Corporate Misinformation and Slight of Hand

The American Petroleum Institute provides an important public information service. Though this is mainly on behalf of the fossil fuel sector, and not actually for the advancement of truth and public understanding.

On a page entitled “Natural gas is alternative energy”, the API boldly states that “Natural gas is an alternative and natural form of energy, which can be used to replace traditional fossil fuel (gasoline and diesel).”

Screen shot of the API misinformation page on Natural Gas, as on 02 March 2022. PDF available here.

There are two things to note about this page. First, the grammar and writing are appalling, and second, it is wholly misleading, simply in that first sentence, without considering the rest of the poorly written text.

Whilst natural gas does produce fewer harmful emissions than do oil or coal, under the universally accepted meaning of the term, natural gas is not considered “alternative energy”. Using the phrase “alternative energy” to describe natural gas is misleading, further compounded by referring to oil and coal as “traditional fossil fuels”, giving the impression that natural gas is not in fact a fossil fuel but without directly saying so. To see this verbal slight of hand more clearly, a look at what is meant by the terms “fossil fuel” (or fossil energy) and “alternative energy” is useful.

“Fossil energy” is used to describe combustible materials produced naturally from the decomposition of organic matter – remnants of plants, animals, plankton and bacteria – fossilised over millions of years under great heat and pressures deep within the Earth. (See also the Smithsonian definition of fossil fuel.)

“Alternative energy” on the other hand, refers to forms of energy that are not the result of fossilised decomposition of organic matter over millions of years. This includes renewable alternative energy such as wind, solar, biomass, hydro, tidal and wave, which are all replenished continuously by the sun; and non-renewable alternative energy such as nuclear and geothermal. It takes in both combustibles (wood, bio gas), and non combustibles (wind, tidal etc.) The essential attribute and defining criterion of this category of energy source, however, is that its formation is not via fossilisation of dead animals and plants over millions of years.

“Alternative energy” and “fossil energy” are thus used to designate two separate categories of energy source. The term “alternative energy” is now universally used, understood and accepted throughout society (academia, media, government, industry and down at the pub) to refer to all sources of energy that are not derived from fossil fuels.

That’s my definition of alternative energy. Here are some others:

  • Usable power (such as heat or electricity) that comes from a renewable or green resource. (Merriam-Webster)
  • Energy fuelled in ways that do not use up the earth’s natural resources or otherwise harm the environment, especially by avoiding the use of fossil fuels or nuclear power. (Oxford Lexico)
  • Energy sources considered to be alternatives to fossil fuel sources (Engineering Wiki)

Interestingly, Wikipedia does not have a separate entry for alternative energy and redirects to the page on renewable energy. This is probably testament to the fact that “alternative energy” is not only understood to mean energy sources that are not fossil fuel derived, but that the term has by now become more or less synonymous with renewables that produce little if any harmful emissions, and which constitute the majority of alternative forms of energy.

The other point to note is that this accepted differentiation between alternative energy and fossil fuel energy does not at first consider the impact either form of fuel has on the environment. The fundamental defining criterion that distinguishes alternative energy and fossil fuel energy is the manner in which they are formed. Their categorisation is not ultimately in regard to what they are used for or the effects they have, and not even in their chemical composition or how they are extracted or otherwise obtained. It is how they are formed that is the fundamental bases by which “alternative energy” and “fossil fuel energy” are distinguished and taken to constitute two different categories of energy source. The fact that alternative forms of energy are less harmful to the environment than fossil fuels is significant of course, and in fact is why it is useful to invent a distinguishing term. But it is not the fundamental criterion by which we clearly distinguish these sources of fuel.

Natural gas is indisputably obtained from deep within the Earth, and moreover always in association with oil and coal, or perhaps intermediate forms such as peat. Critically, the formation of natural gas is uncontroversial in scientific terms, and can only be explained as resulting from the decomposition of the remnants of ancient organisms buried deep within the earth and subject to enormous forces and heat.

Clearly then, natural gas does not fit into the universally accepted definition of alternative energy. It is not alternative, because it is in fact a fossil fuel. Stating that “natural gas is alternative energy” is a gross misrepresentation, exploiting the received meaning of alternative energy (as just set out) to circumvent public unease at the continued use even of this less harmful fossil fuel (natural gas), when cleaner forms of energy are available.

How This Slight of Hand is Pulled Off

We have established that with the term “alternative energy” the American Petroleum Institute is using misleading language to describe natural gas. The API in fact conflates variety with category. Natural gas is a variety of fossil fuel, not an alternative to it, because in the context of energy, “alternative” refers to a different category and not a different variety of energy source. Stating that natural gas is “alternative energy” is similar to saying a wooden dining chair is alternative seating to a textile armchair. Whilst trivially this is true, categorically it is false. They are each a variety of seating, alternatives if you like and wish to be pedantic, yet they are still both part of the same category of furniture – “things to sit on” – commonly known as seating or chairs. Similarly with dogs: there are varieties among them – called breeds – yet they all still belong to the same category or species of animal “dog”.

And so it is with with oil, coal and natural gas: whilst trivially they can be viewed as alternative to each other, they are still all fossil fuels, only different varieties. They are all part of the same category of hydrocarbon based energy sources produced via ancient fossilisation and decomposition of the remnants of plants and animals over millions of years. Each is simply a different form – or breed if you like – of fossil fuel, just as a Chiwawahua and Great Dane are different breeds of dog.

And like chairs made from different materials and in different shapes and sizes, oil, coal and gas each have a use for which they are best adapted, natural gas being the lowest emitter of harmful substances when used for power generation. Coal and oil contain impurities absent in natural gas, many of which produce substances that are highly toxic when burned, such as dioxides of nitrogen and sulphur. Coal and oil are therefore best left unburned and are best used in processes that extract useful compounds for applications such as plastics and fertilisers. Natural gas therefore emerges as a better, alternative form of fossil fuel for energy production.

