The Hames Report

Fear of the Light

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light ~ Plato

Honest, sensitive, overpowering. His words leapt off the page - etched into my lingering anxieties about the immediate future of humanity, set against the canker which continues to gnaw away at the souls of old empires –actual and imagined.

This particular Facebook comment was posted by a friend in California. A loving family man, smart, a designer of some note. A true visionary. But what struck me was the sense of intense gloom from a human being whom I know to be so unfailingly optimistic about almost everything.

There’s only one dominant emotion in the world today and that is fear, he said. What’s next is my own fear. What do I say to my boys and their sister? What can I do as a father in a storm this big?  How do I protect them from hate and the growing risk in front of them?

The despair which triggered such sombre reflections from my friend was the senseless death of George Floyd on a street in Minneapolis by police officer Derek Chauvin.

Today America is fuming with anger. There is a sense of apprehension as people take to the streets and turn on each other yet again. In the past year 1,014 people have been shot dead by police in America. African Americans are killed at a lopsided rate in comparison to other groups. In most of these cases, the police are not charged with any wrongdoing.

It is time to face the facts. Deeply ingrained racism still fuels hatred in this deeply-divided nation. After decades of growing inequality and conflict it is clear that racial justice does not exist in what is essentially a police state – one failing to live up to its own self-conceit. This is a state that still deludedly sees itself as exemplary - yet has become nothing more than a playground bully. A physically intimidating brute with the mind of a narcissist and less courage than the fictional lion on the yellowbrick road..

But my rage extends much further than that. Although America’s descent might offer us a glimpse of our own fate, focusing the spotlight purely on the US or its eccentric President is a distraction. My rage reaches past any one nation, beyond the fraternity of universally-ineffectual leaders, into the deepest recesses of the human condition we have so casually crafted and a citizenry lobotomised by money and materialism.

I am outraged by the persecution and suppression of people based on the colour of their skin, their gender, or religious beliefs. I am outraged by the apocalyptic terror stalking our world, obliterating the simplest of freedoms to which all human beings are entitled. I am outraged at the alleged duplicity levelled at countries like China when those screaming their abuse from the rooftops are poisoned by even worse prejudice and ignorance. And I am outraged by opposition to the slightest of changes to the neoliberal world order from an entrenched global coalition of the military, financial, surveillance, and corporate elite.

I am also infuriated at the way fear has been weaponized by the media, then seized upon by governments to engender dread in a virus, however deadly it may or may not turn out to be, so that societal control and manipulation can be instituted with so little effort.

In the worst case I could find of state-endorsed suppression by fear, Indonesian officials forced social distancing violators to recite verses from the Koran, stay in "haunted" houses and submit to public shaming on social media. Around 340,000 troops across two dozen cities were deployed to oversee enforcement of measures aimed at halting transmission of the disease. But provincial leaders bolstered even these draconian efforts with their own intense crusades. Police in western Bengkulu province, for example, forced offenders to wear placards with pledges to wear masks and keep their distance from others in the future. Images of the wrongdoers were then uploaded to social media to maximise the impact from public shaming. Is this what we have come to as a human family?

In the spring of 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, Martin Luther King gave his first major speech on the Vietnam War. In speaking out about the conflict in southeast Asia, the civil rights leader shared his conviction that there comes a time when silence is betrayal. So I write this piece motivated by the need to stand up to bullying, and obliged to speak out rather than to remain silent.

Now is the time to ask a fundamental question: How can any leader, indeed how can any person of moral integrity, remain silent when almost every life-critical system in our society is plagued by racial and gender biases - from healthcare to education, and philanthropy?

As the COVID-19 panic has us cowering in our homes, avoiding routine physical contact, risking hypoxia from the prolonged wearing of masks, increasingly suspicious of others, of authorities, and fearful of tomorrow, it seems the arc of humanity, so long curving towards greater justice and equality, is suddenly trending in another direction. Optimism is fading. Loneliness, anxiety, domestic violence and depression are rampant. And now rioting. In this eclipse, will progress towards a more just society stall?

The greatest fear however emanates from those who fear change itself. A gulf is opening up between those who own the means of production and the billions of under-privileged serfs in that system. The present pandemic has only served to underscore the many flaws endemic within the globalised edifice we refer to as human civilisation.

Common people see a light ahead – a rare chance for regenerative revelations to realize greater economic and social justice. The elite among us fear this light. Though irrational, any kind of societal awakening is a risk and thus labelled communism or a socialist plot. It is a sure sign that control is slowly slipping through their fingers. Their fear is symbolized by notions such as a revitalised commons, cooperative or mutual management structures, permaculture, local currencies, peer-to-peer enterprise, decarbonisation of the economy, and low or zero economic growth. Ideas like these are anathema to the ruling plutocracy. Worse still, they are brusquely dismissed without the kind of analysis that would normally be undertaken.

Not all, but many business owners together with government policy makers, want society to return to normal. They see the COVID-19 purely as a nuisance - an interruption to the economy and to business-as-usual. Most people, however, have caught a glimpse of life that vanished years ago: quiet streets, sunny skies in place of smog and clear water in the streams, more time at home with the family, a chance to read a book, take the dog for a walk on the common, or potter around in the garden perhaps. These people do not want to return to business-as-usual. They favour hitting the reset button – although they mostly know what they do not want rather than appreciating with any great clarity what the new era could look like.

For the time being, however, they prefer this new quality of life to the old one with its daily commute, traffic jams on the freeway, waste and pollution, pointless competition, and the suffocating addiction of buying stuff they do not need. They want to explore life-affirming activities instead of the uninterrupted, monotonous, meaningless slog for material wealth.

So now we have a problem which goes to the core of who we are as humans. Those who have done well from the way things were before may not possess the inclination, nor the creative imagination, to see any advantages in the alternative reality we welcome. They want to keep intact the world they knew – a world that brought them such comfort and delivered so much.

