The Big Issues: We Need to Hear More from Sam Harris About Guns

In my last post, I pleaded for Americans to have a real conversation about guns after Newtown. Predictably perhaps, I have been despairing since as that conversation again failed to achieve any kind of sentience. Then, on Wednesday night, almost out of nowhere, one of my intellectual heroes came through with what may yet be the most courageous and important piece of commentary on “The Riddle of the Gun”.

Sam Harris is a writer who regularly receives death threats for courageously upending the worldviews of the majority of the world's population, yet I suspect that "The Riddle of the Gun" may be his most courageous piece of writing to date. 

I have two reasons for crediting Sam's courage in writing this. The first is that he knows it will alienate many of his most loyal readers and will draw rebuttals from many of his allies - Sean Faircloth of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science was quick off the mark with this considered piece. The second reason requires an entire post to itself so I’ll come back to that soon. 

This post is dedicated to why I believe the "The Riddle of the Gun" is so important...

I believe that "The Riddle of the Gun" is important because around two thirds of its approximately 6,000 carefully selected words represent the most complete and understandable summary I've seen on “the case for guns in America". Sam is one of the most rational and eloquent Americans alive today. His words are always worth reading and this piece is no exception. I urge everyone to read them and to be challenged by them. I urge everyone to reflect upon his words as honestly and as rationally as Sam reflected while he wrote them.

Call me a hopeless optimist, but I want to believe that these 6,000 words are the beginning of the conversation that we’ve all been waiting for. We all know and respect Harris enough to know that if he continues to participate in that conversation, then his presence will draw in other qualified intellectuals. We know know that he will debate politely and rationally. He will hear polite, rational, and honest responses to his case. He will reflect rationally and respond honestly and politely to them, drawing further qualified and respectful contributors to the conversation.

Ranting ideologues on both sides of the debate will be excised, and the parts of Sam’s argument that are robust enough to withstand sustained intellectual scrutiny will prevail. Where his position is shown to be lacking, he will expand, or he will concede.

I really want to believe that Sam Harris has at last sparked the conversation. The conversation that will leave Americans and the world with a better understanding of the many truths behind “the US gun problem”. The conversation that will leave individuals and policymakers across the political compass with actionable intelligence to shape a more sane future.

This conversation can never happen in the mainstream media, but Harris has started it in the blogosphere - It is possible that such a complex issue can be deconstructed fully by an engaged citizen media.

Thank you Sam Harris! I'll be watching, and hoping...

The Big Issues: My 2 cents on Newtown CT

I haven't been blogging lately but I am sickened to the stomach by attempts to stop the conversation in the wake of yesterday's massacre, so I want to entrain my little corner of the Web to the avalanche of public outrage.

Yes, I understand why these dangerous fuckers want to stop the conversation, but I don't have time to scratch the surface of my thoughts on this whole armed civilian militia thing in the US...

Instead, I'm going to quickly respond to the gunnies who disingenuously claim that there is no point regulating guns in the US because massacres happen everywhere, even in highly regulated Norway.

Any rational person can see that this claim willfully misses the point. It misses the point because since Breivik, there has been a serious discussion in Norway about how to stop a similar crime from happening again. The Norwegian legal system has been consciously reconfiguring itself to deal with the new reality that there are seriously dangerous people at large in their midst. Norwegian society, and the Norwegian public psyche has been doing the same.

After Martin Bryant, a similar conversation led to a reconfiguration of the Australian legal system and of Australian society/psyche.

After Marc Dutroux a similar conversation led to a reconfiguration of the Belgian legal system and of Belgian society. (I admit that Dutroux was not a shooting massacre, but I could go on and on - I just picked those two examples because they are close to my heart, for obvious reasons.)

An open and honest (and yes, bloody emotional) public conversation is absolutely necessary at times like this! That conversation has been shouted down by NRA trolls and Tea Party crazies after every previous massacre in the US. Those children are dead today because the American legal system and American society has not managed to reconfigure itself, as it must. 

America, please have the conversation this time - please don't let those children's deaths be in vain.

President Obama - It is simply not possible for your side to lose votes on this issue, and as this picture demonstrates, it is really not hard to explain gun regulation to a rational person!

