Horse 2825 - When Things Don't Work, Blame Might Lie Elsewhere

One of the consequences for commuters which has been wrought by the NSW State Government's decision to deliberately not connect the North West Metro to the Richmond Line is that the number of available connections has been deliberately diminished and if they collapse (as we saw this week due to flooding) then the network very quickly turns into a notwork. I am sure that this is deliberate because the then Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian was the one who signed off on refusing to make that last 2222m connection and the other end of the Metro at the time just happened to be at Chatswood; which by total coincidence just happens to be in her electorate of Willoughby. Another coincidence is that the whole of the North West Metro just happens to run through Liberal Party electorates and doesn't connect with any Labor voting ones. What a coincidence!

It also just happens to be a coincidence that the Rail, Tram and Bus Union are having a ding-dong barney with the state government at the moment, over pay and conditions; which when combined with physical notwork issues, magically turns the whole shebang into a terrible horrible very bad no good thing.

Trains up the Richmond Line at peak run at 7½ minute intervals under normal circumstances. With the line being under water in places last week and the very real threat of electrocution caused by many kilovolts of electricity which could potentially flow through the bodies of people, Sydney Trains has quite rightly closed the line beyond Schofields for safety reasons. The wish not to be dead is a pretty good one. The problem is that this has meant that turning a train around (which in this case means walking to the other end because all sets are double ended) has to be done within an even tighter schedule. In the mornings that's fine as trains get progressively more full as they go towards the city but in the evenings when trains vomit their contents out, suddenly a 7½ minute interval gets two and three minutes shaved off and we approach saturation. 

Train drivers in order to get to Blacktown, in order to make the relay of crews, travel by train (which should surprise nobody). As they're already on the train and the state government is trying to force the railways to make do with less staff, that means running ever closer to the line. When you throw in a couple of notwork issues, running that close to the line only results in falling over it.

For two days straight now, as restrictions on mask wearing and capacity limits lifted across both public transport and at workplaces, the perfect storm of circumstances has created a perfect storm of inconvenience. I am of course annoyed with being made late and the uncertainty of train services but I am not annoyed at train staff.

There's a weird thing about train drivers, train guards, and station staff and stationmasters generally. That is that they almost never fall into the job but rather deliberately choose to join the railways because they love it. Rail infrastructure crews might arrive via other routes but actual front line staff and drivers want those jobs because of far more romantic notions than becoming an office worker. Working on the railways is one of those rare occasions where people get to do one of those classic dream jobs.

It is for that reason that you can not blame railway staff when things go wrong. This week has been a case where things have gone wrong because of environmental circumstances and management decisions happening way way up there in the rarified air of politics (and deliberate tory politics at that).

Yesterday we were stuck at a double red signal because the line had reached saturation and we were waiting for a relay crew. I had a chat with the guard in the rear car, who should have been relieved at 1845 but we were already late (see above) and he was hanging around because he didn't think that it was fair to leave passengers with no idea what was going on. His frustrations were obvious and I remarked that this wasn't his fault but the fault of a flood and very likely Gladys'. His whole countenance changed and he told me about ongoing disputes between the RTBU and management which could ultimately be traced to the Transport Minister Andrew Constance and the Premier.

When things work perfectly, nobody tends to notice. A system as multicomplex as the railway needs a whole army of people all working together in concert. It is only when things go wrong that we tend to notice, and in some cases the people who were already working are pushed to work even harder. I think that it is worthwhile to try to understand why things go awry, to try to be kind to the people who are working on the problem, and maybe to lower our expectations so that we're not disappointed.

Horse 2824 - The New Normal Looks Exactly The Same As The Old Normal

 As I write this post on Monday 29th March 2021, the compulsory wearing of masks has been lifted, as well as the capacity limits on public transport. As such, I write this while standing on the upper deck of the train to Schofields and every single seat is taken.

What have we collectively learned from this pandemic? Nothing.

In just one day, life went from a slightly different more considerate place, to one where months of isolation and doing whatever people liked and whenever they liked, has desocialised people. On this journey in the distance that it took to get from Wynyard to Redfern, I've witnessed racism, sexism and people punching on. When we got to Redfern, three people were ejected by the police; who presumably had been alerted by the train guard, and were waiting for us.

Already very loud telephone conversations have been resumed, people are eating and drinking on the train, as though absolutely nothing has happened at all for the last 15 months.

I never thought I'd feel nostalgic for the days when I was the only person on the whole train. I actually liked the serenity of the world going past the window with only the hush if the air-conditioning and the faint whirr of electrical multiple units spinning way below. As of now, I am listening to a bogan having an argument on the phone, what can best be described as a xylophone ringtone on someone's phone going off repeatedly, and some kind of rap/hip-hop music where the man has now said on many occasions that he intends to beat up his girlfriend with a baseball bat.

Rather, every seat isn't exactly taken. Every seat is occupied, it's just that some people's bags are tired and need to have a rest. Had this been in the before times of 2019, then someone putting their bags on the seats would have been seen almost universally as selfish and inconsiderate of others. The current plague which is transmitted by aerosol means, means that being selfish and inconsiderate is now a legitimate safety strategy. Even though we know that this is a respiratory disease, that didn't stop people from going into hoarding mode and evacuating supermarket shelves of toilet paper, pasta, milk, bread etc. Unless people intended to make toilet paper casserole or something, then rational fear spilling over into irrational selfishness causes minor inconvenience for other people. Speaking as the rank hypocrite that I am, I am still standing as we pass underneath the M4 at Harris Park.

If the pandemic has underscored anything, it’s that there’s a huge divide between people who care about the consequences of their actions towards others and people who can’t be bothered to notice anything that doesn’t directly affect them, and wail like a toddler whenever they get confronted with it. As far as I am aware, there aren't any cases of Covid-19 in NSW but that still doesn't change the state of play. The recommendations which were in place are still sensible. It’s great you’re vaccinated. You could still be the virus train. The virus could very well be travelling inside you. You do not have a disease, you are the environment. Mask up.

And then all at once, all of the sounds of the train changed when we got to Parramatta. Almost as if someone had released a foul smelling chemical, as much as three quarters of the population of the train have been vomited out onto platform 2. What we are now left with, for the all stations leg to Blacktown, are some nervous looking ladies who are from the subcontinent and the sounds of unseen teenagers. I have seen one of them walk past, carrying one of the half foot square signs, informing us that we "must wear a mask on public transport at all times"; which he has peeled off from one of the train doors. There are at least four distinct voices; belonging to unsupervised children who now have a quarter filled train as their playground. I would describe their language, except that it is peppered with four letter expletive deleteds and what is technically known as infix interjections. I quietly try to ignore them.

"Due to a fatality at Artarmon, train crews have been displaced. We will be here at Blacktown for an indefinite period of time; were just waiting on a driver to arrive."

These series of announcements when we got to and sat at Blacktown Station, were met with more expletive deleteds, more people were vomited onto a platform and general dissatisfaction was displayed in terms that are either colourful or fruity. Again the fact that someone has died is nothing more than a minor inconvenience to people and both of the logistical problems of getting train crews around and making sure that they too get decent breaks, are also considered as nothing more than minor inconvenience to people. I am thankful that my journey has been made possible by the real work of others; in fact, the vast majority of my journeys are uneventful precisely because of the work of others.