But nobody can be left behind. Consequently there is much work to be done if we are to escape the gravitational pull of materialism in order to create a more bountiful future for all. That means we can no longer hide in the intermediate spaces of apathy and silence. We must stand against past inequities, pointing out greed, self-serving policies and flaws within those systems that no longer serve us all...

A mindful uprising is needed. Peaceful civil disobedience might need to be actioned. We can say no to pointless work, for example. We can refuse to buy goods manufactured with slave labour. We can end our reliance on plastics, and ban toxic substances. We can stop investing in old smokestack industries. Why many of us can even grow our own fruit and vegetables. There are so many life-affirming actions we can take with relative ease.

Naturally, finding viable pathways through our dazed and unstable world will not be easy, particularly while greed and the politics of money continue to define what is important or not, human wellbeing is sacrificed on the altar of economic growth, fewer and fewer of us get to own the means of production, and our passion for perpetual war endures.

Over the past seven or more decades we have been seduced by advertising claiming to cure all our ills. In response we have demanded novelty, celebrated powerful men as they indulged in crimes against society, ignored the cries of nature to curb the use of fossil fuels and chemicals, entertained ourselves with social trivia as opposed to engaging with social movements, and turned from the spiritual to the secular.

But all that is past if we want it to be. So let us speak out. Let us not fear the light. Instead, let us break the silence of complicity. Let us speak with humility, confident in our faith that a better world for more people is achievable. This is our time. Let us act now.

The Fool on the Hill

The Fool on the Hill is a song by the Beatles which appeared on their 1967 album Magical Mystery Tour. The words describe the titular "fool" - a solitary figure who is not understood or appreciated by others, although on some counts he appears to be wiser than his detractors.

These lyrics have resonated poignantly with me over the past few months. They gave me a level of comfort in times when I was about to give up, and strength to carry on as I sought to remain emotionally detached from a situation I had never previously experienced. Hatred.

Even as a child, when I was disliked and bullied by most of my peers, I did not suffer to the extent that I have over the past few weeks. I have been labelled a quack. Accused of treachery and dishonesty. Members of my family have been threatened with physical violence if I do not desist from speaking my mind. One Facebook “friend” even suggested he would “knife” me as soon as I returned to Australia.

I was naïve to believe that my investigation would matter that much. In wanting to get to the crux of the situation in which we now find ourselves, simply so as to be able to communicate the truth as excavated from a residue of lies, half-truths, and deliberate obfuscations, I found that most people only want to march in lockstep behind the official story. They do not want anyone to point out the inconsistencies in that story – least of all to proclaim it a sham.

At least I now understand why the Nazis came to prominence in pre-war Germany, how the general public remained ignorant of the holocaust, and why nobody - not a single journalist, artist, or leading community figure - spoke out against the politically-contrived narrative.

Since early January I have worked intensively, though not exclusively, to separate facts from fiction regarding the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the ensuing pandemic. My aim was simple: to set aside personal opinion and inbuilt biases as much as I could in order to examine medical and epidemiological evidence. I wanted to make sense of messaging from various media outlets, sort through conflicting views and explanations, and study the unprecedented fear this crisis unleashed around the world. Only then would I be able to fully grasp the complete picture.

So I spoke with medical experts in order to access a diverse range of views, including three healthcare professionals in Wuhan – the assumed source of the outbreak. I listened to hours of recorded conversations with some of the world’s most highly qualified epidemiologists and immunologists. I viewed numerous video clips exploring the pandemic from diverse vantage points, including several that have now been removed from media channels like YouTube.

Because of my extensive network of contacts in China I was able to interrogate many officials and academics to gauge the temperature of local feelings. I used AI to surface and analyze hundreds of online papers, studies, statistics and reports, including the discredited and wildly inaccurate Imperial College modelling undertaken by Neil Ferguson that led to the assumed imperative for urban and countrywide lockdowns. And I posed question after question to trusted sources around the world until I was exhausted...

Midway through my inquiry, on Monday 30^th April to be precise, I was invited to talk about the pandemic on Channel 9’s Today Extra breakfast show in Australia. By now I had reached some degree of clarity regarding several contentious issues. I realised that wildly diverse opinions, based on equally specious assumptions, were replacing reasoned argument in most of the public discourse taking place.

I decided to speak my mind, that with the assent of a producer who was only too aware of my notoriety, even though it was evident that my findings deviated considerably from the official narrative most people had already accepted without challenge.

Of course, just because a story is accepted as factual by a majority of people, does not make it the truth. My research, even at that stage, indicated we were being sold a pack of ambiguities wrapped up in propaganda. Nothing I have learned since has convinced me otherwise.

My top 23 points are not contentious when weighed against triangulated evidence. Although research is still continuing in attempts to understand the unique characteristics of the SARS-CoV-2 virus each point below can be scientifically validated to an extent that is compelling - or otherwise has been standard clinical practice with proven results over several decades:

1. Given what we already knew about the coronavirus family – a coronavirus detection technology was patented in the US in November 2003 - we could have been far better prepared for an outbreak of this nature. Being better prepared does not mean having access to a vaccine. It means identifying those most likely to fall sick, isolating them, and ensuring they have access to adequate care and treatment.
2. Millions of viruses exist and are necessary for the evolution of life. Conveyed by trans-continental air currents, they proliferate rapidly, constantly mutating to infect animals and birds - which can then spread to humans. Humans are hosts to numerous bacteria and viruses, most of which are benign.
3. It is mostly unhelpful to use the semiotics of war or combat in the context of identifying and treating viral infections as it transmits fear too easily among groups reliant upon accurate information from subject experts.
4. It is still too early to know conclusively how or when the initial outbreak occurred. This is one of the reasons the international community has called for a review. However, the consensus among those studying the spread of the virus locates its probable origin to Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China.
5. We can say, more or less conclusively, that the virus was not synthesized in the Wuhan Institute of Virology - a biosafety Level 4 laboratory in mainland China, nor accidentally released from that laboratory as some have vigorously claimed.
6. The SARS-CoV-2 pathogen might have been brought to the Huanan wet market by an already infected person but that is also considered unlikely. Gene sequencing analysis strongly suggests the virus originated in bats and was transferred to humans through a yet-unidentified intermediary species, probably a scaly anteater.
7. It is generally accepted within the scientific community that the existence of zoonotic viruses is inevitable, and will continue to infect humans, while the slaughter of other species for food continues – regardless of whether the killing is done in industrial abbatoirs or wet markets.
8. Because of the way viruses typically spread and then subside we know that the most effective way of treating most viral outbreaks in the past was by way of herd immunity.
9. In December 2019 and early January 2020 the optimal strategy would have been to test, quarantine, and treat those most susceptible to infection by COVID-19 - including the elderly and patients with pre-existing respiratory conditions like asthma, and cystic fibrosis, for example. Untried emergency strategies only became necessary when that initial opportunity was missed.
10. A mixture of vitamins C, D, and Zinc with small doses of low-cost, readily available, chloroquine (used to treat malaria successfully for the past seven decades) has been effective in treating infections in some cases of COVID-19.*
11. China recently approved the use of the antiviral drug favilavir - initially developed to treat inflammation in the nose and throat – to treat symptoms of COVID-19. Although the results of this study have yet to be released, anecdotal evidence suggests the drug was effective in treating COVID-19 symptoms in a clinical trial of 70 people.
12. COVID-19 is not simply a respiratory disease. It is capable of attacking the whole body resulting in blood clots, pulmonary embolisms, strokes, multi-system organ failure, and heart inflammation.
13. Some treatments originally prescribed for COVID-19 (based upon experience with the original SARS outbreak) actually make infections worse. Intubation, for example, can lead to more deaths than should otherwise be the case. Although clinicians are still scrambling to find answers to this problem it seems as though COVID-19 causes a type of lung damage which differs from that normally seen in patients suffering acute respiratory distress.
14. While the most obvious symptoms of infection are classic respiratory symptoms - fever, pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome, immune complications such as a loss of tissue oxygen, seems to indicate that hypoxia is also present. Thus the presence of air pollution could be a contributing factor in determining those most at risk.
15. There is still no vaccine available for those contracting SARS, which occurred 17 years ago. It is therefore unlikely we will find a vaccine for COVID-19 unless, that is, there is a lot of money to be made for some individuals and corporations through, for example, government-mandated vaccination programs. Although this claim nudges close to a conspiracy theory it warrants monitoring closely given recent authoritarian activities.
16. Conventional medical wisdom cautions against many of the tactics being mandated by governments – particularly the wearing of masks and the strategy of social distancing. There is little scientific evidence to show that medical face masks, or other forms of facial protective gear alone, are effective in keeping healthy individuals from inhaling infectious particles.
17. A lockdown or stay-at-home order was initiated in Wuhan province on 23^rd January 2020. Following that original decision many other governments followed suit, even though the only available “evidence” at the time was a flawed and highly inaccurate model from Imperial College London, which predicted millions of deaths in the UK without widespread mandatory isolation.
18. There is no scientific evidence to prove the strategy of quarantine prevents the spread of a virus in healthy populations with adequate hygiene and access to a good sanitary public infrastructure.
19. The practice of quarantine began during the 14th century in an effort to protect coastal cities from the importation and spread of plague epidemics. While some countries still maintain quarantine stations to isolate those suffering from communicable diseases like cholera or tuberculosis, never before have we quarantined healthy populations.
20. The WHO confirmed that many deaths being recorded are from those dying with COVID-19 not necessarily fromCOVID-19. In spite of figures being published daily by the press, we do not have accurate data about the number of infections, morbidity rate, or deaths directly attributed to COVID-19.
21. It is impossible to compare the statistics released by different countries who are using different strategies to cope with the disease. Factors such as population density, levels of air pollution, relative age of the community, and cultural factors all come into play. This is why it is futile to suggest that “success” in one territory (as in keeping numbers of deaths low) should be adopted by others. In Sweden, for example, though some claim the number of deaths proves the strategy of herd immunity did not work, the average age of COVID-19 related deaths is more or less equivalent to average life expectancy in that country.
22. While some governments have been forced to backtrack on their orthodox ideological positions, with the conservative coalition in Australia, for example, subsidizing workers and small business during this time, it is undeniable that nefarious activities continue unabated, using the pandemic as a smokescreen. The $6.2 trillion coronavirus bailout in the US is a euphemism for the massive transfer of wealth from workers to banks and large corporations. China is using the distraction to legislate matters in its favour with Hong Kong.
23. As democratic governments enact increasingly authoritarian agendas in the name of security and public health, fortunes are being invested opportunistically in the race to find a vaccine for COVID-19. This is partly based on the gamble that fear will persist for the foreseeable future and that many governments will enforce mandatory wholesale vaccination.

These 23 points really only précis a fairly superficial examination of surface data in what has become a unique universal experience. Together they represent a litany of arbitrary and purposeful decisions, trends and events, which have shaped our response to the COVID-19 disease. At a deeper level of inquiry they could well anticipate the future course we take. If that turns out to be the case I find it alarming for several reasons.

Too much of the official narrative is based on fiction and a lack of real scientific evidence of what has and is working in this situation. Assumptions are running wild. Some factors, like the number of infections and deaths, seem to have been inflated and embellished in order to be used for commercial gain, or to justify government edicts.

There is no doubt that the politics of fear has allowed governments to assume an authoritarian stance which would normally cause outrage in less compliant societies.

From out of the shadows of the official narrative an alternative tale is emerging. And with each new theme the plot thickens. I should caution this is not so much conspiracy, nor is it centrally organized by some secret and affluent illuminati. However I do interpret the situation we are encountering as an opportunity by some to further embed their control, wealth and power.