In the specific context of fossil versus non fossil energy such as wind, solar and hydro, the API identification of natural gas as an alternative energy is, as just noted, grossly misleading. It is not an alternative energy source, just a different form of fossil fuel. It is the the API’s use of language universally understood to mean “forms of energy that are non-fossil derived” that constitutes the slight of hand, by all appearances deliberately conflating variation within a specific category with variation between categories. (The variations are oil, coal and gas; the category is energy sources). An apple is an alternative form of fruit to oranges, to adopt the strange language of the API, but they are still both part of the category fruit. They certainly differ with regard to appearance, taste and how they are constituted, but they both share all the characteristics and are subject to the same criteria that we use to define fruit as a distinct category of food.

Where the API should have used different form or variant, they have used alternative, thus hijacking the accepted use of this word in the context of energy and harmful greenhouse gas emissions. The conflation is, on the face of it clever. The API does not actually claim that natural gas is not a fossil fuel; it simply uses language to misrepresent and mislead us into thinking that it is not a fossil fuel. This is further assisted by referring to oil and coal as “traditional fossil fuels”, which has the effect of further falsely differentiating natural gas from oil and coal, again without actually claiming that natural gas is not a fossil fuel similar to oil and coal.

To round things up, at the end of the article the API inaccurately states that:

“Most natural gas is fossil fuel formed by heat and pressure on organic material and form (sic) over millions of years. Natural gas can come from landfill gas and water/sewage treatment…“

This is also patently misleading. As noted here, natural gas is the name given to all (not most) of the gas that is formed under heat and pressure over millions of years. The gas that is produced from landfill, water and sewage treatment, and also in bio-reactors is a renewable resource termed biogas, to distinguish it from non-renewable natural gas. Both categories of gas may have a similar hydrocarbon structure, yet the process of their formation is entirely distinct in each case.

The API misinformation is a difficult slight of hand to unpick, easily missed by those not yet alert to attempts by the fossil fuel industry to thwart regulation of fossil fuel burning, further delaying the widespread use of alternative and renewable sources.

It is also another eye opening example of a shameless “alternative truth”. To drive the point home to the apprentice alternative-truther who wrote this appalling and grammatically challenged piece: natural gas is not alternative energy. It is just an alternative form of the precious, unique, irreplaceable yet highly polluting fossil fuels that we currently burn as if there were no tomorrow.

Perversity of Modern War: Russia and West poised for war while we all watch Netflix

In a July 2020 interview on the rounding up and imprisonment of the Uighur people in China, BBC journalist Andrew Marr showed a clip of the human rights abuses to the Chinese ambassador to the UK, clearly uncomfortable at the scenes before him. “Can I ask you why people are kneeling blindfolded and shaven and being led to trains in modern China?”, Marr asks the ambassador as he squirms.

Andrew Marr poses a difficult question to the Chinese ambassador to the UK on human rights abuses of the Uighur people in China.

We might ask a similar question about the launch of hostilities by Russia against the Ukraine and by implication the West. Why in a modern world is this happening? Why, when we literally have direct links through LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and shared leisurely pursuits through other instantly available media such as Netflix, is it still possible to divide through war and abuse people? The Uighur and dissidents in Hong Kong, people under occupation in Palestine, countless people under despotic regimes in Africa and the Middle East, many of which enjoy the hypocritical support of the West such as in Saudi Arabia and Egypt? We have seen the powerful effect of social media on the Me Too and Black Lives movements, why not in war, conflict, despotism and human rights?

Anyone who has their wits about them will suspect a lot more is going on in the Ukraine conflict than can be gleaned from news reports and statements by officials on either side. Sources in the West depict Russia as rogue, headed by a kleptocratic and authoritarian leader who fiddles elections and poses with a bear chest. Whilst that may be so, in Russia on the other hand Western nations are depicted as being again up to no good, trying to entrench their influence in former Soviet states, entice them into NATO and turn them away from Russia. And that too, may be so. Only the most naïve would consider either side has a monopoly on civilised conduct, truth and fair dealing. Intrigue, state delinquency, corruption and violence in the service of power and economic gain are tools of the trade in so-called international relations. And despite the veneer given by the UN, ICJ and other global bodies of international law and order, this arena of international relations is essentially anarchic, moderated by diplomacy and economic incentive or sanctions when you are not quite mighty enough to get your way, and force and threat of devastation when you are. Force has a legitimate place in this arena when the other side is the aggressor, yet it is not always clear who the aggressor is, or whether indeed there are legitimate concerns on both sides that are being handled honestly or openly.

The facts are that when states deal with each other at this level and under these circumstances especially it is exclusively without the participation of their citizens. Thirty years on from the collapse of the USSR we are all connected in ways as never before, through means that give us the chance to cultivate a sense of shared needs, global responsibility and destiny, yet we are still at the mercy of leaders and governments who beat the drums of war under a narrative that is tightly spun for national consumption, and which isolates and divides us from others who are also subject to their own nationalistic propaganda and divisiveness.

The internet has changed the face of human connectedness on a global level, far beyond television and radio, when at most international events such as the Olympics and the World Cup would be watched by millions simultaneously all over the world, imparting a sense of shared existence. Today’s connectedness is far more powerful and profound, epitomised by phenomenon such as YouTube, Amazon, Netflix, and many other services and social media that offer instant and continuous connectedness. More than that, and most powerfully of all, they offer every individual the opportunity for self expression, with countless personal and activist channels on platforms such as YouTube and Instagram with the capacity to reach, influence and even mobilise people on a vast scale.

