Horse 3184 - How To Ruin Elections Forever

Before I begin this piece I have to declare that I hate The Australian. Its journalism is adequate and its writing is adequate. However The Australian does not exist as a newspaper of record but as a newspaper of persuasion by a foreign-owned media organisation which has repeatedly demonstrated that it hates the idea of commonwealth as a concept and especially hates the idea that ordinary people should have any say at all. This above all else is why this grotty little rag deserves my ire.

Over the years I have read pieces in The Australian and its semi-illiterate little sister The Daily Telegraph, which have called for the end of compulsory voting, called for Voter ID because of imagined voter fraud, called for a poll tax, and have actively called for the disenfranchisement of people because they didn't pay income tax. This last point is supremely hypocritical as News Corp itself doesn't pay tax and consistently calls for tax rates to be lowered.

Aside:

My departed mum used to say that you shouldn't hate anything unless you want it dead. I hate News Corp. I hate tuberculosis. I hate COVID-19. I hate injustice. I hate graft. I hate manipulating the public so that they work against their own interests. I wish all of these things dead.

This piece from The Australian, exists not as a piece of objective journalism but as a piece of persuasion. I have no problem with this in principle as I believe in the right to free speech. I also believe in the right to judge people's free speech and to judge people's intentions and character based upon same free speech. The right to free speech does not come with impunity and freedom from judgement. 

This is a screen capture from The Australian:

So then, what do I make of this piece from the Australian? I both hate this and love this. I hate this because of what it is trying to do. I love this because it is like pulling back the curtain to reveal the grotty little playmaster who thinks that the parliament and the people are puppets to be played with and manipulated. Remember, The Australian exists not as a newspaper of record but as a newspaper of persuasion; especially for Canberra which has no real daily newspaper of its own to speak of.

First Past The Post is really a terrible name for the system which is being proposed. In reality this is the Most Votes Wins system. If this sounds like a sensible system, let me run a very simple election of 100 votes:

23 - Kittens

22 - Puppies

22 - Bunnies

9 - Fish

24 - BURN ALL THE ANIMALS

If this election were carried out under the First Past The Post System, then the winner would be BURN ALL THE ANIMALS. Does this seem sensible and just? Does it seem sensible and just when more than three-quarters of the electorate obviously have different motives?

Suppose you had ten friends who all wanted to go out for dinner? Again we're going to run a very simple election:

3 - Pizza King

3 - Angelo's Pizza

4 - Scavenging From Bins

Under the First Past The Post system, instead of going for a pizza, it looks like you're going to be spending the night Scavenging From Bins even though more than half of the friends wanted to go for a pizza.

Of course these examples are simple and silly but they demonstrate the inherent problem with using First Past The Post as a system to determine overall approval for a thing. When win condition for the game is only one option, then First Past The Post can and will result in winners who do not meet the approval of half of the electorate. Is this actually democracy? No.

Democracy in principle is rule by the demos; that is the people. Rather, that is the people taken as a whole. The Declaration of Independence of the United States might contain a lot of things that were outright lies but one thing it absolutely got right was that "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed".

How do you get consent of the governed if you get less than half of the electors consent to the thing? You can't. Yet, that's what The Australian is proposing because that would mean that their preferred political party, the one set up by Keith Murdoch, would retain power. Rupert as the current inheritor of the job of Permanent Opposition Leader To The Existence Of The Commonwealth, would rather that ordinary people are excluded from the political process.

We see this time and time again. It is the root cause of why there are calls for Voter ID in the United States and Great Britain. It will be the root cause of why there will be calls for Voter ID in Australia. This is not even remotely about protecting democracy but rather killing it at the root and poisoning the stump.

As little as 200 years ago, most people didn't even have the vote. It was only through the work of people saying that they weren't happy that the Reform Acts of the 1830s expanded the franchise, then further Reform Acts in the 1870s expanded it further. In Australia in the 1890s, the conservative side of politics accidentally chose to give women the vote because they thought that they could expand the number of votes for conservative politics by doing so. Likewise in Australia, the 1918 Swan By-Election which caused a Labor Party victory was enough to convince the Nationalist Party that there should be preferential voting so that just as in the above examples, the conservative side of politics' vote would not be split.

The results of that election were thus:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_Swan_by-election

Labor Edwin Corboy                         6,540

Country Basil Murray                     5,975

Nationalist William Hedges         5,635

Independent William Watson            884

The Labor candidate won with only 34.4% of the vote. Is this just? No. Is this sensible? No. Is this the system that The Australian is calling for? Yes.

What has happened is that The Australian in their continuing act of aggression against normal people and their franchise, decided to run the numbers and correctly determined that under their chosen system, their political football team would have won. No doubt their target readers (who work within the State Circle in Canberra) will see this and the hope is that those readers will have words to their bosses who are Public Servants and most importantly, Members of Parliament. Thus, if legislation is changed to move to a First Past The Post system, probably under some confected story of simplicity, then the hope is that more economically rightist voters would vote Liberal or National because making any other kind of signal at the ballot box would be a wasted vote.

It is this last point that is so knavishly insidious. Other voting systems such as Approval Voting, Score Voting, the Single Transferrable Vote which we have, allow the voter to express nuance at the ballot box. First Past The Post removes that nuance and then actively punishes every voter who did not vote for anything with a viable shot at winning. If you are the conservative side of politics, and by conservative we mean that the only thing that you are conserving is your own naked power, then nuance should be quashed and so should anything that looks like unorthodoxy and non-conformity. 

The real reason for running is that as Permanent Opposition Leader To The Existence Of The Commonwealth, News Corp has repeatedly made its corporate goal to smash its political enemies. That is the reason why Sir Keith Murdoch and Sir Bob Menzies set up the Liberal Party and that is their mission today. Arguably that's why The Australian exists in the first place.

Horse 3183 - Why Verstappen Is The Fastest

Probably as long as there have been people they have been asking the question "who is the fastest?". There were running races in the Ancient Greek Olympic Games, the Romans built circuses for their chariot racing, and there are reports of medieval carnivals holding running races and horse races. Probably as soon as we'd built motor cars, we also asked that same question "who is the fastest?"

Every race ever always comes down to the same basic problems: how you can put power to the ground for the longest period of time; how quickly you can rotate through the corners so that you can put power to the ground for the longest period of time; and, the skill of the competitors at manipulating the equipment.

Clearly the combination of Max Verstappen and Red Bull is the current top of the pile. When you have 20 drivers who are all there or thereabouts and cars which are all close, it is not just enough to see that someone is the best when you can ask the far more difficult question of "why?". The why in Formula One changes from time to time. Sometimes the engine is the factor which makes the difference. Sometimes it is the chassis. Sometimes it is very much just the driver.

Formula One is a game of thousandths. To get to those extra thousandths you need to spend millions of dollarpounds. Usually the advantages that a team has are such that a team and driver will be the best in most places and it is difficult to see where and why those advantages exist. It is really only when you end up with comparative lap times that are near enough to dead equal that you get a chance to examine them from the outside. The qualifying laps of Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso at the Monaco Grand Prix gave us such a chance.

Of all the circuits that the Formula One circus travels to, the streets of Monte-Carlo are both the slowest and silliest. Formula One cars outgrew this place almost as soon as they arrived for the first Monaco Grand Prix long before the Second World War. The streets of Monte-Carlo in being slow and silly, slow down the dynamic differences between the cars sufficiently enough that even us nuff-nuffs get a chance to observe them.

I think that it's fair to say that the relative ability of these two drivers is indeterminable. Both Verstappen and Alonso have been World Champion; which means that in those given years they made best use of the equipment available to them. They are not in similar equipment but they are both excellent. I think that it is also fair to say that the Mercedes engine and powertrain are better than the Honda engine and powertrain are. So what is the difference?

Monaco is almost but not quite slow enough that aero advantage is neutralised. The thing about aerodynamic devices, both on top and under the car, is that because they are an exercise in applied fluid dynamics, they can not work as well if less fluid passes over and around them. Air flowing over an aerodynamic device is what generates downforce and the streets of Monte-Carlo are often too slow for these aerodynamics to have any decent effect. In consequence, we can almost say that the Red Bull's advantage at Monaco is not generated by better aero.

In every part of the circuit where the Aston Martin has been able to pull ahead, it is because the Mercedes powertrain is able to provide better punch out of corners. The Red Bull appears to be better under breaking and is able to rotate through corners better. This might be as simple as a turning advantage because the Red Bull has more inbuilt turns lock-to-lock but I do not think so. If this were the case, then the Aston Martin should not be able to pull out of the Hotel Hairpin and the run though the tunnel as easily. That powertrain advantage is more or less neutralised during the longer periods of time that the cars are on the power; which explains why at the beginning of the lap, Alonso has to chase down Max to draw level. Max was already likely quicker coming out of Rascasse, past the line, and onto St Devote.