World Changing Ideas: Occupy goes into debt

This week, our friends at Occupy Wall Street launched another paradigm changer to run in parallel with their amazing ongoing efforts to help the worst affected by Hurricane Sandy.

Consistent with their ideals of mutual aid rather than charity, Occupy Wall Street has just launched a Rolling Jubilee. 

What's a Rolling Jubilee? It is the next phase in a growing collective resistance movement against the debt system. (If you want to know what the "debt system" is, then you really need to read this amazing book by David Graeber [1], which will change the way that you view the world.)

From the Website:

A bailout of the people by the people

Rolling Jubilee is a Strike Debt project that buys debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolishes it. Together we can liberate debtors at random through a campaign of mutual support, good will, and collective refusal. Debt resistance is just the beginning. Join us as we imagine and create a new world based on the common good, not Wall Street profits.

What Occupy is doing is pretty much the same as many good capitalists do - They are raising money and using it to buy other people's debt.

The only difference is that instead of sending in the heavies to collect on the debt like good capitalists are supposed to do, they simply erase it. 

Gone... Just like that...

Their slogan is simply beautiful - “You are not a loan, you are not alone”

Who Picks the Winners in the Australian Electricity Market?

Last week, Reuters published an interesting piece about Australia's progress on renewable energy - For those who can't be bothered reading the article, I'll summarise it for you:

• The Aussie government recently committed to generate at least 20% of our electricity from renewable sources by 2020. To support this goal, it put in place a scheme called the Renewable Energy Target (RET).  
• Although it is still early days for the RET, it appears to be working pretty bloody well. So well in fact, that we seem set to beat the 20% by 2020 target (perhaps even generating as much as 25%), if things continue.
• Because of this success, "The Australian Coal Association (ACA) has argued that the RET should be abolished completely because it unfairly picks winners in the electricity market."

I do not intend to write another scathing post about the hypocrisy of the ACA's position - Blind Freddy can see that a highly profitable industry that still sucks billions of dollars from Australian taxpayers every year is taking the piss to argue that their competitors shouldn't help themselves to a small serve from their feeding trough…

I'll try not talk about the ACA at all actually, because I think it's time that Aussies started to talk about the big picture...

Australia is one of the richest countries on the planet and we have a tiny population. Our land abounds in Nature's (renewable energy) gifts. We have boundless plains on which to harvest solar, wind, and geothermal energy. For fuck's sake - hasn't anyone noticed that our home is girt by sea? Maybe we might look into some marine and ocean energy? 

Nature and history have picked the winners in the Aussie electricity market, not the RET!

What is wrong with Aussies these days that we just let the ACA get away with spouting that kind of crap? We should all march down there and tell them to shove it!

Reductionism, Globalization and Faith

Sorry that I've been so down on religion lately, but to be honest, religion has not been showing its best side and so it has deserved a good scolding! In this more positive and helpful contribution to the blogosphere, I'll explore an idea that I hope we can agree on whether we are religious or not...

We must stop fighting each other over how life was created, and start fighting together to stop those destroying it...

The Big Issues: Anyone up for a Game of End-Times Bingo?

I'm an avowed atheist, but apart from occasional lapses, I try to limit my anti-supernatualist "preaching" to light-hearted piss-taking of thick-skinned religious friends.

Wherever we sit within the many spectra of faith systems though, a conscious concern for Sustainable Human Flourishing forces reflection on the positives and negatives of religion… For me this is especially true at times like this when such madness is again on display in places like Cairo and Benghazi - insanity that has reached my adopted home of Belgium and even as far away as my erstwhile secular homeland of Australia. At times like this, I must pause to reflect on the potential for religious extremism to affect those that I love.

I have to say though, that while I consider religiously motivated terrorism to be a real danger, it seems a massively over-hyped threat when compared with two elephants that quietly share a room with today's most popular religions, specifically:

The Big Issues: Is Organic Food a Sham?

A good friend asked for my thoughts today about this Gawker report (about a USA Today article about a meta-study and a University of Oxford study) which claims that organic food is no better (and in some cases worse) than non-organic food.

