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Americanisation

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You know, I see quite a few of these YouTube videos where Americans compare stuff to what happens in Australia. It is not these that peak my interest, but rather that the global Americanisation is so ubiquitous. Everything about modern life is largely the same in the western world. Have a think about the computer age and where that originated. The internet and social media are American inventions. Smart phones are a big part of this and they too are a US innovation. Beyond this, to more prosaic trends and think about working out, bigger muscles and tattoos. These too, are American cultural shifts, which occurred over the last couple of decades.Continue Reading

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The Productivity Narrative Is A Scam

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In: economics, featured, Government, latest post, politics, power

Have you ever thought that you might be being played like a guitar or a puppet on a string? Australia has been on an economic hold for the past few years in response to the high inflation post pandemic. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) steeply raised interest rates to dampen the economy and repeatedly told the community to pull its head in. Understandably, like good citizens we obeyed and economic  growth became sluggish and non-existent. Now, things are better, apparently, with inflation back in their band of acceptability at 2-3%. So, growth is back on the agenda and the conversation turns to productivity and the national figures. The productivity narrative is a scam.Continue Reading

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American Culture Is So Phony

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In: corruption, democracy, economics, featured, Government, history, identity, latest post, media, morality, politics, social media, truth

Is there a more dishonest bunch of people than Americans? American culture is so phony. The Epstein files and their promise of shock and horror are a point of fact in this. The Trump administration is full of individuals who made much of the cover ups of this material prior to being appointed by Donald Trump to head the FBI. Now, these loud mouths like Kash Patel and Pam Bondi are suddenly singing from a different song sheet. Nothing to see here folks, according to the former right wing podcasters. Jeffrey Epstein was a pimp for high profile elites like Donald Trump, Prince Andrew and a slew of others. He died in prison awaiting trial.Continue Reading

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Time To Get Murdoch Press Out Of Australia

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In: democracy, featured, Government, history, latest post, media, politics, religion, social media, truth

It is time to rid our shores of the Murdoch controlled News Corp and their unbalanced political fiction factory. Do we want lies and disinformation in our media downunder? For too long Rupert Murdoch has held sway over our newspapers, radio networks and TV news. News Corp sets the agenda in Australian current affairs and yet is the most right wing biased news source in the country. Most recently, Australians rejected the Temu Trump led Coalition of Libs and Nats at the federal election. Australian cities voted in droves to reject the Donald Trump inspired politics of hate and divisiveness.Continue Reading

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flag of america

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In the wake of Trump 2.0 and the growing realisation that America is completely on the wrong track or, indeed, coming off the rails, do we need to de-Americanise Australia? Take a moment to consider how far down this Americanised route Australia has already travelled. In this Neoliberal Era, in which we live, it is big business running the show and Corporate Australia has imported most of their ideas and ways of doing things from the Yanks. Over decades, we have brought in American CEOs and many of our home grown business leaders have done their MBs at US higher learning institutions. Things like outsourcing jobs overseas to reduce labour costs and the rise of private equity investment are all American initiatives. Australian big business is very US orientated in the ways it goes about things.Continue Reading

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Laocoon and the Trojan Horse

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I don’t know if you have ever heard of the Trojan Horse? This is a device contained within the ancient story known as The Iliad. Whether it actually existed is debatable but it has become a popular symbolic metaphor down through the ages. Basically, it was a very large, hand constructed, wooden horse like tower. The story goes that the invading Greeks built it, hopped inside, and had it moved in front of the gates to the city of Troy. Eventually, the Trojans were intrigued enough to move it inside their city gates and later that night the Greeks snuck out and opened the gates for their army – final outcome the fall of Troy. Why someone would want a bloody big wooden horse structure, I don’t know. There are reasons given that the Trojans thought that it might be a gift from the gods. ‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts’ – is one of many sayings to emerge subsequent to the reading of this chapter of The Iliad. What is today’s Trojan Horse?Continue Reading

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smartphone showing facebook application

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Imagine if Charles Darwin was still alive today and how his groundbreaking scientific work on evolution would be treated by neocons and MAGA types. Social media would light up like the site of an atomic bomb explosion. Don’t check the facts: Inconvenient scientific truths. We have got to the stage where people are choosing which facts they will acknowledge, as if they are choosing from a range of colours for an item in an online store. Terms like ‘alternative truths’ have been invented to describe the current situation. If we cannot agree on what is fact and what is not we are in big trouble.Continue Reading

moving cars on the road near wangjing soho buildings

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In: featured, latest post, mind, religion, truth

We are in the midst of a hype driven mania for all things AI at this time. This is not entirely unusual, as humanity has done this before. There have been fevers for all sorts of things from tulips to Facebook over the years. In this instance, however, it involves handing over agency to something called Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI: Why do we give our power away? Human beings have a tendency to be inclined to pass over responsibility to something perceived as wiser than ourselves. We did it with God! For millennia, large sections of the human race have handballed autonomy to an invisible, apparently supernatural entity with a lot of oms. Omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. All powerful, all knowing and everywhere. Of course, the concept of God has proven to be scientifically unverifiable.Continue Reading

Internet box clipart, illustration vector

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It is time for all of us to wake up to the imminent dangers we currently face via the digital world. Did you know that more than 60% of what goes on via the internet is non-human? Yes, much of the conversation happening online especially on social media is with bots. All you lonely people out there, you are wasting your time communicating with machines on Twitter, Facebook, and the like. A lot of the traffic to various sites and pages is by machines. All those likes and retweets are, in large parts, by bots. The world wide web is predominantly populated by non-humans. AI will only make that figure grow exponentially.Continue Reading

a diligent male student reading a book

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Reader surveys are really important for sites to get real information on which to base their content management decisions. The Midas Word Reader Survey will provide factual data for future editorial decisions. Midas Word celebrates its 21st Birthday this year and wishes all its readers a shared happy birthday. ComingContinue Reading