The perversity is that given this unprecedented level of connection and implied familiarity on a global scale, you would think the idea of killing each other would be embarrassing if not utterly abhorrent. It’s not easy to shoot at a chap who enjoys Game of Thrones as much as you do. He’s supposed to have different tastes and offensive, corrupt beliefs, darkly opposite to your own enlightened view of life. The profound, surreal aspect adding to the insanity of any modern day conflict is that after trying to kill each other, enemy soldiers might very well both log into the same episode on Netflix, download a tune from Spotify, or buy something from Alibaba or Amazon.

No such connection between foes existed for conflicts prior to the rise of the internet, social media, and online services. Much has been made of a reported football match between British and German soldiers during the Christmas truce of 1914, capturing the imagination and heart, set against the horror of trying to kill each other only hours earlier, and still further, for the fact that military superiors reportedly had to shell the players to get them to go back to this important task, worried that the shared connectedness “would undermine fighting spirit”.

Though not a complete failsafe, such humane connection and interaction lets us view each other humanely, making us less willing to harm and fight each other to resolve our differences. Just as with the shelling to end the friendly football game Christmas 1914, leaders must shell us with propaganda to disrupt the humane, civilised connections we have always possessed, as well as those fast developing with our new age of instant global connection.

So whilst today’s internet services and social media may be accused of many ill effects on society, their global accessibility among even enemies may be one of their good points yet to be fully tapped. It is now possible to watch Russian and Chinese films and TV series easily, cheaply and on demand, bringing us face to face with the humanity of people who few of us ever meet yet whom we discover are little different (Squid Game being a notable Korean worldwide blockbuster success from Netflix). One wonders what productions media companies could come up with in an appeal to the humanity rather than the barbarity of soldiers led to war by corporate greed, as with US administrations with Iraq for example, or tyrannical desperation and corruption as we are seeing with Vladimir Putin in Russia as he gangs up on Ukraine.

More powerfully still, the potential for social media to directly connect populations one-to-one on an individual level via video and chat, along common lines and shared interests, or simply out of curiosity (somewhat in the spirit of old-fashioned pen-pals but with much more on offer) is as yet entirely untapped. What would be happening right now if 10 million people in Russia were in connection with 10 million people in Ukraine and throughout Europe via Zoom, WhatsApp and Facebook etc., exchanging recipes, pet and DIY tips, organising visits to each other, learning the other’s language, or perhaps indeed expressing their horror at what their leaders are doing, and organising to make their voices heard? What does the social in “social media” actually stand for if it is not for this? What do we want out of it more than giving us a means to connect online with people we already know just to parade our holiday pics and get a few likes?

Unfortunately the people who have made most effective use of social media to forge transnational links are those sadly seduced by the far-right. Based solely on ideology, such networking is soon to be facilitated by Donald Trump as he sets up his own social media platform for those who, like him, have been banned from the likes of Twitter and Facebook for fake news and extremist views.

The world needs a counter to this form of misguided zealotry, and should it ever transpire would overwhelm it without doubt, as the good people of the world are much more in number, yet sadly so far, also much more easily isolated and divided.

Climate Change: A Short Experiment in Politics

Climate change can be viewed as a handy, planetary scale, natural experiment whose outcome will cast new light on the politics of left and right.

In amongst the gathering climate disaster and impending catastrophe of unchecked climate change there is an uncounted blessing. Small comfort though it is, we might finally have a test that shows which out of left or right political thinking is overall worse for humanity.

This is possible because the assertion, in the face of what appears to be overwhelming scientific evidence, that climate change is not human-induced is falsifiable.

This is important, because for today’s deniers and soothsayers to be taken seriously their arguments and theses must be amenable to continual verification, as well as the possibility of eventual falsification.

To put it simply, if not now then in coming decades [1] the arguments advanced by climate change deniers will either emerge as being irrefutably true or they will become too obviously ridiculous to maintain (one argument is that current global heating is caused by a long-term cycle in the Sun’s power output, now at or near a maximum. If global heating continues unabated after maximum, then this theory can be discounted after allowing for any mitigations by humans). In other words, climate change deniers will be seen to have been either right or wrong in their stance, and if wrong, as they are currently held to be by science, to have also imperilled humanity through reckless or perhaps outright dishonest denial.

The counter argument is of course also valid. If shown to be ineluctably wrong, those maintaining the science as correct on anthropogenic heating will be seen to have inconvenienced humanity by being over cautious. Although certainly not to have imperilled humanity, and rather to have aided it, given that the actions proposed by those who accept the science herald other benefits, such as cleaner, healthier air and wiser use of fossil fuels [2].

But aside from showing us who was in the end right or wrong, this inadvertent natural experiment also provides a means for showing what type of political thinking underlies a particular stance. And this in turn will provide a way of strongly linking political stance to real world effect.

Here’s how the reasoning goes: the people who deny anthropogenic climate change and claim it a hoax seem to be mostly conservative, right-leaning, and in many cases far right in their politics. As one example, take Donald Trump and some sections of his voter base, with possibly many flat-earthers among them also (though as Gareth Dorrian and Ian Whittaker writing in The Conversation note, this may not be so straightforward an association because “proponents of one of these theories are not necessarily proponents of the other”).

In contrast, people who seemingly take the trouble to understand and subsequently accept the scientific view of climate change seem to be overwhelmingly progressive and left.

So, on my estimation at least, deniers can generally be characterised as right-leaning, acceptors as left-leaning.

This means there will be an outcome to the experiment beyond simply knowing who is right or wrong about climate change based on the acceptance or denial of scientifically obtained data. It further provides information with regard to the political thinking underlying that acceptance or denial, and ultimately which stance is good or bad for the planet.

(Supporting studies and statistics are needed to affirm my estimation of the correlation between political leaning and climate change stance. I characterise deniers as being overwhelmingly right and acceptors as being left. However, irrespective of what that correlation is in reality, the experiment is valid as an objective test of the effect of political thinking on the real world.)

