity, to Europe, to democracy and a reflection of our selfish society which is destroying the world. Orange men do you have no shame? You make me angry as you reflect us so when all around on this little planet i see the evidence of our nature, I listen to the views on the TV and see the evidence, selfish, self-centred, egotistical tribal and when desperate an animal. Do i have to watch it when I want to dream?

The Myth of Intelligence

So in the electronic age where knowledge, photos and information can be copied millions of times it gives us a dangerous illusion of permanence when the creeping digitilisation of our knowledge makes its future increasingly precarious. Civilisations are not on eternal upward paths and gyrate haphazardly. If that little electonic switch is flipped then so much knowledge will evaporate.

We must maintain written copies that can be preseverd without the requirement of electricity. Even preserving the books, careful duplication of digital documents will we still leave enough of civilisation? Our creativity, our ideas, our videos, our blogs, our podcasts all will be gone perhaps our music too.

So with buildings that won't last, books that are just in electronic format, paintings that are too introverted and child like what will the future think of us or know of us as they admire Monet, read the Greeks? Perhaps not much.

If they do manage to turn on a computer how will they decipher it? The people I go to seem to need books, help pages, and the internet to understand anything what of those of the future? Perhaps they will hate us for the layers of confusion that surround our culture and all these things make it more inaccessible for the future. If we struggle to understand computers what of future man?

Perhaps we will just leave huge holes in the ground and pollution in the sea, I hope not.

BP, Greeks, Democracy Struggling - Booing England Fans

So England underperform at the world cup and England's premier player shouts his frustration at the camera. England as the largest part of Britain is an immensely over crowded piece of productive farmland that struggles with some of the limitations of the most glorius system we have ever invented democracy.

Yet its key advantage over dictatorship, the creativity it is supposed to engender is being crushed slowly and inexorably by the deadly hand of criticism, the rule of the mob and the fear of failure. England failed for many reasons, but the most important beyond the moment of luck or genius which can relax a team was because they feared failure. This comes from the over exuberent media desperate to sell papers or garner listeners who exaggerate and incite the mass through incessant criticism. They have no incentive to calm the populace down or reason. Rather embarrassingly on radio five live, an English talk station, they were discussing the minutiae of the failure and personalities inbetween a competition around who could have the best mocking headline about the team and they ask why they failed. Look at yourselves media.

So a small population residing in Athens over two thousand years ago was probably the most creative pupulace of all time why? We can but guess at some of the factors but a society which demanded excellence, which we are losing sadly, a society with a well educated populace who were allowed to think freely and not fear the deadly incessant hand of negative criticism where we start from the premise that you are wrong and idiotic to think those thoughts, rather than the positive why are you right, i disagree with your synopisis for several reason. Let's dare to consider your ideas.

So a society where we fear risk, we fear failure, where the state slowly intrudes more on us as the populace show less and less interest politics we are crushing our last advantage on dictatorship our ability to be different, to try new things to stimulate creativity. We are slowly crushing ourselves.

So what of BP. The oil spill the dominates American TV screens that prevents Obama going overseas. Well mistakes have been made, perhaps BP has followed greater cost cutting than other companies, however, we should also look at ourselves before we overly criticise.

- We want oil and we like the ease of our life which comes from fossil fuels.

- Extreme events happen and we cannot predict them all or prepare for them all. Sadly shit happens we need to look at mistakes that were made, we need to understand what we can do better, but we also need to accept shit happens.

- We are intrinsically selfish. Americans do not consider the use of depleted uranium in Iraq or the thousands that died in Bhopal india, an explosion by an American owned company.

- Finally our elite can be unimpressive. In a society which does not cultivate risk and creativity we are given leaders who are political and broadly liked. The quality of their brain, of their ability to solive problems, to anticipate are secondary. So some of why BP is struggling is due to the complexity of the problem but some will be because the right people to solve it, who can think are not in the right roles.

In fearing failure the wrong people are often given jobs, the England team is booed and a piece of our civilisation begins to wilt and Chinese dominance looks ever more likely.

Democracy is a myth just ask the Greeks

Democracy only exists as a political form as it has been the most successful way of organizing a country to deliver economic growth and along with economic growth comes power to determine to a greater extent your own destiny. There is no divine right given to us by our creator that democracy is the way we organize; it exists as it has been successful.