As numbers of trustworthy sources have testified - from David Martin in the US to Dolores Cahill in Ireland, in addition to those disparaged for their much-publicized counterclaims and predilections, like Judy Mikovits and Zac Bush – a lot of what we are being told simply does not make sense. Unless, that is, alternative motives are steering overt behaviours as well as the reporting of events.

In the US, for example, we now know that the declaration of a state of emergency by some state governors and city mayors was not within their legal authority to call, given that it was based on a conviction rather than validated evidence of a clear and present danger to the community. Not only did these officials overstep the mark, their actions may well have been unconstitutional. Agencies ranging from the CDC to the WHO also perpetuated confusion.

Meanwhile publicly-elected officials stand accused of profound negligence by misinterpreting the facts, and not telling or distorting the truth, while instilling fear and dread. As a result the global economy is in tatters. Defects within globalisation, such as the extended web of supply chains and the ethos of just-in-time inventories, have been exposed for their vulnerability.

Many countries are already in a recession with high levels of unemployment, small businesses going to the wall, and even larger companies, such as Hertz, Virgin Australia, Nordstrom, Thai International, and Best Buy, for example, already in administration or preparing to file for bankruptcy.

Even given the shocking nature of our predicament, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Below the churning surface, undercurrents of unprecedented volatility and potential destablization are converging. While the world deals with the consequences of inconsistent antiphons to the very idea of a pandemic, a rare surge in the metabolism of human awareness has injected new meaning into a future characterized less by economic growth and industrial production than health and wellbeing. This great pause we are encountering has allowed us a glimpse into a world we thought long past. This has left many of us with a distinct impression that a return to business-as-usual would be a retrograde, damaging step.

Meanwhile, the imminent energy crisis, high levels of debt, continuing US-China tensions, a rapid collapse in consumer confidence, disposable income, and trust in the established order, rising social discontent, unresolved issues of corruption and incompetence, and the ongoing shut-down of a broad swathe of small enterprises, will all contribute to a further upsurge of default rates and bankruptcies. Another chance to look in the rearview mirror and take a deep breath.

It is possible we are reaching a bifurcation point in societal vitality. Whether we see some form of community reprisal following such delusions and apparent recklessness, or greater levels of social conformity in an environment of dread and misgiving, depends on several unknowable factors.

There is a slight possibility we are sowing the seeds of a quiescent revolution. How officialdom and our dominant power structures deal with that possibility over the next decade will likely shape the fate of our civilisation.

* [1] It is possible that people on ACE inhibitors such as statins and prescriptions for blood pressure would need to temporarily change medication during treatment to avoid additional cardiac problems

The Deadliest Pathogen

When the Centre for the Future was established a little over five years ago, we released a 100-year agenda. Mindful Uprising projected a philosophy of 2^nd and 3^rd order global change. In doing so it pointed to a range of wicked problems facing humanity, and the need to pursue a fundamental shift in human consciousness if we were to resolve these problems in ways that avoided further unforeseen consequences. Designing our way out of trouble, by nurturing a regenerative biosphere fit for our children and their successors to inhabit, and in which they could flourish, was the prime aim.

I always imagined this kind of radical overhaul to our most deep-seated tenets and modes of operating would be unacceptable to the patriarchal elites in developed nations, particularly in the West. Their foundation role, together with a linear concept of progress, blinds them to any alternative. And for all their espoused openness to reform, commonly wrapped in a guarded justification for the status quo, and accompanied by a lethargy which conveniently betrays and delays the need for any considered reform of the world order, our mission was always going to be too intimidating for their congenital lack of imagination and ideological intransigence.

Like army generals who are obsessed with victory, thus sending more and more troops to their death, today’s wealthy power elites assume there is no gain, yet much pain, from a change in direction. Their convictions are both palpable and unsophisticated. Money is the sole driving force while innovation is the means to achieve greater wealth. Biological pandemic or climate change, it matters not – we will overcome. In the end victory over nature will be ours. After all that is what progress means!

This is mass delusion. If we believe they must soon awake from their wealth-induced torpor and find the courage to admit they were wrong, we wait for a miracle. Yet only by admitting their culpability for the predatory nature of capitalism and its toxic effects, and accepting the clemency from society that must follow, can we all be emancipated to take collective action for setting the human project on a very different path.

For those reasons the community to which the Centre for the Future appeals was always going to be a mix of youthful activism, women of vision, and the impoverished - the five billion or so individuals on all continents who are increasingly impatient with those in power and have no desire to inherit the sterile techno-surveillance nightmare which comparatively small numbers of wealthy old white men and their sycophants have been crafting on their behalf.

From its inception we had conceived the mission of Centre for the Future as reimagining the human presence on Earth. By identifying our most life-critical structures, within and across six theatres of human activity, we would discover those that were failing and in most urgent need of renewal. Or so we thought.

Looking more deeply, we noticed something else. A subcutaneous connective tissue acting as the prime agent in a complex web of global commerce and socio-political motivation. A viral-like corrupting influence that has undergone various mutations over the past 200 years and is now a pandemic infecting the entire population.

Needing a label for this destructive pathogen we decided to call it the cycle of desire and consumption – or CoD-c-2015.

CoD-c-2015 relies on continuous, expansive, economic growth to survive. Embedded within its morphology, traces of avarice, envy, and vanity (qualities latent in most humans) alongside prolonged indoctrination and emotional manipulation, give it the power to code and decode, regulate and express itself in ways most of us find habit-forming. These properties enable it to rapidly mutate, adapt, and retain its deadliest qualities in dissimilar conditions. As yet there is no known treatment or effective vaccine. Herd immunity? There can be none. Indeed it offers only herd susceptibility.

Having dramatically increased its infection rates and morbidity over the past 75 years, we can now see that CoD-c-2015 has been incubated by power structures implicit within our own civilization, particularly the ethos of separation (from each other, nature, and other species), the obligation to compete within a paradigm of assumed scarcity, our fidelity to synthetic rather than natural substances, the coercion to generate personal wealth, and linear notions of progress.

