If banks were allowed to go bankrupt in a total economic collapse, one bank would necessarily survive, since banks can collapse only when unable to cover the inbalances in their mutual liabilities. The one winning bank would then become the owner of all other banks, and without competition would thereafter be free from any risk of default. It would essentially function as the sole printing press that lends newly minted money out at interest. This one bank would have to be nationalised, as it would in effect be already exercising the monetary sovereignty of the State. https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/bank-england-says-top-uk-064150430.html

Journal of Medical Ethics has published my critical response to a recent paper in which the authors attempt to justify vaccine mandates for healthcare professionals on the basis of overall benefits vs costs. https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2022/04/26/medethics-2022-108229.responses#fundamental-values-are-not-defeated-by-utilitarian-calculus

I have come to a tentative conclusion that hypnosis/trance is not a rare state induced by mental health professionals, but the dominant state of the population. It seems that the overwhelming majority of people (perhaps all) are continuously in a trance and they partially come out of it only in some unfamiliar, disruptive situations. For example, when we enter a new space and we hear the ticking of a clock, we are aware of it, but soon this information is suppressed, we lose the awareness of the constant. This may also be the case with ideas and beliefs; we cling to those beliefs that make sense, or give us comfort, and we subconsciously resist any disruptions to this structure. Those who mostly control the stimulus that creates our world view (news media, entertainment, education) are in a sense designing our hypnotic state.

A: UTILITARIAN THESIS

Lives do not have absolute value, therefore it is permissible to sacrifice a few lives to save many lives.

What makes the many lives valuable?

The absolute value of life.

B: REVERSE UTILITARIAN THESIS

Life is valuable, therefore we have the moral obligation to save many lives, even if this requires sacrificing a few lives.

What makes the fewer lives less valuable than many lives?

Lives do not have absolute value.

GO BACK TO A:

This kind of propaganda has only one purpose: to dehumanise you, to persuade you that rational consciousness is just a program, that you are just a biological machine with the same moral status as other machines. The truth is that Strong (Reflexively Conscious) AI is impossible: https://news.1rj.ru/str/NormalParty/1455. On the other hand, narcissistic programmers might even believe their own nonsense.

Every nation, tribe and ethnicity has a mythology of oppression committed by some other nation, tribe or ethnicity. Disunity and resentment between nations, tribes and ethnicities could not be exploited without it.

Wanting to be included does not make one inclusive. On the contrary, inclusiveness requires acceptance that sometimes you are not ennoscriptd to be included, and that this is not your decision to make. People who demand to be included not only lack dignity, but are hypocrites.

A friend tells me that a relationship counsellor told him and his wife that sometimes people just grow apart and should part ways. After 15 years together, two kids together, you have not “grown apart”; you have the most intimate relationship you could ever have, you know your partner better than anyone else in this world, so if this is not good enough then you will not find anything better out there, you will not even have the time to build an equally deep connection with anyone else. If you two are not satisfied with one another then perhaps you are missing something crucial, failing to see what is in front of you, devaluing the degree of intimacy you have already accomplished. Counsellors are not trained to tell you this.

The conflict in Ukraine (or any other country) cannot cause inflation in Australia. It is mathematically impossible. Let us say that a war somewhere has interrupted the supply of some irreplaceable commodity that Australians commonly use. This will naturally increase the price of this particular commodity, but this price-rise can be accomplished only by diverting money from other commodities and products and services, making those commodities, products and services cheaper. The net result must be ZERO excess inflation, all else being equal. The simple formula at the foundations of monetary economics is the equation of exchange: M.V=P.T (the amount of money in circulation * velocity of money = price level * total volume of goods and services traded). Since velocity of money (the frequency with which the same dollar is spent) is approximately constant in a stable economy, the only two variables that affect the national price level are the GDP and the volume of money in circulation (the money supply). If GDP is relatively constant or growing, the inflationary pressure can come only from the growth of the money supply. 97% of the money supply is typically generated by the retail banks in the form of bank credit, so the more “loans” (this is actually a misnomer: bank credit is not a loan in the sense of a perfect transfer of purchasing power from one entity to another) banks issue the more money is created for the economy. Another source of new money is the government spending. Over the last two years an unprecedented amount of money was injected into the economy by the government, created as credit from the same banks. Inflation is always a policy decision, not an accident.