It should be obvious to anyone that the only point of contact of a car and the road, are its tyres. Since all the teams in Formula One have access to the same tyres, then no advantage can be gained here.

This only leaves the three fundamental axes of rotation in the car; pitch, roll, and yaw. If cars do not porpoise, then pitch near enough makes not difference to a lap time. Roll characteristics will affect how well the tyres load up and take forces going though corners. Yaw will determine how well a car rotates around the apex of a corner.

Here's where the rubber his the road, literally. I think that the Red Bull, by using cleverer suspension settings which help their cars roll and rotate through corners better, is better at eliminating a loose condition. What I think is happening is that the Red Bulls are better at loading up the outside rear of the car, keeping those tyres better planted on the road, and eliminating more slip; which all means that they rotate through corners better.

Now obviously Max Verstappen is supremely talented and he is able to make best use of the equipment but in a game of thousandths, the equipment has to be better somewhere; since Fernando Alonso and the likes of Lewis Hamilton are as good drivers if not better. Hamilton is likely the best driver but the car isn't up to the job. Alonso has a better powerplant than Verstappen but it isn't mated to as good a chassis. It is really only in places like Monaco where things don't work properly due to the slower speeds, that we the nuff-nuffs who don't have access to reams of data get a chance to glimpse a fraction of what the teams who spend millions of dollarpounds get to see in real time.

Horse 3182 - Solipsistic Blues Break Down

In Horse 3179 when I wrote about every song in the world, I touched upon "I Am A Man" by Bo Diddley. I do not think that this was the progenitor of the "dner-dner", IV-I-III-I chord structure, but it is what I consider to be the ur-example. 

Dner-Dner songs more than any other are likely to be songs of straight up complaint more than anything else. Yes the blues is perfect for songs of lament and loss but Dner-Dner songs tend to be more straightforward, veering into economy of purpose.

Even just the mere mention of the musical phrase "dner-dner" is enough to make the blues positively run through your head. To wit..

dner-dner - I woke up this morning.

dner-dner - And I didn't feel good.

dner-dner - Said, I woke up this morning.

dner-dner - And I didn't feel good.

Right now, I bet that you have your own personal version of this riff running through your head, even though you have probably never heard "I Am A Man" by Bo Diddley. Recently though, I was listening to ABC Triple J when a listener requested "The Nature Of Reality" by Oasis.

dner-dner - WAH!

Beneath every guitar being tortured to within an inch of it's life, lies an insanely simple blues arrangement and quite possibly the most solipsistic set of lyrics ever written. This sounds like the blues but this is not simple complaint. This song denies the existence of reality in the first place.

The nature of reality,

Is pure subjective fantasy.

Space and time and here and now,

Are only in your mind.

Forget any notion of epistemology here. This song is not interested. Far beneath the question of what can be known, is the question of how it can be known. Solipsism argues that not even what can be assumed to be known can be taken as true. Solipsism taken to its logical endpoint would suggest that literally everything is ultimately unknowable because every knowable input is ultimately unreliable. This song by Oasis would have you believe that reality itself exists only in one's mind and even then, the belief that there even is a world outside is itself unknowable because every knowable input is ultimately unreliable.

Consider the classic example of the brain in a jar. Provided you could keep up an unlimited supply of reasonable inputs to it, it would have no reason to consider the possibility that literally everything in its world have been constructed for it. Not only would it have no idea that the world which was invented and fed to it wasn't real, but it would have no reason to question it. The beginning of The Matrix might hint at a world like this. However this song by Oasis would have you believe that it wouldn't matter if you took either the red pill or the blue pill because in either case, the world which you would see, wouldn't be real to begin with.

Machine of god and devil too.

With no weapons, just the truth.

Belief does not existence make.

It's only in your mind.

Perhaps one of the most famous phrases in continental philosophy is that of René Descartes from his  "Discourse on the Method" (1637) which in Latin was rendered "Cogito, Ergo Sum", or in English "I Think, Therefore I am." The most reasonable way to interpret this idea from within the passage in which it exists, was that because Descartes couldn't actually prove the existence of anything and had to assume that even his own senses were lying to him about the world, then the only reliable point within is conception of the world was the fact that he could think about his conception of the world. At very least the fact that there was a thought which was conscious of itself meant that there must have been some ego to think the thought. It is not "I think, therefore my existence is consequent" but rather "I think, therefore even if all else is void, at least I exist."

There is a distinct problem with this line "Belief does not existence make" as well. Granted that you can not will physical objects into existence but you absolutely can will and believe some abstract things and products into existence. The value of One Dollar only really exists because we all collectively believe, hope, and trust in the fact that we can buy goods and services with it. Collective fidus in action as well as the collective fidus in the power and authority which issued it, actually causes that One Dollar to have any value at all. If someone says "I love you" and then believes that, then this is going to result in a practical demonstration of that love. That belief definitely does existence make and indeed is the underlying basis for why families, communities and even nations exist.

The biggest problem with Solipsism in principle is that even if we were to take the assumption that nothing actually exists, the reality has done a fantastically amazing job at collectively convincing us otherwise. I can be reasonably sure that my big tin of Nescafe Blend 43 which sits next to a bottle OFoods Gojujang Sauce will still be there when I get back home. I can be reasonably sure that the train that I am on, as it hurtles past Pendle Hill Station at 105km/h will eventually go over the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I can be reasonably sure that everyone else on the train and everyone who crosses the Sydney Harbour Bridge will be convinced of the bridge's existence. People can be made to believe a lie if the lie is convincing enough but if the existence of the Sydney Harbour Bridge is a lie, then this is a massive collective conspiracy which we've all involuntarily signed up for.

If the nature of reality is pure subjective fantasy, it has done such an amazing job at convincing literally everyone who has ever lived that reality is real, that even if it actually is objectively void then we've all joined the massive collective conspiracy and belief has existence made. Or else the more reasonable position is that the nature of reality is not pure subjective fantasy, that absolute Solipsism is functionally bunk, and that it is reasonably reasonable to believe that reality is real.

dner-dner - WAH!

Horse 3181 - Which Fruit Would Win In A Fight?

Probably as long as there have been men (because it will become pretty obvious pretty quickly that women do not engage in this kind of halfwittery), they have asked the question of "Who will win in a fight?". This is less of a stupid question than actually going to war, or the pugilistic arts of wrestling, boxing, and fighting, because we can throw all kinds of things into the arena of our mind, sit back and watch the madness, and then be thankful that nobody actually got hurt.

When the following question came across my radar, I could not leave well enough alone because the idea of placing these things in combat was just too delicious to let go.

"If all the fruit were sentient, then who would win in a fight?"

When it all boils down, there are but only three criteria which ultimately determine who wins in any fight:

- the size of the combatants

- the size of the fight in the combatants

- the preparedness of the combatants

It should be obvious to all and sundry that a big empire will generally win over a smaller empire. The Roman Army can overrun the rest of the Italian people, smaller empires like the Greeks and Egyptians, and even put down uprisings like the Jewish Maccabean revolts, all through superior numbers. Likewise, I can overwhelm a Domino's Pepperoni Pizza because it is ill-prepared to cope with my size and power. 

If the size of the heart of a smaller city state is huge, then not even the biggest army can overrun them. The city-state of the Republic of San Marino has existed since 301 and has seen off the Roman Empire, the Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, the Franks, the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Italy, the Fascists, and the modern state of Italy.

The preparedness of the combatants can come down to a whole host of things including tactics, equipment, location, practice et cetera. When Hannibal decided to attack the Romans by coming round the mountains when he came, he actually took elephants on skis which were rage fueled by figs and alcohol. He was then able to alloy together a disparate army made up of all kinds of ethnics groups, based on their mutual hatred of the Romans. He still lost eventually because he would have to take on Rome itself and there is no way that his army of 25,000 could take on a fortified city of 500,000 people.

We can give each of these things a score. Size: S. Heart: H. Preparedness: P. What this does is gives us the veneer of maths and a false sense of credibility to what is otherwise a very very silly pursuit. Then all we need to see is who has the best SHeP score. 

There's only one way to find out who is best... FIGHT!

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BANANA:

S: 3

Banana is taller than a fist and of all the classic lunchbox fruits is the tallest. However in comparison to other fruit, one banana is not that big. Banana already knows this. Banana tends to engage in combat in bunches; not because it is a coward but because it knows that by itself it can not win alone. Banana needs community.

He: 1

Banana is easily bruised. Banana is easily mashed. Banana turns brown when it is sad. Sorry, Banana. You just don't have the heart to win this fight.