Likely Outcome, based on current scientific data

If one accepts the scientific data as true, and my estimation of the correlation of left and right is correct, then the falsification of climate change denial (i.e., the eventual impossibility of sanely refuting anthropogenic climate change) will show right-leaning politics to have had a bad effect on the course of human history.

When “alternative facts”, astonishing claims of “modelling errors” as put forth by the psychologist Jordan Peterson, as well as other denial arguments finally become too difficult or embarrassing to defend by even the most obtuse or profit-driven sceptic, climate denial will have been exposed for the pernicious propaganda that many of us, looking at the science, suspect it is. This could serve us well (seeing we are already on that road) in that we will have identified a way of political thinking that to some has already undeniably led us to disaster, providing us with at least one historical instance of global, pan-national and catastrophic science denial and misconstrual associated with right-leaning, conservative thinking such as that of Peterson’s.

Progressively inclined people already strongly suspect conservative thinkers tend towards trashing the planet in their effort to keep a small minority rich at the expense of everyone else. A planetary scale natural experiment that clearly demonstrates this tendency will provide robust evidence that the political thinking that underlies it is the wrong kind for a civilisation at our stage in its history and with our kinds of problems. Whilst it is impossible to claim that conservative thinking is unfit during all stages in a civilisation’s ascent (because it may actually be useful when life is unavoidably “nasty, brutish and short’ and necessarily a “war of all against all”), it does now seem we can with confidence claim such circumstances no longer necessarily prevail; that there are more than ample means to allow everyone the opportunity to flourish without fighting each other over resources, and, absurdly, consuming and wasting those very resources in this war of all against all, not least against the planet itself.

[1] Going by the unfortunate confusion displayed by Jordan Peterson, whom we might term a DIY climatologist, we may need to wait centuries before such ill informed views are entirely laid to rest.

[2] This is also another argument in favour of caution when facing something as momentous as climate change, even when one is skeptical or does not understand the science. The consequences of denial and inaction are many orders of magnitude graver than the consequences of misplaced prudence, added to which there are in fact long-term benefits to being cautious whereas denial and inaction bear only short term benefits, and then only to a few.

Climate Change Denial

Climate change deniers argue that if anthropogenic global heating is real, there is little to worry about because geoengineering will fix it.

The best response to this is to pose the counterfactual, and ask whether a cold planet could be made hotter, and if so, what would be the best mechanism for achieving that?

Raise your glass and smile while it sinks in.

Sloshed, they worked into the night Saving the Nation


The UK press is once again awash with the latest revelations of the Johnson’s regime’s boozy misconduct and its entitled, unending contempt for the nation. The Prime Minister, his aids, senior civil servants and their minions have persistently flouted the national COVID rules they themselves put in place, most frequently at farewell parties. This was best captured in reports that on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral, a Downing Street staffer was dispatched with a suitcase to fetch more booze from the nearby Co-op on The Strand in central London

What everyone is missing is that the real scandal is not the flouting of COVID rules at illicit parties during a pandemic, but that the stand-in PM and his Downing Street staff were running the country pissed. And that also this may not be confined just to times of national emergency, what with the general sense of partying and joie de vivre such disasters tend to raise in decent people. No, as reported in The Guardian, according to a senior Tory who previously worked at Downing Street, “opening a bottle of wine at the desk was not unusual if people were working into the evening, particularly on a Friday.”

It would be interesting to see the statistics on surgeons and aircraft engineers who write reports and recommend measures with a bottle of wine on the desk. The aftermath of such conduct may not be as immediately apparent in governance as with a plane crash or an increase in operating theatre deaths, yet it would be there, perhaps in a recommendation to delay critical lockdowns that, though they lower the death toll, nonetheless make it more difficult to nip to the local booze store.

Bottom-up Party: Popular selection of Policy and Candidates

Noam Chomsky once gave a very good description of how to make sure the politicians we vote in will serve the societal good rather than themselves and powerful interests. Basically, we tell them which policies we want them to stand for. If they agree, we agree to vote for them.

That is somewhat different to what happens now. Currently, political hopefuls from various parties come along and dangle a list of tantalising policies; and then they ask us to vote them in as parliamentary representatives. Not only has the electorate had no say in who this candidate is, having a say in the policies they are standing for is usually extremely difficult if not impossible. Chomsky (and probably others too) proposes that voters should tell candidates that if they fight on the issues that matter to them as electorate, then they’ll vote for them as candidates.

This is a stronger form of democracy than we currently have. Yet there is an even more robust democratic system, the essential details of which are fairly simple.

The People’s Party: how to go about creating one and voting it into government

How does a political party get started?

More or less, a group of individuals get together and draw up a set of policies they call a manifesto. Then they register the party, stump up 500 quid each to put themselves up as candidates in elections, and start canvassing for people who will vote them into parliament and perhaps government.

However, this traditional structure is not a bottom-up party and certainly not a people’s party. A bottom-up people’s party is not built by a handful of individuals but by millions of people, both in terms of the policies and the candidates that will represent those policies. It does not need a select group of individuals to draw up an initial raft of policies, only to create the space in which such policies can be tabled by anyone in the general public and then selected by public polling to form the Manifesto; and second, it requires individuals – again, from the general public – who feel they have the requisite political acumen to bring the policies to fruition. Such people can present themselves as provisional party representatives and future parliamentary candidates, but only on the bases of the policies previously selected by public polling and which now form the Manifesto.

Once a cohort of potential party representatives is formed (say 4 or 5 for each constituency), people can vote to select the actual party representative. By putting themselves for selection as a party representative, candidates also agree to subject themselves to vetting criteria, based on an assessment of both their declared and their proven acumen, competence, experience, qualification and so on.

Once a representative for each constituency is chosen (always on the basis not of their policies but those already selected by public polling), they are now the candidate for future member of parliament in that constituency, and can run as a member of the “People’s Party”, or however it is called, in the next election.