On the Apollo 8 mission around the moon, the crew caused consternation, holleration, and hateration back on Earth, when they read the beginning of the book of Genesis. Frank Borman concluded by wishing everyone "good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth".  As I get off the train at Marayong, the post equinox evening has already passed into twilight and there are pink streaks across the sky which I can not see because I am red-green colourblind. That doesn't change much. The evening is still very pretty; the breeze is still warm; the smells of roasting beef from the carvery in the pub and the entanglement of garlic, onion, XO and whatnot, are all dancing in the breeze. A group of ravens are majestically holding court from atop a bin while some cockatoos and galahs are chattering away beneath them. For all this talk of a new normal, it all looks exactly the same as the old normal. The Earth is still good and the people are still very much self interested.

Horse 2823 - Ha ha "that's a big ship" and "ooh".

The Ever Given container ship which is currently stuck in the Suez Canal has given the world a momentary comic distraction during a time to of global pandemic. What has been interesting to watch is the sudden rise in experts, who have magically received an education in both navigation and seamanship.

Of course it is obvious that a container ship is a slow moving object. Of course it is obvious that just like a child's pegboard where the round peg goes in the round hole, the square peg goes in the square hole, and the triangle peg goes in the triangle hole, that the long straight oblong peg goes through the long straight oblong hole. Except in this case the long straight oblong peg is the container ship and the long straight oblong hole is the canal. What isn't obvious is that a long straight oblong peg which is massive, when acted upon by a breeze, is presenting an also massive surface area to that breeze. It is like trying to turn a 55 storey building against the wind. Suddenly all of the newly minted experts all look very silly.

Of equal note was the amount of experts suddenly offering broad solutions to the problem from the other side of the world, as though they had engaged in any engineering project at all. My full engineering experience when it comes to major building projects is to stand on the other side of the street and say things like "that's a big building" and "ooh". I am pretty sure that as a member of the general public, I am an adequate representative of the general idiotic dumbwittery out here; and the only meaningful advice that I am qualified to give is "that's a big ship" and "ooh".

It again highlights the importance of general ignorance. As someone who commutes to and from work 88km a day, the best journeys are when I have absolutely no idea of anything that happened on them. Boring is quietly brilliant. Likewise the only time that anyone usually remembers the name of any ship is either if it was very big and luxurious or if it was very big and disastrous. Of the most famous ships to have ever existed (Titanic, Exxon Valdez, Marie Celeste, Niña, Piñta, Santa Maria, and now Ever Given), they've all spelled disaster for someone. If anything, the fact that the Ever Given became famous because it got stuck is better than most other shipping disasters because it is mildly amusing. 

It's actually kind of refreshing to open a newspaper and read news that isn't about 10 people being killed or hearing that another 10,000 people have died due to Covid-19. This is news which isn't about immediate threat to life and limb and includes a story that in the days before it got stuck, the Ever Given in an earlier part of its voyage in the Red Sea, drew out what appears to be a phallic path. What it affords us collectively is the opportunity to play the role of 'Neighbour Dad' and offer dumb solutions; instead of looking on in horror.

More broadly, we should all learn to appreciate the people who serve us in boring unheralded ways and if we have the power to do so, ensure that they are properly rewarded. It is the rolling boringness of people quietly doing their job which makes the kosmos work; not the superstars on sporting fields and on stages and not the people in financial markets because if this pandemic should have taught us anything, they can stop and the people who actually do genuine work, actually run the machines of industry.

The vast majority of us who have no idea about hydrodynamic effects of moving a flat plane through a flow, or about the details of moving a ship can only howl from the sides and hurl peanuts from the galleries and at the moment, that might be fine because "that's a big ship" and "ooh" is what we need right now.

Horse 2822 - In Defence Of Three Year Term Limits

 If the last few weeks in Federal Parliament have taught us anything it is that the ability of the electorate to recall and possibly fire the government of the day, is of paramount importance because bad government should not be allowed to stand. As it currently stands, the current Morrison Government can let the clock wind down until September 2022; by which time the current set of outrages will have for the government hopefully have been forgotten by the general public and they can go back on their merry way of ruling on behalf of their minders. The old adage that a week is a long time in politics, is useful in that it even a fortnight or a month is sufficient time for outrages to be soothed by the salve of inaction. Here we are more than a year away from the country being on fire and the biggest bushfires in the nation's history, and that has been quietly forgotten by the people of Australia. Unfortunately, that kind of attitude also applies to sexual misconduct and rape within the parliament building and by September 2022, it will all be consigned to the doddering befuddlement of history.

Not quite 125 years ago when the rules for the federal government were being worked out, the 60-odd sweaty men who were arguing away in the Sydney and Melbourne Town Halls, decided upon a maximum term limit of three years for members of the House of Representatives¹ and six years for the members of the Senate². They also decided to retain the ability of governments to go to an early election if they thought that they could gamble upon the goodwill of the electorate, and they gave the reserve powers to recall and dissolve the parliament to the Governor General should the parliament become unworkable. In the light of 121 years of Australian parliament, I think that these original provisions have remained remarkably brilliant. Australia arrived at a very well constituted Federal Government and Parliament, not because of the myth of some founding fathers being wise, munificent, and godlike, but rather because they were all a pack of knaves who couldn't trust each other as far as they could kick each other. It is no accident that symbolically, Westminster parliaments are two swords wide if cut down the centre line of the speaker's chair. This is because politicians need to be close enough to hear each other but just far away enough from each other that they don't attack each other with swords in the chamber. 

The Constitution Conventions of the 1880s and 1890s looked at other models of federalism and especially looked at the United States; which at the time, the Civil War was still very much within living memory. Four years it was decided was too long to have to endure, both for oppositions and the electorate and two years was way too short as that would put parliamentarians into perpetual campaign mode. Three years is the halfway point and was determined as being sensible; with governments retaining the right to call an early election because in principle that puts the choice back in front of the electorate. Say what you will about the horrid machinations before the 11th of November 1975, the fact that we had a double dissolution election in December of 1975 still referred the decision back to the people; which in my not very well paid opinion is both sensible and excellent.

I'm going to offend practically everyone here but even with the current set of outrages, the current Morrison Government should still be allowed to stand because the rule of law which put them there has not yet been broken. I could probably list three dozen reasons why they should be removed but ultimately if the rage is maintained, then the electorate will do precisely that. 

Three years is just about the limit that most people can tolerate a government that they don't like and having fixed terms much longer than that, means that you get the same government for more than three quarters of a decade; which I think is never good for democracy if it is knavish government. 

Good Government which is the phrase used in Section 51 of the Constitution³ has never been tested in court but it should be tested in the court of public opinion; at the ballot box. Bad government does not consider the cause of the poor, the vulnerable, or the afflicted because knaves simply do not understand or care about such knowledge. When good government rules and dare I say noble people are in positions of authority, then the people are quietly happy. However, when knaves, blackguards, thieves and awful people rule, the people groan. If governments deliberately go around giving blood noses to people, then all that is produced is strife.

