Honesty Hurts

2009-04-12T05:23:00.000-07:00

It's been a while. In fact, I recently wrote a rant about job interviews and personal enlightenment and got a bit of status on BlogCritics. Seems I started a trend of people talking about mental illness and social distance.

Now, however, I've started writing about intellectuals and how they function within society. How does one be an intellectual and how does one hone those skills? There is much to consider, but so far I have quite a few ideas bubbling upto the surface.

Meanwhile I'm letting a few ideas boil up in regard to my fantasy/alegory about the financial crisis, which is kind of interesting. But you know how it is.

2009-03-12T22:22:00.000-07:00

Hi to everyone who reads this thing. I've been kind of busy lately. I mean, much of what I'm finding out about the postal service is drying up. I mean, it is interesting to look at the global context, but the information I want is in entirely different cities, so I think I may have to put this project on hold for the time being.

Anyway, in other news I have been thinking about the role of institutions in disseminating information, and in particular I have been thinking about the role of educational institutions in the pursuit of this ends. After all, while much of the communication we have in society is dependent on print, broadcast and interactive media, educational institutions are set up to disseminate certain information and socialize the practice of certain behaviour.

The regimentation of rules and standards are a form of communication that has as much influence as the things that we read or write. And it is from this vantage that social hegemony is established.

Something to think about.

2009-03-03T23:42:00.000-08:00

Well, I don't have to go back to job seeker training for a few weeks - or ever if I get this job I've been getting interviewed for. It's tech support for Apple computers. Yeah, I know, I can't stand Macs, but it's work and so long as I at least do it for a few weeks, I can go off and then back on centrelink, and thus have an even longer break without JST.

Meanwhile, my research has been delayed until such time as I can actually dedicate myself to it. And, with me going in for an interview most of tomorrow, I'll be able to visit the state library in the evening.

That said, I've gotten very interested in the literacy rates of the colonies since it occurs to me that literacy would have had to be reasonably high in order for the mail to have so much importance. And what I've found so far is that emigrant literacy was often higher than the countries they were leaving in 1841. Of course, this says little about the literacy of the convicts themselves, but it is something to keep in mind.

Anyway, that's all for today.

2009-02-22T05:08:00.000-08:00

My research into the mail has been progressing with very interesting results. And in particular, I'm trying to figure out if the mail is part of what allowed people to sprawl. After all, the gold rush pushed the establishment of post offices, but it was the metropolitan areas that saw the greatest benefit from the post.

Does it necessarily follow that any communication technology is going to have a long tail, with a huge resources slant toward the city? I wonder. So far as I can tell, the post office suffered the same problems as the telephone and internet, and we must consider the extent to which the city has been expected to subsidise mail routes, wiring and broadband outlay, for the rural communities that would otherwise be left behind.

Speaking of which, I have just been inspired by the following video about violence epidemics, and it has inspired me to consider how technology might in fact be spread in the same way that viruses, fads and memes do. That is, by transmission. And it seems possible that the reason for the cities to become hotbeds for technology might have a lot to do with the opportunity for people to spread it to their friends. Anyway, enjoy the video:

@ Yahoo! Video

2009-02-18T23:16:00.000-08:00

Ok, further research at this point has suggested an interesting twist in the hunt for why QLD sought the establishment of a steamship company with which to trade directly with Singapore and Java.... coal.

Granted, the postal route was important in that it allowed for business mail to transpire, but it was not long before Queensland split off from New South that significant deposits were discovered near ipswitch and up north. I will have to explore this further, because at this stage it appears to be a holistic solution - sell coal and, perhaps more importantly, escape isolation.

See, the thing is, up until the establishment of the Eastern and Australian Steamship Company, which was set up with the subsidy of 20K from the state government, P&O offered absolutely no mail routes to Brisbane or northern Queensland. The post had to go via syd, which was ultimately ineffecient. And it would be some years before it was possible to send messages north by telegraph.

Queensland's connection to Asia was also crucial as a source of cheep labour, so you can imagine the value of that connection.

2009-02-16T00:14:00.001-08:00

Found this a little while ago, and just had to post it:

@ Yahoo! Video

2009-02-15T02:15:00.000-08:00

This weekend began with a further examination of Postal History, and it is interesting to consider the role of population. Especially given some of my sources.

For a start, it's interesting that trade with Asia didn't really open until mid century, and that it was only in the 1859 that Queensland broke off from NSW... prior to all this other stuff, QLD population stats had been lumped together with NSW, which raises questions about the true pop of the region we think of as NSW.