So now as we look at Greece we can see the extreme ridiculousness of the democratic myth. The politicians bribe the population to vote for them, they give them more than they should, heh presto the country is bankrupt. They then turn to a body which is not directly elected, is external to the country who tell them what they should do. Greek democracy matters not one jot to their future, as it is now being determined by foreign countries, politicians and bankers.

So democracy rests and falls on a sense of community and our ability to sacrifice for our country and to recognize that we are part of greater whole from which we should not only take.

Religion was invented to provide this sense of community, homogeneous countries are more able to demand a sacrifice you may not like it but it is the case. So what of the UK diverse, where across society we broadly have people that take, take, take. We may give periodically but we outsource from ourselves what really needs to happen. Let's look at the list of takers:

- Politicians who took for years more than they should have through expenses.
- Over paid individuals at the BBC with excessive salaries and pensions.
- A huge percentage of state workers outside London are overpaid, The pensions of all nationwide are typically excessive.
- The rich evade taxes wherever possible and live overseas.
- Doctors have repeatedly taken from the system are now overpaid and inflexible.
- Way more people than should be are claiming disability benefit.
- People have children just to get additional benefits.
- People not willing to work and perfectly happy taking as much benefit as they can.
- City Bankers are overpaid and short term. They wreck the fortunes of many companies by thinking always of their bonuses.
- Senior managers of many companies earn a disproportionate amount beyond what most are worth.

There are many decent individuals in each of these categories but there is a long list of takers, who vote from self interest. So as Bertrand Russel so beautifully puts in a few sentences:

'Every community is exposed to two opposite dangers, ossification through too much discipline and reverence to tradition......[or] dissolution, subjection to foreign conquest, through the growth of an individualism and independence that makes cooperation impossible' Liberalism he said is trying to find a happy medium between the two. We are now witnessing its failure. The list of selfish individuals spans socioeconomic, religious and regional groups. We are more unified by our selfishness than perhaps anything else. The naive Utopian vision of extreme capitalism that selfishness is good and helps drive society ignores the fundamental problem, this leads to a destructive short term democracy based on bribery and people on the streets as in Greece. Comic relief may help and is worthy, but it doesn't stop Jonathan Ross being overpaid or BBC executives to give back some of their excessive pensions. Not to say they aren't talented they are but they are on the list of takers.

Democracy will only survive by engendering a great sense of community and sacrifice for the greater good. Intrinsically we have this in an underdeveloped form given our ape man past, but not for the millions with whom we share a city, country and the earth. The ape man struggles to look at the greater good, the ape man is a selfish creature and that could destroy democracy and huge swathes of habitable land. It has in Greece where the people have lost their ability to choose, soon we may lose it across the planet as she revolts from our abuse.

The Bomb the next Nuclear strike

There may never another war like the second world war as Great powers will simply obliterate each other in the instant it takes an iris to expand. The moving parts, the complexity something we will never see the like again. The end of an era, a tradition of war that stretches back to the dawn of cities, taken to the most obscene level, yet still the armies faced each, still the armies needed building, yet now the bomb, the bomb.... it changes everything. The bomb, so many details are imbued in our concsiousness that we forget, the plane Enola gay, hitler beaten after commiting suicide, Japan unwilling to surrender wanting the Americans to pay for every inch. Churchill knew, we even informed Stalin, what would they think now.

So we have the bomb, we struggle to limit its proliferation, yet it will be used and then will the proxy wars also cease, when will we next use the atom bomb? Our understanding of the planet and how to harness her and the laws which imbued her saved millions sixty years ago yet will those brains working in the American desert one day have cause to regret their innovation and if, oh if hitler had invented first what then what the?

The shadow of the mushroom cloud is there, we try to forget it, we can hide from it, but we live in its shadow.

The World Order Changes - The Dying Embers of the West

So a period that began with the reconquest of Spain and the loss of Constantinopole will end with the rise of the dragon. We never thanked the Arabs for introducing us to Greek masterpieces and Middle Eastern and Indian mathematics, so the Chinese will not thank us.

India will never be the power it aspires to as ethnic and cultural diversity maybe admirable and deliver the world's most decent, warm and understanding people but it also curbs the power of a nation and of its people to act in a unified fashion. America solves this problem through indoctrination. The European nations too will find themselves less able to act forcefully on the world stage and many would say this is but a good thing. We will become much more Indian in our diversity and we should all visit that great country to learn.

China though has no such restraints and its dictatorship maybe abhorrent but it provides a power to act and enforce its will that few other countries have. This power to act is now being combined with great economic power that few dare to anticipate. Why do they want Volvo do you hear anyone asking? They are the world's greatest ever mercantilist nation where will this take them? Influence is a combination of economic power and the ability to act and Chine will have both.

