What do leftists do when someone questions progressive orthodoxy and ‘correct thought’?
You got it – they call them names, smear, and slander them!
Far from entering into constructive dialogue with those with differing views, it appears many leftists have a penchant for branding and name calling.
The XYZ supports freedom of speech and freedom of conscience, after all, these are amongst the ‘liberal’ values that the modern West was founded upon. Sadly, these values are threat in Australia and the West more broadly.
Surely we should had the opportunity to have respectful dialogue with those whose opinions differ? I am thankful for those people who I am able to discuss important issues with and respectfully disagree.
Last year, we saw clear examples of what the left will do to it its own when they cross the line of liberal dogma. Bill Maher and Michael Moore, both pin-up boys of the left were branded as ‘racist’, ‘Islamophobic’ and bigoted’ when they raised concerns about the impact and violence of militant Islamism.
I was embarrassed for Ben Affleck after his emotional and irrational tirade on Maher’s TV show. Affleck made a goose of himself by continually interrupting Maher, his unwillingness to engage in dialogue, and resorting to slander and name calling.
When women’s rights, freedom of religion, and freedom to just live are pitted against the violent actions of Islamic extremists, the left has decided the ‘religion of peace’ is a protected species, and thus outranks the rest.
As Bill Maher rightly retorted, “shouldn’t liberals be guided by liberal values?” Well, of course, they should!
But liberalism appears to be no longer ‘liberal’. It is no longer tolerant. It is not concerned about the right to life. It does not invite open dialogue, but seeks to suppress it. It has become a political posture, smug and sure in its own intellectual and moral superiority, yet wilfully lacking in any self awareness and any ability to be self-critical.
If political liberalism is no longer ‘liberal’. Does it actually have a future?
C. S. Lewis, in his Narnia series, created a world of more than just talking otters, fauns, and Father Christmas. To the south of Narnia lay a desert, on the other side of which lay the vast Calormene Empire, populated by cruel, dark-skinned, turbaned warriors – who bore a remarkable resemblance to Arab or Turkish Muslims. The Calormene god was a demon with the body of a four-armed human, and the head of a bird, whose name they invoked when going into battle, “Tash, Tash, the great god Tash. Inexorable Tash.” In the final book of the series The Last Battle, the Calormenes invaded and overran Narnia.
Lewis’ friend and colleague, J.R.R. Tolkien, in his own works, depicted an idyllic rural England in The Shire, the home of the Hobbits, set in a relatively safe corner of a far from safe Middle Earth. Again to the South, there lay the kingdom of the Haradrim, a race of cruel, dark skinned, turbaned warriors, who joined forces with Sauron in his attempt to wipe out Gondor.
It is all too easy these days to write off such obvious literary allusions to the Islamic Caliphates as some old racist, colonialist throwback, or a quaint, paranoid fear of the Green Peril. But for Europe of the 1930’s, the time when Islamic empires constituted an existential threat to Christian Europe was still in living memory. This mindset, which seems so foreign to us, speaks to the remarkable success that the West achieved once it surpassed its long militarily-superior nemesis.
Within the “Prophet” Mohammed’s lifetime, much of the Arabian peninsula had been taken by military conquest, and by a little over a century after his death, the Islamic empire stretched from Spain and Morocco to the borders of India. The Caliphate smashed its way into France before it was stopped at Tours in 732. A Muslim army sacked parts of Rome in 846, and it took until 1488 to push it out of the Iberian Peninsula.
The Crusaders were able to retake Jerusalem and the Biblical lands briefly in the 11th and 12th centuries, but then Byzantium, after centuries of assault (during which time its territory had been reduced to a finger of Thracian land), fell to the Turks in 1453.
Europe’s Dark Age is generally attributed to the fall of the Western Roman Empire at the hands of the barbarian Goths. But this ignores the fact that although the Roman Empire was dissolved, the Goths largely integrated into and maintained the system of the old empire. North Africa was still essentially ‘European’ until it was overrun by the Caliphate in the 7th and 8th centuries. This loss of vast stretches of territory, and Islamic naval domination of and piracy in the Mediterranean was the ultimate cause of the dramatic plunge of Europe into poverty, decay, and disease.
Well over a million Europeans were taken as slaves to serve in Muslim empires, captured either in the process of invasion, or by raids on coastal towns. The men were used as forced labour, while the females augmented extensive harems, suffering a life of sexual slavery. The number of slaves the various Caliphates took from Africa and Asia are estimated to dwarf not only the number of Europeans, but also that of the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the Americas.
Jan Sobieski, King of Poland, led the largest cavalry charge in history on September 11, 1863, to rout the Ottoman army and save Vienna, and by extension, Europe. Photo by archer10 (Dennis) 83M Views
Even as Europe entered its Renaissance, the Ottoman Empire continued to expand throughout Eastern Europe and Russia, being stopped twice at the gates of Vienna, most famously in 1683. This event provides one of the best insights into Tolkien’s work. In Return of the King, Tolkien depicts the siege of Minas Tirith, the capital of Gondor, in which a cavalry charge led by the king of Rohan, whose forces come to Gondor’s aid, help to save the city from destruction. Tolkein makes it clear that the fight for Minas Tirith is not just a battle between two empires, but a battle for the survival of the human race, and all good creatures of Middle Earth.
Despite much debate among both Tolkien buffs and history buffs, this is a clear reference to the largest cavalry charge in history, led by the King of Poland, during the 1863 battle of Vienna, in which the massive attacking Ottoman force was defeated and Vienna was saved. Given that Vienna was itself the gateway to the heart of Europe, the role Vienna would play over the following two centuries as one of the fountains of European culture, and that the battle initiated the gradual, fatal decline of the Ottoman Empire, this battle is one of the most important turning points in history. Thus Tolkien not only depicted Muslim-like men fighting for the ultimate form of evil in the world, he effectively depicted these Muslim fighters as orcs.
What we can take from this depiction is that although Europe had been able to surpass, and eventually occupy, much of the land of its once seemingly invincible foe, a scar had been left deep in its collective psyche. Of course, there had been incessant conflict within Europe, just as there had been within the Arab world, and sometimes alliances between Arabs and Europeans against other Arabs and Europeans. Europe only very rarely saw itself as Europe, and much less often and to a lesser extent to which the Muslim/Arab world viewed itself. Pockets of enlightenment and intolerance existed in Christendom and the Caliphate, and atrocities were committed by both sides. But none of this can diminish the significance of the existential threat posed by a civilisation which racked up a worldwide body-count of 270 million in its 1400 year existence. Lewis and Tolkien were merely reflecting the collective cultural memory of their time, an understanding of where Europe had been, and an appreciation of just how significant its pre-eminence was, given how close it had come to destruction.