Long time British MP and my political hero Tony Benn had five questions to ask of powerful people:

What Power Have You Got?

Where Did You Get It From?

In Whose Interests Do You Exercise It?

To Whom Are You Accountable?

How Can We Get Rid Of You?

If you can not answer that last question then you do not live in a democracy. Ideally I'd like to have that question answered sooner rather than later, or at the moment with the current outrages, immediately but I am forced to wait.

¹https://www.aph.gov.au/~/link.aspx?_id=C20A3A690A274B8D81F471DE5354C6D6&_z=z#chapter-01_part-03_28

²https://www.aph.gov.au/~/link.aspx?_id=6690F0DE4F6F45E0A7471C5A907C612D&_z=z#chapter-01_part-02_13

³https://www.aph.gov.au/~/link.aspx?_id=AFF6CA564BC3465AA325E73053DED4AA&_z=z#chapter-01_part-05_51

Horse 2821 - Union Flag Upon My John

I'll sing you three, O

Green grow the rushes, O

What are your three, O?

Three flags, upon my bus stop.

Two, two Union Flags,

Flapping in the breezes, O

Union Flag upon my john,

And ever more shall be so.

In a move which surprised nobody because gross incompetence and knavery in governments across the Anglosphere is no longer all that surprising, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities & Local Government Robert Jenrick announced that all local councils across Her Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland were asked to "fly the Union Flag with pride on their buildings every day". As the celebrated British man of letters and inventor of a famous dictionary Samuel Johnson once said: Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

Admittedly, Johnson himself was a Tory, didn't believe in self-determination or representation for English people much less the American colonies and was slagged by by his mate James Boswell as exhibiting "prejudice and a narrow nationalism", his pithy saw is often seen today in action when governments are in crisis. In Australia this often manifests itself in the flag debate, when the government is on fire.

Jenrick's announcement as published on HM's gov.uk states:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/union-flag-to-be-flown-on-uk-government-buildings-every-day

New guidance published today by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will see the Union flag flown on UK Government buildings every day.

Currently, Union flags are only required to be flown on all UK Government buildings on designated days. The guidance will ask for the flag to be flown all year round, unless another flag is being flown – such as another national flag of the UK, or a county flag, or other flags to mark civic pride.

...

Today the Local Government Secretary Robert Jenrick has written to all councils In England to raise awareness of the guidance and encourage them to fly Union flags on their buildings.

- gov.uk, 24th Mar 2021.

Of course that brings into play Section 11 of the Law Of Unintended Consequences Act which dates from well before time immemorial (6th July 1189)¹ and possibly as far back as the Garden of Eden Fruit Consumption Exclusion Act². Section 11 of the Law Of Unintended Consequences Act includes all perverse effects which are contrary to what was originally intended, when an intended solution creates even more problems, and when purposeful actions create consequences that are not intended or foreseen. The Law Of Unintended Consequences Act doesn't really make a distinction between what is good and beneficial and what is obnoxious or just plain daft. 

If the DCMS's announcement includes all UK Government buildings and extends to all councils in England to their buildings as well, then that asks the question 'what is a building?'. The answer to that, as indeed to most matters of definitions of words, is defined at law. 

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/55/section/121/enacted

"any permanent or temporary building, and, unless the context otherwise requires, it includes any other structure or erection of whatever kind or nature (whether permanent or temporary)"

- Section 121, Building Act 1984

Any?!

Any permanent or temporary building as defined by the law includes "any other structure or erection of whatever kind or nature" in what has to be about one of the most broad sweeping definitions I have ever seen at law. It means that it would not only apply to things which are obviously buildings such as office blocks, the Town Hall, council chambers but would also apply to every single outbuilding and small building that a council owns. Suddenly potting sheds, bus stops, wendy houses, children's play equipment, sheds, grandstands, public lavatories and outhouses, and a whole host other assorted things are included.

Surely this is the way of madness. Mind you, the way of madness has been one of the defining features of Her Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for quite some time. Once upon a time Scotland thought that it was a good idea to put one fifth of all its money into one company and then went bankrupt after it failed. Thus the United Kingdom proper was born.

Also:

The Government has also cut red tape to allow dual flagging – where two flags can be flown on one pole. Where organisations have two flag poles, they can fly the Union flag alongside another flag. This will allow organisations to highlight their local identity alongside their national identities, for example by flying a Middlesex county flag alongside the Union flag in London, or the Saltire alongside the Union flag in Scotland.

- gov.uk, 24th Mar 2021.

I really want to know exactly what Mr Jenrick means by a local identity. I can assume for all practical purposes that the local identity probably includes all historical cases before 1974 if one can fly a Middlesex county flag alongside the Union flag in London but how far back does that go? Is Liverpool part of Lancashire? 

Do we include the counties which existed before the first county councils were set up in 1889? Does this include exclaves per the The Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844?

Technically the flag of the Kingdom of France is also allowed as Henry VI as well as being an English monarch was also crowned King of France.

Do we go back even further to say Julius Caesar's invasions of Britain with two legions in 55BC? Is a Roman Vexillum suitable under the auspices of this act? Quid agatur in infernum?

I also note that Jenrick's announcement includes exactly zero funding announcements for the flagpoles that might need to be affixed to all the bus stations, potting sheds, and lavatories across HM's Blighty. I have no idea how many small buildings there are across the land but Bobby's folly is that there doesn't appear to have been any cash allotted to putting flagpoles on a folly. 

Just to be safe and to comply with the law, flag poles and Union Flags ought to be put on every single government building, no matter how small (and maybe dustbins) because The Right Honourable Robert Jenrick is right; British patriotism and civic pride ought to be upheld rather than decency or sensibility because the government are going over the edge of an abyss and the nation must march solidly behind them.

Hurrah!

== To conclude in full chorus of Rule Britannia, Land of Hope and Glory, Jerusalem etc ==

== Made in Glorious Text == 

== © MMXXI ==

Additional Dialogue by William Shakespeare.

¹Statute of Westminster 1275

²"but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil", Section 2, Garden of Eden Fruit Consumption Exclusion Act

Horse 2820 - Platform Minus One... Maybe?

I am probably one of very few people who actually likes going forth and back on trains. While there is something deeply satisfying about jumping into a motor car and being in control of more than a tonne of metal at 60km/h, the idea that we're all moving in a thing weighing hundreds of tonnes and moving at more than 100km/h is fun in a different way. The whole sensation of scenery being pushed past the window while we are travelling without moving is special.

I also love the necessary infrastructure which makes up the built environment that makes all of this possible. Some of our great public buildings are working cathedrals to journey making and being inside a vaulted space while people move through almost oblivious to it, is itself a kind of metaphor for modernity. It is almost as if in our rush to modernity and trying to scrape away the past, we still have some innate need to pass through sacred spaces even though we are constantly too busy to appreciate them.

It should come as no surprise that the most famous of stories which used trains as the cultural overlay was written by a Reverend.