P: 1

Banana does have a protective jacket but that too is easily broken and stripped away, leaving the vulnerable goo inside. Banana just isn't made for fighting. 

Banana - SheP: 5

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APPLE:

S: 2

Apple is a wee fruit which is not often bigger than a fist. 

He: 2

Apple wants to win in a fight but Apple is brittle. Apple cracks under pressure and then just like Banana, goes brown when it is sad. Also, when Apple is sad or bad, if affects all of its friends in a barrel. Apple very easily suffers from bad morale and it only takes one bad apple to spoil the rest.

P: 1

Apple has a skin but no real protection to speak of. It has a stick that it can fight with but Apple is just unprepared and incompetent for battle.

Apple - SHeP: 5

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PEAR:

Pear is Apple's cousin and it bears all the marks of being in the same family. Pear thinks that it is the cool cousin and wants to differentiate itself by calling its fermented product Perry and not Cider. Still, there is nothing to be said about Pear that hasn't already been said about Apple.

Pear - SHeP: 5

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ORANGE:

S: 2

Orange as the third of the classic lunchbox fruits can be bigger than a fist but generally isn't.

He: 3

As a citrus, Orange has an acidic centre. Orange has more fight than Apple or Pear but not quite as much as its cousins. Orange is a good fighter.

P: 4

Orange has a neat protective layer of armor which it hopes will not be penetrated in a fight. Even when broken, Orange can still fight on for a bit.

Orange - SHeP: 9

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LEMON:

S: 1

Lemon is a wee ickle fruit which looks as yellow and as happy as Banana. It is small and can be easily pushed around.

He: 7

Don't mess with Lemon. Lemon looks wee and happy but it is a rage filled grenade of acid. Lemon refuses to back down even when broken. Lemon can make you cry. 

P: 6

Lemon is little but confusing. You can not roll a lemon with any confidence because Lemon will not stand to be pushed about by you. Lemon will frequently change direction. Also, as dense little thing, if it is involved in aerial combat, its pointy ends can inflict pain. Lemon hates you.

Lemon - SHeP: 14

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KUMQUAT:

S: 0

Kumquat is so small that it can not even get a 1 on this score.

He: 10

Kumquat is a knave. Kumquat has a heart of pure evil. Kumquat would kill its own family if it thought that would help it get ahead. Kumquat refuses to be used in cooking and this just makes Kumquat even more bitter about it. Kumquat is not a friend to anyone and nobody else is Kumquat's friend.

P: 5

Kumquat has the same kind of armor as its citric cousins but because it is so small, Kumquat is more indestructible. Kumquat is the ungovernable terrorist of the fruit world. Kumquat is always prepared because Kumquat has no allies.

Kumquat - SHeP: 15

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GRAPEFRUIT:

S: 5

Grapefruit is where we start to get into the bigger combatants. Grapefruit is a biggish and denish fruit which thinks it can do well.

He: 4

The problem for Grapefruit in a fight is that although it thinks it can win in a fight, it is a big softie. Grapefruit has just a little bit of acid but this can be stopped with sugar. When grapefruit meets sugar, it no longer has the will to fight.

P: 5

Grapefruit generally has a big thick armor coat, even more so than its citric cousins. When broken Grapefruit has a big pith which means that it is resilient.

Grapefruit - SHeP: 14

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GRAPE:

S: 0

He: 1

P: 0

What are you doing Grape? Why are you even here? The idiom "to be crushed like a grape" is literally because you are small and easily crushed. You belong in the cute and small gallery of the fruit battle. Also, some of you when crushed are turned into wine, which has the job of making people happy. 

You can't win in a fight, Grape. Why bother?

Grape - SHeP: 1

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CHERRY:

S: 0

He: 0

P: 0

Okay this is getting ridiculous. Who let all of you in here? You even have a cute name. We're going to have to make a set of quickfire rulings because all of you are just stinking up the joint.

Cherry - SHeP: 0

This also goes for:

Strawberry - SHeP: 0

Blackbery - SHeP: 0

Blueberry - SHeP: 0

Tomato - SHeP: 0

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JACKFRUIT:

S: 9

The Jackfruit is among the biggest of the fruits and certainly has a size advantage. It is big. It is unwieldy. This together with what we shall see later, puts in in good stead. 

He: 2

Speaking of "stinking up the joint", what the jinkies is going on here? If anyone says that they enjoy Jackfruit it is because they know that hiding behind a wall of stink is actually a tasty fruit. However Jackfruit has put up a defensive barrier which is so potent that many people won't even bother.

Jackfruit's problem is that it is nice. Bigness will not win in a fight if the thing is too nice to act accordingly. Jackfruit is who you want to back you up but not who you want to fight for you.

P: 7

Jackfruit comes with a layer of interesting dimples all over it; which looks impressive but isn't really adequate protection. Jackfruit looks scarier than it actually is. Jackfruit smells pretty bad; which means that a lot of its opponents would run away before they ever got involved in the fight.

Jackfruit - SHeP: 18

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ROCKMELON:

S: 6

Rockmelon is a good middle sized fruit. It's not so small that it can be pushed around but not too big either.

He: 3

Rockmelon has a good heart and likely only joined the fight because it wanted to help out its cousins. Rockmelon spends its whole day listening to Triple M and playing air guitar because deep down it knows that it isn't fantastic at fighting. Rockmelon wants to chill out on a summer's day with the tunes on; not fight. 

P: 9

This is where Rockmelon shines. Rockmelon is equipped with an outer shell which is fine.

Rockmelon - SHeP: 18

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COCONUT:

S: 5

Coconut is a decent sized fruit but isn't terribly massive.

He: 0

Coconut is literally hollow. It has no ambition, no desire, no heart at all. When you do crack it open, it cries and spills its guts out. Coconut is a coward inside.

P: 10

The Coconut nut is not a nut. It's the Coco fruit, from the Coco tree. Coconut has an outer shell of armor so tough that it has made people think it is a nut. Coconuts are so resilient that they probably can be used as cannon fire and would do very considerable damage. Oh yes, they will fight but they are mostly a defensive piece.

Coconut - SHeP: 15

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WATERMELON:

S: 8 

Of all the melons, Watermelon is among the biggest. If this were on size alone, then Watermelon would have a good chance at winning.

He: 1

But sadly, the Watermelon mostly crumbles inside. The Watermelon is the ultimate hypocrite of the fruit battle. It is big and looks powerful but crumbles at the first sign of trouble and it lies about its innard colour. Inside it is pink; while outside it is green.

P: 4

Watermelon has an adequate coat of armor but one that is relatively easily broken. The Watermelon is like the bully who arrives and makes a big noise but when push comes to shove, falls apart all too easily.

Watermelon - SHep: 13

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PINEAPPLE:

S: 7

Now we have arrived at everyone's favourite to win. Pineapples have been as big as 10kg.

He: 7

Do not be deceived by Pineapple's sweet taste. Remember, pineapple is a deviant who wants to sneak its way into places where it does not belong such as pizza. The heart of a Pineapple is fibrous mass of lies and deception. The more it grows, the more its internal lies and deception grow harder and deeper.

P: 10

This is not normal. If it isn't the weird set of scales all over it, it's its hideous spiky crown. Pineapple has declared itself ot be the winner of the fruit battle. Yet again, this is lies and deception. Pineapple is big and bad, but there is one who is bigger and badder.

Pineapple - SHeP: 24

<><><><><>

We have arrived at the winner. This might be expected for some of you but for everyone else, you knew this was coming.

DURIAN:

S: 10

Durians can be orders of magnitude bigger than most other fruit. There have been Durians that have weighed as much as 55kg and have been as much as 35 inches around. This is a person sized fruit. 

He: 6

Durians are not exactly easy to get into. Once cut they are reasonably easy to eat and taste kind of okay but they're not fantastic. The heart of a durian is rampant indifference to you.'

P: 10

No. Just no.

I have heard a description of the smell of durians as being like a combination of pig-poo, turpentine, onions, and old gym socks. The outside is feral, the smell is feral. If Durian were hauled before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, it would be classified as a war crime for breaking several of the Geneva Conventions on War and Crimes against humanity.

Durian is obviously our champion.

Durian - SHeP: 26

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One caveat that needs to be added to this is that the question of "who would win in a fight?" assumes that there are 1v1 battles. In the real world grapes and cherries don't fight alone, Bananas hang around in bunches, and Apples and Pears build war barrels. All that aside, Durian is the magnificent knave of the fruit world, the nefarious villain, and the king of all that is evil.