This understanding has diminished over the last century of Western domination of world affairs. We have been taught to view our colonial history as one of the greatest injustices inflicted on humankind, rather than simply one civilisation surpassing others. We have been taught to view actual injustices of the past, such as religious intolerance, slavery, and denial of the vote to women as a damning indictment of our own barbarism, rather than admiring the bravery and virtue of our ancestors who strove to overcome these injustices.
But our collective memory is finding a way to re-emerge, like the symbolism of a nightmare, in the literature of our day- television and film. Game Of Thrones has become immensely popular, despite its violence and near nihilism. It depicts a world where tyrants defeat the noble, and threats to human existence lie in every corner. And again, a race of cruel, dark skinned, often turbaned warriors lives to the south, across the narrow sea in a desert-like land.
Zombies have replaced orcs as the threat that dare not speak its name (both for fear of inflaming the threat of Islamists, and incurring the opprobrium of the self-appointed guardians of political correctness). A common theme from Islamist terrorists is that their advantage lies in the fact that they love death as we love life. Stories from the Hadiths talk about how Muslim fighters would throw themselves into battle, seeking death, in order to be rewarded in heaven.
Likewise, zombies are depicted as having no concern for their own well-being – obsessed only with killing and eating humans, and spreading the virus within them. They will bash through glass windows with their heads, throw themselves off buildings, and charge a hail of gunfire en masse just for a bite. It is precisely this disregard for their own life/unlife that gives them an advantage over humans when they have the numbers. It is this disregard which so paralyses and decimates human civilisation, robbing it of the technology and organisation to fight it. Even more terrifying than a kamikaze aeroplane, which you can at least identify, is the idea of a threat that could come from someone who looks just like us, whether it is a zombie, suicide bomber, or just a guy with an axe.
Our society is far safer than it was a century ago, whether it be from disease, predators or foreign powers. Yet that dark scar deep in our psyche remains, and it is telling that when the actual threat has re-emerged, we have made ourselves incapable of even naming it – “this has nothing to do with Islam”.
Photo by vtdainfo
Photo by prince_volin
Andrew Bolt was right. Justice Mordy Bromberg’s interpretation of the Racial Discrimination Act might suggest otherwise, but Bolt was right – in principle if not completely in example.
On April 15 2009, Bolt expressed his curiosity about whether there was a “whole new fashion in academia, the arts and professional activism to identify as Aboriginal?”
“I’m not saying any of those I’ve named chose to be Aboriginal for anything but the most heartfelt and honest of reasons. I certainly don’t accuse them of opportunism, even if full-blood Aborigines may wonder how such fair people can claim to be one of them and in some cases take black jobs.I’m saying only that this self-identification as Aboriginal strikes me as self-obsessed, and driven more by politics than by any racial reality.It’s also divisive, feeding a new movement to stress pointless or even invented racial differences we once swore to overcome. What happened to wanting us all to become colour blind?”
In a subsequent column in June 2009, Bolt made similar points about two “white Aborigines” who received prizes and appointments based on their tenuous links to the more traditional of our traditional owners – ie, blackfellas. Real ones.
Now, six years after those columns were published, and nearly four years after Bromberg found Bolt had contravened the RDA, a white American woman, Rachel Dolezal, has been exposed as having faked her African-American roots. She claims to be ‘transracial’ – an effort to claim a piece of the newly crowned Prefix of PrivilegeTM, ‘trans’.
Anyone who is or claims to be trans-whatever, you see, is superior to anyone who’s not trans-whatever (normal people, in other words). Anyone who’s trans-whatever is also a shining example to any other deluded fool – or deliberate fraudster, as the case may be – who might be having trouble relating their trans-whatever status to other people’s perception about what reality is.
Bolt didn’t predict this exact turn of events, but he did predict that such nonsense was inevitable:
“Yes, yes, I know. What business is it of anyone else how we identify ourselves? In fact, we’re so refreshingly non-judgmental these days – so big-hugs-for-all – that the federal Human Rights Commission wants our laws changed so a man can even call himself a woman, should he feel like it.Hear it from the HRC itself: “The evidentiary requirements for the legal recognition of sex should be relaxed by . . . making greater allowance for people to self-identify their sex.”Lovely! Soon there’ll be no end of white men claiming prizes meant for black women. And don’t dare then tell the HRC’s anti-discrimination police you object.Yet I do object, and not just because I refuse to surrender my reason and pretend white really is black, just to aid some artist’s self-actualisation therapy.That way lies madness, where truth is just a whim and words mean nothing.”
Until the past week, Dolezal had been for many years outdoing our brothers and sisters here in Australia, who could at least claim they had one Aboriginal blood relative from within a generation or two. To extrapolate from Bolt’s words, as Justice Bromberg saw fit to do in 2011, I expect the first trans-racial possum-skin-wearers and gumleaf-whisperers already walk among us and are getting paid to do so.
Footnote: Kudos to Bolt’s fellow evil Murdoch minion satirist Tim Blair for appropriating the headline in Bolt’s original article for his own piece on Dolezal. It is a reminder, and a warning of sorts, that not all of us forget others’ histories as easily as we forget our own.
I don’t judge Rachel Dolezal. For anything. On The XYZ we have had some fun at the expense of the idea of being able to change one’s race, and by extension that means we have, along with the entire internet, made fun at her expense. But I doubt you will hear many people say that they feel bad about it. I do feel bad about it, because I have no idea why Dolezal has acted the way that she has. It doesn’t mean I won’t speculate on it, and make judgements about society and politics based upon it, but I have no right to judge her.
So, moving forward, the story of Rachel Dolezal being a white woman pretending to be black is the elephant in the room for the “trans movement.”
For years, academics have being trying to tell us that gender is a social construct, or that there is a difference between biological “sex” and socially constructed “gender.” Extremely rare examples of humans being born with both male and female sexual organs, males lactating, or animals changing their sex; or the way in which gender roles or gender stereotypes have evolved since ancient times and especially in recent generations; have been shoehorned into a theory that gender is socially constructed and fluid, and thus one’s feelings on whether one is male or female count more than the facts. What were once obscure theoretical arguments have now entered the mainstream, with those seeking to make fun of Bruce Jenner’s recent “transition” to a woman quickly dismissed as bigots.