There could be regional tweaks to reflect local issues in various constituencies, but the individual policy details of the manifesto and hence the overall party line is decided by members of the public long before a face is put to those policies in the form of several hundred candidates and a “supreme leader”.

The crucial points are that voters reach mass consensus on the policies first, divorced of any rhetoric and personal consideration related to candidates, and only then is someone considered for selection as a party candidate to represent those policies.

In essence, the “ordinary folk”, who usually are only given the illusion of democracy every four or five years, have the power to elect not only who represents them, but also to select the policies they want to be represented for.

This, arguably, is authentic democracy. Anyone can suggest policy on any area, and the entire process of drawing up a manifesto and selecting the representatives who will bring those policies to fruition (if elected to government) are all chosen by popular vote by anyone of voting age. Moreover, the vetting criteria for choosing party representatives, who are themselves ordinary citizens of any hue, can similarly be selected through a public polling process.

Every stage is therefore democratic and involves the populace, rather than a small group of individuals seeking the support of the populace. Nothing is left to individual design – except perhaps the technical gubbins of some web platform from where all of this can be coordinated. Hardly a political matter.

We might call this party by any number of obvious names: People’s Party, Public Manifesto Party, True Choice Party, and so on.

And there are no party members as such. The party survives only as long as there are people willing to engage in it, vote for it, and also contribute to funding the necessary expenses.

This stands the current political and electoral farce on its head (often a remarkably effective way of getting something previously stubborn to work correctly, such as a tomato sauce bottle). Currently, jovial chancers masquerading as a political party conjure up policies that sound appealing yet which in the end they frequently betray. Popular selection of policies that people want, followed by a marriage of those policies to people who can demonstrate genuine acumen, competence and conscientiousness to bring the policies to fruition is an enormous leap away from the current restricted and frequently corrupt system.

An entire political party, truly of the people, can be put together in this way… I think. It would be populated by ordinary members of the public who are in full control of the policies and the candidates for Parliament. The MPs would be championing the people’s manifesto rather than the people having to settle for a manifesto that often poorly reflects their true needs.

And existing parties?

If we were speaking of an existing party, conversion to such an unarguably democratic system of selecting both policy and representatives by popular vote would be simple. Only a democratic and not a political will would be required for such a change. Perhaps the most likely candidate party in the UK would be the LibDems. Have they the vision?

This brief, inadequate and undoubtedly flawed description of a people’s party is somewhat a sort of Wikiparty (and same here). An idea that has been out in the wild for sometime now. The intention is that it is constructed and run by the electorate.

Wikipedia has as so far shown itself to be a very good repository of general knowledge; not of general knowledge per se, but of the general command of knowledge on nearly every subject as well as of important figures in society. The term for that is encyclopaedic, and from what anyone can guess without large government grants to study it, Wikipedia is every bit as good and as frequently consulted as any of the tightly managed attempts at encyclopaedic knowledge (Britannica, Chambers’, etc,).

Would such a “Wiki” approach to politics, as loosely outlined above, succeed in government? That is the question, though it could be worth a try.

Kier Starmer: Not Simply Stooge But A Damp Squib

We all held our breath and journalists wrote articles about the barrister’s sharp mind and razor reasoning. Here was a fellow who could string a serious question together whilst getting a few laughs at Boris’s expense.

So we all imagined Boris shaking in his boots. And Boris very well probably shook in his boots, as he too likely fell for the bluster just like the rest of us.

And then nothing happened.

Kier certainly came to town hoopin’ an’ a hollerin’, guns-a-blazin’ and set about showing his predecessor Jeremy how a leader of the opposition opposes. Boris was so shagged out after Dominic Cummings won the election for him that Kier managed to get a few jabs in that had us holding our breath. Though this somewhat abated when the pandemic came along and he took the honourable stance of “everyone pulling together” against a common foe, no matter our differences. Yet this vaguely objective, unifying reason for supporting government policy, just like in the good old days of World War II, is beside the point when it comes to Kier. It was not honour or common sense but playing safe that encouraged him to consistently and reliably affirm the government’s Covid response rather than come up with something better himself.

And nothing has continued to happen up until the present. There is no clear policy or direction, plus a humiliating drubbing in the Hartlepool by-election to boot. And even after the so-called victory in Batley and Spen, Kier is merely “looking good in a suit” as Ash Sarkar phrased it in a BBC Radio 4 PM interview.

But we cannot expect any different. The fellow who replaces someone ousted from leadership because he stood for clear and above all decent policies – as did the Devil, aka Jeremy Corbyn – such a fellow is not going to be brimming with principle and conviction. He’s going to play it safe, tow the line, and basically try to keep house for as long as he can in the hope of becoming prime minister out of a Tory balls-up rather than Labour election genius. As Owen Jones opines in the Guardian, “The consensus among Labour MPs is that the principal cause of Starmer’s woes is he lacks a vision”; and that Labour’s right flank “believe he is a dud who will never win an election, and they plan to keep him in post until they can […] ensure one of their own succeeds him before a general election.” 

Labour was so shaken by the successful smearing of Corbyn by the right flank, achieved through the cynical exploitation of legitimate concerns over anti-Semitism, that collectively Labour fell for Kier’s slick-backed quiff and suit with a sigh, in blessed relief to Jeremy’s crinkled, Socialist Worker I-just-got-out-of-bed appearance.

Let’s not mistake. Corbyn is one hell of a bore and short on laughs, yet also a decent fellow maligned – to express it in Marlowesque prose. His policies on nationalising public transport and utilities, funding and revamping the NHS, and taxation to pay for it all rang a bell with a majority of the British public, which should have been a winner for Labour. Yet despite this popular political appeal, his personal image was irreparably damaged by the successful blurring and conflation of allegations of anti-Semitism among some Labour MPs, with Corbyn’s legitimate support for justice on the Palestine issue.