This should not come as a surprise given the human population has increased from 2 billion to 7.7 billion people in that time and that an entire industry has been invented to sell the dubious benefits of material possessions. CoD-c-2015 now impacts every individual as soon as they are old enough to have money to spend – often before that as many parents will no doubt attest.

The sheer intensity of our craving for more and more stuff puts untold stress on the productive capacity of systems like healthcare, education, governance, policing, food security or energy, for example, none of which were designed to cater for such large numbers and unbounded variety. We know that these levels of demand and production also cause immense damage to natural ecosystems, although we are still trying to pretend that cannot be the case.

Like any drug that is addictive, its manufacturers invariably seem to advocate larger doses as the cure. Thus advertising and marketing professionals assure us that if we keep medicating on relentless waves of must-have novelties – gadgets, snack foods, accessories and upgrades, we stay in tune with fashion and therefore must at some stage find the happiness we seek.

Except the morbidity rate seems to indicate the opposite. Our society is sick on a plethora of acquisitiveness, while as individuals we are becoming progressively more lonely, anxious, obese, diabetic, depressed and suicidal. To make matters worse, as the cures fail, we start blaming others for the mess we are in. And at that point the cycle deepens and intensifies.

If we step back to view and reframe the problem through a telescopic lens – for this, as you will now appreciate, is not a biological concern, but a question relating to the very morphology of how our societies, cultures, political practices, and economies are intended to work – we start to see a more expansive, predatory, picture unfold.

Like the collective impact of industrial activities on Earth’s climate, CoD-c-2015 has become an evolutionary force in its own right. As yet we are reluctant to classify current mutations of CoD-c-2015 as the enemy, even though the evolutionary pressure it exerts entices us into a deeply distressing and prolonged end-game. Upon reflection, almost every wicked problem facing the human family – including environmental pollution and waste, climate heating, corruption, sickness, and war, can be traced back to one or more features of this unrelenting disease.

Those few people who have identified the damage being done by the CoD-c-2015 pandemic and are trying to do something about it face an uphill battle. This is, after all, a very smart virus that spreads by insinuating itself into the most vulnerable parts of human psychology.

Scrambling for acceptable solutions in what is ultimately a life and death situation, they must:

• Accrue compelling evidence to illustrate that this pandemic, in its most unconstrained forms, is an inducement to societal extinction
• Find ways to slow and eventually halt the industrial production of superfluous goods
• Demand that governments pivot from continuous economic growth (as measured by GDP) to inclusive growth focused on human wellbeing and equity
• Continue to supply the essential needs of the population from appropriately-scaled, locally-sourced, sustainable means of production
• Avoid the trap of psychological withdrawal by calling a halt to manipulative advertising
• Restore physical and mental health, in ways that relieve us of our cravings over time, by finding substitutes for material wealth and meaningless work, as well as the media froth that instills a desire for more stuff and preserves the current paradigm.

Finding solutions for a single addict is difficult enough. Working with a population of billions is unparalleled. Even so, it is an essential part of repurposing the human presence on Earth. And we already have knowledge, processes and tools we can apply to combat this addiction. We must pollute less, eliminate waste by reducing demand, produce only what is essential, utilize renewable forms of energy for production, and create more value from our purchases through recycling. These simple stratagems can help cure us of this condition besides healing the damage we have done to the planet.

I do not for one moment imagine this transition will be easy for anyone. It demands different beliefs and mindsets, alternative modes of interaction, and the acquisition of frugal habits. But I also have no doubt that we must do this. By mobilizing women, youth, and the power of the billions of underprivileged in this world we will prevail.

2020 - The Imprint

As I was driving from my village into the city this morning, a trip of around 85 kilometres, I tuned in to a Facebook Live recording featuring my friend Dr. David Martin from M.CAM in Virginia. David is too dapper for words and devilishly astute. A performer. But under the dazzling surface there is an intelligence that should never be taken lightly.

I share many (though not all) of David’s concerns regarding the various experimental socio-economic agendas being rolled out around the world in the wake of the present pandemic. David is very focused on the US situation of course which, as a citizen and resident, is as it should be. We are global in our perceptions and perspectives, however, and the totalitarian undertones of some government policies, to which we have both been alluding in our very different ways, seem to be growing an undeniable momentum.

Although his preferred style can lean towards the instructional, on this occasion I was struck more by the intensity of inquiry David was using into the conditions we have countenanced in dealing with COVID-19. If we continue to allow the politics of fear, the repetition of dogma, and the erosion of liberty to drive isolation and compliance, he argued, we will submit to an authoritarian trait in our society, and be deprived of the individual sovereignty we take for granted today. If we permit beliefs and opinions to substitute for evidence we run the risk of being controlled by the ignorance of others and penalised each time we state the truth.

As each question underscored uncertainties being marketed as reality, and as validated facts tumbled over each other in their struggle to illustrate untold truths, I began to feel distinctly uncomfortable. This, I am sure, was David’s intention.

The case for a pause, in order to reflect on the deeper news, pushed all of my alarm buttons, in addition to letting loose personal convictions going back years. There is something going on in our society that is deeply disturbing and goes far beyond conspiracy. We need to wake up to what is actually happening, without being distracted by ridiculous conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact.

Silent undercurrents point to a disorienting psychology of addiction and self-destruction (at once calculated yet also involuntary) which is at the heart of the human condition. It seems to me we are complicit actors in a tragedy whose end-game could well be extinction. Unless, that is, we come to our senses and rewrite the final act.

Whether you agree with my assertions, or simply regard them as uncritical detours, the main points are sufficiently valid to be given due consideration. Likewise, whether you concur with his contentions or not, one feature always stands out in David’s recital: a compelling finale.

