Public ideas
What happened on Tuesday March 18
Quite a lot really. Alan Kohler lists ten events in Germany, China, USA, and Israel, each of which have geopolitical consequences, in his article We're at a turning point in world history but our leaders are distracted.
We will remain distracted until we’re through with our election. For now there will be parochial arguments about the cost of living and the size of the fiscal deficit, but these are trivial in comparison with challenges facing all countries, including Australia.
In the roundup last week there was a link to Kohler’s concern about global warming, following Trump’s withdrawal from global cooperation to strive for net zero by 2050.
This week the concern on which he focuses is the possibility that artificial intelligence could threaten the future of employment.
Haven’t we heard this all before? Wasn’t the internal combustion engine going to leave coach drivers, postilions, draymen, farriers and others in the transport industry without employment? Weren’t computers going to wipe out office jobs?
Kohler writes about something more far-reaching – the way a combination of artificial intelligence and automation could remove humans from almost all economic activity:
Production of all goods and most services will be 24/7, all day, every day, with higher productivity than any human can achieve, allowing massive increases in output and reductions in cost.
As Voltaire said about work, it “spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need”. But what happens when there is not enough work to go around?
Kohler writes:
Two extremes may eventuate. Society could collapse, as those who own these means of production make off with the loot and cause inequality to skyrocket, or it will flourish because firm, benevolent political leadership makes sure that doesn't happen, and the benefits and difficulties are equally shared.
Although Kohler hints that this may not be the best time to head to minority government, an alternative view is that this is just the time we need a powerful cross bench. That is a group of Parliamentarians free of the groupthink that kills imagination in big parties, free of the managerial concerns that keep executive government distracted by trivia, and free of the polarization of two-party politics.
Their power lies in their ability to exercise leadership by drawing our attention to difficult problems most of us would rather ignore. Because they are close to, but outside, the formal authority structure, they can exercise leadership in ways that ministers and opposition “leaders” cannot.
Turning out the lights on civilization
Crispin Hull is not the first writer to point out that Donald Trump has rejected the values of the Enlightenment – the primacy of reason, the importance of human rights, and the value of constitutional governments that rule with the authority of the governed.
But his post Understanding the Trump chaos is worth reading because it’s short and to the point. He writes not about Trump’s ideas but about his actions. “His attacks on universities and research undermine the scientific method”. “His blackmailing attacks on the legal profession undermine the rule of law. As does his corrupt favouritism of his supporters”.
Hull calls on all who live in still-functioning democracies to separate ourselves from America, not just for economic or defence convenience, but to pressure America to redeem itself:
We have to make sure that the Trump wrecking ball hurts enough Americans that they realise their mistake and rectify it. We have to urge our governments to co-operate more with democratic, rule-of-law states.
He even has some suggestions about how we can exert that pressure in our everyday lives.