Clik here to view.
Theorisation: Reinventing Orwell and smothering him in verbiage
I’ve spoken about what I call “strategisation” before. This involves dressing something up as particularly strategically apposite. The example I gave is this assertion: Services will continue to make a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
If we tolerate this, our children will be next … Guest post by Dennis Glover
Question: Given that history repeats, what year is this? Fifteen months ago, when Donald Trump’s rag-tag militias stormed the Capitol building in Washington D.C., I thought for a moment we might be...
View ArticleAustralia enters the post-party phase of Western democracy
Originally published on The Interpreter. Two federal elections ago, in 2016, the primary vote for the Labor Party and the Liberal-Nationals coalition reached record lows, while the number of voters...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why AI isn’t coming for us any time soon
As some of you may know, I am now publishing a weekly substack of articles I’ve found interesting on the net and in some cases offering some summary commentary. In an unprecedented move, the kind of...
View ArticleFast foodification: what is it, what’s driving it, how do we stop it?
In this discussion, Peyton Bowman and I discuss my term ‘fast-foodification’. I coined the word trying to describe modern politics. The techniques used by politicians and their professional enablers...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Gruen: detox democracy through representation by random selection
I use Troppo to make various notes for file as it were for reference in future. And on wanting to record something I found that I hadn’t reproduced this post — which was originally at The Mandarin —...
View ArticleAn Alt-left?
I What is it with James Burnham? I associate him — via Curtis Yarvin — with the alt-right. And Burnham is the founding text of what I call the Alt-centre (of which I am the founder and which I’m...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Economic Ideas and Policy Outcomes: Ross Garnaut’s Gruen Lecture
Austro-Hungarian Economists Below is Ross Garnaut’s lecture in honour of my Dad. Economic Ideas and Policy Outcomes: Applications to Climate and Energy Fred Gruen signed up as Professor of Economics in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Should Liz Cheney be your hero?
Like me, Leslie Cannold is deeply grateful for Liz Chaney right now — you know, the way she’s speaking truth to fruitcakery. Liz Cheney is my hero. On positions of policy, I disagree with her almost...
View ArticleJournalism as a system of domination: Peter Dutton edition
.@FergusonNews asks Opposition Leader @PeterDutton_MP: What would prevent you now from taking the next step and that is backing the referendum on the Voice? #abc730 #auspol pic.twitter.com/ebAUd6uM7P...
View ArticleThe David Solomon Lecture: Government 2.0 a couple of years on . . .
Finding a formatting mess when I looked this up on Troppo, I’ve reposted it here for the record. I’m a bit embarrassed by my wooden speaking style. Here’s the David Solomon Lecture I’ll be giving at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Polarisation and the Case for Citizens’ Juries
Cross posted from Quillette from 16 Feb 2019, but now behind a paywall. When a conversation is not a conversation: party political discourse in the early 21st century I It looks like liberal democracy...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What kind of Character is Sam Bankman-Fried
A friend sent me this article documenting Sam Bankman-Fried’s now well known text exchange with Vox journalist Kelsey Piper. I couldn’t help but think of Alasdair MacIntyre’s characters. As MacIntyre...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fighting political polarisation
From this week’s Substack of mine. Thomas B. Edsall has an important writeup of research into reducing political polarisation. But to me it seems to be heading in an unhelpfully scientistic direction....
View ArticleClik here to view.
How did the Chilean left crash their referendum?
I’ve been looking for an explainer of what’s been going on in Chile and, thanks to Brad Delong for pointing it out. Of particular interest was the way a government won 55 percent of the vote and then...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Understanding the present by listening to the past: Walter Lippmann’s “The...
One way to get beneath the surface of what’s going on is to read people who were writing about issues, as they emerged rather than in more modern times when they’d become the norm and become infused in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The off-ramp from reality
This post began as an ad for an artist with traditional and AI graphic design skills. If you want to apply, please be my guest. But the post also presents a nice simplification of a way of thinking....
View ArticleClik here to view.
From repressive tolerance to repressive diversity
A brilliant illustration of the broad terrain of both concepts. It’s telling (and sad for a left leaning centrist like me) that this comes from the very right wing Claremont Institute. (Though their...
View ArticleThe world of bullshit we’ve built: Reflections on a scene from Utopia
I recently took my son to the stage play of Yes, Prime Minister. … The decades have made a huge difference in the sensibility of the new production … . The series ran through most of the 1980s, a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
100 Best I’m Sorry Paragraphs For Her To Make Her Forgive You
You’ve been searching for the perfect words to apologize to your bae? Pick one of these fantastic I’m sorry paragraphs for her and I’m sure things will be OK again in no time! Top 20 I’m Sorry...
View Article