So, as the broadcast was nearing its close, and I was about to switch to some music as a much-needed counterpoint, I waited. I am glad that I did. David made a fairly obvious, yet pertinent point. Irrespective of the path we choose after the dust settles and life returns to a degree of normalcy, we will always refer to 2020 as a pivotal point in our development. Rather like 9/11, this event and date will be imprinted on human consciousness for generations to come. His closing statement was particularly poignant: The future we will have is the future we will make. Let’s make it together.

Issued with such a challenge what would you choose to take with you into the future? What would you leave behind altogether? What would you target for reform? What systems would you identify for reinvention? And what new design criteria would you advocate using?  In other words, if it was up to you, how would you go about redesigning the human presence on Earth?

Part of the problem in answering questions like these is that the data to which we habitually turn, particularly those uncovered by Google searches, seem to comfortable contradict any suggestion that we are living in bad times. Philanthropist Bill Gates, philosopher Stephen Pinker, and Dr. Hans Rosling who cofounded Medecins sans Frontiers, all endorse the notion that life is better today than it was even a decade ago, and far better than we think it is. We are better educated and more literate, they claim. We are also wealthier, healthier, happier, live longer and enjoy greater freedoms. But is that really so?

With a little more diligence and care, avoiding Google as the first port of call, evidence can be surfaced illustrating a narrative distinctly incompatible with the former.

Driven by our reliance on chemical-based synthetic technologies, alternative factors assume greater clarity. To feed a burgeoning population we adopt intense industrial farming methods. This destroys soils and pollutes oceans, as well as wiping out insects and other species that happen to be a critical part of the food chain. So more processed food is manufactured. But that leads to obesity and diabetes. In our commercially-minded efforts to control these, and other diseases, we submit to constant medication, which causes other problems including mental health issues. And so on....

Is it possible that the progress Bill Gates and his ilk sense a delusion? Are we really blind to the consequences of an unwavering faith in new technologies? Is our wizardry in this field actually creating a toxic, degenerative society? Could the combination of untreated sewage, garbage, fertilizers, pesticides, industrial chemicals, plastics and carbon emissions, be generating an uninhabitable world?

Apart from the fact that statistics can always be found to accommodate almost any proposal, however outrageous, three factors concern me when we are exposed to such overly-positive news. First, almost every individual claiming we are better off today was either born or lives in more affluent nations where, by and large, all their needs are met. Second, comparative data being used are snapshots carefully selected on the assumption that human progress traces a linear path. Third, they do not take into account the complexity of evolutionary dynamics and alternative socio-economic and psychological assumptions about human advancement. More critically, none of these factors get to the core issue – the survival of Homo sapiens by design.

We might be more literate, and better educated, but has it led to increased levels of empathy, tolerance, new ways of appreciating and understanding the world, an ability to step into new epistemologies, or to reinvent our world from alternative frameworks? In an age when our key problems are now so complicated that they can only be resolved by applying higher levels of cognitive processing within alternative design ontologies I would suggest our educational systems, however advanced, are still not up to the task.

We might be wealthier too. But if that is the case why are around 22 percent of young people aged 18 and under in the world’s wealthiest nation considered to be living in relative poverty? How can eight white men rationalise the fact that they own as much as the poorest 3.8 billion?

And if we are happier and have more hope than in the past, why is it that so many people are lonely, isolated, anxious and depressed? Why is domestic violence increasing? Suicide rates climbing? Why has narcissism become the most reported psychological condition presenting to psychologists? And why do so many young people resort to hate crimes, cyber bullying and substance abuse?

There is a canker eating away at the soul of society and nobody wants to venture there. This is possibly due to a combination of factors: the absence of a collective purpose and narrative for humanity within which personal meaning can be shaped; a distinct lack of intrinsic motivation; the erosion of trust in what were previously our most esteemed institutions and professions; increased levels of hatred and blame for our perceived ills; and the feeling of being trapped in an unending cycle of desire and consumption, from which there is no escape.

Is the silent, unseen truth, too frightening to confront? If not why we are trying to ignore it and hope that it goes away? It is far too big and too complicated for any single government, trade bloc or corporation to tackle. It is not an issue the World Economic Forum or its ilk will ponder. When it is mentioned the wealthy turn their eyes away. Advertising executives and economists express their surprise or contempt for any suggestion growth should be tempered. Why, this would only take us back to the dark ages, they protest.

Yet this is not an existential crisis. Simply put... If the economy to which we are wedded needs people to buy things they do not need, or even want, and to do more of that each year than the year before, simply in order to keep the whole structure from collapsing, do we not need a different, more benign, kind of economy?

The toxicity of the current system, though immensely damaging, is not going to usher in the end of the human race tomorrow. It might eventually lead to a society in which a few wealthy individuals lord it over the rest of humanity of course. Right now it is a slight tremor arising from neoliberal theories of production within the context of economic growth. But that tremor has made the entire system harmful. And it is becoming more intense by the day.

Almost all of the strategies designed to accelerate growth while lowering the costs of production - including planned obsolescence, off-shoring, energy from fossil fuels, global supply chains, just-in-time inventories, the pervasive use of synthetic materials like plastics, and industrial farming practices, for example - have joined with rapid urbanisation and over-population to create a highly fragile and vulnerable global ecosystem. 

So here is the crunch. Almost every civilisational challenge we see in the world today - ranging from our obsession with innovation and novelty, the need to be employed in order to earn a living, homelessness, the subsequent stress on our most-life-critical systems, the use of politics as an agent of business, and corporate corruption, to the culture of intolerance that so easily results in wars and conflicts, and the maladaptive coping practices we adopt to deal with our own individual psychoses, can be related back to a cycle of desire and consumption driven by a mixture of avarice and over-production.

Sooner or later we will need to address this dual problem. If the developed nations can rein in their desire to manufacture more and more stuff they do not really need, thus slowing the rate of consumption, in addition to recycling and using closed system manufacturing, for example, the tangible benefits will not be hard to sell to those of us pleading for sanity. We have seen a glimpse of what these benefits might look like in the current great pause occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic. Lower and slower rates of production, curbing fertility through the use of education, constraining the desire for goods and services that are trendy yet unnecessary, will result in our lives being filled with an abundance of activities other than work. Nature can be given time to heal. Out of the hubris of our age a new society can take shape.