Likewise with race, ivory tower leftists have been attacking this very notion, arguing it is a social construct designed to reinforce repressive and exploitative power structures. But now, when a white woman pretends to be black, and then announces, in defence of what she has done, that she identifies as black, the same people who gushed in awe of Bruce Jenner’s “bravery” denounced Dolezal as a fraud, her claims as illegitimate, and basically make her out to be an idiot.
This is doublespeak on a grand scale. If gender is a social construct (and even though it is most often located with physical traits, this is not necessary) you can change your gender, that means that if race is a social construct, you can change that too. But instead, Dolezal, when referring to herself as “trans-racial,” has been told that “she does not get to use this term” (see: http://mediadiversified.org/2015/06/15/transracial-doesnt-mean-what-rachel-dolezal-thinks-it-means).Apparently, this term is already taken by people who grow up in a country or culture not biologically their own, and the idea that this term could now mean something more closely related to its “transgender” equivalent is just completely out of the question.
It has been argued that given Rachel Dolezal does not have black parents, and did not grow up a member of the black community, she therefore does not have the lived experience of racial discrimination that black people grow up with, nor the inherited trauma of slavery and generations of discrimination. But Bruce Jenner did not have the sledgehammer of reality that is one’s first period hit him when he reached puberty. He was not born with the generational trauma of foot binding. As an extremely gifted man, he was able to exploit his talents to their fullest, reaching the pinnacle of his chosen sport, bringing him adulation, wealth, and a beautiful family.
As left wing John Oliver said in his straw man argument in favour of mandatory maternity leave last month, “You can’t have it both ways.” But this gets to the heart of the matter. The people and institutions who have been driving this idea, once marginal but now becoming more and more mainstream, that gender and race are social constructs, have been having it both ways for years.
Regarding gender, the argument is made one moment that there are not necessarily any behavioural differences determined by whether one is biologically male or female. But when determining if someone is trans-gender, examples of behaviour which defy their biological sex will be cited.
With regard to race, consider what Dolezal said in her interview when trying to explain what she did. She said, “I identify as black.” Now think about it. If a white/ European/ Anglo-Saxon/ Caucasian person, whether it was someone in the public sphere or some regular guy you knew, said, “I identify as white,” there is one word that would promptly be shouted from the rooftops.
“Racist.”
The beauty of this whole saga is that it has revealed the absurdity of the whole academic construct that gender and race are themselves constructs. The whole argument rests on denying the undeniable facts staring one directly in the face. A is A, but the “race is a construct” construct tries to argue that A is B. One could not have hoped for a more fortuitous chain of events, for the same people who were praising a man for changing into a woman one week, to be condemning a white woman for identifying as black the next.
But I guarantee you that it will be these same people, in a few years time, who will be arguing in articles or on talk shows, through memes, or through whatever new form of communications get invented, that whoever they have chosen as their cause célèbre is a pioneer for wanting to change their race.
Just watch.
I wonder what the Australian Asylum Seeker Enablers have to say about this in relation to recent statements by various countries: “But we are just a transit country”. This latest statement was from Serbia in relation to Hungary trying to stop migrants flowing via Serbia into their territory.
They are safe in these transit countries, its just that the “benefits”, as in welfare benefits, are better elsewhere. Or to call a Spade a Spade – the welfare state of our watermelon friends beckons, and the queue jumping economic migrants obey the call. Any effort to mitigate this is met with cries of racism, lack of compassion or as a breech of Human Rights.
I say, these people are, wittingly or not, guilty of luring migrants to their deaths. Guilty for growing social issues in the country. Guilty of placing stress on the Governments social contract to legitimate citizens.
In their minds, I think Australia has zero asylum seeker intake if we don’t accept boat people. Such a perception is a complete reality distortion, akin to say economic migrants are refugees. I do not think we turn back Indonesians or New Zealanders fleeing life threatening persecution by a perilous sea journey to Australia. We turn back economic migrants. And the left hates that, like they hate us.
One thing is for certain, it is the average Australian who will pay for the crimes of the left. I wish Waleed Aly would be as passionate about the differentiation between fleeing for your life versus transiting for welfare benefit upgrades, as he is about questions of cash for boat turn-backs.
The meaning of words can be confusing at times, especially in our present post modern era. In the olden days, “bigot” just meant bigot – a person who is intolerant towards those holding different opinions. But not any longer. Bigot now means: “you disagree with correct leftist thought and therefore must be silenced,” and, “I will behave like a bigot myself whilst accusing you of being a bigot”.
So if you’re having trouble understanding what people are talking about, this handy list of common words and their actual meaning is sure to help!
Inclusive
Meaning: Including ideas and people who agree with me and suppressing all alternative views that don’t fit the predetermined definition of ‘inclusive’.
Diversity
Meaning: Celebrating difference, but ensuring that any differences are utterly inconsequential.
Racism
Meaning: Pointing out any cultural differences where you place a higher value on your own culture.
Open-minded
Meaning: Open to everything and anything, as long as you agree with what I am open- minded about.
Respect
Meaning: A word thrown at a person to abuse them when they disagree with you, or you disagree with them, and you have failed to use logic and reason.
Love
Meaning: Whatever you want it to mean, but especially in relation to whatever relationship I think I want.
Access
Meaning: A demand that the government use taxpayers money to pay for (or, alternatively, conduct a study into, or form a committee to investigate) something a particular individual or group wants.
Educate
Meaning: To inform people how and what they must think about a group or issue which has been deemed politically correct. Any deviation from this line will lead to being classified ignorant.
Disadvantage
Meaning: Legal term. The cause of all violent crime when the defendant is guilty or found to be guilty.
Offend
Meaning: To question or disagree with Islam.
Equity
Meaning: Extending to lazy people stuff others worked hard for.
Rights
Meaning: Extending to disreputable people the respect others worked hard for.
Responsibility
Meaning: Hard work, commitment and sacrifice expected of you, but not put in by another.
Tax
Meaning: Theft by unaccountable service provider with total market monopoly.
Muslimsplaining
Meaning: Explaining that Islam is a religion of peace immediately after any atrocity committed in Islam’s name.
Happiness
Meaning: Deriving enough dopamine from daily life one no longer cares enough to say ‘I told you so’
Public transport
Meaning: That thing you’ve learned to enjoy, even feel smugly superior about using. Except on cold and rainy days like today.
