Without the state

July 28, 2014

Is this where we are headed? The Patriot Act in the USA, the bill to allow extraordinary rendition and the Civil Contingencies Bill in the UK all certainly make it seem much more possible than it was when originally posted.

This seems apposite...

Pay earnest need to that which others say
And seek to enter thou the speaker's mind;
If wrong in thought or deed thyself shalt find
Then gladly change the error of thy way.
Seek only Truth, which shall not bring defeat;
Hurt lies with ignorance and self-deceit.

I've always liked the passage from Marcus Aurelius which is rendered into verse above and after my two earlier posts from the Meditations, I was going to post it anyway. However the events of the past few days make it particularly apposite.

The version above is from a small book of such renderings by John Lyth, published in 1942 as a PEN book, by George Allen and Unwin. It has a preface by Professor Gilbert Murray, from which I presume, Dr Lyth was not a nonentity, but I can find nothing about him, other than a version of the same book for sale on Canadian eBay. Any information would be gratefully received.

The prose version is from Book Eight verse 16 and in my version reads as follows (the link above is to an older translation):

To change your mind and defer to correction is not to sacrifice your independence; for such an act is your own, in pursuance of your own impulse, your own judgement, and your own thinking.

(trans. Maxwell Staniforth)

Still true...

I came across this post of mine from back in April. My conclusion then bears repeating...

...we cannot protect democracy by destroying it. If in the end by our response to terrorism we end up doing the terrorists' work for them they will have won. That will be a tragedy which in the end could lead to the deaths of as many people as the worst terrorist atrocity.

Sharp CO2 rise divides opinions

Regardless of the actual cause of the sharp rise over the last two years, the evidence seems to be hardening that something is going on and that it is man made.

I see that Philip Stott has kept his head down this last month, so we've been spared his smart-arse commentary and selective quoting of statistics for a while. As far as I'm concerned, the scientists at the Met office and their colleagues around the world are more likely to have a grasp of the notoriously complex science of climatology than a retired geographer.

For other views of the issue its worth looking at Mark Lynas' blog. He is a jounalist, and has been to see some of the sites around the world affected by what is going on. Take a look at the two photographs on the front page of the blog for example...

Another good source for news for the lay reader is New Scientist. Always worth reading anyway, it's had quite a bit recently on climate issues.

Millions face pensions hardship

More than 12 million working people are not saving enough for their retirement, a major report into pensions has found.

The Pensions Commission said a mix of higher taxes, more saving and a higher average retirement age was needed to solve the UK's pensions crisis.

If taxes, savings or retirement ages were not increased, pensioners would suffer a 30% decline in relative incomes, the report said.

At 58, these issues probably weigh more on my mind than the average blogger. Some of the problems however are down to Thatcher and her government, who forced local government pension managers to stop contributing to their pension funds and encouraged private sector managers to take contributions holidays too. I don't know the full final effect, but the policy was still lunacy. The whole point of a pension fund is to smooth out variations in investment returns. If you stop paying in when times are good, the consequences are not difficult to work out. I've said it before, but it bears repeating - when I entered the pension scheme in 1971, my contribution was around 6% and that was matched by the employer. By now the employer contribution has reached 15% in many cases, but without equivalent increases by employees.

I suppose 20 years ago I wouldn't have been very keen on increasing my contribution level. That doesn't mean I would have been right. As far as I can see the pensions crisis is the outcome of a mixture of short sightedness and mis-management. The consequences for those looking towards their pension are dreadful. I know I'm lucky that my pension is a defined benefit scheme - those on defined contribution schemes face a huge gamble. Pensions are in many ways deferred earnings. For many people it is possible that they would have done better by keeping their contributions in the building society.

BBC NEWS online: US seizes independent media sites

The FBI has shut down some 20 sites which were part of an alternative media network known as Indymedia.

More from other links on the BBC page.

Rackspace
Indymedia UK

This look sserious and I'm sure it will will run on. Unfortunately I'm sure the conspiracy theorists of all shades are at their keyboards already.

Illinois legislature allows police to use classic rock bumper stickers as "probable cause"

I think this is probably satirical.

Edgier Cities

Via City Comforts a great article from Wired Magazine in 1995, which takes a science fiction like look at the future of some of the more unlikely candidates for building conversion.