How wonderful to imagine this was the point at which we drew a line in the sand and pledged a new beginning. How amazing for our children to be able to stand in 2050 and look back at 2020, imprinted as it will be on their consciousness, pointing to the generative and empathic society we chose to create back then and the many benefits that have flowed since...

Fewer conflicts and wars. The dismantling of nuclear weapons. The elimination of poverty. A world of greater equality and justice, where anyone can choose the extent to which they work or play without penalty. A world in which alllife is sacred and the dominant desire is to help one another, especially those less fortunate, rather than to horde individual wealth. A slower-paced world in which successive generations can be assured of happiness without the fear it might all collapse like a house of cards.

What will that take? Sentience. We need to wake up. That is all.

About Time

A Gift for my Grandson Bassam - to be read on his 16th Birthday

It’s complicated. Such is the social media shorthand for conveying certain factors in a relationship are far from perfect without having to go into tricky explanations. It’s personal is another – code for mind your own bloody business.

This brief article is complicated and personal. Harrowing to write for these reasons, it ranges over two matters that are core to my own journey and close to my heart. I rarely mention either - even with close friends and family. Yet they constantly haunt my more reflective moments. Both are about the long now of time experienced over an individual lifetime, and over generations...

I have always found intimate relationships crucial, particularly in terms of mutual support during tough times, yet extremely difficult to sustain. Seldom do I envy couples who have been together for decades, though there are some notable exceptions. My niece Deb Cameron and her husband Rog, for example, have been married for 36 years. That is not especially long in the grand scheme of things. Even so, it has given them a heartfelt sense of empathy and tolerance, each for the other, within a framework of enduring love, that is increasingly uncommon.

Obviously people in prolonged relationships share a treasure chest of experiences -  photographs, letters, music, and artifacts marking a journey that is unique to them. They watch with awe and fascination as their children are born, grow up, and have their own offspring. They navigate life’s glitches and surprises as best they can. Each year they venture on holiday together, sometimes to new and exotic locations, but often to old hangouts to which they return again and again. This happens to be the Maldives in the case of Deb and Rog. And when old age eventually creeps up on them, they accept any physical shortcomings with a gracious nonchalance.

Sometimes I feel a sense of longing - not for the rite of passage itself, not for the variety of emotional interactions, nor the many ups and downs that punctuate each lifespan, and not for the disruptions that threaten to tear at the fabric of each marriage at some stage. What I miss is the uninterrupted relational continuity and empathy that comes through a life partnership.

My mother, now deceased, was the sole witness to the first forty years of my life as a drama stretching over two acts, though my oldest friend Peter had far more than just a minor role from the end of the first act to this day. In a marriage lasting 23 years, my first wife was the co-author in the second of those acts, while my subsequent partnership with Elizabeth resulted in the writing of a third act. Both acts ended in misfortune. But out of the heartbreak the fourth, and presumably, the final act, was conjured.  

In terms of the continuous flow of life’s experience then, my mother, together with my friend Peter, then Valerie, Elizabeth, and now Suna, my wife of 16 years, had only parts of the panorama in which I was the lead actor. Although the curtain has yet to descend on the final act, none of the actors had or have complete knowledge of how the plot actually unfolded from one moment to the next.

They had glimpses of the action of course. But Valerie never heard me perform my final organ recital at Notre Dame when I was 22 years old. My mother did not meet her last three grandchildren. Peter did not see the world premiere of my fiendishly difficult solo percussion work Quete in Sydney just a few years ago. Elizabeth has not met my youngest son. Suna has little comprehension of the scope of my career. The only witness to the complete drama was me. Everything else is open to interpretation. Even my own memories, of course, are flawed.

As it is with couples, so it is with the human species. If we were able to take that living panorama of a single life, any life, and project it back in time we would reveal lost information. If we had the power to do this collectively we would eventually unlock wisdom. Of course with the rate of today’s technological development, we might be able to do just that by the year 2045 – the year of the projected singularity. Just picture having the whole of one’s life, including the numerous details, decisions, dalliances, and distractions available in the Cloud. Imagine being able to pause and hit the replay button!

But technology does not particularly motivate me. What intrigues me, even more than the wildest tech dreams, is the prospect of rewilding the world, partially with extinct species that, taken out of the food chain centuries ago, precipitated many of the biospheric problems we now face. And of learning from the deep past too. For example, how wonderful it would be if we could access the vast treasure of

indigenous knowledge from ages past – learning from those who have been watching and caring for humanity and its evolution for many hundreds of years and whose decisions were intended to stand for generations.

Just today my friend Dr. Deon Van Wyk, telling me about the work he is doing with indigenous healers to bring their voice into the climate change debate, made it clear that the current pandemic disrupting our world is no surprise to aboriginal elders who have been watching us closely for 200,000 years. Bushmen of the Kalahari have known, since colonial times, that Western society has far more power than it can handle. The Huni Kuin of the Amazon refer to Western civilization as their younger brother, replete with hubristic impulses, in their ceremonies.

So how might we consider expressions of time differently? How can we step into different epistemologies by noticing more about both our granular and flow experiences with time? The expanded now of human awareness, stretching back in time and forward into the future, should be the canvas for any discussions about human progress and where to from here. But that will require humility. And I am not at all sure that we have the maturity we need in order to retrieve such an elusive quality.

When people ask me about what we need post-COVID-19 my response is always the same. I say I have no idea what an ideal society might look like, but it must work for everyone rather than just a few. We will need leadership, but not of the kind we have subjected society to today. We will need governance, but not of the kind that is corruptible and that enables just a few people to become more affluent than the rest. We will need empathy, to eradicate the erroneous idea that we are somehow separate from each other and from nature. And we will need a leap of consciousness so that we can solve our problems in ways that endure for generations to come.