We hope this handy list helps to clear up some of the uncertainties of modern life!
Sincere thanks to those who contributed to this compilation – you know who you are.
And to our viewers, please feel free to tell us the true, but often unspoken meanings of words you’ve come across!
Which is a big deal when you write for a news website.
I recently prepared a short comic piece on poverty. While I enjoyed making the comic, the text was hastily written, and frankly struck a sarcastic tone of which (as a person who would much rather build up than tear down) I’m really not proud. In addition, my point was ill made, with several viewers positioning themselves not with myself as I has expected, but with my fictional opponents the “complaining… chattering classes.”
Criticism to these ends would have been acceptable, appropriate, and potentially spurred me toward improved outcomes. But what I received were intensely personal responses telling me I was using a “childish,”,“holier than thou approach,” (it was a bit) to telling me I was (perhaps tit-for-tat) “completely disconnected with the reality of poverty in Australia.”
I was shocked that they actually viewed me as lacking “consideration and compassion for the lives of others,” Especially when it was my concern for those in poverty which drove me to speak up when I saw others denigrating capitalism (or free trade more broadly). Certainly it’s not a perfect system, and I’m all for refining systems as we learn. But trying to reduce poverty at an individual, community, or national level without encouraging trade is removing an important tool, perhaps the best (although definitely still imperfect) tool we have. Trashing capitalism ties one hand behind our back when it comes to compassionate responses to poverty – and just saying, “Capitalism is bad and does nothing for the poor” isn’t true and makes it harder for us to help those who need help.
Political writing is a dirty game. But when I (naively) requested positive or negative feedback I was expecting comments which would discuss whether improving trade and economies has on balance improved people’s lives. What I really wasn’t prepared for was the following comment which stuck in my mind (and my throat) for several days.
“Stop this. You don’t deserve the impression it leaves of you.”
The comment was unrelated to whether capitalism has the ability to alleviate poverty. It was about me, my character and what views I present publicly. The comment was well-intentioned I am sure; but it was tough. As one colleague remarked on the conversation, “It leaves an impression of an Orwellian focus on control of the message.”
For days afterwards, every time I thought of writing I experienced one of the most unpleasant sensations that someone my age can feel without a dead body in the room: The thundering-alarm-bells-ringing in my chest and well-evolved-brain warning me that I am about to put myself outside the tribe. I felt awful.
Without excusing my haste and sarcasm, criticism of character is one of the most caustic and distressing costs of being a vocal conservative today. We’ve come to expect being on the outer. As conservative commentator Bill Whittle has colourfully remarked, we are the “The Rebel Alliance.”
It’s a positive image. But I didn’t have the courage to join the Rebel Alliance. I was more like Uncle Owen, or C-3PO without the loyalty.
And so I caved. I silenced myself.
And for the second time this week, I felt awful.
Like when my colleague ran a social media campaign to make ‘Mohammed your Profile Picture.’ He wasn’t asking much, and the image I chose was on point and very tame. But when it came down to it – I was more concerned about being insulted or criticised, than I was about standing up for the freedom of the media, even in this very small way.
I needed time to lick my wounds and reassess how I share my work. Because theconsequences of libertarians, classical liberals and conservatives (particularly young conservatives) hanging back are far reaching. Across the country hundreds of little decisions are being made every day to keep our views hidden from public discussion which allows flawed and sometimes damaging viewpoints to flourish.
So I apologise for my thoughtlessness. But I do hope my friends will forgive me for not stopping.Because the Rebel Alliance is already outnumbered.
And we have a Death Star to destroy.
The XYZ has a friend called Eric. That is not his real name. Eric is a contradiction – a freedom of expression grammar Nazi. He is a quite adept troll, defending the ABC and Greens and all things progressive against viewpoints outside of his ideology.
Who knows, he may very well be ABC funding at work, a form of guerrilla warrior who is sent in to unleash his attacks on those who oppose the new group-think.
Perhaps Eric is the future?
Imagine, a state media apparatus which executes its own agenda, all the while tasked with providing the population with unbiased news and information. The line across to propaganda may become blurred, but we are not there yet.
But, an Eric would be an excellent addition to the IS, or the DDR in its day, or many of the -ism’s of the 20th century. A ruthless ideologue, sent to render dissenters as “redundant in real time”.
Eric is part of the reason we are here. Eric will permit your freedom to express provided it’s agreeable to him. Eric is the dark side of the ABC.
Eric is watching you.
The latest XYZ Viewer Poll has determined that well over half of our readers believe that privatising the ABC will not trigger Armageddon.
In response to the question, “Will the world come to an end if the ABC is privatised?” 59% responded to the option “No – The sun will rise tomorrow, people will go to work, love their families, and anyway, I can’t believe we’re still having this conversation. It’s time!” It is heartening to learn that so many people hold the progressive view that our nation can thrive without the ABC in public hands.
It is, after all, 2015.
This beat by a good margin those who answered “Yes! – It will dumb down the nation, promote delusional toxic crap, and kill Peppa the Pig!” (33%). Given that we also raised the possibility of nuclear war, climate change, eroding biodiversity, a zombie apocalypse and the seven plagues of Egypt should the ABC be privatised, it is safe to assume that this 33% of viewers truly believe that the world could end without a public broadcaster.
However, the editors at XYZ reserve most of their concern, and a good deal of chortling, for the 9% of viewers who believe that “Meh – The human race is a plague on the earth, and extinction is the only cure.”
Agent Smith is alive and well, it may seem.
Today I came across an article to which I couldn’t help responding. It was titled, Masculinity Is Killing Men: The Roots of Men and Trauma.While I knew it would most likely leave me spitting in my morning soy cappuccino, like the television shows on traffic police that my husband devours I couldn’t resist diving in.
The article makes the disturbing claim that “turning boys into men” is a “damaging process” and quotes Joe Ehrmann as saying, “The three most destructive words that every man receives when he’s a boy is when he’s told to ‘be a man.’”
As I reacted to this with a sensation akin to spikes coming out of my shoulders (as perhaps you have too), it is immediately clear that what we are dealing with are disparate notions of what it means to “be a man.”