Of course, we should keep in mind that Sydney was pretty big in and of itself. What's interesting however, is that Brisbane got it's own post office in 1842, and then becomes GPO just after separating from new south.

More importantly, the general post office always popped up in the state capital, regardless of geography. For instance, Mail travelled 17 hours by horse and carriage between Launceston and Hobart. Yet despite Launceston being closer to Sydney and the southern states by ship, the mail left port from Hobart. And all the royal mail went from Sydney anyway, so it's no like Hobart had ships carrying mail directly to England via the great circle route.

Given that Hobart was the original settlement and held the bulk of the population, you could probably infer that state wide mail took priority over inter-colonial. Especially when you consider that Launceston has been roughly half the size of Hobart for much of the 20th century, it's fair to say that there was less demand for the mail there.

As for Queensland, mail travelled between two main post offices at the time. The Springs near the Darling Downs (home of the squattocracy) and Brisbane (the home of disenfranchised arrivals). And there was a whole class-warfare going on at this time, with worker shortages driving squatters to bringing in bounded indian labour - later followed by the mass immegration of chinese exiles.

No doubt this would have been facilitated by international trade, and the Queensland government would later pursue the creation of trade and mail routs that went north via singapore and india to England. Could it be that geography was going to shape the technology after all?

We'll have to wait and see what happens in the second half of the 19th century post.

2009-02-10T06:25:00.000-08:00

Today I began the preliminary research for project. I'm beginning with the impact and establishment of the Early postal service, and to some extent the issues that have plagued it over the last two centuries.

What's interesting to note, thus far, is that the post began as something of an adhocracy, in that local correspondence was merely maintained by public servants; and ships would be forced to advertise their departure so people could their letters to post.

Most interestingly, the issues that plauge modern telecommunications are exactly those that challenged the post. Issues of fraud and privacy, the need for infrastructure as demand soared, and the importance of being connected. In fact, waiting for the mail carried just as much tension as we now know in waiting for any important email.

Most interesting.

2009-02-01T17:37:00.000-08:00

It's been almost two weeks since I last posted... in part because we were disconnected by Telstra. But that doesn't mean I'm not still writing. I mean, I've started my new feature on Myopic Thinking, and hopefully, I'll be able to get it into a publication like the Rationalist or Monthly magazines. And failing that, I'll just put it up on blog critics.

The style is somewhat Gladwellesque; but I don't think anyone can hold that against me.

Meanwhile, I've phased in my coffee drinking, and a big part of my creative zest has returned. Broom Man is getting a bit more attention, and I'm trying to get the story fleshed out in a way that my friends will enjoy working with.

D and I discussed the possibility of short episodes, maybe a two part adventure for youtube to enjoy. I'll get back to you on all that.

Sliced Bread

2009-01-20T03:17:00.000-08:00

My creative drought has just broken a little bit as I attempt to come back to the essentials. Enjoy the fruits of this process:

Sliced Bread

This here is a poem about sliced bread,
you know the stuff that comes in plastic
and has those thingys to tie it up at its head.
Not too environmentally sound I reckon,
but it's hardly unnatural if you think about it.
I mean, industrial farming is hardly perfect
but they still rely on things that come from nature.

The benefits largely depend on your tastes,
I guess, but white might as well be sugar
which frankly makes it a bit of a waste.
And then you have different fillings to select -
spreads, cheeses, fruit and veg, whatever will fit.
It really depends on how your lunch beckons,
but personally I like to have my slices thick.

2009-01-18T21:41:00.000-08:00

I've just been reading an article about the role of networks in the american public service. Interestingly enough, the article is from 1997, and much of what's been written still has relevance to modern social networks.

The real problem, however, comes back to how networks diffuse responsibility. And in this way, there is a very strong case to be made that networks represent economic bloating and gluts. Furthermore, the networks of consultants and guru's in private industry could be taken as an indicator of deeper learning problems in an organization.

After all, why would anyone need to bring in an expert if the organization really did encourage learning and development? It's not like a person couldn't educate themselves if they wanted to.

The other problem we must begin to confront, with networks especially, is that of cognitive darwinism. And we need to consider that the sort of people that get recruited into organizations are not necessarily the best for the job, but may simply be the kind that can adapt to the organization's culture. Hence, in the same way that cows and sheep have evolved over the centuries, and ultimately been selected for conformity; it may be that the sort of people that enter organizations are not actually providing optimum value on that return.

Something to think about.