I get variations on this theme all the time, so this time I have actually written my answer down for posterity and for future reference - I will also tell you definitively whether I believe that Gawker is correct in its conclusion of "Science Suggests That Organic Food Is Largely a Sham". 

First though, I will frame my response to this specific article with three four observations:

1. (Edit) I believe that most studies, meta-studies, and popular discussion on the topic of "organic vs. conventional" miss the point entirely (including, disappointingly this recent TreeHugger article)
2. As someone who aspires to live sustainably, I don't give a shit about "organic food". I only care about "sustainable food".
3. As someone who aspires to live rationally, I trust scientists to report results correctly and factually, within the parameters of their study.
4. For the same reason as 3) I do not trust USA Today to report scientists' results impartially.

Religion, Fascism, and Norway

Last week, we heard the Norwegian courts sentence their country's worst ever mass murderer. We all know who he is and what he did, and everyone also knows the verdict and sentence. Everyone also has an opinion on it.

It is my opinion, however, that very few of those opinions reflect positively on the potential for Sustainable Human Flourishing. Most, in fact, have left me shaking my head sadly for our poor, oh-so-human race.

Even normally rational secular humanist groups have been seething with old testament "eye for an eye" insanity since the verdict was announced - Comment threads like this one left me feeling very disillusioned and more than a little pissed at my fellow "humanists".

In my funk, I unfairly lashed out at an old high school friend who posted his opinions on his Farcebook wall. This old school mate who I'll call Max (because he approved that I use his real name) also happens to be a pastor at a "Bible Christian" church in my old home town of Perth in Western Australia… As always, Max was gracious and patient with me, and our extended exchange took some interesting twists and turns over the course of almost a week. Despite my many uncharitable anti-theistic barbs, we remain friends, and he has graciously assented to our conversation being re-published here for (potentially) wider scrutiny than it received on our little corner of Farcebook…

Below is the thread as it appeared on Max's wall - apologies in advance from both of us that our logic lacks crispness in parts, but we were both time-stressed and just chatting amongst friends. Apologies also that it is so long - feel free to read it a bit at a time, over the period of a week to recreate the original experience if you wish ;-) I'm publishing it here in this form because I really want to continue exploring some of the issues for myself, and I find that writing stuff down helps. I left Max last right of reply on his wall and promised to stop bombarding his poor parishioners with my religion bashing, but I respond below and re-open the conversation to Max and anyone else who would like to pick up on the many threads we've left dangling…

The Big Issues: What are the rich and powerful saying about our future?

Dystopia, the opposite of a utopia, describes a place where life is full of hardship and devoid of hope. Analysis of linkages across various global risks reveals a constellation of fiscal, demographic and societal risks signalling a dystopian future for much of humanity.

That quote is from the executive summary of this year's Global Risks 2012 - Seventh Edition out of the World Economic Forum last month in Davos, Switzerland.

IMHO the Global Risks Report is consistently one of the most useful and enlightening things to come out of Davos. It is easy to read and has lots of graphics that make a very complex topic digestible – This year it also has a cool new interactive microsite to help you to explore the data.

Graph of identified risks, focusing on the "centers of gravity" and "critical connectors"

Some profound insights for any student of Sustainable Human Flourishing - Check it out!

The Big Issues: The Greatest Challenges of Our Time

I think that the most deliciously idiosyncratic thing about Belgium is that we are right at the heart of all that is good and bad about Europe. So many interesting and potentially world-changing discussions happen right here.

Living close to Brussels also means that I can gatecrash some of these discussions at the various European institutions based there. I have no affiliation with these institutions beyond the fact that my tax dollars help to support them, but I honestly consider "Europe" to be an amazing achievement - even more so because normal people like me are encouraged to participate occasionally.

On Wednesday, for example, I went to the European Parliament with a couple of friends to watch a presentation based on the book "The Greatest Challenges of Our Time" by László Szombatfalvy.

Important note: You can and should get your free download of this enlightening book (or read online) in English, French, Swedish, Spanish, and more languages coming...

Before we go any further though, I should warn you that this is a pretty straightforward wrap-up post. It contains lots of information about a fascinating presentation, with many interesting links, but I apologise that I don't have time right now to add too much of my typical rambling, opinionated commentary.