Of course a massively complex system like a network of railways, although governed by rules and regulations, is by virtue of being very capital intensive, going to leave behind very big detritus. You can see this with the sheer number of sidings, signal sets, and even platforms and entire stations and lines that get left behind when things are abandoned and replaced. As a commuter, we occasionally see this as physical stuff left behind but on rare occasions there are some really odd intangible consequences.

Blacktown Station in Sydney's west originally four platforms as best as I can determine. They would have been numbered 1-4. When the Richmond branch was opened, that meant that there was a new 1 & 2 and the existing platforms were numbered 3-6. When the new concourse was opened in 1995, that also came with a new platform in the V between platforms 2 & 3. That new platform was numbered as 3 and the existing platforms were renumbered again as 4-7. However, I recently learnt that the two sidings to the north of the station are also considered to be platforms; which actually invites the possibility that if numbered that they could be 0 and -1 or -1 and -2.

This is not altogether silly as Lidcombe Station famously has a Platform 0 which is signposted as such; which was built for the shuttle line between Lidcombe and Olympic Park. The curious thing about Olympic Park Station is that although it only has two tracks that operate as one way tracks, it has both island and river platforms which are either side of the tracks, which means that there are platforms 1-4. It is possible to have one train arrive on platforms 1 & 2 simultaneously, if it opens the doors on both sides of the carriages.

Sydney Terminal/Central Electric/Central Station currently has platforms 1-12 and 16-25 that can be visited. Platforms 26 and 27 officially exist but the public is not allowed to visit them. Platforms 13-15 have been demolished to make space for construction of the South West Metro line. I think that this poses a problem. If the Metro is two platforms as I suspect that it will be, then they will likely be numbered as 14 and 15. Platform 13 will cease to exist; which is either a bit sad or a bit fun as Platform 13 could end up being a fake platform for ghost trains 

The idea of missing numbered platforms isn't new to Sydney either. Wynyard Station was opened with six platforms and when the Cahill Expressway was opened, the demolition and closure of tram lines. Wynyard had underground trams arrive on platforms 1 & 2 and when those platforms were closed and a wall put up to separate the space which was then claimed for a car park, Wynyard was not renumbered. 

That also begs the question of what the platforms at Central Station-Chalmers St are numbered as. I do not recall ever seeing platform numbers on any of the tram platforms; so I suspect that they do not have any. That's a bit sad as almost by default, they should probably be numbered starting at 1 with an up running line.

The weirdest anomaly of all is the Platform 9 bar at Strathfield Station. Not only is it not a platform, it is on the wrong side of the station to be numbered as 9. If the same logic was applied to it as Lidcombe Station then it should by rights be the Platform 0 Bar but that sounds really horky borky. Admittedly this concerns only a very few select number of people and is only enough to rile up maybe one in a million but that's eight of us in New South Wales. We should start a very small convention.

Horse 2819 - Generation Forgotten

My boss, who was born at the beginning of the post-war baby boom, has rediscovered the cartoons from the Warner Brothers and Disney (really early Disney), thanks to online streaming platforms. One thing that occurred to him was that a great deal of the 1004 shorts had been made before he was born; which meant that from a generational perspective, he was looking at characters which in universe dated from before 1900. Indeed with a name like Elmer Fudd which was already an anachorism, it can't be anything but. In an online database of babies' names, Elmer reaches popularity among boys in the United States in 1893; coming in at No.32 (number 1 was John).

This led me to an interesting query - if we take the dates of birth of a bunch of different cartoon characters, can we learn anything over time? Indeed we can.

1876 Yosemite Sam
1899 Nate Slate
1899 Elmer Fudd

1917 Barney Rubble
1917 Boris Kropotkin
1917 Minka Kropotkin
1918 Fred Flintstone
1919 Wilma Flintstone
1921 Betty Rubble

1952 Fred Jones
1952 Shaggy Rogers
1953 Daphne Blake
1954 Velma Dinkley
1956 Homer Simpson
1956 Peter Griffin
1958 Lois Griffin
1958 Stu Pickles
1959 Marge Simpson
1959 Didi Pickles
1962 Pebbles Flintstone
1963 Bam Bam Rubble
1963 Stan Smith
1963 Francine Smith

1981 Bart Simpson
1983 Lisa Simpson
1984 Meg Griffin
1986 Chris Griffin
1987 Hayley Smith
1990 Tommy Pickles
1991 Steve Smith
1991 Dill Pickles
1992 Maggie Simpson

1999 Stewie Griffin

What we learn over time is who at any one point is making animated cartoons. If we look through the list of the cartoons from Looney Tunes, The Flintstones, Scooby Doo, The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, Rugrats (I have not actually seen some of these but I am led to believe that they represent a logical chain in television cartoon families), then what we find is that in general, the people who make cartoons tend to centre characters around the age of 15, their parents at around 40 and place babies under the age of 5. This of course leads to three very big holes.

The generations represented in this list are the Lost Generation, the Greatest Generation, the Baby Boomers, Generation Y, and Generation Z. That then begs the question of what happened to the Interbellum Generation who lived in the gilded age before the First World War, the Silent Generation, and Generation X? What we should expect is a heap of cartoon characters who were born between 1900 and 1914 and the truth is that they don't really exist. Or don't they?

If we assume that Archie Andrews, Jughead Jones, Veronica Lodge, Betty Cooper and Reggie Mantle are all 15 in 1942 then it places Fred Andrews and Mary Andrews as being born in 1901 and 1902. They are the missing Interbellum Generation characters. It also follows that the parents of Fred, Shaggy, Daphne and Velma are also of the Interbellum generation, born between 1900 and 1914. When we get to looking for Silent Generation characters, there is a massive hole. Their children should be late Boomers and Generation X; both of whom at first glance are absent from the list. 

The reason why looking at demographics through the lens of cartoon characters is so interesting is because the amount of effort in terms of total labour hours that it takes to produce a half hour of animated feature, is an order of magnitude greater than producing live media. Speaking as a member of Generation X, I always found it interesting that media generally was never really produced for us as a generation. The cartoons that we got as kids were primarily designed to sell us things and they were all a bit naff.

Something really strange happened in the 1970s and 1980s. Television stations found that they could buy cartoons from the 1940s and 1950s on the cheap, and other cartoons were still in syndication from about 1969 onwards. In fact what you find is a cache of media that hasn't really survived that much into public consciousness because the public really didn't care. 

In fact what you do get is that schismatic crack of media in about 1990, and the poster children of Generation X in terms of Cartoon Characters ends up being Beavis and Butt-Head. Both them and Daria would mist likely have been born in 1977. When the reset in the spin off series Daria happened, Daria Morgendorffer becomes a Generation Y character who was born in 1981, her sister Quinn was born in 1983 and is also from Generation Y and their parents of Helen and Jake Morgendorffer are both born in 1951 and therefore both Baby Boomers.

If you want to look for Generation X characters in cartoons, while you couldn't find very many of them when they were teenagers, you might begin to find them as they are having children in universe now.

