Working it out together

Tighten your belt, so more heavy stuff with another of my central themes coming up.

Looking back, the expectations when my mother was born was that she would grow up, work, marry, have children and die in the same village. In the immediate surrounds of that village there would be some half dozen families she was related to and there would be several more families that had direct connections to her own family. Then came two WW's.

Contrast that with a child born today in a city. The expectation now is that the child would have serial parents and half siblings, would move locations, if not cities, several times before leaving schooling, would live on their own at a distant university and then moving on to take up a series of careers based any where around the world, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Buenes Aires or Montreal. In their home city it is unlikely they would have any direct kin, would have only fleeting visit with blood relatives and only have connections within their own network of contacts.

This is the difference a hundred years makes. Social structure has changed dramatically but the way we relate to it has not kept pace. An urgent review of how we interact and relate to each other is long over due.

Contrary to all the hype and talking up, what keeps us on the straight and narrow is not ever more government surveillance, checks and controls. No, what keeps us, the vast majority, on the straight and narrow is the fear of being caught and found out about by our peers and the social ostracisation that would surely follow.

In these amorphous cities we now live in there is no need to exercise self-restraint, we move anonymous amongst crowds of strangers that have scarce connection to the city or even the country and certainly not to us, so anything can go, and does.

This is coupled with the absence of any revere for authority. Once, your life's fortunes or opportunities and that equally of your families were strongly influenced by those having authority over you, whether bosses, clergy, local bigwig, the local policeman or councillors. Get into their bad books and your path would be made hard if not blocked. That has all been swept away, we are free agents, beholdened to no-one and free to choose as we please without consequence, or so it would seem.

Can't put back the clock, and who would want to, but we do have to make re-adjustments if we are to avoid that totalitarian state.

It is a large leap, but strangely enough, we need to replace centralised government and national authorities with local governance. Not the parody of local government we have now, where the locals talk but the financial, legal and delivery framework is all dictated and controlled by central government. It matters little what 'local politics' may decide, central government have all the reins to ensure their chosen way will prevail. Not conducive to meaningful local politics able to make a difference and to be accountable to those that put them there.

We have to get to a position where local people make local decisions and have budgetary and deliverance responsibility on how services are to be provided to their fellows. To make meaningful decisions as to whether services are centrally supplied or locally sourced. Such a system, to be a real system, has to contemplate failure, local decisions get it wrong, finances spiral out of control or services provided fall below acceptable minimum standards. Some central direction is still essential, to interpret the minimum compliant application of an EU directive, to promulgate 'best practice' or to establish norms of costs or acceptable standards. The expectation is that the provision of community services from say Norfolk, Midlands, South West or London would be noticeably different and would actually reflect the different local character and locations. No longer would cosmopolitan London civil servants apply their middle-class values uniformly across the country. Rural would be a different life-style to city, manufacturing areas different in feel to start-up office parks.

To re-awaken our people, they have to know that decisions that will impact on their life-style expectations are made locally and they have to get involved if they want the 'right' decisions for them made for the future comfort of their family. That people in re-locating encounter different levels of service and support expectations is inescapable and may well be desirable.

Saunter to Totalitarianism

Now for some heavy going. This lies central to my thinking.

Anything that happens and the chorus erupts, the government should do this or there should a law against that. At an alarming rate of increase we are accelerating into a Totalitarian society where the States intention is to control and contain the limits of each individuals actions and lives.

There is an alternative, possibly scary, that would enrich our life experience. We each, every one of us, accepts that we are fully responsible our own actions and are personally responsible for any foreseeable deleterious effects on others around us and acknowledge a liability to make amends to any that suffer as a consequence of our actions.

The appeal of Totalitarianism is diffuse and pervasive. We are hard-wired to defer to recognised authority. Behind it we become distanced from any decision or action, as we are not in direct line of control, others do it on our behalf. We can avoid all the awkward face to face situations of push and take resolution of disagreement if not conflict, leaving it to 'them'. Should those in control restrict or limit our own actions, then that is fair enough as we are all controlled by the same universal rules equally. Until of course your own peace or profit is threatened when an individual solution will be demanded. There is the rub, we as individuals are so very diverse and creative in finding wriggle out escape routes for any one rule meant to contain us. With each successful wriggle yet another line of rules or restriction or conferring away of more power has to be enforced. Yet the shout of 'I am different and require special consideration' just gets louder and louder. I believe any Totalitarian solution is ultimately doomed because those that seek to impose will always be out-numbered by those seeking to evade. There is not one single consensus position that can hold the self-interests all it attempts to bind.