Also, since the link between the presentation and this blog should be self-evident, I won't waste too much of our time tying everything back to Sustainable Human Flourishing.

The Little Things: My favourite way to eat slugs

The Web shrieks with hysterical rantings about how awful slugs are, accompanied by "Buy two get one free" offers on high powered chemical cocktails and "natural" remedies to rid you of their scourge forever.

This blog does not swim with the tide though, so I won't try sell you anything and I will not join the slugophobic chorus. Quite the opposite in fact - I intend to rant about how wonderful and important slugs are to Sustainable Human Flourishing.

I'll also explain how you too can add delicious-tasting slugs to your low-impact, sustainable, organic diet...

“Father Christmas is real… in the imaginary world.”

Thanks to Tim Minchin (and daughter Violet) for the title quote which I stumbled upon when looking for some quick and easy festive wishes.

We appear to have just dodged the "Is Father Christmas real" bullet this year, but I feel certain that I will need to use that one next year - Cheers Tim!.

Our efforts to avoid shattering childhood illusions while refusing to lie to our children have been aided this year by the curious tradition of St Nicolas Day. It seems that our 4.5 year old is churning most of his mental cycles trying to decide whether each of the jolly fellows that we see or hear about is St Nic, Santa, Father Christmas, Pere Noël, or just some random bloke with a pillow up his shirt. So far, this seems to be keeping him busy enough to cut off the desire to question their verisimilitude.

I have had some fairly detailed questions about who lives the furthest away though, which I dodged by saying that I honestly don't know because I've never been to any of their houses. Jas has independently managed to narrow the field slightly by observing that it probably isn't St Nic, because he only rides an old donkey, and he always has that black guy walking alongside...

Anyway, it is now after midnight on Christmas eve and my wife will be furious when she finds out that I'm blogging instead of sleeping.

I have to post something though because it has been weeks. We've got Nana visiting and all the usual end of year work and home stuff means that you've all been neglected. I know that any reader who chooses to come here more than once will understand though, so no apologies :-)

So, anyway, what I actually went to Tim's page for was to share this with all you beautiful people:

White Wine in the Sun is the best atheist Christmas carol that I know, and I'm sure it is sending fellow members of the Aussie diaspora teary the world over tonight.

I hope that you all have a wondrous, loving, family day today...

World Changing Ideas: (The) Faces of the 99%

I know that I promised a break from Occupy commentary, but a friend just sent me some good news and I had to quickly share it...

By now, we've all seen the WE ARE THE 99 PERCENT Tumblr site that presents the personal stories of people who work hard, but who struggle due to circumstances beyond their control.

wearethe99percent.tumblr.com is an example
 of an independent Occupy signal amplifier

Perhaps you've also seen the WE ARE THE 53% response...?

This image is one of the most evocative that I've seen on either site.
It has unsurprisingly inspired some thoughtful responses.

It is important to our humanity that we have an opportunity to share our own story, and to hear the stories of other real people, so I'm happy to report that there is a new wave starting.

In fact, there appear to be two new waves starting independently. Go check out "Faces of the 99%" and "The Faces of the 99%" (Will the real "Faces of the 99%" please stand up! :-)

TEDxBrussels 2011 Commentary

I've been caught up in Occupy commentary for a while and although Occupy is the most interesting and important thing happening in Sustainable Human Flourishing today, I have 20 posts in draft and dozens more flying around in my head. Many, such as this one, are starting to lose the moment so please bear with me while I try refocus slightly and hammer them out.

This post is a synopsis of the TEDxBrussels event that I attended last week, brutally cut to only those talks obviously and directly relevant to Sustainable Human Flourishing. Occupiers please stick around though - TED is billed as "Riveting Talks by Remarkable People" talking about "Ideas Worth Spreading", "Free to the World" - It might as well be an OWS GA, only without the People's Mic, so there are plenty of important Occupy ideas here ;-)

World Changing Ideas: How the Occupy Movement Will Win

"How can they possibly beat such a powerful and entrenched system?!?"

Most people rightly observe that the Occupy movement has a huge a task ahead, but again, everyone I know who is actively following Occupy is energised by the challenge. In this post, I will explore some more unique aspects of Occupy that are helping it to succeed.