Peppa Pig was born in 2000 in universe and her brother George was born in 2004. While they are both Generation Z, their parents Daddy and Mummy Pig, were born in 1974 and 1979 respectively and are our missing Generation X characters. Likewise, if we take the Australian cartoon Bluey, then Bluey who is presumed to be 6 years old in universe and her sister Bingo who is 4, were born in 2012 and 2014. Almost certainly this puts Bandit Heeler as being born no earlier than 1978 and Chili in 1980. If so, he is Generation X, she is Generation Y; their children are the tail end of Generation Z and the beginning of Generation Alpha.

Whatever the case, it is exceptionally hard to find Generation X characters in cartoons; largely because of the way that media has changed twice in the scope of a hundred years. Animated cartoons when from being produced for the cinema, to then being produced for television and then went through the same period of dark ages as full length animated cartoons went through. Those three generations, the Interbellum Generation, Silent Generation, and Generation X, experience a kind of cultural blindness in media; largely because of the technological shifts and the ravages of history out there in the real world. It also stands to reason that practically nobody exists in cartoons before 1885 because cinema didn't exist.

Aside 1:

https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1371475397842513923

"Cancel culture is spreading like wildfire. There is a call for Generation X, that is X, to lead the charge to save America from the social media mob. Can they do it?"

- Gillian Turner, 16th Mar 2021

Quite apart from the fact that to a degree works no longer belong to their creator but to the reader/viewer/listener who will interpret the works as they see fit, it is always the prerogative of the consumer in the current age to receive culture as they find appropriate. This was always true when it comes to the cultural reception of works from antiquity but it is worth remembering this also applies to any work from the past; since the past actually extends all the way to the moment just elapsed, then it certainly applies to works which have come from recent memory.

The almost humourous thing about Fox News' call for Generation X to "to lead the charge to save America from the social media mob" with respect to "cancel culture" is that Fox News is in part culturally responsible for creating the generation whom they previously derided as being slackers and disinterested. The forgotten latchkey generation of Generation X is quite frankly, perfectly happy to 'cancel' the furniture of culture which was never meant for them and which never represented them. If anything, Generation X feels the most affinity with the Silent Generation and Generations Z and Alpha who are and will quietly just get on with the job of remanufacturing the world. 

Aside 2:

It's curious to think that The Simpsons as a piece of cultural furniture, could never have been made for Generation X. Homer Simpson proclaimed in one episode that he had a paycheque of $25,000; which even if you adjust for inflation, would have never been enough to buy a house had he been a Generation X character. It would have been increasingly difficult and eventually impossible to have a family of three kids and run a mortgage in such rude comfort on a single income, had he been a Generation X character. 

Horse 2818 - Christian Porter's Defamation Action

 Yesterday (15th Mar), the Attorney-General Christian Porter started a defamation action against the ABC and journalist Louise Milligan. The defamation action related to an article in Four Corners on ABC1 which had been sent to Prime Minister Scott Morrison containing a historical allegation of rape against a serving Cabinet minister. Mr Porter has vigorously denied the allegation and his lawyers said the article made false allegations against him.

What I find strange about this is that I do not know how you can materially prove that you have been defamed if you are not named. After the revelations that there was someone in Morrison's cabinet who was the subject of an historical rape claim, out here in the great unwashed general public we had no idea who it was. The person who eventually made the announcement about who it was, was Christian Porter himself.

Although having said that, his lawyers argue he was easily identifiable to many as the subject of the allegations. Those lawyer of Bret Walker SC, Sue Chrysanthou SC and Rebekah Giles who published the statement yesterday, accused the ABC broadly and and Ms Milligan in particular of conducting a "trial by media without regard to the presumption of innocence of the rules of evidence". They then further try to bait the ABC into pleading a truth defence, which given that it is literally impossible to question the alleged rape victim Katherine Thornton because she is dead, is also impossible to prove.

Speaking as someone who is not a lawyer, I find this kind of baiting from Senior Counsel disgusting. That says to me that they deliberately choose to misrepresent the law. I would argue that the ABC's article on Four Corners is covered under a "Defence of qualified privilege for provision of certain information

http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/da200599/s30.html

(1) There is a defence of qualified privilege for the publication of defamatory matter to a person (the "recipient" ) if the defendant proves that--

(c) the conduct of the defendant in publishing that matter is reasonable in the circumstances.

- Section 30, Defamation Act 2005 (NSW)

The spirit of both Section 29 & 30 of the Defamation Act 2005 in NSW provides both the "fair reporting of proceedings of public concern" and a "reasonable publication" of "government and political matters" as a defence. I think that given that Christian Porter is a Minister of the Crown; which by default means that matters of his criminality should very much be a government and politica matter which is of public concern, then it is "reasonable" that this should be reported. Also given that the Four Corners report didn't name him and Mr Porter identified himself as the Cabinet minister referenced in the letter that made the historical allegation, then this looks a lot like "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe where one's own Mens Rea is the thing that convincts. If there is in fact anyone who Porter should be pursuing for a defamation case, then the only one that I can see who actually gave rise to it is Christian Porter; and he is not likely to sue himself for damages. 

I want to also point out here that the respondent in this defamation case is specifically Louise Milligan of the ABC. Porter hasn't gone after anyone in News Corporation such as Samantha Maiden at the Daily Telegraph whose reportage has been equally as comprehensive and he hasn't gone after the ABC as an institution. Christian Porter is directly going after a woman who didn't actually name him in the report because the subject is sensitive.

What that demonstrates to me is the content of the character of Christian Porter. When you consider that he was the responsible Minister who presided over RoboDebt, then you might begin to paint a picture that this is someone whose actions repeatedly causes people to commit suicide. Starting a defamation case, looks like another use of power with little to no regard of the consequences.

https://pressfreedom.org.au/the-year-in-australian-media-law-9da4265c9269

Unfortunately, however, Australia’s defamation laws can be used by men to threaten to institute proceedings against women who make allegations against them and the publishers who disseminate the allegations. This may have the effect of suppressing both the articles exposing the sexual misconduct and thwarting the movement of women who are courageously coming forward to tell their stories.

- MEAA, 1st May 2018

Subsequent to this, The Australian published excerpts from the diary of Katherine Thornton, in an article by Peter Van Oneselen and Janet Albrecht. That article which quite frankly made my blood boil, demonstrates the utter evil in the mismatch of power here. Exactly how that was leaked I do not know but The Australian published those excerpts in full knowledge that it is impossible to defame the dead. The lesson here is simple, if you are in a powerful position then provided you can mobilise money and power, you can get away with rape and murder.

I do not know if Christian Porter did in fact rape Katherine Thornton but I do know that his actions in trying to supress this story, the preponderance of the evidence shows that he is not a nice person; which if we are going to assume that a trial by media, that was the result of him presenting a defence.

Horse 2817 - WA State Election Was Not About WA

There is an adage in politics which says that "all politics is local." The problem with that is that it is consistently proven wrong. The Western Australian state election might have very well once again proven that adage to be wrong because the results bears out no obvious internal analysis.