Given the popularity of his policies, it is arguable that his fair stance on Palestine was entirely the cause of Corbyn’s downfall, a suspicion lent credence by the fact that his demonization intensified in the run up to the December 2019 election; to the extent that just before the election, Johnathan Sacks, the UK’s late Chief Rabbi and strong supporter of Israel and apparently also of the occupation (Rabbi Sacks, Why Are You Cheerleading for anti-Palestinian Provocateurs?), publicly called Corbyn an “an anti-Semite” who has backed “racists, terrorists and dealers of hate”.

Yet those who can see the facts and understand the motivations for such a statement by Rabbi Sacks did not fall for it. Even prior to this attack, Jewish Voice for Labour published a letter in the Guardian declaring Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour a crucial ally in the fight against antisemitism, reminding everyone of Corbyn’s credentials in consistently fighting anti-Semitism throughout his political career, in flat contradiction to the spurious allegation that Labour had become institutionally anti-Semitic under Corbyn.

The issue of whether antisemitism existed or even abounded in the Labour Party, as some alleged, is one thing. But given Corbyn’s credentials, it does not, however, take a cynic to suggest that Corbyn was personally vilified by Sacks and others solely for his stance of a fair resolution on Palestine. Corbyn, as many people, is anti-Zionist, making him vulnerable to attempts by Zionists to equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism, in the service of protecting Israel from criticism, and Sacks tapped into this vein in attacking Corbyn. Again several years prior to Sacks’s vilification of Corbyn, Peter Beinart, writing in Haaretz, felt moved to correct the Rabbi on his conflation. (Why Rabbi Sacks Is Wrong: Palestinians Don’t Have to Be anti-Semites to Be anti-Zionists)

There is, then, reasonable suspicion that Corbyn was ousted and replaced by a chap who could be relied upon not to rock the boat when it came to Palestine. The only problem for wider UK politics is that Kier is failing to rock on any front at all. Starmer is a dud as Jones so aptly puts it. He’s as dud as they come, and the only thing you can do with a dud once you have fired it off, presumably in rehearsal for a big event, is to put in a live round. The question is, who’s it going to be? Unless that is, we get another dud.

If the electorate is not to be left with the current dire choice of a jovially flatulent Boris or a somnolent Kier, we need someone quite, but not exactly, like Jeremy, someone with a decent heart, but a few laughs as well.

Could we perhaps clone Kier, Boris and Jeremy into one, knock ’em dead, keep ’em laughing architect of a truly liberal, social democratic Labour party and society? Kier’s sleek looks crossed with Boris’s jolly what-ho-ness, braced firmly with Jeremy’s heart, principles and vision? None of them is particularly stupid as politicians go, except perhaps Boris, and the cross would have the advantage that Kier’s damp obsequiousness would be balanced by Jeremy’s polite fuck-youness, (this latter trait arguably simultaneously both a strong and a weak point of the crinkly left). As for Boris, he can provide the light entertainment.

The art in cloning a perfect politician intent on a social democratic society lies in knowing how to properly, but politely, package a fuck-you aimed at those who would do anything to prevent such a society. Kier is the ideal wrapper; vacuous, dithering, directionless, happy to be given a pat on the back from those who put him there, ever chirpy and optimistic that better days are coming if he just sits still and sits it out. With a few tweaks to expunge the less desirable yes-sir-three-bags-full-sir traits, a hollowed out Kier could be just the ticket for Corbynite policies of genuine social and economic justice that would bring business to heel, as well as nationalise all the essential services and infrastructure that have proven disastrous in the hands of private interests.

This may be a tall order, as there is a natural constraint on combining decency (Jeremy), redundancy (Kier) and the ability to crack a joke at someone else’s expense (Boris) into the mix of traits required to either obtain power (Jeremy’s failing), or wield it properly and selflessly for the good of all (Boris’s catastrophic failing). It is no coincidence that whilst decent Jeremy was a tad too flat, dodgy Boris is a clown.

It is important at this point to own up to the whole reason for this small note, which is not really to rubbish Kier, poke fun at Boris, and lament the treacherous demise of Jeremy. It is to consider what might bring about a decent society, one that we design for ourselves yet with considerably better results.

Pinning Them Down: Accountability in Government and Corporations

Even after the recent Downing Street Scandals and bean-spilling by Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson remains PM. After multiple allegations of cronyism, lying, dodgy loans and his then fiancé Cary Simons plucking someone from the crosshairs of an enquiry because she was best friends with him, plus a story about her dog taking up the PM’s time, he hangs on. As Hasit Shah at Quartz rightly bemoans, “These days, it’s difficult to [self] sabotage a political career.”

Meantime, though Matt Hancock was the principle target of Cummings’s sniper fire, there is a good chance that he too will wiggle free, at least long enough for him to finish his important task of wrecking the NHS and killing people through practiced incompetence.

And it is not just Boris and Matt, or even just UK MPs and peers. This kind of Teflon politics infects corporations and institutions, extending its ironically non-stick tentacles globally to every country and every government. Politicians and the wealthy may well frequently find themselves confronted with allegations of serious wrong doing, yet in proportionate comparison to the general population it is only rarely, exceedingly rarely, for allegations to stick and a conviction to result, perhaps with a deserved spell of prison time.

How do we explain the disparity, ceteris paribus, between the conversion rate of allegation-to-criminal conviction among the ruling and wealth elite on the one hand, and the conversion rate among the general population on the other? In other words, after accounting for possible factors (for example, political motivation for levelling a false allegation), would we not expect that within any sector of society roughly the same percentage of allegations would result in successful conviction? To maintain otherwise would beg an even bigger question; why are this lot more moral than that lot? A very apt question to ask about ruling and wealth elites, who seem strangely immune to this kind of social accounting.

That could be the subject of fruitful social science research, but we do not need to go that far here.