We are loathe to discuss the limitations of democracy, however, China is making them ever more evident. The rule of the mob having to appease the mob, delivering a joke leader to a major European nation. Do we have the courage to ask if democracy has failed in Italy? The people have some freedom they are not persecuted but when a leader such as Berlosconi can rule can we really claim democracy is the best system? No we ignore it.

We promise the people ever more where will they turn once the paradigm of ever greater wealth is undermined by natural forces at play on our planet. Capitilism will be finally slayed by the harsh realities of Earth. Resources are finite and there is a limit to the number of people that can live here, at the ever higher standards of living that fundamentally drive capitilism and fund the mass bribery that is democracy. I will make you richer good Sir and secondary that I will delivery justice, equality and fairness - vote for me. Humans maybe a highly creative creature but there are some problems which cannot be solved. We cannot eat air or live in Space with no protective clothing. An extreme example but demonstrates there are limits to our power and innovation and we will reach them on Earth.

Our rapid advancement makes us feel unique beyond the grip of nature but we are not.

So where will we be in 50 years, will China implode revealing greater tensions than are apparent, will she inherit an earth which is collapsing. Our civilisation is incredibly fragile. We understand so little and are dependent on so many experts, so many chains and processes deliverying, light, electricity, water and heat to our homes, that when the collapse begins it will be rapid. If we were to lose one generation of experts, one generation of education and experience for our children throughout the world our civilisation would collapse.

Ask yourself how does your television, your computer work. Can you build one? What can you make that surrounds you as you drive, walk, amuze and work? Very, very, very little. So our civilisation is more fragile than it ever has been, we are arguably reaching the limits of economic expansion and the one system, democracy, which is likely to breed wisdom is slowly imploding. What hope for us, what hope....

Well in all honesty, the world has always changed, I am a child of democracy tainted by an unrealistic positive view of the future, free from the doom of the middle ages when plague, war and serfdom abused the working man. So now as I face an uncertain future, as the clouds begin to gather and we struggle to count them or understand them and as the Chinese, the poor Chinese inherit an Earth ready to collapse we should not forget. The Earth will survive and so will we, just not existing as you would expect.

The Democracies don't see it how can they, they are short term, they are thinking about how to get richer, people are reading and writing about how to get richer..... reading....

Hitler Meets Churchill

In a hotel in Munich Hitler planned to meet a travelling Churchill. He decided against it and the men who pitted their wits against missed the opportunity to shake the others hand and look the other in the eye. For years they thought about each other every day, they pitted their wits yet they never met.

Churchill had an advantage, however, a book Mein Kampf where Hitler revealed his most personal views and opinions. Mr Beever has a huge advance to write on the second world war, he is a talented writer but the great man himself wrote several massive tomes and should be part of any reading of the period. Who could know it better, who could? He may be biased but surely his wisdom would recompense. So a man that fought them with his words, with a few whiskies believed that democracy was partly to blame for the commencement of the 2WW. The leaders had to appease their people and they did this by enforcing rash conditions on Germany. As we face a rising threat from Asia we should not forget the limitations of democracy as so clearly expressed by a great man.

Drugs on the streets

I was once interviewed by someone that asked me what I thought of Kate Moss taking drugs; I rememeber a journalist on the radio explaining The Tsunami of money Western drug consumption brings to developing countries and the bloodshed that inevitably follows.

The BBC annoys me in many ways for its waste of money and the overpaid, underworked faces that peer out from the television seeming to exude self satisfaction, however, from our correspodent is a little gem of a program opening your eyes to the pain and change flooding the world. Recently they had a journalist in Ciudad Juárez one of the most violent cities in the world where the drug cartels rein supreme and the Mayor struggles to keep the grim reaper at bay by surrounding himself with body guards and sending his family far away.

We struggle to grasp complexity we were not created to deal with it, our minds are instinctively lazy wanting to see small details we can easily grasp, yet the complexity and suffering of the drug problem is mind boggling. We watch Opray Winfrey not simply because she is good but because she takes us to a place of security and certaintity that harks back to a less complicated world - a homeliness. The modern world is truly scary in its interconnected complexity and no man is capable of truly grasping how it functions.

We have the natural world that governs us, the climate the patterns of the stars, food, but layered on that are the myriad interconnections that exist around us. The large complex social, economic and political networks we have built.