My last post references a piece by Alexis Madrigal at the Atlantic. Although it is nerdy in the extreme, it is one of the most insightful pieces of Occupy commentary that I've seen to date so I encourage you to read the whole thing.

As a sometimes computer nerd, I adore Alexis's REST API analogy. It really helped to drive home an idea that has been nagging at me for a while.

Occupy Wall Street is not a movement. It is a meta-movement.

For my non-computer nerd friends who were completely lost by the article or by that last comment, I apologise. Put simply, this nerd-speak means that what the mainstream media tries to portray as a weakness is actually Occupy's greatest strength!

Yes, everything you hear is true. Occupy Wall Street is not a protest about anything specific.

Occupy Wall Street is a model for a protest.

World Changing Ideas: The Occupy Media Strategy

"How can they possibly achieve anything when they look like such a bunch of losers?!?"

Most people rightly observe how easy it is for the mainstream media to make the Occupiers look like some Burning Man hangover.

The whole world understands this. Yet, strangely, everyone I know who is actively following Occupy seems energised by the challenge.

They are energised because they understand that it is the mainstream media's job to make Occupy look like a bunch of losers. And yes, it sure is easy. Just focus on some dreadlocked, pierced types having a drum-in and cherry pick some tales of dirt and depravation. Hey presto! The perfect story to ensure that the 99% feel nothing in common with those unwashed, unemployed, deadbeats who are only camping out for the free food.

So, how can the Occupy Movement respond to such transparent misrepresentation?

The Big Issues: How to get the real story?

On Thursday night, I participated in the Occupy Wall Street November 17 Mass Non-Violent Direct Action. This SHF GreenRant is my attempt to capture and share my amazing personal experience.

No, I didn't fly to New York and get arrested, but with tens of thousands of others all around the world, I most certainly did participate.

On Thursday night, live on my computer, I watched as tens of thousands of happy, excited people peacefully reclaimed the streets of New York.

I watched live as buildings, parks, bridges, and at times seemingly entire neighbourhoods were reclaimed and occupied by peaceful, happy, singing crowds.

I watched live as the NYPD behaved (mostly) honourably and (mostly) with integrity. There were moments when some almost seemed to help protesters.

I watched live as retired police captain Ray Lewis allowed himself to be arrested in support of the protests. I heard the cheers and chants of thousands of people in support of his brave personal sacrifice.

I watched and held my breath as I witnessed troublemakers (often allegedly plain-clothes police) attempt to incite the excited crowds to do something stupid...

Two reasons to celebrate #NOKXL and #OWS

I'm back after a quick family staycation where I was largely offline. Did you miss me?

It is rare these days to have something to celebrate in the domain of Sustainable Human Flourishing, but this week, there have been two significant breakthroughs.

The first was the success of the NOKXL campaign to stop the Keystone XL pipeline. As you can see in this inspirational victory video, after the most extensive environmental activism campaign in recent history, President Obama finally sent this awful project packing.

Here's a more light-hearted interview with one of the heroes behind that success, Bill McKibben

The Little Things: Trying to do better

Although this blog is supposed to be my ramblings, we're all too busy to waste time with bad writing. So, from now on, I will try to be more disciplined by leaning on a literary hero of mine...

George Orwell was one of the most important and powerful writers of modern times, and if you know him, you will know how beautifully he wrote on topics related to human flourishing. Did you also know how forcefully he campaigned against lazy writing though?

If you haven't read it, I highly recommend his Politics and the English Language essay, published in 1946, in which Orwell criticizes (amongst other things) "ugly and inaccurate" written English.

In that essay, Orwell even goes so far as to propose a "Remedy of Six Rules" as follows:

World Changing Ideas: Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)

Last month, DESERTEC were in Almería, in the south of Spain to record the opening of the impressive Andasol 3 Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plant. This short movie gives an idea of the power (pun intended) of that project.

I have been convinced for some time that CSP will be the most important wedge in the world's future energy supply, so I'm delighted to see such tangible steps from Andasol.

I first started to take CSP seriously when I saw the following picture over four years ago, via The Oil Drum (a cool resource that you should subscribe to just after you've subscribed to my blog using the button on the right there ==>)