Yes John, and the minute we allow manipulating money loving morons merely masquerading as caring for the common good, power hungry pollies, their longed for control; is the day we will all turn into automatons, all following each other in an ever decreasing spiral to nowhere!

Q: Who are you going to vote for Mr eternal whinger?
A: None of the above!
R: Well don't be in such a bloody hurry to get it done; think about what you want, what's good for the country, (one and the same usually) and just get up off of your lazy excuse making backside and vote for it!
Just doing nothing or refusing to get involved or play a part, has never ever accomplished anything!
Don't just do something, stand there casting aspersions!
Rhrosty

Perhaps the aim of a nation is to continue to hold the territory it holds. Australia, being girt, has an easy time of this. Small wonder that we are somewhat at a loss for a worthwhile national purpose.

Perhaps we need some sort of massive national project. My personal favourite is that we should pave the outback with solar cells and use the energy to electrolyse water and CO2 into alcohol. What we don't drink, we can flog to the rest of the world and we'll all be rich as arabs forever.

Failing that, a national broadband network might be a worthwhile goal to pursue. Or some sort of serious rail network in preparation for the day that flying between capital cities becomes uneconomic.

I thought a worthwhile national purpose would be publicly funded bare-breasted dancing girls all over the place; as the socialists never tire of telling us, it's the government's responsibility to supply the gaps left by market failures.

Another worthwhile national purpose close to my heart is a project to make artificial reefs anywhere the coastline is afflicted with a sandy bottom, so as to harvest ocean swells and convert them into surfable peeling glassy barrels.

But politicians never seem to fund my kind of infrastructure *sigh*.

What a great article. Thanks!

The author pinpoints why the territorial-based nation-state is evil. The larger the state's territory, the more evil that state is, because it reduces people's choices to live in a society which shares their goals and values and forces more people to live in a society whose goals might even conflict with their values.

In the case of Australia, as we already have established states, albeit they historically originated for different reasons, the obvious first step is to upgrade the states into independent countries, dropping the commonwealth regime. Obviously nothing prevents independent countries from cooperating, working together on those of their goals which they share and having trade and other agreements between them, as well as combined military arrangements for shared defence, such as in NATO.

The process of breaking down the monolithic state into smaller units (whether independent countries or only autonomous regions, etc.) should not stop there, but that would be a good start. This will enable people to choose to live in societies that resonate with their own dreams and do not conflict with their values and morals. Amen.

Paul: >as rich as the Arabs forever<
Before you could turn water and Co2 into wine/alcohol, you first have to convert it into simple carbohydrates/sugar. And then convert that into ethanol, by the usual means.
And in so doing, create the world's most expensive alcohol!
And given the outlays, us into the poorest nation in the world. (If only we had J.C's costless water into wine recipe! Walter Mitty's imagination perhaps?)

I prefer J.K.J's less wasteful idea of bare breasted women?
However, why stop at baring just bouncy boobs, when there are other interesting bits that need looking into/further examination?
In the interest of curing male baldness perhaps?

As to getting the state to fund it, perhaps you could talk to those politicians, who like and intend to fund Paul's idea!

Let me know if you have any success!
And if so, send a few jug jiggling joggers up my way!
I promise not to get bored out of my brain, for at least twenty minutes!
Rhrosty.

What a delight to read a well constructed and written essay. Thanks. Yuyutsu's suggestion that smaller is better sounds pretty good, until I recall living in a small village as a boy. When everyone knows everyone else's business, the freedoms gained by anonymity are replaced by conformity gained through bullying, which is one reason there are so many suicides in the 'Bush'.