Mark Mcgowan's Labor Government has been resoundingly returned with at least 52 of the 59 seats in the Legislative Assembly. The National Party has 4 and the Liberal Party has 3 at best. Quite apart from the fact that despite help from The West Australian (7West Media), News Corporation, and Nine Entertainment Co, Liberal leader Zak Kirkup openly gave up before the campaign had ended; so voters may have had an inkling that they didn't want to vote for the losers. To be fair, with the amount of privatisation that has gone on in Western Australia over the last four years, it may even appear that the Labor Party in moving to a central right set of policies, has eaten the Liberal Party's lunch. However not even that is enough to explain the absolute thumping that the Liberals and Nationals got at the ballot box. This is far more visceral.

The elephant in the room is that we are at one of those moments in time which represents a far bigger shift in society. I suspect that the biggest single shift in demographics in this election can be summed up with one word - women. I also think that the message that they want to send loudly through the ballot box can also be summed up in three words - stop raping us.

I do not find it a coincidence that this election which was held on the weekend of the centenary of Edith Cowan being elected as Australia's first female parliamentarian, would return a result like this; especially given the marches that we saw yesterday and will see today.

Ever since Elizabeth Higgins brought her complaint against being raped by a fellow Liberal Party staffer inside Parliament House in Canberra no less, we have seen the Liberal Party especially and their masters at News Corporation running an apology campaign for this.

This prompted some women to come forward and report an alleged historical rape campaign against Christian Porter who is the Attorney General. He has vigorously denied it and in the meantime, the Prime Minister denied ever having received the letter, the Australian Federal Police also denied receiving the letter despite it being forwarded by Labor Party members, the NSW Police has not carried out an investigation because  Katharine Thornton is dead and the standard of proof to investigate can never be met any more and now The Australian newspaper has published excerpts from her diary.

All of this has prompted a series of marches around the country in protest (#March4Justice #EnoughIsEnough) and as at 7am this morning, the Prime Minister has point blank refused to meet with the leaders of the protests in Canberra, much less have to listen to what they have to say.

Christian Porter has not stood down as Attorney General and will not be stood down by the Prime Minister. It must also be noted that there also will not be a by-election because the current majority of the coalition in the federal parliament is 1 seat.

What does this have to do with Western Australian politics in particular? Spectacularly, not much. The fact that Christian Porter is an MP from Western Australia is almost incidental to this. Had he been from any other state, I still think that the result would have been the same. Dare I say that state politics and even the relationship between state and federal politics in this moment counts for exactly naught. 

What this looks like is that Western Australian voters have decide to punish the Federal Liberal Party. This is even different to the usual set of reasons why state elections are the electorate trying to punish federal politics. 

The wipeout of the Liberal and National Parties on the floor of the parliament means that neither of them will have party status under the rules of the parliament; which technically means that there is no statutory opposition. My hope is that Mark McGowan extends monetary support to at least keep democracy operationally alive for the term. A government with no credible opposition has its own problems.

I think that what the result of the Western Australian election shows is that politics isn't always local but is sometimes even bigger than parliaments. In principle, if the colours of the parties had been swapped then I do not think that the result would be broadly different. 

Horse 2816 - ZED v ZEE [2021] - Judgement

 The Fake Internet Court of Australia

ZED v ZEE [2021]

H2816/1

The matter brought before this fake internet court today, is one of both maximum irrelevance and minimum importance. The matter which was heard in the Fake District Court of West Banana, was heard in the court house on Pedant Corner but no definite opinion was reached. Speaking as a jack of no trades and master of also none, I am uniquely qualified to make a final judgement on this matter as I am a proven generator of nonsense.

In fact before I pronounce judgement, I would like to thank my learned friends and esteemed colleagues Tom Foolery and Jack Anniny for acting as counsel for the two sides of the case. 

These are the facts as I see them:

That bastard tongue of language, child of no father and vulture of all, who repeatedly steals from everywhere, that which we call the English Language, has itself spawned many children who are just as skilled in the art of larceny and thievery as their mother tongue. Consequently, it is not just the English or their siblings upon the sceptered isle (the Scots, the Welsh, and the Irish, who inhabit the rottenest bits of the British Isles) but indeed the vast majority of the Anglosphere who pronounce “z” as “zed”. 

The primary exception and of course the loudest exception is the United States, where “z” is pronounced “zee”.

Why is it so?

English as a child who was born late in time relative to its neighbours, is the recipient of stolen goods; being an alphabet used by the Romans via the Greeks. The Romans took the Greek alphabet and adapted it, then via a labyrinthine process of time and isolation, English has added "J" and "W" but has also added and thrown away "Ð" and "Þ".

I personally would like to see both of those returned and "θ" and "Φ" added. The Welsh could also do with some extra letters, as they have a unique problem with "Ll" but at least they have sensibly gotten¹ rid of "X".

The English Language having acquired "Z" via a chain from Greek, would ordinarily take the name of the letter from Greek as well. The Greeks named the letter "Zeta" which is sensible enough but the ravages of space and time meant that it arrived in Old French as “Zede”; which in turn resulted in the English “Zed” around the 15th century.

As to the reason why people in the United States call “Z” “Zee”, the best that this court can ascertain is that this was simply adopted by convention so that "Zee" would rhyme with the pronunciation of the other letters like “Bee”, “Cee”, “Dee”, “Eee”, “Gee”, “Pee”, “Tee”, and “Vee”. This is entirely sensible on the part of the United States and their reasoning for doing so is entirely sound; as per the name of Aluminium which was changed in English from Aluminum. English and her variants are not only thieves, they are remanufacturers who tinker, invent, and then claim to have been correct all along.

As far as this court has been able to find, the earliest citation for the pronunciation of "Z" as "Zee" appears to be in 1677 with Lye’s New Spelling Book.

Language generally is always in a state of flux and so both "Zed" and "Zee" would have been in common usage for a while. However, the one instance which inexorably changed the pronunciation of "Z" forever was agitator-in-chief and five star blackguard and knave, Noah Webster. His "Blue Backed Speller" and subsequent dictionary published in 1827, is yet again the single biggest cause for difference between English and American English. Noah Webster knew exactly what he was doing and as far as my personal pedantry is concerned, he is my personal historical nemesis.

However, it is not for this court to allow personal prejudice to infect what should be impartial judgement; even though Noah Webster who is also represented by Jack Anniny QC, is very obviously wrong.

Noah Webster's dictionary being prescriptive rather than descriptive was a deliberate act of vandalism upon the language and its consequences have been long and wide ranging.

"The Alphabet Song" which was published and copyrighted in 1835, exists in a post Webstarian environment. The tune to The Alphabet Song is the same as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, which itself is probably an act of thievery from Haydn's Surprise Symphony. This act of marketing has been incredibly successful; with primary school teachers being forced to correct the convention in children who have been inadvertently indoctrinated; this was accelerated in the Anglosphere with the immensely successful Sesame Street, which at the end of every episode informs the viewer that the episode has been sponsored by various letters and numbers². As children are notoriously resistant to change after having undergone education, subsequent re-education is often difficult.

Final Judgement:

It is the opinion of this court that dictionaries should be descriptive and not prescriptive. It is also the opinion of this court that trying to undo the deliberate vandalism wrought by chief knave Noah Webster is like trying to hold back the Pacific Ocean with a fish fork. It is a futile task at best.

