Reg rants on reddit again: American Consumption

For American consumers, how much is enough? (reddit.com) context

This is a question the world has been asking for decades.

We'd really like an answer please, because if Americans don't stop their overconsumption, they're doomed. As much as they may feel picked on and hated by us Euros at the moment, we'd really rather see them succeed than go down writhing in the flames of their own greed. Most days.

There is no possible way they can continue with their current lifestyle. The 1000 mile Caesar salad, the Fiji water and the McMansion at the end of a two hour commute, all are entirely reliant on cheap oil. Problem is, most of the remaining oil is in The Rest Of The World. They have pissed off pretty much all of The Rest Of The World recently, so I wouldn't anticipate a return to cheap oil anytime soon.

So, somewhere along the line, the American mindset of 'bigger is better', the love affair with SUV's on steroids and the crass idolising of bling has to end, and a more sustainable mindset take it place. The only question is when, or is it too late?

Reg's reddit response: The Clash of Civilisations

"The real 'clash of civilizations' is not between 'Islam' and 'the West,' but instead within virtually all modern nations — between people who are prepared to live on terms of equal respect with others who are different, and those who seek the protection. Context

I think the problems runs deeper. The information/communication revolution is still in comparative infancy, but is part of more and more lives around the world. One of the results has been to shrink the physical distances between people even further, often to zero for digital natives. It has, however, caused a widening of the age gap, as the older generation have grown up with industrial age thinking and, for the most part, have difficulty grasping the changes in the world, the workplace and the fabric of society as a whole.

Unfortunately for the world, we have a few more years where almost all of our top lawmakers, policy makers, doctors, educators, reporters and editors are recent digital immigrants. These types of people as a whole have tended to be technology resistant and rely on advice from less-resistant peers. Unfortunately these peers are, like them, digital immigrants - while they may understand the net, they do not grok it like a native, and view it in terms of classical business/economic/social models.

It will be many years before the digital natives, those who have never known a world without the internet, mature to a level where they can gain power out in the real world, but here in cyberspace they will take over.

This is where the tension lies - in the tension between the industrial age paradigms (capitalism, expansion, dominance, secrecy) to the communications age paradigms (sharing, community, transparency, sustainability). Digital natives can see a future where knowledge is shared freely for the common good, industrial dinosaurs cannot imagine something of value without a pricetag.

Where are the cons in Congress?

Right, we all know that politicians are a bunch of lying no-good warmongering crooks, but in all seriousness, in the interests of a functioning democracy, where are the cons in Congress?

In a democracy, everyone should have a say in the running of the country and the making of the laws, agreed? The leaders of the country should be representative of the cultural, ethnic and socioeconomic spectrum of the country. In New Zealand, one of the planet's better democracies, they have a pretty wide mix of race (as NZ didn't commit genocide like certain countries we could mention), a pro-cannabis white Rastafarian and even a transsexual MP in Parliament.

In America, however, the leaders are almost exclusively chosen from the business and economic world, and they run the country for the sole benefit of those aspects of society. What's worse is that they're held to a higher moral standard than ordinary folks. Americans have been conditioned to expect their leaders to be solid upstanding christian family men. Ideally white. They certainly wouldn't elect a black atheist woman into the presidency. What's important though, is that in a country which locks up the largest percentage of its population in the world, those people have no representation. Imagine a Congress with a representative population of ex-cons, and then see how long anti-drug laws will last.

Without honest parliamentary representation like this, all a government has to do to undermine democracy is increase the legal tolerances until everyone a criminal. If you include speeding in a car, almost everyone in the western world probably is. Sociological mission creep, boiling the frog and all that.

Expecting these 'high moral standards' of our representatives, is not representative of society. This happens in the church too - priests are set this abnormally high standard of behaviour and the failure to live up to this standard manifests in aberrant sexual behaviour in many cases. In politics it comes out more as financial corruption, but there's plenty of sexual shit in there too. The point is, these overtly high expectations encourage corruption. Cover up something small, and you're on the road to bribery and muck-raking power plays. We need more politicians of the George Clooney mould. 'Yeah, I did it all, I inhaled, snorted, laid whatever'. Be fucking honest, and then no-one can bribe them and pressure them into serving special interests other than the public.

The US should get more like NZ - get a few stoners, gays (open not closet), ex-cons, transsexuals into Congress. It would make for better TV too.

What to buy me for for my birthday

Oh, I gotta have me one of these. Novelty mugs are normally a no-no, but come one, this is genius.

Disappearing Civil Liberties Mug

Pour in a hot beverage and watch your civil liberties disappear! Mug features the complete text of the Bill of Rights, but temperature sensitive print responds to the change and shows what remains thanks to the Patriot Act!