2009-01-10T18:13:00.000-08:00

Been a while since I last posted, but I'm still alive.

Actually, I've been thinking a lot about the problems associated with negotiation and organisational culture. For instance, are there particular factors involved in the sorts of people that get recruited by those handling the process.

And, to that end, I've been thinking about how organisations lose cognitive diversity via the conventional recruitment process. For instance, the sort of people who normally become teachers, are people who like the education SYSTEM - not out of a love of learning - and so they tend to recruit people who are of like mind via the aggregate of processes that ask a particular role of the teacher.

When one goes into a workplace, one assumes a role that prevents the person from taking an objective look at what goes on around them. And these roles also prevent a person from doing what they feel they should.

In the same way that nature has selected for docile cows that do not try escaping, employers want those that serve as extensions of themselves. This selecting for likeness creates an interesting dynamic in reciprocity also. In the same way that people seek staff that serve a particular purpose to them, potential recruits often seek out employers that mesh with the security that they seek.

As with employment, so with government. The dynamic of power relies upon the consent of both parties, and it is their symbiotic relationships that promotes the monoculture that we see on a daily basis. It stifles innovative and alternative perspectives, prefering to vacate responsibility and free thought for the security in common certainty.

2009-01-02T01:49:00.000-08:00

I've been working my way though the Audiobook of Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth, and I have to say, this book is the ultimate synthesis of everything I have read. It offers a secular spirituality that resonates very deeply with my needs, and really gets to the heart of our collective delusions.

In particular, he takes issue with religion as a web of self-justifying belief systems, and instead reflects on the insights that have always set us free. That is, that we identify abstract ideas with ourself, and thus lose touched with who we are as people.

In my own case, I have been inclined to peronalize and think of my thoughts as my self, when it simply is not so. I am a whole person. And this is why attacks on my thoughts have felt so threatening. In fact, I had fled christianity for atheism, and in doing so became entangled in a whole new web of justification and unnecessary logic.

What I have resolved to do in the next week is spend my time in relfection. Feeling and empathizing with others. I will return to this that and the other.

In other news: just wanted to promote Bear Nuts, which I have to say is one of the funniest comics I've ever found.

2008-12-26T15:27:00.000-08:00

It's been an interesting Christmas. I gave out lots of books as gifts, and got back lots of clothes and a mag subscription. Not that I mind, but I just wish that my family really knew me.

But alas, I'm content and happy.

Over the last two days I've drank lots of beer and eaten lots of unhealthy food so I'm now detoxing my body of everything sans coffee. MMMM.

Anyway, one of the things that is now plaguing my mind comes back to the idea of what I'm taking from 2008. It has been an interesting year, but I cannot help wondering how I've grown.

I mean, I've developed a strong interest in logic and unconventional processing, but I'm not entirely sure where I should go with it.

Readers

2008-12-23T02:42:00.000-08:00

Today, I went into town to meet up with Russel. We hung out for coffee, I picked up some books from the library, and we parted so I could complete my Christmas shopping.

Anyway, as luck would have it, I was wearing my Brisbane Writers Festival t-shirt - which incidentally sprouts the phrase "word nerd" on the back. And before I knew what hit me, this Asian guy came up and asked my advice for helping his sister get back into books.

Naturally, I was flattered, and got him thinking about what she likes to read. And come the end of our chat, he resolved to bring her into town and see the BIG book shops. Giver her the real experience.

And with that, he thanked me and walked.

Incidentally, the books I got out included a handful on negotiating... and I fully intend on using them.

2008-12-14T01:54:00.000-08:00

This has certainly been an interesting week. After checking out the Brisbane protest on Saturday, I spent Sunday around the house reflecting. In particular, I've become very interested in the concept of deep learning (or better known as transformational learning).

What defines deep learning, is that it produces profound cognitive change. It promotes reflection and radically impacts on mental processes. Funnily enough though, it often entails a certain amount of pain to be of benefit.

Perhaps it is the cognitive workload that makes it so powerful, after all, an overhaul of your assumptions presuppositions requires a lot of effort. The sense of achievement from such an enlightened state is worth it though.

What I've noticed, however, is that a lot of people avoid doing the real cognitive work to become whole and internally consistent. There is a tendency to flee the uncertainty that cognitive dissonance (i.e. a clash of understandings) can create. And as a consequence they never live too deeply.

