Thursday, April 25, 2024
A good reading session will take me on a journey. Often the start will come as a surprise, and will take me on a voyage to an unknown destination. Along the way, my mind will be engaged, interested, and challenged. Today, I’ve had one of those mornings. Here is some of what I found, and some of the most captivating excerpts from them. I invite you to come with me on my reading adventure.
Tuesday, June 6, 2023
The “party” that is neoliberalism has been giving our society gift after gift. We’ve had corruption and self-interest at the highest levels, as PwC executives had their snouts in the trough on both sides of the consulting equation, giving legislative design advice to government then flipping that information and advising their corporate customers on ways around said legislation. We’ve had executive wages grow exponentially over recent years, irrespective of their performance, or that of the company they lead.
Monday, April 13, 2020
Will our giant monuments to mass transportation soon appear as white elephants dedicated to the god of hubris? Gigantic airports, ocean ports for cruise liners, and all the planes, trains, ships and automobiles that use them - will they all become stranded assets slowly losing the war against entropy? Will our stadiums and shopping centres, designed to pack people into shared experiences, point to an irrelevant way of life? Will our next generation of people wonder what it was like to have global experiences be the norm, and consider the way we would gather en masse to watch sport and entertainment a strange and incomprehensible way of life?
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
How can so many watch and enjoy inane, superficial television shows? Why does the population focus more on sporting events than geopolitical disasters? Why is consumerism celebrated and the rise of social media ‘influencers’ followed with such passion? I feel as though our civilisation is being incessantly dumbed down. Our attention is the commodity that every company, every ‘influencer’, every entertainment option wants to attract, and competition is fierce. Rather than recognise the value of our attention, we seem willing to give it away for little to nothing in return.