An article from daily tabloid tells a story of ‘happily married women’ who like casual sex with strangers, because they need intimacy that they don’t get at home. The same is said to apply to ‘happily married men’. I asked myself: a) why do we desire intimacy and, b) where does it come from? In answer to (a), I argue that we seek the deepest reflexive relation we can develop, which is to say, our consciousness desires more consciousness, deeper consciousness, and deep down we know that consciousness is generated by reflexive relations, by the scope and depth of reciprocal interactions between beings of the same ontological kind, which we losely call ‘intimacy’. In answer to (b), if we confuse the excitement about new opportunities to develop intimacy with the accomplished intimacy, we end up chasing excitement for its own sake, a serotonin hit, but it is a game of diminishing returns, ultimately unfulfilling, because by limiting ourselves to exploiting only sexual intimacy, which is also always superficial with new partners, we truncate the scope of intimacy, and we fail to satisfy our ultimate need to develop our reflexive consciousness. On the flip side, that boring sex at home, all those shared chores, trivilities of daily existence, sharing a unique relationship with the kids, paying bills, worrying together about servicing a home loan, complaining about what happened at work, the trust to share such mundane details and be heard, the occasional anger, jealousy, the daily frustrations, the quarrels about nothing or everything, even the sense of ‘growing apart’, constitute a level of intimacy unmatched by occasional excitement provided even by the most attractive hook-ups. To any couple who complains about boring sex I suggest identifying these pieces of intimacy, the scope of reflexive interaction embedded in the excruciating routine of family life, and perhaps you will become infatuated with one another on a new level, you might see one another in a new light. Then you might also realise that during those exciting hook-ups you were really just having sex alone.

A short article I just posted on the ethics of stakeholder capitalism: https://culturalanalysisnet.wordpress.com/2022/06/15/ethics-of-stakeholder-capitalism/

Public announcement of my Terms and Conditions of Entry to Bunnings, Good Guys, Woolworths (hereafter referred to collectively and individually as You/Your).

By allowing me to enter Your store You agree to waive any terms and conditions that apply to Your regular customers and reward me with $100 credit towards any purchase. I reserve the right to waive the $100 credit clause if You won’t talk to or approach me unless instructed by me to do so.

Please make sure you understand why space-Aliens are impossible. Anything UFO is a necessarily human technology. https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/p/why-alien-life-forms-are-impossible

The argument for the use of Facial Recognition Technology in shops to mitigate theft and identify offenders is essentially “pre-crime”. It is a lot like taking everyone’s fingerprints just in case someone would steal. All biometric information is your property. Claim it or lose it.

Facial Recognition Profiling Begins at School.

Did your kids have their school photos taken this year? Did you read the terms and conditions under which these photos are taken? Do you know what happens to those high resolution digital image files after you purchase your prints? Are they deleted or someone gets to keep them? Who owns this data? If you did not check these details then your child is probably already on a facial recognition database. I have investigated this and one major company which is contracted to take photos in many public and private schools retains all photos indefinitely, “just in case you would want another copy anytime in the future”. Moreover, when contacted they refused to agree to delete photos if ordered to do so; your agreement to have your photos taken without the contract including explicit provisions prohibiting data retention (to which they refused to agree) appears to gives them artistic ownership. And this is legal, and if you do not read the fine print and see what is missing then you are part of the problem.

https://www.oaic.gov.au/updates/news-and-media/clearview-ai-breached-australians-privacy

Trusted Digital Identity Bill stipulates that Digital ID (including biometric data) can be required as a condition of access to government services and, by additional legislation, can be made a condition of any service or type of private employment. There is no formal opt-out provision for the use of biometric information. The main problem with this proposed legislation is the lack of precision about ownership rights over the unique personal information contained in the human body.

Conscious Agency implies self-ownership, otherwise it woud amount to false imprisonment or slavery, which is absurd. DNA and biometric data are also not just a derivative intellectual property but intrinsic attributes of the living organism. Biometric information is proprietary in that logically necessary sense, although the law has not yet recognised this basic fact. Crucially, biometric information and DNA are a kind of information that is unique to a person, can be plausibly used to covertly modify, control or counterfeit conscious agency, and can be commercially exploited; it therefore can be owned. We must first of all assert self-ownership, extending at the very least to our unique biological characteristics. Before any Bill on the use of biometrics can be passed, we must enshrine in law the ownership of information contained or extractable from our unique biological characteristics. I will continue researching this topic.

https://www.digitalidentity.gov.au/sites/default/files/2021-09/Trusted%20Digital%20Identity%20Bill%202021%20exposure%20draft.pdf

My submission to the Public consultation on Australia’s Digital Identity legislation

With respect to my comments on biometrics posted above, most people already are drones, having voluntarily relinquished any pretence to autonomous rational agency, and for them the shift to Digital Identity is just a formality, rubber-stamping their implicit and explicit commitments. For this reason I do not see any way of preventing Digital ID from being implemented for the majority of the population. The task is only to ensure that rational, conscious agents will maintain the capacity to opt-out from these otherwise dehumanising systems.

New AHPRA and National Boards ‘Code of Conduct’ for Medical Practitioners

Section 4.2 states that informed consent must be obtained for any medical procedure. “Informed consent is a person’s voluntary decision about healthcare that is made with knowledge and understanding of the benefits and risks involved.”

Section 9.1(d) states that medical practitioners ought to be “immunised against any relevant communicable diseases.”

The above implies that medical practitioners are ennoscriptd to remain unvaccinated by invoking section 4.2 (refuse consent to medical procedure), but in the case they do consent then they ‘ought’ to be immunised. If section 9.1 were intended as a mandate it would constitute a violation of the same code of conduct, specifically, section 4.2. Therefore, the new code must not be construed as a vaccine mandate.

https://www.ahpra.gov.au/Publications/Code-of-conduct/Shared-Code-of-conduct.aspx