Horse 3180 - Eudaimonia - Element XVI - Protect

When we think about the great heroes of the world, who do we think of? Perhaps we think of some powerful warrior who fights valiantly in battle, or someone who tirelessly fights for some cause to make the lives of the vulnerable better, or perhaps a parent who fights to keep their family safe. In all three examples we have someone who has been given the responsibility and burden of caring for someone less powerful and bearing up underneath that responsibility. The warrior, the champion, and the parent, all display that quality which was known in Greek as the exercise of the quality of stegos (στέγωσ); which means bears under or protect. 

The only place that I can think of where the word Stegos exists in English is the name of the dinosaur "stegosaurus". I have no idea if the name stegosaurus means "protected lizard" or "armored lizard" but given that stegos in Greek means to bear underneath some burden, or protect that which is precious and which is still kind of a burden, and the stegosaurus has plates of armor for its protection, then it would not surprise me.

We likely have a very noble idea of the warrior, the champion, or the parent, and rightly so, because in taking on such a role they have displayed a willingness to also bear underneath personal expense. It might cost a warrior their life to fight for the nation. It might cost the champion who fights for a cause, comfort, time, and considerable effort. Anyone who has been a parent must also concede that it costs many many sleepless nights and quite literally a small fortune to raise a family. Reasonable estimates put the total expenditure at raising a child to the age of majority, at something in the order of a third of a million dollars. 

For all the nobility that this sense of stegos might imply, it absolutely requires that there be a thing or more importantly a person, which is worth protecting. The noble qualities of the warrior, the champion, or the parent, are obvious. The inherent value of the thing, person, or people being protected, might very well not be. Worse, through reasons of xenophobia, which expresses itself in things like racism, ableism, classism, nationalism, et ceteral; the vulnerable person are themselves, more likely to be the objects of violence or harm by others. We may even question the quality of the thing being protected and wonder why they bother.

In the case of warrior, the thing that they think which is worthy of protection, is the nation. However that nation is comprised, the warrior thinks that the continued existence of the collective and the way of life, is preserved. When we send warriors off to fight, they do so on behalf of everyone back home and in return, the are absolved from what would normally be considered a crime because the act of war itself, on behalf of the collective of the nation, can overlook the killing of other people.

In the case of the champion of a cause, the thing that they think which is worthy of protection, is either an idea which they want to see enacted, or the eradication of some disease, or the elimination of things like racism, ableism, poverty, homelessness et cetera. The objects of their cause, is mostly the betterment of people who are unable to overcome the difficulty that they face without help.

In the case of the parent, the thing that they think which is worthy of protection, is far more immediate. There may even be a strange sense of nobility in a parent doing things at great personal expense, including setting aside their own comfort and happiness, for the happiness of their children.

That thing or person that the warrior, champion, or parent thinks is worth protecting, can only come from a well of philos or what we would consider love for that other person or thing. The idea of stegos then takes that root of civic or familial philos and then intends to act upon on it. In putting that philos into concrete action, it watches, watches over, and watches out for the loved one. It does so in the face of difficulty and even in the shortcomings or faults in the loved one. It doesn't even expect to recieve reciprocal or mutual benefit because often, that is impossible. The nation can not repay the warrior. A parent does not expect payment from a child. People who benefit from the results of fighting the cause, often have no idea who the champion was. The art of giving without receiving anything back at all, not even the recognition of effort, describes stegos well.

Of course in the act of trying to protect the one who needs protection, this doesn’t excusing wrongdoing or seek to evade the natural consequences of knavery on their part. There may be the more expensive act of forgiveness and/or learning to live with the consequences (and this has been covered previously in this series of posts) but it means to strengthen what is weak, shield what is vulnerable, and forgive what is provoking.

How does the idea of stegos connect with the overarching concept of eudemonia which this series of posts has been about? Because ultimately I do not think that any kind of eudemonia, can come from any other place except from an active philos of one's self, family, community, and nation. I think that it's almost fair to say that everything that is bad that happens in the kosmos, comes as a result of accident, stupidity, or cruelty. Accident which includes the environment acting, is mostly blameless. Stupidity is the result of people's poor decisions and blunders. Cruelty exists because people actively want to rail against philos. Granted there are instances where competing views of justice might rise up against each other, but cruelty which refuses to see others as human and inherently valuable, is all far too common. Protecting that which is valuable, against the ravages of the kosmos, is what stegos intends to do.

Horse 3179 - All The Songs In The World (Are Less Than You Might Think)

Anyone who was watching the coronation of King Charles III would have likely been impressed by Handel's "Zadok The Priest" when the anointing of the King behind the screens happened. 

For those of us who have watched football for the last 30 years, Zadok The Priest sounds very very familiar because Benjamin Britten blatently stole the chord structure and rising tag lines for the European Champions League Theme.

If you will allow me to take the magic out of the music, then the underlying chord structure looks like this:

G C D Em C

G C D G

And to really strip this of any kind of fun whatsoever, this resolves to this:

I-IV-V-vi-IV

I-IV-V-I

Where G is acting as the tonic centre.

What all of this means is that Zadok The Priest and the European Champions League Theme, could very likely be played by a 1950s doo-wop band or a blues trio. My mother died on a Monday, I became King on a Tuesday; then I went to the football...

Of course the stealing of phrases and chord structure has likely been happening ever since people made any kind of music at all. Music is meme filled to a point ab surd ad nausuem ad infinitum. Even one of the most famous songbooks in the Psalms, has hits that have been pilfered; as evidenced by "Do Not Destroy" which I can only assume to have been a banger on Crazy Dan Deuteronomy's Weekly Top 40.

As someone who can not leave well enough alone and who should not be given scissors or a screwdriver lest the world be taken apart, I could not leave well enough alone and had to take apart every song in the world. In today's episode of my nephew Max's favourite game show "How Many?", I had to find out how many songs there actually are in the world.

Let's build all the songs. We're going to need some chords. How many chords are there? A chord is basically three or more tones played together. I shan't go into the reason why two tones together is not a chord but bear with me.

The number of 3 tone chords is:

12! / (3!x9!) = 290

The number of 4 tone chords is:

12! / (4!x8!) = 495

You can use this method to describe the number of all of the possible chords:

12! / (5!x7!) = 792

12! / (6!x6!) = 924

12! / (7!x5!) = 792

12! / (8!x4!) = 495

12! / (9!x3!) = 220

12! / (10!x2!) = 66

12! / (11!x1!) = 12

12! / (12!x0!) = 1

If you then sum all of the chords, then there are 4017 of them.

I realise that this is going to horrify music theorists but a 9ths, 13ths, add chords et cetera, are actually philosophically no different from chords that we've already described. I can absolutely say that 9ths, 13ths, add chords, all of the inversions and all of the diminished chords are included in the above list because in describing every single stacked chord, those things are already included.

Also for reasons that I shan't go into, a song is basically functionally described by 4 chords. Anything beyond that and what you are in fact doing is just building phrases and motifs, into bigger things which are strings of variations on a theme. To that end, the total number of logical chord structures which form a song are:

1 x 8 x 8 x 8 = 512

The upper bound for the total number of songs in the world is:

4017 x 512 = 2,056,704.

Now we can get pruning. 

Once we acquiesce to the fact that every song has a tonal centre and if they do not then we can assign one, and that chords have functions, and are mostly trying to resolve to some logical point which is usually a I chord, then the actual number of logical songs in the world is actually way way way smaller than 2 and a bit million.

The number of sensible songs in the world is closer to:

(12! / (3!x9!) = 290) x (1 x 8 x 5 x 4) = 46,400

Songs have a logical start point, some kind of chord which wants to head out somewhere, and then some kind of resolution; which is highly likely to be resolved back to a I chord. It should come as a surprise to no-one that humans who are pattern seeking machines, like to hear the same sensible chord structures over and over again; which is why there have been periods defined by entire sets of chord structures, such as 1950s doo-wop, the Blues; because as pattern seeking machines, we like to hear things which are familiar and sensible and that includes music structures which head out and back.

Is it little wonder then, that people who have been around for a while, have likely heard all of the sensible sets of chord structures or variations on a theme; which is why they consistently think that music sounds the same to them? Is it also little wonder that musicians beg, borrow and steal from each other?

Familiar chord patterns also explains why things fall into cliché so readily. When I think of "dna-dna waaah", I am immediately brought back to the chors pattern of "I Am A Man" by Bo Diddley. This is so ubiquitous that it may as well define a whole genre.

I-IV-V-vi-IV and I-IV-V-I in both Zadok The Priest and the European Champions' League Theme, employ a root, a heading out chord looking for a resolution, the biggest, boldest, strongest one they can find with the V chord; before returning home to I. It makes sense that the structure should sound big, bold, and strong; which is also why it works so excellently for the Coronation of a King, or the Coronation of the Champions of Europe.