A Tsunami of money hits the third world and bloodshed rains on the streets corrupting the local societies. Capitilism's dirty undercurrent something distasteful we have exported, that services our stars who we cheer at sporting and music events. We should be telling them to hang their heads in shame for the suffering they inflict by their purchasing habits. Yet what are we to do, we seek security in our backyard, food for our children, we may occasionally reach out financially to help those less fortunate but they are distant and remote our own immediacy cannot be felt by others.

Haiti pains me as i reach for my credit card, i have to give yet i am aware that just giving the money not paying attention to how it is spent, not monitoring, not commiting people to assist in the management can mean needless waste and just featherbed the aid agencies and high ranking officials. Yet if we do what is really required and manage we have to avoid taking over. The solutions are complex they are always are but they must have basic principles. We have to ensure the money is well spent, not corrupting, we look at the short term and the long term and we commit for a considerable length of time.

The solution is to manage until the locals can take over, put in audit committess to make sure the money is well spent and honestly look at long term solutions by using people with significant understanding of the local environment and to be brave when required. The drug problem, oh the drug problem.

The simple principle is we should not leave these cities to rot with the money Tsunami of our creating, we should have an advertising campaign highlighting the damage the stars inflict humiliating them, we should look at long term how to assist and we should be brave. We should help with building schools, training people but they only work long term with appropriate family planning. Extreme wealth how it can make people suffer and complexity how we struggle thinking about it. How can we teach ourselves to deal with complexity? I truly don't know i shout out in anger when i read the newspapers, but it is simply frustration because the very thing that is most important we so struggle with. Everywhere we like to look at one factor, we like to simplify.

We have to move from big picture to detail, we have to simplify and then complicate we have to think around the problem, so, so difficult and we are largely failing, that is at the root of our present issues. Our inability to deal and think about complexity in the appropriate fashion and our innate short-term selfishness - we are a naked ape.

I answered the interviewer with a,

"Kate you should hang your head in shame I don't care what you do to your body but i care about those people gunned down in a developing country and so should you. Being cool, looking good suddenly has no meaning when you are laid in a pool of blood, your parents lamenting the could have been!"

The Development of Thought

We all occasionaly consider what separates us from other animals and there are those that would point towards small percents and the great length of time we have had to evolve. Others would point to language, our ability to use tools, the development of agriculture perhaps simply luck.

Yet, yet in the argument over religion the origin of man the passion that inflames both sides we fail to see the obvious. A zoologist would say perhaps as religion exists in every corner of the world in every culture some belief system to hold us together is necessary. I don't believe in god i think Islam is largely failing its people at the moment but it binds them together.

Marx tried to replace religion with another belief system but it failed, we sometimes have coffee with people that are searching for something, people always say searching for something don't they, yet really life is very simple at the basic level but the simplicity of life isn't enough to motivate people, to bind them together. They need more, they need to feel special, they struggle to accept you are just a naked ape, put here to breed the next generation. There is no fate, there is no god, there is nothing you are simply alone on this planet with the faculties you have been given and you will be dust when you die. If you get crippled in a car crash there will be no divine retribution against the criminal but society will try and punish him. If he escapes the law beyond his guilt he has escaped.

So the fundamental question in a world with no god is how do we bind people together, how do we draw them closer and motivate them? We may all mock the flyover states in the US yet their religion binds them together it gives them a fervour, a passion that has strength. You may dislike how it is directed and their ideas but one should not ignore the strength it gives them.

Unfortunately it is the case with Islam as well and anyone that frequents the streets of the UK on a Saturday night can see that a godless society with no restraint, no values, no code feels a little lost. I have talked to very sexy girls, yet one can feel they are lost. A sophisticated Atheist argument about learning is beyond them, they need a simple morale code that can be followed and by the elite removing religion, for many worthy reasons, has left them in a void and many do not have the intellect or the desire to fill it with learning and philosophy.

What should we do then? How to give someone who lacks the motivation to learn or the intellect the morale compass and meaning they desire and require. We need to adopt a strong civil code that has to be taught in our schools and unfortunately that means the end of relgious schools as it has to be universal, it has to come with clear punishment and we have to have community activities that everyone participates in such as national service. Minority views will have to, on occasions, be eschewed for the larger civil code. In some instances things may even need to be prohibited IE the burkha.