It is enough to note the utterly obvious: where convictions have resulted it has been when solid evidence was available. This raises another obvious question: is conviction among ruling elites only scarce because solid evidence is scarce, and not because they are somehow more moral? Less given to lying, cheating, fiddling expenses, cronyism and so on. (Which on Plato’s “logic of Cephalus” they should be, since they are supposedly buffered by wealth and privilege from the desperations that might even drive otherwise good, ordinary men to crime. [1])

It is almost certain that this is the case. Had a camera been rolling at the time when Cummings claims Boris said “let the bodies pile up!” the matter would have been open and shut in a jiffy, and Boris either booted out equally as fast, or his position strengthened depending on what the evidence showed. [2]

The problem then is not so much lack of accountability, which is the usual lament. What there is a lack of are records that provide the evidence that underpins accountability. In today’s modern parlance this translates into a lack of surveillance. We speak of cameras, microphones, and hell, even umpire-style observers strategically placed along corridors, and in ministerial and corporate offices as well as Cabinet and boardrooms. Such mechanisms would provide critical data when it came down to one honourable gentleman’s word against another, though the downside is we would be deprived of the theatre witnessed these last few days.

Likely we should install all three, so that if cameras and microphones malfunction or are tampered with we have the human back up; and, vice versa, should the human temporarily stop working or fall asleep we can rely on the tech backup. Naturally, when it comes to genuine matters of security such as a nuclear war for example, the human observers (sitting on comfy chairs during, say, 2 hour shifts, and wearing something like a Black Rod outfit to distinguish them) would be sworn to secrecy… or else. And when we were confronted with the kind of disputes and word jousting we have seen during the spectacular dust-up between Cummings and his former pal and meal-ticket to power, Boris, the umpires would nonchalantly rise and give evidence that would swiftly either condemn or exonerate.

Such care to make sure that everything is not only clear but clearly remembered would pay untold dividends. It would save tax payers huge sums, save lives in some cases, and also free up ministerial energies and focus – the latter already in short supply – for important stuff such as actually fighting a pandemic rather than arguing about it.

Agreeing to tight, blanket surveillance of our beloved rulers would of course be a pre-requisite of running for office, and so no one would be pressured into it. They would acquiesce in the knowledge that it would provide a near failsafe method for nailing down data that could be useful during an enquiry into misconduct that could potentially have disastrous effects. Though a few might still get away, it would not be anywhere near the mass dodging of public scrutiny that we see now.

We should all be in favour of surveillance. It is a very decent and patriotic thing to ascent to. Only so far it is probably the wrong people who have been publicly surveilled: the ordinary folk who at most pick pockets, park in the wrong place, perhaps hit each other over the head on a Saturday night, and OK, occasionally shoot each other.

None of that kind of petty misconduct is going to drastically affect the course of a nation. But Matt Hancock, who single handed may have helped the coronavirus kill 10s of thousands more than it would have done alone, is still in his job even whilst these gruesome allegations hang over him. At the very least he should take a holiday whilst it is being sorted out, since if it is true, he may yet kill 10s of thousands more before we get to the bottom of it.

Lights, action and roll the cameras.

1. “The great blessing of riches, I do not say to every man, but to a good man, is, that he has had no occasion to deceive or to defraud others.” Cephalus, Plato’s Republic.
2. There are countless other scandals that have erupted, even just considering the period in which technology for good surveillance already abounded. From the banal and apparently trivial (e.g., Andrew Mitchell’s Plebgate and Priti Patel bullying civil servants) to the potentially genocidal (Tony Blair’s part in the war on Iraq.) We are probably talking hundreds of instances in which public money and time might have been saved and redirected at issues of substance, to say nothing of lives saved.

Updated 23 August 2021

Critical Theory and the Benefits of Clicking Around

Most everyone who has a PC and uses the internet has clicked around simply for the hell of it. Whilst we might answer that we had nothing better to do, which is a reasonable answer, it is more difficult to answer why we let ourselves do it, especially when we have more useful things to do. And because we usually have more useful things to do, we often end up feeling guilty.

This phenomenon is not limited to clicking around in your computer HD or the internet for no apparent reason, and this brief note might have been more prosaically titled “The Benefits of Fucking Around in General”, as such benefits as I am about to highlight are not limited to computer tech. They extend to all areas of life, from listlessly poking around in cupboards and draws all the way to throwing an ice cube into hot oil to see what happens (not in any way recommended as the scientific benefits and/or entertainment value might be outweighed by serious injury).

What drives such urges is of course idle curiosity, emphasis on the idle. One assumes that idle curiosity differs from curiosity in its pure form (a by now well recognised evolutionary endowment that brings positive benefits) in that it grips us not for any obvious or immediate practical reason, such as wondering whether moving your furniture around might give you more space, but simply for something to do to pass the time. Or perhaps to avoid doing something that requires more effort and appears daunting, otherwise known as procrastinating.

Perhaps the brain needs to maintain some level of activity above keeping us breathing, in order to maintain our readiness for action. So, paradoxically, in order not to itself idle along and risk dulling its capacities or being caught unawares, it instead causes us to idle along doing something… anything. That is, the brain keeps its sentinel and practical capacities honed by keeping us busy.

This may partly explain why there is higher mortality among couch potatoes who passively watch sitcoms than among people who go for long walks and idly marvel and wonder at varieties of trees and wildlife and so on. It’s not just the physical exercise that keeps them trim, in shape, and therefore better prepared for fight or flight – and as a (possible) side consequence, in for a longer live; no, their brains are also kept honed through wonder, awe and delight at Nature. Or something. It is no coincidence that some of the greatest scientific insights and many of the classics among literary works have apparently come after long walks, and, I am arguing here, even procrastination of the type common to those who have cupboards and computers and so on.