Horse 3178 - Eudaimonia - Element XV - Believe

I have mentioned a lot in this series of posts about one of the central planks upon which I have constructed this house. That is the idea, which I think is self-evident, that every single person is the centre of their own observable universe. As such, I think that it reasonably follows that as everyone only occupies only one viewpoint of the kosmos ever, then this has a tendency to produce universal selfishness in people. 

Political economist Adam Smith started out his "Theory Of Moral Sentiment" in 1759, with selfishness as the base assumption upon which he derived his theory of sentiment and ultimately of commerce/economics, and I think partially incorrectly that people are rational actors who are trying to maximise their happiness and utility of choices. I am just not convinced that people are generally rational and are very subject to a sense of animus; being blown about by the winds of emotion, also dependent on how hungry, lonely, cold, et cetera, they are. Humans are somewhat irrational machines, wrapped in meat.

Nevertheless even as somewhat irrational machines, wrapped in meat, humans have some pretty noble base desires. Apart from the obvious such as air, water, food, and clothing (just like a motor car which needs spark, air, and petrol), humans have a need to know and be known, to be validated, and to be believed.

Plato has a lovely word which he likes to use, which he thinks is necessary for the proper running of society because he not only noticed that people need to be heard but that they need to be believed. The word πιστεύει (pisteuei) is both like a sense that I believe in something, I have faith in something, I trust in something; and I am entrusted with something, I have been given something, or I am persuaded by something. Being believed and being persuaded, are less like transactional elements and more like two people holding ends of a rope and pulling and allowing to be pulled back and forth constantly. People who live in community are bound to each other by invisible cords, that form a network and a web. Just like a spider's web, it is fragile.

I have touched on this previously but the Roman concept of Fidus, or something approaching hope, is the expectation that a thing will do what it says that it will do. In a modern context, money is said to be fiduciary because when we show up at a shop, we expect it to be useful to be able to buy goods and services. If I hand over two dollars, I expect that the idea that I have given you transferrable value, will be good enough such that I can walk out of your shop with a banana and we both think that this was a fair transaction. For instance Money works because we all collectively believe that our money is good and acceptable by someone else. The second that we all stop believing that it is, what we've done is create a loss of confidence in money, possibly a run on the banks.

Pisteuei is more than just a simple sense of Fidus. Believing other people and being persuaded by them, is necessary if we are to accept anything as truth, and especially what other people think and hold to be true. 

Here's the problem. As somewhat irrational machines, wrapped in meat, humans are by nature unreliable narrators. Not only are they small and only see the world from one spot, which means that they can not possibly hold all the world's information at once, but as selfish self-interested irrational machines, wrapped in meat, humans also see the world as it applies to them. People's innate selfishness can on occasion, very much cloud how they see the world; which means that it is possible to be both accidentally and perhaps worse, selfishly wrong.

But what happens if you don't believe people? People who are not believed, come to the rational or irrational conclusion that they will not be heard. People who are not heard might very well have information and/or experience which is not only mission critical but may also demand other moral action. Denial of justice, especially when there have been crimes against the person, including of the most intimate nature, are allowed to perperuate because people are not believed. The kosmos is already an unfair place, made up of people who are selfish, stupid, obnoxious and cruel; to have this not only confimed but then shown by action of those same people that the kosmos is unfair, renders people without hope. Take away people's hope, take away their sense of validation, take away justice; and what you produce are people whose lives are inclined towards destruction of both themselves, their immediate families and the world at large.

Even though people can be liars, or unreliable narrators, if it is not immediate that they are not telling the truth, they should be believed. Sometimes their narration must be taken with a grain of salt, however in general people are objectively too simple to be able to construct broad sweeping and complex narratives. Remember, even in criminal cases, most criminals are not masterminds but really dumb and/or desperate; which is not only why they got caught but explains their motives as well. Pulling back the pointing fingers of blame though, people might want to portray themselves in the best possible light and may be economical with the truth. 

What do you do with that? Why in principle should you believe people who you know are unreliable narrators? Because you are also an unreliable narrator. Why should any believe you?

I think that we can take it from our own internal experience and apply it to everyone else, that everyone is doing the best that they can with the resources they have. Or if they are not doing the best that they can, then they might be very well trying just to get by. This is going to sound really stupid but in a kosmos that constantly demands from us to do more and to be better, then standing up and yelling  "I’m doing the best that I can!" in the face of the kosmos, looks more like frustration in an indifferent place.

Can you be okay with what people have? Can you be okay with people's limits? People live within a tension that their current need for familiarity and security, make it difficult to change things.

What do you do with that? People need to be believed, despite and in spite of their unreliability of nature because they are doing the best that they can with the immediate circumstances and resources available to them. Believing that we are all doing the best that we can do, opens our hearts to the production of kindness and compassion and most importantly, it allows us to see each other, even with all the flaws and faults that we have, as humans, who are valuable.

Horse 3177 - This Zoo Is Not Wild

Some mornings on the way to work when I pass through Blacktown Station, I see this billboard:

This billboard at Blacktown Station, is trying to get people to listen to Hughesy, Ed and Erin on 2Day-FM or via the LiSTNR app in the mornings. I imagine that this particular billboard isn't as well placed as it aught to be, considering that the prime target for people to listen to the radio in the mornings is in their cars and almost by definition, if you are standing at the station you are not in a car. Maybe this billboard hopes to get people to listen via the FM app on their phones or via the LiSTNR app but given the immense amount of podcasts that are available in the world, I again wonder how effective this billboard is.

Well, I have to say that it worked on me. I was curious enough to listen to Hughesy, Ed and Erin on 2Day-FM for a week and I have to say that this show is... meh. Together, the Hughesy, Ed and Erin on 2Day-FM is a show which is less than the sum of its parts. This is a pity for 2Day-FM as I think that Southern Cross Austereo looked around at the biggest names that were available and they could slot into a morning zoo type program and hoped that it would work. It does not. Herein lies the ultimate problem with morning radio and creating a lineup. It really is like trying to capture lightning in a bottle and even then it has a maximum shelf life of about 5 years. Radio because of its almost intimate nature with the listener, either requires a very strong personality to hold the show above their head by themselves, or a very well sorted duo or triplet. Very occasionally a morning zoo program will operate with five or more but that's a rarity.

Of people who could hold up a radio show by themselves, if you eliminate talkback radio (which eliminates people like John Laws, Stan Zemanek, John Pierce, Jack Davey etc), then the one name which stands atop the radio pile in Australia is arguably Doug Mulray. There have been a few duos over the years who can run a morning zoo type show; these include Adam and Wil, Merrick and Rosso. When it comes to the really really big morning zoo format, there have really only been two in Australia which have ever been truly successful. One of them was Triple-M's "The Cage" which was made up of Peter Berner, Brigitte Duclos, James Brayshaw, Matt Parkinson & Mike Fitzpatrick.

Pete, Brig, JB, Parko and Fitzy were in different cities and the program was switched through the offices of Triple-M in Melbourne. The reason why this ultimately worked was not because you had a bunch of personalities bouncing off each other, but that it acted as a semi-permanent writer's room which would just generate segments and run with them for a while. It also had the added rule that Brigitte Duclos as the only woman on the show, had the power to eject anyone for any reason via the "red card". 

The name "morning zoo" as a format, ultimately comes from Melbourne as well. While WRBQ in Tampa had one in 1987, New York City's Z-100 in 1985, and Cleveland's WMMS had the Buzzard Morning Zoo, it was Melbourne's 3XY which had the "XY-Zoo" with Richard Stubbs, Peter O'Callaghan & Jane Holmes; starting in 1980. If the ABC's JJJ was labelled as "ratbag radio", then 3XY was decried as behaving like a bunch of zoo animals by the Melbourne Herald; hence the name of the program. 

The reason why the XY-Zoo worked as far as I can tell, is that Stubbs, O'Callaghan & Holmes were already familiar with each other from working the Melbourne comedy circuit. In other words, the XY-Zoo which was likely the original, probably has its origin story in university. That has not happened with Hughesy, Ed and Erin on 2Day-FM. Erin Molan runs a perfectly sensible program on Sky News Australia. Ed Kavalee has been on telly on. Dave Hughes is more likely to be doing stand-up shows. Together, this is not an organic trio.

There are a number of comedy trio tropes but the most common is the Big Leader who is usually incompetent and rubbish; the either depressive or sycophantic Number Two who is either forced to or openly enthusiastically goes along with the schemes of the Big Leader; and the Only Sane One, who act as the last remaining guard against the madness of the first two. If Number Two and the Only Sane One are roughly of equal strength of personality, they they may interchange between roles, and even become the lead for a few short adventures but in the long run they revert to type. Mickey, Donald, and Goofy; Larry, Curly, and Moe; Groucho, Harpo, and Chico; Clarkson, Hammond, and May: are all examples of this archetype of this comedy trio.