What should it contain i do not know. We have to choose though, we either all follow a relgious code or a strong civil code needs developing.I don't see any other way and religion has always existed, it may not be the truth, but man has needed it for a reason. That reason was to service a need. If there is no universal code in a country or a code the majority follow then bloodshed always, but always follows. The most difficult and perhaps most important balance we have always struggled with between conformity or uniformity and diversity.

Richard Dawkins a clever man but we all make mistakes

Richard Dawkins is a wonderful writer articulate clear thinking but no man is infallible. Given the entrenched traditional views of creationism in the US I feel he is fighting yesterday's battle.

However far we push our understanding of the planet of the universe there will always be questions that remain unasked and unanswered. Let's assume for one second there is no creator but other intelligent life forms in the universe have existed. If we found another planet that could support life millions of years away, if we were aware it was in its early stages would we not be tempted to send perhaps bacteria to assist the process?

Given the craters so evident on the moon indicating the many collisions objects suffer is it not probable that some alien bacteria may have found its way onto planet earth, how would we know and detect it?

Richard Dawkins in his own book says that in the future how would an alien life know what was natural and influenced by our own intelligent design through GE foods and other tinkering of the biological code. How do we know that some other intelligent life forms have not tinkered with our code not influenced the development of life on this planet?

The universe is very lonely would we not be tempted to assist its development on another planet?

So my question to the scientists is can bacteria survive on an asteriod? How could we tell if something had come from another planet? If we found another planet in the universe able to support life how would we assist in its development? Perhaps Crick who looked at this was wrong in one aspect life did not come from other planets but has it influenced us? Do we have some alien genes?

The climate controversy the real truth - The Islamic world

The real truth is very simple. When your child asks you what it takes to be rich and famous and asks for a guarantee can you give it, can you? Of course you can't. You can tell them the right things to do, but you can not guarantee it. The world is too complex, there are too many factors at play and so it is with the planet we really are not quite sure what will happen we can guess. Societies collapse they always have and they will. There are huge numbers of people on the planet and increasing; there will surely be some payback for christ sake economists do we ever get free rides? Are you assuming we will have a free ride on this planet can that really be the case?

The myopia of the papers so obsessed with one report, with global warming misses the larger point.

Man to live requires:

1) Water
2) Oxygen
3) Food
4) Land

Advanced civilisation is more fragile and requires:
1) Fuel which are FOSSIL, meaning they come from ancient remains, meaning they run out. Why do people use the term fossil and not think; argue about when, they will run out we really will never precisely know when we just have to take sensible decisions now to minimise the impact.
2) Highly educated population.
3) An interconnected planet, people moving, resources moving


As population numbers increase stress is placed on the other areas making our survival more challenging, however, if global warming doesn't occur we will still have a huge problem supporting our population as ground water runs out as we over farm the land and over fish the seas and resources diminish as they are fossil after all.

We argue about precise figures let's just be sensible. Why is thinking deeply so hard, were we not created for thinking so we avoid it as soon as we leave university? Why do intelligent people not think, not read, not consider? It is so damnable obvious. 6 billion and increasing, never before seen on planet earth, what will they eat, where will they go, where is the fuel coming from, where is the water coming from?

We are not quite sure why the jet streams move, the world could get warmer but one of them permanently moves and and an area of the world will have more water, we are just not sure, it is too complex however, let's be sensible do the commonsense things and look at the whole of the problem.

The Islamic world, how can we help them? They are bringing about their own Armageddon. Oil is their curse, their populations are increasing the ground water will run out, they need an agricultural miracle otherwise when the world turns away as the FOSSIL fuels diminish which they surely will, assuming no change in climate best case, then they will not be able to feed their populations, their radicalism means they will not be accepted in neighbouring countries, they will perish. In turning to radical Islam they are bringing about Armageddon, it impoverishes them intellectually, economically and ensures their populations become too vast. Perhaps a change in the jet stream will save them, perhaps they will be able to invade a country and usurp the locals, Russia is empty and agriculturally rich, perhaps world food production will rise. If they don't get lucky with one of the above they will die in their millions.

God help them.

The Stupidity of Economics/Extinction

Economics is a mind numbingly simple and straight forward profession. Knowing the right economic decisions, given the correct information, is extremely simple the difficultly is receiving the information and in implementing given the sensitivity. It is so closely linked to individual welfare, equality that individuals become overemotional and compromises are made in the delivery of information and implementation.

I could within one month come up with a program that would transform the fortunes of the UK .

1) Introduce Grammar schools to every town above a certain size.

2) Increase tuition fees emphasize science and technology within education as countless surveys over the last 100 years have indicated.