Today’s ‘progressives’ have done a good job of telling us that masculinity is about telling young boys to straighten up, hit their brothers, and not cry at funerals – or worse, tells them to drown their sorrows instead of learning to deal effectively with their emotions and impulses. Indeed, the author paints a disastrous picture of it means to be raised in this “poisonous” way:
“The result of all this—the early denial of boy’s feelings, and our collective insistence that they follow suit—is that boys are effectively cut off from their feelings and emotions, their deepest and most vulnerable selves. Historian Stephanie Coontz has labeled this effect the “masculine mystique.” It leaves little boys, and later, men, emotionally disembodied, afraid to show weakness and often unable to fully access, recognize or cope with their feelings.”
But the truth is, this is not what we mean today by “masculinity.” Nor has this drug-taking, depressed, repressed and underdeveloped strawman EVER been what conservatives mean when we speak of “turning boys into men.”
The article’s critique that at times society presents counterfeit concepts of manhood and womanhood (true enough) does not mean that the idea that young people need to mature into men or women doesn’t hold water. Very few people genuinely believe that taking potentially decades to transition into adulthood (a well known trend in my generation) is a healthy way to live. – Joe Ehrmann definitely doesn’t, seeing as he is the minister behind “Building Men and Women for Others Ministries.”
Failing to provide authentic expressions of gender is having some bizarre results.
Moreover counterfeit views of womanhood and manhood may actually be flourishing more today (Slut Walk anyone?) because we have left a gap in the market by failing to provide the genuine article.
Yes we should pay attention to how we treat boys and girls as babies. One study I recall found we are more likely to face baby girls towards us and baby boys away from us, and this may well be useful information. However suggesting all gendered treatment is harmful, is a huge leap from showing that some gendered treatment exists.
And yes the way some people have characterised what it means to be a man or woman have been wrong. I certainly don’t believe that in order to be a woman I have to be super-skinny or “an unattainable balance of virginal and f**kable” (thanks to the author of the article above for that lovely phrase) – that’s a flawed conception of womanhood.
But it does not then follow that no genuine or healthy conception of womanhood exists.
You have just got to love rising housing prices. Governments get vast revenues that shore up budgets, banks make slim margins on rapidly increasing volumes of loaned moneys, owner occupiers and investors alike can release equity and increase leverage, which in turn fuels consumption led economic activity and boosts economic growth, which all sounds great.
Of course, some cynics will scratch their head and be a little bit cynical about the whole thing. Such small minded bigots might point out:
– Debt fuelled (equity release, which is in fact debt increase) consumption led economic activity, is what economists call “bad debt” – as in, it does not create jobs or increase the nations productive capacity… What a capitalistic prick I must be to use such terms. Anyhow.
– Governments relying on stamp duty to shore up budgets. It is a bit like relying on gambling tax cuts (here is looking to you Victoria), which has the unpleasant outcome of making the government an addict and enabler of the problem.
– Banks make slim margins on rapidly increasing volumes of loaned moneys. cough GFC cough.
Simply put, the banks are revenue making geniuses while it works, like any Ponzi scheme. When it crashes, and equity margins are alchemised into junk for owners and bankers alike, they are teflon-like. Unless you do an Iceland, and then they are ruined and suitably chastened.
Look, we live in a time of the lowest interest rates in living memory, and stupendous house prices. You are a chump if you don’t chase the price increases. Sitting on the sidelines, we are all affected, and this is the worst part. An economist might point to the above as a short term set of concerns and outcomes.
Let’s look at a more troubling aspect which is on a longer time scale:
– Property price rises leads to rental price increases. Rising rents require rising incomes (from residential or commercial tenants.)
– The increase in rent and associated prices of consumer goods and services, results in increases in welfare, which leads to indebtnedness AND economic migration under the guise of asylum.
– Rising incomes mean rising costs of production. For industry, rising wages and rising commercial leases is a hefty reduction in competitiveness.
-Rising costs of production leads to reduced competitiveness. Reduces competitiveness in the long term leads to lower employment and a reduced exchange rate/ terms of trade.
We should see a plunge in the exchange rate toward 60c USD in order to maintain competitiveness. As the exchange rate plunges, we should see inflationary pressures unleashed from rising energy and consumer goods import prices. This ought to force the hand of the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates even as unemployment grows.
And it is this last point which is at odds with the dream of ever increasing housing prices. We are addicted to heavily in-debting ourselves AND making ourselves internationally un-competitive.
In the medium term, something has to give, and when it does hindsight will be a bitch.
Amid the predictable uproar today from those on the left clambering over each other to lay claim to the moral high ground, a few key facts are worth considering.
When the ALP won power in 2007, the number of refugees held in detention could be counted on one hand, and none of them were children. Under the Howard Government, Australia had had the highest immigration and refugee intake it had ever had.
The measures which were taken to achieve this result were harsh, and caused suffering, but they provided a strong enough deterrent to prevent more suffering from occurring had it not been done. Nothing short of these measures could have achieved this.
The removal of Howard’s Border Protection regime by Labor, strongly supported by the Greens, directly caused the death of over 1000 people who drowned trying to come here in unseaworthy boats.
Australia’s refugee and immigration quotas had to be reduced in order to cope with the 50 000 refugees who arrived here illegally in Labor’s two terms. Now that the Liberal Party has restored order to the immigration program, (again at great cost, sometimes fatal, to the unfortunate refugees involved,) Australia will once again be able to help more people.
It is mind-boggling that those who call for “compassion” and “mercy” for refugees can advocate a policy which causes them nothing but abject suffering, and the policy which they decry as “racist” and a crime against humanity is the policy which helps refugees the most.
The ALP and the Greens have blood on their hands, the blood of over one thousand people who drowned trying to come to Australia by leaky boat, who made the attempt as a direct result of Labor and Greens policy. This point cannot be stressed enough, and it is vital that this point is repeated over and over again, for the sake of our country and for the sake of all who want to come here.
Its 2022, and after years of struggle, the Greens have finally come to power in Australia.
Mines are heavily taxed or shut down. Welfare flows to the needy. The rich are taxed an appopriate but fair share. Australia meddles only positively in international affairs. The armed forces have been largely disbanded. Free speech within accepted parameters is enjoyed by all.
Unless exempt by religious or cultural practices (and there is a minister for this), all people are treated as genderless people. The only discrimination is positive discrimination to help the needy (unless exempt by religious or cultural practices). Negative messages (unless exempt by religious or cultural practices) are not permitted in the media in order to protect the impressionable.