Hughesy is the obvious Big Leader and has a personality which is big enough to hold an entire room by himself. I do not think that he is necessarily suited to being in a comedy trio as that role though. On programs like Channel 10's "The Project", he assumes another role and does that well. In this case, Hughesy tries to be funny but with only Ed and Erin to bounce off, it doesn't quite work either.

Ed Kavalee is an insanely good Only Sane One. Ed is a very good when he is working towards some kind of goal or point, like he would do in the TV show "Santo, Sam, and Ed's Football" et cetera, but as neither Hughesy or Erin can provide that obvious direction, he is left directionless. Neither can Ed occupy the Big Leader role, as demonstrated by the short lived Australian version of "TV Burp". 

Erin Molan is a perfectly competent radio host but she simply isn't funny. I kind of feel that she might do better as a foil in a duo, or as the lead host in a serious radio show, but not here. I could for instance see Erin Molan as the lead on something like ABC Radio National's "PM" or perhaps the host of an evening slot. Erin has been placed in a box which she can not thrive in.

2Day-FM's problem is that like a lot of legacy media, they look back over their once astounding ratings numbers and can not rebuild the past. They will never again have a show like The Morning Crew with With Wendy Harmer, Peter Moon, Paul Holmes & The Guru in the mornings, and Kyle and Jackie O have been poached by KIIS-FM. The morning slot on 2Day-FM is a place that is insanely difficult for anyone to live up to. The other prolem is that as a commercial entity, they need established stars and can not really afford to experiment. The magic piano which only plays the song "ka-ching" needs to keep on playing that song or else the lights go out. If I was given the gig of filling the slot, I'd be scouring Sydney Uni, UNSW, and Western Sydney Uni's revue shows for comedy troupes, placing them on the radio in the evenings and then letting them loose in the morning. 2Day-FM haven't played that long game though.

Having said that, go listen to the show. You might like it. I do not. Your mileage might vary. I just do not think that this show works well. It might also be because I am old and I know how tropes should work.

Horse 3176 - Does Wynyard Have Cousins?

Every day as I cross this swirling conurbation we call Sydney, forth and back through the environs which contain five millions of people, I am reminded on an almost daily basis of the sheer stupidity and utter recklessness of the governments of the past, who through reasons or greed, incompetence, spite, and laziness, have left behind a wake of stupid outcomes.

From the fact that the North West Metro doesn't connect the 2222m from Schofields to Tallawong, or that the Castle Hill Tram Line was ripped out and never adequately replaced, or fact that Trams do not run across the Sydney Harbour Bridge any more to Mosman and The Spit, or the fact that the last tory government decided to take a baseball bat to the face of the good and fair people of Sydney and sold off our ferries and buses, I am borderline livid at the sad joke that has been played upon this city for more than a century. Sydney was started as a penal colony and by jingo, the tories that rule from their prissy castles in the east, are going to remind us of that fact, by acting like thieves at every opportunity.

It is therefore a matter of amazement, to me that despite this, we still have the world's best train system when it comes to commuter trains. As far as I know, we are the only city in the world which operates double deck suburban stock and by default,  the only city in the world which operates double deck suburban stock underground.

One of the scars left upon this city, is seen in the station which I likely visit the most often. Or rather, it has been covered over and the people do not much think about it. I am more likely to get a bus home from Blacktown in the evenings; which means that I do not make 10 trips a week through it. I have the option of either getting off at Town Hall or Wynyard, but of those two, Wynyard Station is the most likely place that buses from Mosman will dump me in the evenings. I pass through Wynyard at a bare minimum 5 times a week. Wynyard Station reminds me of the damage that has been done by previous governments to the infrastructure of this fair city, through the conspicuous absence of Platforms 1 and 2. Where once 1 and 2 would have been seen on the other side of a wooden fence, a brick wall now hides their location and the many commuters who today pass through Wynyard, think of them not.

The lower level of Wynyard was built in anticipation of a problem being solved but not immediately. Platforms 5 & 6 look like they are crying out for a pair in 7 & 8 but the latter never eventuated. Space exists though. Platforms 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 which were all on the upper level, were built and all opened in 1932 upon the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Platforms 1 & 2 came to a sad end when the decision was made to steal away from the decent and fair people of Sydney, the greatest tram network in the world, but Platforms 3 & 4 remain; which are the subject of this piece.

Unlike Museum, St James, or even the lower level of Wynyard and to a lesser degree Town Hall, Platforms 3 & 4 do not look like they are aping the London Underground. I have it on reasonably good authority that the roundels of these stations were suggested by Harry Beck who drew the first version of the now famous London Underground map; so this might help to explain the dressing of these stations. Sydney in 1926 when the Electric Underground stations were opened, was still very much a child of empire; which London as the shining jewel in the crown. 

The London Underground though, was not a product of planning. Some of the current lines were all the results of separate companies, which all hated each other, and often worked in spiteful competition with each other. It wasn't until the advent of the UERL (Underground Electric Railways of London ltd.) that any sense of unification and unification if design language happened. In that pre-unification period, the proprietor of the company was Charles Yerkes; who had come from New York and worked on its Elevated and Subway railways.

I do not know to what degree of influence that the New York Subway had the plans for the underground parts of Sydney. Even now, the vast bulk of Sydney's railways are above ground ribbons that cut entire suburbs in twain. It is this reason that Sydney is probably unique in running double-deck suburban rail cars because Sydney was already running full-size Pullman coaches in the suburbs and decided to make excellent use of the available space through better packaging in the 1960s.

The upper platforms of Wynyard, remind me of many Stations in New York City. The upper platforms of Wynyard sit inside rectangular boxes, held up by vertical steel girders, and crossed by other steel girders. Platforms 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 at Wynyard are not as pretty as St James or Museum, and also not as pretty as Platforms 5 and 6 below. The similarities between the steel boxes of the NYC Subway and the upper platforms of Wynyard are striking.

This however is the punchline to this story. Wynyard while it does not match the rest of the underground parts of Sydney, has a cousin to its immediate north and both of them, I think have their design language informed by the very obvious thing in between - the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It makes perfect sense to dress both Wynyard and Milsons Point Stations with vertical steel girders when you consider that the Sydney Harbour Bridge is also a working monument to the occasional foresight which happens in the New South Wales Government. 

I do have seen evidence that Wynyard used to have stubby little roundels its their upper platforms, that jutted out of the steel uprights, but I have no idea about Milsons Point. The photos which I have seen of the former and now eliminated tram platforms, indicates that they did not have them but I have never seen any photos of the train platforms in the early days of opening. I do know that Circular Quay which is kind of another steel box girder platform had them and is now a bit sad for losing them. I also know that Milsons Point Station has station entrances at street level which are in the same style as St James.

I wish they'd put the stubby little roundels back, or do what the NYC Subway does and put lots of station signs on the upright girders. This space is crying out for decoration.

Horse 3175 - Hookturnistan Takes More Territory

To the north of New South Wales is a strange land where everyone is trying to hurl themselves into the ocean at the first opportunity, or lie around outside and melt in the sun and/or turn their skins to leather. To the south of us is an equally strange land which thinks that it is the cultural capital of Australia but is actually so hyped up on lattes that it can not go to sleep. In reality the only culture which exists down there is Australian Rules Football on telly and taking up half of the newspaper, the occasional comedy show, and the utter hilariousness of Hookturnistan. The moniker 'Hookturnistan' is based on a set of road rules, a sign and a flag; which is completely alien to the rest of Australia. Or is it?

Hookturnistan's famous infamous hook turns, are the result of having tram tracks run down the centre of the road. Tram tracks by their nature direct trams where to go. They also by accident, influence cars, motorbikes, and especially bicycles, where to go as well; hence the hook turn. If a thing wants to turn to the right across traffic, the influence of tram tracks want to send that thing further up the straight line that it was previously going on; which for a motorbike or a bicycle, is absolutely disasterous. Get caught in a tram track while making a turn, and motorbikes and bicycles can fall over; which means that their riders very quickly join the ranks of temporary Australians and Grimaldi Reaper arrives to serve his bitter cup, hot and fresh.

A hook turn then, works by making traffic wanting to turn to the right, wait on the far left hand side of the intersection; so that the can cross tram tracks at right angles. In waiting on the far left hand side of the intersection, they actually cease to be part of the through traffic and wait upon the lights of the cross street's traffic before they can proceed. To the unsuspecting traveller who has never seen this before, they look as weird as all get out.

