[Sixth of a series of blog posts about sessions at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas on Saturday 22nd October] Finally today, John Spoehr looked at South Australia’s future ‘Roads to ruin, pathways to prosperity’. Again, he bigged up Labor’s response to the GFC, compared the Abbott government’s 2014 budget as a throwback to Fightback (!),... Continue Reading →
Climbing from the Abyss? Not sure on that… #AdlFoI
[Fifth of a series of blog posts about sessions at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas on Saturday 22nd October] Barry Jones really is a living legend. The list of his achievements and honours is very very long. But… But this. When Jones gave the Don Dunstan Oration today (Dunstan was a game-changing Labor leader of... Continue Reading →
I’ve seen the Future baby, and it’s… social media #AdlFoI
[Third of a series of blog posts about sessions at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas on Saturday 22nd October] Dr Fiona Kerr (of Adelaide University; all the best people went there) gave a barnstorming tour through the brain (her day job), and talked about the impacts on it of prolonged exposure to new technologies. She made... Continue Reading →
Sustainable jobs in sustainable communities #AdlFoI
[Second of a series of blog posts about sessions at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas on Saturday 22nd October] “Sustainable” is one of those motherhood-and-applie pie words (fnords,if you will) that don’t offer clarity. However John Spoehr, Heather Smith (a friend) and Sean Williams overcame this as far as could be expected in a short session.... Continue Reading →
Athenian Democracy? A few funny things will need to happen on the way to the forums… #AdlFoI
[First of a series of blog posts about sessions at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas on Saturday 22nd October] Nicholas Gruen started out with a stark example of the limits/dangers of ‘Vox Pop Democracy’. In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis the Obama Administration asked for people’s suggestions/priorities. And the answers were not ‘health/education’... Continue Reading →
Maunderings and meanderings (Thesis) #Window #Metaphors #sense-making
Maundering #1 One of the key techniques for defensive institutional work is to make nonsense; to destroy or at the very least degrade the sense-making capacity of your opponents. Disorientate your enemy, deprive them of the ability to figure out – (quick enough - these are OODA loops, don't forget), what is going on. Screw... Continue Reading →
Getting your head around other people’s heads. Phenomenologically, tingle-ing-ly good
Can we ever really know what is going on in someone else's head? Meh, there's one way to piss someone off and that's to say “I know exactly how you feel, the same exact thing happened to me.” Because, of course, there's events but they have to be interpreted, and even the same person's interpretations... Continue Reading →
You cannot be Serres-ist?! Baal and the Challenger explosion
Okay, I will admit to being prejudiced. Or rather, having encountered a certain group and then unfairly tarred'em all with the same brush. And that group is.... late 20th century French "philosophers". I read a bit of Fucko, couldn't get into Derrida, liked bits of Virilio... a bit of Auge, but decided to leave Badiou,... Continue Reading →
Books I absolutely did not buy today.
I went to a worthy (and fun) protest at which people closed their accounts with the Commonwealth Bank, because it (and the other three biggies) are saying they want to keep the world under the two degree warming target, which I wrote a short factual piece about, and will use to think more about mobilising... Continue Reading →
“Whatever you need to tell yourself”
The wife and I have a 'nuclear option' in our infrequent bickerings, namely "whatever you need to tell yourself". It's such a supreme asshole move that we use it either sparingly or tongue-in-cheek. Because, after all, it is a claim to superior knowledge over someone else's 'false consciousness', isn't it? And indifference to that view,... Continue Reading →
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