3) Only provide state funding for one child in any family, above that no additional funding whatever the circumstance. If they are unable to support the children they will be removed from the family or they will be given the ability to be sterilized.

I could go on the point is our problems are well known but democracy is struggling to deliver the reforms required. China challenges us not just economically but also politically. We are fast reaching the point where democracy is no longer the most economically successful system. Economic success may lead us to environmental ruin as our population increases past the point where resources and climate can support; however, economic wealth always leads to power which enables you to enforce your will in the world for the betterment of your country. Just ask those African countries who are now suffering the influence of Chinese power as they once suffered imperial European influence.

Blair is a failure on the British education system as much as a failure of morals; he could have been great truly great, but he lacked a broad education allowing him to make balanced decisions, he was too persuasive given his excellent legal education but with minimum understanding of the world and he was surrounded by many poorly educated individuals. Our political elite are an embarrassment not because they feed ravenously on any rule they are able to bend for personal benefit but because they are broadly poorly educated. The collapse of the state education system and the narrowness of experience delivered by the private sector means they are broadly unfit to rule.

How many politicians read regularly, how many politicians are studying for a qualification, perhaps it is our fault relentless wanting a view and opinion from them, allowing someone like Prescott, who is a well meaning man, but plainly not particularly bright to effect key decisions.

We should be challenging them to read, to study, to travel to understand the world, to perform the most important management task, which is gain a high-level understanding from key experts, then perform a deep detailed deep dive focusing on one issue, don't push it on consultants do the deep dive yourself, do they I don't think they do.

So Harriet Harman pushes through her equality legislation someone needs to be brave enough to say we are not equal and quite simply men are paid more because they are generally worth more to an organization as they have fewer days away from the office. Someone needs to say the Eiffel tower was not built working fu*king working 9-5 and going home and being a decent father, our society depends on difficult problems and solutions being solved men are more able to do that as they are more likely to sacrifice for work, work which someone needs to do.

So as we perhaps look upon the dying embers of advanced civilization; societies have repeatedly collapsed through the millennia and listening to 'From Our Correspondent', it is clear globally there is increasing stress on resources our elite seem poorly educated and democracy is struggling to deliver. The giant in the East rises as competition for those resources increases and we turn inwards and fail to see the coming battle. Food, water, oil, land very simple really.

The average animal has lived on planet earth for 5 million years and one day we will become extinct, how ironic that we are still so chained by our pre-19th century mindset. The Victorians gave us so much allowing us to understand the world like never before, to construct and develop the planet like never before yet we failed to understand some of the simplest details, the influence of the bible meant the end result of everything was man destined to rule for ever more, always present on this planet. We know it is not true academically but emotionally we have not accepted it. Man's existence depends on several simple details, food, water, appropriate atmospheric composition. The climate will change it always has, the earth is in constant change and our numbers will swell beyond what the Earth is able to sustain and there will be a population collapse without doubt it will happen, the question is when as we are all in the long run dead and perhaps Keynes was more right than he truly realized. The planet is 4.7 billion years old the average animal lives for 5 million we will evolve into something else as the planet changes or we will become extinct it is truism the question is when and in the short-term are we about to suffer one of the many population collapses that afflicted man. I challenge you post Victorian person, hope you like that Harriet, to see it and understand it, to take a view of deep time can you truly escape the bible can you truly see it. We haven't yet have we? No you will look at 200 years of history forget the plague of 1347, forget the population collapse in Vietnam etc. Chained you are by the bible still.

Whatever may happen though, we should not succumb to stupidity and for that I cry out for a better educated population, a better educated and read political, academic and business elite. Without that we will succumb to stupidity and we will create an embarrassment that is Mr. Blair, shame on you Mr. Blair and shame on us for creating you.

Freedom What is It - Obama, Osama, Dimbleby

We always think we are so unique, our Victorian legacy fills us with confidence for the future or the belief that the Americans have infused in the world, from their conquest of nature and the Indian. Yet, fundamentally what drives us is so basic and we function ultimately by rules delivered to us by our little planet.

Obama struggles to deliver further Economic growth to his population, that is what they elect him for, a clever thoughtful decent man, struggling with the bitchy politics that come with a modern democratic power. Can he truly face the problems which afflict our planet? If he can't then democracy will die as we turn this planet increasingly lifeless. We mortgage the planet yet, sooner or later its people will have to realize we cannot always have more, the middle classes will have to realize that, the rich who escape into the unreal world have to realize they can't hop on yacht and run. We have escaped the planet, the monotony of the hard agricultural life we all aspire to escape it, living like those images we see in Hello, yet it is not sustainable. We will have to live more simply, have less. Can the good man bring in that change or will we just mortgage the future? With it democracy becomes doomed.