Contact sports have been banned. Cigarettes and alcohol are a scourge of the past. The nation is vegetarian (unless exempt by religious or cultural practices). Fossil fuel use and extraction is a thing of the past. Education is free and mandated for all (unless exempt by religious or cultural practices).
The nation is a shining beacon for the world and has been proud to accept vast, uncapped amounts of appreciative refugees and migrants from all over the globe. Political discourse operates within acceptable boundaries, the economy and government provide sustainable growth, sustainable production, environmentally friendly food and housing, and more than enough for all.
The world looks on admiringly, and knows that the battle against the small minded bigots was worth it.
It is heaven on earth, almost a utopia.
It’s hard to believe..
Twitter can be so cruel. From behind anonymous handles and malicious hashtags, the Twittersphere cruelled well meaning British activist Ashgar Bukhari. The story, in its sordid fullness, is here.
I don’t know Mr Bukhari, but I’m on his side on this one. For more than twenty years I’ve been pondering the mysterious phenomenon of the missing socks. You will know what I mean. Two pairs of dirty, sweaty socks get put into the Bermuda Triangle that is my washing machine and dryer combo, but only one of the two comes out. It’s a mysteriously deep and veiled truth of the cosmos, that I, and greater minds, have pondered for many years, now solved, by the ingenuity and breath-takingly forthright intelligence of Mr Bukhari.
Clearly, what has been happening in my humble household all these years is the same thing that has afflicted that of Ashgar, and so many other unsuspecting citizens over the years (nay centuries) – the nocturnal, thieving Jew. This rare species comes, not for the pair of shoes, not for the pair of socks, or dare we suggest it, not for the pair of knickers, but the one shoe, the one sock, the (well, one) pair of knickers. He comes unseen, undetected, in the dead of the night, to take, not the pair of shoes, which might be functional, since he could actually wear a pair of shoes, or sell them, or and put them to some other use – but he wants only one of the pair, inexplicably leaving one behind.
Until now, the reason for this has eluded the great minds of the universe – Plato is strangely silent on the matter, Aristotle has nothing to say, Mein Kampf is clueless – but all of that is now changed, transformed! Bringing to bear the wisdom of the centuries old Islamic culture and tradition (around five or six centuries later than Christianity and about twenty or so centuries later than Judaism – but who’s counting?), Ashgar Bukhari points to the explanation that has hitherto evaded civilisation. The thieving Jew. Who comes not for the pair, but for only one of the pair; not for personal gain, and not with a quick sale at Cash Converters in mind; but in a much more sinister vein, to intimidate, to inflict psychological trauma, to make Ashgar, and presumably Muslims everywhere, feel vulnerable and unsafe in their own homes – a bit like the good citizens of Mosul might feel now, or school children in northern Nigeria, but we digress…
The shoe stealing Jew is not a phenomenon without parallel in history. They (the Jews) stole the whole of Palestine after all, so why would they not stoop to stealing one of your shoes, one of your socks, or, even more shockingly, to rearranging the photos on your mantelpiece, just so you know ‘they’ have been there, in your house? It’s a well known tactic, if you are a paranoid Muslim activist like Ashgar, readily believed, no doubt, by his publicists at the BBC and Guardian, only too eager to accept at face value any claim of ‘Islamophobia’ and / or Jewish malfeasance vis a vis Muslims. And it’s all factual, of course. In the same way the ‘running of Jew’ in Borat’s Kazakhstan is a real life, annual event.
So, let us all say with Ashgar Bukhari – give me back my shoe / sock – you thieving Jew!
If you happen to express an opinion which reflects the current state of Australian law, you run the risk of having your view dismissed and branded as “extremely hurtful.”
The Victorian Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie found out the hard way over the weekend.
The ABC reported that Senator McKenzie’s brother, Alastair McKenzie said that his sister’s comments opposing changes to the Marriage Act were “painful to read.”
He wrote in a letter to the Bendigo Advertiser “as you can understand this is a deeply personal and this latest statement from my sister has been extremely hurtful.”
“Public statements promoting inequity only serve to perpetuate the isolation and marginalise those youths questioning their sexuality.
“Growing up in the country can be tough and isolating, growing up gay in the country in the 1990s was horrific.
“Given her own story and connection, I had hoped to see a more courageous and compassionate response.”
Citing “hurt” or “offence” has become the quickest and most effective way to shut down open and intelligent debate and to slander those with opposing views in contemporary Australia.
You don’t need to have a well reasoned argument, you don’t even need to be concerned about the “truth”. We’ve clearly moved beyond such an outdated and oppressive concept.
Well frankly, I find that offensive.
Today on Weekend In-Depth we look back at the events surrounding the Martin Place siege in December 2014, and the ABC’s inability to call it for what it was:
The poor old ABC. Its multiple news outlets (online, radio, television), with its massive billion dollar budget annually (cut by a whisker recently), laboured for hours during the course of the Martin Place siege to find new and novel ways of avoiding giving vocalization to just about any word beginning with the letter ‘I’. In the end, it just couldn’t be done, and finally the word ‘Islam’ appeared in a sentence on ‘The Drum’ website, in connection with the events in Martin Place, as part of the heading to a piece by well known activist Ruby Hamad – ‘Sydney Siege: Confronting our Anti-Islam Backlash.’
For the ABC, it was all about a backlash, whereby the vast majority of Australian citizens would turn feral and ugly, to the extent that a woman in a hijab could not get on a train alone, but required a chaperone, and in which the Muslim community were the victims of unfettered racism. Such is the low esteem in which the ABC and its employees regard their fellow Australians – the same ones who contribute its budget via their taxes, and who are meant to be the recipients of its impartial and informed news making and broadcasting. So captive, however, is the ABC to inner city Green Left fantasies, that it cannot see the black flag staring it in the face, but must immediately turn every instance of Islamic terrorism into a commentary on the inherent racism of the uneducated bogans who populate the Australian suburbs.
So what did the ABC, and its army of commentators and opinion writers, think was unfolding in the Lindt café? The gunman, Man Haron Monis, seemed to have no doubt whatsoever. He unfurled a black flag with Arabic writing on it, and had his hostages hold it to the window for the world to see. Debates commenced immediately about the translation of the script. ABC reporters flooded the airwaves and twittersphere with smug, almost cheerful, proclamations that this was not the ISIS jihadist flag. One thing we did know – it wasn’t a banner wishing passers-by a Merry Christmas, and it didn’t translate to ‘peace on earth and goodwill to all men.’ Aware that he had come to a gunfight with the wrong flag, probably through the aegis of the same smug reporting that was giving lectures to listening and watching citizens on the finer points of Arabic grammar, Monis sought to clarify things by demanding an ISIS flag and then forcing the hostages to record videos for various news outlets, confirming that this was indeed a terrorist attack. In fact, he could not have been more specific and clear, having hostages implore on his behalf – “please broadcast on all media that this is an attack on Australia by the Islamic State.”