What then are the benefits of idle curiosity and procrastination, otherwise termed fucking around?*

There are in fact two benefits as far as my limited scientific research over coffee and an internet connection uncovers. First, there is, possibly, the above mental fitness advantage of keeping us honed and ready to tackle serious problems that might come our way. To get an appreciation of this, picture a couch potato trying to out smart a lion or add up a supermarket receipt on the one hand; and a frequent brisk walker or mountaineer who regularly estimates the local population of eagles or wonders why the sky is blue or how the Sun functions, on the other.

And second, there is the everyday practical and ultimately beneficial effect of discovering something useful or delightful in the recesses of a draw, cupboard, your PC, the Internet or indeed the world. The benefits may come through increased convenience or measurable profit, anything from discovering something that makes a task easier (a particularly well designed soup ladle in a forgotten draw for example, or that your internet plan includes SMS and phone calls when previously you thought it did not), to perhaps a Van Goch (let us dream a little) stashed in the attic, or more realistically, an expensive tool that you needed, regarding which you can now save money.

The point here of course is not all these useful outcomes but the feeling of guilt we experience when idling and the vulnerabilities that come with it. Why, if there are all these munificent benefits to fucking around, do we often feel bad about it?

That will not be discussed here more than to recall the saying that “the devil makes work for idle hands”, thus once again uncovering religion as the culprit, perhaps as tool in the service of the real villains: those who would put others to work for their own gain, for whom idleness is up there alongside fornication and other sins that would otherwise endow the sinner (i.e., the worker) with both liberty and health. (This is my nod, and that’s all for now, towards critical theory).

* The benefits of idle curiosity do not stop at the happenchance discovery of long forgotten possessions in cupboards or useful information on the internet. Perhaps the greatest benefit is accessing new situations and people that we would never entertain if always doing something “purposeful” or prescribed by society.

As the authors of a book on evolutionary critical theory state, it may be that “… through idle curiosity… one may encounter people with different ‘habits of thought’ or find oneself in novel situations.” (Evolutionary Critical Theory and Its Role in Public Affairs
Charles Federick Abel, Arthur Jay Sementell, Routledge, 2004 ). All with the attendant benefits of new “knowledge and coping behaviours”, skills useful in navigating the world and all gained, often quite enjoyably, from fucking around.

Major Hair Loss and General Decline: the Battle Against Aging

The field of Senescence research is alive, well and growing fast. In a nutshell it seeks to understand and counter age-related decline by tackling the processes of aging at the cellular level. Though the science is still someway off from stopping and eventually reversing age-related decline and the many diseases that accompany it, that day is clearly in sight.

One very likely effect of anti-aging therapies would of course be extension in life-span. It is surprising then that many people view the whole endeavour unfavourably, arguing that aging is natural, and to tinker with it would somehow change our natures or make us monsters. Some argue from the perspective that there is a certain grace to growing old… erm… gracefully, whilst at the other extreme there is a sense it is almost blasphemous to think we might be like gods. But most researchers counter these objections by sensibly pointing out that they are not necessarily trying to extend life-span. That indeed, as molecular biologist Judith Campisi at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in California puts it, “it’s extending years of healthy life that might be on the horizon”, and not extending absolute years of life.

Principally, researchers are trying to find ways to eliminate degenerative diseases not simply because they kill us before our time, which is just one outcome, but because they also cause great debilitation and reduction of quality in life whilst we are being delivered to death’s door.

Explained like this it does seem to render the objections both mute and perplexing, as is this not what medicine and hospitals are for? They not only nurse us back to health and make us feel better, they do it by treating the diseases that naturally strike us down and may end our life, many if not most of which are age-related.

Perhaps so far the function of medicine has not specifically been to extend our lives beyond their natural span, and was mostly content with alleviating suffering and perhaps helping us reach the natural span seemingly allotted to us. But in a very real sense, we have nonetheless had “anti-aging” therapies for as long as there has been a concept of medicine and treatment. In other words, for millennia. and that should surely count as interfering with nature, as naturally without them in many cases we would die. So if we argue that treatments that go beyond alleviation of suffering and which actually extend our natural span is unwise and interfering with Nature, then why not consider treatments for alleviation as being unwise and interfering in the natural order of things? Why not just accept our lot when we get sick, and happily sail off into the night when our time is up?

A debate on the pros and cons of longevity is fitting matter for cheery discussion over dinner and wine and it will not be discussed here. Except to say that funnily enough, the only time when one is not worried about death is when doing something to hasten it, such as when feasting and merry making.

Shockingly Stupid

Though the research and the future possibility of rejuvenation – already demonstrated in some laboratory animal test subjects – is fascinating, even more fascinating is humanity’s consummate skill in shortening life. Humans seem to bear an overall, breath-taking indifference to the fact that they still kill each other – for land, resources or over various gods – as well as an astonishing inability to do the maths. If you sum the resources expended in fighting over resources, the tally sheet would likely make any accountant dismally shake his head. (Lives of course are expendable and so we won’t let that particular summation further detains us).

The point is, even if the sheet somehow balances out and it makes economic sense to carry out the insanity of burning fossil fuels in military hardware in order to seize control of fossil fuels, for example, overall the world consumes vast resources that could otherwise make life cheerier for all (healthcare, food, wine and long debates over life and death), if not actually delaying the onset of aging by diverting these resources into senescence research. That is, aside from shooting each other, we are also shooting ourselves in the foot, potentates and war mongers included.

To sum it up in a nutshell, senescence research is neither against nature nor is it science fiction. And how fast it develops is not nearly as much a question of science and morality as it is of money and attitude.

So whilst we have scientists trying to make life cheerier and disease free, with the feasible promise of longer lives for those who want it, there are those others, whom by now all sensible people are quite tired of, taking life, whilst throwing money and resources down the drain (witness the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021). Or rather in their pockets, via arms manufacture and defense contracts. Money and resources that could be used to fight Major Hair Loss and General Decline rather than each other.

Updated 22 August 2021