Osama, oh dear you are an idiot aren't you now. So what are you aiming for the implementation of Sharia law across the middle East? Osama and Queda lack any understanding of the modern world, the countries they cultivate will collapse under population pressure and their inability to maximise the productivity of their land. The Middle East is a disaster as the Islamic world, excepting perhaps Iran and Egypt, do not understand that their countries are generally unproductive and cannot support the populations that are erupting. Al Queda do something for your countries your religion, read some Geography, understand what makes a land work, what can make a civilisation work, control your population and perhaps your people will have a chance without it you are sentencing yourselves to bloodshed.

So there you go the opposites and their challenges, the Islamic world and its worst creation need to reestablish a link with the land and what enables their countries to function and reduce their birth rates. Osama and his ilk are reading a book written eons ago that cannot help them solve the problems of the modern world, they should take what can and neglect what it can't. Perhaps then they would have a chance to help the people. The problem is that with international travel, nuclear weapons the abject mismanagement now becomes our problem. They are in a vicious cycle which more children, more poverty, more recruits disaster for them and us.

America, oh America and the West, can democracy face the challenges, can it engage with the other large countries can we reach across cultures and ways of government to get global deals? I think not and for a good man in the White House that is the challenge. Can democracy escape its achiles heal, it is based on bribing the mob. We mortgage the future, we suck from it and the land dies around us, before we will begin dying and if we don't die our little planet will fall ill and what will she do in her illness?

Oh and Journalists Dimbleby he is taking me on a journey through Russia, so naieve so unaware of the modern world, looking through the myopic glasses of a Westerner. He talks about Czars who ruled for 300 years saying they could never tame the flame of independence in the people, that they still keep their old religions. He hasn't looked at a map, such a huge country no one man can ever enforce his will, the country is too large, you cannot monitor everything, read a map sir, yet they ruled for 300 years and it was only under the pressure of the German invasion that they collapsed, without it when would they have collapsed, how would they have made a change.

He talks obsessively of freedom, a journalists obsession no Sir people want food and stability before freedom, and if you can take the long view, Vikings, Mongols were the Czars/Stalin etc just a continuation. Has anyone managed to run Russia as a democracy? Freedom is the odd man out here, much as i love it, much as i want it everywhere it is the odd man out. A good man who needs to read a bit more Geography and take the longer view a little more.

All, USA, the Middle East and Russia all chained by Geography and climate and productivity of the land. We can mortgage it, metaphorically speaking, we can talk about freedom, but what does that matter what does religion matter, if the land is unable to provide for us the quantities required, what does democracy matter if the land and resources are unable to provide us the products that people want. Osama tries to hide from it in his books, in his religion, in his anger, in his hate, but it is unavoidable too many people on very poor land that can be sustained for awhile through oil revenue in some countries but it will come to an end. Obama, perhaps can see it with his education and wisdom, but will democracy allow him to face it. Jounalists obsessed with freedom, forgetting the basics.

James Cameron Hang your Head in Shame

Avatar, it creeps its way towards the total of Titanic and now Mr Cameron has the two highest grossing movies in the history of celluloid moving pictures give or take a little bit of inflation of course.

He failed though, he failed massively. He is a man that enjoys looking at the world's oceans, he is bright I don't doubt it, well I give him the benefit of the doubt, yet what did he really do? He had an idea to do something discussing the environment where did he do it in an imaginary fucking world. How many lines did he really bring in regarding the state of our world, how did he make people really question what we are doing to planet earth.

What is up Mr Cameron, afraid to really ask the questions, can we exist on this planet for another 300 years, are we going to starve? It must nag away at you, yet you succumbed to corporate pressure you had a great film in you, you have the brains it almost was yet you stepped away, you didn't quite make it, you didn't really ask the fundamental questions. You didn't have people leaving the cinema going my god what should we do about the planet about our earth. You made a piece of entertainment and then thought you would be fucking cool with a few environmental references ahhh our elite, how they all play to the masses, how they all protect their incomes, their life styles, yet all so cowardly.

They make a few moves, they make a few pretty movies, but they don't really get angry, they don't really get out, where are they now, they are pandered to by luxury and comfort and they have to appeal to the mob.