Sliding Into Surveillance

When you take the time to really think about it the communications technologies available to us are quite astonishing. They offer us the capacity for a degree of interconnectedness not available to any previous civilization. In a world of around 7.7 billion people, it is literally mind-blowing that we can connect with almost anyone, anywhere, at any time, and for any reason at all.

Unfortunately, new technologies always bring new problems in their wake. Right now we have a convergence of issues. And these issues are congealing into a moral dilemma.

New digital interfaces, allowing us to locate and to connect, expand our capacity to keep tabs on one another, stay in touch, and communicate at will. At the same time many governments, concerned to improve security, through installing biometric sensors in airports, or algorithms monitoring usage in order to effect more efficient scheduling of public transport, for example, are using these same devices in ways that could easily curtail individual freedoms. Your liberty as a sovereign citizen to choose whom you permit to know where you are, what you are doing, and with whom you are doing it, is at risk.

Both developments are potentially beneficial. Both can be abused. The question becomes: How can these new technologies be used for the public good without suppressing individual freedom? While that is indeed the moral dilemma I have in mind, a number of governments are pondering a different dilemma altogether. Emboldened by the use of facial recognition technologies, they ask: How can we install the capacity to control our society without citizens knowing or being unduly concerned?

Much depends on how the data is used of course, what motivates that use, and how secure the data is. However, it is not just the data that should really concern us. No matter how the system is used, or by whom, what is being constructed here is an architecture for repression.

How would you feel if, under legal edict, Apple and Google were required to install location devices on their smartphone platforms that are incapable of being turned off? In other words, your location was known at all times to anyone with the wherewithal to view the data?

As it happens these two companies, in an unholy partnership, have already developed an app that alerts users if they have come into contact with a person infected by COVID-19. At this juncture, you must opt-in to the system. But it has the potential to monitor about a third of the world’s population. Do you feel comfortable with that?

Would you feel more comfortable if the World Health Organization told you that such a level of real-time surveillance is part of what is required for life to return to a sense of normality in a world without a vaccine? In responding to this question be aware of any unintended consequences. Emergency powers often fail to live up to their potential, yet long outlive their emergencies. Civil libertarians are already cautioning that the public has little ability to challenge any such authoritarian calisthenics once the immediate threat has passed. Besides, it is far easier for a bureaucracy simply to keep the technology on hold, ready for the next pandemic or crisis.

That is not to say that mass surveillance methods could not save lives around the world. In fact, improved monitoring and data sharing would probably allow us to track and curb the spread of future pandemics with a speed and accuracy not possible today. But how would we ensure that the data was not misused?

This is not a comforting question to pose in a world where trust in even our most venerable institutions is rapidly eroding and the members of a small, obscenely wealthy and influential plutocracy, are fearful of losing everything they have devoted a lifetime to create.

Any global crisis is bound to send shockwaves through society to the extent that ordinary citizens begin to awake to new possibilities, including alternative ways of living. We can expect new trends, themes, and strategies to emerge from the current pandemic – just as they did in ages gone by. The Black Death in 14th century Europe, for example, hastened an appreciation of personal hygiene and sewerage systems in urbanized communities. Likewise, the H1N1 flu pandemic of 1918, which killed between 50 million or more, gave rise to the deployment of a social welfare safety net for those caught in the poverty trap.

It is interesting to consider what might now arise out of the current interruption to normality. While there are usually benefits arising from emergencies of this magnitude, it is also highly probable that we will face a few unwelcome surprises.

Existing power structures invariably grab hold of any opportunity to roll out their authoritarian schemas, usually under the pretext of safeguarding ordinary people. This ploy is most evident in cases like the US Patriot Act following 9/11, for example, but has been the norm throughout history. We also know that oppressive programs are typically already well developed before a crisis hits. Furthermore, in modern capitalist societies, the lobbyists for large corporations and banks have already worked out what their demands of the government will be far in advance of any emergency or economic misfortune.

The reasons for such plans are obvious when you think about it:

1. Our most life-critical systems have reached the end of their shelf-life. They no longer work for humanity as a whole. So change is inevitable.
2. The powerful are afraid of the public, and even more terrified of losing their wealth and influence. Their fear is justified. Revolutions are not conjured out of thin air. They arise through a chafing between the dominant narrative, created and sustained by those in power, and the sense of deprivation and unfairness felt by society.
3. On top of this already volatile mix, there is now a convergence between widely-held popular frustration and our ability to network and share our personal pain in real-time.

The environment is ripe for a popular uprising against the status quo. The exploitative nature of the economy, together with an awareness from many millions of young people that they are going to be worse off than their parents, has created a seething fury. A culture war, not among differing ethnic groups but between ideologies, is imminent. We have already witnessed anti-government and anti-corporate protests emerging everywhere from Chile to Hong Kong. We will most likely see more as they link up and the rage is amplified.

In this milieu, leaders are already skittish. Western media have gone into overdrive in a vain attempt to control the reactions of the populace. Internet censorship is being ramped up. Meanwhile, China watches patiently, slightly bemused perhaps, yet largely untouched by the Western ruckus, a benevolent friend to those countries most in distress from the pandemic. Anti-Chinese propaganda from the West merely fuels our own paranoia. They wait...

So how will this moral dilemma, to which I originally referred, most likely be resolved? The escalation in censorship, surveillance, corruption, authoritarian edicts, and the massive wealth transfer from ordinary taxpayers to banks and corporations, are all just a last-ditch stand for control. Policies brought in today are not intended to be repealed after the emergency fades. We are now safely in our homes. Our interactions are constrained. Our mobile devices are being monitored with ever more enthusiasm and intrusiveness. If you were Rupert Murdoch or any of the ultra-rightwing populist leaders we have currently installed, what would your next move be? 

And you? What will you do?