Once upon a time before the 1960s, the then Liberal Government decided that it wanted to slight the Rail, Tram and Bus Union and came up with the idiotic decision to tear apart and destroy what was at the time the world's biggest tram network. Curiously in the 2010s, another Liberal Government has decided that it wanted to slight the Rail, Tram and Bus Union, by selling off Sydney Buses which used to be government owned, and then installing private operators as well as building tram lines which are also to be run by private interests.

With trams returning to Sydney, this has necessitated the reinstallation of tram lines and highly pedestrianised streets and curiously, some quasi hook turns.

This looks very much like a hook turn. As far as I can tell, there are three of them in George Street; all heading in a southbound direction. They are not signposted as hook turns because the fair and decent people of New South Wales would be weirded out by such a thing but believe me, they function very much like a hook turn.

Firstly, the T light comes on for trams to pass through the intersection. Cars are held in the far left lane until the tram has passed. Then the red light comes on for the trams and a green right turn arrow comes on for the cars. Once they have had their turn, then the other direction in the cross street gets its turn. Now admittedly this is not exactly the same set of road rules as a hook turn but functionally it is very very close.

For practically the entire of the T1 line to Dulwich Hill, the T2 and T3 lines in the Eastern Suburbs and what will be the T4 line in Parramatta, trams run in their own separate reserved areas and do not share roads with regular traffic. This means that unlike the people of Hookturnistan, the fair and decent people of New South Wales never get the joy/frustration of doing 40km/h in a Fairway and have to share the road with trams. Nevertheless, for a very few select intersections in Sydney, they do have the opportunity to do something which looks very similar to a hook turn.

I personally see no reason why lanes 7 and 8 of the Sydney Harbour Bridge should not be reclaimed by tram lines and what would be a restoration of the Northern Beaches Tram lines, would once again use platforms 1 & 2 at Wynyard. Maybe if a tunnel was driven underneath Military Rd and then popped out onto a viaduct and giant bridge across the Spit, then the line could be extended to Manly, Dee Why, Newport et cetera.

Places like Strathfield, Kogarah, Bankstown, Bondi, Hornsby, Blacktown, and Penrith, would all benefit greatly from having a tram network complement their train lines. In some cases, trams could claim the existing T-ways for buses for corridors as this means that no new disruptive fairways would have to be built.

If Sydney were to reclaim its rightful place as the city with the biggest tram network in the world, then we could learn from Hookturnistan to the south. As it is, our sun-drenched neighbours to the north have already decided that trams are useful in the place that we export unruly teenagers to once a year. Bring back the trams and we could implement hook turns too.

Horse 3174 - Eudaimonia - Element XIV - Humility

When I were a wee lad in school, the thing that was all the rage was the idea that kids needed "self-esteem". I remember a lot of lectures in class about self-esteem this and self-esteem that; because the teachers were worried that if the kids didn't have self-esteem, we'd all go off and join a gang. I do not know what kind of gangs that they imagined rolling around suburbia in the 1980s and 1990s but I am sure that having self-esteem would not have addressed the issues of racism, classism, bullying, and straight up nastiness exhibited when the rule of the schoolyard is in force.

In the Christianisation period of the Roman Empire when the Roman religion was being re-synthesised by the church, a fashionable thing to do was to make lists of everything (always with the lists) and one of those lists was the Seven Deadly Sins. It is not by accident that one of the seven deadly sins is Superbia, or what might be called "Pride".

I mention these two things because I simply do not know if a lack of self-esteem is the exact inverse of Superbia on the other. Conceivably I can think of circumstances were one should take pride in what they have achieved and what they have built because it is good and proper to do so. Superbia is listed as one of the seven deadly sins, and I am sure that if you asked people that they would agree that one of the worst traits a human can have is that of pride; but because of the consequences that that has. 

Perhaps the attendants of Superbia as King of the Kingdom of One, are useful at arriving at where a sensible middle is. Superbia's twin sons of Vainglory and Arrogance, seek to direct accolades, glory and praise, to someone who perhaps is not inherently deserving of it. Maybe the answer is purely to ignore the attendants, because whatever crown that Superbia has can not shine in the absence of a light being shone upon in. In short, it might very well be acceptable to be proud of yourself but not to the point of conceit.

However, if the light is shone outwards, then what we arrive at is an idea approaching humility. Humility is not about thinking less of one's self, but of thinking about one's self less. If we can invent some kind of general principle here, then the general idea would be to have a modest opinion of one’s self (not a low opinion) in order to better understand the kosmos. The two word motto "know thyself" seems to also apply to valuing one's self. I suspect that in turn, this will open our eyes and hearts to developing empathy towards other people as well. 

Humility insofar as it is neither Vainglory and Arrogance, is also not self-denigration. Humility teaches us that not only are our neighbours are no less valuable than we are but that we are no less valuable than our neighbours. Instead of the empty rhetoric that all people are created equal, Humility teaches us that all humans are indeed equal and valuable; including ourselves. In looking past our superiority and self-importance, we may perhaps find something greater than ourselves and in the process realise that we are not as pathetic as we thought.

Surely one of the most excellent ways to practice humility is to let other people speak. People have a need for validation and recognition, as well as having their concerns and complaints heard and listened to. It find it no coincidence at all that the political process that the referendum will be heading towards as a result of the series of dialogues with produced the Uluru Statement From The Heart, is called the "Voice". I also find it no coincidence at all that the biggest opponents to the Voice, want to claim that because we are all "equal" that the concerns and complaints  of first peoples should not heard and listened to and nothing should be done.

Letting others speak is important but by the same token, I also do not think that we should demand from people to tell us things that they might not be comfortable with. Some things are just none of our business and duty of care aside, we should not pry into the affairs of other people; especially if we are deliberately looking for something to beat them into the ground with later. Humility does not demand what it is not entitled to. 

Speaking as the perpetual pessimist, I expect things to go wrong. Although having said this, when things go right, I am very happy. It is important to accept being disappointed because if we do not, Vainglory and Arrogance will attend quickly and demand that we get our fair share. The uncomfortable truth is that we have all made mistakes that have either affected ourselves or others in our lives. There is no reason or sense to judge someone else for their mistakes. One should try to apologise for one's mistakes, correct the issue if possible, and be very quick to forgive others. How many times should you forgive someone? As many times as it takes for grace to be extended and to make someone better.

It is also worth remembering that it is perfectly okay if people do not like you. We can not demand the friendship of others, any more than we can demand that a Granny Smith Apple should turn itself red. It is just entirely possible that owing to personality differences, that other people will find you grating and difficult. By the same token, one should try to be polite and grateful because clinking along together underpins a lot of the mechanical actions of civil society. This might also involve complementing other people, which may involve paying attention to people more attentively.

One of the things that I am extremely disappointed in which has occurred especially over the past 10 years, is how the idea of "virtue signalling" has come to be demonised. Virtue should be signalled. Virtue should be practiced. Virtue should be modelled. Instead what we've seen are Superbia's attendants of Vainglory and Arrogance writ large; at the centre of public policy and politics, which has resulted in people seeing their neighbours as less valuable as themselves. If Humility was a public practice, the world would change very quickly. Of course, all of this is very easy to say but much hard to do, when you are literally the centre of your own universe.

Horse 3173 - There Is No Absolute Right To Your Income And Yes, The State Does Have The Right To Taxation.

With reference to the current Stage 3 Tax cuts which the Albanese Government is being held over a barrel to deliver by the stridently selfish right-wing media, one of the frequent justifications for this is that the government taking 'our money' off us. This assertion is never challenged because to even ask the question of "Why doesn't the state have the right to claim back money that it has issued?" is to become the target of ridicule. 

I find this assertion being almost always treated as fact as absurd as saying that there are three planets which go around the sun, that the sky is is purple, and that kangaroos go merrily bouncing across the Pacific Ocean.

This unchallenged assertion that it is unfair to take people’s money off them, is then weaponised by saying that it is unfair to take people’s money off them by force, to then pay for something they may not want. Be it education, funding for the arts, and especially the demonsation of welfare, this is used to build massive amounts of resentment and then use that resentment to rally support for ever anemically smaller government.

Without any kind of language and thought to challenge this asserted orthodoxy, even people on the economic left will refer to taxation and appropriation of money as 'our money'. The justification by the left is that taxation makes things which are bought in Commonwealth possible, as though the collective project of Commonwealth is some kind of extended charity. In other words, we give up 'our money' for the greater good of society.

Again, I find this equally problematic. As the issuer of currency, it doesn't even matter which theory of money that you hold to, ultimately the only reason that money has inherent value at all is the reasonable expectation that the state can issue and destroy it through taxation.