Where is out elite now, our artists, our politicians, our painters, our film makers, journalists where are they really challenging us, really stepping up to the plate, standing in front of the tank. They are brave in the poorest countries, in the most dangerous countries they risk all for what they believe in, yet democracy and luxury seems to suck the drive, suck the passion, there are a few people on a boat fighting the Japanese about whales, yet the majority of our elite are an embarrassment.

Mr Cameron you have a brain, you spent a few years in oceans, I would hope you occasionally read a book about these problems, I would hope you can think, why didn't you do it Sir, Avatar could have been amazing you could have really had people leaving the theatre going my god what is happening to our world, you didn't Sir, you didn't. You had the power, the knowledge yet you didn't, hang your head in shame Sir in shame. Our Elite are an embarrassment an embarrassment, Mr Cameron is better than most but just a little.

On a side note from our rather pitiful elite who seem to bathe in luxury and new years parties in exotic locations, are we reaching the phase where computer games, movies creating images of nature and life that are so amazing when will they go beyond in experience what we can really see on this planet and won't it therefore just exacerbate our distance from nature. Why go to nature, why preserve when it is so much better in my living room, on my computer game?

Man On Earth - Tony Robinson

Well it was good to see a program covering such a major issue with breadth, however, they tried perhaps too hard to create a compelling narrative and avoided questions that threatened their theory that climate has dictated perhaps everything about our society and culture. It is a key element, but not everything, we are shaped by our ecology, the richness of the land, the geography, water, the development of cooking and what our climate provides and the resources we have at our disposal and our ability to exploit them technology.

In Egypt they talked about how climate had shaped the development of the culture, a better way of phrasing would always be geography and resources always shape us, however, the first cities were not in Egypt they were further East in the fertile crescent, which they didn't seem to mention. A few quotes from Fernand Braudel, would have added much intellectual depth.

The development of agriculture was more important than climate change in the development of cities, agriculture was connected to the climate as they should rightly point out but other factors such as the richness of the land, availability of crops that can be developed. Seeds needed to develop over time through our manipulation so they could be farmed animals etc again here quotes from Jared Diamond would have added depth and credibility.

The flow of individuals into Europe due simply to filling of the black sea, linking the two seemed very tenuous, people migrate they always will we are not in a position to directly link the two at least not to my knowledge and i am sure both before and after they would have been.

Finally the black plague global warming had an impact in Europe but it grew and originated we think in another rodent in central asia. We were weakened by the famine perhaps it helped the spread of the disease but it was people moving and more importantly how it developed on the plains and then how it was spread from there at that time was more important. Did it die out due to lack of contact with an animal that could transmit for centuries so it became steadily more virulent, we have had other plagues as well why was this so terrible?

TV they seek to explain a good story to always make things more dramatic to have a compelling narrative, serious television should be given back to serious people to make and produce, serious scientists should be doing this show with Tony assisting. They should have been interviewing Jared Diamond, James Lovelock, they should have been presenting it. So sad that a great man such as James Lovelock a Brit at the end of his days was not interviewed a disgrace i feel.

Our culture is in the hands of individuals who are not informed enough on their subject. Books can be written by experts, journalists and amateurs alike TV is in the hands of an elite who stretch themselves too thin, who often know too little on their subject and flit between huge areas. Documentaries like this should be made by experts with depth and challenge us and themselves not in the hands of people who don't know enough. They should be assisting and advising but they should not be running the show, we have it the wrong way round.

The naked ape though always protects his own and searches for his empire and so it is in TV and we are poorer for it. Who would dare step aside and say i am not qualified to write this, who would say i am not qualified to produce this? You don't need many experts but they should have had more. No they protect their livelihood, they protect their families and we lose as the experts on subjects are not making enough serious television.

Finally what let the show down completely and utterly were the final few statements, they discussed and enlightened us on much, Tony finally gained in enthusiasm as we came closer to the present, the point is though Tony can the earth support 7 billion if the climate changes and how will it change, do we really know enough about this incredibly complex system? He said we have a choice as we can see it coming incredibly simplistic and plain wrong. Can we really support 7 billion do we really know how the weather will change.

Good effort, heading in the right direction, please though have several experts dictating the subject matter, script and the locations and perhaps producing. Finally Tony get some fucking passion you are talking about the greatest subject on Planet Earth, read some books challenge some of these clever people you are interviewing think, think, wake up man, I despair. Thank you for trying though it is better than nothing much much better.