Over at the ABC there was consternation. What could this mean? Could the events in Martin Place unfolding before them bear any similarity to other global instances of lone fanatics shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ as they committed some atrocity or attack? Could the common link be Buddhism, or were those Christian Scientists at it again? Had secular humanists ever been known to be this violent? Where were the Crusaders when you needed them? Oh for some good, old fashioned Medieval Christian violence one can almost hear ‘The Drum’ columnists cry as they sat poised at their keyboards, waiting to denounce the Catholic church.
As time passed, and the tragic events unfolded, it all then became increasingly clear. Man Moris was mentally unwell (of course he was, who would deny it). En route to Martin Place he must have inadvertently picked up a black flag with Arabic script on it, purely by chance. He had decided he was an ISIS fighter around the time the Daily Telegraph published its ‘death cult’ headline. That made it all News Corp’s fault. And for the main take out story, well, an anti-Islam ‘backlash’ would have to do, despite the fact one could not be found, and regardless of the fact that the ‘I’ll ride with you’ hashtag campaign was, inconveniently, exposed as a fraud, based on a fabrication, even more inconveniently, admitted to shortly afterwards by its originator. The backlash, triumphantly proclaimed by the delusional Ruby Hamad, and repeatedly tweeted and publicized by her publicity officers over at the ABC, could still not be found, however.
Not anywhere.
Not until a full week later in fact, when three men were arrested for brawling in Lakemba, and a policeman hurt his shoulder. The ABC pounced, breathlessly telling its readers that it had been ‘advised’ the incident involved ‘some anti-Islamic activists.’ Around the same time, someone in a country town added a sentence in chalk to a blackboard menu outside a pub saying ‘Sorry no Muslims.’ The backlash was confirmed, and the chalkboard menu was an ABC cause célèbre, receiving saturation coverage on multiple platforms. In the real world, when a Muslim bride arrived at the scene in Martin Place (apparently not chaperoned and strangely without an Anglo-Saxon Greens candidate to ride with her) to place her bridal flowers amongst the sea of floral tributes there, bystanders broke into appreciative applause.
Back at the ABC offices in Ultimo the conversation turned to the upcoming World Wildlife Fund cocktail party, yoga classes resumed, and the tofu was brought in… whilst perplexed journalists searched in vain for a way of attributing all of this to Tony Abbott.
I was born in to a very middle class, very ordinary, family, in Australia, forty something years ago. Both of my parents are of white Anglo-Saxon heritage, and descended from families that inhabited some windswept parts of eastern Britain for many generations. Adherents to the Church of England, we’re about as white Anglo-Saxon Protestant as it gets. But, damn it, things are going to change! After a weekend among the counter-cultural types of North Fitzroy, eating tofu on Brunswick Street, and doing something illegal (without being caught) on Smith Street, I read the ‘Saturday Paper’ for the first time, and headed off to my first ‘equal marriage’ rally on the steps State Parliament. All the time my Twitter feed filled with commentary on the Spokane activist and academic Rachel Dolezal (as columnist Tim Blair memorably asked, ‘sista’ or just plain old sister?). And, right there, walking home with my newfound (happily unemployed) activist friends, as we threw stones and curses at the corporate buildings we passed on Collins Street, I had an epiphany.No more, placid, forty something, boring white guy for me. From now on, I’m ticking any box on a form that means I get my own social worker, an interpreter, and / or some form of special attention. I’m going gay all the way – because I want to. I’m refusing to conform to the stereotypical, oppressive demand to tick either male or female on my next credit card application (or any application), and I’ll be on 774 mornings with Jon Faine exposing the fascist regime that tries to inflict on me the trauma of nominating male or female when plainly, I’m neither.
I’m signing up for the national disability insurance scheme, even though I don’t have a disability, and shamelessly so. I’m not speaking English, because I bloody well don’t want to. I’m shaving my head, changing my name to Gloria, and wearing my wife’s clothing to work, and I can hardly wait for someone to say anything that I can describe as a word ending in –ist or -phobic, because I’m going to be suing your ass off buddy. I’m an out, proud, intersex person of no particular gender, race, or ethnic identity. And who the hell are you to tell me I aren’t?
Gender, ethnicity, income, employment – it’s all so last century, all so much a construct of an illegitimate, oppressive, capitalist regime. I’m going the full reverse Michael Douglas – as De Fens, in Falling Down. And loving it! I want one of those high paying academic jobs in the gender or cultural studies departments that are normally reserved for ‘minorities’ and which are funded by your taxes. And I want it now.
I’m an avid 80’s music fan and as I’ve been listening over the last couple of months, it has occurred to me that the bass is the forgotten instrument in Rock.
The bass player doesn’t have the glamour of the vocalist or lead guitarist, nor the notoriety of the drummer.
They say, to be counted as a *real* fan of a band, you need to know the name of the bass player. And for good reason, because the bass player is usually ignored by all those except the genuinely interested.
Like the water in your morning espresso, bass often goes unnoticed. Yet when it’s not there Rock loses much, possibly even most of its power.
Without much recognition, the bass adds to the melody, guitar riffs, and rhythm, and forms the structure which undergirds the drums. Without a strong bass, the drums and beat will utterly lack the body and power that a bass guitar can give it.
So today, have a think about the unnoticed things in your world, without which your life would be depleted like a record player with a broken bass speaker.
A storm over gender politics has been whipped up in the wake of Professor Tim Hunt’s remarks about women in the lab. The Nobel laureate’s off-hand comments have been roundly condemned by commentators and the media as sexist, and his remarks have raised questions about barriers to women in science.
In the wake of this sensation, I found myself wondering, “Would Sir Isaac Newton be employable in 2015?” The likely answer would be ‘No.’ And the reason (surprisingly) has nothing to do with sexism, gender politics or the patriarchy.