The second thing that I find problematic is that central plank that any money is in fact 'your money'. Prima facie feeling suggests that being paid a wage, or dividends, or rent, for work that you have performed is just. This implies that money in fact represents something which is owed to you by right. If this is true, then the competing claim by the state is taking away something which aught to be yours by right. Feelings are not facts and even just scratching the surface on this claim reveals that practically everyone in the world shares an this universal assumption.

It is a useful and practical fairy tale but it is not really true. Ultimately, you do not have an absolute right to your pre-tax income.

As the basic question. What kind of right do you think you have? Is it a Legal Right? This is very easily proved as a nonsense. Is it a Moral Right? Again, this is another nonsense. We have need to do some mental work to sort this out.

Very clearly the state has the Legal Right to claim and lay taxation. A Legal Right is a thing allowed or conferred by law and since the state not only has the power to write law but also the power to write law with regards taxation, then very clearly you do no have an absolute right to your own pre-tax income if you are legally duty bound to pay tax on it. The state can also impose penalty and even gaol sentences for people who do not pay tax. 

If there is not an absolute Legal Right to own's pre-tax income the there must be a Moral Right, right? Wrong. How can you possibly claim a Moral Right, when the distribution of pre-tax incomes that the market determines is not perfectly just. Is it perfectly just that someone working in the Finance Department of a bank gets many many times more than the scientists who worked on finding a vaccine for COVID, or working to find a cure for cancer. Is it perfectly just that the CEO of a corporation should get paid hundreds of times the pre-tax income of the people who actually do the work to generate the income for the corporation? 

The problem here in suggesting that there is a Moral Right to people's pre-tax income is to suggest that the results that the market just happens to throw up is perfectly just and this is very clearly a lie. The market itself is an amoral beast, populated with amoral actors, who act in decidedly immoral ways. To hold that there is a Moral Right to pre-tax income given all of this, would require the market exactly delivers to people exactly what they deserve and this is also very clearly a lie.

Maybe by sheer coincidence there are examples where the market delivers to a person exactly the pre-tax income that they deserve but I would suggest that this is a rarity rather than normal. Before you start lashing me to a pole and demanding that I be flogged, let me ask you the question. Are you paid exactly what you deserve? I have no doubt that you would tell me that you have worked hard for that money, or made efforts which demand rewards, or that you have talents and skills which you have honed which other people do not have, but the awful truth is that other people can claim exactly the same thing. An imperfect and often deliberately unfair system can not deliver just results. It is almost guaranteed that the pre-tax income that you have been paid, is not fair when compared to what other people get; especially those who have been underpaid and have their incomes effectively stolen from then before they see it or those who are paid an obscene amount of pre-tax income.

It then becomes a matter of responsibility and duty for the state to show utter disdain and disrespect to people's pre-tax incomes. If the mechanism for distributing those pre-tax incomes is not just, then the state which should have a duty to justice, has the responsibility and duty to correct that moral failure of distribution. Anyone who tries to demand that lowering taxation in order to give people more of 'their money' has already lied because they have taken the assumption that the market was perfectly just in delivering it in the first place. You can not hold up a moral argument, when the assumption that you have used to get there was already amoral and immoral.

The suggesting that your pre-tax income is the money you deserve, is itself a lie. Granted there may be practical reasons to respect the fads, fancies, whims, and wishes, or the market because of practical necessity in laying and collecting taxation but the state has absolutely no moral reason to respect the whims of the market. Any politician or political pundit who propagandises that it is a good thing, in and of itself, to give people more of their 'own money' is either confused, or a liar.

The imposition of taxation and the collection therein, stems from the virtue of commutative justice. Forget any notions of a presumed social contract between the individual and the state, or even the provision of services provided in commonwealth by the state. Taxation is an obligation of the state to provide justice, in the face of an amoral and immoral market.

If anything, taxation is just another cost of doing business and therefore individuals and firms actually owe the state and all the citizens in commonwealth a fiduciary responsibility to pay it. Businesses that manipulate the tax rules to reduce or avoid paying tax impoverish the society in which they operate both financially and ethically. The payment of tax should be properly viewed as the price for gaining access to society. If you don't like it, then you should get the heck out of the country immediately.

Horse 3172 - Don't Mess With The Panda

Someone much wiser that I once said that "the first casualty of war is truth". The problem is that as a child who was born in the middle of the Cold War, which had very clearly defined goodies and baddies, and who still lives in a country which has huffed its own myth making for so long that it has no idea what objective truth even looks like, I will not find the truth by looking in our own media.

I can take it as lore that News Corp and Nine Ent Co. are unreliable narrators with regards Ukraine. The ABC and SBS no longer have the teeth to be able to bite into the truth properly any more and neither of them have boots on the ground. Channel 7 and Network Ten have joke news desks and specialise in ambulance chasing and the footy. This leaves other international news outlets like DW, NHK and curiously, Xinhua.

Xinhua is the Chinese State News Network. Just like reading Pravda, reading Xinhua is sometimes like reading propaganda from the Mars Corporation but instead of wanting to sell you packets of M&M's or Purina cat food, the product that Xinhua is trying to sell is China itself. Admittedly that's also not exactly a recipe for objective truth but unlike News Corp or Pravda, Xinhua doesn't have a dog in the fight. Rather, China would prefer that it all just goes away quickly.

Xinhua reported that on Wednesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, held a telephone conference. Of course Xinhua will toe the line and try to paint China in the best light but in this case, at least a kernel of truth may have accidentally fallen out.

On the Ukraine crisis, China always stands on the side of peace and its core stance is to facilitate talks for peace. China did not create the Ukraine crisis, nor is it a party to the crisis. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a responsible major country, China would not sit idly by, nor would it add oil to the fire, still less exploit the situation for self gains.

Dialogue and negotiations are the only viable way out for the Ukraine crisis and no one wins in a nuclear war.

- Chinese President, Xi Jinping, as reported by Xinhua, 27th Apr 2023.

China has a problem. Directly to their north is an idiot superpower with nuclear weapons who threatens to use them. On the other side of an ocean is another idiot superpower with nuclear weapons who has used them in the past. The crafty panda is a big enough superpower that it does not need to fear either the idiot bear or the idiot eagle, but it does need to be careful lest it annoy either one of them and ruin its day.

If you want to find what could be the closest resemblance to the truth, then find a neutral party for your reportage. When it comes to the reportage of the War in Ukraine, then inadvertently China is about as neutral as you can get. They have to be. China does not want to be dragged into a conflict which has no benefit for it. 

What you absolutely did not find in the press in Australia, not in News Corp, Nine Ent Co, ABC, SBS, Channel 7 or Network Ten, was the intent that the Chinese Government appears to be signalling here. Why should you? Commercial news networks, especially News Corp, are too busy with their own propaganda to worry with the propaganda of a foreign designated enemy power. Sky News Australia which doesn't even exist for Australians is absolutely not going to report something like this which is in direct conflict to their own narrative that China is looking for a war to participate in.

https://english.news.cn/20230427/fc2db69be7294b21851612e7147bdb93/c.html

BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday held phone talks with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky.

During their conversation, Xi reiterated China's core position on promoting peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, and announced that Beijing will send a special representative on Eurasian affairs to visit Ukraine and other countries to conduct in-depth communication with all parties on the political settlement of the crisis.

...

Persuading Russia and Ukraine to sit down at the negotiating table is indeed a much harder task. Fortunately, voices for peace and rationality are building. More people are waking up to the fact that a protracted crisis to some extent is detrimental to everyone in the world, and dialogue is the sole viable way out.

- Xinhua, 27th Apr 2023.

The West's basic stance in all of this is to do very little, lest they provoke a mad man with nuclear weapons. Mr Putin in starting a war with Ukraine has been quite sneaky in the fact that as Ukraine is not a NATO country, starting a war with it will not provoke or engage NATO into action. The United States' response to all of this is to do as close to nothing as possible. The United States is too busy fighting its own culture war and I think that secretly there is a lot of Russian money tied up in American business, which is why the right-wing propaganda networks of the United States want to keep the United States out of this.

There's an interesting tail on this article. In wanting to paint China as a peaceful power (sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows everywhere), Xinhua has still put a sting in it and indicated that China is in fact very angry with the idiot superpower to its north.

"Those who refuse to endorse peace and add fuel to the fire are possessed by their mindset of bloc confrontation or care only about selfish gains from the tragedy."

- Xinhua, 27th Apr 2023.

Clearly is is a jab at Vladimir Putin. It goes without saying that Xi and the Vladster or their proxies have spoken at length to each other throughout this stupid conflict. Also very clearly is that China thinks that this conflict is a load of nonsense, and given that the idiot superpower across the ocean will not act in its self-appointed role as policeman of the world, then the sleepy panda has to act in its place. 

The panda has noisy neighbours and wants to roll over and go back to sleep. Don't make it go upstairs and say rude things to you.