In this light, as "Zee" is well and truly in common usage and this court wishes to be descriptive, "Zee" should be allowed to stand as correctness depends on usage and English as she is actually spoke; rather than notions of trying to make it conform. A thousand years have shown that English refuses to be tied down and this court can no more rule on that than it can on the extent of its own power (which is also nil).

- ROLLO75 J

(this case will be reported in FILR as H2816/1 - Ed)

¹There is such a word as "gotten" and it is a past participle verb. It is correctly used for instance in the phrase "ill gotten gains".

²It has yet to be determined where big letter and big number is getting its funding from. 

Horse 2815 - Rape Is Not 50:50 And Society Needs To Stop Pretending That It Is

I have avoided writing on the subject of Christian Porter and historic rape claims as well as the allegations made by Brittany Higgins that she was raped by a former colleague in 2019 because quite frankly, nobody needs to hear the opinion of a white male aged between 18-65. Actually, nobody needs to hear the opinion of a white male aged between 18-65 on the subject of rape in not quite 95% of cases.

Perhaps Christian Porter didn't rape anyone more than 30 years ago, although given that the person who made the complaint has died and cannot be interviewed, that she never made a formal statement to the police, that forensic evidence and gathering witnesses is impossible; means that the NSW Police have exactly zero idea of knowing either way whether or not he did commit rape. Although the presumption of innocence exists at law, there is no way for the public to know that they can trust him, and certainly not way for the public to know that they can trust him to lead the national inquiry into sexual harassment¹, otherwise known as "Respect@Work: Sexual Harassment National Inquiry Report (2020)". For his effort, Scott Morrison says he won't move Christian Porter from the position of Attorney-General; which is also presumably based upon that presumption of innocence.

We should not forget that while this is front and centre of a so called "trial by media" in the absence of actual trial by legal inquiry, this is all set against a background of absolutely justified rolling anger by women. 

The very wide gender divide in sexual violence suggests that while the #MeToo movement wants to yell loudly with a thunderous roar, it is met with pretty boring stock phrases, worn out cliché and an entirely unexceptional banal complacency by men. While crime statistics show that anyone can be a victim of violence, the far more boring data suggests that the victims of crime generally are mostly women and that crimes of a sexual nature are overwhelmingly women. The natural corollary of this is that while it is generally true that humans are bad at sustaining empathy, men are especially bad at generating any empathy in the first place.

All that aside, the subject of crime is overwhelmingly the study of aggressive male behaviour². Mostly the rates of crime between the sexes follows a 4:1 ratio but when it comes to sexual crime in particular, that rate increases to 19:1. The only broad area where there is anything approaching a more equal footing, is crimes against property with intent to take something. Theft is roughly 3:2 and Fraud is roughly 2:1. 

On ABC1's QandA episode of 4 November 2019, journalist Mona Eltahawy asked the question "How many rapists must we kill until men stop raping us?" The question is obviously one of hyperbole and seemed to scare people who happen to benefit from the status quo. If asking a question scares men, then let them be scared. If an episode of QandA lasts for 60 minutes then the appropriate amount of air-time to people who actually live in fear of violence being perpetrated against then would be about 49 minutes for women and 11 minutes for men. If that then becomes the appropriate amount of air-time to people who live in fear of sexual being perpetrated against them then that then would be about 57 minutes for women and just 3 minutes for men.

The central feature of the legal system is that it is set up to evaluate the cases of appellants and respondents. It is by very nature, adversarial. Especially in the case of rape, everything is reduced to the absolute minimal number of elements and in evaluating a case, the only two options are: Did it happen? Did it not? In rape cases, it is usually difficult to establish evidence through finding witnesses because of the kind of act that it is. The immediate question of whether or not we believe the woman, almost automatically evaluates the case as having happened. Already from the outset, whatever presumption of innocence to the crime that we would normally afford to a respondent, is compromised.

Applying other legal tests to rape cases would really be an agent for change. If you extend to the idea of the Man on the Clapham Omnibus, who is a hypothetical ordinary and reasonable person, I wonder where that would end up. I find it almost insane that law students when discussing the doctrine of provocation as a defence to murder, they are almost always lead to read cases where the man has killed his wife or de facto partner. They are almost always painted as the woman leaving the man in search of a new partner but almost never in the context of previous violence by him. Especially in rape cases, instead of the Man on the Clapham Omnibus, it would be a very telling exercise to test rape trials with what an equivalent reasonable woman believe about consent in these circumstances. Moreover, I think it would be even more telling to see how men react to the imposition of such a test. 

It also does not help that legal and political systems have for the most part, been designed for the maintenance of power and wealth by the already powerful and wealthy. In the last 200 years we have seen the abolition of slavery, the extension of the franchise first to men and then women, the Family Law Act was only passed in 1975 and various anti-Discrimination Acts have been passed only within my lifetime. We still have political 'lobbying' groups who are actively arguing that the franchise be diminished and that anti-Discrimination provisions be repealed, presumably because they want the right to practice discrimination in impunity.

That says to me that even in the 21st century, legal and political systems are still set up for powerful and wealthy males to enforce their power by setting legislation that controls the powerless, the poor and the vulnerable. In days of yore, intelligent women who dared rock the system or rattle the cage, may have been put on trial as a witch in what amounts to state sanctioned murder.

As a spectator who watches politics like people watch sport, I have repeatedly watched on in horror as woman after woman in politics are pushed out of politics, for far less than their male colleagues. Meanwhile, it repeatedly happens that men who do the most horrendous things, retain their job.

Specifically I can not speak about the facts of either the Porter case or Me Higgins case but I do know that there should be a set of criminal charges tried and tested against the Liberal Party staffer and in the Porter case where that is impossible, at very least there should be an internal enquiry.

The system is allowed to perpetuate because of the very real fears that women have that they will not be believed. The black and white nature of the legal system appears to be in part held up on the premise that women will not come forward and are fearful of doing so.

Of course the unstated problem here, which needs to be repeatedly yelled is "Men, stop raping women!" If that sounds lopsided, then remember that were aren't dealing with a 50:50 problem but a 95:5 problem. Women raping men is an edge case.

Addenda:

I also haven't mentioned LGBTQI people because if women raping men is an edge case, then all LGBTQI cases are even more of an edge case. The big 95% problem needs to be addressed most immediately.

2nd Addenda:

This morning (11th Mar) the female CEO of Minter Ellison, which is the legal firm which has been contracted by the Liberal Party to the tune of more than $4m this year, has lost her job because she sent an email to staff about taking on Porter. A woman in power has lost her job for because she dared to show concern for her staff but Porter, is still being protected.

¹https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/sex-discrimination/publications/respectwork-sexual-harassment-national-inquiry-report-2020

²https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/recorded-crime-offenders/2019-20#data-download

Horse 2814 - Rubbish Is Religion Jedi

Fear leads to Anger. Anger leads to Hate. Hate leads to Suffering.

Why does anyone assume, given all that we know about Yoda who is very obviously speaking in a second language, that his most famous statements are grammatically correct? This is the same person whose regular subject order clauses generally messed up are. Occupational health and safety officer should he be not. 