Isaac Newton, possessing one of the most gifted minds of anyone who ever lived, had a reputation for being unpleasant and unlikeable. In fact, Newton was so lacking in interpersonal skills that it is assumed he died a virgin aged 84 in 1726. Recent research claims that Newton showed signs of Aspergers syndrome, a disorder that has also been posthumously assigned to several other geniuses, including Michaelangelo, Albert Einstein and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Aspergers may go some way in explaining Newton’s anti-social behaviour, and invites us to consider the gifts and shortcomings of geniuses in general.
In 2012, CBS published an article, ‘Why geniuses don’t have jobs’. The article explains, that whilst geniuses rate exceptionally high in certain fields, they usually rate low in others, such as communication and interpersonal skills.
“Many geniuses become surgeons, and are famous for throwing temper tantrums or harassing people.” Of course, that kind of behaviour is not acceptable and needs to be addressed. However, it must be recognised that this kind of behaviour has far more to do with the workings (and shortcomings) of geniuses’ minds than it has to do with gender politics or institutional sexism.
The behaviours and tendencies of geniuses raises questions about the political storm that has been whipped up over this issue, and of the loss to science and humanity that Professor Hunt’s stepping down will be.
As CBS’s article concludes: “We have a massive problem with our employment system, which robs companies of great talent, and creates cultures of mediocrity. The problem is that we don’t know how to employ geniuses.”
There is no shortage of geniuses down the ages who have been difficult to get along with or been entirely lacking in social graces. When in the past geniuses were tolerated and left alone to get on with their work, our ‘tolerant’ 21st century society no longer tolerates geniuses. And we are all worse off because of it.
Futurism in science fiction is what makes the genre both exciting and relevant, as it provides parables for how life could be organised here on Earth, and inspiration for where we could aim to go and be in the future. It also plays its part in setting the political agenda and directing cultural currents. But a trope has well and truly developed in Hollywood science fiction about humanity’s future colonisation of space; we will do it because our planet is dying, and we will need to find a new home.
The movie Interstellar explores exactly this theme, as does the newest instalment of the computer game Syd Meyer’s Civilisation. Will Smith starred with his son a few years ago in the movie Earth, where humanity had long ago left an uninhabitable Earth for new homes in the Galaxy. Matt Damon starred in Elyssium, which combined catastrophic fears of climate change with a twisted take on The Time Machine, where humanity’s rich lived in paradise on a space station orbiting Earth, and its poor were marooned on the desolate surface.
Misanthropy, deep-green ideology, and bald-faced socialism are infecting the genre. Avatar was literally dripping in unironic Gaia worship and misanthropic environmentalism, and don’t even get started on “horrible socialist movie” Tomorrowland.
http://www.pjtv.com/series/afterburner-with-bill-whittle-56/a-horrible-socialist-movie-the-tomorrowland-lie-11020/
If these visions represent the deepest dystopic fears of the left, it is easy to imagine how the right could go to the same lengths:
Imagine a movie where the last remaining humans of talent are fleeing an Earth that has been impoverished by over-regulation and over-taxation, and is beset by an oppressive one-world government. These industrialists, innovators and creators strike out for new land in the same way that they did in when colonising America, with the hope that they can make their own lives and their own fortunes somewhere where nobody will tell them what to do. If Elysium was a space sci-fi version of The Time Machine, this is a space sci-fi version of Atlas Shrugged.
(I would pay good money to see that movie.)
Another flight of fancy could follow the train of thought, “What if Israel were to move to a different geographical location?”
In the hope that it will solve their problems once and for all, the Israeli government buys land in either Argentina, Mongolia, or Canada, triple the size of its current territory, and moves the entire country over there. The so-called Palestinians are given their own state, Israel sets up where nobody can bother them, and everything is going to be fine. Israel’s economy booms, they make incredible contributions to the world in the realm of science, culture and ecology, and anti-Israeli sentiment around the world gradually subsides.But it is not a case of happily ever after. The Middle East continues to smoulder, especially as its States no longer have the common enemy of Israel to unite them and distract their people from their own failings. The infrastructure that had existed in Israel, and was generously left intact, quickly crumbles, as so called Palestinians engage in relentless civil war. Old resentments of Jews resurface and redouble. As the Arab people continue to wallow in extreme poverty, endless sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia, and they even start running out of oil, the conspiracy theory that Jews are still pulling all the strings of the world’s power can only grow.The disgruntled from all over the world start setting up camp on the borders of the new Israel, simultaneously demanding to be let in and hurling rockets into their desired homeland. Israel takes steps to defend itself and faces inevitable international condemnation as mass civilian casualties are caused by an opponent determined to use them as human shields.Threatened by both a nuclear Iran and a nuclear Saudi Arabia, the Jews decide to pack up and leave, this time for outer space, on one of the moons of Jupiter. Here they thrive for a century or two, until the rest of humanity catches up with them. In the early 2200’s they are assailed by an interplanetary environmental movement who demand compensation for their degradation of Io, and face a new threat of spacefaring Arab States who harness the asteroid belt to hurl new projectiles at the Israeli colony, threatening its existence once again.
Basically, just follow the formula of most sci-fi movies these days, where you take all your political assumptions to create a choose your own adventure version of Star Wars.
This genre can’t be discussed fairly without mentioning the fundamental importance of the original Star Wars Trilogy. They represent an era when Western Civilisation possessed immense cultural confidence, and were essentially the story of the United State’s battle for survival and independence. It mirrored the monumental historical and political struggles of the time, and its language and ideas were deliberately co-opted by the Reagan administration to beat Communist USSR.
Both scenarios I have presented could be fun commentaries on modern history and interesting parables on what the consequences could be if political problems are left unresolved. But they both fail in one key area. If we believe so strongly that our principles of Classical Liberalism are correct, we should not be giving up so easily on them. Our grandparents and great-grandparents defeated the Nazis. Our parent’s generation toppled the Soviet Union. They did not make such sacrifices for us just so we could take our bat and ball and leave when we were confronted by a bizarre alliance of Socialists and Islamists.
My prediction of the future is that we will beat those sons of bitches. A strong core of the civilised world remains committed to free speech, free association, free markets, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Indeed they are natural instincts shared by the entire human race, and they are stirred into action whenever threatened by totalitarian ideologies. We will use technology and ingenuity to overcome whatever slight environmental concerns we may encounter. Humanity’s direction will progress inevitably into our solar system and outer space, where we will compete to harness the stupendous resources available out there to take us beyond our wildest dreams.
I think there are plenty of excellent movies, books, and video games to be made exploring this future, and good money to boot.
All the while, the Earth will carry on just fine.