When the first big, regional, enclosed malls start to become obsolete, the historic preservationists stampede to their rescue. Like the old movie houses of the 1930s, these malls of the '70s and '80s are incredible palaces, built when price was no object. The layers of marble and gilt, the Amazon-like gardens and three-story computerized fountains and waterfalls, the amazingly sophisticated lighting systems designed to create different moods for every hour of the day.... They will never be seen again. They have to be saved!

As what, though?

University officials realize these structures would make great campuses. The anchors, where Macy's and Nordstrom and Sears used to sell goods, become excellent lecture halls seating thousands of students. The smaller shops are turned into more conventional classrooms. The three-story-high promenades in the center make fine places for students to flirt.

The most elaborate of these regional malls are known as gallerias. They are originally marked by office high-rises poking through the middle and hotels bolted onto the sides of the mall. The office towers, of course, become the administration buildings - quaintly called Old Main - and the hotels make swanky dorms.

Outside, goal posts rise from the acreage originally cleared for development that was never built. Nearby office buildings no longer prestigious enough for their intended purpose are turned into rollicking group houses with the skull of the Grateful Dead, that antiquated symbol of defiance, at the top of the tower.

It's a bleaker future for the great suburban subdivisions though:

In the medium future, history seems to be going Irvine's way. The market for its walled burbclaves - featuring homes painted only in variations on the color of Caucasian skin - booms. So what if the $400,000 Spanish townhouses with their tiled roofs are so indistinguishable that the easiest way to find yours is to hold down the button of the garage-door remote until it makes a panel open?

So what if the neighborhood shadow-government, which rules with an iron fist in the innocuous name of community association, can control the color you choose for your front door or your living-room curtains? So what if it can prohibit washing your car in your own driveway or regulate what size dog you own?

This seems like a small price to pay in a period when uncertainty swirls and security - physical, financial, and moral - is at a premium.

How then, does Irvine come to ruin? Why do vines climb the elevator shafts and plywood sheath the windows?

Adaptation.

Irvine tries to prevent it. But over the course of a raucous century, Irvine goes downhill. First, the comptrollers of corporate America can't stand to alter their corporate palaces in Irvine. Put in a fireplace to make an office more homey? Retrofit a building with windows that open? Forget accomplishing that kind of radical change quickly in Irvine. If it's not in the plan, it's anarchy.

People interested in getting on with their everyday lives, meanwhile, find it simpler to live and work in less authoritarian edge cities. It's not that people don't love the safety and security of the walls that surround them in Irvine. It's just that as their lives change - as they marry, have children, retire, or become empty nesters - they have to move on because the plan for Irvine will not. People find it simpler to move than to fight, and the resistance movement that arises briefly is crushed by fines and foreclosures.

With the benefit of hindsight, people in the far-term future now view it as obvious that cities are not clockwork, but living organisms following the rules of biology. To thrive, cities must be able to evolve ingeniously. They must be able to adapt quickly to a changing environment.

Its a great article and well worth reading - thanks David for bringing it forward.

In some ways this is the world of William Gibson, but it also brings to mind a great article by Cedric Price, Peter Hall, Paul Barker and Reyner Banham, called Non-Plan, published in the much missed magazine New Society in 1969.

It isn't available on line as far as I can tell, but the next chance I have to get into a university library, I'm going to look it up again. I remember on reading it, the mixture of horror and fascination it evoked. I'd love to see a modern reworking.

Kinky

Via Norm more from Kinky Friedman

Unique.

Arguing in circles

I was last involved in socialist politics (as opposed to being a member of the Labour Party) as a 6th form schoolboy. I don't know why I should be surprised to find that the various left factions are still trading insults, preciptated this time it seems by Norm's perfectly reasonable disgust at an attack on him in comments at Lenin's Tomb . This seems to have precipitated a flurry of internecine squabbling and sniping, with contributions from Socialism in an Age of Waiting, while International Rooksbyism throws a few grenades from the sidelines. At the same time , SIAW, Rooksby and the nutter who started it mix it up at Harry's Place

This is of course all standard stuff in Blogistan, but it takes the 'comrades' to add real venom. The worst arguments take place within the family don't they?