A side issue, which I've just started to consider is the idea of cognitive myopia (or short-sightedness). The idea being that we make bad decisions as a consequence of lacking a real vision of the future. That is, that we fail to delay gratification... incidentally, here's a great video on the subject:

Guest Post: Department of Fraudband

2008-12-12T03:34:00.000-08:00

The Australian government has recently set up a blog. Which has created a small amount of hype. The first comments to be posted related to the proposed ISP filter, regardless of the fact that that post was about how 'cool' the government was in starting a blog. Everyday children in some non-descript country setup blogs with more interesting and thoughtful posts.

While we are on the topic, ISP filer is not wanted. Why? Because we all like porn, the internet is for porn. Jonathan, the owner creator and supremo of this blog writes significant and important analsis on this topic which he has posted on blog critics. You can find his article called 'Australians want the internet raw' here.

The other comments related to how the blog was set up and why it was shit. For example, the RSS feeds dont work properly, commenting is filtered - not instant - the comments are sorted in the wrong order, blog posts arent personal enough... As they point out in a later post blogs are for individuals but you can also have team blogs. Hint: teams are made up of people/individuals.

The first few posts seem to be about blogging, blogging about blogging is basicly the death of a blog. This will not last and unless the government does not mind speaking out load what it is thinking it is not going to work. A good example of a corporate blog is the google blog. The government needs to allow its ministers, public servants etc to speak their mind and blog how/what they are thinking. Thats what we want and what blogs are about. The mind. The stream of concious shit that bounces around our minds on a daily basis.

Why the long name it should be something cool like 'Department of Internets'. Needs to be more personal and less like a press release. How will this be achived? By NOT getting the fuckwits that do the press releases to also service the blog. Get a real person to write a post. Also talk about something interesting. Like ubiquity or how vimeo has better HD than youtube...

This guest post brought to you by the number 4.5

2008-12-07T23:07:00.000-08:00

Sat down and discussed my prac today. Cheryl was concerned that I had so much contempt for the education system. My anger at the drones and their fear of religious education. The fact that I thought better and believed that education should be more than what was being delivered upset her.

Heck, my insight that many teachers need their students to be disengaged because they otherwise wouldn't function is indeed grim. But perhaps one of the most interesting thoughts is that I may be struggling on the basis that I want to create rather than disseminate knowledge. After all, my entire approach has been geared toward constructing a learning experience, and I want to go deep rather than wide. So there in lay the problem.

So there you have it I guess. My 2008 was a year in which I learned who I was, and that education exists for the sake of social control. That schools are not places to liberate the mind, they are places to indoctrinate students in the safe thoughts that their parents want them to have. It is a perversion, I know, but why should it be anything else?

Naturally, I have given thought to doing adult education and training. I'm not sure if it's the best idea, but in 6 months time I expect things to be different. Otherwise I'm prepared to make education reform a pet interest of mine.

Ramblings

2008-12-05T19:50:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been thinking about what the internet has had on my social and emotional development, and suffice to say the results are kind of mixed. I mean, on the one hand you could argue that my surfing the net has kept me indoors for many years, thereby stunting my growth for some time, but the irony is that the internet also provides scripts and techniques for taking control of your social life and moving forward.

Another thing is that I have become something of an insight machine as a consequence. I am more likely to go out and find contrary ideas very quickly and blend them, rather than take a perspective and just work through the dominant world view. Come to think of it, the standard undergraduate essay is akin to an intellectual mashup, and it has only been in recent years that I've been able to write my own ideas down without citation.

The secret to including paragraphs without citation lay in finding relevant observations from your own experience, or from applying cognitive tools that are not necessarily taught in classes. For instance, I learned about the silent evidence fallacy in The Black Swan and since then I have been a bit more skeptical of parallels people make statements on.

Thing is, I've noticed a certain amount of laziness in how I tend to learn these days. I mean, if I can find the summary of a concept in a youtube video then I'm more likely to watch that than read the book. Though I would admittedly go to the book if I wanted a deeper analysis.

Anyway, what this means for cognition is hard to say. After all, the Queensland curriculum has, for a long time involved the practice of working through puzzles and learning experiences rather than core knowledge retention. It may not necessarily be the internet that is doing this.

Hence as I stumble upon Don Tapscott's new book Growing up Digital I have a few particular reservations. First, that his argument lay in that young people are bringing a new paradigm to work, and a unique world view to the world around us. And I can only wonder the extent to which these attitudes are new. After all, youth have always self organized around subcultures, using whatever social medium they happened upon.