What would happen if you pass Yoda's statements through some kind of algorithm which could generate the order in which they would become more Yoda-y? If you ran Yoda's statements through the algorithm multiple times, would you end up in a weird kind of nonsense gobbledegook which is then unparseable? Moreover, is it possible to run Yoda's statements through the algorithm backwards and arrive at the proper original meaning of what he meant to say?

If the statement is exactly backwards then you get:

Suffering leads to Hate. Hate leads to Anger. Anger leads to Fear.

All of this seems equally valid and as an aphorism, equally vapid. 

I note that the end point of Yoda's arc, ends up with him talking to Luke Skywalker on a planet with weird mountain outcrops and he decides to burn all of the Jedis' writings to the ground. It isn't actually said but maybe Yoda realises that the Jedi religion is rubbish.

If only he'd stopped at the beginning and decided that if suffering leads to hate, then maybe they should have eliminated suffering in the galaxy. I don't know, maybe the Galactic Senate could have done something about enacting Universal Universal Healthcare, finding a cure for cancer, doing something about pollution and recycling instead of razing planets and moving on; instead of flying about the place and waving colourful laser swords like a bunch of ten year old children.

You can test the utter rubbishyness of the Jedi religion by looking at the amount of hope and joy and care for others that it inspired in its devotees. Mr Lord Darth Vader of Cheem who can kill catering with a thought, started out as a promising pod racer and ended up killing children. Ben Kenobi ends up becoming a hermit; as does Yoda and Luke. If someone were to come to me and say "Try this new religion," then all they'd get from me would be "No."

The reverse Yoda statement though, holds things which on the face of it sound perfectly reasonable and profound. The first profundity reads:

Suffering leads to Hate.

It's pretty difficult to argue that this isn't true. If someone is suffering, then it make sense that they should hate the circumstances of their suffering. Likewise, anyone with even a degree of empathy who sees someone else suffering should at very least hate the circumstances of someone else's suffering. If in the former case, the person who suffers doesn't hate the reasons why they are currently suffering then that might indicate a serious loss of hope in their world and that's tragic. In the latter case, if someone doesn't hate the circumstances of someone else's suffering, then that looks a lot like psychopathy. 

Hate leads to Anger.

I have heard it said that anger is not an emotion but a reaction. I do not believe this to be true because people's emotions are a thing that an individual has absolute agency in and is therefore a choice. People can choose to be angry or not be angry about a situation, though the difficulty of making that choice varies wildly.

I would argue that hatred itself is a choice and that how one feels about the object of that hatred is actually a secondary action. 

Anger leads to Fear.

I do not see this as necessarily being true. Mind you, I also do not see the original order of this sentence "Fear leads to Anger." as being true either. This appears to be a complete non sequitur.

Herein lies the central problem of Yoda and presumably his religion. Yoda himself speaks in aphorisms which simply don't stand up to scrutiny. If upon testing a document (which presumably Yoda is quoting) it fails, then you might want to think about giving it up.

Then again, maybe the whole point of the Jedi religion is to wrap profundities in a cloak of unparseable nonsense gobbledegook as an excuse for its adherents to bounce around with space laser swords. In that respect, Vader, Ben Kenobi, Yoda, and Luke, are all identical.

For those people in the universe who don't happen to posses a space laser sword, then the weak as dishwater religion of Jedi offers an excuse to sound profound and wear fancy cloaks. 

"I am the son and the heir,

of a shyness that is criminally vulgar.

I am the son and the heir,

of nothing in particular."

- ancient Jedi hymn.

In universe there are massive Jedi temples; which leads me to think that people really really like wearing fancy cloaks and vapid aphorisms. It also makes me wonder if in universe, there are quaint crime dramas with old biddies going around solving murders... which other Jedi comitted with space laser swords.

Fear leads to Anger? Anger leads to Hate? Hate leads to Suffering? Probably not but based upon the presented evidence:

Jedi leads to murder. Murder leads to crime drama. Drama leads to movies.

Horse 2813 - I Do Not Think That π^π^π^π Is An Integer

There was an interesting conjecture which Matt Parker, owner of the YouTube channel Stand Up Maths posed, which is that π^π^π^π could be an integer. I went through the range of emotions which he describes in the video in relation to this conjecture and have come to the conclusion that although I do not possess the mathematical ability to prove or disprove the conjecture, after fighting with it for more than a bit of time I have come to my own private position that I think that it is probably not an integer.

For the purpose of this post, I am going to assume that you already know some things about maths and if you don't, then it is a good idea to watch that video first.

Link:

Before we get to why I think that π^π^π^π is not an integer, there are some other important concepts to consider.

The first thing to notice about addition is that it is commutative, that is that the order in which you do things produces the same result. That's a very different statement than saying that the order doesn't matter because it very much does; for reasons that I won't go into here. Multiplication is also commutative. Multiplication however, is just fast addition. Likewise, raising something to a power and using an index notation, is just fast multiplication.

2⁵ = 2x2x2x2x2 or 2^5

π^π just means that you multiply π by itself π times. That's not a concept that we can wrap our heads around intuitively but since we can describe this using the rules of logic, then the nature of reality starts to look like pure objective fantasy. 

π^π^π^π means that pi is being raised to the power of pi, then that is being raised to the power of pi, then that is being raised to the power of pi.

To give you an idea of how massive that number is, 2^2^2^2 is 65,536. 3^3^3^3 is a number so massive that I can not calculate it sensibly. 3^3^3 = 7,625,597,484,987 which is a bit big. That means that 3^3^3^3 is 3 multiplied by itself 7,625,597,484,987 times. π^π^π^π is at least more massive than that and since π^π^π is a number that is about 1,340,164,183,006,357,435, then mutiplying π by itself is even less sensible.

Of huge importance here, is that, index notation is not commutative and requires you to perform various operations from the top of the power tower to the bottom of the power tower before you arrive at a final result. That's a problem.

Unlike the other examples given in the video, such as √2 being multiplied by itself to give 2, or e being the result of an inverse function of natural logarithms, π is none of those things. π is a relatively small number which has a value of 3 and a bit but isn't a rational number (that is one that can be expressed as a/b, or the ratio of a to b, hence rational) nor is it the result of some function which even has an inverse function.

What a/b^a/b tells you is that we are looking for the bth root of a/b^a. Since we know that π is irrational, then either a or b or both must also be irrational. That's a different set of circumstances to playing with √2 because √2 is a fancy way of writing 2^-1. -1 is rational. In fact, while √2 is irrational, all of the various components which define it in exponential notation are rational. It is possible that that might be true for π but given that we've had centuries thinking about the problem, it looks unlikely.

Intuitively, because π can not be written in the form of a/b then the power tower of a/b^a/b^a/b^a/b isn't going to spit out something rational because either a or b if a/b=π can not be rational and possibly neither of them can be. Then what?

There isn't anything that I can see that would give rise to π^π^π^π being rational because I can test π^π which is one of the component parts of the whole. Now by itself that doesn't necessarily mean that the whole thing is also irrational but unless π^π^π undoes whatever π by itself is doing, then I just don't see it.