So the alternate proposal is scrap all laws and replace them all with one simple law that applies to each and every individual, entity or association. Each one is responsible and liable to all others that knowingly might be adversely affected or inconvenienced by any planned action. Idealistic? Yes. Simplistic? Yes absurdly so but it does gives a window into an alternate way of managing ourselves.

We take responsibility for our own actions and have to look and have regard for those around us that might be aggrieved or adversely affected by the action. This does not mean you can only exercise an action when no one is disadvantaged, that is an impossibility, there will always be someone worse off as a consequence. What it does mean is that you have to have due regard and give weighted consideration to its effects on others, knowing that your peers will be judging if you get it wrong.

So get out of the ivory tower and take stock of those you live amongst as to what standards they think applies in today's society. Self regulation is so much more flexible, efficient, self-correcting, rapid response to changing circumstances than laws and rules bound in statutes.

Right to Plunder

Time to roll up the sleeves and get serious.

Our attitude to this Planet has to change, it is not an infinite resource that can be plundered at will and used as a stock-pile to make money out of. We know enough now to understand it is limited and our greed is, or already has, taken us to the point where the end of the earth's resources can be counted.


Already we are talking of running out of oil but that is just a for instance. Whichever way you look there are just too many of us all wanting our share in these limited resources. Gas, rare metals, water, fish, unless it is renewable, it is under threat and has to be in doubt.

So we are not just talking about the buried minerals nor just the flora and fauna that feeds on the surface of our planet but the atmosphere we breath and depend on to create our climate. All is finite, limited and under threat from our continued abuse of our globe. Too many of us expecting more than our share. We have to change tacks. Time for us to accept that we are mere custodians of this planet we live on and we have a responsibility and obligation to our sons and daughters that will inherit the Earth we pass onto them.

It is for us to make sure the Earth we pass on is in no worse a condition than the Earth we inherited. We don't own it we are just temporary custodians.

In principle, if we take something out of our planet that will not replenish itself, if we spoil part of the planets infrastructure that cannot repair itself then we have to make amends to the future generations. If we take out from the planet a resource that will need time to recoup or we spoil virgin soil, these are not free commodities, they have to be paid for, upfront before the event, not a reluctant minimal gesture after the event and after the profits have been taken. Want to take a non-renewable, fine but first pay the full costs of reinstatement to as was beforehand. Even the renewables replacement will have to be paid for first. So pay for the cost of conserving stocks and attendant enforcement before you take your 'free' fish.

Nothing is perfect, so we don't know the full implications of a spoilt or lost resource 50 years down the line but we can best guess the implications as of now. Nor can we fully monetise all the implications but again we can best guess, taking a median position between extremes and all out in the public peer-reviewed. That's a better starting point than the present free-for-all. This conversion into money for the act of spoiling some aspect of our planet for future generations is not a government get out of jail free card. The money has to be ploughed straight back into a relevant conservation or remedial project. To make some amends for the mess we are currently living with. We have to take serious now this planet we live and on start to look after it in a meaningful way.

This principle spreads wider and relates not just to the planet, its biosphere, flora and fauna but also to the accumulated history of man's activities on the earth. The rich mosaic of artifacts we inherited needs to be conserved for future generations, for it explains what we are. Not every single scrap that has history marked on it, but those that are lodged as relevant and significant to the place, time or progression. Most of our vast accumulation of detritus from the past will fail the test suggested leaving some room to move forward.

If a property passes the test and is relevant and significant, then those features and their setting deemed so must be preserved, repaired and a new apt use found, with all costs carried by the custodian owner or forfeit their claim. Once every avenue has been explored and there are no viable options, only then can the owner opt for demolition or significant change. As a pre-requisite the owner to pay up-front for a complete 3D and physical archive of those deemed features and settings, reclaimation of all re-usable materials and payment for future proofed archiving of such records, in consideration of the history lost to later generations.

Just to loop back to an earlier post, to turn green soil into a building plot is not a free right that can be issued by the government. It belongs to our future and the least is an up-front payment to remove all evidence of mans intervention and return the soil back to its prior condition. As above such money not trickling into government coffers but put into immediate use to rescue land or a building in peril.

Nothing is for free and an appropriate contribution to the loss for future generations must be made before commercial gain can be taken.