Mm, it gets hard…
I’ve spent several days trying to reconcile the idea that certain people can both admire a leader like Vlad Putin suggesting that Australia needs a leader like him, while arguing that any attempts to persuade people to vaccinate their children is an attempt to impose a dictatorship and we all should have freedom of choice.
After giving the matter considerable thought, I’ve decided that either people believe that what we need is a strong leader who’ll impose all the things that I agree with and jail all those who dare to try to argue with me… Or else, many people can’t put two ideas together because they suffer from ADOITS (Attention Defic…Oh Isn’t That Shiny?)
Whatever, I do acknowledge that from time to time, the mainstream media, science, the political class has got it wrong. That’s why we need to research and seek out differing opinions. I like to hear arguments from people who think differently. I like to discuss differences and learn so that I may grow. And as a general rule of thumb, I’ve found that I’m most likely to grow from the exchange when someone begins the exchange with some like:
“Yes, but have you considered…?”
To which, I am likely to reply, either: “Yes, but that still doesn’t…” or “No, just let me think about that for a while!”
However, I’ve generally found that when the exchange begins: “You’re just an idiot who believes everything that they’re told and if you stopped listening to the mainstream media you’d understand that the following people are working together and it’s only thanks to someone like Donald Trump/a blogger who lives in treehouse and can only blog in short bursts because he generates all the electricity for his computer by peddling/Fox News/the aliens who visit me every Shrove Tuesday to explain why their predictions for the previous year were thwarted by gnomes/Cory Bernardi that we know what’s really going on and that vaccinations aren’t safe!”
Now, I’m sure that sometimes there have been some side effects from some vaccinations for some people. To me, it’s a bit like going to work. Sometimes people may drop dead of a heart attack from stress at work, but I suspect that in the overall scheme of the world, more people have died through not working and starving to death! (Ok, we could have a discussion about a universal income at this point, but I’m trying not to get…Oooh Shiny!)
I’m also old enough to remember that there are side effects from things like polio. Which according to someone on social media never really existed and it’s just a made up thing because nobody they know has ever had polio so why do we need the vaccine?
Now, vaccinations are one thing, but I’ve found the recent debate on energy even more confusing. Apparently – a few years ago – some of the states privatised the electricity supply and/or delivery to make it more efficient. This has led to a whole range of different suppliers and distributors and, even though, it’s all more efficient now, prices keep going up exorbitantly. Of course, part of this was the carbon tax which wasn’t a tax according to Peta Credlin. And that would make sense if it weren’t for the fact that it’s continued to rise even faster after the tax that wasn’t a tax was removed.
Ok, I sort of get that it’s all because of renewables, because apparently it’s cheaper to get coal and gas out of the ground than it is to get sunshine out of the sky or wind out of the air. Renewables cost a lot to set up. And they’re apparently inefficient. That could make sense if it weren’t for the fact that two of the states with the biggest price rises were ones where they had almost no reliance on renewables.
Then just lately we’ve been hearing that the big problems with renewables is their unreliability. As Tony Abbott told us a couple of weeks ago, sometimes the sun doesn’t shine, the wind doesn’t blow anywhere but Canberra and the tide is turned back by King Canute. We need fossil fuels! And not just because they contribute to so many Liberal Party lunches, but because they’re reliable and they’re always there.
Imagine my confusion then when I hear that we may have blackouts because of a gas shortage. No, not the one in California last year, but right here in Australia. We may not have enough gas because we don’t pay enough apparently and suppliers are selling it to people overseas for more than we’re prepared to pay unless we increase our energy prices. Which sort of makes it harder to argue that renewables are too expensive when gas is too expensive too.
Of course, someone with much more understanding of gas – like Malcolm Turnbull – will probably be able to explain that increasing investment in renewables won’t help. No, what we’ll need to do is stop our silly obsession with things like clean water and allow companies to start fracking and the like. After all, what’s the point of a country if you – or overseas companies – can’t exploit its natural resources.
When it’s all said and done, what’s the point of your population if they can’t be exploited, and with the growth of robots we don’t really need people anymore. Except to consume things. When they invent a robot who can do that, there’s no longer any need for anyone who doesn’t contribute to the Liberal Party…
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