What's really different about growing up with the net, however, is that you can easily find people who have a minority perspective, and you can thereby have confidence in your own personal answers to various questions. The fact that I see intellectual property as protectionist red tape (which it really is if you think about it) is not the sort of idea that the mainstream media will really tollerate - nor the aspriational artists who dream of making it big. And as a consequence of the net, more people can feel comfortable with internalizing such a perspective.

The challenge for young people like myself lay in whether the economic downturn will take our technology away from us. Inflating energy costs and the delay in building better infrastructure will have an impact on who's economy will take advantage of the internet, and young people are often the first to lose thier jobs in economic downturns. What the net may allow is for lots of unemployed young people to organize rallies more effectively... but it may also allow for lots of small industries to link up via sites like Etsy and Ebay. So yeah, it's gona be a fun ride.

Enlightenment

2008-12-04T00:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I applied to centrelink and finished listening to The Blueprint Decoded by Real Social Dynamics. And I have to say, MY GOD. This program is so enlightening, and is the ultimate in personal development. In fact it goes further and deeper than any other PD I've worked my way through.

Meanwhile, the girl I'm into has flaked on me, and I'm going out to have fun with some others tonight. Not too shabby. Beyond that, I've just heard of a book called Flowers of Algernon, which is about a retard who undergoes neural enahancement and discovers people are resentful of his newfound intelligence. Scary thing is that I can really relate to this concept, so I'm downloading the audio book and plan on listening to it later.

See, the thing is, I actually am too smart for most people. What I handle with ease tends to give others a cognitive overload - and you can imagine how frustrating that is. And I try not to let this go to my ego, but it does leave me feeling quite alien from others. Still, having relaxed and embraced what I am - brains and all - I am feeling a lot better. Enlightened even.

Still, I can only wonder the full extent to which I can go. I'd like to enhance my networking skills, build more relationships and get a whole web of friends. Of course, I'd like a bit more depth than my eldest sister seems to have. I want a really smart and complex understanding of social environments - which goes way beyond productivity and motivation.

Anyway, that's all I have to say for today.

E-Maturity

2008-12-02T17:59:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a lot about how the internet has affected my growing up. I mean, I still remember video tapes and running around the back yard, but more vivid are the days when windows 95 came out. When we got a colour printer, when we first got broadband, and when I would stay up half the night chatting.

I can only wonder how the internet has changed the lives of so many among my generation. While Clive Hamilton might recon hat the internet has fostered libertarian individualists, I'm far more likely to believe that net dwellers are more communal than their predecessors. Especially because young people like myself are not the privacy freaks that our parents are.

Perhaps what boils my blood most about censoring the internet is the fear of porn corrupting the youth. Ask anyone who believes that and they'll mention violent sexual offenders are often into pornography, but the truth is that such arguments fail at the hands of silent evidence - they do not consider all the healthy well-adjusted individuals who use porn, and they do not recognize how porn has driven the uptake of technology (think photography, cinema and the internet).

That the Australian Christian Loby are pushing for bipartisan support should be enough of an indicators as to what is motivating the policy. Thing is, if you look at the senate numbers:

Party	Continuing	New	Total
Liberal/National Coalition	19	18	37
Australian Labor Party	14	18	32
The Greens	2	3	5
Family First	1	0	1
Others

The ALP need the Greens to get things done, and they have spoken out against it, but the socially conservative National Party might be open to going against the Libs on this issue, and we'll presume that Family First will also side with Labor on this. Hence, there are three possible outcomes on this issue:

1. Conroy announces the trial didn't work out and the policy is dropped.
2. Members of the ALP defect and halt it in the senate.
3. The Nats oppose the policy on grounds that rural dial-up should not be allowed to get slower.

Funnily enough, the demographics on the issue are purely age related. Baby boomer parents on the for and Gen-Y youth against. Could it be that oldies are framing the internet as a broadcast medium and thus according it the same influence as monopoly television studios had? I wonder.

Welcome Back

2008-12-01T19:41:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of returning to my writing, I have decided to embrace my amateur side in 2009 and keep writing despite having so little to say about life and love generally.

See, that is what has held me back for so long. I spent 07 and 08 trying to live my life after a crisis of confidence in what I had to say about being alive today. Having lacked the experiences of my peers I stopped writing until I could genuinely relate to the experience of others.

As a consequence, my writing has been in retreat. It has taken a back seat to a love of research for its own sake, and I missed an opportunity to really grow in my writing just by practice.

This blog will not be about anything. It will instead be an outlet for my thought processes, and a place for me to hone my craft in whichever way I see fit. Hope you al enjoy.